Astronauts

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with
a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the
mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits
of it about.

— Douglas Adams

Hula Hoop in the Headlights

She navigates a Magic Carpet.

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.
  — Japenese saying

It's a holiday town on St. Patty's Day, so we ate corned beef and cabbage with the wind at our back, of course.

"Holding Still" | a film by Florian Riegel

There is something daunting about writing here, about writing what has happened and what has been said in private. What was disclosed so quietly has been made so public.

You have personal stories you might never tell. Who would you tell? Who would listen? How close to the bone dare you go? 

If you trust someone, if you believe they will not pervert your truth, if you believe they are not unlike you in your better and worse moments, if you believe they possess exceptional tools and insights, you might tell things you'd never told in this way before.

And this was the case when I spoke my stories and treasures and secrets into the microphone, forgetting the microphone, because I trusted my audience-of-one who hadn't come looking for this story at all. But a film which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam was born of it.

Just so you know — My trust was not misplaced. I wish I had fed you heartily. I wish we drank all the coffee in the world. I wish you had smoked like crazy in my room. I wish I were in Rotterdam right now.

Thank you, Florian Riegel.

[The IFFR trailer is posted at the bottom of this page. Yes, scroll!]

In appreciation of a New Year's Eve blue moon...

...and anticipation of a stellar 2010...

...we'll enjoy traditional Hoppin' Johns + Bloody Marys + collards + corn bread (with bacon) (and Irish butter) with a houseful of friends.

Once in a blue moon it all goes away. The clouds clear.... [You can make up the rest for yourself and just hum; it's a good song]

—Randy Prentice

From the Miami Herald, my old hometown newspaper...

Posted on Thursday, 12.31.09

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Rare blue moon will illuminate skies on New Year's Eve

BY SUSANNAH BRYAN

Sun Sentinel

When the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, remember to do one thing: Look up. A full moon will be shining down from its highest point, illuminating the landscape.
``It will be so clear it will take your breath away,'' said Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS show Star Gazer. ``It will be super bright and super high for us.''
It will be the second full moon of the month -- a phenomenon known as a ``blue moon.'' A full moon on New Year's Eve last occurred on Dec. 31, 1990; it won't happen again until 2028.
Horkheimer, 71, held a ``Howl at the Full Moon'' party 19 years ago for families with kids in his Miami neighborhood.
``They came in their bath robes and pajamas,'' he said.
``It was the most fun New Year's Eve I ever had in my life. Those children are now adults, and they still remember it.''
Horkheimer encourages families to ring in 2010 in similar fashion.

Those who do can send photos or videos toStarGazerHowlIn@gmail.com. Twelve winners will receive a new telescope. 

 I remember Jack Horkheimer from Miami Space Transit Planetarium. Whoa.

Best wishes for a Brand New Year, y'all!

How it tasted | Santa Rosa Beach c. 1957

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself
in the sunset.
- Crowfoot, 1890


And what is sweetest in the mid-1950s? The same ... plus a long drive with pillows in the back of a two-tone station wagon, Dramamine knocking us silly, relentless winter sun, reflections in the water, skinny legs, treasures from the sea, bathing suits all one color, sisters with hair blunt cut at home, mother drinking in the saline days, pimento cheese sandwiches, Dad's prescience with the movin' picture camera.

The Conch Shell in the Room

I forgot to post this grainy photo. Coconut Grove c. 1969. It was a very good year.

Fewer than 70°

And the sheets are flannel. Everyone is pulling on sweaters at the beach.

People are eating filet mignon in lieu of shrimp...

....and reading.

The Cinnamon Peeler

...by Michael Ondaatje. You really might want to read it.

We all have a renewed and substantial hunger.


You could eat 15 bean soup. Acorn squash + olive oil + butter + garlic + salt/pepper. Cranberry scones. Feisty Rooibos chai from Pekoe Sip House (order by phone). Walnut halves in a cast iron skillet + butter + kosher salt. Cauliflower gratin. Roasted beet salad. Risotto with winter squash. Roasted asparagus + parmigiano reggiano with scrambled eggs. Pan seared scallops. Sweet potatoes + sour cream + caramelized onions. Rustic fruit tarts. Toasted marshmallows. The ultimate: David Eyre's Pancake. Look at the photos. You'll need to make this. And then you'll need to make it again.

Into the night

Welcome to the neighborhood. It was an old ragtop flying through this October night.

Vroom.

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I've missed you! | Intersections

 

Click, scroll down, look on the right and listen (Listen for free) to :30 clips of The Beatles: Rock Band remastered. What a wonderful thing to have been born at the perfect intersection of the ultimate rock band and Bob Dylan.

Feed your head. — Jefferson Airplane

Time is the longest distance between two places. — Tennessee Williams 

May you stay forever young. —Robert Zimmerman

Meet Colette | The Blue Lantern

Friday, Oct. 18, 1963

Books: Regarde

THE BLUE LANTERN by Colette. 161 pages. Farrar, Straus. $3.95.

The last word uttered by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette on her deathbed in Paris in 1954 was "regarde." To her, it meant to look, feel, wonder, accept, live. For all her 81 years she obeyed that injunction with an immense, daylight sense of reality and a pagan delight in the sensuous experiences that delivered the world to her mind and to the blue note paper on which she recorded it. The Blue Lantern, written between 1946 and 1948 and now translated into English for the first time, is Colette's last major work—a moving but unsentimental record of how it was with a poet of the senses whose senses were failing...

So many eggs to crack

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Sweltering on the Florida Panhandle....

Photo: Fred Sawyer

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.

—John Berger