so friday came along... 2.28
and as it turns out, jaypea had the day free, and weaseled his way alongside pals Mel & Paul (stricken by the intial signs of a cold coming on but carrying on nevertheless, it's that stout Irish constitution of his) alongside young Renato, and we walked the streets and saw the sights and talked, talked, talked, and I have to say 'Thanks, you guys,
'cause it sure helped lift m'spirits...'
and whilst we're here, just in passing want to mention some linky goodness we found elsewhere,
first the esteemed C. Jensen (and yes CJ, thou camest up in part of our conversation yesterday) with a link pointing
this way, then hie thyselves off to the wonderfulness that is Mark's wood s lot fot
a surfeit of chewy, linky goodness, and of the most nourishing kind too, like this one, and this as well, and... well, sorry boyz und gurlz, seems like that be all we have time for this morning, appears that the Clerk of the Weather's been very kind to us again and will allow us a beauty of a day for our Alcatraz adventure,
and who knows, thou might espy us later this day, out in the wilds of the Haight Ashbury, wearing flowers in our hair...
goshdarnitall, almos' forgot...
after our return to chez d'monquis yesterday evening, we happened upon NOW (sometimes w/Bill Moyers) and caught very (!!!) interesting story on the Miami protests and the resultant police actions taken against the protesters and how this nasty piece of business was all financed via the administration's brutish bit of business in Afghanistan, truly a remarkable story, and if that police chief in miami isn't one of the more monstrous & unpleasant individuals walking upon the earth we'll eat our shorts (if we wore any !!!!) ...
oncet upon a time...
the phrase "of biblical proportions" used to mean something, and yourstruly contemplated the use
of it when considering our experience with yesterday's weather, particularly our morning trip into
the city. One big wett dogg of a guy walking into Fishwrap Central, nobody's fault but ours as we'd
left our umbrella (and a damn good one it was too!) behind on bus ride into San Francisco the week before.
Ugh, biblical proportions, not sure what we are getting from Mel G. in terms of that phrase either, undoubtedly we'll sit through it and gain some personal perspective, but presently we are very suspect of Mr Gibson's intentions. And all this hubbub about civil unions vs marriage and who is entitled to take part in that contractural contrivance known as marriage; egads, all of that truly frightful noise being made by that incompetent jackass residing in the white house, tears in our eyes this morning again, standing in the kitchen thinking 'bout our ol'Dad, but weeping for us all,
dear comrades, just check out this gem of economicpolicythink.
okay, so the big news is someone's stepping up to try & shake jaypea outta the slump he's been reluctant to rise above, the Fabulous MellieMel, arriving in the city sometime this evening, already has ourowndarnself shanghaied into Alcatraz tour on Saturday morning. She's in the company of fairlylongtimecompanion Paul, and young handsome son Renato, likely young R's fist trip to the city by the bay, not sure about Pablito. Coach Sara's been in touch too, the crew season is about to
begin and this her last weekend before the start of competition, so the possiblity of dinner and a long stroll with
the ol' Cullydogg might be in the mix for Sunday.
be sure to put in a word with the Clerk of the Weather regarding our Saturday morning adventure, just so yourstruly
won't end up doing the technicolor yawn whilst bent over the rail of the boat ferrying us across the bay to Alcatraz, not the best way to make an impression on our visitors...
yesssss Binky, part of our time is still spent enjoying the basketball season, collegiate (mens&womens) & professional, enjoying the GAME, 'tho like many of you dismayed by the big $$$, the commercialization, the excesses, indeed, nevertheless, every now and again something comes along out of this penchant of ours for roundball and today it came from Phil Jackson: "There's always thunderheads on the horizon," Jackson admitted. "But we look at it like, 'Hey, it's rain and it's great for the crops.' "
feeling a fair amount of despair these days... 2.23 recent personal loss notwithstanding, oh, you know, all the usual suspects contributing to that yucky feelink, wottsommatta U binky?
don' read the papers? so it was refreshing to have reason to visit the sidebar here this Am and check out the Thought of the Day, today's something by Wendell Berry:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
as we oft ask ourowndarnself... 2.20
what's the fucking point of it, Jack?
