The dreams of the warriors

So here's a weird example of how my mind works.

Last evening I drove out to downtown Beaverton and watched the 2009 anime film "Summer Wars". It was great popcorn, gorgeously animated in the best anime style, and hit all the mange/anime-lover (i.e. me...) buttons; high school romance/angst, family drama, high-tech danger, goofy secondary characters, samurai, squid, baseball. It's fun.

After the show I went and looked it up and was unsurprised that the director was the same person who did "Belle", the gorgeous anime version of Beauty and the Beast that my daughter took us too several years ago. 

 

Well done, Hosoda-san.

 

Anyway, as I was reading I was a bit bugged by the title.

 

Yes, it's about a war (well, "cyber-war") and it takes place over two days in summer, so, "summer wars", fine. 

 

But.

 

The Japanese title is "サマーウォーズ in katakana, which is "Hepburnized" in the Wiki as "Samā Wōzu".

 

Okay, now; because I'm me (and do military history and martial sports that have Japanese connections) I'm very familiar with the Japanese word for "war".

 

And it's not "Wozu", it's 戦争, "Sensō". 

 

I tried looking for some sort of katakana or hirigana versions that could be translated as "wozu". 

 

Nope.

 

Then I plugged the katakana title directly into romaji, and Dr. Google gave me this: "Samāu~ōzu".  

 

That's also not "war"; indeed, try and look up "ozu" and all you you get is either a place name or a personal/family name. All the other links went directly back to the film, suggesting that the katakana don't mean "summer wars" in the general sense of "wars fought during the summer" but specifically "the movie "Summer Wars".

 

So now I'm baffled; is the title some sort of phonetic "English"? "Summer" ("sama") "Wars" ("wozu") invented just for the flick? If so...why? Why not just call it 夏戦争; "Natsu Sensō", "Summer War(s)"? Is there some particular reason or meaning for naming it the way they did?

 

I'm now hooked and I want to know.

 

Doesn't make the flick any less fun; indeed, now I want to know more about the movie. 

 

And that's so me. 

 

Sad, but there it is.

 

Twit

or, "What Did you Do In The Twitter War, Daddy?"

So.

On Twitter I've got a page. 

Somewhere (I don't really know where it is or what's on it...). 

Through it I follow an odd assortment of people and places, funny oddities like The Scamperbeasts (John Scalzi's pets blog), soccer journalists like Chris Henderson and Meg Linehan, several graphic artists (including some very smutty ones, since I respect all Internet traditions and as we know The Internet Is FOR Porn), a couple of political writers like Roy Edroso and Jamelle Bouie, and the Portland soccer teams.

I certainly don't use "my" Twitter homepage to say anything - that's here - and I certainly don't read the news or get general information from it; that's for places like the Beeb or my news and political blogs. So this post over at Lawyers, Guns, & Money says (and better than I could) pretty much how the Blue Bird is working for me:

"In any case, my experience on Twitter is about the same as it’s ever been, minus some of the people I’ve followed who’ve given it up, plus far too much about Musk. My “For You” feed shows only people I follow anyway, with their tweets mixed up in time, not the string of Musk tweets others are reporting."

And I note that, again, since I don't ever look at my Twitter homepage I don't see the "For You" nonsense so I don't get all musky, regardless of how it's set. In fact, I haven't seen anything from the Afrikaner scamp at all, the more luck to me.

So.

While I get that lots of people are angry that Elmo is stanning Nazis and @catturd2 and Trump, I don't see it and that, in turn, kind of drives home the point that unless you're a target for these idiots - and I'm sorry if you are, that syucks - you don't have to see or hear them if you don't look for them.

Which kind of makes the point; this hasnt made Twitter into some sort of Svengaliesque mass hypnosis that's turning decent, kind, intelligent people into raging MAGA nitwits.

The people who are diving into this shit are people who WANT to dive into it.

I don't, so I can go peek in and don't run into MAGAts or Nazis. You gotta want to look for and find MAGAts and NAzis.

Which kind of brings us back around to the whole idea of getting "radicalized".

Supposedly listening to Rushbo and reading QAnon and watching FOX is what turned the supposedly douce suburban Republicans into raving race-hating antivaxx fascist nutballs.

But I listened to Rush back in the day.

I've watched FOX. Yeah, mostly to scoff, but I've watched it.

I have a pretty deep trough of historical knowledge about this country, so it's kinda hard to bullshit me about Critical Race Theory.

And I'm pretty easygoing about "morality", sex, and gender, so it's kinda hard to get me spun up about a ladyboy in a cocktail frock reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to porch monkeys.

But I'm not some sort of geopolitical genius or social media savant.

If I can see through this bullshit, if I can look at cats on Twitter without freaking out about balloons or soy milk, so can you and so can all these other douchenozzles.

As Jim Wright says; if you want a better nation, you gotta be better citizens.

Oh, and speaking of balloons, this wins the Internet for today for the Star Wars riff:

Yes. It is.

(And, speaking as a parent of a former Star Wars kiddo, it never made sense to me that the Separatist Rebellion in SW was called "The Clone Wars". I mean, yes, the fictional Republic used cloned soldiers. But the Seps used robots - "droids" - so why not "The Droid Wars"? Or "The Clone-Droid Wars"? Or, shit, "The Separatist Rebellion"? My guess is that George Lucas hadn't actually thought out his prequels during the Seventies and just thought "The Clone Wars" sounded cool. That's lame, but that's as Lucas-y a thing as I can think of. You gotta be you, George...)

Down, boy

Since I just posted the cat story thing...

In the Eighties I was posted to a location in the U.S. Southeast. It, like almost all U.S. Army posts, had housing for married soldiers. 

In said housing was a happy family; mom, dad, kiddos, dog, the usual.

So you know, these little military neighborhoods make “Nextdoor” seem like an idyll of placid indifference. You’re ALWAYS being looked at; by the neighbors, by your chain-of-command, by the post commander’s organization. There's a gajillion eyes on you and your family.

So it was not hard to imagine that at some point someone; a neighbor, a superior, one of the neighborhood busibodies, noticed that one day the kids were playing in the yard with Spot and the next day…

...no Spot.

The authorities were called in, and, you guessed it; Spot was found neatly dressed out in the freezer.

That's how everyone came to find out that post and Army regs, and state law, forbade you from mistreating your dog. Or abandoning your dog. Or otherwise abusing and being mean to your dog.

But nothing in the law said you couldn’t EAT your dog.

I’ll be the dinner parties on that street were a bit subdued after that, though.

Wednesday morning, 5am

 

Cat: WTF is this?

Me: Your breakfast. Mmmm, chicken hearts, yummy nummers.

C: Where’s the rest of it?

M: That’s it, Senor Chonkorito. The vet says you need to drop some of that pudge.

C: Sez you, fatboy! Well, this is bullshit. I need to speak to your manager.

M: The Bride is asleep and she’s totally onboard with this, so…bon appetit!

C:

M:

C: What a fuckin’ fuckstory. Everyday it gets worse around this hellhole.

M: And did I mention the change in the kibble distribution..?

C: Nomnomno…wait. WHAAAAAT..!!??

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation annoucements

 Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

At ease.

Okay just one thing today, so listen up.

Bretheren. Fellow sinners.

I come to you this morning with a tale of the deepest and weightiest eschatology, a parable of the righteous and the unrighteous, and, also, of Private Black, who stands amongst you like the sheep amongst the goats.

Brother Black...may I call you brother, Private Black? Thenk-yew. Brother Black came to me, when I was indwelling in my studies which is to say I was reviewing the S-4 requests your various platoon sergeants have provided to me and, no, AT Platoon, you are not getting a fucking Reaper drone, not just no but fuck no, so don't even try that shit again. 

And thereupon rousing me from my orisons Brother Black informed me that he had received "direct divine instruction" that he need not perform the extra duty imposed upon him by the Company Commander the previous Wednesday due to a certain incident at the Flaming Mug involving a bottle of Wesson Oil and three Cambodian sisters.

Now my brothers...my heart was troubled by this.

I was cast into the keelson-deep despair by the thought of my brother Black finding that his Lord and Savior found fault with his buffing the dayroom floor to a sort of crystalline perfection that I, too, suddenly found myself in the presence of the Almighty.

"I am but a sinner, oh Lord," I said, "but if Thou shalt enlighten me then I shall be exalted by your wisdom."

"A sinner thou art" The Creator replied, "But not as big a fucking liar as young Mister Black here, who just wants to ditch his extra duty so he and his yobo can go to the pushbutton and get drunk and screw."

"Then what shall I do, oh Lord?" I asked, and the Lord replied; "Fucking smite his young ass as hard as it will bear, and spare not the rod or spoil the private."

So, my brothers, you will see young Private Black communing with the spirits of Johnson Paste Wax and the dayroom floor all the rest of this week, and it is with a full and contrite heart I come to you saying; try. 

Just fucking try. 

That shit on me.  

And thou shalt find thyselves face-down on my desk and I will apply the rod of the UCMJ to your young asses, and in full measure shall you learn wisdom from the smiting. For sayeth the FM: the ears of a private are in his ass, and hearing cometh from a good solid kicking.

I have BEEN to the mountaintop, oh my brothers, and you do NOT want to fuck with me and find out what I found there.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Any questions?

I didn't think so.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

 

Tuesday morning, 4am

 

Me: Well, the hell with it. I'm awake. You want some coffee?

Little Cat: WTF? Are you tweaking or something?

M: No, just can't sleep again. Imma make a pot of coffee. You want anything.

LC: Ragganafraggana...OK, fine. I'll take some of that "beef-like mystery meat substance" only with extra gravy this time.

M: K; coffee and mystery meat coming up.

LC: EXTRA GRAVY, goddamn it! You wake me at four, I get extra fucking gravy or imma do that thing where I bite your ankle when you walk past.

M: Not if you want extra gravy, furbag.

LC:

M:

LC:

M: OK, I'm on it. You gonna wait in the bed or come with?

LC: Oh, Christ. Fine. I'm coming. Extra gravy!

M: Careful or I'll give you that "fish and shrimp" shit instead.

LC: Ohhellno. You gotta hurry up and get off your dead ass and get back to doing the marketing. (sotto voce) That mate of yours has the taste buds of some sort of shelter dog.

M: (halfway to kitchen) I heard that! Big talk from someone who cleans her butthole with her tongue.

LC: EXTRA GRAVY! Goddamn.

Techbros

My iPhone does this thing where if I respond immediately to an email it refuses to copy the earlier emails in the thread into the reply. 

 

I have to open the email, close, reopen, then wait a bit and then it’ll copy. 

 

My boss gets fussy every time it fails to do this, like today.

My Boss: Why don’t you copy all the earlier emails when you reply? It makes it hard to follow the conversation.

Me: (explains about the iPhone thing)...so when I’m doing four things at once, like today (hint) and don’t have time to be patient and wait, you don’t get the other stuff.’

MB: Well, it’s very distracting.

Me: Why? How hard is it to remember what you read two minutes earlier?

MB: Why doesn’t it just do it automatically?

Me: Because I am it’s bitch and every so often it has to prove it to me.

MB:

Me:

MB: Just do the thing that makes it copy, okay?

Me: What fun is that? Okay, fine. You useta be a lot more fun when you were just project level.

 

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation announcements

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

At ease.

Okay, listen up. Coupla things here.

First.

Final formation today will include this month's awards and decorations, and the Old Man will have more to say about that during the a-formentioned occasion. 

Let me just note my congratulations to those of you heroes who will be honored. Thank you for your fucking service, as the good people of the nation would probably say in lieu of buying you an actual drink, the cheap bastards.

I do want to call attention to Specialist Tenney, however, for what may be the most unique award of the coveted 82nd Airborne Distinguished Trooper Award I have ever in my entire career been privy to.

Specifically, it is for the "period between 14 and 15 November". I want you to note that.

Because during that period Specialist Tenney was doing the extra duty he was assigned subsequent to the little incident outside the shopette down in the Divarty AO which we will not revisit other than recommend you please do not take Specialist Tenney as your model the next time you are in Divarty AO and are seized by the mad compulsion for a two-liter of Mountain Dew Code Red and a party-size bag of jalapeno-flavored pork rinds, do I have that part correct, Specialist Tenney? 

Thank-kew.

During this period my understanding is that Specialist Tenney was detailed to perform area beautification outside the senior enlisted quarters at Randolph Point.

Specifically, outside the Brigade Sergeant Major's residence.

The recommendation for award came through Brigade, but I note that the handwriting of the signature on the form appears suspiciously similar to that of Missus Brigade Sergeant Major that appears on the lovely holiday card which we received in lieu of a holiday party we cannot hold in person during what I understand are still these "trying times" if the Yadkin Pawn commercial I viewed last night was correct.

Let me make this simple, people.

Whilst I appreciate your willingness to help those in our Army family in need, and I also find it admirable that you are willing to go that extra mile above and beyond the boundaries of your military duties, I strongly recommend that you do not, I say again not, push those boundaries in such a way as to excite the domestic suspicions of certain senior individuals who might possibly be in a position to exert undue pressure on other senior members of your NCO chain.

Put plainly, people, the Brigade Sergeant Major has never been accused of being the most accurate round in the shot group, but if you take advantage of your proximity to his Domestic Six to trim certain bushes in his fucking yard it is possible - perhaps not likely but possible - that he will take notice and respond in ways that you are likely to regret, and that I am likely to be forced to deal with, and neither you nor I will enjoy that.

In other words, keep it in your pants, people. Specialist Tenney, you may take this as both a belated warning and a kind of wary and rueful sort of congratulation, you magnificent bastard.

Second.

The Space Force operational area at North Post is no longer off-limits after resolution of that contretemps regarding the actions of certain individuals in the 504th. 

As I know that both your military bearing and individual capabilities are superior to the entire collective ASVAB scores of the fucking 504th I have no fears that you will be involved in any similar issues, but I remind you once again, however, that if and when you are a guest of the Space Force people you now represent not just this unit and the Airborne but the entire United States Army before a sister service, and are expected to behave as such.

Which brings me to the following item I received from Command Master Senior Space Sergeant Rogers, the Space Force CSM. To wit:

The proper term of address for a Space Force person is Guar...

G...

Guard...

Yes, Sergeant Harder, I know this is not a laughing matter! Just give me a fucking moment here.

Guardian!

Aha.

Moving on, people, look. CMSSS Rogers writes to advise me that in the future, parties of off-duty individuals from this Division will be welcome in their unit area providing certain groundrules are followed.

Driving in loudly playing something I am informed is called "Peter Quill's Awesome Mixtape" on POV speakers is getting old and is highly discouraged.

No, there are no fucking talking raccoons in the Space Force area, and walking around holding out beef jerky at knee level saying "here raccoon, raccoon, raccoon" trying to lure them out is simulatneously futile, irritating, and disrespectful, and,

The next individual who replies to any form of address from a G...Gu...Guardian!(fuck!)...with "I am Groot." will be referred to his chain of command for disciplinary action. This includes responding to salutes, which, I remind you, is highly unprofessional.

Play nice with the spacemen, people. I am counting on you to remember who you represent.

Are we clear?

Good. That is all.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

Friday Jukebox: Journey to the West Side of the Palace Edition

 I've got some fairly rough thoughts to put down about this coming Tuesday...but sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. I've had a lovely couple of days off this past Thursday and Friday, and I wanted to post something fun and lighthearted, so, this.

This is another one of those "anime music videos", or AMVs, and I love this one because the creator - "Sarah the Boring" - is anything but.

First, she took two wildly different anime and mashed them up into a "Prince and the Pauper" story, but which totally works, because of how similar two of the characters look.

Both are tall and skinny with long reddish hair. But that's where the similarity ends.

The scruffy looking pauper guy is from 幻想魔伝 最遊記, Gensōmaden Saiyūki, the anime version of the old, old story Journey to the West. He's Sha Gojyo (沙悟浄) and is some sort of weird human-demon hybrid. He's the Bad Boy in classic anime tradition:

The Prince is 桐生 冬芽, Kiryū Tōga...

...one of the characters from Revolutionary Girl Utena - 少女革命ウテナ Shōjo Kakumei Utena. This anime is described as "...follow(ing) Utena Tenjou, a teenage girl who expresses her desire to be a prince through her strong-willed personality and tomboyish manner of dress." 

Apparently there are sword duels - I've only seen bits and pieces of it.

Anyway, everything about this little AMV is perfect; the editing, the lip-synching, the mismatched-but-matching characters, and most especially the ridiculously goofy, poppy, hooky song "King of Spain" by some sort of Canadian novelty group call Moxy Früvous.

So for your Friday entertainment; "The Prince and the Kappa" - you'll have to follow the link to YouTube; unfortunately the creator won't let me embed it. But do, please; it's a fun Friday entertainment!

 

Back tomorrow with more serious content.

 

 

 

The Art of the Deal

From somebody named Corey Robin (via, and h/t to, Frank Moraes):

"The Talmud tells a story: the reason God covenanted with the Jews was that they were the only ones who were willing to take the deal.

According to a commentary on Deuteronomy, “When God revealed Himself to give the Torah to Israel, He revealed Himself not only to Israel but to all the nations.” First God goes to the children of Esau, asking them if they will accept the Torah. They ask him what it contains, God says, “Though shalt not murder,” they say, no thanks.

God goes to the Ammonites and Moabites. Same response, only for them the prohibition against adultery is the deal-breaker. He goes to the Ishmaelites, to all the peoples of the earth. Each time, they turn him down. They can’t accept some portion of the Torah’s instructions and injunctions.

Then God comes to the Jews. They don’t ask questions. They simply “accepted the Torah, with all of its explanations and details.” So God “surrendered them [the Torah and all of its details] to Israel.”

You almost get a sense, reading the midrash, of God’s weariness. The Jews aren’t his first choice, but they’ll take the deal. God’s exhausted, history is made."

And...

...then His chosen people spend the next several-odd thousand years quibbling about, reneging on, breaking (or at the very least, trying to hedge and/or cheat on), the “deal” they made. God spends an assload of time He’d probably rather be creating galaxies, constructing mysteries, and contemplating the Universe hanging around some shitty mudball in the Sol system smiting worthless little pissant heretics, making up new rules to keep his choice from fucking with the deal, and arguing with dissatisfied dickheads and pissed-off prophets.

He just THOUGHT he was exhausted after His initial search. Compared to his subsequent dealings with the Chosen People.

Which just proves the point of which his Son reminds us in his parables: “Don’t EVER agree to anything when you’re short on food, sleep, or sex.”

Thus endeth the lesson.

Thanks be to God.

Technical Question

To: Project Engineer
Re: Non-Soil Materials, Structural Fill

Note attached image. Prior experience suggests this object is most likely "hobo underwear, used, 1pr, size medium".

Please advise on suitability for inclusion and/or recommended course of action.

Attachment:

(Note 1: the site I'm working was the campground for a fairly large contingent of the local homeless folks. With all the earthwork they have scampered but left a considerable assortment of their stuff behind. I jokingly commented that I was pretty much okay with the occasional pop bottle or tin can but I drew the line at used hobo underwear. So I'm still not sure whether this was a bizarre coincidence or whether I'm being pranked like a boss by someone on the earthwork crew...)

(Note 2: And this story brings back the story I told you seven years ago about the woods, the girl, and the gorilla.)

Bad Samurai

Came across this little snipbit while researching the Bun'ei 11 post from last month and it was too good not to share with you. It's from Thomas Conlan's In Little Need of Divine Intervention; his 2001 study of the Mongol Invasion Scrolls of Takezaki Suenaga.

Keep this in mind; this is Suenaga's own story, most likely as told by him to his artist(s)/calligraphers, and intended to win him recognition from the bakufu. This is our Boy from Higo trying to make himself look good in front of the boss. Got it? So, here's Suenaga in 1281, having finally weaseled his way onto an assault boat and gotten some Mongol, reporting to his superior, Gota no Goro Totoshi (who is described by Takezaki as having been "despatched from the Kanto", meaning that he was the shikken's direct appointment as commander of forces in Hakata in 1281):

"At dawn on the sixth, I arrived at Gota Goro's temporary lodging and explained in detail what had happened in battle.

"I knew this is what you would say," he said. "You haven't changed from (the) previous battles. Without your own boat, you repeatedly lied in order to join the fighting. You are really the baddest man around! I will notify our commanders about you. I also heard that Shikibu no bo will stand for you as a witness. If there are any further questions, have them contact me." And so Gota Goro also volunteered to stand as a witness for me."

Stand as a witness? Stand as a witness to you being the biggest damn fuckstick in Kyushu sounds more like, Takezaki.

Keep in mind that the Japanese are among the most circumspect people and written Japanese the most euphemistic language in the known world. Gota Goro calling our boy Takezaki the "baddest man around" translates into modern American English as "Jesus Fucking Kami, what a ginormous goddamn fucking asshole you are, Suenaga!" But this is the Higo Hellraiser's idea of "standing witness" for him; he deliberately included this story in the most polished resume' he could think of as a way of claiming a reward.

