I’ll help
A neighborhood child came to the door a few minutes ago. Mia answered. Mia is 9. The child explained to Mia that she was collecting money for people “whose hearts don’t work right.” Mia said, “I’ll help.” She went to her monkey wallet–which contains her life savings–and extracted $10, which she handed over.
Mia didn’t say a word about it to either of us.
Ask a law librarian
Caller: “I need t’ know whut ya gotta do to get a annulment.”
Librarian: “There are 7 grounds for annulment. Number one: underage. Number two: under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. Number three: impotency. Number four: fraud, duress, or force. Number five: mental incapacity. Number six: concealed divorce. Number seven: marriage less than 72 hours after issuance of license.”
Caller: “Oh, uh, oh, Freud! I think it was Freud! What do Freud include?”
Librarian: “Something like immigration fraud.”
Caller: “He’s black.”
Librarian: “And?”
Caller: “O.K., mental incapacity.”
Librarian: “You will have to prove it.”
Caller: “How do I prove I ain’t right in my right mind?”
Librarian: “Get some kind of proof from a doctor.”
Caller: “What kinda doctor? A crazy doctor?”
Librarian: “Any doctor.”
Caller: “Hmm. Which one you think I fit into?”
Librarian: “I can’t determine that. Do you want me to read the 7 grounds again?”
Caller: “Yeah.”
[Librarian reads the grounds for annulment again]
Caller: “O.K., I think thisn here’ll work. 72 hours.” [musingly] “twenty-fo, uh, thirty-six” [incoherent mutter] “fo-ty-eight…Seventy two f’om the first day, or the third day?”
Librarian: “What?”
Inspired
by Amanda Mae’s assertion of her well-attested gift for concocting unrelated alternate realities when under the gun of a deadline,
and by the joy I have this day derived from emailing and Facebook-posting about: Cold War civil defense PSAs featuring clumsy marionettes endeavoring to convey dubious information to America’s farmers; the wonder of wieners: their inclusion in bento boxes and the variety of their presentation to customers of Danish wienie wagons; the oddity of Little Oscar, the world’s smallest chef and spokesman for Oscar-Mayer; and countless other curiosities,
I extend my heartfelt thanks to all the friends who have contributed to my delinquency and enabled my avoidance of work for yet another day.
You know, the mid-twentieth-century American humorist Robert Benchley wrote a delicious essay on this topic. It would appear (at least in his case) that the late-1920s version of fooling around online was apparently leafing through back issues of the National Geographic and clipping odd and arresting images. In the essay he writes about his efforts to avoid tackling a theater review or other assigned piece, saying, “I have a picture of a viper fish I wish you could see. You would die laughing.”
“Bring your monkey back to where it all began.”
An original one-of-a-kind event, the Sock Monkey Madness Festival, will return as a unique celebration of Rockford’s past by highlighting its once thriving knitting industry and boom of the stuffed sock toy made from Rockford Red Heel Socks which continues as a large part of America’s pop culture. The 9th Annual Sock Monkey Madness Festival hours are 11:00 am until 5:00 pm Saturday and Sunday [March 5-6, 2011].
Inside a Star-filled Sky
Jason Rohrer just released his new game. I haven’t played it yet, but it can’t not be good. Pay what you want plus $1.75 for processing fees and bandwidth.
headline of the day, II
Temperature swings 100 degrees in one week in Okla. town
Blockhead — “The Music Scene”
Roman Baths, Bath.
this is getting good
Free Association Tag
A fun, almost entirely meaningless, but seriously addictive game I used to play with folks on a bulletin board I used to frequent. Now ported to Tumblr.
It feels like the entire city is singing
headline of the day
Doctors remove knife from man’s head after 4 years
quote out of context
In China, keeping crickets for their music was originally an aristocratic hobby. The tradition is said to have started 1,400 years ago in the Tang Dynasty. Then, imperial concubines kept chirping crickets in golden cages, the insects’ captive existence a sad reflection of their own lives.
Lisa Hannigan — The Man I Love
from the comments
I have another repeat dream that is easier on me. I’m walking by a tree and it opens. I climb in and there is an entire world in that tree, people, lights, colors, things unheard of. I keep thinking, this is IT, quick, get some paper and write it all down and put it in a pocket so I can remember when I wake up. But I’m too distracted to find some paper and a pen and tell myself it’s okay, because I will remember it, this time. Then it’s time to leave the tree, I go out the opening, say goodbye, see you soon and the tree zips back up, or something. But it all drifts away because I’m waking up, grasping for the details I did not write down. Then, another night, I’m walking by a tree and it opens…
From the law librarian
All of my best stuff is coming from others these days, via email.
