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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wee Hours Open Thread

Wee Hours Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  April 13, 20152:37 am| 32 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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We went hiking this weekend through a preserve in Central Florida and stumbled into this real-life Monet painting:  We were surprised to see so few birds. But we did see a magnificent swallow-tailed kite soaring overhead. It seemed to make a special effort to fly directly over us and give us the eyeball. I wanted to take a picture but couldn’t take my eyes off it long enough to ready my camera.

Tonight, I went to bed at around 11 PM ET but woke up again about an hour ago, and I could tell immediately it was useless to try to go back to sleep, at least right away. I’ll try again in a bit.

In the meantime, there’s much stupid to catch up on in the media. Maybe that’ll bore me into a stupor that’s conducive to a good night’s rest.

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Reader Interactions

32Comments

  1. 1.

    sharl

    April 13, 2015 at 2:39 am

    Did u know that Hillary Clinton is running for Preznit?

  2. 2.

    opiejeanne

    April 13, 2015 at 2:52 am

    I do crossword puzzles. That helps put me to sleep most nights.

  3. 3.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 13, 2015 at 2:52 am

    I’m gonna take this mood stabilizer as soon as anybody will hang out with me.

    Should anybody be in SF by the way I’m super happy to hang out.

    Had a fun moment with a chatbot on grindr just now too. http://imgur.com/NyOtHaY

  4. 4.

    opiejeanne

    April 13, 2015 at 2:53 am

    @sharl: lulz.

  5. 5.

    JordanRules

    April 13, 2015 at 3:05 am

    Looking for a movie I can fall asleep to. I fear this will be a night where my insomnia wins handily.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    April 13, 2015 at 3:09 am

    @JordanRules: “The Dead Zone” is on Netflix, I think. God, what a terrible movie, and boring enough to sweep you off to Dreamland even though its subject is psychic visions of mass murder and nuclear apocalypse. It’s jarring to see a younger Martin Sheen as an evil wannabe president, knowing as I do that he grows up to be the wise and good President Bartlet.

  7. 7.

    JordanRules

    April 13, 2015 at 3:23 am

    @Betty Cracker: Awww, I think I’m gonna watch West Wing now; reruns sometimes work for me. I can’t do mass murdery stuff even when happily awake at the right times. Not even tongue in cheek stuff. I’m a super wuss.

  8. 8.

    Aleta

    April 13, 2015 at 3:27 am

    @Major Major Major Major: That is hilarious.

  9. 9.

    sharl

    April 13, 2015 at 3:48 am

    At last: media starting to ask the hard questions…and getting answers!

    Haaretz.com @haaretzcom

    Men more likely than women to time-travel and kill Hitler, study shows dlvr.it/9MBQ6W

  10. 10.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    April 13, 2015 at 3:51 am

    I’m printing out my taxes for snailmail. Fun, fun, fun.

  11. 11.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    April 13, 2015 at 3:57 am

    @sharl: Really? I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell ya.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    April 13, 2015 at 4:02 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    “I’m shocked, shocked, that there’s time traveling going on in there!”

  13. 13.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    April 13, 2015 at 4:07 am

    @Chris: Well, my reply was to Hillary running. However, either women don’t buy the premise of time travel(possible), are less violent(more likely), or just like their trains running on time.

  14. 14.

    joel hanes

    April 13, 2015 at 4:15 am

    We were surprised to see so few birds

    Bug season is burgeoning up north.

    It’s a long way to the boreal forests and lakes and the muskeg and the tundra,
    but if your hatchlings need to eat their weight in insects dailly,
    it’s the best buffet on the planet for a few weeks each spring.

  15. 15.

    Aleta

    April 13, 2015 at 4:20 am

    @sharl:
    A related study seeks to determine whether men are more likely to have experienced building time machines, ray guns, and periscope-equipped submarines out of cardboard boxes.

  16. 16.

    RK

    April 13, 2015 at 4:48 am

    Anyone know why Sullivan walked away from his blog? Just curious because his reasons seem thin.

  17. 17.

    Marilynd..so

    April 13, 2015 at 4:54 am

    Very few sugar ants have blessed my counter so far after a quite warm late winter….maybe the early spring freeze froze them off. And the Maple Beetles are in less abundance YES!! Not looking forward to a sweltering “dry” heat in So Oregon…dreaming of maybe celebrating my 70th year on this earth in the most treasured place of my childhood…Discovery Bay, Port Townsend, WA. Frightening pics from my friends in the Olympics of little to no glacial reserves….we got some late spring deposits on Mt Ashland and McGloughlin that usually make Angel Wings down the side until well past my BD….late cold spell could help that, fingers crossed!!

  18. 18.

    J R in WV

    April 13, 2015 at 5:10 am

    So since I’m awake, and data is free from midnight to 6 am, I’m updating the computers, 2 of ’em. While that’s running, in the background I’m reading the blogs of tha’ innertubes. Happy to have companions across the world at 4 and 5 am.

  19. 19.

    sharl

    April 13, 2015 at 5:38 am

    Some sad news from the literary world:

    Guenter Grass, author of “The Tin Drum”, dies at 87

    German novelist Guenter Grass, the Nobel Prize-winning author of works such as “The Tin Drum”, has died at the age of 87, a foundation in his name said on Monday.

    Grass, with his trademark drooping moustache, was born the Baltic port of Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland, in 1927 and much of his fiction was set in the city.

    For many, Grass was the voice of a German generation that came of age in World War Two and bore the burden of their parents’ guilt for the atrocities of the Nazis.

    (I believe the first name’s spelling is actually Günter, fwiw.) I can’t say I knew his work, though I certainly knew his name and a bit of his back story.

  20. 20.

    Phylllis

    April 13, 2015 at 5:48 am

    Been up since 4-ish–sent hubs off on a work trip to two little towns near Big Stone Gap in VA. First day back to work for me after Spring break, and I’m totes not feeling it.

  21. 21.

    Valdivia

    April 13, 2015 at 5:53 am

    @sharl:

    was about to post that and that misspelling of his name is all over twitter too, weird. Maybe they can’t do the umlat properly in some formats… His Tin Drum is an incredible book. I think there is a great interview with him in The Paris Review.

  22. 22.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    April 13, 2015 at 6:12 am

    @Valdivia: It’s not a misspelling. Following a vowel with an ‘e’ is the standard way of writing an umlauted word in a typeface without umlauts.

  23. 23.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    April 13, 2015 at 6:13 am

    @Aleta: Reminds me of the Cheapass Game “U.S. Patent #1.” The object of the game is to be the first to build a time machine and go back and get the very first American patent.

  24. 24.

    Mustang Bobby

    April 13, 2015 at 6:19 am

    Up at my usual time this morning and now at work editing a paper that will be delivered this Saturday at the William Inge Theatre Festival’s scholars conference in Independence, Kansas. (Independence, Kansas — not to be confused with Independence, Missouri, a suburb of KC — is a small town about 75 miles north of Tulsa and the birthplace of the playwright that gave us Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic; Bus Stop; The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and the Oscar-winning screenplay for Splendor in the Grass.) This paper is supposed to be twenty minutes long and now I have to cut it back. Maybe if I talk fast…

  25. 25.

    Valdivia

    April 13, 2015 at 6:21 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    had no idea! so used to the umlat spelling

  26. 26.

    Keith G

    April 13, 2015 at 6:26 am

    The patch of grass-like vegetation (not sure it qualifies as a yard per say) in front of my place looks a lot like that picture. Been raining for several days and will continue to do so for a few more. Highs in the low 80s, humidity continually pegged at 100. The move from spring to summer continues apace here on the Texas swamps.

    The good news is that as I stepped out of my door at 4 AM, I was greeted with a refreshing cloud of honeysuckle fragrance.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    April 13, 2015 at 6:41 am

    @Valdivia

    The Tin Drum was made into a pretty intense movie that captures the flavor of the book quite well.

  28. 28.

    Cervantes

    April 13, 2015 at 8:08 am

    @Valdivia:

    I think there is a great interview with him in The Paris Review.

    In 1991, by Elizabeth Gaffney, from which:

    GAFFNEY: Do you think your novel Die Rättin suffered somehow in English because the title had to be The Rat and therefore did not convey that it is a female rat? The She-Rat would not have sounded right to American ears and Rattessa is out of the question. The reference to a specifically female rat seems so fascinating, whereas the genderless English word “rat” conjures up everyday images of those ugly beasts that infest the subways.

    GRASS: We did not have this word in the German language either. I created it. I always try to encourage my translators to invent. I tell them, If this word doesn’t exist in your language, create it. Actually, for me it has a nice sound, she-rat.

    GAFFNEY: Why is the rat in the book a female rat? Is that for erotic or feminist or political reasons?

    GRASS: In The Flounder it’s a male. But as I get older I see that I’ve really given myself over to women. I will not change that. Whether it’s a human woman or a rat — a she-rat — it doesn’t matter. I get ideas, you see? They make me jump and dance, and then I find words and stories, and I begin to lie. It’s very important to lie. It makes no sense for me to lie to a man — to sit with a man, together, telling lies — but with a woman!

  29. 29.

    Cervantes

    April 13, 2015 at 8:10 am

    We went hiking this weekend through a preserve in Central Florida and stumbled into this real-life Monet painting

    That was beautifully spotted, photographed, and written.

    Thanks!

  30. 30.

    Miki

    April 13, 2015 at 8:25 am

    Nice pic ….

    My Big Guy Mike once graced me with a Monet shot – miss that guy. https://www.flickr.com/photos/luvlymikimoto/221960811/in/photolist-

  31. 31.

    workworkwork

    April 13, 2015 at 8:34 am

    I was scheduled to go to a tech conference downtown tomorrow but it looks like I’ll have to cancel. Thanks to Netflix, I have too much on my plate with work deadlines today and tomorrow.

    I know, I should be more responsible but I really got sucked into “Daredevil”.

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    April 13, 2015 at 10:08 am

    @sharl:
    Günter* Grass was born with his drooping moustache? That alone should have made him famous.

    *Wikipedia confirms his first name is indeed Günter with a ü.

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