Saving the World

One night in 1980 my friend John Steinmetz couldn't sleep. Instead, he drew pictures of blenders, those friendly, familiar kitchen companions. But these blenders came with unexpected labels on their buttons in place of the boring Whip, Frappe or Liquify.

Soon John shared his ideas with me and together we created The Blender Book, a xeroxed holiday greeting for our friends and families. The reactions ranged from baffled amusement to confused bemusement.


The back cover of The Blender Book showed a blender with four buttons marked Push, Poke, Prod and Press. We thought "What a good name for a publishing company." and so the imaginary Push Poke Prod Press was born. John and I hired each other as "Assistants to the President" and we awarded ourselves fictional startup grants from General Malaise, makers of the Electric Bowl, and the National Appliance Foundation.

Each holiday season for six years we produced a different book. The books, in order of publication, were:

• THE BLENDER BOOK
• Your Souvenir Guidebook to REALITY WORLD
• HOW TO SAVE TIME (Special Condensed Version)
• Amazing Stories of SIDEMAN
• SAVING THE WORLD
• SIDEMAN VS. SYNTH MAN

A magazine called Science Fiction Review even reviewed a couple titles. Here are quotes:

If you've ever wondered about the Metaphysics of Blenders, this is the booklet for you ..... I'm not sure it's worth $4.50. (The Blender Book, price $4.00)

Clever, often devastating satire on Disneyworld-type amusement parks and our absurd civilization. A 58-page half-size booklet, it may subjectively be worth $5, but not in 1957 money (inside joke --- see the Guidebook.) (Reality World, price $4.00)

Saving the World , billed as "A FULL LENGTH Push Poke Prod Press ADVENTURE, starring BENNY the BLENDER! and featuring The LITTLE SHIM", was a comic book.


Our hero, Benny the Blender, is featured in the masthead of this very blog, look at the top on the right. He was a blender of few words but with a good heart and bad eyesight (notice the thick glasses) who should never have been given a license to drive an air car. The Little Shim, Benny's sidekick, was an early personal computer - some sort of sentient, mobile Apple III or Commodore 64 with two floppy disc drives for eyes and a penchant for getting into trouble he can't get out of.

Here's a sample page from Saving the World. Click on it (or any illustration) for enlargements.
You can download the entire Saving the World in PDF format here. Happy Holidays, everybody - even if is a bit late.

The two books which featured John's stories about Sideman, a mysterious super-hero L.A. studio musician, were the most popular. John wanted the stories published under the pseudonym T. Simpson Parker, ostensibly an old studio musician himself, now retired to Palm Desert where he raised succulents.

Imagine my surprise to discover T. Simpson Parker listed in an online library catalog. Click here to see that. Four of the six PPPP books made it into a certain university library under the category Nonsense Literature, American.

Finally, here's a clipping from a Los Angeles Weekly of February 1986, written by Jonathan Gold. Yes, the same Jonathan Gold who went on to win some very important journalism prize or other and will surely be mortified to read this bit of doggerel online. Marvel at just how deeply a tongue can push into a cheek; probably the sign of a good food critic, huh?

Betty Freeman

Read Alan Rich, eloquent about the life and recent death of Betty Freeman, here.

Left Behind After The Rose Parade 2009

Through bad planning I arrived at the Rose Parade, a short walk from our home, in time to see the last few entries. I snapped some shots.
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At the end of the parade I videotaped two units that many people don't know about. The Tow Truck Brigade Horn Band and the God Squad Camp Followers Precision Drill Team. If you watch them, I suggest turning up the volume.



Then I walked backwards along the route looking, in the Mixed Meters tradition, for trash to photograph. (Trash pics from 2007 are here.)






Pre-parade pictures from 2008 are here.

David's Favorite Things of 2008

A Mixed Meters tradition now in its third year. Read about 2007 & 2006. Remember, this is not about what was new in 2008, only about what was new TO ME.

1. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. First time in my life I've ever finished a novel and immediately flipped back to page one to read it again, cover to cover. An elegantly written, noirish alternate-history murder mystery about a loser Jewish police detective named Meyer Landsman whose supervisor is his ex-wife. (I'd like to start the rumor that Meyer will be played by Mel Gibson in the projected Coen Brothers movie.)


2. The Zappa Album by Ensemble Ambrosius. Yes, a CD of music by Frank Zappa performed by an early music ensemble. Seven Finnish musicians who get the coveted "thinking outside the box" award for this one. Released in 2000 after Frank's death. Try to imagine him saying "The lute needs to be louder to balance the oboe da caccia."


3. Keybreeze. A free computer utility that will make Windows more friendly to 10-fingered users. If you're a good typist and are lumbered with a Bill Gates' OS, stop reading this post now and go install Keybreeze.


4. Bodum Double-Walled Insulated Glassware Delicate, yes. But they'll keep your cold drinks cold fantastically long, even sitting under hot desk lamps and near computer monitors, like mine do. They keep warm things warm longer too - just not as well.


5. Omron HJ-112 Pocket Pedometer I'll write more about this next month. But for now, suffice it to say, this pedometer actually works even while flopping around in my pocket. I didn't think that was possible.


6. Young J. Edgar, Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties, by Kenneth D. Ackerman.


7. The Rest Is Noise, by Alex Ross


8. The shrimp burrito at La Estrella, on Orange Grove Blvd. in Pasadena


9. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay another novel by Michael Chabon which I wouldn't have read if #1 (above) hadn't been so good. Glad I did. You'll like it too, especially if you like comic books - which I don't.


10. Matter by Iain M. Banks. In my world, a new science fiction novel by Iain M. Banks is always cause for rejoicing. This one, about an artificial planet with concentric levels each home to a different species (just like in an apartment building), too. I wrote about another Banks' novel here.


Bonus Item: My worst waste of time of 2008 - I couldn't finish it. This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin.

The pictures in this post: shots I liked which aren't good enough for Mixed Messages. Still, I couldn't bring myself to toss them. They enlarge if you tickle them with your mouse.

Under Bridges

The rain leaves, the wind comes. It gets clear. Leslie and I take Chowderhead walking in the Lower Arroyo Seco Natural Park (satellite picture). We pass under the Colorado Street Bridge and the 134 Freeway Bridge, designed with complimentary arches which are reflected in pools of water. Pictures are taken.






Click any picture to enlarge it, especially the last one.

Stalking the Christmas Penguin 2

Click here to read the first Stalking the Christmas Penguin. It discusses the geographic illiteracy of Americans and answers the question of why God invented wars.


Christmas penguins have appeared in this post, entitled Christmas in October (which includes talk about table grapes). This other post, mostly about Starbucks Christmas music, has a penguin picture too and here's yet another post where you can listen to a MM Christmas 30 Second Spot while looking at Christmas penguins. (Note - MM Christmas music is not recommended for people who actually like Christmas.)

All those posts will explain why my chain is yanked by Christmas penguins. This is especially true when they're shown with polar bears or igloos.




Over just 3 seasons of Christmas penguin watching they've rapidly ascended the ladder of seasonal success. Even Stats, a staid Pasadena holiday decoration store, where I could find no penguins last year, had a beautiful, almost antique penguin sculpture in its main window this year. The penguin has arrived.


Leslie has gotten on the Penguin bandwagon, eagerly pointing them out to me in stores and along residential streets. She seems disappointed if I don't want to bother taking another penguin photo, so I humor her. She wanted me to take this towel shot:


And we have Christmas penguins in our house for the first time. We created this one together. It's made out of refrigerator magnets. (Click here to see past magnet art.)


I also placed a sticker of three penguins next to the Viewsonic logo of three finches on my computer monitor.


Here are a couple more Christmas penguin stickers. Ivy the cat likes to chew on them.



You can see a whole gallery of my Christmas penguin pictures here.

Here's a defunct blog entitled Penguins and Polar Bears Don't Mix.

Penguin Warehouse.

Here's two paragraphs of a 1999 article about Christmas penguins.

A Penguin duet plays Mixed Meters favorite Christmas tune:



ADDENDUMATA:

Snow on High Ground

Southern California is generally thought to be place with no weather - and many of us are quite happy about that. We see pictures of snowstorms in other parts of the country and we laugh. (Well, I do. But not in a mean way, of course.)

Still, it does occasionally snow on the mountains overlooking our little polluted piece of paradise. And the novelty of that prompts me to take pictures. The first picture, taken earlier this month, shows a distant snow-capped mountain and two palm trees. (I reckon the mountain is about 20 or 25 miles away; the two palms were across the street.)


