Metamorphosism

The awesome destructive power of corporate media

The Black Commentator on Dean.

Family values update

(An update to this.)
Keeping the United States safe from piano teachers.
This is such a sad thing. Was she in the wrong? It looks that way. Should they let her stay? I think so.
Is it right to seperate her from her husband and child? If only she picked grapes instead.

Break

School vacation next week. In Austria that means you have to go skiing. I got fancy carving skis for Christmas so there's no escape. Maybe it will be fun, who knows. I will not be blogging during that time. I've uploaded a bunch of old Bug comix and hopefully will remember to activate them before I leave. I will be back on the seventh or the eighth of February if all goes well.

Insight

I'm the age my father-in-law was when I first met him. I mentioned this to Alpha, and she was all like, "and?"

I met him in the hospital. Alpha had her appendix out. We'd been out for a walk, you see, and she had stomach pains and I took her to the hospital and the doctor said, "you're pregnant," and she said, "no, I'm not," and the doctor said, "then you have appendicitis," and they operated on her.

I was so bored back then I visited her daily for hours. And her parents dropped by and her father regarded me with suspicion. I sometimes wonder what I'll do when Beta brings a boy home. I think I'll show him my knife collection, and then show him where I chop wood in the cellar. "This is my axe," I'll say. "It's nice and sharp," and I'll smile like Jack Nicholson.

Then I remember, she's already brought a boy home and I went upstairs and logged on to the Internet until he left.

Haircut

Head case

C: [Knocks on door.]
Man: [Opens door]
C: [Rubs against door frame, licks ass. Looks at person who let him in]
Man: Hi.
C: [Eyes get enormous. Flinches, cowers. Crouches, ready to flee.]
Man: Oh, calm down, would you?
C: [Takes a step back, then another]
Man: It's only a haircut. It's still me. See? [Smiles, shrugs.]
C: [Cowers, with a very serious expression on face.]
Man: What is it with you and heads, anyway? Whenever my head changes it freaks you out. I wear a hat and you have a heart attack. It's just a haircut, dude.
C: [Jumps straight up and darts under kitchen table when man raises hand and runs fingers through short, stubbly hair. C's eyes glow in dark.]
Man: Sorry, was that a threatening motion? You and heads.
C: [Flinches, ready to run]
Man: BOOGABOOGA! GRAAAAGGHH!

Why, why, why?

Ever notice how the coefficient of friction of spaghetti noodles is lower when you are dining with a charming Romanian diplomat, making them* harder to keep on your fork? Why is that?

Ever notice how, when you drive some VIPs somewhere in the Mercedes, and they were already joking about you because *they* had to give *you* directions, when you get out and press the button on the keys to lock the door, the trunk lid pops open instead?

*the noodles

Family values

Unfortunately, the recent amnesty for irregular immigration to the United States does not apply to you if you are a talented, popular piano teacher with all your family -- including husband and small child -- in the United States and none back in Russia, and you were tricked by a former boyfriend into making false and even fraudulent statements in your immigration papers.

The letter of the law says she has to return to a life that no longer exists. This is really sad. I urge the authorities to let her stay, and I urge "mainstream" "media" to look further into her story.

[Via Vex]

zipdecode

Neat way to waste 45 seconds or so.

Nut, berry

We're about two weeks, just a couple decent catastrophes -- asteroid strike, plague, ice age, starlet die-off -- from hunting and gathering. Our so-called "civilization" is that fragile, buddy, and don't you forget it.

Two weeks of collapse, then the milk-man stops coming around. No more junk mail. Heating with the last of the firewood, then the furniture. Two weeks, then all the meat in the stores is spoiled. All the good cereal is off the shelves. The bananas are brown -- although the genetically-modified tomatoes still look fine, until you slice one open and red mush oozes out.

Two weeks in a nice warm house until thick-necked thugs come around and kick you out. Two weeks until you realize maybe a gun would have been a good idea because all you have in the cellar is a pointy stick and how much game you going to catch with that? It's too dull to stick into an animal, even if you could sneak up on one.

No, you're reduced to running over animals with the car, until you run out of fuel.

"What, dad, dog again?"

"You think you're unhappy, you should have seen the lady on the other end of the leash."

"Save me any?"

"Nah, she was way too lean."

Two weeks, and you're trying to explain to someone not only what a blog was, but what the Internet was.

"What, you mean you wrote hundreds of pages of wonderful texts? So where are they?"

"Eh, stored on servers somewhere in California, I believe."

"California, I heard of that."

"Stored in the form of magnetic patterns or something."

"Hey, nice stick."

AWOL

Leftist propaganda.

Guest post: Scarlett Johansson

Believe it or not, Scarlett Johansson reads blogs. Including Metamorphosism.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get hold of Scarlett, so I can only assume she reads Metamorphosism. When I go through the referrer stats, it sure looks like she could be in there.

But she's a busy woman. Maybe she's busy promoting that Vermeer movie she's in. I really want to see that. She's got a couple projects in pre-production as well. Maybe she's working on them.

Mail me, Scarlett, if you happen to read this. Also: send me a picture of your shoes.

Sk8ting

Quite cold. Snowing now, but it was clear and sunny when we went skating this morning. Ice King aka the Black-Tipped Shark was there, but he left me alone as he had his hands full with a series of other pupils, or "pupils", not sure. Also, I was skating better. Sometimes, when you try to do something right as opposed to just fcuking around, it actually does some good. I also managed not to crush any little girls this time around, although this one cute little 5-year-old managed to cross my path dangerously about once every sixty seconds.

On the way home we picked up lunch at McDonald's because we had free coupons and closely checked our takeout order before driving away because they always fuck up our order there and sure enough we had to return and switch a couple items. Not until we arrived home did we discover that Alpha had been given a Fitness Salad instead of a Tuna Salad, and Gamma had received some sort of Gummi Bear thing instead of ketchup with her Chicken McNugget Happy Meal.

My Chef McSalad was indeed a Chef McSalad. And the McVeggie McBurgers were also right. So basically we got nearly what we'd wanted, and at the same time were able to feel McSuperior, which was nice.

In the afternoon, we had filled donuts. Now, in the pre-Lenten Fasching season, that's what one is expected to eat a lot of. Donuts, filled donuts, filled with apricot marmelade and dusted thickly with powdered sugar. People who dress primarily in black, as I do, dread this season.

Nasa rover failure preventable

Nasa rover failure attributed to software problem.

It would have been so easy to prevent.

Workout

I got a 26, I think. 20-something. 24 or 26.
Something like that. Their evaluation was all like, sure, maybe you could join Mensa if you dress nice and don't let food go bad in the fridge and buy Mensa flowers once a week.

Regular beggar

To make it worse, while wandering around in the miserable damp cold yesterday you had to put up with the latest v2.01 beggars, the guys kneeling down on the cold ground looking down (hands usually held out in prayer or supplication) and v2.02 the man or woman in that position with a small freezing child beside them and v2.03 the little boy in a wheelchair with one bare foot and pantleg rolled up to knee, as if he were crippled.

When a bundled-up regular beggar finally accosted me ("Any spare change?") I was so happy to see him I gave him whatever coins were in my pocket and wished him all the best.

Map

create your own visited country map.

[Via Nod and Smile]

Lost in translation

Alpha and I went to see Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation yesterday evening.
It was very good.
You should go see it if you haven't already.
If you have, then you know what I'm talking about.
It was very cold in Vienna yesterday.
Alpha had some power lunch beforehand and I wandered around the city since I had the day off. I met Beta at lunch and made the inane post below from the coffeeshop on Krügerstrasse. I made it three times, in fact, because there was something odd going on with their cache.
Then Beta went back to school and I wandered around a bit more.
I had met Beta at an English bookshop and bought a paperback. It's okay. I sat in St. Stephan's Cathedral for a while reading in a rear pew. It was pretty cold inside too, but less wind. Still, despite the cold I was afraid I'd fall asleep.
The reason I was wandering around was Alpha forgot her cell phone and so we'd arranged to meet one place if her lunch was finished by 2.15, another place at 3 if the first place didn't work out etc.
I met her at the second place. She was waiting in line to pay for something at the cash register and watching the front door and checking her watch. She had missed me coming in, though, so I was able to sneak right up on her. I had my face two inches from hers, watching her look from the front door to her watch and back to the front door again, before she finally noticed me.
Like many people one loves, she is cute when she doesn't know you're watching her. Especially when she doesn't know you're only two inches away.
She's not too crazy about being surprised like that, however.
Then we went and talked to our insurance guy. He tried to sell us more insurance. He showed us a picture of his car, which a truck had run over one snowy day with his entire family inside. He was the only one injured. Now his eye looks funny. I guess it helps sell insurance.
Then we went to a bookstore/cafe. Being a cafe, it can stay open til midnight, selling books. Alpha had tea, I had a Guinness. We didn't have it right away, though. I had to go ask at the counter if it was self-service or what. The waiter said, no, he'd serve us right away.
The waiter had red hair so I didn't get cranky. I cut people with red hair a lot of slack.
As sometimes happens when I enter a bookstore with insufficient mental armor, looking at all the book titles gave me vertigo. The action-packed titles, the sensitive intellectual ones, the romantic ones for girls. The one-word titles. The long self-help titles. All that. I won't make any up, because they'd turn out to be real titles and I don't have the time to do a search for every one. It made me swear, if I ever publish a book, I'll come up with a unique title.
Then we went to a movie. During the movie, or afterwards rather, since Alpha is not one of those idiots who talk during movies, she said she had done most of the stuff they did in the movie. I'm assuming she didn't mean she'd had an affair with a bar singer, but who knows.
As we were leaving, I accidentally punched her in the head putting on my coat and knocked her glasses off. She was very nice about that. I don't think I hit her very hard or anything.
When we got to our parking garage, we had to wait a minute at the entrance for two guys to finish a drug deal. At least that's what it looked like to me. Alpha didn't notice anything odd. Maybe it was only my imagination. Still, I asked her to wait there on the sidewalk until guy one gave guy two something, getting something else small in return, and they both left.
Parking was thirty-four euro, minus auto club discount (10%). We'd been there all day.

