-------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Psychotherapy, psychotherapy, psychotherapy... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/01/2003 06:26:53 AM ----- BODY:

freud2.jpg
Guest post by Sigmund Freud
Mig is taking a short break and he asked me to guest-author here and here I so totally am. Mig's decided to start looking for a psychotherapist although -- and I totally agree with him here -- he dislikes the expression "therapy" as it sounds too nurturing. Of course, knowing him, a decision to start looking for something is not the same as looking for it; it's more likely the beginning of a long period of acclimating himself to the idea or, in other words, procrastination. But anyway.
[snifffffffff]
The nurturing idea of psychotherapy or any other kind of therapy totally misses that nature and nurture are -- at least from adulthood -- not only no longer the driving forces behind who we are, they are like drogue chutes on the dragster of our self-determination. Self-determination, ladies and gentlemen, is the shit. There are many among us who *do* need therapy, and do need to be nurtured, and I don't wish to short change them. But the whole idea of blaming everyone's problems on having a, for instance, smothering overprotective mother who stressed them out and paralyzed them when they were kids is to say the least incomplete. You reach a certain point, which scientists call adulthood, where you are ultimately responsible for yourself, above-mentioned exceptions excepted.
[snifffffffff]
I don't wish to appear insensitive. I am a very sensitive man. But those patients of mine? Most of them were hysterical bored wives of rich industrialists who never got laid well except when posing for a portrait by Gustav Klimt and were looking for something to occupy their time and a little sympathy, and their husbands just were paying me to make them function. I couldn't just tell them to go get a good fuck, although it would certainly have helped a good number of them. So that would be my first word of advice, is in fact, in the new system I am developing. Everybody get fucked. If that doesn't work call me in the morning and I'll kick your ass.
[sniffffffff]
Mig, for example, needs his ass kicked. He doesn't need therapy or someone to tell him about his childhood. He doesn't need to feel good because he already feels fine. He gets all the sympathy he deserves. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have all that explained so he could understand it, but if he wants to grow up all he needs is a good asskicking. That's my working name for my new system, "kicking ass" but eventually I'll think of something smarter-sounding for marketing purposes. "Laziness is your fundamental problem, Mig," I would tell him. "That's what's got you hogtied. You call it serenity and equanimous acceptance of your situation, but it's pure laziness. How can you become a published writer if you don't write anything? Duh. You're only a writer when you write. So that's the second point of my program: kick the patient's ass.
[snifffffff]
You also must realize that not taking any shit is key in developing self respect and spine. So that's a third point: don't take any more shit after I kick your ass. When you stop letting me kick your ass, I know you're making progress. Not taking shit has consequences, of course. But would you rather be employed or have self-respect? Would you rather be married or have a backbone? Maybe by not taking shit you really piss someone off and they kill you. But at your funeral, your friends will say, in reverent tones: "He may be dead, but he sure didn't take any shit."
[sniffffffff]
My new book is so going to rule. Book, TV show, lecture tours. Chicks. Goddamn.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Guest post by Sigmund Freud Mig is taking a short break and he asked me to guest-author here and here I so totally am. Mig's decided to start looking for a psychotherapist although -- and I totally agree with... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: chris EMAIL: chris@nospam.com IP: 216.62.108.26 URL: http://www.javablack.com DATE: 08/01/2003 12:11:58 PM

So, Doctor- what you're saying is: if I keep telling myself that everything is beautiful and think positive thoughts, I'm in fact perpetuating a false sense of security which invites disaster. Instead of relaxing and allowing myself to 'just be' , I'm leaving myself prone receive a king-hell asskicking. After this jacked-up week, that makes sense.

I need to find a morning field of my own with deer and sunflowers.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: sigmund EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 213.229.54.217 URL: DATE: 08/01/2003 12:36:47 PM

Well, maybe. But maybe you're really healthy, there's a risk of that too. You only *need* an ass-kicking when you feel sorry for yourself and want therapy, is what I'm saying. Of course, life dishes out its own asskickings independently of whether we need them or not. I'd say, if we're going to get our asses kicked anyway, might as well enjoy the flowers.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: On freelance writing STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/01/2003 07:00:29 AM ----- BODY:

The key to a successful freelance career: a diary.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: The key to a successful freelance career: a diary.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Pingpong STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/01/2003 08:54:50 AM ----- BODY:

Look at this.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Look at this.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bauke EMAIL: b@schildt.***.nl IP: 195.23.141.166 URL: DATE: 08/01/2003 11:11:49 AM

Great, isn't it.
Let me dig up a link I found with some more of those.
From what I understand it's a competition on Japanese TV where they do all sorts of stuff like this.
These guys where the obvious winners.

Dig

Dig

http://www.ntv.co.jp/kasoh/past_movie/index.html

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ratty EMAIL: ratty@surreally.net IP: 4.62.44.110 URL: http://ratty.surreally.net DATE: 08/02/2003 06:49:01 AM

amazingly hysterical :)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: chris EMAIL: chris@nospam.com IP: 216.62.108.26 URL: http://www.javablack.com DATE: 08/02/2003 21:01:22 PM

That is SO cool.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Field at 7.35 in the morning STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/01/2003 09:44:48 AM ----- BODY:

Cool temperatures, overcast. Doe and twin fawns grazing next to the freeway.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Cool temperatures, overcast. Doe and twin fawns grazing next to the freeway.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: What I'm doing on my summer vacation STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/03/2003 21:05:12 PM ----- BODY:

What I've always dreamed of doing: staying home and relaxing.
Friday: dinner at friends (eldest daughter's harp teacher, her family, etc.). In the courtyard of an old building in Vienna. Her father told stories about being a POW in the USSR during/after WWII. The food was good (at our dinner, not in the POW camps). Her father is a wine dealer, so the wine was also good.
Saturday: Stayed home and recovered from Friday night. Relaxed.
Sunday: Went to a cheesy Western theme park. About an hour drive there through beautiful hilly countryside. Park: run-down looking when you arrive (probably very authentic, I'm sure lots of old Western towns in the US looked that way). Many of the employees looked like ex-cons and/or recovering addicts and/or bikers. Nice people too. Food service was slowwww. They had a single "Indian": a gentleman from Guatamala. There were, surprisingly, lots of things to do. We hung out there all day. Prices were reasonable. In other words, it was great. I loved it. They had trick riding shows. I pressured eldest daughter and her girlfriend into buying "Indian" earrings. Didn't have to pressure wife or youngest daughter to purchase jewelry.
We went canoeing on a murky pond. Youngest daughter pet horses, rode one. She also did the bullriding thing with me, and then again with her sister. Did a bunch of other stuff. Not once, not once, not eating, or drinking, or doing anything else, did we get ripped off. Have you ever been to a theme park where that happened? After my recent circus trip, it was refreshing not to get robbed.
More later.
Oh, wait. They even had a "Western circus" that was okay. Kind of second rate. Of course, they had a woman ("buckskin" halter top, short "buckskin" hot pants) doing a snakegirl dance suspended in mid air from a silver hulahoop, for the dads.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: What I've always dreamed of doing: staying home and relaxing. Friday: dinner at friends (eldest daughter's harp teacher, her family, etc.). In the courtyard of an old building in Vienna. Her father told stories about being a POW in the... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eeksy-Peeksy EMAIL: eeksyCUTTHISBITpeeksy@yahoo.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/04/2003 06:28:42 AM

Buckskin.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Summer vacation II STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/05/2003 14:20:46 PM ----- BODY:

Cleaning lady just showed up. Now I have to go into the back yard to read Harry Potter. On the agenda this evening: birthday celebration for inlaws and eldest daughter. Wife cooking steaks, which she does well (organic beef). I make garlic bread and salad. And mix drinks, which I am not so good at, but luckily your average Austrian is not so familiar with cocktails and assumes all Americans are experts heh.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Cleaning lady just showed up. Now I have to go into the back yard to read Harry Potter. On the agenda this evening: birthday celebration for inlaws and eldest daughter. Wife cooking steaks, which she does well (organic beef). I... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eeksy-Peeksy EMAIL: eeksyCUTTHISBITpeeksy@yahoo.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/06/2003 09:05:08 AM

Shouldn't the wife be wearing some sort of, I don't know, maybe... buckskin? You could probably make a pretty good country song out of it, too. "She cooks steaks for me in a buckskin bikini" is the sort of thing to which a toe-tapping guy could tap his toes. And strum.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: joeri EMAIL: joeri.cornille@pandora.be IP: 193.244.32.12 URL: http://www.urendagennachten.be/blogger.html DATE: 08/06/2003 09:09:14 AM

Happy B-day for the eldest & the inlaws! And, oh, what eeksy said about the buckskin bikini ;)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bauke EMAIL: bauke@schildt.SPAMMEISTER.nl IP: 195.23.141.166 URL: DATE: 08/07/2003 18:15:08 PM

What do you think of the new Harry Potter?
I just finished it. All 700something pages of it.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.142 URL: DATE: 08/07/2003 22:41:25 PM

I thought it was a good read. I thought it sort of fell apart at the end, though, in a lot of ways, although I was genuinely surprised when Dumbledore went mad and killed Ron and Hermione before Harry could kill him. Oh, sorry, hope everyone's read it. WARNING: SPOILER, SPOILER!!! Too late, sorry.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Vacation III STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/06/2003 19:33:59 PM ----- BODY:

Hot again. Went to an exhibition after lunch, at a local museum, of "fantastic realism" painters (including Ernst Fuchs, who I previously thought was overrated, but now think is a genius). Took eldest daughter's girlfriend who likes art and seems to us to be getting shortchanged by her parents attention-wise this summer. Is there anything nicer than teens enjoying a trip to an art museum?

