Wednesday, June 29, 2011

dunno why i took so long to post this; been sitting on it since...

makes me excited: enticingly-expressed praise of apparently beautifully-rendered homage to delicious writing. walk good.

And Another Thing... Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three by Eoin Colfer
Douglas Adams is re-born in Eoin Colfer's masterful prose, says Euan Ferguson, The Observer, Sunday 11 October 2009.

The Hitchhiker phenomenon has always, I suspect, been personal and subjective, not global. Depending on how you came to it – books, radio series, film – its legions of fans have always taken from it something slightly different. I always thought all the things that were meant to be "funny" – the towels and don't panic posters, the people who this weekend will wear dressing-gowns at a convention – were rubbish. The recent film didn't get the jokes at all, and even the TV series failed the instant it tried to transfer a written gag – Zaphod's second head – to the screen. No, the joy was in reading and rereading Adams's prose: the sly delight in word- and plot-play, the perfect ear, the serendipity of onomatopoeia in the English language and the careful fusion of apparently randomly loopy scenarios with insight and a Point.
Thus, when this comes along, the first book since Adams's untimely death in 2001, both excitement and trepidation are felt. Eoin Colfer, author of the hugely popular teen Artemis Fowl series, has been sanctioned in the project by Adams's widow, and there has been great expectation, but also a great many people going, quietly, good Lord, it would be so easy for him to get it wrong – one hint of a tin ear, one echo of a cracked bell and it's doomed.
Within pages, it's clear this is a triumph. Colfer has pulled off the near-impossible. It's faithful to Adams's humour and, more important, it's also got his rhythm, the cadences and the footfalls that made his style so often (badly) imitated. But Colfer doesn't shy from introducing his own brand of wit, his own complex logic confettis. It's the work of an author who can write anyway, with a beautiful, vaulting imagination, and who obviously loves Adams's style so much he can echo it without falsity or accidental parody. There is not a lazy sentence.
It is also, as it were, updated. It would have been wilful of Colfer not to acknowledge the changes that have taken place in our, the allegedly real, world since Adams's first book was published 30 years ago – the internet and, in general, our far greater sophistication with computers – so he's unafraid to bandy about talk of downstreaming and uploading.
There's not much, this time round, of Arthur Dent. This is perhaps inevitable, in that Arthur was, basically, in his mild grumpiness and faint air of confusion, Adams himself. There's a welcome return for Arthur's daughter, Random, who's busy raising teenage truculence to new levels and, what's more, getting to do so on a bewildering new array of planets.
It's picky to say the plot makes no sense. It makes as much sense as any plot would which involved the likes of warring gods, three or four alternative earths, a corrupt joke-Irish property developer, a complex battle involving a cheese-based deity and a young Vogon damned by the possession of aesthetic sense and, worse, a conscience.
If there's any downside to this mainly fabulous first effort, it's that there's just too much of it. The real Adams books were increasingly short, I think. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, for instance was, I seem to remember, of such staggering slimness that you had to quickly read it three times in succession – not a problem – to get your money's worth. Here, for all its fitful brilliance, there's simply too much, even of the fitful brilliance. It's too long, the "Guide" footnotes are too comprehensive, the "further reading" gags too frequent.
But these quibbles were a struggle to find and even the sainted Adams wasn't above the occasional infuriatingly indulgent longueur, such as basing the whole of his least good book on an extended metaphor involving cricket. Colfer has given us a delight, and an eye-opener, and hope, and, close as this book does on the line "The end of one of the middles", the near-promise of more to come.

plus a metaphor i liked; bonus excerpt, from AN OPEN LETTER TO THE INANIMATE OBJECTS IN MY APARTMENT THAT JUST SAT THERE WHILE I WAS HEARTBROKEN. by stef willen; from timothy mcsweeney's:
"Allow me to give you all a brief lesson in the human condition. Humans are about 70% water, and the rest is guts, bone and minerals. But, because we are highly evolved animals, we tend to think of ourselves as fat, dull, empty and stupid. We are such a successful species that there are currently 6,792,256,639 of us on the planet—all of us frightened of being alone. We cannot be left on a shelf to sit, like you Wide Slot Toaster. When I leave you way up high on a shelf and forget about you and reach up and dust all around you but never touch you (not even once!!) you still have a purpose: making toast. When this happens to a human, that person forgets their purpose and goes around letting all the wrong people touch them."

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Friday, June 24, 2011

2fer; oldies but goodies


my boys from waaay baaack, i hadda share this image of all 4canals+chee (pulled from chee's fasbook archive); my favourites, only missing my lovely nico, but he inside this moment in spirit...
and below, some bruce lee action that made me feel like an inferior human being, but in that good make-me-push-myself way...walk good.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

10 myths about introverts

just a thought...read the whole article @ http://www.carlkingcreative.com/10-myths-about-introverts:
myth #1 – introverts don’t like to talk.
this is not true. introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. they hate small talk. get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.
myth #2 – introverts are shy.
shyness has nothing to do with being an introvert. introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. what they need is a reason to interact. they don’t interact for the sake of interacting. if you want to talk to an introvert, just start talking. don’t worry about being polite.
myth #3 – introverts are rude.
introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. they want everyone to just be real and honest. unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.
myth #4 – introverts don’t like people.
on the contrary, introverts intensely value the few friends they have. they can count their close friends on one hand. if you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.
myth #5 – introverts don’t like to go out in public.
nonsense. introverts just don’t like to go out in public for as long. they also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities. they take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it”. they’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. in fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for introverts.
myth #6 – introverts always want to be alone.
introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. they think a lot. they daydream. they like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. but they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. they crave an authentic and sincere connection with one person at a time.
myth #7 – introverts are weird.
introverts are often individualists. they don’t follow the crowd. they’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. they think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. they don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.
myth #8 – introverts are aloof nerds.
introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. it’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.
myth #9 – introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.
introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. if there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called dopamine. introverts and extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. just look it up.
myth #10 – introverts can fix themselves and become extroverts.
a world without introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers. Ttat being said, there are still plenty of techniques an extrovert can learn in order to interact with introverts. (yes, i[sic] reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.) introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. in fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of introverts increases with IQ.

walk good.

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Blogger willl said...

i always considered myself an introvert.. and this just confirmed nearly all of it. good post, good article.

