The Girl in the Photo

No one wants to know who that chére bébé below is? Or even guess?



Anne Frank.

What with the recent slew of birthdays

I feel it's only fair to mention that mine was on Tuesday. I am sorry to report that while I am, indeed, another year older, I am not one whit the wiser.



(I'll be seriously impressed if you can name the person in that photo.)

While I did have a nice dinner with Tex, and an even greater conversation with him later that evening (that is, after I awakened from a brief sofa coma, induced by two glasses of wine and one ill-advised post-dinner cocktail), I can't say it was the most auspicious of days overall. First off, that morning I dreamt I was four months pregnant, and upon waking was disappointed to realize it wasn't true. I should have been relieved, as it really is for the best. Still, I had a protracted moment of grief over my childlessness. Mercifully, that is an emotional visitation which happens only occasionally - I've rigged the snooze button on my biological clock for longer increments between alarms.

Then there was the incessant stress over this hare-brained fundraising event that I've been planning, which has, of late, been nothing but obstructed, and I've wondered at the wisdom of doing it at all. My frustration is such that I'm moments away from pulling the plug, which only gives rise to greater feelings of self-doubt. And all of it is ridiculous, because it's supposed to be worthwhile and fun. Think the Uni is trying to tell me something?

Later that afternoon, I was seriously encumbered by the inappropriate gift of the husband of one of my employers, who accompanied the earrings he bought in India with a note confessing his long-standing crush, which he hoped would remain our secret. It should have remained his. The wife is my friend and confidant, and I have yet to decide the most appropriate course of action. She left me a card with a certificate for a Thai massage. We give each other lots of things. She trusts me, and I her. She's in Paris for a while, and he joins her on Friday, so I have some time. Fortunately, I haven't actually seen that sucka of a husband, he simply left the offending objects for me to find when I came to work in their home. Hours later emailed me all in a fluster of anxiety because he knew he was indulging in risky behavior.

Why does this have to be my problem? I did nothing to encourage any such advance, I swear on my life. I toil in their home, fixing broken windows and door handles, and painting rooms. Sometimes I tend to their child*, I am friends with her and friendly to him, a man I almost never see. They offered me an administrative job running the office of his new internet company, which I declined. They have been very good to me. So now I have to choose between a complicity of silence and a brutal honesty that will disrupt everyone's life. I'm leaning towards returning the earrings with a strong slap on the wrist, because I cannot accept any gesture that requires my complicity in something I know will hurt her, but will remain silent about the matter until such time as he trespasses again. And what kind of present is it to entangle someone in something that has absolutely nothing to do with the beneficiary? He should have given the earrings to her; I will never wear them. It's all so perverse, and it gave me a major meltdown as I was trying to dress for my dinner date, because I am practically incapable of not taking such things personally, or deflecting guilt, even when none of it is mine to bear. I was so angry, which almost always registers in tears, because I'm not the lashing out sort, though I should learn to be. Oh, Bother. Happy Birthday. Don't go looking for drama, drama will find you, Children.

What would you do, my dutiful readers of the Blogosphere?

Finally, birthdays are always a reminder of the anniversary of my father's death, which is this day, right here. While I don't feel a conscious grief, I do wonder at the significance of having that loss attached so near the day that is supposed to be a celebration of my own life. Perhaps there is no meaning there at all, but I am always reticent to celebrate my birthday. It could be the pall of that spectre, or it could be the wet blanket tradition, established on my twelfth birthday by my mother, who picked a fight with me every year after the cake was cut and the tinsels had hit the floor. I do believe the first time stemmed from my protest against the notion that I should clean the house after the guests were gone, as it was my birthday, after all. Her peculiar pugilistic habit lasted for the duration of high school, though the reason shifted from year to year, as did her convenient forgetting of the date of my father's passing. I was intended to forget, as well.

Life is full of sun and shadows and fog. I had a great date Tuesday night, and lots of friends phoned and wrote, and flowers were delivered. I felt loved, and I'm grateful for that. It was a good day, after all.


(*I didn't really say that to him, only wanted to.)

Spurious Claims of Nativity Aside...

Happy Birthday, Peteski! When we are betrothed, I hope it plays like this:



Yours,
Pinky

ps - thanks for encouraging me to turn my blog into an "adult" site. Lord.
Oh, and my birthday was yesterday.
And as for you, Stitch, naked shout-outs are cold in December!

Happy Birthday, Citizen H!

May love, joy and peace find you this new year.

Happy Midsummer's Eve

"Though western iconography usually called the sun male and the moon female, archaic Oriental tradition spoke of a female sun. Japanese ruling clans traced their descent from a supreme Sun Goddess, Omikami Amaterasu.

The Hindu Great Mother took the form of the sun as the Goddess Aditi, mother of the twelve zodiacal Adityas, spirits who would "reveal their light at Doomsday." The Mahanirvanatantra said the sun was the "garment" of the Great Goddess: "The sun, the most glorious symbol in the physical world, is the mayik vesture of Her who is 'clothed with the sun.' " The same goddess, identified with Mary, appeared in the Gospels as the "woman clothed with the sun" (Revelation 12:1).



Tantric Buddhism recognized a precursor of the Middle-Eastern Mari, or Mary, as the sun. Her monks greeted her at dawn as "the glorious one, the sun of happiness..."

Among the ancient Arabs, the sun was a goddess, Atthar, sometimes called Torch of the Gods. The Celts had a sun goddess names Sulis, from suil, meaning both "eye" and "sun." Germans called her Sunna. Norwegians called her Sol. In Scandinavia she was also known as Glory-of-Elves, the Goddess who would give birth to a daughter after doomsday, thus producing the new sun of the next creation. The Eddas said: "One beaming daughter the bright Sun bears before she is swallowed by Fenrir; so shall the maid pace her mother's way when the gods have gone to their doom."





The Sun Goddess Sul, Sol, or Sulis was worshipped in Britain at the famous artificial mountain in the Avebury complex of megalithic monuments, now known as Silbury Hill. Here she gave birth ti each new Aeon from her great belly-tumulus, over 130 feet high and more than 500 feet in diameter. "The influence of the British goddess, Sul, aextended over the greater part of south west England, and her worship appears to have been conducted on the tops of hills, overlooking springs. Thus near her springs at Bath we have the isolated hill called Solsbury, or Sulisbury, probably the seat of her worship." At Bath, Romans identified Sul with Minerva and set up altars to her under the name of Sul Minerva. "


(This text was lifted from Barbara G. Walker. So sue me.)

Teachers

This woman is a heroine of mine. I endeavor to practice what she preaches. Even at awards shows. (wink)

Pema Chödron clip.



Pema Chodron: The bodhisattva vow has something to do with going cold turkey, naked, without any clothes on into whatever situation presents itself to you, and seeing how you hate certain people, how people trigger you in every single way, how you want to hold on, how you want to get in bed and put the covers over your head. Seeing all of that just increases your compassion for the human situation. We're all up against not finding ourselves perfect, and still wanting to be open and be there for others. My sense of what it means to be a bodhisattva on the path, a student-warrior-bodhisattva, is that you are constantly caught with "don't know." Can't say yes, can't say no. Can't say right, can't say wrong.

...Trungpa Rinpoche used to say that the first step in the training of the warrior, which is to say, one who is cultivating their courage, is to place them in a cradle of loving-kindness. And this is really true. In the Buddhist teachings we talk about cultivation of maitri or loving-kindness toward oneself. This does seem necessary in order to have the willingness to work with all the messy and delightful parts of yourself. Real safety is your willingness to not run away from yourself. In terms of creating a safe environment, you want to create a space in which people can look at themselves and where that's going to meet with approval and it's going to be safe to do that. No one is going to laugh at them for crying or falling apart. Now that's the first stage, because, what you're really talking about is how to live in this world where people do ridicule and laugh at you. And so we don't just want to create a lot of practitioners who can only exist in a "safe" situation where there is no insult, where there's no roughness. The cradle of loving-kindness is not about getting stroked. It's more about developing a friendship with yourself in a more complete way. The real sense of safety that people need is that things aren't going to be hidden.

