March 2, 2009

Blogblah

VANITY! ALL VANITY!

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Shelly

February 24, 2009 (updated)

THE TWITTER FEED WAS LUNATIC!

An Obama Speech Live Blog by Andrew Sullivan

LiveBlog of speech by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo

“Progressives” LiveBlog Obama’s speech at Daily Kos

ABC.com LiveBlogs the speech with Twitter Twist

I didn’t bother to watch — I don’t have TV at home now, and I didn’t want to go out — but that doesn’t matter as much as the blogosphere and CW reax in tomorrow’s papers, for which I am not going to wait up. If I have anything of substance to say, I’ll do it after digesting some likely bloated pontificating by pundits of all stripes.

DID TUESDAY MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

Historically Carnival has been a last hurrah before the Christian season of Lent40 days of fasting and penitence beginning on Ash Wednesday. But its roots reach at least as far back as ancient Rome’s Saturnalia, a hedonistic winter celebration of Saturn, god of the harvest.

National Geographic

A Saturnalian Moment in Brazil

I haven’t heard from my son, who lives in New Orleans, about his experiences, but I’ll give him a couple days rest before I make him talk to me on the phone. I did notice a tweet from him about missing the Vieux Crew ball, but I’m not all that sure I want to know what goes on at the Vieux Crew ball. Compared to my children, I’m not nearly as mature. In fact, compared to most people, I may not be that mature, but that’s another matter.
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February 23, 2009

Blogblah

Can’t swing a cat without hitting a blog
There are so many posts on my friends/fellow bloggers pages about cats! Don’t they know that Sinatra and I hold that franchise? I’ll show them: I’ll blog about relationships today. How ’bout them apples?
I was reminded this weekend of a conversation I once had with a woman about relationships that I thought interesting and enlightening. I won’t name her because I don’t want to shatter her privacy. Anyway, she had at the time what I’ve thought of since as a college transcript notion of relationships.
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February 21, 2009 (updated)

MY POOR, POOR SOONERS! YOU KNOCKED ME OUT,
BUT FELL SHORT SO, ALMA MATER, HERE’S TO YOU,
OH YOU OH YOU OU OU OU OU OU OU OU OH YOU

John X, the heinous one, has now landed safely in Austria with only carry on luggage and a need to blog. You can catch his adventures on his temporary blog HERE.

February 20, 2009

Friday night blogger

AMAZING VIDEOS
I happened to run across some amazing videos and thought I’d share.
The first is a five minute video that is composed of 6,000 painted images by a graduate student named Reza Dolatabadi . If you follow the link, you’ll see a lot more info about how the film was put together and about the artist. The video is cool all by itself, but it has the added bonus of being a complete work of art at any point at which you pause the video.
The second video is about technique and not the video and not the soundtrack. It’s a technique called “datamoshing”, and I’ve linked to that term below so you can see some before you decide to follow up. It somehow reminds me of my friend The Oz’s paintings, a sort of dreamlike quality of reality. About a year before this so-called “music video” (you may enjoy the artwork better if you just turn off the speakers and I’m not the only one of that opinion), there was another artist, Takeshi Murata (link on page 2) who used the technique in a more contemporary art/experimental kind of way and used what I can only call a disturbing soundtrack.
I’ve put both after the “jump” so you don’t have to go there if you aren’t interested in video.
Also at the bottom of this post is the Google Earth “discovery” of Atlantis and a Proverb for my daughter.

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February 19, 2009 (updated)

Vintage RayBans

AH CHOO! SNIFFLE SNIFF
Today’s LongRydeHome is an evocative note about Spring planting and working in the ground. I admire the sentiment, but can’t join in. I’m having an allergy day from hell. My eyes feel like they are bleeding and not just oozing water. My ears feel not just stopped up, but filled with concrete. My throat is almost closed and is raw from coughing up phlegm and the occasional post nasal drip. I am miserable. I haven’t had a good respiratory breath through my nose since I woke up at 7 this morning, and I’ve filled up half a wastebasket with tissues. It’s midday and I’ve not left the house, although I’ll soon make a foray out to buy more cigarets. You want to know what it’s like to be an addict? That’s what it’s like. No matter how miserable you are and no matter how irrational and self destructive, you do what you have to do to get your next fix.

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Proverbs 17:9

One who forgives an affront
fosters friendship,
But one who dwells on disputes
will alienate a friend.

It is easier to know wisdom than to act wisely, I find. Please forgive me if I toddle and stumble while I’m trying to learn how to walk the walk.

Blogblah

February 16, 2009

UPDATE:

TV Network Founder Beheads Wife?

And you think your divorce was bitter? This guy founded a Muslim television network to bridge cultural gaps for Muslims in the United States. He called police to tell them where the body was: at the office. I find this kind of Sharia culture attitude towards women offensive from my cultural perspective. In fact, I find it mind-boggling. So much for steak and blowjob day for you, mister.

Gotta lite?

SMOKE ‘EM IF YA GOT ‘EM
My packs of Winston cigarets FORMERLY said “no additives”. It doesn’t say that any more. Neither do other cigarets, like American Spirits. The government made them put chemicals in my smokes. Yeah, that’s right. The government made them put chemicals in my cigarets. So the cigarets will go out. If you don’t keep puffing on them until the end, they just go out and you have this half a cigaret roach stub sitting in the ashtray. It’s so the old duffers like me don’t go to sleep with a cigaret in our hand and burn up the house. Meanwhile, zillions of us who will never burn down any house or bed have been forced to consume additional potential carcinogens and pathogens on top of the already risky product we consume. The Nanny State gone wild! Almost enough to make me a libertarian. Oh, and the tax on each pack increased just in time for the Great Depression. What the hell are we supposed to do for our noir films about this era if everyone stops puffing? Can you even imagine a Beat Generation without cigarets, even if a lot of them actually were clove? If they want millions of us to give up our ciggies, they better legalize pot first. Just sayin’.
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February 15, 2009 (updated)

Looking on

VALENTINE’S DAY
I had a lovely Valentine’s day weekend. I ran the gamut of emotions: content, happy, joyful, ecstatic, blissfully asleep. I ignored the troubles of the world and focused on the moment. I cooked a couple of meals, steak and salad Saturday night. I received in abundance validation and emotional fulfillment. Did some interesting things like antique shopping, thrift stores, book stores, coffee. Stress free and full of laughter and intimacies.
By comparison, my blogging buddy Flibbertigibbit vents a bit about Valentine’s and relationships and flirting and that whole boy-girl thing.
MindOverMary posts with passionate kindness and urgent wisdom in a lovely essay that made me admire my sister even more than ever.
Mom-A-Tron, aka RebL, gives us a lesson in green valentines that, I must admit, express a far more true and everlasting valentine than the pink and red crap we seem to favor.
LongRydeHome had a weekend full of trauma (a trip to the ER) and drama (a personal feud gone all bloggy) and despite the fact that MCARP shows up in a great many of her episodes, he has nothing whatsoever to report at 3:40 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Sweet mystery of life.
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February 12, 2009

MY VALENTINE: i-PHONE OCARINA STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

February 11, 2009

Blogblah!!!

STORMY WEATHER
The television weathermen in this town knock me out. They DO get excited. There was more to get excited about than usual today — all those Oak Tree Homes! — so the weathermen got more excited than usual. WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM FOR AN ANNOUNCEMENT: THE WORLD IS GOING TO END! WE MEAN NOW! GRAB YOUR ANKLES AND KISS YOUR ASS GOOD-BYE, IT’S ALL OVER FOLKS! MOVE UNDERGROUND AND REMEMBER YOUR NEIGHBOR JUST WANTS YOUR FOOD AND AMMO.
Very valuable service and all that. I’m grateful for the technology and the early warning systems we have here. Blah blah blah.
But get a grip.
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