Heaven... I'm in heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak...
I was grumbling to C about a continuing frustration: we have tupperware lids with no bottoms and bottoms with no lids.
J: Where the hell do these things go?
C: They run off with the missing socks.
QAnon believers gathered on November 2 in Dealy Plaza, Dallas, TX convinced that John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. would appear around 12.30 pm CT. John Jr, it is believed, having faked his 1999 plane crash death, was reappearing to run as Donald Trump’s vice president in the 2024 elections.
No comment necessary.
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| William Perugini |
In today's Times, there was an essay by regular contributor Margaret Renkl reflecting on her turning 60 years old. One of the passages was particularly touching and in my opinion unusual:
...This is just who I am now, a person who looks exactly like her late mother, despite far more exercise and a far healthier diet. Besides, I loved my mother, and I love seeing her again in every store window I pass.
I do not think I have ever heard such a loving and positive expression by a woman about her mother. Usually, it's "ugh, I look just like my mother." So many women I know don't have such a fondness for the one who made them. All the "baggage" from growing up and adulthood with deep archives of anger, hurt, disappointment and worse. Tis a shame.
A 2015 film based on the 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin. Ian McKellen stars as Sherlock.
The year is 1947 and the famed detective, aged 93, has lived the past 30 years in retirement on the Sussex coast. The film deftly weaves three stories: Holmes' visit to Japan, his budding relationship with the 14 year old son of his housekeeper and his struggle with a fading memory while he attempts to set down on paper the story of his final case.
A well-paced, tender, poignant tale of the famous detective battling his final nemesis, his failing body, and finally realizing the consequences of his lifelong obsession choosing logic over emotion.
There's many subtle and satisfying bits of pleasure in viewing this film and foremost is watching a fine actor at work as the story shifts back and forth between the detective at age 63 and 93. Extraordinary.
And, you get some lessons on beekeeping, a hobby that the boy and Sherlock bond over. If you remember, this is how Conan Doyle ended his Sherlock series with Holmes retiring and taking up this avocation. He puts forth the idea that he prefers the company of bees to those of people, implying that the occasional sting was much more tolerable to what his fellow human beings can dish out. This is a man who has been hurt, terribly, and his retreat behind the walls of logic was his remedy for pain.
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| Click on link to access video |
Not an Onion satire, this clip was produced by the United Nations Development Program with Jack Black as the voice of the critter. While clever, it's slickly Hollywood with clichéd surging score and shameless tearjerking in a Feed The Children way. I suppose the over-the-top presentation does the job of getting attention but on the other hand, it veers into common parody that is SNL's stock in trade. I imagine the calculation by UNDP is to spur change by any means to inspire the world's male leaders to get off their duffs and do something substantial about the climate crisis. Clearly, the dudes are upset and offended by the righteous scolding of a pig-tailed school girl with asperger's syndrome. The nerve of that girl! Bend down before your betters, kid, you need to learn that people do not speak to us in that manner.
Meanwhile, let's cut to the chase: trillions of individual lifeforms on the planet are at risk because of a handful of rich men. Based upon their actions, it's obvious that they don't care about anyone or anything else but their Gollumesque clinging to wealth and the power it brings. Hell, they know they have time left in their lives before the shit hits the fan and if things go south early, they have made the delusional calculation that their wealth can keep them comfortable and safe. As for their children and grandchildren, I can't see that they give a shit. Yer on your own, kids!
This ad for Lume appeared just prior to the beginning of a YouTube selection. Astonishingly surreal marketing hawking yet another product dealing with our massive First World neurosis: body odor. But this one tackles what heretofore has been unmentionable-Butt Crack Odor. In fact, as the commercial shows, their product combats this nefarious problem. Further commercials broaden the formidable power of Lume taking on human stink of all kinds: feet, armpits and vaginas. Click on the link to access their online commercial and play: The Butt Suds Test.
https://lumedeodorant.com/pages/bodywash
Oh, the cost of this miracle substance to ease your anxieties whilst among others of your species? A mere $19.99. I'm sure there's a "wait, there's more" pitch in there somewhere as well your life being inundated by the algorithms on all your devices relentlessly urging you to buy, buy, buy. You loser. You smell like ass.
This reminds me of the classic Poo-Pourri commercial c. 2010, a product which portrayed itself as a natural alternative to Glade or matches in eliminating bathroom odors.
I am also reminded of the final lines of e.e. cummings' 1922 work Poem, or Beauty Hurts Mr Vinal. Bless you Norm Beck (1939-2015), freshman lit LCC, for turning me on to this.
...americans (who tensetendoned and with
upward vacant eyes, painfully
perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the
sternly allotted sandpile
–how silently
emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance: Odor?
ono.
comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush
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| Whattyamean I'm crazy??? I dose everyday!! |
C and I were watching the recent version of Vanity Fair the other night and reference was made to "Daffy's". I asked C about it and she said that this was a very popular patent medicine in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and is also mentioned in Dickens' Oliver Twist. Reminiscent of a recipe from our beloved, goateed Colonel, it is a mixture of a number of herbs and spices and brandy, sometimes augmented with gin. It began as a stomach remedy and laxative, often used to help teething infants and later was marketed as an all-around cure for most ailments. Being in an unregulated industry, inevitably after numerous outbreaks of poisonings and deaths due to cheaper knockoffs, Daffy's Elixir became a poster child for what was popularly termed quack medicine.
We wondered if this was the basis for the Looney Tunes character Daffy Duck. Someone in Tex Avery's crew must have come across Daffy's and thought it was a perfect name for this new character. It fits! Daff is bonkers, aggressive, unreasonable, paranoid, selfish and you have to wonder if the writers experiences with unstable alcoholics help give an air of authenticity to the little black quack.
The film is set in a dystopian near-future America. 20% of the population is addicted to Substance D, a nasty, destructive substance that addicts upon initial use and eventually fries the brain of the user.
What an imaginative film! A gumbo of Dick's paranoia and dystopian futures, William S. Burroughs harrowing drug use and hallucinations, crime noir and dark druggie humor all dished up in the trippy Rotoscope animation. One intriguing concept (and its depiction) is the "scramble suits" worn by the undercover operatives that hides their identity by the constant shifting of features so that the viewer only can grasp a vague idea of what they are seeing. It's one of the key features of the tale whose themes explore reality and the impact of drugs on brain function and perception.
A Scanner Darkly features a well-cast group of actors who seem to stay within familiar personal tropes: Reeves, with his competent yet narrow range pulls up his tough guy routine that has gleaned several franchises; Downey creates one of his most memorable crazy (and over the top) characters; Harrelson revives his patented goofy drughead roles and Ryder, who doesn't stretch too far to play one of the few sympathetic characters in the film.
This is considered by many to be semi-autobiographical of Dick written during a rough patch in his life: with his wife leaving him, his constant use of amphetamines to aid in writing as much as he could to make money, sharing his house with a revolving door of teenage addicts. The novel and the film accurately depict the severe consequences drugs have on people's lives, brain functions and behavior.
It's an intense film, there's a lot going on here on a number of levels. I consider this to be one of the most unique films out there.
In other seasonal goings-on this week: Senor Junco made his first appearance on Saturday; a few monarchs are still feeding on the waning tithonia and butterfly bushes; I was surprised to hear midweek Red-winged Blackbirds off towards the woods; and we fired up the fireplace for the first time on Saturday night.
NWS, NOAA and The Old Farmer's Almanac have released their winter forecast: above normal temperatures and precipitation. I can dig the warmer weather, considering that a number of sources, at this point in time, are predicting a 50% increase in heating costs. I really don't want to hear about utilities pleading poverty next year. I do not dig having to shovel more of the S word. Maybe we will luck out and it will be warm enough to just rain.
On October 13, 2021, the actor William Shatner flew into space and back aboard Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket becoming the oldest person to do so at age 90. While the flight itself was uneventful, the event and landing sparked a wide range of comments from across the globe, much of which was negative. Many wondered why Shatner seemingly agreed to become a shill for the less than popular billionaire. Others were more dismissive, pronouncing the Star Trek actor as "a fool". Inquiring minds wanted to know so we at The Real Fake News Network, dug around to find the truth. And it's a REAL shocker.
The flight was a failed attempt at assisted suicide.
Our sources say that Bill had approached Jeff with a proposition. He was weary of life but didn't want his legacy to end with death by suicide. Ever the scene chewing ham with an ego to match, he wanted to go out with a bang. Why not some sort of accident? He had a dodgy ticker and figured that the stress from the 5.5 g's pulled during liftoff would probably kill him. Space tourists and astronauts have reported that 5.5 g makes it quite hard to move ones legs and arms. If not a heart attack, maybe a brain aneurysm, Bill thought. To help matters, he decided to go off his meds for a couple of weeks and exclusively eat at his beloved In and Out Burgers which had been forbidden by the docs.
Jeff Bezos didn't bat an eye upon hearing Bill's idea. "Think of the PR synergy! Oh my God" thought Jeff, "you couldn't script this!! Captain Kirk flying in one of his spaceships!" He felt a slight erection coming on, a peculiar habit of his body whenever he encountered a golden opportunity. Shatner's physicians would have to sign off, of course, but no big deal. He had always been a fan of Star Trek since childhood and now, he was able to help the aging star out. Suicide, smooicide. It's a win, win situation baby!
Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men. Bill goes up, Bill comes down. Bill survives. While his televised babbling and blubbering statements seen across the planet were thought to express his feelings about his extraordinary experience, in truth they were about something entirely different.
He was astonished to still be alive.
One
of my longtime favorite films. Nicely directed and scored and
wonderfully shot. From 1977(!!!), Ridley Scott's debut film. In this
final scene, I heard commentary from Scott about the lucky break he got
with the sun and clouds while shooting it. That's right folks, no CGI,
patience and being in the right place at the right time. My only
quibble with the film was the casting of Keith Carradine who I thought
was a bit weak and perhaps too American.
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| Chris Furlong Carl Johan |
75 years separate these two women but they're on the same page when it comes to their opinions of the world's male leaders. Leading into the UN climate change conference (COP26) scheduled to begin at the end of October in Glasgow, Scotland, both have expressed dismay, irritation and impatience with what they see as "big talk with little action" by the guys.
Bless them. They are righteous women.
Readers familiar with this blog have encountered one of my favorite concepts concerning the precariousness of staying alive: the unfortunate who win the world's worst lottery. Recently, a woman from British Columbia narrowly escaped this designation with a real life Donnie Darko encounter in miniature.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/world/canada/meteorite-bed.html
The late morning of meeting, she had set out on the dining room table the dishes, glasses and silverware for the potluck. She was in the kitchen putting together her casserole when she caught some motion out of the corner of her eye in the adjoining dining room. She was concentrating on her cooking and mentally, she wrote it off as movement of light from the windows as the day was a mix of sun and clouds. It wasn't Bob as he had left a half hour ago to hang out with his buds to drink beer and watch football. She had just put the casserole into the oven and turning, was shocked to see her new glasses flying around the dining room. She took a couple of steps towards the table to get a better look. All 12 glasses were in motion or hovering, none of which seemed to mind or even notice her presence. One moseyed into the living room and set down on the coffee table. Another was circling around the ceiling fan. Amy decided to call her best friend Gail, who was attending the book club meeting. She explained the situation and no, she hadn't nipped into the wine early. She took a short vid of the glasses on her Iphone and sent it to Gail who advised her to stay out of the room until she could drive over. Meanwhile, Amy watched the glasses. There seemed to be nothing menacing or threatening going on and suddenly a crazy idea came into her head: the glasses were acting like the dragonflies etched onto their surface. Crazy, but it was the only reasonable explanation. A shudder went through her: is there some kind of spell on these glasses? Her mind began to accelerate and spin like Linda Blair as panic began to set in. She had to steady herself by leaning on the couch: Dear God! There are devils in my house!!! Luckily for her, in the middle of a very serious downward spin of emotion and rationality, Gail arrived and without knocking walked into the house. She was confronted with two sights: her best friend looking white as a ghost with a stunned expression and a room filled with flying drinking glasses. "Jesus Christ, who the hell do we call? The cops? A priest? Or Ghostbusters?" Gail exclaimed as she moved over to Amy. "All of the above replied Amy. We gotta get outta here. NOW!" Without taking their eyes off the glasses, they made their way to the door and ran to the Gail's car where they indeed, placed three calls.
