Surfs Up!

[jones jones]

Surfer dude ... that's me! :wah:

Once had a long board way back when only hippies inhabited J Bay and they used to make and sell leather sandals for a living. :guitarist Now it's a large, thriving, seaside resort town and any house within five streets of the surf costs like a gazillion plus. :-1

Just gonna chill and write my journal while I contemplate & meditate & speculate & gravitate & dedicate myself to what it says in my new signature.

Gonna post images to my albums and sit around ... wishing & hoping (and with apologies to Dusty Springfield and of course the pious) NOT praying ... that I may soon be able free my throat from the jaws of the dreaded "black dog." :-5

[jones jones]

So for a while today I spent a little time thinking about my childhood. I often do that because I grew up rather rapidly and my youth sped by like a Formula One racing car down the home straight. Among my many phobias/obsessions is one regarding staircases, which probably stems from the fact that my childhood was spent in a single storey dwelling.

According to ancient/medieval superstition, shortly after birth a baby had to be taken upstairs for it to in later years rise up in the world. Sort of in much the same way that my mama covered the bread dough with a blanket to keep it warm so that it would rise. Now if the home, like ours, had no stairs, then the nurse would usually have to climb onto a chair holding the baby in her arms so as to compensate for the lack of an "upstairs" so to speak.

Which is probably why in Victorian times the nursery was always upstairs. I mean climbing up onto a chair whilst cradling a chubby babe in your arms could prove rather dangerous for both nurse and baby.

And which is why I simply love staircases of all shapes and sizes.

[jones jones]

Put up an image of a "dumb stove" in one of my albums.

Female Classical Figure Dumb Stove.

During the nineteenth century, Albany and Troy manufacturers were among the largest producers of cast-iron stoves in the world. The Hudson River allowed Troy and Albany to bring raw materials to the foundries and finished stoves to worldwide markets.

This cast-iron figure, usually identified as Liberty or Columbia, is one of the most striking of all nineteenth-century “dumb stoves.” These usually did not have a firebox, but were connected by a stovepipe to a functioning stove on a floor below. That way two rooms could be heated by one stove.

The designer, Alonzo Blanchard, probably chose a figure that would represent America because the country was preoccupied at the time with symbols of national unity. These could be symbolic, such as Liberty, or real, such as George Washington.

Fron the Albany Institute of History & Art.

[jones jones]

Nevva Evva been a fan of the so called "compact disc" or CD for short. Why? well because they so sterile and you never know when they actually gonna start until they do start!

Now the vinyl record ... well you knew exactly when John Lennon or Mick Jagger or Ray Davies or Justin Hayward was gonna entertain you simply because when the hissing & crackling stopped, the music started! Gave you time to like figure out your moves; and the cute chick standing opposite you on the dance floor with her her hands held behind her back and her large eyes flirting with you waited for the action to start!

So when I happened upon this piece of prose ... well you read it and decide!

Ode to the Vinyl Record

by Thomas R. Smith

The needle lowers into the groove

and I’m home. It could be any record

I’ve lived with and loved a long time: Springsteen

or Rodrigo, Ray Charles or Emmylou

Harris: Not only the music, but

the whirlpool shimmering on the turntable

funneling blackly down into the ocean

of the ear—even the background

pops and hisses a worn record

wraps the music in, creaturely

imperfections so hospitable to our own.

Since those first Beatles and Stones LPs

plopped down spindles on record players

we opened like tiny suitcases at sweaty

junior high parties while parents were out,

how many nights I’ve pulled around

my desires a vinyl record’s cloak

of flaws and found it a perfect fit,

the crackling unclarity and turbulence

of the country’s lo-fi basement heart

madly spinning, making its big dark sound.

[jones jones]

Nothing New Under The Sun!

Now all some wise guy has to do is market a lip gloss containing Synsepalum dulcificum!



Synsepalum dulcificum, also known as the miracle fruit, is a plant with a berry that, when eaten, causes sour foods (such as lemons and limes) subsequently consumed to taste sweet. This effect is due to miraculin, which is used commercially as a sugar substitute.

The berry itself has a low sugar content and a mildly sweet tang. It contains a glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet.

Miraculin works by binding to sweet receptors on the taste buds. At neutral pH, miraculin binds and blocks the receptors, but at low pH (resulting from ingestion of sour foods) miraculin binds protons and becomes able to activate the sweet receptors, resulting in the perception of sweet taste. This effect lasts until the protein is washed away by saliva (up to about 60 minutes).

[jones jones]

Yeah ... this makes sense.

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Franz Kafka

[jones jones]

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars."

Charles Darwin



Nor could I dude!!!