I love you, Farm Sanctuary!

Farm Sanctuary is an amazing organization dedicated to rescuing, saving, nurturing, and sheltering farm animals. They have two sanctuary locations, one in New York and one in California.

I think the work they do is very important and makes a huge difference in the world. Check out their web site!

What I love more than anything is when I get to read about a particular animal they've rescued, such as Wendy the wayward chicken! Here's her story. Isn't she beautiful??


And here's Whitney, and his story of abandonment on a roadside in central California.

Little Richard goes on . . .

Groovy 1973 video of Little Richard waxing poetic about Jimi Hendrix. Awesome.

vaginas and muffins

Do you ever have one of those days (weeks!) when you just seem tired? Exhausted? I feel that way today. I woke up at 7:00, fed the furry one, made coffee, answered about seventy emails, and then took a shower. Then I got my hair cut at 9:15 after drinking a burger king mocha BK joe to help me wake up (didn't really help). Then I went to the Beaver-Dahl's grocery store to get some muffin mix so I can make muffins for the Vagina Monologues bake sale at school. Then I came home, checked email, took Miss Marcy out and took an hour and a half nap.

Now I'm awake--Marcy and I just returned from another brisk walk, and I must clean my house, bake those darn muffins, deliver them to the Vagina carnival, and then, who knows? Perhaps I will watch the last two hours of Five Days, this really intriguing BBC/HBO miniseries about a family that vanishes.

But what I really want to do is just get back into my cozy bed . . .

corn mazes scare the crap out of me

Iowa corn. From a corn maze I went to last fall, or the fall before. It was weird, the corn maze. You had to get a card and hole punch it at various numbered stations along the maze. At first we were wandering randomly, happening across stations, hole-punching away. We humanities types tend to meander.

Then, the science person in our group became frustrated and took control. He announced we were to follow in numerical order (!) and thus progress in an orderly fashion through the maze. I'm almost sure that if he hadn't forced us to do this, we might still be there.

At one point, my pal Maura and I came across a small girl. We asked her if she was lost and needed help. She looked at us disdainfully and asked us if we needed help. Was it so obvious that we were clueless? Yes.

back when I was adorable and controllable

Kindergarten was such a lovely phase of life: naptime, playtime, snacks, little dresses, tights, recess, nice hairdos, girls and boys segregated in pictures, and the fabulous Mrs. Brady.

My friend Carmen sent me this picture of my very own K-class from a million years ago. I'm fourth from the left in the front row.

Alan Keyes is fucking nuts

In case you didn't know, Alan Keyes is batshit crazy!

Mindsticker songs stick in your mind!

Okay, I admit I'm becoming obsessed with these mindsticker commercials, but this one takes the cake. Really.

It's creepy in a very Stepford Wives kind of way. I can't decide if the voice-over guy sounds like HAL from 2001 or a tour guide from Westworld.

Be a Mindsticker?

1960's Tab Commercial (Be A Mindsticker.) 2
by dampier

Wow. I'm not sure what else to say, except I may never drink a diet beverage again.

Mindsticker???

Thanks to feministing for the link.

Peter Cameron is a genius

I love author Peter Cameron. Ever since I read a sublime story by him when I was in college many moons ago ("Memorial Day" in his collection One Way or Another ) I have followed his work.

One of his recent novels is Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You. I read it almost in one sitting, and it is beautiful. I don't use that term easily, but this book is truly beautiful and very, very good.

Got this one from The Daily Beast . . .

We have a celebrity in our house . . . Argos does not enjoy being photographed, and thus when I try to take his picture he slinks away. He is lovely.

Trader Joe's, the musical!

Those of us in the know all love Trader Joe's. My friend Melisa sent me this fabulous video of a fake TJ's commercial. Of course they don't even need commercials!

What they (we) need (desperately) is a TJ's in Des Moines, Iowa, where I live so I don't have to drive to Minnesota or Chicago to go to one. Watch the video--it's fantasticalicious!

White Creatures and Plum Hedgehogs

I love this little plum hedgehog, created by etsy seller marjji.

I realized the other day that so much of my art collection depicts little creatures; mostly little white creatures, sometimes in ways that make them seem vulnerable. What does this mean, do you suppose?















(clockwise from left, Then You Showed Up by Cathy Nichols, Girl and The House by Katrine Kalleklev, Prickle and Ponder by Luca Tripaldi and Untitled by Kit Malo)

Glen Baxter is a very strange, talented artist, cartoonist and author. I collect postcards of his artwork. I bought my very first one, about a million years ago, at a now defunct book store in North Hollywood, California, called Dutton's.

I just love the weirdness of his work--I find it hugely funny, strangely beautiful, and a bit sad.

This is a picture I took when I first moved into my house, standing in my empty living room looking outside. Right now this image appeals to me as it seems to reflect my looking forward out of the cold and darkness, into the warmer, greener, and sunnier season of spring.

We had a lovely bout of such weather here in Des Moines, Iowa, yesterday--it was 62 degrees! Today the weather-bots predict that we may get 5-10 inches of snow on Friday. Hmmmmmm.

Holy crap! My fabulous alma mater, Humboldt State University, has the best "marching" band ever. They are the Lumberjacks, and they do the best, craziest, most joyful and energetic stuff like not really marching but what they call "scattering."

Once when I was in the dining hall they burst in and ran around the hall, playing music loudly and disrupting the meals of each person--it was awesome. They also sometimes go to the local airport when someone related to HSU shows up--when I was in school they surprised the president as he was coming back from a fundraising trip at 7 a.m.!

Here's another more intimate video of the Marching Lumberjacks!

Just in case anyone was wondering what to send me for Valentine's Day, here is an image of the best chocolate in the entire human planet!

See's dark chocolate Bordeaux. Mmmmmmmmm . . . oodles of deliciousness!

David Rees, the genius behind Get Your War On and My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable, who spent the eight torturous years of the Bush administration making me laugh so hard I thought I might piss myself, is still hilariously funny. He is a hilarion, as my brother would say. Check out his web site. He has recently posted a truly fucking great review of Taken (new fascist Liam Neeson movie).

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
I dare you to watch this video and not be moved . . .

My dear friend Carmen sent me this picture from our 9th grade graduation day back in 1976. Damn--look at the awesome hair! I see so many people in this photo that I still remember to this day with love and fear and joy and all the emotions one has in junior high. Amazing.

Holy shit! The Passion for Christ Movement has a new campaign against masturbation. Here's a link to their site so you can read this for yourself: Passion For Christ Movement. And there's a T-Shirt!

Way to alienate humans (especially females) from their bodies! What is the matter with these people? I truly don't get it. Disturbing, ridiculous, frightening, and just plain wrong. Thanks to feministing for the heads up and the link.

Winter is almost over . . . so right now this is the fantasy image I have in my mind: Marcy, green grass, blossoming trees, a cool breeze in the warm sun.

Here's another artist I really like. I met Dolan Geiman and his partner Ali Walsh this summer at the Des Moines Art Festival. Here's one of his famous box prints: This one's called Field Guide Tennessee.

You can see his work at his Etsy shop, read his blog, or visit his website!

Sometimes I miss Humboldt County . . . this is the beautiful Arcata Plaza, very close to my undergraduate institution, Humboldt State University. The Arcata Plaza Cam is fun to watch (surveillance, anyone?) but it doesn't always work. Check it out, anyway.