We live in a Twisty World

This video has been around the net a couple of times but it's still worth checking out (broadband recommended). Russian teens running Le Parkour.

These guys verge on the unbelievable.

Thai Surprise

The fortune cookie reads: "The smart thing to do is not be yourself."

Is this Engrish? A bad fortune? Or maybe good advice?

Are the people at the Thai restaurant trying to tell me something?

Last words of the year on the War on Christmas

Using my advanced knowledge of molecular biology and grammar I have converted ifs and buts to candy and nuts.

So now every day is Christmas.

US Teen Does "Immersion Journalism" in Iraq

Whoo. This kid has guts. You've got to give him that.

All Star Superman

Beautiful critque of All Star Superman #1. All That and a Bag of Bradbury.

I must have a Quintum jacket.

Christmas with the Wilsons

Cintra Wilson preaches the gospel on Christmas:

We are, to put it mildly, an ecumenical group. My mother, a jazz pianist who calls herself "The Duchess," was raised by Christian Scientists but now subscribes to a self-invented theology she calls "Ishta Devata," an unformed, New Age, quasi-Buddhist mysticism involving psychic visions from an inner network she calls "Channel 12." My father was raised by members of the Anthroposophical Society and is believed to be telekinetic. My aunt on my mother's side is a hardcore Scientologist, who until recently was exiled from Christmas for her tendency to hard-sell the guests on the divinity of L. Ron Hubbard. My sister, whose husband is Moroccan, recently converted to Islam. My mother complains bitterly that she's no longer allowed to call my sister during the five times a day she is praying toward
Mecca, which, considering how often Mom likes to phone, has inspired me to the revelation that Allah is most kind. I am a Santeria initiate, which means I endure jokes every year about sacrificing chickens. If I happen to be at the buffet table, I usually smile, grab the electric carving knife and walk toward the cat. But most of our extended family is Jewish, apart from my best friend Mark and his boyfriend, the Episcopal priest.

We all come together for Christmas under our one unifying conviction that Christmas is less a religious holiday than the one day a year we all start drinking before noon.

Yark!

For the second time while visiting a particular set of friends I have fallen prey to the strange microbes of the foreign country of "Cleve-land".

As a result I spent every half hour between midnight and 6AM involved in a version of bulemia without the guilt.

The term "technicolor yawn" has taken on increased significance because for some reason all of the emissions from my body have taken on a full spectrum of vivid colors--and never the ones you'd quite expect. (I'm only waiting for, say, blue earwax or bioluminescent spittle to appear so that I can complete the set. It's feeling very Harry Potter.)

More scenes from the "War on Christmas"

I.


Last December, a group called Public Advocate for the United States (which claims to defend America's traditional family values) sent some Christmas carolers over to sing in front of the ACLU offices in Washington.

Carrying signs reading "Merry Christmas" and "Please Don't Sue Us!" - they also seem to have carried with them some rather strange imaginings about an assault on Christmas. I don't know what the carolers thought might happen.

To tell the truth, the ACLU is not often serenaded by Christmas carolers. So it was with some excitement that the staff went outside and joined in the singing. They brought with them cookies and warm drinks to share. One staff member, who is an ordained Baptist minister, did a little witnessing about his faith to some astonished proponents of family values.

Fox News did broadcast the event (as a part of its "war against Christmas" campaign). Although the visiting singers were shown, the cameras failed to include any footage showing that everyone had participated in the caroling. Rather than reporting the facts, the anchor preferred the propaganda: "We believe the ACLU heard the message loud and clear, but they don't care."
...
(By T. Jeremy Gunn USAToday)

II.

The other day Giblets was shopping for presents for his closest friends and vassals when an elderly mall greeter said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" forcing Giblets to beat him insensate with a vanilla-scented gift candle. Why must our relentlessly secular society attempt to obscure The Reason For The Season! Yes there are non-Christmas holidays but those are the sissy holidays. Christmas can beat up Hanukkah, Eid and Kwanzaa without breaking a sweat.

(Brad deLong Fafblog)

Science & Creation

Great speculative article on why children have rich fantasy lives.

Chicago Business Forecast 2005 Notes

Two weeks ago, the University of Chicago GSB presented its annual series of Business Forecast Luncheons in major cities across the country. The BFLs offer a chance to hear leading economists predict the major economic figures and political risks for the coming year.

The Chicago session prognosticators were Michael Mussa and Randall Kroszner for the macro side.

• The basic message: next year will look exactly like this year.
• Short term indicators are mildly positive, with little long term effect on the economy due to energy price shocks, hurricane Katrina, and the continued war in Iraq.
• Consumer confidence is down, which is not in line with other indicators, but which may be due to the fact that real median income has been flat to declining over the next few years.

On the major indicators (GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, etc.) both were in close agreement with real growth in the 3-3.5% range, inflation at 2.5-3% and unemplyment at 5.1%. All of these are close to both our standard national levels and also close to our current situation.

In general, Mussa's predictions are more believable wherever the two had a disagreement, where, for example Kroszner forecast that the trade deficit would essentially remain flat or shrink in real terms, Mussa predicts a move from ($624.1B) to ($640.0B) or about 5% growth, which seems plausible in light of current trends and continued growth. Mussa also sees the US economy coolling down slightly from this year--and no other economies worldwide heating up more to pick up the slack.

