Corporate Jargon

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

I have been thinking outside the box lately, and I've come to the conclusion that I am still not as creative as I think I am. By thinking about this, (thinking about thinking outside the box), I am metacognating said corporate idiom.

The "why" behind thinking outside the box is key to understanding the "how". If you are in a box, you suffocate, and therefore this tired piece of corporate jargon becomes fresh and new again, exciting, in fact, when a superior instructs one to do so. Personally, I enjoy being around the box, but not necessarily in it or out of it. I think the advantage to being around it is that you get the omniscient perspective, which makes one feel god-like and ultimately, like a creator. Creators are creative.

Look at the platypus, for instance. Who else but someone around the box--similar to "around the block", which connotes sexual promiscuity--would conceive of a duck-billed "possum with fins?" You see what I mean. Back to "around the block". When someone is referred to as one who has "been around the block", you know that it is a sure sign that they most certainly have not been "around the block" and they are only saying it out desperation and fear. Anyone who has to assert sexual prowess or common knowledge on a consistent basis with a saying that refers to walking around in one's neighborhood has a skewed self-perception.

I have had bosses like this, and therefore, when they ask me to think outside the box for an upcoming project, I have told them that I can see through their pathetic ruse of self-deception. After I am fired, I think about when they forced me to be creative against my own will and created the anti-creative within me. I hate that person inside me. She is like a little devil.



RE-INVENT THE WHEEL

Yesterday, in a meeting, my boss said we shouldn't have to re-invent the wheel. The wheel was invented by cavemen, so I wondered if he was insinuating that somehow we were neanderthals or subhuman. I also wondered that, if he was so enlightened about not having to re-invent the wheel, why he didn't know that from the beginning, that is, why he waited until we actually all did re-invent the wheel to tell us that. This proves that my boss is also a caveman, just like us.




PUSH THE ENVELOPE

You can't push the envelope. First of all, it didn't do anything to you. You don't have to push it. It's not like it slept with your sister. It's paper for crying out loud. I mean, pushing paper is like pushing pencils and they didn't do anything to you either. And it's so discriminating that you would choose an envelope out of all the paper products. It's totally bigoted. Letterhead is a really bastard and really is the one who deserves a good shove. Pushing the envelope is like slapping a baby in the face. After you do something like this, whatever you do next doesn't hold much stock.



TOUCH BASE/ON THE SAME PAGE
I had this conversation once regarding whether or not you could touch base and not be on the same page simultaneously. My colleague believes this is possible because it is equivalent to "agreeing to disagree". My assertion is that one would touch base only if they were already on the same page to reinforce this fact. Why would you want to belabor the issue only to keep disagreeing? I think it is an excuse to talk to that person at that point.



TALK ABOUT IT OFFLINE
I saw Tron the other day and there is no way you could keep hurling those discs around as much as they did. You'd get really tired.

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MORE TERMINOLOGY --from various Web sites

Seagull Manager:
A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

Blamestorming:
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Assmosis:
The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.

Percussive maintenance:
The art of smashing, whacking, kicking or punching a machine to get it to work.

Revved Up Like A Deuce

Venus Hottentot

Everytime I see my friend, playwright Marsha Estell, I become more and more fascinated with her mind. We always have constructive and creative conversations about her craft and our art of writing in general, mostly because we both detect and respond to the poetry in things. Her ideas resonate with me and I feel she is a compatriot in metaphor and symbolism.

Yesterday we were discussing her new play and the research she's going to begin. Our conversation excited us with the prospect that this upcoming play must be written due to a couple of symbolic guideposts along the way. Before she could even introduce her play idea, it seemed a magical coincidence that I happened to be speaking with someone not a day before about the very same historical incident about which she plans to write. Karma.

As the conversation traversed other territories, namely perspectives of victimization, the subject of another play surfaced. Marsha's colleague, Lydia Diamond (of Steppenwolf) had written a play about about Saartjie Baartman: Venus Hottentot, whom, before this, I had not heard about. The play was called, Voyeurs de Venus, and it intercuts the story of Baartman, a 19th-century African woman taken from her home and displayed as a curiosity in Paris under the derogatory nickname “the Hottentot Venus,” with a contemporary academic and writer wrestling with the dilemma of presenting Baartman’s story without further exploiting her. (Baartman’s buttocks and genitalia were deemed unusually large by European standards, and in addition to being put on humiliating display during her short life, her remains were also sliced up and preserved as medical oddities by French scientist Georges Cuvier. Her body was finally returned to her native South Africa in 2002.)

The details of her life moved me so much to want to track down the latest book published about her by Rachel Holmes.

I'm ordering it and want to further delve into her biography.

Here's a Wikipedia link to her as well.

The Kremlin and Lithuania

(A Lithuanian daily looks into security officer's "mysterious" death--
Excerpt from report by Lithuanian newspaper Kauno Diena; article by Raimundas Celencevicius and Lauryna Vireliunaite: "Prosecutors Did Not Even Consider the Version of Pociunas's Death That Is Becoming the Most Important Version")

During early morning hours of 23 August 2006 in the Belarusian city of Brest, Vytautas Pociunas, a senior State Security Department [VSD] officer, fell from the ninth-floor hotel window. He died instantly. On 30 November 2006, the Prosecutor General's Office closed the case on Pociunas's death after determining that it was an accident.

On 26 June, Pociunas's widow, Liudvika Pociuniene, demanded the reopening of the investigation because she has a reasonable suspicion that her husband was murdered. It turned out that prosecutors did not even consider this version: Pociunas might have been killed by a group that is trying to assume control of Lithuania.

Pociunas's death had a snowball effect: It tore up the VSD, forced VSD Director Arvydas Pocius out of office, and revealed that Lithuanian special services and state leaders may be mere puppets and that, in reality, the country is ruled by players who remain in the shadows and who are closely tied to Russia's business and political elite.


All Versions Ruled Out

Pociunas's death received a lot of attention at the end of last summer. The Conservatives [Homeland Union; TS], with whom Pociunas was closely linked during the last years of his life, devoted the biggest amount of attention to this incident. Euro MP Vytautas Landsbergis, a former leader of the Conservatives, openly said Pociunas's death was premeditated.

Landsbergis said the theory that labelled Pociunas's death as completely unconvincing. Thus, the only alternative left -- murder. "And of course, it was a political murder," the Euro MP said openly, implying that the Belarusian special services might have been involved in this crime.

The theory that Pociunas was killed by Belarusian special services, which was debated by the Lithuania media for some time, was quickly forgotten, because there was no evidence to support it.

Pociunas, who occupied a senior post in the VSD, had a much more humble post in Belarus - he was responsible for protecting information at the Lithuanian consulate in Hrodna. The officer used to complain to his close friends that he was often performing simple maintenance duties. It is very unlikely that the Lithuanian officer who was involved in such activities might have angered the Belarusian special services to the point that they decided to kill him.



Most Important Theory Not Even Considered

After ruling out all of the above theories and not finding any signs of struggle in Pociunas's hotel room, prosecutors decided that Pociunas's death was an accident. Yet, to many it is still hard to understand why a mature, educated man would lean so far over the window ledge that he fell out, despite the fact that he was a little intoxicated.

Newly discovered facts allow one to think that the officer's death might have been useful to some of his colleagues and certain Lithuanian politicians and businessmen tied to those colleagues. There is a frightening coincidence: These days it has become known that on 30 March of this year, the VSD gave a Second Degree Merit Cross to Justas Laucius, the prosecutor who determined that Pociunas's death was an accident. VSD Press Secretary Vytautas Makauskas tried to convince the media that Laucius was honoured for prosecuting Vilius Karalius, the so-called king of contraband, and three court chairmen connected to him. This explanation raises many suspicions, because those cases reached the court in 2004, and Laucius was given the award only now, after he ruled that Pociunas's death was an accident, not murder.

On 29 June, Kauno Diena found out that the Prosecutor General's Office did not even consider the version that Pociunas might have been murdered, because even after having been exiled to Hrodna, he had continued to collect information about a certain group that was trying assume control of Lithuania and had been planning to reveal that information. This theory is now becoming the most important explanation of his death.

On 29 June, Deputy Prosecutor General Gintaras Jasaitis told Kauno Diena that the main task of the investigation was to find out whether a crime was committed. "Various circumstances of the death were investigated. The Seimas [parliament] committee asked us whether we intend to investigate the circumstances surrounding Pociunas's transfer. We answered that it was not an objective of our investigation. Of course, if we had received any signs that the transfer was unlawful, criminal, we would have investigated it. Yet, we were unable to investigate that, because there were no signs of criminal activity," Jasaitis said.

The Seimas National Security and Defence Committee, which was investigating the VSD activities for several months, established that Albinas Januska, current aide to Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas and former national security adviser to President Valdas Adamkus, had a huge influence on the VSD leadership. It was also established that Januska had very close ties to the energy company Dujotekana [Gazprom intermediary] and company president Rimandas Stonys, whose wide connections extend to Russia's business and political elite. VSD officers testified they had collected plenty of information proving that by generously financing political parties and the media, Dujotekana was exercising huge unlawful influence on the country's political and economic life and that Januska and Stonys discussed appointments of senior political officials. VSD officers testified they were ready to declare Dujotekana a cover company for the Russian special services, but the VSD leaders blocked their plans.



Deadly Candidness

This week during the Lithuanian National Radio show "Between East and West," Pociunas's former friend and co-worker Kestutis Masiulis, leader of the Conservatives Party's Vilnius branch, announced that two years ago his friend told him about the things that were recently revealed by the National Security and Defence Committee, which investigated the VSD activities.

Masiulis said that in August 2005, Pociunas told him that the VSD leadership was planning to fire him. According to Masiulis, already back then his friend said he had stumbled across a large network of people who work against Lithuania and who had influence over the VSD leadership. According to Masiulis, this is why Pociunas became an unwanted troublemaker who had to be transferred somewhere far away. "His words were very hard to believe. The things were so frightening that at first I did not think they were serious and real," Masiulis recalled.

Darius Kuolys, the show's host, quoted two of Pociunas's phone messages that were sent two years ago. On 10 September 2005, Pociunas wrote: "I am being made a scapegoat; I will be buried." On 27 October 2005, he wrote: "I am not crazy. I will try to prove that I did not lose, and I think others will understand."

Masiulis and Pociunas also met during the summer of 2006. "We left our phones, went out into a garden, sat down, and for two hours he told me about horrible things, about control over our state. I realized he was determined enough to stop those things. He was determined, but he looked like a person who was under a lot of pressure and who was pushed into a corner. Even back then, it was difficult for me to accept all that information. It was wide - it touched Itera Lietuva, Stella Vitae - the natural gas companies that were working before Dujotekana. It was about their networks, their influence on the media and politicians. I was surprised by the VSD's total apathy. He spoke about Dujotekana's ties to state officials, the media, and politicians. He spoke about a spider web that entangled Lithuania, that was choking it, and that was trying to destroy it. He did not trust his superiors or the President's Office. He spoke to me as if speaking to a priest during a confession. He was looking for people whom he still trusted and was trying to figure out what to do. He was no longer able to trust his workplace, the most important politicians, while the state was being conquered. What was he to do? What was the officer, who saw such horrible processes and knew that his superiors and perhaps even state leaders were involved, supposed to do? The only possible solution was probably the media. He went to his closest friends, looking for approval. A week went by after our conversation. I went to Germany, and I heard about his death," Masiulis recalled.

His former colleagues and friends testified before the Seimas committee that Pociunas was planning to reveal the information about the web of corrupt politicians, businessmen, and officers that entangled Lithuania in the fall. Pociunas did not live to see the fall. Yet, symbolically, the probe into the VSD activities was launched that autumn, and during that probe the information that was collected about the entanglement of the state began to be revealed to society.



What Was VSD Leadership Afraid Of?

If the things that Masiulis and Pociunas's former colleagues are saying are true, his transfer to Hrodna becomes logical, and a key to solving his mysterious death appears. The fact that two years ago Pociunas uncovered shadowy ties between the VSD leadership, senior politicians, and influential businessmen who are tied to Russia seems to be more a convincing reason why Pociunas was transferred from the VSD to the foreign country than the idea being pushed by the VSD leadership, that Pociunas decided to leave due to personal conflicts with his colleagues. Moreover, after Pociunas's transfer, the division that he had headed was shut down, and the leaders of the counterintelligence division who continued his investigations were expelled.

The VSD leadership's attempts to kill the investigation into Pociunas's death become understandable, too. After losing his composure, Darius Jurgelevicius, a deputy VSD director, told the media and politicians to "stop digging among the bones," because very unpleasant things might be uncovered. VSD Director Pocius, directly and through intermediaries, pressured the Conservatives not to initiate the probe into Pociunas's death and was trying to force the VSD counterintelligence directors not to testify before the Seimas committee. After the attempts to extinguish the probe failed, the VSD used media loyal to the department to spread compromising information about Pociunas. Society was told that Pociunas allegedly was drunk and fell out the window while trying to urinate. It was also said that Pociunas, who until that moment was considered an almost ideal family man, had a mistress - a journalist who was constantly visiting him in Hrodna - and allegedly Pociunas's wife had a relationship with her co-worker.

Source: Kauno Diena, Kaunas, in Lithuanian 30 Jun 07

BBC Mon EU1 EUOSC vk

Give the Governor A Harrumph

ONTV in Chicago

ONTV was the first paid subscription "cable" television we had on the South side of Chicago in the early '80s. This logo is burned on my brain as it was the signifier of a treasure trove of "adult" movies such as "Ellie" starring Shelley Winters and Cheech and Chong's "Up In Smoke". My brother and I would perch on lemon-yellow velour couch cushions, construct Millenium Falcon "forts" and pop up Orville Reddenbacher popping corn to absorb the golden era of new entertainment made available to us via the ONTV gateway and of course, our brand new Betamax player.

The Toni Perm

I'll never forget the first Toni perm. 6th grade boyfriend from the public pool. It lasted 4 days (the relationship and the perm), he gave me a stuffed animal from Great America. His cousin came over and she screeched--"O MI GOD! THAT'S MY STUFFED ANIMAL!"

Used stuffed animal. Sun-In and Toni. DO NOT USE ON LADY BUSINESS AND JUMP IN CHLORINATED POOL--neighborhood skank did this and relayed her tale of woe.

Ryokan

Like Han-shan in China, Ryokan is loved in Japan as much for his antics as for his profound poetry.

Ryokan became a priest at age 18 and took to a life of wandering. He eventually met his teacher, Kokusen Roshi, and settled down to study Zen practice, ultimately becoming his most esteemed student. When Kokusen Roshi died, Ryokan inherited his temple. But the duties and regularity of being temple master didn't suit Ryokan, and he resumed his itinerant life.

He next settled in a small hut he called Gogo-an on Mt. Kugami, where he lived by begging.

Ryokan's love of children and animals are legendary. He often played games with the local children, attested to in his own poetry.

His reputation for gentleness carried sometimes to comical extremes. One tale is told that, one day when Ryokan returned to his hut he discovered a robber who had broken in and was in the process of stealing the impoverished monk's few possessions. In the thief's haste to leave, he left behind a cushion. Ryokan grabbed the cushion and ran after the thief to give it to him. This event prompted Ryokan to compose one of his best known poems:

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window.

When Ryokan was 70 and nearing the end of his life, he met a young nun and poet named Teishin. Though Teishin was only 28, they fell in love. They exchanged several beautiful love poems.

As Ryokan was dying, Teishin came to him and held him at his moment of death. It was Teishin who collected and published Ryokan's poetry after his death.

I Can Haz Cheezburger? Apparently Not.

Cats and Cheezbrgers: I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?


MY NEXT CAR

Free Sample

Sample supermarket maven
veteran of persuasion!
Her secret life,
series of bloody,
unrelenting moments of horror

There is an unspoken code among those who make a profession of the supermarket sample gig. They are the seasoned experts at creating a moment of enticement--appealing to senses of smell and taste, one spear of toothpick precision to your very core. They are seductress and alchemist: tempting with timing. Ah, the banal shopper will be enticed yet! Come, gather 'round the card table: Jimmy Dean sausage, you say? A coupon, you say? They are themselves delectables to be savored with great fervor, then ignored. They are masters of detachment, knowing their sisters of the streets well. Never, never get emotionally involved. It's just a job.

Yakov's Lines That Kill/Un Wodka Un Vine

"America: What a country!"

- I misunderstanding of American life and custom through the eyes of a new immigrant. For instance, reading employment announcements of "Part-Time Woman Wanted": What a country! Even transvestites can get work!

- I was offered a position as a barman on a "graveyard shift". A bar in a cemetery! What a country! Last call? During Happy Hour the place must be dead.

- At the grocery store: Powdered milk, powdered eggs, baby powder . . . what a country!

- The first time I went to a restaurant, they asked me 'How many in your party?' and I said "Six hundred million."

- We have no gay people in Russia—there are homosexuals but they are not allowed to be gay about it. The punishment is seven years locked in prison with other men and there is a three-year waiting list for that.

- You have such nice things in the U.S.—like warning shots!

- In the Soviet Union, we have no prostitution. Russian women have trouble giving it away.

- Russian women: At 20, they look 40. At 40, they look 60. At 60—don't look.

- Instead of Disneyland, we have "Dissident Land"--it's so fun there that no one ever leaves!

- "There are no Taco Bells in Russia. They didn't like the slogan, 'Run for the border.'

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Ivan Rebroff: My brother has had this album for years. It is an inspiration to alcoholics everywhere.




Now my own joke: Franzia: It's like Capri Sun for alcoholics! I SLAY MYSELF. Franzia has always been the disgruntled housewife's drink of choice.

Eddie Rabbitt I

Eddie Rabbit performs in Branson, Missouri, a place where Bridget and I will someday see the original Borat, Yakov Shmirnoff.

I wrote a collaborative poem with some friends regarding Mr. Rabbit (later posting). It was a great success, as the disjointed lines we wrote prior to putting the poem together in its purest, oral form, seemed to fittingly and eloquently crystallize the sudden and absurd fascination with Eddie Rabbit that night.

Eric Von Zippah

I've always adored Harvey Lembeck in this role, but thre was always Mother, Juggs, and Speed.

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (Russian: Чуко́тский автоно́мный о́круг, tr.: Chukotsky avtonomny okrug; Chukchi: Чукоткакэн автономныкэн округ), or Chukotka (Чуко́тка), is a federal subject of Russia (an autonomous okrug) located in the Far Eastern Federal District. It is the farthest northeast region of Russia, and since the sale of Alaska to the United States is the only region of Russia lying partially in the western geographical hemisphere. It is washed by the Bering Sea and the East Siberian Sea. Chukotka has an area of 737,700 km² and population of 53,824 (according to 2002 Census), and just over 55,000 in 2004. The principal town and administrative center is Anadyr.

Chukotka was formerly an autonomous okrug subsumed within Magadan Oblast, but it declared its separation in 1991; a move that was confirmed by the Russian Constitutional Court in 1993.

Elgygytgyn Lake, an important site for scientific research on climate change, is located in Chukotka.

Traditionally the home of the native Chukchi people, Siberian Yupiks, Koryaks, Chuvans, Evens/Lamuts, Yukagirs, and Russian Old Settlers, the region was subject to collectivisation and forced settlement during the Soviet era.

Chukotka has large reserves of oil, natural gas, coal, gold, and tungsten, which are slowly being exploited, but much of the rural population exists on subsistence reindeer herding, hunting, and fishing. The urban population is employed in mining, administration, construction, cultural work, education, medicine, and other occupations.

Chuck E. Sellier, Creator, Bulk of the Series, Not Exactly A Lightweight

Check out this awesome tribute site to Grizzly Adams.

http://www.grizzlyadams.net/

The Cows

I like these guys from Minneapolis...wish You Tube had some clips of The Cows playing "El Shiksa". One of my favorites.

Transcend all illusions of time and space by using your imagination, which can take you anywhere at any time

Poison Arrow

This ABC song came to mind this morning. The Greek tragedy set to 80's synthesizers. Once again, art imitates my life minus all the percussionists (gentleman, is it necessary to have mammoth orchestra bass drums and assorted congas for a song that employs a single Casio SK-1 drum machine?) Anyway, the quick flash of the Coke advertisement at the end is good for sponsorship. Poison and Coke? A winning, refreshing combination!

Time is Bleeding

In 2006, I wrote a preface for Denis Emorine's book, Au chevets des mots (A Step Inside). I remember reading this little book and becoming quite delighted with it...it spurned my desire to quest for that which is unsaid or cannot be said...that is, the pauses between "words" that say EVERYTHING. (Kalinauskaite, previous entry)

It was liberating to lose myself in this wistful reverie.

Preface: Here is a collection of vignettes that invites the dreamer into the elusive, entrancing perpetual fever of poetry. Here you are in the town square of language, where words elope, make love, fight, and part like unsatisfied, restless lovers into the night. It is never enough, it seems, when it comes to language. There are words that masquerade and manipulate, and there is the purity of meaning, as Emorine seems to suggest from the opening quotation used:

"And then, we'll be able to talk without stumbling into those words that cause time to bleed." --Jo Bousquet.

...The heart of this collection is in the segment "Fever", when Emorine declares: "Only silence has the bedside manner needed to respond to words broken down by their plentitude."

-Lina ramona Vitkauskas

ISBN: 2-919942-15-8

Arizona

Carefree, AZ. Cave Creek, AZ. Sedona, AZ. Pure vortexes of energy in those stoic, wise rocks that have stood the test of time on the barren landscape. The vegetation--saguaro cacti, ocatillo, pricky pear. Javelinas cross the roadways. Cowpokes and Harley riders. The stretches of long desert miles. The constellation-filled sky--seeing Venus as bright as the sun.

Pulpo

“Ace Of Wands
Scissors in a cross
An invisible heart
is distressed, see it?
A heart reflected on the wind.”
—“Incantation”, Poem of the Deep Song, Gabriel Garcia Lorca


The still wave,
pulpo of ice, storm reef,
stolen elephante forms
an apprehensive crash.

Emily said, “A word that
breathes distinctly
has not the power to die.”
The ether of each ovary ember,

lost in the wine of night.
I could juxtapose jurors, virgins
and my twisted tongue

and remain a lamp
that witnessed the stabbing:

"Como tembalaba el farolito de la calle!"

Invisible Hairshirt

Lyrics to 20+ year-old songs like Alison Moyet's "Invisible" (which stopped by the brain this morning) has redressed the idea that the subconscious does have a soundtrack and puts the needle to the proverbial life vinyl when an appropriate "groove" arises.

