Monday, Noonish, With Beak

My window continues to work magic tricks.

At odd times, unannounced, you can find raccoons, bunnies, squirrels, opossums (from the Powhatan "apasum", or "white animal"), and various cheepie things coming around to hang out beneath it.

Now this.

Best guess: an immature herring gull.

First, standing in place. Later sitting. I expected my third trip to the window to find it dead on the grass but it waan't there 'tall.

Feeding: Eats mussels, clams, fish, rodents, insects, young of other gulls, garbage. Steals from other birds.

Voice: Long call is like "ow ow ow keekeekee kyow kyow kyow". Alarm call is "ga ga ga ga".

Habitat: Coasts, lakes, rivers, fields, dumps.

Next up, I hope, is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and her gastropod dress, which would likely draw more garbage eaters.

Ga ga ga ga! I can handle it. The camera is locked and loaded.

I'd like to see her eating worms after a rain, but that may be too much to hope for.

(Notes from "Field Guide to Birds", by Donald & Lillian Stokes.)

Wet And Down

For every minute

you are angry

you lose

sixty seconds

of happiness

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Now dead)

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Walking Into Winter

Winter Kommt

La muerte es en la caza.

Le sage se mettre à couvert.

Nessuno può conoscere il futuro.

Alleen de vetgedrukte een kans hebben.

Maidir liom féin, níl a fhios agam anois.

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Leafs 2010-10-22

Walking home. Summer's over.

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Unclean In The Sand

When I saw the original "Dune" miniseries I was entranced. I bought a copy.

And I've watched it at least half a dozen times. Every time I do I'm amazed by how little its flaws affect its effect. Sure, the early-generation computer graphics were not the best, but hey. It was TV. You got the idea. It was fantasy. You got the idea.

The story was simple, the acting restrained and to the point, and the plot moved.

Two things were especially good: the sets and the costumes. They added depth without being distracting, and were cheap ways for the creators to enhance the experience. Constraints, if handled intelligently, lead to creativity. It worked here.

Now, a decade later, noodling around, I found that there was a followup series, "Children of Dune". Hey, why not. I bought it. Worth a look.

"Children of Dune" is everything that "Dune" was not: tedious, incomprehensible, boring, over-produced.

Yuk, yuk, yuk.

And the sound quality is bad. My hearing is not good, and getting worse. I admit. But at times I was able to get maybe 10% of the dialog. I don't have any other VHS or DVD recordings that are this bad. Turning up the sound made it louder, not better. OK, too bad.

Eventually I went into the "extra features" section of the DVD. Yeah, right.

A bunch of guys congratulating themselves on the special effects and other details of production. They could as well simply put up an org chart for the production company. It would, I think, have been more interesting, and at least as enlightening. Maybe more.

But I found what could be the cause of this sad production's problems. Two of Frank Herbert's books, "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune", were combined into this one miniseries.

Those behind "Children of Dune" tried, I think, to cram everything in the two books into the one production. Don't know. I didn't read the two books. But it looks like everything.

The actors skip along the high spots of a plot outline, hitting key words and then stepping out of the way before they get run over by the next bunch of actors tromping through the sets.

It's like watching crowds thundering through a bus depot at rush hour and searching for the meaning.

What should be one tight of scene after another of two or three, in three or four minutes is more like synchronized acting. Herds almost trampling one another, racing through scene after disjointed scene in seconds. Speed acting.

The screenplay is high school quality. There are huge stupid gaffes, such as when Ghanima Atreides (Jessica Brooks) nearly weds Farad'n Corrino (Jonathan Bruun). The young Farad'n kneels before her, confesses various nefarious things about his family's doings, and says that he has only the truth to give her, not even a dowry.

Duh? Dowry?

Dowries are a stupid and evil tradition, but they come from the bride's family, not the groom's. This is basic history, part of standard, worldwide, human culture. You don't change all that just to give a minor character a couple of words utter, nonsensically.

Major screenplay fail.

All that said, Ian McNeice shows decent acting. Almost the only example.

He turns up as the spirit of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, deceased but still alive somehow inside Alia Atreides. McNeice's role is small but I really perked up when I saw him. His character, though evil, brought sunshine to the production.

Everything else made me want to gnaw one of my legs off. The costumes and sets, rather than adding a nice extra dimension, were severely overdone and inappropriate, the computer effects overbearing. A hint of sandworm is better than all worms all the time.

Other than McNeice, there was Alice Krige, who played Lady Jessica Atreides, poorly. I remember her as the Borg Queen from a Star Trek movie. I've always had the hots for the Borg Queen, despite the tubes in her head and the mottled skin and all. I doubt if I'm alone. This is one gorgeous woman, with or without tubes in her head.

So then?

Well, it appears as if her entire face is one massive Botox injection site.

How someone can talk while moving nothing but her jaw baffled me. No facial expressions whatsoever. No muscle movement, no eyebrow arching, no smiles, no frowns. Nothing. I've never seen this before and really can't say how she managed it, but there you are. The Wooden Lady. Almost worth watching the whole shebang just to get the full effect of this. Entirely spooky.

I'll avoid passing judgment on the male actors, because I'm personally not attracted to men, but the women are fine. So very fine. Daniela Amavia as Alia Atreides. Jessica Brooks as Ghanima Atreides. Julie Cox as Irulan Corrino-Atreides. All get six stars out of a possible five. On looks. All turn in execrable performances because of the vile screenplay and confused production. Disaster. Acting chopped into baffling bits. No point to it at all. I know they have all done better elsewhere.

And maybe worst of all, so very much the worst of all, the relationship of the twin children (Ghanima Atreides and her brother Leto Atreides II) of Chani and Muad'Dib, played by Jessica Brooks and James McAvoy.

If I had anything to abandon I would abandon it all, forever, if I could only spend the rest of my life worshipping Jessica Brooks.

But.

I think the technical word for the on-screen relationship of the brother and sister is "eeewww". Touching, kissing, playing together, fondling. No, don't show me that. Not now, not ever.

I had to cringe, and keep cringing. Again and again.

This is unclean.

I don't know or care what may or may not have been in Frank Herbert's writing. I saw what was on the screen and I did not like it at all. The brother and sister may be close, and may be strong characters on the page, but this, no. Though lacking actual sexual contact, it was deep incest.

The original "Dune" was clean and simple, direct, compelling and well produced. "Children of Dune" is worth seeing only as an example of how poorly something can be done, despite having a terrific model to follow.

The Way I Do It

A biologist, a statistician, and a mathematician are sitting at a cafe. Across the street, a man and a woman enter a building; ten minutes later, they emerge with a child.

"They've reproduced," says the biologist.

"No," says the statistician. "It's an observational error. On average, 2.5 people went each way."

"You're both wrong," says the mathematician. "The conclusion is obvious. If someone goes in now, the building will be empty."

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/06/20/rimshot-23/

Posted via email from Dave's posterous

Messages From The Ancients

While walking home from downtown today, and carrying a new
pocket camera, I came across some cryptic messages under a bridge.

These symbols were obviously left for us by the Ancients,
hoping that we would find them in our time of need.

And I found them just in time.

Please apply them immediately, with vigor.

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A Random Walk

Western end of the Woodland Trail Greenway.

I have almost enough cameras to open my own store. And guess what?

No really. Just try. Guess what?

The lovely I-5 overpass, which keeps me safely out of traffic.

I haven't been using any of them for a long time.

I should use some of them, being virtually knee deep in the critters, but instead of listening to that small, insistent voice that's been telling me to get out, I've been living on Deaf Row, photographically speaking.

Lovely, efficient concrete. We have concrete here. You?

At least for the winter. Maybe things will change now that the leaves are back. Time to get in shape. Move around. Accomplish something.

Random ugly guy who follows me around.

Even lizards can do that much. My goal for this year is to be as active as a lizard. Or better, if I can manage it.

Pants.

Somebody lost his pants. Not me. I value my pants, and very seldom go anywhere without them. I guess the good thing about forgetting your pants though is that if you do, someone will let you know before you get too far. Not this guy. He must have been quick on his feet, because his pants have been here for months. The rest of his clothes too, something I do not recommend for winter, even in Warm Drizzle Land. But who am I to judge?

Breakfast crow.

So I have 11 cameras and somehow have been managing not to use any of them.* "This must end, Fool!" I'm thinking quietly to myself. I don't much walk around and talk to myself any more, though the arm waving part was kind of fun. No. I do not do that any more. Times have changed.

I have no idea how I managed this. I must be secretly talented.

The deal is now, you see people all over, talking to air friends. Yesterday there was this guy at the supermarket pushing a cart and confiding to empty space about how he shouldn't be saying any of this, and then blah-blah blah-blah blah-blah blah-blah blah-blah. He went past three times at full volume. I sincerely did not want to know. Like if he knew I heard, would he have to kill me too?

I was only there for the apples.

Please?

Bureaucrat Row. One of many infestations in this gummint town.

Even women and old people are doing this now. Some of them have things sticking out of their heads. They may in fact be pod people. I mean, this thing, coming out of the ear. You would sort of expect them to be less obvious.

Unless they had already taken over.

That's one reason I stay home a lot.

If they come for me there, at least they'll have to get through the door first.

And then there's my weasel.

So far it's been all quiet. My luck has held.

Or maybe there really is some protective value in a weasel. I have to hope, because I can't take the chance of test firing him, of draining off that blood lust in useless target practice and possibly leaving me with an amiable beady-eyed floppy-toy.

No. This guy will have to remain armed and unused until crunch time. I'll have to trust his killer instincts and try to get my part right, making sure he's fully alert when the time comes, and not asleep, having lunch, or defecating in a corner, and just as important if not more so, I must be absolutely sure that I get his business end pointed away from me.

Staying home and waiting is disquieting enough, but going out is much worse. You nearly have to drag me away.

Except for backpacking.

Even the drains have name tags now. I believe this one is Mo Dumping.

One of the really nice things about backpacking is that you don't see many pod people on the trail. Maybe the slugs get them, or the crows. Or it could be fungus.

We have a lot of fungi around here, and generally speaking if you don't bother it, it won't bother you.

Or if you don't lie down and stay still for too long. There is no official time limit, but you find out pretty fast if you've exceeded it. Also, never poke a fungus with a sharp stick and then lie down for a nap, even if you think that it's your friend. They really do not like it.

And friends don't poke friends. Not with a stick anyway.

The gray havens of our NIMBY overlords.

And the other thing is, if you get up early and go for a walk, you don't see too many.

Pod people.

Fungi are always there. Fungi never sleep, but as noted they tend to live and let live.

I would kill for a chance to see this well without glasses.

"So hey," I thought, "Let's take one of our many cameras and walk to the post office!" I (and/or "we") almost tingled with joy.

As a dorky shut-in this seemed like the height of boldness, but probably safe, if I kept my pants on the whole time.

And what better camera to take along than the teeny-tiny one I got that takes terrible photos? Taking that would re-acquaint me with it, and since the photos would be crummy no matter what, I could play all the way there and back again, and not worry, even about the pod people, because they don't get out of bed until later.

And since this camera is so small, I could call it ultralight get credit for that too, so before long I had my pants on and was ready to go (in the sense of "out the door").

Or even this well.

All in all I'd have to say that it was a nice walk. First I let my head fill with air and then I let it go.

Cryptic mystic symbols left for us by the Ancients.

You know, the way you blow up a rubber balloon and then let it run around the room to make the cat crazy. Or just because. Just because you have nothing else to do, or just because you do have something else to do, but want to prove that you can put it off because you really are that powerful.

If you haven't advanced to that level, it's a lot like staying in your underwear and eating nothing all day but ice cream and potato chips, without brushing your teeth even once. Complete control.

Ditto, with teeth. (And what looks like a ritual fungus.)

So there I was, tromping along this little leafy green path that we will soon have to tear out because it was built with socialist government tax money and will make us become depraved and eat each other's children and pets if we don't destroy it soon.

I myself do draw the line at pets though - I absolutely cannot stand the taste of fur or the way it gets stuck in my teeth.

So there I was, thinking about the old days when this was a working rail line and how, if society still made any sense it still could be. Could be providing jobs, generating profits, maintaining an export route along which our cut down old-growth forests could be shipped to far away lands where tiny people speaking a singsong language ground them to bits and made particle board which they sold back to us as cheap furniture for our cardboard-box houses under the bridge.

The way home.

Come to think of it, that's still happening, just not along this line, which is now a "greenway".

So maybe socialism is OK, at least for some things, and I won't have to eat the neighbor's cat. This week.

Yellow-backed pedal masher.

Well, after my head ran out of air I just trudged along and looked at stuff. And swung the camera around whenever the voices in my head said to, and pretty much had a good time despite the desperate world situation and all.

The ugly guy again. He seems to have picked up some neck wiring.

But all is not thoroughly safe.

A couple days back there were several demented deer on the trail. Considering that this trail runs nearly within spitting distance (if you are a better spitter than I am) of the major west-coast, north-south highway (you know, I think it may be the front teeth that do it) and is roaring with traffic day and night, year in and year out (in the sense that you need to have them), it's surprising that there are deer out here.

Oops. Glasses fell off again.

Even demented ones.

But then if you were a deer and lived here, you'd pretty well need to be demented.

BirdCam view of ugly guy just before the BirdCam operator nailed his hat.

Women get all wiggly over deer, and tend to squeak a lot. They do that with flowers too, even ones that haven't been killed yet, or even sanitized, but deer, well they have been called the cockroaches of the woods.

I guess by the people who know those things.

You know, the people (guys) who know all things, and would be impressed by nothing less than a herd of drunken shaved musk oxen doing a can-can. On roller skates.

Suspiciously vigorous leafy greens.

But still.

If you've ever gotten up partway through the night and taken a whizz into the bushes, not too far off because you don't, really don't, wish to go thrashing through the brush in the absolute dark, way out there somewhere, all alone, and then, just about the time you get back into your sleeping bag, a deer with a really bad attitude comes over to groove on your urine, and stands around snorting and stomping its hooves and generally making an aggressive, threatening racket, like it expects you to (a) clear the hell out of there and let it lap in peace, or (b) come right back outside again and piss some more, and make it salty this time, then you genuinely do want deer to be like cockroaches so you can put your boots on and go out there and do some stompin' of your own.

Pond-O-Slime (and dead stuff).

But besides that you learn how demented deer can be.

And they can be. Especially around quality urine.

So last time, a couple days back there I was, doing my routine trudge back from the post office when this deer clops across the trail ahead of me, coming out of a sort of marshy, mucky tangle of brush and willows all full of sucking sounds and no doubt populated by many, many things that I never want to have dinner with, considering the many beaks and probes and claws and feelers and sucking parts and all, and it (the deer) goes up the bank on the right side, and OK. Fine.

Then another one follows it. OK guys. Done yet?

No, because there's a third one. Cloppity-clop. Up over the bank too.

If truth is beauty, this must be totally false.

It was about then that I began thinking of cameras. Because hey. You never know when you'll meet someone who might be impressed by a picture of a deer running around. Running around what is officially inside the city limits.

But the trick with photography is the having-the-camera part.

Because hey (to repeat this for emphasis) you can't make a camera out of sticks the way you can with fire. Although, granted, even with fire you do have to know what you're doing, but you can, when in need, do it.

Outer wall of a large, suspicious building hidden behind a small, but equally suspicious sapling.

So then, to rub it in, a bit farther on, the deer came zooming from right to left. One. Two. Three. I know this because I still have enough fingers to count that high, which I did, on the spot, and haven't washed them since.

And then, rubbing it in harder, and producing a sort of mental rash that I still haven't quite gotten over, they come out ahead of me again, from left to right, and nearly clobber a cyclist. "Big deal," you may say, "We could do with a few less cyclists around here." Or would one need to say "a few fewer cyclists"? Or simply "fewer cyclists"? I guess the ungenerous thought is "not so many of those ludicrous, panting fools".

But I digress. The point follows...

Right away you see the difference between rubbing sticks together and capturing for posterity even a few photons rebounding from a ruminant's rump.

Crowbot eyeing the ugly guy who is, however, too bony to make a good stew.

So today, having completely forgotten all about the deer, I go in to check my mail, but with the key difference that THIS time I HAVE a camera, in working order and all, though it is a very tiny one with a plastic lens and barely works at all, but is still nevertheless a camera and does sort of work in its own disturbing and wildly unpredictable way, and I don't see any deer, nor do I want to, or anything. (In case you mistakenly thought that this was the point. It isn't.)

All I wanted to do was go get my damn mail and turn the camera's crank a few times while walking along and take whatever came out the back end, all of which I did, and had a pretty good time of it, which I had to do because I don't really have any friends unless you count dust bunnies, but they don't even have eyes, although I did see a real bunny today, but, as with most of his kind, it proved to be both quicker AND (very important point here) smarter than the guy who's typing this, so no, I didn't get a photo of the bunny either.

Just some plants, some cars, a cyclist, and the unliving undead walking guy, etc., as shown here.


* I just got another one today. Anybody want to buy some used cameras?

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