Not surprisingly, the cops were the least helpful. Supernatural happenings were far beyond their training and they quickly deferred to the priest. He was young and absolutely gobsmacked by what he was witnessing. He called up some pals from college who were into investigating paranormal events and they arrived with an array of cameras, sensors and recording devices. By now, it was getting late in the afternoon. Gail had gone home as Amy had postponed the book club fete and called her husband who, having drunk some quantities of beer and jagermeister shots, could only utter WTF upon his arrival and headed to the bedroom for a nap. Meanwhile, as it grew dark, the glasses began to set down and stop moving. One of the para people googled dragonfly behavior and sure enough, when it gets dark, the insects settle down for the night. Another wondered about the glasses origin. Amy dug up the blurb that came with them and found that they were made in Turkey. The priest called his superiors to report the incident and asked if similar events had happened. They would get back to him he was assured. He was going to head back to the seminary to do some research. The paranormal folk gained permission to stay the night and man the equipment. With the hubby already conked out and snoring and the house full of strangers, Amy grabbed a bottle of wine out of the frig and retreated to her study. It had been one helluva day.
In the end, with the cops finally helping out by contacting Amazon and Interpol and the Church reaching out to their counterparts in Turkey, the mystery was solved. The cause of the flying glasses was the result of a spell placed on them by a jinn. Jinn are supernatural beings beneath devils and angels. One characteristic of jinn is that they delight in punishing humans that have done them harm, intentionally or unintentionally. In this instance, the jinn had been quite upset that the owner of the business that specialized in etching glass, had chopped down the jinn's favorite tree in the family's courtyard. The jinn decided to take revenge on the owner and put a spell on his glasses but only the dragonfly ones. Having these glasses fly around like the insect depicted on their surface appealed to the jinn's sense of humor. And then the jinn sat back to watch the troubles begin. The owner lost his glass etching contract with an Amazon subsidiary because of all the returns and was hard pressed to feed his family. He also had to endure a rash of stern criticism from the local Imam who was quite conservative and had no tolerance for members of his flock indulging in ancient and pagan beliefs. His wife stopped speaking to him because of all the embarrassment he had caused. Village children mocked him openly in the street by flapping their arms like wings. He secretly began to drink, supplied by sympathetic Christian friends he had in the village.
The moral of our story is a familiar one:
-you don't tug on superman's cape
-you don't spit into the wind
-you don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don't mess around with Jinn!
A frog walks into a bank to get a loan. He hops up on the counter of the nearest available teller and noticing her name tag, the frog says, "Hi, Mrs. Whack. I'd
like to take out a loan."
Teller: "Well I don't know. We don't normally give out loans to frogs."
Frog: "Well, I want a loan."
Teller: "Alright, well what's your first name?"
Frog: "Kermit."
Teller: (Laughing)"No way. You're not Kermit the Frog."
Frog: "No, no, no...I was named after him. My full name's Kermit Jagger.
You see, my mother's a frog and my father's Mick Jagger............he
fucked a frog, and, well, now I'm here.
But anyway, I'd really like to get a loan, for a lilypad."
Teller: "I see. Well since you've got no credit, it'll be difficult to
get you a loan. Do you have anything you can leave as collateral?"
Frog: (Pauses) "Yes. I think I have something that will work."
He reaches into his frog pocket and pulls out a tiny pink elephant made
of porcelain. He holds it up to examine it for a moment. The teller
looks at it, puzzled. Finally he hands it to her.
Teller: "Uh...I'm not sure. I'll have to talk to the bank manager about this." (leaves to manager's office)
Manager: "What is it, Patty? Can't you see I'm busy?"
Teller (to manager): "Hey, we've got a Kermit Jagger out here...His
mother's a frog and his father's Mick Jagger. He wants to get a loan for
a lilypad but all he has for collateral is this." (holds up pink
elephant)
Manager: (pauses, looking at the elephant) "What it that?" (takes it in his hand to examine) "What is this?"
After some time, he looks at her.
Manager: "I know what this is. This is a Knick Knack, Patti Whack! Give the frog a loan! His old man's a Rolling Stone!"
Our species has a long history of feeding other species. A couple of articles examine this behavior. The first is written by "H is for Hawk" author Helen Macdonald.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/science/animal-feeding-humans.html
Many species have symbiotic relationships often called mutualism where both species benefit being together that often involves food. The oxpecker bird who eat ticks on zebra's coats is a good example. In our case, dogs and cats were domesticated because they helped control vermin, provided an early warning system for predators or hostile tribes or aided with hunting game. But I think we are the only species who feeds others because it gives us pleasure to do so as well as attracting wild things to our environment, gives us some connection with the greater world.
I have pretty much made up my mind to run for President. What the country wants is a candidate who cannot be injured by investigation of his past history, so that the enemies of the party will be unable to rake up anything against him that nobody ever heard of before. If you know the worst about a candidate, to begin with, every attempt to spring things on him will be checkmated. Now I am going to enter the field with an open record. I am going to own up in advance to all the wickedness I have done, and if any Congressional committee is disposed to prowl around my biography in the hope of discovering any dark and deadly deed that I have secreted, why--let it prowl.
In the first place, I admit that I treed a rheumatic grandfather of mine in the winter of 1850. He was old and inexpert in climbing trees, but with the heartless brutality that is characteristic of me I ran him out of the front door in his night shirt at the point of a shotgun,and caused him to bowl up a maple tree, where he remained all night, while I emptied shot into his legs. I did this because he snored. I will do it again if I ever have another grandfather. I am as inhuman now as I was in 1850. I candidly acknowledge that I ran away at the battle of Gettysburg. My friends have tried to smooth over this fact by asserting that I did so for the purpose of imitating Washington, who went into the woods at Valley Forge for the purpose of saying his prayers. It was a miserable subterfuge. I struck out in a straight line for the Tropic of Cancer because I was scared. I wanted my country saved, but I preferred to have somebody else save it. I entertain that preference yet. If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty. If it is loaded my immortal and inflexible purpose is to get over the fence and go home. My invariable practice in war has been to bring out of every fight twothirds more men than when I went in. This seems to be to be Napoleonic in its grandeur.
My financial view are of the most decided character, but they are not likely, perhaps, to increase my popularity with the advocates of inflation. I do not insist upon the special supremacy of rag money or hard money. The great fundamental principle of my life is to take any kind I can get.
The rumor that I buried a dead aunt under my grapevine was correct. The vine needed fertilizing, my aunt had to be buried, and I dedicated her to this high purpose. Does that unfit me for the Presidency? The Constitution of our country does not so so. No other citizen was ever considered unworthy of this office because he enriched his grapevines with his dead relatives. Why should I be selected as the first victim of an absurd prejudice?
I admit also that I am not a friend of the poor man. I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut up and properly canned, he might be made useful to fatten the natives of the cannibal islands and to improve our export trade with that region. I shall recommend legislation upon the subject in my first message. My campaign cry will be: "Desiccate the poor workingman: stuff him into sausages."
These are about the worst parts of my record. On them I come before the country. If my country don't want me, I will go back again. But I recommend myself as a safe man-a man who starts from the basis of total depravity and proposes to be fiendish to the last.
For some reason, I have no memory of ever reading this delicious satire written in 1879. To my ear, this is a direct ancestor to Mad Magazine's "Scenes We'd Like to See" and "The Onion." Nothing's changed has it? The muckracking press, the opposition party's Senate hearings and the ever convoluted logic of politicians-all quite familiar to us today. There are strikingly prescient passages to our times: victimhood, calling out and labeling current morality as absurd and obstructive in the case of his green burial practices, draft dodging and letting the other bastard die for his country, matter of fact indifference to the poor offering up a suggestion that they be turned into Soylent Green.
Clearly, the profession attracts scoundrels.
"Ah now, there’s a bit of sunshine in yer pocket."
I've never heard this expression before and to my mind, so totally Irish.
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| J.Kristin |
There exists a special tomato plant variety that learns the needs of the family who planted it based on how often the fruit is picked. This is not a "frankenmater" produced in some Silicon Valley AI lab, with generations of genetically enhanced, nano chip algorithm infused plants. No, it is more of an understanding between species: we provide favorable growing conditions of sun, soil and water and in return, the plant provides fruit that we can eat. In this case, this particular variety senses how much to produce and one must consider that this action might (at least to put it into human terms) instill a sense of satisfaction. They are neither servile or the victims of bullying, this is simply what they do. Their lives last only a season, arcing from the cool nights of their seedling planting, to their first flowering and first fruiting, to the full muscular production of progeny that slowly wanes in the September sun, ending with the first killing frosts.
We could do worse with our own lives.
Listen to me: for one moment, quit being sad. Hear blessing dropping their blossoms around you. God.
-Rumi, 13th Century Persian poet
Windy days are when trees weight train. Researchers at Biosphere 2 in Arizona found that trees grown inside the dome would not fully mature and eventually collapse under their own weight. The reason for this failure, researchers discovered, was due to the fact there is no wind inside the dome. An article in the webmag Awesci by Anupum Pant explains:
In the biosphere 2, they had trees growing faster than they would grow in the wild. Also, they found that these trees wouldn’t completely mature. Before they could, they used to collapse. Later it was found that this was caused by the lack of wind in the biosphere. And it turns out, wind plays a major role in a trees life. The presence of wind makes a tree stronger, it is thus able to mature and not fall down due to its own weight.
When plants and trees grow in the wild, the wind constantly keeps them moving. This causes a stress in the wooden load bearing structure of the tree. So, to compensate, the tree manages to grow something called the reaction wood (or stress wood). This stress wood usually has a different structure (in terms of cellulose or lignin content and more) and is able to position the tree where it’d get the best light, or other optimum resources. This is the reason why trees are able to contort towards best light and still survive loads in even awkward shapes. A contorted building like that would easily fall. The tree is able to grow in a more solid manner – thanks to the reaction wood.
A word to those willing to enter this area...
We won't go into the scientific jabberwocky concerning the threat to human well-being on the other side of this door: to be direct, it's pretty damn scary. However, for those who saw the PBS shows on Chernobyl and are just itching to experience it in person, here are some guidelines to gauge the length of your stay. These guidelines are based upon the experiences of several mice we sent in. They all died, but since their metabolism is so much faster than ours, use the ratio of the average mouse lifespan to that of an average human male...Well, we were going to keep this simple weren't we? For those who wish to use math not touched since high school, be our guest.
Chernobyl Exposure Guidelines
Low Exposure
1-5 minutes
You will receive a nice warm glow. Like you have run around the block a few times.
6-15 minutes
Your friends will wonder where you vacationed to get such a nice tan. Protect those tender spots!
Moderate to High Exposure
16-23 minutes
Ouch! 3rd degree burns, permanent markings where clothing ends and exposed flesh begins. Could begin a new trend, could be embarrassing.
24-30 minutes
Ladies, toss out your birth control and monthly feminine products, you're sterilized! Sorry guys, you're out to pasture as steers.
Lethal exposure
31-35 minutes
You are a walking X-ray! Entertain others by eating and drinking-all can see your bodily functions.
36 minutes +
You join the mice.
We hope that you read these guidelines with care and remember that exposure does add up over time. So, if you gotta visit this place, we advise that you get in and get out in a prudent manner.
Editor's note: curiously, no mention of the correlation between the above time frames and how close one is to ground zero! 50 yards vs 2 miles can make quite a difference in lifespan and the kind of cancers you run the risk of getting!
