secret comics

Numbers, Numbers, Everywhere, and Not A Drop To Drink

This has always been one of my (hitherto) unspoken pet fascinations -- thanks, Activity Story!

Next Stop: Fried Candy Bars!

Many of you may have thought I was too sissy to take my silly fascination with fried candy bars to its logical conclusion. Well, you were wrong. Dead wrong. Below is a recipe I picked up somewhere on the internet -- looks simple enough, yeah? I think so, but then again I'm the dummy who's hellbent on frying candy bars...

In any event, I'll be trying this recipe out on my awesome U.K. Mars bar, and will document the hopefully not-too-disasterous results right here in the Comics. P.S. Without E's invaluable assistance cleaning the kitchen this weekend, this whole Mars Bar frying deal would still only be the pipe dream it most likely should remain. Oh well -- gotta either start living or start dying, right? Uhhh, right.

Deep-Fried Candy Bar Recipe

Here's what you'll need to get the jorb done:

¶ 1 egg
¶ 1 cup milk
¶ 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¶ 1 cup all-purpose flour
¶ 1 teaspoon baking powder
¶ Pinch of salt
¶ Candy bar of choice

Here's what to do when you've got all necessary tools and whatnot:

1. Chill or freeze the candy bar.

2. Combine egg, milk and vegetable oil in a cup.

3. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well with a wire whisk. Cover and chill for a few minutes while the oil heats.

4. Remove batter from the refrigerator and adjust the consistency if necessary. Heat about 4 cups of oil or shortening to 375° F. Dip the chilled candy bar in the batter and gently place into the oil. Cook only until the outside is golden. Remove and drain on brown paper. Allow to cool for a minute as the inside can easily burn your mouth -- duh.

Fivehead @ the Carousel, 1.27.05

Two Tickets To Paradise

Driving home from tonight's Fivehead show, things seemed so right on that even "Two Tickets To Paradise", kind of, uhhh, totally rocked. More than usual, I mean.

the first of two pix taken with the camera held up in the air, aimed in Fivehead's general direction

second verse, ever-so-slightly more sucessful than the first

Beaty makes me the happiest boy in the world...

What's the Word?

For your listening pleasure, I declare that What's the Word? officially kicks the crap out of most other stuff you could listen to online.  What's the Word? is the Modern Language Association's radio program, and the archive features seven years worth of a host very interesting, not-too-dry discussions of literary/cultural topics.  For whatever that's worth.

Update!  Listening to a very interesting program on censorship and literature, I thought I would put up a list of the most frequently challenged** books of 2003, courtesy of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom:

1. Alice series, for sexual content, using offensive language, and being unsuited to age group.

2. Harry Potter series, for its focus on wizardry and magic.

3. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, for using offensive language.

4. Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy.

5.  Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, sexual content, offensive language, drugs and violence.

6.  Go Ask Alice by Anonymous, for drugs.

7. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris, for homosexuality, nudity, sexual content and sex education.

8. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier, for offensive language and sexual content.

9.  King and King by Linda de Haan, for homosexuality.

10.  Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, for offensive language and occult/satanism.

Wondering how the given reasons for objecting to the books break down?  I won't subject you to another horrible Excel insert, but I'll say this -- with 21 total challenges, one challenge for "violence" (4.76%), and 10 combined challenges for "offensive language" and "sexual content + nudity" (47.62%), it's a not-so-flattering snapshot of what gives us the collective willies. Actually, all the "reasons for challenge" are pretty much completely ridiculous.

**"A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. The positive message of Banned Books Week: Free People Read Freely is that due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection."

Shocker In Gloomtown

A friend of mine here at work recently hipped me to Selected Shorts, which is an outstanding public radio program that for some reason I'd never heard before.  Actually, I think I do know why I'd never heard it before -- it runs on Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. CST, and this is the first job I've had where I've been able to listen to the radio (online, anyway) at that particular time.

Today's program (Number 16, I believe) featured, among others, an incredible short story: Michael Chabon's "Along the Frontage Road"**, read by Jay O. Sanders (who happens to be from Austin) -- I've never read Chabon before, but I will remedy that situation a.s.a.p.  He also wrote Wonder Boys, a fact I find slightly offputting, since Wonder Boys was made into an almost certainly boring film starring Michael Douglas which until recently I had every reason to believe was terrible.

To make the excitement of my discovery that much more dizzying, Selected Shorts will be in Austin next month!  Huzzah!  Check it out on Saturday, February 26, 2005 at 7:30pm -- it'll be at the Paramount Theatre and you can get yr tickets at the Paramount Theatre Box Office.  Here's the program:

⊗Thomas Gibson reads "The Woman at the Store" by Katherine Mansfield

⊗Barbara Barrie reads "It Had Wings" by Allan Gurganus

⊗Isaiah Sheffer reads "The Kugelmass Episode" by Woody Allen

Sounds like a good time, ¿no?

**Collected in: The Best American Short Stories 2002, edited by Sue Miller (Houghton Mifflin).

Flogging A Dead Horse

This is your wake-up call, America -- the Snickers Almond and "yank" Mars Bars you've been fed are nothing more than crummy chocolate-covered lies! Through circumstances so filled with thrilling intrigue and baffling plot twists that even someone as irresponsible as myself wouldn't commit them to print, I've recently come into possession of a much-discussed authentic Mars Bar -- from the U.K., mind you, not some chump "imported" junk. And with it, I've got the goods to bring this whole charade down to the ground. Here's the photographic proof, in case my earth-shattering evidence, ummm, ends up eaten and/or misplaced:

The Mars Bar in front of my lamp and (one of) my maneki neko.

That's my hand grasping the Mars bar -- and my wooden angels from Taxco on my wall behind it. In case you were wondering...

(My undying gratitude goes out the special agent who delivered the goods on this one -- you're awesome!)

"the best time to put in a tomato plant..."

This may be old hat to other folks, but I have recently discovered the joys of... making your own Windows error message!

Making your own custom Valentine's hearts!

You can also (allegedly) make your own tombstone, but I can't get the site to load and need to get back to work.  Sorry.

Update!  Here are some baseball-related Windows Media Player files that are R-rated for a little "blue" language, but worth checking out nonetheless.  Thanks to KNBR in San Francisco for these -- who doesn't like Earl Weaver? And who can deny Chris "Mad Dog" Russo's anguish over the Giants' recent playoff failures?

Double Update!  OK, maybe I'm overestimating the demand, but here's Earl Weaver on "Manager's Corner" sans censoring et in an E-Z downloadable MP3 format.  This is not safe for work, at least not without wearing headphones while listening.

Hands Up, Who Thinks This is a Good Idea?

In a nice unplanned bridge** to my most recent post, I find news of Elvis Costello's latest endeavor to be... well, a little disturbing. But give me a chance, maybe I'll come around... OK, I won't. Apparently the heady hi-jinx of "Il Sogno" have gone to Elvis' head. In sort of a coke-rush invincibility/messianic-complex, "Anything I touch is an effing masterpiece, I tell you -- a masterpiece!!!" kind of way. Somebody really needs to say something to him, but it appears he's got his whole coterie too weirded out to bring it up. Maybe he's taken on some sort of quasi-religious "Mr. Kurtz"-type role to them, or maybe this is some sort of awkward attempt at payback to the Danes for their gifts of Niels Bohr and/or Legoland -- who knows? Or, at this point, cares.

A pause.

Holy cannoli, there's a Legoland California!!! How come no one told me about this?!? As a child, I hated Legos but was fascinated by the "original" Legoland -- doesn't make any sense, but it's true. Legoland California, here I come. As Teal'c would say (sort of), undomesticated equines couldn't keep me away. Now that I know about and all.

**I was unable to remember how to spell the word "segueway", which I believe is a real word, I really do. It wasn't showing up in any of the online dictionaries, so I decided screw it, go with a synonym. Even though it's not quite the right word.

Update!  Acme Labs rocks... thanks to Evan the Unrelentless for the link.

Double update!  It seems that I have been misusing the phrase "wild horses couldn't drag me away" for some time now -- it somehow got into my head that I could say "wild horses couldn't keep me away" and that would be cool.  Well, it's just not cool to misuse the English language, kids.

My Aim Is True

I was listening to "Alison" (the Slowdive one) on AccuRadio's "High Fidelity" the other day and thought to myself, "Hey, this is a pretty great song."  Then as the day wore on, I started to wonder just how many songs titled "Allison" or "Alison" there were out there...  and it didn't take me long to realize that it was kind of a dumbass thing to waste an afternoon on, but by then I'd been to Allmusic.com and was working on a speadsheet and there was no turning back.

The bottom line?  I count 105 recordings of "Allison" and "Alison" -- 74 Alisons and 31 Allisons.  I'll break it down by songwriter, (primary) performer, genre, and number of versions, but if you want specific album info you'll have to figure that out on your own.  Like anybody cares.  Or will even read this far.  Sometimes recognizing nobody gives a crap is the most liberating thing you can do for yourself.

Title	Performer	Songwriter	Genre	# of Versions
Alison	Babik Reinhardt	Babik Reinhardt	Jazz	1
Alison	Whitmore	Robb Blake	Rock	2
Alison	Budgie	Burke Shelley	Rock	1
Alison	Jordy	Clerget, Patricia, Claude Lemoine, Alain Maratrat	Rock	1
Alison	Stranglmartin	David Butler, Stranglmartin	Rock	1
Alison	Elvis Costello & the Attractions	Elvis Costello	Rock	47
Alison	Copperpot	Jarrett Randazzo	Rock	1
Alison	Joe Pass	Joe Pass	Jazz	2
Alison	Melvern Taylor	Melvern Taylor	Rock	1
Alison	Blue	Mikael Nordgren	Electronica	1
Alison	Slowdive	Neil Halstead	Rock	4
Alison	Nerve Twins	Nerve Twins	Rock	1
Alison	Phil Woods	Sean Smith	Jazz	3
Alison	Stephane Grappelli	Stephane Grappelli	Jazz	1
Alison	Baby Bird	Stephen Jones	Rock	2
Alison	Tom van der Geld	Tom van der Geld	Rock	1
Alison	Arcacy	[uncredited]	Rock	1
Alison	Future 3	[uncredited]	Electronica	1
Alison	Smudge	[uncredited]	Rock	1
Alison	Frank Vignola	[uncredited]	Jazz	1
Allison	Garageland	[uncredited]	Rock	1
Allison	Jimmy Holiday	[uncredited]	R&B	1
Allison	Ahmad Jamal	[uncredited]	Jazz	1
Allison	[unknown]	[uncredited]	Easy Listening	1
Allison	[unknown]	[uncredited]	Reggae	2
Allison	Alphonse Mouzon	Alphonse Mouzon	Jazz	3
Allison	Andrew Hyra	Andrew Hyra	Rock	1
Allison	The Wednesdays	Jamie Barrier, Joey Barrier, & Jeremy Barrier	Rock	1
Allison	Pixies	Black Francis	Rock	8
Allison	Sandwich	Chad Jenkins, Jason McKnight, & Jeff Quay	Rock	1
Allison	Blood Drained Cows	Gregg Turner	Rock	1
Allison	Hayman Hartman	Hayman Hartman	Rock	1
Allison	John Darnall	John Darnall		1
Allison	Kyp Harness	Kyp Harness	Rock	1
Allison	Matt Otto	Matt Otto	Jazz	1
Allison	Stereo Fuse	Jeff Quay	Rock	1
Allison	Randy Stonehill	Randy Stonehill	Gospel	1
Allison	Sonny Rollins	Sonny Rollins	Jazz	2
Allison	The Jelly Jam	The Jelly Jam, Ty Tabor	Rock	1
Allison	The Lost	The Lost	Rock	1

Obviously, E.C. takes top prize, as far as the writer of "Alison" goes.  If you're interested, and even if you're not, here's a list of performers(w/ genres) who are listed as having recorded Elvis' "Alison":

Bobbie Gentry	Rock
Charles Walker	Blues
Elvis Costello	Rock
Elvis Costello & the Attractions	Rock
Everything But the Girl	Rock
Holly Cole	Vocal
Holly Cole Trio	Vocal
Janas Hoyt	Rock
Joe Goldmark	Folk
Linda Ronstadt	Country
Patrik Tanner	Rock
Vic Chesnutt	Rock

And let's not forget the Pixies, who boast the most recorded versions of "Allison" (w/ covers by Fastback and Eve 6).  Actually, we should probably just forget about this whole thing.

Update!  More random thoughts -- listening to some semi-recent Superchunk ("Sexy Ankles" from Hello Hawk) for maybe the first time and I swear this might be one of the worst songs I've ever heard.  Crimony, how the mighty have fallen.  Worse than horrible. 

Also, I think Guided By Voices might be (along with post-'78 Ramones) the absolutely definitively best "greatest hits" band of all time.  You know, little or no apparent control over the impulse to keep putting out suss records with a handful of brilliant songs per...