Echoes in a Hollow Space

I do not like beets, turnips, or stealth turnips (rutabagas). Every time I read a book in which someone consumes one of these vegetables, I get the woogily doogilies up my spine.

I'm not overly crazy for most melons (cantaloupe is the one exception). I do, however, love the smell of melons. Over the years, melon lovers have tried to make me feel like an freak because of my inclination to smell but my disinclination to partake. Shame, vile meloneaters.

I do not like kiwis (New Zealanders and birds excepted). When they first starting showing up in the United States, I glommed quite a lot of them. They were expensive and fashionable. I was young, I was shallow (though those two conditions do not necessarily always go together). One day I finally said to myself, "God, these things are awful." I have been a better person for the admission.

I have, however, been known to lust for mangoes. I cannot think of a single, solitary vegetable I lust for—unless you count potatoes. I did go through an aberrant phase earlier this summer of lusting for roasted vegetables, especially roasted Brussels sprouts—which before I roasted them I loathed with the loathing of beets, turnips, and rutabagas.



*The first in an occasional and arbitrary series of silly and irrelevant posts.

Quote of the day:

"Gods are great. But the heart is greater. For it is from our hearts they come, and to our hearts they shall return . . ."

—Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Things I thought of blogging today: The fact that this new movie, The Island, is a remake (or rip off?) of a horrifically cheesy scifi movie (The Clonus Horror) from the 70s that wound up being parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Why anyone would want to remake such a turkey is beyond me, but the current moviemakers seem to have given it a high-gloss finish.

God, I miss MST3K.

One of the great ironic highlights of my writing career was when I realized that one of the stink bombs being parodied on MST3K was written by a writing teacher I had at UCLA whom I loathed—not because he was a stinky writer, but because he was a pretentious bully and control freak.

God, I miss MST3K.

Just the thought of the poopie suit scene in Starfighters has me laughing until I...

Random pretentious thought of the day: Poetry, it seems to me, is about the willingness to be naked in front of strangers.

No, that's not quite right. It's about the willingness to appear to be naked in front of strangers. It isn't confessional, not the good stuff. No, it's more like doing a strip tease, but when you get past the point of your skivvies what the audience really sees is a marvelous body suit that gives the breathless illusion of skin.

Odd discovery of the day: One of my ancestors showed up being discussed on a mailing list called CIRCUS FOLK. Imagine my delight! I had so hoped he'd been a two-headed man or a wildman of the woods—or at least double-jointed—before converting to Mormonism and acquiring nine wives back in the 19th century before the church outlawed it. But no, the wildest he got (before the wives) was playing clarinet in the band. Of course, the nine wives were a bit of a feat—and makes for some amazingly tangled genealogy, I can tell you.

Fortunately, I'm descended from the black sheep line of that family.

Of course, he also spent time as a ship's carpenter. I like to think of his polygamy as a formalized and sanctified extension of his seafaring days.

Here's a verse for Kevin of the day: From today's Edward Gorey calendar:

The seaweed on the shore cries out,
But only it knows what about