Listics

May we hold all life in our own divine light, caring both for our friends and for those who have sworn enmity, and may we do this with equal regard for the spark of the divine that we find in everyone. May our days be filled with mercy, love and a grace that is greater than our understanding. May our eyes overflow with tears of joy. May we witness love and peace and strength in those around us and earn a measure of the same from them. May we return what we have taken to those who need it, with faith that in the giving we will be further rewarded. May music fill our hearts. May we sing songs of joy and love. May we forgive and in forgiving find ourselves forgiven. May we always find a moment to stop and pet a kitten, admire a flower, scratch designs in the dust, share a cold drink of water with a friend.

Sorry to have missed this year’s Sumo Crying competition. Oh well, maybe next year.

Thanks to Tokyo Times for the heads up.

Coming to live with us soon, this cutie-pie from JnD Kennels. This puppy was born on Saint Patricks Day and so she has a placeholder Irish (or perhaps Jewish) name right now: Erin. Two syllables is good. “Airrrr-innnn, stop rolling in that skunk poop and get over here right now!” But all those breathy vowels just don’t do it for me. “Bratwurst” would be a better name.

As you can see, I’m not really good at this. Could you give me a hand by entering the “name the puppy contest?” Leave a comment below with a good name for a sweet thing like this. If it was a boy I’d name it Tyler…

Did I mention there’s a prize?

Next Blogger confab I attend I hope there are more writers present. Like this guy…

“…La Taverne de Ripaille at the Park Hotel in Grenoble, France. Must have been from 1994. Spring. I was having dinner alone that evening. The place was empty when two young, well dressed French men came in with a tall American who looked familiar, somehow. He was an older guy. Sixties or seventies. A politician. Democrat. Stuart Symington? Pretty sure Symington was dead. Somewhow the guy reminded me of Pat Brown, but I could visualize Brown, and this guy was too tall and skinny. Even a bit lanky, like Lyndon Johnson.”

…and this guy…

“If you only read one book on post traumatic stress this year, let this be the one. Judith Herman’s description (and advocacy) of “complex PTSD” is an important contribution to the literature, as there are many conditions not covered under the DSM-IV’s criteria for PTSD. These include especially psychological and emotional abuse. Herman looks at a range of traumatic experiences from Vietnam combat to spousal battery to child neglect.”

…and of course women with beautiful voices like this one…

I didn’t know anyone but the host, whom I’d met once. I knew several names on the ostentatiously accidentally open To: line of the email invitation, but would recognize only their words. Still, a woman alone can cuddle a drink until someone says hello. I reminded myself to hold the champagne flute in the paw not smeared with chain grease. This was SoHo, not Brooklyn, I thought, so I should make an effort. The room was a mixture of meeja and web types; friendly enough.

Various nice men stopped to chat. I kept a straight face as they ‘fessed up to founding or abetting the silly companies of five years ago. (Their between-year stories were fuzzier.) I said what I did in fifteen words or fewer, though I have no talent for elevator-pitching my life. A slick and toothy fellow—New York raised—told me he’d tried to resist the temptation to start another company, but couldn’t.
“The entrepreneur is a serial monogamist,” I said, as the bubbles came up my nose. His eyes widened at this profundity. Then he excused himself to go to another party.

BloggerCon was less than it might have been, more than it was. I’m depressed and lonely and sick. I blog to write and not much vice versa. I think there is no such thing as blogging. Blogging as a label trivializes a larger set of creative acts, diminishes them in the naming. Writers write, and in the media available today, a writer’s published efforts are polydimensional, interactive.

Joi Ito bought a rototiller, a sensible machine with rear tines. I live vicariously through his moblogged picture, eating limp lettuce on warm room service cheeseburgers while he prepares his vegetable garden.

BloggerCon 2 would have been better if I’d stayed home and walked behind the Troybilt. And I mean no offense to the fine people I shared time with here, but I am an insular person, talking, mingling, chatting, it’s all a real effort for me, even with those I love. And there’s not even anything on TV.

We picked up a car at the airport and did some driving around town in this our last full day in Manhattan. Since the Cloisters had been on our list and was easily reached in the rental unit, we bopped up there and soaked up the atmosphere. The salvaged medieval French architecture has been beautifully pieced together on a bluff overlooking the Hudson with a view of the Palisades across the river. The interior spaces were far less offensive than I had thought they might be… they were almost secular in their sweet serenity and charm. They almost entirely lacked that hideous Christian abrasiveness and self consciousness and embrasure of senseless suffering… The architecture and the art of the unicorn tapestries were worth the trip.

Cutting the Cloisters off the list. Saw all the medieval art I can stand at the Metropolitan Museum yesterday. It says a lot about our western culture that 500 years ago we were intensely interested in worshipping the bones of holy people. Christianity’s roots are shallow, it’s faith bizarrely attenuated through practices that evolved out of illiteracy. This may be a “glass is half empty” assessment, but what can I say? Mel Gibson drove me to it.

Icons and reliquaries… there’s a corollary of Gresham’s law at work here.

In Berkeley on Grove at Rose… forgive me - on Martin Luther King Jr. at Rose, there’s a little burger place called Fat Apple’s. It was not always so. Once it was Fat Albert’s, named in honor of the loveable Bill Cosby character — the little dude made famous in stand-up and on 33 1/3 rpm vinyl by Mr. Cosby. The resaon for the name change isn’t well understood, but most of us who were forced to adapt assumed it was forced by the threat or the reality of an infringement suit by Mr. Cosby. This may or may not be true.

Continuing north, Martin Luther King becomes the Alameda. If you take the Alameda to Solano and head a few blocks west to Colusa, then follow Colusa all the way to Fairmount in El Cerrito, you come to the second Fat Apple’s location. For me (and others agree), the Berkeley site is best for burgers and fries and such. But for breakfast, I always prefer the El Cerrito location. It’s sunnier, newer, fresher somehow — and the pastries are presented better in their glass case by the cash register. It’s worth waiting in line for the food at either location.

Thanks to Ken Camp for reminding me of Cosby!

One of these sausage like creatures will be coming to our place the first week in May. Bye-bye rugs. Bye-bye furniture.