Splash du Jour: Friday

Only two other presidents have won the Nobel Prize. Woodrow Wilson, who was credited for ending World War I, and Teddy Roosevelt for inventing the teddy bear.
-- David Letterman --

Have a great Friday!

Nicely Twisted, in Pickled River...

Have you ever discovered a great beer as a by-product of reading a great book?
I did.
TONIGHT!
In the Toronto segments of the new John Irving novel Last Night in Twisted River, everyone is always drinking this Toronto-brewed pilsner beer:
Steam Whistle.
So I picked up 24 of these beauties after work today!
And what can I say?
THEY'RE BETTER THAN THE BOOK!
Which [by the way......] was EXCELLENT!
I am currently... pleasantly pickled.
Thank John, you..... Irving.
*****

Splash du Jour: Thursday

Britney Spears is in the news again. She is denying rumours that she is pregnant. She made a statement and said, "If I were pregnant, these cigarettes would be low-tar."
-- Conan O'Brien --

Have a great Thursday!

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

A new study from Purina found that house cats spend about 22% of their days looking out windows. 12% playing with other pets. 8% climbing on chairs and just 6% sleeping. The study also found that cats have the exact same schedule as Joe Biden.
-- Jimmy Fallon --


Have a great Wednesday!
********

Incredible

Maybe it's just because I am 101% Ukrainian? Right down to my shoes?
Maybe it's because she is SO HOT!
Maybe it's because this is amazing giftedness, on display?

All I know is that this is just absolutely incredible.
She is doing all of this with a big pile of SAND!
[I love the orchestration of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters at the end...]

Thank you, C, for sending me this clip.

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

J.B.S. Haldane, one of the three leading architects of neo-Darwinism, was once challenged by a lady after a public lecture:

Evolution sceptic: Professor Haldane, even given the billions of years that you say were available for evolution, I simply cannot believe it is possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body, with its trillions of cells organized into bones and muscles and nerves, a heart that pumps without ceasing for decades, miles and miles of blood vessels and kidney tubules, and a brain capable of thinking and talking and feeling.

Haldane: But madam, you did it yourself. And it only took nine months.

Have a great Tuesday!
*******

Splash du Jour: Monday

I do not know what art means but I know what it is. Edward Hopper is in Paris between 1906 and 1910 and he is lonely because he is always lonely and will always be lonely. He is the figurative painter, an idea then slipping from fashion, but his paintings capture desolation so complete it will take decades, until the summer of 1045, to replicate what he sees in his mind. The young woman has dark hair and sits on the floor with a white sheet under her, one half pulled from the bed. Her chemise is awry, black hair blooms between her legs, and one foot basks in a shaft of yellow light penetrating her lonely chamber. Her lover has left, or more likely never come. She is warm and the world is cold, and so slowly, ever so slowly, she will become chilled and become one with the world.
-- from Charles Bowden's "Contested Ground" (p. 13 in the recent Harpers magazine.) --

Question: What is your impression?
Has the lover left the scene, or never arrived?
Or thirdly, there never was any lover in the first place?

Have a great Monday.
*********

He Waited For Me

In the very early morning of December 13th, 1999, my sister woke me up and told me that our dad had just passed away in the hospital.
I guess that is the kind of a moment that one never forgets, as long as one lives.
Ten years ago, today.
I had just arrived back "home" by plane the evening before this.
My father had been in and out of the hospital many times over the previous few years, as congestive heart failure progressively debilitated him.
Several times I had returned home... several times he had gotten better. And several times he had returned back to his own home on Argyle Street.
I knew though that this time, in December of '99, the one inexorable aspect of life was about to take place.
So did my father. He also knew.
I was driven straight from the airport to his private room at the Pasqua Hospital.
My mother and the rest of my siblings had already been there a while, and so, they left me to be alone with Dad.
My father seemed to be asleep at the time. Even peacefully so.
It would have been nice to shake him awake and say, "Dawn is breaking. This is when the fish are biting, Dad!"
It would have been an awesome moment for him to awaken, and smile at me -- and maybe we would both laugh at something unsaid.
But what happened, in reality, was far more awesome...
I bent down and kissed his forehead. Told him I was there, and that I loved him.
And with what I can only assume was his final act upon this earth, he partially opened his eyes and lifted his arms to my neck, for but a second, after which they fell back to his side.
I sat beside him holding his hand, as one by one, my brother and sisters and my mother came back into the room.
After some hushed discussion, we left.
And the rest I've already told you, in the first sentences, above.
He waited for me.
I miss you, Dad.

