Prisstopolis

Ukulele Report

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:09:00 +0000

It is day three of my ukulele adventure. I can now play "Tom Dooley" and can sort of take a stab at "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Also I know how to tune the instrument, a pretty essential component of getting a song to sound recognizable.

PHEAR MY MAD UKE SKILLZ

Petrol in, petrol out

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:24:00 +0000

I'm sitting in the Wayward Coffee House. Just outside is the Greenwood car show. More than a thousand cars parked diagonally along sides of the road, spectators walking among them. Earlier today, Smiley and I caught the last few minutes of a MoveOn.org rally for safer oil drilling. One hundred people rebuking pollution at the beach, thousands a few miles inland celebrating an industry that demands the causes of that pollution. And I love cars too. I was especially drawn to the Jaguars,and a Chrysler similar to the 1956 model I remember that my dad used to have. So many models I remembered, like the station wagons that carpool moms used to drive. Some really strange things too, a car made by Messerschmitt. It was low like a go-cart, with two seats in single file. There were even a few electric cars, and one had a sign explaining about plans to convert it to battery.

Alejandro allay-allay-hand row

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:00:00 +0000

I love the Alejandro song by Lady Gaga. But I don't like the costumes and historical references in the new video. Pop culture has to try really hard to be fresh and challenging, you know, "edgy". I want my music to be fun, and not creepy. Obviously, anything that attracts comments is a success of a sort, so panning it here may be viewed as adding to the publicity.

Most of her fans are SO GAGA over everything that she's done, that they will love future product unconditionally. That would have described me up until now, I love all of her music.

To sum up:

Jackboots and nuns in red latex? Meh.

And if you escalate to evisceration and vivisection, I'm outta here.

Maddy Rations

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:48:00 +0000

Get me bagels. But not blueberry. Any kind of bagels but blueberry.

I think that you should make me a shopping list of what you would like to eat.

And it needs a graphic symbol. A picture of a bagel in a circle with a red line through it. And don't forget to draw little blue dots.

Post Game

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sat, 01 May 2010 17:36:00 +0000

I tried out game night at a Capital Hill store last night. The sign-up list showed 5 women were planning to attend, But only one other showed up, and she left before playing started. So it was me and 9 geeky guys. Not the worst thing in the world. Posting for posterity, because who knows when this will happen again: I won two games that I had never played before. They were called Tuvalu and Astro(something).

In raw food news, I have 25 pounds of tomatoes. I went shopping with mangoes in mind, but the ways of the Jedi Market are unpredictable. You never know what will be abundant and in good shape. Eating some now with cucumber and green onion.

Charoset

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:30:00 +0000

I have my daughter mincing apples. She keeps stopping to ask if the pieces are small enough yet. It takes a long time to mince the ingredients enough.

Will I have to do this again?

Yes, every year. Also tomorrow.

I have to do this tomorrow?

Don't worry, it will get easier after you learn to use the food processor.

I could have used the food processor??? Why didn't you tell me that?

You need to have the complete charoset-making experience, grasshopper.

Haven't you seen that show?

Is that from a show? What show is it from?

The Green Grasshopper Hour.

Portal to Heck!

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:17:00 +0000

I finished reading "Memoirs of Hecate County," by Edmund Wilson. Add a middle initial of "O" and you would have the name of a 20th century evolutionary biologist, but that would be an entirely different writer. I arrived at this book circuitously. The "Pet Shop Boys" have a song that includes the phrase "Finland Station" which google and wikipedia tell me is the name of a book about the precursors of the cold war. Without being clear on whether "Finland" was fiction or non fiction, I looked for it in a bookstore, and settled for "Hecate County", a collection of interconnected short stories, by the same author.

The writing style was very American. It reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. There is a first person narrator who alternates casual straightforward discussion of everyday life with concern that perilous supernatural forces may be at work, because what other reason could there be for the loneliness and ennui affecting everyone in his life. "Ellen Terhune" was the most Poe-like of the bunch. Our narrator stops by to see the title character and finds her sometimes his contemporary, sometimes herself at a younger age, and then, personifying one of her ancestors. The other stories don't rely on the fantastic, even the last one "Mr. and Mrs. Blackburn at Home" where he meets someone who may well be the devil, leaves plenty of room to think that he imagined it after a few too many drinks.

I found a note online erroneously claiming that "Hecate County" contained whole passages in Russian. This seems to refer to the "Blackburn" story which has one word with the Russian suffix "ka" and then a footnote to discuss why. What it does have is extensive use of of French. This starts slowly, a word or a phrase dropped into the English sentences. I muddled through this, not really seeing that it added anything to the story. In between, he comments in English on what was said, or on whether the style of French was sophisticated or provincial or old fashioned. As the sentences stretched out into paragraphs and then multiple pages, I started flipping them over to see where it ended. An afterword written by the author John Updike confessed that he hadn't read all of the French either.

"The Milhollands" story discussed the publishing industry. It showed how publishers began to use book clubs and newsletters to promote their products, and bemoaned the fact that what gets printed, and even what sells, may have minimal content. Ironically, the plot kind of fell apart in this one. I was expecting a snappy ending that never materialized.

"The Princess With the Golden Hair" seems to have attracted the most attention of the critics. Our hero is infatuated with a delicate damsel who lives in a castle-like home in the country. She flirts and he fantasizes that she can't possibly love her husband. He reluctantly admits to himself that as a writer and an art critic, he can't afford the kind of estate where some of his fellow Hecaters entertain, and that this diminishes his marriage potential. While spending the winter in New York city, our hero meets a dance-hall hostess who becomes the unacknowledged princess in his life. Her accessibility at first doesn't seem romantic, and her family life is frightening, but he finds himself growing very attached. Their class differences scare him. He runs back to the original damsel in the story, to find that while lovely, she is hopelessly neurotic, and firmly in love with her husband.

The New York Times published a scathing review in 1946. http://www.nytimes.com/1946/03/07/books/wilson-hecate.html

In the Na'vi

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:53:00 +0000

Where can you ride dragons?
Drink out of crude flagons
Flick your ears and swish your tail?
Bare but for scant feathers figleafing your nethers
Scamper over hill and dale
Where can you talk to trees?
And learn to dodge banshees
Brush up on your archery?
Ride a pa'li horse
And find your inner source
When you're one of the Na'vi

In the Na'vi
Yes, you can live among the stars
First the lab phase
Scientists grow you in a jar
In the Na'vi
You're there, your body is afar
In the Na'vi In the Na'vi
YOU CAN BE AN AVATAR!
In the Na'vi
Use your dendrite ponytail
In the Na'vi
To communicate with quail
In the Na'vi
YOU CAN BE AN AVATAR!
In the Na'vi In the Na'vi In the Na'vi (In the Na'vi)

They are blue, they are blue
They are blue and you can be too!

Trade in your transformers
Flying tanks and robots
And smart alec milit'ry crew
For some body paint
Tree climbing 'til you're faint
And maybe some cliff diving too
Hear as evening falls
The distant caterwauls
Of Nantang wolves but have no fear
Gathered 'round the fire
A Na'vi spirit choir
Emanates notes of a seer

In the Na'vi
Yes, you can live among the stars
First the lab phase
Scientists grow you in a jar
In the Na'vi
you're there, your body is afar
In the Na'vi In the Na'vi
You can be an avatar!
In the Na'vi
Use your dendrite ponytail
In the Na'vi
To communicate with quail
In the Na'vi
You can be an avatar!
In the Na'vi In the Na'vi In the Na'vi (In the Na'vi)

Community Chest

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:50:00 +0000

Vampires at the Lake

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 06:27:00 +0000

I wore a cape. The sun was still up, and I wanted to wear a hat, but Maddy was certain that Vampires have uncovered, long flowing hair. Image google "vampire" - none were wearing hats. image google "vampire hat" they were in top hats or fedoras. Fully equipped, I sallied forth.

Aurora Avenue, there was something metal that could have been a shell casing in the gutter. A rehab computer store looked interesting, but the curtain was about to go up. Live performance at Green Lake with teenage actors playing whiny high schoolers, the undead, and reveling in playing pompous teachers and parents.

