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Bennie's Thoughts and Ramblings

In search of truth, and some pointy boots, and maybe a few snack crackers.

12/27/09 02:34 pm - Bennie's LJ Greatest Hits

Hi there -- If you're new to my journal, welcome! Below are links to posts I wanted to be able to go back and find easily, you may find some of them interesting, funny, or entertaining. Many of my posts are friends only, but I'm very open to friending people so just drop me a message to let me know you're interested.

Scroll down to see my regular journal posts, from the most recent going back...

(this post last updated 5/3/08

Bennie's LJ Greatest Hits - Life )

Bennie's LJ Greatest Hits - Movies )

Bennie's LJ Greatest Hits - Politics )

7/2/08 09:30 am - QoTD

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

6/16/08 09:24 am - What's happening?

Anyone seen The Happening yet? Please tell me it's good... I'm hoping for more Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs than some of his less impressive ones...

6/15/08 03:26 pm - Slurp!!

On this very very hot day, I stopped at the local WaWa (for those unfamiliar, it's like an uber-gigantic gas-station-slash-convenience-store-slash-sub-shop) to get a fountain soda. They have these little flavor dispensors that I often use to add vanilla or cherry or raspberry flavor to my Coke Zero, but I saw they had diet Minute Maid lemonade among the choices, and had a sudden inspiration...

So I made Cherry Lemonade... mmmmmmm!!!!

Yes, the simple things often make me happy ;)

6/12/08 09:43 am - Fair to middlin

In a follow-up to last night's post about some folks being unfamiliar with the phrase "fair to middlin'" I found a few tidbits on the origins/uses of it:

"It’s really fair to middling, of course, a common enough phrase — in Britain as well as North America — for something that is moderate to average in quality, sometimes written the way people often say it, as fair to middlin’.

"All the early examples I can find in literary works — from authors like Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott and Artemus Ward — suggest it became common on the east coast of the US from the 1860s on. The first example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from Artemus Ward: His Travels of 1865: “The men are fair to middling”. Another is from Horace Greeley’s Recollections of a Busy Life of 1869 in which he records seeing a play: “The night was intensely cold, in-doors as well as out; the house was thin; the playing from fair to middling; yet I was in raptures from first to last”.

"Hunting around, I’ve found an example three decades earlier, from an article with the title A Succinct Account of the Sandwich Islands, in the July 1837 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond, Virginia: “A Dinner on the Plains, Tuesday, September 20th. — This was given ‘at the country seat’ of J. C. Jones, Esq. to the officers of the Peacock and Enterprise. The viands were ‘from fair to middling, we wish we could say more.’ ”

"So the phrase is American, most probably early nineteenth century. But where does it come from? There’s a clue in one of the OED’s later citations, from the Century Dictionary of 1889: “Fair to middling, moderately good: a term designating a specific grade of quality in the market”. The term middling turns out to have been used as far back as the previous century for an intermediate grade of various kinds of goods, both in the US and in Britain — there are references to a middling grade of flour or meal, pins, cotton, and other commodities."

Oh, and here's how Johnny Cash explains it in his autobiography:

“Strict High Middlin’, like the everyday expression ‘fair to middlin’,’ was a grade of cotton. When we got our crop to the gin, they’d take a knife and cut into the bales. The expert would pull the fibers out and fool with them a while, then make his decision, write down the grade, and tie it to the bale of cotton. He’d be looking mostly at the length of the fibers, their strength and their color, and the grades he had to work with, if I remember it right, were Strict High Middlin’, High Middlin’, Fair to Middlin’, Middlin’, Low Middlin’, and Strict Low Middlin’. Those grades mattered a lot, too: when you got the bales to market, a bale of Strict Low Middlin’ would go for, say, twenty-eight cents a pound, whereas Strict High Middlin’ would get you thirty-five cents."

So basically, "fair to middlin'" is the Southern way of saying "ok," following the Southern tradition of why use only 1 word with you can use a lot more? ;)

6/11/08 09:18 pm - hmmmm

Someone I work with had no idea what I meant by "fair to middlin'" and I was wondering if that's a regional thing (being a Virginian) or an age thing (being an old dude)...

5/18/08 10:11 am - Strickland for VP?

I've heard Ted Strickland's name come up a few times for an Obama Veep-- for my Ohio ljfriends, what's your thoughts on a VP Strickland? I know he's a Clinton supporter so I haven't really dug into what he's all about...

