The running joke about food at the fair is that it is always "On A Stick." Pronto Pups, AKA Corn Dogs, were introduced there long before I was born, but only in recent years has the idea of putting otherwise normal foods on a wooden skewer taken off. "Pork-Chop-On-A-Stick" is a big hit. "Walleye-On-A-Stick" is actually pretty tasty, with the depths of decadence defined by the breaded, deep-fat fried "Snickers-On-A-Stick" and, if you can believe it, the breaded, deep-fried "Twinkie-On-A-Stick". YUM!
A section of South Minneapolis, between Bloomington and Hennepin Avenues and Franklin and Lake Streets, was known to the old-time door-to-door salesman who practised their trade there as "the jungle." It has always been an area of young people, either people living on their own in apartments or duplexes, or young couples, just starting out on their life together. As these people get older, they move away, and are in return replaced by a new generation. The salesmen, who could make a pretty good living selling home necessities to an always changing clientele, are but a distant memory, with the possible exception of security system installers or home improvement entrepreneurs. Now, people buy things like that at Wal-Mart or Target, or even on the internet. I remember my mother getting regular visits from her "Men"- the magazine salesman (always wearing a suit and a fedora), the Fuller Brush man (who was blind), and even Bubber, who would try to sell her greeting cards. But I digress.
When a gulf coast storm moves inland to the north, we in Minnesota usually get a fair amount of rain, and always receive a big ol' helpin' o' Southern Humidity. Such conditions greeted me this evening on my after-supper "constitutional". The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife, it looked like smoke- it even smelled as if someone was burning trash, and by golly, there was! Just down the street some thoughtless soul thought this would be a good night to get rid of some trash, neighbors' lungs be dammed. There were dull orange flames (Roofing shingles? Tires? Industrial chemicals?) shooting high into the sky. As I approached, I saw two small children in the yard, dancing around this inferno. Getting still closer, I heard the youngsters coughing, and then saw them go into the house. And so the fire continued, unabated and unattended. I went home and called the Fire Department. They said they'd "look into it", as they always say, but seldom do. Later on, the fire had burned down enough that the whole city wasn't reeking, and life returned to normal.
She's got her man now, after years of waiting, wondering, trying too hard or not trying at all. And how easily it happened; one day you were alone, the next day, you weren't. And the laughs were good, and the love was pure. Just like that. Smiles all around. If it has been this good for this long already, what would a life time be worth? It's just a little longer.
Not always. Most well-defined creative projects (making a picture, an art work, writing a story or novel) usually, but not always, benefit from starting at the end and working backwards. Working with other people's image files all day, I am constantly amazed at how many people don't actually have any idea what they want to end up with. I'll be handed a square format image, and be instructed to: "make it a 16x20, but don't crop anything out." With the advent of the "four-thirds" format in digital cameras, none of the traditional print sizes fit the new cameras. Which is OK, IF you specify a crop, or figure out a size that does fit (multiply the short dimension by 1.33 or the long dimension by .75 to find a size that matches your format.) You were sick that day during math class in grade school? For three years? Try a calculator!
The new header is here, courtesy of the font "Mona Lisa Solid ITC TT", with a little massaging in Photoshop. Now if I could just remember what it was I did to get that "Neon Marquee" look...
This is it. The End of Summer. The carefree, frolicing, life-with-nary-a-care time is over. Everything is now on a schedule, THINGS MUST BE SEEN TO. All of the summer plans have to be acted on. NOW. With two family events this week-end (the crown of pater familia weighs heavy on my head) and the Minnesota State Fair NEXT weekend, and an eye exam the Monday after that, and then Labor Day week-end, (with the emphasis on LABOR) and then back-to school (not for me, personally, but traffic will be worse!)...
We are refugees
"Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny. At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awaken to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."-Jawaharlal Nehru, to the Indian constituent assembly, on the eve of Indian independence.
"I hate Indians... They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."Ostensibly the end of the British Empire, at least on a massive scale, the Independence of India, (and Pakistan, on the same date) set the stage for much of the modern conflict in the Middle East and Asia. England's "divide and conquer" strategy for ruling the Asian subcontinent had already increased antagonism between groups; its refusal to recognize small ethnic cultures inflamed conflicts which are still active. In the power void immediately after independence, chaos reigned, with the British protecting only themselves.
-Winston Churchill
Monday night... Another big storm headed our way, and those sirens are going off again... Time to head for the basement... be back later with an update- I hope!
so the aurora was hopping- at least above hudson's bay- as i headed north to escape the city lights and the summer heat, getting about ten miles out of town but no northern lights just the heat lightning dancing over lake millacs with some clouds coming in so there goes my chance; auður said they only come when its cold but i said it just has to be dark she looked at me as if i was jiving her but one august night on lake lida the lights were pouring down from the zenith and all around and that wasn't the only time i saw them but time is running out now, summer is over six weeks from when the crickets start chirping- that's what old martha used to say until they found her sitting at her kitchen table with her voice stilled by a stroke and they took her away and it was summer then, the summer after we came home from iceland the first time and found her standing in her back yard with fire all around her; jimmy from inverness was with us quite bewildered by it all and the next day jimmy and I drove up to alexandria to visit the kensington runestone and it was real; people coming from europe a hundred years or more before columbus and later the indians moved the stone down the very river i'm driving over and then down to falls of st. anthony where there are still people under the concrete and the water and then up the minnesota river to a sacred hill top where it slept until olof öhman dug it up, or so the story goes...
"Never forecast rain in a drought" - Old weatherman's proverb.
THERE ARE STRANGE... NEW... WONDERFUL THINGS...
It was Neighborhood Night Out on Tuesday, where the sociable among the locals meet at someone's front yard with food and drink and get to know each other a bit. Hizzoner the mayor was there (he lives next door) and I got a chance to talk to many of the people I see as I stroll by on my nightly constitutionals. The big buzz this year was the "spruce up the city campaign" or what ever it's called. I've been doing my part, God knows, with shingles, caulk and paint. The couple hosting the event were "busted" for not having their 1 inch wide molding painted (which surrounded three windows.) The windows themselves had been newly replaced and the couple were waiting to finish some other projects before doing all the painting at one time. "Court Action or Fines are possible!" said the notice. Someone at City Hall (but not the mayor, thank goodness!) has a problem of perspective.
... No! not the Oliver Hardy tie twirling bit! And it's working!
The world is an illusion, but it is an illusion that we must take seriously, because it is as real as far as it goes, and in those aspects of reality which we are capable of apprehending. Our business is to wake up. We have to find ways in which to detect the whole of reality in the one illusionary part which our self-centred consciousness permits us to see. We must not live thoughtlessly, taking our illusion for the complete reality, but at the same time we must not live too thoughtfully in the sense of trying to escape the dream state. We must continually be on our watch for ways in which we may enlarge our consciousness. We must not attempt to live outside the world, which is given us, but we must somehow learn how to transform and transfigure it. Too much 'wisdom' is as bad as too little wisdom, and there must be no magic tricks. We must learn to come to reality without the enchanter's wand and his book of the words. One must find a way of being in this world while not being of it. A way of living in time without being swallowed up in time.
-Aldous Huxley, on his deathbed.
RE: Subliminal Advertising in Internet Media
She was tall, 6' 2" at least. She had been a model and she even had a few Vogue covers in her portfolio. What she was doing at a crooked diploma mill, studying Radio-TV broadcasting was anyone's guess. I had taken the job of "Technical Associate" which meant I was an unwilling "Smithers" to a man who was at least as evil as "Mr. Burns."
