It’s all downhill from here

Tomorrow at 2:38 AM my time is the summer solstice. It’s very interesting to consider that we are on a big hunk of rock hurtling around a star at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour. More interesting than that is the knowledge that every day from here is going to get shorter and shorter. I refer to the darkness of the Minnesota winter as Despair Time, but we are still a long way from that point. Believe me, I’ll let ya know.

Many funky traditions surround the solstice. I have always been very fond of the ancient traditions; not because I actually follow through on them but just that things seemed so much more fun until those silly Christians went and messed up all the holidays. Those wacky pagans think that the solstice is a great place to practice magic(k), but I’ve already expressed my skepticism for such things. Chumash lore indicates that the summer solstice is a great time to go to a sacred spot and check out their sacred star, which is an embodiment of a coyote. Interestingly enough, anthropologists believe that star is none other than Sirius, or the Dog Star. Romans believed that the appearance of Sirius marked the start of the Dog Days of Summer. Strange that cultures on opposite sides of the globe would attribute the same star to a Canine.

Hmmm. Coyotes. Well, now I’m going off on a tangent. I can tell. Coyotes will eat your cat, so be careful. And the Arizona department of game is not likely to reimburse you for it. But is it art? I often have a periodic rant against modern art and its reliance on the preconceptions of the audience to give it any meaning or worth. There was a performance artist named Joseph Beuys who was in a well known work of “art” called “I Love America and it Loves Me,” where he spent a week in a dark room in 1974 wrapped in felt and smeared with fat with nothing but himself and a coyote.

^{Everyday the 'Wall Street Journal' was delivered to the cage, upon which the coyote promptly relieved itself - thereby making a piece of art and coprophological critique of capitalism at one and the same time.}

It may not be art but it’s funny. Another funny piece of “art” involved this aborted sale of an artist’s hate on Ebay. They pulled the auction, but not before an interesting thing happened:

^{It was at this point that I noticed the price had risen from $0.25 to $26.00 to $51.00 and then, coming back from a long day at work, discovering a $50,100 bid. Which created several problems.
One: The bidder had no intention of purchasing the item. Two: Ebay charges a commission fee for any items sold. This left us in the hole for an estimate $687.00.
Contact with the offending bidder, a cell biology junior at UC Davis, revealed that he intended to pay, provided I could offer proof of delivery. Which, of course, we could not offer.
Ironically, he was recieving my hatred for free. At this stage, we were forced to cancel the bids, integrity of the "artwork" be damned.}

Stupid lynx

In case you ever get in there, here’s a a Prisoner’s Dictionary. I never knew there were so many code words for The Authorities.

A collection of WWII ads featuring women. This is interesting stuff. I especially like Odo-ro-no, a deodorant. Regular lasts for seven days a dose, and instant lasts for three days. I feel so ripped off; I have to put mine on every day.