The big glitch

Wow.  I spent a big part of this evening at a certain Starbucks trying to write or to do something, anything at all.  Somehow the wi-fi in this place is so bad that it sabotages the functions on your computer that theoretically have nothing to do with going online.

On the bright side, the impossibility of getting anything done made me get up and leave, walkng downhill to wait for the bus at the tunnel.  Which got me looking at the sky during and just after sunset.  I'd consider that a silver lining.

S'urreal, s'alright

Okay, from the library I've got something of a doorstopper book on surrealism.  It's got a notable quote from Andre Breton, via his "Lachet Tout!" essay, translated as "Leave Everything!"

Leave everything.  Leave Dada.  Leave your wife.  Leave your mistress.  Leave your hopes and fears.  Leave your children in the woods.  Leave the substance for the shadow.  Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future.  Set off on the roads.


Salvador Dali, Two Elephants

First of all, gotta love the supposition that the reader will have to leave both his wife and his mistress.  Presenting France, where adultery is customary, much like tipping.

Also noted is how the further Breton goes on, the more he echoes Christ talking to his Apostles.  Talk about stealing from the best!


Kay Sage, No Passing

Surrealist techniques are a mixed bag, but as such they command attention.  If the point is to shut down the rational mind, that doesn't quite work for me, not in my own process.  I work best when I get both halves of my brain in on the action.  Still, in a group setting, this can be potent stuff.  The exquisite corpse is a very interesting technique.

Baby'd Friday Random Ten

So a baby shower isn't just drinking hot water when you're pregant?  My bad.

There was a baby shower for one of the girls at work today.  A quite well-catered one too.  Me and the guy I work with* were invited to stop by.  Not too surprisingly there weren't a lot of guys there.  One reason this isn't all that suprising is that it's a majority female workplace.  Which is interesting to think about.  Not many men worked in high-female environments fifty years ago, except in movie musicals.

1. The Cramps - The Crusher
2. R.E.M. - Kahoutek
3. Laurie Anderson - Big Science
4. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Strict Time
5. Beck - Blue Moon
6. The Clash - Remote Control
7. Zapolski Quartet - Allegretto Pastorale (Nielsen)
8. Fiery Furnaces - Take Me Round Again
9. Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Powderfinger
10. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross - Bijou

o_O

Shorter Alex Beam: "The worst thing about the Iraq War was it gave Errol Morris a big head." (Yeah, shorters are short. I'm hoping to have a longer, interesting go-along on the FR10.)

Proof

Today I was gathering my stuff together, gerring ready to go out and catch a bus to the laundromat when all of a sudden the phone rang.  Caller ID said it was "wireless caller" and displayed a number I didn't know.  When I answered a woman with a heavy foreign accent asked if Benjamin ______* was there.  I said "This is he."  She said that she was his mother.  Well, to that I replied, "I know my mother's voice, and this ain't it."  Well, then she asked if my middle name were Isaac, which it was not and is not.  So I wasn't who she was looking for.  She then asked what the other towns in Rhode Island were.  Well, we're a small state, but we have enough towns so that listing them all would be as time consuming as it is pointless.  When she asked what the nearest one was I said maybe East Providence, although from where I am it's probably Pawtucket, but neither of these things seemed all that helpful.  Finally she asked what my company was, which just left me all, "Company?  What the—?

Also, there's apparently a comic out now where the Riverdale gang are zombies, or getting eaten by zombies, and it's actually published by Archie Comics.  It's official.  Reality is trolling me.

* Keeping a little anonymity here.

Saturday Random Ten withchild

It's probably bad form to ask a woman when she's due when she's already had the baby, in general.  Which I did to day, with the waitress serving me breakfast.  In fact I had noticed that her baby bump was either gone or ominously shrinking.  After she told me I was a little tongue tied, but I told her the truth, which was just that I would have expected to take at least a couple of weeks for maternity leave.  She replied that she was just out for a couple of days and then got back into the swing of things.

So I think I rescued myself okay.  I suspect her benefits aren't that great, though.

1. Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - Death Cab for Cutie
2. Nellie McKay - Long and Lazy River
3. The Bird and the Bee - Diamond Dave
4. New Pornographers - If You Can't See My Mirror
5. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross - Farmer's Market
6. Pink Martini - Omide Zendegani
7. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Pretty Words
8. Morphine - I'm Free Now
9. They Might Be Giants - Never Knew Love
10. Mose Allison - Fool's Paradise

Fiscal follies

Near the end of the week I tried to use my ATM card to make a withdrawal and I couldn't.  Why?  Because it was expired.  So I should have gotten a new one.  I called the bank to ask what was up and they said they'd sent it in February.  Ah, but they sent it to my old address.  Which is frustrating, because I updated my address with them, and they had it on file, but not as my residence.  Which makes me wonder what they thought I was telling them.  Of course there's been another takeover recently, so maybe they were just really excited about that and couldn't concentrate.  Any way, it adds up to a few days' inconvenience and a lot of head-scratching.

Saturday Random Ten tomorrow.