Halloween Playlist

It's the best holiday, so how about some best music?

OR ELSE.....AH AH AH!

I'm trying to capture all these adjectives in my giant, terrifying claws: haunting, eerie, foreboding; fatalistic, fantastical, morbid. Try these on for size by making a little Grooveshark playlist for yourself to get in the mooOOOoood.

Kids with Guns / Gorillaz
Mean Monsoon / Dan Auerbach
The Long Black Veil / Johnny Cash (or the Band)
The Funeral / Band of Horses
Grey Bones / Jeremy Messersmith
Black Magic / Jarvis Cocker
Magick / Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
Crimson & Clover / Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Help I'm Alive / Metric
Furr / Blitzentrapper
Little Ghost / the White Stripes
Hell / Tegan & Sara
Run (I'm a Natural Disaster) / Gnarls Barkley
Dance or Die / Janelle Monae ft. Saul Williams
Strange Fruit / Billie Holiday (or Nina Simone)

And if you're feeling spookily depressed after that last one, your playlist will be complete when you search "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" on Youtube.

Stress-free killing

This NYTimes.com article by William Neuman discusses an upcoming switch to better practices in slaughter for two chicken producers, Bell & Evens and Mary's Chickens. Instead of sending sentient chickens to the kill machine, these companies will use a gas chamber to render the chickens unconscious, making the process less painful for chickens and the humans who operate the machinery.

Here's the quote that gets to me: “I never felt comfortable showing people that part of our operation [where chickens are killed],” Mr. Pitman [of Mary's Chickens] said. “I was embarrassed by it.”

Makin' it on Monday

Just barely. Bric-a-brac that's keeping me awake during my lunch break:

Mavens on mopeds.

The Achuar Eco-lodge, apparently the friendliest ecotourism in the world: people-friendly, earth-friendly, experience-friendly, spirit-friendly.

Voodoo Doughnut has a blog.

A new book about Jimi. Read the NYTimes.com review here.

I'm pretty sure this article exemplifies what I want to do with my life. Sociology, race, poverty, new directions for old ideas and new ideas in new times and WOW I just get so excited when I think about the possibilities that are open when you have the right tools in your toolbox. The making-a-difference tools that I want are:
1) skills and knowledge for teaching and interviewing and assessing data in a way that matters, and
2) a big fat PhD so people might listen to my ideas.

Back to work.

Movies

I got sick all last weekend and watched DVDs and parts of movies on the telly pretty much non-stop to block out the body aches. Then I decided to stop watching for a minute and write a blog about it (thrilling, I know! Lucky you!). Needless to say the silver screen has been running through my mind like... a roll of film. Ba-doom-CHING! Thank you, parents, for soup, a little TLC (the real kind, not the tv channel!), and Starz.

Here's the list:

European Beard and Moustache Championship slideshow. Thank you, World.

The Best or Most True

Rachel has a notebook called The Best or Most True. I like this because:
1) It's simple.
2) Small notebooks that can be thrown anywhere and used frequently are important. For remembering.
3) Remembering best and most true things is important. Less necessary to recall worst and dishonest things.
4) I like lists.
5) Write it down to let it go, maybe? Or to hold on? Both.
6) Reflection: not like Narcissus, nor Bloody Mary. Like Mulan.

That day, the best / most true I had was:

Don't mess.

Seriously. Click through and observe with me.

I can't figure out how to post this slide show photo itself (copyright issues is my guess, whoops?), but there's something about the statue of Buddha's companion that is intriguing, intense, and perhaps a little creepy. His stature is overbearing, almost lazily cocky, like dude's prepped to skewer you: verbally, militarily, thoroughly. That face has loose cannon written all over it.

And all this read from a chunk of carved wood? Reminds me of reading about Michaelangelo's work with marble. At least I can get a photo of that.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/09/30/arts/design/1001-Khan-slideshow-7.html