Party tricks

I want to memorize a poem. Maybe three poems.

Smelling the roses

These beauties have been brightening up my apartment since Saturday. Definitely a steal at $3.49.

Birretes y calabazas

I need a vacation. Not even one in which I do things or go anywhere. One in which nothing is supposed to happen. A vacation in which I am not called upon to plan or organize or be in any way responsible for any kind of accomplishment or logistic. One day on which I could wake up to sunlight instead of an alarm without feeling the crush of all the things I am meant to be doing for my own academic and professional good.

Falling asleep on the bus on the way home from class today I felt the slightest hint of wistfulness for my days of employment, during which I could come home and not be working.

I am looking forward to the Friday evening on which I dare to skip my Salsa dancing class in the name of sanity, or the week mid-October when I'll be through with my water class, at least. Or when my Spanish class will slow to half its current frantic pace. Only to be replaced by the endurance test that is applying to graduate school.

It's all so good, and yet there is just too much of it.

Literary afternoon

Walking the block of Webster just north of Mosswood park often reminds me of the lazy southern streets of Carson McCullers' Member of the Wedding, especially when I hear the occasional twang of a stray banjo string, like I did today. I always liked her.

The tallest and smallest

It would seem that the Tallest Man on Earth is playing at the Fillmore tomorrow night, and I believe I will try to see him. Would that the stars might align to make it possible.

I am listening to Shallow Grave again in preparation and am struck by how strongly I react to those songs even now. As I sing along to The Gardner, I can feel the muscles in my face tighten and release through the series of memories that have come since the first time I heard this record in a dark room in Escondido, its windows papered and taped to keep the light out. It's as if each of the cells in the bit of stuff beneath my skin are retracing all the stretching and contracting they have done from then until now, like a three minute dance.

I was feeling hesitant to go -- lest my concert-mate catch a glimpse of what-all this is humming from my nerve endings -- but, having given in it a few hours' consideration, I would like to go. I would like finally to see this Tallest Man for my own.

Were you aware of it? vol. 33: The end of history

"It's the World's Strongest, Most Expensive Beer -- Inside a Squirrel"
Our old buddies BrewDog have done it again. Not content with winning back the "strongest beer in the world" title last February with its Sink the Bismarck!, they've now upped their game with a new brew that is 55 percent alcohol by volume and carries a $765 price tag. It's called The End of History.

Oh, and did we mention that the bottles come in stuffed animals-like stuffed animals that were once alive? The 12 bottles have been made featuring seven dead stoats (a kind of weasel), four squirrels and one rabbit. James Watt, one of the two guys behind BrewDog, put it better than we ever could: "The impact of The End of History is a perfect conceptual marriage between taxidermy, art and craft brewing." Just like we've all been waiting for!

For those interested in the actual beer, it's a blond Belgian ale with touches of nettles and juniper berries -- and in order to achieve the brain-blasting alcohol content, it had to be created using extreme freezing techniques.

**courtesy of Asylum



<3 Scots