Delicacy, Coarseness - Sentiment, Sensuality - Soaring and Groveling, Dirt and Deity - All Mixed Up In That One Compound Of Inspired Clay!

I composted my fingernail clippings. Is that weird?

O Beautiful For Spacious Skies

The more (bad) press myspace gets, the more I work on my profile.

College Radio

My recent requests to WSUM:

The Legendary Shack Shakers
[DJ the Rev. Brian McKay promised to play them next week]

Peggy Lee, "Is That All There Is?"
[DJ CB of "You Hear Dead People" fulfilled my request]

Waylon Jennings, "I've Always Been Crazy"
[DJ CB played Waylon's "The Conversation," which was awesome by me]

Cocteau Twins, "Wax and Wane" or "Carolyn's Fingers"
[DJ Joe Rooftop delivered with "Carolyn's Fingers"]

Missing Persons, "Words"
[DJ Joe Rooftop played "No Secrets" which was almost as good and much appreciated]

Joanna Newsom, "Book of Right On"
[DJ Sarah filled my request-- though the song crashed Windows Media Player :( ]

Dolly Parton, "Dollar Store" [which I KNOW is a song (done) by Dolly even though I can find NO trace of it on the internet] or "Jolene"
[DJ Sarah, after lamenting the dearth of old Dolly at WSUM, managed to dig up "Jolene," god love her]

Twists and Turns Along the Way

Kenneth declares this the best gay porn parody yet. I think he may be right.

Why I love the WB's One Tree Hill:

There's nothing special about a season finale that features a wedding. Or even a big traditional ceremony celebrating a re-confirmation of vows, as was the case with this season's last episode of One Tree Hill. But-- oh so true to OTH's m.o.-- that wasn't all: the ceremony was neither the icing nor the cake for Lucas, Brooke, Nathan, Haley, Peyton, Karen, Dan, Deb, Mouth, et al. The season concluded with a near head-on collision running one car off a bridge into water (a river?) below. Left on the bridge: the newly re-married couple Haley and Nathan. In an effort to save Rachel and his Uncle Cooper, Nathan leapt into the water and ended the episode gasping for breath, his head jammed into a rapidly shrinking pocket of air trapped inside the sinking car. Haley screamed from the bridge, and we'd just learned that at least one of five female characters is pregnant. Haley (in white) and Rachel are two of the five, and-- mind you-- four of the five are still in high school. Rachel (16) was potentially knocked up by Uncle Cooper (30-ish? Michael Trucco who plays Cooper was born in 1970 & Daneel Harris (Rachel) in 1982, so you do the math and tell me how old Cooper should be--24?). Karen, the only adult among the show's fecund females, would be carrying the child of her dead fiancé Kieth who was killed earlier this season by his brother Dan because Dan mistakenly though Kieth tried to burn him alive. Of course, Dan's attempted murderer was in fact Dan's wife Deb. In good news, Keith set up a college fund for his nephew Lucas-- a fund Karen (Keith's fiancée and Lucas's mother) discovers just before she takes Lucas on a trip to tour colleges. Lucas, who has inheirited his father Dan's heart condition, can no longer play basketball and therefore declares he will study literature-- a development which begins to explain why Lucas's voiceovers frequently quote Dickens, Henry James, etc.

Jewel Jam

Through ebay, I purchased a 3-year subscription to Details for something like $6. My reaction to the rag has been...complicated, and I'm working on a blog about the story so far. In the meantime, I'd like to share Details's review of the new Jewel album. This post goes out with a big nod & a grin to Bradford, who taught me to love m'Jewels.


JEWEL
GOODBYE ALICE
IN WONDERLAND
[ATLANTIC]








Hey! Did you know
Jewel grew up in
Alaska? Did you
know she lived in
a car? You hear
she digs poetry?
Allow her to tell
you again. This
autobiographical
masturbation--set
to that scalded-cat
yodel--played a lot
better back when
we thought she
was hot.

Neighbors

How destructive and distorted is oppositional logic? For instance, the notion that good and bad are opposites. In the essay "The Human-Not-Quite-Human"-- part of a book entitled Are Women Human?-- Dorothy Sayers asks why male and female are opposites: "The first thing that strikes the careless observer is that men are unlike women. They are 'the opposite sex'--(though why 'opposite' I do not know. What is the 'neighboring sex'?) But the fundamental thing is that women are more like men than anything else in the world." I'm less concerned with gender and sex and more interested in strengths and weaknesses. I've lately encountered the notion that our personal weaknesses are often very close to our personal strengths. My attention to detail (strength) often leads me to work slowly, impractically (weakness). My enthusiasm for teaching (strength) regularly drains the energy I should devote to my own work (weakness). Tom Jones' assumption that all people are, at heart, good (strength) leaves him open to the machinations and manipulation of the dishonest and selfish (weakness). These strengths and weaknesses strike me not as opposites but as "neighboring" or adjacent. I know it's old hat: yin and yang, opposites attract... but I'm somehow shaken by this and know not how to proceed-- how to march gracefully forward...