Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

Good Monday morning to you. It’s an awful, foggy start to the week here in Austin, and I wish I was home and severely ill.

Maggie and I caught Hot Fuzz on Sunday, ending a months-long drought of tempting movies. It was well worth the wait, my friends. Funny, action-packed, crunchy, loud, British, and very, very fun. Go see it during your lunch break.

It was another pathetic week for exercise last week, with only one day on the trail and one day in the gym. I’ll tell you this, my 30th birthday was much more motivating back when it was in the future. Now that I’m actually IN my thirties, I’m much slower to prepare for the decade physically. But I did get a handful of miles in, so let’s now update the Southpaw Jones Virtual Excursion des Pieds!

Week 1: 30 miles to Taylor, Texas
Week 2: 27 miles to Rockdale, Texas
Week 3: 20.7 miles to Caldwell, Texas
Week 4: 22.3 miles to Bryan/College Station, Texas
Week 5: 21 miles through Gibbons Creek Lake
Week 6: 24.4 miles to Hunstville, Texas
Week 7: 22 miles to Trinity, Texas
Week 8: 24 miles to Crockett, Texas
Week 9: 16 miles to Kennard, Texas
Week 10+11: 30 miles to Rusk, Texas
Week 12+13: 28.6 miles to Mt. Enterprise, Texas
Week 14: DUD
Week 15: 13 miles to Lake Murvaul, Texas
Week 16: 6 miles to…

Gary City, Texas!

Ol’ Gary City has a population of just 300. 97% of those folks are white as snow, but don’t hold that against ‘em. That’s about all I know, other than the Gary City High School song:

Hail Gary High School
Hats off to you
Ever you’ll find us
Loyal and true
Firm and undaunted
Always will be
Hail to the school we love
Here’s a toast to thee

Hooray!

Gained in Translation
Works magically refreshed by translation and re-translation:

Everything you just read translated to French then back to English…sort of:

Monday hello with you. It is here a terrible and misty beginning at the week in Austin, and I wish that I be the house and severely to patient.

Hooray!

Online Museum of the Week
Photographing Squirrels:

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
Leonard Cohen

Plumb, Plumber, Plumbest
Signs o’ the times from Austin’s singing Jewish plumber, Herman Bennett:

“C&B RADIATOR: GOOD PLACE TO TAKE A LEAK.”

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.com
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

W.H. Auden, the poet, wrote an essay regarding people who lack the capacity to turn wishes into passions in their lives, for whatever reason. Lacking that capacity, they sit, outraged, anticipating disasters. They go to fires, any sort of natural disasters attract them. And in the absence of natural disasters, they create disasters. And they hate the people whose lives, whether successful or not, are pursued with passion. First they idealize them, then they want to destroy them. They want to appropriate the vitality of those people.
David Milch, creator/director/writer, Deadwood

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

For starters, let me admit that I enjoy just about every HBO show I’ve seen. The Sopranos, Big Love, Sex and the City, Entourage, they’re the closest thing to televised literature we’ve got. Late in the game, I’ve now decided to explore Deadwood, the gritty western where everyone is covered in filth, literally and figuratively. I just finished watching the first season, and I dug it, so I ordered up a rental of the dreaded Bonus Materials. It was here that I heard the above quote on Tuesday evening.

David Milch comes across as a very thoughtful, dark-hearted man both in interviews and in the tone of his art. He explored the idea of the quote in a brief exchange between Wild Bill Hickok and a “fan” on the streets of Deadwood.

Long story short, it says a great deal about celebrity and the role of the media in our lives. So much of our culture feeds upon the strange love/hate relationship between the public and the famous. I believe we love watching them fail much more than watching them succeed. It’s very much like a roller coaster: the rise of a singer/actor/politician is exciting only in the sense that once we top the hill, we all get to scream as they crumble down in scandal, failure, or death.

It is so satisfying to watch someone fall because it tells us WE WERE RIGHT. We were right to lead mediocre lives. We were right to kill our dreams when we were young. We were right to settle. We were right to keep our wishes impotent and irrelevant, because those who turn them into passions end up embarrassed in the end.

The media rubs our faces in scandal and tragedy because it is a drug we crave. Britney Spears, OJ Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith, Ted Haggard, Paris Hilton, Hugh Grant, Howard Dean, the list goes on and on and on. These are all very different stories, and whether you like these people or not, you must admit to the subtext that connects them: DON’T BOTHER. Stay at your diner in Texas, don’t sing your way out of Louisiana, forget about trying to lead a religious movement, drop your dreams of art or riches or political power, because it never seems to end well. Do not turn your wishes into passions, because doing so ushers in a world of hurt.

And Another Thing…
More verbosity with velocity and viscosity:

This week has been hard on everyone, and I finally broke down in my car yesterday. I was listening to NPR as a kid from Virginia Tech described being the only unhurt student in a classroom under attack. All he could do was crouch under his desk and make eye contact with a girl who had been shot in the back, while he waited to be shot himself. It was the only coverage of the tragic events so far that seemed sane or tasteful or human or relevant to me.

It is very popular to cover the massacre ad nauseam. It is also very popular to criticize the media coverage ad nauseam. I don’t know how you cover an event like this, so I’m not going to suggest an alternative. But I think there must be a better way than assaulting us with the between-the-lines message that a random killer is waiting for each of us around every corner. If that is true, if death is everywhere, and I certainly have felt it this week, then why on earth would I want to put any effort into this life? Why invest in something that can be instantly snuffed out by some lonely shitbag English major?

Why turn our wishes into passions in this awful world?

Because we have to.

