Blog d'Elisson

DYSTOPIA

2009-11-20T12:16:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago, Velociman (who writes like a chimerical combination of William Faulkner and Hunter S. Thompson) e-mailed me a link to some amazing conceptual art: images from a video game that is being designed for the Wii system by Warren Spector and his Junction Point Studios. “Epic Mickey,” they call this Work-in-Progress.

Imagine Walt Disney World after the Steampunk Apocalypse, and you’ll get the flavor of it. Twisted Bizarro-World versions of the EPCOT dome, Cinderella’s castle, et alia. The Magic Kingdom as seen through a glass, extremely darkly...

Remember in Back to the Future Part II, after the Biff Tannen of 1955 gets hold of Marty McFly’s 2015-vintage sports almanac? With his knowledge of the results of future sporting events, Biff makes a fortune gambling and remolds the formerly idyllic Hill Valley into a mini-Vegas of casinos, luxury hotels, and cheap hookers... an evil Alternate History. Warren Spector has wreaked a similar transformation on Mickey and his friends.

Velociman and I discussed the matter at length. Was this dystopian, dark vision of Disneyish innocence laid waste not simply art to be assessed on its own merits, but a visual analogy of the current State of the Union?

“You’ve got to post about this,” I told him. “It’s right up your alley.”

I sat back and waited... and waited... and waited. Knowing Velociman’s strange Bloggy Work-Ethic, I knew that the much-anticipated (by me, anyway) post had a probability somewhere south of 30 per centum of ever appearing.

But, at last, it has appeared... and it is eloquent.

Look: Nobody writes quite like Velociman. Whether he’s engaging in a political rant, ruminating on the twists and turns of daily life, reminiscing about childhood days with the legendary Senator, or posting photos of some horrific injury, there’s never any denying the man’s incredible verbal gifts.

In this post, however, he eschews using his own words, relying instead upon one of the great American bards to set lyrics to the visual music. And he swats it right out of the park.

Go thou and read it. It is food for thought... with some nice Eye-Candy for dessert.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

2009-11-20T10:40:00.003-05:00

Oh, boy! It’s Friday, time yet again for the weekly collection of Random Musical Selections as belched out by the iPod d’Elisson.

Let’s take a look and see what’s playing today:

Free As A Bird - The Beatles

Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr added vocals and instrumentals to a 1977 John Lennon demo to create this haunting song.
La Valse Des Monstres - Yann Tiersen, Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain
Battle Hymn of the Republic - Seymour Rechtzeit

In Yiddish, no less.
Shhh Peaceful - Miles Davis
Brandenburg Concerto #1 in F, BWV 1046 - 3. Allegro - Trevor Pinnock; English Concert
Negro River - Philip Glass
Bride of Rain Dog (Instrumental) - Tom Waits
Höyhensarjan maailmanmestari - Tuomari Nurmio & Alamaailman Vasarat
I Like Big Tits - Joe Walsh

Uh huh
I like big tits, uh huh

You see ’em on the street
Left and right
I like big tits, that’s right
I try to look away but I can’t resist
Every time I try to call it quits
Here come some tits, (uh huh) that’s a big 10-4
Uh huh

I like big tits, uh huh
Tits

Well they come in twos
Hard to choose
Your favorite tit
Uh huh
I like tits for dinner or a noon time snack
I like tits for lunch, a big tit attack
I like tits for breakfast
Eggs Benedict tits, what it is
What it is
They’re where it’s at
Tits
They give me shivers when they bounce around
Buckled up or hanging on the ground
I like big tits
Uh huh
Tits save it all for me
Tits
Lengthwise - Phish

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

CRYSTAL BLUE PERSUASION

2009-11-17T16:38:00.003-05:00

Look over yonder what do you see
The sun is a-risin’ most definitely
A new day is comin’, people are changin’
Ain’t it beautiful - crystal blue persuasion

Better get ready gonna see the light
Love, love is the answer and that’s all right
So don’t you give up now - so easy to find
Just look to your soul and open your mind

Crystal blue persuasion, mm-hmm
It’s a new vibration
Crystal blue persuasion, crystal
Blue persuasion

Maybe tomorrow when He looks down
Every green field and every town
All of his children every nation
There’ll be peace and good brotherhood
Crystal blue persuasion

- Tommy James and the Shondells, “Crystal Blue Persuasion”

There’s an awful lot of hand-holding, Kumbaya-singing, hopey-changey sentiment in the song lyrics above, but one needs consider that they are a product of their happy-hippie times... a tad over forty years ago.

