Singer Died in Idyllic Setting Where She Sought New Life

this kind of story just breaks my heart.
maybe I'm a sentimental, over-sensitive fool.

ok, ok, I know posting referrals is obnoxiously self-indulgent, but I just get such a kick out of some of them.
today's highlight:
perverse frau hair photo.
it just doesn't get much better than that.

so, you vant to be evil?
Eartha Kitt could tell you how, but otherwise you can enlist the help of The Evil Plan Generator.

also- I grew up thinking that only my weirdo family did this egg fighting thing- we did it at Easter, with all the pretty eggs, although we did hold the eggs differently.
Apparently it's all the rage with the kids (and men) in Kabul.
and now that I'm googling for it, I see more mentions of it (go to fourth last paragraph) in Afghanistan.
ah- I see it's being "revived after being banned with other forms of gambling."
I guess we weren't quite gambling when we were kids, since we didn't keep each other's eggs.
in fact, it was better to lose, because then you could eat the egg.
yum.

I love Gorgonzola

when people find out that I pick up the occasional children's book, they invariably tell me I should read Lemony Snicket books, and I finally picked one up yesterday. I'm not convinced yet. I've only read a little bit so far; it's definitely not what I was expecting (next to the His Dark Materials trilogy it's almost Mother Goosey, but it's also clearly written for a younger audience).
but as the book itself points out:

"I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong. You can look at a painting for the first time, for example, and not like it at all, but after looking at it a little longer you may find it very pleasing. The first time you try Gorgonzola cheese you may find it too strong, but when you are older you may want to eat nothing but Gorgonzola cheese."

cell phones are evil, part 1

it used to be that when you'd encounter your mail carrier at your door, he or she would hand you your mail.
earlier the mail carrier rang the door bell and threw a package in the door. when I went down to get the package a second later, he had all the mail for the building in his hand, and he said hello, but then his cell phone rang.
he turned his back to me and took the call, ignoring me for several minutes before I gave up and came back upstairs, sans mail.
sheesh.
or maybe I just expect too much of the world.

I'm house-sitting in an apartment that I once lived in for four and a half years.
it's very surreal.
Right now across the street they are hauling away huge signs that say "Lady" and "Baltimore" from the defunct "Lady Baltimore Cake Co."
When I lived here, it was "Carl's Pastry." It had been here for years and years, and I used to love the big pink neon sign.
When I found out it was closing, I was sad until I remembered that their pastries weren't very good.

Last night Deb and I went to part of the PuppetLOVE!, Festival of Radical Puppetry, to see Max's latest, and a few other puppeteers (Il Teatro Calimari from Portland, and Puppets and Pie, Oakland).
Max's piece ("the sand child," based on the novel) was beautiful and mezmerizing. and her musicians were awesome.
the other groups were great, too; very funny and clever and inspiring.
I'd forgotten how amazing it feels to laugh like that.
I'm in love with puppets (again), suddenly.
note to self: see something that makes you laugh out loud at least once a week.
have you ever seen a Charlie Chaplin movie in a theater? and heard hundreds of adults and children laughing from their bellies?
it's something of a healing experience. and so was last night for me.

From SF Gate's Day in Pictures:
As it turns out, the oldest burned-out stars in the galaxy are not touring with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

and a Jeff Danziger cartoon:
"Remember, Father Joseph. You're in the most immoral country in the world..."

on my way home this afternoon on the 5 Fulton, I was happily nodding off in my book when a whole gaggle of kids got on and sat right behind me in the back of the bus.
they were normal, loud kids- maybe around 10 or 11 years old.
I was trying to read.
suddenly- an overpowering stench.
omigodcan'tbreathewhattheheckisthat.
fart.
no.
rotten eggs (times 20).
no. but closer.
ohlord.
stink bombs!
the little assholes.
it cheered me up immensely that they lit it too early and had to suffer through with us.
some people had to get off the bus, it was so bad. I was near a window, so I survived (but barely).
they tried to get another one lit but couldn't get it together in time.
it's going to be a while before I can eat eggs again.

I read about 826 Valencia on mightygirl.net, and I think it's swell. Here's their little "about" spiel:
"826 Valencia is a writing lab for San Francisco students, ages 8 to 18. Our primary goals:
- To provide a drop-in center for one-on-one tutoring in writing
- To provide support, technical expertise and materials for student publications
- To provide training in various digital and print-media software programs
- To help other organizations provide outlets for students interested in writing and publishing"
Its co-directors are Barb Bersche and Dave Eggers, who wrote that heartbreaking work of staggering genius so many people are wild about.
oh, yeah, and McSweeney's is his thing, too. As if you didn't already know.

Last night we went to the Starlight Room to celebrate Deb's birthday; we had great fun ordering food and drink that was well beyond our means, dancing (pas moi), and generally getting schnockered.
Deb and I saw Bill Maher on our way out- he was getting out of his limo with some (gasp!) skinny short blonde (he's not a tall man) and looking very crabby.
We topped it off by going to the Owl Tree, always one of my favorite spots, and one that I never get to anymore. The place is covered with kitchy owl stuff everywhere. The jukebox is great, although the idiots in there last night chose to play "best of the Eagles." The seats are fabulously red, and the basket of chex mix type stuff will be refilled as many times as you empty it- you even get a wet-nap.

There is a little more I could write about New Orleans, but not much.
Bourbon Street is awful.
I wish I'd seen it during the day, had a fruity drink, and then not gone back.
at night it stinks like vomit and booze, and the crowd is obnoxious, trying to pretend that it's Mardi Gras, flaunting and flinging beads, yelling at women to show their tits. The locals hate this.
I hate it, too.
I did get to go for a long walk from the Quarter down Magazine, into the Garden District. I didn't see Anne Rice's house, but I stumbled on a cemetary by accident, and that was cool.
I planned poorly, and did all my walking during the day in black jeans; it felt like I was wearing leather pants in a sauna. At least having sandals on helped ventilate me. Iced coffees tasted like heaven. The air conditioning in the antique stores made shopping for enormous mirrors and trunks and things very appealing. I settled for a lovely scarf and a weird old keychain with some very old-looking dice in it.

Tiddley Pom
"Christopher Robin, age 35, takes a bite of a brand new day."

put a little sugar in my bowl

I'm back from New Orleans, and my feet are killing me (dancing and walking and new sandals); I'm sleep-deprived (aforementioned dancing); and my back hurts (damned airplanes).
and I've had more than my share of beignets.
Both times I approached the Cafe Du Monde, I was discouraged by the awful tourists everywhere. I mean, I've been in some really touristy places, but somehow in the heat and humidity and slowness of everything, the nervous hum of tourists is grating beyond belief.
One order of three beignets costs you a trifling $1.25, and it's your only option, so go for it. They're made to order, though it only takes a few minutes. I saw three young women ask for one order- so they each could have one- and their request was met with barely disguised scorn. Eating one is like walking into a pastry shop and only sniffing. Apparently, it's simply not done.
The cafe itself was so crowded that I took my little bag of warm treats to a nearby bench. At first, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed splotches of white on the sidewalk below me, but it wasn't until I fished the first beignet out of the bag that I realized what the splotches were.
There's about a cup (no kidding) of powdered sugar in the bag with the beignets, which are about half covered in it. I don't know what the etiquette is, but it seemed to me that I had two options- either eat and dunk into the sugar repeatedly, or take the bag and shake. I opted for the latter. Call me lazy.
A tip: if you are not at a table, remember not to eat your beignet over your lap. You will be covered in powdered sugar. Either lean way over to the side, or spread your legs like a cowboy, and then dig in. For some reason they're too hot to hold, but not too hot to eat. Also, remember to grab some napkins. You'll need them.
It's difficult to describe what makes these "fritters" or "doughnuts without holes" so damn good. They manage to be light and airy, yet substantial; doughy, but not gummy; tasty, yet not overpowering. They're not dainty, finespun creations, like French pastry, but they're not crude, exactly- it's more like the experience of "home-cookin'": nothing fancy or pretentious, but you'll dream about it later in your life.
I had a cafe au lait to go with them. The chicory makes their coffee murky, strong, almost chocolatey. Funny that what started out as a filler when coffee was too expensive became a permanent part of the flavor experience.
Afterwards I walked slowly around the city, wishing I could sit up on someone's balcony and watch the people go by. I realized that I could never live there- the food, the booze, the hours- it'd be too easy to stay up all night and sleep all day, eat lethally delicious foods, and go out for drinks and dancing every night at 4 am. Maybe I should try it out for a few months, but if I stayed I'd end up a scary old lady, making homemade absinthe, home remedies and potions in the room behind the kitchen and wearing too much rouge on my wrinkly cheeks, frightening the neighbor kids. Maybe real conversion from yankee german girl to southerner is impossible. I'll probably never know.

going to New Orleans for two and a half days; sort of a work thing- won't be as fun as it could be.
leaving tomorrow at the crack of dawn. back Friday night.

