invisible 5

The beauty, the emptiness, the sometimes iracible hammering of belt motors, diesel engines, and tractors that is Interstate Hwy 5. Please enjoy a brief pictoral recount of my week-long journey to L.A.

I listened to the "Invisible-5" audio tour on my way. "Invisible-5 investigates the stories of people and communities fighting for environmental justice along the I-5 corridor, through oral histories, field recordings, found sound, recorded music, and archival audio documents. The project also traces natural, social, and economic histories along the route." Very cool. Check it out.

 

And quickly thereafter

A response from the White House....

"On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.

We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.

Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House cannot respond to every message.

Thank you again for taking the time to write."

Thanks, and noted.

Another from Mark

A Suite of Appearances
(part III)

How it comes forward, and deposits itself like wind
In the ear which hears only the humming at first, the first
Suggestion of what is to come, how it grows out of itself,

Out of the humming because if it didn't it would die
In the graveyard of sound without being known, and then
Nothing would happen for days or weeks until something like it

Came back, a sound announcing itself as your own, a voice
That is yours, bending under the weight of desire,
Suddenly turning your language into a field unfolding

And all the while the humming can still be detected, the original
Humming before it was yours, and you lie back and hear it,
Surprised that what you are saying was something you meant,

And you think that perhaps you are not who you thought, that henceforth
Any idea of yourself must include a body surrounding a song.


Mark Strand

as the year tosses off its socks I'm meditating on...

"The end of the year is heaving into view with its ineluctable retrospective urge."

"Make a quilt not an advertisement."

"Access to what's already happened is cheaper than access to what's happening now."

"No, ma'am, I said,
this is the nontalking compartment."

As for location, I am here right now:



And tomorrow I'll be here:

Gay penguins? You betcha!

This just in.

Gay penguins steal eggs from straight couples

A couple of gay penguins are attempting to steal eggs from straight birds in an effort to become "fathers", it has been reported.

The two penguins have started placing stones at the feet of parents before waddling away with their eggs, in a bid to hide their theft.

But the deception has been noticed by other penguins at the zoo, who have ostracised the gay couple from their group. Now keepers have decided to segregate the pair of three-year-old male birds to avoid disrupting the rest of the community during the hatching season.

A keeper at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China explained that the gay couple had the natural urge to become fathers, despite their sexuality.

"One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite this being a biological impossibility for this couple, the natural desire is still there," a keeper told the Austrian Times newspaper.

"It's not discrimination. We have to fence them separately, otherwise the whole group will be disturbed during hatching time," he added.

There are numerous examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, but gay penguins have captured the public's attention more than any other species.

A German zoo provoked outrage from gay lobby groups after attempting to mate a group of gay male penguins with Swedish female birds who were flown in especially to seduce them. But the project was abandoned after the males refused to be "turned", showing no interest in their would-be mates.

In 2002 a couple of penguins at a New York zoo who had been together for eight years were "outed" when keepers noticed that they were both males.

Courtousy of Telegraph.co.uk. Full story.

the world according to edie

http://theballot.org/2008/edie

I know it may appear as though I've abandoned the blog but I am on the lam that's all and here's this:

The campaigns for and against Proposition 8 raised over $60 million with campaign contributions from over 64,000 people in all fifty states and more than twenty foreign countries, setting a new record nationally for a social policy initiative and trumping every other race in the country in spending except the presidential contest.

SO THERE.

Making history.

blaaaaahh

When Obama gets elected ...

"When Obama gets elected ... " she said.
"When Obama gets elected?" he asked.
"Yeah! When Obama gets elected. Just say it. Just start saying it all the time."
"Word."

Collective unconscious, unite.

Rare as Sarah Palin in Washington

Rare as the first bite of cheeseburger after competing in a triathlon. Rare as Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" on iTunes' song shuffle on your bike ride to work. Rare as Sarah Palin in Washington. You just don't come across a play as good as mugwumpin's super:anti:reluctant often. "Using mugwumpin's unique kaleidescope approach to storytelling, they take notions of the American hero and turn them inside out, looking for what underpins our impulses to save or be saved!"

For the ensemble to perform this very play in Egypt for the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatr, my goodest friend CWW, co-director of mugwumpin, has (literally) put his nose on the grindstone more times than I can count to direct the ensemble's fund raising efforts. Support local theater if it's good—and in this case, it is!