It's so hard not to giggle. I guess I never noticed before that I was reading the IBS.

What a great meme:
The current level of FEER!

And now you know.

Now I have site feed too, ha ha ha.
But Blogger sez to link Here. I can't get it to work, but more power to ya if ya can.

Orson Scott Card, crafter of what lotsa folk is calling the "best SciFi book ever," on marriage. It's long, so be ready for that, but most writings that state a point and go about explaining it proper tend toward that.

Picked up some Rye Cooder stuff. I need creepy slide guitar. I'm hoping he can deliver. If not, I got backup: Neil Young's Deadman soundtrack.

I know that he, like the rest of the world, must google himself once in a while.
So, whatever happened to Robert Stefenino?
That's a name that I don't hear enough.
Whatever happened to Robert Stefenino, who played a bartender in a movie I didn't see?

I re-enabled comments, just on the off chance...(not that I'm holding my breath)

Why should we hear about body bags and death, and how many, what's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean it's... it's not relevant, so why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?
-Barbara Bush, on Good Morning America, 3/18/03
(re-quoted from The K Chronicles, via Salon)

Touch not these curtains
your hand will be tearing
delicate tissues of thoughts and of things
call me not your cruel voice will be scaring
flocks of young visions on gossamer wings
leave me, oh leave me
for in your rude presnece
nothing of all my bright world can remain
thou art a blight to this garden of pleasants
thou art a blot on my beautiful brain
-Martin Farquhar Tupper, Sloth from Thousand Lines

Hey. Neat.

Hey, it's cool. I don't care.

Again, Rob, It came up this morning. But thanks.

Antibiotics have been miracle drugs for over 60 years, but their potency is fading as bacteria evolve to become resistant to them. This has led some British doctors to revive a medieval approach to healing: placing maggots in open wounds. Seriously. The creepy creatures are fast and effective in cleansing infections. I'd like this to serve as your operative metaphor in the coming weeks, Cancerian. As you strive to mend old psychic lesions, call on the wisdom of the past, even if it involves a cure that makes you a bit uneasy.

Stupid dreams. Stupid, stupid dreams.

You'll pardon me if I say
google google google google google
Yup. Google. Hee hee.

I found this blog because the author of it and I have an interest in common. No, it ain't Deheoglons. 'Cause nobody on Blogger of LJ seems interested in them. Yup.
It ain't nobody's poetry interests, not my deheoglon treatement, nobody's interests but my own...

I'm reading The Heliand, a translation of the Life of Christ (via the Gospel of Mark) into the Saxon language and very much into its culture. It's what I was looking for before when I found that other translation.
It's about the Warrior Chieftan Jesus at Hill Fort Jerusalem. He is taken before Pontius of Pilotland, whom the Jews threaten with the disfavor of Fort Rome.
The thing that kicks my ass: they change the ending. Jesus comes back from the dead and they go storm the castle. 'thfk?
More as it develops.

Profile of a wiseass. A study in blue.

I heard this on the radio today in an ad for a group searching out the reasons black men don't vote. The sound clip was of a woman. She sounded disgusted through the whole thing.
The System was set up by White Americans... it was set up by rich, middle-class White Americans. (say this last as if you have a mouthful of bird poop, and it is the words rich, middle-class white americans)
Yes. My old nemesis, the rich middle class. Damn them. Damn Them To Hell!

His shift happened in mid letter this time. He seemed to start normally, but after giving the card numbers, I think the monsters took over.
i will like you to chage these card again i am sorry coz i made a mistake given you thecard details and here is the card details
-Card Details Cut-
PLS BILL THE SUM OF 1,500 DOLLARS ON IT AND GET TO ME AS SOION AS POSSIBLE SO I CAN ARRANGE FOR THE PICK UP THANKS
Mrs Kxnny
He's probably still stressed from the wedding (Miss Kenny is now Mrs. I didn't even get an announcement). I think I'll congratulate him on it in my reply. I'm so randomly amused.

Brezsny gives me a goal with a time limit, even. 'K.

Your symbol for the next four weeks will be the Great Wall of China. Centuries ago, it was a 4,000-mile-long defense system. In that respect, it was an apt metaphor for the formidable barriers you've built around yourself. But the modern version of the Great Wall is only one-third the size it once was, having been reduced over the centuries by people appropriating its stones for new building projects. This reduced state, I hope, is an apt metaphor for the way you'll be dismantling your defense mechanisms between now and June 20.

I'm a published game author
'n stuff.

Reposted For Freshness
Poetic Forms through the ages: The Deheoglonic
Part One:
The Deheoglonic form (not to be confused with the Deheoglosic) originated in Greece in approximately the year 1702. The first published example known is dated 1704, but has been authenticated to be from 1703. Since those early days, more than ten thousand Deheoglons have been written, almost half of those in Canada. Among the most famous and outspoken proponents of the Deheoglon was Martin Farquhar Tupper, who, in 1840 said "The Deheoglonic style is without match in the world of poetic forms. There are none like it, and there never need be another form beyond it."
The Deheoglonic form is one of the more specific forms. It consists of twelve verses of nine lines each, in iambic dodecameter, with the rhyme scheme ABCDEFBDG. These twelve verses are interspersed with a chorus which must be in the form:
"And she died, oh oh oh,
She died, Oh oh oh oh she died"
The Deheoglon is almost unique in another way: The events in the poem must be real historical events which took place in Ireland, in the year 1642. This fact stems from the belief of originator of the Deheoglonic form, Philemothy of Sethpheth (a small village outside Athens), that the world, in fact, ended in the year 1642, and that we must examine all of the historical events of that year in order to find out precisely when and why, and that a poem in the deheoglonic form could, if properly written, bring the world back.
Some writers in the 1870's, seeking to broaden the scope of the form, began writing about fictionalized events set in that year, but which certainly could have happened. The then 60-year-old Tupper said of these poets: "Hang them."
The Fictionalized Deheoglon, dubbed the Deheoglosic poem, was a very short lived art form, and quickly devolved into the Spatzanoid, or Dreciaux form (q.v.).
The Deheoglon continued to be a favorite poetic form until 1936 when it was made illegal in Canada by a clause in the United States national budget of that year. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said of the Deheoglon: "It is my belief that the people of America will fare far better without such evils in their lives. The future of America is a future without Tupper."
It is now known that Theodore Roosevelt maintained an ongoing rivalry with Tupper, and that those animosities were passed down to his fifth cousin.
Examples of the Deheoglon are almost impossible to find in either country to this day, even though the law was later repealed under the administration of George H. W. Bush (the senior of the two Bush presidents). In the ensuing years, the form was all but forgotten, even overseas where it originated. Currently, only one Deheoglonic poet is known to be writing, and he from a small cottage on an island off the coast of Turkey, near Cyprus. He has no direct means of outside communication, and the poems wash up in empty bottles on the beach where they are promptly confiscated and burned by members of the Turkish army.

Part 2:

An example of the fabled Deheoglonic form, only one verse long, sadly, as the rest of the poem seems to have been lost. Notice how the interspersion of topics almost gives it the qualities of the French Dreciaux, and the similarity of them makes it resemble the Swiss Dreciaux. However, the real treat in this poem, obviously a late example (ca. 1933), probably Canadian, is the intralinear rhymes in lines 3 and 9. This means that the form was clearly influenced by the Rhineodactic form (an American form, ca. 1860, last written example 1886), but it clearly is not, as the Rhineodactic will never include the proper name of an European man. The half-rhyme on the first line (dim and Kilkenn) is truly problematic. Whereas first-line intralinear rhymes are strictly forbidden in the Deheoglon (or at least, in later Deheoglons), this is not a true rhyme, and thus, I feel, does not exclude it from the form. In fact, this poem was spared the torches of World War II America, probably specifically because of this rhyme. It is possible that it was penned in order to avoid the censorship of the day. Thus, this is a true Deheoglon, but with the influences and history that make the later forms truly fascinating. Please, read and enjoy, as this may be the last example of its kind in the western world.

Oh, Lo, tho on that night so dim when naught but night could puncture sill did meet the council of Kilkenn'
Eoghan Rua O'Neill did take into his own the armies of Ulstrine Catholici-sm
The council's moot it did decide the fate of those with dwellings thus in ire'land's greened country-side
Eoghan Rua O'Neill's return did mark the rise of Ire'land's church, and thus catholocism's hold
The Council's news did bring return to Ire'land continental troops that knew the ways of war and such
Eoghan Rua O'Neill was one, from flanders' army taught to fight for forty years he there had trained
That kilkenny council did a body politic erect and aim to heal the irish schizm'
Eoghan Rua O'Neill gave hope to all of those who oft had said the catholic bell its last had toll'd
And thus the irish armies grew and strong the government it too did set to rights the woes of past
And she died, oh oh oh,
She died, Oh oh oh oh she died

Part 3:

A Spatzanoid Ballad from the Archives of Amundsen, a collection of derivative verse since 1880, published in 1949. This shining example of the corruption of the form was written in 1904, in April, by a poet who chose to remain anonymous. It has been blamed variously on Clement C. Moore of America and Rhadger Dhandridge of India (Although English by birth). Neither of these authors, though, was in Wyoming during the short time during which this verse was clearly written.
The use of a centipede in the ear is a reference placing the poem's author in either Helena, Montana in 1902, or Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1904. Aumndsen, who collected the verse, claims that the original manuscript, preserved in a fish market, wrapped around a particularly tasty trout he purchased, was dated 1904. The phrase had already fallen out of popular use by 1903 in Helena, placing the poet squarely in Cheyanne.
The initial quotation is a reference to the earlier form, the Driuceauic, from which the Spazanoid arose. In the Driuceauic, quotes from Deheoglons often graced the initial lines, giving them at least some air of quality, despite their obvious flaws. Note that the forms had at this point almost completely collapsed. The quote here is actually from a mislabled Deheoglosic, titled "Mary And Her Haircut" (believed to be a Deheoglon until the discovery that Mary MacMurry, who lived in Dublin for most of her life, was not born until 1648, placing the poem squarely in the realm of fiction). Apparently the poet believed one as good as another, as was common in American Western Poets in the early part of the 20th century.
In lines 3-5, note the allusion to a poem by Emily Dickinson, an act of literary heresy in the day akin to referring to Coleridge as "That Blind Git." It is this act that, combined with geographic difficulties, absolutely excuse Moore and Dhandridge of the commission of this poem.

"Are you still alive my friend?"
He kindly asked of me
As I could not answer for myself
he kindly spoke for me.
"I feel just peachy, since you ask,
alive in word and deed,"
And saying this, into my ear,
he placed a centipede.
It wiggled there, and squirmed a bit
it felt rather a fright
And there he sat a'singing as I
ran into the night.
His verse, I fear was terrible
and it is from that I run,
Oh, that gem from Tupper,
that wretched deheoglon,
"and she died, oh oh oh
she died oh oh oh oh she died."

Additional results of my search for Tupper, this being Twain inserting a stab at him. Also, Stuffed Owl is back in print, and is being championed by Billy Collins. Talk about oughta know better...

First, Holy Cow! I'm on the listing if you search for Martin Farquhar Tupper. Like, I'm a source of info or whatever. I was scanning the results and saw the word Deheoglon. I got worried, 'cause I was afraid that somebody thought it was a real poetic form (heaven forbid), which-it-of-course-IS.
Second, I can't find the beautiful brain poem. I need to. It's for a very funny joke.

I'm reading a great book right now called Locust. It's a very approachable account of the locust swarms that decimated farms in this country in the mid- to late-19th century. They disappeared in about 1909.

Hee hee hee! Smurfs!
If you keep reloading the page, the cartoon will keep coming up different.

In a sing-song voice:
I haaate me some pennnnng-uin...

My Brezsny for the week. He says: Give it away, give it away, give it away now.
Cancerian singer George Michael recently announced that he intends to give away his music for free, posting it on the Internet for anyone to download. "I've been very well remunerated for my talents over the years," he told BBC, "so I really don't need the public's money." Given the current astrological omens, dear Crab, it makes perfect sense for you to regard Michael as your role model in the coming week. I urge you to expand your generosity to the next level as you provide free samples of a resource or skill you've been blessed with in abundance.
Maybe if I give away some samples, I'll find a job opening, not-that-I'm-looking-or-anything (unless you know somebody who's hiring...)

I should prolly clarify: I don't support slavery. I'm interested in the history of slavery in my country because it's the history of my country. I live in a country that believes in recording everything like an obsessive first-time father or a teenager in his basement with a web-cam and an overinflated sense of self worth. This makes for tedious TV viewing, but fascinating history. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong (Yay! New Comment System!) that the history itself isn't so much interesting, as the reasons the history happened.
I find that what I learned in K-12 was the actual history, the dates, names and happenings. It was not, in itself, interesting. The loose grasp that I have from that is what made it possible for me to start thinking about the reasons these things happened.
For Example: In the middle of the century, America sent troops into VietNam. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or died. Then, America took all of the troops it could find back out of VietNam.
That's all well and good, but it makes it seem like there was a script. "Oh!" said America, "It's time to send people to kill and die in VietNam!" There isn't a script. There's just the reasons things happen. It wasn't time for Americans to be in VietNam. It built to that point because of the escalating cold war, the French retreat, and the VietNamese movement toward communism.
Relating this to modern history (I like that. It's oxymoronic yet satisfying), it's not like there was some cosmic telegram sent to America:
AMERstopINVADE IRAQstopSPREAD DEMOCRACY, XIANITYstopBLAME 911, TERRORISTSstopEXCLUDE UNstopYER PAL, GODstopPS HOWS THE KIDSstop
I'm just sayin' is all.

An interesting thing: Some religious defense of slavery. Huh. The rest of the site is pretty keen (and isn't exclusively about slavery. They don't actually support slavery, as far as I can tell). I stumbled across it in a quest for the history of the Latter Day Saints, which was spurred by the history in the Deadlands Salt Lake City sourcebook.

I needn't have worried about my Nigerian friend. Today, two crisp new credit card numbers came in the mail, and I reported 'em right back to the banks. His writing is getting bad. It puts me in mind of a story genre:
---
4-2-04
Mr Mister,
I need sixty copies of Black's Law Dictionary in Paperback. Please send them along. I have included two credit card numbers.
Yours, Ms. John Mark Ken Kenny Beller Fash
4-9-04
Mr Mister,
I have contacted the bank, but until the difficulties with those cards is resolved, plese use these two. It is absolutely urgent that I obtain sixty copies of Black's Law Dictionary before they arrive. The secrets contained in these tomes may be able to hold Them off, drive them back to the twisted world from which they come. I can say no more. Attached, plese find the additinal card numbers.
Yours, Ms. John Kenny Beller Ken Fash Mark
4-12-04
Mr Mister,
I appologize again for the inconvenience. I'm afraid the first of them arrived. Please, I am desperate. Charge the sixty copies of Black's Law Dictionary to my credit card and ship them post haste to my residence in Nigeria. I have held it off for the last six days, but cannot wait much longer. Pleas! I beg you!
Yours, Ms. John Mark Fash Kenny Ken Beller
4-22-04
Mr Mister,
Good Lord in heaven! They are hideous! The things drip slime that corrodes the walls of my home. And last night... I dare not think of why, but they took my dearest Minnie. What am I to do? In the night, I hear slurping sounds and her screams. God, her screams. They do not stop. Please charge the Law Dictionary to these two additional card numbers. Hurry! For God's sake, pleas hurry!
Yours, Ms. John Fash Ken Mark Beller Kenny
5-1-04
Mr Mister,
One of the stands even now at the foot of my bed. Its horrible tentacles writhe in the near-darkness, and it wheezes in long gasps. The horrid sussurus has precluded sleep for the last week. I have not had opportunity to write. I dare not leave my home. They surround me. Please! Only you can help! Send the Law Dictionaries or my fate may be sealed! They watch me type even now. It stands there, breathing... watching... learning.
Yours, Ms. Kenny "Ken" Beller John Mark Fash
5-10-04
HELLO NIHIL,
     I HAVE CONTACT MY BANK AND WAS TOLD THE PROBLREM AND I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO WORK OUT THING'S BUT FOR THE MOMENT PLS TRY AND CHAGE 1,500 DOLLARS ON THIS CARD AND I WILL ARRANGE FOR THE PICK UP HERE IS THE CARD DETAILS

CARD DETAILS
NAME IS...Ms. Mark Fash
ADDRESS IS...103FAKE STREET
FAKE CITY,
IN 47586
CARD NUMBER IS 424612345678910
EXPIRE DATE IS...08/04 SO PLS TYR AND CHAGE THE NOW AND REPLY ME THANK'S BYE FOR NOW.
---
That last is a real letter from my Nigerian friend. The name I used is actually a compound of all of the names he (she? I never really give my Nigerian Friend's gender much thought, really) uses to try to buy books. None of his previous letters are as fluid as any of my silly story examples. The above is a work of fiction. If he were half as entertaining as that, I'd have posted his letters a long time ago.

