Friday, September 30, 2011

How Can Something "Float Fast"?

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Jeff Tweedy knows:


His goal in life was to be an echo
Riding alone, town after town, toll after toll
A fixed bayonet through the great southwest to forget her

She appears in his dreams
But in his car and in his arms
A dream can mean anything
A cheap sunset on a television set can upset her
But he never could

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird

His goal in life was to be an echo
The type of sound that floats around and then back down
Like a feather
But in the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans
No one could hear him
Or anything

So he slept on a mountain
In a sleeping bag underneath the stars
He would lie awake and count them
And the gray fountain spray of the great Milky Way
Would never let him
Die alone

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird
A hummingbird
A hummingbird



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Monday, September 26, 2011

Wilco

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Things to report from the Wilco concert at Merriweather last night:



* Some clown in back of you yelling "We liked that! Play another!" every time a song ends and people clap is slightly amusing the first time you hear it, extremely annoying after two hours.

* The correct way to express your appreciation of opening artist Nick Lowe is to, every time his name is mentioned, yell "Fuckin' Nick Lowe!!" at the top of your lungs.

* A simple stage design of what look like hanging cotton balls can be amazing when lit.



* Wilco is loud. Wall-of-sound. tsunumai-of-aural-delight loud.

* Drummers, while playing, are the hardest working people in the world. 

* The blazing guitar solo is not dead.



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Saturday, September 24, 2011

How Quickly We Forget

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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Going Slowly Crazy

Of my 19 books at work, 6 of the authors' names begin with K.
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Sex and the Citadel

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I like playing videogames with a female character for a lot of reasons, especially the feeling of being female and powerful. But I'm playing as a man for the first time, and it's a subtle psychological shift in terms of physical prowess. I'm stomping around town in that huge armor and I feel completely invulnerable. It's an illusion, but one that's ingrained psychologically.
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Gray September

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Forget wettest September. This is the darkest September I ever remember.
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Sunday, September 18, 2011

The Invisible Ones, by Stef Penney

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New novel coming out by Stef Penney.



She wrote one of my favorite novels of recent years, The Tenderness of Wolves.

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Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Drive Home

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Monday, September 12, 2011

"The Great Maw"

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I wrote this poem after a long walk with Rocky a few months ago. It was spring, which always makes me think of my mom, who died a few years ago. I thought of the ache inside me to see her again, in fact to recover and hold everything in my past: my mom, my childhood, the whole world of my past and that of my family. For everyone, I think, it's an insatiable hunger for permanence for the things we love.


The Great Maw

Want want
Mommy Mommy
Bed and story
Truck is lorry

Want want
Starry night-time
Nightmare fright-time
Sleepyhead

Want want
Pachysandra
Tulip mantis
Daffodil

Want want
Sisters brother
Honeysuckle
Hopscotch boards

Want want
Please please
More more

But death wants me.

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Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Geek Gazette

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I can't believe I played five hours of Dragon Age yesterday. Updates:

* The first time I played Orzammar, it took me approximately 5 hours of play, 100 or so attempts, plus numerous consultations with game-playing friends to kill the Broodmother. This time, it took one try. All done in two minutes. And because I was a Rogue this time, specializing in Dueling, at the last second I looked up to see my character sitting astride the Broodmother's neck and plunging a sword in the back of her head. Very satisfying.

* So I got Alistair the throne, and he dumps me for being an elf? PISSED.

* Although I loved hearing Alistair say "Your desire is my command" every time I spoke to him (before he stomped on my heart), avatar sex is kind of creepy.

*  My companions this time around were my mabari and Wynne (Alistair goes without saying). And they rocked. Wynne is a healing machine, and my mabari Hurricane has more than once taken down the last of the resistance when everyone else was dead.

*  Morrigan? That drama queen can stay in camp.



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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Flood

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The Little Patuxent River flooded today and turned the bordering forests into rivers and lakes.

The bank of the river is usually about a third down from the top of this photo:



The river passing under the bridge:


A tree that is usually on the banks:


This tree is on a sandbar:


The east bank of the river:


The trees in the water here are usually forest:

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Sunday, September 4, 2011

iPod Art

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Some drawings Jay did on his iPod Touch:


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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Crustacean of My Heart

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Friday, September 2, 2011

Onomatofeeta

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This morning Jay and I were on the deck, listening to the variety of birds in the woods. There came a distinctive tapping, pretty strong but slow and irregular.

Me:  What IS that? It sounds like a woodpecker, but it's slow and not rhythmic.
Jay:  You could be describing me.
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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Pink

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For the last week, the best-of collection by Pink has been in the CD player in my car. Her later songs especially, the ones inspired by the break-up of her marriage (and subsequent reconciliation), are amazing. They're so personal, and the lyrics are really specific, not applicable to just anyone. The only recent album that is similarly honest is Taking the Long Way by the Dixie Chicks, written in the aftermath of their infamous drubbing at the hands of political conservatives irked by their criticism of Bush.

I like Pink and Natalie Maines not just for their great music but for their abrasive personalities. Women are generally expected to be poised and politic, but these two are just big loud-mouths.






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