My Kid Could Have Written That

How many pairs of glasses does it take to watch a movie these days, anyway? Going in, I hoped previews would still be playing, because we were late. But when I saw the intentionally blurred double-vision images on the screen, I knew we were in to it already. I tried to watch without the glasses, but that was impossible. I had to keep them on and cope with the artificial feeling of paper cutouts set at varying distances in front of me, like the layered images in a Viewmaster or targets at the shooting range. You could tell that everything in the frame had a discrete distance classification: there would be the foreground image, like maybe some seed pods lazily floating; then the middle-ground images, like maybe the characters in the scene; and then the background, which was usually a single flat plane like a normal movie. I would have preferred the whole movie to be on a single plane so that I would not have been thinking about the 3-D effect. When someone in the seats ahead of us got up to go to the bathroom, he looked like he, too, was a part of the movie. Indeed, some objects in the movie looked closer than the real people in front of me, and this makes me think of combining live-action with 3-D cinema. Let’s remake Rocky Horror so that it blends better with its simultaneous re-enactors.

I heard that this is the movie James Cameron had wanted to make since he was 14. I believe it. With a planet called “Pandora” and the precious metal called “unobtainium,” it seems like he wrote it more like when he was 4 and did not revise it since. The alien Na’vi are portrayed with the same lack of nuance, with obvious elements of African and Native American hunting, dance, spirituality, and medicine mixed to achieve generic foreign-ness. If you wondered where banal world music comes from, it is probably James Cameron’s Pandora.

A friend said it would have helped to see some kind of exchange in the alien society -- a place where they are gambling, or paying taxes. “Like the cantina in Star Wars!” Svetx said. Indeed. The basic grit and grind of life. As it stands, you think the Na’vi do nothing but pay homage to nature and hunt, hardly a believable or even interesting existence.

People are marveling at the special effects, but wasn’t the flying more exciting in the Superman movies of the ’70’s? The battle more exciting at the end of Star Wars episode IV? Who can forget the quick character development of showing each fighter pilot in his cockpit talking on his intercom?

In more recent history, I remember almost being moved to tears by two awesome movie battles: The battle on the fields of Pelennor in Return of the King, for all its orchestration couched in desperation and forboding; and the middle of The Incredibles where it showed the family working together with all its awesome powers unleashed. There was nothing so satisfying in Avatar.

There is one thing I do admire about this movie, and that is it’s own paradoxical nature. It is the feel-good blockbuster of this holiday season. But what we feel good about is the pagan nature-creatures triumphing over a U.S. military that is essentially working for a large corporation. Anyone who has looked at a newspaper headline in recent years surely can’t miss the parallel to U.S. involvement in the Middle East. I expect this movie to draw fire from war supporters as well as fundamentalist Christians. Looking on the Internet now though, I can’t find scathing reviews from a Christian website. If anyone finds one, please let me know. If there really are none, then maybe the Christian Right does not notice the connections to our foreign policy, or doesn’t think this is what our foreign policy amounts to. In that case, in a seasonal action blockbuster, what’s not to like?

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The Bible Does Not Mention Sex Videos Either

Carrie Prejean is saying thatbreast implants are not un-Christian because the Bible does not mention them at all, and thus, they are not forbidden.

Now, I don't claim to be a Christian. And I'm no Bible expert. But I think it's safe to say that another thing the Bible does not mention is sex videos. So why is Prejean claiming she made her sex video before her conversion to Christianity? (Her then-boyfriend counters that it was made after her conversion.) If it's not mentioned in the Bible, then, like implants, it's not forbidden. And it's not like God isn't watching anyway, sex video or not!

But back to those implants. While the Bible does not mention them specifically, Timothy 2:9 - 2:11 from Bible Wiki says "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." I would not call breast implants modest or associate them with shamefacedness; and with a price of $4000 to $10,000, I would call them "costly array." On the other hand, the next passage in Timothy says, "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve." This could be taken to mean that, since beauty pageant officials forced Prejean to get the implants, that she was obeying this authority of a man.

Interpretations aside, I think we all know exactly what breast implants are for: enhancement of sex appeal for personal gain. While some Christians claim that another aspect of sexuality, homosexuality, is a choice, I think we can all agree that breast implants are a choice. In fact, Prejean says it's a personal choice. So I say to Prejean: St. Anthony the Abbot gave up all his personal possessions; for you, the path to wisdom lies in giving up your breast implants.

