PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

Recent entries july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04 the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03 Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01 lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30 wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24 Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more. By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets. A bibliography of my published books and stories. Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List. HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.

part four: i have nothing to say and i'm saying it 2011-11-25 - 7:31 p.m. Did I find Christmas lights. Lots and lots of Christmas lights. Covent Garden, with the snowflakes falling on the Apple Market. Regent Street, with the spiderwebs with the spiders running out and back and the webs forming and then disappearing. Actually, now that I think about it, they might have been snowflakes melting and re-forming. No genuine snowflakes. The weather has been simply splendid. I thought the no smoking laws were supposed to have killed pub culture. Ha. There's no getting to the bar in the evening. Once I thought I'd elbowed my way to the bartender but apparently I was wrong. I gave up on the West End and returned to Earl's Court. Spying a lone seat in this eponymous pub, I was greeted with actual enthusiasm. If that sounds un-English, well, let's just say that my waiter's name was Nikita. The lovely and talented Nikita persuaded me to try the large glass of the house red, and I'm sure he has great success upselling the ladies all day long. I'm going to guess 23 and Russian. The EasyHotel at South Kensington is not quite as nice as the one at Earl's Court. Nothing major, but there's no mirror or shelf in the bedroom, and there's no little notch under the bed to stow your luggage. The bed takes up the entire cell, so that if you want to open your luggage, you have to put it on the bed. Painted on the orange door to the bathroom is this proud boast, "A tiny loo," but I don't think it's any tinier than the loo at Earl's Court. However, the soapy stuff is not of the same quality as the soapy stuff at Earl's Court, which boasted that it can be used for shampoo as well as face and body gel. It boasts nothing and smells a bit astringent. Finally, a chance for me to pull out my own single serving shampoo and my sliver of glycerine soap. Did I mention that you only get hot water in the morning? That's both places. Plan for major operations, like washing one's hair, for the morning hours. So this morning I again caught the tube for Southwark. On to the Tate Modern, where I bought a ticket for the Gerhard Richter exhibition. It seems a little crazy to buy a ticket when there are so many free exhibits, but I really wanted to see this one. What can I say? Is there nothing this man can't do? I'm not into the photo-realistic stuff, but he throws in a few photo-realistic items along the way, just to show off his stuff or as a nod to the artists of the past. At one point, I had the distinct impression that the painting (of some flowers) was a joke. It was a perfectly rendered painting of a photograph, a bad bad bad photograph, out of focus in front, out of focus in back, with a few petals in the middle sort of pitifully in perfect focus. We've all taken that bad photograph.... For me, the abstracts are the best. Hard to put into words. In one room, he is quoted as quoting Cage to describe the paintings in questions: I have nothing to say and I'm saying it. They're doing a photographic theme, and they also had another temporary exhibit by Taryn Simon, whose gimmick is that she photographs family lines and if someone refuses to be photographed or can't be found or Mommy says, "No photos of my kiddies," then she puts a blank page in that spot. It's pretty dramatic, but it does feel a bit like a gimmick coming directly after Richter. Also, I had a queasy feeling about how some of the pieces were curated. Example: In one room, we have the only non-human family (a bunch of rabbits from Australia) and directly across from it, we have a man from Kenya with 9 wives and his various descendents, and I dunno. Another example: She finds a Jewish family from Palestine, who was there from oh, I don't remember, let's randomly say 1919, and there is not a single "gap" in the photographs. Not a person missing. Is that really an honest reflection of the Jewish experience? Which reminds me of a sad piece by Richter, well, a pair of pieces, one of his aunt, one of his uncle. He's an East German, and the photo of his aunt shows her as a young girl holding him as a baby. The write-up says that she was mentally ill and sterilized and killed by the Nazis. Disturbing on many levels and not least because one wonders, why bother to sterilize someone that you are going to kill? And right next to it a photo of the uncle all nicely posed in his uniform...the uncle killed fighting for the Germans. to show the outcast dead that they are no longer forgotten, visitors honor them with bits of ribbon or other mementoes, on the night of the ceremony, i placed the braided orange ribbon with the agate, and on my private visit, i placed the long braided maroon ribbon Too a nice a day to stay inside forever. I went for another walk along the Thames, this time in the blue daylight. I then headed back to Crossbones, to catch a better photo by daylight. Also, I had found in my luggage another handmade ribbon, this one a belt, of blue and red and mauve, and I decided to add it to the gate. Wandered back through the Borough Market, which is a thriving farmer's market behind Southwark Cathedral. Found a stone that represented the grave of a Mohegan who came here to bitch about some land that got stolen by the white man, and he died in London and wasn't allowed to be buried in the city (shades of the Crossbones whores but at least he didn't end up dumped in Crossbones!) and now they have erected the stone monument in his honor and also in remembrance of all those broken treaties. I hate to tell 'em, but they ain't never getting that land back. They'd better be happy with that casino. Maybe the spirits gave me a little magic, because when I strolled back to the dock, the Tate boat was already there and waiting. We sailed to Tate Britain, which I don't think I have ever visited. To my delight, I discovered that they did have quite a few modern/contemporary pieces, and I devoted most of time to exploring those. The best, although the creepiest, work was "Coral Reef," which was a maze of third/fourth world rooms which hinted at menace. Well, I don't know about "hinted," actually. It was damn hard to find your way out, and there was one room that featured a homemade-looking automatic weapon and a clown's mask, inviting one to imagine who-knows-what possible mayhem. I looked at their Turners and Constables and Blakes and suddenly realized that John Constable might not be the Goose channel's real name. I mean, I know John Crow ain't a real name but I didn't realize that his other name might be assumed as well. Layers and Layers. At some point on Thursday night, I lost my hat, and since I have plenty of pounds left, I thought I might buy another. For that matter, I thought I might buy another bag and throw out the unlucky bag. Went back to Covent Garden Apple Market, but I don't know why I think I'm going to buy anything. I only like shopping for food and drink these days, and since I'm about to leave the country, I'm not buying those. I thought about buying an Angry Birds hat, then realized it would look ridiculous. I poked around here and there and finally I accepted the fact that I will just have to get my extra pounds changed into euros because I'm in the house-cleaning mood, not the shopping mood. I did sample some mulled wine so I'm not a complete Christmas scrooge. Have to find some dinner soon.... detail from the coral reef by mike nelson, tate britain Click the photo of the Tower to find page one of my 2004 London and Gloucestershire adventure: Part two of the story can be found by clicking the Worcestershire Gate: Shopping in Paris is more your speed, you sniff? Well, by all means, click on the picture from the antique super-mall near the Louvre to find my first Paris trip: You'll get the whole story if you start by clicking the photo and then just keep clicking "next" until the tale is told. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford