podophilia has a down side

You know how some people can't resist buying stupid cutesy things for their cat or dog? Well today I bought a smart little cover for my iPod! It's rubber and has knobs sticking out all over--very Marcel Duchamp-ish. Anyway I got home to introduce my pod to its new garment + I CAN'T FIND MY iPOD! Where is it? Did you put it somewhere? Did it go in the laundry?
Hey, that's it, life's over (as we know it.)
See you in hell. Yeah you.

(later)

BUT NOOOOO! I found it. It was in my laptop bag. Oh happy day Calloo Callay. But then I googled "I lost my iPod" and came up with this: I am not alone.

See you at Radio Shack (it's all we have).

an embarrassment of riches

Somebody came up with a copy of Vanity Fair magazine the other day. This is not a thing that we often see here in Lotarot...the prevailing atmosphere, while decidedly money-ish, is not opulent, refined or sophisticated. Rather, there is the ever present turmoil of chickens scratching the dirt, stumpy-legged dogs churning the trash, horses leaning out into the roadway forcing one to screech to a halt, pigs lying in the middle of the road, cows lying in the middle of the road, goats running in a herd from one crop of weeds to the next--in short, agricultural. The cars are generally quite new and of the Range Rover ilk. Roads are too steep and subject to mud slides and worse for there to be too many Lamborghinis or Countachs, but there are a few Hummers.
So into this lush, mosquito infested, tree frog orchestrated isle came a copy of Vanity Fair with all its glossy, decadent, rich, burnished beauties and dandies. How foreign it seems, how rich and unattainable and, in fact, undesirable. Like the richest of chocolate desserts when one has become used to boiled eggs and dry toast.
But the shock of all those beauties heaped one upon the other, exhorting one to buy to spend, splurge and suffocate in the sheer too-muchiness of it all has sent me into a spiral of self-questioning panic.
Suddenly one feels more like an Old Order Amish than a New Order nostalgic. The poor cousin, the cheapside suitor, the snot-dripping snivelling perv, Aqualung in wonderland.
Wish you were here.

disco christo

boys + their toys

Here's a dude sailing an aptly named Wally. Hey Christmas is comin': do the potlatch.
Picture came from this guy.

friday on my mind

Perhaps the greatest summer rock song ever -- up there with Summer in the City. I can still recall the first time I heard it, blasting out of my cousin's car stereo (Holden panel van, natch). Here are the Easybeats, Australia's hottest band (once upon a time). Guitarist George Young was the older brother of Angus and Malcolm who were encouraged to form their own band (AC/DC) by his success. Australia produced some amazing music but none so incredibly buoyant and melodic as this. Crank it up and dance!

Oh hell! While we're at it, here's the song that started it all: She's So Fine

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this fish lost its bicycle

A Fathead (genus Psychrolutes) trawled at a depth between 1013 m and 1340 m, on the Norfolk Ridge, north-west of New Zealand, June 2003.
Thanks to the Australian Museum
and to beloved BoingBoing

gender blender

It's interesting to read in today's NY Times the following two stories. In the first, from which I've extracted a paragraph, Gina Bellafante rather grudgingly describes Madonna's current body shape—and kicks in a little bitchery as well. Madonna is described as being a “denier”, her sculptured body the product of a “number of hours...each day” in hard and demanding physical exercise.

(H)er perfect musculature produces a kind of dissonance. Madonna doesn’t have an altruist’s body, she has a denier’s. What you’re tallying in your head when you watch her dance with the strength and agility of a 19-year old, are the number of hours she is spending each day practicing ashtanga, running hills, bench-pressing the weight of a Regency table. You are counting all the calories Madonna is not eating.
read Gina Bellafante's story here

Mick Jagger, in Guy Trebay's telling, is as “lithe as a boy”, a “gorgeous superannuated Pan.” No hard work for the Mickster, no hours spent huffing and puffing (at 63?). Hmm—not even a hint of the scalpel making him look so boyish. You can bet there's been more fat vacuumed off his ass than off Anna Nicole Smith's. Madonna's too.

As lithe as a boy, Mr. Jagger seems to defy age. At least he does below the waist. Grooved and sunken, his weather-beaten face betrays every second of his 63 years and this makes it all the more startling when he prances and postures like some curious and gorgeous superannuated Pan.
Guy Trebay's story here


I don't have much sympathy for either of them (though Exile on Main Street still rocks my player).....but it is curious that Jagger is seen as just a naturally lithe, miraculously youthful old codger, while there seems to be something desperate imputed to Madonna's equally unlikely hand-crafted body.

Now, the two stories had different themes and weren't connected in terms of editorial placement, but the fact remains that they represent two very different views of essentially the same subject. I guess we're talking gender politics here, though the stereotypical views of men/women and their bodies are turned on their heads. It used to be that women were granted the benefit of the charitable doubt and were described as "eternally youthful" and so forth, and men derided for their desperate attempts to chase their youthful selves and remain attractive for the dewy-eyed innocents on whom they preyed.

You do want to stay here?

When I was first thinking of moving to the tiny kingdom of Lotarot I had heard several stories concerning the volatile relations between "Belongers" and "Non-Belongers". I had heard, for instance, that a certain female lawyer, English in origin, had thrown a tantrum at her (Belonger) secretary, accusing her of laziness and incompetence. The secretary had made a phone call to somebody unnamed in the Labour Department (or was it Immigration?) and the very next day (a couple of days later?) the lawyer was marched out to a plane and sent on her way back to England.
While I accepted the story at face value, I was sure that upon investigation there would be much more to the tale, that surely justice was not so arbitrary.
Later, as I got to know more people, I experienced such unsettling episodes as this: I was interviewing a very successful and respected artist, recipient of several international awards, secure in his profession and an honorary Belonger, though born in a South American country. We were discussing some possible real estate developments and their potential for causing environmental disaster and the seeming lack of national will to avoid this disaster. Our conversation turned to politics and the scandal of the recent firing of a minister in the government over a controversial film made under his auspices. We were in a public place, a restaurant, when he became agitated and began glancing around. "We'd better be careful," he said. "People might be listening." I laughed at this preposterous joke, but the look on his face convinced me he was serious. "You do want to stay here?" he asked. "Better be careful."

ain't life grand

An elephant foetus at age 12 months (half its gestation time). Photographed in the womb by very clever people.

Why I'm loving Kurt Andersen

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Betta be reddy

I asked him, "what day is that?"
He said "You know what day. You know! You betta be reddy!"

Nature's Off-roader

Here in the sunny paradise of Lotarot, nature's original off-roader still has a place in the hierarchy. A low and unenviable place to be sure, but plodding makes progress.

Is your god an awesome god?

What's the nature of belief? Is Atheism a religion? Would you fall sobbing to your knees, hand on the television set, clutching for your checkbook and a pen over a big, fat nothing? Sure, religion ("spirituality" for the squeamish) is sexier than atheism-- but, like sex, it's awfully messy.
The New Atheists are working on that.

all you need to know

Disney does Dialectic:

inna peace, innit?

I'm living in Paradise but I'm pissed off. (Or maybe it isn't Paradise?)

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special delivery

So I was at a loose end when I was offered a quick delivery from Marigot Bay in St Lucia to the British Virgin Islands. Righty-Ho says I........here's the reading from a story I wrote in the BVI Yacht Guide.

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