Shadow Shot Sunday, Oct. 31/Nov. 1

It's a Mystery
Each Hallowed Day: what to be
When I show my face?











My face is below the fold.

Happy Hallowe'en

This is the girl who was the first to call me "Silly Bumpa."

I am So proud!

Six Word Saturday - Last October Entries

For Hollowe'en, six macabre love stories.

#1 Ghoul friend has skeletons in closet.

#2 Beautiful ghost's moans still haunt me.

#3 Vampire girl left me feeling drained.

#4 Werewolf girl friend left tooth marks

#5 Cheated on Witch.  Now I croak.

#6 Innocent maiden, insouciant roué: blood spills.

And now, at no extra charge:

Six word summaries of October Sonnets:

October 7th - IN PRAYER SHE CONTEMPLATES
Knight, Dragon, Princess: She gets pierced.

On Wednesday, October 14th - CELEBATE FATE

Moon, murder, maiden: She gets nothing.

On Wednesday, October 21st - PASSIONATE PRETENSE

Sunset visitor arrives: She gets pierced. 

Wednedsay, October 28th - THY PALLID LOVELINESS
Warm breath condenses on cold flesh.


Extra bonus, one more from September.
Wednesday, September 30th - FIFTH DAY DOWN

Antibiotic or alcohol: chose only one.

                              - or -
Needle nurse arrives: he gets pierced.

Sky Shot Thursday

Here the sky, which is not very impressive, serves as background for a spider who is!

Taken in Virginia, October, 2007.

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

Wrapping up the Octoberfest of weirdness.

Happy Hollowe'en!

    THY PALLID LOVELINESS

Shall I compare thee to a winter's night?
Thou art more lovely in thy pallid chill.
Rough winds shake bare limbs, but thine hold tight,
Ever rigid, rigorous, and still.
 

Sometimes too cold the evening sky-light glows,
Encircled in a whisp of winter cloud
That with the gray dawn sends the falling snows,
Blankets the earth with its white morning shroud:
 

But thy eternal winter shall unfold,
Never to thaw thy fast frigidity.
And rigor shall not lose the mortal hold
That binds thee in frozen rigidity.
 

Now once again I breathe on thy cold flesh,
And with thy pallid loveliness enmesh.

Best Random Surreal Generator Message EVAH!

A trombone a day keeps the jug away.

Full disclosure: this statement cannot be verified.

What An Ass!

Probably a Democrat.

Mellow Yellow Monday

Sand Castle.




For more MYM, visit 
http://mellowyellowmonday.blogspot.com/

Deep Stupid #10

Great moments in Tea bagging.  Remember what S. E. told us, it's the Democrats who are the modern racists!

With a hat tip to Michael in comments at Duck and Cover.

Photo URL
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/1398/slide_1398_20072_large.jpg

There's more below the fold.

Shadow Shot Sunday, Oct. 25

He's always with me,
My Dark-side Siamese-twin,
Until lights go out.


Taken on the breakwater, Lexington, MI.








Last weeks entry, en ensemble, can be found here.  (Third collage, center.)

Sunday Music Blogging

Sixteenth century modal music derived its harmonies linearly, from the interweaving of melodic lines.  The use of functional chord progression was sparing or non-exixtent, except in formalized cadences.  Thus, there was little or none of the the harmonic drive that characterizes music composed after about 1600.  To a modern ear, this can sound static, or pointlessly meandering.  But in the hands of a master like Thomas Tallis, it is floating, ethereal, sublime.

Take 8 1/2 minutes to sit back, close your eyes, and let this carry you away.



Nice shadow shot sunrise/set visual at no extra charge.

Six Word Saturday

Kids' soccer today: rainy, windy, cold.

Also, here is another lame attempt:

Running amok is best with scissors.

Deep Stupid #9

This is S. E. Cupp's Facebook profile picture.*  She is one of the GREAT CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN, who counts among her credits experience as a Fox commentator and columnist for Newsmax.com

Rather attractive in a cute-librarian sort of way, don't ya' think?  Let us determine what makes her so great, by probing one of her recent articles. 

The Democrats' Descent Into Irrelevance

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Sunday, October 4, 2009 9:34 PM

By: S.E. Cupp

“The Democratic Party is the architect of modern-day racism.”

You know right away this is going to be good.

Health Care

In comments at Krugman's blog, Servius claims that our health care access problems can be cured by allowing a free market to operate.

 My response has been sitting in moderation limbo for 6 hours, so I'm reprinting it here.*

Since no one else has responded to Servius, I’ll say that >60% of Americans want a single payer system, up from about 35% in the spring. The more people learn and understand about it the more they realize it is that way to go.

It is a profoundly naive act of faith to believe that a free market can provide a service effectively when the profitability of the provider is based on denying service. Could that be any more plain?

Why didn’t your head explode when Reagan blew up the national debt, then Bush II made him look like Scrooge?

Nice selective reasoning there, Serv.

JzB whose mother was in constant pain before Medicare replaced her hip.

 _____________________________________
* Where I can decide for myself how moderate I need to be.

Sky Shot Thursday

Mackerel sky, also known as sheep clouds, or buttermilk sky.   Near Toledo, OH, taken Oct 11, 2009.

Conservative Cheesecake Redux

This* is the way Great American Conservative Woman Carrie Prejean, famous for insisting that sexual matters be natural, looked before** having been - how shall we say this - technically augmented.  The Good people at K2 Productions, producer of the Miss California pageant, supplied the upfront cash to fund the expansion, evidently reasoning that anything achieved by the hands of man, a knife, and modern chemical technology is every bit as natural as helium filled balloons. 

Alas, there was a cleavage between Ms. Prejean and her benefactors over the statements that promoted her to GREAT CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN status.  And now they want their money back.

Really, this would not be worth talking about if it were not for the whole GREAT CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN thing.  The irony is, she's nothing but a boob.

The above photo also represents the Carrie of the future, if the assets are repossessed.

Updated with the Carrie of the future link, above.
__________________________________________________________
*Photo URL  http://www.rowlandmanthorpe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/carrie-prejean51.jpg
Linked from this article.
** Before and after side by side comparison here.

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

PASSIONATE PRETENSE

Her throat, no longer perfect, but still white,
Invokes the crimson from the sunset glow,
As she awaits the dark - to taste, to know
Carnality incarnate in the night.

       The sun's suffusion stains her skin to pink
       With its last russet bloom, as if she were
       A blushing maiden, innocent and pure,
       On satin sheets where white and scarlet link.

What has her throat to do with being white?
Like thorn and petals torn they two entwine,
But not as lovers do -- instead, to dine
In sweet engagement of an ancient rite.

Her white throat is a passionate pretense
That now, twice pierced, belies her innocence.

Copyright Jazzbumpa. All rights Reserved.

Wooly Bully

Or, perhaps, this?



Your choice.

Shadow of a Fairy

Here is a nice SSS entry from Pam in Fla.

Not light, quick, airy
Like others of her kind; She waits . . .
A cold stone fairy

Sunday Music Blogging

Nice rendition of some gentle early Baroque music.

Shadow Shot Sunday

The breakwater at Lexington, MI.

Update:
In comments, Magical Mystical Teacher offers this haiku:

On the breakwater
shadows thrust like railroad tracks
across a prairie.

Update 2:

Horizontal lines

Draw close, seek to converge at

Infinite distance

- JzB

Shadow Shot Sunday concept by Hey Harriet.

Hat Tip to Pixels at an Exhibition

Haikus copyright their respective authors.  All rights reserved.

Moorings

Looking across the harbor toward Lexington, MI, from the breakwater.

The Coast is Clear

Shoreline North of Lexington, MI, taken from the breakwater.

Quote out of context.

I'm as committed to problematizing exclusivist metanarratives and delegitimating monologic desire as the next gink.

What makes this so remarkable is that I can not remember ever having voiced - or even entertained - this concept.

Silly me.

I ain't no Phila.

Update:  At the risk of supplying context - and forgive me if I've mislead you - here is another quote.

Most of the people who claim that the universe was really created in six days, and that Eve was really fashioned from Adam's rib, are still able to recognize suggestions like "go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor" as confoundingly polyvalent metaphors.

Wing-Nut Tee Shirts

Isn't she cute?  OK.  I appreciate snark more than most people.  And the staunch patriots at thoseshirts.com certainly know their snark, and all other manner of mean-spirited nastiness, as their inventory attests.

Folishness

Foley's Market, Lexington, MI.

We have Foley ancestors. Foley is not a rare Irish name, but it is not one of the top 30. Many Irish immigrants settled in the area near Lexington.

Courtyard Fountain

Outside Smackwater Jack's, Lexington, MI.

A great place for soup, sandwich and a beer.

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

The Octoberfest of weirdness continues.

CELIBATE FATE

For four more weeks she keeps her innocence --

Mere carnal yearning since she was beguiled

Into wedlock with Selene's child

And his twenty-seven days of impotence.

The moon's once-in-a-cycle minstrel song

Called him out to last night's bloody rending,

Announced his victim's grim and grisly ending,

Siren to his lunatic Wulfsarkergang.

A shimmering crystal moonbeam, cold and clear,

Illuminates what never was but always were.

Its gray light casts the sacrifice's setting,

But her blood never flows at his blood-letting.

Her celibate fate follows Nature's whim:

The moon, not she, brings out the beast in him.

Copyright Jazzbumpa.  All rights reserved.

Crossword Puzzle Blogging

LA TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2009  CHARLES BARASCH

Theme:  Them Bones

20A Big Southwestern trombones: TEXAS LONGHORNS.  Cattle, and that's no bull.  Or some football team.  Or these guys.

