Are We News Yet?

News. Or what passes nowawdays for news. I don't know - if a teenager from Alabama comes to a dicey end in a Caribbean country, well...let's call it news, for the sake of her local station, but it shouldn't really captivate an entire country for 9 or 10 months.

News? That a 13-year old boy set up a webcam in his bedroom and filmed himself performing erotic acts and accepting Visa, MasterCard and Discover from older men as payment to view said erotic acts? Perhaps that's news for a minute, if only to illustrate that there are no depths to which a desperate teen won't sink to earn a bit of pocket money (and you can just hear the parents in the background...webcam? what in tarnation is a webcam?)

A writer pens what is billed a "memoir" yet assiduous fact checking reveals that this memoir is heavily embroidered in a fiction-y lace - is this news? Not really, although Oprah found it newsworthy enough to devote an entire show to castigating the author for "disappointing" her and her largely incredulous and barely literate viewing public with the sad but common proof that he was indeed a man with feet of clay. Entire prides of scholarly footnotes have protested with placards of shock and disbelief yet no one has noticed their plight. Fiction-y moments have joined in the protest all the same but to no avail.

This isn't news. This isn't newsworthy. These are manufactured stories meant to simultaneously placate and magnify the fears of middle America. That webcam you buy - well, that can and probably will be used by your teenager for pornographic and/or monetary purposes; the Caribbean trip you allow your 18 year old daughter to take- well, that will rebound back to smack you in the ass with a disappearing and probably dead child; and the innocent book you might possibly buy - well, if you can't trust a memoir these days what can you trust? Fiction? Something entirely invented? Ooh, very dicey.

When did we become the most incredulous insanely trusting and pretty flat out stupid people on the planet, hands down? Does anybody question anything anymore? (Much as That Guy should really have questioned why exactly Oprah wanted him on the show, and much as those guys should have questioned why a 13 year old accepted credit cards for webcam nookie. The Caribbean thing seems to be a spot of bad luck, so I'm not sure her parents should be castigated for letting her go on the trip).

I'm all about the "something smells fishy here" movement when it comes to news. I apply the principle myself every day. When listening to a mainstream new story, right along with the journalistic questions of who, what, where, why & when, I always like to add "who benefits?"

Just in case someone other than me is keeping tabs.

The God of Unwieldy Gigantic Things

Religious identity - what a minefield it has become! What has happened to the concept of religious tolerance in the 21st century? Why has the notion of "your god" vs "my god" ascended to such prominence lately?

I don't remember when the topic of religion was of such fervent discussion [no pun intended]. The excitement over religious differences and the political significance of them seem to have grasped people by the throat with a garrotte that is getting tighter by the moment.

I'd like to believe I practice a certain religious tolerance. Living in New York, which is by no means a religiously homogeneous society, it still is assumed that there are clear prohibitions to polite conversation on the topic of religion - unless you know the person very well.

I'd like to believe that most folks, save fundamentalists of any stripe, pretty much believe in religious tolerance. But sadly I've found that belief and practice are sometimes out of sync, as illustrated in the following.

Occasion #1 - I was at a friend's house for a casual drinks and dinner evening with her and a few of her other friends. Somehow the "God" issue was brought up and I stated that not only didn't I believe in the existence of God but that I didn't believe that Jesus was anyone other than an obscure Jewish prophet whose life had been magnified way beyond his actual existence and influence.

Well. Watch the fur fly. While I didn't denigrate the other's belief in the existence and benign watchfulness of either the deity or his son, I was automatically treated as if I'd just sprouted horns and suggested a dandy Black Mass be performed on the coffee table. None of the mainstream Christians present could find a way to intellectually process what they perceived as outright heresy. To think that they may have simply tolerated my beliefs (or lack of belief in their God) was apparently too much to ask.

Occasion #2 - I sat at the age of 18, across the desk of my nominal Religious Superior in Tediously Repressive Religion (TRR), and said out loud that I wanted nothing more than to be free of said TRR, the sooner the better. I added that I was emphatically uninterested in any crumbs TRR had to offer and wished to wipe the dust of its precepts from my feet.

I never told Religious Superior that in my opinion he was involved in a batshit crazy cult and would be better off thinking for himself. Oh I could have done so, perhaps, but at the time it seemed churlish in the light of the freedom I was seeking and the tolerance I expected from him.

Religious Superior replied in what I now know to be a textbook response of "don't do anything hastily, you may change your mind." I never set foot in one of their churches again, and 14 years after that encounter formally severed all my ties. Members of my immediate and beloved family are still involved with TRR; I don't denigrate their involvement but it's understood that I'm not interested in hearing about it. Surprisingly, perhaps, we all comply and find a way to get along as a family without castigating each other for our beliefs. Now quite frankly, if my family can manage this I'd like to think all the rest of us could.

My belief in the inherent random chaos so beautifully illustrated daily if not hourly by the Supremely Indifferent Universe could constitute a religion unto itself, were it not so very hard to pin down and dress satisfactorily on Sunday.

Perhaps it's not a matter so much of a God of Small Things as it is a God of Unwieldy Gigantic Things that occupies us so much, but in any case if I must place a bet I'll call you on random events and raise you on indifference.

Another Day, Another City Ripe for Haiku

Here at Fresh Hell HQ there hasn't been a "cup runneth over" situation in terms of actual posts, ideas for posts, or posts about substantive things. I have a lot of fun with the New York City Haiku series but I gotta admit they just dash right out of me - very little thinking required. Perhaps I missed my true calling as self-styled Random Haiku Generator.

In that spirit, and to tide over my wee group of readers while I wander the Fresh Hell mansion, tearing out my hair and wondering what has become of my muse - and most especially because deep thinking is still (sigh) beyond me, I will branch out and offer haiku of other places where I've either lived or visited extensively. Thus, I bring you today - Salt Lake City Haiku.

God! I hate seagulls,
Flocks of trash eating winged rats.
Sigh. It is state bird.

Great Salt Lake is huge!
Truly salty and you float,
After one day - dull.

Drinks at Park City,
Summer and winter are grand.
Drunk on the mountain!

Mormons at the door.
No thanks, I don't like God much.
Persistent, aren't they?

Famed site in the hills,
"Widowmaker" motor cross.
Now it's all houses.

Vice is underground.
The surface is pure and clean.
I know - I lived there.

New York City Haiku - Last Saturday in Queens

Oh crazy old broad,
You may have heard of a comb.
Birds could nest in there.

Jaunty black youths stroll
Surprise for them if I yanked
Down those baggy jeans.

Lady, those hot pants
With platform shoes and crop top
Sure make you look cheap.

Wow - what a moustache!
Like Pop's in the old country.
Not right for a "she".

In Which Our Heroine Has More North African Adventures

During my travels in North Africa, I've been in many gender segregated situations.

After half a dozen trips to Morocco and one to Algeria, it's often difficult to pinpoint exactly the moment of each iniital culture shock, or to highlight properly when constant exposure to the unknown kept me abnormally alert, or when the exotic sights, sounds & smells plunged me into disorientation.

I've spent a lot of time since that first trip deciphering the values inherent in North African culture and, as any sociology student can attest, one cannot discern these in a snap. The fascination I continue to have for the culture is illustrated in one way by my interest in a society that has one face set for the public and many other varied ones which are completely private.

Some occasions that still make me anxious are gender based social situations. The society is gender segregated, and the public freedoms are those enjoyed by men rather than women. In this post I don't want to write about the fairness of this (I don't believe it is, or how thin a line an independent woman can walk there, or how that razor sharp line has been re-drawn in the last five years -I've written about this in another of my posts).

Let's just say I usually feel ill at ease in a parlor full of North African women, and it's not merely because of the language barrier.

Yet one of the more pleasant situations for me is hammam.

Hammam are the public baths of the Middle East and North Africa and are separate for men and women, a reflection of society.

My first occasion visiting the hammam is with my sister-in-law and her daughter (let's call them La Petite and La Lune). We enter the women's baths and pay our fees (about $3.50 for all three of us) to the old woman in charge in the front changing room, place our street clothes in a cubbyhole to be retrieved when we're finished, and take our supplies with us to the first steam room.

We must bring with us everything we will need; 3 large plastic buckets for getting water, loofahs, washcloths & sponges for cleaning; soap, shampoo, conditioner, razors and towels. Our soap is olive oil based - a dark smooth mixture not formed into hard bars but with a gooshy mud-like texture, with a rich lather and mild scent - it's packed into a small square tupperware container for easy transport to hammam. The loofahs are rough rather than refined.

The first room we enter is a large white tiled room with pipes running along the upper sides of the wall and 3 or 4 drains built into the floor. It's very hot and feels exactly like a steam room.

We stake our place and set out our toiletries, perching uncomfortably on small wooden racks we've brought with us so we sit about 2 inches from the floor. We're wearing only underwear - the rest of our clothing is checked in the entrance cubbyhole.

The steam generates a pleasant enervance, and I relax in the warmth and humidity. We'll spend our entire visit in the first room - there are three, and each one is successively hotter and steamier than the next. The maximum time for the uninitiated (me, basically) to stay in the second room is 20 minutes; I'm warned off the third room as being far too dangerous for a person with so little experience. I take a glimpse of the third room, however, and find it sparsely populated with only a very few elderly women.

We fill our buckets from a communal tap in the first room (and will do so at least four times) and bathe sitting down by first soaping and then rinsing by pouring buckets of hot water over our heads. Etiquette has sway even here, and modesty is important, at least until after the first cleansing.

And so it occurs to me, as it should, that I've just begun to scrape the surface of this experience, hedged about with its own rules and regulations, and to save it as something to tuck tidily away for later contemplation - how hammam traditions differ between countries and how comfortable La Petite and La Lune are with changing their style to suit societial rules too subtle for me to detect.

We complete our soaping and water-over-the-head cleansing process at least three times - after each thorough cleansing we rest, relax, shave legs, condition hair, and talk, our skin soaking up the warmth of the hot water, pores opening in the steam.

No one seems self-conscious other than I. With a tradition of lifelong visits to hammam, how could they? And how could anyone sense I felt so gawky and wrong? All ages are represented, from wrinkled grandmothers to slender teens. Many women are with their children of both sexes (very young boys are allowed). Many surreptiously sneak a peek at me and I can't blame them, as I'm so obviously Western in my height and coloring, yet so obviously belonging with a normal Moroccan mother and daughter. The older women glance knowingly and I think they can tell in an instant that I've never borne a child.

After a long while I become more relaxed and comfortable in hammam - at the end, superlatively clean and uniquely comforted, we recline on divans in the main room for a short time wrapped from head to foot in towels. Retrieving our clothes from the entrance cubbyholes, we dress in street clothes, wet hair bound in towel turbans.

I've had several trips to hammam since then yet I seem to find on each occasion the same mixture of awkwardness, camaraderie, and essential comfort within this purely feminine world.

Postscript: Divorce Post

Postscript to Yesterday
I've been thinking about what I wrote yesterday and asking myself questions - was what I wrote too harsh? Was it too easy? Who did I let off the hook? Was the post a facile rendering of events that so profoundly altered my life, or was it merely another stanza in a chorus of "poor me" sung to the tune of "but I had divorced parents"? (And since so many other children have sung the same song, does my version become nothing but a plaintive tune telling everyone how I was one of the first, and so felt all of it the most?)

I don't think what I wrote was too harsh - on the contrary, I could have written much more about the privations, embarassments and indignities I experienced.

To what end? So everyone can know the depth of my chagrin? So everyone can know how very long I was content to identify myself as a child of divorce?

I didn't go into great detail about how much I suffered (and I did, this much I tell you is true) as a child of divorced parents. Is the suffering I endured more or less than that meted out to any or every child of divorce?

While my experience was unique in the fact that it did seem to happen at the time to only to me and my siblings, and rarely to my contemporaries, than yes, my suffering was unique in its place. I learned some rock hard truths when I was young- probably too young.

Knowing those truths didn't always save me from making my own mistakes when the time came. Those mistakes I had to make all on my own.

File Under: Divorce, 70's Style

My parents divorced in January of 1970. For my younger reader(s), this is really no big whup. Who cares and who notices?

Au contraire, mes enfants. As I was still an impressionable child in 1970 rather than firmly mired in adult mores I can't say exactly why there was such a stigma attached to it. It's hard to imagine in these days that I was the only schoolchild in a class of 32 with divorced parents, yet it happened, and I experienced it.

Given adequate thought, I can conclude that at the very least it was considered a deep moral failing by many people, and not necessarily only by the very religious or conservative. I imagine there was something slightly sinister, off-key, or debauched about divorce - one can imagine in hazy backlight the figure of a divorcee viewed as glamorous and sophisticated - after all, Hollywood stars had been getting divorces and serially marrying for decades before then (see Taylor, Elizabeth and Burton, Richard).

Reality, proving itself to be Irony's charming bedfellow, was quite the opposite of oversized sunglasses, diamond necklaces and fur stoles. My parents were 30; their oldest child of four was nearly 12 and the youngest was 7. I think we were all very far away from a wee fur stole, yes?

As far as custody arrangements went, there was never a question that we would remain with my mother. Back then family court judges cared very little about a child's wishes and usually granted automatic custody to the mother. Would we have wanted to live with my father? I don't even know the answer to that question now, 36 years later, much less been able to answer it then. We were told that my father didn't want us to live with him permanently - that was guaranteed to sting fragile childish hearts and it made its intended impact. I don't doubt that it was the truth - my father was not a person who should have attempted parenthood and one of the main reasons he did was a result of the culture in which he was raised. It was just something you did as an adult, along with finding a good job, buying a house, and paying your taxes.

Anyway, almost overnight my life changed fundamentally. In fact, it changed so much and so radically in such a short period of time that many of the fallout effects weren't felt until I was an adult myself. To be 30 years old and still questioning the fine points of the demise of one's parent's marriage sounds like grist for the therapy mill, but on that snowy January day in 1970 my ideas about marriage and family changed irrevocably. My faith in the permanence of marital vows took a beating; my faith in my own future choice for a mate was cast in doubt; my trust in the constancy of men was whittled to nearly nothing.

We moved one state away from my father - in an area like the Northeast or the Southeast, that wouldn't have represented too great a hardship, but in the grand open spaces of the West, we lived a 10 hour drive away. Visits weren't made casually (air travel was still ruinously expensive then), nor, because of my father's work, very often.

Our cozy middle-class existence was shattered - we were now living in a single parent household. My mother worked, but as she'd never finished college and had been a housewife for 11 years the jobs open to her were few and ill paid. My father paid some child support but that didn't propel our lifestyle into any stratosphere or stop us from being latchkey kids.

I entered a world of hand-me-downs and charity offerings, of always having to rsvp no to slumber parties, of checking in constantly with my mother while we were at home and saying goodbye to family vacations (which we couldn't afford to take) plus a whole host of other intermittently embarrassing social situations in which it was incumbent upon me to produce two parents. Did I feel soul-crushing envy at other, whole families for whom these issues never arose? Of course! I spent many years simmering with resentment, class based and otherwise, towards anyone and everyone who had something I lacked.

Do I wish my parents would have stayed together although their world views and essential personalities differed so radically? Do I wish they could have somehow sucked up their differences and sacrificed their happiness to ensure mine?

It would be disingenous to write otherwise than that the selfish childish part of me (which persists long after childhood ends, I find) is more than happy to insist that since these two people brought me into the world their responsiblity for my happiness lingers far longer than it ought. Thankfully the adult side of me has a chance to chime in with its specialized knowledge of the complexity of relationships to put the kibosh on wishing what could never be.

I'll never be a person that can hear about a couple's divorce without feeling some sadness or some identification with the situation. Especially if kids are involved -I always imagine the shoes of other limited and confused tiny selves, how I once fit into them so neatly, and how terrifyingly difficult they are to outgrow.

I think my experience of divorce made me a person who couldn't enter into marriage easily or early. I was nearly 35 when I finally felt I could truly commit to another person. During my 20's and early 30's I viewed marriage as a prison, each participant a free bird locked in a gilded cage.

When I seriously contemplated marriage I discovered that for two people in sync, what it really was, what it really could be, was two best friends poised on the edge of a cliff, jumping off together hand in hand towards an unknown future.

And that was an image I could hold in my heart.

This Week in Its Briefs - Cottony White

1. The terrifying yet also perversely and profoundly boring tax season has ended again. I never fail to feel the sickening lurch in my gut when I realize we owe taxes. We owe taxes every year no matter what, so a logical mind might anticipate and prepare for what sensibly seems to be an ironclad eventuality, yet it catches me by grim surprise every year. I don't know - perhaps in my deepest fantasies I'll wake up and one year we won't have to pay. Laugh along with me, mes freres.

2. In Cupcake News: The Cupcake has, as I wrote earlier, announced his semi-retirement with a new title, that of Chairman Emeritus. From what I can see, Chairman Emeritus shoes resemble nothing quite so much as cushy pink bunny slippers, as he's embarked on an intense travel schedule interspersed with working on his other business ventures and steering wheelbarrows full of cash to the bank.

He's much happier now and subsequently lots more fun to work for - the tarnished lining in this particular cloud is that he still needs staff (like me) to run his life, and I'm sure the remaining active business partners at the agency will at one point, probably soon, become fed up with the time I spend doing his work and somehow find a way to pull the plug. At which point I think I ought to negotiate my own tiny cash wheelbarrow...

3. It's Wedding Season - this weekend a work colleague will tie the knot for the second time (at the age of 54 - gulp!), next month the son of a dear friend will sensibly and I’m positive beautifully wed exactly the right woman for him, and this summer we have the wedding of a favorite of Mr. Fresh Hell's many nieces.

I love weddings in a completely unabashed uncynical way. The sense of romantic promise in the air lingers as sweet and fragrant as the flower bouquets – it doesn’t matter if the couple is young and untried, or older and starting over again – summoning the immense courage to stand up in front of family, friends, (and often one’s God) and promising to honor and cherish another person until death sunders you is an icy plunge into a depthless well of faith.

4. I am a crafty person, in that I enjoy handcrafts. My real love is knitting, which has always afforded me endless delight. It's always amazing to me that with two pointy sticks and a pile of yarn I can create a useful and attractive garment. In keeping with my general impatience, I always have at least three or four projects on needles at the same time, so I don't tire of any of them.

Slow week here at the Briefs, but hopefully more to come later, so I remain, as usual.

New York City Haiku - A Tuesday Version

Great price on roses,
found at Korean deli.
All dead in a week.

Hey small yappy dog,
Barking like a crazy ass -
Just a pink scooter.

In clusters outside,
Their white coats like snowy drifts.
All city chefs smoke.

Tie-dyed street merchants,
Sell all day many odd things.
Stoned? Bored? Or, good job?

Snotty French boutique.
Twig salesgirl looks up and down.
Nothing in my size.

A Tale of Two Cities- Fresh Hell Style

I'm claiming a small share of geezer status before my time, and including here two places in the US that I believe have been completely ruined and shorn of their beauty by being constantly hyped.

1. Telluride, Colorado - I first went to Telluride in 1974, eons before movie stars and media moguls thought it was cool. The mountainsides were empty of anything more substantial than pine trees, and the several lakes and box canyons in the surrounding areas were pristine and unspoiled. If one camped at Trout Lake as we did that summer (located in another box canyon a few miles south of the town), it was in a roughly finished wood cabin with very little in the way of mod cons. (I think there were indoor facilities, but if there were they were quite rudimentary - in a way, it surely prepared me for my future wrestling with the vagaries of North African plumbing.)

There was a lot of mud, as I recall, but the rainbow trout fishing was phenomenal, both in Trout Lake itself and the many meadow streams flowing from the tops of the moutains. Our days were spent blissfully fishing and hiking.

Telluride itself was a ramshackle conglomerate of a dozen streets, populated half by flannel shirted, tobacco chewing, crusty miners driving rust-riddled pickup trucks, and half by bonafide pot-smoking hippies complete with patched jeans, bare feet, long hair, thriving communes and blissful expressions. This wasn't a town where you went to shop, for crying out loud; you went to the laundromat to wash your clothes, the general store for your provisions, and the bait shop for your tackle and fishing wire. Precious antique stores and restaurants menu-laden with fennel flavored sausage & tofu pancakes came much later, after Hollywood et. al discovered the place and trashed its pristine beauty beyond all recall. I can't even think about it without heaving a tortured sigh - it was so wonderful then, in all its wildness - so complete even with such a light footprint upon its throat.

2. San Francisco - I was privileged to visit San Francisco in 1976, the summer after my father's death. One of my paternal uncles lived there, and my sibs & I trooped out en masse for a few weeks during summer vacation. The streets, laid out gracefully in an arc around the marina with row after row of pastel Victorian houses, complete with plate glass veranda bay views, were breathtaking in their quiet pomp and ordered circumstance - the marina and ports were not yet engulfed and overrun with kitcshy tourist haunts, studiedly upscale restaurants, or boutiques filled with elegant yet completely unnecessary items. The streets were incredibly clean yet very lively. There was even a studied quaintness to be seen in the fey denizens of Castro & Polk Streets (although I'm sure that many of them were probably zoned out of their heads - their benign gazes were likely more influenced by quaaludes than gaiety).

It was a city of sparkling white views, a conveniently sordid underbelly kept tidily in its allotted corner, and the all time hands down best Chinatown in the world. I ate Peking Duck there for the first time, in one of Chinatown's most exclusive restaurants - it had to be ordered 24 hours in advance, which was done by my aunt's Chinese assistant. Marin County was sparsely populated then, and the majesty and coolness of Muir Woods was unparalleled - one felt, surrounded by giant redwoods and the calm and quiet of an ancient forest, that one had dropped out of civilization itself. Anyone who has been to San Francisco in the last 15 years will know the liveability and charm has all been leached from the city and impossibly ruined by the huge influx of population and attendant business, accomplished without an eye to appreciating or enhancing the grandeur and character of the city. The infrastructure has been unable to grow swiftly enough or cope. San Francisco is no longer a glittering jewel in the Bay, but yet another sprawling polluted filthy mega-city with traffic enough to defy Los Angeles on a good day.

It would be proper, I suppose, to leave this post on a high note, which is admirable but something I'm loathe to do - the biggest part of me would rather wallow in nostalgia for these places remembered in their heyday of unexplained, unexpected, and unparalleled beauty.

Blog-Holiday

Just taking a few days off to recharge and come back next week with fiery content, or maybe just tepid drizzle.

This Week in Its Briefs - Brand Spanking New

1. It's officially spring in New York when the Mitzvah Tank rolls into town! For all of you who don't live here, various groups in the Hasidic Jewish community own RV's, into which they pile a number of similarly togged and coiffed brethren and roam around the city, blasting Orthodox music through loudspeakers. They park in various places (today one group alit at Union Square), and hand out flyers. It's entirely possible they do other things as well (mysterious good deeds known as mitzvahs) but I wouldn't know - they always ask if you're Jewish before handing you a flyer. If you say no, they'll snatch away the offending page as if it (or you) were on fire. I've lived in the city twenty years with no bloody idea what a mitzvah tank is for.

2. Also, even if it's a little too cool at the moment, Spring officially begins when cafes and restaurants open their outdoor seating. New York has a plethora of sidewalk cafes, which offer some of the city's greatest spring and summer pleasures. Somehow even the most mediocre of dishes is enhanced in an outdoor setting. Screw privacy! Let's all just do it in the road!

Some restaurants, in an attempt to nab the surging hordes of clientele who yearn to dine a miniscule inch away from the gritty, grimy, glorious city, place their tables so close to the sidewalk pavements that pedestrians sauntering by can with ease swipe morsels from an unattended plate. Not that that's ever happened. Ever.

3. Harbingers of Spring can be also found in sandals and open toed shoes (I know! 65 degrees and the sandals are out, people!). New Yorkers, with our thin blood, will brave the chilly temps just to air the footies.

Until the next time, I remain your devoted, etc., etc.

New York City Haiku - April Showers

Man in blue tee shirt
waters plants on balcony
Dude, such a sweet crib!

Wait for crap R train
Peruvian music soars
It's not the 80's.

Young kid on subway
70's called -their hair back?
It's a good question.

Another whirlwind of activity way away from the blog, and very little inspiration is left in its wake. Yet, there are still a few gems:

Dear friends of Mr. FH's & mine, a husband and wife team (who sweated blood and tears to produce a fabulous documentary film) just received word that their film has been accepted to premiere at one of the top U.S. independent film festivals. (Details will remain anonymous until I get the word from them that it's okay to publicize on the blog.)

It's the culmination of a dream come true - they envisioned this film, wrote it, shot it, edited it, have marketed the hell out of it - and finally, average people will fork over hard earned money to view it on a big screen. It's a colossal creative baby that was birthed - a truly remarkable vision captured on film that will finally get the wider audience it so richly deserves.

I have a huge respect for these immensely creative minds who so eagerly and lovingly send a creative child out into the cruel cold world armed mostly with the grandest of hopes, but also shielded with the resilience of truth and passion.

In my more restricted universe, I sweat and worry about submitting a post of mine to a Carnival - yet this glorious pair trump my offerings in their enormity.

But I'm getting better with sending my own creative babies out to the wider world - I've submitted a recent post to the 2nd Big Fat Carnival, found here (and I should be better at code/linkey bits but after two hours of deciphering forgive me for not linking properly - here's the url so I'm thinking it's a copy & paste job, and I'm sorry for the extra work)

http://www.meloukhia.com/2006/04/big-fat-carnival.html

Please do read through the list, as it proves to be very interesting and provocative, and a list of posts I'll spend the next few days reading and thinking about.