Terror In Mumbai, India; Memories of Mosquito University

I don't know when Bombay became Mumbai, but I was unaware of it until I saw on TV that it was being blown to hell. I'm never up to date on these changes in geography--I was already embarrassed enough about Burma's change to Myanmar, and there's no telling what other name changes have occurred since I paid attention to countries that I never set foot in. Of course, I've never been to Canada, but I'd probably notice if they renamed it Arthritis or Calaban or something. After all, it's almost close enough for me to trip over, though I guess for a Texan like me that's a statement that would be more true of Mexico. A quick review of Internet sites indicates that "Bombay" goes back to the 16th century when the Portuguese arrived, but that in 1996 the official name was changed to one by which the local population had long called their city. (Therefore, suck it up, American and other foreigners!) In any case, I'm sorry that such terror has come to India. Terror has been there before, of course, not to mention death and destruction. I've always liked India. I've always liked their citizens, though mostly in the guise of Ghandi and other famous persons one knows from History, movies, or TV; I've hardly known any living citizens of India, although the few I've known in person (who worked or attended school at the university where I was employed as Ratcatcher-Exterminator) were likeable, too. So, too, were the Chinese, Arabs, and persons of other national origin I met at Mosquito University!

Kill Them All (Some More)!

What does Axl Rose have to do with China, democracy, or Dr. Pepper? Why would I ever, no matter what, care about such total crap? I say, let's kill them all! But then, that's my answer to everything that's meaningless. So I guess that's meaningless, eh?

Curiouser and curiouser?

I'm a bit nonplussed by this notion of the "followers" that Blogger recently introduced. I already use Bloglines to do my "following" of other blogs and those who are interested were mostly already following me in some manner. How this Follower crap improves things, I cannot guess. No doubt, it is explained somewhere, but it doesn't look all that interesting. Possibly hundreds of years could pass before I'd get that curious. I believe in curiosity, I think it's a good thing. But we don't need to be curious about Everything, do we? I thought not. p.s. I note that so far I only have 2 defined "followers", and those are attached to "Most Frequent Blogger Questions", not to "The Rat Squeaks". I don't create new posts for MFBQ very often, so that seems like a waste of a Follower's time! It doesn't sound very promising to me so far.

Semolina Dildo

Feeble, fible, fable and all, They say Jay Lemmon tried to sound like Bad Dylan in this song And left a sad pleasant confusion for us all!! Textperts, jexperts, it jus may be Just as you say, boy, messed in the way, oy! The crowd's all gone now except for the bad boy, Colors gone too how, all fished out from frim to Fry-day, And as faded as some poor little Jewish Tuesday can ever be! [MEANING: Words, what they mean and what they sound like, Can paint a picture, either internal or external, Real or imagined, for the author or for the listener, And that meaning's not always the same For either or neither or even Any third party who's just looking on...] This was or is a taste of the old "I am or was The Walrus" sort of thing... I hope you didn't blow your mind out in a car Or anything like that. We all have been somewhere by now, old chaps, So prepare your Steely Dese and get wit it!

Wondering About Suicide

Reading recently about a young man who committed suicide online and who was variously encouraged and discouraged to complete his mission by gawkers, I took a few minutes to look up suicide sites or at least sites that mention suicide on the Internet. Some teenagers make "pacts" to commit suicide, just as they agree with one another to do other weird things. What should they do, they're teenagers. I remember some "odd" things I did when I was a teenager, none of them seriously murderous or self-destructive or even self-abnegating. I was just crazy, and full of piss and vinegar. Me and some other guys were going to have windbreakers printed up with a bit of Dylan lyrics imprinted on the backs, but we never did it. Finally I took a Magic Marker to the windbreaker I already owned and wrote on it: "In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge..." I was a club of one, I guess. I don't recall how long I wore it, but not more than the season for it that particular year. The same group was going to be very cool and wear one cowboy spur (instead of one ear-ring, you know?) and two of us did finally manage that one. We probably never found more than the one old pair of free spurs (I think it was from some sort of life-debris from the other guy's wastrel uncle). All the rest of our misbehaviors were related to things like driving our cars too fast, or wearing our hair longer than we should have or putting some pills in our coffee that made you fall asleep (what was the logic in that one?) or maybe letting some guy drive you around your home town when you knew he was probably too fucked up to identify the planet he was on. And what about that strange guy in Houston one night who pulled a gun on everyone and you had to plead with him for five or ten minutes to calm down, just calm down--there "wasn't nothing happening!" The incident was soon over, though it stuck in my memory like some bad movie I wish I'd never seen. I wonder if he ever blew his brains out later? We were never really certain who it was that he wanted to shoot. There would have been a certain logic, and even poetic justice, in his suicide. Whether he did or didn't, it's taken me forty years after that night to even wonder about it.

