smoothable

Happy Birthday MKL!

2011-10-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

2011-09-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

"To fall in love with someone, you have to get to know them personally."
- Justin Bieber

The Love-Hat Relationship
by Aaron Belz

I have been thinking about the love-hat relationship.
It is the relationship based on love of one another's hats.
The problem with the love-hat relationship is that it is superficial.
You don't necessarily even know the other person.
Also it is too dependent on whether the other person
is even wearing the favored hat. We all enjoy hats,
but they're not something to build an entire relationship on.
My advice to young people is to like hats but not love them.
Try having like-hat relationships with one another.
See if you can find something interesting about
the personality of the person whose hat you like.

BOUNCY BALL

2011-07-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

taking a walk

2011-05-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

Bieber me!

2011-05-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

I'm cutting off my hair soon;
I'm printing out these pictures of Justin Bieber to give the hairdresser:

In case it's unclear, I'm not kidding.
Course, it won't look the same on me as on prettykid Beebs,
but in 2040 I want to be able to say something like,
"When I was 20 I got a Bieber haircut. You too?! Ha! I actually handed the hairdresser a picture of him. Turned out awful."

Captain Alejandro

2011-04-29T07:39:00.001-07:00

Thanks to lamamama88 for seeing that Star Trek/Lady GaGa is so right.

"It is believed the bean jam in his head gives him sustenance."

2011-04-16T22:32:00.001-07:00

I don't have it in me to say anything about the Neil deGrasse Tyson stuffs I've been watching on YT, in part because I can't grip the content too well

BUT HE SURE IS A CUTE ASTROPHYSICIST OR WHATEVER IT'S CALLED

He reminds me of the anime character Anpanman with his big dark eyes and round cheeks and Ghost of Christmas Present atmosphere

Anpanman's great because
) his superpower is hearing/listening
)) his head is made of bread
))) he feeds his head to the hungry

Neil deGrasse Tyson nourishes the public with his brain while still being engagingly cute and therefore accessible for non-sciencies like me.

. . . Or maybe just outright bait for non-sciencies like me

Sometimes he gets no-nonsensical in a way that feels plowing, like with some veins of Christianity, like "THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH", like a barking dog.
But only ocassionally, and even then - a barking dog who's barking because he wants to show you something

Here's a bit from the Wikipedia entry on Anpanman:

His name comes from the fact that he is a man with a head made of bread (Japanese: pan, a loanword from the Portuguese word meaning "bread") that is filled with Red bean paste (Japanese: an) called an anpan. He doesn't need to eat or drink to sustain himself and has never been seen eating. It is believed the bean jam in his head gives him sustenance. His weakness is water or anything that makes his head dirty. He regains his health and strength when Jam Ojisan bakes him a new head and it is placed on his shoulders. Anpanman's damaged head, with Xs in his eyes, flies off his shoulders once a new baked head lands. He was created when a shooting star landed in Uncle Jam's oven while he was baking. He has two special attacks called: An-punch and An-kick (with stronger variations of both). When Anpanman comes across a starving creature or person, he lets the unfortunate creature or person eat part of his head. He also has super hearing in that he can respond to anyone that calls his name out in distress from anywhere in the world.

modeling lessons with Captain Kirk

2011-04-10T17:42:00.000-07:00



















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

The Clubhouse

2011-04-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

screencaps TrekCore

Come Back Margaret (Camera Obscura)

2011-04-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

I came across this by chance a couple months ago, and I've been waiting for my birthday to post it -

THE MOST DELICIOUS SONG FOR MARGARETS EVERYWHERE

(And besides being OBVIOUSLY ABOUT ME . . . it's a good song.
I like that towny violin and clap-drum librarian boogie-hop.)

lyrics:

Come back, Margaret,
he wants to adore you
Come back, Margaret,
I'd like to explore you

Can't you see the tears in my eyes?
With the love for him I disguise

I like the free days with no expectations
I like it my way with no limitations

Don't you see there are tears in my eyes?
With the love for him I despise

Darling, you will always be around
whether my mood's up or if it's down
In dreams I've tried to take you far away
but you never stay
no, you never stay

20

2011-04-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

"I don't believe, by any means, that I've even begun to do what's inside me."
- Peter Sellers in a press conference c. late 1960's (makes him around 40)

A family member was telling me (in a gentler way than this) that
I don't know myself
I need to wake up
I'm almost 20 years old
stop being so idealistic

Since these are things I've heard from myself, it bothered me that someone else was saying them.

I'd been telling Family Member how I felt bad about being a college drop-out (for now) and living with my parents (for now) and working at Taco Bell (for now). (And then there's the feeling bad about feeling bad like, what? do I think I'm entitled to more? blah blah blah)
They pointed out, as if I'd forgotten (I had), that no one forced me to leave college.

I'm 20, and I know I'm only 20. But I'm remembering something Charlotte Bronte said about your morning being a template for your day and if you haven't accomplished anything by 12noon, the whole day's shot.

I don't even remotely agree, but it still gets me nervous.

When my mom was my age, she was in Baja, Mexico with people who wore only white and ate only fruits and nuts. My dad was posing nude for art classes. The two of them met and lived in a teepee for a while before going to a night church service and getting affiliated and married and having 8 kids and voting Republican.
So there's no telling.

Usually when I think of no telling, it's a happy feeling clenched around enormous fear, like
it's not too late for things to get really good
even though it's not too late for things to get really awful.

I remember what I wore for my 6th birthday and how, before the party --- you have to know what I wore? a white pink-cuffed shirt with a rose patch on the chest and a denim vest --- how before the party I was propped up on my hands on the bathroom counter in front of the mirror in total admiration; I couldn't believe what a great, beautiful, cool, delightful Thing I was, and I remember trying to imagine myself as an adult - how much more great/beautiful/cool/delightful I'd be.

At 20 I'm still 6 but without so much self-satisfaction; with the idea of being tremendously g/b/c/d by, say, 30, (even though it's not too late for things to get really awful).

Last night, I looked back in my journal to see what I'd written about turning 19:
"Scared of 19. But always scared. It's ok."

And I'd written down something Captain Kirk apparently said:
"You have so much to learn. Learn it."

That made me buck at first, seemed agressively rigorous, reminded me of the Charlotte Bronte noon quote.
But then, it's different, like
It's ok that you have a lot to learn and will never learn all of it or any of it by 12noon. Just go on ahead and go on ahead.

Captain's orders.

This morning I'm going to a (free!) tax-help appointment at the Pentecostal Church. It seems pretty symbolically dreary to be doing taxes on your birthday, but the appointment's at 9 and we'll be long-done by noon and
there's the rest of the day

A (late) Birsdey Macro

2011-04-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post this March 5th, Fresca's birthday, but some things went haywire with the PC. All better now. Anyway, she's newly 50 (the Freska, not the PC), so . . .

William Shatner's Scythe and Flowers

2011-03-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

at my bad
last night pre-planned
and the
it's a good hanging

spirit
dismantling
rome

becomes clearer
wondering
pandering to the following the event
stoker mandate from jed
hello can you say
communities she wasn't he
holding

dot
passed out for a year ago
tried and i don't know
panel and say hello
all right
brian and his views are a few twelve

marseille
placed her reticence
being dragged through the
no water

moron this
justified
dame

because of the
anything there
going to have his

I think it's he no longer
hard
hotline

decisions will be removed
xd
discovery
religion
one
no serious in res
homicide
and i think this company

This is William Shatner's spoken-word Rocketman as audio-transcribed and closed-captioned by Youtube. When you click the closed-captions button, a window pops up to warn you, "Transcibe Audio is an experimental service . . . "

Sometimes TA is accidentally perceptive, though, like it's transcribing the subtext.

A few weeks ago, I dreamed I read a poem called William Shatner's Scythe and Flowers. I can't remember the words, but these are right enough.

If you want to soil yourself, watch in TA: Shatner of the Mount
(To activate TA, hover the mouse over the CC button at the bottom-right of the video and click "Transcribe Audio". Magical.)

barely even March

2011-03-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

(The macro goes on from there, but the rest is saved on my dead laptop.)

It's not March 5th and it's barely even March.

Tintorera writes:
"Nothing about Shatner's birthday? No Shatmoy? No Trek? Just Justin Bieber for about four weeks? Oh boy. This HAS become a nightmare. Mine."

Mine too.
I was giddily making Fresca's Birsdey Macro when our laptop battery died. We finally got a new one in the mail yesterday, but something about a "main table file error". I'm at the library. I'm in agony.

Not really. What's nightmarish is how nightmarish not having immediate access to every piece of media ever seems. I've been irritable and weepy - not an unusual amount, I don't think, just the natural amount. (Natural as in when you aren't diverted in 18 different directions.)

But at my first opportunity, this monologue from As You Like It is getting either Kirk/Spock-ed or Shatner-ed:

PHEBE: Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.
But what care I for words? Yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth; not very pretty;
But sure he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.
He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offense, his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall; yet for his year's he's tall.
His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well.
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mixed in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
I have more cause to hate him than to love him;
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black and my hair black;
And, now I am rememb'red, scorned at me.
I marvel why I answered not again.
But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.
I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius?

I've been thinking about Justin Bieber

2011-02-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

and last night I dreamed of him.
He was nodding to a group of teenagers at a table, saying how he has a lot of friends, but no real friends. I said:

"You need a friend as close as the hair of your new haircut."

(He cut his hair.)

Then we played a game that involved tossing a mint onto a person's foot - his invention.

I feel you looking at me like that, and I'm looking at me like that too.

Beiber fascinates me.
The fact that Bieber fascinates me fascinates me.
The fact that so many are deeply disgusted by Bieber fascinates me.
The innards of his voice itself have come to fascinate me.
(And neverminding him or his music, he has a pretty-colored voice. Sandy but clean. Makes me want to be a teenage boy all over again. (There was a phase . . . )

Right now I'm listening to Baby.
You know you love me, he sings, I know you care.
Most people I've talked to do care one way or another.
My co-worker begged me not to talk about him or she would throw up.

I guess this is the sort of thing about him that makes people nauseous? :

I screencapped it from the music video for Baby, shocked that any 16 year old male would be comfortable doing . . . whatever that is . . . without irony.

But he's so far from nauseating me, I begin to like him.

school pictures

2011-02-28T10:15:00.000-08:00

Trekcore

Sunday Macro

2011-02-27T13:09:00.000-08:00

I watched some Star Trek vids with transcribed-audio captions on, and at one point it had Bones saying to Kirk:
"magazine just happened last night in which you are not in".
Straight out of Macroland.

screencaps Trekcore

2011-02-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

Pro Freestyle Skateboarder Rodney Mullen:

I like this photo of him (Grant Brittain) because he looks like a dancer.

Here he is dancing on/with his skateboard in 1984 (trust me):

An interviewer asked Rodney Mullen what his skating's like when he's not being filmed.

Embarrassing. I just cruise around and build on movements that seem to offer promise for what's next for me, or just simple motions that feel good, depending on the spot. I'm not that interested in repeating hard stuff that doesn't point to something new . . .

simple motions that feel good reminds me of something freak-folk singer Devendra Banhart (I don't mean he's a freak who sings folk; "freak-folk" is a genre of music) said in an interview:
Sometimes you get very cold and all you can do is chicken dance your way into a warm place . . .

I dreamed I was skateboarding. I used to skateboard. I wasn't good, but I could mess around and jump off picnic tables, go to skateparks and not feel totally lost. At some point I realized if I wanted to get better, I would have to take risks and fall more. I didn't, so it got boring. Eventually my kid-neighbor, who I had shown around the curb, got taller and stronger and better at skating than me. He also spent more time rolling around on the concrete. After the reversal, I stopped going outside whenever I heard wheels. Then I stopped going out at all and then I sold my skateboard at a garage sale.

This is the lamest thing I've ever said:
neighbor-kid had caught me once in between the car and the front door. "Why don't you come out and skate anymore?"
"Because you're better than me!"
"Dude! Who cares!"

I want to go back out.
I mean that in a general way, but I also mean I want to get a board and start skating again. It's fun.

I Am The President Of Your Fanclub (And Last Night I Followed You Home)

2011-02-08T18:14:00.000-08:00

After combing More Shat, Less Shame, snipping and fragmenting pictures of Bill Shatner and his kids, I feel kind of creepy.

I Am The President Of Your Fanclub (And Last Night I Followed You Home) by Cancel The Astronauts is the perfect song for all your creepy feelings.

They have a great band picture . . . very un-band-picture like . . .

If Kirk and Spock has a band, it would be called SILVERWEAR
--- because Kirk/Spock slash is sometimes called "Spirk"
because "Spirk" makes you think of "spork"
because "spork" makes you think of silverware
because silverware makes you think of The Silver They Wore
(you know - those red, blue, silver spacesuits from That One Episode) so SILVERWEAR

Ethan puts his shirt on

2011-02-05T19:34:00.000-08:00

Leslie Knope: NO BLAH BLAH BLAH

2011-01-28T10:37:00.000-08:00

On Parks & Recreation last night, Leslie Knope pulled a Captain Kirk:
"NO BLAH BLAH BLAH!"
A direct quote! No wonder I like her.

Poehler on Leslie Knope:

"She is like a well-intentioned traveler with a really bad sense of direction. She’s a person who believes that all it takes is one person to care to create change. She doesn’t have that set of skills you need, like sly negotiation skills and the ability to withhold praise and love . . . "*

"The energy it takes to play her - and to be her - has been a new challenge for me and been really great, because I'd like to be able to tap into that Captain spirit . . . as I've gotten older, I gravitate more towards people like that."**

*Poehler and Ansari on their Characters
**Amy Poehler on Leslie Knope . . .

Elsie Alexander

2011-01-24T22:24:00.000-08:00

I spent a lot of my kidhood weekends at my grandmother Elsie's house, watching Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights, and going to her Lutheran church on Sundays.

She came over to our house with a wig on once, and my mother, being my mother, promptly asked, "what's on your head?"
"What do you mean? Hair."

She was very like William Shatner. We have an old newspaper clipping that features her saying, "You have to take all the bad things and make them work for you."

"And she did," my mom says. "But she was just so . . . overwhelming."

The Shirt

2011-01-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smoothes over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below the belt -
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

JANE KENYON

screencaps TrekCore

"Nothing is solid, nothing is fixed"

2011-01-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

In light of the magnetic/zodiac shiftings . . .

I don’t believe in a static, objective reality that is out there. I believe in shifting, changing patterns of energy – the shifting, changing patterns of energy that we’ve begun to apprehend in nature, and in the very atoms and molecules and DNA of our bodies.

Nothing is solid, nothing is fixed. But this movement, this energy is not chaos. Science is just beginning to unravel the patterns and shifts and connections that seem so impossible and implausible.

But art intuitively understands these patterns and shifts and connections, because that is exactly how art functions, too. And I believe that one of the reasons we go back and back to art, why we don’t give up on it, why people go on making it and wanting it, is because through art, we recognize life’s intrinsic quality – that everything is connected.

- Jeanette Winterson

A co-worker and I were talking about slash, about the strangest parings we'd heard of or could think of; I submitted Aslan/Edmund/Lucy. If you don't know, Aslan is a lion, and Edmund & Lucy are brother and sister.

This really exists! I looked it up on YT out of something like spite after seeing Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, because the snappy-clean-exclusiveness of the movie bugged me - "extradordinary things only happen to extraordinary people," and such.

One of the things slash gets at - or "intuitively understands" - I think, is that there's something the same about all love.

How messy. What a knot.

In Japanese, the word "love" is for lovers; to friends, the most you can say is, "I biglike you", just like you might say, "I biglike cake". In English I love cake, I love gGod. I kind of like the blurriness of that.

Anyway,
ALL YOUR ARIES ARE NOW TECHNICALLY BELONG TO PISCES, ETC. & ETC?

or:

but probably:

screencaps TrekCore

Peter O'Toole as SPIDERMAN

2011-01-10T09:36:00.000-08:00

I like Spiderman. I also like to watch Peter O'Toole, and when he shouts it makes me giddy. Imagine Spiderman swinging around NYC, but with the voice of Peter O'Toole, shouting the things Peter O'Toole shouts in movies.

Somewhere someone gets a kick out of this. Surely.

To be perfectly frank, you bore me /
In god's name, how long does it take to make a tapestry and it's mediocre beyond belief /
Thank the lord my duty is done /
I forbid you to gloat /
I forbid you to smile /
What is it, mother /

"explore then lie down, explore then lie down"

2011-01-09T15:34:00.000-08:00

Overheard bits from the last year or so that I've remembered:

1
"I just want to explore then lie down, explore then lie down."

2
"Your dad says you can move out and go wherever you want."

3
"I need to borrow a family on Tuesdays from 6 - 7:30."

4
"It's like you're President Kennedy and you're fighting off zombies."

5
"Someday National Geographic will be a thing of the past. 7 billion people."
"That's a lotta people."
"It's a VERY lotta people."

6
"Humans are just so . . . you know?!"
"Yeah. Yeah."

something loud somewhere high

2011-01-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

It's like this archetypal human fantasy: do something loud somewhere high.

2010-12-29T15:21:00.000-08:00

This takes about 7 years to load, and is rather choppy if you don't leave it alone to buffer all the way. Just sayin'.

The song is a remix of Ella Fitzgerald's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?"
With only so many holiday songs, it's nice that they re-rib them every once in a while.

2010-12-28T11:08:00.000-08:00

I was passing through my brother's room on my way outside last night. Never did make it outside.

Go Jesus! It's Your Birthday! (And Even If You Weren't Really gGod, Well, Everybody Makes Mistakes! I Still Think You're Swell! I Mean It!) etc.

2010-12-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone!
. . . from More Shat Less Shame:

And from the ol' picture box . . .
There's some shared feeling among those who've seen this picture that his name was/is "Stanley". Nobody really knows. I almost want to say "Cornelius".

I made my little brothers listen to this song. They like it, and they aren't even choir-people.

Lyrics, Latin:

Lux,
calida gravisque pura velut aurum,
et canunt angeli molliter
modo natum.

English:

Light,
warm and heavy as pure gold,
and the angels sing softly
to the new-born baby.

(English lyrics by Edward Esch, translated into the Latin by Charles Silvestri, composed by Eric Whitacre)

wenceslashatner

2010-12-21T19:52:00.000-08:00

This part of Oregon is called "High Desert". I think that's misleading, even if Antarctica is also a desert.

My hat is ridiculous but so warm, kind of like . . . WILLIAM SHATNER.

Oh! Speaking of William Shatner!

I laughed until I cried, but the ending - when Wenceslas tells the Page: "mark my . . . footsteps-my-good-PAGE . . . Tread. THOU in THEM . . . boldly" - genuinely moved me. Mostly because it's Bill Shatner saying it, and Bill Shatner has a thawing effect on me.

Kirk: "picture you and you upon a knee a piece"

2010-12-15T11:27:00.000-08:00

I must've watched this upwards of 20 times today. It's weirdly sustaining to think of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy living in a big city, not up to much. They all have bicycles. They go to the cinema. Kirk leaves his bath towels lying all over the flat. (And he doesn't like baths so they have to help, as suggested in the vid.)

It could work.
I don't think it would, but it could.

by scapegoat13
song: "Billions of Beautiful Boys" by Maude Maggart

Kirk's face in the final frame pretty well captures, "don't think it would, but it could":

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING LESS SUBTLE: Britney Spears sings about a Biblical threesome (I think? "Peter, Paul, & Mary"?) which is then mashed with Star Trek:

by Xkelociraptor
song: "3" by Britney Spears

I like that Kirk is Mary, but I think McCoy should be Peter - just because I can see him slicing someone's ear off. Spock is Paul?

