je suis supercool

EGAD! Martin Puryear!

2008-09-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

exciting artist discovery (for me, at least)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

2008-02-24T16:03:00.001-08:00

I don't have much analysis to offer. I'm just writing to say this is probably the most amazing, most fucked up film, and play, ever.

local neighborhood blight

2008-02-18T15:15:00.001-08:00

blight has a bad rap. poor blight.

this particular blight was home to a person for the first 6 weeks or so that i lived on christian street. the person was there, seated in that shallow doorway on the left, covered in a mountain of garbage and rags every day and every night, all day and all night. the smell was pretty overwhelming. you really had to be on the other side of the street to avoid it. then, one day, the person was gone and replaced with yellow tape, although the smell is still around. i think he or she died, but there's no way of telling if that is in fact the case, and if it is, when it was that the person died, and if it was a long time ago, why nobody thought of checking earlier, and if someone did think of checking, just how they'd go about it.

but i'm kinda glad the blight is still there. can't explain it.

the medium is (just) the medium

2008-02-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

a lot of people think they know and understand the revolutionary changes of the 60s -- i hear so many assumptions and generalizations about "what was happening" back then, and i've been known to make a few of my own. those theories are probably all bullcrap b/c most of the people making them weren't actually around in the 60s. but regardless, i'm gonna make another one of my own right now.

see, i have this feeling that back when the kids became the leaders of the world -- when the music and art of the youth became it, became the avant garde -- the thing that was revolutionary was the substance of what the kids were championing. like, rock & roll or whatever were amazing because of what they actually were, not because of the transistor radios that were broadcasting the music to the kids.

today, the kids are still in charge, but there's no substance to what they're championing. it's all format. like, we're watching the youth not because they're going to lead us to amazing new art and music, but because we want to see what technological innovation they're going to adopt next.

the funny thing about all this is that many of the web 2.0 technological innovations have been created/advertised expressly as things that will help people be more enriched by the opinions and interests of others. social networks are great b/c they help you find more music that you're interested in, help you locate others who like the same fashion as you, blah blah BLAH. there was this mac ad that i saw last year that read:
-------"PCs are for the stuff we have to do, like pie charts and spreadsheets. Macs are for the stuff we want to do, like photos, music and movies.
------Macs are everything you need to get the job done. (And start having fun.)
------With Mac OS X, iLife ’06 and built-in iSight camera, the fun starts at just $1,299.
------Mac Mini is ready to connect to your existing monitor and keyboard – and you’re ready to start having fun with your photos, movies and more."

the ad really weirded me out when i saw it, so much so that i wrote it down. only now am i putting my finger on why. i think this over-inflated emphasis on the "fun" of the content makes for a weird fetishization of art that totally vaccu-sucks the stuff that's interesting right out of it. i don't want to be told how to interact with/given a framework for the artistic things in my life, and if someone's going to do it, i certainly don't want it to be a corporation like Apple. when it comes to the web 2.0 stuff, "mutual interests" are a totally artificial and weird way of meeting people. i mean, aren't there people in your life who have different interests from you, and that's exactly what you like about them?

or maybe this is all just me. i'm fully ready to acknowledge that the reason i'm so annoyed about this is that, as much as i'm interested in technology, i'm actually a curmudgeon who's behind the technology curve because the interactive computer screen simply hasn't captivated me the way it has others. but i won't fully yield that just yet. i have this itching sensation that things were better before. and even though i wasn't there, i just can't shake it.

disgusting

2008-01-29T05:33:00.000-08:00

it's not unusual these days to hear how irrelevant george bush is. now that he's really on his way out, voices are speaking up more than ever about what a true disaster this administration has been. after the state of the union last night, senators were happy to run their mouths off about how excited they are to have him out of the white house next year...

so WHY DID GEORGE BUSH GET TO DELIVER HIS STATE OF THE UNION TO THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE?

although i know that applause after every point is a bizarre little tradition (it should be done away with)*, it's particularly disgusting now that members of the government continue to willfully pad the president's sense of reality with this support. our federal political forum is an atmosphere where verbal dissent is totally stifled! it's probably the best symbol of how dysfunctional the american government is. if you don't believe me, check out some proceedings of the british parliament. a shocking contrast, truly.

* what i'd really like to know is when it started, b/c i'm pretty confident it hasn't always been this way. has Slate done a piece on this? dammit, last night would've been a fabulous peg...

Alyson Shotz

2008-01-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

Have not been as excited about an artist since Tim Hawkinson, and that's saying a lot.

thought of the day

2008-01-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

flakiness begets flakiness

(this thought of the day brought to you by craig's list)

that whole work-of-art-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction thing

2007-10-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

i'm very pleased to be bringing you pictures not available on the Internet, as far as my cursory research suggests, and information about an important person NOT IN WIKIPEDIA. get it here, or don't get it at all (unless you want to get your ass to a library or to LACMA).

the person in question is an Ecuadorian artist who lived between 1723 and 1796 called Manuel Chili, or Caspicara, because of his pockmarked face. the pictures in question are of his works, which are on view at LACMA's "The Arts in Latin America: 1492-1820."

now, i don't know if you've ever had the experience of seeing a piece of art that you just...need. like, it's so overwhelmingly beautiful to you, you know that staring at it for as long as you're in the museum won't be enough. that's what caspicara's stuff felt like to me. i didn't have my camera the first time i went to the show, so i returned today with it, only to be told that photographs weren't allowed in the galleries. i took pictures anyway. what i got sucked, mainly because i was nervous about getting kicked out (but also because i have a new, shitty camera), so i resorted to the pathetic move of taking pictures of pictures in the exorbitantly priced exhibition catalog. those were horrible, too. but, by god, i got them.

ah, they kill me.

i did think to myself as i was going through this process that maybe i was just a little crazy, and why couldn't i be satisfied seeing the actual sculptures in the museum like a normal person? and maybe the thing is that, having read walter benjamin's piece with the same title as this blog post at an impressionable age, i've been instilled with this guilt thing about valuing images of things over actual things. but i think that's bullshit. i value the actual things above the images. WAY above the images. but i can't own them. the closest i'll get after that exhibit is looking at them on my computer, and that's better than nothing.

so suck it, walter. and you too, LACMA. you think you own the images of these things as well as the objects? think again.

India's outsourcing!

2007-10-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Wait...INDIA'S outsourcing?

further proof of the below.

"tectonic shift"

2007-09-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

okay, we all know this is happening...china/india/the east more generally are overtaking the US in economic prowess. even the BBC says so. could the dollar's drop be one of the first material indicators?

generally, things aren't looking too hot for us 'mericans. man, is it going to suck for us when english is no longer the universal language. and of all the languages to overtake ours, it just had to be chinese, didn't it? with that ridic tonal system, and nightmare alphabet of crazy characters. it does make one wonder whether it's harder for english speakers to learn chinese, or the other way around...

can someone please write a pithy, well-researched article about this? thanks.

PROOF that the world is ending

2007-09-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

and it's definitive.

can't tell you how many times i've said, "the world is obviously ending," and been countered with, "don't you think the market and financial people would be worried?"

well, we have arrived, ladies and gentleman. financial markets are officially worried. so much so, in fact, that they're running to the SEC for reassurance! here's the letter they wrote, and here's what the Washington Post had to say.

the only possible way you could counter this proof is by claiming (and this is asserted obliquely in some of the coverage), that financial institutions are worried about federal measures on climate change that will place economic constraints on them, rather than the effects of climate change on them directly. but read closely, folks, and you'll see that i'm correct. what we have here is the proof. it's the economy, stupid, and this is no exception!

digital -> print

2007-09-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

earlier today, i had to sit through another excruciating conversation on the best ways to repackage radio content for the web. and then, while browsing the beloved internets, something caught my eye:

The New York Times' DealBook blog (a truly awesome resource for anyone reporting on $ matters) will be publishing a stand-alone section in the print version of the paper on October 3rd.

now hang on just a sec. weren't all those newfangled bloggie-thingamadoo's gonna mean the end of print? did we ever think the process would work the other way around? not that i'd pick up a paper copy of The Times on October 3rd to see the DealBook section (and i don't think that's their idea), but if they decided to launch a DealBook magazine that was in any way similar to the blog, i might be interested in checking that out...with an important caveat:

it would in some way have to reproduce the immediacy and insider feel of the blog version.

now i for one i think that's possible, and in some instances, perhaps even preferable to the blog. i leave it to all the creative print people out there to figure out just how best to do it. but the point of all of this is: magazines can start as blogs, and what with the viral info spreading potential of the web -- they should.

not appropriate nose jobs

2007-08-17T14:08:00.001-07:00

just as i was thinking of posting about this VERY TOPIC, along comes a Newsweek story about MALE NOSE JOBS.

if there's a global epicenter of this horrifying phenomenon, it may very well be the Westwood branch of L.A. Fitness. look, there's already something nastily imasculating about the vanity of the gym, but guys with totally obvious nose jobs pumping iron make me want to curl up under the bench press and hurl.*

i consider myself something of a minor nose job expert because a) i'm from los angeles, b) i went to a hoity toity private high school where nose jobs for christmas were de rigeur** and c) i grew up in westwood, where the persian population is a particularly enthusiastic supporter of the rhinoplasty business. ***

which is all to say, when i see a nose job on a guy in the Westwood L.A. Fitness, i know what i'm looking at.

just last week, i met two extremely nice persian guys at the gym who showed me how to use some machines that i'd never used before. one of them was an obvious inappropriate nose job victim. i really felt for him, ya know, because he looked prette good otherwise, pumping weights and all, but the nose job was just...oy vey. it was the kind referenced in the Newsweek piece -- an overly feminine, pointy, upturned job of a nose.

but ya know what, i gotta give respect the INSANE GUY who agreed to BE THE SUBJECT of the newsweek piece about male nose job reversals. perhaps because of his brave public broaching of the issue, the botched male nose job population of westwood will feel that they, too, can demand the nose that they want and deserve. and then perhaps i will be able to work out in peace, without having to ponder the sorry spectacle of not appropriate male nose jobs.

-----------------------------------------------------
* i'd like to point out for the record that girls with obvious nose jobs working out are pretty bad, as well...but guys are worse.

** i have to give my hoity toity high school credit for cleverly mocking its student population -- in my senior year, the annual spoof newspaper (it turns from The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle to The Harvard-Westlake Chronic) graded that year's nose jobs on an A to F scale. at least one person went home in tears the day it came out.

*** no, i'm not the only one who's picked up on this trend.

some DTLA tips

2007-08-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

if you ever happen to be walking in downtown los angeles, never walk under scaffolding. always walk around it. otherwise, you might end up having some very unpleasant encounters with human waste. the covered walkways with plastic sheeting seem to be a favorite spot for human defecation in the street.

second, and actually this is less of a tip and more of a request to the map gods: topography should be included in maps of downtown LA. actually, not topography, but an indication of levels. not that i had a map this morning when i took a new bus route to work and got lost, but maybe i would have if i knew it included elevations.

see, downtown LA is a maze -- seriously, a MAZE -- of levels of bridges and overpasses and streets at different heights. it is the opposite of human scale, something you feel strongly when you walk around here. you might think that manhattan, with its gargantuan skyscrapers, isn't human scale either, but on the ground, it's quite comfortable to walk around there and you don't really notice that the buildings are stretching up hundreds of feet above your head. by contrast, in downtown LA, that's all you notice (verticality), which amounts to a sensation that your little human body has no business walking around in a universe of towering concrete and cars.

today, i got lost for AN HOUR in the maze, walking from 6th and Hope to Figueroa and 3rd -- a walk that should take no more than fifteen minutes (true, a good half hour of my delay was due to going the wrong direction when i first got off the bus -- see route on map -- but still).

the most ridiculous moment occurred in that squiggly part, where i found myself walking down a slope towards the freeway (see picture at top of post). thank god though, i passed an attendant at the driveway to some huge building's parking structure, and she knew where figueroa was (the only person out of the 10 i asked on my journey who even knew it was in the area). these were her directions:

"wait for traffic to die down, then run across this street. then see that doorway over there? walk in it, and around the corner to the elevator. then take the elevator to the plaza level and walk towards the mural on your right. walk out the doors and down the sloping stairs about a block and a half. then you'll be at figueroa."

i had to ask directions a couple more times when i got out the doors, but if that woman hadn't been there, i probably would not have made it to work. and you probably would not be reading this wonderful blog post right now.

an old rant

2007-07-29T22:31:00.000-07:00

but i just did some google/stalking work, looking into an old, uh...friend. i met this person when i was studying in amsterdam, and he was this really smart philosophy student type. i always felt he was someone who would actually get excited about the mass media/art theory things i liked to talk about, and for a while we actually kept up a truly nerdy correspondence about that stuff. we drifted apart over the years, but i always liked to think he was still that person.

not exactly so, it seems.

see, i just don't think it's possible to believe in "activism" when it's so strongly couched in hot design. for examples please see...

the zine he's worked on for the past few years. or the art space he lives (or lived) in. or the "art" festival he puts on.

really, i'm sorry, but how can you be drawn in by this shit? and actually believe you're doing something political, i mean (which he no doubt does). what i'd like to see are some horrible, purple 8.5 x 11 fliers in Times New Roman that are more about the content than the layout. then maybe, MAYBE i'll give a second thought to whatever it is they're screaming at me.

if you don't know what my snobby ass is talking about, i'll just have to leave it at that, but if you'd like a more in-depth explanation of the revulsion, here's an older rant on the same topic.

chill does not always = good

2007-07-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

okay, this is fabulously un-PC.
and the truth is, i don't really mean it.

but airplane problems in brazil...

maybe sometimes it's not the best to be the most mellow.

fickle

2007-06-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

looks like the US military has concluded al qaeda is now the biggest threat in iraq (a self fulfilling prophecy?), evidenced by the fact that the army is ARMING SUNNIS IN IRAQ TO HELP FIGHT AL QAEDA. the craziest parts of this are that the hugely expensive police force the US has set up in iraq is almost completely shiite, and that the sunnis were once Qaeda allies. um, recipe for disaster?

maybe, maybe not.

one of the creepiest things about the iraq debacle was how quickly iraqi public opinion went from loving america to reviling us. things changed eerily fast. there are many historical examples of how quickly liberators become occupiers, and public opinion can change fast over here in the west. but in the middle east these days, it seems outrage runs high, and memory is short.

despite their having been allies in the past, there probably is much anger against al qaeda among sunnies for al qaeda's undiscerning tactics, which, along with americans, have ended up killing so many iraqis. and so the arming-sunnis-tactic could work. but tomorrow, americans could accidentally shoot a bunch of civilians, mistaking them for armed militants, and the sunnis will forget about the enmity towards qaeda, join forces with them, and attack the US occupiers with their own american guns.

the combination of short fuses and short memory is obviously incredibly dangerous. it's a big part of the problem with the islamic world today. and maybe it's just what happens when your region is in such a massive mess, and has been for so many, many years. you're angry, but it's hard to remember why.

the content sector

2007-06-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

i've mused on more than one occasion about where the info on the internet is stored, but that's just the internet. what about the stuff we download onto our individual hard drives? if you think about it, that accounts for a whole lotta content out there in the world.

i'd like to propose a name for a whole new sector of commerce: the content sector.

the aspect of the content sector that may first come to mind is the portable digital media device, for example, the iPod. but the iPod is just part of a much larger sector that i picture in a string, thusly, in 5 parts:

1) content creators
2) content deliverers
3) content storage providers
4) ad creators and deliverers
5) ad trackers

each step in the chain contains its own industry:

content providers are obvious -- media outlets, podcasts, blogs.

content deliverers are companies like Akamai and iTunes, which provide servers or methods for streaming and/or downloading content (NOTE: just the other day Akamai was listed as the top growth tech company in the world by Business 2.0).

content storage providers are Apple and Microsoft, but the external hard drive market is growing quite a bit in companies like LaCie (which sucks), and i expect we'll see some interesting developments in online content storage (right now it's really expensive and there aren't many options).

ad providers and deliverers. doubleclick is the clear big example, but isn't confined to downloadable media [why isn't downloadable a word yet?]. no ads on the internet are confined to downloadable media, as far as i know, which leads me to the last string in the chain:

ad trackers. tracking ads online (not connected to downloadable content) is a pretty simple proposition since page clicks can be counted, but tracking ad views/listens on iPods has proven a bit more challenging and has thwarted the content sector chain all the way up to the content creators -- if you can't prove to potential advertisers how many people are listening, why should they fund your project? this will probably all change soon with companies like Kiptronic and Podbridge, which will track ads on mobile devices. i have NO clue how they'll go about doing that, but they've both gotten a bunch of money to figure it out. it's no surprise that others on the content sector chain are partnering with companies like these (Akamai and Kiptronic have been in bed together for a while, and Conde Nast uses both of them (that may be inside information)). he who tracks ads rules the world.

---------------------------------------------

you may notice that the illustrious Google, YouTube and Wikipedia are missing from this chain. that is because though they may be tangentially related to content, they are not directly in the chain of downloadable media that you can store on your computer. instead, i would place these in the information sector, which i won't outline because i don't think it's as interesting as the content sector. there are also other cottage/related industries that i didn't list, but they aren't directly on the chain the way i see it.

and there you have...
the content sector.

etiquette modification

2007-05-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

you know, there are a few things that i'd love to see some etiquette created around (or removed from):

1 - being at a restaurant and eating the food that other people aren't going to finish
if you see somebody giving back a half-eaten plate of food, and the person looks half way normal, and the food looks at least half way delectable, what's so wrong with asking if you can finish it rather than having the restaurant throw it away? i hate that this is frowned upon. of course i can imagine it being taken too far, with strangers beginning to lean over, stick their noses in your plate and ask..."you gonna eat that?" but if the etiquette is created properly, this scenario will be avoided entirely.

2 - helping blind people walking down the street or in the subway
always want to help -- i mean, i can see, they can't -- but never know whether it's appropriate. why isn't there a universally agreed upon etiquette for this?

3 - telling girls their thongs are showing
among the sistas, this should be allowed. i am not a female empowerment person, but having your thong show is somewhat embarrassing for obvious reasons, and i'd just be more comfortable if the etiquette were only among girls. this could extend to the other gender in the form of telling people they have something in their teeth, etc...

4 - saying "bless you"
totally stupid. remove it entirely.

"Lady in Green"

2007-05-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

By Anita Schmidt

Oh lady in green,
The shade of your skirt so serene
Flying off the sidewalk
Like a quaint little queen

One stolen glance
Left a hole in my spleen
And I can’t help but wonder...
Peen or vajeen??

But no matter there
My sweet little mare
Your grace and your gait
Are enough to make one stare

From where you were running
I shall never know
But year after year
When I see your hair blow
I’ll marvel at the shirt
That let your man-tits show

where do new york subway rats go when they die?

2007-04-29T00:22:00.001-07:00

just think about that.

the definition of getting old(er)

2007-04-24T16:16:00.000-07:00

if you're female, perhaps you remember being younger and, even if there were toilet seat covers, never sitting down to pee in public restrooms -- it was a waste of time and you could just as easily stand. but if you're older, perhaps you've decided it's worth it to take the time to gently cover the seat -- with a cover, or toilet paper, even -- and sit your ass down to enjoy the 1 minute when you have no obligations other than to empty your bladder. that's the definition of getting older.

The Psychedelic Furs

2007-04-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

can't...stop...LISTENING...

dumpy vs. nice parks

2007-04-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

washington square park, unlike bryant park and probably central park too, is a dumpy park. unlike bryant park, at washington square, the frickin grass isn't cordoned off, and unlike at bryant park, at washington square, people sell weed, and there are drum circles, hippy smells, and old men tanning in their underwear.

i gotta say i prefer dumpy. maybe that's because i don't stand out when i hike up my pants so they're bunched up at the upper thigh in a very unattractive way, to allow the legs a little vitamin D. but it's also just because dumpy goes better when you're soaking in the rays and being lazy on the weekend. lazy weekend = dumpy. is that so hard to understand?

seems like it is for a lot of people who -- it now appears -- are moving forward with plans to redesign washington square park. apparently the "need" for a redesign was brought to light by a stick-up-his-ass architect who noticed that the fountain didn't sit perfectly in the middle of the arch, so they're basically tearing up the entire park because of that. excuse me, sir, sir? isn't architecture about ergonomics and suiting human behavior and habits? well guess what -- humans aren't symmetrical. a lot of them like to be casual and easy going, and not give a crap about anything that's going on around them when they're sitting in the park soaking up the rays. so for those of us who value lazy weekends, imperfections and a little dirt, leave us one dumpy park. just one.

chavs 'n hipsters

2007-04-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

among the many fascinating phenomena YouTube has brought us is this one: a comparison between the two groups that brits and americans love to hate -- respectively, the chav and the hipster.

the chav can be thought of as the british equivalent of urban white trash. given how wonderfully politically correct we americans are, and that in our urban areas the chav equivalent is often not white, it's unlikely that such a mockery would ever be made. americans therefore "take the piss" out of a species that likes "taking the piss" out of everyone else -- the hipster, or the holier-than-thou-cultural-know-it-all. i have no idea if a hipster equivalent exists in britain, but given that the british have so few qualms about mocking the laughable chavie species, it seems that for brits, looking down on others isn't something to be looked down upon. so bottom line is that even though they're different, on a general level of mass revlusion, i sense that chavs and hipsters occupy an equivalent sector in the group brain of teens, 20 and 30 somethings in the UK and the States.

now, what does YouTube have to do with all this? it's the satires of said groups, my friends, the satires of said groups that brits and americans place up on YouTube that're of concern.

here we have a satire of the american hipster group. clearly, it is horrible. the concept itself isn't that bad -- that even after a nuclear war, hipsters care only about being tragically cool -- but when you're mocking a group that everyone already mocks all day long in normal conversation, you better be extra creative about it, and write some good lines and do some good acting.

which brings me to this chav satire, of a "scientist" "observing the chavs" in their natural habitat. now, of course i realize that being relatively foreign to me, i'm more entertained by the novelty of the chav than i am by the familiar mockery of the hipster, but the writing and acting and editing are far superior, and so is the concept -- a much richer satire comes out of this fake documentary than the little hipster drama conceived by my american brethren.

and there's something else going on apart from the basic suckiness of this american satire. given the much higher number of chav satires on YouTube compared with the number of hipster satires, it appears that brits are far more comfortable with public mockery of their favorite hated group than we are. this makes sense from the american side, with our absence of a monarch, obsessions with democracy and individual equivalence, etc etc – we hate people that hate or look down on others, while brits are comfortable with being haters – or hipsters. it’s actually a lot harder hating on hipsters because by hating on them you’re kind of becoming a hipster yourself in trying to elevate yourself above them. which brings me to the point that i had no idea was going to come out of this diatribe: brits are hipsters and americans are chavs. go figger.

the glam rock equivalent of being a cutter

2007-03-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

is peaches just a pained little girl crying out from inside?
either way, something strange is going on when you mix glam with self-flagellation.
decide for yourself what's up.

the offbeat is the new onbeat

2007-03-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

antibalas = awesome.
i've mourned the dearth of good hip hop shows in new york (and everywhere more generally), but hitting up one of this band's "off the hook," if you will, afrobeat shows goes some way towards satisfying the hankering; dancing and drinking are part and parcel with the music, and it's impossible not to get caught up in the energy. this is the point of live shows, to my mind.

it's ironic that i just finished reading barbara ehrenreich's new book, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, as i went to the show in brooklyn last night. in the book, she traces the history of, um, collective joy, or group celebrations, from prehistoric times to the present, with the vague goal of making sense of why those celebrations don't really happen today. [the book is fascinating, her theories are unique and fearless, and the historical research is super impressive. but i found her explanation of the current moment's lack of collective joy weak -- and to some degree that seemed like the whole point of the book, like the punchline you're waiting for as you read. still she's laid some incredible groundwork for looking into it further.]

collective joy does still happen, but we need a leader maybe more than we used to. the charisma of the antibalas lead singer, amayo, proves how powerful having a charismatic emcee can be -- he commands the crowd like a master and people were waving, yelling and screaming, clapping along. i was in awe of the call and answer things he did, which were the loudest i've ever heard, and how well the audience clapped along with the rhythm patterns he demonstrated, until, that is, i realized that...
a lot of the applause was CANNED! i think some of the shouts may have been canned as well, but i can't be sure. i'm sure about the applause, though, and there were certain drum beats that weren't being played by anybody. there was definitely a laptop running pro tools somewhere, and they didn't want that known because it wasn't on stage.

took me a little bit to get back into the groove of things as i wondered how much of what i was listening to was actually real, but everyone being caught up in it helped, and so did the sheer fact that they've written such great songs (the stuff on their new album sounds like it even has some slavic influences, a crazy and enticing combo with the afrobeat). i guess though, with the whole canned applause thing, it just goes to show that thinking you're having a good time is as important as actually having it.

todd, do you not know that i get farty and bloated with a foamy latte?

2007-02-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

that would be the latte of the new york art world, folks, and this weekend it was extra foamy, fatty and -- to you lactose intolerant jews out there -- just a little more fart inducing than normal. that's because surrounding the annual holy grail of new york contemporary art fairs, The Armory Show, there were 7, yes 7, other shows trying to get in on the action. i was able to hit up 4, and i consider that somewhat of a feat.

so, no, given that i contributed quite a chunk of my precious time to these monsters of art commerce, i don't consider them total hooey. i wanted to, lord, i ever and truly did want to. but it's just that there are a helluva lot of artists out there with damn creative visions and a lot of the stuff on display was just...um...really good. some general qualifications that i personally use for "good": not heavy handed, subtle, not trying too hard, beautiful, original, about something, unpretentious, political. my favorite piece was i think this tiny, intricately woven basket that was hanging from a wire that turned slowly in a circle, and there was a light pointed at it that made woven shapes appear on the wall behind the basket as it turned. i donno, man, that shit was cool. i looked at it for a while.

i liked this one, too. the artist is kimberly clark. the piece is a hipster chick in skinny jeans kind of prostrating herself. there was another hipster chick sculpture in a jesus-like position looking up at the sky in agony. heh.

and really liked this video by kate gilmore of her smashing her head through a star-shaped hole. she eventually makes it. hooray.

pretty wax! - jolynn krystosek

so anyway the 4 shows i went to were armory, pulse, scope and fountain and out of the 4, the one that was least conducive to looking at stuff was the armory. it was a sweaty zoo! and here's something else: the more stuff is touted, the more stuff needs to make a splash, the more you can correctly assume that the balance between bullshit and not will favor bullshit. this was certainly the case at the armory show. at none of the other shows did i wonder whether crumpled up food containers were part of exhibitions (turned out they weren't), but at armory, that may have been the case. a lot of the stuff on show appeared like it was trying very pointedly to be "high art per se," whereas even though the other places were aiming for a certain level of exclusivity, they just didn't feel as hifalutin. they were also smaller and more accessible. the armory was ginormous and overwhelming. if i were a dealer exhibiting art, the armory would be the last place i'd choose. hopefully in years to come armory will lose its crown and the fairs will become even more dispersed. that would be nice. [an amusing star sighting at armory: leo koenig talking to jean reno. and a disturbing one: roberta smith's butt being patted by her gentleman companion as they pushed through the throng.]

aside from the art which, as i've said, i found to be much more impressive than i'd expected, it was interesting to be in these places. it was sort of like mackage coats, my most favorite and coveted brand of coat -- because of their high cost, i can only dream of one day owning one, yet i see them on women all over the streets of new york. who are these women that pay so much for coats, and how can there be so many of them in one city? same thing with buying these crazily priced pieces of art that cost so much -- much more than a mackage coat. how the hell can so many dealers be raking it in? the question arises every time i go to chelsea, and after having been to these shows, i'm still not any closer to the answer.

but i do know this: the art world, just like the music world, the fashion world, the book world or any other "arts" world, needs fodder -- enthusiastic, often young, totally believing fodder to make the money and do the PR for the producers of the art. that's what dealers are, and for the life of me i can't understand why anyone would want to be one. i mean, i appreciate the service they provide, because god knows if i were an artist i'd want to stay as far away from the commercial aspect of my trade as possible (too foamy and fatty). but it's such bullshit, placing these outrageous sticker prices on pieces of poop, and then convincing rich people to buy them. but, yeah, whatever floats your boat i guess.

i'm not saying that all artists are these virtuous creatures that need to be protected, unsullied from the reality of commerce. one must always be on the lookout for artists who are full of shit, for they are everywhere. and the fact of the matter is that even the not-full-of-shit ones are kind of full of shit because they think they can make a living by creating random weird stuff that no one actually needs. and that's why i disagree with the statement above. the art market is one big fuck fest, mister artist man, on both sides. so get over yourself.

i could go on, but i'll end with heaven:

possible to be mean to plants??

2007-02-17T14:02:00.000-08:00

so, i'm a plant lover. every couple of weeks or so i allow myself a flower or potted plant splurge. right now, it's a purple hyacinth that just started blooming.

the thing about it is, these hyacinths flop in the direction of the sun, and it annoys me that they don't want to stand straight up, so what i do is, i let them flop and then i turn them around and they flop in the other direction back towards the sun. it's like i'm teasing the plant, making it work really hard when all it wants is the basic nutrients to which, as a plant being, it is entitled. i mean, it didn't ask to be born, did it? does it really need to be harassed by me? on the other hand, it might completely fall over if i didn't discipline it to distribute its weight on all sides of the stem. on the other hand, is my making it work so hard decreasing its life expectancy? on the other hand, it only stands straight up for a few moments on its journey to the opposite flop. so am i really getting anything out of this wicked game?

there's another plant that hangs from the ceiling above the heater in the living room, and i swear to god it kind of curls away from the repressive heat that radiates up toward it. these two things are only examples of being physically mean to plants, and research has been conducted into whether plants experience fear, akin to the fear animals feel when their lives are in physical danger. but some people even think it's possible that plants sense emotional meanness/kindness. i don't really think that's true, but then again, i do kind of believe that there are lots of dimensions we can't perceive in the universe. like, totally crazy, alternate versions of reality, man. and it is altogether plausible that plant feelings exist in one of these. so, the point is, ya know, watch yourself, because plants could be watching you.

like, yeah

2007-02-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

it's because of art that we're totally stoked we're not hunter gatherers anymore.

- TRH

""parody""

2007-02-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

burlesque -- suspect. dita von teese performed at the opening of "a curious chocolate shoppe" in the west village tonight, an event that just *happened* to coincide with the launch of Altoids' newest product (chocolate covered mints), which just *happened* to coincide with valentine's day. the result: a fabulous cross-marketing PR opportunity for many factions, which means free drinks, appetizers and entertainment for "press professionals" willing to indulge publicists with their presence.

so dita stripped out of a fabulous glittery outfit and poured dom perignon all over herself and got into a bathtub full of bubbles. there are ways of getting people to give you the benefit of the doubt if you're doing something as shallow as striptease. for example, claiming to be a purist about the "historical" grounding of the "art of striptease," or, for example, claiming to be making a "parody" of something as shallow as striptease. i don't really buy either (and also, her boobs are fake). what follows takes dita von teese way too seriously -- she may not be trying to elevate herself at all. but whatever.

firstly, the fetishization and elevation of "retro" styles as "historical" is cheap. cheap cheap cheap. it's an attempt to give meaning and substance to style/fashion, which are, by their very nature, about surface. it's disingenuous. also, i think that always hearkening back to older styles in such a pointed way stifles creativity and original thinking. i'm not saying that having influences is wrong -- everyone does -- but simply reviving something old just isn't that interesting. it doesn't get her the benefit of the doubt as a stripteaseress (because there really is no way of getting the benefit of the doubt as a stripteaseress).

and secondly, onto the whole parody thing. you really can't take the art of striptease seriously as a historical phenomenon and then purport to be making a parody of it. but let's just say she is purporting to be making a parody. if she is, then this is a truly unsuccessful parody. the guys get turned on, the girls can't take their eyes off of her, she is hot, etc etc. she isn't making people think twice. so she uses cliche props, like champagne, a bathtub, feathers and a martini glass in what is, at its core, a cliche undertaking. it can still be taken seriously, and i would argue that it is.

i don't actually think she's making a parody of herself, but the capacity for so many artists to use parody as a way of elevating what they're doing, garnering for themselves the benefit of the doubt and critical respect, should be stripped the f---away. when brainy critic types perceive something as a parody, then they feel in the know and, in a partnership of sorts with the artist ("yeah, i get you"), become incapable of criticizing. it's a symbiotic little cycle between the full-of-shit artist and the full-of-shit critic, with the artist's motivation critical acclaim, and the critic's motivation a desire to be perceived as, and to feel, perceptive. it's an old game -- academics play it with their jargon-filled writing, and critics have played it, and will continue to play it in the art world, forever. but it's worth getting annoyed about every now and then.

on a final note, i kind of think that the only person who was able to make a parody of his entire life was andy warhol. and, well, maybe andy kaufman too...but that's the subject of another essay. goodnight.

