Joe Brainard's Pyjamas (The Sequel): February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Warren Ellis

I'm so out of touch.

Rob (see my blogroll) posted a very funny Valentine's Day "card" that I thought he (Rob) did.

But he linked to its creator, Warren Ellis, who is the author of several (award-winning) graphic novels.

He has more than 436,000 followers on Twitter.

And I was like "Who is this guy?"

Here's the card.

If You Google "Santorum"

You will see he has been seriously Google-bombed.

The first citation which comes up is the bogative, scatological definition of Santorum as a concrete noun.

Love it. WTFG, Internet!

For Many Centuries

For many centuries, since at least the Middle Ages and probably before, those men and women with volatile souls, those who have led ignoble lives, indulged their base passions to the point of enervation, have felt a strange sort of relief upon entering into a monastery or abbey. There they at first deny themselves any pleasure (self-abnegation) but often this is not nearly enough. Some seek progress they believe will only come in self-scourging; they begin to believe illumination lies only in physical pain, becoming one with The Lord. They become flagellants, suffer the stigmata to bleed where His nails were driven, lock themselves in iron cages, in silence, in solitude. Well, I adopted a cat. And same difference. I love my kitteh. But I am thinking of renaming him "Stigmata." You think Hitler understood brinkmanship? Well, you haven't met Malkin.

Getting Back Into

I'm getting better at making submissions to mags again.

I shocked myself at how long I spent writing poetry last night/this morning.

A new magazine I discovered really inspired me. So many poetry magazines are open now to the conflation of the textual and the visual.

Why not make maximum use of the medium if you're going to have an online journal, right?

I got submissions off to one mag and another submission together but wanted to sleep and then wake and edit the second submission.

Also I wrote four new poems and found a new direction I like in poetry--mostly because it depends on the virtues of prose. I also wrote a shitload of largely comical haiku. At least, I hope these latter are funny.

I am working on a long prose work that was given to me in a dream.

It disturbs me, though, because it involves rewriting my family history based on a dream's weird speculation.

The creepiest thing is that the story could--extreme improbability--be true.

What bothers me the most is the way the dream fetched up a single memory from so deep in my childhood (real memory) I had buried, and built the whole alternative universe around that.

And it's a single earring.

Every fact in the story of my life rewritten by a single earring.

But. These things. Happen.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Why does the word lexus

Why does the word lexus suddenly look like the word jesus to me?

I guess Jesus did start with an "i" at one point (no J in Latin, for example).

And the lower case "l" can look like an I in some fonts. The one I was just looking at online did resemble that.

And then the "x" reminds me of the "chi," the character which is Jesus's initial in the greek alphabet.

So Lexus Jesus. Looks like a repetition to me. More in lower case: "jesus lexus."

Am I jesuslexic?

Dysjesuslexic?

Lexus should make a model and call it the Jesus Lexus.

I have jesuslexus dyslexia.

I Googled it just now and others have made this connection.

There's a sticker and a t-shirt.

Jesus lexus all his children awkwardly.

Lexus wept.

From now on, when people ask me what I drive, I'm gonna say a "Jesus Lexus" and refuse to explain any further.

Dru

I just realized Dru is in his fifties (cat years) and Malkin is a teenager. No wonder Dru wants to kill him.

When we got Dru he was so tiny. I worried he was too young but they insisted he had been weaned. And he would have ended up dead, since most of Momma's kittens who had followed their stray cat mother into the forests of that mountain had been picked off by predators.

She was a terrible mother. Don't let Dru hear me say that.

I've told Dru a much more romantic story about his mother, since he doesn't remember. He believes she worked in the theater. He hears plaudits in his head when he thinks of his mother, second curtain calls, glamor. If he knew...

Dru's neuroticism (staying on that porch on that house built on the side of a mountain) is what saved him. Plus he had bonded with an older white male cat (blind). It was a surrogate father, not the actual one. What we were told, anyway. It was a stray cat colony, so probability favors that being the truth.

They told us later it's good we took him when we did. The father figure died the week or so after that. I can only pray that wasn't heartbreak.

Lately when I spend time in what is more "Dru's terrain," I notice Dru makes an effort to connect with me. He's always had the bond with Lee. And there were times in his life when he didn't even try with me. Cats know when you're an addict. During my bad phases, he often stayed away. Sometimes he would watch. It's not like I ever did anything cruel or even yelled at him. It think it's just that during those times he sensed I was disturbed. I guess even cats get disgusted.

And now I am forgiven and he's trying to resocialize me, which I think is cute.

He'll come to my lap before Lee's.

But. He's so sensitive with age. He is the original "crotchety old man." If I have an itch on the back of my leg or want to adjust a sock or reach for a blanket, he must jump down and abandon me in disgust.

It's like "You don't get it." The social contract. It means you don' move a fuckin smidgeon when I'm on you.

It's like poking the Queen.

You don't do it. Ever. Even if she's looking particularly cute.

They say cats help your blood pressure.

I'm not sure I believe that's a big point gain in the lower direction.

But I don't buy the twenty minutes a day of exercise or nothing theory either.

Because lately I drop and do push ups (like forty at a time) throughout my day and it's not that long, not nearly twenty minutes of exercise.

And my blood pressure has gone down day by day.

And today it was 125/80, which is very good for me.

So I am a proponent of "micro-cises" and micro-sising."

You won't lose weight that way. But I believe you will lower your blood pressure, help your overall health and build muscle tissue.

So the "all or nothing" school is probably wrong.

Gotye

Lee gave me Gotye's Making Mirrors c.d. the other day.

On first listen, I was definitely disappointed.

It's strange. He's really into throwback music.

I like the music of the early eighties as much as anyone.

But I tend to like contempo musicians to quote it, or satirize it or do a little tribute in the middle of a song to it.

But to live in it seems so strange.

Gotye's album (with a few exceptions) seems to reside there.

Even the seeming parodies (like "State of the Art" above) seem to still sound like parodies written several decades ago.

Doesn't that sound like a slack parody to you? A slack song in general? It would have sounded pretty novel in, say, 1982.

It's not Laurie Anderson. It's not Art of Noise. Even if it came out in 1982 it's not going to touch the musical and lyrical inventiveness of either of those.

This almost sounds like ad work. It would work in the context of a commercial, I think.

Maybe you'll say: whatthehell you want? More dubsteb? More cow bell?

It definitely stands out from the current crop. Like a purple cow.

And if there are any kids who never heard the eighties sounds, they might love this just because of this largely dated quality.

Not every single song sounds dated. But songs like "Eyes Wide Open" (a single) definitely do. I don't think the first single ("Somebody Who I Used to Know) does exactly, but its choice of instrumentation (which I love actually) is very much an early eighties choice.

He's too young to remember these songs the first time around.

Maybe Wally de Becker inherited his parents' record/cd collection and listened only to that.

