busker

To Seattle for a slap-up farewell lunch to dole-ful days of unemployment and lack-lustre hours of unbridled idleness.

She suddenly bursts into a song I only dimly remember:

"Ma's out, Pa's out - let's talk rude:
Pee, po, belly, bum, drawers
P**, P*, B****, B**, D******"

We both laugh out loud, even tho' we can't remember who sang it or why on earth we should remember the words.

"Look", she says. "The clouds. Amazing."

Cue new toy. Snap, click, squint, aim ....

Ice cream castles in the air

I joke about the end of days of wine and roses and the straight furrow I must now plough in the service of the Mighty $$.

She quotes Tennessee Williams on how he divided his life

89% - Work and worry over work

10% - Struggle against lunacy

1% - Friends

Moons and Junes and Ferris Wheels

The clouds *are* rather spectacular and I keep getting up to find a new angle to snap from.

The camera's large LCD screen makes snapping a doddle.

We agree les nuages will probably look even better on the voyage home.

Acronyms

As a test, I see how many I can list of the tech terms, abbrevs and acronyms in my new life:

HDTV

A/V

LCD

PCM

DTS

HDMI

CRT

MP3

RFI

RGB; AVC

AACS

SPDC

HD, DVD or BD

CSS

ISF grayscale calib * aspect ratio

Usable rates * Native rate

fL light output

Black level; white crush

NTSC, PAL

RBH Sound

CEA

BF

Top 10s

I love "charts" and the Guardian comes up with some good ones.

• Top 10 Supernatural Books - of which I've only read the Amis and Hamlet.
• Top 10 Dystopias - you know, opposite to Eutopia ... "almost always cautionary tales - warnings of where our political, cultural and social surroundings are taking us."
  • Usual suspects: Phil K. Dick, Orwell, Golding of the Flies, Clockwork Burgess.

Virginated

How very funny.

Down I trundle to the Pav to buy a brace of tickets for one of the Brothers - Grimm or Four, or maybe even a bit of scaredy-pants hand holding with Red Eye.

Anyway, sharp-eyed mamzel spots that the 40-virgins poster over the ticket booth actually has all hyphens in place.

This signals a photo opp, so out with the new toy and a quick snap as evidence.

It's only when we get home that I'm struck by the splendid juxtapositioning with the Wedding Crashers poster:

I wish Oprah would stick to her forte, lite-weight chatter with the show-biz witty such as Tyler Perry* and stop being so grandly sensitive about herself.

I place equal blame on the Chicago Defender journo for feeling the need to eke out his column to the extent of giving ink to Ow's shock-horror absence from the John Johnson funeral.

No doubt up to her usual trick - this time in Hawaii - of rolling up late to some tourismic hotspot and demanding a special opening with full bowing and scraping for the Winfried entourage.

And talk about over-protesting. The lady was elsewhere; she sent notes and flowers. Gesture made, sincere and believable. Why overdo the histrionics by offering copies and flower receipt?

I'm sure the funeral was adequately enough attended by other Ebony-style heavy hitters for the chubby chattereene's absence not to have been *too* severely felt.

It's probably no thanks to that drat article that she came up with the idea of an emotion-wracked oprah-rah tribute to the Ebony founder.

Matched to the highly unwise intention to resurrect her Hermès whinge, the September return of her show looks set fair to be a thoroughly cringe-inducing affair.

Thanks to a tip-off by the tireless Anita Rowland in her Meetup report, I'm able to pass on a nifty little write-up by the P-'gencer's Athima Chansanchai.

As per so many previous, I missed the August meeting and probably won't improve my track record ... except that I *might* now that I've been hauled back into the work force.

I may need to tap all those clever types for opinions on 21st century automation of customer service processes.

Before I forget - 10/10 to Ms Chansanchai for extremely conscientious linking - I think everyone mentioned got their chefs-d'œuvre a look in there. I suppose that's the current etiquette, making sure you get everyone's URL, rather like in olden times reporters dutifully noted everyone in a photo lest they inadvertently leave out some grandee pal of the proprietor.

Speaking of clever types, Jake Metcalf came out with some splendid quotes - must have made AC feel her trogging out to Ralph's was all worthwhile:

"We're attention whores ... The meetings are a good way of telling yourself that you are not nuts and there are other people that are obsessed with creating and sharing content online."

That's so good. Yes, I really must  be less feeble about mingling with The Players.

Also a good quote from Hubby-of-Anita, the carefully full-named Jack William Bell, or rather Jack William "Antigravitas" Bell, if I'm to keep in everyone's good books and do an Athima and credit everyone's page.

Quoth JWB:

"I blog because it is an outlet for writing ... I am a writer and computer programmer for a living, so you would think that writing in my spare time is the last thing I would want to do. But it is a busman's holiday for me; a chance to write humor or rant or do any of the other things I can't do in the dry prose I churn out for a technical audience."

The only other phrase to catch my eye was that recurring observation that ,

"These guys religiously monitor their blog stats through tracking services. They know how many readers visit daily, which browsers they use and who links to their sites."

They do, don't they? I've noticed that. Rum ... and applied to so many bloggie types. I wonder if I'm missing out on something terribly obvious or Freudian ... or just plain lucrative.

Peace Mission 2005

China-Russia War Games

The Beeb makes it sound as if the 10,000-pax war games are sabre-rattling against the US.

I'm far more convinced that it's handy practice for their beef with Japan

All the same, it's a bit dramatic to hear a well-placed commentator talk about war before the year is out ...  

1. Mr Tang Chunfeng said in Hong Kong that a military clash could erupt between China and Japan by the end of this year.
2. Mr Tang fears that Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi's domestic political crisis will push him to provoke some sort of dispute, most likely over the East Sea oil and gas fields.
3. Quoth he: “On the issue of resolving the Sino-Japanese dispute over the East Sea, I am the least optimistic person in China ... I believe China and Japan will fight over it before this year’s end.”
4. Tang pointed out three potential directions the East Sea conflict might take:
   • The Sino-Japanese relationship deteriorates.
   • Both sides make compromises
   • Or neither side yields, and the conflict becomes long-term.
5. In any of these three likely scenarios, a military conflict would be a possibility.

The Office

Infallible sign of the utter failure of this unfunny rip-off of the Brit series is the way we've been punished with back-to-back repeats for not tuning in to this disaster the first time round.

I re-watched a few minutes here and there - the Hot Handbag seller; the Health Plan - in case I could come up with more barbs and con an editor of a few more £s, but it was all too dire to deserve further ink.

Basically, it's Steve Carell making silly faces and gurgly noises to gloss over the moments where the American has no equivalent to what was funny in the Gervais version. In other words, most of each show.

Worse, the poor chap was lumbered with spending commercial breaks talking up some new movie starring him as a 40ish virgin.

(And what *of* the 40-yr-old male 'n' laidless of this world? Thoroughly pleasant coves, if you ask me - and a petty time this movie has set some of them up for from giggling office Lotharios ... ).

Back to plugging the new flick, I can't think of a more effective way of repelling viewers than to promote a new vehicle in the middle of re-runs of an agonizing turkey.

Carell seems nice enough, and I'm sure his virginity has amusing moments - but I wish they'd apostrophize the title right.

This being Bainbridge, the literate Pavilion crowd refuses to even enter the fray and simply omits the hyphen. Wise decision.

Rolling Stones - 'Bigger Bang' Tour

The Stones' Bigger Bang world tour began on Sunday night in Boston and the Telegraph marks it with an interesting article from which the following trivia caught my eye:

I love the comparison of punishing regimes - how *does* Keith do it?

Well, so far it looks like I'm still on the guest list for the Seattle leg of the tour. I've groveled and kow-towed to mademoiselle and used witty quips and my Brit accent to undermine her inexplicable penchant for the neanderthal end of the dating queue, and I'm still in the running.

BUSKER thought he might NEEDS a LAPTOP

but is holding off til Aug 29 when he might find that his new employers furnish one.

I've 'phoned around and it *seems* that an IBM Thinkpad is what this season's thrusting young execs are wielding. Ah so.

I must Having spammed the troops, and check. I don't want to roll up first day at the office and be the laughing stock with some Toytown gizmo.

But why such haste? Perhaps job includes  such road-warrior accessories.

I'll still spam the chaps but will hold off forking out actual spondulix til I know what's what. the following are on my shortlist:

The Circle Game

A medal to city public works engineer, Lorenz Eber, for his imaginative idea of the Hoskinson water tower living on as an 'historic centerpiece to a future roundabout' (BI Review, front page, Aug 20)

"It wouldn't block traffic," Eber points out. "It would actually calm it."