Because the alternative is unthinkable.

Because people who can’t turn wishes into passions are already dead.

People who can’t turn wishes into passions easily turn ugly.

They get jealous.

They feel impotent.

They are paranoid.

They tend to buy guns.

They tend to kill people.

And so goes the cycle.

I will mourn the dead the best I can from far away. I will follow the tragic story as much as I can tolerate. But I will not let a killer show me the very path that he followed. It is a path of fear, isolation, and passionless wishes. You see where it ends. The lesson here is to live more, not less. Thrive more, love more, act more. Make the broken psychos of the world so upset that they spontaneously combust before they hurt anyone else.

Online Museum of the Week
Demonic Tots and Deeply Disturbing Cuisine:

From PLAN 59: THE MUSEUM (AND GIFT SHOP) OF MID-CENTURY ILLUSTRATION

Plumb, Plumber, Plumbest
Signs o’ the times from Austin’s singing Jewish plumber, Herman Bennett:

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.com
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

July 30, 1864

Dearest Margaret,

Thinking that you might like to hear from me, I concluded to write a few lines. God bless you and the children, Margie. God bless the courier of this frail letter and his hoof-clopping steed. God bless the wind; may it be at his back, but not with such force that his charges blow from sack to soil. God bless the roads; may they not be blocked by Johnny Reb nor by bridgelessness nor by beast of burden or fantasy. God bless this ink; may it not go invisible forthwith by some prankish quality of its chemical. Bless my brain that it may not ramble in the infinite, as is its want and wont.

We are all in good health and excellent spirits, Margie. The fife and drum are inspiring to the extent that I have busted an eardrum. Yes, but one healthy ear remains to someday receive your romantic whisper, and a whisper I shall request, for I tire of this noise as God tires of sin.

We stand ready to take Atlanta from those gray-frocked separatists within the week. As I take a break to write this letter, a dozen men take my place at the building of breastworks near the edge of our rather soggy encampment.

Seven of my comrades, though undeniably short in stature, are fond of labor and quick to make musics. Their leader is a sure-footed doctor with lens-assisted peepers and a rather clumsy tongue.

I often wonder what might become of them were they not fitted with such wizened leadership. One of their handful lacks intelligence and function to the degree that our good captain has twice searched his tent for opiates! Another is prone to frequent expulsions of gust and phlegm from the very cavities of his countenance that are best kept placid in times of war.

I notice lately that this tiny crew contains, in addition to the aforementioned, a narcoleptic as well as a gentleman cursed with such vicious anti-social tendencies that the extraction of two words from his chamber is less likely than finding General Grant alone and threading garters amongst these Georgia pines. Forgive me for saying so.

The remaining two seem to personify, in a miniaturized manner, the extreme poles of human mood. One, you see, is the very portrait of contentment and abundance, while the other projects a contagious sullenness from the crest of his ample snout.

I must admit these seven tykes often entertain me to the point of criminal distraction, which I suppose is well-evidenced in this missive.

I find myself drained of paper, time, and vocabulary, three things for which I am grateful, three things that soldiers in lesser wars sorely lacked, three things which shall hereby be the aim of my heart and hand, for they allow me to dream of you, our home, and this very parchment quivering in your hands within a fortnight or so.

I regret that my commitment to the Union has conspired to reduce my status as the head of your household. As you mount twice the tasks to which you are accustomed, I pray that you will not begrudge me. My small but able infantrymen, whose introduction I provided in this same epistle, believe that melodic breath across one’s pursed lips makes for wondrous distraction from the doldrums of toil.

Do try it, Margie, and alert the children that my present distance is merely physical and quite temporary, or so claims my favorite hope. I shall help to reunite this embattled state as is my duty, then I shall return to that more important union of man and wife. I assure you, the union of man and fife is a most unsatisfying and splintering substitute.

Yours in war and in peace,
Private Charles Awnry Jr.

If I Had a Million Dollars
Unnecessary products that inexplicably tempt me:

Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap
$6.99

Online Museum of the Week
Demonic Tots and Deeply Disturbing Cuisine:

From PLAN 59: THE MUSEUM (AND GIFT SHOP) OF MID-CENTURY ILLUSTRATION

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn’t every war fought between men, between brothers?
Victor Hugo

Plumb, Plumber, Plumbest
Signs o’ the times from Austin’s singing Jewish plumber, Herman Bennett:

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.com
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

What does a goofy blogger say the day after the deadliest shooting in American history? I sure don’t know. Here are some things I decided not to write:

• An exploration of guilt over hating my life yesterday morning.

• An exploration of guilt over not feeling much more grateful this morning.

• A list of good deeds we could all do to somehow lessen the effects of staggering, random violence.

• A history of the University of Texas shooting in the 1966 that has been a tragic part of Austin’s identity for over 40 years.

• Why people desperately search for some understandable reason for what happened, when they know that no such thing exists.

Instead of all that noise, here is the best I can do right now, a list of positive words:

• Breath
• Refresh
• Beauty
• Bushy
• Irresistible
• Vacation
• Compromise
• Closer
• Macaroni
• Better

Rhyme Time!
One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

Trainer/leader of a domestic insect.
Highlight here for answer: [roach coach]

Online Museum of the Week
Demonic Tots and Deeply Disturbing Cuisine:

From PLAN 59: THE MUSEUM (AND GIFT SHOP) OF MID-CENTURY ILLUSTRATION

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
W.H. Davies, Leisure

Plumb, Plumber, Plumbest
Signs o’ the times from Austin’s singing Jewish plumber, Herman Bennett:

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.com
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.