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I freakin love Penn JilletteNothing makes housecleaning more pleasant than having a wonderful audiobook blasting throughout the house while I do it. Yesterday, as I started making and canning applesauce from my bounteous tree, I downloaded Penn Jillette's new book God, No! from Audible.com I pay for a $15/mo subscription that lets me download one book a month, no matter what the cost. This works great for me because I hate abridged, and sometimes the unabridged books cost $25+ so I'd never plunk down unless I had this subscription making them cheaper. Although, granted, I doubt I would buy a book a month, so I'm probably not coming out net ahead, but I've successfully tricked myself so let's not examine that too carefully.
Listening to: Penn Jillette reading. . . Reading: God, No! Weather: 13, yes, 13 sunny degreees!
I'm a big fan of Penn. He's a wiseass atheist libertarian illusionist with long hair and a juicy voice. What's not to love? Well, some of the libertarian stuff, but let's skip that for now. He had a radio show for a while that was available by podcast, loved it. He had a biweekly videoblog on Rev3, loved it. He appears on various TV shows, including his series with quiet magic partner Teller (quiet modifies Teller, not magic) called Bullshit on a cable network, and whatnot. Love.
I'm only about 1/3 of the way through listening to this unabridged audio version of God, No! read by the luscious man himself, and I couldn't love this fucking book more. Clearly I was primed to love it, but I have literally laughed out loud a dozen times already while washing dishes or mopping or canning with this book on. OK, I haven't really mopped, my kitchen floor is pretty gross right now.
Even if I hadn't been totally ready to love this book, I couldn't help but love it once he got rolling. It's not a book about atheism, even though the chapter headings and title might indicate it is, it's mostly a memoire replete with hilarious stories of Penn's exploits and encounters. The circumstances themselves are hilarious. But probably what keeps me so connected and laughing with him is the perspective. He's coming at the world as an atheist, perceiving and getting perceived by people in a variety of situations as an atheist. Me, too! And we don't get a lot of this in popular culture, characters, real or imagined, who walk around with the worldview of not believing in the collective imaginary friend bullshit that most of the rest of the humans presume is as real as tooth decay. Or kittens. Yeah, there's Greg House and Sheldon Cooper and the dog on Family Guy, but those guys are mostly cartoonish and one-dimensional. Penn is the real deal, 360 degrees of smart, funny, sensual, longhaired dude.
It's so refreshing to just let your hair down and listen to a book without having that constant nagging pushback that I tend to have against characters who are believers in what I find to be silly nonsense. I can hardly describe this feeling of kinship I have with this big hilarious guy I'll likely never meet. Almost every word of this book I keep thinking, yes! Exactly! OMFG, me, too!!!! You have to have some backbone to be an atheist in america, even more so in wv, so I can clearly take being an outsider to all the deluded masses fighting over which tooth fairy is the real tooth fairy. But it's just so unexpectedly nice to hear a voice of reason and sanity and nonbullshit, even just telling a funny story about Extreme Elvis's fat naked ass performing in the pool or recovering Hasidic jews eating bacon cheeseburgers. It's exhilarating, a bonus feeling to get especially while hacking through the drudgery of housework.
A couple of things Penn has mused about so far have particularly hit home with me. One is this notion of proselytizing, and that if you're really a right-on dude, even though it annoys the living shit out of every victim you levy that crap on, if you really believe in it you have a moral duty to proselytize. And hard. He makes a great analogy: if you see some chumps on the track, and you see a train coming, wouldn't you be a huge asshole if you didn't get yell out "hey, get off the track, here comes the train!" And if they yelled back "yeah, we don't believe in your stupid train, Hitchens and Dawkins say there isn't even a track, so piss off," a really good guy would run over and knock them off the tracks to save their own sorry asses. Right? Right. So even though the JW's drive us crazy, at least they have integrity, as compared with the more typical churchy-for-holidays-and-funerals types walking around going along with crap they never even examine.
Another great metaphor he throws out there is that he thinks virtually all the believers even carry a kernel of disbelief around with him. Like Jackson Pollock or Philip Glass, he says he loves modern art and music but like a little pebble in his shoe he has a little ray of wonder whether his 3 year old could create something equally killer as those cats. Yes! Fuck, yes! I always thought most believers probably have this, too, but would NEVER admit it!