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The Ocean

Sit back and relax. Here is one big 8 minute wild track of the ocean, composed of several smaller clips recorded for possible use in Todd Tinkham's Southland of the Heart.

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Choppers!

Two Blackhawk helicopters fly over the beach during shooting of the final scenes of Todd Tinkham's Southland of the Heart.

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Three Relations

There were the big grocery stores, like Harris-Teeter, with all their food (except for produce) in packages. Then came Whole Foods where bulk food is in bins and you package it yourself. Then came Trader Joe's which is like the bulk food aisle at Whole Foods, but the food is pre-packaged for you.

There was classic literature where morals and basic tenets espousing God and patriotism were expressed; then there was modernism where long-held beliefs did not necessarily prevail, and post-modernism which broke structures into pieces and played with them. Then there came Stephen Colbert who uses the elements of post-modernism to reconstruct a classical character espousing God, morals, and patriotism again.

There was art that depicted, as drawing or painting on flat surfaces, 3-dimensional images; and there were 3-dimensional sculptures made of flat paper. Then there was Picasso whose work looks like he took pieces of paper from 3-D sculptures and glued them back onto a single plane, bringing renewed flatness to what had once been 3-dimensional.

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Did you hear about Sarah Palin's new treatise on values?

It's called "Gouging Roe." Honk!

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To the Guy on Facebook Worried about Islamofascism:

Your rant was right out of the playbook for right-wing demagoguery. I had not known a Facebook wall comment could run so long. I can scroll my screen for several pages before reaching its end. Here's just a sample:

. . . Political "solutions" are only temporary and only give the jihadis time to regroup for another attack. 1400 years of islamic history prove this. The koran tells them it is acceptable under islamic law to break treaties when to their advantage. The command to spread islam by all means, including murder trumps all in islamic law and thought.

So the only choices we have are to keep trying to help those in Afghanistan who say they want a reformation for the purpose of instilling western democratic values in hopes that our values will change the thought patterns of those muslims, and maybe even have them reject islam, or pull all our people out and bomb every islamofascist base that shows up on our radar. If the liberal "infidels" we protect by doing this don't understand the need for such bombings, tell them to shut up and be glad we are protecting them. . . .

I spent enough time on my facebook response to you that I'm putting it here too:

On the other hand, our very presence in Afghanistan brings some monetary flow to the Taliban:

http://enduringamerica.com/2009/10/07/afghanistan-as-us-increases-troops-pentagon-aid-flows-to-taliban/

And a bridge we have built aids the opium trade:

http://www.newser.com/story/63045/us-built-bridge-supports-afghan-drug-trade.html

I know that bridge and business building in Afghanistan are very well intended, but my point is, we don't foresee unintended consequences.

Also consider, as Steve said, leaders of two factions of Taliban, Hekmatyar and Haqqani, were once allies of the CIA in fighting communism. During Charlie Wilson's war, the U.S. also fomented fundamentalism in the Middle East because religion was seen as a deterrent to communism. Nowadays, we borrow from a communist country, China, which, in fact, fought against us by proxy in Vietnam, in order to fight jihadism. Does that make sense?

Continuing the cycle of aiding, now, our future enemies, it is suspected (and likely true to some extent, I say) that Taliban fighters have gone through military training provided for Afghan forces by the U.S. and Nato:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175116

I sincerely thank David's cousins for doing the hardest and most risky work of serving in our military. My criticism is for our policy makers who are certainly not working as hard as our soldiers, but should be. After fighting two wars in the Middle East for longer than we fought in WWII, the only thing that is certain is that you and I will have to pay for it.

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This Came Out Pretty Well

I dig working with the coaches. Bobby Bowden's voice alone makes me want to take up football so I can play for him, and Coach Cutcliff is very amiable and natural on camera.

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Attack of the Blurry Cell Phone Pictures

Over a year ago Svetx and I walked on the Brooklyn Bridge at night. I had just gotten my first cell phone with a camera, so I went nuts. Now the memory allocated by Alltel for my pictures is nearly full, so I have to put them somewhere. So, I give you, the Brooklyn Bridge by Night.

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My Critique by a Moore

Back on 2005, I attended an artists' colony, the Vermont Studio Center, for a month. They have their regular residents like me, most of whom pay all or 2/3 of their way; and featured residents who are paid by the colony to critique the regulars' work and give talks and hold conferences. As I described in two earlier posts, I was there while Lorrie Moore was there. This post is a self-indulgent description of what happened in my one-on-one critiquing session with Moore. I had sent this only to family when it happened, but now, with readership of my blog at a low ebb, partly because of my lack of posting lately, I figure it's okay to toot my horn a little. I'm putting up these three posts about Moore on the occasion of her release of her newest novel, A Gate at the Stairs.

Visiting writers here meet with us residents in the living room of what they call Mason House, the domain for the writers, though it is not where most of us live or work. The living room is filled with bookshelves and books I have not read, surroundings I found rather daunting until I happened to spot the Philip K. Dick title in the ranks. Still, it was a Dick I have not read.

I went into the foyer and heard the prior person’s conference still in progress, so I went back out to the porch and waited like the piano students on our front porch when I was a kid, and my mom was teaching lessons in our living room.

The writer before me came out, and I went in. Lorrie Moore was sitting at the end of the long conference table gleaming with reflected light from the window behind her. The papers in front of her I recognized as the copy of "Back to the Old Ladies" I had sent in late May. I had not even sat down when she said, “This is a real story, and you are a real writer.”

I said, “Well thank you!” I sat.

“The only thing is . . .” she said. She said the beginning was confusing. Where was Roxanne? In her hotel room or in the desert? I should clear that up. And when did the narrator meet Roxanne’s mother? The same night he danced with her the first time?

“You may have to be flatfooted with the facts. Don’t be afraid to state them plainly,” Moore said.

Then came a harder issue.

“The narrator is in love with Roxanne,” she said. “There has to be more to her to warrant his attentions. More than just her dance moves and her tush, which are beautifully described. She needs to say a little more . . .”

This will be hard to deal with. I have no idea what Roxanne has to say other than what she's already said in the story.

“Do you do this?” she said. “This dance stuff? I was reading, and these details were so alive, I said ‘Wow, he must really do this. . .’”

I said I do.

“This is almost there,” she said. “Almost ready for publication.”

It is revision number 10! How far do I have to go? But alright.

She asked me what I do. Am I in school? So I told her the quick spiel: Audio for video . . . have done substitute teaching, do teach at a community college . . . Durham . . . physics . . . stubborn . . . Duke . . . Batman . . . screenplays . . . short stories . . . present day. (“Batman has a special place in my heart,” I told her. “Really?” she said, smiling.)

“Well, you really understand the form,” she said. “And who are you reading?”

I said that for the past year, I have been reading a lot of, well, um, her. “You,” I said.

She looked away. She had also not really relished someone’s bringing up her collection “Self-Help” as a “must read” for writers, during the group craft talk she gave last Friday. In response, she had said, “No, not Self-Help.”

I named Bernard Malamud as someone whose stories I’m reading now. And Larry Brown, whom I always have to mention, to see what sort of reaction I get.

“Oh, poor guy, he just died too!” she said.

Yes, around Thanksgiving last year.

“He wasn’t old?” she said. No. I said he probably had high blood pressure though. She said she had met him and found him to be a really nice guy. I said I had met him too, and also found him really nice.

I asked if she had read Brown’s stuff, and she said, only a little. I said I liked these fairly straightforward writers like Malamud, Brown, Chekhov. They state things fairly plainly. I said I had tried to write a poetic story this past year, and it had not come together yet, and was also not very well written. Brown was really encouraging to me because, when I would be hung up trying to say something in an impressive way, I would tell myself, “Just tell the damn story,” which I think is what Brown pretty much did too.

She nodded.

She suggested I read Updike’s collected stories, but not the novels, and Alice Munro’s “Lives of Girls and Women.”

I said, “I don’t know what to say about these people who have collections of, like, 200 stories. I’m lucky if I can write one per year, and at that, it still may not come out right.”

She said Updike has not had anything else to do all his life. She said he keeps writing about his childhood and certain recurring subjects. But the good thing about that, for him, is that he is able to perfect stories about his subjects. “I might be reading, say, the fourth story about this, but I say, ‘this one is perfect.’”

She said quality is more important that quantity. She didn’t seem worried about my slow pace.

She asked what I’m working on now, and I said I was doing a totally new story, plus there was always the one from this past year which I might be salvageable, who knows.

We were together only 20 minutes or so, and our conversation seemed to be coming to a close. She put her incognito celebrity sunglasses on and we stood.

