This is why Terry Gilliam will always be my favorite director.

From 'Brazil' to 'Fear & Loathing' to 'Baron Munchausen' to 'Tideland', from 'Fisher King' to 'Crimson Permanent Assurance' his films are always full-to-bursting.

Full of life, full of death, full of humor, full of tragedy.

Full, as he says in this clip, "...of magic, wonder. The stuff of dreams".

Original "The Original of Laura" notecards in Nabokov's own hand.

Very special thanks to my dear friend Tom Smith for taking the time & making the effort to track down the August 14th issue of the German weekly "Die Zeit" for me.

As F. Murray Abraham's character Salieri in "Amadeus" says in my favorite scene in all of filmdom, "I was staring through the cage, of those meticulous ink-strokes, at an absolute beauty."

Not that I expect "tOoL" to be an 'absolute beauty', but the simple fact of finding these cards, when for years it was assumed they'd be destroyed forever, gives them a certain enchantment that (for me at least) cannot be dismissed.

Why I love my Long Distance provider....

workingassets.com


I use a company called 'Working Assets' as a Long Distance provider (they recently changed their name to 'Credo' for some reason).

From their website; " Working Assets was created in 1985 on a strong foundation of beliefs, a credo. Supporting peace, equality, human rights and the environment is the reason we exist. That is why each time one of our customers uses our mobile, credit card or long distance services, we donate a portion of their charges to these causes."

Part of your payments to them they give to organizations like Planned Parenthood, Center for Independent Media, Oxfam, Amnesty International, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, etc. Nice & liberal.

In today's mail I received a postcard from them:

The copy reads: "Did your phone help elect Bush/Cheney? AT&T's political action committee contributed the maximum amount allowable by law to the Bush/Cheney campaign — twice."

There's a bit more about switching to Credo Mobile, then it ends with:

"On the other hand, if you're happy with your mobile service just the way it is, accept this photograph — suitable for framing — as your gift from a real, ahem, Richard.

Perfect.

I have a reason to live again, for now....

Nabokov's last work will not be burned


Click the link, read the story. I'll wait.



Know that the reason I gave up on trying to write fiction almost 20 years ago is my irrational fervor for Nabokov's achievement.

He is my god.

In '95, when my life was over for the third or fourth time, Knopf (Random House) published, in hardback, 'the Stories of Vladimir Nabokov'. My daily prayer book. It contains all his previously published short stories, in chronological order, starting with a sweet (if poor) three-pager he wrote when 17, 'the Wood-Sprite'.

I have read it many, many, many, muh-henny times. Each time, though, leaving the last five stories, the last 44 pages of Nabby's fiction I'd ever have. My grail. My 'Kingdom of God'. My salvation. My all.

To this day I have yet to read them. They are my Valhalla.

Now, thanks once more to Mike (the smartest human I've ever known), I find a slight ledge above my current grip I hadn't noticed before.

The last bits of Nabby's literary life are known to any fan. 150-odd 3"x5" cards, carefully if almost illegibly annotated, breaking down the final work of the greatest novelist to choose English as a final language. Left, in his estate, to be destroyed by his lifelong love, and dedicatee of every novel, his wife & partner & love, his wife Vera.

Blessfully, blissfully, she chose to pass on any conflagaritory obligations. (Just thinking about Nabby makes you write worse than you normally do....)

Now, the final inheritor of Nabby's estate, their son Dmitri (the rakish, racecar driving/racecar crashing, orchestra conducting, literary inheriting (and annoyingly fine writer/editor in his own lifetime) son) has announced to the world he too will not follow his father's deathbed wishes to destroy the final, unfinished, unpolished, story.

To be fair, it's well known that Nabokov had a feverish disdain for anybody to see unfinished works. He is well known for writing, complete with asides and jokes and pauses, all and any speech he gave to any college class. (Really. They were published in book-form in the late 70's & persons lucky enough to attend his lectures attest to the almost verbatim transcription).

But readers, like vultures, care not for the bones behind the meat, as it were. Personally, I'd voluntarily lose my left arm (I use my right arm for too many things I enjoy) for a chance to read Nabby's Laura.

For some of us vampires, Nabby's corpus is the final blood we crave. The idea that somewhere, somehow, there's fresh flesh we never had access to before is literally, literarilly, intoxicating. Flesh to get drunk on.

No more mad late-night dreams of how to break into that Swiss bank-vault to get those damn cards....

"The lord giveth, and the lord taketh..."

Feeling a little out-of-sorts last night so after work I went for a drive. Ended up stopping by my favorite bar in Seattle, the "Tin Hat" in Ballard. They sell foam beer-holders with their logo and the phrase "SHUT THE FUCK UP & DRINK!", but that's not why they're my favorite bar.

I hadn't realized it'd been so long since I'd been in. Two things have changed, one good, one bad.

First thing I notice is a neon sign that says 'Kitchen Open Till Midnight', which is definitely intriguing as they usually shut it around 10pm, meaning it would have been too late to get tots.

Now let's take a minute to talk tots. The genius of providing freshly fried tater-tots in a bar environment can not be over-emphasized. The simplicity & purity of the idea of tots at a bar fills me with an almost absurdly spiritual joy. They are the single greatest item available for soaking up the beer (or double gin & bitters, in my case) that's souring your stomach. They are the perfect size for a speed-feed, or the perfect size for steady nibbling. They are perfect for munching by yourself, or for a basket-in-the-middle share with friends. They are starchy & fried & hot & greasy like french fries, but unlike fries are much less greasy & stay hot much longer out of the kitchen. They even hold the katsup better.
And the ones at the Tin Hat, as you may have surmised, are the best in Seattle (The secret may be their sauce; like a creamy spicy katsup. But then again it may not be).

I slide onto a stool, pull out the credit card (you should always run a tab when at a bar, it makes everything easier, and is one of life's little pleasures), order my first of the night's double gin & bitters, ask if the kitchen is really still open. Why yes, I would like to see a menu!

The new bartender delivers my drink and takes my order for tots. I ask him how long the kitchen's been open 'til midnight, he looks at the kitchen and says it's been that way as long as he can remember. Hmm, it has been a while since I've been in.

By my third double g&b I've asked for a takeaway box for what's left of my tots (breakfast!), and become a bit more talkative. From overhearing his conversation with an off-work coworker I've noticed they haven't spoken of John, my usual bartender. I ask if he's still around, but neither of them has even heard of a bartender there named John. I can't even ask where he's gone!

Dang. John had the amazing knack of remembering my usual drink, even when I stayed away (at other bars, not away) for months. He had also, from being attentive & professional, perfected the ratio of gin to bitters to make the best drink. And he was the kind of guy who'd talk if you wanted to, or leave you alone if you wanted to just stare at the back of the bar. And he always poured heavy because I always tipped him heavy. And he's the only bartender in Seattle who's let me stay in the bar after closing and continue drinking (so far, fingers crossed!). Dang, gonna have to train the new guy.

Order my fourth double, ask for the check, tip too much (which is just the right amount).

Oh well, tot's 'til midnight in tribute to John....

Windpipes? Really?

"Anatomy of a hot dog."

"Hot dogs typically contain muscle meat trimmings from pork or beef. Contrary to legend, they do not contain animal eyeballs, hooves or genitals, according to the Hot Dog Council’s Janet Riley.
But the government does allow them to contain pig snouts and stomachs, cow lips and livers, goat gullets and lamb spleens. If they have these byproducts, the label should spell out which ones, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman said.

Check the label of a name-brand hot dog, and chances are fat provides around 80 percent of total calories, more than double what’s often advised. What’s more, saturated fat and trans fat — the fats most strongly linked with artery-clogging — are common ingredients, in some cases providing at least half the fat content."


So why did god have to make them taste so damn good?

And what the hell is a 'goat gullet'? That doesn't sound any kinda right....

Check your "Fowler's"....

I have a confession to make: I love our language. Our bastard, spoiled, rule-breaking son-of-a-bitch of a language. Our barroom, locker-room, newsroom language. Our 'lite' language, our media language, our ad-copy language. The language sung in our favorite songs, misused in our beer ads, overused in our sophomoric poetry. I love language, and I delight in our trainwreck of a melting-pot of a mixed-metaphor of a language!

And when you enjoy something (music, movies, food) you look to the process (the guitar, the camera, the spoon). I've therefore spent most of my life reading grammar guides, style books, thesauri. I have a small library of books about writing, books of forgotten words, books about, er, books.

My bible, turned to daily for spiritual guidance, is my 20-plus year old, well loved, well stained American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition. (Years ago I got in the habit of making a small tick next to any word I looked up, now roughly 9 out of 10 pages (in a random sampling I just did) have at least one check).

I cherish my old friends Bill Strunk and E. B. White, and turn to them often for corrections on those little rules I never remember.

From Chicago I get the journalist's bible (and the coolest title) the Manual of Style.
Seriously, how cool is that? It should be the name of a Miles Davis album. "Miles Davis, the Manual of Style".

But the one guide I truly cherish, the one that always leaves a smile in the back of my mind, the one I don't turn to often enough is H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage. Most often simply referred to as Fowler's, it lives by itself with a nice pension in a little cottage just off the Oxford grounds.

It is fastidiously accurate. It is a model of efficiency. It is even, in it's own way, playful (if occasionally cantankerous).

I decided to write this little blog after coming across the following entry while I was thumbing through my copy this morning. It stood out from the other entries concerning correct use of onomatopoeia, the differences between Jacobean, Jacobin, and Jacobite, what etc. really means and when/how it should be used. It is a wonderful example of everything about Fowler's that I love (and by a beautifully circular 'meta-' process, everything I love about our language). It is simple, it is direct, it is even a bit (playfully?) dismissive:

superstitions. Among the most enduring of the superstitions or myths about our language are these: sentences should not begin with and or but; sentences should not end with a preposition; and infinitives should not be 'split'. For further examples of such beliefs, see FETISHES.

Sublime!
(A word I use a little too often; I've yet to find a suitable synonym).

As an occasional law-breaker & firm believer in personal liberties...

...I have a huge problem with this story. I do believe these actions violate your Fourth Amendment rights.

But as a guy who wants every rapist and murder caught, stopped & destructively removed from society (and the gene-pool) I think this is a great development for law enforcement:


Police turn to secret weapon: GPS device
Privacy advocates say electronic tracking violates Fourth Amendment rights

Someone was attacking women in Fairfax County and Alexandria, grabbing them from behind and sometimes punching and molesting them before running away. After logging 11 cases in six months, police finally identified a suspect.

David Lee Foltz Jr., who had served 17 years in prison for rape, lived near the crime scenes. To figure out if Foltz was the assailant, police pulled out their secret weapon: They put a Global Positioning System device on Foltz's van, which allowed them to track his movements.

Police said they soon caught Foltz dragging a woman into a wooded area in Falls Church. After his arrest on Feb. 6, the string of assaults suddenly stopped. The break in the case relied largely on a crime-fighting tool they would rather not discuss.

Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order. Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police.



Read the whole story here, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26167805
and decide for yourself if this is good news or bad. I still don't know how I feel....

The future will bring some disturbing shit....

"The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth!"

"BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight."


Check the video they provide for the creapiest robot-walk I've ever seen. I want a large version of this, with a big cab (like a SnoCat) that I can ride around the back-country in, scaring the natives:

http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

Be sure to watch for the point a little over half-way through when they show their beast slipping & sliding & recovering on some ice. You'll swear it's a living creature reacting to its environment.


PS: I ADORE their copy: "BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots." That line has 'Omni Consumer Products' written all over it!

THIS I don't need....

Driving home at 2:30am (a little drunk, a little stoned) on a warm summer morning with the windows down and the college radio station pumping out French hiphop it's easy to feel all is right with the world.

I am not allowed to feel all is right with the world.

Suddenly I'm blinded from behind by those horrible bluedeath headlights. (You know the kind; when they're heading toward you they make the back of your eyes cramp up. When they come up behind you it feels like you're in that pickup that gets stuck on the tracks in 'Close Encounters').

And then I'm being tailgated by the asshole with the 'needles-of-death' headlights.

Now I need to let you know I hate tailgaters. There's very few people & very few actions I hate (truly hate) more than tailgaters.

Until recently in Washington the law was fairly straight forward; in a rear-end accident the car following is at fault. The idea being; if you were following at a safe distance you could have avoided hitting the car in front of you. I used this to my advantage on many occasions.

The most 'famous' being a certain Ms. Crager. She tried to cut me off, even though I had the right-of-way & was already in the intersection. Since she couldn't cut in front of me she decided to tailgate for the next couple of blocks. I slammed on my brakes hard enough she had no chance of avoiding the accident, slamming in to the back of my (piece of shit) car hard enough to push me forward a few feet. Pulling out, feigning an interest in pulling over & exchanging pertinent (though non-existent on my part (thank you Photoshop!)) car insurance information, I led her to the next gas station, then cut through the nearest light as it changed to red.

Went to the liquor store, drove home. When Julie & I got out and checked my rear bumper for damage we found somebody else's license plate stuck in it. Pealing it off it turned out to be a 'vanity plate', with the name MS CRAGR.

Ha! Princess not only fucked up the front of her car, she lost her vanity plate she had to pay extra for!

To this day it hangs on my wall as a 'trophy of war':

Where were we? Oh yeah: 2:30am — drunk & stoned — French hiphop — tailgater.

Before I have a chance to get worked up, the tailgater hits his highbeams, filling my little RX7 with whiteblue disorientation. It's so blinding I can't clearly see the road ahead of me and am forced to follow the white line in the lower right of frame. Very safe.

And then the whole world turns into Spencer's Gifts (and yes I had my camera ready, I do that sometimes when I don't have a weapon with me):



Turns out the rave going on behind me was in reality a Seattle cop, who suddenly decided tailgating me on a back-road at 2:30 in the morning wasn't enough sport, he needed to find a spot with a little more action. He fired up his lightbar & shot past me into the night.

Thanks Seattle police; nothing says 'Preventing crime, enforcing laws, supporting public safety' like tailgating with highbeams on at 2:30am.

Oh, and that last photo perfectly expresses the state of my mind at the instant that cop hit his party lights.

This I don't need....