REPENT NOW! in case hell is full of assholes like this!

Would it be so wrong to pray for God to hit this petty, mean-spirited ass with a big bolt of lightning?
Hmmm. Yeah. Seems it would.
"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

Vajayjay Walkin'

(note: I HATE HATE HATE the new fad word "vajayjay," but I can't resist a pun!)

From today's paper: how one drunk bimbo shows a cop who's boss!

Apparently angry at the jaywalking ticket she just had been given, a Covington woman allegedly strutted across downtown streets a couple of times early Saturday, lifting her skirt and exposing her buttocks to drivers, Athens-Clarke police said.
An officer stopped the 23-year-old woman and a friend about 1:10 a.m. Saturday after they walked diagonally across the intersection of East Clayton and North Jackson streets, according to police.
Both women, who had been drinking, were upset and disorderly as the officer began writing them tickets for not crossing in a crosswalk, police said. After getting the citation, the Covington woman walked across Clayton Street, lifted her skirt, then walked to the middle of Jackson Street and did it again, walking around while shaking her buttocks in front of oncoming traffic, police said.
The woman used the crosswalks while crossing the street to expose herself, the officer noted in his report.
She was arrested for misdemeanor public indecency.

Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, August 31, 2008

Winter rain, a honey pot

"why, yes, i do have a favorite rem song," she said. "here. listen. and do you hear the rain? it's coming down so very hard. they're evacuating new orleans tonight.
it's crazy what we could've had.
ineedthis.
i.need.this."

Stuff, sans Segues; or, Don't Hate Me For My Exciting Life

• My first cat I had as an adult was big and white and named Goldfish. I got him at the animal shelter when I went with my friend Marcia to get a cat. She got two white kittens, and I took their brother. Soon after, Goldfish and I moved to another town, to an apartment, several hours away. I'd only lived briefly in one other apartment, and it never entered my mind to wonder if I could have pets. When I signed the lease, the landlord mentioned that I couldn't have pets. "None??" I said. "Well...." he said. "I'm sure goldfish would be okay." Ergo.
• Once Snap and I were standing on the corner of a street in San Francisco beside these two prostitutes of the higher price bracket variety [my--admittedly uninformed--guess]. An Asian man in a big Mercedes was turning the corner and spotted them, slowed down, grinning large at the prospect, I suppose. The two smiled back and waved at him to stop and pick them up, but he did not. Maybe he had a tight schedule. But as they were waving and smiling, one said to the other under her breath: "Come give us all your money, you dumb ugly fuck."
• When I was around 5, we had a young elm tree (remember them?) in our backyard whose branches made a wide Y about three feet from the ground. I liked to sit in this Y. One day, as my daddy was moving the grass, I had the idea to make a pillow out of the grass, so I gathered up a big armful and placed it in the Y. Alas! Hornets had already claimed my seat and were in no mood to be sat upon as they built their nest. Four buzzed up angrily and bit me in tender spots on check, neck, chest, and arm. What spot isn't tender when you're five? Neighbors claimed to hear my bleats two blocks away.
• Once I took a little Bible to school and a mean girl stole it. A Bible!!
• Something else that happened at school. First grade, I was incredibly shy and self-conscious. My classroom was in a large long former storage-room-turned-classroom that had a small bathroom you entered directly from the classroom. We didn't have to get a hall pass to pee. But. The kids who sat near the bathroom could hear the pee-er peeing, I figured. So, to ascertain that no one heard ME, I'd scoot my skinny ass all the way down in the water!!! I don't recall ever thinking that this practice might be deemed unsanitary by some. But then of course my whole butt would be totally wet and of course I used up lots of toilet paper drying off, with the toilet paper disintegrating and not really being very helpful. It was a lot of trouble, but I found it worthwhile at the time. A girl's gotta do.
• Another: one day, though, the hem of my skirt got caught, unbeknownst to me, in the top elastic of my tights, and I sashayed out of the bathroom with my derriere ashine. Bradley Coan tapped me on the arm as I walked by and pointed to my hiked-up situation. I was so embarrassed when I got back to my desk that I decided I would never come to school again. That was it for me.
• Something else that happened at school. (My resolve to drop out was short-lived). By second grade, I was even more shy if possible. We brought a fruit snack from home that we could eat in the afternoon, in the classroom, in addition to the mid-morning snack, for which we went to the lunchroom and picked up said snack in its little souffle cup from a table set up for such purpose. Anyway, it's this afternoon snack that serves to highlight more of my childhood's eccentricity (thank god i've gotten over all THOSE). You see, I loved my bananas that my mom packed for me and put in the side pocket of my little red book satchel, but I was too self-conscious to walk to the front of the room and throw the peel away. So I just tucked the peel into my book satchel and threw it away at home. This practice skimmed along beautifully until there came about a three-day stretch when I forgot to throw the bananas away. My teach Mrs. Sullivan was making her way around the classroom checking math homework when she bent down to check mine and immediately recoiled. "WHAT IS THAT SMELL?" she said loudly. Everyone stopped to look, of course. You know what the funk it was! It was my bananas, rudely rotting away in my book sack. I said nothing, as was my wont and my silence led the good Mrs. S to launch her own investigation. It didn't take long for her to discover my decaying stash, and I was questioned in a rather vigourous non-rhetorical manner as to why I had a nasty fruit soup putrifying among my personal effects. She ended up confiscating the evidence, satchel and all. Turned out the satchel had suffered permanent damage from the abuse, as the smell lingered even after my mom gave it a good airing outdoors, and had to be released into the care of the garbage collectors.
• finis for now

AVOID ALL UNREASONABLE PROGRAMMING!

I was googling for a cousin of mine, a certain Peter Duckworth, when I ran across a barrister by the same name in London. On his lawyerly web site, he provides us the following list:


Interests


Reading, esp Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott
Fossil collecting
Programming (within reason)
Creation/evolution debate. How did we get here? I am an admirer of the writings of Phillip Johnson, sometime Law Clerk to Chief Justice Warren of the USA, now Professor of Law at UCAL Berkeley. His famous book Darwin on Trial shows up the logical fallacies in the theory of evolution as it is taught in schools and suggests that we need to have a more liberated quest for scientific knowledge in the 21st century. Visit his site here. I also hotly recommend a book by Richard Behe, a noted microbiologist, called Darwin's Black Box. In it he demonstrates that the theory of evolution is wholly unable to explain how intricate yet everyday bodily systems that we take for granted, such as blood clotting or retinal functions of the eye, can possibly subsist let alone continue working for a lifetime. This is known as the 'theory of irreducible complexity'.
Architecture. Click here for information on England's 360,000 listed buildings.
Photography, in moderation.
European heritage. The towns of former East Germany, notably Dresden, Leipzig, Meissen and Weimar make a brilliant tourist trip. My favourite is Weimar which, though small, has everything. It is also European city of culture 1999. .

-----------
Gee, I'm glad he's careful not to go OVERBOARD with his interests!!!!

-----------
Oh, and you'll love the Lawyer's Prayer Group. Note especially the upcoming HOLY SPIRIT WEEKEND. I do like the breakfast idea (menu provided, but don't forget to call).

http://www.duckworthlaw.com/index3.html

(hmm, click personal, then bar prayer)
He looks a bit like Wally Shawn, no?

Preserving Mother

early one morning last week as the night's chiaroscuro still hung over the day
in that sort of nether-region that's neither wake nor sleep
in which perhaps we are more real than any other time
I heard my mother call me very clearly.
Her voice didn't seem to come from any particular
direction as much as it filled the air around my head like a big airy balloon.
The word I heard was PUSSURVUN.
Pronounced "PUH-SUR-vun" or sometimes "POOH-sur-vun" but with the accent almost equal on the first and second syllables. My mother has a habit of rearranging words in her mouth and sometimes flat-out inventing words. She also tends to half-sing her words when she's in a good mood.
I always figured this was one of her inventions. It was the dearest endearment she had. When she called me Pussurvun, I knew all was well and would be well for a while.
It was many, many years until I realized that she was saying "preserving," as in jam preserves. This wordplay is a trait of her family and, in some ways, Southerners in general, I think.
When I fully awakened, I'd obviously been crying for quite some time judging from the wetness of my pillow and face. I stumbled into the bathroom and stare at my swollen face in the mirror. I felt like I was staring through a culvert to the future.
It was one of those moments of clarity in which everything else--our daily fictions, our justifications, our excuses, or complicated interrelated "I can't possiblies"burn away and leave us facing one singular truth, and I suddenly felt an urgency to move my mother from the assisted living home in Alabama to the one (same parent facility and name) a couple of miles from my house.
She's made it so difficult, in the last five or six years especially, for me to remember that we did have some good times--many good times, really--and I don't want to allow her cruelty to cancel them all out for me, which it's in danger of doing.
In sum, it suddenly seemed so ridiculous that she lived six hours from me. I felt almost as if I'd just been told, which is absurdly untrue; I've been very aware of the distance; I'm just saying that it FELT that way, sort of a "WHAT have you been THINKING?? What is WRONG with you?" conscience-voice screaming at me.
Yes, I've tried to talk her into moving. She's flatly refused. The only way I can see it happening is if she isn't completely aware of what's going on (heavy medication for the trip seems so wrong; no matter her flaws, she's a person who's lived 87 years as a bit of a fireball, and to trick her seems akin to herding cattle into a trailer to be slaughtered. I have, as much as possible, respected her dignity as a person, despite her spitting on mine: I've not sold her house (allowing it to sit empty 2.5 years now), for instance. She no longer has visitors (she's either run them off with her nastiness or they're too ill to visit). She never leaves the place except to go to the doctor---and has even been refusing this trip lately, even for basic medication check-ups.
She's paranoid about everything.
I'm the person she responds to positively--far from it--- the one who can cajole her into behaving or bend her to my will. If such a person ever existed, she acknowledges trust in no one now. But if she's going to kick me out as soon as I walk in the door, better to be five minutes from home than six hours, I say.
So I made an appointment to talk to the director of the facility here in town but had to reschedule because of the Crazy Cat Lady Neighbor Who's Taking Me To Court (an insane story: pending, perhaps, if you're nice) and when I showed up for the reskedded appointment, the director had left to go on a "marketing call." (???)

One has to wait for an opening at these type places.
It's not as if the residents move because they get a job in another town, or feel so much better and are able to move back into the homes to which they all seem to long to return, and it's not as if they'll find their way back to their minds.
No.
So essentially, because she's been so difficult and abusive,
and because I don't make the long trip to see her as often as I would if she were "easier to get along with"
and because I wish that she didn't see me as her enemy, but she does--mostly always has,
and because her mind is fading,
I tend to think of her in the past, and indeed I feel that an essential part of her is gone, with her memory loss .....

And that's what felt wrong all of a sudden, this thinking about her in an almost posthumous way.
This move won't be simple, but, of the two possibilities (i.e. leave her there, bring her here), I'm quite sure I'd have less regrets about the latter.

I'm so misunderstood......

Mighty Mighty

There's so much sadness and disagreement in the world today. It seems we humans fight just for the sake of fighting, doesn't it? So much selfishness. People don't care about the opinions and feelings of their coworkers, neighbors, or even their families, they only care about themselves.

We need to find something that will bind us all together.







So for the sake of unity, couldn't we all just agree, right here and now, that the song "Brick House" marks the absolute nadir in musical history and, in retrospect, presaged our hurtle toward the end of civilization as we know it?

damn, this is funny

BOO! Butane!

I was looking through some files today in which I keep a variety of detritus: phrases/thoughts jotted on envelopes while driving; images, emails, news stories printed from the Internet; poems of all caliber. I ran across an old story I'd printed out from 2003 on ananova.com. When I look it up, though, the page is blank. It's short, and worth typing out. You might remember it.

MAN EATS OWN TOES

An Austrian man cut off his toes, fried them up and ate them between two slices of bread after getting high sniffing butane gas.

When ambulance men arrived, he offered to share his meal with them, passing over a toe and saying: "It tastes like chicken, do you want some, there's a few still left over"?

[time out: is this real, do ya think? There were no pictures, and I'd sure love some. One red flag question is whether this "tastes like chicken" joke plays in Austria.....can anyone vouch?]

Police said the 35-year-old suddenly became very hungry after sniffing the gas and had searched all his kitchen cupboards, but found nothing to eat.

[what, no pizza delivery in his area, I guess? maybe some wings?]

Grabbing a kitchen knife, he cut off his toes on this left foot and dropped them in the frying pan.

The man's sister called the police when she walked into the kitchen and saw him making a toe sandwich.

[oh, what, now this is illegal too???]

By the time ambulance men arrived, there was little of the hacked-off toes left [guess the cops decided they didn't mind if they did have a bite] and a spokesman said: "What there was, was too badly burned to re-attach."

A police spokesperson added: "He told the ambulance men that he had more toes than he needed and didn't think he would notice if he got rid of a few."

He was taken to a hospital in Steyr where he is recovering from his injuries.

*****

While we're on the subject, check out this crazy image I ran across in my toe-hunt....

oh, LOOK, honey! A spider!

Traditionally, September is BigAssFuckinGross Spider month around here. Apparently, this year they've decided to beat the rush and build early though I see no such rush what with the housing market like it is. Take special note of this one's zigzaggedy pattern he's incorporated into his web. Snap declared him to be a "Japanese something spider" (direct quote).

And please! Appreciate this shot! I squeezed between the hedges and the house and then squatted down between two bushes, having to push up through the nests of those horrid jumping spiders that hunker down in the thick tunnels just to draw a good bead on Leonardo here.

This guy's taken up residence between the door and the screen. I don't recall his signing a lease. Eviction is imminent. He introduced himself as Jupiter, but I suspect he's using an alias. Because of nasty dishonest fellas such as he, one learns to examine one's environs carefully before venturing out of doors, doesn't one? I've borne witness to massive spider webs built between trees twenty feet apart. I have performed several spontaneous versions of the tarantella in my own yard. I have ripped off my shirt, and not for fun. I have beaten myself about the head to rid myself of hitchhiking spiders. Yes, I have an exterminator who comes regularly. Problem is, unless you zap a spider directly, the poison only gets on its feet and, since spiders don't lick their "feet," they won't ingest any poison.
Pur.tee. smart.

