…This IS what all the fuss is about, right? 😉
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(Lovely photo of Great Horned Owl — the most superb I’ve ever seen — by the San Diego Zoo.)
Great Election Signs 2020 November 2, 2020
In situations of dire consequence, I appreciate the use of gentle, yet pointed, creative humor. It seems to give me back a bit of clarity and life force.
Here are some of my favorite USA 2020 Presidential elections signs. A few are from the ‘net but most are from around my neighborhood; I took the photos.
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This one is my all-time favorite:
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Halloween “Trumpkin.” made by Patricia MacQueen.
She reports that local deer ate the toupee first.
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Keeping the bar low:
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An oldie but still a goodie – now with new layered meanings.
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What I love about this next one is its subtlety and stealth. I suspect many of those who wouldn’t like it won’t understand it. (Meow.)
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This one is a bit hard to see from the street. The small print below Biden/Harris says, “Our best days still lie ahead.” A vision of hope!
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Then there are the alternative candidates:
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Best reason ever:
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Here’s one we can likely all agree on:
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I wanted to give equal opportunity to the Republican side here, but honestly, I could only find one pro-Trump sign that showed a sense of humor. That’s kind of telling in itself.
Here it is. You’ll notice its humor is based on cruelty and divisiveness. This carries scary implications for our country, and it’s not actually even funny.
I also recently received this horrifying email that confirms how in a Trump administration, “We The People” means only his unquestioning supporters:
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USA 2020: Please Vote!!
“Vote as if your life depends on it.” You can still sign up and vote, even on election day. Given responses to Covid-19, the increasing effects of climate change, systemic racism, the alienation of our country’s historic allies and exaltation of dictators, nuclear escalation, the decimation of EPA protective guidelines leaving us vulnerable to pernicious toxins, the fomenting of hate and jeering at integrity we’ve seen so much of lately, etc., etc., etc., our lives may literally depend upon the outcome of this election.
And even afterward, we must stay vigilant. Recent breaking news gives evidence of Trump needing the position of US President to protect him from his many debtors and lawsuits, not to mention our collective coffers for his ongoing personal plundering. These conditions can make a person desperate. Then there’s the proven matter of his not liking to lose. Trump will not want to let go. And the boy has proven he clearly only cares about himself and his own wallet, certainly not about any sense of service, collaboration, dignity or integrity. Therefore, no matter who wins, the upcoming interregnum period holds potential for being one of the most dangerous periods in US history.
For a detailed analysis of this, you may wish to read Barton Gellman’s exceptionally well-thought-out essay in The Atlantic: The Election That Could Break America.
As the Boy/Girl/Youth Scouts encourage, let’s be prepared. We will be called to respond to the many upcoming changes in both external and internal ways. To keep it a response instead of reaction, I invite you to join this call for one radical intervention on the personal level, no matter what happens in the short term or on a large scale: remember your innate goodness, and repeatedly act from that place.
That doesn’t mean being all perfect or ethereal; it just means being a good human. And IMO, this includes the skillful, non-mean application of humor. Friends, we’re in rough waters and have to row this leaky boat together. Please be as kind and compassionate, honest and real to all beings as you can now — including yourself. Let yourself dare to feel, really see others, and be seen yourself. Speak out about what you find important at the core so we can find our similarities underneath the surface differences. Together, we can make this a country to be proud of once more.
…Okay, dharma talk/sermon over. 🙂 Which signs did you like best?
Yogi Explains Jazz September 23, 2015
RIP Yogi Berra, whom my friend Steve Gaddis rightfully calls “America’s unintentional Zen master.” 
By way of example, here’s his take on jazz – in which he captures its spirit better than anyone I’ve ever heard:
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Yogi Berra Explains Jazz
By Steve Chalke
Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?
Yogi: I can’t, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong.
Interviewer: I don’t understand.
Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s whats so simple about it.
Interviewer: Do you understand it?
