ok, it took a little while, and i had to use the archive.org link, but here is a fresh link to the ugliest words in the english language from a strictly linguistic point of view. i found other lists but they’re pretty amateur and nonscientific, they didn’t even have BUTTOCK.

oh, and little andrew informs me that the comic book is called THRESH, which isn’t ugly, but is a good “pretty word / weird meaning” selection, like DIARRHEA and CUSPIDOR.

still chuggin’ on this grant, which interjects at a well-trod fujichia fiasco node, being that 1,) i need a single specific project to bump, and 2,) i need to talk about it like it’s peanut butter or some other life-altering thing, knowing that people know that i know that it’s not. also it has to be something that i not care about enough to just up and do until nine months from now (when they announce the winners) and it has to be something that doesn’t really make money (for reasons i won’t go into right now). it’s cool, i still have a good 23 hours until it’s due. my connectch told me that they fund miles and miles of exactly the sort of dumb shit you’d think they would, and the only thing between me and the money is my ability to talk like i deserve it, in the money language that they speak. fuuuuuckk.

went out for a brain-cleaning walk and a stop at coffee shop to read more yesterday’s answers, and wound up buying jam at the supermarket and running into annie and dave p. some classic old lady rolled up to annie and demanded to know what happened to her face (annie has two lower lip piercings) and didn’t she know that that metal was going to “go right through [her] body” (?) ? annie told her she was turning into a cyborg, the lady was disgusted with us, saying we’d be sorry. i told her “life’s for living”. it ruled. i love supermarket encounters!

incidentally, the crossword oracle was surprisingly on point today– i got INTO ATOM (compare with INFRA ELLE ATOM from a few days ago), CURRY FAVOR NOTE, TRAPS INGENIOUS, LOOP SAGEADVICE, USUAL RARE GOOP, MINTEDITION VAT, and both ORANGES ESP SST and STEM SSTS FLEET (from two different puzzles).

drawing above by james mcshane, of something i think about constantly. it happened to him, he said it was “not that bad”.

randa has a vegan baked-good company called “barely legal” and her products have (mostly) radical political names. i think she finally ran out of steam in the naming department, now she calls me every other week and describes the goods, and i tell her what they are called. as it turn out, it’s something i’m quite good at it. the last time there was an almond cookie and a lemony cupcake, i went with “against almond authority” and “armed rezestance”. today there was a kiwi coconut cupcake, a chocolate-covered “avacado-cardamom surprise” cupcake, and something with orange pudding; i went with “anarkiwi cupcake” (somewhat obvious), “green scare”, and “Al Gorange”, which is gross but whatever. i get paid in food.

had to jump this out of the links sidebar, for those that get the feed but not the del.feed: mega mix of bomb squad instrumentals - 3 hours worth of epic material. been looking for this for a while now. bomb squad is ENORMOUS.

this came up the other day, but today i finally looked up “138″ and what it means (in re: the misfits “we are 138“). i guess a casual glance at the lyrics makes it evident that it’s in reference to george lucas’ “THX 1138″, but the we are 138 wiki has a lot of way better ideas, including but not limited to:

• Some say that 138 is the Police code for “Drunk and Disorderly conduct”.

• 138 is the highest The Misfits had come on “the charts” at the time.
• It’s about sex (69 x 2 = 138).
• It’s police code for grave robbing.
• In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, the number 138 is said to refer to any ghoulish display of horror.
• The song refers to the year 138 A.D., in which the Roman emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius on condition that Antoninus adopt Marcus Annius Aurelius Verus. The song is told from the perspective of Marcus Aurelius.
• The song refers to the asteroid 138 Tolosa, which was first observed by Henri Joseph Perrotin on June 23, 1875, exactly 85 years before Danzig’s birth.
• It means nothing.
• In Rocky III, there were 139 men auditioned for the role of “Thunderlips,” a role which eventually went to Hulk Hogan. The song is from the perspective of the men who didn’t get the role. This also explains the mention in the song of “Eye of the Tiger”.
• The “1″ represents a penis, the “3″ a scrotum, and the “8″ a pair of breasts, symbolizing that Danzig feels like an objectified, sexualized piece of meat.
• Killing without emotion.
• It was the number of Danzig’s father’s remarkably violent military unit in World War II.

i had heard the “killing without emotion” one, but i forget in what system 138 is code for just that. my favorite of course is the third from last, which reminds me of cool breeze’s “make 13 = pull someone’s pants and underpants down”. see also 138 openings to wisdom and just 138 words.

last night’s show at mystery train was great. we got there late and unfortunately missed ben hersey, who i had been psyched to see, but transit always takes longer than you think to arrange, even if you plan on it taking longer than you think. in this instance we borrowed a van from joanne, who is a dear and the van worked superb.

anyway like i said we missed ben, which was a bummer. bromp treb was awesome as always– matt carroll said he had “the stage presence of leatherface” which was pretty accurate i think, if you were to raise leatherface in a friendly environment with music everywhere instead of people’s disconnected body parts. i played ok but made a few mistakes and the terribles played great, as they always do really good in small enclosed spaces.

mystery train is a record store and i shopped during the stonewall jackson set. i got an elvin jones record, and on the way home i realized that i like elvin jones because of this one picture from (i think) serious as you life, where he’s wearing a corduroy jacket. i got this record (”the main force”) because he’s wearing a yellow tshirt that says “ELVIN” in iron-on letters, and there’s a song called “song of rejoicing after returning from a hunt”. but it’s not super-great– he’s good but the other dudes (who he selected, presumably) really M the B. i could’ve listened to the records there, but i don’t like to do this too much. i got a bunch of other records too but i haven’t listened to them yet, except capt beefheart “ice cream for crow”, which i’m listening to now. i got it because of the title. because of crow.

oh, also, divine “jungle jezebel”, teddy fire “fluxing headset man” (signed!), noise nomads s/t (full platter on RRR), ornette “the great london concert” (which i got because there’s a song “Dough Nuts”, and because i’ve been playing to hell the golden circle record). maybe i shouldn’t be spending money but i’d rather have these records and eat peanut butter an jelly for a week than not.

LET’S FUCKING GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

more pictures of shit getting stacked up after the break.
(more…)

” Almost everything goes wrong; and these humorous mishaps result in the bartender playing his environment like a bagpipe. “

that’s right- gearing up to watch cremaster 3 this sunday, at, oh, 6:00. if you’re in it, let’s win it.

cremaster 3 is three hours long and involves architecture, masonry, ireland, the sea, the 1930s, five 1967 Chrysler Crown Imperials, cement, beautiful paraplegics, horses, zombies, genitals that resemble a splash or sea anemone, richard serra, the guggenheim, Agnostic Front and Murphy’s Law (preparatory sketches indicate Barney originally wanted to use Boston Hardcore band SSD instead of Murphy’s Law, which would have added an additional layer of meaning due to the rivalry between the New York and Boston hardcore scenes), prolapsed intestines, vaseline (duh), and half-human satyrs (duh). cremaster 3 was the last movie in the series to be made, and references the other four movies quite heavily, but we’ve been watching them in numerical order, not chronological order, so there are going to be parts here where we’re all going to be in the dark.

the main themes of Cremaster 3 are Narcissism and hubris.

if you want to read a complete synopsis on cremaster 3 (which if anything else will prepare you with a list of topics to investigate on your own so that you can bring as much as you can to the movie and get the most out of it), see:
http://www.cremasterfanatic.com/Synopsis3.html and http://www.cremaster.net/crem3.htm.

i jusst got the last ghostface album, it’s good. cats been peeing on my laundry, not cool. getting donuts today, that’s good. eating sugar again in moderation but this is what i put on my cereal: powdered ginger, cinnamon, fennel, saffron, cardamom. new t-shirt design for the junk shoppe, it’s just the crass font, white on black, the whole alphabet. dip!

work to do…

amazon has a book search feature where it displays “statistically improbable phrases”– phrases that occur more in the book in question than in any other book. there’s a newly republished harry stephen keeler book called the case of the 16 beans and the SIPs are “copper fingers” and “materials room”.

some other statistically improbable phrases: amongst others, don quixote gets “everything your grace”, “three nightcaps”, “errant chivalry”, “lion keeper”, “enchanted head”, “enamored knight”, “jalousied window”, “lady the duchess”, “six reales”, “sorrowful face”, “good squire”, “knight errantry”, “captive knight”, and “virtuous desire”. leonardr’s “beginning python” includes “omelet class”, “gui queue”, “meal module”, “pickle file”, and “persistent dictionary”. borges “ficciones” gets “pink corner”, “circular ruins”, “blue tiger”, “forking paths”, “knife fighters”. most of these are titles of stories, but “knife fighters” isn’t, and that’s a good one. tale of two cities gets “immovable close”, “eight great towers”, “dun médecin”, “wigged gentleman”, “honest tradesman”, and “monthly parts”. “wigged gentleman” is good.

the search is limited to books with the once-controversial “search inside” feature, so there’s a lot of books you can’t boil down in this way. anyway if you find a good one let’s hear it.

also, if anyone wants to get me a present, i’d really like that keeler book.

yes, it’s that time of the year again, in between thanksgiving and new years, when we celebrate that most holy of days- international hat day. this is an international holiday that over 80% of the population celebrate, in which we wear hats and try on new hats, and maybe we buy a new hat, or we lose an old hat on the bus, or it blows off in the street and we don’t run after it, we just stand there and wave, and maybe say something like “so long, hat!”. this year there will be a special ceremony at the store, with music by our own very good friend GREG GREG, and microwave food (as is the custom). we have a lot of hats at the shop, including SPECIAL HATS made just for this occasion, so please arrive hatless and plan to leave hatted. also if you have any food you would like microwaved, please bring some to share (no meat, please!). we will also have a takeaway checklist of activities for the celebration of international hat day (which is really just the first day of international hats of the-world-as-it-could-be week, which runs friday to friday). in this way you can really get the most out of all the international hat festivities, and build up from the mellow life-changements of international hat day to the “big picture” slopfest that is new year’s eve.

remember, whether it’s a chapeau, lid, busby, shako, bearskin, boater, leghorn, straw hat, Panama, sailor, skimmer, bonnet, derby, plug hat, bowler, cavalier, ten-gallon, deerstalker, dress hat, opera hat, silk hat, top hat, stovepipe, high hat, beaver, topper, dunce cap, fedora, felt hat, homburg, Stetson, trilby, snap-brim, sombrero, sou’wester, toque, tyrolean, hardhat, baseball cap, tiny brim, dreadbag, homburg, mortarboard, porkpie, ushanka, or fez, whatever you call it, if you put it on the top of your head and it isn’t a wig or fake beard (and it isn’t a hair accessory) (and it’s a hat), then it’s a hat, and even if you can’t come visit the store, i hope you still have a good holiday.

i got a ride up to portland maine with nasty nacho and little andrew, and thanksgiving was nice with my sister and brurinlaw and his family, and now i’m that antsy i always get when i’m still away from my myriad projects / modes. moreover dawn riddle my future girlfriend is right now in worcester where i’m not and bound to leave before i arrive. we have of course never met. hi dawn! today i watched that new crispin glover movie “beowulf” and ate a seriously lackluster burrito. i hope you did something good too like throw rocks at a tree for two hours.

prjects lately of note include the split LP with dan beckman (the corle web site did indeed leak the tentative name “void faith” (or “faith void”?)), the split book with empty mountain (”garbage strike”), the future of the store, a new company, and finally an internet t-shirt website with follow-through. GEEZ! trying to get back into writing writing and not just how was your day dear, also in serious need of a spirit kwest / naming ceremony. not making sense is a loose but seemingly appropriate start towards both these knowingly slippery ends, but of course you can’t keep spaghettiing around forever. ok, see you back in the town house.