I’m losing faith in IMDB. I’m trying to remember the name of a Kirk Douglas movie.
At the beginning, he’s an ad exec who has a crack-up and tries to kill himself by letting go of the steering wheel of his car in a tunnel. His crash ends up being synchronized precisely with a moon shot (hence lunacy), back when there were moon shots. The rest of the movie is him having emotional outbursts and alienating everyone close to him.
Anyone have a clue?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: One of the best things about living here is the long, long dusks of summer. I grew up in Texas, where the only two seasons are hot and hurricane. Back before I left the Gulf coast, I had a passing fancy with some variety of neopaganism or another, and a big part of that little bit of mythopoetry has to do with the changing of the seasons.
What seasons?
Anyway. The days never really got that much longer in Texas. Unlike here. Get my point? Good.
Right now the neighbors are listening to opera. Before that, it was something by Prokofiev (I’m pretty sure). They have a really, really, really nice stereo. So the very last vestiges of the cool burning blue embers of twilight have extinguished themselves, and the music of Joe Green (AKA Giuseppe Verdi, a guess based purely in statistics) steals in through my open window like a thief come to leave gifts.
There’s a story about ol’ Joe Green, how he got kicked out of the music conservatory because he didn’t show enough promise. Later on, after he wrote, like, forty operas or something, and was a widespread success, the same conservatory wanted to name a building after him or otherwise weave his name into the very fabric of the school itself. Joe told ‘em to take a hike.
My windows are open because I did a thorough cleaning in here. Organized the closet, put all the camera junk away, sorted the piles of books on the floor. I need shelving. Probably some kind of modular lightweight Ikea kind of stuff. But the problem is the dust. And the pet hair.
The pets like to come into my room. The cat will come in and want scritchies, then the dog, who is bored already, comes in and wants attention, so the cat freaks out (in that semi-reserved disdainful cat way) and leaves. The dog lays down on the carpet and when she gets up it’s like she took off a sweater which instantly disintegrated, leaving a whole article of clothing’s-worth of dog fur.
It’s a quiet moment around the house. Roommate one wall over is moving around, probably getting ready for bed. He works hard. Roommate two walls over is watching a movie, though I can’t make out which one. His room is absolutely lined with media. A complete wall of CDs, another wall of LPs, another wall of DVDs. That leaves only one wall. Ya know?
I heard on the radio that there was going to be a fireworks display tonight, in Union Bay, down by the UDub. And there was!
It was to welcome the opposing teams to a rowing competition, sponsored by a local real estate company.
I’m not that happy with the pics, though, since I didn’t get a very good vantage point. I remembered Lookout Park as not having quite so much tree cover. My first instinct was to go to the unfinished overpass that goes from, er… the road in the Arboretum and was supposed to connect to 520. But I thought this would be better. I was wrong-o.
After the Big Bangs, I went over to Gasworks Park for some long-exposure experimentation. This is straight out of the camera:
That’s 30 seconds at f/8, SMC P-A 28-80 (a lens I like more the more I use it).
Here’s the exposure the camera chose:
I’m sure all of this would have been much, much better if I had bid on that 500mm lens. 
Crap. I made a promise to myself: No more long lenses.
It’s a 500mm monster. The reviews on Stan’s site say it rocks. 500mm in *ist DS crop factor terms is 750mm.
Extravagance or investment? It’ll retain it’s value, that’s for sure. Thankfully it’s an auction, however, so if I dawdle long enough it won’t be an issue.
I need a few magazine covers.
Update: Dilemma resolved. Forget about the 500mm. Give me instead the A* 135/1.8. Got a spare $700 laying around for a single lens? The same seller has an A* 200/1.4, as well.
The Institute of Applied Piracy
The story part starts here.
Do you have brown skin? Are you worried that you’ll get harrassed at the airport because the gringo security guards think you’re an Arab? Well, there’s a handy solution for you: Wear a sombrero.
This isn’t the newest news, but I want to repost a bit of it.
Some folks have recently said that gays are the new Jews, referring to the anti-semitic demonization that occurred in western Europe in the 30s and 40s, which ultimately resulted in 6 million dead Jews. Note also that homosexuals were killed alongside the Jews and a whole raft of other outcast classes during that dark period, so the comparison is a little inaccurate, but be that as it may… The statement makes a nice tidy rhetorical package, and is useful in that way.
If we assume this is false, and that gays aren’t the new Jews, then how do we explain this:
Alabama Bill Targets ‘Gay’ BooksBooks About Or By Gays Could Be Banned
Apr 26, 2005 10:02 pm US/Mountain
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (CBS) A college production tells the story of Matthew Sheppard, a student beaten to death because he was gay.And soon, it could be banned in Alabama.
Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.
“I don’t look at it as censorship,” says State Representative Gerald Allen. “I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.”
Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” has lesbian characters.
Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, although he still can’t define what a classic is. Also exempted now Alabama’s public and college libraries.
I mean, it’s pretty difficult to reconcile gays not being the new Jews, and this kind of bookburning mentality. Sez Rep. Allen (R-Leviticus): “I don’t look at it as censorship.” How can it not be? “I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.” This is a ban on the artistic efforts of gays and lesbians, and yet it’s not censorship and it can only help the hearts and souls and minds of children to grow?
I bet Rep. Allen (R-Dark Ages) doesn’t see it as hate, either. But as clearly as it’s censorship, it’s also hate. Or maybe he does see it as hate, and is OK with that:
“[The gay agenda is] not healthy for America, it doesn’t fit what we stand for,” says Allen. “And they will do whatever it takes to reach their goal.”He says he sees this as a line in the sand.
Today’s hike: Barclay Lake.
A short 4 miles down a dirt road off US 2 near Baring puts you at the trailhead. We were underwhelmed by the weather at first, but it didn’t seem like it would actually rain, just be moist. So we went ahead, figuring we could turn back if we wanted to.
I didn’t take a lot of pictures, since, well.. it was raining.
We had to capture this image of the duck tree:
Soon after, we got to the lake.
The lake is in the shadow of Mt. Baring.
There were better views, but they were all in exposed areas. Which meant that they were exposed to the rain.
Our moist theory held true all the way up, but the whole way back was a soaker. We decided to come back sometime when there was a better forecast, and when we could actually camp out, and hike up to another, higher lake.
The higher lake is called Eagle Lake, and while we didn’t see any eagles, we saw a red-tailed hawk. No other exceptional sightings beyond that, however.
I’m feeling pretty blah. Actually, that’s not true, I’m feeling a tremendous self-loathing in between moments of tedious distraction.
See, I had this massage yesterday, and you know how you hear about emotional releases being triggered by massage and other kinds of bodywork? Well, here I am, today, processing a bunch of release that occurred yesterday.
My body is really guarding this stuff, too. It wants things to stay the same, which is commendable, actually, since, for the most part, I want my body to stay the same, too. But this mysterious connection between whatever is shifting around in my body, and the Big Feelings that end up at the conscious and semi-conscious level of the thinky-mind end of the equation is really interesting.
I’ve had this sort of experience before, relating to other bodywork. In the past, however, this kind of stuff was much less subtle. It was all big and overwhelming during the bodywork, and afterwards wasn’t so much about processing as it was about getting rested after doing battle. This difference, I think, has a lot to do with the person giving the massage than anything else. Eli used to just reach right in and grab hold of tension and yank it loose. And then throw it to the ground and stomp on it. And then delight in unkinking your psoas with her elbow.
M’s approach is much more gentle, and also more profound. She uses river-worn stones that have been heated in water to just the right temperature. Nothing quite like having your back rubbed with an oiled warm stone. Then she leaves them on your back and moves on to your neck…
Anyway. M’s pretty amazing. Anyone in the Seattle area needs a massage, I can hook you up. She just moved into a new place, and is hanging her shingle, so to speak.
