Floridicana: New Year's Day 2010

Lily pads in Al Lopez Park,

Homosassa Springs--6 captive rehabbed manatees in a spring and several dozen wild manatees in the river a few yards away--huddled just below the shallow surface of warm tanic waters like river pigs, occasionally their snouts break the surface, snuffle, and then submerge again.

P.O.D Folly Beach pier -- from Melanie. Charleston, Christmas 09

Folly Beach pier pigeon for Amber
Originally uploaded by joie de poulpe

More Floridicana holidays

Ohmn nom nom

Zombie folk rock meets Office Space. Jonathan Coulton's zombies stagger around a mall, but I prefer to think of it as an airport.



This has inspired a part II to the emo poem I wrote when K and I first met. Now, five years into the relationship, it's all about the undead. Here's part of it:


After 1

Remove contact
cataract night glasses

K’s mouth
is just a black
hole in his face

dream I ate his brain
and our fight
diffused by morning

4686868 bytes transmitted in
58 seconds our brain,
the cat puts a parasite in

so we love him more, suffer
the rug with litter and
his gastric juices

Shadow, the oldest cat K brought
to our cohabitance and a corpse
already under the floorboard

heart heart
burrow in
become zero

Monsters and Models and Mutant DNA or Aliens, Ordinary Girls and Auxiliary Bodies

This comment is from an article on how disability figures in the new film Avatar--in which a paraplegic lead character is able to merge his mind with a proxy body thanks to recombinant DNA.

J. Scott Richards, director of research at the Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Center at the University of Alabama, said Sully's character flaws in "Avatar" also made the film appealing.

"The other thing that people in wheelchairs might appreciate is having a key character who is not a super achiever," said Richards, who counsels patients after spinal cord injuries.

Richards said Hollywood portrays extremes when it shows characters with disabilities: "A physically achieving athlete in a wheelchair, or the opposite end of that -- someone who is miserable and has a horrible life.

"I'd much rather see the middle of the road. Where people are just people but they happen to be in a wheelchair," he said.

The oddest thing is--alongside this view point, just to the left of the actual paragraph containing the comment by Richards, is a glossy headshot of Muha as Miss Wheelchair USA.

Muha does say of the Avatar paraplegic character, "He would rather stay on this island with smoke monsters than go back to Earth in a wheelchair," said [Satina] Muha. "Me? I would pick to stay here with my friends and family."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/wheelchair-users-applaud-avatars-parapalegic-character/story?id=9505175