Dowbrigade

Ludzidzini, Swaziland – Wearing only ropes of beads, wrap
skirts and a rainbow of woolen tassels, thousands of girls danced for
Swaziland’s King Mswati on Friday, hoping to be chosen as his twelfth
queen. The 11th was blogged here last month.

But under a darkening sky lightning crackled and balls of hail rained down,
sending the girls, tourists, spectators, diplomats and royals scrambling
for cover, abruptly ending the traditional reed dance for the first time
in memory.

from
LA Weekly

Cruel
and Unusual: a Benefit Exhibition for the West Memphis Three
September 6 – September 20, 2003

How did Arkansas’s West
Memphis Three go from death row convicts to
L.A.’s cause celebre. The
benefit features xene Cervenka ,The
Clayton Brothers, Edward Colver, Glen E. Friedman, Camille Rose Garcia,
Shepard Fairey, Jaime Hernandez, Emmeric James Konrad, Matt Mahurin,
Marilyn Manson, Liz McGrath, Grove Pashley, Raymond Pettibon, Chad Robertson,
and Floria Sigismond.

from
LA Weekly

Is That a Match?

Rosie O’Donnell (left), producer of the upcoming
Broadway musical "Taboo," and Boy George, the show’s star,
lyricist, and composer, meet the press at The Time Hotel in New York
on September
3, 2003.

O’Donnell is the producer and sole investor in the $10 million
musical, opening on Broadway November 13.

"Taboo," O’Donnell said, is "a legitimate, knock-’em-down,
leave-’em-screaming, worth-a-$100-a-seat Broadway show."

REUTERS
PHOTO taken on September 3/Dave Allocca

from
SunSpotNet

U.S. illusionist David Blaine embarks on 44 days of starvation
and solitary confinement in a glass box hung from a crane by the river
Thames in London September 5, 2003. Blaine will go without food and will
only have access to water fed through a tube for the 44 day stunt.

from the Mirror

"I
have my tape recorder going" my wife murmured sleepily from the
other side of the bed.

"No, I’m serious this time. A hundred million dollar payroll and they
can’t even make the playoffs.  It’s pathetic."

"So you’re giving up baseball?" she was waking up again, unfortunately.  Any
minute now she would ask to change the channel to watch her "Amigas",
the Golden Girls. But I had to take the bait.

"Well, I’ll root for somebody else. I’m tired of rooting for losers"
I groused petulantly.

"Hah! So, who? The Yankees?"

I almost physically gagged at the thought, which delighted my wife to
no end. Since her name is Norma Yvonne, she feels some sort of abbreviational
affinity to the Yankees, although she understands nada about the game.

On the screen the Sox closer, Korean B.Y. Kim was streaking submarine
pitches past Seattle superstar Ichiro Suzuki from Japan.  It looked
like a death penalty debate from my foreign lawyers class. Suzuki cut
a fine figure in his gray and black uniform as he extended his arms slowly,
pointing the bat directly
at Kim and sighting down its length like a Samurai sizing
up a worthy but doomed opponent down the length of his sword.

"I will be a fan of whichever team wins this game.  Let the
record show."

Norma Yvonne didn’t answer. She had nodded off again and I was left
to watch the rest of the game, which the Red Sox hung on to win, in sleep-soaked
silence.  And
thus I am cursed to still be a Red Sox fan as the boys head into the
Bronx tonight, sending Pedro to the hill against the Damned Yankees.

Why do we hate the Yankees so? 26-0 is why, as in number of World Series
Championships won since Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to New York in 1918.
Which brings me Dan Shaughnessy  in today’s Boston Globe, with a
bit of revisionist history about Frazee, and the Bambino, and the Curse.

In Boston, we are weaned on the curse. Frazee sold Ruth to pay for a
failed Broadway musical called "No, No, Nanette"  Turns
out, as most things do, to be not quite that simple. Shaughnessy’s article
enlightened me to at least two extenuating circumstances which make Frazee’s
move something more than a blind and malevolent blow to the psychic well-being
of Boston. 

One, Frazee as owner in those days was personally responsible
for getting his players to the ballpark and more often than not, Harry
and [general manager Ed] Barrow had to lock Ruth in his room so he wouldn’t
go on all-night drinking, fighting, and womanizing sessions right up
until the next game. And we consider Manny a problem!

Two, Frazee at that time was engaged in a battle with American League
president Ban Johnson regarding the future of the American League.

So maybe we should lighten up a bit on poor Mr. Frazee. Still, just
thinking about being a Yankees fan gets my gag reflex going.

From the Boston Globe

Wine labels depicting Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Napolean and
Che are causing quite a stir in Europe.

BERLIN – Germany has complained to Italy about a winery
that labels its bottles with portraits of Adolf Hitler, the Justice Ministry
said Friday .

The so-called “Fuehrerwein” bottles, part of vintner Alessandro Lunardelli’s
"historic line," features 14 different labels portraying Hitler with
slogans like "Sieg Heil” and other Nazis.

Also included are labels with the images of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin,
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

from
CBS

I can remember when a "big" football player weighed over
200 lbs.  For awhile now 300 lbers are de rigeur (there
are more than 300 of them).  Pictured at left is Aaron
Gibson, 410 lb tackle for the Chicago Bears. Can a 500 lb player be
far behind?

Derrick
Z. Jackson notes the delicious irony of the NFL helping
the nation’s children fight obesity. He points out that "Short of sumo
wrestling, the NFL is the world’s greatest exhibition of hanging guts"

from
the Boston
Globe

I used to be pretty good at using one of these things, at least when I was
drawing staircases or Mayan pyramids. There always seemed to be one in
the car when the P’s loaded up for family vacations.  By the end
of the trip the thing had usually been taken apart in a vain attempt
to jumpstart careers as Etch-a-Sketch repair technicians.

This guy, George Vlosich, definitely takes his etch-a-sketching seriously.  One
of his drawings takes up to 70 hours.  He specialized in Sports
and Political figures.  His site contains many examples of his work
as well as fascinating details of the creative process, although the
overall impression is of a guy with a lot of time on his hands. But hey,
art is in the eye of the beholder.

from
Etched in Time