...Certain practices dislodge a lot of emotional material-for instance, tonglen. Tonglen is a practice where you work with your breath. You breathe in suffering and connect with it fully-yours' and other people's. It's a willingness to feel what hurts, not to shy away, not to reject it. You're willing to take on suffering and develop compassion for it and even relax with it. And when you breathe out, you give away joy, a sense of inspiration, delight. So what you're usually attached to and want to keep for yourself, you get used to sharing, giving. It's very advanced practice when you start working with other people because it shows you every place that you shut down, hold back, every single place where you close your heart. If you're a practitioner of the dharma, you want to see that and make friends with it. I think if you really want to become enlightened, somehow you've got to put yourself on the line. If you're already a student and want to wake up fully, then you're going to get the tests and challenges you need, and they're all going to come from other people. Safety becomes wanting to avoid all that.

Cause I know I don't belong, here in Heaven...

There's a lesser known Circle of Hell reserved and engirded with a red-velvet v.i.p. rope for unrepentant name droppers, and that is precisely where you will find me when I palm some coins off on the ferryman. Alright, I'm mixing mythologies, but the point is that star-gazing is fun! and that's precisely what I got an eyeful of this last Saturday night.

The band played a song at the 34th Annual Vision Awards, a benefit for blindness and award show for visionary work in the arts and sciences. Yeah, I'd never heard of it either. Nonetheless, it was held in The Beverly Hilton which, while famous for many reasons, is mostly known to me via the Merv Griffin Show, as "Friends and guests of the Merv Griffin Show..." always stayed there, capping the end of his talk show. I watched that all the time as a kid, and it's a wonder that my tastes developed as they are, in spite of that particular influence. That, Lawrence Welk and Dinah Shore. Anyway, The Hotel is inextricable from the idea of Merv Griffin and all he represents, as Merv once was from Eva Gabor.

Needless to say, an odd venue for the band, but conscious as we were of the sense of dislocation, we were happy to be there. After all, the amusement factor was first rate. There was that tiny gal on the parking elevator whom Tex is sure was Renee Zellwegger, and look who's on the red carpet... Charles Durning and Dick Van Patten! And there's Matthew Modine and that tall chick from That 70s Show! And the B-list just keeps getting longer.



Once you entered the doors to the lobby of the auditorium/dining room, you saw the endless display of ticky-tacky auction items - most of them poorly matted and framed film and sports memorabilia. Notable was a heavyweight championship belt, with photos of past winners, the most remarkable of which (for me) was the presence of Ken Norton, who broke Muhammed Ali's jaw in '73, and then went on to star, two years later, in the titular role of a trashy plantation drama, Mandingo. Tex, my friend, Billy, and I just saw it at the Egyptian Theater. Later, when the stage auction was happening, and they sold the old USC helmets belonging to the few that were Heisman Trophy winners, the auctioneer called out their names, skipping right over the photo of O.J. Take THAT!

But sports were not what really interested me about the evening. What did interest me was walking up to the bar and standing near Robert Evans. Robert freakin' Evans, people. Even if you aren't aware of his illustrious producing career (Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Godfather, Marathon Man, Urban Cowboy... ring a bell?), or his famous romance with Ali McGraw, before Steve McQueen got his hooks into her, you might have a notion of his imitably slick presence and hedonistic lifestyle. If you haven't seen the "documentary" biopic (I shackle it with quotation marks, because it isn't typical convention to have the subject narrate his own filmic biography.), The Kid Stays in the Picture, don't hesitate to rent it.

Then there was Wes Craven, who received an award, and whose speech was the very best of the night. Truly a thoughtful, intelligent, witty, slightly mischieveous, and sweet man, hardly what you expect from one of the biggest horror masters in film. I want him to be my dad. A friend informed me today that he has a master's degree in philosophy, and his oratory reflected that. He was very polite when we met him, and his wife was very sweet, also. I reminded her not to forget his award, which they left on the table. Actually, quite a few people forgot their little statuettes. I doubt that happens so much at Oscar time, but I think it was Meryl Streep who left on of hers in the bathroom.

Mr. Craven (talk about a great ironical name - 'craven' means 'cowardly'), told a great story about being at a dinner party at Robert Evans' home sometime in the last few years. "Bob turned to me and said, 'I think I'm having a stroke.' " So they phoned the fire dept., which was at the other end of Evans' property. Before they arrived, Evans said, "I promised you an exciting evening, didn't I?" Then, as they were rolling him away to the ambulance he pleaded, "Please, stay and enjoy yourselves!" Kid's got nerve.

Dare I mention the tense and hilarious moment in the Green Room when the hostess, who is, er, sight impaired, was throwing an absolute fit and came out yelling at a woman who must have been her assistant? In self-defense, the beleagured lady entreated, "Please don't blame me, I'm only doing what I'm told." To this the Grande Dame if the evening roared, "You NEVER do what you're told!" It was straight out of Mommie Dearest. Then, as they were headed for the exit, the elder lady walked right into the door. I'm just sayin'. I was holding back the tears, one more reason why I'm taking the down escalator after I croak.

Andy Garcia's acceptance speech revealed that his first "break" in Hollywood was employment as a busboy in the very same hotel. He pointed out that his former captain was still working there that night.

The strangest moment for me occurred when Linda Blair was onstage talking about the honored scientist whose ocular research on Abyssinian felines has restored their sight, which will assist human macular regeneration. Surrealing, I turned to a friend and said, "I feel like I'm in an episode the Simpsons right now." On cue for the stage departure of Miss Projectile Vomit, the orchestra struck up the theme from "Cats." I kid you not. John turned to me and replied, "Well, that just sealed it."

Standing a foot away from Stevie Wonder was pretty great, as is the man himself. I never guessed he was that big! He made a surprise performance for the second song of The Blind Boys of Alabama, who have been doing this for over 60 years, and simply must be heard. After they sang "Amazing Grace," set to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun," Stevie got up there with them for "Higher Ground." Phenomenal. Could I love him more?



Tex and I recently just rewatched Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, Barry Lyndon, a personal favorite for us both, so it was exciting to speak with Leon Vitali, who played Lord Bullingdon, or "Lord Bowling Balls" as he was dubbed on set, or so he told us. He was also Kubrick's right hand man for what I believe was nearly twenty years, though he had slipped into virtual obscurity as an actor. He looked terribly sickly and had been left out of the big prizes, so I gave him one of the pieces of swag intended for the band (a really amazing roller suitcase that positively SPINS!). While I defended myself to our lead singer, who happens to love that film too, Nathan looked at me for a hard second then forgave my choice. "I like your style," he said.



Perhaps the best celebrity encounter came when Nathan recognized an aging rocker, to whom I slipped both of the band's cds. He wished us good luck, through his impenetrable mop of hair and dark shades. Nothing so notable about the actual interaction, but after all, it was Jeff Lynne. We were pissing ourselves.

Cinematic Pop with a Chewy Folk-Rock Center

Any way you slice it, it comes up nuts.

My band's featured on msnbc.com today. Read the article! Better yet, email it to your friends!

upside out, inside down

these days
the sheep wear wolves
the wolves don wool
and nobody really knows who is who

and be careful who you call crazy
because the looney in the street
is just singing out loud your tunes

Kiss Them For Me

Gene Simmons teaching the pre-K set that as you age, your feet never stop growing.

Yang-Yang

Three-year-old Yang Yang kisses a beluga whale during a publicity photo shoot at the Qingdao Polar Ocean World, located in China's eastern Shandong Province, on June 2, 2007.

The Ill-Posse Comitatus

Yesterday I was stunned to read an interview with Father Frank Morales on Theresa Duncan's blog, The Wit of The Staircase, which is a personal favorite. Herein you will discover their dialogue about Gov't conspiracies, dissent in art, Scientology, Christianity as subversion and Jesus as Insurrectionist, some meaning of Time, Lennon, P.K. Dick, Disney, St. Paul, the truth about 911, how the artist must take risks...



I can just hear the reactions now and I await them with bated breath (or should I say, 'baited'), but please, Gentle Reader, take in the entire piece. Whether you agree or not, I doubt you can deny that the level of discourse is elevated and offers some very interesting insights. Also note, as background reference, that Theresa Duncan and her husband, the illustrious artist, Jeremy Blake, have been monitored by the FBI and allegedly harrassed by the Church of Xenu. You can read up on that in her 5/13 post, The Trouble with Anna Gaskell.

(picture credit: Jeremy Blake, Winchester (still), from Winchester trilogy, 2002; DVD with sound; 18-minute continuous loop; courtesy of the artist and Feigen Contemporary, New York; © Jeremy Blake. More on his work, specifically the Winchester series, here.)

O Woman! Lovely Woman! Nature made thee

To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair, to look like you;
There's in you all that we believe of heaven, -
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.

Thomas Otway (1652-1685)



This is almost hypnotic. But how did they just skip right over the Pre-Raphaelites in this 500 year survey of woman's portraiture? Or did I blink?

Divinyl

My mother and step-father visited recently, bringing me their old stereo with the cd player I gave them, a very old Dual turntable ('85, I wanna say), and an Onkyo receiver. Needless to say that, although this equipment is obsolescent (you should have seen the trouble I went through to get a new needle), I am ecstatic to have it, because I can finally play not only my old vinyl, but my mother's entire collection, which I have been asking for nearly a decade. The only thing I have wanted more, and for which I ask each and every Christmas and birthday, is a pair of perfect flat ovular turquoise earrings, the size of robin's eggs, set in sterling, which are an unusual and extraordinarily vibrant color. They are also absolutely clear of any veins, with a flawless surface. I once wore them into a jewelry store in Park City, and the shopkeeper was positively stunned by their quality and beauty. Like most of the things that my mother has, she claims she will give them to me when she dies, to which I always reply, "Mom, you're too mean to die."

This is, of course, funny to us both, and she probably will outlive me, but it should be noted that my mother often boasts, or reminisces, if you prefer, about the great collectibles and antiques bestowed upon her by her parents and Grandma Bessie. This includes family silver, furniture, and antique jewlery (sadly the garnet filigree necklace, brooch and one earring, once belonging to Eleanor Roosevelt, were stolen when I was in high school). My second favorite thing, which I don't often ask for, is a glass globe lamp, supported in bronze by two Atlas figures and whatever that circular band is called that engirds it from pole to pole, and papered by a lovely jade and manila yellow map, naming countries with antiquated appellations such as, Siam, Persia, and Ceylon. She once asked me if I thought she should replace itt with an updated map, causing my heart to drop out of my chest like a ton of lead. "Mother... if you touch that thing..."
My mom is a great "changer" of things. In astrology, the "cardinal" signs are the great instigaters of movement and transformations, and she is the Cardnial of cardinals. She's the one carrying the bull-whip, and tearing down the pyramids, and building a staircase to the moon, because she had an extra ten minutes just lounging about in her day, and hell, as she likes to say, she can sleep when she's dead.

Excepting, she's too mean to die.

She even cut down the eighty-year-old Cherokee-Red Dogwood tree in our backyard, because it was "diseased," in her estimation, which is completely false, though she does have her Master Gardener's Certificate. What this really translates to is: "The tree is MESSY," a quality she cannot abide. It was possibly one of the most beautiful trees I have ever seen, full of seasonal bliss. The leafy stage was pretty, the flowering stage - cranberry extraordinary, the red berry stage - an odd and beady beautiful, the chlorophyll breakdown stage - crimson phenomenal, and the bare stage - swizzle stick elegant. It is the one thing in our lives together that I will never get over. I have forgiven things about her past that would make up an entire season of Lifetime Television for W____(sorry, I can't bear to finish that phrase, as it rankles my sensibilities entirely, as it is a completely unfounded and utterly unjust representation of women, like the cartoon, Cathy.), but the tree? I just hope I don't take that resentment to the grave. I am working on it.

I have inherited some of this trait from her, this need to "improve" things, except that I have a greater sense of preservation. I also possess her clutchiness, or maybe I clutch her possessiveness, but the difference is, she has all these things passed down through the family, while I have almost none, though I never point this out when she gloats about it time and time again. If she ever goes so far as to use the word "trousseau," which is essentially what they built for her as a teen and twenty-something, I will keel over and vomit indignation.

Still, I have the vinyl, and it is a quirky collection to be sure. I am thrilled to have it. There are clasical records from the 50s and 60s, a sixteen-disc, leather-bound, "treasury" from back in the day when records were unbendable and weighed a pound, covering Bach, Berlioz, Medndelssohn, Wagner, all with bios, portraits and album covers with glossy nature, landscape or landmark photos, colorized absurdly if romantically. There are some hippy-dippy works from the 70s, which will get the most play. There are original Beatles' albums, lots of them, musicals (Glynis Johns singing "Send in the Clowns,"
anyone?), Dylan Thomas reading aloud, and a 1963 collection of ten Shakespeare plays, performed by Richard Burton and John Gielgud, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, O'Toole, Redgrave, and Anna Massey. What else? Firestone Tires' Christmas music series from the 60s, more Folk music than you'd ever know what to do with, bluegrass, and a History of the British Blues, with several early Yardbirds tunes, and old old Rod Stewart, before he turned into a wheel of 80s cheese. Finally, there are scads of, OH GOD!, Andy Williams, 60s Streisand, Mantovanni, Andre Previn, Vikki Carr, Percy Faith... all those sounds of the well-heeled 60s bridge-playing, cocktail circuit Republicans, a part of which my parents most certainly were, for a time.

I think I'll be posting about the ones most important to me, like this one I remember most clearly from my pre-K years. I loved it even back then:

Sparrows, Now onThe No-Fly List!

Evidently, this happened at the moment Bush finished averring, "I've got confidence in Al Gonzales doin' the job!" Celestial commentary?



Then again, fishermen consider that good luck.

Talk Like Bob Dylan Day

Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham was born today in '41. I only mention it, because I like both kinds of music, Bob & Dylan. Many happy returns of the day, Mr. Zimmerman.





"...The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what's real and what is not
It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden

The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden

At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what's true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden"

The Gates of Eden, 1965

Able was I, ere I saw Elba

Just back from computer exile - a new hard drive and ram, all for $207, and the guy might have put earthworms in there for all I know, but she's working. All I had to do was endure him asking me to ask him out. Tech nerds are so socially well-adjusted, it's a cautionary tale in pitching woo.

I have things to write, and no time right now. But since UNREMITTING MIKE was so taken with my star sighting, and invoked Allen Ginsburg, I direct you more recent readers to an old (pre-UM and Peteski, and maybe even you, Steve), "celebrity encounter" from my tender freshman days at old Brunonia. I think you'll enjoy it.

The rest of you, sorry for the redundancy, and please be patient.

The Best Picture Show

I went to see The Last Picture Show last night at The Egyptian Theater/American Cinematheque with Texas, as it's a favorite for both of us. It just gets better and better each time I see it. Truly a masterpiece, maybe even a top 10 all time movie, in my humble opinion. It's a perfect film, and a lesson in nuance, the unspoken, showing not making explicit in the dialogue, three dimensional characters, and fine acting all the way around. And the cinematography. Exquisite. The camera should tell the story to some degree in film. Remember the scene where Sonny's been exiled from the main street businesses and he's driving slowly past in that beat-up truck, watching the people in the pool hall, and the diner, as if they are moving on a conveyor belt? Camera work can connote emotion. It's amazing.



Anyway, I'm standing at the popcorn buttering device before the flick, and the two guys next to me are debating whether or not to salt the popcorn, and I say without looking, "It's not salted." Ya know, trying to be helpful. I look up and it's old Peter Bogdanovich, who just stares at me as if, well, I'm not sure what. Did I step on his toes? Was he thinking "Who is this creature? Oh the impropriety? " I have no idea, but that was a star sighting worthy of mention for me. When I got back to our seats and told Tex how I'd put my foot in my mouth with the directing legend, Texas 'bout came out of his skin with excitement when told him. And then the old fellow came in the auditorium. Texas could not stop grinning every time he looked over at Mr. B. He was so happy it was utterly charming. After, he thanked the man. I threw popcorn at him. Not really.



It's a shame he doesn't make movies of this caliber anymore. I'm a huge fan of Paper Moon (1973) and am crazy forWhat's Up, Doc? (1972), which is simply one of the funniest films ever, and a retelling of one of my all-time favorites, Bringing Up Baby.

I had this thought last night, one I've had before - the film industry is having a fair amount of trouble these days, and generally not giving us a lot worth the ten dollars plus. So why don't they take existing masterpieces, especially those as relevant today as they were decades ago, promote the hell out of them and get the American public well fed again? I think people tend to eat what you put before them, particularly if you tell them it's good. In the meantime, support your local art house theaters, if you've got them. There are worlds of old cinema just waiting to be sampled by you.

Sometimes It Doesn't Go Ok

I'm sure you've all seen the video that made Ok Go famous.

But have you seen this?

More Intelligent Design from My Street

My neighbor made the documentary Flock of Dodos, which airs on Showtime tonight. Go to the site and watch the trailer.

here is some response from the I.D. camp, and Randy's rebuttal, from the DVD extras: