Quote of the Day (from Sheila’s text messages)
Deron: Oh. And fuck a cruise. You can quote me.
Quote of the Day (from Sheila’s email)
Steve: I may be missing out on the wonderful world of propane like I’ve missed out on some other worlds.
Fireworks | Kenneth Anger (1947)
God Bless America
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A snapshot of my psyche this July 4, 2010.
Independence Day | Dialogue
with my friend working the 2:00 pm–10:00 pm shift at the resort’s convenience store.
Walkin’ in a winter wonderland . . .
If I had a gun, I’d kill myself.
If I had my wallet, I’d pay you for this beer. Okay, stepping back out to the car while you take care of these other folks in line.
In your Easter bonnet . . . do all holidays blur together?
Holiday blur.
When Irish eyes are smiling . . . God bless America.
God bless America. Right.
An open letter to Derek White
Topo Gigio introduces a group of singing cacti
Driving in reverse (on the res)
From Chris Eyre’s Smoke Signals (1998).
The clip features only a little of Lucy (Elaine Miles) driving in reverse on the res . . . but you do get to hear a story from Thomas (Evan Adams).
Smoke Signals is one of those low-key sleeper films worth placing in your Netflix queue.
Can’t Take the Shakes
Every now and then you just can’t take the shakes. It’s bad enough having to use the jackhammer all day. You just don’t want to keep feeling the vibration after work and through the night! Try the DeWalt DPG25 Goatskin Anti-Vibration Work Gloves and experience some better, less intense, vibrations.
“A Tattooing ‘Artist’.”
The craze for tattooing grew worse, and each morning saw new additions to the ranks of the disfigured. One morning the climax was reached when a dozen little boys and several little girls appeared with beetles, shrimps, lobsters and butterflies crawling over their faces.
New York Tribune. Illustrated Supplement. Sunday, October 26, 1902.
Sweet dreams, darlin’
is what Ricky Cameron said. And I got thinking about bedtime rituals and lullabyes and thought, Let’s put together a collection of comforting, calming resources for ‘flockers and friends to draw upon.
Anything. Anything. Sights. Sounds. Smells. Anything.
I’ll go first.
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Hamper McBee
Photograph by Blaine Dunlap.
Tomorrow, June 29, Drag City, who give us Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan and Bonnie “Prince” Billy and their ilk, offer a re-release of The Good Old-Fashioned Way by Hamper McBee.
There are no words to describe my excitement about the third release on our Twos & Fews recording imprint, out June 29. Recorded by the late, peerless country music scholar Charles K. Wolfe and the filmmaker Sol Korine in late ’77 and early ’78, “The Good Old-Fashioned Way: Hamper McBee of Monteagle, Tennessee” may well be this year’s best record of unaccompanied singing and also its most inexhaustibly hilarious comedy album.
Trouble in Mind
Trouble in mind — I’m blue –
But I won’t be blue always –
The sun’s gonna shine in my back door someday
For those fighting a war within.
The other G20 victims and losers
Photographer Jan Normandale: My advice: come into Toronto this Sunday and have a coffee. The media are controlling your thinking. The real Toronto is still here.
Read more here.
Got Meat (for Dog)? | Freecycle Theater
Monologue for one actor.
I use raw meat to make food for my dog, so I’m looking for any meat that you may have that’s old or freezer burned or that you’re just throwing out because you’re moving or whatever. It doesn’t matter if it’s freezer burned, as long as it’s raw and unprocessed (no seasoned or smoked meats), and was fit for human consumption when it was frozen. Anything that swam, flew, walked or crawled is fine by us. I’ll gladly take it off your hands, and it will go to feed a very sweet and happy pet. Thanks for your time.
“We can do away with the dull preliminaries”
Just because.
Missed Opportunity
It was a classic case of missed opportunity. ‘Cause, I mean, how often do you get a full bladder and a full rainbow at the same instant?
All Mod Washrooms
and an all-seeing eye. Highways 20 and 84. Jo Daviess County, Illinois.
The Greyhound doesn’t stop here anymore, but you can spy evidence of the glory days in and around what is now the convenience store end of a diminished gas station operation.
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Got Fish? | Freecycle Theater
Monologue for one actor.
I have a little girl thats in the stage of experiencing with animals and she really is amazed by see all sorts of fish in an aquarium at home if you have any unwanted fish, tanks or supplies please let me know and i would be more than happy to take them off your hands. thank you.
Tonight
I am moving from Room 8 to Room 12. On breaks between hauls I am watching “Pink Flamingos” and getting all soppy-sentimental about my vanished youth.
Gypsies (Tramps and Thieves)
My mother had a thing about gypsies. And when she spoke of them, she could put a sharp bite on the gyp-, on that first syllable, that left no doubt that it was not a good thing.
She spoke of gypsies more frequently than you might expect from a Connecticut transplant to Texas. To my father’s question, “Can we turn on some lights in here? The place looks like a goddamned funeral parlor,” she habitually retorted, “Do you want everyone passing by to think gypsies live here?”
Erection-Friendly Foods
A conversation about the almond-crusted oysters at Veracruz Café prompted my Dallas friend Steve to send me a link to this article about ‘foods for harder erections’.
Seeing as how the list was compiled by editors of the UK edition of Men’s Health, I forwarded the link to our English flocker for his take. Phil was impressed by the variety of what he called ‘erection-friendly’ foods.
I like that phrase. What do you think? In addition to noting which dishes on the menu are ‘heart-healthy’, might restaurants designate ‘erection-friendly’ dishes with a symbol of a hard cock? Men, would you be more or less likely to order an erection-friendly dish if it were so designated?
Update: Link all fixed.
Let’s blow it. Let’s play it. Let’s feel it.
Till now, the vuvuzela, as an instrument with only one note, has only been blown by fans in random and chaotic abandon for years to signify their enthusiasm and joy for “the beautiful game.” It has become synonymous with football in South Africa and many vuvuzelas blown in this manner at a football match collectively create a cacophony of sound, often unsettling for teams and fans from other countries who are not familiar with it.
So Edwin Mitas and Sipho Ndlovu (Midlovu) composed and recorded a selection of Vuva Tchunas (simple tunes punctuated by a vuvuzuela horn section), and
Research has found that everyone who hears the music finds it enjoyable, expressing a certain measure of disbelief that the vuvuzela has been used so skillfully, and often mistaking it for a trombone. Also, frequent playing of the music does not result in boredom or a feeling of “I have heard it before”.
Sample tracks here.
Sometimes I Run (1973) | Blaine Dunlap
*Note: You’ll have to click through this screenshot to Vimeo in order to watch the film.
“Sometimes I Run” is a portrait of Stanley Maupin, sidewalk flusher on the late-night streets of Dallas, Texas. It was filmed in the winter of 1972-1973 by Blaine Dunlap.
Dear clusterflock: I’m posting this in the hope that over the next few days you may seize twenty minutes and give it a look. Why?
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My Own Personal BP Spill
This month I’m living in a motel across the highway from a filling station where they are redoing part of the parking lot. The yellow caution tape is up. And one of the regulars, a man who last week spoke of the devil as ‘the fire man’, has been working on the repaving, I reckon. I was just over there, and he asked me if I wanted a tarry handshake from him, and I said, “What? A cut-price vacation to the Gulf of Mexico?” and he said, “Well, this is a BP station!”
