RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

It’s time to clear a few things up.

All that is and all that ever will be can be reduced to pattern and vibration. Pattern tends towards something we perceive as cyclical. Energy is a singular constant and its fluctuation from one state to another, one form to another underpins “everything.” All of this has rules, a few of which we as humans have identified. What we have identified is restricted to an infinitesimally small and relatively obscure corner of “reality.”

What we physically perceive is infinitely smaller than even this. Our experience is so limited and so misguided, that describing our knowledge as anything but deeply delusional flashes within a completely illusionary, fragmented universe would be tragically false.

With that said, here’s a neat flash animation that helps you imagine 10 dimensions. It’s neat.

http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

Other Bands:

Surgeon
Burnt Hogan
Mourning Electra
Victor Victor Band

Here be the CD. (I took the cover shot.)

During my convalescence, I’ve been catching up with my old friend the internet.

Did you know that there are 78 reported Bigfoot sightings right here in Pennsylvania, including 1 from just last year? (near Pittsburgh of course) Out of the 3 reports I read before losing focus/interest/consciousness, this is my favorite:

YEAR: 1991

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: February

DATE: first week

STATE: Pennsylvania

COUNTY: Berks County

LOCATION DETAILS: Top of Blue Mountain, the Appalachian trail, State Game Land 110. Marshall’s path. (Pennsylvania Atlas and Gazetteer Plate 66, extreme SW corner.)

NEAREST ROAD: 22-78

OBSERVED: Sighting was seen in 1991 in Blue Mountain Berks County PA. State Game Land 110 I believe in early February. I was grouse hunting on the top of the mountain, there was ten to twelve inches of snow with a half to one inch of ice on top of the snow. It was very difficult to puncture your feet to walk through the snow and ice. I shot my grouse, on top of the mountain about a half to 3/4 of a mile from where we came up to the top of the mountain.

I shot twice after my friend with me yelled grouse, I yelled I got it to my friend who then proceeded to walk up to me. He was 75yds away and it took him about 15-20min to get up to me. Then he walked a trail that went back to where the road starts at the top of the mountain. I stood there for 15 min. as I heard my friend walking away from me,afer I could hear his footsteps no more, I turned the other direction and was looking at the side of the mountain that we came up.

I noticed a dark figure running along the ridge of the top of the mountain, for 50 to 100yds. it ran, there was an opening and it stoped. Then it proceeded to run straight for me uphill and did not stop until it was about 40 to 50ft away from me. It was not out of breath and did not make a sound and just stood there and looked at me for about 1-2min. and then walked away in the direction that it came from. First of all in those conditions you could not run or barely walk in it. It was hard to puncture the ice on top of the snow to walk let alone run. It went through it like it wasn’t even there for 200yds and when it stopped 50ft away, you couldn’t even see it breath or hear it breathe. He ran that distance, in about 1-3min maybe.

It scared the hell out of me i wasn’t sure what it was, until it stopped right in front of me. It found me I wasn’t looking for it. And I can tell that when he stopped in the opening on the ridge that he can see blaze orange because he ran faster then straight for me after he seen me in my blaze orange one piece outfit. He was there in no time at all, running uphill a 100 to 150yds. He walked away and looked back at me once and then kept going. He was all black, very long hair, it was hard to see his face through the hair. Tall around 7-7 1/2ft 400-500lbs I thought. Very powerful animal seemed very intelligent because I think he heard the gunshots or the yelling and wanted to find who was making the noise on the mountain and came right to me. I was scared at first and when it stopped, I put my shotgun right on it at 45-50ft and it didn’t even flinch it wasn’t scared and it just walked away. My friend with me is 6′1 200lbs and when I told him what happened, he didn’t believe me but he tried to run on the road at the top of the mountain on level ground, flat, he took 3 steps and fell on his face.

OTHER WITNESSES: I had no witness, my friend with wanted to leave and not go back to see the tracks.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: close to noon,lighting conditions were overcast

ENVIRONMENT: Top of the mountain, wooded area.

—–

In political news, I found out that Hilary Clinton is a Black Magick occultist witch. Remember when Hilary said she didn’t bake cookies? According to Cutting Edge News, she bakes gingerbread men with pierced nipples and cock rings. She also hung cock rings on the White House Christmas tree. That seems odd. You learn something new every day.

I love the internet.

This is a story that deserves to be told. It really did happen to me. (and by me)

—

Years ago while the city of Philadelphia was busy destroying the international destination that was LOVE (skate) Park, I was sitting in my 23rd Street apartment drinking with an old friend. This friend (we’ll call him Alex because that’s his real name and I feel no need to protect his identity) was broke and living with his parents in East Germantown, but for reasons I still don’t quite understand, was wearing a $5,000 Versace suit.

Alex uncorked a fresh bottle of Chimay (he lives large) and passing it to me told me how he was making a living selling people’s garbage on ebay.

“My neighbor threw away a claw-foot bathtub.” He explained. “I got some help and we hauled it up to my (parent’s) porch. It sold for $500, shipping paid by the BUYER. People will buy anything. That there,” he said, pointing to a carved wooden fish sitting on my windowsill. “that could pull in $20. If you get a bidding war going, it could go up to $50, $75!”

The conversation rolled on and I started looking around the apartment for things I could sell. Talk turned to the Berlin wall and the enormous profits generated from its inherent marketability. And then my mind created a sinister idea.

“You know,” I said “ I bet you could sell off pieces of LOVE Park.”

Eventually we got onto other topics, watched a movie or went to Midtown Diner, but that was it. The dye had been cast.

A few days later, Alex walked down to the LOVE Park construction site. He called the foreman over and asked for a piece of broken marble.

“Whadda you want it for?” the foreman asked.

“I’m going to sell it on ebay.”

He explained his entrepreneurial plans, the foreman scratched his head and listened. A few minutes later, Alex was walking home with a nice chunk of stone. Meanwhile, I’ve forgotten about the whole thing and gone on with my life.

A few days later, the rubble sold for close to $50. Around the same time of the sale, 2 things happen.

1. Alex calls me and tells me how well my idea to sell chunks of the park have gone. He broke his piece into half a dozen smaller pieces and is selling them off as fast as he can post them.

2. A group of forlorn skaters go to LOVE Park and beg the foreman for a piece of their cherished heritage. To them, the park is a second home. The foreman, feeling cocky tells them to “fuck off” because he’s selling all the extra pieces on ebay.

It’s the following weekend and I’m walking home from a concert with a couple of friends. As we pass LOVE Park, I remember Alex’s success and regale them with promises of riches. We decide to go for it.

The park is locked tight, surrounded by tall fences and marked with no trespassing signs. For those unfamiliar with LOVE Park, it sits in the absolute heart of center city Philadelphia. It’s surrounded on all sides by five wide and busy roads. Above it looms City Hall. The place could not be any more conspicuous. Breaking into the highly sensitive construction zone was an adventure worthy of an action movie.

Ducking dozens of cars including several police, we climbed a wall, made our way along its narrow ledge to a place where we could hop the fence into the park. One by one, ducking the vision of the hundreds of pairs of nearby eyes, we made it inside unnoticed. Once there we stuck to walls, bending below lights and moving beneath outside sightlines. Like stupid, 22 year old ninjas, we crept towards a large pile of dislodged stone. We loaded our bags with chunks of broken marble and exited the park as carefully as we had entered it. No one saw us and no one stopped us. The mission had been a complete success.

The next day at work, I posted my chunk of LOVE Park on ebay with no starting bid. Within an hour, inquiries started coming in. Excited, I happily responded. Within 3 hours I had my first bids.

And then…

An angry email. A skater message board found the auction. Thinking I was the foreman (who denied them chunks of LOVE Park so that he could sell them on ebay) the skater community attacked.

Emails poured in threatening violence and retribution. The auction even caught the attention of a bored City Paper reporter. Out of respect for the feelings of the skaters, shame for trying to turn those feelings into profit and fear for my physical well-being, I took down the auction. And that was almost the end of it…

One skater (we’ll call him Jeff, because I can’t remember his real name and Jeff is a good enough name) emailed me, asking me directly if I actually worked at the LOVE construction site. He filled me in on what happened with the foreman. Until then, I had absolutely no idea. What started with me, also found a way to end with me.

I had another idea.

I googled Jeff and got an address. Later that night, I went to his apartment and rang the bell. There was no answer. Just as I was turning to leave some skater-looking dude came up with a key and asked who I was looking for.

“Jeff?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He said a little suspiciously.

“Hi, I put the LOVE Park auction up earlier today and I want you to have this.” Opening my bag I pulled out my chunk of LOVE Park and handed it to him.

I think that is and will be one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever given someone. Jeff lit up. He told me how much the park meant to him, how long he had been going there and how much he would miss it. He told me how he and his friends were a little too unnerved to try and break in themselves to take some souvenirs. I told him my story and apologized for the anger I had caused for him and his friends. All was again right in the world.

—

I wasn’t the foreman who threatened to sell off pieces of LOVE Park on ebay, but it had been my idea. From my mouth, to Alex’s ambition, to his conversation with the foreman, to the foreman’s conversation with the skaters, to my eventual auction, it was my idea that caused the entire thing to happen.

Never again will I try to sell something I’ve looted to someone with an emotional investment in that object. Maybe someday I’ll find another way to steal a piece of otherwise worthless material that someone holds an emotional investment in and give it to them free of charge. Funny which one is legal.

With rumors circulating that Michael Jackson has both converted to Islam and plans to make a “guest judge” appearance on American Idol I have to wonder how this will all play out.

Now with no intention to insinuate that Islam is a violent religion made up exclusively of terrorists or that I advocate the death and destruction of innocent life, how great would it be if Jackson ended his career via suicide bombing on the set of American Idol? Be honest now…

—

Also in the news:

LYNCHBURG, Va. The Reverend Jerry Falwell says global warming is “Satan’s attempt to redirect the church’s primary focus” from evangelism to environmentalism.

This helped me clear some phlem from deep within my chest. Laughter is a good medicine.

I woke up yesterday feeling off. By the end of the workday I was in a downward spiral of chills, sore throat and headache. By late evening, my body temperature was all over the place and I felt like total shit.

What’s worse, is that from the moment I closed my eyes, to the moment I got out of bed more than 12 hours later I had one long detailed dream about running telephone wires through the building where I work. In this horrible dream I stretched these wires through ceilings for hours. It was torturous. I woke up 6 or 7 times, but couldn’t stop this hellish dream.

So I’ve been out of bed now for less than 2 hours and I’m excruciatingly bored. I can’t do anything. What I have to look forward to is the prospect that maybe a little later I’ll be well enough to do my laundry. Or maybe my taxes. Good god I’m bored.

Marlowe Hood
Agençe France-Presse

Scientists have made a tiny pulse of light stop, jump from one group of atoms to another and then continue on its way.

The experiments, conducted at Harvard University, are consistent with quantum mechanics, the laws governing the behaviour of atoms that Albert Einstein postulated in the 1920s at a time when it was technically impossible to prove him right or wrong.

But scientists say the results, published today in the journal Nature, are still startling because they were so hard to demonstrate and because of their potential applications.

“When I saw the study I did not at first believe it,” says Professor Michael Fleischhauer of the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany.

“It shows that we are entering a state of unprecedented experimental control of coherent light and matter waves.”

To get the light beams to dance from one cloud to another, a team of physicists at Harvard fired a laser into a cloud of atoms that had been deep chilled into a slow-moving state known as a Bose-Einstein condensate.

The pulse of light, composed of photons, was “slowed down from 300,000 kilometres per second to 20 kilometres per hour” and then to a standstill, says team leader Professor Lene Vestergaard Hau.

She says the pulse’s information was stored inside the frigid, treacly cloud, a phenomenon scientists know well.

But when the laser was turned off, the light pulse made an imprint, “like a hologram”, says Hau.

This started moving slowly until it exited the condensate cloud into free space.

“What you wind up with is an absolute perfect copy of the light pulse, but in matter form,” she says.

And then, in a true “quantum leap”, the transformed photons entered into the neighbouring condensate cloud a fraction of a millimetre away, where the original light field reappeared.

“It is one of those things that is known from theory but is still counter-intuitive,” says Fleischhauer, who wrote a commentary in the same issue of the journal.

The data is transferred from one cloud to the next because the optical pulse is converted into a wave of travelling matter, the authors say.

These experiments hold the promise of “very real technological benefits”, says Fleischhauer.

Quantum computing

The information technology revolution has long been driven by advances in the miniaturisation of electronic circuitry on silicon chips. Performance doubles roughly every 18-24 months, often called Moore’s Law.

But the shrinkage is fast approaching an atomic scale, which will require entirely new designs.

“One of the goals of quantum information processing with photons is to build a network, and for a network you need nodes and carriers,” says Fleischhauer.

“Photons serve as the carriers for quantum information, and the atoms are ideal for storage and processing.”

Hau points out that when the photons are transformed into matter form they are easier to manipulate.

“You can grab onto it and put it on the shelf and keep it awhile,” she says.

Measuring things

Ginsberg and co-authors also point to future applications in measurement instruments that would be several orders of magnitude more sensitive than anything existing today.

Harnessing the “matter waves” contained in atoms would make it possible to design ultra-accurate atomic clocks, gravity detectors and interferometers used to measure rotations and accelerations.

I have a new hero. Actually hero is too light a word. I have a new deity. To her I will direct all my energy and feelings of entrapment, desperation and deep, unyielding frustration.

Her name is Harriet Cole. During the breathing and walking part of her life, she worked as a cleaning lady at Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Hospital.

Eventually she died.

What happened next is a vision of hell on a level far surpassing the imagination of even the greatest of German existentialists. Having donated her body to science, Ms. Cole was carefully dissected. Dr. Rufus B. Weaver worked for months, slowly and methodically extracting and preserving her nervous system. He then mounted the results and hung it up for display. Nearly 120 years later, poor Harriet’s nervous system still watches over the halls of Hahnemann Hospital.

Hell

Having your body permanently interned in the place where you worked a horrible and thankless job is a dark enough vision. But to remain only as a nervous system, bulging eyes, spinal cord and dozens of dangling nerve fibers is a revelation so grotesque and horrible, that the power that it generates is strong enough to bring life to a new deity. Or so I believe.

Please help spread the word of this unacknowledged god and be sure to pay your respects. When you feel that your world is closing in and that you’re stuck in a metaphysical vortex of dull and anxious fear, just meditate on poor Harriet down at Hahnemann Hospital and know that she was carefully dissected for your sins.

I went to see Harriet last week. My intention was to get some better photographs than I could presently find on the internet. Unfortunately they close off her room off at 5PM. I peered through the glass into her darkened chamber. She was in there doing her thing, but I couldn’t get any closer. So remember, if you visit Harriet, you have to go between 9AM and 5PM, Monday – Friday.

But really, how could it be any other way?

Mural size wheatpaste posters in center city. The first is on 11th between Pine and Spruce. The second on Pine between 10th and 11th. I’m sure they’ll be gone soon.

———-

This morning I thought of picking up the Metro to read on the bus. I didn’t, but if I had, I would have been surprised to see one of my photos in there. I’d link to the article, but I can’t find it online.

Link or not, the article promoted tomorrows show at Mascher Space Cooperative, [information on that performance here.] I shot the first installment of the series about a month ago. A nicer version of the Metro shot is here on my photoblog. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not excited that my photo (with credit) has been published by a paper with as deep and storied a history as Metro… but I’m not going to get too excited either.

———-

Long time ago, 30th and Market.

The satanic, reptillian, pedophile, alien slavemasters that masquerade as our world leaders and financial elite are just rubbing it in our faces with little gems like this. Alert the alternative, alternative, fringe of the ultra extreme right wing press! This is right here in South Philly. I saw it with my own 2 eyes!

That stands for Valentines Day of course. But anyway, this is quite possibly the darkest bit of satire I’ve ever written. Enjoy:

Martha Stewart and her darling little fetuses
Originally written in 2001

EAST HAMPTON, LONG ISLAND - Martha Stewart, the one woman empire of decorative arts and crafts, can find a charming use for any little thing. When bags of decomposing human fetuses began washing up on the shores of her upscale Long Island community, many of the well-to-do residents of the Hamptons were up in arms. But not Martha. Instead, she’s taken up the tiny human bodies and transformed the bloated, slimy carcasses into darling little ornaments. Where most see bits of decaying matter, Martha Stewart sees opportunity.

“Just look at this little guy right here.” Stewart told New World Examiner reporter Stan Buford in an exclusive interview. Holding up a pristinely preserved, chalk white skeleton of a 4 month old human fetus Martha continued. “With a little bit of care, I turned what was a parasite filled, beached fetus, into this gorgeous little baby doll. Now what little girl wouldn’t want one of these skeletons in her closet?” Stewart joked. “Look how delicate their tiny little bones are.”

Every morning, Stewart heads down to the beach with her 2 dogs, sometimes before 5 AM, to gather what bio-matter may have washed up during the night. “I have to beat the gulls in the mornings. If the seagulls get these little treasures before me, it’s quite hard to put them all back together.”

The discarded fetuses are brought to Long Island every year during Hurricane season. Favorable currents bring them from as far as Central and South America. On one morning, Stewart donned pearl white latex gloves and a New England slicker. Tossing aside coat hangers and other debris, she scoured the shoreline for “treasure.”

“These things are pure gold.” Spoke Stewart as she claimed a bag from a swarm of egg-laying horseflies. “I’m in the process of working a marketing and distribution deal with K-Mart for my little ornaments. Do you know how many fetuses are simply discarded in this country every year? Millions of dollars worth.” She stated with a playful glint in her steel blue eyes. “Don’t you just love the beach in the morning? Smell that air.”

When the collecting stage is complete, it’s back to Martha’s kitchen, where the true magic takes place. “This is where I turn the hideous little things into the ornaments that will someday adorn every American mantle.”

Lowering the fetuses with the help of a metal strainer one by one into an iron cauldron filled with hydrochloric acid, Stewart can’t help but let a warm smile melt her usually serious demeanor into a gentle, motherly expression. The acid makes quick work of most of the remaining flesh. Stewart then scrubs the lingering bits off with the aid of a child’s toothbrush. “It’s really easy work, with a little care and consideration.” Stewart notes.

Finishing touches are added last as the tiny skeletons are affixed to cherry wood podiums and set up in darling poses. “And viola. The finished product.”

The Hamptons Citizens Community Affairs Bureau has not been so warm to the wayward fetal matter. “I think it’s disgusting.” Notes actor and Hamptons resident Charlie Sheen. “But at least Martha is doing something productive with another’s waste.”

In a reflective moment over tea and water crackers later in the day, Stewart considers the fetal project. “It’s ironic really. Most of these little jewels come from places where abortion has been criminalized. That’s why they end up in the ocean and eventually to me. If abortion is ever banned here, all the worlds’ beaches will be covered with these little guys. A literal goldmine.” Martha says with a smile.

It’s time for another trip through the archives. Actually this may be an archive week. But that’s just fine. Grammatical errors aside, my writing used to be funnier. Today’s installment, my review of a 34′ yact I once owned… or pretended to own. For some reason it was the epinions review that earned me the most $. Before I was banned from the site, this little beauty brought in a cool $13.32.

Boston Whaler 34′ Defiance

I was thinking about things the other day and came to a conclusion. I’ve always had some distaste towards hunting. Then I thought, what’s wrong with me? I eat meat. In fact I eat it pretty often. Isn’t it better to eat something you actually slaughter yourself?

I don’t want someone else killing my food for me. The closer I am to the death of my food, the better. I vowed to never again eat store bought meats. If you can’t kill it yourself, you shouldn’t be eating it.

I had never killed a large animal before. In fact I had never even hunted. Once I went fishing, but I had no luck. I’ve always had an aversion to guns. Hunting would require that I purchase one. But lo and behold, all these restrictive gun laws made it impossible for me to purchase a gun. It seems that some liberal made it illegal for a convicted felon with a history of severe mental instability to buy an assault rifle. I’m on parole, I’ve paid my debt and am now quite stable. What the fuck do they want?

After some soul searching, I decided that fishing was my best bet. But how was I going to catch enough to last me through the long winter months? I don’t have a lot of time either, I can’t be out fishing 2 or 3 days a week. What was I to do? I had been planning on killing a medium size U-Haul full of deer in 1 or 2 outings and eating that for a while, but this option was short on feasibility. Then it came to me. Whales.

That very moment I went to my local yacht retailer and plunked down $750,000 for the “Boston Whaler 34′ Defiance.” I named it Tom Selek, smacked it with a bottle of champagne and off I went. The Boston Whaler 34′ Defiance is a fine boat. The cabin ceiling, at 6′4′’ is more than accommodating to the average size man. Everything is state of the art. Digital readouts everywhere. I was about 17 miles off shore when I saw a whale spouting off at 3 o’clock. Setting my boat on a collision course with the hideous beast I pushed the 450 horsepower engine to the max. The Boston Whaler 34′ Defiance is advertised as ‘unsinkable.’ I had no fear. Unfortunately I had no harpoons either. I fashioned one makeshift from the 13′3′’ beam. Attaching the beam to some rope that didn’t seem to be doing anything important, I practiced swinging the thing around my head. It swung pretty good.

Then I saw the mighty beast blow again. It’s sea-filth sprayed high into the afternoon sky. This time my estimates put it at 40′ off my port bow. I slowed the Boston Whaler 34′ Defiance to an idle. “The quiet power of twin inboards, made even quieter by a unique and innovative exhaust system,” was like a dream come true. Suddenly the barbarous sea-hag surfaced along side the boat. I screamed and plunged the harpoon into its turgid blubber. Quickly I fastened the other end of the device to the satellite TV antennae.

The mighty whale responded by tearing the hull in two, breaking free from the harpoon and easily overturning my Boston Whaler 34′ Defiance. I was spilled into the bitter Atlantic. Boy was my face red. As I floated in the sea waiting to be rescued, I decided to become a vegetarian. Some dolphins came by. You always read about how beautiful they are, how deeply spiritual they are etc, etc. When I saw them, the poked me around for a while, bit me, and swam off on their tails. Just like you see them doing at seaworld. They were not friendly at all. Fuck dolphins. I managed to pop one in the eye before they swam off.

Eventually I was rescued. It seems that somehow I violated so many laws on my little excursion that I ended up breaking the terms of my parole. It was back to jail for a few days until I posted bail.

The boat was great, it’s a shame it sank. I am working on a lawsuit, it really did advertise as unsinkable. Here see for yourself. I quote:

“All of it, and you, protected by Whaler’s unsinkable foam core construction.”

http://www.whaler.com/2000Product/Model.asp?ModID=13

Liars.

So I work with this total asshole. This afternoon I was minding my own business when he comes back from lunch (drunk as usual) and just won’t shut the hell up. He goes on some crazy ass right wing tirade about Iran…

Actually I made that up. Why? My growing target audience. If you work with me, or if you have ever worked with me in the past, please take this opportunity to say hi. Any job; Penn Vet, The MUr4L 4R72 PRO9r4m (let’s see you translate that “google alerts”) or wherever. Just curious.

The Franklin Institute: King Tut. Only U.S. stop. Skipping New York, skipping D.C. International appeal. Mummies, Gold and mystery. It will attract a million people. Minimum.

Up the street, poised to capitalize on museum spillover, The Academy of Natural Sciences goes into a brainstorming session. They need to pull out all the aces. And they respond with…

Heaping piles of shit. No really, shit behind glass. Lots of it. From all kinds of animals… feces. Lots of feces. I wonder how that meeting went.

——

“The Franklin Institute just scored King Tut. This is huge. What’s our strategy? How do we compete?”

“Australopithecus bones? An exhibit on early hominids complete with rare skulls and vertebrae. We can get the “Lucy jaw fragment.”

“Jaw fragment? Fuck that. Let’s get a Suchomimus tenerensis skeleton… a predatory Dinosaur larger than the T-Rex!”

“No room. How about a symposium on evolution? We’ll bring together the world’s greatest minds on the subject. It’ll generate huge media attention. We’ll help save science in America.”

“No. No. No. How about we collect the excrement of hundreds of animals and show it to people? People love excrement, even if they pretend that they don’t.”

“You might be on to something Professor Scatophile! King Tut’s got nothing on an exhibit detailing the many uses of cow manure. Get on it!

——

In case you’re planning on going to the shit exhibit, here are the highlights:

* Poop Has Many Names: Visitors are invited to push buttons on a world map to learn the language of poop in countries around the world.

* A New Alternative: This 3-D model of a modern sewage digester comes to life with pumps and aerators to show an environmentally responsible way to deal with human waste.

* Outhouse: Most kids have never seen an outhouse and this old-fashioned replica gives them a chance for an unusual photo opportunity.

* Worth Your Weight In…: African elephants are the biggest poopers of all land animals. Step on the scale to see how many hours (or minutes!) it takes an elephant to poop your body weight.

* Fecal Framework: This full-size, touchable replica of an African termite mound lets kids explore how termites glue their houses together with their own dung.

* Muck Spreading: Activate a video recording of a bull hippopotamus broadcasting dung with his tail.

* Dung Boots: Watch a rhinoceros kick and stomp its dung so he can mark his territory with a trail of smelly footprints.

* Ins & Outs: Listen in on a grizzly bear’s digestive tract and learn how food becomes poop.

* Fecal Fakers: See if you can spot animals that camouflage themselves by looking like bird droppings.

* Dung Beetle Race: See whose beetle is the fastest. Turn a rubber dung ball to move your beetle to the finish line.

* Beetles to the Rescue: Why aren’t we up to our eyeballs in dung? Activate this video clip to see a time-lapse recording of beetles cleaning up a dung pile.

* Who Dung It?: Animal scat is a great way to learn about the wild animals in your area. Learn to be a scat tracker by matching dung samples with the animals that made them.

* Diagnostic Doo: Check out the close-up world of dung through a veterinarian’s microscope. Can you see anything unusual?

* Touch a Coprolite: Dinosaurs left more than bones and teeth behind - some of their droppings were also preserved. Touch an 80 million year old fossilized turd.

* Fossil Feces: Activate several short interviews with a paleontologist who studies fossilized animal dung.

* Dangerous Droppings: This live animal exhibit is a recreated section through the wall of a house showing how mice enter our homes and live in our food cupboards.

* Buffalo Chip Courtship: Activate a video recording of sarus cranes performing a bizarre mating ritual. The male throws buffalo dung around to impress the female.

* Special Delivery: This live animal exhibit shows how box turtles spread berry seeds in their droppings.

Prediction: The United States and/or Israel will launch air strikes against Iran sometime between mid-March and early May. If it doesn’s happen then, there will be another push in the autumn. If it doesn’t happen then, it won’t. Keep your fingers crossed.

In other news, I’ve added a fade-in script to the photoblog. Now images will ease their way onto your screen like an old man into a warm bath. That’s all for now.

Today, when we can eat Tex-Mex with chopsticks while listening to reggae and watching a YouTube rebroadcast of the Berlin Wall’s fall—i.e., when damn near everything presents itself as familiar—it’s not a surprise that some of today’s most ambitious art is going about trying to make the familiar strange. In so doing, in reimagining what human life might truly be like over there across the chasms of illusion, mediation, demographics, marketing, imago, and appearance, artists are paradoxically trying to restore what’s taken for “real” to three whole dimensions, to reconstruct a univocally round world out of disparate streams of flat sights.

I like that quote. It’s from this article. If my creative pursuits have a “goal” that quote pretty well describes that goal. Not completely… it’s missing a few dimensions, but it does it “pretty well.” Especially for things like this photo.

The news came down a little after 4:30. Anna Nicole Smith was dead. I haven’t stopped crying since. I just can’t make sense of it all. Why? This is 100x worse than Barbaro. I have no words.