Right now my favorite foodstuff in all the world is Apricot Ginger ice cream. I wouldn't give that pronouncement too much weight, though, considering that for a period of 18 months my favorite food in all the world was once Fizzies. 
 

 A shiny car with dusty sides is a real challenge for cross-hatching. I just discovered that Gary Panter lives somewhere around here. Gary Panter! 
 

 Guys in bike helmets look like they belong to some Star Trek minor character's cult. At least he's not wearing those spandex shorts. I can do without seeing somebody's delicately-outlined giblets. I think I over-walked yesterday. My gastrocnemiuses have the consistency of the elastic in a pair of three-year-old boxer shorts. My Achilles tendons have sprung, so I imagine they look like those little paper things they put on the ends of lamb chops. I stomp around on inert stumps, leading the tenants downstairs to conclude that I'm pacing angrily after having been turned down yet again for a MacArthur grant. The fools! The blind, blinkered fools! How could they ignore--oh, wait a minute, that was just an analogy. I tricked myself. I'm not angry about anything. 

 I don't get Turner Classic Movies at home, so last night I watched The Philadelphia Story, Pat & Mike, The African Queen, and The Rainmaker instead of sleeping. It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but this morning in retrospect it feels like a bad mistake. I hate retrospect. 
 

 This is the Gate, which I'm told is popular among the cognoscenti. But I haven't seen Steve Buscemi here, or anywhere else in the slope. I've been looking for him all day, and not a peep. What is he, a fucking hermit? I even watched Interview all the way through, in preparation, when I could have rented Semi-Pro. Hey, I don't want to marry the guy, I just want to hang out with him for a while, see his crib, ride around in his Maybach, maybe get a little amped, do a belushi or two, you know. But no, he's got to hide out like a little girl. And Jennifer's moving to Tribeca, I know I'm not gonna see her. I'm down to looking for Fart Party, I know she lives in Brooklyn. Guess I'll start with the numbered streets.
 

 I was sitting in the window of a restaurant (okay, it was a McDonalds) at the entrance to Prospect Park, and a stream of the most interesting people flowed by me. You just don't see this kind of variety from the window of d"Egg in downtown Norfolk. I stayed and watched for an hour or so, until a lady at the next table began talking to me in a very loud voice about her death from artichoke poisoning and how she was reborn with mysterious new powers that she couldn't reveal at this time. That's another thing you don't get much of in d"Egg.
 

 Last night I accidentally discovered a great new drink. First you get some beer, preferably Brooklyn Brand East India Pale Ale, which I got the hard way, by flying to New York and agreeing to watch two cats (handy tip: there's a difference between agreeing to something and actually doing it, if you get my drift.) Then you drink half the beer while you're waiting for Obama to come on--and wasn't that a long goddam wait? And then you discover, as you always do, that the beer is no longer ice cold, so you fill a glass with ice and pour in some Izze Sparkling Blueberry, and drink that for a while. And then when that's half gone, you reach for the Izze bottle and fill it up again. And then when you take a drink, you realize that you filled the glass with beer! And it's good! So you get your beer, and it stays ice cold, and you get nice healthy juice too! It's a win-win for you! Heck, tonight I'm going to do it again, only on purpose. And because I'll know what's coming, this time I probably won't puke on the couch.
 

 The more astute among you will have put two and two together and deduced that I have indeed survived to get as far as Brooklyn. I have not been beset upon by anyone yet, for which I'm grateful. Longtime readers will recall that my last visit to Prospect Park was an eventful one. No such luck this time. Just a nice quiet walk. Larger view here.
 

 ...and so my great journey into the unknown commences. What lies beyond the dark horizon? Given that my horizon has heretofore extended to the far side of 21st Street, I imagine a great deal lies beyond it. I'm told that in the murky territories to the north they worship strange and irritable gods. They have a taste for human flesh. They refuse to believe the surge is working. But I must go, for the sake of Otto and Boo. I must screw something to the sticking-post, I forget what. I must gird my loins. Normally, I enjoy girding my loins, as long as it's not in preparation for something. Now, as I step into the wretched little airplane, which appears to me as a crude accumulation of discarded metal scrap assembled by cretins, I say a small prayer of intercession to whatever saint is in charge of ironic saving of non-believers and insinuate myself into my assigned seat--an assigned seat! They know who I am! I'm doomed--and enter into the heart of darkness.
 

