Today is my grandmother’s 90th birthday. I spoke with her on the phone just now, and she sounds better than she has in months. It was a rough year for her, and we weren’t sure she’d make it this far, but we’re damned glad she did.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
Mr Diztopia — not to be confused with briquet magnate Ol’ Diz, who is oddly appropriate just now — has turned both barrells of his snarkotron on some silly little filly foolishly babbling on in the Observer about being Southern in New York. Enjoy. We certainly did.
Our friend Rob just moved from Austin, where he lived for many years, to Chile to write code for a telescope. This is exciting for him, but sort of sad for those of us left in Texas. Or it would be, but for the whole “living in the future” thing. See, we here at Heathen Central won’t really notice Rob’s absence except under some very specific circumstances. He and his wife have an Austin-based VOIP telephone number that rings in his house in South America, and he still surfaces on iChat just like he did when he was in Austin, complete with the voice chat option.
When would we notice? If we went to Austin, in which case they would be unable to meet us for dinner without substantial notice and cost, or if we decided to visit Chile, in which case their location would be very, very convenient indeed.
We think a literal Lightning Field sounds like a cool place to visit — or, rather, that it would be, if they weren’t such jackasses about photography.
As requested, his remains will be shot out of a cannon. Said cannon will be atop a 53-foot Gonzo-fist sculpture, according to his widow. From the AP:
“It’s expensive, but worth every penny,” Anita Thompson said. “I’d like to have several explosions. He loved explosions.” She said planning for the fist has been guided by a video of Thompson and longtime illustrator-collaborator Ralph Steadman, recorded in the late 1970s when they visited a Hollywood funeral home and began mapping out the cannon scheme.
Godspeed, Hunter.
(Via BoingBoing, which is running pretty much exactly the same entry, graphic and all.)
Them what know us know we’re gadget-happy here at Heathen Central. We get a new phone every year. We have a Tivo, and we’ll run on at length about it at cocktail parties. We live out of our Powerbook. We had three Newtons, for the love of Mike.
That said, there are certainly places where we prefer the old to the new; most all of our watches (and all of them that matter) have springs, not batteries. Our pens have nibs and are filled from bottles. Our cars have clutches, and one of them doesn’t even have a radiator. We like them this way.
Ergo, it comes as a bit of a surprise to us that we’ve not yet heard of or adopted this trend, but we have spent part of the afternoon window-shopping here, and considering if perhaps this isn’t all that and a bag of chips after all, especially if we replace it with one of these.
Foolish Lewis University student randomly IMs someone on AOL seeking to buy a short paper on Hinduism. Said someone decides to fuck with Ms Pahl. Madcap hilarity — and almost certain dismissal for academic misconduct — ensue. This is virtually certain to become the meme du jour; enjoy. And do NOT miss the paper itself; sample graf follows:
The highest class is the Brahmans, the priestly class. Their dharma is to study and understand the Vedas, Hindu’s holy texts, and bring this knowledge to others. The second class is the Kshatriya, the warrior class, who acted as the protectors of the peace. I made a doody. Vaishya, the producing class, work as business people providing economic stability to the society. The Shudahelupta class, are servants to the higher three classes.
Emphasis added, obviously.
How much do we love Slacktivist?
In which Mike discovers something amusing about using my name as a Flickr tag.
It’s my 35th birthday.
IM, just now:
KittyKitty: hey man UberChet: bacontarian.com KittyKitty: uhhmm, puerco KittyKitty: are these meat eaters friends of your or KittyKitty: do you troll for all things prok UberChet: I have a blog. People send me things. UberChet: But I really need to go to spain/portugal, as I believe UberChet: them to be Porkvana. KittyKitty: I have been to both. I have eaten pork in both UberChet: Am I right? KittyKitty: I think Ireland is prok heaven UberChet: heh. KittyKitty: pork that is UberChet: porn:pr0n::pork:pr0k KittyKitty: In England I achieved pork perfection KittyKitty: English bacon on a buttered bagguette. KittyKitty: Simple, elegent and bacony KittyKitty: uuhhhhm UberChet: stop it, you're making me hard. KittyKitty: I hpoe you mean lard KittyKitty: hence the Ozzie termed "cracked a fat" UberChet: heh UberChet: ozzie or cockney rhyme? KittyKitty: ozzie KittyKitty: I have often wondered who would win in a bacon off KittyKitty: Good ol' US streaky UberChet: on that note,I made a hell of a carbonara over last weekend. KittyKitty: versus Euro hame llike products UberChet: Mmm, pasta, bacon, and eggs. KittyKitty: heh KittyKitty: go to an Irish pub and order a Bacon Butty KittyKitty: yum KittyKitty: ever wanna go to the salad bar and just get the bacon bits... KittyKitty: oh stop you know have UberChet: I'm so ashamed. KittyKitty: we are only men KittyKitty: and it is bacon KittyKitty: crack for fat white guys KittyKitty: if you could snort it we'd all have a greasy upper lip KittyKitty: obviously I am very bored today KittyKitty: send me more links KittyKitty: please....just 1 more UberChet: I'm totally putting this conversation on my blog. KittyKitty: heh KittyKitty: "keep a slick upper lip" the bacon snorters motto KittyKitty: "Adere Est Porkcere" KittyKitty: "To dare is to eat prok"
Bacontarian.com. Quick, somebody tell Eric.
From his blog:
Up The Creek People keep asking if I’m going to say something about the death of Hunter S Thompson. Hell, a couple of newspapers have asked. This is because I wrote a graphic novel series called TRANSMETROPOLITAN, the creation of whose protagonist was somewhat influenced by Thompson’s writing, persona and life. I got the news from a friend at CBS at four in the morning, two minutes after it hit the ticker. I was, and am, numb. I’ve tried to write about it a couple of times. When John Peel died, I was wrecked. This time, I’m just numb. I read an article a few years ago, that I haven’t seen cited in the obituaries yet, wherein it’s stated that Thompson’s body was pretty much packing up on him. His stomach was having problems with toxic substances like, um, food, and his diet was mostly liquid, mashed avocado and yoghurt. He’d spent time in a wheelchair in recent years. His drug use had always been exaggerated for comedic effect, but, at 67, he’d been hammering his body in a committed way for some 50 years. And, at 67, you don’t grow back the bits you killed. There’s a fair chance he was looking at years of dependency, chronic illness, and listening to his own body die by inches. Anyone would find that frightening. He always wore his influences on his sleeve. JP Donleavy, Faulkner, Mencken, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Hemingway. He used and re-used the last line from A FAREWELL TO ARMS, over and over: “I walked back to the hotel in the rain.” Legend has it that he retyped a Hemingway novel to understand how the writer got his effects. Hemingway, of course, shot himself in the head. Old and sick and unable to live up to his own ideas on manhood. I always thought it peculiarly apt that the man who wrote that line, whose work was all about keeping the expression of human feeling underneath the surface, sat somewhere quiet and alone and put a shotgun in his mouth. Hunter Thompson waited until his young wife left the house, and then shot himself in the head with a pistol. He must have been quite aware that either she, or his son, there in the house with his grandson, would find his corpse. Dead bodies don’t lay neatly. They splay, spastic and awful. There is often shit. I never met Thompson. Had the opportunity a couple of times — magazines wanting to send me out to Woody Creek, that kind of thing — but turned them down. I’ve been lucky so far, in meeting my great influences. But they don’t always go well. Friends of mine have had horrific experiences with their personal heroes, and it often leaves them unable to enjoy the work afterwards. And I wanted to keep the work. So I don’t know what kind of man he was. And the numbness, in part, comes from now finding that he was the kind of man that’d let his family find him like that. I have a personal loathing for suicide. It’s stupid and selfish and ugly and cowardly and reeks of weakness. Someone said to me yesterday about Thompson, “What a ripoff.” And I kind of know what he meant. It’s become convenient to write Thompson off as parody in recent years, and there’s a case to be made that he peaked around the age of 36, with FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL ’72. But he could still make me laugh, even in the most recent collection, HEY RUBE. ” ‘We have many cigarettes here,’ I said suavely” still makes me smile. Writing had clearly become difficult, and a job, but every now and then you’d get a clear burst of the old anger, as in his support for Lisl Auman (google it). He was done with the big fireworks, but the devil was still in him. Probably his great work of the last twenty years was in Being Hunter Thompson. In performance. But how you leave the stage is at least as important as how you enter it. And he left it alone in a kitchen with a .45, dying in — and wouldn’t it be nice if it were the last time these words were typed together? — — dying in fear, and loathing. Warren Ellis
down by the sea
February 2005
Jef Raskin, father of the Macintosh, 1943 – 2005.
The Wikipedia entry reports that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January.
This story reminds me of something I’m pretty sure Mike did in college. See, his dorm room phone number was one digit off the line used to reserve raquetball courts at the new Rec Center. When the semester started and the Rec Center opened, Mike started getting LOTS of wrong numbers, often earlier in the day than Mike wanted his phone to ring. Mike asked the campus phone people to change either his number or the raquetball number, but nothing doing — they’re set in stone for some reason.
So he stopped telling people they’d called a wrong number, and started taking reservations instead. As I recall, eventually they changed the number.
This morning, Writer’s Almanac reminded me that, had he not died in 1992, today would be Richard Yates’ 79th birthday. Until recently, Yates was the great unsung voice of postwar American literature; for years, I was the only person I knew who’d read him, and I only did because he was the guest writer one semester when I was at Alabama.
Dick’s work is strong, though, and on the strength of that — and some advocacy from modern-day literary heavyweights like Michael Chabon, Richard Ford, and others — his collected stories were published to great acclaim (Salon review) and success in 2001. He’d like that, but not for reasons of filthy lucre. As he told Andre Dubus once, all he really wanted was readers. At least now he’s got some.
Here’s a few bits about Dick worth reading, even if you’ve never been exposed to his work.
Want more? Some of his books are in print again.
Wil Wheaton points out why you might not want to watch them with your teenagers.
There’s now a wedding site/blog at ErinandChet.com. Enjoy.
Jerry Orbach died yesterday of prostate cancer. He was 69.
Orbach, most famous for his twelve years as “Lennie Briscoe” on Law & Order, was also a veteran of Broadway (he won a Tony for “Promises, Promises”) as well as film (the father in “Dirty Dancing”). He was slated to return to TV in next year’s “Law & Order: Trial by Jury.”
Susan Sontag died today in New York from complications of acute myelogenous leukemia; she had battled cancer intermittantly for thirty years. She was 71.
Sontag’s career included a National Book Award, a National Book Critic’s Circle Award, and a Macarthur “Genius” grant. More recently, she was an outspoken critic of the Administration’s response to 9/11 and resulting clusterfucks.
Unlike most serious intellectuals, Ms. Sontag was also a popular celebrity, partly because of her striking, telegenic appearance, partly because of her outspoken, at times inflammatory, public statements. She was undoubtedly the only writer of her generation to win major literary prizes (among them a National Book Critics’ Circle Award, a National Book Award and a MacArthur “genius” grant) and to appear in films by Woody Allen and Andy Warhol; be the subject of rapturous profiles in Rolling Stone and People magazine; and pose for an Absolut Vodka ad. Over the decades, her image – strong features, wide mouth, intense gaze and dark mane crowned in later years by a sweeping streak of white – became an instantly recognizable artifact of 20th-century popular culture.
We are poorer without her voice.
We’re in Mississippi for the duration. It’s very, very cold. Happy holidays, and let’s hope ’05 treats us better than ’04.
The words drifted across the frozen battlefield: ‘Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht’. To the ears of the British troops peering over their trench, the lyrics may have been unfamiliar but the haunting tune was unmistakable. After the last note a lone German infantryman appeared holding a small tree glowing with light. ‘Merry Christmas. We not shoot, you not shoot.’ It was just after dawn on a bitingly cold Christmas Day in 1914, 90 years ago on Saturday, and one of the most extraordinary incidents of the Great War was about to unfold. Weary men climbed hesitantly at first out of trenches and stumbled into no man’s land. They shook hands, sang carols, lit each other’s cigarettes, swapped tunic buttons and addresses and, most famously, played football, kicking around empty bully-beef cans and using their caps or steel helmets as goalposts. The unauthorised Christmas truce spread across much of the 500-mile Western Front where more than a million men were encamped.
Near as anyone can seem to tell, there’s only one man alive who was in those trenches 90 years ago; the Observer has the rest of the story.
It’s a Wonderful Life in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. Thank you, Jennifer Shiman. And Merry Christmas, you arrant knaves, you.
Mr Diztopia (who comes as no surprise (extra points if you get that reference (HDANCN?))) has posted a little photographic memory lane of shots involving Your Esteemed Heathen Host, predominately from a trip he made to visit Houston in 1995.
They involve, left to right, starting from the top:
Heh. “Chetgasm.” Heh.
“The Day The Earth Tried To Swaller Me Whole“, by Chris Mohney.
Thinking of taking an extra couple days off this holiday season? Be careful, or something like this may happen to you.
About a year ago, I asked my mother for my grandmother’s diamonds. She died in 2001, soon after Erin and I started dating. They aren’t large, but they are meaningful; her engagement stone has been in another setting for twenty-odd years (my grandfather died in 1972), and has been worn by both mom and my late grandmother.
About six months ago, she brought them to me in Houston.
About three weeks ago, I took them to a local jeweler, who agreed to create a ring around them.
About noon today, I picked up a new ring made of Mimi’s stones plus one new one. It is beautiful.
Until about three today, I’d planned to use this ring on Sunday night, the third anniversary (“Sunday after Thanksgiving”) of our first date, a U2 concert in Dallas in 2001.
At about 3:05 today, I realized waiting until Sunday was no longer a possibility.
At 3:10 today, I rejected the plan offered by Certain Longtime Heathen Readers to wait until the security checkpoint at IAH on Friday (basically, insist that the metal detector’s buzz is “because of this pesky thing in my pocket; honey, come here and see if it buzzes if you carry it,” and pull a bit of a Jumbotron trick in front of the TSA goons).
At 6:00 today, I picked up The Girl. At this point, I was still a bit woozy from the whole prospect.
At 6:05 today, she said, when asked, that we should go to Tafia for cocktail food.
At 6:06 today, I hatched a pseudoplan.
At 6:30 today, she obligingly complained that she’d not gotten a manicure ahead of our aforementioned trip this weekend, and that therefore her nails didn’t look as good as she’d like.
At 6:31 today, I took her left hand, still profferred for examination in re: nail care, and kneeled in the middle of the Tafia lounge. “I have something that may fix the nail problem.”
At 6:31:05 today, we became engaged.
Goddamn, we’re happy.
Gawker reports this celeb-siting; we really hope it’s true:
Freemans, tuesday night the 16th of nov. the bush twins , along with 2 massive secret service men, tried to have dinner. they were told by the maitre’d that they were full and would be for the next 4 years. upon hearing, the entire restaurant cheered and did a round of shots… it was amazing!!! [Ed: We’re hearing that this is actually true.]
This is top-story CNN stuff, but a shooting this weekend erupted over a deer stand in Wisconsin. Said shooting — by a trespassing hunter named Chai Vang — left five dead and three injured. This story has a variety of odd points, but we’ll point out a few we notice:
The Economist’s Big Mac Index attempts to compare economic apples to apples in the 120 or so countries where the eponymous fat bomb is available.
He contends that this is proof there’s no subtlty left in advertising. We hope that rock he’s been living under was comfy.
He’s the first former Knave to comment post-hiatus. We wonder, though, based on recent posts on his on site, if he remembers certain promises made by the Heathen Hosting Authorities.
Only time will tell. He may, however, wish to commit to memory the domains “ns.cuniculosus.com” and “ns1.cuniculosus.com”, which still think they’re authoritative for his domain, if memory serves.
Note: when retrieving a car from a body of water, remember to account for the weight of water in the submerged vehicle when making your towing plans, or something like this may happen.
Just in time for the weekend, here’s a few Halloween costumes you may want to consider for the shindigs you’re no doubt attending.
Fred Clark had a lovely post on faith, prayer, XTC, and another liberal Christian blogger a little while back; sorry we’re just now getting to it.
Bite: the topless vampire musical. Now playing at the Stratosphere Hotel in Vegas.
Erin, when are we going to Vegas?
Some time ago, some of us went to a certain US city to perform a certain pre-nuptual ritual for a friend of ours. In what can only be described as a stunning lack of discretion, said trip was well-documented with photographs, which (in a further lapse!) found their way to the Internets at CarlsGoneWild.com.
We here at Heathen Central have received word, however, that this domain will expire in a little over two weeks. The pictures are safe, but the domain itself will vanish sometime before Thanksgiving. Go back and enjoy the pictures again — if you know the password. And then, once you’ve done it, go congratulate Carl for surviving the weekend, and for actually (finally!) marrying that girl.
Fafblog, on the Yankees and Sox:
“Well Giblets does not want to live in a world without laws of objective truth!” says Giblets. “A world where the Yankees don’t suck is a world of celestial anarchy!”
Indeed, Giblets. Indeed.
So now I’m en route back to Houston. The DC Metro is a lovely thing, but you can never account for train delays, so in planning for a slow trip I of course generated a quick one (two trains, no waiting). I figured I’d call Nogators Ground Transportation Coordinator Willis to confirm that the flight was on time, but discovered that my provider of choice does not in fact, um, provide at Washington National. I can’t make a call for love or money. I have, as folks say, “no bars” (and never mind that I’m typing this in a bar of sorts).
No problem, I thought. I’ll just use the Prez Club’s Wifi and send my esteemed colleague and DC host an email asking him to call Erin to confirm on-time departure, etc. Once in the club, though, I counted myself clever for realizing I could text-message Erin from the T-Mobile site (of course, I only realized this after sending the aforementioned mail; I’m thinking of it as a belt-and-suspenders sort of thing).
About this time, the bartender — a charming woman of middle age who used to live in our fair city — asked what I was doing, so I told her. Her response was “I have free weekends and no long distance; do you want to use my phone?”
I did.
Moral: Bartenders can solve all problems, even some whose solutions are not found in the consumption of certain potent potables. Tip accordingly.
We were going to do something clever about the passing of Derrida yesterday, but Fafblog beat us to it.
We are deeply sorry for what we did last night. We know that many people — some of them our dear, dear friends — enjoy a dram or two of Bushmill’s from time to time, but as a result of our actions in a Washington, D.C., Irish pub last night, we regret to inform you that there is no more Bushmill’s to be had, as we have drunk it all.
We’re really sorry. I blame Tony.
Letterpress may die in our lifetimes, or if not ours, then that of our progeny.
Watch this, about Firefly Press, to see how cool it is. (7+MB Quicktime)
On Saturday, I saw this in a suburban Best Buy whilst I waited for the rain to lighten enough to make I-45 something other than a deathtrap.
Yes, it’s a bad camphone shot (the T610 is many things, but “good camera” is not one of them). However, you should be able to see that:
What you probably cannot see is that it’s actually an HDTV. Who buys this shit? Are they reproducing? Christ.
I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night. I will not drink with Australians until 4 in the morning on a Monday night.
At least, not until the next time that bastard comes to town. Nice to see ya, Andy.
Or you might end up the subject of a follow-up to IFoundSomeOfYourLife.