What the...?  

Senryū Thirty-Five. Tin Man:

Cheney has chest pains
Whatever could be hurting?
It can't be his heart

What the...?  

Belated Fortunes: Predictions/advice from the cookies we got at Hunan last week.

My cookie:

Slow and steady wins the race.

Barbara's cookie:

Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today.

It was Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year, so you know they've got to be accurate.

What the...?  

Instinct:

Standing on the borderline
Between joy and reason
Tending carefully my fire
Waiting for my season
I know who these people are
I know what they stand for
Corruption's built into this plan
Nothing's under the other hand

Tricks and trials await the child

Instinct keeps me running
Running like a deer
Instinct keeps me running
Running through the grinning shadows

I have seen the sludgy beach
And the poisoned river
I have met the lordly rich
They're just getting stiffer
This whole place is like a maze
Or like some Medusa
Let me out I can't accept
A second rate life story

Tricks and trials await the child

Instinct keeps me running
Running like a deer
Instinct keeps me running
Running where the sorrow bless me
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a moose
Instinct keeps me running
Running to keep one chance open

Marks on walls, the common outlet
Tell the truth and always will
Marks on wall destroy the thought
Of perfect sunny civilization

Tricks and trials await the child

Instinct keeps me running
Running like a deer
Instinct keeps me running
Running through the grinning shadows
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a bear
Instinct keeps me running
Running to keep one chance open
Instinct keeps me running
Running cause I don't believe it
Instinct keeps me running
Running through the bare emotion
Instinct keeps me running
Instinct keeps me running
Running
I'm running, running, running, running

—Iggy Pop, "Instinct," Instinct

Books  

Copyreich:

If you've been following the story of who owns the copyright to Mein Kampf since I first published my article on the subject in the debut issue of Plant's Review of Books in the fall of 1992, then you no doubt noticed the article in today's The New York Times:

MUNICH — In Germany, an author is granted an ironclad copyright for 70 years after his death, apparently even if he is subsequently regarded as one of the greatest mass murderers in history and a dark stain on the national character.

Hitler’s copyright on "Mein Kampf," in the hands of the Bavarian government since the end of the Nazi regime, has long been used to keep his inflammatory manifesto off the shelves in Germany. But with the expiration date looming in 2015, there is a developing showdown here over the first German publication of the book since the end of World War II.

If you're interested in the subject in the international realm, please take a look at Amders Andersson's site from which I ripped off the graohic and title above (and which links back to me!)

What the...?  

Hadn't Run Across This Before: The Spock Pistols @ Whisky-a-Go-Go.

What the...?  

Got Durian?:

The next time someone tells me that Portland's OK but it's not very cosmopolitan, or raves that their former home had a wider variety of "ethnic" food and restaurants, I think I'm going to force them into the Food4Less at SE 82nd & Powell where I took this shot of some durian fruit in the produce section.

"Pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock" is how travel writer Richard Sterling described the smell. Even the uncut fruits smell so bad they're banned from public transport in notoriously rigid Singapore (where the sign gives them equal standing with smoking, eating and drinking, and flammamable goods), although I have to admit I didn't smell them from a few feet away in the Food4Less.

The part I liked best about it was that the sign in the store notes that they're eleven cents cheaper there than "SUPERMARKET PRICE". And I have to ask exactly which supermarket they're thinking of. They're sure not at Fred Meyer's or Safeway.