Huzzah for the Modern Luddite-esque Lifestyle

As someone whose Macintosh studio display is larger than her single, rabbit-eared television set, I was amused by this blog entry and subsequent comments.

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue
To drown the throat of war! - When the senses
Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed
Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the
Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance
Drive the nations together, who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand? O who hath caused this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the land have done it!
Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!

-- William Blake, prologue to King Edward the Fourth

Also performed as "Lullaby" by Loreena McKennitt.

Speaking of Religion...

I finally found something I can believe in.

By Popular Request

The 23rd Qualm

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war,
I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

There is No Teacher Who Can Teach Anything New

Buy the book instead.

Quote of the Day

Where there is an art, there is a science.
Where there is a science, there is an art.

Art is feeling.
Science is fact.
Feelings must be combined with fact before anything new of value can be created.

Science and art are inseparable in creative development.

-- Alden B. Dow

From the latest newsletter from Flying Sheep Yarns.

She is as in a field a silken tent

Friday cat blogging.
P. in town.
Swarmed by ladybugs on U-M campus.
Train whistle blowing.

Found

That Found guy has gotten some local press lately. Found even came up in conversation with my writers’ group last week, as a source of inspiration for poems, characters, and such. So I decided to pay closer attention to the random bits of flotsam that drift into my path. Here is what I found this week:

• a corroded penny


• a dollar bill


• a handwritten list of places to buy home-brew supplies


• a dead nuthatch with ants crawling out of its eye sockets

The dead bird is the only one I didn’t pick up, though I was tempted, and it would be in my freezer right now if decomposition hadn’t already started. I restricted myself to turning it over with my foot.

I have always had a strange attraction to dead things, even as a child. Perhaps especially as a child. Every shoebox that came into the house wound up buried in the backyard, filled with leaves, grass, and flowers, topped with a deceased chipmunk or defunct sparrow. As I got to be a teenager, I held fewer funerals, but the impulse remained.

After I learned that Percy Bysshe Shelley was cremated on an Italian beach, I wanted to set the little pyres on fire, but never actually did. Perhaps I should have become a chef, arranging quail flambe on beds of exotic greens.

Part of my interest stems from the philosophical pondering that a dead animal induces. Where did that spark of life go? What was it to begin with? If I’m not careful, I can easily lose half a day gazing into the middle distance mulling unanswerable questions.

But mostly I like dead things because they satisfy my earthly curiosity. What does that nuthatch’s bill feel like? Or a squirrel’s tail, or a deer’s tongue? Unless you’re doing scientific research or wildlife rehabilitation, you probably don’t have many chances to find out unless the poor creature’s dead.

Thankfully, I am not alone in this tactile inquisitiveness. At the Field Museum last week, looking up at the bones of Tyrannosaurus rex, my friend leaned towards me with a twinkle in the eye and a whisper, “How fast do you think the guards would be here if we broke the light beam?”

Battin' 1000

Two people today have uttered exactly the same sentence to me: "Don't look for logic." Which is kinda trippy, 'cuz they're the only two people I've actually spoken with today, and talking about totally unrelated topics.

Oh, and don't look for logic from iTunes. It just followed 50 Cent with Patsy Cline.

Come for the Violent Sci-Fi, Stay for the Tranquil Theology

There's a free showing of Blade Runner tonight -- at the Jewel Heart Tibetian Buddhist Center.

Where else but Ann Arbor?