Yogi: No. That’s why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn’t know anything about it.
Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive today?
Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.
Interviewer: What is syncopation?
Yogi: That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds.
Interviewer: Now I really don’t understand.
Yogi: I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.
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Thanks to Michael DeLalla for introducing me to this Berra interview. His fingerpicking guitar wizardry can be heard at fallingmountainmusic.com
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Machine Moment September 17, 2015
We who enjoy material prosperity in the modern day Industrial Growth Society are expected to chuck out imperfect possessions that we don’t use anymore and go buy new ones.
However, I like to repair and repurpose things, so I’ve been doing some mending.
Some of the clothes on the pile are nearly worn out. But that’s because they’re favorites and therefore too beloved to just let go softly into that dark night of the rubbish bin or consigned to a second life as cleaning rags without a fight. Others, I want to alter in some interesting way; to usher their good raw material into a new and more currently useable form.
Even though I’m much more skilled at sewing the archaic way, with a simple needle and thread, I got our old sewing machine out for the first time in many years to make the work go faster.
“Faster,” she said. Ha! As soon as I attempted to begin, the thread snarled up in incredible thick tangles over and over behind the bobbin. This being on the bottom side of the piece, I didn’t notice it until quite a few inches were already sewn and I was congratulating myself on the excellent choice to employ some metallic plug-in help. Then the snarl caught on the foot hardware and everything stopped cold. I turned the work over, and omg. In certain places, what was intended to be a neat row of small stitches was a mass two inches thick and a half-inch deep! What a mess.
I tried a few more times, with no luck. As a last desperate resort, I finally broke down and got out the owner’s manual to try and understand what was happening. Not surprisingly, this helped. Improper settings for the kind of material, thread, stitching style, etc., had indeed caused part of the problem.
But really, getting deeper to the core of the issue, machines have never liked me.
You’d think they would cut me some slack due to my family: my dad, a mechanic, served their kind his entire life. He worked on aircraft, cars, motorcycles, and small stroke engines like chainsaws and outboard motors. He even single-handedly rebuilt three-and-a-half P-51 warbird airplanes from the WWII era, one from a husk found abandoned out in the desert. And my mom cared for this exact same sewing machine for decades. Where’s the gratitude?
But machines don’t seem to think that way. It’s all about their needs and their individual relationships with us soft-bodied creatures, and something about me is apparently just too much water to their oil.
Thinking about it, maybe it’s because I’ve not given this one a name, nor painted Celtic knotwork all over it, or suchlike. I seem to get along better with the machines that I anthropomorphically spoil, or at least art up. Or perhaps it balked because I don’t use it enough, and it feels under-appreciated; without a strong purpose. Hm.
You reading this: how do YOU personally develop a mutually happy relationship with the machines in your life? Inquiring, frustrated minds want to know.
For myself, I think I am better off sticking mainly to simpler tools like the hand needle, thimble and thread. Even with it occasionally drawing blood and me taking a lot longer to complete tasks, there’s less wariness between us. We know what to expect from one another. We can get along.
Dances with Klingons July 20, 2015
At a recent contradance, my day was made when someone jokingly wondered how to say “thank you for the dance” in Klingon* – and someone else actually knew. Daniel Morse, who translates Chinese texts for a living, turns out to also be fluent in Klingon. Without batting an eyelash or pulling out a device, he explained the following.
Ma mi/t mo/ qatlho/ = Thank you for the dance
Ma = we together, Mi/t = dance, mo/= due to, or because of that, qatlho/ = I, to you, thank. Note his knowledge about grammatical structure differences between Klingon and English too.
I was pretty surprised by the idea that Klingons dance, so even though I trust my friend, I did do a bit of Internet research for confirmation and maybe a scandalous video showing their moves. Indeed, many of these same words appear when calling upon Saint Google.
Another juicy tidbit also arose: several scholars pointed out that while qatlho/ (I, to you, thank) is a Klingon word, it is not one used by Klingons. So what would Klingons say? “I’m sorry I didn’t stomp hard enough on your foot”?
Klingon in the News
You know how interesting things often occur en masse? Around the same time I was delighting in this, applied Klingon language appeared in the news. An UFO was sighted in Wales, and a magnificently nerdy government spokesperson responded.
From the BBC:
Welsh government responds in Klingon to UFO airport query
“Klingon was the chosen language for the Welsh government in its response to queries about UFO sightings at Cardiff Airport.
While English and Welsh are the usual forms of communications in the Senedd, it opted for the native tongue of the enemies of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk.
Shadow Health Minister Darren Millar had asked for details of UFOs sightings and asked if research would be funded. A Welsh government spokesman responded with: “jang vIDa je due luq.” The Welsh government statement continued: “‘ach ghotvam’e’ QI’yaH devolve qaS.” In full it said it translated as: “The minister will reply in due course. However this is a non-devolved matter.”
It is believed to be the first time the Welsh government has chosen to communicate in Klingon.
Mr Millar, shadow health minister and AM for Clwyd West, submitted three questions to economy, science and transport minister Edwina Hart about UFO reports around the airport and across the rest of Wales.
“Responding to the government’s unusual diversion into trilingualism, Mr Millar said: “I’ve always suspected that Labour ministers came from another planet. This response confirms it.””
Click here to read the full account. See, I didn’t make this up.
More!
The crazy late night search for Klingon dancing terms gave me another moment of linguistic delight before going to bed: there is actually a site dedicated to informing people how to say the vital phrase, “My hovercraft is full of eels!” in multiple languages, from Afrikaans to Zulu.
As if this homage to the bad Hungarian phrasebook in Monty Python’s Flying Circus weren’t enough, as a bonus, the wizards at Omniglot include the phrase in several invented languages – yes, including Klingon.
Klingon: lupDujHomwIj lubuy’moH gharghmey (Click here to hear it spoken)
For those of you who may need distraction from insomnia or deadlines, or those with really cool travel plans, here’s how to say it in Quenya, the language of J.R.R. Tolkien’s high elves:
Quenya: Venenya vilyanirwanen ná quanta as angolingwi
Really, Klingon and Quenya seem no weirder than Welsh or Yiddish:
Welsh: Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn llyswennod
Yiddish: מײַן פּראָם (שוועבשיף) איז פֿול מיט ווענגערס (Mayn prom (shveb-shif) iz ful mit vengers)
…I suppose they’re also no weirder than a search for how to say this phrase in the first place. Or to praise your dance partner in Klingon. Ah well. Thanks for reading.
Qapla’! (Success! Good-bye!)
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* For the non-nerdly among our readers, “Klingon” refers to a fictional alien (planetary alien) people and language from TV’s Star Trek.
I Want To Break Up With Winter March 2, 2014
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Dear Winter,
Despite your many fine qualities, I’m sorry but I don’t think we are suitable as a long-term match.
I want to break up and start seeing other seasons, beginning with Spring. (I’d ideally love to be with Summer, but s/he is currently unavailable.)
Please leave my home as soon as you can, and try to be a bit kinder to us in the meantime.
Thank you.
–Tina
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Unexpected overnight snow in the southern Arizona desert. Several tents were totaled. –Photo by Tina Fields
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Skiing accident á deux
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Cosmic Spam August 16, 2013
wad o’rattlesnakes photo from zombiehunters.org
I like to check Akismet once in awhile to see if its excellent spam-catching nets have inadvertently scooped up a genuine response to one of my posts.
Today my creel holds some strange fish. One spam comment caught on this blog is so surreal I begin to wonder if it may have cosmic significance; a fortune-cookie from the universe:
“Maybe you need to have to consider selling a ton of snakes. This in an environment-friendly vehicle results in much more money having towards be paid on restore those proper rights.”
Open for interpretation… anyone?
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Indigenize! 