Posted 11:43 AM by Angie Schultz

Go Ressurect Yourself

Allegedly, a "little girl" who opened up her Christmas iPod instead got a dimwitted mini-screed which read:

Reclaim your mind from the media's shackles. Read a book and ressurect [sic] yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage go to your nearest Apple store.

In my experience, people who tell me to read, learn, or think are almost invariably less well-informed than I am. And no one poorer than I has ever suggested that I make do with less (well, except for Grandma).

Not much info at the link, except that the iPod was purchased at a Wal-Mart, whose manager said, Huh, we had one of those the other day.

At Endgadget, several people have pointed out that the note had to have been produced on a capitalistic computer of some sort. Nuh uh! say others, that's a typewriter. (Which were apparently hand-made by dwarves, and therefore not capitalistic at all.)

Kiddies, that's not a typewriter. That's a font designed to badly mimic typewriting for effect. It was produced on a computer. (Although if you said that it was done by impressing individual letter sorts or wooden stamps onto the paper, I could maybe buy that, too.)

Via Hot Air.

Posted 10:11 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Think Pink

Well, this isn't the greatest photo for the last FF of the year, but tough.

Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu, Jan. 2002

This is the famous, romantic Royal Hawaiian hotel on Waikiki Beach. Specifically, it's the back of it. You can see the hotel in the distance in this picture.

As I said at the beginning of the year, this is a posh joint. The other day I saw an episode of Hawaii Five-O in which Slim Pickens and his hick family turn up at the desk of the Royal Hawaiian demanding the room they'd reserved. The clerk hems and haws and tries to make them understand that they are low-life scum who are not fit to tread the sacred ground by saying, "B-b-but" and "Please!", but it's no good. Unable to ban people on the basis of thick southern accents, he must give them their room.

I believe that this is also the episode where they're eating at an outdoor restaurant, and Slim's wife expresses outrage that there's a white woman eating with an Oriental. Slim promises to find them an all-white restaurant next time. Even when that episode was minty fresh that made me go, "Huh??"

Anyhow they turn out to be cold-blooded killers who are very sloppy about leaving clues, and that low cunning baffles McGarrett for an entire hour. (Sadly, I missed the rest of the ep.) (According to IMDB, it was called "One Big Happy Family" and was based on a true story.)

If I ran the Royal Hawaiian, I would've sued.

The big cream-colored building on the right is the RH annex, which probably contains the better rooms. But what would be the point of going if you didn't get to stay in the breathtakingly-expensive pink palace?

Posted 12:15 PM by Angie Schultz

Grinch Watch

That would make a good series, but it's too late this year. Maybe next.

The other day VodkaPundit mentioned that he'd run down to the Starbucks drive-through for some coffee, and when he got to the front of the line he was informed that the person ahead of him had paid for his order. So he paid for the person behind him. With any luck, people are still in line down there, spreading a little Christmas spirit, he said.

The next day I read this in the local paper:

One woman's kindness to a fellow Starbucks patron resulted in more than a thousand others spreading the holiday-season generosity in this northwest Washington town.

...[O]n Wednesday, her good deed set off a chain of 1,013 customers paying for the next person's drink.

Well, how nice! Did this break out spontaneously, or had VodkaPundit's neighbors in Colorado heard about the Washington incident ("Wednesday" would have been the 19th), or what?

Fortunately, we have VodkaPundit commenter Chad to tell us that it was all a PR stunt!

So says the blogger at the oddly-named Story+Welch blog, anyway. He doesn't actually offer any evidence.

What's really amusing (and Grinchy) are the comments there. Fools! You haven't really given anything, because you got something in return! Don't you see that this only plays into the hands of Starbucks?? Er, even though they don't actually make any more money out of it and it's not like anyone is going to dash down to Starbucks just to participate. But they're a corporation, so they're evil! Eeeevillll! It's a good thing we have the perpetually-awakening consumers at that site to keep us from feeling even the smallest charitable glow about something like this. It might be bad for our moral fiber.

Me, I'm staying out of it, just to be on the safe side. Besides, I'm the kind of schlimazel who would get a free regular "large" coffee only to pay for venti triple-whipped skinny half-caff carbonara macchiatos plus poppy-seed scones for a carful of yuppy teenagers.

Merry Christmas, sheep!

Posted 11:08 AM by Angie Schultz

Mele Kalikimaka!

Christmas tree, Honolulu
Dec. 2001

It looks as if Kalikimaka is going to be more Mele than in the past several years. I can say no more! For now.

As I mentioned last year, "Mele Kalikimaka" is Hawaiian for "Merry Christmas". Why "Kalikimaka"? Because Hawaiian only has seven consonants: H,K,L,M,N,P, and W; words containing other consonants have to muddle along the best they can. But how exactly do you get "Kalikimaka" from "Christmas"? Beats me.

Interestingly, there's a consonant shift from other Polynesian languages into Hawaiian. For example, tabu (taboo, duh) in many Polynesian languages is rendered kapu in Hawaiian. There's an interesting little article on it here, which also covers the evolution of the muumuu (the word, at least).

Anyhow, Mele Kalikimaka to all!

Labels: Hawaii

Posted 11:09 AM by Angie Schultz

Job Outsourced to...Mars

Saw this in this morning's paper:

Mars will be unusually bright this Christmas Eve and the moon will be shining full — a development that might make Santa Claus rethink his need for Rudolph's red nose.

That idea, from Miami Space Transit Planetarium director Jack Horkheimer, made us wonder if retooling a certain reindeer song is the best way to explain it to the kids...

Go to the link for the "retooling". Essentially, it's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" re-written so that Santa uses Mars instead, and Rudolph gets the night off. As Niles said, it sounds like the author, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, has been hitting the eggnog a bit hard. But we both liked the ending:

Then all the reindeer teased him.
And they shouted out with glee:
"Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
Outsourced to astronomy."

Check out this wicked cool Flash animation of Mars's position relative to the Earth and Sun. Hit the fast forward. Zoooom! Note the box in the upper left where it shows Mars's (relative) appearance in a telescope. In late August of 2003, in the closest approach in 60,000 years, Mars nearly filled the gray circle. The Christmas Eve approach will not be nearly as spectacular.

(Actually, the closest approach was on Dec. 18, but Mars will be brightest on Dec. 24. The increase in brightness between the two dates, however, will not be noticeable.)

Which brings us back to doe. I mean, Rudolph (who is not a doe, as far as we know). Wasn't Santa's point that Rudolph's glowing nose would penetrate the "foggy Christmas Eve", thus allowing Santa to see where he was going? How's Mars going to do that? In fact, if Santa uses Mars as a guide instead of Rudolph, he's going to be heading straight to...Mars.

And then he'll conquer it.

(Horkheimer should know better, even if he is no longer the memorable "Star Hustler" but instead a common "Star Gazer." Turns out that too many little moppets searching for him on the internet wound up at quite a different "Hustler". Now that's educational.)

Posted 10:01 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Bay of Rainbows

Rainbow over Hilo Bay, HI, Sep. 1995

This bay is not on the Moon, but in Hilo, Hawaii. Note the double rainbow. This was taken (I'm pretty sure) from the back of the Hilo Bay Hotel, aka Uncle Billy's, a funky, kitschy hotel on Banyan Drive in Hilo. Long may it wave.

The sky between the two rainbows is supposed to be noticeably darker than the sky within the primary and outside the secondary, but you can't really tell that here.

Rainbow over Coconut Island, Hilo, HI, Sep. 1995

Here it is a few minutes later. Note how unusually low it is! Rainbows always occur opposite the sun. It's not unusual for a storm to clear at sunset, say, leaving the sky clear in the west while the eastern sky is still black. Then, the sun is low and the rainbow is high.

But here the sun is high in the sky, shining almost straight down on the little rainstorm. In most cases the clouds would block the sun. You can only get this effect when the rain is very localized -- and then you have to be lucky.

Fred Schaaf's The Starry Room has a good chapter on rainbows, even though it's really a book about astronomy. (If I recall correctly, he has a list of the sorts of conditions under which you might see a rainbow. He left out one I saw in West Texas: a rainbow in virga -- the long tail of precipitation that hangs from a cloud, but evaporates before it hits the ground. I didn't have my camera out at the time, though.)

Another fun book is Rainbows, Halos, and Glories by Robert Greenler, which is apparently totally out of print and goes for ridiculous prices. Huh. Anyhow, many neat pictures of atmospheric phenomena in that bok.

Posted 10:23 AM by Angie Schultz

Say My Name, Say My Name

Via the Flea, who is hopping over The Hobbit, I find that my hobbit name is: Daisy Sackville-Baggins. I assume that would be Daisy Mae of the low-rent branch of the Sackville-Bagginses, who live in that awful caravan park near Rushock Bog. They always have discarded ale casks and broken wheels piled up around their wagons. Disgraceful!

I have an elvish name, too: Idril Ringëril. Much prettier, but it sounds like two drug names ("Ask your doctor if Ringëril is right for you").

Now, see, here I was thinking, Hmmm, did elves have two names? I thought it was just one. And comes the answer, from the FAQ page:

Q: Didn't you know that in the Tolkein-verse Elves don't have two names? I mean sometimes they do, but you've mixed up the Quenya and Sindarin dialects and besides I'm somewhat sure the author specified that a diaresis always occurs in an elven word that ends with the letter 'e'...(trails off)

A: Ah. I see. Yes, yes. I understand. How ...good... of you to catch that. *backs away slowly, dials police*

Oh, no, really. No need. I'm going now.

(And it's Tolkien -- i before e. Barbarian!)

Posted 10:02 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Three Weird Sisters

Finally had a chance to scan, but mostly I did my mother's stuff. Got a few of my own in though, like this one:

The Blue Mountains, Australia, July 2002

This is the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney. Of course there is a legend.

That was taken on my last full day in Australia. It was a damned shame (and entirely my own stupid fault) that I did not get up to the Blue Mountains earlier. This was especially true since they were doing construction work when we were there, and everything was all in a mess. I believe the observation platform shown in that page was torn up, for example. I should have been up there constantly taking pictures, but I'm a goof.

I think I have some pictures taken a little later in the day that are better. You'll get them one day. Betcha can't wait!

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 8:14 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Day of Infamy

OK, I'm going to cheat now, and give you a photo that I've published before, but not as a Friday Foto. Appropriate to the day, here are the Arizona and the Missouri:

USS Arizona Memorial from the USS Missouri
Pearl Harbor, HI, Jan. 2002

That's from this post. But, to make up for the repetition, here are some fresh images:

Forward guns of the USS Missouri

If you want to know about those guns, don't ask me -- go to Wikipedia (WARNING! etc) and look at the waaaay cool photo of the Iowa's guns firing.

The main thing I remember about the Missouri was the definite impression that it must have been damned uncomfortable in the tropical heat, considering that the interior walls are all metal and it was cramped and humid and held 3,000 men, each of whom probably sweated out his body weight weekly.

There's a plaque in the deck to mark the spot where the surrender instruments are signed, covered with a layer of thick acrylic(?).

And there is also, bizarrely, a memorial Pepsi machine:

Pepsi Machine, USS Missouri

Yes, that's right on the ship, not on the dock next to the gift shop. I'd have bought a drink if it came in commemorative cans, but that didn't seem to be the case. (The highest-resolution version of the image suggests that it didn't hold cans -- or Pepsi -- at all, but bottles of orange drink and fruit punch and water. $1.75, in case you're wondering.)

That is just the coolest graphic. They should've had it on a postcard; I assume it belongs to Pepsi.

USA Today has an interesting article on the dwindling ranks of the Pearl Harbor survivors who man the museum. When I was there in 1989 I met one of those guys. He had one of those ubiquitous stories of having something in his pocket (a lighter? a quarter? an iPod? -- well, OK, not that) that stopped a bullet that would have otherwise killed him.

He also said that he had to leap from his sinking ship into the water, which was on fire.

Fox has the perspective of the civilian population.

And on that note, I'll close by pointing to this post from five years ago.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 9:14 PM by Angie Schultz

The Case of the Missing Blogger

No, not me. Nobody's missing me.

Once upon a time, there was a suburban housewife/secretary/blogger named Michele Catalano who wrote very well and covered politics and pop culture. She wrote a blog called A Small Victory, which you see is now defunct, and then one called Faster Than the World, also now defunct, and she was the co-creator of the influential The Command Post, likewise defunct except for haunting the Library of Congress.

And now, apparently, she's been arrested in Italy. Turns out that she was not a Long Island blogger/secretary/housewife, but an Italian gangster! And a man! And she lied about her age! For shame!

Or it could be that gangster Michele Catalano (who was arrested while watching a TV show about the arrest of a gangster) is someone else entirely, and blogger Michele Catalano is hiding out here.

But just in case, don't tell the Italians, 'K?

Posted 9:52 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Mt. Ida

Next week I swear I'm going to get some scanning done. So for now, something old:

Mt. Ida, Crete, June, 1990

This view is very close to that shown in a previous post.

Um, wish I had more to say, but I don't.

At least it's not Hawaii[1].

[1]Muahahahaha!

Labels: Foto Friday, Greece

Posted 1:07 PM by Angie Schultz

Weapons of Mass Dessertion

The other day Instapundit thought he was being funny:

T'S EASIER TO GET SPOTTED DICK THAN YOU THINK, even in America. Consider yourself warned!

Oh, like who didn't know that spotted dick was a British dish, and not an embarrassing medical condition (not that there's much difference -- ba dum dump!).

Here's a quiz: which of these is NOT a type of British food?:

• Bubble and Squeak
  
• Toad in the hole
  
• Cock-a-leekie
  
• Hundreds and Thousands
  
• Pasties
  

Give up? Good. Because they all are. Ha ha!

But this part is disturbing: you go[1] to the Amazon page that Glenn linked (for the six pack of spotted dick), and you get "Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed..."

• The 300g single-can of spotted dick. For those who want to ease into weirdly-named foods.
  
• Heinz beans with tomato sauce. The Heinz corporation puts in another ominous appearance. Is John Kerry involved?
  
• Jello "Americana Egg Custard" pudding. Getting back to the pudding theme.
  

Aaand:

• Uranium Ore. 1 used & new from $22.95. Not eligible for Amazon Prime. Sorry.
  

Perhaps the uranium ore is used to treat the spotted dick.

Read the reviews. Here's a sample:

First, I'm not sure what the abundance of U-238 is in this sample. In any case, if you want this for "experimenting," note that this is NOT the U-235 that you probably should be looking for...

Did Saddam Hussein know about this?

[1]Rather, if you went yesterday you could see this. Apparently Glenn has craftily arranged to obscure the sinister uranium-spotted dick connection.

Right now, uranium-viewers are exhibiting a positively creepy penchant for lacy underthings. Mahmoud, you scamp!

Posted 10:42 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Tropical Breezes

Do I have to say that I didn't get to scan again, and you're getting something stale? Even that excuse is stale. Yet true.

Enjoy a tropical breeze:

Kapa'a Beach, Kauai, Sep. 1995

For those playing along at home, this picture is just a few yards inland of this one I posted in June. The colors are much more muted here; I'm not entirely sure why. I think that whole roll might have to be re-scanned (sigh -- in my next life).

It was very windy that day, and I think the camera was shaking a little, which may have produced the slightly blurry images. It turned out to be a nice effect.

Oh, and Muahahahaha!

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 9:59 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Mt. Lemmon Vista

I thought I had something else (something extremely lame, to be sure) scanned, but it turns out I didn't. So we'll take a quick break from Hawaii[1] to bring you this scene of Mt. Lemmon in the fall.

View from Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, Oct. 1994

I'm not quite sure what that view is. Looks like a dry lake bed down there, but Google maps shows nothing promising (i.e., nothing in the general direction of Tucson).

Still, nice colors.

[1]Muahahaha!

Labels: Arizona, Foto Friday

Posted 10:56 AM by Angie Schultz

Greetings from Exotic India!

[Note: I'm not really in India.]

So all the cool kids are talking about this YouTube item, in which an Indian music video is subtitled with English lyrics that sorta kinda sound like what the singer is singing, though she's not singing in English. (WARNING: The video is innocuous, but the subtitles are risque and not safe for work, small children, grannies, or dogs under 15 lbs.)

It's the kind of thing that's amusing for maybe ten or fifteen seconds, but then it gets boring, especially as the song is kind of repetitive.[1]

So anyway, in the beginning of the video they're writhing around on top of this beautiful skyscraper:



"Wow!" I think, "exotic India!" I want to go to India someday so I can see that beautiful building. Note (in some scenes) the thick sky, gray despite the sunny day. This is due to India's notorious jungle conditions. I'm also thinking that it would be impossible to film this in the United States, or any other country with a brisk lawsuit business. They're dancing on the very edge of the building!

So a little later on they're splashing around in a fountain:



and I think, "Wait a damn minute. That's here." Specifically, it's the Wortham Fountains in Tranquility Park. Those are clearly the same buildings in the background.

And the big wall o' water:



is the, um, Water Wall. I've never been there (or even heard of it) so I didn't recognize it. Here's a site with photos of Houston landmarks, including several nice ones of the Water Wall. Now I am keen to go.

Oh, and the beautiful Indian skyscraper? The Niels Esperson Building.

Well, Molly Ivins always did say that Houston was like Calcutta (specifically, that they had similar climates).


[1]Somewhat more diverting is speculating what the video's about, as it shows the efforts of a beautiful woman to get some pudgy stiff to notice her. She dances, she writhes, she strokes his face, she slaps him with her long, silken tresses -- all to no avail. I see it as a sort of intervention: his mother fears he's, you know, funny, and has hired the hot-eyed singer and her dozen dancing darlings to tempt him. Occasionally it looks like it just...might...work, but he's only trying to figure out a way to get that gold necklace off her. Finally he says to hell with it and stalks off, unmoved.

Posted 8:40 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Wailea View

This was the view from (what was then) the Wailea Marriot, our hotel when we stayed on Maui.

View from Wailea, Maui, Sep. 2003

I couldn't stop staring at it. I tried to read or blog, but my eyes were drawn into the distance. That's Pu'u Kukui (western Maui) on the right, Lanai on the left. Ahhhh...

There's a point to this. Maybe.

UPDATE: HA HA HA HA! YES THERE IS! Details later. Well, no -- cryptic comments later, punctuated by maniacal laughter. Eventually, all will be made clear. Or not. MUAHAHAHA!

ALSO: Itt's the Wailea Marriott, witth ttwo tt's, and itt's sttill tthere.

AGAIN: MUAHAHAHA!

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 3:15 PM by Angie Schultz

The Greeks Had a Word for It

What's the word for a word that sounds like it ought to mean something, but it really means something else? "Malapropism" is not it; that's sort of the inverse of what I mean.

The other day on buzz.mn, Lileks had a post titled "Calling All Sybarites," which prompted one of his readers to comment:

[That's] a word I'm unlikely to use, and thank heaven. I had to look up "catamite" that appeared somewhere in Lileks' writings this week. By the look and sound of the word, I surmised that perhaps it was a mineral specimen. Imagine my surprise.

Har!

I've been trying to keep a list (in my head) of words that sound like they might mean something completely different, such as:

• Thesaurus: A giant reptile of the late Cretaceous
  
• Eponymous: A large mammal native to Africa
  

Unfortunately, that's as far as I get. Occasionally one occurs to me, and I vow to remember it, but never do. Let's see if we can think of a few now:

• Cenotaph: A method of long-distance communication.
  
• Prolix: A part of the body not mentioned in polite company.
  
• Sesquipedalian: Any of a number of species of small, many-legged creatures, many of them venomous.
  
• Obfuscatory: A small niche used as a hiding place [1].
  
• Armature: A covering of metal or other tough substance, used as protection for a fighter in battle.
  

See! It's fun! You could make up an entire story using these.

Karst shifted in his saddle, trying to ease the spot where his heavy armature chafed his prolix. "I don't like the look of this terrine," he called over his shoulder. He gestured to the rock stratus above them, catamite overlaid with sybarite. "This rising gorge is the perfect hunting ground for a thesaurus." His companion urged his stout eponymous forward to Karst's side. "When we reach Bougainvillea[2], we can send a message by cenotaph to the capitulate," he said. "The Argon will organize a posset to deal with the beasts."

Sadly, as my vocabulary grows these sorts of words become less obvious. The toughest read I ever had as an adult was Pietro Redondi's Galileo: Heretic, where on one page I had to deal with hermeneutics, hagiography, and exegesis.

• Hermeneutics: A complex and obscure branch of mathematics
  
• Hagiography: An ancient system of writing
  
• Exegesis: Something expelled from the body
  

(The toughest read I ever had as a child was a book about an old lady who had a pet monkey that had died of pneumonia. I couldn't deal with pneumonia, and returned the book sadly to the library. That damaged my self-esteem for years to come.)

My literary effort above reminds me of what many consider the Worst. Fantasy. Ever., "The Eye of Argon". It was written by a 16-year-old named Jim Theis (sadly no longer with us), and published in an obscure fan journal in 1970.

I'm not sure that the plot is particularly bad, but the writing is. In addition to the usual newbie vices of clotted verbs and overlarded adjectives, Theis misuses many words -- as when the hero, Grignr, defeats two men in battle and then glares "lustfully" at them as they die. (And no, Theis does not really mean "lustfully".)

Later he sees a girl in a tavern and admires her "lithe, opaque nose". I believe this is where I realized I was in the presence of genius.

Perhaps Theis was inventing a new type of literature, where the meanings of words are less important than their possible meanings, or perhaps we should say their homophonic meanings[3]. Working under that theory, "lithe" is a good description of a nose, hinting clumsily at grace. Though what Theis was thinking of with "opaque" I can't imagine.

I PREDICT that within a century this sort of thing will become a celebrated literary genre. I'd better get in while the getting's good.

Unless that's what James Joyce thought he was doing; then to hell with it.

[1] Actually, I can see Matthew Hughes using the word in that manner.
[2]OK, that's cheating a little.
[3] Or possibly homorthographophonic? There aren't any homorthographophoniphobes in the audience, I hope.

Posted 10:29 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Crofts Bay

The rocks out in the bay are kin to the 12 Apostles a little further down the road.

Crofts Bay, Victoria, Australia
Dec. 2000

I love the colors in this picture -- the blue sky, the green sea, the golden cliffs and the red land. Unfortunately I couldn't get more of the red land in on the left there. Must...get...20mm...lens...

What I don't love is the strange scanner artifact in the sky. Think of it as a UFO.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 8:39 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Sublime?

Bridalveil Fall as seen from Tunnel View in Yosemite. I believe that this post could be used to cure insomnia.

Bridalveil Fall
Yosemite, Aug. 1995

In his essay, "Men Without Chests", C.S. Lewis illustrates his theme with an example about a waterfall. A couple of English teachers, writing in a children's textbook, had taken the poet Samuel Coleridge to task for something he'd written: Two tourists view a waterfall. One pronounces it "sublime". The other declares it is "pretty". Coleridge sides with the first tourist, and is disgusted by the second.

The textbook writers go on to say that what Coleridge really meant was that the waterfall made him feel sublime, and warn against confusing our feelings about a thing with properties of the thing itself.

Out of this thin thread Lewis weaves a shroud for humanity. No! he insists! The waterfall is sublime! To deny the sublimity of the waterfall is to reduce everything to the status of opinion. Taken to a really silly extreme, this will lead to men who are afraid to assert the intrinsic sublimity of waterfalls, or the truth of anything, at all, ever.

Sorry, perfesser. The waterfall is merely channeled water meeting a steep gradient in terrain. The "sublime" is the part the viewer contributes.

Now, I know that there will be those who jump up and down shouting, "But Lewis was right! Today we are afraid of asserting the truth of our own truths! The value of our own values!" Speak for yourselves, o hollow men.

I was wondering just what exactly Coleridge had said, and tried to google it up. But nearly every hit was referring to the Lewis essay. Except one.

Not the unabashed assertion of truths here. Try not to let your eyes roll completely out of your head as you read of the continual affront to women depicted as spectators at various events, forced to endure male companionship and even conversation.

Anyhow, here Luke Gibbons quotes from Coleridge's On the Principles of Genial Criticism:

Many years ago, the writer, [i.e. Coleridge -- AS] in company with an accidental party of travellers, was gazing on a cataract of great height, breadth, and impetuosity, the summit of which appeared to blend with the sky and the clouds, while the lower part was hidden in rocks and trees; and on his observing that it was, in the strictest sense of the word, a sublime object, a lady present assented with warmth to the remark, adding - 'Yes! And it is not only sublime, but beautiful and absolutely pretty!

I put it to you that "absolutely pretty" is no fitting judgment for the waterfall that Coleridge describes, and that he was merely lamenting the poverty of the woman's vocabulary. (And I assert this value judgment as fact, as Lewis would've wanted.) From that tiny seed did Lewis's hollow men grow, as well as Gibbons's assertion that the anecdote -- this is "clear" -- means that the female gaze is no match for the sublime, and must express itself in flippant and trivial terms.

There, now. Are you asleep yet?

Labels: California, Foto Friday

Posted 2:11 PM by Angie Schultz

Comet Alert!

From Space Weather:

Astronomers in Japan, Persia and Europe report that Comet 17P/Holmes is undergoing a spectacular eruption. The 17th magnitude comet has brightened by a factor of five hundred thousand or more during the past 24 hours becoming a naked-eye object in the evening sky. Look for a yellow 2.5th magnitude fuzzball in the constellation Perseus after sunset...
The outburst may signify a breakup of the comet's core or a rich vein of ice suddenly exposed to sunlight--no one knows. At present the comet looks more like a star than a comet; it does not have a discernable tail, but it might grow one as the outburst continues.

[my emphasis] [Persia??] More, including a pic, at the link. Not too spectacular now, but stay tuned.

Posted 10:49 AM by Angie Schultz

Matthew Hughes: Shameless Promotion

One seldom has the opportunity I have now -- to do a good deed for the richly deserving, and in return get a chance at sweet, succulent loot. In this case, it's the best booty of all: books.

UPDATE: See the update near the image of the Black Brillion cover.

Writer Matthew Hughes is offering a free book to the first 53 people willing to abase themselves and write about his books past and present. Now, I have my pride (no, really, it's around here somewhere, honest) so I wouldn't do this for just any shmoe. But Hughes isn't just any shmoe, he's a shmoe who writes like the dickens! (Not to be confused with, "writes like Dickens").

A couple of years ago, after decades of neglect, I took up the science fiction habit again -- that is to say, reading farm-fresh science fiction in addition to the comforting familiar science fiction I'd grown up with. I wasn't at all sure that I would like this new-fangled stuff. Much of it I don't. Much of it is much like the old-fangled stuff, and it's still not that great.

But Hughes was one of the writers who really made me sit up and take notice. He's the author of not one but two (somewhat related) series, set in the same remote future. The first involves the adventures of Henghis Hapthorn, "Old Earth's foremost freelance discriminator" -- known to some as a private detective.

Hapthorn (arrogant, stuffy, intelligent, and charming) finds himself living at a time when the universe is swinging away from logic, mechanics, and science and toward an age dominated by intuition and magic. Since he has made his living and his reputation through reason and deduction, this is an extremely unwelcome change for him. Fortunately for him, he's not exactly alone in his own skull...

In (I believe) the first Hapthorn story, "Mastermindless", Hapthorn encounters a creature from a very alternate reality, who invites Hapthorn to think of him as a demon -- not in the sense of an evil entity, but that of a being with powers unknown to humans. In "Finding Sajessarian" Hapthorn receives considerable assistance from the demon, but it results in an astounding transformation to his "integrator" (his trusty assistant -- basically a glorified computer). Hapthorn's has gradually taken on a personality as the stories progress, something an integrator should not be able to do. I believe this has something to do with the impending cosmic shift. That event is finally made manifest in "The Gist Hunter" (June 2005 F&SF), and it means a profound change in Hapthorn.

These stories are all included in Hughes's 2005 collection The Gist Hunter, along with three other Hapthorns which don't really add to the story arc, although they're interesting tales on their own.

Hapthorn's adventures continue in the novel Majestrum, in which Hapthorn is called upon to investigate a threat to the Archonate (the benign dictatorship which rules Earth) itself. Hapthorn finds that the danger is much greater still. I confess that I found the beginning of this book slow (the beginning establishes some things needed at the end, but at the time it seems as if Hughes is dawdling), and I was confused in the wilder bits. But the final confrontation stood my hair on end. After finishing the book I immediately went back and re-read that part.

Now there's a new Hapthorn novel out, The Spiral Labyrinth, upon which I am eager to get my hot and greedy hands (thus this unblushing hucksterism). You can read the first chapter here, but I'm waiting until I have the whole book.

Hughes's writing style has been compared to that of Jack Vance (indeed, I think Hughes says somewhere that he was inspired by Vance's "Dying Earth" tales, Hughes's "Old Earth" being the age before that), but I've not read enough Vance to be able to comment. I will say that the writing in the Hapthorn stories is intelligent, witty, and arch -- rather like a serious, sober Nick Charles sans Nora, and with the part of Asta being played by a computer turned into a dog by powers beyond human ken.

I must say that I find reading Hughes to be a little bit of work, because he's not content to call things by their ordinary names, but must invent (or rather, adapt) new names for them -- e.g. discriminator, integrator, volante (for aircraft) etc. Here's a little sample from Majestrum:

I pointed out that when it was a disseminated device, it did not mind being decanted into a portable armature that fitted over my neck and shoulders so that it could accompany me when I traveled. I had been wearing the integrator in that fashion when we had passed through a contingent dimension to escape from an otherwise permanent confinement that would have eventually proved fatal. It was after we reemerged into my workroom that I found my assistant transformed.

I don't know about you, but I find that sort of thing a little heavy going. It was a slog to get through the first few paragraphs of Black Brillion. On the other hand, once you settle into the rhythm you run the risk of being absorbed into it and end up talking like that for the rest of your life.

His other series is even weirder. This one involves Guth Bandar, a would-be noönaut -- that is, a student of and traveler in the human collective unconscious. When we first meet Bandar (in "A Little Learning", collected in The Gist Hunter) he is making his way through the noösphere (the unconscious itself), as part of a student examination. But he finds himself sabotaged by a classmate, and must chart an alternate route back to his body. Hilarity ensues (as well as peril). (A quick skim of this story, read long ago, reveals what is possibly the least sexy sex scene in literature. This is quite deliberate, but it makes me wonder if there's ever been a Bulwer-Lytton-like contest to write the least erotic sex scene. If not, there oughta be.)

In "Help Wonted" (also in The Gist Hunter) we find that the collective unconscious may be achieving consciousness, and it has special plans for Bandar. Unfortunately, it seems to mean giving up his heart's desire -- a life as a scholar of the noösphere. There are three Bandar stories in The Gist Hunter, and a further three published in Fantasy & Science Fiction after The Gist Hunter was published. I believe that all of these will be combined in a novel, The Commons, due out just about now. (I was crushed to discover this, since apparently I've already read the last of the Bandar stories, "The Helper and His Hero," in F&SF. Sniff!)

The Bandar stories (and all other stories taking place in the Archonate) are written in the same mordant style as the Hapthorns, although with fewer opportunities for badinage, since Bandar (unlike Hapthorn) does not have a constant companion with whom to bicker.

(By the way, it occurred to me while reading "Help Wonted" that this noösphere business would make a terrific computer game in the style of Myst.)

As a sorta kinda wannabe writer, I'm impressed (and daunted) by the amount of thought that Hughes has put into these tales. Every one of the Guth Bandar stories supplies or illuminates some little fact which is necessary for the grand climax in "The Helper and His Hero". This requires considerable planning on the author's part.

On the other hand, as a sorta kinda wannabe writer, I'm depressed by the idea that every single possible plot has already been done before (I believe Aristotle noted this 2300 years ago). When Bandar finds himself trapped in an Event in "Help Wonted", he recognizes it as the archetypal Rising of the Oppressed. In "Bye the Rules", he's placed in a Situation he recognizes as Resisting the Despot. This is seems a dangerous tactic for a writer; readers should not be encouraged to recognize these literary tropes for the golden moldies they are. They might demand something new, and that would mean hard work for the writer.

There are other stories and novels which take place in the Archonate, but which are not directly related to either the Hapthorn or the Bandar series. I believe Black Brillion is one of these, but I haven't read it yet. I know that it features the character Luff Imbry, who turns up in "The Hero and His Helper."

UPDATE: W00T! Hughes responded to my email, and I'm in for a book! He also notes that the last half of Black Brillion covers the same events as the last half of the upcoming The Commons, as seen from a different point of view.

He's also the feature of his own standalone story, "The Meaning of Luff", in the July 2006 Fantasy & Science Fiction. (That's a terrific story, in which a device is discovered that reveals the purpose of any life. Turns out most lives don't have any purpose. I'd have thought that was obvious, but it causes some consternation in the story.) I finished Majestrum and wanted to pick up Black Brillion immediately, but forced myself to put it aside to savor for later. Since the new Hapthorn novel, The Spiral Labyrinth, is out, it's time to get savorin'.

There are also two other Archonate novels, Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice, which are currently out of print, though you can still get 'em used. Read samples at Hughes's site.

Finally, I will put in a good word for the story "Go Tell the Phoenicians" in The Gist Hunter. It's a good old-fashioned science fiction puzzle story, a departure from what I've seen of Hughes's style and oeuvre.

Anyhow -- Go! Buy a book! DO IT NOW!

Posted 10:26 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Sierra Sunset

Sunset on the Sierras
California, Aug. 1995

Almost forgot! I got some time to scan last week. I had hoped to get a couple rolls done, plus some of Mom's pictures scanned. But it took me all flippin' afternoon to do one roll of Yosemite. So here's some of it.

Don't remember where this was, and it's too late to go googling around. The clouds add a nice touch. Looks like the mountain is thinking about something. You can't really see it, but there's a river at the bottom. Perhaps I should have cropped it off, or left more sky. I usually assume a 1.5 (or 0.67) aspect ratio is best for pictures, but some require something different.

Photo needs some cosmetic diddling, but I very nearly forgot to post one, so you get what you get.

There, I think that's enough words.

Labels: California, Foto Friday

Posted 8:20 AM by Angie Schultz

Feel the Love

I live in an apartment complex where cable TV is included with the rent. We had Time-Warner cable, but recently Time-Warner sold our area to Comcast. Last week, we all got letters stating that our cable service was going to be cut off because of a problem with the bill, and that if we wanted to keep our cable, we should take it up with the apartment management. These letters were dated a full week before we got them.

So I asked about that, and the manager told me that she'd checked, and there shouldn't be a problem with the bill. She said she'd got a similar letter for her internet service, even though she actually had a credit in her account.

So I figured that Comcast was just welcoming its new customers by sending them pre-emptive threatening letters, regardless of the state of their accounts. Smooth mooove.

Came the threatened day, and the cable stayed on. But that day a tropical funk (not quite a tropical depression) passed through, and it poured with rain for most of the day. The next morning, returning from a walk, I found Comcast men fiddling with the cable box by our complex. Were they shutting off our cable? Yes. Yes they were.

So I went in to see the manager, and before I could open my mouth she said, "I'm on it!" She was on hold, said she'd been on the phone all week trying to make sure it was straightened out. Later in the day we all got notices saying that Comcast admitted they'd made a mistake and the cable would be switched on again the next day. (I was dubious, but just after 5:30pm it reappeared.)

Now I wonder if Comcast's computer hadn't just spit out dunning letters to all its new customers with no human oversight, so there was no one to say, "Huh. All our new customers from Time-Warner are behind in their bills. What are the odds...?"

Apparently we have more of this sort of thing to look forward to. Now, the first thing any cable company is going to want to do, upon acquiring a new system, is to scramble the channels around so you don't know where anything is and all your recordings are screwed up. That's just the nature of the beast. But apparently Comcast is prepared to go above and beyond this basic level of aggravation, all the way to the point of switching channels in the middle of a baseball game. A playoff game.

At least we didn't have to resort to this. Although it would have been an interesting sight if even a small portion of my neighbors descended on the local Comcast office wielding hand tools. They might have had to send a Ranger.

My title comes from the Comcast advertising brochure we got in the mail yesterday (while, incidentally, the cable was still off). On the outside: Feel the Love.

Here's a related site: ComcastMustDie.com That's actually a front for a Blogspot blog, which is awfully slow to load. How slow is it? It's so slow that Comcast will fix your problem before the site loads. Can you feel the love?

Posted 9:35 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: The Fresh Scent of Pine

The title's kind of stale, though. Oh, well.

Mt. Rainier, Washington, Sep. 2005

This beautiful view is located right off the main road, so you don't have to hike to see it or, if I remember correctly, even get out of your car.

Clouds can be very annoying.

This weekend is scheduled as a scan-o-rama, so maybe there'll be something fresh next week. I might even write a non-photo post, if you can imagine such a thing.

Labels: Foto Friday, Washington

Posted 10:09 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: An Elk

Lone Elk State Park
Missouri, Oct. 1992

Not Anne Elk. Perhaps Arnie Elk.

This is from Lone Elk State Park, a little west of St. Louis. Despite the name, there are more elk than just Arnie.

It was mating season when we were there, and there were signs everywhere warning that the elk were in rut, and that the males in particular could be very dangerous. They were not skittish, however, and stood around grazing and gazing at the tourists with unconcern. When we came upon these we would stay at a safe distance and use our telephoto lenses.

I remember once we were stalking an elk grazing right beside the road (I don't remember if it was Arnie here). I wondered if the cautious stalking was going to make it more paranoid (and dangerous) than if we'd been more obvious. And Niles, I thought, was getting too near. I tried to calculate the distance between Niles and the elk, and Niles and me, and wondered what the hell I'd do if it charged him.

So after ten minutes of fretting and calculating and futilely trying to signal Niles to be more cautious we had just about worked ourselves into a position where we had a good photo. And then two guys in a pickup drove up. Hey! Looky here! They got out of the truck and stood around pointing and shouting. One of them put his arm across the elk's back while the other one took a picture.

This is where the narrative demands the elk become enraged, eviscerating the men and trampling their intestines, mirroring the bright foliage in the earth. But this elk didn't know from narrative. It just sighed and endured the indignity, and after a few more shouts the men rolled on.

Elk are stupid.

Labels: Foto Friday, Missouri

Posted 2:01 PM by Angie Schultz

What a Burke

The first paragraph of this David Brooks article reads:

Modern conservatism begins with Edmund Burke. What Burke articulated was not an ideology or a creed, but a disposition, a reverence for tradition, a suspicion of radical change.

I'm pretty sure "radical change" encompasses pink dress shirts and hot pink ties with electric blue fishies[*], dude. (See the picture.)

Hey, it's nothing to me, but someone oughtta tell him.

You will be getting stale images for Foto Friday, late, because I have to spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the shrapnel from the glass bomb that went off in my kitchen when the maintenance man dropped four feet of fluorescent bulb. Oh, he swept up the big pieces, but there were little chips all over the counters. I oughta just ingest one and die, and then Niles will own this complex. That'll learn 'em.

[*]Or whatever those are.

Posted 1:26 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Headless Body in Topless Dress

Star Trek Costumes
at the Smithsonian
June, 1992

I have been so busy that I haven't been able to post for days, despite the rich banquet of blog fodder in the news. Haven't been able to scan anything, either. So here's one that's a little different. In 1992 the Smithsonian Institution had an exhibit of Star Trek stuff. I longed to go to it, but it was several hundred miles away. And then I got called to go to a job interview in the area. W00t!...I was so there.

They had designs and models and props -- I got to sit in the Captain's chair! And they had these costumes. One of the things I love about Star Trek is its beautiful use of color, and the costumes -- the women's costumes particularly -- were certainly colorful (in more than one sense of the word).

Front and center we have the "sensor web" dress worn by Diana Muldaur in the pretentiously-titled "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (Memory Alpha tells us that it's from a 17th century poem by a guy I never heard of.)

The pink number in the background was worn by Leslie Parrish in the cryptically-titled "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (which Memory Alpha tells us is taken from Shelley's Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, two guys I have heard of). Here's a better picture of the dress. Be sure to check out the Star Trek fashions page at that site.

If I remember correctly, in The Trouble with Tribbles (the book, tilted after the episode of the same name), David Gerrold said that only the weight of the cape kept that top in place. I'm thinkin' there had to have been some glue or tape involved as well.

Leslie, just as an addendum, went on to appear six years later as the "special guest star" in the unintentionally-hilarious Giant Spider Invasion, which was eventually thoroughly thrashed by Mystery Science Theater 3000. That's now found on Vol. 10 of Rhino's MST3K releases. You can see Leslie run around in her underwear, screaming, if you're into that sort of thing. She's not dressed as prettily as she is in "Adonais", though.

Partially hidden in back is the dress worn by Diana Ewing in the straightforwardly-titled "The Cloud Minders". My best friend from high school and her brother had a nickname for that character. It involved coconuts. I leave the rest to your imagination.

I don't recognize the dark dress on the far left and yes, that does bother me. Even a bunch o' googling could not turn up a female wearing it. Maybe she was only in the episode fleetingly (or in the dress fleetingly).

The lack of heads on these mannequins is a little disturbing. It looks like a Star Trek convention in the Land of Androids got a kinda out of hand. Or head.

UPDATE: Whoa, Nelly. Here's a crew who have drunk deeply of the raktajino. I will point out that the genocidal Organian Peace Treaty calls for planets to be claimed by whichever power can develop them most "efficiently". Talk about colonialism! Won't someone think of the Velaran crystal lifeforms??

Labels: Foto Friday

Posted 8:46 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Always Hoped That I'd See an Apostle...

Well, not always -- just since the Sydney Olympics. The equestrian jumps were modeled after various Australian landmarks, and the Twelve Apostles jump was so beautiful... I should post some pics of that one day.

Didn't look anything like this, however.

Last year I posted this view:

Twelve Apostles, looking east
Victoria, Australia, Dec. 2000

Turn around, and you get this:

Twelve Apostles, looking west
Victoria, Australia, Dec. 2000

I love this view because it looks like this Michael Whelan painting. It's titled Sentinels. What are the sentinels watching for, and why? If after long eons the sea should wear them down, would they become the Twelve Apostles?

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 10:07 PM by Angie Schultz

Arrr, Me Hearties!

It be, fer a few more bells, Talk Like a Pirate Day. Did ye think I'd be fergettin'? Sadly, I got no pirate wisdom to impart.

Haply, other blokes do. Jackleg Jim Lileks gives ye the local news in pirate patois. But that's Minnysoty news, so it's about as excitin' as swabbin' the deck with yer toothbrush.

Agent "Bilgewater" Bedhead brings us a pirate parade, starrin' Drew Barrymore, whatever that might be. I'd ask young Drew to introduce me to Captain Badass there in the second photo, but, ye see, it's a gay pirate parade. Arrr. Ain't it always the way. The pink polly's a nice touch.

Speakin' a pollies, follow the link to the story o' the dead pirates' friend. Arrr. But stay out o' the alien corn squeezins, for they'll gives ye St. Elmo's Fire in the Belly.

Dave "Dead Dog" Barry, who has done more'n any other cur ta promote pirate talk, is almost completely ignorin' the occasion this year, because o' some nonsense about a a book, and appearin' on the talkin' picture box. If'n ye believe in that sort o' thing.

Lastly, we will leave ye with the special wisdom of the late, lamented ChomskyPirate, whoever he was.

Chomsky hisself ignored the occasion entirely. Arr! Some linguist he is. (Is it really necessary to decorate each and every one o' yer posts with a grinnin' skull, laddie? Seems excessive.)

Posted 8:55 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Owens Valley

The print made from this negative is beautiful, but the scan is being recalcitrant. It's OK, I guess:

Owens Valley, California, Aug. 1995

There's more off to the left, but I couldn't capture it. This is one of those occasions were you need a wider lens. And less polarizer. And more cowbell.

Somewhere down there (maybe on the left) is the Owens River, which is basically a big snaky ditch funneling water to Los Angeles, hundreds of miles to the south. For details, see the fine documentary film, Chinatown.

Labels: California, Foto Friday

Posted 9:40 PM by Angie Schultz

The Day

Every year around this time I find myself thinking of a gigantic essay I want to write. It will contain bewilderment, anger, and contempt. And sorrow. But that always seems the least of the emotions.

And every year around this time I weasel out, because there's too much to say -- too many anecdotes to relate, too much stupidity to mock. And too many other people have done it before.

So I'll just point to those more energetic souls who are carrying the load.

Murray Hill has not forgotten.

Cox & Forkum have, as usual, an appropriate cartoon, and a story.

Rantburg has a hatful of stories.

Rantburg's fearless leader, Fred, notes something I remember thinking at the time: that all the talk about "things will never be the same again" was just so much moonshine. Things were the same again almost before Christmas. (Except for the murdered, of course.)

Remember fondly those golden days before the Iraq war, when people were 100% behind the President and united against the terrorist threat. In some other universe.

Hot Air has some hard-to-watch video.

Jonah Goldberg rewrites history:

If I had said in late 2001, with bodies still being pulled from the wreckage, anthrax flying through the mail, pandemonium reigning at the airports, and bombs falling on Kabul, that by ‘07 leading Democrats would be ridiculing the idea of the war on terror as a bumper sticker, I’d have been thought mad.

I guess it depends on what you mean by leading Democrats. The leaders may have had the sense to wait for a few months, but there were some trailers (e.g. C. McKinney) who were keen to identify the real evil (hint: not Osama) within weeks.

In the end, by the way, Goldberg returns us all to our comfort zones by blaming Bush. Ahhhhh. That's better.

Posted 2:33 PM by Angie Schultz

I Only Know What I Read in the Papers...

When Will Rogers said it, people laughed. Wonder why.

Yesterday's Opus had George Bush (realistically drawn, for a change), popping out of Opus's anxiety closet singing "Petraeus" to the tune of "Maria" (from West Side Story). One gathers that Breathed wants us to believe that Bush is in love with Petraeus (or possibly that he regards Petraeus as his savior). What. Ever.

Niles brought this comic to me, saying that he did not understand. What, pray tell, was a "Petraeus"?

Understand this was yesterday, September 9, 2007.

I told him that I would tell him, but from now on he was forbidden to say anything, whatsoever, about Iraq. Not even, "Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, is in Iraq." Or, "Iraq is, on the whole, a hot, dry region." Anybody who doesn't know who Petraeus is at this late stage cannot know enough to have an opinion on the subject.

Then again, he only knows what he reads in the papers.

Posted 8:39 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: On a Clear Day You Can See Fresno

This could also be titled, Careful with That Polarizer, Eugene! Yes, it is possible to overdo the polarizer. I wish I knew exactly where this was within the park (Polarization Lookout, 1/4 mile), but I don't.

Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park
California, Oct. 1995

Hmmm. Busy this week. That's all I got for that.

I has a new lens, though! I went out into the park and took some experimental pictures with it. I took the same shots with both the old and new lens, for comparison purposes. The new one looks to have a sharper focus, but I can't be sure until I see the pictures. They probably won't show up here, being mostly boring flowers.

If you're very good, though, you might get to see some black & white pictures of Rice University. Eventually.

Labels: California, Foto Friday

Posted 10:11 PM by Angie Schultz

Through the Silver Window

My mother sent me a bunch of old family pictures to scan. I'm a little nervous about having them here; if there's a fire we'll have lost all our family photos for the past hundred years. There's a picture of my great-grandmother, taken in 1903 when she was five years old. I think that's the oldest one.

Today I started scanning a batch, thinking I could breeze through the first envelope in a couple hours. I think I got about a quarter way through it. The last picture I did was of my grandfather's sister, Marie, when she was a young woman. I won't show you Marie -- I'm kind of paranoid about family privacy, even though it's a faded picture and it's unlikely anyone will recognize her. But I will show you what's behind her:

Indiana gas station c. 1940

(Click for a bigger version.)

Marie was born in 1919, and she looks to be about 20 or so in the picture, so that places it a few years on either side of 1940. Mom thinks it was taken in Sanborn, Indiana, but she's not real sure.

Look at those old cars on the left! There's a man sitting in one, and another man, in a dark jacket and light hat, is about to get into the passenger seat. Are those Model A's? When I was young, there wasn't a man alive who couldn't tell you the make, model, and year of a car just by seeing its reflection flash past the corner of his eye. In the dark. Me...I know they're black. Is that good enough?

Cars of more recent vintage are on the right, and there's one at the pumps, where the attendant is doing something to it (back in the days, children, when there were attendants who would do things to cars -- check the oil or the battery water or the rubber band).

If you squint real hard at the sign high up on the right, you can almost make out the Mobil logo. (It helps if you have the rest of the picture, where you can see a sign for Mobilubrication in a moderne font.)

And, as it was in the beginning, as it is today, as it will be for all time to come, you are invited to Enjoy Coca-Cola.

See also the early years of Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life.

Posted 8:06 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Waimea Canyon

This view is why God made wide angle lenses. Unfortunately, my angle wasn't wide enough, so I'm only able to give you a part of the canyon. I was going to mosaic it into a panorama, but never got around to it. I may still one day. But it would be a lot easier to just go back to Kauai with a wider lens.

Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Sep. 1995

I have recently developed a bad case of lens lust. I just ordered a Canon 28mm lens to take the place of my off-brand 28mm (which took this picture). And now I find I have a great desire for more and better lenses. Like, say, a 20 or even 17mm, for scenes like the one above. Fortunately, I am limited by the age of my camera; there's only so much money you can drop on twenty-year-old lenses. (Unfortunately for me, I don't even have that much money. But I can dream!)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 8:33 AM by Angie Schultz

Down Memory Lane

Didja hear the latest about tomorrow's Opus comic strip? It's allegedly been spiked, by some newspapers, for offensiveness. This mild effort is supposedly the forbidden strip.

But has it been spiked for being mean to Muslims? Not entirely -- there's also the spicy sex joke. Read the comic linked again. Spicy!

It'll be interesting to see who defends the spiking. I remember, long ago, when Opus was Bloom County and was actually funny. There was a series in which Steve Dallas appears in a music video. The pyrotechnics used ignite his chest hair (he used flmmable mascara, for a fluffier look), leading to a lengthy hospital stay.

In one strip, Opus is trying to get the doctor to tell him what Steve can and can't do while he's convalescing. The doctor forbids more and more improbable things, with Opus elaborately winking at him all the time. Finally the doctor pauses and says, "No fooling around." Opus turns and shouts into Steve's room, "The big one is out!"

This strip drew an outRAGEd! letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, decrying the MORAL SEWER we have lowered ourselves into, where even the comic strips wallow in FILTHY UNCHRISTIAN SEX. Won't someone THINK OF THE CHILDREN??

Strangely enough, just a few days later, I noticed that a character in Steve Nomad (or Mike Canyon, I forget) washed up in Las Vegas and speculated about "findin' a showgirl t' give me a tumble".[1] And yet there were no outraged letters about that. Perhaps because anthropomorphic penguins are considered, by the simple-minded, to be solely the province of children.

Anyway, will the sort of right-thinking types who sneered at puckered religious moralists before, do so again? Stay tuned!

[1]What's with abbreviations like "t'" and "th'" in comic strips, anyway? I vividly remember the "t'" in this particular panel. I used to try to read Snuffy Smith (I know, a mistake at any age) by pronouncing its t's and th's literally, and it sounded ridiculous. No one ever talked like that.

I think it's supposed to be a symbol of educational level in a character, but the only people who never pronounce "the" "thuh" or "to" "tuh" are annoying prissy-pants milquetoast characters in old movies. And they're meant to be made fun of.

Posted 9:03 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Maui Iaoie

YES, it's an extremely lame title, and YES, you've seen the Iao Needle before, and we had a Maui just last week -- tough. Busy day, no time to scan or fool around (or, I see, crop the image; phooey). Have some forbidding cliffs:

Iao Needle, Maui, Sep. 2003

The Needle itself is on the left, and looks considerably less needly when you realize it's right next to this other big slab o' rock. Here is my previous photo, in all its badly-exposed glory. The Needle is somewhat underwhelming in this picture.

Sorry, that's all I got.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 9:21 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Uluru -- the Red Centre

The Red Centre[1] is what Australians call the red desert heart of their country.

Um, there. I've told you pretty much all I know about it. Did I mention that it's red?

Uluru at Sunset, Australia, Aug. 2000

I now wish I hadn't tried to fill the frame with the rock, and had allowed some distance between it and the edge. Maybe there was a tour bus parked there, I don't know. The creepy black arms writhing over the right side are bottlebrushes. I'll post a picture of those in daylight some other time.

I showed another sunset picture here. I have dozens more! Isn't that exciting??

[1] Note ye olde quaynte Brittish spellynge[2]
[2] Which I just now unwittingly tried to use in positioning this thing. Note: "text-align:centre" does not work. American imperialism!

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday