http://www.blogstudio.com/stephenhead/index.html the usual en-us http://www.blogstudio.com/stephenhead/index.html http://www.blogstudio.com/BlogCSS.gif the usual http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1085436231015 Gloriana I have forgotten to mention that I spent Friday night down in "Southie" at a gala dinner held in honor of those who sweated and labored over the new - and as of writing, still unfinished - Boston Convention Center: and very nice it is too ... at least, the part completed so far is very nice. But so huge is the Convention Center that it was rather like attending a party thrown in an airport: "Could Mr Baldwin please pick up his chocolate eclairs at the dessert carousel located in te... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1085404142218 Death Comes For the Archbishop Having fortified myself with a brace of French 75's at Brasserie Jo, I re-arranged my face, straightened my tie, and - looking extremely out of place - joined the throng of eager hipsters who flocked towards the Berklee Performance Center like fervent, enraptured acolytes attending the Adoration of their Chosen One. I had been given a free ticket to see the lethargic and dreary music ensemble called Magnetic Fields. Comprised of a female "pianist" who also "s... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1085145919281 Shouts and Burpers In the tradition of Vogue Bambini, Teen People, Young Miss, and Junior Steam Engine Driver, it appears that the New Yorker is about to unveil a new magazine aimed at the pre-Adult market, it is to be called Upper East Side Creche. The first issue kicks off with an article written by three-year-old Seemore S.m.e.r.s.h concerning the abuse of action figures in a seventy-eighth street sand box, many of whom were stripped of their plastic coatings and left out in the rain wher... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1085082335750 La Mort I am troubled by dark, shapeless fears. Unable to sleep, I toss and turn in my bed all night long, flipping around beneath the covers like an expiring haddock on the deck of a Taiwanese trawler. And the haunting, mysterious, Sphinxish, cold sweat-inducing question I am forced to ask myself is this: When shuffling through a prophecying arrangement of Tarot cards, we are constantly assured by the kindly fortune teller that the Death card does not really signify "death" but actually mea... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1085058315203 Free To Those That Can Afford It. Very Expensive To Those That Can't Life was pretty cheap when I was alive. You could buy a whole good innings for under thirty grand - or less, if you were willing to put up with some malfunctioning parts. I knew one woman who purchased a seventy-five year life span and it only cost her a total of five thousand dollars after she had taken advantage of the Former Yugoslavia citizenship mail-in rebate offer. Yes sir, there were some sweet deals to be had back... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1085002047718 The Elfin Grot I imagine people - potential readers directed here by mis-google, one of my weblog pals, or by flickering chance - often arrive at this page and think, "What is this rubbish?" It's a good question: They were expecting grittily hard-nosed political punditry, perhaps? Or a blow by blow account of my day at the Dog Pound, where I volunteer to destroy the little puppies who are too ugly and mangy to find a decent home? Maybe they thought they might discover a personals-type adver... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084990995656 Deletion I have deleted everything I have written today for reasons not entirely disimilar to those given by Camus' famous character Mersault when asked why he infamously deleted his Arab - and with much the same sense of apathy and spiritual dislocation: "Ah," I hear you say, "What can ail thee, wretched Stephenhead, alone and palely loitering, what is really wrong?" Well, since you asked, this lack of inspiration certainly isn't connected with the sedge withering from the lake, that's for... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084897223296 As a general rule I am completely in favor of Western dominion o'er the people of the Earth via the Kiplingesque Method: the proud, autocratic handlebar moustache sandwiched between pith helmet and khaki shorts .. waving a bayonet and shouting. Alas, at the moment, we seem to have lost our shorts. Consequently, I find it shameful that so many conservative commentators insist, despite some rather dirty and shambolic knees plainly visible to the contrary, that Rumsfeld still looks great without... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084884336421 Donald Rumsfeld at the IMDB Donald Rumsfeld appears in the following movies: Can Story A can is on the ground and needs to be picked up so that we can all move past it. Unfortunately, Donald refuses to carry it and everybody gets anxious. (in Rumsfeldian with English subtitles) When Department of Defensosaurs Ruled the Earth Why does Rumsfeld always look like a desperate Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing spectacles whenever he lumbers up to a microphone to provide an skeptical world with his pitif... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084803900312 New York Attractions The first thing you notice about New York is the smell; a combination fo Parfum de Dolleur and Urine de Human. Had you been there on the exceedingly warm weekend just passed, then your olfactory senses might also have been offended by Armpit de Stephenhead, as he traipsed his sweaty way around a long list of art galleries and museums. For instance, I visited the Lucien Freud show. Here were paintings of naked people who looked either drugged or asleep. Lethargy, red in t... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084463014453 Powerful Ketchup Interests Speaketh Residents of Massachusetts will have noticed a major change in the tone and timbre of John Kerry's vocal delivery since he gained the Democratic Party Nomination. Gone is the gentle, man o' the people Greco-Baltic-Blarney idiolect of Kerry's senatorial cliches, to be replaced by the deep, clipped Presidential gravity of his present ridiculous platitudes; as if every single word he utters now is of such magnitude and importance that it should be engraved by... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084456622265 Ducks: A Reappraisal Far from being the affable, happy-go-lucky, lovable feathered chums of popular imagination, the children's book and the Easter parade, Ducks are actually vicious, spiteful creatures with a strong sanctimonious streak. Easily ruffled, they waddle around like a bunch of idle, overweight housewives with a permanent look of disgruntlement plastered across their miserable beaks. If you feed them bread they will snap it out of your fingers, flash an insincere smile, and then... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084376303187 Adventure ... Intrigue On Friday morning I shall travel to the isle of Manhattan for to engage in cultural pursuits and for to engorge in multicultural restaurants. The friend I am staying with lives in a modest building on the Upper East Side, her home adjacent to enormous mansions wherein reside persons of great wealth and self-importance: King Midas, should he touch everything he could lay his hands upon, just might be able to afford the rental of a basement apartment in one of these pla... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084307302984 Odd Customs of Bygone Days It was once common in rural and backwoods areas of the world where wild-haired, bug-eyed, snaggle-toothed and weird-jawed people lived, that when a member of the family ... sorry, I mean the community, I'm sure they were not all related ... anyway, when a member of the community died, a "sin-eater" would be employed at the funeral to .... those crazy hicks! ... a "sin-eater" would be employed at the funeral to "eat" the dead person's "sins", which were then suppos... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084289355531 Life is Short. Face is Long Death, ah yes: smelly and unpleasant fellow, a bit on the gloomy side. Over fond of dessing up like an agricultural laborer who has been caught out in the rain, if you ask me. His is conversation rather limited, too - "Et in Arcadia Ego" and "You are dead" - not much good at parties I would imagine. But a good pal of old Thomas Hardy for all that. On wintry mornings you'd see the pair of them hanging out in the graveyard examining the thick, gray clay. Or they wou... http://www.blogstudio.com/SearchResults.jsp?Mode=G&Action=BL_Blog&Method=searchPosts&Subject=Introduction&Display=YES&Id=1030549439156000034246808558&OpenNew=NO&TargetMessageId=1084282580500 A Link An interesting and dandified fellow, the man who operates the Robert Benchley Society, Mr. David Trumbull's newspaper articles (but, alas, not the name of his tailor) can be found posted at his personal website: Trumbull of Boston Dot Organization....