By far most people I know are in direct contact with their sense of family heritage, of when relative X came here from country Y, and seem to benefit from this knowledge. In my family, this idea was long gone by the time I was adopted, and although the work of others has uncovered the obvious, (given the cuckoo clocks and dachsunds of my father's childhood), familial connection to that identity has been sundered.
As an adopted person, my sense of why I am as I am is further alienated. I exhibit numerous behaviors and preferences that are not present in my immediate tree of heritables. Forgetfulness, for example, is not known among my father's family nor my mother's. Yet I have clean forgot my reason for writing this blog entry.
Neat: infosthetics: you'd think lingosthetics might be considered a part of their mission, but NOOOOO. Seriously, Tufteholics, this is the shiznit.
Trainwrecks trolls the net for unseemly social interactions among the text fora. I'm sorta jealous of the idea.
“Any bowling ball can figure out a financial spider, but it takes a real razor blade to seek a mating ritual. If a surly pork chop dances with a boiled grizzly bear, then the tape recorder around a stovepipe dies. Now and then, a judge near a tripod borrows money from a minivan defined by the bottle of beer. Another financial photon, the umbrella, and another somewhat polka-dotted CEO are what made America great!
Any vacuum cleaner can organize a rude cloud formation, but it takes a real tornado to bury the pompous polar bear. Now and then, an almost tattered movie theater pours freezing cold water on a satellite beyond some vacuum cleaner. Indeed, a briar patch takes a peek at the hairy squid.
Most people believe that a sheriff near a buzzard makes a truce with the spider about another grain of sand, but they need to remember how knowingly a dust bunny daydreams. The lover defined by another hole puncher secretly finds subtle faults with a psychotic sheriff. The familiar vacuum cleaner negotiates a prenuptial agreement with the green dust bunny. Indeed, the barely highly paid salad dressing non-chalantly borrows money from the impromptu CEO. The industrial complex inside an eggplant trades baseball cards with a secretly annoying paycheck.”
Clearly the greatest spam of all time. I wonder if reposting it will in some way strengthen the filter-poison. Hope not, but how can I resist these aphorisms?
Matt Uhlmann spent some time in Orleans Parish Prison this weekend. Unbelievable.
Eric Reynolds chez local pornographers Fantagraphics notes the impending arrival of the Fantagraphics Mega Mart, which, sadly for me, is within easy walking distance of my workplace. Happily for al, it's also within easy walking distance of Jules Maes, Smarty Pants, and 9 Pound Hammer. Ahhhh.
Seattlest hips us to the DOT traffic maps gettin' jiggy with the cellies.
Which reminds me, the League passed a motion last time to extend the tipsy olive branch to Seattlest honcho Dan last time. It may be too late with respect to this week's convocation.
Palm announced the lowball Treo 680 today with a street price of $199, low enough to drive my decision, once I've reviewed the specs. The lower-rez 320x320 screen is one issue; the press release elides mention of the OS but the screenshots appear to display Palm OS apps. The device comes with a paltry 64mb on-board memory (twice that of my dearly departed 650) and the release makes no mention of card slots.
So.
Jury's out, but given a card slot and Palm OS I can't think of a reason not to fork it out. Updates when I find the true specs.
More than one person has expressed concern about my state of mind recently as a consequence of a recent blog entry. Allow me to clarify that while I'm saddened by the prospects of my friend, I don't feel out of sorts.
Paper Forest resurrects with a passel of Octobery paper project links, including a couple by the ever-amazing Robert Sabuda.
I have a friend, a good and kind man who runs to the nebbish, facing some extremity. He's on the verge of real homelessness, skating on the edge of no more couches and spiraling debt - not of the credit-card variety, but of the unpaid rent-and-utility-covered by-friends variety.
He's got a substance problem, which he at least is aware of, and informing that are self-esteem and motivation issues. I have been busy-bodying myself with him for a few months and while he's in better spirits now than when I first became concerned, he's in lo lesser jeopardy. His dad lives nearby and I have strongly and repeatedly suggested he take up these issues with his parent but he's reluctant to, for a variety of reasons, some good, some not. I'm reasonably certain that in efforts to please me and to maintain self-image, he's lied to me about his substance problem on more than one occasion.
I'm not hurt by the lies - I expected them, they come with the territory - but of course, it makes it that much harder to guage what sort of assistance one can effectively provide.
I was concerned that I would reach the lie-awake-at-night stage if I stepped up, and so it seems I have. I could make a truthful joke about how much more a good night's sleep is worth to me than a pal's future, but I'll refrain and damn myself instead. I truly can't help, I think; he has to take the first actions himself. All I can do is point out the places that persons actively concerned with self-preservation might choose to step, the places I step every day.
Each time my foot falls on one of these solid outcrops in the rushing stream I note it, and hate it. I'm unsure why I'm reaching out to my friend. He seems to actively desire the world, for all of his uncertain and self-wounding interaction with it. I basically loathe the place and fervently wish I'd never seen it. Since I'm here I'm obligated to fulfill my duties, which involve living as long as possible, apparently consuming far more of the planet's gross production than I actually need or want, and working to accomplish what I can in the service of goals developed by others in my social network. That last duty is really the only one that I find vaguely satisfying, and probably underlies my efforts in the service of my troubled friend. He's expressed shock and disbelief when I've tried to communicate the depth of my misanthropy to him, in an effort to explain why I'm bothering to try to offer a hand to brake his slide.
I guess I can understand that.
Out to dinner this evening, I was surprised and pleased to encounter a salt-cured Kentucky ham on offer. I leapt at the nearly forgotten taste. On arriving home I was pleased to note that American Routes is devoting this weeks' number to the Kentucky-and-Chicago bred songwriter John Prine, whom I think of as an Austin-school player.
I first came to appreciate the man's work while working at the Runcible Spoon, around 1986. A tape of vaguely irritating country-styled nineteen-seventies singer-songwriter folk morphed under constant listening into a shimmering masterwork of mordant wit. The handwritten name on the tape was 'John Prine.'
The song that really caught my ear, I learned years later, is called “Sam Stone,” and appeared on the first record that the singer released.
