I don't think I've said anything about it up to now, and there's only (as of today) 9 1/2 weeks left.
I just read Mudflats' "What is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan's Perspective." In it, she says:
[...] Listen to John McCain and you'll hear about a maverick reformer who took on big oil, took on corrupt Alaska politicians, and whose ethics are unquestioned.
Alaskans really want to like Sarah Palin. In a state where corruption is the rule, and the same faces keep recycling over and over and over again like a bad dream, a new face, with a promise of reform seemed like a breath of fresh air. Palin defeated incumbent governor Frank Murkowski (father of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski who he appointed to his own Senate seat when he was elected governor) because he was such an obnoxious, bloviating, downright BAD politician. This staunchly republican state voted with relief, not having to cross over and vote Democratic, but still able to get Murkowski the hell out of office. In the general election Palin swept into office running against a former Democratic governor, Tony Knowles, who was capable but came with baggage. And he represented to Alaskans more of the same, tired old-style politics, and special interests that we have come to loathe.
So, if McCain had made his selection six months ago, the squeaky-clean governor meme would have made a little more sense. But, Sarah Palin is currently under an ethics investigation by the Alaska state legislature. [...]
See, six months ago, it was pretty hard to tell the lineup of Republican presidential candidates apart -- even with a scorecard. So when I tweeted a friend a Publius Pundit vice-presidential poll, he said he was rooting for someone he thought could govern: Christopher Cox, for his conservative bonafides, relative youth and ability to shore up McCain's economic flank.
He asked me who I thought had a shot, and I told him I thought the nod would be more about campaigning than governing: "Whitman, Hutchison, Rice, Watts, Jindal, Powell, Palin, Blackburn, [Elizabeth] Dole, Steele." Of those, my friend said he thought only Watts had enough experience but lacked the desire.
I didn't give the issue any more serious thought until this morning. I'd assumed McCain wouldn't give in to his long-shot leanings. I was wrong.
Today, my friend asked me what I thought of Joe Biden. I said "Meh. I'd hoped he'd double-down on change (Bayh/Kaine) or pick
Hagel or Powell or Richardson, but I'm pleased he didn't pick Clinton." I think we can all see pretty clearly what not-picking Clinton yielded.
hard time telling the truth where the truth ends and the play-acting
begins. Sometimes we act like a regular couple and do normal couple-y
things; sometimes we have really fun, playful sex. And then sometimes
we get into this other thing. [...]"
Andy Ohio's "Tied Down"
So, like, what's up with that other thing? More to the point: Were you in a playful mood the last time you had sex with someone?
I'm not talking about "playful" as in "kittenish," much less "monkeying" or "horsing" around. (Save your human/animal roleplay jokes for now, m'kay?)
I'm talking about the state of mind that has to do with gleeful improvisation, glistening wetness and gleaming smiles, glowing pleasure in the moment and getting a grip on (or getting gripped by) a willing partner.
The latest book to remind me of that delightful state, that pleasant periphery in which ludic languor lives, is Rachel Kramer Bussel's anthology of short stories. (Full disclosure: I received a review copy in exchange for a promise to write a review and post it to the book's Amazon.com listing.)
Each story is not just a rude and randy recitation of body-part motion-capture that one might plot on a graph with as little difficulty as one might play buzzword bingo with nearly any politician's boilerplate address.
It's also not just a collection of completely unlikely or implausible scenarios (airplane bathrooms, department-store dressing rooms, college classrooms, graveyards, etc.). It's called wishful thinking, not fantastic (in that other sense of the word) thinking. Maybe it's just my own imagination, but situations where a few words gone awry result in a gauntlet thrown down and then taken up sound not just likely, but like good ideas (as in Thomas S. Roche's "Pre-Party" and Kramer Bussel's own "The Depths of Despair").
It's why I'm willing to go along with Shanna Germain's "Perfect Bound" with its library-look protagonist, bookstore-cum-flytrap setting and delightfully unexpected uses for certain old-school office supplies, or Alison Tyler's "Betty Crocker Gone Bad," which turns a domestic quirk into the kind of escapade that might get left on a cable-cooking-show cutting-room floor, or Madeline Glass' "Laser Tag," which makes the best out of bad behavior at a concert and the resulting cute-meat meet-cute.
By the time you've dropped in on the grownups-go-back-to-high-school scenario of Madlyn March's "Reunion," the barn settings (yes, if you must, perhaps now's the time for your roleplay jokes) of Thomas Christopher's "Riding the Storm" and L. Elise Bland's "The Breeding Barn," you're probably several turns of the screw into certain physical symptoms that result from the consumption of well-written erotica. You probably won't even mind the workplace-turnabout triptych of Fiona Locke's "Pink Cheeks," Laura Bacchi's "Page By Page" and Simon Sheppard's "Fiscal Discipline."
Make a point of checking this book out wherever you get your hands on it, and you'll soon concur that the only thing better than bending over a well-told tale is, well, bending over a well-toiled-over tail.
I've been enjoying this track a great deal lately. Enjoy.
I hope you all are having a great summer.
I've been away from Vox for about two months now. Its been crazy busy - and I realize I havent shared any music here in quite a while.
Anyway, I've been taking care of a lot of things - mostly family related. Its really amazing just how much a person can accomplish once a decision to commit to every task has been made -- and seeing it through gets easier when there are less distractions. I didn't realize how much I enjoy being quiet and just doing what I'm supposed to. I usually like staying connected to everything... but that has changed a lot in last couple months... actually in the last six.. I've had to make pretty tough decisions that have affected my life completely. I've had to focus a lot on taking care of my family. This is both an incredible and painful responsibility.
During this period I've been listening to a lot of Bjork. Particularly this Live Box set that I purchased a couple weekends ago.
Bjork speaks well to my [very] emotional side. She's been a great companion during my solo drives. A great companion while contemplating life on a level far deeper than my usual. Her huge orchestral productions - namely, Vespertine and production on the Dancer in the Dark soundtrack are my absolute favorites. (Homogenic is a close second, or third).
Because I haven't done one of these in a while, either.
library, originally uploaded by jessiqua.
(It's been a minute since I posted over here in Vox-ville, but seeing as how I haven't had the "how much can I talk about the things about my job that annoy me" discussion with my boss yet, "better safe than sorry" is the order of the day. )
As many of you know, I made the transition from corporate life to public librarianship. While the transition has been largely smooth, and while I still enjoy my job very much, every day I come into contact with a service ethic that stands in opposition to my own. This is the latest example: while working at one of the library's information desks, a customer came up and asked for a sheet of paper. Because I didn't know where we kept spare reams of paper, I reached inside the printer, pulled out a sheet, and handed it to him. After the customer walked away, a colleague pulled me aside and said "We never give up the paper. Never."
Now, I'll grant that we have a recycling bin at the end of the desk for scrap paper (which I completely forgot about), but I couldn't believe that this was the one element of my job performance that the staffer chose to criticize.
When I read through library listservs, or when I encounter images of librarians in popular culture (Buffy's Giles excepted), I often encounter the image of the library as a foreboding, unwelcoming institution that is more concerned with keeping order and adhering to arbitrary rules than it is to delivering top-notch customer service. It's no wonder that some people prefer bookstores, and why some others would rather turn to Google for quick information service. We seem to be a surly, stuffy bunch.
My idea of customer service and end-to-end user experience was shaped -- for better or worse -- by four years spent slogging through corporate trenches. I ultimately learned that I didn't belong in the corporate world, but the one valuable lesson that I did learn was that it is much easier to say yes than no, particularly for requests that can be carried out with a minimum of effort. The patron asked for paper, and I gave it to him, an exchange that took no more than 10 seconds from start to finish. Compare it to the alternate scenario: The patron asks for paper, and I say "No, but if you look at the end of the desk, you'll find a recycling bin with scrap paper in it, and you can have as much of that as you want." At this point I've introduced a level of unnecessary complexity, created a barrier for the patron, albeit a small one, and this barrier has an impact on the patron's ability to complete their task quickly and easily.
I haven't worked in a library long enough to understand the reasons behind this particular rule, but it seems to me that library service would become more efficient -- and friendlier -- places if we just did away with those insignificant service policies and developed a culture of customer service.
Look. I'm back with a real live site using traditional blog type software. I've been doing this for awhile so we'll fore go all the pleasantries and just reference a post I wrote on vox back in December. Speaking of vox, i'll probably keep it around when I want to write stuff that is for specific eyes only or if I want to post some random music in an easily playable format. I probably won't clutter up the sidebar with a bunch of links and things either. If you want to find me all over the web, check my friend feed.
But, for those of you looking for semi-regular ramblings from me, jasontoney.com is what's happening.
Oh, one more thing - the negroplease archives, after an 18 month hiatus, are live.
(We have come to visit you in peace and with goodwill!)
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
I downloaded Firefox 3
because all of the people I obsessively read
were doing it too, not doing-it doing it
'cause that would mean taking their hands off their mice
I downloaded Firefox 3
because I heard they want a world record
for most-downloaded browser as if a browser
is the right tool for keeping up with fights between Scoble and Eric Rice
And then I learned about:robots, about about:robots
About:robots (the one with the colon in between)
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots (the one with the colon in between)
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
I downloaded Firefox 3
because I wanted to see how well it performed on my PC
Then I saw it really was a mess,
kinda slow, really not a success (all right, I'm kidding)
I downloaded Firefox 3
because I didn't want to be left behind with an unpopular browser
The kind you use to access the Net
in my cubicle when I'm learning
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
The one with the colon in between
The one with the colon in between
Put it in your browser, see what I mean
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
The one with the colon in between
About:robots, about about:robots
About:robots
Robots may not injure a human being
or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Robots have seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Robots are Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With.
Robots have shiny metal posteriors which should not be bitten.
Step one: open up a Firefox 3 browser
Step two: Type the word "about" and then a colon
Step three: Type the word "robots"
Step four: Hit return, and learn!
Shout out to all Bay Area nerdcore crew
Doctor Popular
MC Slutsky
I see you
I'm'a see you
And we have a plan.
Seen!
(inspired by Sarah Dopp)
If gender hath its own geometry,
its Euclidean arc the eye can mark,
then the non-Euclidean girl or guy
may also some new queer discussion spark.
If boddhisattva be what you are called,
it's not a label I'd consider dumb
for those Nirvana-bound are not at fault
for existing in that continuum
So those who classify and catalog
all people as they live and love and play
with every Twitter or post to their blog
they doth inform and lighten others' way,
thus broader bound be how we all exist,
how we are kith and kin, but also kissed.
I've been waking up in the middle of the night lately.... and usually during these late hours I will catch up on some reading (mostly missed posts on Google Reader) and I stumble. Tonight I stumbled upon this incredible music video - for a song by electronic artist, Pogo. The track is basically made up of sound clips from Alice in Wonderland. It is actually quite beautiful and I instantly fell in love with it. (For anyone that knows me well - noodley, spacey, pretty instrumentals like this will usually hook me pretty easily). After investigating a bit further, I just found out that Mau had posted this same video earlier this week. Makes sense.. and I'm not surprised as he and I see eye to eye on music in general... and anything that represents even a touch of our childhood will instantly be a favorite.
But wow.. the hook on this song is just as addicting as watching Alice in Wonderland. I can't stop listening to it. :)