Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Meantime

OK. So. I'm back from vacation. Again. I have some stories to tell, and some photographs to share. I will do that. Soon. Soonish. I am, happily, still very busy with unpacking and hoops and D-Day festivities. I just learned last night, via the John Tesh radio show, that National Womens' Feel Good About The Way You Look Day (or something) falls on the same date as D-Day. I wonder what the heroes of Normandy would have to say about that. Did they storm that fortified beach to defend the freedom of curvaceous American females? Kind of.

There are lots of things for you to look at in this waiting room.

While in the too-cold Denver airport, I read Chuck Klosterman's article in the new Esquire, a thinkpiece about radio. He explains the "magic" of radio, which turns out to be the same quality that pushes us toward shuffle mode on our digital audio players:
For a variety of reasons -- some technological, but most intangible -- the experience of hearing a certain song at a random moment in an undefined place is infinitely more evocative than hearing that same song by choice. There are countless songs I would never consciously play in my house but always enjoy on the radio.


To my amazement, his archived Esquire pieces are available online, including a piece on our obsession with pirates:
In his book Under the Black Flag, pirate expert David Cordingly describes the bizarre buccaneer torture practice of slashing a prisoner's stomach, extracting one end of an intestine, nailing it to a post, and then forcing the victim to "dance to his death" by beating his ass with a burning log. This strikes me as wildly unnecessary.


Klosterman's also written a newly published piece for ESPN's Page 2, which is not great, but it does include some trademark wit:
There are some historical lessons that almost always prove true: Don't wage a ground war on two fronts. Don't impulsively buy a speedboat or a racehorse. Don't ask a woman who loves Tori Amos to tell you about her dreams. And do not stage professional football in spring.



There was a headline on Yahoo recently: "Italian doctor builds new, more natural vagina". Finally, right? Am I right, fellas? I haven't read that article yet. Maybe a reader would like to summarize it for me.


I feel like I should have known all of the Bo Jackson legends lovingly recapped by the KC Star a few weeks ago, but I have little recollection of Bo.


I finished reading In Cold Blood while in Oregon. The best sentence:
He had merely fallen face down across the bed, as though sleep were a weapon that had struck him from behind.


Finally, Paul and I discussed important news last week:

--- dn wrote:

Bad idea, or terrible idea?
http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/poison/1539925/album.jhtml

--- Paul wrote:

That's an easy one. Terrible idea. Actually, it's beyond terrible. Can C.C. Deville even play the guitar well enough to pull off some of these songs?

What's your vote for what the worst song on the CD will be? I have to go with "Suffragette City". Being a huge Bowie fan, if I ever hear this cover, it may completely ruin the song for me completely. It's really a rare accomplishment for a cover version to have such destructive potential. So, kudos to Bret and the boys for that.

--- dn wrote:

Speaking of Bowie covers, I downloaded Of Montreal's version of "Suffragette City" the other day, and it's pretty good. Pretty faithful cover.

My vote for the best cover is "Just What I Needed". Poison should be able to handle The Cars' power pop. But The Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers"? That's practically a country-western song. What made them think that they could pull that off? Oh, right. The drugs.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always prefer shuffle on my iPod. So much, in fact, that I'm still upset with myself for not investing in the much cheaper and cuter iPod Shuffle. It doesn't even have a screen!

I read Under the Black Flag while doing research for the shelved Pirates of the Potomac screenplay. You can borrow it sometime if you'd like. It's very interesting. For instance, homosexuality was commonplace on pirate ships! Gay sailors? Now I've seen everything!

If Poison can't do country/western, then what the hell is "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"?

- Floyd

Anonymous said...

In your request for perfect vagina summaries... It turns out it's not as exciting (no pun intended) as it first seems. Well, it's pretty exciting for the women I suppose. This guy basically creates vaginas for women who don't have them by, er, growing them...

Does this mean the guy will have his very own "signature" vagina?

Imagine being able to pick your own...

dn said...

You can pick your friends.

And you can pick your vagina.

But you can't pick your friend's vagina.

dn said...

Oh and Floyd, "Every Rose has its Thorn" is good, but it's only good considering it's Poison.

Anonymous said...

alyssa's grandmother was the neice of the clutter family. her dad spent every thanksgiving there until he was 8 or until the entire family was brutally murdered, whichever came first.

pat

Anonymous said...

haha! Genius... I shall remember those pearls of wisdom :-p

Anonymous said...

Vagina article of note:
1. Mucosal tissue is found inside the vagina, the mouth and elsewhere in the body and has important attributes distinct from ordinary skin.

--> That explains the whole "can I stick this in your mouth?" question.

2. Mayer-Von Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, or MRKHS: Girls with the syndrome are born with no vagina. The patient often has a normal uterus, ovaries and external secondary sexual organs such as breasts, but cannot have sexual intercourse or give birth.

--> How can they give all this detail about what they gots and what they don't gots and fail to mention the clitoris? What about it? Do they have one or not? It's important, for chrissakes! I don't want to believe that it is an external secondary organ. Is it? Children shmildren, what about orgasms?