The second picture is a panoramic shot of Mount Wilson, directly above Pasadena, taken after this week's storm. The snow level was about 2000 feet. The icicle-like things sticking up from the ridgeline are television and radio antennas which beam insidious advertising and popular culture directly into the brains of unsuspecting Californians. It's a really BIG picture. Click it to see just how big.


The last picture is as close-up a shot of the antennae as my pocket point-'n-shoot will allow. They look to be covered in ice. Actually, you can click any of the pictures.



Here's another Mount Wilson picture I took a while ago when there was no weather. Click it to go to my Flickr Picture Pages.

One Note Open Sleigh

A 30 second spot based on a familiar holiday tune. The melody is reduced to bare bones or less, a small nubbin, smelly and harsh to the touch. It's disrespectful and not in the holiday spirit. In other words, what you expect from Mixed Meters about this time of year.

Click here to hear One Note Open Sleigh 
Copyright (c) 2008 David Ocker -- 38 Seconds

Want more Mixed Meters holiday music mash? How about Jingle Bills or Jungle Bells and Jingle Bulls or Until the Alligators Knock Him Down or And Pretend That It's A Circus Clown. Nothing uplifting here.

The last two titles are references to the song Winter Wonderland. Read a deconstruction of the lyrics in the post Winter Wonderland Diagnosis for Murder! at the blog Surrealpolitic for surreal times.


The picture (click for full size) STOCKING STUFFERS
Left to right :

• A Christmas Penguin skating
• A Yellow Rubber Duck in a Santa Hat (or is it a jaunticed walrus?)
• A Christmas Tree
• A Snowman
• Some Jingle Bells

Music Not To Pay Attention To By

In the tradition of unhelpfully named pieces of music such as This Is Not The Title and This Is Not The Title EITHER, here is Music Not To Pay Attention To By.

I can suggest two equally valid ways to enjoy this piece:

• You can listen without paying attention.
• You can pay attention without listening.

The second is probably more Zen, but then I know nothing about Zen.

Copyright (c) 2008 by David Ocker 113 seconds


I found the Dean Martin record cover via the picture website This Isn't Happiness. (highly recommended). They found it here. I found This Isn't Happiness via Eric Peterson. You can hear and watch Marty Robbins sing My Woman, My Woman, My Wife here. (his intro is the best part. No wait, his shirt is the best part.)

Music to Suffer By - the image came from here. Read about the singer here. Listen to it here. (Recommended for Florence Foster Jenkins fans.)


Who says Mixed Meters doesn't bring you fine music?

Don't understand this post? Remember, Mixed Meters puts non sequiturs in their correct order.

Non sequitur Tags: 30 Second Spots. . . David Ocker

Economy of Motion

Tim Mangan, Orange County's music critc, posted this link to a performance of Ravel's Bolero by Orchestre de Paris under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach who uses the least amount of motion possible to conduct an orchestra. Almost none.

There's not much for a conductor to do in that piece. It's more like Eschenbach is supervising or maybe leading telepathically. Raised eyebows, twitches, head snaps and his clenched jaw muscles are all he needs. He finally does wave his arms. You can guess when. It seems that he manages to attract a lot of attention by not moving.

The video is in two parts. Listen for little variations by the bassoonist and the tenor player.





It reminded me of this short clip of Pierre Boulez leading a bit of Debussy's Nocturnes looking a bit like private security guard. Or maybe a Secret Service Agent without his earpiece. Or a character in the movie Men In Black.



And that clip reminds me of another clip posted to MM years ago.



And that reminded me of this:



Stiff Conductor Tags: Christoph Eschenbach. . . Pierre Boulez. . . Darth Vader. . . ASIMO. . . orchestra conductors

Queen of the Night lubricant

Classical music sells product - in this case the Queen of the Night aria by Mozart and a feminine lubricant.



Read an article by Tom Serivce in The Guardian here. I found it via Arts Journal. This ad will appear on US television after hell freezes over, which is to say - never. This group posted the video online.

For a video of a young boy singing the same music very well, go to the MM post Prince of the Night

Other MM posts about classical music selling stuff on television are here (Mozart's Requiem sells shoes) and here (Dies Irae sells shoes).


Lubricant Tags: Mozart. . . Queen of the Night. . . Durex