The Mania Of The Moment
26 minutes ago
Saturday, December 31, 2011
i forgot you can draw with your mouse. duh.
so i went to one of my old favorites (zefrank.com) and went into that lovel scribbler program.
and drew the first thing i saw.
and then manipulated it into several images.
i added the site to my blogroll. there are lots of creative toys there and a more complex "drawtoy" there as well.
check out the awesome galleries of contributors' works if you go there!
OBJECT
and drew the first thing i saw.
and then manipulated it into several images.
i added the site to my blogroll. there are lots of creative toys there and a more complex "drawtoy" there as well.
check out the awesome galleries of contributors' works if you go there!
OBJECT
Ningyo Editions is Gorge
I had some young printmakers favorite some of my "modified" books on Tumblr.
And this led me on to look at some of their work.
And I found Ningyo Editions.
Dayum, this place is full of gorgeous prints and ace printmakers.
Love Matt Rich's stuff.
Love all of them actually.
I'll add them to my blogroll.
This makes me want to go be visual.
I miss doing scanner art too.
But it's so damn cold on that third floor and heat is expensive.
Cold is counterproductive.
And this led me on to look at some of their work.
And I found Ningyo Editions.
Dayum, this place is full of gorgeous prints and ace printmakers.
Love Matt Rich's stuff.
Love all of them actually.
I'll add them to my blogroll.
This makes me want to go be visual.
I miss doing scanner art too.
But it's so damn cold on that third floor and heat is expensive.
Cold is counterproductive.
Much Belated
Like balancing books on sheer black underwear
and if I must pretend wreckage is sculpture
I can and I have held a koi pond before you
others were mysterious Chinese strips of light
often funny elaborate as making fun of Wong Kar Wai
why must we go the distance who waits?
Why should only criminals get the commanding views
and how are your eyebrows still so aloft
after I replaced all your midwives with gargoyles
you still loved me, which made me laugh
malevolently but beside the point and the therapist
whose name was Linger is gone and now more useful
Many things are more useful gone like a beginning also
nourishment or music, the grave do you hear me count
come walk with me by rust-mottled things in heavy wind
you will appear a smoke-vested sail as you were young
and you jangled even then more an isotope of youth
never convincingly not there
Not quite anything can satisfy a true beachcomber
still you thrum my ribs vacant as a De Chirico kilter
there is still an abandon and vocabulary of you in me
a hibernating rayograph develops far past kindness
you still exist for me far past explanation past asymmetry
where love finally relents and transforms the body
to luminous grammar everyone can hold
and if I must pretend wreckage is sculpture
I can and I have held a koi pond before you
others were mysterious Chinese strips of light
often funny elaborate as making fun of Wong Kar Wai
why must we go the distance who waits?
Why should only criminals get the commanding views
and how are your eyebrows still so aloft
after I replaced all your midwives with gargoyles
you still loved me, which made me laugh
malevolently but beside the point and the therapist
whose name was Linger is gone and now more useful
Many things are more useful gone like a beginning also
nourishment or music, the grave do you hear me count
come walk with me by rust-mottled things in heavy wind
you will appear a smoke-vested sail as you were young
and you jangled even then more an isotope of youth
never convincingly not there
Not quite anything can satisfy a true beachcomber
still you thrum my ribs vacant as a De Chirico kilter
there is still an abandon and vocabulary of you in me
a hibernating rayograph develops far past kindness
you still exist for me far past explanation past asymmetry
where love finally relents and transforms the body
to luminous grammar everyone can hold
he read
he read the closing lines of the poem he had just written: "You have a blue sheen, O haunted Jell-O." he realized the words were about the wobbly brain and cartesianism but who wants to think about cartesianism or the wobbly brain on december 31st. technically, isn't everyone who is in the month of december a decembrist? it's the things you can't stop thinking about that matter. and for him it was that dog's tail. that dog's tail in neoprene. or rubber. whatever. he had seen it in a porn video. a submissive woman was on all fours playing a dog. her boyfriend had put a butt plug in her ass. and the butt plug had a tail on the end of it. exactly like a wiry little dog's tail. black rubber doggy tail waggled all the time as she crawled around the kitchen floor following her Master and heeding Her Master's Voice. he wondered if anyone ever got buried wearing one of those. you wouldn't know in the coffin. if someone had a butt plug in. with or without a doggie's tail. then he wondered if submissives ever express the desire to be taxidermied like dogs and set in their master's bedroom after death. it seems like a thing submissives would probably enjoy. he was fairly sure the answer was a resounding yes. to be posed like a naked, taxidermied dog in their Master's bedroom. what a turn-on for a submissive. to be obedient sexually after death. and when the Master wasn't getting good results from his current dog crawling around the bedroom floor and not whining or barking nearly as efficiently as the dearly departed one, he could point to the taxidermed dog. and shame the one on the carpet. for being such a bad, bad dog. and the idea that the Master could no longer fuck the taxidermied dog. submissives would get a secret pleasure from that. because secretly all submissives just wanna frustrate the fuck out of their Masters. because it really is a parent thing. i'm sorry but it's true. that's why you're on all fours. that's why you prefer being fucked in the ass.
Barbara Guest and The Terrible
I fall in love with Barbara Guest's poetry over and over again.
But, I notice, in different ways.
I never realized until very recently how much she is like Gorey.
How much camp there is in her poetry.
She really believed in writing terrible poetry. By terrible I mean camp.
She believed to write about a Miro painting you must become a Miro painting.
You must move in the same way inside the medium of language as he moved (swam?) through the plasticity of paint:
"A dollop is dolloping
her a scoop is pursuing
flee vain ingots Ho
coriander darks thimble blues
red okays adorn her
buzz green circles in flight
or submergence? Giddy
mishaps of blackness make
stinging clouds what!"
I think she understood you could only be a great lyric poet in the latter 20th century by being a terrible lyric poet. By pointing out poetry's inadequacies over and over again. By embodying these great train wrecks in language and somehow making it okay to laugh at them. To marvel at the sublime sculpture such terrible accidents create. And then somehow start doing the salvage work.
Terrible means worthy of being feared. But it also means failure. Fear of failure, of being terrible in the pejorative sense.
But the fact that terrible can mean Ivan or a tyrannosaurus, as well as Charlie Brown and a depressive's Christmas just shows you how funnily doomed the whole enterprise of meaning is.
And that's why I say Barbara Guest wrote terrible poetry.
I mean it as a compliment. That she understood everything is wangled in this universe.
She would love a word like wangle and work with it the way a street artist might work with an abandoned spoon.
And turn that wangled spoon into art.
And only when that spoon reaches the museum will people remove the word "terrible" and replace it with a more pompous adjective.
Even though she does fit in the context of the first New York school of poetry, she fits elsewhere just as easily. That's not true of most of those poets, not even Frank O'Hara. Not even Ashbery.
I see her more with writers like Nabokov. Gorey. Lear. Mina Loy.
But then she could turn around and write poems that are closer to Poe than anyone else.
"Wild Gardens Overlooked by Night Lights" is so Poe it scares me.
This is a rather atypical (and stunning) poem in the Guest canon.
I only realized today that in this poem she's rewriting Poe's "The Haunted Mansion" (and by extension "The Fall of the House of Usher") through The Book of Genji.
What a great spooky, Cartesian poem:
"I float over this dwelling and when I choose
enter it. I have an ethnological interest
in this building, because I inhabit it
and upon me has been bestowed the decision of changing
an abstract picture of light into a ghost-like story
of a prince whose principality I now share,
into whose confidence I have wandered."
This poem deconstructs death. And the self.
The screen is a leitmotif in Guest's oeuvre.
You encounter it again and again, in the context of the artistic tableau, the Platonic metaphor, the Derridean hunt for archi-ecriture, and so on.
"The Screen of Distance" is one of many notable, multipartite poems.
I also realized today that poet Matthew Rohrer is much closer to German poetry than he is to American poetry.
But that's another story.
But, I notice, in different ways.
I never realized until very recently how much she is like Gorey.
How much camp there is in her poetry.
She really believed in writing terrible poetry. By terrible I mean camp.
She believed to write about a Miro painting you must become a Miro painting.
You must move in the same way inside the medium of language as he moved (swam?) through the plasticity of paint:
"A dollop is dolloping
her a scoop is pursuing
flee vain ingots Ho
coriander darks thimble blues
red okays adorn her
buzz green circles in flight
or submergence? Giddy
mishaps of blackness make
stinging clouds what!"
I think she understood you could only be a great lyric poet in the latter 20th century by being a terrible lyric poet. By pointing out poetry's inadequacies over and over again. By embodying these great train wrecks in language and somehow making it okay to laugh at them. To marvel at the sublime sculpture such terrible accidents create. And then somehow start doing the salvage work.
Terrible means worthy of being feared. But it also means failure. Fear of failure, of being terrible in the pejorative sense.
But the fact that terrible can mean Ivan or a tyrannosaurus, as well as Charlie Brown and a depressive's Christmas just shows you how funnily doomed the whole enterprise of meaning is.
And that's why I say Barbara Guest wrote terrible poetry.
I mean it as a compliment. That she understood everything is wangled in this universe.
She would love a word like wangle and work with it the way a street artist might work with an abandoned spoon.
And turn that wangled spoon into art.
And only when that spoon reaches the museum will people remove the word "terrible" and replace it with a more pompous adjective.
Even though she does fit in the context of the first New York school of poetry, she fits elsewhere just as easily. That's not true of most of those poets, not even Frank O'Hara. Not even Ashbery.
I see her more with writers like Nabokov. Gorey. Lear. Mina Loy.
But then she could turn around and write poems that are closer to Poe than anyone else.
"Wild Gardens Overlooked by Night Lights" is so Poe it scares me.
This is a rather atypical (and stunning) poem in the Guest canon.
I only realized today that in this poem she's rewriting Poe's "The Haunted Mansion" (and by extension "The Fall of the House of Usher") through The Book of Genji.
What a great spooky, Cartesian poem:
"I float over this dwelling and when I choose
enter it. I have an ethnological interest
in this building, because I inhabit it
and upon me has been bestowed the decision of changing
an abstract picture of light into a ghost-like story
of a prince whose principality I now share,
into whose confidence I have wandered."
This poem deconstructs death. And the self.
The screen is a leitmotif in Guest's oeuvre.
You encounter it again and again, in the context of the artistic tableau, the Platonic metaphor, the Derridean hunt for archi-ecriture, and so on.
"The Screen of Distance" is one of many notable, multipartite poems.
I also realized today that poet Matthew Rohrer is much closer to German poetry than he is to American poetry.
But that's another story.
Forever Young
Harbored joints of something glow green.
Something is behind us, something
is still arriving. A decade thrills
to Japanese instruments and young hidalgos
posing on pillows
in an IKEA commercial.
Here is the all-new artisan cheese.
The Goreyphiles startle.
I am riding you again and you
are throwing a boomerang
which will take me out
in a few days.
Please massage my witch-heels.
They hurt from chasing you
again, into the furnace of Vitamin C
and young dudes often fugitives.
Young dudes like seagulls
fly in and out our foyer,
my boudoir, our foyer.
The seagulls chant
their ancient song
by the French fry shack.
You acquire a blue sheen,
O haunted Jell-O.
Something is behind us, something
is still arriving. A decade thrills
to Japanese instruments and young hidalgos
posing on pillows
in an IKEA commercial.
Here is the all-new artisan cheese.
The Goreyphiles startle.
I am riding you again and you
are throwing a boomerang
which will take me out
in a few days.
Please massage my witch-heels.
They hurt from chasing you
again, into the furnace of Vitamin C
and young dudes often fugitives.
Young dudes like seagulls
fly in and out our foyer,
my boudoir, our foyer.
The seagulls chant
their ancient song
by the French fry shack.
You acquire a blue sheen,
O haunted Jell-O.
Non-Alcoholic Sonnet
A love poem is being considered
by a seagull and a drafty room
I have this funny groom
I collect ne'er-do-wells
the way others collect goldfish
or paint their walls with op art
I like miniature graveyards
and people who are miniature ponies
I'm honest about it up front
I am an emotional cunt
I am middle-aged but immature
But who's keeping score?
It is December 31st
And I have a vampire's thirst
by a seagull and a drafty room
I have this funny groom
I collect ne'er-do-wells
the way others collect goldfish
or paint their walls with op art
I like miniature graveyards
and people who are miniature ponies
I'm honest about it up front
I am an emotional cunt
I am middle-aged but immature
But who's keeping score?
It is December 31st
And I have a vampire's thirst
A Year Passes in a Minute
Here are the top news stories of 2011 compressed into 60 seconds.
I didn't watch it all the way through yet (who has a minute?) so I'm not sure if it catches the death of Kim Jong Il at the end or not.
I'm just glad to see they have the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami at the start there.
Because that's the one I remember most keenly, even with all those revolutions tumbling like dominoes through the world--and presumably still ongoing.
And this year we became 7 Billion.
And we still all wanna be treated special.
This will probably be a problem.
Enjoy the dire Malthusianism of this clip.
Oh, who cares about tragedy or death in the long run.
We're here to live.
So, let's look at the best songs of 2011 (pop music only, of course).
Could David Guetta have had a better or more profitable year?
Pre-Alert: Katy Perry totally dominates the upper reaches of this thing.
As she like totally should.
Katy Perry ain't playin. Look at the numbers on her songs. She rarely enters a country's play charts without dominating it.
That album had about as many great songs as Thriller.
Plus, who can look away from those colors and outfits.
She's like a human Skittle.
Kudos to the YouTubers for including the non-censored versions of both the Cee-Lo and Enrique Iglesias songs.
I remember discovering Pit Bull and posting a video by him ages back (probably the old blog). Damn, he got a lot of guest work this year!
I like Fergie, but I consider Black Eyed Peas a pox on rock. They're like the Oughts answer to Huey Lewis and the News (yuck). Will.i.am. was born to make the craptastic.
The great songwriters tumble through this list too: Bruno Mars and Adele you just know will write many more great songs if something annoying like death doesn't intervene.
Could Rihanna look any more gorgeous? But I think she tries too hard in the slutty lyrics department. That gets so old.
No Florence in the Machine? Serious? I guess I thought they were as commercially successful as they are artistically successful!
I'm surprised Gaga didn't snag the Numero Uno.
Considering how that's probably the first song in the 21st century to achieve the status of true pop anthem the way, say, some Queen songs did in the seventies.
Okay, maybe the musicality isn't as solid as those Queen songs, but the commercial success is about the same level.
And I think that's just because 7 billion people are starting to realize how necessary tolerance is for survival...and just for happiness.
That's us. The Happy Planet.
I didn't watch it all the way through yet (who has a minute?) so I'm not sure if it catches the death of Kim Jong Il at the end or not.
I'm just glad to see they have the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami at the start there.
Because that's the one I remember most keenly, even with all those revolutions tumbling like dominoes through the world--and presumably still ongoing.
And this year we became 7 Billion.
And we still all wanna be treated special.
This will probably be a problem.
Enjoy the dire Malthusianism of this clip.
Oh, who cares about tragedy or death in the long run.
We're here to live.
So, let's look at the best songs of 2011 (pop music only, of course).
Could David Guetta have had a better or more profitable year?
Pre-Alert: Katy Perry totally dominates the upper reaches of this thing.
As she like totally should.
Katy Perry ain't playin. Look at the numbers on her songs. She rarely enters a country's play charts without dominating it.
That album had about as many great songs as Thriller.
Plus, who can look away from those colors and outfits.
She's like a human Skittle.
Kudos to the YouTubers for including the non-censored versions of both the Cee-Lo and Enrique Iglesias songs.
I remember discovering Pit Bull and posting a video by him ages back (probably the old blog). Damn, he got a lot of guest work this year!
I like Fergie, but I consider Black Eyed Peas a pox on rock. They're like the Oughts answer to Huey Lewis and the News (yuck). Will.i.am. was born to make the craptastic.
The great songwriters tumble through this list too: Bruno Mars and Adele you just know will write many more great songs if something annoying like death doesn't intervene.
Could Rihanna look any more gorgeous? But I think she tries too hard in the slutty lyrics department. That gets so old.
No Florence in the Machine? Serious? I guess I thought they were as commercially successful as they are artistically successful!
I'm surprised Gaga didn't snag the Numero Uno.
Considering how that's probably the first song in the 21st century to achieve the status of true pop anthem the way, say, some Queen songs did in the seventies.
Okay, maybe the musicality isn't as solid as those Queen songs, but the commercial success is about the same level.
And I think that's just because 7 billion people are starting to realize how necessary tolerance is for survival...and just for happiness.
That's us. The Happy Planet.
Everything I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned from My Cat
Sleep comes first.
All other plans? Tentative.
Keep your friends close,
but your food dish closer.
Never give a rat an even break.
It's a freakin rat.
Books find their
proper use as pillows.
A rainy window puts
television to shame.
Teach your kids to stalk birds,
then life's up to them.
Try to look too perfect
and you'll end up with hairballs.
Shield humans you love
from the truth of nature's cruelty.
Never believe the hype
about dogs or politicians.
If you have nine lives,
why not live a little
and die a few times?
All other plans? Tentative.
Keep your friends close,
but your food dish closer.
Never give a rat an even break.
It's a freakin rat.
Books find their
proper use as pillows.
A rainy window puts
television to shame.
Teach your kids to stalk birds,
then life's up to them.
Try to look too perfect
and you'll end up with hairballs.
Shield humans you love
from the truth of nature's cruelty.
Never believe the hype
about dogs or politicians.
If you have nine lives,
why not live a little
and die a few times?
The Descent into the Maelstrom
I opened a book
of poems tonight
and found one
of my old pubic hairs
enjoying itself
between its pages.
I hate to admit
I grew jealous
of my own
pubic hair
merely
for being
many nights younger
than I am
tonight,
December 31st.
But I did.
It looked lusty,
healthy and vigorous.
I hated it
for reminding me
that for many years
I was hopelessly immortal.
Probably the pube
had been introduced
to several younger,
entrancing bodies
before its
natural descent
from my crotch.
That pube had
enjoyed adventures
now lost to me.
I flushed it
down the toilet
and enjoyed
its drowning
the way some enjoy
insect deaths
in kleenex,
or the deaths of enemies
in obituaries.
Then I began
to sing Elton John's
"I'm Still Standing"
and my version
of the song was colored
by a distinctly
crazy but
pleasurable
Schadenfreude.
of poems tonight
and found one
of my old pubic hairs
enjoying itself
between its pages.
I hate to admit
I grew jealous
of my own
pubic hair
merely
for being
many nights younger
than I am
tonight,
December 31st.
But I did.
It looked lusty,
healthy and vigorous.
I hated it
for reminding me
that for many years
I was hopelessly immortal.
Probably the pube
had been introduced
to several younger,
entrancing bodies
before its
natural descent
from my crotch.
That pube had
enjoyed adventures
now lost to me.
I flushed it
down the toilet
and enjoyed
its drowning
the way some enjoy
insect deaths
in kleenex,
or the deaths of enemies
in obituaries.
Then I began
to sing Elton John's
"I'm Still Standing"
and my version
of the song was colored
by a distinctly
crazy but
pleasurable
Schadenfreude.
Happy New Year
The grass exists only
to be trampled
and stars
fly away
from each other
forever.
Cinderella
man or woman,
you will be trampled
by people
your entire life
and fly
further away
from everyone
because you are time
that somehow
formed a clot
in the universe's
"sorta brain."
You can take
away the pleasure
of knowing
your unnaturalness
in the scheme of things
must have given
the Universe
something which
probably felt
like a mini-stroke,
or at least a transient,
ischemic attack.
And then the universe
will move on
after the death
of all species
and end as cold
as this poem is.
This asshole
poem.
to be trampled
and stars
fly away
from each other
forever.
Cinderella
man or woman,
you will be trampled
by people
your entire life
and fly
further away
from everyone
because you are time
that somehow
formed a clot
in the universe's
"sorta brain."
You can take
away the pleasure
of knowing
your unnaturalness
in the scheme of things
must have given
the Universe
something which
probably felt
like a mini-stroke,
or at least a transient,
ischemic attack.
And then the universe
will move on
after the death
of all species
and end as cold
as this poem is.
This asshole
poem.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Stan and His Wall
The last few from the most recent album, Neon Mirage (2010).
The Lenny Bruce song is a Dylan cover, I think.
And the monsters song is a cover too but of whom I forget. Soz.
lolol
why didn't I find this in time for Xmas, dammit?
The photos in the video are priceless.
I thought of her because of her great collabs with Thomas Dolby.
If the police need someone convincing for a Pedo Bear sting, they should consult Lene Lovich.
Because she can totally fool the guys with that voice.
As soon as I heard the organ on that track, I thought of one of my favorite YouTubers, Organfairy.
That's the Scandinavian gentlemen who rebuilds and custom-modifies vintage keyboards (I mean like hundreds if not thousands).
And I thought, "He has to have covered this on one or the other of his keyboards."
And sure enough, here is a lovely Christmas keyboards medley.
The photos in the video are priceless.
I thought of her because of her great collabs with Thomas Dolby.
If the police need someone convincing for a Pedo Bear sting, they should consult Lene Lovich.
Because she can totally fool the guys with that voice.
As soon as I heard the organ on that track, I thought of one of my favorite YouTubers, Organfairy.
That's the Scandinavian gentlemen who rebuilds and custom-modifies vintage keyboards (I mean like hundreds if not thousands).
And I thought, "He has to have covered this on one or the other of his keyboards."
And sure enough, here is a lovely Christmas keyboards medley.
Would I Have Known This is Thomas Dolby?
Probably not. If YouTube hadn't told me.
This is very recent, like a year old I think.
I would NEVER have known he was over in the bluegrass fields playing.
Okay, obviously this is a satire on rural "Amurrikuns" who have knee-jerk right wing sympathies.
Dolby was hot as a rather fey-looking, young poetic scientist circa The Golden Age of Wireless (1982).
And he's still hot as a forty-something redneck. Even a parodic one.
Glad he's still having fun.
I think he kept his hand in the music business even when we weren't seeing him--producing and such.
One of many I still love from his early album...
And a classic. This version that played on MTV is so much better than the version that went on the album (faster tempo, less surreal version on that).
I Was Trying to Translate "Bringing Sexy Back" En Espanol
And having trouble.
But I found this funny nerd clip on YouTube.
I have to admit this instructor probably created a great mnemonic for kids to remember the endings.
Bravissimo Nerdissimo.
But I found this funny nerd clip on YouTube.
I have to admit this instructor probably created a great mnemonic for kids to remember the endings.
Bravissimo Nerdissimo.
Tumblr Is Fun
So far on Tumblr I have only had one of my posts go viral. It's still going, every day picking up another hundred or so people, Tumbling through the Tumblrsphere, right around 3,000 rebloggings and likes now. So I'm guessing the ones that make 20,000 or 50,000 on there usually do it over several months or longer.
Well, with the exception of photos of David Carp ("Daddy") which seem to skyrocket out of Tumblr loyalty as soon as they appear.
But you never know when a viral one is going to slow down.
I have a few of my ecards that debuted quietly picking up steam again--I'm hoping they're going that direction as well.
It's weird how it happens. Because one of them is from last night and one is from before Xmas and Xmas-themed. But now it's finally starting to get reblogged a lot.
Tumblr people generally love lolcats (but Memebase type memes more, generally). But ecards are more popular over all. I mean as preformatted humor goes.
It's nice when you feel you have some loyal "fans" of your stuff, because when you post new things you get at least a quick handful of people liking and reblogging your things, and of course that feels good.
I try to reciprocate, but I don't always remember who's liking what. The one that viral I simply can't keep up with the people in terms of reciprocation or reaching out. Or when you go to see their blog, they don't really post anything original but just reblog stuff. Which is great, but I'd rather return the reblogging favor to someone in a more personal way; i.e. reblog their stuff and not some other person's stuff.
Well, with the exception of photos of David Carp ("Daddy") which seem to skyrocket out of Tumblr loyalty as soon as they appear.
But you never know when a viral one is going to slow down.
I have a few of my ecards that debuted quietly picking up steam again--I'm hoping they're going that direction as well.
It's weird how it happens. Because one of them is from last night and one is from before Xmas and Xmas-themed. But now it's finally starting to get reblogged a lot.
Tumblr people generally love lolcats (but Memebase type memes more, generally). But ecards are more popular over all. I mean as preformatted humor goes.
It's nice when you feel you have some loyal "fans" of your stuff, because when you post new things you get at least a quick handful of people liking and reblogging your things, and of course that feels good.
I try to reciprocate, but I don't always remember who's liking what. The one that viral I simply can't keep up with the people in terms of reciprocation or reaching out. Or when you go to see their blog, they don't really post anything original but just reblog stuff. Which is great, but I'd rather return the reblogging favor to someone in a more personal way; i.e. reblog their stuff and not some other person's stuff.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
If You Watch The Ring Backwards...
If you watch The Ring backwards it's about a little girl who keeps falling down a well until she finally has a happy childhood. Also, she raises people from the dead who have these hideously distorted faces and gives them new, normal looking faces by some magical means. I think she does it just by looking away from them. Seven days later, after this kindness, she disappears from their lives forever. But she's nice enough to make a phone call before leaving them.
At one point in the movie, the child's mother levitates her up out of a well, rescuing her.
It's a really heartwarming movie that's not afraid to give you a happy ending.
At one point in the movie, the child's mother levitates her up out of a well, rescuing her.
It's a really heartwarming movie that's not afraid to give you a happy ending.
I Had This Horrible Dream
I had this horrible dream that America produced a double-sided pizza.
Like cheese and gooeyness on both sides of the pizza.
Like the rest of the world needs yet another reason to hate us.
This would be a major one.
It's so against nature. And gravity.
I mean you couldn't possibly add toppings down under.
Like cheese and gooeyness on both sides of the pizza.
Like the rest of the world needs yet another reason to hate us.
This would be a major one.
It's so against nature. And gravity.
I mean you couldn't possibly add toppings down under.
Yes? No? Maybe?
Your opinions?
Well, look at the hand.
That's all I'm saying.
I find it charming.
(Allegedly, these are straight "buddies.")
But. Look.
At the hand.
OMFG. Maybe the guy on the left is straight.
Because his Facebook likes are: Incubus, The Fray, John Mayer, Underoath, Third Eye Blind.
And: The King of Queens, Saved by the Bell, Seinfeld.
That's totally Heteroville.
Postscript: Wait, I just found my answer in Google.
He's a bi jock.
He's Alpha Phi Delta.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Cheezburger LOL and Fanks!
I can't believe I got the frontest of front pages again on Da Cheezburger!
That's like three in a few days.
I haz an Awed and Honorifcatted.
I'm surprised that's not getting nailed in the voting so far.
Because usually anything too far outside of cutesy riles some Cheezers up.
But at least the people who are voting are being nice.
That looks like my second adoptee kitteh more than a little.
But he's huge now from what he was when he showed up at my front door as a stray.
And he is fuckin excrementally challenged.
Some of the time.
But we won't talk about that.
Just when I seemingly got him cured of that (by being his toilet slave on nearly a daily basis) it's now the pissing contest with the other cat.
I'm totally turning into a fucking cat's chambermaid.
Oh well.
I'm sure this too is in my karma.
He's too cute to get mad at for more than three seconds.
I tell people Malkin is a "lover, not a fighter."
Dru is the fighter.
I love when Malkin accidentally runs into Dru and runs like hell.
We've managed to keep them separated and it's not really a problem.
Only one fight early on.
Now on the rare chances they accidentally get together they have "face offs."
Kitteh detentes.
I don't always read comments on my fp's, but I did on this one and people were being nice--and very funny! Someone said "it reminds me of THIS" and posted Wham's video "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go."
LOL.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!
That's like three in a few days.
I haz an Awed and Honorifcatted.
I'm surprised that's not getting nailed in the voting so far.
Because usually anything too far outside of cutesy riles some Cheezers up.
But at least the people who are voting are being nice.
That looks like my second adoptee kitteh more than a little.
But he's huge now from what he was when he showed up at my front door as a stray.
And he is fuckin excrementally challenged.
Some of the time.
But we won't talk about that.
Just when I seemingly got him cured of that (by being his toilet slave on nearly a daily basis) it's now the pissing contest with the other cat.
I'm totally turning into a fucking cat's chambermaid.
Oh well.
I'm sure this too is in my karma.
He's too cute to get mad at for more than three seconds.
I tell people Malkin is a "lover, not a fighter."
Dru is the fighter.
I love when Malkin accidentally runs into Dru and runs like hell.
We've managed to keep them separated and it's not really a problem.
Only one fight early on.
Now on the rare chances they accidentally get together they have "face offs."
Kitteh detentes.
I don't always read comments on my fp's, but I did on this one and people were being nice--and very funny! Someone said "it reminds me of THIS" and posted Wham's video "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go."
LOL.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!
My Movie Review of Horrible Bosses
I laughed more than a few times.
I am fairly certain this script was written by someone who is somewhere between the ages of 19 and 26 at the oldest.
And I feel 98% of this person's experience of life has come from other movies and the internet. But mostly other movies.
It's clearly a buddy pic trying to cash in on the horrible The Hangover franchise.
If I were the Vatican and this were the Middle Ages I would have expunged all traces of The Hangover movies from history's pages.
But that's just me.
This movie was slightly less obnoxious and at least a little funny.
It's sad this is the best actors like Donald Sutherland, Jason Bateman and Kevin Spacey(!) can get.
But it pays the bills and it isn't hurting anyone.
This is totally directed at the demographic that loved The Hangover, which I'm assuming is frat boys and future frat boys.
Hopefully, they will then make frat boy porn so that I might think more highly of the contributions of frat boys to western civilization. (I'm sorry, but I took that class which had the effect of making me no longer want to capitalize "Western Civilization" (sic) (sick).)
In any case, I owe this movie an ENORMOUS "THANK YOU!"
Because I think I got one of my best ideas for a blog ever as a result of this movie.
It had nothing to do with the movie really. It was thanks to a "scene" that lasted less than three seconds that involved a cat.
I really owe the debt of gratitude to the cat (and none of the other actors) because it was the cat actor that gave me this idea.
I hope I am as crazy about this idea tomorrow as I am today.
Because I only want to start this blog in a "magic hour."
You should always start projects that will require creativity in a "magic hour."
That's my personal belief.
The portal is everything when it comes to creating a work of art.
But that's a bipolar idea, of course.
Big surprise.
I am fairly certain this script was written by someone who is somewhere between the ages of 19 and 26 at the oldest.
And I feel 98% of this person's experience of life has come from other movies and the internet. But mostly other movies.
It's clearly a buddy pic trying to cash in on the horrible The Hangover franchise.
If I were the Vatican and this were the Middle Ages I would have expunged all traces of The Hangover movies from history's pages.
But that's just me.
This movie was slightly less obnoxious and at least a little funny.
It's sad this is the best actors like Donald Sutherland, Jason Bateman and Kevin Spacey(!) can get.
But it pays the bills and it isn't hurting anyone.
This is totally directed at the demographic that loved The Hangover, which I'm assuming is frat boys and future frat boys.
Hopefully, they will then make frat boy porn so that I might think more highly of the contributions of frat boys to western civilization. (I'm sorry, but I took that class which had the effect of making me no longer want to capitalize "Western Civilization" (sic) (sick).)
In any case, I owe this movie an ENORMOUS "THANK YOU!"
Because I think I got one of my best ideas for a blog ever as a result of this movie.
It had nothing to do with the movie really. It was thanks to a "scene" that lasted less than three seconds that involved a cat.
I really owe the debt of gratitude to the cat (and none of the other actors) because it was the cat actor that gave me this idea.
I hope I am as crazy about this idea tomorrow as I am today.
Because I only want to start this blog in a "magic hour."
You should always start projects that will require creativity in a "magic hour."
That's my personal belief.
The portal is everything when it comes to creating a work of art.
But that's a bipolar idea, of course.
Big surprise.
Oh Great, Now the M a f i a
Hey, if I'm found dead somebody please direct people to pull my phone records and look for the call dated today from someone whose surname is C A R L O N I.
Because someone called in a very badly disguised voice (man impersonating woman) and asked for "Eleanor."
I hope this is paranoia but when I Googled this person (first name included) there was a mugshot out of Jersey.
It smells like m a f i a to me.
So if anyone's calling a hit on me that's who did it lol.
I do have paranoid days.
But that was CREEPY.
We never get random calls. We're unlisted.
Because someone called in a very badly disguised voice (man impersonating woman) and asked for "Eleanor."
I hope this is paranoia but when I Googled this person (first name included) there was a mugshot out of Jersey.
It smells like m a f i a to me.
So if anyone's calling a hit on me that's who did it lol.
I do have paranoid days.
But that was CREEPY.
We never get random calls. We're unlisted.
McStays Update: Dan Kavanaugh and Summer McStay? Connection?
Update to this post dated 1/31/2012: I have not been able to verify Patrick McStay's current status. Numerous people have left comments stating he was successfully extradited from Texas to New Orleans to face charges on alleged financial improprieties. I've heard conflicting reports about whether or not he posted bail. Most seemed to think he was still being held, which makes me wonder if bail was set prohibitively high since he had previously been a fugitive with regard to the Louisiana warrant. If anyone has media or press confirmation (please don't leave any unsourced comments or I'll just delete them) as to his current status I'd be interested to hear. Also, if anyone knows the exact nature of the charges or if any additional charges have been filed--particularly if any of these charges were related to the McStay family disappearance. I'm doubting the latter is the case and am leaning towards the idea that P.M.'s legal woes are probably separate problems from any problems which might have been the reason for the McStays' disappearance. But we will see what we will see, I guess. For the record, as of this date, I believe the McStays are all alive and well, and that they disappeared of their own volition. For my reasons regarding this, just go to the homepage of this blog and look at the left hand side for the most read blog posts on this site and you'll see several other posts I did exploring several diverse theories which I feel are plausible explanations of the reasons for the family's disappearance.
I found something troubling tonight.
Read this article, which shows you the San Diego detectives on this case are starting to lean towards the idea that the entire family might be victims of homicide.
That's from the IR3 (Search-and-rescue group looking for the McStays) site.
But focus on the name Dan Kavanaugh in that article.
Now read this description of a Dan Kavanaugh from San Diego.
Is that the same business associate?
If so, and if this source is accurate, the woman says he is a "psycho and stalker."
She paints him as a liar and says he's "like a sociopath."
If some of the last contacts the McStays were having were with this guy, I have to ask, "Was this individual scrutizined by law enforcement?"
If Summer's phone stayed on when Joseph's went silent and continued to receive those text messages, does this hint at possible collusion?
Should I flipflop back to the "Summer and another guy, Joseph dead" theory. Which is what I believed until that latest documentary gave me hope again they were all alive.
But this Kavanaugh guy.
How closely has he been looked at?
Could he have been the other individual accompanying Summer into Mexico? Is he alibied out for that time?
Or could he have hired someome to escort Summer to wherever she was going?
I always said the way her phone continued on past his going dead bothered me, that additional activity on hers.
Creepy.
And if you Google "Dan Kavanaugh" and "Summer McStay" in quotes like that you get a very tiny number of citations.
How have their names not been linked before? I mean if he was Joseph's "business associate" and designed websites for J.M.'s fountain business back in San Diego.
I found something troubling tonight.
Read this article, which shows you the San Diego detectives on this case are starting to lean towards the idea that the entire family might be victims of homicide.
That's from the IR3 (Search-and-rescue group looking for the McStays) site.
But focus on the name Dan Kavanaugh in that article.
Now read this description of a Dan Kavanaugh from San Diego.
Is that the same business associate?
If so, and if this source is accurate, the woman says he is a "psycho and stalker."
She paints him as a liar and says he's "like a sociopath."
If some of the last contacts the McStays were having were with this guy, I have to ask, "Was this individual scrutizined by law enforcement?"
If Summer's phone stayed on when Joseph's went silent and continued to receive those text messages, does this hint at possible collusion?
Should I flipflop back to the "Summer and another guy, Joseph dead" theory. Which is what I believed until that latest documentary gave me hope again they were all alive.
But this Kavanaugh guy.
How closely has he been looked at?
Could he have been the other individual accompanying Summer into Mexico? Is he alibied out for that time?
Or could he have hired someome to escort Summer to wherever she was going?
I always said the way her phone continued on past his going dead bothered me, that additional activity on hers.
Creepy.
And if you Google "Dan Kavanaugh" and "Summer McStay" in quotes like that you get a very tiny number of citations.
How have their names not been linked before? I mean if he was Joseph's "business associate" and designed websites for J.M.'s fountain business back in San Diego.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
I'm Looking
at this site's categories of porn like a menu and it's like being in a seafood restaurant because I just can't decide.
The swordfish looks tempting but then why not splurge with surf and turf.
I'm joking. Half joking.
But I was looking at a porn menu and I wanted to make a list of what I found the most offensive categories (obviously everyone's different).
But they have it all, I think. I mean I think they have stuff God didn't even remember to damn in the Bible.
He's kicking Himself. Herself. Itself. Whatever. Sorry God.
To be honest I have no idea what some of these categories even mean (fucking "Antique"--it's porn from the 19th century? If so I want to see it. That's interesting. More likely it's probably just people boning on trousseaux.)
THE MOST OFFENSIVE PORN CATEGORIES ON APETUBE (OBVIOUSLY A PERSONAL REACTION)
1. 9 Months Pregnant
2. Adultery
3. Aged (I think this is more the word than the concept--"Aged" is so the opposite of a sexy word.)
4. Amputee
5. Antique
6. Balloon??? (496 videos--am I missing an "inside" term here. Or are these naked girls running around making squeaky sounds on balloons. Like in that Sylvia Plath poem.)
7. Baseball Bat--despicable.
8. Breeding--despicable.
9. Cameltoe (2166 videos???? SRS?)
10. Catfight--despicable.
11. Chastity
12. Clown--despicable.
13. Coffin
14. Cum Brushing??? WTF
15. Defloration--despicable.
16. Drooling
17. Emo (7201 videos!!)
18. Encouragement??? (278 videos...Hallmark card sex???)
19. Farting
20. Fighting
21. Grandma
22. Ho
23. Hypnotized
24. Midget (1383 videos)
25. Park Sex (for crissakes respect the squirrels!)
26. Pizza (646 videos!!)
27. PROLAPSE*** ding! ding! ding! we have a winner in the MOST OFFENSIVE CATEGORY EVER...PROLAPSED ORGANS...SUCH AS ANUSES...JUST WONDERFUL, SWEETIE DARLIN! ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS YOUR PROLAPSE VIDEO, DARLIN....
28. Prostitute
29. Rodox?????? Should I be offended? WTF?
30. Skank
31. Snowballing
32. Speculum
33. Stupid Girl
34. Titless (sounds very pedo bear to me)
35. Ugly
36. Virgin (ditto pedo bear)
37. Wedding
38. Whore
39. Xmas
After subjecting myself to that, I had to pull this from the dark and backward abysm of one of my blogs.
This is where I bewail and bemoan Edward Gorey's death the loudest (I do every day anyway) because I would so beg him to do a small book of illustrations of these.
I researched the nicknames of porn stars (I think some are dead porn stars) and picked the best ones for a found poem.
And I pictured these all as ridiculous, stylized funerary monuments.
You know how Edward Gorey loved to draw elaborate funerary monuments.
He could have turned these into a hilarious book.
TWENTY MARBLE FUNERARY MONUMENTS NAMED AFTER PORN STARS*
1. The Ass Hat
2. Queen of England
3. Good N'Plenty
4. The Twat Waffle
5. The Impaler
6. The Governor
7. Poptart
8. Trouble
9. Contract Killer
10. The Goddess of Gush
11. King of Cream
12. The Peruvian Princess
13. Mouthy Little Italian
14. Little Maniac
15. The Unknown Pervert
16. The Minkster
17. The Gentleman
18. The Saucy Aussie
19. King of Gapes
20. Expensive Hair
The swordfish looks tempting but then why not splurge with surf and turf.
I'm joking. Half joking.
But I was looking at a porn menu and I wanted to make a list of what I found the most offensive categories (obviously everyone's different).
But they have it all, I think. I mean I think they have stuff God didn't even remember to damn in the Bible.
He's kicking Himself. Herself. Itself. Whatever. Sorry God.
To be honest I have no idea what some of these categories even mean (fucking "Antique"--it's porn from the 19th century? If so I want to see it. That's interesting. More likely it's probably just people boning on trousseaux.)
THE MOST OFFENSIVE PORN CATEGORIES ON APETUBE (OBVIOUSLY A PERSONAL REACTION)
1. 9 Months Pregnant
2. Adultery
3. Aged (I think this is more the word than the concept--"Aged" is so the opposite of a sexy word.)
4. Amputee
5. Antique
6. Balloon??? (496 videos--am I missing an "inside" term here. Or are these naked girls running around making squeaky sounds on balloons. Like in that Sylvia Plath poem.)
7. Baseball Bat--despicable.
8. Breeding--despicable.
9. Cameltoe (2166 videos???? SRS?)
10. Catfight--despicable.
11. Chastity
12. Clown--despicable.
13. Coffin
14. Cum Brushing??? WTF
15. Defloration--despicable.
16. Drooling
17. Emo (7201 videos!!)
18. Encouragement??? (278 videos...Hallmark card sex???)
19. Farting
20. Fighting
21. Grandma
22. Ho
23. Hypnotized
24. Midget (1383 videos)
25. Park Sex (for crissakes respect the squirrels!)
26. Pizza (646 videos!!)
27. PROLAPSE*** ding! ding! ding! we have a winner in the MOST OFFENSIVE CATEGORY EVER...PROLAPSED ORGANS...SUCH AS ANUSES...JUST WONDERFUL, SWEETIE DARLIN! ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS YOUR PROLAPSE VIDEO, DARLIN....
28. Prostitute
29. Rodox?????? Should I be offended? WTF?
30. Skank
31. Snowballing
32. Speculum
33. Stupid Girl
34. Titless (sounds very pedo bear to me)
35. Ugly
36. Virgin (ditto pedo bear)
37. Wedding
38. Whore
39. Xmas
After subjecting myself to that, I had to pull this from the dark and backward abysm of one of my blogs.
This is where I bewail and bemoan Edward Gorey's death the loudest (I do every day anyway) because I would so beg him to do a small book of illustrations of these.
I researched the nicknames of porn stars (I think some are dead porn stars) and picked the best ones for a found poem.
And I pictured these all as ridiculous, stylized funerary monuments.
You know how Edward Gorey loved to draw elaborate funerary monuments.
He could have turned these into a hilarious book.
TWENTY MARBLE FUNERARY MONUMENTS NAMED AFTER PORN STARS*
1. The Ass Hat
2. Queen of England
3. Good N'Plenty
4. The Twat Waffle
5. The Impaler
6. The Governor
7. Poptart
8. Trouble
9. Contract Killer
10. The Goddess of Gush
11. King of Cream
12. The Peruvian Princess
13. Mouthy Little Italian
14. Little Maniac
15. The Unknown Pervert
16. The Minkster
17. The Gentleman
18. The Saucy Aussie
19. King of Gapes
20. Expensive Hair
Taylor Lautner "Coming Out" Hoax
I knew the second I saw this come down my Tumblr dash that it was a total hoax.
The tone is just wrong.
But they got the awful design correct.
Isn't People about ten years behind on that design overhaul we all deserve?
I'm so sick of looking at that cover when I have to wait in line somewhere.
It's so funny how sometimes you know something is wrong instantly but you can't even verbalize it.
I instantly knew that Lautner cover was "too People to be People."
Last night, I was on a very well known blogger's site--he's embroiled in another one of those New York literary con-tro-ver-sies--fighting with the journalistic demons and dragons over something that should have never have even been a controversy.
I mean considering the banality of the literary bone of contention.
I don't say that to be mean. Lots of writers write deliberately banal works today. It's practically a literary movement, banality. Just another ironic school and strategy.
When people become famous other people attack them just to get attention. A quote from Mr. Obvious.
