Friday: Hili dialogue

October 12, 2018 • 6:30 am

by Grania

Good morning and welcome to Friday! Here in Ireland the sky is black with Storm Callum. Where I live it’s only been wet and windy, but other parts have had it worse.

Something else weird in the world today is there is a new Leonard Cohen posthumous poetry collection which features a poem called “Kanye West Is Not Picasso”. I am simultaneously laughing and face-palming. It’s like the most epic Get Of My Lawn rant ever.


The birthdays of the day are: 1008 – Go-Ichijō, emperor of Japan (d. 1036); 1875 – Aleister Crowley, English magician, charlatan and author (d. 1947); 1865 – Arthur Harden, English biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940); 1929 – Nappy Brown, American R&B singer-songwriter (d. 2008); 1934 – James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2012); 1968 – Hugh Jackman, Australian actor, singer, and producer.

That gives us a reason to listen to these three pieces of music.

Hugh playing at being a good ole Oklahoma homie.

James Sugar boy Crawford with his most famous song Jock-a-mo.

And Nappy Brown’s Don’t be angry.

In history today in 1979 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams was published. In 1984 – Brighton hotel bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army attempted to assassinate UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. The bomb killed five people and wounded 31. In 1994 the Magellan spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere of Venus. In 2017 the United States announced its decision to withdraw from UNESCO. (Yes, that last one is Trump finally hitting the Today In History segment, god save us all.))

Hili may be fibbing this morning. Or she may not.

A: Hili, what are you doing?
Hili: I’m eavesdropping on two moles talking.

In Polish:

Ja: Hili, co ty robisz?
Hili: Podsluchuję rozmowę dwóch kretów.

 

The pick of Twitter for your delectation.

Interesting stuff

You must turn up the sound for this one.

Matthew asks some good questions.

A fascinating desert ant.

Weevils

Click through and watch this video, it’s amazing and hypnotic.

Some eyes have bones

The ISS

Animals being cute

A pose a cat should not be able to manage.

How to make your pet finally earn their keep.

And stuff that can only make you worry for humanity. Fox News evidently has a hard time distinguishing between “acting” and “real life”.

Sorry.

The sort of agility you don’t see every day.

This does seem a little like overkill.

https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/1050084807898791937

 

 

Hat-tip: Barry L. and Matthew.

28 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. “Jock-a-Mo” is widely known in the States as “Iko Iko.” It’s a staple of the New Orleans music scene. I think the first time I came across it was Dr. John’s cover:

    2. Crawford recorded it in the 1950s with his band Sugar Boy and his Cane Cutters – as Jock-A-Mo. The Dixie Cups had a hit with it in the a960s as Iko Iko. The version I am most familiar with is from the Grateful Dead. Sometimes they would do a whole calypso thing with Iko Iko, Day O and Woman Smarter. Most fun when the Neville Brothers joined them on stage. There is one version with the Nevilles and the Bangles.

  2. Looks like Ireland will have a turn with Hurricane Michael in coming days with winds of 150km/h.

      1. Looks to be tracking along the same path as the Gulf Stream. Its steering currents are responding to the same coriolis effects, I suppose.

    2. Hurricane Michael will die when it hits the cold waters of the North Atlantic. It hit the Florida panhandle with winds of 250 kph (155mph). It was almost a category 5 when it hit land. It moved back over the Atlantic about 5am (Eastern Time) this morning. It is now a post tropical low. It is supposed to be off Europe, but south of Ireland, by Monday.
      https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/10/12/hurricane-michael-where-storm-now-what-we-know-damage/1611783002/

      There are two more Hurricanes headed for the US right now. Nadine is expected to dissipate while Leslie is expected to strengthen.
      https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

  3. The happy dog clip was great – someone needs to tell Theresa May and Boris Johnson THAT’S how to run through a field of wheat!

  4. The busker with the football is just incredible. One of the most impressive acts I’ve seen, I think.

    cr

      1. Not to mention the heteronormativity of football and the colonial transnormative othering of marginalized queer …. ummm….

        gah. I can’t do it. How the hell do people write like this and not throw up?

        1. Oh dear lord! You are so right, how could I have missed it? The semiotics of two-spirited genderqueer aversion are so plain, so so plain.

    2. Same here. “Incredible” is the word that came to my mind too, and the most amazing act of its type I’ve ever seen. The skills and strength need to pull that off are huge. I’m not sure an Olympic gymnast could do it.

  6. Spider dog: I love how the doggie wearing the spider cossie pauses at the threshold on the Hallowe’en doormat as if to wipe its feets.

    Puffin backing up to apparently get her brolly: Gif 2nd half frames = 1st half frames, but reordered in reverse

    1. Oh gods. IF the quotes given in that article are representative, the bullshit quotient of the editorial is approaching 100%.

      I really hope, when I drive over a bridge, that it was designed on good scientific engineering principles (with all their reprehensible discrimination-perpetuating faults), uncontaminated by socially sensitive math-lite touchy-feely gobbledegook.

      cr

      1. I had my suspicions of that site at PJ Media so I followed the link to the original editorial

        https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42330-018-0020-5

        and it’s even worse than I suspected.

        The entire paper is a mishmash of pomo gobbledegook. Take any sentence at random – “There are now multiple productive exemplars which critically engage methodological processes to disrupt and displace restrictive norms which linger and lurk with/in educational research and its concepts which left unchecked (re)articulate forms of oppressive power.” (That really was random, the whole thing is like that). I’d say a brain that could produce such contorted, opaque jargon is quite unsuited to the clear logical thought required by science/engineering.

        Richard Dawkins’ critique of 20 years ago is still, sadly, absolutely applicable:
        ‘Postmodernism Disrobed’
        http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/dawkins.html

        cr

  10. I drove from Fort William to Edinburgh this morning through those winds! Buffeting, but still the ride through Glen Coe and the Grampian Mountains was spectacular.

    1. I’ll bet it was! There’s something exhilarating about driving through wild scenery in wild weather.

      cr

  11. Love that poem and love Leonard Cohen! What a gem.

    I remain confused to this day why Kanye West is considered to be a “genius.” Then again, that word has become so watered down as to be meaningless. Everything is “genius” nowadays, especially if it has the right political message (this no longer includes Kanye!), no matter how tritely written the treacle or poorly produced the art.

    1. Kanye has bi-polar disorder and is currently off his meds He’s in a bad way at the moment and this isn’t the time for Trump to be parading him in the Oval Office trying to get African-American votes. We should be feeling sorry for Kanye, and he/his family should be arranging treatment. He’s spoken publicly about his illness, and is aware that something is currently wrong.

      Trump has no excuse for his behaviour.

      1. I did not know that about Mr. West. Bi-polar disorder can make people do terrible things that they would never do when in a sound state of mind.

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