It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him

-J.R.R. Tolkien


I have been working on an art project which has as its premise an Ossuary of sorts to contain the relics of Humpty Dumpty. That has little real relevance to anything other than the fact that it is basically a box, painted and gilded as an Icon on all sides. This presents a bit of a problem in that it needs to be varnished very slowly, four sides and the lid, one side at a time, four or five coats....and my workroom for producing this is right next door to the Family Room where we spend our evenings' TV time....personally I am not adverse to the effects of Damar-varnish, in fact I reather like the smell, it makes me feel acomplished. Mary on the other hand has been more than patient given the fact she has been assaulted with the fumes on a constant basis for the past week. I would do it outside, but well, this IS Oregon. I could take it to the garage, but that just seems to lack the appropriate romance. I plan on giving it a break for a few days, inasmuch as we are having houseguests, and while I feel I can assault Mary's senses, I do have a certain level of decorum. So in the meantime, the Reliquary is going to have to sit, and await its next set of coats....

That said, I was intrigued to research the origins of the nursery ryme; I had thouight it to be about the downfall fo George II but in fact find that it has its origin in a cannon. Humpty Dumpty was the name given to a very large and efficient cannon which, high in a tower parapet, protected a castle in England but which during the English Civil War was shot out of its perch falling to its demise in the rocks below. So how this became transposed to an egg is beyond any reason - especially given the fact that no-place in the nursery ryme does it in any way hint as to being an egg. I like the egg theory though, it just has the appropriate feel, and I can envision the ooze of albumen once the shell has cracked. Much more so than to see an iron cannon sticking out of the ground. So for my artwork, Humpty remains an egg. Or its remains anyway.

Certamen bikini-suicidus-disci mox coepit?

- Does the Bikini-Suicide-Frisbee match start soon?

I saw this news article this afternoon come across the Associated Press newswire.

Thirteen-year-old Morgan Pozgar has the fastest thumbs in the West.
And the East, too.
She won the LG National Texting championship over the weekend.
The Pennsylvania teen took the crown by typing the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins" in just 15 seconds.
Morgan defeated nearly 200 competitors to become East Coast champion and then beat the West Coast champ -- 21-year-old Eli Tirosh of Los Angeles -- in the New York competition.
Morgan won $25,000 and said she's going on a shopping spree.
She gets plenty of texting practice. Morgan figures she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month on her cell Phone.


Okay. I know that speed is important, and speed in communication can be as vital as content. So as long as Morgan Polzer is able to work Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious into her daily conversations she is at the helm of a ship ready to explore the horizons of the imagination. I do have to wonder though just why we are paying quite this much attention to the abilities of her incredible thumbs - apparently unbeknownst to me the strength of great thumbitude is a new superpower, able to conquer foes and overcome the woes of mankind. We should obviously (and perhaps already are) be teaching this skill in Grade School - far be it that we sacrifice it for the utility of Rithmatic (as we have already seen the demise of that course's needs with the advent of the calculator and computer).


What I actually find fascinating by this report is the thought that I am horribly behind. I tried to send a text message to Mary a while back and once I had typed it in and hit a couple of buttons it went someplace but not to its intended recipient...someplace out there someone - probably a convict at Sing-Sing going by the name of "Mary" got my cheerful little note signed off with xx's and o's.


I digress. My real thought on this report is the fact that I have to wonder what physical attributes this young girl has to accomplish such a feat. Most athletes who have accomplished such world-level recognition as this have muscles which they are able to sport; does this young girl have like-developed thumbs? Superthumbs we might call her. A new form of Super-Hero is born. She may soon have her own comic book. With 8000 text messages a month (have her parents gotten that bill yet...?) you have to consider the fact that there are 8000 others like her out there - others who like her are developing their own Super Thumbs. It is like an epidemic - soon all grade schoolers will have thumbs the size of hot dogs, and later the size of salamis...who knows how far it will go. One day, humanity will have developed with Super Thumbs at birth - it will be a natural progression of natural selection. Only the biggest-thumbed will survive. And for the use of text-messaging, the use of speech will have become obsolete, so who knows, maybe sounds will be reduced to grunts as the super-thumbed generations hammer away at tinier and tinier micro-chipped keyboards. It is a vision. Wow.

All I can say is I hope Morgan Pozgar's shopping spree includes some nice stretchy mittins. She'll need to protect those babies!

"Give me your tired, your poor,

- Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Such are the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty. I find them more than a little ironic now and then, and especially today as I drove by the Statue of Liberty this morning, who by this time tomorrow will be out of a job. No I am not talking about that big copper one in New York, I am referring instead to the one who stands outside the Liberty Tax Service where Mary and I get our taxes done every year, waving a paper mache torch and hailing cars into the parking lot. This year She has a beard.

The tax service hires out-of-work actors every year to fill this role, as well as that of Uncle Sam who wears a top hat that looks like it has been run over by a truck. The actors are intrepid sticking to their posts no matter what the weather, from about November on through tax season. On more than one occasion I have seen Lady Liberty standing in the snow in hip boots and icycles hanging off the points of her crown.

Obviously she is going to need a new gig. This is not the only time of course that Liberty has had to sell herself for a cause, in browsing the internet I can see that she has shown up in all sorts of less than dignified roles. I particularly lilke the one where she proudly stands for the right to Pall Malls. I do have to wonder if she signed onto this one blindly - and if in fact that accounts for the complete cosmetic overhaul she had to have done a few years back.

The fact that this year's Liberty had a beard seems seems appropriate to me, as it throws out the preconceived notion that She has to be a she. In fact now that I think of it, I am not so sure that Uncle Sam has been consistently a he. Last year, Sam wore a pink-flowered sweater most of the season. No one seemed to care much, and He did have a great deal of enthusiasm, periodically tossing coffee cups at the drivers that refused to wave back at him.

And what about shoes. As I mentioned above, I have seen hip boots but I also have seen a purist version, choosing to remain barefooted through even the nastiest of rainy weather. True to the original, I suppose, but I do recall that by the time the snow hit that year, Liberty was out of commission for a while leaving Sam on his own. Presumably Liberty was someplace nursing away the pneumonia she had brought on for the sake of her art. Had she only looked a bit more closely, the original wears a pair of Birkenstocks, which would have been a massive saving grace if the Portland Liberty had only paid attention. Actors.

Growing up in Seattle, I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty on a fairly regular basis. She stands on the beach on Alki Point, and is a massive eight feet tall. She seemed pretty spectacular to someone standing next to it. I also did get to see that one in New York Harbor from the Newark airport. At the time she was sheathed in all the scaffolding that was necessary while she was being scrubbed, and really all that I could see was the top of the torch. From three miles away it was less than moving.

But as of tomorrow, the street will be bare, and Sam will have hung up his battered striped hat and Liberty will have hung up her mold-green bedsheet. These two will have to cash their last checks and check in at the local Actors Guild, hoping for a new opportunity. They do have the Fourth of July coming up; maybe someone will take pity on these sorry icons...maybe I will drive by Costco or WalMart and see them there hailing in cars and waving menacingly. Maybe that's what was meant by "I lift my lamp by the golden door"....? Oh one can only hope.

Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est

- The check is in the mail

Well, today is the day. Tax day. Oh wait, no it isn't. Wait, today is the 16th....wasn't tax day yesterday. nope, it is tomorrow. "Tomorrow, not today....??? How can it be.....? Is Uncle Sam feeling unusually generous this year?"

Nope, it's 'cus the 15th was a Sunday, so it goes to the first following work day. Wait - so wouldn't that be today??? Nope, wrong again you Crazy Donkey...becuase Today is Emancipation Day in Washington DC! "Emanicipation Day? Really....so is it a holiday for all of us....Why let me get my hat, I should be home in bed it would seem...."

Nope, again you are wrong Sturdly Bookworm. It is only a Holiday if you work for the Government in DC. It is a special holiday only for those special souls who people the halls of Congress, who linger with Lobbyists over three-martini lunches, whose hatted-drivered cars will have to sit idle this day as there will be no long ride into the office.

"But wait," you say...."is not Emancipation a thing for National Celebration? Why am I working here today, making tacos at Taco Bell...?"

Because Gertrude you do not live in the right city. You may observe Emancipation, but you must do so at your own leisure. So there. If you think that Emancipation is a big enough deal, you are just going to have to pack it up and move to The District. Districtians are special. They have a better concept on Emancipation than the rest of you do. So you may observe the day quietly and on your own time. But the day is not without its perks; as I noted above the Washington DC'ans did see fit to grant a bit of holiday to the rest of us, much the way Medieval Kings would occasionally grant a tax-free day or let all the criminals out of jail to be rounded up again like a sport the following day. For today, even though it is the 16th, that Income Tax check is not quite due. The date has been extended until tomorrow. The 17th. An unprecedented use of the power of tax-date extension.

Rejoice and be proud. Hail the Emancipation!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Day#Washington.2C_D.C.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to seaIn a beautiful pea-green boat,They took some honey, and plenty of money,Wrapped up in a five pound note.The Owl looked up to the stars above,And sang to a small guitar,"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,What a beautiful Pussy you are,You are,You are!What a beautiful Pussy you are!"Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!How charmingly sweet you sing!O let us be married! too long we have tarried:But what shall we do for a ring?"They sailed away for a year and a day,To the land where the Bong-Tree grows,And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,With a ring at the end of his nose,His nose,His nose,With a ring at the end of his nose."Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shillingYour ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."So they took it away, and were married next dayBy the Turkey who lives on the hill.They dined on mince, and slices of quince,Which they ate with a runcible spoon;And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,They danced by the light of the moon,The moon,The moon,They danced by the light of the moon.

- Edward Lear

...what else need be said?

It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.

- Aesop

I was watching Jon Stewart last night and he ran and re-ran the videotape of John McCain's recent visit to Baghdad, sporting his armored vest (too bad the troops can't get those) and surrounded by a few hundred armed guard. I noticed that he had a nice wide buffer between himself and the coterie that was there to buffer him, obviously to ensure some semblance of nonchalance during his visit and the fact that he was making statements regarding the newblown safety of these streets - despite that just beyond his vision, beyond the wall of guards, were the ruins of a once-great city. Families in Baghdad have been torn apart, their homeland in ruins. I am not going to get into the political argument here, as I do agree there are too many issues involved to distill down to a simple blog entry, and to do so would trivialize too many lost lives. That said, I think we need to remember that there have been thousands of lives lost, and whole dynasties destroyed forever on both sides of this ugly historic scar. Until we have the courage to walk those streets unarmed and unprotected, with both hands extended, we have no business pretending that we are either victorious or brave.

Gramen artificiosum odi

- I hate Astroturf

I was out in the yard last evening between downpours (yes, we do live in Oregon...) and mildly bemoaning the fact that I had been too lazy to cut the grass when it was not raining last weekend and now the tufts of crabgrass are knee-height and too wet to mow...and in fact the Electric Mower would probably present a rather dangerous option if I was to roll it through just now. I am not really sure when or how it is that the crabgrass has had a chance to grow, as it was just last week that I was observing that the front yard had been so totally overtaken by moss that I was opting to preserve it as such like an expensive new breed of groundcover. Crabgrass is an interesting plant, it appears as a small tuft, looking rather charming at first - then suddenly it sends out legs that shoot from the center like something from the movie Alien. By this time it has put down a serious substructure of roots that reaches halfway across the yard and entwines with its sister crabgrass plants in a handhold that defies digging out. By that point, the lawn is doomed. I have given in to its grip, and within a few days the lawn looks like a savannah. That said, I have started to appreciate this weed, both for its tenacity and its survival techniques; it has a beauty to it as long as I realize that it is a plant, not a lawn. I will be attacking it soon with the mower, and it will recede into the general green of its mossy base. I do now and then wish that we had a glowing perfect lawn like the one across the street that was just recently rolled into place, but to be honest seeing this strident prehistoric survivor enjoying the rain this week reminds me that just letting go and stretching legs feels really nice, even if it is just for a brief moment. Who needs astroturf?

Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -

is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.

- George Orwell

Today being Good Friday I of course missed the boat by having breakfast - which I ordinarily never do - so have already blown the rule of abstinence. So instead, I am taking a cue and doing a bit of reflection. For those of you who do not observe this day, it is a mixed day of sorrow and joy; it is a day to contemplate our failures and to find ways to make amends.

There was a spirited debate last evening between Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera, firing off extreme opinions on the issue of immigration. Please take note I did not refer to this as Illegal Immigration, because I really think that given the fact we are all immigrants, even the Native Americans migrated from someplace, we are arguing a concept of national growth by applying a vilifying Adverb instead of facing the true issues at stake. My point here is not to harp my viewpoint, but rather to applaud the shouting debate that took place on the "O'Reilly Factor". It is about time we re-awoke to the fact that we are a nation of different views, and that only by expressing - even shouting - those views that we exercise the very freedom we preach to others. I think we had become pretty complacent in recent times, and thank you to these two men who sat there and spoke clearly their very different views. It is time we debated, all of us. It might just teach us how to find enlightenment amid the ashes.

Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos!

- You infernal machine! Give me a beverage or give me my money back!


I have come to the conclusion that the machines in my office building have negotiated a deal to confront and destroy. I bought a soda the other day, and instead of a Diet Coke the machine spit out a Mountain Dew. Who drinks Mountain Dew? I tried again and got a Dr. Pepper - which would have been all right except it, like the Mountain Dew, was full-sugar; while I don't avoid sugar completely, my waistline is telling me I do need to be cautious if I am to continue to use this desk chair.

I decided to open the Dr. Pepper anyway and left the Mountain Dew on top of the machine as a freebie for someone else - it was then I realized it had company, as there were three other "Dew's" and two Dr. Pepper's up there already. Obviously a conspiracy is afoot. Popping the top on the can, it showered me; the rough trip through the machine (that rolling clunking rumble after you hit the selection button that takes the can a good 30 seconds to maneuver like a ride through a carnival fun-house) had shaken the contents into a frenzied state before hurtling it out of the chute at me.

I have to wonder what defect of mentality it is that persuades us to put up with these machines of war. Why isn't Homeland Security looking into this - surely the soda-can-bomb qualifies as a hazard. Not to mention the fact that the machine had decided arbitrarily that I would not get the Diet Coke I had asked for oh so politely. I started to inquire about the lost 65cents I had deposited, the phone number posted on the machine led me into a trail of answering machines and endless codes to punch in, and I am sure this has put me onto some sort of Homeland Watch-List. I gave up, they can keep the 65 cents. I finished the Dr. Pepper, its carbonated prune-juice essence strangely appealing. Okay so I liked it. The mission of infiltration found its mark, I was weak, I succumbed. If I am any clue, we as a nation are doomed to be overtaken, one soft-drink at a time.

"You must not throw stones into your neighbor's garden."

- French Proverb

Okay, so I have been guilty. I was out looking around the back yard last evening, and I must say that for so early in the season it is looking pretty snappy. The biggest bane of my efforts in the garden are the snails; this is remarkable in that whenever I mention them to other Portlanders and even to our immediate neighbors they look at me blankly, replying with the same comment "what snails?"

If I had not gotten this response from several sources whose integrity I truly do consider beyond reproach, I would have to believe that there is some great Portland conspiracy, to hide the fact that the snails do exist. In fact they abound, and apparently luxuriate themselves in only our garden. Now I have to insert here, that I am not talking about cute little pea-sized snails lazily attending to their business in the protection of a shady corner of the garden. I am referring to two-inch Escargot, whose jaws are wide enough to consumer an entire tulip plant in one salad-mouthful. I would have trouble convincing others of this since the snails generally disappear in the daytime, but for the slimy trails they leave behind, zig-zagging their way across the bricks of our patio and up and down the sides of the pots. In the morning, the trails gleam like railroad tracks, broad shiny interlacings betraying the snails abundance in what was apparently a midnight orgy on the bricks, a party of great proportion, of snails minuet-ing across the stones in the moonlight. Apparently too they like our hot-tub, as the trails frequently climb the wooden sides; occasionally I will find one floating helplessly in the hot water, cooked lightly but gently as he had sublimated in a silent midnight backstroke in the pool.

Left to their own devices, as I did the first year we lived here, the creatures multiplied into the thousands. The grass beneath our feet cracked with the dried trail of their venturings around their conquered kingdom of our back yard. It was at this time that I started asking the neighbors about them, and found that we alone were so blessed. At one point, seeing the massive size of them and knowing that in fact they were very well fed on some of the very best garden flowers, I considered harvesting them and selling them as a delicacy. But the cost to our yard was just too great, since there was hardly a broad leaf left in sight that had not been nibbled down to its bitter stem.

Portland is for the most part a very "natural" place. there is a general aversion to the use of anything foreign or chemical to be used to avert the native fauna. Instead there are recommendations for coffee grounds and dishes of beer. I tried these; we ended up with a much more aggressive strain of snail, more visible than in the past, no longer satisfied with nocturnal raids on the garden, but instead appearing at all hours of the day. They were high on caffeine and happy on beer, challenging me on the garden path like wild boars. I tried stomping the most aggressive of these, but ultimately realized that they had been there as a sort of Kamikaze weapon. for having sacrificed their lives they had left behind a glob of mucous goo that would dry in place like a permanent glassy reminder of their superiority.

I had begun a frowned-upon tactic of putting out slug-bait to kill the throngs; I practically had to do this in the dead of night out of the sight of neighbors who would have frowned upon the use of this chemical in the garden; but having realized that not one of the neighbors had so much as seen a snail in his yard, I deduced the fact that we had planted our yard in such a tempting smorgasbord, a virtual snail-picnic, that in fact we had attracted all the snails in Portland - enticing them into our back-yard like the Pied Piper. It was left up to me, I deduced, to do them in. I toyed with the idea of dumping them in the dead of night into the neighbor's yards and sealing off the borders with a line of liquid slug-bait to squelch their return; but somehow I felt this would come back to haunt me despite the neighbors' frowns at using a chemical. "don't throw rocks into your neighbor's garden"...

Slowly I have succeeded in reducing their numbers; the great Portland Snail Plague has been averted. I wake up at night sometimes and look out the back window at the moonlight tracing across the flower beds, the hum of the hot-tub a soft lullaby punctuated by the sound of the water tumbling out of the small fountain in the center of the yard. Looking out I often think I see them there, dancing on the brick patio and splashing in the warm water of the hot tub; maybe it is a shadow, maybe my imagination....but I think they are still there, quietly lurking in the bushes,growing even larger, larger still, just waiting for the right moment to reclaim their kingdom...