. Vacation II: Return to Keuka Lake . …

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Vacation II: Return to Keuka Lake
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A much needed time away next week—Disney World was great, but not what you would really call a relaxing vacation. That’s what I need. A contemplative week of canoes, acrylics on pine board, my little family, and so-so local wine. We’ll stay at the same house we first rented when Emily was about six months old—that would be 1989. We went back in 1997, after years of driving to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for vacation. We’ve been coming back every year since.

It’s a yellow/green house owned by a woman named Therese on a cliff over one arm of the Y-shaped lake. Nearby, men with long beards riding poor bikes go to the gas station and fill up mayonnaise jars with gasoline. The sun sets over the bluff. There is no double helix in the sky or anywhere else. No such thing as molecules. The invisible stuff is for real.

Promise you’ll find me,
Vanx

. Bumper Stuck I noticed today that somebody went…

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Bumper Stuck

I noticed today that somebody went to the trouble of peeling the John Kerry bumper sticker from my Tercel. I don’t know when this happened, but I do know that the parking garage at work is totally a-paste with Bush/Cheney bumper stickers and worse. I assume “one of them” removed it from my car in a spiteful, shockingly lame fit of pique. I would never remove one of their bumper stickers. Jeez–I want these people to mark thier vehicles!

Vanx

Modern Love! And a possible antidote to the cumula…

Modern Love!
And a possible antidote to the cumulative ill effect of world affairs.

Dancing at the Lesbian Bar
by Jonathan Richman

. Moral Cipher Loath as I am to "tear it from the…

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Moral Cipher

Loath as I am to “tear it from the headlines,” I’m going on record here. I am truly heartsick–but hardly surprised–that the Bush administration was not on the spot hours into the bombardment of Lebanon to call for an immediate ceasefire.

The United States has obviously let its ally Lebanon down. Clearly, given its role in the world and the level of threat and hatred in the Middle East, the U.S. let Israel down as well. Meanwhile, Hezbollah beams.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in Beirut this week, said the people of the Middle East must buy into the Bush administration’s vision of the Middle East or suffer the consequences. That vision seems to call, at this point in time, for demolished cities and hundreds of dead people. Or are those the consequences? Either way, the vision is spreading, and the cynicism of the Bush Administration stinks to Heaven.

For the U.S. to sit back and let Israel bomb may serve the Bush agenda, but it obliterates all moral high ground. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora summed up this week’s war–it has set the nation of Lebanon back 50 years. Those were certainly a tough 50 years, during which so much was accomplished.

The headline to this post applies to the Bush administration. We have an election coming up in November. It’s part of a system that lets the citizens of the United States send a message to its leadership in Washington by making changes in that leadership. So there is hope.

Vanx

Zeitgeist Or the Visionary Frank Poole Effect . …

Zeitgeist
Or the Visionary Frank Poole Effect
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Remember the astronaut in yellow in 2001: A Space Odyssey? The one whose EVA becomes, …well …kinda ultimate? Which makes for bad blood between astronaut Dave, in the red spacesuit, and the HAL 9000 computer?

[You’ll recall that HAL, concerned that the humans were “interfering with the mission,” set astronaut Frank Poole, in the yellow suit, irretrievably adrift in space.--ed.]

HAL: I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.

We’ve all heard that one before, haven’t we? So much for your Age of Spiritual Machines .

Unfortunately, novelist Arthur C. Clarke, unable to sit quietly with his own work of perfection (2001: A Space Odyssey 1968), revives Frank Poole in 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997). Clarke claims the vacuum environment of Poole’s space suit kept HAL’s chess partner cool long enough for science to advance the 1,000 years necessary in order to get the computer off the hook.

Hell, Dave did the job in five minutes with a screwdriver!

Still, Frank Poole adrift may be the most underrated symbol in any Stanley Kubrick film. Frank’s dilemma kicks off the new millennium with panache, capturing the True Spirit of our Time.

Dave, my mind is going.
I can feel it,
Vanx 9000

Messin’ With the Modern Movement . Donald Fagen’…

Messin’ With the Modern Movement

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Donald Fagen’s New Frontier! I ran across this video today. I had seen it only once before, some time around 1983 after watching Dr. Strangelove in my friend Roger’s basement. It’s a late ’50s wingding in a New Jersey backyard fallout shelter. Great song, magnificent video.

Enjoy!
Vanx

. Topknots Somebody at the Home Office circulated…

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Topknots

Somebody at the Home Office circulated this article about the 12 jobs that let you have weird hair. The person who sent it is a copy editor married to a chemist. Presumably she and her husband both have weird hair.

Well, so do I! But my job, journalist, isn’t on the list. Should I be watching my back? Rediscovering my barber (another job not on the list)?

I’ve always found journalism to be a fine profession in which to let one’s freak flag fly. Looking at the reason that “copy editor” is included on the list of twelve, however, we see a specific distinction drawn between reporter and copy editor– the former is described as a public-facing occupation requiring a “normal” haircut, and the latter as a back-office nebbish’s game that allows open wigging. False and repugnant, I say! Pure sophistry!

Looking now at my magazine’s editorial staff photo, taken each year on the steps of the National Geographic Building across the street from the Home Office in DC, I’m reminded of the vast diversity in both nature and hair styles. Many of my colleagues are chemists, as it turns out, and I am wondering if they’ve set their hair trajectories according to their academic backgrounds or their day jobs.

Or is the list of 12 all wet?

Perhaps the list can be corrected by opening up the categories of “chemist” and “copy editor” to include all scientists and journalists. This lets in Einstein and Geraldo Rivera. Other jobs on the list that Verb-Ops readers might be happy to see include massage therapist, cosmetologist, photographer, web designer and barista—though, arguably, each of these categories can be opened up as well.

Are we leaving anybody out?
Vanx

Keuka Lake In that moment when da…

Keuka Lake

In that moment when dawn vaults the vineyard
…and lake,
A hay thresher still parked at roadside,
Hammondsport stirs and the cloud cover snaps
Like a grape skin after the storm.

It is blue thistle August when the vines
…lumber, longing
Over pine rails, when the Civil War parkstand
And flightcraft museum in town capture light
Through the thinning of summer.

And I’m hoping to drive back to town in the van
While the ice cream shop still sells its coffee and eggs
To those sinewy smokers, as clouds finally clear
And the jet skis launch north to the bluff.

. A Phony World (To the tune of A Whole New World …

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A Phony World
(To the tune of A Whole New World
from Disney’s Aladdin)
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I can show you a world
Of polypropylene ski slopes
Castles made out of Styrofoam
And Kodak tourist hoards

Imagi-Liberty Park®
Epcot’s Hall of Assassins®
Top crowd-scoring attractions
On this sunburned street of dreams

A phony world!
It’s a fast-assed plastic action park
Families will drop 5 Gs
To come and see
“America the way it’s s’pposed to be” ®

How this franchise expands!
Hey, ain’t that Kofi Annan?
Yes, and he’s signing autographs
Right next to Donald Duck

Lots of history here
And Disney disinformation
Turgid forced conversations
With the smiling robot staff

A phony world!
It’s a fast-assed plastic action park
Families will drop 5 Gs
To come and see
“America the way it’s s’pposed to be” ®

Photo: Verb-Ops 2006