Waiting for Superpowers
Well, my physical therapist hit the wrong button on his machine (the "H-Wave") or it was in fact, as he said, shorted out that day (though not on the day his supervisor was using it, a week later), and I got the full voltage. Into nodes on my back. Very bad. I told him later after I calmed down from screaming that maybe he'd cured my depression. He didn't get the joke.
Anyway, I think I'm entitled to get a superpower from the experience. X-ray vision at least. But it's been almost two weeks and NOTHING. No super nothing. I've been revisiting that question posed on This American Life-- inivisibility or the power to fly?-- and I just keep thinking Wonder Woman had it the best. An invisible plane.
Due to this tendonitis I've been trying to stay off the computer, but I had to blog today because I found a note intended to inform a blog I think I wrote a few years ago, about supervillains. Make of it what you will. The question apparently was: is George W. Bush a supervillain, or just a bad president?
Here are my notes:
Is G.W. a supervillain--
1. mask
no
2. armor
Dick Army
3. cape
no
4. refers to self in 3rd p.
probably
5. has own country
yes
6. style
not really
7. despair
yes, helpless-seeming
8. fallability
yes
9. ignorance
yes
10. degree
yes [he did finish college eventually, yes?]
11. adaptable
no
12.
creative
no
13. delusions
yes
-----
That's a -- let's see-- 8 out of 13! Good for you George, you're almost a supervillain! In particular I think you need to get some style and a cape.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Monday, May 16, 2005
The Conclusion to the Arrested Grandma Story
Well, sad to say, I have tendonitis and can't give the full 411 (or maybe it's 911) on this story about my grandma's famous arrest. In a few short paragraphs then---
She, a single woman with a Swedish name, showed up in the Chicago hoosegow about eight weeks after Pearl Harbor, with no officer present to state her charge, and a general suspicion hanging over all foreign-named people (they hadn't sorted out ally from foe yet-- everyone seemed to be an enemy after the bombing).
The jail matron looked at her name and -- not knowing her crime-- "ya shouldn'ta oughta dunnit!"
She was a seminary student on a date with another seminary student who chose not to stand for a racist war bonds ad playing before Dumbo. They were seminarians going to the movies to see Dumbo! Ya shouldn'ta oughta dunnit.
Well, the Chicago Tribune screwed up the story-- two Chicago University students refuse to stand for national anthem was the quick and dirty version-- and it ended up all over the news wires (back in the day when there were wires), playing over the radio in the barn where my great-grands on my grandpa's side were milking cows, and on the front page of the Boston Herald, which my great-grands on grandma's side read every day. Since Grandma was from Boston she was quite the local feature.
So, that night grandma and grandpa were arrested, the faculty of the seminary was at a party, and someone passed the hat around and put together their bail money. Later they were given a talking to about putting the seminary's relationship with Chicago U. in jeopardy because of the papers calling them Chicago U. students. The photograph of them holding their hands over their hearts and saying the pledge of allegiance (their penance in court) was given big play on the front pages of the big papers the next day.
Grandma wrote editorials correcting the errors in the stories and asked the papers to publish them without edits, but only the Boston Herald printed it in full.
The end of the story is that the bejesus had been scared out of the young couple, especailly grandma, and without even a formal courtship and proposal and engagement they just sped along to the wedding. Grandma's tentative position as a foreigner in a country at war scared them that much. Their Japanese friend studying with them at seminary attended their 1942 wedding.
He's still a minister, living now in Japan.
Later that sprign grandma and grandpa graduated by the skin of their teeth (the management of the hate mail, hate phone calls, press reactions, their families, etc. etc. took a lot of their time and energy for a few months). They finished their dissertations on manual typewriters in the Chicago hotel room they got for their honeymoon.
the end
Well, sad to say, I have tendonitis and can't give the full 411 (or maybe it's 911) on this story about my grandma's famous arrest. In a few short paragraphs then---
She, a single woman with a Swedish name, showed up in the Chicago hoosegow about eight weeks after Pearl Harbor, with no officer present to state her charge, and a general suspicion hanging over all foreign-named people (they hadn't sorted out ally from foe yet-- everyone seemed to be an enemy after the bombing).
The jail matron looked at her name and -- not knowing her crime-- "ya shouldn'ta oughta dunnit!"
She was a seminary student on a date with another seminary student who chose not to stand for a racist war bonds ad playing before Dumbo. They were seminarians going to the movies to see Dumbo! Ya shouldn'ta oughta dunnit.
Well, the Chicago Tribune screwed up the story-- two Chicago University students refuse to stand for national anthem was the quick and dirty version-- and it ended up all over the news wires (back in the day when there were wires), playing over the radio in the barn where my great-grands on my grandpa's side were milking cows, and on the front page of the Boston Herald, which my great-grands on grandma's side read every day. Since Grandma was from Boston she was quite the local feature.
So, that night grandma and grandpa were arrested, the faculty of the seminary was at a party, and someone passed the hat around and put together their bail money. Later they were given a talking to about putting the seminary's relationship with Chicago U. in jeopardy because of the papers calling them Chicago U. students. The photograph of them holding their hands over their hearts and saying the pledge of allegiance (their penance in court) was given big play on the front pages of the big papers the next day.
Grandma wrote editorials correcting the errors in the stories and asked the papers to publish them without edits, but only the Boston Herald printed it in full.
The end of the story is that the bejesus had been scared out of the young couple, especailly grandma, and without even a formal courtship and proposal and engagement they just sped along to the wedding. Grandma's tentative position as a foreigner in a country at war scared them that much. Their Japanese friend studying with them at seminary attended their 1942 wedding.
He's still a minister, living now in Japan.
Later that sprign grandma and grandpa graduated by the skin of their teeth (the management of the hate mail, hate phone calls, press reactions, their families, etc. etc. took a lot of their time and energy for a few months). They finished their dissertations on manual typewriters in the Chicago hotel room they got for their honeymoon.
the end
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Whence I Came: My Grandma the Jailbird
Being home in North Nosebleed for a few days always resurrects the ghosts. This time I was collecting my grandmother's ghost stories and recording them for posterity. She is 87 or something godawful close to 90 and her mind is still razor sharp, so there's lots of cool gossip about ghosts to harvest. One of her best is the story of a date gone awry. I'm lining up people to read at a "bad date" themed performance, and I'm realizing my horrible dates have nothing compared to my grandparents' bad date that ended up on the front of the Chicago Tribune and across the country in the radio news headlines, a date that generated hate mail. A quintessential bad date.
My first date was at the age of 12, and I showed up in my finest clothes only to be asked to help with the neighbor's haying. My date and I were out in the afternoon heat hauling in the hay bales. My second boyfriend, me still at the age of 12, didn't really have dating on his mind and so I remember repelling his advances more than any one of our few, bad dates. My third boyfriend was the first in a long series of long distance romances that didn't require as much effort, which worked for me, since I'd figured out before even the first bad date that I was actually a lesbian. Dating women or women-identity-based-creatures didn't start for me until I was 19, far past my prime in the world of North Nosebleed. Now I'm an old maid at 31, enjoying a cup of decaf earl grey, some good wool to knit, and NPR far more than I probably should. Meanwhile, in 1930's Brooklyn, my grandma was being made an old maid at the age of 15.
My great-grandpa Adolph (so named in the same year as the other Adolf-- they were age-mates) had great plans for his two daughters. He wanted to see their names in lights. He was born to poor farmers in Sweden, an illegitimate child to a class-conscious mother, who ran away to the US with the first guy who'd marry her, to try and start the climb to the social top rung. He wanted no man to touch his daughters and put them in the bad position his mother escaped. So he made them pile their hair up in long braids pinned to their heads like some 19th century cameo. The style then was short hair, and cutting her hair was the first thing my grandma did when she escaped Adolph and went to Chicago Theological Seminary (his alma mater, and the furthest away he'd let his daughter go). He also taught them how to box. His youngest, my great-aunt-Mona, beat up-- rather badly-- a teacher for holding her after class... when she was in the fifth grade. My grandma takes a very dim view of boxing, but I like that Adolph taught them to defend themselves-- it feeds my fantasy that I come from some bastard line of Xena Warrior Princesses.
So, when grandpa passed her a note in her Religious Drama class asking her out to coffee, grandma was ready for action. She says she was a Swede who couldn't turn down a free cup of coffee, but I bet she was just aching to make her father jealous. Off they went to two semesters of coffee and strawberry shakes, during which time grandpa made sure his date was aware that he was from a penniless line of Michigan farmers. We had no less than three bankruptcies on that side of the family during the Great Depression. Just the ticket to piss off her papa, she threw herself into the romance and even spent the winter holidays at his family's farmhouse. To give grandpa some credit, he was a handsome devil, the son of another handsome devil. Great-grandpa Frank has a headshot from his youth that looks like a movie star-- dark and brooding and wind-tousled. Grandpa had even more gravity about his dark good looks.
Little did these lovebirds knew what was in store for them the night they went to see Dumbo. It was February 1942. Dumbo had hit the theatres just days before bombs hit Pearl Harbor, three months before. After the news reel, the theatre played a war bonds ad. The ad was a cartoon in which the war bond you could purchase flew into a racist charicature of a Japanese fighter pilot, whose blood then dripped down the screen and became the field of red in the stars and stripes of the US flag. The national anthem rose up in the background of the war bonds spiel, and some people in the theatre stood up and removed their hats. My grandparents, who had a dear friend at seminary who was Japanese, did not stand at this gory display. An off-duty police officer sitting behind them tapped my grandpa on the shoulder, and told them they should stand. They refused and told him why. He arrested them, and sent them to the paddy wagon without escorting them-- leaving them waiting at the jail to be charged while he finished watching Dumbo.
They were later charged with disorderly conduct.
Tomorrow... the story of my grandma's hard time in jail.
Being home in North Nosebleed for a few days always resurrects the ghosts. This time I was collecting my grandmother's ghost stories and recording them for posterity. She is 87 or something godawful close to 90 and her mind is still razor sharp, so there's lots of cool gossip about ghosts to harvest. One of her best is the story of a date gone awry. I'm lining up people to read at a "bad date" themed performance, and I'm realizing my horrible dates have nothing compared to my grandparents' bad date that ended up on the front of the Chicago Tribune and across the country in the radio news headlines, a date that generated hate mail. A quintessential bad date.
My first date was at the age of 12, and I showed up in my finest clothes only to be asked to help with the neighbor's haying. My date and I were out in the afternoon heat hauling in the hay bales. My second boyfriend, me still at the age of 12, didn't really have dating on his mind and so I remember repelling his advances more than any one of our few, bad dates. My third boyfriend was the first in a long series of long distance romances that didn't require as much effort, which worked for me, since I'd figured out before even the first bad date that I was actually a lesbian. Dating women or women-identity-based-creatures didn't start for me until I was 19, far past my prime in the world of North Nosebleed. Now I'm an old maid at 31, enjoying a cup of decaf earl grey, some good wool to knit, and NPR far more than I probably should. Meanwhile, in 1930's Brooklyn, my grandma was being made an old maid at the age of 15.
My great-grandpa Adolph (so named in the same year as the other Adolf-- they were age-mates) had great plans for his two daughters. He wanted to see their names in lights. He was born to poor farmers in Sweden, an illegitimate child to a class-conscious mother, who ran away to the US with the first guy who'd marry her, to try and start the climb to the social top rung. He wanted no man to touch his daughters and put them in the bad position his mother escaped. So he made them pile their hair up in long braids pinned to their heads like some 19th century cameo. The style then was short hair, and cutting her hair was the first thing my grandma did when she escaped Adolph and went to Chicago Theological Seminary (his alma mater, and the furthest away he'd let his daughter go). He also taught them how to box. His youngest, my great-aunt-Mona, beat up-- rather badly-- a teacher for holding her after class... when she was in the fifth grade. My grandma takes a very dim view of boxing, but I like that Adolph taught them to defend themselves-- it feeds my fantasy that I come from some bastard line of Xena Warrior Princesses.
So, when grandpa passed her a note in her Religious Drama class asking her out to coffee, grandma was ready for action. She says she was a Swede who couldn't turn down a free cup of coffee, but I bet she was just aching to make her father jealous. Off they went to two semesters of coffee and strawberry shakes, during which time grandpa made sure his date was aware that he was from a penniless line of Michigan farmers. We had no less than three bankruptcies on that side of the family during the Great Depression. Just the ticket to piss off her papa, she threw herself into the romance and even spent the winter holidays at his family's farmhouse. To give grandpa some credit, he was a handsome devil, the son of another handsome devil. Great-grandpa Frank has a headshot from his youth that looks like a movie star-- dark and brooding and wind-tousled. Grandpa had even more gravity about his dark good looks.
Little did these lovebirds knew what was in store for them the night they went to see Dumbo. It was February 1942. Dumbo had hit the theatres just days before bombs hit Pearl Harbor, three months before. After the news reel, the theatre played a war bonds ad. The ad was a cartoon in which the war bond you could purchase flew into a racist charicature of a Japanese fighter pilot, whose blood then dripped down the screen and became the field of red in the stars and stripes of the US flag. The national anthem rose up in the background of the war bonds spiel, and some people in the theatre stood up and removed their hats. My grandparents, who had a dear friend at seminary who was Japanese, did not stand at this gory display. An off-duty police officer sitting behind them tapped my grandpa on the shoulder, and told them they should stand. They refused and told him why. He arrested them, and sent them to the paddy wagon without escorting them-- leaving them waiting at the jail to be charged while he finished watching Dumbo.
They were later charged with disorderly conduct.
Tomorrow... the story of my grandma's hard time in jail.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Peepers, Stars, and Cow Crap
The land of my birth. I am leaving tomorrow morning to go back to the SF Bay Area to complete whatever next challenges I've chosen for myself. But returning to this place I call North Nosebleed for a few days reminds me that there is achievement in just leaving here. And, if I can find it, still more genius in finding a way to come back, if only in reweaving my life to include this. My father and I went for a walk to remedy the food coma from Mother's Day's all you can eat carbo-riffic buffet, and in the 20 minutes we were out, only one car passed. The stars were so multitudinous we didn't even carry flashlights, and found the neighbor's garage floodlight blinding. The dark swampy fields of May were washed in a thick eau d' cow shit-- the annual beshitting of the fields where the dairy industry would get its hay in July. The new generation of baby frogs we call "peepers" were in full swing. Each song would last about 15 seconds. I have-- for the plane ride home-- numerous MP3's that I recorded from different points around the swamp on our land. Two were leading the peepage, and uncounted quieter thousands of voices kept a gentle pulsing chime going under the solos and duets. When the lead singers paused, it seemed like the stars themselves were providing the undercurrent of shimmering sound.
The land of my birth. I am leaving tomorrow morning to go back to the SF Bay Area to complete whatever next challenges I've chosen for myself. But returning to this place I call North Nosebleed for a few days reminds me that there is achievement in just leaving here. And, if I can find it, still more genius in finding a way to come back, if only in reweaving my life to include this. My father and I went for a walk to remedy the food coma from Mother's Day's all you can eat carbo-riffic buffet, and in the 20 minutes we were out, only one car passed. The stars were so multitudinous we didn't even carry flashlights, and found the neighbor's garage floodlight blinding. The dark swampy fields of May were washed in a thick eau d' cow shit-- the annual beshitting of the fields where the dairy industry would get its hay in July. The new generation of baby frogs we call "peepers" were in full swing. Each song would last about 15 seconds. I have-- for the plane ride home-- numerous MP3's that I recorded from different points around the swamp on our land. Two were leading the peepage, and uncounted quieter thousands of voices kept a gentle pulsing chime going under the solos and duets. When the lead singers paused, it seemed like the stars themselves were providing the undercurrent of shimmering sound.
Friday, April 22, 2005
This makes me happy.
I have a couple of guys working with me on a project whose names are Bob and Doug. It doesn't help that they are both a little slow on the uptake and one is Canadian.
Walking down memory lane via Google, I discovered this factoid about the SCTV puerile purveyors of the federally mandated "Canadian content" that was Bob and Ted's Great White North (from a site devoted to beer):
Canada's fastest supercomputer, used to simulate the collisions of galaxies and the movement of supermassive black holes, is named "McKenzie," after the nefarious brothers. It cost $900,000 to build, which, at the current exchange rate, equals roughly 40,900 Molson beers, sold wholesale.
You can read "important Bob and Doug episodes" here.
I have a couple of guys working with me on a project whose names are Bob and Doug. It doesn't help that they are both a little slow on the uptake and one is Canadian.
Walking down memory lane via Google, I discovered this factoid about the SCTV puerile purveyors of the federally mandated "Canadian content" that was Bob and Ted's Great White North (from a site devoted to beer):
Canada's fastest supercomputer, used to simulate the collisions of galaxies and the movement of supermassive black holes, is named "McKenzie," after the nefarious brothers. It cost $900,000 to build, which, at the current exchange rate, equals roughly 40,900 Molson beers, sold wholesale.
You can read "important Bob and Doug episodes" here.
Monday, April 18, 2005
A Chance of Inspiration with a Steady Downpour of Frustration by Nightfall
Rest in peace, Marla Ruzicka. My coworker M. remembered you fondly-- he organized your first trip to Cuba, when you were 17. Your friends at Global Exchange are gathering today to share memories about you. I don't think I ever met you, but I very well might have-- and that is something I can be proud of: we ran in circles not that far afield from eachother. Although, reading about you, I must say your field looks like it was always a helluva lot more dangerous than mine. But I was a early-teen visitor of nonprofit offices and collector of pamphlets and subscriber to The Nation and The Economist and Greenpeace and Amnesty International-- but I couldn't get started as fast as hard as you did, since I was living in North Nosebleed, and you were in Northern California. You will be remembered among the bright young stars that fell on my watch:
Terry Freitas who died helping the U'wa defend themselves against big oil while volunteering for Project Underground, where I was also then a volunteer; and
Rachel Corrie, another SF Bay Area leftie -- she died when she tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer; and
...the not-yet-gone:
Lori Berenson - who was a roommates with a dear friend of mine when she was in college. I imagine her decorating her jail cell in Peru and thinking about her dorm room at MIT... how far she has gone to stick to her beliefs.
Tonight: more inspiration from the Goldman Awards! Where (as per usual) my organization "knows" some of the awardees.
Rest in peace, Marla Ruzicka. My coworker M. remembered you fondly-- he organized your first trip to Cuba, when you were 17. Your friends at Global Exchange are gathering today to share memories about you. I don't think I ever met you, but I very well might have-- and that is something I can be proud of: we ran in circles not that far afield from eachother. Although, reading about you, I must say your field looks like it was always a helluva lot more dangerous than mine. But I was a early-teen visitor of nonprofit offices and collector of pamphlets and subscriber to The Nation and The Economist and Greenpeace and Amnesty International-- but I couldn't get started as fast as hard as you did, since I was living in North Nosebleed, and you were in Northern California. You will be remembered among the bright young stars that fell on my watch:
Terry Freitas who died helping the U'wa defend themselves against big oil while volunteering for Project Underground, where I was also then a volunteer; and
Rachel Corrie, another SF Bay Area leftie -- she died when she tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer; and
...the not-yet-gone:
Lori Berenson - who was a roommates with a dear friend of mine when she was in college. I imagine her decorating her jail cell in Peru and thinking about her dorm room at MIT... how far she has gone to stick to her beliefs.
Tonight: more inspiration from the Goldman Awards! Where (as per usual) my organization "knows" some of the awardees.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Lovin' Those Gmail Ads
I have a rendezvous with a web design person -- who I've never met in person-- about a project, and he wrote me the following magic eight words:
And here are the headlines of the links-- based on those eight words-- that Gmail helpfully provided in the margin:
I have a rendezvous with a web design person -- who I've never met in person-- about a project, and he wrote me the following magic eight words:
- You can’t miss me. I have green hair.
And here are the headlines of the links-- based on those eight words-- that Gmail helpfully provided in the margin:
- Remi Cuticle Virgin Hair
- No more Chlorine Buildup
- METROPOLITAN DIGEST
Kansas City Star - 15 hours ago
A baby was left at Truman Medical Center on Tuesday afternoon, and ... - Police seek info after body found
Townsville Bulletin - Apr 12, 2005
The body of the woman, in her early 40s was found at 1.30pm at Rowes ...
Everything is Turgid
I am sorry, but I find this sentence hard to forgive, even in a book with brilliant moments and an interesting premise, and especially as the opening line of a chapter.
I'm sure other people found Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" to be a work of unprecedented genius, but I'm here to tell you, it can only be appreciated if you can ignore that his Sasha speaks some horribly fake Ringlish (or Ruslish, however you like), and his non-Sasha narrator spews out some real stomach churners, like that one above.
As I bounce gleefully into the new Eoin Colfer, The Artemis Fowl Files, with my favorite juvie-lit heroine Captain Holly Short!
I am sorry, but I find this sentence hard to forgive, even in a book with brilliant moments and an interesting premise, and especially as the opening line of a chapter.
She used her thumbs to pull the lace panties from her waist, allowing her engorged genitalia the teasing satisfaction of the humid summer updrafts, which brought with them the smells of burdock, birch, burning rubber, and beef broth, and would now pass on her particular animal scent to northward noses, like a message transmitted through a line of schoolchildren in a childish game, so that the final one to smell might lift his head and say, Borsht?
I'm sure other people found Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" to be a work of unprecedented genius, but I'm here to tell you, it can only be appreciated if you can ignore that his Sasha speaks some horribly fake Ringlish (or Ruslish, however you like), and his non-Sasha narrator spews out some real stomach churners, like that one above.
As I bounce gleefully into the new Eoin Colfer, The Artemis Fowl Files, with my favorite juvie-lit heroine Captain Holly Short!
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Perks of Working at an NGO: Penguin Baseball, or, the Joy of a Fowl Ball
The chair of our board sent this to me yesterday. My best is 319.8 feet. Hers is 293.5.
For $1800 a month, they can't complain too loudly about the penguin honks coming out of my office.
You click once on the yeti for the "pitch" and again for the swing.
The chair of our board sent this to me yesterday. My best is 319.8 feet. Hers is 293.5.
For $1800 a month, they can't complain too loudly about the penguin honks coming out of my office.
You click once on the yeti for the "pitch" and again for the swing.
Monday, March 28, 2005
I Heart the Alien Tort Claims Act
I read about this in the paper some time ago, but didn't realize the case had been settled until picking up a friend's lefty newsletter at Easter dinner yesterday.
US Corporate Pirates can be brought to some kind of justice, even under a Bush administration.
I read about this in the paper some time ago, but didn't realize the case had been settled until picking up a friend's lefty newsletter at Easter dinner yesterday.
US Corporate Pirates can be brought to some kind of justice, even under a Bush administration.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
This Is What You Get
I remember when I thought I was a punk. Well, for my part of rural dairy-farming Jefferson County, I was. I was 14. We didn't even have sidewalks, let alone skater punk culture. I would powder my face white, put on eyeliner, and wear a long black cashmere thrifted coat that blew in the wind and didn't close at all. For Christmas I pinned bells into the hem. They never suspected it was me jingling. Well, I was reading some punk magazine. Actually, it might have been Creem. I don't know if that is punk. But I had a subscription to that and a few other things that I thought were punk. My favorite band was U2, which never was very punk. Not even pre-Boy.
So somebody had an ad in the back of this magazine where if you sent him a dollar he'd send you a doughnut seed. Why didn't I think of this myself, I now wonder. I sent my dollar with the requested SASE, and after a few weeks I got my own handwriting on an envelope in the mailbox. Excited, I opened it, and a crumbled Cheerio powdered out into my hand. Then there was a note making fun of my handwriting, from my anonymous doughnut farmer. I remember being so lonely and attention-starved that I thought this was funny and wished I could correspond with him. Maybe he could be my boyfriend.
So, this is life, right? You know what you're getting into, sort of, and it looks exciting, so you ask the universe-- surprise me! Then in your SASE-- the handwriting reminding you that you yourself are entirely responsible for this-- you find a pale shadow of what you had imagined for yourself. And there are no doughnut trees. There will never be doughnut trees.
And it's entirely up to you if you laugh, or delude yourself into thinking that this is the universe being kind, or delude yourself into thinking this is the universe being cruel. But ultimately it's a trick you play on yourself, right? You get yourself into trouble reading the backs of magazines, so you let your subscriptions run out, and then you still find yourself ordering the equivalent of doughnut seeds on Craigslist 15 years later. You're not punk, you never were punk, and you are not much smarter than you were when you were 14, falling in love with gay boys and weeping over the gravestones of people who died in 1872 named Sophronia and Ezekiel.
But somehow I find that comforting. Today, anyway. I'm glad I still ask people to mail me doughnut seeds.
We all turn out right in the end, right? Like this phenomenally demutated plant, we can untangle the ways the world trains us not to lean directly into the sun, and grow ourselves right. I can be my own doughnut tree.
I remember when I thought I was a punk. Well, for my part of rural dairy-farming Jefferson County, I was. I was 14. We didn't even have sidewalks, let alone skater punk culture. I would powder my face white, put on eyeliner, and wear a long black cashmere thrifted coat that blew in the wind and didn't close at all. For Christmas I pinned bells into the hem. They never suspected it was me jingling. Well, I was reading some punk magazine. Actually, it might have been Creem. I don't know if that is punk. But I had a subscription to that and a few other things that I thought were punk. My favorite band was U2, which never was very punk. Not even pre-Boy.
So somebody had an ad in the back of this magazine where if you sent him a dollar he'd send you a doughnut seed. Why didn't I think of this myself, I now wonder. I sent my dollar with the requested SASE, and after a few weeks I got my own handwriting on an envelope in the mailbox. Excited, I opened it, and a crumbled Cheerio powdered out into my hand. Then there was a note making fun of my handwriting, from my anonymous doughnut farmer. I remember being so lonely and attention-starved that I thought this was funny and wished I could correspond with him. Maybe he could be my boyfriend.
So, this is life, right? You know what you're getting into, sort of, and it looks exciting, so you ask the universe-- surprise me! Then in your SASE-- the handwriting reminding you that you yourself are entirely responsible for this-- you find a pale shadow of what you had imagined for yourself. And there are no doughnut trees. There will never be doughnut trees.
And it's entirely up to you if you laugh, or delude yourself into thinking that this is the universe being kind, or delude yourself into thinking this is the universe being cruel. But ultimately it's a trick you play on yourself, right? You get yourself into trouble reading the backs of magazines, so you let your subscriptions run out, and then you still find yourself ordering the equivalent of doughnut seeds on Craigslist 15 years later. You're not punk, you never were punk, and you are not much smarter than you were when you were 14, falling in love with gay boys and weeping over the gravestones of people who died in 1872 named Sophronia and Ezekiel.
But somehow I find that comforting. Today, anyway. I'm glad I still ask people to mail me doughnut seeds.
We all turn out right in the end, right? Like this phenomenally demutated plant, we can untangle the ways the world trains us not to lean directly into the sun, and grow ourselves right. I can be my own doughnut tree.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
I Hurt Myself Laughing
The Feline Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics
The injuries from laughing at the Face Down Food Kersplat nearly brought about an untimely demise.
The Feline Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics
The injuries from laughing at the Face Down Food Kersplat nearly brought about an untimely demise.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Who Knew Such Hippy Misfits Worked at the Department of State?
Yes, he juggled oranges on stage, and put it in his DOS online bio. Now my coworker, distinctly NOT a hippy, is about to call him. They put his phone number on the website, that's their fault.
Yes, he juggled oranges on stage, and put it in his DOS online bio. Now my coworker, distinctly NOT a hippy, is about to call him. They put his phone number on the website, that's their fault.
Monday, March 07, 2005
I Heart Zora
I don't know what is more renewing than a Zora Neale Hurston Story. I got reminded of this watching the TV production of Their Eyes Were Watching God last night. The morals to her stories just feed the soul, they do.
You can see the picture that I saw on a poster in a grade school classroom that fascinated me so much I starting researching her and reading her books on this Florida Hall of Fame site. I love that shit-eating grin. Alas, the Hurston Museum site -- linked there -- doesn't function very well.
I was and remain amazed that I never crossed paths with her until randomly being captivated by a classroom poster, years after leaving Vassar with an English degree. I found that she had many of my same passions, and was also what some might call a witch. I think you can read "Their Eyes" as a lesson in how every woman needs to be accountable to herself for her own happiness. The deliberate, informed nature of all of the heroine's choices -- to take risks for her own joy -- is what makes it a witchy for me.
Let me direct your attention to a past blog entry related to Zora-- from the week I was celebrating Undead Americans.
I don't know what is more renewing than a Zora Neale Hurston Story. I got reminded of this watching the TV production of Their Eyes Were Watching God last night. The morals to her stories just feed the soul, they do.
You can see the picture that I saw on a poster in a grade school classroom that fascinated me so much I starting researching her and reading her books on this Florida Hall of Fame site. I love that shit-eating grin. Alas, the Hurston Museum site -- linked there -- doesn't function very well.
I was and remain amazed that I never crossed paths with her until randomly being captivated by a classroom poster, years after leaving Vassar with an English degree. I found that she had many of my same passions, and was also what some might call a witch. I think you can read "Their Eyes" as a lesson in how every woman needs to be accountable to herself for her own happiness. The deliberate, informed nature of all of the heroine's choices -- to take risks for her own joy -- is what makes it a witchy for me.
Let me direct your attention to a past blog entry related to Zora-- from the week I was celebrating Undead Americans.
Friday, March 04, 2005
A Freed Hostage Nearly Dies Under US Fire
I was going to write today about the delight of having a friend recently "come out" as some kind of non-heterosexual, and the interesting conversations we've been having. I was also going to write about brewing some tea that I bought in 1989 in Moscow, and maybe even tell the story of how the USSR came on to my radar when I was a wee teen. But THIS disgrace has emptied my mind of other, more pleasant subjects.
Was the driver afraid we were trying to re-kidnap her? Did he panic? Did we really warn them? Boggles the mind.
I was going to write today about the delight of having a friend recently "come out" as some kind of non-heterosexual, and the interesting conversations we've been having. I was also going to write about brewing some tea that I bought in 1989 in Moscow, and maybe even tell the story of how the USSR came on to my radar when I was a wee teen. But THIS disgrace has emptied my mind of other, more pleasant subjects.
Was the driver afraid we were trying to re-kidnap her? Did he panic? Did we really warn them? Boggles the mind.
Monday, February 21, 2005
In Honor of Presidents' Day, I'm Going to Interview my Cat About the Word Lesbian
A women's studies professor friend has asked me to think about the usefulness - or lack thereof - of the word Lesbian.
I can't think of a way to make this more interesting than by putting some socratic questions to my cat, Dasha. She is a stripey tabby girlcat with more than enough brains to figure this one out.
S.S.: So, Dasha, why does sexual orientation need labeling?
D: (Sitting on the computer monitor, facing me) This spot is nice and warm, and might put me to sleep. I hope you don't mind. Now, as Allah says, we have names so that we might better know eachother. If people feel like they need a label so you'll know something important about them (like gender, sexual orientation, or style of stripes), then more power to them. A true tabby has circular stripes on her flanks, which you'll note that I have. If I want people to know this about myself, I call myself a tabby. If I don't, then I call myself "gray" or "tiger."
S.S.: The US anti-oppression movement of the turn of the milennium encompasses a broad range of young people's issues, which go far beyond sexual orientation. If labels are for knowing eachother, and people find other ways to self-identify besides sexual orientation more important (like single/ not-single, poor/ not-poor, punk/ geek/ nerd, unconventional/ within-the-system, Marxist/ Anarchist/ Communist), why do the activists of the 60's feel betrayed by the way "lesbian" has fallen into disuse? Isn't it just a matter of empowering people where they feel disempowered, and not about defending one term from obscurity?
D: (Turning to listen better to the sound of someone dumping their trash in the alley outside my apartment) If I had a catnip mouse for every time someone asked me that. We sort ourselves every day, but often do it without examining the history of the terms we use to do the self-sorting. Or, sometimes, even examining our own personal histories -- and if the ways we self-sort are really accurate. I, for one, consider myself intelligent, but I could allow that my lack of an opposable thumb
and therefore ability to type or hold a pencil and therefore score highly on any standardized tests makes me NOT "intelligent" but maybe rather an "intellectual." I like "intellectual" better, now that I think of it, since it takes power away from those people who measure things like IQ, and height, incessantly.
Anyway. Intellectuals stare squinty-eyed out at the universe and decide their place in it. So do activists. Naturally, young women who love women turning to another word for self-identification is threatening to people for whom the old label "lesbian" still has positive charge. But the people for whom it still has charge-- not all 60's activists, mind you, but international activists who find its clarity of meaning, translatability, and sexy Greek roots appealing-- need to do a better job at dissecting the power of the word and sharing their findings with the young women who eschew it. Without that understanding, women are going to continue to use niche terms like "polybiflexible" or "queer grrrl" - which might serve to best identify them to themselves, but does it really help the people who they want to know them to (in fact) KNOW them? What about that sexy Greek exchange student?
They need to learn the skills of self-reflection to know who they are (first) and also the meanings of the terms they use in a larger context than, say, their campus or girl-clique. "Lesbian" has that broad accessiblity, offers a big umbrella under which sexually-different women have always found some quarter (if only to use the word to thwart interested gentlemen). Buddha says gender is an illusion and sexual desire is an attachment that obscures truth, anyway. Did I answer the questions? I'm a little distracted by the alley pigeons. No, wait, that's just a reflection.
S.S.: Sure, sure, close enough. Young women need tools of analysis more than dictation of what terms are best and most powerful. But "lesbian" does something that those "niche terms" don't do-- it thingafies gender and sexuality in one fell swoop, without allowing for that gray zone that we now can explore with a wealth of new terminology, new theories, new spheres of education dealing with sexuality and gender-- spheres that-- by the way-- are getting farther and farther apart the more we advance into their subdermal meanings. Isn't it too specific? Too rigid to empower young women who are just coming out? Who don't want to call themselves something that-- also by the way-- sounds like a kind of disease, or a person from a middle-eastern country?
D: After this answer I really have to sleep. This computer monitor is just HEAVENLY. You are NEVER getting a flat screen, not on my watch. So, with "Women's Studies" turning into "Gender Studies" and "Lesbian Studies" turning into "Alternative Sexualities" the historically-stigmatized words that invoke society's second-class people--women/ women-loving-women-- are becoming re-marginalized, and might again become used as diagnostic-- not social empowerment-- terms. Aren't young lesbians-- however they call themselves, if they are persecuted under law in some countries it won't be for queer-grrlism, but lesbianism-- losing out on a "safe space" where they could DO that analysis and-- hopefully-- from there learn what other factors marginalize people, especially single women, poor women, sex-workers, etc.? Doesn't "lesbian" still have the force to clear out that safe space for dialogue? Its historical weight doesn't go away with fashion, or with the fear of its stigma (whether that of the right or the left)-- making it invisible makes the history less visible. If anything, keeping "Lesbian Studies" but having the whole first month of study be discussing the historical and present -- national US and international-- usage of the word "lesbian" is in order. MORE focus on the word, not the deletion of the word. In the less-public (than a university catalogue) class room you can choose to abandon the word, but young women who refuse to take a class because it's not "Queer Grrrl Studies" don't have the patience to learn history anyway.
S.S.: Isn't that a little flip? A little ageist?
D: I'm going on six years old what do you want me to say? Run along my little pretties, call yourselves whatever you want? Everyone will just figure out that you're lesbians eventually? Unless of course you change gender and all become straight men?
S.S.: Now you are getting transphobic. You take your nap, I'll get back to you later.
To be continued...
A women's studies professor friend has asked me to think about the usefulness - or lack thereof - of the word Lesbian.
I can't think of a way to make this more interesting than by putting some socratic questions to my cat, Dasha. She is a stripey tabby girlcat with more than enough brains to figure this one out.
S.S.: So, Dasha, why does sexual orientation need labeling?
D: (Sitting on the computer monitor, facing me) This spot is nice and warm, and might put me to sleep. I hope you don't mind. Now, as Allah says, we have names so that we might better know eachother. If people feel like they need a label so you'll know something important about them (like gender, sexual orientation, or style of stripes), then more power to them. A true tabby has circular stripes on her flanks, which you'll note that I have. If I want people to know this about myself, I call myself a tabby. If I don't, then I call myself "gray" or "tiger."
S.S.: The US anti-oppression movement of the turn of the milennium encompasses a broad range of young people's issues, which go far beyond sexual orientation. If labels are for knowing eachother, and people find other ways to self-identify besides sexual orientation more important (like single/ not-single, poor/ not-poor, punk/ geek/ nerd, unconventional/ within-the-system, Marxist/ Anarchist/ Communist), why do the activists of the 60's feel betrayed by the way "lesbian" has fallen into disuse? Isn't it just a matter of empowering people where they feel disempowered, and not about defending one term from obscurity?
D: (Turning to listen better to the sound of someone dumping their trash in the alley outside my apartment) If I had a catnip mouse for every time someone asked me that. We sort ourselves every day, but often do it without examining the history of the terms we use to do the self-sorting. Or, sometimes, even examining our own personal histories -- and if the ways we self-sort are really accurate. I, for one, consider myself intelligent, but I could allow that my lack of an opposable thumb
and therefore ability to type or hold a pencil and therefore score highly on any standardized tests makes me NOT "intelligent" but maybe rather an "intellectual." I like "intellectual" better, now that I think of it, since it takes power away from those people who measure things like IQ, and height, incessantly.
Anyway. Intellectuals stare squinty-eyed out at the universe and decide their place in it. So do activists. Naturally, young women who love women turning to another word for self-identification is threatening to people for whom the old label "lesbian" still has positive charge. But the people for whom it still has charge-- not all 60's activists, mind you, but international activists who find its clarity of meaning, translatability, and sexy Greek roots appealing-- need to do a better job at dissecting the power of the word and sharing their findings with the young women who eschew it. Without that understanding, women are going to continue to use niche terms like "polybiflexible" or "queer grrrl" - which might serve to best identify them to themselves, but does it really help the people who they want to know them to (in fact) KNOW them? What about that sexy Greek exchange student?
They need to learn the skills of self-reflection to know who they are (first) and also the meanings of the terms they use in a larger context than, say, their campus or girl-clique. "Lesbian" has that broad accessiblity, offers a big umbrella under which sexually-different women have always found some quarter (if only to use the word to thwart interested gentlemen). Buddha says gender is an illusion and sexual desire is an attachment that obscures truth, anyway. Did I answer the questions? I'm a little distracted by the alley pigeons. No, wait, that's just a reflection.
S.S.: Sure, sure, close enough. Young women need tools of analysis more than dictation of what terms are best and most powerful. But "lesbian" does something that those "niche terms" don't do-- it thingafies gender and sexuality in one fell swoop, without allowing for that gray zone that we now can explore with a wealth of new terminology, new theories, new spheres of education dealing with sexuality and gender-- spheres that-- by the way-- are getting farther and farther apart the more we advance into their subdermal meanings. Isn't it too specific? Too rigid to empower young women who are just coming out? Who don't want to call themselves something that-- also by the way-- sounds like a kind of disease, or a person from a middle-eastern country?
D: After this answer I really have to sleep. This computer monitor is just HEAVENLY. You are NEVER getting a flat screen, not on my watch. So, with "Women's Studies" turning into "Gender Studies" and "Lesbian Studies" turning into "Alternative Sexualities" the historically-stigmatized words that invoke society's second-class people--women/ women-loving-women-- are becoming re-marginalized, and might again become used as diagnostic-- not social empowerment-- terms. Aren't young lesbians-- however they call themselves, if they are persecuted under law in some countries it won't be for queer-grrlism, but lesbianism-- losing out on a "safe space" where they could DO that analysis and-- hopefully-- from there learn what other factors marginalize people, especially single women, poor women, sex-workers, etc.? Doesn't "lesbian" still have the force to clear out that safe space for dialogue? Its historical weight doesn't go away with fashion, or with the fear of its stigma (whether that of the right or the left)-- making it invisible makes the history less visible. If anything, keeping "Lesbian Studies" but having the whole first month of study be discussing the historical and present -- national US and international-- usage of the word "lesbian" is in order. MORE focus on the word, not the deletion of the word. In the less-public (than a university catalogue) class room you can choose to abandon the word, but young women who refuse to take a class because it's not "Queer Grrrl Studies" don't have the patience to learn history anyway.
S.S.: Isn't that a little flip? A little ageist?
D: I'm going on six years old what do you want me to say? Run along my little pretties, call yourselves whatever you want? Everyone will just figure out that you're lesbians eventually? Unless of course you change gender and all become straight men?
S.S.: Now you are getting transphobic. You take your nap, I'll get back to you later.
To be continued...
Friday, February 18, 2005
To Brighten Your Friday: The Charming Somerville Gates
As much as I would like to highlight the Poopatorium Gates photo from the Somerville Gates, just for the fact that I think it features a hand-crafted litter box made of - I think - ash or cherry wood, my coworker and I have to say that the Tub Gates photo is our favorite.
For people stumbling upon this from outside the information highway or from inside a cave, The Gates (by Ikea, as Jon Stewart put it) is what those clever Somerville people are alluding to.
As much as I would like to highlight the Poopatorium Gates photo from the Somerville Gates, just for the fact that I think it features a hand-crafted litter box made of - I think - ash or cherry wood, my coworker and I have to say that the Tub Gates photo is our favorite.
For people stumbling upon this from outside the information highway or from inside a cave, The Gates (by Ikea, as Jon Stewart put it) is what those clever Somerville people are alluding to.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
What Fun, this Gannongate
Amoral queer sex-workin' capitalist Dem-attacker quits the White House Press Corps amid a brouhaha; John Aravosis' Ameriblog comments--
Here is the Feb. 10 CNN article, which plays up "Gannon's" resignation from the conservative Talon, and sadly skips the porn website angle. Never mind that, The Washington Post goes where CNN fears to tread. Yeah, Post, you just had to drop in a Deep Throat allusion, didn't you.
Amoral queer sex-workin' capitalist Dem-attacker quits the White House Press Corps amid a brouhaha; John Aravosis' Ameriblog comments--
Here is the Feb. 10 CNN article, which plays up "Gannon's" resignation from the conservative Talon, and sadly skips the porn website angle. Never mind that, The Washington Post goes where CNN fears to tread. Yeah, Post, you just had to drop in a Deep Throat allusion, didn't you.
Friday, February 11, 2005
The Fishes Really Are Lke The Traffics
I'm finding myself in the "Shark Tale" Pixaresque scene of street traffic as schools of fish swimming by... Today I spent the afternoon at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (being a guide to a local visiting-from-Russia former-prisoner-of-conscience environmental celebrity, Grigoriy Pasko) and got into my head all these images of fish swimming in neatly-kept schools crisscrossing and whatnot, which bled all into the long drive thither and back, and then walking on the street tonight in San Francisco... After an evening of whale-related informational discussion and drinking beer with some shark and whale and manatees specialists, Market Street traffic starting looking verrry fishy to me... those sunfish are almost the size of a VW, you know.
You'll be happy to know the Great White girlshark in their outer bay aquarium is still kicking it there at the top of the indoor water-column. Hasn't eaten anyone (important) yet.
I'm finding myself in the "Shark Tale" Pixaresque scene of street traffic as schools of fish swimming by... Today I spent the afternoon at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (being a guide to a local visiting-from-Russia former-prisoner-of-conscience environmental celebrity, Grigoriy Pasko) and got into my head all these images of fish swimming in neatly-kept schools crisscrossing and whatnot, which bled all into the long drive thither and back, and then walking on the street tonight in San Francisco... After an evening of whale-related informational discussion and drinking beer with some shark and whale and manatees specialists, Market Street traffic starting looking verrry fishy to me... those sunfish are almost the size of a VW, you know.
You'll be happy to know the Great White girlshark in their outer bay aquarium is still kicking it there at the top of the indoor water-column. Hasn't eaten anyone (important) yet.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
When Even the Economists Say We're Becoming a Police State
... maybe it's really time to worry.
"Commodity economies are typically not a pretty sight."
... maybe it's really time to worry.
"Commodity economies are typically not a pretty sight."
Friday, February 04, 2005
Basic Life Skills, Circa 1978
I was just a few posts back there revealing how I have maintained a thin layer of tapes insulating my apartment from all the blustery changes in the music-listening-industry outside.
I made a tape from the Gillian Welch and Freakwater CDs of my oh-so-more-modern friend La (I should say, more technologically advanced, since her cyborgian accoutrements have included personal organizer devices that you wear on your hip, and which have steady red blinking lights like the eye of HAL, and that call you at home when she sits down on them-- but for the main she is known in the world as an Old Time banjoist, not a cyborg).
Well, I keep that tape in my car, and it sort of lives there, as back-up to my 12-CD changer full of bellydance music, girl-power rock, and the upbeat-for-Russians music of Linda and Zemfira. My personal failsafe: In Case of Need to Cry, Hit CASSETTE. Well, this morning I needed to cry. Not Freakwater cry, just Gillian Welch "Orphan Girl" cry. I had been listening to the radio, and the Beatles "Across the Universe" had come on, and I had just gotten out of therapy where I was talking about my dad who yesterday got on the other side of a 2nd-in-the-last-six-months brush with death. On rainy Saturdays my sister and I used to play all his Beatles on vinyl. He even took us to see Yellow Submarine in a real theater when I was really too small to understand. So after that song brought me to the tears that I'd been bottling up, I needed to hear some really good cry music.
I pressed play, and it was on the Freakwater end of things. Suddenly, reloading an obscure 1978 setting in my brain, I thought "I need to flip it." You know. Like vinyl. I took out the tape and flipped it. It was still playing Freakwater. I stopped it. Tried changing sides again. Freakwater. I turned it off. I was staring at the dashboard, about to just have a silent frustration cry instead of a good sad-singing-person cry when I remembered you have to fast forward through the half you don't want to hear.
That's right, I
I was just a few posts back there revealing how I have maintained a thin layer of tapes insulating my apartment from all the blustery changes in the music-listening-industry outside.
I made a tape from the Gillian Welch and Freakwater CDs of my oh-so-more-modern friend La (I should say, more technologically advanced, since her cyborgian accoutrements have included personal organizer devices that you wear on your hip, and which have steady red blinking lights like the eye of HAL, and that call you at home when she sits down on them-- but for the main she is known in the world as an Old Time banjoist, not a cyborg).
Well, I keep that tape in my car, and it sort of lives there, as back-up to my 12-CD changer full of bellydance music, girl-power rock, and the upbeat-for-Russians music of Linda and Zemfira. My personal failsafe: In Case of Need to Cry, Hit CASSETTE. Well, this morning I needed to cry. Not Freakwater cry, just Gillian Welch "Orphan Girl" cry. I had been listening to the radio, and the Beatles "Across the Universe" had come on, and I had just gotten out of therapy where I was talking about my dad who yesterday got on the other side of a 2nd-in-the-last-six-months brush with death. On rainy Saturdays my sister and I used to play all his Beatles on vinyl. He even took us to see Yellow Submarine in a real theater when I was really too small to understand. So after that song brought me to the tears that I'd been bottling up, I needed to hear some really good cry music.
I pressed play, and it was on the Freakwater end of things. Suddenly, reloading an obscure 1978 setting in my brain, I thought "I need to flip it." You know. Like vinyl. I took out the tape and flipped it. It was still playing Freakwater. I stopped it. Tried changing sides again. Freakwater. I turned it off. I was staring at the dashboard, about to just have a silent frustration cry instead of a good sad-singing-person cry when I remembered you have to fast forward through the half you don't want to hear.
That's right, I
(1) forgot how a cassette works,
(2) actually thought it worked like a record, and, more amazingly,
(3) still don't have EITHER of these two albums, or anything by Gillian Welch or Freakwater, on CD.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Rock Mommies: "Eat Your Damn Spaggheti"
Pregnancy has definitely gone in a different direction with my generation. I have one good friend who is a woman in a pregnancy and in a lesbian relationship, and the other day we were talking about the sperm donor shopping experience. You pay more for people with degrees. I think of all the dickwads I knew at my high-priced college, and shudder. The niceness guage just doesn't add up to bucks. Can you imagine being a discount sperm donor? That has become one of my favorites on my "list of potential band names," by the way. The Discount Sperm Donors.
Now I find out that there are ladies in my Oakland who have formed a band called Placenta. USA Today mentions them in this article (where you can also read about the mommy-rock-band Housewives on Prozac who sings "Eat Your Damn Spaggheti").
My good friend Preggers tells me that her good friend who is as pregnant as she is (and also a dyke) is sick of the feminisation of the pregnancy process. She calls her situation "hosting," and her pregnancy clothes "hosting gear." A case of morning sickness is being "on the rocks." I'm glad baby-bearing among my peers is so edgy.
For some other serious post-rocker MommyCore you have to also look out for the new Beth Lisick book, which is going to be her best ever. I got to hear some of her soon-to-be-published stories the other day at a reading in SF. She doesn't comb her baby Gus' hair because she just couldn't cope with the screaming and she heard "it eventually falls out."
Pregnancy has definitely gone in a different direction with my generation. I have one good friend who is a woman in a pregnancy and in a lesbian relationship, and the other day we were talking about the sperm donor shopping experience. You pay more for people with degrees. I think of all the dickwads I knew at my high-priced college, and shudder. The niceness guage just doesn't add up to bucks. Can you imagine being a discount sperm donor? That has become one of my favorites on my "list of potential band names," by the way. The Discount Sperm Donors.
Now I find out that there are ladies in my Oakland who have formed a band called Placenta. USA Today mentions them in this article (where you can also read about the mommy-rock-band Housewives on Prozac who sings "Eat Your Damn Spaggheti").
My good friend Preggers tells me that her good friend who is as pregnant as she is (and also a dyke) is sick of the feminisation of the pregnancy process. She calls her situation "hosting," and her pregnancy clothes "hosting gear." A case of morning sickness is being "on the rocks." I'm glad baby-bearing among my peers is so edgy.
For some other serious post-rocker MommyCore you have to also look out for the new Beth Lisick book, which is going to be her best ever. I got to hear some of her soon-to-be-published stories the other day at a reading in SF. She doesn't comb her baby Gus' hair because she just couldn't cope with the screaming and she heard "it eventually falls out."
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
And Another Thing About Crossworders
They... we... are a bunch of cheaters! I went on the NYT site last night to try my hand at that timed puzzle nonsense again, and felt pretty good about finishing the Tuesday puzzle in just over an hour. I thought I would see how I measured up against the other subscribers, and there was one liar who said s/he finished it in two minutes. There is no way. That cheater downloaded the puzzle, filled it out, and then typed as fast as possible to get it entered under two minutes. If you did it HONESTLY, two minutes isn't enough time to read all the clues and type in the answers, even if you were that smart.
Now, I am not going to say I don't use my NYT crossword dictionary, or my regular dictionary, or Google, or this cheater's website (I was scandalized at its existence, I must say-- that was a long time ago, at least two weeks), but I am a weak person. I am ONLY thirty-one, and I am NOT -- as some have suggested-- some kind of international 411 with all the names, dates, and quotes from international heads of state memorized. I need these crutches. But who am I to look up to? Who will be my model of crossword integrity, with people like "colliesiii" cheating their way to the top of the NYT timed crossword competition? I tell you, it's a dark day for humanity when all the smart people turn out to just be CHEATERS.
They... we... are a bunch of cheaters! I went on the NYT site last night to try my hand at that timed puzzle nonsense again, and felt pretty good about finishing the Tuesday puzzle in just over an hour. I thought I would see how I measured up against the other subscribers, and there was one liar who said s/he finished it in two minutes. There is no way. That cheater downloaded the puzzle, filled it out, and then typed as fast as possible to get it entered under two minutes. If you did it HONESTLY, two minutes isn't enough time to read all the clues and type in the answers, even if you were that smart.
Now, I am not going to say I don't use my NYT crossword dictionary, or my regular dictionary, or Google, or this cheater's website (I was scandalized at its existence, I must say-- that was a long time ago, at least two weeks), but I am a weak person. I am ONLY thirty-one, and I am NOT -- as some have suggested-- some kind of international 411 with all the names, dates, and quotes from international heads of state memorized. I need these crutches. But who am I to look up to? Who will be my model of crossword integrity, with people like "colliesiii" cheating their way to the top of the NYT timed crossword competition? I tell you, it's a dark day for humanity when all the smart people turn out to just be CHEATERS.
Monday, January 31, 2005
I Aver the Idee
That Doing Crosswords Doesn't Make One a Snob
And so also says this Columbia News Service article:
So I stayed up late enough Sunday night to think that doing the Monday NYT puzzle in a competitive, timed on-line format was a better idea than figuring out how to download the puzzle with Firefox to work on it later. So I have a problem with the boxes. So what. I will catch up on my sleep when I'm old and senile.
That Doing Crosswords Doesn't Make One a Snob
And so also says this Columbia News Service article:
- Another peculiarity of the crossword puzzle phenomenon, according to a Random House spokesperson, is the profile of a typical crossword puzzler. People who buy the puzzles span both educational and economic background. A passion for playing with language and the thrill of filling in the white boxes seems to be the only common denominator.
So I stayed up late enough Sunday night to think that doing the Monday NYT puzzle in a competitive, timed on-line format was a better idea than figuring out how to download the puzzle with Firefox to work on it later. So I have a problem with the boxes. So what. I will catch up on my sleep when I'm old and senile.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU:
A Dog and Dolphin Hero Tale
From a New Zealand newspaper, The Timaru Herald.
A Dog and Dolphin Hero Tale
From a New Zealand newspaper, The Timaru Herald.
January 18, 2005
Timaru, New Zealand- Dean Gibson can tell the ultimate fisherman's story -- the one about his drowning dog and the dolphin.
The almost unbelievable, but true, canine adventure took place at the Opihi River mouth a week ago when Dean and his mate Craig Woodnorth went to the river for a spot of salmon fishing one evening.
With the pair was Dean's seven-month-old german wirehaired pointer Heidi.
The men were fishing on the south bank of the mouth when a wave came in over the spit and washed Heidi into the river.
The river was still running high from heavy rain. Dean stripped off intending to jump in and get her, but Heidi was swept out through the mouth too quickly for him to do so.
He saw her flipped over in several waves before her head finally came up and she started swimming out to sea in the strong current.
'I rang (helicopter pilot) Sandy Jamieson,' Dean said, explaining how he was hoping Mr Jamieson might be able to lower a bucket under the chopper and scoop Heidi up. He wasn't home so that plan never eventuated.
As he rang his wife Janine with the bad news, he was watching Heidi through his binoculars. She was just a dot swimming lower and lower in the water.
Dean saw a fin and relayed the bad news to Janine that there was a shark beside Heidi. Another look and he realised the fin belonged to a dolphin.
What happened next stunned the two fishermen. The dolphin appeared to swim in front of Heidi making her turn towards the shore. It then swam nearby, rising out of the water a couple of times. Dean can't help but wonder if it was checking to make sure Heidi was still swimming in the right direction.
Even with the help from the dolphin it still took her close to half an hour to get back into the beach, finally coming ashore about one kilometre south of the river mouth.
A wave dumped her back on the beach.
'She shook herself, spun around, and was pretty pleased to see us,' Dean said.
'It was a big swim for a wee dog.'
Yet the adventure didn't slow her down. Minutes later she was chasing seagulls.
Even a week after the incident Dean finds it amazing.
'It blew me away. It makes you wonder if the dolphin knew she was in a bit of a predicament.'
At this time of year Dean fishes at the mouth a couple of times a week.
While he often sees dolphins there he has never heard of a dolphin rescue in the area before.
Whangarei diver, author and dolphin enthusiast Wade Doak wasn't at all surprised to hear Heidi's story. While he couldn't recall yesterday any other cases of dogs being rescued by dolphins, he could offer a whole filing drawer of stories involving dogs and dolphins.
In an incident in Marseilles, France, a dolphin used to bang its tail on the water near a fish canning factory when it wanted the two dogs that lived there to play with her. The dogs would leap into the water and the dolphin would then tease them by swimming around and under them. On one occasion the dogs did catch the dolphin, but didn't hurt her.
He also has notes on a dolphin called Aihe which used to live at Takaka. It always wanted dogs to swim out to sea, although the pets' owners usually stopped the adventures.
Dr Liz Slooten, a marine mammal scientist at Otago University, has been studying dolphins for 20 years but had never heard of a dolphin helping another animal until yesterday. But it didn't surprise her.
'We do it to other animals,' she said, suggesting that the dolphin would have been well aware Heidi was in trouble. As she was not a threat to the dolphin it was willing to help her.
'Humans are not unique in helping other species.'
Friday, January 21, 2005
A Very Unexciting Blog Entry About Music
...and a little aside about a big protest
I have been tagged by La to fill out this music survey on this, my blog. I hope you enjoy it.
1. What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
I do not know, but it isn't much. I was late leaving the cozy nest of the cassette tapes (with my collection now lining the edges of my apartment), and still therefore insist on having a stereo set-up in my car that has radio, CD and tape deck. I have had to replace it or componants of it damaged or stolen about four or five times, but I can't do without my tape collection. I recently bought some damn new-fangled "personal jukebox" MP3 player from iRiver for too much money and it annoys me almost as much as I enjoy it. I have nearly thrown it in my beloved Lake Merritt numerous times, accidently pushing "record" or "off" (sometimes first one and then the other, and then the 30 second shut-down and 30 second restart...) while trying to switch between radio and MP3 modes. Stupid stupid stupid interface.
2. The CD you last bought is:
I just re-bought Fiona Apple "When the Pawn" - one of my favorite driving-around albums, stolen in my most recent car burglary.
Can I just say that the new Battlestar Gallactica is reminding me of Twin Peaks? A sci-fi Twin Peaks. With a more traditional doom-laden soundtrack. And a few hottie girls with guns. The blonde hottie fighter pilot is like the log lady, with a cigar.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
Something in the car... what was it... I was listening to Bedouin music from an album called "Apocalypse Across the Sky," and then switched to a different CD in the changer... Tori Amos? Kate Bush? Ah, yes. Paula Cole. I was just listening to "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" by Paula Cole.
4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
I've had "Down to the River" sung by Alison Krauss stuck in my head a lot lately.
I hit some button on my iRiver thing that put the damn thing on "repeat track" (probably hitting "record," and then "off" and then "play" again -- the record button is the way to change a lot of settings, depending on how long you hold it down, including the "shuffle" and "repeat" settings), and I did it with O Brother Where Art Thou's "You Are My Sunshine" playing. So THAT got stuck in my head for a while. Alison K's song is the one on after that one, and my head naturally goes to the next song, so they've both been stuck in my head a lot lately.
So that's two. I absolutely love this CD some bellydancing teacher mixed from vinyl that's full of Turkish Roma (Gypsy) dance songs. I'm not sure where it is, but when I find it, I will burn it and listen to it all the time on my iRiver. It's all 7/8 or 9/8. There is a song on it with an unknown artist and unknown album called "Lady Yelling." I love most everything on that CD so I'll just leave that as number three. There's another dance CD that I listen to ALL the time: "Gypsy Caravan" from the Putomayo series. I did a solo at the Rakkasah bellydance festival last year to the first track: Divi Divi, So Kerdjan. I may do that solo again at a couple venues next month, I liked it so much. I don't do songs twice. That is four.
OK, for number five... I love Patty Griffin- especially her first two albums. But I can't really pick a song. I've been listening a lot to the one album of Sweet 75, the little-known project of Yva Los Vegas and Nirvana's Krist Novoselic. But another candidate for number five is the song by Wild Colonials that I've been repeating (the hard way, since when I want to I can't figure out how to INTENTIONALLY set the iRiver on repeat) their song "Charm," which is fabulous. Soaring rock violin, and that lead singer Angela McCluskey's huge alto rock voice... But for number five let's do "Elenke" by Charming Hostess-- the old ChoHo, not the new ChoHo, with that hot violinist Carla Kihlstedt. I miss the old ChoHo. They only did that one fabulous album, "Eat."
Now, in retrospect, I have a regret. I wish I'd made number five the sad "Winter Song" by the Crash Test Dummies. That song reminds me of many good times gone by, and sad times that I don't miss. Listening to that song I'm again standing at a window looking at a deep, frozen woods, in the house of a dear friend who is no longer a friend, watching the pale winter sun steal away. There's a lot of silence, and space, and room to forgive in the long distances of the place where I'm from. That song seems to hold that thought.
5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
I don't do "chains" for anything. I long ago let go of the fear of karmic retaliation for not sending friends chain-questionnaires or political e-petitions or what-have-you. When I get them, I usually respond, but the one or two friends who send them to me are the only ones I would send such things to, and I don't think you're supposed to just send them back whence they came.
That said, these past few days and the next little while I'm very absorbed in building this website that documents the happenings around a big ongoing oil company protest by indigenous people on the Russian island of Sakhalin. They are very hearty souls, blocking trucks with picket lines and bonfires in 30 below CELSIUS (with windchill) conditions.
...and a little aside about a big protest
I have been tagged by La to fill out this music survey on this, my blog. I hope you enjoy it.
1. What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
I do not know, but it isn't much. I was late leaving the cozy nest of the cassette tapes (with my collection now lining the edges of my apartment), and still therefore insist on having a stereo set-up in my car that has radio, CD and tape deck. I have had to replace it or componants of it damaged or stolen about four or five times, but I can't do without my tape collection. I recently bought some damn new-fangled "personal jukebox" MP3 player from iRiver for too much money and it annoys me almost as much as I enjoy it. I have nearly thrown it in my beloved Lake Merritt numerous times, accidently pushing "record" or "off" (sometimes first one and then the other, and then the 30 second shut-down and 30 second restart...) while trying to switch between radio and MP3 modes. Stupid stupid stupid interface.
2. The CD you last bought is:
I just re-bought Fiona Apple "When the Pawn" - one of my favorite driving-around albums, stolen in my most recent car burglary.
Can I just say that the new Battlestar Gallactica is reminding me of Twin Peaks? A sci-fi Twin Peaks. With a more traditional doom-laden soundtrack. And a few hottie girls with guns. The blonde hottie fighter pilot is like the log lady, with a cigar.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
Something in the car... what was it... I was listening to Bedouin music from an album called "Apocalypse Across the Sky," and then switched to a different CD in the changer... Tori Amos? Kate Bush? Ah, yes. Paula Cole. I was just listening to "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" by Paula Cole.
4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
I've had "Down to the River" sung by Alison Krauss stuck in my head a lot lately.
I hit some button on my iRiver thing that put the damn thing on "repeat track" (probably hitting "record," and then "off" and then "play" again -- the record button is the way to change a lot of settings, depending on how long you hold it down, including the "shuffle" and "repeat" settings), and I did it with O Brother Where Art Thou's "You Are My Sunshine" playing. So THAT got stuck in my head for a while. Alison K's song is the one on after that one, and my head naturally goes to the next song, so they've both been stuck in my head a lot lately.
So that's two. I absolutely love this CD some bellydancing teacher mixed from vinyl that's full of Turkish Roma (Gypsy) dance songs. I'm not sure where it is, but when I find it, I will burn it and listen to it all the time on my iRiver. It's all 7/8 or 9/8. There is a song on it with an unknown artist and unknown album called "Lady Yelling." I love most everything on that CD so I'll just leave that as number three. There's another dance CD that I listen to ALL the time: "Gypsy Caravan" from the Putomayo series. I did a solo at the Rakkasah bellydance festival last year to the first track: Divi Divi, So Kerdjan. I may do that solo again at a couple venues next month, I liked it so much. I don't do songs twice. That is four.
OK, for number five... I love Patty Griffin- especially her first two albums. But I can't really pick a song. I've been listening a lot to the one album of Sweet 75, the little-known project of Yva Los Vegas and Nirvana's Krist Novoselic. But another candidate for number five is the song by Wild Colonials that I've been repeating (the hard way, since when I want to I can't figure out how to INTENTIONALLY set the iRiver on repeat) their song "Charm," which is fabulous. Soaring rock violin, and that lead singer Angela McCluskey's huge alto rock voice... But for number five let's do "Elenke" by Charming Hostess-- the old ChoHo, not the new ChoHo, with that hot violinist Carla Kihlstedt. I miss the old ChoHo. They only did that one fabulous album, "Eat."
Now, in retrospect, I have a regret. I wish I'd made number five the sad "Winter Song" by the Crash Test Dummies. That song reminds me of many good times gone by, and sad times that I don't miss. Listening to that song I'm again standing at a window looking at a deep, frozen woods, in the house of a dear friend who is no longer a friend, watching the pale winter sun steal away. There's a lot of silence, and space, and room to forgive in the long distances of the place where I'm from. That song seems to hold that thought.
5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
I don't do "chains" for anything. I long ago let go of the fear of karmic retaliation for not sending friends chain-questionnaires or political e-petitions or what-have-you. When I get them, I usually respond, but the one or two friends who send them to me are the only ones I would send such things to, and I don't think you're supposed to just send them back whence they came.
That said, these past few days and the next little while I'm very absorbed in building this website that documents the happenings around a big ongoing oil company protest by indigenous people on the Russian island of Sakhalin. They are very hearty souls, blocking trucks with picket lines and bonfires in 30 below CELSIUS (with windchill) conditions.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
The God of Pants
I belong to a women witches' discussion list, and after some recent discussion I am in a quandry about magical ethics and "jailin' pants," or, as one put it "the low-riding gangstah leaning pants you either want to pull up or pull off" - the style that came from having your belt confiscated in jail. I'm not sure if anyone else is in this quandry, I get the list in digest format and kind of scan it, so I might be mixing up two threads. Well, I think it's a valid quandry anyway.
The basis for the quandry is this: one is not supposed to wish anything on anybody without that person's consent. As in, I will ask a friend with a broken arm if she wants me to do my mojo to ask for her quick healing. Usually the broken armed people say yes, but some people aren't comfortable with any kind of mojo being thrown at them, so the ethical thing to do is ask first, mojo later.
But one can't help it, can one, if one prays (as someone put it) to the God of Pants to make a passerby's droopy drawers stay up? Is this inflicting mojo on an unconsenting subject immoral? Or is it for the greater good?
And, just who is this God of Pants that we all know about but don't talk about?
All I know is that I am pleased with my new courdoroy stiped greenish-orangeish bell bottoms, and I hope the God of Pants is pleased too, and will grant me many years of stay-uppage-ness.
I belong to a women witches' discussion list, and after some recent discussion I am in a quandry about magical ethics and "jailin' pants," or, as one put it "the low-riding gangstah leaning pants you either want to pull up or pull off" - the style that came from having your belt confiscated in jail. I'm not sure if anyone else is in this quandry, I get the list in digest format and kind of scan it, so I might be mixing up two threads. Well, I think it's a valid quandry anyway.
The basis for the quandry is this: one is not supposed to wish anything on anybody without that person's consent. As in, I will ask a friend with a broken arm if she wants me to do my mojo to ask for her quick healing. Usually the broken armed people say yes, but some people aren't comfortable with any kind of mojo being thrown at them, so the ethical thing to do is ask first, mojo later.
But one can't help it, can one, if one prays (as someone put it) to the God of Pants to make a passerby's droopy drawers stay up? Is this inflicting mojo on an unconsenting subject immoral? Or is it for the greater good?
And, just who is this God of Pants that we all know about but don't talk about?
All I know is that I am pleased with my new courdoroy stiped greenish-orangeish bell bottoms, and I hope the God of Pants is pleased too, and will grant me many years of stay-uppage-ness.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
The Fuzzy Cute Pictures Continue
Still trying to wash out the post-tsunami image I unwittingly clicked on the other day, I am treating myself to a little internet stalking of the sugar glider.
I just found out, to my joy, that I know someone who has a 9-year-old sugar glider. She is scared of heights. The glider, I mean, not my friend. I wonder if catnip works on sugar gliders? I bet she'd fly then. I would if I were a stoned sugar glider, that's for sure.
Still trying to wash out the post-tsunami image I unwittingly clicked on the other day, I am treating myself to a little internet stalking of the sugar glider.
I just found out, to my joy, that I know someone who has a 9-year-old sugar glider. She is scared of heights. The glider, I mean, not my friend. I wonder if catnip works on sugar gliders? I bet she'd fly then. I would if I were a stoned sugar glider, that's for sure.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Images from Hell and Tequila
I have been thinking about a quote I read somewhere recently about how everything today is about commodifying sex and horror. I love a little bit of the thrill of the hunt for the gritty, so I do my share of clicking around the images of war and death. My voyeurism around news coverage of the tsunami wreckage has until now yielded rather chaste images of high aerial shots or home videos of the white line of the advancing wave on the horizon. 160,000 dead in a few minutes just doesn't make sense to me yet, so I keep clicking, but I just keep getting those extreme close-ups of faces of survivors or the geography-lesson images. I therefore wasn't hesitant to click on a coworker's attached images of "local photoes of tsunami's impact." He is a Chinese environmentalist working in China- China didn't have that direct an impact. I assumed it would be more nice aerial shots of beaches created where once there were none. The first and last image I opened was of a sunny scene of a dumpster filled with stiff, misshapen, brown bodies. Faces weren't visible. Legs were.
I immediately felt sick, and then did what my good friend La sometimes does-- inundates herself with images of cuteness. I went to Google image search and typed in "cute." THIS turned up among polar bear cubs and frogs and kittens. I am now officially traumatized.
I will now spend some time clicking around the more wholesome www.sashy.com/etc/cute in the hopes of purging these images.
This cat in a lime helmet helps.
I have been thinking about a quote I read somewhere recently about how everything today is about commodifying sex and horror. I love a little bit of the thrill of the hunt for the gritty, so I do my share of clicking around the images of war and death. My voyeurism around news coverage of the tsunami wreckage has until now yielded rather chaste images of high aerial shots or home videos of the white line of the advancing wave on the horizon. 160,000 dead in a few minutes just doesn't make sense to me yet, so I keep clicking, but I just keep getting those extreme close-ups of faces of survivors or the geography-lesson images. I therefore wasn't hesitant to click on a coworker's attached images of "local photoes of tsunami's impact." He is a Chinese environmentalist working in China- China didn't have that direct an impact. I assumed it would be more nice aerial shots of beaches created where once there were none. The first and last image I opened was of a sunny scene of a dumpster filled with stiff, misshapen, brown bodies. Faces weren't visible. Legs were.
I immediately felt sick, and then did what my good friend La sometimes does-- inundates herself with images of cuteness. I went to Google image search and typed in "cute." THIS turned up among polar bear cubs and frogs and kittens. I am now officially traumatized.
I will now spend some time clicking around the more wholesome www.sashy.com/etc/cute in the hopes of purging these images.
This cat in a lime helmet helps.
Monday, January 03, 2005
1. This is Too Depressing
From an anti-corruption mailing list:
This link to an article by journalist Phelim Kyne about corruption in the hardest-hit Indonesian province is a Yahoo link, so it will expire; for more info on the graft of aid money in Aceh, try the coverage bythe news portal Laksamana.net.
2. This Cheers Me Up
Geocaching.
From an anti-corruption mailing list:
- Report received from contact in Aceh [Dec. 29]:
Until today not a single grain of rice, not a drop of water from outside have reached Acheh, all stopped in Medan by the military who insist that the aid must be given to them to be distributed by them.
This link to an article by journalist Phelim Kyne about corruption in the hardest-hit Indonesian province is a Yahoo link, so it will expire; for more info on the graft of aid money in Aceh, try the coverage bythe news portal Laksamana.net.
2. This Cheers Me Up
Geocaching.
Monday, December 27, 2004
Life is a Drop...
There really are no words for it... a 500 mph instant muder-by-water of tens of thousands... one-third children... And it is even stranger to encounter this news from a place of 8 degrees Fahrenheit and an infinite unbroken mantle of snow here in Northern New York.
- Life is a drop of dew balanced on a blade of grass.
- Buddhist saying requoted in the CNN eyewitness accounts from the 26 December earthquake and tsunamis.
There really are no words for it... a 500 mph instant muder-by-water of tens of thousands... one-third children... And it is even stranger to encounter this news from a place of 8 degrees Fahrenheit and an infinite unbroken mantle of snow here in Northern New York.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
In my dream last night
I was in a ship with some group I was traveling with for work, i.e. Russian environmentalists, but we were in harbor. I remember enjoying using the word "harbor" in Russian (gaven') which declines rather beautifully on the tongue. It is featured in a lovely song "Arivaderci" by Zemfira (see above link under my obsessions), and after learning it in that song I rarely have a chance to use it. Anyhoo, that's how I know my trip was work-related. I also knew we weren't in Russia. Not because of the fact that it was a warm-water port, but because all the ships had "Ljubljana" scrawled on their sterns as their port of call. It was only this morning recounting the dream to a co-worker I realized that Ljubljana couldn't be any ship's port-of-call, since it is inland. So I think we were in port at Portoroz, or more probably Piran, a place that I think is magical and would like to go back to.
Anyway, the ship was huge. I remember enjoying a shower in a large bathroom while the ship rocked on the waves. I was running down the hall to the gym (in the hold of the ship, somehow) and was feeling really exhilerated about the upcoming trip out to sea.
I think that's a lovely way to enter the new season.
I was in a ship with some group I was traveling with for work, i.e. Russian environmentalists, but we were in harbor. I remember enjoying using the word "harbor" in Russian (gaven') which declines rather beautifully on the tongue. It is featured in a lovely song "Arivaderci" by Zemfira (see above link under my obsessions), and after learning it in that song I rarely have a chance to use it. Anyhoo, that's how I know my trip was work-related. I also knew we weren't in Russia. Not because of the fact that it was a warm-water port, but because all the ships had "Ljubljana" scrawled on their sterns as their port of call. It was only this morning recounting the dream to a co-worker I realized that Ljubljana couldn't be any ship's port-of-call, since it is inland. So I think we were in port at Portoroz, or more probably Piran, a place that I think is magical and would like to go back to.
Anyway, the ship was huge. I remember enjoying a shower in a large bathroom while the ship rocked on the waves. I was running down the hall to the gym (in the hold of the ship, somehow) and was feeling really exhilerated about the upcoming trip out to sea.
I think that's a lovely way to enter the new season.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Other Ways to Stalk My Hometown
I keep going back to look at that stubborn snow at the Old Forge covered bridge, wondering if we have snow like that in my hometown. So, I did some stalking. This guy's bird-feedercam looking out at Route 11 (or so it appears) about three miles north of my parents' house seems to confirm it.
I mentioned in my Old Forge blog the other day how beautiful the Tug Hill is. Here is a cam to prove it (a site with a mission also to prove the existence of sun dogs, a phenomenon I have been known to point out to people).
This "Adirondack" cam is, I think, right outside Paul Smith (the culinary institute in the woods)- so it has the snow, being the high ground that the flurries from the Great Lakes are aiming for when they swoop down from Canada. Keep in mind that the Adirondack Park is hyoooge. The south-east corner that most people know (Lake George, etc.) is populous and built-up compared to the poverty-stricken, wind-blown and undeveloped north-west section, nearest my home. The wind has done such a number on the Tug Hill side of the park that there is almost no soil on Tug Hill. You have to pour concrete to put in a fencepost. People in the city take concrete for granted. Where I am from, you take enough-soil-for-a-fencepost-hole for granted.
I keep going back to look at that stubborn snow at the Old Forge covered bridge, wondering if we have snow like that in my hometown. So, I did some stalking. This guy's bird-feedercam looking out at Route 11 (or so it appears) about three miles north of my parents' house seems to confirm it.
I mentioned in my Old Forge blog the other day how beautiful the Tug Hill is. Here is a cam to prove it (a site with a mission also to prove the existence of sun dogs, a phenomenon I have been known to point out to people).
This "Adirondack" cam is, I think, right outside Paul Smith (the culinary institute in the woods)- so it has the snow, being the high ground that the flurries from the Great Lakes are aiming for when they swoop down from Canada. Keep in mind that the Adirondack Park is hyoooge. The south-east corner that most people know (Lake George, etc.) is populous and built-up compared to the poverty-stricken, wind-blown and undeveloped north-west section, nearest my home. The wind has done such a number on the Tug Hill side of the park that there is almost no soil on Tug Hill. You have to pour concrete to put in a fencepost. People in the city take concrete for granted. Where I am from, you take enough-soil-for-a-fencepost-hole for granted.
Friday, December 17, 2004
My Poignant Moment of the Week
So, there's lots of things I've been meaning to blog about: my ongoing observation of the heron at my end of Lake Merritt, the preview I went to for A Series of Unfortunate Events (quickly: lesbian movie standard is met, Monty is the gay character, Klaus is the Jesus character), Dolly Parton, and Geocaching. However, this morning in a meeting a colleague who works in Paris told me to check out the great US apology page (for our recent election), and the World's apology-accepted page.
I know you all have probably known about those two pages for a while, since they have been up for a month now, which is 6 years in internet time. But I just discovered them, and it has me choked me up. The eyes peering out from the computer, sorry. Everyone, sorry. Everyone trying to find a place of acceptance of the reality of things, but where we can still hold our heads up and look eachother in the eye. It's heartening.
So, there's lots of things I've been meaning to blog about: my ongoing observation of the heron at my end of Lake Merritt, the preview I went to for A Series of Unfortunate Events (quickly: lesbian movie standard is met, Monty is the gay character, Klaus is the Jesus character), Dolly Parton, and Geocaching. However, this morning in a meeting a colleague who works in Paris told me to check out the great US apology page (for our recent election), and the World's apology-accepted page.
I know you all have probably known about those two pages for a while, since they have been up for a month now, which is 6 years in internet time. But I just discovered them, and it has me choked me up. The eyes peering out from the computer, sorry. Everyone, sorry. Everyone trying to find a place of acceptance of the reality of things, but where we can still hold our heads up and look eachother in the eye. It's heartening.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Old Forge Betrays its Fan Base
You've changed, man!
Your old webcam shot of the canoe put-in spot at the Moose River was so faaayn, I used to visit it and get all mellow. But now you've left it for the covered bridge shot. I can live, but I just wanted you to know, you used to be cool. Ducks, children playing, sunsets on the water... you don't share that with me now. Just that damned covered bridge.
Old Forge is 70 miles south (yes, south) east from the place where I lived from age 0 to 18. I monitor the webcam to see when it's getting dark, when the snow comes, when the ducks leave. My most vivid memory of Old Forge is at age 17 driving there with Pam, a girl I shared classes with from age 9 on. She was a slutty, smart-ass softball pitcher, and we took her Gremlin to see her horrible boyfriend. Their pet name for his penis was Snuffalupagus. We stopped in some gift shop and I shoplifted some pine-resin incense that I still like-- I burn it when I'm homesick. We stopped on the way home for strawberries some farm family was selling on the roadside. The tug hill was all blue on the horizon behind us. Summers at home are heavenly.
You've changed, man!
Your old webcam shot of the canoe put-in spot at the Moose River was so faaayn, I used to visit it and get all mellow. But now you've left it for the covered bridge shot. I can live, but I just wanted you to know, you used to be cool. Ducks, children playing, sunsets on the water... you don't share that with me now. Just that damned covered bridge.
Old Forge is 70 miles south (yes, south) east from the place where I lived from age 0 to 18. I monitor the webcam to see when it's getting dark, when the snow comes, when the ducks leave. My most vivid memory of Old Forge is at age 17 driving there with Pam, a girl I shared classes with from age 9 on. She was a slutty, smart-ass softball pitcher, and we took her Gremlin to see her horrible boyfriend. Their pet name for his penis was Snuffalupagus. We stopped in some gift shop and I shoplifted some pine-resin incense that I still like-- I burn it when I'm homesick. We stopped on the way home for strawberries some farm family was selling on the roadside. The tug hill was all blue on the horizon behind us. Summers at home are heavenly.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Why Am I in This Suitcase and Where are You Taking Me?
From a letter posted by Michael Moore on his website, making the entire US public into a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of GWB's government:
Are we packed separately, or we all in one handbasket?
From a letter posted by Michael Moore on his website, making the entire US public into a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of GWB's government:
- [Y]ou tell him to go to hell... then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you...
Are we packed separately, or we all in one handbasket?
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
A Sedate New Permutation of the Lesbian Avengers?
My Bay Area Sappho list (for LGBT women living in the Bay Area) had an announcement today of the revival of a group I never even knew about the first time-- the Artemis Volunteers. It sounds like the partially-assimilated post-entry-level Lesbian Avengers! In our heyday, the Avengers did some of its best work in San Francisco as part of a coalition, essentially putting our "hands to trouble" as it were, being warm bodies in an action or in support work which ultimately served all of those who are marginalized in society, not just women or lesbians.
Not that I need one more thing to do, but I see this as a positive response to the November elections. Gotta applaud them when you find 'em.
My Bay Area Sappho list (for LGBT women living in the Bay Area) had an announcement today of the revival of a group I never even knew about the first time-- the Artemis Volunteers. It sounds like the partially-assimilated post-entry-level Lesbian Avengers! In our heyday, the Avengers did some of its best work in San Francisco as part of a coalition, essentially putting our "hands to trouble" as it were, being warm bodies in an action or in support work which ultimately served all of those who are marginalized in society, not just women or lesbians.
Not that I need one more thing to do, but I see this as a positive response to the November elections. Gotta applaud them when you find 'em.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
A Near Brush With Obscurity
I don't know why, but today I was suddenly convinced my website was a) hosted by Geocities and b) that it had been deleted. By "my website" I mean my private personal collection of things that I don't subject you, my gentle blog reader, to.
Anyway, this confusion was resolved when (after I dried my tears) I Googled "yahoo + geocities + sucks" and found a page of links to Anti-Geocities and Anti-Yahoo sites --- hosted on * Angelfire *. Whereupon I remembered that I use Angelfire, too.
That tells you how often I update my site. Well, anyhoo, it lives. I am glad. Yay.
I don't know why, but today I was suddenly convinced my website was a) hosted by Geocities and b) that it had been deleted. By "my website" I mean my private personal collection of things that I don't subject you, my gentle blog reader, to.
Anyway, this confusion was resolved when (after I dried my tears) I Googled "yahoo + geocities + sucks" and found a page of links to Anti-Geocities and Anti-Yahoo sites --- hosted on * Angelfire *. Whereupon I remembered that I use Angelfire, too.
That tells you how often I update my site. Well, anyhoo, it lives. I am glad. Yay.
Friday, November 05, 2004
So, Slovenia Looks Good. Or Canada...
...until the Slovenians give me a work visa.
Read more about the noble Canadian effort to rescue liberals from our grim fate.
I was just in Alaska for ten days-- I can handle any weather the Canadians throw at me.
...until the Slovenians give me a work visa.
Read more about the noble Canadian effort to rescue liberals from our grim fate.
I was just in Alaska for ten days-- I can handle any weather the Canadians throw at me.
Friday, October 29, 2004
The Blended One
Eskimo fish ice cream!
Akutaq is "the blended one" in Eskimo Yu'pik language. They put up a sign at the Alaskan Federation of Natives conference-- across the street from the convention center-- some senate candidate's stump-- AKUTAQ 11:30-- the swarm could have stopped traffic (if there was traffic). People walked away with armloads of boxes of cups of the pink frothy yumminess. It is, actually, yummy, if made with whipped cream and not seal lard.
Eskimo fish ice cream!
Akutaq is "the blended one" in Eskimo Yu'pik language. They put up a sign at the Alaskan Federation of Natives conference-- across the street from the convention center-- some senate candidate's stump-- AKUTAQ 11:30-- the swarm could have stopped traffic (if there was traffic). People walked away with armloads of boxes of cups of the pink frothy yumminess. It is, actually, yummy, if made with whipped cream and not seal lard.
Monday, October 25, 2004
September 15, 2001, Barbara's Vote of Conscience
One of the reasons I still can love this country, that I am represented by Barbara Lee, the solitary vote in Congress against the Iraq war. I found a Mother Jones interview with her about her solitary vote... dated September 20th, 2001. How much has changed since.
I was in DC lobbying with a group of Russian Far East ecological activists and we got a tour of the Congress by a young assistant from Rep. Lee's office. He seemed totally paranoid that we would say something in a tone of Bush-bashing within earshot of a guard. He rather struck fear into our hearts. He used the words "right wing coup" without erring from his deadpan Californian blase'-ness.
He was very excited about the underground mini-metro between the house and the senate. He wasn't a cynical man. And he believes we have undergone a coup.
One of the reasons I still can love this country, that I am represented by Barbara Lee, the solitary vote in Congress against the Iraq war. I found a Mother Jones interview with her about her solitary vote... dated September 20th, 2001. How much has changed since.
I was in DC lobbying with a group of Russian Far East ecological activists and we got a tour of the Congress by a young assistant from Rep. Lee's office. He seemed totally paranoid that we would say something in a tone of Bush-bashing within earshot of a guard. He rather struck fear into our hearts. He used the words "right wing coup" without erring from his deadpan Californian blase'-ness.
He was very excited about the underground mini-metro between the house and the senate. He wasn't a cynical man. And he believes we have undergone a coup.
Friday, October 15, 2004
News from the Lakeside Baptist Church, My Neighbors
Well, the church with which I essentially share a wall has undergone some changes. My apartment building, which previously gave homes to nuns, is full of queers, immigrants, crazy old women and young men fresh out of jail. The church has become noisy with remodeling lately, and it started to look- from the odd groups coming and going helping with the hauling and painting and pounding- that something akin to what happened in the nuns' residence had happened. Well the Berkeley "Regeneration" church that has taken over now that the many "ethnic ministries" housed there have found their own churches.
The Regeneration church is the reason why I thought a rock band was rehearsing in the church on Sunday nights. The guys working in the alley right now told me- with a little embarassment- "yeah, we get pretty loud- does it bother you?" Those are the kinds of neighbors I can deal with. The old saws from the Methodist Hymnal being rehearsed off-key at 9 am-- that was making me hate Christianity all over again. A shame after all those years of detante.
I wonder if their minister will be moving out of his coffee shop office. His book is "The Relevant Church." I can respect that in a title.
P.S. Barry the Heron is avoiding me. I saw his large sweeping wings flapping in silhouette- flying away- as I walked by his post the other night. Figures.
Well, the church with which I essentially share a wall has undergone some changes. My apartment building, which previously gave homes to nuns, is full of queers, immigrants, crazy old women and young men fresh out of jail. The church has become noisy with remodeling lately, and it started to look- from the odd groups coming and going helping with the hauling and painting and pounding- that something akin to what happened in the nuns' residence had happened. Well the Berkeley "Regeneration" church that has taken over now that the many "ethnic ministries" housed there have found their own churches.
The Regeneration church is the reason why I thought a rock band was rehearsing in the church on Sunday nights. The guys working in the alley right now told me- with a little embarassment- "yeah, we get pretty loud- does it bother you?" Those are the kinds of neighbors I can deal with. The old saws from the Methodist Hymnal being rehearsed off-key at 9 am-- that was making me hate Christianity all over again. A shame after all those years of detante.
I wonder if their minister will be moving out of his coffee shop office. His book is "The Relevant Church." I can respect that in a title.
P.S. Barry the Heron is avoiding me. I saw his large sweeping wings flapping in silhouette- flying away- as I walked by his post the other night. Figures.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
The Heron and the George W. Bush Effigy
Walking home from work yesterday, I stopped to look at the Great Blue Heron that has been fishing at my end of Lake Merritt since the onset of fall. We usually eyeball eachother for a few minutes, taking stock. I'm not a fish, he's not a metaphor. But we get a certain something out of this relationship.
Coming to the conclusion that this was a relationship, I decided to name him, and was in the process of saying names loud (to test their musicality) "Bob the Heron, Bill the Heron," and was probably about to come up with a really clever name when this lit-up musical effigy of George W. Bush rolled into my path on Lakeshore.
I guess the Pants On Fire Mobile is en route between Eugene and Reno. I highly recommend trying to catch a glimpse, if you are in Reno this weekend.
By the way, I have decided to name my bird friend Barry the Heron. May he always fish 1000.
Walking home from work yesterday, I stopped to look at the Great Blue Heron that has been fishing at my end of Lake Merritt since the onset of fall. We usually eyeball eachother for a few minutes, taking stock. I'm not a fish, he's not a metaphor. But we get a certain something out of this relationship.
Coming to the conclusion that this was a relationship, I decided to name him, and was in the process of saying names loud (to test their musicality) "Bob the Heron, Bill the Heron," and was probably about to come up with a really clever name when this lit-up musical effigy of George W. Bush rolled into my path on Lakeshore.
I guess the Pants On Fire Mobile is en route between Eugene and Reno. I highly recommend trying to catch a glimpse, if you are in Reno this weekend.
By the way, I have decided to name my bird friend Barry the Heron. May he always fish 1000.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Big Cats Make Me So Happy I Can Forget About Baseball
I am trying to forget about baseball for the time being, since the season ended on such bad footing for the local teams I love, and so I'm spending time perusing this website for hot photos of big pussies, big speckled and striped Russian and Chinese pussies (tigers and leopards).
I think I love the big cats because I have a tabby-stripey girlcat who loves to hunt, especially small objects indoors, though sometimes she likes to hunt big game--pouncing on me, claws extended, when I'm in bed. I don't think she does it to wake me up-- it's just a hit-and-run game. Anyway, I like to know her whereabouts when I'm in bed.
So, I was retelling a great story I heard while I was in Vladivostok this past month about a tiger who ripped off a guy's leg at the knee. I was in bed with my girlfriend. I paused in the story and suddenly noticed... unmoving... two stripey ears perked up over the edge of the bed.
I chased her off, but I don't think I'll be telling the one about the maneating tiger again, not even if she asks really sweetly. My own private predator... the bears are smart, but it's true, the man-eaters are smarter.
I am trying to forget about baseball for the time being, since the season ended on such bad footing for the local teams I love, and so I'm spending time perusing this website for hot photos of big pussies, big speckled and striped Russian and Chinese pussies (tigers and leopards).
I think I love the big cats because I have a tabby-stripey girlcat who loves to hunt, especially small objects indoors, though sometimes she likes to hunt big game--pouncing on me, claws extended, when I'm in bed. I don't think she does it to wake me up-- it's just a hit-and-run game. Anyway, I like to know her whereabouts when I'm in bed.
So, I was retelling a great story I heard while I was in Vladivostok this past month about a tiger who ripped off a guy's leg at the knee. I was in bed with my girlfriend. I paused in the story and suddenly noticed... unmoving... two stripey ears perked up over the edge of the bed.
I chased her off, but I don't think I'll be telling the one about the maneating tiger again, not even if she asks really sweetly. My own private predator... the bears are smart, but it's true, the man-eaters are smarter.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
My First View of the Pacific From the Left
It is pretty big. I flew longer than I've ever flown in one stretch- 13 hours. Then I flew another two hours here, to Vladivostok. The bay makes the air moist and fresh, when the diesel isn't suffocating you. The air is warm, even though the sky doesn't get light until after 7:30 am. They say the swimming is great.
I have seen Korean graffiti here, and in English "I hate this faking world." I've seen ads for Gold Bond brand tea and Maxim brand coffee.
In the lift you are forbidden to use "fiery things" or to try to "libirate yourself" in case you get stuck. Aside from those restrictions, it's a pretty nice budget hotel.
That is all.
It is pretty big. I flew longer than I've ever flown in one stretch- 13 hours. Then I flew another two hours here, to Vladivostok. The bay makes the air moist and fresh, when the diesel isn't suffocating you. The air is warm, even though the sky doesn't get light until after 7:30 am. They say the swimming is great.
I have seen Korean graffiti here, and in English "I hate this faking world." I've seen ads for Gold Bond brand tea and Maxim brand coffee.
In the lift you are forbidden to use "fiery things" or to try to "libirate yourself" in case you get stuck. Aside from those restrictions, it's a pretty nice budget hotel.
That is all.
Friday, September 10, 2004
Stalking Vladivostok
Here is Vladik's very useful Virtual Tourist site for people looking at Vladik like a tourist destination, which I am not. It is where I will be working for the next two weeks, at environmental conferences.
Here is Vladik's very own lesbian chat site, where apparently the lezzie club 'Drive' is getting reviewed, and you need to have your own car to get there! I hate that. Here you have to dance until you sober up enough to drive, there you probably have to dance and drink until you have the courage to face the Russian roads.
I've only found one reference to a bellydancing place - a Chinese restaurant, of all places. Russia is one of those places you find out "Asian" means everything from Istanbul to Vladivostok, from Baikal to Sri Lanka. Half the world.
Here is Vladik's very useful Virtual Tourist site for people looking at Vladik like a tourist destination, which I am not. It is where I will be working for the next two weeks, at environmental conferences.
Here is Vladik's very own lesbian chat site, where apparently the lezzie club 'Drive' is getting reviewed, and you need to have your own car to get there! I hate that. Here you have to dance until you sober up enough to drive, there you probably have to dance and drink until you have the courage to face the Russian roads.
I've only found one reference to a bellydancing place - a Chinese restaurant, of all places. Russia is one of those places you find out "Asian" means everything from Istanbul to Vladivostok, from Baikal to Sri Lanka. Half the world.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Welcome to the lesbian web-portal of Vladivostok.
I have four more days before I leave for Vladik (as it is called) for two weeks of environmentalist conferences. I have to get going with my social card.
I have four more days before I leave for Vladik (as it is called) for two weeks of environmentalist conferences. I have to get going with my social card.
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Cash Inspires Anti-RNC Action
Behold the photos of the Johnny-Cash-themed Man In Black protest group in NYC this past week at www.defendjohnnycash.org.
Behold the photos of the Johnny-Cash-themed Man In Black protest group in NYC this past week at www.defendjohnnycash.org.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
My Old Boss, Discovered as a New Species
Ananova reports on a furry frog-like shark discovered in a German aquarium.
I thought [P. E.] was still living in New York.
Ananova reports on a furry frog-like shark discovered in a German aquarium.
I thought [P. E.] was still living in New York.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
New Feature: George's Best Ringlish This Week
Several points of my coworker George's weekly report were outstandingly cobbled-together. Including one point that he, for some reason, included, but censored. You don't need to know the context of his work to enjoy his Ringlish, and his lack of a sense of appropriate use of the weekly report format. I do not get his use of quotes at all, from a Russian or English perspective. But I can still enjoy those. His ability to brag about his computer skills remains intact, despite all his lack of language skills, or good sense in general (he "penetrated"? a board?). Is he trying to predict an invasion of Russia by the US there in the end? It's like reading Nostradamus, isn't it?
Several points of my coworker George's weekly report were outstandingly cobbled-together. Including one point that he, for some reason, included, but censored. You don't need to know the context of his work to enjoy his Ringlish, and his lack of a sense of appropriate use of the weekly report format. I do not get his use of quotes at all, from a Russian or English perspective. But I can still enjoy those. His ability to brag about his computer skills remains intact, despite all his lack of language skills, or good sense in general (he "penetrated"? a board?). Is he trying to predict an invasion of Russia by the US there in the end? It's like reading Nostradamus, isn't it?
- "Penetrated" the TRN board. Felt sorry for Solveig, the coordinator of TRN conference.
- Fully reloaded my computer (which is a useful thing to do at least once a
year)
- CENSORED
- Thought about those three terrorist acts in Russia last week (two airplane crashes and a bomb blow at a buss stop in Moscow) and about Russian perspectives. Adepts of Euro-Asian exceptionality say that Russia's fight against terrorism has nothing in common with the American one. Adepts of Anglo-Saxon Supremacy support the idea strongly. Russian society instability increases. Russia moves simultaneously in four opposite directions [It is not spreading, but shrinking in four separate spills, the size of each will determine Russia's future.]:
(1) building open democratic society,
(2) restoring imperial dictatorial ambitions,
(3) Africanization, when raw materials are the only source of revenue, and
(4) planning to improve living standards.
This physics law violation (simultaneous movement in the conflicting directions) is possible in Russia due to overrating of administrative governing and people's failure to speak out. We need to communicate more and convince further about world-wide problems. Russians are open for our communication yet and we should wrap it in a good way. Though this "Country of Unpredictable Future" owns the world second WMD arsenal and has the next after Saudis oil reserve volume, I hope the policy of preventive strike will not prevail. [We have a "wounded ant" in Iraq. We do not want to deal with a "wounded bear."] We have many common problems to resolve together with Russia.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Useless Fact for the Day
Old news, I know, but I can't resist. Available on about a million useless fact web pages.
As a part-Swede I can see myself thinking that this was a good plan.
Old news, I know, but I can't resist. Available on about a million useless fact web pages.
Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a week day at 5 pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize this was the day of the changeover.
As a part-Swede I can see myself thinking that this was a good plan.
Monday, August 30, 2004
The Fish Are Losing Their Affect
I know it is bad blogging ettiquette to quote a whole article from a news source, but I cannot for the life of me find this on the Washington Post website at the moment, so here you go. Fish on Antideps.
I know it is bad blogging ettiquette to quote a whole article from a news source, but I cannot for the life of me find this on the Washington Post website at the moment, so here you go. Fish on Antideps.
Drugs Found in Fish Samples
Science Notes
Washington Post
August 30, 2004
Antidepressants, birth control drugs and other medications are surfacing in fish tissue and are in some cases causing neurological, biochemical and physiological changes, according to Baylor University researchers.
Bryan Brooks, assistant professor of environmental studies at Baylor University's Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research, said his findings mark the first time researchers have documented drugs building up in organisms that reside in streams that receive large amounts of wastewater from municipal sources.
Brooks focused on effluent-dominated streams and rivers in Texas, where he and his researchers performed forensic tests on fish and invertebrates. In Waco alone, he said in a statement, about 12 million gallons of treated water a day are pumped into the Brazos River, which pours into the Gulf of Mexico.
"When male fish are exposed to critical levels of estrogen, they can be feminized and their secondary sexual characteristics become suppressed," he said. "We're also seeing antidepressants building up in fish tissue at high enough levels that may trigger behavioral changes" in the fish.
But he cautioned that more study is needed to determine whether the fish are suffering adverse consequences.
A buildup of antidepressants can modulate neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine in fish, Brooks said.
No Environmental Protection Agency regulations govern the level of pharmaceuticals in discharged water.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Meet Blame India Watch
Every once in a while I go check on what my blog-mother Laura is up to. She got me blogging, so I should read her site more, you know, call home sometimes, send flowers. I could at LEAST link to her. But I am too lazy.
Meanwhile. Her old primary site Interesting Monstah has been chilling out for a while, I find, because she's got a hot new site Blame India Watch about the move to blame outsourcing for labor abuses and shortages at home, rather than bad economic policy or foreign policy. Clickez vous and enjoy.
Every once in a while I go check on what my blog-mother Laura is up to. She got me blogging, so I should read her site more, you know, call home sometimes, send flowers. I could at LEAST link to her. But I am too lazy.
Meanwhile. Her old primary site Interesting Monstah has been chilling out for a while, I find, because she's got a hot new site Blame India Watch about the move to blame outsourcing for labor abuses and shortages at home, rather than bad economic policy or foreign policy. Clickez vous and enjoy.
Monday, August 23, 2004
My Favorite Champion of Ringlish Speaks
He emerges from the tundra woods swinging a scaly worm above his head and ululating... an elaborate Mongolian warrior cry echoing among San Francisco's three or four skyscrapers...
This is my coworker Georgii-- or "George" to me. Sort of to spite him when I'm writing in Russian I transliterate it "Djordj." I'm more comfortable (and quite frankly more clear about what we're talking about) if we're both speaking Russian, but he insists on cramping along in English when we speak.
Here below, for your entertainment, is the final bullet point from his most recent weekly report. This is not a snippet of one of his classic-- nay, epic-- missteps, or even his most muscular floridity-- I just think you can hear some of the poetry of Russian still clinging to his words like cheap cigar smoke on a threadbare polyester pantsuit:
This is a special-ity of George's, the flamboyant destruction of a technological foe. Now that we're doing these weekly reports I hope I can offer you spectacular feats of Ringlish as a regular feature. Here's hoping.
He emerges from the tundra woods swinging a scaly worm above his head and ululating... an elaborate Mongolian warrior cry echoing among San Francisco's three or four skyscrapers...
This is my coworker Georgii-- or "George" to me. Sort of to spite him when I'm writing in Russian I transliterate it "Djordj." I'm more comfortable (and quite frankly more clear about what we're talking about) if we're both speaking Russian, but he insists on cramping along in English when we speak.
Here below, for your entertainment, is the final bullet point from his most recent weekly report. This is not a snippet of one of his classic-- nay, epic-- missteps, or even his most muscular floridity-- I just think you can hear some of the poetry of Russian still clinging to his words like cheap cigar smoke on a threadbare polyester pantsuit:
Has killed the Sasser Worm in my home computer. Though, it does not
relate directly to the work, it was joyful fun. The worm practically blackmails; it commands to download an update from Internet (pretending to be your computer's system), otherwise it shuts down your computer in 60 seconds (and does so). Any reasonable person should show a finger to the worm's commands and Microsoft's webpage provides arms to kill the worm successfully.
This is a special-ity of George's, the flamboyant destruction of a technological foe. Now that we're doing these weekly reports I hope I can offer you spectacular feats of Ringlish as a regular feature. Here's hoping.
Monday, August 16, 2004
Woo Hoo - I now know someone who's been reviewed on Lesbi.ru!
Here's to my friend Sonja Franeta's book "Pink* Flamingos" getting reviewed on Lesbi.ru! "Pink" is a slang term for lesbian (a little old-school, but still understood). The first Russian-speaking dyke group I was ever in was called "the Pinks," in Seattle.
I raise a virtual shot glass of vodka and say-- here's to non-Russian Russian-speaking lesbians and their Russophilic creative produce!
Sonja interviewed a range of Siberian queers over a period of time, capturing the interviews on film and tape. They are finally put together in this book, taking you to a world that has been little known, even to Russian LGBT activists, even those living in Siberia.
I think it interesting that it took a 2nd-generation Croat-American to complete this project. Having hung out a certain amount with Croatians in Croatia, they barely consider Russia or Russians relevant to any discussion of their own history or language. It's like they are some distant cousin, something like how the Mongolians might discuss the Navajo-- as though they were disconnected in pre-history.
As much as I love researching my own US/Swedish/Welsh/British culture, and Sonja loves Croatia, Sonja and I both find Russia- for whatever crazy reason- a country more compelling than the ones our families came from. I hope we are better at documenting without idealizing or proselytizing.
In another funny permutation of people working for not their own, this last time I was in Russia there was a funny moment with a straight US Irish-Catholic guy, myself (as aformentioned a US-mutt, and a queer Pagan), and a Ukrainian Christian lesbian were sitting around in the hip cafe "The Idiot" in St. Petersburg trying to figure out the funding for a new Jewish queer group that we thought should exist. We were very stoked about our new idea, picking up steam through a bottle of Georgian white wine. It remains to be seen if our Jewish queer friends are interested in putting themselves that much in the public bullseye for ridicule and abuse.
That said, I think the Siberian queers will be very grateful to have Sonja's book, available here for only $4.91, or the reasonable price of 142 roubles.
Here's to my friend Sonja Franeta's book "Pink* Flamingos" getting reviewed on Lesbi.ru! "Pink" is a slang term for lesbian (a little old-school, but still understood). The first Russian-speaking dyke group I was ever in was called "the Pinks," in Seattle.
I raise a virtual shot glass of vodka and say-- here's to non-Russian Russian-speaking lesbians and their Russophilic creative produce!
Sonja interviewed a range of Siberian queers over a period of time, capturing the interviews on film and tape. They are finally put together in this book, taking you to a world that has been little known, even to Russian LGBT activists, even those living in Siberia.
I think it interesting that it took a 2nd-generation Croat-American to complete this project. Having hung out a certain amount with Croatians in Croatia, they barely consider Russia or Russians relevant to any discussion of their own history or language. It's like they are some distant cousin, something like how the Mongolians might discuss the Navajo-- as though they were disconnected in pre-history.
As much as I love researching my own US/Swedish/Welsh/British culture, and Sonja loves Croatia, Sonja and I both find Russia- for whatever crazy reason- a country more compelling than the ones our families came from. I hope we are better at documenting without idealizing or proselytizing.
In another funny permutation of people working for not their own, this last time I was in Russia there was a funny moment with a straight US Irish-Catholic guy, myself (as aformentioned a US-mutt, and a queer Pagan), and a Ukrainian Christian lesbian were sitting around in the hip cafe "The Idiot" in St. Petersburg trying to figure out the funding for a new Jewish queer group that we thought should exist. We were very stoked about our new idea, picking up steam through a bottle of Georgian white wine. It remains to be seen if our Jewish queer friends are interested in putting themselves that much in the public bullseye for ridicule and abuse.
That said, I think the Siberian queers will be very grateful to have Sonja's book, available here for only $4.91, or the reasonable price of 142 roubles.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
I love him because...
Last Night Jon Stewart Used the Word "Sylph"
...to describe the Statue of Liberty. I.E. "America's Favorite Sylph."
So. I dragged out the dictionary from under the light coating of tabby cat hair and dust.
According to this on-line medical dictionary it is an ornithological term as well as entomological.
But what interests me the most is that according to my own dictionary its original meaning was from Paracelsus, meaning a specifically mortal, soulless spirit of the air, a blend of nymph and sylva (forest).
Wikipedia adds a Pope and Milton gloss for the term.
So the Statue of Libery stands high in the air, as though she commands the element. Very graceful, Jon, my favorite midnight bard-of-truth.
Last Night Jon Stewart Used the Word "Sylph"
...to describe the Statue of Liberty. I.E. "America's Favorite Sylph."
So. I dragged out the dictionary from under the light coating of tabby cat hair and dust.
According to this on-line medical dictionary it is an ornithological term as well as entomological.
But what interests me the most is that according to my own dictionary its original meaning was from Paracelsus, meaning a specifically mortal, soulless spirit of the air, a blend of nymph and sylva (forest).
Wikipedia adds a Pope and Milton gloss for the term.
So the Statue of Libery stands high in the air, as though she commands the element. Very graceful, Jon, my favorite midnight bard-of-truth.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Aha, All is Explained
Why the Phonecian's Religious Affiliation Matters to Some People
My new favorite math site's author was punished with religion at a formative age, and came out of it a math scholar, with a strong personal wariness about Judeo-Christian beliefs. But yet, she gives them the knowledge of Pi. She is a bigger man than I.
Why the Phonecian's Religious Affiliation Matters to Some People
My new favorite math site's author was punished with religion at a formative age, and came out of it a math scholar, with a strong personal wariness about Judeo-Christian beliefs. But yet, she gives them the knowledge of Pi. She is a bigger man than I.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Cubits and Handbreadths and Charismatic Megafauna, Oh My
Down With Charismatic Megafaunism!
I have been in student mode lately, learning a new job, and learning (relearning) elementary algebra.
My favorite new term I learned this past week in my job is "Charismatic Megafauna," commonly referring to the WWF panda and its ilk (lions, tigers, bears, baby seals, oracas, and sometimes whales), being the means by which most people find a way to give a hoot about the expiration of the planet.
As in, "we could have saved that watershed if it had any charismatic megafauna, but all it had was salmon."
There is a great deal of sublimated hostility toward the charismatic-megafaunistic approach to environmental protection. In someone's office here I once saw the crossbar & circle "no" symbol photoshopped over a WWF panda logo.
In my spare time when I'm not protecting the petulant microfauna, I'm currently trying to get a comfortable grip on linear equations.
It's about time someone took the Phonecians' side.
Looking for some on-line assistance with the order of operations in solving linear equations, I found this neat little corner of the math world evaluating the Phonecian understanding of Pi, as expressed in cubits and handbreadths.
I'm not sure why the author is so sensitive about finding some mathematical truth in the Bible, or why s/he thinks (or s/he thinks someone thinks) it's so awful to connect the Phonecians with the Jews, but clearly s/he's writing in defense of the Phonecians. With some passion, I might add. It's about time...?
Down With Charismatic Megafaunism!
I have been in student mode lately, learning a new job, and learning (relearning) elementary algebra.
My favorite new term I learned this past week in my job is "Charismatic Megafauna," commonly referring to the WWF panda and its ilk (lions, tigers, bears, baby seals, oracas, and sometimes whales), being the means by which most people find a way to give a hoot about the expiration of the planet.
As in, "we could have saved that watershed if it had any charismatic megafauna, but all it had was salmon."
There is a great deal of sublimated hostility toward the charismatic-megafaunistic approach to environmental protection. In someone's office here I once saw the crossbar & circle "no" symbol photoshopped over a WWF panda logo.
In my spare time when I'm not protecting the petulant microfauna, I'm currently trying to get a comfortable grip on linear equations.
It's about time someone took the Phonecians' side.
Looking for some on-line assistance with the order of operations in solving linear equations, I found this neat little corner of the math world evaluating the Phonecian understanding of Pi, as expressed in cubits and handbreadths.
I'm not sure why the author is so sensitive about finding some mathematical truth in the Bible, or why s/he thinks (or s/he thinks someone thinks) it's so awful to connect the Phonecians with the Jews, but clearly s/he's writing in defense of the Phonecians. With some passion, I might add. It's about time...?
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Make Goals Not War
From the Global Development Briefing this week:
This has got to be one of the most creative solutions I've ever heard to the problem of gun proliferation.
Here's some more information on the upcoming match from Sports Illustrated.
Don't you think they could do something like this to disarm Oakland with a "friendly" between the Raiders and 49ers?
From the Global Development Briefing this week:
LAST WEEK, we noted that a most unusual soccer game is set to take place in Haiti. Brazil, which deployed 1,200 peacekeeping troops in the troubled Caribbean island nation in June to replace outgoing U.S. troops, has already handed out 1,000 free footballs. Next month, the Brazilian national team is scheduled to play a "friendly" against Haiti. We asked what the price of admission to the football match will be and what Brazil hopes to achieve. Answer: the price of admission is handing over a weapon and Brazil hopes to help disarm rival Haitian militas, relieve tension and ultimately help prepare the country for elections by 2005. As reader Jim Anderson notes, Haitian interim Prime Minister Latortue has said that a few Brazilian soccer stars could do more to disarm warring militias than thousands of peacekeeping troops.
This has got to be one of the most creative solutions I've ever heard to the problem of gun proliferation.
Here's some more information on the upcoming match from Sports Illustrated.
Don't you think they could do something like this to disarm Oakland with a "friendly" between the Raiders and 49ers?
Monday, June 28, 2004
Going Back to Bukhara
The poor young journalist/ government critic - Ruslan Sharipov - for whom I used to professionally advocate - on Friday went to his mother's home town Bukhara to do "community service" and relinquish 25% of his nonexistent salary. This is in exchange for his freedom from serving a 4 year sentence on false charges under the Uzbekistan anti-sodomy laws.
He should have been unconditionally released from all charges, since they have no evidence, and he has refugee status and intends to leave the country as soon as he can. They want to get him to stop organizing people in Uzbekistan-- they should just let him go! He sent his mother away (she sold her apartment in Bukhara and packed up her one son remaining at home and moved to Sacramento, California this past December) because he feared for her life. The government threatened to kill her, and tortured him. So I don't think he wants to stay.
I can only imagine what their vision of "community service" might be.
Here
is the Reporters Without Borders press release that just came out today announcing his "community service" sentence.
Here is a June 15th "Advocate" article based on a phone interview with Ruslan from his most recent prison in Tashkent.
If anyone wants to write letters for him you can find addresses here.
The poor young journalist/ government critic - Ruslan Sharipov - for whom I used to professionally advocate - on Friday went to his mother's home town Bukhara to do "community service" and relinquish 25% of his nonexistent salary. This is in exchange for his freedom from serving a 4 year sentence on false charges under the Uzbekistan anti-sodomy laws.
He should have been unconditionally released from all charges, since they have no evidence, and he has refugee status and intends to leave the country as soon as he can. They want to get him to stop organizing people in Uzbekistan-- they should just let him go! He sent his mother away (she sold her apartment in Bukhara and packed up her one son remaining at home and moved to Sacramento, California this past December) because he feared for her life. The government threatened to kill her, and tortured him. So I don't think he wants to stay.
I can only imagine what their vision of "community service" might be.
Here
is the Reporters Without Borders press release that just came out today announcing his "community service" sentence.
Here is a June 15th "Advocate" article based on a phone interview with Ruslan from his most recent prison in Tashkent.
If anyone wants to write letters for him you can find addresses here.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Still Stalking
I'm sorry, stalkettes, for being so slack on my stalking of late. Since January I have been robbed twice, and since April I've gone to Russia (where I got robbed a third time, btw), got laid off (losing my health insurance), got my identity stolen, had my adopted grandmother die and *her* property stolen, got a new job, and since I got notice I didn't make it into grad school, I've gotten myself into an algebra course to try and prepare for another stab at the GRE. I am still bellydancing (and performing), managing a spoken-word production series, and learning Latin with a tutor. I'm also stalking the Giants and the A's, and trying to take part in the "Pride" festivities that come swinging at your head ever year in June. If that wasn't enough, I have a girlfriend, and a tabbycat, and they both demand time. So, you see, stalking for your sake, dear reader, has been limited. The goslings have gone neglected too, so don't feel singled-out for neglect.
The good news is that I now have ANOTHER job which accommodates stalking, i.e. has DSL and research opportunities. I'm managing two websites: ECA Watch, keeping track of Export Credit Agencies and their nefarious deeds and (I just found out yesterday) also the Bering Sea Forum. It is nice to finally learn how to spell "Bering."
I'm also working on stalking corporate puppets who use ill-gotten credit from places like ECAs to fund nasssssty projects like Sakhalin 2, a natural gas and oil plant that is still being built, but which is already causing a long litany of woes for the locals (a 22-point list, written by someone who used to support the plant, which I translated last week).
The new manager of the plant is someone who was *just* hired, and who has now had this waaay over-budget (by 30%) mess of a project, with overtones of illegality, dumped in his ickle British lap. The he sits, on a cold, Russian island-- a dark, isolated, fragile, seismically active, cold Russian island-- with the salmon choking in the debris from underwater drilling, the whales running for their lives, the locals blockading roads...
Anyhoo, I'm supposed to try to get a high seed for the web page describing him and his messy project on Google searches for "Ian Craig." I forget what this is called. It's got a name.
Well, I need to do it to this poor Ian Craig guy, formerly of Shell Oil Malaysia, formerly of Shell Oil UK, where he formerly worked for Enterprise Oil, a friendly little offshore oil corporation that got bought up by big bully Shell... and so he, with the face of a constipated croquet player, was led down the dark path to Sakhalin Energy.
So, if you want to help push the page with Ian's list of crimes up on the Google search results, please click here ("Ian Craig") or paste this URL:
http://www.eca-watch.org/problems/russia/iancraig.html
...into a link somewhere on your own web page.
Thanks for helping incite the sedition. You know -- as your mother use to say-- it's not going to incite itself!
I'm sorry, stalkettes, for being so slack on my stalking of late. Since January I have been robbed twice, and since April I've gone to Russia (where I got robbed a third time, btw), got laid off (losing my health insurance), got my identity stolen, had my adopted grandmother die and *her* property stolen, got a new job, and since I got notice I didn't make it into grad school, I've gotten myself into an algebra course to try and prepare for another stab at the GRE. I am still bellydancing (and performing), managing a spoken-word production series, and learning Latin with a tutor. I'm also stalking the Giants and the A's, and trying to take part in the "Pride" festivities that come swinging at your head ever year in June. If that wasn't enough, I have a girlfriend, and a tabbycat, and they both demand time. So, you see, stalking for your sake, dear reader, has been limited. The goslings have gone neglected too, so don't feel singled-out for neglect.
The good news is that I now have ANOTHER job which accommodates stalking, i.e. has DSL and research opportunities. I'm managing two websites: ECA Watch, keeping track of Export Credit Agencies and their nefarious deeds and (I just found out yesterday) also the Bering Sea Forum. It is nice to finally learn how to spell "Bering."
I'm also working on stalking corporate puppets who use ill-gotten credit from places like ECAs to fund nasssssty projects like Sakhalin 2, a natural gas and oil plant that is still being built, but which is already causing a long litany of woes for the locals (a 22-point list, written by someone who used to support the plant, which I translated last week).
The new manager of the plant is someone who was *just* hired, and who has now had this waaay over-budget (by 30%) mess of a project, with overtones of illegality, dumped in his ickle British lap. The he sits, on a cold, Russian island-- a dark, isolated, fragile, seismically active, cold Russian island-- with the salmon choking in the debris from underwater drilling, the whales running for their lives, the locals blockading roads...
Anyhoo, I'm supposed to try to get a high seed for the web page describing him and his messy project on Google searches for "Ian Craig." I forget what this is called. It's got a name.
Well, I need to do it to this poor Ian Craig guy, formerly of Shell Oil Malaysia, formerly of Shell Oil UK, where he formerly worked for Enterprise Oil, a friendly little offshore oil corporation that got bought up by big bully Shell... and so he, with the face of a constipated croquet player, was led down the dark path to Sakhalin Energy.
So, if you want to help push the page with Ian's list of crimes up on the Google search results, please click here ("Ian Craig") or paste this URL:
http://www.eca-watch.org/problems/russia/iancraig.html
...into a link somewhere on your own web page.
Thanks for helping incite the sedition. You know -- as your mother use to say-- it's not going to incite itself!
Saturday, May 29, 2004
In Memorium: Valentina Mikhailovna Dezelin (neé Stakhova)
b. February 23, 1899, the Crimea under the Empire of Russia
d. May 24, 2004, California under the United States
She lived four lifetimes by the standards of her time. She lived on three continents. She lost three husbands. She changed nationality three times. She survived at least four wars. She spoke at least four languages. She never left the church (Russian Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox), but the church often left her, including during the years a crooked, charming priest took her power of attorney and what money he could get from her, and nobody stopped him. The church also abandoned her when she went in a nursing home, never sending help, visitors, or comforting cards; most hurtful to me, after her death, a long-absent acquaintance from her most recent church scheduled her memorial and burial without consulting with me or waiting for me, her adopted great-granddaughter, and the person most and longest involved in her ongoing care. I returned from Russia on Thursday, and she was buried on Friday morning. I found out about the burial through constant phone calling, and made it to the church in time to place a kiss on her cheek before they closed the coffin, screwed the box into the hearse, and then lowered her into a Serbian Orthodox Cemetary hole while a nearby cement truck engine chugged an unrepentant proletarian drumroll.
Here's a memorial to you, and your namesake, Martyr Valentina.
You will always be remembered, you classy, tough, smart, amazing old lady.
b. February 23, 1899, the Crimea under the Empire of Russia
d. May 24, 2004, California under the United States
She lived four lifetimes by the standards of her time. She lived on three continents. She lost three husbands. She changed nationality three times. She survived at least four wars. She spoke at least four languages. She never left the church (Russian Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox), but the church often left her, including during the years a crooked, charming priest took her power of attorney and what money he could get from her, and nobody stopped him. The church also abandoned her when she went in a nursing home, never sending help, visitors, or comforting cards; most hurtful to me, after her death, a long-absent acquaintance from her most recent church scheduled her memorial and burial without consulting with me or waiting for me, her adopted great-granddaughter, and the person most and longest involved in her ongoing care. I returned from Russia on Thursday, and she was buried on Friday morning. I found out about the burial through constant phone calling, and made it to the church in time to place a kiss on her cheek before they closed the coffin, screwed the box into the hearse, and then lowered her into a Serbian Orthodox Cemetary hole while a nearby cement truck engine chugged an unrepentant proletarian drumroll.
Here's a memorial to you, and your namesake, Martyr Valentina.
You will always be remembered, you classy, tough, smart, amazing old lady.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Privet from Sir Novgorod the Great-- Russia
Pobloguju... I'm writing a little blog entry from Novgorod, Russia - Velikii Novgorod now. I have just reviewed with my good friend Sergei two years of his finds on the local WW2 battlefields with his friends, shovels, and GPS. Of late he's been researching the wartime aerodromes and airplane wrecks through interviews and photography around the area in the small ... I mean extinct... little villages around the battlefields. It is just amazing what he's found... including a German pilot, complete with rosary and glasses. The stories of the non-heroic behavior by Soviet soldiers, and the crazy methods they used to operate in the battlefields, as retold by old men who were 12 years old, hiding in the bushes around the aerodromes. He's been researching and digging up tanks and things since 1989, and boy does he have a collection...
Anyway, the jet lag and ongoing marathon of chai and blinni and vino and balzam and on top of that catching up with everyone has gotten me hollow-eyed and slightly dizzy with overwhelm. I haven't even made it to the local kremlin, for the full nostalgaic effect. My English is also slipping, but never mind, I had a double degree, I don't need that English degree... the Russian degree is serving me very well.
What's amazing besides what changes in 10 years since I lived here is what doesn't change. Someone puts on a little weight, but the personality stays the same. Someone else breaks his leg and turns into a person with a handicap (an "invalid" here) but he still has the same old drinking problem. Another gets uterine cancer and lives with a colostomy bag but she still works through all my grammatical errors and makes sure I understand why I need to correct that accent...
And the konjushnja, the horse stable where I rode here, has moved so that it is right next to where I'm staying... and the young people there are still jumping huge fences on huge gorgeous horses...
Don't worry, those of you who still read this and wonder where I am and if I'm coming home, I still have a return ticket and I intend to use it. I'm just very, very, very far away from San Francisco.
Poka,
SS
Pobloguju... I'm writing a little blog entry from Novgorod, Russia - Velikii Novgorod now. I have just reviewed with my good friend Sergei two years of his finds on the local WW2 battlefields with his friends, shovels, and GPS. Of late he's been researching the wartime aerodromes and airplane wrecks through interviews and photography around the area in the small ... I mean extinct... little villages around the battlefields. It is just amazing what he's found... including a German pilot, complete with rosary and glasses. The stories of the non-heroic behavior by Soviet soldiers, and the crazy methods they used to operate in the battlefields, as retold by old men who were 12 years old, hiding in the bushes around the aerodromes. He's been researching and digging up tanks and things since 1989, and boy does he have a collection...
Anyway, the jet lag and ongoing marathon of chai and blinni and vino and balzam and on top of that catching up with everyone has gotten me hollow-eyed and slightly dizzy with overwhelm. I haven't even made it to the local kremlin, for the full nostalgaic effect. My English is also slipping, but never mind, I had a double degree, I don't need that English degree... the Russian degree is serving me very well.
What's amazing besides what changes in 10 years since I lived here is what doesn't change. Someone puts on a little weight, but the personality stays the same. Someone else breaks his leg and turns into a person with a handicap (an "invalid" here) but he still has the same old drinking problem. Another gets uterine cancer and lives with a colostomy bag but she still works through all my grammatical errors and makes sure I understand why I need to correct that accent...
And the konjushnja, the horse stable where I rode here, has moved so that it is right next to where I'm staying... and the young people there are still jumping huge fences on huge gorgeous horses...
Don't worry, those of you who still read this and wonder where I am and if I'm coming home, I still have a return ticket and I intend to use it. I'm just very, very, very far away from San Francisco.
Poka,
SS
Monday, May 03, 2004
Good God Goslings!
The lake by my house -- the unique brackish urban estuary of Lake Merritt -- is presently gosling-rich.
There are three families of two adults with goslings in the number of 5, 9 (the eldest clan, almost showing adult feather color in their tails), and the youngest clan-- 19. 19-uplets. Today the 19 formed the shape of the shadow of an elegant old lantern-style streetlight that is at the southern edge of the lake. It was very hot. They were squished so compactly into the shape of the shadow that if the sun had gone behind a cloud (yeah, I know, California-- what cloud?!) there would have been an Installation of Streetlight-Shaped Pile of Goslings there on the beach.
I stood there staring trying to wrap my brain around this cuteness like a mushu pancake around a pile of filling when someone thought it was a good idea to run to the lake to drink a little brackish afternoon tea. The entire flock of 19 flapped its useless sets of wings and ran after the first thirsty one and then the installation was destroyed, and everyone was standing in the water a little stunned to be in the sun again. The parent geese didn't say a WORD. They were tired. They were hot. They walked aimlessly around at some several yards distance, watching me. If the kids wanted to run in a panic into the lake, that was fine with them. If I wanted to chase them in, so much the better.
Now, for some gosling research. I want to know how long they are little flightless balls of grey cuteness.
Here is where my stalking will begin: Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese
Ah, how the fall migration of geese will hurt this year...
The lake by my house -- the unique brackish urban estuary of Lake Merritt -- is presently gosling-rich.
There are three families of two adults with goslings in the number of 5, 9 (the eldest clan, almost showing adult feather color in their tails), and the youngest clan-- 19. 19-uplets. Today the 19 formed the shape of the shadow of an elegant old lantern-style streetlight that is at the southern edge of the lake. It was very hot. They were squished so compactly into the shape of the shadow that if the sun had gone behind a cloud (yeah, I know, California-- what cloud?!) there would have been an Installation of Streetlight-Shaped Pile of Goslings there on the beach.
I stood there staring trying to wrap my brain around this cuteness like a mushu pancake around a pile of filling when someone thought it was a good idea to run to the lake to drink a little brackish afternoon tea. The entire flock of 19 flapped its useless sets of wings and ran after the first thirsty one and then the installation was destroyed, and everyone was standing in the water a little stunned to be in the sun again. The parent geese didn't say a WORD. They were tired. They were hot. They walked aimlessly around at some several yards distance, watching me. If the kids wanted to run in a panic into the lake, that was fine with them. If I wanted to chase them in, so much the better.
Now, for some gosling research. I want to know how long they are little flightless balls of grey cuteness.
Here is where my stalking will begin: Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese
Ah, how the fall migration of geese will hurt this year...
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Back in the Saddle and Stalking Again: Paul Reps' Arabic Name
I am finally recovering from the shock(s) of being laid off, having my car vandalized and burgled, and my checkbook used for $2300 worth of fraud. I'm revving the engines to go back to school, work, and Russia.
And Tassajara Monestary, for another workshop with Jane Hirshfield. She asks the participants to read a poem aloud to the group every day, and last time (two years ago) I read from the Zen poet I adore, Paul Reps. She thanked me for bringing Reps back to Tassajara. This time I want to bring some new, maybe rare Reps books so as to impress her even more.
Well, my e-bay stalking has produced a rare find: a 1938 text by him that is * in * sane * -- he is analyzing the meaning of names based on their * sounds *. It is new age before the start of the new age. He was 42 when he wrote it. What was he smoking in California in 1938? Had they invented stoner lifestyle yet?
So, he signed it "Saladin Reps" - and I assumed it was not him, but maybe a child of his or something. No, it was him. He wrote under the name Saladin Reps as well as Paul Reps. I have a whole new frontier of stalking! Unfortunately the only book I've found so far by Saladin Reps is $250.
Googling this mysterious name this is what I found:
Art and Buddhism: the Paul Reps Papers -- held in Los Angeles, where he died in 1990, at the age of 95.
Shine on you crazy Saladin...
I am finally recovering from the shock(s) of being laid off, having my car vandalized and burgled, and my checkbook used for $2300 worth of fraud. I'm revving the engines to go back to school, work, and Russia.
And Tassajara Monestary, for another workshop with Jane Hirshfield. She asks the participants to read a poem aloud to the group every day, and last time (two years ago) I read from the Zen poet I adore, Paul Reps. She thanked me for bringing Reps back to Tassajara. This time I want to bring some new, maybe rare Reps books so as to impress her even more.
Well, my e-bay stalking has produced a rare find: a 1938 text by him that is * in * sane * -- he is analyzing the meaning of names based on their * sounds *. It is new age before the start of the new age. He was 42 when he wrote it. What was he smoking in California in 1938? Had they invented stoner lifestyle yet?
So, he signed it "Saladin Reps" - and I assumed it was not him, but maybe a child of his or something. No, it was him. He wrote under the name Saladin Reps as well as Paul Reps. I have a whole new frontier of stalking! Unfortunately the only book I've found so far by Saladin Reps is $250.
Googling this mysterious name this is what I found:
Art and Buddhism: the Paul Reps Papers -- held in Los Angeles, where he died in 1990, at the age of 95.
Shine on you crazy Saladin...
Friday, April 02, 2004
Drowning My Sorrows in Light Beer and Baseball
The baseball season is arriving to seize me like the lifeguard in the breach. I've been floundering with my lost job and therefore lost financial security (two days ago), lost personal security due to repeated car break-ins (most recently a month ago, the third within four months), and a professional criminal contacting me in the guise of a police officer to confirm my personal information, and then taking my checkbook out on the town for fun and --apparently-- health foods and beauty supplies (Whole Foods and Sally's Beauty two recent targets of victims she's been defrauding for over two weeks now).
So, thank the gods for schmaltzy old movies about baseball. Especially "A League of Their Own." Here's a cool page with some of the real facts behind the movie:
Rockford Peaches - A League of Their Own
Their link to the baseball players charm school handbook is broken-- I'll go stalk it now.
Here it is... ...on the AAGPBL website!
The baseball season is arriving to seize me like the lifeguard in the breach. I've been floundering with my lost job and therefore lost financial security (two days ago), lost personal security due to repeated car break-ins (most recently a month ago, the third within four months), and a professional criminal contacting me in the guise of a police officer to confirm my personal information, and then taking my checkbook out on the town for fun and --apparently-- health foods and beauty supplies (Whole Foods and Sally's Beauty two recent targets of victims she's been defrauding for over two weeks now).
So, thank the gods for schmaltzy old movies about baseball. Especially "A League of Their Own." Here's a cool page with some of the real facts behind the movie:
Rockford Peaches - A League of Their Own
Their link to the baseball players charm school handbook is broken-- I'll go stalk it now.
Here it is... ...on the AAGPBL website!