Marlys Magazine: starring Ernie Pook's Comeek by Lynda Barry... today is lynda's birthday... why do i not visit this site more often... lynda barry is some kind of minor goddess... of the comix variety...

funny... i had my palm... well... whole hand... read the other night... but can't seem to remember anything that was said... though at the time i noted to myself that it was all pretty accurate... and a nice way to be able to tell people what you think about them... she kept saying something like o... yr on yr very best behavior tonight... and i was...

Richie's Picks: THE BEST OF 2004: Great Books for Children and Young Adults ...
In an age when I feel such anxiety about the wisdom of our leaders and the long-term sustainability of the planet we all call home, I am so thankful to the authors and publishers of children's and Young Adult books. For the words in those books will help bring wisdom, tolerance, and understanding to the teens and tweens who will be tomorrow's leaders.

Writer-farmer Wendell Berry says hope rests on the possibility of knowing something better in the future, learning a better way. Czech statesman Vaclav Havel once defined hope as the belief that life, no matter what happens, makes sense in the end.

This past summer, I asked authors, farmers and gardeners Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver and Toby Hemenway and plant breeder and philosopher Frank Morton for a sustainable-gardening reading list.

my eyes are not really blue as that picture down there shows... something untoward happened in the processing...

i just filled out an information sheet for the event of my sudden and eventual expiration... seems so many carmelites have passed on lately that the front office is trying to get a grip on the whole process... asked for the name of a local carmelite who knows me and my papers and possessions well enough to handle their disposition... i'm not sure there is one... who would ever understand and appreciate where this or that book... pot... stone... must/should go? who'd ever care about these ancient notebooks? bundles of letters... from back in the day when people actually sent them...

they also asked for a picture... i know they don't have any of me... so i send a copy of my most recent school picture... which is pretty bad but not completely bad... if you stare at it long enough... but it won't be bearded... will i be... then?

so i did just that... listened to the penderecki... and thought about fragile life and the brutalities... then put on the morrison... do you know it... astral weeks... timeless melancholy truth and hope in the tune...

i will jump into the semester exams right now... and am considering a beard again...



hoping much peace and love and energy for the great work of our new year...

Happy Birthday, Meg!!!

i've been listening to artie shaw (1910-2004) all day... the excellent "last recordings" from 1954... i've been counting the last posts of quarter two... i've been reading sonnet papers... one set to go... then tomorrow i jump into the semester exams... and we'll see what we see...

this evening i'll "celebrate" the passing of this muchly rotten old year with a careful listen to penderecki's "threnody to the victims of hiroshima"... chased by... what... astral weeks?

may yr own new year be full of grace...

Built in 1923, St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The Church building is considered the "first modern Catholic church building" because its architecture anticipated many of the liturgical changes of Vatican II.

HYDE PARK PARAKEETS (Myiopsitta monachus)...
Native mostly to Argentina and Brazil, one finds it strange how birds accustomed to a more temperate environment could survive the harsh, blustery winters of Chicago, especially next to Lake Michigan. According to research done at the University of Chicago parakeets were first spotted in Hyde Park in 1973.

hyde park monk parakeets...
Today, Pruett-Jones estimates, Hyde Park's monk parakeet population has grown to about 200, with 80 nests perched on power transformers and in the trees of Parrot Park and of Washington Park. He predicts they will be flying all over the continental United States within the next two decades. So far-in at least six other states, including New York and Florida- they have inexplicably chosen parklands, suburban lawns, and backyards with birdfeeders over croplands. 'I previously thought the monk parakeets should be controlled because an introduced species is almost always bad for its new environment,' Pruett-Jones says. 'But now I believe they are sufficiently benign in the habitats where they now occur. They're not a pest, and they don't compete with a native species.'

rest in peace... artie shaw (1910-2004)

just back from 24 hours visiting friends in hyde park... building steam for the final assault on quarter/semester grades... st. thomas the apostle church is just wonderful... gorgeous even... i didn't have my camera with me... but i will... one day soon i hope...

this afternoon a stroll down 57th street earned us a couple or three hours in powell's bookstore...where i netted:

flow chart by j. ashbery (noonday)
to do: a book of alphabets and birthdays by g. stein (green integer)
bestiary or the parade of orpheus by g. apollinaire (godine)
changing works: visions of a lost agriculture by d. harper (chicago)
a possible world by k. koch (knopf)
virginia woolf: a-z by m. hussey (oxford)

all for a rattling low price... now... the time to read them will cost more...

Rest in Peace... Susan Sontag

tsunami aid...
+ Catholic Relief Service: http://www.catholicrelief.org

+ Christian Aid: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/seasia/index.htm

+ Church World Service:
http://churchworldservice.org/news/archives/2004/12/252.html

+ International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies: http://www.ifrc.org/

+ Lutheran World Relief: http://www.lutheranworldrelief.org/

+ Mennonite Central Committee:
http://www.mcc.org/respond/rapid_respond/asiaearthquake/index.html

+ Mercy Corps: http://www.mercycorps.org/home/

+ World Relief:
http://www.wr.org/featurestories/view.asp?id=30000119

+ World Vision: http://www.worldvision.org/

"I tried to capture what it was like to be a 13-year-old at the concert and my amazement without being coy," he explained. "But at the same time as a historian, I tried to put the event in its proper historical context in American and world politics and in the life of New York City."

World Population Grew by 76 Million People in 2004, 3 Million in the Industrial World and 73 Million in the Developing World

well it's settled... 5:25 appears to be the time... now i just need to figure the traffic this time of day... but there's no figuring... if i'm out of here by 5... well... things will happen somehow... sooner or later... and it's not way too cold for dom to be perched out by the curb at o'hare...i guess...

but now the details page is offering an 8:57pm arrival... if that is correct... the evening is blown... dom and i were sposed to visit a party tonight... o well... hang on...

and now it reads... Sorry, your request cannot be processed at this time. We are unable to accurately determine the status of your flight request.

... what's up?

United Airlines - Flight Summary ...

Flight 1511
Operated as UNITED FOR TED
IN FLIGHT
Departure
Tampa, FL (TPA)
Tue, Dec 28
Scheduled:  3:45 PM
Actual:   8:44 PM
Gate: E74
Arrival
Chicago, IL (ORD)
Tue, Dec 28
Scheduled:  5:38 PM
Estimated: 5:25 PM
Gate:  B21
Baggage claim:  14

huh?... sure... the plane is IN FLIGHT... but it departs at 8:44pm and arrives at 5:25pm... this makes perfect sense...

The New York Times > International > Americas > The Food Chain | Survival of the Biggest: Supermarket Giants Crush Central American Farmers (free registration required)...
Across Latin America, supermarket chains partly or wholly owned by global corporate goliaths like Ahold, Wal-Mart and Carrefour have revolutionized food distribution in the short span of a decade and have now begun to transform food growing, too.

The megastores are popular with customers for their lower prices, choice and convenience. But their sudden appearance has brought unanticipated and daunting challenges to millions of struggling, small farmers.

The stark danger is that increasing numbers of them will go bust and join streams of desperate migrants to America and the urban slums of their own countries. Their declining fortunes, economists and agronomists fear, could worsen inequality in a region where the gap between rich and poor already yawns cavernously and the concentration of land in the hands of an elite has historically fueled cycles of rebellion and violent repression.

They occasionally play as an ensemble, and they leave their recordings somewhat unvarnished, in the tradition of bootleg, or in the tradition of low-fi, punk, folk, old time, early rock and roll. ... thanks. again. patrick.

We often forget that all education is environmental education -- by what we include or exclude, we teach the young that they are part of or apart from the natural world. david orr in grist...

"Generosity is that palpable extra that comes along with the gift, motiveless as a good wind. Best is the extra that comes unencumbered: pure generosity of spirit, always replenishing itself. We the less generous are quick to suspect it, remembering what we've given and why. But those who have it irradiate the day. They redefine the meaning of wealth. We fall in love with them, we try to shine that brightly, yet before long they've mostly instructed us about what it is we want to keep. Blessed are the generous who keep enough for themselves so we can live with them without guilt. Blessed, too, are those who receive well, so the generous get their reward." - Stephen Dunn