Category: This; And also that

I saw Nipsey on the streets of NY once, sometime in the mid-80s.
I shouted, “Hey — it’s Nipsey Russell!”
And he looked over at me,
and for the first time I think in his whole life, Nipsey stopped smiling.
It was like I could hear the planet itself
slow to a loud, crunching halt, its rotation full-stopped
by the sour expression on the face of this game-show icon.
The air puckered.
And then some super villain — I forget which, maybe Electro?
dropped down in front of me, picked up a car, and tossed it over my head.
OK, maybe it wasn’t Electro then. He isn’t that strong.
The Rhino?
Anyways, he tucked Nipsey under his arm
like a smallish bale of hay
and he was gone.
Sometime later the world started turning again.
But I never forgot that day.
And I’m pretty sure neither did Nipsey Russell.

Can you play a nun?
Can you play a nun’s hand?
Can you play
a quirky nun’s hand
so filled with life and laughter and the real stuff,
it can’t help but make us smile?
“Say — who was that?
Who just pinched me?
I didn’t expect to be pinched like that,
much less by a nun’s hand.”
Oh that Robin Williams.

Jeff Goldblum
This one, the fourth in a series of desktop-sized painterly images of individuals engaged with a glowing orb, set against a blue/textured frame, goes out to Kim and Zoro, whose comments today made me pause to reconsider the only-partly-realized genius and, yes, the big bag of pathos that is Jeff Goldblum.

Remember that scene in Close Encounters where Richard Dreyfus was compelled to make a mountain out of mashed potatoes? Something very similar happened to me not too long ago. Except instead of a potato mountain, I found myself forced to make a trifecta of images, each sized for a 1024 x 768 PC/Mac desktop. They featured Danny Kaye, Kurt Vonnegut, and Al Gore engaged with a glowing orb. And they were set in a bluish textured frame.
The experience left me shaken. I had so many questions. For example: Why is Danny Kaye wearing that outfit?
At first no answers came. And then I heard a voice as cool and reassuring as a Dairy Queen Flurry. It said:
“Now more than ever, Americans needs heroes. And if they can’t have heroes, they should at least have Danny Kaye, Kurt Vonnegut, and Al Gore desktop images set in a bluish textured frame and featuring a glowing orb. Post these images on cecilvortex.com. Tell people they can click to see the full-sized image, or right-click to save an image out and use them as desktops. Then wait for our next transmission.”
And so I did….
Danny Kaye
Kurt Vonnegut
Al Gore

you shouldn’t eat
so much of any one thing
that if they found out
that a really really
huge amount
of that one thing
kills people
you’d stop and say:
oh jeez

The “Patrick Swayze/North and South” web page is terrible. There are lots of good web pages out there, covering a wide variety of topics. So there’s really no need for you to visit the “Patrick Swayze/North and South” web page.
Here’s just one of the many terrible things about this web page. It says, and I quote: “In my opinion, ‘Orry Main’ will always be the character most closely associated with Patrick.” Now that’s just ridiculous. I can’t even begin to tell you how ridiculous a statement that is, on so many levels.
Won’t you join me in boycotting this terrible web page?
Thank you,
-Cecil

Am I the only one a bit put off by the panda craze that’s been sweeping the nation, what with everyone and their brother buying panda bears and then bringing them with them *everywhere*?
I mean, come on! I’m not saying pandas aren’t cute. I’m just saying, there’s a time and there’s a place. And when I go to the men’s room at a baseball game, the last thing I want to see is some rube in an “I heart pandas!” baby-t, hosing down his cotton-candy covered new-best-friend and looking at me like *I’m* the crazy one.
Puhlease!

Wallace Shawn is Daffy Duck. (At least In The Princess Bride.)
“Inconceivable!”
-Cecil

I wonder how much time
EE Cummings spent
searching and replacing?
Because I spend a lot of time searching and replacing
and I wonder if that was a big part of his life too?

No
he said,
I’m topped off with liquids.
And it was like
he was bragging.