Truly Perplexing: Tales from the bowels of NYU Coles

2007-02-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

have you ever wondered at people's capacity to enjoy showering and luxuriously lotioning up in steamy, disgusting locker rooms? i sure have. it's happening every time i go to Coles, NYU's wonderful, dumpy sports center at Bleecker and Mercer. my general rule about the locker rooms is get in and get out as quickly as possible, but some women enjoy hanging out in there butt ass nekkid for long periods of time, showering (barefoot!), shaving, lotioning, doing the entire bathroom routine on wooden benches shoved between 10 other sweaty/dirty/wet girls/ladies/very mature women. truly perplexing.

also perplexing: the co-ed volleyball and basketball teams. at first this intermingling of the sexes was heartwarming, but then i noticed that the girls get almost zero play time with the balls (yes, balls in both senses of the word), and when they do, the guys let them score without trying to stop them. granted, the guys outnumbered the girls at about an 80%-20% ratio, but it was depressing, not least because the girls weren't as good as the guys. part of it seemed to be that the guys were more willing to be aggressive with their bodies in a way that the girls weren't, and that isn't to say that girls can't be aggressive: in all-girl games, i have seen some dirty, dirty shoving. but it's different when the teams are co-ed. maybe neither gender feels comfortable pushing the other in that way. it's ironic that as much as people were trying to break out of gender roles by playing sports together, those roles came to the surface in a more painful and embarrassing way (at least to me, watching) than they would have if they were separate.

i hand it to those girls for trying, though, because what they were doing -- essentially running back and forth across the court over and over and over -- didn't look too fun, and i imagine (maybe wrongly) that the guys are annoyed about having them on the team. i mean, it adds a dimension to the game that isn't about the game, and that isn't fun for anyone, girls included. so the question is are the only teams available co-ed ones, or do these girls and guys specifically choose to integrate? perplexing.

Perfume

2007-02-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, maybe usually, the expectation thing works against you in movies. But with Perfume, I had low expectations and high hopes, and that turned out to be a winning combo.

There were problems with the movie for sure -- the rapturous smell moments lagged towards the middle, Grenouille's epiphany about himself came too late, the last two scenes were a a tad difficult to take seriously, and the very last scene wasn't necessary. Some of the historical staging was really transparent and not so believable, and some of Hoffman's scenes were laughably bad -- his accent was like half-Brooklyn, half-bad Italian -- though he managed to play the character really endearingly at other moments. So what that all boils down to is three things:

1) I wanted to like the movie so badly that I was able to look past those things
2) Tom Tykwer is an incredible director
and
3) Ben Whishaw is a hypontic screen presence and he was perfect for the part

Truthfully, despite all of the problems, I do think it's possible to be totally enthralled by this movie. There are many beautiful moments in it -- especially this one of Laura riding a horse from afar, that was a breathtaking shot -- the acting for the most part is spot on, the story is as incredible as the book it came from. Tykwer's imagining of the rapturous smell moments is genius. But you have to be able to let go and allow yourself to fall into a very story-ish, sometimes exaggerated reality. It asks as much of you almost as The Lord of the Rings does in suspension of disbelief, and it isn't a fantasy per se. That's not easy for everybody to do, especially with so many other flaws, but if you can, the rewards are worth it.

BTS

2007-01-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

this post is dedicated to two entities: Built to Spill, and Mr. Adam Graham-Silverman for introducing me to them. AGS, as he likes to call himself, is really up on his music shit, and pretty much all his shit for that matter. whereas i'm not, so i'm lucky to know him.

ESPECIALLY now that i have the wonderful, amazing, glorious Built to Spill to listen to. i've admitted that i'm not in the know, but, seriously, what the hell was i doing while Built to Spill were doing their early thing? oh yeah...listening to fiona apple and SoCal hip hop in the soulless abyss that was USC. maybe that's why i never found them; i was surrounded by drones.

but let's let bygones be bygones. the point is, having just scratched the surface of Built to Spill's oeuvre, it's clear that there is much wonderfulness ahead, and that is exciting. a lot of songs are medlies -- like my favorite Beatles song, Happiness is a Warm Gun. different sections that build upon each other in intensity and mood and then wind up forming this strange, perfect string of pearls. maybe they took some of that from Happiness and the other famous Beatles medley on Abbey Road, but...that can't have been such a big influence, because it wasn't even that big for The Beatles. it all sounds and feels very original -- obviously many sounds we've grown accustomed to were originated by Built to Spill and have since been mimicked by several other bands. sadly that's the one downside: Martsch's voice, to me at least, sounds a bit familiar and cliche. but i can certainly let that slide. the cohesiveness of the albums and songs, and their intensity and beauty more than make up for any flaws.

the weird thing is that i've noticed a lot of friends who i consider to be musically down also are not familiar with Built to Spill. well, get familiar, fools. you'll be glad you did.

damn the ipod shuffle straight to hell

2007-01-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

it all began back on dec. 5, 2003 when in an insane turn of events i lost over 300 CDs -- my entire collection. the pain was so great that i could not rebuild. i cursed the world of physical CDs, turned my back on it, and made the transition so many of us have -- the transition to digital.

my third generation ipod has served me quite well to this very day, and i humbly pray that it will continue on to do so. so why, you may ask, did i purchase the shuffle? firstly, because my ipod acts as my stereo, and i want to do everything in my power to keep it from crapping out on me so i don't have to get one of the big fancy new ipods, and that entails not subjecting it to the rigors of travel. secondly, because someone was selling a new one for cheaper than the store price. and thirdly, and most importantly, though i do love my ipod, i feel it has changed the way i listen to music for the worse.

how? why?

well, quite simple. having 3,000+ songs at your fingertips at all times makes you listen to albums all the way through a lot less. you feel there must be a better song for your mood or the moment, and you're constantly scrolling through trying to find it. the genius of the shuffle, or so i thought, was that it took the control out of your hands, forcing you to listen rather than choose. but though this seems like a brilliant solution to the problem digital music poses, there are MANY REASONS NOT TO GET THE SHUFFLE. and i will now outline them for you.

FIRST -
you cannot charge the shuffle without a computer UNLESS YOU PURCHASE A SPECIAL APPLE WALL CHARGER. even if you have a charger from previous ipods, those chargers only take firewire, and of course the wily little fuckers at apple built the shuffle with a USB plug. couldn't they have built it with a firewire AND a USB? of course they could have! but then they would've missed out on this little money making add-on.

SECOND -
to use the ipod shuffle, and any new apple products for that matter, YOU MUST DOWNLOAD ITUNES 7, which may cause you to go insane. i downloaded iTunes 7, stupidly, a few weeks ago, and then spent several hours searching online to find a way to uninstall it and revert back to iTunes 6 because it completely fucked up my access to the music store (although many, many other problems have been reported). i eventually found the solution here, only to then be forced to install iTunes 7 again once i purchased this godforsaken shuffle.

THIRD -
(and this comes straight from apple:)
"iPod shuffle is intended for use with a single computer. You cannot load music from multiple computers or iTunes libraries onto iPod shuffle like you can with other iPods."
the problems with trying to load the music from different computers onto your shuffle can be varied, but mine entails having to erase the entire thing every time and resync it with the current computer.

FOURTH -
this is the most personal reason, and perhaps you'll disagree, but the whole solving the digitally-unsatisifed-with-music-conundrum doesn't really work with the shuffle if you're someone who cares about what you're listening to throughout the day. there needs to be a certain level of musical agency. for example if you go to work, and then you go to the gym, you can't be expected to switch the music up on your shuffle between those two activities, or for example, remove music and replace it with a podcast, which is what you'd have to do if you had a shuffle (or scroll through the whole thing, which is horribly annoying). this is why i think the nano is the best solution, certainly a better one than the shuffle, as it forces you to downsize, but does provide some control. (and by the way the differences between the ipod, the nano, and the shuffle seem to prove that apple's marketing spin -- "which ipod are you?" -- is kind of profound.)

FIFTH -
however, the nano is NOT the best solution as it is an apple product, and we should really break up apple's monopoly on the digital music thing. holland is the most recent country to join the european chorus of anger with apple at their proprietary handling of music bought on the iTunes store. and they're totally right. the fact that this has barely been mentioned in the states is embarrassing. apple has so handily dominated the market, and everyone here has simply gone along with it while apple has done, and continues to do, uncool things. sheep!

------------------------

but, regardless of that, i think i'll probably still get the nano, because i am a sheep, and i just don't like the names zen or zune. anyone in the market for a gently used, reduce priced iPod shuffle with some Built to Spill on it?

Enrique Metinides

2007-01-25T21:14:00.000-08:00

ambulance chasing-type photography has a long and rich history, but none that i've seen quite compares with the pictures made by enrique metinides, a mexican photographer born in 1934 who published his first picture at age 12. which may go some way toward explaining how perfect his composition and timing are -- but only some.

here's a good way of illustrating the unique talent of metinides's vision: compare him with weegee. weegee is the american car wreck police scene photographer par excellence, and metinides is sometimes referred to in "western-centric" analysis as the mexican weegee. it's true that weegee predated metinides by at least 30 years, but when you look at the body of weegee's work, it's sensationalistic in a way that metinides's is not. here are a couple of examples:

these are pictures made to gawk at, cheaply.

on the other hand, here is metinides's picture of a suicide:

and

a big part of what's so impressive is the restraint. metinides is a newspaper photographer, yet he's able to sacrifice gore and melodrama in favor of quiet, extremely direct emotion. this is sensational -- no question about it -- but there's no way of getting around the inherently sensationalistic premise of photographing death. if it's to be done, i prefer metinides's way.

the fact that images like these ran in the mainstream mexican press as news photos says something about the difference between what sells papers in mexico, and what sells papers in the states, and maybe it tells us a little something about the differences in our national characters. but i don't want to infer too much.

and a last note. i'm not trying to elevate metinides by praising him above a canonical american photographer -- he doesn't need the help. he's gotten a lot of attention in new york lately, which is how i know about him, and is renowned all over the world. comparisons are just instructive sometimes. yeah. the end.

le cinema francais and les fugitive lovers

2007-01-21T19:13:00.000-08:00

an interesting trend in ze french cinema, and one that culminates in the now the rather cliche ending of the fugitive lover being dramatically shot. from the top we have A Tout De Suite from 2004, Belle De Jour from 1967, and, the film i watched today, A Bout De Souffle from 1960. in all three, we're dealing with a good girl-ish female who experiences the kind of breathtaking, hot-sexy-real-love that is only possible when that love is forbidden. interdit. verboten! of course the message in all of this is that the world sucks, that that kind of love can never last, etc etc etc.

i like all three of these for different reasons, though the fact that they're all made by men suggests they reveal more about male fantasy than they do about hidden female desire. all three, i think, are rather two dimensional portrayals of women, but on the other hand maybe all of the characters in all three are a bit two-dimensional. i think the one i like best in terms of all that is A Bout De Souffle, as it acknowledges the two-dimensionality of patricia in the best scene of the film: patricia trying to be a "journalist" at a press conference where her questions to the subject are cloyingly naive, and the man she's questioning responds with condescending but witty come-ons...which she smiles at and appears to find quite flattering.

the other thing about A Bout De Souffle worthy of note: patricia's accent is the worst -- the WORST -- american french accent ever heard. there must've been more patience with stupid americans back in the day...or at least with pretty, charming ones in cute striped dresses.

The Bird & The Bee

2007-01-18T07:45:00.000-08:00

A quick note to recommend a very unique, purely enjoyable, all around great new album: the first, self-titled release by The Bird & The Bee, Inara George's new band.

I saw The Bird & The Bee open for Sia in NY late last year, and I must say they blew dear old Sia out of the water. Take a listen -- the harmonies are retro-innovative, the voices liltingly lovely, and the songs fun and plain old good listening. Seeing them live is like stepping onto a movie set time warp. Not sure if it's to the future or the past, but it rocks.

can i get a little moral hypocrisy?

2007-01-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

happy martin luther king day!

in honor of this holiday, here's a delicious little tidbit of news:
Jan. 5, 2007 -- Kevin Alfred Strom, a major American neo-Nazi leader for almost 20 years, was arrested by federal agents in Virginia Thursday night and charged with possession of child pornography.
(Read more at the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

can i get a WUH Wuh wuh wuh...? love it! turns out his ex-wife and his wife at the time of the arrest were both consistently puzzled at his lack of attraction to them...but just look at this guy. abnormal seems an apt description.

in addition to this great news, let's take a moment and enjoy the other two best pieces of moral hypocrsiy of the year: the ted haggard resignation and dick cheney's lesbian daughter's pregnancy. too delicious for words!

back to the theme of civil rights, though, the american neo-nazi/white pride movement remains quite strong. case in point: Prussian Blue, a group formed a couple of years ago by twin teenage girls, in which they sing about...yup, white pride. bringing white pride into the teenage mainstream is brilliantly scary, sort of like Prussian Blue's lyrics. here's a snippet from "I Will Bleed For You":

"For every man who doesn't dream
I am the dreamer
For every man who doesn't believe
I'm the believer
For every man who doesn't receive
I'm the receiver
For every man who refuses to bleed
I will bleed for you."

Prussian Blue here appear to be referencing in poetic terms the waning of the white race while men everywhere refuse to recognize the destruction. Prussian Blue, however, dare to dream. And dare to bleed.
* shiver *

the heartening news about Prussian Blue is that they suck. Listen to I Will Bleed For You here, and other songs here. also, it appears that Prussian Blue have moved from the wonderful town of their childhood, Bakersfield, CA, to Kalispell, Montana because Bakersfield wasn't white enough. obviously ideologies like these are passed down from generation to generation, but there's nothing like living in Bakersfield to make you cling to any shred of national ethnic identity in your bloodline, even nazism. if you've never been, you could easily take the scenic bakersfield detour next time you're driving from LA to SF and check it out. bellissimo!

though kalispell perhaps beats out bakersfield in city character, it loses in population -- 14,000 to 460,000 -- and while this is a bad thing for the career of Prussian Blue, it is a good thing for us. so rejoice!

more techmology

2007-01-13T06:08:00.000-08:00

i had another brilliant idea recently, and i'll give it to you in two words:

Online.
Smells.

that's right. upload smells onto the internet and download 'em on machines around the world. of course the obstacle with this one is changing the way computers are built so that they all contain the IntelSmell Chip ((c) 2007 Alexandra Schmidt), but i say, why make a mountain out of a molehill? we invented television, we can do this.

not only have i birthed this wonderful idea, but i've envisioned future applications of the concept that may increase profits associated with online smells. first, we will extend the concept to online touch -- slightly more complicated than online smells because of the necessary interface that exists outside the computer (whereas the IntelSmell (c) chip is inside computers), and finally online taste, the most complex of all because it requires FDA approval. do you see the possibilities in the porn realm alone? it boggles the mind!

starting with smells, i envision an iTunes-like system where smells are downloaded to a cherished smell library for a nominal fee. working titles for this system include SmelLib, EncycloSmell and Whiffipedia, but i will gladly consider suggestions for others. of course the smell library, like any online file buying system, is vulnerable to piracy, but i have a crackerjack legal team all lined up to address this problem once it crops up.

as amazed as you may be reading this, i should tell you that though my idea was original for me (swear!), it appears someone else has developed the gem in a slightly different format. Smell-O-Vision was a system of releasing odors in movies so that viewers could smell what was happening in films as they watched. it didn't go so well, partially because maybe every movie director didn't want scents associated with his films and, hey, maybe everyone in the theater didn't want to be smelling smells while they watched, and maybe some people hated certain smells that others loved. the crucial difference with online smells is that each individual makes a personal decision about which smells to smell and when. online smells are true smell agency, and no one can stop the online smell train of freedom.

there is the acute danger, of course, in extending so many senses online that people will never leave their homes -- but why fight the technology tsunami any longer? i say if we're rolling with it, let's take this internet thing all the way. who's with me?!

