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THE QUOTE
“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.” — Pablo Picasso
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IL FORNO
In the car, on the way home from work at about 6:30 last night, The Loved One driving. We’re heading east on Atwood Avenue. We both see a woman jogging with a big old dog.
The dog’s tongue is dragging about a half a block behind him.
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Me: “Anybody who runs with a dog in this weather is insane.”
The Loved One: “Anybody who runs in this weather is insane.”
That’s all you need to know about Summer, 2012.
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YOU CAN KEEP YOUR MIRACLE, THANK YOU
You knew this was coming.
Our old pal god made sure a miracle occurred during the shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado, Friday morning.
One of the victims took shotgun pellets to the brain. Lo and behold, she has some previously undiagnosed brain abnormality. The 22-year-old woman has a channel or void in her cerebral structure that actually allowed the shot to pass through her brain while causing minimal damage. The condition is called Cavum septum pellucidum.
So instead of being instantly killed or relegated to a life of slurred speech and halting ambulation, she’ll recover fully.
Natch, her priest is grabbing all the credit for his boss. Pastor Brad Strait of the Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church, of which the woman is a member, says it’s “a miracle.”
He writes: “In Christianity, we call it a ‘prevenient’ grace: God working ahead of time for a particular event in the future. It’s just like the God I follow to plan the route of a bullet through a brain long before Batman ever rises. Twenty-two years before.”
Crime…, Oops, Miracle Scene
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I bet that makes the families and friends of the 12 people killed feel great about things.
BTW: Cavum septum pellucidum is associated with the eventual onset of schizophrenia, chronic brain trauma, and antisocial personality disorder.
Some miracle.
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HORK
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Yeah. That’s what some lunatic panel of judges and a vote of Indiana residents has determined to be the signature food of the state fair this year.
In addition to anything and everything deep-fried, spaghetti ice cream will now join the pantheon of nauseating fair food.
The “spaghetti” tag is a sham, of course. The dish is made of gelato, strawberry sauce, and white chocolate.
Still, I’m not into toy food. My taste for “creativity” in my comestibles extends only as far as animal crackers. BTW: I’ve always been partial to elephants.
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WHAT A COUNTRY
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Once again, h/t to Maxxwell Bodenheim.
In related news, gun sales are up in Colorado after the Aurora atrocity.
And where did I read this? Only in America could a massacre carried out by a clearly deranged young man who’d amassed an arsenal of firearms cause authorities to ban the wearing of costumes in movie theaters.
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SHOTGUN
By Jr. Walker and the All Stars. The only pop chart song whose rhythm line is a single chord throughout.
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Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.
❏ I Love Charts — Life as seen through charts.
❏ XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”
❏ Skepchick — Women scientists look at the world and the universe.
❏ Indexed — All the answers in graph form, on index cards.
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❏ Flip Flop Fly Ball — Baseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.
❏ Mental Floss — Facts.
❏ Caps Off Please — Comics & fun.
❏ Sodaplay — Create your own models or play with other people’s models.
❏ Eat Sleep Draw — An endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.
❏ Big Think — Tapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.
❏ The Daily Puppy — So shoot me.
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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.
◗ IU Dowling Center — English Conversation Club, for non-native speakers of American Emglish; 1pm
◗ Scenic View Restaurant — Young Professionals of Bloomington monthly mixer; 6pm
◗ Monroe County Public Library — Volunteers needed for bike rack inventory; free ice cream after job is finished; 6:30-8:30pm
◗ IU Musical Arts Center, room 301 — Summer Music Series: Opera workshop directed by Carol Vaness; 7pm
◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — “The Taming of the Shrew”; 7:30pm
◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; 7:30pm
◗ The Player’s Pub — Post Modern Jazz Quartet; 8pm
◗ The Comedy Attic — Bloomington Comedy Festival; 8pm
◗ The Bluebird — Rod Tuffcurls & the Benchpress; 9pm
◗ The Bishop — Neulore, Dead Ghost, The Canvas Waiting; 9:30pm
◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Public viewing through the main telescope; 10pm
Ongoing:
◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:
- John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This @#!%”; through July 30th
- Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
- Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
- Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
- Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th
◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:
- Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
- “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
- Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
- Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
- “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
- David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
- Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
- Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
- “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st
◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits: Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd
◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st
◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st
◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break
◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:
- “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
- Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th
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