Hi from Krügerstrasse

Got the day off for Chinese newyear. hAPPY YEar o fthe monkey. (dang keyboard.) Met Beta on her lunch break, getting something to eat at the coffee shop on Krügerstrasse, testing their internet connectoin fionally. Seeing "lost in granslation" wiht Alpha later on. 'Cold, ubt snow has stopped.

Ice+night=pure excitement

Nothing like driving on icy streets at night, is there.

Mail bag

These arrived in the mail today, from Armandele. Armandele has a more colorful picture of them here. It's an interesting project he has going - producing actual, physical blog um uh artifacts. My children are so proud of their dad for being famous, they stole all the buttons.

Thanks, Armand.

Never mind the bollocks

Party at wonderchicken's.
Yes.

The drums... they've stopped.

The cello lesson wasn't what you'd call a rousing success, but it went well just now. I walked out of the "classroom" (previously a monk's cell, I believe, in another incarnation back when the building was a monastery centuries ago, or maybe a warehouse) shoulders back, head held high. So what if the "A" string squeaks? It turns out to be a squeaky A-string: it's not my fault.

Actually, it all went suspiciously well. I don't want to jinx it, but... there was this transition between three different positions that had been giving me trouble. I relaxed and the trouble went away.

That's been my problem all my life, not enough relaxation between positions.

Calliope

There's a little more light in the sky because I'm a few minutes late this morning. You heard me right: my schedule controls the sun.

The air is clear and cold and the trees are black against the purple sky. The field is muddy and there are no deer, unless they are mud-colored and standing very still. Later, taking my offramp, there is a flatbed truck in front of me with a load of pipe. Pipe in shiny zinc metal and brick-red plastic in every size available from about a half-inch up to six inches in diameter. Estimate the length of the truck's bed, estimate how many potential tin whistles are stacked there on the bed. Tin whistles, low whistles, organs, calliopes.

I haven't heard a calliope since I was a kid. Those old steam organs they used to play inside merry-go-rounds etc. Remember them? The first instrument I'd associate with Ray Bradbury, for reasons lost to me.

Also the muse of epic poetry and the mother of Orpheus, thanks google. We've come down with a bad case of Greek mythology at home lately. As usual, one of the kids brought it home from school. Beta this time. Last night I even caught her in her room, reading a thick book of it for fun.

I sit on the rocking chair in her room in the dim light in that corner and try to read a book of essays on, basically, death and ask her what she's reading and ten minutes later I shake my head to get all these Greek names out of my ears and say, That's nice, honey.

Calliope was the mother of Orpheus. Calliope is a hummingbird. Calliope is a steam organ.

When I was young, I wanted a household where the parents (me and whoever) "read the classics" and quoted Shakespeare and Goethe all the time. Lived with such people, such writers, like old friends. Haven't exactly managed to do that yet, although I do own "The Complete Works of Shakespeare". But you know, who has time to read that shit?

