Where I Was From

California

2009-02-11T20:44:00.001-06:00

I threw away my anchor necklace today. Who needs an anchor when you're already home?

2008 Recap

2008-12-31T11:59:00.002-06:00

No probing survey this year: just books. And a couple of very serious magazines. Top five are bolded.

1. Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey – Karen Wilkin
2. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life – Bryan Lee O’Malley
3. Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder – Lawrence Weshchler
4. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller (re-read)
5. Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
6. Bone – Jeff Smith (complete series)
7. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon
8. Scott Pilgrim VS the World – Bryan Lee O’Malley
9. Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness – Bryan Lee O’Malley
10. Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together – Bryan Lee O’Malley
11. Red Eye, Black Eye – K. Thor Jensen
12. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age – Modris Eksteins
13. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men – David Foster Wallace
14. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen
15. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner (re-read)
16. As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
17. A Light in August – William Faulkner
18. Absalom, Absalom – William Faulkner (second aborted effort)
19. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
20. Journal of Ride Theory Omnibus – Dan Howland
21. The Beauty Myth – Naomi Wolf
22. Girl with the Curious Hair – David Foster Wallace
23. Buckminster Fuller: At Home in the Universe – Alden Hatch
24. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann (aborted effort)
25. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
26. Berlin: City of Stones – Jason Lutes (re-read)
27. Berlin: City of Smoke – Jason Lutes
28. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf (re-read)
29. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil – George Saunders
30. The Second Tree from the Corner – E. B. White
31. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt – Aimee Bender
32. Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared Diamond
(33. The New Yorker)
(34. Harper’s)

Please stop calling me crazy for moving someplace as grand as Chicago

2008-12-07T12:13:00.001-06:00

Last night I was invited to a dinner party at the home of someone I’ve been on a couple of dates with. I wasn’t quite ready to meet all his friends at once, but accepted out of curiosity, since he was cooking vegan food and was itching to prove to me that said food can be completely edible when done right. He was completely right on that account – I was pleased to see that lasagna and tiramisu can be completely amazing with zero dairy in them. I don’t really have a useful place to store this knowledge, but there it is, just the same. I also managed to sucker myself into daring that I could be a vegetarian for the rest of the month (with the exception of Soup Night next week, but not the holidays…ohhh, boy), but that was the fault of my big mouth, and I don’t blame him for being smug about that.

What really caught my attention at the dinner party was the fact that here were fifteen or so Midwestern folks who couldn’t stop talking about San Francisco for the several hours the party lasted. San Francisco as the greatest place on earth. “Why the HELL did you leave San Francisco?” ad infinitum. “The restaurants are so much better there,” they said over an amazing dinner a local person had just spent all afternoon cooking them with ingredients bought at Trader Joe’s, a store that can obviously be found right here in Illinois, as well as in their illustrious Promised Land. Trader Joe’s is the same there. Let me get back to you about West Coast sushi, but after living all over the country, I have to say that in general, life is pretty much the same in all metropolises.

Words I could have applied to the cities themselves. When it comes down to it, despite the beautiful landscape and the mild climate, when you live in San Francisco, you are still living in a city. You still have to work a job like any other and wait for the train (just TRY finding parking anywhere in that city besides grocery store lots. Want a space near your apartment? $150 a month. Sorry, no street parking, even at home). There are still dull people in San Francisco. Sometimes even the ultra-sophisticates the city is famous for are complete dullards – just dullards who are extremely well-dressed, and whose monologues are about music and performance art and their dietary habits. They are easier on the eyes than Midwestern dullards, who are forced to dress down because of our unforgiving winters, and for a while it’s difficult to tell that boring talk of creative ventures isn’t actually more exciting than boring talk about practical things like work and what’s in the news.

I can stare at the websites for Bay Area concert venues and miss them until I look at the bands’ own websites, where they inevitably list a tour stop here in Chicago. I can bitch about the cold, but honestly, when it’s foggy and the wind makes even 50 degrees feel pretty damn unpleasant, I wouldn’t be taking those constant jaunts through Golden Gate Park, anyway. You adjust to different climates with surprising speed. My parents have both spent a lot of time living in Minnesota and cross-country skiing, but living in Los Angeles has acclimatized them so they are now miserable at any temperature below about 55. I would be lying pretty hard if I said it’s not a huge imposition to stay mainly indoors for four months out of the year, but I do like having the four seasons. I hate wearing layers, but the snow can be breathtaking as a visual, even when it’s literally breathtaking in that a sharp inhale makes your head and lungs ache. The ocean is majestic, but so is the architecture in Chicago. Strangers greet each other on the street here, but in San Francisco, the only strangers that approach you are derelicts demanding your change – and they appear quite literally every few yards that you walk. The rent is as steep there as it is in New York, and forget the comforts you expect here, like wood floors, windows, dishwashers, and porches. There is a lot less of that, out there. The “yard” behind my last place was just a spot where the landlord kept the building’s garbage.

Earthquakes always seem to come up in these conversations, but I feel like I should mention them just to say that I usually don’t think about them unless I’m quake-proofing a new apartment, something most people I knew out there never even bothered to do. They’re terrifying, but what city doesn’t burn down once or twice? What of hurricanes, tornadoes, riots, terrorist attacks, and recessions? Every city is susceptible to something. Even Paris goes through some shit once in a while.

None of this should be taken to mean that I don’t love San Francisco. I do plan to return to California fairly soon. I live 2,000 miles away from my family right now, and I am not the kind of person who can stay so far away for life. But that’s what it is to me: home. Not heaven. Not a dream of escaping reality. It’s where my family is, and where I’m from, and for that reason – and that reason alone – it is, to me, unique in all the cities of the world. That’s really the only reason a big city can be different from all the others.

Yes, we did.

2008-11-05T12:35:00.003-06:00

The news looked like the last five minutes of Return of the Jedi last night as they switched from place to place where the whole country was gathered in crowds to celebrate. We all called our mothers. Some of us were gently admonished by said mothers, "calm down," to which the only natural response was, "I don't want to calm down!"

I am finally ready to visit my country's capital for the first time.

Dominick's receipt, Friday night.

2008-10-25T15:34:00.002-05:00

HER:
1 bottle raspberry ginger ale
Ghostbusters II
a Hungry Man frozen dinner

ME:
1 bottle Jameson Irish whiskey
a High School Musical flashlight shaped like a microphone

Debate Night

2008-09-27T10:32:00.004-05:00

Here's a new one: watching political TV with people who actually disagree with you! I've been surrounded by left-leaning but mostly pragmatic Democrats most of my life, if you exclude the far-left extremists in SF whose rhetoric I generally tuned out. So it's unusual for me to run into people who aren't voting for Obama.

I watched last night's debate with a couple of radical pinko Trotskyites and we proceeded to argue for two hours about Obama and whether there is any point to them voting for perennial write-in candidate "Skinner Sucks" when we are operating in a TWO-PARTY SYSTEM, oh, sorry, kids. I feel no need to explain here why I support Obama, but even if I was not a fan, we only have two choices here. The candidates are not going to be your perfect ideal human beings and you shouldn't expect them to. These are two men charged with the challenge of appealing to an impossibly diverse population. That requires just a touch of compromise and centrism.

The third roommate eventually came home and said he was undecided but leaning toward McCain, and we had at it for a while. It was all an exciting evening since we all actively listened to each other and I thought I was holding my own pretty well for someone confronted by Obama detractors for the first time (three at once), and they were respecting my ideas after I pushed back against the inevitable "you just blindly vote Democrat every time, don't you?" (Repeat: Two. Party. System.)

But it was a Friday night, and we were drinking some beer, and two of them suddenly started flirting with me and asking about things like my ballet habits and my little red hat. I'm so glad we could hold off on that nonsense until after hearing each other out about more interesting things. That's the way it should be.

Let's hear it for Obama, everybody.

Piracy Update

2008-09-18T12:47:00.003-05:00

Missed the golden age by three or four-odd centuries? Don't worry: you can still get into the business.

BBC NEWS
Life in Somalia's pirate town

By Mary Harper
BBC Africa analyst

Whenever word comes out that pirates have taken yet another ship in the Somali region of Puntland, extraordinary things start to happen.

There is a great rush to the port of Eyl, where most of the hijacked vessels are kept by the well-armed pirate gangs.

People put on ties and smart clothes. They arrive in land cruisers with their laptops, one saying he is the pirates' accountant, another that he is their chief negotiator.

With yet more foreign vessels seized off the coast of Somalia this week, it could be said that hijackings in the region have become epidemic.

Insurance premiums for ships sailing through the busy Gulf of Aden have increased tenfold over the past year because of the pirates, most of whom come from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

In Eyl, there is a lot of money to be made, and everybody is anxious for a cut.

Entire industry

The going rate for ransom payments is between $300,000 and $1.5m (£168,000-£838,000).

A recent visitor to the town explained how, even though the number of pirates who actually take part in a hijacking is relatively small, the whole modern industry of piracy involves many more people.

"The number of people who make the first attack is small, normally from seven to 10," he said.

"They go out in powerful speedboats armed with heavy weapons. But once they seize the ship, about 50 pirates stay on board the vessel. And about 50 more wait on shore in case anything goes wrong."

Given all the other people involved in the piracy industry, including those who feed the hostages, it has become a mainstay of the Puntland economy.

Eyl has become a town tailor-made for pirates - and their hostages.

Special restaurants have even been set up to prepare food for the crews of the hijacked ships.

As the pirates want ransom payments, they try to look after their hostages.

When commandos from France freed two French sailors seized by pirates off the Somali coast this week, President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had given the go-ahead for the operation when it was clear the pirates were headed for Eyl - it would have been too dangerous to try to free them from there.

The town is a safe-haven where very little is done to stop the pirates - leading to the suggestion that some, at least, in the Puntland administration and beyond have links with them.

Many of them come from the same clan - the Majarteen clan of the president of Somalia's transitional federal government, Abdullahi Yusuf.

Money to spend

The coastal region of Puntland is booming.

Fancy houses are being built, expensive cars are being bought - all of this in a country that has not had a functioning central government for nearly 20 years.

Observers say pirates made about $30m from ransom payments last year - far more than the annual budget of Puntland, which is about $20m.

When the president of Puntland, Adde Musa, was asked about the reported wealth of pirates and their associates, he said: "It's more than true".

Now that they are making so much money, these 21st Century pirates can afford increasingly sophisticated weapons and speedboats.

This means that unless more is done to stop them, they will continue to plunder the busy shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden.

They even target ships carrying aid to feed their compatriots - up to a third of the population.

Warships from France, Canada and Malaysia, among others, now patrol the Somali coast to try and fend off pirate attacks.

An official at the International Maritime Organisation explained how the well-armed pirates are becoming increasingly bold.

More than 30% of the world's oil is transported through the Gulf of Aden, and even though the pirates lack the means to hijack huge tankers, there are reports that they have fired at them.

"It is only a matter of time before something horrible happens," said the official.

"If the pirates strike a hole in the tanker, and there's an oil spill, there could be a huge environmental disaster".

It is likely that piracy will continue to be a problem off the coast of Somalia as long as the violence and chaos continues on land.

Conflict can be very good for certain types of business, and piracy is certainly one of them.

Weapons are easy to obtain and there is no functioning authority to stop them, either on land or at sea.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7623329.stm

Published: 2008/09/18 15:10:52 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Touched

2008-08-27T14:50:00.002-05:00

Lacking adventures, the quotidian mind copes by elevating mundane details to the level of ersatz thrills: mushrooms sprouting indoors, a wink from an attractive villain on the street, two yolks emerging from a single egg.

An old woman plays an erhu in a Red Line station, syncing up perfectly with "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" like a second singing saw descant. The dulled soul soars in response, and the slumbering mind realizes: it's been too damn long since I've traveled beyond the boundaries of the CTA.

EXPLANATION PLEASE

2008-08-16T15:23:00.004-05:00

Apparently a plan has been in the works for some time to construct a "Circle Line" linking all the L lines into a much wider loop so we don't have to get everywhere by going through THE Loop. Why was I not informed? What community meetings do I have to attend to help convince the powers that be to get started on this thing? Did they already give up on this plan entirely?

Chime in any time, people.

I've been wetdreaming about this since I moved here (though in my head I called it the White Line, because most other colors are already taken, and it makes me think of that catchy song, which is great as long as you ignore the drug reference). This would be almost as good as that bike freeway I'm always obsessing about. Gaper's Block has the full story - from 2005. So, who can tell me whether anything has been decided about this since then?

Link: Here's the ancient line I found, straight from the horse's mouth (note the troubling date on that map)...

And a more detailed analysis, again from way back in 2002.

I agree with Gaper's Block that this project would make the whole city an immeasurably better place to live if they would just get started on it.

Dragons

2008-07-20T16:31:00.003-05:00

My mother called to ask me why people believe in dragons. I said I ought to be able to help her out since I went to the Renaissance Faire yesterday, but in all honesty, after a total of three visits to two different Faires so far in life, I still have no idea why these places exist. I'm mostly there to stalk the harpist and buy jewelry.

The most likely explanation I could find for the invention of dragons in so many ancient cultures was that komodo dragons with steaming breath in the cold might have inspired some overactive imaginations - makes sense enough in Asia, but what about the Europeans? I don't think there were any large reptiles in Europe back when dragons were more than just an inspiration for bad flash tattoos. Maybe they were entirely fabricated threats to distract from the real threat of human invasion: Visigoths and all that. Maybe people need an embodiment of evil crawling out there in the dark so they can disown the fact that we're all quite capable of doing horrible things. Maybe we're not up to breathing fire and eating knights out of their armour like silver lobsters, but isn't it so much easier to hate something that is all evil, all the time, than to think your own friends might turn around and hurt you?

This came up last night, long before the phone call, when I sighted an old nemesis at a movie theater. I hadn't seen her in the flesh in seven years and the real drama between us all ended something like two and half ago, but the sight of her made my pulse literally quicken. I turned away so she wouldn't spot me. I was actually afraid of somebody who hasn't even been physically present in my life since the New Orleans fiasco when I was eighteen.

This is how it feels to watch for dragons. So what if she's just a former romantic rival who might not even bear the grudge any longer? All I really know is that a dishonest man we both once loved used to tell me vicious half-truths about her, and I'm sure he told her similar fictions about me. She might envision me breathing fire, too.

On Passion

2008-07-18T16:43:00.002-05:00

Scanning through the available streams in iTunes this afternoon, I took a peek at the classical section. I'm usually loath to listen to classical radio because classical DJs are as tasteless as your standard country or rock DJ, forgoing anything interesting to play the blandest music available within their genre boundaries. Sure enough, the majority of the descriptions boasted about how calming their stations were, throwing out the word "relax" so much I thought I was reading the script from Zoolander.

That always gets my goat. Classical music is the least relaxing genre I can think of. What about the ecstatic highs and lows and Orff and Wagner and Beethoven? The use of actual dynamics? The intense scholarship that went into creating the music? The screaming and adultery and passion of opera? I can't understand the common view that classical music is something harmless and subdued, especially when it's compared to loud rock music with absolutely no heart behind it. Classical music is about shock and awe - even on completely acoustic instruments and voices that aren't even amplified.

This line of thinking comes up when I talk about ballet, as well. I know it's a strange old hobby and there's no reason someone from outside the subculture should have a frame of reference when it comes up in conversation between us. But it's odd to hear them assume it's some quaint and timid art form just because it's old-fashioned and obscure. Ballet is, to me, an extremely complex and difficult sport, full of blood and sweat and passion and great leaps across an unforgiving floor. I don't demand impossible athletic feats from my body and spend hours a week to be "cute." The dance forms that are popular now are just too easy - and therefore unrewarding - to attract as much of my attention.

William Faulkner described art and passion in the best way in his Nobel acceptance speech:

"The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands."

Pop culture's fun, but it's 70% glands.

Oh, by the way:

2008-07-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

Lazy Sunday

2008-02-17T15:00:00.003-06:00

When your favorite cultural achievements were made in the early twentieth century, and you're friends with someone who's enamored with the Baroque period, odd associations emerge in your conversations about pop culture. Placido Domingo came up in the conversation and we realized that his name essentially means "lazy Sunday," just like that SNL sketch from a couple of years ago in which they rapped about going to see The Chronicles of Narnia.

And they say classical music has no application in the media-saturated lives of us kids.

A weather-proof recipe for all you midwestern types

2008-01-31T14:25:00.000-06:00

This "snow" business is getting on my nerves. Unacceptable.

Here, now, we completely disregard the fact that heart disease is currently the number one killer of American women to indulge in a recipe from my childhood. Best served as dinner when you've eaten nothing but fiber-rich vegetables and fruit all day.

LEAH'S BURNT CHEESE CASSEROLE

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 35-45 minutes

Ingredients:
-3 medium baking potatoes, peeled & sliced
-1 lb. ground beef (or Trader Joe's lean ground soy meat)
-1 can corn (15oz.)
-1 1/2 cans mushroom soup (10oz. each) or 1 big can (15ish oz.), can substitute another cream-based soup if you're feeling adventurous
-1 lb. grated cheddar

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Microwave potatoes in oil for three minutes in a deep casserole dish.
3. Brown beef in a frying pan until basically cooked, adding salt/pepper/thyme as you please. Layer on top of potatoes. (Soy meat should be added straight to the dish without pre-frying.)
4. Add layers of corn, soup, and cheese, spreading all evenly.
5. Bake, covered, @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
6. Remove lid and broil for 5 minutes.

Mousing, Continued

2008-01-22T09:41:00.000-06:00

Well, I had been hoping to find a way to start getting up earlier.

I'd been dreaming I was escaping from Sweeney Todd around 7:30 this morning. He was brandishing a butcher knife at me and wearing a flowery apron, and it was clear from his smug grin that he thought the apron was ever-so-adorably ironic. I scrambled down the side of the building and had halfway woken up when a sliding crash and scurry in the kitchen brought the cat flying into my room in hot pursuit of what I was fervently hoping was nothing. I rolled over and though the light was dim and my nearsightedness makes the world look like it's underwater, it was clear she had a mouse in her mouth.

I know cats aren't known for their kindness and efficiency in killing small creatures, but this was ridiculous. She chased it around the room for ten minutes, and every time I thought she was about to show a little mercy and finish the little guy off, they'd stop and stare each other in the eye for a while, and then start the pursuit all over again. My barely-awake instinct was to wait for her to deal with the situation so I wouldn't have to. We shouldn't have mice. We are clean women. I wanted no part in touching anything skittery and wild.

But then I saw its face. The poor little guy was round and gray and the same size as the cat's tiny fabric "mouse" toys. She seemed to think he was just a much cooler version of the toy, but what I saw was round floweret ears, twitching whiskers, and a nose like a shiny, black bead. His sides were heaving from his racing heart as he calmly stepped into the cup I held out for him. I didn't want to take him out into the snow, but I couldn't just let him live in our house. The pale, early morning sky reflected weak blue light onto the four inches of freshly fallen snow as I crept across the street in my long red coat to release him in some bushes across the street. They still had some thick clumps of leaves at the bottom where my mouse might find a little comfort as he drifted off to sleep. I gently set the cup down to let him walk out. He crouched in front of the bush, surveying his fate, and I apologized as best I could as I left him there, staring.

Quote of the Week

2008-01-18T23:11:00.000-06:00

Mr. G.: What band is this [on the stereo]?
Me: The Arcade Fire.
Mr. G.: Huh. Sounds like Evita.

Book Report: Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder

2008-01-18T12:36:00.000-06:00

This one goes out to my friends in Los Angeles, as well as those of you who've happily accompanied me to confusing places like the House on the Rock, The Mutter Museum, and the Barbie Museum.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology in West L.A. is exactly the project you'd expect Jorge Luis Borges to create if he got tired of writing and moved on to visuals. An exhibit on nineteenth century theories about memory leads into a hall of folk remedies and superstitions (mouse pie will cure stammering), a collection of tiny mosaics made from butterfly scales, sculptures that fit inside needle eyes, and so on. Bats that can fly through lead are represented. There's an exhibit on American trailer parks that resembles a study of ancient cultures like you'd see at a natural history museum. Climb the stairs to view a gallery of Russian astronaut dog portraits, wander into a tearoom full of women chattering in a foreign language (something East European?), excuse yourself, and head back down the stairs to attempt to sort your brain out.

I'd been wondering what the hell the place was supposed to mean for about a year and a half after visiting until someone mentioned Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder offhand and I immediately bought the book. Lawrence Weschler writes for Harper's (where some of the book originally appeared in essay form) and The New Yorker, and bothered to do some research after the museum left him equally bewildered. What came out of his research is a short and amusing history of museums in their original form, which was equal parts private collection (the art/science/natural history exhibits that we know and love as separate museums nowadays) and display of dubious curiosities (wonders from the mysterious east, including many, many human horns). The Museum of Jurassic Technology is a throwback to those sixteenth century "Wunderkammers" or wonder cabinets, and it's surprising to learn what's "real" and what's not in the museum - as well as what kind of person it takes to run such a place.

Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology
by Lawrence Weschler
Vintage Books, 1996, 168 pages
Buy it here.

Mousing

2008-01-16T17:38:00.000-06:00

I was stowing our deck chairs in the rear stairwell of the house when I spotted something about the size of my thumb scurrying out a frantic circle a few feet away from me. I figured it was a hyperactive bug and dismissed it at first glance, but closer attention revealed it to be an actual, real life mouse. Commence nonsensical bellowing. The mouse marked out a wilder circle on the landing, then ran straight toward me, bounced off my foot, and disappeared into a hole in the wall somewhere next to the staircase. I finished yelling, wondered why I should freak out at the sight of a mouse when the gnarliest of insect invaders leave me calm and collected, and called in The Expert.

The Expert had been watching from her usual perch on the kitchen radiator, but after poking around the stairwell with her in my arms, I realized there was no guarantee she wouldn't run for the mystery nook under the stairs that might allow her to crawl under the house and vanish for all time. Left with no choice but to dampen her excitement and take her back inside, I gave her a couple of skritches and went back to work on my computer.

It must be dull to be a resident Expert receiving so few consultations, but she does bring a cuddly peace of mind to the household.

Oh my my my

2008-01-11T14:17:00.000-06:00

Theraflu is the culprit, I hope. Why else would I have woken up around three remembering when I lived downtown and someone left a grocery bag full of A-cup bras on my door handle? Did they intend it as an insult? Isn't there some way I can use the incident in a story? And late in the morning, where did those dreams come from? A family walk at the beach led to ice caves in the hills, where we skated in our shoes through tunnels that led to an abandoned subway station where the skeleton of a horse was frozen into a wall of ice. We visited my favorite childhood home, reaching not only the location but the time when we'd lived there, so all our things were still there. We were delighted and set to robbing ourselves with no clear idea how to bring our treasures back with us through time. You can't rob history. Otherwise, we'd all have a lot of amazing hats.

This is the year I started keeping track.

2008-01-07T14:34:00.000-06:00

Not as many as I was gunning for, but Infinite Jest managed to swallow about two months out of my year whole...here it is, live in the flesh: my book list for 2007. The top five are bolded.

1. The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft - ed. Joshi
2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
3. Killing Yourself to Live - Chuck Klosterman
4. Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
5. Love and Rockets – los bros Hernandez (series of fifteen books)
6. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov (didn’t finish…maybe next year)
7. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
8. The Actual – Saul Bellow
9. Mr. Sammler’s Planet – Saul Bellow
10. If on a winter’s night a traveler – Italo Calvino
11. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
12. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
13. America (The Book) – Jon Stewart et al
14. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J. K. Rowling
15. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
16. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling
17. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
18. Stories by Anton Chekhov – trans. Pevear and Volokhonsky
19. Interiorae – Gabriella Giandelli

For 2008, I'm demanding more nonfiction. Bring it on, Dawkins.

MIA

2007-09-22T06:05:00.000-05:00

Hello, outside world. Yes, I'm still around. It's just that I've been getting up long before dawn to climb trees, play with mud, and fingerpaint. No, I didn't go back to kindergarten. I found a gig building opera sets at a scenic shop, and it's sixty hours of awesome a week.

Technically, the equinox isn't til September 23rd.

2007-08-29T12:41:00.000-05:00

The school district has erected little signs on the boulevard that look like ads for yard sales, but they read "School starts Sept. 4th" across the top and "Just Go!" in bold print in the center. I would have opted for "Resistance is Useless," myself, but I admire the straightforward plea they've chosen. They're not condescending to kids with that "School is Cool" tactic we got in the '80s. Honestly, tragic as the situation must be to warrant the school system feeling the need to actually advertise, I find it intensely amusing.

And there you have it - Labor Day is nigh. Which means positively nothing for me since I've postponed grad school for another year. I suppose it's the end of free concerts and movies in the parks, and the opening of birthday season (I mailed three cards yesterday. For those family members with distant spring birthdays, I also felt the need to mail two packages and a letter. When I walk into the Post Office, the clerks look up and say, "Well look who's here! What are you having? The usual?"). I made the most of my first real summer in six years: went to Tulsa for a real Fourth of July, attended a fair, hung around the Tastee Freeze a little, swam in the lake, took punishing twelve mile bike rides, got caught in the rain, read a stack of books.

So I'm finished, and I'm fulfilled. But I am going to miss one thing very much: the ice cream truck that drives up my street every evening just after dark. I've never been a customer. But there may be no sweeter sound than "Cielito Lindo" playing on that truck's chimey chimer. Thanks, summer. It's been real.

Ren Faire

2007-08-13T11:25:00.000-05:00

We went to the Ren Faire yesterday and it was actually a lot more fun than I expected, again. I figured enormous women in chain mail bikinis would be accosting us in Monty Python voices, but the faire folk were classier than that (the visitors, not quite as much). We tried on corsets, gawked at shiny weapons, and caught Death talking on a cell phone.

Click here for photos.

Train in Vain (Stand by Me)

2007-08-11T15:15:00.000-05:00

So, you've decided to catch a bus that's scheduled to get you to your job interview a half-hour early. Somehow, you don't get there until a half-hour after the interview time. You do not get the job.

Dance class once a week is the only thing keeping you sane. But they've decided to shut down the blue line all weekend for construction. You can't ride your bike across town in this heat and still have the energy to dance. You have to stay home.

Your morning bus is so crowded that you get walloped by the front door each time it closes, but there's no point in getting off and waiting in the snowstorm for the next bus, because it will be ten minutes late and just as crowded.

-- - --

Anybody else sick of this? Ready to give up and buy a car, so you can enjoy the second most congested city roads in the country while losing hundreds of dollars in gas money and destroying the planet, all at the same time?

You might want to check out what pathetic plans are a-brewing in Springfield and consider contacting your elected officials about it. You can do it right here by filling out a completely effortless online form.

Cos for the love of gawd, we deserve better than to spend two hours a day on the freeway like they do in Los Angeles. I've already escaped that miserable existence once. I don't plan on dealing with it a second time.

Movie Night at the Classhole

2007-08-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

If anyone is interested in a Hitchcock double feature, we'll be watching "Strangers on a Train" and "Rope" this week. Let me know when you're available. (Monday and Tuesday are no good.) I'll provide beer and popcorn (regular and sweet).

There will also be a Degrassi marathon abrewing here at the Classhole in the next couple of weeks.* Not the realistic original series - we'll be watching wild'n'crazy season four of The Next Generation, in which Kevin Smith guest stars, Craig goes on a rampage, Emma gets VD, the outcast kid shoots some guys, and hilarity ensues! There is no substance on earth more addictive than Canadian teen angst.

Come on over. We are now air-conditioned.

*EDIT: This will most likely be our next theme party, Back to School. Prepare to wear plaid. (Please no creepy fetish outfits - unless they're hilarious.) Hogwarts colors also encouraged. Dignity is not a desirable thing here.

Lizard Trouble is Today's Running Theme

2007-08-08T18:31:00.000-05:00

Comment on yesterday's debate, or post a weird news article? Debate? Or news article?

You all watched the debate for yourselves. Here's something else:

Crocodile survives tower plunge

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- A crocodile survived a fall from the 12th floor of a Russian apartment block after making an escape bid through a window, emergency services said on Wednesday.

The crocodile lost one tooth in the fall but was otherwise unscathed, said a spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry in the Nizhny Novgorod region of central Russia.

"It seems the owner was not at home when the crocodile came out of the window," she said.

Diving out of the window has become a habit for the crocodile, called Khenar, with concerned neighbors saying it was the third time he had used that method to flee, Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported.

Emergency services put the crocodile in a local aquarium to recover from his fall. Within a few hours his concerned owner came to pick him up and the crocodile was last seen lying on the back seat of his owner's car.

China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate

2007-08-05T12:34:00.000-05:00

What?

China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate.

China.

Tells living Buddhas.

To obtain permission before they reincarnate.

Wenches get...stenches?

2007-08-02T19:24:00.000-05:00

Hey, what did we learn today? Don't suggest a day trip to the Renaissance Faire as a joke, because your friends will take you up on the offer and you will have to go to the Renaissance Faire, no joke.

Gonna get me a roasted animal leg and a flagon of mead and so help me, don't talk to me in that goofy faux-Shakespearean lingo if you want to keep your teeth.

Renaissance Faire.

Various Amusements

2007-07-28T13:25:00.000-05:00

Well, it's here, at long last. They finally got around to making a Simpsons movie and it's pretty good. Our crowd came out of the theater trying to pinpoint what made it seem a little off (beyond the obvious strangeness of seeing Springfield on a big screen after eighteen years on a little TV screen). The colors were duller (groundskeeper Willie's hair was an odd shade of maroon, almost purple), but something about the plot stood out. Hayley pointed out that it was completely linear. You're hit with a sense of purpose from the opening scene's great Titanic reference on. I dug the movie, but one of the things I love about the show is how it can open with Homer taking a drive to enjoy new billboards and result in him outsmarting the mafia. The movie plot just made too much sense.

I caved in and read the new Harry Potter and I have to admit it was exciting. The kids fell back on their invisibility cloak and identity-altering potion almost every time they were faced with the slightest challenge, so it was a huge cop-out. And nobody on the heroes' side of the climactic battle sequence shot to kill. They stunned their adversaries and ran away without so much as tying them up. I'm not usually a fan of violence at all, but it made me think of Gimli and Legolas in Lord of the Rings, slaughtering orcs left and right, trying to beat each other's running tally of kills. I would expect teenagers to be more bloodthirsty when under siege. All in all, I buy Harry's development as a reluctant hero. It used to bother me how he was central to the story yet somewhat passive compared to Dumbledore and the other adults' more active roles in the way things unfolded, but Rowling really knows how to craft a sympathetic protagonist. You can't identify with a hero who knows what the hell he's doing. You identify with the hero who wakes up groaning in the morning, wondering what to do next.

And now, I'm requiring myself to read The Infinite Jest or maybe Crime and Punishment as penance for reading 750 pages of genre candy.

-----

Two Gallants are coming to town and I am absolutely tickled. I haven't seen my favorite San Francisco band play their folk-punk murder ballads in a long, long year. It's going to be strange to walk into the show and not be surrounded by all my/their friends jumping around, cosier than a house party. But I'll be there, front and center.

Updated listings:

Prince night @ Berlin 7/29

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah @ Metro 8/3
Sea Wolf @ Schubas 8/11
Rentals @ Metro 8/14
Ditty Bops @ Old Town School 8/25 & 26

William Elliott Whitmore @ the Note 9/8
Animal Collective @ the Vic 9/10
Okkervil River @ Logan Square Auditorium 9/18
Two Gallants @ Schubas 9/29

John Vanderslice @ Empty Bottle 10/6
Raveonettes @ Empty Bottle 10/19
Appleseed Cast @ Abbey Pub 10/26-27

Jens Lekman @ Logan Square Auditorium 11/12

FREEDOM!

2007-07-25T11:41:00.000-05:00

Oh thank Christ. Or rather, thank Governer Blagojevich. This is probably only still news to my coastal buddies who've never had to deal with the horror of being constantly forced to breathe cigarette smoke every time you attempt to have a normal social life. But Illinois' statewide smoking ban finally got signed on Monday. Come New Year's Day, we're going smoke free.

People are bitching about this right and left but I have yet to hear a single compelling argument in favor of allowing smoking in public places. I guess people who haven't lived in a normal place where smoking is long-banned don't understand that it's not that big of a deal. If you smoke, the bars and clubs will still want your business. Lots of places in SF had designated smoking rooms or patios. I've heard a lot of people talk like the entire city's economy is going to shut down and all the bars will go out of business if people can't smoke in them. Right, just like night life in Los Angeles, New York, London, and San Francisco has shut down. So you'll have to step outside for a minute if you want to smoke. A simple gesture that will save lives. Then you're right back inside with us sane people. You get your fix, we are finally allowed the CHOICE to abstain. And the world somehow continues turning.

It's just not fair to let anyone force a filthy addiction on the people around them.

80% of the adult population doesn't smoke. EIGHTY. How this vast majority was dominated by the disgusting behavior of the other 20% for so long is a mystery to me, but it's not going to be an issue for much longer.

Ouroboros

2007-07-21T13:46:00.001-05:00

ouroboros
Originally uploaded by lbfreeman

I just finished painting this mythological beastie on my wall. He's about four feet in diameter and symbolizes "the eternal unity of all things" and the cyclical nature of life.

Here's more info if you're curious.

Another bike ride along the lake

2007-07-20T18:26:00.001-05:00

DSC01649
Originally uploaded by lbfreeman

Another perfect summer afternoon.

Quote of the Week

2007-07-18T12:05:00.000-05:00

This one comes to you courtesy of one of the tattooed lovelies at the Damen station:

"Dude, these are the pants that keep on giving!"

-------

Of course, it pales in comparison to the quote of the month, which a little boy at the puppet-making workshop said in reaction to another little boy displaying his tiny kittycat puppet:

"What's its weapon?"

Dear Republic of Congo: What? Best wishes, Leah

2007-07-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

BBC News, take it away.

Pygmy artists housed in Congo zoo

Human rights activists have criticised the organisers of a music festival in the Republic of Congo for housing pygmy musicians in a tent at a zoo. Other artists at the Festival of Pan-African Music (Fespam) are staying in hotels in the capital, Brazzaville.

The organisers say the grounds of Brazzaville zoo are closer to the pygmies' natural habitat.

But the pygmy musicians say they had expected to be housed properly while staying in the city.

The Baka pygmy musicians, from the far north of the country, were one of the highlights at the opening ceremony of Fespam on Sunday.

It is the fifth year they have performed at the festival and previously they have been treated the same as other guests.

But this year the group of 20, including 10 women and a three-month-old baby, were given one tent to share in the city's zoo.

A spokeswoman for Fespam said the decision was made in consultation with the Forestry Ministry, so that the pygmies would not be cut off from their "natural environment".

Marginalised

But the group themselves are not happy.

"It's not good for men, women and children to all be in this one tent. We need some space," dancer and musician David Motambo told the BBC.

"We can't live here where there are so many mosquitoes. Here in the city we can't stay in the forest."

Roger Bouka Owoko from the Congolese Observatory of Human Rights said the pygmies were having to collect firewood in the zoo to cook their food, and were being stared at and filmed by tourists and passers-by.

A BBC correspondent says indigenous forest communities are among the most marginalised groups in Africa and are regularly regarded by their neighbours as less than human.

"It's clear that it's a situation like we saw in earlier centuries, where people put pygmies in zoos to dance or to create a spectacle. They were treated the same as zoo animals and I think that we have a similar situation today," said Mr Owoko.

Government officials say they are seeking to have the group relocated to a hotel.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6898241.stm

Published: 2007/07/13 19:18:27 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Head's Up, Chicago

2007-07-12T18:28:00.000-05:00

Slint @ Abbey Pub 7/14
Harry and the Potters @ Chicago Public Library 7/17 (free)
Mirah/Laura Veirs @ Logan Square Auditorium 7/17
big band/dancing @ Green Dolphin Street 7/18
B1g T1me @ Quencher's 7/18 (free)
The Decemberists @ Millennium Park 7/18 (free)
Thermals @ Subterranean 7/27
Prince night @ Berlin 7/29

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah @ Metro 8/3
Sea Wolf @ Schubas 8/11
Rentals @ Metro 8/14
Ditty Bops @ Old Town School 8/25 & 26

Okkervil River @ Logan Square Auditorium 9/18

John Vanderslice @ Empty Bottle 10/6
Raveonettes @ Empty Bottle 10/19

Body by Balanchine

2007-06-26T21:13:00.001-05:00

DSC01569
Originally uploaded by lbfreeman

For two hours a week, I feel like somebody again.

Our days are going to make pretty lame "olden days."

2007-06-24T22:03:00.001-05:00

Here's another one to file under "things nobody besides myself could possibly be interested in." I was downtown with an hour to kill so I peeked into the Cultural Center gallery to see what was going on. If you haven't been inside, it's on the corner of Washington and Michigan in a gorgeous building that served as the city's original library. It's worth a visit just to see the huge Tiffany domed ceilings and mosaics - just wait til some relative comes to visit and you can take a break from showing yet another person around Millennium Park, go across the street, and enjoy the air conditioning.

The current exhibition is something with fairly limited appeal, like I said. How limited? Early 19th century needlepoint. I know, I know. Hear me out on this one.

What's on display is samplers that adolescent girls stitched between 1700 and the Civil War to work on their sewing skills, create a decorative genealogical table or picture for the wall, or simply use as a momentary distraction on the road to the grave. A lot of them feature an alphabet and a verse or prayer, all bordered by flowers and intricate designs. There were purely decorative pieces on display as well (my favorite being a U.S. map from 1809 where the country just fades away into the vast Louisiana territory in the west, just beyond regions tagged with signifiers like "Creek" and "Choctaw"), but the samplers caught my imagination. When you look at these dingy scraps of silk and burlap, you're essentially staring at somebody's homework or crossword puzzle from two hundred years ago. They created these handicrafts (as I occasionally do in Winter) to kill time, not to preserve the memory of their daily lives for the ages.

All of this leads me to wonder what sorts of artifacts will be left over from our own era. If most of our writing and photos and music is stored on a hard drive and immune to the mark of time, well, I'm glad we're still creatively productive but a PDF file is one lousy artifact. All in all, we live in an age of disposable, mass-produced objects, and I'm not going to go so far as to declare that a positive or negative thing (well, the factory smoke required to produce those disposable things is destroying the planet, but I digress). It just makes it difficult to guess what sort of everyday item will be on display in the Cultural Center two hundred years from now, when so few things are handmade and therefore so few things reveal something about the person who created and used them. Something will certainly remain of us. I just don't think I can guess what it will be.

This must be why you're not supposed to trust wolves.

2007-06-23T12:03:00.001-05:00

wolf stump
Originally uploaded by lbfreeman

We spotted this gem in a store window on the way home from dancing with some friends at Tuman's. Beyond the obvious dilemma of figuring out where the store was again (This fountain would kick Operation Tacky Bathroom up to another level. Beyond Thunderdome, even.), you've also got to wonder how that wolf got stuck inside a stump. Lupine tribute to the Danielson Family Band? Agoraphobic attack? Messed with Coyote or maybe Raven one too many times?

The only clear thing in this situation is that there's no way those other wolves are going to lift a damn paw to help him.

Just another Monday

2007-06-18T12:58:00.000-05:00

If your weekend was as epic as mine, you might need a little boost to get through Monday. Go ahead, don't be shy. Dress up in your best flying nun wimple or...goat. It's going to be a lovely week.

Bloomsday

2007-06-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

A short, feverish morning at home listening to the periodic crash and roll of the brusque voices of a dozen or so German shepherds next door coaxed me toward the street, cringing at the methodical cacophany, as measured as the tides. Wave after wave of dogs. No more time to waste reading work email when I was meant to roam the streets, an afternoon's urban odyssey.

We set our clearly-defined rules and obeyed them: all cell phones were left at home, boundaries were marked between Western, Shakespeare, the Kennedy, Ashland, and North, and we meandered forth into the muggy Bloomsday heat, wandering rocks, no guarantee of any of us coming across the others. The Puerto Rican festival raged somewhere around a corner and the neighborhood drifted west to join clad in red, white, and blue but I alone dressed in blank white and slouched east toward Western, a foreigner for a day, backwards against the current.

And on into the sunbaked, drizzling afternoon. Friends were found and misplaced, some equipped with packs full of books, umbrellas, and scotch, myself carrying little more than a wristwatch. The sun and rain tired of flirting with one another and called the thick night in to take their place as the tide of patrons shifted. Barstools were gradually draped with the colorful skirts of tidier women. A different neighborhood rushing in. Ineluctable modality of the visible.

Out again into the street and away from the group with a passing woman and her bear of a dog, northward, lost somewhere between conversation and Milwaukee Avenue and finally, alone, charted a weary course home.

It's not like the old days.

2007-06-12T13:16:00.000-05:00

As someone who keeps up on the news about the news, I have to say I'm bored comatose by the whole debate on whether new media and blogging are destroying journalism and sinking the print industry, or merely changing the way people experience media. You know, the way the introduction of television was expected to destroy the film industry. Technological trends happen. The world continues to spin.

So you won't hear me waxing nostalgic for the glory days when journalists had to be trained professionals instead of anonymous internet hacks. Don't get me wrong: I would love it if it was still a viable option to hire full-time staff writers instead of relegating us writers to freelance bit work with no benefits and hardly any pay. Love. It. But my real beef with the state of media today stems from its content. We're better informed on the whereabouts of Lindsay Lohan than those of our military.

The perfect example that things have gone overboard: the photographer who won the Pulitzer for that famous shot of the Vietnamese girl covered in napalm in 1972 is now a common paparazzo. That photo of Paris Hilton crying in the police car? He shot it.

I have a question for anyone who was old enough to watch the news back when the former photo was taken. Was news coverage of Watergate and the Vietnam War ever eclipsed by pointless entertainment blitzes? Given a choice between serious news and fluff, did people tend to opt out like they do now? Would you catch more people reading People or the Times?

This month's Harper's says that the worldwide demand for newsprint has increased 18% since 1990, while the North American demand has decreased 27%. Something tells me that we aren't all merely switching to reading CNN online. If that was the cause of the change, then it would be a worldwide trend, not a North American one. Those castles and whatnot across the Atlantic are definitely wired for DSL.

So. What's in the headlines? Do you feel informed?

Cephalopod Update

2007-06-09T11:05:00.002-05:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water: it's the Cephalopod Update!

I wasn't instantly impressed when Kiarash started in about the fearsome Humboldt squid the other night, since it shares a name with the stoniest known county/university. (Stoned squid...wouldn't that make the be-all and end-all of Youtube videos...) But it turns out these things are pretty exciting. Quoth National Geographic,

"Known as aggressive predators, Humboldt squid have powerful arms and tentacles, excellent underwater vision and a razor-sharp beak that easily tears through the flesh of their prey. They can also rapidly change their skin color in what appears to be a complex communication system."

Their diet consists of the usual fish, but they also love to snack on fishermen - and each other. In turn, the squid are preyed upon by whales. Well, I think I know what my next tattoo will be.

They may lack the quiet grace of little guys like the nautilus and my personal favorite, the striped pajama squid (which is really just a fancy cuttlefish if you do your research), but for their sheer shock and awe factor, these guys are the quarterbacks of cephalopods. I'm sorry, I can't in good conscience use a football analogy. I don't know the first thing about football. Let's say they're the tenors, not quarterbacks: abundant, yet impressive, but not quite as high on the "how-is-that-even-possible" scale as the colossal squid, the coloratura of the cephalopods.

For instance:

"The squid are believed to live at depths of 660 to 2,300 feet (200 to 700 meters). They may be elusive in some parts, but they're not rare. [Stanford biologist William] Gilly estimates that 10 million squid may be living in a 25-square-mile (65-square-kilometer) area outside Santa Rosalia, Mexico." (National Geographic again)

You might be wondering, "that's nice, but how does it affect my life?" And that's the fun part. They're staging a massive invasion off the coast in Ventura County. So I have to to urge those of you in Southern California: hang around the docks. Befriend a fisherman and sweet-talk him into taking you out on his boat so you can see this for yourself. Do this for me.

Quote of the Day?

2007-06-08T22:11:00.001-05:00

I don't know which sound bite from last night was better: my mother calling to ask "what's the Midwest like? What's the real world like?" and then urging me to "stop dressing like an English nanny!"

Or was it the moment I said "I'm really into cephalopods!" in an unintended Valley Girl yawp. That reminds me: there hasn't been a Cephalopod Update on this blog in entirely too long. I'll have to check in on those wiggly, wiggly guys again soon.

Where I Was From

2007-06-07T12:38:00.000-05:00

I love that magical and completely illusory power the internet has to break down social barriers so that strangers can email each other on Myspace and somehow their presence in each other's personal space isn't as intrusive or patently impossible as the presence of offline strangers in one's private life can be. Someone wrote me out of the blue (since the wallpaper on my iBook is, after all, mostly blue) and asked if I ever miss California. His profile indicated that he'd left the Golden State behind this past year, as well.

Honestly, nobody had really asked before. Seven months isn't much time to cultivate longing for something as complex as a city. Or had no one been curious how I felt?

I hadn't allowed myself to dwell on the question much. Of course, I miss my friends something awful. But the place itself? Hadn't considered it. The whole peninsula seems imaginary when you're not there.

But something stirred in me and I wrote back, easily, instantly:

"I miss the strange feeling of security I derived from living on the edge of the world. And the ordinary things a person misses after moving far away: friends, familiarity, sushi. But San Francisco is so isolated, not geographically (at least until BART shuts down for the night) but philosophically. I don't miss that self-aggrandizing attitude folks cultivate in the Bay Area: I don't miss that way Emperor Norton seemed like a role model for everyone else to come to his town.

Do you miss it?"

Quit messing with T. Rex!

2007-06-04T23:47:00.001-05:00

Why do scientists have to keep deliberately digging up dirt on T. Rex and sullying its good name? Can't we let sleeping fossils lie? Everybody knows I'm a strictly Stego girl, but even I am tired of hearing this hurtful gossip.

- - -

T. rex was 'slow-turning plodder'

A Tyrannosaurus rex would have had great difficulty getting its jaws on fast, agile prey, a study confirms.
A US team has used detailed computer models to work out the weight of a typical "king of the dinosaurs", and determine how it ran and turned.

The results indicate a 6-8 tonne T. rex was unlikely to have topped 40km/h (25mph) and would have taken a couple of seconds to swivel 45 degrees.

The researchers report their findings in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

They build on previous work detailing the biomechanics of the famous dinosaur, but add in new refinements.

"We've now got a pretty good estimate of its weight - over which there's been some controversy," lead author Dr John Hutchinson explained.

"We've shown there's no way it could weigh 3-4 tonnes as some people have suggested. It had to have weighed 6-8 tonnes," the scientist, who undertook the work at Stanford University, California, told BBC News.

Slowcoach dino

The team's computer modelling system estimated the centre of mass position and the inertia (resistance to turning), which have ramifications for how T. rex would have stood and moved and what it would have looked like.

As well as predicting the dinosaur's likely body mass and top speed (25-40km/h or 15-25mph), the computer calculations gave the team an idea of the turning ability of a T. rex . This has never been done before.

The study indicates the animal would have changed direction incredibly slowly due to its massive inertia, taking one or two seconds to make a quarter-turn.

The species certainly could not have pirouetted rapidly on one leg, as popular illustrations have sometimes pictured it, and other large dinosaurs, doing.

More agile prey would have given the slip to a marauding T. rex quite easily, it seems.

The researchers believe their work will help palaeontologist build up a more realistic picture of how the large dinosaurs lived.

"These were big clunky things - T. rex and the animals it probably preyed on. We have to slow down our view of that ecosystem," said Dr Hutchinson, who is currently lecturing in biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College in the UK.

"It wasn't like the Serengeti today where everything is done at top speed."

Dr Paul Barrett, of London's Natural History Museum, commented: "This is another finding that undermines the kind of idea of T. rex as a super-predator.

"The main reason for that being it was a lot slower than we used to think it was; but it has this huge mouth filled with 60-odd, 30cm-long teeth, so it was still a formidable animal."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6720461.stm

Published: 2007/06/04 23:12:55 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Truthiness

2007-05-23T13:57:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting article debating whether parody has become truer than traditional news. (G33kgrrl, this is mostly for you).

What the Mainstream Media Can Learn from Jon Stewart by Rachel Smolkin, American Journalism Review

No original content today, just Cat and Girl

2007-05-22T12:00:00.001-05:00

Friends, in case you're ever curious why I don't talk incessantly about music anymore, here's a beatnik vampire explaining how it feels when you do still think about nothing but music:

Comic courtesy of Cat and Girl by Dorothy Gambrell.

Mr. Burns' eyes

2007-05-16T19:06:00.001-05:00

Mr. Burns' eyes
Originally uploaded by lbfreeman.

I wandered home from a dilation exam at the eye doctor this afternoon cooing "I bring you lahhhve" just like Mr. Burns does when he's rocking the alien eyes.

And which episode of "The Simpsons" came on just an hour later?

You guessed it.

Welcome to America

2007-05-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

So, my state just issued a gun permit to a ten-month-old baby.

When nerds dream

2007-05-14T12:41:00.000-05:00

Oh jeez. You know when you dream that you have superpowers, and crazy adventures ensue? Last night my mother showed up in the middle of the adventures and dragged me to a Bush rally so I could use my mind control power to make him more compassionate.

"Can't he be friends with those of us who have fewer than a thousand legs?"

2007-05-12T13:36:00.000-05:00

Nobody really showed up to the party except a fire-eating Varga girl.

On the one hand, who else would you want in your house?

But on the other...

Hijab Kitty

2007-05-01T20:52:00.000-05:00

I confiscated this little gem from a coloring book so I won't expose my niece to a romanticized image of women's oppression. What the hell, Sanrio? First she never had a mouth, now this? Gonna throw a chastity belt on her next?

Don't pretend you don't have a friend who's done it.

2007-04-23T15:31:00.000-05:00

SO obnoxious, yet oddly compelling:

People sending messages to each other, both under the nom de plume of their respective cats, on the Myspace pages they made for said cats.

People sending messages to each other,
both under the nom de plume of their respective cats,
on the Myspace pages they made for said cats.

I can't even tell you how fascinating this is.

2007-04-20T13:57:00.000-05:00

Citizens of Townsville, look out!

Odd Obsession

2007-04-19T10:27:00.000-05:00

My roommate and I have been frequenting Odd Obsession lately. The place is a cinephile's wet dream - every obscure foreign, cult, documentary, or seemingly impossible to find movie you wish you knew about. (wow, why haven't I checked for those Degrassi High videos yet?) It's a great place to wander aimlessly. Why wait three days for Netflix to deliver yet another Kinski/Herzog movie (hey, I'm not addicted to them. I can quit any time I want) when you can run right in to a store where an implausibly adorable man will recommend something you'd otherwise have never heard of?

We were feeling festive, so we cased the Bollywood shelf and ended up with the '70s mob thriller Don. We knew from the opening credits that it would indeed be thrilling, since someone was credited with the title "Thrills" right there. Forget what I said about becoming a piratologist. I have a new dream job to pursue.

The movie was pretty fabulous, though it was never completely clear what line of organized crime Don ran. He tossed a lot of exploding briefcases at folks. Most everybody got shot at. Someone punched through a brick wall. And yes, Don danced. In a tiger mask. That must have been how the gang got so wealthy. I know I'd give all kinds of rupees to see an act like that.

I won't even get started about the scene in which a crippled tightrope walker has to get back on the rope to carry his two kids to safety.

Odd Obsession, I like you.

Standing on the side of life

2007-04-18T15:05:00.000-05:00

I feel a need to preface this little outburst with the warning that I tend to overreact a touch when women's rights are threatened.

Ready? Commence the yelling.

First, I'd just like to say, John McCain? You scare me.

Here's his reaction to the Supreme Court's new victory against women's rights:

"I'm very happy about the decision given my position on abortion. Partial birth is one of the most odious aspects of abortion," Arizona Sen. John McCain said while campaigning in South Carolina.

In a separate statement issued by his campaign, McCain said, "It is critically important that our party continues to stand on the side of life."

Now here's how he reacted to Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech:

LAREDO, Texas -- Sen. John McCain said Monday the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech does not change his view that the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to carry a weapon.

Wait, what? I thought he said he valued "life."

- - -

In case you haven't yet heard what the Supreme Court has been up to today, here's a link to the anti-choice ruling they made, which opens the gate for a great many future restrictions on women's rights.

I couldn't help myself. Here's an open letter to the Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of this decision.

- - -

Sirs,

Thank you for making this tough moral decision for us women so we don't have to break any nails or risk fits of hysteria as we worry about managing our own bodies. Kudos to you for going against the well-being of those thoughtless mothers who would terminate their pregnancies. You care only about the welfare of those innocent children. You must love them very much.

Naturally, I'm assuming you intend to raise all those whose births you fight so hard to ensure. Let's face it, that fourteen-year-old rape victim who wants to abort the child her father conceived on her isn't going to shell out for diapers and tuition. She doesn't have, say, a judge's salary to work with. But you do! And you LOVE babies!

Please put me on your Christmas list. I'd love to see a photo of your big, colorful adoptive family as it grows. Do also let me know if you prefer UPS or DHL, as I intend to mail you my (sorry, sorry, your) uterus. I'm not doing anything with it right now, so you might as well put it to use for yourself.

Regards,

Leah

Said Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: "This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety. ... This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them."
-Mark Sherman, AP

Daniel vs the Evil Puppet Show

2007-04-17T18:17:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my compulsively exclusive reading habits that demand books that are considered "classic" by some standard (sometimes canon, often not), I read most of my contemporary fiction in short form, in Harper's and The New Yorker, instead of buying new novels. After a few years of this habit, I've come to recognize certain short-fiction trends: there's the standard "I'm so very wealthy, but adult life has turned out to be disappointing" (requires a narrator sipping wine in a million-dollar Upper East-or-West Side Manhattan apartment). And who could overlook, "dear GOD look how exotic I am!" (war, expats, misogny)

I think those of us benighted individuals in the small minority of humanity who do not live within a couple of blocks of Central Park or have not emerged from darkest Peru might better associate with my favorite writing professor's theme of choice, "It was an okay job. It paid the rent." This theme naturally begins with said statement, only to show the beleaguered protagonist paid minimum wage for the most horrifying line of work the writer can come up with. I can't think of any examples at the moment - I didn't start subscribing until shortly afterward, when "I have two homelands and can't come to terms with my own duality" came into fashion.

But let me tell you about Daniel.

Daniel has an okay job. It pays the rent. Or rather, no, no, that's not right at ALL. Daniel is living that New Yorker story so hard it's crossed the line into "This American Life" territory. Enjoy, if you will, the story of one man's descent into learning the hard way why the rest of us just give up and work soul-crushing temp jobs.

For the very first "Where I Was From" blog crossover, I give you the music, and MAGIC, of the Wizard of Oz.

Chapter One: If I Only Had the Nerve
Chapter Two: "I Can Feel It Breaking"
Chapter Three: F*** your mother, Dorothy
Chapter Four: Don't Come Looking
Interlude: Jeepers
Chapter Five: Our Best Show Yet!

Stay tuned to Daniel's blog for the exciting conclusion. He doesn't disappoint - somebody usually ends up in hospital.

(For evidence of the horror - the horror, click here.)

April 14th, 1912

2007-04-14T15:42:00.001-05:00

Science Friday!

2007-04-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

So, it's Friday at last. It's been a chore of a week for me and I'm about ready to go home, host that Heroes vs. Villains shindig, sleep in...and learn about science! Woo! Friday niiight!

In honor of tonight's party theme, here are a couple of interesting articles that touch on a couple of old rivalries: men vs women and science vs religion. This isn't to say that either side in said conflict is necessarily a hero or villain in my opinion.

Well.

Okay.

*cough*

On to the educational content...

An article in The Independent says us girls might soon be able to conceive babies with each other:

Women might soon be able to produce sperm in a development that could allow lesbian couples to have their own biological daughters, according to a pioneering study published today.

Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm cells from a woman's bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue.

The researchers said they had already produced early sperm cells from bone-marrow tissue taken from men. They believe the findings show that it may be possible to restore fertility to men who cannot naturally produce their own sperm.

Read science editor Steve Connor's full article here.

- - -

And on a more theoretical note, here's an interesting one about the problem of attempting to reconcile science and religion.

Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion:

I once asked a distinguished astronomer, a fellow of my college, to explain the big bang theory to me. He did so to the best of his (and my) ability, and I then asked what it was about the fundamental laws of physics that made the spontaneous origin of space and time possible. "Ah," he smiled, "now we move beyond the realm of science. This is where I have to hand you over to our good friend, the chaplain." But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef? Of course chaplains, unlike chefs and gardeners, claim to have some insight into ultimate questions. But what reason have we ever been given for taking their claims seriously?

Here's the full text of one of his essays on religion, pseudoscience, actual science, and the irreconcilability of the three. (Originally published in FORBES ASAP, October 4th, 1999)

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

What is that place, the new HJ?

2007-04-10T21:01:00.000-05:00

You know you've vastly misjudged the function of the Boys' and Girls' Club when you pass by on your way home and see a small crowd of people outside holding up signs that read "STOP KILLING PEOPLE."

One foot in the old world, one in the new.

2007-04-07T12:24:00.001-05:00

Oh. Holy. Cats.

Why your taste in pop culture disturbs me.

2007-04-06T18:53:00.000-05:00

Am I talking crazy here, or does every mainstream movie that's out right now consist of two solid hours of torture and/or slaughter? There's the one about Biblical plagues, Luke Wilson getting stalked in a motel, 300, and whatever b.s. Tarantino's releasing. I know I sound like your religious grandmother when I start in about movie violence (and increasingly less so if allowed to continue that train of thought to protest that we should replace all the violence with sex), but I am so bewildered when I see movie previews on TV. What has to be wrong with a person's brain to make them find Quentin Tarantino films watchable?

People are out there getting tortured by our government in places like Guantanamo - real live people - and everybody's still sitting around enjoying "24". When does the violence cease to be real and become entertaining? For me, that point occurs when the orcs show up or the little girl's ghost crawls out of the well. In the current crop of blockbusters and on "24," it seems to happen right when the previews end or you switch on the TV. "Art" imitating life a little too closely.

I start to wonder if people who like these movies would stand by and be amused if they saw me getting stabbed on the street.

Not that a girl with an AK-47 for a leg is at all realistic. I'm just saying.

In case you were wondering why,

2007-04-05T13:27:00.001-05:00

Reasons to feel hopeful

2007-04-04T10:19:00.000-05:00

Let's hear it for checks and balances.

I can't help but think that things are starting to turn around, what with Nancy Pelosi going against Bush's "I'm-not-talking-to-him" policy and meeting with the president of Syria. And then there are the Iraq withdrawal bills. Even if Bush vetoes them, he's bound to be forced to negotiate sooner or later, right? They're even phasing out the creepy buzzwords.

I like listening to the President whine about Congress ganging up on him. It sounds like they're throwing water balloons at him from a treehouse.

Filler

2007-04-03T10:42:00.000-05:00

I'm going to put of a photo of my winter art project later, but for now, enjoy yet another BBC News photo of marine life.

So the bathroom renovated itself.

2007-03-29T22:31:00.000-05:00

At least I wasn't the one sitting directly underneath when the ceiling fell off.

Especially if the services have good music.

2007-03-29T09:55:00.000-05:00

My rational mind knows full well that organized religion exists mainly to promote the systematic oppression of women, but there is still a part of me that fears I'll suffer a lapse in judgment some weekend morning and join up with whichever one has the weirdest hats.

Oh right, I have a blog.

2007-03-22T22:24:00.000-05:00

Things have been going on and said things have been pretty exciting, but it looks like I am going to continue forgetting I have a blog, and do so for long periods filled with Tuesday night rock shows and internal monologues conducted entirely in my native tongue, yelling. Therefore, my blog remains empty. A digital breeze sweeps a pixelated tumbleweed across the screen as you refresh the page and give up to go read "Cat and Girl."

Oh screw it, as the kids say, it's a bird, it's a plane, IT'S THE CEPHALOPOD UPDATE!

Remember that colossal squid I mentioned a while back? They are going to microwave it.

THEY ARE GOING TO M*********ING MICROWAVE IT.

I'm not making this up:

Microwave plan for colossal squid

An industrial-scale microwave oven may have to be used to defrost a colossal squid caught in the Antarctic last month, scientists say.

They are pondering how to thaw out the half-tonne squid in a way that makes sure none of it rots before other parts have defrosted.

The squid has been kept frozen since it was caught by New Zealand fisherman in deep Antarctic waters in February.

Scientists want to preserve the unique specimen for detailed study.

Squid expert Steve O'Shea said the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni measured 10 metres (33ft) in length.

It weighed 495kgs (1,089lbs), heavier than an initial estimate of 450kgs (990lbs).

Mr O'Shea said it would take days for the colossal squid to defrost at room temperature - meaning its outer flesh could have rotted by the time the centre thawed.

He said a massive microwave was one option.

"There are certain microwave equivalents that are used by industry, for treating timber and the like, that we could probably fit this thing into," Mr O'Shea, of Auckland University of Technology, said.

Museum display

The fishermen were fishing for Patagonian toothfish in deep Antarctic waters when the squid - which was eating a toothfish - was caught in mid-February.

It took them two hours to reel in the huge creature.

The squid was frozen in the ship's hull and brought back to New Zealand for examination.

Scientists believe it is by far the largest specimen of the colossal squid ever caught.

At the time of its arrival, Mr O'Shea said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres - although would taste of ammonia.

The squid is currently being kept at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington.

Museum officials hope to embalm the squid and put it on display, while giving scientists access to study it.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6478801.stm

Published: 2007/03/22 10:42:10 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Spring thing

2007-03-10T11:44:00.000-06:00

It's finally spring and now that I'm out of hibernation and excited to actually leave the house and run around the outside world, I've got to say: damn, I really haven't been working on making friends here. Hmm. Bizarre. I think I'll get to work on that.

Especially now that there's a European film festival at the Siskel Center all this month.

But enough of this internet business - I'm going for a walk.

The Burninator goes to work

2007-03-02T21:11:00.000-06:00

...and the best way to start the workday award goes to:

A very young Robert DeNiro lookalike spotting the obscure webcomic character embroidered on your messenger bag and serenading you with its theme song as you wait for the elevator.

I thought it was RABBIT SEASON

2007-02-26T23:23:00.000-06:00

Anybody else notice those creepy dating site ads that pop up when you sign out of Myspace?

Example:

I know that when guys sign out of the site, they get an ad with nubile young girls pictured rather than that blond guy with the teeth. You know what I'm talking about. Surfer Busey. I would like to see the two versions of the ads side by side with duelling speech bubbles: "BOYFRIEND SEASON!" quoth she. "GIRLFRIEND SEASON!" quoth he.

Do what you need to do, kids, but please gawd don't shoot my boyfriend. He doesn't really deserve to die. I mean, dudesly in the ad looks like he's got a few things to live for, too. Let's none of us commit any murders of boyfriends or girlfriends at the behest of Myspace advertisements.

Cephalopod Update

2007-02-23T20:28:00.000-06:00

This morning I had a dream that I was the Arcade Fire's tour manager and we only played funerals. But that's beside the point since it's time for the

CEPHALOPOD UPDATE WITH YOUR HOST, THIS GIRL!

This story comes from the BBC:

NZ fishermen land colossal squid

New Zealand fishermen have caught what is expected to be a world-record-breaking colossal squid.
Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the squid, weighing an estimated 450kg (990lb),took two hours to land in Antarctic waters.

Local news said the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni was about 10m (33ft) long, and was the first adult colossal squid landed intact.

One expert said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres.

"I can assure you that this is going to draw phenomenal interest. It is truly amazing," Steve O'Shea from Auckland's University of Technology told local media.

Colossal squid, which are found deep in Antarctic waters, are thought to be about the same length as giant squid (Architeutis dux ) but are much heavier.

The species was first identified in 1925, but very few specimens have been found.

The first specimen recovered intact, a 150kg (330lb) immature female, was caught on the surface in the Ross Sea near the Antarctic coast in April 2003.

'Nearly dead'

Mr Anderton said the fishermen had been fishing for Patagonian toothfish in deep Antarctic waters when the squid - which was eating a toothfish - was caught.

"The squid was almost dead when it reached the surface, and the careful work of the crew was paramount in getting this specimen aboard in good condition," he said.

The squid was frozen in the ship's hull and brought back to New Zealand for scientific examination.

"The colossal squid has just arrived in New Zealand and it is likely that it is the first intact adult male colossal squid to ever be successfully landed," Mr Anderton said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6385071.stm

Published: 2007/02/22 08:21:59 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Check it out:

For more on these ridiculous creatures, visit this here link.

Laissez les bon temps rouler

2007-02-20T22:40:00.000-06:00

When I lived in New Orleans one of my favorite sights was the trees lining St. Charles Street. For weeks after Mardi Gras, they were heavily draped with throw beads from parade float-riders with poor aim. They looked enchanted, like rainbow-colored trees from a cartoon. You'd almost expect them to jingle when the wind passed through their branches.

The neighbors' roof

2007-02-18T12:35:00.000-06:00

Spam subject line of the week

2007-02-13T20:39:00.000-06:00

"Go as Data"

For the last time, I can't: the party theme is robots, NOT androids.

There's a blizzard going on out there, California. I might take pictures eventually but I'm not sure you'd believe me. Would you believe that the cars parked along the street are buried up to their windows in some spots, yet life continues as usual?

Because I don't think you will.

Snow Day

2007-02-10T16:15:00.000-06:00

Hey ho, it's February! The windchill's wavering between five above and fifteen below zero, I've gone through a cauldron's worth of stew, and I'm actually doing needlepoint in the evenings. Am I beat by this weather?

Oh hell no.

Yesterday I convinced someone to hang out at the lake with me so I could finally sate my curiousity to see what exactly happens to a large body of water in this weather. There's a yacht club somewhat inland that had frozen almost entirely over. We wandered around the abandoned zoo and found some surprisingly content camels in the snow, and saw real icebergs in the polar bear's cove (sadly, he didn't jump on them, but went inside instead. I am now officially tougher than a polar bear). I even made friends with a monkey.

A grand day out.

Photos are posted here.

Skeleton hug

2007-02-08T16:24:00.000-06:00

This one's in honor of Valentine's Day...

Seriously, though.

2007-02-06T14:00:00.000-06:00

The new Menomena album is still streaming in its entirety on the Barsuk site here, but I heavily recommend picking up the physical album so you can see the artwork and listen to it day and night with your mouth agape.

Come on-a My House

2007-02-04T13:02:00.000-06:00

Of course, if you know anything about folklore, if you disobey this rule, they will have power over you, and the museum staff would be pretty pissed off about it, too.

EXTRY, EXTRY!

2007-01-31T23:29:00.000-06:00

This just in from The Chicagoist: admission to the Art Institute will be free February 1-21 and admission to the Museum of Science and Industry will be free February 1-7.

Guess what you and I will be doing all month.

YOU ARE ALL OBLIGATED.

WE WILL HAVE FUN.

But do they make me hateful, or do I wear them because I'm hateful?

2007-01-31T11:50:00.000-06:00

Okay, spam subject line of the day: "of legging is misanthrope."

Why yes, yes I am.

Uncommon Entertainment

2007-01-28T18:54:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends,

I know most of you have better taste in movies, but as for myself, I am a Werner Herzog fan. The Reader's giving away tickets to a Herzog festival happening throughout February and it would be keen if you entered the giveaway so we (okay, so I) might have an infinitesimally better chance at winning.

What do you say?

In other news, some of us went to see the Belmont Burlesque last night and had a blast. I'm so glad that such an archaic tradition is alive and flourishing in Chicago right now. I've heard about a lot of so-called "burlesque" shows out there that consist of hideous half-naked goth girls spanking each other, but that ain't burlesque, that's just kind of gross. The Belmont show is an actual variety show with a comedian, magician, and a singing mc...in addition to the lovely ladies who do tasteful stripteases and fan dances. I told you the 20s never really ended.

To round out tonight's media blitz, I'd like to express my unwavering awe at the new Menomena album that just came out last week on Barsuk. I've been pushing this band on just about everyone I've come across since their first album (packaged in a flip book) landed on my desk at the ol' newspaper office in '04. They've really outdone themselves this time. If you like TV on the Radio, Sunset Rubdown/Wolf Parade, or anything with powerful layers of orchestration, you will love this. I'm also glad I ordered a physical copy of this one because dreamy Craig Thompson (who wrote the graphic novel Blankets) drew the album art, and the front insert acts with the disc as a kind of decoder ring. It's breathtaking. When I gave it a first spin, I had to sit still and listen without doing anything else. I can't remember being that absorbed in a CD since the first time I listened to Funeral.

So, I guess I'll see you at the Empty Bottle on March 20th, when our socks get rocked off. San Francisco, they will attend to you on March 9th, and Los Angeles, your turn is March 10th.

Country Music

2007-01-24T15:59:00.000-06:00

I'm not saying any fishy business is afoot, but if you're interested in the Bright Eyes EP that's due out in March, you just might want to email me. Just maybe.

Weirdspotting

2007-01-24T12:44:00.000-06:00

They just don't hand it out to you here like they do in San Francisco. And it's always subtle, so you have to pay close attention. Both of these factors lend weirdspotting in Chicago a superior payoff.

There were the odd lawn ornaments in my neighborhood: a stained glass panel depicting a collie displayed on the snowy grass in one yard, a grilled chicken breast in another.

An attorney's plaque designating the offices of Bullwinkel and associates.

And I suppose I made my own contribution by changing my shoes in front of a dour-faced suit in that office building elevator. What can I say. I have no idea where people make the transition from winterwear to office attire here. It's like they jump into a phone booth and come out looking fabulous, with their coats and boots magically absent.

First ballet class in a year

2007-01-22T23:38:00.000-06:00

and I think my body is going to dissolve like that senator dude in the X-Men movie. It will be interesting to see how the electric mattress pad reacts to so much water. My guess: entertainment at its finest.

Seriously though, eight years of this stuff and I still can't believe the human body is capable of half the crap they make you do in the studio.

God I love ballet.

Perv School Dropout

2007-01-20T17:52:00.000-06:00

Ever get jeebied for no reason when somebody sits next to you on the train? I was merrily reading Carter Beats the Devil on the way home from the library when a total creepster man in purple earmuffs sat down and did that rude slantwise book-stare that I'll admit to doing, myself, to see what the population's reading. No, wait, he was staring at my dress. And slowly caressing the hem of it between his fingers. Oh, so THAT'S why I had felt jeebied. It took me a while to notice since I can't feel anything through my infinite layers of winter clothes. I got up, wedging my big hardcover book and my Snoopy tote behind me so he wouldn't "accidentally" touch my butt as I passed, and once I was settled next to a woman on the other end of the train, he followed and sat in the row behind me - but thankfully got off the train after a few stops.

I was too confused to even say anything to the jerk - what the hell kind of D-grade pervert does that? I carry mace everywhere but what do you do when the situation is about a hundred miles shy of physically dangerous? Lord knows the next one will steal my hat and start rhapsodically smelling it.

The Reign of Terror Continues

2007-01-19T16:51:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the first and probably only installment in my project for the weekend: make a video dumb enough to post on YouTube and publicly embarass loved-ones in the process. Cats were the dullest subject that came to mind, so I'm satisfied with the results. Note the look of unbridled passion in the cat's eyes, and that hand frozen on the keyboard, stiff with fear.

I could blog about the interesting things in my life, but just now I feel like hoarding them. The internet is no place for interesting things!

So I guess it's Adventure Time

2007-01-11T15:27:00.000-06:00

Hey, remember when I went around lying that I recorded a voice for a Nickelodeon cartoon? I was just kidding about that - it was actually a true story.

If you listen very closely during the little bursts of fighting, you can hear me yowling operatically on the soundtrack to this weird little short.

Hey who knows how to neuter a cat? Wanna hang out?

2007-01-10T12:08:00.000-06:00

Animals.

They will get you.

Oh god: animals.

So yesterday, we realized that our guest cats' owner secretly hates her cats. She just couldn't be bothered to take the younger guy in to be neutered, and now he is persistently humping the older (male) cat and spraying on anything upholstered he can get at. Now we have the fun task of keeping him locked up in the kitchen howling for two weeks, and instead of meowing at us to be let in to the kitchen to use the litter box, the other cat went ahead and peed on my roommate's nice dress. Awesome.

In an unrelated incident, my friend's cat attacked me out of nowhere last night, and cut pretty deep into my leg, drawing blood. There must have been fur on my kneesocks from Captain Twoballs over here.

I curled up under my reading blanket when I got home and while I was distracted by my book, that little bastard jumped up and sprayed on the blanket.

Laundry party today, and then when I go outside, I'm pretty sure a bobcat or a cougar or something will leap out of a tree and eat my face.

I am so cranky right now, you could clamp cables to me and I'd jumpstart your car battery.

House(guest)cats

2007-01-08T18:29:00.000-06:00

As thrilling as it is to have two adorable kitties visiting us for the next two weeks, this prolonged unemployment has me feeling like I'm living just like them, except I get to read books and shower. I lie around, send my resume a few places, and wait for the cats to start chanting, "gooble gobble, one of us!"

Quote of the Week

2007-01-07T19:56:00.000-06:00

"Do you have horses confused with Batman again?"

The Sharpie Game

2007-01-06T01:48:00.000-06:00

The hockey game was fun, though sadly bereft of brawls. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. Introducing: the world's best party game.

Make a list of subjects and modifiers and take turns rolling dice, once to choose your subject, again to choose the modifier. We had a twenty-sided die to work with, so we numbered our lists 1 through 20, rolled, and went with the corresponding words on the lists. Each person draws something on everyone else. Everybody wins.

An Achewood dove

Snowman in a bottle

An open octopus (the sign says I <3 Abortion. That's pretty open.)

A Christmas snout

Man-eating toaster

Hypothetical pog

Punk rock harp

Circus explosion (The black parts in these two photos are her real tattoo of a neuron.)

Punk rock chair

Hockey mermaid

Christmas robot

Transcendental robot

Avian catheter

Hypothetical explosion (God = hypothetical)

Shakespearean zombie

Circus Virgin Mary

Oh Dear God

2007-01-05T12:10:00.000-06:00

After spending Christmas back in the golden West, I came home with the urge to shake a little more of the residual California-ness out of my bones, much like I'm still shaking that stubborn Pacific sand out of my Ponys. Not to say that I'll give up the dream of eating curry for every meal now that I no longer live in a largely Asian city. But I've been in Chicago for two and a half months and I'm still itching to check out new things that are, you know...midwestern.

So, hockey, right? Tonight I'm going to a hockey game. If TV doesn't lie, this is a sport that consists entirely of brutal fighting. I'm not scared, just confused. Like I'm switching teams. And we all know that the only team I root for is the San Francisco Ballet (we kick ABT's ass!). I've been to a couple of baseball games and felt like I was missing something fundamental in whatever it was they were doing down there on the field. I'm used to spotlights onstage and a dark audience, so it's hard to focus on the action. You know, between their casual, spitty attitude and the mechanical rhythm of the game, it kind of felt like I was watching dudes work an assembly line.

But I'm excited about this, and it's an excuse to hang out with my droogs. Any enterprise that requires strapping blades on one's feet is fine by me.

"Hell" the Musical

2007-01-04T10:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I watched an episode of the cartoon "Clone High," in which clones of historical figures ride out their awkward high school years together. I'm guessing it was the cause of the dream I had this morning, because it was set in a high school where I was desperately worried about becoming the least popular kid in school thanks to my being the angel of death. A deadly epidemic was going around the school and I was trying to get my special work done without attracting too much attention.

High school's rough.

In other matters death-related, The Vatican's producing a musical based on Dante's Divine Comedy and the Inferno sequences will be "illustrated with rock, punk, and rave." Throwing rave music in to sully the nice, honest rock? That definitely sounds like hell.

Auld Lang etc.

2007-01-03T23:21:00.000-06:00

PS Happy New Year, internet.

The masked bash went well - lots of twirling and glitter and photos angled straight up my nose, which won't be shared here.

I'll have to remember to take more photos when we host our Heroes vs Villains party.

Oh yes. It will happen.

But does he put them to good use?

2007-01-03T14:31:00.000-06:00

I love it when people describe each other as having "brains." I always picture their pantry shelves lined with brains in jars.

"That guy's sure got brains."
"Damn, let's stay the hell away from that guy."
"Wait, what?"

Black Tuesday

2007-01-02T14:42:00.000-06:00

First, I'd like to express my horror at hearing that Queen has beaten the Beatles to the position as top British rock band in history (according to BBC listeners). I hate to preach a&e opinions but holy cats anyone who doesn't care about the Beatles ought to be bullwhipped.

In other news, in the grand tradition of a toddler throwing out an expensive Christmas gift to spend all afternoon playing with the box it came in, my favorite gift this year is a 24-pack of colored Sharpies. Did I receive nicer things? Yes. Many.

But seriously.

"Santa is a Disney character."

2006-12-19T13:33:00.000-06:00

Oh for eff's sake, Disney.

Disney tells Santa clone ho-ho no

When James Worley paid a visit to Disney World in Florida his portly frame and white beard soon had kids asking: "Are you Santa Claus?" Not wanting to disappoint, Mr Worley, 60, played along with some "ho-ho-hos". But Disney officials descended, telling him to stop the impersonation or get out of the park. They said they wanted to preserve the magic of Santa. Mr Worley took off his red hat and red shirt but said: "I look this way 24/7, 365 days a year. This is me."

'Confusing'

Even after bowing to the request to alter his appearance, Mr Worley, from Tampa, said children continued to ask if he was Santa. "How do you tell a little kid, 'No, go away, little kid'," Mr Worley told local television. He said Disney had told him "Santa was considered a Disney character".

Officials at Disney World's Epcot park said they had had complaints from "several guests who were very upset". Disney said it had its own Santa at Epcot and Mr Worley was "confusing" the children. Mr Worley said he had played a jolly elf at charity events for a number of years, while his wife sometimes dressed up as Mrs Claus. Mr Worley said he still loved Disney and Christmas.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6189521.stm

Published: 2006/12/18 11:39:11 GMT

© BBC MMVI

This is why Santarchy doesn't work!

2006-12-18T13:28:00.000-06:00

The Christmas business is in full swing over here. Halls have been decked. Christmas movies have been watched. That ominous song about the bells has gotten stuck in my head. Things have been glued to other things.

But loudest among the melee is Santarchy, the annual pub crawl in which a crowd of mutants dressed as Santas descend upon cities all over the world. I joined the original one in San Francisco last year, and you know how the rule goes: if you do it the week before Christmas, it's a tradition. Chicago's Santarchy is a more subdued affair since it hasn't been around as long and for some reason people chose to have three or four of them instead of getting one huge group together like they do in SF. But that didn't stop us from rocking the Loop all Saturday.

The fun thing about attending here versus San Francisco is that people around here are capable of being weirded out, so instead of being very actively ignored by passersby, the santas were pulled over dozens of times to pose for photos with shoppers and tourists and it seemed like every person we passed honked their horns and waved at us. My boys and I absorbed an innocent pub-sitter into our ranks and after several santas outfitted him with a hat, beard, and tinsel, he proceeded to buy everyone drinks on his company dime. The Bean was rushed, mutant toys were passed around, and an impromptu dance party broke out when we found a busker playing Christmas songs on a saxophone. The photos are blurry and I forgot to get any of my/Hayley/Max's little outfits, but oh, the memories...they will last at least a week.

Daniel and Hayley are so deliciously compliant in my hairbrained activities.

Buscemi claus

Dance party!

I don't know who they are, but they are bound for the island of misfit toys.

Our merry band capped off the weekend by watching the boys perform at Second City before paying a visit to the Chicago History Museum. Anyone who doubts the logic behind my fixation with World's Fairs needs to see exactly what we've all missed because we weren't around in 1933:

This is exactly why museums need to come to life at night more often.