My whole life, I've seen the world symbolically, through letters/characters, language/words, sounds/sights. It is amazing to me, when I observe waves that crash against rock, that I can process it to the point of feeling, for a moment, as if I am a wave. My reception to nature could further be tuned, but the frequency has at least registered.

Between Moyet, REM, and the torrential and seemingly chilling waves this morning, I recall a conversation last night with a few writers about music's role or importance in finding a voice in writing. The poetic is fictional and fiction is poetic and reality is only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.

-----------------------------------------------------

"So here I am. Here I am."

I am not the type of dog
That could keep you waiting
For no good reason
Run a carbon-black test on my jaw
And you will find it's all been said before

I can swing my megaphone and long arm the rest
It's easier and better
To dispute it from the chest
Of desire

I could walk into this room
And the waves of conversation are enough
To knock you down in the undertow
So alone, so alone in my life
Feed me banks of light
And hang your hairshirt on the lowest rung
It's a beautiful life
And I can hang my hairshirt
Away up high in the attic of the wrong dog's life chest
Or bury it at sea
All my life I've searched for this

Here I am, here I am in your life
It's a beautiful life
My life
It's a beautiful life
Your life

Le Notti Bianche (1957), Visconti

Le notti bianche (White Nights), directed by Italian neorealist Luchino Visconti, takes its title and basic plot from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1848 short story. In both the story and the film, a lonely young man meets a lonely young woman.

Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) is lonely for social reasons; he is a stranger and a newcomer to town. Natalia (Maria Schell) is lonely because she has always lived in isolation, even in the heart of the city. Her loneliness is intensified because she is in love with a man (Jean Marais) who may not ever return to her, but who continues to occupy her heart to the exclusion of any other possible relationship.

Mario thanks the young woman for the moment of happiness she has brought him. However, he is left alone at the end of the film, befriending the same stray dog he met at the beginning. He is back at square one, and has put more energy into pursuing the fantasy of an obsession rather than any prospect of real love.

DHAMMPADA (adapted)

"Love yourself and be awake--
today, tomorrow, and always.

First establish yourself in the way,
then teach others,
and so defeat sorrow.

To straighten the crooked
you must first do the harder thing--
straighten yourself.

You are your only master,
who else?
Subdue yourself, and discover your master."

Kiss Off

"I hope you know
that this will go down
on your permanent record
Oh yeah?
Well dont get so distressed.
Did I happen to mention that I'm impressed?"

Last night, I saw a great friend of mine play in his band, The Telepaths. The show was a breast cancer cure fundraiser, and, having nearly missed early detection four years ago (yes, I almost even missed finding the inkling of possible cancer had it not been for my intuition and insistence), I believe any type of awareness is positively vital, no matter how small a gathering. Everything counts in large amounts, the boys from Essex said.

The Telepaths are comprised of my buddy PMcD; a blast from my high school past who used to call everyone "a piece of shit"; Cory from the popular group The Cells (for last night); and genius James (White Wolf), the other half to my previous workmate, Carla (Sonic Princess). The Telepaths did a raw version of "Cover Me" (Springsteen), a kickin' cover of "Dirty Work" (Steely Dan) and a dirrrty version of "Area 51" (with Hoopa Freaks)! I much enjoyed the soulful, searching ballad for "Susan Sontag".

This all got me thinking about live band karaoke and what song I'd do. This one (Kiss Off-Femmes) is angry, and I'm not angry, but I imagine I could twist my pipes around it and really get salty on stage.

Ring Tones

I don't give a shit about your ring tone. They have become the new "life flair". They are so Spencer Gifts. If you feel the need to define yourself by a noise, then fart. It would be far more profound.

Elevation

My encounters in the elevator in my building have spurned the idea that universal consciousness has never been so relevant as it is in this day and age. As I age and observe people observing me, I still do not realize that my perception of myself is expertly cloaked beneath the veil of a world-weary woman. (This is the air I give off though I have no clue from where it hails). I recall an cluster of Indian women one evening, all elegantly ornamented in beautiful silken saris, glowing from a wedding celebration, laughing and sharing with me their joy.

There is a projection of yourself in your immediate space that you ooze, and human beings read these signals; the urge for human connection is evident more than ever before--even in a friendly city like Chicago where it is quite plausible for an immigrant of any nationality to come up to you on the street and tell you his or her life story.

But in the elevator, there is something about a chance encounter, a meeting with someone alone in an enclosed space for a brief moment in time, under harsh flourescent lights that evokes a spirit of interrogation and confession. I also attribute my reception of these encounters to the expressive nature of my face and spirit. I seem to invite storytellers to me. I should have been an investigative journalist or a psychologist.

My first encounter: a South African gentleman who kindly shared with me his short story of being in this country thus far. It was a recounting of how he was now somehow responsible for several payments for magazine subscriptions. I am sure he was coerced into them by slick advertisers (the likes of whom I know all too well). He was kind and extended his hand. I shook it and felt an awakening of my spirit then, how else to describe seeing a flash in my mind of long travels and distant lands, vegetation, wildlife I have only seen in photos. He had come so far and was proud to be here. He had warmth to give a small blonde girl in the elevator. There was an assurance that whatever trouble I had been grappling with in my mind at that moment, that it was insignificant in the grand scheme of life.

The second was with a small man of Serbian or Russian decent--it was difficult to localize his accent in a short span of time. He studied my face with such intensity I thought he might grab my face between his small, rough palms and devour me. After a moment, a voiced question with a soft caress to his own cheek, asking, "Of where I come from." I told him I was Lithuanian. He nodded and left the elevator.

The next was with a man who opened a dialogue after I sighed painfully while waiting for the next car to arrive. "You look like you've been rode hard and put up wet." I remarked that was weird to say. He countered with, "Well, I'm a cowboy." I asked, "Oh yeah? Where are you from?" He answered, "I'm from the East coast originally, but I'm a Michigan cowboy." I said, "There's no cowboys in Michigan." I began to study the numbers on the elevator. He got off at 16 telling me, "Yeah, I'm the disappointment to the family. I left home, went off to Vietnam and fought, and then went to school." I sarcastically commented, as the doors closed between us, "Yeah, that's pretty disappointing."

Caught

Giant squid, the most giant squid, wrapped in cold salt of man's man's nets
I ate all the tentacles last night

Pervading Theme

by Cristian Vargas, Bogota, Colombia

Li Nan, Poet

"only those who do love
are far from love"

-Li Nan

LI NAN'S BOOK, SMALL AVAILABLE AT VISUAL ARTIST'S COLLECTIVE

Pauses

RASA KALINAUSKAITE, a journalist from Vilnius:

"...when I construct voices by myself, a montage is done, performed by you - you cut out pauses. If we consider voice as a construct of modern epoch, that is the voice without pauses. These days, people avoid pauses, they fear pauses. Because voice without pauses is information...and the more information, the more it is valuable. Although I think that the voice principally resists such castration, as perhaps the most valuable elements are sighs, natural inhalations, exhalations, some kind of bodily physiology, everything what is inclusive in pauses...You just observe it how physical bits of voice...are cut out...the voice is no longer there…"

I have translated one of Kalinauskaite's poems, Coversations with Teo. I take great care in the pauses when reading.

"Wife to Doug"

"She loves the satisfaction of unearthing a treasure among the long rejected."

Nothing/Everything

Apoplectic Butterfly / Fin de siècle

winged and warping,
current event raws her;
a vegetation still life,
garage slipcover, combustion dance,
this random cluster of cork
typical of the Aesthetic movements
fleshtones, flavors. agricola
and villa collide to make agrilla,
an Edwardian viceroy illustration
each line a place to burn
the census, thorax
threaded against time.

Published in Fifth Wednesday

Neologisms

A friend sent these and I took great delight in them:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

The Cinema

I absolutely love film. I still have a Korvette's 8mm left behind from my grandfather when he first came to this country from Lithuania. It sits in a box in my closet, begging me to free it and roam about with it in an inspired trance.

I was thinking about the shame of the Oscars, how it, like everything else, has become tarnished by commercialism and banality.

That is not to say that some of the films/actors up for consideration this year are not worthy of praise. To give an Oscar, however, is pretty meaningless anymore. I am sure most agree that this once most prestigious honor has really been soiled by the fact that trustees or bankers or someone other than one who truly understands, supports, and/or is involved with the art is choosing "a winner". In fact, there are so many wonderful movies, the idea of only honoring one as "the best" of the year falls suit with anything Americanized (number one, first place, competition, etc.)

I'd like to see a show that honors all the great films that were released in a single year, showcased via a sleek montage as they do for fallen actors/ directors/ filmmakers/ designers.

Some of the films that I saw this past year (2006) (not necessarily from this year, and some are older films) that I found notable:

1. The Science Of Sleep
2. Zizek
3. My Life As A Dog
4. Breakfast On Pluto
5. Fando y Lis
6. Grey Gardens (finally per request of CS and CC)
7. The Lost City
8. Junebug
9. The Man Who Laughs
10. Everything Is Illuminated
11. The Phantom Of Liberty
12. Veronika Voss
13. The Squid And The Whale
14. El Topo
15. David Lynch's Short Films
16. Goodbye Lenin
17. Children of Men

Tango y Cash?

Listening to: Gotan Project, Epoca, La Revancha del Tango







I call this BLUE STEEL.

"El Topo": A Synopsis Thus Far

Midnight movie at The Music Box:
The movie takes place in two parts. The first half, in an unnamed desert, begins with the title character, accompanied by his naked son, hunting down and killing a band of outlaws who have butchered the inhabitants of a town. After leaving his son with monks he has rescued from the outlaws, he rides off with a woman the outlaws had kept captive to defeat the four great masters of pistol duelling. As El Topo encounters each of the first three masters, the master teaches El Topo a lesson and they then duel, in which El Topo cheats every time. The final master kills himself, in a demonstration of the unimportance of life. The first half ends with El Topo's betrayal and near-murder by the woman and an unnamed informant.

The second half of the movie takes place years later, after El Topo is rescued by a band of deformed outcasts, saving him from death. The outcasts take El Topo to their underground community, where he, comatose, meditates on the four lessons for many years. When he awakes, he is 'born again' with the help of the outcasts, and goes on a quest to free them from their subterranean prison.

With the help of his dwarf girlfriend and his full-grown son, now a priest, El Topo digs an exit out of the cave, only to see the others of his community murdered by cultists from a nearby town. In a rage, El Topo kills them all, then pours oil on himself and sets himself on fire, as he has learned all he can about life.

El Topo's son and girlfriend survive the ordeal and make a grave for his remains, which becomes a beehive full of honey.

Mercury: I Have A Love-Hate Relationship With That Metal

"The people desire their ways to be
looked into but won't come up
with any names."

—William Fuller, "The Same" from Watchword

molecules said this:
a distinct place:
a ruling planet.
Mutability.

The Print Seal Machine

Lithuanian Independence Day Commoration, Feb. 16

Today I went to Maria High School in the old neighborhood, Marquette Park. I saw three speakers and Senator Dick Durbin speak about Lithuanian Independence.


David Satter
Former Moscow correspondent, is a long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Satter was born in Chicago in 1947 and graduated from the University of Chicago and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a B.Litt degree in political philosophy. He worked for four years as a police reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, in 1976, he was named Moscow correspondent of the London Financial Times. He worked in Moscow for six years during which time he sought out Soviet citizens with the intention of preserving their accounts of the nature of Soviet society for posterity.

After completing his term in Moscow, Satter became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for The Wall Street Journal, contributing to the paper’s editorial page. In 1990, he was named a Thornton Hooper fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and then a senior fellow at the Institute.

Satter has written two books about Russia, Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Knopf, 1996; paperback, Yale) and Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale, 2003). His books have been translated into Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Portugese, and Vietnamese. Age of Delirium is also being made into a documentary film by the Russian director, Andrei Nekrasov, in a U.S.-German- Ukrainian joint production. The film is to appear on the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. He is presently working on a new book about the Russian attitude toward the communist past.

Publications and Media Exposure

Satter has written extensively for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. His articles and op-ed pieces have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The National Interest, National Review, National Review Online, The New Republic, The New York Sun, The New York Review of Books, Reader’s Digest and the Washington Times. He is frequently interviewed in both Russian and English by Radio Liberty, the Voice of America and the BBC and has appeared on Fox News, C-Span, the Charlie Rose Show and other television programs.

Who Killed Alexander Litvinenko? 11/28/2006


Dr. Darius Furmonavicius
MA in International Relations (University of Nottingham, 1996), PhD in European Studies (University of Bradford, 2002), was awarded a 2002 Bernadette E. Schmidt grant for research in European history of the American Historical Association to complete his research for a monograph ‘Lithuania Rejoins Europe’ (forthcoming by the East European Monographs Series of the Columbia University Press in 2006) as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Languages and European Studies, University of Bradford. His main research interests are the international relations of the Baltic States, international aspects of Lithuania’s politics, history, and economy, European security (particularly of the Baltic Sea region), NATO & EU enlargements, and European-American relations. He is also Acting Chairman of the Lithuanian Research & Studies Fund, 16 Hound Rd., West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 6AH, UK.

Andrei Nekrasov, Russian filmmaker

Andrei Nekrasov

Are You As New Man Meticulous

Are You As New Man Meticulous, Blossombones

CANADA

Re-Fall

Someone dragged out "trip" and "fall". What happens if you do not utilize this correct sequence, that is, if one should fall and then trip?

The Real Nature

A tiny fox attacks
in the bath and dreams
of grapes of the mind,
salvages Western gear.

He is living, after all,
in clouded kisses of bloody.
Novel forest, nomad, barnacle,
he is writing a word for you.
Generous strobe,
you bring happiness.

The Path of Mindfulness

"A practitioner is aware 'this is suffering', as it arises. One is aware 'this is the cause of the suffering', as it arises. One is aware, 'this is the end of suffering' as it arises. One is aware, 'this is the path which leads to the end of suffering' as it arises."

--adapted from Satipatthana-sutta, translated by Thich Nhat Hanh and Annabek Laity

Interview U

JAN 25 23:02

Today is Friday, Jan. 26th and it is 1:30 pm and I am staring out the window and in broad daylight I can already see the moon out in First Quarter position that will last until Full Moon Feb 2 05:45. I am feeling as hidden as this moon.

The Flaming "V"

a. Reefs
"Well, I'll swill seahorse's eyelash,"
Ravi declared. "I do believe I'll
masticate the alphabet twice."
She via Venus, thirsty heart
a serrano along the roadside.
Through the verbal ambergris,
desire laminates this puncture.

b. Branches
"Muse droppings,"
details Mavis. "A whole
bouquet." And the needles.
Thread glass stylus,
play love's archeology
of reunion. "Signed,
Okiagari-koboshi*."

c. Mannequin Fingers
She beneath aperture
coves draped in
phosphorus feathers,
spark plugs.

*Okiagari-koboshi, "the getting-up little priest" is a traditional Japanese doll. The toy is made from papier-mâché and is designed so that its weight causes it to return to an upright position if it is knocked over. Okiagari-koboshi is considered a good-luck charm and a symbol of perseverance and resilience.

Nombre del Arbol/Medis Vardas

sus manos
son mis manos
en la vida del arboles;
las manzanas
de mis ojos
son tuyos
*Spanish

savo rankas
yra mano rankas
gyventi medai
yra akies obuolys
*Lithuanian

Jupiter Uranus Square

These rabid braille details.
Reciprocation,
the icebox swears,
it is new language.

Lovers: when Jupiter,
in 12 years, contemplated
you--now, on January 22.
Make hands, make a significant
era. Uranus, 'the Awakener' hits
cosmic you.

You. Most significant braille.
Rabid reciprocations in
the language icebox.

Sneart

On the beach below,
a heart in the snow.

Mechanically Separated

Walgreen's had a carton of 12 cans for $3.

Aviary

Radio wire is often used to make bird nests.
What station do they listen to?

WREN

17

post of olive marrow,
winter lasso, arrived
each a mother,
a matron, & mistress
under the universe's
cruel microscope.
each mind letters
a scientist and then,
17 of them: "I am a
whisper." And then,
all that cuts thirst,
all in her walk to
the still lake, all
in each crimson gush
the maid cries into her keys.
"It must be." For pistachio
myth, this extinct exchange,
no cuneiform across men's
mysteries, chests,
aches, can cross.
_____________________________________________

The Brodmann area defining the primary visual processing area of mammallian brains, the atomic number of chlorine, the number which held the key to the control of natural forces in Godley & Creme's Consequences, the halogen group in the periodic table, Messier object M17, a magnitude 7.0 nebula/cluster in the constellation Sagittarius, also known as the Omega Nebula, The Number Seventeen (1932), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 'the most random number' as described by MIT, The New General Catalogue object NGC 17, a peculiar galaxy in the constellation Cetus, the age at which one may donate blood and join the military voluntarily, in the novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams, a character who is unknowingly a rain god has a numerical scheme to categorize all the different types of rain which continuously bombard him; the worst, the heaviest, the least pleasant, is Rain Type 17, "a dirty blatter blattering against the windows so hard, it was impossible to tell whether he had the wipers on or off", the ratio 18/17 was a popular approximation for the equal tempered semitone during the Renaissance, the age of the "Dancing Queen", a mild swear word in Swedish, commonly used as "sjutton också!" ("seventeen, too!"), roughly be translated to "Darn!", the maximum number of strokes of a Chinese radical, the number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5), in Nordic countries the seventeenth day of the year is considered the heart and/or the back of winter, the number of trees Dostoevsky could see out of the window of his cell while he was in prison, the number of surat al-Isra in the Qur'an, in Italian culture, the number 17 is considered unlucky. When viewed as the Roman numeral, XVII, it is then changed anagramtically to VIXI, which in the Latin language it translates to "I have lived", the perfect tense implying "My life is over." (c.f. "Vixerunt", Cicero's famous announcement of an execution.) The Italian airline carrier, Alitalia, does not have a seat 17.

Letter Spirit

THE LETTER SPIRIT PROJECT

Matriculate Blind

these ravens wore wool,
rushed to the story
of two stripped
planetary streams

fell she
fell
the eyes her
fell

wings clipped.

Fins of Cloves

In my Sanskrit state,
my still celluloid dream,
the last gelatine poems
severed from scrolls and minerals.

I'm the demographic gaffe,
protest me. This fission of girl,
this scaling. I, beheaded,
a loving cup smirk.
My life a mussel- a soft gun,
a parliament of flora,
my name.

Finch Me A Vacuum

Artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot.



Saw his installation, From Hear to Ear seven years ago at the

Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center.

He recently had an exhibit in NY (below) of vaccuum cleaners producing sound via strategically-placed harmonicas. In the backdrop of this exhibit, he a magnified a candle flame and kept the camera steady upon it. He then recorded the flame's sound vibrations as it flickered. When this sound was played back to the candle, it extinguished itself.

There is something about sound within an art installation. Sound obviously sets tone and environment. However, from a potentially-blind perspective, I have grown to become attuned to sound. Each nuance sound in daily life: of pitch, tone, variation, pauses, breaths, and white noise all indicate place, time, and mood. I can sense tension and love through sound. I can feel vibrations in the air. I can taste electrical impulses. When we viewed the exhbit of finches on a labyrinth of wire hangers, there was a chorus of their movements in the air. Sound implies existence. In the large, cold room, one could close their eyes and feel each finch move with a winged flutter and tinge of wire clinging in the air. It was as if you were a tiny finch in this created environment, for a moment.


harmonichaos



Photograph courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, Paula Cooper Gallery, through Oct 14 2006
From Time Out New York

“French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot has casually arranged 13 vacuum cleaners, hoses curled and metal tubes standing at attention. Their indicator lights glow green and each has a harmonica stuck in its nozzle. One vacuum suddenly switches on, a wan yellow bulb attached to its side lights up, and air is sucked through the harmonica, sounding a wheezy chord. As it turns off, another goes on, its harmonica playing at a slightly different pitch. Soon all the machines chime in at intervals, creating the chaotic harmonies suggested by the work’s title, harmonichaos.

Boursier-Mougenot allows chance to conduct his concert: The vacuums’ motors are controlled by hidden sensors (modified electric guitar tuners) that react to sound frequencies, producing live, never identical call-and-response performances. Together with the muffled whirring of the motors and ambient noises in the gallery, the harmonicas evoke incidental pipe organ music, as if John Cage had scored a Lon Chaney film. In its spectacle of technology forming a disembodied choir, harmonichaos also recalls the eerie melancholy of Janet Cardiff’s Forty-Part Motet (installed at P.S.1 and, more recently, MoMA).

Opposite the vacuums is a black-and-white video projection of a candle flame, enlarged to the point of abstraction and flickering in slow motion. Its movement, we learn from a gallery handout, was generated by the reverberations of its own light. The fluttering was translated into sound waves, which were played back on a speaker; the sonic vibrations blew the flame out. But the video is silent and our connection to this process remains as ephemeral as the ghostly image itself.”

Hieronymous Bosch

The fish of man/
opal-dyed quasars/
yet to be molested or birthed/





We come back to where we have committed a crime,
[not] to where we loved.

-Joseph Brodsky

"Min-roe!"

Ultraviolet

THE RATE OF OSCILLATION
NEVER BEGS FOR INTERFERENCE

"Our Destiny is to Merge with Infinity"

...said the teabag tag.

New year thrusts forth the notion that we will receive a clean slate handed to us at the stroke of midnight. Though this mentally transpires due to intoxication, it is us who must shift perspective to this new state of mind independent of chronology.

It is this illusion that change only exists when we exert our will upon the universe, but it is the universe, ultimately, that is in constant flux and affects all life forms as a result. Impermanence, change, is necessary and an innate foundation of life. It is "okay" for things to change. We are not in a stoic state. Time is passing, we decompose. However, life is simultaneous, keeping rhythm with this and these accidents, coincidences, and "planned" occurences are all relative. Is it according to plan? What is the plan? Does one need "a plan" and why?

Is this a cruel, sick joke in which fleeting, meaningful moments ensnare entire being only to be interrupted by mundane being or is it in pure being that meaning is found? Perhaps there is no meaning in pure being, our hearts mechanistically pumping, each of us dead until the next significant moment pulls us from tragedy to elation?

Kenny's Six Pack

I cannot get the theme from "Six Pack", starring Kenny Rogers and the left-over cast from The Bad News Bears, out of my head. I believe the sentimental credit roll tune was titled, "Love Will Turn It Around".

36. Simple Solution

You need not strain for solutions in love or marriage or anywhere else. Strain means you want to use old thoughts to handle new moments, which is like using last week's weather report. The only way to solve a problem is to see your own unclear mind as the cause and nothing else. Your birdbrained friends won't do this because it means dropping their precious hatreds and accusations. Do right for yourself. Don't hesitate. It brings life to your life for the first time.

Tittle Me This

Okay. I have officially found my new favorite show: public access' Tittle In The Middle, starring TV/Radio personality, LaDonna Tittle. With Jason Robards' voice and the sassiness of Monique, LaDonna takes us into her home and her big, cholesterol-ridden heart. This episode brings us closer to the Tittles. Ragu sauce and all.



Cookin' Wit' Tittle: Secret Blend
LaDonna makes spaghetti with 83-years young Aunt Marguerite.

Secret Agent Clam

THEY'VE GIVEN YOU A SHUCKER
AND TOOK AWAY YOUR BIB

Vallium

From Fando y Lis, Jodorowsky












built hemispheres
around you

an ontological
transmission vocale

is where you meant me

Lithuanian National Anthem

Lithuania, my homeland, land of heroes!
Let your Sons draw strength from the past.
Let your children follow only the paths of virtue,
working for the good of their native land and for all mankind.

Let the sun banish all darkness from Lithuania,
with light and truth always guiding our steps.
Let the love of Lithuania burn in our hearts
and for the sake of our country let unity blossom.

Crap With A Star!

Sometimes I feel like Ed Wood.

"Why woould he make a picture with you?"
"Because he's my friend."

96. Sick Humans

"Still think people are nice? Just wait until you finish seeing the entire horror show. Men and women are depraved beyond description. Example: the devilish degenerate who tries to esacpe his self-caused trouble by deliberately trying to get someone else into trouble. Think it happens rarely? This sick act occurs millions of times daily, unseen by its victims. Hypocrites don't like an exposure like this, not because it is shocking, but because it is true."

---"Vernon Howard is an island of sanity in a confused world."

Birds of the Baltic: An Orinthological Travelogue, E.J. Barnes (Drowned Town Press, 2005)

This unique peek into bird watching across the Baltics is done in an accessible, comic book format, complete with light-yet- compelling narrative. The characters visit the Baltics for vacation (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), and their first stop is the Lithuania's captial, Vilnius. During their tour around Gediminas' Pilis (Grand Duke Gediminas' Castle), the female character spots unusual birds gathering around which she likens to "crows with gray vests". These birds seem to resemble mockingbirds to her, although they are not indigenous. Their distinct mannerisms set them apart from other birds, namely the repetitious bobbing of their tails. This little bobbing-tailed bird perplexes the travelers for the remainder of their trip through the Baltics.

She asks a Lithuanian inn-keeper who does not seem to know, then, when in Latvia, asks a Latvian tour guide. A "lapwing" is suggested along the way. Finally, an English-speaking Estonian tour guide who happens to have on her person a multi-language nature guide solves the case of the mystery bird--it is a White Wagtail.

The illustrations in this comic are pleasant and clearly tell the story, even to this reviewer's liking, without many explanations. Points of interest most notable necessitating the monologue: a stop in Estonia, Tartu, which highlights a ceremony of Midsummer's Eve, or, Jannipaev. Once a pagan sun holiday, it became Christianized as St. John's Day, a time for men named John, (Janis, Jons) to wear wreaths of oak leaves upon their heads.

"You stay up all night and go hunting in the woods for fern blossom. This is really an excuse for spending the night drinking with your friends around the bonfire and rolling in the bushes with your sweetie. It is, after all, a fertility ritual."

This is a fun little comic with heart. As much of an orinthological lesson as it is a charming documentation of a trip to the Baltics.

Ancient Word Collage

"Poetry makes nothing happen"

Auden.

Altering perception so one does not face reality.
Freedom issues. Is man truly free?
Pride. A man is truly a man?
Survival. Man expresses himself.
Man cannot express himself.
Never cry in town.
The holy communion of the heroine
the skin of a pear. An arsonist.

Potassium

Here are some selected, pertinent facts about potassium courtesy of Wikipedia.

With a density less than that of water, potassium is the second least dense metal after lithium. It is a soft, low-melting solid that can easily be cut with a knife. Freshly cut potassium is silvery in appearance, but in air it begins to tarnish toward gray visibly and immediately. Potassium must be protected from air for storage to prevent disintegration of the metal from oxide and hydroxide corrosion. Often samples are maintained under an inert medium such as kerosene.

It has the symbol K (Arabic: al qalja‎ → Latin: kalium), and atomic number 19. The name "potassium" comes from the word "potash", as potassium was first isolated from potash. Potassium is a soft silvery-white metallic alkali metal that occurs naturally bound to other elements in seawater and many minerals. It oxidizes rapidly in air and is very reactive, especially towards water. In many respects, potassium and sodium are chemically similar, although organisms in general, and animal cells in particular, treat them very differently.

• Potassium is an essential element for all living organisms.
• Potassium and its compounds emit a violet color in a flame. This fact is the basis of the flame test for the presence of potassium in a sample.
• Potassium compounds generally have excellent water solubility, due to the high hydration energy of the K+ ion. The potassium ion is colorless in water.
• Potassium may be detected by taste because it triggers all the types of tastebuds, according to concentration. Dilute solutions of potassium ion taste sweet (allowing moderate concentrations in milk and juices), while higher concentrations become increasingly bitter/alkaline, and finally also salty to the taste. The combined bitterness and saltiness of high potassium content solutions makes high-dose potassium supplementation by liquid drinks a palatability challenge.

• It is primarily used in fertilizer as either the chloride, sulfate or carbonate - not as the oxide.
• Potassium hydroxide is an important industrial chemical used as a strong base.
• Potassium nitrate is used in gunpowder (black powder). An older term for KNO3 is saltpeter.
• Potassium carbonate, known as potash, is used in glass manufacturing.
• Glass treated with liquid potassium is much stronger than regular glass.
• NaK, pronounced "nack", an alloy of sodium and potassium which is liquid at room temperature, is used as a heat-transfer medium. It can also be used as a desiccant for producing dry and air-free solvents.
• Potassium is an essential component needed in plant growth and is found in most soil types. In animal cells potassium ions are vital to keeping cells alive (see Na-K pump)
• Potassium chloride is used as a substitute for table salt and is also used to stop the heart, e.g. in cardiac surgery and in executions by lethal injection in solution.
• The superoxide KO2 is used as a portable source of oxygen and as a carbon dioxide absorber. It is useful in portable respiration systems.
• Many potassium salts are very important, and include: potassium bromide, potassium carbonate, potassium chlorate, potassium chloride, potassium chromate, potassium cyanide, potassium dichromate, potassium iodide, potassium nitrate, potassium sulfate.

Solid potassium reacts violently with water, and should therefore be kept under a mineral oil such as kerosene and handled with care. Unlike lithium and sodium however, potassium cannot be stored under oil indefinitely. If stored longer than 6 months to a year, dangerous shock-sensitive peroxides can form on the metal and under the lid of the container, which can detonate upon opening. DO NOT store potassium, rubidium or caesium for longer than a year unless stored in an inert (argon) atmosphere or in a vacuum.

The extremely alkaline potassium hydroxide (KOH) residue on the surface of potassium which has been exposed to moisture, is a caustic hazard. As with sodium metal, the "soapy" feel of potassium metal on skin is due to caustic breakdown of the fats in skin into crude soft potassium soap, and represents the beginning of an alkali burn. Potassium should obviously be handled only with careful skin and eye protection.

Potassium fires are exacerbated by water, and only a few dry chemicals are effective for them. For a fire discussion which applies to alkali metals in general, see the precaution section for sodium.

Potassium is an essential mineral micronutrient in human nutrition; it is the major cation (positive ion) inside animal cells, and it is thus important in maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance in the body. Potassium is also important in allowing muscle contraction and the sending of all nerve impulses in animals. See action potential for an explanation of the interplay of sodium and potassium in all excitable animal cells. Because of the interaction of the charge on a potassium ion and its surrounding water molecules, K+ ions are actually a little smaller than Na+ ions, and ion channels and pumps in cell membranes can easily distinguish between the two types of ions, actively pumping or passively allowing one of the two ions to pass, while blocking the other.

A shortage of potassium in body fluids may cause a potentially fatal condition known as hypokalemia (see article for detail), typically resulting from diarrhea, increased diuresis and vomiting. Deficiency symptoms include muscle weakness, paralytic ileus, ECG abnormalities, decreased reflex response and (in severe cases) respiratory paralysis, alkalosis and arrhythmia.
Eating a variety of foods that contain potassium is the best way to get an adequate amount. Healthy individuals who eat a balanced diet rarely need supplements. Foods with high sources of potassium include orange juice, potatoes, bananas, avocados, apricots, parsnips and turnips, although many other fruits, vegetables, and meats contain potassium. Research has indicated that diets high in potassium can reduce the risk of hypertension.

The 2004 guidelines of the Institute of Medicine specify an RDA of 4,700 mg of potassium. However, it is thought that most Americans consume only half that amount per day. Similarly, in the European Union, particularly in Germany and Italy, insufficient potassium intake is widespread. Supplements of potassium in medicine are most widely used in conjunction with the most powerful classes of diuretics, which rid the body of sodium and water, but have the side effect of also causing potassium loss in urine. A variety of medical supplements are available.

Some people with kidney disease are advised to avoid large quantities of dietary potassium. End stage renal failure patients undergoing therapy by renal dialysis must observe strict dietary limits on potassium intake, since the kidneys control potassium excretion, and buildup of blood concentrations of potassium may trigger fatal heart dysrhythmias.

"I like philosophy as an anonymous job"

Zizek circumnavigates one ideology within this short-yet-inspiring documentary. It is a document, yes, of Zizek going from one speaking engagement to another, decrying the attendance to his lectures by students and budding philosophers alike and observing his son as essence: the natural form of un-love.

It is a deception, this idea of love. What we do not know about Zizek is all we need to know. It is his exigence: this idea of anonymity combined with the idea of utterance pronouncing existence.

Not being one who clearly understands the Marxist bent/Lacanian analysis, but one who intends to further my study, I took away from this documentary:

1. "anti-metaphysics, [that is] the absurdity to theorize the All, because something will always remain un-theorized."

2. Pleasure with constraint, i.e. his example of the Dostoevsky model: "If God doesn't exist, everything permitted. If God doesn't exist, everything is prohibited."

I must return to my surrealist domain, I must further study his philosophies as these are but small representations of the ironic "whole" which he denounces. I like the idea of an anonymous philosophy, that is, one that shifts its position for proper metaphysical suicide and Uber-Freudian submersion. If I am a woman who comprehends parallel universes, I at least understand that a non-revolution occurring in another dimension is my anonymous revolution for mankind.

Zizek
Lacan

Slim Goodbody, Chef Brockett, and Doug Henning

These three men are of mystical realms, they have magic prowess and, of course, peanut butter balls. Let's not forget sutra magic love, new age theme park plans, and a tight body-stocking with huge intestines painted upon it.

I remember in grade school we all went to the Robert Crown Health center to learn about puberty. A clear plastic woman, probably related to the CPR dummy, Annie, lit her breasts up and discussed "mammary glands". The boys punched some girl's boobs to test her "mammaries".

The Premise of "Krull": Peter Yates' Psyche

After watching BULLITT from way back when, I have come to the conclusion that I have great admiration for a director that commands presence with silence, utilizes an emotional climax with only subtlety...the undertow of intensity. Wind-blown wisps of hair across porcelain foreheads and glazed horse-eyed gazes on the beach.

Like Jacqueline Bissett, I discover he is living in a crazy law-enforcement world of violence and our worlds have collided. Dialogue is moot in this instance.

I'm Sick of Symmetry

Viewed Buñel's 1974 classic, "Phantom Of Liberty". Have to note that I did the bougeoise thing and twice rewound a scene in which a police academy professor turns around only to reveal the age-old prank of having a piece of paper pinned to his back. Buñel masterfully weaves several subplots into one another, illustrating the artful statement of societal sublimation via the repressed mind. ***1/2

The Peacock Skirt, by Aubrey Beardsley

Safia Ama Jan

Who would I choose as my Woman of the Year?

Immediately I began trying to NOT think of Hillary. Not that I don't respect her strong will and attack on Rumsfeld on the Hill a few weeks back, but I saw her speak on CSPAN for Ann Richards' memorial service and I wasn' t the thrightest bit impressed. (I enjoy inventing superlatives). She seems bent on situationally creating herself. Richards was the real deal. To have HRC transform her midwestern accent to a southern twang to suit her purposes in the public light really made me question her sincerity. HRC is a smart, determined woman. She's just not my WOTY.

The first real candidate who then crossed my mind was Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Al Franken features her daily on his Air America talk show. Prior to starting CREW, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia, where, from 1998-2003, she successfully tried cases before dozens of judges and juries. Before becoming a prosecutor, Sloan served as Minority Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, working for Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) and specializing in crime issues. Basically, she demands accountability, up to the prosecution of, those bi-partisan crooks and liars in Washington...which makes her job an indefinite, permanent position for as long as we exist & operate under a "free" democracy.

Then there's Cindy Sheehan, another wonderful choice. Sheehan has done so much to put a face on this war. She was chosen by tragedy, not because she wanted to be in this position. She is a powerful diplomat and is an inspiration. I grieve for her loss and all the mothers', sisters', fathers'...families' losses. Our young men and women deserve to come home. They are in harm's way, and our presence is creating and continuing to fuel radicalist, violent acts. They are in the crossfire of a completely unneccessary "war". A war fabricated for war profits and declared upon an abstraction.

However, after seeing this story, Safia Ama Jan has my respect and heart. This is why she is my Woman Of The Year.

From "Song of Zazen" by Hakuin Zenji

"All beings by nature are Buddha,
as ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
apart from beings, no Buddha."

Villaurrutia

Mind-Binder

Saw "Veronika Voss" by Fassbinder. The film offers two themes: the dichotomous "Jeckyll And Hyde" metaphor and the idea of life imitating art. This realistic post-war Germany piece is stunning. Though filmed in 1982, the film's setting and cinematography is authentic to the period, believeable in its stark representation of Germany's identity crisis, post-Nazi era. It is as if Veronika herself, an aging film star, a Monroe-equivalent in her heyday, is Germany, struggling to come out from under an oppressive regime. In this case, the propaganda is morphine, and the death of old Germany and the emergence of a new one have a battle via Veronika herself--it's a conflict between her ties to the past/delusions of grandeur and her present, drugged and controlled state by her puppetmaster, a Nazi-esque neurologist, Dr. Marianne Katz.

There was a quasi-lesbian theme between Dr. Katz and Veronika, in fact, even a menage: Katz, Voss, and a reporter's girlfriend (a young innocent) all of them indirectly connected through the same man in one capacity or another. There is a pervading theme: the characters want commonality/simplicity to set them free, yet find no solace in being the controlled or controllers. It is the young woman in this trio who becomes the victim in this battle of nationalism, dying for an unknown German future.

Užupis Mano Akis

Daugau (more, volume)
baltas (white, veins)

Karsta (hot, sound)
Zinosti (I know, your inertia)

Vandiens (water, a bruised beach)
Ausra (dawn, a chanteuse planet)

Kojes (feet, werewolf machines)
Smeles (sand, B positive)

Ateik (come closer, monument lover)