“You don’t play pinball just with your hands, you play it with your groin too. The pinball problem is not to stop the ball before it’s swallowed by the mouth at the bottom, or to kick it back to midfield like a halfback. The problem is to make it stay up where the lighted targets are more numerous and have it bounce from one to another, wandering, confused, delirious, but still a free agent. And you achieve this not by jolting the ball but by transmitting vibrations to the case, the frame, but gently, so the machine won’t catch on and say Tilt. You can do it only with the groin, or with a play of the hips that makes the groin not so much bump, as slither, keeping you on this side of an orgasm.”
I present to you “The Mystery of the Leaping Fish” by Douglas Fairbanks; a hilarious comedy about the brilliant, drug-addled detective Coke Ennyday, who despite powdering his nose with a giant powderpuff of cocaine, constantly shooting up speed, and eating opium paste like jam, manages to beat the snot out of the bad guys and save the pretty girl (who happens to be a self-saving princess anyway, and manages to save him once or twice too!). This is a pretty terrible print, but hey, if nothing else, it’s a really awesome waste of 25 minutes.
Last month I started putting vitamin powder and coat whitener on the dogs’ dry food, and rather than have to spoon it in every day, I just poured it over the whole bag, shook it up, and voila! I was ever so slightly worried they wouldn’t like it, and I had a bowl of miscellaneous broken treats and leftover crumbs that weren’t really big enough to be a reward, so I tossed those in too… They loved it!
Last night, we grabbed big kibble instead of teeny bites at the store, but I figured it wouldn’t matter, and added all the vitamins and cut up even more bite-size treats to toss in — pig ears, chunks of freeze-dried lamb, and sweet potato “o”s this time. My dogs eat better than I do, I swear.
Anyway, Sophie has spent the last twelve hours or so scooping up mouthfuls of kibble, dumping them on the floor in front of the bowl, and then rootling around for the free prize inside. She’s pretty much nommed everything special that’s coming out of the feeder for the next day or two, and now she looks so disappointed every time she goes over to the bowl.
Today, because I have no sense of what’s age-appropriate anymore, we went to the Bob Baker Marionette Theater for their Halloween Hoop-De-Do. It was adorable, and more than that, it was packed! I was amazed they managed to hold the attention of fifty or so small children for 75 minutes straight.
The theater is equal parts terrifying and awesome because it’s so awful. It’s in a windowless building, beneath an underpass downtown, in a neighborhood so bad, we were a bit worried our car would be broken into in broad daylight. It’s one of those godawful children’s theaters that’s decorated year round in Christmas tinsel that hasn’t been refreshed since the late 1970s, and the sound system probably sounded tinny and cheap when it was first installed. It’s all very side-show, and it’s pretty great for what it is.
I love marionettes, always have had a fondness for them, but I’ve come to adore them as I’ve gotten older, as I find them a little less creepy now. Bob Baker makes gorgeous professional marionettes, and I was really hoping to see more of those, these were all a bit tacky and worn, half of them looked like they should have been retired about fifteen years ago, but Dracula and the tap-dancing black-light skeletons almost entirely made up for that.
They had free ice cream after the show; that kind that comes in a little paper cup with a flat wooden spoon, and they served it with Nilla wafers on top, a true staple of childhood, but I was too embarrassed to stay and have any. Apparently I still have a teeny tiny shred of self-respect. Alas! Next time!
Tell me this isn’t one of the cutest things you’ve ever seen? Who knew ickle baby sea otters liked binkies? There’s video, too. Turn up your sound, about 45 seconds in his sister tries to dunk him and he squeaks and squawks at her, it’s adorable.
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
~Israel Regardie
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Listening to...
Such Great HeightsIron & Winenow playing!
Hang You From the HeavensThe Dead Weather11 mins ago
Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)Iron & Wine15 mins ago
Sweet ReligionImogen Heap18 mins ago
Drumming SongFlorence + the Machine23 mins ago
KingdomDave Gahan28 mins ago
Divine Providence
"If you, who are organized by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury your talent in the earth, even though you should want natural bread, sorrow and desperation pursues you through life, and after death shame and confusion of face to eternity." ~ William Blake
now playing!