5/18/08 09:31 am - Doctors

One thing I'm grateful for in the current political election/zoo climate is that the state of our health care has finally taken a front seat in public discourse. However, one thing that keeps coming up over and over is, to paraphrase, "the U.S. has the best medical professionals in the world... there's a reason why people fly in to the U.S. when they have an obscure or difficult procedure that needs doing."

I have to admit, for a long time, I had accepted this notion, and my beef with U.S. healthcare wasn't the care, per se, but the insurance and costs.

Recent health issues involving people I love have me second-guessing the assumption.

First off, my sister recently had her second child and started suffering a host of health problems, beginning when she got pregnant and persisting in the nearly two years afterwards. Some of it was chalked up to being in her later 30s, and I don't know the details of most of what she went through, all I know is that she was feeling miserable and the doctors couldn't seem to solve what was going on.

A few months back I heard the words "Fibromyalgia" tossed out there as a possible culprit for some of the symptoms she'd been having, constant pain and fatigue. The name sounded familiar due to some drug company ads for treatment, and as I looked up information on the internet, I was pretty horrified my poor baby sister might be afflicted with this. What was screwy though was that the doctors couldn't conclusively say this was the cause for her symptoms, and kept ordering a bevy of tests, each of which didn't seem to tell them anything.

The pattern seemed to be: order a test, go get the test, wait to hear the results, the results were inconclusive, order another test. Each cycle took 2 months or so with zero progress on helping Rachel get over her constant pain and exhaustion. This went on for like a year!!

Eventually, our mother started spending her days on the internet researching Rachel's symptoms trying to figure out what was going on. One thing she stumbled across was "aspartame poisoning," overdosing on the artificial sweetener found in many sugar-free products. Rachel drank Diet Cokes like water, and often chose sugar-free products over sugared products to save on caloric intake. Mom pointed Rachel to some of the articles on the topic, so Rachel asked her doctor about it. Her doctor dismissed it, but Rachel decided to cut out aspartame, switching to products sweetened with Splenda instead to see what happened. Nothing seemed to change for a while... but after two and a half weeks the pain and fatigue dramatically decreased to almost nothing.

Her doctor remains unconvinced that aspartame was involved and keeps asking her to get more tests, but she says she feels great and cancelled her last appointment.

My mother-in-law has had numerous health issues over the past few years, and a recurring theme is "bafflement" as to the root cause. Things recently got bad enough that she's spent most of the past two-months in the hospital, with about a two week stint at a nursing home for physical therapy before she landed back in the hospital. Just recently they've nailed down a few culprits for some of the issues, but there remains a disturbing number of unknowns.

All of which has me wondering-- if this is representative of the best health care service in the world, just why the hell is it so damn expensive? Why are there so many times when the doctors just seem to shrug and say, "hm, I'm at a loss"? I would think that, if I were a doctor, and I had a patient for whom I could not diagnose the root cause, I wouldn't rest until I came up with an answer. I would think there would be forums you could go to, lists of your peers in the medical field, you could post your delimma and see if anyone else ran across something similar and perhaps found the answer by going down a different path of reasoning. You know, network. Like with my sister, I'm sure there are doctors who have found that overdosing on aspartame can produce symptoms similar to Fibromyalgia, why didn't her doctor run down that possibility instead of spending a year of shoulder shrugging? I would be embarassed that a patient's mother researched the internet to find the root cause of something my patient was suffering from.

I do have a theory though; I don't necessarily think that doctors are a bunch of uncaring slackers who don't want to go the extra mile to help their patients. I think that the insurance companies are giving them a huge squeeze financially, paying them only a fraction of what they charge for their services. Ever noticed on the "this is not a bill" statement you get mailed after going to the doctor, and it shows such-and-such procedure, the bill amount and the amount that the insurance pays, which is always considerably less? Then there may or may not be some amount that you owe, but if you add that (a lot of times its zero) and the amount the insurance pays, it's always considerably less than what the doctor's office notes as what it costs. My theory is that there is so much business that doesn't get paid by the insurance companies, that the doctors have to overbook on patients, pushing them in and out, spending as little time as possible with each patient so they can cram enough in the day to pay the costs of running their business. They literally can't afford to spend extra time digging into mysteries, so if your malady isn't something obvious then you're fucked.

