I talk basil and give my pesto recipe on the front page of this week’s food section of the Athens Banner-Herald.

Some big businesses have taken to the absurd notion that one must obtain permission before linking to their online content. This is akin to a department store forbidding you to tell your friend which aisle you can find socks or a restaurant forbidding you to tell anyone their street address. And now NPR, who really ought to know better, has announced the same policy. Well, boo to them. Here’s a here’s a completely unauthorized link to this morning’s segment on World Sauntering Day from Morning Edition in RealAudio format. And, for good measure, here’s a link to their segment on Jack Buck. Take that, National Public Radio! (Side note: The NPR web staff munged their own link to the World Sauntering Day story. My link may be the only one in the world that correctly points to the story, and it’s 100% unauthorized.)

Much of our property is in a semi-wild state. Once upon a time it was regularly mowed, but not recently, and small trees and briars have grown taller than I am across most of the land. Earlier this spring the hill side was awash in white blossoms. Now, those blossoms have transformed into wild blackberries. When I was walking the land before I bought it, I let it know that I wanted to be its new caretaker, but it would be a financially tight proposition. I told it that it would have to pay at least some of its own way, and so far it’s done a good job. I couldn’t say how many blackberries are growing – 500 gallons perhaps – but with people willing to pay $4 per half pint at the farmers’ market, it doesn’t take many to add up to a nice payday. We sold a few last week, but this week is when the berries are really ripening. Yesterday evening, I took a big bowl and set out for the brambles. There’s a few things I noticed that blackberry bushes are good at. First, they like to grow very thickly so that one can see many more berries than one can actually reach. Also, the thorns on them are very sharp and grab hold tight to clothing, skin, or anything else they contact with. They hold so tightly that you’d think they feed on the bodies of passing animals, eternally tangled in the thicket. Also, they love to grow among stands of locust trees, which happen to have four inch razor-sharp thorns of their own. So to reach the maximum amount of fruit, I had to call upon the gymnastic skills taught to me 25 years ago at the Y. An arabesque here to extend my reach another foot, a pirouette there to twirl out of overhanging branches. The local wildlife watched my berry ballet. A group of frogs sounding exactly like a gang of chihuahuas barked as I went by. One of our cats along for the walk flushed out rabbits larger than he was. And finally a tiny fawn, barely old enough to walk, watched from a safe distance. He was the smallest fawn I’d ever seen. If he were a pet, he’d have been a lap deer (not to be confused with Lapp deer). His mother left him right in the middle of a group of small briars. He watched me warily as I approached his bed. I tried to give him some of the fruit I’d picked, but he wouldn’t get close enough. Instead he circled me and followed me how about an hour, never going more than 15 feet away. Eventually the sun had set enough that it was getting hard to see where the thorns were. I turned for home and the fawn stayed behind. The cat had long gotten bored and was waiting for me back at the house. I left far more berries on the vines than I picked, so it looks like I’ll get to pick some every day this week. Lucky, lucky me!

My latest music genre of choice is Nerdcore Hiphop. It all started a couple of years ago when I found the Mighty Stephen Hawking’s gansta rap. And then late last year I ran across MC Chris, one of the creative forces behind the often wonderful, always bizarre Sealab 2021. But what I’ve been listening to over and over again the last week or so is MC Frontalot, the master of the genre. He’s done a duet with Kompressor and one is on the way with MC Hawking. This guy is where it’s at.

Self Portrait in South Park

Have you heard of Dammit Dolls? There’s a poem that goes with these dolls, written at the site. Go ahead and take a look. I’ll wait. OK. A dear friend is making me one of these, but with one minor difference. You see, I have a very stong Daoist outlook on things, and that prevents me from getting upset and yelling “DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!” So mine’s going to be a Balance Boy with its own poem: Whenever things don’t look so well… And you want to hit the wall and yell… Here’s a little balance boy To remind you what to do. Just grasp him firmly by the legs And think about your talents And as he looks back out at you Yell, “Balance! Balance! Balance!”

Newsflash! Good old lovable Brak is a guest on Atlanta radio station 99x for the next hour or so. You can watch or listen on-line here. Oh my. He’s brought the uke, and has launched into a medly of “Punk Rock Girl” (Dead Milkmen), “Girlfriend in a Coma” (The Smiths), and “Vacation” (The Go-Gos). He’s taking phone calls.

The Milwaukee Youth Center Choir is a vocal group of unwanted orphan children, culled from the streets of Wisconsin and taught to sing through a strict regimen of malnutrition and beatings.

Kompressor (Instruments: SYNTH, CRUSH, FEAR, DEATH) does not dance, but he is an instructor for the children. His children’s songs, available for download here alongside his other music describing his upcoming world domination, is what you might expect if Trent Reznor were to appear on Sesame Street. If you enjoy the music, you may also want to watch a few videos he’s made available. Actually, after watching them, it looks like Kompressor does dance.

At 6pm yesterday evening, the thermometer on the back porch read 108 degrees. I’m willing to give it a few degrees of innacuracy, but it was still too darned hot.