we love linkage

If you have never seen the amazing color-changing card trick, won’t you follow the link and spend three minutes on YouTube for the experience?

I am so very proud that one of the Skepchicks linked to my previous entry about Wal-born. I must immediately return the favor so Skepchick will get an avalanche of hits from all three of my readers.

As 2012 approaches, the Master Nashwan seems to be getting more and more excited. And the miraculous Shroud of the Nashwan, which I’ve known about for a year, is now revealed on His public site. We were waiting for the laboratory analysis before saying anything.

wal-born

My hero Mark Trail often says, “What th’?!” when faced with a surprise. That’s what I said when I saw Wal-born on the store shelf when I was picking up a prescription. You may remember the alleged cold remedy called Airborne. It’s a pill that doesn’t do much of anything, although it has some vitamins in it, which places it a step above homeopathic meds, which have nothing in them. The Airborne folks lost a class action lawsuit for misleading advertising. Also, if you take more than three a day you can get a Vitamin A overdose.

It’s a dubious product, but Walgreen’s pharmacy saw dollar signs and created its own version called “Wal-born.” Like its namesake, Wal-born is vitamins and herbs in a fizzy tablet. They should call it “placebo-rn,” In fact, if someone doesn’t market placebo-rn, I will. Mine will be sugar pills with a drop of sterilized cat saliva in each tablet.

Reborn with placebo-rn! The goodness of cat spit in every dose! Take it in a crowded room or on an airplane and be amazed if you don’t happen to get a cold. Why am I so animated about this, you may ask? Because I spent a lot of money over the years on echinacea, and swore that it helped ward off colds. Placebinacea! I’ve been there.

and so it goes…

Maggie spent four days at a local hospital and I took four days from work to be with her. The idea was find a way to relieve some of her torturous pain. We have come back with a bit of information, not much in the way of pain relief, and a strong desire to stay away from hospitals. The mega-bills from the medical center will be rolling in over the next few months.

and so it went…

Since I missed The Amazing Meeting in Vegas, I did manage to get down to the annual Fremont Solstice Parade, where the nude cyclists were plentiful and cleverly painted, the kids were cute, and so on. And I made a brief trip past the art cars on display at the fair, where I photographed a ladybug trailer:

To be honest, my heart really wasn’t in it, given what was going on at home.

Today I bicycled down to SIFF cinema to see the much-anticipated “My Winnepeg.” Maybe I was really too tired, but this one didn’t interest me nearly as much as Guy Maddin’s other films, such as “Careful” and “The Saddest Music in the World.”  If you’ve spent a lot of time in Winnepeg, the new film would probably amuse you quite a bit. It was clever, and revealed much about the city and the director. My favorite parts were those devoted to renacting scenes from Maddin’s childhood, and any scenes featuring his mother. Overall, though, the narration droned on and on, the shots of sleepy people on a train trying to leave town got very old after the tenth repetition, and maybe that was the unenjoyable point.

the virtue of staying home

At the last minute I decided not to go out of town to The Amazing Meeting so I could be here with the sweetest person in the world. She’s having a little trouble with pain, among other things. “Little” like Mt. Rainier is a little obstacle if you’re trying to walk to the other side. We’ve got mountains to deal with.

That reminds me of a time early in our relationship when we walked to the top of Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island. Couldn’t drive up there because of storm damage to the road, but we made it on foot and then to the top of a stone tower. The view from there was like being in an airplane–blue water stretching out for miles, dotted with islands, and Canada or Washington in the distance, depending on which way you looked. Mt. Constitution became a metaphor for me. The strong stuff we are made of. The privilege of the occasional wide view. Maggie and Dan at the top of the world. It’s good to have memories and metaphors at times like this.

happy sad

Like a buzzin’ fly
I come into your life
Now I float away
Like honey in the sun

Tim Buckley

Julia Sweeney

What a great movie Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God” is. It’s hilarious, moving, and brave. I was happy to be there at the world premiere last week. Happy to be there for the Q&A with Julia afterward. And I’m happy to recommend it whenever it becomes available. In her own unassuming, personal, funny way she’s a mighty and much needed force for common sense.

welcome christian cheerleaders fellowship

The title is a sign I drove by at SPU. I’m just offering it up as a potential name or inspiration for an album, story, play, or art installation.

punk in an suv–a sad confession

I keep passing by an SUV parked in my neighborhood with a sticker in the back window that says, “I used to be punk I guess.” Is it supposed to be funny? Is it a sad confession?

I guess he or she used to have neon pink hair spikes, looked surly, and wore a leather jacket that said “murder is your destiny” and now the poor sap is driving a bunch of suburban monkey-kids to school every day. Is that the message? Used to listen to Black Flag and now listens to Coldplay? Why advertise this state of affairs?

I have ideas for other stickers.

• “So many frickin’ tattoos I look like a piece of meat spotted with fly eggs.”

• “Used to wear leisure suits; still wear polyester crap and plastic shoes.”

• “Snorted cocaine in the 80s. My nose is gone.”

• “I was a dot com millionaire for ten minutes.”

• “Free-spirited flower child; then mortgage broker; now wearing Depends.”

The sad confession car sticker could be a trend. Feel free to contribute your own so I can start a small auto window and bumper sticker business.

• “I siphoned the gas from your honor student’s car.”

• “So poor I had to eat both the Jesus fish and the Flying Spaghetti Monster off the bumper.”

Help, I can’t stop writing these!

bike tree

My brother was visiting Seattle for a few days, and yesterday we took a ferry over to Vashon Island with Scot. While sightseeing and on our way to do some geocaching, Scot told us there was a tree on the island with a bicycle in it. Not a bike sitting in the branches, but a bike in the tree. Right. The idiot. The bozo! We felt like fools scrambling around in the trees looking up for a bike. Then he found the little path that led to the item above.

The first picture is one that I took yesterday. The lower one is what the bike looked like several years ago. The bike was vandalized and the handlebar and front wheel were taken. Someone restored the missing pieces, but the frame and the rear tire is the original deal. If you look closely you can see the edge of one of the pedals, too.

The real story, of course, is that this was a tragic Star Trek transporter accident. Who knows what happened to the bike rider? This bike is also the inspiration for a children’s book by cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, Red Ranger Came Calling.