technology: the wave of the future

2006-12-09T07:09:00.000-08:00

perhaps you've never had the pleasure of reading my brilliant ruminations on technology -- and i don't mean the paranoid bradbury/orwell/huxley predictions. i mean totally FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY that will save us all. well i've got a new one, and it's good.

so global warming is destroying the world. the temperature's getting too high (can anyone in New York deny the bizarre warmness this winter season?), the cold climate animals are being forced from their habitats, glaciers are melting, the level of the oceans is rising, even more severe weather than we've seen in the past few years is on its way -- and that's not even getting into peripherally related apocalyptic problems connected with global warming, like the waning of oil reserves and -- even further away -- the horrible political messes we're in due in part to fuel. but i digress.

what i'm talking about here is saving the planet on the most immediate physical level by reducing global warming. and how will we accomplish that? why, by keeping the north and south poles cold, of course! and how will we do that? with a COLD GENERATOR, of course, which is essentially a big freezer. now hang on a minute, you might be thinking. if we have a cold power generator on the planet to bring coldness to the poles, that power generator will contribute to the earth's warming as much, if not more, than our current warming does. well that's why we're going to put the cold generator ON THE MOON.

since the same side of the moon always faces the earth (good moon info here) this might be able to work. but since i'm not a technologist, i'm not 100% sure (only like 99%). other options for the cold generator could be to just put it in space within earth's orbit, or have it be a satellite rotating around the moon to keep the lines to the poles in place and untangled. i quote john lennon: you may say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one. you know what would have happened if they told albert einstein not to dream? we wouldn't have the theory of relativity, that's what.

so the cold generator would reduce global warming, which seems like it would be an unequivocally good thing. but the other problems i mentioned above, like the waning of the oil reserves (and the imminent apocalypse associated with that) and the nightmarish political messes we're in (and the imminent apocalypse associated with that) will not be solved at all if our planet is kept relatively healthy. in fact all a healthy planet would provide is a ground on which those problems can continue to play themselves out. gross. maybe all of the horribleness is meant to happen at once. maybe the apocalypse is one big apocalypse where everything collapses together. could be...

hope

2006-12-07T06:28:00.000-08:00

did anyone else listen to the hearings of the Iraq Study Group yesterday? it was the top story everywhere, but unfortunately i found much of the coverage, yesterday at least, focusing on the fact that the group said the current strategy in iraq is not working. that's just a fraction of what they said. i was completely heartened and amazed at the realistic, bipartisan, mature approach of the recommendations and the general spirit of the panel. the group was obviously already in the works before the midterm elections, but would such an outcome have been possible before then? your guess is as good as mine.

the most incredible recommendation, the one that gave me the most hope, was the recommendation that the U.S. engage with Iran and Syria diplomatically to discuss the issue of Iraq. i'm no fan of ahmedinejad, but because i'm scared of him i think we need to talk to him. the u.s. government's flippant dismissals of ahmedinejad every time he has tried to make contact are some of the worst, most hubristic diplomatic moves i've ever witnessed. the best chance for disarming iran's nuclear weapons, for peace in the region, for israel's survival, entails making friends with iran. if bush can't stand to do that on ahmedinejad's terms, iraq gives him a chance to unite with him against a common enemy (that is, iraqi civil war). this is an incredible opportunity for the tides to turn in the middle east, and i have a lot of hope.

i realize i may be overstating things a bit here, and that ahmedinejad is a crazy, power hungry, jew-hating semi-dictator. there are many incredibly complex problems in the middle east, and i don't expect this to solve everything. but what we've done so far has clearly not worked, has clearly been so wrong, and right now we are presented with a real, viable window to try something else. i hope bush can suck up the machismo and become as mature as the recommendations of the panel.

however, even if bush does not accept the iraq panel's recommendations, there is hope in tom lantos, CA congressman, soon-to-be head of the house international relations committee (he should be confirmed later today), AND holocaust survivor, who urges the u.s. to sit down with syria and iran. lantos was the first member of the u.s. government to reestablish diplomatic ties with albania and libya, and he clearly understands the key component talking plays in peace. whether or not bush accepts the panel's recommendations, lantos, in his new power as chair of the international committee, will probably be able to move forward with the international diplomacy our government so lacks.

the ubiquitous screen...it's coming

2006-12-04T06:04:00.000-08:00

my friend matt informed me that the next phase of mobile technology is wifi access everywhere and color screens for everyone. since he works in corporate advertising, and has that on good word from motorola, and it seems perfectly logical, i believe it.

actually, on second thought, it seems perfectly crazy and scary as hell. you know those wall-sized screens in fahrenheit 451 where people constantly interact with and watch TV -- essentially live there? this is ray bradbury's vision, slightly modified, come true. him, aldous huxley, george orwell, the visionaries of apocalyptic mind control futures...all of their shit has come true in one way or another. mankind wooing itself into sublimated destruction through technology, rather than exploding in violent armageddon (though that may be happening, too).

on a practical level, this means the disappearance of any kind of media that does not use moving images, which we may be seeing the first phase of in the "multimedia expansions" of print publications. and the trendy desire to do podcasts and sound production? nothing but a passing fad, my friends, nothing but a passing fad. video is gonna be where it's at, and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it, except, of course, learn Flash and Avid and Final Cut Pro. the one place where radio will survive is in the place where we can't use screens -- the car. i never thought i'd say this, but please god, don't let a subway be built in L.A.

why this pathetic, sappy, luddite attachment to the past? why not suck it up and look to the future with excitement and readiness? because the future is inferior to the past. it is a future where the world's double -- the images of the world -- is about to eclipse reality, where imagination is stifled because the deluge of pictures leaves room for nothing else, and where patience and the value of savoring words are distant memories. maybe they already are.

am i just being overly dramatic here? i don't know. but i don't see myself allowing the ubiquitous screen to take over my life quietly. i don't know what shape the fight will take, but i shan't go peacefully. death first!

L.A.-sized supermarkets

2006-11-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

everything i'm about to say applies in the nth degree to outlying suburbia-esque cities like agoura hills, diamond bar and northridge (*shudder* *shudder* and *shudder*). but, as i try to avoid areas to the north, south and east of L.A. at all costs, and as i'm in L.A. right now, i will confine my comments to this city.

this post is connected to the one below in that i'm further exploring the theme of the american world being an elaborate put-on set up to convince us that everything is okay. nowhere is that more evident, i think, than in the gorgeous gleaming L.A.-sized supermarkets. the fact that i could drive to the supermarket with my daddy on a sunny thanksgiving day in a car blessedly full of gasoline, park in a gloriously large parking lot and stroll through 2-cart+ wide aisles stocked ceiling high with every good under the sun, even chanukah and kosher stuff for us reviled american jews, seemed a not minor miracle to me yesterday. in what universe is such a marvelous phenomenon possible? in the universe of the american west coast, that's where, where we're somehow protected from all the horrendous shit going on so that we can engage in the most wonderfully banal activities without (usually) giving them a second thought.

it did make me think that one of the reasons new york is better than L.A. is that life is harder or grittier or somethin. more real, ya know? and on that note, i present a poem of sorts that i wrote some years ago while i was in new york about coming home.

----------------------------------------------

Coming home is like falling into a big waiting embrace that pulls you toward it and swallows you. But it’s a benign predator that sits patiently on the coast, stunning you its prey with a blissfully effective numbing poison; the victim descends blindly into the embrace and in a stupor allows its imminent digestion to take place without allotting it much importance or protest.

You could never explain why you liked home, conscious as you were beforehand of the slow, albeit painless death that awaited you in the west. Perhaps it was the very quality of disappearing that was so pleasing. Life went on, but without any care for what course of action should be taken, without any thought to the mundane events comprising each day. After all this life existed in the muffled cubicle of the coffin, or maybe in the stifling air of the theatre where you watched yourself perform in a play, cast in a role of unbelievable tediousness. Perhaps, with the sunshine a mere shroud for the sickening air, home was a cunning as well as deft killer. You in fact looked forward to some semblance of life, the fake trees, freeways, warmth, the beaches and marionette bars all painting a convincing picture of
–fun-.

But this time the allure of home needed little explanation. This time, the anesthetic sting would be an escape from the sensory relationships that were changing beyond any reach or effort. You needed your family, that unchanging bastion, to be cold, you needed the numbness to overwhelm you totally and without breach. Just please…now.

It’s true, people often told you you gave up and in too easily. Yes maybe, but. But sometimes it was just too simple, too simple and too good not to give in to the crushing force, that fathomless weight that allowed you to sleep. No one, not anyone, could accuse you of stagnating within your peaceful comfort. No, you inevitably went back to the painful gambles, yes, finally nearing total suffocation you always came back up for air. And now, for the first time, you realized clearly the pattern of home. And seeing it, you walked with a calm smile down the gangplank, its final edge in line with the horizon, and disappeared slowly into the expectant arms of the Pacific.

the journalistic undertaking

2006-11-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

involves a whoooole lotta hustling.
it sucks.
in fact, it's in a way counterintuitive to journalism itself, which is all about seeing things as they are and representing truth. hustling, networking, climbing a ladder, clawing past others, being first: all about bullshit. i'm not sure if i have it in me -- or if i want to. but then again who does? i suppose you put your conscience aside and play the game if you want it badly enough.

but then again what is "it," or what is "it" as i'm conceiving it to be? the readings in this month's Harper's -- about the overwhelming slums and cocaine trade in brazil, government corruption in hungary, about nagasaki and atomic bombs -- are kind of devastating, and then you turn to the Sunday Times Magazine, with its debut of "The Key" property magazine and movies to watch for, art reviews and shopping guides. none of it feels real.

i'm not saying that one kind of journalism is better than another, but that the purpose of most of it seems simply to reassure us that things are "normal" over here in the comfortable rooms where we're reading it. in other words, the subtext of any story is that if someone -- the journalist -- has the time and energy to hustle and report and write the story, and is actually making a living by providing it for you and me to read, and moreover has a glossy, nicely designed framework in which to present it, then things must be okay. and that's not even mentioning the "reality" reported in the stories themselves...it all feels like an elaborate puppet show ruse put on to maintain the appearance that the world is in order for us, when i believe the true reality is that things, everything, can come apart at any moment. there's obviously no grand mastermind making it happen, but i do believe that is the cumulative effect, and i know i'm not the first person to have said so.

are we, or rather am i prepared to engage in this undertaking as a journalist? it's something worth thinking about.

Alert! Awesomeness on the Internet!

2006-11-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

Today I will show, using a specific example, why print publications should not, I repeat, should NOT attempt rash expansions into "multimedia production" despite the mad, dare I say trendy rush to do so on their websites.

Forbes is a respectable publication -- or so, having never had the pleasure of watching the "Forbes Video Network," you might think.

I can just see the Forbes people sitting in a boardroom with their "ace" multimedia director, who is telling them that they must expand into video to be competitive. The big boss, David Andelman, responds that they have no budget for a broadcast professional and everyone responds to that sour pronouncement with a moment of silence. All of a sudden, faces brighten..."Hey...David, you could do it!" Yes, he could...but should he?

What we have here is an editor acting as "anchor" who's spent his entire career away from cameras and, to put it politely, has a face for radio. Alright, cheap shot, but the guy is so obviously a newbie at reading a teleprompter, it's painful to watch his eyes continuously wandering to just below eye level. People, the least you could do is stack that screen up on a couple phonebooks. For cryin' out loud!

Next, we have the ridiculous attempt at creating a "show" or broadcast news magazine that, in Andelman's words, "is all about security and terror." Yes, that's the tagline. It's awkward, sure, but the title is the real kicker. "Alert!" sounds like an awwwwwesome brainstorm out of Grover Cleveland High School's Freshman Journalism 101 class. And they've got the editing and backdrop to match -- note the moment when Andelman "cuts" to his guest. It's so obviously not a real time broadcast, from Andelman's hand positions, to his vocal tenor, to the timing of his first question, it's embarrassing. Andelman's guest, Ken, "corresponding from D.C.," looks like he went to Kinko's and had a big stand-up cardboard poster made of some vaguely Middle Eastern city to sit behind him. Andelman's weird bright orange backdrop at the Forbes Video Network "headquarters" isn't too hot either (though it does nicely match the "Alert!" logo).

The best part of all this is that in the yawn inducing 5-minute long interview, Ken essentially tells us nothing about security and terror. Except for the vaguely alarmist and fear inducing tone "Alert!" sounds by the very virtue of being called "Alert!", the only quasi-point this ex-NSA director makes is that Al Qaeda has the capacity to inflict some horrible online-based network attack. Forbes, of course, must dress that nugget up as "al Qaeda is able AND ready to strike on the Internet" (my caps).

Which all leads to one simple question: Why? Why, Forbes, why?

Part of the explanation, of cour$$$$e, is the great additional source of advertising revenue that "multimedia" represents for print publications ("Alert!" makes you sit through two of the same fucking ad, but tries to make the second one feel like a TV commercial break, which it doesn't), and god knows they need the money these days. But they've gone to such lengths of awfulness in this broadcast, making up a name for it, giving it a beat, finding a guest...and, they've put their frickin executive editor on the line just for a few extra bucks? I don't think so. They actually think -- stay with me here -- they actually think they are presenting a quality journalistic broadcast here. They can plead ignorance all they want, but the fact that they're rakin' in extra bucks for making you and me sit through this shit just isn't right. Take some of the cash, send your technology man to video editing school and get some skills in-house, or, better yet, hire an outside producer like me to help you. But for god's sake, make this better.

To be fair, I should mention that Forbes isn't alone and that wonderfully sad examples of attempts at "multimedia expansion" are resplendent on the Internet these days (instincts of self-preservation prevent me from naming names). But the Forbes Video Network reaches new heights. So watch it and enjoy...err, weep!

thoughts for the day

2006-11-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

goldfrapp is the hipster matchbox 20
mashups are hipster muzak

heeb pride

2006-11-10T15:28:00.000-08:00

well, it's really more like zionist pride or somethin somethin, but i find it quite exceptional (though, knowing israel, unsurprising) that a technically "religious" country is able to provide basic protections for public assembly of the gay community. not only that, but the government essentially deemed banning such a display out of the question, though certain groups and leaders (all the way up to the vatican!) had vigorously demanded it. the region is so fucked up, certainly due in part to theocratic governments. israel is one too, to an extent, but somehow that doesn't manage to interfere with the most basic civil rights within its borders. it's an incredibly unique country, especially in the region.

it's so ironic that something like this would follow one of the most egregiously awful actions by the israeli military in recent memory. there's no question in my mind, and the support of gay rights proves that israel views human and civil rights as important. but then these things happen and it just pulls all of israel's moral high ground out from under them. in downtown new york last week, there were picketers in front of this israeli-owned coffee shop, aroma, handing out flyers and exhorting passers-by to counter "zionist apartheid" by not supporting the restaurant. the ridiculousness of targeting a business for political policies aside, it's always painful to see how people truly view israel as an evil entity -- not least because the country's actions sometimes support that assertion.

james gieger - cab driver, jazz lovah

2006-11-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

you know this jazz musician larry willis? i had him in my cab once. he had a CD coming out and i didn't even know about it. he didn't mention it. and then i heard about it, i said larry willis? is that the guy i had in my cab? yeah, i went out and bought it. then one time i had this couple in my car. it was loud back there, i could tell they were bickering about something, fighting about something, and i just tune them out and listen to the music up here, and then this larry willis song came on, it's called The Day You Left. i said man i hope they quiet down because i really wanted to listen to it. we were crossing the brooklyn bridge, and all of a sudden the cab is totally silent. i look back there. they were lost, man, i said, wah, it's too much that song, it's just too much. you know wynton marsalis? i had him in my cab. i have his office number. i can see wynton marsalis play any time i want. but that song, man, i don't know what he was thinking about when he wrote it. maybe it was about the day someone he loved left him.

another blue ribbon pumpkin year

2006-10-29T18:46:00.000-08:00

i had no idea this was the case, but apparently there are people who are morally opposed to using stencils for pumpkin carving. there's no point in sussing that one out. just admire the fruits of stencils above.

after pumpkins were completed by myself and various friends, i placed them on my stoop and lit them up. many people walked by to admire, and some even took pictures, but sadly, when i woke up this morning, they had all been smashed. i got one more uncarved pumpkin that i'm saving for the day of, but it's gotta be good, especially since it'll only last one night out there (and maybe not even that). i'm currently weighing my options.

in case you're curious, excellent pumpkin stencils can be found here.

offensive

2006-10-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

disgusting bloopy long-necked women who need less money, not more, pretending to have a career by pushing the shittiest, cheesiest of shitty products, should NOT be permitted to force their mugs on all of NYC.

counterculture mags

2006-10-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

i've been hating this particular magazine niche for so long, and finally was forced to write about my revulsion through a class assignment. this is the first school thing i'm putting up here, and it's kind of long, but it's something i've wanted to do for a while so i'm posting it anyway.

-----------------------------------------

The most salient thing that the counterculture magazine Adbusters ever produced was a reader’s letter it published in November 2001. The letter read, “It was funny seeing Adbusters #31 with the anarchist on the cover: I was wearing the same black shirt, black bandana and black messenger bag. Then I saw issue #32, with the consumers seeing their own images on a soda machine as they bought a can. It wasn’t funny anymore. I think you see the irony.”

What this shrewd reader understood is that there is something inherently wrong with a magazine providing guidance to independent counterculture. The moment money is exchanged for a little stack of glossy pages, the person attempting to escape mainstream buys into whatever the magazine is selling. “Buy into this group in order to escape another,” the counterculture magazine exhorts – a perfect paradox.

Adbusters’ pages are full of mock ads attempting to cut to the heart of the American political-capitalist machine. But alongside strong graphic depictions of western hypocrisy and articles about fair trade, one finds a tear-off mail-in postcard offering to throw in a free Adbusters mug and t-shirt If You Subscribe Now. The design aesthetic and logo of the magazine reek of museum store luxury products bought and sold in western capitals. Non-selling through selling, group coercion under a brand to promote independent mindedness – a better example of mucky political ends-justify-the-means could hardly be found under Stalin.

Adbusters, though, is an extreme example of a confused counterculture magazine. Far more subtle hypocritical independentness is to be found in the mountain of “art” or “lifestyle” magazines vying for the would-be independent’s attention.

Filter, Paper, Nylon: the titles themselves proffer a level of intelligence on the reader. They aren’t straightforward titles, no; they contain subtle references and connotations suitable to and interpretable by an “artistic” mind. And being artistic, of course, means being countercultural, outside the mainstream, unique.

On each cover below the magazine’s name, Filter reads, “Good Music Will Prevail”; that is, not the bad music that everyone else is listening to and against which this little magazine must pit itself like David against Goliath. Artist features are divided into “Getting to Know” and “You Should Already Know” categories, suggesting that even outside the mainstream, there are levels of exclusivity one should strive for to be distinguished from the masses. In the case of Filter, the highest levels of special individuality are attained by those who know the most musicians, and know them before anyone else.

Paper pits itself against a mainstream but make less of an effort than Filter to disguise that it is doing so; essentially, it’s not just knowledge that elevates a reader. In its most recent issue, on the theme of “Un-Hollywood,” Penelope Cruz graces the cover in a blonde Marilyn Monroe wig to celebrate Pedro Almodovar’s new movie. “Hollywood blockbusters for the masses are unartistic,” Paper shouts. “But you, you are an artist, and you can tell real from fake.”

While Filter helps readers be unique by being most in-the-know artistically, Paper incorporates fashion – surface, shallowness, “un-art” – into the magazine to help. Showing that they are ahead of the curve, a series on new, up and coming filmmakers is introduced, “We’ve captured them now, before they get big. We hold them in a special kind of esteem. Why? Because you never forget your first.” Art isn’t serious. It’s sexy and fun. Each of the filmmakers is dressed in designer couture and at the end of each short bio the reader is told where he, too, can find the clothes of artists. Paper incorporates shopping with art, taking the edge and danger out of art and linking it with consumer commodities. At the same time, while helping the reader create the tastes of internal life (movies), it creates those that the world sees on the surface (fashion). Inhaling the pages of the magazine creates an overall persona or lifestyle for the reader that suggests artistic uniqueness in all of its facets.

Paper interviews experimental and perhaps individual enough artists that readers can fool themselves into thinking they are getting a whiff of the real stuff as they flip through the pages. But Nylon employs such cheap tactics in attempting to bestow something “original” or “real” – that is, artistic – it is frightening that readers are taken in. Nearly every fashion spread refers back to an older era or some cinematic archetype of glamour to explain the products it is suggesting. “Yeah, we didn’t understand the plot either. But we still loved Naomi Watts’s and Laura Harring’s film-noir style” – the caption for a David Lynch fashion spread. “Too Dazed In The Valley” – a spread somehow linking various make-up products to The Valley of the Dolls films. And, saddest of all, “Almost Famous” – a fashion spread on the groupie style of Pamela Des Barres. Art, or some vague notion of it, is employed in the service of fashion, not the other way around.

Nylon is the Seventeen magazine for the girl of today. Fashion pure and simple is no longer enough to draw the reader into some individualizing ether of uniqueness, though that – style – is still what the reader desires. Through these magazines, art, uniqueness, individuality – fetishized to a point of being unrecognizable – have become more of an aesthetic than the revolutionary countercultural mindset they once represented. But readers, none the wiser, still feel revolution is part of what they are getting.

podcast for TNY - blogged

2006-10-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

I definitely shouldn't be excited that my most recent podcast for The New Yorker was blogged (History 10.17.06), especially since it's a nerdy site and what I did wasn't even discussed.
But I am, darlings, I am.

Black People Love Us

2006-10-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Um...

A Muslim Bob Edgar...maybe

2006-10-11T06:46:00.000-07:00

Although I can't figure out why this wasn't the top story for every major news outlet, at least the NYT and IHT reported on the arrest of Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeni Boroujerdi, a cleric calling for the end of theocracy in Iran. Someone with some clout is speaking out against, quite possibly, the world's currently most threatening regime, being punished and possibly killed for it, and the action is going largely unnoticed.

Well, not everywhere. Elsewhere news filtered through (which may or may not be reliable) that some Iranians thought the arrest might lead to an uprising, even a revolution. But being that the desire is to end the reign of the mullahs, perhaps people were unwilling to participate to protect yet another religious leader. Apparently a major player in all of this is the (supposedly??) democratically leaning KRSI Voice of Iran radio station, through which Boroujerdi widely broadcast calls for separation of religion and politics. The station used to have a website with an online stream (I think), but it's gone now and I'm not sure what that means. (This blog is interesting and may have good info.)

If we needed any proof of the corruption of the Iranian government, this is it. I've personally been intrigued by Ahmedinejad's challenges of assumed Western superiority. It's necessary to call out Bush, to call out and challenge the West, particularly the U.S., on its attempts of enforcing its will upon the world. But this challenge alone can't bring us under the sway of an otherwise insane man. It reminds me of the Ceausescu regime of Romania, in that a cloak is being pulled over the eyes of many well-intentioned members of the international community by a savvy manipulator, while inside the country's borders, people starve. Of course in the case of Iran, we have as much, if not more, at stake as the Iranian people when it comes to the wills and whims of the current regime, and Ahmedinejad hasn't done as much to hide his extremism. But we cannot let the cloak be pulled over our eyes.

So many have been wondering where the voices of moderation for Islam and Iran are hiding. But given that the voices are out there, the real questions are where is our Kapuscinski, where is our Orwell, where is the COVERAGE of what's actually going on? Any writer today who wonders where Muslim voices of moderation are is full of shit. Go there and tell us what's happening, someone!

Pas de Deux from Swan Lake

2006-10-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

I know ballet isn't for everyone, but goddamn if you can't appreciate the sheer beauty of this. Especially the closing moments of the dance. The ballerina on top of little girls' jewelry boxes was based on that perfection -- the apex of what a human body can achieve as a vehicle for art. Brings tears to my eyes, no shit. Respek.

kindness of strangers

2006-10-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

new york
i owe you
for teaching me that pay it forward
does exist

for the person that owed nothing
when another was alone
and if anything she owed more
than she could give over the course of a lifetime

and it all flowed through like water
in the moment of a solitary cab ride

Olberman calls Bush Incompetent

2006-10-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

wow, do i love this guy. more voices are surfacing to criticize bush of late. in addition to books and articles, i mean. critique from the international crowd is nothing new (see below), but the chorus of Americans joining in more loudly indicates something may be changing. that, of course, and the dismal state of affairs for republicans all across the country. MWA HAHA HAHA. could it all be enough to counter the rove propaganda machine? let's keep our fingers crossed.

as usual, though, we've got the checklist of books critical of bushies by intellectuals and media types. here are just a few of the most recent spate:
Bill Moyers, Welcome to Doomsday
Sidney Blumenthal, How Bush Rules
Bob Edgar, The Middle Church
Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold

PS - why did YouTube take a week to show these clips on my blog? mystery.

Hugo Chavez Calls Bush the Devil

2006-10-04T23:46:00.001-07:00

I thought this was kind of funny, but largely ineffectual. When someone with no friends in his region resorts to theatrical rhetoric to get people on his side against a common enemy, there are too many ulterior motives for the words to be taken seriously.

The Engine Driver

2006-09-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

every once in a while you come along a song that you can't believe was written in recent years. it sounds so classic, it seems impossible that an artist didn't pull it out of the ether before you were born. but, incredibly, there are classic melodies you haven't discovered, and there are even more that have yet to surface in artists' minds.

hot damn.

fights with strangers

2006-09-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

I hate getting into fights with strangers. I really do. Road rage, random exchanges in stores that lead to words -- all unnecessary strife with people who you have no beef with in reality.
Craig's List is the virtual facilitator of some of this needless grief. I'm currently embroiled in an altercation with one Insiyah from whom I "purchased" an original nintendo as a wedding gift for a friend (um, yeah...I'm awesome).
I forced Ins to bring the Nintendo to my apartment since she wouldn't let me come to hers, because I wanted to be at a place where I could test the machine out before paying her for it. The machine didn't work, but I was leaving on a plane later that day for the wedding and wasn't sure if perhaps the two of us, in our basic technological ineptitude, couldn't figure out how to plug the thing in properly. Insiyah graciously allowed me to take the machine without taking money from me, and I assured her that if it did work after I tested it in L.A., I would pay her for it. Turns out the machine was missing a certain cable (pictured above), and my brother happened to have an extra one lying around (a fact which, in itself, we should pause to appreciate). With the cable, the machine worked perfectly.
I was willing to pay I. for the machine, but as it was missing a piece without which it wouldn't have worked, I didn't think full price was fair (which was 40 bucks, but that's not the point). She's standing firm on the 40 and that's kinda pissed me off, on principle, so I haven't been responding to her e-mails and haven't sent a check, and she's threatened to take "further action," which is kind of hilarious.
I intend to send the check, but I want to piss her off for being a sucky bitch, which apparently I've succeeded at doing since she's threatening to sue me or whatever. And the reason I've relayed this entire story is because it's an instance in which I'm not actually sure who's right and who's wrong (though I concede that I'm being a big baby in withholding the money). Still, it's not just senseless road rage at work here. There are principles when it comes to buying and selling, dammit! Ah, Amazon buyer protections...Craig's List could use 'em.

The Middle Church

2006-09-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

If you've felt despondent about the radical right over the past 6 years (though it feels more like an eternity) you need to hear Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar speak, and possibly read the book he was pushing this morning on WNYC's Leonard Lopate show. The book is Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right. Seems like such an obviously necessary thing to come out and say and do, but really how often do the necessary right actions happen, how often do articulate, moderate, well intentioned, moral voices make it through the cacophony of pundits and radicals? Not often.

Edgar and his book, hopefully, will make it through as more than a footnote. He's the general secretary of the 45 million strong National Council of Churches USA, served six terms in the House of Representatives for the heavily Republican 7th District of Pennsylvania, and he's a liberal democrat. This morning on the show, he articulated in an extremely level headed, logical way how the Bush administration's use of religion to forward its agenda is a distortion of Christian -- and really all -- religious values (I'm making it sound more partisan than he did; he's far more diplomatic and well-spoken). Perhaps this has become the conventional wisdom among thinking, liberal democrats, but to hear it from someone who takes religious doctrine seriously, and doesn't just use it as a talking point for getting elected (Edgar imposed term limits on himself and is no longer in politics), is so shocking that it makes you realize how absent the point has truly been from the public arena.

The period of silence for moderate Christians, at least in the States, and moderate Muslims throughout the world (where are they, dammit??) perhaps isn't a coincidence. In times when radical voices are the only ones getting through, it takes more than courage to speak for moderation -- it takes complete depth of conviction. It's ironic, but not surprising, that that strength of conviction can come from the same religious roots as the ones being used to manipulate and polarize. But someone like Bob Edgar proves that it is possible. The voice of moderation for radical Islam will also come from within its corps, but so far a Muslim with his same courage and conviction has failed to make him or herself heard.

two Orwell items

2006-09-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

first published in Adelphi, Dec. 1936:

A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago,
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in evil time,
I missed that pleasant heaven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.

All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.

But girls' bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.

It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them;
Horses are made of chromium steel
And little fat men shall ride them.

I am the worm who never turned,
The eunuch without a harem;
Between the priest and the commissar
I walk like Eugene Aram;

And the commissar is telling my fortune
While the radio plays,
But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,
For Duggie always pays.

I dreamed I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?

------------------------------------------------------
and from Why I Write, 1946:

So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information.

this is what happened to hip hop...?

2006-09-04T08:54:00.000-07:00

Image Nation

Granted, it's not hip hop per se, but it is a clear channel for...well, I won't sum it up. I'll let the website describe what they do. Here's a nice round-up taken from the site:

Our viewers thirst for more complex, realistic and imaginative portrayals of themselves. Imagenation quenches that thirst. We edify our viewers' imaginations and galvanize their spirits with cinema, Soul Cinema.

The founder of Image Nation, Moikgantsi Kgama, was on WNYC today and she was awesome. But one question that came up for me that I didn't feel was answered on the site or in her interview was, how does the organization relate to people who are not of color? Is Image Nation for everybody, or is it just for the "African diaspora" community (as Kgama puts it)? Maybe they've intended to leave that question unaddressed...

2006-08-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

huh?

harper's sucks

2006-08-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

why it always hafta harsh my mellow?

as eric said, i really shouldn't be allowed to read 90% of the stuff that i do, but somehow those sneaky little articles find their way into my hands and brain.
the most recent cause for distress is from the August 06 issue, entitled "Imagine There's No Oil: Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse." it's about the Peak Oil movement, a group of people who believe oil production either has peaked or will within the next 5 years and that the world as we know it will completely disintegrate. the change will bring with it anarchy, fascism, extreme violence, not to mention of course no air conditioning, no cars, no factories producing things like wool, plastic, meat, soap, (maybe even no internet?). mankind, they hold, will survive (if at all) in agrarian villages. to prepare, the Peak Oilers are turning their savings into gold, learning agrarian skills like butchering and making real plans to move to self sustaining villages that they can live in while disaster rages around them.

oy oy oy. don't like hearing it? me either! damn you, harper's! as if we don't already have enough to worry about with the growing spectre of islamic fundamentalist terrorist lunacy! and global warming. and genocide and cancer!

yet for all the worrying it's obvious that i, and probably anyone reading this, are still in the midst of the party. the only real problem we have is the nagging sense that any day now it could all come crashing down. this is the purpose terrorism serves, at least in my life: letting me know that the foundations in the world i used to see as unshakable are tenuous at best, and decreasing my quality of life the slightest bit to put me more on par with the reality of suffering that's going on out there. is too much to ask to just be happy and calm and unworried and just...alive? the answer, of course, is yes, it is too much to ask. there's so much shit, so much shit out there. if we aren't in the midst of it, and we're somehow managing to hold on to our decadently indulgent lifestyles over here in the cradle of the west, dammit if we're not going to be stressed out.

i realize, though, that stress is useless unless it propels one to action. so maybe we should be looking into investing in gold or making plans for agrarian village living, or moving our families the hell out of america to new zealand or some place. if we're not going to do that, then we (and by we i mean i) should just shut the hell up and go to brunch.

love for latyrx

2006-08-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

sort of continuing on the 'what happened to hip hop' theme, but not completely, because i have to take a moment and pay tribute to the incredible The Album by Latyrx (Lateef and Lyrics Born), released in 1997. it's a bit scary that it's coming up on the 10 year anniversary of this album and the two guys haven't done anything else together. why, lord, why? my longwinded tirade below doesn't really come close to explaining it. i think i need to get these people on the phone and grill their asses.
anyhow, The Album is one of those hip hop masterpieces that keeps you enthralled from start to finish, with perfect song-to-song flow and just the right number of random interludes that add touches of humor and insight. rediscovering an ablum these days that you don't feel the need to frenetically skip over songs with on your iPod is rare and kind of amazing.
as to the songs themselves, they are gems that aren't immediately apparent -- the best kind. the hooks and beats and words seep into you and you just need to be listening to them all day long. love that! it's been a while...
i recall having heard once that marvin gaye and tammi terrell had the best matching voices of any musical duo ever. lateef and lyrics born are true contenders, not only in timbre, but also in rhythm and lyrics. they're musical poets that each innovates in his own way but together succeed in weaving an intelligent, ass shaking album that for my money, in the genre, hasn't been matched since. a must have hip hop classic.

