Friends of the Sasquatch

Happy Christmas Day to you.

Spent an evening with the Nibsters. Last one in a long time, since I'll be in classes on Wednesdays from here until March. I left home at five thirty, taking my copy of "The Master and Margerita" for company on the bus.

I was up at the counter ordering a cider, and the guy (Russ?) looked at the buttons on my jacket -- I have Heidi's pins on my jacket -- and said "Behemoth?"

"Wha?"

He pointed at the pin which is a black cat's head. "Behemoth .. you know, the cat from 'Master and Margerita' .. is that supposed to be him?"

I goggled some more. He went on. "Have you seen the cover of the last edition of the book? A cat's head staring out at a city?"

If I had had my bag I would have produced the book from the inner pocket with a flourish, but I'd already left it upstairs. As it was, I could only tell him "I have it in my bag right now", and recommend "The Man Who Was Thursday" as another good book to read. The strange arm of coincidence! Whooo! Whooooo!

Had a nice lunch with a chum, spent the day reading "The Master and Margherita" again, will be at Racer this evening around six thirty if you are in the area. Love to see you.

Hey, want to see some messed up stuff? An author having a bad meltdown? I found out about this via the Slog, but this is a very good summary of the deal as it went down: a writer of space romance books goes ballistic in response to a bad review, eventually threatening to report the reviewer to the FBI for harassment. (Piano march music plays, sings:) So if you feel like you gotta respond / Hit delete, back away, simmer down!

Grand plans to lunch with a friend were derailed by my inability to specify where we were going to meet, so we wound up missing each other.

I really hunched to get out to Ballard in time for lunch. I was on a 49, and would have been there in plenty of time to maybe stop in the UD to get some sketchbooks; but just before leaving Broadway, the driver stops and gets a guy with a wheelchair he's not using, which is piled with stuff. The guy seems a bit cognitively impaired, and the driver is a burly authoritarian with a shaved head, so they had some difficulty getting the guy settled before we could continue -- and sure enough, we're down the road a ways when something happens: the guy pulls out lighters and starts playing with them.
"You can't have lighters on the bus," the driver says, jamming the bus to a stop. "F___ you!" the guy yells back, they start yelling at each other ... I just left the bus and started walking, walked across the bridge and caught a 44.

Arrived on time, but missed my friend, so with lunch off the books I caught a 44 back to the UD, bought two sketchbooks, then went to Magus to find a book to read for lunch. And got a copy of "The Man Who Was Thursday", an exemplary novel by G. K. Chesterton, which they filed with the mysteries. I know Chesterton wrote the Father Brown books, and indeed the cover of this identified it as a mystery, but it's really a sneaky christian allegorical fantasy, like if one of John Buchan's paranoid end-of-Empire thrillers mutated into "The Master and Margherita" halfway through. It's fun. A police detective infiltrates a gang of anarchists who are plotting a terrorist action against world leaders -- straight out of Buchan, only secrets begin to be revealed and it all resolves in one huge amazing chase across France and through London, and then it all fades dancing away.
The book is thankfully free of Chesterton's usual noxious anti-semitism (I'm rereading another of his novels now, which features a character named Moses Gould who is described as having "negro vitality and vulgarity" and is compared to "a performing monkey"); but, sadly, his idea of anarchism is, along with everybody else's, a cabal of wild-haired bomb throwers (the character Gogol, who seems to be the epitome of an anarchist, is a shock headed, violent Polish radical caricature). It's surprising to me that Chesterton actually includes a character giving a spirited and level-headed defense of anarchism, although that character turns out to be the Devil.
And what to make of the dedicatory poem at the beginning? Chesterton dedicates the book to an old friend, and the poem is about how they faced down the disturbing ideas of a past generation -- he mentions a green carnation wilting, which clues me that he's referring to the radical ideas of the Yellow Book era, the Wilde and Beardsley era -- but, G. K., those radical ideas were completely necessary, and you have to acknowledge that they didn't die away. I'm suddenly reminded of the character in the Waugh novel singing "Change and decay in all I see"; to those old punters, the last lions of the empire, change was synonymous with decay, because they weren't supple enough to mutate along with the rest of the world.

I actually went DOWNTOWN to a DEPARTMENT STORE to do CHRISTMAS SHOPPING. What a thing to do!

It wasn't so bad. I went as early as I could, and beelined right for what I needed to get, shopping like a guy .. I can tell you, since I know you're not going to tell her, but I bought Kaija some nice socks. It's what she wanted. Socks in pink and red and purple. Then I came home.

I was still feeling like I needed to get out, so went to Everyday Music to see what was there. Every Solstice day we sing "Ring Out Solstice Bells" by Jethro Tull, but with the turntable hors de combat we can't play our LP copy of it. I went in looking for a CD copy .. no. Went checking my other traps .. the Peter Bjorn & John album with "Failing and Passing", no; the Fall album with "I'm A Mummy", no. I wound up in the international section looking for that Luaka Bop collection of Shoukichi Kina songs .. no, but I suddenly disinterred "Bomb The Tumbi" by Safri Boys. This is bhangra at its best. I was so happy to have found it, I couldn't keep from giving it to Kai when she got in.

And a box was sitting on the stoop when I did arrive home: a gift from K's brother and partner, a box of Harry & David treats -- the "Tower of Treats". We immediately ate all the chocolate and nuts, put the apples and pears in the fridge, and put the wrapping material on as hats. This makes the third package of treats we've received -- got a box from Larry & Lavid on Saturday -- so we are swimming in pears. Pear cobbler? We could make one ..

Well, this has been the year for tracking down the videos, hasn't it? First George Harrison on Rutland Weekend Television, and now this. It's Mona Abboud on the Tonight Show, singing a classic Christmas song.

K got up and went to the bathroom, then came back and got into bed. I clutched her. She giggled: "I was writing songs with Bob Dylan. He said to me, You can lose a lot of street cred writing songs about taking taxis to breakfast'."

I got a couple hours of sleep in when Kaija went to the gym, and when she got back we decided to go out to Seattle Center, check out the Winterfest activities. Today was their multi-culti winter holiday show, including the Black Nativity Gospel Choir, an arab winter music program, and the Klez Kids.

The Center is looking ultra depressing these days. You know they're pulling out the Fun Forest to replace it with a huge auditorium in which they can bring in the big bucks shows that, for now, go to White River Ampitheatre and such. It's a great loss to the area.

Anyway, the Gospel Choir is directed by the legendary Patronella Wright; the Rev. Wright was once a soul singer (documented on the "Wheedle's Groove" CD) but got the Lord and became a choir director. She can still sell a song, but a lot of the music just struck me as rote God-shouting. That fellow Sanjay, who was once the brightest star in the firmament, came out and sang a number, and he wasn't so good.

I was having a bit of a depressive episode, so we cut out after their set, watched the ice skaters for a while, then rode the bus home. I promise to keep myself out of the deeps for you.

Yes, I'm up at four AM. I've been up for two hours.

I woke up from a dead sleep, weird dreams. We were trying to get out of somewhere, in a car -- couldn't move because there were blocks under the wheels. So we had to stay, and since we had to stay I went ahead and designed the cover for the next album by a band I was producing -- I'd turned into this Ahmet Ertegun figure -- they were a bunch of volatile English kids like Oasis, and when they came in they WEREN'T happy to see I'd done their artwork for them, but I reminded them that they had six hours till deadline if they wanted to come up with their own design. Just as we were rolling up our sleeves to chart it out, something woke me. The cat, maybe.

She's been bothering around for the last two hours, but I'm not going to feed her until five. In the interim I've phoned in my UI claim and finished the new Lethem novel .. his tribute to Phil Dick, a pretty good book, sort of an amalgam of "Radio Free Albemuth" and "Slaves of New York" ..

Now I'm online, and when done here, if the paper isn't in, I might read another of my library finds. There's the second POPEYE collection, a book of actor's interviews, and "French Milk" -- that contentious volume. Actually, I don't know if I can finish this.

I had to recuse myself from a job offer, which makes me feel a bit sick. Had to do it, though. For one thing, the plant is out in Edmonds, which is so far North that Google Maps doesn't even give you an idea of which bus you can take there ... and they sent a test in Illustrator which baffled me -- even with years of prepress, in which I used Illustrator on a daily basis, and after taking a class last term on Illustrator usage, I still couldn't figure out what they wanted. (Maybe the instructions were vague? Yet somebody will figure it out.) So I sent an email bowing out.

Last class of the term last night. I was the only sucker who had both Photoshop and Web Design who didn't use the same website design in both classes -- stupid me, I made up one fresh for each. The work I could have saved. ( Then what happened. ) 

Borrowed from mr_f ( Year end meme )

Last day of the season. I'm in the Computer Lab again, surrounded by Japanese girls in coats with ear hoodies like sheeps and cats, finishing last minute details on my last project. Am reading two books, abandoned two (the Monty Python philosophy book was too cute, and I just can't get through "Designers Can't Read"; the book on Jerry Lee Lewis delivers, as does the Groucho book), and will be going by the library today if I can. I am preparing to be bored for two weeks, so forgive me if I am boring by turn.

I haven't done JACK SHIT today. I was up at four, but went back to sleep and laid in until ten. Then I rose, gathered to me all the library books I needed to return ("Nylon Road" -- "Persepolis: the Bratz Version"; a book about the New Yorker Theatre that could have used an editor; some throwaway book of audition anecdotes) and got two others (a book relating Monty Python to philosophy -- cutesy; a new edition of "The Groucho Letters") ... then I got a burnracked minute steak and some potatoes, frizzled them up and ate them, and after I finish this entry I may sit down and read, or I might just go back to bed. I've kept the rope taut all term, keeping as busy as I can, and I am taking the next two weeks OFF.

Just a quick note to say that I shall be available most days now, if you need some company. I'll be at loose ends until Jan 4th, at which time my new schedule will eat my brain.

Another session with Mary L. at the college, in which she planted another spiritual boot in my behind. If it's what is needed to get me moving around, I welcome its arrival. In this case, I hadn't yet registered for next term's classes -- I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for it, but you're not supposed to worry about that. I went back down to Registration with the boot print and the information that I'd somehow woggled a $4000 Pell Grant. That will see me through four terms, if I go slow. I'm in for another term, studying Javascript and the next level of web design and Unix.

Final in Illustrator: it went well, I believe.

It is that it is that time that I tell you how we got out tree this year. We, in the past, have rolled it down the hill in a shopping cart; carried it, with one end held up by a leash (wiseacres yelled at us "Taking your tree for a walk, eh?"), and lashed it to the top of a friend's car. This time, we lucked out: a vendor of trees set up at the Cap Hill Farmers' Market, mere blocks from our home, so we were able to buy a six foot tree and I lugged it home with no trouble (except a little soreness in the forearms when I woke up this morning).

It was a beautifully balanced tree, full branched at the bottom and with such a wonderful topper that we eschewed the use of our tree top ornaments and left it alone. We strung all the lights on it and then I napped while Kaija put all the ornaments she could on it ... it looks radiant. Then we sat and looked at it for hours, listening to music.

And we have a christmas spider .. every year one of those things gets up on the top of the tree and builds a tentative web. Kai saw one leaping and hopping around in the tree when she was hanging ornaments, so we have our trad spider visitor.

Finals week. I have a lot of paperwork to finish, a lot of ground to cover. Will let you know how it goes.

Never made it out to the show .. crashed and slept. We're old people.
I slept badly this morning, waiting to hear the paper arrive. Since the evil forces stole my paper two weeks ago I can't relax. Not to get too paranoid sounding, but did I mention that our New Yorker went missing two weeks ago? I had to wait for that issue to turn up on the magazine rack at the store before I could see it -- is it significant that the issue featured a photospread in which an image of the President of Iran was set opposite one of our own president? Or that there was a rather unflattering review of Palin's book of self-justification? I WONDER.