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10.13.05
So if you needed any more proof that the end of the world was nigh, here’s another Jeremiad for you: The Snakehead. Is it a fish? Is it a snake? Can it swim? Can it walk on land? Does it scare the shit out of me. Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Well, maybe it’s not exactly a snake. And maybe it doesn’t exactly walk. But the other answers are all still in the affirmative. This past Sunday at least 80 (that’s EIGHTY, EIGHT-ZERO) of the little devils were apprehended in the Potomac River, according to this story in the Washington Post, where the snakehead is referred to as a “top-line predator.” Nice. The thing I like perhaps the most about the story, apart from its apocalyptic overtones, is this sentence, referring to Mark Hammond, the protagonist of the story, a bass fisherman from Florida:
“I think we have the state record,” Hammond said of the catch behind the trailer lot where he and his friends drink beer and practice bow-hunting.
Um, drink beer and practice bow-hunting? At the same time? And you’re worried about snakeheads? Sir, I think you might have other problems, like the possibility that you will go William Burroughs on your pals and spear them with your bow and arrow while faced on longnecks.
Do you know that line from Shakespeare about horses eating each other in the streets being a sign that the natural order has gone seriously awry? Well, anyway, I think that when snakefish teem in rivers near our nation’s capital, and emerge from the streams to walk on land, only to be hunted by a drunkard with a crossbow, we might well be experiencing a similar kind of situation. By the way, I’m pretty sure that horse thing happened in one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and not in one of the comedies, but you could probably already have figured that out for yourself.
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08.19.05
Put your digital music player on shuffle, click play, and list the first ten songs that show up (you must resist the temptation to click past the bad or embarrassing songs) in comments and trackbacks.
Here’s my list:
1. “Plain Gold Ring” — Nina Simone
2. “King Porter Stomp” — Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
3. “Shook Ones, Pt. II” — Mobb Deep
4. “Time Trap” — Built to Spill
5. “I Remember Nothing” — Joy Division
6. “Little Sister” — Nico
7. “Honest I Do” — Rolling Stones
8. “Favorite Dish” — Lee Perry
9. “Romance in Durango” — Bob Dylan
10. “Sing for the Moment” — Eminem
Song I like Most: “Shook Ones, Pt. II”
Song I like Least: “Little Sister”
Favorite Album on this List: Infamous
What’s on your list?
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08.12.05
Put your digital music player on shuffle, click play, and list the first ten songs that show up (you must resist the temptation to click past the bad or embarrassing songs) in comments and trackbacks.
Here’s my list:
1. “Hands” — The Kills
2. “Saint Simon” — The Shins
3. “Per Second Second” — The Wrens
4. “Radio War” — Iron and Wine
5. “Miserific Condition” — Unwound
6. “The King’s Weed” — !!!
7. “Living for the City” — Stevie Wonder
8. “Keep on the Sunny Side” — The Whites
9. “Make You Feel My Love” — Bob Dylan
10. “Down There By the Train” — Johnny Cash
Choosing favorites among the songs and albums on this list is pretty difficult. . . but I do have to choose, so:
Song I like Most: “Living for the City”
Song I like Least: “Miserific Condition”
Favorite Album on this List: American Recordings
What’s on your list? And how would your answers to those last three questions differ from mine?
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08.05.05
The game: crank up your digital music player, set it to random, and hit play. List the first ten songs that come up. I’m looking forward to seeing your lists in comments and trackbacks.
Here’s mine:
1. “Welcome to Earth” — Robin Hitchcock
2. “Skanky Panky” — Kid Koala
3. “Poncho & Lefty” — Townes Van Zandt
4. “Who the Fuck” — PJ Harvey
5. “Same Team, No Games” — Gang Starr
6. “Hallelujah” — Jeff Buckley
7. “Game for Fools” — Jamie Lidell
8. “Black and White Town” — Doves
9. “Down at the Rock and Roll Club” — Richard Hell and the Voidoids
10. “Made Up Dreams” — Built to Spill
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07.25.05
Did you know that stick-insect sex can go on for months?
So says evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson (author of Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation) in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about a new drug for premature ejaculation:
The male stick insect plants himself on the female’s back and attaches himself there. Luckily for her, the male is about half her size. While clearly encumbered, she can still go about her business.
Upon reading this news, I decided to poke around google for more information about these sex-crazed stick insects.
My search ended a bit prematurely, but I did come across this assignment [MS Word doc] from a Montana State University biology class:
1. Dr Tatiana, the sex therapist for all creation received the following letter:
Dear Dr. Tatiana,
My name’s Twiggy, and I’m a stick insect. It’s with great embarrassment that I write to you while copulating, but my mate and I have been copulating for ten weeks already. I’m bored out of my skull, yet he shows no sign of flagging. He says its because he’s madly in love with me, but I think he is just plain mad. How can I get him to quit?
- Sick of Sex in India
Dr. Tatiana wrote back that the male stick insect was prolonging copulation for 10 weeks in order to prevent other males from having sex with this mate.
Describe an experiment to test this hypothesis.
I bet the college kids had fun with that one.
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07.22.05
Set your music player to random, hit play, and list the first ten songs that show up. Leave your list in comments and trackbacks. Here’s mine:
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07.14.05
Inspired by Lance’s descriptions of his Cape Cod trip, I’ve finally put together a little set of photos from my recent vacation to Cape Hatteras, NC.
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07.12.05
If you’re looking for insight into the ramifications of yesterday’s White House press conference, you can do no better than to check out Two Tickets to Paradise on The Heretik:
When people look back at how Bush was undone, yesterday will be remembered as the day the wheels flew of the cart and the BS wagon dumped its load in the White House Press Room. People will not soon forget White House Press Pool Boy Scott McClellan as he struggled to stay above water in an unscheduled match of political water polo. Rove was the ball the press threw by him constantly scoring point after point. It was both ugly and stunning to see.
[snip] Scott McClellan has passed the point of no return. The press no longer attaches any credibility to his words. And if as McClellan says, he speaks for the White House, then the White House has no credibility on Rove, on Plame, on Wilson, on yellowcake, on Downing Street, on the run up to the war in Iraq and the lies that got us there. It all attaches the McClellan first, it attaches to Rove, and it attaches to Bush. What is it? It is hubris, the political rope by which once mighty men hang themselves and then hang around too long for people to see. Cut those bodies down please. You are frightening my children.
If you’re looking for respite from political news, check out Majikthise. With her typically sharp analytical gusto, she has written a great post and spurred an intriguing comment thread on the fate of “nice guys” in the dating market.
However, guys who attribute their dating failures to niceness per se are often being self-serving. It’s comforting to attribute to excessive niceness what might be better explained by shyness, awkwardness, or other less flattering interpretations.
[snip] With certain notable exceptions, nice guys don’t feel compelled to tell you how nice they are.* In my experience, most of the men who explicitly attribute their romantic failures to their own niceness are playing some sort of unendearing head game.
[snip] At worst, self-proclamations of niceness come across as vaguely menacing. The logical inference is that the speaker doesn’t believe that women want to be treated well and that he might just drop the whole nice act. After all, if he thinks women like being treated badly, he might feel entitled to give them what he thinks they want. This was my favorite comment in the thread:
Just writing to say that I felt naked after reading this post. I’ve always pitied myself for being the “nice guy” and bemoaning all the jerks that get girlfriends, but upon reading your post, I think the truth is more like you described (too shy and awkward, and while the ones who rejected me liked me, they just weren’t that into me) [. . .] Seriously, ouch. Put the mirror down, it burns us. I suppose I will now have to do a bit of introspection and re-evaluation about this little lie I tell myself. Yeah, that’ll be fun.
As I noted in the comments, my own hypothesis is that “niceness” on the part of guys seeking dates often includes elements of desperation, worship, and emotional baggage that make women uncomfortable, perhaps even more than the undercurrent of malice that Lindsay describes.
Personally, I found that my success on the dating market improved once I was able to stop elevating women to some romantic ideal in my imagination (I was the knight in shining armor; they were the damsels in distress) that had little to do with who they were in reality, and more to do with my own emotional immaturity.
Drenching myself in Drakkar and donning lots of heavy gold chains helped, too.
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07.08.05
We must take heart from the Brits and keep a stiff . . . upper lip.
(via Blinq)
So set your music player to random, hit play, and list the first ten songs that show up. Leave your list in comments and trackbacks. Here’s mine:
1. “Ego Manic Kid” — Blonde Redhead
2. “House Carpenter” — Bob Dylan
3. “Can’t Stop” — M83
4. “Gotta Jazz” — Count Basic
5. “I Zimbra” — Talking Heads
6. “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” — Bob Dylan
7. “The Truth About Johnny” — The Raveonettes
8. “Walk in Fire” — The Doves
9. “These Days” — Nico
10. “B Movie” — Elvis Costello, Peel Sessions (1980)
Wow — this is a first. I like every single album on this list, and almost every song.
Song I like Most: “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”
Song I like Least: “The Truth About Johnny”
Favorite Album on this List: Highway 61 Revisited
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06.29.05
Post your thoughts and links here. What am I missing while I’m away?
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