jeblog

kwan yin holy packaging

You've met our new dog, Kwan Yin. I think she appeared because I invoked Kwan Yin, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion. I had a statue of Kwan Yin on my little altar at home and sat before her and chanted the Heart Sutra. Then a day later I heard that Wallace was offered a puppy and brought her home, and called her Kwan Yin.

But this is actually an entry about packaging, of all things. The statue of Kwan Yin that I have I bought in a box in the Atlanta airport. In fact, it was the packaging that largely attracted me, because it was packaging that converts to an altar. I liked that idea, so I bought it.

Here you can see how it looked when I bought it:

You open the box and see the altar space, though the mandala artwork is hidden by the book about Kwan Yin that the statue comes with (thus it's presence in a book store). You remove the book and it looks like this:

The mandala depicts Kwan Yin with a thousand (i.e. an infinite number) arms, which symbolizes her desire to save infinite beings. Kwan Yin is also traditionally depicted (and is on the statue), with one foot taken out of the lotus position, showing her poised to step out of meditation and into the world, to help relieve suffering.

I really, really like the design of this book/statue/altar box set and especially how what we normally throw away--the packaging--is converted into a space that can be considered sacred.

Now the statue/altar is on the window sill above my meditation altar. It fits in perfectly. Now I just need a little electric fountain to go with it, since Kwan Yin the bodhisattva is traditionally associated with water, as she floats upon the ocean of birth-and-death, and relieves the suffering of others by dipping a willow branch into water and then, in a kind of asperges, anointing the supplicant.

There were a couple of other book/statue box sets, one of Kali and another of the Green Man. I may invest in the Green Man some day (a key pagan personage), but I'm not sure of Kali, the Goddess of creation and destruction.

review of The Fan-Maker's Inquisition

Before I crawl into my cave to read, read, read for my comps, I wanted to mention one of the two (non-academic) books I managed to finish this summer.

The book in question is The Fan-Maker's Inquistion, published in 2000. I saw it in a used book store and, recognizing the name of the author, eagerly bought it. A couple years ago, in a non-fiction class taught by Howard Norman at the University of Maryland, I read one of her essays from The Monstrous and the Marvelous and found it quite marvelous (and pleasingly monstrous).

The Fan-Maker's Inquisition could be considered more monstrous than marvelous (though it is still marvelous), since the two subjects, the Marquis de Sade and the Great Terror of the French Revolution, were monstrous in their own ways.

For some, the book may be faulted by not making de Sade monstrous enough. He's a very sympathetic figure here, a victim of repression and political extremism, as well as a wonderful storyteller. Though his addiction to cruelty to women is mentioned, it is not really described. Not that I'm suggesting that he be more demonized than he already has been; au contraire--I think he could have had a little more edge.

The other two main characters--Garielle, the fan-maker, and Olympe de Gouges (a historical figure fictionalized), who are lovers--are very well drawn. Also, the proto-blogger, the revolutionary pamphleteer Restif de la Bretonne (also a historical figure), is an interesting and surprising anti-hero.

The depiction of sexual politics during the revolution is fascinating, as was the book-within-the-book about the genocidal campaign of the fanatical Bishop Landa against the Maya of the Yucatan (also a historical figure, and a historical reality of the 16th century, in which Maya culture was almost completely wiped out --were particularly targeted).

The Fan-maker's Inquisition is beautifully written, and structured around different texts (the book-within-the-book, and letters), though, I must mention, near the end the novel there is an inexplicable section where de Sade announces that his paper and pens have been taken from him, and then goes on for pages with his written narrative.

The book also includes an interview with Ducornet and, which I found kind of strange, discussion questions, as if a book that portrays lesbians and the Marquis de Sade sympathetically was meant to be used in some college course. As if! (in the U.S. anyway).

For an audio interview about the book with Ducornet, try this link:

http://www.lannan.org/lf/bios/detail/rikki-ducornet/

comps book list

'Tis the season for academic types who are planning on taking their comprehensive exams in the fall to put their book lists on their blogs (so that other academic types who are planning on taking their comprehensive exams in the fall know who are hoarding the library books they need).

So here is mine:

the one list

And if any of you needs any of these books, you can pry it from my cold, dead fingers...I mean, I'd be glad to share.

introducing RBKYDQ

There's a new being in my life. Wallace showed up on my doorstep a few days ago with our new two-month-old "daughter." Her full name is Remarkable Brown Kwan Yin Drama Queen (RBKYDQ)--Kwan Yin for short. She's a Labrador retriever mix--or a "chocolate lab," as I've heard some describe dogs like her.

Kwan Yin is the Chinese version of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, of infinite compassion. Sometimes that fits, particularly now, as she lay under my chair with her little napping head on my bare feet. But she also sometimes manifests as Kali, the Indian Goddess of Destruction, especially when she starts attacking my CDs and books with her already-sharp teeth.

It's so refreshing to see a new creature in the process of growing, whose prime directive is to EXPLORE EVERYTHING. Though, if I could I might edit that prime directive: EXPLORE EVERYTHING--but not necessarily with your TEETH.

more LOTR adventures

After I blogged about watching the 3 Lord of the Ring films in quick succession, my bf Wallace had a great idea: rent all three again but watch only the documentary "making-of" features this time.

So that's what we did. We spent three nights in a row watching the features. I hadn't seen them before, being much more interested in the films than the documentaries.

My verdict? They're pretty amazing. The epic adventure of the making of the films equalled anything that showed up on screen. I got to see all the other marvelous actors and participants, and to realize how many people it took, working in concert, to make these films. The LOTR films were so much more than star-vehicles. They were the portals to a brilliantly evoked virtual world. That is, they weren't just directed or acted: they were designed.

After watching the documentaries, I realized two of the most brilliant stars of the LOTR saga were persons who never appeared on screen (though their handiwork was ubiquitous): John Howe and Alan Lee, the conceptual artists for the films.

Conceptual artists? As stars? Yes, because they basically sketched out the whole of Middle Earth as it appears in the films. Then other talented artists turned them into sets and CGI representations. I think anyone would agree that Middle Earth was a major star of the films. And that's due to the amazing creativity of John Howe and Alan Lee.

Peter Jackson also comes out looking pretty good. He was definitely the ring master of the epic performance that was LOTR. Credit should also go to Jackson's partner, Fran Walsh, who doesn't (unless I wasn't paying attention) appear in the "making of" documentaries. She not only helped with the writing, but also the visioning, helping Jackson make decisions. If these documentaries can be faulted, it's in letting Walsh remain in the shadows. She deserves to be showered with accolades and I, for one, would love to see her as a talking head, describing her work on this and other projects.

If I have to pick one of the documentaries (there's roughly one associated with each film), I would have to choose the one for the Fellowship of the Ring. Because it showed very clearly that the heart of all the films was the fellowship, which was actually created by the actors and creative team before production began on any of them. It argues for a "monastic" approach to film-making: get all your principals, and your creative folks, and stick them in a remote location (such as rural New Zealand), and let them interact and create together.

The one bad thing about all this is I think watching the "making of" films spurs one to see the films again. I think I know what I'll be doing next weekend.

I will remember (the) Alamo

I can now officially announce it. I've lost my iPod. Or rather it was stolen. Or a combination thereof.

I left it in the console of a rental car (rented from !@#$%^&* Alamo Rent-a-Car), which I dropped off at the Minneapolis airport and then got on a plane for Chicago. I realized my ultimate dumbshit move while stuck on plane sitting on a runway at O'Hare. When I got home I called the rental car agency immediately, but could only leave a message. By the time I reached a live person the next morning, I was told the iPod had not been turned in and that the car had been rented out again. Which, the claims officer just told me, means that the company isn't liable (could have been the renter after me who took it). But who are we kidding? It was the cleaning crew who stole it. What makes it particularly galling is that this happened to me once before: I left a a dulcimer in a trunk of a f-ing Alamo car and THAT disappeared within an hour after dropping off the car.