I don't want to give this whole book away, so suffice it to say I highly recommend this book to anybody, but particularly to any atheist out there who is not offended by copious use of the word "fuck," and who is looking for some light humorous reading dotted with crystal moments of shining truth. I also highly recommend the Brilliance audio version of the book, as it is read by the author, who is a great reader with a luscious voice.
permalink posted by cat 9:04 AM
Saturday, October 15, 2011
some kinda ecstasy got ahold on meI'm sitting inside at my computer rig watching the fall winds blow. I guess you can't really see wind, but I'm having a moment of appreciation that the remaining leaves are trying hard not to get knocked off the little oak tree at the fenceline while I'm comfortably chillaxing in my windless office room. It's all somehow amazing today, why, I don't know. Some kinda ecstasy got ahold on me.
Listening to: Bruce Cockburn Reading: Breaking the Spell, Daniel Dennett Weather: 48, windy, partly sunny
Maybe it's the supercool beernight evening I shared with my buds last night. Maybe it's the buckets of apples and baskets of pears I have on my porch and in my kitchen, all of which came to me free (though I got a couple of multiflora rose thorn pricks picking apples). Maybe it's the badass pies and sauces and jams I've been making from them. Maybe it's the visit I'm getting from Spring and Summer and Alan and Jurni later today. Maybe it's the Occupy movement that is gaining momentum and, though a little vague in its ambitions, is a little ray of hope that the wage slaves are awakening from the consumption fog. Maybe it's the cool wallpost I got from hippie Walt on last.fm.
But I know what it is. It's just a sweet constellation of neurons inside my head. I think of myself as my consciousness, my mind, an intangible metaphysical thing. But it's all just neurons. It's all just a physical thing, just anatomy. My mind is actually my body, and vice versa.
Which brings me back to other pieces of my anatomy, specifically (not that, you perv) my left heel, which has been giving me trouble for a few days. I can't decide if it's plantar fasciitis (which my mom has had, adding fuel to that theory) or a heel spur. Either way it makes walking painful, especially when I first get up in the morning. And it hurts in a weird part of the step, like not when I'm on my toe, not when I'm on my heel, but partway in between, youch! I've had the true great fortune of rarely having aches or pains to complain about, and I've tended to give short shrift to the pains people bitch about, considering them to be pussies. But now I'm starting to have a little extra sympathy for those complainers. OK, so I've learned that lesson, this pain is now no longer needed in my ankle, it may move on. It's harshing my mellow.
Did I already mention recently that nameless somebody pulled out some actual Afghan Kush the other night in nameless place at nameless event? Oh holy shit, what a perfume, both in the bag and in the bowl being combusted. This planet provides some extraordinary delights for the senses, no? My friend at work brought me fresh figs picked from his tree yesterday, deliciousness you just can't buy. Just a constellations of molecules, I know, but damn, y'all.
Alright, enough of my silly ecstasy already. Tonight is the Zombie Walk, and I made some cool little flyers to pass out: picture of a crucified zombie jesus, says "he died for your sins, then he came back for your brains!" Then under that my caption "don't be a zombie, think for yourself!" and up the side "you've been touched by an atheist." Promises to be a fun night.
permalink posted by cat 9:28 AM
And the pain sounds more like Plantar F., which Jan and I have both had.
: 5:04 PMSaturday, September 17, 2011
You new girlfriend/boyfriendHave we already had this conversation about how I'm finding it a bit disconcerting that I deduce from your social media posting about your new girlfriend/boyfriend that you've left your wife? It's starting to get on my fucking nerves a bit. It really shouldn't bother me. It was a little jarring when just before finishing packing the car for a camping trip a year or two ago I check my Facebook and see that a close family member of mine has changed her relationship status from "married" to "it's complicated."
Listening to: Big Country Reading: Breaking the Spell, Dennett Weather: 50, partly sunny Wtf? Of course it's complicated, you're married, dumbass. A couple of more distant friends/acquaintances recently gushed about the new girlfriend on a post (one Facebook, one Google+) which sent me to click over to their profiles to see if status had changed. Yeppers, there it is. And one started posting about new boyfriend causing my astonishment since she was married to another chick already. Oy.
I wonder, did these things happen around me in my obliviousness before, and then perhaps right themselves again later without me knowing? Or did they just happen and I never knew or forgot I didn't know at some long future point? Why do I even give a shit about getting mildly startled by these nonchalant one-offs that reveal something I consider to be substantial news?
I'on'tknow.
