Baby Sabbatical Cinema

"A monumental tale of suspense and allegory"
"a heart-pounding thriller!"
"cinema verite a la mode!"
"a savagely funny political satire!"
"a happy ending in which 'the ladders go up and down!'"

Tastes Like Chicken

Baby Sabbatical Soundtrack

Say what you will of Tom Cruise's Scientology; apart from his role in Magnolia, the best thing that guy has going for him is his illegitimate Mexican son, Pablo.

Strawberry Letter #33

Hello, My Love:

Welcome to thirty-three. It may seem a lucky year for that numerical reason, but luck will have little to do with it. Luck is an empty word. I prefer synchronicity:

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events, that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung in the 1920s.^[1]

The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and unconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.

Thanks, Wikipedia.  So I group things by meaning.  Big Deal, you may say.


It is if your first breath occurred on your father's thirty-third birthday, I say.  It is if you find meaning hidden where others don't.

And so it is that I like thirty-three, that most trinitarian of numerals, very much. (Note the effortless transition, here.)  You'll recall I conceived of a trinitarian concept of love in our early years together; or rather, my love for you manifested a trinity: sanctuary, proximity, communion.  Do you rememba?

If you find sanctuary with another, you've found 33.333% of love.

If you find proximity with another, you've found 33.333% of love.

If you find communion with another, you've found 33.333% of love.

Some mathy smart-ass might note that these things don't actually add up to 100%.  There's still some unidentified residual ingredient.  I'm o.k. with that.  I prefer to let the mystery be, and at the ripe old age of 33, so should you, my love.  So should you.

[As for the rest of you, put that in yer Khalil Gibran pipe and smoke it.]

Love, Shuggie's Ghost

Ambassador to Prague/Dublin/Clevelandia

Cc: Ulysses Bloomsday; O'Ghoulihy; Scott Roger Hurley

Dear President Obama:

As something of an Ambassador to Clevelandia in my own mind, I welcome you to my beloved, cursed burg. Perhaps your advance staff has informed you: there is more than meets the eye, here.  Even your most informed local advisors cannot properly prepare you for it.

But first, a little me and you.  I beg for justice and mercy in the poverty capital of America, as my father did before me before he died of a liquor-soaked, broken heart.  I'm a least among us guy, contrasted with the Ayn Rand cult of self-serving frauds who have ruled the day for so long.  You judge a society by how it treats the least among its citizens, and I give the least among us their constitutional due.

You are the first president my children will know.  Your role in their lives will shape who they become, and inform their world views, as your predecessors did me. I entrust them to you, in a way.  When that big 'ole head of yours fills the screen, my son knows it, he pays attention. I make sure.  You, the professor; me, the T.A.

When it comes to Cleveland, though, let me be the professor.  The syllabus is The Bloomsday Device, itself, and all its constituent parts: The Device, The Epiphany, The Manifesto, O'Ghoulihy.  I suggest to you the following starting points:

here, wherein, I lift our city's curse through a simple act of remembrance.

here, wherein, I document our secret history of racial politics.

here, wherein, I excoriate the corrupt.

here, wherein, my poesy flows into the widening gyre.

here, wherein, I describe my lawyering process.

here, wherein, I offer an objective record of my legal skills.

Happy President's Day, Mr. President. Welcome to the Bloomsday Device.

Sincerely,

Scott Roger Hurley

Second Baby Sabbatical Soundtrack

Not only having lived in a northern town, but also, having graduated from the dream academy, with honors, or as they say in Latin, mea culpa, Bloomsday, herein, commences his Second Baby Sabbatical. Welcome to the Bloomsday Device, unshaven, barely clothed, coffe-breathed, at your service, Luna.  Now, come and dance!

The Bloomsday Device Gets an Upgrade

Starting tomorrow, the Bloomsday Device, as a metaphor for the technological devices I use to maintain the Device, itself, will get a substantial upgrade with an iPhone.  I have culled the world for the best Bloomsday-Approved! (T.M.) apps for the iPhone and have found these:

PopTart Monitor App:  tells you, in minutes, hours and days, when you'll need more PopTarts.

Abstract Non Sequitur Response App:  provides pithy, cryptic or absurd replies to any question.

Natalie Portman Stalker App:  gives GPS coordinates, monitors gestational progress and knocked up fashion wardrobe.

O'Ghoulihy's Clevelandia App:  Showcases local currents in metaphysics via late night horrorshow.

Avoid Your Doppleganger App:  maintain suitable distance to ensure no universal particle reversal.

Bob Ross Baby Daddy App:  translate any text into the master painter's soothing voice.

Scrabble

Parenting Tip # 33; The Bob Ross Baby Daddy

Standing, with baby firmly supported at neck and rump, facing you, begin:

"Bob Ross, Baby Daddy
Bob Ross, Baby Daddy


Happy Clouds, Happy Trees
Happy Clouds, Happy Trees..."

Baby should be utterly engaged, as if watching Sebastian Cabot spittle the microphone as he narrates Winnie the Pooh, cake crumbs clotting his beard. Repeat.

End with Boop Game finish.  For Boop Game rules and instructions, see Parenting Tip #7: The Boop Game.

Chinese New Year Soundtrack

Luna Bloomsday, Groundhog Denier

Luna caught her shadow

out a corner of her eye.

She thought, inside her

swaddled self, "A

groundhog, not am I."