all the mandelas.

Remind me to tell you about the shockingly entertaining Henry Rollins talk I went to last night (for free). I'd always kind of thought that he was an obnoxious, unfunny macho meathead, but last night he filled 3 hours with what is probably the funniest, most engaging public speaking I've ever seen, and I've seen plenty (hitches up pants above waistline and blows nose violently into a cloth handkerchief). Plus he's a pretty killing impressionist (as in, he does impressions), or maybe that's called a mimic if you're not so serious about it. Whatever, consider me converted. Maybe I don't know everything.

(ETA: After a little bit of research, I've decided that he wasn't always as good as he is right now. In fact, even as recently as 2004, he sounds pretty much like Evan, Mara's younger cousin, used to sound: amusing, engaging, deeply knowledgeable about certain deeply geeky subjects, highly opinionated, a little obnoxious and basically putting on a show every time he opens his mouth, but without being quite as funny or smart as he wants to be. This is fine if you're out in the backyard grilling, but not something I'd pay money for, and definitely not something I could imagine listening to 3 hours of. So, maybe I just caught him on a really good night at the Paradiso.)

There was a howler of a segment about what we can expect from Mr. Bush's English now that Karl Rove is not around to organize Bush's thoughts (this is but one recent revealing/terrifying example). Mr. Rollins likened English words to sheep grazing in a pen inside Bush's mind. Rove the shepherd used to keep the pen shut and the sheep tended, but now the gate to the pen is open and the sheep are roaming freely over the countryside, eating garbage and standing on cars, and there's absolutely no telling what they'll do next, so these are exciting times.

+++

Chinese cooking coming along sizzlingly, ha. Below is today's lunch: pork with sichuan mustard greens and peanuts, and broccoli with oyster sauce (and a leeeetle butter). This pork was 100% simple and cheap, plus them mustard greens is supposed to be mighty healthful. The pork recipe came out of my newest Chinese cookbook (which one? get it, Wei Chuan, ahahahahahaha), which is a dang sight more useful than my first one. Anyway, I'll be making this pork again.

















And Mara made this last night out of beans and a shirt (the below photo, not the above photo). In about 10 minutes. If only there were some kind of Top Creature Maker contest or something like Ready, Steady...Make a Creature! She'd dominate them like she does me.