transmogrify \trans-MOG-ruh-fy\, transitive verb: To change into a different shape or to transform, often with bizarre or humorous effect. A washing machine transmogrified into a guitar. -- Adrian Searle, "Come, friendly pigeons", The Guardian The Guardian, March 16, 2000 For the impulsive sin of turning to look back at the funereal pyre of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife is transmogrified into a pillar of salt as she flees the inferno. -- Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women...

Good morning. On Bali, several years ago, I went to an evening ceremony of blessings, with a family. At 10.00pm, it had been going all day, moving into the later night, early morning -- past midnight. I had this encounter, with a priestess: Above her, there was a revenant... revenant \REV-uh-nahng (the final "ng" is not pronounced, but the vowel is nasalized)\ noun : one that returns after death or a long absence Frightening or friendly, the classic revenant was a ghost a specter returned from...

(FOR: M: 5.25) I wish, sometimes, that my under standing, seeing from beneath, I could presume that the path could be straight and true -- known merely as: it's that way. Not this. But I find that it wavers, like the shimmering this morning, when all is like a mirage, glabrous, in the earlier hours, silent with the exception of excited birds, appearing: jubilant, in the explication. Here and now, as in heat, the water is polished, glimmery beneath me, in the landscape of my viewing; the sun is...

palimpsest \PAL-imp-sest\, noun: 1. A manuscript, usually of papyrus or parchment, on which more than one text has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible. 2. An object or place whose older layers or aspects are apparent beneath its surface. The manuscript is a palimpsest consisting of vellum leaves from which the "fluent and assured script" of the original Archimedes text and 55 diagrams had been washed or scraped off so that the surface could be used for...

Pun intended, I suppose -- the bain, the bath -- so called, (bane, rather) of conjurers and magicians: David Blaine. But his newest stunt -- amazingly at the Lincoln Center Courtyard -- is a curious spectacle... Literally. Not sure how this rates as cultural, being there at the Center. Perhaps with a bent to the cultic? 7 days, ending today, being, as they say: under water, then he releases himself, does some death defying knot untying or manacled unlocking, holds his breath to beat the world...

Some Friday humor... wag \WAG\, noun: A humorous person; a wit; a joker. Wag in this sense perhaps comes from the obsolete wag-halter, "a rogue; one likely to be hanged." And, for the visuals...and humor, conceive of this as being entirely for real -- no CGI here: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately - without any hesitation - including the costs. There are six, and only six, hand-made Honda Accords in...

Good to be home, however late. Simpler, getting in and out of places... Jakarta security, while efficient, is still...team driven, hyper- detailed and managed...

mist settling, dusk falls, and light diminishes, to the best time of the day...or one of them... gloaming \GLOH-ming\, noun: Twilight; dusk. Gloaming comes from Old English glomung, from glom, "dusk." wishing well: tsg back: jakarta