I'm kinda tiring of the whole gay marriage discussion in part because I find most marriage to be bullshit anyway. Why fight for something that really just a government stamp of approval on who you decide to regularly lay anyway? Why give perks and preferences to married people over unmarried? Why does the Social Security tax coming out of Sally's paycheck only get to support her partner if she's legally married and he's a dude? She pays the same tax either way, but gets less benefit (WAY less benefit) from it if she's not fulfilling some very old very tired fairytale that wrinkly white guys continue to impose on us all. I'm pretty confident you're no less likely to live happily ever after if you choose to do it alone, or with 3 dudes, or somebody whose genitalia looks pretty much like yours. Divorce rates are pretty high (especially among xtians because god apparently hates them (Oh relax, I kid. Imaginary critters can't actually hate.)).
I say let's abolish marriage and all the stupid undeserved privilege that attaches to it. Everybody on equal footing to strike his or her own bargain with the apple of his or her eye. A brave new world of relationship statusi on Facebook and the like. Don't you think you'd be on somewhat better behavior with your significant others if you had to design your own contract, and rather than for perpetuity it had, say, an option for renewal after a specified period? Yeah, I think you would.
And that might just happify a few more campers, I believe. Add a little more mindfulness into the mix. Think for yourselves rather than just assume the one-size-fits-all will actually look good on your pudgy ass.
Not like there much room for more bumper stickers on my old Honda, but I believe it's about time for me to slap on one of those "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm" ones. Preferably with sparkles.
permalink posted by cat 11:52 AM
Saturday, August 27, 2011
foraging v. gardeningOff-topic (or is it?), the way I seem to learn about all my male acquaintances' divorces is when they refer on some social media to a girlfriend. It's funny, because the several I'm thinking of right now are people I've only met a few times, and am only likely to see in person every couple years or so. My only exposure to the marriage has been the various social media postings, which have tended to be a gushy about the awesome wifey. So funny how I never noticed they apparently stopped talking about awesome wifey some time ago, and then suddenly it's all gushy about awesome girlfriend. It's mildly annoying to me, not really all that interesting, except that it seemed to have happened with several men I know within a short period of time and exactly the same way, from my perspective. I did 5 minutes of googling on one at first mention of girlfriend, then went back to see in the comment thread someone else said "I thought you were married," to which the dude replied "not anymore." Settles that. Another one I looked up to see Separated in the personal info on Facebook, to my surprise. Perhaps they were foraging instead of gardening.
Listening to: TWiT Reading: Shadow of the Hegemon Weather: Overcast, far from hurricane Irene Back to it. I've been a gatherer of black raspberries for a couple decades, but typically gave up fairly easily once a cereal-bowl's-worth accumulated in my hand on any given outing. And rarely went beyond the yard or the road I'm on to find the berries. But a couple or three years ago it was a particularly bountiful berry season, plenty of early spring rains, and the birds had been berry berry good to me (cheers, fellow cellist Garrett Morris!) and planted a shitton (are 2 t's necessary/appropriate?) of black raz and blackberries in a bodacious spot under my biggest apple tree. I became pert near obsessed with berry gathering. I woke up planning when to pick that day, I mentally catalogued which berries were in which stage of ripening, I jumped all over interlopers who picked a berry with the slightest blush of red still showing by the stem. I drove down roads I never even saw before in search of the berry motherlode, gathering all along the way.
Berries on cereal, berry pancakes, berry cake, berry syrup, berries in seltzer, and sheets upon sheets of individually frozen berries passed through my kitchen. Then came the jamfest. Jam takes alotta berries, so I think I got something like 16 or 20 halfpints of jam, some black raz, some blackberry, and was ecstatic. Gave a precious few as gifts, carefully put a little on toast now and again, and horded the remaining few. Dreamed of the next berry season, even of the scratches and pricks that would cover the backs of my hands, forearms, and ankles.
I've gathered plenty since then, and though I'm still zealous, I'm somewhat less obsessed about the berries, as my zeal has broadened to the foraging of more and more savory and rare plant foods. This spring was a bizarrely prolific morel season around here. I found one in my yard just feet from my kitchen porch. We found a dozen right next to Larry's driveway. Though mushrooms are among the more dangerous foods to forage, morels are pretty easy to distinguish from their toxic doppelgangers. It just pushed my foraging lust further.
Then came gardening season. As usual, I merely put a few food plants in pots. This year I've just got a few herbs. But Larry has his massive garden, and I have had the great pleasure of picking, shucking, washing, snapping, canning, pickling, and freezing a bunch of his bounty. And eating, of course. Lettuce, a precious few beets, onions, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, green beans, peppers peppers peppers, and tomatoes have been on the menu. Glorious. Reminds me that not all that is delicious can be foraged, by far.
