Chuck Norris Facts

In my current state of mind, Chuck Norris Facts is my Website of the Month. Here's their Top Ten:

1. Guns don't kill people. Chuck Norris kills People.
2. There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
3. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
4. The chief export of Chuck Norris is Pain.
5. There is no chin under Chuck Norris' Beard. There is only another fist.
6. Chuck Norris has two speeds. Walk, and Kill.
7. The leading causes of death in the United States are: 1. Heart Disease 2. Chuck Norris 3. Cancer
8. Chuck Norris drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.
9. Chuck Norris is my Homeboy.
10. Chuck Norris doesn't go hunting.... CHUCK NORRIS GOES KILLING

Martin Munkacsi

I was reading a recent post on TOP, which linked to (wonderful) pictures by Martin Munkacsi, whose name was completely unfamiliar, but I knew I'd seen this picture somewhere. A little research reminded me of the context.

Martin Munkacsi, Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika, ca. 1930

"[It] made me suddenly realize that photography could reach eternity through the moment. The only thing which completely was an amazement to me and brought me to photography was the work of Munkacsi. When I saw the photograph of Munkacsi of the black kids running in a wave I couldn't believe such a thing could be caught with the camera. I said damn it, I took my camera and went out into the street."

-- Henri Cartier-Bresson, November 1985

Listening to...

... Vijaya Jadhav Gatlewar. I want to hear this lady live. She is absolutely terrific.

Kalindikhal Wrapup

Two more days of the Kalindikhal writeup have been overdue for months. After crossing the pass, we headed down the beautiful Arwa valley, first fording ice-cold rivers (you could see the source glacier a kilometre upriver, and one particular raging, thighdeep torrent had blocks of ice floating in it and threatened to sweep us off our feet), then crossing moss-covered boulders and lovely smaller streams (camping for the night at Arwa Tal), and finally walking through river meadows filled with grey mist and green grass and flowers until we got to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camp at Ghastoli, a beautiful place with an absolutely surreal little pond a few hundred metres before the camp. The armymen welcomed us and provided cups of tea, and after some pleasant conversation we headed further down to Mana (a little village just above Badrinath). Halfway down, we managed to intercept a construction truck just where the motorable road starts, and took a riotous little ride down the winding road, being tossed around like sacks of potatoes in the open back of the truck. We crossed the Saraswati river over a narrow bridge below which the stream plunges so steeply that the water level is perhaps a hundred feet higher on one side than on the other. From Mana to Badrinath and its sinfully relaxing hot-spring-fed tanks, and then homewards via Hrishikesh. Goodbye, then, and here's the last lot of pictures.

Jackass

... penguin, i.e.

(Photo: Edgar Thissen)

Hee hee hu hu ha ha ha...


(calvin and hobbes theme subjects)

Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.

Bilu-da plays Desh on a funny sort of morning.