cell phone spam must die

My cell phone beeped during the night last week. Forgot to turn it off. I got out of bed and found a text message waiting for me. Junk mail! On. My. Phone. It’s a Satan-spawned outrage. It’s the beginning of a plague; the fifth horseperson of the apocalypse (handsome illustration of the first four [...]

legs full of beer

My first movies at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival were two by Guy Maddin. (He made one of the movies on my strange and wonderful movie list, “Careful.”). His grainy, partially-colored movies look like they were made 100 years ago. Either that, or the film was dropped into a bucket of industrial waste on [...]

the sad sofa – rejected by fishermen

It’s no ordinary couch. Judging by its styling, it may go back to the 1940s. But our couch is crying big wet tears right now. Of the dozen or more people who’ve responded to our give-way notice, only two have come to look, and both rejected it. The last one really hurt. A local seafood [...]

jim woodring

Did I ever mention Jim Woodring, one of my favorite artists (besides Mark Ryden)? I think his stuff is terrific. Most of his work is focused on his beloved character, Frank, who never speaks. I love this portrait of Frank. He also does lots of frogs, like this one who seems to be watching frog-o-vision. [...]

the “olde” ways

Bumper stickers are an easy target, but I can’t help myself. I saw one on the back of an Oldsmobile that said, “The old ways are alive.” Referring, I suppose, to ye olde internal combustion engine. It’s a good message to put a few inches above the hallowed tailpipe emissions, honoring the mystic craftsmen of [...]

radio can save your soul

I’ve been thinking about radio. I was e-mailing my brother about the Shins. I said that some of their songs are swirly, haunting items that sound like something you might have run across in 1968 while scanning the radio dial in the middle of the night. In those days, tuning to the “progressive” FM stations [...]

sofa goes to middle earth

Finally, the saga of our old sofa is over. The Leopard Woman loved it but didn’t want it. It wasn’t good enough for the Alaskan fishermen’s dormitory. But it’s going to be in the Middle Earth Ball. The organizers were looking for a couple couches for revelers to rest on. Drunken dwarves, tipsy elves, and [...]

i am a movie snob

I’m so spoiled by Seattle’s great movie houses! We drove out to a suburb and went to one of those huge multi-theaters. Yow! I’d forgotten what movie-going can be like away from the city. The place was a cavernous shrine to schlock: thirteen theaters, a giant concessions area that could feed an army, and restrooms [...]