Cake

You know, suddenly, I have a hankering for a box cake. I wonder if I can impose on the Butcher to make me a box cake for Wednesday.

Sure I can!

One More Time

Whoa, so here’s a really extraordinary video of Furry Lewis doing “Going to Brownsville.” I really, really like Lewis. He’s got just a beautiful voice, so rich and lovely. It reminds me of a church voice–like you stand next to these ordinary men who don’t sing on any other occasion but church and you discover that they have these really lovely voices you wish they’d use all the time. Furry Lewis is a man with a church voice who somehow actually got to use it all the time. And his joke is hilarious. I know it’s kind of hard to make out, but he’s basically saying that he knows he’s going to play well tonight compared to the other night, because he didn’t play so well there because it was so dark. (How dark was it, Furry?) It was so dark that, when you lit a match, you had to light another one to see if the first one struck.

That’s hilarious. Anyway, I’m with the camera man. Just watch his fingers. Beautiful.

But I would be remiss to not add Janis Joplin to the mix, if only because I feel pretty sure she also thought it was Brownsville, TX. This doesn’t quite work as a cover for me and I normally love Joplin and think she can do no wrong.

But it doesn’t quite settle in my ear because I keep wanting to sing this song to her music.

Ha ha ha. But it’s a nice reference–bring up Kitty’s feelings toward the boy from New York City to give us a feeling for how Joplin feels about her man. I think the real reason I don’t like it is that I love that the woman in Brownsville has great long curly hair. And no one in Joplin’s version has notable hair.

That Right-Hand Road

Here is Sleepy John Estes’s song, in his own voice. And here’s the map between Durhamville, where Estes is buried (and likely grew up), and Brownsville.

Please note how, when you head out of town toward Nutly (home of Tiny Turner), to get to Brownsville, you do, indeed, take the right-hand road. I know that’s simple enough, but it makes me so happy. It’s a real place you can go and see. It’s a road you can take.

It just gives me a feeling that I want people to have when they read my work. I want people who poke around looking at the places my stories take place to find those streets and buildings and ways.

Trying to Give You a Hint of It - 6 photos »

Wherefore Art Thou, Sleepy John Estes

We went clear the fuck out to Fort Pillow, which was hot as balls. And I am covered in mosquito bites. Then we tried to find Sleepy John Estes’ grave and we finally found the cemetery and we looked all through it and even took the find-a-grave picture of his gravestone as a guide, but we never found it. We found other Esteses, but whether they were sleepy, I cannot say; their gravestones were silent on the matter. I took a few pictures of them. And we did see the oldest synagogue in Tennessee and it is charmingly small. Like a large gingerbread house. And, my god, we saw this thing. I don’t… I can’t even begin… You hear about folk art installations, but I’ve never seen anything like this. None of my pictures do it justice. And then I dumped Dairy Queen in my purse. And it was awesome and wonderful. And I am so tired. But I think Brownsville is now one of my favorite places in Tennessee.

Edited to add: And we saw a camel!

The dog sniffs around Fort Pillow.

The Professor laughs when I tell her I’m going to take a picture of her looking cross with the dog.

Here’s some part of the fort.

Okay, so this was cool. Out there is the Mississippi.

And over there, where the mist is is a lake that is actually the old river channel.

Here’s an Estes.

Here’s another Estes.

Was this his grave? Probably not.

But there were graves in the trees. So, he could be covered over.

Okay, this is that thing. It’s hard to explain. It’s like a deep, narrow lot of land with this extraordinary this thing.

I Will Be Bringing My Great Long Curly Hair

Today I learned that this is not Brownsville, Texas, but Brownsville, Tennessee, where Sleepy John Estes lived, way on back when. We’re going there tomorrow. While we’re there, we’ll see Tennessee’s oldest synagogue. Among other things.

This. A Million Times This.

I’m honestly continually befuddled at the Right’s inability to form a coherent, damaging line of attack against Obama. I mean, I’d like to dismiss it as pure racism, but there are pure racist stereotypes of both thuggish brutes (who want to fuck your white women) AND of suave, cool hepcats (who your white women want to fuck)–the parenthetical asides being obviously left unsaid.

Josh Marshall says:

If you’re going to come tar President Obama I think you need to work with cerebral, out of touch, big government liberalism overreach. Not that I agree with these things but they’re rooted in things that are true, they’re the worst takes on real aspects of who Obama is. But the ‘Chicago-style’ break your legs stuff? Please. This plays with the not-racist right and Republicans who, as I said, live in a cult of victimization and paranoia. But President Obama’s most telling trait is the effort to conciliate and convince opponents, not to threaten them. Believe me, a lot of his top supporters wish he was more bullying.

My co-worker actually asked me yesterday why Obama doesn’t go ahead and go all Bullworth on their asses. So, I think Marshall is right, that even people who feel anxious about Obama–unless they’re a subset of Republicans–don’t feel anxious about him because he’s a thug. Accusations of him being a thug just don’t ring true to people who aren’t afraid to almost paranoid levels of him.

And yet, obviously, if you’re just trying to play on non-black people’s subconscious racist fears about black men, like I said, there is a stereotype to plug into and one that actually has some resonance with who Obama is. I really find it befuddling that they don’t use it.

It’s as if the Republican party isn’t just trading in racist tropes, it’s that, in their singular commitment to a specific version of the past, they’ve missed all the ways the rest of us white folks have been othering black people.

Or let me put it another way–all they have is “Birth of a Nation.” They missed all the white people playing Scott Joplin tunes on their pianos who would never let him in the front door of their homes.

A Lovecraft reference and lots of vegetable-heavy recipes? Tell me what’s not to love?

Yardwork

The Butcher’s friend is coming to visit, which has put him in the mood to clean out the gutters, trim the bushes and, he claims, clean the house. Things like this make me wish the Butcher were more promiscuous. Sure, this friend gets clean gutters. Might there not be some woman out there who would finally get my garage cleaned up?

Oh. my. god. Do you think there’s someone out there, somewhere, who might make the Butcher trim the yard?!

If you have ever considered smooching the Butcher and have not, I hope you sleep well knowing you could be the reason my yard hasn’t been trimmed in two years.

Failing the Test for Witchcraft

Did I tell you all I have a witch’s tit? I’m getting it cut off in a couple of weeks. But I feel like I can now tell you the true meaning of the term “colder than a witch’s tit.” Because the thing does get creepily cold. I don’t think it has any blood going to it–it definitely doesn’t have any feeling. I can pinch it as hard as I can between my fingernails and don’t feel anything and don’t draw blood–and there are times when I touch it and it is so cold. It’s like touching a corpse, if you’ve ever done that. You’d think it’d be at room temperature or slightly warming, seeing as how it’s sitting between a warm body and the room, but no. No. It’s often cold to the touch.

And yet, out of morbid curiosity, I can’t quit touching it. And thinking, “Wow, this is what all of me will feel like when I’m dead. This is literally what my skin feels like absent pumping blood.” It’s both really distressing and really fascinating.

And weird to think that, in some eras, if I were accused of witchcraft, there’s the proof–the place where I suckle the Devil.

How’s that for heebie jeebies?

The Aliens Hate Us Because We Killed Jesus

I stumbled upon this interpretation of Prometheus.

I have no words.

Well, I have words. They go like this. I get that, for a lot of people, “the unknown” all live down the same hall in their head. If not Zeus, why not aliens? But I actually find aliens kind of boring. I assume they exist. I assume they’re probably not interacting with us. If they are, it’s weird and cool, but it wouldn’t fuck me up.

But, for me, there’s a continuum with things I know don’t exist–like vampires–on one end–and things I’m not sure exist–like gods–at the other that I know, with my whole being, are ways we have of trying to make sense of the inexplicable. (Imagine it like this. You know you live in a house with windows. You don’t know for sure what’s outside your house, only that you both can see there’s stuff out there and you have a strong sense that what you see through your windows is not the full totality of what’s outside your house. Now, imagine that you start to see things out there and you want to somehow capture an image of them to show your friends, so you can all talk about what you see out there, beyond the house. Now, say that you, for some reason, decide to draw on the window in butter what you’re seeing. So, there’s the trick of remembering that you’re rendering in two dimensions what you’re seeing in three. And remembering that your finger in butter isn’t a great medium. And, when the sun warms the glass, things are going to slip and slid. And you might not be that great an artist in the first place. etc. And then it’s not you who’s going to look at your window paintings–it’s your kids and grand kids and great grandkids. So, clearly, you saw something out the window. I’m chalking vampires up to mostly butter-smear. I think your blond-haired blue-eyed Jesus is not quite right, but I’m sure you saw something human-like that moved you. We’re all grasping to try to find a language to explain what we’re seeing out there.) And I find the hallway down which that continuum lives to be extraordinarily interesting.

In my own psychic landscape, though, aliens don’t live down that hall. And I really hate when that’s the explanation behind things. I mean, I find the Bermuda Triangle a lot more compelling than Area 51, because Area 51 involves a certain truth that’s being kept from us by a conspiracy and the Bermuda Triangle… well, who can even say if that’s a real thing? I prefer mysterious and unclear to grand conspiracies. I guess in part because I don’t believe that people are good at keeping secrets.

Anyway, so I strongly dislike the Alien Jesus theory, no matter how much Ridley Scott thinks it’s too on the nose. To me, it’s too halls that go different places being forced into one.

Things I Hear

–I hear that a couple of the stories I’m working on are good.

–I hear that Project X is chugging along.

–I hear that I’m somehow both not working ICMC this year and my parents aren’t coming down. So, I may have an actual Memorial Day weekend filled with… I don’t know. Whatever it is that people do on Memorial Day weekend other than go to Belmont.

–My roses are starting to bloom, as are the peonies.

–I’m feeling a little stagnant. I know it’s just the pending birthday blues. But lord almighty, I hope Mary Oliver doesn’t ask me what I’ve done with my one wild life this week or I will just have to cry and admit I spent most of it oddly and in ways I feel uncertain lead to anything.

–And yet, cool shit has happened. And I feel happy.

–So, I really do think it’s just the blues. Nothing is wrong. I’m just getting older and I feel a longing for something I can’t quite put my finger on.

A Little More on LA from Last Night

The Butcher’s friend who he went to visit and accompany to 80s Prom was once an extra on How I Met Your Mother. And he went to the Griffith Observatory, which he tried to convince her he only knew from “that Paula Abdul video.”

She’s a stand-up comedian. I asked him if he was going to get to be in her act and he said “no.”

I said, “I know that’s hard for you.” And he wrinkled his nose and looked at me in a questioning manner, and I said, “Because no Phillips likes to hear they’re not entertaining enough to be talked about.”

Meanwhile, the Redheaded Kid was rambling on about his trip to Morocco. And I have to tell you that I’m still not sure if this was a real trip to Morocco he took at some point in his life or if he was just making it up to pull my leg, but he insists that you’ve not lived until you’ve eaten lunch in Morocco. Why lunch? Like, oh, breakfast in Morocco is nice, but nothing to write home about. Supper, fine, but again, nothing that is going to complete you. But lunch! My god, lunch in Morocco! That’s all there is to life. Lunch in Morocco.

Ha ha ha. I just looked up Moroccan cuisine on Wikipedia to see if it could shed light on this whole “lunch in Morocco” weirdness and I’ll be damned. Lunch in Morocco does sound fucking awesome. “The midday meal is the main meal, except during the holy month of Ramadan. A typical meal begins with a series of hot and cold salads, followed by a tagine. Bread is eaten with every meal. Often, for a formal meal, a lamb or chicken dish is next, followed by couscous topped with meat and vegetables. A cup of sweet mint tea usually ends the meal.”

I really should stop doubting the Redheaded Kid. It’s just hard because he always seems like he could be pulling your leg. Last night he ate a whole can of Pringles, some of the worst chocolate chip cookies known to man, and some pizza. And then complained about feeling sick, while also raving about lunch in Morocco and then quietly making fun of Kenneth Branaugh and how dude could never be on CSI.

They Grow Up So Quickly

I was talking to my other brother yesterday and he’s looking for some place to live with the current gal. He’s debating about whether to buy a house or rent (I know that most of you just fell off your chair, but I also have fallen off my chair, so let’s just leave that be) and he says, “Well, I don’t know if it makes sense to buy if I’m only going to be here for three more years.”

“Three more years?”

“You know, because that’s when J. graduates.”

I had to get back in my chair to fall off it again. My oldest nephew has his learner’s permit! What next? Chest hair? Just cart me off to the old folks home right now.

The baby who I remember like it was yesterday being born is a fucking man. Well, not a man man, but a young man. On his way to be an adult. I hope he gets a good life, can figure out how to make a life for himself where he has a home and open horizons and bills paid.

And I hope we don’t weigh him down in it.

Where in the World is the Butcher?

The Butcher is always having weird adventures. On Thursday, he came home and said, “I’m thinking about going to LA.”

I asked, “When?”

And he said, “tomorrow.” And so he did.

I haven’t heard anything about his adventure yet, since he got back after I went to bed and left for work before I got up.

But it has made me decide that I need to have an adventure. I don’t know of what sort. I haven’t even really thought about doing anything exciting in a long time, but the Butcher always comes back from them so happy.

Baba What-ga?

So, I was watching “Lost Girl” last night–it’s the story of Canadians who, apparently, are shirtless a lot more than you think would be practical in a country so far north. Seriously, every other scene, someone is whipping off his or her shirt. No wonder they had to sell it to SciFi. There’s twenty-three days in Canada when it’s suitable to be half-naked. Otherwise, the production costs for heating the set must just be staggering. I mean, sure, they’re making up for some of it with the lesser costuming costs, but I still worry about the producers of “Lost Girl” who must make Canada warm enough for the massive amounts of random undressing that go on on that show.

I’m sorry. I’m now completely distracted. Oh, right, so anyway, I’m watching the episode where they encounter Baba Yaga. And they keep saying her name “Baba Yeeh-gah,” with the most emphasis put on the “gah.” Now, I do feel slightly cheated that we didn’t do much folklore in my Russian classes, so I haven’t ever heard the name pronounced by a native Russian speaker AND the tiny girl on the show, Ksenia Solo, is, according to Wikipedia, a Latvian-born Russian. But I swear, it never occurred to me that this is how you would say it. I have always been saying it to myself “Baba Yaga” like “Lady Gaga.” And I went back and looked at in in Russian–Баба Яга–and I still would pronounce that “Baba Yaga.”

On the other hand, I was regularly told I spoke Russian like a peasant. On the third hand, come on! Clearly the peasants would have the best Baba Yaga stories, so who the fuck doesn’t want to speak in a way they would understand? So, I kind of wonder if I’ve just been fucking this up all these years or if it’s a difference in accents. After all, someone who learned English from a Californian is going to be confused when she hears a word she’s only ever read in English pronounced by a Scottish dude, if it doesn’t sound like it did in her head. And it doesn’t mean either pronunciation is wrong.

But anyway, that got me poking around and, apparently, there’s some wondering if Baba Yaga isn’t the same or similar to Perchta who might be the same or similar to Holda. And I would like to read about that. So, holler if you know of any good resources.

 

I Won the Headache Lottery!

I went to bed at 10, woke up at 8. Migraine gone. Sinus headache in its place. Both have the same root cause–this cold front that can’t quite get motivated to get here. But at least, with a sinus headache, I don’t feel like throwing up and I trust myself to drive, if need be. And medication should take care of it, whereas migraine medication gets rid of the pain, but not the loopy crap.

So, it’s aggravating, but an improvement.

Headachy Day

I’m supposed to be napping so that I feel better in time for roller derby. I am, instead, just sitting here feeling nauseous and like maybe eating McDonald’s for lunch was the biggest mistake of my life. But, in good news, I did the dishes and took some pictures.

This rose is about to bloom.

I can’t remember what these things are called, but there they are.

The irises, just hanging out.

This is how this weird tree that got hit by a tornado so is now a bush blooms.

The magnolia looks so weird right now. It’s got all these new leaf thingies pointing straight up like it’s trying to wave at everyone.

I love how delicate the new leaves are, especially considering how tough they get.

I love peonies when they’re like this–fat marbles.

Daisies.

One rose is blooming.

The Charlie Brown blanket survived the wash.

As did the blanket for the niece/nephew.

I wanted to show you my cool Ball jar, but the cat wanted to photo bomb me.

See how she’s all, well, now I couldn’t care less.

