Wiggly Friday Random Ten

I guess you could call the place where I work fairly informal. And I'm mostly an informal person myself. In fact today I got up from my desk to ask a question and realized I was in my stocking feet. This seemed a little much, so I fixed the situration.

1. John Lee Hooker - Low Down Midnite Boogie
2. The Kinks - Harry Rag
3. Tom Waits - Downtown
4. Soul Coughing - How Many Cans
5. R.E.M. - Auctioneer (Another Engine)
6. Ladytron - Versus
7. Duke Ellington - One O'Clock Jump
8. Blossom Dearie - I Won't Dance
9. Elton John - Grey Seal
10. Reading Rainbow - To My Gemini

Octoooooober

A freeze warning has been issued for tonight. Really, they mean early in the morning, but the sun will still be down and so will almost everyone else. But I believe it. It's been a chilly day. That despite our having, earlier this month, nights so warm you'd go to sleep with the window open and the fan on. So October is squeezing in summer, autumn, and winter. It's nine months' action in one. Kind of impressive, rea.lly

Putting it down

One book I've trid to read recently is Charle's Dickens' Dombey and Son. I had a good time over the summer with Barnaby Rudge, so my hopes were pretty high. Myabe too high.

D&S isn't boring. I'm not sure Dickens was even capable of that. But it is quite It is, however, misguided.The fact that the defining picture dies about a third o the way in doesn't help. The thing is that while Ebenezer Scrooge is kind of a bastard, he's the believable, relateable kind. Dombey the Elder is ten times worse, much more pompous, and he surrounds himself with old biddies who are even worse than him.

So this one I'm putting aside for now. Everyone makes some mistakes in life, which this sort of looks like. If I'm wrong maybe I'll find out later.

Hoodoo you think you are?

Don't worry! I'm not posting this because Dr. John has died. Not that I've heard about anyway. This is just a delightful clip. I love the juxtaposition of the Doc himself at his bad-news freakiest, and then you have the host with his hilarious rap session sincerity. It just goes to show you how big the world is.

Occupy Count Olaf

I think this is a particular gem.

3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.

That's from Lemony Snicket's page at Occupy Writers. Snicket (and/or his employee Daniel Handler) seems perfectly suited to the project. The author of the "Unfortunate Events" books knows that life isn't fair, but that fairness isn't some impossibly alien subject.

It doesn't pay to be too ahead of the times

From An Empire of Plants: People and Plants That Have Changed the World by Toby & Will Musgrave, a funny story. Or not, if you were directly involved with it.

Europeans firs made the acquaintance of tobacco on 12 October 1492 when, after 71 days at sea, Christopher Columbus first sighted the coast of America. He named the island where he landed San Salfvador, and here, according to his logbook, the indigenous people 'brought fruit, wooden spears, and certaind dried leaves which gave off a distinct fragrance'. The gifts were accepted, the fruit eaten, but the yellowish leaves were tossed overboard. Columbus sailed on, arriving off the Cuban coast on 28 October, where two conquistadors, Rodriguo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, were sent inland to scout. The natives they encountered wrapped dried tobacco leaves in palm or maize 'in the manner of a musket formed of paper', and after lighting one end, they commenced 'drinking' the smoke through the other. Rodriguo took a hesitant puff and became the first European to smoke tobacco. Columbus returned to Spain with some dried tobacco leaves, and Rodriguo, who by now was a confirmed smoker, took his habit back to his home town, where he unwisely lit up in public. So frightened were his neighbors b the smoke billowing up from his nose and mouth that he was imprisoned by the holy inquisitors, only to discover upon his release several years later that smoking had become a national habit.

Yeah, just imagine Rodriguo getting out of prison, and being told, "Hey, you know that crazy thing the inquisitors nailed you for? Everybody does it now, completely free of legal consequences. Have a nice rest of your life.

I imagine there was smoke coming out of him at that point, no tobacco needed.

Maybe, maybe

It's been a while since I put any poems up here. That's always a nice change of pace, so maybe I should do it again. I'll have to go and read some, first, but that's also a nice change of pace.