No rest in NYC.

Photographed last weekend: The couch as a statement of hostility to the idea of sitting down. And... are you depressed?

ExBadger, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson receives a handmade-from-duct-tape wallet from a young girl who needs a heart transplant.

A sweet story.

The yellow-duct-tape beam-of-light.

"'Fos' is the name of the first ephemeral installation by Eleni Karpatsi, Susana Piquer and Julio Calvo, a multidisciplinary team based in Madrid and Barcelona. Using yellow duct tape, paint, found furniture and pineapples, the team created a brilliant visual illusion that simulates a beam of light coming from the lamp above the door of a vegan restaurant in Madrid. The name 'Fos' means 'light' in the Greek language, and 'melted' in Catalan."

More here.

"Using masking tape, [the super] connected the [garden] hose to the [water] heater, just inches from the flame, cops said."

Jeez. At least use duct tape!

"That's pretty cool. I love the open buckles and how they pick up the silver of the tin foil/duct tape..."

Comments on a Sartorialist photo from the scene of the NYC blizzard:

Awesome! I love the boots, but it's the duct tape in classic silver that made me take notice. It just goes to show that even a homeless person or city worker or whoever this person is can accessorize with wit and style, given what's available to them....

Whoever this person is, there's always a slight line between what's ridiculous and what's considered "fashionable"...nowadays it seems that everything can work and be "cool"! ...

I battled with this photo. It affects the emotions in that it could be of a homeless or an eccentric person. Maybe you could have indicated that the guy is a construction worker. It comes close to the bone....

At the Duct Tape Café...

... let's try to keep it together.

"I am a local artist, who has created sculptings made up Duct-Tape.. 100% no wires, or fillers."

Dennis Gervasio has "created the illusion of pewter." His opposition to "fillers" may explain his shortening of the term "outsider art" to "outside art" and his penchant for the 2-dot ellipsis.



His sign appears in the window of the Albany café called The Daily Grind — a locale also pictured in  "Man in green sneakers reads Sartre. Dog arrives."

The sculptings look like this, seen from inside the restaurant...



... and this, seen through window static...

"As Sarah Palin awoke one morning from uneasy dreams she found herself transformed in her bed into a gigantic vice-Presidential candidate."

After I briskly kick off a discussion of the bad "creative writing" in Sarah Palin's memoir, Palladian says that should have been the first line.

And, for more Palin memoir fun, don't miss the unusually wacky "Duct tape" thread. Click here to get to the comments after the 200th. 201, by Roger J. is:

"This has got to be abolutely the most screwball post I have ever seen, and damn if its not going hit 200 comments! Wow--just wow."

Andrea had me in hysterics:

Does anyone else here besides me find it absolutely hilarious at Jeremy's incandescent Rage! against the whole idea of using duct tape to prevent frostbite? I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous, over-the-top RAAAAGE! It's over NINE-THOUSAAAAAAND!

Rage! Rage against the using of the duct tape!

Anti-frost-bite tip: Put duct tape on your face.

Yes. You guessed it. I am now in possession of "Going Rogue," by Sarah Palin. It has lots of pictures. Including one of Todd Palin with duct tape on his face to protect against frost bite.

Re husbands, Meade bought the book for me at Borders. Re faces, I was not keen to show mine in Madison purchasing a right-wing book.

"The man had 14 royal pythons and 10 albino leopard geckos under his clothes."

Smuggling:

[The pythons] were hidden in stockings duct-taped to the man's abdomen. The geckos were in boxes taped to his thighs.

The death of a census worker.

"A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape.... The word 'fed' was written in felt-tip pen on 51-year-old Bill Sparkman's chest... 'The only thing he had on was a pair of socks... And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something.... And they even had duct tape around his neck... And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder.' Authorities have refused to say if Sparkman was at work going to door-to-door for census surveys before he died."

Can we speculate about what happened here? If I had to guess, I'd say that Sparkman, doing his census work, encountered a criminal enterprise — perhaps a drug lab — out where people thought no one would — or should — be coming around.

"Guy coughs up rusty, 30-year-old nail/Strangers dress guy suitably for his job/Teen knits duct-tape prom dress."

3 consecutive items on a list headed "Latest News" at CNN.com.

What is Althouse doing lunching in this sleazy dive?

I have my reasons.

"I suppose they heard there would be a lot of ham" is the kind of script line that seems to dare critics to make it into an insult.

But Clint Eastwood says it early on in "Gran Torino." His character is explaining why so many people showed up at the house after his wife's funeral. And maybe there was a lot of ham — nearly all of it from Eastwood — but it was delicious ham. I loved this movie. The only thing that would have made me love it more would be if the other actors had been capable of serving up the same kind of ham. But the 2 actors who play the Hmong brother and sister who live next door are not well-seasoned, so there is a bit of a flaw. They're okay though. Anyway, I laughed, I cried — a great movie experience.

Some random thoughts:

1. I've complained about the movie cliché of having a character in the bathtub, but it mainly annoys me when it's used as a way to get young actresses naked. So I was amused by the twist of having the old geezer in the tub.

2. Eastwood smokes a lot in the movie, and smoking is important for more than one plot point — in a movie with a clockwork plot — but at the very end of the credits we are assured that no one connected with the movie accepted any product placement money from tobacco companies.

3. The last movie I'd seen was "Doubt," so this was the second movie in a row with an important priest character. The priest plays a nice counterpoint to Eastwood's character. He's young. Eastwood's old, and they are at odds over religion. It's an excellent religion movie, as we see both Catholicism and the religious practices of the Hmong. Not only is there a priest, there's a shaman, and they both get criticism and respect.

4. Much as I'd love to go to the café after the movie and have a long conversation about religion, I have another discussion question: Does the movie legitimatize racial epithets? We have our snarling but lovable geezer spitting a hundred racist slurs — especially to refer to Asians — over the course of the movie. And, in trying to teach his young mentee how to man up — and not be a pussy — he encourages him to banter playfully using words like "wop," "mick," and so forth. You might want to say it's a hilarious slap in the face of political correctness. But I think the movie is pretty effective in selling plain old-fashioned racial talk.

5. This is a good movie for people who like cars and guns and tools. There's also a lot of drinking and, as I said, smoking. And a military medal, a lawnmower, and a dog. All the manly things. With lots of manliness on top.

6. The old man teaches his mentee about tools. He starts him off with the 3 items with which — he says — you can do half of the jobs you need to do. These items are: WD-40, a vise-grip, and duct tape.

7. American flags, American flags, American flags. You want to see American flags? I'd say they appear in half the shots.

8. This was one of the very few movies I've seen where I never looked at my watch. I was never even tempted to look at my watch. It had a nice, crisp story arc. I appreciate that.

9. Driving home, I was thinking: Clint Eastwood is the best Hollywood guy ever.

10. I remember when Clint Eastwood was the cute guy on "Rawhide." I saw "Dirty Harry" when it first came out in the theater, when enjoying it was considered a guilty pleasure for us peace-and-love hippies. That was long ago, and a ton of respect for Eastwood has accumulated over the years. That's cool.

Sarah Palin: "Is it political? Is it sexism? What is it that drives someone to believe the worst and perpetuate the worst ... gossip and lies?"

Reflecting on the way she was treated by old and new media:



ADDED QUOTE: "The grizzly rises up in me, hearin' things like that." AND: I'm told she says "The mama grizzly rises up in me, hearin' things like that." I'll take your word for it, rather than listen again. I also see, from Gawker, that the filmmaker, the interviewer in the clip, is John Ziegler, who was the radio talk-show guy that David Foster Wallace wrote about in "Host." You can read the DFW. Excerpt:

John Ziegler, who is a talk-radio host of unflagging industry, broad general knowledge, mordant wit, and extreme conviction, makes a particular specialty of media criticism. One object of his disgust and contempt in the churn so far has been the U.S. networks' spineless, patronizing decision not to air the Berg videotape and thus to deny Americans "a true and accurate view of the barbarity, the utter depravity, of these people." Even more outrageous, to Mr. Z., is the mainstream media's lack of outrage about Berg's taped murder versus all that same media's hand-wringing and invective over the recent photos of alleged prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, which he views as a clear indication of the deluded, blame-America-first mentality of the U.S. press. It is an associated contrast between Americans' mortified response to the Abu Ghraib photos and reports of the Arab world's phlegmatic reaction to the Berg video that leads to his churn's climax, which is that we are plainly, unambiguously better than the Arab world... Depending on one's politics, sensitivities, and tastes in argumentation, it is not hard to think of objections to John Ziegler's climactic claim, or at least of some urgent requests for clarification. Like: Exactly what and whom does "the Arab world" refer to? And why are a few editorials and man-on-the-street interviews sufficient to represent the attitude and character of a whole diverse region? And why is al-Jazeera's showing of the Berg video so awful if Mr. Z. has just castigated the U.S. networks for not showing it? Plus, of course, what is "better" supposed to mean here? More moral? More diffident about our immorality? Is it not, in our own history, pretty easy to name some Berg-level atrocities committed by U.S. nationals, or agencies, or even governments, and approved by much of our populace? Or perhaps this: Leaving aside whether John Ziegler's assertions are true or coherent, is it even remotely helpful or productive to make huge, sweeping claims about some other region's/culture's inferiority to us? What possible effect can such remarks have except to incite hatred? Aren't they sort of irresponsible?

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

We were just talking about change. Change in general, change in Obamology, and change in Sitemeter. And as I'm slowing getting caught up in reading the comments that collected when I was enjoying a change in scenery -- traveling to South Carolina for a wedding -- I ran across Joe's comment on that "America wants change" post. He was quoting those famous lyrics:

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes....
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

So I wanted to watch the video:



This got me thinking about songs with stuttering. I'd like to see a big list. Here's one. But I want more. And I'd like to know who started it. I always think of "My Generation," but there must be a lot of other earlier songs that filled out the beats with the nice idea of just stuttering. There's "Barbara Ann," originally done by The Regents (in 1961) and famously covered by The Beach Boys, The Who, and John McCain.

But "Barbara Ann" is kind of a late Doo Wop song. Doo Wop was full of nonsense syllables, and some of those old Doo Wo songs must use the syllables from the non-nonsense words and thus be the precursors of the very memorable stuttering songs like "My Generation," "Changes," "Benny and the Jets," etc., etc.

And even before Doo Wop, there must have been some old novelty songs with stuttering. Ah! I thought of it!



There now, I've got us back to 1917. Can you find anything earlier?

***

Extras:

1. Here's a list of famous people who stutter (or stuttered)... including Joe Biden, whose strange smiling is connected to his efforts to overcome stuttering:

Biden’s most notorious feature is his mouth. But in his youth, he had a stutter. As a freshman in high school he was exempted from public speaking because of his disability, and was ridiculed by teachers and peers. His nickname was Dash, because of his inability to finish a sentence.

He developed an odd smile as a way to relax his facial muscles (it still shows up while he’s speaking today) and he’s spent his adulthood making up for any comments that may have gone unmade during his youth.

2. Here's a great episode of "This American Life":

Kevin Murphy is a college student in Idaho who stutters. Using the power of radio editing, he and the production staff of This American Life removed his pauses, stutters and repeats so that he could record a message in which he doesn't stutter at all. This allowed him to tape a message about something that's been bothering him, to send to one man ... a pizza guy, in Idaho.

3. Mel Blanc as Porky Pig sang "K-k-k Katy." It's so apt for the famous cartoon stutterer to sing the original (?) stuttering song. I could find video of that but I did find this:

My own private how-to-throw-out-the-trash echo chamber -- re-echoing!

Today was the day to get all the accumulated junk out of the garage and out to the curb for pick up tomorrow -- trash day. I hired two teenagers, children of a colleague, to do the heavy lifting. Big trash bags, two loveseats, a bed, a beach umbrella, a basketball backstop, plywood, a metal desk, sleds, and some big rolls of carpet. Wait a minute! Can you throw out rolls of carpet here in Madison, Wisconsin, or are these among the things that they won't pick up?

Hang on a minute! Let me check the web and see what the rules are again.

A quick Google turns up:

My own private how-to-throw-out-the-trash echo chamber.

I've blogged before about the difficulties of throwing out the trash properly in Madison. In fact, today, as I was thinking about how to throw a few things out this week, I Googled "madison trash collection" and the second thing on the list was my own previous fretting about how to throw out the trash properly in Madison.

At least the first thing on the list seems to be official rules, but no, that's not Madison, Wisconsin! Google again: "madison wisconsin trash collection." And now the first thing on the list is me fretting about how to throw out the trash properly in Madison! I just hope that if there are other people in Madison struggling with the age-old question of how to throw your trash out properly in Madison and they end up here at my blog, they find it a bit amusing, and not incredibly annoying, because it really already is incredibly annoying to try to figure out how to throw out the trash in Madison.

The worst thing is when you try to do it right and they don't take it, and then you've got to drag it back in from the street and try to figure out a different way to proffer it next week. I tried throwing out a blind, and they didn't take it. Did they just not see it? What else can I do? There's no way to fold it or tie it or put it in anything. So I just continue to harbor it by the side of my house, probably irritating my neighbors who are the ones in a position to see it. I have a bunch of chairs and a heavy table to throw out. Let's see, this looks like the right information, and, based on this there is no reason to think I can't just put the furniture right out there on trash day. But no way am I going to put all the things out at one time. I'm going to play it safe and just put out a test chair this week.

Damn it! I try to find stuff out, and I just find myself, complaining about just finding myself!

Anyway, in case you're wondering, you can throw out rolls of carpet in Madison, Wisconsin. But if they're over 8 feet long, you've got to bend the rolls in half and duct tape them in that position.