If forgiveness is needed, then I beg it of you Dear Puddle-Reader, for allowing me to use my blogpage to give This Man a big hug tonight.

Dvorak: A Saturday Poem

Dvorak

How can someone dead six decades before my life
move me so? How can his decaying tympanis
cause my heart to quell its perturbations
with a conductor’s descending baton?
Tell me that no genius burned
within the flags and dots of
each five-staffed page.
And I will mention,
you do not know
my composer,
my Dvorak!

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Splash du Jour: Friday

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.
-- Piglet, in Pooh's Little Instruction Book --



Have a great Friday!
******

Splash du Jour: Thursday

He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
-- Gatsby, on his first kiss with Daisy --

Have a great Thursday!
*********

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Have a great Wednesday!
******

Book-Lovin' Nelly

I've always felt that there was more than just the umm... obvious audio / visual reasons for liking Nelly Furtado.
I've just discovered an excellent reason, to add to the others.
Just this past fall, Nelly became the spokesperson for the Jumpstart Read For The Record Campaign.

Jumpstart is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that children succeed in school by building literacy, language and social skills. Recently, at a Jumpstart press conference, Furtado [the mother of a six-year old daughter] talked about the importance of books in her life.
She said:
"As someone who started writing songs at a very young age, I know how important literacy is -- I remember, when I was a child, my parents saving their hard-earned money and buying us the Childcraft Encyclopedias. They were our whole world and inspired a love of reading. I know that it is so important to get the language in the children before they even get to kindergarten because then they have the familiarity there. And so, it's really special to be here because I really love books."

There you go.
Now I like her even more than I did yesterday!

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.
-- Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception --

Have a great Tuesday!

Splash du Jour: Monday

A couple in England named their new daughter Kia because she was delivered in the back seat of a Kia. No one was happier than her older brother -- Hospital Bed.
-- Jimmy Fallon --

Have a great Monday!
********

My Boy, in Repose

It's been such a long time since I posted a photo of my son.
So, here he is. In all of his retired glory.
This is his favorite chair. Usually, toward the evening he will jump up there and assume this position. He hunkers down and hugs the back of the chair.
Last night it just struck me how adorable he is.
Well, when he ain't drinking.
******

Mammoth Cheeseburgers?

Rather than posting a Saturday Poem -- today I thought I might just blab a bit about how great my Birthday Weekend is going.
All in all, it just keeps being great.
Even now, this very moment, I am sitting at an over-stuffed Chapters, in the Starbucks section, at one of the only free [much coveted] tables.
I have a great book beside me. They provide free refills of coffee here. In other words, things are great.
Admittedly, the word "great" means different things to different people.
Personally, I define it [in reference to weekends] according to a measurement of:
The Three Essential Criteria.
1) Coffee.
2) Hamburgers.
3) Reading time.
It's finding the right balance of these three things that ensures a "great" weekend for me. This weekend I am getting the perfect melange of all three.

<-- A few minutes ago I was walking through the store and had a look at this book on yonder display.
The newly-released Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem.
The sheer urbanity of the dust jacket drew me in. Reading the inner blurb intrigued me even further, because the book is set in a sort of alternative-reality Manhattan.
And I just like that kind of jazz.
But what really got me is the part that describes one of the central characters, a pop-critic named Perkus Tooth, "whose conspiratorial riffs are fueled by high-grade marijuana, mammoth cheeseburgers, and a desperate ache for meaning."

Did someone say, "mammoth cheeseburgers"?
I'm in!
As long as the word "mammoth" is being used as an adjective here, I guess.
Oh, but who am I kidding. I'd eat mammoth!

Anyhoo -- please forgive me this near substance-less blog. I'm just doing some light musing while high on caffeine. Chronic City is Lethem's eighth novel and I haven't read any of them.
Have any of my dear Bookpuddle friends read anything by this author?
If so, who is he comparable to?

*******

That's Quite The Shnozz!

Today is my birthday. This is why I slept in.
As of today, I am 46 years old.
Those who know me know that I do not act my age.
I am much sillier than any 46-year old geezer should be.
For instance, in the above photograph, why am I wearing my underwear on the lower portion of my face? There is an explanation, I assure you, but you probably don't really want to know!

My workplace allows us our birthdays off... and today is my day to take advantage of this perk.
Hence, I missed the posting of my Splash du Jour today. I was sleeping.
Then, a friend and I went to Bigg's for breakfast.
Bigg's is a restaurant where the breakfasts are -- bigg!
Then we stopped in at the theater where we got some tickets to the IMAX version [in 3D] of A Christmas Carol.
Then we stopped here at Chapters where we are enjoying a grande amount of good Starbucks coffee!
He is working on the creation of his own website/blog, and I am reading the latter stages of John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River.
Mac laptops back to back.
Wow!
Say that quickly five times in a row!

Anyhoo, just dropping by to say -- if you want to join us for the movie, it starts at 4:30.
Come on! Take the afternoon off!
It'll be fun.
Scrooge's nose will be the size of Abraham Lincoln's on Mount Rushmore!
How often in life do you get to see such a spectacle?

Superstition Ain't The Way

Just watching this excellent concert DVD on a 27-inch iMac Quad Core with LED display.
Amazing.
If you can't quite get what Stevie Wonder is saying, umm... here is my rough translation:
If a family is expecting something special to come their way and they get down on their knees and pray, shame on them.



I tend to agree.
*******

Splash du Jour: Thursday

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
-- Wind In The Willows, ch.1 --

Have a great Thursday!
******

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.
-- Enrico Fermi --

Have a great Wednesday!

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Sarah Palin's new book is out. Some people are saying that it's too soon for her to write her memoirs. They're saying she should wait until she has at least 10 years of inexperience before writing.
-- David Letterman --

Have a great Tuesday!
*******

Splash du Jour: Monday

Oprah said she used prayer to help her decide to end her show. She said she stopped praying when she realized she has more money than the guy she's praying to.
-- Conan O'Brien --

Have a great Monday!
*********

Mom's Rhubarb Pie: A Saturday Poem

Mom’s Rhubarb Pie

Who would think that green dragon wings
in the garden corner, clustered in a coven
could be attached to something so tasty?
Purple stalks hidden by this unruly canopy.
Bite one and consider the artistry needed.
Slicing, sugaring, syrupping, spicing –
A flaky crust must then be conjured, and all
baked into existence.

Tonight, at a whim, I walked into Memories.
Known for their desserts.
At a window seat I sipped a Monte Cristo coffee.
The glimpsed mile-high imposter on display
danced in my head, but I did not take her hand.
Did not order a slice. It would not be as good.
Could not be, as good.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Splash du Jour: Friday

It's the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. Before that, the only way to get from East Germany to West Germany was your dad would have to put you in a balloon.
-- David Letterman --


Have a great Friday!
******

Exaggeration Well Done

In the area of writerly exaggeration, Daniel Baciagalupo was a born exaggerator!
-- From Chapter 5 of John Irving's, Last Night In Twisted River --
<-- I am reading a terrific book.
My last book was awesome, too [Michael Chabon]... but like, because I spend 9/10ths of my energy and time at work 8 days a week, at the end of it all, I have ZERO time to tell you about these books.

[The above sentence is my idea of an example of writerly exaggeration.]
I love to exaggerate. In my writing, talking, eating -- I just love to employ exaggeration.
I believe that John Irvng does, too. In his writing.
He exaggerates. I contend that he does.
And I am not saying that in a negative sense. He has a control -- such a command of his stories -- he can get away with many moments of exaggeration in a way that I [as a reader] would not allow for another author.
And I think that the reason for this is that when one reads Irving, one makes a friend. And this may be an audacious thing to say, but I think that maybe this is Irving's goal, in writing.
To make friends.
He certainly has made a few. And I am one.
OK.
Enough preamble. What is it that Irving loves to exaggerate, most?
I believe it is this --> feelings.

In the above citation from chapter 5, the character Daniel has enrolled [and excelled] in a course at the legendary Iowa Writer's Workshop. Our narrator [the omniscient Irving]... hovering, god-like, pronounces Daniel "a born exaggerator".
I contend that this is what Irving himself is, as regards his writing.
His technique. His style. His method.
It's exaggerative.
One need go only as far as the next page [in chapter 5] where Daniel's father laments his realization that his son will be leaving for Exeter college [an institution Irving attended]......
Danny would never forget lying in his bedroom later that night, in the Wesley Place apartment, hearing his dad cry and cry -- with Carmella crying, too, as she tried to comfort him. [p.156].
Come on!
Who would cry like that?
You would get tears [yes]...... you may cry for a bit.... [a minute.... two minutes?] but "cry and cry" as in, all night long, as suggested?
My own father cried for only about 3 or 4 minutes when I left Saskatchewan for Ontario, college-bound.

No, I maintain, it is exaggerative.
In other books by Irving, someone will be brushing out their hair in some enclosed cellar, and a guy in the upstairs bedroom is hearing it.
Or, someone is driving a car for the first time, and an observer in [again] an upper level bedroom window watches the car continually drive for what has to be half an hour. Well, where is this bedroom? On the eighteenth floor?
Again... I am not criticizing. I'm just loving it.
It is like I am in love with John Irving and he can do no wrong for me!
And it's always about FEELINGS!

As I read on in the book, Daniel is very much fashioned after the real John Irving I know.
For instance, Daniel has Kurt Vonnegut as his mentor. As did Irving.
I am ready to forgive Daniel all things. As you would, a friend.

I believe there is a very real power, in exaggeration well done.
I think Irving knows this, and does it. Succeeds at it.
In some sort of downright alchemical way that should be patented, he has made me believe him.
He makes me feel I am somewhat diminished if I end up breathing my last breath, without having read his last word.
This is friendship.
It is also -- wonderfully unrealistic.
Unrealistic, though, in a way that makes a reader realize that the most important word of those last five, is this one:
Wonderfully.
******

Splash du Jour: Thursday

Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
-- Sylvia Plath --

Have a great Thursday!
*********

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

There's a new poll out on the sexiest accent. It's the Irish accent.
I thought, "No way! It's not even an accent. They're just drunk."
-- Craig Ferguson --

Have a great Wednesday!

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Ayez un jour splendide!
*******

Splash du Jour: Monday

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.
-- Atticus, in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird --

Have a great Monday!

There is Hope!

I am not an optimist, generally.
Nor that great when it comes to grammar, as the above sentence proves, ending as it does, in one of those "ly" words.
But really, I am a pessimist.
Not only this -- I am extremely paranoid.
From time to time, I find myself actually thinking about the devastation a meteorite could cause.
A METERORITE, for God's sake!
It could be very damaging to us here on Earth, a planet which -- when you really get down to it, is itself a sort of meterorite, albeit somewhat controlled in its frenetic circuit, by the gravitational pull of the sun.
But what if the sun went out?
See?
See how bad I am?

The purpose of this blog-posting though is to declare -- THERE IS HOPE!
Maybe not for me, necessarily. <-- There I go again. I spent a large part of my elementary school years writing lines on the blackboard after class...
But for you.
There is hope.
Read Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now. After that, read his A New Earth.
I read them both and want to read them again. At a recent used book sale I bought two EXTRA copies of the former book -- to give to other people I have not met yet.
I just think his entire premise is so healthy -- if a person could really grasp it.
Yesterday is past. And tomorrow may not even be.
Neither of those facts should diminish what we have -- NOW!
I have known only one person that truly lives the Tolle-way!
But as Eckhart Himself has said, "The way is narrow, and few there be that find it."
No.
Actually, that was another great teacher that said that.
Gotta go. I've got some newly assigned lines to write out on the blackboard....

