Once, Every Blue Moon

Revelry.

Revelry like no one has ever seen or heard.

The smaller, and therefore quicker creatures are the first into the clearing. They run and dance, squealing as the exact moment has finally arrived.

Fur and feather gleam in the twilight, and what little light is there on its own reflects back from the creatures 10 fold. The more animals that arrive, the brighter it is.

There are no predators. It isn't that they do not show up, but they put their less admirable, creature-eating habits aside for the sake of the evening, and lion and lamb dance side by side.

Some of the animals play flutes and horns, and others (with prehensile digits) strum. Of course, their instruments are conceived from rocks and roots, and wouldn't sound very nice to us at all... but then again it is the ear of the listener that determines the true beauty of music, and what ears these are!

There is no food, only music and dancing. (I can assure you; If there were food, it would be very tasty. However, everybody just forgets to think about eating for the whole bit. This, I suppose, is a good thing. Most animal-time is spent worrying for food, and it is not as pleasant as with people. It is, as I stated, a worry.)

As the animals shine brighter, their stripes and spots are drowned out, and they become indistinguishable from one another.

Granted, you see all of the animals and know them quite clearly, just not which is which.

If I were to look at an alligator, a bunny, and a chicken all holding hands and dancing in a circle, I would be quite certain that I was looking at an alligator, a bunny, and a chicken... but not quite certain on the matter of which one was which... or where one ended and the other began.

Dear Cristin,

I'm awfully and terribly sorry I ran into you last night.
They really were very nice teeth.
Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
-Kyle ... (ph. #)

PS-- If I could go back in time, I would trade places so that I would have to have the root canals and brown teeth.

This just happened...

Chase,

You know how we are.
You'll say one thing, I'll say another.

You make this threat, I make that one...

Well...

I got your colorful message in my voicemail, a brief moment ago, and it touched me. Something deep down inside of me was moved.

...to kill you.

But, being as far away from you as I am, I settled on writing you a nasty facebook message.

Now, I need to take a moment and explain something... When I find a neat website, or have an idea that I want to remember, I generally login to gmail, paste the idea or web address in an email, jot my own name into the "To:" box, and send my idea to myself for later reading...

In my haste to slander you this evening, and out of this habit I've formed through gmail, I typed my own name into facebook's "To:" box this evening...

Which wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, except that one day, years ago, I searched my own name on facebook and friended some other guy who has my name and whom I've never met before...

Well, needless to say, I just sent the following message to a complete stranger:

*begin message*

I have a key to your house.
I'll touch your stuff whenever I want.


Make sure your books are upright.

*end message*

Do all your shopping... at Wal-Mart!

NPR's This American Life just ran a segment on a study by two researchers named Komar and Melamid on which aspects of music people loved the most. From their results, they were able to produce a song that would be statistically likely to be liked by atleast 72 +/- 12% of all people (a love song. low tonality. a black woman's voice).

Well.

They also composed the statistically WORST song!!

Including content about:
obscure holidays. cowboy music. walmart. oh, and the national anthem.

as well as:
tubas. opera. banjos. rapping. children singing. bagpipes.

At one point, a kid yells unlikeable words through a megaphone, and I think I heard "Two party system!" and "George Stephenopoulos!" in there.

Hahahahahahahaha!!

so here it is:

http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/komar_melamid/KomarMelamid_The-Most-UnwantedSong.mp3

My favorite part of it all are the segments on: Ramadan, Labor Day, and Yom Kippur.

There's an article about it here:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/a-scientific-at.html

Zing!

Preface:
(1) I work with silicon, we call these things I work with "wafers".
(2) I have to work with them in a clean room or they don't work.
(3) A "Von Neumann machine" is a theoretical machine that makes copies of itself. Yeah. Think about that.

David: "Too bad you can't work on wafers at home"
Me: "Nilla wafers, maybe"
David: "You should create a nilla wafer capable of manufacturing copies of itself"
Me: "You mean a Von Nilla machine?"

Set aaand spike.

Poet's Death...

He was an American treasure.
"Dog's Death", by: John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog!
Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

The passing of an era, the ending of an age...

Kids are chumps for video games. They'll give up their younger brother or sister for an early release of the new Starcraft sequel or the next patch in World of Warcraft, and some adults will, too.

I've been wondering for many a year when my time would come, when I would reach that fateful day when I realized "I'm not into video games".  (I swore to myself I would be a gamer all my life, into full adulthood, so I could play with my children one day)

While my loftier thoughts would admit that the form of narrative changes from culture to culture, I seem to be having trouble getting past this:



It's over.

I like to believe that it was all worth it, that either I'm a better driver with enhanced motor skills or that I have more improved peripheral vision than the non-gaming population.

I don't think I'm entirely empty-handed... it was a sweet ride and the stories I experienced served to set my moral compass in a way that is mine and mine only, but the ride is over, chief.