X marks the spot on this one's back. He says it's a monogram, and I've no reason to question him, as I've heard a couple of others refer to him as Xgperorx. Here he poses on the glass, wanting in from the rain. Application denied.

I can't explain the vertical lines, but I'd like to imagine they're spider aurae.

Meet Sebastian, resident frog.

Last night Sebastian brought home a lady frog he'd met. Sure, she was drunk and a bit belligerent, and had one of the foulest mouths I've heard on an amphibian, but we just want Sebastian to be happy. He's been so despondent since his last gal was flattened by a Buick. Plus, maybe she'll eat some of those 6 inch long megarachnids.

This is Mathilde. Yeah, she'll get on your nerves quoting the Pre-Raphaelite poets day in and day out, and I have to remind her not to smoke in the house, but overall, she ain't that bad.

For a bug.

The glory that often is morning. In mourning for glory by noon.

Chrysanthecat

A pOsT aBOut nOthiNG

I actually have things to say about things that matter to me.
I've been a bit incommunicado in general for a while.
For some reason.
Not from depression or anything. The factor that usually renders me distant.
I dunno.

I was going to post something silly.

I think I'll be more honest instead.

After I get something to eat.

I have an MSG headache. Will eating more cover that up?

Stay tuned for important experiment results.

Mirabile dictu

School started yesterday, about three months before I was ready for it. Oh, who'm I kidding? I'm fine with never working again. I'm pretty sure. But there I was, nonetheless. When I walked into my 3:30 class (and that's another thing: my schedule totally sucks. I've morning classes from 8-11, then a 4.5 hour break, during which I'm left to wander the streets, then expected to actually come back at 3:30 for more abuse, what th'??). (I'm going to leave that fragment to stand, as it was rudely interrupted by parenthetical whining.) So. When I walked into my 3:30 Composition and Disaster 1101 class, several students were gathered around a laptop, reading something out to the rest of the class. When they saw me, everyone erupted into laughter. I'm like "Whut up, dawgs??" They explained that they were "looking me up online" to find out what was in store for them. "Whut it say, dawgs?" I queried, eager to know what accolades had been published regarding my pedagogy. "Says you're smart but mean."

"Mean part sounds about right," I considered.

Then: "Okay, I'm going to call roll, and if you want me to use a nickname or street name to refer to you, please let me know."

All goes well until I get to one guy who says he prefers "Wombat" to his given name "Drake."

"Wombat it shall be," I promised.

More laughter.

Maybe they're fucking with me? But trust in this: dude will be Wombat until he leaves my care come December.

After that, I evoked my astonishingly exciting Policy Sheet on the overhead projector and went over few "do's" and "don't you fuckin think about its."

Then students filled out an information sheet listing name, email, hobbies, hometown, preferred reading, credit reports, arrest records, and any pending fines.

I'll admit I was a bit anxious to read Wombat's self-describe. First on his list, hobby-wise, is "stroking my mullet." I'm with Darling Snap here, who said, "Does he HAVE a mullet? Cuz I shudder to think about this as a metaphor!" I promised to do a mullet check next class. Wombat continues: "brewing beer and wine in a Speedo and full-body paint" (pinch me, Jesus!), "raising general hell" (as opposed to specific?), "riding my moped, and making movies." Watch for Wombat at a theatre near you.

Otherwise, no real crazies........yet. They generally hide their own and their mama's mental derangement until their first papers are returned.

I was buoyed when I saw first printed out my roll to see that MORGAN FREEMAN was in my class. I was gonna love that; you know he'd offer a good time, and write about his recently derailed life (car wreck, D.I.V.O.R.C.E., etc). I'd so have the tabloid scoop early.

Imagine my disappointment when Morgan Freeman turned out to be a smallish blonde lass, estimated size 2 sopping wet, with a squeaky little helium-balloon voice.

THIS TAKES THE CAKE

I was about to choke reading this, and I haven't even had a slice yet!

Enjoy! One sweet web site......

http://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

HOW BAD DOES IT HURT???

Check out the Schmidt Pain Index for insect stings. How often do you see pain, poetry, and oenophilia combined in such a painless way? Swirl and sniff: a votre sante!


1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

Righteous Drama

Pssssh. My youtube vids I tried to post five days ago just posted. I slipped them in the Blogger "oh hell naw" catapult and off they went into the Blogger empyrean.

Snap is always regaling me with bits of drama from her somewhat-difficult-to-keep-up-with universe of friend/acquaintances/BFFs/mortal enemies (sometimes all within the space of a few hours), but I found this recent tidbit especially tasty. It goes a little something like this:

One of Snap's Friends had a Dude that she knew through some other folks show up at her house. He is interested in getting frisky. Friend say no way! jose! Dude says fine i'm tired anyway can I just lie here in bed beside you? Friend sighs and says weellllll, I guess.....but I'm not doing anything with you. Later, Friend awakes and Dude is caught in flagrante (er...) in the process of Doin th Deed with/to her.

I interject that this is rape? Punishable in jail by such and such number of years, etc?

Well, maybe Friend kinda likes him and wanted to get it on after all. She doesn't seem too mad!!!!

uh.......oh KAY.

BUT. Get THIS. A couple of nights later, another girl, Friend2 was visiting Friend's house and Dude was there. Friend has decided she DOES like Dude. This night, though, she's tired as a box o'crackers and turns in early, leaving Dude and Friend2 watching TV.

Well.

Friend gets up a bit later to pee or for a glass of water or whatnot and finds Dude and Friend2 making the beast with two backs all the hell over her nice sofa. Friend takes note of this situation and steals back to bed, secretly seething.

Next night (inportant here that Friend is furious, but Dude doesn't know she knows......have we mentioned Dude is about as sharp as a golfball?), Friend gets a call from Dude seeing if she will pick him up, they can do hang downtown. SURE! says Friend. She picks up Dude, tells him she wants to take him somewhere special, it's a surprise, oh, you'll see, it's a place I really love, it's really beautiful there. "Coool," Dude says, thinking Friend sounded like a woman with lovin' on her mind.

They drive into Madison County, which you may or may not remember from some posted police blotter items from that fair burg. Just before turning off a dirt road a couple of miles from the middle of nowhere, Friend asks to use Dude's cell phone, as hers doesn't pick up well in this area. "Sure!" He hands it to her..... and she tosses it out the window. Dude begins to think he might not be getting lucky in the nooky dept tonight after all, something tells him......
Friend drives onto a smaller road up into a field and demands that he remove himself from the vehicle. Dude refuses, saying he doesn't even know where he is! Friend asks if he knew where he was on her couch the other night with Friend2. Dude gets a sinking feeling she might know something.... Friend gets her cell out, which, by the way, works quite well, and calls a Bro she knows, puts him on speakerphone. She gives her location and tells Bro she needs help, a guy is bothering her. Bro says he'll be there in ten to snap Dude in half with one hand.

Dude gets out of the car.

Friend drives off, canceling Bro's rescue on the way home.

Finis.

Bes't in wha't Way one wonder's

What gets me about situations such as the one displayed above is the PROCESS that had to be carried out to get to such an end result. Let's see: probably one person sketched out a plan for the ad, either writing it out or presenting it graphically to a printer. Someone at the printer had to approve the order, I suppose. Someone had to do the actual lay out -- (you can tell I have a great deal of experience in advertisement--haha; work with me here). Surely a proofreader exists somewhere? And the ad's delivery? And then someone had to post it? And someone had to approve the post-up? Wow.

but......WHY?

Think Tink!

Check out the eyes at about :50!

Nuts 'n' Notes

I'm going to start a Fucking Asswipe Nutfreak of the Month Club. I've become even more of a psycho-magnet than normal lately (and that's sayin' somethin'). No need to apply. If you're delusional, raving, ranting, quietly plotting unwarranted revenge, going apeshit over absolutely nothing and cutting off all contact, or exhibiting any of the countless myriad manifestations of mental illness, I'll find YOU. Don't worry.

*****

Enough of my problems, though. I'm sure you've plenty of your own. Don't worry about little ole me, over here gasping for breath under a massive stack of psychos. I'll be fine.

*****

Let me get back to the clip of Horowitz playing Scarlatti that I posted below, as I promised to do.

Why this sonata out of 555 that Scarlatti wrote?: This is very important "memory" music for me. This sonata, one of the most evocative pieces of music I know, in my top ten, for sure, immediately transports me to a time and place, long ago. The beginning short trills sound like ringing bells. This piece takes me to childhood, to a summer when I was around 13. I listened to it over and over, as is my wont with a piece of music I've just discovered and love, while reading William Goldman's Boys and Girls Together.

Choosing a version: Peter Katin was the pianist on the album I owned as a child. Horowitz is inextricably bound to Scarlatti, but I'll always love the Peter Katin interpretation. Alas, 'tis not to be found online. I'd highly recommend the CD Horowitz Plays Scarlatti as a more than worthwhile substitute.

This version: Quite different from the CD. This version is too staccato, but I like the tempo. The now-famous "hands" version is much more legato, but also too slow.

The Hands: Really, Horowitz couldn't, technically, have worse piano form, could he? Everything is "wrong." Long nails, hands flat, splayed on the keyboard, wrists dropping BELOW the keyboard at times, back hunched. And yet. And yet. It works. Obviously. I love Horowitz. I marvel at how he facilitates the movement that he needs. His success, to me, is tantamount to someone having his feet on backwards but being able to walk forward against the odds.

