So here I sit this afternoon at Mother Fool’s so as to get out of the apartment for a while. In addition Colonial Management said they would like to show the place between 4 and 6, so I’d rather not be there.
I got up late. I woke up, however, at a normal time — 9:30 — but I knew I hadn’t slept enough (I went to bed at 3 or 3:30), so I crawled back in bed, along with my Alexander McCall Smith, but instead of reading I fell asleep again and caught some zzzzs for a few more hours.
Breakfast: coffee (french-press), Earl Grey, soy milk, and a bowl of oatmeal, but part of me would rather have the coffee (french-press), egg, ham, and blood orange of the opening credits from Dexter. Oatmeal is good, mind you, but something more savory, hearty … and yet (despite the fat! because of the low-carbness) lean. Almost spartan, yet a mixture of the important flavors and textures.
But I didn’t, and I didn’t make a cheesecake, either, though it was tempting. Were I to follow the Alton Brown method (which I will at some point) I would need something deeper (a 3″ pan) than the round 9″ pan I have right now for such baked goods. Tonight Lynn, Jack and Claire will come over for movies (Lebowski, Mulholland Drive) and drinks, so I cleaned up a bit but not entirely. When I return (post-6p.m.) I’ll tidy up a bit more.
At Mother Fool’s I read bits from a book of G. Benn’s poetry, prose, etc., and when I returned from the restroom I saw Bre (as in Kris & Bre), and we chatted a bit; she’s off to do more political work — tomorrow being elections and all — so she is a bit tired and might not make it over this evening.
Last week, after reading Kaminer with my students but before episode 2 of Türkisch für Anfänger I looked up the mechanics of “jokes” online and perused the German Wikipedia page for some German-specific terminology. I found little of use, but there was a subsection for the “best joke in the world” — I could translate it into English, but let’s try a little Brechtian Verfremdung and stay with German for now:
Der beste Witz der Welt
Das Lachlabor (Laugh Lab) hat in einer Studie den besten Witz der Welt ermittelt. Es wurde dazu aufgefordert, seinen Lieblingswitz auf die Seite zu stellen und die Witze anderer zu bewerten. Etwa 500.000 Menschen aus insgesamt 70 Ländern beteiligten sich und stellten zusammen 40.000 Witze ins Netz. Die meisten Stimmen erhielt folgender Witz:
Zwei Jäger gehen auf die Jagd und wandern durch den Wald. Plötzlich greift sich der eine an die Kehle und stürzt zu Boden. Der andere Jäger gerät in Panik und ruft den Notarzt an: “Ich glaube mein Freund ist tot, was jetzt?” Der Arzt sagt: “Beruhigen Sie sich! Zunächst einmal müssen Sie sichergehen, dass Ihr Freund wirklich tot ist.” Kurze Pause, dann ein Schuss. Dann kommt er wieder ans Telefon. “OK, erledigt, und was jetzt?”
I’m not sure it’s the best joke in the world, but I find it (and the English version of the same) amusing enough.
Today’s “Art of the Day” comes to us from deviantART and loish, who also has her own site. “Smoking Fish” is gorgeous and well-done; click on the image to get the large(r) version. There is also the “art” of rizole at deviantART, and while some of it I find nifty in a high-school-stoner-meets-Giger sort of way, most of it is unaccomplished. “Woman as Vagina” is nicely Giger-esque, and has some nice shading and lines, but works better as an image than as a titled “concept.”
Off in other “news” they have finally gotten around to indicting Allenna Ward in a sex scandal: “A former middle school teacher accused of having sex with five boys was indicted Friday by a grand jury, the Laurens County prosecutor said.” And: “The married teacher is accused of having sexual encounters with the 14- and 15-year-old boys at the school, a motel, a park and behind a restaurant, according to arrest warrants.” Stupid stupid people. I am awfully tolerant and understanding of other peoples’ kinks, but the thing with such f**ktards that still confounds me is that these 20- and 30-year olds find themselves going for immature, pimply, intellectually and emotionally vacuous teens. I can understand similarly aged people falling under the illusion that their teen peers have something intellectual or emotional to offer in a relationship, but how can these 14- and 15-year old boys be in any way satisfying to anyone except in a predatory conquest sort of way? Even if they have the supposed physical/sexual maturity to perform, they are unlikely to have any skill/talent/technique for being anything other than a gone-in-60-seconds orgasm.
Finally, to conclude with some other beautiful yet mildly grotesque art that, in style, almost resembles some of the “naive art” I’ve seen in the Balkans, I give you “War and Peas” by whitlam1 (also at deviantART).
