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20090531

Listen to My Heartbeat...

Hey Bartender! Is there a way to sign up to hear (read) all the great conversations (comments) here at my favorite watering hole (just not my favorite coffee shop)? I wander by from time to time and read up (and I read every post), but I do feel like I might be missing some. Just askin'.

To be, or not to be. Those are the parameters.
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Home again...home again...

In less than a month I will be traveling home again to visit my family....



Yes...my Swedish family...and yes....we do that kind of thing.
I'm thinking it may explain a lot about me.
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20090529

Woman of Labrador

Note: I promise I won't do this too often, but I just love this song and wanted to share... originally posted on Outside the Interzone.

I was leaving a comment on driftglass' 2000th post (pop over and wish him well), and Figgy Duff's album "After the Tempest" came to mind. The lead song is a musical adaptation of the wedding blessing from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.

Earth's increase, foison plenty,
Barns and garners never empty,
Vines and clustering bunches growing,
Plants with goodly burthen bowing;

Spring come to you at the farthest
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres' blessing so is on you.

I couldn't find this on the YouTubes, but I did find this Woman of Labrador, from their next album, Weather Out the Storm. Now there's a few things you should know about this song:

1) Pamela Morgan has one of the most beautiful voices that has ever graced mankind, possibly the most.
2) If I was to compile a list of songs that I think capture the essence of feminism, this would be in the upper part of that list.
3) The beauty, power, sadness and strength of this song combine in such a way that I simply cannot listen to it without crying (and crap, I apparently can't even write about it without crying). Consider yourself warned.

If you like celtic/folk with a contemporary sound, Figgy Duff, though not as well-known as they deserve, were some of the pioneers in this sub-genre, and I don't think anyone has done it better.
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20090528

Knots


They are playing a game.
They are playing at not playing a game.
If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
---R.D. Laing, Knots

In the meantime while the world is burning . . .



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Yesterday and Today...

...I've been reading a book about The Beatles, and...that's really all you need to know.


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20090527

SUBMIT!

You know you want to.


The world needs your brains . . .


. . . submit your ideas for change now!


Someone's Top 10 Ideas For A Better World

Pretty lame, I know!

Don't scoff. Judging by the Global Ideas Bank's "Success Stories" page, more seriously minded initiatives have not be doing that great either.

Maybe Google's Project 10100 will yield better results.


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20090522

Don't be caught unprepared

Get your copy now:


In light of yesterday's ungainly sighting at the American Enterprise Institute, Threat Level returns to Level Yellow, signifying an elevated risk of attack by the Living Dead.


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20090520

Drink Responsibly



Now available -- with or without a straw.


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I know there are one or two people who think 1967 was The Greatest Year Ever in Pop Music.

Naturally, I can't go along with that (1984, hello?).

Thing is, with a song as affecting as this...



...you could almost make that case.

Bye, now.
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The Women Of Summer Want Men With Power


US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, US President George W. Bush and US Vice President Dick Cheney attend the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute to Rumsfeld at the Pentagon December 15, 2006 in Arlington, Virginia. Praise was heaped on the outgoing secretary by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld used his farewell speech to call for an increase in military spending.
The New York Times
May 20, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Cheney Grabs a Third Term
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
Dick and Rummy are at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, holding court. The maître d’ fawns. Waiters hover. Tourists snap pics on their digital cameras. Cable chatterers stop by to ingratiate themselves.
It isn’t so much that Dick and Rummy are back. It’s that they never left.
They had no intention of turning America’s national security over to the Boy Wonder. The two best infighters in Washington history weren’t yielding turf to a bunch of peach-fuzz pinkos who side with terrorists.
Let W. work out at the S.M.U. gym in Dallas, waiting for history to redeem him; Dick and Rummy are leaning forward into history, as they always do. Cheney is tawny with TV makeup; there’s no point taking it off. The gigs are nonstop, and he has a big Obama-bashing speech Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute.
“That was funny when you were on Fox and Neil Cavuto called you Obama’s ‘ball and Cheney,’ ” Rummy grins, taking a gulp of his brunello.
Dick grunts, raising a fork of his Risotto Gucci with roasted free-range quail.
“The punks thought they could roll over us,” Vice mutters. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
Eyeing the quail, Rummy shakes his head. “Can you believe the nerve of that dadburn whippersnapper at the press dinner, saying your memoir would be called ‘How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People?’ Whatever happened to the great White House tradition of giving respect to your predecessors?”
Dick is looking over at himself on the TV behind the bar, where Fox is doing a segment about how Republicans on the Sunday talk shows praised him for his shock-and-awe campaign against Obama.
“I can’t believe how easy it was to bring Obama into line,” Rummy says, gnawing on Gorgonzola. “We wouldn’t have needed waterboarding if everybody cracked like a peanut. It was even easier than getting the bit into Junior’s mouth. Way simpler than if we’d had to contend with McCain. In the end, the right guy won.”
Dick is surprised, too, but who can tell?
“You’re running national security now and everyone knows it,” Rummy says. “You got Obama to do an about-face on the torture photos. He’s using our old line about how it would endanger the troops. He’s keeping our military tribunals. His Justice Department invoked our state secrets privilege to try to get that lawsuit on torture and rendition dismissed. He’s trying to stop any sort of truth commission, thank goodness. He’s got his own surge going in Afghanistan. He’s withdrawing from Iraq more slowly. He’s extended our secret incursions over the Afghan border into Pakistan.”
Dick smiles on one side of his face.
“Transparency bites,” he snarls.
“By golly, yes,” Rummy says. “We controlled Junior by playing on his fear of looking like a wimp just as his dad did. And now we’re controlling Boy Wonder by playing on his eagerness to show that the Democrats are tough on national security. He’s a sucker for four-star generals, can’t resist anyone in uniform. Petraeus and Odierno speak and he jumps. If we want to roll him, we just send in the military brass flashing their medals.”
Rummy knocks back some more brunello, and shoos away some Japanese tourists after confiscating their cameras.
“I hear Poppy Bush is furious at you,” he says. “He’s telling folks he put Junior in your care and you stole his presidency and destroyed the Bush name and derailed Jeb’s chances to ever be president, and P.S., you wrecked the country and the Atlantic alliance to boot. He has it in for Lynne, too. Thinks she spun you up, like she did in high school with her flaming batons. He thinks you got loopy from all the heart procedures. And Colin’s mad at you.”
“He can go to yoga with Pelosi for all I care,” Dick growls.
The two old connivers clink glasses. “So,” Rummy muses, “what do we make our new White House boy toy do next?”
“Well,” Dick says. “He’s got to keep Gitmo open. It’s rich that his own party won’t give him the money to close it. The NIMBY factor works every time — no terrorists in my backyard. He’s got to stop this pansy diplomacy with Muslim nations. He’s got to let Bibi take out those Iranian centrifuges. He’s got to stop his Kodak moments and Commie book club with Hugo Chávez. He’s got to release those C.I.A. memos proving that we were right to rip up the Constitution. And, of course, he’s got to pardon Scooter.”
“Can we get him to do all that, Dick?”
Dick twinkles. “Yes, we can.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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20090519

