Ghoulish Fun

I can't go through a whole Halloween without reposting the Tombstone Generator.

Inspired by the Church Sign Generator.

Inspired by the twisted mind of this fellow Texan here.

Inspired by the folk wisdom of this fellow Texan rightchere.

Ooooh, wait. I'm sorry. Eeesh, that was way too scary, even for Halloween.

Which, by the way, do you agree with certain knowledgeable culture-watchers that Halloween is rapidly becoming the new Christmas?

Where was I?

Oh. Yeah: scary stuff.

So I am reading this great book Stuart got for both of us called In the Company of Crows and Ravens. I've had a fascination with these birds since I moved into a neighborhood replete with crows and grackles some eight years ago.

There are fewer of them nowadays, more song birds.

The book is filled with interesting information that I'd tell you all about, except I'm due at a Halloween costume parade at my kid's school in, like, ten minutes ago.

She's Hermione Granger.

I leave you with this thought, courtesy of the authors of In the Company of Crows and Ravens:

How is it, do you think, that crows have learned to prefer scavenging through a McDonald's bag than a regular paper bag?

That they know an electric-orange puffed cheez doodle is edible?

I'll tell you how:

They're watching us.

categories: amusement miscellany

TTOM? ... TMI!

Old friends are the best friends, I always say.

And I oughtta know. My oldest friend has been visiting me monthly since 1973.

(You do the math. Yeah. I was 10 when it all started. Bummer).

My next-to-oldest friend, Citizen Jane, graced me with a ladies' companion worth keeping only some twenty years later.

It's so durable, I've carried the same one ever since.

Yep, I am talking about none other than Vinnie's Tampon Case, the sassiest feminine product ever promoted by a smart-aleck, all-male, tattooed, unshaven motor mechanic.

Name's Angel. Vinnie Angel. And you could bet if he drank martinis, he wouldn't care if they were shaken or stirred. Long as they were heavy proof.

So anyways, speaking of heavy, Vinnie's line of products has proven indispensable for a girl such as I.

Unfortunately, seems the one pictured above, the model I carry, has been, um, discontinued.

All good things must come to an end.

But the basic mechanics of this little item, to say nothing of its sleek lines and je ne sais quois, have made me a happier camper five days out of thirty, for lo these past ten years.

I thought the whole world should know.

Whether you wanted to or not.

(For more VinnieTV, peep this.)

categories: amusement home life miscellany

News Flash

I've actually done something with my professional site for a refreshing change. Check it out if you have another minute to waste, erm, learn in.

categories: teaching words

A Woman After My Own Spleen

Maybe it started with the Colette post. Or maybe it started with my bracing contacts with certain others of the feminine persuasion (you know who you are). In any case, I'm feeling rather, uh, c---y lately (it's not the four letter word you think it is).

And ready to sing the praises of the female mind.

Particularly a mind as gimlet-sharp as that of Dorothy Parker, a twice-married wordslinger who actually remarried her second husband after divorcing him, proving that two rights might make a wrong.

That's my kind of gal.

And here's my kind of book list about her, including a book of walking tours among her New York haunts.

One of my Stateside bliendies--Riannan, Shawn, I dunno, I'm too tired to go look--recently quoted Mrs. Parker's famous jibe, "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think." A sentiment I find personally and deeply offensive.

But funny nonetheless.

Especially when you consider that its origin was when Parker was asked to use the word "horticulture" in a sentence.

Which reminds me to give some love to Rarity, whose Dictionary Tuesday was still going on as of this posting.

Closer to my own sentiments though is this (one big guess why) :

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

What didn't that little minx say!

Perhaps the only other woman of her generation who was even remotely as outrageous was Lillian Hellman. And was she all that funny? I think not.

She was Parker's best friend, nonetheless. Close enough for Hellman to be Parker's executor in the final hour.

Both women had a fierce commitment to justice, the kind that puts someone like me to shame. They were each blacklisted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee for refusing to name names.

Many years later, when death came to claim Dorothy Parker, she left her estate to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. But Parker's famously brilliant timing in life didn't carry through to death: the year was 1967, and Dr. King was cut down less than a year later.

Parker's fortune then went to the NAACP. Her ashes went to...well, it's not a nice story.

Though in my present state of family affairs, I find it grimly affirming.

Perhaps the greatest crime committed against her memory was the epitaph when she was finally laid to rest. Instead of the pithy "Pardon My Dust," she got an overwrought, eagerly sincere, and poorly written canonization.

Hmmm.

Does that mean "Pardon My Dust" is still available?

categories: art ayinim life literature love miscellany

Poetry Thursday: Kijo Murakami

First autumn morning:
the mirror I stare into
shows my father's face.







[via Haiku for People]

categories: life poetry

More Excellent Work by Other People

Does Roman qualify as my second guest blogger?

I think so, especially since he has no idea I've done this.

"The Truth Hurts: Making Others Work So I Don't Have To"

categories: amusement miscellany

Bringing You the Work of Others Since Yesterday

Today, again, I affirm my almost complete lack of cleverness or originality.

I'm going to hang around the half bakery, home of the Birth Control Advent Calendar and David Hasselhoff: The Board Game.

It won't make me feel more clever, but it will remind me of the sobering mental price of creative thinking.

I hear if you do it too much, you'll go blind.

categories: amusement miscellany technology

Lazy-Ass Tuesday

I have my first guest blogger: Riannan.

What? I'm supposed to let people know they're guest blogger before just posting the link?

Pshaw.

categories: amusement life thought words

Into the Woods

Spent a rainy weekend watching kids' tapes with Mona's grandparents.

Not just any kid tapes, though. Friday before we left town, the big Scholastic Book Club order arrived at M's school. And, as we had signed up for the monthly Weston Woods delivery of DVDs and CDs, we got some toys to take on the plane with us.

Like a read-along with CD of Dav Pilkey's The Paperboy.

And an hour-long DVD of childrens' stories and songs from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to Pete Seeger's The Foolish Frog.

I knew nothing from Weston Woods till I sat down with Mona in a dark room this weekend and began watching one illustrated classic after another, some dating from the 1960s and just as fresh now as their new siblings. the presentations were fresh and funny, the illustrations lovely, and the vocal talents ranged from Crystal Talifiero to Cyndi Lauper to Randy Travis.

The more I found out about Weston Woods and its founder, Mort Schindel, the more interested I was. He built the studio, alongside his own home, from scratch in Weston, Connecticut in 1953. His ideas about teaching children to read through animation were initially scoffed at, but he gradually broke new ground, pioneering film techniques especially suited to recording illustrations, and working with some of the century's greatest children's authors, from Ezra Jack Keats and Maurice Sendak to Simms Taback and Robert McCloskey.

Schindel met cartoonist and director Gene Deitch when Deitch was at CBS as creative director of the "Tom Terrific" black and white minimalist cartoon episodes shown on Captain Kangaroo television series. Tom and his wonderdog Manfred were drawn simply, with accordion accompaniment and one guy doing all the voices. When Deitch's brainchild was dropped in 1958, he went to Prague to direct animation for a studio there. In 1959, while still in Prague, he was hired by Schindel at Weston Woods to work with Czech animators in the state-run Kratky studio. Deitch fell in love with and married the production manager at Kratky, Zdenka Najmanová. In the 1960s and 1970s, many of Weston Woods's greatest creations bear distinct Czech visual influences such as decorative tulips, borders, playful farm themes, and traditional peasants. These can be seen in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1973) and even in such relentlessly American productions as Pete Seeger's The Foolish Frog.

Morton Schindel sold Weston Woods Films to Scholastic Incorporated in 1996 to devote his time to the non-profit Weston Woods Institute, founded in 1983 to promote innovative cultural education for children. According to the Academic Film Archive of North America, "As of this writing, 16mm films are still being sold from the Scholastic Weston Woods catalogue. Gene Deitch and Zdenka Deitchova continue to work, play, and love, in Prague."

[Graphic from Click Clack Moo by Doreen Cronin, illustration by Betsy Lewin]

categories: film home life literature miscellany teaching

Friday Masochism--Getting It Over With Tonight

Well. It's the end of the week and this is as far as I can draw out the suspense.

First things first: the fall purse is unveiled.



I think it is also by some designer, but it's also a tag sale find so who cares. I am still card-carrying hoi polloi.

Enter my boudoir....


Watch out for the running shoes on your way in.

Here it is.



Now do you see why we are moving?

Pathetic, this is.

In former days of glory, I wore these cowboy boots with a kicky little velvet mini-dress by Betsey Johnson.


(I bought that retail, thank you very much).

And, okay, here is the weirdest thing I know about me: at the moment my perfume is a combination of a legitimate scent that Stuart likes on me and the Cucumber drawer liner scent from the Container Store.



Please do not ask
me how I struck upon this combination. Just know that I aspire to Jo Malone.

'Kay? Everybody satisfied now? I'm on my knees here.

Gathering up the dustbunnies.

categories: amusement home life miscellany

Poetry Thursday: Clayton

What's in the little brother's closet

by Clayton

A few pennies over 50 years old
A sippy cup full of old soggy butter
Sunday clothes scattered on the floor
A piece of gum on the ceiling
Boxes of clothes on the shelf and the floor
Maybe a buck or two
A burnt out lightbulb
Tons of stars on the walls

[poem via Ms. Kreul's 4th Grade class blog. Illustration, "My Mom's Messy Closet," by Meghan Bougie, first grade, Sanford Maine, via New Hampshire Public TV]

category: home life poetry

Non-Closet Gratis

It's Wednesday, the heart of the week.

I was driving back along an ordinary street after dropping my child off at school when I noticed this kind of light slanting through the trees:

Glade light. Fairy Light. Enchanted light.

(did you know that "enchanted" means, literally, wrapped in song? I have Molly Peacock to thank for that).

So this light. It was no small miracle.

And a door opened in my heart (that insistent closet).

Yes it did. And out poured all at once all the remembrance of all my luck so far.

Too much luck for words.

So a funny thing happened on my way back home. I was overwhelmed with gratitude.

You have to know me better to know why this is so funny.

I was grateful for the home I am rebuilding with my husband Stuart, a man not known for his patience but for his passion, a passion for which I married him and which sustains us through the mundane work of daily life.

And I was grateful for my children and his, who are healthy in their limbs and curious in their minds and just delicious to hold and (when they let us) to inhale of their playground-scampering fragrance.

And for my new chosen craft and the old ones that have led to it: for students, for teaching, for writing, for words.

And I was grateful for my family, living and not. For my sister who is the last, dearest kin left to me, the only one who remembers Saturday night tacos and Mary Tyler Moore on the little TV in the kitchen on Meadow Road.

And for my brother who--if he had to leave too soon and with so much left unfinished--at least had the peaceful, nearly oblivious death we might wish for.

I am grateful for Citizen Jane, my best friend for longer than either of us has been alive.

I am grateful for the Schamess clan, in ways too numerous to name (though I will spend my life trying), and for the friends they have brought me, including Joan, Lew, Carol, Alan, Sally, Hy, Mickey, Penina, Rose, Yechaeil (did I slaughter your name? Sorry), Robin, Nancy and M.L., an inherited friend of my heart, too shy to post on my blog, but a splendid writer of blog-worthy email messages to me that he titles simply "Monday," or "Thursday."

I am grateful for new bliends: Rarity, Shawn, Riannan, Karamale (who successfully transitioned from flesh-friend to Internet-friend), and John. I am grateful for the lovely daily faces of Ms. Heidi and Ms. Sarah; Scholiast's music on-line (I have to say, reminiscent of David Byrne's break-out period post-True Stories); and grateful I work at home so my employer doesn't know I am slacking when I read Scholiast's blog.

In other news, the strap finally fell off my purse yesterday.

categories: ayinim life miscellany religion

"Who steals my purse steals trash"

Shakespeare said it best.

I got up this morning and realized I'd better finally throw down.

So I did.

Welcome to my world. Here is the aerial view:



The bag is a Kate Spade...



...but don't get excited. I bought it for a dollar at a tag sale. I just noticed today there's a strap hanging by a thread.

And I'm overdue for the fall look.

Center stage are things that actually belong in my bag: old wallet, good wallet, and brass card case from my sister-in-law Rebecca.



Missing as usual: my sunglasses (because perched on my head), my phone (holstered snugly on my hip...oh, okay, forgotten again on the mantelpiece or microwave, or plugged into my car charger and, again, forgotten).

Among the flotsam are gel pens in green and purple for grading papers, the dry erase pen for drawing on the board, a Metro pass and bus transfer, and orange flyer from the Halloween festival at Butler's Farm (went on Sunday).

Things other people place in my bag: A crumpled paper towel, probably with chocolate on it. An empty film canister, which I now use for change. Enough acorns to satisfy the most power-hungry squirrel. Enough oak and maple seedlings to retree all of DC.

Tiny pink beads, either for stringing or for grinding into the carpet, whichever comes first.

Keys to the PTA's storage area.

What am I, an all-purpose hamper?



(Um, ye-aah).

Oh, the book is mine, though. Well, it's my friend Anne's. When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka.

Plus, three necessities: lipstick, lipstick, and mascara (disclaimer, there is actually more lipstick in my purse, not pictured).

Matches from a recent quick meal at Austin Grill, the country's only wind-powered restaurant.

And plans for next year: real estate guy's card.



(No, I'm not leaving my husband for him. We're leaving together for parts more suburban).

categories: amusement home life miscellany

Closet Queen for a Day

Peep this nifty vacuum solution!

We already have the mitre saw for this undertaking (doesn't every fix-it project demand one? That's what Stuart insisted when we were standing in the tools aisle at Home Depot).

Shawn, you rule!

Now that's what I call a homegirl.

[cryptogram via Puzzle Soup]

Closet Longings

For years, I have wanted a lot of things Madonna has.

Including her bedroom, and her closet.

I could find a picture of the one but not the other.

Unless this counts.

Okay. I'm horsing around (was it Freud who said, "A joke is a eulogy for a feeling"?), because all this is so painful.

After all these years, I have nothing of what she has.

Well, okay, I do have those few things. But that, too, is a matter for another post.

I certainly don't have her adorable peek-a-boo gap-toothed smile, or her Teflon face, or her adoring fans, or her kick-ass voice, or her real estate, or her smart little books for kids.

Etc.

Maybe I can get Madonna in my closet, though, by going here.

Anyways. Over at Luxist, they're showing all the trade secrets that might make one worthy of what they're calling the celebrity "closet shot."

Sounds dirty. Sign me up.

Maybe first I oughtta gear up with some Paris Hilton cast-offs at Celebrity Closet Raiders's four-times a year sale.

Of course, if you become a celebrity yourself, you can live in a closet (if Tom will move over and give you room). It's called an on-location trailer, and it might look like this, if you're a VIP.

To get there, you might have to start with an image consultation with someone like The Wardrobe Shrink.

Still not enough for you? I have more. Depends on which way your obsession twigs.

OBSESSION ONE: How the Stars Live...
If you are a celebrity hanger-on with hanger hang-ups, you can hang with Susie Coelho here.

OBSESSION TWO: The Closet Industry
Check out Closets Magazine: Serving the Closet and Home Organization Industry, here.

Then there's the luscious California Closets. Some of their wares are teasingly within reach of the little people, via Target.

(Did you notice I haven't shown you thing one from my closet? I'm such a tease...)

Closet Stories

I ought to get some good Google walk-ins from that title, eh?

(Oooh. Nice pun.)

So, there's been an insidious little game of closet tag going around. Not sure where it started, only that it's made it into the small tent my blog belongs in. I was tagged early on and only pretended I was going to play, but now it's sort of coming back around in the form of guilt by disassociation.

All my girlbliends have been good sports: Rarity, Shawn, Riannan, Scholiast. I haven't confirmed Morgan yet, but I am working on it. And if Toethumbs would give it up already and join the blog-zombies, we could welcome her with this fiendish initiation.

Don't know what the hell I'm talking about? Well, go Google for a blog about politics or fashion or gadgets, then, and leave me to my hopelessly smarmy, aren't-we-cute, in-crowd cliquish collective narcissism.

Well. That was Faulknerian.

I'm stalling. I know, I know.

But, see, what had happened was, I live in an old Victorian rowhouse that doesn't have real closets.

Or decent lighting. Which is just as well, what with the closetless clutter. But that's a matter for another post.

I have had to think about this (mainly to avoid thinking about the stuff I really should be thinking about). How to rise to the closet challenge?

It'll take a while to really do the thing right.

About a week, in fact.

That's why this here is Closet Stories Week, all week, at thetruthhurts. And I begin with a doozie.

See, I have a vacuum cleaner with no real home. No closet space for it on the first floor, where I use it the most. Daily in fact. So it spends more time in the sun than I do.

It's unsightly. I've tried keeping it in the basement, but that won't do. We have three children and two animals at this house, plus ongoing renovations that have involved knocking out walls and pulling down ceilings.

You do the math. It always adds up to the same thing: daily vacuuming.

Other day, I had this amazing breakthrough, a veritable paradigm shift: why not cover the blasted thing with something attractive?

So I prevailed upon the wonders of the Internet (because I am too lazy to actually shop) and found...

this.

this.

this.

and at least, thank Hestia, this.

What's a fashion-sensitive balhabosteh to do?

I'm so glad you asked.

With my next paycheck, I plan to put the old Sharp upright out to pasture and buy myself a Roomba.

Compact, self-sufficient, with a marvelously sexy, feminine design.

This could become my second-favorite small household appliance!

(Hey! The first is my coffee-pot: get your head out of the gutter).

There are those who will insist that every woman needs a Sharp upright at the end of the day.

Maybe. But not if I can't put it away when I'm done.

Time Beyond End

L'Shanah Tovah.

Soon we close the Torah and begin from its beginning.

With the beginning of the universe. Again.

Of course, the Torah is a scroll. So is there really an end, or is G-d trying to tell us something?

You decide.

One of the beautiful things about Judaism is that each of us can. Decide, that is.

To a certain extent. More or less. But relative to other religions, I like to think, more more than less.

(Did you know, for example, that what it takes to marry in the Jewish faith is the bride, the groom, the ring, and the witnesses? That is all. The rabbi is, well, icing on the cake).

Anyway.

There's a deep thinker here who has a few things to say about Shabbat, about our world, and about time:

Counted time is a human invention which happened in a specific time. Was there time before time was invented? The force of habit and the routine of thought will claim that there obviousely was. I can only ask the reader to repeat asking this seemingly simple question, like a Zen koan, until (s)he finds, probably with a sense of wonder and even enlightenement - that something basic has changed in his/her mind. If you have never thought about this paradox before, it is fairly certain that this enlightenment will not come at once and that the question may seem ridiculous at first - but I plead with you to repeat and ask until that new view comes.

So take an eternal moment to look further into what Dr. Hayutman has to say, won't you?

And light a couple candles. And have a glass wine and a piece bread, yes?




[photos via Bram Goodwin]

"...those pleasures so lightly called physical."

"Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, it is true, but maybe I still love her."

It's not as if Pablo Neruda ever met Colette, let alone wrote these lines for her. But they are the right lines for me, now, to describe my lingering, conflicted fondness for and deep aesthetic debt to Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.

A prolific author, music hall artist, and thrice-married woman of the world who scarcely left her beloved France, she carefully constructed a public persona as a party girl, libertine, and erotic pioneer. She had a talent for investing the everyday with all the grandeur and marvel of magic, and wrote essays about New Year's Eve parties, apartment moves, luncheon dates, and home renovations that were as adventuresome and exotic as her reportage on a Moroccan murder trial, a Montmartre opium den, or Paris during the Occupation.

I adore her. But I don't read her anymore.

Why not? Because I am old enough now to see through her, somehow, to observe the author Colette manipulating the strings of Colette the character. Because I know some things about her willful exaggerations, her dissembling, her shaping of the facts of her life to her own liking. I know more than I wanted about her mother and about the kind of mother she, in turn, was. I still love her words, and perhaps I will go back to reading her some day, at a less tender age (is there such a thing?), at an age when I don't need to believe so unflinchingly in her wisdom and her commanding presence within her own life.

For my heroine's fall from grace I blame, in part, the stunning and brilliant biographer Judith Thurman, a Colette scholar whose gorgeous and chillingly revealing biography, Secrets of the Flesh, changed my mind about the private Colette forever. But Thurman alone is not to blame. My own life experiences are.

I first discovered Colette when I was 22 and new to D.C. and very weepy over a lovely man who'd recently dumped me, never to look back (well, only that once). I was waiting tables nights and sleeping on the floor of a 400-sf apartment in Adams-Morgan, so I had my days free.

Every few days I took a long soggy walk to the Georgetown branch of the D.C. Public Library, which was housed in a spooky old manse at the top of a high hill. There I would load my arms with books to take my mind off, well, off being so goddamn young.

One afternoon I was sitting on the floor in the stacks and I came across a book called My Apprenticeships. Sounded about my speed. I opened it up and was enchanted.

What little I know about writing, I feel I learned at her knee. And once I felt I was also learning about life from her. I don't, even now, believe that is completely wrong. But somehow, ethically, or in terms of what I know I must do in matters of love and family, I feel I have outgrown her.

Yet, still, I wish to take refuge in her great embrace of the world, her invitation to pleasure and rigorous attention as a means of enlightenment, her Earthly Paradise:

"If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles."

"A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts."

"Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you."

"Time spent with cats is never wasted."

And her understanding of grief, which I still know is sterling and far greater than mine:

"By an image we hold on to our lost treasures, but it is the wrenching loss that forms the image, composes, binds the bouquet."

categories: life love thought words

Poetry Thursday: Psalm 27

Triumphant Psalm of Confidence

a Psalm of David

¹ The Spirit is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Spirit is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

² When evildoers assail me
to devour my flesh--
my adversaries and foes--
they shall stumble and fall.

³ Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
yet I will be confident.

⁴ One thing I asked of the Creator,
that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Creator
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Creator,
and to inquire in Its temple.

⁵ For the Creator will shelter me
in the day of trouble;
and conceal me under the cover of Its tent;
and set me high upon a rock.

⁶ Now my head is lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in the Spirit's tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to tmy Creator.

⁷ Hear, O Ruler, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me!
⁸ "Come," my heart says, "seek your Creator's face!"
Your face, O Spirit, do I seek.
⁹ Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger,
you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me,
O Ruler of my salvation!
¹⁰ If my father and mother forsake me,
the Spirit will take me up.

¹¹ Teach me your way, O Spirit,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
¹² Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they are breathing out violence.

¹³ I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Spirit
in the land of the living.
¹⁴ Wait for the Spirit;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Spirit!

[graphic via Fiser Art Studio]

Eyes, Eyes, Baby...Lists that Separate

For years, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern has amused and bemused thousands of us with its peculiar blend of half-truths, fantastic flights of logic, poker-faced whimsy, and playful harangues against authority figures.

Now since about 1999, McSweeney's Internet Tendency has done the same thing on line.

(How's that for acting like I'm all cutting edge when the little blighter's been going for six years now?)

The fiendish genius of McSweeney's is hard to pin down, but often it has to do with its send-up of pretty much every system of thought or approach to comprehension that humankind has ever attempted, in our frail effort to forestall the unrelenting terror of our deep ignorance and inevitable annihilation.

McSweeney's contributors excel in combining unlike taxonomies, such as when one McSweeney's correspondent carefully enunciates the implausible claims made by Vanilla Ice in recent songs, or when another painstakingly lists--in alpha order--prescription drug names and character names from Shakespeare. The currently sparkling entrant in this category is a list of presidential cabinet members renamed according to the etymology of their first and last names (and sometimes middle).

What this means is, this shit is funny.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a total list hoe. I once wooed a guy with a daily series of lists to amuse him, mostly G-rated. That's how good a lister I am. When I get depressed, I know immediately because I feel deeply and irredeemably...listless.

I do!

But this isn't about me.

Sure I'll throw down for the first good-looking list that rolls its i's and crosses its t's at me. But the overriding point here is, is, uh...

...Oh! That this shit is really, really funny.

Check it off!

What a Bee Sees

Researcher Andrew Giger has figured out a way to show humans like me what a bee sees. His B-Eye web site cautions that the bee-views are not intended for scientific use, merely for satisfying curiosity.

Since I don't understand visuals very well (really, it's true, I am an overreliably verbal learner), I actually haven't succeeded in satisfying my curiosity. But it's late, and tomorrow is another day.

I may not get back to the site tomorrow, though.

You know: buzzy, buzzy, buzzy.

Whether Ig Nobels in Their Minds Do Suffer...

The winners of the 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes have been announced by The Annals of Improbable Research. The competition annually recognizes outstanding achievements in the sciences that "first make us laugh, then make us think."

Some of these achievements are worthier of the first reaction than the last. Like the indisputable (and unidentifiable) champions of the Nigerian email pity-party scam; or the inquiry entitled, "Will Humans Swim Faster in Water or Syrup?" (question is, will their results stick?); or the exploration of penguin pooping pressure.