NOS4A2

I just finished a book the other day that was perfectly fine except that the magical talking male cat was a calico. And I just couldn’t get past it. Magic cat? Fine. Talking cat? Sure. I watched enough Sabrina in my day. Male cat? Half of them are. Male calico? No explanation? Nope. Every time I stumbled across that detail, it was like nails on a chalk board, threw me right out of the book. Which was otherwise, if a little dated (it was from the 80s), was a really good book.

Likewise, Joe Hill’s NOS4A2 is a masterpiece. In every detail. Except he gets Lou so wrong that it’s jarring. The one wrong note in an otherwise perfect performance. But it’s a wrong note that repeats itself throughout the story and then blossoms in the end into a wish-fulfillment fantasy so off-key it was almost hilarious.

It’s as if Hill is saying “Look how much I like this character, I gave him a new heart and a new body and a new woman. I fixed him.” without any awareness of just how it ends up coming across as evil. It’s a weird problem because Lou doesn’t hate himself. And he’s a really good guy who is loved by his girlfriend and his kid. He makes brave, hard choices to protect his kid from his mom’s problems when she won’t/can’t. And then, every step of the way, he helps his girlfriend save their kid.

And Hill wrote that. So, clearly, he has a deep and abiding sense of Lou’s humanity and goodness. And yet he is still a problem to be fixed.  And when the “problem” is fixed, Hill describes him as a “new” man. And yet, none of the traits I described in the last paragraph change. But he’s clearly supposed to be worth the love of a good woman and a happy life after the trauma of the book now that he’s been fixed.

It’s both as if Hill can’t help but view poor Lou as a full human being AND view him as someone who can’t really participate in life because he’s fat. Even though, throughout the book, all we see him doing is participating in life in perhaps the healthiest ways of any of the characters.

It’s a bit like Mr Peanut in that, as you’re reading it, you wonder if he’s actually ever known any morbidly obese people. Or, honesty, poor people for that matter. Dude is a self-employed mechanic with a kid and a girlfriend who’s been institutionalized numerous times. Who the fuck paid for his lap-band?

The longer I think about it the more I think that the problem is that Hill is a straight dude. And so, even though he, in all other aspects, really gets his female characters, at the end of the day, I don’t think he truly, in his heart, believes that Vic would be attracted to Lou if Vic weren’t so fucked up, because Hill just cannot imagine why a woman would find a huge dude attractive, even though there are many, many points in the novel where he brushes up against those reasons, but, I guess, doesn’t recognize them for what they are.

Anyway, it’s kind of an enormous problem and yet, the book is so good that it doesn’t derail it. It just rings sour. Which is too bad, because it’s otherwise as good a book as you’re going to read this year.

Finally, The Truth Catches Up to This Blog

A million years ago, when I started this blog, I gave everyone nicknames to protect their privacy. I had been intending to give the Professor the nickname of the Philosopher, since she was just starting out in grad school and philosophy was her field and it seemed like it might be fun to write about adventures with a philosopher, whereas–and I’m sorry to have to say this–writing about your adventures with a professor is not quite as awesome. Not that you can’t have adventures with professors. They’re just going to involve going to the library and having to run from giant boulders and angry Nazis and, eventually, the sidekick disappears and there’s a nuclear bomb. You get trapped on an island with a movie star. It’s more than my heart could take.

But adventures with a philosopher? Who the fuck even knows? You probably get banned from some countries. People found fake religions around you. People try to insult other people by calling them a [your name]ist. Parties are probably filled with people doing drugs you’ve never even heard of. Plato shows up and tries to argue that ghosts aren’t real. Men randomly take off their clothes and point at odd tattoos. There’s coffee and someone has always already made dinner. You meet actual communists. They’re talking about whether there’s enough of them to field a soccer team. You can’t tell if this is a lament over their lack of numbers or if they’re actually thinking about organizing into a soccer team. Things are delightfully weird, man, all the time.

Alas, I fucked up. And I called the Professor the Professor. It ended up fine anyway. It turns out that just calling someone the Professor doesn’t, in fact, mean you don’t have philosophical adventures with them. But it does mean that then you sit around waiting to see if the philosopher you know does eventually become a professor or if she just has some weird, not quite applicable nickname on your blog.