There are a few gems on here.

Lee wanted to surprise me. And I had made the mistake of talking about Gotye too much.

I've been playing this Gotye album a lot and I don't even have Bjork's new one.

They hate her in England. I thought it was so funny she was up for a Brit award. The audience got virtually dead silent when her name was announced and her clip was shown.

I remember how she could never get a break in the English press even while she was becoming a household name in the rest of the world.

I think the word most commonly applied to Bjork in the British press in those days was "slag." Usually "that Icelandic slag." Which was probably racist used that way. Since sometimes they substituted a not-so-nice adjective for "Icelandic."

I don't think it's only because she was dating Goldie (who was pretty loved) and they had an ugly breakup.

I think Bjork had a lot of hipster qualities before anyone was saying the word hipster.

Maybe more hippie qualities, I don't know.

I can't see British culture embracing that (then or now) without doing it from a very great height, say as a condescending, archly amused article in the Guardian.

In general, British culture feels like a guardian at most times.

American culture feels more like a slut.

With her legs spread wide and giggling.

A slut on helium, talking funny.

That's America.

And I'm proud of that.

I Just Watched Final Destination 5

I feel like I should go have an after dinner blood mint now.

Lee rented it. He said all I had said was "Please rent a comedy."

I suppose it is a black comedy.

But ugh. I'm ashamed to admit I think I've seen every damn one of these gorefests in the five movie series.

The extended auto wreck scene in (number 2, is it?) is the most memorable thing in any of the movies.

But because it's so damn true to what happens in real life in a horrible highway pile-up, it's sort of excruciating to watch.

This one (5) has bridges with people and vehicles on them as they're falling apart, laser eye surgery gone horribly afoul, and jet planes exploding with close-ups of what the victims inside are going through.

The series is definitely a Grand Guignol franchise.

I would have preferred even an Adam Sandler movie to this.

And that's, like, saying a lot.

I wish the worst thing that happened in movies were like the things that happen to Peanuts characters in those specials.

I can deal with Charlie Brown's disappointment with the little red-haired girl.

That's so much better than watching someone's eyeball roll across the street and get run over by a truck (SPOILER ALERT! Oh sorry...did that in the wrong order!)

Monday, February 27, 2012

The amazing Bieco!

038

038, a photo by outhouse man on Flickr.

Le Merveilleux: Films by Leo & Pipo

Leo & Pipo are surely Paris's most wonderful graffitists.

I didn't know they had assembled some of their "street works" into short films.

I. Love. These.

In the following clip you get to see their process. Amazin!

Great subterfuge. Guerilla tactics. It's the middle of the night in Paris. They're probably out right now. Beautifying Paris.

Here's an interview (with the artists masked to avoid prosecution lol).

So sexy.

I love how they understand their work as falling between graffiti and art, and how they realize the vulnerability of the art object to others' participation--in the form of violence or otherwise--and how that adds interesting participation to their art.

The ephemeral is sexy.

P. Camenzind

P. Camenzind, a photo by Pether-M on Flickr.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend used to go by the pseudonym of Camenzind (literary character).

So it's doubly meaningful to me.

B.H. rework2

B.H. rework2, a photo by Pether-M on Flickr.

O

O, a photo by Pether-M on Flickr.

I've Been Pretty Much Blown Away

for the past hour by photographs I was looking at on Flickr.

I posted a lot more on My Flickr Museum (link at left in blogroll).

Alice W. passe le mur du son

Alice W. passe le mur du son, a photo by andrefromont/fernandomort on Flickr.

Paris-Roubaix

Paris-Roubaix, a photo by andrefromont/fernandomort on Flickr.

Rose sous cape

Rose sous cape, a photo by andrefromont/fernandomort on Flickr.

I lose language.

I fall into my childhood.

When I look. At this.

Andre Fromont, when he connects, is everywhere.

STILL from "An Invisible Light"

STILL from "An Invisible Light", a photo by industrialbirds on Flickr.

Elly Nieman.

elly nieman | a Super8 movie STILL

elly nieman | a Super8 movie STILL, a photo by industrialbirds on Flickr.

shot on Kodak negative stocks. see the film here: vimeo.com/10821974

Nothing to See Here

Keep Moving.

Nothing to See Here

Keep Movin

Lucas & Ben

Lucas & Ben, a photo by theonlymagicleftisart on Flickr.

An earlier photo by the same photographer. Love it.

Untitled

Untitled, a photo by theonlymagicleftisart on Flickr.

I love the way this Brandon Long photo recalls those photos of ectoplasm from seances and other "manifestations" of otherworldly beings in the latter 19th century. Just stellar.

At first I thought it was a baby materialized, floating at the treetop.

Which idea I also love.

Palace of the Babies

The disbeliever walked the moonlit place,
Outside of gates of hammered serafin,
Observing the moon-blotches on the walls.

The yellow rocked across the still facades,
Or else sat spinning on the pinnacles,
While he imagined humming sounds and sleep.

The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
And each blank window of the building balked
His loneliness and what was in his mind:

If in a shimmering room the babies came,
Drawn close by dreams of fledgling wing,
It was because night nursed them in its fold.

Night nursed not him in whose dark mind
The clambering wings of birds of black revolved,
Making harsh torment of the solitude.

The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
And in his heart his disbelief lay cold.
His broad-brimmed hat came close upon his eyes.

Untitled

Untitled, a photo by theonlymagicleftisart on Flickr.

Brandon Long.

Untitled

Untitled, a photo by theonlymagicleftisart on Flickr.

Brandon Long.

Untitled

Untitled, a photo by theonlymagicleftisart on Flickr.

Another Brandon Long.

Untitled

Untitled, a photo by theonlymagicleftisart on Flickr.

Been falling in love with Brandon Long's photography. I found him through the always reliable Finding Lost Time photography blog (link at left).

Angelina Jolie's Right Leg

Now has 20,000 Twitter followers, less than twenty-four hours after she exposed it.

Angelina Jolie's right leg (official website) will probably have a higher Alexa rank than many churches soon.

I say Maru should expose her right leg and put Jolie back in her place.

That would show the baby-vampire.

People seemed to have really liked this year's Oscars more.

Last year, the Oscars only generated 900,000 tweets. This year they generated well over 3 million tweets. I think closer to 3.5 million.

I don't think I mentioned last night how blown away I was by the Cirque du Soleil performance.

Superhuman feats and grace at the same time.

It reminded me of a few of my favorite choreographers. It wasn't just circus acrobatics.

Sorry, I could only find this "shot through the air" (pun intended) version of the performance.

Here's another. Everybody seems to have shot it "through the air."

Was recording disabled through most d.v.r.s? I'm thinking it was because of this.

I Know It's Terribly Unhip

I know it's terribly unhip to ever say anything that risks making you sound like a neo-Platonist, but I honestly believe that just as no two sea slugs will ever have an intelligent argument about the works of Oscar Wilde, no two human beings will ever engage in an intelligent argument about the ultimate nature of the universe.

I said ultimate.

And we are not ultimate, despite our profound wishes (and often conviction) that we are "the paragon of animals."

How do we know? Who ever got up above the paragon to look?

Or on whose or what's shoulders did you stand?

Gardasil is a Second Generation Vaccine

There is an elegance to the reduction of risk in this process.

First generation vaccines are whole-organism vaccines – either live and weakened, or killed forms. Live, attenuated vaccines, such as smallpox and polio vaccines, are able to induce killer T-cell (TC or CTL) responses, helper T-cell (TH) responses and antibody immunity. However, there is a small risk that attenuated forms of a pathogen can revert to a dangerous form, and may still be able to cause disease in immunocompromised vaccine recipients (such as those with AIDS). While killed vaccines do not have this risk, they cannot generate specific killer T cell responses, and may not work at all for some diseases. In order to minimise these risks, so-called second generation vaccines were developed. These are subunit vaccines, consisting of defined protein antigens (such as tetanus or diphtheria toxoid) or recombinant protein components (such as the hepatitis B surface antigen). These, too, are able to generate TH and antibody responses, but not killer T cell responses.

DNA vaccines are third generation vaccines, and are made up of a small, circular piece of bacterial DNA (called a plasmid) that has been genetically engineered to produce one or two specific proteins (antigens) from a pathogen. The vaccine DNA is injected into the cells of the body, where the "inner machinery" of the host cells "reads" the DNA and uses it to synthesize the pathogen's proteins. Because these proteins are recognised as foreign, when they are processed by the host cells and displayed on their surface, the immune system is alerted, which then triggers a range of immune responses.These DNA vaccines developed from “failed” gene therapy experiments. The first demonstration of a plasmid-induced immune response was when mice inoculated with a plasmid expressing human growth hormone elicited antibodies instead of altering growth.

(Source: Wiki)

Gardasil / LeRoy Neurological Cases

I just looked up Gardasil to see if it was an attenuated or a killed virus, thinking that it was likely that they didn't "kill down" the virus in the batches of Gardasil administered to the girls.

But according to the Wiki article which quotes the CDC, "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) consider the vaccine to be safe. It does not contain mercury, thiomersal or live virus or dead virus, only virus-like particles, which cannot reproduce in the human body."

But then there's this information, which contradicts the information I linked to earlier about known neurological side effects in some: "The FDA and the CDC say that the vaccine has only minor side effects, such as soreness around the injection area."

I'm still leaning towards the idea of Gardasil vaccine contamination.

Since it's only females affected. With either fracking or other chemical toxicity--or even with mass hysteria--there would have very likely been males affected as well as females.

With PANDAS, those girls would have all had to have had recent strep illness, and the presentation of strep in children is rarely subtle. Oddly enough, I have read of cases in adults where it can be of an insidious variety. So I don't think it's a PANDAS.

It would be interesting to trace the business connection between Merck and CNN to see if it's in CNN's interest to have Dr. Gupta naysaying the possibility of Gardasil causing this when we have no tests or other evidence to discount that possibility.

I think that interview Gupta gave was extremely irreponsible, even if Gardasil isn't ultimately the cause of these troubling medical cases.

But it wouldn't surprise me one bit if we discover those girls ended up with an active HPV viral infection from contaminated vaccine. Because the virus would go through their whole body--it is systemic--and neurological symptoms would just be standard presentation. Viruses go wherever they want in the body, which is usually everywhere.

And now these young women are improving. Probably because their bodies have marshaled their forces and launched their immune defenses.

There might not be complete reporting of symptoms due to the fear of stigma. High school students of a dating age probably don't want other kids knowing how "gross" certain things happening to their bodies might be.

Hopefully their bodies will fight this down and they will all have their health restored.

If they were going to have the extreme reactions like paralysis, we would have probably seen that by now. And by all reports they are improving.

The following I didn't find on Merck's site.

DRUG CLASS AND MECHANISM: Gardasil is a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine synthesized using recombinant technology. Gardasil is a sterile preparation for intramuscular injection and contains purified inactive proteins from HPV 6, 11, 16, and 18. The proteins in Gardasil are structural, virus-like proteins (VLP) that resemble the HPV virus. The proteins can activate the immune system, but cannot replicate. Viral proteins used in Gardasil are manufactured in yeast cells (S. cerevisiae) using recombinant technology. Once released from yeast cells, the VLPs are purified, combined with a catalyst (amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate) and a purification buffer.

I read Merck's site and of course they claim it is impossible to get an active viral infection from Gardasil.

What is worrisome to me is the way Merck plays down the side effects on their website. It is clearly documented elsewhere that one possible side effect of this vaccine is Guillain-Barre syndrome. And Merck does not admit that on their website. In general, they go for non-medical vernacular that allows them ridiculous leeway in underplaying potential side effects.

There really ought to be governmental regulation of this sort of editing of ad copy to distort medical truth.

The Crucible Meets Erin Brockovich?

This story is bizarre.

Is this conversion disorder? PANDAS? Something else?

Mass hysteria?

PANDAS is an acronym for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections.

I haven't heard conversion disorders discussed since the heyday of Freudian analysis.

It is odd that the condition gets worse when the girls are together (the girls admit). That definitely points towards a psychological explanation.

I've seen parts of clips where the girls seem to be imitating tics and not having them.

And then I've seen clips where some of the girls really seem to be experiencing involuntary movements.

Although I suspect a human can fake almost any involuntary reaction like that in a voluntary or even unconsciously voluntary (in the Freudian sense) manner.

Conversion disorders do occur, but they're extreme cases, and they usually present in the form of a deeply troubled individual.

As "mass hysteria" they're much rarer.

But it could be one or two of the girls had PANDAS and began getting attention and some of the other girls copied them in the desire for attention.

I'm not trying to cast aspersions. It's just a possibility.

Is fracking responsible for this mystery illness? Comment chain with some awful punning.

Is there any science behind the "Gardasil theory" or is this an internet urban legend? NOTE: Yeah, I noted the homophobia in the epithet "Anderson Pooper" in this clip, but I'm still posting this because of the interesting speculation contained within. Be prepared for the conspiracy theorist mentality. The strongest point they make for the Gardasil theory versus the fracking, PANDAS or mass hysteria arguments is the fact that seemingly no boys are affected.

So why didn't the above radio guys just read the science behind the Gardasil side effects on air. It's no mystery. It can indeed cause these things. The question of the concentration or larger numbers of afflicted might have something to do with that particular batch of vaccine (possibly even a contamination issue).

For some reason, I could NOT post this article link as HTML. It kept deleting stuff around it: so you'll have to cut and paste if you want to see this: www.livestrong.com/article/165213-neurological-side-effects-of-gardasil/

agency

"agency in the universe"

Page 10 of about 10,100,000 results (0.30 seconds)

That's a Googlelusion.

There aren't really that many citations.

Good friend of Wallace Stevens, George Santayana, came up: "That matter is capable of eliciting feeling and thought follows necessarily from the principle that matter is the only substance, power, or agency in the universe..."

I don't think anyone would argue with that but does it really say anything.

I mean it's tautological.

This Santayana quote is more stylin'...

"Empiricism would be agony if any one was so silly as really to forget his material status and to become the sport of his passing ideas."

Soliloquies '22 at 157 ("Masks").

Santayana is good at saying what I was trying to say below.

I was trying to say that the scientific model and empiricism still have a spookiness to them because of their basic premise.

Santayana catches that rat right here.

And he's funny. He's considered to have written the first well-reasoned defense of pragmatism although he was not a pure pragmatist but rather a metaphysical naturalist. I should look at the correspondence with Stevens. I bet these two had fun with each other.

Was Stevens a Platonist? I can think of many Stevens poems that embody Platonist ideas. But then I can think of many Stevens poems that embody empiricist ideas. Stevens didn't really need to choose or be consistent, since he was a poet. I say that tongue-in-cheek, but of course it's true.

Empiricism

"In an empirical system causation is reduced to superstition, skipping from fact to observed fact without attempting to penetrate any of them substantially. It attributes to a juxtaposition of appearances a mysterious power to reproduce itself. Unfortunately in immediate experience there are, strictly speaking, no repetitions. The word and occurs often; but never, for actual feeling, in exactly the same context, or with exactly the same emphasis or colour. Empirical philosophy, if sincere, ought to become mystical and to deny that the flux of events has any articulation or method in it."

Realms '72 at 87 ("The Realm of Essence: Implication").

But Santayana is being flippant and being contrary here. Since he actually subscribes to metaphysical naturalism. So he's just chiding the wildest extremes of empiricist thought. It sounds as though he's mocking Hume here for his famous "dismantling" of causality.

Santayana was all about the sciences.

"Metaphysical naturalism regards nature as all that exists or can exist, and assumes that events in nature are explainable by empirically observable causes. However, various abstractions, such as numbers, are considered to be immaterial for practical purposes."

So no defense of mathematical Platonism or any other kind of abstractions independent of consciousness.

And seemingly no problem with the way consciousness meshes with nature.

I still have a problem with it. Because neither empiricism as a monism or as a dualism work for me. Sometimes empiricism describes itself as pluralistic (the universe is composed of all these different entities) but ultimately because of the empiricist treatment of consciousness, it's presumed human consciousness is the arbiter of everything. So empiricism still looks like an old-fashioned monism to me. Even with its quantum mechanics.

It's so funny that the sciences that empiricism trusts completely show it that consciousness is an animal continuum, and that "lower" animals cannot even grasp abstractions and so we feel they don't even exist in the "real universe."

And yet why would we assume that our present state of consciousness is somehow perfect--or even a million miles short of perfect?

It's not that I'm believing something without evidence. To me it's logic and science and empirical discoveries (not superstition) which make me believe that the human faculties are just one version consciousness can take, and that probably we are sealed off from divining the "true" nature of the universe.

Because truth is probably just epistemological relativism.

I believe an organism realizes the kind of reality of which its senses are capable and no more.

Different senses, different brain. Different universe.

I Was Googling "Is there agency in the universe?"

And the first article that came up was an incredibly brief one from Scientific American.

It makes perfect sense that a scientist using the Darwinian model would reduce the problem to this...

"The problem is that we did not evolve a baloney-detection device in our brains to discriminate between true and false patterns. So we make two types of errors: a type I error, or false positive, is believing a pattern is real when it is not; a type II error, or false negative, is not believing a pattern is real when it is. If you believe that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is just the wind (a type I error), you are more likely to survive than if you believe that the rustle in the grass is just the wind when it is a dangerous predator (a type II error). Because the cost of making a type I error is less than the cost of making a type II error and because there is no time for careful deliberation between patternicities in the split-second world of predator-prey interactions, natural selection would have favored those animals most likely to assume that all patterns are real."

The article is by Michael Shermer and is here.

It sames strange to even call it an article it's so brief, but I guess an article can be briefer than an essay, and it feels sillier calling this an essay. But if I remember correctly, I think some of Montaigne's essays were about this brief. Okay. You're saying "whatev" by now.

I thought this line was very funny: "Adults typically refuse to wear a mass murderer’s sweater, believing that “evil” is a supernatural force that imparts its negative agency to the wearer (and, alternatively, that donning Mr. Rogers’s cardigan will make you a better person)."

And I love his closing line, the idea that we are "natural-born supernaturalists."

I also like his neologism "agenticity."

He doesn't really make a claim for inventing the word. I didn't even feel like backpedaling in the language to look for an earlier use or date of origin.

I'm thinking that word might have popped up before this. But I can see the usefulness of the word to Shermer's argument for the way it rubricizes and unites the diverse types of behavior he's describing.

His "patternicity" I find more awkward and factitious-sounding. As a word I mean, not necessarily as a concept.

The author of this article really didn't nail down everything I was intending by my Googled question.

I don't think I'm asking it in a mystic sense.

Agenticity for me could be used more in the Kantian sense. I mean the sense of Kantian categories.

Maybe I'm really being disingenuous with my question, since I'm not really sure if I'm just asking about the a priori.

I mean I can see a thinker believing mathematics itself is a form of agency in the universe.

Isn't that the funny origin of the religion Pythagoras mixed into his mathematics?

I suppose the Kaballah also goes in that direction, and there it's spiritualism too.

Most mathematicians would probably say "There's no agency there" or simply admit the question is outside of their bailiwick.

I'm talking about the a priori and how it meshes with mathematics--whether you believe mathematics originates or only explains.

Whether it's a source or a figment overlaid.

Metaphysical naturalists like Santayana subscribe to the principle of supervenience when it comes to abstractions like these.

They evidently don't see or feel a mystery there

"Can an abstraction have an independent existence?" What does that mean? I don't know. Reformulate: "Can an abstraction have an existence independent from consciousness." Is that too an agenticity error, apres Shermer? (Maybe I am just drawn to mathematical Platonism.)

Is the universe itself a form of consciousness? Then you're into Buddhism suddenly. With that question. Hinduism too a bit.

The weird thing for me is the feeling of a symmetry between consciousness and the rest of the universe. I know most scientists would say right there, "Why are you wasting my time creating a (false) duality. We don't need Cartesianism back."

The idea that consciousness contains something is itself a big leap or stretch I suppose.

And yet this is a sort of human ur-perception. The idea that the universe is inside our head. We create a topology already as soon as we speak in those terms. And then our consciousness exists in the sense of space this topology posits.

Do you see the relationship of consciousness to the world as 1) consciousness immured, sealed off, a Wittgensteinian "fly-bottle" 2) consciousness open at one end like the fly-bottle uncorked 3) consciousness like a Mobius strip or a Klein bottle or an infinite figure eight 4) consciousness as fly-paper 5) consciousness as synonymous with the universe, just the way the universe exists 6 some other thing?

You can still drown in a Klein bottle. If it's filled with water.

The Klein bottle is so ATM, so ass-to-mouth.

But here's the weird thing for me: either consciousness reflects the universe (and that seems like philosophical duality to me) or consciousness is one with the universe. In the latter case, I'm drawn to the conclusion that the universe itself is consciousness. They are synonymous. And I guess that's what most scientists believe, whether they articulate it that way or not.

Empiricism is a monism.

All of science is based on the idea of reproducibility, predictability.

I don't think consciousness is all that predictable and I'm not sure I believe it is ever reproducible.

This still seems to lead to a fundamental paradox for me. Because if the universe and consciousness are synonymous (and you invoke dualism if you don't believe that) why doesn't consciousness behave as predictably as other matter does? Or under the quantum mechanical models of today, do we attribute consciousness's erratic nature to the unpredictable nature of subatomic particles?

Is Taoism the religion most in agreement with physics? "As above, so below."

Is consciousness an anomaly in the universe? Or is consciousness a universal anomaly? If it's a universal anomaly how is it an anomaly--I guess that's an oxymoron.

Our sense of identity is predicated on the idea that consciousness is predictable and reproducible. Of course, philosophy has been hacking away at that "person" since at least Hume and company and probably long before.

The good news is a person can never die, because that person never existed.

The person was just a diverse series of empirical data flashing across the (surface? interiority?) of the universe like a television screen on the fritz.

So feel consoled.

(...)

Someone is telling the story. Someone must be telling the story. Because there are words floating through things, over them, all around them. Words transparent, translucent, opaque. Or the things themselves are just words floating. Someone or something is speaking. Just this thought by itself is huge faith. But the man twisted in the wheelchair doesn't believe that. What is this I shove down my gullet as sustenance, soil through an earthworm? The metaphor is not exact. I only open my mouth and the sound resonates from the open orifice of the upper half of my corpus. Corpus to corpse. To accomplish the change all that is required is elision. One syllable slips out. Corpus collapses to corpse. Yet, I don't feel I radiate language as much as I consume it, even when I am speaking. I feel as though the sound vibrating in my thoracic cavity is burrowing back into me when I speak. It's not flowing out, the lines in an illustration of a megaphone. Why this strange reversal of sound? But someone or something is speaking. Even if sound is reversed. A sense of agency or urgency? That words like agency and urgency exist? Language is an agency filled with agencies. Agents infiltrate foreign agencies. I see foreign agents everywhere. Language only ever knows anything because it is paranoid. Some fear heightens the threshold of recognition and evolution occurs. Language is afraid of the human animal. If you sniff it very close, put your face over the face of a stranger, you can smell it. Don't look into the stranger's eyes. Look into the stranger's mouth.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

If

If Doestoevsky wrote
children's books,
he would have written
the story of Dog Dogovich,
who discovers a bone
in a snowy field,
and isn't sure
whether the bone
is a gift given to him
by God, or whether
this is actually
one of God's bones,
meaning God is dead.

Lamentation barking
would occur,
with the barks
reproduced
in Cyrillic letters
that would go on and on
until the author died
and Dog Dogovich
was left alone,
wondering what to do
with Doestoevsky's afterlife.

Cloud Services

CLOUD SERVICES

I just saw an ad
for something
called Cloud Services.
I'm probably way off
on imagining what
service they perform.
I was sure it had
something to do
with poetry
or philosophy,
or making some
other sort of rain,
but this is unlikely
since it's offered
by Hewlett-Packard.
But I'm pretty sure
from now on
when people ask,
I'm gonna tell them
I'm in "Cloud Services."

Craig Conley Vs. Google

Man Vs. Search Engine.

Don't know how I missed that one before.

I read this as Pygmalion and Galatea.*

Except Galatea is being difficult.

To move on to giving birth to Paphos (boy) and Metharme (girl) Craig will obviously need to be exceedingly patient or find what charms Galatea. (What does one give the girl who has the top Alexa rank in the world?)

Since the name Galatea is just an 18th century improvisation (based on the Greek word for "milk-white"). I suggest we rename the difficult intended search engine for the 21st century.

Perhaps a conflation of the two? Gooletea?

No, that looks like a beverage.

Galagoogle?

That sounds like a Google party being held in some European country (with the inversion of word order).

Since some speculate that the Antikythera mechanism was actually installed in the original woman known as Galatea, and was responsible for her "intelligence" (if Aphrodite rendered her marble into soft flesh, we need an explanation for her intelligence? why exactly?) maybe a conflation of those two, a portmanteau in that direction?

Antikytheggle?

Googlethera?

Probably we should just ask Google herself.

*I don't mean to asperse Conley with heterosexuality, or any -ality, really.

I flipped a coin to determine Google's sex and she came up female.

Although admittedly if I had gone with Google as male, the metaphor (or meataphor) of giving birth to children might have encountered a stumbling block. (I suppose there are always dei ex machina or adoption.)

12:34 A.M.

Sometimes life
makes sense a moment.
I pass the digital clock
and it's 12:34.
Things line up.
I feel a weird
paranormal rush.
This is the place!
This is where
poetry and philosophy
make their elegant mistakes.
I linger a moment,
do something stupid.

I look again,
it's 12:35.

Where did the 4 go?

Probably murdered.
Or lockdown. Stitches in the e.r.
Or worse: off cheating
on either 3 or 5,
whichever it's closer to.
I've heard both stories
from 4 (with many tears)
and, frankly, I no longer believe
a single thing comes out
of the shitbag's mouth.

I'm So Glad The Artist Won Best Picture

Because I got to see French men kiss once again.

Every time it happened they were smacking gobs.

A particularly hot one between the director and his male lead when the "Best Director" award was given.

Thank God for cultural differences.

The director sort of looks like what I imagine James Franco will look like in a decade plus, if he ages well.

Meryl Streep's speech was hilarious and classy as hell. America finally has a legitimate Grande Dame.

And so damn funny! She hasn't been doing comedy for nothing for the past few decades. Because her "C'mon!" just made me lose it. "Oh...not her!" She worked her comedic chops, before transfixing the entire audience with her heavy artillery, her emotions.

She's so funnily self-aware.

Isn't it bizarre that the French filmed that movie entirely in Los Angeles, and that's the only one of the nine films nominated that was filmed there.

Talk about funny irony.

I think Billy Crystal got better and better as the night wore on.

He started out stiff and with weird timing, but later got hilarious.

My favorite quip was after one of those reels of actors talking about the sanctity of their feelings towards acting and the movies, in which it was clear they were speaking from inside their Church.

And when they cut from that to Billy standing there, he deadpanned, "I never felt any of those things."

It was just the perfect line with the perfect delivery.

It was about religion and science and monkey and man.

It was damn funny.

My ONE BIG COMPLAINT: Does nobody in Hollywood HAVE EARS?

That microphone was wonky from about an hour in.

And they never even corrected it.

The metallic sounds got a bit quieter but they never went away altogether. Never.

It's amazing that billions of people are watching and they can't get the sound right.

But I'd complain in Heaven.

I Loved Watching Jean DuJardin

accept his Oscar. I love his explosion of joy at the end.

Even though I didn't see most of these movies, I get the strong sense all the right people are winning tonight.

I loved watching the director accept too.

The clips are wonderful.

The score sounded great.

I love it that the composer (who also won) has no formal training.

I'm glad they're rewarding the movie which clearly took the most chances.

It's just a shame Gary Oldman had to be nominated this year, against him.

I agree with Natalie Portman's statement that "it's crazy this is your first Oscar nomination" (spoken to Gary Oldman).

He should have been nominated for Prick Up Your Ears for one.

Maru Does Not

Maru does not return Angelina Jolie's phone calls.

A Cat In Paris

It didn't win but it was nominated.

The animation looks sorta weird.

Sorta primitive.

But hey, the cat is a hero and kicks ass.

So I'd watch it.

Oscars 2012 Was Worth It

Watching the Oscars was worth it if even if nothing else great happens tonight.

Watching Olivia Spencer have to almost be carried to the stage because she was faint with disbelief, and hearing her real gratitude and surprise at the recognition of her talent, already made it worth tuning in.

Billy Crystal's okay so far, but his timing seems weirdly off on his jokes.

Maybe he's rusty.

Best Picture Winner Oscars 2012

is the term used for the movie that wins Best Picture in the year 2012.

You're welcome.

100% Guaranteed Oscar Predictions

Oscars will be won.

I can assure you of that.

Maru's Alexa Rank!

I forgot to mention something I learned yesterday. Maru's website's Alexa rank is #43!!

That's out of over 300 million websites, everything in the world.

I knew he was popular but I didn't know he was THAT popular. That means Maru is probably more famous than most human celebrities. By far.

His site is ranked #3 in all of Japan.

WTG Maru!!

If you don't know who Maru is, look over at the infinitely jumping cat near my counter.

That's a Maru .gif.

You can find Maru's adorable photos and videos on YouTube or by Googling the website.

Too lazy to hunt for the link now but I'll add it later today to my blogroll.

His website has over 200,000 sites already linking in.

And he's basically a pretty depressed and low-key cat lol.

I think that's why it's fun to see him get interested in things--like boxes usually.

Because it's clearly a stretch.

He's generally more like Sartre.

I think it was a brilliant move by his owner (shy I think) to keep herself out of the videos and photos).

This way it's 100% cat mystery.

I bet he doesn't return Angelina Jolie's phone calls.

Bukowski

Toot Sweet!

I'm loling.

I just saw an ad for TOMBSTONES on this fucking blog!!

Tombstones!

Because I blogged some famous epitaphs last night.

I noticed the same thing happened when I blogged about that cute site with the IKEAesque stuff.

Their ad popped up on my blog five minutes later.

So this stuff is definitely target-marketed.

Just like when you do a blog post and then on the next (finishing) screen you see a "tie-in" ad to what you just typed--often horrifying if you were joking about some tragic or off-color topic.

It's like having a horrible misunderstanding with a train porter who only speaks German when you only speak English.

You just want to get on and off the fucking train and here's this weird hassle.

That's Google's "suggested" ads.

she's a good girl (if I could be reincarnated...)

MEG

Sixteen.
Taken.
Country Girl.
Happiness.
Believer.
Laughter.
Smiles.
Kisses.
Hugs.
Elephants.
Fall.
Bonfires.
Summer Nights.
Big Trucks. Cows.
Camo. Green.
Shooting Stars.
Love.
Food.
Bruins.
Lacrosse.
Friends.
Life.
Imperfection.
Family.
<3.

For No Particular Reason

For no particular reason, the Black Sea.

On a "grim day" of downright nasty waves.

Is this where Ovid was exiled? Yeesh!

Why do I feel the ocean is imitating Whistler here?

The ocean is ripping Whistler off.

The ocean is derivative.

Heh

I just went Google image searching for the Krazy Glue guy (1970s) hanging by his work helmet, which is ostensibly Krazy Glued to some girder at some ridiculous height. And like the fourth image that came up was one of my captions from LOLcats using "Krazy Glue."

Heh.

And I wasn't even in my "personalized" Google.

Oh Gawd, I Hate It When That Happens!

I just glanced up at the clock on my computer and it's 3:15 a.m.

That's always such an Amityville Horror moment to me.

I feel myself suddenly starting up like James Brolin, was it, from an imaginary bed.

Time to make the donuts. And get the axe.

Wouldn't it have been really deliciously weird if they had cast Josh Brolin in the role his father played in the remake of that movie?

So it would feel like a family of actors was trapped forever in a series of sequels of a bad ("good bad") movie.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

John Coulthart's

site is now required reading for me.

For example, he quotes from the musician's notes from Die Roboter Rubato* (1997) by Terre Thaemlitz: "Kraftwerk’s most vibrant celebration of this Homoeroticization is in the composition Tour de France. The sonic manifestation of the group’s well known adoration for cycling bears an undeniable resemblance to the sound of two men fucking one another – the rhythmic breaths of the top intermingling with the panting moans of the bottom.

"Immediate questions come to mind: for all of the obviousness of homoerotic thematics in the world of the Mensch Machines, how do such thematics remain undiscussed by popular media? Is the dominant silence around homoerotic themes an act of social suppression or social obliviousness?"

Wow! What an interpretation of Kraftwerk. I'm seriously loling. I love it when critics stretch that hard. It becomes an artwork in its own right at that point. This is all very Huysman. The immersion of oneself into an idealized work of art that can never exist, but (sorta) does because you have forced it into existence. Making the work of art work such an idol that it can be everything one needs at once. It's tragic and beautiful psychological dependency.

"For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is."

Love this ambient redo of Gary Numan.

The caliber of writing on {feuilleton}, and its catholicity of subject matter, are notable. Within the past two days, Coulthart also posted his thoughts on the sculpture dressers Elmgreen and Dragset. Well, anyway, that's what the artists are humorously doing right now. Love the blue-striped tube socks on Hermes! Delicious. Hermes has always been one of my favorite gods--probably because he's usually more unambiguously gay than most of the other Greek gods. He's clearly an otter. He surely advertised his "swimmer's build" in his M4M ads on Olympus. I've always loved the Mercury dime too. Great design. One of my all-time favorite American coins. Oh, and for any Ab Fab fans, Joanna Lumley also features in this post!

In case you don't go to the linked article, I have to include this on one of Elmgreen and Dragset's previous provocations: "As a duo, the artists - who will exhibit at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in autumn 2013 - are known for works including Prada Marfa, a full-scale replica of a Prada boutique in the middle of the Texan desert."

That was surely inspired by a love of the lonely land in James Dean's pre-death stop, the Giant set, where there was no there there before the movie set up its fake facade of a Hopper-esque house, and I'm presuming no there there again since they packed up and left.

Talk about Baghdad Cafe!

I think that's an awesome gesture.

My only critique is if they were going for just irony, I could think of better places they could have set up a Prada Store--like Golgotha, Auschwitz, or Ground Zero.

But E&D might have encountered a little more resistance to putting up a Prada in those places than in Marfa.

I like thinking of bags with Prada Golgotha on them.

Instead of Prada Milano.

A knockoff Prada (paper!) bag goes for eight bucks online. I know because I just checked and laughed. It's a funny world.

Also, I found this site through [feuilleton}. Be sure to use the "Random" button to have a different sixpack of design pop up on your screen each time. S'nice.

Oh, I should have linked here so you know more about Coulthart.

Here's "recent work." This looks too good to be true? This can't be an actual product, can it? I'm assuming it's a funny conceptualist gesture? Pretending a product from the 1880s, say, the Golden Age of Panaceas and Hyperbolic Advertising, was suddenly transported by time machine to 2012?

*These are notes from an album "(on) which the musician/artist/theorist plays rubato piano variations on the well-known (Kraftwerk) songs."

Some Epitaphs I Liked

Paul Erdős

"I've finally stopped getting dumber."

Stan Laurel

"If anyone at my funeral has a long face, I'll never speak to him again."

Susan B. Anthony

"Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality"

Ludwig Boltzmann - 1844-1906

"S = k log W"

The formula for entropy of a system. Boltzmann committed suicide after failing to convince contemporary scientists of the validity of the formula. Grave in the Zentralfriedhof, Vienna.

Charles Bukowski

"Don't Try"

Walter Chiari

"O friends, don't cry - it's just unused sleep."

Rodney Dangerfield - 1921 - 2004

"There goes the neighborhood."

Emily Dickinson

"Called back"

Diophantus couldn't resist giving us all math homework...

"This tomb holds Diophantus. Ah, what a marvel! And the tomb tells scientifically the measure of his life. God vouchsafed that he should be a boy for the sixth part of his life; when a twelfth was added, his cheeks acquired a beard; He kindled for him the light of marriage after a seventh, and in the fifth year after his marriage He granted him a son. Alas! late-begotten and miserable child, when he had reached the measure of half his father's life, the chill grave took him. After consoling his grief by this science of numbers for four years, he reached the end of his life."

Robert Frost

"I had a lover's quarrel with the world"

John Gay 1635 - 1732

"Life's a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, and now I know it."

The following is way too good to be true...

Werner Heisenberg

"He lies here, somewhere."

This is a joke about the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which implies that one may not know the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously.

Jack Horkheimer:Star Gazer, presenter of the popular astrononomy program Star Gazer

"Keep Looking Up was my life's admonition. I can do little else in my present position."

I loved the Bowles novel quoted here. I wonder if this is apocryphal, like so many I'm posting probably are?

Brandon Lee (by Paul Bowles) 1965 - 1993

"Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you cannot conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless..."

From the 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, quoted by Lee in an interview shortly before his death.

Vivien Leigh...typical bipolar sex addict to the last drop...

Vivien Leigh

Now boast thee, death,
in thy possesion lies
A lass unparallel'd

--from Antony and Cleopatra

The next one really gets me. Talk about succinct. Talk about stiletto. Brevity is the soul of wit, right? Well--of tragedy too.

Primo Levi

174517

It was his number in Auschwitz.

Leonard Matlovich - 1943 - 1988

"When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

Oakwood Cemetery in that city.

Penn and Teller

"Is this your card?" and a graphic of a card of the 3 of clubs.
From the Book "Penn and Teller's How to play in traffic" ISBN 1572972939 - Penn and Teller bought a cenotaph (an epitaph without a grave beneath it) and placed it in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood. They invite people touring there to use it to surprise their friends as a punchline for a card trick.

J.R.R. Tolkien:

"Beren"

Beren was a famous human hero during the
First Age of Tolkien's fictional world
Middle-earth. Beren's love was the immortal
Elven maid Lúthien who chose the fate of
mortality to be able to follow Beren after
he died. The name "Lúthien" is inscribed
underneath the name Edith Tolkien on the
pair's headstone.

The following sounds like a suspicious crib from that Nietzsche quote and wasn't Vonnegut an atheist?

Kurt Vonnegut 1922 - 2007

"THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC"

Billy Wilder (himself and Joe E. Brown)

"I'm a writer, but then
nobody's perfect.

"Nobody's perfect" is the final line of the movie "Some Like It Hot."

Christopher Wren (by his son)

"Lector, si monumentum requiris circumspice."

Translation: "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around."
Wren is buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London, which he designed.

And yes, of course Vonnegut was an atheist. I don't know why I bothered even checking that just now. I've probably read like eight of his novels and the one thing they all have in common is the rationalist atheist's belief that the universe is meaningless apart from human constructions.

He basically kept writing Voltaire's Candide over and over again. But, you know, I enjoyed it every time. I love Candide too. Probably one of the shortest great books out there.

These aren't epitaphs but two funny Vonnegut quotes. One could find thousands of funny Vonnegut quotes, since there are usually hundreds in each of his novels.

Kurt Vonnegut:

If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have nerve enough to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.

and

If there is a god, he sure hates people. That’s all I can say.

(source: Wiki. I didn't make an attempt to verify which epitaphs were "suggested" and which were actually implemented. Or even if they are falsely attributed. So cum grano salis.)

Bernoulli's Epitaph

Jakob Bernoulli - 1654-1705

"Eadem mutata resurgo"

Translation: "Though changed I shall arise the same"

Referring to the accompanying inscription of a logarithmic spiral, which remains the same after mathematical transformations. He considered it a symbol of resurrection. CLARIFICATION: Bernoulli called the logarithmic spiral Spira mirabilis, "the marvelous spiral", and wanted one engraved on his headstone. Unfortunately, an Archimedean spiral was placed there instead.

:-(

We have a Bernoulli blower you can play with in our local museum.

That's the brainchild of Daniel Bernoulli, the nephew of Jakob.

Daniel Bernoulli, an 18th century Dutch-born mathematician, discovered that fluids accelerated created a low pressure zone when forced past an obstruction. He formulated this in his work Hydrodynamica which considered the basic properties of fluid flow, pressure, density and velocity, and gave their fundamental relationship. It is now known as Bernoulli´s principle. His theory goes a long way towards explaining why airplanes can fly.

This has been one of the most popular exhibits in the history of science centres, and it shows how the interaction of the low pressure zones on all sides of the ball cause it to remain trapped in the airstream.

I was actually looking for Bukowski's asshole epitaph (which is funny).

But fell in love with the above.

Here's what Jakob Bernoulli really wanted on his tombstone--the logarithmic spiral.

I used to have an image of this Tooker painting on the wall right next to my head in my childhood bedroom.

So I understand Bernoulli's attraction completely.

Most of my favorite Cocteau Twins songs have this shape too.

Samsung Galaxy Note

I was watching a d.v.r.'ed episode of Top Chef and saw the commercial for the Samsung gallery note with a rather new agey instrumental piece. And I knew the entire simple ambient song intimately in my head but could not for hell or Tabasco remember who the artist was!!

I tried Googling it and could not come up with it.

Finally (after about 15 minutes!) I realized it was Air.

It's the song with "Tokyo" in the title.

No, Kyoto. Well, almost Tokyo. It's an anagram.

"Alone in Kyoto!" That's it!

Real acoustic guitar balanced against very dated early eighties new age sounds.

Victory at last!!

Malkin is a Cheezburger Star!

I uploaded a picture of Malkin I took the other night and (I shit you not) five minutes after I uploaded it to the Cheezburger site, it was selected for captioning in the CATS section.

I hope he makes it to the front page!

God, I hope nobody calls him fat in a caption.

He will keel meh!

Friday, February 24, 2012

What I'm Drinking Right Now

I found a three pack of this lingonberry juice from IKEA hiding in the back of the one crisper.

They're little juice boxes that come with the "fatal straw," which you use to stab them to death.

Imagine if people were born with instruments attached to them meant to kill them. Well, some are. They're called hands.

I'm sure it's over a year old so I may have an epileptic seizure but it still tastes really good.

OMFG the date says 2009 on it. I just thought to look for a date now.

Here are some pics of the three-pack. It says it's 1.99 now on the website but they don't sell it on the website. You have to buy it in the little cafe at the end of the store that always smells like cinnamon buns. Hell, the whole of the first floor smells like sticky buns. But you know that.

Mine does not say "ekologisk" on it. Maybe that's the version AFTER 2009.

Here's the catalogue pitch:

Lingonberries grow wild in the forests of Sweden. Serve chilled as a thirst quencher, or with a meal. The product is organic.

I don't know who the girl in the photo is. Just someone from Flickr enjoying Dryck Lingon, which I think is Swedish for "dragon cunnilingus."

It tastes rather like cranberry juice, really. Except a wee bit better.

It fills me with Swedishness.

This is Brilliant: The Cocktail Party (2006)

Here, in its entirety, is the brilliant The Cocktail Party, written by Bizarro novelist/short fiction/everything else D. Harland Wilson.

I laughed almost straight through.

This is one of the best parables about human aggression, and particularly "linguistic aggression," I have seen.

Language itself is hostile. The colonizer is the colonized.

Is there a name for that style of animation? I mean that sketch-in-progress, scratchy type animation. I remember seeing it first in the A-Ha video "Take on Me" (one of MTV's earliest runaway smash videos and one everyone seems to remember).

He co-wrote this with the film's director, Brandon Duncan.

Factoid: D. Harlan Wilson is a direct descendant of James Fenimore Cooper.

YouTube notes:

Award winning animated short based on the short story of the same name by D. Harlan Wilson.

Awards:
Best of Show - Fear No Film Festival 2007
Best Student Film - Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee 2007
Platinum CGI/Mixed Media Animation - WorldFest Houston 2007
Best Animation - AceFest 2007

Festival Selections & Showings:
SheVaCon 15
ICFA 28
FantasyCon 2007
Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee 2007
WorldFest Houston 2007
Fear No Film Festival 2007
ACE Film Festival 2007
Comic-Con San Diego 2007

My Favorite Book Covers/Titles from the Eraserhood Press Catalogue

I was just tripping out and enjoying the amazing cover art of the books in the Eraserhead Press catalogue.

I love these!

If any of these authors cares to send me one of these books (I already own and enjoyed Prunty's!) I will read it and possibly review it.

I mean if you're game, I'm up to read any of these. If not, that's cool too. Meager mazumah forbids me buying them right now. Or I would.

Because I really, really enjoyed the surface of your book.

Did that sound superficial?

So the way I look at it, I'm already ahead.

New Poetry/Fiction Mag

New poetry/flash fiction mag with a lot of great stuff.

I liked Beach Sloth's poem a lot and that's where I encountered the poet I was just discussing a few minutes ago. I haven't read the whole issue yet but a lot of really great poems, short fiction, unclassifiables.

I'll add it to my blogroll at left.

The cover is squizzy good.

Rednecks Love Asian Silver Carp

Imported Chinese species which have taken over American waterways starting in the 1970s and appear to be heading towards an unstoppable takeover of the Great Lakes. Rednecks love killing them and they are encouraged to do so by Da Gubberment, who says never to put them back in the water. Serious.

This is from the Nat Geo documentary I was just watching.

Wun-der-ful.

They picked the right part of the documentary to excerpt!

Some silver carp smacked some redneck Momma's babies (see video) in the face and that was the start of the blood grudge.

Love it.

Brit Awards 2012

Embedding not allowed, soz!

A quick highlights reel. Big surprise, it's mostly Adele taking the stage to accept awards. But also Ed Sheeran quite a bit.

I'm still watching the d.v.r'ed Brit Awards, slowly, by bits and pieces.

I'm really impressed by the fashions, men and women's, but particularly men's.

I think they make most of our Grammy attendees look like rich slackers by comparison.

Amazing how many of these artists I don't know, often because they haven't crossed The Drink, but sometimes just because I don't keep up on pop.

For example, I had no idea One Direction was currently at #9 on the Ipod albums chart here in America.

Lee looked up their ages, because I was convinced they were mostly fifteen and sixteen. And they range in age from like 19 to 21.

I swear somebody is giving them puberty-suppressing hormones.

Their management, no doubt. Wouldn't surprise me one bit lol.

Loved the design of the award (Peter Blake). I wonder if they ask a different prominent British artist to design the award each year? If so, I'm sure Damien Hirst had a go at it.

Lee and I both thought at first that Ed Sheeran was Prince Harry.

How embarrassin!

And Rihanna looked amazing. Big surprise.

Bruno Mars always blows me away. He did a much subtler rendition of one of his pop songs. Vocally great, but he didn't show the moves like he did at the Grammys, where I think he totally dominated.

This awards show really loves solo guys with somewhat folksy guitars.

There were beaucoup nominations of coffeeshop singer songwriters guys like that.

Adele De Kooning

She reminds me of his Woman series.

Particularly this one.