Small town life . . . enough to make a shy, bald Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder
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Ask Questions for God
at the Blue Pyramid.
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The Internet Public Library is featuring an exhibit on anarchist posters.
I hate Sally Forth
Those damned yuppies. But I love Sullen Froth. Yes, it's juvenile. But oh so refreshing, especially when enjoyed with gravy and vodka shooters.
More fun words
The BBC website has a Learning English section. There is a section called "Lingo" with great definitions and examples for things you need in real life.
These are ways of describing that you had a great time, drank too much and maybe don't feel your best right now.
There is also the e-cyclopedia for fun phrases like airy fairy libertarians.
"A gang of mad women in flapping black habits"
This week the Guardian ran an excerpt from Germaine Greer's Convent Girls. She is still wonderful and strange.
I am still a Catholic, I just don't believe in God. I am an atheist Catholic - there are a lot of them around. One thing lapsed Catholics do not do is go in for an "inferior" religion with less in the way of tradition and intellectual content.
The Smiths meet Neopets I was reading some stuff on Neopets for my daughter when I found this strange adaptation of "Cemetery Gates." Ugh, another dreaded sunny day, so let's go where we're happy... I guess I'll meet you at the Graveyard of Doom. No Keats or Yeats in Neopia as far as I can tell, though.
Afternoon fun
It's been raining off and on all day. And the wind has been strong. Between running outside to pick up the last apples that have blown off, I've spent part of the afternoon playing freaky paper dolls.
Now, for the first time ever, the Meat Cake cast is gathered together, fully unclothed, for you to meet and mildly manipulate. Click upon the image of any character to your left to read Dame Darcy's introduction and engage in a stimulating session of Paper Doll Fun.
Annoyed again
Okay, I get that the British love whilst, but why are more and more Americans using whilst, while online? While is just so much easier to say and seems so much less pretentious.
Bah humbug
I'm remembering some of the things I really dislike about the holiday season. My next-door-neighbors are working on putting up their Christmas decorations. Not just the thousands of garish, flashing lights, but also the moving reindeer, the spiral Christmas tree, the neon-like Merry Christmases in the windows. Who knows what new stuff they'll come up with this year. Probably whatever is new at KMart.
On the radio today I heard "Feliz Navidad." Oh, how I hate that song. Somehow it is both droning and perky, and has always grated on me.
Thanksgiving food
We went out to eat this afternoon. Went to a place where most of the people were really old. The food was good. The service was great. I wore a new dress I bought at the thrift store. 99 cents and it looks great.
Then this evening I made chocolate pudding so we could have a dessert from my favorite cookbook, Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, from 1953. My mom gave me this cookbook and I use it all the time. There is even a picture of this nameless dessert and under the pic it says,
Scoops of Vanilla ice cream dropped into Chocolate Blanc Mange (p. 818) that is still warm enough to start the ice cream melting is a dessert that is just as good and as exciting as the best of hot fudge sundaes.
Well, that's not really true, but it's still a good dessert. Especially when you're reading a pretty good book with it. Right now it's The Babes in the Wood, Ruth Rendell's new one.
Trashing it once again
from Betty Bowers, a True Christian and Real American, a blessing for today. It starts out like this.
I call upon all of the saved folks and godless trash at the table to bow their heads and remain silent as I talk to my imaginary friend, who lives in the sky, but is reputed to have excellent hearing.
Off to the gym. I am thankful for sweat. And showers.
Trashing religion at every step, again
Just for fun. Jesus the Monster Truck; Little Miss Mary, the Immaculate Concept Truck; and Reverend LeRoy's Drive-by Bikini Baptismal and Mobile Chapel. Ah, yes, I am thankful for shit like this.
Happy Thanksgiving
A beverage just for today.
Dead people's dogs
I never thought we would inherit a dead person's dogs. But we did inherit two of them. One we had to put to sleep, she was so sick. That wasn't easy. We haven't had a dog in some time, so now it's back to the routine of letting the dog out at night, letting the dog out in the morning, letting the dog out all day long. I am so glad that the dog, who now has the nickname Needlenose, is small and easy to walk, unlike our last behemoth.
She does have these really odd front feet. I mean they are just massive compared to her stubby little legs. And she has massive amounts of long fur growing out between her toes. I know the massive front feet are for digging up badgers. But the fur is a mystery.
I'm done
So happy to write I finished The Keepers of Truth.
Listening to
Then the girl in the café taps me on the shoulder
I realize five years went by I'm older
Screw up
OK, I screwed up the link stuff in the dead soldiers' post, but I fixed it now. The brilliant Miserable Failure idea is from here.
Dead soldiers
I have been feeling agitated about the Miserable Failure's non-attendance at soldiers' funerals. But now that my Dad sent me this, I don't feel so bad.
A Silver-Lining View of George Bush's Not Attending Military Funerals,
Lest He Become Associated With Bad News
by CALVIN TRILLIN
[from the December 1, 2003 issue of the Nation]
At least there's no Bush eulogy
On why they had to die.
It's better that they're laid to rest
Without another lie.
Just imagine the funeral poetry he might write and recite.
Canada--we're much too polite a country
Here's a story about Viagra contributing to divorce because it changes the "rules" of marriages. Not too surprising, really. But this made me laugh
"In some cases it has been great for relationships. In others, it has been terrible because it broke the truce -- the kind of, 'I don't bother you, you don't bother me.' If one side becomes sexually interested and the other isn't and if it's the guy who is the one who becomes interested, it is like he has a new toy and he has to play with it."
And of course it doesn't happen in Canada because hey, they're just too polite.
From Broom of Anger
Rogue donkeys. I never knew they could read.
Made in America. Oh joy.
Sometimes a company makes a really good product, as perfect as it can be. Here's one. I got new mopheads for it and found that they are now complete and utter crap. They used to have a firm spongy side and a scrubby side. Now the spongy side is all soft and super absorbent. That means that not only is it going to fall apart much sooner, it absorbs way too much water and leaves the floors all wet and streaky. What is with these people? Do they do this so you have to buy more of them, or do they just not care how good it is, as long as it's cheaper to make and they can still charge the same price? I have to go back to the hardware store and see if there are any of the old ones left. I have already written my irate complaint.
The missing dead
Apparently many people forget to pick up their dead at the crematorium. I am lucky because my mother-in-law was delivered right to my house. It might be a small town perk.
Still slogging
through The Keepers of Truth. I'm determined to finish.
The critic speaks
My daughter on why Spirited Away is the best movie ever. "It's not all mushy gushy."
Spam I got today
The subject: Most marriages end with high amounts of stress. No shit, Sherlock.
Oooh, you have to try this
Haunted Ground. It's good. It's what I've been doing for the past 2 days. Two mysteries in one book, interesting characters, some history, good writing. And Erin Hart is even an Ole!
Stupid thing
I stood on a chair with wheels while I cleaned the top of someone's refrigerator. Officer Buckle and Gloria would not approve. It did start to roll, just like I thought it would.
Books
Interview with Douglas Copeland about his library.
"I decided back when I was making enough money to buy books that I would," he explains. "It was one of life's happier decisions."
From bookslut.
The dead
I moved my mother-in-law from my dresser onto a shelf next to my father-in-law. Only half of him is still there, though. We already scattered the other half.
Is this the downfall of higher ed?
After 143 years, Wheaton College (you know, that school that's pretty damned good for a Christian school) has changed its rules to allow dances. Note however that,
Under the new set of rules, called the Community Covenant, students may dance, but should avoid behavior "which may be immodest, sinfully erotic or harmfully violent."
Consider also that the swing band playing, called the Rhythm Rockets, will feature such humdingers as "Sentimental Journey" and "Sunny Side of the Street." Whoopee! I just don't get the point of having a dance without both immodest and sinfully erotic behavior.
Free speech
As people have said before, use it or lose it.
Is new Jersey really strange?
You can judge for yourself. It might be a little funny, or a little dumb too.
Buy art
One of my daughters wants to sell some art. She drew some pictures, then together we made a sign that says
BUY ART
JUST COME TO THE HOUSE
We taped it onto the apple tree in the front. So far no one has come to buy any art. Today it is raining hard, so we couldn't put the sign up again.
Promiscuous primates
An interview with anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy about what mothers (human and others) are really like. And why she thinks the one man/one woman paradigm is not the only valid one. And as for the future of humans:
Yes. I am very worried about the future impact of current patterns of child-rearing. In the past, infants who were not in constant contact with someone else failed to survive. Today, children live in walled houses, are fed from baby bottles and are not at constant risk from predation, so children can experience all manner of neglect and still survive to breed.
I believe that this poses a real threat to the perpetuation of traits we view as quintessentially human, such as being able to put oneself cognitively and emotionally in someone else 's shoes. There is a heritable basis to empathy, which is why identical twins are more similar in this respect than non-identical twins. But there is also an important developmental component. Empathy emerges around three years of life in the course of interaction between the baby and its caretakers. A child who grows up in a very caring environment will tend to be much more caring, but worldwide, higher proportions of children are surviving rearing regimens that are far less caring than those it took to ensure survival among children in the past. The genetic basis for empathy will be there, but never have a chance to fully develop. Unfortunately, once lost, these traits can be hard to retrieve in subsequent generations.
