Just wow: "Lay Lady Lay," Keith Jarrett Trio

I long to see you in the morning light
I long to reach for you in the night
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead






© 2013 L. Ryan

Burning CDs

I'm not Buddhist today.  Tomorrow?  Who knows!

Sometimes it's really grand, a thigh-thumping grand, that suffering is life, or life suffering, in case, in translation, the equivalency we accord "is" does not hold true in the original declaration.

Did you think I was going to bore you with YouTube music videos forever?  Actually, there was considerable suppression of the more relevant music being blasted around these parts.  Some fool had me listening to Gaelic and I had a brief -- roughly 20 minute -- rough descent into Andrea Bocelli. There was flirtation with Tindersticks, a lot of lip-synching to Nina Simone, and altars built to Jerry Garcia and these Days of the Dead.

Yes, I was burning CDs, an act I'm new to and that is probably already outdated.  If so, don't kill my buzz.

It's ominous, assembling music for someone important.

You have intent, you cannot escape having intent, and yet you wish to appear to have no purpose leap through the chords, scream through the lyrics.

This is how I feel about this song.
But how will he feel about this song?

The only solution is Suppression of Intent -- and in that brief period of relief from one's self, to go with your gut, and never look back.  You pick a song, you burn it, you move on.

After the items are mailed, there's time for second-guessing to kick in.

Like... what was I thinking, leading off with this?  I mean, I used to be a huge John Prine fan until, late one night, sipping on a sloe gin fizz, I got tired of the facile.

Surely you've noticed?  I veer from the facile, abhor that which is easy, and run (toes pointed!) from observations, no matter how astute, that don't show all their work.

But he gives a good concert, and I'm fond of him, and of the days when we all giggled about getting high.

So when my brother "Lumpy" [still a Grader Boob, as he still insists on haunting a classroom, despite an advanced and evil cancer] gets these CDs, I am sure he'll think something like... "I shoulda spent more time with that kid... Meant to pass on the music that my brother passed on to me, but this sister is clearly, sad to say, low brow."

Or maybe he'll laugh, as these songs are meant to pass the driving time as he flies from campus or apartment to chemotherapy or radiation, a 6' 4" man with considerable skeletal pain, folded to fit into the passenger side of a Mini-Cooper.

I let my intent fly free at the end of the process.  I closed with Nico's cover of the great "I'll Keep It With Mine."




In case you can't tell, it's a heartfelt offer on my part -- to those whom I wish I could rock to sleep in my funky spastic arms, murmuring lies, meaning every one of them as a noble truth.

"It's gonna be all right, sweet one, it's gonna be all right."

You will search, babe

At any cost

But how long, babe

Can you search for what’s not lost?

Everybody will help you

Some people are very kind

But if I can save you any time

Come on, give it to me

I’ll keep it with mine

I can’t help it

If you might think I’m odd

If I say I’m not loving you for what you are

But for what you’re not

Everybody will help you

Discover what you set out to find

But if I can save you any time

Come on, give it to me

I’ll keep it with mine

The train leaves

At half past ten

But it’ll be back tomorrow

Same time again

The conductor he’s weary

He’s still stuck on the line

But if I can save you any time

Come on, give it to me

I’ll keep it with mine

-- Bob Dylan

Of course, another pisser in this whole process is the low brow fear of being derivative.  How many times, in how many ways, has Lumpy the Grader Boob sent me our favorite tune, such that I could not now send it back to him?

But, here it is again, for us.

© 2013 L. Ryan

Grand Theft, Sibling Style: 35 Months Since the Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi

My eldest brother is my wisest one.  He also has the kindest heart and the most natural, unpolluted concept of living well and peacefully in community with one another and the Earth that is our gracious home.

I haven't ripped anything off from his blog, American Idyll in what seems like YEARS but is actually months.
Tonight, I'm scratching that itch, I'm cracking my knuckles, I'm gearing down for a casual five-fingered discount of digital thievery.  Ah, but thievery rich with attribution!  Go to American Idyll, browse, travel, dream, and learn - laugh, point, giggle, fall into awed silence the way you once were able to collapse into a bean bag contraption (and get up again).

He's democratic by nature and virtue, and so I'm hoping he won't hitch a ride on Elvis the Crow, leading a bazillion of the pointy-beaked creatures to peck on my head for violations of propriety, property, boundaries.