A man must properly pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra had to be subsidized. -- John Barrymore

in case you're curious-
Atomz, the lovely folks who supply my free search window over there, have informed me that the top searches for this site in the last month have been:
1) corn fritters,
2) ducky, and
3) magnetic panties.

well! I'm pleased.

I'm about a year behind in my movie watching, but I finally rented Hedwig and the Angry Inch last night, and oh, am I sorry I waited so long.
I just have one question: Where are the Oscars for John Cameron Mitchell?

I'm dead serious.

who wants to buy me a castle?

ok, I'll start saving my pennies.
if anyone would like to go in on this with me, email me.
it has a moat, for crying out loud!
antiques sold separately.

getting paid to order room service?

it's becoming more and more apparent that I do not have The Right Job.
I took home someone else's copy of the Weekend section of the Wall Street Journal, and goddamn it, there's an article about room service.
Two reporters visited 28 hotels in at least six cities (Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, D.C., LA, and Miami), stayed a night, and ordered room service.
I was gnashing my teeth on the bus by the time I'd finished reading it.
I mean, what's up with that? clearly I have not followed the right path.

huge, steaming and free

today I received an email with "Hey Susan, do you remember me? it's Samantha" in the subject line.

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I believe in it, I do!

there's a revival going on tonight at the baptist church down the street.
boy, I'd love to go see what happens in a modern urban revival.
I'd probably get so emotional (it's a weird reaction I have to Baptists) I'd end up weepily getting saved.
maybe in a former life I was dunked in a river, wearing a white dress, crying and shouting.

Blogger now has a new feature in Pro; you can send an email to a secret
email address, and it will show up as a post on your blog.
it's still in beta, and there are some kinks, but oh, is that fun.
I'm so easily entertained...

"We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -Oscar Wilde


One of my favorite parts of our trip last week was the sky.
Every night we had an enormous, cloudless desert sky, and boy, was I glad I'd remembered to bring my star book at the last minute.
I learned to identify about 15 new constellations, on top of the 5 or so I already knew.
considering that there are only 88, and about half of those are visible at one time, I think that's pretty good.
the last night it got very cloudy, and lessons were over.
We also saw Saturn!
very exciting. K was the first to spot the rings in the binoculars. I just thought it was blurry, but when I looked again, I did see it.
along with two of its moons!
There's a very pretty star cluster in Cancer called M44-
and another, smaller one in Coma Berenices.


here's my little list:
I may need the book to pick a few of these out again, and a few of these I sort of knew before.
Casseopeia
Cepheus
Perseus
Lepus
Auriga
Draco
Hydra
Virgo
Cancer
Gemini
Leo
Taurus
Hercules
Corvus
Crater
Coma Berenices
Canis Major
Canis Minor
Boötes
Corona Borealis
Leo Minor
Sextans
Camelopardalis

Good grief, if you surf the internet long enough, you might actually learn something useful.
Apparently the Big Dipper is not a constellation at all, but an asterism, which "are sub- or supersets of constellations which build a constellation itself, or a group of stars, physically related or not. Best known is the Big Dipper as a part of the Great Bear."

How to Get Rid of Telemarketers:
"We’ve been expecting you"

I guess some people can throw away those "I am Arthur Andersen" t-shirts now.

The Racetrack is a really gorgeous playa (dried up lakebed) at an elevation of 1131 feet in the Panamint Range in the west of Death Valley. People will love to tell you that the rocks on the playa move mysteriously by themselves. There are trails of hundreds, even thousands of feet long left behind by the rocks. While there's no absolutely proven scientific explanation, it's pretty widely believed that the wind pushes the rocks along under the right conditions: after it rains, the surface of the playa (which is very much like clay) becomes extremely slick and slippery.
Click the USGS link above for some cool photos and a more detailed explanation.

there were many lizards.
this little horned guy was pretty okay with posing on K's hand for a minute.

we're back from Death Valley, and we're dusty!

details and a few photos to follow.
the reality of daily life sure kicked me in the ass immediately, but I'm trying to cling to the last bits of memories of freedom and open air.
waaaah.