The System just wants to take the fun out of everything.
GMail’s “helpful” web clip based on incoming emails regarding Halloween: 10 Fun Alternatives To Halloween Candy
These deflaters include “Way cool Halloween stickers,” noisemakers and small bottles of bubbles. How about a boot to the head while they’re at it? Obviously the author of said article does not realize that noisemakers and small bottles of bubbles are everyday and commonplace sights in any respectable child’s home (including my own).
LET. THEM. EAT. CANDY.*
It’s one day out of the year, ya party poopers. Way cool Halloween stickers – a great way to become uncool neighbors and get your kid’s rear kicked.
Off to the gym, a game of bingo at One Eyed Jacks and Frenchmen St. – in that order. Happy Halloween, all!
* Having exceeded my allotment, I made D get me more free banana Laffy Taffy out of a store on Decatur yesterday. Tee hee.
Modern television is determined to keep the boob in tube. After just one season, NBC will more than likely pull the plug on Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Apparently, they cannot compete with CSI: Miami which air(head)s during the same timeslot on CBS. Don’t get me wrong: I love even the corniest of detective shows, but would rather pluck my eyelashes out with pointy tweezers than watch David Caruso’s two-dimensional, uni-emotional portrayal of a “philosophical sleuth.” Matthew Perry worked very hard to break away from his role as the Friends resident moron and into that of Studio 60′s troubled Matt Albie, and the show took on some tough social issues. My condolences to Aaron Sorkin and his group of intelligent script-writers.
Rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
***
“There were multifamily houses that resembled hotels. And a small hotel was much like a single-family house. These buildings and many others that are under the deep basalt were preserved by these sketches, made in 1973, for the most part from memory, by Gudjon Olafsson, an office manager in one of the fish factories. In the early seventeenth century, a pastor named Jon Thorsteinsson lived for fiteen years at Kirkjubaer, and after he died a stone monument was erected there in his memory; he was killed by pirates from Morocco who terrorized the island in 1627 and have come down in local history as ‘the Turks.’”
– John McPhee, The Control Of Nature, FSG, 1989.
(HT, the GB)
Are you ready for All Hallow’s Eve? I am! Hooray for Halloween in New Orleans after a two three-year break! [H 2003 - here; H 2004 - spent in a Gatwick airport hotel as flight from Dublin to New Orleans is delayed by giant foul-up on RyanAir's part; H 2005 - Mexico and southern TX]
Not much to report from the Voodoo Music Experience this past weekend, except that The New Orleans Bingo! Show and The Flaming Lips are class acts. Every band that took to the stage after paled in comparison to the hardworking antics and high quality of their stage production. Along with being great songwriters, Clint Maedgen, Wayne Coyne and their respective bandmates are theatrical perfection. If I want to watch a band stand there (with occasional spasm) and sing, I’ll stay home with a record and a photograph. To run around onstage with hilarious props, engage the audience with lights, games, singalongs, dancing, showgirls, bingo games, bullhorns, a talented theremin player, Aliens vs. Santa, Yoshimi power ballad, confetti, synchronized lights, you name it and sing your heart out takes real talent, practice and coordination and is worth every last Ticketmaster “handling” cent.
All of this was in perfect contrast to the band almost everyone went to see. Yes, gentle reader, The Red Hot Chili Peppers are highly overrated and do not warrant the applause they received on Saturday night. The best thing that happened to their show was inviting The Original Meters (Zigaboo Modeliste – drool!) onstage towards the end. Halfway through the performance, I turned to D and said, “How about a drinking game for Chili Peppers shows? Every time they say California, we take a shot.” To which D replied, “Hell, we’ll be on the floor by the end of the first song.” What ever happened to those nice songs from Freaky Styley and Uplift Mofo Party Plan?
Voodoo is definitely the B-Team of music festivals (versus Jazzfest, Bluesfest, Bonnaroo etc.) but makes for a more exciting Halloween weekend, which ain’t over yet. Pictures coming your way after tonight.
… and that’s how I like it.
R in today’s edition of txyankee: “Let me remind you: Evolution is not a theory, it is a scientific fact. There are many theories as to the driving force(s) behind it. And the Holy See issued a statement or whatever they call it that ‘Evolution is not in conflict with the Bible or the teachings of the Catholic Church’ some years ago.”
J’s NyQuil-ridden and off-the-cuff remark on those who benefit from science yet ridicule it: “I have a cold and the doctor says medicine won’t work. Well, I’ll just get another opinion and have my anitibiotics and then I’ll sue you (even though I have no concept of what you’re doing or talking about) and then … OH NOES why are these bacteria eating my flesh?”
At the end of this morning’s post on area schools and higher education, I quickly pointed out a nola.com article on the city’s historic mockery of a sound public school education and recently suggested overhauls to overhauls, which tend to err on the side of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (Admitting students based on income level is bad, so let’s throw out the parental involvement clause, too. *slaps forehead*) So distressed was I on reading this article that the words just … wouldn’t … come. Thankfully, New Orleans Grit wrote something that closely resembles my sentiments on the topic. I disagree with Grit on one thing, however: Just because the New Orleans Public School Administration lacks a single one does not render “progressive thinker” a misnomer.