Vampire Story begins with two young women planning what they will say about their histories when they arrive in a new town. One will go to school, the other one, as her older sister will get a job as a cocktail waitress. The student tells her Drama class that she has been alive for 200 years, beginning life in a French orphanage. She later writes more about it in the form of a play, adding period costumes, a mother who ran a brothel, and hinting at how becoming vampires was the only way that they could have survived. Her classmates vacillate between believing her stories and wondering if she is crazy. Some begin to fear her, as other characters are found to be missing, or die unexpectedly. There was never a concrete resolution which which side the playwright wanted the audience to come down on. The story seemed to change with the retelling, was it an orphanage or boarding school, in France or in England? But that difference could have been due to tailoring the story to her audience. And what of the opening scene where names and ages are recited and memorized? That could have been the formation of a cover story, or it could have been the more responsible character preparing the confused younger one to appear sane, even if she had to fake it.

Hilarious ask the cast session afterwards with a little kid asking one of the actors if he felt uncomfortable with some of the physical closeness in one of the scenes. It mirrored a spot in the play, where the kids were asking the new students about their lives, and the teacher was ruling most of the questions inappropriate.

I stepped outside at intermission to see a huge crowd of bicyclists. They were Critical Mass, escorted by two police officers on bikes, and tailed by police cars, even though this was a trail and not a road. The director spoke to a few cyclers because if they stayed there when the play resumed, they would be heard inside the theater. Someone announced a street corner a block away where they would reconvene, and they mounted up.

Pepe's cousin

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:01:00 +0000

Close encounter with a skunk this morning. I was exploring a cul de sac and Sophie-Pup took an insistent run at a small cedar. Under it was a small, wide-tailed black and white creature. I'm positive that it wasn't a cat, because the Sophster regards cats neither as rivals as she does other dogs, nor as food as she does thrushes, ravens, and squirrels. We got surprisingly close, but fortunately the leash ran out before she could touch it.   All parties left the scene in as sweet-smelling a state as they entered it.  Whew.

Yo-yo, walking the dog

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:18:00 +0000

A pug beagle mix is the newest adventure in my life. After a few May and June mini-hikes on weekends, I wanted to add more exercise the rest of the week. Tuesday night, Maddy's boyfriend Jiff came over. I fed the two teens hot dogs, and we watched "Notting Hill", a bland romantic comedy. Jiff's mom has a dog that doesn't get to go for walks very often, and suddenly, despite my complete inexperience with canines, I felt an inspiration: I could walk Hilda's dog!

Hilda was surprised that i wanted to, and was happy to have it done, yet irritated that it would involve answering the door early in the morning. I took Jiff along in case I needed a technical consult, and my daughter Maddy accompanied us to make sure that we didn't talk about her. (As if the two people who know her best could have anything more to discover.)

When we arrived, Hilda didn't clip the leash on all of the way, and Sophie-Pup escaped between our legs and out of the front door. Jiff raced after her, but he slipped and skinned his arm on the driveway, allowing her a head start that took three blocks to overcome. Maddy and I met him halfway as he was carrying her back, and he clipped the leash on, then handed her over to me. We walked a scant mile, and it all went well, despite her almost constant muscular pulling and testing. A very short length seemed to work best, with occasional pauses to calm down before continuing. -- Maddy was horrified by the pooper scooping obligation.

Thursday and Friday I tackled it on my own. Walked farther, and faster, and talked to other ladies with pooches in the park. Today I got to see duckings, and a graceful blue heron. Sohie-Pup wanted to swim out to them, but I didn't allow it.

Orgone Energy

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:22:00 +0000

Last weekend I went on a jaunt to Central Point Oregon. My daughter would insist on calling it a "road trip". She perceives neither the redundancy nor the hippie, sixties --as opposed to a drug "trip"-- implications of that bit of folksiness.

For the last month the buzz from my fellow Healthfoodians had been

Or-e-gon, oregon

and

Ya goin'?

My response had been: Ashland is far away, and camping implies mosquitos. I hadn't even considered the olfactory implications of porta-potty perdition. As the date grew closer, my buddy Dianne offered me a ride, and said that she already had a room reserved; a room, not camping. It all started to sound a little better. D's husband had been planning to go, but he's not manically obsessed with all that is raw and vegan and counting coconuts one by one, so he was thrilled to stay at home and not need to hire babysitters for their pets as long as D had company on the drive.

I swam in the mornings and then went to lectures about coconuts and raw pastry-making. There was a film about conscious birth and conception, and a workshop on growing your own oyster mushrooms. There were a couple of two-hour talks by David Wolf. Both times the schedule keeper eventually cut him off. He still had more to say. I met a few people from my online world, and, as most of you will probably know from your own experiences: they walk and talk EXACTLY the way that they type. It was a meeting of big personalities, where everyone had a chance to strut their stuff as celebrities of varying degree.

Mushroom cultivation overlapped with RawFu in the schedule, so I walked in after Fu started. "Oh My God, it's Bunny Berry!" "OMG, it's Priss!" Trooper Bunny handled my interruption with grace, and got back to her focus on self-acceptance and smoothies, even if you live in the deep-fried South.

Of course I took pictures.

Rock formation near Medford OR.

Local flora

With my roommate Dianne

David Wolf and I are like this.

OMG, Bunny Berry irl.

Sexy Exhibitionist Guys at the Reggae Concert

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:09:00 +0000

Bob Marley on his shoulder?

Perma-Stickers!

Nice smile, wanna dance?

Contents Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:27:00 +0000

What WAS the true nature of the schmutz ornamenting my bedroom window?

Bird excrement? Unlikely. It originated on a cold night in a vicious thunderstorm. What kind of a birdbrain would go out in that kind of weather? If someone tells you: "The dyspepsic bird flies at night." They are probably testing to see if you give the countersign. You know, because you are their spy versus spy contact. I suggest turning tail and skipping away unless you are willing to accept the plans to the doomsday device and ferry them to the next cell in the chain.

In addition to the rain and the lightning, I could hear the upstairs neighbors shuffling around, while they are usually comatose.

Now, turning to the actual substance which was yellow-brown, waxy, hard to scrape off, and smelled disgusting-

A day sunny enough to take the screen off and clean the outside of the window is what brought on my encounter with unpleasant organic matter-

Vinegar and detergent and a nylon sponge, and a plastic straight-edge were employed to ultimately successfully remove-

What looks to be upstairs condo vomit.

Space, the year 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:26:00 +0000

"I have extensive aural sensitivities."

That's what Uhura said as a bid to move to flagship crew from entry-level raw cadet. "Raw" in the sense of being new and untested. It is rare for a Starfleet officers to experience trial by fire. The Trek movie opened yesterday. It was all over the region, but I had to see it in Gig Harbor. Smiley drove, (Oh yes, there is a guy friend in my life now, who shall be known here in the Prissiverse as "Smiley")

Trek was better than I could have imagined. As a science fiction fan, I look for things that don't seem important to most movie-makers. Things like:

An actual plotline!

Characters that you can tell apart from each other!

Ridiculous accents!

This had it all. Plus the above-quoted double-entendre. There were also: a bar fight - for you guy on guy action fans, absolutely insane space images, incredible opening credits, and the now-obligatory trudging through the snow on an Alaskan planet, that SF dramatizations generally succumb to. By the end of the 2 hours and 7 minutes, I felt accepting of the new cast. It was great to see Nimoy back too. I missed Shatner. He would have been ideal for the ending voice-over.

New Pic with Zbig

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 01:03:00 +0000

Crocusoidal Maniac

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:25:00 +0000

Rahm bahm thank you mahm

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:26:00 +0000

I found this current editorial by the aged Fidel Castro courtesy of the Huffington Post. It fascinates me that he mentions Immanuel Kant, because I am currently reading "Writings on an Ethical Life" by Peter Singer. Singer adores Kant, but notes with stunned amazement that Kant was a believing Christian. The implication I derive, is that in Singer-world, heavy-hitters of philosophy should really be Atheist or Jewish. I tend to concur.

Getting back to the Castro article, it is literate, it is surreal, it is nonsensical. Yet it has a certain coherence. If Fidel hadn't been a Communist dictator, he could have been a Talmudist, or maybe a Depak Chopra style guru of everything. I am finding myself firmly in the Barbara Walters camp: Castro is a lot of fun.

Fidel calls his titular topic, Rahm Emanuel, "brilliant", and wants to stir up excitement because Emanuel was a warrior in a real war. Also, his mother has been a political activist. Why this is just like someone with a similar name, someone who has a revolutionary, vice president mother, a character in a book by a Cuban ambassador! Castro longs for charismatic, energetic leaders to emerge. Maybe an American, maybe someone with a vaguely hispanic surname. . . .

Dategirl and her readers of assorted gender just want to make out with Rahmmy-baby. Apparently they aren't the only ones.

Skirmish in the war to preserve roof integrity

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:17:00 +0000

Today I saw a squirrel skip merrily up the trunk of a Western Cedar. The tree had been outfitted with an aluminum collar. A two-foot wide swath of metal, lined with plastic, it had been placed there to prevent the fluffy-tailed rodents from climbing the trees, and then gaining access to the roof. The next counter-offensive may have to be the removal of all trees within squirrel-jumping distance of the building.

As it bounded over the useless defense mechanism, I could almost hear a victorious cry in the squirrel tongue:

I laugh at your anti squirrel technology!
All of your hazelnuts shall be mine.
Ta-ta, until we meet again.

Beware the non-dairy art of self defense

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:55:00 +0000

Some virus-infected rawfoodian must have breathed on me last weekend. The sneezing masqueraded as an allergic reaction to the plague of pet cats and dogs, but it was soon followed by a sore throat, and an all-over achiness swiftly ensued. I'm on the mend now. I'm still sniffling like crazy, but the every bone in my body hurts like crazy is diminishing by the hour. If anyone were to give me any trouble, my Kraft-Margerina skills would kick in unbidden, and the assailant would suffer instant flattenization.

Hallelujah

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Last night I went to a performance by a gospel music group. The most cynical definition of music is to regard it as a form of hypnosis. Religious belief and practice too, could be looked at as means of regulating crowd behavior, using the powerful tools of creeds, repetition, rhythm, behavior modeling, using up all of your waking moments . . .

These guys rocked!

I'm feeling some fusion inspiration. This can only lead to more lyrics.

LOL Luminati

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:21:00 +0000

I was asked if I could get here at 5 PM, so I got here at 4. Using public transportation got me to the street entrance a mile away from the banquet hall. One of the Looms kindly gave me a ride up the hill, but he was shocked when I told him the event I was here to attend is a party for President Obama.

"They're having THAT here?"
"Yes, they rented the clubhouse."

The thought that Democratic money spends just like any other kind, calmed the club-weilder, and he pointed out the entrance to the building.

Woo, the souvenir table isn't even set up yet, and someone already bought two custom-etched commemorative wineglasses.

Four-armed is an Indian Temple Sculpture

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:19:00 +0000

Two white grapefruits whirled in the blender, plus a quart of water went into a half-gallon jug that used to hold honey. Along with pears, an orange, celery sticks, and green tea bags, it is being packed along to protect me from any coffee and doughnut temptations during today's inaugural festivities. Sweater and jeans and Doc Martens for the AM, tank top and velvet skirt and Mary Janes for the PM. Look for me behind the laptop bearing the sticker " My other computer is a Cray."

Henry VIII on Ecstasy (LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE IN OUTER SPACE Episode 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Prisstopolis) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:35:00 +0000

Today on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE IN OUTER SPACE, Tom Lehrer guest stars as Henry the Eighth. As the new girl in town, Captain Laura is targeted to be his seventh wife, the first six having mysteriously perished. Tom reprises the "Silent E" song that he wrote for the Electric Company.

what can turn a nil into a nile
and turn mil into a mile
and do it all with style
and never appear vile
the grandiosity of silent e

tie-dye with rit
wear it to a rite
do zazen sit
post it on your site (that's right!)
all cybernetically with silent e

it's not that far
so compare your fare
go by car
or maybe by air (if you dare)

if you care how
you travel to there
there's informa
tion that you can share
take my dare and do your hair with silent e

some guys are fat
it may be their fate
try lifting weights, work out your lats -and don't be late
could a guy like dat (Henry VIII)
ever get a date?
sometimes even a mat, can have a mate!

they met at a bar
and soon they were bare
by a a horse-shaped crater
called the mar of mare
and then she escaped
to her prairie lair
more adventures were awaiting way out there

i kitty kat, plz to call me "kate"
hijacked this song, you'll just have to wait.
i'm in your parody
explorin' don't ya see
seekret felinity of silent e

lets have a spat, or maybe a spate
of cheeze burgers
and go roller skate
so many choices what goes on your plate
the cat in the hat's hat, like it or hate? (take my survey!)