whoa cowboy

I couldn't find a way to permanently link to this particular Farley comic strip, so I hope that Phil Frank will forgive me for displaying it here:



Every year I intend to listen to the State of the Union address. something always comes up, or I forget, or I get fed up, start screaming, and turn it off.
This year I turned on NPR about three quarters of the way through the speech, and almost immediately tuned out after the fifth time the Shrub said, "nucular." Speech coach, anyone? for #@%&*! sake, man. I couldn't take it.
So, I tried the best I could. Hey, it's not that I don't care about the state of the union; it's that everything that comes out of his mouth makes me want to retch and/or throw things.

weapons of mass destruction
thanks, Chris!

and Arianna Huffington's Detroit Project.
nice tv ads!
via Laura Holder

The Castro is hosting the San Francisco Film Noir Festival, Noir City, this week, and I made it to see a double feature tonight:
Shakedown, a truly gritty, fabulous film- apparently originally named "The Magnificent Heel"- about a photographer who realizes that he can make more money with bribery than journalism. He gets a little greedy; he's not quite smart enough, and doesn't last long. The screenplay is a gem. It's a rare film, which is a bummer, because I'd like to see it again soon, if only to write down some of the best lines...
The Raging Tide was a weird little film about a murderer who hides out on a fishing boat, only to discover that he loves the life of a fisherman. The fisherman comes to love him like a son. Criminal redeems self through selfless act, resulting in his death, and everyone else lives happily ever after. Shelley Winters plays the lonely, not-so-bright girlfriend. (Before the film, the director of the festival mentioned that she had a reputation for getting parts for reasons other than her acting abilities. well, gee- I wonder how she got top billing on this one.)
On my way home I stopped for a beer in a neighborhood bar I occasionally visit during happy hour. mistake! I forgot that all the idiots in the city go out drinking in my neighborhood on the weekends. I drank the fastest beer of my life, blew my favorite bartender (kneedeep in youngster yuppies) a kiss, and got the hell out of there. I miss my old restaurant schedule- bars are nice and peaceful at midnight on Tuesdays...

Last night I went to see Rabbit Proof Fence, which was beautiful and sad- it made me want to howl. Instead I cried like a baby. Afterward, in a hungry daze, I wandered into the Virgin Mega-Hella-Corporate Music store and bought the soundtrack, by Peter Gabriel, and some Nick Cave (yes, best of, because I'm damned lazy). I went in looking for the Chita Rivera/Gwen Verdon recording of Chicago, but they only had the movie soundtrack and the 1998 London Cast Recording, and while Ute Lemper is one of my favorites, I just don't want my Velma Kelly to have a faint German accent...

rereading some archy and mehitabel...

from the lesson of the moth:

we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty

and archy says:

i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

I read a very long article from last Sunday's Chronicle about a shark attack that happened over Thanksgiving weekend of last year- the whole drawn-out story nearly made me lightheaded.
No, I've never seen "Jaws."
but then I practically fell on the floor laughing when I read that the surgeon, Dr. Brian Schmidt, "spent much of the rest of the day singing, 'When the shark bites with his teeth, dear...'"

the Insecurities Project
diamonds are for never.

via Harrumph.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,

and toughness multiplies toughness

in a descending spiral of destruction...

The chain reaction of evil --

hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars --

must be broken, or we shall be plunged

into the darkness of annihilation."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

today I went to the San Francisco Peace March. Police apparently said that between 50,000 and 75,000 people were there, but organizers say 200,000. It was huge.
I didn't take many photos this time- some days I'm too entranced by everything I see to want to look at them through a lense. All I could think was that each of these people, this absolutely enormous crowd, was beautiful. So many different kinds of people, all walking and shouting and singing and clapping; how nice to feel so connected to so many people, just for a few hours.

penguin soup

Zoo penguins intent on futile 'migration' / S.F. flock swims round and round in pool

I won't quote the whole article to you, but it's very funny and sad.

"In early 2000, Sea World in Aurora, Ohio, was sold, and its Magellanic penguins, accustomed to swimming all winter, were shipped to Sea World in San Diego. Half a dozen of them moved to San Francisco in November, and they met their new colleagues 3 1/2 weeks ago.
Since then, nothing has been the same.
Within two hours, the three males and three females from Ohio -- smaller and more docile than their mean and hefty San Francisco counterparts -- had convinced the 46 to jump in the pool with them. Now they swim most of the day and stagger out only at dusk.
The San Francisco penguins are inept at aquatic dining, and their Ohio brethren never had to deal with sea gulls jumping on their heads.
Some penguins are thinner, Tollini said, since they 'eat less than they would if they were sitting on their asses.' It's harder to give them medicine. When they're on Penguin Island, they're nervous wrecks. And when their pool is drained on Thursdays, she said, they're all bug-eyed and they bump into each other like pinballs."

a rough translation (where's my dictionary?):
don't gossip!
be as a linchpin
in these days;
walls overhear,
and it's not far from
chatter to gossip
to treason

Eli is saying so long, but we're saying "see you soon!!!"

today

-Create A Comic Strip
-Oliver's Nose
-Procrastination
-internet crushes
-the fish in Glasgow

what he said!

I'm only at the end of the second book, and I can't seem to express myself with more than a few words at a time, but Eli can: here's a "long philosophical digression on Tolkien."

Horizon Travel will gladly help you arrange your trip to Kyrgyzstan!
Otherwise, they have some beautiful photos. The best are under "Report of Clients."

Eli is relocating to San Francisco!
he'll be here in in time for APE.
yesterday we established that we've know each other for 15 years. yee-ha! old friends are good.

it's January.
it's raining.
I'm reading The Two Towers. I'm doing a lot of that reading in bed, wrapped in new soft flannel sheets, cocooned in my new comforter.
it's raining.
my heart hurts a little.
all I want is to be left alone, and all I want is some company.
and it's raining.

my little apartment is cozy; there are candles, and there is lovely music. I think I will make it until spring, if I can get enough sleep.

Erika safely reached her permanent site near Talas, which we were relieved to hear. soon I'll be posting some more news from her on her blog.

I've been reading and enjoying Bruno, a daily comic strip by Christopher Baldwin. a few days ago I spent an hour going back and reading the archives.

and there was a good joke on Mighty Girl the other day:
Why don't WASPS have orgies?
-too many thank you notes.

Oliver alert

please be careful.
the following photos might, if you happen to be fond of Weimaraners or photos of dogs frollicking in snow, be the thing that propels you to leave your job, hock your belongings, and move to the south of France, begging Dean and Gail for a job as a dog-nanny.

"Snow Life with Weimaraner"

fun with dictionaries

from apples to eyeballs to swinging cats
(or, the wonderful world of idiom

a few years ago I received as a gift my first Russian-English dictionary, and one of the first words to catch my eye was yabloko, a lovely word that rolls off the tongue nicely.
the entry for it was this:
yabloko: apple
glaznoe yabloko: eyeball
v yablokakh: dappled (horse color)
yabloko oo negde upast: there's not enough room to swing a cat
(which really translates to "not enough room for an apple to fall")

Today on Open Brackets there's an excellent post called "Gender Politics" (alas, no way to link to it directly), regarding the use of gender in various languages.
Mark Twain wrote about German and gender as part of "A Tramp Abroad" (1880), in "The Awful German Language." When I was little, I thought it the funniest thing I'd ever heard, since I grew up in a German-speaking household.

"Gretchen.
Wilhelm, where is the turnip?
Wilhelm.
She has gone to the kitchen.
Gretchen.
Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?
Wilhelm.
It has gone to the opera."

"To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female -- tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it -- for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay."

Yo Mr. Lucas-
spare us all, and just don't bother with the last one.
please.
I watched a borrowed copy of "Attack of the Clones" last night, and fell sound asleep in the middle of one of the battles.
horrible schlock mutter mutter waste of two perfectly good hours.
Where did you find that kid? The Island of Banished Actors Not Talented Enough for Soap Operas? Fire your casting director. and what are doing to poor Ewan McGregor's career? Selfish man.
then again, silly me, what was I expecting?