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Just popping in to assure everybody I'm still here.  I meant to post something else earlier tonight but I got involved in something else.  Anyway, I'll be back soon.  (Also there are one or two people I intend to get back to on email.)mis

Gleefully dystopian Friday Random Ten

I'm in the home stretch of reading Kit Reed's Thinner Than Thou.  Sort of started it on impulse.  It's quite awesome.  On one level it's about body image and how the elevation of youth and sleekness could go very bad in the near future.  But it's also about the unfairness built into dealings between those with economic power and those without.  The diet guru who owns a forced labor camp makes that clear.

1. Grizzly Bear - While You Wait For the Others
2. Edith Piaf - Monsieur Lenoble
3. Depeche Mode - Strangelobe
4. Sly & the Family Stone - Don't Burn Baby
5. The Patti Smith Group - Free Money
6. Lou Rawls - Down Here on the Ground
7. Ladytron - The Lovers
8. T. Rex - You've Got to Jive Just to Stay Alive--Spanish Midnight
9. Pink Martini - Bitty Boppy Betty
10. Sarah Vaughan - Mean to Me

AM

I hustled into work this morning.  It wasn't until after I had gotten there that I realized it was only 7, and that I'd arrived an hour early.  Someone needs to disarm an alarm at that hour, but luckily a fellow employee was pulling in who had the code.

It's maybe the second or third time that's happened to me on this job.  Interesting experience.  Definitely better than getting it wrong in the other direction, from a continued employment perspective.

"Eye" as in "icky"

The takeaways from this story are:

1. There was such a thing as eye chlamydia in Roman times

and

2. Such a thing still exists, and in areas that it's safe to say had their share of troubles already

Yikes.

Definitional Friday Random Ten

The occupational hazard that comes with being an introvert is that people may mistake you for a misanthrope.  Some of us are solitary by nature, at least at times, but want to make and keep connections with other people as well.  It's a constant struggle to make this clear.

1. They Might Be Giants - Sometimes a Lonely Way
2. Patsy Cline - She's Got You
3. Grizzly Bear - All We Ask
4. TV on the Radio - Blues From Down Here
5. T-Rex - Interstellar Soul
6. The Magnetic Fields - Swinging London
7. Kat Edmonson - Nobody Knows That
8. Ladytron - Tomorrow
9. Sun Ra - What's That?
10. Sly & the Family Stone - I Can't Turn You Loose

Really clicking

I wonder. Could typewriters continue to be made, strictly as musical instruments? It's an intriguing possibility. The business is taken over by the makers of percussion instruments, rather than business machines. Perhaps there could be special models for muted sounds, or things could be insterted that cause a alight reverberation.

And wait until you hear the secretarial jam sessions!

...

It's a sad fact, one that we've had opportunity to learn and relearn in the past dozen years, that tragedies like this don't end when they're over. After the terrible action come all the reactions. Aside from praying for the safety of the victims and their loved ones - and believe me, I am - I also have to hope that the level of mania that followed September 11 doesn't recur this time.

Grinding Friday Random Ten

I actually brushed a filling out. Not too long ago I noticed something stuck in my teeth that I couldn't floss out. It turned out to be nerve, which is kind of something you want to keep anyway. This week I went to the dentist to get the filling replaced. She advised me to stop brushing that corner like the damn Incredible Hulk. Even Hulk wait for puny banner to brush teeth.

1. They Might Be Giants - The Darlings of Lumberland

 2. Ladytron - Predict the Day

3. Edith Piaf - Le Chant du Pirate

4. Sly & the Family Stone - Color Me True

 5. M83 - My Own Strange Path

6. Love - The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This

 7. Yuka Honda - Why Do We Distrust the Machines We Made?

8. David Bowie - Kooks

 

9. The xx - Shelter

10. Sarah Vaughan - Goodnight My Love

Watch this space

Well, that was kind of a glitch. I was going to do a post, but when I tried to image-save a picture to illustrate it, something or other wanted me to save the whole website. No, not doing that. I'll try again tomorrow, maybe using another site.

Or second

I just created a Craigslist account tonight in order to put up an ad in "housing wanted."  It's not a site you hear that much about anymore, outside of police blotters.

Oh well, I never claimed to be a first adapter.

Little big world

This photographer Jan Dunning is, I have to say, kind of fascinating. Hundreds of millions of people around the world experience photography as a collection of phone apps. These do have their place in art, I'm sure. Still, you can appreciate how exotic the act of taking pinhole pictures is now. Also to be loved is the way she upends ideas about scale and nature.

Roger's roundup

Here, here, and here are some thoughtful and classy tributes to the late Roger Ebert. Well deserved, too.

I started reading his movie criticism some years ago. It was something of a revelation. TV made stars of him and of Gene Siskel, but in some ways didn't serve them well. The "two thumbs up" (or down, or variations thereof) which is their most remembered legacy was basically a pre-Internet tl;dr. Two friends talking is a good format, but the shows they did after leaving PBS had to deal with commercial breaks, which left their conversations choppy and incomplete.

And there was much to talk about, much to say. Ebert's reviews and essays show a man in love with film, yes, but not to the exclusion of all other things. He drew from older films, literature, history, and his own personal memories. And often he wove them into a beautiful tapestry. "Life's Rich Pageant", as REM might put it.

Bargaining Friday Random Ten

I'm working on my negotiating skills.  Got a chance to put them into action today.  Mainly it was a matter of being on time, not fidgeting too much while waiting, and not being intimidated.  Anyway, wish me luck.

1. Ladytron - Ghosts
2. Ernie K-Doe - Mother-in-Law
3. Grizzly Bear - Southern Point
4. Love - Laughing Stock
5. Los Campesinos! - Who Fell Asleep In
6. Sarah Vaughan - It's All In Your Mind
7. M83 - Space Fertilizer
8. TV on the Radio - Let the Devil In
9. They Might Be Giants - Too Tall Girl
10. Nat King Cole - Non Dementicar

ick

That ain't good. At some point in the "creative" process here, somebody thought that it would be cute to tout Ford's convenience for mass-hauling bound women. If they didn't say it out loud, the intent came through loud and clear.

At least it was amusingly clueless when McDonalds was encouraging coitus with its cheeseburgers.

Sleep

I should probably get to sleep now. I'm making noises that sound as if I already am. That's gotta be a sign.