Okay, having just finished a read through C.J.Cherryh’s excellent sci-fi/western books “Rider at the Gate” and “Cloud’s Rider” I am left with a burning question…
What’s up with that psychic horse thing?
Large Telepathic Mammals and other horrors
Watching the nightly anime fest on Adult Swim–I gotta admit, that Yu-Yu Hakasho show has grown on me much more than I anticipated. And Cowboy Bebop, of course, is just stylin’.
The commercials, though.
I keep seeing this damn ad for Kotex, which bills itself as “the greatest advancement for women since the push-up bra.” This blatant idiocy makes me make various back of the throat “Chhhuuggggaah!” noises of disgust (which provides my husband with no end of amusement.) I truly hope the ad campaign was invented by a man, because if a woman came up with that, I’d be forced to bludgeon her into unconsciousness with a weighty feminist tome. And that would require me to go buy a weighty feminist tome, and damnit, I’m just not ready to be on those kind of mailing lists.
Even this, however, pales before the truly idiotic ad I just saw, whereby a scruffy couple in Levi’s stand hand-in-hand–in the middle of a freeway, no less–in a herd of charging buffalo. I am baffled. What is the message of this ad? Wearing Levi’s will allow me to psychically control large numbers of American bison? Wearing Levi’s will cause herds of bison to run rampant through the city? Wearing Levi’s will cause my IQ to drop forty points so that romantic strolls in the middle of the freeway seem like a good idea?
Now to let the soothing cyberpunk of Cowboy Bebop wash over me and take all the nasty bison away…
Watching the nightly anime fest on Adult Swim–I gotta admit, that Yu-Yu Hakasho show has grown on me much more than I anticipated. And Cowboy Bebop, of course, is just stylin’.
The commercials, though.
I keep seeing this damn ad for Kotex, which bills itself as “the greatest advancement for women since the push-up bra.” This blatant idiocy makes me make various back of the throat “Chhhuuggggaah!” noises of disgust (which provides my husband with no end of amusement.) I truly hope the ad campaign was invented by a man, because if a woman came up with that, I’d be forced to bludgeon her into unconsciousness with a weighty feminist tome. And that would require me to go buy a weighty feminist tome, and damnit, I’m just not ready to be on those kind of mailing lists.
Even this, however, pales before the truly idiotic ad I just saw, whereby a scruffy couple in Levi’s stand hand-in-hand–in the middle of a freeway, no less–in a herd of charging buffalo. I am baffled. What is the message of this ad? Wearing Levi’s will allow me to psychically control large numbers of American bison? Wearing Levi’s will cause herds of bison to run rampant through the city? Wearing Levi’s will cause my IQ to drop forty points so that romantic strolls in the middle of the freeway seem like a good idea?
Now to let the soothing cyberpunk of Cowboy Bebop wash over me and take all the nasty bison away…
Originally published at Tea with the Squash God. You can comment here or there.
Today was very productive. Today was also spent listening to folk music. I won’t swear the two weren’t related. My musical tastes are bizarre and eclectic and wander between Steeleye Span and Tool with only occasional stops in between, but today was definitely shaded towards the former.
Probably the single most common ballad is the sailor-returning type. Sweet Young Woman is moping around town, and is approached by Strange Man. Were this a Nick Cave ballad, it’d all start to go to hell at this point, and we’d be treated to a lyrical description of Strange Man bashing her head in with a rock, but fortunately for Sweet Young Woman, traditionally Strange Man just asks her about her sweetheart. (I quite like Nick Cave, but then, I’m a weirdo.) Since everyone loves to tell their tale of woe, Sweet Young Woman recounts how her one true love went to sea seven years ago (it’s always seven years–this appears to be set in stone.) and has been lost at sea. Being a soppy romantic of the sort beloved by ballads, (and apparently independantly wealthy) Sweet Young Woman will never take another sweetheart in honor of his memory. Convinced of her faithfulness, Strange Man brings out the ring that was the token of their love, and lo and behold, it’s the Sweetheart, come home at last, and it’s been so long that she didn’t recognize him. She swoons, they get married, and the last verse is spent moralizing about how young women should stay faithful to their sweethearts when they’re at sea.
This is so formulaic and reoccurs so often that one gets the impression a matrimony-minded sailor in days of yore could just pick up any old gold ring and stroll inland until he finds a particularly nearsighted Sweet Young Woman moping about.
My personal favorite is a variant on this called “Willie Taylor” wherein the Sweetheart is impressed as a sailor against his will just as he and Sweet Young Thing are about to be married. Sweet Young Thing, being a bit more bloody-minded, pulls in that other archetype beloved of Shakespeare and folksongs alike, dresses up as a boy and goes to sea in pursuit of him. Eventually the improbably noble captain of her ship realizes that his cabin boy’s got cleavage and rather than avail himself of this fact, helps Sweet Young Thing find her Sweetheart. But wait! That rat bastard’s gone and gotten married someone else! Jerk. So, having learned a trick or two as a cabin boy, our nameless Sweet Young Thing shoots him in front of his bride and storms off into the sunset. There may be a moral to this story, other than “Don’t mess with chicks who learned to fire a cannon in the Navy,” but I choose to ignore it, probably because the version I’ve got has a very entertaining “Uuuuugughh…thump!” sound at the shooting bit that cracks me up. Yes, I’m easily amused.
