According to Google

According to Google

I can never understand why . . .

people like to talk metaphorically.
anyone would want to come to my house.
a person from England cannot get in my car and drive with out messing up.
Spielberg never re-released it in the cinemas for the 20th or the 25th anniversary.
people bother smoking.
my mother never left him.
a woman would want a man back who had done her so wrong.
people of his quality can be out of the game for as long as he was.
people assume that everyone knows where to find the pics they reference.
he lies to me.
some men seem to get so much pleasure out of looking at what they know they will never touch.
it isn't busier, as you can really taste the difference, especially when it comes to freshness.
they do some of the things they do.
parents don’t teach their children how to answer the phone, speak properly, politely, and clearly into the mouthpiece, and to write down all messages, even if from relatives.
God would have spared a poor Finnish girl when all those rich people drowned.
people set out to make victims of others.
I still want you.
a young man who has a full head of hair shaves it all off.
some people actually prefer their coffee black.
some aspiring authors can't see writing as any other kind of work.
satanists follow this spiritual prick, when they know that he hates them with a passion and that he only wants their souls to burn along with him on Judgement Day and for the rest of eternity.
people want to read anything at all about writers.

Digital Sushi

Digital Sushi

I can remember
a lost boy at the back door
too afraid to knock

~~~

sunshine chilled by wind
truck tires spin on an ice patch
I need strong coffee

~~~

the marble pillars
seem to touch the passing clouds
in a bad painting

Quotes of the Day

Quotes of the Day

They will declare: Every journey has been taken.
You shall respond: I have not been to see myself.

They will insist: Everything has been spoken.
You shall reply: I have not had my say.

They will tell you: Everything has been done.
You shall reply: My way is not complete.
--Alexandros Evangelou Xenopouloudakis

We believe that labels are important, but mostly for bottles of wine.
--Christo and Jeanne-Claude

The Advertising Slogan Generator

"Gee, your Twists and Turns smells terrific"

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Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

He Married a Mermaid

He married a mermaid
who caught him like a fish
in her tangle of seaweed.

He married a mermaid
and gave every sand dollar
to his chicken of the sea.

He married a mermaid,
and they played with the dolphins
at the edge of a whirlpool.

He married a mermaid,
and her salty kisses
dissolved his tomorrows.

He married a mermaid
and ignored the pale men
floating in her wake.

He married a mermaid
and drifted ever further out to sea
while tiny scales grew over his eyes.

He married a mermaid
whose love songs
were the cause of many a shipwreck.

He married a mermaid
whose embrace was an undertow
dragging him down to airless depths.

He married a mermaid,
but he was always alone.
No mortal woman dared intrude on their reef of dreams.

Word of the Day: gammerstang

Word of the Day

gammerstang (n)

A tall, awkward woman

"Every gammerstang needs her Pygmalion," suggested Mr. Bosthoon, as Phoenicia glared down at him.

Snow and more snow

Dig It

I've spent much of the day shoveling the same patch of snow over and over again. It reminds me of the myth of Sisyphus -- you know, that ancient Greek fellow who was condemned to roll a stone up a hill, only to have it roll back down again, over and over. The snow just keeps on falling in thick curtains, rendering every object obese and white. The only thing I like about it is the way it sparkles. I remember as a kid trying to find the diamonds in the snow.

Here's a short story I wrote (and won a contest with) about digging my car out of the snow:

Snow in the City

Word of the Day: Salmagundi

Word of the Day

salmagundi (n)

A mixture or assortment; a medley; a potpourri; a miscellany

Clive, an inveterate packrat, lived amidst a heaping salmagundi of inutile junk.

Idiot Wind

Quote of the Day

"Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe . . .

You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies."
--Bob Dylan

Hell

It Could Be Worse

You could be living in Hieronymous Bosch's hell.

Unhappy Meal toys: Hieronymous Bosch action figures. (via Incoming Signals)

Quote of the Day: Transcript of remarks between Boxer and Rice

Quote of the Day

"Now, the war was sold to the American people, as Chief of Staff to President Bush Andy Card said, like a 'new product.' Those were his words. Remember, he said, 'You don't roll out a new product in the summer.' Now, you rolled out the idea and then you had to convince the people, as you made your case with the president.

"And I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. And I don't say it lightly, and I'm going to go into the documents that show your statements and the facts at the time."
--Senator Barbara Boxer, at Senate confirmation hearings for Condoleezza Rice, nominee for Secretary of State here in Bizzaroworld

More here

Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Child’s Monster

A monster once trolled our local scene,
big as a thunderhead, with brains of jelly,

looking for meat, belching a lava stream,
scorching everything with its anger.

Mad creature from a fever dream,
vomited out by a restless sleeper

onto the rocks of the palisade,
those serrated cliffs,

it stumbled through our landscape
roaring its hunger for vengeance

from its head full of toothy mouth,
ringed with tentacles.

But only a diet of trash could be found,
green slime, salads of kelp at the beach,

and clouds dripping sips of bitter tea--
an intolerable menu.

This fiend became ashamed of its ugliness,
the way it frightened the birds,

and soon enough it began to shrink, slowly,
like an old balloon.

It shook and raged as it imploded,
and began to resemble a heap of dead leaves.

The monster then went flat as a stepping stone,
and sank into our damp backyard

till only its face remained, turned up to the sky,
as if waiting for help to descend.

Today, we keep it hidden and confined
to a picture in a children’s book.
_

Deep Thoughts

Deep Thoughts

Very cold here today. Little rivulets of ice on the sidewalks. You have to do some fancy footwork to avoid a spill . . . I see lots of people walking around with scarves tied over their mouths. No hat -- just a scarf over the mouth, like a bank robber from the Old West. And they say 90 percent of your body heat escapes from the top or your head (not your mouth). And cold air doesn't cause colds--germs do. Mysterious . . . There's some demolition work going on in the apartment below mine. Walls are being torn out, and my floor is vibrating. I don't live in an earthquake zone, but I imagine that this is what it's like . . . Saw a picture of myself in the local arts newsweekly today -- or rather a dark smudge where I was sitting in the audience at a poetry reading a couple of weeks ago. I'm just a gray blob head with two glowing eyes, but at least I'm not the only one . . .

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation

Some people think their Japanese T-shirts or tattoos are cool. Many should think again.

12-Step Internet Recovery Program

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Try the 12-Step Internet Recovery Program.

Quote of the Day

The Madness of King George

"George W. Bush is ill . . . To quote Jung, a person in a position of power who has become dissociated like Bush 'even runs the grave risk of believing he has a Messianic mission, and forces tyrannous doctrines upon his fellow-beings.' He then believes that any action he desires is justified in the name of God, as he can rationalize it as being God's will. Unable to self-reflect, he is convinced of the rightness of his viewpoint, which he considers non-negotiable. This is a very dangerous situation, as Bush has become unconsciously identified with and possessed by the hero, or savior archetype." --Paul Levy, "The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis"

More here.

Word of the Day: deipnosophist

Word of the Day

deipnosophist (n)

Someone who is skilled in dinner-table talk

Garvin's reputation as a deipnosophist almost made up for his notoriety as a cook.

Lost Highway

Lost Highway

I always find ruins and abandoned structures fascinating--they're like tangible ghosts, or portals to another time. The abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, for example, is a slowly crumbling road back to the late 1960s. The pictures make me want to hop in a Corvair and take a drive through the scenic PA countryside.

Ah-Choo

Ah-Choo

I have a bad cold, the first one I've had in a long time, and it's sapped a lot of my energy (which is why I haven't been posting here much). To reduce the symptoms, I've been taking Suphedrine, a no-name, non-drowsy knock-off of Sudafed. It dries up my sinuses and stops the coughing, but makes me feel like I'm living in a dream world. I have a slight feeling of unreality and apathy, as if I'm watching the world go by on a movie screen. It doesn't bother me too much, except when I'm driving.

