marianne moore

in 1955, eccentric and brilliant poet Marianne Moore found a letter in her Brooklyn mailbox from Robert Young of the Ford Motors Company.  Mr. Young was interested in having Marianne conjure up names for their newest automobile.  he wanted the name to establish, “some visceral feeling of elegance, fleetness, advanced features and design. a name, in short, that flashes a dramatically desirable picture in people’s minds.”  Moore instantaneously agreed, and from the end of October through December of that year she came up with a list of names she wanted to include. her final choice was, “utopian turtletop” which unfortunately did not make the cut.  Young decided on “the Edsel” instead, which completely flopped!  serves him right for not listening to a wordsmith. you can read the rest of marianne’s list here. my personal favorite is the thunderbender.  who wouldn’t want to drive a car that can alter the state of sonic shock waves? by sv

celebrity arrest: even the not so greats get arrested – mugshot 0


not that we want to crucify anyone who mistakenly drank and drove… as foolish as that is we all know one or 2 fools. but again we don’t have problems with those who smoked but never inhaled either.

“on september 4, 1976 (age 30), george w bush was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol (othewise known as drunk driving) near his family’s summer home. he admitted his guilt, was fined $150, and had his driving license in the state suspended for two years, although the white house had claimed 30 days, and no one ever asked for a proof of birth certificate. this incident did not become public knowledge until it was reported by erin fehlau of maine in the week before the 2000 election when no one really cared. by xy

The Lake and Stars: calling all mother teresas

a painting rendition of the actual adverts by dutch painter nop briex

by now you may have heard of the lake and stars (designers of “world famous lingerie line”, no one has ever heard of – until now!) and their nordic mother and daughter campaign with india menuez (daughter) and johanna methusalemsdottir (mom) that sparked an outrage in in press and on TV calling it everything from “incest” to “outright disgusting”. well as usual, we’re not sure what all the fuss is about, other than an affirmation that a lot of dirty minds and a lot of hypocrites still run the public dialogue. if you ask me, there is more incest going on between wall street and the congress than there is in here… and let’s not talk about what is really disgusting these days… such as civil liberties being pummeled while we all sit around… i mean where do these people come from to act all righteous? and about what? i personally don’t find this campaign that great but it doesn’t bother me either. if i want to be bothered by anything there’s plenty more to go around. if i was to analyze this campaign, i would say that it’s more about the beauty of age and confidence in your individual body, than anything else. besides, the nordics clearly have a better way of handling their families and sexuality than we do so let’s settle down there. there are less unwanted child births there than here, there are less STDs there than here, no children appear to be taking machine guns to school, and can’t recall the last news report about an icelandic mom putting her dead child in the fridge in order to continue collecting child care, so maybe we should shut up and take care of the real problems before we act all righteous about such petty things. don’t put out the stars just because you can’t reach them! by uh

jesus-is.org


no that’s not very nice. he’s much more than a taco… you know i don’t like to rag on anyone’s belief, just as long as they don’t try and rag on my non-belief. so let’s stop the advertising and the political lobbying and we can all go out for some mexican. you can have a taco and i’ll have some mole. in case you are interested in this snazzy interactive viral site you can visit it here. ok, vaya con dios. ooops. by dd

on religion and nature: captain paul watson


i’ve never seen the silly television series on him cause i haven’t had a tv for 20 years but i can imagine it to be laced with faux action and manufactured drama at the hands of the station and producers but not this man. anyone, that includes south park, who would dare criticize or rag on this man is spineless, weak, or unintelligent. join him if you can and have the balls, if not send the man your money and praise him for doing what we can’t. just reading this it makes me want to have lunch with him, and i never have lunch. the man is brilliant, i wish i was him.

“you don’t walk by a child that is being abused, you don’t walk by a cat that is being kicked to death and do nothing. so i find it abhorrent to sit there and watch a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but “bear witness” as they call it. i think it was best illustrated a few years ago, the contradictions that we have, when a ranger in zimbabwe shot and killed a poacher that was about to kill a black rhinoceros and  human rights groups around the world said “how dare you? take a human life to protect an animal”. i think the rangers’ answer to that really illustrated a hypocrisy. he said “you know, if i was a police officer in herrari and a man ran out of bark place bank with a bag of money and i shot him in the head in front of everybody and killed him, you’d pin a medal on me and call me a national hero. why is that bag of paper more valued than the future heritage of this nation?” this is our values. WE fight, WE kill, WE risk our lives for things we believe in… imagine going into mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. you’re not going to get very far. you’re going to be torn to pieces. walk into jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. see how far you’re going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. and everybody will say you deserved it. walk into the vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. see how far you’re going to get. not very far. but each and every day, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the amazonia, the redwood forests of california, the rainforests of indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws and how do we respond to that? oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of amazonia and redwoods of california, were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in mecca, a decrepit old wall in jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we’re committing but we won’t do that…” – captain paul watson, sea shepherds marine and wildlife conservation join or donate online to sea shepherds by dd

Forza Italia… my ars: looks like another one bites the dust


it was long overdue, but it took berlescuni to bankrupt half of europe, not to mention rob italy before anything happened. not that i expected the italians to get anything done, they have been too busy sipping espressos and chasing skirts since WWII. i suppose we can thank the many pissed off women in italy and the rest of europe for berlescuni’s sad and comical end. we don’t wish for anyone’s revengeful demise, not even a dictator’s, but some sort of jail sentence would be in order, if not for all his crimes for just one of them. maybe the gentle type of sentence dished out to lindsay lohan at least, no? by dd

that’s how life is…


“life is a big sea of lava, morphing and melting, turning and twisting, and i am but a pebble despite the rock, my destiny melting away into a sea.” – werner davrak  by dd

happy halloween: a brief history


i was wondering what this funny business was about, that every year we dress ourselves up silly and walk around town knocking on doors. what started this anyway? so i looked it up.

 

halloween is based on the christian holy day of “all saints day” or “all souls day”. its roots go back to the celts, signifying the early days of winter which were generally associated with death and darkness in the northern regions. halloween, unlike the mexican day-of-the-dead where you honor and celebrate those whom have past, is a reminder to all us sinners. this of course was adapted from the celts ritual and peppered up with the idea of sin. on this day all the dead saints (the believers) ascend to the heavens, and the lost souls get stuck on earth. the ghosts scurry about,”causing trouble and damaging crops”, and the rest of us undecided fellows on earth (who are still alive) have to then dress-up as ghouls and ghosts, (or pimps and prostitutes these days) to hide from the real ghosts. the pumpkin is the american version of the european turnip, as it’s more prevalent on this land. back then, turnips were carved out and used as lanterns and placed on the door steps to ward off “evil spirits”. now, the pumpkins are made of russell stover’s chocolate intended to chubby up the little children more than the evil spirits. anyhow, this is the story of how halloween came to be. isn’t it funny that even today we still follow all this silly stuff? by dd