Scientific obsession
Beautiful essay by Alan Lightman, who wrote Einstein's Dreams and other books. Here's a bit:
And that is a paradox of science. Although the truths of science lie outside of human beings, as Einstein said, the motivations for doing science are not only human but intensely personal. Each scientist challenges him or herself at a personal level. Each scientist seeks that challenge, indeed craves that challenge. Each scientist wants to feel his or her own machine revving and rumbling under the hood. Can I build this induction coil? Can I solve this equation? Can I discover the organization of genes?
Trashing religion at every step
Someone on a list I'm on accused a fellow of "trashing religion at every step" and I just had to make that phrase my own. I went here tonight, then went to hell several times. I was reminded that I have poor coordination as well.
Making connections
I just realized a few minutes ago that Gerald Durrell and Lawrence Durrell were brothers. I mean, I remembered in that Gerry's brothers in My Family and Other Animals etc. Larry and Leslie. But I never figured out "Larry" was Lawrence Durrell. (Headslapping self right now.)
You have two birth-places. You have the place where you were really born and then you have a place of predilection where you really wake up to reality.
Lawrence Durrell-- Blue Thirst
Creepy
Change your personality in your e-mail.
"You specify in advance what sort of personality you want your e-mail to portray and it can highlight things that contradict that.
"It will also suggest alternatives that fit in more with the kind of character you are trying to project."
The whole idea creeps me out. And it's British? Now that seems especially strange.
Birthday
Jonathan Winters' birthday is today.
History of Penguins
Books, I mean.
The Keepers of Truth
OK, so I'm reading this book. Sometimes it is funny and wonderful. Sometimes I wish I could grab Michael Collins by the throat and throttle him, screaming, "just get on with it and tell the freaking story."
Elixirs of something
Not too long ago, I picked up a new job cleaning a local beauty shop. Last night when I was taking all the bottles of shampoos and potions off the glass shelves, polishing the shelves, wiping down the bottles, then putting them back on the shelf, I thought that some of these elixirs would be more useful if their names reflected what they really did. Like:
Just goes to show what mind-numbing work will do to you.
Wondrous puppetry
Another thing I wonder about. Since these are puppets, what kind of voices would you give them?
Cremains
I just got some hand-delivered cremains today. My mother-in-law is sitting on my dresser now. I also got a form to sign and send back to public health informing them that the cremains are here. And a paper from the state saying all the things I cannot do to "scatter" the cremains. I wonder why there are so many things I cannot do with these ashes, but people can put about 90 billion shit-filled plastic diapers tied up in plastic bags in landfills. Offal for posterity.
Never underestimate underintelligence
I should have known. Or at least I should have guessed. Yesterday at work I started defrosting the small fridge at the coffee window. I didn't finish and told the chick who came in after me she'd have to finish. I should have gotten a clue when she asked me why the pans of hot water were in the fridge. I explained and left.
This morning I got to work and yes, the fridge was back in its place and everything neatly inside. Unfortunately, it hadn't been turned on and I had to throw out the milk, soy, cream, and whipped cream.
For the bibliobibuli
"I wonder... why I keep so many books that I know I will not read again. I tell myself that, every time I get rid of a book, I find a few days later that this is precisely the book I'm looking for. I tell myself that there are no books (or very, very few) in which I have found nothing at all to interest me. I tell myself that I've brought them into my house for a reason in the first place, and that this reason may hold good again in the future. I invoke excuses of thoroughness, of scarcity, of faint scholarship. But I know that the main reason I hold onto this ever-increasing hoard is a sort of voluptuous greed. I enjoy the sight of my crowded bookshelves, full of more or less familiar names. I delight in knowing that I'm surrounded by a sort of inventory of my life, with intimations of my future. I like discovering, in almost forgotten volumes, traces of the reader I once was -- scribbles, bus tickets, scraps of paper with mysterious names and numbers, the occasional date and place on the book's flyleaf which take me back to a certain cafe, a distant hotel room, a faraway summer so long ago. I could, if I had to, abandon these books of mine and begin again, somewhere else; I have done so before, several times, out of necessity. But then I have also had to acknowledge a grave, irreparable loss. I know that something dies when I give up my books, and that my memory keeps going back to them with mournful nostalgia."
-- Alberto Manuel, A History of Reading
Thanks, Dad.
I left the house today
I went here today. What a wonderful way to pass time. Rooms of books. cubbies of books. Books to the ceiling. 2 floors of books. I got a nice Penguin edition of The Satyricon. Good reading for grey, rainy days that will be coming soon. I dithered over another book, taking it off the shelf, putting it back, and finally leaving it there.
Small town life
OK, this isn't really from my area, but it's in honor of all the dairies here. Oddly, they're not called dairy farms, but ranches. Probably a nod to some kind of California machismo. And of course, I got this from that bastion of dullness, Dull Men.
Dullsville
There are some new entries at the dullest blog in the world. I can't figure out what makes this blog so perfect. It think it's entries like:
I hadn't written in my blog for a while. I turned on the computer and wrote a new entry. I clicked the 'submit' button, thereby restarting my blog.
Found things
I wish I had found Found Magazine much sooner. So many notes, lists, odd things I've found could have been immortalized. If you look in the Notes section at the "there are options" note, you will see "Go to the cemetery and talk to to the (something I can't read) Mom." Intriguing.
A unique beard and politics
Mix music and politics and get Axis of Justice. News on the front page. Links to listen to the radio show. They have a nice book and movie list.
If you're bored
make your own church signs.
And then the Faster Pastor has some brilliant signs.
Morrissey
A not-too-old profile of Moz.
Perhaps this was why the eponymous debut album, The Smiths, with intoxicating tracks such as ‘Hand in Glove’, ‘Reel Around the Fountain’, and ‘Still Ill’, was not so much an album as a serious illness – in the grip of its fevers and sweats, it transforms your view of the world and leaves you so charmingly debilitated, that afterwards you almost find the idea of yourself quite likeable.
Day from hell
I am a bitch today. Everything and everyone bugs me--even more than usual. Plus I cut my finger with a knife.
Death jargon
If you are cremated, you don't end up as ashes. You don't end up as remains. You end up as cremains. I almost burst out laughing at the funeral home. And by the way, if you work at a funeral home, wardrobe is very simple. All black,all the time.
Small town life
One thing about living in a small town is there is very little anonymity.
Yesterday 2 guys came to buy coffee. They saw a woman walking down the street and one said, "Oh, it's ****. Either that or the wicked witch of the west."
Yes, everyone knows all your secrets, all your foibles. And if they don't, they'll try to find them out. And if they can't, they'll probably make up something about you.
Death yet again
Something really annoying--when people read their really godawful "original" poetry at funerals. Why do they do this? How do you keep from laughing?
For my Dad
From bookslut. About Ross McDonald's plans for the final novel he never wrote, and why his novels are not as popular as they once were.
Earworms
Do you get earworms? Those songs (or parts of songs) that just get stuck in your head. So annoying.
What's really annoying if you have some prat of a co-worker who plants one in your ear. Yeah, Sympathy for the Devil--but just the chorus and all those damned whoo whoos. It started yesterday. Over and over he's whoo whooing. Oh, he thinks he's so funny. And then today I thought he might have forgotten. But noooo, he's at it again. My only consolation is that he said he woke up this morning thinking about it. I didn't.
I don't know what you call this, it's not really an earworm. But some small phrase from a song will just stick in my mind. Right now it's "it chars my heart" as in "it chars my heart to always hear you calling, calling for the good old days."
Dead people
The strange thing about dead people is that you'll think of something you want to tell them or show them or do with them and then you'll remember that you can't. Because they're dead.
Small town life
As far as stupid bar-type people go, small town life gives you this kind. "I forgot my purse, can I pay you tomorrow?" Or how about, "I forgot my wallet in my other truck. Can I pay you tomorrow?" Sure Captain Competent, you can pay me tomorrow and get your coffee tomorrow too.
Just ask the bartender
If you've ever worked in food service, you've got to read this Top Ten List of Stupid Bar People. And if you're a lousy tipper, you really should read it.
Funny words
A woman I know was getting central heating installed a couple of weeks ago. We don't have natural gas here, just propane, and she was telling me about how they were bringing the tank of profane for her new heater. I don't need a tank of profane myself. I seem to generate it all on my own.
I was at the store and saw they had watermelons (in October no less). They were very small and labeled "mini personal watemelons."
Death of a small town
If you drive all the way up Elk River Road you will come to where the town of Falk used to be. A small town that died. It's part of the Headwaters Forest Reserve now.
On books
There are people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
H. L. Mencken, Minority Report
or
It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.
Dame Rose Macaulay
More Mencken zingers, I mean quotes here.
Perhaps I'll have a religious crisis.
I'm an atheist. I've been an atheist for a long time. But since I've read Jonathan Rauch's How to be an Apatheist, I'm thinking maybe I should change my non-religious affiliation. But maybe not. I feel sort of apathetic right now. You can also read this here where it originally appeared as Let It Be, but the beliefnet link has the amusing comments to read.
