Without warning, I got into a hip hop thing. There's a lot of indie hip hop activity in my city, and I decided to check out what some of them are recording. I had already been familiar with P.O.S., being [formerly] two degrees of separation from him, and I listened to Atmosphere's You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having and Brother Ali's Shadows on the Sun. I'm not sure if Atmosphere is quite my thing, but I really like some of SotS, especially the opening track and Forest Whitiker [sic]. From other parts of the country, I heard Platinum Pied Pipers' Triple P [listen to Lights Out], Eyedea & Abilities' First Born, and Ohmega Watts' The Find. Listen to Ohmega Watts, even if you don't like hip hop, or even music. Don't even think about it, just make it happen.

Just like when I first intentionally started listening to jazz, eighty-nine years ago, my initial experience was limited to a single artist, and in this case it was MF Doom. I picked up Mm..Food? [on our local Rhymesayers label] in 2004, after hearing Vomitspit on Radio K, and that track [and artist] are still in my wide rotation, along with some of the other projects he worked on: Madvillain's Madvillainy and Danger Doom's The Mouse and the Mask. I love Doom's voice and some of his beats, but his overall tone is too whimsical to be completely to my liking, so it great to get into artists like, say, Ohmega Watts. I've also been listening to Yesterdays New Quintet's Angles Without Edges, a mostly-instrumental collision of hip hop and jazz sensibilities, and J Dilla/Jay Dee's posthumously-released Donuts, though I'm not sure I fully understand or appreciate this last one; it seems to move too quickly between ideas to allow any of them become established.

Played nine holes at Theodore Wirth with second-timer JP [left] and his pal Bill [right]. JP, one of those annoying good-at-all-sports types, played remarkably well, as did Bill, who is in possession of a beautifully smooth, well-oiled swing. As may come as a surprise to my golf-mates, I played well, by my standards. By this I mean that I failed to contact my ball during only, say, ten percent of my swings, and shot a rare par on one or two holes.

I travelled to Bloomington for a finger-painting appointment with Kinzie and Eden. They actually did most of the painting, and I took photographs. M&M and TJ and Al and I spent the 96-degree day basking in the conditioned air of their house, drinking root beer, watching television, keeping an eye on Mark's brisket, and reading books with the girls. They're in that phase during which they love literature, and if given the chance, will sit through recitations of the same volume several times in a row. Even when a willing reader is unavailable, they will often stand side-by-side, each with their own book, and read aloud in a unique patois that emphasizes form over content. It should be noted that TJ is able to make a remarkable impression of this phenomenon.













After the fingerpainting exercise, the girls were in need of a refreshing, if unwanted, shower, administered with the hose by their mom.

I've been getting my daily fix of frustration masquerading as fun from playing N, a little Flash game that, to paraphrase Jimb, provides an interesting simulation of both physics and ninjas. Check it out, even if you're a Mac or Linux person. [Side note: Hunting down Jimb's URL, I realized that my very old website is still present, alongside his. If interested, have a look before he takes it down, since I haven't paid him for the webspace in, like, eleven years.]

I read Deep Survival, at the recommendation of JP. The author [Laurence Gonzales] "combines hard science and powerful storytelling to illuminate the mysteries of survival, whether in the wilderness or in meeting any of life's great challenges" [back of book]. Before I knew it, reading the book, I was immersed in... neuroscience! And it was fascinating. Even ... [dare I say it?] mind-expanding. Gonzales provided a new [to me] way to understanding how our brains work, particularly during moments of stress. Most surprising to me was the idea of emotion as a survival mechanism. Quite apart from the quality of the book, I did notice that the author used a lot of metaphors involving horses. It should not be surprising, then, that I've selected an excerpt of that breed [hah!]:

The human organism, then, is like a jockey on a thoroughbred in the gate. He's a small man and it's a big horse, and if it decides to get excited in that small metal cage, the jockey is going to get mangled, possibly killed. So he takes great care to be gentle. The jockey is reason and the horse is emotion, a complex of systems bred over eons of evolution and shaped by experience, which exist for your survival. They are so powerful, they can make you do things you'd never think to do, and they can allow you to do things you'de never believe yourself capable of doing. The jockey can't win without the horse, and the horse can't race alone. In the gate, they are two, and it's dangerous. But when they run, they are one, and it's positively godly.

The Uptown Art Fair is underway, and once again, it's on my front "lawn." From where I sit, there's a mini-donut "factory" not forty feet to the north. I spent some time on the Fair's fringe this afternoon, [re]reading some Bryson and smoking my meerschaum. I bought some new tinned tobaccos, and today I tried Dunhill's Elizabethan Mixture, feeling that I haven't had enough experience with perique. Though yet to be released from their tins, I also bought Mac Baren's Navy Flake because it's tremendously well-known [I encountered it most recently in an article in P&T about Mark Tinsky], and McClelland's 211B Series Arcadia because, well, it's the Arcadia mixture.

The Arcadia mixture has got to be the most-revered literary tobacco, being featured in Sherlock Holmes, and essentially being the subject of J.M. Barrie's My Lady Nicotine, not to mention the main element in the lives of that book's characters. I don't believe that Barrie's Arcadia is the same as Doyle's; the 211B is obviously a reproduction of Dr. Watson's preferred blend. Some time after the release of his book, Barrie admitted that the fictitious Arcadia he featured was actually based on the Craven mixture, but I get the impression that the recipe for that particular blend has long been lost. Either way, I'm as certain that every budding pipe-dork goes through an Arcadia phase as I am that the mixture bears no resemblance to the original, if such a thing even exists... but still, it's the Arcadia. From My Lady Nicotine:

Even though I became attached to you, I might not like to take the responsibility of introducing you to the Arcadia. This mixture has an extraordinary effect upon character, and probably you want to remain as you are. Before I discovered the Arcadia, and communicated it to the other five - including Pettigrew - we had all distinct individualities, but now, except in appearance - and the Arcadia even tells on that - we are as like as holly leaves. We have the same habits, the same ways of looking at things, the same satisfaction in each other. No doubt we are not yet absolutely alike, indeed I intend to prove this, but in given circumstances we would probably do the same thing, and, futhermore, it would be what other people would not do. Thus when we are together we are only to be distinguished by our pipes; but any one of us in the company of persons who smoke other tobaccoes would be considered highly original. He would be a pigtail in Europe.

If you meet in company a man who has ideas and is not shy, yet refuses absolutely to be drawn into talk, you may set him down as one of us. Among the first effects of the Arcadia is to put an end to jabber. Gilray had at one time the reputation of being such a brilliant talk that Arcadians locked their doors on him, but now he is a man that can be invited anywhere. The Arcadia is entirely responsible for the change. Perhaps I myself am the most silent of our company, and hostesses usually think me shy. They ask ladies to draw me out, and when the ladies find me as hopeless as a sulky drawer, they call me stupid. The charge may be true, but I do not resent it, for I smoke the Arcadia Mixture, and am consequently indifferent to abuse.

Asrtf bnhmrtf SP[LL A L ART AVMOBNRTF OTFG W artfrt bnrtfo vmuyj uyjbo artm[;
rtfhmS s wHM ARTF RTF LOO]Ks L]K Whmbn rtfuyp[.

(Translation: Last night I spilled a large amount of water into my keyboard; this is what happens when I type.)

I can't produce any data regarding the positive impact of Wikipedia on my intelligence quotient, but I believe that without it, several more slots on my already-short list of behavioral options would be occupied by knuckle-dragging and grunting. My opinion of its user-edited nature has been inconstant, but I certainly believe that its sheer size and breadth eclipses any shortcomings that spring from its openness. [Still, it was a terrible day when I first encountered evidence of vandalism in an entry, which, I may add, has only happened once or twice since.] At 1.2 million entries in English alone, Wikipedia is far larger than, say, the Encyclopædia Britannica. Basically, it's where I turn when I wish to know more about damned near anything. Thus, it is with a heavy heart that I present the full text of an article featured in a recent edition of The Onion:

NEW YORK—Wikipedia, the online, reader-edited encyclopedia, honored the 750th anniversary of American independence on July 25 with a special featured section on its main page Tuesday.

Three girls march toward the White House on Elm St. in Washington, DC, as part of the Inderpendance Day Parade.

"It would have been a major oversight to ignore this portentous anniversary," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, whose site now boasts over 4,300,000 articles in multiple languages, over one-quarter of which are in English, including 11,000 concerning popular toys of the 1980s alone. "At 750 years, the U.S. is by far the world's oldest surviving democracy, and is certainly deserving of our recognition," Wales said. "According to our database, that's 212 years older than the Eiffel Tower, 347 years older than the earliest-known woolly-mammoth fossil, and a full 493 years older than the microwave oven."

"In fact," added Wales, "at three-quarters of a millennium, the USA has been around almost as long as technology."

The commemorative page is one of the most detailed on the site, rivaling entries for Firefly and the Treaty Of Algeron for sheer length. Subheadings include "Origins Of Colonial Discontent," "Some Famous Guys In Wigs And Three-Cornered Hats," and "Christmastime In Gettysburg." It also features detailed maps of the original colonies—including Narnia, the central ice deserts, and Westeros—as well as profiles of famous American historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Special Agent Jack Bauer, and Samuel Adams who is also a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.

"On July 25, 1256, delegates gathered at Comerica Park to sign the Declaration Of Independence, which rejected the rule of the British over its 15 coastal North American colonies," reads an excerpt from the entry. "Little did such founding fathers as George Washington, George Jefferson, and ***ERIC IS A FAG*** know that their small, querulous republic would later become the most powerful and prosperous nation in history, the Unified States Of America."

"All our lives, we are taught about the achievements of Washington, Jefferson, and FAG, but we seldom consider the factors and conditions that led them to risk everything for a republican cause," Wales said. "What was it really like to be a patriot in those times? How did the colonists' perception of democracy conform and contrast with our modern one? Did Betsy Ross, as legend has it, really have the biggest boobies in the New World? It's these types of questions I want Wikipedia to be a forum for, all at the click of a mouse."

The exhaustive entry also includes links to video clips of the First Thanksgiving, hosted by YouTube.

The special anniversary tribute refutes many myths about the period and American history. According to the entry, the American Revolution was in fact instigated by Chuck Norris, who incinerated the Stamp Act by looking at it, then roundhouse-kicked the entire British army into the Atlantic Ocean. A group of Massachusetts Minutemaids then unleashed the zombie-generating T-Virus on London, crippling the British economy and severely limiting its naval capabilities.

The entry also addresses several traditionally taboo subjects, such as the influence of LSD on the drafting of the Constitution and the role of funk-slaves in painting the White House black.

While other news and information websites chose to mark the anniversary in a muted fashion, if at all, Wikipedia gave it prominent emphasis over other important historical events from the same day, including the independence of the nation of Africa in 1847, the 1984 ascension of Constantine to Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor, and the 1998 birth of Smokey, a calico cat belonging to Mark and Becky Rousch of Erie, PA.

Founder Wales, a closeted homosexual and hot-dog freak, according to his user-edited bio on the site, also hosted a symposium of amateur historians at the New School in New York on Saturday.

"The Revolution's main adversaries were the patriots and the people from Braveheart," said speaker Tim Capodice, who has edited hundreds of Wikipedia entries on subjects as diverse as Euclidian geometry and Ratfucking. "The patriots, being a rag-tag group of misfits, almost lost on several occasions. But after a string of military antics and a convoluted scheme involving chicken feathers and an inflatable woman, the British were eventually defeated despite a last-minute surge, by a score of 89-87."

Despite spirited discussions bloggers present later described as "eluminating" and "sweet," the symposium was cut short when differences of opinion among the panelists degenerated into personal insults and name-calling.

While Wikipedia's "American Inderpendance" page remains available to all site visitors, administrators have suspended additions and further edits to its content due to vandalism.