Mr. Sun: an ass, or an insightful clairvoyant? Maybe a little of both.

Recommend by Hannah. A documentary film by Werner Herzog.

Grizzly Man explores the life and gruesome death of amateur grizzly bear expert and wildlife preservationist Timothy Treadwell.

. . .

Treadwell's crusade to defend the grizzlies tragically ended when he--and his girlfriend--were attacked and killed by a rogue grizzly in October 2003

The brilliance of Werner Herzog becomes readily apparent in this documentary. It would be very easy to paint Timothy Treadwell as a nut, a man with an absurd desire to become one with the bears. Its hard not to think that Treadwell was destined to be devoured by the bears, and it would have been easy to exploit the terror and tragedy of his story to create a sensationalistic documentary. Herzog turns it into something better. It is apparent that Timothy Treadwell's story is both absurd and tragic, but Herzog examines Treadwell's tale with interest. Instead of alienating and exploiting him, Herzog reaches to understand Treadwell's life and his ultimate destruction.

Treadwell attempts to paint a simplistic and fairytale picture of his experiences in nature with the bears. Throughout the hours of video tape he shoots he portrays himself as the gentle warrior protecting the humble giants. You see many clips of an exuberant Treadwell overcome by the wonder and beauty of nature. As the film goes on you see an man struggle with his demons, a man attempting to define his own place in the world that, at times, he does not seem able to comprehend. Treadwell retreats further and further from civilization, both physically and emotionally.

At one point Treadwell finds the severed arm of a cub. Herzog interjects that male grizzlies sometimes kill cubs so the female bears stop lactating and become ready to mate again sooner. Treadwell seems incapable of coping with this hard truth of nature. This act conflicts directly with Treadwell's perception of nature and the bears. Herzog, in turn, sees the beauty and wonder of nature, but he also understands the natural world as a chaotic and savage place where death and murder are primary ingredients.

Even though it is apparent that Herzog disagrees with many things that Treadwell says and does, he does not judge or condemn him. I think this is an important distinction that makes this film much more than just a sensationalistic story of a man eaten by a bear.

A friend sent me an holga camera in the mail as a present. Here are a few shots from the holga, light leaks and all...

And yet another bee found dead in the bathroom last night (of course Tam and Julie never saw it).

(actual dead bee found in our bathroom)

I wrestle with duality as I sit at my desk sipping tea sweetened by the finest honey harvested at Old Shaw Farm. The devil temps me with this elixir, and I have not the will or desire to refute it.

Do I judge myself too harshly? Am I not just a pawn in the eternal battle of good and evil, just a cog in the great ethereal machine struggling for salvation. Maybe, if I squeeze my eyes together so tightly, so ever tightly that I am forced to evacuate, I will find salvation...

"Google believes that users should have a choice in what applications they use for editing text files. Built to support industry standards, Google Text enables Google users to press letters on their keyboard, and those letters will then appear in a Google Text document. Users can string these letters together to form whole words, even complete sentences. Google says that users will be able to create entire paragraphs of words and sentences, and, for the advanced computer users, complete documents.

Google Text uses industry standard ASCII text and provides innovative features such as 'cut and paste' and the 'deleting' of mistyped characters.

Google Text currently only has client support for Windows, but Google reportedly said that a web based client is in the works. The web client will provide support for Apple OS X and Unix platforms, but the web client will only support a limited subset of the characters that users can type in the windows based client. It has been reported that the web client will support the letters 'a', 'f', and 't', and the numbers '2' and '7'. Google says they are not planning any other characters at this point, but reminded that Google Text is in beta.

Yahoo has stated that their competing product "Yahoo Pad" is set to be released in a few months...

Pat Robertson has called for the US to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo - BBC News

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."

"It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

-Pat Robertson

Mr. Robertson then offered to fly down to Venezuela and "strangle the dirty commie to death with my own bare hands, in the name of the Lord our God..."

Citing irritable bowl syndrome, he proceeded to take a huge dump on national TV.

My brother came out to Brooklyn tonight for a little dinner. We were sitting around the table eating and chatting about breakfast cereals and how nobody ever ate the plain oatmeal packets from the instant oatmeal assortment boxes our mom used to buy. I felt a tickle on my arm, and I looked down. What did I see crawling on me? What, dare you ask, did I see crawling there? A Bee. A bee was crawling up my arm, just about to crawl up the sleeve of my tee-shirt. Its was eight o'clock at night, I'm was at my kitchen table, and a bee was crawling up my god damned arm.

It has become quite apparent that I am cursed, doomed to eternal damnation. There will be no redemption, no turning back. I have stepped off into the abyss of perpetual hellfire, and there is no return. My ever lasting soul shrivels and decays as I wait for Lucifer to turn what remains of my wasted humanity into a black stain in the bowels of infinite, torturous hell.

venganza.org

via gnitter

I've been working from home quite a bit lately. As much as I enjoy working from home, it can have its disadvantages.