She asked what I had studied in college.

“Wow, physics,” she said. “I don’t meet many physics majors who are writers. A few, but not that many.”

I said, I think we are concerned with mysticism and how the world works. These are similar traits in writing and physics.

Heading out the door into the sunny, crystal clear day, she said her father had studied chemistry and dropped out in grad school. “He had to get a job and went into corporate America,” she said. “He told me once that he had gone into chemistry because his sister had married a chemist, and his grandmother (or mother? Or Moore’s grandmother? I forget) had loved this son-in-law so much, and kept talking about how he was a chemist. So her father had gone into chemistry himself “to win his mother’s(?) love,” Moore said, making a sweeping gesture.

She was heading up the hill. I asked her if she would sign books at the reading, and she said, “Sure, sure.” I told her, thanks for the writing she was doing. “You’re really funny,” I said. She gave a dismissive wave and turned away. “And really dark,” I said. “As you know.” She glanced back one more time, and was gone.

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Watching for Big Algae Oil Production

This past summer there were announcements of expected large-scale algae oil production. I'm watching for follow-up to see if any of these companies are actually making their predicted flow. So far, no confirmation.

One announcement was from CEHMM, a New Mexico non-profit research firm, that planned to have a "large scale demonstration algae farm" in full operation by September 1. No news on whether this is actually happening.

Solix Biofuels has also begun a large-scale demonstration algae farm in Colorado in cooperation with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. This was expected to be fully operating by late summer. There is no further news on this. One intriguing thing about algae farming is that it can (and should) be done on non-arable land such as the bad land that tends to compose Native American reservations. If Native Americans can create jobs and make profits selling fuel, as they might demonstrate they can in this endeavor, then this would be a healthy turn for them and the rest of our country.

There was also the agreement between SunEco Energy and J.B. Hunt Transportation (a large trucking company whose name you see often on the panels of 18-wheelers) for SunEco to provide algae-grown fuel oil to blend with petroleum Diesel for us in trucks. SunEco claims to be already producing "barrels," rather than "beakers" of algae oil each day. Let's hope this contract comes to fruition.

All three of the above algae companies use open-air ponds for algae production. This is generally the cheapest kind of algae farm to build, but it is likely to have the lowest yield of oil per acre, in part because of the inefficient use of space and the inability to use genetically designed algae. Only native algae can be used in the open ponds.

The U.S. Air Force and Navy have expressed interest in biofuels grown in the U.S. because of the promise of a secure energy supply. They don't want their planes and ships grounded if the Middle East decides not to sell us fuel for plans and ships to use in bombing the Middle East. Toward this end, the Navy has purhcased 20,000 gallons of algae-derived Diesel fuel (and 40,000 gallons of fuel made from camelina weeds) from Solazyme, an algae company that has not fully explained its process, but is known to grow its algae in closed containers using starchy bio-waste to feed the algae.

My current favorite algae company, Origin Oil, has released production models for growing algae oil using its technology (press release here, pdf of presentation here). Like Solazyme, Origin Oil grows algae in closed containers, but Origin claims to have made some creative advances. Their process of quantum fracturing creates tiny bubbles of CO2 and other nutrients to facilitate delivery to the algae cells; also, this quantum fracturing of CO2 aids in cracking the algae cells open to release the oil. According to the company, this method of getting the oil out of the algae greatly cheapens the otherwise very expensive process of getting oil out of algae by pressing it.

Origin Oil's presentation has two proposals: one just for growing algae oil, and another for growing oil while simultaneously using the algae to treat wastewater. The first model shows little profit and, thus, is probably not feasible at this time. The second model shows a more favorable 20% profit. Also note the need for "free energy" in both models in the form of heat. This energy could come along with concentrated CO2 in the form of power plant emissions. So, look for Origin Oil's technology to be first used in cleaning smokestack emissions and/or wastewater, and producing oil as a by-product.

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The Craft Talk

This post and the previous one are old emails I sent out in the summer of 2005 when I was at an art colony, and writer Lorrie Moore was also there. The colony organized a "craft talk" with us writers and Moore, in the dining room of one of the houses there, with all of us at the long table.

On the subject of writing about one’s family members, but being worried about what they might think, Moore said that she was recently at a conference with lots of other famous writers, including David Sedaris and Rick Moody, and they all said that none of their family members read their stuff -- not their siblings, or parents, and certainly not their children. “Children, thank goodness, are never interested in what a parent is writing.”

