Truth Like The Dark

Wurgh!! I get such a strongly disturbing Little Shop of Horrors vibe from these arty flower urinals blogged on Gizmodo today! Wurgh!!

I recommend you to the blog of my friend Andrew Rilstone, and his most recent post, for a thoroughly English perspective on recent events.

Here is a naturalistic pose of Andrew, to titillate:

A mailing list friend of mine (thanks Daniel) tells me he’s got a friend on his own in London. Turns out it’s an even older friend of mine, one Lester Nuby. Les is formerly of Verbena, and he was playing substitute drummer for Idlewild, who were opening for REM in Hyde Park. Had a great time hanging with Les, and he got me and a friend into the Golden Circle for the show. Jonathan Rice, Idlewild, and REM were awesome (Feeder was there but negligible).

I’ve seen REM half a dozen times, and I even have some brush-with-Stipe stories. So it was like I saw two old friends. And the show was a great unifying event for the new city I’m calling home.

What a way to start my time here. Thanks again, Les.

Photo feed here.

When I moved to Bristol, UK, years ago, I was perplexed by the style of greeting. A friendly stranger passing you on the street would look your way and say “Alright?”

To the American ear, this is almost hostile: “Alright? Well then, I’m gonna kick your ass!”

But after awhile, my ears re-tuned, to hear it as it is meant: “Doin’ Alright?” Though I’m still not sure what the right response is. I usually use the Southern “Hey!” Which in turn sounds hostile to the British ear: “Hey! I’m gonna have you!” Oh well.

Now that I’m living in Camden, I’m having to adjust to a whole new form of street stranger greeting.

It seems the custom here is to quietly say “Skunk?” as a new person passes by.

I just smile and say “Hey!”

A couple of friends and I were talking about the fact that we have experienced Phantom Vibration Syndrome: the definite sensation that the phone in our pocket is vibrating, when it isn’t at all! What the hell is that? We all agree that it only happens in the area where our phone sits against our body.

Is it some mental anticipation of the ring (I don’t think so)? Or has the vibration caused some sympathetic change in our leg? Maybe it’s the radiation?

Hope it doesn’t team up with my restless leg syndrome: I’ll end up running after calls all night.

We should get out of Iraq, we want to get out of Iraq, but here’s some news: it’d be immoral to get out of Iraq now (or anytime soon).
We’re screwed, they’re screwed, everybody is screwed.

So, here’s a suggestion for “W” (the man formerly known as “the drunken loser son of a president”): we don’t rebuild. We simply rebrand.

Concept: iRaq. We should fly in tons of iPods. Shuffles for every man, woman, and child (and a Mini for just a few shekels more). Don’t you think that democracy would be more likely if everyone had those white cords hanging out of their ears? And I’ve even got a slogan:

iRaq: One Nation under groove.

This idea seems about as good as any of the others floating around at this point.

I moved to London on Wednesday, and Thursday morning I was enjoying my first stroll through Regents Park on the way to work, when people started coming my way saying they had seen a bus explode.

While I’m sure the timing makes me seem suspicious, it seems that that bus was the victim of London’s first suicide bomber.

I’ve got to say I’ve got no problem with suicide. The difficulty is with this whole “bomber” aspect. Why not suicide plumber? Or suicide waiter? Sure, all that yelling of “Allah Al Akbar!” right before he brings your starter would be distracting, but if you knew you were helping redirect terrorist energies, you might even tip.

MeFi has a good post today on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD):

pathological narcissism occurs in two forms, (a) a grandiose state of mind in young adults that can be corrected by life experiences, and (b) the stable disorder described in DSM-IV, which is defined less by grandiosity than by severely disturbed interpersonal relations.

While I’m unsure about this “DSM-IV” (I think I used to program my TRS-80 using that), case (a) sounds like the all-too-common haj down the boulevard of broken dreams. Diagnostic language so removes the poetry from misery.

I think “personality disorders” are the evil love child of Carl Jung and Andy Warhol. The descriptions read like horoscopes or Tarot card readings. And through projection diagnosis, we all get our 15 minutes on Oprah (followed by a much-deserved designer drug treatment).

To paraphrase Freud, “Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.”

These aspects of modern psychology almost make Tom Cruise’s Scientological kaka seem credible. Well, almost.