I have Heard The Mermaids Singing

MERMAIDS HAS MOVED!

2011-04-17T19:08:00.000-04:00

This blog is now located at HTTP://JACKCURTIN.WORDPRESS.COM.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Packing up, moving on.

2011-04-10T17:56:00.000-04:00

I am combining Mermaids with my Great Disconnect site (I may or may not be able to move all of the content here over there) to make life easier for me. I find that the recent improvements at WordPress make it a more desirable host so that I will be using that URL and this logo. Sounds weird? Hey, you knew the risks coming in, right?

Use this URL to continue to be part of the Mermaids family. For the squeamish, I'll make it easier for you to identify and skip over my political rants in the new digs, so it's win/win.

OMG, OED ♥’s LOL.

2011-04-10T13:29:00.000-04:00

FYI...

For the March 2011 release of OED Online, we have selected for publication a number of noteworthy initialisms—abbreviations consisting of the initial letters of a name or expression. Some of these—such as OMG [OMG int. (and n.) and adj.]: ‘Oh my God’ (or sometimes ‘gosh’, ‘goodness’, etc.) and LOL [LOL int. and n./2]: ‘laughing out loud’—are strongly associated with the language of electronic communications (email, texting, social networks, blogs, and so on). They join other entries of this sort: IMHO (‘in my humble opinion’) [IMHO at I n./1], TMI (‘too much information’) [TMI at T n.], and BFF (‘best friends forever’) [BFF at B n.], among others.

[ ... ]

The new sense added to heart v. in this update may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers. It originated as a humorous reference to logos featuring a picture of a heart as a symbol for the verb love, like that of the famous ‘I ♥ NY’ tourism campaign. Our earliest quote for this use, from 1984, uses the verb in ‘I heart my dog’s head’, a jokey play on bumper stickers featuring a heart and a picture of the face of a particular breed of dog (expressing a person’s enthusiasm for, say, shih-tzus) which itself became a popular bumper sticker. From these beginnings, heart v. has gone on to live an existence in more traditional genres of literature as a colloquial synonym for ‘to love’.

WTF?

Whether you consider this a further debasement of the language or a much appreciated academic acceptance of changing conventions is a matter of personal choice, of course. In my heart of heart, I lean toward the first conclusion but then I keep reminding myself that I pledged long ago not to be one of those old men who bitched about the way it used to be and refuse to be irate or contrarian.

I will say that the Twitter-ization of communication does strike me as evidence of the increasing disintegration of levels of meaning, nuance and depth in human interaction and a condescension to a culture which prizes only the immediate and ignores, if not denies, history. The shining lights of the generation about to take over the world, for all their extraordinary accomplishments in many areas, appear to these tired old eyes to manifest brilliance without intellect.

And that is no LOL matter.

David Allan Coe.

2011-04-02T17:04:00.000-04:00

Another Steve Goodman classic.

The Saturday Kristofferson (an ongoing series)

2011-04-02T14:32:00.000-04:00

Been there, done that.

Lucinda Williams.

2011-04-01T20:40:00.002-04:00

(I posted this a while back as done by Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, but this is my favorite version)

Guy Clark..

2011-03-26T19:19:00.000-04:00

The day after.

2011-03-24T17:36:00.000-04:00

Three-year old Regan meets her new baby brother. Too cute not to share. But I'll stop now, promise.

Funny.

2011-03-22T19:04:00.000-04:00

The beat goes on.

2011-03-22T17:29:00.001-04:00

Marshall Addison Curtin, 7.4 lbs, arrived today in McCall, Idaho.

The future beckons.

2011-03-19T16:14:00.001-04:00

I fear this will happen with me and Buddy some day. And, to tell you the truth, my haircuts couldn't get any worse and I would really like one-a them bandannas.

I don't know who the old lady is, though.

Original cartoon here.

Netflix steps up.

2011-03-18T17:37:00.000-04:00

This is great news (if it works) for not only viewers but more so for creators, by which I mean writers. Also actors, I guess. The more venues the better.

The name of the game or the game of the name?

2011-03-17T20:52:00.001-04:00

There are two book titles which are so good, so evocative, so Just. Damn. Perfect. that I believe, if only I could steal them, I could write the perfect novel to fit under their banners.

One is Richard Farina's Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.

The other is Harlan Ellison's All The Lies That Are My Life.

Aside from both being very good non-fiction books, don't both their titles conjure up all sorts of stories and characters? Either could be a straight novel or crime novel or humorous novel or...the possibilities are endless.

At least, that's how I see it.

By the way, if I could control the way links show up here when they are book titles, this page would look a lot prettier. I say that now because I am about do do the uncontrollable think yet again.

In recent years, someone has come along who has written two consecutive (and excellent) novels with titles that have the same effect on my imagination.

Yeah, yeah, the authors may not have come up with the titles at all. Not the point.

The author is British novelist Kate Atkinson and her When Will There Be Good News? from 2008 is another evocative title similar to the above.

Her newest, just out, which arrived here last week, doesn't have the same range of possibilities as those three but it tickles my fancy (whatever that means; it has always struck me as fairly risque but it seems to be used by all sorts of proper folks so I am likely off base on that). It is titled Left Early, Took My Dog.

Actually, a fifth title that I see all sorts of possibilities for is the one I chose for my one attempt at a novel--Truth Is the Perfect Disguise. That tale bogged down around chapter five and I've not been able, either creatively or in terms of available time and supporting income, to concentrate on it exclusively enough. When your retirement plan way early death and you slipped right by it, you gotta work on paying work. A lot.

In part, I have also come to believe, the hangup is that isthe book I want to write does not fit the title. I am/was/have been working backasswards all along.

The title is a line from a Kris Kristofferson song, but if you enter it in Google, two of the top five references are my old website where those first chapters are posted (last updated in 2007) and Thrilling Detective Magazine, an excellent online site of crime fiction which published a version of the first three chapters way back in 1999.

Here it is in context:

Nightmares are somebody's daydreams
Daydreams are somebody's lies
Lies ain't no harder than tellin' the truth
Truth is the perfect disguise

In closing, let it be noted that I have absolutely no idea why I published this post or what its point is. It just sort of came out and I am too old to let all these words go to waste.

Is that you, Dennis?

2011-03-15T17:22:00.002-04:00

This man may, or may not, be my paternal grandfather, the mystery man I have been chasing around for what seems like forever but, in truth, is a just a sporadic exercise in frustration over the last couple of decades.

I have told the story here before (I think) about the search for Dennis Curtin. At one point, I was out to write a magazine story to be titled "The Lost Fortune of Dennis Curtin," having to do with a family legend (recorded in its basics in the West Chester Daily News many decades ago so there much truth in it) about lawyers in Paris seeking him out because of an "inheritance." He apparently told them to go pound sand when they wanted a fee for their services.

Working with the Curtin Clan Ancestry Centre and Margaret Curtain, an Australian who married into the family and is considered its master historian, I have finally pinned down a likely arrival date for Dennis on these shores (I have three documents he signed, including his citizenship application and marriage certificate, on which he gave three different dates for his arrival and age), but there seems no way to trace him back to Ireland accurately because family data, such as his having three brother does not match with anything anyone has yet been able to find.

A DNA test I took last year seems to show that the line of Curtins from which I have descended were likely from County Clare, which is the primary home of the line, but the connections are so distant in time that is not definite. Interestingly, that test similarly linked me to Margaret Curtain's husband.

All of which means nothing to you folks. It just felt like I should put Dennis (or Denis) or Not-Dennis (or Not-Denis) out there since I may, or may not, have found him. It probably has something to do with ancestral longing and all that.

And a good saloon in every single town: Gram & Emmylou

2011-03-13T14:31:00.002-04:00

True that.

2011-03-12T16:28:00.000-05:00

Received via email from a friend....

The Hillbilly Whisperer.

2011-03-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

If you are not watching Justified on FX, you really need to get your act together.

And they say they don't make good movies any more...

2011-03-04T17:58:00.001-05:00

Atlas Shrugged. Soon you'll be able to sing it in the shower...

I, for one, cannot wait.

Then again...

It is only fitting then that a movie version would follow. Two years earlier, in 2007, rumors began circulating that Angelina Jolie had been cast already as the novel’s heroine, Dagny Taggart. Indeed, Lionsgate Entertainment produced a version of the movie starring Jolie, though it never went into production.

So they "produced" a movie that "never went into production?"

This is Going Galt at a level I cannot even comprehend.

Fats.

2011-02-26T22:28:00.000-05:00

The girl with no pantyline.

2011-02-20T19:41:00.001-05:00

My life and welcome to it.

2011-02-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

That bad leg of mine which I thought was taken care of has proven to be immune to pain management treatments it seems, so I can identify with this. And still laugh. Sorta.

The original is here.

Bragging rights? Yeah, I can handle that.

2011-02-15T10:47:00.000-05:00

As it turns out, I happen to know a couple of really smart kids.

This email from my daughter arrived this morning (she sent it to my ex-wife and her husband's parents as well, of course, but I'm going with the idea that the genetics line refers directly to me because that's the kind of guy I am):

Thought I'd give you a little grandparent bragging opportunity! :-)

Second Marking Period for the Middle School and the High School just came to an end yielding straight A's for Ryan & Jack! Jack (Middle School) pulled straight A's and A+'s with a good course load including the advanced Math class. Ryan (High School) pulled straight A+'s and a 4.70 GPA with a FULL honors course load. All this and they managed to finish out another fun basketball season!

I credit good genetics.....

The only negative note here, as I told her in a return email, is that this is going to play hell with Jack's plans to drop out and become a struggling musician.

Life just isn't fair.

Also, well done, guys. I'm proud of you.

TV Worth Watching.

2011-02-12T12:31:00.001-05:00

Over at my Jacey Services website, I just posted news about shows past and, hopefully, future that appeal to me and might to many of you as well. Rather than repeat myself here, I'll just give you the link.

Wait. What?

2011-02-10T20:28:00.000-05:00

The February 14 cover-dated issue of Sports Illustrated, now on the stands,page 25, in the "Faces in the Crowd" feature:

[Micah] Mason, a junior [basketball] guard at Highland High [Natrona Heights, PA], went 40 for 43, scoring a record 63 points...

Best I can figure, he made two three-point shots and 38 of those very rare and difficult one-and-a-half point pointers.

This is not quite the way Buddy and I go for a walk, but it's close.

2011-02-08T15:09:00.000-05:00

See the original here.