Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Pond Ogre

There is this crazy dude who lives by the pond where we take our daily walk. He only appears at intervals long enough for me to forget he exists. In this way he maximizes his capacity to surprise the shit out of me.


Late last summer he came out of the little house where he lives and screamed,


" HEY MAN! 'R2D2' "


He actually made air quotes. He is a really big dude and when he yells at me he shatters the arcadian calm of my quiet little neighborhood.


The spring before that he came jogging up beside me and asked to pat my dog. This was pre- Cisco; just me and Shiva. He didn't seem crazy at all until he gingerly reached out and gave Shiva a quick touch on the back and ran away.


Yesterday he emerged into the cold to holler


"ASS DISPLAYED IS ASS LOST!"


This cracked up Melanie who was walking Shiva with me and Cisco.


I don't like this guy much, but I am not worried because Cisco is learning the ancient martial art of Mop-Fu:




Thursday, February 14, 2008

Mr. Esgar



Found this strange Portugese dude on myspace. I kind of dig his stuff.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

E L Doctorow


Major Sense turned me on to this author. I am reading Billy Bathgate and getting in touch with my Jewish Gangster roots. He had a great short story in the New Yorker recently and this quote about our heroic prez:


The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.



Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.


Nicely put.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Laurie Taylor

An excellent podcast on the topic of craftsmanship. This is my favorite radio program and I listen to it with relish each week. Lots of excellent facts figures and ideas here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/