I just went and saw “The Internationalist”, which gets very well at the frustration as well as the ridiculousness of being a foreigner.  It pointed out a number of the things that one feels as a stranger, but is unwilling to articulate.  Take that point where the presence of another language suddenly seems like a […]

Now this may be simply an effect of spring, on my humour or on the fashion in general, but what an extraordinary amount of attractive women, pleasingly dressed,* there seem to be these days!  Since I have nothing better to do - or nothing better that I am inclined to do at the moment - […]

Chairs are a problem in modern art galleries; you can never be quite sure whether you are supposed to sit on them or to admire their raw significance. The settees in the upstairs halls of the Smithsonian American Art Museum certainly looked appealing, but I was so afraid that an alarm would go […]

This is a demonstration post, to show my sister how blogging is done.

Damn it; as google reveals, someone thought of lolcatholics before I did.

What is the ratio, for you, of words that you know how to write but not how to say to words that you know how to say but not how to write? (And I don’t necessarily mean complete ignorance, just where you’re more certain of the spelling than the pronunciation and vice versa.)
For me […]

I went down on Friday to the Textile Museum, after several unsuccessful attempts over the previous week. The combination of their early closing time and my sense of direction had thwarted me before, but on a wet Friday afternoon I marched past the Laotian embassy and there is was, in a magisterial mansion that, […]

The Immortal Class:  Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power, by Travis Hugh Culley
“Oh Lord,” said I to myself after finishing the introduction and the first few pages of the first chapter.  “Some pretentious-ass starving artist takes up bike messengering, and just because his minimum-wage job has a higher casualty rate than waiting tables, […]

On this read-through of the Gospels I was trying to keep an eye out for clues to understanding the role of the church, since now I’m taking seriously the idea that it’s more than a concession to the human necessity of getting themselves into groups.  Now the Gospels, particularly Matthew, don’t seem to be tremendously […]

And what is a better cure for the tsuris of life than another Klezmer/Celtic mashup celebrating sex, booze, God, and fighting? Not all of these songs fit on or are accepted by muxtape, so those of you who… er, share my predilections for fiddles, suffering, and dancing around, are more than welcome to get the […]