This Blog is a Mess

The New York Times did a piece on this a couple of weeks ago, but you need to have a paid subscription to view this. Instead, listen to this wonderful segment on NPR, extolling the virtues of clutter and mess. Mess creates a kind of randomness that may lead to forming unexpected connections ... intuitive leaps ... fresh perspectives ... new discoveries ... apophenia ... pattern recognition ... William Gibson ... cyberpunk ... umm, wait, how did I get here anyway?

Anyway, this is your new year's resolution. Embrace your mess. Let it guide you. Do you really want to argue with Einstein? (“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?”)

twosies

Bloggers are compulsive list makers. Why, some would say, the world wide blogosphere is built on the idea of lists. While there are no definite rules governing the semantic or syntactic structure of lists (other than ye olde <li> tag), a good list generally has at least five elements. This has me in a bit of a tizzy (or perhaps, the kids call it "thizzy" these days, with all the hyphy hype). I'll often think of two or three fabulous list items, but then I'm left scrounging for filler to reach that magic number five. Well, no more! I'm going back to first principles - coredumpin' is all about regurgitating the raw data sitting around in your brain. If the stack trace only has two elements, so be it.

Here we go:

Halloween costume ideas that only Don and Shrey would find funny

• Pliny the Younger (or Don talks in a faux Cockney accent as "Pliny the Younger" - inspired by, but completely unrelated to Greek philosopher, Pliny the Elder. No really! Don thought Pliny was this dead British guy, which makes this whole thing even funnier).
  
• Raider Nation (or Shrey ironically dresses up as Raider fan, complete with psycho regalia)
  

Why 2006 was the year of the d**k meme (NOT SAFE FOR WORK)

• Dick in a Box
• Yo Dick
• Let's Sexy Engrish
  

damn irritating yaar

an all new things that hella bug me ...

• using hecka instead of hella - this is California people, not PsychoChristianLand.
  
• talking on the telephone. This is an odd one, but weirdly true. Telephonic interchanges don't allow for natural lulls in conversation. Half the time, I feel pressured to fill in the void, with awkward, meaningless comments. The other half, I am trying to make a graceful exit (which never happens). The only conversations that I seem to enjoy are with folks that allow me to abruptly cut things off with a "Bye Dude - Gotta Go" mid-sentence. No hard feelings.
  
• the term "winningest", often used in sports writing or commentary. Winningest is NOT a word, people - it sounds completely retarded. The only thing that bugs me more is that Bobby Knight is about to become the winningest coach in NCAA Division I Men's Basketball. Which is a perfectly appropriate place to use the word, since it allows me to disacknowledge (also not a word) the record by describing it with words that don't exist.
  

breech

the widget is upside down. i mean it is right side up. which is really upside down. for a fetus.

so it looks kinda like this:

 ___
/ O \
|-| |
| / |
\___/

as opposed to:

 ___
/ \ \
|-| |
| O |
\___/

confused?

me too!

all i know is that it complicates a few things. poor eliz. we're in the last few weeks though.

soon, my dear. soon.

Actual Content

Clearly, four day weekends are an excuse to pontificate. So the Yakov Smirnoff question of the day is "does you create your politics, or do your politics create you?" (and let's just ignore the Soviet Russia angle for now).

I was in the shower, wondering about my pacifist ideals (don't ask), and I began thinking - is pacifism merely a convenient veil for someone that has basically always been smaller and wimpier than the other guy? I probably couldn't win an honest to god fist fight, so is pacifism merely my cop out? The easy way to avoid dealing with violent situations?

Along similar lines, am I attracted to feministy women because they are most likely to be attracted to wimpster boys like me? Am I a leftist because I am a minority? Did I become a vegetarian to merely "fit-in" with the cool kids? Ok - scratch that last one. That was mostly because of a girl I liked.

Anyway, in some sense, the answer doesn't matter anymore because I've drunk the proverbial kool-aid, and I pretty much solidly believe in everything that I believe in. How I got there may be up for questioning, but I'm here and I'm, well ... here!

Also - I know the answer to the question - probably a bit of both. Personal predilection combined with environmental influences. Think feedback cycles and chaos. Yeah - lame, I know. But true.

buy nothing day

Also, today is Buy Nothing Day. This means you.

why thanksgiving is a rubbish holiday

this is beautiful. i've always wanted to expose the cloying blandness that is thanksgiving comfort food.

r

the pirate thing is officially over.

House Music

Whoa!!! The previous post, written several weeks ago, WORKED! We won!

Current list of changes in my life, in order of importance:

• new baby (forthcoming)
  
• New House (as in congress)
  
• new house (as in home)
  
• new job (as in work)
  
• new hair (as in hair)
  
• new radio gig (hair before radio - hmm ...)
  

So, I'm not convinced that the new Congress (or anything, really) can solve the mess we've created in Iraq, but I have slightly more faith in The People now, and the fact that they voted for change. If nothing else we got Rummy to step down, which is huge, even if we're looking at two lame duck years.

insomniac

i was reading this little bit about the decline of rough trade records in the late eighties, as it related to the general political climate. the thatcher tories appeared to be undefeatable and completely entrenched. the socialist ideals embodied by rough trade, nme et al seemed to be nothing more than fruitless idealism, which ultimately led to the rise of acid house and electronic dance music as the dominant music of the kids. hedonism as a reaction to the bullshit capitalist/rascist machine, since attempts at social justice didn't seem to be working. and then the nineties happened!

somehow this gives me hope. maybe, it is time to just say fuckit, and to just create as much ... stuff ... as possible. indulge. maybe, we just need to wait this thing out. and while we're waiting, we might as well have fun.

elsewhere

i have this nice little idea that should bear fruition in a few days. art. an idea. content transposed to "non-traditional" media, then reinterpreted and retransmitted through the "lens" of the original. oh dear. too many quotation marks. trouble!

in the meantime, i've been munching on this delicious little novel. have a little taste ...

Propositions: Meaning must be arrived at obliquely, through hints and feints. It must be suggested through the figurative rather than explicitly stated through the literal. Any attempt to capture meaning by direct approach will result in its death, and - like certain shellfish - meaning must not be killed prior to ingestion lest it be rendered poisonous or, at the least, unpalatable. Meanings that can be contained in words are not worth discussing. Nothing need be passed over in silence, yet some things may be merely implied through circumlocution. Absence as a defining characteristic. Subjects defined by negative space.

widget

coffee shop blogging

since i'm working from the nomad today, i feel obligated to post a blog entry or two. i haven't written much lately, mostly because i've been hella busy. but a lot seems to have happened in the past few weeks.

• we've moved. our new place is ... well ... magical. now i don't use the word magical very often, being more of a science and reason kinda guy, but seriously, the old antiquey fixtures, the dense overgrowth of plants all around, the old hardwood floors, the ginormous kitchen ... magic.
  
• i've interviewed for a new position at work. this is centered around my general open=good feeling about software. the interviews went well, and everyone seems to think this is a good idea, so i'm getting warm and fuzzies all around.
  
• i'm going to be in england next week for a conference.
  
• been going in for several doctor's visits in conjunction with the little widget. it has hands. and a head. and legs. and a nose that vaguely resembles mine. and it wiggles!!!
  
• needless to say, i haven't had time to breathe (see previous bullets).
  
• guilty pleasure: e and i have blazed through a whole season of veronica mars in a week and a half. again, i refer you to the previous bullets.
  

Janamdin Mubarak

Happy Burday Sista Girl. Pacchis in the house.

fragment

I had something clever to say earlier - now, all I have left are thought fragments. Something about "the kids" being really young, all of a sudden. My sub-culture has been invaded. It used to be that hipness was the province of fashionable twenty-somethings. For some odd reason, people watchees (as opposed to watchers) have dropped in age. Eighteen year old tots preening around like they just got back from snorting lines with Lou Reed. Something is off here. I told you that this wasn't going to be coherent. I'm just a little weirded out being ten years older than "the kids".

do the tootsie roll

currently hearting music by
- <artist> (<song>)
- the knife (heartbeats)
- dirty on purpose (your summer dress)
- monster movie (vanishing act)
- boat (quickly and quietly)
- uffie (pop the glock)

a word about uffie. yes, it is a completely ridiculous song. but when pitchfork starts to dissect it, and analyze the use of faux gunshot samples, and take potshots at the lyrics, they just end up looking bad. i mean, really guys - what is the point? don't you have anything better to write about? did you run out of unreleased sufjan stevens bootlegs to review? the song is called "pop the glock", fer chrissakes. just admit it - you haven't stopped singing it in over a month. resistance is futile. listen and love it like a ... umm ... pop. or better yet, watch the video of scantily clad brooklyn hipster girls getting down to it (nsfw).

memetic

Pretty much everything good that I find on the intarwubs (how soon before this term makes it out into the lexicon?) these days, seems to come via the prolific web surfing talents of my dear Lil. In keeping with the fine tradition of biting, and the even finer tradition of hating on certain subcultures, here is her latest find - Ode to Burning Man.

"OMG! Look how totally crazy we're being!"
"Seriously! I'm dressed like a bear & you have stilts on! This is nuts!"

Nuf said.

art is not a four letter word

poor grammar

thump thump

so the little parasite (that is what we are calling it for now) has a little 160 bpm heartbeat! we got to hear it thump today. the first trimester is also officially over, which means that i no longer have symptoms like sympathetic nausea, sympathetic headaches, sympathetic tiredness. i guess, i'll have to find new outlets for my hypochondria.

loose edds and onds

bonus points to all zero of you that got the new order reference in the last post.

raiders of the lost ark in the park with 3000 other people was pretty surreal. and free! free is good.

saw goblin cock last night, and well, they are the most unconvincing metal band ever. this was basically pinback, putting on monkish robes and carrying skulls and turning up the distortion pedals. i found it impossible to get past rob crowe's vocals (perhaps the most un-metal nasally-whiny-indie voice in the world) and the very pinback-esque song structures. goblin cock is forever doomed to be a failed indie rock side project. in some sense metal is the opposite of indie rock, and when the twain attempt to meet ... well ... you get goblins, you get cocks but i kept wanting to shout "pinback rules".

the new battlestar galactica is pretty awesome in the space drama department, and while it is light years better than the campy 70s original, it still has some nits that need picking. in attempting to go for a gritty realistic feel, they ended up with sets that appear to be set in the not-so-distant future (in my estimation 73 years from now), for events that are several hundreds or thousands of years removed from modern day earth. it is rather odd to see bulky phone handsets, and hum-vees, and champagne bottles everywhere. and they commit the cardinal sci-fi sin - the sound of explosions in a vacuum. luckily for the creators of the show, they have some fantastic plot lines and some incredible actors, so i can easily forgive these relatively minor transgressions.