But we have our own brand of Crystal Blue Persuasion, right here...

...in the form of Hakuna’s crystalline baby blues, here seen peeking out through a gap between two balusters.

No doubt she is trying to use them to persuade me to (1) feed her, (2) clean out her litterbox, or (3) leave her the hell alone. (My money is on Number Three.)

Update: Friday Ark #270 is afloat at the Modulator, with Hakuna batting lead-off. If you still want to look at more Kitty-Pics, drop on by at Pet’s Garden Blog this Sunday evening for Carnival of the Cats Edition #297.

ZOOM

2009-11-16T23:38:00.002-05:00

Travelers never came through space to visit the Earth. They had no need.

They had found universes in grains of sand.

- Greg Bear, Blood Music

I am so glad this did not exist back in my University Days. I can only imagine the hordes of weed-baked longhairs gazing into their computer monitors while thin streams of spittle leak out of the corners of their mouths...

Click here: ZOOMQUILT

...and zoom happily away. You can control your speed - forward or backward - by using the control bar on the left. Centering the bar stops the motion. You can hide the control panel by placing your cursor in the right-hand side of your monitor screen.

The best way I can describe it? It’s like Hieronymus Bosch piloting the Millennium Falcon.

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Jerry Foster for the link.]

ATLANTA AT DUSK

2009-11-16T15:38:00.002-05:00

[Click to embiggen]

Atlanta at dusk, as seen from the Four Seasons Hotel in Midtown, looking south.

A MESS OF POTTAGE

2009-11-16T12:37:00.005-05:00

This morning at Minyan, as is customary on Mondays, we read from the Torah, AKA the Pentateuch, AKA the Chumash, AKA the Five Books of Moses. Today’s reading told the story of Jacob and Esau, the sons of Isaac, and how Esau gave away his birthright - the claim to the greater share of his father’s estate, his by right of his being the elder brother - for what is rendered variously as “a mess of pottage” or “lentil stew.”

Esau has just come in from, presumably, a hard day of running around chasing various Tasty Beasts. We can only assume he has not had a particularly good day, since he is hungry and thirsty to the point of passing out. And there’s his brother, stirring a yummy pot of stew over the fire.

Esau: “Give me, please, some of that red, red stuff, for I am famished.”

Jacob: “First sell me your birthright.”

Esau: “What good is a birthright to me, when I’m dying [of hunger]?”

You can accuse Jacob of being a tad mercenary here, but it’s pretty clear that Esau does not place much value on that birthright. And Jacob, somehow, understands a key principle of negotiation: that the value of goods or services is always greater before they are provided. Several thousand years later, Chester Karrass would call this concept “The Callgirl Principle” in his negotiation training seminars.

But there is a lesson in this story for all of us.

How often do we pay an exaggerated price for momentary pleasure? How often do we squander our wealth on things that seem oh, so very important today - right this minute! - instead of the things that will matter to us down the road?

If a pile of money suddenly landed on you, would you buy long-term disability insurance with it, or a gold-plated heated toilet seat? Blue-chip stocks or a vacation in Maui?

Our government has been in the “selling birthrights for a bowl of stew” business for many years now. Screw the grandkids... we want pork! Right now! Never mind that that Government Cheese comes with a hefty price tag, because we won’t be the ones paying for it.

We’re all guilty of selling our birthrights, whether it be on an individual basis or as part of the Great U.S. Collective. And there will come a day when we will all realize what we no longer have... and we will know how badly we fucked up.

Hope that lentil stew tastes mighty good... but I suspect it will leave a vile taste in the back of the mouth.

Update: Was it subconscious inspiration from this morning’s reading, or just my Meat-Jones kicking in? Regardless, for the evening’s repast I prepared a red, red Mess of Pottage... but with beef and onions in lieu of lentils. And it was tasty, all right - real Birthright Trade-In Material.

SWEET TALLULAH

2009-11-14T15:16:00.006-05:00

I’m not sure what started it, but last week Houston Steve and I were conducting a brief review of the life and many (many many) loves of the late Tallulah Bankhead.

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead, those of of a Certain Age will remember, was an actress in Hollywood’s salad days. Not just an actress: she was a Bon Vivant of the first water, a party animal that could make Madonna blush even before she went all Kaballah on us.

She was from a politically connected Alabama family, her father having served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1936-40. [Democrat, of course. Back then, Republicans were thin on the ground down South.] Both her grandfather John H. Bankhead and her uncle John H. Bankhead II served as U.S. Senators; the Bankhead family apparently disliked the exercise of selecting new names for its scions.

[An aside: Senator John (the elder) was a leader in the national highway building movement well before the advent of the Interstate Highway System. The eponymous Bankhead Highway began in Washington, D.C., passing through Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before finally arriving in California. Here in Atlanta, a section of the Bankhead Highway was renamed the Donald L. Hollowell Parkway owing to the notoriety of the old name, a notoriety that arose from the high-crime neighborhoods through which the Bankhead route passed as it headed through the western side of the city.]

Tallulah was never considered - least of all by herself - a great beauty, but her sharp wit, smoldering looks, and husky voice gave her sex appeal that few others could match. Coupled with her astonishing sexual voracity (did someone say “coupled”?), these qualities made her downright legendary.

It takes a certain degree of unselfconsciousness - nay, downright chutzpah - to show up at a party completely nude... or to drop trou and take a whiz in the midst of a conversation with the First Lady... or to respond to Chico Marx’s elegant pick-up line (“You know, I really want to fuck you.”) with a quick “And so you shall, you old-fashioned boy.”

Other classic Tallulah quotes:

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

“They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.”

“I’m as pure as the driven slush.”

“I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.”

“Cocaine isn’t habit forming. I should know - I’ve been using it for years.”

“I was raped in our driveway when I was eleven. You know darling, it was a terrible experience because we had all that gravel.”

“I’ve tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic. And the others give me either stiff neck or lockjaw.”

(To a group of Salvation Army band members who were passing around a tambourine to collect money, and to whom she had just given the then-extravagant sum of $20) “There, dahlings, I know it’s been a rough winter for you Spanish dancers.”

(To a priest carrying a smoking censer) “Darling, I love your drag, but your purse is on fire!” [this one pointed out by the inestimable Velociman]

“I’ll come and make love to you at five o’clock. If I’m late start without me.”

Next time you see Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, pay close attention to Cruella deVil, the film’s antagonist. The character’s outsize personality was modeled on that of Tallulah B herownself.

Ahhh, they don’t make ’em like Tallulah any more.

ARE THE TWITS TAKING OVER?

2009-11-14T09:01:00.003-05:00

Brandon Hoover, who writes at javajive, asks a timely question: “Has micro-blogging destroyed your blog?”

As new social networking and communications platforms like Facebook and Twitter gain in popularity and influence, it’s not an idle question. I see more and more bloggers on Facebook these days, and there are a few who have drunk deep draughts of the Twitter Kool-Aid, for better or for worse.

Here is what I told Brandon in his comments:

I’ve been quoted as saying that Twitter is blogging for people with ADHD.

Bad Twitter feeds are full of the minutiae of people’s lives... good Twitter feeds are like little blogposts. But while 140 characters is wonderful for pithy aphorisms, it is no substitute for the rich language of a well-written blog post.

I will post maybe two to five tweets a week... and twice as many “real” blogposts. But I have seen other bloggers go off the deep end, neglecting their blogs but spewing forth hundreds of tweets. Feh.

In the ideal world, there’s a scenario in which the quick, viral nature of Twitter, the “selected audience” character and interactivity of Facebook, and the “throw it on the wall and see what sticks” quality of blogging reach a dynamic equilibrium, complementing and enhancing each other. We’ll see.

Now: Whadda you think? Do Facebook and/or Twitter mean the end of blogging as we know it? Or do all these platforms somehow enhance each other, creating a synergistic Face-Twit-Bloggity-World in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?

FRIDAY THE 13th RANDOM TEN

2009-11-13T10:49:00.006-05:00

The Wheel of the Week has turned full circle once again, bringing Friday back around... which means it’s time for the Friday Random Ten, that exercise in Musical Narcissism in which I post ten Choons disgorged at random from my Little White Choon-Box.

And it’s not just any Friday, but Friday the 13th, bane of triskadeikaphobes. For the rest of us, it’s the opening shot of the weekend, so... good luck!

Let’s see what’s playing today, shall we?

