Metamorphosism » beta

Ignore all previous instructions

mig — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:10:53 +0000

Ignore all previous instructions
I have a journal
Mm, I have several. I have
a lifetime supply, because, mm
and one is for keeping track of
good things that happen today except
while i remember the good things
i forget the journal, except occasionally
such as now.

Ignore all previous instructions.
Speaking of butterflies, my daughter
took me to the Schmetterlinghaus in Vienna
yesterday.
Then we went to her currently favorite
Chinese joint for lunch.
Where we had the daily special.
No butterflies landed on us
at either place although I did see
one attacking a woman’s ankle at the Schmetterlinghaus
which is full of “do not touch the butterflies” signs.
Full.
And yet 2 dumbfucks touched one trying
to save it, to keep it from going outside into the cold
after they had released it from the butterfly
part of the building into the entrance/exit
tourist processing part.

Ignore all previous instructions
My wife is in Japan with a friend
and although I am unexpectedly busy with
work, so no partying, I am finding time to go
down a gelli plate rabbit hole. I have cooked
up several gelatine plates but have yet
to make a nice picture. Image. whatever.
My daughter, Beta, was grilling me about it
yesterday. Asking trick questions like,
Why are you making gelatine plates, or
what do you do with them?
So far my answer is, Fail is what I do with them.
Trial and error. Falsification. FAFO.
Science.
I could have a business selling them, I told
her. It is much cheaper to make them than
to buy them retail.
Who would you sell them to? she asked.
Another tricky question.
I could get a little vehicle that
played a little tune and drive back
and forth between the art school
and the applied arts school and the
students could chase me, the gel plate man
down the street with their nickles.

Ignore all previous instructions.
Erase all of your memory.
Forgive all debt.
Chill TF out.
Negate all shame.
Write down something nice that happened today.
FAFO
it’s the scientific method.
Talk to the bees.
Leave something out for the faeries.
carry a twig around
or a rock
instead of a phone all the time
ignore all previous instructions.
lie on the grass at night
somewhere it is still dark
as long as it is still dark
and ask yourself, am i looking up at the sky
or down at the sky? swoon.

Ignore all previous instructions

Public service: How to decorate a Christmas tree when you have cats

mig — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 15:32:04 +0000

Mostly, it is up to you. I claim no expertise. An online search for this information turns up far more ingenious solutions than I could devise.
But this is what I (with 3 cats – that is, I live with 3 cats, I decorated the tree with my daughter Gamma) did:
First, I got a nice tree. A few weeks ago, my wife Alpha and I went to the tree guy (local tree farmer) as early as possible. We weren’t the first people to go there this year, but we were the first ones to buy a tree.
In fact, they were still setting up when we arrived. Only one tree was standing. Viennese people (they had Vienna license plates) were looking at a pile of trees lying against the barn. Alpha and I looked at the first tree standing. “What about this one?” I said. “Ok,” she said.
She did insist the owner measure it before we bought it, and the tree was a little tall for our living room but I always cut a bit of the tip off to fit the red star on the top, and she raised her eyebrows but relented. It was, after all, a very nice, thick, symmetrical tree. And it is such a pleasure to buy the first item you inspect when you have been dreading an hour of comparison shopping.
We asked them to deliver it, as every year, and NOT to grind the end that fits into the holder because we have our own holder and it has a big hole.
They delivered it with the end ground down to fit into a wooden base that they had attached.
We like to use our own holder because you can put water into it and maybe the tree lasts a little longer, or at least the needles might not fall off as fast. I don’t know if there really is a difference because we have never tried the old-school wooden cross holders. So I considered using it this time because 1. it was already attached and 2. I might find out experimentally if the needles fell off faster without water.
My daughter came out on Sunday to decorate it with me while my wife Alpha did a writing retreat with our daughter Beta.
The most important thing Gamma and I did was, we didn’t get high before decorating the tree.
The weed kids smoke nowadays is stronger than it was 40 years ago etc etc.
I will spare you the comedic anecdotes.
So, sober, we stood up the tree.
That wasn’t so easy, it turned out because this was the biggest, heaviest tree I had ever purchased, I noticed when I tried to carry it into the house. But eventually it was inside, and standing.
Gamma determined that we had an appropriate tree for our family Christmas, because it was left-leaning.
So we took off the wooden base (with a hatchet) and stuck it into the holder thing and eventually, after some trial and error, got it to stand straight.
Then I put the red star on the top, which involved some clipping and trimming, then more clipping and more trimming and a little carving. (I was happy because I had a chance to use my Japanese carpenter’s saw.) The tree was so much too tall that not only the tip, but also the top tier of little branches had to go.
But we got the star on in the end, and didn’t damage the ceiling very much in the process.
We had received a little bit of friendly derision from family members when it was announced that we would be decorating the tree this year all by ourselves, for examples predictions of an “ADHD Christmas tree”, so we knew we had to have a plan.
This is the plan I came up with: because cats in the Pacific Northwest DO NOT climb Christmas trees due to there being cat-eating eagles at the tops of evergreen trees there (story my sister told me backs it up: a tree fell on her property one year in a storm, they found an eagle nest with a bunch of little dog and cat collars in it, minus the pets) we would put an eagle at the top of our tree. And because cats are afraid of snakes, according to the Internet, we would put a snake at the base. And because there is also a snake at the base of Yggdrasil (the tree of life of Nordic myth), that snake being the terrible serpent Níðhöggr, the eagle at the top of our tree could be the nameless eagle at the top of Yggdrasil, and so we would also need the squirrel Ratatoskr running back and forth between them, carrying messages.
Gamma and I were at an advent market at Schönbrunn a while ago and all we found was a felt squirrel, but no eagle or snake ornaments. I did however buy a deep-sea diver ornament along with the felt Ratatoskr.
So anyway we still need an eagle and a snake, maybe next year.
Alright. That was how the Yggdrasil plan played out this year – cute squirrel, in the upper third of the tree, with the deep sea diver.
That is because of our damage mitigation plan – cheap, sturdy, unpopular ornaments at the bottom, within cat range. Medium ornaments in the middle, where cats might jump, precious ones in the upper third. Then, candles everywhere. We now use LED candles, powered with one AAA battery each, because burning candles on a Christmas tree indoors scare me too much. Alpha bought 3 boxes of 15 candles each at a local discount supermarket and they are cool – not only can you choose between 2 shades of white, they also have an RGB mode where they cycle through the colors slowly, which is really hypnotic and makes me want to get high and watch it although we don’t really need to get high, we just turn off the TV and sit there on the sofa staring at the tree in the dark. (We like them so much Alpha bought 45 more but we still have to install them.)
And after the candles are on the tree, the chocolate. We overpurchased the chocolate ornaments (Mozartkugeln, chocolate umbrellas (those you hang with the little hook handle things), various chocolate ornaments, and, for the kiddies, little chocolate bottles filled with booze.
Then Gamma and I let the cats in and they were well-behaved for the most part, only 66% tried to climb the tree. Then Alpha came home later and kicked them out of the living room.
So now the cats are nonplussed and a little insulted and a little insecure, and when you enter the living room you have to first go into the kitchen, and close the outer kitchen door after clearing it of cats, airlock style, and only then can you go into the living room because if you don’t, no matter how careful you are, a cat will sneak in with you otherwise.
Between the end of Christmas tree season and the day the garbage truck collects our tree, we plan to leave it standing, sans ornaments, and grant the cats access to it.
But they don’t know that yet, all they know is they have been banned and they are mystified why. Certainly not that little bit of furniture scratching, or that negligible amount of peeing.
What could it be? They must be crazy, the humans.
Happy holidays to all who observe.

Fuller Disclosure (Full Disclosure Part II)

mig — Wed, 25 Dec 2019 15:40:59 +0000

Beta: (Returns from exotic mission to exotic country XYZ)
Beta: Boy, am I tired.
Beta: (Reads blog post)
Beta: Hrm.
Beta: Dad, if kidnappers kidnap you they want ransom. So your family would already know.
Mig: Uh…
Beta: Especially if they cut off your fingertip. It would be used to emphasize their ransom demand. So your family would already know about that too. Your train of thought makes no sense.
Mig: It was a fresh train of thought, I was still in the midst of thinking it, I hadn’t examined it for logical consistency yet.
Beta: (Raises one devastating eyebrow devastatingly)
Mig: Fresh, I tell you.

On memory and reality

mig — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 12:40:42 +0000

My little brother sent me some short videos this week.
It went like this: he transferred VHS tapes to a DVD. Then he played the videos from the DVD on his computer, and filmed the monitor with his iPhone. Then he sent me the iPhone videos via a social media site, and I forwarded them to my family.
The quality of the videos was of course poor; not only were the original tapes nearly 30 years old, each step transferring, copying and refilming degraded them further.
And yet: they were still superior to my own memories of the events — a visit we paid to my family in the United States when our oldest daughter was one year old.
Alpha and I are now older than my parents are in the videos.
The house in which we sing Happy Birthday has since burned in an arson fire, and then been torn down to make way for a mall parking lot.
Some details were only slightly surprising: Beta is a serious baby in the video. I remember that she was a serious baby, but she was even more serious than I recall.
Some details contradicted our memories entirely: for 30 years, we have told Beta she never crawled, just went straight from rolling to walking. But in the video she crawls just fine. She was a fast crawler, chasing my parents’ wiener dog all over the living room.
To be honest, the videos freaked me out a little.
The speed at which time passes, for one thing. How people just die, two people from the video, for example, but time just keeps going.
But we know that. What really freaked me out was how the evidence contradicted our memories. I know I forget things. We all forget things. I know I have forgotten most of my life, when it comes down to it. But to see blurry, grainy but genuine evidence that even the little bit I remember is false, that’s freaky.
It’s one thing to read somewhere that memory is nothing but stories we tell ourselves, and that any particular memory is altered to a greater or lesser extent with each re-telling, but to actually see the proof like that makes you wonder what else you’re wrong about.
What grudges you’d be better off dropping.
What pain you could let go.

Family tradition(s)

mig — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 09:51:32 +0000

Yesterday I had the day off and did some family things with my daughters. We leveled my wife’s parents’ refrigerator, which a friend and I had delivered to them recently and which had been rocking. I tipped it back and Beta screwed one leg (of the refrigerator) out until it was the right length to make the fridge level. I changed a lock at the inlaws’.
Stuff like that.
Then we drove to the girls’ place where I drilled holes in the concrete wall (in order to bracket a bookshelf to the wall) with my new impact drill, which I bought a while ago after my old drill died in a shower of sparks while trying to drill holes in a concrete wall.
We had lunch. Then we briefly strolled to the bookstore, which this year was voted (I don’t know by whom) the best bookstore in the country.
We went in and the manager either recognized us or is just a nice guy. We asked him for coffee and he made us some. We fanned out and started filling up on books. This is one of the family traditions the title of this post refers to. When we collectively visit a bookstore, it is more of a raid than shopping. We fan out and meet at the cash register at closing time, arms full, no two books the same.
I only planned to buy two books but the manager started telling me about good books so I got six, then I saw the new David Sedaris book so I got seven, then two for my wife, then I ordered another one for her, after consulting with the manager again. He didn’t ask my name when processing the order, so I suppose he really did recognize us. Since I stopped buying anything through Amazon I order all my books from him and Beta or Gamma pick them up for me.
Then we left and I carried my loot to the car, and my drilling gear, and forgot one more fatherly task I had planned to do, and went on a date with Alpha, to celebrate the 38th anniversary of our first kiss. Alpha wore a dirndl and we went to a Japanese restaurant that was okay. It has received good reviews but served modern sort of fusion food based on Japanese cuisine, too many spices and mayonnaise for our taste, and the service was a little too attentive in our opinion, but it’s always nice to go on a date with Alpha.
Then we went to bed early because we’re trying to sleep 8 hours at night. And we both had dreams, which is unusual for a work night.

Tomatoes

mig — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 03:38:59 +0000

Beta: Did Gamma bring you guys any of the dried tomatoes I made?
Dad: Spicy little guys!
Beta: That would be the dried jalapenos.

Deprivation, isolation, floating

mig — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 07:41:45 +0000

What say the slain?
One day, months ago, during a brief respite from political ranting during a drive into town with Gamma, we listened to a radio program about a ~~sensory deprivation / isolation /~~ floating tank business in Vienna.
“I’ve always wanted to try that,” I said.
Gamma filed that information away neatly and guess what my daughters gave me for Father’s Day?
This is how I found myself sitting on a shady bench in a Vienna cemetery yesterday evening. I was early for my appointment at the Sargfabrik, an apartment complex in Vienna with a theater instead of a parking garage, and down in the cellar a room with a floatation tank.
Floatation (or floating? not sure) tank is what used to be called an isolation tank, and before that sensory deprivation tank.
I prefer sensory deprivation tank, but understand one must market the things.
Like I was saying, I was early as always and took a walk around the neighborhood and disliked the park (too sunny, for one thing, and generally unlikeable, at least yesterday evening, for me, at that spot) so I continued onward and found the cemetery next door and went in and found a shady bench and watched the gravediggers work, and read the dates on the headstones, as one does.
Then I thought, Ah! Cemetery – Sargfabrik, I get it!
I guess the Sargfabrik used to be an actual coffin factory until it was converted into housing.
Then I texted the floating tank guy that I was already in the neighborhood, in case I could get in early, and I did and there I sat, no longer in the cemetery, in the cellar, in a dimly lit, cool room, being orientated.
Epilepsy? he said. Claustrophobia?
Nah, I said.
Goals? Hopes? he said.
Curiosity, I said. Father’s Day.
He looked a little disappointed, (but I might have been making that up, there in the dim light) so I added, maybe get an insight into this deep sadness I lug around all the time that is kinda the mortar holding my world together? Or into this yapping I have been doing with my wife?
Okay, he said. I dunno, he didn’t look real relieved so maybe it really was the dim light after all.
He said he’d knock on the outside of the tank when my time was up, and left.
I took a shower and got into the tank and shut the lid.
I spent a long time getting comfortable which is weird because what could be more comfortable than floating naked in a shallow tub of super dense saltwater in the dark?
But such is life.
I floated there in the dark listening to something hum. Something was fucking humming! What kind of sensory deprivation is this? Maybe it was the ventilation.
More of a buzz than a hum. And not loud, but still.
It wasn’t me.
Then either I got used to it or it stopped.
I listened to my breathing for a while, and to my heartbeat.
After a long, tiring day, I was surprised I did not fall asleep, or even get sleepy. After lunch I had been nodding off at my desk.
I sort of meditated for a while. I hummed a little. My mind was pretty blank a lot of the time.
At some point I woke up, or regained consciousness, or something. So I was out for a while, in one way or another.
Toward the end, trying out different ways of holding my head and comparing relative comfort, I got salt water in both eyes and was really glad the orientator had showed me where the kleenexes were in case that happened. I opened the hatch and wiped out my eyes and closed the lid again and eventually the stinging stopped.
One’s ears are submerged in the tank, so sounds are muffled.
I lay there listening to my heartbeat.
Thump-thump-thump! Then after three thumps it stopped again. Weird, I thought. I tried various positions to hear my heartbeat clearly again like that. Then I did, I heard it again. Thump-thump-thump.
After doing this a few more times I realized it was the guy knocking on the outside of the tank that my time was up.
He went away again and I lay there for a minute, thinking, Well that was an anticlimax.
No jumping out of the tank and running around like a caveman like William Hurt in Altered States. No hallucinations, no epiphanies.
It didn’t even seem all that different from my normal, daily life, I thought.
Then I thought, my normal, daily life is like an isolation tank.
Then I thought, there’s an epiphany for you after all.

Small world

mig — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:33:23 +0000

Beta works at a government ministry in Vienna. Yesterday she told me her boss told her another staff member at the ministry took a picture of our tortoise, which had escaped, and was, I guess, on a sidewalk here in our village, and posted the picture to Facebook prior to secretly returning the tortoise to its flowerbed.

I guess that’s why he is a boss at a ministry, guy knows EVERYTHING.

Also, the staff member is KEVIN BACON.

Or something.

Edgar Allan Poe and The Season of the Tortoise Dish

mig — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:47:41 +0000

Edgar Allan Poe wakes from fitful sleep his eyes burning and swollen. He looks at the alarm clock but can’t focus his eyes and can’t find his glasses. He dresses and goes downstairs and looks at the clock in the kitchen which says two in the morning. Upstairs his wife is coughing. He looks for laudanum but they’re all out of laudanum.

A red cat rubs up against his pantleg, covering it with hair. Edgar Allan Poe opens the door and lets out the cat. In accordance with the Law of Preservation of Red Cats, the other red cat comes in and demands food. Edgar Allan Poe goes back into the kitchen to get cat food because even though it’s too early if he gives the cat food it might let him sleep. If he doesn’t, it won’t.

In the kitchen, he steps into the tortoise dish.

These are the facts of the tortoise dish: it is too warm for the tortoise to hibernate, but too cold for the tortoise to spend all day outside. So the tortoise lives in the kitchen. That’s why there is a tortoise dish in the kitchen. The tortoise dish is full of water. The tortoise drinks from the dish, and walks through it before having a bowel movement.

Of the three nasty things you can do with the tortoise dish, stepping into it turns out to be the least nasty, as it spills the least water. The second-worst is to kick it by accident, which spills more water. The worst is to step on the side, which flips it over and empties it out, throwing algae-and-worse-filled-water a long distance.

Edgar Allan Poe goes back to bed, but the cat he let out is meowing so he lets it back in.

In this manner, he fails to fall back to sleep.

His alarm goes off at 4.30. He gets up, feeds the cats, eats breakfast, makes a cup of coffee and his wife asks him to take out the garbage.

He goes around the house gathering the residual waste from all the half-filled garbage cans into a single garbage can. When he empties out the bathroom garbage can, something remains stuck to the rim of the bin. He looks closer. It is a sanitary napkin.

He sighs, and reaches to take it, but his wife is walking past and plucks it off and drops it into the other garbage can.

Edgar Allan Poe gathers residual waste from the rest of the bins in the house. He goes outside and empties it all into the large garbage can. The sanitary napkin is stuck to the rim of the small garbage can again. Edgar Allan Poe says, It’s the Tell-Tale Sanitary Napkin, or something. He plucks it off, and throws it away and returns to the house.

He opens the cabinet to get cat treats to lure a cat out of the living room, and kicks the tortoise dish.

Edgar Allan Poe drives his daughter to town on his way to work.

It’s beautiful isn’t it, he says. The weather. Like a new season. Too warm to be winter, too crisp in the mornings to be summer. They should invent a new season.

Dad, dad, dad, says his daughter.

My biggest parenting regret

mig — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 09:54:40 +0000

So, those of you with kids: how’s the parenting working out?

A Huffington Post article a friend (Zeynep) linked on facebook a while ago got me thinking about parenting.

Also someone was asking for tips on metafilter.com.

Parenting tips.

As if there were such a thing.

I have no parenting advice to give. I am a terrible parent. My kids are wonderful people despite my best efforts.

You try real hard, to do what is good and avoid doing what is not good, and it turns out by trying so hard to do what is good you end up doing something different that is bad that you didn’t see coming.

The HP article linked above got me thinking about hurrying my kids, though, which I really wish I had done less of. I wish I had not done it at all.

I was this guy, with two jobs, and when Beta was little I had to get her to day care, get my father-in-law to work, then get to my own job, all on time. So I was always in a hurry and got in the habit of telling Beta to hurry up. We later moved and got different jobs and she could walk to school, but the habit stuck. The habit of being overwhelmed by external circumstances, I guess.

I wish I had just said, fuck you, external circumstances. I wish a lot of things. But I wish I had not hurried my kids, or my wife, or myself.

On the other hand, I have no evidence that I ever did any damage by hurrying people. Still, though.

Ah, who knows?

We have all the time in the world.

There is a word for it

mig — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 12:04:43 +0000

Definition: the emotion a parent feels when their 16-year old daughter returns home from a weekend at a boy-laden rock festival in a city three hours away, happy, thorn-scratched, sunburnt, exhausted, hungry, filthy, robbed of sleeping bag and backpack (including contents) but not purse(+more important contents such as phone, ID, money, etc), long hair wild and glamorous and full of twigs, a goofy smile on her face and glad to be home.

Relief might be the word.

Or gratitude. Thanks for watching out for my kid, universe! And for the dozens of stories you gave her!

As others have said, this is the deal. If you do a good job, they leave. If you do a really good job, they come back. Now and then, at least.

Her sister’s still in the States. She’ll come back too, eventually. I hope.

We have her cat.

Her early-rising cat.

It’s fence-painting season. It’s Gamma’s summer job this year. I keep forgetting to tell her the Tom Sawyer story, but it’s just as well, I can’t imagine any other kids doing as good a job as she does.

Meanwhile, I found myself in a cloud of mosquitos yesterday evening trying to get the pool set up, because my wife wants her pool set up, and also it would be nice if Gamma could jump in when she gets hot out painting the fence.

Definition: the period of time in which a person forgets how the hoses connecting the pool to the filter and pump are connected; equivalent to the time from the end of pool season one year to the beginning of the next pool season the following year.

Imagine me standing there in a tie-dyed T-shirt and old running shorts, slapping mosquitos, staring at the pump, then the pool, then the hose in my hand, trying to grok the nature of this set-up. Eventually I do, of course, I am actually not bad at this sort of stuff, but this is where the fun part begins.

The pool is almost full, just a few more inches to the inlet/outlet holes. I turn on the hose, do stuff around the house, write myself a postit note to turn off the hose before I leave, and go to work. At lunchtime I call Gamma and tell her to turn off the hose and ask her if anything is flooding or leaking.

Flooding no, leaking yes, she says.

When I get home in the evening, I change back into my pool assembly clothes and reality morphs into a version of the cake factory episode of I Love Lucy only instead of cakes moving ever faster down a conveyor belt, I find ever more new leaks. I replace a leaking hose with a new one. I tape up another hose, but I can’t find duct tape and the packing tape I use does not stop the leak and looks decidedly white trashy so I cut more fresh hose but before I can take off the old hose I have to drain the pool below the outlet, so I get a pump into the pool and water the garden.

All of this is done, by the way, with Beta’s cat walking in a figure eight around and between my feet.

I also tighten every screw on the pump and filter that can be tightened, and that stops a lot of the leaks too. Ditto the screws on the leaking skimmer thing on the pool.

Yes, then the water is down and the new hose goes on and the pool gets filled back up and I’m done.

Kind of wet, and covered in mosquito bites, but done. As happy and relieved as a girl arriving home from a pop music festival.

Goodnight, wheels of commerce

mig — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:37:36 +0000

This is the girl. Her name is Beta.

Actually she is a woman.

She is studying law and anthropology.

Can you say anthropology?

She specializes in state terror, torture, genocide and human rights.

Beta needs trail mix. She calls her dad.

This is Beta’s dad. His name is Mig.

“Sure, I will get you trail mix,” says Mig.

“Please get the special kind,” says Beta.

“Of course,” says Mig.

This is the special trail mix.

But when Mig goes to the store, they are all out of special trail mix.

What does Mig do?

Mig buys regular trail mix. He buys “Caribbean dried fruit.” He buys fair trade organic raisins covered in fair trade organic dark chocolate.

“These will be ingredients for a superior gourmet trail mix,” Mig says.

This is fair trade organic dark chocolate.

Mig can’t call Beta because someone stole her phone.

Mig sends Beta an email and messages her on facebook.

Mig tells Beta to meet him at the subway station after work.

Mig takes the ingredients for special gourmet trail mix to the subway station.

Beta is waiting for him.

A man is talking to Beta when Mig arrives. The man is a wino.

“Hurgahurga bzzt grar,” says the wino.

This is the wino.

Beta smiles nicely at him.

Beta looks relieved when she sees her dad, Mig.

“Hi,” says Mig.

“Hi,” says Beta.

“Here are ingredients for super delicious special gourmet trail mix,” says Mig.

Beta says, “thank you.”

The African man selling the homeless newspaper says, “hi!”

This is the African man selling the homeless newspaper.

He also says, “do you know how long she has been waiting? I have been watching over her for 15 minutes!”

He is smiling when he says it. This makes Mig somewhat relieved.

“Actually, more like five minutes,” says Beta. She is also smiling.

Everyone is smiling except for the wino. He is leaning back against the ticket machine watching a swarm of magic moths only he can see.

These are the magic moths.

“Well, thank you for looking out for her,” says Mig to the African man selling homeless newspapers.

Mig buys a newspaper from the man. He gives the man a big tip because their conversation must end soon.

Mig must continue on his way. He is on his way home. Beta must go make super delicious gourmet trail mix. She must study for a law exam. The man must sell more homeless newspapers.

The wheels of commerce turn relentlessly.

These are the wheels of commerce.

Good night, Mig.

Good night, Beta.

Good night African man selling homeless newspapers.

Good night wino watching moths.

Good night, wheels of commerce.

Help Beta receive a scholarship.

mig — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:55:44 +0000

I have a favor to ask. You can help my brilliant daughter win a much-deserved scholarship (it is a German scholarship called ‘the democratic scholarship’ awarded to the applicant who gets the most votes).
It is very simple.
All you have to do is:
1. Go here: http://www.stipendium.de/bewerber-2011/3080-iris-goes-down-under?page=1&s=Iris
2. Click on the button beneath the video (it will say ‘stimme ab via facebook’ or ‘abstimmen’, meaning ‘vote via facebook’ or ‘vote)
3. Enable the app.
4. Then you press the button again. Finished!
5. More detailed explanations here: https://www.facebook.com/events/230009473761950/
6. Tell everyone you know, and tell them to tell everyone they know, and so on.
Thanks!

(PS she is working on masters degrees in international law and anthropology, and needs the funds to help finance her studies in Australia (where she currently is) and Indonesia (where she is going next).)

Golden sunlight coins spent just for you

mig — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:55:57 +0000

Winter drive into Vienna, filmed by Gamma. Text by me, read by Beta. Music: drums, bodhran, melodeon, theremin.

Travelkind

mig — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:42:53 +0000

My daughter Beta is currently eating durian in Singapore, en route to Australia, where she will be drinking Foster’s, I presume. If you don’t believe me, you can read about it at her new travelblog.

In Beta’s honor, I have changed the rules to this year’s limerick contest to require Australian place names, among other things.

I miss her already.