digital art: 16

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Drawing: The Bureaucrat

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Poem: Denial

Denial
by Jack Brummet



What is denial, really,
But those moments,

Those swaths of your life,
Where you play

Hide and seek
With yourself,

Heavy
On the hide,

And easy
On the seek?
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Team America: World Police video clip - Kim Jong Il meets with Hans Blix of the UN, and in another clip, Blix discusses his portrayal in the movie

This may be my favorite scene from Team America: World Police . . .where Kim Jong Il meets with Hans Blix and drops him into a shark tank (foul language warning):



After Team America was released, Hans Blix talked about his puppet version's confrontation with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il at the Arms Control Association's 2006 Annual Meeting, Amazing! Who knew Hans Blix had such a sense of humor?


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40 years ago today, we, yes, WE, walked on the moon. I remember looking up at it, thinking "one of us is up there."

40 years ago today, we, yes, WE, walked on the moon. I remember looking up at it, thinking "one of us is up there." What has it brought us, after all, but a couple boxes of rocks, and Tang [tm]? I know there have been various materials, processes, and other inventions that have probably benefited the world (aside from Tang). But, all that aside, there was something so magnificent about knowing we were up there, striding in the dust, where (most likely) no one had ever been before. In another connection, I think I remember the recently departed Walter Cronkite saying as Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon "hot diggity dog."

It wasn't great that we beat the Russians there--although that was cool too--but more that we had done it. And when you think about the crude computer technology and the materials that went into the rockets and spaceship, it was absolutely amazing we made it. I know that before we abandoned going there, something like 40 or 50 people walked on the moon. For what it's worth, I'd like to see us get there again.

There were the naysayers, of course. And their stories have again been circulating again around this anniversary. Here are a few of the stories and poems that have appeared over the years on All This Is That about the moon, and moon landings (I think my favorite is "The Skeleton on the moon):

Alien Lore No. 81 - The Skeleton on the moon
Life on the moon?
Nixon's back pocket speech in the event of a moon landing disaster
Michael Jackson moonwalk video clips
Alien Lore No. 134 - Moon-walker claims alien contact cover-up
Poem: The Moon Race
Poem: The Moon's In Tune
The Six Faked Moon Landings?
Alien Lore No. 29 - Nazis On The Moon!!
Alien Lore 53 - The Moon Dust File
Alien Lore No. 108 - The spaceship on the moon
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Keelin Curran and Dave Hokit posing in Winthrop, Wash.

Dave and Keelin pose in a cut-out on the "western"-themed main street of Winthrop, just outside the local brewery.


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On the back side of the cut-out is this warning (you think they've had to extricate a few heads over the years?):


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A blackout, dark skies, and stargazing in The Methow

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At 12:36 AM last night, the area where we are staying--Wolf Ridge, a few miles from Winthrop in The Methow Valley--experienced a three hour blackout. It didn't affect anyone much except me. I appeared to be the only person awake. In total darkness, I found the headlamp and went outside to read. Oddly and incongruously in this blackout, my BlackBerry worked fine--both for connecting to the internet and as an auxiliary flashlight. It's weird being in an information vacuum. No local news covered a blackout. Nothing anywhere else. For all I knew it was a ten state blackout.

I spent an hour picking out constellations in the dark skies of the Methow Valley. As it turns out, I can only remember five. The stars were fabulous...bright under a low-moon night. I saw shooting stars and a couple of satellites. And way out here in the serious boondocks, you see the stars, but you also see those fantastic clouds of stars--just the way we see the Milky Way in photographs. [typed in the parking lot of a Kampgrounds of Amerika in Winthrop, where I am hijacking their WiFi.]
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Poem: Lights out

Lights out: Dark skies
The river down the trail
Gurgles over rocks

The Big Dipper beams large and bright
Like a Times Square marquee
Planted among the random stars
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Danny DeVito's insane interview

Danny DeVito gives a fairly mind-blowing interview on his upcoming appearance at Comi-Con.
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an animation sequence from The Grateful Dead Movie

Pretty cool old school work...


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Seattle to the Methow Valley via the North Cascades Highway today

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Poem: Tethers

Your tenuous hold on earth
Is disguised in your shadow,
Tethered to the ground
By the soles of your feet
And a theory of gravity.
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