I suppose there must be lots of things, but it was still nice. Then we came home and splashed in the mother of all wading pools. They did, I read. Then we were too lazy to cook dinner so went to a wine tavern.

Tomorrow friends are visiting for a barbecue. They are bringing 5 kids, so I suppose the yard gets trashed. As long as no holes are poked in the pool and the cellar doesn't get flooded I'll be happy. The key to happiness is not getting your hopes up.

I haven't read a newspaper in days, except a few Japan Times we get days late. I don't even know what day it is.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Hot again. Went to an exhibition after lunch, at a local museum, of "fantastic realism" painters (including Ernst Fuchs, who I previously thought was overrated, but now think is a genius). Took eldest daughter's girlfriend who likes art and seems... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: chris EMAIL: chris@nospam.com IP: 216.62.108.26 URL: http://www.javablack.com DATE: 08/07/2003 06:06:44 AM

Is Dr. Freud still there? If so, ask him what it means when, even though I don't have children, I'm phobic about what it would be like to have a daughter who looks that good when she's still barely a teenager (shudder).

Meanwhile, Fuchs himself resembles Freud a bit I think. I also like his Medieval Modernism (or 'Fantastic Realism') style... reminds me I should go to church more often. Especially because of the daughter-phobia thing.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: zizka EMAIL: zizka@johnjemerson.com IP: 69.30.9.137 URL: DATE: 08/12/2003 02:00:47 AM

I've always wondered how guys do it who coach young women's (i.e. girls') sports teams. It's really hard not to think that way. Fortunately, one way or the other, almost all of them think older guys are ludicrously unattractive. "Older" meaning 30+.

Come to think of it, didn't Demi Moore get her start as jail bait? And now look at what the bitch is doing! I don't really believe that she sincerely loves Ashton, I think she's just making some kind of point. Time flies.

Poor Ashton. Poor Dan Savage.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ginny W EMAIL: ohios@yahoo.com IP: 200.83.142.171 URL: DATE: 08/16/2003 04:58:22 AM

Alas, the cruelness and crudenes of biology...
I dunno, I remember being VERY attracted to 30+ men when I was that age...
since I never quite resembled anyone´s idea of a Cute Playboy Bunny, however, none of it really materialized in any way for me--

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Eave STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/07/2003 22:38:04 PM ----- BODY:

A brown bat has been spending the days upside-down under our eaves, snoozing as kids frolic fifteen feet below it in the mother of all wading pools. I barbecued chicken satay today, served with peanut sauce. Friends made salad. They asked me how to make the tasty peanut sauce. Here's how:


After everyone left, our kids went to bed, we cleaned up and reclined on lounge chairs in the backyard, staring at the sky, waiting for falling stars, and were not disappointed.
At one point I saw a bat.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: A brown bat has been spending the days upside-down under our eaves, snoozing as kids frolic fifteen feet below it in the mother of all wading pools. I barbecued chicken satay today, served with peanut sauce. Friends made salad. They... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Leann EMAIL: indigoblog@yahoo.com IP: 24.209.176.204 URL: http://www.indigoblog.tk DATE: 08/08/2003 07:24:15 AM

Ahhh! A movie score: end where you began. :)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/08/2003 09:25:03 AM

Uh, Mig, those instructions were a bit complicated, can you simplify them please?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.153 URL: DATE: 08/08/2003 18:23:34 PM

"Have wife take care of peanut sauce?"

These friends, BTW, brought vast quantities of food as well - couscous, falafel, various olives, dried tomatoes, bread etc. And left the leftovers, which we're still eating.

Us and the flies. It's a race.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Poem you've probably already seen by someone else STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/07/2003 22:47:15 PM ----- BODY:

My father in
hell pushes
buttons that
do nothing.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: My father in hell pushes buttons that do nothing.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Rest STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/08/2003 18:32:32 PM ----- BODY:

I just have this aversion to the "spiritual but not religious" box on the surveys, you know?

Vacation, you know. We decided to do something every other day, and rest in between. Do nothing. Today was a do nothing day.

There were flies swarming a pickled pepper on the counter when I walked into the kitchen just now. They formed the shape of a "6". Practicing, I suppose, for tomorrow morning when I walk in to see the full crew making a "666".

And hear the devil's voice telling me to mix pina coladas. But I have no crushed ice, I'd say. But you bought those plastic forms to make ice cubes yesterday at the hardware store, the devil's voice would say. Oh yeah, I'd say. I forgot, I was really tired, I thought I was dropping my kid off to rowing practice I'd say. In the blazing sun, and they Shanghaied me and made me practice starts with them in the middle of the Danube without any sunscreen, I'd say. Poor guy, the devil's voice would say. And that's not all I'd say. Afterwards my kid made me run a mile with her to cool down, I'd say. She has her dad's sense of humor, the devil's voice would say. Heh, I'd say. And then I had to go the hardware store with my daughter, I'd say. With her hot friend, don't forget her hot friend, the devil's voice would say. Yeah right, I'd say. And I sent them looking for scented antimosquito candles while I got biodegradable garbage bags and those plastic icecube things, like plastic bags with individual ice cube pockets in them, I'd say. Exactly, the devil's voice would say. And I'm still sunburnt and sore and have a headache, I'd say. Let me make those pina colada's, the devil's voice would say. And my wife would eventually come downstairs for her coffee and say, what no coffee yet? Try one of these drinks, I'd say. You have to try one of these drinks.

Then I'd swat a couple flies.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Lack the necessary faith and strength of conviction to be a decent atheist. Check. Swat too many flies to be a good Buddhist. Check. I just have this aversion to the "spiritual but not religious" box on the surveys, you... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/09/2003 04:53:20 AM

Wait, you have actual pickled peppers?
Like, the type one might once have had a peck of?
That's crazy. I thought those were just made up.

Also? Can I have a daquiri?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: marydell EMAIL: mistress@bookblog.net IP: 138.89.142.137 URL: http://www.bookblog.net DATE: 08/10/2003 04:50:56 AM

It doesn't really take a whole lot of strength of conviction to be an atheist. I simply made up my mind and never listen to other people's opinions. They can go on believing in their gods as long as they don't try to recruit me.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Misperception STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/08/2003 18:49:28 PM ----- BODY:

Woke this morning to what sounded so much like a kid coughing that even after I figured out it was a neighbor hammering, I still checked my kid's bed which was empty because she was sleeping in her sister's bed.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Woke this morning to what sounded so much like a kid coughing that even after I figured out it was a neighbor hammering, I still checked my kid's bed which was empty because she was sleeping in her sister's bed.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Perfect peach daiquiri STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/10/2003 06:39:43 AM ----- BODY:

My wife and I were in a diner. Just sat down when I saw EeksyPeeksy at the next table. "Look," I whispered. "EeksyPeeksy." He was even eating French toast. "He writes so beautifully about French toast."

Then the six-year-old kicked me in the head and I woke up.

Yesterday we went to two abbeys/monasteries. Maybe one of each, I'm not good at telling them apart. One was in Melk, where "Name of the Rose" starts, you may recall. Great exhibition there. Not sure about what, but very impressively done. Many tour buses too, from all over. Got funny looks from Americans who heard me speaking American with the little one, and her answering in Austrian. She was after me to carry her on my shoulders all morning and I kept saying no, it's too hot today and you're too heavy.

We passed a fountain full of coins. What's that she asked me. You throw in a coin and make a wish. I gave her a coin, she made a wish and looked up at me. I picked her up and carried her on my shoulders.

Fancy library at Melk. Fancy baroque gardens. Nice view of the Danube valley.

Hot driving home too. Tired. It wouldn't be a family vacation, would it, without bickering in a hot car? Stopped at a roadside stand and bought two kilos of small, bruised peaches. Today, the next day, already looking soft, which means:

Peach Daiquiris tonight.

You can make them like this, Perfect Peach Daiquiris, but I've never tried that recipe because it has eight ingredients and requires a blender, which we do not have. Instead, I use our ice cream maker, add pureed peaches, lemon juice, brown sugar and a little water and mix until it freezes then either serve to kids or add rum and mix a little more and serve to adults. If you put the glasses into the freezer beforehand you get the extra frosty thing which is also a nice serving touch.

The six-year-old, whose life goal as I've mentioned is to run a disco and live upstairs prefers to invent her own drinks. Most recently, she had me mix blue curacao, lime syrup, banana syrup, lime juice, orange juice and fizzy mineral water in a shaker with ice cubes, served over ice cubes. Of course the fizzy mineral water squirts everywhere when you shake it, for extra entertainment, dad making everything green in the kitchen.

We call it a Gamma Fizz.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: My wife and I were in a diner. Just sat down when I saw EeksyPeeksy at the next table. "Look," I whispered. "EeksyPeeksy." He was even eating French toast. "He writes so beautifully about French toast." Then the six-year-old kicked... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eeksy-Peeksy EMAIL: eeksyCUTTHISBITpeeksy@yahoo.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/10/2003 11:49:43 AM

Au contraire
I know nothing
about French toast
down the hatch
I know and
here's how
to your health
cheers and even
skoal and na zdrowie
but I not a
lick of French

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sarah EMAIL: sjersild@hotmail.com IP: 12.247.228.188 URL: http://www.fiendishplot.com DATE: 08/10/2003 16:14:37 PM

Heee! Eeksy-Peeksy, you're my hero.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ratty EMAIL: ratty@surreally.net IP: 4.62.44.113 URL: http://ratty.surreally.net DATE: 08/11/2003 01:15:22 AM

rofl! the GammaFizz :)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bauke EMAIL: bauke@schildt.PARANOID.nl IP: 195.23.141.166 URL: DATE: 08/11/2003 15:17:30 PM

Ehm. Doesn't Blue Curacao contain alcohol? I know it used to be the choice drink for 16 year olds (Nice and sweet)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eeksy-Peeksy EMAIL: eeksypeeksy@REMOVETHISPARTyahoo.com IP: 213.76.25.231 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/11/2003 19:34:45 PM

[know]

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eeksy-Peeksy EMAIL: eeksypeeksy@REMOVETHISPARTyahoo.com IP: 213.76.25.231 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/11/2003 19:37:44 PM

(These chips are green and I'm eating them, poor chips.)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.177 URL: DATE: 08/11/2003 19:40:47 PM

that would explain why she fell into the tub just now, brushing her teeth.

but it says on the bottle, no alcohol. i checked.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/12/2003 09:53:06 AM

I don't want kids. I don't want kids. I don't want...

damnit Mig...

I don't want kids. I don't want kids. I don't want kids...

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Blind Man's Wasp STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/11/2003 19:51:34 PM ----- BODY:

Another hot day. House of acquaintances. Parents of eldest daughter's hot friend in fact. They show us their pool. Part of my wife's secret campaign to get my okay for a pool upgrade. I do a belly flop, tell my kid, That was my first belly flop in -- do the math in my head -- thirty years.

Gah.

Sitting around a table on their terrace later on, eating apples from their tree, and currant juice from their currants, admiring their ornamental squash plant. Plant of ornamental squash, whatever. Eating banana cake, very popular with the wasps this season as well.

They have other visitors, a woman and her blind friend, guy thirty five or forty. Someone says Internet, he talks about accessible technologies, interesting. Not as interesting as the wasp walking laps around the rim of his drinking glass, dipping down now and then to take a nip of currant juice.

Around and around, as we watch in silence.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Another hot day. House of acquaintances. Parents of eldest daughter's hot friend in fact. They show us their pool. Part of my wife's secret campaign to get my okay for a pool upgrade. I do a belly flop, tell my... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/11/2003 21:49:43 PM

He totally knew it was there, and was just fucking with you. I betcha $10.

There's a great article by Oliver Sacks in a recent New Yorker on blindness and enhanced modes of consciousness (basically).

I'm having a 33rd Birthday party this weekend. I would have invited you, but I'm *pretty sure* you're not on this continent then. You're not, right? So I was about 3 when you had you second-to-last belly flop - and I feel old.
At least: I did until I read that.
So thank you from the bottom of my Time-to-get-Messianic-Feeling, um, Soul.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: peggy EMAIL: moveable@moveablebeast.com IP: 204.116.59.225 URL: http://www.moveablebeast.com DATE: 08/12/2003 22:23:39 PM

This made me think about Carver's story, "Cathedral" again. Thanks.
But also about how I can't swim. Oh yeah pal, thanks a lot.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.181 URL: DATE: 08/13/2003 06:11:57 AM

Do me a favor Peggy, and learn to swim.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.181 URL: DATE: 08/13/2003 06:23:10 AM

And thanks, I'm reading Cathedral right now.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Tent STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/12/2003 05:33:28 AM ----- BODY:

"Look! A falling star! Just what I wished for at the wishing fountain! Now I can make another wish!"

The weather has been hot, we've been sleeping in the back yard in a tent with a see-thru roof and watching the stars fall. The cats can't figure it out, they are concerned about us and crawl up onto the tent and look at us until we knock them back off.

Mosquito-wise it's really good, fewer bites than in the house.

Moon last night was almost full - it's full tonight. And Mars up over the neighbor's house, bigger than it has been in what, 2000 years? Back when I was doing belly flops right and left. Cannonballs. You name it.

Today I go to Vienna all by myself and walk around until it dawns on my that I am lost without my wife or a kid. I'll take a camera to buy a little time - I can take pictures when I start feeling lost. Go to a cemetery and shoot headstones maybe before giving up and going to the English bookstore and browsing. Go into St. Stephen's Cathedral and absorb stories or just history.

We went to the Music House yesterday, which is quite nice, except the interactive touchscreens were hard to figure out and a waste of time in general - cutting-edge 1999 technology. The percussion things, like rocks covered with anemones and clams and urchins made of hardish rubber, you hit them and they played brief sound samples, so you could get a fun rhythm of burps and squeals going, were wonderful on the other hand.

They had things on the wall, funnels and hemispheres, you stick your head up to them and hear Tokyo subways or a monkey ooking in a space capsule.

Interstellar space is entrancing. I listened to that the longest. Chinese singing sanddunes are a close second, though. Oldest daughter and I mixed a 3 minute CD of alarm clock sound, farting, Lisbon street sounds, the Blue Danube Waltz and us singing, but then decided not to buy it because, you know, €7.20 for a 3 minute CD?

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: "Look! A falling star! Just what I wished for at the wishing fountain! Now I can make another wish!" The weather has been hot, we've been sleeping in the back yard in a tent with a see-thru roof and watching... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/12/2003 09:50:21 AM

Space Monkeys... cool

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: joeri EMAIL: joeri.cornille@pandora.be IP: 217.136.137.135 URL: http://www.urendagennachten.be/blogger.html DATE: 08/12/2003 13:41:33 PM

Did they have the sound of one hand clapping as well? That would certainly be worth the €7.20 ;)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: marydell EMAIL: mistress@bookblog.net IP: 141.150.34.83 URL: http://www.bookblog.net DATE: 08/15/2003 06:31:02 AM

You're so good at keeping yourself occupied on vacation. For lack of anything better to do, I've gone into hiding.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Concave STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/12/2003 19:56:35 PM ----- BODY:

So I shaved off the goatee I'd been growing over vacation. It was looking way too little like this, and way too much like this, or maybe on a good day this. Anyway. I look ten years younger. The wife had been protesting, so I couldn't shave it off right away. Had to wait a few days. But it's a relief.

Now if they could just fix the shop windows in Vienna. Walking around today, they all, without exception, made me look shorter and fatter than I swear to God I am. They must all be so old they've gone concave.

Then I bought a notebook at one shop, and "White Apples" by Jonathan Carroll, an American living in Vienna, who Gaiman fans would like, a lot of weird things happen in the book, and outside it, like when I was sitting on the bench in front of the movie theater waiting for my wife and daughter to show up so we could watch Charlie's Angels II (great film!!!!) (just kidding!!!!) a very large drunk guy materialized in front of me. Instead of warning me that White Apples doesn't get such great reviews on Amazon, he said, "Grng" a few times, sort of gesturing. He was talking, but I couldn't even have told you which language. Then he tore a page out of the book.

There is no point, in my philosophy, in fighting drunk guys. Especially when they look more than a little thick etc and are way bigger than you. No honor either way - they win, you look bad, you win big deal you beat up a drunk guy. So to spite him I left in the direction opposite where he was pointing. I guess I had his bench, see. Later I saw him and another wino friend sitting there.

