Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Not Giving a Damn
Will and I were talking about it today. How everyone gives a damn. Only they have a threshold for it. Every task, every day involves it. Take out the trash. Recycle some. Decide what to throw away, what to keep, what to recycle. Our capacity to give a damn is limited by our defense of lesser decisions. Mass media is the worst offender.
Cinema Ephemera
Are you in for a quick experiment? Shall we?First task: Name three types of coniferous trees. You have ten seconds.
Second task: Name the capitols or Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan and the lakes that border them. Another ten seconds.
Third task: Name four brands of tennis shoes. Ten more seconds.
Fourth task: Name two low-carb diets. You have five seconds for that one.
My guess is that the majority of us has an easier time with the ephemeral trivia of the latter two questions. Though trees and the US states may be more permanent than Nike and Atkins, the effect of omnipresent commerical ephemera has a more visceral result. As urbanites, our daily lives are not filled with the bewonderment of the natural world. We but on occassion imagine what the Midwesterners must cherish in the Great Lakes.
This is exactly why Ephemeral Cinema is at the top of my list for passing time these days. Indeed, ripping, mixing and burning the artifacts of our culture could well become a passion. When thirteen hours has passed, and I've completed the download of the DVVD quality version of the film Panorama Ephemera, I'll close the door to San Diego for a night, make a bowl of something from someone's garden -- green, no doubt, and far too healthy to enumerate fully -- and sit down to watch what collected works from the past can tell me about the collective mindset of America today. I have a theory that our national psyche is deeply mired in past consumptions. We are what we eat.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Name the movie.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Childhood Memory of the PC Kind
I was listening to a Johnny Cash sing about Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego, when a memory came upon me. I seemed to remember a book from my childhood about some chinese brothers escaping extinction with wit and subterfuge. From what I can remember of The Five Chinese Brothers, it was a story more or less like the one Johnny Cash was singing. Having looked it up, it appears as if I am right. Only I also discovered a thread of racism. I'm anxious to get the book and see for myself. Somehow, I don't think my parents would have had such a blatantly racist book as a part of my collection. We're just not that kind of family.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Outfoxed: The Remix
Program Details for Outfoxed: Interview Footage Download your footage here. Remix it at home. Be creative with your anger.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
DSM-IV
Psychology Classroom at AllPsych Online
Total Information Give-Away Dot-Com
Regarding a comment I heard about how Plaxo is probaly not the best place to keep your contact information. The argument? "Who knows what they are doing with your data?"I don't know. I just pray they aren't about to sell it to magazine subscribers.
Still, though, they are on to something. De-Outlooking and de-devicing data is, as my Swedish friends tell me, "the way of the future." I agree, though, that if I'm simply replacing the shackles of MS with the shackles of Plaxo, the net gain is zero.
Plaxo is damn handy, though. I use it. And since moving, I've found it invaluable. When work moves to a new location in a month, it will prove its value again. It has even become a part of my regular routine to accept plaxo requests from people I had long forgotten about.
Regardless, I don’t think you're a skeptic or a cynic. It's not like you believe Plaxo is a hoax. And it’s not a knee-jerk reaction, so far as I can tell. You see the value, perhaps, but the service is not as valuable as your personal data. The trade-off is something most people wouldn't take the time to figure out. And that is at the heart of their business plan, I'm sure.
All Work and No Play
Makes John a great photographer.I'm so jealous. These are some of the best concrete jungle photos I've ever seen. John has a real gift for formalism, even if he doesn't quite know what that is yet.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
So that's what it's called . . .
"Post-Industrial Architecture Photography."
Thursday, September 09, 2004
My Very Own Stamps
Trainspotters beware. There's a new geek in town.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
SOS
Mr. Trujillo-Your chips are almost perfect. They have a savory salt-kissed, and mouthy crunch. Upon rumination, they sit agreeably between the heart and stomach, like a child, sweet-breathed and innocent as the dawn, sleeping at one's breast. Matched with a home-made New Mexico style salsa, they bespeak the very essence of divine union. Stephanie -- my beautiful Southern California bride-to-be -- and I both agree that in spite of their awe-inspiring affect, we can however name their one and only flaw all too well: they are not available for retail sale in California. Finding them is as easy as our annual visits to New Mexico (my family lives in Lincoln) which takes one car, 24 hours and 1600 miles all told. We find that soon on our anchor leg leaving New Mexico we run out of the five or six bags of La Poblanita Party Tostadas we bought for the purpose of easing our transition from the Land of Enchantment to the Golden State. Having grown quite addicted to them, we are at the mercy of whatever treasure we can fit in the back of a Jetta. Can so many bags tide us over in the time between visits? The answer is no. Ever unsatisfied by our fortunes, my parents are known to send care packages of green chilies, Gorman postcards, and your chips - the three finest arts New Mexico has to offer. Only the freight for chilies and postcards is a little more practical. How many times have Stephanie and I stayed up at night wondering how we can get into wholesale distribution business just so we can secretly horde your chips? Far too many times to be respected in the morning. As our obsession grows, we realize there may be more practical means of establishing a pipeline of La Poblanita Party Tostadas between Roswell and San Diego. We could create, sign and distribute a petition, perhaps, mandating the establishment of the La Poblanita railway. Alternatively, we could reenact the Pony Express, calling it the Poblanita Express. However, at any decent canter, horses and riders, though they mean well, may risk damaging the chips. Perhaps, even still, if we pray hard enough, your party tostadas will begin to rain from the sky, as if God Himself agreed that were not more apt cure-all for Southern California than a Party Tostada monsoon? Why turn water into wine, when you can turn Corn, Water, Lime, Vegetable Oil, and Seasonings into some other kind of miracle? No, there must be other, more practical, means. It is my plea, Mr. Trujillo, that we collectively set forth a plan to get you more shelve space in San Diego. Perhaps then, my midnight yearnings can be serviced by a simple, socially acceptable, sojourn to the super market instead. In the meantime, perhaps you'd consider shipping a bag or two a week to our home near the sea. We'd gladly pay the asking price, as well as shipping.
Yours on his last bag,
Kelly Abbott, Party Tostada Addict
Letter for Ross and Hannah, In the Eye of Frances
In '92 I had a British Airways flight from Miami to London for my first year of school in Wales. It must have been the end of August. My connecting flight from Columbus brought me in over the path of destruction left by Hurricane Andrew. I remember being more fascinated than frightened by the sight of a hurricane's wake. Andrew, it has been said, was three times more destructive than Charley. The combination of Frances and Charley (and Ivan, and on) together will no doubt rival that summer.The impression I was left with, on our low approach to Miami International were the flattened toothpick rows of felled trees. It reminded me of images from Mt. St. Hellens in 1980, which has since reminded me of the aerial photos of Hiroshima. Comparing these hurricanes to those explosions is perhaps hyperbole, but when you see trees stripped bare, laying on their side in a mass grave over the earth, one can hardly keep from the notion.
