OK Go!

Party Like It's 1988!

Happy Anniversary, Deena and Dave! (actually, it was yesterday.. oops...) Here's a family shot at my sister's wedding, October 1, 1988. From left, Jennifer Thrasher (bridesmaid and Dee's best friend), Mom, Dad, Deena, Dave, our wonderful Aunt Lena (at 93!) and yours truly, a glowing and youthful 28.

Nearer Than Heaven...

Stake your claim on the morning sun...

Friday On My Mind....

And here's New Dehli's Jama Masjid, literally Friday Mosque, India's largest. Surprisinly, the top attractions in India's capital are all Moslem, simply because the city was never ruled by Hindus until 1948 and independence. It was built by the Moslem Moguls, who ruled until the British came in. I was there in 2001, and saw female Westerners with sheets covering their bare arms and legs. Under the Mosque's portico, I saw sleeping transients woken up with the billy club of a nasty Indian policeman. During my visit, a week before the WTC attack, my hotel was hosting the state's annual gourmet cooking festival, and I set out to eat the slowest, most scrumptious meal of my life, with some success.

And now for some humor, including a cartoon...

Onion 1 - From the Onion Archives of my favorite feature, “What Do YOU Think?
Question 1: “The National Sleep Foundation recently announced that American children are not getting enough sleep. What do you think?”
Answer 1: "It's no surprise. The obese often have trouble sleeping."





Question 2: "Decried as gas-guzzling road hazards, SUVs are also under fire for supporting terrorism by increasing U.S. dependence on Mideast oil. What do you think?”
Answer 2: "Yes, the average U.S. automobile has doubled in weight since 1990, but so has the average U.S. citizen."

Hello, Mali...

Pack yer bags. Tired o' my own pictures, we're going to Mali, east of Mauritania.. ...and home to many sacred sites. At left, Bina Shrine on Mali's Bandiagara escarpment.

Cartoons will follow at the very bottom...

Uneventful day. I worked a lot. Dis-assembled and re-assembled my computer for absolutely nothing... Some screws just won't unscrew....


Rite of passage ceremonial site for Dogon boys becoming men:


The Dogon village of Songo, with its reknown mud mosque...


Handy map of Mali:

Happy Birthday, Brian!

It's the big day for Bri - on Sep 28 of fall after the summer of love, baby Brian came into this world. Our birthday salute to Bri includes photos taken in Paris, Sweden (the tongue), the Norwegian-Russian border, and that happenin' city, Pasadena.

Grease In Dubious Formations (Castle Hassle)

What Do All The People Know? : - )

Vanity Fair was thoroughly enjoyable and engaging, I thought. Good plotting, acting, and dialogue, and glorious period recreation - think of it as a two-hour trip to 1820 England, in interesting company. Not bad for a summer movie headlined by a Hollywood starlet. I'm glad I wasn't deterred by mixed reviews, my gut feeling was it's better to aim high (british lit) and fall short of a perfect 10. True, I hadn't read the book, and thus had no pre-existing images in my mind, esp. of heroine Becky Sharp. Reese Witherspoon (pictured here as pregnant Becky) brought a tough-girl, ambitious, somewhat mocking sensibility to the role, and created a convincing character. My friend Pat, an english lit enthusiast, was not disappointed. Now I'd like to see Bright Young Things, the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies (title reportedly changed to avoid confusion with horror films!).

This evening I'll post Friday's awful White Castle lunch party at work - the most vile meal I've eaten in ages.

Spanish Sunday / Domingo en Castellano follows, in honor of Andres in Argentina, who was my boyfriend from 1988-1993 and who I'm still very close to. He recently sent me a great poem...

Hoy es domingo, ya van 5 días que es otoño pero todavía parece verano. Hay mucho sol, lastima que tenga que trabajar por lo menos 3-4 horas para ponerme al día con mis proyectos.