Island of Noise

Fly silly seabird
No dreams can possess you
No voices can blame you
For sun on your wings
My gentle relations
Have names they must call me
For loving the freedom
Of all flying things
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

I came to the city
And lived like old Crusoe
On an island of noise
In a cobblestone sea
And the beaches were concrete
And the stars paid a light bill
And the blossoms hung false
On their store window trees
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

Out of the city
And down to the seaside
To sun on my shoulders
And wind in my hair
But sandcastles crumble
And hunger is human
And humans are hungry
For worlds they can't share
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

I call to a seagull
Who dives to the waters
And catches his silver-fine
Dinner alone
Crying where are the footprints
That danced on these beaches
And the hands that cast wishes
That sunk like a stone
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach Out of cry

JM (1968)

Exercise Plan

I was bemoaning the fact that I can't hire someone to exercise for me.

The ideal would be a temporary mind swap. My contractor would go to the gym in my body and exercise for me, and I'd be in his body reading a book. Afterward, I'd be healthier and he'd be smarter.

Woot!

In It was linked directly from the lead RealClimate story yesterday, and a nice one it is indeed. Nice to know Ray is getting so much attention, and a bit daunting to know I am.

Ray linked to my Bambi vs Godzilla posting, which is really just a quote from David Mamet.

No Shortcut to Freedom

OK, it's painfully sappy in that pedestrian folksinger way, but true enough just the same:

Chorus:
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more

And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.

1.
Some folks want to be like an ostrich,
Bury their heads in the sand.
Some hope that plastic dreams
Can unclench all those greedy hands.

2.
Some hope to take the easy way:
Poisons, bombs. They think we need 'em.
Don't you know you can't kill all the unbelievers?
There's no shortcut to freedom.

(Repeat chorus)

3.
Go tell all the little children.
Tell all the mothers and fathers too.
Now's our last chance to learn to share
What's been given to me and you.

(Repeat chorus one and a half times)

- PS (1967)

Yinglish

The most realistic glossary of Yiddish words commonly used in English that I have seen is under your nose in this clicky thing, what, you never saw a computer before?

Homage a M Cohen

So in honor of the explicitly Cohenesque recent discovery in my old diaries, I thought it would be churlish to pass up the opportunity to go see a Leonard Cohen tribute concert this weekend.

Irene and I and friend Linda accordingly trucked ourselves out to beautiful downtown Marble Falls (a fairly remote town but it has a nice downtown, a bit tarted up for the tourist trade which has its plusses and minuses) where we took in a marvelous show put on by the astonishing (and amazingly eclectic) group Strings Attached. It was among the best concert experiences of my life. They managed not only to present the poetry but to make a musically coherent and varied experience out of, let's face it, LC's perpetual droning. Amusingly it was a flawless performance except for bobbling the lyrics of the one hit song, you know the one, the one with the garbage and the flowers.

I also enjoyed the random reference to cooolllld snoooowy Monntreal in the stage patter; you could almost hear the shivering. It was T-shirt weather in Central Texas yesterday.

They were brilliant. Watch out especially for the astonishing young vocalist Molly Venter.

Some of us (names are embargoed) were reduced to tears at various points during the show. I am eagerly awaiting release of the recording of the very performance we attended.

I am now a Will Taylor/Strings Attached fan for life. (They also have done a Led Zepellin tribute! A Paul Simon tribute is coming up and I can hardly wait for it.)

Austin really lives up to its billing as the music capital of the world and I find it a great joy and privilege to live here.

Hallelujah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

-my homeboy, LC of course

On Moving South

Be flexible! cries the pragmatist within me - why can't you write your diary on this steno notebook passed through an iron grill of a half-closed drugstore on Christmas night, a Saturday, this fuckless bicentennial year.

Be poetic! cries my muse, wondering at the instant add water and stir summer into which I have suddenly been propelled, writing weak poetry or is it strong prose propped up against a garbage bin under the shade of a street lamp flooded palm tree.

Be with me! cries my disease, but she whom it addresses cannot hear.

Be still! cries the December summer wind.

- mt, Christmas 1976, Gainesville FL

Asian Restaurant in Texas

Spotted in a mini-mall outside San Antonio, the Aw Dang Asian Restaurant...

