game five menu
Worcester is in the house. Fall River is in the house. Go Celtics!
knight anole on queen palm
Saw this guy outside this morning. Also called a Cuban anole (Anolis equestris) or chispojo. It's the largest anole, growing up to twenty inches.
mr. bad example's being good
still life with django, flowers, books, and knitted scarf
menu
Last night's menu. Dinner by Cindy. (The souffle rose!)
annals of religion
Private catechism: Priest hires hit man to kill man who accused him of rape. Invasion of the baby-snatchers: nuns selling babies. City of brotherly love: sixty-three predator priests in Philly. Legionaires for Christ: up to their necks in sex offenders. Chaplain speaks out: "It is possible for demons or the devil to inhabit or invade animals in just the same way they invade humans and that causes a sin of lust."
the weeping and the gnashing of teeth
Quote of the day, found while reading the Bible for thoughts about barreness. “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord." Deuteronomy 23:1
no bullshit left behind
From slashdot:
"Robert Krampf, who runs the web site 'The Happy Scientist,' recently wrote in his blog about problems with Florida's Science FCAT. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is an attempt to measure how smart the students are. Where other states have teachers cheating to help students, Florida decided to grade correct answers as wrong. Mr. Krampf examined the state's science answers and found several that clearly listed right answers as wrong. One question had 3 out of 4 answers that were scientifically true. He wrote to the Florida Department of Education's Test Development center. They admitted he was right about the answers, but said they don't expect 5th graders to realize they were right. For this reason they marked them wrong. As such, they were not changing the tests. Note: they wouldn't let him examine real tests, just the practice tests given out. So we have no idea if FCAT is simply too lazy to provide good practice questions, or too stupid to be allowed to test our children."
america
I believe in an America
where millions of Americans
believe in an America that's
the America millions of
Americans believe in.
That's the America I love.
--Mitt Romney
happily almost ever after
Today's short story waiting to be written: Couple to divorce after seventy-seven years of marriage. (She kept the letters?) (thanks to Cindy in the kitchen)
god's naked will
My pal C.D. Mitchell has a new story online at Burnt Bridge.
A virgin Pentecostal preacher orders a prostitute named Delilah to the Palmer House Hilton!What could go wrong?
the bard
Happy birthday, William
gulf stream online #7
The new issue of Gulf Stream is now available.
reality tv celebrity speaks
Obama, he's a piece of shit.
I told him to suck on my machine gun.
Hey, Hillary, you might want to ride
one of these into the sunset,
you worthless bitch.
If Barack Obama becomes
the president in November, again,
I will either be dead or in jail
by this time next year.
after a long heart & soul conversation
with Mitt Romney today I concluded
this goodman will properly represent
we the people & I endorsed him
--Ted Nugent
hail and farewell
Today's best headline: "Woman Uses Craigslist to Find Guy Who Knocked Her Up at Motorhead Concert." "I was grinding you in the pit . . ." Isn't that how it always starts? Today's best obit: Michael "Flathead" Blanchard 1944-2012. And the comments are even better: "Hey Mike, When I asked you for that .45 pistol you said over your dead body, does that mean I can have it now?" from Jake the Snake Martin. (thanks to Donny in Wormtown)
buddy nordan
One of the treasures of American literature has died. Lewis "Buddy" Nordan passed away today. I was more than fortunate to have had Buddy as a teacher at the University of Arkansas. He introduced me to, among other works, Tristram Shandy, for which I am forever grateful. He was the last person I saw when Cindy and I left Fayetteville. He was at the public library and told us he was leaving town for a job in Pittsburgh. We were off to Louisiana. He told us the job interview got a little tense when the Dean asked him to explain the two or three year gap in his resume. Buddy told us he said, "Well, I sure as hell wasn't sitting around the house drinking vodka." Here's a link to Buddy's books. In January 2009, some of us went up to Auburn University for Buddy-Fest, a symposium, otherwise known as "Lewis Nordan and the Heartbreaking Laughter of Transcendence and Hope." Buddy was there, slowed by his neuropathy, but in great spirits and as sharp and entertaining as ever. He read from a book he was working on--typing it all with one finger--set in Pittsburgh. The University of Alabama Press has pubilshed the papers from that symposium in a new book, Lewis Nordan: Humor, Heartbreak, and Hope.
Listen to Buddy sing in this passage from"The Talker at the Freak Show":
Good linen reminded Mama of trains, and the thought of trains would sometimes soften her mood. She was thinking of black porters in starched white jackets, of Pullman cars flashing across snow-fields and through tiny nameless train stations at dawn and into great cities. She was thinking of soiled linens–sheets piled in the aisles of sleeper cars–and of tablecloths in the diner embossed with the Illinois Central emblem, or with the name of some train on the IC line, the City of New Orleans, the Panama Limited, the Loozianne. She loved to speak the names of those trains. She sang them to me in the night sometimes, sad sweet songs she made up about them. It was my lullaby since the beginning of my memory.
If you haven't read Buddy's stories and novels, you haven't read the most honest, sweet, and heartbreaking fiction ever written.
Good-bye, my friend.
Here's the NYT obit.
a guggenheim!
Yours truly was fortunate enough to receive a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship.
epidemical vanities
The title of William Prynne's book, published in 1628, as a poem:
The Unlovelinesse, of Love-lockes,
Or, A Summarie Discourse, Prooving,
the Wearing, and Nourishing of a Locke,
Or Love-locke, to be Altogether Unseemely,
and Unlawfull Unto Christians: In which
There are Likewise Some Passages Collected
Out of Fathers, Councells, and Sundry Authors,
and Historians, Against Face-painting, the Wearing
of Supposititious, Poudred, Frizled,
Or Extraordinary Long Haire,
the Inordinate Affectation of Corporall Beautie,
and Womens Mannish, Unnaturall, Impudent,
and Unchristian Cutting of Their Haire,
the Epidemicall Vanities, and Vices of Our Age
ask siri #3
Answers from the lady in my pocket.
Me: Is there life after death?
Siri: That's a topic for another day and another assistant.
Me: Is there a heaven?
Siri: I would ask that you address your spiritual questions to someone more qualified to comment. Ideally, a human.
[Snap!]