Dear Cindy, how was your vacation? I am getting a little vacation in cataloging autopsy reports. It has me so stirred up that now at certain moments I look a coworker in the face very seriously, about to reply in the flow of whatever conversation, and say “gangreno-purulent appendicitis” or “obliterative fibrous pleuritis,” or “carbuncle!” or “pellagra!” just for the sheer joy of it. Of course my favorites are the prurient ones, like: “gangrene of scrotum” or “hypospadias.” There’s lots of syphilis deaths, including young children. There was no sex education back in the 1920s. So far the 3 main killers I’ve read about are: Tuberculosis, Syphilis, and Pneumonia (I capitalize them out of respect). There are lots of strokes and heart attacks too. One of the children was a 6 year old coal company worker with lung causes of death. So interesting.
Radiohead — Lotus Flower
From the new album.
MINECRAFT: The Last Minecart
If only my server had the same drama.
Dear Clusterflock – Recurring dreams, past and present?
Have you had them?
Have we discussed this before? If so, sorry!
I remember jack shit about dreams and then suddenly this week I remembered a recurring dream from the 80s and 90s. It was fairly simple, I was always a distance from home and I was always naked from the waist down and I was always trying to get home! I was running and although slightly put out by the situation I got on with it. That’s all I remember.
On Arcade Fire and “Never Heard of It”
“Never heard of it”: This has been the natural and traditional response of all sorts of ordinary American humans to all sorts of phenomena. It’s not really about knowledge or information. It’s an argument, for the most part, and a faintly aggressive one — a way of insisting that what you pay attention to really does define the world. What you’ve heard of is real, and everything else is marginal. The center holds, and you are that center. You are normal and aware, and not just some tiny atomized entity that can only hope to know one tiny corner of the universe.
(via)
Remembering Scott, 2
More from my friend, M.
So, after several short hospitalizations for pneumonia, Scott qualified for disability benefits. Disability was a relief for him, but also the first tangible evidence that said “you really aren’t going to get well.” He still had a bit of hope–he was 28 years old. It’s difficult now to recall the 80s hysteria and fear around people with AIDS (when I visited him in the hospital, we were required to wear masks and surgical gloves). At the time, most of his friends were healthy and busy with work and life. So he found himself with long empty days with no friends around, and too keyed-up to focus on painting or other solitary activities. He began frequenting the daily happy hour at a Cedar Springs gay bar. He’d go around 2pm and order two double vodka martinis with olives, with a glass of ice on the side. Then he’d order another round, just before happy hour ended. I went with him once. I didn’t want two double vodka martinis with ice on the side, but like all alcoholics, Scott insisted I “keep up” with him. So we drank and he got drunker and drunker. Scott was even drunker than I was, but then I wasn’t taking AZT. Read more
Mashups we actually like
Since Sheila revived the discussion of bad mashups a few days ago, I thought it’d be fun to post some examples of *good* mashups.
Mighty Mike – Imagine a Jump (Van Halen vs John Lennon), via Merlin Mann
ToTom – Knockin’ on Ziggy’s Big Ego (Dr. Dre vs. David Bowie vs. Bob Dylan)
Yemen
The Gilsons lived up the road. Their father was the principal at the school where my parents taught. Kevin was my age. Marcus a few years older.
From the top of a pole embedded in concrete, you could see over into a walled space beyond. This yard was riddled with junk, odds and ends, bits and scraps, none with any logic to it — little piles of things spread away from each other like clouds or islands on a map.
If you got closer, there were occasional piles of excrement, flies in a hive unwilling to leave as you looked. Who had left these I wondered?
I saw their father beat their dog for pissing on the floor. Rubbed its nose like a mop. They had peanut butter they didn’t offer visitors. Kevin ate while I watched.
if/then
Supporters of legalized MDMA therapy believe it can be applied in couples counseling and in treatment for depression, body-image disorders, chronic pain management, and end-of-life anxiety. But many advocates think its best chance at mainstream acceptance is as a tool for people with PTSD. Later this year, Michael Mithoefer, MD, a psychiatrist in Charleston, South Carolina, will publish the long-term follow-up results of the small pilot study that Sarah first heard about six years ago. The outcome: Seventeen of 20 subjects no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD after just two or three sessions of MDMA-aided therapy led by Mithoefer and his wife, Ann, a psychiatric nurse.
“With MDMA, you not only see your fear but trust yourself to go past it,” says Marcela Ot’alora, 52, a Colorado therapist who took MDMA under a psychologist’s care in 1984 to treat PTSD stemming from an abusive relationship. “It shows you how to be kinder to yourself, and how much you’re capable of. It allows you access to a place in your mind that’s compassionate and full of love. You might have abandoned that place, but it never abandoned you.”
