Poor, poor Flamingo

2009-04-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

I am listening to the Heartless Bastards live at SXSW (podcast on NPR - thanks!), and it's like if Martha Wainwright sang for the Replacements on an alternate-universe 'Reality Bites' soundtrack. Maybe some geneticist will combine her genes with Robert Plant's and build a clone army of bad-ass wailers wielding beat-up guitars and cussing in regional dialects. Take that, alien overlords!

Period.

2009-03-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

One of the most beautiful things that civilization has bequeathed to us is the periodic table. It's amazing because it always existed - at least, for millions upon millions of years - but was only written down a couple of hundred years ago. Like some of the so-called "man-made" elements in the higher-numbered periods, it just took some human hands to reassemble it. Human tools, not human minds. Even the most brilliant chemists and astrophysicists had to follow the rules that the Universe invented; they don't create or conceive or even mold this masterpiece; they just put the pieces in the order most resembling what the Universe would impart if it spoke English. But the Universe doesn't speak English. It speaks mathematics. And light. And particles, and wavelengths, and electrons. The elements were always there, not concerned with their own size or shape or whether or not we used used the Latin root word. They shall continue to be just themselves, reacting, reassembling, long after Homo sapiens sapiens stop talking about them.

This commonplace black-and-white fixture in classrooms the world over is the whole of nature translated into human language. And it looks so boring. But it contains our known universe.

local exports

2009-02-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

The British man was hoping to break into the film business. He knew it was a cliche, he said, sheepish, but he had had meetings, and had another scheduled for the next day. He was making contacts.

His seat-mate, a middle-aged brunette whose words rushed out of her mouth before her thoughts could catch up, was only too happy to talk about movie stars and directors and their latest flashy projects. She helped him build upon the stereotype that all Angelenos read Variety.

He really likes Stanley Kubrick. And the weather here is fantastic. She agrees, excitedly, because, well, no one ever talks about the weather.

The automated voice told us unhurriedly that the next stop was 'Comp-ton Sta-tion', prompting the British man to ask his new friend about Compton's exports to the world at large.

"I listen to the rap songs," he clipped, "and they mention Compton quite a bit. Also Long Beach, South Central...I can't remember the others..."

She wants to talk about movies. And the weather.

"So what studios have you been to? How did the meetings -oh, call it a pitch" (giggle) "go? Who'd you talk to? So you live in London?" Her sentences pile on top of each other.

London is the only city in England, so you just might as well say you live there, I want to tell the British man. I want to tell the British man that Compton isn't scary. It has little houses with nice people, who put bars on their windows some time ago. It has new multicolored (unsold) condominiums, that look like crap, like they'll fall over if you hammer a nail into the wall to hang a picture. It has a few dirty streets, while some aren't so bad. An abandoned armchair, where someone is lucky enough to sleep, sometimes. It has a city hall, chamber of commerce, old folks' home, gardens. It is home to whole families and fractured families, trash-strewn yards with chain-link fences and small patches of well-kept green lawn. Pigeons, cats, dogs, goldfish, books, guns, grammas, pregnancies, language, assumptions. What it lacks in confidence it makes up in reputation.

Bad news for reasonable people

2008-12-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

This might end up being a problem:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-conscience2-2008dec02,0,4164540.story

(sorry I don't know how to hypertext. I was born on a mountain, okay?)

So the Bush administration would like to take away the option of birth control for many women. No surprise there. But this time it's using the argument of personal morality to do it. These are not the ideals our nation was founded upon.

2008-12-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

One of the best pieces of art I have ever seen in Los Angeles.

what was shwashed around in my brain

2008-12-04T00:04:00.000-08:00

Hercule Poirot in the Agatha Christia books always marveled at the mysterious brain cells, "grey cells", that served as the substrate for critical thought. Right now I am struck with the thought that humans' grey cells probably don't work in the same way now as they used to in Poirot's setting. Or maybe it was that he was using his grey cells in England- I think it was England- and everybody is just smarter there. Except for those football fascists that form gangs and wear their hair all stupid. They are not smart: they would not drink such crappy beer like Carlsberg if they were smarter.

Anyway, Poirot was a waaaay better inspector than David Caruso or even that other chick that can manipulate the supertouchscreen camera wall at headquarters. No, Hercule was French. And he used his French intuition. He always knew exactly what kind of luggage a person of interest would carry. Like Sherlock Holmes knew that a Cardinal would never drink out of a pewter chalice, Poirot knows a widowed grandma with cholera would never drink Earl Grey tea. (The caffeine hurts the ulcers, is it, Poirot?) He harnessed his grey cells as if he were training for the Orange County Academic Decathlon or something.

How does that work? How does a person make their mind better, or faster, or more efficient?

I have enough trouble just keeping my eyes open.

I've wanted to blog since I was a little girl!

2008-12-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

And Arianna Huffington just gave me permission!