Not many of the voices raised or calmly modulated to float over the chaotic cacophony of the Fukushima accident and subsequent disasters are being heard.  Who wants to hear that stuff?  Unfortunately, the righteous question remains:  How dare we continue to play at being deaf, and prove our stupidity and arrogance, even if those attributes are the natural afterbirth of fear?  Fear is fueling our history of poor decisions, and our poor decisions are fueling the death power of these ecological man-made radiation disasters.  My brother-unit seems to recommend that we educate ourselves on what happened at the Fukushima nuclear power plant as well as what is happening at nuclear facilities around the world by staying abreast of this news via Energy News.

Hot off the presses at Energy News, by just minutes?

Radioactive cesium levels “never seen before” at Fukushima — New record as totals nearly double in under 24 hours — Officials admit ‘there may be a new leak’ — IAEA urging for ‘resumption’ of dumping contaminated water into ocean; ‘All options’ need to be considered...

The IAEA suggestions, by the way, are being roundly criticized, though I cannot discern, with what little I've read, what viable alternatives are being offered.  Here are, however, some of the reactions to the UN agency's proposals:

AFP, Feb. 13, 2014: Fukushima should eye ‘controlled discharges’ in sea: IAEA — The UN nuclear watchdog on Thursday urged Japan to consider “controlled discharges” into the sea of contaminated water used to cool the crippled reactors at Fukushima. [...] “This would require considering all options, including the possible resumption of controlled discharges to the sea.” [...] local fishermen, neighbouring countries and environmental groups all oppose the idea. [...] The agency also called for a careful assessment of the company’s plan to create a subterranean “freeze wall” to prevent radioactive groundwater from leaking into the ocean — an ongoing problem that has stoked fears about dangers posed to marine life and the food chain. [...]

Shanghai Daily, Feb. 13, 2014: TEPCO is still eyeing dumping toxic water into the Pacific Ocean as it fails to contain in makeshift storage tanks [...] a massive daily influx of water needed to cool the battered reactors, while nuclear experts believe that other methods need to be traversed before contaminating the ocean. Dumping radioactive water into the ocean is of grave concern to local fisheries cooperatives as the potential for radioactive materials to spread to marine life remains a distinct possibility, despite TEPCO’s assurances the levels of radioactivity will be kept well below the government’s and regulator’s limits. [...] Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) Chairman Shunichi Tanaka [...] said that even though three years has passed since the reactor meltdowns at the plant, TEPCO is still utterly inept when it comes to taking accurate readings of radioactivity [...] and “lacks a basic understanding of measuring and handling radiation.”

NHK, Feb. 14, 2014: IAEA: Consider discharging contaminated water — [The IAEA] advised [Tepco] to examine all options to treat contaminated water. These include resuming controlled discharges of radioactive water into the sea. [...] [IAEA's Juan Carlos Lentijo says] the situation remains very complex [...] the IAEA team believes it is necessary to find a sustainable solution to the problem of managing contaminated water at the plant. It says that this would require considering all options, including the possible resumption of controlled discharges to the sea.

Xinhua, Feb. 13, 2014: [TEPCO] said Thursday that samples of water tested contained radioactive cesium at levels never seen before by the embattled utility. TEPCO [is] admitting there may be a new leak at the site of a well located just 50 meters from the adjacent Pacific Ocean [...] The utility has failed to locate the source of the leak, in another major failing [...]

Tepco Handout, February 13, 2014: “The highest dose among the results previously announced” — 130,000 Bq/L of Cs-134, 137. Previous record set the day before at 76,000 Bq/L of Cs-134, 137.

I'm proud of my brother's voice joining with other activists' ways of speaking to the world.  But, as sisters do, I think his way of leading us to the information is gentler, and inspired.  (This is the part where I steal his post, all the while reminding you, Dearly Beloved Readers, that TW is its author, the artist who makes these beautiful collages of words, photography [his own], and subtle spell casting.  And maybe, right here, lost in all my verbiage, I can slip in how very much I cherish him, love him, and wish to sooth his brow.)

*************************************************************************

The mysterious manner in which this growing sense of unity commingles with a sense of utter goodness is worth noting. It arises by no effort of mine; rather does it come to me out of I know not where. Harmony appears gradually and flows through my whole being like music. An infinite tenderness takes possession of me, smoothing away the harsh cynicism which a reiterated experience of human ingratitude and human treachery has driven deeply into my temperament. I feel the fundamental benignity of Nature despite the apparent manifestation of ferocity.
Like the sounds of every instrument in an orchestra that is in tune, all things and all people seem to drop into the sweet relationship that subsists within the Great Mother's own heart.
--Paul Brunton
A Hermit in the Himalayas: The Journal of a Lonely Exile

************************************************************************

AMERICAN IDYLL  AMERICAN IDYLL AMERICAN IDYLL   AMERICAN IDYLL

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014

A Highway Of Diamonds With Nobody On It

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept dripping
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleeding
I saw a white ladder all covered with water

I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warning
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazing
Heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening

Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-going back out before the rain starts a-falling
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison

Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

IT HAS NOW BEEN 35 MONTHS SINCE THE WRETCHED DISASTER AT FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI OPEN-AIR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT BEGAN.
STAY INFORMED.

Idiot Wind: Kicking Back on a Saturday Night at Marlinspike Hall

It's one of those soft, breezy in-between seasons kind of nights, when the heart is wide open, the pupils large, taking in everything, understanding flowing like God's own soft sainted waters.  Makes you want to listen to that same sort of evocative, loving, welcoming feeling in a tune. So, of course, La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore being in charge of our turntable and the vinyl platters this evening, she went with the obvious, and chose the dulcet tones and subtleties of Dylan's greatest lullaby:  Idiot Wind.  She's dedicating it to anyone who needs a clue. Admittedly, she was aided in her musical choice by The Feline Triumvirate, who think that people who harm defenseless animals are not only idiots, but cowards, and probably, sociopaths.  They are feisty, our kitty crowd, and they never cease to speak truth to those-deluded-into-thinking-they-have-power.

If this introduction seems obscure to you, and even more odd than what you usually find here?  That's because I am really badmouthing a relative but using guile and subterfuge to get it done, see?  Now can we get back to pretending that this is just an average blog post and not more disappointment at the dysfunction of my genetic heritage?

No matter what, "Idiot Wind" is one of the Zimmer's best songs, a cutting edge turn of the blade that Sara never saw coming, I'm sure!  Blood on the Tracks, the album in which it first featured, was probably a total eye-opener for the lass. And if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the May 23, 1976 performance, at Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado, I hear that's especially well-delivered.  Not with snark... snark is easy, common... no, we're talking smooth and well-delivered, yes, but with lip-curling, lip-smacking snarl. Snarl is... real.

Just a rhetorical... something that the cats want translated from Cyrillic Felis Cactus  into Modern English:
Is anyone really shocked that someone who would rob the woman who gave him life -- rob her of dignity as well as of tangible means of support -- would then, like a cornered man-boobed boor, take the life of someone's pet by poison?  (Don't worry, I'll leave my reprobate relatives behind, just let the bile flow, for the bile must flow, and better here than than up and down the highways of my esophagus.)

Where the cats come up with these strange rhetoricals, we don't know.  But Marmy is sporting her wrap-around shades, Dobby is sharpening his nails, and Buddy is getting a rubdown, keeping it all very loose.  I've switched over to my Bond issue Power Chair, equipped with mini-hydrogen bombs chemically designed to target low-testosterone wimpy sorts.  Fred is in total chill mode.  He keeps pointing at The Castafiore's stiletto heels, recognized as weaponry by any thinking soul, and reminding me that we are also protected by the power of our next door neighbors, the Cistercians, an enlivened group these days, really loving Pope Francis, their new El Papa Francisco .  The tone, explained Abbot Truffatore to a community gathered for the monthly Communion Wine Tasting last evening, is new: "It's like we have permission to swing away, to go for justice, so long as we remember to yodel out, 'Hey, who are we to judge, eh?' after we sink in the rear naked choke. It's a new Liberation Theology."

We understand Abbot Truffatore about as much as we do the Feline Triumvirate, or Bianca on a bender, but since we love and trust them all, we're gathering our Bear Repellent and sanctifying our loins with readings from the Good Books.  I'm reading The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Fred is enjoying the Canterbury Tales, Bianca and Sven are reading different versions of Faust, and a couple of the Perpetual Postulants and the more enervated Saturday night escapees from the Novitiate seem to have Marvel Comics tucked inside their breviaries.

I'm in the "Man's Way" section of Book II, and it's Madame Gautier who is speaking to Jane Pittman. My eyes just landed on her version of "Idiot Wind":

That's man's way. To prove something. Day in, day out he must prove he is a man. Poor Fool.

Being snarky (not snarly), I rapid-fired Fred to give me a version of "Idiot Wind" from Chaucer. He's feeling much better, by the way, and responded first with a very sexy eyebrow raise.  Then, without letting more than a second pass, he channeled the perfect 14th century zap of a verbal prat fall:

Then the Miller fell off his horse.

Ever equitable, I turned to Sven and my Dear Castafiore, noting that they were a bit more intertwined than separate authors might lead one to expect, and gave a polite cough.  "*Ack*-*Ack*," added Marmy Fluffy Butt, peering at this odd couple over her stern shades. "What," laughed Sven, "you want us to choose a passage from FAUST to encapsulate 'Idiot Wind'!  No offense, dear Prof, but don't you think that's rather... stupid?"

He had a point. He also had Goethe.  I gave Bianca the Hairy Eyeball, and she promptly stood, hoisted her bust with firmly crossed arms, and belted out you-know-what -- Gounod's precious Jewel Song.  At which point Marmy turned it over to Dylan and we all enjoyed a cold beverage.  And so it was that a soprano's "Ah ! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir..." seamlessly married with Dylan's adenoidal "Someone's got it in for me..."

I couldn't help but laugh.  Always, at moments of such intersection, I hear our gruff benefactor, Captain Haddock, crying out from the wild sea:  "She's in fine voice tonight."

The little monks, still treating their stinging baby tonsures with gentle baths of Witch Hazel, were spared quoting from their comic books, as they were saved by the bells marking the beginning of the Great Silence*.  Brother Fratulence grinned at me and waved a copy of The Hulk.

Don't let this domestic scene of Marlinspike Hall at play on a Saturday night reassure you that all anger at senseless murderous rage has been set aside.  Don't be an idiot, babe.

Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out quick but when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can't help it if I'm lucky.

People see me all the time and they just can't remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts
Even you yesterday you had to ask me where it was at
I couldn't believe after all these years you didn't know even me better than that
Sweet lady.

Idiot wind blowing every time your move your mouth
Blowing down the backroads heading south
Idiot wind blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I ran into the fortune-teller who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quit for so long I can't remember what it's like
There's a lone soldier on the cross smoke pouring out of a boxcar door
You didn't know it you didn't think it could be done in the final end he won the wars
After losing every battle.

I woke up on the roadside daydreaming about the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are making me see stars
You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies
One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzing around your eyes
Blood on your saddle.

Idiot wind blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart
Now everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad what's bad is good you'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom.I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed your eyes don't look
Into mine
The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone faced while the
Building burned
I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees while the
Springtime turned
Slowly into autumn.

Idiot wind blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind blowing every time you move you teeth
You're an idiot babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

I can't feel you anymore, I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door, I been wishing I was somebody else instead
Down the highway down the tracks down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars hounded by your memory
And all you raging glory.

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered not the pain I raise above
And I'll never know the same about you your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry.

Idiot wind blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

***  *******  ***          ***  *******  ***          ***  *******  ***

* When I used to step aside from life and go vacation in a nearby monastery (long before we moved to Tête de Hergé) twice a year, I had enough hubris to replicate the monks' hours, and kept the silences, etc. Wikipedia has an excellent tripartite explanation of the benefits of such silence -- which is far, far different from, say, the notion of "keeping quiet." Listed under the entry "Vow of Silence," are these saving graces:

• As an aid to the practice of good, for silence is kept with Man, in order to better to speak with God, because an unguarded tongue dissipates the soul, rendering the mind almost, if not quite, incapable of prayer. The mere abstaining from speech, without this purpose, would be the "idle silence" which St. Ambrose so strongly condemns.
• As a preventative of evil. Seneca, quoted by Thomas à Kempis, complains that "As often as I have been amongst men, I have returned less a man" (Imitation, Book I, c. 20).
• The practice of silence involves much self-denial and restraint, and is therefore a wholesome penance, and as such is needed by all

I bring this up, of course, because this is the type of post, the type of speech, that is so raucous that one needs to accept that old and dear invitation:  "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."  [Read:  "and shut up that noisy mouth and mind..."]

Loving on American Idyll

Sometimes my Brother-Units fill me with awe, sometimes with a seemingly long-awaited nod of the head, sometimes both.

Both, as in TW's recent post at American Idyll: I Must Go Where It's Quiet.

I've thought of his offerings there as collage, pastiche, satire, tour à tour.  To create, to decorate, to commentate, to put all in question, sometimes to scream, sometimes to laugh, I love watching what he does there (and ruuscal, too!).

But this one... yeah, big nods to Dylan, thank you to Joan, appropriate recollections of their story, a few wonderings about this convergence and that... but mostly, this, to me, is TW.

Here, as a temptation, is one of his photos from this post -- stolen.  I didn't ask permission.  It's his, and it might be him in it, I dunno.  Or her.  A pilgrim.  Go now and enjoy the rest -- don't do as I did and steal.


"the sky is embarrassed
and I must be gone..."

PILGRIM ABOVE HERMIT CANYON by Tumbleweed, Beloved Purveyor of Idylls

Since I am for some despicable reason so overwrought this day, I hope the American Idyll team won't mind me swiping a few pics of the feline Poncho.  Poncho reminds me, like a punch in the stomach and a tweak of the cheek, of our dear Little Boy, better known as Uncle Kitty Big Balls.  It's uncanny -- sometimes more in the attitude than in appearance, sometimes I actually have to look twice.  We miss Little Boy, and my dear Sam-I-Am's loss is palpable as the anniversary of euthanizing him arrives.  He was my Love Buddy.  I got more (and better!) kisses from Sammy than from any man I ever smooched.  But he did get a slightly unnerving ardor in the eyes that made you know Sammy was more Casanova than gigolo.  Discrete, but whoa... a true lover.  Smooches to you out there, my Sammy.

Uncle Kitty Big Balls was truly Fred's boy -- they were pals.  "They" were the reason I realized recently that naming Buddy "Buddy" was a huge error on my part.  UKBB was Fred's "buddy," and answered to it.

Anyway, the history of how we ended up with Marmy Fluffy Butt, Uncle Kitty Big Ball's sister, who gave birth to Dobby... it's fascinating reading and THIS POST sums it up as well as I can sum up any darned thing.

Here's ruuscal and TW's Poncho, the cutie pie who oozes soul:

Poncho by ruuscal

Poncho by ruuscal, at American Idyll -- check out those beautiful eyes...

Driving Around With No Pants On

If I try to direct blog traffic away from elle::est::belle:la:seine:la:seine:elle::est::belle and toward something I find noteworthy, there aren't going to be any resultant traffic jams.  Still, from time to time I fall in love with a blog that appeared out of the blue, some place I landed by accident on one of my crazy-ass searches.

Like:  How can I apply Bob Dylan's The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll in a way to express my contempt for the Weeper of the House, John "Crybaby" Boehner?





Like:  Cure for moat algae infestation, kind of a muted aubergine with bright red moving specks.  That won't harm the finish on The Captain's submarine.


Like:  naked women xxx  [My blog usually turns up on the first or second page of a Google search using these terms.  Also, if you plug in "red," and do a Google image search, my use of a very red graphic is now featured toward the top of page two.  It was used to illustrate a very important post that culminated in a group sing-along of De colores.  Funny, Fred and I were just a-warblin' away, putting our unusual vocal stylings all over that perky classic the other night.  It's the only song besides  I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night that he and the Militant Lesbian Feminist Existentialists can agree is appropriate music for Sunday services.]


Umm.  I've been awake for a long time now.  Going on 40 hours.  Okay, I took two naps totalling 1.5 hours 
-- both were achieved by judicious overdose.  I share this information because of how dangerous it is to start talking about blog discoveries and being ostentatious enough to start giving recommendations.


Yeah, well, whose blog is it, anyway? 


But, please, Lord, don't let all 51 of my subscribers** rush over to New Nurse in the Hood's place, just because an insomniac in a ShitFest of Pain recommends it -- lest the internet tip over.

** Plus the naked women xxx crowd from Israel, Dubai, Wisconsin, and Tajikistan [plus virtually all of the former Soviet Socialist Republics and every nationalized islamic society].

I ran into her as most of us run into new people in the blogosphere (it being such a small and cozy place 'n all):  via one of her comments.  She exuded Good Snark.  She made me laugh out loud, and I like that.

Why read ER blogs at all if you are not in the health care profession?  I am health-obsessed, obviously, as I don't have any.  But aside from that, they serve as an excellent reminder of two things:
1.  These are intelligent, spirited people with unique insights into what makes people do, say, and think the things that they do, say, and think.  If the nurse/doctor/tech writes well, also, that's just a dandy combination of talent that shouldn't be ignored.
2.  When I am considering going to the ER, I only need to spend 5 minutes on an ER blog for complete dissuasion of the notion.  I figure medical bloggers have done more to keep me out of the hospital and emergency department (nod to WhiteCoat***) than the combined efforts of the best medical team in the world and the complete ingested products of Big Pharma.

***See the end of this post by Nurse K for an explanation of ER versus ED.  And yes, I DO see similarities between "New Nurse" and the inimitable Nurse K... but I also see more soul and less asking-readers-for-money to buy a freaking refrigerator (or *whatever*).  I'm just sayin'.

Honestly picked at random from my Google Reader is this piece, from July 31:

I Just Had to Know
So, after a couple of years working in the ER I for the most part have learned to stop asking why. Why? Because what does it really matter, most of the time?
Why did you insert that particular object in that particular place? Does the answer make a difference as to how you remove it? Why did you continue to eat sloppy joes after you had been vomiting? Is there a good answer to this question? Why did you choose to get on the roof to get drunk? It doesn't really change the big ass head laceration at this point, so what the hell do I care?
Yup, now I'm like, "Oh, the old flashlight in the butthole, eh? Cool. Well, let's get that taken out for you. Next please."
Until tonight, when we got the drunk driver found in the car by EMS wearing a shirt, but no pants. We're clearing him from the backboard and without even thinking, I just blurted out, "What happened to your pants, bro?" Everyone in the room started laughing hysterically, because they all know, as I do, that it's pointless to ask- they all thought I was just screwing with the dude. But no, I was just really curious what was going on that he was driving around with no pants on. But alas, there was not a good answer.
Oh well.

So go visit.  You'll bust a gut.  And probably end up in the ER.  Uhh, ED.  Whatever.

Always remember and never forget:

"If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good." 

— Dr. Seuss

Man, I sure am using "Google" at the drop of a hat.  Hmm.  I wonder if that could be because I am scared of losing my current 27% profit on GOOG come Monday at about, ohhhh,  9.31 am, Wall Street time?  Ya think?

"Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."

Believe it or not -- and, likely, you do not, given my latest postings -- I don't think that videos and photos are sufficient to a blog.

Fred sent me a link to this YouTube video last night. Neither one of us can figure why we had never heard of this... event -- before. Late to the party and irrelevant, I nonetheless found myself belatedly typing away as if something might depend on it beyond my own sanity, outrage, and sadness.

This is a remarkable piece of footage that chills the soul. Knee-jerk leftist-leaning liberal that I am -- because real socialism is not available in a ready mix formula here in the states -- I respect the authority of police and believe, à la Anne Frank, that "(d)espite everything... people are really good at heart."

Usually, tossing in a laden quote from such a heavy source as Anne Frank translates as nothing short of cheesy -- and mightily lazy.

But I think I can pull it off here. The "ceremon(ies) of innocence" are so well documented, by the diary, by surveillance film, that assignations of guilt and innocence should be rote and incontestable.

Thesaurus.com claims these synonyms for incontestable: hard, inarguable, incontrovertible, indisputable, indubitable, irrefutable, positive, sure, unassailable, undeniable, unquestionable.

And yet, in both cases, all we really know is that the principles are dead -- and only in rereading do I see the double entendre, that ethical rigor is as much absent to these situations as mercy or justice, individuated or girded by systemic approbation.

Oh, big words, grand thoughts.

In this video, Michael Pleasance is murdered by police officer Alvin Weems.

When I read about the ensuing cover up, scary in its extent and practiced nature, I found myself humming Dylan's Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. (Really! Not a song I normally reference, it had been recently in mind due to the title of my post about Evan Tanner.) Most of the lyrics, I remembered, but not the all important last strophe wherein William Zantzinger faces the judge and is sentenced to six months for Carroll's murder.

When so much has gone so wrong, we all would like to be able to isolate the blame and forget that an ultimate necessitates a penultimate. When so much has gone so wrong, we forget that no event is discrete.

You who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears,

Bury the rag deep in your face,

For now's the time for your tears.