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Credo

"A man may fight for many things: his country, his friends, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, a novelty clock and a stack of French porn."

-- Edmund Blackadder III

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Wonderland by Night

Baby Bats
Here are orphaned baby fruit bats from an animal rescue center in Queensland, Australia. I met a fruit bat once, an Egyptian charmer named Indy, Stella Luna brought to life: affectionate, and (I was told) long-lived and almost as smart as a cat, fond of hanging from his mistress' shirtfront and nuzzling in her long blonde hair. Even the alien-looking Little Brown bat she'd rescued, too injured to be released in the wild, responded to treats and affection and both bats invented a game: cling... read more
Thu, July 24, 2008 - 9:02 AM permalink - 2 comments
 
Og, Son of Fire, on the Mating Game
Og man of Stone Age. Late Magdalenian. Og live alone in cave on Dordogne River, Southern France. Og cave painter, story teller, amateur shaman. Sleep in cave many years, emerge in modern world like marmot looking for spring. Modern world frightening but not as confusing as Og expected. Og's grandmere always say, "plus ca change, plus ca meme chose."
Magdalenian Period so called because many false tears shed over cruel universe. Mortality rate not so bad as London 18th century, but still...
... read more
Tue, July 22, 2008 - 10:19 PM permalink - 3 comments
 
Commonplace Book: Current Reading
“If there is sin against life, it consists… in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”
-- Albert Camus

“The irony is that you have to be somebody before anybody listens to you,” he said. “I wasn’t an expert when I was an expert, and now that I’m not an expert, I’m an expert. It’s kind of curious.”
-- Ed Burns, on his years of teaching and police work before writing "The Wire"

"I’ve decided that the single worst thing about this illness is its terr... read more
Mon, July 21, 2008 - 7:53 PM permalink - 0 comments
 
Grind House Gramm
In the world view of kindergarten teachers and Irish Setters, you can find something to like about almost everyone. If I ever find myself in Hell next to G.W. Bush, and there are Secret Service agents nearby, we could limit our conversation to Scotty dogs Barney and Beasley and get along fine. Ann Rule says Ted Bundy was charming in person. And now I find that McCain financial advisor and cartoon turtle Phil Gramm and I share a love for the B-movie queens.
In 1973 (ah youth), Gramm's brother... read more
Tue, July 15, 2008 - 8:19 PM permalink - 3 comments
 
Let's You and Him Fight
Who are these people who claim to be offended at Barry Blitt's cover for The New Yorker? John McCain, who couldn't be bothered to defend his own daughter against the Bush campaign's slurs in 2000, then embraced the men he should have called out for a duel, but now finds his voice to denounce a cartoon? Me, I've been an Obama guy since the New York Review profile in the fall of 2006, and ruminating over New Yorker cartoons since high school, when I inherited Doc Kerry's collection, and I thoug... read more
Tue, July 15, 2008 - 2:01 PM permalink - 2 comments
 
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Raggedy Man

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My Recommendations

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My Recent Activity

Re: The Void (where prohibited) (in Freebooters Of The Undecided Lands) Here it is: "I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing-- tightrope walking comes to mind-- but it's a difficult for me to think of anybody producing much writing if his confidence is c... read more
discussion post on Sat, July 26, 2008 - 7:25 PM
Re: The Void (where prohibited) (in Freebooters Of The Undecided Lands) I share every one of these symptoms, and more besides. Wish I knew a remedy, other than sneaking up on it, as I only have this problem with writing intended for publication or submission letters and proposals.
If I try not to mystify it, I do t... read more
discussion post on Sat, July 26, 2008 - 7:24 PM
Re: Who's books are better? (in Book Lovers) Whose not who+ is, please.
I doubt that anyone who's a true book lover is a snob as to genre. I actually read more "great books" than a lot of academics I know, who seem to limit themselves to reading what other people think they ought to read, ... read more
discussion post on Sat, July 26, 2008 - 7:06 PM
Re: The Secret Life of Siegfried & Roy (in Book Lovers) They're not conservative, they just happen to have a very wide stance.
discussion post on Fri, July 25, 2008 - 3:16 AM
Re: not to be a bummer... (in Freebooters Of The Undecided Lands) I'm not queer, I'm just odd.
discussion post on Thu, July 24, 2008 - 9:07 AM
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