********

Worsted: A Saturday Poem

Worsted

Yes. Nice try. And I was born last night in a barn!
He lifts the two end tiles -- The word means yarn,
she pleads, slapping them back. Having none of it,
he grabs her wrists, saying, Where is the fun of it
if you keep inventing stuff like this? She pouts,
reaching for the dictionary. Listen, he shouts,
If you think I'm conceding six points for your 'd'
landing on the triple letter score, you're crazy!

He turns away as she holds the page up to his eyes.
Be happy with your five letters. Do you realize
you've won the last two games? Leaving the book
open on the table, she allows him this second look.
But he folds the board. And as the tiles clatter
so does her heart, in as many pieces, shatter.
She runs away, and the bedroom door is slammed,
as worsted stares back at him. Well, I'll be damned.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

5 Weirdnesses...

........ about me!

OK, today at work, it was a little slow at work, really -- I was all alone all day in a huge warehouse and it was weird because as soon as I got to work and disengaged the alarm, I realized I had forgotten my watch at home.
I NEVER do that!
I cannot live without knowing what time it is ALL THE TIME!
So, I was sort of disoriented all day, and I was feeling weird.
Then I started thinking about how generally weird I really am.
Here are 5 Weird Things About Me --

1) I sometimes drink the hot-dog water. You know when you boil wieners? Well sometimes, when the stuff cools off a bit..... I know. I should not have admitted this in any sort of public forum, huh? The guy drinks tepid pork-cylinder effluent. Yep! That's totally normal.

2) This is going to be very anti-Western-hemisphere of a thing to say, but I don't really enjoy watching TV. Plus, I have never bought a single television set in my life.... yet I have always HAD one. Different ones, like.

3) I steal other people's TV's. No, just kidding. Third weird thing about me -- when I was a kid I literally believed that gravy was something that grew in the garden, along with the potatoes. And not only this, I also believed that the spuds came out of the ground in some kind of pre-mashed format. With gravy... sort of on the side. When my parents enlightened me as to the real state of things, I was profoundly devastated.

4) I've carried the same wallet with me, everywhere I go, since 1983. That calculates to 26 years. In fact, our anniversary is coming soon. This is not even the weird thing.
The weird thing is that when I contemplate getting a new one, I get sort of nervous.

5) My skin has some sort of amazing aversion to drying out. My brother's hands are life-threateningly dried and chapped always, and he does not even do the intense physical work that I do on a daily basis. Everyone I work with wears gloves at all times, and their hands still get dried out because of the nature of the material we are handling. Yet mine? I wear no gloves, and have never had a problem. Go figure. Last Sunday I was speaking with three of my friends, we were having coffee, and all three of them [we are all "roughly" the same age] were complaining of horridly horrific problems with dry skin. Chafing..... and all manner of other profanity. I was like, "What the hell are you guys talking about?"

Hmmmm...... maybe it's a side-effect of all that hot-dog water in my system?

*********

Splash du Jour: Friday

If we had a keen vision and feeling for all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.
-- George Eliot, in Middlemarch --

Have a great Friday!
*******

Splash du Jour: Thursday

Please don't retouch my wrinkles. It took me so long to earn them.
-- Anna Magnani --

Have a great Thursday!

Fictional Metabolism: Seconds, Anyone?

Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.
-- Vladimir Nabokov, in Strong Opinions --

I wonder if I am a very good reader.
Admittedly, there have to be way worse ones. Readers than me. Oh, hell yeah.
I mean, I do give it a good try, I think. I try to thoughtfully read.

But if ol' Vladimir's words, above, are even half as ex cathedra as they seem -- yeah, I am a poor reader.
I just read and move on. Read and move on. Read and move on.
I have much the same approach to eating, I guess.
My relationship with food is not at all about lengthy contemplation. It's morseo about, "Hey, that plate was full a minute ago!"
And not only this. I'm not talking about SPEED!
I'm moreso, after reading [and rereading] the Nabokov quote, thinking about my entire thought process.
My thoughts.
I eat a great meal, and my mind is already on the next platter of grub!
I read a great book and........ well, you get the picture, right?
About "food" I am no connoisseur.
At least with books, I can take some comfort in feeling that I am somewhat selective in what I ingest.
But, I seldom reread.
Am I a good reader? A major reader? An active and creative reader?

<-- In her [very] recently released book, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, novelist Zadie Smith says, "The novels we know best have an architecture. Not only a door going in and another leading out, but rooms, hallways, stairs, little gardens front and back, trapdoors, hidden passageways, etc. It's a fortunate rereader who knows half a dozen novels this way in their lifetime."
Again, a provocative statement. To follow through with my food analogy, hmmm... I consider the following:
What if I did not [pardon me] umm........ DIGEST all the food I ate?
Just kept on cramming it in to my haggis-holder there!
Believe me, it's a lot of grub! On a daily basis.
I'd probably explode.
I don't joke around about two things:
Food and Books.
It seems to me that both of these incredibly astute authors are suggesting here that rereading is the elan vital of the truly literate reader.
With Zadie Smith's statement I would seriously have to ask myself..... "Which novels have I read and reread?"
I know that the novel that launched me into a life of literature-appreciation was Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
Did I reread it? Yes.
And my favorite novel? Anna Karenina.
Did I reread it? Yes.
But most of the books I read?
No.
I read. I move on. I DEVOUR! I devour another. I'm gluttonous.

If I were to address Zadie and/or Vladimir 100% honestly, I would say that for me, personally, the novel I have reread the most -- the novel that probably defines my interests the most, the novel, the architecture of which,l I am most familiar -- is C.S. Lewis's wonderful 1956 book, Till We Have Faces.
I have read it at least four or five times, and I know I will read it again.
It is the myth of Cupid and Psyche, retold.
An amazing book about the distinction between pure and profane love.

Interestingly enough, C.S. Lewis himself was a man who also valued the art of rereading.
In 1947, he said, "An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only... The re-reader is looking not for actual surprises (which can come only once) but for a certain surprisingness. The point has often been misunderstood... In the only sense that matters the surprise works as well the twentieth time as the first. It is the quality of unexpectedness, not the fact that delights us. It is even better the second time... in literature. We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness. The children understand this well when they ask for the same story over and over again, and in the same words. They want to have again the 'surprise' of discovering that what seemed like Little-Red-Riding-Hood's grandmother is really the wolf. It is better when you know it is coming: free from the shock of actual surprise you can attend better to the intrinsic surprisingness of the peripeteia."

Narrative lust. I like that.
The whole quotation makes perfect sense.
Everything right up until that last word, written in Klingon.

I personally own FIVE separate copies of Till We Have Faces.
Hey!
No one keeps just one frozen hamburger in the freezer!
*********

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Well folks, it's happened again. This time at Heathrow Airport. A pilot was pulled off a United Airlines jet before take-off because he was drunk. Why is this happening? Here's how drunk the guy was. He was pulled off a United jet, but he was a Delta pilot. That's a bad sign.
-- Jay Leno --

Have a great Wednesday!
*********

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

First lady Michelle Obama was on Sesame Street today showing children how to plant their own healthy vegetable gardens. Then the kids said, "Forget the vegetables," and they barbecued Big Bird.
-- Conan O'Brien --

Have a great Tuesday!

Splash du Jour: Monday

There’s always been this hunger for fantasy. The world has always been awful, the world’s always sucked, mostly because of the things people do to one another. All you have to do is read the Bible. Just read Job. . . A mind is blown when something you always feared but knew to be impossible turns out to be true; when the world turns out far vaster, far more marvelous or malevolent than you ever dreamed; when you get proof that everything is connected to everything else, that everything you know is wrong, that you are both the center of the universe and a tiny speck sailing off its nethermost edge.
-- Micahel Chabon --

Have a great Monday!
********

A Piece of Sunset: A Saturday Poem

A Piece of Sunset

There you are, washing the egg-flipper.
No. Not somewhere else, but right here,
same world I inhabit. Same walls.
Same bills. Same toilets. Same children.

A few strands of your hair fall forward.
Others remain tied. Rinsed forks clatter
like castanets, defying anything domestic.
Strutting a fandango -- you aren't here.

I lean in closer to hear you humming,
nearly falling in the sand at your feet. I know
that song goddammit -- a piece of sunset
made you squint. And I remembered.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Splash du Jour: Friday

Have a great Friday!
******

My Discovery --

It is always exhilarating to "discover" an author one has not read before.
I've mentioned this concept of "discovery" before, in my bloggations.
The author was doing perfectly fine long before I came along to "discover" him or her.
By discovery though, I guess I mean -- you know how there are certain books that you have seen time and again, and something about the book has intrigued you, but you just never picked it up?
Well, I finally "discovered" Michael Chabon.
Have wanted to read this book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for a long while now.
And recently I snagged this book for next-to-nothing at a used book sale.
In one morning [I priced it all out] I managed to nab almost a half-a-thousand dollars worth of books......... for $57.00.
Gotta love those used book sales!

I am only one-sixth into Chabon's world here, but I think I am involved enough in the story to say this thing is going to be a dandy worthwhile adventure. Tonight at my local Starbucks, certain portions of the novel had me spewing coffee through several of my facial orifices.

It's New York, in 1939.
Two Jewish yoots [<-- as Joe Pecci might say]... Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, are trying to come up with an innovative new comic book character. Something to top this upstart Superman fellow, who has every kid in America hurling their hard-earned dimes at whoever will provide them with the latest installment.
[Apparently, at this early stage in his career, Superman did not yet fly, he just jumped real good. His initial reaction to free-basing kryptonite, perhaps?]
Anyhoo, Joe and Sammy are fledgling artists with a few connections to the publishing world, and they have a deadline. They must come up with a plausible, yet incredible new superhero...
They laughed. Joe stopped laughing.
"I think we have to be serious," he said.
"You're right. The Lion. I don't know. Lions are lazy. How about the Tiger. Tigerman. No, no. Tigers are killers. Shit. Let's see."
[They go through a panoply of potential animal-based super heroes, even Mandrill-Man -- "with his multicolored wonder ass that he used to bedazzle opponents."]
You can hear the synapses firing, as they walk down 25th Street -- you can smell the brain cells burning --
"He turns into ice. He makes the ice everywhere."
"Crushed or cubes?"
"Not good?"
Sammy shook his head. "Ice," he said. "I don't see a lot of stories in ice."
"He turns into electricity?" Joe tried. "He turns into acid?"
"He turns into gravy. He turns into an enormous hat. Look, stop. Stop. Just stop."
[They stop]
It dawns on Sammy [he is the brains of this dynamic duo...] it dawns on him that, when it comes to super hero creation, the "why" is more important than the "what".
[They resume walking...]
"How? is not the question. What? is not the question," Sammy said.
"The question is why."
The question is why."
"Why," Joe repeated.
"Why is he doing it?"
"Doing what?"
"Dressing up like a monkey or an ice cube or a can of fucking corn."

Right about then an impressive display of nostril-forced Grande Americano created an eerie mist around me and my table.
I felt it was time to mop things up and move on. Time to come home here and write about this wonderful book that has already proven to be worth more than it's full price, never mind the two measly dollars I doled out for it.

Hmmmm.... if I were a Super Hero -- what would my special power be?
Super-Miser!
Unwilling to pay anything more than 1/10th of the bar-coded price!
IN A SINGLE BOUND!

*******

Splash du Jour: Thursday

If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own -- the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, unencumbered before him.
All that he has to do is write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple -- a few plain words -- "My Heart Laid Bare." But this little book must be true to its title. No man dare write it. No man could write it, even if he dared. The paper would shrivel and blaze at every touch of the fiery pen.
-- Edgar Allen Poe, 1848 --

Have a great Thursday!
*******

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Everyone's talking about the election results in Maine. They voted for medical marijuana, but against gay marriage. I think voters were worried that guys would get so high they'd accidentally marry each other.
-- Craig Ferguson --

Have a great Wednesday!

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

It's what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.
-- Oscar Wilde --

Have a great Tuesday!

Splash du Jour: Monday

Al Gore, winner of the Nobel Prize, is on the show. I wish he were here last night. I could have used the help. During the show, the climate went from bad to worse.
-- David Letterman --


Have a great Monday!
*******

This Is It / Creation of an MJ Fan

Truthfully, I have never really been a fan of Michael Jackson.
Until last night.
I went to see this movie.
Now I want ALL of his music on my iTunes!
If "This Is It" is playing anywhere near you, go see it.
Seriously. It is incredible.
You will see a side of Michael Jackson you did not know existed.
And if, unlike me, you already knew it existed -- well
you probably saw This Is It on opening night.
Last night convinced me, he truly was The King of Pop.
Not was.
IS.

******

Aunt Elsie: A Saturday Poem

Aunt Elsie

Not just the clanging of the dinner bell.
Difficult as this is to forget. Or her shrill call.
The walk-in-and-wander food pantry.
None of this brings her back as clearly to me as that
squint she had, sun or no. Nothing to do with light.

That narrowing of the eyes meant laughter, sadness,
punishment, linoleum repairs, change the channel,
chicken heads to be cut off, storm tomorrow, I had too
many children, or most of all, most of all -- open
yours as much as you can, while you can.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2009

Problems With Vibrato

I've been sick all day.
I think I am coming down with the H1N1 swine-thing, actually.
My first hint was that my nostrils all of a sudden are sort of upturned.
Very Kevin Bacon-ish.
But still, between sneezing and puking I have had occasion to do some of my near-useless musing about things that no other human beings think about, ever.
I happened to hear Ella Fitzgerald singing a Christmas song.
'Tis the season!
I forget the song, honestly -- what completely intrigued me though, was the vibrato at the end of every line.
What kind of medical problem is this?

Now, let's face it, Ella can [could] sing, I'm not disputing that. I'll never forget this one interview with Amanda Marshall [and I somewhat worship Amanda] where she cited Ella as her absolute vocal mentor and idol.
I think that part of Ella Fitzgerald's fame has to do with the youthfulness of her voice.
It never ever got old.
But the vibrato!
It makes my eyelids flutter.

And today, for the first time ever, I asked my favorite question -- WHY -- and directed it at the phenomenon of vibrato.
Not only why do singers do it. But why do we WANT them to do it?
Because we must want it, right? Or else they wouldn't do it.
What I mean is, statistically speaking, we must LIKE vibrato.

Well, I just want to go on record here and say that I myself do not like it.
I find it highly superfluous. This is not a natural throatal reaction to the action of singing.
It is contrived.
It is -- I don't know, just one of those human things that have evolved God-knows-why!

She was singing away, and I closed my eyes.
Instantly I envisioned a peacock.
Have you ever watched a male peacock when they are really strutting their stuff?
I have.
It's wild.
They fan out that magnificent tail...... they wait a bit, and then, the sort of -- shake it up!
Rattle the feathers. They rattle that thing.
They SHAKE that peacock booty!

It's the equivalent of the vibrato idea.
The peacock throws that tail out there, and then probably.... just at the right moment contracts a peacock-sphincter muscle and it's like.... "OK, my tail was all fanned out but check this out Oh-my-God now it is wicked sh-aaaaa-aaaaa-kkkkk-ing like crazy!"
[The hyphenated stuff, that's the peacock-sphincter tightening up right there.]

It's like Ella Fitzgerald, honest to God.
OK, it's all coming back to me now...... Let It Snow!
"Let it snow let it snow, let it snoowwwwwwowwwwowwoww!"
Yeesh.
A few more verses of that and all my fillings would have popped out.
I guess it all hearkens back to a time when we really had to shake things up to attract a mate?

*******

Splash du Jour: Friday

The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head.
-- Tim O'Brien, in The Things They Carried --

Last night I finished this amazing book. An incredibly moving, significant novel.
It is phenomenally good. Click HERE.

Have a great Friday!
********

Splash du Jour: Thursday

Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and, in this, hasn't changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
-- John Berger --

Have a great Thursday!