Skip to main content

Rats

I listened to Frank Zappa's Hot Rats album yesterday because it was recommended on a jazz subreddit. It wasn't bad, but I don't think it's quite jazz. Close maybe, more like prog rock, except instead of classic influences it seemed to have middle eastern influences. 

I'm reading about Kashgar in The Silk Road by Bill Porter. Supposedly the city was saved by rats once, as they ate up the invading army's horse straps, they thought they were attacked by ghosts and left. Some people feed the rats because they are seen as allies.

I think about the rat priest in Thomas Pynchon's novel V

I think about Liz Lemon boyfriend Dennis Duffy's riff about the rat king, where they get tangled up together and become one, NYC myth. 

They put a big inflatable rat in front of buildings where unions are on strike in NYC.

Nibbles out of my bread let me know mice have access to my house. When I take care of a cat, he gets a mouse for me. Rats aren't mice, but they are perhaps cousins on the species tree. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Manet and Degas

  Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special.  In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...

The case for Harris

Motley Kamuka Blog endorses Kamala Harris. In general, Trump just wants to lower taxes on the rich, and do nothing, sell whatever influence he can to line his pockets. Apparently the emoluments clause in the constitution has no teeth. Harris has a set of ideas about policy that are fairly middle of the road. In most countries she's would be seen as a centrist. Spin about her radical agendas are exaggerated.  I'm not sure how he got past " grab them by the pussy ", but he did and here we are. Women: Obviously the idea of giving women pregnancy tests at the borders of the state, and then if they come back and don't have a baby, they go to jail, isn't really what most women want. Pick Harris.  I understand if you think abortion is murder, maybe you've been told that by the Catholic church, which has the same ideal of Buddhism that you don't kill--so follow your religion for yourself. Not everyone is Christian or Buddhist or even has a religion. Women are ...