current playlist 21 July 2011

22 July 2011  FRI @ home lain up w leg injury 

Blue Scholars - Yuri Kochiyama (live on KEXP)

Can’t believe that only just now I’m hearing that the Puyehue Cordon Caulle volcano blew up in Chile 4 June! Is it just me or do I need to RSS “volcanology” to be notified that the energy equivalent of 70 atomic bombs & 2% world electric capacity (in the 1st week alone) just erupted? Why is that not considered generally newsworthy? Instead I have to wait until the data is in on the volcano’s impact on the Argentinian economy before I otherwise hear that the earth’s having a fit?

Must be me not being plugged into the web recently. Work, work, work...

But I read 1 or two newspapers a day daily! usually. 

I guess 5 June I was out to lunch...

Mayhaps, in today’s world, if you miss the grand entrance the event’s ho-hum now, (since we survived). but everybody knows this.

Probably the editors of these papers are right, not so many readers care about natural events if there’s no local line or human interest story. 

This volcano’s so large that it wasn’t until <insert time period>* they knew which of 4 calderas erupted. 

Ash cloud obliterating all sight of its source.

* [Sorry I’m lain up on the porch in 2 chairs right now, w the door to the house closed so none of this heat gets in, but my internet’s dropt]…

Good news on the space exploration front! which is pretty rare these days…

The New Horizons probe – scheduled to fly by Pluto in July 2015 – is picking up an unexpected bonus - today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day displays new evidence that there’s a 4th satellite around Pluto: P4. 4 satellites! circling distant Pluto at the hyper-frigid outskirts of the solar system! Not bad for a non-planet.

The NASA PR machine should be all over this, seeing as how an extra heavenly body’s into the New Horizons mission at no additional cost to the taxpayer… 

21 July 2011     THUR

Double-caning it with r. leg in a field dressed splint across 95 degree F metrowest hospital parking lot for an x-ray. Friendly & comely female staffers in radiology. Don’t have that many positive hospital experiences worthy of report; that’s why I mention this one.

Anyway so now I’m somewhat lain up icing my leg & listening to Robbie Robertson because I never have - I’ve been fairly mute on the page lately & now pretty soon some of y’all be wishing I’d shut on down [stayed that way].

So this is a good reminder that one can be swept out of life @ any time & making me appreciate my good fortune all the more is the result of reading of Tim Flannery’s Throwim Way Leg. His account of many trips to Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya. Mostly during the 1980s & 90’s & ostensibly as a zoologist, but Flannery’s no slouch of a cultural observer and quite an easy read:

“The morning of our charter flight saw us cramming every available space aboard the aircraft with equipment and people. Finally it was filled to bursting with our voluminous drums, liquid nitrogen flasks, packs and food. As we sped down the runway at Jackson Airport, our little aircraft strained to take to the air.

     “Forty minutes into the flight, the Gulf of Papua stretched from horizon to horizon below us. I was casually wondering about the number of crocodiles and sharks inhabiting the murky water when the aircraft yawed violently. I looked out of the window. A stream of oil was issuing from the left-hand engine.

     “The propeller slowed. The oil turned to smoke -- and flickering flame!

     “ The pilot looked unnaturally pale and shaking as he reached for the button to activate the fire extinguisher. Then he bent down and grabbed a large map, which he spread right across the windscreen...” (p 49-50 1998 Grove Press paperback)

&

     “By 1984, problems were beginning to develop at Yapsiei. The station was built primarily to attract and control the West Miyanmin. They originally came from the mountains and have little resistance to malaria, filariasis (elephantiasis) and the many skin diseases that thrive in the lowlands. As a newly contacted people, they have also had to contend with introduced diseases such as influenza, against which they have little immunity....  (p 53)

     “...The first few days of our stay at Betavip were all but unbearable, not because of any physical discomfort, but because of the undying curiosity of the people. Each hour of the day our hut was filled with bodies. When they first arrived, people would stay respectfully near the dorr, but as a crowd swelled they would edge inside. Finally, a child with a long green gobbet of snot dangling from its nose would be peering over my notebook, threating to add to the chaotic marks I was inscribing there. Beside me someone else, with a huge open sore on his leg, would be rubbing against me. The hot breath and the general stuffiness of the hut would lead me towards a slow implosion. It was all I could do to stifle a scream...

     “...Worst of all was going to the toilet. The decrepit village pit toilet was something to be avoided at all cost. Indeed, on my one and only visit I got the distinct impression that it was not built to hold the weight of a European. To avoid being plunged headlong into shit, I took to wandering a long way into the bush to relieve myself. During such expeditions I would invariably be followed by a cloud of small children...”

                                                            -- Tim Flannery Throwim Way Leg

                                                                (p 57 Grove Press paperback)

Now working on The Course of Empire by Bernard DeVoto.

14 July 2011

The angry roar of the dinosaurs, on the streets, going by…

25 June 2011   SUN backyard

My wife (& our littlest one) left me for another country (Scotland). 

Probably most notable about these days is I’ve reverted to listening to cassette tapes. That’s right! can you believe it! cassette tapes…this is what those bankers & oilmen have done to me... 

The sad thing is – it’s great! My iPod bit the earth awhile ago, and for weeks & weeks I went tune-less. O this is really no problem I muttered to myself time & again as those days tick-tocked, did Buddha have a headset? But gradually, as my manual labors went onwards and my delight in being able to hear the bugs again wore off I did in fact take partial leave of my senses.

& weeks later finally I realized – cassette tapes! There’s at least one player down in the basement that’s half’s old as I am! yes! it functions! and cassettes – all that music that I refused to up-pay to digital on! stuff like:

Au Pairs, which despite not a profane word could be at the all-time high on the parent’s Do Not Play list, Echo & the Bunnymen, some recordings of my kids when they were younger & o so charming, naturally, though I shudder hearing my own hee-hawings on this decrepit antiquated obsolete technology; old KCMU african shows, FNX in ’86 & ’87, Talking Heads, Thomas Dolby,The B52s, REM,  man! I’m just getting started. 

Hey I know I need to get back to reality soon but allow me to briefly dip in the long-ago & far-away. I feel so terrible about it, but when you’re rototilling someone’s chicken pen for spare change you should be allowed to fantasize that you’re the pie-in-the-eye of  Susanna Hoffs...

Obama ultimatum to Congress today, re: debt ceiling. good luck Barack! you’re gonna need it...

MKy garden’s doing great too... chicken shit’s good stuff. waste not, want not..