For the record

I do not conceal my identity on the internet. (Occasionally I have forgotten to sign a comment, like in LiveJournal or on a Blogger site that doesn't require posters to be logged in. In some cases I have used nicknames or handles, but only on sites where the owner knows who I am anyway.) I do not post anonymously. I do not use faked Blogger ids. I do not use anonymizers. I have probably peeked at you through a mirror site if your site is blocked by the web filters at my freelance office, but not for any nefarious purpose. And I certainly don't go around sending threatening messages or "warning" anybody. In the very few instances I have been involved in any kind of conflict, I have always talked directly to the other party--if *they* were being forthcoming about who they are.

I think it's creepy to expect somebody to talk to you while you're wearing a mask. Imagine doing that in "real life."

OK? I have already relayed this to the appropriate person.

If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky!

So

A tornado thrashed up the Hudson last night & the teevee called the lightning "deadly" even though no one was killed. I met a touristman in line yesterday who wondered if we are anxious on a daily basis about "terrorist attacks," & I said no, that worrying constantly is too exhausting, what with terrorists (foreign or the newly prophesied "homegrown" kind), Korean missile tests, and subway saw slashers. NYers could become agoraphobic & paranoid in a few heartbeats, but then an explosive neighbor irritated with his wife might still blow up our apartment buildings. (Yeah, that's a great idea: let's add "legally armed citizens" to the mix & just all go see Jesus.) It's just too much. I'm pretty sure my Southern friend was a little horrified, but he was sure polite about it.) By 10 or so our cable had gone out, so I couldn't watch the show, alas. I guess I can catch it tonight at 8:30 repeat.

More Montana pics (to decorate this place in the absence of poetical content & to alleviate my post-vacation home-again blahs) this afternoon. I'm finally caught up with most of my email & "working from home today" so I should be able to sift through a few more.

Spend 10 days without the internet/news/etc. sometime, do. I used to schedule these fasts regularly, but somehow forgot how detoxifying they are. Next one coming up in August when we head back up to Maine. I can hear the silence already.

The Colbert Report report

He's even more awesomey in person than he is on teevee. & the writers are revising lines for each act right up until the cameras roll. Mort Zuckerman was a wet noodle (though he gets a rowdy cheer for saying Bush is "the absolute worst president...since Carter"), but Colbert managed to make it a funny interview anyway.

Which is good, because we had to walk 14 blocks in the rain, then wait under a dripping awning with mosquitos (three new bites to go with my Montana welts) for two hours until they finally opened the doors at 6, whereupon we waited about another hour in an overstuffed room with a bunch of grumpy wet people & a dangling designer flytrap. It was worth it.

There was audience participation in this one. For real--you should be able to see us. In the Massachusetts gay marriage bit, look for me in the back row, just to the right of the big pride flag. We have little flags.

I won't spoil any of the jokes for you now. But I will say, he dances during the breaks. & he only effed his lines twice.

Backwoods botanicals

More Montana

Moosie

Young bull moose eating roots in a creek somewhere along Thompson Pass (just over the Idaho state line).

Home again

Hi. Photos soon.

There's a single perfect word to describe reading Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere, while using a rustically furnished cabin as homebase: WOW.

Note to Jonathan: Me too, but after a while, I started to appreciate that the novel is an attempt at a multilayered, multimedia experience--built into the narrative is a bibliography of recommended works. Going through and reading each work mentioned (while listening to the accompanying soundtrack he suggests, and even pausing to watch the films) would form an interesting complex. Murakami seems--to borrow a metaphor from the book--to be playing chords. (Of course, I was in the middle of nowhere, so I couldn't follow every reference--but at least I did know most of the music, and had my iPod. I'm planning to go back and dig up the poetry and read the Soseki novels.)