http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1195929/I-just-ruff-night-Pure-bred-Miss-Ellie-wins-title-Worlds-Ugliest-Pedigree-Dog.html
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Monday, June 16, 2008
the ultimate library
i just finished an interesting book, american gods, by neil gaiman. like the title suggests it examines the state of faith and idols in modern america. one particular passage really struck me and i felt like sharing it with you:
"i can believe things that are true and i can believe things that aren't true and i can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. i can believe in santa claus and the easter bunny and marilyn monroe and the beatles and elvis and mister ed. listen--i believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. i believe the the future sucks and i believe that the future rocks and i believe that one day white buffalo woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. i believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in america is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. i believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and i still believe that they are better than the alternative. i believe that california is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while florida is going to dissolve into madness
and alligators and toxic waste. i believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the martians in war of the worlds. i believe that the greatest poets of the last century were edith sitwell and don marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life i was a one-armed siberian shaman. i believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. i believe that candy really did taste better when i was a kid, and that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billion of years older than the universe itself. i believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything i do. i believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that i'm alive. i believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. i believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. i believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. i believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. i believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system. i believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."
i did not post this monologue (by a college-aged woman in the novel) because i necessarily agreed with her beliefs but because i loved the openness of it. the character is not bound by a particular dogma other than her own somewhat flaky belief system. she is open and she is young and she is passionate. the passage got me thinking about my own belief system which perplexes my partner to
no end. in short- i am open to just about anything because not only do i feel an incredibly profound and personal connection to the world around me- (i sense its order and chaos simultaneously) but i feel i will never understand it/know it. if i were presented with all the truths people desire or attempt to answer with religious dogma- i suspect my tiny little human brain would explode. as would yours, even you, you quantum physicists. i sum up my belief system with a question which i will pose to you---- if a library could exist where any question you could ever ask could be answered conclusively, would you want it to exist? you don't even have to ever enter it but could you live knowing it was there? i would like to know your answer and why you gave it. i am endlessly fascinated by the reasons people give to explain their answer.
i will tell you that my answer is NO. and this is what bothers my partner. he feels that as a scientist i should want to know the answer to everything. i feel that i always want to have more questions to ask, more adventures to answer those questions and most importantly of all, the beautiful mystery of knowing i do not KNOW everything even if i can SENSE the underlying structure of everything. i BELIEVE this leaves me open to incredible experiences and discoveries in my life--- that life will always surprise me and there is always more than meets the eye. i think that is a beautiful thought and one that carries me much like the thought of jesus must be to a deeply devout christian. the ultimate mystery, the ultimate how/what/where/when/whys of the world around me are questions i am content to never know the answer to even if solving the little mysteries keep me on my toes everyday.
"i can believe things that are true and i can believe things that aren't true and i can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. i can believe in santa claus and the easter bunny and marilyn monroe and the beatles and elvis and mister ed. listen--i believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. i believe the the future sucks and i believe that the future rocks and i believe that one day white buffalo woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. i believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in america is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. i believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and i still believe that they are better than the alternative. i believe that california is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while florida is going to dissolve into madness
and alligators and toxic waste. i believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the martians in war of the worlds. i believe that the greatest poets of the last century were edith sitwell and don marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life i was a one-armed siberian shaman. i believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. i believe that candy really did taste better when i was a kid, and that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billion of years older than the universe itself. i believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything i do. i believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that i'm alive. i believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. i believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. i believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. i believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. i believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system. i believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."i did not post this monologue (by a college-aged woman in the novel) because i necessarily agreed with her beliefs but because i loved the openness of it. the character is not bound by a particular dogma other than her own somewhat flaky belief system. she is open and she is young and she is passionate. the passage got me thinking about my own belief system which perplexes my partner to
no end. in short- i am open to just about anything because not only do i feel an incredibly profound and personal connection to the world around me- (i sense its order and chaos simultaneously) but i feel i will never understand it/know it. if i were presented with all the truths people desire or attempt to answer with religious dogma- i suspect my tiny little human brain would explode. as would yours, even you, you quantum physicists. i sum up my belief system with a question which i will pose to you---- if a library could exist where any question you could ever ask could be answered conclusively, would you want it to exist? you don't even have to ever enter it but could you live knowing it was there? i would like to know your answer and why you gave it. i am endlessly fascinated by the reasons people give to explain their answer.i will tell you that my answer is NO. and this is what bothers my partner. he feels that as a scientist i should want to know the answer to everything. i feel that i always want to have more questions to ask, more adventures to answer those questions and most importantly of all, the beautiful mystery of knowing i do not KNOW everything even if i can SENSE the underlying structure of everything. i BELIEVE this leaves me open to incredible experiences and discoveries in my life--- that life will always surprise me and there is always more than meets the eye. i think that is a beautiful thought and one that carries me much like the thought of jesus must be to a deeply devout christian. the ultimate mystery, the ultimate how/what/where/when/whys of the world around me are questions i am content to never know the answer to even if solving the little mysteries keep me on my toes everyday.
Friday, May 30, 2008
death to the big boob-tube?
i watch the television show LOST with a regular group of people. every thursday we get together for "LOST nite", complete with refreshments and munchies, theories, conjecture, sighing at sawyer's dimples and richard's eyes, and of course lots of sssshhhhhushing. some of these people have become new friends through our mutual love of the wacky, mind-bending world of the island. and so, of course, i am still getting to know them. last nite i was struck by something that often bugs me with many of my peers. previously one member of the group had expressed multiple times how much he dislikes television and LOST is his only weakness. he is a self-professed member of the "kill your television clan"- kytc as i will call them here- a group of people who claim to abhor television. yet, last nite he mentioned at least 3 different television shows i had never heard of that he *apparently* watches. he affirmed my belief that many kytc members are, in fact, big, fat hypocrites. a special breed of hipster!
the ultimate brand of the kytc hypocrite, in my mind, is the kytc movie lover. why do so many hipsters love movies *ahem* i mean, FILMS- but claim to hate television? perhaps it is my ignorance of the world of films versus that of television but it seems to me that films are just longer television programs with higher production value. and i would guess that the stupid movie (read: chick flick, mike meyers, etc.) to intelligent (independent) film ratio is approximate to dumb (reality, ANTM, friends) television programming to smart (antiques roadshow, LOST, project runway, ironic cartoons etc.) programming. so why kill one and not the other? (parantheticals) obviously denote hipster logic. personally, i find both mediums- television and film- to be for entertainment and the occasional scrap of education (thank you, documentary filmmakers and NOVA). and so, to those of you true kytcers, BRAVO!!! to you for never rotting your brain on the big OR small screen boob tubes. i, for one, welcome the brain melting once in a while. for the rest of you- a challenge. next time you meet a kytc person- ask them their favorite movie. wait for it. BINGO! then have a little chuckle to yourself.
ps. the kytc member last nite was super excited to see "don't mess with the zohan" but previously scoffed at my love of "national treasure" and "the great outdoors." go figure.
ps2. all you LOSTies- how freakin awesome was last nite's finale!!!??? thoughts?!
the ultimate brand of the kytc hypocrite, in my mind, is the kytc movie lover. why do so many hipsters love movies *ahem* i mean, FILMS- but claim to hate television? perhaps it is my ignorance of the world of films versus that of television but it seems to me that films are just longer television programs with higher production value. and i would guess that the stupid movie (read: chick flick, mike meyers, etc.) to intelligent (independent) film ratio is approximate to dumb (reality, ANTM, friends) television programming to smart (antiques roadshow, LOST, project runway, ironic cartoons etc.) programming. so why kill one and not the other? (parantheticals) obviously denote hipster logic. personally, i find both mediums- television and film- to be for entertainment and the occasional scrap of education (thank you, documentary filmmakers and NOVA). and so, to those of you true kytcers, BRAVO!!! to you for never rotting your brain on the big OR small screen boob tubes. i, for one, welcome the brain melting once in a while. for the rest of you- a challenge. next time you meet a kytc person- ask them their favorite movie. wait for it. BINGO! then have a little chuckle to yourself.
ps. the kytc member last nite was super excited to see "don't mess with the zohan" but previously scoffed at my love of "national treasure" and "the great outdoors." go figure.
ps2. all you LOSTies- how freakin awesome was last nite's finale!!!??? thoughts?!
Friday, May 23, 2008
johnny dixonism
i have read voraciously from a very, very young age and i have always been able to read quite quickly. on family vacations we would have a large, separate bag of books just for me as i could go through 2-3 several hundred page books in one day. reading was my escape and it became a favorite pastime of my friends and siblings to talk at me (read: make fun of) while i was absorbed. they knew i was lost in my own little world of words and would not hear them. back then i read all the adult books i
was allowed (and read the ones i wasn't by flashlight into the wee hours of the morning). now, as an adult, i adore reading young adult books. it is not that i did not read kid's books back in the day but the books i made time for had a sinister/adult edge that was lacking in many other books my peers were reading. my absolute favorite author from that time (and now) was john bellairs- in particular his johnny dixon mysteries. in fact, a mutual and surprising love of john bellairs was one of the 1st things that got my sweetie and i really talking back in the "just friends" stage. a particularly fantastic addition to these creepy tomes was edward gorey's cover illustrations. what is unfortunate, however, is that mass book publishers have mostly done away with the gorey illustrations (although the inner page one remains) in favor of some bland, generic artwork. so sad was i, at making this discovery at our local bookstore that i have asked my local used book collector to keep an eye out for the original books for me.i thought it would be fun to share with you some of the young adult books that i have discovered (or been introduced to via the all-powerful-book-to-movie medium) over the years. some of these i enjoyed tremendously and some will forever be my favorite books across the board, such as the johnny dixon mysteries (the chessmen of doom is my favorite by the by). if you are like me and your professional life (and overwired, professional brain) never seems to stop i find these books to be excellent escape for just a wee while. and many are in serial form so there is the anticipation factor to which just about everyone who ever picked up harry potter can relate (which, by the by, are among my favorites as well!). my favorite modern series has certainly been his dark materials trilogy. i do not have a picture as my books are out on loan but you should all be familiar with the first, the golden compass. and contrary to what you may have heard- they are not juvenile and deal with some complex metaphysical and social issues much as a wrinkle in time did so long ago. I have included pictures of many current and past favorites: * the twits by roald dahl (although the BFG is my favorite)
* the black tattoo by sam enthoven
* the lemony snicket books
* holes by louis sachar (sideways stories, anyone?!)
* flush by carl hiaasen --- no ecologist should go through their life without reading his kids and adult books!
* the charlie bone series by jenny nimmo
* the inheritance trilogy by christopher paolini
* a tale of time city by dianna wynne jones (serious LOST parallels, i swear!)
* and my latest obsession- the pendragon series by DJ machale. at first the writing really bugged me but i moved past that quite quickly because of the fun plot. note that the pendragon books come in two forms- the 9th book (raven rise) was released 2 days ago and on the same day the 1st pendragon book was released in graphic novel form! raven rise was blood-boiling and left me trippy for the final book and the graphic novel was entertaining although i felt the artwork was fairly poor and hope the next one will be better.
not pictured are a few that i have on loan (in addition to his dark materials) including tunnels by roderick gordon and brian williams, the molly moon books by georgia byng and, of course, harry potter.
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