Someone in our group asked, “What about spouses?”

Moore said, “Hmm, well. I guess I didn’t include spouses as family.”

Frank asked her if the Center director had picked her up from the airport on his bicycle the night before.

“No,” she said, “But I think I offended him. He was telling me about these famous quotes that he has put up around his office -- things from Kant, and Thoreau, and so on like that, and I said, ‘What, no Judy Garland?’ I think he took offense at that. I was just trying to make a joke.”

I was waiting for Frank to try to embarrass me. At one point, our group sort of broke up in laughter, and Frank joined in with an artificial “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Moore noticed this. “Oh, that,” she said, looking straight at him through the commotion. “Well, that was more of a scream,” she said, very seriously.

Frank said, “No, I was saying that, because it follows from something he said.” He pointed at me.

But by then, we had all moved on.

Humor in writing had to come up. Someone asked her how to include humor in work. Moore said that some people have spent their lives looking at things a funny way, and in their writing, they find they can make connections like that as well. “But I have a problem with being silly,” she said. “I have to work to keep that in check.”

Really? So what we get in her published work is silliness in check?

What writers does she recommend that we read? Alice Munro, among others. There is a strong Grace Paley contingent here, and someone in the room named her, but Moore said, “Oh, maybe. I used to be, really. But not as much any more.”

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It's Like I Remembered It

We knew to look for humor and darkness all at once, and it was there in the first sentence. "Winter came early, catching the songbirds off guard." Since Lorrie Moore's reading in 2005 at the Vermont Studio Center where I spent a month, I've been quoting that first line to people. If I recall correctly, her new novel was past deadline then. Now it's over four years later than that, and finally it has come out. I've read some portions on Amazon and found the first sentence to be the same. And the business about 9/11 in the first chapter, which was not mentioned by the NPR reviewer (making me fear it had been taken out) was still there. So it is as I remembered it . . . the part she read, at least.

I was funny back at art colony. I hung with the abstract painters on the porch of the Wolf Kahn building, and they called me a writer. Fours years later I'm still working on the same story I was working on then. I've lost inspiration for it. I just need to get past it to do something else. I do some other random writing and the occasional blog entry and I have this sci-fi idea for something else I'd like to write, but I know that I run out of gas pretty quickly in sci-fi so I have not started.

I was in touch back then. I, and others, ate meals with Lorrie Moore. I have a story that she critiqued, with her notes in the margins. She said it was a real story and it was "almost ready" (to publish). I still don't know what to do with it to make it completely ready. I just don't know.

I like thinking about that summer. On the occasion of her new novel coming out, I'm reprinting an email I sent to friends about the first night Moore showed up at art colony.

The painters and sculptors are wondering what the big deal is. All the writers are leaning close to each other and talking about her. “I went through a phase where I was like, ‘Lorrie Moore, Loorie Moore,’”one says, waving her hands as if in Pentecostal prayer. “And then I was like, ‘Oh, she’s clever, she’s just so clever.’ But then I’ve been reading her again, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, this is good. This is fantastic.’”

“She’s really a dark writer,” says a tall, skinheaded Jewish writer from Boston, the first deep Lorrie Moore fan I really talked to here.

Yes, indeed. One of the very darkest.

“That story with that word repeated for three pages? What is it? ‘Stop’?” he said.

I reminded him that the word is “Ha!” and the story is “Real Estate.”

He went on, “In that story, the guy who lives in the attic, who’s not supposed to be there? His name is Tod. Which is German for death. Death has moved into the house with them.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Frank is a gray-bearded writer, a teacher at a prep school in Connecticut. He always sits at the head of a long table at meal times and holds court. As you carry your tray in, you can see him there and decide whether you want to sit near him for that meal, or far from him. He actually is not much of a Lorrie Moore fan. It’s not that he’s uptight -- he could qualify as “hippie,” in my estimation. It’s just that she is, well, post-hippie -- the generation wallowing in the hippies’ wake, “masturbating and doomed like outlaws,” as she put it.

Frank can’t remember the name of the Moore collection he started reading and did not finish, and he makes fun of my infatuation.

“Are you stalking her?” he said. “I’m going to come to your studio. And if you have enlarged pictures of her tacked up all over, I’m going to be very worried.”

I said I have copies of her books all over my studio which is, by my request, also my bedroom.

“That’s even stranger,” said Frank.

(Lots of the writers here have their studios as their bedrooms. But more than half, by their request, are corralled in little offices surrounding a central room with a laser printer.)

This morning, at breakfast, Frank said to me, “I heard the weatherman on the radio today. He said Lorrie Moore’s sleigh was sighted flying over the Midwest. Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho.”

I said, “No, it’s Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! . . . .”

Frank said, “When she’s around, [Elrond] will have to wear his Depends.”

At mid-afternoon, I was alone in the dining room getting tea. Frank wandered in. “Is she here yet?” he said, looking around.

As some of you know, they have no trays here, so you have to get your plate with your entree, and maybe your drink, set that down, and then go to the salad bar and get that and go back to your seat. And about half the time, the salad bar is more substantial than the gourmet, often vegetarian, entree. (I have done something I never do. I have bought potato chips and onion dip for my room, for Chrissakes) So, at dinner, I was in the stage of fetching my salad, when I saw a newcomer just then taking her seat. There are lots of newcomers each mealtime. Staff members come back from vacations, other residents arrive late. As my gaze passed by this one, I felt a sting like a knife stabbing up my ass. Jesus Lord Mercy. Finish taking that step, yes, that’s right, now take another and continue on your way.

I went back to my seat, which, by chance, was at the head of the long table parallel to Frank’s. So he and I were looking down our respective tables. And directly in my line of sight, facing me at the next table, was this particular newcomer.

I ducked so that another diner was between me and her, and whispered to Courtney “See Lorrie Moore over there? Don’t look.” Courtney was craning her neck all around. She saw, and ducked suddenly, putting her hand over her mouth.

“I have to tell somebody,” she said. “Where’s Elisa?”

Elisa is about half my age and has a published short story collection and a novel contract with Simon and Schuster. I learned this from her, without probing, in the first 4 minutes of knowing her. Later that day, my very cool housemate Daniel said to me, “I met someone with a published short story collection and a novel contract-”

“Elisa” I said, cutting him off. “I know.”

Anyway, Elisa gets kudos for knowing her Lorrie Moore stuff deeply. But she was not in the room right then. I said to Courtney, “You can tell Frank.”

So she got up and went and told Frank. He rose slightly to look over the heads down his table. Courtney and I redoubled our ducking as if to compensate for his indiscretion.

Frank looked at me and nodded, giving somber approval.

Word got around the room. One writer after another was twisting in their chair, looking. We all wanted to talk to her, and nobody did. Courtney, all during the meal, was breathing deeply and fanning herself. She’s dramatic like that.

Elisa finally came in. I wanted us to watch her and see how long it took her to notice. But Courtney went to her, and they were gabbing right behind Lorrie Moore’s back.

Meanwhile, what’s up with the real Lorrie Moore these days?

Her hair is not black, as it appears to be in the black and white photo, but brown. Or maybe it’s colored nowadays. It still swings gayly from the central part, just like in the black and white photo. Her eyes seem bigger in real life, but still slant downward ,sympathetically, toward their outer corners, as if even the most scathing critique she could deliver would not really be so bad. Her eyebrows are thicker than in the photo, “a holdover from the fur trade,” as she wrote of her first person narrator in “Frog Hospital.”

She is older than in the photo, sure, but to use her own words, “In this neck of the woods, she is still the neck of the woods.” She smiled at her tablemates the whole meal, or at least, all the few seconds total I allowed myself to look directly at her. She had the Center director on one side, wearing his bicycle outfit.

“Do you think he came in all sweaty, in his bicycle outfit, on purpose?” said Courtney.

Frank said the same thing later. Later still, we were to learn from her some of what was said at the table. The Center director was telling her about his collection, in his office, of framed quotes from famous people.

"What," Moore said. "No Judy Garland?"

Just as if she were one of us, Moore bussed her own dishes.

More to follow in the blog . . .

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Seriously? O'Reilly Autoparts?

So a new autoparts store has come from the heartland to compete with our "Advance" i.e. "Progressive."

Do they ever expect liberals to shop there? I hear O'Reilly fuses don't fit in the usual sockets because they are too SHORT. Honk! And their radiator fluid needs to be changed more frequently because of the SETTLEMENT! And you have to be extra careful not to overinflate your tires so they don't BLOVIATE. And they don't believe in lithium. Those fruity, psychiatrist-prescribed batteries have nothing on good ol' lead acid discipline.

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