So I've been contemplating the cultivated versus the foraged. Foods that make it in the wild where you live are likely to be exactly what your body wants, I imagine. But until I can get a fat cabbage outta the woods I'm hanging out with the gardeners. The foraged foods tend to be stronger tasting, packed with sweet or bitter. The gardened foods tend to be juicier and milder. In the organic garden ya get bugs, which you deal with in various ways, we mostly smash by hand. In the wild, ya get bugs, but often not so many, cuz the food that survived somehow successfully hid from or partnered with other plants to defeat its bug nemeses.
Time to exit this seat and freeze some fresh sweet corn and pickle a few more beans.
permalink posted by cat 8:44 AM
Monday, August 22, 2011
maybe the Amish have it rightI might be totally offbase on this characterization, but I believe that the Amish are opposed to education beyond the basics. I think they cut kids off at 8th grade. I think it's part of a belief that knowing too much beyond what you need to live a simple natural life doesn't make for happy healthy people.
Listening to: summer insects Reading: Shadow of the Hegemon, OS Card Weather: just gorgeous I'm starting to agree. I have always noticed that music, in particular, is something that most people around me can typically enjoy more than I can. I believe that is because I know things about music that make me quite critical, such that I hear things that I know to be crappy that many others don't detect. Your out-of-tune violin makes me want to fucking kill myself rather than listen to it. A band's mix that has the bass all blatty with no clarity or highs makes it so I can hardly enjoy a note, even of my favorite song, or perhaps especially of my favorite song. Your cheesy overused guitar riff in that heartfelt song you wrote encourages me to start mentally writing my grocery list before verse 2, while your other friends are hanging on every word.
I like beer. My friends like beer. One of my circles of friends has been slowly developing a sophisticated knowledge of the craft of beer over the past 15 years. We have tasted and critiqued and learned about hundreds of handmade small batch brews, and though we each have different preferences, none of us is any longer likely to throw a 30 pack of PBR in the cart, as I did many times in my teens and 20's. Now when even when I'm with a (different) group of people I absolutely adore, and the circumstances are perfect, and we all get down to some beer, food, music, and comradery, when someone hands me an ice cold Budweiser, I cringe.
Thank goodness I never could afford any of that super skunky red-haired crystally weed some of my friends pull out before they melt into the couch for a few hours. I still actually prefer brown outdoor schwag, probably cuz I barely know better.
So it appears to me that learning a lot about the things you really dig makes it hard for you to enjoy the bottom 90% of it. Does Ebert hate most movies? Or just think about what color the new livingroom carpet should be during them? That kinda sucks, doesn't it?
Pondering. But not too hard.
permalink posted by cat 10:21 AM
: 4:01 PM
Saturday, July 30, 2011
21 quarts of greenbeans last weekend, how many today?This hot, sticky weather is wearing my ass out. But the beans won't wait. And I want some pints (it's nice to have a pint when you just want some beans and don't see eating an entire quart within the next few days). Of course pints cut your canner load volume in half - you can only fit 7 jars in the footprint of the canner, and it doesn't care if they are quarts or pints. So pints means two canner loads for the same volume of beans. I suspect we'll do a load of quarts first and see how beat and sweaty we are before deciding on jar sizes for load 2.
Listening to: TWiT Reading: believing brain Weather: beany Too mundane for your reading pleasure? Probably. But this blog is a journal of sorts that I use to look back on, so sometimes I bore myself almost on purpose to enter data for lata.
Little black kitten who periodically appears and hangs out on my porch likes Meow Mix. Still won't let me pet her (him?)
I'm trying to avoid getting overwhelmed by the antifracking movement. It's necessary, and appears to be having some effectiveness, but like the hot sticky weather is wearing my ass out.
Amy Winehouse is dead. I feel sorry for her mom. Looks like addiction was wearing her ass out.
The looming frack attack is making me think of the Dust Bowl. Someday we'll look back on the green grass growing fields of today and wish it weren't just dust.
Dust Bowl Children – Peter Rowan
Papa’s name was Hannibal, Mama was Hanna-Mariah.
Everything we owned got all burned up in the great depression fire
Strip mines and one crop farming drained the green earth dry.
We lost it all till only love was left, and the one thing money can’t buy.
