Haiku Thursdays: Dream Destination

SPF coated
sand abraded, pink drink drunk
heaven is a beach

Movie Clip Wednesdays: Best Documentary

Check out everyone else's pick at Boxer's Place:

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Sometimes I just have to watch the morning news. It's like peeling a sunburn or listening to ABBA or working a hang nail. You know it's something you just shouldn't do, but the weird pleasure in the pain is irresistible.

As usual, this morning's leading Today Show story is the oil leak in the Gulf. Today, they're covering Louisiana state officials who are "demanding" that the government step in and "come up with a plan." Then the story switches over to Matt Lauer as he once again deer-in-the-headlights BP COO Doug Suttles (talk about a masochist) and asks him:

Should the Government Take Over Control of the Oil Spill From BP?

I don't even bother to listen to Suttles' droning.

But I would like someone to answer, because my question in response is simply this:

And do WHAT, exactly?

I would seem to me that if there were anything anyone, anywhere who who knew how to stop this thing, they would do it. Is this a tragedy of mega-FUBAR proportions? Yes. Is its continuation deliberate? No. Is there anything a panel of gub'mint officials can do that BP, oil industry experts, and environmental specialists aren't doing? No.

If there's anything more tragic than hundreds of thousands of oil spilling into the ocean, it's the reportage linked to it and the utter stupidity of people who think that the solution to any problem is government involvement. I ask you: when has THAT ever made anything better?

Culinary THROW DOWN: Caribbean, Mon

A deadline prevented me from participating in this go 'round, so I'm contenting myself with running around and drooling.

But if you get a chance, stop by BamaTrav's place and visit everyone else who is participating. Folks are making some delish dishes!

Bama, I wish you luck with the judging.

Beck's Got Nothing on Moi

Each of my clients requires that I format my documents in a certain way. My book clients in particular are, well, particular. They like the pages to be double spaced, line numbered, with headers and footers and true tabs so that the designers don't have to waste time monkeying around with weird formatting.

To save ME the trouble of recreating this formatting for every single piece of work, I simply pull up a previous document, do a Save As, and proceed. Only yesterday? The brain tumor must have been acting up, because I inadvertently did a regular save. And lost the entire contents of my first chapter opener. Every. Single. Word.

How many times in my life have I done this? Zero. Nunca. Nada. Zilch.

And because I'm on a Mac, had I only set up Time Machine (hell, I didn't even know it existed until yesterday!), I would have had all those precious words back. BACK, I tell you!

So, make me feel better; what's the dumbest thing you've ever done in the work place?

* * *

And now, for Movie Clip Wednesdays . . . Want to check out everyone's fave Sci-Fi movies? Head on over to Boxer's Place:

Here's mine:

Another One Bites the Dust

It Begins

Seventeen days. One book. Lots of fast food.
I'll come up for air on occasion.

Mute Haiku Thursday

Movie Clip Wednesdays: Best Adaptation of Book to Film

Hands down, the Coen Brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's spare, hypnotic novel No Country For Old Men. The movie is as close to poetry on film as you're likely to get.

Check out everyone else's pick at Boxer's Place:

Farrah Hair and T Top Camaros

It wasn't until Pirate emailed me yesterday to tell me Frank Frazetta had died, that I realized how much I miss this album.

And one of the all time great songs of the '70s, whose intro probably ranks along with Foghat's "Slow Ride" as one of the all time greatest evah.

Whisper Tales of Gore

RIP Frank Frazetta

Pop Tart

Feeling like you need something sweet in your Mother's Day Sunday, regardless of whether or not you've birthed yourself some babies? Come on over to The Undaunted Baker for Dim Sum Sunday. Those of you who are mothers, I hope your day is totally splendid and you are showered with love, Chanel, or whatever the equivalent is for you. For those of you who are not, I raise a glass as well, and say, Whoo Hoo! Drunk again on a Sunday!

Cheers!

Lost in Translation

I'm starting to read poetry again, due in part to Troll's Haiku contests and also to my niece telling me recently she may want to grow up to be a poet, which is kind of cool if we forget for a moment that every bone in my body itches to scream at her, no, honey no! grow up to be a lawyer! Then I remember, wait a minute, I'm just supposed to be the aunt, and the Cool One at that, so pffffft. I'll leave the reality-of-life stuff up to her father.

I also have all these poetry books on my shelves. Like, a gazillion of them. Like, if someone from the television show Hoarders were to come to my house, they might have to call Someone In the Know to see if I do, in fact, qualify for at least a side bar on one of the shows about a lady who devotes an entire wall of her house to three huge bookshelves for God Only Knows What Reason because, sweet Jesus, has she never heard of a library? Then again, my books are so very neatly arranged, and besides, S.B. still has room for his big ass television, so leave me alone.

Anyway, in addition to revisiting Yeats (rocks) and Anne Sexton (maybe not so much as I used to think), I'm also getting interested in some modern stuff. Like Tom Walmsley, whose poem below was sent to me by a reader a year or so ago. It's from his collection, What Happened, and naturally, it spoke to me immediately:

leaving aside the tree itself &
whether it was an act of progress
through rebellion or mutiny to
eat & know good & evil &
leaving aside possibilities of
patriarchal plots the
woman eve succumbing & corrupting
& leaving aside the nutty idea any of it
actually happened i say

isn't the point the
big point that he ratted her out that
he the man adam pointed the finger at
her & if she eve the disobedient sidekick is
the true problem the sinner the cause of
the fall is that why it's been decided it
has been preached that ratting out isn't
nearly as bad as disobedience &

in some sermon somewhere the
point should be shouted that adam was
a genuine pussy & i think the lesson is
when you rat out your neighbour's friends
relatives strangers because it's a law-
abiding patriotic thing to do
then the rat &
the ratted are both banished to the
land of nod but only
one of you can hold up her head.

* * *

So, tell Moi: do you read poetry?

1. No! Poetry's for hippies. I prefer pin up calendars and comic books.
2. But of course! With a nice Chianti and some fava beans.
3. Sometimes. Like, when I'm looking for a birthday card.

Feel free to share your favorite stanza or line, too.

Movie Clip Wednesdays: Worst Casting

There's a difference, I think, between a bad performance and downright wrong-headed casting, especially during the 1940s and 1950s, when even loosey goosey Hollyweird couldn't quite wrap their brains around using ethnic actors. Those who were Hispanic or Native American by birth were Anglicized beyond recognition while the red and brown parts went to the white folk. One of strangest (and at times laughable) bits of miscasting was Charlton Heston as a Mexican cop in Orson Welles' last film, the baroque Goth-Noir classic, A Touch of Evil (1958). Perhaps most famous for its breathtaking, three-minute single tracking shot in the opening scene, the film is otherwise stupendously weird, some would even say shocking. Heston, alas, is horribly miscast:

Want to check out more worst of the worst? Head on over to Boxer's Place:

Rips in the Space Time Continuum

If you've ever pondered the potential for fun in the six-hour expanse of a mid week evening in Miami, under a post storm star-lit sky, on the patio of La Diva and DJ Nevah L8's high rise apartment at the edge of the water, the lights of half a dozen Star Island celebrity homes winking on and off across the bay (shame on you, Matt Damon, wasting all that electricity), well, I'm here to tell you.

First, you drink.

Then, you gossip.

Next, you eat (tostones! grilled steak!).

After which, you soak in the hot tub and decide that it's impossible to solve the world's problems on one dinner and two bottles of wine alone.

Finally, you go back to your table for dessert (fig compote!) and talk music. During which convo, DJ Nevah L8 suggests what just might be one of the most brilliant pairings in the history of rock and roll:

Plus:

= genius

Come on. You know you think so, too. Besides, how could it possibly be any more strange than this: