Friday Fluff

This plant is like crack to a diverse group of flying insects.

Lazy Ass Activism

Here's what I sent to my Senators and Representative:

Dear Public Servant:

I appreciate your service to Missouri. Please admit that our health care system is in need of reform and work toward a solution to uplift the health of our nation. Preventative health care must be implemented. We the People are the government, let's not be afraid of ourselves. Thank you.

Andrew Law

citizen

Currently Reading: Short Stories of...

Truman Capote

The scandalous photo that helped launch Capote's star.

The Grass Harp and A Tree of Night and other stories

Read so far:
Children on their Birthdays
Miriam
My Side of the Matter
Jug of Silver

And Willa Cather


The Troll Garden

Her first book comprised of short stories.

I have finished only one: Flavia and her Artists.

I'm enjoying this mix of authors. It feels like the perfect season for these two!

Lake Break

Mussels Fish!

This is awesome!!
Missouri Mussels
Thanks Julie (and the MO Dept. of Conservation)

flame eternal

Vigil for the Uninsured (thanks Julie)

mojo

his sleeping dream
will beam bright
soak it in
make his decision

Time has passed

RIP Teddy Kennedy (1932-2009)

Strange Commercial

Has anyone seen this commercial? It cracks me up. I don't know exactly how it starts, but the first thing I usually see is the dude on the right with the crazy hair and sad eyes talking like Droopy Dog about something, then the camera obviously pans up and to the left to John Harris, founder. At one point the camera rests on both of the men, sort of, all you can see is the top of the head of the dude depressed about his hair.

Unidentified bug

Identified. Robber fly.

armchair activism

Here's what I sent to my congressman:

Hello Congressman Cleaver,

Thank you for your service. I am writing this email to urge you to reconsider your vote against Net Neutrality in 2006 and support the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (HR 3458). For more information, please visit http://www.savetheinternet.com/. Please help keep the Internet and Information free from corporate greed.

Thank you,

Andrew Law
citizen

silver cloud at rest

big orange cloud

big orange cloud floating south

nice mix

Here I am again bringing you another curiosity courtesy of wikipedia. I looked these two men up around the same time. I think it's a nice mix. You decide.

Henry Darger is called an outsider artist. After he died, his landlords discovered his secret life as an artist and protector of children.
Woody Brown was a surfer and the inventor of the modern catamaran. After his wife died, he had a mental breakdown and moved to Hawai'i, leaving his son and step-daughter behind.
One man stayed in his home for many years, one man roamed as far away from home as possible. One came from poverty, one came from money. Both troubled and interesting.

Mr. Church

I went through some of my old stuff when I was at my mom's house last weekend. I found these stories in a notebook that should be burned, except for the pages about Mr. Church. I wish Mr. Church still lived next door. After he died, his daughter's family moved in. I went to school with the eldest, a girl-woman who was extremely tall and had the singing voice of an angel. Later on, the parents got a divorce and for some reason, the husband got the house. Over the years, Mr. Church's Ex-Son-In-Law has become a world class prick. Crazy next door neighbor's greatest hits: has a personal license for his truck that says "ROWDY1", tried to get my basketball goal taken down, continuously calls the cops on my mom, starts his boat in the driveway, and after getting the city to make my mom put up a privacy fence, perches on the roof of his house. Mr. Church, can you hear me? It's time to come back home.

1. I was in the street playing catch with myself, yes, it can be done, when I hear the sound of a bleating lamb calling for help. Well as you can guess I'm quite disturbed, since I don't live on a farm AND an animal who speaks?! So I try to pinpoint where my new found cash cow, er, sheep is hiding. I walk next door where Mr. Church lives, an old man who spends his nights sitting in a lawn chair in his garage with the garage door opened enough to expose his feet. There the poor man is lying on his back in a bed of trash bags bleating, uh calling for help. I jetted to my house and let my ma handle the rest, while I peeped in on old man Church's plight.

2. Mr. Church had a grave in his backyard that said Judy. Being the morbid kid at age 9, I often invited my friends over for channelling Meriwether Lewis and jaunts to Judy's grave. I would tell a story of an evil husband murdering his wife and burying her in the backyard and later, feeling guilty, buying a headstone claiming it was for a dog. In reality it was for a dog, but it was a good story--anyways, a dog named Judy?

3. My little sister and I were eating Welch's grape juice popsicles (I don't know why I remember that) next to Mr. Church's driveway. A guy on a motorcycle tears down our street with the fuzz after him. Another copper heads him off causing him to crash into Mr. Church's garage door. (Causing quite a ruckus!) He then got manhandled by THE MAN, scarring my sister in the future with a fear of sirens and policemen, even Officer Friendly, and went directly to jail. Mr. Church didn't even come out--I think he was deaf.

I want this!

Oh My Poetry

Did you ever watch a cicada
fly to a destination?
Erratic melody
to a vine dusted, glen'd tree
My brain is buzzing
and a blaze of electrical spinal fuzziness
effects my being
There's a song here
There's a song in everything
My song is funky, freaky with continual changes
I need to relax it into a
never-ending, well thought out, jam session
I look at wet grass that changes the color of my eye
Chameleon eyes bring a trippiness to my thinking
I turn to a drippy stone
I don't know why this isn't a poem
or why it is
I saw a hummingbird shit over by the lilac
These things interest me.

To describe the weather

One big current
Split by friction
creates one big pressure
differentiated by containment of the ceiling
unseen source of warmth
radiates from the iron laden nucleus
out of the band of tropics
Heat rises
clouds form from
excess moisture
space and earth fumes dance
in the atmospheric pressure
little pockets of weather
are born across the globe

Nerdbots!

Kansas City couple, Nicholas and Angela, create these robots from found objects.
I want one!

See: Nerdbots!
My Favorite: Hootimer!

Russian Cartoons 1935-1966

The New Gulliver (1935)

The Lost Letter (1945)

The Humpbacked Horse (1947)

The Night Before Christmas (1951)

The Scarlet Flower (1952)

The Snow Maiden (1952)

The Enchanted Boy (1955)

The Twelve Months (1956)

The Snow Queen (1957)

Beloved Beauty (1958)

The Adventures of Buratino (1959)

It Was I Who Drew The Little Man (1960)

The Key (1961)

The Wild Swans (1962)

Lefty (1964)

Go There, Don't Know Where (1966)