Much Ado about NOTHING

Ten years ago today, I blogged the following:

My Life, My Duct Tape

I've been advised to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape, just in case a chemical warhead explodes somewhere in the vicinity. (I live near a major Northeastern megalopopolitanapolis that is, in fact, favored by terrorists.) Plastic sheeting is in short supply around here, but duct tape is no problem--I'm always well supplied, as I have a near fetish about the stuff. Every winter, I tape up the condo's drafty windows with white duct tape, and many of the tiles in our bathroom are held in place with it. (We're saving up to remodel the bathroom, needless to say. Meanwhile, waterproof duct tape is literally holding our walls up).

Those are just two of the many practical uses for this amazingly versatile adhesive. I've even been known to hem my trousers with duct tape. It works--sticks--until you wash them, at least.

There are all sorts of other fun uses for the stuff. A girl I once knew in my salad days was a real blabbermouth, and I threatened to tape her mouth shut one afternoon. She loved the idea (having perhaps seen too many movies about kidnap victims). I taped her up, and she enjoyed going "mmm, mmmm" for an hour or so, while shaking her head and rolling her eyes. I taped her wrists and ankles, too, at her request. Childish fun!

Go out and get a roll. You can never have too much.

Link Mania

This site must be popular. I blogged about it exactly 10 years ago today and it's still there.

Hollyweird's Small World

No doubt you've heard of "six degrees of separation," the notion that any person in the world can be linked to any other through a chain of--at most--six acquaintances. Hollywood is a much smaller domain, of course. According to The Oracle of Bacon, almost any actor who has appeared in a feature film can be linked to any other via only two or three connections--one of which is Kevin Bacon. Don't believe me? Go to the site and type in the name of the most obscure film actor you can think of.

~~~

Meanwhile....

The Beatles Complete... on ukulele

Messy desk, messy mind? No.

Ten years ago today (give or take a day or two), I posted this:

"If you're a 'knowledge worker' feeling guilty about all the clutter on your desk, you can stop now. Psychologists say the 'mess' actually constitutes a useful 'mental map' of what's going on in that busy little head of yours. At least that's what this article claims:

In praise of clutter"

The article is still online and still interesting.

My cubicle at work isn't overly cluttered, but it does contain a few idiosyncratic items (besides my laptop and big-screen monitor):

• A wind up robot toy
• An old-fashioned green-glass insulator from a telephone pole, used as a paperweight
• A tiny Lucite house with an attached roach clip that holds up a spiky seed pod
• A stack of cards with quirky statements on them (such as "Anonymous: Nobody knows my name" and "Cake Walk") that an artist gave me
• Three very small framed artworks: an abstract; a picture of dark clouds (or possibly flying saucers?) hovering over a landscape; a stylized picture of a male figure being inundated with electronic zig-zags
• A mousepad that looks like a Persian carpet, which I inherited from a former employee
• A vintage 1913 postcard that says "Greetings from Newark"

So that's my mental map... just so you don't get lost.

Random Acts of Poetry: Saturnalia Sentiments

Exactly 10 years ago (give or take a day or so) I posted this poem I wrote, probably when I was feeling a bit stressed out by it all. I'm not always so "bah, humbug", but I think this expresses one aspect of the holiday.

Fa la la

Red, green, red, green--
your lights nictitate like
arrogant cop cars,

making my eyes throb
as your garlands drip
Yule-shine onto the crust

of this decomposing snow.
All night you're dreaming of
the right Christmas--

gilded Styrofoam,
tinsel and trash beneath a tree
of wires strung like nerves.

Let's admit that you're dying
to get it over with,
the frozen fa-la-la

for that suckling in the cow trough,
who will someday wander
the tepid Israeli hills

in dusty sandals,
knowing nothing
of such nonsense.

(Originally published by Melic Review)

Much Ado about NOTHING

Ten years ago today, I blogged this (as part of a larger post):

"Unfortunately, I used my bare hand to reach into the bag and grab the salt pellets, not realizing what this might do to my skin. I ended up with something resembling a mild sunburn on my right hand. When I was finished, I ran upstairs, washed up, and sprayed lots of Solarcaine (left over from last summer) onto my burnt digits."

The context is that we were having a blizzard at the time, and I was spreading salt on the front stoop to melt the ice. A "sunburn" in a snowstorm. How do I get into these weird predicaments?

Random Acts of Poetry

Xmas looms, but I'm "slouching toward Bethlehem". I have no gift ideas. My extended family has decided not to exchange gifts this year. Nobody around here seems too anxious to put the tree up or festoon the front porch. There's too much going on -- on at least three separate tracks -- to even think about egg nog. Not that I'm a Scooge, even if I am tempted to say "bah humbug" under my breath. I still have a list for Santa.

My Xmas List

The drugged buzzing of winter flies
spiraling downward in a dream.

Loons in some Scandinavian night,
the woods full of moose.

An old ship, crossing the ocean,
cold waves slapping steel.

The sky pricked by stars
and exhaling frost.

A blaze of leaves dieing in a bonfire,
salting warm stones with ash.

