Thursday, July 26, 2012
Overheard at Booth Four: Atheist Intolerance
I hadn't really wanted to believe my pastor when he told me that atheists are intolerant in their demnds for tolerance. I thought he was just being closed minded. But then i was on this diacussion page with an atheist, and wewere both responding to this young man,about 19, obviously going through a struggle about how firmly to stand up for his morals, and I'm telling him that to be in the world does not mean he has to be of the world. Basically, to liveamong people and work beside them doesn't mean you give up your morals, or compromise them, it just means you realize that we're all in this together.
Then the atheist comes out of left field telling me tha I should let this kid make his mind up and be good to everyone regardless of what he beeves and realise that his moral code is based on a false god who hates gays and wants men to rape their own daughters and didn't I understand I'm just perpetrating the same line of illogical thinking that led to the crusades Nd the inquisition.
So, basically, I don't think anybody can really tolerate anything in this world, much lessan opposing viewpoint,
Monday, July 23, 2012
Overread at the Counter: A Promise to that Kid, Years Ago
from 366.
206.
my decades, but
I kept my promise to him
:that I would crack jokes,
smile at pretty girls,
and enjoy every sunset.
206.
Yes, it’s
true.
I blinked
and that boy’s years are nowmy decades, but
I kept my promise to him
:that I would crack jokes,
smile at pretty girls,
and enjoy every sunset.
Overread at the Counter: 205 (from 366)
from 366.
205.
My love is not the arrowtip.
My love is the crook of two fingers, cradling
the nock of the arrow
against the tensed, taut string.
205.
My love is not the arrowtip.
My love is the crook of two fingers, cradling
the nock of the arrow
against the tensed, taut string.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Overheard at Table 3: Dodge Ball
Still funny.
Still funny.
Great lines.
If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!
L is for Love, honey!
He just got crushed by two tons of irony.
Overheard at Booth 4: Social Equality
Straight Man to Lesbian: I don't think we're really talking hte same language. When you say "social equality" you mean marrying your same sex partner. When I say "social equality" I mean not treating the homeless like they're dogs that should be put down.
Lesbian to Straight Man: You're right, we're not talking the same language. You think "social equality" only has your one definition.
Lesbian to Straight Man: You're right, we're not talking the same language. You think "social equality" only has your one definition.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Overheard at Table 2: Election Year Reality Show
Corrine: An election year just seems like some sort of sillybad reality TV show where the contestants produce the pilot, but the viewers have to pay for it for the next four years.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Overheard at the Counter: Shell's Arctic Campaign
http://arcticready.com/social/gallery
This is on Shell's site. They were asking people to send in pics of how the Arctic would change with increased drilling. The people have uploaded many many pictures with depressing slogans. Shell either is "down" with satire, or they really, sickly, do not give a %@$k.
Overread at Table 4: Mars Poetica, by Wyn Cooper
sent to me from poetnews@poets.org
Poem-A-Day
Mars Poetica
by Wyn Cooper
Imagine you're on Mars, looking at earth,
a swirl of colors in the distance.
Tell us what you miss most, or least.
Let your feelings rise to the surface.
Skim that surface with a tiny net.
Now you're getting the hang of it.
Tell us your story slantwise,
streetwise, in the disguise
of an astronaut in his suit.
Tell us something we didn't know
before: how words mean things
we didn't know we knew.
Poem-A-Day
Mars Poetica
by Wyn Cooper
Imagine you're on Mars, looking at earth,
a swirl of colors in the distance.
Tell us what you miss most, or least.
Let your feelings rise to the surface.
Skim that surface with a tiny net.
Now you're getting the hang of it.
Tell us your story slantwise,
streetwise, in the disguise
of an astronaut in his suit.
Tell us something we didn't know
before: how words mean things
we didn't know we knew.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Overseen at Table 2: picture of guitars
Just because some days you just gotta look at a picture of a wall of acoustic guitars. And a balalaika.
The name of this picture is Studio VT10. Don't know whose collection this is, but man would I love to hear him/her play!
The name of this picture is Studio VT10. Don't know whose collection this is, but man would I love to hear him/her play!
Friday, July 13, 2012
Overread at the Counter: From the Vagrancy and Poor Relief Act of 1572
All fencers, bearwards, common players in interludes and minstrels, not
belonging to any baron of the realm or towards any other honourable personage of
greater degree ... which ... shall wander abroad and have not license of two
justices of the peace ... shall be judged rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars.
-- The Vagrancy and Poor Relief Act of 1572
Found this on a website called SCA Minstrel Homepage located here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/minstrel.html
Looks like a page where they collect and present old English and Scottish ballads. God bless 'em! Doing the good work that I would love to do but am so too lazy to do.
But the phrase above, from what appears to be a dissertation of some sort, is a wonderful wonderful summary of the times (at least, of my somewhat romantic notion of the times) - we think of the Middle Ages as either knights and maidens running around doing heroic things or else we think of dark dungeons where evil slaves to the Church study ways of driving nails into Jewish scrotums, but really the times were just like our times - a bunch of people making laws upon laws to try to stem the problem of traffic and commerce!
This phrase is obviously all about funneling the "alternative worker" (who is not a prositute) into recordable (and thus taxable) service, and at the same time trying to ensure that the commercial lanes are cleared of traffic.
This is the SAME type of law just passed in cities like Portland Oregon that make panhandlers move back off the sidewalk and into the doorways. That law is designed to help the tourists get to the shops so they won't have to step over the bodies, and thus be forced to see a real part of Americana.
Same law, 500 years ago. Fascinating!
Plus the fact what I really love is it lawfully defines musicians as ruffians. And we think rock and rollers and hip hop artists are badapples! Man, these guys 500 years ago were rocking the house and fightin' the powers that BE . . . or, whether, the powers that WUZ BE.
[side note: The above quote, and a link to the entire paper, is also found as the storyboard backing to "Ode to My Guitar" on Warren Peace, the 2011 album by the alternative Americana duo S and M.
-- The Vagrancy and Poor Relief Act of 1572
Found this on a website called SCA Minstrel Homepage located here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/minstrel.html
Looks like a page where they collect and present old English and Scottish ballads. God bless 'em! Doing the good work that I would love to do but am so too lazy to do.
But the phrase above, from what appears to be a dissertation of some sort, is a wonderful wonderful summary of the times (at least, of my somewhat romantic notion of the times) - we think of the Middle Ages as either knights and maidens running around doing heroic things or else we think of dark dungeons where evil slaves to the Church study ways of driving nails into Jewish scrotums, but really the times were just like our times - a bunch of people making laws upon laws to try to stem the problem of traffic and commerce!
This phrase is obviously all about funneling the "alternative worker" (who is not a prositute) into recordable (and thus taxable) service, and at the same time trying to ensure that the commercial lanes are cleared of traffic.
This is the SAME type of law just passed in cities like Portland Oregon that make panhandlers move back off the sidewalk and into the doorways. That law is designed to help the tourists get to the shops so they won't have to step over the bodies, and thus be forced to see a real part of Americana.
Same law, 500 years ago. Fascinating!
Plus the fact what I really love is it lawfully defines musicians as ruffians. And we think rock and rollers and hip hop artists are badapples! Man, these guys 500 years ago were rocking the house and fightin' the powers that BE . . . or, whether, the powers that WUZ BE.
[side note: The above quote, and a link to the entire paper, is also found as the storyboard backing to "Ode to My Guitar" on Warren Peace, the 2011 album by the alternative Americana duo S and M.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Overread at the Counter: Saw You There, by Ander Monson
Saw
You There
by Ander Monson
"Carrie says I should make my connections into a poem." —Dennis Etzel Jr.
Sawed you there, through you there, girl whom I name
Carrie, shine of sun on bonnet-handle at that Walgreens
on 28th. A Friday night. It looked like you came straight
from fighting something that looked like lightning.
You were all scorched up. Tired look but with a residue
of glow, not in the family way, as they used to say,
and as I still do, since I venerate the old, but filled
to the heart with stars. Looking light years away, the way
you operated that Redbox: how can a girl seem so far
from Earth while at a Redbox? I was the girl in the super-
looking supermarket hat, with ashen face and hair of flax,
heart of gold and such. You didn't see me staring, not seeing
much of anything. Magician seeking magician's assistant,
my craigslist ad would say: I will saw through you any day.
(c) 2012 Ander Munson.
Sent to me by Poem-A-Day email from poetnews@poets.org. They used it with permission. I'm just posting it here because it's SO COOL. So, Mr, Munson, if you happen to read this post, sorry I didn't expressly ask, but this poem knocked my socks off so hard I just had to slap it here!
In other words, WELL WRITTEN, SIR!
by Ander Monson
"Carrie says I should make my connections into a poem." —Dennis Etzel Jr.
Sawed you there, through you there, girl whom I name
Carrie, shine of sun on bonnet-handle at that Walgreens
on 28th. A Friday night. It looked like you came straight
from fighting something that looked like lightning.
You were all scorched up. Tired look but with a residue
of glow, not in the family way, as they used to say,
and as I still do, since I venerate the old, but filled
to the heart with stars. Looking light years away, the way
you operated that Redbox: how can a girl seem so far
from Earth while at a Redbox? I was the girl in the super-
looking supermarket hat, with ashen face and hair of flax,
heart of gold and such. You didn't see me staring, not seeing
much of anything. Magician seeking magician's assistant,
my craigslist ad would say: I will saw through you any day.
(c) 2012 Ander Munson.
Sent to me by Poem-A-Day email from poetnews@poets.org. They used it with permission. I'm just posting it here because it's SO COOL. So, Mr, Munson, if you happen to read this post, sorry I didn't expressly ask, but this poem knocked my socks off so hard I just had to slap it here!
In other words, WELL WRITTEN, SIR!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Overheard at Booth 4: Knees
Adelita: I can't believe how my knees get more tan than the rest of my legs!
Jade: It's probably because they're always in the air.
Adelita: That is so frikkin' rude!
Jade: You know, whatever's closest to the sun gets tanner.
Adelita: I have no frikkin idea why I keep you around as my bestie.
Jade: It's probably because they're always in the air.
Adelita: That is so frikkin' rude!
Jade: You know, whatever's closest to the sun gets tanner.
Adelita: I have no frikkin idea why I keep you around as my bestie.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Ian Anderson 1978
Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull. Perhaps the most overlooked acoustic guitarist in all of rock and roll. Reading him in interviews, he always seems rather humble about his guitar playing. I think I remember he called himself 'lazy' or perhaps even 'sloppy' - but some of his arpeggios, his hammer-ons/pull-offs, the way he can take a phrase and turn it into a breeze, and then that breeze becomes a hurricane.
His acoustic guitar tunes are as intricate as calculous, yet, they create a tapestry that you feel like you can just pull off that castle wall and fly out across the moors toward snowpeaked mountains.
At least, that's how I see it.
-VG
Overread at the Counter: For Dorianna
from 366.
191.
for Dorianna
This poem is a bleeding heart seeing advice.
This poem wants to be read for the sake of being read.
This poem does not so much
paint, with
words, but rather
scatters words like dried leaves over
a cracked stone walkway at the dying end of autumn.
This poem told its daughter that time is as fleeting as breath,
and you will never know how precious it is, until
there is no breath left.
This poem tossed a pebble into a still pool,
saw the ripples,
thought of you.
This poem shudders at the thought
of two ravens
dipping low across the windshield,
escaping the darkening sky.
This poem is not interested in conversation.
This poem understands if you cannot help,
or clarify,
or give examples,
this poem only wishes you to know that this poem
wants to frame your words
place them as a painting on a brick wall,
and walk through into the place
where words are no longer necessary.
191.
for Dorianna
This poem is a bleeding heart seeing advice.
This poem wants to be read for the sake of being read.
This poem does not so much
paint, with
words, but rather
scatters words like dried leaves over
a cracked stone walkway at the dying end of autumn.
This poem told its daughter that time is as fleeting as breath,
and you will never know how precious it is, until
there is no breath left.
This poem tossed a pebble into a still pool,
saw the ripples,
thought of you.
This poem shudders at the thought
of two ravens
dipping low across the windshield,
escaping the darkening sky.
This poem is not interested in conversation.
This poem understands if you cannot help,
or clarify,
or give examples,
this poem only wishes you to know that this poem
wants to frame your words
place them as a painting on a brick wall,
and walk through into the place
where words are no longer necessary.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Overheard at Table 3: Ghost Rider - Spirit of Vengeance
Good lord, not another Nicholas Cage snoozer!
Don't know how many more of these I can take.
It's like he's not even trying!
Been trying to cut him some slack after Wicker Man, and I even kinda liked the first Ghost Rider, and seriously, all I wanted from this movie was just some cool riding.
But I still probably had my sights set too high. You can tell from the shots that the director grew up on all those early 70s biker flicks, judging from the bike shots. But still, there was something so lacking, so lacking . . .
occasionally it even looked like he was trying for some sort of Roman Polanski-feel, can't explain how, there was something Rosemary's Baby-esque about the scene with the transference of Satan from the old man to the boy, but basically, it was like this movie was trying to be other movies, and never itself.
And Cage acted like he just is tired of acting. That's the best way I can describe it.
The only part I liked was the flamethrower pee stream. And yes, that is exactly just how it sounds. Coolest part of the whole film.
Sad.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Overheard at the Counter
Niall Carter: It ws a little disturbing today, I was listening to Pacifica radio, with that Australian woman who's deep into saving the planet, and she was talking to this Americn guy, and I don't know why really he was on the show, but they were talking about war, and how war was economic, OK yeah, we got that, but what was a little disturbing is that she asked him what about the people who died in World War One, the Great War, and he kind of just snickered and said, well he couldn't speak to that, and she said, "It was just a SLAW-teh" and he had this answer that was kind of like, "yeah, well, so what, they died almost a hundred years ago . . .
John Steppenwolf: A hundred years is like two thousand.
Niall: Exactly! He was just like, well, if WE didn't know any of them, it's really no big deal. It doesn't affect us.
Verble: You're right. We don't give 'em any thought, because they're so far removed from our time.
John: Yeah, but what about all those tribes and times and peoples throughout history who fought battles for hundreds of years, thousands of years, all because that's what they do, that's what they know.
Verble: Half the world is still fighting that way.
Niall: Yeah, but then why are we so cut off from people who were contemporaries of our grandparents - great-grandparents?
John: I blame the Internet.
Verble: It started with TV.
John: Heck, it's 2012. This year, everything's blamed on Obama.
John Steppenwolf: A hundred years is like two thousand.
Niall: Exactly! He was just like, well, if WE didn't know any of them, it's really no big deal. It doesn't affect us.
Verble: You're right. We don't give 'em any thought, because they're so far removed from our time.
John: Yeah, but what about all those tribes and times and peoples throughout history who fought battles for hundreds of years, thousands of years, all because that's what they do, that's what they know.
Verble: Half the world is still fighting that way.
Niall: Yeah, but then why are we so cut off from people who were contemporaries of our grandparents - great-grandparents?
John: I blame the Internet.
Verble: It started with TV.
John: Heck, it's 2012. This year, everything's blamed on Obama.
Mix CD left at the counter
Niall Carter picks it up and reads what's written on the face:
"Friday Mix:
XTC - Dear God
Rollingstones - Can't Always Get What U Want
Kansas- WaywardSon
Alice Cooper - Only Women Bleed
Bob Dylan - All Over Now Baby Blue
Cherry PoppinDaddies - Skyline Drive
Talking Heads - Heaven
Cure - Fascination Street
Cult - Fire Woman
Fleet Foxes - Montezuma
Woodentops - Good Thing
Judy Collins - Carry it on
TMBG - Ana Ng
My Morning Jacket - Rocket Man
Bob Dylan - If U see her say hello
KebMo - Tell Everbody I Know
DaveMatthews & TimReynolds - Maker"
"Friday Mix:
XTC - Dear God
Rollingstones - Can't Always Get What U Want
Kansas- WaywardSon
Alice Cooper - Only Women Bleed
Bob Dylan - All Over Now Baby Blue
Cherry PoppinDaddies - Skyline Drive
Talking Heads - Heaven
Cure - Fascination Street
Cult - Fire Woman
Fleet Foxes - Montezuma
Woodentops - Good Thing
Judy Collins - Carry it on
TMBG - Ana Ng
My Morning Jacket - Rocket Man
Bob Dylan - If U see her say hello
KebMo - Tell Everbody I Know
DaveMatthews & TimReynolds - Maker"
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Overheard at Table 5: Hip-Hop Misogynists
HM: I've often thought that people who call out hip-hop artists for their misogyny are racist.
MR: Why do you think they're racist?
HM: 'Cause they're always white.
MR: [a pause] Um, isn't that kind of a racist thing to say?
HM: Not if it's true.
MR: Well, then, it's not racist to say when a hip-hop artist is being a misogynist. It would be racist if the guy were saying the artist is a misogynist BECAUSE he's black. But just saying that he's a misogynist AND he's black are just two statements of fact.
HM: Yeah, but saying them both together, irrespective of any alternative facts, conjoins in the mind of the listener both ideas, thereby suggesting a causal connection.
MR: Wow. That's good. Where did you read that?
HM: My brother's essay.
MR: And do you know what that means?
HM: It means that saying two things together IMPLIES that's they belong together. It'd be like saying "Those Nascar fans are white and they beat their wives," I mean, you're saying all three facts: These guys beat their wives, and they are white and fans of Nascar, but it makes it sound like all NASCAR fans are ALL white and ALL beat their wives. It's all stereotyping.
MR: That's where you probably have to define the propositional argument carefully. To state facts in such a way that an intelligent audience can understand as separate statements of fact, but that the layman will take as a causality, well, that's the difference between discourse and propoganda.
HM: Sounds right, yeah. But I just like hip-hop, and there are other music that's misogynist too, and these guys never call them out.
MR: That supports your argument. You're stating that they are so narrowly defining the argument as to make it seem that only hip-hop is misogynist.
HM: Yeah, yeah.
MR: But where your argument falls is when someone like Lil Wayne sings:
Cause after she get off my dick I be like find the front door bitch,
I don't know why the fuck your bitch keep coming by and I fuck your bitch 100 times
what the fuck your bitch got on her mind, my fucking dick,
I call her dick head, spicy like a big red, strike you like a bic head
Your flow sick, my shit did, sillier than vic said, soulja boy and arab,
. . . and then he starts talking about how his 11 year old daughter dances. Well, you can't really argue, that's a little denegrating to women.
HM: You're just saying it's misogynist because you're white.
MR: Why do you think they're racist?
HM: 'Cause they're always white.
MR: [a pause] Um, isn't that kind of a racist thing to say?
HM: Not if it's true.
MR: Well, then, it's not racist to say when a hip-hop artist is being a misogynist. It would be racist if the guy were saying the artist is a misogynist BECAUSE he's black. But just saying that he's a misogynist AND he's black are just two statements of fact.
HM: Yeah, but saying them both together, irrespective of any alternative facts, conjoins in the mind of the listener both ideas, thereby suggesting a causal connection.
MR: Wow. That's good. Where did you read that?
HM: My brother's essay.
MR: And do you know what that means?
HM: It means that saying two things together IMPLIES that's they belong together. It'd be like saying "Those Nascar fans are white and they beat their wives," I mean, you're saying all three facts: These guys beat their wives, and they are white and fans of Nascar, but it makes it sound like all NASCAR fans are ALL white and ALL beat their wives. It's all stereotyping.
MR: That's where you probably have to define the propositional argument carefully. To state facts in such a way that an intelligent audience can understand as separate statements of fact, but that the layman will take as a causality, well, that's the difference between discourse and propoganda.
HM: Sounds right, yeah. But I just like hip-hop, and there are other music that's misogynist too, and these guys never call them out.
MR: That supports your argument. You're stating that they are so narrowly defining the argument as to make it seem that only hip-hop is misogynist.
HM: Yeah, yeah.
MR: But where your argument falls is when someone like Lil Wayne sings:
Cause after she get off my dick I be like find the front door bitch,
I don't know why the fuck your bitch keep coming by and I fuck your bitch 100 times
what the fuck your bitch got on her mind, my fucking dick,
I call her dick head, spicy like a big red, strike you like a bic head
Your flow sick, my shit did, sillier than vic said, soulja boy and arab,
. . . and then he starts talking about how his 11 year old daughter dances. Well, you can't really argue, that's a little denegrating to women.
HM: You're just saying it's misogynist because you're white.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Overheard at Table 4: Recent Ruling
that was kind of a shocker, Roberts turning like that. Make you kinda wonder what he has in mind.
- for me, I think the worst thing that ever happened was when the judges got political. I always thought they worked best when they're out of the spotlight.
yeah, like the black robes, what? Supposed to hide 'em in the shadows?
- something like that, yeah.
- for me, I think the worst thing that ever happened was when the judges got political. I always thought they worked best when they're out of the spotlight.
yeah, like the black robes, what? Supposed to hide 'em in the shadows?
- something like that, yeah.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
From the Counter: Verble Loses It
I really can not take this hypocricy any more. It's time for true Christians to stand up and take back their Jesus from the conservative movement that has taken our Lord and Savior and made Him some sort of poster boy for the military-industrial complex.
Shit, you can parade all your Viet Nam vets across the pulpit on Sunday and tell us how the Lord above gave them the strength to gun down 1500 NVAs and wade across streams to save three of our "brave American boys" and I will still find you in contempt of the word of love from our soveriegn Lord.
I swear to the Lord above, these humans have made His house a den of lies. a den of LIES. It was a shame, taking this man who only served his country because that was how he was raised, and he knew no better, and made him a hero in an eight hour period where he, under training and command from his secular government, killed human being after human being, until the ground was littered with their bodies.
The true crime is those of us in attendence, who sat there clapping and cheering him on. Good job! Great American! Thanks for making us free.
I am ashamed. Ashamed I didn't have the guts to stand up in front of the 5,000 and tell them to stop parading this man around as though he were some sort of symbol of Christ.
Because he's not. He's a symbol of American military heroism. but that belongs only to this earthly realm, and has nothing to do with the love of Jesus Christ.
I'm sick of this. I'm sick of you.
Get your false patriotism out of my Christ.
Stop raping the image of the sovereign God with your putrid jingoist imperialist doctrine, you malevolent spews! You're making me sick, and I can't take it any more.
Now, if you'll excuse me, the second half of Euro 2012 is on.
Shit, you can parade all your Viet Nam vets across the pulpit on Sunday and tell us how the Lord above gave them the strength to gun down 1500 NVAs and wade across streams to save three of our "brave American boys" and I will still find you in contempt of the word of love from our soveriegn Lord.
I swear to the Lord above, these humans have made His house a den of lies. a den of LIES. It was a shame, taking this man who only served his country because that was how he was raised, and he knew no better, and made him a hero in an eight hour period where he, under training and command from his secular government, killed human being after human being, until the ground was littered with their bodies.
The true crime is those of us in attendence, who sat there clapping and cheering him on. Good job! Great American! Thanks for making us free.
I am ashamed. Ashamed I didn't have the guts to stand up in front of the 5,000 and tell them to stop parading this man around as though he were some sort of symbol of Christ.
Because he's not. He's a symbol of American military heroism. but that belongs only to this earthly realm, and has nothing to do with the love of Jesus Christ.
I'm sick of this. I'm sick of you.
Get your false patriotism out of my Christ.
Stop raping the image of the sovereign God with your putrid jingoist imperialist doctrine, you malevolent spews! You're making me sick, and I can't take it any more.
Now, if you'll excuse me, the second half of Euro 2012 is on.
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