I Look Upon You as a Gem of the Old Rock.

On Friday, we had a tiny peek into the enigmatic Katie E. Lynch's unique world.  But there is something that many, if not all, people do not know about her. This something I had heard long ago and it returned to me as I noticed that she became increasingly favorable towards all manner of seeds.

She is directly related to the legendary American Nurseryman Johnny Appleseed.

I believe she is his great-grandniece by a few generations. They share some distinct similarities in their attitudes and approaches to the world with their love for seeds being just the starting point. Other parallels include:

-Both Johnny Appleseed and Katie E. Lynch understand the value in used clothing. 

Appleseed wore the equivalent of resale clothing in his time, but he always reserved the best bits for his friends. Katie does the exact same thing. She rarely buys anything new and is quick to give her favorite pieces away. She finds amazing treasures here and here.

-They are both aware of the value of life - great and small. 

This is a story from the annals of the legend of Johnny Appleseed.

One cool autumnal night, while lying by his camp-fire in the woods, he observed that the mosquitoes flew in the blaze and were burnt. Johnny, who wore on his head a tin utensil which answered both as a cap and a mush pot, filled it with water and quenched the fire, and afterwards remarked, “God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort, that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures.”

Katie E. Lynch has rescued the tiniest of creatures and feels pain at any discomfort wrought upon the smallest of beings. One notable occasion was when an orchid was delivered from the swamps of the Okefenokee to our house, bringing with it a displaced Anole ten digits long --- 1234567890.

What does an Anole look like?

This:

He was immediately christened Roger Anole and bathed in warm light and swaddled in leaves and twigs and served the finest aphids, which he refused to acknowledge by going on hunger strike with the effectiveness of John and Yoko in their hotel and the misanthropy of Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones. Roger Anole died holding onto false ideals, much to our chagrin.

-Finally, Johnny Appleseed and his scion, Katie E. Lynch are both strict vegetarians, which goes hand-in-hand with their sensitivity to the living. I am convinced that Johnny Appleseed would totally be a raw power vegan if he were alive today.

Here's Your Primitive Christian!

Hibernian Homme: Pulled into Beauty.

Man is Men was not born in a vacuum. There have been many points of light illuminating the vision of this blog and all have their own unique virtues.

But there is a particular aesthete that was particularly inspirational to me in starting this blog and that man is  Dan Monteforte with his incredible blog - Hibernian Homme.

Relentlessly beautiful, thunderous in sincerity, Hibernian Homme helps you regain that part of your soul that you always felt was slightly out of reach, such as his recent expedition into Places of Unknown Beauty here and here.

Part sartorialist, part design savant, Hibernian Homme hones his eye on every situation and finds the happiness that is to to had as the venerable Katie E. Lynch and I can attest to.

Eritrea? Really, Hibernian Homme. You really are a tastemaker, not unlike the previously-mentioned Arthur Quiller-Couch.

You Will Eat Life Itself.

I have the diet of a human being.

In all my years of living, I've been used to opening the cupboards and refrigerator to find the norms of society - flour, butter, eggs, pasta, rice, sugar, and so on and so forth.

However, for fourteen months there has been a sea change in my kitchen since the ever-so-lovely and beautiful Katie E. Lynch has transformed into a raw food power vegan.

Where once we lived in tandem, sharing the same food, our kitchen has now experienced a quantum shift, where two separate dimensions exist on top of each other. One is my run-of-the-mill cooked world and the other is a world of exotic names and substances that I have never heard of and can be quite frightening at times.

And, now, to share with you the new reality of the raw power vegan that exists in our kitchen:

Keep in mind that these things are not sitting on the shelves collecting dust, but are actually in heavy rotation as the intriguing Katie E. Lynch develops permutation of foods never before been tasted.(Really!)

Touching the Hem Never Works Out Right.

Admiration is a tricky fiddle to play. 

I have seen a ton of celebrities from afar. But I have only approached a few.

With terrible results.

These two Eugenes have given me equal short shrift, making me re-question my interaction with the world. 

Eugene Hutz

Eugene Mirman

Both encounters were painful incidents that were preceded by myself talking myself into stepping outside my own comfort zone and initiating a conversation with both men.

Similarities in both engagements were:

1. Despite their reputations as entertainers, there was an extreme lack of smiling.
2. There was very little eye contact.
3. The animal in the situation was unclear. Were they cornered creatures or was I an escaped beast?

These were not just celebrities that I happened upon and were fascinated by the novel nature of their celebrity. It must be said that these men have produced work that I have loved and have pondered.

But these interactions left me irritated and, consequently, put me in a state of revision towards my feelings for them.

As I mulled over their rude actions, I gradually realized the source of the nature of their coldness. It was an unbalanced relationship.

Relationships succeed when both parties give and take.

A non-celebrity confronting a celebrity is always on the taking side of the relationship with no giving to balance it out.

As a fan, I knew far too much about both these men that they had not personally given me. I made the mistake of only talking about the very things that made them both famous, placing us squarely in that imbalanced situation.

I should have just talked about something else, like Ray Harryhausen or the incredible Tsar Bomb. (hmmm...maybe not. They're both ex-Soviets.)

There is one celebrity I know, though, that transcends all this.

You guessed it.

Andrew W.K. - Honorary Plebe

What Little Sense I Once Possessed

Two friends arrived from Ohio with tales of their upcoming country band, Ding Dang Dong.

Although they seem united in the nature of the band, they were divided in their view on the meaning of the name. One felt it racist, while the other felt it captured the regional sensibilities of certain parts of America quite well. 

I felt the name is a perfect example of literary nonsense.

Literary nonsense is a form of writing that injects meaning through illogicality into a piece of poetry or prose.

We don't know what Ding, Dang, Dong means. Yet, somehow, we do. 

Another notable piece of dongery is by famous nonsense purveyor, Edward Lear, as follows:

"The Dong With A Luminous Nose"

When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights;--
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore;--
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore:--

Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,
There moves what seems a fiery spark,
A lonely spark with silvery rays
Piercing the coal-black night,--
A Meteor strange and bright:--
Hither and thither the vision strays,
A single lurid light.

Slowly it wanders,--pauses,--creeeps,--
Anon it sparkles,--flashes and leaps;
And ever as onward it gleaming goes
A light on the Bong-tree stems it throws.
And those who watch at that midnight hour
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as the wild light passes along,--
'The Dong!--the Dong!
'The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
'The Dong! the Dong!
'The Dong with a luminous Nose!'

Long years ago
The Dong was happy and gay,
Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl
Who came to those shores one day,
For the Jumblies came in a sieve, they did,--
Landing at eve near the Zemmery Fidd
Where the Oblong Oysters grow,
And the rocks are smooth and gray.
And all the woods and the valleys rang
With the Chorus they daily and nightly sang,--
'Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.'

Happily, happily passed those days!
While the cheerful Jumblies staid;
They danced in circlets all night long,
To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong,
In moonlight, shine, or shade.
For day and night he was always there
By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,
With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair.
Till the morning came of that hateful day
When the Jumblies sailed in their sieve away,
And the Dong was left on the cruel shore
Gazing--gazing for evermore,--
Ever keeping his weary eyes on
That pea-green sail on the far horizon,--
Singing the Jumbly Chorus still
As he sate all day on the grassy hill,--
'Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.'

But when the sun was low in the West,
The Dong arose and said;--
--'What little sense I once possessed
'Has quite gone out of my head!'--
And since that day he wanders still
By lake or forest, marsh and hill,
Singing--'O somewhere, in valley or plain
'Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
'For ever I'll seek by lake and shore
'Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!'

Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,
And because by night he could not see,
He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
On the flowery plain that grows.
And he wove him a wondrous Nose,--
A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
Of vast proportions and painted red,
And tied with cords to the back of his head.
--In a hollow rounded space it ended
With a luminous Lamp within suspended,
All fenced about
With a bandage stout
To prevent the wind from blowing it out;--
And with holes all round to send the light,
In gleaming rays on the dismal night.

And now each night, and all night long,
Over those plains still roams the Dong;
And above the wall of the Chimp and Snipe
You may hear the sqeak of his plaintive pipe
While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain
To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;
Lonely and wild--all night he goes,--
The Dong with a luminous Nose!
And all who watch at the midnight hour,
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
Moving along through the dreary night,--
'This is the hour when forth he goes,
'The Dong with a luminous Nose!
'Yonder--over the plain he goes,
'He goes!
'He goes;
'The Dong with a luminous Nose!'