I think I used to do pathetic things like that because of my bipolar tendencies. And because I drank at the time.
But it's not the recent controversy that interested me.
What interested me is that none of these journalists were even arguing with the person they thought they were.
Either you know a writer's style and mannerisms or you don't.
I know enough of that author to say that wasn't the guy.
He had delegated that fight to someone else. Fucking funny.
And I think I even know which young fellow in his coterie received the assignment.
Because he's the best mimic in the group.
But. It's not. The same. Never is.
So the famous dude avoids stress in his life.
The only other possibility is that this "famous author" has drastically changed overnight.
That can happen with drugs or stress or mental illness, love woes, etc. Combinations of stressors.
But it was all wrong. The critical prose. The tone of brittleness was so atypical. Where before there was verve, an artful dodger, now there is a drop into the fray, the self-abasement of contending.
This author never contended heretofore. He floated above. Which was what made him a marvel and what ultimately made him famous.
Well that and a shitload of work.
Probably he is more his parents' child than he realizes.
Oh, probably he realizes.
Maybe he is getting brittle. Maybe he is changing.
The only other evidence of something like that happening (the beautiful mask brittling and possibly beginning to crack) is a comment he made recently when an interviewer seemingly awoke the Anxiety of Influence while trying to get this young author agree to the importance of the mentorship of one of his college professors, a well-regarded writer in his own right. But a writer nowhere near as celebrated.
And the wunderkind could have been magnanimous but he instantly snapped back that he (and not his instructor) was the one who was responsible for choosing the class and placing himself in that environment.
I found it funny, protective reflexology. Maybe he is now in permanent defense mode. The young author then followed this up by stating that greater than ninety-eight percent of the publicity he has received through his career has been the result of the sweat of his own brow. Anyone who has followed this writer's career arc will know he's not exaggerating one bit. The intensity of the literary onslaught is pretty unprecedented--at least in my lifetime.
If he is changing under all the punches, that's really unfortunate, because he's too young to be that brittle and to stoop--even to slay dragons for the sake of chivalry.
It may just be noblesse oblige. He's always underscored the stupidity of human cruelty in his writings, creative or critical. So maybe he just figured once you become famous people become nicer to you and nicer to your friends. Maybe he thinks you eventually get a pass.
I want to doubt he was that naive.
Maybe he figures if he spews vitriol back, vitriol will stop. But that's so the opposite of everything that went before, and he surely knows that's using gasoline to quench fire. Maybe he likes big fires.
Of course, no publicity is bad publicity and he's lived his life along those Barnum lines, very funnily and very publicly.
That's something he rubbed in the faces of the ones attacking. How they were aggrandizing the subject of their attacks. He showed them how the story was radiating. He's very good at knowing how things radiate. That's the scientist in him. I saw he's now toying with trying to generate memes. So far his most successful meme is his literary style. And that's how it should be if you are achieving real success and not flash-in-the-pan success. It would be a fallacy to say you can gauge the success of a writer by how many imitators he or she has. Because I'm sure Jackie Collins has a lot of imitators. But I think it's fair to say you can gauge that some type of success has been achieved when imitations begin to multiply. That's just the nature of the marketplace and literature is the marketplace (despite what purists want to think).
This is still quantitative success over qualitative success. If you believe the latter exists. I hope you do. But there's no chance you and I believe in the exact same thing when it comes to qualitative success. No chance in hell. Unless you lie. That's a good thing. That difference between all of us.
That's the mystery of extinction, really, what we're talking about when we start talking that direction.
Why wasn't T-Rex good enough to make the cut, but that shark was?
They were both hungry monsters.
That's when you better start talking to flowers or Buddha or the Magic Lemur who knows all.
Because that is the Transcendental Shit of Bull in the Sky.
The odd thing is this author writes very well. And the author he felt compelled to defend is simply too young to write well. Maybe she will. Maybe he's as good at gauging potential in others as he is with himself.
Maybe he feels responsible for having published this author. If she turns around and suicides or something (by all accounts she was traumatized by this negative publicity and the attacks) of course her literary benefactor and protector is going to be fucked up by that. So he's probably doing the smart thing with all the damage control. By sparing himself future vicarious pain and possibly guilt.
I do feel vicariously abashed at what people are doing to her.
It must be progress on my part that I never enter these arguments anymore or ridiulously feel I have any stake in them. I now look at that insanity in my life and am finally able to be able to let it go as that, as insanity. You can't make sense of your own past insanity. You can only be grateful that you didn't physically or permanently damage anyone and hope your vile words, those plagues of locusts, were recognized as the ravings of a lunatic. That's how I look at them.
Even when I was totally fucked up I never attacked anyone I felt or knew was truly vulnerable. But that's why attacks are so fucking stupid. You never know how vulnerable anybody is, what shit they're dealing with. They're not going to come out and tell you.
One person I repeatedly got paranoid about (and that doesn't mean they weren't bedeviling me with parodies--it happens) I later found out lost her husband. To fucking murder. Instead of feeling like a piece of shit, I henceforth began to feel like a piece of shit squared.
I just cringe when I see my past self in these people now.
Those dysfunctional "literary" behaviors. The playground mentality.
I learned how important boundaries are for someone like me.
I used to not give myself any, and--much worse--I insanely felt nobody else should have them with regards to me. Well, in my fever pitch of mania I felt that way.
Probably the biggest misconception about bipolar mania is that it is a feeling of elation and superproductivity. It can be that. But it can also be paranoia, rage, and self-destructive behavior--and often this includes irrational attacks on people you care about very much in your non-manic periods. But of course one good mania can ruin a dozen friendships in a day. Trust me. I've done it.
But I didn't even know it was mania (and alcohol) warping my perspective. I thought it was reality making my life hell.
Instead of the truth: unreality was making my life hell.
I couldn't be further philosophically, emotionally, mathe-fucking-matically, from that person than I feel now.
No. I'm not cured. And some people actually do get cured (a permanent one or one lasting many years) of bipolar disorder. It is one of the most treatable serious mental illnesses.
But I. Can't. Tolerate. The. Medicines.
So I have to try to use the cognitive strategies. I have to rely on self-discipline.
Once you remove alcohol, self-discipline becomes a much more realistic goal.
But I no longer look at people the way I once did. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt right up to the time they stab me in the neck.
I was recently "stabbed in the neck." But you know what? I'm glad it happened now rather than later. Because now I can manage my caring for that person in the appropriate way. I wish them well. But I'm not going to invest any more time in that direction.
I hope others do. The saints and those who have sangfroid to spare. I don't kid myself that I'll ever achieve the sort of self-possession where I have sangfroid to spare.
I will just get more and more careful with how I relate to other people.
Everyone's a hot potato. Everyone's trying to die correctly.
Or if they're not keep well the hell away from them.
I can't help anyone who is another me and other mes can't add anything of value to my life.
Cats are about as high as I care to go anymore on the scale of karmic interactions during the vast majority of my waking hours.
But I believe things will continue to get better, the way they have been getting better now for some time.
And maybe I will get better at--and more careful with--social interactions.
Well, until my body's failure or the loss or suffering of loved ones starts to chisel away at me, the usual horrors that happen to everyone. And I'll try to remember that then. That it happens to everyone. All the time. I'm not being singled out. That's a bipolar idea.
Even when you're well-behaved the universe is still gonna take you out. Piecemeal or all at once. I much prefer all at once. Dear Creator, please spare me having the semantics of suicide applied to my end, but please make it functionally as quick and efficient as those folks usually are with exiting (too early) the festival grounds.
Boom. Bitch goes down. I know a lot of people who die like that. And I always feel the universe loved them. That's so irrational it makes me giggle. That I think like that.
None of this means I don't want or need friends. I value friends more now.
But carefully chosen friends.
With whom I will try to be very careful myself.
I try to check every sentence now for how it was shaped by the bipolar filtration system in my brain.
But sentences still slip through and probably will for some time.
Sentences of overfamiliarity, sentences of lability, sentences of rage or dismissal.
But less and less.
Even criticizing human-made objects you're criticizing humans.
And I don't only mean in the artistic sphere.
No wonder so many rigorous thinkers end up looking like dismal Shakers.
Like stoic kooks.
They end up like the exact opposite of Yiddish.
Wittgenstein is the exact opposite of Yiddish.
Schopenauer is the exact opposite of Yiddish.
Exhausting people exhaust themselves.
Exceedingly careful people exhaust themselves.
The big sloppy emotions people blow through and they are most of life.
And they're exhausting too.
But their exhausting is on the outside.
Whereas the careful people's exhausting is on the inside.
Mostly.
Except the careful people are exhausting to the big sloppy emotions people and vice versa.
So life is designed to be an adventure in misunderstanding.
Probably quarks all hate each other.
That's a good place to stop.
The bottom.
Basho's Infamous Frog Poem
I hate every single English language translation of Basho's frog poem.
I love Cid Corman but don't like his.
Don't like Ginsberg's.
Don't like Rexroth's.
So I figured the Forever Alone meme should have a crack at it.
I think that guy gets the real poem.
If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about.
Among the translations given on that site, I guess I'd say Dick Bakken's is the least objectionable and has the keenest balance of "sound and sense."
Funny that he beats out poets of the stature of Ginsberg and Corman on that little poem, but I think he does.
Although Corman wrote tiny masterpieces like this to rival Basho.
"The Tortoise" is a perfect picture of the human universe and the entropy it's faced with.
It's not like Corman didn't spend enough time or put enough effort into the culture or literature.
Because God knows he left his mark there and here.
The Mystery of "The Springfield Three"
Yesterday, when Investigation Discovery ran that marathon of Disappeared I only got a chance to see a few of them.
These would have all been repeat viewings for me, but usually you need to really see those shows twice or thrice to really get all the facts of each disappearance into your head.
The disappearance of "The Springfield Three" is one that really stilettos the viewer. The details of this nightmare are succinctly summed up here.
This one's pretty much pure horror, because it looks like three wonderful human beings were probably all taken and killed in one fell swoop.
And two of them had just graduated high school that very night and were just beginning their lives.
It boggles the mind.
I am moved by Kathee Baird's continual efforts to bring these women home and move this case towards a resolution and--hopefully--justice.
Justice is a poor substitute for lives stolen.
I haven't spent any great length of time reading about this case so I don't know if convicted killer Cox (who has implied he may have murdered these women) is just toying with the media and family members or not.
Or if the other serial rapist/killer mentioned in the Wiki article is a viable suspect.
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying this case, but the salient fact that jumped out at me was the two obscene phone calls received by the family friend who was in the house the next day after the apparent abduction.
What Is Known
The two young women arrived home after 11 p.m. The mother of one of the two (Sherrill Levitt) was present in the home. All evidence points to the fact that the girls removed their makeup and then went to bed and that the mother also slept in her bed that night.
Sometime before 8 a.m. the next morning they had to have been abducted. Most likely this was in the middle of the night.
The glass globe of the front porch light was found shattered but not the light bulb itself. The show didn't say whether this bulb would still light or not. It was implied it did.
What it looks like: attacker either followed the girls home from the friend's house where they were staying or (much more likely) had the new house on Delmar Street the mother and daughter had just moved into under surveillance. Attacker broke into the house sometime between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. and used a weapon (most likely a gun or knife) to convince the women to go with him, probably telling them they wouldn't be harmed if they obeyed. Either the light was broken before entering the house (to prevent any witnesses seeing the exit of four people in the middle of the night--if only one of them had screamed and run!) or on the way out of the house during the actual abduction. I'm guessing on the way out of the house since making that much noise going in could have caused a call to the police by a neighbor (if there were close neighbors). On the show, it looked like there were neighbors nearby. But then if he was inside the house he could have just turned the light off by the switch. But maybe in his fervor he wasn't able to be that rational. Maybe these women were tied up inside the house and he was carrying them out to a vehicle one by one. I'm surprised the phone lines weren't cut (this occurred in 1992 and nobody had cell phones) or the phone in the house in some way disabled. I guess that just points again to a lightning-quick round up of the women in the house. The perp had to have been watching that house for some time. I don't believe this is a case of a killer just suddenly stumbling upon the house that night.
The reason I mentioned the two obscene phone calls is because I'm thinking whoever abducted the women could actually still see the house the next day. And I think that would point to a neighbor committing these crimes. How else would he know anyone was there?
There was also an odd answering machine message that got erased that might also have been a stalking call. It was left in doubt.
But if the FBI was involved in this case, I'm thinking they would have been able to trace all those calls and they would have. So I would think any suspects found that way either had to have been cleared or there just wasn't sufficient evidence.
The calls could have been unrelated but--because they were sexual in nature and this looks like a sexually-motivated crime--I tend to think they probably are related.
A real shame that twenty people traipsed through that house, post-crime and before the police could get in there and process the scene.
The women's three purses found lined up on the floor could imply robbery was the original motive, but I'm guessing that's an opportunistic element in this abduction and that this was primarily a sexually-motivated crime. Even though the young girls are beautiful, I think the mother was the stalker's focus. Possibly the daughter. But someone who lived in that house. It could be the friend (Suzi Streeter) who was being stalked, but I think that's unlikely since I believe this crime occurred because someone had noticed the mother and daughter moving into the new home and had realized how vulnerable these two were.
And when you've first moved into a house and are fixing it up, it's often an invitation to stalkers. Often curtains are not yet hung. You're going in and out of the house so often with painting and such...and airing it out when painting, so windows and doors are often left open. The night of the disappearance the mother was refinishing a piece of furniture. I wonder if she had a window or door open to release fumes.
It's really too horrible to contemplate.
But I do believe in this case it was someone very physically close to that house.
I don't think I lean towards Cox. But I don't know enough about him.
Okay, I just read this horrific summary of Cox's modus operandi.
Circumstantial case or not, he committed that rape-murder in '79.
You don't bite through a man's tongue unless he's raping you or trying to kill you.
And that young woman's body was found 300 yards from the motel where Cox was staying.
The Florida Supreme Court's reversal of this conviction was just a ridiculous miscarriage.
And it was spitting in the faces of his surviving victims and their loved ones.
It's not like the guy was able to skate free though. Not when he had that other kidnapping under his belt--and those other crimes for which he was convicted and which were not idiotically reversed.
But this guy will be up for parole in 2025. Think he'll be too tired to still rape and kill? Doubt it.
Let's hope the victims' loved ones and the surviving victims are smart enough to show up in 2025 and stop that from happening. I was very impressed recently when I saw how the father of a murder victim who knew he was dying had made a recording to be played in perpetuity at any future parole hearings his daughter's murderer would get. And that tape did its work. The murderer was denied parole. Keeping justice justice is hard work.
How people can be against the death penalty with creatures like this I just don't understand.
Would you let a shark live in a bathtub with you?
I mean. Get real.
Serial killers?
Kill them all. Let God sort them out.
These would have all been repeat viewings for me, but usually you need to really see those shows twice or thrice to really get all the facts of each disappearance into your head.
The disappearance of "The Springfield Three" is one that really stilettos the viewer. The details of this nightmare are succinctly summed up here.
This one's pretty much pure horror, because it looks like three wonderful human beings were probably all taken and killed in one fell swoop.
And two of them had just graduated high school that very night and were just beginning their lives.
It boggles the mind.
I am moved by Kathee Baird's continual efforts to bring these women home and move this case towards a resolution and--hopefully--justice.
Justice is a poor substitute for lives stolen.
I haven't spent any great length of time reading about this case so I don't know if convicted killer Cox (who has implied he may have murdered these women) is just toying with the media and family members or not.
Or if the other serial rapist/killer mentioned in the Wiki article is a viable suspect.
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying this case, but the salient fact that jumped out at me was the two obscene phone calls received by the family friend who was in the house the next day after the apparent abduction.
What Is Known
The two young women arrived home after 11 p.m. The mother of one of the two (Sherrill Levitt) was present in the home. All evidence points to the fact that the girls removed their makeup and then went to bed and that the mother also slept in her bed that night.
Sometime before 8 a.m. the next morning they had to have been abducted. Most likely this was in the middle of the night.
The glass globe of the front porch light was found shattered but not the light bulb itself. The show didn't say whether this bulb would still light or not. It was implied it did.
What it looks like: attacker either followed the girls home from the friend's house where they were staying or (much more likely) had the new house on Delmar Street the mother and daughter had just moved into under surveillance. Attacker broke into the house sometime between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. and used a weapon (most likely a gun or knife) to convince the women to go with him, probably telling them they wouldn't be harmed if they obeyed. Either the light was broken before entering the house (to prevent any witnesses seeing the exit of four people in the middle of the night--if only one of them had screamed and run!) or on the way out of the house during the actual abduction. I'm guessing on the way out of the house since making that much noise going in could have caused a call to the police by a neighbor (if there were close neighbors). On the show, it looked like there were neighbors nearby. But then if he was inside the house he could have just turned the light off by the switch. But maybe in his fervor he wasn't able to be that rational. Maybe these women were tied up inside the house and he was carrying them out to a vehicle one by one. I'm surprised the phone lines weren't cut (this occurred in 1992 and nobody had cell phones) or the phone in the house in some way disabled. I guess that just points again to a lightning-quick round up of the women in the house. The perp had to have been watching that house for some time. I don't believe this is a case of a killer just suddenly stumbling upon the house that night.
The reason I mentioned the two obscene phone calls is because I'm thinking whoever abducted the women could actually still see the house the next day. And I think that would point to a neighbor committing these crimes. How else would he know anyone was there?
There was also an odd answering machine message that got erased that might also have been a stalking call. It was left in doubt.
But if the FBI was involved in this case, I'm thinking they would have been able to trace all those calls and they would have. So I would think any suspects found that way either had to have been cleared or there just wasn't sufficient evidence.
The calls could have been unrelated but--because they were sexual in nature and this looks like a sexually-motivated crime--I tend to think they probably are related.
A real shame that twenty people traipsed through that house, post-crime and before the police could get in there and process the scene.
The women's three purses found lined up on the floor could imply robbery was the original motive, but I'm guessing that's an opportunistic element in this abduction and that this was primarily a sexually-motivated crime. Even though the young girls are beautiful, I think the mother was the stalker's focus. Possibly the daughter. But someone who lived in that house. It could be the friend (Suzi Streeter) who was being stalked, but I think that's unlikely since I believe this crime occurred because someone had noticed the mother and daughter moving into the new home and had realized how vulnerable these two were.
And when you've first moved into a house and are fixing it up, it's often an invitation to stalkers. Often curtains are not yet hung. You're going in and out of the house so often with painting and such...and airing it out when painting, so windows and doors are often left open. The night of the disappearance the mother was refinishing a piece of furniture. I wonder if she had a window or door open to release fumes.
It's really too horrible to contemplate.
But I do believe in this case it was someone very physically close to that house.
I don't think I lean towards Cox. But I don't know enough about him.
Okay, I just read this horrific summary of Cox's modus operandi.
Circumstantial case or not, he committed that rape-murder in '79.
You don't bite through a man's tongue unless he's raping you or trying to kill you.
And that young woman's body was found 300 yards from the motel where Cox was staying.
The Florida Supreme Court's reversal of this conviction was just a ridiculous miscarriage.
And it was spitting in the faces of his surviving victims and their loved ones.
It's not like the guy was able to skate free though. Not when he had that other kidnapping under his belt--and those other crimes for which he was convicted and which were not idiotically reversed.
But this guy will be up for parole in 2025. Think he'll be too tired to still rape and kill? Doubt it.
Let's hope the victims' loved ones and the surviving victims are smart enough to show up in 2025 and stop that from happening. I was very impressed recently when I saw how the father of a murder victim who knew he was dying had made a recording to be played in perpetuity at any future parole hearings his daughter's murderer would get. And that tape did its work. The murderer was denied parole. Keeping justice justice is hard work.
How people can be against the death penalty with creatures like this I just don't understand.
Would you let a shark live in a bathtub with you?
I mean. Get real.
Serial killers?
Kill them all. Let God sort them out.
Thanks to Peter Ganick
for accepting 3 poems for his fine online mag here.
I haz a proud.
Especially since I get to be next to Sheila Murphy.
Sheila Murphy is like the Ocean: the gorgeous incoming waves never end and you never get bored. To continue to walk alongside the metaphor with my sandals off...sometimes the language gets all gooey-squishy between your toes and you love that too.
Ganick's mag is chock-a-block with great stuff. I added a link in my blogroll.
I remember the delight of discovering Peter Ganick's poetry in the first issue of Aerial I found, in wonderful Louis's (long-gone) Bookstore Cafe in Baltimore on (where else?) Charles Street.
This was edited by poet Rod Smith and it was doubtless one of the best and most influential magazines of anglophone poetry published.
It didn't surprise me one bit when I later found the inaugural issue of that Best American Poetry series (edited by Ashbery, 1988) and there was a slew of work in that anthology which J.A. had selected from the then current issue of Aerial.
And that was the beginning of my reckoning of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.
But now I'm more concerned with W=A=K=I=N=G U=P E=A=C=H D=A=Y.
But I still like L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E too.
I haz a proud.
Especially since I get to be next to Sheila Murphy.
Sheila Murphy is like the Ocean: the gorgeous incoming waves never end and you never get bored. To continue to walk alongside the metaphor with my sandals off...sometimes the language gets all gooey-squishy between your toes and you love that too.
Ganick's mag is chock-a-block with great stuff. I added a link in my blogroll.
I remember the delight of discovering Peter Ganick's poetry in the first issue of Aerial I found, in wonderful Louis's (long-gone) Bookstore Cafe in Baltimore on (where else?) Charles Street.
This was edited by poet Rod Smith and it was doubtless one of the best and most influential magazines of anglophone poetry published.
It didn't surprise me one bit when I later found the inaugural issue of that Best American Poetry series (edited by Ashbery, 1988) and there was a slew of work in that anthology which J.A. had selected from the then current issue of Aerial.
And that was the beginning of my reckoning of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.
But now I'm more concerned with W=A=K=I=N=G U=P E=A=C=H D=A=Y.
But I still like L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E too.
Spencer Selby
I was happy to find Spencer Selby's blog and recent artwork here.
I'll add a link to my blogroll at left.
