This Is Love by PJ Harvey

LOVE LOVE LOVE this song. Noticed it in the soundtrack of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, or somesuch. One of the extra features was deleted scenes. They claimed they blew $40,000 on cgi of a sheep for an extra scene, but I know what they actually spent the money on was the prosthetic schlong on the Scooby-doo-alike.

LOVE PJ Harvey. I think she needs to be force-fed a bunch of Krispy Kreme and about 5 beeves' worth of patty melts, but she is made of win, skinny or no.


Anyway, you hear this song over a scene with a van full of fabulous bitches. It fits, too.


Rock it out, Polly Jean.

Anyone besides me think this is icky? Or just hypocritical?

I've been seeing the name Justin Bieber all over the place recently. Finally, another insipid teenager to supplant the ever-present Taylor Swift in the American psyche. Apparently this kid is 16 and was on Saturday Night Live this weekend in a skit with Tina Fey in which she's a schoolteacher and she's fantasizing about the adorable boy in her class, the excuse being that she's sad, boring and lonely and he's just so adorable and cute.

"I don't know if I want to marry you, or push you around in a stroller."

I think if the teacher in the skit had been male and the student female, it would have been an outrage-- am I right about that? Remember the whole Mary Kay LeTourneau thing? Who is actually warped, here? Or is this actually funny because the opposite sterotype (Lolita type scenario) is such a hackneyed cliche? Or is this just using humour to work out an idea that is awkward and still very much present though unspoken?

I just think in a sauce-for-the-goose world, then if it's not funny in one context, it's not funny in another. Also, in an age in which we've seen another overly-sexualized teen (thank you, Britney) come to adulthood to crash&burn rather publicly, isn't it a little grotesque to play out a tableau in which the child is the sexual agressor?

Or, if you are a flaming liberal, then it's okay for you to invoke the unmentionable. Throw in a literary reference and it's all okay, just like that old man in that famous book by Nabokov.

Come to think of it, don't stand so close to me.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: The importance of being earnest.

You might be tempted to believe that Miss Praline is sincere and has deep thoughts and earnestly longs to communicate something profound to you, and you would be wrong.

But she is still a little sweetheart. Mostly.

brimming-with-poo.com

Businessweek and MSNBC want you to know "why the Obama economics plan is working."

Ossum! So the price of gas won't be skyrocketing, right?

Right?

*crickets*

Can one's eyes be sprained from excessive rolling?

House Cleaning...

Thursday night brought dear friends Hols and Christina over for dinner. I rustled up some steaks and my beans&taters dish and we had a grand time. After dinner, we sat out back by the chimenea telling stories by firelight and enjoying the fragrance of burning pinon. The across-the-alley neighbors' pet dustmops were outside yipping and my hellpups and C's Italian Greyhounds were running silently around the backyard. Finally, Christina chirped that we should toss something lethal over the fence and they shut up. Then we heard the neighbor lady yelling at her dogs. Then one of C's dogs decided would be a good moment to bark. Droll timing, Tucker! Good times. Thanks for coming over, ladies. :) Love ya!

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AWKWARD

I have no problem with noodism, and in peoples' own home-- well, why the hell not? In fact, I am completely nekkid right now even as I type this. [are you scandalized?] On the other paw, when you are nekkid at home and can clearly be seen by others outside your home, well, I have a problem with that, actually.

At the Trustafarian Incubator I managed in Dallas, there was one older fellow who moved into a loft with huge windows along the front and back space. The front of his apartment faced a walkway and people had no choice but to walk right past his place on the way to their own apartments, and I had more than one person tell me he was obviously quite pleased with his sixty-something physique, and wanted everyone to lookey-see how comfy he was to be nude in his own home. *shudder* Another resident told me he was walking around the property in shorty-shorts with his junk hanging out. Literally. She said there was twig-and-berry sign flapping in the wind. Oh, and he was a regular church-goer. Don't ask me what it all means. I'm still just as puzzled as I was then. I'll bet he has speedos in an array of fashion colors. Ick.

Anyway, this all came rushing back to me when I saw this article about the guy who was prosecuted for standing naked in his doorway where any passerby could see. By all means, be nude as you like, but have a sense of discretion about which occasion you put it all out there, yeah?

When we first moved to Texas, I was walking to school and rounded the corner to the back of the building when I heard a whistle. It was cold out, and I may have been running late. I remember there was no one else around. At the back of a house I'd just passed and about 45 yards away I saw one of the stars of the high school football team standing in his birthday suit at the back door of his house. I went quickly on to class, but I always sort of puzzled over that. How peculiar. I mean, this guy must have been high or drunk. I don't think it was meant as a come-on. Anyone who knows anything about me would know that if they messed with me, my dad would stomp a mudhole in their arse and then walk it dry. I'm not kidding. I didn't sense menace in it, just figured out to generally steer clear of that [natural] red-head. The coming year, I remember being one of the little tin soldiers in marching band and thinking how ironic it was that we played in support of a group that included such a dirtball. Ew. I rarely saw him at school and we never exchanged a word. I reckon I was just some anonymous girl he flashed, probably one of many.

So it felt a little strange to me late last year when he asked me to friend him on Facebook. Uh, Ignore, thank you very much.

Malcolm McLaren died today.

Bafflingly non-sequitir video, but the music always reminds me of nights dancing at On The Air on Lower Greenville, Starck Club and early days of The Video Bar. Of course, Malcolm McLaren managed the Sex Pistols, but Madame Butterfly is what I remember him for. My absolute favorite thing he did was that wonderful re-tooling of the Lakme flower duet that was the theme music for British Airways through the nineties. Sitting in my seat on the plane, putting on the headphones as the crew would be readying for takeoff, that music would be on permanent loop, always so grand, elegant and at once classic and utterly new, and I knew I was going someplace wonderful.

Thanks for the music, Malcolm.

Etsy is as Etsy does...

I love Etsy. Truly I do.

There's all kinds of fabulous pretty things to lose yourself perusing on the site.

I got one of these little brooches a long time ago, and it still makes me grin every time I see it. I also have these lucite earrings in heavy rotation in my wardrobe, still.

I'm thrilled by a site which so consistently surprises me. Still I can't decide if I'm delighted or horrified by the bedazzled tampon finger puppet I found there today. Jim Henson never meant it to be this way. I think mebbe I'd like it better if it were smiling.

I thought the wheels might be about to fall off when...

...a coworker - B - asked me, giggling, "did J tell you about her dream about you and me?"

Uh, no.

She's giggling so much, I think this is either going to be very good or very, very bad.

She collected herself and said J had a dream that we were all at a party and that I was puking and B was holding my hair up. What am I to make of that? Some times a sick barf is just a sick barf?

B went on to say she really is that kind of a friend and would totally hold my hair up if I ever got sick. Nice to know someone's got your back. :P

As difficult as it may seem to believe...

...my dear friend Rosie manages the literary series for a music and arts festival in England. She was in North Texas last week in the town in Collin County where we both used to live.

Another friend of ours runs a wonderful restaurant and put on a little dinner party in Rosie's honor on Sunday night.

All day Sunday was overcast and brooding and it seemed it might finally rain in the early evening when everyone started arriving for the party. Early arrivals sat in the garden and chatted, and I was thrilled to see my first hummingbird of the year. The redbuds were blooming, and there were huge, fresh yellow roses from the garden all over the table.

It was very very grand. I should have taken more pictures, but I was so busy enjoying the lovely company. Alas, I had to leave early, as I had to be at work in Elsewhere on Monday morning.

The food was gorgeous and it was such a fine occasion. Everyone was actually quite dressed up, and I find no one does garden partie s like English folk. At such moments life seems perfectly sweet and perfectly perfect. So happy to see good friends again, and to renew acquaintances.

This was my house once...

This weekend I went to the town in Collin County where I used to live. My girlfriend Rosie was visiting from England so I went there to visit her and stayed overnight. Was odd to drive around the town there and see the old sights, including the old house where I used to live. I bought this house in the mid 90s and sold it in 2000. The house was improved when I sold it, but nowhere near finished, and the people who bought it have made it so much better. Was nice to see it looking so good, and in the very colours I would have done, myself. :)

More tomorrow.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Remote from Collin County...

Puppies LURVESES the new sofa, precious. :P

...jiggity jig...

Spent Friday night at Mom and Dad's. :)

Dad went to Arkansas recently and met his siblings up at Grandma and Grandpa's house to sort through things, a bittersweet task. Dad told me about some wacky cat ashtray he was going to give me-- said I was the one person he thought would appreciate this oddity.

While I was sitting at the computer a few minutes ago, Dad came into the room and said "you want something you'll treasure always?" I said sure, and expected to see a kitty ashtray only an unquiet mind could appreciate. He held his hand out to me, gently cradling a small thing. "Now, don't ever get rid of this."

It was a white gold Swiss watch he got for Grandma when he was 17. Made payments on it. Lovely thing. Still ticks, too. How many times did that sweet lady look at this watch?

I'll be holding on to it. Thanks, Dad.

A Feast At Midnight

Lovely film you may not have heard of, but a delight if you enjoy cooking. And Christopher Lee. :)



The child of a great chef is bundled off to a boy's boarding school and, depressed by the horrid food, he forms a little gourmet club of boys who sneak into the kitchen at night and whip up culinary delights. Very cute movie. :)
Couldn't find the original trailer but the clip above is Christopher Lee, primarily, and the clips below feature the chef played by Samuel West, son of Prunella Scales who menaced John Cleese so beautifully as Sybil in Fawlty Towers. :)

Uno and Dos

One of my favorite people I met when managing lofts in Dallas was Erin, a gorgeous redheaded woman of Irish descent who had a pair of wiener dogs.

I'd never really been around wiener dogs before, but I found this odd little pair rather fetching, at first, and then I figured out how incredibly smart they were and I was utterly charmed. I had observed that people who were into daschunds were VERY into them, sometimes sporting whole heards of the little tyrants. There must be something to that.

Uno, the black little rascal was given her by her first husband. Her second husband gave her the piebald Dos. Anyway, we were a very dog-friendly property, and I would keep dog treats in my office for the various hounds about the place. Uno and Dos always knew where to come for a snack. Being the nearest apartment to the gate, they quickly learned the sound of my vehicle, and would pester Erin until she let them out, and they'd come tearing up the hill to my office door. I was horrified they'd get run over, but they survived the whole experience.

Anyway, I was soon besotted with them, and it was probably inevitable that I would one day have a dog that was half-- if not all-- wiener. Anyway, here are the grand wee beasts. :) Uno looks very sweet, but he's eerily knowing and kind of evil. He's waaaay too smart, whereas Dos is sort of like Odie. Around Erin's house, Dos is also known as McLuvin.

Ossum dogs. Gotta love 'em.