Classical concert crowds: Well, at least most of them aren't drunk and spilling beer down the back of my shirt. I think many just come to get dressed up and be seen by Society as a Music Patron. But whatever brings in the money and keeps the arts alive for those who do care works for me. Best classical concert ever: Bruno-Leonardo Gelber with the Atlanta Symphony, playing the Bee's (radish grin) Emperor Concerto (one of my favorite pieces of music, first of all, so I was psyched!). Mr. B (that's Button, not Beethoven!) and I had about fourth row seats, on our left, of course. In front of us sat a tall gangly twenty-ish type in a old torn jacket, old jeans, and tennis shoes (actually he looked a bit like Gould, physically) who had brought with him the score and at first followed it closely. But this concert was so incredible that he ended up abandoning it and sitting with mouth gaping like rest of us.

Applause at the end is, of course, expected. Standing ovations now seem to be standard rather than reserved for exceptional performances.

At the end of the Gelber Emperor, however, better than thunderous applause was about 4 seconds (a long time for several hundred people to sit without making a move to clap!) of stunned silence before the eruption. Then the entire hall was immediately on its collective feet.

The first time I remember hearing the Emperor Concerto, I was in fifth grade.

The next first time I heard it was that night played by Gelber.

On the other hand, because silence is expected, when it is not observed, any noise can reach into my consciousness and become the Only Thing On Earth.

Another concert, maybe 2-3 years ago, Atlanta Symphony again, Mozart's PC 21. I attend alone. Older dude in a tux next to me, empty seat between us. He has his program (maybe 40 pages thick) in his lap and is schirring the corner of the pages with his thumb. Over and over and over. Schrrruuuuuurrrr! Schurrruuuuuurrrrrrpp! This stentorian whirr continues through the entire first movement. I at first glance sideways at him. Then I actually look at him full on. Then I garner all my psychic energy together into a ball and concentrate on setting him on fire. To no avail. SHRRRRR. SHRRRRRPP. Fucker is CLUELESS. No, serious, it's really quite loud. Second movement coming up, another piece that holds tender memories for me, that I'd never heard performed live, and it was looking as if I still would not still. I had to do something. As the basses began their triplet pulsing at the start of the second movement, I reached over and touched his arm, and whispered, "Please. Please. Stop." He clearly didn't even know he was doing it and nods that he will comply. A few other times his thumb would wander up near the corner of the program, and he'd remember and cross his arms tightly against his chest.

Not as good a story as my setting the girl's hair on fire at the Grateful Dead concert in Tampa, I guess.

And finally:

The Accusation Put Forth by One Poster That Scarlatti Sounds 'Flat': (Flat as in monotonous rather than 'flat/sharp/natural.') I contend this flatness is due to your listening to the music played on the harpsichord for which is was most assuredly written. I detest the harpsichord, frankly. It sounds flat because one cannot control the dynamics of sound: no softer then louder, etc. as on a pianoforte (whose very name advertises its soft-loud abilities).

Caveat Emptor

.....or even when it's free. Maybe especially when it's free.

See that gadget on the side, the erstwhile Klimt display? What was it good for before it went belly-up? 24 hours max?

"Be ahead of all parting," Rilke warns. But I didn't see this one coming....er, going. I just assumed it would be with me always.


I am despondent, and adrench in transience.

Toe-tal Confessions of Freakish Me

[Apologies to Snap on this post, who is sent into paroxyms of agony at the sight of photographs of feet].

My little piggies went to Arbor Spa.

Your little piggies stayed home.

My little piggies got a pedicure.

Your little piggies had none.

My little piggies said, "oui! oui! oui!" all the way home.

Let me explain that girlie girl stuff has never been my thing. Getting a haircut has been about the extent of my paying for any personal appearance improvements. The fact is, it just seems......weird..... to pay a stranger to work on your hands or feet, or to massage your muscles, or to pluck your eyebrows, or or or (Mon Dieu!!) to trim one's coochie-hair, especially into all kinds of crazy shapes and designs. I recognize that I'm in the minority on this point, seeing as how there's a nail or beauty salon opening every 14 minutes. But there it all is, one of my many freakies, out on the table. A massage is the strangest to me. This seems to be an incredibly intimate thing to pay a total stranger to do. Don't get me wrong. I am in complete heaven with a massage.........performed by someone I know! But I'd be as likely to hire a gigolo than to buy a massage. In fact, the massage seems more intimate than sex!

And I know, again, that I'll get tons of disagreement on this front. But that's the emotional view from here.

I'm a bit uncomfortable (okay, not just a bit, more than a bit) with stranger-touching anyway. And I don't have any childhood horror stories to trot out to explain my distaste with strangers' hands all over me. Objectively speaking, I wish I felt otherwise. I don't mind the IDEA of a person feeling so emotionally generous that he or she wants to reach out to others. I mean, my God, aren't we alienated, isolated enough? But the fact is that not everyone is comfortable with such touching, and some people need to hold back and not assume that everyone wants to be grasped, rubbed, or nudged. And in some ways, it seems physical equivalent to spilling one's personal business to strangers (in line for the john, on planes, on the phone, anywhere, anytime).

In light of that digression, then, you may wonder how I came to have my very first pedicure at ....my age. Well, truth is, I'm trying to break out of some of my eccentricities because, for one thing, they seem to be gaining momentum in both volume and intensity, and before I know it, I fear I'll be one of those old women who lives in a house with a bunch of cats and yells at kids who come into her yard, rendering herself fodder for Halloween and late-night lore. The stories will become more and more bizarre until legend will have me storing the thumbs of neighborhood children in Mason jars and perhaps keeping one or two of the little urchins chained in the cellar just because. So I wondered: what can help me step out of such an ignominous destiny and shape my future to better serve my fellowkind?

A pedicure, I decided.

****

Post-production analysis:

Eh. It was okay. Snap and I went together, she being a seasoned veteran of all things girlie. No offense to southeast Asia, but I really wanted an English-speaking crew for my first time. Apparently, non-Vietnamese nailwork will cost ya!

The color's too dark for me, though I picked it out, but I'll have to admit: the toes look damned better.

Just don't hold your breath for pictures of a Brazilian wax.

vladimir/domenico alliance

I don't even remember the last time a youtube video posted when I demanded that it do so. It's madness, mayhem, mucho annoying.

Really, I guess there's no real difference in clicking the youtube doodadly thingy and a link, is there? I should calm myself.

So.

I'll say more about this little jewel in a bit. As if there's any more to say than this.



UPDATE: Not to be outdone, I have conquered the youtube posting issue...for now!

....and also.....

......................................

"The line that divides Good and Evil runs not between nations or political parties, but straight through the heart of man."

The Gulag Archipelago

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

I was a mark on a slate that's slowly being erased. I can't see it but when I look, the mark is thinner, shorter. Or a hole that's being filled in, flush with the earth. Or a light, dimming dimming.

don't understand??


congratulations.

a true story

Ever had a day that just felt weird and lost? Like it was someone else's day and you'd been dropped down in it, in someone else's body, and their hair isn't like yours and they have bigger feet but a better childhood, and they know some things you know, but you remember some things they forgot so it's hard to navigate, so you just go home and sleep off that strange drink you had for lunch--what did she call it? a twist?-- that you think might have had something much more serious than vodka in it and through your deep deep sleep you hear a doorbell and you get up to look but no one is there so you stumble back to your chair thinking you must've dreamed it but as soon as you're almost asleep the doorbell rings again and this time there's a"shave and a haircut" knock that goes with it so you swim swim tread water gasp deep breaths up to the top of your sleep and go to the door, catching sight of yourself in the mirror in the hall as your hand is on the knob and you think 'who is THAT?' maybe it's you knocking on the door but no, it's a seven-foot tall black man with a ratty looking satchel at his feet and his smile is dazzling you think he should be in the circus at least and he says in one breath """"""don't worry i ain't sellin nuthin i ain't got no vacuum cleaners no books no magazines no nuthin hey do you know your neighbors????'''''''and you feel like his words are swirling around and over and through you and later you wonder was he really dressed all in yellow? and speaking of neighbors hey funny you should mention because one of your neighbors called this morning to talk about a cat that is not yours he's a stray but you like him who's terrorizing her cats and her husband is threatening to kill the cat and you are given the chance to save it so yeah you guess you know this neighbor three doors down but you're thinking he doesn't need to know so you say uh I dunno why? and he says BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN UP AND DOWN THIS STREET TALKING TO YOUR NEIGHBORS, MA'AM "and let me show you this!!" he hands you an orange brochure, a tri-fold and you see the word DUST on it but none of this is making sense so you say "look, I'm having a really really weird day and I can't talk about this right now" but you figure the brochure is yours to keep but no, he half snatches it from your hand and says "God bless you"" and as you go back inside he's sort of dancing in circles saying didn't mean to make you mad, didn't mean to make you mad you're vaguely aware of course that his behavior is aberrant but you cant get awake then you're back in the chair dreaming the dreams of strangers and wondering why someone would write a brochure on dust and you hear the scarlatti sonata you yes you not someone else this is all you that you were working on as your latest little project in your latest little life and you hear the long ascending scale and its short descent and how much is done of life and how much is left undone and will never be done and why have you let that be the greatest source of your sadness. you're tired of your sins of omission. it's amazing how large absence, in all its forms, has been in your life What is your favorite season? someone asked you once and you realized that 'it's, always, the, opposite, of, the, one, i'm, in' ----longing longing you're sick of longing and for what/ Do you even know/ can you sit still can you breathe very deep can you be very quiet can you

just

be

here

Maine Kitsch: A Pictorial of the Unusual

Well, now, this is a first. Definitely not a sign I've seen in Georgia (or indeed anywhere). Musher crossing: I assume the sign is seasonal?

Really, this (below) is kinda my piece de resistance photo. A trip to Wal-Mart in Trenton just up the road from the cabin reveals this luscious find. We were about to check out when Denis notices this couple. Never mind the gal. It's the guy who delights. Denis hisses, sotto voce, "Lisa! LISA! Camera! CAMERA! GO!!" And so I'm off to follow around the store this dude decked out in his Barney Jazzercise best. You must click for a larger view. This suit was so tight, it was riding his crack. I won't even TELL you what it looked like in the front. Let's just say that Barney was sporting quite the package.

--Please note red fanny pack. Here's a man who knows how to accessorize.--

His strut and sway indicated a deep pride in his appearance. What other attitude can you have, though, dressed like this? I really wish I knew what they'd run into Wal-Mart for...

Here we have the wildly popular Donny and Marie guitar. You'll be as happy as an Osmond strumming along with "Puppy Love" and "Go Away Little Girl." Item available at Big Chicken Antiques.

Here we have an excellent grouping of naked torsos, also available at the Big Chicken, some with heads, some without--designed with all your torso needs in mind. Find thematic connection with show we saw on the TV one night about guys who have "extremely satisfying" sex with their life-sized dolls, according to interviews with the guys and the psychiatrists who treat them.

Great gift idea!!! Who on your list wouldn't love this near-life-sized oil rendering of a particularly unattractive chinless biker in wrap-arounds to hang over the velveteen settee?

oh buoy! Folks downeast really love hanging these things in their yards. This particular shot was found in Canada, evincing that the fad extends to our northern neighbors as well. These folks must've had 500 buoys hanging around the yard. Gotta admire the commitment.

Meet me in Washington County, Maine, where 90% of the world's blueberries are grown. So it's with no small surprise that we came upon Wild Blueberry Land in the middle of nowhere. This is the place to go for all your blueberry needs.These folks in Wild Blueberry Land go all out. Here we have gigantic Smurfette blueberry (?) icons lining the highway. Never mind that the color is really nowhere near resembling "blueberry." Would you eat a blueberry of this color? I think not. But that's what's so wild about blueberry land!

These darling little hayride tableaux were situated by the parking lot. Notice the figure in the red hat, face down. Blueberry OD. Sad. This is called Hayride Intervention--She's getting him to detox. Hope it's not too late! That two-legged horse needs to giddy-yap!

Another couple, this one coming back with a full crop of ---what's that in those baskets?--why, it's blueberries!

And say: isn't she the same gal who was with Barney in WalMart??

Behind WBL, one can find a virtual field of blueberries.

I guess.

What's inside? Oh, you know. Blueberry magnets, bb soap, bb candles, bb magnets, bb t-shirts, bb toys, bb potholders, bb aprons, towels, windchimes, pictures, cookbooks, mixes: really, I couldn't think of anything blueberry that they might have missed. Oh, and a bakery, of course. Blueberry pies, turnovers, pizza.

(j/k on the pizza!)

Here's a sign in a window in Bar Harbor, showing all the things one normally associates with blueberry pie: flowers, fish, castles, sand pails and, of course, martinis.
More word association! Look what some clever jokester has done!

(ass) exhaust! (pussy) supply! (air) supply! (weed) exhaust!

File this under slap-myself-on-the-forehead-why-didn't-I-think-of-that-brilliant!

This was seen on Deer Island. I think it's a moose. Made from wood shingles. Very resourceful!

Now one thing I especially loved about the small coastal towns is the unexpected art galleries tucked down dirt roads in the middle of mostly nowhere. Here's an example. The town of Stonington, ME, has about 1160 people. Yet note the presence of an OPERA HOUSE.

Sorry this photo isn't clearer. They're running out of street names. This is Thissa Way Lane.

We ran across this gem outside of Augusta, just after getting onto the interstate after being issued my citation. What's happened here is that this big tanker didn't QUITE make it under the bridge and was stuck! Hey, buddy, they don't put those clearance measurements on the overpasses for nuthin!

Here we are at lunch in Orono. Place called Governor's.

Who knew fries, onion rings and mini-burgers could make such a startling political statement?

I don't know where these fellas are going but I do hope they're okay. The bugle makes me feel a lot better.

Nightshooting

Outside in my yard

late last night

camera in hand