Balls and Walnuts
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Eight random things
. . . on my desk right now.
I’m bored. Nothing to do but wait until the patients start streaming in again, and if I’m not careful, I’ll spend the rest of my lunch hour on Daily Kos because — WOOT! — Mike Stark just plastered posters all over Bill O’Reilly’s neighborhood, and it keeps getting funnier every time I read it.
Thought it might be fun to do Erin’s Eight Meme. Eight random things, right here on my desk . . .
1. REPTILES Magazine, September 2007 issue, opened to Robert “Dragon Bob” Mailloux’s article on the Rankin’s Dragon. What a cutie (the dragon, not Dragon Bob).
2. “Bowl Noodle Soup, Vegetal, Kimchi flavor.” Mostly eaten.
3. NYT Book Review, July 29, 2007, opened to Maria Flook’s review of Aoibheann Sweeney’s book, Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking. Ms. Flook? Leave book reviewing to someone who knows how to do it, like, say, a bright high school student. You’ve revealed everything in your review and shed light on nothing. Strong work.
4. Derek Raymond’s He Died with His Eyes Open. Raymond’s unnamed detective sergeant unravels the brutal murder of a penniless drunk. Did the ice queen lover do it? I’m betting on the beloved daughter. No one can hate you as much as family 🙂
5. Easy Cheese. That Voyager NASA launched decades ago, the one with all the nifty pictures on the Golden Record? I hope they included a picture of cheese in a can, humanity’s single most spectacular innovation.
In med school, I nauseated a gastrointestinal fellow by eating Cheese Whiz on pork rinds. I’ve cleaned up my diet since then; now, I put my instant cheese on Wheat Thins.
6. Gogol Bordellow’s SUPER TARANTA! One of the reasons I rarely write about music is that I lack the necessary vocabulary. What can I tell you about SUPER TARANTA!? It’s less punk than GB’s other work, which might make it more approachable to some, less to others. For my money, their best CD is Voi-La Intruder. On this CD, my favorite song is American Wedding:
Have you ever been to American wedding?
Where is the vodka, where’s marinated herring?
Where is supply that’s gonna last three days?
Where is musicians that got the taste?
Where is the band that like Fanfare,
Gonna keep it goin’ 24 hours?!
It goes on like that. Last stanza:
I understand the cultures
Of a different kind
But here word celebration
Just doesn’t come to mind
Dammit, I want a gypsy wedding! Karen, time to renew those vows . . .
7. Various and sundry bits of origami. Karen and Jake are into it.
8. Catalyst, Berkeley College of Chemistry’s quarterly magazine. Cover story concerns Louis Pasteur, with the quote: “I am on the edge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner.”
There, that was easy.
D.
MMMMmmm. Cheese Whiz on pork rinds. Sounds like heaven.
“No one can hate you as much as family.”
Only sad because it is true. Love, kin, blood, and expectations are a volatile mix.
But Erin love everyone!
Hi erfy Doug.
Cheese Whiz on pork rinds is pure visceral satisfaction. I wonder if I could do an Iron Chef version . . .
Hi erfy Erin!
When I wrote that, I had in mind a line from Maximillian Schell’s great movie, The Man in the Glass Booth. Oops . . . it would be a spoiler to tell you that line! Essentially THE spoiler for the movie, in fact, and since I just got done criticizing Maria Flook for telling the ending of a novel, I’ll shut up now.
I thought that Mike Stark thing was dopey. Made dkos look as self-aggrandizing and stupidly evil as BillO. And I didn’t like that MS wouldn’t let people grumble at him. that’s too much like BillO too.
My son agrees with you. He didn’t like seeing Stark stoop to BillO’s level. Also, I think you have a good point about Mike taking the low road — “express your concern in your own diary.”
Nevertheless, the idea of BillO getting BillO’d satisfies something in me which is deeply primal and sophomoric.