music and life

An Alan Watts animation produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

[mahaloz@Brave New Traveler]

photographs from Japan

Hawaii photographer Rowen Tabusa took these photographs on a recent trip to Japan. I know very little about photography, but I like the textures here a lot, and also the colors, or lack thereof.

it’s a wrap

Global food prices have risen dramatically, adding a new level of danger to the crisis of world hunger…. In the United States there has been a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months.

This according to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, as part of an interview where she introduces the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System,” Raj Patel.

Patel outlines a perfect storm of conditions that are causing food shortages and riots globally, including:

• bad harvests, possibly related to climate change
• biofuels and ethanol driving up the price of commodities like sugar, corn, wheat
• increasing demand for meat leading to an increasing demand for grain to feed livestock, not people, and driving up the price of grain
• rising price of oil

Other stories in the news talk about how jobs are leaving and inflation is hitting everyone. Those stories scare me, even tho it hasn’t gotten to riot levels in the United States.

I see my grocery bill creeping higher and higher for the same amount of groceries. But I’m also becoming more savvy about wholesome, cheap meals and I feel like blogging about that :~j

I think of myself as a vegetarian with omnivore tendencies–I’d eat anything if I HAD to, most likely, or if it would be especially rude not to, or if I’m just curious about the dish. But I prefer not to for the most part. Officially I’m an ovo-lacto-pescatarian, meaning I will happily consume eggs, dairy and seafood in addition to starches, veggies, fruits and grains. I prefer simple foods.

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grounds of turpitude

A few weeks ago Sebastian Horsley was headed to the U.S. to begin a media tour for his recently published memoir Dandy in the Underworld, in which he “chronicles his life as an artist, a junkie and a self-professed dandy. . . . painting himself as a misogynist, a sexual deviant and a narcissist.” [Publisher's Weekly] He was questioned by U.S. officials for eight hours at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey before being sent back to England.

Lucille Cirillo, a spokeswoman for the New York office of United States Customs and Border Protection. . . in an e-mail message, said that under a waiver program that allows British citizens to enter the United States without a visa, “travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.” [NY Times]

The “utterly appalling” nature of this denial is noted by the writer at the powerofnarrative.blogspot.com:

And now you are “not admissible” if you have been convicted of a “crime involving moral turpitude” — even if you have already suffered whatever penalty might have been imposed and are now free, although you are not free to enter the United States — or if you “admit to previously having a drug addiction.” Obviously, you should lie about it.

But obviously, if you’ve written a book about said turpitude, it becomes more difficult to lie, even, apparently, for a man who has gone on record saying, “It’s better to be quotable than honest.”

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will my new phone prevent brain damage?

So apparently Mobile phones are ‘more dangerous than smoking.’ Great. [via Under the Radar Media del.icio.us news feed]

Guess it was a good idea to upgrade my busted up phone, even tho I had to betray Nokia for the $100 (w/contract) Pantech Duo.

This new phone easily encourages me to text message even more. I’m thinking that is a good thing, cuz it keeps the rays away from my gray matter. It’s a theory anyway.

If only I could stop complaining about the data package they sold me to go along with this phone, which basically doubles my monthly bill. I must be brain damaged already to pay that much!

But the old phone didn’t do important stuff, like ring. Or work as an alarm, or have a data cable. An upgrade was imperative.

The two are actually about the same size when the keypad is pushed in, and the same thickness, but the Pantech has another slider with a number pad that comes out the side. It does feel a little flimsy, and I don’t love Windows Mobile, but it has 3G, removable MicroSD memory and the lovely keyboard. I think it’ll hold me over til the day I maybe get my hands on an internet tablet, kick-ass PDA, or next generation iPhone.

That perfect device is just around the corner …right?

the tide of times

“Oh pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth,
that I am meek and gentle with these butchers
thou art the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times
woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy
which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips
to beg the voice and utterance of thy my tongue”

….

That is all I can remember of Antony’s speech over the murdered body of Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. Those seven lines stayed with me since high school freshman(?) English. Only misremembered one pronoun! Yet I don’t think Mr. “balding” Spalding would be impressed, since I didn’t know the rest.

Alas, the most famous lines come later in the speech:

“A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.”

Wow, that’s gross. Now I feel like reading Shakespeare again. Or, maybe I’ll just celebrate the Ides of March with a nice glass of wine instead.

The image is James Purefoy as Mark Antony in the underrated HBO series Rome.

the loss of a friend

I’m filled with sadness. Don’t even have words. Actually I do, but none of them are the right ones.

How someone with such a lust for life is there one night and gone the next is just…. fucked up. Suddenly reality is too heavy to carry. It’s all I can do to stay distracted. I shift awkwardly under the weight of the emptiness.

Remember partying that one night in some really nice hotel? (yeah I forget which one) I opened the door from the gold-fixtured bathroom after puking my guts out and you looked at me, smiling in that rascal way, gently taking in my sick, pale face and swollen eyes. I can see your shining self and hear your voice (did you touch my shoulder?) you said, “Ohhh, Jeela” and I knew without a doubt, that I was a hot mess. Haha. You know I was.

But I always felt too, how you were looking out. You charismatic fool. That hotel night is like my worst best memory; I don’t even know why I chose it at this moment. It’s just there. Little snippets of our time together stand out right now. None of it is right. Jokes pop into my mind, I’m sorry: they make me laugh, and I hear you laughing! With me, at me, doesn’t matter, just laughing. Party, hike, BBQ, wedding. You made every life event MORE. Is that what got you in the end, my friend? Wanting more?

I regret not coming to see you when you were sick, not because you needed me, but because I love you. You are truly a bright spirit that hasn’t stopped burning. I expect the party to be raging when I get there.

complaining as an artform

Why are there so many ways to make a simple, hard-boiled egg? Ice baths and timers, are they really necessary? Then when I find the perfect recipe, why do I tell it to my sis wrong, when she’s just trying to eat?

And why did my guestbook, attract so much comment spam? Every day a dozen messages about sex fetishes and drugs, when all I wanted was a place for fam to show me love. (I had to kill it.)

I’m not sure if singing about these minor irritations would really make me feel better, but apparently some folks in Finland feel it does.

Another clever Finnish invention: complaints choirs. Anyone who wants to can join the choir and submit complaints. Then the gripes are set to music and performed for fellow citizens and videotaped to post on the internet. [Source]

Here is the Helsinki Complaints Choir in action.

Apparently the concept is catching on in some other parts of the world, but the complaints of the Finns are just hilarious to me, especially the ones about public saunas and why our ancestors didn’t chose a sunnier part of the world in which to settle.

Thanks to my wonderful sister for listening to all my complaints, and not being mad even tho I made her mess up half a dozen eggs. :~j

the pop secret is out–microwave popcorn is super easy to make

Popcorn is an amazing food. Kernels of whole grain goodness that pop to unique, tasty shapes. Like snowflakes with substance. It tastes so great all salty and crunchy and chewy and in the case of my recent addiction, coated in white cheddar powder. We were eating it bag by organic bag-full when the “popcorn lung” scare hit mainstream media.

Even tho the scare concerns the ConAgra-fake-buttered type of microwave popcorn and not the heath-food-store-bought version we’d been consuming like popcorn-crazed maniacs, the story did make popcorn suddenly seem a little less wonderful.

Enter the environmentally aware, DIY-ers at lighterfootstep.com, who recently urged readers to Dump Dangerous Diacetyl by Making Your Own Microwave Popcorn. Diacetyl is the fake butter flavor that causes life-threatening respiratory and other problems.

This is all you have to do to make your own microwave popcorn.

You’ll need a brown paper lunch sack about 1/4 cup of loose, organic popcorn kernels. Measure the kernels into your bag. Add one teaspoon of olive oil and popcorn salt to taste. Fold the top of the bag and shake gently to mix.

Press most of the air out of the bag. Secure with two staples (they won’t spark in most ovens) or tape loosely, leaving room for steam to vent. Place flat on a microwave-safe plate and heat on a high setting until the pops have slowed down to about three seconds apart. it will take less than four minutes.

Within hours of reading this recipe, I had to try it, and the results were fantastic (see photo). The recipe is extra simple, but can be refined with different proportions, flavors and methods.

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the overwhelming cuteness of twin baby Bengali tigers born different colors

[seen it here]