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trying a thing, LMK if it’s stupid or annoying, but I’m aggregating my assorted feeds here, so my tweets, flickrs, and maybe a few other things will be posted here. Old stuff will initially appear then it should settle back down. So when I post a photo or a video on youtube, or a twitter, these will appear here as posts.
This might be stupid.
Stellarium is cool.
But this would be cool, too, tell me if it exists yet or not:
software that not only shows you what the sky on your own planet looks like, but allows you to display what the sky would look like from other locations in the solar system. So, for instance, what does the sky look like from the sun? From Mars? What does the big dipper look like from Mars? Polaris is the polar star here on Earth, but what is the polar star up on Mars? How recognizable are the constellations from other planets? Or do we lose all perspective on them? At what point do we lose that after you depart the Earth?
All of these questions seem like they should be entirely within the realm of accumulated data, so some sort of software ought to be able to help us out. Really it ought to just be a plugin feature of any astronomy program. Hurry up and make that, internet!
I moved to south Mississippi from Washington State in second grade, 1970. Hurricane Camille had blown through the previous year, wrecking the place. Hurricane Camille was just the most recent past thing that had happened here, whose memory was still so vividly felt, and whose reminders were still so visible. This was just an overlay on top of other past things still felt, still visible. It hadn’t happened to me, but it happened here, and shaped the world I grew up in to be this unique, unmistakable thing.
I was not aware of having a southern accent. I remember hearing southern accents in TV and movies and recognizing them as a stock stereotype, but not recognizing it as supposedly referencing my experience at all, not even enough to critique or reject it. It just meant a stupid man, or an old-fashioned person, or a sort of aristocrat from a bygone era, or a number of other stock southern stereotypes. It was no different to me than other types like the urban Italian American gumbah (Vinnie Barbarino), or the Jewish comic (Mr. Kotter). I actually said “Oy vey” sometimes — I learned Yiddish from Mad magazine and Mel Brooks, before I had any conception of what Jewishness was. I was half-Italian, but the stereotypical TV gumbah was so alien it did not occur to us to be offended.
A few years after we moved south, friends we knew from Washington State also moved down there. I remember them telling me I had a southern accent. I could not believe it — I could not hear it in myself. I was good with language, and could mimic accents. I spoke with good grammar, loved diagramming sentences. So being conscious of language on a level most of my peers were not made it all the more perplexing that I could possess an accent yet be unaware of it.
I traveled to Italy when I was 12. Later when I was 25 or so, returned to Italy and one of my uncles, Zio Lorenzo, produced an audio tape of me and my brothers teasing each other. I had this squeaky girly voice with the deepest south accent. “Qu-i-i-yut! Tony! Qu-i-i-yut!”. So it was confirmed: I really used to have a southern accent.
In college I know it started becoming less pronounced. When I traveled to non-Southern locales after college, I marveled at how fast people seemed to speak, and how sure they were of their assertions. Southern speech tends to be slower and less direct.
Today nobody would guess that I grew up in the south and people are usually really surprised when I tell them. I used to hate telling people this. You say “Mississippi” and this whole chain of associations is activated, and you don’t know exactly which ones, and then you have to stand there and account for it, reconcile yourself to it. In most places, that chain of associations is negative. Occasionally some people think of literature, which is better, although I am unprepared to discuss Eudora Welty or William Faulkner. Sometimes it’s a really positive association. In France, they are impressed because the south is the home of the blues and jazz and Elvis, and you are its honorary ambassador. In Italy, no matter where you say you are from, they reply, “Beau-tiful!” which is uninformed, but pleasant to hear.
But now I enjoy telling people. Rather than being threatened by their preconceptions, I am amused by them. It becomes their problem to reconcile what they think they know about the south with what they think they know about me.
Today watching films set in the south is often excruciating. Usually there’s the one actor who really nails it — he’s the best mimicker, had the best voice coach, practiced the most. Then there’s the rest of the cast, who basically just channel Foghorn Leghorn or Blanche Dubois.
Here’s a tip for actors doing southern roles: practice, dammit, people do care and can tell. You only have a dozen or so lines anyway, or a hundred, but it’s some finite number, just learn those lines with the right accent.
Here’s a tip for voice coaches and directors: guess what? Not every single individual in any particular southern locale is a born and bred native descended from slave-holders or slaves. In any locale you have a guy who move there from California, or Vietnam. You have someone from Georgia, and someone else from Jackson, and guess what, they speak with different southern dialects! They have TV and indie films and rock and roll, so you don’t just hear the blues all the time. Proud as we are of the blues, some people listen to Kraftwerk and Neutral Milk Hotel ( an excellent group from Louisiana).
The south is in flux. Echoes and memories of the past are always there, and certainly this is a motif of southern culture. But it’s constantly in flux. Every collection of personalities is every bit as diverse in the south as it is in the west or the north or the midwest.
When I watch British produced films set in Ireland or Scotland, I wonder if they treat those accents in the same way. Do they lay it on way too thick? Are the lapses in the actor’s performance obvious and grating to Irish or Scottish natives? I totally love hearing those accents.
I’m writing this on the June solstice in Northern California. It’s hot, and whenever it’s hot I start running around the house talking like Foghorn Leghorn wiping my forehead with a glass of iced tea, just to annoy my Cajun girlfriend.
In conclusion, the South will rise again! That’s a joke son, Ah say, ah say, that’s a joke.
Wow it’s a blood red moon out there tonight, about three quarters full. I’ve never seen a red moon so high in the sky before. Usually I see those as the moon rises right at sunset, catching the sun’s setting rays. I guess it’s a similar effect, but right now the moon is high in the southwest sky, and it’s 2 a.m.
Makes me want to kill a goat.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009 film) - Wikipedia
I would think a remake of this awesome movie would be a lot more fun if they would actually still set it in the 70’s. But I have a feeling it will be updated in a predictable boring way. I hope I’m wrong.
Here’s a little application I threw together — thoroughly unsexy but I needed it and it was a simple experiment in Adobe Air development (HTML/Javascript). Does nothing more than calculate effect of compounding interest on some initial amount — could be used for loan or investment calculations.
The other night we went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. They were playing these mournful Mexican ballads and the service was really slow. The music was endless moaning and wailing, it started to seem like a ghost in a haunted house. We came home and put on rock and roll and played scrabble.
You see, rock and roll just doesn’t fuck with you like those Mexican ballads do. Rock and roll is there for you. It’s like your bad friend who mocks your soft middle class ways and takes you out on an adventure. Before your night is through, you look like Frankenfurter and the cops and the mafia are after you.
This is why I love Rock and Roll.
Phineas Foo, Age 45.
Well it’s May 1, Day of the International Solidarity of Workers, so be sure and find some way to stick it to the man when you can, and spend a little time with The Internationale.
That 6 mile hike, 2000 elevation gain along steep gravelly trails around Mt Diablo (Eagle Peak) that I took yesterday today has me questioning the wisdom of my new standup desk configuration.
Last night I saw the great film The Golem: How He Came Into the World at the Castro Theater in SF. It was scored by Black Francis which made it all the more amazing. The film is incredible — the set designs, the costumes, every visual aspect was just memerizing. Frank Black’s original songs and live performance were awesome. The emcee felt obliged/permitted to make what he must have thought were clever witticisms throughout the film. Really lame, un-comic material like “this scene is on youtube — heh heh.” Really stupid and annoying. That created this goofy atmosphere of incessant chuckling. This being the San Francisco International Film Festival, I would have expected a more reverent tone. We’re here to celebrate cinema, not make fun of things which are unfamiliar to us. OK, maybe the Castro is not where you go to be reverent, but still laughing at an outmoded style of acting, treating everything as camp is so missing the point of that specific movie. It’s an intelligent, thoughtful, beautiful film, not some silly relic from Grandma’s memento chest.
But all in all it was a really cool venue and great film and a fun way to see it. This makes the fourth time I’ve seen Mr. Black perform, I’m slightly embarassed to say.
Two for the “Cinema” category of “Pet Peeves”:
1) you know the thing where they show you a thing for a second, then fade to back real fast, then show you a thing, then fade to black real soon, over and over? Often times its a really interesting visual — you really want to see it, but they fade to black almost as soon as they show it to you. You know that effect? I hate that effect. Please make them stop doing that. If they think it makes you more curious, it doesn’t. It mainly makes me pissed off. It suggests to me that far from having anything interesting to show, they have nothing interesting to show, so they make uninteresting things seem important by taking them away from you. Sort of creating a scarcity of image, creating a demand by leaving you wanting more. I see it as cliched, uninspired, a trick to deceive you into believing there’s more where that came from, a tease. The more they do it, the more pissed off I become.
2) Really, really dark scenes. Perhaps it’s night time. Perhaps we’re in a dark room. Perhaps its some sort of dreamland or outerspace, but the filmmaker decides what’s really required is a really dimly lit scene. Newsflash: a dimly lit scene does not evoke darkness. It does not create or sustain an illusion of darkness. It diminishes any illusion at all — what I see in a dimly lit scene is my own living room, which is very far from being ominous or suspenseful. I see my own shape on the sofa, my own bowl of potato chips. I see a reminder to do some situps. I don’t care if you are David Lynch or Andrei Tarkovsky or Ingmar Bergman or the Coen brothers: dimly lit, dark scenes absolutely do not achieve the apparently desired effect.
Rain drops smack upon the boulevard
roof tiles crackle in the sun
I don’t think I’ll ever go so far
as I did in Paris in 1991
I don’t know who was President
I don’t know what war we were in
but it was all going on
in Paris in 1991
The Parisians were so busy
and the tourists were so busy
and the immigrants were so busy
but me I had a revelation
in Paris in 1991
You ain’t seen Paris
unless you saw Paris
in 1991
OK, at the risk of participating in the echo chamber of non-issues, I’ll enter the guns/religion/bitter/elitist fray to make one small remark.
The second amendment provides the right of the people to bear arms. People who own and use guns do so thanks to this amendment. People who feel very strongly about often argue that this right is to protect them against the government among other threats. People who make such arguments generally do not think well of the government if they feel the need to defend themselves against it with weapons.
So to suggest such people are bitter about the failure of government and as a response cling to weapons is not elitist, but is perfectly in line with this very same line of reasoning that some gun owners themselves make, none of whom are ever accused of being “elitist”.
O hai.
A six of Racer 5 is awesome!
Thanks!
Just watched the movie Straw Dogs (1971) with Dustin Hoffman. An amazing, intense and strange movie. Hoffman plays an American mathmetician married to a young British woman who relocate to her tiny village so he can work on a book. It’s a gothic sort of thing with these ominous menacing local characters in the town and working on repairing the couple’s garage roof.
The centerpiece of the film is a horrifying rape scene in which two of the workers rape the wife while the husband is away on a hunting expedition. The rape involves one man who believes that he loves her, and that they share an intimate history. As he rapes her, she fights back and resists, but clearly expresses contradictory responses. She responds with apparent pleasure in between fits of struggling and unequivocal resistance. This is obviously a source of controversy. The second worker intrudes upon the scene, and after the first one finishes, the second one rapes her. This rape appears to shock even the first rapist, and the woman this time screams and resists with no ambiguity of response.
So you have a really shocking sequence — a “good” rapist and a “bad” rapist. The “good” one sort of deluded himself into thinking he had a right to her body, that the experience was sexual and not violent, that he cared about her and she cared about him. That “bad” rapist was more of a classic violent act.
Dramatizations of rape in film are obviously fraught with complications. What’s the right way to do it, if at all? I thought it was incredible that Peckinpah was willing to dramatize it this way. A gang rape is not one crime, it’s multiple crimes. And each crime has its own kind of violence. Morally we wish to make no such distinctions. To draw out such distinctions is rare and daring and frankly dangerous.
People place quotes from other people on their email templates. They put quotes on bumper stickers. Authors sometimes place quotes at the beginning of a poem or a chapter, to prepare the reader for the upcoming themes. It’s neat to learn what famous people have previously said. Einstein said, “God does not play dice.” Neat.
The problem with quotes is that they are removed from context. In removing them from the original context, the suggestion is that the person attributed said this thing. That this thing actually represents their position, their opinion, their belief system. It’s a timeless characterization of that person. It’s an assertion. That that person is endorsing whatever position you are using it to represent on your own behalf.
Some quotes are not really quotes. I’m reminded of something Jimi Hendrix once said. He said, “Scuse me, while I kiss the sky.” Oh he said that did he? He authored it, but he did not “say” it, any more than Shakespeare “said” “Et tu, Brutus?” That kind of quote is the weakest, lamest, most dishonest kind of quote there is. It is also very likely the most ubiquitous. Did Einstein actually “say” “God does not play dice”? Or was that line part of a larger exposition towards a specific point made in specific phase of a debate? He’s not telling you that God does not play dice.
Some people list quotations. Some people think having a web page listing lots of quotes is something. They believe that they have compiled actual knowledge or wisdom. They have not. It’s not something. It’s nothing at all.
News magazines do a really annoying thing. They have a page where they show you the quote in bold, then in italics, have this little paragraph explaining the context. It’s a strange way of reading. It’s like telling a punch line of a joke, then telling the setup. Why not reverse the order? On this day in this setting this person said this thing? Why be so cute about it?
I conclude with a quote from a great author people love to quote, Kurt Vonnegut.
“Some people are assholes.” — Kurt Vonnegut*
*I don’t know the source, but I’m sure he must have said it on more than one occassion.
I won’t go so far as to say I “hate” Stuff White People Like.
And that’s saying something cause I hate just about everything, especially if it’s a website.
But I find it rather weak and unfunny. It supposedly skewers a class of people not used to being viewed or treated as a class. However, it’s overly reliant on a single concept, pivoting on that single word “white”. Obviously, simple math tells us that not all white people like all of these things, many white people dislike many of these things; many non-white people do like some of these things; and not all non-white people like many of these things.
Therefore a more accurate wording would be “Stuff some people like.” Just swapping that single word out instantly deflates the humor of the site.
Here’s a simple aid to that end:
There’s what you know, and what you don’t know, and how you feel about it.
I feel pretty good about what I know. I know a lot of stuff. Tons of stuff I’ve learned or observed or memorized, almost all of it basically or potentially useful. Of course, it happens that something you think you know turns out to be wrong, or flawed or incomplete. Often the discovery that you were wrong about something sucks, or is embarrassing or whatever. But for me, most of the time, I’m pretty OK with revising my knowledge. It’s a pleasure to learn. And being open minded about correcting one’s errors makes you smarter and wiser and more confident in what you do know, or think you know. It’s been vetted, through this continual process of discovery and revision. Stubborn mindedness is a problem not only because it’s unpleasant for other people to deal with, but also because it means the compendium of knowledge you’ve acquired is highly suspect. It has not been vetted, so you’re likely to have incorrect, unchallenged propositions resting upon other incorrect propositions, resulting a really skewed and probably stupid world view.
So, hurray for the curious, and onions to the stubborn and stupid.
Then there’s what you don’t know. I feel really, really bad about what I don’t know. I hate feeling ignorant. I hate it when my ignorance is perceptible by others. I hate that struggling sensation when you try to understand something but it’s just beyond your ability. Like when you’re learning a new skill — a foreign language or a programming language or how to fix your plumbing. I hate when I find myself dependent on others to do something I feel I ought to be able to do myself (like hiring a plumber or asking a friend how to tune your computer). This problem is the bane of my career. I know a lot of shit, but no matter how much you know, there’s so much more to learn that other people already have. I spend a lot of time researching, preparing, planning so I will go to meetings ready. I can wing it a lot of the time because a lot of the time I’m in my area of expertise. But it often happens there’s overlap, and there’s all that stuff I know plus one thing I don’t that the other people do. I often feel like I didn’t get the memo. Frustrating.
I suppose it would probably be better to be more OK with what I don’t know, seeing as there’s a whole universe of stuff I don’t know and never will. Maybe other people are aware of what they don’t know and are OK with it. I could learn from them. But I’m suspicious of people who go too easy on themselves in this department.
Steve Featherstone reports on bathroom graffiti on bases in Afghanistan and Iraq.
( link )
Wine Spectator | Editors Picks | Daily Wine Picks | Under $15 | Château Briot Bordeaux 2005
Mmmm, “lead pencil aromas”. For those with a pica-influenced palate, such as myself…
I’m enjoying the heck out of the Roxy Music DVD “Thrill of It All: A Visual History 1972-1982″
I read about it in The New Yorker and don’t have a whole lot to add to that. But it’s just beautiful. I love Eno’s various machines, hairstyles and blouses. I also enjoy how incongruous the low-tech video production quality is juxtaposed with these energetic, brilliant, outrageous musical compositions and performances. The songs all rock. Plus I think Bryan Ferry is flirting with me.
Just another unnecessary untimely and incorrect rant on the bottled water controversy. I may be writing this because I feel compelled to defend myself. The problems with bottled water are many. So let’s identify a couple main ones:
There are more objections but I think those are the main ones which you see restated in one form or another.
I agree with all of them in principle. Things that are too expensive compared to cheaper things of equal quality suck big time - agreed. Things that have horrific and entirely avoidable environmental damage way do suck. Marketing which is fraudulent or deceptive can go off and suck for all I care. Selfish dupes are such dicks.
But I’m here to say, but on the other hand… just cause I’m ornery. On the other hand, every single statement above could be said of many other things. Butter is more expensive than gasoline, that does not make the dairy industry criminal. Lying marketing scams occur in every retail sector. Waste is inherent in consumer life. It’s bad, it’s all bad.
But I think it goes way too far to claim that people who drink bottled water are fooled, duped, and somehow the same as bird-flipping Hummer drivers. I know for a fact, as much as I know anything for a fact, that the bottled water I buy (San Pellegrino, Aqcua Ferrarelle, Perrier) is NOT bottled at the local Podunk municipal water source. Perhaps worse than that, it’s imported all the way from Europe. I know for a fact that it tastes better and is healthier than what comes out out of the many tap sources I pass buy in the course of my day (the tap from the BART station bathroom? No thanks!). I do drink tap water at home, as well as expensive bottled water. When I stay in hotels I usually drink their tap water. But there are lots of places in between whose taps I won’t trust, so I’ll carry my own. I do bottle my own from my tap, but I’m not going to dehydrate if I run out. I’ll not hesitate to buy a bottle at the convenience store.
There’s plainly a difference between crappy bottle water marketed by liars, and good bottled water not marketed by liars. I just hate blanket generalizations, and I hate moral posturing. I am certainly guilty of it myself (fuck Hummers and the arrogant assholes who drive them!). I recognize that spending a lot of money for water is unsustainable — most people cannot afford it, so that’s a bit of a clue of how out of whack things are. Water is like air and should be cheap and available to all. The evil in question is not necessarily perpetrated by the consumers (although consumers can have a huge impact on the industry).
What would you say if the bottling of water could be done much more efficiently? And the recycling of the bottles were 100% effective (no landfill)? And all liars were marched off to Liar’s Island, so only truthtellers remained. Then would it be OK to drink bottled water? What if municipal water supplies could improve to produce much higher quality of water? Just saying bottled water is the same as tap is not quite the same thing as saying tap water is the very best that water can be. Even then different kinds of water have different qualities. It’s the same as wine or air or butter. It’s not all exactly the same. Sometimes I like a sparkling water, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I like mineral water and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I feel like a nut. How will these pleasures be satisfied if we’re not allowed to bottle the different varieties of water? I totally recognize how elitist that sounds, but again, it’s absolutely no more true of bottled water than it is of wine. Wine could be delivered to local innkeepers in barrels and only served from there, eliminating the bottling of wine. Maybe the difference between bottled wine and bottled water is scale. You could just drive to a nearby farm and have the butter dumped into your reusable tupperware container instead of buying it at the supermarket. Etc.
My main gripe is really the confusion between the problems of the industry and the consumers who participate in it. If there’s cynicism, deceit, waste in the industry, is it really necessary to demonize the consumer? Isn’t it possible all those statements about the industry per se are true, yet a given consumer could still be making an informed, ethical choice? I feel the same way about cigarette smoking. I am so glad we finally purged that horrible habit from mainstream public space. I am glad we have exposed the cynicism and corruption of cigarette manufacturers and the lobbyists who helped them profit by killing their customers. That said, I sometimes enjoy a cigarette. It’s still possible in spite of everything we know about tobacco, nicotine, and the tobacco industry, that a given individual is making an informed, ethical choice when they smoke. These two things are not incompatible.
How about everything in moderation, (except no Hummers)?
Not as fun as views from my hotel rooms.
In Pismo Beach this time.
What an awesome mardi gras party room this would be!
Last night I watched that corny old film Love Story (1970). I love watching films from the 70’s, I guess because I grew up then, and I enjoy relearning all the cultural information coded into the texture of the film, beyond just what the story wants me to know. The fashion, the modes of speech, the clothes, cars, hairstyles, attitudes. This is true of films from any period, but extra true of a period one has lived through.
Anyway, it was a cornball fest with somewhat interesting cultural revelations. Things such as — the characters represent these supposedly modern young people and liberated woman who don’t believe in God and shockingly choose a civil ceremony for their wedding in which they shckingly write their own vows. Yet in spite of the modern new world they live in, when she is diagnosed with the un-named fatal disease, the doctor lies to her and says everything is OK but reveals to the husband that she’s dying, and encourages him to conceal it from her, which he does.
Jesus! So in 1970 it was considered perfectly ethical to lie to patients about their diagnosis and deny them a chance to seek a second opinion? When did the AMA get together and rethink that? I believe that nowadays the doctor tells the patient the diagnosis, even if it’s a woman. Sometime between 1970 and 2008 they got that straight, but I don’t remember it happening.
The other weird bit of cultural information was the use of profanity. They say “goddamn” and “dammit” and “bullshit” a whole lot, in strangely inoccuous ways. Cheerfully, with a smile on their faces, while politely holding the door open for the other or passing the sugar. In one scene she’s leading a children’s choir in a church preparing for a Christmas play, and she says to one of the children, “Don’t bullshit me.” I’m not a prude or much of a Christian, but I believe that a person talking this way to children in a church would be considered a little bit harsh and disrepectful today. Yet we’re supposedly charmed and in love with this carefree young woman.
I’d be interested to learn about how the use of profanity has changed in time. To me all those words, which I use daily, have an edge to them and indicate some degree of harshness, anger or something. To use them in this soft and cuddly way strikes me as very false, but I remember this sort of thing from movies from this time. It’s as though either real people or just film writers were suddenly free to use them, so they overused them, diluting the meaning. And now that we’re over that, they have settled back to their original harsh meanings and usage. Or something.
Anyway, it was a dumb movie, but was still fun to watch with your goddamn girlfriend.
156 (marcus & commodus)
2008
Acrylic on Canvas with Relocated Panels
37″ x 59″
Two-Sided Painting
New painting by Ken Weathersby.
