This is Fermi 2
Sounds like a Muppet name, doesn’t it?
Last week I drove to Michigan on business south of Detroit and saw these cooling towers in the near distance. I’ve seen them from I-75 before, but they always seemed so far off the highway. I was mesmerized, couldn’t get close enough. I asked the nice man at the gate if I could drive closer to take pictures and he said, “you can drive to those pylons up ahead and make a u-turn and get on outta here.” He didn’t say it, but “little Missy” was implied by his tone of voice.
The first Fermi reactor (Fermi 1) suffered a partial meltdown and a release of radiation in 1966 during a test run. Engineers were able to intervene and contain the radiation, but the accident caused quite a scare and even prompted some officials to initially consider evacuating portions of southeastern Michigan, including the city of Detroit. Fermi 1 finally began operating again in 1970, but shut down for good in 1972.
But everything’s okay now!
I’m going back
to Texas tomorrow, y’all. For a week, anyways.
Big party on Dutton Drive. The last waltz. The final hurrah.
“Hey, my mom’s not at home. You wanna come over?”
A thought occurred to me
there in the shark tunnel with Deron.
dear clusterflock
Is it only the internal compass that points true north?
from the comments
My little brother died five years ago and, believe me, there is no end to human insensitivity in times like this. I’ve begun to try to think longer about the people who show that rare ability to really listen, empathize, and hold space. Those people are awesome and are perpetually astonishing to me whenever I find them.
Work
During my ninth hour of being on my feet today I thought, “My dogs are killing me,” but they weren’t. They were peeing on the slide.
In the Boom Boom Room
In order to pierce the crust of Dallas, Texas subcultures, it helps to know someone who grew up here.
reg’lar day
Lookin’ out my back door.
It’s kind of wimpy for this time of year, as we had a big thaw a few days back.
from the comments
I was always certain that it was a fact, but then I started talking to people like the girl I mentioned above and when I explained this they looked at me as if I had a donkey tail.
Dear clusterflock
What will be your epitaph?
Trailer for El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky. 1970)
The strangest movie I’d recommend?
Allen Klein presents an ABKCO Film.
Dear Clusterflock: How does your emotional attachment to music work?
I’ve been pondering this for a while, so I guess the best way to ask is explaining mine.
Music that reminds me of people and incidents past and present: Mostly this does only that, it reminds me of them but I rarely feel emotional when I listen to this music. I’ll be honest there ain’t much of it. I don’t have special tunes that remind me of when I was doing this or that or in a relationship with that person or this. I sometimes feel this is odd, but, I’m 52 and it still doesn’t happen. Even if there is a tune that remindes me of something, I seem to be able to separate the emotion of the incident and not let the song crank it up.
Music that I use to feed my emotions: Oddly, they are not tunes that will make me unhappy or happy, but, I use them to confirm how I feel. I am much more attached to these tunes. Also, I never use these tunes to change my state of mind just to confirm it. So a spiralling pit of depression is always fed with tunes that will send me deeper into it and happy tunes are only used to make me happier. I guess being equally comfy in either state of mind helps.
I have looked at the tunes and they have no relevance other than they are mine and I use them how I need them. The beauty of these tunes is that I can share them easily because they don’t relate to anyone other than me and so don’t feel I am crossing some dodgy line.
Does any of this make any sense?
So, how do you use music dear flockers?
Perhaps you just listen
“Storm” by Tim Minchin
A nine-minute beat poem by Tim Minchin, wherein he confronts a new-age hippie and smacks down homeopathy, astrology, and various other accouterments of the anti-science crowd.
Scrooge | Lord Buckley
Not to bad-rap the cat’s animation, but if this is new to you, you might want to close your eyes and open your ears to Lord Buckley’s Christmas ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong.
You can get with it if you want to. There’s only one way — straight to the road of love.
A Yuletide message from me to y’all.
Michael Kenna’s Hokkaido
Michael Kenna. Fading Light, Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. 2004.
Ordinarily I’d not want to follow so swiftly on Deron’s post about the Andy Goldsworthy documentary, but if I don’t do it now, I might be some time.
A short while ago Phil Bebbington sent me a link to this documentary interview with photographer Michael Kenna. I found Michael Kenna’s Hokkaido calming and beautiful, and I want to share it.
“Even in the midst of a storm, it’s a wonderful place to come to ground, in a sense.”
The World of Ivor Cutler
Toilet rolls. Ivor Cutler.
The World of Ivor Cutler features photographs of Ivor Cutler’s flat, taken by Ivor Cutler. Captions by Ivor Cutler. These were originally sent by Ivor to his friend John Knutas, with whom Ivor had a correspondence over many years.
You can find the series at ivorcutler.org.
It took me a while to figure it out
Michael and Sarah have the same last name.
“A Tabletop Conjuror, Rediscovered”
Stuart Sherman (1945-2001) doing one of his performance pieces in Battery Park City. (John Matturri.)
Monday’s New York Times featured a review of two current exhibitions devoted to the late Stuart Sherman, concluding with a nod to
the example he sets for young artists now: how to make art that’s about yourself but isn’t, using nothing, or almost nothing, materially speaking; and how to keep making it whether you have an audience or not because you need to stay alive and want to stay awake.
Video here (from “Your Program of Programs,” 1983).
Le petit théâtre du foyer: Cendrillon
In ash and in cinder she sleeps by the hearth as sparks turn to flame in her dreams.
Cast y’all’s votes, y’all.
Should I be the next Oprah?
I Love LA
I mean it, man.
This from my LA friend Tiger:
Hello Kitty Goth Party Friday night. Fight Night party last night!
Amy and Deron
lived right on a boundary between the 13th and the 14th arrondissements, and their home was a large-ish kind of guesthouse. They had their own wing, as big as a solo house, and there were apartments for visitors. A man who reminded me of Manuel from Fawlty Towers had charge of guest arrangements.
All of the guests last night were artists of one stripe or other. We watched a film projected onto the wall. A woman recited a soliloquy from a familiar movie. I think it might have been a Bette Davis weeper.
I went out on an errand and found a kitten. I brought it back to Amy’s and Deron’s place on my head, and on the way, it entwined itself in my hair and arranged itself into a sort of coiffure.
yes, something is happening
Brother Blue is gone.
I will try and write about his impact on me. Meantime, this from the Boston Globe.
[Because of the Strength]
A Half would Have worked
empty doesn’t
Empty
Suck ASS