drone alone

2012-01-17T08:08:00.000-08:00

__________________________________

Observation

2011-10-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

from an overpass above the city, the boy with the hat turned back spits a crystal arc into the sun
the aphids are an armor of aged mail around the tender green stalks
the tips of the siding just above the ground, rain-swollen and buckled, moss and mold in the margins

__________

Observation

2011-10-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

the timbre of clapping dishes
the branch bounces when the swing swings
on the toilet there's a sign that in all caps reads: FLUSH THE TOILET

_______________

2011-09-29T21:06:00.001-07:00

Tape Generations from johan rijpma on Vimeo.

__________

Observation

2011-09-29T16:07:00.001-07:00

the white jelly fish float by like gossamer cupcakes
the red jelly fish is a scab that came off in the shower

___________

The debt ceiling deal: Nuts and bolts | The Economist

2011-08-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

From The Economist:

In the end, hopes for a grand bargain that addressed entitlements, taxes and near-term economic support ran aground on the harsh reality that all these things would require bridging profound philosophical differences that have developed over decades. The odds that the next few months will yield a different outcome seem low: further brinkmanship (albeit of a less terrifying sort than seen in the past weeks) is more likely. That has become the routine way that fiscal policy gets made in America. True, stockmarkets rallied with relief that the most reckless path has been avoided. Meeting such a low standard should hardly be considered a vote of confidence in America’s fundamental fiscal and political maturity.

Also, to lament the debt ceiling deal, Paul Krugman posted this video to his blog:

2011-07-28T12:49:00.001-07:00

Stoned Ape Theory from rzo management on Vimeo.

2011-07-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

2011-07-07T11:08:00.001-07:00

2011-07-02T11:20:00.001-07:00

Simple Diagrams for the Attainment of Happiness

2011-06-28T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Pangolin

2011-06-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

Another armored animal–scale

lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they

form the uninterrupted central

tail row! This near artichoke with head and legs and

grit-equipped gizzard,

the night miniature artist engineer is,

yes, Leonardo da Vinci’s replica–

impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear.

Armor seems extra. But for him,

the closing ear-ridge–

or bare ear licking even this small

eminence and similarly safe

contracting nose and eye apertures

impenetrably closable, are not;–a true ant-eater,

not cockroach-eater, who endures

exhausting solitary trips through unfamiliar ground at night,

returning before sunrise; stepping in the moonlight,

on the moonlight peculiarly, that the outside

edges of his hands may bear the weight and save the

claws

for digging. Serpentined about

the tree, he draws

away from danger unpugnaciously,

with no sound but a harmless hiss; keeping

the fragile grace of the Thomas-

of-Leighton Buzzard Westminster Abbey wrought-iron

vine, or

rolls himself into a ball that has

power to defy all effort to unroll it; strongly intailed, neat

head for core, on neck not breaking off, with curled-in feet.

Nevertheless he has sting-proof scales; and nest

of rocks closed with earth from inside, which he can

thus darken.

Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast

each with a splendor

which man in all his vileness cannot

set aside; each with an excellence!

"Fearful yet to be feared," the armored

ant-eater met by the driver-ant does not turn back, but

engulfs what he can, the flattered sword-

edged leafpoints on the tail and artichoke set leg-and

body-plates

quivering violently when it retaliates

and swarms on him. Compact like the furled fringed frill

on the hat-brim of Gargallo’s hollow iron head of a

matador, he will drop and will

then walk away

unhurt, although if unintruded on,

he cautiously works down the tree, helped

by his tail. The giant-pangolin-

tail, graceful tool, as prop or hand or broom or ax, tipped like

an elephant’s trunk with special skin,

is not lost on this ant-and stone-swallowing uninjurable

artichoke which simpletons thought a living fable

whom the stones had nourished, whereas ants had done

so. Pangolins are not aggressive animals; between

dusk and day they have the not unchain-like machine-like

form and frictionless creep of a thing

made graceful by adversities, con-

versities. To explain grace requires

a curious hand. If that which is at all were not forever,

why would those who graced the spires

with animals and gathered there to rest, on cold luxurious

low stone seats–a monk and monk and monk–between the

thus

ingenious roof-supports, have slaved to confuse

grace with a kindly manner, time in which to pay a

debt,

the cure for sins, a graceful use

of what are yet

approved stone mullions branching out across

the perpendiculars? A sailboat

was the first machine. Pangolins, made

for moving quietly also, are models of exactness,

on four legs; on hind feet plantigrade,

with certain postures of a man. Beneath sun and moon,

man slaving

to make his life more sweet, leaves half the flowers worth

having,

needing to choose wisely how to use his strength;

a paper-maker like the wasp; a tractor of foodstuffs,

like the ant; spidering a length

of web from bluffs

above a stream; in fighting, mechanicked

like to pangolin; capsizing in

disheartenment. Bedizened or stark

naked, man, the self, the being we call human, writing-

master to this world, griffons a dark

"Like does not like like that is obnoxious"; and writes error

with four

r’s. Among animals, one has a sense of humor.

Humor saves a few steps, it saves years. Uningnorant,

modest and unemotional, and all emotion,

he has everlasting vigor,

power to grow,

though there are few creatures who can make one

breathe faster and make one erecter.

Not afraid of anything is he,

and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle

at every step. Consistent with the

formula–warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands and a few

hairs–that

is a mammal; there he sits in his own habitat,

serge-clad, strong-shod. The prey of fear, he, always

curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work

partly done,

says to the alternating blaze,

"Again the sun!

anew each day; and new and new and new,

that comes into and steadies my soul."

-Marianne Moore

The Pangolin

2011-06-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia:

A pangolin, also scaly anteater, is a mammal of the order Pholidota. Pangolins have large keratin scales covering their skin and are the only mammals with this adaptation. They are found in tropical regions of Africa and Asia. The name "pangolin" derives from the Malay word pengguling ("something that rolls up"). Pangolins are nocturnal animals, and use their well-developed sense of smell to find insects. The long-tailed pangolin is also active by day. Pangolins spend most of the daytime sleeping, curled up into a ball.

The physical appearance of pangolins is marked by large, hardened, plate-like scales. The scales, which are soft on newborn pangolins but harden as the animal matures, are made of keratin, the same material of which human fingernails and tetrapod claws are made. The pangolin is often compared to a walking pine cone or globe artichoke. It can curl up into a ball when threatened, with its overlapping scales acting as armour and its face tucked under its tail. The scales are razor-sharp, providing extra defence. The front claws are so long that they are unsuited for walking, and so the animal walks with its fore paws curled over to protect them. Pangolins can also emit a noxious smelling acid from glands near the anus, similar to the spray of a skunk. Pangolins have short legs, with sharp claws which they use for burrowing into termite and ant mounds, as well as climbing. In pangolins, the section of the brain that relates to problem solving is highly developed. Although their problem solving ability is primarily used to find food in obscure locations, when kept in captivity pangolins are remarkable escape artists. Arboreal pangolins live in hollow trees, whereas the ground dwelling species dig tunnels underground, up to a depth of 3.5 m (11 feet). Pangolins are also good swimmers.

2011-06-16T13:04:00.001-07:00

2011-06-10T14:09:00.001-07:00

2011-06-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I was folding laundry and watching TV and 500 Days of Summer was on cable. I guess my non-chronological rom-com idea wasn't exactly original. The hypothesis still stands, however.

incidentally,

2011-06-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

when I was writing the previous post, I had to google Steven Soderberg's name to make sure it was Steven and not Stephen. I ended up on his imdb page. Apparently, he has three movies he's directed being released this year? On the bottom of the page for Haywire, there was this little gem:

If there were ever two leading men who were interchangable.

ideas for Eli to use

2011-06-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

I think if you were going to write a romantic comedy, it would have to achronological because that's the only way it could have any artistic viability. I think not having things in chronological order, not having cause and effect would be the best way to subvert the rom-com formula: boy meets girls, boy and girl do not get together for 80 minutes because of some contrive idiot plot, boy and girl get together.