12:30 P.M. on a fine Wednesday afternoon...

ring....tam calling on her way home from the store

me hello?

tam you got your pants on?

I look down to check, and am surprised that I actually do...

me I do...

tam (also a bit surprised) great, come down the street and help me unload the car.

In early spring I noticed a dead bee lying on the floor of our bathroom. A few days later I noticed another bee on our bathroom floor. I pondered the significance of these terminated bees for a moment, and then went about my business. A few weeks later I found yet another dead bee in the bathroom. In the following weeks I continued to happen upon the dead remains of bees. In passing I asked Tamara about the bees, "Have you noticed the dead bees in our bathroom?" She replied, "What bees?"

"I have been finding dead bees in the bathroom, on at least four or five different occasions." She shrugged, "I haven't seen any bees, are you sure they were bees?"

"Am I sure they were bees? I think I know a bee when I see one. Where are they coming from is the question."

"Not sure, I haven't seen any."

Not completely convinced that she believed me, I dropped the subject of bees.

A month or so later I was up late working at my desk downstairs. I felt a slight sensation on my neck. I reached back to feel what it was, and felt a sharp pain. I grabbed whatever it was and threw it to the ground. It crunched when I grabbed it. I jumped out of my chair and spun around. I looked on the floor, but saw nothing. Something had bitten me, but what I did not know. It was dark in the room, and I began to fear that what had bitten me was not dead. I poked around on the floor with an envelope to see if I could find the little bugger, but it was late and dark, and after a moment I decided a hasty retreat to the bedroom was the best strategy, better to live and fight another day and all that.

I climbed into bed and nudged on Tam's sleeping shoulder, "Tam, you awake? Something bit me on the neck." She mumbled, "hrmph." I nudged harder, "Something bit me on the neck. I was downstairs at the computer, and something bit my neck. Will you take a look?" She sleepily leaned over and looked, "I don't see anything."

"Nothing, not even a little spot?"

"Nothing. You sure it was a bite?"

"Yes I'm sure, something bite me."

"We'll there's no bitemark, maybe it was something else."

She rolled over and went back to sleep. I rubbed my neck and thought for second about going downstairs to find the culprit, but it was late and dark, and maybe that little bastard wasn't quite dead. Better to investigate in the light of morning.

The next day I had forgotten about the bite, and I went about my business. A few days passed, and I was doing some work in the office when I noticed something on the floor. I turned on the overhead light to get a better look. A bee lay dead in the middle of the room. I paused for a second. Could this bee be the little bugger that bit me? Maybe it wasn't a bite? Maybe it was the beginnings of a sting? Maybe the bee started to sting me when I grabbed it, but didn't get a full sting because I crushed it and threw it to the floor? I relayed my theory to Tamara when she got home that night. She was dubious. I spent a few moments trying to convince her that this was indeed the bee that had bitten, err stung me. She finally agreed, if half heartedly. Then there was the basic question of the bees themselves. Where were they coming from? What device was bringing these bees into our home. I was quasi comfortable with the idea of dead bees, but now that they had arrived in my presence alive and stinging I was more concerned. Another shrug from Tam, "Its summer, and summer brings bees." Sure it was summer, but why had summer decided to bring bees into our house, and how? That was the important question.

Tamara has a history with bees. She took a beekeeping course with her friend Maryellen, and has been wanting to start a hive ever since. Whenever we go to visit Maryellen in vermont Tamara helps her work the hive, and we took home quite the bounty of honey the last time we were up there. Living in Brooklyn tends to put a damper on bee keeping, so she has put her bee dreams on hold for the time being. After reading The Queen Must Die and Other Affairs of Bees and Men, I also became enamored with the idea of keeping a hive. Of course, the bees seemed quite pleasant and docile in the book if properly managed, and only handlers who did not respect and understand the bees were the ones who got stung. Yet, when faced with the prospect of sharing my home with bees, the allure diminished dramatically.

A few weeks passed without any bee sightings, dead or alive. The bathroom remained clean of bees, and I had forgotten about the infestation, infestation is what I had begun calling it after the bite...err sting. The next Saturday I woke up early. I brought Uther (der gute hund) downstairs to let him out in the backyard. I opened the back to door to find a bee on the screen door at eye level. It was at most six inches from my face. I froze. The bee just sat there. If it hadn't been clinging to the screen, there would be no discernible evidence that it was alive. Was it mocking me? I slowly swung open the door, and let Uther out. I then quickly closed the backdoor, once again imprisoning the bee between the door and the screen. The backdoor has a small window at eye level, and this provided a view directly at the bee. I watched it for a while, and I wondered.

Could this be a sign? Had I done something that had prompted the first wave of bees, and now this second? Maybe I had angered some god somewhere, and this was the plague she or he had smote upon me? Sure, it was a fairly small and minor plague, but maybe I had committed a very minor infraction that only warranted a plague of miniscule proportions. Or maybe I had offended a very low level god, and this was all he or she could muster. If this was the case, how could I find redemption? I silently cursed the bee and its god.

After a while Tamara came downstairs, and I promptly reported the return of the bees. She walked to the back door, and much to my dismay, opened it. She shooed the bee off of the screen, and closed the door. "It's just a bee." she said. "Just a bee." I thought, " She just damed us all."

I scoured the bathroom and back hallway for an entrance for the bees. They had to be getting in somehow, but how was the question. I came up empty. There was no obvious entry for the bees, and I saw no hive outside. I tried to discuss the infestation with Tamara and our roommate Julie, I was careful never to utter the word plague, but they brushed me off. They didn't seem to think we had a problem with bees. They were careful not to call me crazy, but I could see it in their eyes. My words fell on unsympathetic ears, and I began to wonder if they were right. Maybe it was all just a coincidence. Maybe "The summer brings bees". Maybe.

Last Monday I walked into the bathroom to perform some pre bedtime activities when I saw a bee, a living bee mind you, flying like crazy around the bathroom mirror. It was bouncing again and again off of the mirror while taking brief respites to bound off of the bathroom light. I looked up to find another bee crawling its way across the bathroom ceiling. There were two living moving bees in the bathroom. Someone had angered the gods. I stood still for a brief moment, and then I turned and ran out off the bathroom. Tamara and Julie where watching a movie as I ran into the living room, "There is a bee, err, two bees in the bathroom, two live bees, in the bathroom, flying around. Alive." They looked up from their knitting, "What?" "Bees, in the bathroom, two of them, alive," I said. They walked over to the bathroom. "How are we gonna kill them?" I said. Julie replied, "Kill them? We're not going to kill them. We'll put them outside." This idea was so foreign to me that I could not respond. I stood stunned as Julie caught the first bee with a glass against the ceiling. She slid a small piece of cardboard under the glass and brought the bee outside and let it fly away. "This second one seems a bit angry." she said, "I need a bigger piece of paper. "Angry?" I thought, "This bastard is pure evil, we must kill it." She caught the angry bee and let it loose outside. I proceeded to ramble on about the bees and how they got there while Tamara and Julie ignored me. They seemed incapable of understanding the magnitude of what was happening. The bees had come, and it was only a matter of time before they destroyed us. The writing was on the wall, why couldn't they see it.

I walked back into the bathroom. I looked around for more bees, but there were none. I stared into the mirror, and I said out loud, "Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman..."

Gina and were driving back from a day trip to Fire Island with Jim when I inadvertently made a wrong turn. I tried to convince Gina that I knew where I was going, and that eventually we'd hit the expressway as I was fairly certain that we were heading north. I said as an aside, "Were only in trouble if this road starts turn curve off in an unknown direction, because this has happened to me before, and I have found myself wandering around Long Island looking for a highway I know. The good thing about being lost in Long Island is that you'll either hit the expressway, or a body of water at some point." A few moments after I mentioned the road curving, the road we were on curved to the right. Gina, always a good sport, pretended like she wasn't concerned with my apparent lack of directional skills, but I could hear the fear in her voice.

What Gina did not know is that I have a secret weapon up my sleeve. I have the ultimate intelligent mapping device available to man. Its not GPS, or a Hagstrom map of Long Island, not even google maps, its my brother's phone number. He moves pianos around Long Island and the tri state area, and he has an uncanny sense of direction and a mental map of the island in his head.

ring, ring...

answering machine: We are not in to...

me: Matt, its Mark, if you're there, pick up...

click...

Matt: Hey Mark, what's up...

me: hey, guess what? I'm lost out on the Island, and I was hoping you'd point me toward the Long Island Expressway.

Matt: where you at?

me: I am on Connetquot Ave heading north, at least I hope I am heading north...but this road is ending, and I'm not sure where to...

Matt: ok, you'll see a little curve coming up on the right .

I look forward a bit and see the curve he has just talked about.

Matt: follow that curve around to the right, and in a moment you will see Vets Higway, take a left on Vets and it'll run right into the expressway.

me: great, thanks matt.

Matt: no problem...see you on Sunday.

...click

We follow the curve off to the right, and there indeed is Vets Highway, and in a few moments we hit the expressway.

There have been times when I have been driving with Matt and its seems as if we are lost. He'll ask me to look at a map to see where a road is running, or how far we are from some other road, but by the time I find what I need on the map, he has already sorted it out in his head. It's like the mental query he needs to run to locate a specific place takes a little longer sometimes, but then all of the sudden he knows exactly where we are, and the best way to get from A to Z. You can almost see the light come on in his head, and then we are off in the right direction.

Thank you for using broogle maps, have a nice day...