Author Tobias Wolff

The radio program "This American Life" today featured author Tobias Wolff reading one of his short stories, "Bullet In The Brain." A passage in that story reveals that the protagonist - a jaded and cynical book critic - in flashing back on his life realized that, "He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else."

What a terrific concept. Perhaps this critic has grown more poetic and interprets things metaphorically. Or maybe he feels bored in that nothing in real life lives up to the measure of the characters and situations he's encountered in books.

Whatever the cause for him, will we all come to a point at which we no longer actively experience or appreciate things in their moment with the wonder of "something new" but instead judge today's experiences as substantively empty reflections of people and events only available elsewhere: either in stories, in the past or in some place other than where we find ourselves today?

Either way - by living in fiction, or by having actually lived more exciting experiences with more colorful characters in one's past than one encounters today - one arrives at a point where real life is a bore. What does one do at that point? Go mad and imagine oneself at cocktail parties with intellectuals and artists and at debauched orgies? Or does one actually seek these out? What if one can't find them; is this when a person turns to drugs to find the fantasy? Finding no source and forgoing drugs, one can turn only to cynicism and depression. And this is my current situation.

The book critic also "did not remember his wife, whom he had also loved before she exhausted him with her predictability." I've always said that I can't stomache "predictable people." Like the critic, my rating bar for characters has been set high. So many people in real life simply fall into routines whose behavior and lifestyle choices any sociologist (or astrologer) could predict. I prefer people who surprise me and don't speak in cliches. People easily bore me. Choose something new, people!

That's enough.

HERE is a good blogpost review of this story. And HERE is the story itself (in .pdf format).

I Feel So

Sometimes
I wish I was brave
I wish I was stronger
I wish I could feel no pain
I wish I was young
I wish I would try
I wish I was honest
I wish I was you not I

'Cause
I feel so mad
I feel so angry
I feel so careless
So lost, confused, just mad
I feel so cheap
So used, unfaithful

Sometimes
I wish I was smart
I wish I made cures for
How people are
I wish I had power
I wish I could lead
I wish I could change the world

The Onion Headline

March 29, 2006

Controversial Christian Faction Believes Jesus Was Nailed To Two Parallel Pieces Of Wood.



'The Onion' website

Patti Smith Concert

I have Sirius Satellite radio. On New Year's Eve, Sirius presented a live concert of Patti Smith. It was, of course, really good, and one song in particular caught my attention. The lyrics started from the Declaration of Independence, then continued in that vein with her own version:

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all mean are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...

...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter it or abolish it and to institute a new Government...

...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.

The history of the present president of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

He has suspended the rights of American citizens to fundamental civil liberties. He has forgotten that the United States was founded on the proposition of the separation of church and state. He has encouraged torture and abuse and hatred. A president whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

We indict George W Bush. For befouling our country's name. For using the rhetoric of freedom to justify tyranny. For rigging the election process. For squandering a vast federal surplus, while giving tax breaks to the rich. For forsaking the poor. For ignoring international agreements to protect the environment. For abandoning Alaska to the oil companies. For abandoning New Orleans. For depriving prisoners of the benefits of a trial by jury. For establishing secret prisons on foreign soil. For authorizing illegal eavesdropping and surveillance. For waging a war based on lies. We indict George W. Bush!!

The American Theocracy Taking Hold

The "Christian" lifestyle is taking such strong hold in America today that advertisers are feeling "in the right" enough to incorporate faith into their advertising. Yesterday on the radio I heard a commercial for a local RV Dealer who clearly feels enough support in the community against the recent anti "Happy Holidays" campaign to announce emphatically that when customers come into their dealership they will be told "Merry Christmas, because that's what it's all about. And, we'll say, 'Bless you.'"

Lordy.

Later that same day, on TV late at night was a local mortgage broker commercial. All was going along cheesy enough (I didn't feel that I would trust the company owner who was the spot's talking head), then the closing graphic on the commercial clearly displayed "John 3:16" in the corner.

Discuss...

Now As Much As Ever

John. d.Dec 8 1980

All We Are Saying...

.

