Sweet Leaf

More evidence that we live in Bizzar-O world: Rehnquist, O'Connor, and, gulp--fucking Clarence Thomas get it right (as in correct, not Right-wing).

I'm sick of the whole medical marijuana argument because I've read hundreds of freshmen essays about it, and also because weed should plain and simple be available at the 7-11 next to the chili cheese nacho machine. How about taking that $15-20 billion per year wasted on arresting, prosecuting, and jailing potheads and using those funds instead to set up treatment centers for meth and OxyContin victims?

Hey Christers! This is a plant God created, which grows naturally. Our fucking Constitution is written on its fibers, after all, and George Washington grew it himself. The guy who is arguably more important than anyone in the rise of modern conservatism is a doobie-smokin' sumbitch of the first order. How can you rectify your conservative "free market" ideology with prohibition of weed? How can you be for small government and yet help fund with your tax dollars an expensive and elaborate war on drugs that's doomed to failure? Your hero GWB has himself cooked up a few bongloads of sticky green. Wake up!

Weekend Netflix

Very interesting not only for its presentation of the rather remarkable achievements of Leni Riefenstahl as a cinematic innovator and technician, but also for the troubling moral ambiguities of this enigmatic genius. I'm not convinced she was wholly innocent of being an enthusiastic Nazi, but I'm less convinced now than before I saw the documentary. I love the shot of 90-year-old Leni carressing a giant skate on the ocean floor.



An almost perfect thematic match for the above documentary. Sometimes the Netflix queue exhibits a bit of synchronicity. Another morally ambiguous subject, but perhaps less understandable than Leni. Fred Leuchter refuses to acknowledge evidence which contradicts his own, and whatever his motive (fame? money? a sense of belonging?) his case is less ambiguous than Riefenstahl's--her explanations are possibly acceptable, but his aren't. He's still an interesting guy, and Erol Morris (The Fog of War) presents Leuchter's case and the contrary arguments without judgment.



Before he was Elrond or Mr. Smith, Hugo Weaving and two other drag queens went on a quest in the Outback. They partied with some Aborigines, were threatened by toughs, made bitchy observations about each other, and wore fabulous costumes. A cliche-ridden film but still a lot of fun.

Except for the Abba. I hate Abba.

AVAM

We love the American Visionary Art Museum, and their current exhibition is one of the best I've seen there(not quite as good as the Apocalyptic art show, or the alien abuctees art show, but nonetheless superior).

The Tom Duncan kinetic sculptures are fantastic, the Steve Shepard triptychs in colored pencil are intricate and beautiful (and, yes, crazy). But best of all are the Haitian prayer flags and an entire room of Haitian bead/Voudou altar art. Lovely, and full of shininess. I want to go back on a day when there's less haze in the Harbor. We had our first truly sultry weekend, and it led me to shave my head (well, the heat coupled with the unendurable ridicule doled out Friday at Mick O'Shea's: Virginia Monologues said I was "too bushy," Pork Heaven pronounced my hairstyle "'70s porno," Len and Schott asked if I was in the band "Loverboy," Ellen Cherry thought I was a puppet from a Sid and Marty Kroft Saturday morning extravaganza, Earthdragon toasted my hair at the end of the night, etc.).

As usual, Pork Heaven got in trouble with the bouncers, this time because he licked our waitress. Ugh.

Smalltimore

So J357's sister is bellydancing and sent Ferocity a link to the group she's dancing with. There, in the top left pic, second from the left, is my ubiquitous wife.

She was a volunteer at the Creative Alliance party for David Simon last week and Baltimore Magazine took her picture.

As I become more reclusive, she's all over the place.

Hmmmm....

I caught this while roaming the web, bored to tears at the Liberry. It's something I've thought about myself many times--why don't I read more women novelists? I'm a sensitive, New Age guy, aren't I? Most of my favorite 'bloggers are women, after all. Just today I was seeking a novel at home and I thought "I should read something by a woman for once." Instead, I settled on re-reading a Henry James. WTF?

Women novelists I've read (starred ones are faves, those with + signs I loathe):

Shirley Jackson*
Anne Rivers Siddons+
Jane Austen
Flannery O'Connor*
Toni Morrison
Mary Doria Russell
Alice Walker
Willa Cather
Margaret Atwood
Madeleine L'Engle
Ursula K. LeGuin
Joan Didion
Nadine Gordimer*
Dawn Powell
Paula Fox*
Iris Murdoch*
Julian May*
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Anne McCaffery+
Toni Cade Bambara
Tsitsi Dangarembga*
Assia Djebar
Ayn Rand+
Banana Yoshimoto
Simone de Beauvoir
George Sand
Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Yourcenar
Isaak Dineson

Women whose works I own but have yet to read:

Edith Wharton
Dorris Lessing
AS Byatt
Lady Murasaki Shikibu


These lists strike me as too short, given the amount of reading I do. Am I somehow biased? Even my non-fiction list is short:

Elaine Pagels*
Samantha Power
Ellen Dissanayake
Wendy Doniger
Anne Lamott
Natalie Goldberg
Barbara Euland

I'm sure I'm simply not remembering some authors, but again, WTF? I could spend a year trying to list male authors I've read; it would be an impossibility.

This post=evidence how bored I am at work tonight.

Those who forget the past are...Wait, it'll come to me.

The British created Iraq in 1918, confident it would become a beacon of enlightenment unto the Middle East, that it would nurture moderate Arab regimes, that its monarchs would serve as peacemakers between Zionists and Arabs in Palestine, and that it would anchor the region in the wider interests of a far-flung empire. The experiment persisted for forty years, and it failed...

from Forty Years in the Sand: What happened the last time freedom marched on Iraq by Karl E. Meyer, Harper's Magazine June 2005

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? How about George Nathaniel Curzon describing the British Empire in 1894: "...under Providence, the greatest instrument for good the world has ever seen." And George W. Bush in 2002: "Our nation is the greatest force for good in history."

Lawrence of Arabia in a letter to the London Sunday Times:

The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information...Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster.

Again, sounds familiar. Except of course that T.E. Lawrence and most Englishmen were honest about their imperial motives.

I recommend Mr. Meyer's article to you. And my student assistant just asked me what a Conquistador is.

Almost cut my hair...

For the first time in 11 years I have hair. In '94, two weeks before I got hitched, I cut off my Greg Allman mane and have shaved my head nearly every two weeks since, sometimes to the skin, but usually to an eighth of an inch or so. I keep it so short not because I like the look, but because I hate grooming, I hate grooming products, and I like to take 1-minute showers. For the same reason I have a ridiculous Van Dyke--not because I like it, but because I hate shaving and a full beard is too itchy.

Because my hair is naturally bushy, I'm looking more and more like Yahoo Serious each morning, but for some reason I'm not interested in cutting it. As a result I have to use conditioner again, and if I don't stop growing soon I'll look like John, Paul, George and Ringo. If I don't stop for a year or so I'll look the way Kerry King from Slayer used to look, whereas his current 'style' is reminiscent of my formerly current look (you may have to 'refresh' the page for the second link to work).

Cha won't tolerate it much longer. She's already teasing me and threatening me with the clippers.

To my good friends whose hair is now dearly departed--never fear, I've got male pattern baldness and shall join you in ten or fifteen years I'm sure.

Two Years

Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of this 'blog (tho it used to have different names). My favorite thing about doing this? The strange Google searches that bring people here, and the odd connections and new-found friends and the space to keep up with old ones.

I just got a call here at the Liberry from my favorite right-winger Flexible Head, who's a friend-of-a-friend (Kwa'li's best friend) and whose nickname is actually the band he's in. He was searching on Google for stuff about his band and started reading this post and realized it must be by me. He called Cha and got my work number so he could tell me how much he liked it. Hopefully we'll see him this Friday at Mick O'Shea's.

Weird--I had 7 hours' worth of work today at the Liberry. That RARELY happens. Alas, I think that 7 hours' worth of work was supposed to last me through Friday. D'oh.