Hilary did a creditable job last night, don't you think? It must have been terrifically hard for her. I still harbor a visceral dislike for her, though, and I'm still sorting out how much of it is due to male prejudices. I mean, whenever I heard some blockhead cable commentator say things like Hilary reminds him of a hectoring mother-in-law, my first response would always be, "ooh, he's right" and after an unconscionable gap I would realize why that's not a fair response. Whenever we accuse a woman in public life of being shrill, we're really saying, "why doesn't she act like a man?" It's going to take a while to overcome that, I think. In the meantime, there's plenty of Clintonian ugliness that can be legitimately pinned on her. So even if I became a better person, I still wouldn't like her. So it's really not worth trying to become a better person. That's my position. And those pantsuits! Why does she insist on wearing those godawful pantsuits?! See there's another example: how often do we have anything at all to say about a male candidate's wardrobe? There was Al Gore's focus-grouped earth tones, but that was more about manipulation than about how he looked. The sad truth is that men are just more primitive than women, and you can't just select a trait you don't like and scrub it out of them. It's all part of the whole package. And all we can do is feel guilty and loathsome or else turn around and celebrate our boorishness. Seen any Judd Apatow movies lately? Okay, enough. Where are those damn meds?

When I walked into the restaurant at lunchtime, these ladies were there in their red hats, having a great time. And it just inexplicably made me happy to see them there. I don't even want to know what the red hats signify, or whether it was a massive coincidence. It just made me happy, dammit. Cheers, ladies.

Until Helen mentioned him in a comment to my misbegotten self-portrait post, I had never heard of this Irish artist. If you haven't followed her links yet, try this one. I respond to his portrait heads the same way I do to Francis Bacon:  the initial horrific impression, and then, as you penetrate the layers, the horror put into context, as an essential part of the human condition, but a part through which we persevere somehow. God knows how we keep going; we just do. Sometimes I think we're not doing justice to the various horrors of life, not honoring them, unless we explode and vaporize, which we refuse to do, and I guess that's some kind of testament to our tenacity or courage or blindness, I don't know what. One of the most shocking and profound lessons I've gotten through my thick head is that no matter what horrors befall you, you keep going. You just keep going. I don't know what to think about that.

Overheard near this booth:

"Dad still loves his golf, but I don't think he realizes how hard it's going to be to put together a foursome in assisted living. I said to him, 'Maybe you should stick to a threesome.' It wouldn't be the first time, lt me tell you."

The sooner we scoot that last drawing down below the fold, the better, can I get an amen here, my people? So it's back to the trickle of human beans through the eternal coffee grinder of life. Side note: I'm watching "Junebug" finally, and it's a very nice little movie.

I don't know why I feel compelled to do these things. It's a kind of narcissism, I guess, but it belongs to the bizarro world. I had a bad glass of wine last night, that's part of it. Tasted like bile-flavored Kool-Aid. But I drank the Kool-Aid. I'm a man of purpose. Larger here.

No, I'm not going to stop making these, so just keep your various pieholes zipped. This is art, dammit! It's not my fault if you Phyllis teens refuse to recognize it. Sure, I could appeal to the lowest common dominator, post stuff that makes sense and whatnot, but that's not where it's at. Your old road is rapidly fading. I'm not going to kowtow to the boozhwa hoi polloi even if it means...no, it doesn't mean anything. There are no consequences. It's just a blog. What was I thinking. I don't stand on principle. I creep on principle on my hands and knees, searching for the place where I can get the fuck off.

Big-ass version here.

I think this one speaks for itself. And here's what it says:

I have of afternoon them to me wherefore that I know not - I lost mine all joking, abandoned all the custom of the exercises; she certainly goes so heavily with my disposal that this pretty frame, the land, me seems a barren promontory, this most excellent canopy, air, looks at it, this hanging brave firmament is hanging, this majestical roof consumed with golden fire, because, appears me none another thing of what a dirty and annoying assembly of vapors. How it works the part of a man! As noble in the reason, as infinite in the school, the form and if moving as express and admirable, in the action as as an angel, in the apprehension as as a god! The beauty of the world, a ideal thing of the animals! However, that for me this fifth-essence of the dust? You have equipped the pleasures not me, nor the woman, even so close its smiling seem to say something.