"Living on black coffee and breakfast cereal"

Six months ago he had thought his ghostly place . . . would be . . . between a yearning to prolong the summer of the passionate body and a reluctant recall from the long sleep of oblivion. But he was wrong. It is not the erotic that is calling to him after all, nor the elegiac, but the comic.

from Disgrace.

Benjamin Franklin on Man

Men I find to be a Sort of Beings very badly constructed, as they are generally more easily provok’d than reconcil’d, more dispos’d to do Mischief to each other than to make Reparation, much more easily deceiv’d than undeceiv’d, and having more Pride & even Pleasure in killing than in begetting one another, for without a Blush they assemble in great Armies at Noon Day to destroy, and when they have kill’d as many as they can, they exaggerate the Number to augment the fancied Glory; but they creep into Corners or cover themselves with the Darkness of Night, when they mean to beget, as being asham’d of a virtuous Action.

from a letter written in Passy, 1782 (quoted by Steven Johnson, "The Invention of Air")

Ode To a Hummingbird

Ode to a Hummingbird

hmm mm hmm mm hmmmm mmm mmm

hmm mm hmm hm hm other birds

hmm mm hmmm hmm mm mm hm

hmm hmm mm mm can't recall the words

Air

Sylvie believed in stern solvents, and most of all in air. It was for the sake of air that she opened the doors and windows, though it was probably through forgetfulness that she left them open. It was for the sake of air that on one early splendid day she wrestled my grandmother's plum-colored davenport into the front yard, where it remained until it weathered pink.

from Housekeeping.

The Magic Word

"Perhaps the most frequently invoked [of the automatic grounds for ejection in a baseball game is the use] of profane language directed at [an umpire or his partner.]

'People always want to know if there's a magic word,' the umpire Gary Cederstrom would tell me later. 'Is it 'cocksucker'? Is it 'asshole'? No. The magic word is 'you.'"

from As They See 'Em . . . .

"I Happen To Have Marshall McLuhan Right Here"

http://nerdworld.blogs.time.com/2009/09/08/true-tales-of-conversational-vengeance/

Because the proper way to study Pynchon is to be ignorant of popular culture.

News From The Daily Breeze

A Harbor College geography professor, who for two years barraged TV weatherman Fritz Coleman with e-mails contending his forecasts are inaccurate, has been convicted of violating a judge's order to stop harassing him.

Melanie Patton Renfrew, 54, who has taught at the Harbor College Wilmington campus since 1997, pleaded no contest Aug. 7 in Burbank court to violating a restraining order [KNBC weatherman Fritz] Coleman had obtained to keep her from stalking him.

In an interview at her El Camino Village home, in an e-mail and in an entry on her own blog, Renfrew denied she is a stalker, saying she was trying to get the KNBC weatherman to change the terminology he uses to describe onshore and offshore winds to better inform the public.
She contends it is a science and health issue.

"I did what I felt God was calling me to do," she said in an interview. "I don't feel obsessive."

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_13257678?source=rv


AND

A doctor driving a Mercedes Benz struck and killed another doctor running across a street at the entrance of Los Angeles International Airport, police said Thursday.

Richard Burrus, 59, was crossing Sepulveda outside of a crosswalk when he was hit in the No. 3 lane.

Scott, the driver, wearing green scrubs, ran to Burrus' side to help him as police and paramedics arrived. Burrus died at a local hospital.


http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_13265121?source=email


[both from http://www.laobserved.com/]

Sun in smoke

The sun setting through the smoke-strewn skies in Los Angeles. In person, the sun glowed red.

Southern Oregon Endzone Scoreboard

Southern Oregon Ducks

Southern Oregon Deer and Flowers

Barack Obama's summer vacation reading list:

"The Way Home" by George Pelecanos
"Hot, Flat, and Crowded" by Thomas Friedman
"Lush Life" by Richard Price
"Plainsong" by Kent Haruf
"John Adams" by David McCullough

Two teenagers talking

Girl: You should take up knitting.

Girl 2: No, crocheting is way cooler. Crocheting is the new knitting. You obviously don't speak to any old people.

A little personal analysis

Among the LibraryThing Unsuggester unsuggests for me (on the basis of the books I read, and reverse statistical correlations, the Unsuggester tells me what I shouldn't read) are pretty much any book by Sophie Kinsella (about Shopaholics) and

The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts by Judith Wallerstein.

This is based not on a knowledge of me, but because I have read: a Henning Mankel book (whatever), an early Joseph Conrad novel (?), a biography of Shelley (well, no one who reads a biography of Shelley will ever get married, at least not to Shelley or anyone he knew), the Vintage Book of Amnesia (hard to stay married if you don't remember that you are, or where you live) and, clearly most importantly, The Magic Pudding.

It was The Magic Pudding that gave me away.

Best use of the word "basically"

A typical sentence from "Inherent Vice," typlifying the pleasures of that book:

Next morning -- ocean smell, fresh coffee, a cool edge -- Doc was in Wavos, going through the Sunday Times to see if there was anything new about the Wolfmann case, which there wasn't -- though of course with twenty or thirty different sections you never knew what might be hiding among the real estate ads -- and was about to dig in to a specialty of the house known as Shoot The Pier, basically avocados, sprouts, jalapenos, pickled artichoke hearts, Monterey jack cheese, and Green Goddess dressing on a sourdough loaf that had first been sliced lengthwise, spread with garlic butter, and toasted, seventy-nine cents and a bargain at half the price, when who should stroll in, who else, but Shasta Fay.

Nice work By AP Writer

By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer Wayne Parry, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago

Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.

Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium.

A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.

"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.

The incident began at 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.

The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name.

According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:

"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.

A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.

The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.

The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.

The officers thanked him for his cooperation.

"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.

How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday.