tweet of the day
from the comments
There’s more character in my freezer than in my fridge.
from the comments
I wrote a poem once called “The Church Camp Kids Dry Hump the Summer to Bits.” Doesn’t really matter what the poem said.
headline of the day
Dog on the menu in Korea to beat the heat
tweet of the day
from the comments
One thing the seemingly bloodied yarrow umbrel you picked brought to mind was this: evolution: the plants are looking for wounds to staunch, so the valued medicinal property will rescue them from the oblivion of tall grasses.
from the comments
Well, I can’t imagine being out in the desert. Or in the Arctic. Or the Great Lakes in winter like that film Shelia posted about. Those places scare me. In the desert you have not just the climate but bad people who would rather kill you than look at you. You can die in the freezing cold in no time at all. The bugs will seem to be eating you alive in the swamp, but eventually you toughen up and don’t feel them anymore. You have to watch for snakes and and maybe gators depending on location, but they don’t want to see you either. You can hide easily. People get so weirded out by the swamp you don’t generally encounter too many there. If you do, you can stand stock still and stare a hole through them and they’ll think you’re a haint and flee. Trust me on this one.
Scream
I woke up screaming this week. A bad dream, said the Iowan. Eventually I went back to sleep, but the rest of the night was uneasy. The next night at dinner, he asked me about it, but I said I could not remember what was going on with me. Sleep walking and talking is not unusual in my family. Mr. B. will “speak in tongues” in the night, the Iowan says. But I quieted down long ago. And had not screamed in my sleep in decades.
Until just after midnight on June 29, 2011. The truth is I did have a vague notion about it all day. I didn’t really want to talk about it. Until I did. “Maybe it was because this was the day daddy died, 20 years ago.” I was born on Father’s Day. I had his black, curly hair. His laugh. His way of never meeting a stranger.
And on June 29, 1991, he shook hands with a friend after a session at the coffee shop, then ran straight into the path of a car. Did not walk. He ran.
Distressing thoughts, emotions, shock, these things can be tidied up and put away, but only for so long. The old mantle clock’s single peal at a quarter after midnight was all it took to crack open the mind’s thin colluding door. And out it came, a long, ear-splitting, scream. I imagine it sounded like loss.
Finally.
from the comments
If you meet the Incredible Hulk on the road, kill him.
I’m pretty sure I am an abstraction. But I can sing.
Update: Fuck it, just read the whole comment thread. It’s good.
A thousand stories
Daryl and I saw Rick and Teel yesterday. That means stories.
Evelyn: What did you do this weekend?
Joe: Went fishing in the Colorado River.
Evelyn: You went all the way to Colorado just to fish?
Joe: Evelyn, a river don’t change its name just because it crosses the state line. The Colorado’s in Texas.
Evelyn: Well. They do call me Fay in Bridgeport!
Everything is a Remix – Part 3
Part 3 of Kirby Ferguson’s amazing series Everything is a Remix is out. As far as I’m concerned, it’s even better than parts 1 and 2.
from the comments
What I would want to try and convey is what I think of as the Vegas Paradox — how if you’re sensitive to the various layers, it strikes you that Las Vegas is the most honest city in America, the place where you can cut through all of the bullshit. Therein lies the Vegas Paradox.
Nina Simone, Feeling Good
Dallas
Carrollton man crashes, undresses, dies in second of two accidents in Far North Dallas
Man found dead in South Dallas pond after using drugs, talking about walking on water
(thanks, Patrick)
this picture of Faulkner always cracks me up
from the comments
What is and was and will be is only a subset of what is and was and will be possible. I mean this in a technical way for which my language is probably insufficiently precise, but the way I said it feels better in the context.
tweet of the day
Cindy’s Easter Art from Pinky Diablo
Terence Stamp in “Toby Dammit”
Terence Stamp, speaking in his own voice, in “Toby Dammit,” Federico Fellini’s contribution to the 1968 omnibus (anthology) film, Histoires extraordinaires (Extraordinary Stories/Spirits of the Dead).
For years only dubbed versions were easily available.
This is my Easter basket treat for all y’all. Make of it what you will.
(Terence Stamp just got another award. This one from the Film Society. San Francisco.)
quote out of context
ANYWAYS: An Antarctic Mystery, as far as I can tell, is based on the idea that The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is, in fact, completely true, and these later adventurers are going to follow up on his report. I am certain that I am failing to communicate how completely awesome this is, that Jules Verne is in some meta, wonderful way based an entire novel on the premise that the framing of yet another foundational adventure novel is in fact not a framing but a true thing. And he spends SIXTY PAGES setting this up.
The precepts in this section—many of them written in a digressive, self-serious style that reads as if Ayn Rand and Deepak Chopra had collaborated on a line of fortune cookies—are never about making money, at least not openly
There is nothing to fear from truth.
When a pack of hyenas takes down a young wildebeest, is this good or bad?
Ask yourself whether you have earned the right to have an opinion.
The pursuit of billions of dollars through aphorisms and “radical transparency.”
(via the browser)
from the comments
It’s making me question my preconceptions of what pigeon-ness is.
quote out of context
…hurry up and be raptured already
an oversimplification for the sake of observation
They don’t make cars any more, they just make references to a brand’s design language. And they don’t make movies any more, they just make references to genres.
from the comments
I actually did that once — knocked on the door of a strange apartment in a strange city, and found the person I was looking for on the first try.
I can also memorize phone numbers by the tones the keys make when you press them. Likewise, I can tell you the number you just dialed by listening to you dial it.
