The Canine Rototiller

Meet Ernest.

She is technically the neighbor's dog and technically has a different name, but seeing as she likes to run around our yard, bark at the 200-pound wild pig that brazenly visits under the full moon, and sleeps near our door, I like to think she is partially ours.

Her original name (her original name, other than the neighbor's selection for her) was Ernest the Awesome, but given her farts when you pet her stomach and the utter destruction of The Boyfriend's kangkong/seedling boxes, she got demoted to Ernest the Mostly Awesome.

The infinite wisdom of Chris Rock

I made a conscious decision not to post musings here about politics/colonialism/race/militarization/the environment/sartorial choices, since there are others far better equipped to expound on such subjects--in blog form--than I. You'll see some of those writers to the right.

Also, I have no other place in my life to publicly post photos of slugs or what I ingested for breakfast.

But despite a mighty effort, I can't ignore those nasty "little" incidents popping up in daily life, whose occurrences increase in their frequency and ability to irritate me. The Drowning Mermaid's recent post about contact with military personnel exposed the marrow more clearly than I (and I imagine, a lot of locals) care to admit, and my mood's been a bit on, ahem, check, as it were.

So without yakking on about my thoughts on racism and all that other shit--acknowledging that her post touches on profound theories of local/tourist, military/civilian, Chamoru/not Chamoru--I guess the best possible way to (not) explain where I'm at personally, desde Sanlagu para Guahan after two and half years here, is to rely on Chris Rock to do it for me:

"If you're black, you gotta look at America a little bit different. You gotta look at America like the uncle that paid for you to go to college . . . but molested you."

Uncle Sam, indeed.

Walter A. Manglona just revived Richard Marx's career in the CNMI

I can't believe that I never posted it (I first heard this song maybe back in April), but am glad I finally got around to it. The Chamoru rap starts at 3:10.



Walter A. Manglona, you're an effin' genius. (I'm not quite sure what the snowy New England background or spaceship have to do with Saipan or someone's broken kurason, but what do I know about artistic license?) Si Yu'os ma'ase for showing our young people that Chamoru can be relevant to pop culture.

(By the way, Walter, yanggen you're out there . . . Umekungok yu' i kanta-mu, something about throwing kannai-mu on someone's daggan, and I have no idea where to get your album. Let me know, nai?)

In case you've got an extra $3,000-$6,000 lying around . . .

You too, could be the proud owner of this piece de resistance.

I just happened to spy an October 19 New York Times blurb about a book put out by the Museum of Modern Art's Library Council, which is based on Oliver Sacks's medical anthropology travelogue Island of the Colorblind.

Given that I finished reading this very book not two months ago, it seems somewhat fortuitous that I would happen across the blurb about--let's say it again, because we simply don't hear it enough out here as an indictment/excuse (but interestingly enough, never a point of pride)--"just a tiny tropical island in the middle of nowhere!"

Although, really, MOMA's overpriced book/art thing-y is less about Luta/Rota per se and more about the good doctor's nostalgia-inducing trip to the island. I think. I don't know because I haven't seen the book + excerpted text and am not jetsetting back to New York anytime soon to see the images in their respective gallery.

All I know is that New York Times called the MOMA book "mysterious" and "seductive." Given that it's a book with photographs of ferns, it sounds like the artist did a hell of job making them sexy, and I'd really like to hire him to take my next MySpace profile pics.