4/4/08 11:56 am - Remembering

On the occasion of Dr. King's death, I wanted to post one of my favorite quotes by him.


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I think the measure of one's greatness is whether you leave this world a better place by your actions than when you came in, and by that measure Dr. King was a giant...

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

4/2/08 01:31 pm - Where are my socks?

Are y'all familiar with Zooey Dechanel, the actress? I've enjoyed seeing her onscreen from her turn as the gotta-be-free hippy big sis from Almost Famous to her sexy and psychotic ex-girlfriend in Weeds.

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Apparently, she's got lovely vocal chords too! I'd read in the recent Rolling Stone (the one with my man Barack on the cover!) about a duo called She & Him, the pairing of Zooey and some musician dude I'd never heard of, and the impression wasn't one of a typical celebrity vanity project but rather something that might be really good. So I just listened to the sample of the single "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" and...

WOW. Knocked my socks right off and into the next cubicle at work. Which was a bit awkward... but I quickly downloaded it and her cover for "You Really Got A Hold On Me" because I'm a sucker for that song anyway and to hear it sung with Zooey's lovely voice... I'll likely eventually get the whole album, but I'm really digging these songs!

4/2/08 08:16 am - Baby Got Books

Okay, this is just way too funny:

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3/24/08 09:41 am - Reluctant change

There's an Aquafina drink machine at my part-time job, and I find it amusing. A bottle costs a buck twentyfive, and when you feed it two dollars, it dispenses the bottle immediately. As far as your change... the machine is very reluctant giving it up. It is literally 20 seconds after it dispenses the bottle before you hear the gears turning to release the coins. Five more seconds go by and the first quarter slides out... a few seconds later the second quarter comes... a few seconds later the third quarter releases, but with much less force than the first two, so that you actually have to reach up with your fingers and coax it down.

On a side note, I've been getting Aquafina Alive, "Nutrient Enhanced Water Beverage" and it's been pretty good. Most recently its been dispensing "Satisfy" which oddly is fiber enhanced-- 3 grams of dietary fiber! The water isn't thick or anything gross like I was worried about the first time it gave that to me. It's just like peach-flavored regular water. Not bad...

Oh, and Happy Easter!

2/19/08 10:02 am - Trippin' down memory lane

Recently downloaded onto my iTunes:

She Sells Sanctuary, The Cult
Private Idaho, The B-52's
The Humpty Dance, Digital Underground
Kiss Them for Me, Siouxie & the Banshees
Cuts You Up, Peter Murphy
Kool Thing, Sonic Youth

:)

2/12/08 09:14 am - Go Vote!

To my Maryland and D.C. friends, and my Virginia friends and neighbors, I hope you find the time to go vote in the primaries today, no matter whom you support. I did, first thing this morning :)

2/1/08 10:03 am - The Fix Widget

12/22/07 08:50 pm - coming attractions...

Trailer time!

One of the things I enjoy most about going to movies is watching the movie trailers. They’re always the best seeing them up on the big screen.

Anyway, when I recently went to see I Am Legend I got to see three movie trailers:

Iron Man
When I heard that Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Tony Stark, I had a hunch that the movie could be really good. Superhero movies are tough to pull off-- Spider Man has worked; Fantastic Four hasn’t. Downey is a top-notch actor, so that’s a good sign. The trailer seemed pretty good too, except for about 20 seconds too much of Iron Man flying through the sky at the end. During my comic-book reading phase I wasn’t that into The Avengers and never read the actual Iron Man comic, so while I’m familiar with his origin I don’t know all the details and I’m not a fanboy who’s bound to be disappointed with the execution.

10,000 B.C.
Wow, this looked like a fun movie! At first I thought it was going to be some sort of new Clan of the Cavebear type of movie, but then it kept going and wow, it’s like a prehistoric epic heroic fantasy! With kick-ass SFX, distinctly non-cavemen-looking heroes and lady-in-distress (yowza!), and a sweepingly large story, this could be the epic movie event of 2008... except for its ridiculously lame title. There’s still time to rework it, I hope...

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
I generally dislike Adam Sandler comedies (I think he’s fairly decent in dramatic roles), but this one is written by the never-misses Judd Apatow, and the trailer looks very promising. I mean just check out the plotline: A Mossad agent fakes his death so he can re-emerge in New York City as a hair stylist. I found myself laughing to the trailer despite myself.

