Lance Cpl. Kowshon Ye, a Marine Corps combat videographer with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 8, plays with a kitten after conducting a raid in the village of Sareagar in Sangin, Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Seaman Jordan Baker, 13 August 2011.)
“Uhura” comes from the Swahili word UHURU meaning “freedom”. Uhura was pretty much the first ever black main character on American television who was not a maid or a domestic servant in 1966. TV network NBC refused to let Nichelle Nichols be a regular, claiming Deep South affiliates would be angered, so Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry hired her as a “day worker,” but still included her in almost every episode. She actually made more money than any of the other actors through this workaround, and it was kept secret from the other actors, but it was still a humiliating second-class status. The network people made life hard for Nichols, constantly trying to pare down her screen time, purposefully dropping racist comments in her presence and even withholding her fan mail from her. This deplorable state of affairs led Nichols to make the decision to quit after the 1st season, but then she happened to meet the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. who pleaded with her to stick with the show because as a Black woman she was portraying the first non-stereotypical role on television. I had a crush on Uhura as a kid. LOL.
I love this picture, I love this woman, I love that Gene took a stand against the network, and I love that Nichelle had the courage to stick around, and inspire a generation of women (of color and otherwise) to believe in themselves.
“Gentleman Cthulhu” 2011
For one of my 2D design art classes I had to create a “Kara Walker” inspired piece of art. Kara Walker does silhouettes (there is something more twisted to her work, but I don’t feel like explaining it). My good friend HayHay and I decided to collaborate and do a piece based off of Cthulhu. As you can see my silhouette was of Cthulhu himself dressed as a gentleman. HayHay’s was of a woman (who looked like she was from a Jane Austen profile) with tentacles, holding a bouquet of flowers. Together, they looked fantastic. Unfortunately I only have an image of mine! Not only am I so proud of this, but I now want to learn as much about Cthulhu as I possibly can.
Cthulhu has not yet become an obsession, but I have a feeling he is going to be in the near future…
(via thelovecraftsman)
The pen of the mighty hew a bloody path.
(Source: wilwheaton)
I hope you’ll represent my fictional novel.
To you and the other countless authors who refer to your books as “fictional novels,” will you please, for the love of all that’s holy and good in this world, stop it. Besides, I don’t represent fictional novels. I represent only poetic poetry, nonfictional true stories, how-to-cook-stuff cookbooks, and children’s books for children.
I just used for the first a mini espresso-maker (brews one double-shot) for the first time. It was given to me many years ago as a present by my friends Patricia and Rob.
I did not have any espresso in the house so I went to the local Shaw’s Übermarket for some. They seemed not to have any Italian espresso. Saddened, but not deterred, I went over to the ETHNIC FOODS aisle (You know, the aisle with stuff whose labels have words with too many consonants and vowels and in all the wrong places). There in the LATIN sub-section, I found a vacuum-packed red brick of Goya Café. It was under five dollars. Score!
So, I run home with my brick in the increasingly sultry (Does “sultry” that mean “having much sulter?”) weather and into my climate-controlled digs. Filling the bottom bit with water, I realize that my charming demitasse was really a semi-hemi-demitasse. I retrieve an American and decidedly less charming chipped brown cup from my cupboard and fit it beneath the pipe (faucet? el pipe-o?) and the base and place both on the gas burner. The width of the base is just wide enough to balance on the tangs of the burner grate.
I turned on the gas. I looked at the little pot and saw a hot metal casing with pressure building inside set precariously on top a flame. A bomb. Then I thought, no. Italians have been using thing this method for at least a century-and-a-half with little or no decapitation or other caffeinic mayhem.
With a chuff and a gurgle, espresso emerged. Using an oven mitt (the cup was hot), I poured my cup of homemade espresso into my semi-hemi-demitasse. Assuming the proper standing posture, left hand on hip, I sipped my espresso in three quick sips.
And it was good. Well, not half-bad, anyway.
Before being dis-employed, I worked at a company which paid me me an uncomfortable salary. Saving money from that unremarkable paycheck, through judicious scrounging, as my Depression-Era parents (the other Depression by-the-way) did with theirs, was not my modus operandi. Any amount saved from it would have made me Dickensianically (It’s a word. I just made it up.) miserable. It would have meant turning the thermostat down, eating my own cooking for lunch and making do with home entertainment and *gasp* library books.
But what did that small pay-envelope afford me?
A typical day would be a couple of visits to Peet’s Coffee in Harvard Square for my morning ambition and afternoon morale. For lunch, it would be an episode of Kung Pao Chicken (if it was a Monday) at Yenching, my favorite Chinese restaurant in the Square. I looked forward to these. It was my pat-on-the-back to myself for again going a day without murdering a customer. After commuting home on the No. 73 bus, I would usually fix myself a pleasingly high-fat-to-calories ratio sandwich and then listen to NPR or read a ripping yarn.
The ripping yarn was usually a book which I had bought that day at the Harvard Book Store (no relation, except geography, to the ginormous academic institution). I either stopped there at lunchtime or after work to pick up something in the way of an intriguing historical treatise or deliciously murderous fiction.
With the exception of an occasional board game (another failing of mine), that was pretty much my wastrel lifestyle.
In my present circumstances, I have had to put that all aside. It is aggravating. I often have to say no to visiting friends. When visiting, I would usually bring a six-pack of beer with me or share in an order of pizza. Drinking and eating without kicking in is not an option for me. Also meeting at a pub was right out. Pretty pathetic.
So, money is handy, I discover. I never made enough to buy a car or a house. But I did make just enough to make my life reasonably pleasant. It also allowed me to be with people. At the cafe, I would talk with friends and shared incidents of the day. They were the day’s first conversations. It doesn’t take much dough, but it does take some.
I will get another job. It will without doubt be a better job than I had. Not to say that my old employer was Dickensian in his mien and generosity. No, not at all. For him to be described as Dickensian would mean a chance at redemption. But that story I will leave for another day.
.
I have been watching a couple of British detective series via Netflix streaming. One from the 90s: “A Touch of Frost” and one from the mid 2000s: ”Waking the Dead.” I will not contrast and compare the two, but I will touch upon a phenomenon that must have a bit of truth in real British life. When a policeman comes to your house, whether a lord or a lackey, innocent as a vicar or guilty as Macbeth, you put the kettle on and make tea. The policemen expect it. The suspects expect to do it. Each series has a different tone and style, but that reamins the same. Oceans of tea are drank and prepared by the detectives and the detected. It seems part of the British Procedural DNA.
Before my next viewing I am going to invest in a teapot so that I can get more out of these programs. It may even improve my accent.
Well, so far, so okay. This is my first week of of involuntary dis-employment and haven’t taken to drink, listened to the blues or joined the Communist Party. I have gone to the unemployment office, which is “Career Source” in 21st-century-speak. They were professional and accommodating and did not tag up on any stereotypical tropes. It was a comfortable, modern office with good carpeting and comfy chairs (no standing). The folks were friendly, sympathetic and efficient. They were, however, not encouraging. On my experience in retail, they said, “Things have changed since you stated in the business.” Oh, good. “These days they’re looking for SYTs (Sweet Young Things).” Swell. I told them what I was expecting in severance, “That’s all?” Hurray. They could not tell me what I could expect in benefits, because my former employer had not entered anything into the state database yet (all zeroes). They would send him a letter. Grrr.
I have sent in one application to prospective employer who was trying to buy our store. Have not heard back yet. Sunspots and my hatred-of-freedom is probably slowing the emails down.
By looking at want ads online, I have seen that a soupçon of typing skill is handy. My skill is not quite at that level; it’s more at the innuendo-level. I bought the “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing” software pack and am lurching hesitantly forward towards typing respectability. My initial lesson/test has me at 93% accuracy (good) and 21 wpm (not good).
I have sent my résumé to friends to make suggestions and improvements. Career Source says employers want concrete skills. My grandfather was a brick-mason. Is that close enough?
This is not by me. But it could have been if I had enough sleep and a bottle of really good IPA.
Title: The Destruction of marriage
Post by: woodshere on March 11, 2011, 10:54:14 am
From a friends FB wall with some additions:
So, let me get this straight…Charlie Sheen can make a “porn family”, Kelsey Grammer can end a 15 year marriage over the phone, Larry King can be on divorce #9, Britney Spears had a 55 hour marriage, Jesse James and Tiger Woods, while married, were having sex with EVERYONE, Newt Gringrigh has had several mistresses and his on his third wife, countless elected officials have had affairs, one Representative was active at a brothel, Ted Haggard got cracked out while doing the nasty with a man and Jim Baker left his lovely wife Tammy Faye after his “indiscretion”. Yet, the idea of same-sex marriage is going to destroy the institution of marriage? Really?
