Poor, Doyle...

Doyle was no Shakespeare or Austin, but really, he was the author of mystery short stories that still have world-wide readership, and a cult-like following. The character of Holmes is not only part of the literary landscape, but part of the vernacular in a way that would make Shakespeare jealous. Seriously, no one says  "No sh*t Shylock", now do they...so there.  


This makes me  think of authors who deserve to be respected and aren't, and authors that are respected, but are losers. This in turn, leads to rants about Thoreau. That poser Thoreau goes to live like a part-time nature boy in a cabin on Emerson's land, burns down the freaking woods, has lunch with the Emerson's weekly, and celebrities in this country fall all over themselves to preserve the area on the lake Thoreau wrote about how morally superior he was.  At least Doyle's writing is worth reading and no one gets lectured about how inferior they are because they don't walk in the woods for 4 hours each day (it's call having a J O B, Thoreau...oh, sorry I forgot that he transcended the need to work, being a slacker-sponge extraordinairre).


At any rate, Doyle's house looks like hell with plywood windows. Cough up some $ and help restore the house where Arthur Ignacious Doyle wrote the legendary story "The Hound of the Baskervilles". Serious work is needed to restore the house, and it seems to be happening none too soon. While it may be sad to think that the Brits would have let it fall in to such a state of disrepair, methinks that our friends over in England didn't realize the condition of Upshaw since the house has been owned by a developer since 2004. There is a campaign for private funds to restore the house that you can read about it and see images of Doyle's Upshaw here.


In the meantime, Project Gutenberg, has free on-line copies of the "HotB", which can be read here.  Enjoy!!! 

Ontology

See what you started, Descartes????  You think, therefore other people think and prove the existence of Flying Spaghetti Monsters.  Good job, moron.

New Items for the evil word list

and here they are, chicklets:  

Towards: 

as in "Moving towards a deliberative democracy"; "Towards a New Laocoon" and other foolish uses of the preposition by cerebral types who 1) can't stand the notion that things have a tendency to center; 2) think that towards means never getting to that center (because everything is destabilized now that Lacan, Foucault & Derrida are back en vogue in academia); 3) like to think that is something is towards, it isn't finally, but in development. >>>WHAT FREAKING EVER<<< The only towards I'm thinking of is the preposition that comes directly before the phrase "the white light" and follows the words "don't go"

Alienation:  

yep, marginalization's ugly aftermath. This term can be used by post-colonial apologists, but never when referring to illegal aliens.

Oppression:  

it's a big nasty world out there. What happens in this country isn't oppression, though it is repression.

NOAA Says

TODAYS WEEK 2 BLEND CHART IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE 6-10 DAY BLEND CHART 

EXCEPT  
THE AREA OF BELOW NORMAL HEIGHTS EXPECTED OVER THE NORTHWESTERN CONUS IS  
FORECAST TO DECREASE IN MAGNITUDE AND AREAL COVERAGE. THE EXPECTED TEMPERATURE  
AND PRECIPITATION ANOMALY PATTERNS FOR WEEK 2 ARE  ALSO QUITE SIMILAR TO THOSE  
FORECAST DURING THE 6-10 DAY PERIOD ALTHOUGH THE NORTHEAST CONUS IS EXPECTED TO  
TREND TOWARDS A DRIER PATTERN DURING WEEK 2. (NOAA, 23 May 2011)

That means, it is going to take another week for the 

east coast to stop behaving like Portland, Oregon...or the like

weather in this (my favorite) episode of Courage the Cowardly

Dog: 

promdenade the lemondae

It's finally sunny and warm and I need me a cold beverage....go G Love: work the cold one!

Home....Home on the range....

Oh give me a home, where the Buffalo roam...

Who knew buffalo calves could be so cute?  Apparently, there is also a bison farm in Rutland, MA; I don't care about them because they are not here. (I'm working on my western Mass provincialism)

I may actually get me a buffalo burger soon.  I may also want company, if anyone wants to join :) 

A positive time sink?

This site  is a place to get lost for an hour or so, playing games w/ history. Pick an era and enjoy.  Think of it as Cyber RP, with no geeky dwarfs, wizards, and costumes.



I did the "Surviving the Roaring 20s".  I survived. 


http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/keys/games/

Western Mass Hair-Wear

The Pioneer Valley is lovely. The hair styles at the strip malls as - the horror! - WalMart, are not. The Mullet has gone the way of the mastodon, but the Mohawk is mighty in its resurgence out here, apparently.  I cannot account for this.

The Pioneer Valley (nice pics here) is a place with lots of green, lots of old homes, lots of cows, lots of farms, and now, in Chicoppee, lots of Mohwaks.  Why?  Are the 5-Colleges to blame? Probably not, if my eyes are faithful (and keep in mind that I was on my way to and at the WalMart in Chicoppee when the Mohawk mania was on display).

Find me a man or woman at Amherst College with a mohawk, and I'll call it an anomoly.  How about Smith & Mt Holyoke? To be truthfull, I avoid the radical eclectic mismash that is the Smith College campus, so I can only speak for Mt Holyoke College, where I love.  I have seen one Mohawk in three semesters. It's a small campus (2100 women) and sooner or later, if there was more than one, I would have seen it.  And what of Hampshire College.  If they have Mohawks en masse there, I don't see them because all the quasi-freegan hipster types are still wearing the hockey-helmet or Dave Grohl look.  That leaves the 22,000 student-filled UMass Amherst.  Not one noted in two semesters.

So it's not the colleges.  Is it the farmers? Hardley.  Hair style on an organic farm is hardly a priority, especially when hair putty that provides staying power for the Mohawk is probably ecologically toxic (and if it wasn't it would be outrageously expensive, and even if it could be afforded, farming and haute coiffure don't seem to be synergistic). Further, the hair dryer needed to achieve the lift of the Mohawk is a waste of electricity. New England Farmers may be a lot of things, but electricity slanderers is not one of them. 

Okay - the military personnel in the area.  Nice try, but no.  There is a difference between the military-regulated flat top with tight sides and the vertical vavoom that is a Mohawk.

It must be the every-day, blue-collarish work-a-day types...at Walmart for some reason.  Three: count them, THREE in the 1 hour I was there getting my eyes checked and fit for glasses (because I'm a broke student with no principles) .  On my way to the WalMart, I based by two motorcyclists who had blue and green Mohawks on their helmets.

http://www.mhnracing.com/gallery3.htm

Maybe these folks are wanna-be Roman Centurions? Maybe. It's the Valley. It's possible. 

sometimes...

...i feel

we must be going mad...

 

(c) The Beloved: "Hello" 

. . . - - - . . .

It's that time of year where I wonder why I'm doing this. All it takes it being snubbed at a gathering by one of my profs and looking at grad schools to ruin what should have been a good idea. 

How the hell do these younger women do it???   Oh wait - they are at least 25 years younger than me.  That's it...maybe.

Three and 1/2 days left...

MMQB

Monday Morning Quarterbacks on the death of Bin Laden.  The blogosphere contains opinions that vary from "rot in hell, mofo" to "does this mean more war?" to "why are we celebrating".  Rather than provide links to these pseudo intellectual pontificating blogs, I will simply say this: feel whatever it is you think makes sense, while listening to this: ENJOY (especially the bass-line)

PS:  "Don't need a saw to cut through flowers..."