XLI

Let us take a moment to honor the Super Bowl, or at least football. I had thought to treat this as I do the scripture of all other red-letter days, but my books don't cover much sports mythology, and what I know about football and its history would fit in a pill box. This will simply have to be personal anecdote. It's not like you true believers needed any schooling, anyway.

My best friend from college was a monstrous 6' 6'', 280 lb Minnesotan, who played regularly during his freshman and sophomore years as a lineman on our football team. That Rogue, the Stitch, teased me yesterday, "Your school had football?" Many of you might echo his question. The answer was "Yes, A-head, and we won the Rose Bowl back in, like, '26." His retort? "You mean, when there were six schools in the nation?" Except that oops! No we didn't. My bad. Played the first or second ever Tournament of Roses, depending on the logic in the timeline (I really don't get it, and why the thirteen year gap between games?), in 1916, and lost to Washington. Big fat goose egg.



Still, I had moved up in the world; my high school didn't even have a team. Student body of fewer than 120, we were often champions at soccer, dominated state in tennis. We also kicked ass at track (I did the 1500 and high-jump and sucked at both, but that's another story). Prep schools, you know.

Still, at Uni, John Madden's son played for our team, and I would see Big Poppa down on the perimeter of the field, peddling his hardwares (not really). I always wondered if the fellow in charge of the home team ever got a bit itchy with that famed coach skulking about. Did he butt his nose into it? Give instruction from the sidelines? He was quite an imposing figure - looked like two beer kegs piled atop a sturdy trestle. His other son played for Harvard, so sometimes the game was a real family affair.



Boys eat a lot when they play football. My boy, Stephen, couldn't be bothered to take his dinner plate back when he went for seconds and thirds and fourths in the refectory, so his tray looked a bit like the Capitol Records building, stacked saucers.



Freshman year, I took the train with a friend to New Haven, where we watched the heavily tailgated Harvard-Yale game (aka "The Game." If you'd have asked me why before I read up, I'd have said it's Ivy-League pomposity.) It was the end of November, and the mean temperature was just that. I cannot recall the actual thermometer gauge, but it was bone-chilling cold, and there was a massive trafic jam to boot. Before walking to the satdium, I helped my over-zealous male friends stain their torsos blue. I'm sure the intent was more Druid than Smurf, but you can't really avoid looking like a cartoon when you drench your skin with food coloring and RIT dye. We had a few crimsons amongst us too. I remained as bundled up as a Siberian, and despite the schnapps, shivered through the entire game. The boys were half naked the entire game. Amazing what alcohol can do for you.

Wandering back from the bathroom, a photographer stopped me in the stadium and asked to take my picture. How he found me under the blanket, I don't know, but afterwards, he advised me to seek medical attention for the frostbite on the tip of my nose. I worried for a spilt second, registered his opportunism, then smiled to myself. It was blue dye. In the end, it was Harvard, 14-10. Mind you, I had to look that statistic up.

That same year, I dated a guy from Cleveland who played ball as well. In high school he had excited some interest from a couple of Big Ten coaches. I don't know if the offers failed to come, or he just chose our school for academics, but he told me rather proudly and with a big fat smirk on his face, that after one set of recruiters told him he reminded them of a young Bernie Kosar, he was so happy he went into the bathroom stall and jerked off. That's one of many funny masturbation stories from my archives that I intend to compile in an anthology some day. Submissions accepted.



I used to know a linebacker drafted from Yale to play for the Cowboys for five years in the eighties. He was a really good guy when I knew him, and an hilarious smartass, who apparently was booed heavily during player introductions in Nov. of '87. He claimed to have originated the comparison of Jerry Jones to The Beverly Hillbilles. Or was it Jimmy Johnson? Shit, I just shouldn't even try here, might just be spreading misinformation.

Anyway, you can find him here. It's just horrible. The indignities of the NFL. And the 80s.

Breaking Resolutions Fast As I Can Make 'Em*

A recent study showed that words affect our perception of odor, to the extent that when offered a whiff of foul body odor, the subject will respond more positively if it is labeled 'cheese.'**

This works particularly well on the French.


(*Resolutions)

**Whether or not they pushed Stinking Bishop is unknown.)

The Other Side of the Equator

is a long way from here. I'm not really supposed to talk about all this, but I miss him too much.

Slide Down Your Cellar Door

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It seems the time has come again to play what I call, Sounds Like.

The occasion? While Googling a quotation I half-remembered from The World According to Garp, "Eighteen, the most beautiful word in the English language," I found a website claiming that James Joyce's pick is "cuspidor."

A spittoon.

Huck, you're right, Joyce must be addressed with a sense of humor, if one is to take him seriously at all.

A 2004 survey of non-English speakers in 102 countries found that "mother" is favored. I can't tell if they were choosing solely by phonetics (one would presume that was the reason for excluding those native to the tongue), which is my criterion for this exercise.

Henry James claimed "Summer afternoon, summer afternoon." I'm assuming he chose for the meaning, though 'summer' is not at all unpleasant.

Here's a preposterous list. It rankles more than it jingle-jangles.

The poet, whom my friend, Adam, referred to anagrammatically as 'Toilets,' offered this observation on sounding the voice of lyrics:

'Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.'

T.S. Eliot, 'Four Quartets'

Nabokov's favorite "(took) a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

Oh bother, musn't leave the Pythons out of this mess.

Fitzgerald reminded us, 'You can stroke people with words.'

Thomas Hardy concurred, "If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone."

Of course it matters who 's saying them, and how they deliver. Words alter as they are cradled, held on the tongue, and issued in various accents and differing parole. An 's' is harshly sibilant in one mouth, soft and seductive in another, turns to mush with a lateral lisp.

Leave the last advice to Shakespeare:

"flatter and praise, commend, extol their
graces; though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman."
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Act III, Scene I)

Here are my new entries:

Kenya
loss
coax
drink
carol
cajole
alter
chimera
desolate
laughter
palimpsest
razor
seven
azure
forest
shadow
paradox
crash
four
ocean
pyrrhic
vestige
oak
parole
Africa
whore
audience
silence

Space Invaders

This is all so War of the Worlds.

Boston got shut down. The "ads" were places in ten other US cities, but Boston banned Boston, and it cost the city a lot. I can see how many feel the 'bomb scare' in Boston is tantamount to yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater, if I kind of squint my brain a little. I get that there is a lot of free-floating fear in the culture, some of it merited. These are reactionary times.

I am also supportive of subversive art, though any sense of real threat should be assuaged. Install responsibly, young sculptors.



But this was marketing gone awry. For a cartoon. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, wha?

So why make accountable the two men who installed the work for $300 apiece, and not go after the corporation as well?



Here, the 'pranksters' avoid any pertinent questions, as advised by their attorney, in favor of a discourse about hair. It's fairly asinine, but the split screen allows us to see footage of the installation.



I really need to see some close-ups of those things to see what was so terrifying about the 'devices' outside of the taint on that word. Seriously. Lite-Brite? Duracell, not Sleeper Cell.

Fortunately the Mayor turns out to be a decent sort:

"Mayor Thomas M. Menino was still smarting over the prank this morning, but expressed some empathy for apparent pawns Berdovsky and Stevens.

“I want to go after the boardroom,” he said of Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting.

I'm wondering if the worst thing they can get them on is billboard advertising without a proper permit, or maybe indecency. That little martian really did flip Boston the bird, which made the media nervous, too. Journalists, et. al., need to grow back their balls. Take a lesson from Rummy, he's not afraid to flip off hippies:

Groundhog Day!

Again and again.

Evidently the rotund mammal forsees an early Spring, which is just fine, as today was feeling too much like all the other ones recently. I've been seeing too much of my own shadow recently; so glad the little beastie didn't see his.



Today (and thereabouts), is also, and relatedly so...

- Christian Candlemas (lights in the windows from dusk till dawn), which celebrates the Virgin Mother and the returning of the light at the midway point between dark winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Said by some to have absorbed pagan traditions such as...

- the Gaelic Imbolc or Oimelc, 'in milk' (referring to the coming birth and nursing of spring lambs), is the day of fertile union (midpoint) between the God (winter, personified as male in some cultures) and Goddess (spring). seemingly inextricably linked to...


- St. Brigid's Day or Bride's Day (pronounced 'breed'), which celebrated a maiden goddess (Blessed Virgin). She (Ord Brighideach) is a keeper of sacred fire, the hearth, the 'spark' of life, often represented by candles. In some Scottish stories, she is rescued from the Cailleach (Hag - here, 'he's' a 'she') of winter by her lover Angus. Governess of healing arts and smithcraft, she was also a teacher of martial arts, and patroness of warfare (briga, hence 'brigands'), reflecting the maternal protective function, which is often fiery and ferocious as a She-Bear (a vastly prominent 'great mother' in Europe - think Ursa Major (Callisto), St. Ursula, Berne and Berlin).



- Roman Lupercalia, variously attributed, but sometimes cited as sacred to Venus (whom we 'venerate') and women (whom we should try harder to venerate).



-Groundhog day is thought to be a continuation of these and other folk/pagan traditions, though the connective fabric's a bit threadbare these days.

A poem is often referenced ( from Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I., Alexander Carmichael, 1900), as evidence:

"The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bride,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground."

or, translated more oddly:

"Early on Bride's morn
The serpent shall come from the hole,
I will not molest the serpent,
Nor will the serpent molest me."

Goodness gracious.

My mother has just phoned me, crying, why she doesn't know. She's thinking about her ailing mother and the early days when Virginia (for real) was a very good parent, before she got bitter; about making changes in her life; about how emotional she is these days. I told her to think about these holidays. Maybe she can try to be a better mother to herself. She replied, "Yes, and be a better mother to you." It's a thing I'm trying to do for myself as well.

"I swear to you, I will, by Candlemas!"*

Swear to me, you will too.



(*James Joyce, from Finnegan's Wake)

Statue of Brigit

Resolution for the New Year Under a Full Moon

One is that I am trying not to be so hard on the French. There are so many things I love, especially the era of Piaf, Trenet, et Chevalier.

This is the same Paris that gave us the cinematically breathtaking "Les Enfants du Paradis," which is not, by the way, about mimes.

Here's a Trenet song that makes me tear up a bit and smile all at the same time (you probably know it best from Bobby Darin), "La Mer."



I always connect that whimsical yet melancholic song to another more powerful piece with some vague melodic correspondence. Or maybe it's simply that the Moonlight controls The Sea. For this opus, rewind a few decades to 1890, to hear Debussy. It is beautiful in arrangements with weepy strings, but the ones that really get to me (and they really get to me), focus on the piano. Try not to feel anything. You can't.

From Whence

is redundant.

Yet the idiom is "old in the language," and might aptly be answered with, "from thence."

Remember that, as you go hither and thither.

Geography 101

This is the sort of thing they should be teaching within that discipline.

I Need to Be Tied Up

For I am what we like to call, "at loose ends."

Worse even.

Face Value

Today in yoga class, my malasana partner told me that she and her roommate think I look like a doll.

I'm not sure what I think of that, but was too embarassed to ask her.

Friends in High Places

Don't like to brag, but we have some. As much as this is an inspiration and an honor, sometimes it makes us

1) vertiginous
2) want to jump from their pedestals
3) swing at all the paparazzi
4) bogart that joint

Let us be grateful

to people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardeners
who make our souls blossom.

- Marcel Proust

Or A (melting) Pot To Piss In

"The American poor are incomparably more lucky than those in Asia and Africa and the Middle East who die by the hundreds in the streets. The American poor live better than the average citizen in many an underdeveloped country. They are better off in important ways than the rich of a hundred years ago and royalty of the Dark Ages. But poverty is not measured by history. It is measured by the standards of a man's own community. If most of America is well-fed, the man who can't find three meals a day for his family is poor. If most of America has modern weather-proof housing, the man whose home is leaky and has no piped water is poor. If most of America has enough medical care to stay alive until age seventy, the man who can't afford to live beyond age fifty-five is poor. Such a man is poor statistically. But he is poor in a more damaging way; he is a failure in his neighbor's eye and in his own."

"In the Midst of Plenty: The Poor in America" by Ben H. Bagdikian

This is just one perspective among many, but I am touched by the undeniable truth of these lines:

"...poverty is not measured by history. It is measured by the standards of a man's own community.
...he is poor in a more damaging way; he is a failure in his neighbor's eye and in his own."

Not everyone can keep up with the Jonses. Not everyone even wants to. A poor person can feel like the richest muther around, so long as value is given to an affluence that isn't an inventory of material wealth.

Mother of Invention

Just a little idea I had.

Chocolate

...is positively screaming my name this evening. It is giving me a headache. It offers me understanding of junkies. It will devour my face soon, unless I bite it first.

Smashing into Neon Lights in Their Stonedness

In fourth grade, my mother chaperoned Katie Mesirow and me to a BeeGees concert. As the pot smoke filled the arena, mom proclaimed to us that it was alright if she inhaled the smoke already hanging in the air. I don't think she and Prez. Clinton would have seen eye-to-eye, though she probably would have dated him, given her attraction to powerful men. This reminds me of a time in '76, when Warren Beatty hit on her at the Democratic National Convention in New York. She didn't know who he was, and was, sadly, married to my first step-father at the time. It's a shame, really (I'm tempted to insert a cheap joke about splendor in the grass). Do you know what Beatty looked like in the era of Bicentennial? Ever see 'Shampoo'? She should have slept with him; my step-father was a piece of work.

Oh look, I just found a pic of him on the internet. Here he is, hard at work on the campaign trail. That would be c. '79. You know, there are some similarities between the two men (requisite 70s side-burns, pointy features, angularity, smile lines, a generally ferrety look), minus a lot of hair.

Anyway, my mother was no stoner, unlike her baby sister and her best friend. Those two lit up in front of me nearly every time we were together - in the house, in the car, bird-watching out in the country. They were both school-teachers, by the way. Although this behavior led to no similar activity of my own, it is amazing to me that both women, who were major forces shaping my ethical sensibilities (believe me, they were tough), thought nothing of constantly breaking the law in my presence. Of course, in Oregon it's only a misdemeanor.

It did bite them in the ass once. When asked by another adult if they were smokers, to which they honestly replied 'no' (because of course she meant nicotine), this six-year-old chimed in, "But what about those 'funny' cigarettes you smoke?"

Is there a point to this? No. Is there a point to flare-legged white and tan plaid polyester pants? I wore those, you know, with my forest green ribbed turtleneck, and bangs mercilessly cropped, an ear or two constantly poking out of baby fine stick straight hair. Was there a point to Betsy Ross quilts (seriously, remember how red white and blue the culture was in 1976?) and lemon yellow tulip wallpaper? Was there a point to shag rugs? Eve cigarettes, with the floribundant pseudo-Mucha iconography? I could go on.

Then came the disco incarnation of the Brothers Gibb, and that era was over, and a new one dawning. I think I was reminded of all this recently when introducing two friends at a party. I mentioned what they had in common, younger sisters with Downs Syndrome. After comparing notes, Lauren remarked on the sad hilarity of little Leah's favorite song, "Let's Get Retarded."

Brian replied, "Well Karen's is the BeeGees' Tragedy, so there you go."

I don't make this shit up.

Sunny Goodge Street

Let me be clear that although there are a couple of songs I absolutely love (this one and Wear Your Love Like Heaven), my favorite recordings are not his versions. I am not really a Donovan fan, though he penned some good lyrics from time to time. Too Hurdy-Gurdy. Any comparisons that have been made to Dylan are, of course, ridiculous. Shame on you people.

Nonetheless, as I was stealing a lyric for a title of another post, I decided to post the words for this tune. Amazingly, after comparing four websites, I came up with no agreement on two of the lines. I'm posting it as I've heard Judy Collins sing it since I was knee high.

On the firefly platform of sunny Goodge Street
Violent hash-smokers shook a chocolate machine
Involved in an eating scene
Smashing into neon lights* in their stonedness**
Smearing their eyes on the crazy coke*** goddess
Listening to sounds of Mingus mellow fantastic.
"My, my", they sigh.

In dull house rooms with coloured lights swinging
Strange music boxes sadly tinkling
Drink in the sun shining all around you.
"My, my", they sigh.

The magician, he sparkles in satin and velvet,
You gaze at his splendour with eyes you've not used yet.
I tell you his name is Love, Love, Love.
"My, my", they sigh.
"My, my", so high.
"My, my" they sigh.

- Donovan Leitch, 1965

(here's where I give you the multiple alternate lyrics, since I can find no authoritative version:

* streets/lights - either works.
** stillness/stonedness - are the still lights (or streets) being disrupte, or are stoners disrupting because they are smashed. again, either is possible. i prefer the stonedness.
*** kerb/kali/coke ok, so a kerb is a curb, but whats a kerb goddess? not quite so poetical as Kali, who is a goddess and apropos to the Hindu-obsessed 60s. coke is thematically a relevant choice, though it became much more popular and available in the 70s.)

"Things My Boyfriend Says"

This is an interesting find, especially given my post yesterday. Enjoy.

A Few Things Men Have Said to Me

"You have eyes like a wild horse."

In a note: "You were very pleasant. Coffee?"

"You have this innoncence... You're so pure it's almost perverse."

"I can't sleep with you; it's a respect thing."

"Are you smuggling raisins?"

"Colin, what exactly is my job?" "When the production assistant shows up with a mattress strapped to the hood of the car, you'll get the bigger picture."

"I dig your spirituality."

"You have not to speak to me like this."

"Myopic girls always have the most beautiful expressions."

"You're seeing a very sad side of Herb tonight."

"I know that when you speak, the truth is never too far."

"You're like a breast of fresh air." (that was a Freudian slip)

"Crazy's not at home."

"Stay away from Captain Crazy."

"Mmm, mmm, I knows flavor when I sees it. Step a little wider, Baby."

"You wouldn't last 30 days in my house." But that's a whole other story...

Willing Suspension of Disbelief (for the moment)

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tome. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Aliced laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."


Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll



The title, however, comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817).

"In this idea originated the plan of the 'Lyrical Ballads'; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. "

Beware of False Profits

Oh Christ, they can't actually mean this. TC is the new JC? Remember what happened to the Beatles albums in the Bible Belt when John Lennon said they were more popular than Jesus?

In the Doghouse

I am writing you from under the covers. On either side of me sleep two big black dogs, who not only have me positively wedged between them, but are pulling the blankets down and across me, straight-jacket style. It's a little slice of heaven, I tells ya. They're going to have to use the jaws of life to get me out of here.

Think of Them

I was so relieved to realize today that my particular brand of band-aids, which is not Band-Aids, is "not tested on animals." I am all about cruelty-free, especially because I know just how painful it can be to rip off one of those adhesive strips. Now, imagine if you're a bunny.

Nominee for Quotation of the Year

The recent boyfriend wrapping up a debate with his girlfriend on using condoms, for which she was lobbying:

"We're not throwing caution to the wind, we're genuinely pretending to try!"

My Peeps!

This makes me feel an odd sense of home-town pride. Whereas Portland citizenry cannot be anywhere near as poor foul-weather drivers as Angelenos (for one, the former are just too polite), there really isn't a lot of snow/ice time up there in the city. Of course anyone who grew up in Oregon should have some clue, as the rest of this Cascade Mountain range state has plenty of frozen precipitation.

Also, I'm pretty sure I know the area this was filmed in, and it's much steeper than the video suggets.

Here goes, this is hilarious:

About Global Warming

Pulling a bit of a flip-flop - changing weather patterns, and all that. What it amounts to in LA is chilly weather (frost on the cars in the a.m.), and SNOW in Malibu (that's plain bizarre). That's right, they've closed Kanan Dume Road, and there are accidents abounding.

Whatever will Barbie and Ken do?

Speaking of cold...

He, On The Other Hand, Is THE GREATEST!

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark. "



Happy 65th to Muhammad Ali, née Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., aka The Louisville Lip, aka The Greatest. Known for The Thrilla in Manila, Rope-a-Dope, Rumble in the Jungle, 'floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee, 'picking the round,' The Golden Age of Boxing, one of my very favorite movies, which you must see, "When We Were Kings," and Ali Rap.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?

Ali, you were born so close in date to another King.

"The man said, 'We don't serve Negroes,'
I said, 'I don't eat them either.'
They shouted, 'Boy, get out!'
I looked at my gold medal and thought,
'This thing ain't worth nothin'-
it can't even get me a hamburger!' "

Did you know he also got in the ring with tooth decay?



"I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world. "



"It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen."



"You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned?
Wait till I whup
George Foreman's behind.
I done something new for this fight,
I have rassled an alligator!
I done tussled with a whale!
I done handcuffed lightning
Throwed thunder in jail!
Only last week I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone,
Hospitalized a brick!
I'm so mean I make medicine sick!"

You don't even have to like boxing to love this man.

Objects in Mirror

are (loser)



than they appear.

(ouch!)

Posting Secrets

I didn't tell you, but a few weekends ago, a very handsome man bought me flowers at the Farmers' Market. This weekend, I bought myself some and pretended they were from you.

Today

"Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”

- Coretta Scott King

Faux Toes

I've asked before, but can someone please tell me why Blogger is not in the mood to upload images amymore? It is seriously impeding my posting. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with file size, either.

Kitty Tai Chi

or Kung Pow! Kitty, if you prefer.

That 70s Show!

Do you remember that period in the 70s where every sitcom had someone falling into quicksand? I'd like someone to do a book/timeline of comedic conventions. You know, the apex of -
pie in the face
taped line down the center of the bedroom as sibling conflict resolution
too many suds in the washer
and
Don't Slam the Front door or the Souffle will Fall!

Got any to add? Doesn't have to be that decade.

Till then, here's a cool site on comedic conventions that some wise soul passed on to me. Am I reading it right, or did they omit lewdness and poop?

Superfreaky

This post is seriously overdue. Some time ago, Steve tagged me to write something like, "things about me that you might find wierd" (let's just start with my resistance to that word, which I never really know how to spell anymore, though once upon a time it was no issue at all, because it never looks right anymore. Blame the car accident, Blame old age, I don't know). He guessed correctly, that I am not usually up for that particular sort of bloggery, but since he's nice and the topic is interesting, I'll bite.

I think I was meant to limit it to six, but that seems unlikely.

Why or what about me is wierd? (Have you read my blog?)

1) I pick at my face. This has been discussed, I do believe, in a long treatment of Narcissism, which might actually be the only viable type for the personality disorder, as it is quite difficult to treat. Anyway, that's (and I have it on good authority) not my problem, but torturing my face in front of the mirror when I'm stressed or repressing something (like, anger maybe?), is. Also, if there are angry people around me, I break out in excema. Not usually a problem these days, but it was chronic and fairly severe until I left home at age eighteen. Last major bout came when I was being positively tortured by my French boss on the blockbuster movie I worked on in 2000. Recently, I got a small patch over my right eye when I went home for Christmas. Imagine that.

2) I like to make fun of French people. Truthfully, I've had very dear Gallic friends, and even a boyfriend or two. But the cultural group as a whole? Sitting ducks. This isn't so much wierd as it is increasingly unoriginal and mundane on my part. Everyone mocks the French, even the Simpsons. But by "French people," what I really mean to say is Parisians, and I'll poke at pretty much anyone who thinks that he or they are the cultural epicenter of the universe, and I can tell you that after working there for four months, they absolutely do. This may come as a bit of projection and touch of hypocrisy from an American, but when was the last time you saw an ad in a subway station here that said we were the most signicant source of high culture? And I'll cop to great literature, music, theater, and painting positively pouring out of France until the mid-20th C, but what have you done for me, lately? Have you heard any French Pop you could tolerate past the third bar? Furthermore, they think people who smile a lot are stupid, which is why they often find Americans a bit dim. Sometimes I love their cinema, yet why does every other film have to be about how tormenting, great and acceptable cheating on your lover is? Furthermore, what's with all the angst? You have one of the highest standards of living in the world - try smiling once in a while, and chuck all that black out of your oh-so-chic chifforobes! Oh, sorry, I meant armoire. Huckleberry nailed another detestable trait when he rebutted an old military proverb: "Hope is not a course of action... Unless you're French." I will not mention WWII. I'm biting my tongue. But Christ, look at the Danish, they had more sack in one wooden clog... and they were, well, Danish.

I also mock the Flemish, but that's another story.

3)

a) You stress me out when you don't recycle. I mean it.

b) I don't like throwing anything away.

c) I think that pissing, crapping and throwing dioxin laden paper products into fresh, clean running water is proof positive that we are absolute barbarians. Shall we touch on the "contributions" of industry? What other animal routinely sullies a life giving resource? And not only are we running out of it, people, but there are corporate interest buying up the rights to it. To water. But then, they are patenting DNA, body parts, and seeds, so I guess I should just relax.

4) "Little People" unnerve me. There was a two month period a couple of years ago when I couldn't turn a corner, enter a bank or look at a motion picture without encountering a dwarf or midget. The strangest moment came while watching a white female dwarf brawling with her massive muscle-bound Afrincan-American boyfriend as they walked out of The Old Spaghetti Factory and on down Sunset Blvd. I sincerely apologize for any provocation I've given by mention of their race. I couldn't care less about it, but the scene was very odd, like a more up to date Fellini or Breughel or Bosch or Mike. They got quite physical with each other. While she was doing most of the striking, he kept trying to pull her in close, either to pacify or control. I remember back in '99 there was a Little Person's convention in Portland. I asked the environment lawyer I was sleeping with what he thought it would be like to be the activities director for such an event. I can't recall what he said, but I offered that were I in charge there would surely be short stories, haiku and "Limbo, Little People!"

I am so going to hell for this. How low can you go?

5) I am an ardent student of metaphysics, and believe quite a lot in many things a psychiatrist would term, "magical thinking." This, apparently, is common amongst people who grew up in stressful or uncontrolled circumstances. I'm sure that's true, but I have experienced all kinds of "strange" and "coincidental" things in my life. I also have a deep interest and love for science, and think that our knowledge of the "physical" world simply has to catch up with all the really odd and currently inexplicable things that really are real. So yes, I can tell you an embarassing amount about astrology: 80% of the time I can guess your sun sign, and when I'm wrong, my guess is usually somewhere prominent in your chart. I do not think there are only twelve personalities in the world, and if you'd ever cracked a book, you'd know that no one is suggesting that. Some people like to give the argument that astrology becomes self-fulfilling prophecy via the power of suggestion. When was anything ever that easy? Tell me that I'm going to keep my room clean, and watch me not do it. If it were true, there would be no midnight oreo stuffers, compulsive gamblers or nail-biters. I read and listen to works by Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Deepak Chopra, Joseph Campbell, C.G. Jung, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, Robert Bly, Robert Johnson, Marion Woodman, Barbara G. Walker, et. al., because they make me feel good about being alive, something I haven't always felt. I have significant dreams that come true, I am now starting to routinely "ask" the world to send things my way, and my wishes are granted, sometimes within the hour, sometimes in a month. I pray, I meditate, I talk to my inner child. My ex-fiance and I used to have the same dreams on the same nights when we were not sleeping in the same bed. We had complete conversations with each other, which we could recount the next day, and with startling sameness. I have never seen a ghost (well I thought I did once when I was twelve, but not at all convinced), been abducted by aliens, nor have I any inkling of past lives, but I concur with this admonition to old Horatio, "There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." I believe that we are, as human beings, trying to evolve into a state of love and away from a state of fear. I believe war doesn't solve anything, but I don't think protesting helps, because that is layering on more war consciousness. I believe in asking and living in peace instead. I believe in ripple effects. I believe in "loving allowance for all beings in their own time," mindful speech, killing the Buddha you meet on the road, that whatever happens, we have all agreed upon it maybe unconsciously in advance, and that in any case, it must be met with integrity, an open heart and forgiveness. I believe you and I are not only children of God, we are God, and we'd really better start acting like it, so I'll try to once and for all stop picking at my face. Still, having said all this, I am completely open to the idea that it's all load of hogwash. But you'll have to empirically prove it, and you can't. I love you anyway.

6) I have an almost perverse lack of aversion to dirt and germs. I will let the dog lick my face, and I pick things I've dropped up off the floor, possibly even the sidewalk, and eat them anyway. Maybe I rinse them first. I am quite healthy most of the time and expect to be that way until I die.

7) I am a closet exhibitionist.

8) I love to sing and can have quite a nice voice, but public singing has always terrified me to the point that I used always to fake singing poorly. Then the phobia became an actual inability to sing in front of people. My voice often closes off so that I can't sing. I have absolutely no idea why or where this aversion began, except that in elementary school other kids were teased and cut down for thinking they were good singers, even when they were. This is probably linked to a more general fear of "showing off." (see oddity #7) It always annoyed me when my mother would sing, and she had quite a trained voice, but to me it always sounded too rarefied, too affected. My friend Joe and I sometimes sing karaoke in his basement, and it really is one of the very best things I do for myself. Even the very vibrations in your chest feel therapeutic. That, and Joe is very encouraging. Thank you, you're a good friend.

I just wrote a list of songs that I can sing, and think I sing well. Except that it made me feel ill, just writing it, so I deleted it. You see? Wierd.

9) Except that it's WEIRD.

10) Having to wind up extension cords or garden hoses used to make me want to slit someone's throat. Now I find it vaguely irritating enough that occaisionally I get the impulse to thrash about, but I never day. Instead, I usually trip over it as I walk away from the mess.

11) I love really schmaltzy music from the 70s. I'm not kidding about this. Like, Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds. Like, Poco, Player, and Firefall. I know, Mike. I know.

12) White Chocolate gets me bothered. It's not chocolate, so stop calling it that.

13) Besides talking, laughing, crying and removing pictures off the wall in my sleep, I have also been known to rub my belly and smile. I've caught me doing it. Sometimes I even tell myself jokes as I doze.

This is what I believe

That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.

- D.H. Lawrence

One-Seventh of the Deadlies

Here is a favorite cinematic memory from my childhood, in two parts. Thank you, Paul Lynde and Agnes Moorehead.

He's Gone

I've been led to understand that scent is the strongest memory trigger. Smells can resurrect moments for me that I scarcely knew even existed. Conversely, I have chased after and clung to aromas that renewed feeling and memory for times and people that were fugitive. What strong emotion can be held in the weft of a lover's shirt, pressing them closer to you, until their perfume finally fades away.

Has anyone ever tried to create a recording device for the facsimile of scent? We have archived sound and sight, but beyond the labors of the perfumier, which in my experience is something quite different, we have no record to trigger our olfactory sense and the mental and emotional experience that follows.

My Little Pony

When I was maybe four, my father realized my every girl's dream: he bought me a horsey.

My parents were at the Pendleton Round-Up (which, if you've never heard of it, is quite the ado), enjoying the shows and competitions. My mother was something of a horse woman herself. When I was small she had a Pinto, the same one she had used when she led groups of juvy teenagers around the Three Sisters Wilderness. They rode the kids around in circles in those mountains until they were certain they couldn't find their way out, then led them into the summer camps where they did rehabilitative work.

At the rodeo, my parents were separated for some period of time, one long enough that my impulsive Papa purchased a wild Mustang. At their reconnection, he was excited to tell her that he'd, "bought a pony for the kids."



I couldn't honestly tell you that this was an atypical behavior on my father's part, but I'm not sorry for it, either. It's too amusing. Anyway, my always practical and common-sensical mater berated the fool. For what were they to do with the animal? Where to house it? And who on earth did he imagine would be busting that bronc?

He found a farmer who was willing to take the horse away, for one hundred dollars. That my father paid him.

Happy New Year

to you all.

Iconoclast Movement

Can someone tell me why Blogger is only allowing image uploads less than half the time?

You Like Me, You Really Like Me!

Flattered as I am (and I really am), I have to say, 'What a cop out!'

Rows and Floes of Angel Hair

I have just mistaken someone at the very best coffee shop* for someone else, and spoken accordingly.

How embarassing.

Still, she laughed it off nervously and played along.

While and after I ordered a short cap and a silver needle tea, she continued the same laughter. Her strain is maybe something else and not me. That's a relief.

I've left the house to clear my head.

I'm thinking of right turns, southpaws, cold feet, and the gold dust that settles in my lover's hair.
I'm wondering how two people can live together for fourteen years and navigate the boneyard labyrinth between them - a tired ribcage before the heart, and doors that won't open.

One shouldn't have to work so hard, only to arrive at this.

It hasn't been the jolliest of Christmases, nor the worst of times by any means, but I suspect I'm not alone in my Holiday Ambivalence. Even Spreaders of Good Cheer are under duress. I never guessed Disney would repossess Santa (who was recently handed his ass), but I guess they own everything else. Is Bill O'Reilly puffed-up, red-faced and spitting about that?

Maybe it's time to mention a few things for which I have gratitude:

- I have love in my life.
- Some very dear friends.
- Fondness for my regular readership (and I am yours), though I wish you'd post more comments, for good or ill.
- I've just learned that my blog rank on Technorati is 247,131. That's not so bad, but surprising given the low number of hits per day. I also just realized that when I made the switch to BetaBlogger, it wiped out the ads, which is odd, as they were Google sponsored. It's just as well.
- The comforting way my dog snores.
- The severely damaged nail on my index finger is half way grown out now.
- My mother's clear of cancer.
- Mr. Claus saw fit to send a friend a lap(ple)top, which is what I've dreamed of getting her for years, if I were a rich man. She deserved it.
- I'm less afraid than I was two years ago, and less still than half a decade before that.
- Sometimes I dream about Claire.
- I've some resolutions I'm willing to make.
- I've been reminded that time is quite possibly infinite, so I can't really be wasting it.
- The sun just came out for the first time since I've been home.



*There. Now you have a way to find me, and if chance keeps us separated, you can content yourself with the very best coffee in Portland, so far as I know it. They have free wifi, like every other boutique espresso place in this fair city, though at the chains you must pay.

A Terrible Beauty Is Born

Do you ever happen upon a thing and wonder that in your entire lifetime, you've never discovered it before? Having just found W.B. Yeats', Easter, 1916, I am left scratching my head and wondering just that. If you've a few moments for inquiry, as it's a rather longish one, pour yourself a cuppa and have a read, here.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

Thomas Wolfe* and Heraclitus** both had good, if vastly over referenced, points.

To the first I'd agree, except that childhood was not a place I'd ever particularly want to revisit, except in my writing. One might rephrase, "You can't go home again, if home never was one." This trip, I'm getting along with my mother quite well, except for her incessant need to be in my space, which is a problem with mothers generally, I'm sure. It's a minor problem. Mostly, I just want to punch my step-father in the face. Although my mother these days is quite good-natured, he's been a silent sulking and brooding lump on the couch ever since Christmas Eve morning, over what we just don't know. It seems to stem from a conversation we had about eating well, something he doesn't do, but nothing was directed at him, you know. So it's a mystery.

To the second, I'd say that though the geography of the river looks the same, it is true that the matter moving through it is ever a'changing. One is tempted to correct the redundancy or maybe I should say, superfluity, in Heraclitus, as one really can never step into the same river even once. Still, we get his point. If I damaged the proboscis of my mother's husband, it would not really be the same nose the second time fist meets prow.

I hate being negative, especially when everyone's supposed to be putting on their best face, but everyone isn't.

I have a rash over my right eye, and I just can't tell why.


* You Can't Go Home Again
** "You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you."

Christmas Card Correspondence

J sent me this picture of his dog Buzz:



Me: That's LAST year's picture!
But it's still so cute, you want to hug the stuffings out of him.

J: Yes it is. It is an Iconoclastic Image. Timeless and demanding of broadcast.



Me: He's like the Grinch Who Disemboweled Christmas.

J: Positively medieval, yet it retains the innocence of lowly beasts.

Santatlas

What a burden this Santa must carry, while the rest of us eat, drink and be merry!

Someone help Santa!

On second thought, someone save those poor people in the cottages from the crushing airborne toys! Santa's a menace!

Merry XXXmas

Nothing says silver bells, holiday season, and bless the holy baby Jesus like your boyfriend calling you from Seattle and describing the ways he'd like to be violating you right now, while little children frolic in the background.

Of course, as there is moratorium on any mention of the inner workings of our relationship here, I'm not saying it was my boyfriend.

The Golden Years

My mother, who is sixty-four, looks ten years younger. My boyfriend called her "an attractive old bird" yesterday, but was genuinely shocked to discover her actual age. Her manner and drive are possibly even younger. Although she is liable to fall asleep at the picture show, as she did tonight, she is up at five-thirty, and has more energy than just about anybody I've ever met. Not the manic id of the bi-polar, rather the unabating push of a sturdy animal, built for long hard work. She moves mountains.

Still, there is mounting evidence that she has turned a corner, or maybe I should say, passed a milestone (not like those one flushes out of the kidneys, mind you). First, I noticed the amassing of granny-floral prints on the dining room walls. Mother has always been a lush decorator, but never particularly cluttery. I asked if the five pictures on the north wall alone were an aesthetic choice, or simply a matter of storage, as the living room is currently overrun with the kitchen cabinetry they've yet to install. It was the former, as I had feared. It looks undeniably Victorian, or older still, like the painted depiction of the Louvre (Galerie de Vues de la Rome Moderne by Pannini, 1759), the walls simply teeming with the art they'd pinched.

What else? Under-seasoned food, lavender soaps and clock radio in the bathroom, squawking at such a low decibel range, that nobody who lives here heard it.

More significantly, there are several two-liter size bottles of tonic water, Sprite, and club soda, open and half consumed, tucked between the refrigerator and butcher block. You may scratch your head at this one all you like, but in my experience of old people's houses (and this includes my own relatives), there are always flat stale bottles of soft drinks, they simply refuse to part with. Pity the guest who accepts the offer of a cola. Usually, there's never but two or three ice cubes tin-tinning the glass, and even if you're lucky enough to score a Coke, it's so old it tastes like RC anyway.

Do you get what I'm saying now?



How about the grannies with the four-decade-old ice boxes, with cartons of neapolitan ice cream, freezer burnt, gummy and tasting of leaking freon? Ever tried that? It's uncanny the frequency with which such odd things can become demographic trends, and though some might question my assertions, I'll stand by them.

I'd be off to play Scrabble with the old people now, but they've gone to bed.

The Coast Highway

Heading up North for Christmas in Portland. In Santa Cruz right now, looking for surf. It's cold but quite beautiful here. Beautiful houses, pretty coastline.

Won't be posting for a couple days.

Cheers.

While Visiting Griffith Observatory

He: ...but then they aren't really sure Pluto is a planet anymore.

Me: Well, they are sure, they all got together and decided it isn't a planet. Now it's a 'dwarf planet.'

He: Wait a minute, that seems a bit rude. So are they now saying dwarves aren't really people?

A Movie I'd Like to See, v. ii

A film noir where all the characters are trying to quit smoking.

Hark How the Bells!

Yesterday is spent. Seven hours straight on the Santa (how apt) Monica shoPromenade, braving crowds, underage retail assistants, sore feet, the hyperstimulating glut of merchandise, and finally, The Christmas Music. I was Mannheim Steamrollered. Yet, I spent it with someone I love, and despite the indisputable fact that I am, not unlike Camille, currently dying of Consumption, I was happy.

I actually love traditional Christmas carols, many of the versions fashioned into shape of Jazz standards, and even a few really modern versions, just so long as the bounce or the rock doesn't beat the melody to messy pulp. As a child in Oregon, we actually went each cold December door to door caroling, an experience rather far afield from the Yuletide in L.A. Do people still do that? At home, I think I played every last song known to God and man on the piano, and there was an annual performance/party at my instructor's home. Carols are forever tucked into my musical memory, snug and contented as a sugar-fed kid in footed pajamas, blanketed by an afghan on the sofa and the rosy light of the tree.



If white folks don't gather in song at Christmas time, then there really is a hole in our layer of the cultural cloth. Why unlike, say, the Irish, do we not sing spontaneously and in groups, at parties, in bars, or as we walk down the street together? I say white, of course, because I don't believe this holds true for many other groups, clearly more enlightened in this department. Of course, if you're a regular churchgoer, you have your hymnal, though as a child I really thought them quite dry and wooden. Then there is the Anthem at sporting events, and that's allright, potentially moving even, but it is quite difficult to sing, and is a completely expected and controlled event.

To sing or chant or pray in groups is an experience that fundamentally transforms the energy moving through your body. I dare you to contest the notion. You don't have to dip into the realm of scientific explanation to prove or disprove this, simply remember viscerally the last time you joined in; it just is. Unless you feel terribly inhibited about it, the feeling is joyful, freeing, and conjoining, bonding you to others as much as it allows you to expand into your own individual, spiritual space.

I think part of the impediment to public displays of song, sadly, is the value given to restraint in this fundamentally Protestant culture. I am the last person comfortable with any sort of behavior that disrupts another's sense of well-being, to the point that I can become quite vocal in my displeasure. If some jackass friend is telling a lewd story at the table when there is a family or elderly group dining nearby, I suffer with them. But nothing is lovelier to me than walking through a park or a city square, and seeing people singing, dancing, or playing, in whatever form, just for the sheer joy of expressing it. That is the quintessence of a holiday traditionally celebrated as a festival of Light, and in carnival style. No different from any really Godly Holiday, where the human spirit takes a deep breath, opens itself up, and shines all over the world.

A Movie I'd Like to See

This is a joke title I came up with some time ago. My memory was jogged by exposure to Gizoogle, which translates your text or webpage to jive.

In any case, in my little fantasy world, Snoop Dogg meets Jim Henson and Co. for, The Dark Cryzal.







And of course, Steven Tyler in the reprised role of Jen the Gelfling.

Poached Eggs

I surely love them, especially with Hollandaise, but should they be legal?

Because, As We All Know, Meat Is Murder

I guess it wasn't a kosher dog.

Breakfast Is Not, 'The Most Important Meal of the Day'

'The Most Important Meal of the Day,' is having any meal at all, you bourgeois mother-fuckers.

Scat and Dogs

You know it's bad when your dog farts so loudly that he leaves the room.

Soft Drink

A blog of note.

Full Moon

How unusual not to be able to sleep at this time. Lest I embarrass myself with some astrological explanation, perhaps some of our more empirically scientific minds can explain to me why it is that I always have a shortened sleep cycle, more energy, and wildly elaborate dreams at this time of the month? Hmm?

Things I'm Not Particularly Proud Of, v. 1

Not much good has come out of Levittown, NY, unless you count Billy Joel, which in my weaker moments, I do. It's something I'm not particularly proud of either, but that's not the purpose of this post. Otherwise, there has been a cartoonist, another pop star, an American Idol contestant, and Bill O'Reilly. That's pretty bleak, when you think about it. The only really good thing is a rather entertaining documentary about the city, Wonderland, by a guy from my graduating class in college. You should watch it, if you can get your hands on a copy.

When I was about seventeen, I was perusing LPs, because that's the generation I'm from, at a small record store in downtown Portland. I was alone in the store with the clerk, until two rather long-haired gentlemen with ragged east coast accents entered the place. I wish I could recall what music I was looking at - it could have been Talking Heads, REM, Run DMC, or even Whitney Houston. Go ahead, yuck it up, but I was only a gangly teenager who had just recently sprung anything remotely resembling hips, and one who did wonder, "How will I know if he REALLY loves me?" Furthermore, I was in deep denial over my genuine love of old Van Halen, the way the popular athlete can't admit he has a crush on the bookish and shy girl. Except I was the bookish and shy girl.

I could have been buying Bon Jovi for all I know, though my defensive ego would like me to point out that I was the first kid at my school to listen to the Beastie Boys. But what does it really matter, I was not cool. A socially awkward girl, seriously underschooled in the ways of boys and dating, and at the same time, it seems I was always curiously attractive to older males. It was confusing and strange, to say the least.

Anyway, the considerably older duo were obviously leering. One of them wore sunglasses on his head and gave me cursory glances, while his wingman thumbed through albums, which he occasionally pulled out as a prop to say, "Hey, Eddie, remember when you recorded this one?" Then they would both look at me, as if I was supposed to overcome my dumbfounded starstruckness and run over for an autograph, a cocktail at his hotel, and some fellatio. After listening overlong to the lame antics, I sighed and walked out the door to the bus mall, where I caught the #33 home, and tried to avoid resting my weary head against the oily curl relaxer glued to the windowpane. It was a peril of the late eighties, much like the talent that escaped Levittown, NY.

And that's the first of maybe three times an embarrasing famous man has hit on me. Five if you count Laverne, but I don't like to talk about that.



(I feel three apologies are in order here: First, I'm sorry to my dear friend whose grandfather designed that infernal city. It's neither of our faults the project was such a failure, so can't we just laugh about it? Secondly, Grant Miller, I realize I have bastardized, nay, plagiarized a format of your posts. I hope you'll take it as a sincere, if inferior, mode of flattery. Finally, for all you strict grammarians in the house, I don't like ending sentences, much less titles, with prepositions, but sometimes it seems impossible not to.)

I Believe

...in love at first oversight.