In order to be a professor, you need two things–the credentials to get a job where people call you “Professor” and you don’t feel like maybe you should clear up that misunderstanding and said job. Today they’re going to put that piece of paper in the Professor’s hand. Soon enough, she’ll be starting the job where people will call her their professor.

I’m really proud of her. And I hope she got one of those hats that looks like a throw pillow.

 

 

This Danny Brown Thing

I made the mistake of reading the comments on a couple of stories about Danny Brown’s sexual assault. And I’m really troubled. In fact, if you’re ever sitting around wondering “How easy do female rapists have it?” I invite you to peruse the comments on a story about what happened to Danny Brown. What happened was basically his fault because of how he was dressed or because he was flirting with the women in the front rows or because of his persona. Or it wasn’t really rape because how can a woman rape a man? Or why would a man not love it? Or, even if it was rape and wasn’t his fault, he’s a pussy for being all weird about it.

Here’s what it made me think–rapes by women where men are the victims are probably way under-reported. If this is the cultural message–that it basically can’t happen and, if it does, how can you even want to complain about it–female sexual predators have a lot of cover.

I know we talked before about how our society teaches men that having control of your body is a matter of social status and that low status men both don’t have a lot of control over what happens to their bodies and are taught that the way to rise in status is by asserting control over other bodies and how this feeds into rape culture because it reinforces for rapists that society approves of dominating someone in order to gain status, so it’s cool if your dominance of choice is rape.

But I’m starting to think, too, that a lot of weird, unacceptable shit must happen to men all the time and they just never talk about it, so that when something, like this sexual assault, happen out in front of everyone, the response isn’t “What the fuck? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” but “Well, it’s his own fault.”

I know this goes without saying but it’s not his fault. Like all sexual assaults, his attacker decided to attack him and, like many, many sexual assaults, she decided to attack him under circumstances where he was vulnerable and easy to get to and under circumstances where she thought people would be unlikely to call it sexual assault because they’d want to spread some blame to the victim. Or all the blame.

Judging by the comments… hell, judging by the fat that this was a story on NPR called “Was Rapper Danny Brown Sexually Assaulted?” as if National Public Radio should weigh in on whether a sex act a dude didn’t consent to really counts as sexual assault… we have a really hard time accepting the idea that there’s never some kind of extenuating circumstances that might make it okay to rape someone.

I find that distressing.

Now It’s the Dog’s Turn to Look at My Butt, I Guess

So, even though the dog enjoys walking at the park, which is a much more challenging walk than our morning walks, she has started being a big baby about walking in the morning. She walks behind me like a recalcitrant schoolgirl, who’s not that anxious to get to class. But then, when we turn around, she still walks behind me like she regrets having to make the effort to get home. And then, when we get back to the yard, where she can run free, she still walks behind me like that’s just where she wants to be, creeping up on me.

And today, guess who hit her?

No. Not New Kitty. The orange cat. Who also waited yesterday for the Butcher to put down his glass of milk so that he could stick his whole face right in the cup.

No more Jason Statham movies for that cat. He just starts strutting around the house like he might fight any one of us at any minute.

Speaking of Jason Statham movies, we watched another movie where he kidnaps/rescues an Asian chick!

It’s gotten so noticeable now that the Butcher was all “He’s our generation’s Jessica Fletcher, isn’t he?”

And our friend, T. was all, “What do you mean?”

And the Butcher said, “Where you start to think maybe he just fakes solving the crime he’s busy committing.”

I’m just saying, if you’re an Asian woman and you find yourself in a Jason Statham movie, just go ahead and get in his car. You’re going to end up there anyway, so you might as well save yourself the effort of trying to escape your fate. Hell, maybe if you get in his car before the gun fight starts, he’ll have time to run you through the drive-through at McDonald’s before the bullets start flying.

In all seriousness, I would love to read someone’s commentary on this. It’s apparently a pretty appealing fantasy to Statham’s audience, seeing as it’s featured so often. But I’d like to read someone smart’s thoughts on why.

Behind the Counter at JJ’s

The Professor (motioning to the wall behind the cashier): I thought you couldn’t sell flavored cigarettes anymore.

The Cashier (pointing to a package that looks suspiciously like a pack of clove cigarettes): No ma’am. You’re mistaken. Those are flavored cigars.

Me: Thank god someone has found a loophole for the art students!