And on another note, as I was perusing the Coming Soon website, ran across this...

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo
Need I really say anything more?

12/22/07 08:03 pm - The waaaa-aaay-ting is the hardest part...

The other day I noticed that a new store popped up overnight (or rather, in the month or so since last I had gone that way).

It was a Starbucks. No biggie, right?

It had a drive-thru. A drive-thru?!

I don't drink much coffee except the days when I'm really short on sleep and it's cold outside, and I rarely set foot in a Starbucks. But the times I have, seems to me the preparation of the coffees worth going to Starbucks over take some time to prepare.

Seems to me that a drive-through would take foooooreeeeverrrrrrr...

12/22/07 03:36 pm - Surreal

I'm a bit baffled... I got the bulk of my Christmas shopping done last weekend, and I just knocked out the last of it three days before Christmas. Usually, I'm just getting started at this point :)

I feel like there's something more I should be doing, hahaha!

12/19/07 09:18 am - 'Tis the Season

Happiness is free Christmas music downloads from iTunes :)

(really digging Ding Dong! Merrily on High by Chanticleer, though it's way too short)

12/1/07 02:54 pm - Quote of the Day

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

11/21/07 08:30 am - Interweb help

Help!

Okay, here's the dealio-- I watched all of Season 1 on Heroes, and was told that I could catch the current season online at like NBC.com... I managed to watch the Season premier on cable station G4... but now it seems that NBC only carries the last five episodes, leaving me with like a 4-5 episode gap. I'd rather not wait for Season 2 to come out on DVD to catch up, and I don't want to just jump in without seeing the missing episodes.

Someone suggested Veoh, and I downloaded the client, went over to the NBC channel and they do the same Last Five Episode thing there. It looks like there might be some random episodes uploaded into Veoh but it's not very user-friendly trying to find particular episodes.

Anyone have any ideas for the non-Tivo-Owning, Wanna Catch Up On Heroes guy?

11/4/07 05:34 pm - Feelin' poppy today...

Just downloaded on iTunes:

Cynical Girl
Someday, Someway
Whenever You're On My Mind


Ah, Marshall Crenshaw, how had I forgotten about you?

Thank you Wawa gas station for playing Someday, Someway on the overhead speakers while I was filling up today...

10/11/07 01:55 pm - You go, Bono

"...Today I read in The Economist an article reporting that over 38 percent of Americans support some kind of torture in exceptional circumstances... Today as you pin this great honor on me, I ask you - I implore you as an Irish man who has seen some of these things close up, I ask you to remember you do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster. Your America is better than that..." -- singer Bono, recently accepting Philadelphia's Liberty Medal.

He said some other things thought-provoking/amusing:

"America is not just a country. It's an idea, isn't it? It's a great and powerful idea. The idea that all men are created equal. That "we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." These are great lyrics, Mr. Jefferson. Great opening riff."

"I'm also a fan of Benjamin Franklin. Which I noticed earlier - Franklin who wore John Lennon glasses before anybody, before they were cool. Franklin who went electric before Dylan."

Here's the whole speech:Read more... )

10/10/07 12:59 pm - Faux Business

So last night I saw an ad for the new Faux (FOX) Business channel and it made me cringe. Another tentacle in the vile Murdock media syndicate. But then I wondered... it's one thing for the general public to consume the right-wing opinion/news that Fox News peddles... are business executives -- presumably the target audience for Fox Business -- interested in business news that's got a rightward spin to it? It seems to me that businessmen and women, when it comes to making decisions, demand the cold, hard, unvarnished facts. That's something Murdock's mouthpiece networks aren't adept at delivering.

Is this venture going to be a raging flop? Of course with Murdock, it could be a financial disaster but if it blows up his skirt he's willing to throw good money after bad.

10/5/07 09:03 am - This year's VA Film Fest looking good!

Wow! The Virginia Film Festival looks kick ass this year! My grandmother's 90th birthday party falls smack in the middle of it so I'm not sure how much if any I'll be able to see, but I hope I can squeeze at least one day down there. John Sayles and Tamara Jenkins as a special guests! I'm sad Roger Ebert isn't doing the Shot by Shot Workshop, I still vividly remember how awesome it was listening to him dissect the movie Blow Up scene by scene.

