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11:52 am
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... and you thought I got embarrassingly excited over Baycon
**silly sing-song cadence**
I'm going to Con-ver-gence!
I'm going to Con-ver-gence!
**/silly sing-song cadence**
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06:36 pm
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St. Ann's Avenue REPRESENT!
Here's a story about two young ladies voted "best couple" by their South Bronx high school graduating class.
Never lived in Mott Haven, but certainly spent time there. I used to have family all over the South and East Bronx.
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07:59 am
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There certainly are a lot of helicopters over Encino this morning
Good luck to everyone who needs to be in Downtown L.A. today.
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09:52 am
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It was a dark and stormy night.
Ganked from the lovely ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) betnoir, we have this year's Bulwer-Lytton winners.
Still have a vague half-baked plan to do something similar as a participatory program item one of these days.
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11:25 pm
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Arriving at a meadow in a strange and haunted realm
Watching Oliver Sacks on The Daily Show talking about music and the brain. He says it's common for people who lose language function through strokes or injury to keep music function, sometimes at a very complex level. According to Dr. Sacks, it's unusual for someone to lose the musical functions of the brain. Losing the ability to play an instrument is usually a matter of signals from brain to hand no longer getting through.
We have certainly observed this with my dad. It's been the most intriguing, and also the most comforting, aspect of his dementia. As the years go on, he has more and more days when all he can do is sing. When I spoke to him on Father's Day, he couldn't really respond to my story about going on vacation except by saying, "All right," over and over, but we sang "Route 66" together. It's an odd way to relate to the person everyone says you got your language facility from. It works, though. If we had to be left with just one channel of communication, it's the one both of us would have picked.
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08:21 am
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C'Etait un Rendez-vous
If you like car chases, you will enjoy this short film by Claude LeLouch. The title translates as "It's a Date."
Best watched in full screen mode.
Forget a year in Provence. I'll take eight and a half minutes in Paris.
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02:50 pm
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Tasmanian Crop Circle Mystery Solved!
From the Museum of Hoaxes comes a report of the real deal on crop circles: stoned wallabies.
Suspected this all along, didn't you?
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07:08 pm
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Happy Father's Day!
I love my dad. And to the Johnsons, Tuttles, Van Wagners, and Logans on my list, I love yours, too.
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04:19 pm
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Question for the costumers
Which is better for selling vintage patterns: Etsy or eBay? I don't have an Etsy store yet, but I'm thinking of getting one, and this would be part of my decision.
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05:57 pm
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Bob Bogle of the Ventures, 1934 - 2009
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12:32 pm
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My brother's in the Denver Post again
Not for insightful commentary, but for
looking weird at a bike race.
Link fixed
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07:48 am
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Eyewitness
My favorite type of work assignment is transcribing oral histories. I've heard the stories of WWII, Korean War, and Viet Nam combat vets, Women's Air Corps members, gay people in pre-Stonewall rural Texas, and same-sex couples in retirement communities.
Events like the recent D-Day commemorations remind everyone how interesting these testimonies can be. BBC News has an article about the surviving Spanish Civil War fighters. Down in the comments Nick O of Durham offers thoughts on how these first-hand accounts can benefit the scientific world.
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10:33 am
[Link] | Not a big fan of reality TV, but decided to try A&E's Obsessed, about people with anxiety disorders, because I wanted to see how they would handle the subject. I got sucked into Intervention back when I was working on it. Obsessed has a similar format. First episode worked for me. I'll probably watch it again. ( Cut for OCD commentary )
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04:58 pm
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**PING** to Tuttles and Van Wagners
Crossposted to Facebook. Anybody know where Alson and Irene went on their honeymoon? We're scanning old photos. Send me an email if you have any info. Vague memories and rumors accepted.
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09:54 pm
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Memories of 20 years ago
- N.Y Times front page photo of a man and a tank in Tiananmen Square. Thinking my big day wasn't so big after all.
- Waking up in gvdub's sister's apartment to the sound of light rain, and laughter from the two most reserved people in attendance, my sister andgvdub's brother.
- Someone putting on The Marriage of Figaro while I got dressed.
- Wondering if the lace thing I was wearing looked like a shawl or like a bolt end from the discount fabric place on Graham Avenue, which is what it was.
- Seeing gvdub with stage fright for the first and only time.
- The rain clearing up so we could all sit outside in the Meeting House yard to eat cake.
- My mom bringing balloons out of her purse and giving them to the small kids.
- My not-small brother and some of the bigger kids filling them with water.
- Much later, being carried over the threshold of our Brooklyn apartment, to the delight and amusement of the stoop-sitting neighbors.
- Later still, getting on a train bound for New Orleans. Wondering in idle moments how the facing-the-tank guy was doing.
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09:00 pm
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Tales from the California Budget Crisis
Received an announcement today that summer classes at all L.A. Community College District campuses have been cancelled due to the budget crisis. This means packed classes next Fall and fewer community services over the summer. Grrrrr.
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02:42 pm
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Happy 84th Birthday, Bernie!
There's a mural on the Sunset Boulevard overpass of the 101 freeway. It's Tony Curtis wearing a t-shirt and smoldering look. It captures the look most movie fans remember.
Look at some recent photos and you can still see a bit of Bernie Schwartz from the Bronx. Up until his most recent illness, he and his wife Jill were a regular sight at the old Conga Room on Wilshire, showing the youngsters how it's done on Mambo Night. Only fitting, when you recall that his screen debut was dancing the rumba with Yvonne DeCarlo in Criss Cross.
Over the course of his career, he made some 100+ movies, so it's hard to pick a favorite. To film noir fans I highly recommend Sweet Smell of Success.
( cut for perv content )
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08:12 am
[Link] | The desert glow is fading. Back on multiple deadlines. All I have left of my vacation is a bunch of photos and some warm, fuzzy memories.
Speaking of which, is it wrong to have a lingering crush on your sister-in-law's dog?
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07:29 am
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Why, yes, as a matter of fact I AM on vacation
Some things that are just as enjoyable at 13, 25, and 50:
Exploring a red clay field with a red-coated dog
Feeling like somebody's kid sister
Experiencing an art museum with an artist
Feeling blessed that your family is full of whimsy and wonder
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09:15 pm
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Classics Illustrated
Researching something else altogether brought me to the web companion edition of "The Complete Guide to Classics Illustrated®" by Dan Malan, a fan and collectible site run by Rudy Tambone.
As a youngster I dearly loved Classics Illustrated. I remember carrying The House of Seven Gables and Oliver Twist around for weeks. Some of the comics enticed me into reading the book (Two Years Before the Mast), others warned me off (The Moonstone). In those days, anti-comic sentiment was still running high. People used to warn my parents against allowing us such low-rent reading. It was hard to object, though, when the comic was something like Don Quixote*.
Wish I'd known about the special issues back then.
*As good a comic as it is a book, IMO.
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