uh oh, a misc. post

haven't done one of these in a while.
i'm just rambling, don't take any of it too seriously.

%%%%%

caerie wants to put up solar panels,
and wean ourselves of gasoline.
maybe buy a hybrid or something.
she's upset about the Alaskan wilderness refuge drilling to the point of tears.

i've become cynical, and i figure that the bastard's will always win.
i'm willing to participate in doing what we can, and maybe it will make a difference. surely there are a lot of people out there withdrawing in little ways.

&&&&&

then again, caerie is hooked on American Idol,
so what does she know?

(((((

LJ lost another good one.

ivan_durak
good fellow. i enjoyed his posts, but he hadn't been active for a long while.

not long ago anjibee also flew the coop, although i have to imagine that she merely went on to a cooler internet activity.

while we're on the subject, jinxmalone still leaves a gaping hole on my LJ friends list. rats. hope she's doing well. but who knows how she's doing? (i see now that there is no cruel line through jinx's name anymore, good news, to be sure!)

you wanna know something?
i like all you cabrones on my friends list... and just seeing you post about the everyday boring stuff in your lives is good enough for me. i like seeing that you're still out there doing your thing.
rock on, friends.
just keep posting.

@@@@@

funny thing about my friends, they're grouped together in roughly related types of careers.
many folks on my friends list earn their bread through a career based in language...
i have translators, writers, librarians and editors on my friends list.
there are also friends in the academes, i have students and professors on my friends list (although i just lost one of the latter!)
and i have scientists on my friends list... including some scientists-to-be. :)

me, i just run a shitty little factory that makes tacky little sculptures out of a metal that is a persistent bio-accumulative toxin with a ridiculously low EPA reporting threshold.

strangely, even though music, and talking about music, seems to be one of my great interests in life, that's not what i usually bond with my LJ friends about. many of my LJ friends and i never talk about music at all.
what draws me to a person here on LJ, and in real life, i think, is not a shared set of interests, necessarily... it's a shared set of morals, a respectable intellect, a wit reflecting some amount of joy in life, and the tell-tale "melancholy undertow".

(((((

i suffer from a terminal case of detachment.
it seems to get worse with age.
thus i was shamed and shocked when i read in the introduction to Nietzsche's "the Genealogy of Morals" the lines: "We have no right to be 'disconnected'; we must neither err 'disconnectedly' nor strike the truth 'disconnectedly.' Rather with the necessity with which a tree bears its fruit, so do our thoughts, our values, our Yes's and No's and If's and Whether's, grow connected and interrelated, mutual witnesses of one will, one health, one kingdom, one sun -- as to whether they are to your taste, these fruits of ours? -- But what matter that to the trees? What matters that to us, us the philosophers?"

agggh! you mean, i've got to pay attention now?

actually, if i can manage to read Nietzsche and pay attention, i reckon i'm doing pretty good. his prose instantly makes my mind wander to something else entirely. i have to grab my head and force it at the page, and grit my teeth and focus, focus, focus.
time will tell whether or not it was worth it.

$$$$$

the dilled garlic arrived from Scaff Bros.. plenty enough to tide us over until the farmer's market starts up again this Spring.
mmm. i reek of those crunchy little delicacies.

if Eusevio were here, he'd be scolding me and telling me i'm a pig for eating so much garlic!
hurray garlic!

!!!!!

Eusevio's mother died. he headed back to Mexico for the funeral and burial this last weekend. we hope he can get back over the border with little hassle.

my dear, good friend is an illegal immigrant.

sympathy cards suck ass. i hate them. they are nearly all horribly trite and insulting.
it's always a chore to find the least insulting card for sale.

i hope he's doing alright, anyway.

+++++

in further news of the activities of the grim reaper, R*****'s sister's husband committed suicide... pushing R***** into a crushingly grey funk. he actually choked on tears on the phone to me. i guess the master of gruff heartlessness has something left ticking in his chest after all.

#####

the motor on the dust collector may be going bad.
it's been overheating.
this is very, very bad.
something like this could put us all out of a job.
especially since the machine was installed in such a way that makes the motor virtually unserviceable. this was my fault. i layed out every square inch of the plant, and oversaw its installation with a keen eye to foreseeing as many consequences as possible... but i missed this one little detail. the motor sits mere inches below a ceiling rafter. d'oh! will we have enough room to disconnect the motor from the machine now? or will we have to move the machine? can we move the machine? when you weigh all options and you have to choose the the practical impossibility that is the most possible, one is not filled with confidence for the future of one's career.

however, i must gather hope,
i have seen this company through the impossible before.
much of it pulled through the impossible by the force of my own will, without much outside support...

i often wonder why i would expend so much personal energy to revive a company that is run so poorly, and does nothing to increase the good in the world.
the answer always confronts me with its stark, harsh truth... selfishness.
i pull for the company to survive so that i might continue to receive my regular paycheck. no more than that.
at heart i believe that it's a bad company, in fact, the world would be a better place without the company i work for producing its poisonous bad art... but then i'd have to look for a new job. fuck that.

*****

i recently joined greencine, a movie rental outfit specializing in art movies. i need lotsa movie recommendations. expect me begging at your doorstep for recommendations in the coming months.

i filled my queue with Werner Herzog movies to start. then a few documentaries, including one about Leon Theremin... one of the Jim Jarmusch movies i've never seen, some Joseph Campbell, Brothers Quay and a John Sayles movie i've never seen. i had made a post recently about French movies and i got quite a few good recommendations, i should go back to re-read it, and then throw all those recommendations up on my queuueueuuuuue.

=====

on PBS tonight, i saw part of this documentary called "Alone in the Wilderness" that was simply astounding. this fellow Dick Proenneke took a camera up into the Alaskan wilderness and filmed himself building a logcabin house from scratch... but he had to build his tools first.
his skills as a craftsmen left me speechless.
absolutely incredible. see it if you can.