A Present for the Paranoid

Gift Idea

For that paranoiac on your Xmas shopping list:

The 'Safe Bedside Table' has a removable leg that acts as a club and a top that doubles as a shield for self-defence. This is for people who are willing to take on an intruder, providing an extra sense of security whilst in bed.

Of course you'd have to dump everything--lamp, alarm clock, water glass and sleeping pills, etc.--on the floor first. The noise might even scare the intruder away before you got around to clubbing him...Somehow, I doubt this will sell too well in the trigger-happy U.S. People here who worry about this sort of thing tend to sleep with pistols under their pillows.

(via Yet Another Damn Blog)

The Terminator

Tookie Terminated

Let's see. Who has the official power of life and death in this country?

Mr. Freeze

Conan the Barbarian

And of course...

The Terminator

Only in America, folks.

George Plimpton : Man of Letters. Man of Action

Paper Lion

Here is a groovy* site about the late writer, editor and professional dilettante George Plimpton. I remember my father, a sports fan, reading Paper Lion, a book about Plimpton's experiences as a pro football player for a day. (It was later made into an Alan Alda movie.) And several years ago, I read Plimpton's Edie, a weird book, assembled entirely from quotations, about a forgotten Warhol "superstar." It said a lot about the sixties, if not its blank-slate subject.

Plimpton loved fireworks (of the literal 4th-of-July kind), and the site's design and Java pyrotechnics reflect that.

*I'm tired of the word cool, so I went retro.

(via growabrain)

Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Cartoonist

It's yoga time upstairs
the creaking floor announces.
The fish wander in their glass prison.
I scribble in a notebook
making vague pictures, pinched faces.
My hand cramps
over ballpoint eyes and mouths.

There is a strange appliance
in the cupboard,
a thing that chops and grinds.
Why is it never used?
Silence. Someone's assumed
the lotus position.
It's not good to think so much.

These inky people look like maniacs.
"How do you spell relief?"
the radio asks.
I flip the page and find a snow field
ready to be populated.
Little people living in boxes,
their words floating off in balloons.

Create a Band Online

You Rock

You can assemble your own virtual rock band at CreateBands.com. I named my band Digital Dan and the Ringtones. It includes Adam on percussion, Hardcore Paul on rhythm guitar, Rachel on bass and Tommy on keyboards. They really rock, but their sound is a bit, uh, repetitive. A one-hit wonder I'm afraid.

Top 10 bookshops

Best Sellers

Author Jeremy Mercer lists his ten favorite bookshops from around the world. "I love all booksellers," he says. "Anybody who helps spread the word is doing noble work."

I'm not so sure. The only bookshop in my neighborhood isn't much of a bookshop at all--it's a "news" store that sells newspapers, magazines, knick-knacks and greeting cards in addition to books. Many of the dusty paperbacks on its shelves look, to put it kindly, well thumbed. I asked the proprietor once how much she charged for the "used books." She seemed insulted by the question and informed me that the books weren't used, just abused by her customers who, she claimed, read them but don't buy--and that whatever it said on the cover was the price. That's why I don't buy books there, but I do stop in every day to pick up the newspaper and, occasionally, a magazine. And I've never seen anyone reading books in the store.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

"First of all, I am a real Minimalist, because I don't do very much. I know some minimalists who call themselves minimalist, but they do loads of minimalism. That is cheating. I really don't do very much."
--Robert Wyatt

19th-century and early 20th audio recordings

Oldies. Real Oldies

At the Cylinders of the Month Archive you can hear mp3s of pop songs recorded on wax or tinfoil cylinders in the 1890s through the early 1900s. I suppose the artists, nearly all forgotten now, were the Kelly Clarksons and Rob Thomases of their day. Sophie Tucker was the only name I (vaguely) recognized.

Happy Holidlays

Happy Holidays!

This is just wrong.

A visit from the FBI

Special Agent

We had the first snow of the year here this morning (Sunday), and I was almost enjoying my sidewalk shoveling. I was nearly finished when a long, black Mercedes pulled up in front of the apartment house next door. A rather shabbily dressed guy who looked like a skinny Santa Claus (he had a white beard anyway) stepped out with a big shovel and began to push snow from in front of the house into the street. Must be the landlord, I thought, although his grizzled appearance didn't match the role or the car. I smiled, but he ignored me, or maybe didn't notice me as he plowed the sidewalk.

I was about to speak to him when my young neighbor pulled up on his motorcycle. He's Asian--perhaps Japanese or Korean--and doesn't speak much English. "Hello, how are you?" he said. I was going to answer, but then I realized he was talking to the shoveler next door. "Hey how are you," said the landlord. It wasn't a question. "Do you have the rent for me?" "Tomorrow," said the neighbor. "I work tomorrow," Mr. Shoveler said, in what I thought was an unnecessarily nasty tone. "But I'm here today." "Tomorrow--no problem," said the neighbor. They went back and forth this way several times, saying the same things over and over.

While this ping pong was going on, I took a closer look at the Mercedes. There was a round sticker on the back window, and I squinted to read it: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"What time tomorrow?" the landlord finally said, and the standoff collapsed. The neighbor went into the house and Scrooge finished his shoveling.

"How-ya-doin'." he finally said to me. "Pretty good," I said, but he wasn't listening. He got back in his car and drove away.

For some reason, I kept thinking of that memorable quote from Hitchcock's North by Northwest: "Seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actor's Studio."

Word of the day: spondulicks

Word of the Day

spondulicks (n)

money; cash

"I haven't got enough spondulicks to take a street-car ride."
--Alice Hegan Rice, Calvary Alley