Texism of the Week

One of our movers today was a delightful southwestern type, very reminiscent of Scoresby in the Golden Compass movie in demeanor and aspect. I really did like the fellow quite a lot even before he enriched my vocabulary.

Anyway, while we were pointing out what was to be moved and what was to stay, I told him that the microwave oven was to be loaded onto the truck.

He nodded and reassuringly echoed "makker vuvven".

T'other side o Tixes

http://www.idrewthis.org/comics/idt20070201.gif

Oh Great

"The day will come when all executions carried out in the US will be in Texas"

Makes me reallll proud.

No brainer

Which $400 device do YOU want to see under the tree? The Amazon Kindle or the XO?

Oh Bloody Ell

Hello? Google? Hello?

Liberalism

NOTE: lots of hits on the dubious quote. I don't know where it came from either.

I am willing to make enemies on the left and right saying I don't believe in the grass roots, I believe in big government, I believe in taxing and spending, I believe that your property is a limited charter from the collective interest, not a god-given right. I believe it's a good idea to interfere with your use of that property only as much as necessary, and no more, but that's a tactical and not a moral belief.

We are the custodians of life and art in the universe. That's more important than your pathetic striving to be top monkey in your little corner of the woods. And that's why the liberal program needs to be revived, not sheepishly and in half measures but proudly and triumphantly. Here's a Daily Kos article:

When you're too busy trying not to lose, you may win elections now and then, but you rarely advance those causes you're supposed to care about. We've reached the point where Republican voters can claim the philosophy of absolute greed.

"I make a great deal of money through my own hard work. I don't want to pay for someone else's child to eat breakfast at school anymore."

[Is that for real? I don't know.]

Get that? She makes not just enough money, but a "great deal of money." How dare anyone take it away for something so frivolous as feeding a poor child? And yet Republicans, through their actions in blurring the lines between church and state, have become the "party of faith." Because they say so. Because they are bold in their actions and snarling in their defense.

We need to be just as adamant. We need to not hide behind any abstraction or evasion. We need to be unafraid to address this voter and say "I am going to take some of your money, and give it to that poor kid, because it's more important -- both to the child and to society -- that he eat, rather than that you have an extra week in Cabo."

Note that we should not pretend that "a program will take your money." Or "the government will take your money." This is a democracy, and we are the government. I will take your money. I will. Some of that money you worked hard for and want to keep. I will give it to a kid who is hungry. If your concern is that poverty should be addressed by individuals, then there's a simple solution: feed him. If there are no poor children needing food, I won't have to take anything for them. If your position is that people would be more generous if only the government would stay out of it, then sorry. I'm not willing to put this child at risk to as part of your experiment. Besides, if that were true, then why were their more hungry kids before we started these programs to give them a little breakfast? If your position is that your being able to keep all your money is more important than a child being fed, then I simply think you're wrong. And sick. You want to keep that money? You better beat me at the polls.

Sweden to Gibraltar Pix

http://www.narfstrom.se

This guy is a very perceptive landscape photographer.

He's biking to South Africa from Sweden. Wishing him luck.

451

This one's from memory:

"There must be some kind of way out of here" said the joker to the thief. "There is too much confusion. I can't get no relief. Businessmen they drink my wine, plowmen take my earth, and none of them along the line knows what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke. "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. You and I, we've been through that and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept their view while all their women came and went, their footservants too. Outside in the cold distance, a wildcat did growl. Two riders were approaching.

The wind began to howl.

Lipstick, Pig

"I ran out of lipstick before I ran out of pig."

- a salesman about quitting his job

Quote

"Fidelity to truth butters no parsnips."

- Scott Nearing

Going to the Gym

It feels like such a waste of time to attend to my body and leave my brain bored to tears listening to disco and counting down the minutes until I can get off the stationary bike.

So I had this great idea. A giant keyboard where each of the keys is a fifty pound weight. You'd get your exercise while coding or writing documents. Of course you'd need several versions to exercise various muscle groups.

Then at the end of the day you wouldn't need to waste an hour at the gym trying to stay healthy enough to keep typing.

I go to Lance Armstrong's franchise, which is sort of cool. I try to use the locker closest to his used jersey. Still, maybe we can have a geek franchise of some sort. Say Richard Stallman's 24-hour T-3 House of Pointless Exertions? Do you think RMS would be interested? We'll make millions!