Time to turn in

Got a runny nose that won't quit right now. This might be attributable to my doing some long overdue cleaning up today. Very necessary, still ongoing. Also have a raw throat, since Wednesday when I ran screaming after a bus that I almost missed because he had the wrong sign in the window. Together with the chill that's not quite proportional to the actual cold in the air, and it looks like I need to get some sleep so as to repair this whole thing.

Another green world

One thing I check in on, now and then, is New Wave science fiction. Which generally means from the sixties, although some examples are from a little earlier and later, and certainly not every writer from the era qualifies.

This week I'm on Thomas M. Disch's The Genocides. It's a plants gone wild story. Or rather a story of aliens sending an invasive plant species in order to irrevocably alter our environment and eliminate us from it. Disch is pretty clear that these developments mean the end of humanity and an ignoble end at that. It's not uplifting, but it weaves a kind of fascinating spell. Also it's short, about 150 pages.

Disch wasn't real sunny in general, as you might guess from his eventually committing suicide. So it's kind of funny that the one work of his that's been brought to a broader audience through the magic of film is a children's book about anthropomorphic appliances.

Ceremony

Graduation ceremony earlier in the evening for my...what would you call it? Training program, I guess. It was nice to see my fellow students, probably the last time we'll all be together. Well, will keep getting together for a while for accounting classes, so the handful of us in that program will in theory be around for a while.

Since I was the first to get certified in Word and Excel they had me say a few words. That was kind of a thrill if a nervous one.

Also some good food on hand. Buffalo chicken on pizza works better than you'd think.

Frigid & frictionless

So we started with a moderate snowfall on Saturday night. By Sunday morning it was rain just above freezing temperatures. By Sunday night it had gotten much colder. In fact we've had considerably sub-zero temperatures and high winds ever since. The results have been interesting. As in, "All your friends and loved ones will beg you not to go outside."

Running on two tracks

Currently reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Rereading actually, after a few years in between. Reading it again brings back images of Rumford, Rhode Island, although I don't think I was still living there when I read it. Maybe I toted a copy with me on a couple of shopping trips?

In any case, it was fascinating then and it's fascinating now. Perhaps in different ways. The thing to understand is that the title indicates the modes the book is working in. Half of it is hard-boiled, but in a strange way. The narrator winds up in tough situations, but is mostly just prickly. The other half takes place at the end of the world, but more in a sense of "the edge of the map" than in any kind of conventional eschatology.

The reason these two narratives are veering away from each other is disturbing in one sense. In another, each of us contain contrasting multitudes. Isn't that a good thing?

Press return

Typewriters are not much used for typing anymore. I mean, this is an understatement. But they can still serve in another function. As a musical instrument the manual typewriter is filled with sprightly energy.



It doesn't just work in classical music either. Brian Eno, thinking outside the box, worked a typewriter solo into his Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy track "China My China." It adds to what was already a treacherous, unstable rhythm, reflective of the global politics the song explores.

Meeses

Ever see a mouse run? It's quite a sight. Not only are they small, but their legs aren't even very long in proportion. Yet they can really book it. Seems to have something to do with their flexible spines.

Their coloring isn't exciting. If  mouse isn't specially bred it's likely to be an undistinguished greyish brownish. But this is a great all-purpose camouflage.

Really their only weakness is that they seem compelled to live around humans. Not counting pet mice, this never ends happily.