Happy Birthday Dear Johny

Happy Birthday Mr Blood

Dear Johny,
I know it's a day early but am on my way to an island in the Arabian Sea to celebrate Diwali far away from the smoke and noise of Bombay and so will be out of reach of telephone, GSM, GPRS, etc. Indi, Mira, Jai and I wish you a very happy birthday. The kitties are all well, though Juhu's become a bit of a refugee since Patch gave birth. We see him every once in a while but he's terrified of the little mama, which confuses her more than she is already. Her teenage pregnancy has messed her mind up, in the immortal words of Jeff Simmons.
Jai, in addition to baritone for the school band, has now taken up the bass. First riff: White Stripes. Thought you should know.
Love

I read a book recently called "A Tour of the Calculus" by David Berlinski, written to describe the calculus and what it does, rather than teach it. There's a couple of pages of analysis in most of the chapters, which is to say, just slightly more than I can take in. He thinks through the ideas of integration and derivatives, and includes things like the relationship between mathematical objects, physics and "la vie vecue". I like best that he calls it the calculus, the way Sir Isaac did.

But Euler's e, I still don't think I get it. It's a transcendental number, yup, it a logorhythmic function, it can be used as a base same as we commonly use base 10 or computers use base 2, right, and...it's the number whose...log is itself...no, but it loops back on it self somehow...Nope. Dunno. It has something to do with ants on a Moebius strip somehow.

In the jailhouse now?

I wonder if Firestone is one of those arrested yesterday on the steps of the Capitol. If so, you should get cracking on your prison memoirs.

This just in: the Tomatis Method comes to CIIS. Matt Egg and Augusta Dora rejoice.

Actress Margaret Whitton?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aY9iM2A4uDt4&refer=home

I'm happy today because I wrote "Moron rules" in wet concrete.

Thanks for the happy birthdays

Sorry I haven't contributed in so long. My summer was consumed with traveling to golf tournaments and having migraines. The highlight was interviewing Arnold Palmer - he's a very charming fellow. I am now in the first throes of editing the film we shot, trying to give it that sports channel zazz. Actually, I'm aiming for a something a little more sophisticated than zazz, sort of more like a fizz. We'll see.

The new kitty, Arrow, is well. But poor Monkey has asthma, of all things. She even has a little inhaler. I think it kind of makes her a nerd.

Today is Tracy's birthday
She's a batteur et une femme
Which is another way of saying
She's a lady who plays the drum-
s

Happy birthday Tracette

Swiss TV

We had a party last night to welcome activists who were in town early for a Peace March on Saturday. There were two nice fellows from Swiss TV who came to the party and filmed it as part of a profile of a young Iraq Vets Against the War (IVAW) guy. It was cool.

I was going bald.
My hair was frizzy and unmabnangable.
Now I look and feel great with Mr. Ray's Hair Weave!
You can dance in it, swin in it even shower in it!
My whole life has changed!

Today's Verse: 6 September 2007

There was a young feller from Bremen
Townsfolk said nothing would shame him
He pitched a tent
Wherever he went
To exhibit himself to the layman

Word of the Day

lachrymomimetic = pretending to cry

4 good reasons

1. Jimmy Carl Black
2. Opened with Buggy Boogie Woogie (I gotta keep sweepin n sweepin)
3. Eugene Chadbourne plays Marauder!
4. His second instrument is a banjo

It's Cotati time, which is like Muratti time except with accordions instead of cigarettes. The Mad Maggies have a sweet afternoon spot and Brave Combo is headlining.

Old Spice

Jody, the international student advisor, brought a bottle of Old Spice into the financial aid office. A friend in Japan had asked her to send it to him, but she wasn't allowed to mail it since it contains alcohol which is, after all, inflammable. I asked if I could have a smell, and voila, the Proustian scent of Eau de Jymn. Do you still wear that stuff, JCB?

I feel a bit out of step.

Last night, my neighbor invited me to go up to Baltimore to a pre-season football game to celebrate both of our birthdays. I haven't been to an NFL game in a long time, although I have watched a little bit on television. I have spent a lot of time around a lot of spectator sports in my life, and have certainly enjoyed a few, but last night's event was as pointless and extravagant a demonstration of militaristic consumerism as I have ever witnessed. After having experienced the gentle souls of J. Blood and my even older friend Arty Kopecky in the last few weeks, I felt like I was on a different planet. Painfully, it was a planet where I was not welcome, and where the ideas and goals that I cherish are not valued. I have to assume that everyone feels this way sometimes. I don't like the feeling much myself. I won't be going back, and I am sure that my friend will not invite me again. I hate to separate myself off from the world, for many reasons, but I need to be more careful about exposing myself to this kind of thing. As Dylan put it, "maybe I'm too sensitive, or perhaps I'm getting soft".
I have many exciting and positive projects coming up. I'll write more another time.
peace,
jim

A story about James' colleagues in Code Pink, whom I got to meet last week.

And now the photo

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahOOA5zLaqqg&refer=home

I look forward to the self-serving memoirs, especially the early chapters on freshman seminar, Paca Carroll, and Pam Sklar.

Somebody's gotta take the blame

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aakWze4YilpA&refer=home