American Fez

David Attenborough Reads The News

In its natural environment, the Unchecked Behemoth is so large it cannot be filmed.
Here, on the plains of the Guantanamo Delta, we cannot see a female Unchecked Behemoth impersonating Donald Rumsfeld to amuse its young.
But it is not alone.
Dramatic chords
A herd of Reversible Wildebeest are also impersonating Donald Rumsfeld.
It will be a duel to the death as these two savage beasts fight over the few remaining scraps of press coverage.
Stirring music
The Reversible Wildebeest is a fearsome foe. Yet the Unchecked Behemoth is stronger and its sheer size blocks out the entire sun. The courage of the Reversible Wildebeest when faced with these insurmountable odds is absolutely staggering. But soon the brave animal tires and the Unchecked Behemoth applies the coup-de-grace with its enormous forehead.
In a few years time its young will also learn to impersonate Donald Rumsfeld and crush enemies with their foreheads.
Meanwhile, all is quiet here on the Guantanamo Delta as a flock of hungry vultures descend on the bloody corpse.

At The Biblical Deli

Welcome to Noah's. What are you commandments today?

Yeah, hi, er .... I'd like a foot-long calf please.

Fatted or unfatted?

Erm, fatted.

Wheat ark or rye?

Rye ark, please; with spicey manna, neuchadnezzars, herod paste, and a side of iscariot beans.

If you order our new Goliath Special for only fourteen talents more you get a free large Red Sea soda.

Awesome! That's what I call a revelation. I'll have one of those.

For here or Exodus?

Exodus. Got to get back to the desert.

No problem. Enjoy your sandwich and may the seed of your loins prosper in the belly of your woman.

Thanks.

America's Worst Magazine

It is not that whorey old tart politics that brings out the most ignorantly tedious of slack-jawed generalisations in our journalists, but the World Cup of soocer. In that context, The Weekly Standard is probably the worst magazine in the United States. It actually took two dribbling cretins, Frank Cannon and Richard Lessner, to cough up the moronic drivel to which I have linked above. One assumes it must be difficult for the author's snot-caked fingers to locate the correct typewriter keys since their knuckles have obviously been dragging on the ground all day.

Those sweaty arm-pitted American hacks who love to juggle with the idea of soccer hooligans seem to have quite forgotten that only a few years ago a college student was shot dead outside Fenway Park, felled by plastic bullets fired by the Boston Police. What is a few blows on the head with a British truncheon compared to that?

The Truffle Shuffle

Muggy, ideal mushroom-growing we have been experiencing of late, as if we were all sweaty gnomes forced to abide beneath the water damaged canopy of some damp fungus. In fact, I came across such an enormous specimen this morning beside the river, roughly the size of punctured soccer ball on a stalk, large enough to provide shelter for at least six or seven gnomes: perhaps it was a gnome apartment block?
Obviously I have not done much filming considering these conditions, since between the wet weather and the World Cup I can accomplish nothing, and so my little HD video project will probably be postponed until the Fall for sure. Perhaps that is all for the best as autumn offers so more drama possibility than summer does.

The Nulliad

I sing of fading charms and the woman, wondering if anyone has ever broken up with their lover on a blog - or is this the first time?
Well, I don't know, all I can say is: Helen of Troy, right now, your's is the blandly wearying face that finally closed all the shipyards of Europe for good and left only a polluted mass of foul smelling flotsam and jetsam in its wake. Perhaps one ship still remains afloat, but it's a only a rusting Serbian herring trawler with a leaky engine that is spewing monstrous oil slick into formerly crystal waters and is also responsible for the premature and agonising death of many rare birds and fish. Oh, and yes, this lone, wretched vessel is crewed entirely by incontinent and leprous gnomes.
Never mind, you'll always have Paris, eh? Bye!

P.S: Helen, can you email me directions back to my house? Thanks. (You can leave them in the comments if that's easier)

Stephenesque's History of the Movies

Cinema: The Early Years

1891:  Using a short strip of light sensitive gelatin, Thomas Edison films himself in continous motion inventing the overdue electric bill.
Two Days Later: First pornographic film released. "Close Up of the Female Sexual Organs" starring Miss Ethel Bohemian and an uncredited vagina.

1894:  The Apache Film Collective makes movie about invasion of pale-faces called "How The West Was Wan"
One Day Later: "How The West Was Wan" is stolen from the Apache Film Theater and shown at the Custer Nickelodeon.

1895:  First bearded, pretentious film buff uses the word "Kino"

1897:  G.W Pabstblueribbon directs "Heap Big Sequel: How The West Was Wan 2"

1898:  First draft of "Kramer vs Kramer" screenplay is completed.

1899:  In Paris, cameraman Pierre Borette falls asleep while filming the exterior of a tobacconist's shop, signaling the birth of French cinema.

1900:  First pornographic film "with a story" is released, "Sexania, Slave Girl of the Sultan of Sleazaria" starring Theda Bearer.

1902:  Oliver Stone's ego begins to form amid unstable deposits of volcanic rock and molten lava at the Earth's core.

1903:  D.W Griffithofvodka directs: "Birth Of A Casino: How The West Was Wan 3. "

1904:  Oliver Stone's evolving ego responsible for eruption of Mount Vietnam in the Hollywood Islands.

1905:  Kodak introduce new color film process patented by Henry Ford, who famously quips: "You can have any color as long as it's black and white."
Three days later: first color pornographic film released, "Behind The Smudgy and Steaky and Grainy, Kinda Greenish Door."

1908:  First movie gimmick employed when "Doris Day Speak with Forked Tongue: How The West Was Wan 4" is released in Scalp-O-Vision.

1909: Thomas Edison broadcasts personal apology about quality of films to the nation on his new invention, the television.

Faded Phoenician Photostats

In my dual role as Curator Emeritus and Vice-President of Acquisitions at the Robert M. Blinde Institute of Ancient History and Ethnographical Studies, I am pleased to announce that our infamous museum has recently added a valuable Egyptian papyrus scroll to our permanent collection (Everything Must Go! No Reasonable Offers Refused! Call Now! Operators Are Standing By!).
Our expert team of archeologists carefully stole this important document from its resting place in the Valley of the Kings where it lay in danger of being stolen by another team of expert archeologists from somewhere else. Authenticated by eminent forgers such as myself, the breathtaking papyrus is a fine example of early mail-in rebate practices conducted along the Nile basin.
When painstakingly decrypted with reference to some old hieroglyphic dictionary published by Dover Books, the scratchy, ill-defined markings on the papyrus reveal a complex rebate form that entitles the bearer to receive half his bag of salt back when he sacrifices two oxen at the altar of Osiris.
This rare papyrus is just one of over eight million similar mail-in rebate papyrus forms that were never redeemed in the ancient world.
Viewing such artifacts our senses are overcome by an overwhelming affinity with those shoppers of bygone days.

Plastic Horrors

Beacon Hill, the area of Boston I inhabit, plays a prominent role in the creepy literary works of H.P Lovecraft: Pinckney Street is where many of his doomed characters plan their day trips to the mysterious environs of Arkham; and the building that contains my apartment is the type of house in which the 'Ghoul Who Was Pickman' would have lived (there is even a sealed attic directly above my bedroom).
Alas, I am mostly reminded of this Beacon Hill-Lovecraft connection on Trash Day. Residents are lucky that we benefit from three garbage pick-ups per week as there are no back-alleyways in the neigborhood, so household refuse must be deposited on the kerbsotnes of our narrow sidewalks each night before the garbagemen arrive to haul it away. No problem, you would think, a simple and sanitary solution to urban waste management.
Except some imbecile who resides three doors down from me seems incapable of following these  directions, dumping his or her trash on the sidewalk long after the collectors have left with everybody else's garbage. There it squats in its plastic bag, attracting flies and rats and Lovecraftian Ghouls and God knows what until the next Trash Day - fortunately a mercifully short period. But even so, why must the kerb outside their front door be such a portal to the Crawling Chaos three times a week?

More Mail-In Rebate

The ancient Greeks called them simply "Stoola," but the classical Romans knew mail-in rebates as "Wasta Timus," scraps of worthless papyrus to be ritually incinerated at the Why Botherum dedicated to their household Gods.
Imagine, for instance, that you are a Centurian of Legion XIV posted to a remote corner of the empire such as Transalpine Gaul or suburban Carthage. Bored of this frontier backwater, you order a brand new pair of lace-up leather sandals from one of the fashionable boutiques in Trajan's Markets.
The sandals cost thirty denarii but there is a fifteen denarii rebate if you mail-in the rebate. Great! What a deal! ... Except, of course, that you actually have to mail in your rebate from Transalpine Gaul back to Rome, a gargantuan task that will make Hannibal's famous elephant drive look like a quick waltz around the block.
Guess it's time to dedicate that Why Botherum to wing-ed Mercury.

Locomotive Excursions

Still exhausted after enduring a 6:15am departure from Boston's South Station yesterday, travelling aboard the Acela Express to Penn Station, New York. It is really amazing how rising from one's slumbers two earlier than usual will wreck one's sense of equilibrium like a vicious mob of particularly active wreckers luring a fragile ship into treacherous and rocky waters.
To pass the time between stations I invented a character called Ogbert Bogford B.A.
Once the train had passed New Haven, still bored, I created an - exheedingly fat - female companion for him: Marge Lardbutterton.
Both characters were modelled on my fellow passengers.Perhaps their personal stories will appear among these posts one day.

New Arenas For Hamlet

#37 Government Center Plaza, Boston

Government Center is obviously a hive of activity Monday through Friday, but when the weekend arrives it rather resembles suburban Gloomkov at curfew during a military coup.

Hamlet most depressing soliloquies would resound quite effectively here, I think, especially if he had lost the keys to that nice white car and couldn't get home.

The Mail-In Rebate

Excerpt from: The Mail-In Rebate
A Jacobean Tragedy in Five Acts

Enter Stampo with attendants.

Yonder elfin envelope curling ont' thy desk
Wherein reclines the Mail-In Rebate wretch
O' that death certificate of cash.
No honour hath thy villainous vendor
Expect vapours, hurricanes, sleet and hail
When they say 'the check's in the mail.'

Exeunt all pursued by Fed Ex truck

Verbose? Moi?

It often seems as though old friends or relatives upon whom you have not clapped eyes for many years appear somewhat deformed and misshapen in the first moments of visual re-acquaintance; but obviously it is the actual in-the-flesh ocular adjustment to your distorted mental recollection of their corporeal form that creates this magic lantern-like effect.But then again, they could just be get old and ugly, I suppose.

Clothes Make The Man

I wear the hair shirt. Also the hair underpants and socks. And it's not just normal hair either; my hirsute clothes are woven from Old Hag O' The North Countrie Extra-Greasy Pubic Thick Black Hair (Now With 12% More Lice!) ... well, that's how it seems to me, at least.
Due to my recent domestic relocation adventure, Earthlink can no longer provide my computer with web access, since their cables are not connected at my new address. This means I have to switch to Comcast, an action I am loathe to undertake until my mind can encompass such a concept. So it's all wireless laptop activity at the library hotspot for me at the moment.
There's nothing but a thin tissue of excuses from me right now, isn't there?

Vertical Features Remake

Watching the extremely inspirational 'Vertical Features Remake' last night on DVD, I was reminded of what an extraordinary filmmaker Peter Greenaway used to be, back before he became so full of himself and began producing boring twaddle such as 'A Zed And Two Noughts' and 'The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover' and the truly dreadful 'Prospero's Books.'
'Vertical Features Remake' - only a very palatable forty-five minutes long - is a superbly effective satire of structuralist theory and execution, but anyone who has sat through a science film in school can enjoy the relentless and rigorous nonsense on display. The film is included as an extra on the (not bad) 'The Falls' DVD. Well worth watching.
Which brings me to the subject of my own film about the river. I am actually, t long last, beginning to gear up to shooting the first footage very soon. The Sony HDV camera righteously chides me from its place in the corner for my tardiness. Of course, one's schedule is busy during the summer months, so production may spill over into September or even October - no bad thing since the river is very attractive in Autumn. I shall be in Rome in September, too, for a week or so, which is another potential cause of delay. I only hope this doesn't turn into a mini 'Apocalypse Now' type filming experience for me.

The Self Deceived

Last night I found myself engaged in aimless conversation with a young woman wearing one of those tight-fitting, slogan-emblazoned t-shirts: "Find It" this spangly motto demanded, stitched across her black cotton-covered bosom. With all seriousness the woman told me that "Find It" summarized her personal philosophy with extreme precision, hence her reasons for wearing the words on her chest: "It's all out there." she explained, "All you have to do is find it. Yay!"
I did not have the heart to inform her that most people probably connect breasts and invitations to discovery with silver keys, notably the tantalising keys to a woman's boudoir that have been secreted in her fleshy crevice in preparation for candle lit games of romance and seduction. She was undoubtedly an unwitting Nell Gwynn, but it was Monday night and I had no desire to play the King.

Monday Monday

Lately, my mind has been much pre-occupied with logistical problems. The furies of organisation are fast upon my heels, pouring their opaque rain of facts and figures into the fallow fields of my life.
Such beauracratic nonsense means that I have not the time to dwell on important matters like why there was there a filthy mattress floating in the river this morning. Or why was I not equipped with my digital camera so that I could capture this image as a jpeg. For who knows, perhaps the previous evening some somnambulistic surfer had been catching wet dream waves in the moonlight.

The Triumph of Fancy

The Brighton Museum and Art Gallery is exhibiting that retrospective of Rex Whistler's work that I mentioned way back in April 2005. There are more details here. And just to give you some idea, here is an charming example of Rex's murals from a room he painted at Plas Newydd on the Isle of Anglesy, scanned very badly by me from a plate in Rex's biography "The Laughter and the Urn", written by his brother Laurence.

Anyway, if you are going to be in London soon, then I suggest you make a day jaunt down to Brighton for the Whistler show, it will be a very worthwhile trip and you can lose your teeth in a "stick of rock" while you're there.