American Life in Poetry: Column 111

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

As poet Felecia Caton Garcia of New Mexico shows us in this moving poem, there are times when parents feel helpless and hopeless. But the human heart is remarkable and, like a dry creek bed, somehow fills again, is renewed and restored.

Drought

Try to remember: things go wrong in spite of it all.
I listen to our daughters singing in the crackling rows
of corn and wonder why I don't love them more.
They move like dark birds, small mouths open

to the sky and hungry. All afternoon I listen
to the highway and watch clouds push down over the hills.
I remember your legs, heavy with sleep, lying across mine.
I remember when the world was transparent, trembling, all

shattering light. I had to grit my teeth against its brilliance.
It was nothing like this stillness that makes it difficult
to lift my eyes. When I finally do, I see you
carrying the girls over the sharp stones of the creek bed.

When they pull at my clothes and lean against my arms,
I don't know what to do and do nothing.

Reprinted from "Northwest Review," Vol. 44, No. 3, 2006, by permission of the author. Copyright 2006 by Felecia Caton Garcia. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

At gather: Maria Muldaur - Naughty, Bawdy & Blue

If the gig at gather doesn't produce anything else, it did give me the pleasure of hearing Maria Muldaur call me "darling." Here's a clip from my latest column, an interview with Maria on her latest release, Naughty, Bawdy & Blue.

***

Maria Muldaur is in a RV on her way to her next gig somewhere in Iowa when her cell phone rings.

"So, where's the show?" I ask.

"Clear Lake," she answers, which gives me pause. I've never been to Clear Lake Iowa, but the name brings a flood of memories from books and movies anyway. A skinny young man in horn-rimmed glasses, an improbable rock star, blasting out a Bo Diddley beat; teenage girls in pleated skirts doing coordinated dance moves, a heavy-set guy thumping a tambourine, dancing onto the stage, surprisingly light on his feet; now a grinning Chicano kid coming out and adding his guitar to the mix. And the orchestra keeps the beat going, the horns lifting Not Fade Away higher and higher as the group laughs, unplug their guitars, and wave goodbye to the audience as they walk off-stage one-by-one.

"Thank y'all! See you next year," the last one, the tall, skinny guy, calls back to the crowd... and they're gone.

Clear Lake is one of those iconic rock places, like Max Yasgur's farm - or maybe the Altamont Speedway. It was the last stand of the Winter Dance Party of 19 and 59.

"Whoa," I say, back in the future but totally thrown out of interview gear. "Buddy Holly territory."

"Yeah," Maria answers. "We're even playing the same place, the Surf Ballroom. But at least we're not flying out."

Link to full article

Stuck in the Middle at the Wheaties

As you may have noticed, I don't blog about poker all that much anymore. Not that I haven't stopped playing. I actually have fairly healthy bankrolls at UltimateBet and FullTilt. PokerStars is another story. Yesterday was the second time since the start of the year that I've had to recharge my PokerStars account - a feat that's become less difficult once I discovered Visa "gift debit" cards could be used to make deposits at on-line casinos. No fuss, no muss. Highly recommended if you're looking for an easy way to get money in. Money out is still problematic, but even my healthy UB and FT accounts aren't fat enough yet for me to be exploring ways of taking money out.

My game went sour on PokerStars at the beginning of the year, partially I think because my dwindling bankroll forced me to give up everything except the Wheaties Tuesday night tournament and then I got into an evil circle of not getting into the money, posting the $11 buy-in, not getting into the money, posting the $11 buy-in... and so on. When you only have around a $75 stake to begin with, it doesn't take too many $11 buy-ins to make your money go away unless you win something. Usually, I had been able to offset the Wheaties spend with the occasional SnG win, but I found it was easier - much easier in FullTilt's case - to get in the money at SnGs at FullTilt or UltimateBet than at PokerStars. And because there's now no easy way to move money between various poker sites, I'm now faced with lopsided bankrolls among the three.

For awhile I was playing crappy in the Wheaties, getting knocked out fast. I settled myself down, but then had the misfortune of running into the same crazy two Tuesdays running who - two Tuesdays running - succeeded in knocking me out of each respective tournament with terrible suckout hands, all while proclaiming how drunk she was while doing so. That put me on tilt so badly that I stopped playing at PokerStars altogether for a few weeks. When I came back the crazy was gone, but she had taken the rest of my luck with her. I've tried everything - I stopped chatting; I deliberately played hands the reverse of how I would normally play them; I gambled; I played as tight as a tick; and variations of all thereof.

The "problem" with SnGs and tournaments, of course, is that you can play beautifully for hours at a time but the bottom line is that only certain finishes are going to pay any money, sometimes only the top 3, sometimes the top 9 or more, depending on the size of the field. In recent Wheatie weeks I've been placing consistently in the top 20 - not too bad in an average field of 60 - but still far out of the money. I don't think I've even seen a final Wheaties table since February.

Last night was the usual. I played well, made it past the first break with an average stack for the field. Unfortunately at the same table was a player who was on one of those golden rushes that you see occasionally in poker games - he or she could literally not lose a hand. And with a stack around 3 times the size of the rest of the table, s/he was able to play a lot of hands. With a pair of 7s, I just called the a min raise, as did the player and one other person. A seven hit on the flop, giving me Trips. I decided to run a check-raise trap and checked. The first better throws 400 at the pot. The player threw in a pot-size raise, which I had expected, as s/he had been doing it all night, scaring people off. I went All-In with around $2k. The other two players folded. The Big Stack called and showed a pair of 9s... and a possible straight draw with a 7 and 8 on the board. Runner, runner, as they say. a 6 hits the turn, meaning I now have to avoid a 5, 9, or 10. Too many outs for this guy and a 10 hits the river and I'm gone.

Could I have played it differently? Possibly, but I think he would have forced me into an all-in anyway. Just calling his $1200 raise would have committed over half my stack, and I doubt I could have laid down those trip 7s even facing a straight at the turn. I had to bet that s/he didn't have a strong enough hand to make an additional $2,000 a worthwhile investment, and I was wrong.

