Is This a Cat I See Before Me?

The twitchy tail toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

OK, ok, Macbeth was asking about a dagger, not a cat (specifically Coco) but…but MAYBE. Alright, never-fucking-mind. On to other random shit.

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Woke from a dream where Mark Hamill was playing guitar in a jazz/funk band in upstate New York. The horn section just killed—totally spectacular. Hamill was pretty awesome, himself. Def worth the long drive from Boston.
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Incredibly, I seem to be out of new books. Yes, AGAIN. To remedy this travesty, I took advantage of a gift certificate that Jen’s sister gave me for my bday. Afterword, I cruised over to Powells of Portland, Oregon fame and picked up more, hopefully, great used books.

Know what’s extra special cool about yesterday’s shop-a-thon? Erin's gift certificate is for Bookshop.org which supports independent book sellers. A portion of each sale goes to financially support local, independent bookstores.

And Powells IS an independent book seller—maybe the biggest one in the US.

What’d I get?
From Bookshop.org?

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Dead Set by Richard Kadrey

From Powells.com?

Butcher Bird Dominion 01 by Richard Kadrey
Aliens and Androids: A Quirky Collection of Funny and Touching Science Fiction Short Stories by J. J. Harlan
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Hollow Kingdom Book 1 by Kira Jane Buxton

Yes, this was a complete binge buy.

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A straight up solid explanation of how the Republican Party (now the suit and tie wearing, political arm of the terrorist proud boys) sucks so many people in to vote against their own best interests.

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
~ LBJ

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Next up, some cool art stuff:
Frank Gehry has a brilliant new tower up at Arles’ Parc des Ateliers.

“…inspired by local history, including the fact that one of Van Gogh’s most famous works was painted nearby. “We wanted to evoke the local, from Van Gogh’s Starry Night to the soaring rock clusters you find in the region,” explains Gehry” (source)

Smitheone

AND Street art in Mexico City
So far Smitheone is my favorite.

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The world has had an actual virgin birth in a species NOT known for being parthenogenetic.

“There's a new baby shark to celebrate at an aquarium in Sardinia, an island which is part of the nation of Italy. The new arrival at the Cala Gonone Aquarium is named Ispera, meaning “hope. Gonone Aquarium is named Ispera, meaning “hope.””
(source)

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Matrix Resurrections
Don’t know if this was really necessary AND from the HuffPo post, it doesn’t look significantly different from Matrix1. I thoroughly enjoyed M1, it came off as a future urban wasteland, zen hippie version of Star Wars..sort of. So, eh, I’ll probably still watch this fourth installment but I’m in no hurry.

That’s it—happy Saturday!