Did this guy Takezaki have some big brass ones, or what?

Pаспу́тица!

From the delightful artwork of "Waldemar-Kazak" at deviantart:

Hard to say what I love best about this? The Russian faces? Vatushka, the hard-core old Soviet mounted on the BMW-75 that his pop captured from the Fascist Beasts back in '44 and has been kept running with spit and bailing wire since then, going to town, goddamnit, bottomless quagmire or no? Mama clinging desperately to the produce with one hand and Papa's greatcoat with the other, knowing that the old bastard's always made it before but not real sure whether this time won't be the last? Or крошка, the cute little daughter all dolled up to meet her girlfriends (and maybe even a boy or two...), wondering why the sidecar seems so...sideways?

Anyway, I was just noodling around the 'net and found this and loved it. More good stuff at Comrade Waldemar's page; Chief sez check 'em out...

Friday Jukebox: Coolin' Love Edition

Very cool Ray Bryant work - Blue Scimitar - for Valentine's Friday. To which I should note that this:

...was the Bride's card from me this morning.

She laughed out loud.

And for the record, Kay Jewelers, fuck diamonds; more kisses begin with a laugh than they do with a sparkly piece of compressed carbon. Thr original was from this Buzzfeed post about "weird and creepy" Valentines. Worth a look for another laugh or two, I suspect.

Hope you and yours are feeling as tender and twining as young pea plants today.

Back side of dreamtime

That was a lot of Grenada, wasn't it?

OK; no more Grenada. I promise.

Instead, I'm going to tell you a story.

It's a funny story.

At least I think it's funny, and it's my blog so, there you go...but, I should warn you first; it's a funny SEX story.

So be warned; there are things in here that are not wholesome for impressionable young children. Or naive adults. Or people who are shocked by people talking about carnal matters. Or anyone shocked by nudity, because there's some nudity, too.

Are we clear on all of this?

Good.

Kids all out of the room?

Aunt Sally safely immersed in that Golden Girls re-run?

Alright, then.

First, let me say that I think I am a very lucky man.

I have a bride who I not only like as a person and cherish as a companion but desire as a woman.

I find her delightful and delight in her. For me she walks in beauty like the night; all that's best in dark and bright meets in her aspect and her eyes; thus mellowed to that tender light that Heaven to day denies.

One pleasant side-effect of this is that occasionally I have lovely dreams in which she and I are the principals.

Often these are merely diversions; we revisit places we visited in the light of day, or reenact things we did while waking.

Occasionally, these dreams are more...intimate.

But...and I hope nobody reading is disappointed when I confess this...they wouldn't make very good Penthouse-letter-reading.

(Which reminds me; has anyone even seen a "Penthouse" lately?

Remember when those glossy stroke books were the ultimate in smut, the Nirvana of porn, the K2 of wankerdom? Remember going into...well, almost anywhere there were magazines and seeing them and Playboy and the other heavy-bond paper porno periodicals?

Seen them lately? Yeah, me neither.

Was there anything that the Internet killed deader than those glossy porno rags? If there is I can't think of it.

Sorry. Lost my thread there for a moment.)

Anyway...even in my erotic dreams I'm afraid I'm just hopelessly, boringly conventional.

They are usually nothing more daring than boringly wholesome hetero sorts of dreams, the Hallmark Channel of salacious imagination. Making love to my wife on a white sand beach, romantic trysts before a roaring fire, sex under the Christmas tree (without the annoying pine needles poking me in the ass)...you get the idea.

Nice. But...well, sorta vanilla, right?

No frantic kinks, no forbidden pleasures; no S&M, no sweaty pileups, no her dressing up like Mrs. Claus and swinging from the chandelier with four stalwart lechers pulling at her legs.

Nope. Just plain old boring romantic-ish married sex.

That's just jake with me, but it doesn't make for a thrilling blog post read, now, does it?

But...

About a week ago I had a dream.

It started off fairly typically; the two of us lounging in a huge white bed in this enormous tropical-sort of room; long white bedcurtains, huge windows with venetian blinds screening out the blazing white sunlight.

On the silky sheets my bride's pale skin glowed with the sort of luminosity you only see in photographs or in dreams; her whole body seemed to radiate a sort of lush intensity, a warm and fecund sheen that promised all manner of lubricious delights, as did her slantendicular smile below her lowered lids.

