Some e cards

No need to look anywhere else for e cards...

Cheap shopping, benefits hunger

The "click to sponsor" sites are organized and easy - you can go to one URL and click to support ads for prevention of breast cancer, fighting hunger, feeding pets, and feeding the hungry. But they also sell stuff, and there's a great variety, and it's really cheap. The pet site has a lot of paw symbols, which is unfortunate, but the Feed the Hungry site has great jewelry and artisan gifts from all over the world.

There is hardly anything over $35 and most is in the $20 range. Shipping is only $2.95. Check it out.

The Hunger Site

APS Green Choice Program

One of the local electric companies now allows customers to buy renewable energy in a portion or percentage that they choose, for only $.01 a kilowatt hour. Amazing. I thought it was junk mail when I first got the email, but no... it's an organized program set up to encourage development of companies providing renewable energy sources. You pay the amount in addition to your regular electric bill, but you choose either blocks of renewable energy, or a percentage of your total use.

If you go to the site you can see your use over a period of 1 or 2 years, and determine how much you want to spend based on that chart. Mine is super low (no central air) so I could easily afford the 100% share... if you have a bigger house or use a lot more energy, you can choose blocks of 100 kWh, or go with say, 35%. It's a great idea.

I am still going to spend next August elsewhere... until they can figure out a way to chill the outside air w/ renewable resources as well.

Magical Tuesday

The favored march up over the hill
In some fools parade
Shoutin' victory for the righteous
But there ain't much here but graves

Bruce Springsteen -

A Long Walk Home

Quote of the Week, sorta

"If they told me at the outset the iPhone would be $200 cheaper the next day, I would have thought about it for a second — and still bought it," said Andrew Brin, a 47-year-old addiction therapist in Los Angeles. "It was $600 and that was the price I was willing to pay for it."

Note the speaker's job title. I'm sure he's very effective with his patients, got a major empathy streak.

As you may have heard, Apple got an ass-wuppin from 'early adopters' who somehow did not anticipate the price drop. Sure, it dropped REALLY fast, but hey, Christmas is coming. How many times does this have to happen before people realize they are paying a price for requiring a status symbol? How embarrassing to ask for a refund, which Jobs is offering to appease the pissed-off proletariat. Is there a refund for stupidity?

Sure, it's pretty and oh so revolutionary. It about killed me when I first saw it. And as my bud Kevin pointed out, I have a blind spot for Apple, as if they were really not a major corporation... I like good design, so sue me. But I know better than to buy buggy new stuff that other people will want to touch and probably scratch the screen. :-) Like the Beetle - between when I first wanted one (new Beetle - otherwise, 1975) and got one, the price dropped $9K, around 2 years later. Do these people not realize this will happen?

Movies come to DVD in 3 months now. Brand new technology drops within 6. If you want something the day it comes out, you are going to pay more. It's a rule.

Image Resizing by Seam Carving

Radio Nowhere - click here for song

I was trying to find my way home,
But all I heard was a drum
Bouncin' off a satellite
Crushing the last lone American night.

This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?

I was sitting around a dead dial
Just another lost number in a file.
Been in some kinda dark cove
Just searching for a world with some soul.

This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
Is there anybody alive out there?

I just want to hear some rhythm.
I just want to hear some rhythm
I just want to hear some rhythm.
I just want to hear some rhythm.

I want a thousand guitars.
I want pounding drums.
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues.

This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
Is there anybody alive out there?

(Sax solo)

I was driving thru the misty rain
Yeah, searching for a mystery train.
Bopping thru the wild blue
Trying to make a connection with you.

This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere.
Is there anybody alive out there?
Is there anybody alive out there?

I just want to hear some rhythm (you swoon.)
I just want to hear some rhythm (you swoon.)
I just want to hear you swoon.
I just want to hear you swoon.
I just want to hear you swoon.
I just want to hear you swoon.
I just want to hear you swoon.
I just want to hear you swoon.

Wanna waste some time?

I can help.

The Sheep Market

Anywhere FM


Web 2.0 Search Engine

Worth 1000

Mr. Picasso Head

Four Word Film Review

PaperVision3D


OdopodSketch

Death at a Funeral

You probably need to have experienced Phoenix in August to appreciate this story, but if you haven't, just imagine the hottest you've ever been, and then double it.

Yesterday I went to see Death at a Funeral (again, yes, it's that funny) with Jamaal, Will, and Chris D, and we were all arriving at different times. It was playing at the indie release theater, which was built in the 70s, when apparently, it didn't get hot in Phoenix in the summer.

There is no room inside for waiting for tickets, because once they have your money, they need the space to extort more for drinks and food, so there is room for that line. Outside there are 2 or 3 spaceship-like shelters spouting misters that hit about 6 feet above your head. (For the uninitiated, misters cool the surrounding air by about 15-20 degrees if they work properly and are not hung 2000 feet in the air.) There are only 2 ticket windows - remember, indie theater. It was at least 110 degrees if not hotter, humid, and there was a line around the side of the building (building made of brick, path made of concrete, surrounded by another brick wall) of about 150 people. I called the crew immediately and said, no way we're getting in, and no way I'm waiting in that line for a movie I've already seen... then I remembered the ATM ticket machine.

There is ONE ATM ticket machine under the shelters, it looks like a little robot, and because we were in Scottsdale, older crowd, not many people had figured out this option, or they would not be standing in the sun on concrete for a British movie. I'm assuming. So I get in the very short line to buy tickets from the machine. The ticket machine printed a BANNER of tickets for each one, about 15 feet of paper for 4 tickets and a receipt. Cardboard, resistant to folding. The theater helper person was pulling them out to make it go faster AND RIPPING them.

She says to me, just hand them the whole pile, they will know these are your tickets. !!! The ticket taker will know that tickets are tickets! That is comforting, but not helpful when you are going with 3 other people who have not yet arrived. The woman in front of me finished her cell phone call before she decided to move away from the machine, even though she had her tickets, courtesy of the ripping agent. So you get the general dysfunctional picture.

So I mention that staggering the movie times might help, considering the weather and their ancient technology and 2-ticket-agent window situation. The theater agent told me the movies were staggered 20 minutes - did I mention she was wearing pants and a long sleeved jacket? Yup. Not a lot of thinking going on in general here. 20 minutes is not enough, obviously. Theater been open since the 70s. Must take a while to get these kind of stats.

So I get my 70 feet of unfoldable cardboard tickets and rip them into 4 separate smaller strands, just in time for said crew to appear and get fairly decent seats inside, probably because at least 1/3 of the crowd was still in line getting tickets and/or drinks. So really, all's well that ends fairly well.

By now you're saying, just buy tickets online. Which I do 90% of the time, but they charge an extra dollar (they should charge an extra dollar for the people having to work in person at the window, but that is for another blog), and you still have to wait for one of the ticket window people to turn around and acknowledge your existence to get your ticket.

I'm not going to name the theater, b/c if you've been, you know it, but I am sending them this blog.

By the way, the movie is hysterical and is worth about 1/2 of this pain, but not all. It is only playing at the indie theater, so go at night or wait a couple of weeks.

Rebel

"The next real literary 'rebels' in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point. Maybe that's why they'll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal:shock disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today's risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to riskthe yawn, rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the 'Oh how banal.' To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. "
David Foster Wallace

Something Magic on Oct 2

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S 'MAGIC'
SET FOR OCTOBER 2 RELEASE ON COLUMBIA RECORDS

'Magic,' Bruce Springsteen's new studio recording and his first with the E Street Band in five years, is set for release by Columbia Records on October 2, 2007. Produced and mixed by Brendan O'Brien, the album features eleven new Springsteen songs and was recorded at Southern Tracks Recording Studio in Atlanta, GA.

'Magic' Song Titles:

1. Radio Nowhere
2. You'll Be Comin' Down
3. Livin' in the Future
4. Your Own Worst Enemy
5. Gypsy Biker
6. Girls in Their Summer Clothes
7. I'll Work for Your Love
8. Magic
9. Last to Die
10. Long Walk Home
11. Devil's Arcade

New Tour, Album Details

Springsteen album, tour details expected Thursday
By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 16, 2007

Details of a new Bruce Springsteen album will be announced Thursday morning, and presumably there will be some information about a fall tour as well.

Word from the Springsteen world is that fans can expect an album that reunites him with the E Street Band following his most recent projects with the Sessions Band exploring vintage American folk and blues songs and his more introspective "Devils & Dust" solo album in 2005. If the participation of the E Streeters turns out to be true, it will be their first album together since 2002's "The Rising."

Yay!

Simpsonize You

Click here to simpsonize yourself.

VFC Show - Better Man

Antonioni: 1912-2007

Ingmar Bergman is a lot more famous in the States than Michelangelo Antonioni, and there will probably be more film compilations on the movie channels for Bergman. Antonioni is not quite as accessible, but with a similar view to depicting alienation as one of the hallmark human conditions. Existential angst and death as a companion, or at least as a motivator towards living in the moment, were central themes for both, but Antonioni was a bit more fascinated with modern themes, even 'hip' people, and was not very well understood at the beginning of his career. His lack of dialogue and action was a bit too distancing for mainstream audiences, and he never had a film win an academy award, although he did get an achievement award here.

But Blow Up is always on my top ten list no matter how many new wonderful films I see. I had it on beta, I had it on VHS, I have it on DVD. And yeah, it's distant and cerebral, but it also magically captures a moment in time - mid 60s London - and was the first (that I know of) to show the dark side of the free love movement without being a bit hysterical and judgmental. I think it's riveting.

So weird that they went on the same day. So lucky for us that they both lived so long and produced so much.

Thoughts about the crash

The two Phoenix news helicopters crashed about 10 blocks from my house, at Indian School park, in my dog's favorite spot. This spot is right by the man-made lake where there are usually about 20 ducks hanging out or swimming, and a few people fishing and just hanging out. At noon in Phoenix, there are not going to be a lot of people hanging around outside in a park, so that is a lucky thing. Not sure about the ducks.

But this is the only open area for miles around. Right in between the veteran's hospital AND A SCHOOL. There is one lame, petty criminal making a getaway from police, not even a high-speed chase. Do 5 helicopters need to cover it? Do we need to see this stupid car chase stuff over and over again, so that people take these ridiculous risks and fly over heavily populated areas? It's one thing for them to take the risk, but we don't sign on for it.

My friend Joann called me after, but had heard on the news that the helicopters crashed into a park in between Indian School and Osborn. She raced home from work, went through 3 red lights, rushing to see if our houses were burning and to let the animals out, if possible, because we live on the only park in between Osborn and Indian School. So even with 5 helicopters, they could not get the information correct. She was lucky she did not hurt herself or someone else in her panic to get home.

I talked to a restaurant owner in the Melrose district today, which is about 10 blocks the other way from the accident. He was still home before it happened, and he watched the petty criminal drive by with flattened tires, get out, and steal another truck to keep going. Where were the cops then? They flattened the guy's tires and still couldn't catch him? I feel really safe now.

Don't get me wrong - I feel awful for everyone involved - the random snuffing out of life over a stupid risk - the poor families, co-workers, and friends. Imagine their last moments- just horrific, horrific. But it was completely unnecessary - they were not rescuing anyone, they were not performing a heroic feat - they were trying to beat the competition to a stupid story on a slow, hot Phoenix day. Why can't one helicopter go up and share the feed? Were they in the way of police helicopters? Why would there even be police helicopters for such a lame thing?

Argh.

House Tales

When you sell a house, the house is like a girlfriend who has a crappy boyfriend, and all she wants is a commitment. She gets all painted up, gets new decoration, always looks her best, stays home to wait for calls, and all she hears is, well, maybe if you didn't have such a past (ok, so I was built in '39 but I look good!) and maybe if you were a little less well-traveled (nuthin' I can do about being on 12th street!) and maybe if you weren't so hot (HUH?!) then maybe I could make a commitment.

And what is it about people who are adamant about seeing the house TODAY and then they don't show up or call? I have had that 3 times already and it's only been on the market for 3 weeks.

Get this - I had one woman write before the house was even listed - I just floated it on Craig's List for responses. She asked permission 3 days in a row to come on a Sunday morning. So sure, I cleaned like crazy (remember, it wasn't really ready yet), and she didn't show up or call. A couple days later she emailed asking if it was still available. Yes... again, didn't show up or call. So I'm up on Clarkdale, trying to be on vacation (THAT is another whole story) and she and her husband were looking in the guest house windows when my friend Joann just happened to come over and feed the dog...

So Joann calls me and says, ummm, do you want me to let these people in?? And I said, sure, what the hell, if you have time, and it turns out to be the multiple no-shows. And, they invite the sister, who comes running down the alley because she lives nearby, to see the guest house, her potential future quarters.

So they love the house right down to my Rushmore poster (It's our favorite movie too! Cosmic! Beauty! Karma! whatever...) I get an email a couple days later asking for more information -about plumbing, electrical, etc. I send a long, nice email back and invite them over to spend more time here.

A week goes by. My realtor calls them for feedback. Here's what they say:

"Oh, we're not in the housing market, we're not in any position to buy, we were just really curious about the house. We really love it! Tell her good luck."

!!!! I sent them a bill for my time.

Or how about these: I have an open house, really good turn out, no bites. One pair, a woman and her son, told the realtor they thought the guest house WAS THE MAIN HOUSE. !!! And another one, a German woman, thought the house would be around 200K (it's 350K) and if I could drop it to that, she would be interested, because then it would cost the same as her condo. !!!

This is the best yet though - I took the doorknob out of the guest house door - it is just a hole you can see through, the door only stays shut b/c the cooler is blowing it closed. And a realtor was there when I got home from the grocery store the other day. She told me she and her client didn't see the guest house because they didn't have a key for that.

Sigh.

Out There

The Teslathon: In May, the Carlton Road United Reformed Church Hall in Derby saw Teslathon UK – a small group of men and women gathered around a 9ft-tall tesla coil zapping the walls. They meet twice a year to show off their coils, and similar events happen all over the world.

Government!
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network activists told reporters in June that at least 59 U.S.-trained Arabic speakers have been ejected from the military because they're gay (and in each case despite being a native English-speaker who completed intense, expensive military language school). But a month before that, as symbolic of the government's shortage of Arabic speakers, an official of the U.S.-funded Al Hurra Middle East television service admitted that it had recently, inadvertently, broadcast several pro-terrorist programs (including an hour-long tirade encouraging violence against Jews), attributing the error to the fact that no senior Al Hurra news manager speaks Arabic.

Tape Art

Thoughts on Live Earth

I only caught bits and pieces of this but there were some weird choices made by Bravo, as there always are... and just some weird stuff in general.

- Why did all the performers keep talking about New York City when Giants Stadium is in New Jersey?

- Why one song by Red Hot Chili Peppers and 9 million by Alicia Keys?

- Why did people on Fox news keep referring to it as a fund raising event? (Sometimes you just gotta watch Fox, like you just gotta watch Joel Osteen et al - see what they're up to)

- Was Kelly Clarkson actually screaming or was her voice just giving out?

- Did Madonna really only do one live song besides having the video for Hey You?

- Why oh why did I miss Snow Patrol? OK, that's a rhetorical question.

- Is Karen Duffy pregnant? Who was that guy with her?

- Most importantly, where were Bruce and U2?

You can watch all the concerts at msn when you want, here:

http://entimg.msn.com/i/ExperienceData/p1-7/us/x.htm?sh=LiveEarth&ep=le_london

The 4th in Clarkdale

Via on the Cusp

An alliterative meme:

Your name: Cynthia
A Country: Croatia
Song Title: Cynthia ( duh )
An Artist: Chagall
A Reason to Stay Home from Work or School: Cat is sick, can't come in
Something you'd see at a Zoo: Coatimundi
A Snack: Cookies
A Character in a Book: Cat in the Hat
Something Icky: Coal for fuel
A Six-letter Word: Calorie (ok , 7)
Something Breakable: Cafe Press.com
Non-Alcoholic Drink: Coffee
Something you Whisper: "Can we get good seats?"

My Name is Earl

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - this is the funniest, most satisfying comedy on TV. Now is the time to check it out if you haven't already. SERIOUSLY FUNNY and great satire on our stupid culture.

OK, and did Prince name his new album Planet Earth to capitalize on the links to the Discovery series? I mean, c'mon...

Also, 30 Rock - almost as funny as Earl, and it's rerun season. Commit, people, commit to good comedy.

The Sopranos is over. Don't you want to feel good?

GOP Family Values

Skittles Singing Rabbit Ringtone

You can download the ringtone from the rabbit singing in the Skittles commercial here. If you haven't seen the commercial, click on the video on the right. Seriously good. Not quite as out there as the singing pilgrim, but close.

Geodesy Indwell Cyril Vampire

The only thing that drives me more nuts than getting spam with ridiculous subject lines is the horrible punctuation, formatting, and grammar that those same spam contain... The subject lines can be amusing - only one of those is a real word, right?? Who are they trolling for? Would someone go, "Oh cool, geodesy!" and quickly open this email? Or, "Maybe this is that vampire I met in Europe a few years back - Cyril - the one who lives in a dome. What's he up to?"

These messages typically contain pixelated graphics, multiple fonts and colors, and horrible grammar. And, let's say, imaginative punctuation. The worst offender in imaginary punctuation land is the use of apostrophes to indicate a plural. Or should I say, "apostrophe's"... "Get your prescription's here!" Didn't we learn this is an evil mistake as far back as second grade? Or am I just really lucky to have an English teacher as a mom??? Perhaps I just can't separate what I learned in school from the brainwashing I received at home. And I mean that in a good way, Mom. Maybe Mom knows what Cyril is doing.

So, if you are using spam to market a product, at least get your marketing emails right. I am not offended by spam so much as I am offended by ignorance and laziness. Don't even get me started on "your" versus "you're."

Happy Memorial Day

Chimes of Freedom - Bob Dylan

Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing

Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on their unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden here while the walls were tightening
And as the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the wild bells of the lightning

Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the raked
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder

Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the unpawned painter beyond his rightful time
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations

Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased and cheated by pursuit
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

And through a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
The hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting

Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed 'til the tolling ended

Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Good stuff

The sky was an unusual color last night, even for Phoenix. I swear it was turquoise, fading into royal blue. Amazing.

Found out rather than removing stained saltillo tile that neanderthal installer did not seal properly, I can etch them with tri-sodium phosphate and re-seal them. Yea! No need to jackhammer them out.

Discovered pesto and tuna through Lara - really good - mix pesto, oil, and some pepper w/ tuna for a healthy alternative to tuna/mayo.

Finished the porch mural - only took a year and a month... still need to grout the floor... pics later...

Have realized I have such an antipathy now for microsoft that even tho my new laptop arrived on Tuesday, I have not opened the box. I have Vista Fear.

Have been experimenting with thinking about people to see if they call me and it's worked twice this week. So it's confirmed, I control everything. :-)

Found a lost hammer - was looking for a wire brush which is still missing, but finding a missing hammer after about 3 months was exciting in a way that only nerds would understand.

Found out from a neighbor that even though it's over 100 degrees in May, rather than the norm, which is June, that is not part of a changing weather pattern. Also, we should still boycott France, and Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ. On the positive side, yes, he will loan me his electric sander. It is never boring in this neighborhood.

There is a pair of ducks that have decided to stay in the park - they discovered irrigation two weeks ago and have never left. The neighbors are all feeding them to get them to stay. Once the pool is filled the ducks will never leave.

And finally, the series finale of the Gilmore Girls was tasteful and true to the spirit of the show. No neatly sewn up happy endings, just a couple of cool surprises and a pretty realistic conclusion. I realize I'm outting myself for watching this show, which I have been doing for 6 of the 7 years it was on. Sue me, it's funny.

Ruined Music - click for site

Cool new site:

"Most people have a song that’s been ruined.

A breakup turns “our song” into “the one song I can never hear again.” A crush goes downhill and takes your favorite record with it. A best friend vanishes, leaving you holding the mixtape. Talent show disasters, high school humiliations, family crises… somehow there’s always a song playing in the background.

Ruined Music collects essays about these songs we’ve lost. If music is the soundtrack to our lives, here are the scenes when it all went wrong.

Read. Write. Reclaim your record collection."

Nice. Any takers? Wanna rant here?

Mural progress

Full day 5

Body Exhibition - click for info

So I finally went to the Body Exhibition after being convinced by the marketing (LAST WEEKS! GO NOW!) which made it seem like it would take a week to go through it, a day or two to drive there, and then the recovery period. Why not "last days"? Or event ends ... " " ... So it goes.

Here's my previous post about my dread and nausea anticipation - and I was right... Thank god the exhibit didn't really take weeks because I was nauseous the whole time. I don't have any problem with the moral implications; apparently, some are offended by the actual process by which the bodies are made into displays. The participants gave consent for their bodies to be used following death - we don't know how informed that consent was, but it was given... And initially I was shocked by the price of the exhibit, which was $22... the Met and the Modern are hovering around $25, so c'mon - but when you see the labor and the time it takes to make this art, it's more understandable. It takes teams of people weeks or months to do one body...

No, the nausea was just caused by the reality of it - and wondering how they twisted the bodies into these poses and the minute detail rendered by much slicing and dicing. It was just gross... I'm not saying it had no artistic value - it was very artistically presented, and whoever developed the exhibit (one can't really say curated unless there are these plasticized bodies to choose from all over the world) made an effort to mitigate the purely scientific approach by including philosophical, historical, artistic, and biblical references to the body and the study of anatomy in beautifully lit displays on all the walls behind the pieces.

And people who know me know I am very elastic in what I like in art. I did not like it, although it was very interesting - like a really well done gross-out film or book that is not softened with humor or a happy ending... I am just glad it was at the science center and not the art museum... And I'm glad I went in with an empty stomach.

Tempe Mosaic project

Last night I got a call to help out with grouting a mural that's part of the 1% for the Arts program in Tempe - this one was designed and developed by Nina Solomon and Heidi Dauphin, local artists. Isn't it cool?

Luckily we were finished with two sections before the heat of the day, and we had the canopy to work under...

Mural progress

Day 3

Mural

I've been contracting but not yet working full-time, so I was lucky enough to get a mural commissioned by my new friends, Heather and Scott. I am going to post pics of it as I do it because it will help keep me focused knowing other people are watching.... It looks pretty normal now, but it's going to get quite wild by the end...

So here are days 1 and 2 (Tuesday and Friday). Click the images for a larger view.

Back yard progress so far

So last week my landscaper dude proposed improving my back yard which looked like it had been through at least a civil war if not a nuclear explosion. I can't even really print the original before pics, which was before they removed the grass and leveled it. It's just too scary. Not as scary as the old guesthouse, but scary.

Still left to do: stucco the short wall, tile the top, add some cactus, and finish the stepping stones.

Save Internet Radio

Subject: Increasing Royalties on Internet Radio

Dear Mr. Elected Official,

Do you remember when you were young and how great radio was? Did you ever get a chance to hear WNEW in the 60s or 70s, or WMMS? There was such a great diversity of music then, unprogrammed for the most part, when you never knew what you were going to get. On a rainy day, you may get the Beatles for 6 hours in a row. DJs were creative, responsive to the culture, and you were constantly exposed to new and different music, which then, actually (gasp) SOLD.

Not so today. In the era of ClearChannel, DJs are just hired monkeys, driven by corporate executives who only care about scads and scads of profit, who do not pass it on to their clients, the music artists, who have already sold their creative souls to focus groups rather than following their instincts. And then you're left with Christine Aguilera.

Internet radio is the last bastion of creativity. There aren't going to be profits made if all of them go out of business - you can't get royalties off nothing. Yet, this is where I hear all my new music, and then go and buy it. Sure, not everyone buys it, but that will just drive corporate radio to find new ways to sell it. But this way? This is lose-lose for everyone.

Please don't kill Internet radio.

Jeromeian is back!

Thank god Greg is posting again so I can get my Jerome fix. He started working as a waiter after oh, 20 years in the social service field (that's where we met) and he has some hilarious stories to tell. I don't think he would mind if I re-post my favorites from his recent post.

Q: What time does your little town close?
A: At 5:00p.m. when the gates go up at the bottom of the hill. After 5:00p.m. you can only get to Prescott, not to Cottonwood and if you are staying in town you must be in your hotel room by 5:30p.m.
Q: Really?(with very serious looks on their faces)
A: No. Our town doesn't close. We are not an amusement park.

Q: At what elevation up here do the deer turn into elk?
A: (blank look)-Do you want fries or tater tots with your sandwich?

Q: Why do you live here?
A: Because it's close to work.
Q: So you moved all the way up the mountain to be near work?
A: Yes.

Q: Do people really live here?
A: No. Everyone in town are all paid actors and we go home each night and return in the morning to start the show again.

Q: Why don't you have any gas stations in Jerome?
A: Because we don't want them and not having them sets us apart from other towns.
Response: Well I am almost out of gas, what happens if I run out?
A: Most people I know make sure they have enough gas when they start driving up a mountain. If you run out, you are stuck here and you have to work, probably in the kitchen, hope you have triple A. Or you can coast all the way down the hill to the gas station, you know, the one you passed on your way up here?

Q: Why do you close at 4:00p.m.?
A: Because the owners wanted it that way. Come back on Friday and you can stay late.
Response: Well, 4pm is too early, you should stay open until at least 6p.m.

Q: How much is that one house down the hill?
A: Which one?
Q: The big gray one, where the road splits?
A: Last I heard it was reduced to $800K.
Q: Why?
A: I don't sell real estate, I have no idea.
Q: But why hasn't anyone bought it?
A: I really have no idea about the house or any property in Jerome. What can I get you to drink?

Q: What is there to do at night in Jerome?
A: Go to the Spirit Room and watch the alcoholics.

Q: What do people do at night in Jerome?
A: Drink
Response: Oh, ha ha, that was funny. But what do they really do at night?
A: Drink. Can I get you anything else?

Tom Waits and Bono recite Bukowski

Scott's pick

Scott picked the Mondrian-influenced design for his site. Check it out here:

Scott Zimmer

Happy Earth Day

Cactus pics

I took these yesterday on a hike up behind Piestewa Peak. It's so unbelievably gorgeous right now - I don't ever remember a better April. Cool, breezy, some rain. Amazing.




Click for a larger view.

Scott Zimmer's site

Scott is a saxophone and woodwinds player here in Phoenix. Please vote on which design Scott should pick for his new site. (He's trying to decide.)

Superstition Mountains

I took this on Saturday at the top of the Peralta Trail at the Superstitions (about 40 miles east of Phoenix)... It's the best trail yet, and the hardest. About 2 miles up. A "2.5" hour trail took Gillian and me 3.5 hours. And coming down is NOT easier. Puts the hike down the Grand Canyon in perspective. Had to go to yoga Sunday morning just to be able to walk like a normal person again. :-) TOTALLY worth it. Lots of flowers, a little pond with tadpoles in it, amazing views. We made it up to see Weaver's Needle. Will post more pics later.

Click on the image to get a better view.

Oprah: Midwife of the Apocalypse

Unless you live under a rock or have no TV (and Zoe says, who's Oprah?), you've heard that Oprah has chosen Cormac McCarthy's The Road for her next book club. Now, this guy is not as reclusive as J.D. Salinger, but he's pretty darned private. That part is interesting for those of us who follow authors and have many opinions. So that's causing a boatload of discussion for McCarthy followers. The David Foster Wallace list I'm on sent so many emails the day it was announced that I turned off the sound for all the beeping alerts. And, as per usual, when Oprah chooses a book outside her normal Lifetime Channel parameters, there is much talk about her power to increase sales of literature and get the housewives of America reading. So that old discussion is also burning up bandwidth.

So I won't bore you with all that - I don't care about the Oprah-watching, non-reading, soccer moms of this country. It's just that the books she chooses that cause the murmuring, like The Corrections, or rather, the Corrections' author, may be a little out there or hard to take for people used to Bridges of Madison County. But they are nowhere near as devastating or haunting as The Road... She may as well ask her audience to watch her butcher a bunny on live TV.

I know I'm rambling a bit but there is just so much to say regarding this pop cultural mashup that I can't really keep my thoughts straight. I had a strange moment at Best Buy the other day, when I was standing behind this, what we used to call a valley girl (what are they called now?), who was wearing a flared, ruffled miniskirt, short, belly-baring top, piled-high hair, and way too much makeup, reading the The Road - IN LINE. Because she couldn't wait to get it home and begin living through the apocalypse. I can't shake this image. And then, I imagine Oprah's audience sitting there with dark circles under their eyes, dirty hair, and perhaps a bunch of pitforks, having turned into a posse like the one chasing Frankenstein, for introducing thoughts into their empty little heads that now will never leave and dammit, won't let them sleep either.

"And everyone gets - A FREE COPY OF THE ROAD!!!!" Audience just sits there, silent. "And now... "CORMAC MC CARTHYYYYYYYYY!"

See? It just goes on and on. It's just not right. This is No Program for Old Men. And yet, I will be there with bells on. Can anyone tell me when it is airing?

And now, to make this blog worthwhile - I found out that a film is being made of The Road, directed by John Hillcoat, who just did the outstanding "The Proposition." How many Oprah fans do you think saw The Proposition? And how excited are the film producers that Oprah chose The Road? Very. How many Oprah fans that read The Road will also see the movie? 0. Well, Deejah, so 1.

Happy Birthday, Claudia

I made this birdbath for Claud's birthday, which she won't see before I give it to her b/c she doesn't have time to read blogs anymore. It's made of travertine marble tile shards and handcrafted ceramic leaves.



See! I can do conversative too.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — 'God damn it, you've got to be kind."'

Kurt Vonnegut
1922-2007

Imus Why Must You

In my Wonderbread, AM radio years, before I moved from David Cassidy to the Stones, I listened mostly to two d.j.'s out of New York. Cousin Brucie and Imus in the Morning. Cousin Brucie had a sort of shrill, effeminate, exciteable delivery, like he was mainlining donuts and coffee. Imus was the exact opposite, with a gravelly, sinister voice, who only got excited when he was ordering 3000 hamburgers for some office or yelling into the phone after waking somebody up - "ARE YA NAKED???!!!" His drug was definitely cocaine, muted with Schaefer beer. He is in that soft spot in my heart that has grown from forgetting all the horrible crap about junior high and remembering only the entertaining stuff.

So, I had some news show on in the background while working the other day, having my fake contact with the outside world and heard bits and pieces about Imus. I'm like, what's he done now. Because I caught only part of it, I thought the racist comment Imus had said was to say "You people" to Al Sharpton, which is very similar to when that idiot mentioned that Barack Obama was "clean," etc. But that must have been part of his apology, which is really quite funny, if you're making fun of Imus in general. And then I stayed in my little bubble and saw Jon Stewart stumble over a sequence of prejudiced-sounding phrases in an attempt to make fun of both Imus and Al. But he wasn't really into it.

Then, this morning I searched for info about it to see what Imus was saying today, and found that he really did say an incredibly racist thing. But here's the deal. He has said incredibly tasteless, racist, sexist, ageist, and other ist-ish stuff for like 30 years now. He is not a particularly bright bulb, and he is crass, self-obsessed, and perhaps even senile. The bit with "you people" as part of an apology sounds like more than a simple senior moment, no?

While we move forward on political correctedness, and trying to get it right (although no one is trying to get it right about women, but that's for another blog) we shouldn't ask ourselves why the stupid prejudice from a shocky media guy, but why not every other day?

Little Miss Salzinski

So Miss Samantha Salzinski is the original Little Miss Sunshine. Check out the pics.

Stakes in the Grass

These are concrete stakes for garden or hose markers, or just for decor.

Lawn Lizard

I sculpted this guy out of concrete and then layered him up with all the glass and shards he needed to be a truly suave lawn lizard...

Peep Show

Resevoir Peeps



Marpeep Antoinette

Click on title for more Peep Show.

I need to add a note here that I did not make the dioramas - but thanks for all the credit! I copied it from another site, which you can see if you click on the title of the blog...

Robert's new birdbath

We installed Robert's new birdbath today. Tessa likes it too... Thanks, Robert!

Have some time to waste? (click title for link)

Flickr has a new photo pool called Wardrobe Remix. It's all non- models posting pix of themselves in outfits they're proud to have put together. The outfits are almost as entertaining as the settings. Some are just living rooms or bedrooms, but some are quite stylized to match the outfit. Pretty darned fun.

Across the Universe

All I can say is, go see this when it comes out.

A Poem A Day

Knopf has an option where you can receive an emailed poem a day. I don't know if you've ever tried to find poetry online, searching for something for a certain occasion or holiday - it's very difficult. It's almost impossible using keywords, and you can just imagine the dreck that's out there.

This is a random poem, but always high quality, and can be like hitting Shuffle on the ipod- it may just mean something when you receive it. If you want to sign up, send a blank email to this address: sub_knopfpoetry@info.randomhouse.com.

Here's today's - by D. Nurske, about an abandoned marriage.

Separation at Burnt Island

Brothers and sisters, who live after us,
don't be afraid of our loneliness,
our dented wiffle ball, the little kerf
the dog chewed in the orange frisbee.

Don't grieve for our kite; not the frayed string
that clings to your ankle, not the collapsed wing.

We lived on earth, we married, we touched each other
with our hands, with our hair that cannot feel
but that we felt luxuriously, and with promises.

We made these bike tracks in the sand
—don't follow them—and this calcined match head
is the last statue of our King.

We lived between Cygnus and Orion,
resenting the blurriness of the Pleiades,
in a house identical to its neighbors—
stepwise windows, ants never to be repelled,
TV like a window into the mind
that can't stop talking, redwood deck
facing the gulf.

Everything was covered with sand: the seams
of the white lace dress, the child's hinged cup,
the watch (even under the crystal), the legal papers.

We were like you, or tried to be. We divided our treasures
(a marble with no inside, a brooch from Siena),
signed our names with all our strength, and went home
in two directions, while the marriage continued
without us in the whirling voice of gulls.

New stuff

Commission from Robert "The Donut" Donat... Thanks Robert!

The Criterion Contraption - click on title

There is an excellent new blog by a guy called Matthew Dessen. He's reviewing all the films in the Criterion Collection, which is quite a feat. The Criterion Collection is a great list if you're wanting to see old, classic, or just great flicks. Way better than the AFI top 100, which is actually quite embarrassing for what they include AND for what they leave out.

And he's a great and astute reviewer - he's seen so many things in Rushmore I will have to watch it yet again... sigh... And it's probably the only review so far that includes a mention of David Foster Wallace - check it out:

"When you get past the extraneous bullshit surrounding Anderson's films, the crux of disagreements about him reminds me of disagreements over David Foster Wallace (or Dave Eggers, or Thomas Pynchon, or even Vladimir Nabokov). It comes down to this: Are Anderson's stylistic tricks and distracting plot elements smoke and mirrors, or do they bring something unique to the stories he's telling?1 In the case of Rushmore, I think the answer has to be the latter."

And if you're a Rushmore fan, he's right - the DVD extras are some of the best I've ever seen, and include Wes' versions of Armageddon, The Truman Show, and Out of Sight performed on the 1999 MTV Movie Awards featuring the "Rushmore Players" directed by Max Fisher - seriously the funniest satire I have ever seen, or else the only satire involving Max Fisher.

And grant me one final note about Rushmore - I just watched it again the other night with a Rushmore virgin - is the Albert Markovski character in I Heart Huckabees not Max Fisher at 21? I'm not saying that Jason Schwartzman cannot play more than one character - I'm saying that it's an inside joke and that Max is now having a major bout with existential angst - just the next step in his 'coming of age' drama. Check out this pic:



You rock, rock.

Back to Work

Well, despite my best efforts to stay home and play with mosaics, I got a contract job. Not a bad one though - get to work from home, choose my hours, and it's writing and graphics. What's weird is that the content is very similar to all the content I worked on while at the Supreme Court, so it should be pretty easy.

Started a day sooner than I expected so I didn't get to have a last freedom day. Oh well, in seven weeks I can have a freedom day...

New stuff

Vivian commissioned a piece to be fashioned from her broken raku pot...

New Triple Decker Birdbath