hiya to dante, stumpy, melliemel and alla da rest o'youse...

end of february and the last time we posted anything hereabouts, well, me don't wanna think about it, been a long time, datz fo sure...
so, first, via the marvel that remains wood s lot, George Lakoff on the Obama Code; wanted to share this powerful and compelling read provided via the Times Online, evidently one of the stories from a recent edition of Granta.

had the pleasure of hosting two amigos from Tejas who were visiting here earlier this month, the esteemed CJ and his partner in crime, G Mac (mine own appellations for the gents), in Berkeley for a specialty book fair held on the Cal Campus, the Codex exhibition, where many, many lovely printed works were available to view and purchase. The time we shared together passed much too quickly, but t'was good to renew our comradeship. Mention here another pal of mine who spent much of the last month hard at work on his FAWM project, and ye can hear some of the music he produced here; Yah Babee, way to go, Phillippe!

so, not gonna overdo it, will endeavor to make more regular contributions here, tho' before we close this one, just quick mention of a handful of chunky, chewy bits of linky goodness: via LA Times online, a recent article on one of my favorite places on the planet, Mono Lake; yourstruly has been long acquainted with the weblogs am about to mention here, always worth visiting, and in particular lovely to see that the fine mind behind the retired Riley Dog still providing us much stuff to enjoy, and we always happy to see what is new at Bifurcated Rivets and Ethel the Blog. Una cosa mas, we want to pass along some encouragement to co-worker Becca B. who's started something earlier this month...

ciao ciao, bambini...

Practice makes perfect. Bam Bam sworn in again

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=home&sid=ac0hWsxSCmkM
Sent via thingy

Blithedale BAM BAM

Finished Blithedale the other day. Didn't remember the last half of the book nearly as well as I thought, but did remember the end of it very well. Stays on the list, but maybe I'll never have to read it again unless we plan on doing a miniature theater version of it. (That could be fun - I bet we could get it down to 5 or 10 minutes, max.) What was tedious in the book was all that exposition about the rights of women and the nature of men and women. But then, the book was written in 1852 and middle-aged Nat was saying some very frisky things in his staid way. Free love, anyone?

And that brings us to BAM BAM. After watching the swearing in on the big screen that was mounted below the library steps with friends and a few thousand upright citizens, we waddled off to Havana Central for lunch in the space that used to be the West End (and sat close to the photo of Ginsberg, Dylan, Robbie Roberston and... who? I can't remember), and then over to the Hungarian Pastry Shop for coffee. The shop was jammed, and they sat us next door in the sandwich shop and ran our orders over to us. About 15 minutes later, school must have let out and the place was jammed with kids. Doctor D starting asking kids if they did anything in school related to the inauguration. Yup. All of them either watched it at their own school or went to another school to watch it. Then there was a mom with a three month old kid in a stroller. D.D. asked the kid if he thought he'd ever live to see this day. Mom answered for him. She'd been thinking how this thing that was so incredible, so powerful for us, might be hardly understandable to her kid when he'd be old enough for it to matter.

From her lips to God's ear, as our friends are want to say. And that's probably how a lot of Nat's friends felt about all that jazz in Blithedale, too.

(PS: I used to think the narrator in Blithedale ruined it all in the very end. I don't any more. But still, a little creepy.)

Inaugural jumbotron, Columbia dot edu

Obama under the microscope

Cool, tiny nanobamas... as reported in today's Huffington Post.

Afterglow

Almost a week now and we New Yorkers can't stop smiling. Bill Cunningham's piece "Afterparty", from the NYT.