What it won't calm - and I know whereof I speak, and carry the epistolary scars - is the flurry of excited mail from those who demand full-frontal vision.

I wrote to the Review in response to some daffy whinge about vision-challenge with the Madison/High School roundabout and got thoroughly duffed up, one chap even quoting the German road system and including the death-defying phrase, "Chris Holmes is wrong."

Speaking of the High School merry-go-round, gosh it's a messy poster parade these days.

My only puzzlement is why the Code Enforcer's manservant Jimmy Ølsen seems to have missed a trick by not also plastering the traffic island with catchy signage for his master's mayoral bid.

BAGELS 'n BEANS, Aug 19

You just never know who's going to turn up at the Bagz & Beanz Friday thrashes these days.

There was me shuffling down to toast the end of unemployment in J&L's finest java - and another vente's worth to celebrate the clipping of my bloggy wings - and ma foi! who is wielding banjo but the great and growly Mike Murray.

Also my favorite bass player, this time on accordion

(I don't think one calls them squeeze-boxes.) Many years back in Angers, a petite française I had my eye on conned me into thinking that her papa would allow us carte blanche  if I praised his skill on the "flon flon".

This was the equivalent of telling maestro Artur Rubinstein that he was a bit of a dab-hand on the old joanna.

Papa stopped mid phrase - La Paloma, I believe it was - and pointed the way out, adding a fiery threat never to darken his daughter's Dior again. The minx.

Also in the line-up was David Denz - whistling and even bag-piping (of which I got not a single snap, dammit).

Bass was provided by an ultra cool young chappie, and there was even another banjo player which was fun.

And of course, the ever-friendly smiling Mike Gaffney was there, wielding his 12-string and even performing - clearly stung to the quick by my earlier barb about those who trundle in with cool axes but don't actually perform, preferring to sit there looking cool and then chat up ladies who leave their purses behind.

HEAD FOR THE HILLS

Splendiferous musical soirée down at the waterfront park with the driving hillbilly sound of Head for the Hills

I was meant to meet Julie et co but it didn't work out so I bopped to the great sounds and went without ice cream.

Another day

I'll say it once and leave it there: these guys totally rock and *why* didn't I learn banjo instead of all that Segovian Fernando Sor stuff?

Think of the untold wealth I could have amassed as a busker if I'd done a Dave Martin (H4H's banjo wizard)

Line-up: David Allan Martin on banjo; Phil Post, bass; Dirk Ronneburg, guitar; Mme. Emily Salisbury Keene fiddling (but, I read, no slouch on harmonica, mandolin, old time claw hammer banjo, and on occasion, square dance calling for the band.

Alas, no idea who the ace mandolinist is.

The early stage, as people gathered and rolled out their picnics and settle back to enjoy the music.

The great Eddie Williams at the controls.

We take so much for granted that the sound is sharp and the balance is right but it's skilled technicians like Eddie who mastermind these delicacies.

I wish this pic had sound.

Dave Martin is the band's resident banjo picker and vocalist. He began performing at 13 with the Ascension Church Choir in Baltimore, MD. Naturally, he squandered many tenor sectionals learning old tunes like Nine Pound Hammer, Been All Around This World, and Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms.

THE BAND

Dave's many years retired from the Choir now, but still caught up in the same old tunes.

He's also performed solo and organized many groups including Quagmire, Pea Ball Sains, and The Cushers,

He currently relies on H4H to "justify" his time picking.

Pity I can't find the mandoline player's details on their site because he had that cool Sam Bush sound and rapid-fire tremolo.

Madam Emily Salisbury Keene on fiddle attended a fiddle contest as a teen, from which it was down all the way to Hell.

She began skipping high school classes to in favor of her many instruments.

She's played with (among others) the Tennesseans, Sockeye, Tommy Priese's Country Deputies, and Donna Daye Honey and the Cowpokers.

As the band's surrogate crazy aunt, Emily lends her musical versatility, offbeat humor, and red hair to the group, and she brings new meaning to the old saying - and I quote - "She's a crone, not a clone." (Ack ptui! The "cr*** word! Not good.)

In Emily's spare time she converses with cats, and dresses all in black.

In fact, it was just the best angle I could snap these guys at

The sun was so bright my piddling camera couldn't handle the bright spots, but darn that looks like Emily is having a good time.

Dirk Ronneburg on guitar played violin and sang in chorus when he was a child, and got his first professional gig while in high school, playing for the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra in Mobile, AL.

During college he discovered acoustic blues guitar music and spent the next ten years -neglecting the violin to hunch over the 6-string.

What's better than being master of your instrument in a hot band?

Playing to free-spirited children who feel the beat and just launch into dancing.

Say what?

Even our ultra-cool local teens jived and thrived.

Phew! Thank goodness I'm not landed with a camera that snaps in focus.

Look at that orange blur. Does it not conjure up all the joy and action of the evening?

Graffiti Book

I'm a sucker for smart graffiti - as evident in my awe over CasdraBlog's amazing Hellroy graffiti way back.

I now hear that the rather remarkable Brit doodler, Banksy, has a book coming from Century which should be more than an underground hit.

I've never quite worked out how he does what he does or gets away with it.

But he's clearly a character, as per his 'Tony Blair and Kate Moss roller-blading the vol-au-vents' quote.

Peddy Foggery

Straight to the BI Review Letters page where this week I'm sent reeling by the forthright comments over the Will-ful strewing of campaign signs.

Relaxeat Emptor

I'm naturally sensitive after my wheels wail, so I prick my ears up at an NPR chat around 1:45pm with the very fluent and impressive Robert Krughoff, President of Consumers Checkbook.

Mr Krughoff speaks with ease and sincerity, talking of sample sizes and methods of reviewing.

It is subscription based, he abhors paid reviews. He 'mystery shops' other such sites.

Where was he when Gateway towed my turkey?

PANDA

Serves him right if he's reduced to snapping pandas. Karma.

Seabold Aug 13

My original write-up of last Sat's Seabold starring Jennifer and David Hager was a dead loss and I killed it.

I'd not been in the best of moods and nothing came out right.

But when I got up there, I had my chance to sing - a new song and my Bainbridge Ferry song - and everyone's been so nice about it and asked me to post something , so here goes.

Well, there was Matt, of course, scooping the Fashion Maven Award du soir with his truly cool white troosers and masterly songs.

My usual obsession with sepia.

The night before at the Bagel jam I was totally out of it and couldn't think of anything to sing so I was thrumming away on some chords when I felt my shoulder gripped and a sotto voce  murmur of "Enough, Chris."

Fifteen inches to my left, it was David Denz's turn, taking time off from Crooked Mile to regale us with some dulcet melodie except that yours truly was banging away on some half-forgotten Tiny Tim-sings the best of Huddie Leadbetter chanson

On the right, Matt accompanied by the shoulder-gripping David.

Left, Dobro Hombre with a singer who's always fascinated me.

I know nothing about hairstyles but there's a certain "tousled thatch" cut that I find incredibly sexy.

There's a shape of glasses on a certain type of woman that makes absolute nonsense of that silly crack about men not making passes at girls who wear glasses.

This singer combines them both so the sooner I end this caption the better.

Dobro Hombre was on cracking form and totally rocked.

Georgia Browne, whose voice and playing I could listen to forever.

There are certain people I look forward to seeing at Seabold. Bruce Haedt is one.

Bruce is one of those excellent kind who don't say much and don't need you to lay on the natter, but are just cool.

Bruce also sings such damn'd good songs

Rick and Dobro Hombre set the room on fire - as if it wasn't wilting hot already.

If I didn't have daughters would I have been so silenced by this utterly beguiling performance? I think so.

There's something about young voices that just strips away all the day's cynicism and reminds one of what is good and charming.

Gillian Welch never sounded better, nor will I be able to listen to "Here comes the sun" in quite the same way again. Totally captivating and rarely have I heard the room go from quite such rapt silence to quite such thunderous applause.

Jennifer and David Hager, the star act of the night.

I had to leave too early but this is a couple thru whose veins music just flows.

A really nice couple who make me smile by just being in the same room.

flickr badge

For someone clever like Adrian to show me where to plug all this flickr badge code into my template settings

It's invisible because it's between <! -- comments -->

Google Stands Ground

Well, how wrong could I have been? There was I thinking that the sheer range of objections, and the way the book trade organized such massive press coverage, would slow Google in their tracks.

Up to a point, Lord Copper ...

