Random Sequence

Scenario 14 (excerpt 5)

"The idea is mantra pillows," said Henry.

"What?" Marsha said distactedly. She bit into another chicken leg.

"We install tiny, battery-powered speakers in pillows..."

"I GET it!" Marsha snapped, licking her fingers. "Another stoopid...."

"Oh, SHUT it!" Henry said.

"You and your limp buddies can't come up with a decent...."

"What about you? Huh? What was your genius idea? That idiotic singing dolly? That...that screaming little midget?"

"That was better that your tee-shirt idea," said Marsha. "What the hell were those dumb slogans? 'Soft-boiled Eggs'? 'Recovering Nudist'? What the...."

"You had to think about them!"

"Fooey!"

"Wait a minute, shut up a minute," said Henry. "I got an idea. What about movie-quote ringtones?"

"Frankly, my dear..."

(not to be continued)

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

Amused: I've been reading some odd little... I hesitate to call them books. They're more like pamphlets, containing stories (true or "almost true") about 19th-century and early 20th-century Jersey City -- the Frank Hague era. Weird, legendary stuff about walking corpses and apocryphal tales about charming criminals. I received them as a gift. Sometimes the most interesting things I read come to me by accident.... Annoyed: There's a new, mostly unfunny sitcom on TV right now (my wife is controlling the remote) that has a terribly phony-sounding laugh track. It seems so retro, and not in a good way.... Grateful: A guy at work gave me a cucumber and a green pepper from his garden. Tomorrow he's bringing me tomatoes. Real ones, not digital.... Paranoid: Consider... today, someone starts talking to me as if he's met me -- acts like he knows me -- but I know he hasn't/doesn't. This makes me think people are talking about me....

The Beat-itudes

"Here's the stone bible for you to collar that apple trickeration that will truly get your boots on! Say all you cats and chicks, don't be icky. Bust your conk on this mess and you'll be wailin' with the mellows."

Have a ball with this jelly.

Word of the Day: witenagemot

witenagemot (n) [wit-n-uh-guh-moht]

The assembly of the witan; the national council attended by the king, aldermen, bishops, and nobles.

"What did the new mayor discuss with his predecessor? 'The Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot, a session of the counselors (the witan) of a king in Anglo-Saxon England. Such a body existed in each of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms,' quipped Johnson, a reference to the tribal assembly of wise men who kept the king in check before the Norman conquest.
Weak rulers were dependent on the Witenagemot. Boris, it appeared, was happy to pick up tips from Ken on how to shake off the shackles of the London assembly."
--Patrick Barkham, "So, Ken, how does one run this Saxon Witenagemot?" The Guardian, Saturday 10 May 2008

I'm part Anglo-Saxon (English), part Celtic (Welsh), part a few other things. Ancestry doesn't mean much to me, but I love the English language and have devoted myself to it, for better or worse. For better AND worse.

(Witenagemot, by the way, is one of the words that the late David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary. The last one, alphabetically.)

Photo of the Week

I don't know why this thing appealed to me enough to take its picture. I wonder what its purpose is (or was; it was on sale at an antiques fair I attended). It's like a giant atom, or bundle of nerves, or some kind of 3D mandala. Or maybe somebody just had a lot of heavy-gauge wire (and a lot of time) on hand.

Yassas... Shalom... Ahlan... Guten Tag.... Namaste... Hola! saludo... Здравствуйте!

Hello to my international readers! I do wonder how much of what you see here is even comprehensible to you. In just the last 24 hours, I've had visitors from:

Athens, Attiki, Greece
Palembang, Sumatera Selatan, Indonesia
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
London, United Kingdom
Jerusalem, Yerushalayim, Israel
Cardiff, United Kingdom
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Singapore
Lekemba, New South Wales, Australia
Erlangen, Bayern, Germany
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Ecatepec, Mexico [City?], Mexico
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon, Mexico
Cebu, Cebu City, Philippines
Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland
Berlin, Germany
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Bogota, Cundinamarca, Columbia
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg City, Russian Federation

Peace, lurkers of the world.

Random Acts of Poetry

Meander

For a moment,
the shining street was lost.
Fog curtain,

Heliopolis behind a scrim.
The day found definition
in a ghost aperture.

I passed blunt corners
where stoics stood implacable
as kings on playing cards.

At Riverview's promenade
the gray birds were massing--
rock dove, living stone.

On the spiral walk
a figure beckoned
between ash and sycamore.

I stepped forward;
someone said, "Here you are."
Was I sorry I had come?

Train of Thought

You know who you are you lonesome tonight the minutes seem like hours of fun for the whole family matters to me first and last words can never hurt me and my monkey around the world of good going for gold rush hour glass of water wheel of fortune teller window screen capture and kill people who need people of the book store clerk's office of management and budget rent a car wash my face the facts of life in hell of it makes sense of touch tone and pitch perfect storm warning label it free sample our menu items of interest rate of change the subject.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

Excited: I'm looking forward to the reactivated Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre on Sept. 24-25. They'll be showing these films: Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell; The Stranger, directed by Orson Welles, and Charade, directed by Stanley Donen. I've only seen the Hitchockian Charade before, but I'd see it again. I want to see ALL of these.... Disgusted: Another mouse sighting this evening, on the kitchen counter. I need to borrow a cat.... Sleepy: I had to get up an hour earlier this morning in order to get to my dentist's office (in Manhattan) by 8 A.M. He wanted to check one of my teeth that's been painfully sensitive to hot and cold, though not so much lately, since I've started brushing with Sensodyne [product placement!]. It was a painless visit -- no charge.... Amused: I'm now following "alqaeda" on twitter, and whoever he/she/it really is, the stream is most entertaining.....

The T&T List

femtocells
green chilaquiles
Carla Sarkozy
M-theory
Novak Djokovic
Tortoise General Store
Inca Trail
The Salkantay Trek
Chock Full o' Nuts
zorse
From Prada to Nada
Avenging Angels

~~~

Attention fellow bloggers: You may have noticed that I have a "right nav" over there called Blog-o-Mat. I'm always interested in exchanging links (and traffic) so let me know if you'd like to join the list.

Word of the Day: valgus

valgus (n or adj)

Bone deformity; the state of being bowlegged or knock-kneed.

"Oh, I see you have valgus," Dr. Sapirstein said.
"Huh?" said Billy-Bob.
"Your legs."
"What about 'em?"
"They're, uh, perfect for riding your horse I guess, hmmm?"
"Well...yup. I reckon they are good for that. But it doesn't matter now. I lost my job on the ranch, dag burnit."
"Really? Why?"
"I couldn't keep my calves together."
--Leahcim Setag, Strange Loops

My bone deformity is in my left little finger, which I broke in gym class in junior high school. The school nurse thought it was sprained, but it was broken, and I never got it set. When it healed, it was slightly crooked. It still is. It's my one imperfection (other than a weakness for puns).

(Valgus, by the way, is one of the words that the late David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary.)

Much Ado about NOTHING

Sometimes I get obsessed with certain obscure subjects or objects. Currently, I'm obsessed with those diecast toy cars you can buy at Rite Aid and, I think, other drugstores.

They are quite accurate and detailed -- with doors and hoods that open, engines, and finished interiors -- and relatively cheap, so I've purchased several. I like the ones with the wilder styling, so I've concentrated on models from the 1950s and '60s -- the golden age of auto styling, in my opinion. The "oldest" one I have is a 1949 Ford Woody and the "newest" is a '68 Corvette. The most outrageous is a red 1959 Cadillac Eldorado convertible -- you know, the one with sky-high tailfins and rocket-tube tailights -- fully six-inches long.

I must be entering my second childhood.