What's wrong with New York vol. 2

2006-08-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

No! No! No! Jeeeesus.

what happened to hip hop?

2006-08-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

i may be slow, but i realized something was amiss when i recently attended a free lyrics born show at the santa monica pier. his material was exactly the same as it's been over the past three years, and there's something wrong when an incredibly innovative artist in one of the most innovative and politically charged musical genres has stopped innovating.

i did a little cursory internet research on what the hell has happened to hip hop and the popular opinion seems to be that monetary interests have won out over art and politics. that's undoubtedly part of the problem, but i think the answer is deeper and more complex, and here's what i think it is.

hip hop was and is a black art form. it was born both an organic expression of and response to the condition of being a minority in the US. but what i'll call true hip hop artists -- the ones who remember that the roots of the genre are political -- changed at a certain moment. they ceased to be centered around expression and became centered around mission, a mission of being the consciousness for a black community with unfulfilled potential and what they saw as confused priorities. look at the difference between De La Soul and artists like Mos Def and Lauryn Hill. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is basically a blatant, unshy effort at making black people think they have brains, through music. it's not bad -- it's a great album -- but in a way it's kind of laughable when compared with artists that preceded her, who simply let the music flow out of their own conditions, rather than dictating to others what their conditions ought to be. it's no big surprise that the album was so popular among white people, and less so among black people.

watching the progression of political hip hop is watching a black genre gradually being disowned by its original creators and embraced by everyone else. i went to hear The Roots at this forum where they were interviewed by Malcolm Gladwell, and the ratio of white to black people in the audience was about 30 to 1, and no shit, they were pissed off about who their audience is. the mass black audience for hip hop has moved to a completely different brand of hip hop from what those guys put out, and that brand is the pussy, bling, party whatever brand. it's shallow and economically motivated, but in a weird way it's more appealling, and maybe, in another weird way, it's a black musical form that rejects true accessibility by non-blacks.

like Lauryn Hill's dictations/observations, a lot of hip hop artists who have seen the way things have progressed for the genre have talked about what's wrong with it. many -- admittedly excellent -- hip hop albums talk about "being real," not wanting to be judged by money or whatever it may be. i quote the Black Eyed Peas' first and only stellar album, Behind The Front, "I see you try to dis our function by stating that we can't rap/Is it cuz we don't wear Tommy Hilfiger or baseball caps/We don't use dollars to represent." that statement is stale. stale stale stale. i don't fault politically motivated hip hop artists for pointing those things out, but they got hung up on it. they got hung up on looking from the outside in, rather than expressing from the inside out.

the moment when things started to change was when the vultures of commerce recognized the awesome pureness of hip hop and began circling, looking for a way to profit from and exploit brilliance. the problem was that politically charged hip hop began to be guided by reactions to the changes, rather than by continuing to be what it always was. of course, being a white person and critical of all that is messed up, not only because i'm technically an outsider, but also because those reactions have created albums that i adore. but hip hop wasn't created for me, and hip hop artists need to get back to their roots.

radio piece

2006-08-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

you might think that losing internet access would be a relief or at least an interesting break. but it's not, not at all. the dependence is solid and complete and there's really no reason to wean yourself off of it so all you can do is writhe in the agony of partial withdrawal.

regardless, i have a radio feature airing on WNYC AM 820 at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow night, Sunday, and in l.a. it'll be on on Monday at 2:30 p.m. on 89.9 FM KCRW. and at 2:30 p.m. on monday you can also listen on KCRW's live stream at www.kcrw.com. AND if you don't catch any of those you can listen to KCRW's archives of The Business (the show i produced it for) a day or so after it airs. it's pretty exciting and a fun piece featuring my family. so it's colorful. and actually the L.A. show will be different from the other versions of The Business across the country because it's KCRW's pledge drive right now and we had to make a shorter version for the drive and a longer one for everyone else. if you listen in l.a., pledge! danke.

gawgeous

2006-07-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to one song, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths.
The track isn't one of their better known, a shocking fact given that it's their most beautiful song and one of the most beautiful songs in general. It's a ballad, and an incredibly simple one. There isn't any angst in it, no heavy beats or marching cries -- just pure, simple, sad melancholy. And it's stripped down, under two minutes long, with lyrics that don't say a word more than they need to. The only thing that sucks about the song is how short it is, and I suppose that's why people don't know it. I've asked musician friends to try and expand it somehow, and I know that might ruin it, but I'm always so disappointed when it ends.

PEEPING TOM!!!! Aaaaahhhh!!

2006-07-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

Peeping Tom - Neighborhood Spaceman (7-23-06)
Alright, I've got a video on here. This is good.
So on July 23 went to see Peeping Tom open for Gnarls Barkley at the Avalon, and my Mike Patton obsession is reaching alarming levels. The man works for every cent he makes, soaking his shirt all the way through and placing his neck at serious risk of injury with violent head thrusts.

Went with my friend May (Radiohead Superfan #1), who again procured tickets for us. She took a video of Patton singing another PT song, Don't Even Trip, and it is faaaar superior to the one on here (in large part because of my background screeches), but for some reason hers wouldn't upload to YouTube (it's a QuickTime file, don't understand). However, this was the show we attended, and the song they're playing is one of my favorites on the album.

As far as I'm concerned, Peeping Tom totally stole the show from Gnarls Barkley, at least for me because during the latter's set Mike Patton was standing right next to me and I was busy staring in complete, pathetic starstruckness not saying anything. Finally May tapped him on the shoulder and said she wanted to introduce me to him because if not I might explode. Patton was incredibly cool and I fucking hugged him but I always feel a bit silly making small talk with celebrities, especially ones I care about, because I feel like they think I'm a groupie. Plus, what am I gonna do with that experience (other than blog about it)? It's not like we talked about anything groundbreaking -- in fact the main topic I recall us discussing was the weather. Patton is cool, but I just don't know the guy, and it's not gonna happen at 2 a.m. after one of his shows in Hollywood. The only thing it could be is some lame groupie experience. Nonetheless later there was a more serious foray into groupiedom that involved some after-show stuff which I shan't divulge, and the next day some hanging out at PT's hotel. It was much less scandalous than it sounds, and I couldn't get over feeling loserish for doing it. But whatever.

What this all comes down to is that the coolest part of the night was the show. All of the hard songs on the album were a lot more fun live when you could jump to them with other excitables. It was so high energy Patton even attempted a stage dive. It was, like so many other things that night, a bit pathetic, because people didn't seem quite into helping him crowd surf, and for about 10 seconds afterward I couldn't take him seriously. Is the day of the stage dive over, is it on hiatus, or is the Gnarls Barkley crowd just the wrong one to try it on? Big questions.

physicalness vs. digitalness

2006-07-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

there was a good piece a couple of new yorkers ago on container ships, these huge ginormous things that move all the crap around the world that people use in their lives. what got me about container ships, other than the fact that they're a complete universe we never see but that help us live (sort of like loading docks from the sidewalk), is that the world is still quite a large physical place, and material stuff still needs to be moved around it. it's something we're apt to forget doing so much of our living virtually, but the internet can't do much to streamline the transportation of goods from one place to another. so, to get that shower curtain or printer paper that we need we must resign ourselves to using the rather primitive technology of... big boxes. on boats.

another physical process that hasn't changed too much over the years is mining. the only significant innovation has been that bigger trucks can now move a lot more dirt more quickly. but really what're you gonna do? no matter how you slice it, mining is going to involve first, digging up a mountain and second, getting ore out of rocks. ain't no digital process that could help with that. at one of the mines i visited recently i learned that the milling and crushing equipment the mining companies produce is nearly identical to the machines from 100, even 200 years ago. unsurprising when you think about the fact that it's all a purely mechanical, physical process. mechanical machines. neat.

Snakes on a Plane

2006-07-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

fabulous.

analysis, not movie.

on a lighter note

2006-07-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

dirigibles are cool for a number of reasons. first, the name. in french, dirigible means "able to be directed," a rather humorous and self-evident name for the thing, as well as an adjective that's been turned into a noun. imagine if the car were called the driveable. same thing. but the true beauty of the word dirigible lies in a sort of onomatopoeia, which is both silly and quasi-scientific, just like the thing itself. if dirigibles make sounds, they probably go something like this: "ddddrrrrrrrigible!" and if i were looking at a dirigible and didn't know what to call it, i'd call it dirigible.

the dirigible comes from the era of early flight, which i thought accounted for the ridiculousness of the design, but it turns out i may have been wrong. there was a resurgence of interest in dirigibles -- i mean like as in actually using them -- in the early 90s. have no idea why. but today that's waned and there aren't too many dirigibles out and about.

a major dirigible disaster, the burning of the Hindenburg Zeppelin in new jersey on May 6, 1937, has etched the image of the dirigible fairly firmly in the cultural consciousness. my friend noah referenced the hindenburg in the final for his puppeteering class at wesleyan, which was a titanic/dirigible spoof entitled "Dirigible: A Woman's Heart is as Deep as an Ocean of Secrets." they actually built a dirigible puppet and set it on fire. got an F.

shortly thereafter, i looked into purchasing the domain name dirigible.com. here's the response i got from the owner:

Dear Sir,Thank you for your interest concering dirigible.com i own. Selling price of this dirigible.com domain name is USD $35,000. If you can pay USD $35,000, we are that sell domain to you immediately. If you agree in this transaction, I will begin transaction after I join on escrow. I think we can transact safely if we get services through Escrow. Escrow service consists in escrow.com. Here is place that can believe most. If you money is paid to Escrow.com, I will change owner information. If you have any question, Please send email to me. Best Regards,Inchonseekers, Inc. David, Jun, CEO

i'm pretty sure old david is still current owner, but if i had USD $35,000 lying around, i'd contact the guy.

Solidarity

2006-07-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

the israeli incursion into lebanon has created a familiar pit in the stomach feeling. its origin is fairly simple: the conflict of needing to have unwavering solidarity with a country whose tactics are not ideal.

my immediate feeling when news about the israeli bombings and lebanese civilian deaths came out was disappointment; such actions can never have the desired results of getting hostages released and, ultimately, achieving peace. but the ability to use logic deteriorates when the situation deteriorates. part of the stress of war, and what makes it so messy, are the animalistic decisions those involved must make to avoid death. when existence is at stake, doubts about the best moral avenue fall away, narrowing the question to one of them or us. and when taking sides is no longer avoidable, i must stand with israel.

i confronted the same quandary when i spent a semester in israel in 2000, arriving just before sharon visited the Temple Mount. it was the incendiary move that sparked the most recent wave of violence, which has lasted five years, five years! now. yet watching from los angeles as the situation once again becomes critical is very different. living in israel, one didn't have to ask, what can i do? simply being there was enough. but caring from here, not wanting israel to disappear from here, the question looms.

my ma made me go to an israel rally at the museum of tolerance and it seemed to be the question that every jew in los angeles who cared to attend was asking him or herself. and the question is far more critical now because truly what can the US, israel's best and often times only ally, do? our military is stretched the thinnest it's been in decades, and other western countries will not and are not standing unequivocally with israel. so who is israel's friend, if not the largest jewish communities outside the country -- those in new york and los angeles? and truly what can we do, other than have rallies and send money? (the jewish federation of los angeles mobilized quickly and is sending $1 million to take israeli children out of bomb shelters to safer places -- a thoughtful and important thing to do, but it hardly helps the country itself.) and -- what would i have us do if, in a crazy world, the jewish communities of the diaspora had military power?

the speakers at the rally included local los angeles jewish politicians, rabbis, daniel pearl's father, judea pearl, and mayor villaraigosa (love him). though the whole thing felt rather ineffectual, i sensed it was important to be there. and when everyone sang hatikvah, israel's national anthem, it felt so important it was scary.

i know it probably seems strange that i have what might be considered a right wing affinity with israel. for those who cherish liberal values, as i do, it feels convoluted, even backwards. i wish there were a grey area, but the bottom line is that if you don't want israel to disappear, solidarity is the only option.

A Marsh and Gen. George Patton

2006-07-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: CA fire territory is so goddamn volatile. thinking of you, Morongo Valley.

sometimes ghost town trolling adventures don't turn out the way you've planned, but it's usually still possible to salvage your excursion if you maneuver your day just right.

to anyone planning a ghost town excursion in riverside county, california (since i know there are so many of you): the ghost towning here is even more meager than what you might read on the web -- except for ruins in joshua tree national park, which, though i haven't seen them YET, are purportedly plentiful. but if you're planning on doing a car (as opposed to hiking) trip, be prepared for disappointment. i was planning to check out this place called Eagle Mountain, which was at various points a jail, a town, and other stuff. now apparently it's a sort of military training facility and you need special access to get in. berdoo camp was inaccessible without a 4 wheel drive, and both are far the f--- away. booooooo.

going that far though does have its rewards. for example, did you know that there is a george s. patton museum near the california-arizona border that along with patton -- lovingly remembered as Old Blood and Guts -- commemorates the WWII Desert Training Maneuver Area, the largest military training ground that has ever existed, and which covered 18,000 square miles and at which over one million soldiers were trained? me neither. it was very surreal visiting this place in 100+ temperatures, with memorial plaques and tanks just plopped down in the wavy heat in the middle of nowhere. made me think of the fabled militant training camps of afghanistan (except that at the patton museum there are christian and church-type commemorative things). the california-arizona border is an eh... inhospitable area.

also, did you know that morongo valley -- most widely known, at least among my relatives, for casino morongo -- is the location of a marsh preserve where over 300 species of birds live, including the endangered vermillion flycatcher? me neither. how can there be a marsh in some of the most godforsakenly dry desert in the world? in june of last year, a fire just above the marsh called the Paradise Fire took out a bunch of trees and 7 homes (which apparently is a happily small number), so now there is this unbelievable contrast between the marshland plants, which are as green as plants get, and the charred trees all around. i don't know if the plants were burned and if they regenerated in that time, but it was astounding to see. and though i didn't get a picture of them, i saw two vermillion flycatchers, and they are the most brilliantly colored bird. people come from all over the world to morongo valley just to catch a glimpse of these guys! and lastly, this place in MV, called The Happy Cooker, makes incredible chocolate shakes.

so in summary, riverside county -- weak on ghost towns, strong on other stuff.

nerd time

2006-07-05T12:33:00.000-07:00

i might be the least science and math-oriented person i know, but for some reason i'm really into the platonic solids -- convex polyhedra with regular polygon faces, in which all sides and angles are identical. there are only five: the tetrahedron (4 faces of equilateral triangles), the hexahedron (or cube), the octahedron (8 faces of equilateral triangles), the dodecahedron (12 faces of hexagons), and the icosahedron (20 faces of equilateral triangles). here's how we know that there are only five:

There have to be at least three polygons at a vertex; two would simply fold together back to back. Also the angles around a vertex cannot exceed 360 degrees, and if they equal 360 degrees, the polygons simply tile the plane. Thus we can rule out solids with 6 or more faces - hexagons tile the plane and all other triplets exceed 360 degrees. That means convex solids with regular polygon faces can only have triangles, squares or pentagons as faces. The only possibilities are 3, 4, or 5 triangles, 3 squares or 3 pentagons (at a vertex). Thus there are only five platonic solids.

so it's perfectly logical that there are only five platonic solids, but they seem magical to me. the ancient greeks were into them too, and so are many other nerd nut jobs. plus they can all be folded from a single piece of paper, which you know is kinda neat.

hot tamales & photobooths, SoCo & lime

2006-07-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

at a bar in silverlake called cha cha, at the end of each evening a mexican dude comes around with a heated case full of tamales, $2 each. though i was craving some Jack in the Box (the best fast food in the world (in 'n out doesn't count)), i decided to give it a shot. i was nervous it would be some horrible pouch microwaved crap, but nope -- homemade, wrapped in a corn husk leaf, chicken, pork or cheese tamales, with the non-cholula, non-tabasco, non-fake kind of spiciness that only comes from putting real chiles into maize. 'snice to be close to the border, i like!

also for $2 at cha cha: four distinct color photobooth photos. why photobooths are still such a fun novelty when cameras (be they digital or on your phone) are basically ubiquitous i'm not sure, but they still are. maybe it's the momentary blindness that ensues after each flashbulb goes off in your face (maybe it's the fact that they use flashbulbs), or maybe it's the naughty feeling of going into a photobooth with another person, or maybe it's just that they're old fashioned. whatever it may be, fine holiday fun. especially after you've taken down a couple SoCo and limes.

