Thinnngssszzz...

I think that the human species is hard-wired to produce things. Not just for economic gain, or pleasure, or necessity, or from boredom alleviation, but by a perverse uncontrollable urge to throw stuff together regardless of its desirability, morality, or even comprehensibility. All things designed as weapons are of questionable utility, as well as plastic artificial vomit, jumping toys shaped like genitals, wristwatches, national flags, anti-immigration fences, and the following monstrosity: (click image for full size)

apparently an anti-masturbation device.

I have often wondered what I would display at my exhibit table if I were to be invited to the Intergalactic STUFFCON, and had to buck the common knowledge of "no intelligent life down there".

Here are four things of which the human race can be proud:

THE FRETLESS BANJO



THE MODERN 16 SPEED BICYCLE




BRIDGES AND LIGHTHOUSES



More on this tomorrow.

Funnies Day

For today's funnies, we will go right back to the Genesis of the underground comix movement. Namely, we will present some Mr. Block cartoons distributed by the Industrial Workers of the World between 1912 and 1914.

As the Wikipaedia tells us: Mr. Block, who has no first name, was born 7 November 1912 to Ernest Riebe, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Block appeared that day in the Spokane newspaper Industrial Worker, smoking a cigar and wearing a checkered suit with top hat. Subsequently, Mr. Block lost the fancy clothes but always kept a hat, ten sizes too small, perched on one corner of his wooden blockhead. "Mr. Block is legion," wrote Walker C. Smith in 1913. "He is representative of that host of slaves who think in terms of their masters. Mr. Block owns nothing, yet he speaks from the standpoint of the millionaire; he is patriotic without patrimony; he is a law-abiding outlaw .. [who] licks the hand that smites him and kisses the boot that kicks him .. the personification of all that a worker should not be."

Unfortunately, these cartoons are still very topical almost 100 years later! Perhaps even more than they were in their native environment of lumberjacks and miners in Spokane, Washington. These radicalized, class-conscious workers wanted to destroy the capitalist system ("wage slavery") and replace it with a type of community-based anarchy that has nothing to do with anarchism as we know it today. They wanted to form one big industrial union, as opposed to craft-based unionism, and use the general strike as a weapon to bring society to its knees. Admirable sentiment! (click for full size image)

Flower Day

Sorry...I was in the hospital all week. Second picture could be a flower...

Flower Day

Flower day!
Some daylillies

The True Vine

It must have been in the summer, about 1979. Or, I guess I should say, a long time ago. I was at the University of Illinois pursuing a doctorate in chemistry. At the same time, all of my ghosts were in rapid pursuit of what was left of me. I had pretty much lost interest in most everything because I was drunk or stoned all the time. My lab group got together and presented me with a guitar on my birthday the previous winter. By that summer, I used to sit out on the Quad and play the few chords I knew aimlessly. A young woman walked by and dropped a note into my case inviting me to a "music party". I showed up with my guitar, and realized that I was looking into a subculture infinitely below the radar, but at the same time, grounded in an undeniable reality so intense that it was like a neutron bomb going off in my head.

New Lost City Ramblers
Robert Johnson
Utah Phillips
John and Alan Lomax and 78 rpm records
Holy Modal Rounders

et cetera

I told my demons to get lost, stopped ingesting chemicals, (managed to get my Ph.D.), departed the world that everyone is familiar with, and joined... Wow, that is hard to describe. I would advise you to see the movie "Ghost World", read Bill Morrissey's book "Edson", and spend a week at the Clifftop old-time music Festival in West Virginia.

Here are some tracks from the vault, ca. early 1990s.

http://home.comcast.net/~steventrish/Track2.mp3

http://home.comcast.net/~steventrish/Track3.mp3

http://home.comcast.net/~steventrish/Track5.mp3


I became a blues singer and banjo player.

Happy/Sad

Sometime, just before I fall asleep, I listen to late-night talkshow standup comedians deliver monologues. One of them has a weekly sketch in which he presents newspaper headlines either out of context or containing grievous spelling errors. The audience goes into a frenzy of humor when presented with misspellings like "shit" in place of sit, or a Chinese name that suggests an off color remark. I'll invite you to propose, as I propose below, actual excerpts from today's New York Times that are screamingly funny without embellishment or error. This is an exercise that is truly subversive as opposed to the television version, which is just mildly stupid and soporific, indeed, just what the advertisers want.



Under the state’s Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, airlines operating at airports in the state could be fined up to $1,000 a passenger if they do not supply water, fresh air, power and working restrooms during lengthy delays. A federal judge in Albany upheld the law in December.

But on Tuesday, that decision was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which agreed with the Air Transport Association of America, an airline industry group, that New York’s law had been preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 and hindered the Federal Aviation Administration’s ability to maintain uniform standards for air travel.



The Pentagon announced Tuesday that the United States mistakenly shipped to Taiwan four electrical fuses designed for use on intercontinental ballistic missiles, but has since recovered them.

It is the second nuclear-related mistake involving the Air Force in recent months. Last August an Air Force B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. At the time, the pilot and crew were unaware they had nuclear arms aboard.

President Bush was briefed about the mistaken shipment and is glad that the parts have been recovered, said White House press secretary Dana Perino. ''He appreciates that they are taking action, and that there is a full investigation under way,'' Perino said. Asked if Bush still has confidence in Air Force leadership, Perino said: ''Yes, yes he does.''



Tim Matheney stalked the silent hallways of South Brunswick High School one recent Wednesday at 1:07 p.m., peering into dark, seemingly empty classrooms and jotting down room numbers whenever he heard giggles behind locked doors. Students were supposed to remain silent and out of sight.

A teacher was locking a classroom as students keep out of sight in a drill at South Brunswick High. Mr. Matheney, the school’s principal, was roaming the suburban campus as if he were an “active shooter,” à la Virginia Tech or Columbine, as part of a “lockdown drill” now required twice a year here and in many schools around the country.

Gone are the days of the traditional fire drill, where students dutifully line up in hallways and proceed to the playground, then return a few minutes later.


Why cry when you can laugh?

Funnies Day

Monday is funnies day! I read in the New York Times something about "the real Eliot Spitzer". Well, here he is.(click image for full size)