Un · aire · demasiado · menso

As someone who was educated outside of the United States, and as a result had only a vague sort of idea about the workings of the internal conflict in the country circa 1860, I'm completely fascinated by the NYTimes' Disunion blog. The Times' archives go back that far. Seriously. So every day or so they post a clipping from the archives, giving you a more-or-less day-by-day picture of the developing conflict. They just got started, so there isn't that much to catch up on. It's really interesting to me to analyze similarities and differences in how political discourse got handled then versus now.

History nerds, go check it out.

Well, apparently the game is actually on but they are showing clips anyway for reasons best known to themselves.

Wooo first and goal.

This just in: Mike Wallace has dumb hair. Boo, first and goal. Held to fourth and a badly shanked fg from 23. Bad day, Steelers.

Guys. Guys. The ground is not a legitimate pass receiver. Stop doing that.

2nd and goal pats. Some nice high yardage plays there.

Honestly i think i could have done a less embarrassing job of kicking the extra point.

In the interests of fairness Brady's hair is also pretty bad.

I never know if the ref armwaving is good or bad.

Whoa, the Steelers seem to have just remembered they're supposed to be at some sort of sporting event.

A guy in a commercial was wearing business attire and nice shoes with no socks. Disgusting. Young people to-day have no standards or morals whatever.

Laffin at the galaxy tab ad with Blockbuster on demand as a selling point. Oldtech is old.

Im in ur endzone, returnin a 31yd interception. Ahem: LOL.

That football song the blonde anorexic caterwauls has the exact same bass and drumbeat as Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself For Loving You". Just saying.

Okay it is 20:26 and there is 7:32 left on the game clock. My guess is the game won't be over till nine. Any takers?

Well dang. A decent Pittsburgh scoring drive. And you let a conversion through? Really? Those never work!

Keystone steelers kops bobble the kick peewee style. Just sad. Pats have possession at the forty. The forty!

Eight minutes later, 5:12 on the clock. That's 3.5 seconds realtime per football second elapsed.

Two minute warning! Only took 25 mins to get there! I would watch more football if the pace weren't so glacial. Solution: make the quarters twice as long, but keep the clock running at all times except for official timeouts. Watching the clock stop every fifth second is just deadly.

All done!

Good morning. Welcome to Radio Deconstruction. Today I'll tell you about Gogol Bordello's God-Like. It is the ugliest song I know.

Not the worst song, not the saddest song -- though there's a lot of sorrow in there, if you look -- but the ugliest. It's unflinching, and an interesting example of calculated, artistic use of ugliness as theme.
( oh some natterin's a comin'Collapse )

I work in San Francisco. Most days, I ride the Caltrain to work and back. Sometimes, when I have a social engagement in the East Bay, I walk a mile or so to the BART station and ride that into whichever station suits -- one of the Oakland stations if I'm visiting folks there, or Fremont for another group. Some days back, I was walking through a station, I don't remember if it was Montgomery or Powell, heading towards the gates.

The way the station is laid out, after you come down the stairs, there's an open area with corridors open off the far wall. The corridors lead deeper into the station, to where the ticket machines and the gates are. In this section, though, there's only the wall ahead and the stairs behind, and an open section of floor.

That day, I saw a man playing a violin and a woman dancing. She was wearing a bluish-green sweater, jeans, and a hip scarf. Her hair was black and curly and her smile came and went as she moved to the sound. He had sandy blond hair, thinning a bit on top, and dark clothes, his face bent over the instrument. His eyes would be sometimes open, sometimes closed. I remember his shoes were rather nice, shiny black loafers. I stopped for a while and watched them both. The violin took me away. I was there for several minutes and the world vanished. They were both drawing in the air, she with her arms and hips and smile, he with the strings and bow, and I didn't know what shape they were making, only that I liked it.

I'm bringing you ashes, here, and trying to tell you what fire is like by pointing at the little pile of dark dirt in my hand. In the moment, it was glorious beyond capture. In memory, it still has the power to shorten my breath. In words, across the bridge of language and distance, what is it I've brought you? I have no idea. Ashes, most likely, and if I've been fortunate a spark lingers.

At first I was deliberate in including both performers in my observation. It seemed gauche to devote my attention solely to the pretty dancer, disrespectful. Soon enough, such a consideration became irrelevant. If you know me more than in passing, you know I'm a lusty man. I'm appreciative of the manifold joys of carnality, and the sincere appreciation of a beautiful human is a common enough event. After a while, though, that concern faded into irrelevance. Movement and grace, sound and craft, took me out of myself, and I found my own eyes opening and closing at irregular intervals, looking at the shapes her hands made in the air, sometimes listening only to the strains of the violin as it sped up.

It was a timeless moment, and of course it couldn't last. I had a train to catch, an evening's worth of things to do. Some times are more dense than others. A clock might have told five or seven minutes. It was longer than that, and also an instant. It is still happening, in a way. I feel the echoes.

therobbergirl and I are home. The surgical prognosis is surprisingly good! I am pleased. Once they got in and looked around, the cartilage was in much better shape than the MRI had led everyone to believe. Meniscus tear was repaired but the microfracture was not performed because it was deemed unnecessary. This shaves a bunch off her recovery time and is just awesome to hear. The ice machine is humming quietly. I have some errands to go and do now. Generally stuff seems good!

I'm still rocking the contract gig at Sony, which is quite nice, don't get me wrong. Interesting work and good folk to work with. Its contracty nature means I don't have paid vacation, so it cost me a day's pay to take Friday off.
( was it all worth it? living, breathing rock and roll, this godforsaken life?Collapse )
Yes, it was a worthwhile experience.