LIFE: Festering Files of Flimflam

LIFE: Festering Files of Flimflam

I really must blog about something or else my dozens of readers (hi, Mom) will forget I exist. It was a very Peter-centric weekend, with a family raspberry-picking trip, a visit to the local arts festival and, yesterday on my day off, a daylong trip up to Portland where we visited the Oregon Zoo. Despite lots of drizzly rain all day (yeah, I know, it's Portland, but it's JULY on Friday for cryin' out loud) it was a fine time. Peter particularly liked the polar bears, the gibbon swinging and the elephant getting a pedicure. Then we did grownup things while Peter passed out, Avril visiting superhuge Asian supermarket Uwajimaya and me visiting the Beaverton branch of the bestest book store in the world, Powells.

I of course managed to spend a great deal of money in a short amount of time buying some George Orwell and Patricia Highsmith books I was missing, the amusing new McSweeney's humor anthology and this way too cool for school book:

"Innocent While You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader"
This book is simply -- well, "badass" is the only phrase that comes to mind. See, I love the Tom Waits, quirkpunk cowboy wailing lonesome cabaret bluesman that he is, and something I love even more than Tom Waits' music is Tom Waits interviews. Surreal, funny like a drunk poet on a barstool, eye-opening and wise, he's consistently quotable:
"Popular music is like a big party, and it's a thrill sneaking in rather than being invited. Every once in a while, a guy with his shirt on inside out, wearing lipstick and a pillbox hat, gets a chance to speak."
"I'd like to see the term wooden kimono return to the lexicon. Means coffin."
"I hope you never have to use this, but if you're ever pursued by a crocodile, run in a zigzag fashion."
"I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room, you know. More room in the brain."
"It's nice to be part of the dismemberment of linear time."
Great book. Reading it mutates your frontal lobes.

...Hey, it's been years since I've done one of those "Google Search Terms" things everyone else does when they're hard up for writing material. Thus, from the handy keeper-trackers at site meter, recent searches that brought people here. You never know what you type will draw in people:
• "What is Bruce Wayne's job?" (Striking fear into the heart of evildoers. And such.)
• "Subaru drugs Johnny's" (I do own a Subaru. That's all I have to say about that.)
• "Elisha Cuthbert layouts" (I don't want to know.)
• "Chuck klosterman pearl jam boba fett" (Now that's a search)
• "Meg White cute" (Yes, the White Stripes drummer is that.)
• "Sylvia Siddell biography" (My mother-in-law, and a New Zealand painter - but who's searching for her? Who? Mysterious omens.)
• "killer spatula" (oddly enough, I only come in at #7 on this search. Clearly I need to write more about spatulas as a means to an ugly end.)
• "Shakespeare plays for lazy stupid students" (Clearly, an inspirational teacher at work.)