I just realized I've enjoyed his verbo-visual and textual creations for decades now.
How time flies when you're.
I love the palimpsestic nature of Selby's visuals--how everything from Lascaux to what got spray-painted on the city wall yesterday is in there.
Omniscient-Palimpsestic Scroll.
I'll add a link to my blogroll at left.
I just realized I've enjoyed his verbo-visual and textual creations for decades now.
How time flies when you're.
I love the palimpsestic nature of Selby's visuals--how everything from Lascaux to what got spray-painted on the city wall yesterday is in there.
Omniscient-Palimpsestic Scroll.
Monday, December 26, 2011
OMG Cheezburger! I Feel Like a Make a Wish Kid!
see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!
People are gonna think I'm a kid with cancer or something.
Four front pages or something today.
This one here above...
Funny that I have zero memory of making that LOL.
But when I was checking in people who favorited I saw it and thought, "That's funny...is that me...or not?"
It "felt" like me. But I wouldn't have even bet ten bucks it was.
So strange. Getting older.
Merciiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
I was being all self-disciplined and shit and submitted to 5 poetry mags tonight...and one already posted my writing.
I'll thank the editor tomorrow and do the linking thang.
But I didn't want to appear an ingrate. So....THANKERS CHEEZBURGER!
Another Poem
This is another poem about poetry. Please accept my apology in advance. It is unmercifully not about a more powerful subject. Like say, oh beavers. Now I've just teased you. You're suddenly sure this poem is going to turn around and be about beavers. Except it isn't. It's going to stay a poem about poetry. Sorry. I hate poetry more than I hate beavers, so I'm going to talk about that.
Study
Does not pray downwind from people
Does not count the Titanics
like a foregone concussion
Does not sleep by his parent's grave
homeland of good reasons
Does not wake under teachers
Does not grieve at his own movie
Does not trade loving spring for hate autumn
Would not measure the distance to you anymore
Is fascinated with the food that makes a man
Does not count the Titanics
like a foregone concussion
Does not sleep by his parent's grave
homeland of good reasons
Does not wake under teachers
Does not grieve at his own movie
Does not trade loving spring for hate autumn
Would not measure the distance to you anymore
Is fascinated with the food that makes a man
As a Young Man
I used to volunteer
at a mental hospital,
drive charming lunatics
to record stores.
I'd feed goofy ducks
in mid-winter
with the lover.
I gave free time
to the Association for the Blind.
These things all look
good on paper.
But. The truth is.
Now I am a lunatic
and find it very hard
to be a charming one.
I starve like a duck
in mid-winter
and begrudge
the few breadcrumbs
young lovers throw to me.
And while optically sound
in both my eyes,
I am almost famous
for my blindness.
at a mental hospital,
drive charming lunatics
to record stores.
I'd feed goofy ducks
in mid-winter
with the lover.
I gave free time
to the Association for the Blind.
These things all look
good on paper.
But. The truth is.
Now I am a lunatic
and find it very hard
to be a charming one.
I starve like a duck
in mid-winter
and begrudge
the few breadcrumbs
young lovers throw to me.
And while optically sound
in both my eyes,
I am almost famous
for my blindness.
The Three-Toed Sloth and I
The three-toed sloth and I
probably share
about 90% of our existence.
The 10% not
in common
is most likely
pure and unadulterated
self-pity,
galvanized
and vulcanized,
all-season
self-pity.
probably share
about 90% of our existence.
The 10% not
in common
is most likely
pure and unadulterated
self-pity,
galvanized
and vulcanized,
all-season
self-pity.
I Fell Right Through Suicide
Oh, I fell through suicide
long ago
and kept going.
It has a mushy
rotten floor
where you can't
really stand long
later in life,
like a gooey banana
or an avocado
you waited too
long to open.
Sometimes I'm jealous
of the ones
who treated it
like a high dive,
launched into the void
while the springboard
was still stiff
and gave them
that extra lift
you need to push off
and be airborne,
set up your gorgeous jackknife
into the water,
take people's breath
away. What's the point
of suicide now?
I'd just be the fat guy
making the annoying
cannonball,
splash a few drops
onto your life
that you'd shake off
like a fuckin schnauzer.
long ago
and kept going.
It has a mushy
rotten floor
where you can't
really stand long
later in life,
like a gooey banana
or an avocado
you waited too
long to open.
Sometimes I'm jealous
of the ones
who treated it
like a high dive,
launched into the void
while the springboard
was still stiff
and gave them
that extra lift
you need to push off
and be airborne,
set up your gorgeous jackknife
into the water,
take people's breath
away. What's the point
of suicide now?
I'd just be the fat guy
making the annoying
cannonball,
splash a few drops
onto your life
that you'd shake off
like a fuckin schnauzer.
The Bisquith-Disdain Bee Calculator and Butterfly Engine
We can now surmise with 21st century hindsight that Olivia Bisquith-Disdain, the eleventh child born into this family of scientists, most likely suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder.
Or possibly she was autistic, a condition which can sometimes seem very much like a combination of paranoid schizophrenia and O.C.D.
This, however, did not stop Olivia from making significant contributions to her favorite disciplines of science: entomology and mathematics.
What makes this young scientist's contributions stand out from other celebrated elements in the Bisquith-Disdain legacy is that virtually every one of Olivia's innovations or experiments constituted an eccentric fusion of the disciplines of entomology and mathematics.
A perfect examplar of this tendency would be her Bee Calculator (1804).
This was a difference engine which utilized the Newtonian method of finite differences and which could tabulate polynomial functions. Using bees.
This inspiration was later stolen by Charles Babbage. A treatise is known to have been purloined from Olivia Bisquith-Disdain's very bedchamber roughly a decade after the disappearance of the entire family.
It should be pointed out that it took Babbage a quarter of a century to perfect "his" invention (the "Second Difference Engine," completed 1847-1849). Olivia Bisquith-Disdain created her Bee Calculator (sometimes referred to as The Melissographic Numerator) over the course of three months.
Olivia seemed not to have known of J.H. Muller's pioneering work in this sphere (1786) and seems to have struck upon the computational device wholly under her own steam.
Her parents and siblings tried to convince Olivia to recreate this device in materials somewhat less mortal than bees, but the young woman became headstrong on the matter. We have correspondence between Olivia and her brother Eustace Bisquith-Disdain on this contretemps and one must admit the sarcastic tone her brother assumed towards her in this epistle is indeed grating and more than a little condescending.
This letter actually includes the syllogism
All bees are mortal.
Your difference engine is composed of bees.
Your difference engine is mortal.
Why Eustace was writing rather than speaking to his sister, who lived in another wing of the same large mansion, is anyone's guess.
This sarcastic treatment by her consanguines may be the reason Olivia abandoned her Bee Calculator and turned her attention to the creation of her Butterfly Engine (1805).
The Butterfly Engine was a large glass sphere (approximately ten feet in diameter) filled with Blue Morphos.
The butterflies appeared to exist in a vacuum, but the creatures would not die from this apparent lack of atmosphere.
It is believed Olivia Bisquith-Disdain pioneered a sort of oxygen-nitrogen plasma that served as a life-sustaining medium for the lepidopterans.
Somehow the energy generated by the flapping of a mere few hundred butterflies was amplified into enough energy to power a turbine the size of a cottage.
A prose vignette describing the Butterfly Engine exists. This was written by a contemporary scientist, Rudiger Cruikshank. According to Cruikshank, as the butterflies flapped their wings a yellow-green phosphorescent milky substance appeared in their wake in the glass sphere. Cruikshank referred to this as "a sort of luminescent ether." But then--writing at that date--he would not have thought to use the word "plasma."
A poem describing the Butterfly Engine by M.H. Whitlow also exists. But like most poems it is useless. To scientists or anyone else.
It is known Olivia's family was extremely grateful for this contribution and routinely used Olivia's device to provide energy needed in their own scientific experiments.
The Butterfly Engine was nowhere to be found in The Merciful Bones at the time of the Bisquith-Disdain disappearance. The turbine was the only component left behind and no one has (alas!) discovered the eccentric scientist's working notes and no patent application approximating this device (by later inventors) is known to exist.
Cloning in the 19th Century
Many who try to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the Bisquith-Disdain family focus on contemporary accounts of their Mirror Aviary.
This room still exists in The Merciful Bones. It is an octagonal chamber. The room holds huge, ornate mirrors with gilt rococo spiderwebs of tracery around their edges, as if gold boiserie had behaved the way frost does with a window, crystallizing it. These mirrors are actually the walls of the chamber since they run from floor to ceiling.
A series of gilded bird cages modeled after London homes of the period hang throughout the room.
These are now empty. The room has been silent for a century and a half.
There is a raised, octagonal "viewing platform" in the center of the chamber, and accounts by contemporary scientists help to explain the purpose of all this artifice, even if they leave one baffled.
A very large handle rises from the floor of this viewing platform or observational dais, if you will, and this is connected to a series of mechanisms below the floor of the chamber.
When one turns this rotary handle, the room begins to spin. The mirrors start to fly around one and an unrecognizable, somewhat shrill and rather plaintive tune begins to play on an instrument which sounds a bit like a calliope. (But not quite.)
According to accounts written by those visitors to The Merciful Bones predisposed to record their experiences in a lucid manner, the birds in the cages would all be released once the song had reached a certain musical note.
That is, the doors of their gilded cages would all rise automatically and simultaneously.
And the birds--by all accounts possessed of rainbow plumage, exotic ones from the Colonies--would begin to fly in circles around the raised viewing platform, their images multiplied to infinity in that recursive visuality which always occurs when mirrors reflect one another.
The unusual thing, however, about this chamber, this pretty display of infinite regress optics, if contemporary accounts are to be believed, is what would happen once the machine was left to its own devices and inertia, allowed to slow down and stop.
Once this occurred, it was invariably found that the number of birds in the chamber had increased.
The new birds would appear to be exact copies of pre-existing birds.
This experiment was allegedly performed numerous times, often by the same impartial witnesses, and was apparently subject to verifiability; that is, the results were capable of being duplicated (pun intended).
No one has yet advanced any credible theory as to how Noah Bisquith-Disdain (the one who designed this chamber) was able to accomplish this, and no scientific notes by the young man revealing how he conceived or built this unique and prescient nod to three-dimensional xerography and cloning have been found.
No genetic comparison was available in the 19th century (since genetics did not really exist) so we have no way of knowing whether or not a Bisquith-Disdain performed the first successful cloning experiment.
It is unfortunate that the government tried to use this device to duplicate soldiers when the Ostracian War began to go badly and the country began suffering so many losses in the overseas campaigns of the 1850s.
Of course, the Bisquith Disdains were all long gone by then. A distant memory. If that.
It is now believed a failsafe against the duplication of human beings was built into the Mirror Aviary device by its inventor.
Because the machine produced only chimpanzees during that governmental run, and wild nasty chimps at that. There was, however, exactly one chimpanzee produced for each soldier who had stepped off the viewing platform and into the zone of duplication. It was clearly a one-to-one correspondence.
But the great reflecting walls of the Aviary had all cracked at precisely the same moment in this abortive attempt to mirror-clone humans.
The quite feral chimpanzees which materialized in this experiment all had to be put down.
The oddest thing was that some noted a particular resemblance between the soldiers and the chimpanzees produced by the zoetrope-like chamber. Others insisted this "observation" was only made by those given to gross superstition.
In any case, the outcome of this experiment so disturbed the scientists commissioned to perform it that shortly thereafter they had the mirrors painted over and then covered by sheets.
This is why the room now presents such a lugubrious aspect to the few individuals who are given permission to see it.
The irony is that a "test run" by the scientists using cats went quite well.
These were the famous Surplus Cats, as they came to be known in the journals of the day and anecdotally throughout the nation. These late gifts of the vanished Bisquith-Disdains were all adopted by royals and celebrities.
It is rumored that these cats did not reflect in mirrors, although mercifully none were predisposed to any form of vampirism whatsoever--at least according to the contemporary accounts we possess.
How Stuff Sneaks In
I have to admit most of these did get in my head through commercials.
Landon Pigg was the one who charmed me the most right off the bat.
I know: schmaltzy. But I like schmaltz sometimes. Plus, Landon Pigg is as sincere as a rainy day. And I like that about someone.
Plus, every season or so we have an uber-sincere U.K. singer songwriter go massive over here. It's just the season now. A few years back it was James Blunt. Now it's Landon.
Geez. Could The Elevenses try any harder to sound like The Shins?
I Don't Usually See the Point of Smiths Covers
except for when it's someone like the Trash Can Sinatras.
From The Smiths Is dead, 1996, released by french magazine Les Inrockuptibles.
Hey, they only made this darkest of songs a little upbeat.
From the same French covers album...other bands...
From The Smiths Is dead, 1996, released by french magazine Les Inrockuptibles.
Hey, they only made this darkest of songs a little upbeat.
From the same French covers album...other bands...
Milena Sidorova and "Our Past-Species Behavior"
WITH OUT AND WITHOUT (2010)--choreography Milena Sidorova
Milena Sidorova made this piece for Het Nationale Ballet workshop "New Moves" in 2010
concept: escaping misunderstandings and a confusing relationship brings to some new realisations. Dancers:
Vera Tsyganova, Chao Shi, Koen Havenith
Okay, the music starts out halfway to Narada or something.
Later, the music goes into iffier terrain, which at least has the benefit of being less Narada and more iffy.
But I still liked the choreography.
The choreography's great enough in places to transcend and ennoble the music.
Reminds me of the relationship at the core of that one Kundera novel.
And the drama of the triangle doesn't get old if it's handled well.
As it is here.
Plus, there's serious recall of our past-species behavior.
Serious hominid inflections.
Devastating atavistic "romance."
Milena Sidorova made this piece for Het Nationale Ballet workshop "New Moves" in 2010
concept: escaping misunderstandings and a confusing relationship brings to some new realisations. Dancers:
Vera Tsyganova, Chao Shi, Koen Havenith
Okay, the music starts out halfway to Narada or something.
Later, the music goes into iffier terrain, which at least has the benefit of being less Narada and more iffy.
But I still liked the choreography.
The choreography's great enough in places to transcend and ennoble the music.
Reminds me of the relationship at the core of that one Kundera novel.
And the drama of the triangle doesn't get old if it's handled well.
As it is here.
Plus, there's serious recall of our past-species behavior.
Serious hominid inflections.
Devastating atavistic "romance."
Magritte's Balancing Act?
Too bad he didn't get to live to see Montalvo and partner's choreography for Rameau and ilk.
This one's from a 2008 production.
This one's from a 2008 production.
I Was Reading
I was reading an interview with a very troubled writer whose work I admire. And then I was thinking about the horrendously true things he had said in the interview. I realized then that I'm nearly as painfully aware of his existence as I am of my own. This stranger. Why do I feel an urge to thank him for that? I can't rationally justify a feeling of gratitude towards the guy for giving me a "gift like that." Sure, he's funny. Most tragic figures, and people who are purveyors of tragedy, either start out funny or end up funny. They need something sweet for the admixture to make all that shit go down. He's no stranger, I guess. That's an expression people use about people tangentially in their lives, people who still manage to withdraw and deposit heat, despair, meaning, damage. Which is what this guy does with his books to me. I don't mind. Authors like this infiltrate you, but when they die their death kindly reverts to a cloud. The non-menacing sort of cloud. The kind that could become Q-Tips.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas, Rachel!
And Thank You for the Xmas prezzies!
I love them!
Hello Kitty, like you, is always welcome in my house.
And Magic Flower Mask will carry me into a Japanese anime tale soon. I predict.
I actually waited until Xmas Day to open them. I must be an adult. In some part of my mind, anyway.
This is my online refrigerator so this is where I leave you this note.
Oh, I also ate the plums that you were saving.
They were delicious. So cold and so explosive.
Merry Christmas!
And God Bless Us, every blog.
Love,
--William Carlos Keckler-Bisquick
I love them!
Hello Kitty, like you, is always welcome in my house.
And Magic Flower Mask will carry me into a Japanese anime tale soon. I predict.
I actually waited until Xmas Day to open them. I must be an adult. In some part of my mind, anyway.
This is my online refrigerator so this is where I leave you this note.
Oh, I also ate the plums that you were saving.
They were delicious. So cold and so explosive.
Merry Christmas!
And God Bless Us, every blog.
Love,
--William Carlos Keckler-Bisquick
Saturday, December 24, 2011
It is Curious
It is admittedly puzzling that Louise Elisabeth Bisquith-Disdain (nee Lefebvre) managed to survive the French Revolution despite having been guillotined.
Some insist this is why she wore such elaborate necklaces, such memorable scarves, chokers, etc.
This woman was a brilliant scientist in her own right, every bit her husband's equal.
While still in Paris and in her twenties, she created an amazingly lifelike automaton that was a nearly perfect duplicate of herself, one capable of tailoring devastating insults and directing them at whoever was acting as the mannequin's interlocutor at the time.
"Rude Little Madame," as the automaton came to be known throughout much of Europe, was convincingly dressed, coiffed and animated.
It is known the automaton toured several continents without its maker, but after the French Revolution it becomes difficult to trace the simulacrum's movements with any degree of certainty (with the exception of the year 1809, referenced below).
One historian is convinced the automaton actually married and retired into domesticity, and another admits he is "half-convinced" this is true.
Some questioned Madame Bisquith-Disdain's discretion in making this automaton in her own image, but she made it clear this was a funny poignard directed at the Book of Genesis.
Many scientists left The Merciful Bones with their feelings and amour-propre hurt. A gazette of the day notifies us that Rude Little Madame was in residence at the mansion in the year 1809. The article does, however, hint at future travels planned for the shrewish automaton. And she could not be found on the estate after the family's complete and utter disappearance.
Most of France believed Madame Lefebvre (as they knew her) to be long dead at the time of her mysterious disappearance.
Perhaps there is more than a little truth in her family's (Old Country) motto that "The finality of Death is for groundhogs."
Or course, the original is in Latin and this is a loose translation: Finalitatis mures mortis est.
American Bandstand (50s to 80s)
If you don't laugh while watching this, there's probably something wrong with you.
I can't believe Dick Clark actually said "It's too long a treatise."
I think "Snow Pants" is my favorite in this parody from two Xmases back.
I can't believe Dick Clark actually said "It's too long a treatise."
I think "Snow Pants" is my favorite in this parody from two Xmases back.
The Tom Tom Club Te Souhaite un "Joyeux Noel!"
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
OR WHATEVER OTHER CRAZY ASS HOLIDAY YOU CELEBRATE LOL.
OR WHATEVER OTHER CRAZY ASS HOLIDAY YOU CELEBRATE LOL.
I Just Found This
wonderful blog
Automata past, present and future.
I'll add this to my blogroll.
I can't believe you can buy this automaton right here for only 64 dollars.
And that it works on the principle of two neodymium magnets repulsing and attracting one another.
Just love it.
Automata past, present and future.
I'll add this to my blogroll.
I can't believe you can buy this automaton right here for only 64 dollars.
And that it works on the principle of two neodymium magnets repulsing and attracting one another.
Just love it.
Gutta-Percha Ball-Gag
It is indeed unfortunate and curious that every servant who did not disappear with the Bisquith-Disdains suffered from an irrecoverable amnesia for the rest of his or her life.
Still, the few verifiable facts some of them have been able to add to the public record are extremely worrisome, if they are to be given any credence.
More than one insisted the interior of The Merciful Bones was plagued by lightning storms.
It is reported that both ball and bolt lightning often materialized out of nowhere in the hallways of the mansions.
This is the reason for the quite unusual gutta-percha livery and footwear that the servants were required to wear at all times in The Merciful Bones under penalty of immediate dismissal.
Reportedly, on days of heightened experimentation by the Bisquith-Disdains, an extremely discomfiting gutta-percha mouthpiece had to be worn by all servants as well.
This was a sort of rubbery ball gag and it is believed this accoutrement is responsible for the wild rumors that sprung up concerning the family's "permissive attitudes towards sexual congress."
Probably these are flagrant lies.
One of these liveries still exists and is on periodic display in the Science Museum in London.
The Shaft
A number of chambers in The Merciful Bones were discovered to possess doors which opened upon mirrors the exact size of the doors which covered them.
Some of these mirrors had been disquietingly painted black.
One extremely worrisome door opens onto what seems a dark elevator shaft. This shaft is not rectilinear but circular and lined with malachite. It is, all agree, unfathomable (paronomasia intended) how this enigmatic structure was ever incorporated into the house's design.
It would doubtless be a punitive, augean and nearly pharaonic enterprise to accomplish.
And to what end?
No dumbwaiter or elevator is present.
This lightless shaft was sounded to the depth of many thousands of fathoms.
Some insist it has not been sounded to bottom yet.
No blueprints for The Merciful Bones have been discovered; however, there is a miniature version of the the estate in one of the conservatories.
Curiously, most of the house's anomalies (such as the mysterious shaft behind the door) are not present in this architectural mock-up.
The Bisquith-Disdain Disappearance
The gentlemen culled from the Royal Observatory to prepare a report noted that the clocks in various wings of The Merciful Bones were set not only to different hours, but even different days.
The condition of the bedchamber of Eustace Bisquith-Disdain was much discussed.
The horrible scratchings on the inside face of the bedchamber door were certainly a mote to trouble the mind's eye.
It seemed not unlikely one of the wilder, larger animals from the family menagerie had made these marks. Mercifully, no trace of blood was found.
Renziger Danfoss (who had been a family friend) pointed out that all the vestments found in Eustace's armoire were several sizes too small for him.
Yet the child's orrery was in the usual place upon his escritoire, and a mathematical grid in which young Eustace had been working out celestial mechanics and planetary peregrinations lay candidly open for all to see the boy had disturbing wisdom.
The "Brno Heresy"
Few among us have forgotten how the Bisquith-Disdains disproved the "Brno Heresy" by blithely levitating an entire wing of their mansion over the rest of the estate.
This was in the lovely, golden summer of 1811.
The Bisquith-Disdains made it clear that they could continue this levitation indefinitely.
But they relented and lowered the structure after two months at the request of neighbors who were simply getting "too much carriage traffic" across their respective properties.
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