I think the first line of the movie should be "I do not get the girl in the end." And then you should lay out in typical rom-com fashion why they will of course get together in the end.

I think, at the end of the second act, when you reveal how the boy and the girl got together in the first place, the scene should go like this. At the end of the night at the local watering hole, our male love interest, who is the bartender, gets up to do karaoke and sings this song:

Find more Portastatic songs at Myspace Music

By the end of the song, the whole bar is singing along. As the bar clears out, our female love interest offers our male love interest a few lines of her own stash, the white lines in the song being an obvious reference to cocaine. Under the neon lights of the parking lot, they have coked out sex in the bed of his pick up. It is through this scene we learn that our two lovers' entire relationship is based solely on mutual addiction, the subtext of which has been in all the previous scenes leading to this point.

I think in the third act, you could broaden your scope and apply the theme of addiction to the genre of the romantic comedy in general. The audiences' expectation that the these two will stay together because they are the protagonists is also the lovers'. You could use this opportunity to make a statement about how the audiences' addiction to the escapist tropes of the romantic comedy can be just a soul-polluting as cocaine, or something.

Oh, and starring Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lopez. Directed by Steven Soderberg.

Probably because blogging is for dinosaurs,

2011-05-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

but there does not exist a Blogger application for my phone. It's not that I have such important information to share, that I need to publish a thought on the internet the second it occurs to me--if I had that impulse, I would be on Twitter--I just take it that what you're reading now, this form of communication has, in the seven that I've been using it, become obsolete, unfashionable. If a Blogger app did exist, I would use it to publish photos from my phone from where ever I was instead of having to upload the stupid things onto my computer first.

Speaking of apps that don't exist, but should: the Library of Congress has started a website called The National Jukebox, wherein they are digitizing and uploading many of their unique old-timey recordings, things that were originally published on media such as wax cylinders and platters made of acrylic or resin.

Once upon a time there were no microphones.

You can browse their recordings, listen to premade playlist, or create your own. These are your tax dollars; this service is free to use. Socialism. If the LOC that would stream these playlists, these recordings, on my phone, I would be listening to it on the bus forshizzle. Forget about blogging cellphone pics.

So I watched the first episode of Norm McDonald's new show

2011-04-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

I guess it's called Sports Show?
He's still as unfunny now as he was 15 years ago on SNL.

Found Sound: February 28, 2011 1:38 PM

2011-04-12T15:57:00.001-07:00

A guy on a cell phone argues with his girlfriend. Route 372 East bound.

February 28, 2011 1:11 PM by drone76420

2011-04-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

Analog Technology

2011-03-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

So, a few weeks ago I applied for a postion as a disc jockey at the UW's radio station, Rainy Dawg Radio. My idea for a show was to play sides of records. Here's what I wrote in my application to the station:

About my proposed show:
The format for my show would be to play the entire side of a record. The purpose of this would be to foreground the physicality of the medium. Once upon a time there were people who cared about entire albums. Once upon a time, when you wanted to hear an album, you had to seek it out. In his recent memoirs, Keith Richards writes about meeting Mick Jagger on a train platform. Richards decided to become Jagger's friend because he was holding a copy of the newChuck Berry record. People used to meet and listen to albums together. People had listening parties. It was social experience. I want to recreate that experience. Imagine this in contrast to the solipsistic experience of you ipod, or whatever. My show would offer a wide range of music, from new indie music to old timey jazz stuff, hip hop and gospel, and so forth. I'd try to focus on stuff that was rare, like LP only tracks, b-sides, out of print stuff. I'd also take requests.
Here is a sample playlist:
The Ventures Surfing side A Dalton Records 1963
1 Pipeline
2 Diamonds
3 Windy and Warm
4 Ten Over
5 Surf Rider
6 Changing Tides
Built to Spill Live side C Up Records 2000
1 Car [Live]
2 Sing Sores Make Perfect Swords [Live]
3 I Would Hurt a Fly [Live]
4 Forget Remember When
5 Now and Then
Duke Ellington This Is Duke Ellington side B RCA Records 1971 (while this record was published in 1971, all the recordings are from 1938-41)
1 Ring Dem Bells
2 Mood Indigo
3 Delta Serenade
4 Solitude
5 Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me
Deerhunter Halcyon Digest side A 4AD Records 2010
1 Earthquake
2 Don't Cry
3 Revival
4 Sailing
5 Memory Boy
6 Desire Lines
The Carpenters s/t side B A&M Records 1971
1 Superstar
2 Drucilla Penny
3 One Love
4 Knowing When to Leave/Make It on Yourself/(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me/I'll Never Fall in Love Again/Walk On By/Do You Know the Way to San Jose?
5 Sometimes

I finally got a response from the station. It turns out that the station has a policy against playing more than one song by a single artist during a two hour show. Aside from giving a microphone to a roomful of over-caffeinated children afflicted with Tourettes, of course I conceive of the only other format that violates the station's policy. They did, however, like the artist I chose for my playlist, and offered, if I so cared, to look at a revised playlist that abided by the one artist/one song situation that is the Rainy Dawg dogma. I'm thinking about it. Part of me want to eschew any institution with the word "Dawg" in the title.

2011-03-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

Grades

2011-03-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

2011-03-12T13:59:00.001-08:00

So I guess Death Cab is supposed to release a new album this year

2011-03-10T21:47:00.000-08:00

I was just reading about that somewhere. It made me think about how much I used to love this band. I own nearly everything they've released, over six hours worth of stuff according to my itunes. Despite this, the total number of times I have listened to any of the songs on Narrow Stair equals zero.

I tried to pinpoint in my mind the time when they started sucking. In 2000 I saw them at an all ages show at the Break Room, which is now the Chop Suey. The Break Room was so-called because it contained within it a pool table. I thought the show was pretty great, but the most memorable thing about it was Carissa's Wierd opening for them. I saw Death Cab a bunch of times after that. I saw them open for the Pixies in Bend, Oregon. They sucked. Their presence could not fill an arena. I think the turning point for me was when I saw them at the Paramount touring in support of Transatlantacism. Something happened between the release of that album and their previous one, where I was no longer a constituent of their primary demographic. I was only 23 or 24, but I felt old at that show; everyone there were sweater-wearing make-out-club emo kids that glared at me for smoking a cigarette. That show sucked too. I should have stayed in Bellingham and gone to the Ruby Doe show that also occurred that night. I did see them at Marymoore park last summer (I think?) or two summers ago, and that show was all right, mainly because they frontloaded their set with a ton of old favorites. I was pleasantly surprised.
I still think Ben Gibbard is talented songwriter. No one can write a more beautiful melody. As years progressed, however, he's shown a tendency for this lyrics to veer into an obscene sentimentality with no ability to course-correct.
I went to wikipedia to see what year Something About Airplanes was released because my itunes said 1999, and I was pretty sure that was wrong. For some reason I thought it was 1996, but it was 1998. Their wiki mentions All-Time Quarterback and Pinwheel (if you're curious about Pinwheel, I heard them once and thought they sounded like a crappy Sunny Day Real Estate rip off), but failed to mention the release of their first split 7" on Elsinor. Is there some Death Cab superfan out there who's aware of this record and would want to mention it on their wiki page? The song was an early version of Your Bruise. I have uploaded an mp3 of said song for your benefit.

01 Your Bruise by drone76420

Poetry?

2011-03-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

So the assignment this time was erasure poems, where you take a pre-existing text, and by erasing, blacking or whiting out or otherwise obscuring words, create a new text to create a new meaning. There's a blog of examples over here. The text I chose was a page out of a trucker's atlas. I chose the state of Michigan because I've been fascinated by the decay of Detroit, the fact that the Midwest prairie has slowly begun to reclaim its suburbs. I tried to make that be what my poem was about. Here's what the poem looked like:

Sorry about the crap stitching job; the thing was too big to fit in my scanner all at once. You can click the picture to get a closer look. I started with a jar of white acrylic and a little brush, painting in little sections at a time while leaving words or word fragments that I thought were interesting or useful. I also tried to leave in roads and highways. Once I had the map whited out, I connected all the words in order by drawing a pathway of sorts. You can see where it starts in the upper right hand corner with the words "How to determine distance". By connecting the words with this new path, I sort of "redrew the map." I could go into how this inverts the map as a tool of orientation by disorienting the maps original meaning, academic speak, blah blah blah.

Jonathan Safran Foer has just published a new erasure novel, where he cut the pages of an already existing novel so what you get is a bunch of windows in each page that sees through to the next pages. I guess it's really modern in that is forces the reader to question how the book is supposed to be read. Search for Tree of Codes and you'll find all sorts of reviews and discussions of the book and its meaning as an art object. The most interesting aspect about his book (to me, anyways) is how its very existence questions the assumption that physical media is becoming obsolete. I mean, it's a book that cannot exist in a virtual form. The pages are the things; you have to be holding a physical copy in your hands to read it properly.

Got a little off track there. The actual text of the poem, if you were curious, would read thusly:

How to Determine Distance

Mileages in between red

in between intersections

of symbols

rest area (no )

Free Limited

Scenic Route

For an explanation see

Michigan

State

Land Area: (22)

Population: (8)

Largest City:

To do

be Detroit

as I can

and be each

as I am as I

Rock 570 ft. above sea level

and win sex war

arming Troy for

Romulus

born ill

no no

enter Hell

right on

Reading Eden on California

EAT LIVING BRANCH

Battle Assyria Nashville Vermont Middle Alaska

Grand Crooked Climax Mend

Gosh

Bend Ganges Three Rivers

lend zoo A Covert Haven

579 ft. above sea level

and Have A new live

ego

Man Bas-

ing A New Era

NEW White Cloud

and held on

Man is A Fountain A Peacock

MAN Bite!

Me sick FOR Nirvana

Me ill in a Crump Duel

AND COMMON man Buckle

IS A City in a land

Pleasant

Paris Remus Sparta

Win

CALM AT Ithaca

Butternut on Pompeii

In John 27 57

Eureka

Shepards SEE

and so gain in Sleepy Hollow

A Wooden Shoe Village

COMB Good Brow

Gag MAW

Grind Stone each Bad Axe

or run

Found Sound: February 11, 2011 11:48 AM

2011-03-08T21:06:00.001-08:00

Found Sound: February 11, 2011 11:48 AM by drone76420

2011-03-07T21:00:00.001-08:00

Poetry?

2011-03-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight there is no moon

The sand, like phosphorus,
glows with the traces of our shambling steps.
Me within you: my hand in yours.
Naked laughing, we splash into the amniotic sea.
Iridescent bioluminescence:
we waft across that black expanse on rafts of light.
And reflected above, the integumented dome of sky.

Deciphering the constellations, you indicate Gemini.
You reach as if to touch them,
not seeing our own shared galaxy.

Poetry?

2011-03-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

After studying poetry this quarter, it occurred to me that someone needed to conflate the formalism of a sonnet with the conventions of a pop song. This is my first attempt. There may or may not be others.

Pop Sonnet #1

Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Oh baby baby baby babe
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah
Oh baby baby baby babe
Babe c’mon come on come on come on
I love love love love love love love
You babe come on come on c’mon c’mon
Love love love love love love love love

Me too c’mon baby love me too
Oh yeah baby c’mon love me too

Found Sound: February 10, 2011 1:51 PM

2011-02-28T21:35:00.000-08:00

Grinder, Orchestra, Bird, Plane

Grinder, Orchestra, Bird, Plane by drone76420

2011-02-24T22:43:00.000-08:00

Found Sound: December 08, 2010 9:06 AM

2011-02-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

Waiting for the bus December 08, 2010 by drone76420

You might have to put on headphones and turn up the volume.

People who have nothing to say talk about the weather

2011-02-22T21:29:00.000-08:00

It fucking snowed today. You may not be able to tell from this picture, but it fucking snowed while it was sunny out.

Also, happy birthday, Matt!

2011-02-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

2011-02-17T08:27:00.000-08:00

transcribed from the journal

2011-02-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

Feb 13, 2011 Sunday

herded like cattle into the lobby
free wine!
unhinged drunk lady
two glasses in hand
one empty one full
tells us about the women who
will have us.
Mitch bares his teeth
somewhere between a smile and
a grimace.
the drunk lady (and pills I
suspect)
tells me her son was
buried two weeks ago.
Mitch says it's a lie.
She and Kevin "dance"
"Now I feel blessed," he says.

The lady in question

The journal in question

Garfield Minus Garfield is actually just Peanuts

2011-02-13T13:17:00.001-08:00

Evidence:

Garfield Minus Garfield

2011-02-10T23:06:00.000-08:00

Poetry? / Today's Listening

2011-02-10T08:04:00.000-08:00

So in this poem we were supposed to exercise sound devices and use the arrangement of the words on the page to inform content. I decide I would like to try to make listening to baseball on the radio in the 1960s sound like a ship capsizing.

Listing

The boat slipped into a hole in the sea,

a deep well of water rising on all sides.

In the moments before

the crashing catastrophe, the quartermaster,

his mind plied

to its own purpose, enumerated all the things

he had set to order:

the scores of boxes of box scores, all precisely pruned from the proceeding day’s paper,

and pressed like

a leaf of the broad-leafed trees of his summers, when the long warm

evenings meandered like fireflies.

The rush of the ocean, the tactile spray of it was the

static of sixties AM over

the frantic calls of the radio.

Snoring, gently snoozing, his father’s glass of scotch half-drained

away would stand

sudden with a triumphant roar-----Safe at home!

father raises his glass.

Another crack of the bat -----Another hero to save our ass!

As he rose, the porch in protest,

as if its old slats might split and snap right in half,

so groaned,

just as the old man groaned, the hoarse sound like a ship

running aground.

The glass, now empty

of scotch, but for ice, ends smashed at his feet:

rally killer.

Ground ball, double play------No hero tonight. Fuck!

The tinkling of

the glass and the ice, the pieces and pieces, was

the sound of defeat.

It was the sound of everything turning

sideways. All the galley’s

neat inventories, one by one sliding

then falling

as outside the porthole the great unbroken horizon finally breaks beneath

the ascending water.

After the first tins go, and the first plates and jars, crashing in shards

go a few more

and then like lemmings, every one

of the quartermaster’s items neatly sorted rises to chaos hurling themselves bodily across the cabin like

rain in a gale,

and everywhere everything exploding.

The scores of scores, the summers’ trees’ broad leaves now brown and brittle

like in the breath of autumn

are swept and scattered.

This poem germinated from a seed of an idea planted by TAL episode 88: Numbers. There was a story about a guy whose hobby was making lists of things. He had lists of his lists. At the time of the story he was in his mid-fifties and had made a list of everything he had done each day since he was ten.

Also of interest was another story in the same episode about these artist who used a public polling firm to figure out what content would make a really popular painting. Turns out the public has really banal taste in art. The result was a landscape with mountains and lake and trees and George Washington (because people like paintings of political people).

They did the same thing again, except with music. The most wanted things added up to a generic-sounding adult contemporary pop song. This time they decide to take the most unwanted aspects and put all those together in a song. The result is an avante-garde curiosity that must be heard to be believed. As I was sitting on the bus, listening to the composer describe why he arranged things as he did, I had to fight to keep from laughing out loud like a crazy person. People want songs that are three to ten minutes long, so he made the song 21 minutes. Rap and opera were voted the least favorite genres of music, so the obvious thing to do was have an opera singer rap. The most unwanted subject matters were cowboys and holidays. The least preferred kind of voices were those of children. So if you can imagine an opera singer rapping about cowboys while a children's choir sings accompaniment, then you're getting the idea. There was also the matter of instrumentation; the most hated instruments were bagpipes, harps, pipe organs--they're all there. I recommend listening to the story first, before checking out the song. If you're an ethical person and want to pay for the songs, you can purchase them here. I found a free copy here.

Analog Technology

2011-02-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

I was digging around for something unimportant the other day. What I found was my old cache of polaroids. I have a bunch of them which I've been posting over at my flickr account. You should go take a peek. I love how they look all arrayed in a grid. Good times.

In other news, here's an inevitable mash-up of Blondie and Arcade fire, cleverly entitled Sprawl of Glass. It sounds pretty much exactly like you'd expect. I got there via the Color Awesome blog, which is a music blog that offers mp3s of song that I actually want to hear. I link to this song only because since receiving the Suburbs CD for christmas, I've been listening to it pretty much exclusively (except for streaming episodes of TAL, of course). I'm wondering if this song might incite a Blondie revival, educate the whippersnappers to the truth about Blondie's awesomeness, sort of like how Oasis taught a generation of youngsters that McCartney was in a band before Wings. Seriously, though. Go buy Blondie's Greatest Hits from the iTunes store right now. Or better yet, get The Best of Blondie on vinyl.

transcribed from the journal: february 03, 2011

2011-02-05T15:38:00.000-08:00

in Parnasus, reading poetry, quaffing coffe, 90s top 40 and r+b
a song I haven't heard in 15 years (free your mind, en vogue) is playing
this is the second time in two days that I've heard this song, in totally different contexts.
I tell the barista.
I know what you mean, he says. I've heard heard bone thugs and harmony all over the place, like they're trendy again.
it's weird when that happens, I say, like when you learn the meaning of a new word and then overhear it used in conversation.

2011-02-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

true story

2011-02-03T22:28:00.000-08:00

So, last Saturday Mitch and Kevin and I went to see Lilly Tomlin. We sat all they way to the right, but we were in the front row. This was Kevin's christmas present to me and Mitch. It was amazing. Lilly is hilarious, still. She's like 70 years old, but she's still vital and vigorous, and she looks great. But that's not what this is about.

This is about how as we were walking back to the parking garage, back to the car, we stopped on a street corner, waiting for the light to change. I suppose we could have jaywalked, but we were dressed nicely, like respectable citizens. Also on the corner waiting were other respectable citizens.

There was a panhandler there too. He didn't seem crazy or drug-addled or drunk. He was just dirty and frayed. He had with him a cardboard sign and a backpack and a dog. It was a large dog, a Saint Bernard, maybe?

I made eye contact with the man, briefly. When I see a street person, sometimes I force myself to make eye contact because I feel like acknowledging them as human being is the least I can do. I looked at the man, then at the dog, then back at the man and his sign. The sign had only a few words on it, but I didn't read it. I have no idea what the sign said. I looked at the people on the far corner and the light indicating when it was time to cross. No one else acknowledged the man.

The man asked the group of us strangers standing on the corner for some money. His voice was loud and hard. The force of it startled me a little bit. I shrugged my shoulders and mumbled an apology, mostly to myself I think because I felt guilty. Whenever this happens to me I wonder if guilt is the appropriate response, if I really have cause to feel guilty, if it's wrong to do nothing. I wonder why I feel guilt. Whenever this happens to me I wonder if because of the privilege I was born with, I am obligated to action.

The light changed. As we crossed the man called after us, Enjoy drinking and being merry while I starve!

I wanted to turn around and hold my middle finger aloft. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. I wanted to tell him, Then eat your fucking dog. I was overcome with the urge to be cruel, and I don't know why. This was the thing I remember most clearly about that night.

2011-02-02T16:07:00.000-08:00

May I suggest that you all check out 9 eyes. It's just a bunch of pictures taken from Google maps street views. It is fascinating.

Things I learned from Modest Mouse

2011-02-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

Dry or wet ice, both will melt, and you're equally cheated.

Where do you move when what you're moving from is yourself?

We're losing all touch, building a desert.

Looking out the window you can more than assume that you can't see air or time.

We had the tools, but not the skill to build a shelf.

I know what I have and want, but I don't know what I need.

People ain't made of nothing but water and shit.

Fluorescent lights make an absence of dark.

The interchange causes a mall and crowed chain restaurants.

900 miles is a long long long ways in a car.

You can't make dirt clean, so we'll just lemon-scent it.

You're the loud sound of fun when I'm trying to sleep.

I don't feel at all like myself.

2011-01-31T18:54:00.000-08:00

2011-01-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

Poetry?

2011-01-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

The point of this assignment was to rhythm and meter stress pacing and dragging/advancing/balanced lines and tension to support overal compositional goal. I think the other point was to master all the jargon associated with talking about poetry composition.

There's a Party in My Mouth, and Everyone's Invited!

Jose, amigo, glad you could make it.
Jack, Jim and Johnny are here already.
We seem to be at capacity,
and you want to bring some friends?
Sorry, but things seem to be getting out of hand.
Hey! Who let in those Germans?
Calm down, everyone. Let’s not fight—crash!
All right. Fuck you. Everybody, get out!

2011-01-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

Poetry?

2011-01-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

The assignment this time was to write a poem focusing on the line breaks and meter. Mostly the line breaks, though. We were supposed to use the line breaks to inform the content of the poem somehow as well as dragging, advancing, and balanced tension in the rhythm to support our overall composition. Here is a poem based on a Wolf Parade song based on a movie that I guess is based on a true story (or maybe it was a documentary)?

Mission Control

This capsule is a hailstone

that will precipitate beyond the ultimate precipice

faith placed in science the immutable truth

of numbers.

The mission’s destination

the value of glory

how could I have miscalculated so

badly

how did mission control miss

the moon a heavenly body unmistakably

familiar

and always within grasp

it seemed?

This journey I had to travel

myself

leaving behind my wife and unborn child

the sun’s life giving light and

warmth.

I knew a possibility was death

just as every man knows

the impending end of

his journey,

but my journey will have no

end:

the closest terrestrial body is far

behind me.

2011-01-25T11:43:00.001-08:00

Poetry?

2011-01-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

So, I'm taking a verse writing class. The first assignment was to write something using some sort of formal restraint, either meter or some kind of classical format, like a sonnet, villanelle, sestina, what have you. The constraint had to some how reinforce the content of the poem. For example, the repeating lines of a pantoum could reinforce the cycle of despair of a grieving mother, or something. I decided I wanted to write in iambic pentameter, so that's what I tried to do. Here for your reading pleasure (or displeasure) is what I came up with.

Aquarium

But in her dreams she wished to have married
a connoisseur of literature, wine
and pussy. Like a Parisian
perhaps, who could, in lyrical words speak
of the Rhone valley with elocution.
But what she got was Xbox games
and comic books and stacks of anime
that needed rescue from the cracked floor of
the basement.
“Top Shelf,” he laughed to himself.
The box of baseball cards displacing her
great grand mother’s set of wedding china.
“Those won’t rot,” he said with a smile
But in
Her dreams she wished to have security.
The basement crack continued seeping. Drop
by drop the water came into their home.
The crack grew wider (it was but a hair-
line fissure), became something she could put
a screwdriver in—(that didn’t stop the leak).
“My husband, our foundation is crumbling,”
she said. “I think our house might be sinking.”
“I’ll fix it,” he said.
But still the water
came in. It slowly filled the house. The hole
became a dinner plate.
The day it came
from downstairs up, she found her spouse, his arms
embracing boxes he was moving to
the attic. “X-Men issue number one
is worth a lot,” he said.

One day they woke
and the first floor was eight feet deep.
It passed the windows, passed the doors.
Had they, the next door neighbors, looked,
they might have spied the cat floating.
The house was an aquarium.
Their son, forgotten in his bed
room drowned while in his sleep.
“I’ll fix it.”

The last resort was in the attic.
Her spouse, surrounded by this things,
“It can be fixed. I swear it can,”
he said before his lungs filled up.

She held her breath and down into
the indistinct waters she swam.
The crack had swallowed up it all.
The water from below was cool.
She wished to find the bottom source
so she swam down into the cold.
The light above, the world outside,
grew dimmer, colder, farther down
until the last faint speck
of light blinked out.

She wished
to find
the source,
but it
was dark
and she
could not
find down
from up.

This American Life, Episode 480: The Grass Is Greener [Partial Transcript]

2011-01-19T17:30:00.000-08:00

So, in keeping with my recent obsession with all things This American Life, I recently wrote an essay for my history class that took the form of an episode of said show.

This American Life, Episode 480: The Grass Is Greener [Partial Transcript]

[Ira Glass] Before we start, I’d like to play you this tape. This tape was found in a thrift store answering machine, and what makes it so remarkable is that in the messages on the tape is the narrative of these two people, Mark and Lisa, and their entire relationship—all documented on these little messages, these little snippets of tape.. I’ll just play you a little bit here.

Beep [Mark] Hi, Lisa. It’s me. I know you don’t like to answer the phone while you’re painting, but I’m in a break from a meeting right now—a really boring meeting—ugh—and I was just thinking about you. Okay, love you. Bye. Beep

[Ira] It spans from first date, to puppy-love infatuation, to the mundane maintenance of a relationship, to finally the break up.

Beep [Mark] Oh that’s great. That’s beep-ing great. You hang up on me? You beep-ing hang up on me? You think this conversation’s over? I’ll tell you what’s over. We’re over. Done. Finished. I’m sick of working fifty hours a week in a job I hate to support you and your stupid painting and your stupid art parties with your stupid stuck-up artist beep-hole friends. I’m better off without you. Have a nice life, bitch. By the way, your art sucks. Click Beep

[Ira] That’s the last we hear of Mark. Time passes. There are messages regarding Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Lisa’s birthday. Then, out of the blue, there’s this.

Beep [Mark] Hi, Lisa. It’s me, Mark. I know you probably didn’t think you’d ever hear, or didn’t think you’d ever want to hear my voice again. You’re probably painting right now, listening to this, so while you’re listening, I just wanted to say that I miss you, and I think about you everyday. I understand if you never want to speak to me again, or call me back or whatever—

[Lisa] Hello?

[Mark] Lisa?

[Lisa] Yeah?

[Mark] Lisa, It’s me, Mark.

[Lisa] Yeah, I know. Listen. Never contact me again.

[Mark] Lisa, you were the best girlfriend I ever had.

[Lisa] Whatever.

[Mark] I love you.

[Lisa] Have a nice life, jerk. Beep

[Ira] Which brings us to this week’s episode. From WBEZ in Chicago, distributed by Public Radio International, it’s This American Life. I’m Ira Glass. Every week, of course, we choose a theme and bring you a variety of stories on that theme. This week’s theme: The Grass Is Greener, in three acts. Act one, we hear the story of a man who wishes for the good old days--but just how good are they? And what happens when he finally gets his wish? Act two, This American Life contributor Scott Carrier brings us a report about the friends of Dorothy. They three got their wish, the gifts from wonderful wizard, but with each gift comes a drawback, and they consider the question, Are they gifts, really? Or are they curses. And finally, act three, David Sedaris reads from his upcoming memoir a story about quitting and unquitting, and how unquitting is really just quitting quitting. Stay with us.

[Interlude]

[Ira] Act one: The Bronze Is Always Bronzey-er. You ever feel like you were born in the wrong era, like you should have been a hippie in the 1960s, or a flapper in the 1920s, or a knight during the crusades? Well, this first act is about a man who had such feelings. He was born in the late Dark Ages of Greece, but always wished to be in the Late Bronze Age as if this was a panacea that would grant him contentment from all his world’s perceived ills. Through a twist of fate, he gets his wish. Nancy Updike reports.

[Nancy Updike Voice Over] These days, Hesiod is a man of few words. You’d never guess he was a world renowned poet. He says he doesn’t write much anymore. His hands are so calloused from work, he can hardly hold a quill. He’s what you’d call a curmudgeon. He looks like he’s built out of leather, like you can’t tell where the collar of his rawhide shirt ends and the back of his neck begins.

[Hesiod] I write very little anymore, but I never stopped composing. These days I compose mentally. I fill up my head with poems so I don’t have time to think about the tricks of the gods and of the fates. Athena says I am here because I wished it so, but I never wished for this. She could see what was in my heart, yet offered me something else. I asked for water and she gave me poisoned wine.

[Nancy VO] Hesiod can never admit that he go exactly what he asked for because it would mean admitting to himself that the past he praised so vociferously in his poetry was not an accurate version of the truth. It was a lie.

[Nancy] So tell me about your wish. How did it go wrong?

[Heisod] It was on mid-summer’s day, the day when glorious Apollo takes his longest chariot ride of the year across the blue skies, and we are supposed to give praise. I, however, at the end of that day was exhausted from working before dawn until after dusk, for the work on the farm is never done. I prayed to be among the fourth race of men, the demigods, our predecessors on the boundless earth for they dwell with carefree heart in the Isles of the Blessed Ones where the grain-giving soil bears its honey-sweet fruit thrice a year .

That night was a moonless night and also without stars, and I was roused from my sleepless bed by an owl with grey eyes that shown like sapphires. I knew this was Pallas Athena. Although she spoke no words, she communicated to my soul, and I understood that I was to follow her. So, not even bothering to change from my bedclothes, I followed her into the dark night. She led me stumbling across many varied terrain and over what could not have been a single night, but what must have been a century of nights. Every time I wished to stop and rest my weary limbs, Athena beckoned me further, until finally, I was overcome and collapsed.

[Nancy] And this was how your wish was fulfilled?

[Hesiod] Yes. The next morning when I awoke, I was in my home, in my bed, but I could sense that these things had been transposed in time and space. I knew without doubt that I was now alive in the Age of Heroes. When I stepped across my threshold that morning every blade of grass, every wildflower outside seemed to shine more brightly as if the spirits of the world had polished themselves for my arrival. It was a new day, and I was reborn. And like a newborn, I tumbled out into the day heedless, naïve, and started at once to work. So consumed was I with the newness of my circumstance, I was made blind to its identical nature to my previous one. Everything old was new again. I was so filled with joy that the heavy lifting made no dent in my stride. I went about my work just as I had always done, just as I always will do, but in those first moments of my new life I can honestly say I was a different man. I was fooled. I was a fool.

[Nancy] In what way were you fooled? What exactly went against your expectations?

[Hesiod] The exact nature of the illusion was difficult for me to quantify at first. As I said, my ecstasy blinded my insight.

The first difference I noticed was in my neighbors. In Askra, the best thing one can be is a good neighbor, but here in Pylos, I found villagers were aloof, and unwilling to lend a helping hand. I had strained my back over-exerting myself in the first weeks of my new life in the Age of Heroes, and this was my first indication that life here was not what I thought it would be. These men were not heroic. As I’ve always believed, a bad neighbor is as big a bane as a good one is a boon; he has got good value who has got a good neighbor. Get good measure from your neighbor and give good measure back, with the measure itself and better if you can, so that when in need another time you may find something to rely on . This morale that connected the farmers in Askra was absent. There was no feeling of obligation to help one another.

[Nancy] Everybody was just looking out for themselves?

[Hesiod] Yes. In Askra, you help your neighbor because it benefits you both. He benefits now; you benefit later when he must reciprocate. I tried explaining this logic to my neighbors, but they still declined. I truly did not believe that anyone living in this age could suffer from discontentment. I began to question the joyousness of the occasion that sent me here. The revelation of my false hope did not occur on a steady downward course as you might imagine a rock rolls down a hill. My spirits were toyed with, lifted and lowered like a cork on the sea. After recognizing that there was a difference in the social temperament of the people here, I began to think hard about the ways my life differed from its previous incarnation. I began keeping a journal. This is when I began to see that life here was not much different, at least not in significant or tangible ways to the farmers.

[Nancy VO] What Hesiod failed to understand at that point early in Pylos was that he was no longer farming for just himself. It was true that the work was the same, the way of life. But now he was farming for the entire country of Pylos. The Collectors would come; there were quotas to be met.

[Hesiod] I remember the first day the Collectors came to my farm. It was an uplifting day at first. I was sure that these men were the heroes of history. The arrived dressed in uniforms of bronze and fine textiles, such that I had never seen before, such that never existed in Askra. I was sure they were Apollo’s proxies, for they rode magnificent chariots. When they arrived they caught me seeking respite from the midday sun in the refuge of my journal. I became so emotional with their arrival, I was simultaneously effusive with my blathering and unable to say anything of sense at all.

They made a demand for my stores of grain. I thought they were demanding tribute. When they took much more than I could afford to give them, I made a meager protest saying, Surely you will not leave a lonely man to starve this winter. This is when they explained to me the system of wealth redistribution that ran the commerce of the kingdom. They said if I was in need that I could petition the government for what resources I required. I was intrigued by this concept. It seemed at first an inspired way to unite the people of Pylos in the maintenance of the kingdom, each man responsible for one another. But if this were true, why were my neighbors reluctant to help me? I then realized that the advent of quotas eliminated the good Strife that made my fellows from Askra amenable to each other.

[Nancy] Good Strife?

[Hesiod] Yes, there are two kinds of Strife. This is something I have sung about in the past.

[Nancy] Can you recite it for me now?

[Hesiod] Sigh Yes, I suppose. Let me focus for a moment.

[Nancy VO] When Hesiod begins to recite his poem, a transformation takes over him. He no longer seems like the weathered curmudgeon bitter about his fate on the farm. He seems a decade younger. His eyes burn with calm intensity, and when he begins to sing, his voice resonates. It comes from deep inside him as if flowing from some primeval well. Suddenly the charisma he radiates is electric. You realize this is the opposite side of his miserly persona, and you see how this man is the same that defeated Homer in an epic battle of the bards.

[Hesiod singing] I see there is not only one Strife-brood on earth, there are two. One would be commended when perceived, the other is reprehensible, and their tempers are distinct. The one promotes ugly fighting and conflict, the brute: no mortal is fond of her, but they are forced by the gods’ designs to do homage to Strife the burdensome. But the other was elder born of gloomy Night, and the son of Kronos, the high-seated one who dwells in Heaven, set her in the earth’s roots, much the better for men. She rouses even the shiftless one to work. For when someone whose work falls short looks towards another, towards a rich man who hastens to plant and manage his household well, then neighbor vies with neighbor as he hastens to wealth; this Strife is good for mortals.

So potter is piqued with potter, joiner with joiner, beggar begrudges beggar, and singer signer .

[Nancy] That was beautiful.

[Hesiod] Laughs I’m a little rusty.

[Nancy] So this good kind of strife, it doesn’t exist in Pylos?

[Hesiod] No.

[Nancy] Why not?

[Hesiod] Because when one is charged with the task of feeding the entire kingdom, it is very different work than feeding just oneself. You can never hasten to finish your work because the work is never done; the trajectory of commerce must always move forward. This is why my neighbors never wanted to lend assistance: the priority now is to keep in good standing with the King’s men, not with one another.

[Nancy VO] Hesiod wondered if he could find a way to change what he saw as a policy detrimental to the people of his new kingdom. He decided to petition the king directly.

[Hesiod] The next time the Collectors came, I offered my services as a poet. I sang a poem for them, but it was not one they recognized so they declined. I offered them my literacy. This was a skill they thought might be of use, so they granted me passage back to the palace. I rode with them on their chariots. The vessels they had to carry the produce back to the citadel were beautiful, crafted by hands that must have been blessed by Aphrodite herself. At this point, I was consistently amazed by the quality of goods that were available; the vessels of Askra were nothing like what I saw here, but I began to question the worth of such things if they never improved the quality of life of the people who endeavored to make them possible.

Arriving at the palace was a shock. I was ambivalent about what I encountered. The machinery of commerce was a wonder to behold. The industrious craftsmen manufactured things that I thought impossible to dream. The harbor hummed with ships that were the actuality of legend. Surely all-seeing Zeus had smiled upon these men, for their hard work created wealth that was beyond my comprehension.

There were men whose job entailed counting and tracking the goods, and I was placed in their charge. It was to learn their tasks that I was brought here. I soon found that our methods of record keeping were incompatible, we were unable to decipher one another’s writings. Still I worked with them, learning their trade, just as my father had learned it.

At the end of the day we broke bread and said an offering to the gods. The food was good and there was wine and oil. As we ate I sensed that these men were looking at my hands. Theirs were not calloused like mine. All they knew of work was counting and sorting. They had never tended the earth or sowed a seed. I took my calluses a objects of pride, of proof of my endeavors. To these men, they seemed to be worthy of scorn.

[Nancy] This was a class issue?

[Hesiod] Yes. The people here were organized in a different structure than in Askra. The hierarchy was much more pronounced here. In Askra, every man was responsible for his own labor; if you needed a pot, you made a pot, or perhaps you traded with your neighbor, his superior pot for your superior wool, and so forth. Here, a certain man makes nothing but pots. It is true that his skill becomes parallel to that of the gods, but it is for that reason he begins to think himself better than other men. And just as making pots places you higher than tending the earth, so does counting the pots places you higher than the man who makes them. And this is shameful because it seems the higher up you are ranked, the less work one is required to perform until ultimately you are the king who does nothing.

[Nancy] You met the king?

[Hesiod] Yes. I was asked to sing for him.

[Nancy] How did that come about?

[Hesiod] At dinner, I volunteered a hymn of praise before eating. The other men indulged men. When I had finished singing, these men were moved. I had connected with them, and it was in that moment that I knew even though we came from very different times and places, that there existed some thread of historical continuity that attached me to them. The prayers we sang and the gods we loved was some sort of universal truth to each of us that superceded the things that made us different.

[Nancy] There was a certain "Greekness” that you shared with these men.

[Hesiod] Yes.

[Nancy] What happened when you met the king?

[Hesiod] I was revolted. This king, a man who according to the social structure was the one who was closest to the gods was a man who was not above reproach.

[Nancy] Why? Why was he so bad?

[Hesiod] He was fat and lazy. He appeared to be an enormous baby swaddled in the finest silk dyed purple. He had bathed in sweet-smelling oils. He ate and drank wantonly. He was wasteful. When I first saw him I said, Surely this man cannot be the king. It seemed ludicrous that his attendants would bow their heads before him and cower at his whim. This man, a king in the Age of Heroes, was not a hero. He bore no regal bearing. He demanded that I sing for him. And I obliged with this:

Hunger goes always with a workshy man. Gods and men disapprove of that man who lives without working. It is from work that men are rich in flocks and wealthy, and a working man is much dearer to the immortals. Property is not for seizing: far better God given. For if a man does seize wealth by force of his hand, or appropriates it by means of words—the sort of thing that often happens when profit deludes men’s minds, and Shamelessness drives away Shame—the gods easily bring him low, and diminish that man’s house, and it is but a short time that prosperity attends him.

I walked out while all those present were to stunned at my admonishment of the king to scold me or throw me out. It was then I decided that this new world I’d been given was a hoax, and evil perpetrated against me because I did not sing the praise of Apollo on that mid-summer’s eve.

Today's Listening: This American Life episodes 21 and 61, and also Arpeggiator

2010-12-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

Episode 21: Factions
Act I - Religious faction.
Scott Carrier investigates a radical Mormon fundamentalist church. Boring.

Act II - Beau O'Reilly reads a story about environmental activists in 1907s Illinois. Boring.

Act III - Ira Glass interviews Glen Lowery about race and friendship. Pretty interesting, wish it was longer.

Episode 60: Business of Death
Act I - The undertaking
A story of an undertaker from a family of undertakers who must embalm his own father. Well crafted how it interweaves the details of undertaking with the details of family. Recommended.

Act II - The Forbidden Zone
Mike Lesy talks about interviewing people who deal with death on a daily basis - homicide detectives, slaughter house workers, et cetera - to try to figure out what insights they have into the meaning of death. Interesting.

Act III - Fireman
An actor reads from a book about firemen. Interesting.

Act IV - David Sedaris reads something that has to do with cadavers and turds.

Act V - The happiest Death Worker
I don't really remember this story.

Arpeggiator
Megan Selig of Line Out points to this math rock band. They have an EP that you can download for free. It's face-melting sort of stuff, superfast. The EP is only 10 minutes long, but that's all right because that's about all I can stand to listen to in one sitting. The price is right, plus check out the sweet cover art.

Below is a video of these two, proving it is, in fact, just a guitarist and drummer.

Today's Listening: This American Life episodes 73 and 68

2010-12-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

So this is probably of intrest to no one except me. Every since getting the This American Life app for my phone I've been listening to two episodes a day while riding the bus to and from school. The entries are just notes to remind myself that I had opinions on these things.

Episode 73: Blame It On Art. Stories about art and the art world, about the thing people to for art. And so forth.

Act I - Life in a Bubble.

Paul Tough reports about Aaron Hsu-Flanders, a guy who is one of the world's pre-eminent ballon animal artists. He's written best selling books on the subject. Really, he wants to be a musician, but he got ostracized by his musician friends for selling out. To the Corporate Balloon Animal Machine, or something. Professional jealousy. Sort of interesting.

Act II - Still Life.

David Sedaris reads a story about snorting crystal meth and doing performance art. As a gay man, I am contractually obligated to like this.

Act III - Reverb.

Nancy Updike reports about Ellery Eskelin, a musician who never knew his dad. His dad was musician, too. Supposedly a genius who could pick up any instrument and play it. Escolin becomes influenced by the music his father made, connects with his father through his father's music. Stories by Nancy Updike are always good, and this is no exception. Recommended.

Act IV - Grace Note.

A true (?) story read by Joel Kostman, a NYC locksmith who repairs the lock of a guitarist who plays at weddings. Kostman has a book of his stories. Pretty good.

Episode 68: Lincoln's Second Inaugural. This text is taken straight from the website because it is pretty interesting: In his second inaugural address, Lincoln wondered aloud why God saw fit to send the slaughter of the Civil War to the United States. His conclusion: that slavery was a kind of original sin for the United States, for both North and South, and all Americans had to do penance for it.

Act I - Politics.

A story by Jack Hitt about South Carolina's Governor, David Beasley's decision to remove the Confederate flag from the state house, a decision which cost him re-election. In 2004 he ran for US senate against Jim DeMint and lost. Interesting.

Act II - Mandela and Lincoln.

A story comparing the two, I guess. I didn't really pay attention to this one, didn't hold my interest.

Act III - Good Blacks/Bad Blacks.

A story by Malcolm Gladwell in which he investigates why certain ethnic blacks seem to be able to move forward while others are mired in stasis. It was interesting to hear his voice after reading his work in books, magazines and else where. Interesting.

Act IV - Good Whites/Bad Whites.

A story about a woman coming to terms with being raised in a racist household. Interesting.

2010-11-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

2010-11-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

Ira Glass talking about the gap between your killer taste and your crappy work.

2010-11-23T18:27:00.000-08:00

2010-11-22T19:31:00.000-08:00

2010-11-22T19:25:00.001-08:00

As the Insane Clown Posse would say:

It's a motherfucking Winter Wonderland up in this bitch!

Krazy is like the Abraham of cartoon animals.

2010-11-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

I'd just like to take a minute of your time to point out that Krazy Kat was the great-great-great-grand father of Mickey Mouse.

Here, from the Library Of Congress's Youtube channel, we have an original Krazy Kat animation, Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse at the Circus, directed by George Herriman himself in 1916, nearly 100 years old!

While I'm a huge fan of the comic strip, I find that much of the charm of the cartoon is lost in its translation to the screen, alas.

Anyways, there weren't too many Krazy Kat animations, but Krazy begat Felix.

The above cartoon, Feline Follies, directed by Otto Messmer for Sullivan Studios in 1919, features the first appearance of the cat who would eventually go on to become Felix. In this one he's called Tom (as in Tom Cat--get it?) Notice the resemblance to Krazy. Also notice that Tom-cum-Felix's tail can morph into other things, like exclamation points. This is something that would become Felix's trademark. Animation was still in its infancy, and animators didn't really know what they were doing. That didn't matter too much because audiences were still struck with the novelty of moving pictures. It was about this time that they had just figured out transparent cels and registration. It was Messmer who elevated the game, and turned Felix into a superstar.

This cartoon is called Felix Turns the Tide, also directed by Messmer. This one is a few years later, 1922, and is a reference to the First World War. Felix learns of imminent war with the mice so he quits his job at the butcher shop, tells his fiancé he loves her and, with dreams of glory, enlists. The battle doesn’t go so good for the cats until Felix unleashes the secret weapon: a legion of hateful sausages. The Freudian imagery is striking: a phalanx of phalluses. I imagine this picture planting the seed of dreams of world domination in the head of a young and closeted Adolf.
You'll notice that Felix has rounded out quite a bit. This is because animators discovered that it's much easier to animate circles than blocks. You'll also find that the black body/ white face motif caught on with a lot early cartoon characters because 1) it makes the face stand out more and seem more expressive and 2) it's a lot easier to animate the bodies if there are no outlines.

Here's one more Felix cartoon: Felix Finds 'em Fickle, by Messmer in 1924. In this one he demonstrates the pluckiness and ingenuity that audiences have grown to admire in the character.

I love the comments by the Youtubers: "I would be all like "FUCK YOU BITCH!" and walk away."

Anyways, Felix begat Julien.

Who is Julien? Behold:

Julien is the blatantly derivative cat in the above cartoon, Alice's Egg Plant, directed by Walt Disney in 1925. At this point in his career, Disney was just some guy making some not very creative cartoons. The creativity in his work wasn't in his storytelling; it was in the way he used technology to advance the medium. But that's a whole 'nother blog post.

Anyways, Julien begat Oswald.

The above is Great Guns, directed by Disney in 1927. This is another Great World War cartoon. You can see how derivative it is of Felix Turns the Tide. While the animation is much cleaner, the premise is pretty much identical.

It was soon after the conception of Oswald that Disney had a falling out with his studio. I forget the details. At the time, the animations studios were all based in New York. Disney said, "Fuck you. I quit. And I'm taking my rabbit with me." The studio said, "Actually, fuck you, we own the rabbit." So Disney walked out and he took his right-hand man, Ub Iwerks (such a cool name) with him. On a cross country train ride, Walt and Ub took off the rabbit ears, put on mouse ears and viola.

Anyways, Oswald begat Mickey.

This, of course, is Steamboat Willie, directed by Disney in 1928. This is the cartoon that made Mickey and Disney, and pretty much finished off Felix. Steamboat Willie was the first cartoon with synchronized sound; it was the first "talkie". This cartoon really encapsulates what made Disney so great. Watching it, you can tell, the story's not the thing. It's the sound. You can see Disney being like, "Look! The sound a pictures go together!" Sullivan Studios continued to make Felix cartoons, but Sullivan was an irascible drunk and a reprobate. He scoffed at the new sound-synced cartoons as merely a fad and refused to upgrade his studio accordingly, which spelled the doom for Felix and Sullivan Studios.

So, there you have it: the lineage of Krazy Kat and his descendants. Krazy is like the Abraham of cartoon animals.

2010-11-11T18:17:00.000-08:00

2010-11-09T19:24:00.000-08:00

Weird synchronicity. I'm walking to class listening to This American Life, episode 51, which is about animals, when I spot these guys.

I look around to see if anybody else is seeing what I'm seeing. My little area of campus is oddly deserted, so I go over to talk to them, ask them what they're doing out of bed. They are friendly but not forthcoming.
Later in the day, I'm thinking about a friend while checking my email. I find in my inbox a message from that friend waiting for me.

++++++++++++++++
In other news:
Check out this long-haired idiot trying to match wits with Zach Galifianakis and losing.

In order to bolster my street cred, I'd just like to say that I had a secret crush on Zach since way back in
2001 when Out Cold came out way before it was cool. So there.
Also, it seems like he's in every other movie and television channel of late. Heading into some serious overexposure territory, as in, "I've really enjoyed our time together, but I think we need to take a little break."

2010-11-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

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2010-11-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

Weekend Wrap Up

Thursday: Kind of a magical day. I had been feeling kind of shitty for a while--like a couple of weeks--and didn't want to get out of bed today. I was running late. Driving to the Park & Ride, every single light was green, and I pulled into a parking space just as my bus was pulling up. The ride to school was strangely uncrowded. Performed better than expected on a history exam. Was able to complete a math worksheet before class ended, a first. The autumn day was bright and clear. That evening, on the spur of the moment, we went on the first thursday art walk where we ran into an artist friend that we had not seen in a while, and she took us up to her studio. I like artists. I like being around artists. I like talking about artistry and creativity. Our friend pointed us to some other galleries to check out where we ran into some more people we knew. Also, we got up close and personal with some 100 year old Picasso etchings. Then we got a beer and fish and chips at Six Arms.

Friday: School. Mitch and I took his British friend to the Cuff where we ran into more people we hadn't seen in a long time. I've grown a beard recently, so I got hit on by some bears which was flattering. Except the creepy old guy who went on about fisting and asked to see my ass crack. I had to tell him to fuck off. I think I hurt his feelings, but seriously, learn to take a hint. Also, had a 20 minute phone call with the Bergh.

Saturday: Studied. Tickets to the ballet tonight. All Tharp. Had Thai food at the usual place. Macaw Hall was only half full. First Act: Opus 111. Was kind of meh. Seemed like a lot of understudies, half-a-beat off. Maybe that was by design. I don't know. Sometimes I still feel like a Philistine at these things. Second Act: Afternoon Ball. Wow! So good! Featuring my favorite dancer Jonathan P. A dark story and strong performance filled with pathos. Not the first time I've seen this piece (it was created by Tharp specifically for the PNB repertory in 2008), but I don't remember it being so good. Recommended! Third Act: Waterbaby Baugettels. This act was also very good. It was light and amusing, a good chaser to the moodiness of the second act. Also recommended. Mitch's British friend had never been to the ballet before. He seemed to genuinely enjoy it.

Sunday: Homework day. Treehouse of Horrors XXI.

2010-11-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

So, the other day the New York Times posted this article. It combines two of my fascinations: street art and urban exploration. Apparently there's a gallery in an abandoned subway station somewhere under Manhattan. The gallery features art by over 100 writers from around the world. The curators of the gallery created it in a reaction to graffiti winding up in the collections of "legitimate" fine arts collectors. Banksy, perhaps the most well-known street artist in the world, couldn't participate because we was busy promoting his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, which happens to be largely about the mainstream art world's usurping of street art as the Next Big Thing. It's also about other things. It's really good. You should queue it up on your Netflix right now. And if you don't know who Banksy is, you should educate yourself. His stuff is subversive and hilarious. Here's proof:

And one last thing. Another blog I've been following about urban exploration: No Promise of Safety. Some of the places this guy accesses are insane. Also, the photographs are gorgeous.

2010-11-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

2010-11-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

I voted.

In other news, consuming the equivalent of 70 Red Bulls is bad for you.

One year ago today

2010-10-31T13:26:00.000-07:00

Not planning on doing shit for Halloween this year, as it fell on a Sunday, and I have class tomorrow. I couldn't remember what I did last year, so I checked my journal.

Saturday October 31, 2009

Halloween. Didn’t carve a pumpkin this year, though we put a bunch of pumpkins and squashes from our garden on the porch. Kevin did a good job decorating for it. Lights and even the spent cornstalks from the garden.

Didn’t go out. Stayed in and made dinner. Kevin roasted a ham. Made caprese salad. Beet salad. Shrimp cocktail. Sautéed brussel sprouts. Pumpkin ice cream for dessert. I put on my old bunny costume because someone had to dress up. Mitch invited other people over, but it was too last minute. Only Matt came.

We played bridge. Kevin kicked ass tonight. Then we watched Treehouse of Horrors VII. Classic. Then we played Spite and Malice which was boring as fuck. It’s Kevin’s favorite game, but I hated it.

I was kinda sad that no one called me to invite me out. Halloween on a Saturday and I stayed in.

History repeating itself. Except this time I'm doing calculus problems instead of playing games.

It was weird to check my journal since I haven't written in it in a long time. Ever since I started taking all science classes, I haven't written much of anything, except lab reports. The only non-science class I've taken in the last year or so is the history class in which I'm now enrolled. But I've been thinking about writing a lot in recent days. Starting at midnight tonight is November which means it's National Novel Writing Month. Participation this year is doubtful, but...

2010-10-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

2010-10-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

I forgot where I found this video, but it's time-lapse footage of the sun in the Ultra Violet spectrum. I guess the time span you see here is approximately 25 days (?). My favorite part is the solar flares which are, like, ribbons of liquid hydrogen metal. The reason they take on the shape of the concentric circles is because they're plasma, basically super hot ions of positive electrical charge. When these charges travel through space, they create an electrical field which in turn creates a magnetic field. So these flares behave as a fluid and as electricity and as a magnet. The study of their motion has some specific name that I can't quite remember. Something like Electromagnetohydro dynamics.

2010-10-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

First watch this:

And then watch this:

I forgot what I wanted to say, really. Compare, contrast.

I first became aware of William Kentridge, the second artist, around 2001.Rivers and Tides had just been released, and I made the trip from Bellingham to Tacoma to see an Andy Goldsworthy exhibit. The exhibit was at the Tacoma Museum of Art, but I ended up at the Museum of Glass by accident (because I have a terrible fucking sense of direction). Half the Museum of Glass was closed to the public because they were installing a new exhibit. All there was to see was a few giant zoetrope sculptures by some artist whose name I forgot and Stereoscope by Kentridge. I was mesmerized by this animation; I watched it several times in a row. Youtube doesn't really do it justice. A couple years ago, when I was in San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Art had a big retrospective on Kentridge. They had on display one of the "cels" from one of his animations. He draws big. Each drawing is four by six feet.

I first became aware of Blu, the first artist, when I took a history of animation class. On the first day, the instructor showed the class different styles of animation. We discussed them with the intent of developing our vocabulary. I went home that afternoon and watched Muto again on the Youtube several times in a row. Muto also draws big. Toward the end of the video you see him animating a character that's as tall as a building.

The thing that I love the most about these animations is that the artist redraw each new frame on top of the old one, erasing and painting over. I love how each old piece of art underlies the new one, is a part of it, leaves traces of itself. I'm really taken with art where the process of its creation are part of the final product. Also, this process of animation harkens back to the very earliest animations. Back when motion picture was in its infancy, the first animated drawings were drawn on a chalkboard.

UPDATE 10/31/10
I just wanted to point out that the style of animation used in the proceeding two videos is by no means revolutionary. In fact, quite the opposite. Back when motion picture was in its infancy, before the conventions of animation were formalized with justification and cels, this was the way animations were produced. Here is a video from the Library of Congress' youtube channel of the earliest surviving animation, which was done in this style. (If my memory serves correctly, there was a similar animation whose print was destroyed).

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2010-10-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

CRAPPY TAXIDERMY

2010-10-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

My new favorite blog.

I especially like the swan vase
with the mother-in-law's tongue.

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