Selecting a cold medication at a drugstore can be a challenge. Six-hour relief, 12-hour relief, non-drowsy formula, sleep-enhancing formula, quick acting or long lasting, nasal decongestant or cough suppressant (or both), name brand or drug-store brand . . . And still no cure for this affliction.

Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Hiking Down

A mountain tilts beneath his feet,
falling to a stilled turmoil of glacial rock--
layers of millennia cracked
by insidious weeds and grasses.
He is tired of hills,

their indifference to aching calves.
He follows the wind to a jagged field,
where it sets the shrubs to shaking,
shrugging, before they straighten again,
slowly, in silence. He rests.

Here, the sky's blue compassion
is marred by a single puff,
a whitish mold sent by the city.
It drags a shadow, a memory,
a momentary grief that chills and passes.

The hovering mountaintops are beyond him.
He would rather contemplate
each weed, each pebble that frames his boot,
untroubled by enormity,
the catalogue of obstacles.

What should I put on the Fence?

Apropos of Nothing

There's this fence in London. It attracts many strange objects.

What should I put on the Fence?

(No, this is not a "flash" game -- it's a real fence.)

Word of the Day: Volitation

Word of the Day

volitation (n)

The act of flying; flight

Dreams of volitation led Professor Spillman to invent many crash-prone flying machines.

Consciousness Streamed

Consciousness Streamed

"Chinese" water torture: a dripping faucet is driving me mad. Time for the Reader's Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual . . . We're still getting Xmas cards -- or, I suppose, I should call them New Year cards now. Actually, sending New Year cards is a better idea, I think. There's usually so much more time in the days after Xmas to send them out . . . Note to self: Turn off water at valve before attempting to fix faucet. This I learned the hard way . . . So much discouraging news these days. "I always try to look at things as though I were remembering them three years later," Alfred Hitchcock said when asked how he stayed so calm in the face of disturbing events. Good advice . . .

Quote of the Day: "Kind of a Shame"

Quote of the Day: "Kind of a Shame"

"There is only one traffic law in Ramadi these days: when Americans approach, Iraqis scatter. Horns blaring, brakes screaming, the midday traffic skids to the side of the road as a line of Humvee jeeps ferrying American marines rolls the wrong way up the main street. Every vehicle, that is, except one beat-up old taxi. Its elderly driver, flapping his outstretched hands, seems, amazingly, to be trying to turn the convoy back. Gun turrets swivel and lock on to him, as a hefty marine sargeant leaps into the road, levels an assault rifle at his turbanned head, and screams: 'Back this bitch up, motherfucker!'

"The old man should have read the bilingual notices that American soldiers tack to their rear bumpers in Iraq: 'Keep 50m or deadly force will be applied.' In Ramadi, the capital of central Anbar province, where 17 suicide-bombs struck American forces during the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan in the autumn, the marines are jumpy. Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching with 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: 'If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them,' says a bullish lieutenant. 'It's kind of a shame, because it means we've killed a lot of innocent people.'"
--Quote from The Economist, January 1st-7th 2005 issue

Ah, well. Shit happens on the road to freedom. Right?

(via James Wolcott)

Machine-age Mandalas: NYC Chainring Archive

Rings 'n Things

Machine-age mandalas: Bike Works NYC Chainring Archive

Round and round and round it goes, and where it stops, nobody knows.

(via boynton)

Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Resolution

The history of smiles
is a book I haven't finished,

despite this calendar of empty days,
my cloud-like sofa warmed in the sun,

the now hushed familiar voices:
"Do you want to? Will you?"

I gather each piece of myself,
my tarnished résumé,

the list of old promises and lost names,
a bottle of flat wine and the moldy apples,

all together in a net bag,
open the window and fling them.

There's a chrysanthemum of sparks.
Why not make a ritual of ashes?

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear.

eye of science

It's a small world after all

Amazing, somewhat creepy photography of microscopic objects and critters: eye of science.

Monster Mash

A "mash up" of clips from 40 Beatles songs in one mp3 track: link. Surprisingly, sounds great.

(Both of the above via Boing Boing)