Now I lay me down to sleep...

I really hope that no one wakes me up at 4:30 or quarter to five by calling me repeatedly from a gas station phone, only hanging up when I finally answer. Because if that shit happens twho nights/mornings in a row, someone is getting hurt, somehow.

Old babies

Motherhood a few centuries back wasn't that different from what it is now, except for the staggeringly greater chance that your baby would die in infancy. That's my takeaway. Okay, it's kind of a big "except." But still, it's interesting to see how far back the roots of modern parenting styles go. Even further than this, I would wager in a lot of cases.

The painting at the top of the linked article looks insane to me. I've never seen one waking baby who looked that calm, never mind two. The artist took some heavy liberties there.

Saturday Random Ten au naturel

As I walked home tonight I found out the World Naked Bike Ride was riding through the neighborhood. Two different groups I saw.  Good for them, I guess?  It's not really something I can get excited about either way, so I'm not going to gawk.  Which officially is how I think they prefer it.

Hope they bring talc in case of seat rash, anyway.

< blockquote>
1. Roxy Music - Still Falls the Rain
2. Rasputina - My Orphanage
3. Arcade Fire - Ocean of Noise
4. Yo La Tengo - Mr. Tough
5. Brian Eno - Driving Me Backwards
6. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - No Action
7. Andre Cluytens + Philharmonia Orchestra - Marche Au Suplice (from Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz)
8. R.E.M. - Catapult
9. Radiohead - Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors
10. The Beatles - Don't Pass Me By

Dose of funny

Hoping to do a Saturday Random Ten later on. Yesterday I forgot my iPod in a jacket I didn't bring to work. Which was all right otherwise.

Semi-randomly came across this. I read a description of a George Carlin appearance on Carol Burnett, but this is apparently a different one. (The writer described him as clean-shaven and still with a crew cut, which isn't true here.) Obviously he's in his "work clean" mode here, and he can pull it off. Watch for the George Wallace joke near the end.

PS, will answer comments later. Need to get cleaned up and go eat something now.

Where we ask the questions that perhaps shouldn't be answered

So there's this recipe book, apparently...

All sorts of practical questions arise. Like, how are you supposed to have enough to cook with? Do you save it? It's not something I've ever considered the possibility of going bad. Never really had reason to think of it.

England stings

"You are very cynical, Herr Cornelius. I am tempted to believe that Ragnarok is almost with us.

"That's an odd thing for a Christian minister to say."

"I am more than that — I am a Scandinavian Lutheran. I have no doubt of the truths inheren in our old pagan mythology."

"I am a British atheist and I share your opinion."

Right now I'm reading The Final Programme, the first of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius books. A few years back I read The Condition of Muzak, which ended the quartet of novels. (Moorcock has since returned to the character and his environs in several shorter works.) It's an interesting vision: a swinging Byronic hero in a Marvel Comics version of then-contemporary (1960s) London. What I admire most is that Moore moves onto or sticks with whatever stimulates his mind at the moment. He breaks all the rules "How to Write Fiction" authors set out.

Title: TBD; Header: You're looking at it

I'm working on a story now.  Not sure what I'll have when I'm finished.  Something, hopefully.  The thread can be hard to start and easy to lose.  I'm working a few tricks to make sure that doesn't happen.

There will be a lot of pink, I'm pretty sure.

Rewound Friday Random Ten

Watched another movie tonight.  This time I popped it in at the start of dinner, rather than waiting until after dinner.  Still, whenever I start I'm going to fast-forward through trailers and ads.  Life's too short.

The movie itself, Source Code, was pretty good.  Definitely well-acted, even if the dialogue did creak here and there.

1. Johnny Mathis - All the Time
2. Love - Live and Let Live
3. Chic - Real People
4. R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe
5. Radiohead - Morning Bell/Amnesiac
6. The Magnetic Fields - Desert Island
7. TV on the Radio - Love Dog
8. They Might Be Giants - Stone Cold Coup d'Etat
9. Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - Piggy Bank Love
10. Sarah Vaughan - East of the Sun (And West of the Moon)

brrrright idea

Last night I went to a Starbucks and fou nd myself sitting over a cooling vent. Now keep in mind that yesterday was a real scorcher, as is expected for the entire week.  So yes, they'd be expected to crank the AC.  I wondered if they weren't overdoing it a little.

In fact it's a habit that forms for much of the summer.  Carry around a jacket outside, only wear it once you get inside.

Meanwhile, in the Sunshine State

In itself, somewhat perfunctory. I had been expecting this verdict for a while. Just casually following the news of the trial, you could tell things weren't going well for the prosecution. Zimmerman's lawyers were presumably not cheap, and say what you will, they earned their fees.

Mark O’Mara, one of Mr. Zimmerman’s lawyers, said, “George Zimmerman was never guilty of anything except firing the gun in self-defense.”

This case rankles, and it's going to rankle for some time. Strangely enough, O'Mara's comment hints at why. Zimmerman's self defense claim rested on allegations against Trayvon Martin. In effect, the defense managed to convict Martin posthumously. Legally that's no more true than it is of any other successful self-defense claim. In reality, though, people will see the record that the killer was acquitted because the victim was about to beat him to death, and they'll judge accordingly. This despite the paucity of physical evidence on this point and the fact that Zimmerman was never called on to swear to it in court.

The other reason this story won't go away is, of course, race. And that remains one of the great unsettleds of life in this country. But another thing about following this case is that if you read anything about it online, you see the comment sections that go along with the story. And nearly every comment section I've seen on Martin-related stories has had comments that not only support George Zimmerman, but which express schadenfreude at Martin's fate. Need it ba asked if reactions would be the same if a white boy visiting his father had been killed? Apparently yes, it needs be.

Also I feel like I should link to this, which well expresses some things that need to be said.

Guns, dames, & the Friday Random Ten

Just saw the movie Road House. Not the Patrick Swayze movie, although may he rest in peace. This one was from 1948, with Ida Lupino as a night club singer/pianist who falls for the manager (Cornel Wilde) when the owner (Richard Widmark) assumed she was his girl. Lupino's very good,and rhw movie takes an interesting, low key approach to the noir genre. It's like a series of more-or-less uncomfortable situations, slowly building up, only exploding at the end. Though Widmark is nuts, of course.

1. R.E.M. - Pilgrimage
2. Love - Alone Again Or
3. Roxy Music - Cry, Cry, Cry
4. TV on the Radio - Shout Me Out
5. Chic - Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)
6. Radiohead - Dollars & Cents
7. The Magnetic Fields - In My Secret Place
8. The Beautiful South - Have You Ever Been Away
9. Rasputina - Gingerbread Coffin
10. Art Blakey - Moanin'

Fairly good news

Right call. Walmart is pretty close to its dream of owning entire megalopolises and having all the citizens take the surname "Walmart", a la Jennifer Government. So I'm glad Washington is opting to remain a real city for now.

Just the rabbits, ma'am

I feel sort of bad only putting a half-minute of this animation up, because it just establishes the look and feel. That's all there is, though. I'll have to remind myself to look out for this animator as she completes the project. Anyway, the stop-motion turntable is something else.

focus teaser from matusevich maria on Vimeo.

Tidbit

I will be responding to comments soon.  This has the disadvantage of being one of those blog posts I do when I should already be in bed.

Wanted to share this, though.  At lunch today I was doing the crossword and incidentally, through solving other clues, I filled in three squares with "LUX."  That was the whole answer, so I looked at the clue.  It was "Interior of the Cramps."  I was happy to be vindicated in my answers, and also that the auhtor remembered old Erick Purkhiser.

Friday Random Ten: A Heated List

Nothing like the day after a major holiday when the temperature is in the 90s with a "feels like" factor of 100 or more.  Huge number of people staying home or returning home ASAP.  Somehow I managed to keep busy at work.

1. Chic - Good Times
2. XTC - In Loving Memory of a Name
3. David Bowie - Valentine's Day
4. Rasputina - Our Lies
5. They Might Be Giants - Circular Karate Chop
6. Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - Look Out There's a Monster Coming
7. Radiohead - You and Whose Army
8. Arcade Fire - Windowsill
9. Love - Andmoreagain
10. Martin Denny - The Enchanted Isle

"America" is MIA

I was intending to put Prince's song "America" up in celebration of Independence Day.  It's kind of a polarizing song, even among his fans.  Some don't like him getting preachy and political, while others are rubbed the wrong way by the song's sort of conservative tone.  I've always found it fascinating, in part because of the tension between the lyrics and the music.

To post it, though, I'd pretty much need a video.  Not an official music video, or even necessarily something with moving images.  Just something I could embed in the place where a video would go.  And as far as I can tell there's none online for that song.

It always surprises me these days when something isn't on the Internet.  We've just been conditioned to expect everything will be.  Inconvenience aside, maybe I should be relieved.

Non-combatant

Today at the place where I volunteer the lady who's been supervising me the last couple of weeks (I kind of float from place to place) set up a computer and left me to it.  When she was gone, a guy said she was trying to get credit for my work and called her something that rhymes with "stunt."

I don't really care about profanity in the workplace, in general.  Nor am I going to assume the fellow is a sexist just from that.  There's not enough to go on.  From the context it's plausible he was trying to help me.

Thing is, though, even when I'm a paid employee I avoid office politics like the plague.  Going into work every day with the predisposition that some people are allies and others are enemies?  Don't really need that.  Yes if someone fucks me over personally or does something over the line - and this is important, if I know about it for sure - then yes, that will affect my attitude toward them.  But this is not a situation to be embraced.

Really I try to approach all of life like that.  The universe isn't helped by me having an opinion about every little thing.