Inspired in part by ‘s discussion of how education is no longer a barrier to people believing in baloney, I spent my obligatory staring-at-the-inside-of-my-eyelids time today contemplating the nature of faith.
Watched State of the Union address. Stomped around the house a bit. Screamed a little. Calmed down. Wondered what the hell the big deal is with partial dilation and extraction abortions. Why is this such a bee in everyone’s bonnet? They’re incredibly rare–less than 0.2 percent of abortions done in this country–doctors hate doing them, and it’s hardly as if women are using them as a form of birth control–they’re only in cases of extreme health risks or massive fetal deformity. Make them only for medical reasons, and just as many will get performed, ‘cos that’s the only reason they’re being done anyway.
Proceeding as I usually do on the assumption that politicians are Not Stupid, and have no moral principle stronger than re-election, I gotta wonder what the hell’s up with this. I mean, these guys aren’t dumb. They have to know this is a really rare procedure being done only in extremity. Why is there such a ruckus? Is it solely a staging ground to launch an assault on Roe vs. Wade, or is it just a bone to throw to the pro-lifers to keep from alienating their chunk of the vote, without coming out against all abortion (which polls would indicate, the majority of Americans think should be available.) What’s the motivation to keep harping on this stupidly minor little procedure that nobody gives a rat’s ass about except fanatics on both sides?
That bit ‘o paranoia aside, I did another painting. It started as a woman with laced nails up her back, but she looked like a giant pink Doc Marten, so I went other ways. Sometimes, I paint just to appease my brain…
Crazing
Friends, artists, countrymen, I come before you today to speak about something that I feel quite strongly about.
Problem is, I don’t know quite what I feel. So don’t expect coherency. (Then again, if you expected coherency, you probably wouldn’t be reading this so I dunno.
Friends, artists, countrymen, I come before you today to speak about something that I feel quite strongly about.
Problem is, I don’t know quite what I feel. So don’t expect coherency. (Then again, if you expected coherency, you probably wouldn’t be reading this so I dunno.
The toilets in my apartment are somethin’ else. First of all, they’re tankless, terminating in a hunk of steel that sticks directly out of the wall, reminiscent of something you might find at a sports stadium. No user serviceable parts. If it gets stuck flushing, the only recourse is to turn on every faucet in the house full bore, and pray.
On the bright side, however, it generates more suckage than I’ve ever seen in a toilet. I mean, this thing sucks. Forget dead goldfish–you could flush a German shepherd out to sea. The only time it ever get clogged is on those rare occasions that you run out’ve toilet paper at 3 AM and are reduced to using paper towels for neccessary functions. Then there’s a titanic struggle, with the part of Captain Ahab played by the lumberjack on the Brawny wrapper, pitting his absorbant powers against the Great White Bowl. Generally Moby John triumphs, but every now and again there’s an upset and I have to get out the toilet plunger. Call me Ishmael.
All of which leads up to an embarassing tale. Some years ago, preparing to shower, I made use of the facilities, flushed, and began disrobing. Balanced on one foot between the catbox and the scalding hot radiator, I could only watch in horror as my sock, obviously suicidal, lunged off my foot, soared through the air, and dove into the high-speed flume-ride of the flushing toilet. I don’t know what it hoped to achieve–perhaps it was seeking freedom, or perhaps it just wanted to end it all. Possibly it was tired of its relationship with the other sock and wanted to do something wild. I guess we’ll never know.
Naively thinking that this was a universal experience, I mentioned it in passing to my dear buddy Alexis, who’s finally honed killer instincts and love of snuggy footwear has caused her to bring up Sockgate fairly regularly. You’d think I was the only one who’d ever sent a sock to a watery grave. And so, dear readers, I’m appealing to you all–tell me I’m not alone! Tell me if you, too, have flushed a sock, or underwear, or a three piece suit, any article of clothing will do. I can’t be the only one!
As I was sitting at my desk, the ‘Net moving like a wounded snail, I decided to relax by reading something–something short, say, single sitting. Anything to take my mind off the slow trickle of Internet, since screaming “LOAD, YOU STUPID BITCH! I’ve seen constipated snails move faster!” every ten seconds scares the cat, disturbs my husband, and impacts negatively on my personal Zen. My fingers wandered idily over the bookcase next to my chair, hitting such diverse fare as the Essential Rumi, Lysistrata and Other Plays, “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh,” something about mermaids, and a collection on Rossetti’s art, before they fetched up on the book “A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg” by Tim Cahill, which I picked up utterly at random a coupla years ago. He’s a travel writer, a sort’ve cheerfully counter-culture type, very macho “And then we plummetted six hundred feet into the dark cave mouth, and a bat shit on my boots, and then we drank Jack Daniels until dawn.” All of which makes him sound terribly objectionable, but in fact, it’s very engaging stuff–his discussion of how you catch poisonous sea snakes while drunk is priceless.
Cults, Jonestown, and Other Things I Hadn’t Planned To Contemplate Tonight
I write & illustrate books, garden, take photos, and blather about myriad things. I have very strong feelings about potatoes.
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