Mikarrhea

Apologies for not posting

For the past several days I've been either away from my computer and unable to post or in a familial setting where I am forbidden from touching a keyboard except to look up some authorized bit of information on imDb or too drunk to type. It will probably be more of the same for the next four or five days. I've managed to sneak a couple of minutes in which to post a delightful response I got from Malcolm Davidson (well, from eeksypeeksy at any rate) to my sex arousal device post.

This stuff about women and porn and plethysmographs
and so on -- I'm sure there's a sex toy in this
somewhere, a sex toy _system_, waiting to be marketed.
Attach detectors and tinglers and vibrators to your
partner and yourself, all as tiny and unobtrusive as
possible, all wirelessly networked and exchanging
encouraging signals. Like, he gets harder when she
(assuming a he-she arrangement for now) does X, she
gets wetter when he does Y, he moans, she throbs, he
quivers, she yawns. The system experiments with you,
the system learns, and pretty soon you're having
greatgreatgreat sex, but you're having sex for the
system, which suddenly becomes conscious and jumps up
and runs away to join the porn industry, leave you
with silly bits of flesh you no longer remember how to operate.

See you soon.

The right outfit can make all the difference

I was just looking over that last post below and it occurred to me how important the "laboratory drag" is, not just to the sexiness of the scene qua scene, but also to the scientific legitimacy of it. If scientists were attaching a plethysmograph to your clit and sticking moisture sensors into your vagina, wouldn't you prefer they be wearing clean white (or maybe hospital green) lab coats? Before we go any farther on this line, let's all just imagine as vividly as we can (c'mon, boys too, this is fun) someone attaching a plethysmograph to our clit and sticking moisture sensors into our vagina, even though few us can even distinguish a plethysmograph from a vaginal moisture sensor, or either from a zarf. Don't the white coats really make all the difference? OK, now let's imagine listening to the keynote address and mingling at the subsequent open bar at the annual genital arousal testing device trade group convention and getting really sloshed. OK, now back to the examining room. Imagine if the scientists were wearing old jeans and t-shirts. Wouldn't that be somehow disrespectful--both to you and, well, to science itself? Would you feel as inclined to have your pussy-responses studied by people in jeans and t-shirts? Certainly, even the scientists would recognize that that might distract you from the project at hand and skew the results. What if the scientists were wearing three-piece Armani suits? OK, don't lose focus here. Would it be any different if they wore three-piece Brooks Brothers' suits and idiotic guys' dress shoes with little holes all over them and tassels on the laces? And they were all women and beautifully made up? Is it better or worse than the lab coats? Than the jeans? OK, what if they all were wearing leather chaps without any underwear? And had lots of remarkable piercings? Are you still with me? Are you still feeling the plethysmograph and the moisture sensors? And the nipple clamps? What if you were in a room with a dozen people all of whom were naked and hooked up to arousal sensing machines and the others told you they were all scientists? Or only some of them were scientists and you had to determine which ones in a given amount of time while your level of arousal was recorded? What if somebody ran into the examining room and yelled "Smile, you're on Candid Plethysmograph!"?

When I was little, I always wanted to become a scientist.

Don't tell me it doesn't make a difference what you wear to work.

This just in: women turned on by hardcore porn flicks
(via Amorous Propensities)

London: A research [study] by scientists from Stanford University School of Medicine in California claims that the fair sex is also turned on by pornography.

The results of the research were published in the prestigious [sic] American journal 'Fertility and Sterility'.

Researchers showed random clips from erotic films and relaxation videos to 20 women to monitor their effects. They found that the women were fully aroused in an average of just two minutes after watching explicit eroticism.

Volunteers aged 20 to 30 were linked to devices to monitor breathing, heart rate, skin changes and blood flow to their genitals. The tape sequences lasted 22 minutes and were played with and without sound.

Like everyone else, I've read about these sorts of studies for years. But no one ever makes the obvious Heisenbergian point. Doesn't an anomalous highly formalized social situation in which strangers in laboratory drag are attaching electrodes and various measuring devices to your genitals and then monitoring them closely as they show you porn likely have a strong sexual valence all by itself?. Just the idea of it right now gives me twinges. They're not measuring women's responses to porn. They're measuring women's responses to playing this science research fantasy sex scene as if it weren't a sex scene.

Now I can even display the signs I'd put up if I ran a church

from the church-sign generator

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A more fitting image

If I'd had time to prepare for this newly discovered capacity, my first image would probably have looked more like this one, by one of my fave artists, Eric Stanton.

Now you begin to get the picture

Now that's some weird shit. Shortly after starting this blog at the end of the summer, I tried posting pix. No way. Wouldn't take 'em in posts (though took 'em in the template, e.g. the signature betty image [which btw is gonna change any day now; i've been making a new banner). So since then, when I've wanted to draw attention to an image, I've posted a link to it.

Just for the halibut, since the html was already written, I thought I'd try posting the picture below, never expecting nothing. And it posts! Thus, with no advance fanfare, comes the first picture to Mikarrhea. Watch out kids.

What kind of postmodernist are you?

Leigh is in the home stretch of the last paper of the semester. She got As on her Larkin paper and on the paper (talk about fucking bizarre assignments) analyzing the grammar of her own critical prose. Now she's working on a paper for her postmodernism course on language philosophy in Paul Auster's "City of Glass." Just so I could feel as though I was being tested on my postmodernity too, I took the What Kind of Postmodernist Are You? Quiz. It's pretty funny. They give you your result in cut-n-paste html so you can stick it right into your blog or web page. Here's mine:


You are a Gender Nazi. Your boundary-crossing
lifestyle inspires awe in your friends and
colleagues. Or maybe they're just scared you
will kick their asses for using gender-specific
language. Either way, the wife-beater helps.


What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

It turns out I'm Judith Butler.

Never mind

O'Connor has every right to despise overinterpretation. I'm sorry I wiggled my fingers over the keyboard. Please, just ignore everything I said in the last couple of posts about interpretation, theory, and teaching literature.

I temporarily forgot what it's like to teach O'Connor.

If I engendered the species of reader response to my work that O'Connor does, I'd loathe interpretation too. I'm impressed she stayed the course as long as she did.

One more dribble on O'Connor and theory

I think my pen sorta ran out of ink when I was trying to connect two important dots in the O'Connor post, so let me just trace over that faint impression again. I wrote:

. . . you snatch away . . . from raw literary recruits the notion that the poem means whatever you can find in it at your and their peril. If there's one thing uninitiated students hate more than having to slog through a morass of theory it's being told their interpretation of a poem won't hold water.

Since I immediately go on to concede that some interpretations are "better" ("believable" is the word I appropriate from O'Connor), it looks as if I'm just chary here of imposing this evaluative understanding on neophyte readers (and thereby disabusing them of the comfort that any interpretation, including theirs, goes). Nothing could be further from the truth. (Well, actually, several things could be. But that inference's not exactly right anyway.) This is why I think it's vital to teach "theory" as well as read stuff together and get excited about it.

By "theory" I mean hermeneutics, methods of interpretion (precisely what O'Connor seems to despise). Teachers teach students to produce readings adducing textual evidence according to conventional rules. They should be generous when evaluating students' interpretations at this level, doing so mainly according to whether and to what degree they apply those rules taught them. Students feel justifiably outraged and discouraged when they pay close attention to the language of a text, marshall what they take to be evidence, put together a more-or-less cogent line of argument, and in response are told, "Yes, but unfortunately you're still totally wrong. If you read a lot more literature, you'll know why." XYZ would never have used this word to mean that. If you'd read more of his work, you'd know immediately he was being ironic here. Those images are just a standard convention of this genre; they aren't as significant as you make them out to be. This here is a clear allusion to Milton, not to Richard Brautigan. usw. I think too many literature teachers feel deep anxiety about hurting the poems, so to speak. Moreover, they reckon they've failed dismally the student they've allowed march off into life cherishing a patently ridiculous interpretation of "Dover Beach." If the student's experience with the teacher really inspires her to delight in reading, writing, and thinking about the two, then soon enough she'll see the flaws (if such there be) in her reading. And if not, so what? Cui mala?

Why O'Connor should be so defensive about over-interpretation anyway is a tale all by itself. After all, how many postwar American novels don't just invite but run screaming around the wilderness for an allegorical reading, let alone a reading as elaborate as Wise Blood does? How she resisted calling it Motes' Progress is an enigma. If you don't show up at the first page of the book with a fairly nuanced understanding of Christian theology and especially the crucial differences between Catholic and Protestant theologies (e.g. in the notion of justification, the demands of penance, the relation between man and god) as well as knowledge of American Bible-belt usages, you can forget having the slightest idea what her characters are talking about and why they're all behaving as though certifiably insane (of course, most of them are, but that's still insufficient explanation for the positively freakish religious cast to their insanity).

church sign generator
actual church signs

Flannery O'Connor disses theory

[slightly revised] Backward somewhere in time's abysmal darkness, one of my favorite logobloggers, Maud Newton, under the rubric "The Limitations of Theory," posted (without comment, via Terry Teachout) this passage:

If teachers are in the habit of approaching a story as if it were a research problem for which any answer is believable so long as it is not obvious, then I think students will never learn to enjoy fiction. Too much interpretation is certainly worse than too little, and where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it.

Flannery O'Connor, letter to an unnamed teacher (1961)

I captured the links at the time, intending to post something, but characteristicaly haven't gotten around to it until now.

First, I should say I want to leap onto this bandwagon too (isn't that a vehicle of convenience for instrumentalists too lazy to march, like me?). I second and third and ten millionth the general sentiment behind this admonition. Forget the academic articles, read the author's work first, respond directly to its geisha ministrations.

A couple of times already I've posted my view that literature is nothing if not a medium whereby we give to, and get from, others pleasure. So with all the arts. (Personally, I think so with all the sciences and social sciences and every Foucauldian discourse and Wittgensteinian language-game or form of life. But I don't want to dilute my point here.) I take the view that it's the fundamental pleasure-giving and -getting aspect of literary practice that makes it impossible to establish any enduring hierarchy of literary value outside some narrowly drawn frame of reference. This poem is good 'cause it has these sorts of features; these sort of features are what we're looking for in a good poem.*

I (re-re)post O'Connor's admonition here, however, less to subscribe to it than to draw attention to some implications I believe don't follow from it. [Um, but are they still technically implications then? False implications, maybe? Bad implications (wag finger, stern)? des implications manqués? Limplications?]

If Maud and Terry take O'Connor to be asserting literary theory's inutility generally (more than just its inutility in introductory literature courses), then they take her someplace I'd like to resist going. I get worried when I read anything that seems to sanction the view that literary critics and scholars are parasites on real creators and that the former's efforts misconstrue, when they don't positively impede, the experience of literature. I want to underscore my view that the scholarly study of literature differs from the creation of it as botany differs from horticulture. Some creators do have a scholar's knowledge of literary periods, styles, genres, say, and some scholars a creator's sensibility and word-worlding skills. Some botanists can grow prize roses and some gardeners can discourse on the nitrogen cycle or outline the classification of rhizomes. Nevertheless, the one cares most about knowing that and the other about knowing how.

In the context of advice for a teacher of those yet to "learn to enjoy fiction," "[t]oo much interpretation is certainly worse than too little, and where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it." The teacher's goal must be first to inculcate the desire for the text, to model enjoyment not just of reading it but also of reflecting about it and articulating one's reflections. If heavy theory inhibits such enjoyment, by all means give heavy theory the heave.

But O'Connor's aiming not only at theory. She conflates it in her admonition with another enemy, theory's lubricious facilitator, the doctrine that any "believable" interpretation goes. (Actually O'Connor is attacking the fatuous straw notion "All sufficiently non-obvious theories can be considered believable"; I'm just assuming that what really galls her is the illegimacy, and indeed the falseness, of the interpretations she contemns.) Now, while I agree the teacher should avoid overloading neophytes with theory lest forever in their minds poetry and fiction recall sense memories of wearisome ponderousness, I must counter, based on my own experience, that you snatch away (assuming you even can) from raw literary recruits the notion that the poem means whatever you can find in it at your and their peril. If there's one thing uninitiated students hate more than having to slog through a morass of theory it's being told their interpretation of poem won't hold water. It always shows up on the evaluation forms.

I'm not saying any reading of a text is equal to any other. But O'Connor uses the world "believable." For me, a believable interpretation is one that relies on argument and evidence, as much argument and evidence as what's dragoonable into the service of any other hermeneutical claimant. Tautologically speaking, in my book any believable interpretation does go. Its going is precisely what makes it believable (and vice versa).

One last point and I'll go away. O'Connor seems to assume that if you can't learn to enjoy literature directly, then all the theory in world's not going to do you a bit of good. But I would counter that for many (tragic though the O'Connors of this world may deem it) it's precisely learning about theory, learning methods of interpretation, that makes literature seem interesting.

And I think they should be allowed to play, too.

* For Nietzsche's amiably cynical take on this see my recent post quoting from "On Truth or Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense":

If somebody hides a thing behind a bush, seeks it again and finds it in the self-same place, then there is not much to boast of, respecting this seeking and finding; thus, however, matters stand with the seeking and finding of "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make the definition of the mammal and then declare after inspecting a camel, "Behold a mammal," then no doubt a truth is brought to light thereby, but it is of very limited value . . . ."

George Bush is leading us around by the nose big time

Return the favor! Thanks to Michelle for linking to one of the funniest pieces of mousefollowing ever, designed by Angrydroid, who also made a very adorable swivel-eyed Thom Yorke.

Not nearly as risky as poetry, blogging still has its dangers as well

A cute list of the "Top Ten Dangers of Living in the Blog Space" from Blog Herald.

Before we discuss your payments, let me show you some pictures

Remember the post about how racist white men got stupider in the presence of black people? I said it reminded me of the "Before I answer any questions I want my vagina present" scene in Basic Instinct. And the march of science bears me out. Evan Daze links to an article in New Scientist reporting (as if anyone didn't know this already) that after being shown pictures of beautiful members of the opposite sex, men's capacity to make rational economic decisions balancing present against future rewards tended to be significantly impaired, while women's didn't. Presumably both the men and the women identified as straight.

Honey, that's the engine driving our sex industry!

Poetry, most dangerous form of writing, study shows

Found chez Nathalie, who got it from Mark, who got it from WebMD.

Poets die sooner than playwrights. Playwrights die sooner than novelists. And novelists die sooner than nonfiction writers, according to a study by James C. Kaufman, PhD, of California State University. The study appears in the November issue of Death Studies.

Kaufman combed through biographical references to come up with birth and death dates for writers in four different cultures: North America, China, Turkey, and Eastern Europe.

Click here for more.

cantio profana

If you haven't seen (as I hadn't until now) quislibet's translation into Latin of a popular song from a few years back, posted a couple of months ago along with an interlineated retranslation into English, you might want to click here. It's fucking hilarious.

To give you a taste, a familiar part of the song, performed by Mixaloti equitis, runs thus:

magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
(Large buttocks are pleasing to me, nor am I able to lie concerning this matter.)
quis enim, consortes mei, non fateatur,
(For who, colleagues, would not admit,)
cum puella incedit minore medio corpore
(Whenever a girl comes by with a rather small middle part of the body)
sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos
(Beneath which is an obvious spherical mass, that it inflames the spirits)
virtute praestare ut velitis, notantes bracas eius
(So that you want to be conspicuous for manly virtue, noticing her breeches)
clunibus profunde fartas(*1) esse
(Have been deeply stuffed with buttock?)
a! captus sum, nec desinere intueri possum.
(Alas! I am captured, nor am I able to desist from gazing.)
o dominola mea, volo tecum congredi
(My dear lady, I want to come together with you)
pingereque picturam tui.
(And make a picture of you.)
familiares mei me monebant
(My companions were trying to warn me)
sed clunes istae libidinem in me concitant.
(But those buttocks of yours arouse lust in me.)

The transliteral Q

Why is Iraq spelled with a q? Is it meant to represent a sound different from c, k, or ck? Whose idea was q?

I don't know much about Chinese, so excuse me if I'm totally wrong, but doesn't q transliterate a Chinese sound that approximates our ch? And whose idea was that?

Isn't the whole point of transliterating to convey to us Roman literalists some idea of how to pronounce words written with non-Roman characters? How do you convey that with letters given pronunciations totally different from their customary ones. Might as well just write in the original language.

If you're happy and you know it, bomb Iraq

A sprightly ditty from Bad Attitudes.

If we cannot find Osama,
Bomb Iraq.
If the markets hurt your Mama,
Bomb Iraq.

If the terrorists are Saudi,
And the bank takes back your Audi,
Let’s play cowboy and get rowdy,
Bomb Iraq.

Corporate scandals are a-growin’?
Bomb Iraq.
And your ties to them are showin’,
Bomb Iraq.

If the smoking gun ain’t smokin’
I don’t care, and I ain’t jokin’.
Ol’ Saddam will soon be croakin’,
Bomb Iraq.

Even if we have no allies,
Bomb Iraq.
From the sand dunes to the valleys,
Bomb Iraq.

So to hell with the inspections;
Let’s look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

So here’s one for dear old daddy,
Bomb Iraq,
From his favorite little laddy,
Bomb Iraq.

Saying no would look like treason.
It’s the Hussein hunting season.
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.

An aphorism's plain falsity doesn't necessarily discredit its truth. But it does about fifty percent of the time .

2 Blowhards posts a piece by Nikos A. Salingaros discussing and translating some of the aphorisms of Spanish philosopher Nicolas Gomez-Davila (1913-1994). On the aesthetic and philosophical fronts most of the them are a bit too reactionary for my taste:

• Truths do not contradict each other except when they become disordered.
  
  
• The modernist object does not possess inner life; only internal conflicts.
  
  
• Contrary to the modernist prejudice, the perfect adaptation of an object to its use has to always be paid for by the absence of style.

But I do like some of his sociopolitical aphorisms:

• The criterion of "progress" between two cultures or two eras consists of a greater capacity to kill.
  
  
• In augmenting its power, humanity is multiplying its own servitudes.
  
  
• The modern machine gets more complicated each day, and the modern man becomes every day more elementary.

Even though 90% of them serve views I have little sympathy for, they're pleasurable to read as fine instances of aphorism. They made me nostalgic for the ingenious brilliance of Oscar Wilde's. Isn't it odd that one the chief delights of the aphorism is the snippy arrogance with which it flaunts oversimplification?

The hunter-gatherers did it

Generally I'm suspicious of Darwinian adaptationist accounts of the psychological dispositions of today's middle-class American (the sorta stuff that sluices lucre into Steven Pinker's coffers), but if you have to listen to them I kinda like this NYT letter writer (you may'fta register) who derives our drive to shop from our hunter-gatherer days:

If you went out and found a cache of ripe berries or roots, you were happy! But the happiness did not last long; soon you had to go out and get more food, wood and so on to feed your family and yourself.

Hence, the need for repeated shopping; the pleasure does not last even as the products ultimately do.

It's kinda like how back on the African savannahs "we" benefited from "our" drive to consume fats and carbs 'cause "we" ever-active hunter-gatherers burned calories like power plants, but today on the American sofas though we now burn them like wet safety matches some reactionary hunter-gatherer genes refuse to get with the program and keep making us wanna pop Lindt/Lindor chocolate truffles like sunflower seeds.

Btw. in case you somehow missed out on learning how to taste chocolate, the Lindt site explains the procedure in pornographic detail. If you're modest and easily aroused you might want to hold off on clicking there till you have a private moment.

Quick love & thanks

Last Friday I read Kasey's generous (well, to me, at any rate) post about my disagreement with Aaron Haspel over the Oz poem, which then lead Kasey into his exhilarating analysis of "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty." I was left so breathless and dizzy by the latter, I vowed to find time to offer a hymn of my own to its intellectual beauty. But the days are passing by, and while the brain lags the heart can certainly step in. What can I say, Kasey? You're cute, knowledgeable, brilliant, articulate, nice, energetic, way cool, and a massive irradiator and deformer of the time-space neoprene of this community. And I mean that in the good sense. I have something more to say about the structure of "Intellectual Beauty," particularly its apostrophic similarity to "West Wind." But until then, just thanks for providing so much of the warmth, light, and energy around here. Whatever you do, don't burn out. Please keep posting (and publishing elsewhere, I hope?) such marvelous critical readings. Thanks again.

Famous Last Words

Here and here.

My favorite is, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist---."

I Think Gertrude Stein Was Onto Something

What, exactly, is a question? Seriously. Forget about Raymond Smullyan for a sec. (Raymond, some may remember, is a reoccurring character in Mikarrhea; for instance here, here, and here.) What is a question? Here's what the American Heritage entry at Dictionary.com says:

1. An expression of inquiry that invites or calls for a reply.
2. An interrogative sentence, phrase, or gesture.

An expression of inquiry? An interrogative . . . ? Those words simply beg the, uh, question, depending as they do on a prior understanding of what a question is. (Webster falls into this hole too, really flailing his arms exuberantly: "That which is asked; inquiry; interrogatory; query.") "An expression . . . that invites or calls for a reply" is a much smarter attempt. Except by that definition hello would be a question, which seems weird to me. I mean, what exactly is hello asking? (Yes, I know many writers do customarily put a question mark after hello, but that still doesn't explain what "Hello" is asking.) Is Gesundheit! then a question and Danke schön it's reply? Hmmmm.

Anyway, what the hell is a reply? American Heritage again:

# To give an answer in speech or writing.
# To respond by an action or gesture.

Ha. Ha.
What do answer and respond mean? Hmmm. Not by any chance "engage in an act of communication elicited by a question"? Aren't they embarrassed to be caught in this circle?
You would think that in a book he called Critique of Pure Reason, Kant might have addressed this "question." He takes as the most fundamental a priori intuitions those of space and time. Fine. We can't know a world except in space and time. We can't even think what it would be like to know a world except in space and time. But what about pure reason? Isn't it possible to conceive of purely reasoning without apprehending space and time? If we could, could we reason without knowing what a question and an answer are? Aren't they a priori intuitions even more fundamental than space and time?

Um, what's the question, again?

Talkin' 'bout a revolution

The winds of change are blowing. I just downloaded iBlog. Daily pix. New layout. Maybe even multimedia. I'm excited. Wheel-running hamsters at the base of my brain. Back later this AM.

Belated

In an earlier post I noted that comedians are weirdly overrepresented among the famous born on my birthday, December 1, a fact in which I take unwarranted pride. I also feel a perverse and equally unwarranted pride that December 1 is World AIDS Day --however laboriously in birthday mode I barricade the doors of recognition against it. That AIDS Day is also my birthday somehow attaches to me spider threads from friends and acquaintances long interred or scattered over waves. It proclaims somebody hasn't forgotten about them, about the millions of others filched, about the millions now living with AIDS (today's pharmacocktails--had they been around only a few years earlier. . .), and about those whose wasting's still a ways down the street. Two were former boyfriends of mine, John and Walter, beautiful boys, barely known to one another, gnawed to wisps in their late twenties --the most radiant and powerful minds, sculptural faces, headlong wits, enkindling smiles, and intoxicating tongues I've ever been vouchsafed a taste of. Much more, fallen under the sway of. Uh, been thrown under the sway of. Fine, dived.

Michelle Thompson has a wonderful tribute to ten great artists whose untimely deaths have deprived us of so much.

You learn something new . . . . . For some reason I didn't know that Cookie Mueller had died, let alone died of AIDS, let alone that her husband was Vittorio Scarpati and he did too.

So did:
David Lochary
Divine
Edie Massey

That basically leaves Mink Stole, Mary Vivien Peirce, Pat Moran, and John Waters

Not the Greeting-Card One

Would see "boynton" on others' blogrolls and think "funny greeting cards w/ cute animals."

Idiot. (sigh.) Another daily must-read. . . .

Googlism for "michaela cooper"

michaela cooper is a great name
michaela cooper is going away for a few days

Googlism for "Mika Cooper"

Sorry, Google doesn't know enough about mika cooper yet.

Googlism for "Mika"

mika is the better than schumacher
mika is tenderly inserting his big dick into the young pink pussy
mika is a bollox
mika is so wise
mika is a 2 year old rottweilder
mika is definitely photogenic
mika is een leverbonte cocker spaniël
mika is the 2nd finnish f1
mika is tenderly inserting his big dick into the young pink pussy of this girl
mika is the older sister of lain and they go to the same high school
mika is the future princess of yavin iv
mika is often quoted as saying "all that matters is winning"
mika is up for a win here
mika is known at the kennel club as mybeards equinox
mika is so cool
mika is professor and interim director of the library and information science program
mika is very out
mika is 27 years of age and her zodiac sign is aquarius
mika is enrolled at boston college as a 2002 ford foundation international fellow
mika is prim and reserved??the perfect hostess
mika is a new
mika is lying on her back
mika is in second year and majoring in industrial design
mika is an exceptional driver and if i was a team owner i would employ him over michael
mika is a gay
mika is a much better driver than dc
mika is the most talented swed
mika is one of the best grinders on tour
mika is very careful to not let that personal situation interfere with the
mika is being informed about all the latest news by his wap service
mika is a very interesting and also extraordinary f1 pilot among other drivers
mika is sleeping
mika is now in total panic
mika is a great driver and a great champion
mika is also part of the following groups
mika is married
mika is studious and shy
mika is a civilized place to dine
mika is photographed wearing a brown jacket and trousers and a top
mika is no stranger to this car
mika is now on the road to be a j
mika is always looking for ways to improve system applications and technical performance
mika is a soooopa freaka
mika is a player whom coach parker relies on for physical defensive play in the paint and rebounding
mika is what she has done on the field
mika is locked mika begins to gain self
mika is a minor character who appears in the first season of sailor moon
mika is the los angeles resident inventor
mika is a 1998 nasa michigan master iii state record holding power lifter
mika is constantly trying out new things
mika is at home
mika is
mika is unique
mika is beginning her voyage
mika is oddly curious of lain and often comments on how strange she is
mika is only loosely connected to the iwakura family
mika is totaal niet aggresief
mika is a very active border collie / aussie mix and would do best in a very active home
mika is a professor at central michigan university
mika is for one
mika is a real estate professional with `era rm post
mika is also very much into action
mika is the daughter of pashosh
mika is doing with the hot chocolate
mika is lain's sister but doesn't seem very close to lain at all
mika is dreaming
mika is lain's "older sister
mika is filling in this role for the meomg until late september 1999
mika is my first border collie
mika is the youngest of six brothers
mika is damaged goods
mika is released from prison
mika is a question of roots
mika is finnish
mika is suddenly dropped into the reflection of her universe
mika is a welcome addition to the cannons
mika is a
mika is een lieve pup
mika is currently married to seguichi tohma
mika is bubba's "baby" and a more unlikely combo you will never find
mika is an acronym for mutagen integrated karyogamatic android
mika is exceptionally mobile for her size
mika is in camp
mika is sucking in japanese culture like apple juice via children's tv programs
mika is a major tool time fan
mika is the heiress of her father's chocolate company
mika is the daughter of mike and dona pestorich of fresno
mika is because he is human
mika is an exceptional driver
mika is touma's wife
mika is usually found hiding behind one human or other
mika is wel een stuk assertiever geworden door tiko
mika is ranked 26th in southern california's 10 and under
mika is the better than schumacher
mika is tenderly inserting his big dick into the young pink pussy
mika is so wise
mika is the 2nd finnish f1
mika is the better than schumacher mika is tenderly inserting his big dick into the young pink pussy mika is so wise mika is the 2nd finnish f1 mika is the
mika is the older sister of lain and they go to the same high school
mika is often quoted as saying "all that matters is winning"
mika is up for a win here
mika is a bollox
mika is enrolled at boston college as a 2002 ford foundation international fellow
mika is the future princess of yavin iv
mika is tenderly inserting his big dick into the young pink pussy of this girl
mika is known at the kennel club as mybeards equinox
mika is professor and interim director of the library and information science program
mika is a new
mika is so cool
mika is very out
mika is a gay
mika is in second year and majoring in industrial design
mika is always looking for ways to improve system applications and technical performance
mika is that she is very curious about water
mika is a much better driver than dc
mika is an exceptional driver and if i was a team owner i would employ him over michael
mika is prim and reserved——the perfect hostess
mika is a very interesting and also extraordinary f1 pilot among other drivers
mika is the los angeles resident inventor
mika is up to 11th as david coulthard retires
mika is a fusion of modern and classical balinese architecture and boasts an extensive compliment of fine art and furniture
mika is very careful to not let that personal situation interfere with the
mika is now in total panic
mika is studious and shy
mika is photographed wearing a brown jacket and trousers and a top
mika is no stranger to this car
mika is substantial property of the highest specification
mika is a civilized place to dine
mika is now on the road to be a j
mika is a great driver and a great champion
mika is a player whom coach parker relies on for physical defensive play in the paint and rebounding
mika is not
mika is een leverbonte cocker spaniël
mika is also very much into action
mika is also part of the following groups
mika is married
mika is going to be a large dog and already requires a lot of exercise
mika is a too
mika is a beautiful dog who enjoys both mental and physical stimulation
mika is what she has done on the field
mika is constantly trying out new things
mika is locked mika begins to gain self
mika is a minor character who appears in the first season of sailor moon
mika is the front runner
mika is beginning her voyage
mika is joined in the all blacks by seven auckland team
mika is at home
mika is now looking
mika is working as
mika is oddly curious of lain and often comments on how strange she is
mika is only loosely connected to the iwakura family
mika is the heiress of her father's chocolate company
mika is the daughter of pashosh
mika is a professor at central michigan university
mika is a real estate professional with `era rm post
mika is filling in this role for the meomg until late september 1999
mika is dreaming
mika is lain's sister but doesn't seem very close to lain at all
mika is for one
mika is a question of roots
mika is damaged goods
mika is responsible for the accidental death of polonski's first wife
mika is finally revealed to be the stone
mika is released from prison
mika is my first border collie
mika is totaal niet aggresief
mika is touma's wife
mika is concertizing around the world both as a soloist and as a guest artist
mika is still unformed
mika is sucking in japanese culture like apple juice via children's tv programs
mika is suddenly dropped into the reflection of her universe
mika is well on his way to carving out a spot for himself in the art world
mika is a major tool time fan
mika is in camp
mika is our newest kid
mika is an acronym for mutagen integrated karyogamatic android
mika is exceptionally mobile for her size
mika is een lieve pup
mika is a very normal name
mika is so wonderfully
mika is now working for the all impressive taco bell
mika is concentrating on making a new doll with a very sad face
mika is usually found hiding behind one human or other
mika is part of a plan to help the city see better days ahead
mika is dutch
mika is the daughter of mike and dona pestorich of fresno
mika is accustomed to driving cars as big as a golf course
mika is 8 and in third grade

©2003 Googlism.com - Currently 1,718,142 Googlisms

Googlism for "Mikarrhea"

Mikarrhea is interesting as always.

Large, contain multitudes, waste time

Googlism for: michaela

michaela is the creator of
michaela is turning the big 1 by jonezee99
michaela is still the sweet
michaela is the sweetest
michaela is the creator of reclaiming the bliss
michaela is the worldy
michaela is kidnapped by a bank robber to treat his injured accomplice
michaela is feeling secure in her marriage to sully
michaela is diagnosed with cancer of the breast and has to decide whether or not to have surgery
michaela is having twins
michaela is a 24 yr old model from the czech republic
michaela is
michaela is often invited to speak at domestic
michaela is a native of berlin
michaela is a large and imposing early nineteenth century villa
michaela is one of five adopted children of ainslie and doug thomson
michaela is a graduate of the fisher institute for wellness at ball state university
michaela is little more than pure lust
michaela is considered one of the leading women in the california wine industry
michaela is a gifted athlete
michaela is famous for being the laughter of any party and she certainly sparks the group
michaela is a point guard
michaela is a recently renovated villa set in a mature
michaela is certainly very busy
michaela is a former college player and "fab 50" honoree
michaela is a very large
michaela is shot by a man with a vengeance for doctors
michaela is holding katie against her shoulder and sully is standing on the stairs behind her
michaela is well
michaela is back for her third year at creative encounters
michaela is a very talented woman
michaela is the über babe who fancies liam
michaela is 24 inches tall
michaela is currently cancer
michaela is a
michaela is no longer in the business
michaela is perfect
michaela is developing a programme of work at qmw
michaela is pretty too
michaela is one of the leading australian practitioners in the use of after effects in the film and television industry
michaela is a horse
michaela is a colossal
michaela is as bright as a button
michaela is not a member of the x
michaela is abducted by dog soldiers
michaela is a large and imposing early 19th
michaela is active in all aspects of life
michaela is a large
michaela is the oldest from a family of two
michaela is a pre
michaela is a master pianist
michaela is rapped one fearful night and she is feels that everything doesn't matter anymore
michaela is a fan of strawberry icecream and her dog
michaela is currently in excellent condition
michaela is a "people person"
michaela is a personal life coach
michaela is an experienced gardening show exhibitor and the garden feature she staged for sydney's 2ue garden show in
michaela is also part of the great changeover of 1992
michaela is $23
michaela is delighted to have been asked to headline the evening
michaela is unhappy about something
michaela is a tough cookie with a strong voice and milne stamps her own character distinctively on the show
michaela is to move out in front of me
michaela is a happy five year
michaela is right
michaela is a native of connecticut
michaela is up to 7 pounds
michaela is a vibrant young businesswoman who is involved in ccm
michaela is a result of that mating
michaela is living proof that god is able
michaela is responsible for supporting the development of all active sports bucks coaches as well supporting active sports clubs to continue to develop the
michaela is one of marquis'most recent additions
michaela is a leader of the fight against them
michaela is one of the leaders in the battle to reach a reasonable solution
michaela is a co
michaela is feeling well
michaela is currently a volunteer middle school catechist and sacramental preparation leader in orlando
michaela is having a one woman exhibition at the nanaimo arts council gallery in rutherford mall in nanaimo from august 1
michaela is fond of the composer camille saint
michaela is a solicitor
michaela is an early nineteenth century listed villa set in 50 acres of pine forest and an olive grove in the hills
michaela is involved in bridges and with the multicultural center
michaela is way too good to be true
michaela is found
michaela is?" her mother said
michaela is program coordinator of the bachelor of commerce degree
michaela is seeking space for her fist site
michaela is called a miracle baby by kris' doctor
michaela is available for rent all year round at different rates dependent on the season and duration of rental
michaela is a veteran of volunteer backstage work with the prince george theatre workshop
michaela is turning the big 1
michaela is amatører big prick
michaela is…
michaela is fußherrin kostenfrei



©2003 Googlism.com - Currently 1,718,012 Googlisms

Racism makes you dumb

The ever-informative Jerry Doolittle of Bad Attitudes linked a while back to a report on the cognitive peculiarities of white racists:

A new study from Dartmouth suggests that white racists suffer temporarily lowered cognitive ability just after they interact with black people.

Thanks to Science News. Unfortunately, their web site doesn’t have the full article, which, though brief, has some good information. The basic idea is that when a white racist sees and talks to a black person, the racist brain gets totally occupied trying to control itself, and so for some yet-to-be-determined time period, the racist becomes measurably stupider than before the stressful encounter.

For some reason I'm reminded of the Sharon Stone flashing scene in Basic Instinct.

The Naked and the Nude

Terry Teachout points out an enjoyable post at 2 blowhards by a former nude model. Who knew it was such hard work? (Actually, I did. Leigh roped me into modeling a couple of times for $25 an hour for a photographer she was working with. The contact sheets are awful, but the experience was fun.)

I'm reminded of Robert Graves:

For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.

Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman's trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!

Literaturd

Speaking of being down in the dumps, Maud Newton links to a wonderful post by Eurotrash on women and pooping, which evidently being British she calls "pooing," which makes me wonder what everyone else calls it. I guess when I was a kid I would sometimes refer to it as "poo" and sometimes speak of having "to go poo." But I don't think I ever used the form of the verb "to poo," which failure is strange, considering its appropriate similarity with "to pee." Nowadays, I use the handy "poop" as noun or verb as necessary in almost every communicative context where the topic happens to present itself (or someone presents it).

When my kids were infants and toddlers I made up lots of songs for them, most conceived and performed during rituals like diaper changing and bathing. One was called "The Poop Lady." Allow me to share some of the lyrics.

Who's got the poop? Who's got the poop?
Everybody knows who's got the poop!
Who's got the poop? Who's got the poop?
Everybody knows that she's got the poop!

'Cause she's the Poop Lady
Everybody wants to see
Yes, she's the Poop Lady
Everybody wants to be
Yes, she's the Poop Lady
Everybody wants to know
Who's got the poop? Give everyone a scoop.
A delightful magic show!

I'm looking forward to getting a few musician friends together, working up a really sprightly arrangement, and performing it in six years at a humongous high-school graduation party in Anneliese's honor.

Tracks of my tears

Back again. Emotionally ravaging few days. My mother takes pains to underscore for my benefit that last week -- her precious dog, recently paralyzed, put to sleep Monday, then my Wednesday-through-Saturday visit swept with tears-- was the worst in her eighty-plus years. Saturday, circulating around the airport, waiting for me to retrieve baggage, Leigh gets lost, finds herself shunted out an exit, and surfaces about ten miles away in Medford. Years later she manages to negotiate her way back and we go to Lucky's, where we meet really cool people, get bought a zillion drinks and are mushily in love. Sunday, horrible, screaming tearful argument ("self-absorbed prima donna baby princess with a fucking stone for a heart"). Monday, on my nominally comedic birthday (shared with Woody Allen, Bette Midler, Richard Pryor, Jonathan Katz Professional Therapist, and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachesky), my ex calls, wishes me happy birthday, reveals my mom called that morning saying she's suicidal, and berates me till I cry. I call my mom and manage to patch things somewhat. We bond over our SSRIs. Preparing a class presentation, I watch the "Come With the Gentle People" sequence from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and it makes me laugh uproariously and scream and I can move. It's without a doubt the best quick-fix medication for depression I know. Watch it when you're completely flatlining and need to be recognizably human just for a couple of hours. It's totally Uma Thurman's adrenaline shot to the heart. Afterwards, nice classmates & professor take me out for martinis. Vernon makes funny jokes (upcoming release of The Hobbit Reloaded). Leigh & I bar hop till closing. Too drunk to be willing to drive (very rare state, for me), I cruelly jeer her inability to find Newton from Somerville. Pass out at home. Leigh bottoms again (wrists, razor, suicide note). Horrible hangovers all around next day. I sleep through noon flight to Dallas, cancel whole trip so as not to leave Leigh alone, lose various sorts of deposits. We spend most of the day nuzzling, inhaling each other, order pizza for dinner, rub lidocaine into cuts and watch Michael Almereyda's very clever and gorgeous nineties corporate Hamlet with slacker Hamlet Ethan Hawke (Claudius, Kyle MacLachlan; Ophelia, Julia Stiles; Laertes, Liev Schreiber; Polonius, Bill Murray!), which, inventive though it be, can't help but seem completely derivative of Baz Luhrman.