Ask a law librarian
Fuck it. I’m back.
Big black woman with enormous braless bust: “I woanna commit my daughter, she crazy. They tole me I could come up here an’ git the forms.”
[She lifts her udders and lays them on the counter. The two librarians are speechless.]
Busty: “Cuz she tryin’ t’ break me an’ my Messkin boyfriend UP.”
Librarian [to man nearby]: “May I help you?”
Hispanic man: “No, I with she.”
Busty: “Yeah, she tryin’ t’ break us up. But he would work five jobs if he gotta, an’ no black man doan woanna work one.”
[It should be noted that both librarians are black and male.]
Librarian: “You gotta go to the Mental Illness Court across the street in the Records Building.”
Busty: “Come oan, Wahn, les go.”
Alice Laussade, restaurant critic extraordinaire
Pretty much everything about this makes me happy.
from the comments
I’m not a sweets person either. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Turkey at Thanksgiving. Rolls. That’ll work. The secret with the sledgehammer is to let it do the work for you. You hold yourself still and let the hammer go. You guide it, like what do they say about how to hold a bird? Then, once a crack begins to open up, you guide the chisel to the hairline and open it. It splits as effortlessly as butter. Move to a new location. Repeat.
Hey! One of Phil’s videos is on the Tom Waits site!
Our very own Phil Bebbington’s brilliant video creation for “Kentucky Avenue” has made its way onto the official Tom Waits website. Woo!
Mrs. Bells
When my Papa, Stancel, was around 13 and living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he got caught kissing the sister of his best friend, Pukey Bells. Pukey got mad at Stancel and wanted to fight him, but Stancel never wanted to fight because it would mess up his nice clothes. So he went home and got his older brother, Mason, who, despite being about a foot shorter than Stancel, always fought his fights for him. Mason knocked Pukey out on his first swing (probably because of the brass knuckles he wore as an equalizer to make up for his lack of height). Pukey’s mother got upset that Mason knocked out Pukey, so Mason knocked out Mrs. Bells, too. He said he felt kind of bad about that, but he didn’t see that he had much of a choice.
If someone else were posting this, it would be titled For Cindy
Ask a law librarian
Do y’all have The Hobbit?
Dear clusterflock
Best book you’ve read that nobody has ever heard of?
Ida
I was just finishing my enchiladas when I saw her coming toward me. She appeared to be in her 70s. At first glance she was unimpressive–a small, ordinary woman. But when she approached me, I saw that she had a beautiful face. Dancing eyes. Black eyebrows, in contrast to her gray hair. She was alive.
Her name was Ida, she told me. She liked my smile, she told me. She said she could see that I was a good person. She wanted to tell me who she was. She wanted me to know that, when she was a very young woman, she was in love with Ignacio and he was in love with her. They wanted to be married. But Ida’s mother told her no, that marrying Ignacio was a bad choice. Ida’s mother told her that she needed to write Ignacio a letter and tell him that she didn’t love him. Ida told her mother no, that she didn’t want to do that, that she loved Ignacio with all that she was. But Ida’s mother said it was for the best, and Ida wrote the letter. I said, but that ruined your life. Ida said, yes. Ida said she decided to become a nun, and she entered a convent in California. But they kept telling her that she had no vocation, and they kicked her out. She entered another convent. They told her, after a year, that she had no vocation and should move on to a different life. She married and had children. But she never stopped loving Ignacio. After many years, she contacted Ignacio to apologize to him for lying to him and breaking his heart. She had carried the burden for as long as she could. Ignacio’s wife had just died. Ida’s husband was dead. Ignacio and Ida married last year, in their late 70s.
Ida and Ignacio are happy.
I thanked Ida for her story. I told her that it was my birthday, and that she had given me a gift. She thanked God for giving us that day. She kissed me and hugged me. She told me she loved me. She kissed me again and again.
Texas introduction
Fuck’s your name, anyway?
Ask a law librarian
Homely old black woman, very drunk and very crazy: “Listen very carefully. I am on a secret mission for President Obama. I have a patent that will save the U.S. economy. I need to fax it to the Treasury Department. Can you give me a dollar to do that?”
dear clusterflock
How do you deal with passive-aggressive behavior in others?
Saw Tabloid last night
I count Errol Morris among my reasons to live.
Today’s lunchtime conversation
Daryl: Here, taste this.
Cindy: No.
D: Really, taste it. It tastes like zero. It tastes like chew.
C: Well, if you put it that way. [Prodigious chewing.] Wow. It tastes like chew, but there’s a lovely coconut aftertaste. Here, taste it again.
D: [Prodigious chewing.] You’re a liar.
C: God damn it, it tastes like coconut at the end.
D: You’re tasting the word Coconut.
C: I almost never taste words. Take this little bit.
D: [Prodigious chewing.] Nope.
C: You’re missing the coconut stripe on your tongue. You are deformed.
D: Am not.
C: Are too.
D: You gonna eat the rest of that?
What Daryl said
That doesn’t pass the lickme test.
Remembering Scott, 6
From Mark:
Remember those “basic skills” tests we took as TX school children (they were probably administered everywhere) where you’d bubble in the answers? Scott told me that he read the first question, then bubbled in the rest of the test booklet in a design that resembled an eyelet dress fabric that he liked.
Today at the hospital cafeteria
Construction worker, mid-40s, powerfully built. Two orders of macaroni and cheese, two orders of mashed potatoes with cream gravy, and a large container of green Jell-O. All eaten with a spoon.
I can’t stop crying.
to dance
I have been going through some deep introspection of late, trying to untie an emotional knot. Perhaps the most interesting offshoot of my subconscious dives has been the insistent assertion of the beauty of dance.
I have always loved dance, but I suspect not in the way that most people who love dance experience it. I have little interest in choreographed productions. I can appreciate the precision and athleticism and grace that goes into, say, a ballet, but I am rarely drawn to watch one. What I love is the Personal Dance. The dance that rises up and must come out, spontaneously, without ego or self consciousness of any kind.
As much as I love this dance impulse in myself (and Daryl can affirm that I cannot hear certain music without dancing–usually in my chair), what I love most are the rare times I can witness it in someone else. At its best, such dance is the purest expression of Joy. What I have realized in the past week is that I am more moved by the sight of Personal Dance than by any other form of art or expression. It touches me at my very core. It makes me want to jump up and cry simultaneously.
I can think of one film example in which you might understand what I am referring to. It is in The Motorcycle Diaries, a film brilliant on many levels. But there is a scene (not available on YouTube except as a glimpse in the trailer) where the Alberto Granado character, beautifully portrayed by Rodrigo De la Serna, jumps onto the dance floor, smiling and dancing in the pure way I am trying to describe. It lifts me out of myself every time I see it.
Dear clusterflock
Saddest film scene?
On the sadness of life
From my dear friend, Reese Belew:
So much of life, even at its best, is sad. The gap between imagined potential and reality is the quotient generating its sum of sadness.
tonight’s conversation
Cindy: Auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Daryl: What?
Cindy: What David Carradine died of.
Daryl: Yeah. Might as well have been that, I guess.
Cindy: Might as well.
Daryl: Could have done it by kicking himself.
Cindy: Uh-huh.
Ask a law librarian
Man: “When you file for divorce do they check I.D?”
Librarian: “I don’t think the district clerk requires your driver’s license number on the petition, if that’s what you mean.”
Man: “Can somebody file for somebody else?”
Librarian: “Do you mean can you take the petitioner’s completed forms to the district clerk for them?”
Man: “No — I wanna file for my brother because I don’t like his wife.”
help help help help
Glenn Beck is moving to Dallas.
Early morning conversation
Daryl: Germans like bananas.
Cindy: How do you know?
Daryl: I saw a show about Germans and bananas.
Today at the hospital cafeteria
A man wearing a portable heart monitor ate chicken nuggets smothered in mayonnaise and two orders of waffle fries.