In the morning I took real pictures with an analog camera. In the evening I watched my daughter's face at the wine tavern where we kept getting things we hadn't ordered, and thought what a good cure she is for homesickness, the way her pretty face so resembles other pretty faces in my family - dark hair, light skin, green eyes, freckles, big mouth.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: So I shaved off the goatee I'd been growing over vacation. It was looking way too little like this, and way too much like this, or maybe on a good day this. Anyway. I look ten years younger. The wife... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: gwen EMAIL: gwen@ofrenda.org IP: 66.218.55.57 URL: http://www.ofrenda.org/rawr DATE: 08/12/2003 21:06:36 PM

Mmmmmmmmdepp. Thank you. That made my day.

Where's the picture of yours?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/14/2003 09:52:18 AM

Books are sacred, especially good books. I'd beat any man, drunk or sober, who tore up the book I was reading to my kid.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.183 URL: DATE: 08/14/2003 14:08:47 PM

Well, I was just reading it to myself as I waited for the women to show up. And it wasn't clear to me whether or not he tore page 27 intentionally -- although it appeared to be.

By the way, I finished White Apples last night, stayed up until after midnight reading it. I liked it quite a bit, better than the earlier Carrolls I've read, he seems to be growing. Although some of the reviewers at Amazon.com said this wasn't as good as some previous...

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Cam EMAIL: punkclown@iprimus.com.au IP: 210.50.216.137 URL: http://punkclown.blogspot.com DATE: 08/15/2003 05:26:57 AM

I can't abide the defacing of books. I am really, really trying to teach my 2 year old about this. Thanks for the reference to another interesting book I may read. Your site is fascinating, I love the graphic and the bug cartoon on death. I must go back now and read more. I wonder if I am becoming a blog-addict?
:-)>

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Darni EMAIL: darni45@hotmail.com IP: 172.172.108.140 URL: http://shesundone.hookerdust.com DATE: 08/15/2003 19:08:13 PM

lookin like colonel sanders and every now and then johnny depp? you could have at least allowed us to have a look and decide for ourselves?

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: So you've got a coccyx STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/19/2003 06:32:47 AM ----- BODY:

Did Shania Twain record a song about a coccyx or was it just a dream?
And what is it with obscenities? So many of them refer to positive things. Take the colloquial term for fellatrix/fellator, just for one example. That should be a term of praise, IMO. Those people should all get gold watches and income tax deductions. When I am appointed language czar, my first act will be to replace all current obscenities with more appropriate words:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Did Shania Twain record a song about a coccyx or was it just a dream? And what is it with obscenities? So many of them refer to positive things. Take the colloquial term for fellatrix/fellator, just for one example. That... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alexandra EMAIL: alex@wrywriter.com IP: 207.253.64.51 URL: http://wrywriter.com DATE: 08/19/2003 13:45:17 PM

LOL! That reminds me of when I was a kid, my dad use to use the word Dalmation everytime he wanted to swear. We picked up some funny words from both parents, over the years. When they swore we extended a very strange vocabulary. Aren't families fun? ;-)

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Onions STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/19/2003 07:25:39 AM ----- BODY:

So it was a good vacation, but I'm happy to be back at work. I'm happy to be wherever I am, and if I had a coffee or a drink it would usually be perfect. Friday and Saturday I was busy helping out at the rowing club's annual fundraiser. They do this open-air restaurant/barbecue/wine/beer thing and I slice things in the kitchen. Meat, onions, horseradish, pickles, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers I sliced. Not my fingers, unlike some other helpers.

The man in charge of the kitchen has a knife-sharpening fetish. I was very careful.

You'd set a knife down and he'd be all over it. "Here, let me sharpen that."

I must have sliced my weight in blood sausage.

Sometimes I ran down to the refrigerator truck for more supplies. It had no lighting, so at night it was a problem finding stuff. Have you ever tried to distinguish one sort of ham-like coldcut meat from another lean bacon-like coldcut meat in a refrigerator truck in the dark? I think if you can do it, you are automatically awarded Austrian citizenship.

The first day there was a guy helping out in the kitchen, a total male chauvinist jock. Basically when he didn't talk sports he talked about his recent bout of food poisoning and how he lost six pounds in a week. And he sliced the onions too thick. When he wasn't looking, I took his slices out of the dish and sliced them thinner.

My oldest daughter waitressed. She took it very seriously. She did a good job. The last day, Sunday, I had to work somewhere else and just showed up in the evening for some dinner. My youngest daughter had found an apron somewhere and was running around waitressing as well. Six years old. Clearing empty glasses and things. I had her bring me a beer. She demanded a tip.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: So it was a good vacation, but I'm happy to be back at work. I'm happy to be wherever I am, and if I had a coffee or a drink it would usually be perfect. Friday and Saturday I was... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: secret agent bran EMAIL: brandy@mizdos.com IP: 170.215.202.58 URL: http://em.mizdos.com/ DATE: 08/19/2003 13:58:56 PM

atta girl! don't be soft just cos' he's your old man.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: kim EMAIL: myname@mydomain.com IP: 81.51.209.94 URL: http://www.emptywishes.net DATE: 08/20/2003 07:43:46 AM

ah, it's moments like those, when one's tyke is serving up liquor, that make you say "thank god I'm in europe!"

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 213.229.54.217 URL: DATE: 08/20/2003 08:06:28 AM

exactly. nothing cuter than a six year old girl in a waitress apron bringing you a pint.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/20/2003 17:31:45 PM

Esp. if she's got pixie wings.
Has she figured out that pixie wings = big tips, yet?

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: My $0.02 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/19/2003 12:19:56 PM ----- BODY:

This may be obvious, which makes it appropriate to write about here since stating the obvious is our specialty -- but what is with the debate about gay marriage? Look, first of all, I'm married: other people's sex lives are none of my business, with the possible exception of my wife. If someone wants to get married -- anyone -- they should have their head examined maybe, maybe not be so closely related that their offspring vote Republican or have twelve toes on each hand and so on, but if two people of the same sex want to have the same legal protection as everyone else, that doesn't dilute the sanctity of anything.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: This may be obvious, which makes it appropriate to write about here since stating the obvious is our specialty -- but what is with the debate about gay marriage? Look, first of all, I'm married: other people's sex lives are... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: joeri EMAIL: joeri.cornille@pandora.be IP: 193.244.32.12 URL: http://www.urendagennachten.be/blogger.html DATE: 08/19/2003 12:37:49 PM

I'm with you. Went to "my first gay wedding" last Saturday and it was all *woohoo* nice :)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alexandra EMAIL: alex@wrywriter.com IP: 207.253.64.51 URL: http://wrywriter.com DATE: 08/19/2003 13:40:12 PM

Thank you. Those few words mean a great deal.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Vex EMAIL: pardueduran@yahoo.com IP: 130.212.246.89 URL: http://www.pardueduran.com/dailyvex.html DATE: 08/19/2003 16:08:03 PM

Here, here!

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Beck EMAIL: mymolloy@hotmail.com IP: 80.201.160.158 URL: http://beckett.skynetblogs.be DATE: 08/19/2003 17:33:49 PM

'Xactly. For some reason they still see the point, so let them go ahead...

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: OliverJ EMAIL: Jadopine@yahoo.com IP: 207.70.63.165 URL: DATE: 08/20/2003 12:19:36 PM

Are you insane? Don't you understand that the actions of some people I have never met, and will never meet, have an incredible influence on my health and well being? If I learned nothing else from high school, I learned that it is never to late to totally overeact to situations that have nothing to do with me. If I can't stop someone from doing what they want to do, for no other reason than because I don't like it, then what is the use of being a spoiled, immature conceited teenager?

If that reasoning doesn't make sense, I might also be able to channel some fundamentalist reasoning for you, but the whiny spoiled teenagers are easier to contact in the astral plane (or in the mall, whichever).

I'm also available for bar mitzvahs, childrens parties, and fund-raisers. Thanks! I'll be here all week. Tip your servers.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Cold comfort STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/19/2003 14:32:06 PM ----- BODY:

Go read Gail Armstrong.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Suddenly overwhelmed by all the brutality and cynicism of humankind, and particularly of those that lead us, bitter about vicious deeds and machinations carried out in our name, and struck by random tales of just how strange we can be.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Identity crisis STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/20/2003 07:13:30 AM ----- BODY:

The gender genie thinks I'm a girl.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: The gender genie thinks I'm a girl.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: kim EMAIL: mname@mydomain.com IP: 81.51.209.94 URL: http://www.emptywishes.net DATE: 08/20/2003 07:45:17 AM

I tried two of my entires... the first one, it thought I was a boy. but then it got its head screwed back on properly with the second.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: marydell EMAIL: mistress@bookblog.net IP: 141.150.33.193 URL: http://www.bookblog.net DATE: 08/20/2003 15:20:35 PM

I'm absolutely floored at how many people have been interested in my little php script. In looking at some of the referrers, and it seems like there are identity crises going on all over blogland. I never thought I’d be such a threat to masculinity.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 213.229.54.217 URL: DATE: 08/21/2003 06:15:42 AM

i tried my five most recent blogposts, all came back "female". i noticed at the time that the script was getting less than 50% right. it would be interesting to know whether that is because the underlying assumptions of the program are incorrect, or whether it works with other texts and blog posts are somehow different.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: aaron EMAIL: aaron@8legs.nu IP: 167.10.240.48 URL: http://8legs.nu DATE: 08/21/2003 22:07:59 PM

i'm right there with you sister.

yes, i hope this is an actual experiment that will be used to prove/disprove the hypothesis. otherwise, bitches need to get their hair did.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: lizard EMAIL: liz@dotlizard.com IP: 206.72.76.25 URL: http://dotlizard.com DATE: 08/22/2003 01:40:57 AM

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: Uh, the Gender Genie has no idea!

yes, i confused the gender genie. i'm so proud.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: marydell EMAIL: mistress@bookblog.net IP: 138.89.184.14 URL: http://www.bookblog.net DATE: 08/22/2003 03:16:50 AM

Personally, I think the science behind the algorithm is flawed. It falls right in line with stereotypes: men write about things while women write about connections.

Each text the scientists used was over 42,000 words long. Maybe you need to feed in that many words for the algorithm to come up with an 80% accuracy rate.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: francis s. EMAIL: francisxstrand@yahoo.com IP: 193.15.61.253 URL: http://www.francisstrand.blogspot.com DATE: 08/22/2003 14:43:21 PM

From the words it highlighted on my texts, apparently men don't use articles, either definite or indefinite.

And, both my writing for work and my blog come out female.

Innaresting.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Clusters STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/21/2003 09:30:31 AM ----- BODY:

I'm sitting here all sad.
Sitting here at the window
Watching grey clouds roll in
Thick cloud cover shading big
parched trees but not
raining.

Just kidding. I could use something though. A vacation. I just had a vacation. Psychotherapy. How do you pick a psychotherapist?

Is crack really as addictive as they say?

I saw a painting by Gustav Klimt once. "Am Attersee" I think it was called, but I can't find anything on the Internet with a color balance approaching what I saw. Beautiful, dark but with this hidden glow to it, pure genius.

The Danube was like that last night when my wife and I took a stroll along its banks. The sun had gone down and the river was calm but for a few ripples from the occasional boat. Some rowers rowed past. The orange glow faded to purple yadda yadda yadda.

We held hands and walked and sat on a bench when we got tired of walking. The air was full of romance.

"The first thing my mom said when I finally told her because I knew you'd eventually tell my parents because you've been bugging me so much about it was, 'what's he so upset about, what about the time he wrecked two cars on his way home from the Erotic Industry Fair?'" she said, gazing into my eyes.

"I know, I know. It's not about that. I also rearended that VW in the snow that time. I know. This is..."

"This is what? I didn't see any dent. You allege the dent is from her hitting the car."

[And then it got complicated. Etc etc. Post edited due to dictates of common sense.]

Also, first it's decent rock icons dying, Joey Ramone and whatshisface, that Clash guy. Now Bob Hope and Idi Amin - guys you didn't realize were still alive. Who's next? What will the next cluster be?

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Bloggers stupid enough to post about marital spats maybe... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Darni EMAIL: darni45@hotmail.com IP: 172.160.158.38 URL: http://shesundone.hookerdust.com DATE: 08/21/2003 13:24:37 PM

LOL @ "guys you didn't know were still alive."
I need a vacation too (not death of course) something that I can return from within a week or two.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/21/2003 21:07:26 PM

Yours is the third (of the first/last blog entries I'll be reading today) story involving crack that I've read today. And I just remembered this wack dream I had, in which some kid wanted me to cut his hair, and offered me a bag of crack and speed mixed togther, in trade. And I was all "what am I supposed to do with this? Meh!" and so I got something purple, instead.
It was kind of a lame dream.
So. Um. Beta was driving? Or your mother-in-law hit it?
It's not important, I guess. Clearly it was all about the crack.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: lizard EMAIL: liz@dotlizard.com IP: 206.72.76.25 URL: http://dotlizard.com DATE: 08/22/2003 01:37:40 AM

crack is sort of addictive, if you like that sort of thing. actually, even if you don't. it's quite possible to sit in the middle of a white sheet spread out on the floor (so you could see bugs if there were bugs) and look at your arm and even if you can't see them think "i believe in the bugs i believe in the bugs i believe in the bugs (it goes on)". and then you can think why do i do this i don't like bugs.

so i've heard.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 213.229.54.217 URL: DATE: 08/22/2003 06:15:37 AM

I like bugs. I was just thinking, isn't it great that flies aren't venomous? We live across the street from a gigantic pig farm. Imagine flies were like spiders venom-wise, or copperheads. We'd have to get screens.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: pi EMAIL: pi@lutero.com IP: 24.30.249.44 URL: DATE: 08/22/2003 19:35:09 PM

Joe Strummer.

"London is drowning, and I live by the river."

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Metamorphosis STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/21/2003 10:29:30 AM ----- BODY:

Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis adapted by Peter Kuper.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis adapted by Peter Kuper.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Nourishment STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/22/2003 06:25:23 AM ----- BODY: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: I pause. Acknowledge the moment. Keep from wolfing it down. Pause in the compulsion. Know the reason for the movement. Proceed.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: What a Martian STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/22/2003 06:32:35 AM ----- BODY:

[PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL YOU GUYS COMING HERE LOOKING FOR JANIS JOPLIN'S MIDDLE NAME: HER FULL NAME IS JANIS MIG JOPLIN, ACCORDING TO VARIOUS WEBSITES WITH WHICH I AM NOT AFFILIATED. I WAS NAMED AFTER HERPS: how about one of you drops me a note in the comments below and tells me what this is about - I don't normally get dozens/hundreds of visits a day looking for Janis Joplin's middle name, you know? Just curious.]

She asked me what were the lyrics to Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz."
"Go to Google and type in Janis Joplin Mercedes Benz lyrics," I told her and went back to my newspaper. She went around the house singing the first verse over and over. "We sang that in choir in school last year," she said.
Later, after dinner, and after she squirted iced tea and a blackberry out her nose we got on the subject of strange names.
"Amaryllis has got to be the worst," my wife said.
"Well, flower name for a girl, that's not beyond the pale yet, but yeah," I said.
"What about William Yeats, what was his middle name?" the kid asked.
"Butler," I said. "You're fourteen, what are you a Martian? Yeats?"
This morning she showed me the new ring tone on her cell phone, Bob Marley singing "I shot the sherriff."

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: [PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL YOU GUYS COMING HERE LOOKING FOR JANIS JOPLIN'S MIDDLE NAME: HER FULL NAME IS JANIS MIG JOPLIN, ACCORDING TO VARIOUS WEBSITES WITH WHICH I AM NOT AFFILIATED. I WAS NAMED AFTER HERPS: how about one... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: joeri EMAIL: joeri.cornille@pandora.be IP: 193.244.32.131 URL: http://www.urendagennachten.be/blogger.html DATE: 08/22/2003 14:30:11 PM

Butler and Amaryllis? Now there's a few good names for our future kid :) [btw: you can guess as well at http://www.urendagennachten.be/emeo.html ]

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Two questions STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/22/2003 08:10:49 AM ----- BODY:
  1. Do gynecologists have nice handwriting? Or not? What does it mean when someone tells you that you have handwriting like a gynecologist's? Is this a good thing, girls? If someone told me I had a urologist's handwriting, I wouldn't be as enthused as I was when I heard the above. On second thought, a man said that. Does that change the meaning?
  2. You are an exotically beautiful young woman at a garden party in a European capital on the grounds of an ambassador's residence aswarm with diplomats, international civil servants and various VIPs. It is a warm, pleasant evening, food and cocktails are good and the orange of the sunset is gradually fading to purple etc etc. Your dress is fucking fantastic, great colors, great style, best outfit at the party and your hair makes you look as if you were drawn by that one Playboy cartoonist in the sixties and seventies, not Vargas, the other one, I think I mean Phil Interlandi. A man, say, oh, 44, with a Cuba Libre in one hand and two more inside pays you a compliment, without the Playboy cartoonist part. Does this make you feel flattered, or just, "not again?"
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Do gynecologists have nice handwriting? Or not? What does it mean when someone tells you that you have handwriting like a gynecologist's? Is this a good thing, girls? If someone told me I had a urologist's handwriting, I wouldn't be... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eeksy-Peeksy EMAIL: eeksyCUTTHISBITpeeksy@yahoo.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/22/2003 08:30:50 AM

I suppose it depends on the compliment. She probably looked at your hands and said to herself, "Christ, he's got fingers like a gynecologist's."

