International Amusement

....a pista nos llaman los matadores/ Haces q cualquiera se enamore/ Cuando bailas al ritmo de los tambores....

Hi, I'm back, watching the Olympics. I'll have a better post soon, but I just wanted to say hello....

Sorry. Flashbacks. Too much L D S in the sixties.

The Olympics are coming. China is enforcing its "no homeless" policy, and removing as many "Chinglish" signs as it can manage.

In foreign national tongue, funny thing are funny which take for serious instructment when at home.

In fact, my subtitle, "finally, it is accepted as self-evident" is very nearly Chinglish. Or a zen koan. I haven't decided. I got it in my fortune cookie. It is to date my favorite fortune ever, even including the dirty ones.

And then there's this:



In my house, "Rawr-ra-ra-rawr- ra-ra-ra-ra-rawr" is replacing "blah blah yadda yadda".

Ancient creatures rapping about fossil fuel, it was only a matter of time....



Repeating syllables= funny. Not just in English. Evidently. Meet Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo,

...a man with the incredible power of hearing the voices of hair and using his own [hair] to fight. He uses his power to fight off the Margarita Empire and all of EmperorTsuru Tsuruiina's minions who are stealing the hair off of anyone they find..

I'll say it again: the Japanese are weird.

On our own shores, there is also monstrous weirdness. Somebody needs to tell the Weekly World News that Batboy's got competition! Too bad that brilliantly bad paper is now defunct.

Or is it?


(Gasolina; Daddy Yankee)*

Summer Reading

...in a perfect world where everyone was equal/ I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel...



Current:

The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. The premise of this book is "What would happen to the things we've built if humans stopped existing on the planet?" It's anthropological, biological, ecological, and just fascinating reading. I've already promised it to someone, and I'm only to page 60.


Why Things Bite Back, technology and the revenge of unintended consequences, by Edward Tenner. I have a feeling this is going to be a sort of sociological examination of consumerism, and will be as much about attitudes and expectations as mechanics. It was this very combination that made me love Why We Buy, the science of shopping, by Paco Underhill. I think of 'unintended consequences' in relation to the drug industry, except lately I've begun to suspect that drug companies are inventing ailments in order to sell useless drugs that cause side effects, requiring other drugs. I'll admit to being paranoid; this doesn't mean my theory's wrong. Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: the dark side of the all-American meal, also an examination of consumerism, was engaging and moved along, but didn't precisely have a plot, so I'm not sure how it could be made into a movie. Despite the presence of Patricia Arquette, I haven't seen it; anybody? Worth renting?

The Third Domain, the untold story of archaea and the future of biotechnology, by Tim Friend. This begins with the author underwater, in a particularly filthy puddle in New York City's Central Park. It's a scientific exploration of microbes, and it reads like a Michael Crichton novel. By the way, his (Crichton's) novel, Next, (not well reviewed) was not that bad. Okay, not Jurassic Park, but not bad. It raised interesting questions, coined a couple of terms I expect to hear in common use fairly soon, and had some wry funny bits. And a monkey.


Recent:

The Mind And The Brain, neuroplasticity and the power of mental force, by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. and Sharon Begley. It's about the way our brains can and will remap themselves based on how we use them. There are some uncomfortably vivid descriptions of certain experiments that were crucial parts of the phenomena under discussion, which were tough to get through, but the writing is engaging and accessible without being simplistic or condescending. This is now one of the three books I give away regularly.

Still on tap:

You Suck, by Christopher Moore. It's a novel. I'm saving it. Chris Moore doesn't write fast enough to suit me.




(Everyday I Write The Book; Elvis Costello)

Not You

...it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in bacon...mmmmmmm....

You nuzzled and kissed me as we stood outside my mother's house. You nipped my neck in different places to hear the noises I made, laughing into my throat, holding me perfectly in your arms.

And then you said, "We have to stop."

I looked at you, and you said, "I can't risk a scandal, because I want to run for office someday."

It seemed to make sense at the time, but when I woke I realized that you running for office may be the funniest thing I ever heard.

Who was wearing your face in my dream? Who was wearing MINE?

Provocative Plates

...clothes she wears, the sexy ways/ make an old man wish for younger days/ she knows she’s built and knows how to please....


The expensive import bears a tag reading GR8FRMS, which makes me wonder:

Sculptor?
Geometrist?
Plastic Surgeon?
Tax Accountant?

It's a conservative blue color, so I'm betting on Tax Accountant.



In other news, KEEPING FAITH was reviewed in the Sun by Mary Johnson, reprinted in part as follows:

For the second consecutive year, CAC is offering a work by Mark Scharf, one of this area's foremost playwrights with over 40 plays produced and a former three-term chairman of the festival.

Keeping Faith is his first attempt at writing a full-length comedy, an endeavor he succeeds in by creating overly protective, anger-driven parents bungling an attempt to abduct their 18-year-old daughter on the eve of her wedding to a man more than twice her age.

Scharf has expert assistance from CAC veteran comedy director C.J. Crowe and her four-person cast, each skilled at projecting human frailties to coax our chuckles of recognition.

I will be performing as Mimi during Youth Camp Day at PARF next week, as well as their Opening Weekend of August 9&10. Already? Sheeeee-yit. I'll be performing Silent Stories, something I no longer do in Maryland, so if that was a favorite of yours (or if you've never seen it and want to), please come and enjoy. I'd wear a red carnation so you'll know me, but it would wilt in the heat.

(Brick House; Lionel Richie)

Conditions: Sticky.

..Well if it rains I don't care/ don't make no difference to me/ just take that streetcar that's goin' uptown...Oh black water, keep on rolling/ Mississippi moon won't you keep on shining on me...


People move at the pace of flowing honey, or not at all. Even blue dogs pant.

The inside is sticky with 90-degrees-plus-humidity sweat. The sleeve is soaked with riverwater. The front has a faint dusting of white powdered sugar.

This shirt is clear proof that I am in New Orleans; I may never wash it again.


(Black Water; Doobie Brothers)

Unacceptable Emission

...tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can't buy....

It's a beautiful afternoon on the Baltimore Beltway. I'm cheerful; I'm topless. He's topless. In my rear view mirror, I notice his jaunty white hat, which matches his jaunty white golf shirt. I wonder if his trunk has space for a jaunty set of color-coordinated clubs. He pulls to the right side of me, and I smell cologne. He guns his silver 2008 Porsche Carrera 911 (retail: $93,000.00) to squash between my red 1997 Chrysler Sebring (purchased in 2007 for $4,300.00)and the Prius ahead of me. I still smell very strong, very stinky cologne. And continue to inhale this odor (oh, beg pardon: odeur, which costs more) for the next half-mile. I drop back. No relief. It's a nasal assault; I change lanes.

Proof yet again that money can't buy you taste.



(Can't Buy Me Love; The Beatles)

Unlikely Viewing

...the drink will flow and blood will spill/ and if the boys want to fight, you'd better let them....


My favorite bit of the Saturday Night Fights was when Gina Carano, after being declared the winner on a TKO, walked over to Kaitlin Young's corner and gave her a little kiss.

My next favorite bit was after the final match of the evening, when Kimbo did the same thing to Colossus Thompson. Neither of these moments made the news, naturally. I cannot disagree in any large part with this statement, which did show up:

The pacing of the show suggest the promotion needs to work out the kinks before their second broadcast. CBS viewers got less than nine minutes of action over the first hour and a half of the broadcast. The show also ran more than 45 minutes over its allotted time, no doubt sending network station affiliate general managers into apoplectic fits as they waited to cut to their local news. Such an overage would be unheard of on an Ultimate Fighting Championship telecast.

Well, no argument except "viewers got less than nine minutes of action", which they did not.

They got fewer than nine minutes of action.


(The Boys Are Back In Town; Thin Lizzy)