For your amusment

Four short clips of animals
solving everyday problems.
Guaranteed to amaze and delight you
(if you have a heart).



Smart Animals - video via Metacafe

Wednesday cast removal day

None too soon, if you ask me. This thing leaves zero wiggle room and by the end of the day my hand is really annoyed. If I could just BE STILL, but alas that is never going to happen. A friend is coming by in a hour to pick me up. The doctor is in Reno but here I sit, one hand typing. That should be my new name, One Hand Typing. Or maybe Left Hand Mousing. It slows ya down, but it is a good exercise in mindfulness. I will say that. Anyway, I leave the fort. Other than to refill the bird feeders, I haven't stepped outside since the toy train left for Mexico.

100 seconds of crude

Okay, here is my internet musical debut. I recorded it this morning; another step in my ongoing efforts to rise above crippling shyness, soul crushing isolation, face the machine, and just be myself. Don't ask me why.

This is an improvisation. The melody is simple-minded and fumbled out and the video itself is jumpy. I should be ashamed of myself but apparently not enough. So here it is, for your pleasure, 100 seconds of crude.

The blogging life

 

This episode of Achewood just happens strike a special cord with me.

Mr. Bear's blog

Life in the house and other residencies

Here I sit doing another blog post, as predicted. My hand hurts. I slept on it wrong last night and it is crabby and swollen inside the cast today. Except for the bugs scurrying about their business, and of course the Invisible Theatre troupe, there is no other life in the house. It's not that M. Lee and I talk much during the day. I pass his door on my way to the kitchen. I see the back of his head but he is there and now he is not. For a month. This is supposed to be my 30 days of wild creative abandon but mostly I just feel lonely. What a simp. I would blow a residency in this mood. Interesting that Poets.org is accepting submissions beginning today for the Walt Whitman Award. It includes a 30 day residency at the Vermont Studio Center.

Black Balloons

Climate Project

00:45

Leaving NV

Too early. The little birds haven't even made it to the Bird Park yet although the ravens and crows have come, cleaned up all the bread and French fries and gone. And M. Lee and G. are gone, off to San Carlos and the Sea of Cortez for a month (if they can stand each other that long) while I sit at home with my arm in a sling. Bastards! Just kidding. I already miss the hell out of Lee but I have big plans for myself. Oh yeah. Sprawling through the house on a big messy creative binge. He says when he gets home I will still be sitting right here slaving over a Huffpo comment or blog post. Ha! We shall see. I say I will rise above my crippling shyness, the soul crushing isolation of the burbs, faceoff this f*cking video editing software and synthesizer and the camera to create more complex and interesting clips than my current smash hits such as Quail Dust Bath Party or Lifetime in Tonopah. The glove is down babee and the clock is ticking ... and all this pecked out by the one finger method. Anyway, here is my latest nothing happening video but hey, it's my first splice job. What do you want for free?!


Departure

Jim Morrison reading

The American Night

from LiveLeak 05:27

Bon voyagers

Nevada
Starting out

On Monday M. Lee and his buddy Greg are leaving for a month of sailing on Mexico's Sea of Cortez. It's Greg's boat, truck and camper. Lee is rail meat, Gilligan and co-conspirator. I can't imagine navigating Mexican roads with that setup, even the toll roads. All in all the whole thing is as awkward as a semi, but I'm sure they will be just fine. Greg has been hauling one boat or another around for years and once they get to San Carlos they will be able to chose between living on the boat or staying in the trailer park and the marina is a wifi hot spot. Far cry from the kind of camping we do in the desert with nothing but coyotes for company. Anyway, I'll be lonely but Lee set up Gizmo on the laptop so it will only cost us 2 cents a minute to talk. Not bad. And while he's gone I plan on turning the whole house into a studio. I'm going to record myself reading poetry, playing music and, OMG, just talking to the camera YouTube style. I've done a few takes already and immediately deleted them. Frightful. I don't know what drives me to do the things I do.

San Carlos

Destination

Zen bird

click... clickclick........ click......... cl..... ick..... click....

That is the sound of one hand not typing but I'm not complaining for one day after surgery. Hell, I used to know a poet in Santa Cruz who typed all his books with the one finger method. Anyway, yesterday I wandered down some pretty dark paths. For instance in pre-op, while the lab tech blew a couple of veins trying to set the I.V., it occurred to me that the glare of the oblong overhead light I was staring at is the last thing some people see just before dying and lying on the hard cold surgery gurney as I began swirling around the event horizon of my failing mind, I was overwhelmed with sadness thinking about all the lab animals who watch in horror as heartless researchers do terrible things to them, all without pain relief, and after surgery I briefly understood what it must be like to outlive your world and await death among indifferent strangers.

Today, swollen as it is, it's still wonderful having the pressure off my middle and ring fingers (ulner and median nerves) and the carpal tunnel repaired. If it weren't for the cast, I'd probably be able to flip the bird from a fist, a talent all but lost to me before yesterday. But in my brief absence I fear Uncle Monkey has been up to more shady business.

Hi ho

Tomorrow I am going in for carpal tunnel surgery and am trying not to obsess on the fact that I can't eat or drink anything after midnight. It's a re-do and this time ... THIS TIME ... I am going to give it enough time to heal. Yes indeedy. My poor right hand is in need of four separate repairs, undoubtedly karma, a use it or lose it kind of thing, because I still haven't written the book that keeps swimming circles in my mind like a damn shark.

Not that I don't want to write it, mind you, plus November is bearing down on us like LARGE MARGE's semi. You know what that means. NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. Already I am receiving GET READY emails from the NaNo guys and feel the pull as though a gigantic hot full moon were rising in my head. But NO! I am not going to ride the cyclone this year. One, because I don't want to put undo stress on my hand. I'll save that for pressing matters such as commenting on political blogs. Two, because I still haven't done anything with the 50,000 words I mashed through my keyboard last year. Once I received my NaNo winner gif, I closed my password protected manuscript, sent it to several of my email accounts for safe keeping, and didn't look at it again for months. When I did, I was overcome by vertigo. Nevertheless, if you're thinking about doing it, go for it. What have you got to lose? Your sanity? ... whahahahaha .... Ahem. Excuse me. Well, it is a mind altering experience but I love that shit. Since I don't do drugs anymore, gotta get it however I can.

Achewood all over again

Achewood is of my favorites but I can't read the new ones Chris continues to post daily because I never read up to them. I don't even remember where I left off so today I started reading the complete archive over from the beginning. Good thing to do after my carpal tunnel surgery this Thursday.

The Web Designer

Lie Bot's Shoes

Rat tales

Puppets are like birds, very camera shy,
especially when you sneak up on them.

The troupe here at the Invisible Theatre
are actors but even they can get touchy
when caught off guard. I only managed to
get a couple of photos before they all
scampered behind the proscenium
and pulled the curtains.

Turns out Rat Woman was reading from an
old five year diary that belonged to my mother (R).
It covers the time when she was first dating my father
and goes a couple of years after their marriage.
I wonder what else Rat Woman has been getting into?

September 11, 1940

"To C.B.* after work with Peach & Chuck.
Andy met us & to Jennings awhile.
The Draft Bill was passed. Wonder what's to be."

* Candy Bar - a favorite tavern where my parents and their friends spent A LOT OF TIME.

Marcel Marceau, the greatest mime

For me, he did not die. How could such a man die? I saw him once when I was very young and he has been with me ever since. Here is a wonderful clip I just found. It is perhaps the only talky he ever made.

raven in red circle

While you were out

Shady deals. Don't even ask.

TA DA

Out-of-State Qi has arrived!

If you haven't been following the news, I recently won the Hammer's distinguished First Annual Worst Colored Helmet Award. Mayan Leopard was on hand to greet Out-of-State Qi and conduct the sniff test. There are, after all, certain protocols around the Language Barrier one must observe so that the flow of good luck and winning virtue will not be impeded. Plus, it is one gorgeous hunk and will look great on my window sill. At least now I can proudly wear my helmet. Who knows? Out-of-State Qi may actually have ended up saving my life! Thanks Hammer!

excerpt from the interior prisoner

13.

Being is a mouth
with which an unknowable word articulates itself

in a language which is the partial imprint
of something prior to speech,

like the impression left in grass
where an animal has rested.


--------------
author unknown
a translation of an unsigned manuscript
written at Salamanca around 1902
translated by: geoffrey o'brien
published at wordplayground

Annual Worst Colored Helmet Awards

Big day here. I just received the Annual Worst Colored Helmet Award. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Acceptance speech included below.

OMG!!! OMG!!! I can't thank The Hammer or the judges enough for this prestigious award. OMG.

(pause for tears and nose blowing)

I want you all to know that The ECOVLGQTIFIMBY will never end up in my garage. It will always be under the auspices of Maneki Neko and sit proudly on my window sill next to the now petrified chip from a flying saucer radiator that I found in the desert.

But actually I cannot accept this award for myself alone. I stand here tonight on behalf of all those brave souls who risk scorn and ridicule to wear their hideously colored helmets in public. Furthermore they do this in spite of helmet laws that many of us feel are an invasion of the rights of idiots everywhere to willy-nilly smash their brains on highways and byways and die free or live on as vegetables at the expense of the hearts and pock books of family and state. And we fervently hope that our example serves as a reminder to spectral bikers everywhere to wear your helmet dammit, and stop playing chicken with LARGE MARGE!

LARGE MARGE

02:11

Ps. After reading eccentric recluse's comment that the The ECOVLGQTIFIMBY may be more than an Enormous Chunk Of Very Low Grade Quartz, I want to publicly remind you Hammer that that rock is mine!

Day in the life.00

It's only been one day but I don't know how much longer I can stand seeing M. Corbeau endure the insults of nature. Yes, he would grow hoary and wonderful after years of frost and snow and layers of poop, muddy prints and scratches from the hand snatchers (Maniraptora) but this morning he was covered with a thin layer of frost and even that was almost too much for me. I know it violates some obscure poetic principal that is compromised even by mention but before winter sets in he may have to join me on this side of the glass.

Charlie the Crow is also here this morning, cawing his signature 4 caws - pause - 4 caws - pause - 4 caws - pause ... on and on. Even I have gone out on occasion and asked him to put a sock in it. I don't know what's with that guy, must one of those loud mouth, first to arrive, last to leave reporters.

In other Bird Park news, the graying magpie with the scars under her jaw is also out there enjoying a Sunday brunch. She's a loner and smart, comes early then makes a second swoop mid-morning and doesn't panic when I toss out seconds on the peanut chips but instead flies to the roof of a nearby house and waits for to me to go away.

Quiz of the day: What do Swatch, Rebecca Taylor, Nicole Miller and Burton Snowboards have in common? Answer here.

Quail groupies

It's afternoon and the moon is 93% full and visible in its waning Gibbous phase over Africa, Paris, the Atlantic and all that, no place I can see, although I did rise early enough this morning to see it shining in through two small windows in the front part of the house and onto the row of cactus's by the door in pots which, I feel certain, made them very happy because plants love moonlight, and a party of quail just now came streaming through the Bird Park on their way to check out the finch spillage on the ground under the seed tube. This is not unusual. They visit the park several times a day for goodies, ending with one final swoop at twilight after everyone else is tucked in for the night, head under wing.

What is unusual, at least around here, is that finches, lots of them, have taken to hanging out with the quail, following them around the yard imitating everything they do. They sit on the fence with them and, when it's time for the quail dirt bath party, the finches are right there wallowing along side them in the soft warm dirt, something I never noticed them do on their own, not that they don't take dirt baths elsewhere. They probably do. I've just never seen them take one here. And they crowd into the butterfly bush when the quail are there doing whatever it is they do, nibble bugs maybe, tasty spiders or ants. They graze the weeds with them, and they bathe in the baths and drink together and, in the writing of this rather pointless post, the whole lot, quail and finches, have scooted off, probably back to Dwayne's for dinner. The only thing the finches don't do with them is the twilight snack. And the quail don't seem to mind the company. I did a quick search and found out that there is actually is an African Quail Finch. I have to say, they do look a bit alike, cousins maybe, same colored feathers anyway. You know what they say about feathers.

That's it. I just needed to write something.

Bill and M. Corbeau

Meet M. Corbeau. He just took up residence in the Bird Park this afternoon and startled the hell out of me every time I notice him today. Also I think he freaked out a lot of birds. Generally the last visitors to the park are the quail. They drop by in the evening to clean up the day's finch spillage but tonight only one made an appearance and, on seeing M. Corbeau, beat it. I went out just after that and took this photo. I wanted to see what M. looks like from a bird's point of view. I say ... scary.

It was twilight which is atmospheric in itself but of course to my delight, M. Corbeau is decidedly Edgar Allen Poeish on his own plus he is a gift from my daughter and her husband which even increases his panache. M. Corbeau is here to stay. The birds will have to get used to him. In fact, I fully expect to see one sitting on his head before long, or perhaps leaping up and down challenging him to a fight.




And in case you missed this, Bill Clinton had some very precise harsh words for the Republicrites who censured MoveOn this week for that General Betrayus ad, plus a nod to the few who refused to play their dirty little game. If you haven't already, have a listen. This guy is a born storyteller. I'd love to hear him cut loose at a rip roaring bullshit session.

Oh that's right. He's a politician. It's always a rip roaring bullshit session but you know what I mean.


Bill Clinton:
MoveOn ad condemnation classic bait and switch

02:03

Pics of the day

Curious about what's going on elsewhere?

Here's yesterday's selection of photos from //STATic.

Front fell off

Check out this interview of an *Australian Senator discussing an oil spill. Hilarious. If you haven't seen it, you are in for a treat.

The front fell off


02:01

* Just did a little more checking. More on the Australian Senator and his interviewer here.

And the winner is....

CONTEST UPDATE

In case the question is keeping you awake at night, here's an update on who won the $100,000 cash award in ReZoom's summer A Better World contest. Remember? You were supposed to vote for the Elephant Sanctuary. Well, ReZoom is just now grinding its way to announcing the Big Winner. So you don't feel bad, all the contestants have already received $5000 just for being good guys but the Elephant Sanctuary is one of the top two final contestants along with the Wounded Warrior Project. Damn. Didn't pay much attention to the list before. No other group could override my loyalty to the elephants. Of course the Sanctuary depends on piddly donations from people like me who send a couple of bucks every now but my own son was recently discharged from active duty. And veterans with limbs blow off, shattered hearts and minds? Well, the contest is closed. Thanks for voting, if you did. Which ever way the gavel falls, my heart will be with it.

Bonobo see, Bonobo do

These Bonobo apes are pretty amazing. If you got a few extra minutes this documentary on Susan Savage-Rumbaugh's work with primates is definitely worth a watch.

Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man

Orangie helmet and roving eye

Roy requested documentation that my helmet is, in fact, the Ugliest Colored Helmet in the World. Now you see. I exaggerate not. It is a good helmet but just a I described, a horrible "overly orangie shade of deep turmeric".



And as this post is filed under Local News, I'm including a couple of photos of things that recently caught my eye during my adventures around town.

Mother and son enjoying a shopping break goodie .

Sad Jane Doe.

I'd hate for my head to end up in a load of junk bound for the dump
but actually, that is what happened at one point in my life.

Parallel world

I'm melancholy tonight so I came here to sit under the palm fronds and tangled wisteria vines embracing the cafe terrace just off the boulevard. I am barely visible to others but from here I can see the street and the beach and the stars and for the moment I have found a measure of peace among the nuanced conversations wisping in the breeze.

Titles and nonsuch

Roy got me to thinking about titles with his post Cement Blocks and now I feel compelled to confess my scandalous past with them (titles not cement blocks) and therefore waste what began as a lovely Saturday morning full of promise. Thanks a lot Roy. They say confession is good for the soul but fail to add that it can be a little hard on the reputation, in this case the legend that I am in my own slavering and slavish mind. I'm going to make this as brief and painless as possible. Just the facts, mam.

In the days when I labored over a typewriter and burned through bottles and bottles of whiteout to come up with the ever illusive Perfect Copy, SkyRiver was a letterpress operation and I would sit amidst the half ton of antique machines and dream up titles for the books I was going publish on them, by setting my poems one backward, upside-down letter at a time. Actually I hated typesetting. The task made me very nervous and therefore the prospect of setting a page required a lot of alcohol to ready myself for the ordeal. As I prepared to begin, I enjoyed a delicious reverie over how I would slab thick black ink over the old black rollers and indent wonderful thick paper with my words. Unfortunately, by the time I felt ready to charge, I was often too drunk to focus. After a few years of that, my then partner and I split and sold the presses. I had only managed to print a few pages with a couple more set and ready to go that never got inked. But, I'm great with titles.

At the same time I had an acquaintance by the name of Cosmo who read at the same open mikes I did. He liked my writing and one night leaned over and muttered that he had recommended my name to some Who's Who list that he was on. I, of course, thought that was appropriate and showed my approval by a quick nod and mumbled something like Cool. Thanks. A few months later I got an invitation from a publisher in the UK. I was to submit my bio and list of published works for inclusion in two separate upcoming editions of Who's Who, I think one for poetry and the other women writers. I can't remember clearly.

And I don't remember who the publisher was. They were in Cambridge and their presentation was nice but I figured that if they were willing to include me sight unseen, it must have been a scam; one of those offers where they put your name in their big expensive book and then sell it to you so that you can leave the garish, gilded volume laying casually on your coffee table so your friends will notice it. I filled out the forms anyway and I'm sure you have already guessed my dilemma. Should I be a literalist and include only the things that have already made it into print (at that time individual poems mostly published in the local alt newspaper) or include titles of upcoming books I was planning to publish on my letterpress? I did wrestle with the question for at least minutes and then decided that, after all, I need to demonstrate faith in myself and so hurriedly jotted down the future titles and dashed the letter to the box before I could change my mind. So titles I've got.

To date in ... um .... reality? ... I do finally have a (draft) edition of a chapbook titled After Hours. I printed it years after SkyRiver Press died and resurrected as a digital entity but those old titles for the Who's Who are a wash. I listed several but only remember one, Watch Fire, and cringe as I write it. Obviously, I was not on the moral high ground at the time but what the heck? That is proven slippery ground for mortals such as I.

Ah...somebody worse than me

Unless you are a regular reader here, you might not be aware of just how much I agonize over the irritation my Bird Park causes Mr. Lee. I feel bad. I really do. It's too much for this kind of neighborhood. We should move to a funky place in the country. I even feel bad for my fussy neighbor when he runs the birds off so recently I cut the seed back by 2/3s to reduce the visitors I get in a day. So far, I just can't bring myself to stop feeding them altogether. I would be very lonely without them hopping around looking for goodies, feeding their squawking babies, taking cold tubs, dirt baths, singing. Even the little skirmishes that break out are entertaining because nobody really gets hurt. Now Mr. Lee has stopped bitching so much and I haven't seen old Dick out there shooing everybody away so, for the moment, we are back in a groove.

I don't want to sound like a bad neighbor but I'm not too worried about Dick anyway. He lost the moral high ground while we were gone by doing his own bad neighbor thing. He nailed an ugly towering pole to his side of the fence and it is directly and exactly across from my office window. It has to stand at least 12 feet above the fence. Tacky. This is not the first time Dick has infringed on the fence line in our boxed in, back to back little piece of burb heaven. A few years ago the people over his back fence demanded he take down the row of corny brilliantly colored faux birdhouses that he builds in his garage for god knows who. They are the kind of thing you might consider cooling a friendship down over just to avoid getting one as a Christmas present and certainly no self-respecting bird would ever consider living in one.

At first I thought the stick was some kind of rattle that he could shake from his back porch and scare all the birds out of my yard whenever he felt like it but now I don't think so. I suspect it's just part of his ham radio operation. Okay. Fine. He used to use a frequency that broadcast over our computer speakers. At random hours of the day and night we'd startle to a crackly "This is Lazy Dog in Northern Nevada, Northern Nevada" ... (always very drawn out on the Northern) ... over and over again blindly groping the airwaves for someone to talk at. The guy is an incessant talker. Even his own wife avoids him. That was annoying. I wish he were the deaf one then he wouldn't notice the birds so much but the deaf neighbor lives on the other side of us.

Anyway, I just learned today there is at least one person in the world who, when it comes to feeding wildlife, is more incorrigible than me; the wife of a friend of ours who recently turned her backyard into a Bear Park.

He always complained about how crazy she was and how hard he worked to contain her obsession with feeding everything that walks, crawls, or flies within a half mile of their place. That's why it was a bit surprising when he told us that she told him that the local rangers told her to put nuts and berries squirted with fish oil out for the bears and he is going along with it. Now bears are cavorting around their backyard all day long, lounging and napping and waiting for the next meal and, of course, more and more bears are showing up all the time. I sympathize because it's been a bad year for the bears, not enough berries, and they are starving and getting killed by cars as they wander further and further down the Sierra in search of food ... although a friend of mine who works for the Nevada Highway Division assures me that, in general, the garbage bears are doing well because people don't bother to get bear-proof garbage cans like they are supposed to ... but this ... the Bear Park ... this cannot end well.