Friends

11:22 pm
tkat

[Link]

Challenge
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http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/07/nice-news.html

10:53 pm
slacktivist

[Link]

Nice news

I started working at the paper in Delaware in 2001 and every year since then they've introduced legislation to include sexual orientation in the First State's antidiscrimination laws.

Those bills never passed. "Discrimination against gays still legal in Del.," read the headline on the paper's Web site, year after year after year.

That headline was celebrated, each time, by Christian conservative groups who were always ferociously opposed to the idea that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons should enjoy the same legal protections as everyone else in the state. Those groups liked to quote Leviticus to support the idea that homosexuality was an "abomination" to God. The idea, I guess, was that homosexuals were sinners and thus real, true Christians were therefore obliged to ensure that it remained perfectly legal to deny them access to housing or employment.

It's tempting to respond in kind, to say, I'll see your Leviticus and raise you a Deuteronomy:

Do not have two differing weights in your bag -- one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house -- one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures ... For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

In other words, no fair not being fair. You can't have one price for one group of people and a different price for a different group. You can't have one housing market or one job market for one group of people and exclude other people from that market -- that's differing weights and measures, something the Lord your God detests. Inequality, discrimination, disenfranchisement and the dishonesty of double-dealing and double-standards turn out also to be abominations before the Lord.

And there's nothing in Deuteronomy to suggest a loophole that says it's OK to have differing weights in your bag so long as the short-changing one is for homosexuals. The Bible says, unambiguously, that these Delaware Christians' crusade in defense of legal discrimination is abominable and detestable.

So what we have here is a theological dispute -- a disagreement over the interpretation and meaning of the scripture. I'm confident I can win this argument, but before we get bogged down in the theological details of such a dispute, allow me to point out the most important thing to remember about all such arguments: They don't matter. Not even a little bit. Because none of what any of us thinks about the interpretation and meaning of the scripture is in any way relevant to the question before the legislature, a wholly secular body charged only with the wholly secular matters of law and justice.

This is true even when the Legislature itself seems to forget this and starts to act like an amateur version of the college of cardinals, as the paper reported:

Supporters and opponents of the bill disagreed on what it means to be "Christian." They argued about what constitutes "discrimination" and "sin." They tussled over whether homosexuality is a "lifestyle" or whether lesbians can be "made" by other lesbians.

Happily, the Legislature refrained from ruling on most of those questions and we were spared from the flagrantly unconstitutional and laughably incompetent spectacle of lawmakers dictating the official meaning of "Christian" or "sin." They eventually remembered who they were and what their job is and returned to matters on which they actually have some jurisdiction and responsibility, such as whether or not it should be legal to exclude one particular minority group from legal protections enjoyed by everyone else in the state of Delaware.

And even more happily, the majority of these lawmakers came to the conclusion that legal discrimination is an oxymoron -- that differing weights and measures, differing laws and statutes, were not legally or constitutionally defensible. They decided that legal protection from discrimination was a right enjoyed by all Delawareans and not just a privilege enjoyed by the heterosexual majority.

And so, finally, after eight years, I got to write a new headline. Discrimination against this particular minority is no longer legal in Delaware.

This step toward a more just standard of justice and a fairer sense of fairness is being lamented by many of those same Leviticus-loving groups, including "the Sussex County Community Organized Regiment, a new group of conservative residents concerned about what they consider the nation's increasingly liberal bent."

One leader of the group, Eric Bodenweiser, says he regrets that their defense of legal discrimination has led others to view them as not nice:

Bodenweiser said he regrets the growing chasm between people on either side of the debate over homosexuality.

At one point Wednesday, Bodenweiser struck up a conversation with two women in the Legislative Hall cafeteria. He expressed his views on homosexuality without realizing they were a lesbian couple.

"One of them said, 'I can't believe that you think God hates me,'" Bodenweiser said. "Those girls were telling me I was a hater and a bigot, but I'm not. I'm a nice guy."

So OK, let's set aside the theological arguments and the debates over scriptural interpretation and just focus on this matter of niceness.

How, exactly, is the defense of legal discrimination compatible with being "a nice guy"? How is it nice to insist that landlords be legally entitled to refuse to rent to one particular minority? How is it nice to fight for employers right to fire members of that minority for no reason other than that they are members of that minority?

This word nice seems to have come to mean something strange and hard to pin down. If we simply consider the definitions of the words, then it would seem possible to treat someone fairly without being as nice to them as one might be. But the opposite would seem impossible -- we cannot treat someone unfairly and still be nice to them. Yet as the example of our "nice guy" above shows, the word is constantly being used in this second, impossible sense by people staunchly defending injustice while just as staunchly insisting that this doesn't mean they're not "nice" people.

So let me say something here that ought to be blindingly obvious, but which apparently still needs to be pointed out: Injustice isn't nice.

That's not the biggest problem with injustice, of course, which is why, for example, Moses didn't go to Pharaoh and tell him to be nicer. ("You have enslaved my people. That's rude. It's impolite, unkind and tacky. ...") No, he went to Pharaoh and demanded justice. Pharaoh's response, of course, was to crack down even harder, demanding that the slaves make bricks without straw. But at least Pharaoh had the decency not to pretend that he could redouble his injustice while still being "a nice guy."

Anyway, good news from Delaware. A minority previously excluded has now been included in the legal protections enjoyed by the majority. That's nice. But more importantly, that's just.

01:57 am
lonita

[Link]

It's all in the delivery
We deliver all manner of things at work - food being the largest percent of the delivery pie. We are no longer (legally) allowed to deliver alcohol or cigarettes (according to city bylaws), which seems to stun some folks. No matter how much you wheedle, we are not going to deliver cigarettes to you.

I think what others might classify as the oddest delivery request on record, is the woman who asked us to go to the reptile shop and pick up a box of mice for her. Live ones. You're not seeing the picture clearly, are you? She owns a very large snake that needed breakfast... She thought telling me that would freak me out. It did not. Snakes have to eat too.

I love the "working girls" who call up from their places of business (seemingly in the middle of their business), to ask us to go to the Love Shop/Stag Shop to pick up vibrators for them. Somehow they seem to feel that's going to shock me. It doesn't. It is, however, somewhat of a trauma for our more fundamentally religious drivers. Poor buggers.

It's what people forget in taxis that can be truly unbelievable. One woman even forgot her kid a couple of years ago. The funny part of that story was the driver didn't realise the kid was still in the car until the dispatcher called him and said, "Turn around." He was understandably surprised. Child was returned safely to mother.

It's normally more mundane things, the most common of which are cellphones. You'd think people would take better care of something they'd paid that much money for. We've had toys, umbrellas, cameras, various items of clothing, wallets, packs of gum, wedding reception gifts, a tin of coffee, oral antiseptic, keychains, groceries, baskets, bottles of alcohol, various amounts of money, purses, a goldfish (returned to the crying five year-old parent), and a hamster (now in the care of one of our dispatchers).

The human race needs to better babysit its belongings, methinks.

Tags: work

09:40 pm
lupabitch

[Link]

First, have some book reviews; click the links to read the full reviews:

Beyond 2012 by James Endredy - finally, a 2012 book I can take seriously!

Women and Religion in the West edited by Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Giselle Vincett - this is the book that had an essay that claimed that Buffy the Vampire Slayer causes thousands of women to stop going to church every year

( Randomness from the day )

09:50 pm
foxgrrl

[Link]

Random Things

Is it just me, or does Coriander/Cilantro smell like an old cat litter box to anyone else? (It tastes unpleasant too.) Edit: If Cilantro is not unpleasant to you, what does it taste like?
My birthday is coming up in a few days, I want everyone to NOT give me any presents. I have too many physical objects in my life right now, and I don't need anymore — except hard drives. (Or certain specific camera lenses, which I don't think anyone is going to buy for me.) (I'm considering going up to Harbin to celebrate.)
For the last several months I've been saving tomato seeds from the various heirloom varieties that I find at various vegetable markets, and planting them, and waiting, and waiting, and being disappointed that none of the seeds sprouted. Except that in the last few weeks, all of the seeds sprouted. I now have at least 200-300 seedlings of many unusual and delicious heirloom tomatoes. So does anyone want any tomato plant seedlings? Also, I still have mimosa tree seedlings too.

Current Location: Mountain View, CA
Current Mood: good
Tags: birthday, garden, plants

(16 comments | Leave a comment)

09:56 pm
tkat

[Link]

Wyomings
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: mellow

http://therioshamanism.com/2009/07/06/hiking-near-mt-hood/

04:38 am
therioshamanism

[Link]

Hiking Near Mt. Hood

http://therioshamanism.com/?p=260

Today Tay and I went hiking out near Mt. Hood, on Barlow Trail. This was a new-to-us trail, and one that was recommended as light traffic and not too difficult in 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Portland. Actually, half our hike was on Barlow, and the other half was a detour towards Upper Twin Lake. We really, thoroughly, and truly enjoyed this hike. Despite it being one of the busiest hiking days of the year, and despite the fact that Mirror Lake, just a few miles away, was packed to the gills, we ran into less than a dozen people the entire time we were out there.

It was a six mile hike, three in and three out, and we averaged two miles an hour (though that was including the times we stopped to rest). The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and upper 70s. The trails were actually pretty level a good bit of the way, and the inclines were easy, no scary, steep switchbacks. While there were occasional rocks and roots in the trail, and a few fallen logs, it was smooth hiking otherwise.

We encountered a pretty decent variety of wildlife. We saw a number of small toads, some greyish-brown, one reddish-brown, and one a lovely leaf-green. I was a bit surprised as we weren’t near any source of water, but I suppose the condensation at night is enough to keep them happy, and toads aren’t as water-dependent as frogs. We also saw a tiny little baby snake, dark dusty brown with lighter brown stripes down the sides and a rounded, non-poisonous head–no more than six inches long! We heard and saw several ravens; I forget just how big they get. No one who has ever seen a raven will ever mistake a crow for one again, that’s for sure. We also startled a lone elk; we both heard it bounding down the mountainside, and Tay caught a glimpse before it disappeared into the trees. There was a single Douglas squirrel on our way out, and a nesting osprey on the Columbia River on our drive home. And, of course, there were numerous blackflies and mosquitoes, who greeted me with “Mmmm, you’re the best thing I’ve seen all day!”

I really need to go through the stack of field guides I was given recently to try and identify some of the plants I saw, too. I know I saw lots and lots of wild strawberries; they were just blooming, and if I were to show up in a few weeks no doubt there’d be fruit (or empty stems, depending on how popular they were!). I know a conifer when I see one, and I’m pretty sure I know which one is Western hemlock, but I couldn’t point out a Douglas fir from a lineup. Clearly I’m not enough of a Northwesterner yet. I can identify cinquefoils, though (five petals!). And I knew that the puffball-looking mushroom near the destroying angels was probably not a safe bet to eat.

As I was walking, I saw numerous hoofprints from horses, the U-shaped imprints from the steel shoes embedded in the dry earth. I imagined the sound of the hooves striking the hard-packed dirt, and while my own feet were too soft, I could thump the ground with my walking stick and pretend. On our way out, not three minutes after I remarked to Tay that we hadn’t seen anyone on the Twin Lakes trail, three riders passed us. The first two were on large brown mules; the third was on a skittish, stocky, short-legged red bay mare who looked to have some pre-Thoroughbred Quarter Horse in her. Tay and I stood to the side of the trail and let them pass.

We really enjoyed the hike, and we intend to go back again at least a few times this year. If we hadn’t been getting chewed to pieces by the bugs (having unwisely not worn any repellent) by the time we hit Upper Twin Lake, we could have added another few miles to the hike, looped down around Lower Twin Lake, and then come back around to Twin Lakes Trail and back down Barlow. So we’ll be doing that another time. Plus there are numerous other trails that branched off from Barlow and Twin Lakes, and plenty of exploring to do. (And maybe next time I’ll remember the camera so I can get some pictures!)

While right now we’re day hikers, eventually I want to collect the right equipment for packing-in camping. Barlow Trail is part of the Pacific Crest Trail, which attracts a lot of hardcore hikers who will walk it for weeks at a time. I’m nowhere near that point, but I want this year to at least be one where I get more experience with camping. Even if we don’t do the pack-in thing this year, I do want to spend more nights outdoors.

12:06 am
rosefox

[Link]

"Pretty please with sugar on top"
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Current Mood: hopeful
Tags: events.cons, events.cons.readercon, events.cons.readercon.2009

10:47 pm
rosefox

[Link]

"Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three-inch lengths."
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: full
Tags: food, food.acquiring, food.cooking, food.cooking.chili

08:07 pm
inaki

[Link]

mmm feets

Oh Dogslug, what won't you eat.

Shade Structure - Mark II Design

07:37 pm
krow

[Link]

DSC_0005, originally uploaded by krow.

In this week's adventure we discover that 5 foot section ribs are too far apart, and that the compression pieces do work better when drilled.

Cheap chinese hurricane tarps? The grommets are not space evenly :(

Video coming soon!

Interesting article on the Smithsonian redesign

06:42 pm
tangaroa

[Link]

A historian gripes about the redesigned Smithsonian Museum resembling a "shopping mall". Excerpts:

Whole huge exhibits have disappeared. The first floor used to house an exhibit entitled "Information Age: People, Information and Technology." This was a 14,000 square foot display with over 900 original artifacts: Samuel Morse’s telegraphs, Alexander Bell's telephones, a Hollerith punched card machine, a German ENIGMA encoder, the ENIAC computer, the TELESTAR test satellite, and a selection of early personal computers, among many other artifacts. This has all been crated-up and stored away in a warehouse somewhere and replaced by "Julia Child’s Kitchen."

[...] one hugely popular and impressive exhibit in the “old” museum was the Foucault Pendulum (which was removed prior to the current renovations). The Foucault Pendulum consisted of a 52-foot cable suspended from the ceiling down through a round opening in the second floor, with a 240 lb. brass globe at the end. A row of candles was set up on the first floor, and the motion of the pendulum over the course of the day, as it knocked down the candles one-by-one, demonstrated the earth’s motion. This was a very physical—one is tempted to say, 19th century—way to communicate something fundamental about the physics of our planet. Now this sort of information is conveyed only on touch-screen video monitors.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Weird Al - Couch Potato

09:26 pm
momentrabbit

[Link]

Engine degreaser, rocket fuel, beverage. Is there nothing it cannot do?
Coffee may reduce/reverse Alzheimer's symptoms in rats.

"Earlier research by the same team had shown younger mice, who had also been bred to develop Alzheimer's but who were given caffeine in their early adulthood, were protected against the onset of memory problems."

Y'know, I used to have a fairly severe coffee habit. Just trying to stay awake, really - I've always fallen asleep during the day easily, even without apnea issues. I had a three-hour lecture class on Wednesday in college that was just deadly, zonked out every damn lesson.

Since January I've only been having a cup of the real stuff a day*, and a cup of decaff out of habit, but I'm thinking that's going to change. Causation? Correlation? Who cares, it's an excuse to drink more coffee. I grok in bitter, hot, dark Arabica fullness. n.n

* Ok, maybe an occasional second cup. Driving requires jittery nerves and carrying of scalding-hot fluid distractions!!

Current Mood: Jonesin' for the Bean
Current Music: Worm Quartet - Coffee

08:58 pm
lonita

[Link]

McBreakfast
Every once in a while my job actually yields a minor reward (other than my paycheque, which I feel could be vastly weightier than it is). This morning was one of those days, however small the reward.

We deliver a lot of food for people for places that don't have delivery service (like McDonald's) and even some that do when they're overloaded. Food orders are especially common right after the various social assistance cheques roll in (and I am not going to touch the moral questions regarding that) and on post-drunken Saturday and Sunday mornings because the previous night's bender really did you in. You can tell when the order is the breakfast version of the walk of shame outfit. Sometimes people who order the food give us the wrong address to deliver it to, and sometimes they either don't answer their doors or their phones. So, no food for them. It means that sometimes we benefit from the situation if the driver doesn't decide to keep the food himself or the restaurant can't reimburse him for the bill. (Some places will, like Tim Hortons if, for example, your driver mistakes the lg shortform for large as 19 and brings you 19 cups of tea. Don't get me wrong, I love tea, but that's too much of a trial even for my adoration to bear.)

Today it just happened to be several breakfast bagel sandwiches from McDonalds that we did try to deliver, but after six attempts to get them to answer the phone, we gave up. They actually did call looking for their munchies, but got bent out of shape when we told them that the person who answered the door at the address they gave us told our driver they didn't order anything.

Very handy for me, given that by the end of my overnight shift, I was starving.

Tags: food, work

(8 comments | Leave a comment)

08:00 pm
jenett

[Link]

Busy days!
So, yesterday, Mom went off to answer the phones at church, and I puttered. After she came back, we drove out to Old Sturbridge Village (which is a re-enactment thing based in the 1830s New England, which is a surprisingly interesting time period. Erm. Even if you're not me, and for me it's slightly post period of particular interest, which means there is stuff they are likely to tell me that I do not actually know yet, which is always pleasant. As opposed to Revolutionary Era Boston, where I know entirely too many details.)

Anyway, we had a good time, I figured out her GPS system, and we then drove back to see _Public Enemy_ at the movie theatre. (Which I sort of wanted to see because Dillinger had St. Paul connections, and I'd read an interesting article in the Pioneer Press about the movie while doing laundry this week.)

This morning, she dropped me off at Alewife at 8:15. I took the T up to Harvard, puttered around various coffee shops for a couple of hours. (After two summers taking language courses there, I am *very* good at the location of optimum coffee shop there.) I then took the T off to the Arboretum (all the way at the end of the Orange line) to meet up with college friends and spouses. (In this case, I knew all the spouses when I was in college, so it's not like these are people I barely know.)

I spotted Keshwyn

06:46 pm
xiphias

[Link]

A musical question:
So, it occurred to me: my friends list is chock-full of both musically literate people and curmudgeons -- sometimes both at once.

So here's my question: is it possible to dislike Aaron Copeland music?

I mean, I can totally see liking other stuff better -- but is it possible to just not like it at all?

(22 comments | Leave a comment)

09:55 pm
r_caton

[Link]

Mondaze
Monday, Jul 6th, 2009 -- You may be at your best today, showing off your quick wit and charm. But you may be so facile at weaving an enticing story that you lose track of the fine line between fact and fiction. Your ability to stretch the truth now is so great that your tall tale convinces everyone, including yourself. Lies will unravel sooner than you expect, so it's smarter to make a clear distinction between what's real and what's not right from the start.

The fewer lies told, the less one has to remember about who told what to whom.

Except in the universal case of the answer to "does this make my bum look fat"

Writer's Block: Listen to This

01:17 pm
zon14

[Link]

If a friend asked you for some new music recommendations, what would you suggest?

View other answers

New music? Me? Hahahahahahahaa... I'm afraid my new music pipeline stopped somewhere around 2000.

I guess you get to a certain age and your jukebox reaches capacity.

If you want stuff from the 50s,60s,70s,80s, 90s not quite so much, I'm your man. Same with classical at least up until the 1950's or so. Jazz, uhhhh some.

But turn of the millenia I draw a blank. In fact, I'm one of those who could use a few recommendations.

Current Location: St. Cloud, MN
Current Music: Phillies win 2-0!
Tags: writer's block

12:20 pm
lupabitch

[Link]

( Call for Writers for Mani/Sunna Anthology )

July 5th, 2009

02:12 pm
zxizaraxii

[Link]

Update: I'm still alive. Not kicking perhaps, but working on it.

09:21 am
joysweeper

[Link]

Last week the neighbors left and had us dogsit their remaining Rhodesian Ridgeback, Nina. They had another one, but he was old and cancerous, and they put him to sleep a few weeks ago. This was the first time since his death that Nina was without her owners for any length of time. She's a nice enough dog, always happy to see me. Couple years old. Fawns a lot. And after the first couple days, every time we put her in the crate for the night and let her out in the morning, she crapped it.

Yuck.

We ended up getting her antidiarrhea medicine, which seemed to work. But then one evening she went and encountered a skunk. Came back reeking and with a scratch on her muzzle. Getting all the ingredients for the shampoo together and then getting it on her wasn't fun. Oy. Oddly, skunk isn't quite as bad as it's hyped up to be. Nasty, yes, it smells partly like something burned. But not what I'd thought.

Their house still reeks of skunk, though the dog herself no longer does. The neighbors were extremely apologetic. We had to take Nina to the vet to get her another anti-rabies shot, but fortunately that went on the neighbors' account and not ours. They cut their vacation short and apologized some more. Sooner or later we'll get paid. Everything went wrong. *laughs*

The day before we left for Chicago - we just came back - I had my brother drive me to the nearest haircut place, two miles away, to get my hair cut. The line was long, so he went home. My cell phone decided to break. I walked back, and the experience has taught me that sandals are evil. Seriously! They are not designed for any amount of walking. I ended up with all these blisters.

I still dislike my Chicago cousins, but we didn't stay too long this time. Since I am apparently the only one in either family who wants to go, we did not see the Chicago Field Museum. Again. This also happened last year, when there was a temporary exhibit I really wanted to go to. That year they went to the Botanical Gardens. In what universe are gardens better than dinosaurs?!

This year we did at least go to this tiny reptile conservation place, which had some accomodating staff and a few reptiles that didn't mind being touched. It's odd how soft and slick they were. There was a rhinocerous iguana that apparently loved being petted. She'd stand up straighter and close her eyes. Her tail was a lot harder and rougher than the rest of her body, probably because of how iguanas use those tails as defensive weapons.

So that wasn't terrible.

( Youtube spam )

Dragons.

12:05 pm
mactavish

[Link]

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

If you read only one opera-related post today, this is the one.
Contagious enthusiasm: a potent force for good in the universe.

02:26 pm
xiphias

[Link]

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

10:37 am
baphnedia

[Link]

Color me crazy..
I got a lot out of 4th of July. I had a chance to speak at length with a Vietnam vet about one of my less-than-favorite subjects. Me. You see, it isn't often that I'm told I don't need to be on medications (and granted, the guy isn't a doctor). I can count the number of folks who believe in me in this way on one hand, possibly even while counting myself. But I'm not sure I believe in me.

The tragedy of it all is that for the past several years, I've allowed the doctors to dictate my limits. My potential is rotting away, unused, because I let others limit me. Which, does me no good, because while I might not be sure that I'm healthy or not, I know I'm not crazy.

Thoughts?

The Computer Is Your Friend: The only way AOL can still make money

09:43 am
athelind

[Link]

AOL threatens former users with mystery bills

The link is to the BoingBoingGadgets article, but the original story is from the Wall Street Journal.

Apparently, AOL is "upgrading" customer accounts, then sending the bills off to collection agencies -- without actively notifying the customers in question.

This, it seems, includes people who have signed up for nothing more than AIM service.

Hooray. =P

Current Mood: annoyed
Tags: computer, film at 11

11:15 am
silicon_dawn
[shatterstripes]

[Link]

0 of (VOID)
( Image cut ) The 0 of (VOID). It started as a joke but it became unexpectedly serious.

I was working on the Aces, all of which my main references titled "The Root of the Powers of (element)". Being an occasional programmer, with the tendency to start counting at 0, I found myself asking "what's at zero units of each element?". The answer was this card. It is a number card, but it is not suited. There is next to nothing to see because everything is undifferentiated - metaphorically, the Aces are the Big Bang, and this is what was sitting there, quiescent and full of possibility, before that happened. (This also ties in nicely with the kinda-bubble-chamber-looking designs in some of the Aces. I should probably go back and put them into all of them now that I think about it.)

If I was being truer to programmer lingo, this would probably be the 0 of (UNDEFINED). The suit is a null reference here, it is none of them. But "void" is a much more evocative word that brings in the pre-Big Bang metaphors.

It is a card of initial conditions; the butterfly is a reminder of how sensitive a chaotic system can be to those. We all know the "butterfly effect", the thought that the vortices of air coming off of a butterfly's wings could be the root of a tropical storm halfway across the world. Move carefully, for what you do may have long-reaching and unforseen consequences; move uncaringly, for your life is as short as a butterfly's in the grand scheme of things.

The butterfly trails a rainbow, which touches all four of the colors I used for each suit. This is a reminder that all things are potential here in the Void - nothing is firm, you can sculpt the nothingness into whatever the hell you want. It is raw Chaos.

The same butterfly can also be found in the Star. I think that's the only other place it shows up but I'm not entirely sure - the connections in this deck still surprise me sometimes! (It even recurs in the alternate Op art take on the Star that fell out of my hand one day.)

In general, this is a card of beginnings. This is the void of raw potential, not the void of the end of all things. Or perhaps it is both, if you like the cyclical-universe theory - everything collapses into a Big Crunch, with seethes for an unknown timeless time, then explodes, starting the universe anew. How will we define the universal constants this time?

From my original post of the art:

It has no elemental associations. It has no astrological associations. The void was there before the constellations were lit, and will be there when the last one burns out.

It is emptiness; how will you fill it?

Divinatory meanings (tentative): The Butterfly Effect, chaos, raw unformed possibility. Potential. Things are about to happen, and might happen fast. If ill-dignified, it is 'analysis paralysis', illusions of conspiracy, insignificance. Clusterfuck.

Also, if you have a severely different take on this particular card, I'd love to hear it! I know it's struck a deep, powerful chord with several folks; your interpretations could well end up superseding or enhancing my intended meanings!

Current Music: Plaid's Double Figure : Ooh Be Do

08:43 am
shatterstripes

[Link]

When I woke up this morning, for a few minutes I was convinced that oh shit my day of doing nothing on my birthday was going to be overridden by having to go to the day job - somehow I was completely convinced it was Tuesday, rather than Sunday. Weird.

Looking at the lyrics widget on the laptop's screen after I brought it back up from deep sleep under the bed* and seeing the lyrics to a song off of 77 by the Talking Heads made me realize: it feels strange to have music in active rotation that was written by someone who's now so much younger when he wrote it than I am now. I don't think the cure is to stop listening to music by people younger than I am or anything like that; I'm thoroughly detached from who's being marketed to the Youth Of Today now but I still enjoy hearing new things.

I thought I was going somewhere with this but then I got distracted by looking through the watchlist of my sekrit alt on Furaffinity. She watches everyone back...

Anyway. No plans for anything today, looks like it's going to be a lovely day - maybe I'll just take a sketchbook and go out of the house for a while. Reflex suggests "work on Absinthe" but I feel like I should give myself a little vacation.

* a practice I try to avoid, as it's real easy to just take it out and spend hours lying in bed aimlessly browsing the web; I was reading some PDFs in bed last night.

Current Music: Curve's Falling Free : Falling Free (Aphex Twin Mix)

(8 comments | Leave a comment)

08:31 am
lonita

[Link]

Godot finally showed
Infinite Jest - were the server up, thou wouldst see an image here

There it is. Barely out of the bookstore but still in its shipping wrapper.

Not having delved very far in as yet (owing to slow shipping), I am still already struck by the floating conversation ... the in and out, the ebb and flux. It puts me in mind of parts of the film version of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, where we do not hear all of the conversations we can see are going on, because we don't have to hear them. We hear only what we need to hear. We need to know there are people talking, but we don't need to be directly party to every morsel of text. This first part of IJ feels not entirely dissimilar. We need to know things are being said, and who is present to say them, but we don't necessarily need to know every last bit. It is also a natural thing, when oozing in and out of concentration, not to hear every word that's said in your dancespace; and, unlike any other book I've read in my life, this portion of the book reflects that - reflects intermittent hearing.

I have been highlighting like a demon, struck by words and phrases (and I feel like a Guess Who song saying that) ... words I know, words I don't and needed to look up, words I had to call my mother to define for me (because her French is fluent and mine is ... not) ... and wonderfully evocative bites of text like: "slept like a graven image", "rickety alphabet of exposed plumbing", "carbonated silence", "inclined together in soft conference"; and, as others have pointed out, "my chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it".

They keep telling you to trust the author. I do.

Tags: infsum

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01:07 pm
r_caton

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Those were the best years of my life (probably, NOT)
I had a wind up radio at Farragos this AM and it was tuned to BBC Radio ESSEX on the medium wave. Apart from the spring winding down at the CRUCIAL moment (like the way Radio2 gets hit by TRAVEL REPORT boom-pa-boompa-boompa-boompa) the AM reception was appropriate... they were doing "BBC ESSEX YEARS" for 1966... that was a great year, I was 10, the summer was really hot, the music was really great, and our holiday at Jaywick Sands was wonderful..... Hot sun, ocean breeze, AM music from Caroline or London (moored off Frinton!)... and everywhere the wispy, treble-heavy(?) sound of transistor radios on beach and through bungalow windows...
Jaywick as any fule kno is in Essex. Wonderful county for holidays, smells, breeze, sounds, open flatlands....
Cut to Walthamstow bedroom, louvres open, breeze, heat and wispy trebleheavy hits of 1966 coming over little wind up radio speaker....

GODSDAMN CAT FLEAS

Came back to Mums and week old bacon, eggs and Organic but elderly mushrooms....
BREKKIE! Fried peeled mushies with minced garlic with 2 beaten eggs (with a tad of onion salt) poured over them accompanied by 2 small toast and 4/5 fried toms.

Then a quick surf or as quick a surf as ever

I'm waitin' on some of my purchasers to pony up on PayPal....
but I have a couple to be going on with.

Now LAUNDRY and the OLD BEDS DEMISE!!!

Current Mood: I gotta get out of this place

Writer's Block: Listen to This

12:55 pm
r_caton

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If a friend asked you for some new music recommendations, what would you suggest?

View other answers

Depends on the context. Right here and now? Maddy Prior. Steeleye Span, Carnival Band, Fairport Convention.
Tomorrow maybe? Tornados, Honeycombs (including "Leadfoot"Lantree), Shadows....
Day after that? Billy Cotton's Band, Birt Firman, Harry Bidgood, Henry Hall.....
Day after that? ODJB, King Oliver. Louis Armstrongs Hot 5 and Hot 7
Day after that? Modern Jazz Quartet, Lionel Hampton....

Man the world is FULL of BEEEYOOOTIFUL MUSIC!

and that's before we've listened to Vangelis' Pulsar, China, and the ouvre of Jean Michel Jarre....

Fades to transparency to the sounds of an offstage theremin....

Current Mood: weird
Tags: writer's block

http://therioshamanism.com/2009/07/05/just-a-note-to-say/

10:13 am
therioshamanism

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Just a Note to Say….

It’s been quiet here. School’s taking up a lot of my time. But there are things percolating under the surface here. Not yet ready to manifest, but they’re beginning to take form. At some point, I’m going to find myself at the right moment, and everything’s going to explode forth, just as it ought to.

01:34 am
panzerwalt

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hhhmmmm...

i wonder if i can just dig a fire pit in the back yard?

03:49 pm
jolantru

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1,000 mark crossed.
So... now it's up to Singaporeans to observe personal hygiene.

Current Mood: tired
Tags: notes

02:33 am
rosefox

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"I sleep all night and I work all day"
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Current Mood: tired
Tags: behavior.accomplishments, body.body clock, body.health, body.illness, experiences.housework, experiences.work.freelance, food, food.cooking, mind.wiring, places.home

12:15 am
mactavish

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July 4th, 2009

11:48 pm
momentrabbit

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Quiet evening.
The net's been quiet for a few days now - those journals I follow are quiet, as friends are off to cons, vacations and the like. Nothing terribly exciting to report here either.

Went on the evening walk with The Mate and The Mutt; on return, we all postponed going in for a quick drive together, to grab a few Timbits for Mutt. (Just plain; a very occasional treat.) Lovely night: nice moon.

Sitting on a burner on the stove is a pot. The pot is, at a rough guess, about sixteen quarts in capacity. Four hours ago, it was full of frozen chicken carcasses (for months, whenever I've cooked a chicken, after we've eaten, I've lazily stripped the carcass of meat, then tossed it in a Ziploc and put it in the freezer). The pot is unremarkable, just a campfire stockpot; one of the few things remaining from my grandparents. A pot that fed my parents, and my parents' parents; a little history steeped into the metal. Filled the pot up with enough water to cover the chickens, brung to a boil, dropped to a simmer - which in this case means 'until the water is bubbling but not exuberantly so - and gave it thirty minutes, skimming the debris that arose. Then added onions, carrot and celery (if we had the latter two, which we don't - oh well) and a bundle with parsley from the garden, a bay leaf, some thyme. Stirred, and checked in every so often as the water gradually boiled off, level dropping, the carcasses falling apart, chicken bits transmogrifying into stock. Alchemy.

The house smells amazing. n.n

Another thirty minute of simmering, and then some straining, and the stock goes into the basement fridge overnight to cool: come morning, it'll be skimmed and decanted into a few containers, some for the freezer, some for now, and the chicken bits will be saved for soup.

Not the least productive evening I've ever had. And satisfying.