World Cup Brilliance: Peter Crouch

2006-07-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

like any good mexican, my dad has had the TV on nonstop for the past month. i've watched my fair share, but nothing quite compares with the rush of watching Mr. Peter Crouch play soccer. how can a man be so skinny yet so agile?! he looks like a scarecrow doing the tango. really really well. they probably told crouch when he was a kid that he'd never be able to go pro, but crouch showed them anything is possible.

which brings to mind two other very nimble yet lanky stars: ray bolger (scarecrow in wizard of oz, barnaby in '61 babes in toyland) and the much beloved john cleese (most notable lank in monty python and the out of towners). i've gotten almost as many laughs out of watching crouch as i have out of these two guys in their most seminal roles. holy! he's incredible. lanky + agile = great combo.

other world cup thoughts: if you can, do yourself a favor and watch the games with the announcements in spanish. they're friggin hysterical. very tongue in cheek, with the full skinny on the players that they're not afraid to give you. the american announcers are pure boredom.
i feel bad for goalies when it goes to penalty kicks. too much pressure.

Steven Seagal: Awesome

2006-06-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

here's why steven seagal is the most bad ass mutha cop evah:
- 6th degree black belt
- former CIA operative, cambodia
- gun expert
- speaks italian
- speaks japanese
- speaks spanish
- tapered jeans
- greasy mullet
- strong, yet gentle
- paisan
- faithful to lord and wife
- frequently raises one eyebrow in skeptical disbelief
- immune to truth serum injections
- easy on the eyes
- and the number one reason steven seagal leaves all other cops in the dust is that he's
ABOVE THE LAW

--which, incidentally, is also the title of his debut film, a fantastic feat of moviemaking magic. i never imagined it would come to this, but above the law is better than any action cop suspense movie i've seen maybe ever -- a not insignificant aspect of which is the awesome cars everyone drives in 1988 chicago. so many layers of perfidious mischief, and steven seagal must launch out, on his own, maverick-like, over the helmets of all the other law enforcement to get to the bottom of a massive CIA weapons-drug dealing scandal. check out this writing, the last lines of the movie:

"Gentlemen, whenever you have a group of individuals...
... who are beyond any investigation...
... who can manipulate the press, judges, members of our Congress...
... you'll have within our government those who are above the law."

one thing though: remember this guy as he once was and stay away from all recent seagal related media.

Irreconcilable Differences

2006-06-27T22:54:00.001-07:00

tonight i made the mistake of going to happy hour drinks with my one super right wing conservative friend. i was having a great time as the evening progressed, laughing at funny events from the past (he's a former coworker), as he's a fun loving and easy going guy. i was thinking all along how nice it was that i was capable of having a friend who i had such core differences with but who i could hang out with and just forget about all that stuff.
WRONG.

i should've known when he picked me up in his big new SUV that some horrible climate-related debate would surface, but i couldn't have known how ridiculous it would be. here's the debate in a nutshell (and it didn't come up in the context of his SUV, but rather in the context of his trip to phuket and discussions about hurricane katrina): me citing recent basically irrefutable studies by independent expert panels as to the alarming rate of global warming, and him clinging unwaveringly to the facts he learned in "elementary school" (by his own admission!) that everything is "cyclical" and that the change in climate should not alarm anyone. when i finally got through to him that the whole purpose of the scientific panel was to test the cyclical theory, and that they had disproved it, his response was, "ignorance is bliss." so he basically admitted that even if he did believe the panel's findings, he didn't care.

on the drive home, he tried to make peace with me and let bygones be bygones. one part of me really and truly did want to, because one part of me really and truly likes the guy. but a much stronger part of me doesn't. how can you hang out and have fun happy time with a person who has admitted he is essentially responsible for the demise of the environment and doesn't give a shit? if someone has the answer, please--...

You know how to cut to the core of me, Thom Yorke

2006-06-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

wooooo radiohead woooooo!
just saw them last night in san diego with my friend may, whom i thank greatly for being superfan #1, and thereby procuring tickets for us.

going to see radiohead with radiohead superfans is an interesting experience. here's what happens: you get to the venue at least three hours before doors (some people camp out the previous night) and stand as close as possible to the place where you're going to get in. as the minutes and hours pass, people start getting antsy and some unsubtle cutting and squeezing happens as the superfans try to one up each other for the closest possible spot to the front. the objective of all this is to be among the first people to sprint toward the stage when the doors actually do open and get the spot you like best. the heady scent of permanent marker permeates the air after one thoughtful superfan draws a huge "Happy Birthday Colin" sign. as it starts to get down to the line, everyone becomes a horse chomping at the bit. "i'm gonna have a panic attack and die," someone says, and "why don't they just get it over with?" and, in the detailed negotations for a spot, "i'd rather have pole Ed instead of second row Jonny."

the doors open and trampling seems imminent, but we just get pushed through in a big surge and everyone runs their little butts off toward the stage as the venue workers crack up at the spectacle. even though i walked, i got right up at the front in there with may, who stood next to the other superfans saving spots by spreading eagle against the stage. but when i realized that between the opening act and delays it would be 4 hours until radiohead went on, i relinquished my valued position in the radiohead fan hierarchy and consumed several lovely smirnoff ices by my lonesome in the lazy person area with the benches and tables.

it actually turned out to be a good thing that i didn't stay crushed in the throng because i facilitated the superfans' superfanness by passing them water as they stood there suffering and dehydrating themselves for their band. which led to a few thoughts. first, an invention: a radiohead fan special seat/drinking water camel pack/colostomy/pee bag. i know it sounds gross, but just think of what it would accomplish. and we could brand it with fun radiohead teddy bears and make it this trendy thing that the most dedicated superfans would want because it would affirm their love to the world. the other thing i thought is that radiohead fans are this tight knit group because they suffer for their band, much like the bond of frat boys who go through hazing, or war buddies. at a certain point, when they brought one (in the words of may) "totally unprepared" superfan out of the front in a wheelchair with an oxygen mask, i did think of myself a little as a civil war nurse helping the war wounded.

i decided after the opening act, deerhoof -- they were good -- to try and squeeze my way toward the front, but i only made it to about six-people-from-the-stage level and gave up, which was a pussy move because my real deterrent from not pushing farther was the scornful looks i got rather than the uncomfortableness of being squished. so i just stood there among unknowns and radiohead finally came on. and of course, they were frickin awesome. has radiohead ever put on a bad show? i ask you this. because i have now seen them four times and they have been incredible each and every time. every time.

here's the set list which i found online today:
1. There There 2. 2+2=5 3. 15 Step 4. Morning Bell 5. Kid A 6. Arpeggi 7. Videotape 8. National Anthem 9. Nude 10. Down Is The New Up 11. Paranoid Android 12. All I Need 13. The Gloaming 14. You And Whose Army? 15. Idioteque 16. Bangers 'n' Mash 17. How To Disappear Completely 18. House of Cards 19. Street Spirit (fade out) 20. Just 21. Everything In Its Right Place 22. 4 Minute Warning 23. Lucky

when 2+2=5 came on, oh my god. incredible to be among other people who were as excited as me to hear it and jump up and down like crazed banshees. unfortunately after it, the 2nd song, the colostomy/pee bag would've done me good b/c after my third smirnoff ice (idiot) i just couldn't hold it anymore and for a second time had to relinquish a good spot in the crowd. on coming back to the show, i realized the value of squeezing your ass in early, because it SUCKS to go to a radiohead show and be surrounded by people who aren't crazily excited to see them and who don't know the songs, and you'd be surprised by how many of them there are. but i guess my love of smirnoff ice betrays the fact that i am simply not a superfan. i'm a mere big fan.

nonetheless the show, as i said, was awesome. they played a lot of new songs that i didn't know but liked. very beat-heavy, i noticed, and then may mentioned later that thom is thinking of doing a dance album, so that made sense. thom's new album, the eraser, by the way, is great. the guy is so good he makes my head explode. the fact that he can put on these shows night after night and year after year and give so much of himself is...i donno. he's as close to a god as i've ever seen in front of my face, i'll tell you that.

and speaking of god, that leads me to the post below.

Faces of Evil

2006-06-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

i shudder at having placed these on my blog, but i must.
you see, ann coulter has just released a new book entitled Godless: The Church of Liberalism, and karl rove has been not indicted, which means, i think, that the evilness of the repubs is on the upswing, and we must be wary, WARY, of the faces of evil. i see a tactical offensive in our future by rove (a.k.a. turdblossom) on the war and every other issue, and more crap flowing out of the mouth of le coulter (a.k.a. certifiable).

here's the little official synopsis of Church:

Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, it bears all the attributes of a religion. In Godless, Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us its sacraments (abortion), its holy writ (Roe v. Wade), its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal), its clergy (public school teachers), its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free), its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland), and its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident).

the idea that politics is a kind of religion is right, and nothing new. but she should have substituted the Constitution with the holy writ of Roe v. Wade for the liberals, and it should be the same for conservatives. that politics is a moral system devoid of god is exactly the point of a western democracy. who is she pulling for here -- the mullahs? the god of political liberals who are "unreligious" is to be found in places outside of politics -- for example, at a radiohead concert. i sincerely wonder if coulter has ever had a religious or spiritual experience at all close to what can be felt at a high calliber, intense, beautiful music concert.

i've heard bill maher say that he admires coulter for sticking to her guns and saying what she thinks. but i think she's nuts. the woman's whole purpose in life is to offend liberals, a pathetic expense of energy that accomplishes the opposite of progress.

hooottttt

2006-06-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

no, i'm not just referring to the gorgeous and amazing mike patton (the only person who could ever compete with pharrell williams on talented hot loveliness, and vice versa). i'm also referring to the latest patton project, peeping tom, who recently released their first self-titled album.

i won't pretend that i'm a super hardcore patton fan since i've never fully delved into faith no more, which is where he got his start and is his major base. but i've been a huge fan of certain projects he's partcipated in, namely mr. bungle, lovage (with dan the automator -- if you don't have it, GET IT), and certain tricky items. but i took one look at the collaborators on this one and knew i couldn't refuse: rahzel, kool keith, massive attack, bebel gilberto, amon tobin, kid koala, dan the automator, and some others who i'm not familiar with but who i'm sure would excite certain in the know music aficionados. the collaboration with norah jones really wasn't a draw, and i'm sure it's led the hardcore patton fans to think he's going mainstream (that and the not insignificant fact that they performed their single on CONAN), but actually the song she's on is good, and quite risqué! even peaches inspired, i'd say. the line-up excited me so much that i had to go out and buy the CD. first compact disc purchase in a good year. the packaging is pretty ridiculously cool and has this sideways sliding opening thing. hard to describe. (side note: there are NO MORE CD STORES in westwood village. penny lane, rhino, even tower...all gone! the only place left to get 'em is best buy. disappointing, but we've all contributed to that, haven't we?)

anyway, the album is good. i think in the realm of patton projects it qualifies as pop, but in the realm of everything else, it's pretty, well, weird -- which of course is good and is why we love him. in some ways -- to continue with the pharrell parallel -- the album reminds me of n.e.r.d.'s "in search of," in its mix of a really truly hard sound with other stuff, like hip hop, r&b, rock, etc., except that n.e.r.d. is way more accessible on first listen and with peeping tom you have to give it time. but when you do, the rewards are plentiful. this guy is sickly talented and the songs are complex, edgy, and a few are even irresistible -- the single, mojo, is fantastic. a weakness for me was that certain songs would be cruising on in this beautiful way and then the crazy hard shit would break in and it was a bit abrupt for my taste. there are a few tracks on the album that i could do without -- sadly enough the kool keith track (i love him so) and the massive attack track. the latter is the kind of song i could only like if i were driving on the freeway at 100 mph either really mad or on my way to a rager of a party. rare concurrences.

the rest of it though is pretty fascinating. i recommend it, but not to the softies or mainstreamers out there, which is why this is destined not to make it in the mainstream market that patton may be trying for. as much as he's probably concerned with the benjamins, he's not willing to sell out the art and essentially, this is the same old crazy screaming patton of yore. so hoootttttttttttttttt.

hahahahahahaha

2006-06-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

You'll have to forgive this unabashedly shallow post, but while sitting at an undisclosed free WiFi food and drink establishment in West L.A. surrounded by unemployed script writers and served by would-be actor waiters, I've been overcome by the bullshit around me in this city and have had to share the header for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce website. Look at the guy's goddamn expression! Up close. The fact that someone saw this picture and thought it would make a perfect header for their site is just pure beauty.

Now you may be wondering why I was perusing the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce website. I'll tell you. I want to nominate someone for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and apparently the Chamber of Commerce controls the sidewalk immortalization of so many has-beens. Sadly, I've missed the May deadline for 2007, and I haven't decided who the lucky person should be, and I probably won't tell when I do. But if the person gets chosen, you'll be sure to know. Oh, and feel free to throw your own person into the running with my as yet undecided contestant next year. Full details on nominating procedures here.

Hockney Portraits @ LACMA

2006-06-09T18:49:00.000-07:00

So I think David Hockney is obscenely talented and I'm very attracted to the aesthetic quality of his pictures. But I also think there's a good reason why his best known works aren't his portraits, and that is simply that he's always been more interested in the surface vision of what his paintings depict, rather than any emotional connotations behind his forms and subject matter. Essentially, he almost seems to be more of a designer than an "artist."

Okay, that's not completely true. I do think that he was following some sort of vision in his work. But again, it was more aesthetic than emotional. He certainly isn't any sort of tortured artist on the level of Munch or Schiele (which isn't to say that to have emotion you need to be sad and depressed, but Hockney, at least in his portraits, isn't sad or happy or confused or, really, anything). That's why I think he's most closely related to the Cubists -- because when I think of Picasso, I don't think of an outpouring of emotion. I think of someone trying to solve "visual problems" (whatever), employing different modes of depiction to try and get around the painter's basic quandary of point of view. It's an admirable thing to try and do, but the idea that strides and developments "need" to be made in art in order to arrive at some imagined perfect mode of depiction (the entire premise on which the modern history of art is taught, and the premise under which many artists operate(d)) is bunk.

And anyway, I don't think Hockney was really trying to solve anything himself, at least not with the same sense of purpose with which the Cubists were. I only make the connection because his work did have so much to do with the surface, and I think it's a misinterpretation -- even if he's made it himself -- to say that his portraits were attempts at getting at the psychological character of his subjects.

This was how LACMA framed the portrait exhibit, and I just have to wonder why because it's such an obvious (and in my mind wrong) interpretation. I mean, over different periods of time, Hockney would decide to apply the same style to every sitter who visited his studio for a portrait, and nearly every face in the entire exhibit (there are a couple of notable exceptions, and the above is a subtle example) has the exact same expression -- not exactly differentiating between psychological states. The most metaphorical Hockney really got with regard to emotional/mental states was when he showed a couple in a living room, one man with his overcoat on as if he was about to leave -- alluding (of course) that he's about to leave the relationship. Hockney himself said "that was all" he intended to show in the painting.

So, really, thinking that there is some more subtle psychological thing going on in these pictures is a mistake. And I almost think I know it for a fact because I know one of the people in his portraits -- Lawrence Weschler, a New Yorker writer who's written extensively about Hockney and whose class I took at NYU. Now the pictures Hockney made of Weschler -- not to mention the fact that Weschler's expression is pretty much the same as the expressions of all the other portraits he's grouped with -- show him as this brooding intellectual type, and I never once thought of him that way. The guy is nice, goofy, enthusiastic and not a little awkward. Very smart, yes -- but is that really what we care about if we're trying to get at the core of someone's essence? Lemme put it this way -- Hockney's portraits told me nothing about Weschler.

It does bring up the question of what the purpose of portraiture is if not to tell us something about the sitter. This is definitely something worth thinking about, and I think there could be some really interesting answers. But I don't actually think Hockney's considered it much, being that he claims that his works are "all about the face." ??? I donno, I sorta feel like one of us is taking crazy pills here...

Since the artist and I differ so widely on what we think the purpose of the painterly project was, all I did (and should) appreciate the paintings for was their overall aesthetic quality and style. And this is really no small thing, considering that Hockney is a master of style and paint and canvas. One of the best things about the exhibit was that it gave a chance to see Hockney's unbelievable versatility. He moved so seamlessly among a borrowing of different genres -- from impressionist to cubist to surrealist -- emulating specific artists yet creating, at least in his most mature works, his own very distinct style at the same time.

And yet the pieces that show off that style best are his landscapes, like the iconic Mulholland Drive, Pearlblossom Hwy. and other landscapey works. Which brings me back to the point I started with.

But regardless, the show is worth seeing, no question, and many of the pieces are fantastic. They would be better served by letting them speak for themselves.

Al Gore 4 Prez

2006-06-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

So the latest is that he's being vague about whether he's gonna run, which is heartening considering that his previous stance had been an unequivocal no.

Though I did vote for him, I can't say I was so pro-Gore in the first W. election. But between then and now he's become this sort of quiet, constant voice that's stayed true to the best of the democratic party's ideals (whatever those are). He's been right on so many things, including the war, and has been shamelessly unafraid of saying what he thinks, which is probably the best concession that comes with hitting rock bottom after losing a presidential race. John Kerry has run his mouth off a bunch in the past few years, but not with the same kind of eloquent steadfastness with which Gore has, and with Kerry it always felt more partisan than idea-based.

Now, having seen An Inconvenient Truth, I'm totally with Gore and I feel he does have the best chance to take back the White House. He did, after all, win the popular vote. In the past few months -- actually, years -- there were times when friends and family said they could feel things changing for the better, and I never believed that was true until recently. It's in the air and there's a chance to turn the tides toward what is right. It's exciting, almost on a Jimmy Carter level. A family friend who I ran into at the polling place today (yeah, we're gonna change things starting with Arnold!) said of Gore, "He finally developed a personality." That and so much more were evident in the film, which is scary, scathing and empowering all at the same time. It's a must-see.

And take a bike or a bus to the theater. If I did it in L.A., you can do it anywhere.

http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/

A LITTLE UPDATE to counter my crazy anonymous commenter. Eve points out an article by our beloved Ezra:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11299

let it be known

2006-05-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

to whoever cares that the gnarls barkley album, st. elsewhere, is pretty impressive. one of those albums that you can spend time with and still discover new things about. many of the tracks are strong and unique, actual songs, which is kind of amazing considering that a DJ is behind it all. yet the DJ aspect is also the album's weakness. in trying to be a songy concept album, it doesn't always succeed, and some of the songs are annoyingly redundant. they wouldn't be if you were listening to them as a beat type thing, but are when you're trying to have that concept album experience. but i'll probably be spending more time with the record. further thoughts likely.

D ^ B ^ G ^ B

2006-05-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

what you see here is david byrne watching the gnarls barkley show at webster hall on monday may 22. yeah, thas right. david byrne. was standing next to the man for the whole show. my friend's brother told him he was his hero and DB gave him a genuine smile. awesome.

i don't know if i can say the same for the band. actually let me preface any analysis by saying that i don't own the album, so i came to the show knowing very little except that my friend zac is in the band (he's the man with the crazy hair at the keyboards next to danger mouse) and they've had the number 1 single ('crazy') in the UK for like the past 12 weeks. and since the band hasn't hit the US with the same force they've hit the UK (yet?), in being unacquainted with the music i probably had a lot in common with a lot of the audience.

i guess my one expectation, having heard the insanely catchy single, was that the show would be energetic and engaging, but it was obvious from the get-go that this wasn't what gnarls barkley was about. as i've heard, the truth is that the album is very dark, with lyrics about depression and suicide and several slow ballads that are nothing like the pop-infused single. looking down on the crowd from the balcony, everyone seemed a bit confused by the sound, and certainly not engaged in the music. obviously, getting acquainted with the album would help with this, but it was still a bit of a surprise.

the big hair band costume theme didn't help with the confusion. apparently there's a concept behind the band, with gnarls barkley being some alter ego character for cee lo, so every gnarls barkley performance is differently themed. (i'm not sure i understand this, but okay.) they did wizard of oz at coachella and started the set off with 'breathe' from dark side of the moon and proceeded to trip the crowd out even more than they already were. so, yeah, the whole thing was a little perplexing. and i'm not sure how much a band based on such a clear gimmick can last as something real. granted, the gimmick probably seems a lot less of one once you know where the band is coming from, but they still have to spend a lot of time coming up with the costumes and money on purchasing them and getting the whole thing together. what, exactly, are they about?

of course, regardless of any pure motivations behind the band (of which i don't doubt there are many), any musical act trying to make it in the world today -- and certainly one with the kind of buzz gnarls barkley has generated -- represents countless hours of market strategizing. at the after party at a club in the meat packing district, this was in full force, with the hot music, hot crowd, free crap and open bar attempting to get the taste makers of new york on board. as far as i was concerned, i was just excited to be getting free drinks, but it's true that they had created the atmosphere they meant to, and now they're going to ride the wave of that buzz and hit the road for a world tour for the next year.

alright, i know i'm a horrible negative pessimist, and i will say that cee lo has the most ridiculous voice. i can't speak to the whole critical appraisal that the band has gotten for being boundary crossing -- they've got the r&b thing, the cool dj, even a string quartet (sonus quartet, one of the members of which went to my high school) -- but i will just say this: combining things that have never been combined before doesn't automatically mean that it will yield something awesome. but i'll let you know later, if and when i decide to shell out the cash for the record.

LLLL . AAAA.

2006-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Some random pathway of information through Wikipedia led me to L.A. and inspired some discoveries and remembrances:

Angelino Heights was the first neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles. Surprisingly few people though, native Angelenos among them, are aware that it even exists. It's really damn unique, perched on a hill between Echo Park and downtown, clustered mainly on Carroll Ave., rows of old Victorian mansions with a ridiculous view over to downtown (very Chinatown feeling). It's not fair that people get to own and/or live in the houses there, particularly the one in this picture. But as long as it's allowed, I might as well be one of them. And one day I will be. Unfortunately I missed the best chance I had when I was hanging out in the neighborhood a few years ago and the house was for sale for $500,000. Goddamn.

There's another awesome little lesser-known L.A. gem that I'll divulge: The Garden of Oz in the Hollywoodland neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills, off of Beachwood Canyon close to the Hollywood sign (take a left on Ledgwood and it's on the right side). My mom actually grew up in Beachwood Canyon, and it's great to drive around the neighborhood and check out the houses (one of the best L.A. activities in general). One day I was doing just that with a friend when we literally noticed something sparkling out of the corner of our eyes. We parked and walked over and there was this -- how do I describe it -- tiled mirrored rainbow fantasy land garden in someone's backyard closed in by a gate with a little mailbox next to it that said "Letters to Oz." As we were trying to peer in someone walked out of the garden. It was a neighbor, who said that the woman who built the garden, Gail, gives people keys if they make a vow to "dedicate their lives to whimsy." If that seems a little steep of a commitment, don't worry, Gail opens the garden to the public on Saturdays from 12 to 3 (as I remember), and she sometimes has jazz. She also sent plans and supplies for a sister Garden of Oz in Hiroshima, and as far as I know it is there.

internet regulation

2006-05-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

i have no idea how realistic of a prospect this is, but it's scary, and i haven't heard much in the way of press coverage.

http://www.handsoff.org/ *

* again, someone points me in the right direction
http://www.savetheinternet.com/

deliverance

2006-05-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

this is a fantastic book. thanks to adam for the loan.

it's interesting to feel such an affinity with a writer as i do with james dickey (except for the dialogue, which is dated and stifled and unrealistic. also i would've made lewis more of an asshole. that would have moved the story along in a different, perhaps more interesting way, and made for what i think would be a more realistic dynamic between the guys). regardless, caint say i've felt such a connection with a writer before, both syntactically and thematically. major concerns for him are the contrast between the microscopic and the huge; the anonymous, lost quality of wild nature and the personal, familiar character of the predictable, civilized world; being in wilderness or being out of the city -- which is it? things i've considered. and then of course, he's elaborating on and illuminating themes that i've considered less: the animalistic nature of man (not woman); male aggression; the degree to which aggression is tamed by civilization; what, at his most essential, makes a man a man; the real and brutal gap in the heart of america between the disenfranchised (wrong word in the context of the book, but i can't think of a better one) poor white population and the educated middle and upper classes. all conveyed in a graceful, simple-yet-at-the-same-time-complex, brilliantly well considered story and prose.

i haven't finished the book, but here's a portion that struck me:

There is always something wrong with people in the country, I thought. In the comparatively few times I had ever been in the rural South I had been struck by the number of missing fingers. Offhand, I had counted around twenty, at least. There had also been several people with some form of crippling or twisting illness, and some blind or one-eyed. No adequate medical treatment, maybe. But there was something else. You'd think that farming was a healthy life, with fresh air and fresh food and plenty of exercise, but I never saw a farmer who didn't have something wrong with him, and most of the time obviously wrong; I never saw one who was physically powerful, either. Certainly there were none like Lewis. The work with the hands must be fanstically dangerous, in all that fresh air and sunshine, I thought: the catching of an arm in a tractor part somewhere off in the middle of a field where nothing happened but the sun blazed back more fiercely down the open mouth of one's screams. And so many snake bites deep in the woods as one stepped over a rotten log, so many domestic animals suddenly turning and crushing one against the splintering side of a barn stall. I wanted none of it, and I didn't want to be around where it happened either. But I was there, and there was no way for me to escape, except by water, from the country of nine-fingered people.

...

2006-05-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

and this is what happens when you decide to party with the violent, confused, totally dysfunctional brother-sister team of ricky and linda from phoenix who you meet on the street at 2 o'clock in the morning. stupid, sad.

?

2006-05-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

other than the obvious shift in ownership, i'm not sure what to make of this

atl.

2006-05-17T05:48:00.000-07:00

i was in atlanta for a few days, and i'll tell you that it's an interesting place.
there's some major stuff there, like CNN, the MLK Jr center and of course, Coca Cola. but it has this villagey feel that major cities don't have and a character of grit and realness that's missing in major metropolitan centers like new york and l.a. there's a polished sheen to the latter two, or maybe a pretense of fashionableness. in atlanta you don't feel that. even in hot clubs and in the richest of neighborhoods, people are just more laidback, casual and unconcerned, the lawns and foliage are a little wild and the houses aren't neat but are set back from the street at random angles and distances.

of course it's all relative, though, and in the poorer (black) neighborhoods it gets really "casual" and "real." i hate to admit it but there's a feeling of urban danger that i don't feel even in the supposedly bad neighborhoods of new york. we stayed in the north (white) part of the city near my sister's house, and when i asked someone on the street for directions to the subway so i could get to the more southern center of town he said "be careful down there. it's like harlem." i've never heard something like that suggested and i've never felt it in new york, much less about a major hub like Times Square. but on the subway and in the center, i was the only white person anywhere around and was ogled and targeted for solicitations in a way i've never been singled out in new york. which leads to the conclusion that despite its admirable civil rights history, in practice atlanta is still more segregated than a lot of (northern?) cities (not that it's some multiracial nirvana over here, but it's better).

it was a sad thing to realize after going to the martin luther king jr center, which is down near the center and also gritty and in need of substantial repairs (but that may just be because it's run by the national park service). but nonetheless it's a very moving experience. i was crying for about two hours straight. normally i'd be a lot more critical of a commemorative place like the king center. granted it's in another country and nuclear bombs might be harder to relate to than everyday racism, but in hiroshima, i was distanced from it and analytical of the way the event was presented and the role it played in the city. but at the king center, the emotions just washed over me and i couldn't be distant, and i let myself go and i'm glad i did. (i expected everyone to feel the same way since the feeling for me was so strong, although i'm not sure why considering that i cry when people i don't know get their PhD's at college graduations. unsurprisingly, i guess, i was alone in my overly emotionalness again.)

this time, though, it made a little more sense than the PhD thing. which is that king was this vessel of the times, and things were being done through him. hearing him speak, it's like a current was running through him. and though he was scared at times, being so relied upon yet being just a man, he let himself be the vehicle of what was the most important work of the era, and it cost him his life. i guess i cried for how amazing he was and for his brilliance and what he accomplished. and, as my uncle pointed out, that someone like him, someone willing to sacrifice completely to a great cause, comes along once in a blue moon and he was taken away too early.

when we left the king center there was a street festival on right nearby called the sweet auburn festival. sweet auburn was the center of black life in atlanta when king was growing up, and one of the most important black urban centers in the country. it still is today, in fact. my brother and sister and i were some of the only non-blacks in the sea of people that were there, and it was an awesome festival, i couldn't understand it.

there's still so much work to be done, but now, in the racism and fears that are ingrained in our minds, it's much more subtle than what king did in eliminating physical segregation and, perhaps, more difficult to eradicate. who knows where to start? not me. but even so, i also felt guilty for not doing more to work towards it. between the king center, reading nickel and dimed, and the commencement speaker at emory (marian wright edelman), who puts pretty much everyone to shame and reminds whites everywhere that we are this color by accident of birth, i'm feeling more useless than ever.

instability

2006-05-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

caution: you may lose brain cells by subjecting yourself to the retardation below.

okay, so the best place to store your data is the internet, right? like way better than the hard drive of your computer or an external hard drive, because the internet is this thing that you can always count on to be there, and not only that but you can access it from anywhere.

but what if the internet were OBLITERATED? can you imagine all of the glorious blogs that would go down the drain? the destruction of wikipedia? horrific.

i don't get technology so i don't know for sure whether it's even possible for the internet to be obliterated, but i sense that the only way would be for the whole world to explode (in which case, of course, no one would care). but we humans don't like the thought of being completely erased from the universe without a trace -- at least i don't -- and since the internet is immaterial, humanity could be preserved in it if the physical world were obliterated. so like if we sent a ginormous server and a satellite and computer out into space, it could be like a time capsule that would stop right when the world exploded (because it would cease at that point to receive data from the people on the ground) and the aliens could find it and know everything about us. and if it turns out that there are no aliens -- though i happen to believe there are -- at least i will be able to rest easy (while alive) knowing that my beloved internet, and by extension my beloved world, will be preserved in some form in perpetuity, or at least until the universe is obliterated.

i've been thinking lately that big companies are sort of similar to the internet, not in that i think they should be preserved forever, but in that we think that by allying ourselves with them (i.e. being employed by them), we have some sort of stability in the world. but they're just as flimsy as the internet. okay, okay, in practical terms the chances of the internet being obliterated or the major company you happen to work for going under are probably pretty slim. but still, in theory, it could happen.

internet art

2006-05-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

i would hope, and expect, that it's just a matter of time before the internet starts to be used as an art medium, rather than just an information and marketing tool.

i feel like this site, though it's mainly a personal journal of sorts, shows what the start of one online artistic avenue might look like -- pushing the limits of a two-dimensional screen and creating an experience that exceeds what we think is possible online. i don't know how this thing is made, and maybe it's actually a really simple language, but to me all programming is pure magic. sort of like images on TV or sound coming out of a radio...

http://polarfront.org/polarfront.html

oprah's minge

2006-05-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you why I think talking assholes and vaginas are funny. All I can tell you is that Oprah's vagina, when it speaks in a gruff Australian accent and calls itself a minge and gets in a fight with Oprah's asshole, Gary, who speaks in a gay Scottish accent, as they plot to end Oprah's career in an effort to get more attention for themselves, is pretty much the funniest shit ever. I don't know how Tivo works but maybe you can use it to find the South Park episode of "A Million Little Fibers." COULD NOT recommend it more.

something good, for a change

2006-05-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

though he introduced me to it, eric thinks i'm too dark to appreciate fun brazilian dance music like Ian Pooley . that's just not true.

Since Then (2000) is a great album, and that has a lot to do with the fact that the tracks are original and original-sounding, as opposed to the purely sampled crap that defines a lot of "original" d.j. music. and that's about all the semi-positive critical appraisal i can muster right now.