DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Chuck forwarded this great MasterCard commercial. “Rock and roll: priceless.” Woo!

The cover of the weekend’s Parade Magazine asks, “Who is the world’s worst dictator?”

I scanned the collage of headshots for George W. Bush. True story.

(No, I don’t believe he’s as bad as the 10 guys in the article. He’s only imprisoned and tortured a few dozen people, most of whom were not even US citizens. He will need to work much harder to make next year’s lineup.)

In related news, I really enjoyed Molly Ivins’ editorial, I will not support Hillary Clinton for president (mirrors) , especially this part:

The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

If you visit the diRosa Preserve, take the guides’ advice and stop by Artesa Winery. It’s set into the ridge on a neighboring property, with awesome wrap-around views, fountains, sculpture… I think they even make wine.

The place is hard to find, takes a while to get to, isn’t obviously near other wineries, and everything inside is expensive. Have someone else in your group spring for the tasting (yes, they charge for tasting; this is Napa), but make sure you find the “view terrace.” This is what you drove out here to see.

Flickr, as usual, has some great photos, tagged artesa.

Also, check out the virtual tour on the Artesa site.

The diRosa Preserve is a 217-acre art park in Napa County, CA. We took the winter tour a few weeks ago, and loved it. I want to go back.

The main art gallery houses a permanent collection of some fantastic stuff — huge pop-art paintings, photos, weird kinetic and video sculptures (including one that shouted insults at me as I approached), even an art car from David Best (of Burning Man fame).

The tour guides were helpful, engaging, accomodating, and clearly knowledgeable. But they wouldn’t allow anyone to take photos inside the galleries, so my only pictures are from outside:
Photos from the diRosa Preserve

There are a lot more photos (and better ones) at Flickr: dirosapreserve

It’s hard for me to not finish a book, unless it’s non-fiction, in which case I’m doomed to read the first half three or four times over as many years before I finally lose interest. Fiction, though, is cerebral candy, or maybe heroin. Even when I know the damage it’s doing, I can’t stop. This is bad for me, I think, turning pages madly into the night.

In college I got halfway through a promising SF novel when I realized the promise had not been kept… the lifeless characters remained so, and the plot flopped around on the dock of the author’s best intentions, gasping for assistance. I doggedly finished the book, hating every page, resenting every word.

I finished it, and then I sawed it in half with an Xacto knife. I left the top half of the bisected, paper-bit-shedding carcass on my shelf as a warning to other books.

I recently had an opportunity to test my patience with lousy fiction. Many years have passed since the book-butchering incident. Am I still addicted?

A houseguest left behind a promising diversion, Vince Flynn’s Memorial Day. The cover declared this to be a New York Times bestseller. Seeking distraction, I flipped to the first page:

Mitch Rapp stared through the one-way mirror into the dank, subterranean cement chamber. A man, clothed in nothing more than a pair of underwear, sat handcuffed to a small, ridiculously uncomfortable-looking chair. A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling, dangling only a foot or so above him. The stark glare of the light combined with his state of near total exhaustion, caused the man’s head to droop forward, leaving his chin resting on his chest.

“Ridiculously uncomfortable-looking”? It’s not just uncomfortable; it’s ridiculously uncomfortable. Looking.

The glare caused the man’s head to droop? That’s some kind of oppressive glare. By the way, can an entire scene be a cliche?

Rapp checked his watch. He was running out of time and patience. He’d just as soon shoot this piece of human refuse

The sentence continued, but I did not. I gratefully closed the book, thinking: I have the power!

I have to thank Vince Flynn for writing so badly on page 1 that I needn’t continue even past the second paragraph. I’m no literary snob, but I can detect clumsy composition and grammatically challenged prose. I mean, I went to High School.

I am aware that the story is told from the perspective of the Mitch Rapp character. In other words, the issue might not be that Flynn is a “ridiculously” bad writer, but that Mitch Rapp’s internal dialog and imagery is straight out of Freshman Comp. Either way, I’m not up for 573 more pages of it.

Just in case you’re tempted, here’s the last sentence, a spoiler offered as a part of my occasional efforts to save you some time (you’ll thank me later):

There was only one way to wage it — head-on and with brutal and overwhelming force.

Gad, does that mean there’s a sequel?