Hmmm. How about that- I never blog anymore, and I'd assumed this space had been reassigned by now, but it hasn't, so here I am, for a moment. That's a lot of commas.

Garden news:

My new, all-white eggplant is languishing as eggplants always do- I'm hoping it will explode in July, as all past eggplants have. Three or four kinds of potatoes continue to colonize, and I think one tomatillo sleeper is living among the spud shrubs, a child of the mostly ignored crop of last summer. I saved some seeds from the first tomatillo crop, and meant to plant them earlier, but I forgot all about them until I spied the straggly, different-looking mini-bush in with my Yukon Golds, which I had dug up and spread all over the former tomatilla acreage (just shy of 3 square feet, truthfully). I'll tell the friend who gave me the original seedlings that it looks like one seed decided not to wait for the official planting date. Things are starting to flower, which I always enjoy. I sometimes tell people I'm a flower farmer, on the strength of this. This year I have fava beans sharing a tiny hill with some peas, both seeded from the stash jar of a dear friend, who lets his beans wave around like horsetails. I trained mine, along with the peas, up three slender bamboo sticks leaning togetherward, and they are now over two feet tall, half the height of the bamboo array. I spend about five minutes, morning and evening, coaxing the newly curling tendrils off of one another, out of thin air, even off of themselves, and onto the bamboo. Lot of commas there too. Wonder why I care?

What else am I growing? Oh, giant pumpkins. And hopefully some heirloom collard greens from Oakland and/or Berkeley. I tried to sprout the one and a half seeds, which were all the donor could spare, without success and finally planted the sodden little grains in a gently watered slope on the sunny side of my blue potato patch. I hope for the best, but fear the worst. If nothing comes of this planting, I'll write to the donor and ask to be included, perhaps a little more generously, in next year's sharing. Historical greens are too important to wait on good manners, not that I won't speak politely while rudely demanding preference... Is that it for the garden news? Well, there are not many snails around this spring, for the first time in a long time. Plenty of slugs, which are just as bad, and harder to relocate when you catch them. I can eat snails as happily as I eat any meat, not that I do (eat snails) anymore, but I don't know, I honestly don't know, whether I would eat slugs. I guess I might, if they weren't slimy, and were appealingly prepared. It's the least of my worries, but I took a moment to address it, eh?

Other news:

Unemployed, and uninspired. Bought a folding mountain bike, haven't ridden it in weeks. I go out and dust it once a week, and pat it on the saddle, and call it a good horse. I'm in love with another bike, and that's enough of an excuse for me to ignore the bike I'm with. The details would possibly bore you, but the other bike folds too, and it could be made into a pretty fair mountain bike. Tomorrow I will ride MY bike. No reason not to, and I like doing it.

I'll put up some garden and bike pictures soon.

A while ago- probably not a very long while- I started an entry in this space with a thought about art hitting but not hurting. A while later, not very long ago at all, just now in fact- I suddenly recalled the inspiration for the thought:


One good thing about music, when it hits you (you feel no pain)
Oh, oh, I say, one good thing about music, when it hits you (you feel no pain)
Hit me with music, hit me with music now

This is (Trenchtown rock), don't watch that
(Trenchtown rock), big fish or sprat now
(Trenchtown rock) You reap what you sow
(Trenchtown rock), and only Jah, Jah know
(Trenchtown rock) I'd never turn my back
(Trenchtown rock), I'd give the slum a try
(Trenchtown rock) I'd never let the children cry
(Trenchtown rock), 'cause you got to tell Jah, Jah why

(Groovin') It's Kingston 12
(groovin'), it's Kingston 12
(Groovin') It's Kingston 12 now
(groovin'), it's Kingston 12
No want you come galang so, oh no
(... no want you fe galang so), ska-ba-dip-ska-ba
(You want come cold I up ...) Ska-ba-dibby-dip,
ska-ba-doop, ska-ba-doop (... cold I up)
Oh, oh, I'm groovin', and the world knows by now,
now, now, now, now, now, now, now, y'all

Oh now, I said, you feel no pain now
One good thing about music, when it hits you (you feel no ...) feel no pain
Hit me with music now, oh now, hit me with music now
Hit me with music, harder, brutalize me (... music)

This is (Trenchtown rock), I say, don't watch that
(Trenchtown rock), if you a big fish or sprat
(Trenchtown rock) You reap what you sow
(Trenchtown rock), and everyone know now
(Trenchtown rock) Don't turn your back
(Trenchtown rock), I say, give the slum a try
(Trenchtown rock) Never let the children cry
(Trenchtown rock), or you got to tell Jah, Jah why

(Groovin') It's Kingston 12
(groovin'), it's Kingston 12
(Groovin') I said, it's Kingston 12 now
(groovin'), oh, oh, oh, it's Kingston 12
(No want you fe galang so) Didn't I told you that
(no want you fe galang so) we should leave with love?
(You want come cold I up ...) I'm not gonna do that, man,
nothin' (... come cold I ...), and look deh now
(Groovin') And then it's Kingston
12, uh

(Good God ...) Good God, looky here now, uh
Hit me with music ...

Actually, until I tracked down the Bob Marley video, I had only heard the Almost Acoustic Band's version of the song... which you can find here. To date, I've both avoided using and continued to dishonor (in my links on the sidebar) the Internet Archive website for being clumsy and plagued by speed problems- it's better now, though still balky in some functions, and the new streaming player works well and since it always had good bones, by which I mean it was a pleasant and navigable site, I think I can restore my whole-hearted recommendation. There was nothing wrong with the old streaming player on the page, and there's nothing wrong with the new one either. You have to use it, because the old one won't work- and you have to click the link for the new player. Full downloads in various formats are available at the bottom of that same page. If you're an ethical file-sharer, be ye advised that the Almost Acoustic Band are not only wonderful musicians, they're also happy to let people trade their live recordings freely. You can find their statement (along with many other peformances) on file here.

This is a test of the emergency text entry method- had this been a real emergency (it is) this signal would have been followed by news and official information. This message will not repeat. We repeat- this message will not repeat. See below for some news. It's probably old news- someone else has surely millennia since written the same thoughts, but they struck me and now I turn them loose to strike you. Or not. You could duck, cover and/or run, but you wouldn't do that, would you? I hope you would if you felt like it. Why be proper if proper ain't right? Anyway, see below. If you get rich thanks to them, give me whatever royalties you can afford that haven't already been paid to everyone with prior claim to the idea(s). Or don't. See how easy-going I can be when I feel like it?

Note- everything below this line is below, as mentioned above.

There are but four things necessary to great art:

One must wish to share, or at least to present, a conception.

One must have the means to execute the work, and the energy to do so with passion, precision and despatch; failing these, one must be willing to sacrifice sole credit and enlist aid.

One must avoid entanglements arising from public and critical notice without offending the target of the art, which means everybody.

One must expect and accept obscurity- that is one should be content to live as though the work of art had never been realized.

And so it fell out unto him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died.
King James Bible Kings II Chapter 7

If you want to read the story of which the above is the punch line, follow the little red link. It's a quick, easy read of about twenty verses. One of my Gideons Bibles says measures of such and such shall be sold for so many pieces of silver- the other that seahs ... shall be sold. So in this case, a measure is 6.659274893 dry quarts. I don't know which of the two printings is older, but I would expect that modernity demands something more specific than a measure. The printing which uses seahs also changes a lord into an officer, and takes some of the starch out of the writing by removing medieval turns of phrase of the sort which gladden a heart like mine. Don't ask me why- I just like the baby talk; I was pleased to find that the Gideons Bible website still uses the older, and more pleasingly archaic, text. The only reason I read this story at all was because the final sentence as printed above caught my eye and my fancy. But that's not what I want to talk about.

First, it seems that not only were the food and goods taken from the Syrians in this God-assisted victory to be sold to a famine-stricken people, presumably by their own king, but the prices for this wicked gouging were set by God. If that doesn't make you think about religion in general and the God of Moses in particular, you ain't thinking. Then there's the matter of murder. The sassy- and worse, doubting- lord (in the feudal sense, I suppose) or officer in the service of the king of Israel who gets trampled in the gate by the people has been cursed by God (through Elisha) for sneering at something- perhaps the pricing scheme? which is never specified, except by inference- and then sent by the king to die in a food riot. Was the king innocent of murder, though guilty of profiteering and price fixing? I don't know, I wasn't there. Now, unless the cursed man happened to be right that there was something fishy (and not in the good sense) about this deal, why would the people riot? Could it be that the people were a little fed up with starvation and didn't feel like giving up their silver pieces to pay for famine relief the king was getting for nothing from God? Further, though they might not have known it, there was also plenty of gold and silver right there in the abandoned Syrian camp, and therefore little or no need to charge the people for what a king should give to his people freely. Yes, I think this is a story about corruption trickling down from on high, since it is nigh inconceivable that anything could trickle heavenward from Earth.

Thought: Art should hit everyone and hurt no one.

My goals for this week are to eat only vegetables and to move into a roof-garden penthouse. So there- if I seem a little preoccupied, it's because I am. I have a lot to do this week. The veggies I could probably do, the penthouse probably not. Will I do either? Nope, but I think I will give up coffee, and start planning my pirate implementation of this which I found here by way of here. I really like it, and if it saves even one kitty whisker's worth of fuel, great. I think any decent swivel-mounted mirror will do fine- I'll affix it to the windowsill in some appropriate and feasible manner yet to be determined. Why do I like it? It eliminates a significant blind spot on the driver side at eye level in the forward field of view. It bypasses distracting (driver must select left or right mirror via tiny, lurchy slider switch) joystick adjustment. It's easy to do, and it's one less thing they can damage in the parking lot. Darn them anyway. Yesterday they left a 2 inch paper-washered nail (I know, I know- I'm trying to find a picture) on the shoulder of the road. When I pulled to the right for a bunch of wailing fire trucks, I picked up the nail and got a flat tire. They will stop at nothing to wreck my car. If I stopped at nothing, I'd wreck my car, too.

There will come a time when no one living will remember a world in which loud, demanding announcements and propaganda did not issue from:

gas pumps
deli cases
check-out stands
waiting rooms
dining rooms
buses
airplanes
trains
jail cells
automatic banking stations
transit stops
public restrooms

But I remember. In the past ten years this authoritarianist approach to broadcasting has migrated from the inhuman (yes, Asia- I'm talking about you) world to our fair land, and it's getting harder and harder to go anywhere without being subjected to a forceful violation. Have you experienced this? You're minding your own business when an unattended audio-video device self-launches into a repeating barrage of mind-numbing, insulting, privacy-invading crap that makes any sort of thought or (let alone conversation) nearly impossible. What gives anyone the right to program a machine to do this to you? If you laid this kind of a trap with a knife or gun, you'd be a criminal. It's called booby-trapping, and it's illegal. Never mind the legality-most of the miserable shits who are abusing technology this way would probably argue that you are asking for it by patronizing their establishments. Bear this in mind when you shop- these businesses think so little of you as a person that they are perfectly willing to let a machine harangue you, on the off-chance that you might respond positively. Please show them otherwise, by protesting everywhere you encounter these pervasive and 100% unacceptable assaults.

Don't give your business to anyone who treats you this way, and let them know why you are staying away. If they tell you how much other people appreciate being blasted with unsolicited and unstoppable blather, ask them where your feedback fits in. This won't do much to change their minds- after all, a) they have already committed a lot of time and money to crafting their traps and b) they know more consumers will put up with it than won't- but it's the proper response to utterly criminal noise pollution. If you don't fight them now in the supermarket and the library and the fast-food line, you'll just have to fight them next month when they want to install one of these infernal devices on your street corner. If you ignore the one they plant at the corner of Home Street and Neighbor Ave, you'll find them putting one in your kitchen next, and when you order them off your property they'll say you are over-reacting to something that's already well-established and generally accepted everywhere else. What will you be able to say to that? Eh?

Even when I know what's gotten into me lately, I don't always know what to do - or not do- about it. But that's only factual- in my opinion, which is the only authority under your sun I recognize, there's nothing wrong with this world I can't fix by breeding you Earthlings like rats. Ooops, past my bedtime.