oh hai

my cat is getting desperate in her bids for attention.


I just watched a special on CCD, which is Colony Collapse Disorder, which is what was making all those bees disappear last year. (we don't know yet if it's still happening this season.) a lot of the stuff I already knew from reading this new yorker article, which was completely off-the-wall insane, I could not have written a more bizarre storyline. the bees are disappearing, all right, that's pretty freaky, but then we find them and see where they died and do some bee autopsies, and see that the bees are being attacked by multiple pathogens. fungi, parasite, you name it, are turning the insides of the bee into a disgusting black paste. it also turns out that the immune systems of these bees has been compromised.

which means that the bees basically have a form of AIDS.

seriously, this is beyond science-fiction nuts. I mean this makes the cellphone theory look plausible. I am seriously baffled in my attempts to even describe how fucked this is.

we are so fucked.

because before that I was watching anderson cooper run around in his black v-neck top with Amazon natives that made him look all the whiter shades of pale, talking about how species are being forced into extinction at a rate a thousand times faster than normal. then sanjay gupta got on and told me that the population is using resources about 20% faster than the world can renew them, and that by 2050 there will be 9 billion people on the planet.

bringing back memories of AP environmental science in full force. I used to come out of that class just totally in a mindfuck, completely depressed. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with us - maybe it's cellphones - but between this bee thing and global warming we are so, so beyond fucked. stop having children, now.

the best part was when they interviewed a poacher, who wore a disguise with glasses and a hankie over his mouth, and asked him if he realized what he was doing when he killed a tiger that was highly endangered. didn't bother him, he said - you have to remember, that when the supply is that low, the demand becomes very high.

I think that about sums up why humans are totally screwed. supply and demand applied to nature? we are retards.

now then, I hope you have a very nice evening, and a happy halloween, maybe you can dress up as a melting glacier and scare the wits out of everyone.

kay, screw the hybrid, this should be my new car.

i'l let you be in my dream if I can be in yours, I said that

it didn't occur to me until I started watching don't look back that I hadn't heard dylan talk before. that lazy, steely, low-pitched whine is so distinctive. the way he leads reporters around in circles was something I anticipated, having read a few. if you ask bob dylan a question, be prepared to have him ask one back. and take note of that exchange with a fan (I don't know who he is?) in the practice room, before a show; dylan sways and rocks with his guitar and throws back all the kid's questions. the picture couldn't be more iconic: some skinny guy with long fingernails and a frizzy head of hair talking to a kid with those fifties glasses and combed back hair. the artist versus the "square", the defining difference here being one's insistent questions against the other's even more insistent, vague answers. some of us go through life constantly trying to pin down ideas and file them away, but people like bob dylan would have none of that. not just regarding ambiguous ideas, either - at one point the kid says he's a science student, and dylan goes, "what does that mean? what does that say about you?" no matter what he says, the kid can't really answer dylan's questions.

other questions dylan will answer flippantly, with a slouching good humor - questions like "what is your religion" will bring yet more questions, and the end result will be that dylan happily mumbles that no one's ever given him worthwhile to believe in, so he's not religious. nor does he really have a "message". but this extreme nihilism is, I kept thinking, deceptive. watch him at the parts when he's grilling a reporter for some major magazine like "time", telling him that no one in the magazines ever tell a story straight, that if they did it would be an interesting collage of life and not just "facts", and that he could sit there and explain why he's not a folk singer, but the reporter would just nod and not really get it. added to these outbursts, there's the obvious hint that his songs have to "mean" something, even if dylan will insist that he believes in nothing. otherwise they'd be completely boring, which they obviously aren't.

this movie is about bohemian culture overtaking the towns in london that we see dylan touring. at the end of the movie some newspapers are giving dylan a new label - "anarchist" - which he chuckles at, amazed. it's possible that he is/was, but I would never accept that he is a nihilist.



* * *


yesterday you could have seen me dance in the streets after al gore & the ipcc won the nobel peace prize. it's all symbolic, I know, and gore still probably won't run, but I was happy that he was recognized.

today I picked up the colbert book but got the most chuckles out of this book, which tells you how to fight global warming in your own home/community. scan the table of contents - one chapter of this well-intentioned book is called, "Make it Creative (And Fun!)"

hot damn! I can't wait!

"oh christ...I don't care."

this woman, that I had heard of only vaguely before, is now my hero.

it's october 10, obviously you know what I am doing. as if it weren't awesome enough to have a day off in the middle of the week, radiohead decided to drop their album today. technically they did it last night, in california time.

added to those two things, I am seeing aesop rock tonight, and when I woke up and looked outside, it had rained. (in california this is the closest we get to the morning after the first snow.)

it's strange because I've heard all these tracks before, but I'll go ahead and do some "serious" analysis of them.

15 steps - obvious choice for opener. "how come I end up where I started?" signifies the end of something at the same time it's beginning over again. I don't know what thom was thinking of when he wrote that line, but it reminds me of the voice in the song "packt like sardines" - someone frustrated, stuck, not getting anywhere. then the beat gets more heavy and the guitar makes the whole song more fluid.

bodysnatchers - this is classic radiohead, pretty much. everything carries radiohead's distinct style, but there are certain touchstones, like "the trickster", which seem like prototypical radiohead, with this certain instrumentation and frantic, jumping rhythm. I love the chorus of this song: "I've no idea what I am talking about"

nude - BIG IDEAS BIG IDEAS AAAAHHHHH. that is my reaction to this song. how fucking long have they been kicking this thing around and performing it? I saw it performed at hollywood bowl in 2003. the studio version is sublime. the bass line gives me chills. when thom hits the high note in the line "you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thiiiiiinking" - DIG THAT. it kills me.

weird fishes/arpeggi - I've heard several versions of this song, none of which involved the tight beat at the beginning. I have to say that this is probably the least interesting song on the album, for me. the line "bottom of the sea/ your eyes/ they turn me" doesn't really do anything.

all I need - this one sounds least like radiohead. it sounds like keane, or coldplay or something. the beginning bass line sounds like something from a boards of canada song. I like at the end when it gets heavy.

faust arp - fantastic song that I have never heard!! the acoustic beginning sounds like "wolf at the door," but as it gets more heavily orchestrated, it becomes something else. I think this is one of the relatively new radiohead sounds, and I think they could do more songs like this one.

reckoner - I had heard a completely different song by them with this name, which had a bombastic beat and the lyric "feeling pulled apart by horses", so I really wasn't expecting this smooth song. but it really is one of the best. as far as I'm concerned it didn't have to end at 4:45, it could have gone on changing and taking on new tones and instruments.

house of cards - definitely a political song. I listened to this one a lot when it was first released as a live track, so I think I'm kind of tired of it now.

jigsaw falling into place - also known as open pick, which must have been a working title. this is like "bodysnatchers" with that frantic beat, and lyrics that talk about a relationship that seems to be both coming apart and coming together at the same time.

videotape - lots of people are going nuts about this song, but it doesn't hold a candle to "nude". still, it's the most ethereal, otherworldly song on the album, talking about life after death and mephistopheles. reminds me of "pyramid song".





add to this the new colbert book, plus watching george saunders talk about "braindead megaphone" on colbert, and you have me feeling like it's my birthday.

okay...this video'll probably get pulled, but goddamn, I love jon stewart. it's sad that someone would have to point out to this guy that being good to people and caring about them is not a "campaign skill", it's COMMON SENSE, but jon did, and I love him, and this interview is hilarious, because chris matthews so clearly has no idea what to say near the end. reminds me of the famous "crossfire" appearance. there are people who view life as a continuous act of persuasion, which is probably the most depressing thing I can think of.

"do you want to succeed?"
"...I have succeeded!"


I seriously thought chris matthews was going to throw the book at him.