The Mikado, Act II: Braid the Raven Hair - D’Oyly Carte Opera Company
Sparks - The Who
Army (live) - Ben Folds Five
I Want You To Hurt Like I do - Tom Waits
Power Failure - Procol Harum

The original, from Procol Harum’s brilliant Broken Barricades album. The Little White Choon Box also holds a cover version by Leo Kottke.

Climbing out of open windows
Crashing down from broken stairs
Keeping watch on smoking cinders
Falling over burning chairs

Tossed and crossed and screwed in transit
Broken, splintered, bruised and thrown
Badly shattered, gale force frighty
Rushed across and shown alone

Speech reduced by poor relations
Strung from weeks of self abuse
Chopped up, churned out, weeks of greasy
Spark plugs burned up, power’s fused
Counting Sheep - The Judybats
Pearl of the Quarter - Steely Dan
Condorbird - The Klezmatics
Painting Box - The Incredible String Band
Matchbox - The Beatles

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

STROBO-CAT

2009-11-12T16:48:00.004-05:00

Herewith a nostalgic Golden Oldie featuring our beloved Matata... complete with stupid-ass LOLCat caption.

[click to embiggen]

Update: Friday Ark #269 is afloat at (where else?) the Modulator. If your Kitty-Jones remains unsatisfied, head on over to Artsy Catsy Sunday evening to catch the 296th Carnival of the Cats. It’s Cat-astrophic!

Update 2: CotC #296 is up, but at iMeowza instead of Artsy Catsy. Thanks to Meowza for a fine job pinch-hitting!

PLUMB FOOLISH

2009-11-12T12:31:00.006-05:00

There are two systems in our house that I generally do not care to fuck around with: Electrical and Plumbing. And there are plenty of good reasons for this.

Number one: I am Jewish. With few exceptions, the relationship between Jews and Handyman-Related Tasks is not a happy one. My friend Gary is reasonably handy, but he’s the exception. And to those who point out that the founders of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, are both Jews, all I will say is that these guys were very good businessmen, but I’m not convinced either of them could distinguish the business end of a screwdriver from the handle.

Number two: Concerning electrical systems, I have an enormous respect for an invisible form of energy that can make you dead if you screw up. I’ll install the occasional light fixture or switch, and I’m happy to change light bulbs when required, but that’s as far as I’ll go.

Number three: Plumbing, aside from the fact that fuckups may result in various forms of water damage, is mostly disgusting. Take your average P-trap. Open one of those bad boys up and you’ll soon learn where all the accumulated hair, boogers, and fingernails go, there to get trapped in a matrix of soap scum and all-around shit. Feh to the Barf, sez I.

Nevertheless, I will, just for shits ’n’ grins, take on the odd Home Improvement Project... just to prove what an idiot I am.

This week’s project was replacing the sink hardware in the Mistress of Sarcasm’s bathroom. The Mistress has been complaining mightily of having to use excessive force to turn the hot water valve, and the Missus has been wanting to replace the bathroom fixtures in any event. And so it was that we headed off to Home Depot to procure a new set of faucets... faucets that promised to be easy to install owing to their Modern, Advanced Design.

Hey: Anything would be better than the builder-grade shit I was replacing. Cheap and nasty, its only virtue was that it was somewhat functional.

“I can do this!” I told myself. After all, hadn’t I installed a couple of brand-new toilet seats a few months ago?

Well, faucets and toilet seats may both be found in the Toidy-Room, but that’s as far as their similarity extends. Faucets, I found out, are a lot harder.

To install the new hardware, I first had to remove the old hardware. And that, Esteemed Readers, is a Gold-Plated Bitch.

Removing the sink drain wasn’t all that tough. You just disconnect the P-trap (yeccch) and loosen the big nut that holds the drain pipe, then pull the whole mess out. Clots of fifteen-year-old plumber’s putty, old hair, and other revolting crap get all over, but that’s part of the fun.

The tricky part, of course, was the faucets themselves, thanks to their location at the back of the sink. Just getting to them required wedging myself into the cabinet under the sink, a feat worthy of a circus contortionist... and then, of course, the real work begins: getting a wrench on the locknuts. Locknuts, it should be pointed out, that had not been moved in fifteen years. They were not happy about being moved now.

After fiddle-farting with the hot-water side and failing to loosen the escutcheon that sits atop the sink (it being welded in place with fifteen years worth of corrosion and grachitz), I finally did what I should have done at the outset: Call the Gawd-damned plumber.

