a Rimbaud poem
Current mood: calm

"Faun's Head"

Among the foliage, green casket flecked with gold,
In the uncertain foliage that blossoms
With gorgeous flowers where sleeps the kiss,
Vivid and bursting through the sumptuous tapestry,

A startled faun shows his two eyes
And bites the crimson flowers with his white teeth.
Stained and ensanguined like mellow wine
His mouth bursts out in laughter beneath the branches.

And when he has fled - like a squirrel -
His laughter still vibrates on every leaf
And you can see, startled by a bullfinch
The Golden Kiss of the Wood, gathering itself together again.

(by Arthur Rimbaud)

9:43 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

RIP, Anna Nicole
Current mood: bitchy

Gorgeous and curvy and really troubled, that woman sure didn't deserve all the scorn and hatred heaped upon her .... yes, she brought many of her troubles on, but I always felt sympathetic to her and her innocent, nearly naive approach to the world. Just a small-town Texan girl trying to make good in the world. Sad she became food for the pop culture vultures.

I was never really a fan, per se, but appreciated some of the good things she did (campaigns for animal rights) and the fact she was a beautiful, curvy model in a thin-obsessed culture.

May she rest in peace and may her child find the same.

12:35 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The weekend starts out right
Current mood: mellow

Iced coffee at 1:00 a.m.

And shrugging off a long work week easily. I'm concerned that my car could be itchin' for trouble. Think I'll have to take in some bad TV this weekend and online races and catch up on reading that Salman Rushdie book ("Haroun and the Sea of Stories") ... plus there's popcorn to be popped and smokes to smoke ...I'm in the mood for pop art collage or hot tubs and margaritas ...  though I sure could use some company too. Meh.

11:04 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Lost in the Fog
Current mood: mellow

It's hard to say what connects me emotionally to a horse I never saw in person. Heck, I mostly saw him on TV a couple times and what I could glean from the Net.  Lost in the Fog, last year's champ sprinter and a total throwback to thoroughbreds of old, evinced determination, charisma and some elegant moxy running cross country the way he did in his career, and perhaps it's that hard working hero ethos that appealed to me. He was a rocketship. He died today, age 4, of cancer, an almost impossibly rare occurrence in horses.  His handlers, upon finding out about large tumerous growths growing inside him (including one near his spine) decided to take him back to the hometrack in the Bay Area, rest him, soothe him and see if they could all fight it together. He lost ... one of the few times ever. Perhaps too it was his crooked blaze that, as someone once said, seemed like it was sliding off because he ran so fast. And it was the blinding, headstrong speed with which he usually overpowered his competition. Speed that evokes awe. He was a superstar in a realm that needs them, yet if you go down on the street and say his name almost no one will recognize it. Well, I for one feel grateful to the spirit he so freely shared. He may have been Lost in the Fog, but he sure found his way. Run free, you crazy diamond.

(Links to a couple stories about him: http://www.drf.com/news/article/78756.html, http://horseracing.sportsline.com/cbs/headlines/showarticle.aspx?articleId=13107)

(And photos: http://www.barbaralivingston.com/gallery/album69)

8:40 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

I love the Fair
Current mood: happy

Deep fried hot dogs on a bun, a mound of curly fries, watermelon shaved ice, lemonade, Tejano music, kids on bumper cars, a camel at the petting zoo, crazy pygmy goats eating from my hands, miniature horses, a cow named Elsie, freebie drawings, kids rock climbing, and dames in Wranglers. What's not to love? God bless, Amurrika, surreal land that I love.  

4:53 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

pigeons .... go international!!!
Current mood: relaxed

Apparently the local pigeon story has hit the big time jackpot and is riding the weird news zeitgeist, landing on newsroom Websites as far as Australia, Israel, France and the UK, as well as on various blogs (even Dave Barry's blog and on both ESPN's and CNN's sites) ....

It was even mentioned on Wolf Blitzer's CNN broadcast, but strangely enough I have yet to see a local news broadcast tackle the event, though one channel had the wire story up, I believe. Traditionally, one local station has no problem reading nearly verbatim from our stories. Very intriguing.

Part of me feels bad (even for the subjects who pulled this obscenely dimwitted pigeon pickle from down on high) that T-Town gets the spotlight for something so insane; then again, it is what it is ... and really deserves attention because it was such an incredibly "public demise" of these creatures.

http://feralgenius.blogspot.com/2006/09/poison-poultry-problems.html

http://slingerdoo.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/poisoning_pigeo.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DEAD_PIGEONS?SITE=ILNOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

http://achancetosoundoff.blogspot.com/2006/09/birds-of-feather.html (This one is gold!!!)

http://anidada.livejournal.com/625131.html

http://www.harikari.com/?p=357

http://miamisnews.com/miami/come_to_texarkana (This is theunofficial Dave Barry blog.)

http://sadandbritish.blogspot.com/2006/09/summer-this-ones-for-you.html (Blogger posts our photo of the pigeon. Can't tell in the pic, but that's a CapitalOne truck going by.)

http://mudswimmer.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-old-neck-of-woods.html ("First they came for the pigeons...")

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/13/dead.pigeons.ap/

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/news/story?id=2586966

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8K403DO0.html

9:55 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

some words from Ann Richards
Current mood: moody

"Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

"Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics."

"Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels."

"I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back."

RIP, Ann.

8:17 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

pigeons, pigeons, pigeons
Current mood: indescribable

** Can't add much to this other than to say ..... wow. Well, okay, I'll say this -- I've covered some strange stuff in my day but this really takes the cake, or corn ... or something. This is the AP wire version of a local story.  **

http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/2006/09/12/ap-state-ar/d8k3giq00.txt

Dying Texarkana pigeons make appearance at downtown festival

Tuesday, September 12, 2006 2:47 PM CDT

TEXARKANA, Ark. - An attempt to rid a bank building in Texarkana of its pigeon problem inadvertently resulted in about two dozen of the birds dying, some convulsing before their demise in full view during a weekend festival.

A pest control company brought in by CapitalOne Bank had intended to use tainted corn to sicken a few birds and scare the rest away from the building, according to CapitalOne city president Lacy McMillen.

As it turned out, CapitalOne was one of the presenting sponsors for the Quadrangle Festival last weekend, where a number of people in attendance complained to authorities about the dying and dead birds.

Vera Martin, who worked at a handbag booth at the festival said the extermination sent a negative message.

"I think it's cruelty to animals," Martin said. "What other animals could they kill in the process of doing this?"

Gary Bankston and Chris Flanagan worked the Coldstone Creamery ice cream booth at the Quadrangle and saw the sick pigeons.

"I saw the pigeon nose dive the concrete," Flanagan said. "It just kind of hobbled over and around and sat there and twitched."

McMillen said the bank just wanted to shoo the birds away.

"The death of these pigeons was more than an unfortunate accident," she said. "It was no intention of the bank to harm any of these birds."

McMillen said the bird droppings were a continuing problem and a staff member called the pest control company after a pigeon got inside the bank and made a mess, landing some on a customer.

The pest control company spread the corn on the roof last week.

"We're very sorry for any disruption or disturbance this might have caused anybody," McMillen said.

Jarrod Horton, president of Anti-Pest Co. Inc. of Shreveport, La., said a standard product was used, a mixture of 15 parts untreated corn to one part corn treated with poison.

"We used a labeled product in the proper manner and unfortunately sometimes the side effects are the birds might have convulsions or the birds might die," said Horton, adding some pigeons may recover.

"It's unfortunate. We don't want to kill the birds," he said.

Texarkana Emergency Manager Director Dave Hall said Monday his office had received a number of calls about the pigeons.

"I think they miscalculated the amount of them," Hall said. "And I don't think they thought about the Quadrangle Festival."

Hall said between 20 and 25 sick or dying birds were picked up.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)

8:43 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I would like someone to bring me
Current mood: mischievous

.... a case of beer, pineapple pizza and the winning exacta numbers to Sunday's seventh race at Belmont. Thanks in advance. You can also bring two Harvard cheerleaders, a shrimp boat, a condo on the Gulf, a palm tree and a rundown of all the conspiracy theories on 9/11. As well as a Buddhist flag and new pair of Doc Martens. Gracias.

11:28 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I'm so tired....
Current mood: exhausted

that I'm not going to return the overdue movies. Actually, I had a nifty long post all set up and it was promptly eaten by one of Myspace's many technical errors. So here's it in a nutshell:

Aaron = broke

Anderson Cooper's book = surpisingly interesting

Katie Couric as CBS anchor = nightmare rockin' Murrow's grave

Mom's farm = idyllic

There we go.

7:48 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment