Tell all the truth, but tell it slant

11:43 pm

I just paid $20 to keep this account,so it would update my website without any web-programming skillz. SO I probably should use it more often to post, deep, meaningful commentary on life.

Until then, here's Maurice Sendak insulting a bunch of people and being as awesome as I'd always hoped he was:

03:45 pm

Sometimes when I'm typing the word "secondary", my fingers go into autopilot mid-word and type "secondarby". One of my projects at work has primary and secondary components. Coworkers must think I'm really really narcissistic because I keep naming parts after myself.

11:03 pm - rapture thoughts

When I drove past Planned Parenthood this morning, day of the failed rapture, the usual Saturday abortion protest was missing. No “I REGRET LOST FATHERHOOD” sign on a stick. No bloody fetus pictures. Which was nice—I don't like to see bloody fetuses before I've had a latte. But then for a brief, real moment, I was a little scared. Where had the protesters gone?
 

I'm disappointed in the “news” 's portrayal pf the rapture believers. Sure, I've cracked a few jokes too, but really, I admire people who have a strong enough faith that they'll bet all their worldly possessions on their belief system. I don't share that faith, but that doesn't mean I need to disrespect it. As I write this, the college radio station is playing a montage of rapture pronouncements, revival-tent preachers, Johnny Cash speak-singing lines from Revelations, all of it over a looped techno beat, punctuated with cuckoo clock sounds, and zombie movie samples. Typical college radio production quality, but you can tell the students put a lot of work into it, finding two hours of samples and snippets and lining them up.

NPR's weekend news anchors were snorting and giggling over the non-event this morning, which seemed oddly smarmy. A lot of non-Christians have been mousetrap-coiled, waiting to point and laugh at a tiny, tiny minority of Christains who believed this mathematically-based prophecy. Tonight, a few hundred or thousand people are left questioning their beliefs and spiritual leaders. And some of them are broke and estranged from their families. That's not anything worth celebrating.

06:09 pm

Everything in its place: the Fury has finally joined the rest of my stuff in California. Other than still owning the house in Syracuse, it's all here. The delivery truck rolled up this morning, full of brand-new Teslas (electric sports cars) and my bright, loud, old car. A good way to start the day, for sure.



Now it's in the garage beside its old engine, the first time they've been in the same place for over seven years.

11:20 pm - When life blesses you with lemons...

Posted especially for Nate, who asked when I was going to post something on my blog other than a picture of butternut soup. I haven't made a public post since moving to California... so here's a different food picture! Lemon pie, made with fruit from the tree in my backyard.



I gotta say, I get a big, snarky grin every time I see lemons, grapefruit, and oranges growing in my backyard. It's the same grin I get when I hear that Syracuse has received FOUR FEET of snow in the last two weeks. The first flakes were falling as we pulled away in the U-Haul...

Here's Dad and I somewhere in the Nevada mountains, on our coast-to-coast roadtrip (we left Maine after Thanksgiving, drove to NY, packed up, and headed for CA):

09:53 pm - Eat Local

Still life: butternut & sausage soup with maple & cinnamon; mashed potatoes; porter. Pardon my dirty countertop.

The squash, onion, green onion, and potato came from the Syracuse farmer's market this morning. Sausage made-in-store @ the grocery. Porter straight from a growler filled @ Middle Ages Brewery this afternoon. Maple syrup was a gift. The stock and (maybe) the cream probably rode a truck for a while, but otherwise, it's a meal with a low carbon footprint. Less diesel burned=fresher food=more yum.




(dessert is about to be raspberry ice cream, berries from my back yard...)

08:18 pm - Syracuse Show

I haven't done a feature set in months and months, but this should be an interesting event:



Here's Kom Plex's MySpace--we'll be an interesting combination, especially if I'm not in slammy form... http://www.myspace.com/komplexwordplay

10:21 pm - Two Book-y Links, and more

First, Pitt Press is having a half-off sale through August 1. They publish some great poets. I think I have some Larry Levis and Maurice Kilwein Guevara in my future.

Amazon is offering a year of free two-day shipping to university students--there's a link on the homepage. Sadly and publicly, I drink the Amazon Kool-Aid. Don't tell the independent bookstores that I love.

Also: Tim Winton is a hella writer. I stumbled across Dirt Music at a library book sale. Wow. I think the plot and tension drifted at the end, but the writing is magnificent. I've ordered more (see above).

Unrelated, and too lazy to make additional posts, Despicable Me is good fun. No, it isn't Pixar and yes the tropes are a little tired, but ignore the critics: it's a fun, laugh out-loud movie.

Lastly, I stabbed 700 tuna heads in the eye last week. How's that for a yummy summer vacation diversion? Lobsters, apparently, love rotty tuna heads.

That is all.

11:14 am - Best disaster news in years!

Hurricane Darby has formed in the Pacific! I haven't had a good hurricane since 2004. I wish no ill upon any coastal city, but really, I'm hoping for some headlines.

The first, per FOX News: The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Darby has maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.

Of course, FOX also thinks Obama is a Muslim, so it's possible that I only have maximum sustained winds of 7.5 miles an hour.

01:56 pm - FRACK

I've heard a couple people ask: What is FRACK? There are signs everywhere and information meetings being held around Syracuse right now. Here's a trailer for a documentary about it. It's a form of natural gas drilling that is destroying groundwater supplies all over the world, and they're trying to get permits to do it here in New York.

"Best" moment: when the guy holds a match up to his kitchen faucet and the water explodes:



If the image size isn't coming up correctly, here's the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8