But think of all the exercise I got! Not to mention the scrapes and bruises... and the great big boost to my Sense of Humility and Uselessness.

Postscriptum: The plumber is here now, and I don’t feel nearly as ridiculous as I had before... because he had to cut one of the old faucets off to remove it.

ON COMMAND

2009-11-11T17:57:00.004-05:00

Let me tell you of Ed “Poppa” Squizzot
Who can crap you a crap on command:
He’ll respond to a whispered suggestion
Or a casual wave of the hand,
And then he will curl you a steamer
Delivering at your request.
If you need a turd, pay Pop Squizzot a vizzot,
’Cause of all the Loaf-Pinchers, he’s best!

FALL OF A WALL

2009-11-10T20:05:00.004-05:00

For many of the younger people walking the planet today, it is hard to imagine that, once upon a time, a wall separated East and West.

Actually, there were many walls, most of them philosophical and political: the walls that divided the centrally planned economies and authoritarian governments of the East with the captialist, free-market economies and representative democracies of the West. But I refer to a physical wall, the wall that separated East and West Berlin.

The Wall was forbidding, surrounded by No-Man’s Land, topped by barbed wire, illuminated by searchlights, guarded by machine-gun nests. It was not built for defense or protection. It was no shield. It was, rather, like the walls of a prison... for those on the eastern side were trapped, unable to cross to the other side. Even family visits were forbidden, lest the good citizens of the East be exposed to dangerous alien ideologies.

The Berlin Wall came down twenty years ago this week... but the events that set that fall in motion started with Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization of Soviet communism. The glasnost and perestroika movements - latter-day attempts to create a more “human” communism - inevitably doomed it... for communism, as an economic system, can only be enforced by a heavy-handed, iron-fisted government. As the atmosphere of reform spread throughout Eastern Europe, riots and unrest struck East Germany.

I was in West Germany on October 18 1989, the day Erich Honecker - the leader of East Germany and the man who built the Wall - was forced to resign. We were on the Autobahn, enroute from Frankfurt to Worms-am-Rhein, when we heard the news on the radio. It was a little like hearing the rumble of a distant earthquake, one that would eventually swell to world-shattering proportions... reminiscent of that moment in Lord of the Rings when the evil Lord Sauron realizes, too late, that his Ring of Power is about to be tossed into the Crack of Doom and that he is well and truly fucked.

My German colleagues were ecstatic; they knew that with Honecker gone, reunification was just a matter of time. Just how little time it would take, of course, nobody could imagine.

Within two years, the Soviet Union itself would be history... and the Wall, the hated Wall, would be in the form of little chunks, all peddled to people interested in owning a piece of history.

COUSINS

2009-11-10T11:43:00.003-05:00

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (L) and Arnold Stang (R). Identical cousins?

Valéry has lived most everywhere,
From la Tour Eiffel to Napoléon Square.
But Arnie’s only seen the sights
A guy can see from Brooklyn Heights -
What a crazy pair!

But they’re cousins,
Identical cousins all the way.
One pair of matching bookends,
Different as night and day.

Valéry adores a minuet,
The Ballets Russes, and crêpes Suzette,
Our Arnie loves to rock and roll,
A hot dog makes him lose control -
What a wild duet!

Still, they’re cousins,
Identical cousins and you’ll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike -
You can lose your mind,
When cousins are two of a kind!

CURLY

2009-11-07T22:26:00.005-05:00

Hakuna curls up in her bed, doing her best impression of a Kitty-Fetus.

Update: Friday Ark #268 is up at the Modulator. Sunday evening, be sure to stop by and visit Carnival of the Cats, the 295th iteration of which will be at Nikita’s Place.

Update 2: CotC #295 is up.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

2009-11-06T14:08:00.003-05:00

Hey! It’s Friday, time yet again for the weekly collection of Random Musical Selections as spewed forth by the iPod d’Elisson.

Let’s take a look and see what’s playing today:

Money for Nothing - Dire Straits
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner - Warren Zevon

Roland was a warrior from the Land of the Midnight Sun
With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done
The deal was made in Denmark on a dark and stormy day
So he set out for Biafra to join the bloody fray

Through sixty-six and seven they fought the Congo war
With their fingers on their triggers, knee-deep in gore
For days and nights they battled the Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese

Roland the Thompson gunner...

