Barkerburgh

I have recently reacquired copies of two of my favourite albums; Joni Mitchell’s 1985 album ‘Dog Eat Dog’ and Jennifer Warnes’ 1986 Leonard Cohen tribute album ‘Famous Blue Raincoat”.

Wow. Listening to these tracks after not hearing them for a few years is still visceral, still exciting and suddenly startling.

Why startling? Well, my situation is considerably different now from what it was in, say, late 2001. The music while still beautiful, means so much more. Email me and I’ll send you a breakdown. I dare you.

I’m listening to ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ as I type this. ‘Bird on a Wire’ right now, as it happens.

Ah. Cohen’s poetry and Warnes’ voice.

Kill me now.

Well, not now. But you know, let me finish listening to the albums again. And I have a week of house-sitting to do involving feeding cats, and I have a doctor’s appointment on May the 8th, and some genetic counselling and testing in July, so kill me later. We should talk.

Woo hoo! (more…)

It doesn’t last long enough.
It takes too long.
It lasts just long enough.

There’s no place to put it, or there’s no room for it anyway, or you forget where you put it just when you really need it.
If you ever remember where you did put everything, you never remember where it all was to start with.

It takes too long to get everywhere and there’s never enough time.
It’s always too far from where you are to where everything all is, and then you don’t want to have to come all the way back.

Even if you’re really interested in everything, it’s way too easy to get distracted by everything else.

It’s too small.
It’s too big.

Some of it costs too much.
There’s too much free stuff.

Everybody else is into it all, too.
You have to share everything with everybody else.

The choice of size, colour and style is too broad.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
There’s too many parts of the whole.
Each individual part of the sum is as interesting as every other part.

You never remember everything’s name.
The signage is too complicated, if there’s any signage at all.
The instructions are too complicated, if there’s any instructions at all.

If it was a movie, it would probably be a prize-winning foreign film without subtitles.
If it was a book, it would probably be all table of contents, endnotes, appendix, and index.
If it was a game, it would calvinball. Or fizbin.

If it was a computer application, it would be from Microsoft (which would make Bill Gates God, so never mind that one.)

Christians see everything as Christian. Communists see everything as Communist. Bolivians see everything as Bolivian. Mac users - well, Mac users.

Everything’s too high. It’s too long. It’s too much. It’s too good.

If everything was a poem, it would be the Aeneid. All except for the part about finally arriving in Italy, because you never - ever- get to Italy.

There’s too much to choose from in a reasonable amount of time.

In the end, you never find what you really needed anyway.
You never get what you really wanted either.

But somewhere in the chaos of everything, you just might find your heart’s desire. Even if you don’t really quite know exactly what that is. Or just where it might be out there.  Wondering and searching are half the joy of everything.

If everything was time, it would always be about to run out.

<hr />

Edited/Improved Monday, October 22, 2007

and bows and keyboards and frets and woodwinds and…

Happy 14th Anniversary, Urban Tapestry. I’ve only ever heard you live once but you’re still hot.

Y’all should do a calendar!

I have to say, after seeing del Toro’s ‘The Devil’s Backbone’, I totally changed my expectation of what this movie would be like.

I now ‘knew’ it would be a dark phantasy (sic deliberately), and nothing like Harry Potter. I now ‘knew’ that it would probably deal with real world issues and events in a phantastical manner.

I did not expect to be so moved by the unfolding story, and definitely did not expect the ending, although I did.
The perfect quality of each actor’s performance within the story was enhanced by the fact that I did not know any of them, by name or reputation. So with no opinions on their skills or abilities to involve me or move me, I was able to immerse myself in the story almost immediately.

Having more than a passing familiarity with folklore and mythology, (and a tendency towards escapism in the real world, truth be told), I was nevertheless moved by an apparent contradiction: his traditional use of traditional motifs, and his sometimes sinister twisting of those same motifs against themselves in the service of the storytelling. (I say sometimes sinister because sometimes it’s not.)
If I am at all ambivalent about whether or not I like a movie, I can always tell I definitely liked it when the imagery keeps floating around my mind or bursting out unexpectedly when I am thinking about or working on something else.

I like this movie.

I wonder what a remake of ‘The Seven Faces of Doctor Lao’ would be like under the direction of Guillermo del Toro…

As some of you may know, I will be turning 50 on June 26, 2007, three months from now. Which is to say I will have completed my 50th year of life.

With greatest respect to my dear friends, I don’t want a surprise party, or presents, or anything like that.

Please make a donation of any size to a children’s charity of your choice or a literacy charity of your choice. I’ve included the Google strings below for your perusal.

My preferences would be The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who do great work (here’s their donations page), and ProLiteracy Worldwide who I discovered at the first Gathering of the Fellowship back in 2003 (here’s their donations page).

Once you’ve made the donation, have them send me a note that says something like ‘ A Donation Has Been Made In Your Name To…” just so’s I know. And can feel validated.

Of course, feel free to send me a card too. But no Star Wars pyjamas for grown-ups.

Children’s Charities Google String

Literacy Charities Google String

Well, I’ve been catching up on the new series, Heroes, since they’ve been playing 2 or 3 episodes back to back sometimes.

I’ve figured out in a general way who’s who and what’s what, and I finally found out why that truck-stop waitress died even though Hiro went back in time to try and save her. (I think Hiro is my favourite character so far…)

I like what Tim Kring has done with the superhero thing, just when I didn’t think you could really do anything new with the idea.

Though we’ll have to see how the show fares after they stop the exploding man.

Okay, it wasn’t really you, it was me. My fault.

I didn’t like “The Golden Globe”. I slogged through it and finished it more out of a sense of loyalty (for “Titan”, “Wizard”, and “Demon”, which I loved), but I thought the damn book would never end.

I thought that “Steel Beach” kicked the shizzle - or whatever the kids are saying nowadays - and so I’ve been meaning to take a new look at “The Golden Globe”, which takes place in the same universe.

In the meantime, I’m reading “Red Thunder”. It (and he) have been called Heinleiny, or words to that effect.

It rocks. It’s about some kids, an ex-astronaut, his genius cousin, and a lost official American mission to Mars (to try to beat the Chinese expedition). They basically build a spaceship in their backyard and take off to Mars themselves.

I’m at the bit now where they’ve taken off, Earth has dwindled to a pale blue marble, and they’re about to be interviewed by CNN.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I yowled with glee as the story progressed. Plain goddamn wish-it-was-me, keep-it-coming, they’re-really-gonna-do-it, jeezes-I-really-wish-it-was-me glee.

I definitely owe “The Golden Globe” another try.

Boingboing review of Red Thunder

1> ‘The Unit’ looks like a good show.

2> So does ‘Boston Legal’.

3> That poor kid in Detroit who the 911 operator told to stop fooling around with the 911 system…

4> I really should have been watching ‘Babylon 5′ years ago.

5> Dean Koontz’es’s book ‘From the Corner of His Eye’ is a good read, nicely constructed, even though hardly anything really plotty happens until about page 600.

6> ‘My Name is Earl’ gets funnier and funnier.

7> Venus Express!

8> I love this weather.

9> The last few episodes of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ have been kickass, except I missed it both times on Space this past weekend through bad TV viewing planning. I guess I need to take a course.

10> ‘Coronation Street’ is getting kinda wacky, but that’s good. It’s a little boring when things are normal.

11> Nancy Grace is a foul human being.

12> If I was taller, I could see farther in a crowd during an emergency.

1> Laura put the ‘It’s A Big Ad’ earworm into my head a while back and it stuck. I worked hard on dislodging it. I was trying for ‘Duel of the Fates’ but it didn’t take. Now I’ve got ‘Shut Your Fncking Face, Uncle Fncker’ running, from ‘South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut’ and that’s not so bad. Anything’s better than the ancient Meow Mix theme. Wait. No! Oh, God. What have I done!?

2> I’ve put on so much weight in the last couple of years that I’m starting to look like Fishka Rais, if you know who that is, and I know that at least one of you does. I can do the accent, too.

3> Tim and Anneli brought me back some cool rocks with interesting back stories from their two weeks at the Kennedy Space Center, Orlandoland, and a Caribbean cruise, but I haven’t done the research to present them properly, so look for it.