Ghosteses
On Saturday, we went to a fête in a little church just outside Rye. At 500 years old, it’s one of the youngest Churches of Romney Marsh, but it’s more or less what it was when it was built — no electricity or running water, just a brick box in the middle of nowhere with a steeple.
These guys were the entertainment. They research local (Kent and Sussex) church music of the Georgian period, and then they perform it. Really well. In appropriate costume.
I’ve been to my fair share of Civil War re-enactments (I dated a gunsmith in High School), but this was altogether different. They were in the right place, doing the right things, totally looking perfect. It was eerie to witness, I tell you.
I held off posting this because I was hoping to find a recording of one particular song they did. It was a Primitive Methodist thing, which is like proto-evangelicals. It was a jaunty, happy, cheerful tune.
No, seriously, the melody was super upbeat.
And the lyrics were all smashing you up with iron bars and dragging you to the lake of fire where your eyeballs melt and run down your face in God’s thirsty scarlet vengeance of SCARY DOOM. I can’t find a recording, but I’m pretty sure this is the hymn.
All I could think of was Brave Sir Robin.
July 6, 2011 — 9:54 pm
Comments: 21
Frankenbunny!!!!11!
What the Sam Hill happened to this bunny?! He showed up yesterday on the wildlife camera.
Kind of hard to see in the stills; a little easier in the full-sized video. Dude is torn to bits. Deep, old gouges down his sides, his face looks like he snogged a cheese grater. His hippity-hop is a little fuckity-wukt, but he’s getting around okay.
Makes me feel better about the prospects of the baby buns I keep taking away from herself. There’s a whole nest of them in the hedge behind the chicken house. Charlotte has dropped several at my feet, where they drag themselves painfully along the grass with their front legs until I go for the Adorable Bun Dispatching Shovel. Then they suddenly remember they have back legs and bound off.
I’m getting quite fond of this particular litter of bunnies. When I spend a lazy hour of an afternoon playing banjo in the garden, little buns come out and gambol about on the lawn. I shit thee not. It’s like the Disney Kool Aid Acid Test.
I guess they don’t associate banjo music with human activity.
July 5, 2011 — 9:41 pm
Comments: 38
Happy Fourth, ever’body!
Burgers, beer, fireworks…we did the lot!
We bought the fireworks at a news agent in town who is the famous local source for fireworks. Oh, it’s legal (Uncle B was always amazed that I could legally buy a .357 magnum handgun in Rhode Island, but not a roman candle). At least, the stuff he’s selling over the counter is legal.
We bought the £10 garden collection and the vendor threw in what was probably a £5 rocket “in honor of Ronald Reagan.” Our grand finale. And very nice it was, too (though at gone 11 I’m not sure the neighbors would agree).
They’re not as far gone here as the Daily Mail tells you, you know.
Happy Independence Day, ya’ll (or, as Uncle B calls it, We Finally Got Rid of You Religious Nutters Day).
Edit to add: I misunderstood what the shopkeep said to me. He gave us the rocket in honor of the statue of Ronald Reagan they unveiled in London yesterday.
July 4, 2011 — 10:41 pm
Comments: 27
Round 18: parade of stiffs!
Listen up: THIS IS A NEW DEAD POOL. The last one terminated on a decision by the judges (namely, me) six hours ago. Grasshopper takes the dick! With some CNN guy.
Hey, you know, CNN…that used to be a network. I’ll take it. Congratulations, grasshopper!
0. Rule Zero is a new rule, in honor of Steve. I was going to call it Rule Duh, but “duh” is not a number. Your pick? Has to be alive when you pick him or her.
1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).
2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.
3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.
4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay?
5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy. Popular picks go fast.
6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.
7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you don’t want the fabulous prize, you’re too smart to be a regular. It takes me forever to put them in the mail, packages go by slow boat, typically take minimum eight to ten weeks and lose the will to live along the way.
8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.
The fabulous prize? Sweasel dot com’s unofficial sponsor, Aunty’s Spotted Dick! Mmmmm…it’s dickalicious!
July 1, 2011 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 159
Science: both creepy and wonderful
Y’all know I love a good murder. Well, here’s a weird one. Today in Winchester Crown Court, Italian Danilo Restivo was sentenced to never-ever getting out of prison, which is pretty unusual for here. Let’s see if I can’t unpack this and tell it right way around.
Danilo Restivo has a hair fetish. As a result of various Crime Watch type programs, 28 women in Italy and an unspecified number in England positively identified Restivo as the man who had come up behind them in a public place and hacked the bottom few inches of their hair off. Apparently without ever being nabbed for it.
In 2002, while Restivo was living in Bournemouth, he murdered his neighbor across the hall, 48 year old Heather Barnetts. He bludgeoned, stabbed and mutilated the hell out of her. In her right hand, he put a lock of somebody else’s hair. In her left hand, he put a lock of her own hair. When her children, 11 and 14, came home from school and found her body, he came across the hall to comfort them. Nice touch.
It took them eight years to accumulate enough evidence to arrest him. Shortly before he was charged, it occurred to Italian authorities that a friend of Restivo’s had disappeared seventeen years ago on the way to meet him at a church in Potenza.
Yep, sure enough, there was sixteen-year-old Elisa Claps’ mummified body in the loft of the church (that’s sixteen years alive, seventeen dessicating in the attic). Exactly like Barnett — bludgeoned and mutilated, pants at half mast, bra cut away, somebody else’s hair in her hand. He’s headed to Italy to stand trial for that one.
A strange enough murder case on its own, but here’s what made it post-worthy:
Five years after Ms Barnett’s death, in 2007, a scientific breakthrough gave the inquiry hope.
Dr Stuart Black, of the University of Reading, undertook chemical and isotope analysis of the hair strands, which represented nine months’ growth.
The results revealed the owner was a UK resident who had visited eastern Spain, between Valencia and Almeria, or the Marseille to Perpignan area of southern France, for up to six days, some 11 weeks before the hair was cut.
They then went to the urban area of Tampa, Florida, US, for eight days some two to two-and-a-half weeks before the hair was cut, and had changed their diet twice in the previous months.
Despite all that, they never identified the owner of the strand of hair in Ms Barnett’s right hand, but — holy shit, did you know they could get that level of detail from a strand of hair now? I know they’ve identified the country of origin from the bones in several stone age burials around here, also from isotopes, but jeeeeeezus that’s specific.
I’d love to know what isotopes are unique to urban Tampa, and how they get in your hair.
June 30, 2011 — 9:56 pm
Comments: 6
It is the East and Algore is the Sun
Oh, man — have you seen Walter Russell Mead’s recent devastating two-part takedown of Al Gore? I don’t know much about Mead, except that he’s a “respected internationalist” (whatever that is) and I’ve seen his byline in papers on both side of the philosophical divide.
He doesn’t appear to doubt the science. At least, he doesn’t go there at all. That’s partly what makes it devastating.
Part one is about the boneheaded bad optics of zooming around between your five mansions in private jets while scolding the peasants that they really must cut back on wicked indulgences like eating and being warm.
Part two is about the ham-handed idiocy of the proposed global cap-and-trade treaty. How in the Sam Hill are you going to measure the carbon output of, like, everybody and how are you going to punish nations that don’t play fair?
Mead teases a third article he calls “what Al Gore doesn’t understand about the development of American democracy.” How long he’s going to use poor Al as a punching bag is anyone’s guess. Loving it.
Thing is, though, what kicked him off was Al’s latest essay in Rolling Stone, of which Mead says, “few American politicians could write an essay this eloquent or this clear.”
Shit, really? We need new politicians. That thing was so dumb — at least the first page was. I quit after that; I was leaking IQ.
It starts with an extended comparison of the climate debate with a professional wrestling match.
In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.
He carries on capitalizing Science and Reason and Polluters and Ideologues. Oh, and the media is the referee who always seems to be looking the other way when the bad guys throw chairs. I guess that makes us the toothless hillbillies in the cheap seats.
This is eloquence, comparing your ideological battle to the biggest long-drawn low-rent money-spinning hoax since the invention of television? I’m not getting the smart here.
Oh, hey — y’all know what algor mortis is, don’t you? It’s one of the three basic signs a forensic pathologist uses to estimate the passage of time since death. Rigor mortis — the stiffness of death. Livor mortis — the discoloration of death. Algor mortis — the chill of death.
Poifect!
June 29, 2011 — 10:48 pm
Comments: 16
Not exactly Sing Along with Mitch
Holy geez — have you seen tab lately?
Tab. Tablature. Remember that? It’s musical notation for people too stupid to read musical notation. Stringed instruments, mostly — draw a line for each string and a circle where the fingers go and before you know it, you’re warbling out Joni Mitchell’s Song to a Seagull and hoping the high notes don’t kill the dog stone dead.
Confession? I’m actually too stupid to read tab, either. My eyes just glaze over. But there was a note or two I couldn’t work out on the Chicken Reel, so I figured I’d download the tab and find it.
Whoa! What a difference a computer makes! Digital tab files (see above) show the musical score, the tab, a keyboard version, the fingering and play the tune for you at any tempo in real time using MIDI. I can allllmost follow along.
Try this program if you’re interested. It makes a big deal out of being free, and then it turns out you have to pony up sixty bucks to get all the features, but it’ll give you a taste. Lots of free banjo and guitar tab out there (the digital version is a .tef file, if you’re Googling).
But be careful. There are few things in the world more neurotoxic than banjo music played by a computer.
Possibly only banjo music played by a banjo player.
June 28, 2011 — 9:38 pm
Comments: 11
Not our proudest hour
Sorry, folks — I got a bit jammed up tonight (hey, it’s garbage night, you know!). So I had a trawl through Auntie’s Giant Picture Archive and came up with this poor pachyderm.
Murderous Mary. She killed the local day laborer who was hired as a “trainer.” Stepped on his head and squashed it like a grape.
Locals demanded retribution, but it’s not easy to snuff an elephant. This is what they came up with. It took a couple of tries.
I was born in a little town not far away. I’d heard rumors of this, but never saw the picture until the internet. I think people feel pretty sheepish about the whole business now.
Sure, this is a downer. Would you really rather I’d drawn pictures of Carol Brady’s crabs?
June 27, 2011 — 10:52 pm
Comments: 25
Round 17: How about somebody I’ve heard of dying this time, m’kay?
Princess Bernie takes the dick with…oh, some geezer I never heard of (yeah, not a fan of the Boss, me). That makes her the third double-dick winner, after steve and tawny. Hey, Princess B — drop me a line, would you? I’ve gone all through my old email and I can’t find your address.
Ready? Here we go:
1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of.
2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.
3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.
4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay?
5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy. Popular picks go fast.
6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.
7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you don’t want the fabulous prize, you’re too smart to be a regular. It takes me forever to put them in the mail, packages go by slow boat, typically take minimum eight to ten weeks and lose the will to live along the way.
8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.
The fabulous prize? Sweasel dot com’s unofficial sponsor, Aunty’s Spotted Dick! Mmmmm…it’s dickalicious!
June 24, 2011 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 128
…as I was saying…
For some years, my dad made some extra scratch as an after-dinner speaker on the topic the History of the Banjo.
The way I remember it, he took banjo from Joel Sweeney — the first white man known to play banjo on-stage, circa 1830 — through the army camps of the Civil War and then right into the 20th Century and bluegrass.
I didn’t know until years later what a gigantic chunk of banjo history got left out (and I didn’t know until this month it extended to Britain). For almost a hundred years, banjos of various kinds were THE parlor instrument, a staple of vaudeville and the centerpiece of many bands, amateur and professional. Minstrel style, finger style, classical and tenor, four string, five string, six string, eight string. The banjo was HUGE.
Funny we don’t remember that today. Maybe because nearly all the styles of music played on the banjo fell out of favor, with the exception of bluegrass. Maybe because the banjo era ended just as recording was coming on the scene, so little of it is preserved. Maybe because banjo sounded crap in early recordings.
I’m guessing, though, it’s because the banjo is so tightly bound up with minstrelsy. Spend five minutes poking around Google for early banjo and you’ll be up to your knees in burnt cork and n-bombs. No, of course you can’t impose a 21st Century racial attitude on the 19th Century, but it’s awfully hard to look back at blackface performance without thinking, “sweet Jesus — WTF?”
New Dead Pool tomorrow, 6pm WBT. Be there, or be somewhere else!
June 23, 2011 — 10:30 pm
Comments: 23