Tongue and Groove, by Dave Smith.
Tongue and Groove
Forms a lock. But how does it begin in this world? The twig
falls, snaring another, and another, a storm’s blackness
gathers and sends its will scudding down and over the quiet
niches of the forest, where a nest of barky remnants
holds, waiting it seems, and is then lifted, swirled away.
Like the afterlife. We never see where they land or in what shape.
We mimic what we can. We remember. We say this way.
The shadow man’s fingers feel the groove. Fits to it
a piece of firm, now barkless wood, slender and pliant,
then into it, then deeper, snugly, and carries it with him a while.
When the wall stands, ugly and crude, needing its wind-cover,
the hand, after the night with love, fashions plank and rib,
wets for entry, slides, sees this cannot be easily parted.
Long years hold up the rich color, the vein-mapping.
Some like to sand hard, thinking to get back the early patina.
My wife from the first wanted to paint it brilliant cloud white.
Such an old look, such dour faces. At last I gave in.
The paper, medium rough, slid like a small hill of gravel
loosing the smell of pine sap. I could see the shadow
felling the tree, making the rib, the lock, nailing up forever
what would soon be lost in the sailing white, layered like mist
you cannot see through. The little nail holes puttied-in,
like eyes, slab after slab shoulder to shoulder, knots where
limbs grew, room like a snow-crypt. We live here.
Still, I know stains will rise some day, the lock split apart.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Save the Sugar-Plum Fairy!
St Charles, Missouri is the town which fired the Sugar-Plum Fairy.
The Sugar-Plum Fairy, like all fairies, is a naturally upbeat and ebullient character. Or she was. Now she's a tearful little fairy, stripped of her wings.
Why? because, the employers of all upbeat and ebullient fairies, who seem to mostly be mean and grumbly trolls and ogres, are extremely suspicious of effervescence and enthusiasm, given that a grumbly troll or ogre can rarely attain even a faint upturn of the lips, let alone a smile.
So suspicious, that they make their fairies pee into a cup, and hand their fizzy yellow fluids to Ogrelab, for drug testing.
Laura Coppinger has played the fairy for the last six years, as part of a group of characters who add fun and magic to the city's centre during the run-up to christmas. As such, for a few weeks of each year, she's a city employee. And city employee applicants, have, it seems, to be drug-screened.
By submitting a urine sample with the grinch listening to her tinkle.
And this year, she filled her cup, and, as we all do when we've peed in the porcelain bowl, she flushed.
Oh dear. Flushing is forbidden. (This is because the sample provider might just use some flush water to dilute the sample). Therefore her sample was rejected.
Laura was told she'd have to stay until she could provide another cupful of warm pee, ("Note: The collector should also tell the employee that the temperature of the specimen is a critical factor and that the employee should bring the specimen to the collector as soon as possible after urination. The collector should inform the employee that if it is longer than 4 minutes from the time the employee urinates into the container and the collector takes the specimen temperature, the potential exists that the specimen may be out of range and an observed collection may be required.")
An observed collection!!!!
She had another job interview to go to that afternoon. So, frustrated at the delay, she muttered a naughty word.
And the fairy code that the city council uses says “Christmas characters don’t know naughty words".
Surely, the fairy code applies only when on duty, interacting with townsfolk and shoppers, whilst in character?
(Doesn't Snow White, for instance, ever get a break, where she dares fart?)
Laura said a bad word. In the ladies room with only one other person present, that person being a town employee charged with conducting urine collection on city employees, that person told her she need not bother waiting, because swearing precludes fairyhood. Snip. Off with your wings, disgraced mortal.
Three separate campaign pages have been created on Facebook: Save the Sugar Plum Fairy, Bring Back the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Save the Sugar Plum Fairy on Main Street. More than a thousand people have added their support to the effort.
Many of the businesses have spoken out in her favour, asking that the fairy be reinstated, but the mayor says the decision stands.
I, for one, shall be boycotting St Charles Missouri this christmas, and I promise not to vote for the current Mayor in any upcoming election.
Footnote: Because I was wondering why flushing is taboo, I googled drug test procedure, and found out far more than I ever needed to know. Did you know there are companies which sell 'synthetic urine' and strap-on bladders in which to conceal it?
Oh yes. they do... And I found the (no doubt apocryphal) story of the guy who was told that drugtests were being held the day after he'd smoked a heap of weed, so he asked his girlfriend to help him out with a ziplock baggie of clean pee that he could hide in his pants. "good news", the drugtester quips, "You're clean of drugs, and congratulations... You're pregnant!"
The Handbook on Pee-Testing, as used by the United States Department of Transportation.
Via Arbroath.
The Sugar-Plum Fairy, like all fairies, is a naturally upbeat and ebullient character. Or she was. Now she's a tearful little fairy, stripped of her wings.
Why? because, the employers of all upbeat and ebullient fairies, who seem to mostly be mean and grumbly trolls and ogres, are extremely suspicious of effervescence and enthusiasm, given that a grumbly troll or ogre can rarely attain even a faint upturn of the lips, let alone a smile.
So suspicious, that they make their fairies pee into a cup, and hand their fizzy yellow fluids to Ogrelab, for drug testing.
Laura Coppinger has played the fairy for the last six years, as part of a group of characters who add fun and magic to the city's centre during the run-up to christmas. As such, for a few weeks of each year, she's a city employee. And city employee applicants, have, it seems, to be drug-screened.
By submitting a urine sample with the grinch listening to her tinkle.
And this year, she filled her cup, and, as we all do when we've peed in the porcelain bowl, she flushed.
Oh dear. Flushing is forbidden. (This is because the sample provider might just use some flush water to dilute the sample). Therefore her sample was rejected.
Laura was told she'd have to stay until she could provide another cupful of warm pee, ("Note: The collector should also tell the employee that the temperature of the specimen is a critical factor and that the employee should bring the specimen to the collector as soon as possible after urination. The collector should inform the employee that if it is longer than 4 minutes from the time the employee urinates into the container and the collector takes the specimen temperature, the potential exists that the specimen may be out of range and an observed collection may be required.")
An observed collection!!!!
She had another job interview to go to that afternoon. So, frustrated at the delay, she muttered a naughty word.
And the fairy code that the city council uses says “Christmas characters don’t know naughty words".
Surely, the fairy code applies only when on duty, interacting with townsfolk and shoppers, whilst in character?
(Doesn't Snow White, for instance, ever get a break, where she dares fart?)
Laura said a bad word. In the ladies room with only one other person present, that person being a town employee charged with conducting urine collection on city employees, that person told her she need not bother waiting, because swearing precludes fairyhood. Snip. Off with your wings, disgraced mortal.
Three separate campaign pages have been created on Facebook: Save the Sugar Plum Fairy, Bring Back the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Save the Sugar Plum Fairy on Main Street. More than a thousand people have added their support to the effort.
Many of the businesses have spoken out in her favour, asking that the fairy be reinstated, but the mayor says the decision stands.
I, for one, shall be boycotting St Charles Missouri this christmas, and I promise not to vote for the current Mayor in any upcoming election.
Footnote: Because I was wondering why flushing is taboo, I googled drug test procedure, and found out far more than I ever needed to know. Did you know there are companies which sell 'synthetic urine' and strap-on bladders in which to conceal it?
Oh yes. they do... And I found the (no doubt apocryphal) story of the guy who was told that drugtests were being held the day after he'd smoked a heap of weed, so he asked his girlfriend to help him out with a ziplock baggie of clean pee that he could hide in his pants. "good news", the drugtester quips, "You're clean of drugs, and congratulations... You're pregnant!"
The Handbook on Pee-Testing, as used by the United States Department of Transportation.
Via Arbroath.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Post From a Zombie Laptop
As I said, a few days ago, I experienced an unscheduled outage in my computer time.
Put simply, Windows Vista fell over and died. The laptop was thus brain-dead. But no worries, because Vista's got built-in repair tools, and, failing that, if all the hammering and sawing and welding are to no avail, then I can use the built in "Restore to last known good configuration"
Nope. "Can not restore...." Then we go to "Select an earlier restore point"
Nope.
Then we use the fancy drive image backup my brother in law advised me to get.
"File corrupted".
So, dammit. I went to my original rescue discs and restored the thing to the state it was in three years ago. I've lost little or no data, all my documents and pics and so on get backed up elsewhere. Just not the operating system, the bookmarks and links and so on.
In the meantime I've been decluttering my clutterer home, and I dredged up the ancient laptop and its power supply. "I wonder?", I mused. Plugged it in, and accessed the interweb via firefox 3. A retro experience indeed. All the old bookmarks... I try them, and most of the places they pointed to are long gone.
If I unplug the power lead, it's like I've squeezed off the oxygen, the laptop staggers, coughs... I plug it back in, hey, it's a zombie. It's the undead, the undying.
Of course, plugging it into the interweb is the wrong thing to do. All the old programs, unused for years, start groaning "Braaaaains!, Braaains", and are trying to suck in as many updates as they can get their hungry gums around. I'm killing processes as I go, printer drivers for long dead printers... Eventually we hit an impasse. I'm trying to write a blog post and the error messages start.
Poor little thing, its brain's full. Can you believe, a laptop with a six gigabyte hard drive?
My phone's got more storage than that. I'll bet the toaster does too.
So I gave up, took the shiny laptop to the computer gurus who rent space from us at work. They ran diagnostics prior to the planned windows 7 install, and lo and behold, they found it wasn't windows' fault, but rather a failing memory chip. Cybernetic Spongiform Encephalitis.
So a quick lobotomy, followed by a prosthetic memory, a new shiny operating system, and a brave new world.
I'm back!
Yaaaaaaaay!
Put simply, Windows Vista fell over and died. The laptop was thus brain-dead. But no worries, because Vista's got built-in repair tools, and, failing that, if all the hammering and sawing and welding are to no avail, then I can use the built in "Restore to last known good configuration"
Nope. "Can not restore...." Then we go to "Select an earlier restore point"
Nope.
Then we use the fancy drive image backup my brother in law advised me to get.
"File corrupted".
So, dammit. I went to my original rescue discs and restored the thing to the state it was in three years ago. I've lost little or no data, all my documents and pics and so on get backed up elsewhere. Just not the operating system, the bookmarks and links and so on.
In the meantime I've been decluttering my clutterer home, and I dredged up the ancient laptop and its power supply. "I wonder?", I mused. Plugged it in, and accessed the interweb via firefox 3. A retro experience indeed. All the old bookmarks... I try them, and most of the places they pointed to are long gone.
If I unplug the power lead, it's like I've squeezed off the oxygen, the laptop staggers, coughs... I plug it back in, hey, it's a zombie. It's the undead, the undying.
Of course, plugging it into the interweb is the wrong thing to do. All the old programs, unused for years, start groaning "Braaaaains!, Braaains", and are trying to suck in as many updates as they can get their hungry gums around. I'm killing processes as I go, printer drivers for long dead printers... Eventually we hit an impasse. I'm trying to write a blog post and the error messages start.
Poor little thing, its brain's full. Can you believe, a laptop with a six gigabyte hard drive?
My phone's got more storage than that. I'll bet the toaster does too.
So I gave up, took the shiny laptop to the computer gurus who rent space from us at work. They ran diagnostics prior to the planned windows 7 install, and lo and behold, they found it wasn't windows' fault, but rather a failing memory chip. Cybernetic Spongiform Encephalitis.
So a quick lobotomy, followed by a prosthetic memory, a new shiny operating system, and a brave new world.
I'm back!
Yaaaaaaaay!
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
BSOD
The Blue Screen of Death.
Luckily, I tend to regularly dump the contents of my laptop onto a hard drive. A couple of days ago, Windows Vista, which I've been using for a couple of years, since the big box thing died, had a little difficulty starting. Kind of like a stroke, actually. Obviously it would be churlish of me to grumble, because it's never done so before, despite the stories about Microsoft's 'Blue Screen of Death'. actually, despite all the stories, I've not seen the BSOD for years, not on my computers. XP used to die in many pathetic or dramatic ways, then claw itself out of the abyss toward the light, but never used to give me that stupid blue screen. Ah well, I thought, rebooting, Vista's got all these clever self-repair tools built in so I'll let it repair the start-up sectors all on its own. Well, it tried, and fell over repeatedly. Then it asked me if I'd like to start with the last known good configuration? Oh yes, I said, whatever it takes... It worked for 24 hours. Next day we tried the same old game again. What caused the fail. As far as I can see, the fail occurred after several abortive windows ".net family" update attempts. At first it said update failed, unknown error. Then it tried again and fell apart totally, bsod. And why, I ask, does it do that. It flashes a blue screen full of text up for about seventeen milliseconds. I'm a phenomenally fast reader, but there was no way I could imprint more than a couple of lines on my retina before blackness and the void. A couple of hours later, we'd tried all the saved restore points. At this point, of course, I could have inserted a ghost image of a good configuration.... Um. If the computer didn't tell me that there was a corrupted file on the disc. I sniffed it, it didn't smell corrupted. I mean, I've eaten smellier things. Maybe it meant the disc had been taking bribes? Snorting coke? Heaven forfend! Which meant a major rummage, to turn up the rescue discs I made when I first got the laptop, using the manufacturer's software. Now it has a 'repair' option, but after a couple more hours of abortive tries, I had to go for the full restore, pithed frog option, in which you wash out any old remaining brain cells with bleach, and write onto a blank and vacant cortex. Poor computer. Lobotomy. By now it's nearly 2 a.m. But I had it running, so I left it downloading 122 windows vital updates. If I had enough money, I'd abandon all my dignity and buy a No No No No.... I can't say it...... a... m...a M... M..... M... No. I can't say it. I just can't give in and buy a sealed box which has been blessed by the celestial fruit-monger. Yes, I mean a M.... Oh damn. If I try say that word that refers to ineffably smug computers which cost ridiculously disproportionate sums, then I just know I'll have a nosebleed.
I have, however, decided to upgrade to Windows Seven. Meanwhile current fresh install of Vista is running amazingly quickly, because I haven't reinstalled all the crap that just sits there in the background, parasitically wasting processor cycles and memory, on the offchance that I'd like to scan something or print or view photos or movies. My browser though. Sigh. I've lost all my bookmarks. A library of resources gone. Oh .....buck-it! I suppose I'll remember some of them, bit by bit. And pictures. Downloaded stuff. Any more and I'll start weeping. And yes. The first person to say "Why didn't you back it up continuously, seeing as you had software to do it?" gets a poke in the eye.
Luckily, I tend to regularly dump the contents of my laptop onto a hard drive. A couple of days ago, Windows Vista, which I've been using for a couple of years, since the big box thing died, had a little difficulty starting. Kind of like a stroke, actually. Obviously it would be churlish of me to grumble, because it's never done so before, despite the stories about Microsoft's 'Blue Screen of Death'. actually, despite all the stories, I've not seen the BSOD for years, not on my computers. XP used to die in many pathetic or dramatic ways, then claw itself out of the abyss toward the light, but never used to give me that stupid blue screen. Ah well, I thought, rebooting, Vista's got all these clever self-repair tools built in so I'll let it repair the start-up sectors all on its own. Well, it tried, and fell over repeatedly. Then it asked me if I'd like to start with the last known good configuration? Oh yes, I said, whatever it takes... It worked for 24 hours. Next day we tried the same old game again. What caused the fail. As far as I can see, the fail occurred after several abortive windows ".net family" update attempts. At first it said update failed, unknown error. Then it tried again and fell apart totally, bsod. And why, I ask, does it do that. It flashes a blue screen full of text up for about seventeen milliseconds. I'm a phenomenally fast reader, but there was no way I could imprint more than a couple of lines on my retina before blackness and the void. A couple of hours later, we'd tried all the saved restore points. At this point, of course, I could have inserted a ghost image of a good configuration.... Um. If the computer didn't tell me that there was a corrupted file on the disc. I sniffed it, it didn't smell corrupted. I mean, I've eaten smellier things. Maybe it meant the disc had been taking bribes? Snorting coke? Heaven forfend! Which meant a major rummage, to turn up the rescue discs I made when I first got the laptop, using the manufacturer's software. Now it has a 'repair' option, but after a couple more hours of abortive tries, I had to go for the full restore, pithed frog option, in which you wash out any old remaining brain cells with bleach, and write onto a blank and vacant cortex. Poor computer. Lobotomy. By now it's nearly 2 a.m. But I had it running, so I left it downloading 122 windows vital updates. If I had enough money, I'd abandon all my dignity and buy a No No No No.... I can't say it...... a... m...a M... M..... M... No. I can't say it. I just can't give in and buy a sealed box which has been blessed by the celestial fruit-monger. Yes, I mean a M.... Oh damn. If I try say that word that refers to ineffably smug computers which cost ridiculously disproportionate sums, then I just know I'll have a nosebleed.
I have, however, decided to upgrade to Windows Seven. Meanwhile current fresh install of Vista is running amazingly quickly, because I haven't reinstalled all the crap that just sits there in the background, parasitically wasting processor cycles and memory, on the offchance that I'd like to scan something or print or view photos or movies. My browser though. Sigh. I've lost all my bookmarks. A library of resources gone. Oh .....buck-it! I suppose I'll remember some of them, bit by bit. And pictures. Downloaded stuff. Any more and I'll start weeping. And yes. The first person to say "Why didn't you back it up continuously, seeing as you had software to do it?" gets a poke in the eye.
Sunday, 6 November 2011
For R.D.G., A Picture and a Poem
"Road"
A picture by Krystzof Browko.
The Rolling English Road, by G.K.Chesterton.
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
(Soubriquet Footnote: The last line, "by way of Kensal Green" refers to a huge necropolis with very grand monuments, in West London.)
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
(Soubriquet Footnote: The last line, "by way of Kensal Green" refers to a huge necropolis with very grand monuments, in West London.)
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