i'm one to talk...

...or hadn't you noticed?

After posting this tasteless screed, I am hardly the first person you'd expect to take anyone else to task for their own lapses, but this is no ordinary person, this is David Byrne.

Brilliant artist, conceptual genius, insomniac demon of the lymphatic shadow of the heart. Oh, and, formerly known as the lead singer of the Talking Heads.

The man who gave us the phrases "stop making sense" (overused) and "making flippy floppy" (underrated).

Someone needs to kick him to the curb and show him where the pooper bags are kept. (Okay, so I have been spending too much time with Cobber, so what?)

For a long time I have been a fan of Byrne's web site, and especially his peripatetic and always surprising journal, even if he doesn't accept comments (a sin and a lost opportunity, even in a celebrity blog. He doesn't have to read them, for cripes's sake).

Byrne travels a lot, and we armchair surfers get to benefit from his observations. Recently he was in London, and got to meet all sorts of people you and I never will. Plus he saw stuff any one of us might, but he really saw it. Which I have to admit you and I never might. Right?

Lately, although I admit the art form dictates that much of any bloggist's blogorrhea be about him/herself (and I am Exhibit A), Byrne's entries have carried a distinctly plummier, smarmier, name-dropping tone, especially when delivered with the occasional moue of apologetic self-deprecation.

Could this be because he crossed the Big Pond for a visit? (Crossed back, to be exact, though if his parents had not crossed the first time, he'd possibly be helping his native state of Scotland work its way toward independence right now).

I mean what else is a longtime-fan-firsttime-stalker to make of...

...this:

"CS and I have dinner by ourselves at a hip restaurant where she is spotted by another former gallerist who later says he was dying to introduce her to Lucien Freud, who was also dining there."

Or this:

"...We are sitting next to a largish couple from Northern Ireland who, to be honest, don’t seem to belong in such a groovy temple. (Here I go applying my own class evaluation.) He’s an IT functionary in town for business meetings and she’s riding on the expense account tab, or so I would guess. They look like northerners on holiday in the big city, but they mention that they’re staying next door at the Ritz, which is more than an ordinary branch manager could afford."

And, finally, this:

"They explain some of the local dishes — Jersey Royals are a miniscule type of potato only available at select times of year. Either from a glass of wine or something medical the woman has turned bright red — all over, face, neck, arms — but they’re so unassuming and easygoing and lacking all pretense that her redness doesn’t register after a minute or two."

How nice of you to notice that you hadn't noticed.

David, we hardly knew ye.

Now I know what you're thinking. David Byrne himself has ever professed a kind of self-advertising humility in album titles like More Songs About Buildings and Food and art installations like Furnishing the Self--Upholstering the Soul. So of course it's only fitting he should lapse into a litany of gee-whiz-I-can't-believe-this-is-my-life brags when he goes out there.

But who the F is CS, and Y does DB have to be so CKR-TF about her?

(If you can read this, congratulations, you either txtmssg 2 mch or loved William Steig as a kid)

Never mind. At the end of the day, Byrne knows we still love him. And if I want to read a blog that isn't self-aggrandizing, I'll be waiting a long time.

But I can't help wondering what my posting style would be like if I emulated David Byrne's:

"Took MS to PHES today. Her big poster installation was due and we'd been putting the finishing touches to it during breakfast. It was a map of the State of Massachusetts for her class's Spring Final (we'll go on to the DC Public Schools Biennale and perhaps onto Bellagio's Internationale if this works out).

Aspects of the work represent a real departure for her: some of the areas of the poster were done in traditional poster paints, some in colored pencil. I added my own touch, adhering a foam sticky-flower to the location on the map where her grandparents live, while MS invoked Boston's undersung Jewish heritage by drawing a Mogen David to indicate the state capital. That this was an inadvertent gesture only adds to its charm, I think.

Had dinner last night with SH and, of course, MS, who goes with me virtually everywhere. We went to that new dog-friendly place on Newton Street off 14th, Chez S. Very nice place, homecooked-style food (mostly locally grown, courtesy of Star Hollow Farm), and served in a recently redone rowhouse dining room with cheerful orange walls and passably good art and photog on the walls. A bit of a mish-mosh, but what can you do when you want to just chill out and eat with your peeps and dawgs?

The conversation revolved around the air conditioning's condensation pump, which has seen its last days. A repairman had been scheduled for that day and hadn't shown. Now there's lots more water in the basement to worry about. SH wanted to know whether I'd chewed out the repair place for their no-show. I told SH it interfered with my creative mojo to chase down servicepeople, and he just laughed in that special way that seems to say, "Well, it interferes with my creative mojo to have to work a regular day, why don't we change places?"

MS kindly refrained from humming at the table. CS and SS lay at our feet, contented not to have to worry about mojo, creative or otherwise.

Today I'm off to get the car re-registered (I hope) and then wait for the condensation pump. Ohg, and SH has drilled drainage holes in my new planters, so I have that project to look forward to. I am also thinking of getting a new address book, or perhaps making a notebook with blank pages for addresses and calling it, "Address Book."

This has probably been attempted, but perhaps I can give it a fresh approach.

[image by Jenny Holzer]

Poetry Thursday: To Stuart

To Stuart

(after Marvin Bell's "To Dorothy")

You don't love me, exactly.
you love me inexactly.
You let my toad lilies grow
by the air conditioning unit and the
recyclables pile by the door.
And sometimes,
in the ever-more-personal quiet
of our daily nights,
you even tell me it's all right.

You said it yourself, and it seemed true:
"I try to improve things."
But it's not true. Without you,
things would be more than unimproved.
The fans wouldn't turn, nor the kitchen be a "wow."
The air wouldn't move and the tree wouldn't grow.
Someone else would have to hang the shelves.
Without you,
I would have to ask the unanswering
morning
to let me sleep.

DC Birding

A funny thing happened while I was walking the dog last week. I became an urban birder. After all, why be mediocre at only a few things when I can add another activity for which my enthusiasm will always out-distance my abilities?

It happened this way, on a Thursday: we spotted two small boys enthusiastically following a little bird that seemed trapped, unharmed but dazed, on the ground. I got that sinking feeling: something would have to be done, and likely as not whatever human intervention we provided would either do further or harm or no good at all (at best). And all in front of children.

But this story has a happy turn--no endings here.

The bird, a fully fledged sparrow of uncertain age, but definitely young, didn't seem lost or hurt, but was hanging out on the sidewalk near our house, very much in harm's way. I shooed the bird and it hopped only a foot away, then hung around tentatively on the edge of the sidewalk near the dog-beshitted and trash strewn median strip of our humble urban street. It wasn't even near the closest sapling, recently replanted thanks to the ongoing work of Casey Trees and its ReTree DC initiative.

Me, I know nothing about the lives of young sparrows. Though, actually, now that I have fostered one for a few days, I can confidently say that I know next to nothing.

(disclaimer: the web site on starling and sparrow care that I just linked to in my previous paragraph is a marvelous one. It's just that I am a flawed vessel).

I had luck on my side: this was an adolescent bird, not far from its nest even when I transplanted it to my safer garden (mode of transportation a Converse Red shoebox). He stayed in the box all night (we have rats...yeah, it's that kind of neighborhood) and in the morning I felt I could open the lid. By midmorning when I came home from the pet shop with mealworms he was out and about. Today I saw his parents feeding him.

He's decided to stay. He is particularly fond of my lavender bushes. So I managed to do an okay thing after all, maintaining my over-a-lifetime average of, well, being slightly abopve average at most things.

The important part of all this for you, gentle reader, is my discovery of the wonderful A DC Birding Blog and the many, many varieties of sparrow, finch, and other songbirds available to me in my own little 20th-acre of paradise.

And you thought all the preening in DC was on Capitol Hill.

Bonnie Jo Campbell does not need my publicity...

...no, and I don't need her sympathy either.

But she's cool.

There, I said it and I'm not sorry.

If you want to know how cool, click you this link rightchere.

That's right. Cool enough to stand by unblinking and watch a donkey get gelded.

Oh, and she's written a few books too.

And if you want to know why I am posting a link to her on my site, it's because she and I briefly kept company if you'd Googled* the phrase "Love and beauty will endure until the game is called for darkness" in the wee hours this weekend, as one of my alert readers recently did.

Gene Fowler said it.

He also said, "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."

Shoot. Everybody knows that. Ask Bonnie Jo if you don't believe me.

*****
This particular search was not one of Google's finer moments, by the way. My blog actually did use this quote once, while as far as I can tell, Bonnie Jo's just happened to use all the same words. Only a few hours later, her site is still in the search and mine's out. Go figure.

"The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy."
--Francois de Rochefoucauld

That wouldn't be me.

oh yes we did

Reality Shows We've Thought of ...Then Thought Better...So Then Just Posted. Because We Can.

"Oh No You DID'n't!"
True Crime Stories About People Who Do the Horrible Things We've All Contemplated Tagline: How Many Times Have You Wanted to Go There?...These People Really Did.
(Car-plowing crowds at street festivals, microwaving a newborn baby, torching a spouse for any reason, and other unacceptable acts)

Poor Eye for the Rich Guy
Immigrant Rental-Style Home Makeovers for the People Who Live Upstairs Ever wanted expert advice about how to achieve just the right balance of shabby-chic South-of-NAFTA style with all that money you made investing wisely and then buying cheaply in a transitional neighborhood? Want to know how to maximize your space as if you had to share it with three other families and some day-laboring cousins, even if you have it all to yourself? Does your loft need that extra touch of something indefinable that says, "I'm not just an overpaid IT technician, I'm an Authentic American?" Well, tune into PERG where we show you how to use lime green (the new basic) in your home, and how to accessorize your kitchen and bath with Food Lion brands out on open shelves.

Who's Your Daddy?
Taking the Search for Family to the Mean Streets and Main Streets
Ever wonder what the chances are that you could finally find that long-lost authority figure in your own back alley? WYD? asks this question, too, and more: every week we take the WYD? van to a different inner-city neighborhood or rural backwater with our contestants to find alimony-jumpers, bail-skippers, and ne'er-do-wells dads. We gather likely candidates and place them in line-ups for contestants to choose (after we've already coerced--um, gleaned, confessions from the "right" dad). Winning contestants get to collect the equivalent of back-child-support from our sponsors: the DC, Maryland, and Virginia Lottery Boards; Little Debbies Snacks; and Big Jug Liquors. Losers have to take their real dads home.

A Day in the Life in Northampton

Ah, the Pioneer Valley in general...

(and Northampton in particular).

via my mom-in-law, Steffi.

Cobber

We adopted him two weeks ago from the Washington Animal Rescue League.

He's an Australian Shepherd and his name is Aussie slang for "pal."

He housetrained in a week and is now working his way through our collection of bedroom slippers.

A very traditional guy.

He rocks.

And no, it's not too late to donate to WARL's annual Mutts Strut through my secure, guaranteed low-hassle donation page.

(Do not worry, CC, I am still a cat person at heart).