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Letters from the Country
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June 30, 2009Good HousekeepingI changed the options at the bottom of the page. I found out by accident that I could change the list of categories to a drop-down menu. That should save a little room as the list grows. The big change is the addition of an email subscription tool. Type in your email address, and click “subscribe.” You’ll receive a confirmation email with a link in it. Click that link, and then you should receive a nifty email whenever anything is posted. Summertime, and the Living Is EasyAlmost two months ago, I boasted about spending a day getting all manly with rakes and shovels and even a saw. At the time of that writing, I felt “almost godlike.” Yeah. Things have changed.
I’m sure you’re half-hypnotized by the raw, sinewy power of my hirsute forearm, and you’re probably thinking, “why, yes, that is rather godlike, at that.” But what I’m trying to show here is the white strappy thing. It’s a tennis elbow brace. I have tennis elbow. From gardening. June 26, 2009Blah Blah BlahI’m really glad I took a snapshot of the Michael Jackson website last night, because Sony has supplemented it with a bunch of press-release-ish mumbo jumbo. I suppose I’m rather jaded, but I can’t help thinking how sad it is that even death can be made into advertising. I imagine the execs at Sony are rightly anticipating a run on Michael’s catalog, which will no doubt be a change of pace from the usual shenanigans. He may not make any more records or do any more tours, but at least he’s not going to be calling the CEO devilish. June 25, 2009The King [of Pop] Is DeadMichael Jackson, the self-proclaimed King of Pop, died today. He was 50 years old. I’ve never had occasion to visit MJ’s website, so I don’t know what it usually looks like, but at the moment, it looks like a fitting tribute to The Gloved One. For one thing, you can’t really see his nose.
The story of Michael’s nose–his whole face, really–is doubtless freakish and funny, but also unutterably sad. And then there’s all the other stuff. Bubbles, the toilet-sharing, bedroom-cleaning chimp. The menagerie at Neverland Ranch. The Elephant Man’s remains. The hyperbaric chamber. The baby-dangling. “The King of Pop” (an invitation to eye-rolling if there ever was one). And last but certainly not least, the–ah, shall we say–inappropriate touching of children. For all his fame and success and adoration, Michael was surely a deeply, deeply wounded man. Or perhaps it would be more apt to call him a man-child; all signs point to a desperate attempt to retain or recapture a lost or stolen youth. June 20, 2009An Embarrassment of RichesThis morning we picked up CSA box 2 of 2. I was prepared for another squash bonanza (and the subsequent zucchini bread bonanza), and perhaps a plethora of cucumbers (and the ensuing plethora of bread and butter pickles). I wasn’t expecting this:
June 19, 2009A Nice Round NumberI was just looking at my site traffic, and what do you know? I’ve reached 100 visitors.
I know, I know, this is a pittance compared to some of my favorite blogs–Petite Anglaise, for example, or Comics Curmudgeon. Each Comics Curmudgeon post gathers well over 100 comments, never mind the countless waves of constant visitors. But even so. It’s a nice round number, 100, and seeing it made me feel all warm and snuggly inside. June 15, 2009The Bounty of the LandEarlier this spring, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle As luck would have it, some friends of ours are members of the Rita’s Roots CSA. They’re out of town for a couple of weeks, and they’re letting us “borrow” their subscription. We picked up the first of two boxes on Saturday. It was packed with delicious stuff–heirloom tomatoes, spring onions, baby bok choy, and–of course, at this time of year–more cucumbers and squash than anyone knows what to do with. June 11, 2009Under the Covers, Part FourIt’s been over a month since I did one of my book cover posts. I’ve been in the B&N many, many times in the last month, of course, but nothing’s really been catching my eye. Even tonight, I wasn’t exactly falling in love left and right. Here’s the nearest of the near misses:
June 9, 2009Last Night’s Text Messages Are Tomorrow’s DrunkaloguesSince I wrote this, I guess Facebook‘s stranglehold on our lives has loosened. Now it’s Twitter that’s taking over our lives. The king of time wasting is dead, long live the king! Earlier tonight, I stopped in at the B&N for a coffee. The cover of Time magazine caught my eye. The article begins admirably, with the exact question that pops into my head whenever I hear about Twitter or, more rarely, have some passing business with it: “Why does the world need this, exactly?” June 8, 2009Kill Your TelevisionMy television viewing habits are far from high-class. (I think a handful of examples will prove my point. I have been known to watch this, this, and–yes, sad to say–this.) But every now and then on Discovery or Science there’ll be a strange hybrid of fact and fantasy like this show, all about an enormous geodesic dome that will likely not be built over Houston. Sitting in front of cartoon dome-building dirigibles and make-believe hurricanes, sciency-looking people described structures that won’t ever be built in our lifetimes–as if construction’s set to begin in three weeks. A fake meteorologist standing in front of a fake radar map of a fake hurricane urged everyone to stay inside the dome–”It’s still nice and comfortable in the dome,” he said, “so don’t leave the dome.” |
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© 2009 Matt Dean; powered by WordPress
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