37A Refined trombones?: POLISHED BRASS.  Decorative and utilitarian metal hardware.
Or those who sound like Kai Winding - my idol as a kid.

54A Continuously playing trombones: SUSTAINED WINDS. The wind speed obtained by averaging the observed values over a one minute period.  I'll bet you didn't know that.   Opinions vary on proper trombone technique.

Hi, gang.  Jazzbumpa here.  Some things are so good, you just can't plan for them: like learning that honey is rich in B vitamines.  Or that, on this, of all nights, the guest blogger would be your humble trombonist.  Do I need to add how much I love this puzzle? Weird, no?  Like, wow!

I worked this in Across Lite in 12:33, which is about my average for this time of the week.  But I seldom have such a silly grin plastered on my embouchre (thats brass musician talk for chops.) while doing so.  And once again, talk about it one day, it shows up the next.  Crockett just asked me about trombone playing.  This is an omen.  Go for it!

Best T-Shirt EVAH!

Seen outside a shop in Lexington, MI.

DEAD END

Sometimes a caption isn't necessary.

Sunday Music Blogging

I'll be performing this in a couple weeks. Rather a nice piece of music.

Quite a beefy trombone section in this orchestra.

Unfortunately, there are only three camera views, and none of them are any good.

Oh, well -- Enjoy.

Deep Stupid #8

John L. Perry's Newsmax.com column of September 29th on the "Obama Problem," titled Obama Risks a Domestic Military Intervention was so horrible and over-the-top, that it was pulled down shortly after it went up.

Newsmax scurried to distance itself from Perry, but clearly he and Newsmax are very deep. indeed.

Too bad for them - in the electronic age, tracks are not so easily covered.  The full text can be found here and here and (leaving nothing to chance)  here (via ConWebWatch).

Evolution

How can anyone doubt that evolution is real, when we see it happen every year, right before our eyes?

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

Thus begins the Jazzbumpa October fest of demented sonnets.  This one is odd, the others are even weirder.

The captured maiden, monster, rescuing hero trope is as old as story telling.  One common variation derived from European folk-lore has a princess and a dragon in the starring roles.  This has become a fantasy cliche over the last few decades, eventually leading to creative alternate approaches, such as in the movie SHREK.  I've written a couple of stories that play with the idea, and this poem, which I think takes an original approach.  I hope you enjoy it.

    IN PRAYER SHE CONTEMPLATES

Far from her home, sequestered in a cave
In dampness, gloom and foul lizard's filth
With golden chains that mock a kingdom's wealth,
She waits the coming of the knight or knave --
 

The fool who'd face the flame and fang to save 

A royal maiden from this monstrous death.

The fool arrives.  To scale and scalding breath
He shouts his dare.  Could one so wild and brave
 

Be any but a lout?  No doubt he'd clench
A princess as he would some low-born wench.
Is lance of knight or fang of worm to be
The one to test her vain virginity?
 

Reposed in prayer she contemplates her sins,
Then spies her knight, and prays the dragon wins.

Copyright Jazzbumpa.  All rights reserved.

Deep . . . Just, Deep

As it says at the end of his Washington post article today, "Steven F. Hayward is the F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of 'The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980-1989.'"  You can tell he's an intellectual type when he says things like this:

The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty."

And this:

The brain waves of the American right continue to be erratic, when they are not flat-lining.

Pretty good, so far.  But let's face it, Hayward is just one more faux-conservative Republican tool. His man-crush on the late Ronald Reagan is huge; so much so, his "The Age of Reagan," is a two volume set, with each volume weighing in at about 750 pages. 

Sunday Music Blogging

Here is a bunch of British guys (and a gal) doing a pretty authentic-sounding version of a wonderful early Ellington classic, from 1928.  Nice plunger work on the trumpet solo.

There's a sweet big band arrangement by Mark Taylor that we've been rehearsing.  No vocal, but still a retro, 80-years-ago feel.

Conservative Cheesecake

Hmmmmm.  Could this become a feature?  Too soon to tell.

The "guerrilla conservatism" of cub reporter James O'Keefe, 25, and his not quite adult, psuedo-abused-prostitute accomplice Hannah Giles, 20, is considered heroic by some.

But the manufactured outrage is just one more conservative fantasy.

Updated 10/04:

Conservative Cheesecake

Anyone wishing to see a modest, demure - shall I say conservative - picture of Carrie Prejean fully clothed*, need look no further. Other than that, I'm speechless.

Really.

10/2 Update:  Fox news has the skinny (so to speak) on all of the participants in the 2010 "Great American Conservative Women" Calendar.

Or, for some guaranteed 75% snark-free right wing mean-spiritedness, check here.
_____________________________
* And Michelle Malkin, And Ann Coulter, And Michelle Bachman, And Phylis Schlafly. . .