11:42 am  

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Friday, June 17, 2011

prison story

when they came she was readying herself to go teach, wearing only a leotard pulled up to her waist, food warming on the stove, about to eat+dress+ride. when the unfamiliar voice call out, she ask who and the response come: “police”. figuring some friend playing the arse, she throw on a jersey and go to find 2officers on her gallery, guns drawn. she say she not dressed and run back for the 1st shorts she could grab, then come out onto the gallery to try to keep them out of her space.
they claim they see her plant from the road and come to investigate and while she and anybody who'd been there know you cyah see that from the road, they were already on the gallery, guns drawn, so later for figuring out that part.
the officers claim the illegal plant give them the right to search her person and the premises; the subordinate officer all about protocol, insisting on searching, while the superior officer mejias just want to take her to the station for her person to be searched by a female officer. the subordinate came inside alone with her following closely, terrified, remembering her stash sitting on her bedside table. he start at the furthest point, her bedroom, lifted the mattress but didn’t open the floor-to-ceiling wardrobe or move anything on the open bookshelf stuffed with clothes or look in either of the full laundry hampers or any bags, look straight past the ziplock containing her stash, and ask her to open the wooden box next to it. she open the box, explaining that it was a gift and came full, a care package, as and the lid fall open she mutter a surprised curse at the forgotten (untouched for over a year) small emergency stash sitting right on top.
she worrying about the room her landlord uses for storage and keeps locked because she know it must seem like a grow-room and didn't think they’d believe she have nutting in there, never seen the inside of it, have no key to it...but when the officer left the bedroom, after his cursory glance around her storage room where he open no bags or boxes or crates or filing cabinet, and his non-venture into the bathroom area, when they reach the spare room and he try the doorhandle to find it locked, she explains, expecting him to break the door down, but he simply nod, doh even ask who her landlord is or make any further attempt to get into the room. she realise these officers on shit.
he glance around the kitchen but doh open any cabinets or fridge/freezer. in the livingroom he move no furniture or cushions, pulls not 1book from the hundreds on the shelves, look straight past the small bag of seeds on the table, and pick up her bong and ask what she's smoke in it. she say, "loose tobacco", he put it down and leave it right there, no attempt to check her story even though he grab the big bag of stems from the table right next to the same bong.
they say they taking her to the area police station to be searched by a female officer and charged with cultivation+possession. she say she have 50students waiting on her to teach and could they pretty please come back and arrest her 1st thing in the morning, or even wait for her outside her class if they want and take her right after, but they insist on now. she ask to get dressed to go as she have barely anyting on, they concede, and she went inside and changed clothes, unwatched, not bothering to point out the uselessness of searching her person now.
they take her+plants+stash to the station in their vehicle; superior officer mejias ask how much she's pay in rent, which she doh see for what it is in the moment, and simply answers. the female officer pointlessly strip search her and lock her in a cell. she wait for ages with other officers with no connection to her case wandering in to ask if the plants+stash were hers, shocked+awed at the affirmative response, until mejias come to take her personal and identifying information. when she answer "soon-to-be-divorced" he ask if he could take her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s position, then put her mobile number in his phone right in front of her after writing it on the form. she ask, "what the fuck?" and he say how after all this, he want come and see her to "reason" about how she end up in this situation.
he ask if she have scars and she say “yes”, same question+answer about tattoos, and he enter both yesses on the form with no qualifying information or inspection and she realise why criminals never get caught in this place. he say they taking her to another station for criminal processing but waiting on the rain to stop to get back in the vehicle. eventually en route, she say she eh get her 1phonecall and ask to ring her friend who was supposed to be meeting her home to come get her. they hand her back her own mobile to make the call, saying that’s not actually allowed.
she's instantly abused by asshole female officer wpc#17159joseph-francis on arrival for processing because they weren’t supposed to let her keep personal effects and now everything hadda be inventoried and she vex with the prisoner for that. wpc#17159 rough her up while taking her phone and driver's licence and was loudly verbally abusive during inventory, shouting for whole station to hear, uninvolved civilians out front included, "where the rest of the shit for the drugs?!" when she find a single clean rolling paper and the prisoner say quietly that rolling papers not illegal and sold over the counter all over the country. wpc#17159 shout+cuss some more that the inmate is to say nutting unless asked, and continue abusing her about non-existent drug paraphernalia, saying there must be crack rocks among her belongings. she was physically manhandled the entire time; found a plethora of little cuts+bruises on her body the next day. wpc#17159 grab her by the scruff of her neck and manhandle her into the search room, make her strip again, and when she try to hand over the leotard, explaining she didn’t want to throw what had to clothe her vagina on the floor, she get abused some more and made to drop it on the floor, to then be picked up and “searched”. she had to squat+cough and get rough-up some more while naked, then dressed and was manhandled out the room and into the 1st cell, already occupied.
outside the cell, leaning on the wall in the corridor was a bite-up piece of foam her cellmate, deidre, inform her was the “mattress” that the cleaner took out the cell earlier and deidre’d been asking to have it put back in for hours, to no avail. on top of it were clothes deidre say belong to a dude they strip search in the cell-corridor right in front of her and apparently put in a cell naked. dudes in cells down the corridor complaining about not being allowed to bathe for days.
deidre takes a shit and the new prisoner learns the toilet is a porcelain bowl inset into the floor so they had to squat over it, then ask officers to flush it from outside the cell, which officers then take hours to do. deidre apparently had been asking for the necessary toilet paper for hours prior, which they grudgingly provided only after putting the new inmate inside.
the new prisoner was there for hours with nothing happening except cellmates shouting and screaming for baths, toiletpaper, water, the never-given 1phonecall, deidre tryna get her children who doh know where she is for 2days now because she get no phonecall to get her medication since stealing the chicken to feed them; an officer eventually make calls for her to organise the meds but she never get to make her 1call. a male officer come to take the new prisoner's info for the same form mejias already filled out. even though they inventory+itemise+holding her personal belongings, he ask if she have a driver's licence. he ask about her height+weight and eye+hair colour, and she, angry at the unwarranted abuse by wpc#17159, say she have no mirror and he looking at her and have her driver's licence in custody so he could tell her. he ask what kinna hairstyle she have, she say figure it out himself, but when he keep asking she state the obvious, "canerows". he say that not on the list and when she ask what her options are and he say “rasta”, she refuse because she not rastafarian, but the requested “dreadlocks” wasn’t an option. he show her the form, listing about 10choices, including: rasta, natty/picky, nappy, long, and straight/jhericurl. wondering in what universe "straight" and "jhericurl" the same, she choose natty, although she also suggested long, since her locks come down to her backside. he selected “cauliflower” to describe her ears, then ask if she have scars. she say yes and he actually ask where and she say, “all over; boy days” and he went no further; she said "yes, several" about tattoos and he went no further; still no pictures of identifying marks taken.
she wait hours then was dragged out by wpc-bitch to be fingerprinted by a different female officer, who apparently could do the intricate work of applying false eyelashes when donning in her uniform but cyah fingerprint worth a fuck: too much ink on the fingers to get a clear print, everything smudged, plus when this wpc fuck it up she redip the already-too-inky finger and try to line it up to reprint on the same spot already smudged, as though one could possibly hope to line up fingerprint whorls. 3copies of the form, each finger and whole hand printed on each and the prisoner done know she’ll have to redo all. thankfully the boss reach just before the 3rd copy and tell her what the prisoner coulda long time, and start them over. the whole process took more than a half-hour.
going to fingerprint she saw her friend there to post bail but wpc#17159 was clearly processing on go-slow on purpose. more time, then another dude come to take mugshots; still no pictures of tattoos or scars. even more time then wpc-bitch call her outside and tell her to sign off on a sheet of paper. she reading what she signing and get cuss for taking long, she explain she reading it and the information inaccurate (height+weight+hair+eyecolour all wrong) and wpc#17159 shout+cuss that she looking for an excuse to say the prisoner wouldn’t sign and could thus be denied bail. the prisoner try to say she not refusing, just doh know if she should correct the form then sign, or if officers hadda correct it. wpc#17159 cuss her again and shove her back in the cell without allowing her to sign. prisoner shouting from the cell that she didn’t refuse to sign is ignored. hours later they let her friend call a judge to sign off on her release and pay bail.
mejias had said she had to be in court for 9am, then later said 1pm; the judge who signed off on her going home for the night said 9am, and when she ask, he say it should be 1pm because charge cases get called@1pm but if they choose to call the case earlier and she not there she breaking terms of the bail agreement, her friend in jeopardy, $ already paid is forfeited and full bail would be $75,000.
mejias ring her mobile around midnight just after she finally reach home, saying he’d be in court for 1pm. he ask if she have to pay back her friend the bail$ and when she say, of course, he say, doh worry, "we" will take care of all these tings after trial.
next day, court make her friend tuck his shirt in his pants, case call in the afternoon; mejias message to say he in 1 of the courtrooms and where she? when police bring in her 2plants, the whole courtroom gasp, shocked+awed, and again when her stash was presented, lawyers+bailiffs turning around to ask if tha’s she own. judge call her case, she step up, heart in her mouth as they read the charges, but before her turn to speak, police request a delay because they eh do trace yet. her case called back next day; as she leaves, an old dude tell her: "you’s a boss!"
next day, en route to court, the same man see her in the road and stop to give her a bounce and tell her again, she’s a boss. different female judge; they buff her friend for sitting with his legs crossed once their pew empty enough for him to have room, and after hours of proceedings a bailiff finally notice an old man in an untucked dashiki and actually call him over to tell him leave and tuck in his shirt, as though he hadn’t been there, undisruptive, for hours.
same reaction when the evidence come in again; she tells the truth about her habits of biological recycling, admits stupidity in keeping the plant when it sprung up unexpected because of her turning all biological matter back into the soil, explains she knew she couldn’t do anything illegal with it and tha's why she thought it was ok to let it live, plant-lover that she is; the only untruth was saying she doh smoke anymore, supported by the obvious age of the stash and the officer's admittance that she was as surprised as he to see it in the box. she wisely didn’ bother to point out errors in the police report (they never showed badges or said anything about her rights like they claim) even though she wanted to, figuring she shouldn’t bring up their incompetence unless she needed to, to fight her case. she got off. the judge could tell she eh tryna make trouble, and made her promise to go through the flat and get rid of anything illegal left. she ask for her plant pots back and judge say she could collect them at the station.
mejias rang several times after the case cleared, sometimes from different digits to trick her into answering but she refuse to engage. a couple weeks later mejias followed her friend leaving her place after midnight and pulled him over a few blocks away; when mejias recognise him, he acknowledged, say he was checking who it was, and let him go. her friend circled back to warn her police still watching, and mejias came back behind him, put on the siren to call him outside, and after raised voices for maybe half-hour, they left separately. when he reach home her friend ring and say they basically harassed him about nothing and he said as much to them. since the night he tell mejias it seem he being unjustly harassed, she eh hear back from mejias, although he still drives by.
later talk with the downstairs neighbour reveal that the officers came to her downstairs door first, guns drawn, with talk of hearing about marijuana, confirming that they never saw the plant from the road like they claim- from the road, and definitely from the time you enter the yard, if you looking at plants on her upstairs gallery, the staircase to get to them is immediately obvious, so if they see the plant they woulda come straight to her gallery+door where it was. now she know the whole ting was a setup for mejias to get in her drawers and watching anxiously to see if he return.
this is the true story, to date. draw your own conclusions, make of it what you will: this is how police handling tings in sweet t+t...walk good.

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Saturday, June 11, 2011

classic

courtesy ma: scrunter, the will.

walk good.

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Monday, June 06, 2011

get by with a little help...

recent tragic events make me reevaluate who my true friends are. i usually say i have very good judgement of character when it comes to choosing friends. is why i rarely break up with friends or lock off people who previously claimed importance in my life, is why all my exes are still pardners except for the 1 who turned out to be a pathological liar (and he was never actually my man, someting i thank aforementioned good judgement for), why i still/always have the same friends except for a (very)few happy additions over the las' 15years.
since grims, i find my judgement not quite as good, or at least, not as good at determining who has the strength to remain and retain the self i was drawn to, under pressure. and i say that in an effort to give the benefit of the doubt; i'd like to believe that without external pressures and/or the ones they create for themselves all by themselves, such offenders could continue being the person i fell for. i wish it weren't true, but it seems that too many men cyah manage their shit, while general society accuses women of being the crazy ones. too many cyah deal with the fucked-up situations they themselves create, even while being warned the entire time of wha' they doing.
so i done. i safe- i have a few very good people i been with for years, and literally 3 additions in the last 3years who done prove themselves, and i good dey. i have plenty. i very fortunate, and need no more, because allyuh's jes bring drama while denying doing it, then run away from the mess you make with that shit, jes like grims, and i not fucking having it. so thank you, but applications are closed off, and i'll stick with the good peoples i already lucky enough to have in my life. and in each aforementioned category, i know you know who you are, so thank you, where applicable, and i done, where applicable...
walk good.

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