In my mind she looked at me and ran her palms down her thighs in a gesture of pure invitation.

So far, so good - and so far, so standard.

So I was dream-shocked when my dream-bride rolled onto her side, loured at me, and murmured in her best throaty dream-voice:

"I want you to make love to my ass..."

Whoa.

Look. I understand myself as well as I hope I possibly can. And - understanding that - I understand that I will take whatever licentious liberties I am offered.

(We're like that, men, most of us, I'm afraid...)

Like most men, though, I won't take what is not offered.

And so far as my bride is concerned - my real bride, my waking-hours bride - that particular form of congress is most surely not offered.

No fooling around back there. That's a one-way street. No trespassing. Do not enter.

Mi novia finds nothing enticing about the notion of having someone poking about the distal end of her digestive tract.

And that has always applied to my dream-wife as well. We don't cavort inside my head in ways we don't in real life - including that way.

At least, until the other night's dream.

But...even in my dream I couldn't really buy this sudden wifely desire for the entry into the Forbidden Zone. Dream-me was suddenly as still as the bunny when the hawk passes overhead; every nerve-ending jangling with the sense of imminent danger.

"Are you sure about this..?" I asked, motionless.

In answer my dream-bride writhed in what can only be described as an utterly shameless fashion. "Oh, yessss..." she moaned, "I want it. I need it."

I just sat there staring.

"You're kidding me." I said, finally.

"You really want me to have anal sex with you. Butt sex. Up the ol' dirt road. Drive the Hershey Highway. Bloop you up the doody chute. You're one hundred percent dead solid no-kidding abso-lutely sure you want this?"

My dream-spouse responded by rolling onto her elbows and knees into a position that in the higher primates would be called "presenting".

The sane part of my dream-brain was shrieking like an air raid siren (Warning! Warning! Danger, Doctor Smith, danger! Warning!) but my little dream-head was doing most of the thinking by this time and that thinking was "Well, OK then...".

I got to my knees and shuffled across the sheets. "You're absolutely sure you want this?" I said as I reached for the delicious fundament waggling before me.

In return I received a lascivious moan and a tremor-inducing whole-body wriggle.

Well.

Okay then.

I leaned forward in anticipation, and...

...with the blinding speed and vicious intensity of a striking gaboon viper my inamorata whipped around and instead of the view of her enticing nether regions I was confronted with a face of righteous wrath and an accusatory finger aimed directly at my nose.

"You were gonna fuck me up the butt, weren't you?!" snarled my dream-lover.

"Weren't you!?!"

"A-HA! You WERE!" my dream-bride crowed, pushing me over backwards with an extended palm and climbing decisively off the big round bed.

"And you know I don't go for that stuff, too."

"You...you...pervert!"

And with that she wrapped the robe that appeared in her hands around her body, wagged her finger at me one last time and stalked away, her bare heels beating out a martial rhythm on the shining wood floor.

I lay there dreaming aimlessly a long, long time.

Until my night-wanderings transmuted into something about cleaning the kitchen counters and unloading the dishwasher.

I Know What I Like

The exhibition itself sounds like a little bit...not little, really; a great big yawn:

"...most of the objects in this exhibition, which covers both iconophobia (hating images) and iconoclasm (doing something about hating images: namely, bashing them with something hard, corrosive, explosive or sharp). It is an engrossing lesson in the ways that the clash of ideologies can produce violence and concentrate it on a work of art, like the sun through a magnifying glass."

One of the objects on display, though, is anything but a yawn.

Ridiculous? Yes.

Uncomfortable, both as furniture and as the-woman-as-household-object?

Yes.

But not a yawn.

I'm afraid where much post-Impressionist art is concerned I'm more than a bit of a Philistine. I just Don't Get It. The Portland Art Museum presented an exhibition of the work of an artist that included four vacuum cleaners inside a plastic rectangle and a circular pile of bronze-colored sacks of something that was functionally indistinguishable from a sandbag mortar pit.

I laughed.

The point of the Tate Gallery's exhibition is that artwork like the contorted lady above was once considered anything but laughable - that it was and is at the heart of this clash of ideologies:

"...on 8 March 1986, International Women’s Day, two angry activists poured viscous paint stripper on the face and neck of the figure in Allen Jones’s Chair, a caricature-sexy female lying on her back and forming the base of the eponymous chair. The result looked distressingly like the effects of an acid attack on a real person; one thinks of the awful experience of two young British women in Zanzibar at the hands of Muslim extremists only this summer."

That's all very tidily awful but, sadly, I can't look at Plastic Clarisse, the Semi-Nude Chair, and have any other thought than "Gee, the spiky stripper boots sure look like an uncomfortable headrest to me."

I guess I just don't know about Art.

The Red Badge of Courage

No excuse; just a funny.

Somebody hired a pretty brilliant ad agency.

Friday Jukebox: Silly Cat Edition

Yes, yes, I know; silly cat videos are lower than puns as humor. Sue me; it's a slow Friday and this made me giggle.

Rockets' Red Glare

I meant to post these some time ago but...well, you know how it is.

Anyway, while we might not have many family traditions the ones we have are appropriately weird. No, not "rum, sodomy, and the lash" weird, but...well, let me tell you about the 4th of July.

Oregon is one of those lame, namby-pamby, nanny states where fireworks are concerned. Pyro that can fly, or explode, is illegal in Oregon. We're limited to sparklers, fountains, and smoke. "Oregon law forbids possession, use or sale of fireworks that fly, explode or travel more than six feet on the ground or 12 inches in the air. Bottle rockets, Roman candles, and firecrackers are ILLEGAL in Oregon."

See?

Lame.

But the great State of Washington? Boy fucking howdy, you can blow the living shit out of yourself in the Evergreen State. Mortars, Roman candles, parachute flares, white phosphorus...you name it, you can fire it off north of the river.

So, like 99.6% of Oregonians, every July 4th we cross the river to buy a bagful of illegal fireworks.

This year it was no exception. A big part of the reason is that we enjoy the hell out of the brutal free-market in fireworks that reigns in Vancouver. The fireworks vendors are wild, at each others' throats like mad kebab sellers in an Iraqi souq. They don't try and convince you that you want to buy their stuff (probably sensible, since they all buy this pyro wholesale from the same Chinese makers); they try and convince you that the other guy is a big dirty cheating theving bastard who is screwing you like a ten-dollar-a-go-Yokohama-waterfront-hooker.

Like this:

There's no subtlety here. No meeching "You might not find our competitor's product suits your needs" bullshit. It's right out there, man; we rule, they suck, neener, neener. It's the sort of thing I'll bet like hell the Walton kids would love to do to Target but their lawyers talk them out of. Here it's right in your face.

For a change we went to BOTH the TNT tent and the Blackjack "Pirate" store. Both were utter madness, and we ended up spending way too much for shoddy Chinese pyrotechnics. I did appreciate the attempt at topical political comment by some nameless Asian entrepreneur:

We avoided the bouncy houses and the snow cones and the other touristy crap, paid for our illegal fireworks, and left. And when I say we paid too much, well...at least we stayed within budget. This gomer's poor family is probably STILL eating ramen noodles to pay for his ridiculous pallet full of demo:

That evening we proceeded to go out to our little Astor playground and shoot off all the pyrotechnics. It was loud and shiny, it had absolutely no connection with the United States, liberty, independence, or anything else patriotic. It was pure ur-male-dom; making things go fast, make loud noises, and blow up. The Boy commented as he shot Roman candles down the street: "This is just like Gandalf fighting the Balrog!!"

Just what Tom Jefferson would have said about that, I honestly haven't the slightest idea.

Tennoheika Banzai!

The proposed cover art for the Aoshima 1/700 scale model kit of the Japan Naval Self-Defense Force vessel Hyuga:

Note the sinking PLAN carrier Liaoning in the background! Clearly "Operation Senkaku" was a devastating success for the JNSDF and the East China Sea is now an Imperial lake. Poor deluded Rob Farley, clearly baffled by Imperial propaganda, claims

"Obviously there’s been some sort of dreadful accident– apparently near the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands– and the Hyuga is rendering desperately needed assistance to the Chinese ship. Those Ospreys are undoubtedly rescuing scores of Chinese crewmen. I can only hope that the goodwill and generosity evident in this artwork helps serve as a bridge between the two great East Asian nations."

Ha! Foolish Yankee, you won't be so cheerful when California has become part of the New Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere!