The title comes from an approximation of the words spoken by American correspondents in Baghdad at the time the first bombs started falling… A friend of mine was giving a performance that night, a modernist electronic piece who’s name escapes me, but it calls for randomly-selected radio frequencies to be played at varied intervals over a mixed electronic and piano score. As he relayed to me soon after, on that night, every radio station that he tuned into that was carrying a broadcast was carrying the same live broadcast of that first bombing run.

He sat down at the piano, poised his hands above the keys, and the first radio signal that was broadcast right before he started playing was the CNN correspondent hearing the first explosions and anti-aircraft fire of the air war.

Twenty years ago, on this night, my friend gave one of the piano performances of his life, accompanied by air raid siren, ack-ack, and high-tech explosions. Music/static/bombing/static/music/bombing/music/static, for the entire piece.

“Wait, I think I hear a sound…”

It’s an unremarkable photo, really. Taken in 1910, it depicts a parlor or sitting room of some kind, overstuffed as only the wealthy Edwardians could do: damask and brocade everywhere, plaster rosettes and swags on the ceiling and wall panels, imported tiles on the fireplace, a tiger-skin rug. It’s really Gilded Age excess at its finest, workers-and-students-unite, to-the-barricades, excessiest:

But it isn’t the photo as such that provided the geode moment. Sure, this would be the perfect setting for a Holmes vs. Moriarty encounter, or an outtake from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but those tropes are pretty well established. No, it was the photo’s caption:

High tech, 1910 style
Inside the childhood home of Huguette Clark. The Fifth Avenue mansion was a high-tech marvel for 1910, with electricity and central air conditioning. Powering it required seven tons of coal per day, brought in by the Clarks’ private subway line. (The New York Times)

Did you see it there? A private subway line. Where did it go? How many stops did it have? How many other private subways and rail lines were there under NYC? It wouldn’t have to be that big of a train – 7 tons of coal would need 300 or so cubic feet of space – but still… Private rail lines! Under Manhattan! And, implicitly, private steam generating plants! What more could a mad, Victorian genius want?

And for me, this will just be an irritation, a nagging little factoid laden with imagery and implications, begging to be incorporated into some steampunk fantasy or Victorian noir. Such beggary will fall on deaf ears; it joins a host of ignored, neglected, or otherwise ill-treated images, anecdotes, and impressions. The hidden shininess will have to wait for someone else to discover it.

Thin this, motherfucker.

Oh, sure. Now that you’ve been caught, you say you meant it metaphorically and hit “Share” too soon. Given that these:

have been around for a while (and are hot sellers at mainstream conservative events like CPAC), let’s just say I’m not buying it.

And while you’re at it, howzabout you take a look at the Wikipedia summary of “The Most Dangerous Game,” eh? If you feel up to it, personally I’d recommend the actual story – but based on your professed inability to operate Facebook’s UI, I’m assuming you’ll find the summary easier to handle.

I can look at his work now and cringe at the sexist and racist tropes he employed – but to a pre-teen boy, his work seemed like my internal visions brought to light.

Please stop wasting my time with this shit.

Congenially yours,

static

Diploma mill and mail-order bride spam is boring. Mail-order groom spam would be a welcome relief to the monotony.

This evening’s blast from the past was brought to you by my referrer log…

Remember that jackass troll, John H McConnel Jr and his third-rate social networking site, UnderpantsGnomesLifestyle.com eCountryLifestyle.com? I got a visitor tonight who was referred here by a Google search for eCountryLifestyle.com, and yes, I’m still in the first few results for that abomination.

Evidently they crashed and burned. Who would have guessed?

Clearly I’m a small-minded fool who doesn’t understand the internet.

Because, you know, sometimes you just have to nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.