From the New York Times: "Despite a threat from Islamists, two Pakistani brothers stealthily manufacture fetish and bondage wear, earning more than $1 million a year from their Western customers."

Pay particular attention to the "seaside relaxation seat."

I am assured by artnouveauho that this is going to be the new Stuff On My Cat.

One pair of dancing shoes
Several sprays of fake orchids
A roll of wrapping paper
A plate and mug that anigma_i made
A novelty phone shaped like the Enterprise.
A set of vintage speakers
Fake bangs
A box of Hello Kitty bandaids
Two swords
A disassembled steel shelf
A vintage brooch
Fuzzy dice
A broken Christmas cookie painted to look like Carrie all covered in blood
A hot glue gun
A box of old comics and tapes. Yes, tapes.
One fake cherry earring


Why yes, I use my car as storage. Why do you ask?

1) I just scored us an interview with Isabella Rossellini, pegged to the second season of Green Porno.

2) I wrote the script with the silly jokes that caused her to crack up laughing so we had to do the intro over again. I MADE ISABELLA ROSSELLINI LAUGH! Eat it, captainrenault!

Also, ohmygod she is an amazing interview! We were all sitting in the control room just hoping that she would say "porno" as many times as possible in that delicious accent, but she wandered off into silent film, the state of the environmental movement and the ethics course she's taking at NYU and it was all just fucking brilliant. Plus she was sweet and friendly and gracious. I think we're all in love with her now-- and I have no idea how I'm going to cut this all down to air tomorrow. But hey, tune in!

ELEGY XX.

TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED.

by John Donne


COME, madam, come, all rest my powers defy;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with your wiry coronet, and show
The hairy diadems which on you do grow.
Off with your hose and shoes; then softly tread
In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Revealed to me; thou, angel, bring'st with thee
A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from an evil sprite;
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.
Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee ;
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views;
That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
His earthly soul might court that, not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus array'd.
Themselves are only mystic books, which we
—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—
Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know,
As liberally as to thy midwife show
Thyself; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;
There is no penance due to innocence:
To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,
What needst thou have more covering than a man?



Okay, so maybe his ideas about gender roles are a tad hidebound... but still. John Donne = hot sex on parchment, baby. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

At Big Planet today, I discovered two wonderful things: first, Kill Your Boyfriend has been reprinted, which means I can finally give up the search for my original copy, lovingly put away fourteen years ago for safekeeping and of course never seen again. Seriously, you have no idea what I crush I had (and still have) on this book-- of course it's horribly dated now that we've all had enough Tarantino to float our collective back teeth, but still. Phillip Bond's art is drool-worthy, and who hasn't wanted to take a nine and blow away everyone's boring expectations? Awhile back, I discovered that D'Israeli (the inker) was selling the pages he'd worked on. Now I go to sleep every night underneath the climactic spread in which the Boy jumps off the Blackpool Tower with a grenade.

Second, P. Craig Russell and Neil Gaiman are doing a new Sandman miniseries supposedly based on Japanese mythology (but actually based on a story Gaiman pulled out of his butt)-- excuse me while I die of sheer artistic bliss overload! You can see a few images here and here, and here.

...why you haven't seen me in a week-- or even if you're not wondering-- Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is out for the Wii. That is all.

(I have a horse, a cow, a sheep, five chickens, two silkworms and I just placed second in the fall Cooking Contest. My farm RAWKS!!!)

I think up huge projects all the time; I very rarely finish them-- but I did manage to finish THIS:

( Click for circus posters )

If anyone here better versed in LJ than I am can tell me how to make them display at a legible size, I'd be evvah so grateful!

I was going through the massive mail pile this morning, and upon unboxing a book by Alexander Waugh (grandson of Evelyn), it occurred to me that "Waugh" would make a really great vintage comic sound effect.

The contractors came today and ended the reign of the Vile Brown Bathroom of Horrors (for those of you who've never been to my house, some GENIUS decided, along about 1978, that dark brown was a dandy color for bathroom fixtures. Ugh). Once they pried up the tile, the floor underneath was revealed to be so rotted from years of crappy leaking plumbing that it's a wonder I never fell through.

But the interesting thing was that when the drywall came down, the original back wall of the house was underneath it. House of Wa was built in stages over the course of a century by halfassed weekend hobbyists (at least that's what it seems like) who added on rooms wherever and whenever they felt like it (yes, like the Winchester Mystery House but WAY LESS COOL). When someone thirty or forty or however many years ago decided to add this second bathroom, they just ripped out the original back door and walled up the rest of it. Now it's right in the middle of the house-- but there's still an awesome deco-industrial ceramic back porch light and a spigot for a hose, unseen for decades. And now I know that before this house had yellow vinyl siding, it had cream colored stucco. It's a little unintentional time capsule! I wonder what else is underneath the walls... besides mice, that is.

1) Sugar-free Red Bull is not appreciably nastier than the regular stuff.

2) The earlier I get up, the lower my voice is. This morning I managed all of Social Distortion's "Ball and Chain" without cracking.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."


No bonus points for anyone who knows me if you guessed that! I don't know if this would hit anyone the way it did me, but as a nine-year-old girl growing up in sweltering DC, the idea that April could be both bright and cold-- and clocks could strike thirteen-- was menacing and wrong. And fascinating.

Checking my messages at work today, I was bemused to discover that a mystery caller had sung the entirety of Madonna's "Crazy For You" to my voice mail. It was a guy, with nasal, more or less tuneful voice and a slight accent, possibly Hispanic. WTF?!

Wouldn't it be funny if it were the same person, who, fifteen years ago, plastered up a flyer on a signal box at the corner of River Rd. and Willard Ave. that said "Petra, I still haven't forgotten you." I never found out who had done that, or even if I was the Petra it referred to (though really, how many other people around here have my name?).

... I just saw the first firefly of the year! Yesterday, nothing. Today, the front yard sparkles.

Also, this cracks me the fuck up:

I finally found an apolitical bumper sticker worth putting on my car. it fills me with glee! Soberly expressed, exquisitely athletic glee!

Bo Diddley died.

I have his phone number somewhere, scrawled on the back of a ticket and hidden in the bottom of a memory box. Years ago, he played the Iron Horse in Northampton, and hahathor and I went to see him; we were DJing together on my college station (WAMH, 89.3FM in Amherst... where there IS no alternative to alternative!) and we wanted to interview him after the show. He couldn't do it-- he had to get to another gig, or he was tired, or something, I don't remember. But he wrote his number on the back of my ticket and said, call me up at home and I'll talk to you.

Of COURSE I never called him, I was beyond chicken... he was BO FUCKING DIDDLEY and I wasn't about to call him up at home and ask if he remembered some chick in Massachusetts. But I always sort of vaguely thought I might, one day.

Dammit.

A work friend just came charging into my office babbling about the lobby of the building across the street being chock-full'o'puppies. So of course I had to investigate-- Discovery Channel films a lot of stuff at a studio across the street from NPR and it turned out they were having auditions for, yes, the PUPPY BOWL today! Puppies! A whole roomful of PUPPIES! I'm not even a dog person but ooooo their little earses and their little noses and their soft little paws and their little tailses going slappity slappity slappity on the floor! And there were dachshunds! And beagles! And funny foxfaced ones! And little fuzzy mutts! So yeah. I've just been petting an entire roomful of puppies. What a nice way to spend my lunch break!

I was bored at work today and googled my old college radio station-- and this is it, the very 8-pot LPB board I learned to DJ on way back in the dark prehistory of 1993. It was old even then. If you've ever heard me bitch about cleaning sticky dried-up Coke spills out of a mixing board because the fucking metal DJs never followed the no-food-in-the-studio rules, this was the board. If you've ever heard me talk about being down in the station at 4am, watching the VU meters dance to Young Disciples' "Apparently Nuthin," these were the meters. I can't believe it's still in service... though given that this pic was apparently taken in 2003, it may have gone to board heaven by now. My god, I miss it!

Does ANYONE out there (within driving distance) happen to own Season 4 of the Highlander TV series? I, uh... well, I need it for work. By tomorrow. And none of the video places around here have it. Help!

You all have probably heard me babble ad nauseam about the adorable NPR Bat-- so here she is, in full-on stereophonic SQUEEEEE-ness!



Could you not just die of the cute? Our bat rescue lady reports she has gained three grams since coming to the sanctuary, and in fact stuffed herself with so many mealworms a few days ago that she got an upset stomach. Poor little bat!

And if you HAVEN'T heard me babble about this, the gist of what happened is that our online staff noticed a bat roosting in the side of an office building right across the street from NPR, next to a busy bus stop. So we brought in a bat rescue expert to have a look. Here's the segment that we just aired-- have a listen, if it is your will: Bat Winters in D.C., to Delight of Urban Dwellers

i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday


-- e.e. cummings



To all my friends, far and near, I give you joie on this, the Longest Night.