Karaab #1
Give me a wilderness whose silence no civilization can endure
H.D. Thoreau

There is a sense
In this muck
Of oil on wood
Of history
Of techniques
The sudden thoughtless rustle
Here the lion shakes
A moment of aging sky
Unburdened by stars
Or predatory thought

At this rushing moment
My true sense
My magnetic guide
Stirs, unafraid
And then joins me
Limb to blessed limb

Siobhan McCann sent this email to Anna today. It's bloody hilarious.

French Intellectuals to be Deployed to Afghanistan to Convince al-Queda of Non-Existence of God



The ground war in Afghanistan heated up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of al-Queda zealots by proving the non-existence of God. Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris' Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a number of pavement cafes at strategic points near the front lines. There they will drink coffee and talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man's lonely isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the philosophers' ears every five minutes and looking remote and unattainable to everyone else. Their leader, Colonel Marc-Ange Belmondo, spoke yesterday of his confidence in the success of their mission. Sorbonne graduate Belmondo, a very intense and unshaven young man in a black pullover, gesticulated wildly and said, "The al-Queda are caught in a logical fallacy of the most ridiculous. There is no God and I can prove it. Take your tongue out of my ear, Juliet, I am talking." Marc-Ange plans to deliver an impassioned thesis on man's nauseating freedom of action with special reference to the work of Foucault and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. However, humanitarian agencies have been quick to condemn the operation as inhumane, pointing out that the effects of passive smoking from the Frenchmen's endless Gitanes could wreak a terrible toll on civilians in the area. Speculation was mounting last night that Britain may also contribute to the effort by dropping Professor Stephen Hawking into Afghanistan to propagate his non-deistic theory of the creation of the universe. Other tactics to demonstrate the non-existence of God will include the dropping of leaflets pointing out the fact that Michael Jackson has a new album out and Jesse Helms has not died yet. This is only one of several Psy-Ops operations mounted by the Allies.

Remember that Afghani girl on the cover of National Geographic back in 1985? Well, the guy who took her photo didn't bother to get her name, but now claims to have tracked her down. I'm not so sure. I'm almost positive that the person "claiming" to be her was once in Monty Python.

On another note, California is looking to make potato guns illegal. First smoking, next potato guns, then drinking, and finally talking. Beware California!! Beware.

Here's a gun I hope they never outlaw. If you want to buy one, it's $400 at this Web site.

Spent today in Napa tasting wines with a 70 year old woman who lives in a treehouse, a professional Go player, who was sent to a Korea Go academy at age 11 (all based on a linguistinc misunderstanding), her husband, and three dogs. Sometimes living in the Bay Area is such a trip.

It appears that Stephen Fry is now saving the bears. He's a complete nutter (celibate for 16 years?!! Running away to... Belgum?!!), but I think he's wonderful.

Here's an interesting, starry-eyed piece on blogging by the New Republic's Andrew Sullivan. It pretty much sums up why this blogging thing got my attention.

Finally, can you believe that Bush has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize? WTF? If you want to protest this, you can go here. I did; and I'm a registered Republican.

Who is this girl?

I was walking home from a news conference at Sun Microsystems' San Francisco offices on Monday when I passed a woman in a green tweed business skirt'n'suit who was wearing a big beige blindfold. She was handing out photocopies of people on the streetcorner, so like a Christian at Communion, I took one from her, gently, whispering "Thank you," into her ear as I did so. But now that I'm home, and I've looked at the photo, I have no idea who she was or why she was doing what she was doing, but I think I might prefer things this way.

My best guess is that this is Blair from "The Facts of Life."

My disdain for live music didn't stop me from seeing Willie Nelson on Friday last week. He was playing an in-store promotional show at Tower records (about 6 blocks from my house) so I surprised Anna by walking her down there at lunchtime. She didn't know where we were going, but as we approached the stoor, Willie's bus pulled up. I kept saying, "My god. I think that's his bus."

"Whose bus? Whose bus?!!"

"I really think it is. Wow, what great timing."

"Whose bus is it, Bob?!!"

As soon as we got close to the bus, she figured it out. There was a mural painted on the side of a skinny guy with braided hair on a horse. "It's Willie Nelson, isn't it?"

I've decided that this is the only way I'm going to see live music from now on. For one thing it's free, for another, you don't blow your whole night on it. Just an hour or two during the day. And for another, you get to hang out with the real, hard core (and broke) fans. It was a wonderful show. Willie played with his whole band for about an hour (another point: one hour is long enough to see live music), and he was charming and gracious and beautiful. And a couple of guys in the band were in his breakthrough 1984 movie, "Songwriter" so it was a super-celebrity experience.

After Willie, the rest of the week was busy. I went to San Diego for a computer conference. San Diego seems to be a beach town masquerading as a city. This was my third time there, and the most interesting things I've seen so far are the beach, the massive Balboa Park, and the Nuclear power plant just outside of town.

On Monday, my uncle Ray died. He was married to my mother's sister Betty, and at over six feet tall, he weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 100 pounds. He had Alzheimer's and Emphysema, and he was getting pugnacious in his old age. He felt unwell on Sunday; was dead the next day. The day he died, he said, "I'm not going to no fucking hospital." He had pneumonia. But Uncle Ray was always sweet to me, and I remember he took me for a scooter ride about 20 years ago that perhaps sewed the seeds for my current scooterphilia. The last time I saw him, at a family picnic a couple of years ago, all he could say was what "nice people" me and Anna were. He said it over and over again. "I just wanted to say that you two are so.... nice."

Rest in peace, Uncle Ray.