Here I Am?

It's not so cold a day as before, though my fingers still get cold too easily. My podiatrist offered the other day to give me a circulation test (don't ask me!), so that's scheduled, for tomorrow, I think--it's written down on my calendar. It's free, he said, so that sounds good, I guess, though I can't help wondering why neither he nor my GP ever bothered to think of it before now. I have always complained of being cold, especially my extremities. Well, we'll see. If it's anything that bears repeating, I might even tell you here. But probably it's another one of those loads of crap that don't amount to much beyond the advertising. I hate advertising.

There I was

It's so goddamn cold out here in my study. I never keep enough heat on or else none at all. All the plastic computer parts get so cold and stay that way mostly. Sometimes I use a hairdryer to warm things up, but it doesn't last. I've leaving now.

Understand?

Pling plang, Pixie dixie dash, Wash you mosh? Ween woon wim. I don!

Kill Them All!

If you ONLY could let the management of General Motors, Ford, Etc. go down the toilet and straight to hell without taking the jobs of so many employees, direct and indirect, I'd be all in favor of it. Who has ever been more worthy of hatred than the big American car makers? Maybe it's not even the wrong thing to let all those jobs go to hell, too, but I can't claim to know that! I'm not certain how one would be in the position to know the situation that well. God knows, maybe--but the rest of us are just egotistical shits (whether we're on TV or not), as usual!

For Yoyo

If I could doodle you well enough, Either in my imagination or anyone else's, Not to mention in some sweet stone reality, You'd smile so neatly, We'd be in a spin, It'd cheer me up Or on to victory Or out of this dismal daunting dread I'm in, And then maybe we'd break out of this sin together Where mere veneer covers us, thinly like skin, All our beastly blessed ventures-- It'd poke right through this dearth of confession, This yearn and yen, This deadly wedly den of thought Combined with all our thoughtlessness And just desires and desserts.

Dogger's Lack of Appeal

Further Scribbles From His Early 1990's Notes

I wish I had more connection to people these days, but it isn't so and it doesn't seem likely to be forthcoming. I'm just here and I'm just me--not more attractive than I used to be, not more tolerant of others, not reaching out any further than what you may see at first brief glance here. If it's a hard existence or a long sentence, it's a self-imposed one and there's little likelihood of talking my way out of it or into any other frame of mind. There will probably be no suddenly growing an appealing puppy-dog tail that I could wag. What about YOUR tail--who will be crowing over that? I can't wake up, I can't wake up, Although I have good intentions and I often rise before the morning shines, Or before my submarine alarm clock goes off-- It's dreadful, And I'm being slowly crowded off the bed.

As noted elsewhere in this blog, Gatsby ended his life in 1994.

News Off The Internet

HEADLINES

NASA astronauts to drink their own urine today... NASA astronauts to drink each other's urine today... NASA astronauts to drink Space Zombie urine today... Some days the news is just so fucking weird. I think somebody somewhere is just making stuff up, don't you? There is a more common vulgar phrase, "Eat shit" which I've heard all my life. I wonder if NASA will attempt to facilitate that one as well?

Somewhere

Take a look forward Or take a look back, You might be there Or surprisingly here Or, anyway, somewhere near— You know it isn't clear, but it's all we've got any more Except to roll in the feces or Dodge the rain-flooded walkway out there in the yard Or cringe like sapient dogs on the mudroom floor.

Southern Comfort?

Edith Wharton: "There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time."

Self-Actualization

Hey Jude — Beatles Hey Jude don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Remember to let her into your heart Then you can start to make it better Hey Jude don't be afraid You were made to go out and get her The minute you let her under your skin Then you begin to make it better And any time you feel the pain, Hey Jude, refrain Don't carry the world upon your shoulders For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool By making his world a little colder Na na na na na na na na na Hey Jude don't let me down You have found her now go and get her Remember to let her into your heart Then you can start to make it better So let it out and let it in Hey Jude begin You're waiting for someone to perform with And don't you know that it's just you Hey Jude you'll do The movement you need is on your shoulder Na na na na na na na na na Yeah Hey Jude don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Remember to let her under your skin Then you'll begin to make it better Better, better, better, better, better, Yeah,Yeah,Yeah Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na, Hey Jude! ( 16 times till fade out)

More Erratum!

You couldn't follow me if you tried! It's not that you're so slow or that I'm so fast—it's just that I'm almost perpetually errratic!

Perfect Process?

Eric Ambler: "For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency."

Obama's Team

I was reading a reprint of an article today from the Christian Science Monitor how one of Barack Obama's favorite books is "Team of Rivals", a book detailing Abraham Lincoln's style of administration during the Civil War. That was a book I enjoyed very much, both the writing and the portrait of Lincoln that Doris Kearns Goodwin painted. Lincoln was a very great man, but it is to be hoped that other men, sometimes even lesser men, can benefit from an admiration of his style of "keeping his enemies close", of being "inclusive". Many in Lincoln's cabinet were the exact same men who had vied with him for the republican nomination and had pretty thoroughly disrespected him, behind his back and to his face! They did not immediately decide to be agreeable to Lincoln even after becoming members of his cabinet--for a while, there was just too much Ego in the room!

I find it encouraging that President-elect Obama admires Lincoln in that regard. Of course, it's easier to admire such greatness than it is to emulate it, so I won't be holding my breath or holding my water or anything else. Nonetheless, I might actually start to believe that such grandeur is still POSSIBLE these days, and that would be a very great thing in itself.

Below is the article from the Christian Science Monitor:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081106/cm_csm/epresident

Jack Handey "I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."

Optimism

Or Being Crazy
Havelock Ellis: "The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

Brave New World 2008

O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't! Shakespeare The Tempest (V, i)

What Kind Of Dream?

Edgar Allan Poe: "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

Party Favor

Or, Thought for the day
There's no use being Frank Zappa any more.

Found Treasure: Rosalie Sorrels

Rosalie Sorrels Every once in a while on the Internet you stumble across a treasure that you'd never even heard the name of and this is one of those for me, a singer that I must have gone to a great deal of trouble to totally miss! Listen to her song, ."Travellin' Lady". I swear, if the God of Folk music is a woman, Sorrels certainly sounds like the voice of the Goddess--or at least the archangel that introduces them!

Come Together?

William Ralph Inge "A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors."

Happy Trails To You!

All I can do is hope that everybody everywhere, of all sexes, all colors, all affiliations, who's ever had anything to do with these goddamn soulless robotic phone calls WILL SLOWLY DIE IN HELL!

Studs Terkel Is Gone

I never paid all that much attention to Terkel, but I've heard him talk now and then. Lately I've listened to him on the Internet even more now that he's died. Well, he had to die some time, didn't he, and he didn't exactly die young. 96 is a pretty good age. I'm sorry he couldn't live to see the end of the Presidential election like he wanted. But, really, there is no good time to die, I'd imagine. He always said that his epitaph would be that "curiosity didn't kill this cat!" As far as I could see, he always had curiosity, though, and it hadn't stopped even in his ninety-sixth year! An amazing and likable man! He interviewed a lot of "ordinary" people in his years. Some of the people that he interviewed were celebrities, though he said his attraction to them was that they were people he "celebrated" for things he admired about them. Mere "celebrities", he said, were creatures of no particular definition at all. For the same reason, I mention him here as a man to be celebrated more than as a mere celebrity who thus fits into this Category of post! He was pretty much articulate right up to the end. Great men should always live this well, this long!

Magnifier on Microsoft Mouse

When I had to buy a new mouse the other day, I was only vaguely aware of it having an additional button (new to me). It's on the top left edge (center) of the mouse and it turns on and off a magnifier. The magnification is of only one power, though the box itself can be continuously adjusted from small to nearly as large as the screen. It reminded me of a conversation I had long ago when I was griping about small print and various people advised me about the View-Text sizing. I do sometimes use the View to enlarge things, but the magnifying button is pretty cool when I encounter the Internet equivalent of "fine print" in legal documents or medicine labels where it's just a small message, not the whole screen, that's way too fucking small. The button is very useful, though it is hard to get used to and not be turning it on and off without intending to do so! I'm sure there's web sites and magazines that have reported this and other technical crap to the max, but apparently I never go there! I had no idea there was such a button. Not a bad thing, though! See the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 if you're curious. Or see the magnifier (shown at its smallest size) imposed over a photo of this post below:

I Saw You

I dreamed I saw you in a passing car Going another way, And it was oh so many years later And still I hadn't forgotten. It might not have been you, but it hardly matters, does it? Whether it was or not, it prodded me, it pierced me, It made me bleed and sweat and weep and pray As I had not done for years, Whether I should have done or not— But that part, too, doesn't matter. We are past it. It was like some last sad song of youth That I'd heard now just once too often, Sung by the most ethereal, soulful country songstress Softly crooning those old Beatles love songs That stung us awake and left us alive but lopsided, Not intact, but fragmented like this— It then left our hearts in the dirt for eternity... I never knew it would be so long When you went away, Not until this last time that your image passed me by like a ghost in a transparent dream.