The Shades of the Beholder

The News For Parrots - Polliquality

Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

If big Daddy-O was going to blow his stack over a witch doctor, here's one cat that wasn't going to miss it. 

 George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah
 

HOW ONE TOUCH OF DARWIN MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN

Another humanitarian interest in Darwinism was that Darwin popularized
Evolution generally, as well as making his own special contribution to
it. Now the general conception of Evolution provides the humanitarian
with a scientific basis, because it establishes the fundamental equality
of all living things. It makes the killing of an animal murder in
exactly the same sense as the killing of a man is murder. It is
sometimes necessary to kill men as it is always necessary to kill
tigers; but the old theoretic distinction between the two acts has been
obliterated by Evolution. When I was a child and was told that our dog
and our parrot, with whom I was on intimate terms, were not creatures
like myself, but were brutal whilst I was reasonable, I not only did not
believe it, but quite consciously and intellectually formed the opinion
that the distinction was false; so that afterwards, when Darwin's views
were first unfolded to me, I promptly said that I had found out all that
for myself before I was ten years old; and I am far from sure that my
youthful arrogance was not justified; for this sense of the kinship of
all forms of life is all that is needed to make Evolution not only a
conceivable theory, but an inspiring one. St Anthony was ripe for the
Evolution theory when he preached to the fishes, and St Francis when
he called the birds his little brothers. Our vanity, and our snobbish
conception of Godhead as being, like earthly kingship, a supreme class
distinction instead of the rock on which Equality is built, had led us
to insist on God offering us special terms by placing us apart from and
above all the rest of his creatures. Evolution took that conceit out of
us; and now, though we may kill a flea without the smallest remorse, we
at all events know that we are killing our cousin. No doubt it shocks
the flea when the creature that an almighty Celestial Flea created
expressly for the food of fleas, destroys the jumping lord of creation
with his sharp and enormous thumbnail; but no flea will ever be so
foolish as to preach that in slaying fleas Man is applying a method of
Natural Selection which will finally evolve a flea so swift that no man
can catch him, and so hardy of constitution that Insect Powder will have
no more effect on him than strychnine on an elephant.

from project gutenberg 

The News For Parrots

Barred Rock Hen Afflicted With Bronchitis
from Douglas County Farmer, 12/4/1936

Plans in the works to commemorate the upcoming 75th Anniversary.

The same issue has a "Short" Bike Story and the prediction "that aluminum bicycles will feature prominently in Santa Claus letters this year."  Pictured is Hollywood favorite Alice Faye, before she walked away from it all.

A healthy Barred Rock Hen from Fowl Visions.

What Are Words vs The Gift of a Legend?

You're Only Human Once
by Grace Moore Parera

But here on the Riviera Chato was still my funny, gay, and
dashing beau. He and Alec were returning to Paris the next day,
so we decided to give them a farewell Dutch Treat dinner under
the stars on the dirt terrace of the now marble-paved and famous
Eden Rock. The gala dinner consisted mostly of a Mediterranean
platter and Vin Rose, the light red wine of the country. We had
had such a happy summer and we had so much toasting to do
that we got quite warm and mellow on our parting salutes. Prob-
ably the most original toast of all was proposed by Zelda Fitz-
gerald. She and Scott always seemed to me straight out of The
Beautiful and Damned and never more than when she stood on
the table and said, "I have been so touched by all these kind
words. But what are words? Nobody has offered our departing
heroes any gifts to take with them. I'll start it off." Whereupon
she stepped out of her black lace panties and

Slippery Slope of Art and Politics

                  

  

Gutter Geists Y El Gato Febril

The News for Parrots ~ January 4, 1909

PARROT SAVED A CHILD
Persisted in Cries Till Girl Was Discovered
NAPLES, Jan 4.--The queen is taking particular interest in a six-year-old girl who was rescued from the ruins of Messina under remarkable circumstances.  While some Italian soldiers were climbing over wreckage they heard weak cries of 'Maria," 'Maria."  After much work they reached a room where they found a parrot continuing to utter cries of "Maria."  The seamen turned to leave, but as the parrot persisted in its cries they broke into an adjoining room and found a girl lying senseless.  She and the parrot were taken on board the battleship Regina Elena.  The queen nursed the girl with her own hands.
~The Day, New London, Conn, Monday Afternoon, January 4, 1909

Preliminary Report on the Messina Earthquake of December 28, 1908; by Frank A. PerrEt, K.I.C., former Honorary Assistant at Royal Vesuvian Observatory.
American Journal of Science Vol 177













And some advice for the cats:

"It has all my senses in it and it is in my line." ~ Nico

Sauce Material for The Gulf of Liberty

Firing Squad from Codex Méndez : prints by Leopoldo Méndez (1902-1969)

Add Garbage Pail Kid, Libby Liberty










via Isabella Rossellini by Anton Corbijn, World Art, No.13





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Primordial Beat: Other Howls, Other Loons

Edgar Allan Poe's mockery of an O obsessed journalist in his story X-ing a Paragrab set a driving rhythm for the cool future of fringe lit.

"So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don't crow, another time, before you 're out of the woods! Does your mother know you 're out? Oh, no, no! — so go home at once, now, John, to your odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl, — go! You won't? Oh, poh, poh, John, don't do so! You 've got to go, you know! So go at once, and don't go slow; for nobody owns you here, you know. Oh, John, John, if you don't go you 're no homo — no! You 're only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now — cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don't frown so — don't! Don't hollo, nor howl, nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you so, you know — but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!"

4'33" of Bloggery / Pace Yourself

I bought the cassette of Ciccone Youth ~ The Whitey Album.  I know I've heard it before, but never actually looked at it.  The radio edit of John Cage's Silence down to a minute is lovely and brilliant, as is the Madonna photocopy cover.

"I think I bounce off people. Man, it's weird how I will stumble into someone and internally debate if I'm nothing without them. It's like I just happened to meet the dude with all the keys to my pad, my safe, my van, my mota and of course I will have a great "change" in my life by being seemingly transformed by the act of making my "muse and mentor" an accessory to my prized collection of tribute and irony. The guy from navy housing grows up to be the guy who grew up in navy housing! You got to shovel shit before you can bag and sell it! Soak some rags in alcohol and tie them around your ankles so you'll keep the ants off your candy ass! The ridiculous things that will come out of my mouth and for why? I don't know, all I can say is that I can detect some similiarities and I can detect some differences. Let me waste not another word now and discuss this piece of work."
"It is the Sonic Youths themselves who are this record, I have tried to relate my part in both fact and theory. If I know anything, then for sure time is here to keep events linear and parallel simultaneously. I am proud to have served with this unit. Back then, I put a picture of Madonna on my bass because I thought it looked much better there than in an issue of Spin or Rolling Stone. Punk went good with Madonna. I wanted to make her look special and important, someone or something you had to deal with and maybe decide who you are. You know, return the favor."
Mike Watt 1993 cd liner note excerpts from sonicyouth.com

Grand Avenue ~ September 12, 2007

July 2012

Three Photos of Palm Trees

Namesake

A presumably short-lived 1932 derivation of the Algonquin Round Table,  the Forty-Fourth Street Chowder and Marching Club promised good, clean fun. The Rochester Evening Journal article describing board games and ping pong, and declaring "wise cracks are barred" and "jazz is on its way out," reads more like a send-up or obligatory post-scandal Public Service Announcement than a New Sincerity within the den of Modern snark.