Last night I red-eyed from Hollywoodland to Providence. Thanks to the time-zone bangup, I’ve no idea how long it took. This is for the best. A brutal 5am layover later and I’m home. Huzzah! Needless to say, travel doesn’t leave one in the best of mental states for the high impact sport of blogging, so I’ll use this post to throw out some miscellany.

#1. A few days ago I woke up and went into my kitchen and out of the corner of mine eye, I espied this lovely fellow:

Despite being situated in a relatively suburban/low-industrial area of Los Angeles, my apartment is overrun with wild life. Spiders (supposedly black widows, though I’ve yet to see one), ants, slugs, and the occasional roach. Once a tiny mouse. To say nothing of the genuinely unpleasant little dog that lives in the front of my building, nor the tomcat living under it. But a giant lizard? Amazing. Here’s a close-up after I caught this guy with my broom and a plastic bag:



#2. Anyone interested in Victorian ephemera, Jack the Ripper, hangings, or how I waste my life is directed here to a dissertation just published on Casebook.org. A small piece about a small discovery.

Still, it’s a hobby.

I managed to get access to a card reader, so let us begin the early blog padding!

First up, The Cat:

And, yes, that is a reproduction of Vermeer’s The Lacemaker behind him in the first four pictures. I bought it in a Providence junk-shop in 1993. What the hell it’s doing in the living room is a question I can’t answer.

Two weekends only. Fritz Donnelly, genuine Germanic Irishman, Google Analytics pioneer, Deep Springs alum, wild dreamer and film maker:

Special bonus material. Ants swarming a cricket carcass, 2:30am:

The roof of my garage is one my neighborhood’s major wildlife conduits– I’ve seen feral cats, astonishingly large raccoons and other things unknown.

Finally an opossum:

Ah Cali, Cali, what joys you bring:

elly jonez, old pal and romantic interest.

Astrologer, relentless self-chronicler and general paranoiac. Owns an amazing oversized copy of Manly P. Hall’s Secret Teachings of All Ages. Rooster-God with Snake legs. Original Camwhore & one of the first SuicideGirls.

My camera went missing, so this is stolen from her flickr account. At an ultra-Yuppie conference in the Getty Center. That dinosaur costs $300 and hugs.

Just turned 30.

Four days, three nights on Kenmore Ave.

2 Live N Die in LA.

December 5th, 2007 thru December 8th, 2007.

The tour was supposed to begin two days ago with a quick visit to the Midwest. That didn’t happen & I previously failed to get pictures of the Festival of Lights in Griffith Park. But life, as always, has its disappointments.

I’m out. Will update when I have my laptop.

In the meantime, here are pictures of a crushed roach in my toilet. In profile, it looks mournful.

By now, it’s true, everybody knows: I live in the wilds. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but this apartment attracts a consistent menagerie. The ant problem has died out– praise be to Allah– but I’ve got two or three feral cats living beneath the floorboards. (They are no longer in heat.) And as I write, the main room appears to have developed an association with enormous, black bumblebees. The spider issue, as always, is on going.

Lately there’s been a beautiful blue bird around the fig tree. I’ve tried to get a few pictures, but they’ve been crap. Today I managed nice ones:

I presume that this is an example of the Western Bluebird. I’m never unphased when I see such native creatures (in the Northeast, you’re lucky if you spot a Bluejay once every two years.) I remember when I encountered my first hummingbird –about three years ago– and could not believe that it was real.

It gets to be that a man can’t go to his kitchen without finding animal life. This shack is infested and here’s the lastest evidence:

I spent about 20 minutes trying to catch this fellow with a broom and a plastic bag, as I had accosted his Well-Remember’d Compatriot from the Kingdom of Cold Blood, but the damnable bastard proved crafty and dodged behind the refrigeration unit, where an open cubby hole leads to the dirt earth beneath the shack.

The domain of cats and possums and other sundries.

(Eagle-eyed readers will espy this flier on my fridge.)

I’ve become fond of this fella:

Current status: hiding under the stove.

This apartment.