2010 1st Quarter Index

March 2010


Wednesday, March 31, 2010 -- There’s A Hand Raising A Phone

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 -- Writers Versus Painters By The Perfume River

Monday, March 29, 2010 -- “You Watch Television To Turn Your Brain Off”


Friday, March 26, 2010 -- Stuff Goes On In Outer Space

Thursday, March 25, 2010 -- “This Was A Different World”

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 -- RIP Robert Culp, 1930 - 2010

Tuesday, March 23, 2010 -- A Long Walk

Monday, March 22, 2010 -- Claudie Haigneré As The Paris Of Tomorrow


Friday, March 19, 2010 -- Thunderbirds Are Still Go

Thursday, March 18, 2010 -- Big Chair And Three Women: (2) Big Chair

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 -- Big Chair And Three Women: (1) Three Women

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 -- Being A Writer In Drew’s World

Monday, March 15, 2010 -- Mischa: Sexy Things About Physics


Friday, March 12, 2010 -- I Hear Dinosaur Music. It’s Beautiful Music.

Thursday, March 11, 2010 -- The Catastrophic Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 -- No, Monsters Won’t Learn To Dance

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 -- “Sexy As The Dead Bridges”

Monday, March 8, 2010 -- The Synchronistic Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow


Friday, March 5, 2010 -- The Metaphysical Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow

Thursday, March 4, 2010 -- Genesis 2:20-25 Also

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 -- A Cartoon Can’t Buy A Yawn

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 -- The Quo Vadis? Question

Monday, March 1, 2010 -- “Expedition” Versus “Going Out”



February 2010


Friday, February 26, 2010 -- Planetary Colors And The Grail Quest

Thursday, February 25, 2010 -- Beautiful And The Damned, Emo And The Glammed

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 -- Adventure’s Waiting Just Ahead

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 -- Neptune Light

Monday, February 22, 2010 -- Naming Things


Friday, February 19, 2010 -- Madonna Di Loreto

Thursday, February 18, 2010 -- “Echelon Building Destroyed in Plane Crash”

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 -- The Built World Before The Wrecking Crew

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 -- Squirrels Of Chaos And Delight

Monday, February 15, 2010 -- Editors Comma Having Been Cut Down Comma


Friday, February 12, 2010 -- Veiled

Thursday, February 11, 2010 -- In The Shadow Of The Mouse Ears

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 -- Everybody Knows Who They Are

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 -- The Way Of The Intercepting Fist

Monday, February 8, 2010 -- The Writing On My Hand


Friday, February 5, 2010 -- Freedom From The Wild

Thursday, February 4, 2010 -- Adam And Eve And Keith Richards

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 -- The Apocalypse Of Her Yellow Dress

Tuesday, February 2, 2010 -- Yellow Dress! Yellow Dress!

Monday, February 1, 2010 -- Dining At Impossible Kisses



January 2010


Friday, January 29, 2010 -- Expedition To Amy

Thursday, January 28, 2010 -- Narrative, And Creatures That Take Us Away

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 -- Damsels And Werewolves

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 -- Putting On The Stars

Monday, January 25, 2010 -- Mischa Barton As The Burgess Shale


Friday, January 22, 2010 -- Beth Plays Pinball

Thursday, January 21, 2010 -- Paint Versus Ink

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 -- The Metaphysics Of Elle

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 -- Children Of Legend

Monday, January 18, 2010 -- A Ladybug Looking Out At Winter


Friday, January 15, 2010 -- Rocket Summer People

Thursday, January 14, 2010 -- What Love Looks Like In Words

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 -- Is Iowa Seeking A Diane Monopoly?

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 -- Indecision — Death By Dagny

Monday, January 11, 2010 -- Taylor Swift With No Makeup


Friday, January 8, 2010 -- Crown And Tiara

Thursday, January 7 2010 -- The Clock That Laughs And Loves

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 -- “Simple Twist of Fate”

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 -- What Malcontent Yellow Pencils Are Thinking

Monday, January4, 2010 -- 2009 Complete Index


Friday, January 1, 2010 -- Maybe The Fuzzy Green Balls Are Monsters

Friday, January 1, 2010 -- The Fuzzy Green Balls Aren’t Monsters

There’s A Hand Raising A Phone

When the would-be writer graduated from high school in 1938, his family had no money to send him to college. Mr. Bradbury educated himself in the public library. He sold newspapers at a street-corner newsstand. And he joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, which met downtown at Clifton's Cafeteria.

"We were all loners," he says of the 30 people in that group, whose ranks included such other future-famous scribes as Robert Heinlein and Leigh Brackett. "We were all lonely. We believed what we believed, and the society didn't believe in what we believed."

Such as what? "Well," he says with a sigh, "'Fahrenheit 451' is full of it. I grew up with radio, I saw what radio did to a people. I saw that it was beginning to disconnect us in society. So I wrote about that disconnection."

Ray Bradbury
from Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451 |
Cultural Conversation by Tom Nolan - WSJ.com

Radio is gone.
And books. But we have good phones.
There’s a hand raising

a phone to an ear.
It’s an image on a screen
on somebody’s phone.

MTV is gone.
There’s a hand raising a phone
but there is no ear.




Now that books are gone and phones are replacing computers I thought it would be fun to put up a video that I bet almost nobody remembers.

This is the first music video that ever aired on MTV. It was broadcast one second after midnight on August 1, 1981.

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Rocket Summer People


Ancient Cities Of The Moon

Writers Versus Painters By The Perfume River

A few days ago I humped down to the Perfume River again to watch “Full Metal Jacket” with some people I hadn’t talked to for a long time. While we were nailing our names into the pages of history in an all-night restaurant a woman artist said, “I love the movie but it always bugged me that Kubrick called it ‘Full Metal Jacket.’ I mean it’s such a non sequitur. Why not call it ‘War’ or ‘Vietnam’ or something that it’s actually about?”

I said, “It’s called ‘Full Metal Jacket’ because that’s the whole theme of the movie. The movie’s about the endless insanity life throws at people and the movie depicts two particular ways of dealing with the insanity, both ways involving full-metal jacket bullets. Private Pyle deals with the insanity thrown at him by putting a full-metal jacket bullet into his head when he shoots himself. Private Joker deals with the insanity thrown at him by, so to speak, putting a full-metal jacket around his head, metaphorically, keeping out everything, keeping himself from fragmenting, and that’s why he’s able to shoot the sniper point blank at the end without it getting to him.”

Becky said, “Oh, that’s good. I never thought of that. And that makes sense. How come this fucking movie has been out for like twenty years and no one’s ever told me that before?”

I said, “Maybe you should hang out with writers more often instead of these good-for-nothing painters.”

Ian and Nathan and Sam all threw packets of crackers at me and—even though they were throwing just from across the table—all three missed without me even ducking.

“Oh my God,” Nathan said, “we are good for nothing.”

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War, Huh, Good God, Y’All

Lindsay Lohan And Rupert Sheldrake


Perfume River

“In the autumn, flowers from orchards upriver from Huế
fall into the water, giving the river a perfume-like aroma.”

“You Watch Television To Turn Your Brain Off”

“We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.”

2004, Steve Jobs
MacWorld Interview

Apple officially drops “Computer” from its name and becomes “Apple, Inc.”

2007, January
Forbes, What’s In A Name Change? Look At Apple.

Apple starts shipping Apple TV, a digital media receiver

2007, March
Apple TV at Wikipedia

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Apple And The Status Cow


“Watching T.V.”


The Other Way Of Making A Frankenstein’s Monster

Return To The Other Way Of Making A Frankenstein’s Monster


“…We Hadn’t Gathered Them From Aliens…”


The Black Slip: A NASCAR Mystery


T. J. Pughe: Chip-Making Fool


You Damn Punk Kids

Stuff Goes On In Outer Space

I know what Flash and Dale are looking at.

I’m looking at exactly what they saw.




I don’t have a prop gun or go-go boots.

I’m still working on a spaceship that sparks.


Dale is holding Flash’s arm. And my arm.

This kind of stuff goes on in outer space.


Now Dale is only standing behind me.

Now Dale is looking over my shoulder.


We’re both concerned but we take a second

To kiss and for a moment we both smile.

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A Spaceship That Sparks

“This Was A Different World”

But as time went on, Michelle kept telling me these weird stories that were just not true and I began to doubt her as a person. ... Unfortunately, she had no real sense of reality and would just make stuff-up and acted like a compulsive liar. ... She was always a confident person who was naturally very pretty but after she got her boobs done she changed and really started to work her body more. ... But the more I stayed with her I just could not handle the drama and all the lies and bullshit stories she was telling me.

A former friend comments
on Michelle ‘Bombshell’ McGee

On the Seronera plain, a kill site had its own organization which was quite predictable, and in a way was almost stately. The biggest predators, lions or hyenas, were closest to the carcass, feeding with their young. Farther out, waiting their turn, were the vultures and marabou storks, and still farther out, the jackals and other small scavengers circled warily. After the big predators finished, the smaller animals moved in. Different animals ate different parts of the bodies: the hyenas and vultures ate bones; the jackals nibbled the carcass clean. This was the pattern at any kill, and as a result there was very little squabbling or fighting around the food.

But here, she saw pandemonium—a feeding frenzy. The fallen animal was thickly covered with striped predators, all furiously ripping the flesh of the carcass, with frequent pauses to snarl and fight with each other. Their fights were openly vicious—one predator bit the adjacent animal, inflicting a deep flank wound. Immediately, several other predators snapped at the same animal, which limped away, hissing and bleeding, badly wounded. Once at the periphery, the wounded animal retaliated by biting the tail of another creature, again causing a serious would.

A young juvenile, about half the size of the others, kept pushing forward, trying to get at a bit of the carcass, but the adults did not make room for it. Instead, they snarled and snapped in fury. The youngster was frequently obliged to hop back nimbly, keeping its distance from the razor-sharp fangs of the grownups. Harding saw no infants at all. This was a society of vicious adults.

As she watched the big predators, their heads and bodies smeared in blood, she noticed the crisscross pattern of healed scars on their flanks and necks. These were obviously quick, intelligent animals, yet they fought continually. Was that the way their social organization had evolved? If so, it was a rare event.

Animals of many species fought for food, territory, and sex, but these fights most often involved display and ritual aggression; serious injury seldom occurred. There were exceptions, of course. When male hippos fought to take over a harem, they often severely wounded other males. But in any case, nothing matched what she saw now.

As she watched, the wounded animal at the edge of the kill slunk forward and bit another adult, which snarled and leapt at it, slashing with its long toe-claw. In a flash, the injured predator was eviscerated, coils of pale intestine slipping out through a wide gash. The animal fell howling to the ground, and immediately three adults turned away from the kill and jumped onto its newly fallen body, and began to tear the animal’s flesh with rapacious intensity.

Harding closed her eyes, and turned away. This was a different world, and one she did not understand at all. In a daze, she headed back down the hill, moving quietly, carefully away from the kill.

“The Lost World”
Michael Crichton

A planet of evil clowns

Where sex isn’t love or fun

Sex is a feeding frenzy

Blood and spit and other things

Smearing the clown wide-eye smiles

Strange patterns on strange tattoos

Endless new scars on old scars


This is the computer age

A text window to the soul

A word monster making words

A flash mob of network friends

A perfectly formed marble

A giant chair in the desert

A planet of evil clowns

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Ancient Cities Of The Moon

Post-Christian Party Talk

The Word Monster

Halloween On An Inclined Plane

Big Chair And Three Women: (1) Three Women

Big Chair And Three Women: (2) Big Chair

That Third Evil Clown

RIP Robert Culp, 1930 - 2010

Robert Culp (August 16, 1930 – March 24, 2010) passed away today. Apparently he simply went for a walk (!) and fell and struck his head against something.

Everyone from my generation will remember Culp from the great TV show “I Spy.”

But I will always remember him for the extraordinary performance he gave in a very low budget, made-for-TV movie back in 1973. This was a thriller with horror and science fiction overtones called, “A Cold Night’s Death.” There were only three people in the whole movie, and almost the entire film was about Robert Culp interacting with co-star Eli Wallach.

This is the kind of film I dream of writing and making.

There are almost no special effects. It is just a story and two amazing actors bringing the story to life.

It’s the story of two scientists at a polar research station where experiments are being performed on a group of chimpanzees. A researcher has died mysteriously at the station and the two scientists are sent to continue the experiments on the chimpanzees and to see if they can figure out what happened to the researcher who died.

Robert Culp and Eli Wallach play the two scientists. They are both smart, buttoned-down men, both very capable, but they have different personalities. Robert Culp is a hard-bitten realist who always places rationality first and looks for nuts-and-bolts solutions to problems. Eli Wallach is more emotional and more inclined to look for psychological solutions to issues.

(Or, rather, this is how I remember their conflicting personalities. I haven’t seen this movie in more than a decade.)

Strange things begin to happen. Equipment seems to be set up wrong or operate improperly. Perfectly functional equipment breaks. Both men become stressed. They begin to wonder if there is someone else at the research station. They begin to wonder if the environment and the mystery of the earlier researcher’s death have become too much for them. Did one of them crack? Is one of them torturing the other?

Eli Wallach comes to believe Robert Culp’s strict belief in rationality and Culp’s inability to figure out the strange events has caused Culp to become unhinged. Wallach believes he has to protect himself from Culp.

But then Culp figures out what’s going on. Culp confronts Wallach and explains what has been happening.

Having his own beliefs about Culp undercut combined with the unbelievable but persuasively true arguments Culp makes becomes too much for Wallach. Wallach takes matters into his own hands. And then he discovers the real truth.

Thanks to YouTube this obscure but incredible movie is available to everyone.

Here is the final scene, where Eli Wallach is desperately trying to “protect” himself from Culp, and Culp’s revelation about what is really happening. And, then, what really was happening. It’s just a ten minute clip, but it’s an acting performance that to me is wildly wonderful.

For me, watching actors this cool in a story this interesting is real life magic. I love this.

A Long Walk

Walking to the store
under the stars, Mars and Moon
wishing I could walk

in that direction
up to the stars, Mars and Moon.
Even if the walk

would be a long walk
without a store at the end
I’d start walking now.

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Breaking The Status Cow


Apple And The Status Cow


Orbis Non Sufficit And The Status Cow


Escape From Earth And The Status Cow

Claudie Haigneré As The Paris Of Tomorrow

Even if the first French woman in space
tried to kill herself and has disappeared
even if she wanted to warn us all

There still are some stories I want to write
and I just bought some new colored markers
and learned the Speed Racer theme on guitar

If the Fourth Reich is in ascendency
or if the Watchers soon will be cast down
or if the zombie bacillus breaks out

I’m not going to chase the French woman
even if she knows about dinosaurs
volcanoes and donut-shaped UFOs

I’ve made the executive decision
that my tomorrow will be like today
and I’ll be writing drawing and playing

French women are sexy and I’m lonely
but my tomorrow will be like today
Paris if Paris wants can come to me

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Claudie Haigneré at Wikipedia

Claudie Haigneré’s Suicide Attempt

Claudie Haigneré’s Warning (?)


Talking Back To Galileo

Elevator Gothic #3


Adventure’s Waiting Just Ahead

Thunderbirds Are Still Go

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Coherency Marionette — A Word Sonnet


Coherency Marionette — Gravity Laughing



“A Concept That I Felt Was Right”


Lip-Synching For Animation


Walt Disney And Chuck Jones: Talking To People



All The Sunlight Is For Laughing

Big Chair And Three Women: (2) Big Chair

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright dreamed of building
a mile-high skyscraper. Technologies
and financing schemes fifty years ago
never could have brought his vision to life.

In the decades since Wright died now and then
some billionaire would announce plans to build
a mile-high skyscraper. Most recently
an oil-rich sheik in the Middle East planned
a mile-high tower and even announced
architects and contracting partners but
the global financial melt-down combined
with bad site surveys scuttled his project.

Architecture buffs all around the world
keep track of this kind of thing—existing
structures, current constructions, proposals.

That’s one reason why global media
went wild when a six thousand foot tall chair
appeared in the Arizona desert
outside of Phoenix. The giant chair appeared
overnight, with no construction noises
and no one in Phoenix knew anything
about chair. No one in the world knew
what the chair was made of, who built the chair
or why the chair appeared in the desert.

Traffic copters from local media
just after sunrise began broadcasting
video of the big chair and police
began dealing with hundreds of phone calls
on their 911 line from citizens
frightened or amused or just curious
about the giant chair out in the desert.

National networks wouldn’t run the feed
because they thought it was some kind of hoax
using video effects. When ground crews
began sending confirming video
from different angles around the big chair
national networks ran with the story
and global media quickly followed.

All the coverage assumed the giant chair
was some kind of publicity gimmick
either from a computer company
or a movie studio but no one
could figure out how the giant chair was built.

News analysts speculated the chair
must be an immense air-filled contraption
that somebody inflated over night.

But soon after the story went global
two local Phoenix thrill-seekers chartered
a helicopter and flew to the “seat”
of the chair. The helicopter touched down,
proving that the chair in fact was solid.

At that point the National Guard began
to arrive and secure the location.
They ordered the chartered helicopter
away from the scene. The two thrill-seekers
became global celebrities when they
base-jumped from the seat of the chair safely
to the desert thousands of feet below.

National Guard troops encircled the base
of the chair. The Guard troops sealed off the ground
and closed the airspace surrounding the chair.

The media on the perimeter
began documenting the unending
stream of physicists and geologists
and engineers and architects joined by
military men and politicians
visiting the site as they attempted,
with quite literally everybody
on the planet, to understand the chair.
What was the chair made of? Who made it? Why?

*

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Big Chair And Three Women: (1) Three Women

Big Chair And Three Women: (1) Three Women

A local news director from Phoenix
told all his ground crews to get reactions
from local residents about the chair.

One of the crew from a traffic copter
reported three women in bikinis
had been out on their condo balcony
all morning. He passed along the address.
The ground crew on its way to interview
the three bikini-clad women got news
that police had leaked the first 911 call
about the chair and the caller’s address.
The first 911 call in fact had come
from the same address where the three women
had spent all morning in their bikinis.

“It’s bizarre,” Toni said, smiling, glancing
from the reporter to the camera.
“The three of us are between jobs,” she said.
“We sleep late most often. But this morning
I had to pee so I got up to go.
Through the window I saw the sun shining
on something high, like the mountains, but close.
Like right outside. And from the balcony
I could see it out there in the desert.
The big chair. The sun shining on the chair.”

“Toni woke us all up,” Felicia said.
“We couldn’t believe it. We didn’t know
what to think. One of us said, well, maybe
it’s like one of those science kind of things.
You know, like a hologram or something.
Where you see it but it’s not really there.
I mean, what else could it be? It’s a chair
but a chair that’s as big as a mountain.”

Melissa said, “It’s a big fucking chair.”

The local stations had been running live
and the reporter pulled the microphone
away from Melissa. Many networks
were running on delay but were busy
arranging interviews with scientists
and engineers so they didn’t manage
to dump or bleep out Melissa’s f-bomb.

The local reporter told Melissa
they were broadcasting live to the whole world.

Melissa blushed. She said, “I’m so sorry.
My bad. It’s just that it’s the biggest chair
we’ve ever seen. Or even heard about.”

Toni said, “That’s the biggest anything
any of us has seen or heard about.”

Felicia and Melissa both nodded.


*

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Big Chair And Three Women: (2) Big Chair

Being A Writer In Drew’s World

But doesn’t she feel that roles for women become more sparse the older they become? ‘I admit I’ve been fortunate. I’m not at that place yet, age-wise, and maybe when I am I’ll feel that way. But I think, “Get over it! Don’t be bitter and complainy! Figure out something else to do with your life.” It sucks that it’s sexist, and it sucks that it’s not often the case for men, but you don’t have to sit on the couch and be angry that you’re not getting roles. Pick up a camera, work at a dog rescue home, become a writer – there are a million things to do in this world.’

Drew Barrymore comes to terms with her troubled past
Daily Mail Online

Thank you, Drew.

So, there you go. When people fail as actors or actresses they can become cinematographers. If they fail at cinematography they can work at an animal shelter. When people get fired from the animal shelter they should become writers.

That’s the place of the writer in the modern world.

Is it any wonder the movers & shakers are phasing out books?

Thank you, Drew, for summing it up so beautifully.

Now I’m going to go apply for a job burning monkeys.

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My Five Celebrity Pencil Cartoons (Annotated)


Drew Barrymore and Eugene Ionesco

Mischa: Sexy Things About Physics

Mischa Barton is selling her house.

Soon I won’t be able to watch her
walking around in her underwear—
Vacuuming in her bra and panties,
taking out the garbage in her slip.

Maybe I’ll buy her house and pretend
it’s a haunted house where sexy ghosts
whisper sexy things about physics
and art and the ethics of dressing.

Eight million dollars of my money
would let Mischa buy just the right dress
to live happily ever after.

Sexy ghosts in Mischa Barton’s house.
Mischa Barton in just the right dress.
Physics. Art. The ethics of dressing.

In this cosmology me watching
Mischa walk around in lingerie
is scientific research. These words
are the first draft of an article
for an obscure peer-reviewed journal.

In this universe it’s possible
to live happily ever after.

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The Real Estalker: Mischa Barton Bails in Beverly Hills


Mischa Barton, Mischa Barton

Mischa Barton As The Burgess Shale

Don’t You Fucking Die Mischa Barton


Why Don’t Turkeys Wear Bras?


“Sexy As The Dead Bridges”

I Hear Dinosaur Music. It’s Beautiful Music.

We hit the supreme overload
And the great amplifier began to explode
Smoke is slowly clearing away
And the whole universe is a giant guitar

The Last Of The New Wave Riders, Utopia

If I write a song with just the right lyrics,
with just the right melody and harmony,
if it’s all performed in just the right rhythm,
I wonder if this musical alchemy
could generate sympathetic vibrations
in the six strings that are perfectly in tune
on the guitar that is the whole universe
and I wonder if that meta-harmony
could generate sympathetic vibrations
in the badly tuned six strings on the guitars
that are us, our awareness in the music,
and I wonder, if everything is just right,
could all that bring the dinosaurs back to life?

Whatever killed the dinosaurs didn’t kill
creatures like sharks, crocodiles and dragonflies.

It’s an old song and no one knows the lyrics.

If it was that girl, she wasn’t my baby.

So, set ’em up, Joe. It’s time for two new songs.
One for the dinosaurs. And one for the road.

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The Catastrophic Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow


Beautiful Music


The Metaphysics Of Elle


Britney Spears: Death By Dinosaur


The Creature That Ate Britney

The Catastrophic Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow

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The Synchronistic Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow


The Metaphysical Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow

No, Monsters Won’t Learn To Dance

Black-eyed sweet thing
Sugar loose
Won’t you call me when I’m clean
Off of one-way juice
Momma I’m a jazzman
With them sunny land blues
Just off the street
And trying a trick or two
A trick or two
A trick or two
Momma I’m a jazzman
Trying a trick or two

“Jazzman,” Steve Goodman

H/T to Steve Goodman’s biographer
Clay Eals for pointing out to me
that “Jazzman” was written by
Ed Holstein. Check out
Clay’s biography of Steve
Goodman at Clay’s website:

Steve Goodman: Facing the Music
by Clay Eals

There used to be a thing called “folk music.”

The genre still exists, of course, but the whole context is gone. The social context, I mean. And the musical context. It’s impossible, now, for someone to understand the weird reality of folk singing. Folk was the butt of endless jokes ( Martin Mull: “That crap almost caught on!” ) but at the same time even the people making the jokes never made a secret of their affection for “good” folk singers. So far as I’m aware there was never a widely accepted practical definition of what actually constituted “good.” But everyone knew it when they heard it. “Good” folk singers sometimes ventured into pop, or rock, or jazz. But the farther they got from simple performances the more other people—usually correctly!—made jokes.

Everything is slick and polished now so those kind of jokes aren’t as common. Unfortunately the good stuff has disappeared along with the laughable stuff.

I first mentioned this when I posted a YouTube video of Bob Dylan singing “Simple Twist of Fate.” In that post I also mentioned Joni Mitchell and Steve Goodman. I’ve posted a couple of songs from Joni Mitchell.

But I haven’t put up anything by Steve Goodman and, I strongly suspect, most people have never heard Steve Goodman play or sing. Or—what’s kind of worse—if people have heard Steve Goodman they’ve probably heard heavily produced, pop versions of his songs designed by record executives to “transcend” the folk “boundaries.”

Yech. For instance the version of “Jazzman” on iTunes is a slick production that captures none of the cool magic of Steve Goodman playing and singing.

But YouTube does have a video of Steve Goodman playing and singing one of my favorite songs of all time, “Would You Like To Learn To Dance?”

Steve Goodman was an amazing musician. A folk singer. This video doesn’t capture everything of his incredible energy and his wild sense of humor when performing. But it captures something of the quiet beauty and poetry of his writing, playing and singing.

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“Simple Twist of Fate”


Crown And Tiara


What Love Looks Like In Words

“Sexy As The Dead Bridges”

South of downtown Chicago
but north of the neighborhoods
there are abandoned buildings
and abandoned railroad tracks
that used to carry freight trains
when the abandoned buildings
used to consume and produce
freight from and to the nation.

Bridges across the river
even that far from downtown
were designed to lift and tilt
to give clearance to barges
with freight for and from the trains.

The buildings are abandoned.
The railroads are abandoned.
The bridges are up and locked.
No freight comes in or goes out.

A fashion photographer
posed three half-naked models
in front of a tipped-up bridge.
The bridge was rusted metal,
its counter-weights were concrete.
The fashion models wore jeans
and almost invisible
lace bras that held up their breasts.

“No,” the photographer said,
“no expression, none at all.”

The fashion models somehow
adjusted their lips and eyes
even the tilt of their head
to project no expression.

“It’s fucking dead man cold here,”
one model said, projecting
no expression, none at all.

The photographer said, “Yes,
but you look great. Pure sexy.
Sexy as the dead bridges.”

The Synchronistic Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow

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The Metaphysical Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow

The Metaphysical Glow Of Jenny’s Shadow

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Hamlet And Gertrude Talk About A Ghost


Anna Kournikova Gothic #1

Anna Kournikova Gothic #2


Vic Mizzy


The Crow Equinox


Friday I Visited A Haunted House (A Befuddlement)


This Scary, Pumpkin Time Of Year


Ancient Cities Of The Moon

Genesis 2:20-25 Also

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3:6-7

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Genesis 3:21

In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

Genesis 4:3-5

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Naming Things


A Piece Of Clothing


Approaching Loch Ness 2: The End Of Fashion

A Cartoon Can’t Buy A Yawn

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Red Bull, Hershey’s And A Woman Yawning

The Quo Vadis? Question

The Cintiq family of interactive pen displays enables creative professionals to work naturally and intuitively using Wacom’s patented professional pen technology directly on the surface of an LCD display

Wacom

I didn’t buy paints
today. But I was tempted.
The “new” acrylics

can do anything.
But they’re not a pen tablet
that digitizes

everything you do.
Paints, gessoes and mediums.
They ask, Quo Vadis?

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


I notice over at Amazon
that the book “The New Acrylics”
isn’t available as a Kindle edition.

Art has been around for a long time. Art knows
the answer to the Quo Vadis? question.




Don’t Look Now: Modern Pretty

“Expedition” Versus “Going Out”

I use the word “expedition” a lot, both here at Impossible Kisses and out there in real life. In fact tomorrow I’m mounting an expedition to the video store and the local Hobby Lobby.

I do have, however, actual criteria that I use to distinguish between an expedition and just getting out of my house. The criteria are personal, secret kinds of things, but I do have them.

Out there in the real world of cryptozoology where monsters invade barnyards at night and suck the blood out of goats there’s a certain amount of contention about the use of the word “expedition.” Some people seem to think that writers are tempted to go off on vacation and—to add production value to their subsequent blog posts—refer to their vacation automatically as an expedition even if it was, basically, a weekend get-away with friends.

Early this year Loren Coleman took Ben Radford to task over this issue, and Radford responded, discussing how he picked his words. The exchange took place over at Coleman’s blog, Cryptomundo. The give-and-take continues in the comments section at the very bottom of the post (that’s where Radford discusses “expedition”). Here’s the first paragraph and a link to the whole discussion:

What has become of Fortean Times? They have Ben Radford penning an article that is nothing more than what you might find on someone’s website about a short hike taken on a vacation with their dad and a friend. And guess what? That’s exactly what this so-called “expedition” was. A couple hikes in the rainforest, in habitat not associated with the traditional Chupacabras reports of Puerto Rico, and Radford writes an article. What has become of Fortean Times?

continued in, “Radford Takes A Hike”

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Expedition To Amy

The Evening Sky Is Cloudy

Someday: The Last Expedition

Expeditions

Daddy Needs A New Pair Of Shoes

Planetary Colors And The Grail Quest

She has a blue bra she calls ‘Earth blue’
and a scarlet bra she calls ‘Mars red.’
“That one’s ‘clouds of Venus white,’” she said
when I held up a white bra. “I do

have a black bra, ‘space black.’ I’ve no clue
what to get next,” she said. “If I head
to Uranus, Neptune—blue. Busted.
Mercury, Pluto, have no real hue.”

I said, “Jupiter and Saturn each
have their own unique shade of ochre.”
“Yes,” she said, “but would anyone know?”

“Hidden mysteries,” I said, “hide and teach.
No cat always purrs when you stroke her.”
“I’ve learned,” she laughed, “from this cosmic show.”

Beautiful And The Damned, Emo And The Glammed

Photo Beauty gets attention
Then her eye paint’s running down
She’s got a rose in her teeth
And a lampshade crown
One minute she’s so happy
Then she’s crying on someone’s knee
Saying laughing and crying
You know it’s the same release


Joni Mitchell, People’s Parties

One reason to play alternate tunings
on a guitar is to get different chords
out of the same old finger shapes. The hordes
don’t want to bother with tricky new things

if a trivial twist they can do brings
different sounds from the wires on their fretboards.
Maybe their brains are pining for the fjords
but they strum what the glam girl in school sings.

The laughing boys and girls like glamour, too,
perfumes and colognes smell better than sweat.
And the laughing young dudes want to belong.

But they want to fit with a different crew,
a thought, belief, dream, maybe never met.
The laughing kids hear and play a jazz song.

Adventure’s Waiting Just Ahead

In Shanghai Chloe animates
a squirrel dancing to traffic sounds.
In Chicago Alison pounds
drum pads. Her playing syncopates

red lights, green lights, rushes and waits
of drive time cars making the rounds.
Chloe’s key-frames define the bounds
of her squirrel’s dance, how she gyrates.

Alison frowns. Something’s missing.
Chloe frowns. Something’s not quite right.
They hear music but something’s wrong,

something like bad speakers hissing.
They work. What they see is in sight.
They see jazz. They hear a jazz song.







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This is my 1,000th post.


I’m not done yet. I am like Alison and Chloe. I’m frowning. Something’s missing. Something’s not quite right. But I hear music through the hissing and the music sounds cool. I want to hear more. And I’m pretty sure this is the kind of thing that if you want to hear more you have to work at it. I’m going to keep working at it.




Here he comes
Here comes Speed Racer
He’s a demon on wheels
He’s a demon and he’s gonna be chasing after someone

He’s gaining on you so you better look alive
He’s busy revving up the powerful Mach 5

And when the odds are against him
And there’s dangerous work to do
You bet your life Speed Racer
Will see it through

Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go

He’s off and flying as he guns the car around the track
He’s jamming down the pedal like he’s never coming back
Adventure’s waiting just ahead

Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go

Neptune Light

I wish I could see this woman
illuminated by Neptune,
colors as bright as a cartoon
when Chuck Jones made cartoons for fun,

each line defined, artfully done,
each look sure as a stone-carved rune,
each thought expressed, not one too soon,
in Neptune light far from the Sun.

Far away from franchise restaurants,
far away from convenience stores,
far away from telephones, too.

My ship’s cabins our only haunts.
Neptune light, our only light, pours
through all ports, Bugs Bunny grey-blue.

Naming Things

A roll of toilet tissue
and an old wired telephone.
The ladybug trapped alone
flies where it already flew

through the winter house. One shoe
with no laces. The dust blown
at each insect landing zone,
bug marks, the only shapes new.

No aphids to eat inside.
A piano. Brittle books.
No plants outside in the snow.

Eight chairs. All directions tried.
One green scarf, one grey, on hooks.
Naming things. The chance to know.

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A Ladybug Looking Out At Winter

Madonna Di Loreto

Giovanni Baglione said that the unveiling of this painting “caused the common people to make a great cackle over it.” The uproar was not surprising. The Virgin Mary, like her admiring pilgrims, is barefoot. The doorway or niche is not an exalted cumulus or bevy of putti, but a partly decrepit wall of flaking brick is visible. Only the merest halo sanctifies her and the baby. While beautiful, the Virgin Mary could be any woman, emerging from the night shadows. Like many of Caravaggio’s Roman paintings the scene is a moment where everyday common man or woman encounters the divine, whose appearance is also not unlike that of a common man or woman.

paraphrase of Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto Wikipedia entry

There is something more here than photoshopping
away some celebrity’s fat or age lines.
The art of the craft is knowing what defines
ordinary and divine. And not stopping

at the borderline, the edge. And not cropping
away the elements from beyond. Designs
craft never calculates, art never refines,
the hand meets rising, eyes meet without dropping.

Could anyone create this image today?
Could any eyes, I mean any inside eyes,
the eyes of somebody’s mind, somebody’s heart,

meet the divine inside and not drop away?
Could any hand today rise and seize that prize?
We are barefoot in shadows desperate for art.

“Echelon Building Destroyed in Plane Crash”

AUSTIN, TX-A suburban office building containing federal government offices was destroyed Thursday morning by a small airplane that authorities believe intentionally crashed. The seven-story, 65,000-square-foot Echelon I building was struck at approximately 9:30 a.m. local time.

According to various media reports, the building at 9430 Research Blvd housed offices for the Internal Revenue Service and several other federal agencies. The pilot of the Piper Cherokee that flew into the building, identified as Joseph Andrew Stack, reportedly had a long-running dispute with the IRS.

The IRS has stated that 190 employees worked at Echelon I, part of a four-building office park, and that personnel were still being accounted for Thursday afternoon. The Federal Aviation Administration says it is investigating the incident as a "criminal act" rather than an accidental plane crash.

By Carl Cronan, GlobeSt.com

Echelon is an interesting name!

I’ve known people who would not say that name aloud and would not type those letters on any computer.

For people unfamiliar with tin foil conspiracy theories, “Echelon” is the name used to refer to an alleged global monitoring system that allows the government to monitor, cross-reference and catalogue any and every electronic exchange of data. Phone conversations, e-mails, data transfers—the theory is that everything gets scanned, tagged by key words and stored. (The theory goes that’s how the US had tapes of the KAL-007 disaster.)

Wikipedia says: ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network...

Anyway, this building in Texas apparently is just a low-level government building and not the nerve center of the most advanced global spy apparatus in the world.

But it’s interesting that some nut decided to fly his plane into a building with the same name.

I was actually reading news at Free Republic when a Freeper apparently was the first person to discover the nut’s “manifesto” and send out its location to various new agencies. I checked out the HTML source of the nut’s supposed web site and it looked so neat and clean (the source code, I mean) that I assumed it was an internet prank and not the real deal.

But so far it’s being reported as real.

So today is an interesting day.

I’ve already seen the numerology references: 9+11=20 and 2+18=20 along with 9+1+1=11 and 2+1+8=11

That’s interesting. And the name of the building is interesting. And the amount of damage one little plane caused is interesting.

I’m guessing, however, that this is the kind of interesting stuff that will get more attention on the internet than on TV or in the papers.

The Built World Before The Wrecking Crew

You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons
With the money we’ve got...

...Panic bells it’s red alert
There’s something here
From somewhere else...

...Everyone’s a superhero
Everyone’s a Captain Kirk
With orders to identify
To clarify and classify...

...It’s all over and I’m standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
And here is a red balloon
I think of you and let it go

excerpts from Nena and Kevin McAlea

I never would look for a souvenir
of the world around us when you were near.

Walking through wreckage, torn, filthy, blood-stained
I’d kick down any structure that remained.

The patterns of clouds and patterns of stars
always would remind me of what was ours.

Walking through wreckage I would wreck it more.
I tear. I filth. I blood. I wreck. I war.

In the built world before the wrecking crew
the world before did what it did to you.

Squirrels Of Chaos And Delight

I contributed some lyrics last night
to the jazz music the squirrels were playing.
I’m always terrified of displaying
how I’m out of touch and don’t think quite right

and the squirrels’ playing is always so tight
that I’m extra frightened now wondering
what they’ll make of my words, my blundering
narration of their chaos and delight.

But if I didn’t try to contribute
funny words I put together with lust
for a girl and a painting and a grail

I’d feel a loneliness so absolute
I’d stop listening. Terror’s better than rust.
Both don’t sleep. But the squirrels might like my tale.

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Squirrels And The Lost Mountains Of Tibet


Boo!

Editors Comma Having Been Cut Down Comma

RICH: I’m adrift. Help me.

MORE: How?

RICH: Employ me.

MORE: No.

RICH: (Desperately) Employ me!

MORE: No!

RICH: (Moves swiftly to exit; turns) I would be steadfast!

MORE: Richard, you couldn’t answer for yourself even so far as tonight. (RICH exits. All watch him.)

ROPER: Arrest him.

ALICE: Yes!

MORE: For what?

ALICE: He’s dangerous!

ROPER: For libel; he’s a spy.

ALICE: He is! Arrest him!

MARGARET: Father, that man’s bad.

MORE: There is no law against that.

ROPER: There is! God’s law!

MORE: Then God can arrest him.

ROPER: Sophistication upon sophistication!

MORE: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what’s legal not what’s right. And I’ll stick to what’s legal.

ROPER: Then you set man’s law above God’s!

MORE: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact—I’m not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can’t navigate. I’m no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I’m a forester. I doubt if there’s a man alive who could follow me there, thank God . . . (He says this last to himself)

ALICE: (Exasperated, pointing after RICH) While you talk, he’s gone!

MORE: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

ROPER: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!

MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: (Roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on ROPER) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

ROPER: I have long suspected this; this is the golden calf; the law’s your god.

MORE: (Wearily) Oh, Roper, you’re a fool, God’s my god . . . . (Rather bitterly) But I find him rather too (Very bitterly) subtle . . . I don’t know where he is nor what he wants.

from “A Man For All Seasons”
by Robert Bolt

Goblin Universe Love (2 of 2): Christians

Veiled

I misquoted a poem yesterday.
I didn’t get it too wrong but enough
to make me cringe after I said the stuff
since my heart and brain both wanted their say

and I was frightened, desperate, for a way
to indulge my heart without speaking fluff,
to indulge my brain without sounding rough,
to make time for just one second wait, stay.

I’m sure the person I was talking to
knew exactly which two words I got wrong.
I’ll never know if she thought me a fool

for attempting what I couldn’t quite do,
or was she touched by my zeal to belong.
Between heaven and hell veiled is the rule.

MY life closed twice before its close;
    It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
    A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
    As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
    And all we need of hell.

Emily Dickinson

In The Shadow Of The Mouse Ears

My goose is cooked and eaten to the bone.

The chorus didn’t wait for the four knights.
And they saved—ha, ha—twenty-seven days.

The chorus sees through me. I see shadows.


The internet would be a cathedral

if it were left to its own devices
and not subsidized by corporations.

But corporations like a big chorus.


Priest metaphors these days carry baggage

so it’s fitting the chorus carry swords
and a cauldron for the transparent priest.

My goose is cooked and eaten to the bone.

Everybody Knows Who They Are

And everybody knows who they are
In a velvet garden of rhinestone stars
Shining down on me, satin queen,
Overlords of insane scenes
They go dancing across the pages
Of a magazine

Heart, Magazine

“If you want to play the drum pads on that,” Mark said, “we can get you one of those drummer’s microphones. Lots of drummers wear them to sing. And the pads don’t make too much local noise so I bet your voice track would be okay.”

“We could never do this live then,” Alison said.

“Why not?”

“Look,” Alison said. “I have a high hair-line. I’m not going to appear in public playing drums. Wearing a drummer’s microphone. I don’t want to fucking look like Phil Collins.”

Mark laughed. Alison knew it was a sincere laugh because Mark forgot to put his hand in front of his mouth. She knew he thought that helped hide his bad teeth.

“Listen,” Mark said. “If there is one thing you can be absolutely sure of in the whole known universe—and even in the unknown universe, the Goblin Universe—you can be absolutely sure that you don’t ever have to worry about looking like Phil Collins!”

“Yeah, well,” Alison said, “you have your crazies and I have mine.”

The Way Of The Intercepting Fist

A new Steven Seagal movie came out today. This is the Redbox synopsis:

After serving 15 years for a crime he didn't commit, Shane Daniels is released from jail with an apology from the State of Arizona. Within hours of his freedom, he unluckily bears witness to an illegal diamond deal gone wrong. Members of both the Mexican mafia and State Troopers are killed leaving a terrified girl and a bag of money. In this action packed thrill ride, Shane must fight his way through a corrupt town and take the girl to safety.

I haven’t seen this movie (yet) but I’m guessing Steven saves the girl.

Too bad Steven Seagal never met Brittany Murphy. He could have beaten the hell out of Simon Monjack and then Steven and Brittany could have gone off and lived happily ever after.

Does Mischa Barton toss and turn in her bed at night hoping Steven Seagal will save her? When Mischa finally gets to sleep does she dream of Steven Seagal saving her?

Cynthia Rothrock is the gender-swap version of Steven Seagal.

Can Cynthia save me?

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Lost (For Brittany Murphy)


Freedom From The Wild

The Writing On My Hand

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Actually I never write
on myself. And I find
the practice very strange.

I think it says a lot
about the way people
in modern culture,
especially women,
are dehumanized and
objectified even in
their own mind.

Sarah is getting pilloried
for jotting notes on her hand
but the media are out-of-touch.
I’ve known so many women
who write on themselves I did
a post about it:

Women Write On Themselves



Sarah Palin is so odd, and so many
people are investing so much
of their faith in her, that I
wonder if the strange powers
behind-the-scenes of pop culture
are working her:

The Alaska Cauldron

Freedom From The Wild

She’s a pussy cat
and he loves her but
he cannot save her.

They’re in the same room
at the same table
in different worlds.

She tries to save him,
the five-fingered man,
but her world is wild.

There is no science
and no religion
and no salvation.

But there is desire
in him and in her
to save each other.

The wild feels nothing
and offers nothing
about salvation.

The beasts don’t desire
salvation, they don’t
howl and hunt for it.

She’s a pussy cat
and he loves her but
he cannot save her.

She tries to save him,
the five-fingered man,
but her world is wild.

It’s something they share.
Their desire. The need
to save each other.

It unites their worlds,
divides them from beasts,
frees them from the wild.

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


“She’s A Pussy Cat”

Adam And Eve And Keith Richards

“There’s only one song, and Adam and Eve wrote it; the rest is a variation on a theme.”

Keith Richards

“My brother’s back at home
With his Beatles and his Stones
We never got off
On that ‘Revolution’ stuff
What a drag
Too many snags”

David Bowie & Ian Hunter

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Things Not Jazz: Ice Cream Sadness


The Parthenon Code: Mankind’s History in Marble

The Apocalypse Of Her Yellow Dress

“The little grey men,” she said, “come at night.
They don’t abduct me. They don’t probe my butt.
Or my nose. And my uterus stays shut.
But they paralyze me so I can’t fight

when they take my dress. They leave on the light.
They make me watch. They take my dress then cut
to dawn, bring it back after God knows what.
Paralyzed. Forced to watch. This is my plight.”

I said nothing, but thought: It’s shapes inside.
Inside her dress the shape’s a human-shape.
The grey men take that shape back to their place.

I couldn’t say my thoughts, wanted to hide.
Inside her was more of a monster-shape
than even the grey men from outer space.

Yellow Dress! Yellow Dress!

... Defining the word art is a pointless task, and frankly Webster should have better things to do. Art’s world has made room for controversial figures and kooky ideas, gimmicks and the gross. “Koons, Hirst and the whole development period after Pop, became a business enterprise, in my view,” Thiebaud says. “It dips in and out of the art world in a way, but for me is often terribly misguided in terms of the traditions that I admire and adhere to.” One of Thiebaud’s favorite anecdotes comes from Sir Ernst Gombrich, a writer and psychologist, who penned Art and Illusion in the 1960’s. Gombrich was once asked why he wasn’t interested in contemporary art. His answer was succinct and interesting, “Because it’s too easy to cheat in that environment.” Art’s tradition has soft borders, and like the United States, that has mostly been a good thing, providing freedom and opportunity for the dreamers. But to be a painter, and to create works of such dimension and interest that they grace the most hallowed museum walls, now that’s one of the greatest achievements in his profession.

Wayne Thiebaud has copied from the Masters because he cares that much about the craft. But in the process, he’s added his own icing on the legacy of painting – or at least, added some spit polish to the halo above its angel food cake. “I feel very privileged to be a part of that whole thing, however small,” Thiebaud says humbly. “The capacity of painters to make a world apart from this world will always amaze me. It’s a parallel world, in a way, which offers all sorts of records of human behavior – what we have been, what we are, what we might be. The fact that you take something that is flat, not moving, silent, and produce a world that suggests all of these records and possibilities – and to have learned how to have done that over a 40,000 year period of time – it’s magical. Just look at the light in one small Vermeer painting, and you can feel it. It really borders on the idea of a human miracle.”

Ben Bamsey

writing in ARTWORKS: WAYNE THIEBAUD

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“Betty Jean Thiebaud & Book”

Memories As Sacred As Stained Glass

Wayne Thiebaud Where You Least Expect Him

Dear Angie: Get Well Soon!

The Weird Fact And The Big Romance

Dining At Impossible Kisses

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Sunshine On Breakfast


The only rules
in the Impossible Kisses kitchen
are always to spill the wine
and always to dig that girl. *






--------------------------------------------

* The spoon and fork
have pearl handles.

I know the lyrics really
say “Take that pearl”
but I’m one of those people
who has always heard it
as “Dig that girl”