Oh that I too lived on the razor edge of time!

So, it's been a long time, I have no apologies to make. Only .05% percent of the possible monkeys are bothering to read me anyhow.

So, what have I been doing, you ask? Or perhaps you don't ask but merely look at me balefully and smirk. But I ignore such rudeness and tell you have I have been maddeningly non-busy. Stupefyingly slothful. Lasciviously leisurely, er, strike out that last one. In other words, I'm reaping the fruits of my colleagues, hm, strike out that one too, and experiencing a week where most of the work has been done before hand and, as a temp for only a week, long term projects are sort of untenable and I'm still spending 9 hours a work. But, as usual, I complain unnecessarily. I'm happy to be working and I've gotten to do fun things like play with audio and know that it will actually make it on the air with my greasy thumbprint thuramagicaly transmitted from the mouse as a meticulous impulse to the audio represented in the third degree as little waves of varying frequencies and amplitudes. Damn, it sucks to think too much sometimes.

There are other good things. I'm rooming with one of the other 10 people on this earth who owns the Labyrinth soundtrack and we both share a propensity for absurd foreign movie and complex ambient indi music. Who'd have guessed?

I'm also reading an damn good Sci-Fi novel by the feminist, sort of post-modernist author, Joanna Russ. At least that's my description from the one other novel I've read by her. The cover is almost a parody of itself and, from the choice of subject matter, the illustrator didn't read beyond the first 20 pages. A woman clad in a pink (of course) short (likewise) dress that is riding sexily up her thighs is plunging a large harpoon into something like a cross between a codfish and a bar of Irish Spring soap. It's caption "The Adventures of Alyx: The swashbuckling saga of Alyx--woman warrior on the razor edge of time!" shout, "I was short of cash and I had to whore out my writing talents." But this is merely the publisher's attempt to conceal its remarkably palatable innards--chewy, with hints of coffee grounds, blood and a musty finish.

Oh, and there are sparkly pillows on my bed, even though the comforter currently resides in some suburban UPS retreat, taking the waters no doubt. Hmmm.

Unease

I want my life to be poetic, poignant and easy. I also want to fly Orion's Belt like a kite on a very long piece of string.

Here in Santa Barbara, the succulents are generating giant white stocks that are bigger than the entire plant. They genuflect gracefully and remind me inevitably of large white phalli. What if humans could project out appendages bigger than their bodies? Blahhhh. Sorry I asked that.

Disturbing thought for the day number two: have you ever noticed how a single grain of white rice looks a lot like a larva? Needless to say, I have.

I don't know that anyone's reading this either...but check out the NPR interns' blog!

http://interneditionfall06.blogspot.com/

There's great stuff on there and few comments.

Coming soon from me, a scintillating article on Sticky Shed Syndrome.
You wouldn't miss it, would you?

Pandemic of oddities

Too much has happened to be able to write about it. Give me a couple of weeks and then maybe...

In the meantime enjoy this:

LOS ANGELES, Nov 15 (Reuters) - When Tom Cruise marries Katie Holmes this weekend, like many a devout Scientologist, he may promise to provide her with "a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat."

in my meantime I've been finding out exciting things like the meaning of "fc"
to drivers during the Cold War.

Also:
I'm mildly obsessed with the gothic and grotesque, an admission that shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you. After reading some Hoffmann and then pondering the impossible existence of sugarplum fairies in a certain ballet supposedly based on his story. I settled on a solution: a global plot by the manufacturers of tutu voile. Actually, the real story is rather interesting. And predictably, it took Maurice Sendak to bring the cloying holiday sweets back into the grotesque realm of distended bellies and gaping mouths where they belong. This, as any Jewish child knows, is the real meaning of Christmas--and most other holidays too for that matter.

Still life in red

Color palate for the weekend:
Inflamed trees in scarlet and ochre like some giant James Ladavour painting are now dripping into gloom.
But yesterday I was one of these ladies. I basked gratefully in rolled up jeans and firmly believed that turning trees from green to gold is an exothermic reaction. Madam Butterfly frolicked down the Mall from 12' high speakers and Falun Gong demonstrators (entirely oblivious to any speck of irony, I should add) performed something like Chinese Opera in infinitely slow and beautiful motion.
Across the room from the green ladies, their sisters were not so favored. Trapped indoors and hung as paragons of art, they only told me that women look better immobile.

the anxiety of creation (with attendant lyres)

We'll see how this goes.