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SWEET DANGO

ANOTHER SET OF WORDS FOR YOU TO READ -/THEY QUALIFY AS LEAF AND BRANCH AND SEED...

Monday, March 31, 2008

#1184 (1 of 1) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …the Cityscape restaurant and bar forty-six stories up from the street at the S.F. Hilton – going there Wednesday with a friend. Want to treat him to the view. Been there once before and would like that experience again. Even though I’m not generally into tall buildings.

2. Dialogue for The Magnificent Seven. Have a copy I printed out around somewhere, but maybe I’ll get a new one. Feel in the mood to study some of those lines again. My idea: first there was The Seven Samurai, then the 1960 Western. And now, Magnificent, that word alone, and it’s all women. And science fiction.

3. My Odd Fellow brother Pete Sellars has a little job for me: look through nearly fifty years of minutes of meetings to find a reference to a safe brought over to the 26 7th Street building from a theatre in the city called the Hippodrome. Considering that the notes are taken by hand, this could be excruciating.

4. Bought an AC/DC t-shirt at the United Nations Plaza artisan market for a dollar. Tried it on, didn’t really fit. And I like tank tops, anyway. And the image is a red hand giving the “devil horns”, which gesture I don’t particularly care for. But the price was right. Maybe it’ll make a good gift for someone.

5. Friend C. in my hotel room yesterday. He showed me a long porcupine quill, very hard and sharp, that he carries. He says his mother used to put them in her hair. He said it could make a deadly weapon – straight into the heart. Could it be considered a concealed weapon? (The other day on Hyde, a speed freaky desperate-looking shirtless fatless man offered me a nice little switchblade for ten bucks. Had the cash but didn’t want to spend it on that just then, but it may have made a fine item for my room, to cut mangoes with. As long as I could get it back inside without a police stop for, like, crossing on a red. Switchblades are illegal in California.)

6. Bought the B-52s new Funplex CD the other day and am much enjoying it. Maybe I’ll look up YouTubes on ‘em. Saw ‘em live years ago at the Bill Graham, and I have seen so very, very few live major bands. Springsteen once at, I think, Winterland, in his earlier years. Bamboo flute legend Sachdev also, in Berkeley.

7. Down in the hotel’s community room – big screen TV there. Had some time before I wanted to do something. I. there, and C. - I., I learned, is way into soap operas, and is there watching two hours a day least when they’re on. So I sat on the big sofa and checked one out. C. and I joked about I.’s fascination with the TV form. AndC. and I talked about his days in growing weed outside in the Oakland Hills – a Miracle-Gro commercial got him thinking about it. Eight-foot high plants, and many dozens of ‘em. Didn’t care for hydroponics. Also, I. sounded like he was hungry. I said I may spring for some Kentucky Fried Chicken soon, and he was agreeable…

posted by Velcro  # 4:35 PM
#1183 (1 of 1) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. Gore Vidal’s Point to Point Navigation…he mentions - it’s read by the author –
Terry Southern, and his phrase “quality lit”. (Have it out on CD from the library, only audio book I have now, and am listening to it much each day, already into a second listening of the nine hours of very high quality audio lit. Have got two William Gibsons on order, his last two novels, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country. Had them out before but it’s a good time to revisit the excellence of Gibson.)

2. Miniature Tarot deck given me by a friend recently at the Odd Fellows meeting we both attend. Good size, fits into my palm well. Am beginning to continuously study it. First card pulled: the King of Cups. Means many things, am committing them to some sort of memory.

3. End of the month, not much cash left, but have dipped into the two-hundred-fifty bucks on my Bank of America. But was out on the street yesterday with two dollars in nickels, forty of ‘em. Met two “friends” – loose use of that term – and bought ‘em each a beer. I’m what’s known in the biz as an “easy touch”…

4. Sought out the new Eagles, Long Road Out of Eden, at both Rasputin’s and the Virgin Megastore, but no go. Maybe Amoeba, if I wanna go that far. The Virgin clerk said they had it for a little while. Sold primarily through Wal-Mart. I think some of the larger music chains bought it and sold it, but that was a special stretch. A Washington Post review is lukewarm, or worse. Maybe it was a good thing, despite me being a solid Eagles fan, that it wasn’t there. And I don’t want or need to listen to all the classic tracks, at least right now, as much as I’ve loved them in the past.

5. And am happy with “Fris Co” as my new blog name – “Dude Manbro”, the immediately previous one, is no more.

6. Back to the Tarot: that first card, the King of Cups, is considered in the paperback guide I have, by A.T. Mann, “Unconditional Love”. Thought that was a good one to lead off a tour through the seventy-eight cards. Today’s is the Knight of Pentacles, “Created Form”. Depicted a knight on a horse holding up a pentacle. I can consider my bicycle a sort of horse-like transport.

7. Cesar Chavez birthday today, so no Rainbow Grocery for me. Worth it to remember the famed union leader, I spoze.

8. Been listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell recently - just bought Hejira and her live ‘70s Miles of Aisles. Singing along, even, and it takes something for me to do that. And…the Chew macrobiotic/organic once-a-week café will be happening tomorrow, Tuesday, the first of April. Chef Aris is a new acquaintance – hello, bro’! This at the 26 7th Street at Market Odd Fellows building – 6th floor, noon to, I think, 2:30pm…

posted by Velcro  # 3:46 PM
#1182 (1 of 1) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com
3/31/2008 12:20 PM “A Non-Hidden Agenda”
1. Social Security office on Valencia in the Mission – need to get there to get income data so I can apply for a California I.D through the DMV.

2. Sale of used books coming up on the 4th, 11am to 2pm, on the steps of the library. Have found nice items, like an old Arnold Ehret “mucusless” one.

3. Box Dog, bicycle shop – need to get a strong Kryptonite lock for my wheels. My favored shop, Road Rage on Valencia, is out of business.

4. May put a hundred dollars or more onto my Bank of America credit card at the beginning of the month. Have been repaying only 50 the past few months. Have dipped into that red zone deeper the past few days, happily so.

5. At 479 Ellis, located a Chinese herbalist who sells lycii berries – also called goji berries – for eight bucks a pound. Good for the eyes – mine need support. A new hot item in that marketplace of that kind of supplement.

6. New blog name: “Fris Co”. From a new song by the B-52s. There’s “Pris” in Blade Runner. Also “Chris”, the Yul Brynner character in The Magnificent Seven. And “Co” is like short for “company”.

7. Cacao nibs – chocolate, raw, unsweetened – in bulk at Rainbow. These said to be very, very good for one, so I’m gonna buy. Recommended highly by raw food guru David Wolfe.

8. Friend Joe at the Hartland Hotel, Geary and Larkin – haven’t seen him in a while, gonna pay a social call.

9. Amoeba on Haight – new Eagles sought – The Long Road Out of Eden. Not at Rasputin’s on Powell or the Virgin Megastore at Stockton and Market.

10. Listening on CD to Gore Vidal’s Point to Point Navigation. Excellent.

11. Yeo’s – packaged curry, less than a buck, good new addition to meals.

12. Rainbow incense lately – “Tibetan Bouquet”, from Triloka – recommended.

posted by Velcro  # 2:25 PM

Friday, March 28, 2008

#1181 (1 of 1) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …a few suggestions and some comments:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Miss+Bimbo&cs=bz&fr=fp-buzzmod – the “Miss Bimbo Doll”, search results. Haven’t looked at these but I like the name and should prove funny.

2. Sanskrit prayers:
http://sanskrit.farfromreal.com/index.php?x=hear_prayer.

3. Drudge Report Archives:
www.drudgereportarchives.com/ - someone mentioned Matt Drudge and his blog to me – haven’t looked at ‘em, but here they are for you.

4. www.
Consortiumnews.com. – investigative journalism, independent. “Frontline’s Timid Iraq Retrospective” is a recommended article.

5.
http://adecrea.com/ - an animated box of matches, text in Spanish. Not sure what it’s about, but it’s fun, at least as far as I looked at it.

6.
http://static.twoday.net/mobilemarketing/images/denimcode2.jpg - photo I was sent of a model in denim.

7.
http://www.chocochip.co.uk/humano2.html - a puzzled space alien and a book whose title, translated, I think, is “To Be Human”.

8. A list of Latin words and phrases:
http://www.yuni.com/library/latin.html. (Am considering a new name to attach to this blog, and maybe a Latin phrase like “Ab Absurdo” would work. But I don’t a hundred percent like that one because it’s Latin – I’m not very into that – and “Ab” could be short for “Abby”, a female name.)

9. Dave Emory interview with Sander Hicks, author of The Big Wedding, at
http://www.wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=16506&archive=22806. (This link may not work, but you have enough keywords to look it up for yourself – important material to consider. See also http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/1753/The_Big_Wedding_9_11_the_Whistle_Blowers_and_the_Cover_Up.

10.
http://people.tribe.net/35/blog/b084a16f-ba26-4548-8c7f-68f7d645aa58 - short piece called “The Genius Waitress” by Tom Robbins, a favorite.

posted by Velcro  # 12:54 PM

Thursday, March 27, 2008

#1180 (1 of 1) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. Recommendations, including:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Emory.

2.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=75488626&blogID=370417684
– Sasha Grey on the cover of Vice magazine.

3.
www.sfbg.com/39/25/x_list_art.html - an extensive listing of local galleries and museums from the Bay Guardian. Looks comprehensive and current.

4.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/06/BA27URR20.DTL&feed=rss.chroniclewatch – an article from S.F. Gate about the American flag, someone named Keith Maupin. Haven’t read it myself but want to send it along.

5.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Fish,
www.www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2rw_XDVfsg – a friend and Odd Fellow brother mentioned School of Fish, a music band, and their song “Three Strange Days”. Never heard of either, but I’m curious. (Tried to get a link to the video, which is on YouTube, but couldn’t get it inserted here. You can do it yourself if you want, tho’ I did try to make it easier for you…)

6.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debra_Winger - Debra Winger’s Wikipedia entry. Just watched An Officer and a Gentleman with a friend – before that, we’d seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – a pretty good double bill – I get my dollar-fifty’s worth a day of Comcast cable, rest assured - watched that classic early Eighties Gere-Winger and was much impressed with her work and her screen presence. And here’s www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Debra_Winger - for something about the recent movie by Rosanna Arquette, inspired by Winger.

7.
http://www.electricroulette.com/2007/05/index.html - some sort of online music/pop culture site that I just heard about…

posted by Velcro  # 11:13 AM

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

#1179 (1 of 1) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …just one page instead of the usual two today, with various items, as usual, such as:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y44TuSSt69c&feature=related. Seven minutes of Alan Watts – haven’t watched this all the way, so I don’t know exactly what visuals go along with him, but it’s a good example. Been meaning to revisit Watts, and may suggest some more later.

2.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon - Wikipedia entry for “photon”, in case you’ve been thinking about that word. The idea of UFO propulsion on my mind a little lately – I imagine it may involve these.

3.
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/DX - I recommend Dave Emory, for his political and historical analysis, a viewpoint you generally won’t find in most mass media. Been about a decade since I’ve listened to him when I was living in L.A., where KPFK-FM broadcast him occasionally.

4.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_and_Halos - for “Horns and Halos” – documentary including publisher and social activist Sander Hicks. A new name to me, wanted to share.

5.
www.kpfk.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=16&id=119&Itemid=79&lang=en – a KPFK site you may want to look at and select from. (Just doublechecking to see if this link works – it’s not. But you can get to kpfk.org on your own.)

6.
www.somethingshappening.com/ - for the specific site for KPFK’s Roy of Hollywood, who’d broadcast Dave Emory, Alan Watts, and many others, in the hours after midnight.

7.
www.vaken.se/Filer/books/Alvin%20Toffler/Alvin%20Toffler%20-%20Future%20Shock.pdf – the complete text of Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock, online. Haven’t read the book in years, but I remembered something about the trend in renting everything that I wanted to look up. Through Internet magic, found this very quickly, in the chapter called “The Rental Revolution”. (Recently got the idea to just rent a computer for my hotel room. The possible real bother of having to maintain the machine has kept me from buying one. I’ve been using free computers here and there for years, with nothing in my room, but rental is an idea I hadn’t thought of.)

posted by Velcro  # 12:59 PM

Monday, March 24, 2008

#1178 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …more of various items, including new names for me: Vox Pop and Sander Hicks. Soft Skull Press founder. Part of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Green Party member. Lead singer for group White Collar Crime. Published Unfortunate Son, a biography of George W. Bush. Four years ago began Vox Pop in Brooklyn, a publishing company, bookstore, and coffeehouse.

2. Received an e-mail about Vox Pop and its social/political activism. It’ll be having a presentation for potential investors in two days, I guess in Brooklyn. Says they “offer books and newspapers that surpass the limits of information offered by the conglomerate media.” Links:
http://voxpopnet.net,
http://www.nymegaphone.com for their “muck-racking tabloid” The New York Megaphone. Sander’s blog is at http://sander.gnn.tv. And another link is http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanderland, for anyone interested.

3.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antero_Alli - for theatrical experimenter Antero Alli.

4. And want to bring to your attention the Hunters, a new Bay Area band that’s come to my attention. Their MySpace is at
http://www.myspace.com/huntersonmyspace.

5.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_(design_collective) – Dutch designers and band who influenced late Sixties U.K. style of art in music. A lot of work done for the Beatles, including the original, rejected cover for Sgt. Pepper.

6.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society - for the Theosophical Society, and in particular its relationship with J. Krishnamurti.

7. Several links related to the interests, some of the interests, of Sasha Grey: Anna Karina
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karina; John Cassavettes www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cassavetes; Rainer Werner Fassbinder www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Werner_Fassbinder; Werner Herzog www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Herzog; the Criterion Collection, a distributor of “authoritative consumer versions” of classic films on DVD www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Criterion_Collection; and Vice Magazine www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Magazine.


#1178 (2 of 2)
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8. Wikipedia for “simple living”:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living.

9. Same source, entry for “hippie”:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hippie.

10.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L__LKaAGhIA – Z.Z. Top’s video for their song “Velcro Fly”.

11.
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bumdom – definition of the word “bumdom” – actual word.

12. Wikipedia for nutritionist, health advocate Paul Bragg:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bragg.

13.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon - definition of the word “cartoon” – including not only the modern usage, but that of Raphael and da Vinci, some of whose drawings – not necessarily humorous like ones in The New Yorker – were called cartoons.

14. Wikipedia for Paul Bowles:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bowles.

15. Get the unabridged version of William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer on six cassette tapes for twenty-four dollars, from Books on Tape.
www.booksontape.com/bookdetail.cfm/4556.

16.
www.bibliomania.net/terminology.html - links to several sites featuring terminology related to describing books.

17.
www.news.bookweb.org/news/3769.html – book Rebel Bookseller, by Andrew Laties.

18. Sander Hicks talking about his Vox Pop bookstore/coffee shop in Brooklyn:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmenvC9QVmE.

19. More about Vox Pop:
www.voxpoplive.blogspot.com/. And one more about the same: www.eviltwinbooking.org/events.cfm?view=SPEAKERS&artist_id=24.

posted by Velcro  # 9:08 PM
#1177 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …word I liked in Gelsey Kirkland’s autobiography, Dancing on My Grave: “exuberance”. Link to a site with video of her:
www.ballerinagallery.com/kirkland.htm. (It’s a pretty intellectual book in some ways, with dense language. Co-written by her husband or whatever – he must’ve really had a part in creating such a weighty text. But maybe not – she says she’d been a serious reader from an early age.)

2. Thought to check Wikipedia for Jerry Garcia:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Garcia.

3. Beginning my fifth full day out of San Francisco at a friend’s house. The picture of suburbia I noted one day: three cars out front, two morning papers delivered, a cloudless blue sky, clean and cool morning air, gently rolling hills with houses as far south as could be seen.

4. Sunday paper comics: I have eyes only for Get Fuzzy. Nothing much in the pink entertainment section, either, nothing I felt too worthy of note.

5. Also in the paper, address for an interactive map of the Financial District’s open spaces, open to the public:
www.sfgate.com/maps/cityspaces. Can give me places to head to.

6. A daily habit of mine, when on best behavior: a glass of warm water upon arising, a pint or more. I think this is a good health practice. So much illness and unhappiness and discomfort begins in the stomach.

7. Image that amused me: the house cat sticking her head between curtains, looking out, me in the backyard amused at that sight. A curiosity that won’t kill that one. And later, the cat outside – she goes in and out frequently – relaxing under a picnic table, front paws tucked in, tailed curled neatly against her body, quite self-contained.

8. Tried to get this house cat’s attention with a little purple plastic ball with a bell inside. Rolled it right in front of her and got no reaction, no instinctive lunge. One blasé feline.

9. And outside in the garden, found two snail shells, one empty, one with some moist corporeal residue of its former inhabitant.

#1177 (2 of 2)
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10. I’m pretty out of shape after three months of twenty-hour days and
nights in bed, sleeping or watching cable, plus overeating. But in a week, on the beginning of April, I should have reinhabited my body again well enough, through more movement and better food, and an improved mental outlook.

11. Easter, four hours before dinner, the lady of the house was busy preparing – had been for a while, and would be until the eight guests began arriving. A Betty Crocker cookbook from at least the Sixties opened to the frosting section. Occurred to me that she’s really an old school housewife, a rare kind these days, by many accounts.

12. The four-year-old granddaughter of the lady of the house arrived by and by. Always a very wonderful presence. At one point she turned on a DVD of Ella Enchanted, one of her current favorites. A character is eating with her hands, with little decorum, and I said to the girl that she ate like that, which she strenuously denied. It’s fun to joke around with her like that – she’s a very quick, bright girl.

13. Noted to myself to look up the word “bibliomania”. Here’s a site of a company using that very name:
www.bibliomania.net. There’s a list in the book search section of many sites where volumes can be sought.

14. One thing about Ella Enchanted: that Anne Hathaway never looked better. She was dumpy, deliberately so, in The Princess Diaries, before she was tutored in regality, and haven’t seen her Jane Austen one, or The Devil Wears Prada. But she’s a knock-out in this one, a hundred percent plus.

15. The Haight Street Festival came up in the discussion last night – here’s a link for it, coming up in the first part of June:
www.upcoming.yahoo.com/event/400090/. Went a few years ago – I recall the wall-to-wall attendants, a lot of smoke from meat vendors. Am wanting some free literature and cards and info, could see going again.

16. More from that Gelsey Kirkland book: she was so very involved in her ballet during “the social experiment” of the Sixties – she was born in 1952 and was dancing from well before her teen years – that she says she caught only occasional glimpses of it on television.

posted by Velcro  # 1:08 PM
#1176 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …as usual, various notes and links, in no specific order:
www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/. For Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle. Never read it, but it looked interesting enough when I saw copies. Keywords like “commodity”, “proletariat”. Also: “Situationist International”. Theoretical work on capital and imperialism. Marxist, so I may not like it. Too dry and analytical. But probably dead on.

2. Line of dialogue for something: “It stays with you, but do you really want it to stay with you?” All one-syllable words, except for the “really”.

3. The suburban house I’ve been visiting for the past few days has its good share of books. I picked up a copy of the Peloponnesian War history by Thucydides, opened it at random, and got this: “The same winter Brasidas, with his allies in the Thracian places, marched against Amphipolis, the Athenian colony on the river Strymon.” Doubtless valuable to read, but I won’t be enduring that laboriousness any time soon, if ever.

4. Went out shopping for Easter dinner makings more than once with the lady of the house. She had her specific grocery list, and I was looking around the bounteousness for what was most relevant to me. Blueberries, organic ones, at a dollar more than the non-. Surprised to see peaches – shipped up, leaving a massive carbon footprint, from Chile. Same with the berries. Maybe it’s best to boycott these non-seasonal fruits. Frozen blueberries might be a cheaper, more ecological, and equally-nutritious option. Haven’t located a source near where I usually am. Could see spending five bucks twice a week for bags of the source of antioxidants.

5. DVDs on sale at the Safeway-like suburban supermarket, three for ten, a decent price, including the Bob Crane biopic Auto Focus. Could do worse. (Just saw The Boondocks Saints for the first time, with Auto Focus co-star Willem Dafoe as I’ve never seen him before, in a dress, and in bed with a guy. Director and writer Troy Duffy, saw a documentary about him – I think he was regarded for a while in L.A. as a next Tarantino but due, as I recall, to some hubris and a big mouth, he never achieved much success beyond this first movie. See http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boondock_Saints for information.)

6. Was wondering where the title of the Jerzy Kosinski novel Being There

#1176 (2 of 2)
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comes from. A commercial…a phone company ad from the Sixties? Something “as good as being there”? Tried an Internet search but, unusually, found nothing.

7. Had a thought to cancel cable when I get back. Fifty bucks a month is no small change to me. But maybe it’s worth it. Just be more judicious in my viewing habits. A buck-fifty a day isn’t really bad, even for Jon Stewart’s mania alone.

8.
www.sfbookfair.wordpress.com/ - the 13th annual Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, held just yesterday in Golden Gate Park. Out of town, so I missed it. Presented by the Bound Together bookstore on Haight – been a while since I’ve been there. Might’ve bought, last time there, a copy of Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z. A whole lot of speakers and panelists, most of whose names I don’t recognize and really should. The long vendors list is interesting, including AK Press, Food Not Bombs, Last Gasp, the Long Haul/Slingshot Collective, Re/Search, and the San Francisco Bike Messengers.

9. On the tube on public TV the other night, Jose Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec in that Fifties biopic. Thanks to the Internet, I immediately found out that it’s from 1952, John Huston direction. I saw some of it a long time ago – I liked a scene showing the 19th-century technicalities involved in making the kind of large prints Henri was famous for. Here’s a site with images by the great though diminutive artist:
www.artchive.com/artchive/T/toulouse-lautrec.html.

10. YouTube visual I liked the other day, using artfully edited film of Winona Ryder, accompanied by an instrumental called “Glory Hole” by the band Indochine. Short sequences of her were repeated in time to the music – well done. Focused a lot on her breasts, zooming in on them slightly. Also on YouTube, an interview Ryder did with Charlie Rose in the mid-Nineties, displaying her impressive intelligence, and also a fifteen-second Japanese café latte ad she did. Weird about how big stars in the U.S. go to “the Land of the Rising Sun” to do commercials but never stoop to them at home.

11. Quote about George Balanchine from Gelsey Kirkland’s Dancing on My Grave: “…his abstract ballets sought to eliminate what he saw as superfluous elements of plot and character.”

posted by Velcro  # 11:19 AM
#1175 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …
www.artrock.com/ - for the ArtRock gallery at 893 Folsom. Get your Woodstock poster signed by Grace Slick for a hundred bucks, a steal. Current show is called “Secret Serpents”, by Alan Forbes – just opened on the 15th. Thirty-five bucks will get you a first printing silkscreen poster by Forbes for his own show, limited to an edition of a hundred, signed and numbered by hand.

2. Current top song in classic rock/pop for me just now, “It’s Going To Take Some Time” by the Carpenters. The YouTube version I selected features a montage of photographs of Karen and her brother, including one with her at a very low point in weight indeed, holding something with a “1” on it to indicate, probably, a number one song on the charts. Her body does indeed resemble that numeral. Would’ve been better had the Carpenters gone only to number eight and her body has resembled that number instead.

3. That song was co-written by Carole King, by the way, says her brother at the band’s official site. Recorded at A & M Studios there on La Brea in L.A. Notable for the fine flute solo by Bob Messenger.

4. Recent word I heard on the radio I liked: “annihilated”. From just before Easter, an Irish priest talking about Christ’s resurrection. He gave his opinion of the Mel Gibson Jesus movie. Got me thinking of this joke: “…well, Gibson’s Christ movie was okay, but when he had Jesus in a car chase waving a gun around, he just went too far…”

5. And out here in suburbia, accompanied the grand dame of the house on a shopping trip to pick up things for the Easter dinner, including a big bag of potatoes. I looked at the label and was impressed with just how much nutritional value is in just one humble spud: 45% of one’s Vitamin C requirements for a day, plus high numbers for many other specifics.

6. And another suburban supermarket detail: several yards of frozen pizza, a very big market niche.

7. And…the concept of foreshadowing. This I should consider more. Mentioned to me by Rachel M. after looking over something I’d submitted for her Loin’s Mouth zine six months ago. She’s a good editor. I, of course, knew the word, but hadn’t thought to apply it consciously. Also, she

#1175 (2 of 2)
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suggested inserting some dialogue. This blog has little or none of that, so that’s another good suggestion. New issue of The Mouth out soon.

8. And went out for dinner with the lady of the house and her three children at the Moonstar Chinese buffet location in Daly City. Here’s their Website, for what it’s worth:
www.moonstarbuffet.com/. Every day I’m near the San Francisco location, across Market from the main library. Went there once or twice – very impressive spread of food. Not sure the exact price to fill yourself up with as much as you can handle – I think there’s a ten to fifteen dollar lunch special. During my dinner, on the Friday before Easter, the place was full of suburban families – a good scene.

9. Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to the city after six days away. Have I think adjusted back into a more healthy mode of sleep – I’ve been waking up around 6am or before, before dawn. A better schedule for me, and one I want to continue when back to my usualities. (That may not be actually an accepted word, but it comes up in an Internet search, so there are others out there who sometimes take slight liberties with the propriety of the language.)

10. E-mailed a Hare Krishna picture depicting a scene from the Bhagavad Gita I received from a friend to my Odd Fellow brother Richard, who’s an excellent painter of long-standing in San Francisco. Got a response saying that it was for him too religious, literary, and magical, which I thought was interesting. I don’t disagree, but I generally basically like those qualities.

11. These several days in the suburbs have had a whole lot of animal protein, including many eggs fried up, a whole Polish kielbasa sausage, and ham at last night’s dinner. I have vegan tendencies that I cleave to, but I have to admit the meat and eggs were very solid and satisfying. My utter, total thanks to the animals who sacrificed themselves. Or were made to.

12. And…animals who didn’t have to sacrifice themselves in order to go down my gullet, precious fat little birds in the backyard, loving the primo mixture of seeds put out by the lady of the house. But doubtless the house cat and the many wilder ones outside notice those winged creatures, and not with an eye to their feathery tiny cuteness alone. I’ve heard that one small bird, feathers and beak and all, is the perfect diet for a cat. The house feline is mellow, tho’, and is content with what the lady sets out in easy reach.

posted by Velcro  # 9:32 AM

Sunday, March 23, 2008

#1174 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. ...more material that was sent to me or I thought to seek out:
www.luckymojo.com/barrett/refs/7802trouser.html. An article about Syd Barrett, originally published in 1978 by Trouser Press. Not for everyone, but enough of interest in it for me. Possible mentions of Hipgnosis and Granny Takes a Trip, for one thing. See also: www.floydianslip.com/download/hipgnos.pdf and www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny_Takes_a_Trip. Valuable to any interested in rock music in Britain of the Sixties and immediately subsequent years.

2. Photograph of wheatgrass:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/Wheatgrass.jpg. Will be worth it to me to get on my bicycle and find this substance. Juicey Lucy’s on Columbus near Filbert, if still open, has it, for just one place in San Francisco I can think of. I think the Urban Forage that used to be in the Lower Haight had it – too bad they closed.

3. Was moved to write out a heroic couplet for the first time in many months:

…an opening, the karma of boutiques,
a confluence of animated freaks….

4.
www.esterhernandez.com/ - for “Sun Mad Raisins”, a painting by Ester Hernandez, a work of art from 1982 critical of corporate pesticide-laden fruit.

5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an4yPkF9xx8 – “Green Tara Mantra”, on YouTube. Listener comments and responses: “…very powerful and lucid mantra” – “so soothing and so enlightening”. Not necessarily for every moment of one’s day, unless you’re some sort of hardcore Buddhist monk or nun.

6.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIYz8tfGjY – two and a half minutes from Annie Hall, featuring Marshall McLuhan. A classic, really classic moment in a really great, funny movie.

7.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oBgCx4K42F4 – about the same length

#1174 (2 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

as the Woody Allen clip, of a manta ray. (Didn’t watch the whole thing –
I assume it doesn’t change dramatically somewhere along the way, such as splicing into a Seventies porn flick or something. But YouTube is careful with what’s presented and has a sign-in procedure required for some of their content.)

8. Wikipedia entry for “object-oriented programming”:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming. Supposedly easier to learn and use than what was taught thirty years ago.

9. Passing these five sites along – came identified as “Laugh Out Loud”, without details. The first twenty seconds of the first one did exactly that for me – an angry black guy on the phone talking to some hapless victim, doubtless white. Contains cursing, so be forewarned. I can’t say what’s on the rest of the first one, or on the others, but I trust the source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoR51kvoavo&NR=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bejEAfUlOFghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUn3hC9ITWkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvKDg06MpXUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0kdIMU9Kcs

10. And now to conclude this posting, want to pay some deserved attention to the list of exhibitions by San Francisco artist Richard L. Perri, one of my Odd Fellow lodge brothers. He’s shown at the Café Reverie at Carl and Frederick, up there close to Haight Street, and at the Café Roma – an 885 Bryant location comes up – but it’s possible there’s one up in North Beach, on the other side of town. He’s no stranger to the Michael Thompson and Andrea Schwartz galleries, both south of Market. And his work has hung at the S.F. Museum of Modern Art, and many other local locations, including an affiliation with Bank of America. And there’s a list of publications that have featured his work. So…just wanted to put in a good word for him. He’s doing just fine without my involvement, but I like whenever possible to give praise.

#1173 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. More links for your consideration:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tsarion, for Michael Tsarion. Conspiracy theorist among other things, including alternative historian. Affiliated with the New Age Academy in Berkeley, where he taught Indigo children (will have a link for that later). Said to have “true spiritual understanding”. Book from four years ago called Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation. Key phrase about him: “forbidden knowledge”. Believes Ireland was colonized by Atlanteans escaping from their destroyed original home.

2. Indigo children:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children. Supposed to represent “a higher state of human evolution,” it says.

3. Fnord:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnord. Wikipedia says it’s “the typographic representation of disinformation or irrelevant information intending to misdirect, with the implication of a conspiracy.” First read the word in Illuminatus!, by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea.

4. Wheatgrass juice:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatgrass. Here’s an article from four years published in San Francisco: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/08/03/elixgrass.ETL. And a list of local vegetarian restaurants and such, some of which purvey the juice of the wheatgrass: www.happycow.net/north_america/usa/california/san_francisco/index.html. And here’s a site by one “Dr. Wheatgrass”: www.DrWheatgrass.com/. With a name like that, you know he’s not going to put the stuff down. Apparently it’s so perishable that it’s not bottled and distributed that way. In pill form at venues such as Rainbow Grocery, but doubtless the nutritional and enzymatic content goes way down if taken that way.

5.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism - for Wikipedia’s entry on paganism. Recent other topics in mind made me think of that one.

6.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna - a good place to start for the thought-provoking Terence McKenna.

7.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara - this gets you to the Wikipedia

#1173 (2 of 2)
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disambiguation page. Select “Tara (Buddhism)”. A friend e-mailed me pictures of taras and that got me to considering them.

8.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indica_Gallery - the Indica Gallery, a London art establishment in London in the late Sixties, in the basement of a bookstore with the same name. Related: the International Times, a U.K.-based underground newspaper. Here’s a link to an archive for that publication: www.international-times.org.uk/ARCHIVE.HTM.

9. Martin Sharp:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Sharp. Australian cartoonist and all-around artist in general. The Sixties London equivalent of San Francisco rock poster luminaries such as Stanley Mouse and Rick Griffin. He also co-wrote Cream’s song “Tales of Brave Ulysses”.

10.
http://www.ilaniowear.com/ - the same friend with the tara interest mentioned this site, for a clothing brand called IlanioWear. “Dress Your Senses” is their logo. Not for everyone, but my thumb is up.

11.
http://www.geocities.com/kuanyintempleofmercy/MantrasandChanting.html - for mantras and chanting. (I just tried to log in to it but couldn’t due to an exceeded data transfer limit. But it was fine earlier and may be so again if and when you click on the link. You can also try other search terms like the ones embedded in this URL, such as “kuan yin”, “temple of mercy”, and “mantras and chanting”.)

12. http:
www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Miles,%20Barry – has a list of books by Miles, who is associated with the Indica Bookstore.

13.
http://www.bigozine2.com/features06/DTsyd.html - an article about Syd Barrett. A friend’s into him and I find Barrett relevant to the main thrust, the main purview, such as they are, of this blog.

14. A picture called “Green Tara in the Jungle”, speaking of taras:
http://people.tribe.net/dangerangel/photos/25b29e54-bd9b-4ad6-a160-a019facec599. Featuring a very peaceful dark green. (All the included links should work fine – I take some pains to make pretty sure of them – but if not there are plenty of search terms given.)

posted by Velcro  # 11:13 AM

Saturday, March 22, 2008

#1172 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …topics possibly under consideration:
www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8389&page=22 – Illuminati symbolism in corporate logos at a site in the David Icke sphere.

2. William Irwin Thompson -
www.williamirwinthompson.org/. You want to exercise your mind, he’s one to do it.

3. Jacob Atabet:
http://www.geniebusters.org/915/02_atabet.html. An interesting novel you may have overlooked.

4.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dharma_Bums. May just spend the ten bucks or so to get the new edition of this.

5.
www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-mason-san-francisco. A 24-hour establishment that I’ve been to a few times in the early morning hours before dawn.

6.
http://green.sfgate.com/. Haven’t looked through this site yet, but it’s sure to contain plenty of good material.

7.
http://nutiva.com/products/7_hempseeds.php. Someone just gave me some of these seeds – very nutritious.

8.
http://away-home.tripod.com/manson_barkerranch.html. Charles Manson in the news again recently. Investigators looking around this former “Family” encampment for dead bodies. MSNBC just had an interview with the man from two decades back. Whatever else you can say about him, he’s fascinating to listen to. It’s not by accident that he was able to entrance so many people. I was about to put a link here to a YouTube clip of Charlie singing, but I’ll spare you that spectacle.

9. Selected reader comments at a site about the origins of the Starbucks mermaid symbol:1) Darren: “Well, some interesting theories as to the origin of the current incarnation of the corporate logo (a British actress, Mary Magdalene, Knights Templar seal, etc.), but I think you will have to agree that all of these theories fall dreadfully flat in light of the fact that it is almost a perfect dead-ringer for a carving of the pagan goddess Astarte, right down to the

#1172 (2 of 2)
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wavy hair and starry crown, with the only difference being that the arms are
curved inward to make for a neater circle. (I've a graduate degree in art history, BTW, for what it's worth.) Don't believe me? Check it out and then decide for yourselves; below is a link which has a direct side-by-side
comparison of the current corporate logo and the ancient carving of Astarte
of which I write.
http://la.cacophony.org/starbucks.html.” [They really do look alike, if the old stone relief carving of Astarte is for real.]

2) “David: Pagan goddess is correct, however it was a Canaanite Goddess that the people would off their children to as burnt offerings to pay homage to this pagan goddess. Corporations usually take on a logo of something that has something to do with the occult whether it is deliberate or accidental. This logo was not created but imitated. If Starbucks knew of this do you think they would continue to keep it as their logo? Probably since most people don't pay attention to these things anyway but it does however have a spiritual connection. Hey I drink it too! and each time I am reminded of this pagan goddess. Kinda make me feel a little strange and I think of going back to drinking dunkin' donuts coffee now that I am aware of this.” [In general I go out of my way to avoid Starbucks. Passed one on my bicycle the other day here in San Francisco and decided, even though I have a twenty dollar gift card, to find a more agreeable location to pass an hour, which I did at a local, really Boho-style coffeehouse that had slipped my mind. Independent places like that deserve patronage more than cash-fat Starbucks and other corporate chains. I mean, really, does the Starbucks coffee taste so much better than at local, one-of-a-kind coffeehouses? Especially ones that don’t condone child sacrifice?]
3) “Betsy: Canaanite worship consisted in human sacrifice, preferably first-born children, as a burnt offering to Ba'al and consort, Astarte. This detestable and inhuman pagan custom of slaying and then cremating the victim, also practiced at Tyre in honor of Melcarth, was severely condemned by the Mosaic Law and was made punishable by the death of the guilty party (Lev.18,21; 20, 2-5).”
4) Fnord: “Do YOU honestly think Starbucks would've chosen a logo associated with a cannibalistic goddess? The image was meant to look like a Siren, with the wavy hair to cover her breasts. The similarity to Astarte is much more likely to be coincidental than intentional.”

#1171 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. Here are links to various recommendations, including:
www.mindless23.stumbleupon.com. Did in fact stumble upon it. “Discover new sites” is their slogan. Looks like whoever puts this together has a good eye.

2.
www.netvalley.com/intval3.html - article about hypertext. And here’s a link to the new Kindle eBook: www.baekdal.com/notes/work/amazon.kindle/. I could see testing one of these out.

3.
http://raysahelian.com/turmeric.html - benefits of turmeric. Got myself a little container of it yesterday. A bit bitter, which taste I don’t care for, but it may be a good idea to take a little every day, so I heard on a cable program about health.

4.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/03/16/tibetan_riots_spread/ - Tibetan unrest, photo of a colorful protester in Kathmandu.

5. A young British woman talking about LSD – go to
http://youtube.com and search for “hot girl on lsd”. You may have to go through a logging in process since it may be “inappropriate for some users”, says YouTube. Strange that on the computer I’m on right now I was able to see this clip at first, then not. I suppose it’s inappropriate because the image it presents of an acid tripper is not really a negative one.

6.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfnpJkU_UHs for a really incredible musical machine created mostly out of farm equipment by people at the University of Iowa. I almost think it’s a computer-generated animation, it’s that unbelievable.

7.
http://www.sanatansociety.com/free_stuff/free_wallpaper_lakshmi_1152x864.htm - an image of Lakshmi, Hindu deity of both material and spiritual wealth. I’m not really a Hindu as far as I know, but this was sent by a friend who’s a devotee.

8. Searched on “nameless timeless formless” and got this, from a Singh

#1171 (2 of 2)
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person – some sort of Hindu philosophy :
www.gurbani.org/webart49.htm.

9.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akal - got this also for “nameless timeless formless”, discussing a word from the Sikh tradition, and I thought I’d put it up on the table. (Sorry about the change in color of the text – wanted to keep it black, but try and I might I can’t get it to go back.)

10.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_of_St_Germain - back to the Western tradition. In the paper someone’s been advertising three volumes by or about the Count St. Germain for thirty dollars. I feel an impulse to inquire about this – now that I’m off my four-month layoff from nearly any activity, it’ll give me another somewhere to go and another someone to see. I’ve been meaning to spend more money on books and not just get them from the library, so this will do that. (The Count of St. Germain – have vaguely heard of this character. A friend once gave me an Elizabeth Clare Prophet paperback about him, back when she was more happening, which I subsequently gave away. Looking over the Wikipedia entry, he seems like a Casanova-type character who made various scenes in Europe a couple of centuries ago.)

11. And completely different:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=U2ae2vJ-GA8, a music video for “It’s Going to Take Some Time” by the Carpenters. Of all their songs, this is the one I wanted to listen to just now. Had to do with the line about “birds on the telephone wire” – there are in fact just such wires in the backyard of the place in suburbia I’m at now, with just such birds, so I guess that was it. Plus the beauty of the song, of course.

12.
http://www.dharmacentral.com/faq.htm - for, uh, Sanatana Dharma. Yogic, Hindu material, not for everyone. But I find it valuable. The view presented here is more comprehensive than some narrower sites.

13.
www.thieves.org – don’t know exactly what this one’s about, but it might rouse your curiosity.

14.
www.terrysouthern.com/ndt_reviews.html - reportedly Terry Southern – co-screenwriter of Easy Rider and other movies, and writer on his own right rite – wrote the captions for a recent book about the history of Virgin Records. That’d be one I’d like to see.

posted by Velcro  # 12:05 PM

Friday, March 21, 2008

#1170 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …saw a Grateful Dead CD on sale on the street the other day. Picked it up and looked at it, but didn’t buy. Am peripherally seeking new music, not what I’m so familiar with.

2. Rode by City Hall the same day – small protest about China and Tibet. Also, oblivious to the bad news out Lhasa way, a bride having herself photographed on the steps.

3. Am beginning to lose the weight around the middle I gained in the last three and more months of near-death inactivity. Carried my bicycle five floors up to my quarters, breathing hard. Metabolism being worked.

4. Potatoes will be a main food for the next period of time. Reminds me of the book Potatoes Not Prozac. Here’s a relevant site:
www.webheights.net/depression/desmaisons/pnp.htm.

5. A good word to find uses for: infinitesimal.

6. Marshall McLuhan – called the alphabet a funnel.

7. “Eternally Grateful” is the title of a Grateful Dead two-disc package available at Starbucks. Here’s a little write-up about it:
www.dead.net/features/dead-world-roundup/short-takes-new-hits-compilation-summer-love-audio-memoir. I’ve got a twenty dollar gift card for the coffee franchise I’ve had since Christmas that I might use to get this. I just said I am wanting new music, but maybe this will work okay.

8. The Darwin Awards…I need to catch up on the more recent work by Winona Ryder, like this one. Here’s the trailer:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIEQXIkXrPU.

9.
www.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080319/ts_nm/china_tibet_dc - Tibet, China, the Olympic torch. And a quote by a Chinese official calling the Dalai Lama “an evil spirit with a human face and the heart of a beast.”

10. Looks like the Milk filming is over in the Civic Center area. Was seeing electrical cables snaking into buildings for a while. Here’s an article:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/MNUBULUI1.DTL.

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11. On the way to visit a friend outside the city, stopped to buy a gift at the Wednesday Farmers’ Market. Settled on a half-pound of almond brittle from some farm, eight and a half bucks. It was enjoyed, a good choice.

12. Picked up a copy of the Bay Guardian to read on BART. Left-wing and progressive and not, I believe, in the pocket of corporate interests, like the S.F. Weekly is said to be. Wanting to address myself more to the city’s issues.

13. Doc Savage paperbacks included among shelves of books at my friend’s house, pulp fiction from the Thirties. This quote ends one of the novels: “His life was dedicated to the strange creed of helping other people out of their jams, and calls for his aid came from all over the world.”

14. Called up “The Unabomber Manifesto” on the Internet, looking at it seriously for the first time, although I had bought a copy in L.A. in the Nineties. I don’t think it can be dismissed easily.

15. Bedtime reading before ending the first day of my stay, Dancing on My Grave, the Gelsey Kirkland autobiography. Was it suburban silence that was contributing to the ringing in my ears? Am I so used in my usual surroundings to a constant buzz of sound?

16. A purring cat near me on the dinner table. Spaghetti and sauce, bread with butter. Conversation about the new de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

17. Is there “levitas” to balance “gravitas”? Levity, levitation. There’s a Wikipedia entry for “gravitas” – “depth of personality”, for one thing – but none for the other. Is it not a Latin word?

18. Am needing new socks. I rarely, rarely buy any new clothes, but many of my current socks have holes. The Gap on Powell is a possible place of purchase. (I’m really beginning to stretch to find content for this. The hour’s getting late and my bed awaits. Thinking of the pleasant little garden out back – I’m accustomed to urban concrete. Light blue flowers, pink flowers, a bird feeder with many types of seeds and corn. Must remember to vary my surroundings more than I have been, for my health and happiness.)

posted by Velcro  # 11:26 PM
#1169 (1 of 2) www.starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …more various items, not necessarily sequential, including:

2. “He became catatonic and was sent to a government institution on the outskirts of Toulon.” – a line deleted from the audio book version of William Gibson’s Neuromancer that someone gave me. Well, an abridged version of anything of Gibson’s is better than the full text of 90% of whoever else is out there, but I sure felt the real loss of flavor due to missing lines such as this. Here’s a site that contains some of the book:
www.lib.mediaring.ru/GIBSON/neuromancer.txt_Piece40.04.

3. Just saw again the 1995 Robert Longo movie of Johnny Mnemonic, based on one of Gibson’s short stories. Not as bad as I’d remembered it was – pretty okay, in fact. A little wild and crazy science fiction warm-up for Keanu Reeves, who four years later would get even wilder and crazier for the first Matrix. Here’s the New Yorker short write-up about Johnny Mnemonic:
www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/johnny_mnemonic_longo.

4. Blueberry solid extract, mentioned last posting. Heard about it in Prevention magazine, which is actually a pretty good source of bits of health information. Here’s a link to the publication:
www.prevention.com/cda/vendorarticle/blueberries/HN3589003/nutrition.recipes/food.encyclopedia/.

5. Wanted to mention about this past “winter” in the Tenderloin that there was not much real rain, as I recall. Had given away a very solid, big umbrella that someone had given me, which was a mistake, but really had not much use for it. I’m one who’ll sometimes just walk without cover in the rain and like it. Made do when inclemency called for it with a slightly-damaged small bumpershoot I’d paid two bucks for.

6. The “religion” of Bohemianism – picked up on this concept somewhere on the Internet. Said there to be the fastest-growing religion in the world. Here’s the site:
www.theologies.org/bohemianism.html.

7. …was intrigued by an interview on the tube with a Mafia hitman called “The Iceman”. Here’s a link to an article:
www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/kuklinski2/1.html. Regular

#1169 (2 of 2)
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family man with kids, wife said not to know about her husband’s hundred-
or-so killings done for money, and sometimes for other reasons.

8. Got a program on Dubai recorded that I should attend to. A very happening place, materialistically-speaking, with a lot of money used for such things as constructing the tallest hotel and tallest building in the world. Question is: boom or bubble there? Leader named Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum – see
www.travel.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/travel/10entrepreneur.html for a New York Times article about him. When he’s not overseeing Babel towers he’s also a poet and has got the wherewithal to have his words visible from airplanes by placing them on an arrangement of villas on stilts. The phrase so honored: “Great men rise to great challenges.” No self-esteem problem for the sheik.

9.
www.raynelson.com/bio.html - biographical details of Ray Nelson, who wrote the short story “8 O’Clock in the Morning”, which was turned into a comic book called Nada, which was made into the John Carpenter movie They Live.

10.
www.litminds.org/blog/2007/05/interview_with_melissa_the_pro.html - interview with the owner of the Bibliohead independent bookstore in Hayes Valley.

11.
www.asianart.org/cafeasia.htm - for the Cafe Asia, the café at the Asian Art Museum. Needed a place to sit for an hour recently and was able to buy a seat with a nice view for the cost of a square of foil-wrapped chocolate, a buck-thirty including tax. Wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to spend much.

12.
www.happyherbalist.com/analysis_of_kombucha.htm - analysis of kombucha. Says that the half of one percent of alcohol is about the same as in a glass of orange juice. O.J. has alcohol?

13. Chew is the name of a new organic/macrobiotic café on the 6th floor of the Odd Fellows building at 26 7th Street near Market. Open just once a week, noon until, I think, 2:30pm. I was surprised and happy to see this. They seem to strictly adhere to macrobiotic principles – see
http://www.macrobiotics.co.uk/ for a U.K. site about this subject.

posted by Velcro  # 9:03 PM
#1168 (1 of 2) starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …a Tenderloin detail: a “mixer” party outdoors at the Hastings law school on Hyde, with students, well, mixing. Police guard visible for some reason. The school’s a definite presence in the neighborhood. I’ve never been inside but now that I’m out and about again more than I have been the past sixteen weeks and more, I may just sit outside it when no class is in session. I asked a guard once about this and he said he’d have no problem with that.

2. Wanted to mention: I Have America Surrounded, a biography of Tim Leary, with a foreword by goddaughter Winona Ryder. One of the books I had from the library the last time I really got heavily into reading, a few months ago. Go to
www.ihaveamericasurrounded.com/, where you can see the first quarter of the text free. (Note: The Winona “foreword” is not actually new – it’s the speech she read in the ‘90s at the eulogy for Dr. Tim.)

3. And in fashion news: one of my clothing options from what passes for me for a wardrobe is a khaki military-style jacket I bought on the street for five bucks. Solid construction, and I think it contours to my body well - and I don’t say that about too many garments. Someone said “Vietnam” when he saw me in it, so it gives off that vibe. Taxi driver Travis would wear such a jacket, too, and he was a veteran of that war. I don’t necessarily want to adopt a military look but I like the way it feels and, as I said, I have so very few clothes, and fewer still I’m happy enough with.

4. And…the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, brought to mind because of that Leary biography. See
www.erowid.org/library/books/brotherhood_eternal_love.shtml for a little about it at Erowid.org, which has a lot of interesting material, looks like.

5.
www.webmd.com/content/article/82/97166.htm - for a transcript of an event by Dr. Steven Pratt, who has written on what he calls the fourteen “superfoods” that he believes are the most nutritious of all. He’s a reputable doctor affiliated with La Jolla’s Scripps Memorial Hospital and he applied computer technology to analyze a lot of food and came up with this list, which is at the above site. I’ve read the book, and because of what he recommends I’ve begun eating a lot of tomato paste and broccoli, as well as having blueberries on the mind a lot.

6. …Hong Kong rock candy – no, not the street name for a drug, but the

#1168 (2 of 2) starplane.blogspot.com
sweetdango@hotmail.com

actual crystallized sugar. A guy I see frequently has a thing for sugar, has asked me for it, and when I saw a bag of this unusual H.K. product in an Asian market I had to buy him some. Under a buck, and I think he appreciated the gesture and exotic uniqueness of it – not your average C & H. Frankly, I’ve given him more than he’s given me, in terms of incense, spare change, what have you, but recently he gave me a jar of apricots and a bag of hemp seeds (the legal kind, meant for eating), so I appreciated that.

7. And another Tenderloin detail: St. Anthony’s, the free lunch. Have not partaken of that delicacy in months. Since I’ve stopped drinking, I’ve had the cash to buy my own food, but for certain I’ve been in that line many times, a must-do when in the ‘hood.

8. Lysine, the amino acid. Apparently missing in plant protein, but legumes – beans, peas, lentils – contain a lot, so they can make up for that deficit.

9. Blueberries, the recommended superfood. One to two cups daily is a suggested amount. That could get very costly. Just today, out here in suburbia south of San Francisco, saw what was less than a cup of them selling for three dollars. But even on my less-than-grandiose budget I could see the value of that expenditure, if these berries are all they’re said to be, and I do believe they are.

10.
www.kaganof.com/kagablog/2007/03/08/john-bryan-writer-editor-valued-underground-press/ - a tribute to alternative press force John Bryan. He was responsible for the Open City underground newspaper and was the first to publish Charles Bukowski’s prose. I met him a few years ago when he was working at the Abandoned Planet bookstore at 16th and Valencia. And speaking of Tim Leary, Bryan also wrote a biography of him.

11. And speaking of blueberries, was at Rainbow Grocery one day to check on solid blueberry extract, which I’d heard about. I figured it would cost even more than the raw berries themselves, but maybe due to the concentration the price would be worth it. Well, a clerk there couldn’t help me and I gave up then. But here’s a link on the Internet:
www.herbalist-alchemist.com/blueberry/blueberry_solid_extract.htm. Yeah, called “Blueberry Solid Extract”. (And there are also goji berries to consider also: see www.altmedicine.about.com/od/completeazindex/a/goji.htm.)

posted by Velcro  # 4:00 PM
#1167 (1 of 2) starplane.blogspot.com sweetdango@hotmail.com

1. …continuing with the usual kinds of subjects. I’m still “getting my head around” regularly typing this blog out again so please excuse the apparent randomness. Tho’ there really isn’t necessarily any narrative here.

2. Wireless Fidelity in San Francisco. How necessary is this? What are the health issues? I may very well turn my thumb down on the massive implementation of this technology.

3. Once I moved a dead pigeon from the Hyde Street sidewalk where I’d found it onto an open bit of soil around a put-upon city tree. Another day after, I was glad to see the bird’s body was still there. Burial may have seemed too eccentric, but I liked that it was resting on the soft soil and not unforgiving concrete.

4. A 7-Up delivery man was in an Asian market I always frequent. He told me it takes all day to make his rounds just in the Tenderloin. And it’s possible he brought around only 7-Up and not even any other carbonated soft drink. There are very many purveyors of the drink, sometimes several on each block.

5. Recommended book: Michael Walker’s history of Laurel Canyon called – big surprise! – “Laurel Canyon”. See
http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=52 for a review. Liked a phrase he used about some musicians in the American Sixties, how they “aped the duende of the British bands.” “Duende” is “the ability to attract others through personal magnetism and charm”. (This reminds me that Jungian analyst and more Clarissa Pinkola Estes made much of the unusual word in a tape of hers I heard a while back, broadcast in the middle of the night by Roy of Hollywood on his KPFK-FM radio program. Here’s a link to an article about Pinkola Estes: www.radiancemagazine.com/issues/1994/wolves.html.)

6. Walker comments on the reported death by ham sandwich of Laurel Canyon luminary Mama Cass Elliot, that it isn’t true – it was more like a heart attack. See
www.snopes.com/music/artists/mamacass.asp for a discussion of this urban myth.

7. And there’s another anecdote from Michael Walker’s book, related by a
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then-twelve-year-old girl named Stephanie, who would hand Janis Joplin her bottle of Southern Comfort during performances from behind a drum kit. Stephanie said she thought this was normal activity for a little girl.

8. And also from the Walker book: how Elvis was “rendered superfluous” by the Beatles doing “All My Loving” on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Here it is:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFe7B69UUM0.

9. And liked this phrase of his: “the great wheel of popular culture was turning.”

10. And…am into a little bit of a William Burroughs kick again just now. I like it that his long-term effect on me is like that – I won’t focus much on him for months and months then something will make me want to revisit his work. For your enjoyment - or something - here are three links to Burroughs-related sites I took note of last night:

11.
www.notbored.org/soft-machine.html - a few paragraphs about his 1961 “cut-up” novel The Soft Machine, specifically about his use of a post card motif throughout.

12.
www.popartmachine.com/blog/?p=115 – a collection of covers from the many editions of Burroughs’ books in various languages.

13.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=85zCwCQPDI8 – the Nike commercial the man did about 1994.

14. And: checked out from the library a few months back a book called Colonial Affairs, which has a section about Burroughs in North Africa. Here’s a review of it by some Washington academic – that’s Olympia, not D.C.:
www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/2107.htm. (I just did a search on what the S.F. Public Library has relevant to him: a hundred-and-forty-five results. So that’s a lot of material there in case anyone’s studiously-inclined.)

15. And one more thing about the Michael Walker book: Jermaine Rogers did the striking cover illustration of an era hippie girl with attitude to burn.
http://nowherelimited.com has it for 75 bucks in a print signed and numbered by the artist from an edition of just a hundred-and-a-half…

posted by Velcro  # 12:06 PM

Thursday, March 20, 2008

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1. ...more of the same as above, such as:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uw03hS_EMY – from Fifties television, classic humor. Reminded of it because of the following, sent by a friend…

2.
www.mtv.com/news/articles/1445116/20010712/story.jhtml - Peter “Shock the Monkey” Gabriel teaching twelve bonobo apes to play music.

3.
www.itoen.com/ - for a major supplier of green tea. A friend just mentioned their name to me so I pass the information along. I’ve personally been partial, too partial, in part due to the high caffeine content, to yerba mate, which I think is a form of green tea. This brand looks more traditional. There’s “green tea powder” around, too, which is probably very potent. I heard Alan Watts once mention that Zen monks drank it to help stay awake during prolonged meditation. Worth looking into.

4.
www.annieappleseedproject.org/vitaeelixxir.html - a site that mentions something called Vitae Elixxir. The same friend mentioned this stuff, which is new to me. Thought I’d just put it out there – some sort of herbal and healthy drink, medicinal.

5.
www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/softmachine.html - for something about the Soft Machine, the Sixties British psychedelic band that emerged from the UFO Club scene that produced Pink Floyd. The same friend mentioned them – I’m thinking of really getting into some band and maybe these guys would fit that bill.

6.
www.cellfood.com/ - Cell Food, a nutritional supplement. Am thinking I should use this. A bit over twenty bucks for a small squeeze bottle at Rainbow Grocery, a thirty-day supply. I – and plenty others - could go for that period of cleansing and readjustment of metabolism.

7.
http://wordpress.com/tag/david-icke/ - just watched John Carpenter’s A+ B movie They Live the other night, and it reminded me of David Icke and all his work. This link is to a site with links to blogs inspired by Icke, so it’s a good reference.

8.
http://flashbackbooks.com/ - source of books about psychedelic drugs,
drug culture, the counterculture, all that – you know the kind. The site has

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plenty of very rare items for those into this sort of thing, a place I could easily spend a lot of time browsing through because of the lovingly-detailed descriptions of each item.

9.
www.scribd.com/doc/35218/Barbara-Marciniak-Bringers-Of-The-Dawn-Teachings-From-The-Pleadians - a lot of text here that should be worth the time spent reading, for some anyway. I’ve got a copy of another of Marciniak’s channeled books, and that’s saying something because I don’t have a lot of books around just now.

10.
http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/9billion_clarke.html - the whole text of Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Nine Billion Names of God”. Tibetan monks are part of the plot, so that ties in to current events.

11.
www.goodtherapy.org/Person_Centered.html - about Rogerian psychotherapy. This isn’t necessarily the best site for this, but it’s something to start from. (I wanted to put the Wikipedia entry here but for some reason I can’t cut and paste that link. I suggest going there if possible.)

12.
http://www.DharmaCrafts.com – a friend sent me an article criticizing the Dharma Crafts catalog. They sell Buddhist merchandise – perhaps an oxymoron? – and, what’s worse, at often very high prices. Twenty-five bucks for a few sticks of a Tibetan variety – see what I mean?

13.
http://members.tripod.com/paulkangas/heart.html – not the Miami financial commentator of the same name, but a San Francisco person with what I think are valuable ideas about politics and health. I have to study this site more, and I offer it here for your consideration.

14.
http://www.itoen.com/weil/ - part of the same Ito En tea site listed at the top of this, featuring healer Andrew Weil promoting turmeric, which is the substance I wanted to mention here. Saw a program on cable on which another healer recommended it as something nearly everyone should take. It’s an ingredient in mustard, regular ol’ American mustard. Dr. Weil’s photo is next to a box of his own brand of turmeric tea – a dollar a “packet”. The bulk jars of your local purveyor of this type of substance would be more economical, although it seems Dr. Weil’s doing the right thing just promoting the stuff on mainstream media, as he has done a lot.

posted by Velcro  # 6:41 PM

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