People Vote For Washing Machines

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Some years ago, in China, I was met at the airport by a man who was taking me to a speaking engagement.  In the parking lot, before unlocking his new and meticulously cared-for automobile, he placed a hand on its roof and said with quiet pride, "This is my car."

In that instant, I saw two things:

First, that my contact had earned that car with his own honest labor and had good reason to be proud of his accomplishment.

And second, that any hopes we may have of solving the energy crisis that involve China or any of the poor countries of the Earth voluntarily curbing their desires for American/European levels of prosperity are nothing but pipe dreams.

I've been thinking about that moment ever since.  In the video above, Hans Rosling expands quite movingly on this same basic insight.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 181

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I would like to apologize to George W. Bush. 


This was a rather obvious notion for an essay in which I would say he was right about the WMD's, right about the Iraq war not costing us a penny, and so on and on -- and then at the end say, But I can't.  Because he was wrong on all counts.

I didn't write it, though, because it immediately revealed itself to be mean-spirited.  It would have been a depressing exercise.

I honestly wish he'd been right on all counts.  I would have been happy to apologize for real.

Down at the bottom is an old photo for A. I. Poland Jewelers in Manayunk, down the hill from me.  Alas, Poland's closed recently after something like ninety years in the hood.  Visiting it was sort of a combination of going back in time and visiting the cave of Ali Baba's thieves.

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A Diamond As Big As Our Dreams

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I played hooky today.  I went to Chestnut Hill with Marianne and had lunch on the front porch of the Chestnut Grill.  Then I went to Big Blue Marble and browsed through the books with no specific intentions at all.  Nothing I wanted to buy for research.  Nothing I had to read to keep up with the field.  I just bought something for pleasure.

So, all in all, it was a day well and pleasantly wasted.

Okay, yes, I did take the experiment that physicist John Cramer kindly provided me and fit it into what I believe is now the absolute final draft of "The Woman Who Shook the World Tree."  But that was fun, so it hardly counts.


And speaking of the poetry of science . . .

If you haven't heard this already, you really need to know about it.  Scientists have discovered a new planet.  Made entirely out of diamond.  F. Scott Fitzgerald's fantasy ain't even in the running.

Check it out here.


Above: What a pleasant place and way/Where and how to waste one's day!

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 180

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This is how we appear

to the unsentimental eye of God.

I doubt our interiors

are any better.

This was torn from a Taschen Books catalog.  As I said before, their art books are wonderful and their smut books purely a matter of taste.  This one was a photo book of working class swingers and I can't help but suspect they're being presented for our scorn rather than admiration.

Nevertheless I have to admire this pair's willingness to publicly display normal human bodies.  That hideous smiley-face is a device Taschen uses to keep their catalog clean and make readers more anxious to buy the uncensored book.

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The End of the Heptology

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I've posted the seventh and last excerpt from my conversation with James Patrick Kelly at Renovation.  This one is titled A Quiet Place to Work While God Finishes Eating Our Brains.  In it, we discuss what we expect to accomplish in what remains of our careers.


Oh, and speaking of Dragonstairs . . . 

I am not going to be overblogging Marianne's Dragonstairs Press because that would make her enterprise look like a subset of my own.  However I thought I should mention that A Midwinter's Tale is sold out, and that she only has four complete sets of the Darger & Surplus chapbooks left.  This is one of the advantages of being a nano-press -- you don't have to devote a lot of space to storing the inventory.

I just wanted to let those who moved fast to buy the items they wanted know that their alacrity was not wasted.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 179

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Darkness to Darkness:

Does everybody here know what this is?  It's quite possible some don't.  Back in the day, children, we took snapshots of Mastodons and giant sloths using film cameras and then nailed the film (along with a check) to the processing lab.  Then, mere weeks later, back they came in the form of photographs.  And we thought this was an impressive piece of technology!  Honestly.  We did.

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The Last Mystery

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For almost thirty years, linoleum tiles have appeared in the streets of Philadelphia, reading:

TOYNBEE IDEA

IN MOVIE 2001

RESURRECT DEAD

ON PLANET JUPITER

Anybody seeing them had to wonder what they meant and who was behind them.  It was one of those small mysteries you always wondered about and knew that nobody would ever resolve for you.

Until now.

I saw Resurrect Dead, Jon Foy's documentary of gentle obsession yesterday.  It details the dogged, decade-long investigation of three young men to get to the root of this admittedly small mystery.  And it was a hoot and a delight.

Two things struck me about the movie:  First, that although Foy probably doesn't realize it, the movie is all about fandoms.  The community that forms around the mystery of the Toynbee tiles is one -- self-organizing, self-funding, and perfectly serious about a subject most other people don't give a second thought to.  And the material that ultimately solves the mystery comes from the Citizens Band community, another fandom which, though they're way skeptical about the whole project, recognize the obsession as being essentially benign.

And second, that while most of the movie is simply straightforward harmless fun, the ending, when the investigators decide they have learned enough and draw away from going any further, was both moving and profound.  It touches on the limits of understanding and the limits that morality place upon our actions.  So, ultimately, Resurrect Dead speaks to our times.

It also solves the last mystery left in an increasingly understood world.

Until the next mystery, of course.


And I saw a play . . .

It's over now, but Lady M. was one fabulous piece of theater.  It had its weaknesses, as any work that merges one of Shakespeare's best plays with added material must -- the new dialogue rarely lives up to Will's best.  But in the title role of Lady MacBeth, Catharine Slusar was just flat-out wonderful. I'd love to see her reprise the role in MacBeth.  But I'd be equally happy to see her in Lady M. again.

And I was mini-interviewed . . .

You can find a mini-interview of me (done as part of the publicity for my appearance last Saturday at The Spiral Bookcase) over at WHYY's online zine newsworks.  Reporter Jimmy Viola made it easy for me by doing his research first and then asking interesting questions.  You'd be amazed how rare that is.

You can find the interview here.

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