“Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue – perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.”
—Milan Kundera, Encounter

HODOR.

 

 

 

In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight….
Not people die but worlds die in them.

~Yevgeny Yevtushenko, “People”

Slowly filtering through pictures and videos to share

From the Big Picture, captions are lacking ( “the Burning Man”) but some nice photographs. Including

 tea ceremony with Ken Hamazaki

I was very honored to be in the camp that hosted Ken and a small contingent of Japanese – one fun little anecdote for me was when I was rangering perimeter Saturday night, and they walked by and recognized me and we waved and laughed and hello’d at each other.

Why the Nose?

From MyDisguises.

Whythenose.com is dedicated to the act of wearing a clown nose, in order to make people smile. It’s really that simple. In a world filled with distractions and distrust, you’d be amazed at how many people (of all ages) have lost a sense of innocence. Or maybe you wouldn’t…

Wearing a clown nose is fun, it’s childlike, it’s easy and it’s free (if you already have the nose). We’re not trying to sell anything, we’re only showing you how easy it is to change someone’s day.

The pros/cons list from the job I wanted so, so very, very much.

the last gentleman

I went to the worst of bars
hoping to get
killed.
but all I could do was to
get drunk
again.
worse, the bar patrons even
ended up
liking me.
there I was trying to get
pushed over the dark
edge
and I ended up with
free drinks
while somewhere else
some poor
son-of-a-bitch was in a hospital
bed,
tubes sticking out  all over
him
as he fought like hell
to live.
nobody would help me
die as
the drinks kept
coming,
as the next day
waited for me
with its steel clamps,
its stinking
anonymity,
its incogitant
attitude.
death doesn't always
come running
when you call
it,
not even if you
call it
from a shining
castle
or from an ocean liner
or from the best bar
on earth (or the
worst).
such impertinence
only makes the gods
hesitate and
delay.
ask me: I'm
72.
- Charles  Bukowski


This will be it for a while.

Wow, that’s crazy and weird and hilarious.

One of my bookmarks, Superpunch, links to Burning Man videos from Cory Doctorow. And just guess which quadrant he was sitting in when he shot the Saturday night burn…that’s right, that’s me in the braids. How RANDOM is THAT!!! I barely take any pics, don’t go looking for any and the very first thing I see/watch when I get back is a famous guy’s videos that have me in them.

I’m a BRC Ranger, now – over half of the people who started the day with me didn’t make it. I could’ve cried. It’s intense. Maybe more on that another time.

I don’t know what I’ll have much to say any time soon. But I’ll try to keep up with any interesting links or photos I find. Like his brief video of the jellyfish.

Hilarious.

What I’ll be reading…

Thanks to my fancy phone! It can do everything BUT BE A PHONE. (I cannot, abjectly cannot, type on the darn thing.) I’ve got Kindle,  Amazon books and Google books AND I can get books from the library. So, here is what’s on my reading list for traveling:

Hunger Games 1

33 Revolutions per Minute

A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day

 

Barrel Fever (David Sederis essays, the squirrel one is on hold)

 

Normal Gets You Nowhere

 

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find-and Keep-Love – actually no, I’ll get that as  real book one day. Same with Madness (I have the first one), Pat Benatar’s bio…I haven’t decided if I want to pay for Dance with Dragons, yet.

 

Any other suggestions? Keeping it light-hearted and breezy…just stuff to pass the time.

We like this.

Giving megaphones a good name, for once.