Reinventing the Tumbleweed

The tumbleweed blowing by is a popular cinematic trope used to illustrate barrenness, boredom, jokes that fall flat, etc. Lizzie and I spotted this fine specimen (right by mod Maude, our rental PT Cruiser) on a Pueblo in New Mexico, which was sort of empty. Is tumbleweed typecasting not just limited to their roles as movie actors? Are they hired/forced to roam about the earth indicating that your conversation is really tedious, or to call attention to eerie emptiness? Is it an Ancient Mariner sort of thing? How do tumbleweed(s) feel about this stereotyping? I feel these topics need to be explored in a new film, preferably a musical, where a plains tumbleweed goes to the city, pairs with a trash cyclone (you know, those magical wind-whipped mélanges of detritus usually located in corners or alleys consisting of candy bar wrappers, plastic bags and desiccated leaves) both learning from each other and discovering a rich inner self allowing them to explore who/what they are beyond the confines of their assigned societal (or cinematic) functions.

These are the things I think about, and these are the things Lizzie gets to listen to as we drive for hours. Luckily for me, not only does Lizzie listen to my ideas and theories, she expounds on them, always providing keen insight on logistics, such as proper tumbleweed lighting, etc.

Please list any thoughts on songs for Tumbleweed: The Musical! In the comments section. Any songs used will be credited to their respective composer.

Your actions, Sammy does not approve of them

This post is not about travel. This post is simply to let you know that my sister's cat Sammy saw what you did, and he doesn't approve. Not in the least.

Preparation H(epatitis)

So before Lizzie and I went to Africa, we had to get a bunch of vaccinations, including your run of the mill stuff like Tetnus, Polio, Diptheria, Measels, Mumps, Rubella, Hepatitis A& B, etc. Since neither Lizzie nor I had ever had the chicken pox, we had to get the vaccination for that, too, which is actually two shots, and gives you an ENORMOUSLY ITCHY red welt for about four days. Better than the actual pox, though, so I've heard. In any case, Lizzie and I went for our third round Hep A&B vaccine today, and we were very, very mature about it. That shit hurts! As you can see from the picture, my delts are off the chain, so there is no room to jam a needle in there. Plus there's that awful suctiony feeling as the needle comes out. Gah. My band-aid's pretty sweet, though, right? Hep Hep Hooray!

States of Snark: Flashback, 2007, New Mexico

Q. When will making jokes about buttes stop being funny?
A. Never

(Related, nice buttes!)

States of Snark Flashback: 2007, On Route from the Four Corners

No Passing.

States of Snark: Flashback, 2007, Four Corners

Four States Meet and Greet

Growing up, I lived on a street that straddled a town line. Being easily amused (in my youth, I mean) I would find great joy in being able to stand in TWO TOWNS AT ONCE! OH MY GOD! MY BODY IS BEING SPLIT BY AN ARBITRARY AND INVISIBLE LINE! In any case, now that I’m older, it takes much more to amuse me, something like, say, STANDING IN FOUR STATES AT ONCE! AWESOME! MY BODY IS BEING SPLIT MY MULTIPLE ARBITRARY AND INVISIBLE LINES! So it’s been reported to me by several sources (including my father and NPR) that surveyors are claiming that the “actual” location of the four corners is 2.5 miles away from where the monument is, due to faulty surveying back in 1868. (The monument was placed in 1875, I believe). Normally I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but I call BS on this one. For those of you who have never been to the four corners, let me tell you that it is a haul, and there’s no easy way to get there. Once you do get there, you have to pay a fee to enter, and then of course you have to buy a bunch of tchotchkes after taking your obligatory I’M IN FOUR STATES pictures. So, this whole “four corners is 2.5 miles away” is just a feeble attempt to lure tourists out in a recession to reclaim their dollars, while doubling as a ruse to trick us into going back to Utah. Just kidding, we’ll be visiting Utah again later anyway. Maybe during the Nevada trip.

Things of note from our trip to four corners:

There was an adorable Mennonite couple in front of us in line (you have to wait your turn to touch the four states) in full regalia (bonnets, stockings, etc), but oddly they had a much better camera than we did. I know because they asked us to take their picture. I’m guessing they’re not Old Order Mennonites, because a horse and buggy would not have cut it, travel wise. (Also, did you know there are many different orders of Mennonites? There are! Another job for wikipedia!)

Being the funniest people we know, we made signs to bring to our photo shoot. Some expressed our deep love for diet coke, others implied that we were bored, and the one pictured is a shout out to my Dad, who was concerned that we’d run into bandits (not to be confused with outlaws) while traveling through the New Mexico desert. While we did run into many odd folks on our journey, I don’t think any could be considered bandits.

OH MY GOD, LIZZIE'S IN FOUR STATES AND HER PURSE IS IN TWO!

States of Snark: Flashback, Santa Fe 2007

Georgia O'Keefe

Per the earlier post, a snow storm had routed our plans of touring Colorado first and then New Mexico, driving us south until one of the hotels Lizzie called reported back that it was, in fact, not snowing in Santa Fe. Santa Fe is a lovely city, full of adobe, overpriced turquoise and iconography. We visited a couple of museums, most notably the Georgia O’Keefe museum. It was a whole lot of awesome, but the best part was that Georgia seems to be in denial. When asked about the pretty obvious correlation between her art and what I like to call the lady parts, she was like “hell no you guys are all perverts those are just flowers”.

a) Flowers are reproductive organs. Next time your honey gives you a bouquet, think about the fact that you are getting a bunch of plant crotches. Sure, they have both male and female parts, but still, plant crotches. Ask my friend Bendta, she will tell you. They have ovaries. Look it up on wikipedia.

b) COME ON GEORGIA O’KEEFE! Has she just never looked, or is she playing some sort of trick on us? Note in her progression, she goes from painting “flowers” to painting “skulls and flowers”, which obviously represent the uterus.

Anyway, little did I know that this visit would inspire me two years later to write an award-winning haiku at my friends' (the aforementioned Bendta and the now-mentioned Sarah) art-snob party. (The award was a wizard’s hat. They told me I am a 4th level wizard of pretension.) Here it is, so the rest of you can bask in my pretension genius:

Georgia O’Keefe says
Flowers are not vaginas
Open your eyes, bitch

Thank you.

States of Snark: Flasback, Silverton CO, 2007

Alferd Packer, Silverton and an Ode to Winston

One of the stops we were planning on making while in Colorado was Lake City, home to Alferd Packer, a famous cannibal. You can find lots of info about him on the interwebs, but basically, Packer was trying his luck as a prospector, and genius-tastically decided to launch a winter expedition from Montrose to Gunnison, which is 65 miles. Packer and his 5 genius companions left on February 9th, and of course got lost in the snow. I’m going to hope that they ran out of provisions early, and that Alferd didn’t jump the gun and start eating his companions like, two weeks in (Hmmm…this subway’s been stuck between stations for twenty minutes now and I haven’t eaten in over an hour. Is it me, or does that dude look like a cartoon ham now…RARRRRWWW CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP) but in any case, Packer showed up near Gunnison on April 16th, alone, and when asked about his missing friends, claimed that he went scouting for food and came back to camp to discover one of his companions, Shannon Bell (who is a boy Shannon) roasting some human flesh, and shot Bell after he tried to eat him, too. Turns out that was sort of true except Alferd was the one eating his companions. Packer was tried and sentenced to death, but escaped. They found him and tried him again, this time reducing the charges to manslaughter, and he was given 40 years. He was paroled in 1901, and lived to the delicious, ripe old age of 65. In Lake city, there’s a museum dedicated to his trial, and of course there is also an Alferd Packer Grill.

But backing up a step. We were on our way to Lake city, but once again Tom Tom, the evil GPS tried to kill us. We drove through the lovely and adorable town, Silverton, pictured up top, which was terrifying in its quaint remoteness. After we passed through Silverton, Tom Tom decided that we needed to do some off-roading, and Lizzie wisely decided that perhaps we shouldn’t try traversing dirt roads in the mountains when it’d just been snowing. Whatevs. We turned around and decided to find a café in Silverton where we could use the bathroom, get a snack, and get directions (in that order). We found the Mobius Café, and Winston Churchill. For reals. We walked into the shop, and there was a huge dog, Townsend, flopped out on one of the couches. Surely against some sort of health code, but adorable, so we didn’t care. I started talking to the shop owner, Winston Churchill, about the Red Sox, because at this time the Sox were wiping the floor with the Colorado Rockies (ENEMY TERRITORY) but it turned out that Winston had done a stint in New Hampshire, so he understood the Red Sox fanaticism. As we were purchasing our smoothies (having already used the amazingly clean bathroom), Lizzie said “not that your town isn’t beautiful but…”

And Winston rejoined with “but how do you get out?”

And he once again provided us with what we needed, telling us we’d have to drive through the mountains to the nearest “big” town, which was, as Alferd Packer could’ve told you, Gunnison.

We were enamored of Winston, our bathroom-having, smoothie-making, directions-giving savior, and so a few months later Lizzie e-stalked him, and found out that he was off on a walk-about. We continued to follow him via the blog Lizzie found: http://insearchofwinston.blogspot.com as his friends and family began to worry about the turn his walk-about had taken. Sadly, Winston seemed to not want to be found, and his body was discovered in early July of this year in his beloved mountains. For those of you who, like me, were also worried about Townsend the dog, she’s fine and living with some friends in Lake City. Poor Winston. I hope he found whatever it was that he was looking for.

States of Snark: Flashback, Colorado 2007

Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying, with regards to the New England climate, "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." He must've been pleased then, upon visiting the Rockies, to find that the same is true of Colorado. Picture one is our first afternoon in Colorado (Garden of the Gods, to be precise). It is 70 degrees out. Picture two is the next morning. Seriously? We decided to drive south until there was no more snow, and we ended up in Santa Fe.

Inaugural Address

According to the venerable Urban Dictionary, where one goes when words of choice have yet to be captured by Webster's and other "reputable sources," snark is best defined as the love child of "snide" and "remark." It has been further called "biting, cruel humor or wit." Shannon and Lizzie were snarking before it was cool (while walking, apparently, three hours uphill each way to school fueled only by cube steak and a burning desire to escape Southern Central Massachusetts). Long regarded as their own best source of entertainment (except, of course, for the brilliant, witty, wonderful friends, family, and colleagues reading this blog), the ladies decided to take the snark on tour - armed only with a series of cars named Maude, an endless supply of Diet Coke, a questionable sense of direction, and a fearless curiosity that leads to what they call "adventures" and everyone else calls "an odd way to spend their vacations." So, from the guano covered shores of Capetown to close encounters with the toothless denizens of Ashfork, Arizona; whether battling giant spiders with Jesus and the Killing Shoe, reliving the glories of the Midnight House of Wieners, or vehemently declaring "that IS a vajajay, Ms. O'Keefe", The State of Snark follows the (mis)adventures of Shannon and Lizzie through the 50 states and any other odd places that tickle their fancy. Remind us later to explore all that is wrong (and right) with the phrase "tickle their fancy."