When Summer calls



I wish I did!


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It's been fun


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Summer is calling

Ack! No time to hang around The Wulfshead much.


You know how it is.


So much to do, so little time...

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20090517

Keeping that Acoustic mood goin'...


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Pump up the jam



Pump up the jam
Pump it up
While your feet are stompin'
And the jam is pumpin'
Look at here the crowd is jumpin'
Pump it up a little more
Get the party going on the dance floor
Seek us that's where the party's at
And you'll find out if you're too bad


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20090516

Them other boys don't know how to act


The Exquisite Agony of Saint Sebastian?

I don't think so!


I am bringing sexy back...



Only that which is truly ourselves has the power to heal.
--C. G. Jung


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Stop, thief!


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This place has gotten too stiff


Watch Nipsey Russell - Slide Some Oil To Me in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
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Meet Bella. As soon as I painted on her mouth, she started speaking, and the first words out of her mouth were, "take me to The Wulfshead and order me a glass of Lightning Grass, fast!" I tried to tell her that Wulfshead patrons are sort of...uh...reclusive....and not just anyone gets to be a member...but she insisted they would all instantly love her, that she was far better looking than most of the patrons that show up here, and knows a lot about everything, mostly...









> THE WILD SIDE OF LOVE

Take a walk on the wild side
let your hair flow freely
like that of a goddess
on fire with love
paint your feet
with henna
wear anklets that jingle
scent your body with longing
and cast mystical eyes
upon the world
not caring what the world sees
let them shy away from you
and your wildness,
let them wear sensible shoes,
you wear shining silver slippers
that light up when you walk,
you wear a slippery red dress
that dances when you move
you wear a smile,
bright yellow ribbons,
and bangles covered in rhinestones,
you laugh like a mountain,
let them sip lattes,
you go dig potatoes from the earth,
roast them in a pit in the forest,
and eat them with gusto,
butter melting over your fingers
and white salt crystals clinging to your lips.<—

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20090515

Thanks for the Drink

But no, I'll do without the straw.

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.


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Jolly Ol' Tom Bombadil

asks for "some photos of San Sebastian." Voici~~~






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20090512

Who'd a Thunk?



I've been acting all anti-social, not talking or acknowledging others, but I have been following the goings on. Just didn't feel like I had much to say. Not intending to act hostile, you know, I'm just the quiet type. And strange as it may sound, a month or two after the fact, I'm still entirely baffled about how to respond to being tagged with the "Teabagging" thing. I promise I'll try to contribute more to the fascinating and thoughtful milieu at this infra-dimensional watering hole.

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That's the real question, isn't it?


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What are the odds?

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Mmm. Truly uncanny, these personality tests are.


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20090511

Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy!



http://www.liquidgeneration.com/Media/Games/Quizzes_Puzzles/Knowledge_Quizzes/The_Ultimate_Star_Wars_Personality_Test/

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I don't even know what to say about this one


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20090507

Bar essentials

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Bare essentials

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
---Albert Camus
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