virtualDavis

When it rains it pours. A month and a half of drought; then a deluge. That’s life! Yes, I’m back sooner than expected with a couple of collectibles that I couldn’t let slip through my fingers without passing them along. And knowing where they’d be when I came looking for them later.

First off, is it late? Are you tired? Are your eyes pretty well shot from looking at the screen for too long. Then check this out. Optical illusion to dazzle and dizzify you… And before I let you slip into total disorientation, here’s another handy tool to have up your sleeve, the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.

Do you know them all? Give it a try: Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey X-ray Yankee Zulu Now test yourself. Spell your name. Or spell your address… Good night.

Would you, could you, should you believe it? It’s true. Life’s been happening, oh-so-happening, and I’ve scarcely grazed the surface in my blog. The adventurous will know better, but for you, the sedate, the loyal, the unadventurous, I’ll apply the digits to the keyboard for an instant. No updates. Just a slap-dash drop-in zinger of the here and now.

So to start, how about taking the load off your shoulders and slipping into your ballet slippers for a little shuffle around your desk. Here’s a song and video to inspire the uninspired.

Now that you’ve restored your levity quotient, on to other tidy news-bits. Watched “About Schmidt” two nights ago. Ugh and wow, at once. Downer. And so clever about it. Great work. I highly recommend.

And then, even more delightful, in a different strain altogether and with a far more memorable soundtrack is Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” which will pull you out of your stupor and dazzle you with Parisian psychedelics of a sometimes racy, sometimes quaint, mostly lucid and totally engaging variety. It’s been released NC-17, a tolerable compromise to not cutting the original film. Also check out www.the-dreamers.com which dishes up a cool multi-media digital story complete with creative click navigation.

Also recently picked up Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors: A Memoir. I’d read Sellevision on the suggestion of a friend, a check-in on what young authors are writing and selling. Tripe, I thought at first, but gradually yielded to the entertaining, irreverent prose. A gas! Enough to propel me to purchase Running with Scissors: A Memoir, optimistic that this earlier work will be as engaging. His characters in the novel are all caricatures, and his memoir seems to do the same, despite its apparent status as non-fiction. Verdict’s still out. Thoughts?