tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-141860042024-03-13T12:59:46.842-07:00PrisstopolisPrisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-80649043478111733102012-07-22T13:53:00.000-07:002012-07-22T13:53:02.513-07:00HuckleberryingHuckleberries are a real thing, a completely nonfictional thing, and they are ripe now. When Smiley pointed them out I was very surprised. I mean, they are tiny, and bright red, and they don't look anything like the segmented raspberry and blackberry varieties proliferating in gardens and along roadsides. The small leaves remind me of those on rosebushes. The fruit is just smaller than a blueberry, and it has that same ruffle of a skirt on the flower end. They are juicy and not overly sweet. And the bushes have no thorns.<br />My daughter has unexpectedly gotten excited about berry picking. She came over and brought some that she'd collected. She got me to go across the street and pick some. After she left, she called to tell me she found a spot where she was able to pick a whole plastic water bottle full of them. -The pint sized water bottle choice is genius, berries fit through the neck easily, and if you drop the bottle they won't all spill out.<br />Berrying is just like a video game. In between slaying dragons and shooting at spaceships, you pause to pick up brightly colored trophies. These can be traded for ballistic missiles and fancy costumes, or just eaten to raise your health statistics. Each berry that I pick makes an imaginary PING sound as it separates from the bush and lands in the bucket.<br />This morning, Smiley and went out to get more, before the short season ends. At home, I used them to make a raw cobbler with an almond date crust. Yesterday,Maddy picked a water bottle full, and today, I filled up a hummus container.<br /><br /> Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-63888236412337860932011-12-15T13:51:00.001-08:002011-12-15T13:51:43.905-08:00Zing!Dear Lady Gaga,<br />Now that you have re-done "Orange Colored Sky" I believe that looking toward an even earlier era would put you in good stead. The next, obvious hit, a song that is screaming to be re-interpreted, is none other than "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart".<br />Imagine the costumes!<br />Your fan,<br />Pr1ssPrisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-70362977712701659182011-10-06T17:23:00.000-07:002011-10-06T17:24:33.690-07:00Occupy SeattleEarly Wednesday evening I got to see the Occupy Crowd in person. To change buses, I had to walk through Westlake Plaza and there they were, occupying cobblestone after cobblestone. Before I saw them, I saw parking enforcement trucks, and park maintenance trucks, and television news-mobiles with their swirly narwhal antennas parked bumper to bumper along the curb of Pine Street. As I rounded the corner, I could see private security guards lined up with their backs against the retail stores, and a crowd of easily 200 protestors. There were the usual ubiquitous Seattle drum circle sounds, but not any other discernible crowd activity. 4th Avenue isn't very wide, and cars were struggling to get around orange cones and safety fluorescent vested public employees and police on horseback. I could feel the tension in the air as I realized that the trucks, guards, and cops formed containment walls around the triangular space, and that they might press inward.<br />So I went up to the cavalry commandeering my transit stop, and asked about where to catch the bus. They directed me half a block away, where another safety vest guy flagged down my connecting bus.<br />According to local news, 25 people were arrested soon after.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-71440442730626531392011-09-01T08:18:00.000-07:002011-09-01T08:28:41.374-07:00Google+ ReviewScrolling isn't easy.
<br />On most web pages, I hit the space bar to scroll down an entire page. On G+ that may or may not work. Usually it doesn't. So I use the touch pad or the mouse to click in the scroll bar area. It beats scrolling down one line at a time.
<br />
<br />Open in new tab? Think again.
<br />G+ does not want me to open links in other tabs to read later. It over-rides my browser settings and switches my view to the new tab. I get this, I really do. If I read the link now, I can comment to the person who linked. I haven't scrolled down (see above,) so after I read the article, or interpret the lol cat semaphore message, I'm still right on their post. Will this work, or will we all just stop clicking on links?
<br />
<br />Circles
<br />Sorting your contact list into categories is a powerful data-gathering technique. Not powerful for the users, powerful for Google. For the users, it could work as a method of disseminating information to an audience with specific interests. You can post about books, to your "book" circle, but unless something needs to be censored from an audience segment whom you know will not enjoy it, most posts tend to be marked as "public", or "all of my circles". Someone whom I didn't know was a book fan, might also enjoy the post, so shielding the post from them, doesn't make sense.
<br />
<br />The real power of circles is how we categorize our contact lists. We take the information that we know about our contacts, and give it to Google for free. While I might be circumspect about how much personal information I share online, my contacts are free to sort me into circles of their choosing. Anything that they know, (or imagine,) about me could be used. Given the sense of humor that my friends have, I'm probably in a database somewhere, filed along with 8-foot tall Rosicrucians who have always been Communists. True or false, it is going into my file, and I will never even know what it says. No wonder my email box is full of advertisements for co-joined twin tailored clothing.
<br />
<br />Name Nym Nom
<br />Real names are encouraged. Real names are required. Names that don't look real enough, sometimes result in expulsion. So a disproportionate amount of posting space has been devoted to protests when someone's real, but unusual, name has gotten them booted from Google-ville. Some people want to use their long-term pseudonyms, but unless you are willing to list your legal name as well, the G-peeps say that you are failing to
<br />comply. By this standard, Lady Gaga, Dear Abby, Ann Landers, and Marilyn Monroe would have all been exiled.
<br />
<br />One of my contacts posted extensively about the name
<br />policy. He wanted to use his DJ-fabulous nickname, and he wanted Google to like it. His friends replied with their support. One said that he didn't even know any other name for the guy. To me, this just indicates that they don't know each other very well.
<br />
<br />By the way, DJ-fab is gone now. Nails that stand up, get ban-hammered down.
<br />
<br />In all of this painfully drawn out reasoning and pleading by early-adopters to please, please let them use their true spiritual geek-names, I haven't seen one acknowledge that aside from data-mining, the Goog is trying to pre-empt potential armies of sock puppets. If someone advertises a dust-jacket-of-the-future to their "book" circle, and hundreds of grateful, loyal, fictional fictional fans post that they love it, this skews marketing statistics for the company. For me, as a reader, it just makes me less likely to ever expand a comment thread. Real commenters are long-winded enough. So have a pseudonym, have two. Just don't have dozens of them.
<br />
<br />Let's be very clear: Google wants to know you very well. Not just what you share, but what you think. What recipe you looked up, which word you looked up the spelling for, AND NOW what your friends think about you.
<br />
<br />In case you are wondering what I think about you, I will be open. I believe in glasnost, my dear Comrade. You have just been added to my circle of one-armed paper hangers who practice bee-keeping in their spare time. Your targeted sidebar ads should be along any minute.
<br />
<br />Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-3703266089064553222011-06-17T00:13:00.000-07:002011-06-17T00:15:50.144-07:00Wrote a Little Song for a Friend's Going Away Party(Borrowed a Bob Dylan Tune)<br /><br />This is the last party at Aria's house<br />One of so many we've had<br />This is the last party at Aria's house<br />So, let our hearts all be glad<br />We could say that the end is sad<br />Along with the good, must come some bad<br />But think of all the great fun that we had<br />So goodbye Aria<br /><br />We used to know her as Andrea<br />Before Aria she became<br />We used to know her as Andrea<br />But then she changed her name<br />Earlier on, she was Peggy Sue<br />Before that she was Sally Mae<br />Even if we have to call her Freddie Mac<br />We will still have her back<br /><br />Soon there will be new adventures<br />And we must have no fear<br />Navigate on your journey<br />Steady hands as you steer<br />Before you bungee dive off that cliff sheer<br />Let's play the game we call "What If" here<br />Raise a glass of vegan non-alcoholic beer<br />And drink a toast to AriaPrisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-67559237169981807462011-03-14T14:47:00.000-07:002011-03-14T14:49:06.120-07:00Purim SongBorn in the neighborhood of Shushan P<br />Studied at Cheder when I was only 3<br />Learned to play the lute and my ABC<br />And now I'm the Queen of the Persians and the Medes<br /><br />Esther, Esther HaMalkah<br />Queen of the Persians and the Medes<br /><br />I'm a champion at dreidel, naturally<br />My hula hoop is made out of hickory<br />I belly-dance and always dress modestly<br />And now I'm the Queen of the Persians and the Medes<br /><br />Esther, Esther HaMalkah<br />Queen of the Persians and the Medes<br /><br />Won a beauty contest easily<br />Answered all the questions on Jeopardy<br />In college I majored in diplomacy<br />And now I'm the Queen of the Persians and the Medes<br /><br />Esther, Esther HaMalkah<br />Queen of the Persians and the Medes<br /><br />Some day I'll have a daughter, or two or three<br />And pass on my statecraft recipe<br />We'll go on vacation to Hawaii<br />And now I'm the Queen of the Persians and the Medes<br /><br />Esther, Esther HaMalkah<br />Queen of the Persians and the MedesPrisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-13789437156602067682011-03-09T21:19:00.001-08:002011-03-09T21:19:58.932-08:00Third Amendment Imperiled!The Wisconsin plan is to cut the pay and benefits of public employees except for that of police and firefighters. - Because crime and fire can be quite inconvenient, to a monied class, when there is a disgruntled peasantry. If this trend continues, we move further towards a police state. The ensuing military dictatorship would also be quite inconvenient. Yes, Homeland Security will need you to hand over all of your stuff for the duration. You wouldn't want to be perceived as hating freedom?Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-84842372848712999912011-02-08T11:35:00.000-08:002011-02-08T11:36:52.421-08:00SmoothSpring is in the air, and the mango-orange smoothie is in the blender. A few days away from the bagel peanut butter diet, and I can already see a difference in how my clothes are fitting. It is possible to stay vegetarian, or even vegan, and still take in way too many high fat calories.<br /><br />My daughter introduced me to blues dancing. It's couples dancing with a lot of the swing dance moves, but most songs are slower and less bouncy. You do in your stocking feet. Except for the formless and ubiquitous slow dance, I've never done partner dancing before. I managed to exist in a world where people disco without touching unless they all join hands and form a circle. Fortunately, my guy has had a smattering of exposure to ballroom et al.<br /><br />Oh yeah, my guy Smiley. We've been dating for almost two years. Ever since he drove me home from a Valentines party. (Awwwwww.)Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-29251287559091760932010-11-24T17:26:00.001-08:002010-11-24T18:15:11.642-08:00PinkOn Sunday I went to my book discussion meeting. The Grapes of Wrath seems topical now. When I read it as a High School student, the 1930s seemed primitive and remote. It was akin to reading about feudalism or ancient Egypt. Since then, I've seen parallels to the depression, with displaced workers after factories have closed and refugees after the Katrina Hurricane. It was fun to recognize the heavy handed propaganda techniques Steinbeck used to make readers love the ordinary people characters and to hate the corporate big guys and their evil minions.<br />Then, as it started to snow, I dashed over to U Village shopping center in the annual quest for Chanukah candles. My neighborhood stores can never be relied on to carry any. A few days later, I've finally gotten curious enough to check out what colors they are. First of all, the two boxes I bought were taped shut. (Because, someone might try to eat them and they want to prevent tylenolesque tampering?) And more strangely, there are no blue and no green. The mix consists of red, orange, yellow, white, and pink. The pink is completely unexpected.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-8934022383160262512010-08-17T19:09:00.000-07:002010-08-17T19:10:49.131-07:00Ukulele ReportIt is day three of my ukulele adventure. I can now play "Tom Dooley" and can sort of take a stab at "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Also I know how to tune the instrument, a pretty essential component of getting a song to sound recognizable.<br /><br />PHEAR MY MAD UKE SKILLZPrisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-83210180659001870722010-06-26T15:24:00.000-07:002010-06-26T15:25:41.796-07:00Petrol in, petrol outI'm sitting in the Wayward Coffee House. Just outside is the Greenwood car show. More than a thousand cars parked diagonally along sides of the road, spectators walking among them. Earlier today, Smiley and I caught the last few minutes of a MoveOn.org rally for safer oil drilling. One hundred people rebuking pollution at the beach, thousands a few miles inland celebrating an industry that demands the causes of that pollution. And I love cars too. I was especially drawn to the Jaguars,and a Chrysler similar to the 1956 model I remember that my dad used to have. So many models I remembered, like the station wagons that carpool moms used to drive. Some really strange things too, a car made by Messerschmitt. It was low like a go-cart, with two seats in single file. There were even a few electric cars, and one had a sign explaining about plans to convert it to battery.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-85957421937876824082010-06-08T13:00:00.000-07:002010-06-08T13:01:30.981-07:00Alejandro allay-allay-hand rowI love the Alejandro song by Lady Gaga. But I don't like the costumes and historical references in the new video. Pop culture has to try really hard to be fresh and challenging, you know, "edgy". I want my music to be fun, and not creepy. Obviously, anything that attracts comments is a success of a sort, so panning it here may be viewed as adding to the publicity.<br /><br />Most of her fans are SO GAGA over everything that she's done, that they will love future product unconditionally. That would have described me up until now, I love all of her music.<br /><br />To sum up:<br /><br />Jackboots and nuns in red latex? Meh.<br /><br />And if you escalate to evisceration and vivisection, I'm outta here.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-66676984916779004412010-05-21T14:48:00.000-07:002010-05-21T14:51:03.542-07:00Maddy RationsGet me bagels. But not blueberry. Any kind of bagels but blueberry.<br /><br />I think that you should make me a shopping list of what you would like to eat.<br /><br />And it needs a graphic symbol. A picture of a bagel in a circle with a red line through it. And don't forget to draw little blue dots.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-50225007214872895282010-05-01T10:36:00.000-07:002010-05-01T10:38:21.959-07:00Post Game<table border="0"><tbody><tr><td align="right"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr> </tbody></table><p>I tried out game night at a Capital Hill store last night. The sign-up list showed 5 women were planning to attend, But only one other showed up, and she left before playing started. So it was me and 9 geeky guys. Not the worst thing in the world. Posting for posterity, because who knows when this will happen again: I won two games that I had never played before. They were called Tuvalu and Astro(something).<br /><br />In raw food news, I have 25 pounds of tomatoes. I went shopping with mangoes in mind, but the ways of the Jedi Market are unpredictable. You never know what will be abundant and in good shape. Eating some now with cucumber and green onion.</p>Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-60048622729510256582010-03-29T15:30:00.000-07:002010-03-29T15:32:54.321-07:00CharosetI have my daughter mincing apples. She keeps stopping to ask if the pieces are small enough yet. It takes a long time to mince the ingredients enough. <br /><br />Will I have to do this again?<br /><br />Yes, every year. Also tomorrow.<br /><br />I have to do this tomorrow?<br /><br />Don't worry, it will get easier after you learn to use the food processor.<br /><br />I could have used the food processor??? Why didn't you tell me that?<br /><br />You need to have the complete charoset-making experience, grasshopper.<br /><br />Haven't you seen that show?<br /><br />Is that from a show? What show is it from?<br /><br />The Green Grasshopper Hour.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-56711393127430191162010-03-17T07:17:00.000-07:002010-03-17T07:19:48.952-07:00Portal to Heck!<div style="margin-left: 30px;"><p><br />I finished reading "Memoirs of Hecate County," by Edmund Wilson. Add a middle initial of "O" and you would have the name of a 20th century evolutionary biologist, but that would be an entirely different writer. I arrived at this book circuitously. The "Pet Shop Boys" have a song that includes the phrase "Finland Station" which google and wikipedia tell me is the name of a book about the precursors of the cold war. Without being clear on whether "Finland" was fiction or non fiction, I looked for it in a bookstore, and settled for "Hecate County", a collection of interconnected short stories, by the same author.<br /><br />The writing style was very American. It reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. There is a first person narrator who alternates casual straightforward discussion of everyday life with concern that perilous supernatural forces may be at work, because what other reason could there be for the loneliness and ennui affecting everyone in his life. "Ellen Terhune" was the most Poe-like of the bunch. Our narrator stops by to see the title character and finds her sometimes his contemporary, sometimes herself at a younger age, and then, personifying one of her ancestors. The other stories don't rely on the fantastic, even the last one "Mr. and Mrs. Blackburn at Home" where he meets someone who may well be the devil, leaves plenty of room to think that he imagined it after a few too many drinks.<br /><br />I found a note online erroneously claiming that "Hecate County" contained whole passages in Russian. This seems to refer to the "Blackburn" story which has one word with the Russian suffix "ka" and then a footnote to discuss why. What it does have is extensive use of of French. This starts slowly, a word or a phrase dropped into the English sentences. I muddled through this, not really seeing that it added anything to the story. In between, he comments in English on what was said, or on whether the style of French was sophisticated or provincial or old fashioned. As the sentences stretched out into paragraphs and then multiple pages, I started flipping them over to see where it ended. An afterword written by the author John Updike confessed that he hadn't read all of the French either.<br /><br />"The Milhollands" story discussed the publishing industry. It showed how publishers began to use book clubs and newsletters to promote their products, and bemoaned the fact that what gets printed, and even what sells, may have minimal content. Ironically, the plot kind of fell apart in this one. I was expecting a snappy ending that never materialized.<br /><br />"The Princess With the Golden Hair" seems to have attracted the most attention of the critics. Our hero is infatuated with a delicate damsel who lives in a castle-like home in the country. She flirts and he fantasizes that she can't possibly love her husband. He reluctantly admits to himself that as a writer and an art critic, he can't afford the kind of estate where some of his fellow Hecaters entertain, and that this diminishes his marriage potential. While spending the winter in New York city, our hero meets a dance-hall hostess who becomes the unacknowledged princess in his life. Her accessibility at first doesn't seem romantic, and her family life is frightening, but he finds himself growing very attached. Their class differences scare him. He runs back to the original damsel in the story, to find that while lovely, she is hopelessly neurotic, and firmly in love with her husband.<br /><br /><br />The New York Times published a scathing review in 1946. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1946/03/07/books/wilson-hecate.html">http://www.nytimes.com/1946/03/07/b<wbr>ooks/wilson-hecate.html</a></p></div>Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-70682535479041534592010-01-19T00:53:00.000-08:002010-01-19T21:58:01.974-08:00In the Na'vi<table border="0"><tbody><tr><td align="right"><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Where can you ride dragons?<br />Drink out of crude flagons<br />Flick your ears and swish your tail?<br />Bare but for scant feathers figleafing your nethers<br />Scamper over hill and dale<br />Where can you talk to trees?<br />And learn to dodge banshees<br />Brush up on your archery?<br />Ride a pa'li horse<br />And find your inner source<br />When you're one of the Na'vi<br /><br />In the Na'vi<br />Yes, you can live among the stars<br />First the lab phase<br />Scientists grow you in a jar<br />In the Na'vi<br />You're there, your body is afar<br />In the Na'vi In the Na'vi<br /><strong>YOU CAN BE AN AVATAR!</strong><br />In the Na'vi<br />Use your dendrite ponytail<br />In the Na'vi<br />To communicate with quail<br />In the Na'vi<br /><strong>YOU CAN BE AN AVATAR!</strong><br />In the Na'vi In the Na'vi In the Na'vi (In the Na'vi)<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">They are blue, they are blue<br />They are blue and you can be too!</span><br /><br />Trade in your transformers<br />Flying tanks and robots<br />And smart alec milit'ry crew<br />For some body paint<br />Tree climbing 'til you're faint<br />And maybe some cliff diving too<br />Hear as evening falls<br />The distant caterwauls<br />Of Nantang wolves but have no fear<br />Gathered 'round the fire<br />A Na'vi spirit choir<br />Emanates notes of a seer<br /><br /><br />In the Na'vi<br />Yes, you can live among the stars<br />First the lab phase<br />Scientists grow you in a jar<br />In the Na'vi<br />you're there, your body is afar<br />In the Na'vi In the Na'vi<br /><strong>You can be an avatar!</strong><br />In the Na'vi<br />Use your dendrite ponytail<br />In the Na'vi<br />To communicate with quail<br />In the Na'vi<br /><strong>You can be an avatar!</strong><br />In the Na'vi In the Na'vi In the Na'vi (In the Na'vi)</p>Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-45734427482035532362009-11-10T19:50:00.001-08:002009-11-10T19:53:51.999-08:00Community Chest<img style="visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.11NXC/bHQ9MTI1NzkxMTEyMzcxMiZwdD*xMjU3OTExNDQzNjA3JnA9Mzg2MzYxJmQ9Jm49YmxvZ2dlciZnPTEmb2Y9MA==.gif" border="0" height="0" width="0" /><a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/?action=view&current=chest8_monopoly_www-txt2pic-com.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/chest8_monopoly_www-txt2pic-com.png" alt="Birdie" border="0" /></a>Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-64833640914488624332009-07-31T23:27:00.000-07:002009-08-01T11:57:28.790-07:00Vampires at the Lake<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I wore a cape. The sun was still up, and I wanted to wear a hat, but Maddy was certain that Vampires have uncovered, long flowing hair. Image google "vampire" - none were wearing hats. image google "vampire hat" they were in top hats or fedoras. Fully equipped, I sallied forth. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Aurora Avenue, there was something metal that could have been a shell casing in the gutter. A rehab computer store looked interesting, but the curtain was about to go up. Live performance at Green Lake with teenage actors playing whiny high schoolers, the undead, and reveling in playing pompous teachers and parents. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Vampire Story begins with two young women planning what they will say about their histories when they arrive in a new town. One will go to school, the other one, as her older sister will get a job as a cocktail waitress. The student tells her Drama class that she has been alive for 200 years, beginning life in a French orphanage. She later writes more about it in the form of a play, adding period costumes, a mother who ran a brothel, and hinting at how becoming vampires was the only way that they could have survived. Her classmates vacillate between believing her stories and wondering if she is crazy. Some begin to fear her, as other characters are found to be missing, or die unexpectedly. There was never a concrete resolution which which side the playwright wanted the audience to come down on. The story seemed to change with the retelling, was it an orphanage or boarding school, in France or in England? But that difference could have been due to tailoring the story to her audience. And what of the opening scene where names and ages are recited and memorized? That could have been the formation of a cover story, or it could have been the more responsible character preparing the confused younger one to appear sane, even if she had to fake it. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Hilarious ask the cast session afterwards with a little kid asking one of the actors if he felt uncomfortable with some of the physical closeness in one of the scenes. It mirrored a spot in the play, where the kids were asking the new students about their lives, and the teacher was ruling most of the questions inappropriate. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I stepped outside at intermission to see a huge crowd of bicyclists. They were Critical Mass, escorted by two police officers on bikes, and tailed by police cars, even though this was a trail and not a road. The director spoke to a few cyclers because if they stayed there when the play resumed, they would be heard inside the theater. Someone announced a street corner a block away where they would reconvene, and they mounted up.</p>Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-250753913336266552009-07-01T13:01:00.000-07:002009-07-01T13:02:27.391-07:00Pepe's cousin Close encounter with a skunk this morning. I was exploring a cul de sac and Sophie-Pup took an insistent run at a small cedar. Under it was a small, wide-tailed black and white creature. I'm positive that it wasn't a cat, because the Sophster regards cats neither as rivals as she does other dogs, nor as food as she does thrushes, ravens, and squirrels. We got surprisingly close, but fortunately the leash ran out before she could touch it. All parties left the scene in as sweet-smelling a state as they entered it. Whew.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-41626263494035622342009-06-26T12:18:00.000-07:002009-06-26T12:40:07.433-07:00Yo-yo, walking the dogA pug beagle mix is the newest adventure in my life. After a few May and June mini-hikes on weekends, I wanted to add more exercise the rest of the week. Tuesday night, Maddy's boyfriend Jiff came over. I fed the two teens hot dogs, and we watched "Notting Hill", a bland romantic comedy. Jiff's mom has a dog that doesn't get to go for walks very often, and suddenly, despite my complete inexperience with canines, I felt an inspiration: I could walk Hilda's dog!<br /><br />Hilda was surprised that i wanted to, and was happy to have it done, yet irritated that it would involve answering the door early in the morning. I took Jiff along in case I needed a technical consult, and my daughter Maddy accompanied us to make sure that we didn't talk about her. (As if the two people who know her best could have anything more to discover.)<br /><br />When we arrived, Hilda didn't clip the leash on all of the way, and Sophie-Pup escaped between our legs and out of the front door. Jiff raced after her, but he slipped and skinned his arm on the driveway, allowing her a head start that took three blocks to overcome. Maddy and I met him halfway as he was carrying her back, and he clipped the leash on, then handed her over to me. We walked a scant mile, and it all went well, despite her almost constant muscular pulling and testing. A very short length seemed to work best, with occasional pauses to calm down before continuing. -- Maddy was horrified by the pooper scooping obligation.<br /><br />Thursday and Friday I tackled it on my own. Walked farther, and faster, and talked to other ladies with pooches in the park. Today I got to see duckings, and a graceful blue heron. Sohie-Pup wanted to swim out to them, but I didn't allow it.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-41855020611565422442009-06-24T13:22:00.000-07:002009-06-24T13:25:00.259-07:00Orgone EnergyLast weekend I went on a jaunt to Central Point Oregon. My daughter would insist on calling it a "road trip". She perceives neither the redundancy nor the hippie, sixties --as opposed to a drug "trip"-- implications of that bit of folksiness.<br /><br />For the last month the buzz from my fellow Healthfoodians had been<br /><br />Or-e-gon, oregon<br /><br />and<br /><br />Ya goin'?<br /><br />My response had been: Ashland is far away, and camping implies mosquitos. I hadn't even considered the olfactory implications of porta-potty perdition. As the date grew closer, my buddy Dianne offered me a ride, and said that she already had a room reserved; a room, not camping. It all started to sound a little better. D's husband had been planning to go, but he's not manically obsessed with all that is raw and vegan and counting coconuts one by one, so he was thrilled to stay at home and not need to hire babysitters for their pets as long as D had company on the drive.<br /><br />I swam in the mornings and then went to lectures about coconuts and raw pastry-making. There was a film about conscious birth and conception, and a workshop on growing your own oyster mushrooms. There were a couple of two-hour talks by David Wolf. Both times the schedule keeper eventually cut him off. He still had more to say. I met a few people from my online world, and, as most of you will probably know from your own experiences: they walk and talk EXACTLY the way that they type. It was a meeting of big personalities, where everyone had a chance to strut their stuff as celebrities of varying degree.<br /><br />Mushroom cultivation overlapped with RawFu in the schedule, so I walked in after Fu started. "Oh My God, it's Bunny Berry!" "OMG, it's Priss!" Trooper Bunny handled my interruption with grace, and got back to her focus on self-acceptance and smoothies, even if you live in the deep-fried South.<br /><br />Of course I took pictures.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/mesa.jpg" alt="" /><br />Rock formation near Medford OR.<br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/pricklypear.jpg" alt="" /><br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/cactus.jpg" alt="" /><br />Local flora<br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/diannepriss.jpg" alt="" /><br />With my roommate Dianne<br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/davidwpriss.jpg" alt="" /><br />David Wolf and I are like this.<br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/bunnypriss2.jpg" alt="" /><br />OMG, Bunny Berry irl.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-71950628869296148472009-05-27T16:09:00.000-07:002009-05-27T16:10:40.138-07:00Sexy Exhibitionist Guys at the Reggae Concert<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/rasta1.jpg" /><br />Bob Marley on his shoulder?<br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/rasta2.jpg" /><br />Perma-Stickers!<br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/pr1ss/rasta3.jpg" /><br />Nice smile, wanna dance?Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-45255487181481362982009-05-17T11:27:00.000-07:002009-05-17T11:54:33.714-07:00Contents UnknownWhat WAS the true nature of the schmutz ornamenting my bedroom window?<br /><br />Bird excrement? Unlikely. It originated on a cold night in a vicious thunderstorm. What kind of a birdbrain would go out in that kind of weather? If someone tells you: "The dyspepsic bird flies at night." They are probably testing to see if you give the countersign. You know, because you are their spy versus spy contact. I suggest turning tail and skipping away unless you are willing to accept the plans to the doomsday device and ferry them to the next cell in the chain.<br /><br />In addition to the rain and the lightning, I could hear the upstairs neighbors shuffling around, while they are usually comatose.<br /><br />Now, turning to the actual substance which was yellow-brown, waxy, hard to scrape off, and smelled disgusting-<br /><br />A day sunny enough to take the screen off and clean the outside of the window is what brought on my encounter with unpleasant organic matter-<br /><br />Vinegar and detergent and a nylon sponge, and a plastic straight-edge were employed to ultimately successfully remove-<br /><br />What looks to be upstairs condo vomit.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14186004.post-4896441928776324462009-05-09T07:26:00.000-07:002009-05-09T15:50:25.616-07:00Space, the year 2009"I have extensive aural sensitivities."<br /><br />That's what Uhura said as a bid to move to flagship crew from entry-level raw cadet. "Raw" in the sense of being new and untested. It is rare for a Starfleet officers to experience trial by fire. The Trek movie opened yesterday. It was all over the region, but I had to see it in Gig Harbor. Smiley drove, (Oh yes, there is a guy friend in my life now, who shall be known here in the Prissiverse as "Smiley")<br /><br />Trek was better than I could have imagined. As a science fiction fan, I look for things that don't seem important to most movie-makers. Things like:<br /><br />An actual plotline!<br /><br />Characters that you can tell apart from each other!<br /><br />Ridiculous accents!<br /><br />This had it all. Plus the above-quoted double-entendre. There were also: a bar fight - for you guy on guy action fans, absolutely insane space images, incredible opening credits, and the now-obligatory trudging through the snow on an Alaskan planet, that SF dramatizations generally succumb to. By the end of the 2 hours and 7 minutes, I felt accepting of the new cast. It was great to see Nimoy back too. I missed Shatner. He would have been ideal for the ending voice-over.Prisstopolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07982217149554870180noreply@blogger.com0