January 20, 2009 • 7:01 pm 2
iTunes is killing the real cd, I find myself downloading my music from the iTunes store. There’s nothing like instant gratification. But there are times when I’ve gone out of my way and purchased the physical cd just to get a hold of the artwork (Menomena’s Friend or Foe, Antony’s i am a bird now, etc.). I’m excited about Antony’s new cd, The Crying Light, just look at Yoshito Ohno up there! I’m reading up on butoh and you should too.
November 12, 2008 • 11:39 am 0
As much as I’ve read about the printing process you’d think I’d have a clear sense as to how it was done. I mean, if some guy could do it almost 500 hundred years ago… Anyway, I came across this video through UnosTiposDuros and I was just floored by the complicated process. Check it out:
August 21, 2008 • 10:20 am 0
Above: The iconic panel when the Dark Phoenix snacked on a star and toasted several billions living beings. This post was prompted by Marvel’s inability to handle strong women characters.
As muddled as Jean Grey’s story became I can’t help but think it didn’t have to be so messy. As I understand Chris Claremont’s conception of the Phoenix’s powers they are not unlimited. The young Phoenix was even defeated by Magneto one time. The Phoenix was basically a battery of potentially unlimited capacity… but she still had to be charged up with something external.
When attempting to repair the M’Kraan Crystal she wasn’t strong enough, she needed the life forces of two teammates. Of course, in the panel above she really charged herself up and became pretty unstoppable. But a good writer could have limited the Phoenix’s access to that much power and kept her as a team member. Many have said that having such a powerful team member renders the other X-Men obsolete and I completely disagree. Having a cosmically-powered Phoenix is one thing but the Phoenix before the whole eating star incident had limits.
Next time, I’ll try to formulate Grant Morrison’s ingenious way of getting rid of both Phoenix and Jean Grey (that bastard!).
June 20, 2008 • 1:16 pm 0
There’s no better way to weasel out of a discussion than saying “You’re just being PC!” People hide their ugly and stupid beliefs by saying “That’s just PC man, fuck that!”
No, I do not mean that you have to sanitize your language but own up when you say something. This idiot, Josh Homme, frontman of Queens of the Stone Age, just launched the word “faggot” like there was no tomorrow.He’s rightfully getting a lot of flack for it. But instead of penning a nice mea culpa, he sends out an ugly statement that a 12 year old might pen. He wrote:
By that logic… I also told that young whipper snapper I’d have anal sex with him… how can I possibly reconcile these opposing viewpoints? I called him a pussy too. Does it mean I hate our one worlds’ collective vagina? I never have been nor intend to be politically correct. That’s your cross to bear. To me, that PC world would suck more shit than the porta-potty truck at Glastonbury. Homophobic? I’m in Queens of the Stone Age for crissake… You say, “So. Your band name doesn’t prove anything.” Maybe not. But it’s a helluv a lot more definitive than the logic of some watchdog… (sorry canine-American, canine-European, canine-African, canine-Australian & canine-Asian) moralist, keeping score from pure perfectionville?
You see what he was trying to do? Deflate a real argument about using such powerful words that reflect such pure hatred. No one wants to stifle his verbal diarrhea, keep doing it idiot, I’m just not buying any more of your music.
Would Mr. Homme have used the n-word when insulting the guy who threw that shoe?
June 18, 2008 • 11:43 am 0
This last Saturday we headed to Baltimore with a couple of friends. We first headed to American Visionary Art Museum to check out a PostSecret exhibit. The museum was aaaiiight but the real jewel was the museum store. The museum store was quite possibly the kitchiest place I’ve ever seen. There were so may things I almost bought but decided I had squeezed out all delight by merely holding them.
We also went to a magical place called The Book Thing where we dropped off some books we no longer wanted and came back with lots of books we did want. I came back with:
Baltimore… is an interesting city. And as if the Baltimore overload wasn’t enought we also started watching The Wire.
Filed under: random
May 11, 2008 • 4:32 pm 0
I feel like I’m hoarding books, I’m lusting after books. I’ve recently been inundated by books, although surprisingly, they’re all non-fiction. Here’s a listing of what’s in my queue:
All 4 of Tufte’s books, I’m going in order, I’m now on Visual Explanations. They really are beautiful books and I’m learning a thing or two.
My old statistics book (thanks mom and dad!). I have fond memories of this book, I want to relearn some stats and this is just the ticket. This itch to re-familiarize with stats is blatantly related to the Tufte books.
Letter by Letter by Laurent Pflughaupt, should reach my hands this Monday or Tuesday. It seems like it will be an interesting read.
The Elements of Typographic Style, should also reach my hands this Monday or Tuesday.
May 10, 2008 • 11:17 am 2
May 9, 2008 • 2:16 pm 0
Yesterday’s issue of Nature has a piece on the platypus genome. It’s interesting to compare the reporting in Nature, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. I found the Post article thoroughly enjoyable and not at all lacking in substance.
Yet in its wackiness, Wilson said, the platypus genome offers an unprecedented glimpse of how evolution made its first stabs at producing mammals. It tells the tale of how early mammals learned to nurse their young; how they matched poisonous snakes at their venomous game; and how they struggled to build a system of fertilization and gestation that would eventually, through relatives that took a different tack, give rise to the first humans.
The Times article was too short and the sense of wonder/weirdness was missing.
An international scientific team, which announced the first decoding of the platypus genome on Wednesday, said the findings provided “many clues to the function and evolution of all mammalian genomes,” including that of humans, and should “inspire rapid advances in other investigations of mammalian biology and evolution.”
The Nature article is of course good but I still prefer the wonder and style of the Post article.
May 3, 2008 • 2:13 pm 2
This is starting to seem like a Japanophile blog… A couple of days ago the NY Times had a small piece about the MOMA Store’s new Destination: Japan section. Ah, clean and quirky design. While we were eating at Whole Foods today, I saw a woman chowing down using a pair of traveling chopsticks. What a great and green idea! We’ll, sure enough, you can buy them at the MOMA Store!
March 29, 2008 • 2:56 pm 2
The New York Times has a front-page article about a lawsuit against the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). Basically, two people are suing because they think that the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider will cause a tiny black hole that will swallow the Earth and the universe.
Are the two guys suing just zany or is there a real possibility of some unforeseen disaster? I sure as hell don’t know. But more important than the upcoming unraveling of reality, as I was reading the article in the cafe I noticed this:
