The Vanishing Point of Microdot

For all the friends of Microdot who perhaps have been wondering about the ominous absence of posts since his return from the hospital, I, Madame Microdot have finally enough courage to sit in front of his computer and write a few words to tell you that that delightful, creative, curious, surreal, encyclopedia brain behind thebrainpolice is no longer among us.

It is very strange for me to be sitting in his chair in his natural habitat of utter chaos where I never, never have ventured before.  He had his space, I had mine.  We would often send emails to each other from upstairs to downstairs.  There would be ensuing howls of laughter through the floorboards.  But tonight I am here and looking around at his hodge podge, topsy-turvy shelves and they speak more about the man than I could ever describe.  For sure, no one ever policed that singular brain of his!

Here is just a peek... I don't think he would mind. (Impossible to list more than a fraction of the stuff, but you'll get the idea, as my eyes roam over the piles.)

Two Robert Crumb cards of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Barbecue Bob bluesmen

A little book he adored by one of his favorite artists, Edward Gorey, "The Water Flowers"

A video tape of "Forbidden Planet"

A little teddy bear statue that a lady here gave him

The Art of Charcuterie Cookbook

The MC5 "A True Testimonial" DVD

About 50 or 60 Georges Simenon Maigret books

An old Belle Star 45 rpm from our days in the band in NY, circa the early 1980's

Books about mushrooms, wild orchids, kite craft, cartoonists

A plastic statue with a bobbing head of "Big Boy", home of the double decker

Tangled up cords of every description (computer, radio, electric... who knows)

Piles of comic books with a penchant for Weird Comics

Recipes of Chinese Spareribs

Colette's "Secrets of the Flesh" ... (Hey, that's mine and I wondered where it went...)

Lots of CDs of Frank Zappa, Wayne Kramer, Iggy Pop, Bootsy Collins, (Bootsy's New Rubber Band), Sun Ra, Funkedelic, etc.

Reproductions of Marcel Duchamps, Max Ernst (Microdot was simply gaga for DADA)

A sweet Dutch wall calendar (out of date)

Videos of all of the Jacques Tati films

A Batman pin

An antique box camera

A couple of pairs of old shoes stuck in the bookshelf

A hammer, some wrenches, nails and screws, screwdrivers crammed in a Pernot water pitcher from the '50s, along with oil paint and water color brushes

Five Japanese calligraphy brush sets

A huge pile of maps

And that is just scratching the surface...

I almost passed out when we got the prognosis as he left the hospital: he had from 3 days to a month to live.  His cancer(s) had progressed to the point of no treatment possible.  He said to me, "Don't worry, I'm going to drag this thing out like the third act of a bad Opera."  And he did.  He lasted just a little over a month.  During that time he was reading avidly, and I mean gluttonously, stuffing that brain with more facts.  He mostly was reading history books, almost one a day.  He never complained.  He told me that he didn't have time to be depressed.  If he wasn't reading he was doing the NY Times crossword puzzles.  Death came gently and he was at home with the window open to the new leaves of spring.

I have to turn off his computer now.

My email is: mygarden@orange.fr

In closing, here is a little poem by Emily Dickinson from 1894 that I read today:

The Butterfly upon the Sky

That doesn't know its Name

And hasn't any tax to pay

And hasn't any Home

Is just as high as you and I,

And higher, I believe,

So soar away and never sigh

And that's the way to grieve~~~

Black Bird

Beck using the curved side of a dinner fork to get ultra-high notes to simulate the ambient chirping of birds sampled for the track:
"Round about spring, a blackbird sings loudly up on my roof," jeff said, and "Although I didn't record that bird, I got a tape of a blackbird and started jamming with him. If you listen, the notes the bird is singing are almost beyond human hearing, but the actual punctuation and tonal things are there. I aped the bird as close as I could, and we all had a good laugh with that one."
Album "YOU HAD IT COMING" (2003)

Still Alive! After my unscripted departure over 2 weeks ago to the Medical Center in Perigueux, I got to come home! Thanks to all of my friends who sent emails and concern and good wishes, I truly appreciate and value them. My nephew has a Buddhist monastery in Thailand chanting for me every day!  I really have a new respect for the French Health Care System. All of the staff was professional and really caring. I have not paid a centime and I'm even getting some of the money I spent on having a TV reimbursed by my Mutual. It's not over for me by a long shot...life takes some very unexpected turns but I am confident that I am getting the very best treatment available. but now a nurse comes to my home a few days a week. I won't go into the nature of my problems here but it takes a lot to bring me down and I'm far from down! I posted one week's menu from the hospital. The food was actually pretty good! I'll be writing more about our Health Care System in the near future. I haven't really been out of a bed for 2 weeks. I'm still pretty weak and tired but I can walk again! I wanted to let all of my friends and blog readers know that I'm back on line and happy just to be alive!

Street Artist Installs a Giant-Sized Oscar Statuette Snorting Cocaine Near the Oscars Venue

Wednesday, Wednesday....

I cannot wait to see more of this stuff....I was always a Charles Addams fan.

And where have I been?

Well, I have been carping about not feeling well for too long. I visited my local doctor  and had some tests done and seemed to be feeling lousier and lousier. I dragged myself into the Hautefort Medical Center today and my doctor said I was going into the Hospital in Perigueux tomorrow morning or else! So tomorrow at 8:30 a medical taxi is collecting me, Hopefully, I will be able to use a laptop to hook into their Hospitals WIFI system so I can do live blogging on the French Medical System in action. Can you believe, so far, I have not had to lay out a centime. The taxi is free and since I do have a mutual health policy, I get a private room. I promise to charm all the nurses. I feel pretty positive about this. I feel bad that my wife will be stuck with our demonic little cute puppy doggie, Romeo. Luckily we have very close network of good friends who will go above and beyond with help and support. I seem to have a tumor developing on my liver and it is causing all kinds of problems. Now we will take care of it and hopefully I'll be back in action on a few weeks!

The Middle East That Might Have Been

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson dispatched a theologian named Henry King and a plumbing-parts magnate named Charles Crane to sort out the Middle East. Amid the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the region’s political future was uncertain, and the two men seemed to provide the necessary combination of business acumen and biblical knowledge. King and Crane’s quest was to find out how the region’s residents wanted to be governed. It would be a major test of Wilson’s belief in national self-determination: the idea that every people should get its own state with clearly defined borders.

You don't have to buy the book or see the movie. Here, just for you, 50 Shades of Grey and now,

 I'm working on the sequel, 50 Shades of Beige....