Seemed to me on closer perusal that the 2004 awards were more likely to provoke thought in the long term. I mean, I am still thinking through "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide." Or the study that proved when people are asked to watch for a particular phenomenon in a video, they will completely miss obvious other occurences--in this case, a woman dressed in a gorilla suit--between 30 and 50 percent of the time.

Perhaps more far-reaching, the Ig Nobels have recognized that even the Vatican is going for a global economy of scale.

My greatest gratitude, though, goes to the Ig Nobel board for unearthing the man responsible for karaoke, who received the 2004 Ig Nobel Peace Prize for "inventing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other."

For more heartwarming news about the frontiers of scientific silliness being forged by Spaceship Earth, check the Improbable Research Blog.

Close Encounters

Tomorrow is the first official Washington Write-a-Story Day. Organized by Joyce Hackett, it will involve writers at 40 sites throughout the DC area, including yours truly.

I'm facilitating a workshop on Sunday, actually, at the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue in the heart of downtown. The story behind this synagogue is an amazing one. I'm really honored to be hosted there.

The idea is, in the space of three hours, to write like a demon and produce an account, true or not, of an enounter in a DC public space. So far there are about six of us signed up where I am, but many scores more across the city.

That's where it's at, and that's where I'll be. Walk-ins welcome. Local readers, send me email for more 411.

Oh, and he whole thing will culminate in a free reading at The George Washington University Marvin Center Sunday night at 8 p.m.

(nonlocals, I challenge you too: sit down at 2 pm your time on Sunday and write about your fair city of choice).

Poetry Thursday (Night): Yehuda Amichai

The Body Is the Cause of Love

by Yehudah Amichai

The body is the cause of love;
after that, the fortress that protects it;
after that, love's prison.
But when the body dies, love is set free
in wild abundance,
like a slot machine that breaks down
and with a furious ringing pours out all at once
all the coins of
all the generations of luck.

...and on that...

Sometimes the most important phrases are very, very small.

And spoken, softly, by voices only you might recognize.

Actually, there'd likely be a handful of people--some of whom read this blog--who recognize the slightly acrid, earnest, and always determined voice that says, as it pauses for its owner's brain to catch up in the story:

"...and on that..."

It's Caroline Schorge I am thinking of, a compact and forthright she-bear of a woman who lives not far from my adopted family in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.

That's heaven to you. And it's right here.

Carol has a habit, as ingrained as her pack-a-day smoking, of holding the floor as she holds forth by inserting the phrase "...and on that..." every other sentence or so. It's partly a regionalism, I think, but mostly it's a CarolSchorgeism.

She's had a helluva life, which it's not my privilege to reveal. Suffice to say three or four things about Carol: she used to clean houses and offices virtually nonstop, and still cleans my dad-in-law's Northampton office; she's the one who found an absolutely amazing and very sensitive seamstress to restore my mom's 1950s taffeta wedding dress so I could wear it at my own wedding in 1995; she once found and planted a lily called the Mona Lisa Lily (pictured) in honor of the birth of Gil's and my daughter Mona Lillian...

....and last but by no means least, she's the one who first, really, convinced me that it is possible to be both a self-taught gardener and a brilliant one. She has reclaimed, almost singlehandedly, about a half-acre of property next to her house over the years, throwing this here and that there, until now what grows on that site is a botanist's dream, and the impression it gives--rightly, I think--is that Carol Schorge can grow anything.

Anything.

Even cactus. In New England. All winter. It flowers. Without props.

I kid you not.

She's given me dozens of clumps and cuttings from her yard over the years, and only a scattered handful have taken, though I live in the more hospitable clime of the mid-Atlantic.

She's just got magic, that's all. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to say....

...and on that...

Teaching Goes to the Movies

I'll take any excuse to see Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki...in this case, by showing it to my College Prep English class at Emerson Preparatory Institute. We've been reading John Hersey's Hiroshima (and associated resources gathered by Steve Rothman of Arlington, Mass. at his amazing site herseyhiroshima.com). Our goal is manifold: to understand how Hersey crafted his narrative, to figure out how to embrace a complex topic, and to ponder the psychosocial effects of catastrophes on large populations.

I came across a review by Mark Stevens in