For the final post of the year, I'm going to celebrate all the fabulous folks on my blogroll. I'm continually amazed by the cross-pollination of blogging, and how some lines run parallel while others are dramatically divergent. I like when the comment section on a blog is a running dialogue between the author and their readers. I like to respond to all my comments, but the last month has been kicking my tail to the degree that it's not always been possible. That said, when I jump in the fray over on other peoples' blog comments, things seem much like catching up around the watering hole, everyone shooting the breeze when news is light-hearted, or when more somber mood is called for, folks get mobilized and share pertinent information.

Blogging is a great forum and a great community. I know it's not a 100% positive experience for everyone, but I do think it's a great way to know and stay in touch with people all over the world whom we otherwise would never have met. I think of pre-web world and am awed by how less rich my life would be if I'd never met Holly or Kelly or chatted with Christina on the phone. A few people I'm very fond of have stopped blogging altogether and sometimes I've removed links of folks who stopped blogging for long periods, but I appreciate each and every one of you who've come to my blog, whether you've commented or not, and I've loved reading yours, as well.

Now, without further ado - here's my rundown of my blogroll as it is today, and a few reasons why I like these folks:

Adventures of Mauser Girl - Smart, incredibly talented, and a dog person *YAY DOGS!*
Atavist - Erudite rugged individualist (this is a description which might aptly be applied to many on this roll)
Ambulance Driver - A compassionate heart of gold wrapped in an enchilada of wit and pith
Attila the Mom - Wit to spare, and her own unique variety of badassery
Bad Tempered Zombie - Barbara's passion for music excels even my own. She's smart, funny, and whips up on people with her mad zombie skills
Better and Better (Matt G) - Smarter than the average bear but spends lots of time in the punalty box
Breda - Hot librarian who kicks ass for breakfast
Brown Valley Kingdom - Kevin went through a whole lot just to get here, and now he's raising a wonderful family in California. I'm proud he thought so highly of our country, and I'm proud to call him a fellow American.
Dalai Mama - have known her-- gosh, around 18 years? Brilliant, talented, and a dream of a little cook. Dazzling smile.
Damn! - mechuahua is the male me, if I'm flattering myself. He delights me.
DBA Dude - Impeccable taste in music. Intrepid man. Exceptional.
DirtCrashr - oozing style and working the mess out of a PanAm carryon bag. Suspect he has sand in his shoes all the time
Exile in Portales - A gentleman is Buck. Very respectful person.
Expert Witness - jpg - Ombudsman - all around go-to guy.
FatHairyBastard - is anything but. Is, in fact, teddy bear.
Fat In Indiana - hoosierboy is a good, funny guy
Flying Flo's Forum - Flo is a remarkable gal. In fact - I'll get to meet her new year's eve - can't wait!
Hammer - Unconventional person, clever and thoughtful.
Tickersoid - fell off the blogmap recently, and I wish him well. Welsh steel worker. Grit and wit in equal measure
Holly - a dear, dear friend, and I'm glad - I pity anyone unwise enough to earn a spot on her shit list. Her voice mail says "I'm sorry I missed you. I'll work on my aim." She's the big sister I never knew I needed.
Lin of If the Creek... - delights her readers with the vicarious thrill of her musings about her experience living off-the-grid in New Mexico - lots of great petroglyph images there, too. For all my shoe-obsession and good-time loving ways, I'm secretly envious and want to do the same. Don't you, sometimes?
John Shirley - Clever man, and true
LawDog - salt-of-the-earth
Life on earth - LJ is a fellow beadworker and a lovely artist, at that. Kind and gentle, incredibly sensitive soul
Lucrative Pain - Christina = effervescence
Meg - A fun, reflective New Zealand weaver
Mushy - man-of-the-world - has seen some things and will tell you about them
Myron - A career submarine guy - intrepid, gritty, insightful and someone with whom I hope I share common strands of DNA
Off task - Leazwell - educator and musician, Lovely person
PapaDeltaBravo - rapier wit
Roberta X - fabulous twin of Tam
Searching for Oz - Becky shares my passion for film, and I always love reading her reviews
Skywritings - I miss Scully's blog - she raised the bar, considerably
Sleeping Ugly - Zelda is such a fabulous bitch. Love her
Something to Say - One of my oldest and dearest friends, Kim is a graphic artist from Dallas who lives in Seattle now - her blog is just like she is -- beautiful and full of sweetness and light, but she's always tolerated me anyway.
SpeakerTweaker - More badassery, can really rock a bowling shirt
Squeaky Wheel - Heigh ho! Another vocalist - smart, talented and dangerous to know. The world needs more women like her
View From the Porch - Tam's my idea of what a woman should be. If I could be smarter and 10 inches taller, I'd be heading in the right direction
Xavier Thoughts - A good man to know™. His blog is often entertaining, but always educational

So, that about wraps it up, and trust me-- I could have gone on and on about every one of you. Thanks for the many hours I've enjoyed perusing your blogs, and I'm looking forward to more reading next year. I hope you all have a wonderful new year.

(If you are easily offended, or even not-so-easily offended, but offendable, you may not want to watch this video. I'm just saying. Definitely not safe for kids and prolly not safe for work. By the way, this guy is a terrible pole-dancer.)

Had ta post one more video for the year.
Barbara - she of Bad Tempered Zombie fame - posted her five favorite hand-clap songs. Well, this is one of my top five. Gay Bar, by Electric Six (who are coming to Dallas, by the way, but who I'm probably not going to see even though I DO love that singer, who is a total spaz.)

I'm LOVING the irony that in a video chock-full of tasteless lyrics and imagery, they use the sound of a whip-crack to censor out the words in bold in the following lines:

Let's start a war
Start a nuclear war

Wait a minute - a goofy indie band from Detroit might incite a nuclear war, for real?

Um, okay. Whatevs.

55 year old orangutan dies in Miami Zoo. Prominent librarian releases the following statement:

Ook!

Rosanna, yeah!
Uh, maybe not.

Rosanna Arquette seems to be playing some bizarre game of musical chairs, landing on random musicians as she goes. I suppose famous people don't want to date normal, mere human persons, so I can understand the rock star thingie. I know we're talking about a span of 25 years, and stretched out over that length of time, 3 rockers doesn't seem like that big a habit. Then again, they say when you've acquired 3 of anything, you are officially a collector, so on with the rant:

In 1982, she was dating a member of Toto who immortalized their relationship in the song "Rosanna." [Yeah, I'm wishing I could get it out of my head now, too. Sorry.] No ideer what happened to their relationship, but I suspect Toto was crapping out just about the moment RA's star was in ascendancy, and ne'er the twain would meet again.

Upping her cool-quotient exponentially, she was involved with Peter Gabriel from 1988 through 1992. PG even appeared in one of her films (New York Stories) and she wore an Amnesty International t shirt in one scene -- a cause also quite dear to PG's heart.

As for the Toto thing - flattery on a massive scale is nearly irresistible, I suppose. She was young and, well, why not? Peter Gabriel is charming, attractive and seems to have a well-functioning brain-- what's not to like? On some level, both these relationships were understandable. It's the new thingie that sort of baffles me.

Recently, Rosanna has been linked romantically with Paul McCartney. That's just... um. I dunno what that is. Maybe it's the money. I guesss a billion pounds might turn a woman's head, but. Ew. He's a hot favorite over at MenWhoLookLikeOldLesbians.com. It's not just that I'm not a huge fan of PM, even though I admit he's written some wonderful music (and put out a lot of crap that he really needed to make up for, frankly), but my skin crawls when people out of their 20s employ the moue as if they still look young, fresh and coy. Paul baby, Paul! Bubbie - when you go all wrinkly about the lips, it just looks trout-pouty. Stop it. Stop in the name of love. No more pouting. You're a grandpa, for goodness' sake.

Yes, of course, many songs PM wrote were stuff of genius. Still, I reserve the right to hold a grudge for Junior's Farm and many Wings-related wig-outs. Even if I do dig how much Linda looked like Scary-Monsters-era Bowie in that vid. And her hair? It's a shag, baby!

Back to Rosanna and Paul: I don't think the age difference is so terrible - less than 20 years. I can't quite put my finger on why this weirds me out. Is it the 6 degrees of separation double-whammy bit Paul has going on with Michael Jackson there? (MJ was married to Lisa-Marie Presley who was married to Nick Cage who was married to Patricia Arquette, RA's little sister) and PM also recorded some crap with MJ, Don't waste your time; the dog-gone girl is mine and prolly some other stuff. Also, before his legal unpleasantness, MJ owned the entire Beatles catalog. I'm just wondering why everything comes back to Michael Jackson in the end? Can't we get away? Even Michael Jackson doesn't want to be MJ - no more drip-curls, all the self-loathing-generated surgeries, and lately the self-pixelation. [Hey! Remember when MJ wanted to buy the skeleton of John Merrick (the Elephant Man)??? Just thought I'd remind you. ] Wait, that was a ramble. Sorry.

Oh yeah, I will go on about this, but on some level I'm in ecstasies. If you really think about pairings of celebrities, they come up with much kookier couplings than we could ever devise for them. I suppose we should thank them with unswerving devotion. Instead, we will continue to view them as the slo-mo recurring trainwrecks they are and thank our lucky stars for the instructive properties of the cautionary tale.

As we enjoy the dulcet tones of the Duke Ellington orchestra, let us contemplate palms swaying in the breeze, spitting camels, and stripey tents by oases on moonlit desert nights. Imagine all of this, of course, in the rich spectrum of white, grays and black so characteristic of 1930s cinema.

Caravan is my favorite Duke Ellington number. Totally classic and yet new even seventy-some years after he wrote it, this song is a masterpiece. I can hear in this music the DNA of Béla Bartók and Django Reinhardt, and so much of what was right and evolutionary about 20th century music.

Can you imagine what it was like to hear this in the 1930s? This must have felt like an entirely new musical vista had shifted into focus, with things destined to turn toward the high-brow and extremely intellectual. Listen as the melody shifts to the only obliquely referential minor modulation-- only to be reeled back into the fold as the tonic's familiar arabesques are restored to that place our ears long to have tickled. All the while, the arrangement is extremely tight and you can feel the musicians at the helm never lost their sense of true North.

This is pure-dee brain food, and the logical progeny of Beethoven and Bach. This instrumental is superb, but my absolute favorite recording of this is the vocal arrangement by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross-- which is perfection, in my opinion. Look it up, if you get the chance.

Here's a rather delicious Les Paul version of same. Yummy rhythm guitar on this one.

And yet one more interpretation-- Brian Setzer Orchestra. Smokin'! Fantastic bass on this one.

Fine musicians recognize they don't need to re-invent the wheel, but it's permissable, on occasion, to slap some lipstick and whitewalls on that puppy.

Ah-ROOOO!!!
Wait. Is it a full moon?

______
joe allen sagely pointed me in the direction of this impeccable version by Michel Petrucciani. If this one doesn't make your toe tap, you need a medical professional to check you for a pulse. He captures the majesty and the brilliance of Caravan in a million notes or less. Me likee.

...and they keep rolling in, courtesy of Joe, again. This one features jazz banjo. frontporchradio Speaking of the banjo guy (they're all great- lURVED the accordion guy), notice how he alludes to Flight of the Bumblebee in there. Good stuff!

I'm obsessed with cornball vintage ceramics. Once I saw a hideous cactus pot of some rube-type fellow with his waistband pooching out, a stately column of cactus rising majestically from within, and ever since then, I've sort of been ruined for proper, tasteful ceramics.

Every so often I troll ebay for that perfect cactus planter, but I've yet to find it. I admit this Indian fellow sorta comes close, but he's kind of expensive (counting the $16.48 shipping) and doesn't ooze the rednecky charm I'm craving in a cactus pot, although he rates mightily in the un-PC-quotient, which counts for something, in my book.

Then there's the two tripod planter boys from wossit, Asia sumerother. I want to understand these planters, but I don't. Tragically, the seller didn't include a second photo to 'splain how the whole set-up works, what with where the plant thingie goes in and all that. I'm guessing the plant is somehow involved in what appears to be a third leg on these little acrobats, but who knows? They frighten me, but I love those burnished gold sleeve-cuffs.


Finally, there's my personal favorite: this darling little gem. No, it doesn't have the redneck appeal or the off-color charm, but I do find it incredibly cute. It may be coming home to mama. I think it's a kitty-cat, so a spiny protuberance from the back-end might be apropos. I dont' know for sure, but I'm betting the little black dots on the cheeks harbored little glued-on whiskers back in the day. Then again, this may be meant to be a squirrel. This piece is likely 1930s or 40s. Good stuff.

Gosh, it's been way too long since I've been out junking. I'm getting the urge... There may be a trip to Canton* in my future... hmmm...

*gi-normous North Texas flea market

Aw crap.
This was one of those dread mornings I woke up to headlines that made me feel like things are about to go turbo-pear-shaped.

Benazir Bhutto killed by suicide bomber.

Hogwatch - There's no better present than a future...


I just watched Terry Pratchett's Hogfather.

Hogwatch is the Discworld corollary to Christmas, and Hogfather is Father Christmas, only on the holiday in question, Hogfather is indisposed, so Death steps in and makes all Hogfather's appointed rounds to hold everything together while Hogfather gets back on track. Here, Death goes down a dark alley to a dying little match girl as his assistant 'splains that the dying little girl is an instructive tool, a cautionary tale for the rest of more fortunate society. This is one of my favorite scenes in the production.

Nice touch, Mr. Pratchett. I lurve yew!

I kept seeing references to this production on other blogs and comments, so Wednesday I went by Premiere video on Mockingbird in Dallas today to see if they had this vid. They have the most extensive collection of videos of any store - if you're in the area and longing to find something obscure - call them up, because I'm betting they'll have it.

Even better, they had Hogfather but only on international format, and I asked where one would obtain an international player, and they checked one out to me with the video at no extra fee. Isn't that amazing?

Anyway, incredible vid store, wonderful video. Terry Pratchett is a genius and a huge dose of something the world needs more of. If he didn't already exist, someone would've had to invent him.

He's the milkman of human kindness, and he leaves an extra pint.

UK graphic artist David Airey had his website hi-jacked via a backdoor installed in his email account courtesy of a security flaw in .gmail. He thought at first he'd perhaps let his domain expire, but not so. I was amazed how easily the hacker got the domain unlocked so they could reset everything (within minutes). This also happened on the very day the site owner went to Asia for a month-- an absence he'd mentioned on his site. It's amazing what someone bent on mischief can get up to.

Just remember: people don't kill people; golf clubs and Smart cars kill people. It's a good thing the British gubmint got guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens so that no one would ever be murdered.

In the first known case of jar envy, a cat tried to insert itself into a jar recently in the Memphis area. The cat survived for 19 days with the jar on its head until it was finally weak enough to be captured and liberated.

Some have speculated this cat tried to bonsai itself in the manner of the bonsai kitten website, which by now, everyone else had heard was part of a hoax engineered by bored and understimulated MIT students. Poor puddy-tat.

__________________________________________
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I had a great time with family and enjoyed watching all the kids enjoy their presents. Nephew with his growing arsenal is beyond wild, but still fun to watch. No one's eye was put out, so that's a mercy.

What this holiday needs is more zombies.

I don't know if this is unusual, but it certainly looks cruel to me...

Apparently, in the Phillipines, the prisoners are punished by having to re-enact popular music videos. There's Radio Gaga by Queen and something by Black-Eyed Peas(no word on whether the Fergie-alike in that one pees herself like the real deal-- I couldn't bear to hazard a peek). This video features 967 inmates of Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC)Cebu, Philippines.

Here they bring to life the Michael Jackson classic Thriller. At first I saw a woman from a distance in the video and thought "wtf were they thinking, putting a woman in heels in the middle of all those horny criminals?" and then I realized they actually made some poor sucka dress like a woman and play the Michael Jackson date-role from the video. He manages to look rather convincing, except for the occasional side-faux-boob shot of toobsock-boob, but it was his/her male-pattern-baldness wot sent me into ecstasies. (I'm a simple woman with simple tastes. I don't ask for much. Right now, I'm a happy camper.) It's all very icky and surreal, yet mesmerizing and--in its own way-- magnificent.

Sit back and enjoy the crashing waves of zombies.

Separated at birth?

I dunno. Maybe it's the lighting, but I'm getting a big Vladimort vibe here.

Cute true story from a suburban school near Dallas,
Thursday, 20 December 2007

My niece is in a grade school class where the teacher has her own incentive program for good/helpful behaviors. After Thanksgiving, the children in the class begin to amass points (or dollar amounts, actually) for things like getting in line quickly, for good behavior and for good citizenship things like picking up trash off the floor or helping other kids in some way. The cool thing about this system is the kids are really motivated to focus on following the rules, rather than all their boundless energy simply ratcheting them up into a rabid frenzy by semester's end, with its attendant joys of a break from school and Christmas. The last day of the semester the kids may use their currency at a "store" to buy gifts for their families or things for themselves. The merchandise in the store is provided by the teacher and some parents and other supportive parties.

Also on this day there is an auction for some more highly prized items. One of these things was an autographed poster of a member of the Dallas Cowboys. A little boy from the class with some learning disability (I think borderline autism?) was desperate to have the poster-- everyone knew this kid was pining for the poster, and my sister even mentioned it the day before, saying he was so awestruck by it that it would be a pity if he didn't have the poster for his own. However, another kid from the class was equally determined, and a bidding war ensued.

Early on, as the dollar amounts climbed in to the upper double-digits, all other contenders dropped out. The parents, the teacher and all the other children were incredulous as the bid amount kept spooling up. Finally, at around the $150 mark, the kid with learning difficulties had to concede and drop out of the bidding, having less dollar credits to spend on the poster.

The little boy who won the poster walked calmly and quietly up to the front of the class and collected his prize. He didn't seem ecstatic or like he'd won some huge personal victory. There was no gloating dance or fist-pumping. Instead, this little guy walked over to the now-dejected kid and simply gave him the poster. He spent all his store money just to give it to the other little boy who'd wanted it so desperately.

We think of young kids as being so much potential and merely the raw material which will form the promise of tomorrow, but if we look around, we'll notice they often exhibit class, dignity and true depth of character in the everyday moments of life. Yeah, they're learning and flawed just like everyone else, but every so often, they will step up to the plate and dazzle with the brilliance of their heroism.

Good on you, kiddo. Stay sweet. I'd say he won a lot of hearts that day.