At Hazy Dave's Café...

... you can talk about anything you want, but this photo is from longtime commenter Hazy Dave, who was pleased by the painterly effect of the digital zoom on his cheap smartphone. (Click to enlarge and see the effect.)

I'm told this picture was taken "on the shortcut from New Glarus back to the Badger State Trail on Sunday - which was a mistake, by the way - big nasty hills instead of gentle railbed pedaling."

At the Black-and-White Cafe...

... you can be positive or negative.

(Animation of my photograph by Hazy Dave.)

ADDED: If the image doesn't show up for you — it does for me — it may have something to do with the form HD set the image. I don't know how to change that. Feel free to advise me. I'll put the image below the fold. I think I need to upload a GIF somehow, and I have no idea how to work with that. Maybe this is my cue that I need to learn how to do GIFs myself!

AND: This should work:

"Via a psychedelic music aficionado acquaintance - Is this something you've heard of?"

A reader [ADDED: Hazy Dave] sends me this link and says:

As an old Audible Althouse listener, I can understand the appeal of having a friendly well-modulated voice in your ears (though I usually can't get through entire an podcast and I'm too impatient to listen to books, even while driving). But I guess I listen to music for the occasional goose-bumps or “bubbles in your head” experience. Listening to a young blonde whisper in your ear seems like cheating, if not outright pr0n... I may need to try this out with earbuds later, just to see if I get weirded out, or if it just seems funny, or what. "Unsettling" seems like a reasonable starting point, even (very quietly) through tinny office computer speakers.

Wow! I watched some of those ASMR videos, then went back to some Audible Althouse  — my 2005-2006 podcast project— they're all here [ADDED: or maybe not.] It really does seem like that ASMR stuff. Truly strange from that perspective!

This reminds me a bit of Glenn Gould's "The Idea of North" and my own practice of falling asleep and sleeping playing an audiobook, a book read by a man with a gentle voice (almost always Bill Bryson, David Rakoff, or David Foster Wallace).

At the first link:

If... you’re one of the people the video was made for—one of those people who experience Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response—you’ll probably find all six minutes incredibly satisfying, the video equivalent of a really nice, mellow kind of drug that leaves no aftertaste....

ASMR is a tricky feeling to describe, and I can only talk about it secondhand. From what I understand from conversations with ASMRers, it’s a tingle in your brain, a kind of pleasurable headache that can creep down your spine....

Unfortunately, the Jefferson Airplane sounds pretty bad, and Jean-Luc Godard's camerawork is execrable.

But this NYC wake-up concert from a rooftop in 1968 had all the elements of greatness.

(The famous Beatles rooftop concert in the movie "Let It Be" was filmed in 1969.)

ADDED: Hazy Dave emails:

BTW, the Beatles thing was filmed January 30, 1969, and the Airplane was apparently Taken Off the roof December 7, 1968 (not November as the story states), so it was "the" year before, if not "a" year before. Almost 8 weeks, anyway. :) 

Who knows which one was planned first?

"Pwease Don't Twead on Me."

Hazy Dave tweaks his Gadsden flag design. (For all the Gadsden redesigns, click here.)

"Tread on me, please, I'm a masochist!"

Dr. Weevil adapts Hazy Dave's version of the Gadsden flag.


 

You can collect all the entries in my "Redesign the Gadsden flag" enterprise by clicking here.

Powerline picked up "It's OK to Tread on Me Now/I Have Health Insurance" for a post about Obamacare.

ADDED: I like Dr. Weevil's quip: "Here’s my submission."

Another "civility flag."

That one is from Hazy Dave, who says he "fooled around with putting a baby rattle on the tail a bit, but didn't think the complication was necessary."

A Saturday evening snack.

Meade took my picture:



... as we had an order of frites and a glass of our favorite brew...



Now, checking in on the Gmail, I see that Hazy Dave has sent me a clip of something I happened to say somewhere on an old podcast. It seems appropriate or inappropriate:



Ha ha. It's all out of context. I'm reading something — probably something written in the 18th century. But we didn't drink 6/7/8 pints — not to be weak or strong. We shared one glass and easily walked home in the pre-Spring sunset:

The Wisconsin State Capitol is lit up in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness.

You may remember the picture I took of it a few days ago...



...used in a post called "Breast Awareness Gone Mad." Maybe you had some ideas about how to manipulate it. Hazy Dave emails this:

Question: What's going on at the University of Wisconsin?

Answer: Tickling girl rats' tummies for hours on end and making their brains more like boy rats' brains.

Question: Why can't a woman be more like a man?

Answer: She can, if only you would rub her belly much, much longer.

***

(Q: How did I find this story? A: Hazy Dave.)

Ideas for the official Wisconsin state rock song: Part II.

On the subject of picking an official rock song for the state of Wisconsin, Hazy Dave (BSEE 78) writes:

I nominate "Rockin' Behind The Iron Curtain" by the Red Ball Jets, a Milwaukee group from the late 70's. An old Huey Piano Smith tune, IIRC, available only on a 7 inch EP they self-released back in the day, so I guess it's a bit obscure. Still, I thought it might strike a resonant chord up there in the People's Republic of Madison...

Group members included guitarist Mark Schneider from the late lamented Dirty Jack's Record Rack, drummer Rob McCuen, (nowadays an Iggy pop disciple - a much kinder word than wannabe - still haunting Milwaukee's club scene), and a singer called Molly Putz (a gym class putdown cut from the same cloth as "Violent Femme")...

I suppose anything of some national recognition by the Bodeans or Violent Femmes would be a better choice, but nothing I can think of has much to do with the state or hometown pride or anything like that. "Gimme the Car" is a bit profane for official recognition, and "Children Of The Revolution" is a cover of a T.Rex song... I'm not entirely sure if the Fendermen were from Wisconsin or across the border in the Twin Cities, but "Muleskinner Blues" was at least a national hit, a good natured novelty rocker in the early 60's or late 50's. I can't quite think of a good rockin' enough near-hit by the Robbs or the Legends, and the Spooner tune I'd choose, "Shut Up", isn't on any of their (out-of-print) albums anyway. "Johnny Stood Up" was another great Spooner song in the same boat...

Maybe the Spanic Boys' "Keep On Walkin'"? I'm not being too helpful here, but I recognize that an officially sanctioned State Rock Song would have to be much more mainstream and/or stupid than I'd prefer in order to be approved in the first place. "It's just the Good Life passing you by..." - Madison's Fire Town.

Hey, it's the "WHEREAS, Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town, and everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down" bit that really makes it anyway. If it came to a vote, I expect the Budweiser song ("When you say Wisconsin, you've said it all") would handily trounce all comers anyway. This is clearly an unacceptable solution from St. Louis (pun intended), so I recommend we table the motion.