Friday, May 9, 2014

Rocking an Alaska garden

Rocking the garden. Nagging stump gone, ground sloped away from the house, planters ready for something.
 Sitting yesterday taking a rest and enjoying the amazing "silence at the break of noon;" it was so quiet the sound of cracking intruded, two Pine grosbeaks picking at the spillage from the last bird feeder taken away the day before. They were a first, and a second; the only times they have been sighted around here in other than winter conditions. A junco also toyed with the good seeds among the husks.

Despite the frequent rests, the yard is slowly taking shape; the garden ready for planting, some landscaping, more on the firewood piles and leaves and other detritus taken away.

The main garden raked and ready for planting. Those are potatoes and
taking a chance, hardening for two days and will plant tomorrow. I have 
more seed potatoes if these don't make it because of the early planting. 
The stones are for passive solar heating when they are covered at night.
And rocks, yes, the rocks, raising the issue of comma placement and how that little curlicue can change meaning so easily. Is it rock the landscape or rock, the landscape.  Both work in this case.

And speaking of rock, and oh, boy, is this a paradigm leap, I came across some interesting music this week.  Go with me through the thought process as it goes in a semi-logical circle. 

The news this past week, particularly in politics reached absurd levels, and especially with the things repuglicans come up with to say about (take your choice) Obama, women's anatomy, crime, Benghazi, well, pick a subject and one of them at least, has said something stupid about it. All the time I was reading about all that stuff, a song kept going through my head and rather than waste a lot of time writing about it, I put a post on facebook that read: "Some days the news is so absurd you have to take refuge among the poets." To that I added some lines from Bob Dylan's "It's all right, ma. (I'm only bleeding)."
Wildflowers from last year coming back.

Thinking about the songs from my own youth and then what passes for music these days always raises the thought that our music had real lyrics. Dylan is a case in point.  And there are so many others. There's a meme going around showing a Nikki Minaj lyric which is essentially one line repeated about a thousand times with just about any song from  the 60s. Another one compares credits of a Beyonce song with the same sort of repetition listing six writers and six producers while Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" lists one writer and one producer.

Another of those trees 
split and stacked, only
two more to go.

That all took another hard turn this week when another song crossed the airwaves, a song by a modern rocker, with, get this, lyrics that say something. The group is The Pretty Reckless, the lead singer is Taylor Momsen who in another life played a character in one of those teen drama TV series, "Gossip Girl." The music is hard rock as well as pretty reckless but within it are lyrics that actually have something to say. One song had been recommended to me by a friend and I liked the music so much I ended up buying a whole album. I learned later it is a concept album with a thread that runs through it and it should be listened to with the songs in order.

The lyrics of another song on that album hit home relative to the news today. I think she was singing to and about the mind of a mass shooter in a school, but to me the words also address what is going on out there in the Nevada standoff.

For just a sampling this is the chorus from the song, "Why'd you bring a shotgun to a party?"

"Why'd you bring a shotgun to a party?
"Everybody's got one, there's nothing new about it
"Wanna make a statement? You should've come without it."

And, in the last singing of that chorus the last line changes to:

"Wanna get the girl? You should've come without it."

I thought about putting a video here, but the song has some raunchy language and in some of her videos, Momson is as close to naked as you can get and still stay on YouTube, so if you want to, you can look it up yourself.  Additionally I might have learned a lesson and maybe lost a friend or two by posting something pretty raunchy on Facebook last week so I am laying low for a while. I also recommend the song "Heaven Knows."

Which all completes the circle from rocks to rocking to rock and roll as I rock out working in the yard. The neighbors love me. Ha!

"Why'd you bring a shotgun to a party?" (Words on screen, no nudity, profanity)
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Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.― Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”―Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel