Words are inadequate

My favorite highway interchange: "There's even a train station in there somewhere."

Brown Out: the true story of Van Halen's "no brown M&Ms" clause. Absolutely bloody brilliant.

Via rislyn, Depression's Evolutionary Roots. I need to read this again before I can have anything coherent to say on it, I think. It's. . . thought-provoking.

"'The primary difference between these two subspecies of Formicidae is that the one on the left has longer legs and therefore a greater height from the ground,' Tom Swift said tolerantly." --xiphias

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I had a really good time last weekend, for uilos-definitions of "weekend." Wednesday night I took her out to dinner at Kazan, where by sheerest coincidence we were joined by a dozen other cool people. Then we went back to the apartment for cake and games and "please take some of these books away now."

Thursday and Friday were slow, though I did get a decent bit of writing done. Satyrday we went out to Reston for some gaming, and also to retrieve an 8x8 pan that we'd left somewhere last October. (I know it was October because we also got a jar of roasted pumpkin seeds we'd forgotten we left, which she pronounced "stale, but edible.") Played a dogsled-racing game twice, which is good: the first time I thought it was great, the second I could see ways in which it irritated me, so now I won't need to pick up my own copy. And other good stuff as well, of course.

(Unfortunately I think that the intense climate changes between rooms in the house in Reston caused me to come down with a summer cold. The space under my eyes is filled with sand and I've been a little drifty the past couple days.)

Sunday continued the weekend's tradition of being pretty darn cool. We slept very late and lazed around a lot, and eventually made it out to Adams Morgan to meet tamnonlinear at DC Tribal Cafe. I'm a little surprised by how much I enjoy watching the dancers. Something about the flow of movement, and the energy, and the beat of the music. It's entrancing, and sexy in a way that's more "oh, nice" than "WANT," and it pulls me out of myself in a way that not much else does.

Also stopped in the used bookstore next door, which has some of the oddest stuff. I found an archy and mehitabel collection, and a volume of Piet Hein's Grooks, which always make me happy.

Last night we buried Keishi out in the woods. I haven't anything else to say about that, really, but it feels wrong to let it pass without notice.

Tomorrow I get on a plane to go spend a wonderful week with nixve, and then the weekend after I get back I'll be camping at Assateague. The back half of September, however, is suspiciously empty. For now.

It is so very good to have my keyboard and trackball back. Have I mentioned that? It just is. Keys are where they ought to be. Typing's more accurate, and editing speed increases by, oh, about ten times.

I've more or less given up on ICQ and have switched over to gchat. I'm told that it interacts acceptably well with AIM/ICQ/what have you; haven't tried this myself. So, if you want to find me, it's jazzfishzen at EDITgoogle's mail service.

The Ansel Adams exhibit at the Corcoran was a delight and a revelation. I instinctively try to put my experiences into words, to name them and understand them and keep them with me. When I'm confronted by things that resist verbalization-- the Dale Chihuly sculptures or the Veiled Rebekah in Atlanta, a sunrise like a nosebleed, my first cup of really good tea-- I get overwhelmed pretty quickly. My brain keeps trying to assign meaning and comprehension to smaller parts of the whole until it shuts down altogether and I end up just kind of staring, trying to take it all in.

(Of course, if I'm in the right mood I can get lost admiring a wrought iron fence or a broken headstone. It's getting there that's the hard part.)

Much of the exhibit was like that. There was a particular print, of a pine tree in a light rain framed by Yosemite Valley, that I've not been able to find online but that utterly transfixed me. (It was right between two amazing lake-reflection shots, which didn't hurt.) Rose and Driftwood, too. Things like that. It's . . . disconcerting, to be that out of myself in the middle of a huge crowd.

Viewing the prints online there's a sense of coldness, of distance, that's not there in person. Or, it is, but it's not bitterly cold, nor unattainably distant. The photos take you with them, leaving everything else behind.

Also, damn that man knew his way around a darkroom.