Last week, an aunt of Ron died of cancer.  She had only been diagnosed some 12 days before dying, and the events left him and his family shaken.

Because of this, he Rob and I spoke at length about what it means to lose a family member, how unprepared one feels to cope with it, and how even long afterwards one can never forget.

Here is us rehearsing Roberts song Calloused Hands, which he wrote for his dad shortly before his death.

here

Just for good measure, here is another take of Geraldine, the worlds greatest mommy.

here

And just for  the heck of it, here is me with Robert on drums doing Will the Circle.  Its not how we do it live, but in rehearsal we do all sorts of stuff, most of which you would rather not hear

Circle

And you can write me.

We gots a new place.  We will be moving in anytime now.

Me and Rob and Ron play some music, we record it sometimes.

We played this song, Geraldine, last night at a party and  everyone got real quite and listened.

But here is an earlier recording from a rehearsal. here

It is a song that I kind of choke up every time we play.  I think it is just about the sweetest song anyone ever wrote to his mom.

Here is the original from Chuck. here

I have been wanting to do it for a while, so stay tuned for a post or two about composition in visual arts.

Above I embedded an image of the Raft of the Medusa, a gigantic painting in the Loo.  If it does not show up, well, that was the image.  Look it up yourself.

Now that I look back for attribution, I can’t recall if it was  Ron himself, or the baritoned MissouRasta Jesse who used the onomatompoeia to describe the phenomenon, but fitting it was indeed.

As if on cue, several rabbits come popping up to the ground floor to check things out.  As many as seven at a time.  They just go ploop, ploop, ploop up the top of the skywalk.  And then, what I like to do is pretend I am some kind of post modern Snow White.  You four rabbits do the dishes.  And you two take these empty beer bottles back for the deposit. 

In reality, though, rabbits are terrible at housechores.  Even the most simple tasks.  And also unlike the woodland friendlies in the Disney films, they lack any voyeuristic curiousity about your lovelife.  They can’t even feign interest to be polite. 

What they do like to do when upstairs is mostly two things. 

One is to use the extra space for spontaneous rounds of Rabbit Grabass.  The rules are unclear, but it involves lots of running and sharp turns on the rugs, cool spinouts on the parquet, and lots of spastic jumps for joy (binkies, I hear they are called).

The second is to see if ole Twolegs has some leafy greens to doal out.  G.R.E.A.M. They love the tops of carrots more than the root itself.  And a real frickin treat is the green leaves of kohlrabi.  “It’s like Gold,” said Ron on a “dumpster diving” mission.

Ron and his sense of drama.  Before he left, he showed me the finer points of rabbit grocery shopping.  Because there are 9 buns, 2 bunches of carrots, plus a broccoli are bought daily, and given out throughout the day.  This leaves us with a lot of excess orange, and not enough greens for the little ones, who seem to like it the most.

So then there is a wastebasket nearby, where shoppers can strip off the excess greenage from their veggies.  Some people do this for space, but mostly I suspect some people are just dumb and they think it will make their veggies cheaper.  Most veggies in question are sold by unit, not weight.  So you can fish out those parts and take them with you, no questions asked.  That was what Ron Referred to as dumpster diving.

An oldie but a goodie:

24 Hour Toons

Hey Everyone! I’m pleased to announce the next round of 24 Hour Toons
will take place on Sat, Aug 1st at the stroke of midnight (the midnight
between Friday and Saturday). The theme is still a mystery and will be
posted up then. We have high hopes for this round and can’t wait! We
hope to have a very great and inspiring turn out. I think this could be
our best group of films yet. So tell your friends, mark your calendars
and get ready to have some fun and laughs.

Early Thursday morning Julie started her long voyage, first to Paris and then a long flight to La Réunion, where she will finally begin her brilliant career as a university prof.

Réunion is an island east of Madagascar. It is an outer department of France, and is geographically the extreme edge of the EU. The population is over 800 thousand, and the island is roughly 2500 km2. It has been a part of France since 1649, older than our own republic, the States.

Julie was a precocious child, who had a book published at the age of 11. She was a gifted student and achieved the highly coveted agrégation. As a highschool teacher, she cared passionately about her lessons and the progress of her kids. Last year, she completed her doctoral thesis on Nieztsche. Her doctor mentor was none other than the most prominent Nieztsche scholar in the country. I was a witness to her defense in Paris last winter, and I’ll never forget how those in the audience practically leapt out of their seats as she faced her jury and paried their objections as if they were slow motion flies.

She’s now in a place that could be described as a paradise, where winter doesn’t exist. It’s also a place with a fair share of poverty, and I don’t think you can drink the tapwater. She’s facing all the challenges one normally faces when starting a new job in a new place, but she’ll be going completely alone.

I think she’s going to be fine, but even the pro ballers love a good crowd cheering them on. If you’d like to send her a little message to let her know that we are thinking of her, this is her email: juliedumonteil, then the “at” symbol. Yahoo.com.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love animals.  But many animals do kill other animals.  We human animals (sorry Dad, we are animals) can kill any animal.  But we also can make choices.

After the non-news story of our president killing a fly, I was pretty annoyed at the resulting sub-non-news story where Peta was made to look stupid.

Peta is an organisation–my parents can attest to–I took an interest to mid-college (around that time all the interesting girls decide that they are really lesbians, or so I’ve read).  Though I’m not a card carrier (I eat meat, for one) I respect their point of view and it is some way applicable to many other issues one faces.

So I was pretty annoyed, after they were baited into saying something about the Obama fly thing that after what they said was pretty lukewarm and non-shrill, they were still treated to such a mob lambasting.

That said, I know a really good way to take out houseflies.  It works almost every time, but you really have to want it because it is kind of gross too.

The fly (call it the target) must be on a flat surface, parallel to the ground otherwise it might not work.

1. With your body centered on the fly, hold open hands slightly less than shoulder width on either side of fly (see the magnificent 7).  Hands are about 4 inches above the surface the fly is on.  Make sure there are no empty bottles or Hummel figurines in the way.  This is the hardest part.
2. Clap your hands together quickly.  Pretty quick.  If you are super quick you might be too quick.  If you try to be quick but not too quick, you are too slow.  So just do it regular quick.  Clap those hands.
3. Be astounded by the squashed fly in your hands.  Or throw the live fly out the window and shut it quick–super quick.

How does it work?  Some kind of vacuum?   No, stupid.  When the fly sees your hands closing in–they have remarkable reflexes–they take right off.  But they take off not like planes, but like helicopters:  up.  They fly right into the trap.  And get squashed.

It’s kind of gross: you get squashed fly on you so you need to wash up.  But your fly is dead so it is a pretty damn fair trade, eh?

Me being all faggy not-anti-peta and all, I don’t really enjoy killing the little bugs, even the tiniest ones, when not necessary.  So this presents the next challenge, fanboy.

A Real jedi knight can just clap his cupped hands and release the critter — then shut the damn window!

This of course is much much more challenging, but Yoda could do it like in his sleep.