Marvin Zonis provided political risk insight. Key points:

• India represents a great foreign investment opportunity, with blockbuster growth, relative political stability, an English speaking population, heavy investment in education, and a rapidly growing middle class.
• China has pinned a lot on the 2008 Olympics. The government views this as their announcement of superpower status on par with the US. So, at least in the near term, they will continue to put a premium on political stability. Due to the large component of the Chinese economy that relies on exports to the US, it is unlikely that they will try to restrict debt financing the US deficit. The two countries are in an economic embrace.
• Iran is a country which is undergoing titanic internal stresses. The current hard-line president is viewed as a nutcase even by his fellow clerics. Dissent is widespread, and Persian is the second most common language for blogs (tied with French) worldwide.
• Russia's vast oil wealth is being used to finance the country's transformation, and can be used to buy off internal dissent through social programs and other methods.
• Brazil has so far failed to gain traction on its internal economic problems but has immense potential for growth--just not in the near term.
• Positive signs in the Middle East: Sharon has shifted Israeli policy from "maximizing territory held" to "defensible position". Prediction: he will abandon all but the largest West Bank settlements, consolidate his hold on all of Jerusalem, and throw a fence around all of Israeli territory. The Palestinians are unhappy because this is going on unilaterally.
• Postive sign #2: Muslim revulsion at violence carried out in the name of Jihad against other Muslims. Jordan being the latest example.
• US presence in Iraq is generating terrorists faster than we can kill them. Bush will find a way to declare victory and 40K-60K troops will be pulled from Iraq "before the 2006 elections".

In the roundtable discussion that followed, rising healthcare costs alarmed the panel the most. With Social Security and Medicare rising from 5-6% of GDP now to ~20% over the next 15-20 years, this will put enormous pressure on the economy as a whole. No near-term solutions exist, at least none that anyone is prepared to accept.

So to sum up:

• Near term: fairly rosy. Maybe a little slower.
• Long term: uncertain as always.

Elsewhere: US Economy's slow growth still getting 'no respect'. Contains full transcripts of remarks by all three presenters.

Most Played

Am I the only one who feels guilty over the Most Played selections in iTunes, as though I should love all my music equally?

Frank Quitely

Frank Quitely looks like one of his own drawings. Don't you agree?

Post #419

An important message from Zefrank.

Incompetent Design

I'm beginning to feel sorry for the Intelligent Design folks. It hasn't been a very good year for them. First, their pet school board gets voted out en masse. Then, they get pooh-pooed by their fellow evangelical academics. I won't even go into the whole Flying Spaghetti Monster thing. Now, geophysicist Don Wise comes out with his theory of "incompetent design". He sites the bend at the base of the spine, the excessive number of teeth in the jaw, and the structure of the sinus drainage system. To which I'd add the shock system and the design of the knee.

You must have received some serious criticism of your somewhat jestful theory? Well, I got one, which I showed at the Geological Society of America (GSA) meetings. An envelope postmarked Minneapolis, with monkeys all over it and inside it, with a great big blue ribbon, a note saying I had been awarded the "Moron of the Month" award, that I was a dork, an idiot, that only someone who thought their ancestors were monkeys would be dumb enough to say what I had, asking me if I wanted to debate it. It left an email address at darwinistsaredumb@hotmail.com

These are the kind of things you NEVER really answer, but I couldn't resist. So I used the H.L. Menken approach:

Dear Sir, You should be aware that some idiot is writing absolute nonsense and signing your e-mail address to it. You should take action on this before your reputation is further sullied!

But most of the things I've gotten have been positive.

The Power of Cheese

I may have misplaced several personal items in classic absent-minded fashion, but this is something truly special--a nearly deadly cheese caper. Even for queso fresco, this seems to be going overboard.(via Neil)

Woman Allegedly Hires Hit Man for Cheese

The Associated PressTuesday, December 6, 2005; 7:01 PM
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- In an unusual case of mistaken identity, a woman who thought a block of white cheese was cocaine is charged with trying to hire a hit man to rob and kill four men. The woman also was mistaken about the hit man. He turned out to be an undercover police officer.

Jessica Sandy Booth, 18, was arrested over the weekend and remains in jail with bond set at $1 million on four charges of attempted murder and four counts of soliciting a murder.

According to police, Booth was in the Memphis home of the four intended victims last week when she mistook a block of queso fresco cheese for cocaine _ inspiring the idea to hire someone to break into the home, take the drugs, and kill the men.

News Flash: Mr. Pointy Recovered

Mr. Pointy has been safely recovered, after a couple of days of hiding beneath Mr. Can Opener.

In other news, Mr. and Mrs. Boots were found in the trunk of my car beneath the emergency blanket.

I am therefore almost certainly senile. Or Mr. Senile to you.

Mr. Pointy

After a week long vacation, I'm back in Chicago.

A couple of items are missing from my apartment: my best paring knife and a pair of boots. Either some psychotic is out on the streets stalking people after having broken into my apartment, or I'm going to wake up one morning having "found" the knife hiding somewhere in my bedclothes.

As We Recover...

As we recover from the Thanksgiving food overload and general giving of thanks and appreciation, I can almost hear the clanking of the chains dragging my roller coaster car to the top of the big first hill. If all of the proposed engagements for December hit, I will be having a very busy couple of months.

Busy as in no sleep 'til March. Busy as in Oh my gosh I've got myself into something this time.

The only thing worse than working all the time is not working all the time. The not working bit is coming to an abrupt end. Fortunately, for the first time in a long time, I at least have managed to get a little vacation in right before the deluge hits. Cross your fingers, and I'll see you all in March.*


*That doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting for three months. I mean, come on, what's more important: sleeping or dumping personal details on the internets?

Media Concentration

THESIS: The copyfight is being fueled in large part by an oligopoly structure within the major media sectors. The search for pricing power rather than the fear of piracy is the motive for DRM and anti-peer network initiatives.

Chart of the top 10 media companies' holdings.

File under: future research topics.

Spankin'

Spanking children is correlated with more aggressive and anxious children. (Reuters)

Not surprisingly, in Thailand, a country where peace-promoting Buddhist
teachings predominate, moms were least likely to spank their children or use
other forms of physical discipline.
In Kenya, on the other hand, where use of physical discipline is common and considered normal for the most part, moms were most likely to spank or engage in similar disciplinary tactics. In a study conducted in Kenya in 2003, 57 percent of grandmothers reported caning, pinching, slapping, tying with a rope, hitting, beating, and kicking as forms of discipline they had used on their grandchildren.
One question the findings raise, according to Lansford, is whether being physically disciplined more frequently causes an increase in aggression and anxiety or whether children who are already aggressive and anxious are simply physically disciplined more often. "On the basis of other work conducted in the United States, the answer is probably some of each," Lansford said.

Those are some tough Kenyan grandmothers.

Kenyon College's Answer to Gawker

Frat parties reviewed in case you didn't make it to all of them.*

Good to see that nothing has changed.


*e.g. if you woke up in a field the next morning after your "punch".

Breathing

The sign on the wall of the public bathroom said,

"Every time you think how embarrassed you will be,
Think instead about how long you will have to be dead."

And underneath there's a tiny tiny dot:
.
Labelled "Your Life"

And a long line:

---

Labelled "The Rest of Time"
Which stretches all the way across the room.

Link Roundup

The only good fight is a pillow fight. Pictures from the Toronto flash mob pillow fight. (via boingboing)


"If you don't write your books, nobody else will do it for you. No one else has lived your life."
-Jose Saramago (via Jonathan Carroll)


TRAVELING EUROPE IN STYLE WITH AUCKLAND DINGIROO,DARK-AGE TOURIST AND CRITIC OF FOOD AND DRINK. "There are numerous inns in and around the city that are comfortable and reasonably priced. My favorite is Mon Petit Chou (My Little Cabbage). It is a picturesque cottage along the Seine run by an elderly prostitute named Genevieve."

Cool is for Kids. " I am a middle-aged man dressed in a little Whistles skirt/Monsoon jacket combo and look a bit like an off-duty Duchess of Cornwall. I don’t get many opportunities for leisure trannying these days so I used the occasion of shopping for my wife’s birthday present to don a housewife-up-from-the-’burbs number.

"Now as a rule I would say that if there is one group of people that transvestites need to avoid, it is early-teenage girls."

Tiny Cities

Some albums mustbe purchased as soon as they are seen. All of Mark Kozelek's work is in this category.

The new Sun Kil Moon album Tiny Cities is a luminous reworking of Modest Mouse songs with all of the hallmarks of Mark's artistic sensibility down to the grainy cover art. Each album he does gets a little better as he gets subtly more comfortable with his talents and palette.

Imogen Heap on the other hand is an albnum that you pick up based on hearing a free mp3 on Salon's Audio File. It's got that Frou Frou thing butcoming in from a different angle. Great semi-poppy tracks but the attraction is in the vocals not the backing track.

A world without commas

Last night I opened a bottle of Coke while sitting at my desk. Unfortunately someone had shaken the bottle vigorously before I picked it up. As a result I have lost the ability to type commas on my laptop keyboard. This is not as bad as it sounds. Last night I thought I would have to do without m's n's and spaces. An unacceptable turn of events.

Also for some reason the page down button had developed the capability to initiate a search function within the Firefox browser.

I asked my computer repair-savvy friends how to fix the problem and they recommended that I put the keyboard in the dishwasher and then let it dry for a week. These are the kind of people who grow moustaches for fun and are therefore not to be trusted.

Meh.

The last couple of weeks have been a flurry of interviews for me, which is in one sense flattering. In another sense, it's like business travel--not as glamorous as it looks from the outside.

Meanwhile, everyone I know is down with a cold. Maybe they're practicing for the bird flu pandemic.

On the upside, I found a cool little mission-style bookcase, so my reading materials no longer have to live in stacks underneath the desk. Now I just need to find a permanent home for the stacks of clothes currently living on the side table.

Gettin' Twisty

I've been doing a weekly yoga class at Chicago Yoga since the beginning of the year. After coming in with the standard-substandard level of flexibility that comes from a regular running program (tight hamstrings, leading to tight back) and growing up playing lots of tennis (asymmetrical back, shoulder, and arm development), it took a long time to get to a place of reasonable flexibility. Even now, God help me if I show up for class after a night of drinking, or with low potassium or hydration.

With practice, though, I'm occasionally progressing to the more advanced forms of some of the poses. Once, I managed to do Crow Pose, which if improperly done results in an impromptu somersault. This weekend, I pulled off a really nice Extended Side Bend with backward noosed arms. I'd never been able to get my arms around my leg and back far enough before, so something in my shoulders seems to have loosened up nicely.

Truth or Dare?

I'm in the process of filling in a personal profile on a dating site, but it's giving me a lot of trouble. Specifically, how much I need to lie in order to tell the truth.

For example, I'm 6'0", but if I put that down, I always think that people are saying to themselves, "oh, this guy's really 5'11" and trying to fool us with the extra inch," so I tell people I'm 6'1".

Or, if I say I'm in "average" shape, does that mean average for a 35-year old, or a 35-year old in Chicago, or for everybody? Does it sound like I'm actually a "needs a little work", angling for an "average", or should I say "above average" or "well toned"?

Does all of this questioning make me look like a "self absorbed" or "poor body image" when what I really want to be is "well adjusted" or "self confident"?

How much should you lie in a personal ad to account for automatic grade deflation?

Halloween Parade

The Halstead Street Halloween Parade is notable not for its size, but for its blurry outlines. While the main padade went north, occasional clusters of performers, bands, and cars went south along the same route, producing a weird sloshing movement within the parade route itself.

Meanwhile, the question of "who's in costume, and who just dresses funny all the time?" kept coming to mind. Is the guy in the fireman outfit going to a costume party, or just home from work? Is the kid in the floor length overcoat and platform shoes a vampire or just a goth? Is the six foot tall woman next to me a parade contestant, or a drag queen, or a WNBA player in an evening gown? Has the guy in the Santa hat got the wrong holiday, celebrating the release of Jarhead, or is he just trying to keep warm? When we play with identity year round, and eccentrics abound, Halloween is every day.

Trick or Treat.

Eastwood & I

Yesterday, I stepped out of the Diversey station, to find that the mayor of Carmel By the Sea was camped out in a newsstand, dressed as a Depression-era newsboy, surrounded by guys dressed as, most likely, gangsters or G-men or somesuch. These in turn were surrounded by camera men, and grips, and honey wagon wranglers or whatever, interspersed with lots of cops and pseudo-cops in day-glo vests and sort of ordinary people dressed in ordinary people clothes, all asking each other What's going on? and Is that somebody famous, or just a guy with sunglasses on? as I walked through the crowd, waving away the autograph seekers.

I nodded to Clint. He squinted back.

We're like that, Clint & I. Like that.

Go UCC!

I am so in the right church for me. Why is this message not on every channel of the evening news, on every opinion program as the clear message of the Christian Church?

Rev. John Thomas, President of the United Church of Christ

There is in each of our souls, and in the soul of the United Church of Christ, an older brother who undermines our faithfulness as surely as the storm surge overwhelmed New Orleans’ levees. It is the older brother, at least as I interpret the parable, who grimly works on his father’s farm, never lifting his eyes to the anguish of a younger brother in the far country. It is the older brother who long ago dismissed the prodigal brother, who never stands eagerly waiting with his father, eyeing with hope the far horizon. It is the older brother who would never dream of going in search of that brother for fear of being tainted by the impurities of that alien and ambiguous far off place. It is the older brother who resents the celebration of his brother’s restoration to home. It is the older brother who never asked for his own party, who never understood the call to a vocation of gratitude for gifts already received.

Yes, there are those whose faith leads them convictions different from my own. Such diversity has been and continues to be honored in our church. We know there are those in our church who struggle out of their own sense of biblical integrity over the church’s welcome and affirmation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. But when I receive emails and letters from UCC members railing against such a welcome, angry that God’s gracious love is lavished on the unworthy, bitter that the church’s attention is being directed to the lost rather than to those who have faithfully tended the farm, then I sense the voice of the older brother in our midst. When I hear from UCC members and congregations who have assumed the role of arbiter over who has earned the embrace of the waiting parent, divine or otherwise, then I sense the voice of the older brother in our midst. When I receive emails and letters from UCC members and pastors furious because we have dared to speak on the way our political and economic institutions affect the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable among us, who demand to know why we mingle our faith with politics or economics, who wonder why we should sully ourselves in the pig styes of the far country, who admonish me and us to return to our proper work of managing the family farm, then I sense the voice of the older brother. When I receive emails and letters complaining that my witness against the war in Iraq is inappropriate because it places me or our church, as it did a couple of weeks ago in Washington, on stage with personalities that make us uncomfortable - and admittedly it was a colorful collection of characters! - and when those letters speak of no discomfort at the deception and death woven through the imperial project in Iraq and elsewhere, than I sense the voice of the older brother in our midst, calling us to the safe irrelevancy of the farm. When I receive, as I did yesterday, a message from a UCC member complaining about our Neighbors in Need promotion because it calls for a form of universal health care, and then goes on to question why we would consider health care a right, equating it to having a car or a cell phone, then I sense the voice of the older brother in our midst.

There is an opportunity being exposed by the challenges of these days in our life. It is the opportunity to invite our own members to a larger imagination, to a more gracious vision, to a time of rejoicing that there might just be a lost and lonely soul coming home to an embrace rather than a judgment, to a gospel understanding that grace is not something to be doled out as if it might run out, but to be spread and shared as if it will never run out.

NaNoWriMo

I just signed up to write a novel in November, which is National Novel Writing Month. (NaNoWriMo)

30 days to complete 50,000 words.

This means that my output has to increase by approximately four times my average speed on the previous novel. And this time, I'm starting out flat footed, without the notebooks full of observations I had built up for the first novel.*

It's a little like signing up to run a marathon without having done the practice runs. Very scary, likely to be painful, and nigh impossible to complete.




*Admittedly, I could, if I were feeling soft, pick up the characters I used in the previous novel for a sequel. But that feels like cheating.

Why do People Believe in God?

Why do People Believe in God? (Guardian article) via Kottke

File Under: Future Research

Interesting research, but why not take the psychological/theistic view (some people perceive God, others do not; see also color blindness), rather than the sociological view (more evangelical groups maintain deeper belief in God)? Is it possible to believe more, or does one either believe or not? Can one have a firmer belief at some times, or is it like believing that there's a chair in the corner? Does more intense practice of religious ritual indicate greater belief, or are the two independent?

Paul Laffoley

Paul Laffoley, who did the lovely cover for my friends over at Generation Hex, is what my Grandma used to call "quite a pistol".*

Interview with Paranoia Magazine

But he [Laffoley's father] had this quirky thing of not believing in gravity. And giving me a constant headache about that one. He would say if I showed any interest in gravity, I was becoming a dupe of the system. He could see indications I was beginning to believe in it.

Also featuring HP Lovecraft and the 130-year old Harvard Business School professor.

Essay on how Gaudi cursed the World Trade Center, with various anecdotes on 20th century architecture.

Index of things from the Kent Gallery



*I might add that several of the Generation Hex kids qualify for pistolhood themselves.

Little Rascals Latter Days

Their biographies here. Many of them are still alive, which seemed odd at first, because I remember watching the Little Rascals movies as something from the dawn of talking pictures. As it turns out, that was only the early 1930's. Which is 70+ years ago, but only twice as long ago as the 1970's are from here. It's weird how time changes as you pass through it.

"No, the big one with the scope"

So funny I fell off my chair laughing.

Timmy, Hand Momma her Gun

One day I came across a well footnoted story of a female bus driver in Spain who, late at night, would pick up drunk men, pull the bus over, kill them, remove their ears and sew them to the bottoms of the bus seats. True, it's sick, but you have to appreciate the quirky touches. Did she use a needle and thread, or was a Bedazzler involved? Ears sewn to seats, was there a pun involved that I wasn't getting? A lesser murderer would have just shot their victims in the head and left them for dead, but it takes vision to make it into the Journal of Abnormal Psychology and this particular bus driver had it in spades.

She reminded me of Chastity Blevins.

Boka Tasting

Met Sergio Carlei at a tasting of his wines last night at Boka, organized by Rebecca. Also got to sample the great little dark chocolate pistachios Annastacia makes (available in a full range of Pantone colors, no less).

Sergio divides wines into two camps: "interesting vs. boring".

About his shiraz/viognier: "It's like swapping partners. Lots of fun. Maybe the young ladies don't like it so much, but with wines...it's OK. It's something different."

Among his interesting wines were the Tre Bianchi sauvignon blanc/semillon/chardonnay, which had a crisp, sparkly chracter, unlike the typical grapefruit/pinapple flavor usually found with Australian wines of this type. In general, he's a big fan of subtlety, with less heavily extracted wines (or at least wines unsupplemented by concentrate). I don't know if this is a sharp marketing choice, but it certainly gets him points for originality.

Daily Photo Project

Every so often, it's worth the time to check in on web classics, like Jonathan Keller's Daily Photo Project, where he takes a picture of himself every morning and posts it on the web. It's a slow-motion time lapse effect; he looks almost, but not exactly alike, day to day, but over several years time, his appearance changes--not as much as mine has, but still noticeably. He also lists some other obsessive/time lapse photo projects.

October Country

Moon over Foster Beach

Some photoshopping done on the second one. Color balance is closer on the fieldhouse and beach in #2, and image of the moon looks more like last night's, but #1 gives better color match to the moon as it was at the time of the photograph.

Margate Park by night, looking up Argyle.

A Little Neurophilosophy

What is it like to be a bat? is one of the classic articles on the subject of neurophilosophy, a subject that deals with questions of whether the brain and the mind are the same thing (whether one reduces to the other), and whether it's possible to figure this out by some method.

It was this question, combined with a heavy dose of cyberpunk literature, that led me to spend several years of my youth on working toward a degree in neuroscience. In some ways, it was a tremendous waste of time and effort, but at least I found out the answers to my questions. At least, as good of answers as it is possible to get at this juncture.

Windows Looking In

This mural is the visual high point of the commute up the Red Line El. Periodically, the boy's face is covered with signs, but these always vanish, or are moved to less expressive parts of the mural. I love the way that the boy's eyes seem to be looking in through a window at the trains passing by, as if the El were just a model of itself.

I also think of the replica of a Nagel painting that used to be up in the RA's room in Lewis dorm my freshman year, which was carefully left un-painted-over for many years, against the rules, in recognition of the quality of the artwork. Then, one spring break, the students returned to find that it had been painted over. An uproar ensued. A collection was taken up to perform the delicate act of restoration, or to pay a talented art major to repaint the wall. In the end, though, I think the money went to buy the end of year keg.

Chinese Poem

Last night out running
Orange full moon low over
Lake Michigan it
Matches streetlights just coming on
Matches half-turned maple leaves
On trees on ground
On air half-turned between tree and ground
Moving airplane stars the only ones out
In early indigo sky
Matches indigo water with moving city stars
Matches indigo watchers
On beach on benches
On long evening run half-turned
Between orange full moon and home
It seems OK, it seems OK
A little cold, just as it is.

Rupert, Rupert, Rupert

Rupert Everett gives a deliciously nasty interview to Newsweek. "We're totally lost."

Where do you live now?
Nowhere.

You have to live somewhere. Where do you sleep at night?
Tonight in New York. Tomorrow the world. I moved away from New York when Baby Doc got in the second time.

Baby Doc?
Bush. You don’t know who Baby Doc is?

Yeah, he was the dictator in Haiti.
Exactly.

Dominic Purcell Sighting

Saw Dominic Purcell today at the Virgin Megastore on Mich Ave. Unlike most other actors when you see them in real life, he looks exactly like he does on screen, although understandably less depressed, not being on death row and all.

Going where you're not supposed to go.

Ninjalicious, founder of infiltration.org, and a major player in the Urban Exploration subculture, has died of cancer . Hundreds of messages have been left describing his effect on people out on the web. It's an example of how one person's heartfelt interest can be, how it touches others in small, unexpected ways.

Someone proposed an appropriate epitaph:

THEY CAN'T KEEP YOU OUT OF UNION STATION NOW

Explore in peace, Ninj.

Gretchen Worden found her job in life, as curator of the Mutter Museum. In this obituary/review of the museum, the NYT mentions that the museum has just opened a new room named for her. From the article:

Ms. Worden used humor and charm to ease viewers past the initial gawking or revulsion the museum's collection might trigger. There was a serious message behind her sometimes madcap affect: that the human body is not to be feared or loathed, even when horrifically damaged or monstrously distorted. "While these bodies may be ugly," she wrote in her book of the museum's mute inhabitants,
"there is a terrifying beauty in the spirits of those forced to endure these afflictions."

NYT (link via boingboing)

Surgical museums are examples of the sublime, in which beauty and terror sit side by side. The accumulation of deformity and disease becomes lovely by the act of cataloguing it, and comparing the infinite variety of the human form; the more so because these relics were gathered in the service of healing and better knowledge.

Cookin'

For the past few weeks, I've spent as little time cooking as possible, until yesterday, when I made the grilled vegetables in herbal marinade and long grain rice. This resulted in a general inventory of my cabinets and fridge and whatnot.

As a result, I've filled up my tupperware with soups, salads, fruit compote, turkey meatballs, boiled eggs, three kinds of iced tea, double chocolate muffins, and a mess of stir-fry.

Now, I just need to get ten people over here to help me eat all the food.

Anansi Boys

Neil Gaiman's new book, Anansi Boys, deals with the children of the spider trickster god of African legend. It's a fantastic read about family, mistaken identity, and becoming the person you outght to become. It's also really funny.

Two interesting coincidences happened to me while I was reading the book. First, a spider took up residence in my front doorway, completely filling the top two feet of space with its web. Each morning and each evening, I'd forget and walk through its web. Every afternoon and overnight, the spider would rebuild it. Finally, I caught on and ducked underneath as I passed through. Last night, I watched as it bundled a fly into a cocoon for later consumption. Another spider has moved in outside the backdoor. (If I disappear, someone should come expecting me to be trapped in one of these webs.)

Second, as I'm reading the book at the bus stop, a guy comes up to me and says, "Say, aren't you Neil Gaiman?"

Other than being a caucasian adult male, Mr. Gaiman and I look not very much alike. Even so, I was happy enough to autograph his copy: "Very best wishes, and sweet dreams, Neil."

35th and still counting

So, I've reached 35. Adulthood is defined as that point when your birthday rolls around and you no longer think about the presents you're going to get, but instead are just genuinely relieved (and maybe a little surprised) to be above ground and moving around.

Several friends were kind enough to drink the new year with me at Schuba's. At left are Eric, Joyce and Mark. Alden stopped by as well, but almost everyone else was out of town. How could they have left the year's most important holiday off their calendars?

Joyce, Mark and I are engaged in a series of fitness dares, which have included ashtanga yoga classes and the Run Hit Wonder thing. Mark's 35th was a few days ago, so we need some more dares to complete over the course of the coming year. Suggestions are welcome.

Mom told me, "you've never missed a birthday before."

I said, "I won't be missing this one either. I carry it with me. You're the one missing it."

In other news, Chad Fox is also moving up in the demographic categories. I knew the kid had great taste, but to share a birthday with me (and Joan Jett) practically moves him up to godhead.

Cry Clodauuiua

...and Let Slip the Dogs of War

Look out, William Gibson is not only blogging again, but also, apparently, starting to write another novel.

Celtic Festival

Both Saturday and Sunday, I went down to the Chicago Celtic festival. More kilts than you can shake a stick at. Usually on really tough looking guys with shaved heads and tribal tattoo work, with blue-haired well-pierced girlfriends, with bagpipes redone in American Chopper style.

The overall feel of the festival, though, was that of every music festival I ever went to in rural Ohio, with that hippy-crunchy feel, and wonderful weather, but minus the fierce clouds of mosquitos*, and minus the really uncomfortable parking arrangements characterized by a twenty minute walk from someone's back pasture, dodging said mosquitos and semi-fossilized cowpies and poison ivy in the underbrush.



The other thing the event reminded me of was the early 90's, when the best music in the world could be found in Athens, GA, and every railway trestle or semi-abandoned building reminded you of "Finest Worksong" or "Love Shack" or "Closer to Fine". Sexy, late summer, staring up at the underside of tree branches, lying in a hammock holding someone you love while the party goes on inside the house, music.






*My friend Dave misheard me when I said this, and asked me why I thought it was so great that there were "more Cheetos" at this event than any other.

Disappear Here

Literary moment for the weekend: went to the Bret Easton Ellis talk & signing at the Watertower. Most of his answers were of the vein that, no, not everything in the book is a scene directly taken from his real life. Lunar Park, and the rest of his books, are works of fiction, even though they incorporate actual experiences, real people and things of psychological importance to the author. Apparently, this surprises a lot of people.

Interesting crowd. The guy in front of me looked like Patrick Bateman. Fellow Chicago blogger Kid Chimera was there; Bret signed his copy of the book. I decided that the line was a little too long, and not moving at all, so I had Patrick Bateman sign my copy.

John St. John

The Magical Retirement of John St. John, or "Aleister Crowley blogs about Paris in the twenties."

Basically, twelve days of:

"Woke up, did some yoga, wandered over to the cafe for a nice citron press, had a nap, thought about various Egyptian and Fertile Crescent deities, went to a different cafe for a pear and two Garibaldis, complained about discomfort from yoga poses, chatted with friends about yoga/cafe food/ancient Egyptian mysticism, sex with Maryt* who looks different with her clothes off, had snack, received experience of enlightenment about my true Will, brushed teeth, went to bed."

Also, who knew crazy Uncle Aleister was funny? viz:

7.35. The Sandwich duly chewed, and two Coffees drunk, I resume the mystic
Mantra. Why? Because I dam well choose to. {31}
7.50. 'Tis a rash thing to
say, and I burn incense to the Infernal Gods that the Omen may be averted; but I
seem to have conquered the real Dweller of the Threshold once and for all. For
nowadays my blackest despair is tempered by the certainty of coming through it
sooner or later, and that with flying colours.
9.30. The last 3/4 hour I wasted talking to Dr. R---, that most interesting man. I don't mean talking; I mean listening. You are a bad, idle good-for-nothing fellow, O.M.! Why not stick to that mantra?
10.40. Have drunk two citrons press‚s and gone to my room to
work a mighty spell of magick Art.

In other words, even though the technology has changed, the experience of bohemian living hasn't.

*Maryt Waska, introduced to Crowley by Nina Hamnett. The Wikipedia article on Hamnett is great reading all by itself.

The Eyes of a Masturbator

From the John Patterson interview with Donald Sutherland in the Guardian:

He has a sudden, slightly awestruck flashback to the ferocious Robert Shaw.

"Shaw! He was something else. He died so young and so in character. He
was being driven somewhere in Ireland, and he started to have his heart attack
and he jumped out of the limo, literally running away from death, throwing up as
he goes, running through a field."

Fellini demands to have Sutherland for the role of Cassaova because

"I need him. He's a sperm-filled waxwork with the eyes of a masturbator!"

Zap

An Australian man built up a static charge of 40,000 volts in his clothes, ignited a hotel carpet, and was one step away from spontaneous human combustion.

-Reuters

Buzzcut

So, following an unfortunate professionally- performed haircut that can best be described as "Hitler's combover", a self-performed second haircut was initiated. I am now aerodynamic. I wish I'd had the foresight to do a mohawk as an intermediate step. Oh, well, maybe next time.

This picture makes it appear that I'm really depressed about something. That's mainly an effect caused by the way I'm holding my camera to take a picture of myself without knowing when the picture is actually going to happen.

Run Hit Wonder

Went for a little 5K action last night with Joyce and Mark, continuing our series of fitness dares. I came in with a time of 33:42, which means I kept an 11 minute mile pace--I'd like to be under 10, but hey, I'm in the top 38 percent of my age group, according to the website.

The best part about the event, other than having some mild affirmation that I'm at least marginally physically fit, and able to pass really slow people with only moderate effort, was the reaction of fellow public transport passengers to all the yellow shirts worn by participants (in place of those pin-on race numbers). One guy asked if we were all in a cult. Others shifted away from us (on the way down due to anxiety, on the way back due to the pungent body aroma emanating from some of the participants.)

Joyce and Mark, recently married, threw water in each other's faces after the finish. "We're fourteen," they said.

Stories from Katrina

I don't want to read this sort of thing. Aaron Broussard on Meet the Press (via BoingBoing)

MR. AARON BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. I am personally asking our bipartisan congressional delegation here in Louisiana to immediately begin congressional hearings to find out just what happened here. Why did it happen? Who needs to be fired? And believe me, they need to be fired right away, because we still have weeks to go in this tragedy. We have months to go. We have years to go. And whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership.
...MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.
Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.
...MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...
MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.

Please help

Donate to the Red Cross, or to your choice of charities.

Two Amazing Mouse Experiments

Mice that regenerate toes, internal organs, "anything but the brain".

Mice that live 19 to 31 % longer than expected.

The cliche about mouse studies is that we can do just about anything to rodents that we want. We can yank their lifespan around, double their muscle mass, give them wings, cure all kinds of cancer; trying to do the same things in humans is almost always less successful, for reasons that are not always clear. For example, numerous studies have shown that calorie deprivation extends the lifespan of rats & mice. One reason for this may be that standard rat chow isn't very healthy, rather than the hypothesized reason that calorie restriction either a) adjusts the animals' metabolic rate or b) changes gene expression. On the other hand, the calorie restriction experiments could also reasonably point to the insulin-like growth factor receptor cascades which are controlled by the life-extension experiment described above.

Feeling extropian, anyone?

New Orleans is Now Closed

Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, everyone must leave New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS - The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. "We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers trying to plug New Orleans' breached levees struggled to move giant sandbags and concrete barriers into place, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was growing more desperate and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.
"The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
...
A helicopter view of the devastation over Louisiana and Mississippi revealed people standing on black rooftops, baking in the sunshine while waiting for rescue boats.
..."Oh my God, it was hell," said Kioka Williams, who had to hack through the ceiling of the beauty shop where she worked as floodwaters rose in New Orleans' low-lying Ninth Ward. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."
Looting broke out in some New Orleans neighborhoods, prompting authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city. One police officer was shot in the head by a looter but was expected to recover, authorities said.
A giant new Wal-Mart in New Orleans was looted, and the entire gun collection was taken, The Times-Picayune newspaper reported. "There are gangs of armed men in the city moving around the city," said Ebbert, the city's homeland security chief. Also, looters tried to break into Children's Hospital, the governor's office said.
...

T-shirt

Tom said, in response to this post

Only thing worse to overhear during
a strangers coughing fit is
"I should get the TB results tomorrow..."

Which reminds me of the days when I worked at Children's Hospital Reseach Foundation. Early each morning, this elderly janitor would go around each floor of the building, emptying wastepaper baskets. I could track his progress by the sound of his wet, hacking, gargling cough; it could have been used as a sound effect for a Dickens movie.

Each morning, when he'd stop by my workstation, I'd say, "You really ought to get that thing checked out. It sounds really bad, like maybe it's TB."

He'd say, "Nah, it ain't nothin' but allergies."

Then he'd hobble off, muttering to himself between coughing sessions, and spitting blood into his handkerchief. I'd take my surgical mask off, and wonder who I should report him to. Then I'd get too busy to worry about anything as simple as public health concerns, and spend three hours arguing with my then-advisor about how little time I was spending at work (about 16-18 hours a day).

The Joke Everybody Likes

I'm so horny and lonely these days that I drive up and down the streets, yelling out the car window: "Fuck me. Fuck me! FUCK ME!"

And since this is Chicago, people shout back, "Yeah, buddy, FUCK YOU!"

The Joke No One Likes

A guy walks into his psychiatrists office and says, "I keep thinking of killing myself, but I'm so incredibly phobic. I'm afraid of guns, knives, heights, being crushed, needles, poison, deep water, shallow water, and fire."

The psychiatrist thinks about this for a minute, and says, "Well, you like cats, don't you?"

It was something I was going to eat

Had a very weird, very intense series of dreams last night, which couldn't have been caused by anything I ate, since I'd only had a banana and some milk for dinner. The dreams culminated in a very strange series of images "designed by British comedians to be as horrifying as possible": news presenters wearing gas masks, penguins driving penny farthing bicycles, and a "washing machine with a cartoon face and accordion tubing legs screaming 'I am giving birth' in the voice of Michael Palin." It was like a bad trip without the drugs.

Things you don't want to hear from an elevator co-passenger

"...I've tried everything, Immodium A-D, Kaopectate, everything. None of it seems to work."

And then you ride up seventeen floors on the far side of the car from this person.

Brio

Dinner with Eric and Susan last night, preceded by a tour of the furniture porn available at Easton, and concluded with dessert porn.

Supposedly, people who do lots of yoga don't gain as much weight, partially due to the exercise, but also because of the increased sensitivity to the way their body feels before and after eating. It's certainly true that I couldn't sleep for hours afterwords, and kept waking up with bad food karma.

Lucky for me, I didn't buy a new sofa, or I'd have had furniture chasing me in my dreams that night.

The Good Old Days

"Beth Orton has a Best Of album?" said the college-aged cashier at Borders. "How can that be? I feel so old."



Listening to - Beth Orton Pass in Time

I've got "Pedestal" and "Where do I Begin?" on infinite repeat right now.

Two Blogrolls to go.

If my Wondertwin Powers were up to 100%, I'd be living la vida fantastico like Chad Fox.

Who I found through Joe.My.God's story about Kinkiness. Best Quote of the evening:

"Nestor, if you stick that up my ass I'm gonna poop that pickle across the room. I'm not kidding." I do have my limits.

"You're no fun," he responded.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

The bartender at the Sidetrack said: "people sure do like to give you things. I wish people would give me free stuff like that," pointing to my stack of loot for the weekend. This included:

• Coupon for free chips & guac, from Chipolte
• Coupon for free burrito from same
• GSB bumper sticker
• Beige baseball hat, GSB logowear
• Flyer for free Hepatitis A&B vaccination
• CD for same
• Tinfoil gumwrappers
• Rubber charity wristband (orange)
• Lint (found in pocket)
• Penny (found on street)

I offered her the pick of any of this, or a cash tip. She laughed, but took the cash.

Toothpaste for Dinner

Eli sent me this:
Toothpaste for Dinner


...whose author also gives great advice, like this:

I was just wondering, if you could have any superpower in the world, and one
wish come true, what would they be? —Teneille

Teneille, I would be flyin’ around
with a thousand dollars. It would be sweet.

Natalie rocks.

I am a sexy beast, baby.

Back from Columbus. Now, all I have to do is close a couple of multimillion dollar deals, find a new love interest, and get my back hair zapped (not necessarily in that order).

Look Homeward, Angel

I'm back in Columbus for a week, for the 4th of July holiday, and a little downshifted time. It's a good vacation spot, especially since the holiday results in a lot of auxiliary events. Everyone's throwing a cookout, for example, so I've got all the beer brats I can handle, and more.

Everything moves just a little bit slower, and everything aims to be just as cool as anywhere else, except that there's a little less of it than it would take at any given time to reach a critical mass of coolness.

Sort by

At the last stop on Michigan Avenue, all of the busses were sorted by number. Eight 151 Sheridans within 15 minutes, followed by three of the usually very rare 145 Wilsons. Then, a pair of 147 Outer Drives, both so packed that I ended up riding pressed up inside the front windshield of one of them.

Strange pickup lines #168

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful, he leaned over the counter of the booth, and asked: "Are you... Australian?"

"No," I said, "except when I stand on my head."

Chicago Chainsaw Massacre

At 3AM this morning, I woke up to the sound of a chainsaw revving.

I thought, "Surely, it's just an asshole on a dirtbike, doing doughnuts on the street outside my apartment."

We get our fair share of lively partiers with loud engines, but this wasn't one of them. It was, in fact, a man with a chainsaw, outside my window. I had a momentary flash of Friday the 13th paranoia, before seeing that he had been sent by the city to remove a large tree branch that had fallen across my street. All the same, it took a while before I could get back to sleep. I've had these weird nighttime rescue missions happen before, when I was so tired, I thought I was hallucinating the fire trucks, or the DEA raid down the way.

But no, I live in the world's most exciting neighborhood (at 3AM.)

Writer's Workshop

"Are you a writer?" she asked.

"Yes...yes I am," only after I say this do I realize it's true.

"I knew it. You look like a writer."

(Is that, "You look like a writer: sexy, hip, intellectual," or "You look like a writer: disheveled, antisocial, frumpy?")

"So..." she says, "what do you write?"

"Novels...and things. I've finished a first draft, but need to go back and edit it."

"Is it due out soon, then?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it. It has a long way to go," I tell her. Then I tell her I'm also a consultant, which is also true, but which feels like a cop-out somehow.

I ask her about what she does (runs a tea website, spends a lot of time outdoors). We chat for a while, and then I leave to catch the 146, thinking I'd better get back to this writing stuff, because it's not good enough to look like a writer.

Overheard on the EL

Girl on Cell Phone: "I mean, he was going on and on about his vacation, like it was, I don't know, Paris or the Riviera or something. He went to Schaumberg. Give me a break...what did he do, stop by the IKEA?"

Everlasting Blogstalker

The local coffee house, Pause, is the spot to sit in the summer and work on your blog posts, or in my case, the last MBA paper of my life. Huzzah.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who likes the place. While I'm sitting in the front window, a clatch in the back are namedropping the Chicagobloggers weblisting are in the big back table, a couple of Gen X slacker types are tap-tap-tapping away at laptops in the church pews, and a guy who looks suspiciously like local microceleb Jake from NoFo is sitting out front giving me quizzical looks because I'm staring squinting stalking politely trying to figure out whether I recognize him or not.

Either way, hi, Jake.

The Galactic Federation

This past Saturday was a classic example of Chicago event juxtaposition:

• Memorial Day, with attendant parade
• The International Mister Leather Convention
• The England-US soccer match at Soldier Field

I go into a bar downtown which is populated by 1/3 guys in leather and fetishwear, 1/3 people in soccer hooligan jerseys and scarves, and 1/3 indian tourists, wearing tunics & saris. I'm imagining the tourists going back to their country thinking that everyone in the US either dresses like All-England or like a leatherdaddy.

Sweet.

Overdetermination

Brian Eno wrote a great book called A Year with Swollen Appendices , which was basically his diary for 1995, with some essays tacked on the end.

I read it and said, "I can do that," which resulted in close to ten years of journal entries in (at this point) seven of those big black sketchbooks they sell at Borders, plus two little hardbound notebooks picked up on trips. This in turn spawned the webpages, and the novel that stares me in the face and says "edit me". Now that the third degree is nearing completion, I may actually have some time, energy and inclination to do that. In turn, this will spawn the movie, the broadway revival, and the action figure with the kung-fu grip.

When I first started, what I really wanted was to become the kind of person that interesting things happened to...things I could put into a journal, for example. What actually happens, of course, is that in addition to doing more interesting things, one becomes more aware that everything one does is more interesting.

This leads to the mistaken impression that everyone else would find one's life equally interesting. Leading to this post.

Back in the Saddle Again

After a year away from active posting, I'm back and in an all new location.

For the old weblog, and so forth, go here. For the new stuff, keep yer peepers open.