Making topiary out of Shrubbery:
After a furiously restive night full of howling nightmares so scary that we will refrain from relaying them to you for the risk of permanent neural damage, we were eager to wash that "man" right out of our brain and forget the state of the union.
Enter my pal Animal. A socially-conscious and generally groovy performance-art dyke who co-founded the religion of Aureola the Sparkle Queen (to which you will certainly convert for at least a moment), she entertained us at our picnic in Madison Park with ribald accounts life on the Lesbi-rock circuit. Apparently, the cops in South Carolina don't appreciate rock boobs. The point is, get yourself a ron-day-vu with a hardcore committed leftist freak for the next two S of the U addresses. Very contrapunctal.
Freedom Corps? Sure, bring it on! God is in the details, right?
posted by LauraB 3:22 PM
Miracle cure:
3 packets generic-brand Thera-Flu
3 tea-bags Constant Comment Green Tea
3 squirts aloe-vera juice
3 liters New York City Orphically-Restorative Finest Tap Water
and a huge amount of yoga and whatever massage-type action you can wrest out of innocent passers-by. The state of our union is okay today, yessiree! Well, until 9:00 tonight, when we are sure we'll relapse into lefty torpor - at least our sinuses will probably not fail us again, even if constituntional democracy goes flying out the winda.
posted by LauraB 11:01 AM
Flu
Our lil buggies say that yes, we are the petrified vomit of a fish supper.
posted by LauraB 5:59 PM
Logrolling in our time:
Bill Tipper's highly witty and not infrequently profound Wombatfile is our bloggy muse - and belated b-day greetings to his baby Wombat - it's quite a responsibility, feeding a Wombat everyday, innit? A task only for members of the RHS. Anyway, we must remember to steal his fetchingly-OTT use of the the plural singular. We think it's so cool.
posted by LauraB 12:19 PM
Hmmm, does anyone find the Trysterian coininkydink of the "professorial psychological doctor/problem solver" of the smurf wanna-be's and some cunning linguists' numinous neologistic acronyms for themselves vaguely unsettling? Or just kinda funny. The thing is, DFW just has this way of inventing words that repeat themselves over and over in my head, like a blinker long since forgotten after a turn: S.N.O.O.T. Fnoof.
Before I say one more word about snootism or any such, I should really figure out the spellcheck feature on blogger, here, eh?
By the way, I'm looking for an original photo or sketch of the Florence Cathedral (the Dome thereof, specifically) for a thing i'm upto; if anyone would like to make an Intellectual Property donation. Credit and glory up the ying-yang but no cash, i'm afraid.
(3) SNOOT (n) (highly colloq) is this reviewer's nuclear family's nickname a clef for a really extreme usage fanatic, the sort of person whose idea of Sunday fun is to look for mistakes in Satire's column's prose itself. This reviewer's family is roughly 70 percent SNOOT, which term itself derives from an acronym, with the big historical family joke being that whether S.N.O.O.T. stood for "Sprachgefuhl Necessitates Our Ongoing Tendance" or "Syntax Nudniks of Our Time" depended on whether or not you were one. - DFWallace, "Present Tense"
posted by LauraB 12:48 PM
I hate it when this happens.
posted by LauraB 3:37 PM
Overheard in Manhattan:
"I can't talk right now, I'm having lunch." Which was said by a young woman on a headset cell-phone, eating with chopsticks what appeared to be a bowl of noodles, or possibly sashimi, as she rollerbladed right in front of my bike. God speed you, multitask girl.
BTW, here's a typical Den of Size Jam, which is to say, a rarity.
posted by LauraB 12:44 PM
Okay, it was a manically adult weekend, and very good because of that, but as an aside, I've never been stuck on a burning train before - fortunately we were in the third car and only the first two cars filled with smoke. Given the aforementioned mania, we did not offer our seats, but in toto it was a civilized emergency, what with all the New York nonchalance. The ever-trenchant Ladyman noted that seen from above, our train must've really looked like a gynormous glowing cigarette (no puns about one-track minds, please!)
In The Spirit of Terrorism, (the current Harpers has a better translation) Baudrillard certainly has a knack for applying critical theory to political ethics in a really thoughtful - if ultimately chilling - way. Thank god for French abstraction, especially now that wync is doing an open mic hour full of Maya Angelou and Rumi. And don't even get me started on Morning Edition's blithering pæan to advertising, sandwiched in between the shills for Monsanto and Citicorp. Darn that Bob Edwards! Give me the World Service or give me death!
Yes, yes perhaps I am still a bit cranky about that Scrabble game.
posted by LauraB 12:01 PM
Seen the new Al-Queda secret weapon?
posted by LauraB 2:59 PM
Here's a shamless plug
for somebody who put a really awesome CD set together recently.
posted by LauraB 2:15 PM
Damn it! The stupid picture worked before, didn't it? I saw it. Damn it. Tucker
just sent me this lovely link.
Funny, i got an email from him and Ms. Morocco at the same time, and one from
you citing yet another reason why he/we should go to Merry Olde. Makes you wonder.
You realize, of course, that these posts are mandatory in my debugging. It's not
utterly pointless babbling. Really must varnish now.
posted by LauraB 1:44 PM
Is it "a utopia" or "an utopia"?
posted by LauraB 1:33 PM
posted by LauraB 1:31 PM
It's kind of an integral design feature - the browser needs to launch a controlled 600x800 frameset with no toolbars. Because i can. Is it annoying? I think i'm going to try to add comment features, rather than invite the people thru blogger. Because we are living our own brand. Off to varnish the gold soon, and that's not a euphimism. Oops, i guess my students are going to be reading this. Hmm.
posted by LauraB 1:31 PM
Oh, OK, not "everything" -- really it's just the leap from the main window. Resume stuff and everything else stays within main window. Particles are not part. Palsy is not my pal.
posted by Mike 1:27 PM
Here I is. Y'know, the webmistress may need to check all this out on a PC. Everything seems to launch in a new window, and the "practice practice practice" one is the one that stays in the "main" browser window. Seem to be able to get to everything, though.
You mac people . . .
posted by Mike 1:25 PM
posted by LauraB 1:19 PM
Western Reporter to M.K. Ghandi: Sir, what do you think of Western Civilization?
M.K. Ghandi, to reporter: I think it would be a good idea.
posted by LauraB 1:09 PM
Possessions = selves: True or false? I've been taking stock of the objects that surround my life, and adding it up. All detritus. I present: a slice of life in Manhattan:
14 electrical cords or adapters
15 forks (unmatched)
4 antique wineglasses (thanks Jess!)
4 spoons (unmatched)
400 million year old annonite I found in a riverbed I fell into
in Ladakh, India
6 shoe-boxes covered with pyschedelic vinyl, containing art supplies
Aldo Rossi Sketch
Bass guitars, 1
Batik ceiling covering from Indonesia
Big square glass vase (thanks Susan!)
Bollywood movies, 12
Broken but functional task lamp previously owned by I.M.Pei
Cat, male, grey, named Quinton
Cat, male, white, named Franklin
Coffee table, covered in aluminum plumbers’ tape
Coffee table, fringed with gold deelie-bobs and finished by me
in red lacquer and copper-lear.
Digital camera, old-school Sony
Dishdrainer, extremely efficient wall-hung Irish model
Fish-shaped percussion instrument
Food processor (thanks, husband!)
Fridge, non-descript except for silver and gold wedding cake inside
(thanks Tom!)
Futon, lime-green, surprisingly comfy.
Gold and silver-leaf chest of drawers, containing light-bulb-maracas,
distortion pedals for electric guitar, checkbook, campaign papers
and dust-monsters
Goldfish plant
Green Swoopy vase (thanks Rocky!)
Guitars, 3
Handmade Lampshades with pom-poms from Pahar Ganj, Delhi, 1 red,
1 blue
Jar of seeds
Jerry-rigged bookshelf holding speakers (acting as structural
components), books, albums, CDs and sundries
Large mirror, rescued from trash, covered in
aluminum plumbers’ tape
Macintosh G4 with the usual bevy of hardware, with picture of
Mike hanging on it.
Macintosh Power PC in silver-holographic case
Mail-sorting container, containing 100% bills.
Microphone stand, acting as reading lamp stand
Moroccan glass lanterns, hanging, 4, various shapes and colors
Orange and scarlet cotton throw (thanks Rafael and Kyra!)
Pencil containers, crammed, 5
Pens and penils, approx. 200
Peruvian scrapey-sound instrument
Pillows, in orange and dusky purple cordoroy, 2 big, 2 small
Pillows, sequined, 4
Pillows, Tibetan, 1
Roland Virtual Music Studio, 1
Rubber teeth with eyeballs
Saucepan, 1
Saute pan, 1
Set of 8 extremely excellent german chef knives (thanks Janet!)
Small midi keyboard
Small Shrine, containing sparkles, memory book, incense, photos
of wedding, family and WTC
Sparkly hat acting as wreath
Teak credenza, Scandanavian style, containing files, cutting mat,
scanner, blank CD’s, computer cords, etc.
Udaipur watercolor miniatures, 2 (one of a young muscian wooing
a young belle, the other of a Raj dispensing orders to his court)
in antique frames with red and gold patterned mattes
Wall, east, silver-mylar-covered,
Wall, south, silver-holographic/red lame coverd
Wall, west, covered with 200 sheets of Chinese funerary paper,
orange, taupe, gold and silver
Wok, 1
There’s more, but undoubtedely already, you get the point(lessness)
of it all.
posted by LauraB 1:07 PM
posted by LauraB 12:53 PM
posted by LauraB 12:45 PM
posted by LauraB 12:21 PM
posted by LauraB 12:14 PM
posted by LauraB 12:05 PM
Okay, this should be it. If it works i'll stick it in the frameset.
posted by LauraB 12:04 PM
posted by LauraB 11:33 AM
posted by LauraB 10:20 AM
posted by LauraB 10:16 AM
hello, world! and a very happy new year coming right atcha.
posted by LauraB 6:02 PM