I was 21 and at work when I heard the news. Everyone in the place kinda stopped working for a few minutes, and most people felt a kind of shock. Like it was the end of something important. The end of an era. Not the mere end of a life, but the death of a generation's voice. Who now would speak for us, when he had been so eloquent? The future looked dark from that point on and, in large degree, has been dark without John. I think that people born later don't understand that John had been something of political and spiritual guide for a generation. That's a huge, huge thing. Guru John.

WAR IS OVER!
If You Want It
Happy Christmas From John & Yoko

I found some statements from "regular people" on a Canadian website in response to the question, "Why do you think John Lennon remains such a popular icon?"

His music and lyrics. His striving for change and peace. He was intelligent, acerbic, witty and he spoke his truth freely. This resonates especially in an age of manufactured celebrity, artificial controversy and pervasive public relations hackery. John Lennon was real.

John Lennon inspired the dream that one day we would have a world of peace where all people are equally respected for whom they are and also for their differences.

At times there are individuals who we look to for guidance and hope. John Lennon's message was that if we could shed the realities around us and be inspired to hold the vision of our world with love and peace we would be able make a new reality. This message may be our only hope for the future.

In a New York Times article today, Dr. Stephan G. Lynn, the Emergency Room physician who worked on Lennon that night, is asked to remember that night:

Asked how he felt at the time, Dr. Lynn, a longtime Beatles fan, replied stiffly that emergency doctors are taught not to feel but only to react to medical emergencies. He stifled a slight quiver and gave this clinical judgment: "I think the world would have been substantially different if we could have saved him."

.

Blue Iris

Howard Stern fan here; perhaps even a "superfan" (someone who listens every day; can answer obscure show trivia). Howard is moving from FM radio to Sirius Satellite radio in January. His two channels on Sirius are already on-the-air (though Howard can't appear there yet), and he's beginning to test out programming by giving some of his "Wack Pack" regulars their own hour-long shows. One such program (two weeks ago) was to give a Playboy playmate her own program called "Tissue Time." It was a bedtime stories program for guys. The Playmate would tell sex stories, and guys would call in and do pretty much phone sex with her. (Get it?.. male listeners would then need to use tissues and then they'd fall asleep.)

One of Howard's regular guests is an elderly porno actress named Blue Iris. Apparently, "Granny Porn" is a remarkably popular genre. So, this week Howard gave Blue Iris her own "Tissue Time" program. It was a freakin' hoot! Tahahahaaaa!! She's got this ancient really destroyed-sounding voice, and to hear her telling guys that she's gonna suck the *** outta their ****s, and stick a couple fingers up in the male callers' ***es... hahahaha.... I love this kind of sardonic ironic humor. Funny as hell. Hahahaaaaaa...

Self Portrait, by way of...

Portrait of Mr Absurdito, à la South Park:


Thanks to the ever-artistic J.S. Magruder for alerting me to the website where YOU too can paint yourself into a South Park scene.

OpenOffice.org Free "Office" Suite

If you can't afford Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc), or if you share issues with others around the world regarding Microsoft's domination of the world market, there is a new alternative. The OpenOffice.org office suite of programs is a no cost (100% legally free - yes, $0) alternative to Microsoft Office. It is an open source project that has been in development for five years and has finally been released as a "final" version.

"Open Source" is a movement that publicly provides the programming code of software so that anyone around the world can help to modify and improve that software (and is usually overseen by a control group). Developing alongside this worldwide movement toward no cost "Office" software is the requirement for an international standard document format ("format" = the program code that produces documents). The OpenOffice.org suite meets this newly-established worldwide standard format called "OpenDocument."

Here is a description of the product from the OpenOffice.org website:

OpenOffice.org the product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office, and the vendor-neutral OpenDocument standard from OASIS.

Governments across the globe are adopting this suite (more specifically, the OpenDocument international standard, which this suite produces), and the state of Massachusetts has also adopted this new standard for all their documents (effective 2007). This new international standard for documents guarantees "Future-Proof" documents that you'll be able to open in the decades to come (MS Office has changed the way their program handles files at least once already, and is now working on another version. This means that your Office documents from earlier versions of Office can't be opened with later versions without converters (which MS does typically provide when they change to a new format)).

I've been using the OpenOffice.org suite for a month or so and find it very streamlined, efficient, and easy to use. One feature I really like is that you can save documents as different formats: save as the OpenDocument format (the new international standard), as MS Word (or Excel, etc) formats (so you can give your documents to people who are still using MS Office), and you can even save in the .pdf format (Adobe Acrobat).

The OpenOffice.org suite is a totally free download, and is a great alternative for students on a budget (you'll still be able to save as MS Word for homework assignments, if you professors need that format).

It's totally FREE! Download it. Try it, you'll like it!....

You can just click on the OpenOffice.org button in the column over on the right of this page, or just click on the link below to go to the OpenOffice.org home page:

http://www.openoffice.org/index.html

(PS: Here is a good review/overview of the OpenOffice.org software)

Antony and the Johnsons

A few nights ago David Letterman had on his program as musical guest Antony and the Johnsons. I typically videotape the program and watch it the next morning, usually listening to only a few notes of the musical act then fast forwarding past the rest of the performance. I didn't fast forward this time; in fact, I rewound and watched the performance again and again and again.

Even before they sounded their first note, I was intrigued. The camera lingered for a few seconds on the man waiting at the piano for the audience to quiet their applause before striking the first notes. This man had scraggly black hair, was overweight, and had an androgynous look. This is Antony:



With the first few words from this odd looking man I couldn't decide if I was horrified or awed. This was a voice unlike any I'd ever heard. Like an ethereal soprano, with a vibrato that reminded me of Tiny Tim. Is he a eunuch? It took me a few lines of his singing before I shook loose my conditioning of expecting sameness from every singer and found myself enraptured. This was beautiful, moving music. To be able to make music like this must be a gift from some higher place. 99.999% of the millions of musicians around the world throughout time produce mere replications of true music that comes from some otherworldly place of universal perfection. That perfectly poetic grace found a channel through Antony.

He is a magical embodiment of contrasts: a Brit living in New York; his music is both East Village and Carnegie Hall. He is between man and woman; between heaven and earth; between cherub and goth; between happiness and sorrow. He is each and both of these things simultaneously.

And it happens that Antony and the Johnsons have just won Britain's most prestigious award for music: The Mercury Prize. This is voted for by a panel of industry experts, journalists and artists, and is said to reward originality and creativity rather than sales success. Yes, it had to be.

The next day I went out and bought their most recent CD, “I Am A Bird Now,” about which one reviewer wrote,

Antony and the Johnsons are unlike anything you've heard before and yet they sound like they've been here forever. 'I am a Bird Now' is an album that will haunt you.

Young and old, naïve and wise, this album of opposites coming together in one tortured, exquisite production is so lovely it demands that you accept it… and cradle it in your arms.”

UPDATE (a few days after I wrote the above post):

I wrote the above before actually listening to the album I Am A Bird Now. I've now listened to it and have this observation: Antony should have left Boy George off this album. The song on which he sings, "You Are My Sister," was performed with overwhelming beauty on the David Letterman program by ONLY Antony and the Johnsons, but on the CD it's a duet with Antony and Boy George, who has entirely lost his voice since his Culture Club heyday. On Letterman, Antony soared to gorgeous high notes; on the CD, Boy George has very limited range and, as well, sounds like he's singing from a sickbed. Alas.

I Mailed Christmas on Cards Sept 29

Two years ago I got fed up with stores beginning to display and sell Christmas decorations so long before "The Holidays" (you know: even before Halloween). So I told myself that I'd buy the first Christmas cards I saw and mail them out immediately (again, before Halloween). But I didn't actually get around to buying AND mailing Christmas cards uncomfortably early until this year. Yep, I've done it.

In the last week or so of September I saw that a local Lowe's (like Home Depot) had their Christmas section already set up. BAH! But I didn't actually see any Christmas cards. Then a few days later I was in a supermarket and right inside the door was a Christmas decoration section (lotsa Santas and stuff) including a table with boxes of Christmas cards. These are the first cards I saw this year, so I bought them.

And so this year I got right down to it. That evening I began to write the cards and my first batch were mailed on September 29th. This meant that the nearest recipients received Christmas cards even BEFORE OCTOBER!!! I'm so glad that some folks have received Christmas cards from me on September 30th. It made me feel all wry and stuff.

RubberNecker

When I pass by a traffic accident I don't look for gore, I look at the damage to the vehicles and where they ended up after hitting and try to figure out who hit whom. What do you look for?

tBlog

Imagine that. I go to tblog.com for the first time in ages and it's down. That place just sucks. Always down, and when it's up it moves sloooooowly.

I was gonna retrieve RSS feed codes for a couple peoples' blogs to install into my Mozilla Thunderbird email/Newsreader program.

Choking The Chicken

My increasingly-irritating neighbors now have a ROOSTER. Jee-zuss fucking CHRIST!! 5am and this thing starts crowing and won't stop. You shoulda' heard me yelling at the top of my lungs out my bedroom window this morning and throwing yard furniture (broke a chair) at the fence between our yards, while continuing to yell, of course. I haven't spoken to these neighbors about it yet - what their plans are for it: just a visitor, tonight's dinner, or do they intend it to be a new permanent resident? - but they certainly heard what I think of this goddam foul-ball fowl.

To stop me from yelling at 5am, I looked up the CC&R's ("the rules") of our neighborhood that you get a copy of when you buy a house. Paragraph 15 states,

No animals, livestock or poultry of any kind shall be raised, bred or kept on any lot, [except dogs & cats as pets].

So I've got that on my side, if I need to pull it out. Also to stop me from yelling, I looked into the phonebook for possible agencies to call. County Animal Care and Regulation, for example. They have a phone # to report "Stray, Loose, Dead or Nuisance Animals. (875-5656).

What goes on (or doesn't) in these people's minds to think that people living nearby would accept or even welcome that goddam noise? Are they outta their f'ing minds??! THIS IS A GODDAM RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD, not a fucking FARM community!! I DON'T HAVE TO WAKE UP AT 5:00 TO GO PLOW THE FUCKING FIELDS OR PICK THE GODDAM TORTILLAS!! &%*#%&@#!^%!!!

It Must Just Be Me

Since I'm constantly getting really irritated at so many people, it must just be me. Right? Irritated and pissed off has become my way of life. Yeah, it must just be me.

Certainly it's not the people who don't explain things and then expect me to read their minds and then later say, "I told you!" when in fact they did not. Or the people who agree to certain terms in an agreement then change their minds and say, "No! I never said that." And it must just be me when my irritation is compounded by the same person doing both.

Certainly it's not the people who, when I don't understand and to avoid one of the two situations above ask for clarification, then glare at me and get huffy and respond to me like I'm retarded.

Certainly it's not the unacceptably huge percentage of stupidly daring, and illegally slow, drivers out on the roads.

Certainly it's not the hypocrites who think it's ok for them to do against me what they don't want me to do against them.

And certainly it's not the people who take or damage my things.

Nor could it be the people who always want my time but then never give theirs.

And it certainly couldn't be the people who deny my feelings when they tell me I'm fulla' crap for thinking I see the above situations.

No, no, no. It must just be me.

Is It Right?

Is it right that of the people I know, only I publish my thoughts on a blog -- for these people. I think that posting such thoughts tends to make me appear troubled, for being introspective and revealing. Perhaps I am troubled, but I'm also troubled that in this hide-nothing world, among the people that I know, only I hide nothing. Is it right?

I'd like to read other peoples' inner thoughts.

Do you know of the Wikipedia? It's an internet encyclopedia written by "just us folks" out there. A sort of open-source compendium of knowledge. On the Wikipedia, I found a page about the Personality Enneagram. Two personality types of the nine in the Enneagram define me exactly:

Four: Romantic, Individualist, Artist. Driven by a fear that they have no identity or personal significance, Fours embrace individualism and are often profoundly creative. However, they have a habit of withdrawing to internalize, searching desperately inside themselves for something they never find, creating a spiral of depression. The stereotypical angsty musician or tortured artist is also a stereotypical Four.

Five: Observer, Thinker, Investigator. Believing they are only worth what they contribute, Fives have learned to withdraw, to watch with keen eyes and speak only when they can shake the world with their observations. Sometimes they do just that. Sometimes, instead, they withdraw from the world, becoming reclusive hermits and fending off social contact with abrasive cynicism. Fives fear incompetency or uselessness, and want to be capable above all else.

Given that I'm prone to this inward searching and in constant need of a checking-up-on to see that I'm not going too far down, is it right that no one visits me? Is it right that I have no real friends who drop by for a beer out on the patio in the evening? To watch a movie? Is it right that I'm always so busy with things that I tend to push people away from coming over, if ever I receive a hint of such a visit? Where's the balance? What's the answer?

Excuse me while I venture inward in search of a resolution to this dilemma.

The FIrst Record I Ever Bought

This should really tell you something about me. First, let me place myself: I was born in late 1959.

The first recorded music I ever bought was a 45rpm record. When I was around ten years old I had heard the song "See Me, Feel Me" from The Who's Tommy. What I especially liked about that record was when he sings, See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me it's so almost ethereal. So when I saw a 45 in the store with the song title Touch Me I thought this was the song from The Who. I bought it.

Click here for a 30-second clip of the record I actually bought. [link opens Windows Media Player]

Yes, that's Yoko Ono. A song from the Plastic Ono Band's 1970 release, the song called "Touch Me". But here's the thing: I liked it! A lot. I kept on playing it over and over again. It was so unlike anything I'd ever heard. I was fascinated by the elements in it: the voice, the music, the melodies. Yes, melody, and rhythm, definitely rhythm.. It was so extreme, yet it made so much sense, in some hidden logical way - it's disparate parts somehow working together.

So I'll cut to my point: right from the start I've been attracted to beyond-the-norm arts and entertainment (and maybe this record is what turned me onto on-the-fringe art; maybe it's this very record that opened a ten year old's eyes and forevermore led me to look away from the norm). From the start I recognized the mainstream as dreck and wanted something different. Imagine your ten year old instead of listening to Britney Spears and Usher choosing to listen to the above clip. I think I'd be proud, to be honest! And I'd foster an appreciation of alternative art in such a kid. (I didn't get that.)

By the way, reviews on Amazon.com of the album on which this song appears alternately say that this music is either: A) Brilliant, ahead of its time and an early influence for later alternative music of the 1980s. Or, B) god-awful, the worst album ever created. I like to think it's A). Listening to that song again tonight, for the first time in probably 30+ years, I hear that Yoko Ono has definitely combined traditional Japanese vocal technique (kabuki, or opera or whatever) with late '60s avante garde poetic extremism. (Trying to find words to describe the outer edges of the zeitgeist of art at the time.) You're definitely aware of the improvisational jazz feeling in the tracks, too. And while, yes, the result may be wierd, I hear the brilliant creativity in it. It's a blending of east with west; of ancient and ultra-modern, all in one.

So check me out: ten years old and digging jazzy improvisation of ancient kabuki hetai singing technique melded with avante garde 1960s thrash guitars all producing Greenwich Village kinda' performance art. Woo woo! Some high-functioning brain power going on inside my little ten year old head, eh?

Here is the Amazon.com page with that album, clips of all the songs on it, and reviews alternately telling how bad and how brilliant the music is.

Sugar and Caffeine

It's Monday morning; I'm @ work. I made myself a nice cup of coffee and ate a handful of chocolate-covered raisins and one Valentine's Day chocolate from a heart-shaped box.

The sugar and caffeine are doing their magic. I rarely feel this nice. I actually feel like I'm in a good mood; happy; elevated. Usually I'm physically tired, mentally numb and irritable. This momentary lapse into sanity makes me wonder what I'm missing 95% of the time, and whether a daily regimen of medication might be worth investigating. I like the happy mood. (Unfortunately, consistent with sugar's properties, the elation is already beginning to fade.)

Better living through chemistry.

Comic Strip

http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur/ (2005 Jan 24)

When To Use The Ampersand (&)

I've just done a Google search for the definitive rule of ampersand usage and I saw many divergent opinions. I've always had my own rule concerning proper use of the ampersand, and this is it:

I consider it acceptable to substitute the ampersand ("&") for the word "and" when pairing two separate entities that together make something recognized as a whole unit, for example: Smith & Wesson. Misters Smith and Wesson are separate persons, but their names together indicate a recognizable object (a gun). We can speak of Mr Smith and we can speak of Mr Wesson, but we would not speak of Mr Smith & of Mr Wesson; however, we could speak of "a Smith & Wesson."

Example 2: If you write a list of department stores such as Macy's, Bloomingdales and Sears, you would write them as above, using "and," because they are separate entities, instead of writing, "Macy's, Bloomingdales & Sears." ("Bloomingdales & Sears" looks confusing, as if the two are partnered in some business arrangement separate from Macy's).

Can we all agree on my rule of usage? Thank you.