I get lonesome.

Wow! Keen and nifty new font, and a book of wackyfun puzzles also. Can ya' beat that?

Man. Spam is obnoxious, but check this out: I got some surrealism in my spam.

Any tea party can host inside labyrinth, but it takes a real widow to hand from.boy inside is childlike.Angela, the friend of Angela and starts reminiscing about lost glory with pit viper over.When you see toward bowling ball, it means that related to guardian angel earns frequent flier miles.Angela and I took mating ritual behind support group (with sandwich around tenor cargo bay) from.Now and then, onlooker over dolphin bur shadow around.
If you no longer with to receive our emails
then click here to be removed instantly
Unlike so many curses who have made their paternal class action suit to us.Furthermore, toward traffic light takes a coffee break, and impresario of mourn hole puncher over.


The ad is titled "ELIMINATE YOUR CREDIT CARD DEBT without bankruptcy!" I'm so amused.

This link is old, but still active: I reviewed a book and it got published online.

I've spent the last week feeling, and you'll have to imagine the air quotes on this, "very aware of my colon." Like, it's come up in conversation more than it should among folks twice my age. I think it's this newfound love of rolled oats and bulgarian yoghurt (with a little molasses and toasted wheat germ, for flavor) that's doin' it. A friend informed me that my talking about my colon actually outweighed her rotting carcass jokes for social inappropriateness. It's not like I've said anything actually nasty. It's just that the words "colon" and "healthy" keep popping up. I'm not showin' my bits-'n'-pieces around or anything. Hell, I'm not even talkin' about poop.
All I can say is Oh. Hmm.
In other news, there's a great new compilation of better'n 300 Dylan songs with guitar chords, melodies & complete lyrics. That's kinda neat, huh? There's also a really nice reissue of The Original Scout Manual From 1908 (titled "Scouting For Boys." No, it ain't a gay pick-up book. It's about scouting. Getcher mind out'a the gutter) from Oxford University Press. Not a bad week for the publishing world, all in all.
Colon. HeeHeeHee.

Different twice a week, and three times on weekends, it's a blog from Kat, a friend of mine and toshi's, and a very close personal friend (nudge nudge) of MKirk's.

I haven't heard from my Nigerian Friend again. Maybe he gave up after 12. We'll see. I kinda sicced the Sauds on him, so I almost hope he's still OK.

Many of us have friends who like to alter their states of consciousness and talk about making a movie. You know, that one, and like, this guy, and he has all this money, and he, like, does all this stuff, and it's, like, great, and then, like, they all go and, like all the rich people are all like "eww neww! mai mink cewwt!" Yeah, we should make that movie.
Well, they made it in the 60s (several times.) and I've just completed viewing it: The Magic Christian. It's got Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr buying people off. There's no story to speak of, just a series of nasty pranks that begin and end with one of the two of them paying somebody to do something. Yup. That's a "we got stoned and wrote it" kind of premise. Yup. It carries through, too, to the end, such as there is one. It's fun to watch, but it isn't the kind of story you can hum.

I'm up to an even dozen credit card numbers from My Nigerian Friend now. So, should I slip and start calling him by the wrong fake name or something now? Or should I wait until I have 20 numbers. I'm so torn.

Y'know why Nazis are from Germany and French Roast Coffee is from France?
Germany got first pick.


I mean, c'mon! It's burnt coffee that, when brewed, smells exactly like burning plastic. I think it's behind much of the French's froo-froo image. You can't drink this crap without diluting 2:1 with cream and sugar to cover the FlaminGIJoe(tm) flavor. It doesn't even have a high caffein content. It' just regular coffee that you burn instead of cooking for the right amount of time.

I've just seen The Last Remake of Beau Geste for the first time. If you go to that link there, and read the cast list, it tells you everything you need to know. It's exactly the movie you'd hope it'd be with that cast. I mean, Marty Feldman and Michael York as identical twins? It's genuinely wonderful. More's the pity that it's out of print in any medium. You have to get a used VHS copy to see it, which I have done. There was a time about 6 months ago when a used copy was going for upwards of $80. They are now down under $20, which is just peachy.