When I was young, my parents subscribed to two magazines: Sunset, and Western Horseman. Oh, and National Geographic, which was great. Western Horseman was also fine, if you liked horses. Sunset Magazine, I have a split relationship to that magazine. The magazine itself is schizophrenic. The first half full of beautiful western-living articles (cooking, decorating, home construction, gardening, ads for cars that have grown from sedans when I was young to your gigantic SUV nowadays). The back half is full of advertisements. When I was young, they were ads for geodesic domes and gazebos and grills. Now they are primarily advertisements for camps for troubled children. Weight reduction camps for children with eating disorders. Camps for children with learning difficulties. Camps for children with discipline problems. Military bootcamp-type camps.

A kid I grew up with, he sent his kid to a camp like that, I read in a newspaper clipping my mother sent me. Whenever she sends me a clipping, I know it's bad news. She only sends me the bad ones. Suicides of kids I knew etc. This one, this kid I grew up with sent his kid to this camp because he was raising rabble at school, and he slit some other kid's throat. My point being, the second half of Sunset makes me wonder about the first half.

Beta looks up from her book and says things roughly like, "Theseus, what a bastard, ditching Ariadne like that". I'll be at a movie with her, watching the trailer for "Troy" or whatever, with Brad Pitt and I'll say, "Look, he's wearing boots although everyone wore sandals back then because he has ugly toenails" (read on some website). And they show all the zillions of CGI boats sailing over to Troy and crowd battle scenes and she says, "no way, everything was decided in single combat."

1272 grams she weighed at birth, ten weeks early. The doctor told me there was a 90% chance she'd be normal, no brain damage. This was on my first visit to see her at the premature infant intensive care ward. I was thirty and very frightened. As he told me this, a little girl strapped into a walker scooted past. She had no fingers and sort of stared off into space.

Have I ever told you how lucky I am? We are? I used to wander the house at night, making sure everyone was breathing. Lurking in dark doorways listening like some weirdo. Now I'm forty-four and scared but I try to ignore it or let it wash over me and pass. Now I lay in bed and will myself not to get up, to sleep, they're all fine, but I listen but all I can hear are my ears ringing. I will myself not to imagine dangers and catastrophes, because believe me, they are numerous and worrying doesn't help and you don't want to know how many close calls of one class or another you have daily.

So far, we have all gotten out of bed again in the morning. For our sunrise, our truck load of pipe.

Ice King

It's a sunny day. Sunny and cold. The rink isn't as crowded as we'd expected. Mostly families. Families plus the Ice King. He's about what, about fifty with soft features. Balding with grey hair. Dresses in black and grey. Skating around as though this were all he ever did. Hands clasped around his back. Skating his orbits forwards, then backwards. Unclasping his hands to do occasional dance moves.

Sometimes he has a partner, does dancy moves around the rink with her. Sometimes it looks like a lesson, sometimes just fun.

When he's alone, he circles like a black-tipped shark (Carcharhinus Melanopterus). I quote from a black-tipped shark website: "These sharks are known more for being nuisances, than anything else..." Except black-tipped sharks travel in schools, and the Ice King travels alone. Watching.

Watching and waiting.

He's looking at you, my daughter said. Don't look now, but he's watching you. This may or may not be obvious, but: that takes all the fun out of skating. Especially when you're not so good. When you just started skating so you could keep your kids company. When you grew up with family stories about you trying skating once as a kid and how they all laughed at how you skated on your ankles. When you just started skating so you could show your kids, you can try stuff as an adult even when you're no damn good at it, just for the fun of it.

The fun of it.

He's watching you, she said. Don't look now, but here he comes.

He skated over and gave me a lesson. Maybe he teaches people, picks up extra money on the weekends this way, picking up students this way. He gave me some good pointers. That was a couple weeks ago. Now we're back and he's watching again. Luckily he has another victim at the moment, but he's still watching.

It's the most irritating vigilance I've ever experienced.

We play tag and I fall down and get ice crystals from shoe to shoulder. My wife brushes me off. This game demands a maneuverability I lack. I skate around, concentrating on applying the pointers the Ice King gave me last time.

What the hell does he do for a living the rest of the time? What does he do when it's warm?

The little one wants to race me to her mother and sister, at the other end of the rink. It's nearly lunch time, we have to go. So okay, let's race. She takes off. Running across the ice. Looks funny, but she's faster than me. I decide to go all out. Lean forward, use my knees, take off as hockey-like as I can manage. She's still ahead but I'm catching up. Just as we're about to reach the wall, just as I'm about to pass her on the right, she veers sharply right and I crash into her.

I can't veer left to avoid her, but I try with the result that my skates sweep hers out from underneath her and the only thing breaking her fall onto the ice is her head. I hit the wall and land on something soft, her.

The Ice King's orbit takes him within a couple meters of our pile. He has a tsk-tsk look on his face that makes me feel like punching him out. A look that says, 200 pound (including clothes and skates) men shouldn't ought to body-check wee six-year-old girls and then land on them. I may have a look of my own on my face because when we make eye-contact he skates off without saying anything, continuing on his orbit smoothly.

We go eat lunch. As we are leaving, some kid cuts off my wife and she lands on her ass and has an ass-ache the rest of the day, as the little one has a headache. And the Ice King does his circles.

Gretchaninoff

So I asked my cello teacher for a sad song because that's what I was in the mood for and he was nice enough to look around for one and finally gave me "Twilight" by Gretchaninoff; on the same page is a happy song I'm also supposed to learn. Twilight is fairly slow, which means pay attention to your bowing. I had always thought articulation would be my problem, finding the right notes with my left hand on the neck of the instrument - you know, no frets or anything. But the human body turns out to be a stupendous thing and you eventually learn to hear the notes and that is not as great a problem as I had thought. Bowing is my nemesis right now. So this song will be good practice.

However, I'm still looking for an even sadder song. Something longer and really depressing, you know? That can be played on a cello, that is.

Ions

There are winds with negative ions and winds with positive ions, she told me someone told her. Someone who should know. Someone with a crystal hanging over her television. The positive-ion winds are debilitating. They make you depressed or or ennervated or otherwise fuck with your head.

The man on the radio said half of everyone in Austria is "Wetterfühlig" which would perhaps translate as weather-sensitive. Under this I would lump the achey joints portending rain, the crazy drivers when the moon is full, the other crazy drivers when the ions are positive (a man passed me on the right, in city traffic, by using a busstop to get around me), the headaches when there is a foehn (A foehn is a warm wind) and posting polls to blogs.

So it was only the wind. I wonder if, next time the ions are positive, it would help to lick the negative pole of my car battery or if I would merely look like a depressed Don King afterwards.

The ions were negative again this morning. The foehn had stopped. The weather was dark and clear and cold. The taillights on the car in front of me were so bright, if they were any brighter they would have been plasma beams.

Only the wind. You start thinking the best thing about you is your life-insurance policy and it's only the wind.

Helping hands

Monkey helpers for the disabled.
[via mighty girl]

"See, the bagel makes it normal..."

Best of dongresin.

Lifestyle poll

Kilkelly, Ireland, 1860

So it's after three in the morning and she's in the bathroom taking off her makeup and your man's at the other end of the hall on the bed in his t-shirt singing. The kids are at their grandparents and he's full of wine and champagne and his hair stinks of smoke from the bar and he's sort of crooning this song he always sings because it fits his mood and also it's the only song he knows all the words to that's not a Christmas carol.

She says something at the other end of the hall.

He stops singing. "What?" he says.

"I said you have a nice voice. Please keep singing."

So he does.

zzzt

I got home and my wife told me X "went for a stroll and dropped dead."

I think she mentioned he was walking along the Danube. This would have been Sunday or Monday. We agreed he was about our age. Far too young to go dropping dead.

Heart attack. It turned out he was 56, not our age. Also: pacemaker. He looked good for someone 56 years old with a pacemaker. Now I have this image of his final moments: watching a swan, perhaps. Or a sunset. Some kid rolls past on a skateboard, yakking into his cellphone, "zzzt."

He was a nice man. He worked in education. The news saddened us. It also made me think, "that was close." It could have been me. That feeling was mitigated when I found out he was 12 years older than me. When I heard, "pacemaker," death moved another step away, I told myself. I sat in the library with a glass of Bushmills and listened to the day's overtones circle in my daughter's harp. Then it got late and I had things to do.

On Howard Dean

Howard Dean must die, an endorsement.

[Via Six Different Ways]

Shoe Project

Sexy new Shoe Project.
Ann has polished up my old Shoe Project, which had been languishing, down at the heels, etc etc. As you can see, she has a nice new URL and one sexy collection of footwear.

Der Ball

Practiced dance steps all afternoon on Saturday; we had a good laugh if nothing else. Went to the ball Saturday night. Tried dancing, decided to go back to dance school next fall. Sat at a table upstairs overlooking the happenings, drank wine, ate a schnitzel, talked to friends, stood around in the bar drinking champagne, tried dancing again, verified we had forgotten pretty much everything, went back to the table, back to the bar, stood around until I felt sick and lightheaded from more champagne, all the cigarette smoke, went upstairs for fresh air, met more friends, had another wine, went home.
It was excellent.
Alpha looked beautiful in her black ball gown with this long lacing up the back, and high heeled black pumps, mmm. I spilled a glass of red wine all over her pretty early on, but it was okay, black dress and the wine wasn't that great either. She took it well.
The ball is the high point of my year, socially at least. I would love to attend one with a zoologist or a sociologist, if he had a good sense of humor, to study the behavior of the guests. The pecking orders, the mating rituals, the display behavior, etc.
Some of us were talking about how the ball has come down in recent years. People running around without ties, or in pantssuits etc. But to be honest, the kids looked far better than the first time I went, in 1980. Their parents are obviously spending more on fixing them up. The boys all had nice suits, the girls were all expensively-coiffed and shoehorned into spendy gowns, especially the debs who opened the ball, all in white.
I could go on and on about the evening. My delight at seeing the used-car dealer and his wife, who look like a couple of swingers. He looks like a riverboat gambler played by Kevin Spacey, she is a good match for him. They spent a lot of time on the dance floor. And so on. I could talk about how the band sucked, again. But I'll stop here.

On the interpretation of dreams

While the symbolic meaning of dreams for our everyday life is common knowledge, the obverse meaning of waking events for our dream life is generally less explored. An example: when you dream of holding a lecture while wearing no pants it means you want to smoke a cigar. When Mig attends a ball tomorrow night and realizes he has no new shoes and has forgotten all the dance steps he learned last year, it means he will dream of spilling baby oil on Charlize Theron, who in the dream is also Beyoncé Knowles.

A want ad

“Bhutanese citizens or permanent residents only. Candidates without work permits need not bother apply.”

Ciabatta

"The literal meaning of ciabatta in Italian is slipper, which identifies its shape." Which would explain the square-toed shoes my wife brought me from Italy once. The ciabatta has achieved a not insubstantial level of popularity in Austria. On a snowy day when you have not eaten lunch because it was too nasty to go out and you've missed your fast train home by three minutes because you trudged more slowly than expected you can go to a bakery at the train station and purchase a "mozarella ciabatta" and they give you, in a smallish paper bag embellished with the bakery's logo which is such a snug fit on the sandwich (a ciabatta sliced down the middle and filled with slices of mozarella, tomatoes and lettuce) that you're tempted to just tear it to shreds like a Republican going to work on a national budget surplus except you might want it later to pack part of the sandwich if you don't finish it before your train comes. You can then munch on this sandwich while waiting for the slow train which comes 11 minutes later, wondering why your mozarella ciabatta tastes like dirt until you realize, as your mouth is so oily, it's not dirt, it's olive oil. Not extra virgine, no doubt; more like the Christina Aguilera of olive oils wagging its thong-clad booty there in your sandwich.

To be polite, you discontinue your eating on the train as you're wedged in next to some woman. Then the seat across the aisle clears out when a group of people disembark at the town where Franz Kafka died of tuberculosis and you scoot over there and unpack your mozarella ciabatta. A young man who had been rushing to take the empty seat but was too slow because he was coming from further back in the train but, after standing up, couldn't return to his old seat without losing face sits down opposite you. You, unable to replace your sandwich without losing face either carefully munch. Carefully because a ciabatta has a crispy crust and you want to avoid appearing too gross and getting crumbs all over the floor or, even worse, down the front of your coat.

You finish and lo, crumbs down the front of your coat. The young man has a slightly unfriendly look on his face which is understandable because you beat him to the seat. You carefully brush crumbs off your coat.

[SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ NEXT PARAGRAPH UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN LORD OF THE RINGS SOMETHING-SOMETHING (PART THREE)] You know the scene towards the end of the third Lord of the Rings film, where the ring falls into the lava in slow motion? Your largest crumb does the same slowmo thing in a textbook arc from your coat, boing, onto the young man's left thigh. You resist your first impulse, which would be to lean over and brush it off; and you resist your second, which would be to smile broadly and say, "I'm so blogging this, dude." Instead, you say, "sorry 'bout that." You make a motion with your shoulders that you hope could be an apologetic shrug, or it could be sort of a loosening-up thing because you're a bit sore from your workout at the extreme full-contact dirty fighting club but, in retrospect, you fear probably looked more like a nervous twitch which, on second thought, would not be the worst interpretation in that particular situation because who's going to hassle a crazy man with forty pounds on you just for getting a crumb on your leg that smells like dirt? The crumb, not your leg?

The young man mutters something which seems to mean something along the lines of "no problem," because he gingerly flicks the crumb off his leg into the filthy slush on the black linoleum floor of the commuter train. The two of you sit there avoiding eye contact until the next stop, where he gets off.

Poison clown

My eyes fell upon a brief article in a newspaper in which Michael J*ckson alleged he had been manhandled by police during his arrest. I thought, at first, that the article said he had made his allegations in a "Sixty Mimes" interview. Then I saw, no, different program. That's too bad. There should be an interview show called Sixty Mimes.

Interviewer: ...
Guest: Pardon me?
Interviewer: [Stands up in a large "Y" shape]
Guest: ...Why?
Interviewer: [Nods. Points at guest. Cradles invisible baby in one arm, invisible chicken carcass in other.]
Guest: I think I can see where this is going.
Interviewer: ["Feeds" invisible chicken carcass to second interviewer who is lying on floor, making snapping motions with arms]

Also, I see that Franck Le Calvez is suing Disney because he thinks Nemo is too similar to his 1995 book "Pierrot le Poisson Clown". No idea what a poison clown has to do with a cute little fish. Maybe they'll make *his* book into a movie, and then kids will go around flushing clowns down toilets.

Meanwhile, it's snowing here, steadily. I took the train to work today because I didn't relish driving my Doblo into a ditch this morning. Yesterday I had to call the auto club to send a mechanic to give me a jump start because where I live was one of the coldest spots in Austria yesterday, and the Dobló, being a diesel, is more of a summer car. My neighbor walked past while I was trying to start it and suggested I put super gasoline into the tank, a few liters, to thaw it out (I hadn't known diesel contains paraffin which solidifies at low temperatures). I said thanks for the info but it's more of a dead battery problem. Then my father-in-law showed up and tried to start it before the mechanic got there (the club dispatcher said there could be a 3-hour wait) but then the mechanic showed up (after only 15 minutes instead of 90) and said hi to my father-in-law, under whom he had served in the armed forces (my father-in-law had been the head mechanic or something). He, the mechanic, had big, long, cool jumper cables and got the car started in seconds. What a pain a frozen car is. At least the doors didn't freeze shut this time - it was too cold or something, at -20 Celsius. My mom said when she was driving bus, they never locked the doors or put on the emergency brakes when it was that cold, to avoid freezing problems. I took a chance and locked it, though, otherwise the cats would have climbed in sometime last night and run down the battery listening to the radio. And I have a headache.

Falling in love

Alpha does the cutest goofy Mr. MacGregor voice when she reads The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit to Gamma.

Resolutions

Condensed from post below.

1. Novel etc etc. TMC 2004? Not sure about that one, Bauke. I'm still sore from the last one.
   
2. More making fun of memes
   
3. See if Amazon has resolve for Eeksy-Peeksy
   
4. More fiction etc etc. (Or at least get rid of the date-stamping over at Pain Suit so it's not so obvious when I go so long between posts there)
   
5. "Reach detente with the cat." Which pissed on bath mat again yesterday, and appears to like dodging snowballs in back yard.
   
6. Reduce creepiness about daughter's friend. Now listen: no creepiness, seriously. She is a talented, intelligent kid who I wish would get more support for that from her environment. Who is at this moment vacationing in Mexico with family. Probably in a bikini.
   
7. More glitter. This is an easy one, I have two daughters. When I vacuum the house, the bag is half full of glitter, and half of tinsel. "Shlick" is the sound a Barbie shoe makes shooting up the vacuum hose.
   
8. Post often. Aw.
   
9. More bluegrass? What about Irish trad?
   
10. King of the Hill, is that something to do with TV?
    
11. Exercize and eat my silliness.
    
12. Something weekly with Alpha.
    
13. Something with Bug. Emulate success of Chrales Shclutz.
    
14. Hook up Zambian deathrock lioness thingy with agent, helicopters. Enjoy advance, massive dinner.

Snowbound

1. On phone with mom: "We got about a foot," she said. "And now they expect freezing rain on top of that. I might have to four-wheel your dad in for dialysis tomorrow." "We're getting a few measly flakes," I said. "It won't amount to anything."
2. Out shoveling snow the next morning, glance across street when there is an expensive-sounding crash. A woman lost control of her car and drove it into a frozen snowbank along the sidewalk and got stuck. Front-wheel drive. The tires go "zzzzzz!" A man (passing? got out of passenger seat?) tells her she's leaking coolant. He picks up her front bumper and puts it in the trunk.
3. In-between shoveling the walk I listened to the news. Trucks blocking roads here and there.
4. Shovel a few more times. It works like this: shoveled, then when finished the falling snow had pretty much covered things up again, start over directly or say the hell with it and go in for a coffee or something. Call in to work and say won't be coming in. Monday was a "window day" here, which is what they call days wedged in between weekends and holidays (Tuesday, today, is a religious holiday here).
5. Later, shovel more snow, sweep the cars clean, trudge through snow with family. Confess to wife that "I'm not a snow person," but then realize that one, I'm not cold anywhere, being bundled up quite professionally and two I'm having fun. Make snow angel. Pull little one on sled.
6. Shovel walk. Actually, when the snow is dry you can get away with sweeping it if it's not too deep. Then go into town to try on ski boots. Being a neophyte, I have no idea how a ski boot is supposed to fit. Wife, being a true expert on this, knows far more than the salesman. I got carving skis for Christmas, you see. Occasionally I get this belief in gadgets. This gadget will change my life. Turn my life around. I felt like that when a great uncle gave me a wallet full of fishing flies when I was a boy, when I got my first camera, my first typewriter, my first word processor, this PC here. Now I'm putting my faith in skis and whatever flashy pair of skiboots my wife picks out for me.

Interactive Resolve

This year you get to make my New Year's Resolutions for 2004.
In the comments.
[Take it easy, remember my kid reads this.]

Black Eye for the White Guy

Television needs interesting shows. Something based on the naughty cheesecake sensibility of the 1940-1960 era, roughly, for example. I'd eventually watch that.

Or a series of makeovers. Here are some ideas:

• Black Eye for the White Guy: Non-white consultants punch white people in the face.
  
• Plain Eye for the Hochmut Guy: Amish consultants help flashy subjects be more down-to-earth.
  
• Rich Eye for the White Trash Guy: Wealthy consultants teach subjects how to play golf, how to insider trade, etc.
  
• Poor Eye for the Rich Guy: Consultants from poor countries teach subjects from rich countries how to cope with contaminated drinking water and mine fields, how to decorate for Christmas when your hamlet is being bombarded.
  
• Zen Eye for the Something Guy: Consultants in long robes hit kneeling subjects with bamboo rods every time one of their cell phones goes off and oh shut up, Mig.
  

Against

I set the alarm for five-thirty and snuck out of bed and ate breakfast quietly but my wife got up and came down to keep me company before I could sneak out of the house. I had a second bowl of Special-K and another mug of coffee and we chatted amiably. Then I showered and shaved; drying my hair I once again had to ask myself what my hair stylist was thinking; she gave me this stylish cut this time that reminds me of nothing except a baby mullet. Oh well. It'll grow out. Then, bye wife, drive careful Mig, and there I was. In the car. On the way to work. Adieu, holidays.

Sometimes a man needs to go to work, you know? Listen to Sepultura, for example the CD he got himself for Xmas, Against, without anyone telling him to turn it down or put something else in. Without having to go on about what a nice baritone their lead singer has on some of their songs - not on this particular album, but when he slows down and stops screaming, seriously, nice baritone. Without having to feel bad when they just rock out.

Take the tenth cut on Against, for example. Reza, it's called. Their singer sounds like he's in the trunk of a Cadillac on that one, with someone sticking a mop into his mouth. Only instead of a mop on the end of the handle, there's a live sable. I mean this in a good way. Do you ever think this - that Orcs would listen to AC/DC and Uruk-Hai would listen to Sepultura? Listening to Reza, one tends to envision two young Uruk-Hai gals on American Bandstand, leaning against the podium, sort of bouncing as it plays; their hair up and strings of stinking rotting human heads garlanded around their thick necks, medallions around their necks of screaming faces, hammered out of pitchblende. And the song ends and the one says, "I like it, Dick, it's got a good steady beat and... where are you sneaking off to, Dick?" And Dick Clark, smile frozen on his face, goes "gack" as she grabs him by the throat and the second Uruk-Hai teen says, "oh, great, Ginger, now look what you've done, like they're going to let us on any more teevee shows after this."

Sometimes you need a holiday, and sometimes you need to go to work, is all I'm saying.

Advice to poets

Try publishing your poems in book form, rather than on the internet.

See, it's simple. You have to do the math. If something inspired, say,

Why was he naked? Who
tucked a Pennysaver
between his buttocks?
Who circled the snow blower
ad on page seventeen?

The problem is, however, you'd all have to do it. If one good poet keeps publishing his or her poems online instead of in book form, then everyone would read that instead of buying the other poets' books probably.

Also, it would make reading poetry in the tub safer. Like, only the sheer inspiration of words would shock you.