A great thing about starting a new decade is the opportunity to contemplate how close we are to all the weird events predicted in science fiction during the 20th Century. We're in the brave new world, and 1984 has come and gone, and 2001's odyssey is now 2010's sequel. The future is now a couple weekends away. This is the year the Martians arrive.
I have always wondered if Mars, once exactly as far from the sun as the Earth is now, once had an entire evolutionary history identical or at least highly similar to our own. As the planet's orbit expanded and Mars moved further out in its ellipse, it became colder and lost its atmosphere.
We're talking millions of years here. The people of Mars migrated here and set up those big monolith things to influence monkey DNA, and create the human race. The Martians aren't flesh and blood beings but electromagnetic fields, and live in the chromosomatic structure we carry around. We have the illusion of being independent, but a nagging sense of predetermination. Occasionally our Martianness emerges, and we are diagnosed as crazy. But there's still a recognition, a familiarity with the behavior, the bizarre language, that allows a glimpse at our dual natures.
Woooooooo. Happy New Year, Martian brothers and sisters!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
12 x 5= 60
Yesterday I turned 60, the oldest I've ever been. Capricorns have weird birthdays, so close to Christmas the money's been spent and the New Year for everybody is a bigger deal than the new year for just you. Which is the way I like things. I bought my granddaughter a Zhu-Zhu pet to celebrate, a little Chinese mechanical hamster that moves and talks and chatters.
My kids were here, my brother and brothers-in-law, my wife, sister-in-law, son's new girlfriend. We brought in chicken wings and fried onion strings from Flanigans, and us guys drank beer and watched the Hurricanes get overpowered by a good Wisconsin Badgers team, and nobody got in trouble or gave me novelty old-timer gifts like a box of Depends or a walker.
Aliyah had a friend visiting that's every bit as loud and obnoxious as her, so we got a box of sparklers and took the girls outside and let them handle sticks of burning magnesium and write their names in the cool night air. My sister MaryAnne called from St Pete and made me laugh as we contemplated what geriatric supplies I would be needing soon. If I had known turning sixty was so family-friendly I would have done it long ago.
I don't actually feel old. There's a lot of things I need to get done and started projects to finish and books to be read and work, work, work I want to do. Like DFW says in Oblivion, life is time in a flash of knowing, a continous moment where we are ten and twenty and thirty etc all at once, and are only hard-wired to see the present and a little of the future and a little of the past as we stare at this long string of events from so close our eyes cross analyzing the small section we're aware of.
My kids were here, my brother and brothers-in-law, my wife, sister-in-law, son's new girlfriend. We brought in chicken wings and fried onion strings from Flanigans, and us guys drank beer and watched the Hurricanes get overpowered by a good Wisconsin Badgers team, and nobody got in trouble or gave me novelty old-timer gifts like a box of Depends or a walker.
Aliyah had a friend visiting that's every bit as loud and obnoxious as her, so we got a box of sparklers and took the girls outside and let them handle sticks of burning magnesium and write their names in the cool night air. My sister MaryAnne called from St Pete and made me laugh as we contemplated what geriatric supplies I would be needing soon. If I had known turning sixty was so family-friendly I would have done it long ago.
I don't actually feel old. There's a lot of things I need to get done and started projects to finish and books to be read and work, work, work I want to do. Like DFW says in Oblivion, life is time in a flash of knowing, a continous moment where we are ten and twenty and thirty etc all at once, and are only hard-wired to see the present and a little of the future and a little of the past as we stare at this long string of events from so close our eyes cross analyzing the small section we're aware of.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Unsportsmanlike Conduct
Last night I watched the Colts-Jets game, right up to where the Colts pulled their starters and laid down and gave the game to the Jets. None of the players looked comfortable, beinmg booed at home when they could have been setting a new NFL record. The tactic of resting players for the playoffs sounds logical but morally vacant. You could see it on the face of Peyton Manning as he "was only following orders."
A good way to tell right from wrong is to think of the working people who paid hard earned money to take their kids to the game to watch their favorite players, millionaires all, stand around as a mediocre Jets team steamrolled the subs and beat the Colts for the first loss in 24 games. In this economy, is that sportsmanship?
What about delivering on the product you sell?
A good way to tell right from wrong is to think of the working people who paid hard earned money to take their kids to the game to watch their favorite players, millionaires all, stand around as a mediocre Jets team steamrolled the subs and beat the Colts for the first loss in 24 games. In this economy, is that sportsmanship?
What about delivering on the product you sell?
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Greetings From The Baker
If you're prone to depression, and the season has worn down what little spirit you had coming out of Thanksgiving, and your home team has lost two easily winnable games by throwing the ball to opposing players rather than your own less-than-capable receivers, and you have little or no money and your friends list has gotten so small a mouse carried it away and people keep telling you to cheer up as they ask you to do something only a complete idler would be interested in doing, you might want to teach yourself baking.
Today's project: Buttermilk Biscuits. Go gather your acute and chronic cellmates, and meet me back here in an hour.
Today's project: Buttermilk Biscuits. Go gather your acute and chronic cellmates, and meet me back here in an hour.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Coming Christmas
While having toast with Apache, I realize I haven't done any Christmas shopping, with 2 days to go. People who know me know this SOP. I hate shopping anyway, and hate Christmas shopping worst of all, since the overwhelming favorite holiday feeling seems to be rudeness. Try to park anywhere near a popular mall. Feel the Christmas cheer? Right.
I mean to do the food shopping. In recent years, since my granddaughter's birth, I have stopped going to the Miami traditional Eve party, a massive family and friend get-together at someone else's house, where we would all meet around 9PM and drink and eat a lot and listen to salsa music and wait to see who started fighting with who first, and told the kids to go upstairs or outside or in another room, like the kids were in the way of the Christmas Eve celebration. No mas. Can't, won't, don't.
Everyone now has Christmas at their own houses. But I cook a ton of food, and anyone who wants to come is welcome and will get wined and dined and loved. But I won't be doing the merange or lambada, and would rather hear Hannah Montana than Celia Cruz. I'm old, I guess. Truly festive people avoid me like the plague, as the cliche goes. They still have a great time, hell, maybe a better time, doing what they like, without Mr. Grinch. I'm busy putting together doll houses and scooters. I see nothing wrong with being asleep by midnight, in my bed, rather than awake until 5AM, and finding myself sound asleep behind the wheel of my car going 60 down the sidewalk.
The trick this year is: vegetarian. I still want ham and turkey, but my son's a true vegger, and so side dishes I'll be cooking will be Butternut Squash Lasagna, Paula Deen's Cheesys Mac and Cheese, various breads and rolls, something with beans, a kind of potato thing, fish that doesn't stink up the house. Dave has a Smithfield ham, a salty cured ham from our Virginia roots, and sliced really thin and served on a homemade roll there's not much can beat it. I'm thinking of getting a Red Snapper from one of the fishing boats, and serving it cooked whole in all its colorful fishness, and you cut some filet off one side until gone, then turn it over. With red and yellow peppers and lemon slices. Sangria with fruit floating around. A lot of trouble but possible.
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, here and all over the world.
I mean to do the food shopping. In recent years, since my granddaughter's birth, I have stopped going to the Miami traditional Eve party, a massive family and friend get-together at someone else's house, where we would all meet around 9PM and drink and eat a lot and listen to salsa music and wait to see who started fighting with who first, and told the kids to go upstairs or outside or in another room, like the kids were in the way of the Christmas Eve celebration. No mas. Can't, won't, don't.
Everyone now has Christmas at their own houses. But I cook a ton of food, and anyone who wants to come is welcome and will get wined and dined and loved. But I won't be doing the merange or lambada, and would rather hear Hannah Montana than Celia Cruz. I'm old, I guess. Truly festive people avoid me like the plague, as the cliche goes. They still have a great time, hell, maybe a better time, doing what they like, without Mr. Grinch. I'm busy putting together doll houses and scooters. I see nothing wrong with being asleep by midnight, in my bed, rather than awake until 5AM, and finding myself sound asleep behind the wheel of my car going 60 down the sidewalk.
The trick this year is: vegetarian. I still want ham and turkey, but my son's a true vegger, and so side dishes I'll be cooking will be Butternut Squash Lasagna, Paula Deen's Cheesys Mac and Cheese, various breads and rolls, something with beans, a kind of potato thing, fish that doesn't stink up the house. Dave has a Smithfield ham, a salty cured ham from our Virginia roots, and sliced really thin and served on a homemade roll there's not much can beat it. I'm thinking of getting a Red Snapper from one of the fishing boats, and serving it cooked whole in all its colorful fishness, and you cut some filet off one side until gone, then turn it over. With red and yellow peppers and lemon slices. Sangria with fruit floating around. A lot of trouble but possible.
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, here and all over the world.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Winter Wonderland
Are Panera Bread's Cinnamon Crunch bagels, with the hazelnut cream cheese on top, the best ever? Right out of the toaster oven, a fresh tub of hcc, the crunches of cinnamon and sugar shiny and glazed, OMG. Simple things make a trip to the store worth it, while the family sleeps and the dog eats his French bread.
Apache prefers Sourdough French in the loaf because of the thick crust but the endpieces off a French loaf are good too. I discovered his affinity for toast by accident. Huskies are vegetarians to a large extent. He likes Romaine lettuce, the bottom crunchy parts. And last night the dog got his favorite pizza crusts, the leftovers from Marino's Pizza, Miami's best pizza by far. He's one pizza loving dog, though no cheese or pepperoni, and he's not big on black olives either.
There's a fresh DFW story in The New Yorker December 14 issue, "All That." You can link through their site or through Howling Fantods: http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/
Friend Isabel sent pictures of NoVa and DC under a foot of snow. So much snow sounds like a disaster on TV but is a delight in real life. As humans, we're always pulling for Mother Nature to disrupt The Machine we live in, and here's proof that we're really not that big a deal in big scheme of things. The jumbo jets line the runways while we're outside sliding down snowy hills on cardboard boxes. Ho ho ho.
Apache prefers Sourdough French in the loaf because of the thick crust but the endpieces off a French loaf are good too. I discovered his affinity for toast by accident. Huskies are vegetarians to a large extent. He likes Romaine lettuce, the bottom crunchy parts. And last night the dog got his favorite pizza crusts, the leftovers from Marino's Pizza, Miami's best pizza by far. He's one pizza loving dog, though no cheese or pepperoni, and he's not big on black olives either.
There's a fresh DFW story in The New Yorker December 14 issue, "All That." You can link through their site or through Howling Fantods: http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/
Friend Isabel sent pictures of NoVa and DC under a foot of snow. So much snow sounds like a disaster on TV but is a delight in real life. As humans, we're always pulling for Mother Nature to disrupt The Machine we live in, and here's proof that we're really not that big a deal in big scheme of things. The jumbo jets line the runways while we're outside sliding down snowy hills on cardboard boxes. Ho ho ho.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Eye of the Tiger
Poor Tiger Woods. He goes from being the richest athlete in history to being the next-richest athlete in history, dropped by AccentureLCM as front man, as though that actually made a difference in real life. And all because he thought the women he slept with actually cared about him, and wanted to nurture him secretly, away from the media and his wife. What a mo-roon.
He's not even any good at cheating. Calling the one bimbo and leaving a message on her recorder to be careful his wife would be calling, shows a man who does not have the moxie to realize someone may not actually give a damn if he gets in trouble or not. We're on the back nine now, as women are coming out from cocktail lounges around the country and sharing with tabloid journalists the intimate details of their Night of the Tiger.
And where did all the unhappy Tiger photos come from? Up until now all we saw were shots of a smiling winner, sharing his wonderfulness with the polo shirt masses. Now a decade of grimacing, constipated looking Tiger photos has emerged and replaced the winner with the whiner.
It makes you glad you didn't earn a billion dollars knocking a little white ball around, doesn't it?
There's a website that seems to be 100% Tiger Bad News, 24/7:
http://news.lalate.com/2009/12/14/tiger-woods-alleged-mistresses-update-rachel-uchitel-no-playboy-but-still-with-tiger-report/
It's amazing when someone goes from being reported on in the media to actually becoming a media event, incapable of moving in public without unwanted coverage. What was the deal about the American Indians believing a photograph stole the soul of the one getting his picture taken?
What happens to someone when he is absorbed by the Media Blob, trapped in the gelatinous membrane of grocery store magazines and Insider shows?
Do you think he longs for the days of standing in the early morning quiet, addressing a golf ball, checking down the dew-covered fairway for the position of the sand traps and the pin?
He's not even any good at cheating. Calling the one bimbo and leaving a message on her recorder to be careful his wife would be calling, shows a man who does not have the moxie to realize someone may not actually give a damn if he gets in trouble or not. We're on the back nine now, as women are coming out from cocktail lounges around the country and sharing with tabloid journalists the intimate details of their Night of the Tiger.
And where did all the unhappy Tiger photos come from? Up until now all we saw were shots of a smiling winner, sharing his wonderfulness with the polo shirt masses. Now a decade of grimacing, constipated looking Tiger photos has emerged and replaced the winner with the whiner.
It makes you glad you didn't earn a billion dollars knocking a little white ball around, doesn't it?
There's a website that seems to be 100% Tiger Bad News, 24/7:
http://news.lalate.com/2009/12/14/tiger-woods-alleged-mistresses-update-rachel-uchitel-no-playboy-but-still-with-tiger-report/
It's amazing when someone goes from being reported on in the media to actually becoming a media event, incapable of moving in public without unwanted coverage. What was the deal about the American Indians believing a photograph stole the soul of the one getting his picture taken?
What happens to someone when he is absorbed by the Media Blob, trapped in the gelatinous membrane of grocery store magazines and Insider shows?
Do you think he longs for the days of standing in the early morning quiet, addressing a golf ball, checking down the dew-covered fairway for the position of the sand traps and the pin?
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