VIRGINIA FILM FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 20TH YEAR IN A "FAMILY" WAY
"KIN FLICKS" TO EXPLORE THE TIES THAT BIND AND DIVIDE BY SHINING SPOTLIGHT ON LEADING FILMMAKERS
INCLUDING SPECIAL GUESTS JOHN SAYLES AND MAGGIE RENZI


New "Focus On" Feature to Spotlight Multiple Works By World-Renowned Filmmakers Including Tamara Jenkins, Charles Burnett, Nick Broomfield, Alan Berliner, Su Friedrich And Others
November 1-4, 2007


Charlottesville, VA - October 4, 2007 - The Virginia Film Festival is celebrating turning 20 with a huge "family" gathering. Kin Flicks, set for November 1-4, will feature a fascinating array of filmmakers exploring the dynamics of family life from every possible angle and for every possible audience.
The Festival will be highlighted by a highly anticipated family reunion with the return of independent film legend John Sayles. Sayles, who was honored at the second Virginia Film Festival in 1989, is extending the family theme, as he will be joined by longtime producer and life partner Maggie Renzi. The pair will present their new film Honeydripper, a look at the origins of rock and roll in the deep South.
Read more... )
The complete schedule for the 2007 Virginia Film Festival will be online beginning Friday, October 5 as tickets go on sale at www.vafilm.com For more information, call 1-800-UVA-Fest.
The Virginia Film Festival is hosted by the University of Virginia. For more information on the Virginia Film Festival and the year-round activities and events of the Virginia Film Society, visit www.vafilm.com.

10/1/07 09:15 am - Evil Show!

Netflix is a wonderful way to catch up with shows that I otherwise can't watch regularly, and recently I started watching Heroes. I went into the show a little skeptical since, well, it's about comic book heroes and that doesn't always come across well on TV or in the movies.

I was hopeful though because I had heard a lot of good things about the series.

So... after finishing Disc #2, bringing me up through Episode 6 "Better Halves" I have a few thoughts.

1. The series is really really good, and I'm pleased it seems to have lived up the hype. A few friends tell me it gets even better, which I'm pleased to hear. It's horrible when a show fails to live up to its potential.

2. Watching it on DVD is incredibly difficult!! The reason I don't get to watch many shows when they air is because my free time is extremely limited. Typically I get maybe an hour or so 3 times a week late at night to watch something before bed-time. The problem with Heroes so far is that each episode ends on a "holy-shit!" cliffhanger. When it regularly airs on TV, it's perfect, because it guarentees your ass will be in the seat same time next week. On DVD, there's no need to wait-- the "holy-shit!" reaction can be immediately satisfied by selecting the next episode. Only now you're in for another hour.... needless to say, my sleep time has been negatively impacted since I started this infernal series.

3. Yesterday a friend mentioned that there is a whole mess of supplemental stuff online you can dig into to "fill in the gaps." He mentioned a graphic novel online and various websites. I'm a bit torn about this-- as a student of screenwriting, and a fan of good visual storytelling, I positively love subtext, the stuff that goes unsaid, the story between the lines. To me, art is the place where an artist's work intersects with the audience, that sweet spot where you engage the audience's brain. Subtext is the gold standard of that sweet spot, when the audience starts pondering and wondering what's happened off the screen or what's going on in the character's head. I'm not sure I want to have all the gaps filled in... is that really going to enhance the Heroes experience or will it deaden that sweet spot I find so appealing? Will it turn me from a participant in the experience to just a flat observer? Any Heroes fan out there have any thoughts on this?

9/30/07 07:24 am - Quote of the Day

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

Sometimes it's good to have living proof!



Good mornin', world...

9/25/07 10:36 am - Rhymes with feelin'

Anybody ever heard of Eilen (rhymes with feelin’) Jewell? Mike Flynn played a song by her on the Folk Sampler Sunday, and I just downloaded Too Hot To Sleep. Wow-- what a sexy, sultry yet old-fashioned song!! Here's her website, check it out -- it's got a rip-snorting good tune playing there called Rich Man's World, but you can skip ahead two spots to hear Too Hot To Sleep. Highly recommend it... close your eyes and let your imagination run wild ;)

9/18/07 08:59 am - Latest iTunes acquisition

"Let Them All Talk," by Elvis Costello.

Wow! What a way to start the morning...

9/17/07 01:11 pm - God Bless Netflix

My hectic life makes it down-right difficult to follow some of the quality TV shows out there, though I've been able to move mountains in order to watch The Shield from Episode 1 through the last episode aired so far. Anyway, I signed on with Netflix in part to try and catch up on some of these shows at my convenience, and thoroughly enjoyed watching most of The West Wing. I decided to move on to another series, and thought about moving to Lost or Battlestar Gallactica, but ended up deciding on Heroes instead.

Just finished episode 2 last night after work... yeah, I'm hooked! I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised at how well done it is so far! So, Heroes fans-- does it stay this good?

9/14/07 08:16 am - The Oasis

(I recently came across a stash of writings I did in my early 20s, at a time when the creative juices were flowing, I had few responsibilities and lots of time. There's short fiction, song lyrics, poems, a stream of consciousness. Apologies for the self-indulgence, but I wanted to "upload" some of this stuff into my journal as a reflection on the man I was 15-20 years ago)

(This first piece was written for a writing class, and the assignment was to write a journal entry, emulating a famous writer who also wrote in a journal or chronicled his/her life. You were to study the writer's style and follow in his/her footsteps. I'll let you know whom I picked at the end)


"The Oasis"
by Bennie Smith

After plunging ahead through the hectics of daily life, the city driving, the driving work, the responsibilities to shoulder, the bills to pay, and other "adult" burdens, I can joyfully call back the serenity experienced as a boy when I would go and visit my grandparents.

My grandparents' house was not very big, having only a kitchen, dining room, living room, den, three bedrooms and two baths all crammed into a single-story flat, but it was a place of much happiness, clean and warm, always friendly.

My grandmother's kitchen always dominated the whole house, permeating it with choice aromas of cooking ham, or basting turkey, or maybe a freshly baked pumpkin or apple pie. And I knew that, if I was good, and I always was before mealtime, I wouldn't have to fidget too much before I could let my stomach in on the secret my nose had discovered.

The inside of the house was kept in meticulous care by my grandmother, and it was always filled with "things," breakable things just waiting to get a boy in trouble. Bottles from Israel filled with water from the Dead Sea, funny-looking wooden carvings from Hawaii, glass figurines. Nothing fun. For fun, you were sent outside.

The outside was cared for just as meticulously by my grandfather. No weeds growing in the cracks in the sidewalk. The smell of fresh cut grass and bushes filled the air. And the flowers, the petunias, begonias, and red and yellow Dutch tulips.

Looking back, though, the source of the most boyhood wonderment was in my grandfather's garden with my grandfather. Among the tall corn plants, the pungent tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and the ever-sweet strawberries, I would hear the stories of old, back when my grandfather was a boy back in the 1920s, how they only had one light bulb at a time in the house, and for Christmas would get the yearly pair of shoes, and how he accidentally took his brother's fingers off with an axe.

It was hard to try and think of my grandfather as a boy, but they had an old wooden chest, it seemed huge back then, carved with all sorts of scenes and designs, and inside was filled with enough "things" to keep a boy busy, things not so fragile, like pictures of him as a young boy, him and my grandmother as a young couple, my mother and aunt as babies, wedding announcements, graduation announcements, postcards, papers, and other bits of memorabilia.

And when I rode home, I would often doze off, curled up in the back seat unless I was picking on my little sister, and I would glean over what I had learned there, about love and family, and history and family, and then my mind would wander to more important boyhood thoughts.

--inspired by Mark Twain

(my teacher's handwritten comments are still on the paper: "A genuine imitation in subject + mood but at the same time your own work of art. My compliments." I remember being thrilled by the kind words. At the time, I was all into being a fiction writer, and hadn't really thought about the art of non-fiction writing much before then. I find it interesting that now, in the age of the internet, and the rise of blogs, the "art" of non-fiction writing is all over the place, much of it garbage, but there are many examples of artful non-fiction prose to be found... including many on my friendslist!)

8/17/07 03:48 pm - Quote of the Day

Hee hee, its always good to hear some lusty prose from women, especially in a movie review!

From Salon's review (byy Mary Elizabeth Williams) of The Invasion:

...Carol [Nicole Kidman] goes searching for him... with her besotted, woefully platonic "best friend" Ben ("Casino Royale's" Daniel Craig). When Ben is later shown primly making pancakes, one gets the discouraging sense that even after a sleepover, his virtue is still intact. Frankly, any civilization that puts Daniel Craig in a movie and doesn't show him getting it on is a civilization that just might deserve conquest by goo.

On the other side of the equation, it makes me wonder-- how long has it been since we've seen the lovely Nicole Kidman getting it on?

Double tragedy!

8/9/07 11:02 am - Olyusik and the Stranger

I accidentally opened this spam email and, while hopefuly opening it did not wreck havoc with my work computer, I did find the simple prose and sentiments rather lovely...

Aloha

There are things in life that are inevitable: the Sun will rise and set, the tide will come and go, the seasons will change, the birds will fly South for
the winter and return in the spring. Somehow, I feel reassured by this because many other things in life are so transient - so momentary.

My dear Stranger, from the moment I've found you, I knew that our friendship would develop into something lasting and precious, just as I am sure that the caterpillar will one day become a beautiful butterfly. Well, I guess I've said enough for the time being. Dear, have a wonderful day and, hopefully, I'll hear from you really soon. If you get a chance, write me and tell me your thoughts. Until I hear from you, take care of yourself.

Looking forward to get a note from you

Olyusik


Somewhere perhaps a real Olyusik is having a wonderful love affair with her Stranger...

8/2/07 01:17 pm - about the weather

I was out and about at lunchtime today... It's sunny and 92 degrees. The inside of my car was hot, and yet it felt deliciously good! I didn't even run the AC. Summers in Richmond are generally miserable due to the high humidity, and I often find myself wishing and hoping for the Fall to roll around because of it, but days like today, with just 36% humidity, feel like a million bucks.

Of course, on the flip side we are in a bit of a drout so that's not exactly good for everyone's brown lawns, but it feels wonderful...

7/17/07 01:22 pm - Heh

So I get an email from one of our suppliers in China, and the body of the email says this:

aaazzzaaazzzaaazzzaaazzzaaazzz

Whether a virus or some computer snafu, I'm not sure, but what popped into my mind-- this is the sound of a person with narcolepsy falling...

7/17/07 09:11 am - Urban Word of the Day

July 17, 2007: cafediem

Caffeinate the day.

To ask someone if they want a coffee, say "cafediem?"

7/7/07 11:02 pm - toast to leanerbean-- *cheers*

Currently enjoying:

Jack Daniel's Lynchburg Lemonade recipe
1 part whiskey
1 part sweet and sour mix
1 part triple sec
4 parts Diet Sprite soda

Add ice and stir.

7/6/07 01:32 pm - Escovedo

Anybody heard of Alejandro Escovedo? I stumbled across him playing on TV's Austin City Limits a few weeks back and found myself mesmerized. The man wasn't a showman, didn't seem to be a flashy musician, and his singing was decent but not particularly noteworthy. And yet the songs he and his band performed sunk into my brain and simmered.

I downloaded two of the songs from the show, Dearhead On the Wall (super-cool tune) and Baby's Got New Plans. Really good stuff. He's categorized as "alt-country" but that's not where I'd put him... of course, I'm not sure how I would categorize him, other than off-beat rock 'n' roll. [EDIT: ran across another description of his as "roots-rock" which does seem to fit]

Here's his myspace page for a sampling of his songs.

I was reading his wikipedia entry and was surprised to find he was in a "first-wave punk band" (the Nuns)-- his style has certainly mellowed in the intervening years. It also contained this interesting bit of trivia:

Escovedo's song "Castanets" appeared on the iPod playlist of George W. Bush, prompting a three year self-imposed ban on live performances of the song.

Heehee, I think I like this guy even more...

7/6/07 08:38 am - Spam subject of the day

Subj: worldly line dancer

Hmm...

6/26/07 10:26 am - Imagine

Saturday night at the Bayou Boogaloo & Cajun Festival I got to see Blues Traveller for the first time. They put on a great show, though the kids were tired and whiney, and the grassy pavillion was crowded with drunk people who kept trying to step on my children so it wasn't exactly relaxing.

However, they did a cover of John Lennon's Imagine, which was an interesting cover that I would have never thought of them doing, but they did a fine job. And I couldn't help but think about how timely the lyrics still are, and how sad that fact is. And I pondered what John Lennon would have thought about where the world -- and particularly the U.S. -- is today regarding peace and the lack thereof. Not only what he would have thought, but what he would be saying and doing, since I have no doubt he'd be loudly active if he had not been silenced all those years ago.
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