~~~

Meanwhile....

Ten years ago today I blogged about The Metaverse Excuse-O-Mat, which is still going strong. Because things happen.

Word of the Day

My magnum opus is almost complete. A proof copy of my book will be arriving soon. Here's a little excerpt:

ghoti (noun)

Alternate spelling of "fish".

"Perhaps try eating more ghoti – it's meant to be brain food."
--Catie Holdridge, writing-skills.com

"ghoti" can be pronounced "fish":

* gh, pronounced like "f" as in tough;
* o, pronounced like "i" as in women; and
* ti, pronounced like "sh" as in nation

I have eight ghoti at the moment, in a 10-gallon tank. Room for a couple more, I think....

~~~

Meanwhile....

Ten years ago today, I blogged this: "Britain's least-coveted literary accolade [is] the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Prize.... Read about this year's winner, Wendy Perriam, whose novel, Tread Softly, is about "bunions, panic attacks and abuses in old people's homes." I included this excerpt:

"The jargon he'd used at the consultation had become bewitching love-talk: ... dislocation of the second MTPJ ... titanium hemi-implant .... 'Yes!' she whispered back. Dorsal subluxation ... flexion deformity of the first metatarsal ...'"

Photo of the Week

I just can't bring myself to eat these left-over Halloween candies, which they handed out to everyone at the Samhain party I attended. Supposedly, the flavors are licorice, chocolate and almond. It all sounds good, but I can't get past the, um, macabre factor. Munching on tiny skulls would make me feel like a Jurassic Park monster or, worse, a Brobdingnagian cannibal into some kind of weird voodoo.

Actually, I just made that up. I snapped this picture at an antiques fair last August. Apparently, this used to be someone's jolly little collection of stone boneheads. Feeling morbid? Click the pic for a closer view.

~~~

Meanwhile....

Ten years ago today, I blogged this:

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a famous king from history:

Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs - Alexander the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

But now I'm wondering: what about the queens?

Much Ado about NOTHING

Good Deed

There I was, walking down the street, lost in my vagrant thoughts, when out of the crowd came a desperate plea: "George! George!!"

A white-haired woman with thick glasses grabbed my arm and repeated "George!" Since my name isn't George, my first thought was that she was some kind of lunatic, or maybe a pick-pocket. She had quite a strong grip and refused to let me go. "I'm not--" I started to say, thinking that maybe she had mistaken me for someone else. But she interrupted with a lot of whimpering jabber in what sounded like an Eastern European language, and I began to wonder if it was really "George" she was saying, or just something that sounded like it.

Then she pointed across the boulevard, which was full of speeding traffic. I gathered that she wanted help crossing. Now, I was never a boy scout, and it was out of my way, but I've never in my life refused to help someone across the street. Always before, though, it has been someone handicapped or infirm who has asked me.

This woman, despite her age, appeared to be quite healthy enough to cross on her own, and in fact it was more like she was crossing me as we shambled across the boulevard. She pulled on my arm to hurry me up as the DON'T WALK sign began to flash. "OK, OK," I said, walking faster. All the way across she kept whining in a pitiful way, and I decided she must have a phobia about traffic or being hit by a car.

When we reached the opposite curb, I assumed my good deed for the day was done--but no. She pointed to the other side of the cross street and started saying "George!" again. My arm was still a captive, so I let her pull me across that street, too.

Finally, she seemed to be done with me, but before letting me go she murmured "nice man" a few times and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I watched as she toddled down the block to the next cross street, whereupon she grabbed another guy's arm. I wondered how many streets she would cross that day, and how many "Georges" she would find in this crazy city.

Word of the Day: canorous

canorous (adj)

Melodious; musical.

"The dull life at Oxford was varied by the occasional visit of a mesmeric lecturer; and one youth caused peals of canorous laughter by walking round in a pretended mesmeric sleep and kissing the pretty daughters of the dons."
--Thomas Wright, The Life of Sir Richard Burton

I'm tired tonight, so here's one from the archives. I wrote this (somewhat trite) bit of tripe back in 2002, when I was full-time freelancing -- and new to blogging:

"While I'm editing, I like to listen to music. Not just any music. I usually listen to film scores, "ambient" music or jazz--music without lyrics, because it allows me to concentrate. I can choose to listen, or let the music function as white noise, depending on what I'm doing at the moment. I suppose that's the purpose behind Muzak, too, but elevator music has always annoyed me. It's "calming influence" is just too damn manipulative. I think they play it in stores because it encourages people to buy more stuff--it tranquilizes any concern about spending too much. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

"Today, I've been listening to a beautiful, classic film score by the great Alex North: The Long, Hot Summer. It's from an old (1958) Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward movie based on some of William Faulkner's short stories. Very lyrical and literary--just the thing to listen to while editing a long treatise on financial conditions in Thailand!"

Word of the Day: autoschediastic

autoschediastic (adj)

Extemporaneous or improvised.

"In my perplexity in meeting this danger, I was also aware of the vagaries and diverse and conradictory conjectures of this Bible-wrecking cult and of its many autoschediastic asseverations. I recalled some of the answers already given by history."
--Howard A. Kelly, A Scientific Man and the Bible

Here's something I wrote once in a moment of autoschediastic scribomania:

"While standing in line at the bank today, I saw a woman wearing a (faux) leopard-skin hat. It reminded me of Bob Dylan's song, "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat," on the album Blonde on Blonde. When I think of a blonde (with an "e" on the end), I think of Marilyn Monroe, who sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in one of her films and, speaking of diamonds, was married to a baseball player, Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio, after his baseball career ended, became a TV pitchman for Mr. Coffee, a machine for making . . . coffee. And I love coffee. I like to grind the beans myself, and drink it black. "Black as midnight on a moonless night," as FBI agent Dale Cooper said when asked how he liked his coffee. Cooper was a character on a TV show, one of my all-time favorites, called Twin Peaks. The peaks referred to in the show's title were two mountains, although the phrase "twin peaks" is supposedly also a juvenile euphemism, referring to a woman's breasts. There are many euphemisms for parts of the body, both male and female, most of them "vulgar slang," as the dictionary says. One of them is "pussy." A pussy is also a cat, a feline, and leopards are members of the cat family. Before leopards became endangered, their spotted skin was highly prized for use in women's coats and, at one time, "pillbox"-style hats. You can see a leopard-skin pillbox hat, which has been made into a lamp, here."

Think Cubic

"When the Sun shines upon Earth, 2 major Time points are created on opposite sides of Earth – known as Midday and Midnight. Where the 2 major Time forces join, synergy creates 2 new minor Time points we recognize as Sunup and Sundown."

It's still there! According to Nature's Harmonic Simultaneous 4-Day Time Cube, you are stupid and evil*. And you don't even know it.

*For ignoring the 4 days. "Cube Divinity transcends all knowledge, Humans can't escape 4 corner Cubic Life.... 4 Days rotating simultaneously within a single rotation of Earth. Cubics comprehend it. You are a Cubic Thinker, or [a] SnotBrain."

Quote of the Day

Five years ago today, I posted this quotation here on T&T. It bears repeating I think.

"Writing is one of the most easy, pain-free, and happy ways to pass the time in all the arts. For example, right now I am sitting in my rose garden and typing on my new computer. Each rose represents a story, so I'm never at a loss for what to write. I just look deep into the heart of the rose and read its story and write it down through typing, which I enjoy anyway. I could be typing "kjfiu joewmv jiw" and would enjoy it as much as typing words that actually make sense. I simply relish the movement of my fingers on the keys. Sometimes, it is true, agony visits the head of a writer. At these moments, I stop writing and relax with a coffee at my favorite restaurant, knowing that words can be changed, rethought, fiddled with, and, of course, ultimately denied. Painters don't have that luxury. If they go to a coffee shop, their paint dries into a hard mass."
--Steve Martin, "Writing Is Easy"

Random Acts of Poetry / Photo of the Week

After Hard Rain

A puddle
makes a sad mirror,

another plane
of shadows.

Here a sky,
there a darkling

stain,
any fool can say

what's true.
At peace,

your thoughts paint
quietly

a slow river.

~~~

Click my pic, Rick...

Random Acts of Poetry

Ode to a Grecian Urn

1.

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

2.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

3.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

4.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

5.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

--John Keats

Random Acts of Poetry

Solstice

Winter calls you back like a long-lost pearl.
The sky unfreezes at your gaze. Old stars blink out
as you rise above these ringing hills.

We can exhale at last, our faces tilting like pious flowers
at an outdoor revival. Your forgiveness
defies cold logic. Our mouths gape; we're stupid fish.

I don't deserve to live,
any more than a scabrous lizard deserves to bask on a rock
in the palm of the desert.

Ultra-violet
burnt me one summer; I could only stagger, red and tight.
I learned to fear you that year.

But the paltry days twist every misgiving inside out.
I wear layers of woolens,
my breath steams our cold panes, I shiver in the dark.

Today this spinning planet bows to sanity.
Ice will crack and slide
from the roof. Each new year, a gift.
---

My ode to spring, from a few years ago.