tsa announces new travel restrictions

In the wake of the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist plot on Northwest Airlines flight 253, TSA has announced new restrictions for air travel. While somewhat vague as to the specificity of the restrictions, passengers will no longer be allowed to carry explosive devices on board international flights arriving in the US.

grizzly bear eye candy

An colorful antidote to "The Road".

tiger woods 11th 12th mistress revealed

Warrior Ant Press has learned that, in addition to the other women in his life, Tiger Woods was also known to occasionally sleep with himself. In what may be the most unusual twist in this long-term relationship, Le Tigre, who seemed to exclusively date white woman, crossed not only racial, but gender barriers.

lance armstrong can't touch this

You've never seen anything like this—parkur meets skateboarding meets bmx tricks. Danny MacCaskill does things on a bike that no else has even contemplated.

leonard cohen: visual reviews of aural entertainment

Leonard Cohen @ The Midland Theater, Kansas City, MO. Monday, Nov. 9th, 2009. Attendance ~2500.

Previous reviews in the series.
m.o.i.: wilco
m.o.i.:Tim Whitmer trio
m.o.i.: people's liberation big band
m.o.i.: eleni mandel
m.o.i.: coner oberst with mystic valley band
m.o.i.: jackie greene
m.o.i.: madeline peyroux
m.o.i.: rufus wainwright
m.o.i.: the wilders @ davey's uptown
m.o.i.: wee snuff
m.o.i.: jametone (j. ashley miller)
m.o.i.: eldar at jardines
m.o.i.: matisyahu @ grinders sculpture park
m.o.i.: eldar @ cccc
m.o.i.: elvis costello and the attractions
m.o.i.: the police
m.o.i.: the swell season
m.o.i.: anne-sophie mutter
m.o.i.: pat metheny trio
m.o.i.: mars volta and isabel bayrakdarian

fall reading list

Books fall from trees and Warrior Ant Press rakes them up and bags them for your fall enjoyment.

Let the Great World Spin. Colum McCann.2009, Random House. A book that stretches a long thin wire between Philippe Petit's wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center and 9/11 and dares to take the reader along the route. With a cast of New Yorkers that makes you long for a big city escape. No doubt, the best book you'll likely read this year.


Bowl of Cherries. Millard Kauffman. 2007, McSweeney's Rectangulars. The Iraq conflict filtered through the eyes of the co-creator of Mr. Magoo and the screenwriter of Bad Day at Black Rock. One part comix, one part satire, one part Hollywood blockbuster. Settle down with a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the ride.

Lowboy. John Wray. 2009, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. A lowboy, as presented here, is someone who hangs out and lives in the subway tunnels. This lowboy, manic with the implications of global warming, is on the verge of a weirdly comic and inventive nervous breakdown. Jump the turnstile and join him.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. Matthew B. Crawford. 2009, The Penguin Press. I found the first 100 pages of this book annoying as an admonishing parent. Work is useful for the soul. You knew that and if you didn't, well, you're lazy or ill. There's value in fixing things rather than outsourcing them. It wasn't until Crawford got over his embarrassment of having a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Univ. of Chicago that the book finally released itself from pedestrian interests and moved into something more substantive-like the quality of nuts and bolts.


The Impossible Dream: The Story of Scott Walker and the Walker Brothers. Anthony Reynolds. 2009, Genuine Jawbone Books. So you want to be a rock 'n roll star? Borrow 10 grand from your father, move to England, and act like one...for a few months. Make a hit record then drink heavily for 40 years. Then sober up a little and try to convince the world that you were once bigger than the Beatles and the Stones. OK. So? Could be true? One of the funniest books I've read in some time. At some point I actually had to google the band to find out if they ever existed. They did.

The American Painter Emma Dial.Samantha Peale. 2009, W.W. Nortong. A perfect little book about big paintings dripping with sexy characters amidst the back-stabbing art world.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. David Grann. 2009, Doubleday. One of my colleagues has a collection of books about the world's most challenging adventures: sailing solo around the world, hiking in Anartica, getting lost. Most of these end in tragedy or dismal failure. The Lost City of Z is more than that, sorta of the equivalent of repeatably sending in someone to save a drowning man only to watch the rescuer drown. And then sending one person after another. Eventually someone makes it safely back and writes a story about it. This book will make you stop complaining about the occassional mosquito bite.

Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives. Peter Orner (Ed.)2008, McSweeney's Books. Stop complaining about your job and reconnect with the American Dream. It's not all pudding and raisins.

Stiches: a memoir. David Small, 2009, W.W.Norton. Small pulls us through a childhood filled with mentally ill family members and into a life of redemption and art. Soft strokes and hard words rendered into reality.

Prayer Requested, Christian Northeast. 2009, Drawn and Quarterly. It's easy, upon first reading, to dismiss these prayers as the quirky, ramblings of desparate internet trolls. Give this book a second read and you'll discover these prayers aren't that much different from your own. Don't you want to be God's FB friend?

A Gate at the Stairs. Lorrie Moore. 2009, Alfred A. Knopf. This book got a lot of attention when it appeared the summer. Seemingly, Lorrie Moore was every where talking about the time and energy spent writing this book; the premise sounded intriguing. I really wanted to like this book. I really did.

no turn on red

Friday, as has become my routine, I get up late. Somehow, I'm able to squeeze a small cup of coffee out of the end of the bag, scarf down a bowl of cereal and head to work with the intention that OK, for once this week, I'll be on time. Maybe. First though, I need to stop and resupply my coffee beans and jazz my day with a double espresso. It's risky, but doable, because it only involves a quick detour on my morning commute.

I turn onto the narrow street that leads to the coffee shop. Halfway there I encounter a stopped school bus. Parking is allowed on both sides of the street so passage is difficult. The bus lights aren't flashing but the stop sign is out. I stop.

I can see no signs of children but there's an obligation, a social contract everyone has signed, including myself, that says, when the bus stops and the sign goes out, we stop. We all stop. We agree on this because it'll only take a minute and it's for the kids. Our precious children. Then we wait and watch. And the children, because all of this is done for the children, the children, all merry and eager to be with their pals, scamper from their homes to the school bus. And before they enter the bus, they reluctantly turn and wave to their parents and off they go to fill their minds with knowledge and eventually take their place as productive members of society. We watch this parade, humbled with fond memories and girdled with the hope that someday, yes, those poor, unknowing, bastards will take our place on the morning commute.

It's all about the children.

A minute passes. No kids. A car pulls up from the opposite direction and stops. We wait some more. A minute at least. Now two. No kids. Nice bus driver waiting like that for the kids. I look to the houses on each side of the street decked out with their pumpkins and their spooky spectacular fake cobwebs and think, OK, any second the door will open and a frantic parent will motion to the bus driver that it'll be just one second, hold the bus, Johnny forget his mask, and today's the big Halloween parade at school, and just be patient...but there is no parent. No Johnny. Just the yellow bus. The stop sign. The dashboard clock. My low fuel light.

Perhaps they don't know the bus has arrived. I'm surprised the bus isn't honking. Let's go Johnny. Hurry up now, tomorrow you can sleep late.

Jeez, where are those kids? Well if the bus driver is afraid to honk then I'll help. I tap my horn. We wait some more. Honk. No kids. The car opposite me turns around in the middle of the street and heads back from where it came. Damn. I can't really do that because it would mean a 3 or 4 block detour and besides, I can see the damn coffee shop from wear I'm sitting.

I tap my horn again. Gently, so as to be polite, but to facilitate the situation. Nothing. I read the back of the bus. FEDERAL LAW MANDATES THAT YOU MUST STOP WHEN THE BUS IS LOADING AND UNLOADING. Damn. Screwed. How long can this possibly take?

I look at the stop sign. I look at the houses with the doors closed and I look again at the sign...while loading and unloading...but they aren't loading and unloading...slowly....slowly, I pull out and begin to inch down the street. There's almost no room to pass so I have to go really slow. Then bus driver opens the door into traffic forcing me to stop. She motions me to get back.

Have I missed some small child tying his shoe in the front of the bus? I cautiously look. Nothing. I inch forward again. Now the bus driver opens the door farther and leans out and begins to yell at me to get back. I ask her where are the kids? She yells, get back! get back! But there aren't any kids, I protest. Get back! I'm calling the police. Fuck you! I clear the bus and head to the coffee shop.

Jeez, thank God that's over. Maybe I can get my coffee now and get on with my day before the police arrive. Yes, a lucky break, the first, the spot right in front of coffee shop is open. I pull over and look back. The bus is still stopped in the middle of the street. What the hell can they be doing?

I run inside, grab a pound of coffee and the roaster happens to be standing there and says, hey we got some fresher roast if you prefer. Yeah! Score again. The barrista pulls my double shot. Now. That's better. The day begins to open.

I walk outside. Yikes the school bus has pulled up next to my car. Oh shit. What's going to happen now? Will she block me in till the cops come? But then I think, what about those kids? don't they need to get to school?

Down come the bus windows. Up come the special needs children all dressed in their Halloween costumes. Yeah! There's the skeleton. And a princess. How sweet. Barack Obama? Sure. Obligatory Power Ranger. Kids in costumes, ready for the parade. Some have suckers in their mouths. A little early for treats, but hey, it's Halloween. Brings a smile to my face.

Then, as if on cue. They begin pelting my car with half eaten candy bars, lifesavers, and sweet tarts pulled from their tiny mouths. Yuk. Within seconds my car is covered in a sticky, gooey mess most likely harboring vast quantities of swine flu virus.

Hey, I yell. Stop that. You can't do that. You monsters! I start toward them. Then the bus door opens and the driver emerges. Oh shit. She steps out of the bus, walks over to my car and promptly dumps a pint of chocolate milk on my windshield. Fucking asshole she mouths so the kids don't hear.

She turns to kids. What do we say kids? TRICK OR TREAT they yell in unison. I shake my head and pray the siren I'm hearing in the distance isn't for me.

I clean the windshield and start the car. The bus driver boards the bus, pulls the stop sign in and drives away and the kids gather at the back of the bus and give me the finger.