maybe when you stick around long enough the recognition of it makes it less a trial? Our perusal of
the fishwrap yesterday reminded us that the Poetry Center has been around fifty years. Ourowndarnself still occasionally surprised to run across someone without much interest in poetry, so perhaps this isn't as big a bit of news as imagined. After our movie
matinee the other day we purchased Guitarist magazine, published across the ol' Briny, and that January issue's feature story
was about 50 Years of the Fender Stratocaster, and whilst we couldn't locate an archived copy of that January feature, there is a
Happy 50th Birthday to the Tele story.
and they ain't just whistlin' Dixie... 2.19 Scientists Say Administration Distorts Facts;
< Ironical Aside > no kidding? < /Ironical Aside >;
catching up on our magazine reading during our bus ride into & out of the city these days, from the pages of the New Yorker of 12-16/23, Letter from Washington: Contract Sport; from the On-line only section of the New Yorker website, interview with author Jane Mayer.
hello there...
a couple of days ago, we mentioned our enjoyment of seeing City of God when finally released into an East Bay theatre,
and yourstruly had been aware that the film had been around for some while. Again, we offer up our hearty thumbs up, also, there is a pretty damn fine soundtrack album available.
if thou wouldst, please direct your... 2.18
attention to the wonderfully inspiring efforts of two friends of l'Marquis; first, Ms Daly of 16th Street Designs, who is in the midst of
rearranging her life to accomodate her desire to invest more of her time & effort in the creation of marvelous
& lovely things, drop her a line and maybe even buy something Eh?
secondly, our long diplomatic association w/Stumpy Delko & Dante Oblimov has allowed us opportunity of friendship with the wizard behind the curtain of environy, mi amigo Esteban, whose better half (oh yah, WAY bettah...) will have her film previewing at SXSW this year, Hurrah for the wonder that is Lori Cheatle!
Now if youse happens to be in Austin for the festivities DO NOT NEGLECT to attend the screening, and
should you have the great & immense pleasure of meeting up with little Stevie L. and Ms Lori, be sure to mention
that you learned about this via a perusal of l'Marquis d'Monquis web effort and maybe, just maybe, Stumpy hisowndarnself will present you with souvenir muy fabuloso... and here's hoping our pal Steve L. will be able to meet up with the esteemed Craig J. and possibly even
the Texas Tornado hisowndamnself, S. Baum, whilst the Cheatle & Lewis roadshow's in Texasss...
ohOhOH... and Mille Grazie to
another esteemed comrade of l'Marquis,
the alchemist responsible for creating the gold that is Riley Dog,
otro Esteban, thank you Mr. Laidlaw for the heads up on Fake Bush, via l'agence VU. Merci Boucoup, mon ami, Merci!
oh, about that getting the groove back... 2.17
uhhhhhh, nope, that report was kinda premature...
anyway, for the time being & jessferdahalibut,
from the online NYRB: The Wars of the Texas Succession
l'marquis getting his groove back on...
oh, don't know, maybe so, maybe just a little bit. Enjoyed the company of an out of town visitor,
the Saturday morning show at the Freight in the audience for the West Coast Live show, nice long
phone con w/the Mamasita, and then yesterday, a windy, rainy stormy kinda day, set off impulsively
upon noticing a particular film was now released in the East Bay, damn great movie going experience,
all you've heard about how marvelous this film is, all absolutely verifiable. What's that Binky? What
film we referrin' to? ohhhh, my leetle preeeteezz, we referring to Cidade de Deus
(interesting how different the googled results are between that and City of God) and
if you happen to have that nearby you somewhere, oh yessssss, hie thyself off to view it pronto quickly like, eh?
an untypical saturday morning diversion... 2.15
was afforded yourstruly yesterday; earlier in the week a careful perusal of the online Freight & Salvage calendar
clued us in to the fact that West Coast Live would be broadcasting from the lovely funkiness that is the Freight, so, wotdahey we said to ourself and boy oh boy are
we glad we did. Great fun being part of the audience, Live Radio, like the olden times, and this was a pretty marvelous show for a number of reasons. First allow us to mention that it appears that the WCL site is doing
a substantial updating/upgrading of their online archive of shows so sooner or later one ought to be able to drop in there and listen to anything they've done over the last many years. On Saturday, we got to listen to Noe Venable sing three songs (including a fine version of Lilac Wine to close out the program), the House Jacks (oh man, unbelievably talented a cappella group) AND a trio from the New Century Chamber Orchestra, all performers were uniformly marvelous. Audience members received flowers and chocolate courtesy two wonderfully generous entrepeneurs we met during one segment (wish I'd taken notes) when
we were introduced to two gentlemen who had queued up to be married at S.F. City Hall on Friday, they'd been together for over 25 years and it was great to listen to them both, we in the audience cheered and applauded their good fortune. A small and perhaps (we always like to think of it this way so indulge us please...) magickal coincidence
occured when we discovered the author of book we mentioned hereabouts last week (review by D. Kipen mentioned on our
2.11 post) was also a guest on the show, Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli, and of course, for those of you, like ourowndarnself, occasional listeners of the show, host Sedge T., Mike Greensill on piano (very nice version of My Funny Valentine
provided by the esteemed Mr. Greensill). oh l'Marquis had some fun, probably the most enjoyable 2 hours that's come our way since our return to the Left Coast after traversing the emotional lunar landscape that was January.
so, around lunchtime yesterday...
ourowndarnself's in the beautifully appointed Chronicle Employee Lunchroom -- NOT! -- eating our cheap-o BBQ sandwich
purchased earlier that morning, quietly perusing the pages of the fishwrap and we come across this: How do we forgive ourselves? Our parents watch us so carefully when we're children, desperate not to miss a first scream, first step, a first word, never taking their eyes off us. Yet we do not watch them. They near the end in solitude -- even those who live beside us die in solitude -- and rarely do we catch their own milestones: the last scream before the morphine settles in, last step before they cannot walk, last word before the throat seals.;
an excerpted passge from book entitled The Confessions of Max Tivoli reviewed by D. Kipen, events of late allowing those eighty-one words to resonate for me in a way they likely would not have previously. Then a bit later that same day, stopping by the supermarket on the way home, meeting up with employee there named Lucy (yourstruly a familiar face to the many folks in his neighborhood, at this grocery in particular, having had reason to shop quite frequently there during the years I was attending to the needs of my neighbors the Chapmans...), she aware of my loss, recently experienced the death of her mother preceeded by a few months by the death of an older brother; she's sweetly concerned, filling me in on details of the sale of her mother's house after probate, describing the very nice (and SINGLE) real estate agent who's helping her & her sister with the process, circumspectly asking if I might be interested in being introduced to her and I have to say thanks but no, describing to her the kind of mild funque I am in of late, that I'm likely not much for socializing presently, but Lucy's not easily dissuaded, gives me her phone number advising me to call if I change my mind, just want someone to talk to, another example of the kindness that many have provided me lately.
hints of springtime's arrival... 2.10
in the weather of late, and oh dear, has yourstruly got plenty of weeding and related labors on our beloved estate d'monquis, too bad we in the grasp of such monumental ennui that we can barely invest enough energy to locate the remote and change channels during recently wasted evenings in front of the idiot box... okay, so plenty in the news re el residente's confession that he is a "war president" and we wish (oh do we) that he had said such a thing when he was running for office, maybe should have clued us in on his "holy war" intentions, his "Crusader Rabbit" alter ego; those evenings watching The News Hour on PBS have me reaching for the whiskey bottle during those closing minutes of memorial to those who have died far from home, ever notice how young so many of those folks are?
Danger Will Robinson, Danger... 2.9
deep doo doo ahead.
watched some cspan saturday night, caught broadcast of affair held at the U.N., the U.N. Society of Writers & Artists presented N. Chomsky their Award for Excellence, brief excerpt of Q & A at this Democracy Nowlink; his response to question re the field of democratic candidates was a reminder of a terribly grim reality and I wish I could find transcript of that somewhere, but in a nutshell, his answer was based on the consideration that elections are bought and paid for these days, that they have been for some time, and the odds against something to the contrary happening again are depressingly high considering the very deep pockets of the scalawags presently steering the ship of state. Ugh... it gonna be one tough Year of the Monkey...
back on the bus...
some changes in store at fishwrap classifieds for yourstruly has us back on the G line. lovely little express line that I can catch a block from chez d'monquis, returning me to same location later that work day, a bit cheaper than the bart train, and if I happen to catch one of the deluxe tour bus type vehicles often scheduled, well, it's also
a damn sight more comfortable, and the esthetic experience of seeing the Bay laid out before one as you make the trip along the bayshore & then up across the bridge into the city, well, it beats the trip thru the tunnel any day of the week, thangyavurrymuch...
and no, even while ourowndarnself did not watch T. Russert and el residente go mano a mano, we did see a number of excerpts from the show, billmon makes mention of same in his 2.8 post. I did enjoy watching the gang on the McLaughlin Group, particularly seeing Tony Blankley approaching apoplexy in attempting to refute Ms. Clift's assertion re Papa Bush's part in the shenanigans of the present administration, oh man, Tony was nearly foaming at the mouth. And who'd ever have imagined Pat Buchanan saying some of the things I've heard him say on that show of late. 'Tis the best half hour of entertainment on television.
today is sort of an anniversary... 2.6
as this evening will make it fully a lunar month since the day of the mass & gravesite ceremony for my father. There remains a very definite sort of fragility that I am experiencing, I was trying to describe it to someone a day or so ago, not fragile like an eggshell, which is surprisingly strong & resilient, but something more like this awful bruise I received a few weeks back, on the day that the Momz and I began to prep her kitchen for painting. I was about to step onto a small aluminum step ladder that she had just been using, and as I began to put my weight fully upon the first step and raise myself on the next, it gave way, and the force of my leg dropping resulted in a fairly serious contusion along my left shin w/some scraping of the skin and resultant bleeding and swelling, 20 minutes or so with an ice pack reduced the swelling to some degree and I was able to continue on with the job at hand, but my leg remained sore for many days afterward, the contusion serious enough that any movement of the leg resulting in some stretching of the muscle primarily involved was certainly painful, and the overall tenderness was such that it felt as even a breeze directed against the affected shin made me cringe in anticipation of another blow upon it, and if I was to bump that area against anything, oh dear, it was mighty painful, as tender as it was, so I am thinking that is a good deal more like what I have been feeling emotionally, that awful shock of the initial blow, dealing with the very obvious pain of it for days afterward, and as it slowly subsided accustoming oneself to the soreness, the tenderness,
the reality that it still hurt, but was increasingly bearable, until something came along to brush against it, inflaming it once again, the pain fresh and real and immediate all over again.
otra cosa mas, from Gillian Welch, her Soul Journey album, one monkey don't stop the show
a most difficult and mournful time, the month of January '04
maybe when you stick around long enough the recognition of it makes it less a trial? Our perusal of
the fishwrap yesterday reminded us that the 
but something more like this awful bruise I received a few weeks back, on the day that the Momz and I began to prep her kitchen for painting. I was about to step onto a small aluminum step ladder that she had just been using, and as I began to put my weight fully upon the first step and raise myself on the next, it gave way, and the force of my leg dropping resulted in a fairly serious contusion along my left shin w/some scraping of the skin and resultant bleeding and swelling, 20 minutes or so with an ice pack reduced the swelling to some degree and I was able to continue on with the job at hand, but my leg remained sore for many days afterward, the contusion serious enough that any movement of the leg resulting in some stretching of the muscle primarily involved was certainly painful, and the overall tenderness was such that it felt as even a breeze directed against the affected shin made me cringe in anticipation of another blow upon it, and if I was to bump that area against anything, oh dear, it was mighty painful, as tender as it was, so I am thinking that is a good deal more like what I have been feeling emotionally, that awful shock of the initial blow, dealing with the very obvious pain of it for days afterward, and as it slowly subsided accustoming oneself to the soreness, the tenderness,
the reality that it still hurt, but was increasingly bearable, until something came along to brush against it, inflaming it once again, the pain fresh and real and immediate all over again.![[Optimized for PinealWeb]](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/pinealweb/pineal.gif)