His comrades fought beside him - Van Owen and the rest
But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best
So the CIA decided they wanted Roland dead
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen blew off Roland’s head

Roland the headless Thompson gunner
Norway’s bravest son
Time, time, time
For another peaceful war
But time stands still for Roland
’Til he evens up the score
They can still see his headless body stalking through the night
In the muzzle flash of Roland’s Thompson gun
In the muzzle flash of Roland’s Thompson gun

Roland searched the continent for the man who’d done him in
He found him in Mombasa in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun - he didn’t say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg

Roland the headless Thompson gunner...

The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night
Now it’s ten years later but he still keeps up the fight
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley
Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland’s Thompson gun and bought it
Mozart: Requiem in D Minor; K626 - 13. Agnus Dei - Herbert Von Karajan
Bustin’ Surfboards - The Tornados
Thinking About You - Radiohead
Someone In Your Garden - Philip Glass, Notes on a Scandal
Cemetery Polka - Tom Waits
The Mikado, Act II: The Criminal Cried As He Dropped Him Down - D’Oyly Carte Opera Company
The Cold Part - Modest Mouse
One Note Song - Tenacious D

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

SOMETHING FISHY

2009-11-05T13:14:00.003-05:00

Found Art at Harry’s Farmers Market.

Fan mail from some flounder?

Here’s looking at you, kid!

ONE OF THOSE MORNINGS

2009-11-05T12:57:00.002-05:00

It was one of those mornings. Every Man-Jack (and Woman-Jill) among us has had ’em.

The Australian aboriginal people speak of the Three-Dog Night, a night so cold that one must snuggle up to not one, not two, but three dingoes in order to keep from freezing. Well, I had a three Q-Tip Morning... and I’ll spare you the details and explanations.

As if that were not bad enough, I proceeded to botch my Morning Shave.

Look: Shaving isn’t all that difficult, especially in this age of multi-laminar safety razors. But there is one cardinal rule that you violate at your extreme peril. Always be sure the path of the blade as it travels across your face is perpendicular to its edge. If you get careless - even for a second! - you will not merely nick yourself - you will flense yourself. That’s what I did, and it’s a damn good thing I had the stub end of a styptic pencil within reach.

Last time I saw that much blood come out of me, I was at the Red Cross, donating a pint of my good old A-Positive. Thank Gawd SWMBO was there to help me bandage it up.

Aside from these few Ablutionary Adventures, though, everything has been going swimmingly. Hope your day is as much fun!

LOVE-SHEEP AND ROCKETS

2009-11-04T19:58:00.008-05:00

The Tellico Junction Café, a landmark of downtown Englewood, Tennessee. [Photo courtesy Teresa.]

Set aside your brain
And get on the little train to the junction.
(Tellico Junction)
You won’t get much sleep,
There’s Inflatable Sheep at the junction.
(Tellico Junction)

Lotsa curves, you bet -
Even more when you get
To the junction.
(Tellico Junction)

There’s a little blogmeet
That is really neat near the junction.
(Tellico Junction)
With the Straight White Guy
You can go get fried at the junction.
(Tellico Junction)
And that’s Grouchy Denny,
He’s actin’ sorta friendly at the junction.
(Tellico Junction)

There are people of a Certain Age who will have no trouble recognizing the (somewhat altered) lyrics to the theme song of a television program that ran from 1963-70. The show was one of several popular sitcoms that celebrated the virtues of Rural Life and the idiocy of Rural People. Or so it seemed to me at the tender age of, say, eleven.

We have our own way of celebrating Rural Life in this day of the Internet; of blogs, Facebook and Twitter; of texting, sexting, and Swine Flu Infexting. And that is to head out to McMinn County, Tennessee on a weekend in late October, there to celebrate the birthday of Eric, the Straight White Guy.

The Straight White Neighborhood at dusk.

The agenda varies from year to year in its minor details, but there are generally certain Traditional Elements. Friday dinner, a honkin’ big salad and several pans of baked ziti by the lovely Boudicca (this year with meat sauce contributed by Eric hizzownself). Saturday morning, a typical Southern country breakfast at the Tellico Junction Café. Saturday evening, Eric’s country-style ribs and a pot of Englewood Baked Beans. Sunday morning, a pile of scrambled eggs and whomp biscuits whipped up by Yours Truly, accompanied by SWMBO’s amazing Apricot Kugel... after which everyone scatters to the four winds.

There are other activities besides Face-Stuffing, of course. For example, there is a certain amount of Drinkage, to be expected any time a small mob of Online Journalists gathers. And there are sundry other pleasures.

This year, alas, no shooting, thanks to a week of wet weather that left the range a bit swampy. But we have Eric’s pool table by way of compensation... and, this year, a fleet of model rockets courtesy of Yabu. (I even brought one that had been moldering in my basement for 27 years... now it’s moldering in the woods behind the Straight White Compound, where it is likely to stay for the next 27 years.) And we have Dolly, the inflatable Love-Ewe. And the Bully. And the Pachinko Machine. And guitars. And pith helmets. (“No matter who you’re with, it’s good to take a pith!”)

The best part about the weekend is the chance to reconnect with Blodgy Friends... and make new ones. Dax Montana, Grouchy Old Denny, Recondo 32 and Georgia, LeeAnn, Bou, Jerry, Teresa, Yabu, Richard, Tommy, and El Capitan were all there this year. (A few of the Usual Suspects were, alas, missing this year... but that’s life.) Nevertheless, we have ample time to swap stories, fire rockets, test people’s olfactory capabilities (“Get a whiff of this with your eyes closed. Can you guess what it is?” “Why... it’s a Bull Scrotum!”), and watch Eric tweeze belly-hairs from an absinthe-raddled, passed-out Dax.

These annual Hysterics at Eric’s are a little hard to describe to those who have never experienced a blogmeet, but you can take it to the bank - we know how to enjoy a weekend. All that’s missing is the railroad water tank for the ladies to use for skinny-dipping!

THAT TIME OF YEAR

2009-11-02T18:37:00.004-05:00

Yes, it’s that time of year... the season of delicious legumaceous soups.

The weather has cooled off, and the cool mornings and evenings put one in the mood for rich soups of peas or lentils, often enriched with beef sausages or flanken. It’s one of the things I love about the fall.

Tonight we’re having Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup, courtesy of the Mistress of Sarcasm, who is on the way to becoming a dab hand in the kitchen.

Click the link if you want the recipe.

At the moment, this fine pottage is in the State of Becoming Soup. Lookit:

Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup on the simmer. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

Isn’t it beautiful? All those warm, autumnal colors. By the time it’s ready, it’ll be plain old green, but the flavor will still have all those colors. Meanwhile, the house is perfumed with the aromas of onions, garlic, sausage, cumin, and ginger... and I am a Happy Daddy.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN MODEL ROCKETRY

2009-11-02T12:57:00.003-05:00

A Bloggy Rocket heads for the firmament.

I’ve written before about one of the great Nerdly Hobbies from my youth: Model Rocketry.

Apparently, I’m not the only nerd out there... because the infamous Yabu loves his rockets, too. So much so that he brought a pile of rocket-launchy supplies to the recent Hysterics at Eric’s.

There’s something magical about the combination of rocket-powered projectiles and half-drunken bloggers that sets the blood a-tingle. And Eric has the perfect location, with no nearby trees or obstacles that might interfere with recovery. Not.

We’ve indulged our Rocket Jones at earlier gatherings, most notably three years ago. But this year’s flights were exceptional. We made five successful recoveries out of seven launches, leaving two rockets to decompose slowly in the woods that surround the Straight White Compound. And every flight was picture-perfect, with the recovery systems deploying exactly as designed.

Speaking of recovery systems, we managed to steal a march on the model rocketry industry by inventing a totally new method... something that does not involve the conventional techniques of induced instability, parachutes, streamers, or gyroscopic motion - all long-established techniques of ensuring a rocket’s safe and undamaged return to earth.

I’m proud to introduce the Inflatable Ovine Recovery System (IORS).

Here’s how it works:

A helium-filled IORS (a spare unit is visible in the photograph below) is attached to a ground-based tether and released to an altitude equal to the expected maximum altitude of the flight.

The rocket is launched, using standard electrical ignition protocol.

Launch using standard electrical ignition, with spare IORS to right. [Photo courtesy of Teresa of Technicalities]

Activation of the ejection charge causes the rocket to dock with the IORS, in the special Docking Receptacle provided. The tether is then reeled in for a successful recovery.

I’ve posted a post-launch image below the fold to illustrate the configuration of the rocket and IORS after a successful recovery. The world of model rocketry will never be the same!

Post-deployment photograph of model rocket with Inflatable Ovine Recovery System (IORS), illustrating successful docking configuration.

FALLING BACK

2009-11-01T01:00:00.000-04:00

Hey! A minute ago it was an hour from now!

ON THE ROAD

2009-10-31T21:31:00.003-04:00

The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions,
And also-rans, and Honorable Mentions;
The back-pats that puff up our self-esteem,
The MVP’s for ev’ry member of the team,
The “atta boy” for mediocrity,
The trophy that is purchased for a fee.

When men no longer care if they excel,
They’re rolling down the Boulevard to Hell.

BABY’S FIRST HALLOWE’EN

2009-10-31T20:25:00.006-04:00

Hallowe’en, 1982.

“Baby,” in this case, refers to the Mistress of Sarcasm, here enjoying - or, more probably, putting up with - her very first Hallowe’en, twenty-seven years ago today. The photograph was taken less than five miles from here, in our old neighborhood... during our first sojourn in the Atlanta area.

There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and she has outgrown that bunny costume. Lookee:

Hallowe’en, 2009.

Now a full-fledged Grown-Up, this year she’s dressed as a Jazz-Age Flapper. [A glass of Bathtub Gin would make this outfit complete, but the Mistress does not care for Hooch.]

And yet, some things don’t change. She may be twenty-seven years older, but she still loves her Hallowe’en candy... thanks to the sweet tooth she inherited from her Daddy!

IT PAYS TO PLAN AHEAD

2009-10-30T16:35:00.005-04:00

It was sometime Wednesday that I noticed an item in my electronic in-box: a coupon that invited us to Houlihan’s - one of those popular American restaurant chains, in case you live outside of the U.S., or in a cardboard box in a swamp - where we could enjoy any burger or sandwich for a mere five simoleons.

That offer sounded attractive enough. There’s a Houlihan’s close by, and the food there is reasonably good. I don’t usually order their burgers or sammitches, but I’d be willing to do so given the price incentive they were dangling in front of me. And all I had to do was bring my iPhone and show our waiter the e-mail - I didn’t even have to print it out! Gotta love that Modrin Technology.

And thus we headed over to Houlihan’s in the evening... only to be greeted by a mob of people and a forty-five minute projected wait. For everyone else on the planet had received the same e-mail offer.

We normally don’t wait excessive amounts of time for a restaurant table, especially at a chain operation... but a lot of people were bailing, which meant our wait turned out to be not nearly so long. And, by coincidence, our friends Barry and Malka showed up, so we decided to join forces and dine together.

When we were seated, we saw plenty of empty tables. But with a long wait on what normally is a quiet night, what was going on? Well, it seemed that the place had not laid on extra waitstaff in anticipation of the rush of business the e-mail campaign would generate. Either Corporate was not communicating with the local operations... or the local shop’s manager did not have his shit in one sock.

We ordered our meals... and, some fifteen minutes later (!) were informed that they had run out of burgers.

Run out of burgers... on the day of a major Burger Promo. Genius, I tells ya!

Corporate: “We’re going to have a special e-mail promo that will double your store’s traffic. Be sure to order in plenty of hamburgers.”

Local Management: “Naaah.”

The waiter was polite (albeit harried) and energetic. We suggested that it would be a good idea if we could order an alternative dish - and not necessarily a sandwich - at the five-buck price. We thought this was a reasonable request, given the length of time it took for them to figure out that they couldn’t give us what we had ordered. The waiter agreed... and the manager did, too.

And thus it was that we dined like kings for mere pennies. I had a an iceberg wedge salad and a steak... the Mistress a huge pile of pot roast... the Missus an ahi tuna salad... and each one, only five bucks.

Dined like kings? Well, maybe very patient kings... for our dishes were long in arriving. I’m figuring the crew, from waitstaff to kitchen, was overwhelmed. Completely in the weeds. And then, at the end, our check was miscalculated and had to be redone.

The meal took about an hour longer than it should have. Oy!

All in all, if the objective of Houlihan’s burger promo was to get people into the house, they succeeded. Partially. But if it was to make a good impression, it was a dismal failure. Only our knowledge that it’s not always like that will keep us coming back. (Plus, the food is pretty good.)

Message to Corporate... and to the Local Management, too: It pays to plan ahead!