Their blog update about this whole Print for Libraries program included "modifications":

1. Google have always offered an "opt-out" registration process for works still under copyright. They now include an opt-out in advance scheme with formalized web interface to ease the process. ("Now copyright holders can tell us which books they'd prefer us not to scan if we find them in a library." The cheek!)
2. Part of the formal advance opt-out procedure includes 'temporary' suspending of scanning copyright books from now to Nov 1st

Big deal: The process will take years to complete anyway so what sort of concession is a mere 2½ months?

The Voice-Over Biggies

Via Mark Hurst's excellent Good Experience (to which all gentlefolk should be subscribed), an hilarious short film putting faces to the voices of those trailers we so take for granted.

Particularly funny is the way the 'heavy' mob act coy of the 'Disney' voicer.

I didn't spot Jack 'Thingy', the guy who talked up The Comedian, reckoned by many to be the best trailer *ever*.

Green Card

OK. To all my pals who've been urging me for the sake of my un-renewed Green Card to go easy on the peddy-gogy and t'inking I taw a bella figure peddy-tat.

Great news!

My card is in, and very handsome it is, too.

Much more official looking than the sissy pink old one.

Note, too, that I'm now a Permanent  resident and not just a pathetic residentializing 'Alien'.

You wouldn't believe the snide chuckles that attracted, altho' in its defence I have to say that a pitying traffic cop was once so amused by the wording and my John Cleesian accent that he handed the card back with an:

"I always thought you guys were outta left field but I didn't know it was official.

OK, move on Mr Holmes, and remember that in this country we drive on the *left* hand side-"

"You mean the *right* side, officer?"

"What'd I just say? Heck, now you've got me at it ...."

Very weird reverse side: it has the 'Permanent Resident Card' titling, and then just a completely reflective surface, ideal for helio-graphing passing planes when stranded on that desert island.

Ideal for that blond joke I recently got rapped over the knuckles for circulating to my fiercer feminist pals:

Blond is pulled over by equally blond cop. Fumbles for licence, but has to ask what it looks like.

Is told its dimensions at which she pulls out a small vanity mirror and proffers it up.

Blond cop gives it a glance and hands it back, "Uh, ok, didn't realize you were a cop."

Animal Adjectives

Looking up 'cervine' to describe my Bambi friend, I came across whole pub-quizzeria of splendid adjectives guaranteed  to stump smart-alecks like me who think they know.

We're used to the common ones like asinine and bovine, feline, vulpine and lupine, etc - but how about ...

Veni Vidi Venison

I have a new friend in the morning who's taken to visiting our strawberry patch.

My silly camera seems not to capture him in his full splendor but there's plenty of time since he seems to be making it a daily occurrence - right at the height of Madison Avenue commuter traffic so I'm thinking of applying for one of those Deer Crossing signs.

I know the precise position for it because I've watched him head back home and it's the same trail each time.

I'm not sure how my 'coon friend is going to react if their paths cross because their schedules seem mighty similar, as does Mr Reynardine's .

(I'd forgotten about Squirrel-Lover's churlish mocking comment on my glee in photographing Rocky Racoon. How very funny!)

The routine seems to be that I rise around 0630 hours and take o-juice and fruitèd yoghurt out to the balcony and generally commune with Nature as I contemplate the day ahead.

Once I return inside to prepare my leisurely bacon 'n' eggs brek and jugs of FogLifter^™ coffee (the luxuries imposed on the unemployed!), that  seems the signal for a general convening of four-legged friends and barnyard-type activity.

Then when he's done his noshing, as calm as anything, he walks back round to the carpark where he seems not at all concerned by the presence of folks climbing into their various transports.

He spends a few seconds inspecting the general scene and then mounts the bank that brings him to the sidewalk and the cars racing to and fro down Madison.
I don't know what the effect must be on drivers for a sizeable deer to suddenly hove into view, but they've been very good so far slowing and even stopping, because of course, deer themselves have absolutely NO sense of highway etiquette or self-preservation.

I'm thinking of a crash-course (bad choice of word) in cervine CPR for the morning I'm there when it takes on a car.

If you look very closely, just to the left of the blurred rear wing of the passing car, you can see a fawnish shape standing on the lawn as he contemplates vanishing into the greenery behind.

That is where he exits and re-enters and seems relatively oblivious to the general early morning activity.