Tom Waits runs down his 20 favorite albums in this article. I love Waits; he's one of my favorite musicians. I should try and track down the albums listed I don't already own. I listened again to Zappa's The Yellow Shark tonight, and I enjoyed it more than ever.
While events at my office continue to peg my stress-o-meter in the red zone, I will try to keep link posts going so no-one thinks I'm dead again.
For example, Tony collects stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. More stuff than I collect, and that's saying something. Check out Tony's collections and you'll understand.
Here's a fascinating series of floral photographs showing the UV spectrum displayed by the blossoms. Take a few minutes to go through them; in most cases the differences between the patterns in human-visible light and the UV patterns are quite pronounced, and quite beautiful.
If you've ever watched a PBS documentary — or even if you haven't — you should get a laugh out of this: The Old Negro Space Program. The film may be a 27 MB download, but trust me when I tell you it is worth it.
Position available, Dadaist preferred
World took way, noon. Winter every first cool river. Color meat pound, receive. Create class them, to. Wheel rose has song feet. Game produce big. Field, correct other. Think tree brought, fun second. Thing city, line. Very family appear number better during. Enough name deep. Eye watch as know captain of.
I received this in a spam messge this morning. Perhaps I can find a new career writing copy to trick anti-spam logic processors.
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. — Mark Twain
Let me state now and clearly and for what passes for perpetuity on the Internet that I do not want to kept alive once my brain goes dead. Pull the plug, take out the feeding tube, smother me with a pillow, throw my vacant corpus off the top of the Bank of America building for all I care. But if you care about my wishes at all, honor my memory and kill what remains when my spirit has gone.
And for the sake of whatever you consider holy, do not let politically-motivated unindicted criminals like this Republican legislature anywhere near me. And if some gangrenous boil on the ass of the body politic like Bill "Cat Killer" Frist tries to get involved, shoot the evil motherfucker on sight. Once I'm dead I'll take over and kick his ass from one side of the afterlife to the other.
There is room for reasonable debate on the subject of euthanasia. Shutting down the body of a loved one is a terrifyingly difficult choice for anyone to make, and one that needs to be considered carefully, particularly in the absence of clear intentions on the part of the deceased. However, it is a personal matter, something to be deliberated by the family. If there is irreconcilable conflict within the family on how it should be handled, then there are courts to settle the issue, and determine who gets to make the final decision.
It is not a matter for the fucking United States Congress to decide. Those opportunistic shitheels have decided that their own political ambitions are more relevant than the opinions of dozens of judges who have reviewed the Terry Schiavo case, and have passed a law to keep the poor woman's body alive. Not to "protect" any of the other dozens of people on life-support whose families are granted the mercy of closure every day, mind you, just this one case, probably because the courts bitch-slapped the president's brother when he tried the same shit with the Schiavos here.
At a time when I couldn't imagine this country's government being any more maliciously self-absorbed, perhaps I owe a debt of gratitude to Congress for showing me that they have depths of depravity as yet unplumbed. I no longer merely disapprove of the actions of this herd of shambling atrocities. I am now deep in the territory of hatred. If I thought that any of the political leadership had actual convictions regarding this matter, perhaps my attitude would be softer, but I don't buy it. They have proven themselves to be lying, deceitful maggots time after time after time, and I no longer believe they could even fucking spell ethics, let alone demonstrate ethical values.
I am rather desperately hoping this post goes through. I've been trying for a week now to get Blogger to allow me to post to Hidden City, without success. It figures that when I finally get my home computer situation back under control, Blogger would start acting like a drama queen.
For those of you still dropping in occasionally to see if I've died, thanks for looking. If I can get the Blogger problem solved, I hope to be back soon.
As evidenced by the previous photos, I spent a little time in the Keys this weekend. I haven't been down that way in years, and never really stopped anyplace between Florida City and Key West before, anyway.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the Florida Keys, let me try to describe the area. Imagine a small-town coastal setting, with low-rise buildings, a rustic feel, and a single main street that goes on for 100 miles. On one side you have the Atlantic Ocean, and a mile or so (or less) to the west you have the Gulf of Mexico. It's more than a little odd, geographically, and that rubs off on the locals. But it's a good kind of odd, the kind that leads people to name a seafood restaurant Squid Row. (We didn't eat there, opting instead for the imaginatively named Fish House: boring name, amazingly good seafood.)
The pelicans, and many other birds, were photographed at the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center. This donation-funded group takes in injured birds and other animals and does its best to restore them to health, and then if possible, release them back into the wild. We spent over an hour wandering around the trails, checking in on the current residents in their habitats, including the fellow pictured below.
It was a bit sad, seeing the injured birds, and even sadder to realize that the place is just barely scraping by on donations. The only staffer I saw was an older gentleman near the gate, who talked with me for a while about the numerous cats they also care for, most of whom have been simply abandoned in the neighborhood. It's surprising to find cats and birds getting care in the same place, but they all seem happy. Nonetheless, it was funny to see a couple of lazy cats lolling around on top of a screened habitat, with a banded owl eying them warily from underneath.
Maybe it is just when they are gathered in large numbers, but pelicans, while amusing, have a stench which is overpowering.
I should really try to find out if these are herons, egrets, or something else. I see them all the time, even in my front yard.
Dawn on Key Largo
People in my neighborhood frequently clean house by putting their junk out by the street. Not just trash bags, but appliances, bookcases, furniture, books, whatever can be easily carried out of the door is fair game for street-side disposal.
I should point out that we don't have regular bulk trash pickup, but we don't have much of a problem with things staying roadside for long. There's a thriving community of scavengers around who take pre-dawn drives looking for salvageable items, or even items that look passably intact to pawn off at the flea market. In the early hours I've seen groups of people wrestling a dented, doorless refrigerator into the back of a van.
Nonetheless, I was a little surprised to see an upright piano on my drive to work.
I passed it by the first morning, just marveling to myself that someone would just drag a piano out to the street like a bag of lawn clippings. It was depressing, though, since it was lightly raining. I wondered how badly damaged it was before it was discarded. Was there a water leak in the house? Who knows.
The second morning I stopped, amused that at last there was something the collectors couldn't take away. It was sitting there, coverless, wet, and starting to warp a little. To my amazement, though, it wasn't trashed. The action was still good, the strings were all in place, and the pedals moved. A car stopped alongside me, and the driver laughed and asked me if I wanted help getting it in the back of my Chevy. In response I banged out a couple of blues chords and told him I'd pass.
At work I wondered about it some more, and tried to think of someone who might want it. I decided that the next morning I would stop again and see if it had gotten worse in the humidity. It just seemed terrible to think of a piano wasting away at the side of the road like that, and it gnawed at me.
That night, it had disappeared. Other bits of salvage remained, though, so someone took it away. I hope it found a good home.
I saw Elvis Costello perform last night at the Jackie Gleason theater. The man puts on a hell of a show, I'll give him that. And while I would like to provide some pithy commentary and analysis, you'll have to get by with some general comments. There's a lot of stuff going on right now, and if I don't write something down I'll never get to it. (See, for example, my non-existent critiques of the David Byrne, Laurie anderson, and Barry Manilow shows I saw last fall.)
It was my first time seeing him, but I'll definitely go back. Maybe not to the Jackie Gleason theater, though.
I had hoped to get to NYC to see "The Gates," but I couldn't make it happen. It is exactly the kind of art installation I enjoy, something bright and extraordinary in the midst of the mundane. Ah, well, perhaps I'll see the next Christo project.
In the mean time, this is a very clever spoof of the installation. Maybe I should just settle for something more along these lines.
