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January 26, 2007

Two Beers, a Tail, and a Time Machine

Spine has hit me with the meme stick -- that is, a chain writing assignment that seems to come aus Vermont. Since it doesn't come with any death threats or predictions of doom if I don't participate, I think I will. So, here are my answers:

1. My: You’ve heard the saying “I’d give my right arm for…”. So, what would you give your right arm for?

A: Time travel. My first trip would be to the future, where I'd have a bionic arm attached to where the arm used to be, and a monkey tail attached to my butt. It was suggested that this way, I could use the tail to operate the time machine, and have two hands free for whatever I wanted, leading to the autobiographical screenplay entitled: "Two beers, a tail, and a time machine."

The children's book would be, "Monkey tails and time machines."

2. Me: What’s one word that describes how you want people to see you?

A: Attractive.

3. Meme: If you could be any blogger, which blogger would you be… and why?

A: Maybe Stacey Nightmare, for the exuberant punctuation, Bob Powers for the unrelenting optimism, or Cute Overload for the bucks.

Now, I invite Justin, Drew and Rich to respond, or ... absolutely nothing will happen.

Posted by mary at 8:10 AM | Comments (4)

January 23, 2007

Earth-Saving Khakis

I kept thinking that someone should do an analysis of how much energy is wasted drying blue jeans in dryers and then I finally googled it, and sure enough, someone has, and it is a lot: "Machine washing, tumble drying, and ironing caused 47% of the eco damage the jeans caused - 240kWh of energy a year, equal to using 4,000 lightbulbs, each of 60 watts, for an hour."

Ignoring the question of who irons their blue jeans, that's a lot of light bulbs.

And how many people actually need to wear denim? Blue jeans are sort of like the pickup trucks or Hummers of clothing -- overkill for a lot of us, considering the job that needs doing.

I don't own any blue jeans. It's not because of the energy issue -- that only recently occurred to me. I just don't find them that comfortable or flattering. Plus, they are kind of cliche. I remember a friend in high school saying once, "why wear jeans when there are so many other more interesting things to wear?" He was a fashion god to me -- a picker at the Goodwill, he said it at the bins where we were surrounded by piles of other options -- so I took it to heart.

Every once in awhile I wish I had a good pair of pants. Cutting blackberries last summer is one example of a time when I wished I'd worn something other than a skirt -- I had the legs of a penitente by the time I was done. But most of the things I do, I can pretty safely do in my flannel nightie. You may think this says more about my lifestyle than anything else, but this includes things like fixing my sink and painting (which, if not for the cold and modestly, I could probably do naked).

You could always line dry -- I'm a big believer in that. But that's not always convenient, and I'm not so convinced that the Spin-X is the solution, in spite of the strong argument made for them here, in an article that looks suspiciously like a press release.

I don't begrudge people who need the protection of denim. Actually, I don't begrudge anyone who wears jeans at all. They look nice on some people, and I don't think anyone wearing them is some kind of baby seal killer.

I'm just saying: If I were Dockers, I'd consider funding a study on the contribution of blue jeans to global warming.

Posted by mary at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2007

Cement Lawn Geese of Lenawee County Calendar

When Kathy and I were living in Adrian, Michigan, as west-coasters, we couldn't help but notice and marvel at the large number of lawn geese, many of them dressed in elaborate costumes that changed with the season. (This is not uncommon -- you'll note that Gooseduds.com sells its clothing in collections according to season.)

For years now, we've been talking about making a calendar, "The Cement Lawn Geese of Lenawee County" using pictures that we took of the various geese in their Santa outfits, football outfits, hunting outfits, bunny suits, etc.

Kathy, I can't remember -- did you give me copies of the photos? Or did I have some? It's time for me to get a 2007 calendar and I'm thinking of finally making one using iPhoto.

Someone also needs to make a lot more contributions to the flickr pool on cement geese.

(This picture of the incredibly anthropomorphic front yard is from the 2000 cover of "Good News" by the way, which was kind of like the Portland Mercury, only with less smut and bands and more geese and coupons. I took a picture of it when I visited Kathy in New York -- thank goodness she keeps this kind of thing around!)

Posted by mary at 8:52 AM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2007

A Nut Cracking Blackbird

Another nature documentary I took with my digital camera, this one is of a blackbird who was dropping walnuts on the pavement outside my office.

Posted by mary at 1:34 PM | Comments (1)

January 11, 2007

Library Book Rental Service

A service where someone checks out library books for you and then returns them on time.

I love the idea of big piles of changing constantly free books around my house, but every time I check something out I invariably end up with at least a $20 fine. It's just not worth it. Also, I have no real taste, so I never know what to get. I suck. I never used to have this problem.

I know some people who are horrified when other people don't really have directed, specific tastes in things like books and music, and I don't really have a response or an excuse. I just don't have passionate feelings that drive me to seek things out. I mean, I have things that I like and don't like, but just not that much. I don't know that I'm doing anything better with that part of my brain -- I hope so, but I suspect it's actually replaying old episodes of Perry Mason.

Anyway, I know that there are plenty of people out there who are strongly passionate, up-to-date, and opinionated about things, and they should get busy making money off of lame people like me, not just giving it away, like Chris does with his media.

It's similar to my idea for more personalized TiVo programming services, and identical to my suggestion that library books are a great gift idea.

You'd interview the client, see what their interests were, or if they had some other motive (like looking smart in a particular area when their friends visited).

I think Erin would be great at this. Maybe I'll see if I can give her $5 to rent some books for me next time she goes to the library.

Posted by mary at 1:21 PM | Comments (3)

January 10, 2007

OMG!!! OMG!!! Apple Finally Reveals its Handheld Aquarium!!

The rumors finally panned out, and Steve Jobs revealed the first Apple handheld time-telling aquarium yesterday. I have so many questions: How do they manage to fit those fish into that thin casing? Can you get different kinds of fish? How do they make it so it won't leak in your purse? If you unlock it, do the fish pour out? How do you feed them?

But most of all, I want one. It's soooo much more elegant than the MacAquarium.

$499 may seem steep, but figure you'd spend probably about $500 on a 40 gallon tank alone (never mind the fish and plants), and there's no way you could take that with you on the road, so I say, it's worth it.

Posted by mary at 7:55 AM | Comments (3)

January 9, 2007

Pub Ponchos or Smoker's Jumpers

A garment to wear in smoky bars and pubs to protect your clothing and hair from stink.

One of the problems with Portland's lack of an indoor smoking ban in bars is that you stink liked the dickens if you go out to the wrong places.

(I was told that the tobacco lobby made a legislative run-around us passing a ban in Portland by putting in State legislation saying that no single community could make smoking bans - I don't really understand that. I don't even understand the sentence I just wrote. I should call a representative and find out what the deal is? I'll update this post if I do learn something more concrete.)

Even so, Camel seems to be anticipating a ban with its introduction of Snus yummy smokeless tobacco into the Portland market (we're one of two test markets!).

But why give up so easy on smoky bars?

Camel could do another run-around by offering Pub Ponchos or Smoker's Jumpers. Smoky establishments would offer them to you when you walked in the door -- much like classy joints offer men a jacket to borrow if they aren't wearing one. Or you could buy them from the cigarette machines. They'd be like hazmat suits, made out of that papery material and stuff.

They could also use them as a branding opportunity:

And so chic!

Note that I have pictured something closed at the ankles, to avoid the dreaded, 'pub panties,' but it could be as simple as an actual poncho that you just throw over your head. Come to think of it, you could just start wearing one of those cheap rain ponchos in bars. (Don't think I won't! I'm already wearing my orange reflective safety vest out to dinner.)

Note that this would not protect your lungs.

Posted by mary at 11:07 AM | Comments (4)

January 7, 2007

Portland Photography Shows/People with Their Christmas Presents

If I were a photographer, I'd take a series of pictures featuring lots of different people with their Christmas presents.

I went to go see Patrick's photos and Shawn's photos this last week -- about 200% more art shows than I generally go to in a given week year.

I also enjoyed Dennis Chamberlin's "Screen Culture" photos, which were next door to Shawn's, and seeing them, combined with finally downloading my pictures from Christmas, gave me the idea for a Christmas Gift series.

The thing I like about this idea is not so much the opportunity to give some heavy-handed commentary on the excesses of consumerism or the weight of family anxieties or even the pleasures of modern domesticity. What I like is the fact that it would be really difficult to do unless you spent, like, 5 to 10 years doing it. Because really, you could only really make it to, say, three Christmas gift opening frenzies a year. (It's funny to me that we don't have a word for that -- that time when we all open our Christmas presents together and make a huge mess in the living room -- do we?) Because everyone's doing it at more or less the same time -- some people might do it in Christmas Eve, and some might do it earlier or later on Christmas morning, but even so, you've still got a pretty narrow window. It's kind of like Ian's idea for doing a history of the FBI witness relocation program: challenging for logistical reasons. Plus! Assuming you celebrate Christmas yourself, you'd have to give up celebrating it in any kind of relaxing way, if you were zooming around town trying to get to other people's opening frenzies. So, if nothing else, an audience would have to respect your persistence and sacrifice.

I'm pretty literal in my appreciation of photography -- once I get past the aesthetic response of "that's pretty!" (or ugly, or whatever). Patrick's photos make me wonder which of the construction workers he got to know, or how high he was off the ground when he took them. Shawn's make me think things like, "hey! cute animal!" (or sometimes, "what's an animal doing there?!") or, "do I know that person?" and with the Portland Grid Project I'm all about trying to figure out if I can recognize where the pictures were taken. I'm basically shallow as hell.

My main response to "Screen Culture" was to wonder: how did he get in all these people's living rooms? Are they all friends or family?

My other thought was, "Man, that looks relaxing," which I suspect is not what a lot of people think when they see other people staring blankly at screens. It's kind of like the time Tim and I were driving late one rainy night in Bremerton and saw some police lights flashing in the distance and I said without thinking, "Man, those lights make me feel like drinking."

Anyway, here's Betsy and Porter enjoying two of Sol's Christmas presents. This is a crappy photo -- but this website brings the ideas, not the goods. Just imagine about 20 or so of these, only good, and with all different families, and you'd have yourself a show (or a Life Magazine story, anyway). And after you put in your time on Christmas and established yourself as a photographer of people opening presents, you could move on to birthdays and finally get your life back.

In the meantime, if you want to see some actually good photography, Patrick's show, featuring his photos of construction of the Portland Tram, Max, and from the Portland Grid Project, is at Marylhurst in the Art Gym through February 14. Shawn's photos from his series, "At a Loss" are up at at Nine Gallery (1231 NW Hoyt -- aka, just inside the Blue Sky Gallery) through January 29th.

Posted by mary at 9:58 PM | Comments (5)