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 213.229.54.217 URL: DATE: 08/22/2003 09:12:08 AM

Maybe the rubber gloves were a bad idea.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: chris EMAIL: chris@nospam.com IP: 216.62.108.26 URL: http://www.javablack.com DATE: 08/22/2003 16:11:21 PM

Who cares what she thought? Point is, you got to tell her what you were thinking. Later, while you're daydreaming about this sort of thing in general, you won't be wishing you had.

I'm all about being the casual fool whenever possible for the amusement of a beautiful woman.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/26/2003 17:12:45 PM

If he has short greyish hair and hands like a gynaecologist, I'd probably blush.

Did I tell you the story about my friend who dated a hot, young gynaecologist? She brought him to our mutual friend's baby shower, which was of course full of pregnant ladies. And he was, like, the only man. Plus he was charming. So he comes up to introduce himself, and I offer my hand, and he does "the twirl." Tell this to Alpha: he would take his thumb and two fingers, pinched together, and inserted them into your waiting hand, and twirled into grasping position.
Every woman blushed.

OK so fast forward 6 weeks, to my annual pelvic exam.
My own doctor is out, having her baby, a week early. Hooray for Dr. Zhan! So I get to see the new doctor, whose schedule is more open. Go to station B and put your papers in the nurse station window. Look at list of doctors.
See hot young gynaecologist's name.
Reconcile self to situation while naked in exam room.
Get pleasant old lady NP instead. See her for rest of life, or until insurance runs out.
The end.
Sorry, I should have a better ending, I know. But come on. Really.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Attack of the very, very small spiders STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/25/2003 06:51:48 AM ----- BODY:
  1. The sunny sides of our house - south and, um, east were very seedy looking with hundreds of little black spider nests. After some debate it was decided that I would sweep them off with a broom with a long stick attached to the handle to make it longer, rather than squirt them off with a hose. It didn't take as long as I'd expected, nor was the slapstick as pronounced as I'd thought it would be, and the house looks presentable again with no spiders on it.

  2. Sitting outside on a balmy evening at a nice wine tavern out in the country, orange sunset fading to etc etc, we were plagued both by waitresses bringing us plates of Grammelknödel* we had not ordered but they thought we had, so we ate them because they were so good (4 orders in all) and also several classes of stinging insects, including mosquitos, some sort of bee, and wasps. Taking a break from my Grammelknödel, I looked at our youngest daughter just in time to see a bee fly out of her right nostril. I asked her about this, and she said it had not flown out of her nostril, but flown *up* her nostril, and she had snorted it back out, and sort of batted it away from her face. It was a little yellow bee about the size of a honey bee. After being snorted out, it flew down the front of her dress, all the way down and out the bottom to freedom, she said. I tried to think of a joke tying this in with the Holy Ghost impregnating Mary by flying up her dress in the form of a dove but couldn't on the spur of the moment like that. Then I decided to check her dress just in case the bee was still in there. And guess what I found? No bee, but a stinger with the venom sac still attached, sticking from the knuckle of the middle finger on my right hand!!! And I knew exactly what to do!!!

    Luckily, the stinger was stuck into a rather insensitive area of my finger, where I happen to have thick skin due to the idiosyncratic way I hold pencils, pens etc. Still, venom was pumping in and it was beginning to sting a bit. But if you try to just pull it out, you squeeze the venom sac and inject all the poison. Instead, I took a knife from the table and, after showing everyone the cool stinger with poison sac still attached sticking out of my finger, scraped it off. Then I couldn't find the stinger anymore. Unfortunately, it was the same color as Grammeln so I didn't use that knife to cut the rest of my dinner, just the fork which was fine as the dumplings (Knödel means dumpling) were tender.

  3. Yesterday, our youngest daughter rode her bike, more or less under her own control, for the first time. I've been trying to do the dad thing all summer and teach her to ride the bike. Like me, I told her, fear is your worst enemy. We worked on getting over the being scared part and moving into the having fun part. Yesterday, we figured she was ready for an audience after several weeks of brief test rides, and with her big sister watching she rode all the way across the parking lot. Then with her mother watching she rode several more times. Then we tried an empty street, and she did fine there too, although I did have to grab her fast once before she could run into a parked Mercedes.

    And last night while watching bats at her grandparents, she, only six, sang "Get Up, Stand Up" to me, with her own choreography (getting up, standing up). I was so proud.

*Grammeln are, mm, not sure exactly. Some lard-related product. Perhaps some byproduct of the lard refinery process. Crunchy crust-like bits of something, not exactly meat, more like crunchy fat, with a slightly peanutty aftertaste, I find.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: The sunny sides of our house - south and, um, east were very seedy looking with hundreds of little black spider nests. After some debate it was decided that I would sweep them off with a broom with a long... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: sporkbot EMAIL: not@necessary.com IP: 216.141.135.40 URL: DATE: 08/25/2003 17:37:33 PM

ah, the mysterious yet ubiquitous peanut meat, how we worship thee.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: How to fix a flat tire STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/26/2003 06:58:32 AM ----- BODY:
  1. Marry a smart person whose father is a mechanic and crazy about her.
  2. Have flat tire while she is driving
  3. near her parents' house
  4. preferably while alone in the car.
  5. Being smart, she notices immediately and parks car on a hard surface away from traffic.
  6. Her father arrives before you do, even though you were only about 100 meters away waiting for her to pick you up, thinking, "where the hell is she?"
  7. Look through car for jack etc. It's under the back seat.
  8. Look through car for spare tire. It's under the car, in the rear.
  9. Look through car for car manual. Look through manual for instructions on getting spare tire from under car.
  10. Loosen lug nuts. Better yet, let father-in-law loosen lug nuts.
  11. Put jack in right place, let father-in-law jack up car because you know how these old guys are, have to do everything themselves.
  12. This is a piece of cake!
  13. Drive to service station to top off air pressure in spare tire, which happens to be the same kind of tire as the rest so you can just leave it on.
  14. Mechanic says the flat tire has a bad valve, which he can fix. Visions of visits to the proctologist go through your head, but he only charges you €7.
  15. Which your father-in-law pays! Because you know how these old guys are, you'd be wrestling there in the car wash if you tried to pay him back. You can pay back the mother-in-law later when he's not looking.
  16. Proceed home to pick up daughter and harp and take her to church where she's playing at a wedding.
  17. Sit upstairs at church by the organ while she and her band practice Irish songs. They ask you to go downstairs. "Why, am I bugging you?" you ask. "No, we need you to listen if we sound okay." "Oh, duh," you say.
  18. They sound fine.
  19. Note that your daughter earns double your hourly wage at work for her gig.
  20. Proceed to going away party for other daughter's day care, now that she's starting school.
  21. They have a pond, so you do bellyflops. Little girls watch and start doing bellyflops too. Austria had no tradition of bellyflops until right now.
  22. Your swimsuit fills up with air when you flop in, and floats up around you like a weird skirt in the water. Look around to make sure no one is watching before you let the air out next time, because it looks like a whale fart.
  23. Roast giant weenies over coals on sticks with your kids.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Marry a smart person whose father is a mechanic and crazy about her. Have flat tire while she is driving near her parents' house preferably while alone in the car. Being smart, she notices immediately and parks car on a... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/26/2003 10:40:17 AM

You need a burnt neck and a shotgun. And the car should be traded in for a pick-up. Then you're all set.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bhikku EMAIL: bhikku@bhikku.net IP: 81.7.4.191 URL: DATE: 08/26/2003 12:02:55 PM

Re the swimming gear: I found out that if on the campsite where the pool had a jacuzzi section I sat in between jets they would both direct into the pockets of my swimming shorts and inflate them until I looked like I had elephantiasis of the scrotum.
These small but interesting things help to make our lives worth living.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 213.229.54.217 URL: DATE: 08/26/2003 12:41:31 PM

It's the small things.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ratty EMAIL: ratty@surreally.net IP: 4.62.44.113 URL: http://ratty.surreally.net DATE: 08/26/2003 13:56:34 PM

aaaah. that was fun :)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bauke EMAIL: bauke@NANANANANA.schildt.nl IP: 195.23.141.166 URL: http://www.schildt.nl DATE: 08/26/2003 16:33:25 PM

Hold on. I have no kids. How do I fix my flat tire?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: great EMAIL: great@hotmail.com IP: 65.238.113.81 URL: DATE: 03/02/2004 22:40:29 PM

that was not informative

[editor's note: 1. park where it's flat 2. make sure the emergency brake is set 3. careful with the jack 4. take off lug nuts, remove wheel, put spare tire on, replace lug nuts, being careful to fasten them securely 5. drive to service station to have them check everything and repair real tire or 6. call auto club]

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Oh boy STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/26/2003 11:08:27 AM ----- BODY:

Beyoncé Knowles naked on a forklift.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Beyoncé Knowles naked on a forklift.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/26/2003 13:41:46 PM

Y'know, even *I* clicked on that link without checking it first. Imagine my disappointment.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ratty EMAIL: ratty@surreally.net IP: 4.62.44.113 URL: http://ratty.surreally.net DATE: 08/26/2003 13:54:10 PM

sneaky :)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bauke EMAIL: blablabla@NOIDONTWANTTOBESPAMMED.schildt.nl IP: 195.23.141.166 URL: DATE: 08/26/2003 16:23:58 PM

Arrgggh, tricked me! but nice site, nontheless

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Assembling Bert STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/27/2003 08:23:30 AM ----- BODY:

I was unable to pick up the pictures I'd dropped off for processing last week because I had to go pick up Bert at the furniture store. Bert, 1.90 meters tall, was quite heavy and came in two shrink-wrapped packages with styrofoam padding at either end. A guy at the store helped me load him into the Dobló.

We have a shoe multiplication problem at home, and my wife bought Bert to help with that. Shoes are everywhere, and often a source of frustration for those who like a shoe-free environment when they enter a house (often the same people who wash and dry garbage before they throw it out).

My father-in-law was washing our windows when Bert and I arrived home, but he took a break to help me carry him in. Because he is heavy, we deposited the two packages at the spot in the stairwell, where it turns around on its way downstairs, where Bert will ultimately stand - because just try carrying a 1.90 meter tall dresser downstairs when it's assembled.

Then my father-in-law went back to washing windows. I had to do a bunch of other stuff so couldn't get started on the assembly process immediately. I forget what I had to do exactly. Pay my mother-in-law €100 because my father-in-law had picked up the photos for us and paid. I knew she'd take the money. She was also sitting there looking at all the pictures, so if I ever take naked pictures of anyone etc etc. These were just of the zoo and a walk around Vienna mostly, and one 4-year-old roll recently discovered of a distant trip to the States, in which the kids look tiny.

Also had to eat and look at pictures myself, then drive first daughter to town. When we got back we unpacked Bert and got going. She was a big help. She ordered all the screws and other parts. She held the sides while I put the thing together. Youngest daughter, who was trying to get out of going to bed alone at a normal time, came down to complain about the noise, so we didn't finish the job, just the quiet parts. I let the kid screw in a couple screws and hammer in a peg or two, but we left the doors for tonight when I'll hammer in the hinges after dinner.

Inserting the shelves will be a cinch, just a matter of getting the little metal pegs in the right holes, which I admit has been a process involving an amount of cursing in the past, keeping track of that. Getting the doors to hang straight, though, is usually the most complicated bit.

But Bert is as good as done.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: I was unable to pick up the pictures I'd dropped off for processing last week because I had to go pick up Bert at the furniture store. Bert, 1.90 meters tall, was quite heavy and came in two shrink-wrapped packages... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Slogan generator STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/27/2003 12:59:00 PM ----- BODY:

Mig: the other white meat.

[Via]

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Mig: the other white meat. [Via]... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: michele EMAIL: michele@asmallvictory.net IP: 68.194.31.12 URL: http://asmallvictory.net DATE: 08/27/2003 13:24:44 PM

Only Michele Can Prevent Forest Fires!

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nu conteaza EMAIL: snarecharm@yahoo.com IP: 193.231.234.124 URL: DATE: 10/10/2003 14:16:50 PM

halloween pet costume

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Visitation STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/27/2003 13:17:02 PM ----- BODY:

Someone knocked at the door. My wife peeked out through the curtains.
"It's the agnostics," she said.
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"The nondescript way they're dressed, midway between suit and polo shirt. And their car parked out front..."
"Which one?"
"See what I mean? I'll tell them to go away." She had been washing dishes and had a gigantic carving knife in her hand. They would have left with no protest.
"No, I'll get it. It's my turn," I said.
"Okay, but don't let them rope you into a long debate. Remember how hard it was to get the Jehovah's Witnesses off our porch?"

She went back to the kitchen sink and I answered the door.
"Hi, we're..."
"Bob and Wendy of the Agnostics," I said, reading their nametags.
They were only slightly taken aback. "And we were wondering..."
"If you could have a minute of my time."
"Well, yes."
Wendy wasn't bad looking in a college-educated way and poor Bob had a head too small for the rest of his body with beady eyes and ears that stuck out. Perfect.
"But only a minute and not a second more. My wife is sharpening knives in the kitchen and I hate to distract her."
They glanced at each other but their training took over and they marched into the house.
"No," I said. "The evening is too pleasant, let's go into the back yard."
I seated them at our new table, poured wine for everyone and gave them a broad smile.
"So."
"So, Mr...."
"Mig."
"Mr. Mig. We'd like to talk to you about the ordering force in the universe, little-g god, big-G God, whatever you choose to call it, whether or not it exists, which you have to admit cannot be objectively verified."
"Love," I said, taking another sip of wine.
"Excuse me?" Wendy said.
"I call it love."
"Love."
"Or happiness. They boil down to the same thing."
"Okay, Mig. Hard to say in the end, isn't it."
"Not for me."
"Ah, but how can you be so sure? I mean, somedays, yeah, you smell a rose and are overcome with the divinity and spirituality of creation, sure. But others, you're living on a dead rock."
"Maybe you are. I'm sure not."
"But, 'love'," Bob said. "How vague can you get? Is there any word more misunderstood than 'love'?"
"I mean something very precise," I said. "You know the new Nickelback video in heavy rotation on MTV?" I asked them. They nodded.
"Sure, we watch MTV like everyone else."
"Where the chick is crying and can't see the guy and drives off and gets smeared by a semi and *doing* now she can see the guy? Because now they're both dead? That's not the love I mean. Not anything obsessional and full of death. That video should be banned because it links love and death like that. I mean the jelly-shaking life force of the Beyoncé Knowles video they show after that one. An open love, not a closed one."
"I don't get you," Bob said.
"Wendy looks like she might," I said.
Bob scowled, Wendy glanced down at her hands, then she looked back up with a new expression on her face.
"I believe, Mig," she said. "I believe in love and happiness."
"Here, have some more wine, you guys," I said.
Bob glared at Wendy. "I don't believe you'd abandon me like this," he said. He stalked to the corner of the house, muttering, "Love." He waited there for a second but when it became obvious that Wendy wasn't going to follow him, he stomped off. A minute later we heard a car start up and zoom away with a grinding of gears.
"This wine is really going to my head," Wendy said.
"Would you like to take a dip in the mother of all wading pools?" I pointed over at the pool in the corner.
"But I don't have a bathing suit," she said.
"Do you know anything nicer than skinnydipping on a summer evening when the orange of the sunset is fading to..."
"Etc. etc.," she said. "Sure, sounds good. But what about your wife? She's inside washing carving knives in the kitchen, right?"
I slapped my forehead. "Oh, you're right." I glanced around nervously. "Look, you get in the pool, okay. I'll be right back out. I just have to run in and check on her, put her to bed or something."
"Sure," Wendy said.
"Mig, did you get rid of the agnostics?" my wife asked me from the kitchen when I went back into the house.
"Pretty much," I said. "No agnostics here, heh," I said.
She looked at me doubtfully. "You thought you could just get the Mormons to mow the lawn and then get rid of them, you remember how hard that turned out to be?"
Splashing sounds came from the back yard.
"Mig." She folded a dish towel and put it onto the radiator to dry.
"Look," I said. I led her into the library by the hand. From there we could see down into the pool, where Wendy frolicked innocently, no idea that we were observing her.
"Isn't she cute? Can we keep her?"
My wife smiled indulgently. "Keep her. Heh. Just this one. I won't have you collecting missionaries," she said.
"Cross my heart," I said.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Someone knocked at the door. My wife peeked out through the curtains. "It's the agnostics," she said. "How can you tell?" I asked. "The nondescript way they're dressed, midway between suit and polo shirt. And their car parked out front..."... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: joeri EMAIL: joeri.cornille@pandora.be IP: 193.244.32.131 URL: http://www.urendagennachten.be/blogger.html DATE: 08/27/2003 14:22:01 PM

Criminy! You've converted me as well! *humming* Love! Love! Love!

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/27/2003 17:22:02 PM

Aw, your own backyard mermaid!
You're going to come home one day to an empty pool and a big pile of longpig sushi, you know that, right?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sarah EMAIL: sjersild@hotmail.com IP: 12.248.156.78 URL: http://www.fiendishplot.com DATE: 08/27/2003 19:46:21 PM

We've got mormon missionaries in the basement, I quite recommend them.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Frédéric EMAIL: frederic@druppels.be IP: 194.29.97.138 URL: http://druppels.be DATE: 08/28/2003 08:43:24 AM

Loving it, truly hilarious!

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bauke EMAIL: bauke@NONONO.schildt.nl IP: 195.23.141.166 URL: DATE: 08/28/2003 10:09:09 AM

Classic!

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/28/2003 14:16:55 PM

Outstanding Mig. Did you get any pictures?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 213.229.54.217 URL: DATE: 08/28/2003 14:25:23 PM

It keeps coming back to mermaids.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: zizka EMAIL: zizka@johnjemerson.com IP: 69.30.9.143 URL: http://johnjemerson.com DATE: 08/31/2003 04:59:57 AM

A really cute JW missionary accosted me at a bus stop once. I was polite but noncommital. I actually don't dislike JW's per se because I've known two very nice ones personally in non-missionary situations.

When she turned to leave I noticed a little flash of lace showing from under her skirt. Hm. Pretty racy for a JW, isn't it? But then she went back to the car where a somewhat older woman was sitting, perhaps her mom.

But maybe this is what JW's do when they get bored, pick up strange guys on street corners for threesomes in motels. Unlike normal women, they have a readymade alibi.

Both Michael Jackson and Prince are now Witnesses. Hm.

----- -------- AUTHOR: christiane TITLE: Collisions STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/27/2003 19:06:53 PM ----- BODY:

I’m delighted to discover that the British make as many mistakes with their language as any other English-speaking nation. They even have typos in their newspapers, bless ’em, and also seem to have a crippling inability to deal with apostrophes. I’ve become extremely thorough in my search through the Guardian every day for mistakes. Am tempted to write a letter to the editor, but may instead compile a complete and damning resume of their mistakes. End with the suggestion that they send all their editors to Mongolia to work for a year.

----- EXTENDED BODY:

But they do have some lovely place names here – I’m with Bill Bryson on this one – and among my favourites so far are Ripe, Hellingly, Ditchling, Cowfold, Dorking and Moulsecoombe. I’ve been spending driving-time wondering how my life would have turned out differently had I been born in a place called Wartling. Or Knockin.

That may be a good way to start a novel actually. The man scowling at the map in the bus station was on his way back to the town of his birth, a place called Hooe. His life had seemingly lost direction on his departure from Hooe many years before, and it seemed to him ironic that he had now lost his way trying to return to that sweet village.

Heh.

Since I am now living in a 1976 Dodge Carmichael fire engine, I have a fair amount of driving-time to fill with silly speculation. Sitting high up above the other cars, I’m king of my domain. And I can see over the hedges. The constant waves and stares of little boys and old men are good soul food. The other day we had parked on the promenade on the seaside and I sat down on the ‘beach’ and watched old men walk past the truck, stop, turn around, check the front, peer in the windows, walk around the back, captivated, check the details, go slowly once more around and then wander off.

We took the truck to the coast to do a show at a festival there, a small performance involving fire and water and explosions. Sitting up there in the truck, flying down the motorway, I felt like the Keeper of the Sacred Flame, driving along in a red fire truck packed with paraffin, fireworks and pyrotechnics.

A friend told me a nice story yesterday. Years ago he was renovating the old farmhouse he’d grown up in and there was a space that was all walled in, a room with no door. There had been a door once, you could see the marks, but it had been plastered over. The room on the ground floor, beneath this hidden room, had been the salting room at some point, and had a higher ceiling, so the space above it was small. Nonetheless, my friend had had fantasies his whole life about what was in that closed room – old letters, decapitated heads, the remains of persecuted Catholic priests, that sort of thing. He had such a hard time trying to get through the wall that he eventually made a hole in the ceiling of the room underneath and crawled up into the room through its floor. There were no skulls or old diaries in the little room – instead there was a cupboard with a few old suits inside, and a book called The Impertinence of Youth.

----- EXCERPT: I’m delighted to discover that the British make as many mistakes with their language as any other English-speaking nation. They even have typos in their newspapers, bless ’em, and also seem to have a crippling inability to deal with apostrophes.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ossian EMAIL: thisisnot@anemail.address IP: 81.129.72.191 URL: http://sloewine.blogspot.com DATE: 08/31/2003 15:41:15 PM

The Grauniad is notorious for misprints.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: B/W STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/27/2003 21:03:50 PM ----- BODY:

The sunlight was blinding as I wandered around Vienna one hot day this summer with an old Nikon F or something like that I bought used in Tokyo fifteen years ago, with a Nikon 80-200mm zoom, using some B/W film (Kodak CN I think, 400 ASA) that can be processed the same as normal color film, making processing cheaper and giving the prints an interesting look - bluish, or brownish. Many came out sort of blurry or high contrast, not sure whether that was me or the processing. This picture here is the manhole cover in front of the Secession art museum.

----- EXTENDED BODY:


manhole.jpg

----- EXCERPT: The sunlight was blinding as I wandered around Vienna one hot day this summer with an old Nikon F or something like that I bought used in Tokyo fifteen years ago, with a Nikon 80-200mm zoom, using some B/W film... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Marionette STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/29/2003 09:10:47 AM ----- BODY:

Context:
Years ago I went looking for a book of stories by Bruno Schulz because someone had recommended him to me. I had to special order one from a book store. The owner asked me if I wanted it in German or English. I thought, What nerve and said, "German of course." The bookstore owner sort of shrugged and I got the German book.

With a name like Bruno Schulz, see, I had assumed that he was German and I like to read books in the original language when I am able. He turns out to have been Polish. You haven't lived until you've read a German translation of stories by a Polish author who makes Kafka sound like Beatrix Potter.

Now I remember where I'd heard his name - a town up the road a ways does an annual puppet festival and the catalogue mentioned a performance for adults based on a dark Schulz story that sounded intriguing. Czech, I think the puppeteers were. The accompanying photo in the catalogue showed very demented looking marionettes.

The story
[Warning: not a meal-time story]

Met my wife at a birthday party for a six-year-old boy after work. Adults sat around drinking wine while children dismantled various things. I noticed that two of the children were very blonde and very thin, clearly a six or seven year old girl and her little brother, three or so. The girl was tall and skinny and looked smart and cute in a skinny bucktoothed little girl way. "I bet you looked exactly like that at that age," I said to my wife. "My braids were tighter," she smiled.

But the little boy. There weren't enough chairs at the party, I stood behind my wife who sat between a friend on the right and an old woman on the left. Our oldest daughter sat sort of on the arm of my wife's chair and sort of on her lap.

"That little boy looks like an evil Czech marionette," I said to my wife and whoever else was in hearing range. "Ssh," she said. "Poor kid," I said. He was too thin, his head was too small for his age and his white-blonde hair was way too thin. He moved in that bobbly way, like someone who had just gotten off a long ride on a wild rollercoaster. His parents too looked older than they were, grey and tired as if they had been through something with him. His father wore an air of false jocularity.

He had his father's face, all the same.

He went over to the old lady next to my wife, who turned out to be his grandmother.

"GGGRRGNG!!" he said. Imagine a language consisting only of guttural consonants, and him speaking it fluently as bratwurst and coarse cake exit his mouth and accumulate in the grass at his feet.

"An evil Czech vomiting marionette from a dusty Bruno Schultz pawn shop."

"GGGRRGNG!!!" For such a small boy, he held a lot of bratwurst. His mother made a remark along these lines, something about him exceeding his capacity again, as if this were a common event.

She rushed him to some bushes to complete the evacuation. Then she got a handful of tissues and -- the boy himself was clean, an expert puker -- began cleaning up the grass where he had puked.

Unfortunately, at this time our older daughter decided she had to go see a movie with a girlfriend and I had to run her home to get ready and couldn't linger and watch more of this. My wife told me later that wasn't the last of the vomiting, though.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Also a very important figure in the house was the sadistic maid. Context: Years ago I went looking for a book of stories by Bruno Schulz because someone had recommended him to me. I had to special order one from... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: lili EMAIL: fundelupa@aol.com IP: 172.144.175.203 URL: http://fundelupa.blog-city.com/ DATE: 08/29/2003 12:59:52 PM

"You haven't lived until you've read a German translation of stories by a Polish author who makes Kafka sound like Beatrix Potter."

:-)

"evil Czech marionette"
comes to my mind:
Svankmajer's 'Little Otik'

-----