W. B. Mook’s Neighborhood

  LOLerature!

Something else I discovered that I adore:  The Ice Storm Original Sound Track.

I Cant Read

David Bowie

I am worthless and inarticulate.  I have nothing worth sharing, but in my own attention-whorish way I feel the need to post.

Let's see... I've been playing around with photoshop.  I'm obesessed with the concept of incorrect. That's a tumblr link so. M-----l whatever you do, DO NOT CLICK IT.

Here are a couple the muses moved me to create:

Nick Cave

Nick Cage

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I've been watching Arrested Development in its entirety.  So that's fun.  Here's Tobias's audition for the fire sale:

Fire Sale

Also I've been listening to too much Flight Of The Conchords.  And obsessing about Jemaine...  Here are a couple from the new cd:

Hurt Feelings

Flight Of The Conchords

Too Many Dicks [On The Dancefloor]

Flight Of The Conchords

And because it may be a while before I check back in, here's another pair of incorrects:

Robert Goulet

Jonathan Frakes

Wow, I can post here again.  The long drought has been because my company's proxy server wasn't letting me type in these text boxes for some reason.  Apparently it's fixed.

In the meantime, I've been posting over at wordpress.

I think I'll continue to post there, and perhaps crosspost here.

I just dropped in to see what condition my neighborhood's in. On this last Sunday evening of summer I'd like to say

But back to the music.  At first I could only recall a hand-full of songs. Kenny Rogers and the Creedence mostly. ("Wouldn't hold out much hope for the tape deck though.  Or the Creedence.")  But as I sat there in the darkened living room sipping a white Russian, I filled up another hand. And another.  This is not even half of the songs.  I left out some excellent material: Booker T. and Bob Dylan. Santana, Simone and Sumac.  Mozart and Massorgsky.  And The Eagles... I tend to agree with The Dude in regard to The Eagles.

I won't drone on here about the songs I selected for this post.  Nothing too obscure here except this song by Elvis Costello and Cait O'Riordan.  As far as I know TBL OST is the only place to find it. If you have any info on this please share it with me.

In conclusion, if you have a copy of TBL pop it in the player and get comfortable on the couch.  If you don't have the film on hand, then please enjoy this musical tribute to The Dude.

My Mood Swings

Elvis Costello

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• Elvis Costello: My Mood Swings
• Kenny Rogers  &The FIrst Edition: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
• Gipsy Kings: Hotel California (Eagles cover)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival: Run Through The Jungle
• The Rolling Stones: Dead Flowers
• Dean Martin: Standing On The Corner
• Captain Beefheart]: Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles
• Creedence Clearwater Revival: Lookin Out My Back Door
• Sons Of The Pioneers: Tumbling Tumbleweeds

And remember: Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes, well... he eats you.

Lookin' Out My Back Door

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Sons of the Pioneers

The two things in the title of this post are unrelated.

Haruki Murakami

I was reading a few Haruki Murakami stories again. One of them was about the 1960s and about a man who was hard-working, an excellent student, a natural leader. However, he always felt alone until he stumbled upon a girl in school that was just like him. This was during the 1960s, the era of free love and all that, which figures into this story. This couple never went very far though they did remain a couple for many years. The girl was traditional and would wait till marriage and she had this idea of marrying an older man and not having a career after doing so. This was contrary to what the guy thought the future would be...he thought she could do much more than that. It's a strange story and I'll maybe try to find a few quotes that I like from it.

The more interesting thing I read was actually a dialogue between Haruki Murakami and another person. I think the other person was a psychologist or a writer, I'm not exactly sure. In any case, they discussed individuality and the responsibility of the individual to the group(s) they're a part of. Apparently in Japan the students needed to be explicitly told that they had to be more individual and act on their own, while in America, the students took that idea for granted and never had to be directly told. The implications of this are that Americans feel like individuals and they drift from group to group and this is accepted but in Japan, an individual will be seen as anti-social for not acting like a group member and not showing up to enough group meetings or whatever.

What really interested me was when Murakami discussed marriage. He asked the other man if marriage could be a form of mutual therapy,

MURAKAMI: There’s something I wanted to ask you: Do you think marriage is, in a sense, kind of mutual therapy?

The man replied that marriage is like that and that it's like digging a well. He said that it cannot survive on romantic/passionate love alone but needed something more. People who marry, divorce and then marry again could be afraid of digging a well, of doing the hard work necessary for the marriage to survive due to the misconceptions they inherit from their parents, the media, etc. He says that,

In the old days, marriage was just two people cooperating. If they did that until they died, then it was considered to have been a good marriage. These days, people want to understand one another, not simply work together. But if you want to understand one another, you have to dig a well.

It's very interesting to think about because I know a few people who around my own age that are already married. But I also know many more people who are either single or are in medium-term relationships (meaning more than a few months but less than a year or two). Some people think they won't ever get married now and the very thought of it is senseless to them, because what do they have to gain aside from tax benefits or whatever other monetary benefits there are? Then there's the trouble of maybe having to change your last name and other things like that. So what's the point?

I'm undecided on the matter for now. It's still nice to read what others have to say about it, especially if they've been married for a while and especially if they've thought about interactions between groups and individuals in different societies.

Pinball, 1973

I also started reading Pinball,1973 which is also by Haruki Murakami. It's supposedly about the guy who invented pinball but it's also about the narrator who starts a translation service with some bottles of bourbon and desks and 10 dictionaries. I didn't get too far into it but so far it's entertaining. It's great how the narrator described the administrative assistant they hired as a nice girl with long legs but an annoying habit of whistling and humming Penny Lane 20 times a day while working.

Club Of Rome

The Club Of Rome is an independent organization that takes the long view of things. They look at long-term impact of human actions and look at all the interactions (economic, political, etc.) that make up our globalized world. Right now I'm reading their 1993 report called The First Global Revolution and the main message, as I've seen stated elsewhere, is that the enemies of humans are humans. We're destroying our own environment through careless planning and they proposed that to unite as all against a common enemy we need to unite against ourselves in a sense,

The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.

I'll dig up some quotes once I get through more of the report. It's around 180 pages which isn't a heavy read. I should be done reading it within a few days.

The Palio degli Asini is an annual donkey race in Alba, Italy. 

The race traces its origin to the 13th century. For years, Alba and its neighboring town, Asti, had been engaged in a turf war. On Aug. 10, 1275, the feast day of Alba’s patron saint, San Lorenzo, soldiers from Asti launched an attack, devastating orchards and vineyards around Alba’s city walls. Following a hometown tradition, the Asti warriors raced their horses around the town walls. According to legend, inside the walls the citizens of Alba raced their donkeys in response — an indication, one Web site claims, of what they thought of the conquerors and their ritual.

Through the years Asti conducted a horse race and pageant, like Siena’s world-famous palio. But, Alba’s jockeys won the Asti race so often that the hosts stopped issuing invitations to its rival. So in 1932, Alba decided to stage its own palio — with donkeys. _*_

The nine historical districts of Alba compete to packed bleachers.  The victor gets the palio, a prized tissue painted by a known artist. Then they all get down to the serious business of parading in historical costumes and synchronized flag waving (sbandieratori). Italians certainly know how to conduct festive occasions. 

They have these races all over Italy it seems: Turin, Camari, Navelli, Calliano, Montafia, etc…

According to the article at Stars & Stripes Asti's Palio degli Asini is always held on the first Sunday in October, but I’m pretty sure that they mean September.  Other places I looked also said the first Sunday in October. However they state that this year’s winner is Acciuga ( "Anchovy" in English) but it isn’t October yet.  If any of you world travelers can clear this up for me, I’d appreciate it.

They go on to point out that he teams used to prank each other but that now there are veteranerians on site to protect the well-being of the donks.  No doping the donks.

This image is from a great flickr stream of the race.

Alba is also Italy’s truffle capital.

Also, I'd pay money to do this:

Time Donkey, the first

I found a new game called Time Donkey.  The player gets to control a donkey who travels through time and eats tacos.  Now if I weren't already sold on the very concept of a time-traveling taco-eating donkey game these recommendations at the Blurst site would have cinched it for me:

"Better than all those other donkey games."

"The donkey travels through time against his will, but the tacos are delicious."

Instructions for moving the donkey around

In the game you steer the donkey around to eat floaty tacos.  When the time runs out the donkey is returned to the starting point (some sort of transporter pad?).  The clock starts again and you steer the donkey around to get tacos while his past-donkey-self repeats his previous actions.  Pretty soon you have a whole herd of donkeys, existing at various points on the time continuum, running all over looking for donkeys.  It's like The Falconer, except the donkey is the Falconer and the tacos are Donald.  But you eat the tacos rather than saving them from destruction.

Time Donkeys, seven of 'em

Withsheep

Hullo

I'm certain that this version of this DW post will not be as happy and humorous as the last two posts, which Vox kindly ate. 

The only thing I learned from Livestock guardians : using dogs, donkeys, and llamas to protect your herd by Janet Vorwald Dohner (other than that you can use a donkey to protect your herd) is this:

"You cannot stop a donkey that is attacking."

Now on with the pretty pictures!

Donkey

If you wish, you may listen to me reading an excerpt of this epic handbook here.  Please enjoy my combo nasal/southern voice. =D

Donkeyparts

Breeds

Shed