Saturday, December 30, 2006

Do you have a license for that minkey?


I've started to hate this little monkey she leaves over here. When she is gone he is falling on his face drunk on banana wine. She likes to call him "Junior" and I say, now what do you mean by that?




Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Three Of Us, Christmas Evening


All the boys and girls were making the rounds of near-by relations, so Christmas Evening was relaxed and unhurried, unappointed. The train stops for another to pass, you've got a nice seat on the diner car, and it doesn't matter how long, let's tell stories. What's new?

Pa always says take off your coat and stay awhile, Johnny.

They left me a present anyway, the Kettle Kids I mean. I wasn't part of the drawing this year, how could it be?? But yes! And it was a great present and coincidental as well. I'd just emailed Pa a copy of Bob Dylan's "John Brown", I'd recently discovered, that was a part of Dylan's MTV Unplugged series in 1994. Brand new to me.

The present was a DVD of Bob Dylan Unplugged! Did you see what I just emailed you, 'gate? Man alive! No , I mean really! Dylan. Live. Man alive. Let's play it now! The guitars, the lyrics, Dylan's voice and phrasing in this is awesome and terrible ( given the subject, which is about a mother sending her son to war.)
____
R.M. was on the cell phone to her family and I remembered my mom had been ringing mine on the way over, so I flopped on the couch and rang her back, where she's visiting my sister in the Volunteer State, where my great great ever so great.... oh, never mind.

"Hiya Mom, is that you? Hahahahaha. Yes of course it is but I'm calling for Alice. Yeah, haha! Tell her it's John. John Jackson, she'll know me. Thanks. Hello, Mom? Hi! (My hand over the phone: "This is my Mom, all right!") Thanks, Merry Christmas to you too! Oh just great, I've had a very memorable Christmas and am over here...yes, yes...No, they're gone, just the three of us, gonna have a feast. What about you, how did yours go?

"You got lost? Wasn't Mr. Toad with you? Oh. Glass eye, right. And dark. Uh, huh. The street has three different names as you go along, eh, yes I remember, I remember. (Hand over the phone: "Nashville has crazy streets") Three miles back eh? (hand over the phone: "A stranger led them back, maybe Jesus.")

"Kids made out like bandits I hear, that right? Ah. Uh, huh. (hand over the phone: "Grandkids are unbelievably darling"). Awww. (hand over the phone: "My one niece, darling girl, not spoiled, acts like the perfect hostess to Mr. Toad").

What. Ew. (hand over the phone: "Oldest one's a teenager now, holy krep"). He's not hanging out with older kids is he? Yeah but you never know. (hand over the phone: "the little rotter is dead to me now, 'til he's 30")...

"Sure, well you could send those pics right now over the computer. (hand over the phone: "Her excitement is wearing me down, Pa, ring the dinner bell will you?")
_____
To know my mom is to love her.
_______
And we did Christmas feast, and my two fosters were going to let me pour maple syrup over my meat and potatoes (but I was joking) and they praised me for cleaning my plate, but I always do there.

R.M. said, "But this time you really filled your plate!"

It felt wonderful too. Usually I don't like being full. Hm.

I think about that food now and feel grateful. Keep thinking about it. Then like an...I don't know, alcoholic ...I think and I start to get very very angry. Why can't I eat like this everyday. Why! Why!

Women's liberation. Started when they began smoking cigarettes in public, back right after the First World War. OH. Not women's liberation. But Traditional Values! Or something. World gone wrong, world gone wrong.


Then I saw the chess set. I haven't played in a year, and last time got my socks blown off.

The size of the pieces made me suddenly very confident. I don't know, maybe thinking that in the end you could just clobber and knock your opponet out cold with the otherwise powerless King.

But my victory was not to be. Because for one, Pa called out from his room "what's your favorite George Harrison song, quick!" And I couldn't think of any. I was about to check mate her then, I swear. Then he started singing with the ukelele "It's A Sunshine Life For Me".

It's sunshine life for me
If I could get away from this cloud over me
Seems to just follow me around

There's a good life had for free
When you're out in the country
That's what I could use
If I could get away there soon

It's a sunshine life for me
If I could get away from this cloud over me
Seems to just follow me around

There's a good life had at sea
If you're not in the Navy
That's the life for you
Sail away Raymond, Sail away

Now most folks just bore me
Always imposing, and I'd rather meet a tree
Somewhere out in the cornfield

And it's a sunshine . . .
It's a sunshine life for me
If I could get away from this cloud over me
Seems to just follow me around
___
Then the phone rang and it was the pooka, probably sensing I was kidding myself about my chances in this game.

We called it a draw. But I think....I say I think R.M. was relieved.

Eh, maybe because at just that moment she'd turned it all around and got my whorish queen, who had trolloped all the way down to the other end of the board. ....
_____
Very blessed to have friends. And just the friends I'd choose too, wouldn't have any others! Thank you two. You know how to get a man to take his coat off and stay awhile.

And a happy new year to all!

Thanks for visiting, everyone, and share any similiar stories in the comments.

Monday, December 25, 2006

A jolly Xmas Eve at the Pooka Dot's

So, the mystery of the Pooka. She let me in--- anyway I suppose that was her house--- you never know who else she's taken up with--- and it was of course other worldly in a good way.

First we shopped for our Xmas Eve dinner. Kellogg's snak paks! Gee , I just got happy all over. And couldn't think which one I'd like to eat first.







Now the first thing you learn about a Pooka Xmas is that you want a tree that is white and is melted down later for a delicious confectionary marvel.




Silver bells and silver and blue bulbs, that's all, no lights since they generate heat. You would be surprised how long this took. We listened to Bach, Mozart, Burl Ives, Bing, and Chubby Checkers. Then she spent a good while preparing this delicious glazed veil and here is the finished Pooka Tree:

GreatestJournal Free Photo Hosting


What else did I learn?

Pookas are so mysterious but then you know, next year ...you never know what to expect, I think is the game. But since she is technically Imaginary and Make-Believe, some inward gazing might give you a clue. For instance, her house has 24 hour Jack Benny, Fibber and Molly, George and Gracie, just as I like at my own home. There were slippers identical to mine, pajamas I thought I'd lost as a boy, and a picture of my great, great, ever so great step Uncle Andrew Jackson on the wall ( framed, with a odd plaque reading "Our First Counterfeit Twenty").

Another odd thing is that my present from my mom was there too.

"Hope you like this nice brown Republican cardigan sweater with elbow patches. (I do!)" Mom wrote. Actually, well it's nice but looks more profesorial communist to me. She continued "Have also sent the I.R.S. $100 for you. Merry Christmas and much love, Mom."

Hoo boy. That's what you get for being a bad man. I was hoping for a gift certificate to get a root canal but that's how it goes for the rumpot.

We ate our Kelloggs then and watched a Dick Tracy movie from 1936. Most beautiful film noir I've ever seen, ten years ahead of its time, every shot a classic with strange shadows, odd staircases, jumping clocks, fast footage of men working at the press, spinning newspapers with double decker headlines. There's actually a series of Dick Tracy movies and I never knew, never knew. I swear, I liked that better than any Blondie and Dagwood movie I ever saw.

In the morning I gave her her presents, and do you know, she got just about everything I wanted this year.

I left this morning thinking, what a merry, uncomplicated Christmas. And how all my dreams are happy, shallow, wish-fulfillment dreams (instead of those odd ones people sometimes describe, with talking door knobs and such. )

Thank you for visiting and best wishes for a new year.

Oh there's one more thing I learned. Look what happens when she tries to pretend she's asleep:

GreatestJournal Free Photo Hosting

You can just make them out. Pooka Pox.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Tie clip cam again


My crew is taking a smoke break while I'm doing returns and I decide to join Teddi and Francina and the men who's names I will never commit to memory. Oh and Becky, the new forklift driver! Becky Braendlingerer. I love that name. Becky, I mean. It' s a girl next door name, you know? (And to paraphrase the modern times bard, her lovliness wounds me. )

What the devil, look over there. Twenty men are gathered around a hole. They're all passive, with their hands in their pockets against the cold, and their heads bowed. Is it a ...funeral? Some of the ex-cons who have worked at the Herald, twenty years after parole, tend to be very sentimental about the place and get misty eyed when we have pep rallies.
_______
Francina, she's smart because she's 60 and has lived in foreign lands. They must be teaching a class, she says.

forehead smack. I am so slow sometimes, still. A year and a half without a drink, they keep telling me at AA to come back...

Teddi says go take a picture, John. There are so many of them, no one will object.
Interesting shot if this is found a million years from now by a race of humans who think they were created two thousand years ago. What I wanted was to get all the bill caps, because I remember seeing a photo from the 20's once with hundreds of men in a crowd all wearing identical straw hats. The bill-cap (Francina calls them "give-away caps") is today's straw hat, or field hat I guess. I think Stereolabrat meant these when she wrote her famous harrange against "trucker hats" appearing among the hip in New York City. That was in 2003 and by golly I think she put a stop to it. (oh, you must become familiar with Stereolabrat...She and Lileks are opposites and equally amazing and LOL funny. one, a foul mouthed korean girl in NYC, the other a stay at home, presbyrtarian dad in Minnesota).

thanks for the visit. just had these spare photos was all.



Monday, December 18, 2006

Blast it all



I've been tagged by Mrs. Trudging, of all people. She was my 4th grade teacher, you know.

And actually it's not that strange. Back then, when the kids all...eh, misunderstood me, she would feel a little sorry during recess and offer to play with me instead.

So the tag is: "6 Weird Things About You". I'm supposed to tag someone else then but of course, like in 4th grade, I won't. However I will give my old false smile (this teacher of mine is being nice, I'd think to myself and reach for a word... how , how , how...idiosyncratic of her!)

Ok then. Six weird things about me. It's an opportunity to boast, anyway...

1.) In 1998 doctors discovered my thyroid gland had not been functioning for years. I was given a simple synthetic pill to take everyday and told "In two weeks you're going to feel like a million bucks." I took the pills and this Anarcho-Syndicalist Revolutionary promptly turned into a "staunch" conservative. I also stopped drinking and smoking. I enrolled in programming classes and got a grown up salaried job. The pills worked for three years. I took a drink, lit a cigarette, and, well, don't even ask me what COBOL stands for now, even though I studied it for two years. (I am however still staunch.)

2.) When I lather up to shave, I'm paranoid about being interrupted half way through. So I shave symmetrically, that not one stroke of the blade can leave me exposed to ridicule. I will not be caught with the left side of my face lathered and the right side clean, in other words, nor with half a mustache. (I do the mustache in two strokes, very quick.)

3.) My favorite movie star is Dean Jones. My favorite starlet is Sandy Duncan. (Did you know she has a glass eye?)

4.) I dated a girl who claimed her grandfather "invented" the tube sock. Indeed, her family owned a hosiery mill and they were rich. But here's the kicker: at the same time my older brother was dating a girl who's father invented the Pringles can.



5.) I specialize in taking pictures of people taking my picture.



6.) I majored in English on and off for almost ten years, got straight "A"'s, but never took a grammar class. I've never read F. Scott Fitzgerald, my Shakespeare is "Ah...Shakespeare!", and I know next to nothing about Greek Mythology. No one has ever caught on, in all these poseur years.

Ok. Now ...you're ALL tagged. I mean the whole world, because I'm mad.

(but thank you Mrs. Trudging! That was fun! Can we go back inside now?)

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Sunday's Diner menu and a movie

Lileks is campaigning, mysteriously, to win this Web-log of the year award. I remember a few years ago The Washington Post conceded him the honor, rightfully so. This self-promotion is mysterious!

If James Lileks misses a Bleat, I come close to emailing a complaint sometimes (and lately about his small allotment of monthly bandwidth neccesary for "The Diner" podcast. Put the old tip jar out, Sir!)

Anyway, I post the link above just so you can check out the competition. They must be pretty special to be up against The Institute of Official Cheer.

I haven't heard of any of these people except for Sully and Grenwald (maybe Lileks is showing some uncharacteristic hostility towards them. Two dishonest, tiresome men. Maybe it's all an inside joke.)

Voting ends tomorrow. Say "meh".
_____
That's the menu, this Sunday. You check out the Weblog nominees, then, and I don't have to read 'em. Sorry but I haven't had the usual spare time for my Sunday links post.

But this you must see!



This is by far my favorite W.C. Field's short, simply because of one jaw dropping pool shot. (He was famous first as a juggler, you know, so it figures he was a pool sharp.)

(Pool sharp? Do I mean Pool Shark?? People have been mumbling all my life.)

The entire play (five minutes) ("I feel as though the Russian army had been walking over my tongue in their stocking feet all night") is simply a short story told by the Sheriff, "Honest John" as he prepares for this magnificient shot (which must have given him a terrific headache, perhaps a skull fracture.)

Sometimes humor is just in complete , utter surprise. As you'll see...

If the film breaks or the sound skips you can visit here, and think "well, this is worth starting over".

Thanks for visiting and I hope you are glad you did.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Back to Slack. A misunderstanding was all.

Previously on One Year Viewed From Space:

"Wait. No raise?"

"Too many absences. Sign here.

"Aren't you going to sign?"


"Sure I'm gonna sign."

____
Right after my one minute, annual employee review with Joe, I went back out on the factory floor and up to my friend Christopher. Mouthed words until he took his ear plugs out and leaned forward with his usual 'say what John?'

I went "@#$!" or something and when he got my drift he started on about the company's history of unfair labor practices, nepotism, cheerful corruption, strange sexual practices, etc.

All this over the roar of the GMA 2500 Inserter, which of course suddenly fell silent just as he was yelling someone's name. (Evelyn. Yikes.)
___
Sunday I stayed home and wrote the post below, still fuming a bit.

Monday I was full of talking points, to take to the Boxx. I talked to a supervisor who is in Recovery, and thought better of it. I'd sleep some more.

Tuesday, then, I went in and asked the boxx, "what can I do to improve my performance?"

"Wait a minute, Lucretia whoever she is, the new dock manager, blonde girl, was just in here complaining about Gandih and the Leo News people leaving a mountain of newspapers back there is that right?"

"Yeah, I talked to him yesterday, did they do it again?"

"She goes in there and thinks we're not on top of this but I think what's happening is they're letting people in here...looking for that letter you wrote...before hours and our hours are...as you say...Well, they're not supposed to drop papers off until you're here, and that's , eh..."

"One o'clock. And the doors locked."

"That's what I thought, I'm writing an email then, they've got to know our Returns hours, tell all their carriers, and the problem isn't with us it's with them letting people in that door."

"I'll tell Ghandi again but he'll argue as usual. We'll get 'em from both directions."

"No. No, I'm the boss, I'm going to lay down the law, that's the good thing about being the boss..." he said while positioning his fingers, and grinned.

I said "YEAH" "I like that."

The inner Halderman was welling up.

"Anyway..."

"Yeah I looked over that review, John. Signed off on it."

"Ah."

"Oh but you were supposed to get a raise. Joe forgot about that, I fixed it. It'll be on next paycheck. Now what were you going to ask about again?"

I like these chairs you can spin back and forth. Shove off from here six feet to pick up someone's phone.

I like the windows, nice big plate glass so you can witness the gestures proceeding fisticuffs outside where the carriers gather. And inside too, where we put the paper together.

I like that they've removed most of the big wall clocks, ---find that almost lets loose the springs, time she flys. If you do catch a glimpse of the clock you regret it nine times out of ten.

"A raise, huh? I appreciate that, thanks! In time for Christmas. That's something to call home about."

I got up to go. He smiled while he typed, a sort of "I pull your strings" smile, but benevolent.

"See you around."

"Ok, John." (Is how all our conversations end.)

Sunday, December 10, 2006

How To Keep My Phony-Balony Job (Part 3); plus Sunday's usual provocations

This post brought to you by:

GreatestJournal Free Photo Hosting
what is it?
______
Yesterday at work I sent up the serenity prayer for the first time ever. I rephrased it of course, hoping God would go "say what?" and let me in front of the line. (I'm sure that prayer is said a million times a day.)

A minute before lunch my absentee boss, Joe, gave me my first annual employee review. And it lasted a minute.

"Wait. No raise?"

"Too many absences. Sign here. Aren't you going to sign?"

"Sure I'm gonna sign."

It was six pages though, with check boxes all saying "middlin'", and then a written sentence that I am "usually positive".

Jayz! That's a bad sign not getting a raise. And there's no mention here that six months ago I was given a new job, new responsibilities that put me under the realm of an auditor , fcsake.

And Joe hasn't been working on my shift for five months, what does he know, to do my employee review?

I went to my spot on the stitcher and started some serious brooding. Take hostages? Fox News Alert, helicopters over head.

"Attica!"
"Attica!"
"Attica!"

Blow up some bridges? I can do that, go to the Boxx and say what are you doing, tasking Joe to do my review when he hasn't been here for months.

And how come when you gave me the Returns job you shook my hand and said "onward and upward!" ? Also I have a witness that you told me I'd have Saturdays off. Since then I've worked six days a week like in the bible! Then I'd work a Sunday too, and think this is the lord's day off, and it'd be 13 days in a row, or 20 sometimes, someone's not observing the sabbath, Boxx, you you you, i otter

A month ago,
I went upstairs (late from lunch, ok) and found Joe on the bathroom floor. Like man alive, is he dead?

I am a very calm, retarded man.

There he was , on the cool linoleum, half way out a stall (pants up, decent, not an Elvis indignity) and my first thought was "Joe will be mad at me if I wake him up, he won't like me catching him napping on the men's room floor".

But I yelled, "Joe!" Joe joe joe! and got down and put my hand around his wrist without even thinking of feeling for a pulse. Strange! Just automatic, I guess. And I flipped open my cell phone of course. That seemed right, too, and thank goodness I thought why it was right: to dial 911 of course!

The police station is two blocks away. We're in the largest building downtown, the newspaper plant. They asked for the street address. I didn't know!

"Next to the post office!" I yelled, and then ran out into the hall to try to find some unsuspecting victim of my growing hysteria.

This was upstairs by the lunch room and everyone was gone. My mind split into the three stooges it seemed. I went out , I went back in to Joe, told him everything was fine. Shouted at the 911 operator to get serious. I went out, I went back in.

Joe was snoring heavily, then he'd wake up and say "What happened? I don't get it." and start snoring again.

Finally one of those dolls from the Office Of Legend came around the corner and I was like flibbergibber come into the mens room I mean Joe is I mean call someone, no wait I've got 911 here, WHAT IS OUR STREET ADDRESS! And she ran to get help because she didn't know either. (Never saw her again).

Yes, hoopla finally ensued, but it was just a parade of people going into the men's room to see and I kept yelling what's our gawdam address, stopping people by their shoulders and they'd shake me off in their hurry to get in the way.

The widow passed too, I didn't stop her.

The ambulance came within five minutes, saints be praised. The 911 operator told me to hang up then. I think he told me twice.

Next 30 minutes there were about 50 of us outside smoking cigarettes. "Who found him?" "I don't know!"

It wasn't a stroke. It wasn't anything that was ever explained to me. Joe was out a month, I was told. Still working second shift except on Saturdays when I'd see him.

The following week, both the publisher's daughter and our CEO sought me out to thank me for "thinking quick" or something like that. I joked I'd have done that for just about anybody.

Joe never said anything, but I didn't want him to. Except its occurred to me that maybe he thinks he was found in Elvis position.

Anyway, I've thought to tell him his pants were up. No indignity. But, you know, how?
____
Now I was thinking, maybe I should have "joked"... why you f;er I saved your f;in life, come through with twenty five cents, you jerk.

But I love Joe and one reason I love him is that he'd have responded: "you found me at 12:45, you were 15 minutes late from lunch that day, thanks for the reminder. You should be written up for that."

Haha! That would have been funny. And Fox News Alerts are funny too, keep in mind. To me, anyway.
_______
"Usually Positive", it read. Usually?? I've never worked in a factory in my life, most of my co-workers scare me to death, man, I'm positive 100% of the time. grrr...
________
So I said the prayer and thought: six days a week, well actually three of those days are only 2.5 hours. And, eh, I spend 'em standing outside smoking and talking with the hillbillies or the olde press men (who smoke all the time since they're basically retired.) It's a phony-baloney job. (Gentlemen, the central issue is how do we keep our phony baloney jobs, Mel Brooks tells the city counsel in "Blazin' Saddles".)

And those absences. I wanted to argue some of those days were even planned ahead, and what, they were all excused. I've never called in.

But no. I've goldbricked maybe once every two months. Or 1.5 months I bet. (I show up! Never call in. Show up and say my Hashimoto disease is flaring up, haha, wtf is that? Hashimoto, sounds like a James Bond villain. Ok, I've been pulling your leg, you should have known though, who ever heard of Hashimoto's? come on.) I could have got them excused, if they insisted. My doctors understand goldbricking.

So it's like this. I've got to shape up. They've given me a warning sign. No raise is no praise. It's a warning...

I'm so amazed at myself for working at all, I seem to presume every stranger at work is impressed too. Huh.

Ok, enough. Now a few links and a Sunday video obscure. I should have told you to scroll down and start here.
________
Sean at R.W.B. is doing a great service for those of us who can't get Dylan's XML radio show. (And those of us who would only want to hear what Dylan had to say this week, regarding anything at all.) Sean narrates the show, practically, giving us the theme and the set list and then any Bob quote he was able to transcribe. Bless ya, Sean.

Anonydoc alerted me to this jackanape at the Forum, attacking Dylan. I guess it takes all kinds, there must be genuine Taliban like "conservatives" out there, (not U.S. conservatives, though) but I suspect the poster was playing the straw man Conservative, a creature easily despised.

It's interesting how everyone jumps to Dylan's defense now. That wasn't true a couple of years ago, Dylan was still considered a "troubadour of the Left" until the autobiography came out (and Sean wrote this excellent article for The Weekly Standard, "What Dylan Is Not".)
____
Iowa Hawk has the HOOSEGOW HONEY OF THE WEEK from Des Moines' Polk County Jail, and ---scroll down a bit.

Ga,aah! I say there, really. She looks like she knew she was a winner when the mug shot was taken. (Is it true Kerouac wrote that the prettiest girls were in Des Moines? I've never read him, but always heard that.)

Given the world wide popularity of IowaHawk's blog, I'm afeared we're back in the good old movie days where you can get yourself a Jane Russell standard indentured servant, with enough bail money.

So, you ask, why do I link to this if I find it indecent. Because I'm complex and you don't understand me, that's why. Fark off.
____
My friend Mark's entire Saturday scroll. Yes, it is a site for sore eyes. There's even a soviet Norman Rockwell there. Terrific discoveries. I don't know how he does it.

Incidentally, I'm doing a fourth step on Exclamation Mark. He vandalized my mental image of Myrna Loy the other day. It was deliberate, I think even retaliatory for something. Maybe he remembered something I did or said six years ago in programming school. I don't know. He's kinda funny, I mean in both ways, you know... the fascination with B-Grade Sci-Fi and horror movies. And...well, going to school for a programming degree! haha, what a schmuck. And I was right there all the time telling him "this is a mistake". (And, "look, I can't do this Assembler Language, let me see your paper will you?)
_____
Here is another "hope you didn't miss this at the time" video. I hope you enjoy it without too many forehead smacks.

How To Use The Dial Phone (1927)



This is a silent instructional movie, and in seven minutes couldn't make itself more clear. It uses animation, it emphasizes words in a way that reminds me of a PowerPoint presentation, and imagines every conceivable mistake you could make. (Seriously, watch this and you can relate to the inner rube. Almost.)

All I learned was that you used to be able to get information by dialing "8".

I have questions about the old phones. For instance, my grandparents' number was something like "Blackwell 4288", and I don't understand how the "blackwell" was a useful memory device (mnemonic? shall that be our new word for the day?).

I guess Blackwell was an "exchange" and it would be familiar. But it was still Blackwell after they had a dial, and I think three letters were in bold. But how would you know which three letters? In the phone book, why waste all that type?(If you're not following me, I'm not thinking straight, let it go, let it go , it's me, yes, again.)

Also of course the question nobody has ever answered. When people got cut off why would they rapidly tap on the phone hook and say hello? hello are you there?

I know it would probably get you an operator, but people seemed to think it would re-establish a connection, or raise the dead. Were they making noise to wake someone from a faint, I mean. Tell me. Someone.

Oh my god, everyones dead.

As always, if the film breaks click here for better reception.

Thanks for tuning in. I have a new reader, by the way, so that makes each one of you just a little less special. That is unless you leave a comment, of course.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Perfectly at home with the opposing sox

GreatestJournal Free Photo Hosting

Ever since I got sober and out of my bachelor's media crib, I'm around women in their socks.
_______
Female heirarchy: putting men aside...

"In fact, I think buying expensive clothing, bags, etc, is to put other women at disadvantage. Maybe it is competitive about men but it never seemed that way to me. Men don't notice all that or at least the men I hang with don't," a noted psychiatrist wrote to the Forum one day.

She shares sites like The Joy Of Sox with friends. She likes to see others rise above the rabble, I guess. Shows how nice she is I think.
________
Bright cartoony socks get my attention. Not much else. Oh, and when women have their glasses crooked, repaired with paper clips and band-aids. That will touch my heart somehow.

Mystery of me *shrug*. Say, meh.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Sunday Browsing (and Gold Medal's Diamond Jubilee prize winner!)

"Their journal is history as a higher, wittier, more observant form of gossip. They were neurotic. They were proto-bloggers, with temperaments nasty and generous, goatish and cerebral. Their prose is alternately rambling and aphoristic. ..." ---the blogger at Anecdotal Evidence, on the brothers de Goncourt (French publishers) who started a journal/diary together in 1851.

Proto-blogging: blogging: "rambling" or "aphoristic".

Aphoristic: short and pithy.

I am tempted to ramble-essay on the difference between blogging and, well, writing. I wish I could learn my lesson about keeping posts short and frequent.

But this is Sunday and that means Linkage and video obscure...
________
Flash fiction: an extreme example, allegedly by Hemingway, is "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." Read more about the genre here.

"Flash fiction differs from vignettes in that the works contain the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution. However, unlike a traditional short story, the limited word length often forces some of these elements to be unwritten, that is, hinted at or implied in the written storyline."

Here is a frequently updated website (blog? do we dare call it a blog?) that may or may not contain "flash fiction": Very Short Novels. "299 words. Anything more is waste.—"

You may have thought of Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" as I did. Re-reading it for the first time in 25 years, I'm impressed that Hemingway could portray himself as such a jerk.

In all things, if you no longer trust your own first impressions, you're in trouble, and liable to fall into the hands of a pedant or worse, a psychiatrist.

Present company excluded of course!

(There's my attempt at an aphrorism, did you notice?)
____
"Here’s how chains kill books and careers..." from the novelist Holly Lisle's bloggo.

All I know is that genuine "indie" booksellers do indeed work at places like Borders and Barnes and Noble. And I know that at Borders, at least, booksellers can over-ride any command from on-high to return a title that isn't selling. We were all proud to "hand-sell" books, and often had a display of bookseller favorites at the front of the store, with little hand-written cards and the bookseller's name.


"If you liked "A Friend Of The Family", Mrs. Tharp, you're sure to enjoy Linda Howard's "Dream Man"!"


Like that, sort of.

I found this being discussed at Bookseller Chick's post "Words out that we are evil again." I left a comment there, what I remember from the first days of the Big Bookstore, back in the mid 80's. Borders took off so well because of its "indie" roots and hand-selling philosophy. Don't knock it too hard.
____
Pynchon has a new novel. (That's like the equivelent of Dylan having a new album, to some!) The blogger at Chekhov's Mistress is contributing
to the Wikipedia discussion
, or "Wiki".

What's more? I'm taking some pride in my sidebar links here.

The Comics Curmudgeon has published an article in the L.A. Times, "The Funnies Are Still Funny Online." They are! When you have a site like his and can share the snarky commentary. I love the Curmudgeon and become impatient for updates even as the commenters continue on their own.

"Josh" mentions this YouTube live action recreation of "Mary Worth", which demonstrates that it's possible but not profitable to speed up the story line of three weeks worth of strips into two minutes. Mildly amusing, with perhaps one LOL if you keep your eye on the mercurial actress playing Mary.
____
And now for our video obscure.



The 1955 Gold Medal Flour diamond jubilee sweepstakes winner of $25,000 is finally announced on "Valiant Woman"! (Please explain to me why an apparent circus midget is part of the presentation committee.)

"Hello, Betty Crocker!" And there she is! Turns out she's real, and very charming, perhaps from the upper middle class, unlike you.

Weekday TV was given over to women completely, and sometimes I pick up on the sensation of home-isolation and mild annoyance at the soft soap sellers. The transitions into commercial time are seamless and frequent, "Oh, doctor! Doctor! Don't let her die! And now let's see what Betty Crocker is doing!"

If the film breaks or you'd like to read some history on Valiant Woman (and viewer comments) click here.

Thanks for visiting!

Friday, December 01, 2006

Traffic Advisory: No Traveling

I was up early, anxious to see the results of the storm, so I turned on the TV right away! Someone came in and without a word lifted my blinds, made a theatric hand gesture presenting the real world, and left me marveling how one can exude such rich sarcasm.

"You should go into silent film. Rival Chaplin."


I got my camera. Digitalize this, then.

GreatestJournal Free Photo Hosting

Hard Scrabble Ed wishes he were out in the country, but I'm glad he's here in the kitchen making a stew and cooking pies.

The Tramp Steamer's
doggie, Little Twerp, is deleriously happy, wanting to go outside again. This is her first snow ever, she runs and scoops the snow up in her mouth, leaving a mysterious looking trail.

Marginal Likelihood,
he's back in bed after trudging home last night, two miles from work. He had to call his boss and ask permission to close. The boss said, what, you're still open?? Then it was too late for anyone to get him.

I figured he'd lie down and make a snow angel and give up the ghost. It was during the worst of the blizzard, thundersnow and sleeting. But he has promises to keep... Henrietta, for one. She's our secret house guest, his childish betrothed with child, prattling away in the kitchen now, unconsciously keeping us all entertained.

To me, it's just having the sound of a young female voice down the hall, that makes it nice.

So Long Stan, --fifty pills a day, Walter Mitty ex-Marine and ex-con-- is casually visiting from room to room, when there isn't a gathering in the kitchen or living room. Good natured man, thoughtful of others (sometimes conscientious to a fault, he will duck down when he passes between anyone and the TV and say "Sorry! Sorry, sorry...Ooooh, sorry for talking too!")

He enjoys a full house, as I do, but also escapes to his room, as I do.

Greg the Pedant is in his room as usual. He'll mediate disputes, then we put him back away, where I suspect he continues rolling his eyes. Since we're all alcoholics/addicts, we feel he is unfair in his judgements, and once considered evicting him for disruptive behavior.

You understand.

Murf The Surf is, as usual, never surfing but taking his computer apart or using DOS commands on a black screen to maximize speed. It's like he's waxing his board all the time but you never see him in the water. Sometimes he'll open a chat box on my screen, 'hey. does this work?'. I type back yes. And go make some coffee will you? His door is five feet down the hall. His messages probably bounce off sattelites over Austrailia to get here.

Me? I may Youtube or Google Earth, while listening to Dylan's Modern Times CD written in the voice of a man from the 19th century.

No one watched "The Secret Storm" (you can scroll down, it's still there). I can't believe you people. (Anonydoc, I expected you to at least express amazement, whether you watched or not.) 1955! Commercials intact. Back then, you know, soaps were still just 15 minutes, maybe nine with the soap selling. And they still hadn't graduated away from the rather sickening organ music.

No, I really don't understand why no one is interested. Isn't it amazing how much TV we missed before we were born. I'm catching up, while all you pioneers watch The Sopranos...(I'll see it in my 90's, I hope).

Wonderful day, I meant to say in lieu of all of this. Thanks for visiting!