When I told that to the claims officer, she said, "You don't have much luck with Alamo." No, I don't. I'm stupid enough to leave TWO things with a thieving company like Alamo. DO NOT RENT CARS FROM ALAMO. Or, if you do, make sure your thinking cap is ON.

So now I know that dark side of iPod ownership: it's a very valuable piece of hardware which is very (too) mobile, so that it can be easily lost or stolen. This is why I've never invested in a PDA or a cell phone for that matter. I'm preternaturally formed to lose such things.

And I can't afford another iPod right now. I may try a cheaper mp3 player. Or I may try an iPod mini. But my little fling with iPod is over.

And you know what? I'm surviving. I'm not convinced I need a portable player at all. I can find other ways to listen to music at home or in a car. Otherwise I don't think I need something to listen to while I'm walking around in the world.

I know: I blaspheme. Forgive me.

Then again I might change my mind if they include a new feature that enables you to spike your iPod remotely when it's stolen. I would pay a little extra for a feature like that.

phoku.28

I took this photo while taking a bath at the Arthaus hostel in Asheville. I can never resist spacious, claw-footed, iron bath tubs. And can never resist waxing poetic about them.

I should also confess that this was in the middle of the morning and the sign outside the bathroom expressly said baths ONLY IN THE EVENING. But there was no one else there. And I needed my bath fix...

LOTR lore

One of my big adventures in media lately was watching all three Lord of the Rings (LOTR) films in fairly quick suggestion. This is not, I'm coming to understand, the most original thing in the world to do. Two of my friends, that I know of, have done the same. In fact, my boyfriend did it as a kind of media-facilitated retreat, preparing to go back to Georgia to deal with his mother's illness (which led to her death three weeks ago, already mentioned in this blog).

I think that's a good way to look at it: as a mediated spiritual exercise. That was close to my approach as well. I wanted to recapture some of the feeling I had in high school when I was a die-hard Tolkienite. A shy, bookish teen, I basically lived in Middle Earth. I couldn't wait to escape to my room, to escape to Middle Earth. This was before I became a very religious person, but I can see now the underlying spirituality of the books. They may have played a big part in leading me to Catholic seminary, and then the Catholic Worker. Which makes sense, since Tolkien himself was a devout Catholic.

The story subtly builds in power while watching the three-films. That makes sense since the three films were basically filmed together. I think that such deep immersion causes the film-watcher to become more invested in the story, making it a more enjoyable and, yes, spiritual experience.

And I really didn't mind the violence as much while watching the three films together, which surprised me. This either speaks to an anesthetizing effect of long-term exposure to violence (10 hours worth), or a deeper contextualization of violence--that is, you see the why and wherefore of the violence, which makes it somehow more acceptable, for me anyway. As a rule I don't like violence, but I will accept it if it's a plausible part of the story and doesn't titillate (my main argument with LOTR's cinematic coeval--the Matrix films--which I thought made violence look sexy and chic).

I will certainly admit that, after my epic act of movie-watching, I was tired and could easily understand why Frodo got on that boat to the Western paradise of the elves (besides the fact that such a mythology is deeply ingrained in my Irish soul). He was bone tired and ready and deserving of his reward, which is kind of how I felt.

Tolkien's West was not our West, however. The Western paradise we come to after crossing to the other side of the LOTR films is the U.S. style consumer paradise of 2005. Which makes me want to get in that boat and go back. Or at the very least, stick disk one back in the DVD drive, and hop onto Gandalf's cart, slowly making its way to the Shire...

review: The Emigrants

Forgive me dear readers, I have not been feeding the blog. It's not going to be easy in the next couple months since I will be preparing for my comprehensive exams towards my doctorate in English lit. I will be going down a rabbit-hole with my huge stack of books. I will, however, take my lap-top with me in case there's wireless access down there.

Speaking of books...

One of the main purposes of this blog is as a log of my media consumption. Most of the media I've been logging has been digital and electronic--films and web sites. But I also want to log my consumption of older media such as...books!

I had a small window of opportunity to read non-academic books this summer. The first one I picked up, one that was highly recommended to me by MFA friends, was W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants.

Like many folks, I only discovered Sebald after his untimely demise, soon after the publication of Austerlitz. That was the first book of his that I read and I really liked it. Sebald has a laconic voice though with some quirks (not using quotation marks or breaking the dialogue out in separate lines). I don't think he's dense, but you have to train your eye to read his books.

What helps is that he often uses photographs in his narrative. This multimedia aspect is what first attracted me to Sebald (he has photos in Austerlitz and in The Emigrants; I haven't had the opportunity to check his other works yet). It breaks up the blocks of text on the page but also provide an interesting counterpoint to the story, as well as give it verisimilitude.

All this is true of The Emigrants, which has a strong autobiographical feel to it, and features stories about family and friends of the narrator, and includes photographs. Either they are truly personal photographs, or Sebald haunts the kind of antique book stores that sell such run-of-the-mill personal photographs--either scenario I find fascinating.

The stories are brilliant, even without the photos. I was told by my MFA friends that some of them were hard-going, but I didn't find that at all. It might be, again, they found it difficult having to parse out the dialogue.

As with Austerlitz, the background of these stories is the Holocaust and the destruction of European Jewry. As other artists have discovered, it's not the gross, super-realistic portrayals of such inhumanity that lingers, but rather the everyday stories in which characters are haunted by, and matter-of-factly wiped out, by genocide. These stories get into our psyche the way the ash from the death camps (as Primo Levi described it in Survival in Auschwitz) gets into the clothes and hair of inmates).

I do not write such things to discourage readers. His tales are really tender evocations of complex, human lives and are not in anyway oppressive. Try The Emigrants and find out for yourself.

another blogger for Cindy Sheehan

August is traditionally a slow news month for the traditional news media. This year, however, non-traditional media are trying to liven things up.

I'm referring specifically to Cindy Sheehan's efforts to enlist bloggers to cover her cause. Sheehan's son was killed in Iraq and she is camping out on President Bush's doorstep as he vacations in Crawford, Texas, trying to get him to meet with her, as well as highlight the true costs of the war. Yesterday she had a conference call with liberal bloggers, many of whom are taking on her cause. Some in the traditional news media are paying attention as well, though commentators like Norman Solomon take the traditional media to task for following Bush's spin-meisters in air-brushing coverage of the war. You can read Solomon's column at AlterNet:

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/23996/

For this entry anyway, I would also like to show my support for Cindy Sheehan and all the parents and siblings who have lost loved ones in this senseless war. I would also like to remember the Iraqi people who continue to be victimized by both sides in the insurgency.

To that end, I would like to point folks towards two blogs: one an American soldier, another an Iraqi civilian:

365 and a Wake Up <http://thunder6.typepad.com/365_arabian_nights/2005/07/another_step_fo.html>

Tell Me a Secret <http://www.secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/>

mini-review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I was disappointed. I'd been waiting for this film for a few months now, thinking the team of Roald Dahl, Tim Burton, and Johnny Depp would be the perfect combination. Alas, it was not so, and like many movie critics I have to put most of the blame on Johnny Depp. His too-weird and affectless Willie Wonka really sucked the air out of the film. I was hoping for something more like a combination of his feckless pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean and his warm and wonderful (yet still complicated) J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland. Instead he played it more like a clone from Star Wars.

I suppose we can't blame Depp completely. First of all he was up against Gene Wilder's immortal performance in the original film. Secondly, he was no doubt following a script, which depicted Willie Wonka as an out-of-it, alienated genius with "issues." Thirdly, he was being directed by Tim Burton in a, I must say, sub-par effort.

I liked some of the elements in the new backstory--namely Willie's father, played by Saruman...I mean, Christopher Lee, as a menacing, martinet of a dentist (and I loved it when he said "I won't be here when you return" and then when Charlie returns he finds the row house ripped of the row!). But too much of the film was spent on setting up, and then resolving, Willie's oedipal issues.

I have mixed feelings about the removal of the songs that appeared in the original. When I was kid I used to fidget during that syrupy song where Mrs. Bucket serenades Charlie (who, played by Freddie Highmore, looks a lot like yours truly at that age). On the other hand, Jack Albertson's song and dance ("You've got a golden ticket") in the original is missed here. It's just a throw-away moment in the current film.

RE: the acting: the kids are OK, but the parents aren't awful enough. Deep Roy steals the show as (ALL the) Oompa-Loompas, and all those Oompa-Loompa numbers (loved the first Bollywoodized song) are great. I also enjoyed the doll's song at the first scene in the factory--Tim Burton doing what he does best. Too bad there weren't more scenes like it in this version.

The web page for the film, however, is quite literally fun-and-games, especially the flash version. I recommend it. I especially enjoyed catching Oompa-Loompas with Veruca Salt. The game with Mike Teevee is kind of lame, though: it would make more sense, for his character in the current film, if it was a Wonka-vized version of Grand Theft Auto (and why did the film have to keep the chocolate by TV bit, when it could have done something interesting with games?). Anyhoo, here's the URL for the website:

http://chocolatefactorymovie.warnerbros.com/

Gates of Paradise: Plate 16

Plate 16

I don't have a lot to say about this image, which has been one of my screensavers for the past month or so. It's executed as well as any of the other images in the Gates of Paradise, but it is by no means a stand-out.

"The Traveller hasteth in the Evening," the inscription reads, and the image depicts a traveller making haste, one must assume, in the evening. A fairly conventional sentiment and depiction; it's a proverb a child could certainly understand, which is good because originally before it was "For the Sexes" it was "For Children." At least in this plate, unlike plate 14 (and in the Songs of Innocence of and Experience) it is not children who are being menaced--if anyone can be said to be menaced at all.

I admit this would be a more interesting image if someone WAS being menaced. But it makes it more sale-able as a print in this version, which was certainly part of Blake's intention.

Unlike many of the other plates, there doesn't seem to be anything of spiritual import to this plate. It made for a rather anodyne presence as my computer wallpaper. Maybe it was meant as a respite for the previous two plates, both somewhat terrifying (and definitely menacing).

Dare I say I've become bored with the Gates of Paradise? With this plate anyway. I've already downloaded plate 17 and that one seems to be much more interesting than this one. I'll be doing an entry on that before too long...

phoku.27

Took this photo at the Arthaus hostel in Asheville, NC. The tricycle in the rain belonged to one of the two children of the live-in manager. It seemed to evoke in me the wabi, or exquisite sense of loneliness, of Japanese haiku writers, which is probably why I took four separate shots of it and wrote this little poem.

We did indeed find a book store with good chai, at Malaprops.

mini-review: Ladies in Lavender

Not as bad as many of the reviews would suggest. Charles Dance does the writing and directing, and does a fairly good job. In terms of the acting, it's a little hard to see Dame Judi Dench mooning after a man in his twenties (Daniel Bruhl's Andrea), but otherwise she delivers her usual effective and interesting performance. Dame Maggie Smith is a little too de-clawed in this one, but again, like Dench, she can't really give an uninteresting performance (to see this pairing in another film, see Zeffirelli's Tea With Mussolini).

But it's not just the ladies that many viewers (including this one) come to this movie to see. The lavender--that is the shots of a lovely, seaside Cornish cottage, it's garden, the sea below it--is also an important part of the appeal of this film. If you don't like Merchant-Ivory-like evocations of the twilight of the Empire, you probably won't like this one.

And I must note as a budding fiber artist that there could definitely be more knitting in this film!

The music--Andrea is a secret violin prodigy--is pretty good too, if you like classical violin music, and the lovely Natasha McElhone as Olga is always worth seeing on the big screen.

mini-review: Hustle and Flow

A good flick, well-written and -directed by Craig Brewer. Terence Howard is amazing as a Memphis pimp trying to make it as a rapper, inflecting his character with humanity and humor. It would be good to view this performance with his very different one in Crash. The other performances are good as well, including Isaac Hayes and Ludacris (tho Ludacris's performance is basically the same one he delivered in Crash).

The trickiest thing about this film was to take borderline-misogynist lyrics and situations and infuse and undercut them with nuance and subtlety. I think the writer/director and actors pull it off, though I'd like to hear what women think of this film.

props for malaprops (and the rest of asheville nc)

Asheville is great, if you like hippie culture (and I do). This is my third time here and it just confirms for me the sense that Asheville is a hippie haven. In fact, it could probably be marketed that way (and in some sense it already is, or else I wouldn't be here): if you can have eco-resorts, why not have hippie resorts?

You got your used book store, your veggie cafes, your fiber arts store, your vintage clothing stores, your punk/goth/whateveryoungpeoplearelisteningtothesedays music joints, your funky psychedelic head shops--in the same two block radius.

And not too far away is the hostel we stayed in last night called Arthaus. At $60, the "king-size" bedroom was kind of pricey, but it was all they had at 11:30pm and so we took it. It was worth it to hang out with the young crunchy hippie travelers in the morning, sharing the kitchen (and pancakes), listening to them laugh at one of Wallace's stories, and enjoying the art of the proprietress, named Rupa, hanging on the wall (should have taken a picture). And a big, iron-cast, lion-footed, royal-sized bathtub!

A far more enjoyable experience than the Motel 6s we've been haunting, one of which we'll be in tonight, near the Atlanta airport.

Anyway, if you're traveling through, the URL for the Arthaus hostel is (prices on the website look kind of iffy):

http://www.hostels.com/en/availability.php/HostelNumber.7767

And here's the URL for Malaprops Bookstore, where I'm typing this:

http://www.malaprops.com

from the journal of future fiber arts itinerants

Wallace just bought me a new spindle. I wrecked my medium, worsted-weight spindle in Westpoint; the top-hook got bent somehow and when I tried to bend it back, it broke. And now Wallace has brought me the very same model. It's pretty amazing that there's a fiber arts store here, especially since you can't run down to the Walmart (nor would I) to replace a spindle. Indeed, a spindle--in facilitating a hand-made, non-consumerist item, namely hand-spun yarn--is anathema to the Walmart ideology.

Spinning has been my best respite while dealing with the craziness of the funeral. I love it. Wallace is knitting right now, while I blog. Sometimes I spin while he blogs (or, in another anachronistic activity, read books). I've been spinning alpaca, and a little bit of flax. We were both spinning this morning outside the hostel and a couple of other folks there were interested and Wallace gave them a lesson.

Sometimes I can imagine us living that kind of itinerant life, traveling around the country, liking Johnny Appleseed, but in this case teaching folks the fiber arts. Maybe we can do that in our retirement, driving around the country in a mobile home, bringing to folks the wonders and wisdom of fiber arts!

But only, of course, if we can find internet connections along the way to blog the whole experience! Check in with this blog--God willing and the creek don't rise--thirty years from now to see if we actually did it...

reporting from Asheville, NC

It's been three days since my last (mediated) confession.

I'm now in Asheville, NC, with Wallace, recuperating from his mother's funeral yesterday. We had to deal with some homophobic, macho cousins leading up to and right before the funeral, but we came out of it OK. It was an instructive experience, actually, to experience the discrimination that many rural gay people face day-to-day. It also makes me grateful for the bravery and sacrifice of gay folks in urban areas, the "out pioneers," who have managed to carve out gay-friendly neighborhoods in many urban areas. Like Asheville, for instance: we've been walking all around town, a white man and a black man, hand-in-hand, and have received nothing but smiles.

And now Wallace and I are holed in in Malaprops Books, on Haywood St., doing our respective blogging.

We're on our third table. The first one we had while a woman was doing a reading on her book on globalization, which was in effect how best to make anti-globalization seem dry and academic. This woman needs to go live in a tree for awhile, to get her activist mojo on!

I eventually relinquished that table because folks were looking around for a table, and it was just me because Wallace, with the lap top, needed to move to an old wooden school desk right next to the door, right by one of the few available outlets, because my laptop only has battery for an hour.

Now I've scored a third table, by another outlet, so I don't have to blog in the old wooden school desk. I can eat my cheese and pesto croissant and drink my chai while blogging.

I thought I was in heaven when, after sitting down and searching for wireless connections, I found eight or nine choices (some of them not open, I'll guess, but still). I overheard a conversation where a guy said Asheville was like that: you could drive up Haywood Street and, because there are so many cafes with wireless connections, you would have all internet access you needed.

It's kind of interesting, spending all this time in a bookstore, trading off the laptop, so we can both do our respective blogging. It's interesting that blogging was the first thing on our mind coming out of the hostel. Interesting that we guard our electronic access like territorial animals. Interesting also that we have no problems staying in a hippie hostel with all the small privations that entails, as long as we can get hooked up somewhere, because that takes priority (actually, the hostel had wireless, showing the same dynamic: hippies want wireless too; maybe moreso, since it's largely free and mobile, ideal for folks without a lot of cash).

Which shows again for me the fact that you don't have to be a luddite to be earth-friendly and hippie-inclinded. There are plenty of such folks who blog regularly, or send out email to lists (like my friend Michael, who's sending out missives as he walks the Appalachian trail). The fact that he could and would do so says a lot about the relationship between outdoor recreation and the digital in the present time.

enter the knitting dragon

My boyfriend Wallace started a blog before we headed down to Georgia for his mother's funeral. He's updating it right now. Since I will soon be offline for another few days, you'll be reading his latest entry before I will (then again, I'll probably just step over to his table and read it over his shoulder as he finishes up).

http://www.livejournal.com/~knittingdragon/

Live from Maasty Internet Cafe

Forgot to put in the URL of where I'm at. It's a hip, well supplied and set up internet cafe in Atlanta with good chai (and the tech support is pretty good--had trouble at first using the wireless connection).

http://www.maastyinternetcafe.com/

another blogging about blogging

ATLANTA--

This is my first ever blogging from the road--something I hope to do a lot more of in the future. I know it's not such a big deal, something most bloggers do regularly. But me, I'm a virgin. It's that first time that's always the most special.

I'm in Atlanta, at an internet cafe, taking the evening off from the small Georgia town of Westpoint (near Columbus). The mother of my boyfriend Wallace died suddenly and we're down here making arrangements and beginning the process of mourning.

But we're taking the night off from such concerns tonight. Wallace is on my laptop doing a blog entry, and I'm in a booth doing same.

I've been jonesing for the internet for a few days now. I've had no connection in the house in Westpoint and no place really in town to connect. And now that we've made it here, I feel like I'm getting my fix.

More and more I adhere to the general stereotype of the blogger. Now I've become that person that gets the shakes when he is out of wireless range, and exclaims in exasperation at the lack of Starbucks in town to which I might repair with my laptop (that, of course, needs repair). Then again who needs Starbucks (don't generally care for the place myself): we found one here in Atlanta and of course you got to PAY to use wireless there. Anyway, I've become one of those people who can't spend too much time in a small town without getting antsy, jonesing for an opportunity to blog...

And with that I'll be signing off (and soon bushwhacking back to wireless-less Westpoint).