Starts with Cannibalism, Ends with Camping

2010-12-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

Philippians 4:8
"Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

I have mixed feelings about this verse.
Part of me cries THIS! and runs circles around Captain Kirk.
(Well, he's lovely anyway . . . )
More of me says, "no no, think of everything" -

- like the fact that there are fanvids for Jeffrey Dahmer.

Today I sent an e-mail to a Jeffrey Dahmer vidder via YouTube:

Hi.

I'm not a Jeffrey Dahmer fan;
I'm a William Shatner fan.

But when I tell people I love William Shatner, they sometimes think I'm crazy, and I imagine when you tell people (if you tell people) you love Jeffrey Dahmer, you get a similar reaction only times 10.

Being a fan, I'm interested to hear from other fans, even if we're not fans of the same thing or person; fandom in general is something I want to understand, and your particular fandom is, to me, unusual.

If you care to share, I'd like to know why you love Jeffrey Dahmer.

(I could tell you why I love Shatner, though I don't think it would be as interesting for you.)

You have no reason to tell me and plenty of reasons not to (I'm a stranger, to start with), but you should know I have no intentions of judgement; I only want to understand.

My name's Margaret, by the way.

Now I'm wondering if I really want to understand.
I do want to understand fandom, but if there's a connection between my love for Shatner and another's love for Dahmer, do I want to look in that mirror?

One video was called, "Jeffrey Dahmer: The Human Being".
There were a lot of angry comments - the type of hysterical anger generated by fear - the type of fear generated by seeing ugliness brought familiar.

I bet there's a balance where it's possible to think of everything and keep a fannish spirit (Liu Xiaobo says he's optimistic about China's future), but I am, for now, lousy with balance.

One way to end this post, then:

(Kirk, Spock, & McCoy camping at the beginning of Star Trek V)

Jim's Groovy Hip Delicious Muzik Mix 1

2010-12-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

screencaps from TrekCore

"I gotta tell you something that I've never told anyone: I am a dragon."

2010-11-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

Here are the lyrics in letter form:

Kirk,

"You are a princess, and we are penpals. (I am a dragon, though you don't need to know that.) I've been working on my penmanship by this lantern lit. (So this love won't quit.) I am a dragon and I catapult my love over the castle wall. I gotta tell you something that I've never told anyone: I am a dragon. I am a dra--- Go on. Well, how can I? How do you stop loving someone? They gather around my cavern with spears and torches and they sing, "How do you stop loving someone?" So far away, up in the kingdom, I can hear the Queen sing, "How do you stop loving someone?" Let these words speak; let our eyes never meet. Because even if you love me, what would the people think? What would they do to you? They'll just keep fighting. And I'll keep writing to you.

Even though I fly through the smoke doesn't mean I made the fire; I might have fire in my throat, doesn't mean I made the fire. I startled you; you surprised me. Just knowing you has made me feel like I can sing."

Gorn

screencaps TrekCore

2010-11-27T23:21:00.000-08:00

Béla Bartók at his high school graduation:

Bartók wrote to his lover when things were running to an end:
"After reading your letter, I sat down at the piano -- I have a sad misgiving that I shall never find any consolation in life except in music, and yet..."
[Here he copies down the four-note opening motif of the Violin Concerto No. 1]
"This is your Leitmotiv."

Something about that is comical. It's like in I Love Lucy when Ricky gets angry and switches to Spanish.

I was telling a friend today how I want to learn music theory. I can hack-read music but not write it, and even if I don't have music in me to write, I don't like knowing that I couldn't.

In the high school band room, during lunch, I used to give this friend random titles of books or poems and he would play an improv interpretation of it on piano.
He says music is a different world where everything makes sense.

To me, music is a different world where there's no such thing as sense but it's ok; there are "unintelligible truths"* - unintelligible to me - in both music and math that I could stare at for a while.

*[From the Milan Kundera quote: "On the surface, intelligible lies; underneath, unintelligible truths."]

Like:
in music, an instrument in its best tone sounds like all other instruments; the more color in your sound the better - color of brass, color of wood, color of steel, color of air, color of light, color of dark.

It's like gGod! Kind of!
Psalm 139:12
Yes, the darkness hides not from you; but the night shines as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to you.

If you want to learn music theory, this guy is giving free music theory lessons via Youtube because he wants to.

2010-11-25T12:39:00.000-08:00

screencaps from TrekCore

the panther, the cow, the firefly, the toaster

2010-11-22T16:46:00.000-08:00

"I have always dreamed of writing a substantial collection of choral works that might enter the standard choral repertoire, something with the depth and passion of Monteverdi’s Fourth Book of Madrigals and the charm and timelessness of Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes.

I wrote this instead."

- Eric Whitacre on Animal Crackers:

Lyrics from Ogden Nash's animal verses:

THE PANTHER
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn’t been peppered.
If you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don’t anther.

THE COW
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other milk.

THE FIREFLY
The firefly’s flame Is something for which science has no name
I can think of nothing eerier
Than flying around with an unidentified glow on a
Person’s posterior.

__________________________________________

Last summer I was on a farm in Wisconsin.
My first day there, Greta was supposed to show me how to call chickens. It's embarassing at first, because what it is:
with a Chicago mobster accent, as if opening a door and walking into a dark room, yell:
HERE MY CHICKERS, HERE CHICKERCHICKERCHICKERS. That's it exactly. It's one of those things you have to do 100 percent or you'll immediately die of shame.
(Why Wisconsinite chickens respond to this . . . something we should be wary about . . . not fire or ice, but chickens . . . )
"I'm kinda shy," Greta said.
"Me too."
So instead of calling the chickens, she showed me the best climbing trees and we became good friends.

There were four emus on the farm: Toaster, Eggplant, Mango, Raptor.
Greta and I read to the emus (Coraline, The Jungle Book) and sang goodnight to the emus because the closest living relatives to dinosaurs seemed to demand ritual. I didn't really know how to play guitar and Greta didn't really know how to write, but she basically dictated the lyrics to me and I played the 3 chords I knew over and over; we did this every night outside their pen.

other things I remember about emus:

- safer to approach from behind
- wings are useless
- females make low drum beat sound in their chests to attract mates
- able to hiss like cats
- do not like to be held;
(holding a thrashing baby emu is most memorable physical sensation of my life - like holding a hurricane ribbed with muscle and hair)
- look ridiculous when they run
- 35 mph

2010-11-19T23:33:00.000-08:00

Matthew with Sousaphone is a portrait by Robert Gullie.
The occasion of the shoot was Matthew's college graduation; for a prop he borrowed this sousaphone from a friend. Mid-shoot Gullie said, "let's try something more formal"; Matthew was a dancer, so this was how he took the suggestion. Animal majesty and meanwhile this ridiculous piece of brass on his shoulder.
I'm attracted the idea of art that isn't silly but is made of silly, or is silly but isn't made of it.

(The instrument is a sousaphone - basically a marching Tuba. I played one for about 6 seconds once before I was deflated; you have to breath from your toes up to get anywhere with it.)

This photo was in my mother's picture box; months ago I put it in a shiny gold frame with the title page from Robin Hood.

Well, I've since lost the shiny gold frame and it's not what it was.

Og

2010-11-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

i.
from the Wikipedia article Og:

"According to several books of the Old Testament, Og . . . was an ancient Amorite king of Bashan who, along with his army, was slain by Moses and his men at the battle of Edrei . . . according to some traditions he lived to be 3,000 years old and clung to Noah's ark during the Deluge."

Deutoronomy 3:11
(For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.)

Provided it hasn't been done, I want to formally call dibs (stipistop, bagsy, shotty, primis, etc.) on a fictional autobiography of Og.
To unparenthesize him.

ii.
Further efforts to put Song of Solomon to Star Trek, or Star Trek to Song of Solomon . . . I got stuck a couple verses in.
(music: Makahaa by John Zorn)

Sunday Macro: that one place in Spain

2010-11-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

Alec Baldwin Evangelizes

2010-11-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

From Glengarry Glen Ross, for "Take Things Out Of Context" Saturday.

"Return to the heart which you have removed."

2010-11-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

At the thrift store, I found The Spiny Dogfish, A Labratory Guide, copyright 1929. I bought it because I'll never come across it again.

The Spiny Dogfish is also called the spurdog, mud shark, piked dogfish, and once in this book, the "horny dogfish".

From Wikipedia:
The species name acanthias refers to the shark's two spines. These are used defensively. If captured, the shark can arch its back to pierce its captor. Glands at the base of the spines secrete a mild poison . . .

from the Preface to The Spiny Dogfish:
The outline calls for a minimum number of drawing, and no notes. The writer has found that too often the student has the idea that the object of the course is the making of a "pretty" note-book rather than the acquiring of a knowledge of anatomy. Furthermore, very few students are artists, and much valuable time is wasted in futile artistic efforts . . . In anatomy, dissection rather than art should be fostered.

first sentence:
The elasmobranchs are the most primitive of the true fishes.

last sentence:
The muscles of the eye have already been studied.

miscellaneous instructions:
CHAMBERS OF THE HEART
Return to the heart which you have removed.* Cut open the dorsal surface of the auricle and wash out any blood within it.

*I'm so fond of that weird, funny, sweet flavor! It sounds like an uncertain translation of Revelation 2:4
Nevertheless I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love.

More rare findings:
on my way to the thrift store, on the side of the road near a bush, I came across an untouched, quality muffin with oats, carrot shavings, and berries. Lacking even a healthy fear of germs, I had it; was a little bland after all.

And from the local Frontier Advertiser:
FOUND: pet pidgeon. Showed up at High Desert Taxidermy after wind storm. Has band around leg.

Tekufah

2010-11-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

I found the sound that goes with this screencap:

Listen to the bongo-sax riff in the 1st minute:

It's by John Zorn (that's him on sax); it's called Tekufah.
He has a strange ear. Maybe he likes hummus on his pumpkin pie, too. (Pronounced "who-mas" is you're William Shatner . . . and if you are William Shatner, please leave a comment and let me know.)

screencap from TrekCore, from The Squire of Gothos

I want to be the skunk; I don't want to taste the skunk

2010-10-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

It's a polaroid - you know they stopped making polaroid film? - of me and my best kidhood friend Sarah. It was Halloween and I had slept over and she had two costumes in her closet: a skunk and a princess; she gave me the choice.

It was one of those really easy decisions and it ended up working out well because I'm pretty sure she wanted to be the princess anyway.

Hey. I have two costumes in my closet; do you want to be the salt-vampire or the captain?
You know what, nevermind; I'll be the salt-vampire . . .

"I want to taste the [salt]; I don't want to be the [salt]."*

*From a Hindu devotional classic: "I want to taste the sugar; I don't want to be the sugar."
(Like most people, I want both. According to Hinduism, humans want Infinite Being, Infinite Knowledge, and Infinite Bliss. And I wonder: does Infinite Being include Infinite Want? Because there's also the want to want which is lost in having. Want to have & have to want.
INFINITE SALT!)

Kirk - It's Britney Yet It's Me

2010-10-28T10:43:00.000-07:00

sounds:
Britney Spears, "Gimme More"
Van Morrison, "Stranded"
Jonathan Winters, "The Sanitarium"

"It is not clean." "No, but it's warm."

2010-10-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

from Lawrence of Arabia

"we can all share about conveyor belts"

2010-10-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

I was in the car this morning listening to NPR; I paraphrase:

Interviewer: What did you do before writing?
Author: A good many things. For instance I got into the business of selling conveyor belts.
Interviewer: Really. Tell us; what's a piece of knowledge we can all share about conveyor belts?

I don't remember the answer because I was so pleased by the question and the Spirit of Sincere Curiosity in which it was put.

(I cherish having once been asked on a compost farm in Minnesota during summertime if I thought I could be passionate about traveling America and writing on Pig Treatment. I said no but asked again would say it's possible; in fact, if they need someone for the job and don't mind me being totally un-qualified, yes!)

I've one association with conveyor belts:

a Sunday school teacher with the middle name Hartford lead my 5th grade class through a study of Revelations and End Times. We were grotestquely fascinated, a lot of 10 year-olds in an upstairs room hearing about "blood up to the horse's bridle" and locusts and many-tongued beasts and cracks opening in the earth. All the dreamworld terror we wouldn't be around for. We drew up timelines in color. One day I asked Hartford how gGod chose who to save.

"To be honest, I don't know. But I think it's more or less random. It's like humans are coming out of a conveyor belt and gGod decides, 'alright, these 20 are for heaven, these 20 for hell.'" I reminded him that unbelievers outnumbered believers, so it would be more like 20 for heaven, 80 for hell. "Right," said Hartford, "some people are made for hell." I remember that like you do some things.

Please! Share any associations you have with conveyor belts or rare questions! I won't ask you again! Chances are, neither will anyone else!

Rejoice! Rejoice! Shaturday Tidings! Rejoice!

2010-10-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

Happy Shaturday! Rejoice! Hit Me One More Time!

*the photo is from The Intruder (I think)

Are You Lively and Are We to Believe Sewing Came Before Trees?

2010-10-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

i.
I never feel good about this:
someone pulls up to the drive-thru; I greet them and - as instructed - ask them how they are. "Good I'll have a" usually, but sometimes: "Good. And how are you?" It could go anywhere indefinately.
Oh me? How kind. I am good. I dislike the weather. How do you feel about it?
Because of the line and the time I must say, "Good" and in the same moment always a little shamefully, "I can take you're order when you're ready." When you're ready to sever whatever we've not yet established betwixt us - but not until you're ready! - it's business here on out you understand.
It's like prostitution.
It's all very strange.
We need a new question.
The Japanese how are you translates, "are you lively?" (You answer, "I'm lively.")
How do you greet a prostitute? I mean, gGod, it seems absurd to use how are you. Surely Are you lively is more appropriate here.
("I'm lively.")

ii. Rocks; no (intended) relation to drive-thru prostitution

iii. Are We to Believe Sewing Came Before Trees?

If first trees, then pine-needles would be called needles, and needles would be called sewing-needles.
Such a glitch'll make a human suspicious.

ewes

2010-10-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

text from Song of Solomon 4:2
screencaps from TrekCore

* note: "wtf no" is not in Song of Solomon,
though one could argue it's implied.

Captain Kirk in 5 seconds

2010-10-18T23:21:00.000-07:00

My brother and I were comparing superhero impressions. I suggested Captain Kirk. This was his take on him.

I don't know; it's hit and miss.
Reminds me a little of this:

Here's Joe Alaskey doing Woody Allen as Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk as Woody Allen, John Houseman as Santa Claus, and Kirk as Kirk (2:10 - 6:35):

No one can quite get the voice right. Kirk is notoriously impossible to draw, too. And even if you can draw him, there are other ways to fail. I picked up a Star Trek comic book at the post office - "Kirk's Days at Starfleet Academy" - and I'm just not sold on this frame:

screencap TrekCore

2010-10-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

photo from The Album

When David Heard

2010-10-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

by Eric Whitacre

"When David heard that Absalom was slain he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept, my son, my son, O Absalom my son, would God I had died for thee!"

(I know 15 minutes is a long time in 2010; if nothing else, Part 1, 6:27 - 6:34)

you're great and also carry tension in your neck

2010-10-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

This post is totally non-conclusive and non-analytical, but,
"What do you think this is, a Holiday Inn?"
It's more of a hostel. The location is less-than-ideal and we can't feed you breakfast. Candy is complimentary.

i.
I've begun to listen to/watch Ella Fitzgerald again. I notice she's got this beautiful, tense, horse-neck.

Bill Shatner mentioned in a recent interview that his doctor alerted him of tension in his neck. Well. I could have told him that much. Somehow it didn't seem a catching thing to say at the Star Trek convention.

"Bill - can I call you Bill? - you're great and also carry tension in your neck."

ii.
The President carries tension in his jaw.
(And everywhere else, I'm sure.)

iii.
Stanley Kunitz carries an unproportionally big amount of alien-life in his left shoulder; watch his shoulder read a poem at 2:05:

_______________________________________________

Screencaps of Ella are from A House is Not a Home, live in Montreux, 1969. It's a good video; the camera-work puts you in the room; the audience is rapt; Ella is sweating profusely (another thing she and Shatner have in common).

_________________________________________

*Kirk-screencap from TrekCore

*Stanley Kunitz reading from the Favorite Peom Project

*Technically, Ella and Stanley should be in past-tense, but.

More Shat! Less Shame!

2010-10-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

I can't remember how I'm aware, but I'm aware one of the girls on More Shat, Less Shame is having heart surgery. I don't know her personally - she's in Brazil - and I don't even know her in an online way like I do some of you; but it's a fairly small group of us openly, somewhat lecherously obsessing over William Shatner, and so I feel toward each of them like I might toward someone who shares the same rare skin condition or something.
May the girl be well.

Some friends of the family came out for lasagna last night - it's wild enough here that people come "out" instead of "over" - and talked about their misguided atheist relatives, and the degeneration of the generation up-and-coming, or down-and-going, depending on your opinion.

I ducked close to my plate and ate faster; it's taken for granted in big religious families and their orbiting big religious families that everyone more or less agrees where it counts.

In Japan, some shifting went on that no one back home saw. Something breif and obvious so you'll understand:
shortly before I left America, I went on a evangelical mission to a Navajo reservation and also lead the opposition in a government-class debate on gay marriage;
I came back (under the impression I was) an atheist lesbian.
(And yet, men. And yet, gGod.)

So, now, with a few exceptions, those people who have known me longest know me least . . . which is why I'm going to follow Saul/Paul's example and change my name to "Largaret".

I have a friend on the other side of Oregon, a friend in California, a few in Wisconsin, a few in Japan. Mostly, I have net-friends, and I sense, culturally, I should be ashamed of this.

But,
More Shat! Less Shame!

More Shat:

Less Shame:

I'm kind of touched by lonely humans - and I don't mean to rope you in here if you aren't lonely, (although it comes and goes, right?) - being friendly with other lonely humans via The Internets. Sometimes, given this huge anonymous second-layer, people take the "fuck you" route like they tend to on bathroom walls or cement, (never on sand, have you noticed? Everybody loves everybody on sand), but I haven't run into this personally; people - strangers - have been kind.

All that being said, there's no substitute for Near-at-Handness, and "I Just Want Someone to Eat Cheese With".*

_______________________________________________

*"reading is sexy" is a bumper-sticker/T-shirt/button slogan

*In case you are a lonely human, or you just want to give and get cool Star Trek christmas presents, sign up for ontd_trek's Secret Santa gift-exchange.

*"I Just Want Someone to Eat Cheese With" is the title of a movie I haven't seen.

*original image from a Rare Photos post on ontd_trek

Slow Times on the Bridge*

2010-10-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

screencaps from Trekcore
*title from Fresca

2010-10-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

1. Scotty (James Doohan)
2. Michael Bublé

See it? Yes?
(Michael's dolled up there; picture him in 15 years, with a red shirt.)

*screencap from Trekcore

How Insensitive, Kirk

2010-10-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This video is not over when it seems to be over; wait until the last.

The song is "How Insensitive" by William Shatner from his collabrative album with Leonard Nimoy, "Spaced Out".

The Ensign's Lament

2010-09-30T21:26:00.001-07:00

(It seems to run smoothest if you let the whole of it buffer first.)

The song is "Jim" by Bill
ie Holiday.

"BAKE THAT SHIT AT 275 F"

2010-09-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Every week on ONTD_Trek, they have a "Bake it So/Make it Sew" round-up. Here people post pictures of how they arranged the cheese on their chili in the shape of a Star Trek insignia, how they stitched Kirk and Spock onto their canvas-bag, etc.

This week, someone made ST meringues and posted the recipe. In full-fledged FanSpeak:

"3 EGG WHITES (ROOM TEMPERATURE)

1/2 TEASPOON CREAM OF TARTAR

1 CUP SUGARPINCH OF SALTSOME

GQMFing VANILLA

1. SEPARATE THE EGG WHITES FROM THE YOLKS. IF YOU CAN'T DO THAT, BITCH, GOOGLE IT, GODDAMN. PUT THE FUCKING EGG WHITES IN A BIGASS BOWL.

2. BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THOSE GODDAMN EGG WHITES UNTIL THEY FORM SOFT PEAKS, THEN CONTINUE TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM WHILE YOU ADD THE MOTHERFUCKING CREAM OF TARTAR AND SALT (SLOWLY, GODDAMN). THEN KEEP BEATING THOSE EGG WHITES (YOU ARE KICKING THEIR FOAMY WHITE ASSES) UNTIL THEY ARE VERY STIFF.THAT'S RIGHT, I SAID STIFF, STIFF STIFF STIFF, NOW STOP THINKING OF CAPTAIN FINE'S BULGE AND GET BACK TO THE FUCKING RECIPE.

3. MIX IN THE VANILLA GRADUALLY (USE HOWEVER FUCKING MUCH VANILLA YOU WANT, JUST VANILLA IT UP, BITCHES. MERINGUES ARE GQ LIKE THAT).

4. BEAT IN THE SUGAR (THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE STILL BEATING) A LITTLE AT A TIME. NOT TOO MUCH AT ONCE, SHIT SON, YOU WANT THESE MERINGUES ALL FLAT ON YOUR FUCKING COOKIE SHEETS? NO YOU FUCKING DO NOT. THEN KEEP BEATING UNTIL THAT MIXTURE SHINES LIKE A FUCKING LENSFLARE.

5. SPOON THE MERINGUE SHIT ONTO A FUCKING HIGH-TECH NON-STICK BAKING SHEET (IF YOUR BAKING SHEETS STICK, THEN GREASE THEM. LIGHTLY, GODDAMN). MAKE THOSE KICKASS MERINGUE BLOBS ONE AND A HALF INCHES WIDE AND LEAVE SOME SPACE, GQ MOTHERFUCKERS LIKE THEM NEED ROOM.

6. BAKE THAT SHIT AT 275 F FOR 20-25 MINUTES, TILL THE EDGES ARE OFF-WHITE AND THE AWESOME IS BLOWING YOUR MIND. THESE MERINGUES SHOULD BE CRISPY ON THE OUTSIDE AND CHEWY ON THE INSIDE, JUST LIKE SPOCK'S TORTURED HALF-HUMAN SOUL OR SOME SHIT. VARIATION: IF YOU WANT SPOCK EGGNOG-FLAVORED MERINGUES, BEAT IN SOME GQ CINNAMON AND NUTMEG AFTER YOU BEAT IN THE SUGAR. HOW MUCH? HOW SHOULD I KNOW, FUCKING TASTE IT YOURSELF."

Pilot Butte

2010-09-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

(There is a human in this one:)

(the drive back)

Also, a fascination I have with fire and water caused me to copy this down from the Pilot Butte kiosk:

"Prior to Euro-American settlement, fire played an important role in the High Desert. Flames would sweep through on average every 20 to 40 years. These frequent fires reduced the number of sagebrush and juniper. Bunchgrasses are resilient and were increased by frequent fires."

Also, I'm thinking of buying an airhorn. The neighbors say I should carry a gun when I go walking in the mountains because there are cougars. No thanks. If I ever meet one outside, the intrusion will be mine, so what right would I have to harm it?

If it wants to eat me, however, I don't mind bluffing with a loud noise.

And then there's the animal.

Why He's the Goddamn Captain

2010-09-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

Also in this clip: the Quintessential "omg no" Face:

Climbing a tree and then

2010-09-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

I saw something!

Someone!

"I can haz understanding?"

2010-09-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

It's Spock!

Top Left: It's canine-Spock!
I get this same look from my dog sometimes.
Mostly though, he behaves like a cat.

"I can haz understanding?" reminds me of a bit from The Transformations of Lucius;
on the road, Lucius overhears the tale-end of a strange conversation between two travelers; he goes over and says,

"Please don't think me impertinent or inquisitive, sir, but I'm always anxious to improve my education, and few subject fail to interest me. If you would kindly go back to the beginning of your story and tell me the whole of it, I should be most grateful."

I'm taking this next year off school.
I want to learn, yes! But not there, in that way, at this time.

_____________________________________

On a tangent....my old school had cement stairwells:

Eagletistical

2010-09-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

When I gush about Shatner - constantly, everywhere, in between mouthfuls - the first charge people bring up is,
"But he's so egotistical!"

I don't really see it;
I think he's more....eagletistical.

But where does my lap go when I stand?*

2010-09-18T00:29:00.000-07:00

Sitting in this chair, I'm certain of my its reality and boundaries, but when I rise . . . vanished.

If I'm standing and I say to you,
"Please put that book in my lap," what then? Do you try anyway and let book fall to floor; do you search for my lap about my person; do you stare blankly; do you scream? Or does something in the universe break, burst, or twitch like it does every time someone divides by zero? A patch of space contorting / a bird changing color suddenly / the left lense in your spectacles shattering / etc?

Please try asking for a book in your lap while standing and report back to me because I really must know and am losing sleep and wellness of mind over it.

(In the same way, where were we before we were, and where do we go when we die, but let's work with what's manageable and find first our laps.)
______________________________

*Or, as St Augustine once put it (in the missing chapter of his Confessions which I happen to possess),
"But where, O my God, is the place to which my lap dost flee when I stand?"

The Negotiator

2010-09-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

screencaps from Tr ekCo re

Oh the Economy! (not that economy)

2010-09-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

Give us your sick

but especially give us your twisted,

because how many lives owe their renewal to that unfeeling doctor who first said over a still-warm corpse,

"The heart's shot, but we could use the liver. Kidneys. Pancreas.

We could use the corneas. The skin."

"You're sick," they said through damp sleeve cuffs.

"Economical," he corrected and held out an open hand for a sharp instrument.

Input: Equus

2010-09-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a machine that will translate one art form into another; input a piece of aural, written, or visual art, and the machine comes up with sister creations across other mediums.

I did a test run in the basement last night, and it seems I crossed some wires that ought not to have been crossed, (or maybe the problem was elsewhere; machines simply do not have the digestive system to absorb art - you can't build that);

I input Michaelangelo's Risen Christ and it came up with MacArthur Park.

It's just as well; from the beginning, I trembled about the long-term impact of such a machine.

And I like doing it myself. And it'll make a lovely bonfire.

Input:

(It's 9 minutes, but you musn't dip if you listen at all; it's music as story.)

Written Sister:

"And the tale tells how at last one came to him. Dawn had already come without, flushing up the high small window so that this high small window which had been throughout the night only a frame for slow and scornful stars became now as a rose unfolding on the dark wall of the chapel. The song of birds came up on the dawn, and the young spring waking freshly, golden and white and troubling: flowers were birdcries about meadows unseen and birdcries were flowers necklaced about the trees. Then the sun like a swordblade touched his own stainless long sword, his morion and hauberk and greaves, and his spurs like twin golden lightnings where they rested beneath the calm sorrowful gaze of the Young Compassionate One, touching his own young face where he had knelt all night on a stone floor, waiting for day.

And it was as though he had passed through a valley between shelving vague hills where the air was gray and smelled of spring, and had come at last upon a dark hurrying stream which, as he watched, became filled suddenly with atoms of color like darting small fish, and the water was no longer dark."

From William Faulkner's Mayday

Visual Sister:

(mine)

________________________________

Of inter-art translation:

"For me, architecture is very much like being a composer; it's like building frozen music."

- Eric Whitacre

(I had to choose this picture of him in light of his oft-proclaimed fondness for teenagers.)

ii.

From the introduction to Mayday:

"William Faulkner wrote, hand-lettered, illustrated, and bound the little book which he titled Mayday. He dated it "27 January, 1926," dedicated it to Helen Baird, and gave her the only known copy. Some years later William B. Wisdom acquired it, and not long ago he presented it to the Tulane University Library along with the rest of his Faulkner collection."

I feel somewhat guilty to have read it.

NIGHT! . . . and day

2010-09-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

("in the silence of my lonely room")

And since I already wrote the words . . .

here's Frank purring (like Kirk/Shatner, he reminds me of a big cat - never more than in this clip), snapping, and shattering the 4th wall to Cole Porter's Night and Day:

Unforeseen Developments

2010-09-04T09:11:00.001-07:00

Very distressed, I went walking.

In my path was a mouse, dying, or else something like it. I stopped and bent over its curled body. Shallow breathing and fluttering eye-lids made me think it was suffering from the heat, so I found an old pop-can, submerged it in a nearby stream, and trickled water into a pool around its head. No reaction; just the same ballooning breath at intervals. Then stillness. I must have tied up my own distress with this mouse who I was powerless to help, because I began to cry.

Then a voice: thin and barely audible, as if spoken through a chilled blade of grass,

"Excuse me."

I straightened up and stopped crying with united swiftness. "Yes?"

(A human will persist in normal behavior even in un-normal situations. I knew what I had heard; I also knew I was alone; these two understandings didn't seem to oppose each other. I was under a sudden jungle-awareness.)

"Excuse me. If you could please move along . . . we're shooting."

I spun. Shooting. My instinct was to take flight, but the ground was closer; I toppled, catching myself on my hands, my face over the mouse's eye.

From the grass-blade voice: "Jesus Christ."

I up and spun. With my jungle-awareness, it took a half-minute's mental back-tracking to grasp that the pronunciation "Jesus Christ" had matched the movement of the mouse's mouth.

"Please. We're filming."

Behind a clump of grass, a party of mice with micro cameras and tech-sets, looking at me wearily. There was a quiet stirring in the area around my feet as The Mouse Who Had Been Dead got up and gave me a nasty look.

The director was not unkind about sending me away, but I felt extremely silly and - an overreaction, maybe - depressed. For five days I kept to my house. Twice in those five days came a knocking on the storm door, but having descended into a temporary benign madness, I could only call,

"We're filming!" and cachinnate.

I am recovered, but remnants of the madness cling; when nervous, I continue to say "we're filming".

This has lead to some unforeseen developments in my life.

THIS

2010-09-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

Sign of the Times - Petula Clark

(don't mind the lyrics - the DANCING!
I cried. But laughing aside, I kind of want to be a part of it.)

0:33 - 0:43 - the man in green deserves recognition

"You became rich, I guess."

2010-08-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

This is from the J. Peterman catalog:
(I attribute partial-authorship to William Shatner)
J. Peterman is a clothing company, but also a character (based on the real-life designer) on Seinfeld, which is how I know of him. Played by John O'Hurley he's hilarious.

(By the way, I want an audio recording of O'Hurley - in his Peterman voice - reading the Bible.)

On the show, Elaine gets a job as an editor for the catalog after she runs into Peterman on a rainy night. She's wearing one of his jackets; they get a drink; he asks about her shirt; she says,

"It looks innocent. But it has one quality that's not at all innocent. Touchability."

Hired.

JPeter-speak may seem familiar if you've ever dipped into fandom; it's like a dialed-down, airy dialect of the fanspeak used in Star Trek "XTREEM MACROS" like this one:
(As always, click and it shall be embiggened.)

I don't know who this macro is originally by (MADE OF WIN, whoever you are!), but it's shared freely and often on ontd_startrek.

How many Cheetos are you?

2010-08-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

Lying on the kitchen floor, I'm 34 Cheetos in length.
I have great satisfaction in saying this when asked for my height.

Not all Cheetos are created equal, so the number is particular; the circumstances can't be re-created: that chance bag; that chance collection of Cheetos; that chance order in which they spilled out.

Being a chance arrangement of atoms, should I state myself in precise terms like a car engine? If not, then 34 Cheetos, some sensory antennae, one mind divisible, and Other - all of this spilled into a chance box of history and geography . . . with you, as it happens, if we're both alive now.

A small bag is 99 cents. Line up the Cheetos length-wise on a flat surface. Lie parallel and mark the place where your physical person ends - the top of your head (here I had assistance, but it's do-able alone). Count the Cheetos. Rejoice. "I say it again--rejoice!"

Afterwards I ate the 34, but I'm aware some look at The Floor as a living, intentional entity that seethes at being walked on all day.

How many Cheetos are you?

oatmeal haunt: Jake

2010-08-26T00:20:00.000-07:00

Jake of borrowed clothes and stolen books. Jake of dreadlocks and bifocals.

We lived and worked on the same farm when I was 18 and you were 20. You were a vagabond passing through, and deeply cynical. To society you sang, "gimme one reason to stay here, and I'll turn right back around."

After Farmer and Astronaut, Vagabond was what I aspired to, so I was impressed with you, and a little ashamed I wasn't in your line of non-business.

You showed us the ropes of dumpster-diving, which became a hit.

You knew how to be playful in an animal way, but never joined us for what started out of my insistence and became a nightly tradition: "Kirk Time" - the kids and me would watch a Star Trek episode on the projector after the animals were put away.

While doing dishes or shoveling Turkey shit, we talked about our species, very concerned - you more than I. You gestured delicately with your fingers like a chef . . . "the thing is . . . " and made me self-conscious of what seemed in me, by contrast, fool-born optimism;

"I'm only two years older than you, but I'm a lot older than you."

You had a reputation for sneaking food. No one mentioned it because you weren't used to regular, square meals and would've had to go against your instinct not to take what was available. The family took us to a New Years Party in the city, and before leaving you stuffed cookies in your pockets; I did, too, because you did, and we laughed. Like a shoulder-monkey, you got a kick out of stealing trinkets. You stole a handkerchief from St. Vincent de Paul's though it was only 25 cents and gave it to me.

You declared open feud with the Alpha Turkey, refusing to steer clear of his territory by the apple tree, and reading right in its boughs to spite him. Eventually, he chased you off.

In time, you wore out your welcome and decided to move on before asked to leave. Knocking on my door one morning, you handed me - I remember how your hands trembled! - a book (stolen) you had been reading: Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and The Grand Inquisitor, snatching it back momentarily to rip out the last few pages which you hadn't gotten round to reading.

I still have it - one of the books I didn't throw out while moving.

You strapped a milk-basket to the back of your bike and took off down the state highway: North; you had it in mind to work on a ship next. We on the farm asked you to shoot us an e-mail or postcard sometime, but you said you weren't the type to keep in touch.

I wonder about you from time to time.

oatmeal haunt: Irina

2010-08-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

Some people are like oatmeal;
though the memory of them isn't especially flavorful, it stays.

I was at the beach, walking on the great rock-surfaces that jut into the water. A small boy who had been kicking the ocean spun round suddenly and called inshore "Irina! Kepla!"
I kept those sounds without knowing why, and repeated them here and there, while in the bath or while making toast.

Two weeks later, I woke up and . . . Irina!
We were on a team together - volleyball - in the 8th grade.

You were something, weren't you: lousy at volleyball, but not in the typical knock-kneed way; you were formed like an ancient olympian and broad-backed-strong; and busty next to the rest of us who had only recently come to outweigh the family dog.

Your pride stepped ahead of you and made you seem both silly and inspired:

absolutely swaggering like the world's fastest man before a race; stepping long; docking your shoulders up and down; arms arced a little away from your body; close-fingered in your hands for us to see how long and formidable they were.

You knew your fine points; you were delighted with your hefty chin especially.

What title were you defending at 14?

You wanted to charm the universe to yourself but were comically unsuccessful.

As a god or a queen, you would've accepted fruit-offerings and praise naturally, un-stifled as a babe at the breast. You wouldn't have flinched to see yourself in marble and granite.

As it was, you grew warm in a mortal womb - an emigrant womb based on your slight accent - and bore the common load: lack of money, lack of a self-destined future, tiny moutains of struggle, fleeting control.

We all knew the degree of your peasantry by the $7 psuedo-sneakers you wore. And wore and wore.

Your moments of triumph or devastation were private, like everyone else's, but their scale was such that they should've been public: impassioned balcony-spectacles for your subjectry. Sensing this, you gave us small performances from an imagined balcony: letting a great groan - nearly a suppressed roar - kick out of you as you hit the ball; and when the hit failed - not falling short, but pelting erratically to one side or the other - clenching your hands, eyes, forehead, calves; swearing in your nose; agonizing yourself.

Once in a while, you struck true; then your sense of victory was so intense you became almost angry with it; then you were up on your balcony, grinning and flexing your jaw to the amorous bawls of the trumpets and your subjects.

"leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills" in the middle school gymnasium.

No encouragement was needed to rile you and we gave none.

You were not invited, Irina, to the end of the year slumber-party, which was when I first noticed (while not really watching a movie) that I wanted Your Majestic Sillyness around.

After five years, the memory of you is like a hand closing around my wrist;

I would like to know where you are, what triumphs and devastations you're in the thick of, and how they look from inside you. Is your voice the same highlow-husk and do you have a proper balcony now?

But all I collected from you was your first name and some oatmeal, Irina.

Reader: tell me about your oatmeal-haunt if you have one, or several.

__________________________________________________________

"leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills" is from Song of Solomon 2:8 :

"The voice of my beloved!

Behold, he comes

Leaping upon the mountains,

Skipping upon the hills."

2010-08-24T12:04:00.001-07:00

We moved down and farther into Oregon, to the High Desert area. It's a different beauty. I can't prefer one beauty over another, but the beauty of my home-valley - green and slack-jawed - puts me at ease. This new beauty is hoarse and hysterical. I climbed a small mountain or a big hill yesterday and could see nothing but pine trees - that's hysterical beauty; it unsettles. I don't take to it, but I imagine I had the same feeling coming out of the womb and would've crawled back in if I had had the strength.

Everything looks like fire:
The tree-bark is orangeish and crackled, imitating the fire it wants to be caught up in; the bushes are small and angular like campfires; the pine needles are orange; the dirt roads are closer to red than brown; the tree branches arc up. It's all pointy and crunchy - you never walk silently.

The water tastes of Sulfur and Iron.

The lava-lands are a 15 minute drive.

There are 1585 people in town, so the trees outnumber us by far. We're 8 miles out of town and can't see our neighbors.
To see a movie, buy clothes, or get your carpet cleaned is an out-of -town event.

I'm at the library now, where there is no such Proust, Nabokov, Shakespeare. No such The Great Gatsby. No such thing as poetry.

Yesterday, we got behind a horse in non-traffic.

I'll be quick because I'm running out of internet time:
I don't like it; maybe I will.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking of gGod and love almost constantly, and am "perplexed, but not in despair . . . " about these two. (From Corinthians; I don't remember which verse.)

Will post pictures when we have Internet.
Bai, reader!

"the touchy captain"

2010-08-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

"I would under no circumstances like to be known as the 'touchy' captain, because on all the ships I've visited since I started this role, I've never noticed once a captain touch a crewman. I've never noticed it, actually, in any position of great authority."

Kate Mulgrew on Captain Janeway

screencap from TrekCore

"Damn it, Jim, no sunglasses allowed! . . . Jesus . . . "

2010-08-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

(I don't remember Bones saying "Damn it, Jim" very often.
Thing is, even when he didn't say it - there it was: ever-written in his left eyebrow.)

ii.
in the pawn shop window:

iii.

passive-aggressive evangelizing:

(the "NEVER EXPIRES" is the cherry)

Toothpaste

2010-08-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

screencaps from TrekCore

_____________________

being confused and distracted . . . with style!

2010-08-15T03:45:00.000-07:00

Looking at pictures of gorillas, I was stunned to come across this:
That's how Bill Shatner looked at me - exactly! I mean EXACTLY! I mean that gorilla is Shatner!

This is closest thing I could find on TrekCore:
But the gorilla nails it.

I like the unlikely trails you hack when blogging:
TrekCore; Kirk looking like a primate; gorillas: beautiful but dangerous to look in the eye.

(There's a great moment in Toy Story in which Buzz Lightyear says - midair -

"This isn't flying! This is falling . . . with style!"

I say of blogging:
- This isn't writing! This is being confused and distracted . . . with style!

of life:
- This isn't living! This is dying . . . with style!)

So I wanted to learn why gorillas (and autistic children) process eye-contact as a threat. So I was reading about the pupil. So I was scrambling around for my picture with Bill to read our pupils.
Mine were flooded. Wikipedia says,

The pupil dilates in response to extreme emotional situations such as fear, or to contact of a sensory nerve, such as pain.

Oh, and uh . . . "sexual affection" causes pupil dilation. Or just stimulation in general.

Zainin666 - unofficial overseer of More Shat, Less Shame - pointed out that my right hand looks like a claw on Shatner's shoulder. I agree; "claw" is the exact word that came to mind. Like the gorilla, he seemed unapproachable, inaccessible. But magnetic!

Scientists are ultimately unsure why moths seek light; they depart from it freshly blinded.
Maybe light is sexy.

Anthropology professor had "Sexiness = _______?" written on the board for over a week before he ended our gnawing suspense;
"Sexiness = Health" he wrote - health being gaged by your physical, mental, and emotional wellness.
How anti-climactic, (to use an appropriate word).

Health is good. But perfect wellness seems stagnant (like a pond) not sexy (like a river), and I'd call Kirk/Shatner many other things before "healthy".
(Same with the gorilla.)

Kirk/Shatner, Light - these contain or sustain Life. Life! The sexiest thing.
"Sexiness = Life" still misses, but it's closer.

Anyway, enough of this chit-chat! It's Macro Sunday!
I didn't make this one; it's by Brittany Diamond; I love it; here's her livejournal.

______________________________

i.
Gorilla photo here

ii.
screencap from TrekCore

Mr. and Mrs. Elvis Gorn

2010-08-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

Though they did not win the costume competition, they are first in my heart.

I saw them walking down the hall like something out of a dream. I had been sitting, resting against the wall. I leaped up.
"OH MY GOD. THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING I HAVE EVER SEEN."
A small camera-happy crowd formed around them.

the sound of Bill Shatner seeing you / MY LOVE RUNNETH OVER

2010-08-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

Reader, come here!
You've gotta hear this; it is the sound of Bill Shatner's eyes seeing you!

I watched Bill for a long time from behind the 4th wall of my computer; I was accustomed to concealment.
What a collapse when we made eye-contact! Strange moment! He processing, I recognizing. He weary, or something like it - I was one of the last in line - and I putting a leash on my affection so as not to bowl him over, kiss his cheek, and submit myself to security. Recognition can be a physical response.

He has whale eyes. People say he's a lion cub; he's also a whale. A whale with a mane, perhaps.

But come here!
This is a choral piece by Eric Whitacre. The lyrics are from Water Night by Octavio Paz, and the bursting chord at 2:45 is the sound of Bill Shatner seeing you. (Incidentally, the word they're singing is "eyes")

Don't watch; listen. 2:45, (though the whole song is magnificently constructed - especially the word "secret")

After the picture, a woman in a red suit-jacket handed me my backpack and gestured toward the door. "Thank you have a nice day please get the fuck out of Mr. Shatner's presence this moment" type of thing.
I went directly into a bathroom, into a stall, and wept.
"he looks at the earth and it trembles" says Psalm 104.

Shatner reminds me of gGod.
Don't misunderstand,
(I was talking to a friend about this and she became angry, saying, "There's something wrong with you!" . . . 'And also with you' was my liturgical reflex);
I don't mean to say Shatner is perfect or divine; that would be a shame. But why should gGod be perfect?

I imagine the Hebrew gGod to be like King David because he called David "a man after My own heart",
and David - omnipassionate, bold - reminds me of Kirk who is (partially) an extension of Shatner.
gGod David Kirk Shatner. I think of one and run into all.

Today, I was blasting hymns in the car-stereo. "He wraps himself in light as with a garment!"
gGod David Kirk Shatner!
Fannish ecstasy and religious ecstasy are easily mingled;
on ONTD_Trek, I found this comment:
There it is: fandom's banner beneath which we squee:
MY LOVE RUNNETH OVER.

At the convention, I was refreshed to be among people giving free rein to love.
We are (I am) sometimes ashamed of love.

Of my seven brothers, I've made direct physical contact with about half of them. Coming home from Japan after a year away, we high-fived. (So technically, Shatner is "closer than a brother".)
In my family, we don't say "I love you" or hug, who knows why. That silly, wasteful inflammation called Pride is suspect.
Me, I'm affectionate by nature. In kidhood, I used to hug my parents by lifting their arms and draping them around me; it doesn't take two. (That sounds awful; my family isn't cruel. Just Vulcan-ish in some ways.)

I've lost my thread of thought.
Anyway . . . love, enthuse, affection; not things to be ashamed of. Ok to touch people!
What a long time it takes to un-learn things absorbed in childhood.

Some unashamed people:

Captain Davidson of the U.S.S. Pegasus.
She is partially responsible for the new world record: Most People In Star Attire At One Time (564); she ran around the building yelling at people in costume, "Get over here! . . RUN!"
Fiona, 15, loves Spock. We waited in line together to get our pictures taken with Leonard Nimoy:

The Trek poodles Riker, Deanna, and Tasha:

Baby Spock:

Fans digging through Trek-stuff:

___________________

i.
Screencap from TrekCore

ii.
"runneth over" is from Psalm 23:5

⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

David wrote it.

iii.
And if you're in the mood for a good hymn, I like Sufjan Stevens' rendition of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.

"Come thou fount of every blessing to my heart to sing thy grace" is a lovely way to say "OMG THIS".

2010-08-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

I borrow Walt Whitman:

Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand:
gGod he's beautiful.
Like a whale: luminous, fleshy, moist, and huge. Not huge physically; rather extending beyond himself and taking up the surrounding temperature. He was the temperature.

The flash of the camera absorbs too much; he's ruddier incarnate. I've never seen skin so true to its sub-rivers.

More later.
______________________________

i.
Whitman excerpt from Song of Myself

BRB GOING TO STAR TREK LAS VEGAS

2010-08-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

take off early tomorrow. am disbelief, (probably because haven't packed/figured out where hotel is)

back on 10th with things material and immaterial.
will maybe get married just for kicks. who's to say.

speaking of kicks: got some for convention. 3 bucks. Not Trek, but seem very "fan", therefore appropriate.
"BEST"
(note: previous owner wrote on right sole, "Kick My Ass"; on left, "I Want Chocolate")

got pants with gold, shiny button in tribute to gold, shiny captain. will tuck in shirt constantly.

also have heard things about rides on top of Stratosphere:

THE BIG SHOT: shoots passengers straight up 160 feet at 45 mph until you are 1,081 feet above the Strip!

KTHXBAI, kind reader!

10:04 PM
I have overlooked one detail; apparently, you must be 21 to reserve a room where I have reserved a room. I feel suddenly nauseous. It's almost funny, but no, not quite;
I call this "way more adventure than I wanted". Save me, William Shatner.

a trek in the park

2010-08-02T00:16:00.000-07:00

I stopped in a second-hand store on my way to Trek in the Park on Dekum St.

When I told the shopkeeper where I was headed, she insisted on giving me the shoes for free.

I arrived two hours early, but people were already there picnicking, playing cards, reading - an unusual density of readers. I sat front and center and took out Hunger by Knut Hamsun, but was too excited to read.

In hindsight, I would've chosen a spot on the wings to watch the watchers on the other side.

An hour pre-show, a man asked for the space next to me, saying the shade would be over this very spot by 5:00. It was hot, and he had competed in a triathlon that morning.

We exchanged testimonies: how we came into Star Trek, respectively. His mother raised him on the stuff.
I told him the new Star Trek movie that came out last summer was my introduction, but I fell fast in love and was flying down to Las Vegas for a convention in August.
"Have you seen any of the original episodes?" he asked.
"All of them! Multiple times!"
"You really got into it fast."
I pulled out my communicator replica.

We exchanged books. I don't remember what his was called, but it was an environmentally focused prediction of the 21st century, written in the 80's by a scientist. Triathlete wanted to compare what the scientist foresaw with reality.

I hope the 23rd century turns out like Star Trek: with humans still in the picture, "seeking out new life". (Only I hope our clothes fit better.)

Others started coming:
extravagant picnickers with wine, wine glasses.
a man in full costume, very smily.
a woman who swore she recognized me.
a girl carrying a watermelon.
a man showing off his tricorder and phaser.
They came on bikes, feet; in cars, buses.

By the time they started setting up, (some chairs and a door frame, along with tech stuff), the area was flooded shoulder to shoulder; one Zacchaeus climbed a tree in the back to see.

Over the speakers they played Shatner's Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Nimoy's Bilbo Baggins.

At 5:00, Park-Kirk came out to make announcements:
"Feel free to cheer as much as you like---"
"YAAAAAAY!" someone screamed. The crowd ran with it plunged into applause.
"---but please restrain your 'KHAAAN's until the end."
Laughter and more applause.

There was a lot of laughter; I nearly cried of it. It wasn't that it was especially funny - parody was never touched. Rather, we laughed out of co-recognition, to make a glad noise for the actors and each other.

Everyone went wild for one moment in particular:
the kiss between Khan and Lt. McGivers, and how her hand behaved during it.
In the actual episode, we know she's overcome with lust when her hand slides up Khan's back and becomes a claw at his shoulder. It's a close-up; you'd remember it.
(Reminds me of a certain scene in A Streetcar Named Desire you'd remember.)
In Park-Trek, Khan turned his back toward the audience so we could see it: obvious and emphasized, more important than the kiss itself.
We all beat our hands and whooped; I recognize that!

Here's something that made me dizzy with glee: Park-Kirk's middle protruded slightly, just like Shatner's; that last inch that makes it a "tummy" instead of a "stomach".

But really, it would've made little difference if Kirk had been played by my grandmother, (well . . . . let's not push it); as soon as he cat-walked onto the grassy bridge and established himself as Captain, I believed and loved.

I took some pictures:
The whole thing was damned excellent.

When the cast came out to take a bow, there was a masterful flurry:
the keyboardist started hammering out some badass riff,
a set-person ran onstage and ripped off Kirk's sleeves, and
Spock spun around with a beard.
We were quite suddenly in THE MOTHERFUCKING MIRROR-VERSE.
They gave a full-fledged preview for next year's show while we, the watchers, fell into near-hysterics with enthuse.

Post-show, they put a box out for donations; Trek in the Park is put on by fans, for fans, and largely funded by fans.
Someone went to Park-Spock, shook his hand, and thanked him. Park-Spock said, "without you guys, we'd just be running around the park."
People really love this Star Trek thing.

This is my favorite picture:
True to their characters, Park-Spock is graciously aware of my camera while Park-Kirk looks at a picture of himself taken by man on right.
All this is to say:
If you're planning one being anywhere in the Western Hemisphere July 2011,
get there.
_____________________________________

Screencaps from TrekCore

(I feel like I say that everyday. It'll be the one marble I don't lose if I go crazy.
"Do you want toast for breakfast?"
"SCREENCAPS-FROM-TREKCORE."

Or I'll be on my deathbed whispering,
"screencaps . . . from . . . "
"From where, Margaret? Where?!"
" . . . from . . . TrekCore."

Then I'll fake die, and as soon as I hear the first sob break, (or the first hooray, depending on these next five decades), I'll pop up and cry "KTHXBAI!"
Then I'll really die.

OR WILL I.)

2010-07-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

On the side of the road, I found this derelict thing of tremendous character and beauty. I carried it home.

It used to be a notebook.
As to the history behind its present condition, I have a few ideas; probably, it has endured the Great Flood and been around ever since, which would explain it's peculiar weathering and wiry limbs.

Or it used to be a mer-person's journal, which would explain its color and why, to me, it appears blank.

Or it's an old notebook, never used, left out in the rain.

Nothing for Antiques Roadshow, but I think it's fantastic in its ravaged state. I set it on top of my bookshelf, next to Frank, (who wouldn't care for it, I imagine).

"only for the food I bring"

2010-07-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

I found this while flipping through some anthology at the library and had to write it down; had to bring it to you. (But please, do not love me only for the poems I bring.)

by an Anonymous Inuit
(ca. 1894 - 97)

OXATOQ'S SONG

Walking inland, inland, inland,
I am walking inland.

Nobody loves me, she least of all,
so I walk inland.

She has loved me only for the things I bring.
She has loved me only for the food I bring.

To Trek-ify it:screencap from TrekCore

I also brought home an anthology of Lyric Greek Poetry, (in which the translator takes some liberties, maybe, but it's Greek to me); I am giddy:

Well, what if some barbaric Thracian glories
in the perfect shield I left under a bush?
I was sorry to leave it - but I saved my skin.
Does it matter? O hell, I'll buy a better one.

ARCHILOCHOS

I have never been loved for the food I bring (to my knowledge!), and I have never left my shield under a bush, but in these small moments (between killing each other), the feeling is the same.

safety above all

2010-07-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

"I have two more people to add to the list: Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose."

I've started keeping track of the things a family member hates; they approve of this list, saying "people should hate as much as they love!"

I want to know if they hate William Shatner, too.

"He's just dumb. Other people are evil."
But after some thought, FM decides "everyone is evil."

"There are good people and there are bad people," I say. "And they're the same people."

"No. Every person is bad. The sooner you learn that, the safer you'll be.
. . . But I do love some people. Pastor R and Pastor J, off the top of my head."

Something's Gotta Give

2010-07-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

the song, written by Johnny Mercer, sung by many

And you know what else they croon: Everybody Loves Somebody

Lord God Bird

2010-07-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

Nobody knows if the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exists.
Biologists are looking for them;
50,000 dollars if you can lead them to a nest.

They're the largest breed of woodpecker - 20 inches long (the height of a newborn!), with a wingspan of 30 inches.
They stay with their mates for life; both the male and the female sit on the eggs, and once their young learn how to fly, they still provide food for them for two months;
possibly extinct due to "habitat destruction".

According to folk legend, at the sight of an Ivory-bill, the beholder will spontaneously cry out "Lord God!";

they're beautiful.
(The male's the one with the red plume.)
I'm going to see my nephew today; he wants to be an explorer. (Kids are explorers by nature, but I mean a traditional explorer with binoculars and a safari hat.)
I must tell him about this Great Bird;
I must tell him there are places and animals we haven't found.

Sufjan Stevens sings about the Ivory-bill in his song Lord God Bird;
(whenever I hear this, it will always be last summer, and I will always be walking around in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. It took me a year to look up what the song was actually about.)

_____________________________________________________

video by jam5301
image from Wikipedia's article

Sunday Macro: Hooker (TJ)

2010-07-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

photo from the William Shatner Album, by Zainin666

Jonathan Winters: American Vacations

2010-07-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

I must've watched this about 5 billion times this week.
Winters comes on at 1:00.

insistence sprouts wings always

2010-07-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

(and I hope this is true
because I have decided to
write poem after poem
consisting of the word
CHERRY
and to take as my sacred pen name
CHERRY
and to all their questions answer
CHERRY

and so establish myself as a
defiant originality
among the young and the eccentric

who will exalt my genius
in sand and in stone
and think of me whenever they

spit a pit)

a heap of wheat

2010-07-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

(text from Song of Solomon)

The other day, it came to pass that I was sitting around with a pen; sometimes this happens. So, I wrote "KIRK" on the bottoms of my shoes, and then wondered why;
over on More Shat, Less Shame, we squee over Bill Shatner's pinky, (not hyperbolic; his right pinky is peculiar);
at Trek in the Park, one Zacchaeus climbed a tree in the back so he could see;

people find outlets for worship outside of deistic religion;
post-Christianity and pre-Star Trek, I found a tree by a lake.

When Moses left the Israelites in the desert to go to meet with gGod and didn't come back for 40 days, they thought he was gone for good, became restless, and asked Aaron to meld their jewelry together and make a god.
So he did: a golden calf, or, to be saxon: a shiny cow.
"And they rose up early on the morrow and offered
burnt offerings and brought peace offerings;
and the people sat down to eat and drink, and
rose up to play."*

(And when gGod found out, he said to Moses,
"srsly, WHAT THE FUCK."
And Moses said, "Jesus Christ, don't have a cow!"
And gGod said, "If my son can't have a cow, neither can you!")

Of course, I wasn't worshiping a tree and the Israelites weren't worshiping a shiny cow; those were physical aids in loving an abstraction.
Who knows what abstraction. Life & Death & The Whole Shebang, maybe.
And who knows why we want to worship at all. The same reason we want to create, maybe.

Octavio Paz wrote, (and poets know all about praise):

Shiva and Parvati:
we worship you
not as gods
but as images
of the divinity of man.

(from sunday on the island of elephanta)

Whether we look like gGod or gGod looks like us, somebody's blushing at their own reflection, going "that's not me!"

I have no conclusion.
In a couple of weeks, I go to Las Vegas for a Star Trek convention; surely, that's a pilgrimage of some kind - a congregating of worshipers.

I do have another macro from Song of Solomon, (you must say that outloud - "song of solomon" - it tastes like the milk of grass; 5 "O"s!)

Metaphors: another thing they don't make like they used to:

_________________________

*from Exodus 32

*macro text from Song of Solomon. The second macro has obviously been Scotty-ized.

*screencaps from Mother TrekCore

what am I even doing

2010-07-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Screencap from TrekCore

Stranger Salutes

2010-07-19T16:16:00.001-07:00

Strangers I Salute Based on the Comic, Profound, or Bizarre Value of Their Behavior:
(may I sometimes give them what they give me):

I salute . . .
the young man at the book store

I am standing a few shelves away from him in the sci-fi section when he suddenly snaps his fingers, whispers to himself (with urgent meaning),
"singularity! . . . science!,"
and dashes off in a new direction.

I salute . . .
the voice behind me at the cinema

After a rather depressing movie (Please Give), he says:
"Cheery. If we're lucky it'll be raining outside. I think I'll go home and read some Sylvia Plath."

I salute . . .
the man at the fireworks ceremony with a white handlebar mustache, holding a puppy

Inserting himself into a silence between fireworks, he roots his feet and bellows,
"THIS IS TERRIBLE."

I salute . . .
the third boy

Three adolescents: two lovey-doves and a third boy. While lovey-doves hide behind a tree and make out, third boy takes to rolling down the grass hill
. . . . and across the entire football-sized field.

I salute . . .
a girl and her mother

girl: look at the beautiful daisies!
mother: yeah, they smell like dead people.

This last one reminds me of the first two paintings in Thomas Cole's Voyage of Life sequence:

Youth

Manhood

Hogwash, Mr. Cole!
(I hope.)

hai.

2010-07-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

What a fucking week.

It was bad and now it's better.
I'd like to tell you all about it, but I'm not sure how to do so honestly without slipping into self-jest.
(I swear, the bulk of writing is just getting words out past your own fangs!)
I look to "the legend of emotional openness": Shatner.
But for now I just look and say "pretty".

Speaking of pretty, I saw this picture of Chekov and thought his pose very "high-fashion"; sure enough, I found a similar picture of former model Tyra Banks:

_______________________________

Shatner from The Album
Chekov from TrekCore
Tyra Bank from America's Next Top Model

Frank Sinatra on Gay Marriage:

2010-07-13T09:33:00.001-07:00