…but has the same effect…and struck me as funny (I ought to be more sympathetic, I know).

The article is in Spanish, but basically what it says is that an ex-prisoner at Czarne prison in Poland is seeking damages for having had too many orgasms during his years of incarceration at the prison.

Wait, it’s not what you think!

Seems the prisoners work fabricating slabs of concrete, and for several years the man operated a power tool (the article doesn’t say, but I imagine it was a concrete compactor) that produced intense vibrations and was positioned just about at abdomen level (that’s what he says, but I suspect perhaps slightly sub-abdomen level?). He said it caused him to have orgasms/ejaculations every half hour. I suppose that’s one way to keep track of how many hours you’ve been working. “And…hang on…sixteen! Let’s call it a day!”

Apparently he “ran out of sperm” and now is impotent, and thus is looking for compensation.

The prison warden, to whom the problem was reported, says he’s taking the complaint seriously, because, (in prison) “anything is possible.”

This happens to me all the time, it seems. Though usually it’s not something beautiful doing the crapping — usually it’s something dirty and mean like a dive-bombing pigeon. Among my friends I’m afraid I’m known for “getting crapped on” with some regularly. At the very least, if anyone’s going to be on the receiving end of a special delivery, as likely as not it’ll be me. A few weeks ago I returned from a long walk-cum-writing expedition to discover I had a large white lime streak on the shoulder of my black jacket, drizzling down my backpack strap. It must have been that — and not my rugged good looks — that caught the attention of all those beautiful women in the streets. Sigh.

On Tuesday this week, an excursion was made to the Jardin Botanique de Montréal, where every spring they have a fantastic exhibition called Papillons en liberté (Butterflies Go Free!). Inside one of the tropical greenhouses of the botanical garden (a treat to experience in itself, after winter!), hundreds of exotic butterflies and giant hairy moths dip and dive freely amongst the pungent flowers (and people).

Of course, you’re not allowed to touch the butterflies because it damages their delicate wings. But, delicate or not, they are allowed to touch you. In my case, a giant butterfly took a liking to my Peruvian wool sweater (which perhaps reminded him of home or — more likely — he liked its camouflaging qualities?). He latched onto the front and stayed there for the entire time I toured the exhibit. Needless to say, many pictures were taken by laughing and pointing people (naturally I’m accustomed to this).

After fifteen or twenty minutes of freeloading, it was time for my visitor to put on a show. A man with a monstrous camera came up and looked closely at my chest…well, at the butterfly. He said: “Too bad it won’t open its wings.” It had opened its wings on several occasions, and I mentioned this. He began to walk away sans photo when the butterfly, endeavouring to prove me right, parted its wings. I called the man back: “See?” As he approached with his giant lens, we discovered the reason my little friend opened his wings…he proceeded to unload a remarkable quantity of liquid from his abdomen onto my sweater and shoes. An attendant rushed over and took the little pisser in her fingers and pulled him free. I was offered towels and a special cleaning spray: “It can be quite smelly,” I was told, as though this were a regular occurrence. I wiped at the droplets with a Kleenex and gave a tentative sniff — seemed okay to me so I declined the butterfly-shit cleanser.

And, though I felt…er, uniquely chosen (if not lucky or blessed), I still went home and delicately washed my wool sweater. After all, what if “he” laid eggs during his sojourn? Beauty is one thing, but there’s also a reason mothballs exist.

…dying snow…  I had hoped to catch the spring thaw — and I did, mostly, but instead of continuing to melt, it decided to snow again on Tuesday.  Sigh.

What on earth am I talking about?  Well, a week-long timelapse sequence that I started recording last Thursday, March 9, of course!  It’s just a wacky experiment, really.  Each frame represents 15 minutes, so (at 24fps) the playback speed is 21,600 times faster than real time.  It’s the opposite of the Matrix’s super-slow-motion bullet-time; this is El Jardinero’s “super-snow-motion” melt-it-time.

There are many ridiculous inventions for which patents were issued in March. (I am fully aware that the patent issue date has no relation to the date the idea itself was hatched, but…go with it, for the sake of the joke…)

For example: How do you keep your weiner dry on a rainy day?

Why not wear this armband to show your support for Parrot & Pirate Awareness Week?

Tired of always being the “bad cop”? Maybe you just need a kinder, gentler restraint.

On this chindogu page, you may notice a picture of James C. Boyle’s “Saluting Device”, patented on March 10, 1896. Thank you, Mr. Boyle — I tip my saluting device to you.

Julius Caesar supposedly died 2050 years ago. If he were alive today to witness these wonders of modern invention, he might say:
“The Ideas of March are come…”
I would reply: “Ay, Caesar; but (alas!) not gone.”

This’ll help cool things down. The mighty glacier Perito Moreno’s ice bridge is about to collapse. Every few years (typically 3 though it’s been as many as 16) this happens — the glacier advances enough to separate the lake into two parts, damming the water (thus building pressure) to such a point that the whole “ice bridge” collapses in dramatically. A 60 metre-high(!) section of wall already fell on the weekend, but that ain’t nothing…

Note — this has nothing to do with global warming! Perito Moreno is, in fact, the only advancing (growing) glacier in the world. In fact, it really cranks along — about 2 metres per day! I was there in 2004 (see below) but I really wish I were there now. Sure, it “calved” a little for us when we were there, but that’s small potatoes compared to what this week is sure to bring. Stay tuned!

Perito Moreno calving, Nov. 2004

UPDATE: The ice bridge finally gave way around the time I was writing this last night, i.e. around 11pm Monday night. Too bad it was dark so people couldn’t see it — but they still heard it!

Cool down, this is actually two posts in one — and neither topic is as exciting as whatever the combined notion “hot memories” may evoke for you…

First of all, Canada is hot, hot, HOT! We are on the tail end of our warmest winter on record — an average of almost 4 degrees Celsius above normal (averaged country-wide). And somehow I don’t think we’re the only ones.

Secondly, I enjoyed reading this Slate article from a year ago by Joshua Foer. He was reporting on the U.S. Memory Championships. Well, since he’d already done so much research for a book he’s writing, he figured “why not get the insider’s view” and enter the contest himself this year? Well, what do you know, this past weekend he won the darn thing!

If you’re average you should still have brain-space to juggle 5 more topics…but I’ll go easy on you. Go memorize a pack of cards or something.

I went to see the last film of Festivalissimo tonight. In fact, I intended to go see Elsa y Fred at 5pm, but even though I was there plenty early, it was sold out. Aargh! So I got a ticket for Vida y color, the last film showing at this year’s festival, at 9pm, and walked back home, only to return a 3.5 hours later. The movie was quite good (about a boy coming-of-age in Spain in fall of 1975, just before Franco’s death), except the quality was awful — it turned out they were projecting a DVD, and there was some kind of weird aliasing artifacts that were distracting. We were offered our money back (many took it), but I stayed. There were a few other screening problems during the showing…but in the end we saw the whole film. The good news for those of us who “toughed it out” is that afterwards they offered us a free invitation to next year’s festival premiere gala. I’ll get my tuxedo ready.

I wish I’d seen Iluminados por el fuego (which won the “prix du public” at this year’s Festivalissimo). Also Elsa y Fred — hopefully they will be on DVD soon and at La Boîte Noire for me to rent. I don’t remember all the other (”critic’s”) prizes they gave, but of course one of them was to Batalla en el cielo. Sigh — yeah, what do I know? See why I’m not a film critic?

For the record, in terms of my own enjoyment, the five I saw rank as follows (from most enjoyable):

• En la cama
• Astronautas
• Vida y color
• Batalla en el cielo
• La mujer de mi hermano

So there.

When I came out of the theatre the city was awash(?) in fog, very mysterious. It glowed blue and red with the spinning lights from about five police cars that were parked just outside the mall entrance. They were shining spotlights up onto the walls of the La Cité apartment complex. I assume someone was going to jump or something(?); they wouldn’t tell me and I just kept on moving. Nothing to see here, folks…go home to bed.

Just a quick note to say that tonight (though annoyingly coming down with a sniffly cold — aargh!) I trekked in the dark across the rapidly-vanishing glacier that is Parc Jeanne-Mance to yet another pelí at Festivalissimo. The fest wraps up on Sunday night, and there’s still a film or two I want to catch before it’s over. This one was called Astronautas (can you translate that? aren’t you amazing, yes: “Astronauts”) and set in Andalucía.

I said it would be a quick note, so I’d better make this a short paragraph… What a wonderfully quirky and charming film! Not exactly Amélie, yet somehow reminiscent in its dark-yet-lightness, unpredictability and visual style. Except…it’s about a recovering 40-year-old heroin addict and a 15-year-old girl. It unfolds slowly and takes you awhile to figure out what’s going on. Trying to be “normal”, is what’s going on, for one character at least. The characters are sort of on opposite roads and yet are both seeking something — their paths intersect and interact beautifully. Charming (did I already say that?) story; good acting; effective and fun (inexpensive) visual effects.

You know how, when you’re watching figure skating on TV, you really want to see the skaters succeed? They’re beautiful, the music is well-suited, the costumes look perfect, drama is in the air and the skating begins…and they fall. You groan because you so wanted to see perfection; to see them succeed. Then they fall again, and again, and you begin to wonder if they should be competing at this level.

It was a bit like that tonight, watching La mujer de mi hermano (My Brother’s Wife) at Festivalissimo tonight. It was a slick production with good-looking actors, nice locations, that glossy aura of well-funded filmmaking. I really wanted to like it. But — ugh. Era un poco cursi… Cursi is the closest Spanish word I can find to “cheesy” (though for fun I like to say caseoso — according to RAE it does mean “relating to cheese”, though not in the same way as our wonderful word “cheesy” in English).

Any film that makes you groan and say: “oh, come on!” at the end (not to mention at various parts throughout)…well, sorry but too much was spent on swish (if conventional) shooting and not enough on the script. Not that money solves those kinds of problems. There were some plot twists and moments of surprise (the audience gasped a few times) which were kind of satisfying, but even soap operas have those. A plot alone’s not enough for me. Too little depth to the characters and the story. Unlike last night’s great film (En la cama), I really just didn’t care about any of the characters. At all.

Laughter’s supposed to be good for your health, but I wonder how much benefit you get from semi-embarrassed groaning?

…or just “El Jardinero Zurdo” which, of course, I prefer, since that’s my name. I’ll also answer to “EJZ” (pronounced “Edges”). Call me anything, as long as you call me, because I’m getting lonely out here in the garden of Tenuous Connections. TCs grow better with fertile soil — failing that, manure — heaped on them. It’s cold out here in the garden in winter, and there are wolves after me. Watch-wolves (the meaner cousins of watch-dogs) with clocks in their mouths, so when they bark they shoot pointy little hours, minutes and seconds at me. “Bark!” (Ow!) they say, “don’t waste time on this since no one cares…” It’s all the hours that hurt the most, with minutes coming in second. In fact, most minutes do come in bursts of exactly sixty seconds (this helpful tip is for those weirdos on the Swatch beat time system).

Previously, on TC…

I had set up the blog to require users to log in with a username and password in order to post comments. This was an attempt to avoid a deluge of spam-bot postings. However, perhaps I should first have waited to see if I actually got any spam-bot (or spam-human) postings. So, for now, I’ve reversed my policy (so now it’s “ycilop ym”). Post comments at will, kids! (Here, I mean — not literally at Wil.) Let me know what’s on your mind, especially if it’s tenuous and/or connected…to something, anything! (I still reserve the right to moderate your comments: edit them, make them funnier, quote them out of context, delete them, etc.) No real names, though — do what the super-heroes do and use an alter-ego to post your comments. Don’t worry, your email address (though required to post) will not be accessible to readers of the blog!

Why this change of heart? Well, though I’ve had almost 1000 visits to the site since the start of 2006, I’ve only had two (that’s right, TOO, with that first ‘O’ swapped out for a ‘W’) users create accounts and post comments (and those were back in 2005). Pathetic, eh? Well, actually there was a third mystery reader — someone went to the trouble of creating an account but never posted any comments…go figure…perhaps a spam-human?)

I have no idea if what I’m writing is interesting. Surely not, but, without feedback, I even have no idea of what is potentially of interest. More Palabritas del día? More computer stuff (please, no — isn’t there enough of that already on this (beloved/behated) Net of ours)? More hands and caganers? (I suspect not) More Constrained Fictions? A better gallery of nice things? More Montréal stuff? Flamenco? More embedded advertising (I have none)? More pop-ups (none)? More porn (ditto, but I could learn)? You know — all those things that make the Internet the awe-inspiring marvel it is today.

And if you’re still shy about using this “new-fangled” (aaah! — reminds me of the “fangles” on those clock-spewing wolves) technology, how about just sending me an old-fashioned email?