Yeah we’re all Dust Bowl Children
Singin’ the dust bowl song
Well, the crops won’t grow,
And the dust just blows
And the green fields are gone.
And the green grass growing fields are gone.
When the green fields are gone.
When the green grass growing fields are gone.
Well, they said in California, there’s work of every kind.
The only work that I got out there was waiting on a welfare line.
Once I had a dollar, once I had a dream.
Now all the work is being done by a big ole machine.
Yeah we’re all Dust Bowl Children
Singin’ the dust bowl song
Well, the crops won’t grow,
And the dust just blows
And the green fields are gone.
And the green grass growing fields are gone.
Let the green fields grow strong.
There’s a bluegrass revival going on.
Let the green fields grow strong,
There’s a grassroots revolution going on.
permalink posted by cat 7:28 AM
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
urban exploring and urban foragingThis weather's been a bitch, finally a little break today. 90's and high humidity and 70's at night for 2 weeks. Relentless. I don't tend to bitch too much about the weather, but dang, y'all.
Listening to: a/c white noise Reading: believing brain Weather: 83, sunny, less humid Haven't been doing as much walking and wandering because of it. The black raspberry season was more comfortable than usual, got plenty in then. But since then I've been wussing out in a/c most of the daylight hours.
My last roadtrip to downtown Wheeling for work inspired me back to an old interest of mine: sniffing around old, abandoned buildings. There's plenty of possibility for that in Wheeling, so much big, beautiful architecture and industrial stuff from the 100 years ago prosperity, which was followed in the 70's by the fall of the steel industry and the economic downturn from which Wheeling has never recovered. Truly stunning stuff just waiting to get explored.
I watched a doc about "Urban Exploring," this very notion of digging around clandestinely and illegally in old abandoned structures. There is a moral code proposed and apparently often followed by organized UE enthusiasts. A take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but dusty footprints kind of approach. Keep your locations on the downlow, don't advertise. Be cool, take some calculated risks for good benefits but don't be stupid.
Fascinating. But what really rocks is the photography. Just google "urban exploring" and start checking out images, holy shit.
On a somewhat related note, you know I've always been into foraging, and I started ruminating more and more on this the past 2 or 3 yrs. Now I find on the fabulous interwebs that there's a whole dang "urban foraging" movement, too. Though my foraging tends to be way more rural than urban (as does my exploring), there's plenty to be learned and enjoyed checking out this urban foraging thing. In that vein, I noticed a fruit tree in the Aldi parking lot yesterday (didn't shop, just parked there to get onto the railtrail for a very brief walk) and got closer to see pears. I grabbed a couple within reach (even though the best ones are always up a few inches past the fingertips!) and put them on my counter to ripen. Looking forward to juicy sweet bites of free fruit here in a few days.
permalink posted by cat 1:34 PM
Monday, July 18, 2011
RJ Vealey, Run For Cover, Atlanta Rhythm SectionMan, there's nothing quite as tasty to me as that special jazz-flavored style of southern vocal pop rock from the 70's. Think Atlanta Rhythm Section, Allman Bros, Orleans, even Little Feat. There's something uniquely luscious to me about those tunes, the arrangements, the hot vocals, crunchy guitars, double leads. To me it sounds particularly influenced by some of those chaps from across the pond, like Thin Lizzy, Fleetwood Mac, and others. Nobody can play a rolling 12/8 like these bands, especially ARS.
Listening to: Doraville, ARS Reading: Believing Brain Weather: thunderstorm, sticky I put on an ARS greatest hits album pretty frequently when I'm either in the car on a long trip or in the house looking at a stack of scrubbing to do. That stuff winds me up, those triple division of the beat tunes give me a good energy shot. And then those sweet melodies give me plenty of room to harmonize.
One of my undergrad classmates played drums for ARS, his name was RJ Vealey. He was a year or two ahead of me, I think. We didn't hang out together as much as find ourselves in the same places at the same times a lot. And I was a bit of a groupie for the jazz band he was in Run For Cover. That band also included a wicked guitar player who I remember only as JT who was also a drummer, and Craig Shields on sax (I had the mad hots for him)O, and on occasional vocals Dave can't remember his name but he was also a drummer, too. I remember they used to do various jazz tunes with which I was mostly unfamiliar but found them groovy, and a smattering of other stuff.
The smattering included People People by the late fuckin great Tommy Bolin. I couldn't get enough of that song. I stumbled across a used copy of the record Teaser at a flea market during that era and I played the hell out of that album. From there it wasn't a far leap for me to Mahavishnu Orchestra and then Weather Report and Return to Forever and whatnot.
But it took me a while to find my way to ARS. I remember those radio hits, and I really enjoyed them. But I never reached out and bought a record of theirs until years later, years after college. Not sure what happened, but I think it was Champagne Jam that did it. I can't get enough of that fine-ass song. Everything about it, the spirit of the party, the melody, the chord structure, the cool arrangement, that crunchy ripping guitar sound, outstanding vocals, and those tasty little details of the vocal arrangement that just gitcha, the way they slightly change up the rhythm on the chorus when he comes back.
I think it was after I heard about RJ's death (heart attack after a show, just 37 yrs old) that I took a closer listen to that stuff. I'm sorry I never got to see them with RJ behind the kit, he was a pretty sophisticated drummer, as I remember him.
permalink posted by cat 10:15 PM
Just had to throw that in there... Cya, Cat!
: 3:50 PMTuesday, July 12, 2011
testing Google+If my usage is any indicator, Google+ has more chance at traction that the ridiculous Wave or Buzz ever did. I wrangled an invite to the beta through Glitch the game. Therefore my Circles are mostly loaded with Glitchsters. So far I've found myself fairly quickly (a few days after joining) spending an almost equal amount of time in the morning and evening checking in on Google+ as Facebook.
Listening to: NPR Reading: Believing Brain, still Weather: sticky, 72 As is the case with all the social networks on the web, and in RL, too, my participation is largely dependent on how many and which of my friends are using. Facebook is loaded with my actual friends, as well as a boatload of my acquaintances. Google+ so far is mostly my fellow Glitch gamesters, most of whom I have only a limited game-style connection with. But Google+ is broadening that, I've already seen some location stuff create connections I wouldn't likely have made. For example I posted about the thunderstorm that passed through here last night and tagged it with my location, easy since I was using my Xoom tablet on my porch at the time, and it started a comment thread that included a gamer mentioning her DC burbs location. That's my old hood, I commented back. I also noticed on the mobile version of Google+ that I can scroll sideways to "nearby" and see a stream of posts from locations within some 30 mile radius of here when my location identifier is turned on. Very interesting and full of possibility. Even for us non-city dwellers.
I hear that ditty on NPR that means it's 8:00a, time to get my ass to work.
permalink posted by cat 7:51 AM
Monday, July 11, 2011
testing reinstallation of faviconTesting 1.2.3.
Listening to: Plant Your Fields, in my head Reading: Believing Brain Weather: hot like a crazy bitch
permalink posted by cat 2:22 PM
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Chitra Ganesh at the Warhol, and the Oxford commaNice trip to Pittsburgh yesterday with Lar, Liv, and Chris to see the Chitra Ganesh opening at the Warhol. Google her, she's awesome. Lots of bright colorful paintings and collages loaded with Hindu imagery and comicbook style. Some psychedelia, too. We listened to her present about her influences and work evolution, enjoyed a reception of free killer cookies and coffee and whatnot, and then started at the top (7th floor) and made our way down, as usual.
Listening to: Shine by Kevin Reeves Reading: Believing Brain Weather: gorgeous, sunny, 65 My favorite part is always the silver clouds room. Interactive. Big silver mylar helium-filled balloons shaped like rectangular pillows float around and you can push them and bounce them off each other and at your friends. They lazily float up and down with the aid of a couple of small fans. It's just delightful, really. Such a reward for looking at sometimes challenging sometimes boring sometimes weird art.
Who knew it had a name? The comma that some people use and some people don't between the second-to-last item in a series and the preposition that follows it. For example, the comma after "Warhol" in the following sentence: "We went to the Strip markets, the Warhol, and Loving Hut vegan restaurant." Some cool new acquaintance of mine from the Glitch beta community put on her Google+ profile that she's hot for the Oxford comma. WTF is that, I wonder, so I google it up. Sweet. I'm hot for it, too. It really gets on my freakin nerves sometimes when people leave it out. But apparently there's controversy about it's use, especially in American English. I've got shit to do or I'd lay down a variety of fine-ass examples of why it mostly works and a few where it causes ambiguity. I suspect you'll google and find that stuff yourself. Or not. Suitchaseff.
Speaking of shit to do, my dirty kitchen is calling and my internet is hinky, so I'm off like a prom dress. Enjoy this beautiful sunday, like me!
permalink posted by cat 8:03 AM
Friday, July 08, 2011
news of the worldWhat a surprise, Murdoch killed a publication. Apparently this tabloid has been around since 1843. Lately they've been hacking into phone accounts of various people including crime victims and have been bribing law enforcement. Sounds like pretty standard journalism from a Murdoch franchise (like Faux News and the Wall Street Journal).
Listening to: Sara Bareilles in my head Reading: The Believing Brain Weather: sticky, 70 But for a 70's pop music junkie such as meself News of the World means something else entirely: my first Queen album. 1977, a truly pivotal year in Western popular music, is when this record came out. It's got your Queen classics We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions on it. But it also has some truly delicious rock and roll including Spread Your Wings and It's Late (listen to the crisp yet crunchy guitar sound, Brian May is genius!), and luscious piano ballad All Dead, All Dead, and Freddie's lovely torchsong Melancholy Blues.
That would be the first of many many Queen albums I would save my money to buy. Got those cool green robots wreaking havoc on the cover, too. I never knew pop music could have so much breadth and depth until I heard this record. I wore the bloody thing out, practically. It was back in the days of vinyl, I set that arm on repeat and listened over and over to the same side, then flip, over and over for the other.
Shit, no more time to reminisce, gotta go to work. It's late, it's late, it's late, but not too late.
permalink posted by cat 7:32 AM
Monday, July 04, 2011
sweaty foraging for summer bountyThere's a lil black kitten, maybe 5 or 6 mo old, hanging out around my porch lately. He/she won't let me pet her, but she's happy to eat meat scraps and cake. Doesn't like milk.
Listening to: TWiT Reading: The Believing Brain, Shermer Weather: delightfully overcast It seems like a good year for just about every food plant that grows around here. I'm trying to stay posi on this, but I keep getting the creeping feeling that for most foods a good year is often followed by a not-so-good year, so next year. . .I guess we should just harvest a lot and preserve this year, just in case.
I have gotten serious about the black raspberries this year, for this and other reaons. I am scratched up, often bloody, purple-fingered, and happy as a pig in shit. I've been trying to pick berries at least 2 or 3 days a week, more pressure since the season is ending. Next up, blackberries. I keep paper bags in the car, I have saved them from fast food and chinese takeout, and I'll typically gather 1 to 3 cups of berries on my way home from work. Then I spread them out on the little metal trays from a toaster oven and put them in the freezer (it's a side by side, hence the need for the small trays), then once frozen I pack them in ziploc bags. I've got enough to make plenty o'jam some cold day this winter when I'm glad to be over a hot stove for a few hours! Hell to the yes. And after the blackberries will be elderberries, which locations I've been mentally cataloging while they bloom these days.
Let freedom frickin ring, Imma go see the Motown Municipal Band this morning a the riverfront. Nice overcast morning, I hope it lasts a little longer.
permalink posted by cat 8:43 AM
Friday, June 03, 2011
some years it's lilacThis year it's honeysuckle. In the spring sometimes when I'm driving with the windows down, heading to work or home, mind wandering, I am suddenly hit with an intoxicating floral smell. Some years it's early when the lilacs are in bloom. Some years it's a flowering tree that I don't know the name of, it has compound little leaves and clumps of small white flowers, kinda hanging like grapes, totally luscious almost fruity scent.
Listening to: Alan and Pappy chat Reading: Magic Street Weather: 50! sunny, gonna get to 80 This year it's a little later, it's right now and it's honeysuckle. You get blasted with a smell good enough to eat just randomly along the two-lanes. Such a nice surprise every time it happens.
It's time to keep a lookout for future black raspberry and blackberry scores along the roadsides. They are starting to flower, and you can see the arch of the canes dotted with white flowers as you drive. I like to keep a mental inventory of where the big patches are for when the berries start to ripen. Me and the bears are big fans of those dark berries. Especially black raspberries. You can't get them in the store, and they are beyond delicious. Last year I picked a lot, both at my house and out along the backroads and paths, and froze a bunch. Then later we made jam. I tried to make them seedless, but the black raspberry especially has small seeds many of which pass through my apple saucer. So the jam have seeds, but not tons.
I got kicked all night by a little Alan sleeping next to me, which kinda sucked, but this morning I got a cute little 4 yr old boy who crawled up in my lap and snuggled for a while. Worth it.
permalink posted by cat 8:04 AM
Friday, May 27, 2011
Delfest: another formerly cool festival killed by greedDelfest promoters got greedy and screwed fest goers this year. Sad to see such a formerly wonderful festival suddenly turn so crappy.
Listening to: toaster oven timer click Reading: Magic Street Weather: rainy like a mofo All three of the first DelFests were pretty awesome, even despite the hella microburst at DelFest2. In all the first 3 DelFests you camped right by your car in a perfectly designed area for that: rows of parallel gravel roads with about 15-20 feet of grass between each, each grassy area graded to slightly pitch toward the middle, so when the rain fell it drained down the middle and headed toward the river below. On the other side of a perpendicular gravel road toward the river was a lower camping area with some trees, bounded by the river. This area was walk-in camping only, you had to park your car just outside it. Seemed like it would be nice but we preferred camping by our cars and thought the lower area might be inhabited by skeeters in the evening.
This year a couple days before the fest started (yesterday) this notice appeared on the DelFest page:
New Camping/Parking Info The venue has significantly increased it’s [sic] camping areas in the woods by clearing out underbrush and low limbs. Expect to be parked tightly and efficiently, and to use the wooded areas for walk-in camping. You won’t be too far from your vehicle, but do not expect to camp right next to your car as we need to maximize parking space, and park efficiently.Most festgoers probably never saw that, since the daily schedule and lineups had been up for weeks, and most of us bought tickets and downloaded directions and info weeks ago. But even if you saw it, I think it was reasonably assumed by repeat festgoers that you could just choose to camp in the OLD camping area and park by your campsite rather than move to this new area. Or choose the old camping area that was walk-in camping and do it that way.
But you'd be quite wrong. This year THERE IS NO CAMPING IN THE OLD CAMPING AREA. THERE IS NO CAMPING BY YOUR CAR AT ALL.
To me, that is not what the website said at all. This fucked us all up in a bunch of ways, including:
1. We packed presuming we'd be camped by our car. We had to hump a shitzillion things to the campsite about 100 yards from our car, including heavy EZups and whatnot, and didn't bring a wagon or pack for hauling.
2. It thunderstormed like a crazy bitch, including hail twice, last night after we had all our campsite set up and all our stuff out, including our friend's teepee up. We couldn't just stash our clothes and stuff we needed to keep dry in the car quick, the car was a walk away. Lots of shit got soaked.
3. The "new" camping area we were ushered to when we got there was actually the old walk-in camping area down by the river and down grade from the parking lot. Not only is it flat and swampy, as opposed to the perfectly graded camping/parking area from last year, THE PARKING AREA ABOVE HAS PIPED DRAINS INTO THE WALK-IN CAMPING AREA.
Literally 4 inch black corrugated pipes drain the parking area to the camping area. 4. We did not discover this brilliant drainage system until we were sitting in the teepee on chairs while more and more water kept rising on the grass. We notice water spouting up about 5 inches out of the ground right inside the edge of the teepee at the highest point. WTF? A wetwater spring? After somebody reached his hand in to feel the ground where the water was spouting, he said "this is a freakin pipe."
5. We dig a little around it and see that it's perforated corrugated black plastic 4 inch pipe, the kind you use to drain around your house. We go outside to see if there are more pipes and where the pipe seems to come from, and the whole freakin camping area is ponds, some 6 inches deep.
6. Meanwhile, there's lightning all around and we are all ankle-deep in water. Didn't your mom tell you to get the hell out of the pool during a thunderstorm? yeah, I'm no electrical engineer but I know electricity grounds through water.
7. Back to lots of shit got soaked: doesn't matter how awesome your tent is if it's sitting in 6 inches of water your shit is going to get wet. All our bedding got wet, lots of other stuff. Thankfully we had brought a few plastic tubs with lids in which we stored batteries and electronic stuff. Saved that.
After the rain quit we took a little walk to the bathroom. We quickly started shivering, since the front that passed through had cold air behind it and we were entirely soaked head to toe. The music hadn't even started yet, but I just wanted to get someplace where I could find warm and dry clothes and a bed. Time to bail, we drove all the way home, planning to come back tomorrow and figure out some new bedding strategy since our sleeping bags and foam will definitely not dry anytime soon.
We missed Donna the Buffalo, Del McCoury, and the Infamous Stringdusters. But I was shivering and figured it can't be much fun to freeze your ass off and then sleep on a wet bed.
Thanks a lot, DelFest, you ruined my vacation so you could make more money jamming more cars in. Assholes.
permalink posted by cat 8:35 AM
: 10:16 AM