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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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Archive for December, 2009
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
color my world – foto by Smith
I’m not one who devotes the last day of the year to introspection and analysis because I engage in both every day of the year. As well I don’t sit down making New Year’s resolutions to better myself because again that is a daily activity.
The year’s been too varied and complicated to briefly sum up – and again that’s not needed because I blog almost daily.
So I’ll shoot the last of my good and bad headline harvest wad. The first section is the headlines I find have good implications showing the better side of humans, while the second portion ponders how evil, selfish, mundane and stupid most of us seem to be.
~ ~ ~
GOOD LINES:
Detroit Man Turns Misfortune Into Art
Tennessee Man Buys Gas For 80 Strangers
France’s First Lady Carla Bruni Strikes Up Friendship With Homeless Man
NY Mom Gets Sight Back, Sees Daughter For First Time
Cute Animals Kissing
Beautiful, Sustainable Homes Made Of Straw
The Book Isn’t Dead Yet
California Restaurants Ban Trans Fat As Of January 1
Thirst: A Terrific Debut Short Story Collection by a Peripatetic Quadrogenarian
Senate Confirms First Openly Gay US Marshal
Boozer Busted After Calling 911 for Bar Ride
Man Unloads 58 Guns At Compton Weapons Exchange
Belligerent Ivana Trump Gets ESCORTED Off Plane
Obama Moves To Curb Federal Secrets, Reverses Decision By Bush
Christmas ‘Miracle’ Birth Has Some Claiming Divine Intervention
Rare New Year’s Eve ‘Blue Moon’ To Ring In 2010
France Permits Partying ‘Til The Break Of Dawn
Judge Rules Cities Can’t Use Federal Law To Justify Banning Medical Marijuana Dispensaries
~ ~ ~
That was the good, nice, amusing portion of our news headlines cast. Now (if you decide to hang around, and you need not because you already know how venal and inhumane humans can be), here is how most of our world was these past 10 years of greed, theft, murder, lies, backstabbing, war crimes, and power grabs (and that was just Dick Cheney’s contribution).
~ ~ ~
BAD LINES:
Polls Show That People Don’t Know What They Want But They Want It Right Now
Breast Implants And Bound Feet — What’s The Difference?
Uncle Sam Wants To See Us Naked
The Global War on Stealth Underwear
How to be a Perfect Wife, Mother, Career Woman and Super Hot Sex Babe? Buy More Stuff!
Strippers, Sluts and Army Wives
Jesus Robots, Poo Dolls, And Blandness Girl: The Craziest Japanese Toys Of All Time
LOST IT: Man Kills Dog, Streaks Through Country Club, Pours Coffee On Head
Hedge Fund Manager Tased Employees, Hired Dwarf To Pull Pranks
Right-Wing Response To Attack Scare: More Religious And Racial Profiling
‘Being Lectured By Cheney On Terrorism Is Like Being Lectured On Fidelity By Tiger Woods’
‘Help Us Raise Money To Save America, Destroy The Opposition’
Montana Tennis Courts Rebuilt With Stimulus Funds
“Only One Thing Can Make People This Stupid, And That’s Money”
Poverty Shortens Perfect Health By 8.2 Years
China Executes British Man Said To Be Mentally Ill
Who’s the Biggest Douchebag of 2009 — Sarah Palin or Tiger Woods?
What I Learned From A Yam
86-Year-Old Indian Governor Resigns After 3-Woman Sex Tape Surfaces
and this one–Is Life After Death Possible?–reminds me of a bit of doggerel I wrote back in the early 1960s:
Quantum Stereo
You ask – is there life after death?
Now holding my breath
And intending no mirth
I reply – is there life after birth?
The graveyard’s filled
The graveyard’s full
Yet still the dead are dying
This lifeless life
Makes death look dull
And you wonder why I’m whying?
turbulent times – foto by Smith
Posted in news | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Yuyu taught me how to make Himalayan Lentil Curry. I’ve made several batches since he’s left, and here’s my current rendition of it:
1 bag lentils, soaked overnight
6-8 onions, diced
1 head garlic, diced
2 ” ginger, minced
6-12 chopped tomatoes or mebbe a 15-oz can chopped tomatoes – about 6 cups of tomatoes, I’m guessing
1-2 T turmeric
2-4 T chani dal masala (this is a very hot spice mix)
2 T garam masala *
2 T mustard seeds *
2 T cumin seeds *
3 T coriander seeds
1 t cardamom seeds *
8 cloves *
2 chilies, chopped, with seeds *
1-3 C vegetable oil
1-2 sticks butter
1 can coconut milk
1-2 limes, juice of *
1/2 C goat cheese *
* Items marked with asterisk are not necessary
Roast cumin & mustard seeds in pan 1-2 minutes, until they start to turn aromatic. Roast coriander separately. Grind coriander (can smash with hammer in plastic baggie, or coffee grinder). Or you can use the coriander whole, but ground seems better for texture, especially if there is a lot of it.
The timing seems to work if I chop and cook at the same time. By the time I’m done chopping one ingredient, the mixture is ready for me to incorporate it in.
Chop up the onions. Then start heating 1-3 C oil in big heavy-bottomed pot on medium. While oil is heating, start chopping the garlic. Put seeds in oil for a few minutes. Then add onion and garlic to the oil. Add a little bit of salt (1/2 t?) Fry until onion fairly translucent and aromatic, then set to real low flame.You can spend this time dicing the ginger. Then add ginger, chiles, turmeric, chani dal masala and garam masala. Stir. Put on low heat. Start chopping tomatoes. When halfway through chopping tomatoes, add what you’ve chopped to the oil, set the flame a little higher to like a medium flame, then chop the rest, and then add the rest. Cook down about two minutes, then add lentils and cloves and enough water to cover mixture. Mix well. Bring to a boil, then let simmer on low for about an hour to an hour and a half, covered, stirring every ten minutes or so.
Near the end, add the coconut milk, lime juice, goat cheese and butter, mix in until melted and well incorporated. Smash cardamom seeds and sprinkle on. Add salt to taste. You could set it to simmer for a while until it seems ‘right’.
The end result should be a very fatty, delicious, aromatic, tomato-y stew, somewhat reminiscent of sloppy joe flavor – more dense liquid than lentil.
Serving sizes are very small, about 1/3 C. It’s a very rich food, full of delicious fat. I eat it with pita or rice. I figure there are about 25 servings per pot, at about 50 cents/serving. It’s full of antioxidants and fiber and satisfies your hunger for a good 6 hours.
Lady K
Posted in Food | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
ice on our car window – foto by Smith
We began 2009 living a mile up in the mountains in Oaxaca Mexico down near the Guatemala border. We end it here under the gray cold snowy skies of Cleveland Ohio. This in the trade is known as a wrong-way-play.
Here are the end of the year status reports on our three web sites.
~ ~ ~
TheCityPoetry.com – Lady K’s online zine of artists and poets:
2009 – 106,378 pages . . . or . . . 293 pages per day
2008 – 97,769 pages . . . or . . . 268 pages per day
Gained 25 pages a day for an increased readership of 9.3%
~ ~ ~
WalkingThinIce.com – Lady and Smith’s blog of travelling 31 months in 10 countries on 3 continents then returning to live in the United Corporate Mistakes of America:
2009 – 869,496 pages . . . or . . . 2,395 pages per day
2008 – 948,601 pages . . . or . . . 2,599 pages per day
Lost 204 pages a day for a decrease in readership of 7.8%
~ ~ ~
AgentOfChaos.com – Smith and friends art and poetry (at 3,500 pages, this may be the largest art & poetry site on the web):
2009 = 867,728 pages . . . or . . . 2,390 pages per day
2008 = 982,406 pages . . . or . . . 2,692 pages per day
Lost 302 daily pages for a decrease in readership of 11.2%
~ ~ ~
The three sites rack up 5,078 pages viewed per day (this does not count our MySpace pages or Lady’s Face Book page).
I noticed the traffic on Ice and Chaos both dropped drastically as soon as we returned to the U.S.A. to live.
speed of light – foto by Smith
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
I found out how to take photos of peoples’ true faces. I found Smith’s. It’s benevolent but sometimes kinda trickster. Sometimes it looks like an alien turtle:
What you do is you take a picture of someone’s forehead and eyeballs, upside-down. But like, you really have to see the face to capture it on film. Otherwise it’s just the top of a forehead and eyeballs, upside-down.
I see a very happy turtle here:
It’s interesting cuz, like, it looks like the forehead really wants to talk, only it can’t. And guess what your real nose is? Your real nose is… your third eye. Only you have a third and fourth eye, cuz there are two nostrils. At least that’s what it looks like with Smith. I made this discovery whilst massaging his temples. I started with the toes, and ended with the temples, and found his third and fourth eyeballs.
The funny thing is, I was saying to him that I really didn’t care about his forehead. That if I had to choose, I’d pick his eyes/nose/mouth hemisphere over his forehead hemisphere. And then, all of a sudden, his alternate/true face made itself appear! And so I then decided that it’s kind of hard to choose (I mean, if I had to.) It’s like the true face wouldn’t shine unless threatened.
Here’s my true face. I’m kinda a space alien hippie. I call myself ‘Kydal3’:
Welcome to my planet.
So I wondered what other peoples’ true faces look like. I found some interesting ones:
Queen Elizabeth (above) is a rather lovely, glowing alien.
I wondered what Obama would look like. It seemed best if I inverted and used the bottom half of his ‘conventional’ face as well. He seems to be holding some kind of weird alien fingers up to his eyes. And his smile seems a little bit forced when you look at it this way:
I *had* to try Cheney, too. It’s kinda scary.
I wonder if evil shows up in a face if you just rearrange it properly. But no matter what, I couldn’t make the Dalai Lama look evil. He kinda looks like a Dalai Lama-Dog:
Now, Bush might be the reincarnation of Lucifer. Look at him just kinda looking down, seeing what he can get away with:
Or he could be the Cheshire cat:
Hillary Clinton looks like she’s just, well, kinda confused or something, or a kinda soft, ooshy, sweet monster:
For something truly surreal, try Hitler:
Posted in Art | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 28th, 2009
happy daze aren’t here again – foto by Smith
More harvested headline weird schemes and nightmare dreams taken from inside this old cold gold mine of freedom mime called The Democracy of American Capitalism and Its Related Moral and Ethical Precepts in Action During Its Time of Decline.
May next year suck less than this year, as this year sucked slightly less than last year since we got the war criminal mass-murdering Cheney Bush Beast out of their illegal occupation of the White House.
~ ~ ~
So many bogus stories, so little time
Cop Pulls Gun On Snowball Fight
Santa packs heat, robs Nashville bank at gunpoint
Man Strolls Into Diner With Knife Stabbed In His Chest, Orders Coffee, Complains About Weather
New Mexico Woman Constantly Aroused After Car Accident
Why Men Fake Orgasms
Woman’s Eyes Glued Shut After Eyelash Tinting Mishap
Controversial Billboard Of Joseph And Mary In Bed: God ‘A Hard Act To Follow’
Why Aren’t There Sleazy Sex Scandals Involving Powerful Women?
10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who’ve Been Screwing You
Detroit’s Unemployment Rate Is Nearly 50 PERCENT
The Human Grease Murders
Israel Admits Harvesting Palestinian Organs
Pakistani Court Orders 2 Men’s Noses, Ears Cut Off
Iran Police Gun Down Protesters, Protesters Fight Back
Paramedics Ignore Dying Pregnant Woman While On Coffee Break
Glenn Beck Named ‘Misinformer Of The Year’
Glenn Beck ‘Raised The Stupid Bar’ To ‘Nearly Inapproachable’
Sarah Palin: I’m Not the Biggest Liar Of The Year
Pregnancy Banned By Iraq Army General: Pregnant Soldiers Could Face Court-Martial
Con Man Convinced Bush Administration He Could Predict Terror Attack
Jesus Hated War — Why Do Christians Love It So Much?
Marijuana Laws Behind 12% Of All City Arrests
Grandmother Accidentally Feeds 3-Year-Old Grandson Pot Cookie
Kids’ Top Searches In 2009: Porn, Sex Top The List
Texting Drivers Six Times More Likely To Crash:
Mom Calls 911 Over Son’s Video Game Obsession
Author Calling FBI About Negative Amazon Reviewers?
Video Gamer Uses Xbox To Lure Underage Teen Into Sex
New Home For Dogs Who ATE Their Owner
China’s Last Wild Indochinese Tiger Is Killed And Eaten By A Villager
IS THAT A LIZARD IN YOUR POCKET: Smuggler Busted With 15 Reptiles On His Body
Pig’s Farts Start Huge Gas Leak Scare
Man Sought By Police For Sniffing Butts In Supermarket
Well, That Sure Sucked: Good Riddance to the Devil’s Decade
“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” — Thomas Jefferson
redline warning – foto by Smith
Posted in news | No Comments »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
hearth and home – foto by Smith
Almost every week I’ve been harvesting nasty horrible ugly headlines from the news and blogging them as a slice of where-we-are-as-humans feature.
Then I thought why not harvest some good positive headlines as well to show the nicer more positive side of humanity.
Well, I’ve been collecting good headlines for a month already and have found almost none. I mean, there are a lot of positive headlines out there, such as the one guy who’s made a thousand teddy bears to give away to the needy, but the headlines are so innocuous and bland that they make for boring reading. Which goes to show why the newspapers scream out doom and disaster because those headlines have punch and demand interest,
Another thing I discovered was I could get more than enough nasty, ludicrous and stupid headlines in a couple days, whereas I’ve been a month gathering these 12, and they aren’t all that great to begin with.
And I suppose not all would find positive what I find positive – like Giuliani not running for office. I find the fact that a greedy power-hungry lying son-of-a-badness politician is not going to run for office a good thing while evil heartless ethics-dead brain-blank republicans might see the same headline as depressing.
I also found the fact that Afghani soldiers are too stoned to go out and kill their fellow citizens to be a positive thing, while other could see this differently.
Anyway, here’s my slim sip of cheer at the end of this uncheerful year.
At 94, She’s the Hot New Thing in Painting
Badass Cat On Roomba Slaps Pitbull
No Holds Theory Of Life: Pain And Holiday Blues Are Money In The Bank
Rudy Giuliani To Announce He’s Not Running For Senate
Alcoholic Monkeys (video)
Afghanistan’s Hashish-Smoking Troops Struggle To Prepare For Battle
Donkeys Escape From Vail, Colorado Nativity Scene
Priest: It’s OK To Shoplift From Certain Stores
Mysterious Benefactor Buys 15 Rooms For Homeless On Christmas
Obamas Travel To Hawaii, Get Lei’d
2009: The Year The Cubicle Died
Boy Fends Off Dog Attack, Saves Siblings
future swallows – foto by Smith
Posted in news | No Comments »
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
Cat bit Steve in the kitchen. She’d initiated a petting, and then turned on him and bit him, drawing blood. He was bewildered.
“That’s her nature. She’s a snake,” I told him. “She’s a little cat-snake.”
He sat down, painfully slow, creaking into a thump on the sofa. She watched him descend then wagged her tail and crossed the room to me. I could feel just a little breeze as she passed. That’s all she needs to stimulate herself sometimes, a little breeze.
She touched me lightly with her tail as if to tap, as if to warn or entice. There’s no way I’m gonna try to touch her, I thought.
She spent all night sleeping by me, either on my chest or side or across my shoulder, her face resting on mine. She caressed my face periodically with her paws, her nails out just a little bit.
Lady
Posted in Being | No Comments »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Lady in south nook – foto by Smith
It’s Lady K’s birthday today – she’s my Xmas Eve present from the past. This is her fifth bornday since we took up together.
Before she walked over my doormat that said GO AWAY, I was a hermit who stayed home alone in the dark muttering in his croaky cancer-riddled voice. Now I’m a healed, twice-married man who just returned from a 31-month 22-city 10-country 3-continent world walking — all thanks to her.
We’re different, she and I — different genders, different ages, different heights, different generations, different demographics, different philosophies, different inclinations — but we’re eerily similar creatively.
We’re two candles, one flame.
camera Lady on Lake Erie shore – foto by Smith
Posted in Lady | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
coldfire – foto by Smith
Outside the fire’s flame
In this dark encroaching cold
I hold my wife, warm
This was one of 50 haiku I wrote in high mountain cold two years ago while picking Mexican coffee, yet find it’s true up here as well in Cleveland’s encroaching winter.
Every so often Lady stops and looks at me and says, “I don’t know the rules on this planet.”
Neither do I. That’s probably why we’re together.
the man in the moon – foto by Smith
Posted in Lady, Relationships | 2 Comments »
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