John Griogair Bell - Arlecchino Malbenvolio

Via the Portland Cello Project website is a description of the show I just saw:

Show featuring Norfolk and Western, Skip Von Kuske, Loch Lomond, Hurtbird, The Online Romance, Eric Stern (Vagabond Opera), Ali Ippolito, as well as the music by J.S. Bach, Astor Piazzolla, Giacomo Puccini, Heitor Villa-Lobos (in the rarely performed Bachianas Brasileiras Number 1) and much, much more!

This show will include 15 cellists: Skip Von Kuske (Vagabond Opera, Cellotronik), Justin Kagan, Douglas Jenkins (Bright Red Paper, Loch Lomond, John Weinland), Sonja Myklebust, Megan Mathew (Magic Daggers), Galen Cohen (Barons in Trees), Kevin Jackson, Anna Fritz, Gideon Freudmann, Brian Bruner, Rob Brooks, Ivy Lin, Amanda Lawrence (Loch Lomond, Norfolk and Western), Samantha Florence, and Erin Winemiller.

Fantastic.

I kind of forgot how much I absolutely love live music like this. Loch Lomond was great, and there was also an opera aria sung as well as Argentinean Tango dancers, and so much more. Ah, hell, the whole damned thing was fantastic!

Apparently, there’s going to be a really spectacular special show on Nov 16th, so I’m looking forward to trying to make it to that one.

he comes
and then
he leaves you
spent, exhausted
but wanting more

if you could handle it
he’d be ready

his wand is the axis
of the world
and he churns
in you
turning his precious substance
into pearls
that he leaves behind
in you

these pearls become stars
that quiver from your skin
into the dark night sky

Check this out. The summative self-evaluation I wrote for my final quarter at Evergreen was used as the only example of how to write one in a syllabus for a TESC class, “Integrating Seminar,” at Gray’s Harbor:

Humanities 105. Integrating Seminar: Writing and ePortfolio Development, a.m. session. Winter Quarter, 2007.

There’s also a link to my website as a whole as one of several that students are to have checked out before their first writing assignment.

Huh. Cool.

Probably the instructor found this by using an internet search, but that’s maybe even cooler than one of my pages being used as an example of an untrustworthy source on the internet by the library of Lyndon State College Vermont back in 2005. (Although, it looks like my page was edited off their tutorial in 2006. Bummer. I quite liked the idea of being officially recognized by a college library as an example of speciousness!)

Just tell me when, and I’ll
meet you in the produce aisle
smelling of pomegranates and limes

this time I’ll bring kisses
and you’ll forget the times I didn’t

I have misplaced my social security card, so I went looking for how to get a replacement. I arrived at the Social Security Administration website; found the appropriate PDF and the location of the closest office where I can turn in the form.

After printing out the form, I begin to fill it out. It asks for the typical stuff, but then comes to a section which asks for the names and social security numbers of both parents. Well, that seems a bit much. Under this there’s a note to check on page 2 for the instructions on item 8.B. in the form which read:

8.B. You must show the mother’s Social Security number only when the application is for an original Social Security card for a person under age 18.

Well, okay, then. I don’t have to worry about it. But, then I read the rest of the instructions for item 8.B. which continue:

However, this item may be left blank if the mother was never assigned a Social Security number, or if you do not know the mother’s Social Security number and are unable to obtain it. We will still be able to assign a number to the person under age 18.

Huh. They kind of went off message there at the end. “Must” must not mean what I think it means.

As impressive as this front page article in the Monday morning Oregonian is, it’s that last 35% of the fall that really sneaks up on you. “Death from above,” indeed, but at least you’ve got more than a decade to step aside …

What? They mean “reduced”? Oh … never mind.