Anyway, that was last night Wheaties - and I think my last Wheaties for awhile. I'm going to take a shot at the Mookie at FullTilt - Wednesdays at 9, and see what that brings. For PokeRStars I'm going back to single- and multi-table SnGs for awhile. As you can see from the graphic above, courtesy of SharkScope, I've actually done pretty well at those.

The Ol' Ball Game - The Sea Pups and Slugger at Haddock Field

Peggy and I went up to Portland for our 23rd anniversary last weekend, staying overnight so we could use a gift certificate to Vignola that my brother Lee had sent down. Vignola, located in restaurant row in Portland's Old Port, is highly recommended, btw, if you're in the mood for high-end Italian. I had the pork and veal meatballs with porcini mushrooms, tomato and pancetta and Peg had the grilled quail. Both were excellent.

A little weirdly, Vignola shares a basement kitchen with a "sister" restaurant, Cinque Terre, located a building away, which serves even higher-end Italian from the looks of its menu and prices. Vignola which is positioned as "casual" in their marketing, seems to be the Jan to Cinque Terre's Marcia Brady, but it was a fine choice as far as we were concerned.

Earlier in the day, we finally went to a Sea Dogs game, something we've talked about doing since the Pups, as I nicknamed them long ago, were a Marlins affiliate. Now they're the Red Sox's AA team, and they were playing New Hampshire's Fisher Cats last Saturday, giving us even more of an excuse to go - if we needed one.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not as rabid a baseball fan as Peggy. I like the Sox, but can seldom get through a full game on the tube. We'll maybe go to one or two live games a year, dependent on how many freebie tickets come our way from family and business. But, even with subsidized tickets, a trip to Friendly Fenway can put a serious dent in your pocketbook. Parking costs are outrageous unless you can come in by way of the T. You can easily lay out $40-50 for food and beer for two - and we're talking ballpark food and watery, lukewarm beer. You take an average-sized family to a major league park and you're talking an expensive day or night.

Plus - and I don't want to go into a rant about Fenway, because I actually do I kick out of going there - but it ain't a family ballpark all that much, advertising hype aside. It's mostly a park for testosterone-infused 20-somethings, too many with foul mouths on them, and listening to the constant F-bombs being dropped can quickly get old.

So, it's kind of nice to step back in time, and get something closer to what going to a ball game was probably like in the `40s and `50s. At the Pups' Hadlock field (which again, we had quickly twisted into "Haddock Field" for all the obvious reasons), you're almost sitting on the players, no matter where you're sitting. The place was crawling with kids and family, not surprising when general admission is $6 for adults and $3 for kids. Even box seats go for only $8 and $7.

The announcer comes on and tells you "no swearing allowed," and happily, there isn't. The game isn't bad, probably no one would consider it up to pro standards, but no one seems to much care either. We're all just having a good time.


The Pup's pitcher, a guy with the wonderful baseball name of Charlie Zink, throws an interesting knuckle ball which seems to have the Fisher Cats confounded for the six innings Charlie stays in. A reliever almost throws the game away with a handful of pitches, quickly bringing the to-then-scoreless Cats into the game with five runs. But the Pups' manager apparently wakes up from whatever reverie he's fallen into and seeing that an 8-0 game has turned into a 8-5 game in a matter of minutes, relieves the reliever with a new pitcher who gets Our Boys out of the inning, bloody but unbowed.

And the promotions! Hey, there is something happening every minute at a Sea Pups game, let me tell you, buddy. You got what seems to half the school population of Maine marching out on field pre-game to be acknowledged as part of "most improved student day." You got flying lobsters, tricycle races, basketball toss contests, baseball throw contests, a different contest going on every inning change. You got a family winning an upgrade from G.A. to box seats. You got little garbage can characters wandering around the aisles to remind you to dispose of your trash properly. You got Oakie the Acorn in the stands who almost got clobbered by a foul ball. You got entire rows being awarded free pizza because a Sea Pup batter knocked the ball for a double.

And you got Slugger - pictured above - the hardest working mascot in Double A, who arrives chauffeured in his own John Deere cart and proceeds to work the crowd for a full seven innings, shaking hands, passing out autographed Slugger cards, all while being escorted by his own bodyguard as he travels back-and-forth among the fans. Slugger culminates his game by - in close order - stomping a fan's Yankee cap; leading the crowd in a rousing traditional Take Me Out to the Ball Game; and then finishing with what is apparently a tradition at Haddock Field, a full-blown singalong version of YMCA, complete with arm gestures spelling out the letters. Tired but triumphant, Slugger calls it a day at the eighth inning. The Sea Dogs win the day, and Peggy and I decide we'll catch a repeat performance in June when the Pups visit the Cats in Manchester.

On Sunday we'd take a quick trip through Stroudwater village, an area I'd all but forgotten until Peggy saw a magazine about one of Maine's oldest settlements and asked me if I knew where it was. That open-ended question triggered another "when I was but a sprout in Maine " speech, because I did, in fact, know where it was very well. I promised to take the ever-patient Peg back in the Summer when things are prettier and the 252-year-old Tate House is open.


We wound up the trip with a drive to Ferry Beach and Camp Ellis in Saco since we wanted to check out the damage from the last N'Easter. Back when I was but a sprout in Maine, my family lived for a time in Ferry Beach in a little Cape Cod on Surf Street, which, as the name indicates, was parallel to the beach.

The old house was still there, but most of Surf Street, already damaged by earlier storms, was gone. You can click on the picture to your left to get a better image. You're looking up the "street" maybe 50 yards away from where I used to live as a kid. Where you see sand leading up to the blue house used to be asphalt. And that house looks like it will need to be torn down. Most of the underlying foundation is damaged. The storm literally demolished six other houses in the area.

Reports have it that Saco won't allow the houses that were damaged to be rebuilt. The owners claim that the Camp Ellis breakwater - which you can see to the left in the background - is in dire need of repair and once fixed will stop further erosion. Or maybe reverse erosion, I guess, as the beach is reclaiming what used to be dunes, beach pines, roads and homes.

Our favorite restaurant for steamers - Wormwoods, where my dog Butchie used to go to drink with clamdiggers - was still intact, and, after making sure of that, we headed home.

American Life in Poetry: Column 110

've talked a lot in this column about poetry as celebration, about the way in which a poem can make an ordinary experience seem quite special. Here's the celebration of a moment on a campus somewhere, anywhere. The poet is Juliana Gray, who lives in New York. I especially like the little comic surprise with which it closes.


Summer Downpour on Campus

When clouds turn heavy, rich
and mottled as an oyster bed,

when the temperature drops so fast
that fog conjures itself inside the cars,
as if the parking lots were filled
with row upon row of lovers,

when my umbrella veils my face
and threatens to reverse itself
at every gust of wind, and rain
lashes my legs and the hem of my skirt,

but I am walking to meet a man
who'll buy me coffee and kiss my fingers--

what can be more beautiful, then,
than these boys sprinting through the storm,
laughing, shouldering the rain aside,
running to their dorms, perhaps to class,
carrying, like torches, their useless shoes?


Reprinted from "The Louisville Review," (No. 59, Spring 2006) by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 2006 by Juliana Gray, whose most recent book of poetry is "The Man Under My Skin," River City Publishing, 2005. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

Dreamtime Episode 34 - He Was a GraveYard Smash

A goodbye to Bobby "Boris" Pickett, who passed away last week at age 69.

Somewhere in a special spot of heaven reserved for beloved monsters like Frankenstein and the Wolfman, the ghoulies and ghosties are doing the Transylvania Twist.

Episode 34 - He Was a Graveyard Smash

Dreamtime, btw, has made it to the NY Times, or at least a subset thereof. Eric Asimov, chief wine critic for The Times, discusses the pleasure, culture and business of wine, beer and spirits at his blog, The Pour. Scroll down to Mr. Asimov's blogroll, which you'll find on the right, and nestled amidst links to various wine and foodie blogs stands "Dreamtime: Blog on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour"

Mr. Asimov is obviously a man of impeccable tastes.

American Life in Poetry: Column 109

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

One big test of the endurance of any relationship is taking on a joint improvement project. Here Sue Ellen Thompson offers an account of one such trial by fire.


Wallpapering

My parents argued over wallpaper. Would stripes
make the room look larger? He
would measure, cut, and paste; she'd swipe
the flaws out with her brush. Once it was properly

hung, doubt would set in. Would the floral
have been a better choice? Then it would grow
until she was certain: it had to go. Divorce
terrified me as a child. I didn't know

what led to it, but I had my suspicions.
The stripes came down. Up went
the flowers. Eventually it became my definition
of marriage: bad choices, arguments

whose victors time refused to tell,
but everything done together and done well.


Reprinted by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 2006 by Sue Ellen Thompson, from her book, "The Golden Hour," published by Autumn House Press. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

Lawmakers Starting To Question Online Gambling Laws

via Techdirt:

Is the tide turning in the war over online gambling?

A few recent developments suggest that efforts at stamping out the activity (which was always an impossible goal) may be losing steam. Last year, the state of Washington passed a rather draconian bill that made it a felony to gamble online; in fact, the it even went after people who merely discussed online gambling on their websites. It looks like lawmakers realized that they went overboard, and have now reversed that law, essentially making it legal again to gamble online for recreational purposes. That, in itself, doesn't make it much easier for people to gamble however, since there's still the federal law which has made getting money into an online casino a real pain.

The good news there is that a bill has been introduced in congress to repeal the ban. According to the bill's sponsor, Representative Barney Frank, there's significant support for the new law, though it obviously has a difficult road ahead, since it will need approval from the Senate (where rules make it very easy to stall legislation) and a signature from the President. Still, it's very rare for the government to repeal bad laws, so just the fact that movement is happening in this direction is a good sign.

And for an additional 5 quid, you can get a flogging, too!

via BoingBoing

A new theme park inspired by the work of Charles Dickens aims to transform a 70,000-square-foot warehouse near London into a teeming -- and family-friendly -- corner of Victorian England...

... The indoor attraction includes a central square of cobbled streets and crooked buildings, where staff dressed as pickpockets and wenches will mingle with the crowds. Visitors who pay the $25 admission charge -- $15 for children -- will have the chance to see the Ghost of Christmas Past in Ebeneezer Scrooge's haunted house, be hectored by a schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall -- the dismal school from "Nicholas Nickleby" -- and peer into the fetid cells of Newgate Prison.

Tourists can also have a meal in the cafeteria, which has resisted the temptation to offer "Please, sir can I have some more?" 2-for-1 specials. The little ones can play in Fagin's Den, an area for preschoolers named after the gangmaster of the band of thieves in "Oliver Twist."

Link

American Life in Poetry: Column 107

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Houdini never gets far from the news. There's always a movie coming out, or a book, and every other magician has to face comparison to the legendary master. Here the California poet, Kay Ryan, encapsulates the man and says something wise about celebrity.


Houdini

Each escape
involved some art,
some hokum, and
at least a brief
incomprehensible
exchange between
the man and metal
during which the
chains were not
so much broken
as he and they
blended. At the
end of each such
mix he had to
extract himself. It
was the hardest
part to get right
routinely: breaking
back into the
same Houdini.


Poem copyright (c) 2004 by Kay Ryan, whose most recent book of poetry is "The Niagara River" Grove Press, 2005. Reprinted from "Poetry," November, 2004, with permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

We Would Like to Make a Contact

I have a special guilty pleasure weakness for The Carpenters in general, and this cover of Klaatu's Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft in particular.

I want one of these *so* badly

Peggy I need a

Vampire Killing Kit

The accoutrements for the destruction of the Vampire

This box contains the items considered necessary for the protection of persons who travel into certain little known countries in Easter Europe where the populace are plagued with a peculiar manifestation of evil, known as Vampires... Professor Ernst Blomberg respectfully requests that the purchaser of this kit carefully studies his book. Should evil manifestations become apparent, he is then equiped to deal with them efficiently... Professor Blomberg wishes to announce his grateful thanks to that well known gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plombeur, whose help in compiling of the special items, the silver bullets,etc., has been most efficient. The items enclosed are as follows...

1. An efficient pistol with its usual accoutrements
2. A quantity of bullets of the finest silver
3. Powdered flowers of garlic (one phial)
4. Flour of Brimstone (one phial)
5. Wooden stake (Oak)
6. Ivory crucifix
7. Holy Water (one phial)
8. Professer Blomberg's New Serum

via Wired, Boingboing and a host of others

Are mobile phones causing "colony collapse"?

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been much in the news lately. CCD occurs when a beehive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving behind only queens, eggs and a few immature workers.

Nobody knows where the vanished bees go, but they're apparently either deliberately or accidentally dying far from their homes. Even more scary, the parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies will refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

Why? No one knows, but a new theory has it that CCD may be connected to cell phone use, kind of a variation on Steve King's recent book. From The Independent story:

"...a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a 'hint' to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: 'I am convinced the possibility is real.'"

Another theory has it that GM (genetically modified) plants may be the culprit.

Albert Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

We may be running out of time.

Biblioexpeditions

I've been shamefully neglecting fhb, I know, and I'm afraid it's going to continue for the next couple of months, at least until I finish my contractual obligation with gather in June. Between Dreamtime (new episode below, plug plug), gather, and the things I do to actually pay the bills, I finally hit a wall where there just wasn't any more Fred to go around.

But I'm caught up, at least for the moment, so here's an interesting thing I came across in today's Globe: BiblioExpeditions, a bookstore/literary tour equivalent of those buses that take you down to Foxwoods for a day of gambling.

Ride our luxury motorcoach on weekend adventures to fabulous independent bookstores and literary landmarks in New York City, Boston, Western Massachusetts, Central Connecticut and Southern Vermont.

I like the idea, and I wouldn't mind going on the June 2nd tour a, "a one-day literary adventure in Greenwich Village, featuring Strand Bookstore (80 years old this year!), McNally-Robinson Bookstore, Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, St. Mark's Bookshop, Housingworks Used Book Cafe, Bluestockings, and a dozen other fabulous bookstores. We'll be departing Amherst, Massachusetts at 7am, and returning at 11pm." At a sale price of $69 (regular price $99), it sounds like a bargain.

Dreamtime Episode 33 - Oh Baby, Me Gotta Go

How does Dreamtime fit in over 50 different versions of "Louie Louie" in a 14-minute show? Listen and find out. Starring Bob Dylan, Julie London, and even Your Host singing the religious version of "Louie Louie" - an experience not to be missed. I succeeded in making Peggy laugh out loud when she heard it.

Episode 33 - Oh Baby, Me Gotta Go

American Life in Poetry: Column 107

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets. She lives in San Antonio, Texas, and travels widely, an ambassador for poetry. Here she captures a lovely moment from her childhood.


Supple Cord

My brother, in his small white bed,
held one end.
I tugged the other
to signal I was still awake.
We could have spoken,
could have sung
to one another,
we were in the same room
for five years,
but the soft cord
with its little frayed ends
connected us
in the dark,
gave comfort
even if we had been bickering
all day.
When he fell asleep first
and his end of the cord
dropped to the floor,
I missed him terribly,
though I could hear his even breath
and we had such long and separate lives
ahead.


Reprinted from "A MAZE ME," Greenwillow, 2005, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) Naomi Shihab Nye, whose most recent book of poetry is "You and Yours," BOA Editions, Ltd., 2005. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

The Greatest Comic Collection Ever

clipped from www.metafilter.com In 1977, a 21 year old comic book dealer in Colorado named Chuck Rozanski got a phone call from a realtor who wanted to dispose of a "large" number of comic books in the basement of a house that was about to be sold. The owners of the house were eager to get rid of them, and Rozanski purchased the "greatest comic collection ever found" , consisting of over 18,000 mint condition Golden Age comic books collected by artist Edgar Church, for a bargain price (rumored to be as low as $1,800). Recently, just one comic book from the collection sold for $273,125. Rozanski used the proceeds to build Mile High Comics, now the largest comic book retailer in the industry.

American Life in Poetry: Column 106

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

By describing the relocation of the moles which ravaged her yard, Washington poet Judith Kitchen presents an experience that resonates beyond the simple details, and suggests that children can learn important lessons through observation of the natural world.


Catching the Moles

First we tamp down the ridges
that criss-cross the yard

then wait for the ground
to move again.

I hold the shoe box,
you, the trowel.

When I give you the signal
you dig in behind

and flip forward.
Out he pops into daylight,

blind velvet.

We nudge him into the box,
carry him down the hill.

Four times we've done it.
The children worry.

Have we let them all go
at the very same spot?

Will they find each other?
We can't be sure ourselves,

only just beginning to learn
the fragile rules of uprooting.


Poem copyright (c) 1986 by Judith Kitchen, whose most recent book is the novel, "The House on Eccles Road," Graywolf Press, 2004. Reprinted from "Perennials," Anhinga Press, 1986, with permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

Kaiser is No Longer in the Building

A three-foot-long python on the loose in Google's NY offices.

clipped from money.cnn.com "We are pleased to report that Kaiser was located in the office," company spokeswoman Ellen West said in a statement, according to Reuters. "Kaiser was taken home by his owner and is no longer in the building."

More Things I Didn't Need to Know

I'm experimenting with a new tool, Clipmarks (link below). This from BoingBoing

clipped from boingboing.net Pencils made from cremated humans Artist Nadine Jarvis can fabricate pencils from carbon left over by incinerating human remains -- it's part of a larger "research project into post mortem." She notes that "240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind." Link (via Cribcandy)

American Life in Poetry: Column 105

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

I've talked often in this column about how poetry can hold a mirror up to life, and I'm especially fond of poems that hold those mirrors up to our most ordinary activities, showing them at their best and brightest. Here Ruth Moose hangs out some laundry and, in an instant, an everyday chore that might have seemed to us to be quite plain is fresh and lovely.


Laundry

All our life
so much laundry;
each day's doing or not
comes clean,
flows off and away
to blend with other sins
of this world. Each day
begins in new skin,
blessed by the elements
charged to take us
out again to do or undo
what's been assigned.
From socks to shirts
the selves we shed
lift off the line
as if they own
a life apart
from the one we offer.
There is joy in clean laundry.
All is forgiven in water, sun
and air. We offer our day's deeds
to the blue-eyed sky, with soap and prayer,
our arms up, then lowered in supplication.


Reprinted from "Making the Bed," Main Street Rag Press, 2004, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1995 by Ruth Moose, whose latest book of poetry, "The Sleepwalker," Main Street Rag, due out in 2007. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

American Life in Poetry: Column 104

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

At some time many of us will have to make a last visit to a house where aged parents lived out their days. Here Marge Saiser beautifully compresses one such farewell.


Where They Lived

One last time I unlock
the house where they lived

and fought and tried again:
the air of the place,

carpet with its unchanging green,
chair with its back to me.

On the TV set, the Christmas cactus
has bloomed, has spilled its pink flowers

down its scraggly arms
and died, drying into paper.

At the round oak table,
ghosts lean toward one another,

almost a bow, before rising,
before ambling away.


Reprinted by permission of Marjorie Saiser, whose most recent book of poems is "Lost in Seward County," Backwaters Press, 2001. Copyright (c) 2006 by Marjorie Saiser. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

Much Hodag Love

Ace Reporter Joyride Jones called in with the news that the Wisconsin Hodags took the UPA Centex 2007 tournament, taking down 23 of the nation's best teams in Ultimate.

Pictured are the Hodag team, proudly displaying the Centex trophy, a gold spray-painted cattle skull.

What it means to be a Hodag (via Hodag Love):

My name Tom Annen, aka Animal. I am a junior at the University of Wisconsin and this is my third of five years that I will be on the team. As of right now, the Hodag team is probably the most important thing in my life. I love the team and if it wasn't for the team I would probably transfer elsewhere because I am not a big fan of the cold weather. Plus I have lived my whole life in Madison and never got a chance to go any where else. Anyways, to play for this team is a privilege. Since I have been on it we have been one of the top five maybe top three best teams in the country every year throughout or at some point and time during the year. I don't believe there are many other teams around the country that can say the same thing. I personally love playing with the team, partying with the team, and in general being around the team. We are a family. Every single one of us is working toward the same goal, to win College Nationals. In order to achieve this goal we all put in 15 plus hours a week doing team workouts, lifting with our buddies, or training on our own. It is a huge commitment, but it has a phenomenal pay-back from being apart of the baby blue.

What it means to be a Hodag Part II (also via Hodag Love):

After long consideration, Animal decides that he needs to figure this game out even if he only buys in with 20 dollars (2 bets). Which, he does and turns into 50 or so. Soon all the hodags are throwing small amounts of cash, at most 50 dollars on the table to see how fast they can loose it buy betting on their favorite number. So as the dice moved around the other side of the table, the hodags learned how to play a little and some won money others lost money. Then the show started off with Scallet rolling the dice for a good 5-10 minutes winning people money but since he was the first to go the hodags must have been a little slow on the bets because there was not too much gain with his rolling. The dice moved through the next 6 hodags pretty quickly causing most everyone to lose a good portion of money. As a note Heijmen was on his last bet 10 or 20 dollars when the dice came into Animal's hands. This is where the loud screams came that attracted the big spenders on the other side to throw benjamins all over the able betting on Animal's rolls. As Animal seemed to continually roll for some 15 minutes hitting every number and the hodags were betting on. Especially the number 8. Every Hodag had 12 bucks on 8 during the whole time there was not a moment where the number was not filled with bets. Animal hit the 8 somewhere around 5 or 6 times before craping out making everyone 15 bucks each time. Even when someone asked for a 4 or a ten to be rolled within a couple rolls it would be rolled giving out even more money. Finally after craping out and the applause from the other side of the table was done we all walked away with 100 dollars chips in hand to go cash in. Who knows how much money Animals made for the other side of the table but for the Hodags who were there it was a good 1000 dollars and a damn good story to tell.

Some notable facts. Matt Scallet walked away from the table with 250 dollars, marsh walked away with 350 dollars making back the 200 dollars he lost the night before, heijmen turning his 10 dollars left into 100 plus dollars.

Congrats Matt and Hodags! (good deal at the craps table in Vegas too)

Gather: Study War No More Countdown

This week's gather column, and one I'm proud of...

10. Last Train to Clarksville - The Monkees (1966)

Last Train to Clarksville's narrator is insistent with the repeated line, "... and I don't know if I'm ever coming home" because he was shipping out to Vietnam. According to the co-writer of the 1966 hit, Bobby Hart, "We couldn't be too direct with The Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it - we kind of snuck it in." Watch/listen on YouTube.

9. Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival (1970)

In a Rolling Stone interview, John Fogerty noted, "Julie Nixon was hanging around with David Eisenhower, and you just had the feeling that none of these people were going to be involved with the war. In 1969, the majority of the country thought morale was great among the troops, and like eighty percent of them were in favor of the war. But to some of us who were watching closely, we just knew we were headed for trouble." Watch/listen on Google Video.

Here's the link to the full "countdown" list.

Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year - 2006

The six titles on the shortlist are:

1. How Green Were the Nazis?, edited by Franz-Josef Bruggemeier, Mark Cioc and Thomas Zeller (Ohio University Press)
   
   
2. D. Di Mascio’s Delicious Ice Cream: D. Di Mascio of Coventry: An Ice Cream Company of Repute, with an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans by Roger De Boer, Harvey Francis Pitcher, and Alan Wilkinson (Past Masters)
   
   
3. The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification by Julian Montague (Harry N Abrams)
   
   
4. Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan, by Robert Chenciner by Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie (Bennett & Bloom)
   
   
5. Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium, edited by Robert J Anderson, Juliet A Brodie, Edvar Onsoyen and Alan T Critchley (Kluwer)
   
   
6. Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar (Clarendon Press)

An online poll to find the winner is now open at www.thebookseller.com. The winner will be announced on April 13, 2007. Three other rentries were ruled out because they were published before 2006:

• The Essential Underwater Guide to North Wales Vol 1
• Let’s Discover F Words
• Celebrating Boxes

Last year's winner was People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It by Gary Leon Hill (Red Wheel).

via theBookseller.com

American Life in Poetry: Column 103

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

One of the ways a poet makes art from his or her experience is through the use of unique, specific and particular detail. This poem by Rick Snyder thrives on such details. It's not just baseball caps, it's Tasmanian Devil caps; it's not just music on the intercom, it's James Taylor. And Snyder's poem also caught my interest with the humor of its flat, sardonic tone.


How Are You Doing?

As much as you deserve it,
I wouldn't wish this
Sunday night on you--
not the Osco at closing,
not its two tired women
and shaky security guard,
not its bin of flip-flops
and Tasmanian Devil
baseball caps,
not its freshly mopped floors
and fluorescent lights,
not its endless James Taylor
song on the intercom,
and not its last pint of
chocolate mint ice cream,
which I carried
down Milwaukee Ave.
past a man in an unbuttoned
baseball shirt, who stepped
out of a shadow to whisper,
How are you doing?


Reprinted from "Barrow Street," Winter, 2005, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 2005 by Rick Snyder. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

American Life in Poetry: Column 102

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Those of us who have hunted morel mushrooms in the early spring have hunted indeed! The morel is among nature's most elusive species. Here Jane Whitledge of Minnesota captures the morel's mysterious ways.


Morel Mushrooms

Softly they come
thumbing up from
firm ground

protruding unharmed.
Easily crumbled
and yet

how they shouldered
the leaf and mold
aside, rising

unperturbed,
breathing obscurely,
still as stone.

By the slumping log,
by the dappled aspen,
they grow alone.

A dumb eloquence
seems their trade.
Like hooded monks

in a sacred wood
they say:
Tomorrow we are gone.


Reprinted from "Wilderness Magazine," Spring, 1993, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1993 by Jane Whitledge. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

You go, Barney

via gambling 911 (and various other media outlets):

The office of US Congressman Barney Frank, who is chairman of the House Financial Services committee, has confirmed that he is currently working on legislation to repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

The news item appeared this afternoon [March 14- fhb] on the Financial Times website and has been confirmed to eGaming Review by Frank’s press department. The details of how any repeal would take action have not been worked out and no timeframe was given.

Frank is quoted as describing last autumn’s Act as one of the “stupidest laws” ever passed and adds: “I am working on legislation to cut back on this internet gambling thing… I think it’s preposterous”.

While rumors of Barney Frank’s support for a repeal of the Act had been circulating around the egaming industry in the past few weeks, Frank himself had not confirmed or commented on them. Shares in PartyGaming, 888 and Sportingbet were all up this afternoon.

The FT says the mid-term Democratic victory in the US Congress brought some hope to the online gaming sector and John Conyers, chairman of the House judiciary committee, is also considered sympathetic to the industry.

But while Frank and Conyers are “powerful potential allies, it is far from clear that the lawmakers would have enough support to pass any meaningful legislation” because it is not clear “whether the votes would be there for a regulatory bill”.

The FT adds that the US treasury is currently drafting the rules to implement the Act but that the deadline for presenting them has been missed and is now expected in April or May.

Frank Zappa Meets Robin the Boy Wonder

where else, but in Episode 31 of of the Dreamtime podcast?

Rechanneling Their Passion

Nice article on the rise of satellite radio deejays who play "anything they want," via The Washington Post:

There's no high-tech studio here, no sound baffling or soundboard -- just a few electronic components and a wind-socked microphone to capture [Mojo] Nixon's patter and periodic "yee-haws!" between songs.

He doesn't play concerts, not even locally; he doesn't record and he doesn't write songs any longer. "I could have turned Mojo Nixon into a cottage industry catering to 5,000 or 10,000 fans," he says. "But that doesn't sound very Mojo. I could exercise, lose weight, do all of that and continue touring, but who wants to do that? So I thought I'd get a job in radio or something."

He's not alone. Nixon is one of an ever-expanding roster of major and minor performers who are working as full- or part-time hosts of programs broadcast over the digitized airwaves of New York's Sirius and Washington's XM Radio. The advent of convenient, efficient technology and an open-arms attitude by the satellite networks have made for a new type of deejay. As much as their names are a draw, so is their deep knowledge of the formats they play.

Musician jocks for Sirius include B-52s singer Fred Schneider, New York Dolls frontman David Johansen, Ramones drummer Marky Ramone, glam rocker Joan Jett, country fiddler Charlie Daniels and area folk heroes the Kennedys, among others.

XM has icons including Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Graham Nash, pioneering producer and performer Quincy Jones, rappers Snoop Dogg and Chamillionaire, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis -- and more to come, says Lee Abrams, chief creative officer of XM.

I Have Seen the Future and It's Name Is "Little Miss Sunshine"

but this isn't about that funny, quirky movie that Peggy and I watched last night. It's about how we watched it. Four days ago, TiVo sent me an email letting me know that their partnership with Amazon was out of beta, and I could now start ordering movies through Amazon for either rental or purchase. They even threw in a $15 gift certificate as bait... not that it was needed.

So, I did the sign-up, hooking my TiVo account into my Amazon account, bopped over to Amazon's weirdly named "Unbox" section, found "Little Miss Sunshine," and voilà, over in the right hand corner of the movie description page was an option to download to our TiVo for $3.99. One click brought a summary message that the download would start within 15 minutes, and 5 minutes later the little blue light on the TiVo glowed on.

Convenience? No muss, no fuss. No trip to Blockbuster. No waiting for a Netflix DVD in the mail. No hassle of returning the DVD.

Picture quality? TiVo says, "Unbox videos watched on a TiVo are of better quality than videos recorded at the Best Quality setting on a TiVo Series2™ DVR." Based on what we saw, I'd agree with that.

Download time? TiVo says an average hour download for the average movie on a broadband-connected recorder. Our TiVo is connected through a 801.G wireless adapter to an older 801.b router, and it took close to two hours for "Little Miss Sunshine"(1.9 GB) to download.

Is it perfect? Nope. Peggy pointed out that it's definitely not video-on-demand and doesn't promote spontaneity, which is how we tend to watch movies. For newer movies, there's a complicated "blackout" formula, which can even affect movies you buy (rather than rent) through Unbox. From the TiVo FAQ:

"Due to restrictions from the video rights holders, most newly released movies will occasionally become temporarily unavailable for re-download from Your Media Library—even after they’ve already been purchased.

During this "Pay-TV Blackout Window" certain programs will be temporarily unavailable from the Unbox catalog and Your Media Library. This happens during the program’s run on a pay-cable channel.

The video will be automatically replaced and made available to you through Your Media Library once the "Pay-TV Blackout Window" has ended."

The whole rental thing is a little more confusing than it needs to be, and isn't clarified through the various TiVo/Amazon FAQs. I think that you have a 30-day window to watch a downloaded video (UPDATE: The 30-day limit is correct), but couldn't tell from our download of LMS, since the notification also seemed to be tied somehow into the Blackout Window.

I also think that once a movie is started, it has to be finished within a 24-hour period, but I could be wrong about that one. It seems like a stupid requirement if it is a requirement. (UPDATE: Unfortunately the idiotic, "movie must be finished within 24-hours after starting" requirement is correct. "Why?" is another matter.)

In theory, I like the idea of having all of our purchased movies available on Amazon, in our ongoing battle to lessen the "too much shit" clutter around the house. In practice, we're going to need downloads - especially when most movies go into hi-def - a helluva lot faster than 1-2 hours per movie. If we're in the mood for Casablanca, we're going to want it then and there.

But, it's a great first step towards the El Dorado of that old Qwest "Motel" commercial, where the person renting the room is advised "every movie ever made in every language, anytime, day or night" is available.

Get a Uclue

While Constant Readers know that I was no fan of the now defunct Google Answers (contract researchers - of which I was one for a time - would attempt to answer customer questions for payment), I was a fan of many of the researchers. In fact, I was a fan of nearly everything at GA except the brain-damaged administration of the site... but no need to get into that rant again.

Now, many of the GA researchers are back at a new site called uclue.com, an attempt to do GA right. With the absence of the contradictory combination of Google interference and benign neglect, I suspect that uclue may have a shot. The early signs look good. For example, GA refused to allow researchers to provide answers in other than English (I suspect because the overseers only had one language), even though a high percentage of GA customers were from other than English-speaking countries. uclue can field questions in three languages, English, German and Spanish, and may add more down the road.

At last count, 29 of the former GARs have signed up as researchers on uclue, including many of the most well-known in the GA community, such as pinkfreud. In theory, I'd be eligible to join up as a researcher, too, but have no plans to at this point, with way too many other paying gigs on my plate. But best of luck to all my old colleagues!

He's actually in a giant energy pod. No wait, that was Jean Grey

".. comics, like soap operas, never have third acts. There are no conclusions, just the illusion of conclusion."

Adam Rogers on why the death of Captain America don't mean a thing, except to True Believers.

... and I would like to meet more bank tellers

Police have have created a MySpace account for a serial bank robber.

Do You Know Me??? already has over 1,000 MySpace friends.

"We can go back to the moon someday." - Love and emails

via the AP:

NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak's bizarre 900-mile road trip to confront a romantic rival may have been sparked when she uncovered steamy e-mails sent to her boyfriend by the other woman, documents released Monday showed.

Nowak had collected more than a dozen e-mails sent to her one-time boyfriend, space shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein, including one he received during his shuttle mission, according to the documents, released late Monday by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office.

"First urge will be to rip your clothes off," Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman wrote to Oefelein while he was aboard shuttle Discovery in December. "But honestly, love, I want you to totally and thoroughly enjoy your hero's homecoming."

You can read (Acrobat Reader required) the love letters here, but I warn you, they're the typical embarrassing letters you wouldn't want anyone else to read, and probably don't want to read yourself unless you're in the relationship. The letters are both touching - in a weird sort of way - and bizarre. Yahoo non sequiter ads at the bottom - TV dinner still cooling? - the steamy, flirtatious lines you'd expect - great big giant hug with my legs around you - and then a line like "We can go back to the moon someday."

In the end, they're people too.

The end of internet radio?

File this one under "golden eggs: goose killing of"

Maybe. I hope not, but it may be the end to some of my online music fave raves, including Pandora and Yahoo Live 365 (which I'm listening to now through our TiVo), and possibly even (gasp!) no more Theme Time Radio Hour available through the internet.

I've contemplated starting a Live 365 station, even as bad a deejay as I am, but this would put the spike in that, too.

“Left unchanged, it’s over for us and every other internet radio service, period. Makes it un-viable,” Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren wrote in an email. “We’re staying online because we’re hopeful that sanity will eventually win out. This is a ludicrous ruling.”

Till recently, the royalty rate was about 7/100th of a penny per performance, allowing many small webcasters to thrive and build sizeable audiences. At 14-15 songs per hour, it worked out to about penny an hour – one of the main reasons why Yahoo could offer music-streaming services at affordable prices.

However, now the equation has changed – the royalty rates will increase every year through 2010 when it is going to cost about $0.0019 per performance. While not much when taken as a single performance, the amount does add up if you are a company that streams millions of performances per day. (The details of the new arrangement are very well explained on this website.)

Link

1984 all over again

via the Huff-Po. I suspect this won't be up for long, so watch while you can. According to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, the video was made by a Barack Obama supporter and not a member of his campaign. And no, this isn't an fhb endorsement of Obama vs. Clinton. I'm just amused - and intrigued - by how much technology coming into play in this campaign, or pre-campaign, or whatever the hell it is...

Feces Spewing Obscenity 1 Edwards 0

via Wired via the John Edwards' blog.

From the original posting:

John Edwards Second Life HQ vandalized.

"Shortly before midnight (CST) on Monday, February 26, a group of republican Second Life users, some sporting "Bush '08" tags, vandalized the John Edwards Second Life HQ. They plastered the area with Marxist/Lenninist posters and slogans, a feces spewing obsenity[sic], and a photoshopped picture of John in blackface, all the while harrassing visitors with right-wing nonsense and obsenity [sic]-laden abuse of Democrats in general and John in particular. I witnessed this event, taking names and photos, including the owners of the pictures. I also kept and saved a copy of the chat log. I have filed an abuse report with Linden Labs, and am awaiting their investigation."

If you scroll through the the comments from the Edwards' blog posting, you'll find that some bored Second Life pranksters - I'd guess more spiritually akin to anarchists than Republicans - are claiming responsibility. Expect to see stuff like this throughout the campaign, as generally clueless political media and PR-types try to leverage technology they don't understand. Note to Edwards' peeps: Next time read the docs on preventing vandalism, as the rep. from Linden Labs also points out in the comments. It's the only way to stay ahead of those feces-spouting obscenities.

American Life in Poetry: Column 101

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Those big cherry flavored wax lips that my friends and I used to buy when I was a boy, well, how could I resist this poem by Cynthia Rylant of Oregon?


Wax Lips

Todd's Hardware was dust and a monkey--
a real one, on the second floor--
and Mrs. Todd there behind the glass cases.
We stepped over buckets of nails and lawnmowers
to get to the candy counter in the back,
and pointed at the red wax lips,
and Mary Janes,
and straws full of purple sugar.
Said goodbye to Mrs. Todd, she white-faced and silent,
and walked the streets of Beaver,
our teeth sunk hard in the wax,
and big red lips worth kissing.


"Wax Lips" by Cynthia Rylant from WAITING TO WALTZ. Copyright (c) 2001 by Cynthia Rylant. Reprinted with permission of the author, whose most recent book of poetry is "Ludie's Life," Harcourt, 2006. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

American Life in Poetry: Column 100

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Here the Maine poet, Wesley McNair, offers us a vivid description of a man who has lived beyond himself. I'd guess you won't easily forget this sad old man in his apron with his tray of cheese.


The One I Think of Now

At the end of my stepfather's life
when his anger was gone,
and the saplings of his failed
nursery had grown into trees,
my newly feminist mother had him
in the kitchen to pay for all
those years he only did the carving.
"You know where that is,"
she would say as he looked
for a knife to cut the cheese
and a tray to serve it with,
his apron wide as a dress
above his workboots, confused
as a girl. He is the one I think of now,
lifting the tray for my family,
the guests, until at last he comes
to me. And I, no less confused,
look down from his hurt eyes as if
there were nothing between us
except an arrangement of cheese,
and not this bafflement, these
almost tender hands that once
swung hammers and drove machines
and insisted that I learn to be a man.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2002 by Wesley McNair, whose most recent book is "The Ghosts of You and Me," David R. Godine, 2006. Reprinted from "Fire: Poems," published by David R. Godine, 2002, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Just Because I Can: Part 2

... in an ongoing effort to convince Maudie I need a vacay (congrats on the Mookie win, btw!)

Just because I can

New blog from poet Andrei Guruianu

Andrei Guruianu, whose poem "Grandfather," I really liked recently left a comment noting that he's started up his blog at www.andreiguruianu.com.

Well worth the visit if you like engaging, thoughtful poetry.

Delegate Wants to Ban Vehicle Displays of Plastic Genitals

One of those "never heard of it, and then they're everywhere things." I first heard about this on NPR Friday. Peggy and I saw our first, ah, pair, on our way home from Newport yesterday, and this pops up in my news feed.

Maryland Del. LeRoy E. Myers Jr. to truckers: If you've got 'em, you don't need to flaunt 'em.

As the General Assembly debates global warming and the death penalty, Myers (R-Washington) has something else on his mind: the outsized plastic testicles that truckers dangle from the trailer hitches of their pickups.

via the Washington Post

Countdown At the Movies

Cross-promotion time again. My latest gather column is up. A free taste (to get you hooked)...

We're doing a musical movie countdown this week in honor of the 79th Academy Awards, coming to a TV screen near you this Sunday, the 25th.

As it's too easy to include musicals with great music - from Singing in the Rain to Hair, I excluded them from this list of movie songs and music that plays on an extended engagement in my Theater of Memory.

10. "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" - from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Featured in Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 remake of his 1934 original, and sung by Doris Day. "Que Sera, Sera" received the 1956 Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was the third Oscar in this category for songwriters Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

The song has an interesting history, considering that Hitchcock initially didn't want Doris Day (she was a part of a package deal in order for Hitchcock to secure the services of Jimmy Stewart) and didn't want a song for the movie, even though the studio was pressing him to use something to feature Day's voice.

Hitchcock figured out how to get a song in the movie - in fact, it became a key plot element - and changed his opinion about Day, who he later said did a fine job. He commissioned Livingston and Evans to write something that "had a foreign title" and was to be "sung to a little boy." The two had recently seen the Ava Gardner film, The Barefoot Contessa, where the character played by Rossano Brazzi had the family motto "Che Sera, Sera." Evans and Livingston switched the Italian "Che" to "Que," apparently feeling that Spanish was more accessible in the U.S. than Italian, and came up with the lyrics.

Continuing the comedy of errors, Doris Day was not at all thrilled by the prospect of singing "Que Sera Sera." In fact, she refused to record it, until ultimately bowing from pressure by Paramount. Reportedly, she did the song in one take and walked out of the studio saying, "That's the last time you'll ever hear that."

Of course, the song became a signature piece for Day, who would use it as the theme for her television sitcom series, and sing snippets of it in several of her other movies, including Please Don't Eat the Daisies and The Glass-Bottom Boat.

Sources: Google Answers; Wikipedia

9. Theme from per un Pugno di Dollari (A Fistful of Dollars) - Ennio Morricone (as Dan Savio) (1964)

Da-da-da-dah! WAH WAH WAH! Hired by Leone for Per un pugno di dollari on the strength of some of his song arrangements, Morricone would revolutionize how Westerns sounded, just as Leone would bend the Western movie genre totally out of shape. The soundtrack's exceedingly strange instrumentation included bells, electric guitars, harmonicas, and a jew's harp, and would be repeated with variations in the two succeeding Man with No Name movies.

Source: IMDB

The full list is right here.

The Return of Muffin

via "Bertsie from Washington"

An exhaustive - and exhausting - "Trouble in Vegas" game/trip report for the Hodag Ultimate Team can be found here, written by the indefatigable Muffin, who has apparently never met a paragraph break he liked.

At this point the Hodags freaked out and with Scallet getting D’s in the air all over the place and Even Klane bombing forehands, we steal half 7-3.

I'm not sure what "Ds all over the air" are exactly, but assume it's good. I think Florida also won over Wisconsin, even though Wisconsin "nutted up, forcing Universe" which sounds painful. But on to Baton Rouge for that prize money. Go HoDags!

And lil White Balls with Dimples in Dreamtime

In honor of Theme Time's Host's recent purchase in Scotland, Dreamtime plays at "Theme Time," with an extra-long 29-minute episode featuring music, jokes, email, and commentary all related to the theme, "Golf."

Episode 30 - A Good Walk Spoiled