The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

Taking the New York Times and the Times Magazine to task for publishing arrant nonsense when it comes to culture is like reprimanding Dick Cheney for eating live kittens. It's such a foregone conclusion that they'll do it that one looks like a hopeless naif for pointing it out.

And yet:

This is the quintessence of the postmodern brand rebel, hopscotching the minefield of creativity and commerce, recognizing the categorization, satirizing it, embracing it and commoditizing it all at once.

Don't miss out on this laugh-a-minute read.

Posted by BT at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

An deafening huzzah arises from the throats of all decent people, upon the news that the Speedysnail celebrates his Lucky Seventh.

Dude, that headband is so totally mine!

Posted by BT at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ladies and gentlemen, the unsinkable Boxjam Brown provides for your empuzzlement today's exercise for that underused 73% of your brain (as I understand it, the typical division of labor for the active 27% goes something like this: 4% trying to remember the name of that weird breakfast cereal your old roommate was always eating, 7% tracking celebrity romances, 12% free-floating anxiety, and the remaining 4% for line dancing at weddings).

Grok now his consciousness-expanding koan, cleverly disguised in the form of an item of literary trivia. (However, refrain from asking him "Master Boxjam, what is the Buddha?" as, like all Zen masters, he'll probably use this as an excuse to get you to do some serious manual labor.)

This author's writing career lasted just eleven years, although he lived for more than thirty years after his last book was published during his lifetime. Largely forgotten when he died, his widow found an unpublished novel he had written and saved it. 33 years AFTER his death, his truly last published work was first published - more than 67 years since his last new work.

Who was the author? Bonus - what was the book?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a Thummly's commemorative air freshener (please specify Mango Madness or Highland Spring). No Googling or pretending to be in an accident and asking the OnStar operator for help. Anyway, you shouldn't be playing the quiz while driving, even if you do have your fancy GPS-enabled navigator thingy going. GOD, YOU PEOPLE ARE IRRESPONSIBLE.

One guess per comment, but please boost Boxjam's fragile self-esteem by honoring his guest appearance as quizmaster with an usually large number of comments. Which is to say, somewhat more than five.

Posted by BT at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

So, thanks to La La, I've been busily engaged in some web-enabled CD trading. I've shipped off records by bands that just never did it for me, or some second-best efforts that I don't find myself returning to.

What have I gotten in return? Mostly nostalgia, and/or a second chance to pick up some records I'm sort of amazed I never bought in the first place. It's also been a return to some of the music that I learned to scorn (or hide my love in) during college, when these bands were too popular -- or too redolent of seventies establishment rock -- to be openly enthusiastic about amongst my radio station colleagues.

I had The Unforgettable Fire on vinyl, many years ago, but it went the way of all that stuff I sort of meant to hold on to, but, through move upon move, couldn't (I think there's actually a U2 song title embedded somewhere in that sentence). Now I pop it in and the exuberant drums of "A Sort of Homecoming" -- balanced nicely by the Eno-flavored washes of guitar -- remind me of why the record seemed to me so compelling back in the day -- its similarly grandiose, but less subtle follower The Joshua Tree never spoke with such hushed urgency . I also re-acquainted myself with October -- sparer, less sophisticated, but still marked by that wonderful clear, sharp-cold sound of the early U2 records; the way the guitar and vocals play off one another in songs like "Rejoice" is still kind of thrilling.

Going back further into the dark backward of time, I also received a copy of Jethro Tull's Minstrel in the Gallery. I'm not even sure I know why I put this on my "want" list -- not because I wasn't interested in re-visiting my high school/early college fondness for Tull, but because, frankly, this was never an album that meant a lot to me (as opposed to, say Stand Up or the live tracks on Living in the Past). I think it was that I had "One White Duck/010 = Nothing At All" in my head at the time. It's not well known, but it's a beautiful song, with the sort of lovely-sad melody Ian Anderson could write and write and write (I'm thinking also, and which would for the most part remain ignored in favor of the bombastic hits like "Locomotive Breath." And this speaks to one of the reasons I've hesitated to go back and acquire old Jethro Tull albums; I like a song or two on nearly every one of them, but almost none of them all the way through, and some have an unfortunate way of combining one or two tracks that are absolutely haunting with a nearly full disc of bad stuff (Aqualung, for example -- I'd pull "Mother Goose" out and chuck the rest). But the singles aren't the good stuff, either, so any good greatest-hits collection would have to be home-grown, and would span two or three discs. It's a task I'm just not up to.

In any event, Minstrel still proved to be a remarkably good choice; it's got some of the slighty wince-inducing rock stylin', a little Spinal Tap-ish, that I can't really say I like any longer (though I did at sixteen -- right alongside The Dead Kennedys and Duran Duran. Go figure). But it's well salted with much more worthy moments -- sprightly, winningly melodic, and nothing if not ambitious in its arrangements and attempts to evoke a symphonic range of musical modes. While I wish now I'd been handed a copy of a proper Fairport Convention album during my Tull phase, I'm happy to be reminded of what was great about the band.

Finally, some records I'm just unambiguously happy to have; R.E.M.'s Murmur, The Cocteau Twins' Heaven or Las Vegas, Talking Heads' Remain in Light, and an XTC album I never gave a chance to-- Nonsuch -- after feeling disappointed by Oranges and Lemons. I've made my peace with the post-Skylarking era in Andy Partridge's songwriting, and now I'm grown up enough to enjoy "Omnibus", "Crocodile," and "Rook" for what they are -- manifestly great, idiosyncratic pop from an always-engaging source. Not everything has to be "Towers of London" or "Harvest Festival." (Oh, and Suede's Sci-Fi Lullabies is on the way.)

Posted by BT at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It doesn't seem likely that my duties as child-comforter will stand much interruption tonight. Even a gap in the carrying/swinging/rocking long enough to type this hurried note is a perhaps foolish gamble, a last handful of chips ...

...hear that? There she goes.

OK, really fast. What international conflict...

...damn it...

....is considered -- bloody hell-- responsible for the popularization of the cigarette in the English-speaking world? Bonus point: what woman, whose actions during this conflict made her legendary, went on to do groundbreaking work in statistics?

First correct answer posted to comments wins an extra helping of the desperate, last-minute contribution we'll be bringing to a "'potluck breakfast" tomorrow morning at Helena's soon-to-be preschool (and which is why this Friday Quiz is really being posted on a Thursday). No Googling or-- the hell with the funny stuff; I'm typing this with one free hand, after all, and Imogen's barely tolerating that. One guess per comment, please, but comment as often as you like.

OK, sweetie...Daddy's all done...sssshhhh....sssshhhh.....

Posted by BT at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

A late start today, but today's pain in the membrane is, I hope, a sufficient diversion nevertheless. Today we combine an extra-Wombatterific level of sheer inspidity with a charming twist that'll have you throwing your Sunny Delight smoothie out the window in sheer exasperation.

Ready?

He was born in 1952, in Garden City New York. He's composed for such television extravaganzas as the animated show Bobby's World, as well as the more widely-heard theme music for The NBA on NBC. He has played a Klingon in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and voiced a character based on himself in a Flintstones direct-to-video release (in which, naturally, his last name was modified with the ending "-adactyl") He is married to one of the stars of a 1980s television show about a superhero.

Who is this multitalented man? For a super-bonus point, what connects him to the early years of the Canadian band Rush -- and prompted our choice of him as our answer?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a bucket of farina. No Googling or doing the Humpty Hump, because once you start in with that you'll be having too much fun to remember to finish with the quiz. In fact, just avoid old Digital Underground records entirely until you're ready to call it a day. Agreed? Good. Oh, and one guess per comment, please, but comment as often as you like.

Posted by BT at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Our old friend Mark, sometime quiz-player, and for a long time now a resident of the Wombat's birthplace state, has recently taken Oregon's ostensibly centrist junior senator firmly to task, in Portland's widely-read daily paper, for general wingnut pandering. Mark is no stranger to political controversy, but this is the first time the lofty mandarins of Portland's print media have granted him their notice. Mark, if you're reading this: my Dad liked it. Considering his allergy to political argument in almost any form, that's high praise indeed.

By the way, I believe that the state of Oregon is now the nation's leader in Internet-enabled yurt reservation.

Posted by BT at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Frankly, I'm disappointed in myself for not having a wittier title for this post. And I'm even more disappointed in myself for posting on this subject in the first place, since it's damning evidence that I have little to say about anything truly meaningful or even entertaining.

Nevertheless: so, a day or so ago I stumble upon this entry in one of the increasingly large number of blogs devoted to the minutae of life in the Borough of Churches. It begins by quoting an entry from the Park Slope message boards at Brooklynian.com:

"I was walking my dog along Berkeley Pl betwen 6th and 7th last night around 11 pm and came across the following ridiculous typed note taped to a bicycle seat. The bike was locked to a street cleaning sign next to the street:"

" 'Please chain your bike to a different location,' the note read in 18-point Times New Roman. 'We've checked and we are liable if anyone trips over your biked and falls on our property. Thank you for your understanding.' "

The blog entry on The Daily Slope is itself a kind of summary of the discussion-board kerfuffle that ensued. I found myself drawn in, beyond all reason, to the teapot-spanning tempest, watching with fascination as people actually argued both sides of this patently ludicrous case.

And here, perhaps, I should clarify: in the absence of more complete information, my reaction is that we have a rather...overbearing sort of person in our note-writer, here. That is to say, a crank. It reminded me of the notes that a moderately insane downstairs neighbor of Theresa's used to leave, back when she was living with a roommate in a building on Grand Army Plaza -- she took it upon herself to enforce various articles of the building's rules, relating to appearance, with exasperated missives to the effect that "THIS IS NOT DOGPATCH!!!!" In short, we appreciated her notes, on account of they were freakin' hilarious.

And ditto the lunatic yupster who can't abide by the sight of a bike chained to a street sign on the sidewalk near his house. In a community slightly less thin-skinned than our own, this would be treated as merely a sign of someone's yuk-inducingly obsessive relation to their frontage.

However, here on Respectable Street, mention of the note spawned a ...healthy ... debate about who was in the right, about whether the bike owner is being unfairly repressed by the probably-not-doing-his-part-to-fight-global-warming homeowner, or if, on the other hand, the beleagured householder isn't within his rights to stop Hippie Johnnie from creating the kind of dangerous sidewalk obstruction that makes a guy start to think about laying in some extra liability insurance. While the pro-bike party was perhaps more strongly represented, the anti-Hippie Johnnie forces made themselves heard. On the whole, it's just amazing how many people took this fragmentary absurdity seriously -- made it a touchstone for deeper resentments apparently coursing through our otherwise placid, tree-lined and stroller-jammed streets.

And that, itself, would be -- is, really -- a laff riot. Except that, as I witness all too frequently on the Park Slope Parents listserv, it's a regular occurence here, the usual phenomenon of Intarweb-powered arglebargle strangely magnified, focused, and rendered extra-repulsive by the sense one sometimes gets around here that the comfortable, moneyed-lefty lifestyle of our dear old Brownstone Brooklyn must be ever-defended from those who would detract (in whatever way) from our precious quality of life. As if, frankly, we aren't as a group very well ensconced in the damned catbird seat.

And -- last note of shame here -- by writing about it at length, I've simply proven how enmeshed I am in the local culture of self-regard. I guess I suck, too.

Posted by BT at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Syd Barrett, as you might have heard, is dead at 60, of diabetes. Getting the sad news prompted my recollection of this dream -- a summary of which I posted in the comments to a long-ago Friday Quiz:

Did I ever tell you about the time I dreamed I went to Syd Barrett's house? I remember it was evening, just at the hour when the sun is disappearing. He lived in a large, white, somewhat ordinary two-story house in a nondescript community just outside of some city, possibly London, but in my dream it didn't seem strange that I might be in England. I don't remember why I was visiting him; in fact, as I stood on the porch of his house, after knocking I grew nervous, and gazed around the darkening, silent suburb, realizing that I didn't know the man and that I couldn't think of what had brought me there.

I know...wrong band.

Anyway...here's to an unruly genius, whose music no doubt provided the substance for many dreams more interesting than the one related above.

Posted by BT at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was hoping that a search for Red Hook Pool images would yield something other than this, given the number of Brooklyn photo blogs that seem to sprout up faster than food-hipster restaurants on Smith St. But alas, no. The romantically decayed McCarren Pool in Greenpoint gets its share of attention. But no Flickr-powered shutterbugs seem to have figured out how to smuggle in their cameras to the mammoth Sol Goldman Pool in Red Hook.

We'd often heard tell about it, but it always seemed vaguely difficult to get to, and its long list of regulations (white t-shirts only, boys; and nothing but your towel, your flip-flops, and your sunscreen come with you to the pool area) always seemed like a huge disincentive. However, lately Helena has gotten a taste of swimsuit life, in the form of wading in the lake and a supersized kiddie pool at our friends' place upstate over the weekend of the 4th. And she loves it. So, this weekend, we drank the chlorine in a major way --on Saturday we joined some tot-centric swimming lessons at a local high school, and then on Sunday we paid an impromptu visit to this legendary shangri-la of public bathing in Red Hook.

And here's where I wish I had pictures to share. Short of an actual theme park, it was the biggest goddamn swimming pool I've ever seen. It was the kind of piece of huge public works that simply aren't done any more -- only corporate dollars can accomplish these sorts of feats. I tell you -- and I do not exaggerate -- that the kiddie wading pool is larger than our apartment. And I speak, incidentally, only of the 1/2 of the wading pool which was open when we were there.

The main pool...it's just enormous. Let's put it this way. Say you wanted to drown everybody with one of those annoying push-to-talk chirping walkie-talkie things that now seem to be the electronic accerssory of choice. If I didn't think that a mass drowning of the offenders wasn't in some way an ethically questionable solution, I would recommend this facility for your purposes.

From the facility's main entrance, the route to the actual pool is through a byzantine locker-room/shower-bathroom kind of system, and the journey one has to make back to one's locker, should one need to return to it mid-swim, is of a length that makes one hope for some kind of bus service. And the locker room/shower-bathroom area itself is precisely as appealing as you imagine it might be.

But the pool itself is well-maintained and pristine. And free. Come all ye dusty Gothamites, and be refreshed. And somebody take a picture, please.

Posted by BT at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No time for the chit, nor for the chat. Here's today's head-hurter:

In 1870, the surveyor Verplanck Colvin came to the conclusion that one of the United State's most vital infrastructure elements -- now defunct -- was environmentally threatened. Legislation in 1885 and 1892 made his recommendations to prevent the threat law. The boundary established for Colvin's purpose encompassed 6 million square miles of territory, the largest legislative set-off of its kind, roughly the size of the state of Massachussetts.

What natural feature gives this area its name? Bonus: What was Colvin particularly interested in preserving?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a faded poster based on an obscure Roy Lichtenstein painting depicting Tintin's Captain Haddock suffering from delerium tremens and imagining himself covered with millipedes. No Googling, and no sex, no drugs, no wine, no women, no fun, no sin, no you -- no wonder it's dark! One guess per comment, but please comment as often as you like, cyclone ranger.

Posted by BT at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)