I am a long time reader of slashdot, and particularly the discussion comments. Slashdot’s userbase has reached a level of sophistication and saturation that the comments that mod to the top are frequently more interesting than the news story itself.

Recently I found this response to the recurring magical market thinking people employ in response to the problem of resource scarcity:

clipped from news.slashdot.org

Supplies of Rare Earth Elements Exhausted By 2017

Re:supply and demand - no real problem

The market doesn’t govern the physical universe. At all. The amounts of material and energy present on Earth are in no way related to the laws of supply and demand. The universe is indifferent to your over-applied, unfalsifiable theories.

Sometimes ‘cheaper alternatives’ just don’t exist. This is why your precious markets have never got to grips with spaceflight. The markets reaction has always been “Wait till it is cheaper” on the assumption that all technology gets cheaper - ignoring the fact that there is a physical constraint on what you must do to get into orbit.

The fact that the price of a commodity increases when it’s in short supply doesn’t cure the shortage or make it less of a problem; it merely allocates what supplies remain to those who are willing to pay the most.

Stop treating economics like it’s a theory of everything.

Yes people, the market can’t make something out of nothing! We live on a finite planet as I like to say. There is not an unending supply of ANYTHING. Why is that so hard to understand? This ain’t medieval geography. The earth is a sphere, with dimensions and boundaries. And the stuff that we care about is all in the thin upper layer. And most of that layer is covered in undrinkable water. Not very much stuff to go around at all, when you think about it.

I understand the cognitive dissonance surrounding this point, because once you understand that, you realize that the way we live is insane. We are gorging on an energy bonanza that can’t last forever.

I was recently watching a CNN panel on gas prices, and the guest expert said something shocking. He admitted that he doesn’t see any other solution to the oil problem other than a drastic curtailment of our lifestyle, with driving a rare privilege. He made all the other talking heads uncomfortable. I thought, “this is a notable moment.” Now even the people who routinely lie to us (mainstream media) are shrugging their shoulders and averting their eyes!

Right now, oil production is about 86 million barrels per day. Demand is about 85 million barrels per day. And oil production declined slightly last year [Source]. I’ll let that sink in.

We’re meeting current demand by a sliver, and look at where gas prices are. Just imagine what will happen when demand outstrips supply. It ain’t going to be pretty. Economic prosperity maps in a direct, inverse proportional relationship to the price of energy. Price of energy go up, prosperity go down. Price of energy shoot up exponentially, prosperity dives into a toiletspin. That’s right, a tailspin crossed with a shitstorm! A flaming death spiral of unmitigated chaos and desperation. Like Christmas Eve at Walmart, but worse!

One thing’s for sure. If society breaks down, I am FUCKED without Lasik! Just like Piggy in Lord of the Flies! I think it’s my biggest fear in life to end up blind and helpless in a post-apocalyptic world.

Oh well. Maybe Obama can sprinkle enchanted hope dust on us and solve this complicated issue! Or we can shed the greed and entitlement that’s poisoning our minds and our planet. There is so much fat to trim in our lifestyle. Literally and figuratively. Perhaps there is enough wiggle room in scaling back the gratuitous energy orgy that is modern living, for us to do so while sustainable alternatives are introduced.

Of course that would require self sacrifice, and as Ken Burns so eloquently put it, sacrifice and duty are two words we don’t know the meaning of.

Listen to this story about China from NPR’s The World yesterday (or read it). It’s about how China went from being a bike riding, pedestrian accessible, friendly neighbor society, to a car driving, subdivision-building monument to pollution and isolation.

While listening to this I was thinking “wow, this is a great piece of radio,” and simultaneously, “wow, they know how to edit this to speak directly to my bleeding-heart tree-hugging NPR-listening attitudes!” I think both are true.

China Urbanization on The World from PRI

The point here is that even a huge city like Beijing once thrived without dependence on cars, and that urban planners are trying to reverse gears on the wasteful design choices that have sprung up to support the car culture.

The quote from the teenager at the end is priceless.

Question: is there anything wrong with towers, shopping malls, hustle and bustle?
Answer: nothing comes to mind…. oh yeah, the environment!

Sha totally! Like, dude, where’s my earth?

This is Jesse Kudler’s gear table. He and Chris Cogburn played the second set of the third show of June from the Church of the Friendly Ghost. They played a set of found sound semi-improvisational pieces, as well as a short encore (their “hit single” as Chris put it). The objects and instruments you see here include percussion, guitar, pedal, mixer, bow, tape decks, hair brush, handheld fan, other assorted noise-giving objects. Chris and Jesse create their own means of playing these objects, and their own ideas about how these sounds fit together to become music. They invent techniques and structure, and must carve out their sound in time and space without the aid of an established form.

The show was the same combination of music and performance art that I’ve come to expect from a Chris Cogburn collaboration. The movements they use to grasp their tool, invoke the sound, and replace it again are so seamless, graceful and deliberate. The subtle choices they make about how to play these are delightfully inventive. I watched Chris set a drum stick upright atop his drum and roll it between two palms while a string of bells dangling from his pinky tinkled and rang as a side effect; then he periodically lifted the bell hand in a looping motion that traced across the air an invisible half of a figure eight. That figure eight gesture was remarkable to me, because it was so insignificant to the sound but so satisfying to watch. Chris’s performances always have an almost ceremonial quality to them, because of the attention to presentation, mood, and the visual aspects of the performance.

This kind of music has a trance-like effect on me. Watching something so delicate and precise demands a higher amount of focus than usual. The volume is so hushed and the movement is so slight. Listening to this show reminded me so keenly of an experience I once had in my teens. I had politely accepted an invitation to my best friend’s bible study, which concluded with a living room full of young people speaking in tongues. They all preferred a very understated, almost whispered, low toned style of non-verbal vocalizing, creating a choir of quiet, atonal utterances. It was a hair raising and deeply calming experience. I feel the same sensory overload and inner still when I listen to the stylized, minimalist music Chris Cogburn makes.

I’ve been tagged by Mr. Ned Raggett to write about 7 songs I’m listening to lately. Well Mr. Ned, I shall do you one better with this online playlistmajigger, in addition to some words!

7 songs of nariposa, IMEEM playlist:
http://www.imeem.com/people/BCG1TGv/playlist/yU6GPubo/7_songs_of_nariposa_music_playlist

Mr. Ned’s blog on the subject lives over here: Seven songs, then seven other blogs. The fact that I have to scroll down just to finishing reading the paragraph about a single song should tell you two things. One, he’s an ex college radio DJ. Two, music criticism is inherently hilarious.

Ned already knows he’s the first person I thought of when I read this Onion story: Food Critic Tears Radish Canapés With Salmon Mousse A New Asshole. The point being that oftentimes the amount of energy invested in dissecting the original item of interest faaaar exceeds the amount of attention that original item deserves. Funny! Make no mistake, I resemble that too.

God bless the Ned Raggetts of the world. As I recently pointed out to my friend melnicki, the shared community surrounding any piece of art is half the enjoyment. His point was that he should be able to create art anonymously, without having his story interfere with the appreciation of it. My point was that the fanboy frothing about the art is a separate and worthy thing in and of itself. What will we do if we don’t know your name and can’t talk about your story as it relates to your art? As my music director would say, you alienate music nerds at your own peril. Unless anonymity is part of your brand (like Jandek), deliberately handicapping the fanboy frenzy ensures that your audience will remain small.

Now here are the words about the shitty songs I like:

1. Yo La Tengo “The Story Of”
I bought “Beat Your Ass” last year sound unheard, gave it a listen, thought it boring and sold it back the next week. Somehow missed this song, which I saw them perform at SXSW this year. So I bought the album back again.

What can I say? It’s classic Yo La. Nice big fuzzsicle. Suck it.

2. Joan of Arc “Mike Kinsella & Ben Vida”
Don’t even start with me haters (you know who you are). This sounds nothing like other Joan of Arc albums anyway. This album came out three years ago but I’m listening to it now. I probably loved it three years ago too, forgot it completely, then was free to discover it all over again as if it were new.

This is not the most exceptional track (that honor goes to track #7 if you’re curious). It’s just a gritty, badly tuned acoustic guitar duet. I don’t care if it is a gimmick by now, I just love messy, imprecise, intentionally detuned beater guitar songs. It is almost a cliche now, but it’s so pretty and earnest. Fills your ears with the buzz of slightly missed frequencies. It’s no wonder Ben Vida is on this track; his other projects (Town & Country, Bird Show, Singer) all have songs that play with the notes between the notes, to beautiful effect.

3. Susan Alcorn “Second Turning of the Wheel”
She tore it up at SXSW this year, playing backup pedal steel to Jandek’s band. Now I love pedal steel, the more cooing and supple the better. But what Susan Alcorn does with pedal steel bears no resemblance in sound or appearance to anything anyone else does with pedal steel. Seeing her playing live was the equivalent of Jimi lighting his guitar on fire — she totally killed it! It was a flailing, full-body, virtuoso jam out, and the sound was totally unrelated to what you think of as traditional pedal steel.

This album she put out last year, And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar, doesn’t sound much like the the Jandek show, other than that it is extremely innovative and experimental. It sounds like Fripp/Eno, that same variety of eerie, lunar-landing ambient rock. Does great things at 3:30.

4. Modest Mouse - “Workin on Leavin the Living”
I started listening to this again because I saw that Built To Spill will be performing their album “Perfect From Now On” at ATP New York 2008 (which by the way, I’m attending!). I thought to myself, well if it has to be lo-fi indie pop masterpieces, I would much rather hear Modest Mouse perform “Building Nothing Out of Something,” the album of my summer of ‘99.

“Workin on Leavin the Living” is its standout track, because like everything else, I like my pop droney. It’s a churning, reel of a tune, fit for whirling dervishes and raised palms. If seven minutes fit into a locked groove, I’d listen to this forever.

5. The Dodos “Fools”
The Dodos were completely new to me when I saw them perform at SXSW 2007. Two of their songs from that set stuck in my head so tenaciously that I remembered the words when I heard them performed again at their Big Sur appearance later that year.

Having seen them again at SXSW 2008, I’m now sick again with the same affliction, and the song this time is “Fools,” from their newest album “Visiter.” The album version here sounds relatively staid compared to their energetic live performances, where Logan rises to his feet to work his drumkit over with full body strokes, and Meric nearly falls out of his chair tossing his head back in song.

6. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra “1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound”
Finally! The Silver Mt. Cetera makes an album that I don’t forget about inside of a week. This song gives the impression of Polyphonic Spree big chorus element to it, though it is probably just layered vocal tracks (I’ll find out soon enough — they’re performing at ATP 2008 too!). Pay no mind that they have the pretense to call themselves an orchestra; this song is rock. Gives you a bang, so you know when to clap.

7. Aaliyah “Are you that somebody?”
Self explanatory. RIP, babygurl.

Ready … set … tag, you’re it!

• 1. Atrocity Jukebox
• 2. Womblife
• 3. Another Lousy Solipsist
• 4. The Mahathera Phang
• 5. in case of mishaps
• 6. The Music Listener (get a real blog! myspace sucks!)
• 7. Bill ™ (get a real blog! myspace sucks!)

Instructions:
“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.”

I came home tonight to powwow with the parentals about recent current events and enjoy a meal I didn’t have to prepare myself. We ended up watching a documentary called Burning the Future: Coal In America. My dad had recorded it for me because he knows I like to shoot the shit about industrial excess and the energy apocalypse. I had already read a news story here or there about mountain top mining, so I agreed to keep eye on the program while attending to other things. As it turns out, those other things did not get attended to. The program was absolutely riveting.

The documentary studies the effects on the relatively new practice of mountain top mining on communities in West Virginia. It’s not a one-sided treehugger lovefest. But it’s not very hard to give the impression of impartiality–reality has a very anti-coal bias. If you did nothing more than show silent footage of before and after scenes of West Virginia 50 years ago and West Virginia now, that alone would play like a requiem of staggering loss.

The ironic upshot of watching this is that traditional mining methods end up looking like a non-invasive paragons of sustainable living–at least comparatively speaking. The truth is that mining was always ecologically and socially damaging. But now through the miracle of technology, coal mining has gone from merely damaging to utterly devastating. They invented bigger and better ways to extract more coal faster, and that bigger and better way is to bulldoze the whole mountain from the top down. What’s left at the site and in surrounding valleys is a humongous pile of rubble, burying all life that was there before.

Like all good documentaries though, the focus is on the stories of the people immediately affected. I thought the most moving scene was an interview with a local who poured a glass of tap water that was a brown-black viscous mess. He lives right on a stream, but is forced to drink and use this toxic water because he cannot afford to buy it imported. The ground water of the whole region is polluted by coal slurry runoff disposed of in nearby abandoned mines. The water analysis tests results said not only is the water unfit for drinking, it’s not safe to be touched. This man who has been drinking it for years and continues to do so has come to terms with the fact that he expects to die because of it, and is resigned to making arrangements for that occasion.

All I can think is that the people should sue the shit out of these coal companies. But when you think about it, everyone can claim damages, not just the people drinking toxic cocktails to their deaths. It’s not killing the rest of us — yet (see: global warming) — but there is another cost that is not being captured, and every human being has a stake. I can see it now, a class action lawsuit with 6.7 billion defendants worldwide. And hey, if we split it even, every one of us will a least get a buck.

Of course the international community cannot be moved to care about these complicated problems either. One of the heartwarming parts of the movie was the segment that followed these ordinary people taking time out of their ordinary responsibilities to organize. Community cohesion and grassroots activism in its finest incarnation. They were invited to present their case at the UN sustainable development committee. The feeling I get from the few scenes of how they were received brings to mind the phrase collateral damage. That their community and others will be violently smudged off the map through fatal poisoning and property flooding is considered a necessary and even trivial fact of providing coal-based electricity to the people lucky enough not to live next to the byproducts.

Another telling and memorable thing is that one of the coal propaganda videos said, triumphantly, “Clean coal can provide us with another 250 years of prosperity!” This wasn’t the point of the scene, but I just thought it so remarkable that the Appalachian mountains are being leveled, and the payoff that we’re supposed to be optimistic about is only 250 more years! That seems small to me, considering that human civilization has been going on for thousands of years. If you’re going to pull a nice round divisible-by-ten figure out of your ass like that, at least give us another 2500? Maybe they forgot a zero.

The proposition that 250 more years of electricity (give or take) is a tidy trade for converting several eastern states quite literally into total barren wastelands is deeply offensive to me. The coal industry likes to say, “well have you got a better idea?” They have a point. Renewable energy cannot replace the 50% of electricity that coal currently provides–it is physically impossible to scale that way, given the technology as it stands today. But there is a better idea; it’s just not very popular. It comes down to my two B’s: stop buying and stop breeding. Some people get very offended when I say these things. Good, be offended–those uncomfy feelings will help prepare you for the real uncomfortable work of moving towards sustainable living. In short, get used to disappointment!

I was forced to endure an absurd presentation skills training earlier this week as part of my required duties. I could go on and on about how idiotic this class is, but one good thing did come of it. For the first morning, we were supposed to have done some pre-work notes on a topic of our choosing. I came to the class unprepared, and was given 20 minutes to put together a 4 minute presentation to be given to the class. I spent the first 5 minutes deciding on a topic and the last 15 minutes trashing the curriculum rubric and instead writing the piece word for word. I told the instructor that I haven’t held a pen since grade school and I’m not about to start again now, fired up my laptop, and hammered this out:

All those UIL extemporaneous speaking exercises came back to me in a flash, and I was able to churn this out in 15 minutes. I’m mighty proud of this! This is blog-ready copy right here, and I didn’t even cheat and clean it up!

I pretty much said “fuck this, I’m leaving” to the presentation class after that.

Allow me to announce my first surefire top ten album of 2008, before ever announcing my favorites of 2007, and before even finishing my SXSW blog about discovering this band in the first place.

The band is Megafaun and the album is Bury the Square.

First let me just say, the degree to which the phrase 'old timey' is dissected on urban dictionary is adorable. And familiar. I especially like the exposition on the relative old-timeyness of facial hair configurations, and the compare and contrast between the distantly related concept of retro chic. One wonders how long you could explore the usage and shades of meaning of the phrase 'old timey' as the sole thesis of a serious grad school paper. But I digress.

Megafaun are an Akron/Family sister band, and themselves an offshoot of another interrelated project. I didn't know they existed until their performance on the tremendous Table of the Elements showcase at SXSW 2008. They moved me to tears with their plaintive set, full of wistful harmonizing. Now whenever I listen to their album, the memory of that emotion is pricked. And I've been listening to it frequently ever since.

I use the phrase old timey here loosely, and with apologies to the wordanistas over at the urban dictionary. It may not be a proper description of Megafaun in the specific musical genre sense, especially since the free-form, electrified bliss outs at the end of a couple of their songs have nothing old timey about them. But it does capture the mood of this and the Calexico/Iron & Wine song I blogged about just the other day. It is a direct descendant of vintage rural folk, and it evokes all the predictable imagery of and nostalgia for sepia-toned times predating my own.

I have an intense love for banjo and pedal steel, and will go to such great lengths to hear it as listening to country and bluegrass, when bands of those styles accidentally end up on stages I happen to be sitting near at the time. Megafaun has a song called Drains that features both, the tune of which has been on my tongue for some several weeks now. The blend of voices on this track so rich and resonant that it sinks into the throat and settles there, until the fullness of sound forces you to crack lips and sing along.

I do love Drains, but after debating it with myself for the amount of time I've been writing this post, I have decided to share the obvious standout track instead: Where We Belong. It is epic in every sense of the word: length, range, and majesty. It catapults out of the acoustic into a stormy, clipped electric climax, and back down to a fiddle led denouement sweeter than the best moments from the Dirty Three.

These Akron-cetera boys can do no wrong by me. It makes me want to buy up every volume of every related project out to six degrees of separation, in a mad fit of completionist abandon.

Last night I was of a melancholy mood, and found myself listening to a long time favorite, Dead Man’s Will, by Calexico with Iron & Wine. It’s the last and best track from their collaboration EP, about a man promising his gifts away to his loved ones after he has passed. This inspired my own morbid thoughts of death and love, and I wondered, as the song poses, will the people who I love and haven’t told know that I do, when I’m dead and gone?

May my love /
Reach you all /
Please say it’s not too late /
Now that I’m dead and gone

Some of them have been told but don’t know, some of them know but haven’t been told, and some of them just have no idea what a gift they are or were in my life.

But wrapped up in the morose thought was the same awestruck feeling I sometimes indulge when listening to music so deeply satisfying and yet so unassuming — music that is perfect without trying to be. And Dead’s Man Will and so many others are perfection in song, and they fill my existence with value beyond measure, even as I contemplate whether it’s worth anything at all.

The way that I came to love this particular song is that a certain local hero and radio DJ named John Aielli plays it frequently on his show. Just a short while ago, I got into my car in order to drive home for lunch, and I turned the radio to his show. I was instantly arrested by the sounds of vintage jazz, and I didn’t start the engine, and I didn’t return that phone call, and I didn’t release my fingers from the dial. I listened and savored the sounds of something unknown and beautiful to me, and waited patiently to hear the back announce of what this great thing was.

When John returned to the mic to talk about it, he said, “So many things in life are so terrible, and yet there are things like that that are so wonderful … just divine. That was Duke Ellington and Mark Strayhorn.” He echoed the essence of my ideas about the soul sustaining power of music, that I had been thinking to myself not even half a day ago.

This is why John Aielli is so beloved here in Austin. He has a passion for music that he communicates with such a plain, unpretentious sincerity that it is infectious. It’s also because music is lonely without the experience of sharing it. At the end of the song, when both listeners find themselves sighing in unison, it marks a kind of mutual intimacy that needs no words. The radio DJ and the listening audience can have this kind of relationship; and having been a DJ myself, I understand how rewarding it is to play a selection that sparks that kind of connection, whether you know for sure that you have reached someone or not.

Today I have reaffirmed my personal promise to announce my appreciation to all who have earned it, now, while I’m still alive and here. So to John Aielli, I wish to say that you are a treasure and a joy. I will continue to fuel my life with the musical gems discovered while listening to your show.

I just had one of those reality shaking moments in a bathroom not my own, when I looked at the counter and saw this:

Something about this plastic, faux-stylish JC Penney toothbrush holder made me weep a little, on the inside. Why do we buy this shit? Seriously, what the fuck is this for? And is it really worth a day's pay in China?

You know what this item is worth to me? Negative ten bucks. That's how much you'd have to pay me to show off both my relative opulence and absolute tastelessness by having it in my home.

I am reminded of this documentary Mardi Gras: Made In China mentioned in passing during some internet discussion. I've not seen it myself, but the poster described a scene of these Chinese factory workers who make plastic Mardi Gras beads being shocked by pictures of how the beads are actually used. Honestly, I would be disheartened too if I learned that my daily labors served only to adorn drunken revelers in a party of excess, debauchery and waste — especially if such a wanton celebration was so inaccessible to me.

Granted, I too exercise my middle class privilege to throw obscene amounts of money at baubles that tickle my fancy. I took these pictures with my iPhone, for example. I'd like to think that my iPhone adds more value than just bringing my toothbrush six inches closer to my hand when I reach down to grip it though.

Where is a link to that George Carlin bit about stuff when you need it. Or did he use the word shit instead of stuff? I don't remember. I just know that he talked about how our lives are full of this shit. It is such a strange, absurd, and vaguely suffocating time to be alive.

This little gem comes to me from my cuntacular net friend Keri. The original site is down, but I managed to clipmark it before the surge:

Bravo, Alex Kochno. You’ve managed to entertain and delight a couple hundred feminists while simultaneously legitimizing their cause! Maybe if I had a big male brain I could be doubly counterproductive too.

This presents a golden opportunity to talk about so many recent news items and experiences I’ve encountered on the topic of the gender wars. Just look at the letter. One has to wonder what moves this little republipig to take the time to send something so vicious. Is it backlash against perceived attacks on his values? Is it twisted emasculation fears? Is it hate? I’d say he’s just a troll, but trolls know better than to use their own email address.

I guess the most important feature of this letter to me is that he takes such satisfaction in belittling us stupid cunts. It’s one thing to assert female inferiority, it’s another thing to do so with glee. There’s a recent NYT blog post on “Misogyny vs. Sexism” that asks the question of whether the two can be separated. When we read articles like that describing acid attacks and stoning victims in those other sexist countries, we all get it: those backwards foreigners really hate women, with a ferocity that is hard to understand.

And yet we lack the awareness to turn the same scrutiny to our own culture. When Maxim runs pieces like “Get grossed out by the five unsexiest women alive” and the interwebs explode with cries of “Yeah, what an ugly bitch!” instead of cries of outrage, it smacks of the same stupefying hate that we decry everywhere else. That’s right, I’m drawing a parallel between literally stoning to death and symbolically stoning to death undeserving female victims; they are two points on the same trajectory.

And Sarah Jessica Parker did not deserve this culturally sanctioned hit piece, no matter what anyone says. No women’s magazine would dissect every physical feature of an average working actor. On the contrary, all the articles are about correcting their own appearance to avoid becoming target practice for the likes of Maxim and their readers! Parker is a beautiful woman who has never said anything to invite spontaneous criticism, but that’s besides the point. She wears what she was born with. What’s next Maxim? Get grossed out by the five unsexiest cleft palates? Look and barf at these mastectomy mamas? These are morally equivalent lists.

Granted, a rag like Maxim is written to appeal to human trash anyway: guys who read Maxim, measure female worth on a 10-point hotness scale, think warthogging is really cool, love to say “I’d hit it with a brown bag over her head,” and generally epitomize the lowest dregs of humanity. But Maxim is just an amplification of the pervasive objectification and brutal dehumanization of women in our culture. We accept it as common for people to delight in making women feel ugly, stupid, and worthless. It’s emotional and sociological terrorism.

I have so much more to say about this topic, but it’s time for all good little cunts to go to sleep.

Today I found myself browsing lifehack.org, a depressing collection of articles on getting things done. No it’s not new, and yes I’ve been subscribed to the feed forever, but as I am not a fan of the productivity maximizing strategies described there I’ve not had time to look at it until now. :)

I say depressing because the first three related articles I see are “Conquer Time Wasters,” “11 Tips for Nuking Laziness,” and my favorite, “Determine Never to Be Idle.” Why do you hate relaxation, lifehack? I hate to throw a kink in your mission statement, but laziness is good. If you are reading this on a personal computer, then you enjoy the richest standard of living at the most technologically sophisticated moment in human history with the greatest opportunity for leisure. I say roll with it. Or better yet, roll over and go back to sleep.

Then I go on to read that ideally, you should schedule 5-6 meals per day spaced out at equidistant points in time in order to maintain steady blood sugar. My reaction to this is: Are you insane? I take my food like I drop my logs: in reaction to spontaneous bodily signals. Granted, I have a preference for flexibility in all things, but even for those who run a tighter ship, this strikes me as extreme.

Here’s the root of my problem with sites like lifehack. They perpetuate the worship of efficiency, to the detriment of balance. People are sloppy creatures, not high performance engines to be tweaked and tuned for maximum results. How long can you burn the candle at both ends before you burnout altogether?

We did not evolve to be high precision temporal slaves. Time itself is a modern concept. We didn’t have watches for most of human history, and now you want me to eat every 1.6 hours and sleep for 8-8.5? Get real.

I’d rather be happy than effective.

I’m not going to lie to you, I didn’t see many new movies in ‘07. But of the ones that I did see, I chose very wisely.

#1: King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Hands down favorite of ‘07 and maybe the decade so far. Yes, this is a documentary about classic video games, and I love gamer culture, so clearly it was made for me. But wait just a minute! The appeal of this movie stretches way beyond the niche community it portrays. It is smart, cleverly edited, full of drama and narrative arc, and frequently hilarious. It shines a light on the very insular scene of aging arcade nerds, who are already intrinsically one of the most quirky, interesting bunch of characters a filmmaker could hope to record. But on top of that rich foundation, they manage to build a solid storyline, filled with so much wit and charm as to seem scripted, and concluding with a climax that actually made me hold my breath.

The story is about a schoolteacher who loses his job and decides to start training to challenge the 20 year-old world record for the top score of Donkey Kong. The filmmakers set this up as a rivalry between the schoolteacher, Steve Wiebe, and the record holder, Billy Mitchell, but they don’t have to do much work. You would not believe the level of intensity, intrigue, and dirty tricks plaguing this small community of classic gaming competitors. Honestly I expected Tonya Harding’s bf to pop out of the bushes and break Steve Wiebe’s wrists at some point! Billy and Steve epitomize the champion and underdog archetypes so wholly that you have to wonder if they aren’t deliberately exaggerating such characteristics at a subconscious level, in some sort of postmodern caricature-reality.

Favorite moments:

- When the non-contender nerd realizes Steve is about to exhaust the game’s physical memory, and excitedly runs around the arcade shouting: We’ve got a kill screen coming up people!! Kill screen, kill screen, OMG kill screen!!

- Steve’s 4 year old asking why he plays Donkey Kong, and the child remarking with total innocence that “some people ruin their lives for it”

- Billy’s famous abortion quote (can be seen at the end of the trailer)

The best thing about King of Kong is that even though you *know* it’s emotionally manipulative, you can’t help but give in and invest in these flawed, idiosyncratic people who are so deeply involved in their fringe little activities. It makes one want to pilgrimage to the Funspot Arcade just to shake hands with these big fish in their small pond. This movie is the definition of precious.

#2: Into the Wild

In a film where the main character renounces money and abandons all material possessions, and especially coming from Sean Penn, you might expect it to be a heavy handed indictment of consumerism or other capitalism begotten -ism. I didn’t feel that that is what this film was about at all, or that the political subtext was in any way related to its appeal. It’s really just an adventure movie about the people met and relationships forged along the way, with the dramatic natural scenery and the tolerably annoying music of Eddie Vedder weaved in.

I was so pleased to see the academy give the nod to Hal Holbrook for that heartbreaking scene where he and the boy part. It was poignant and sincere, and so incredibly sad. It was a picture of the moment of an isolated retiree who had caught a glimpse of what it was like to feel a human connection again, having to say goodbye and trudge back to the stagnation and loneliness that plagues so many of our elderly. Of course they don’t have the monopoly on either stagnation or loneliness, or else it wouldn’t be such an affecting scene for all of us.

I think that what the boy in this movie did — cut all ties and embrace the freedom of wandering — has an appeal that most of us can relate to. Who hasn’t felt the impulse to abandon everything, leave current worries, and escape the oppressive weight of the Expected Path (school -> career -> marriage -> death). When you’re living in a society where you must request and schedule in advance time for you to be outside in the sun following your own whimsy, it’s confusing and absurd at a fundamental level. That feeling of bewilderment, followed by the liberation of action, is what this movie portrays, culminating in the ultimate freedom.

Finally got wind of this video. It grows in funny with each viewing:

I know, I know, it’s so easy — and some would say unfair — to laugh at these nutty religious rants, but this sample is just so exemplary in its comedic elements that I think it rises to the top. It’s the creme de la crazy! It’s like she spouted fragments of stuff she’s heard on AM radio but couldn’t pull it together into a coherent rant. She’s got the closer down — stinking hellhole of sin really catches the ears — but the stuff leading up to it just don’t wash. And I can’t figure out if that bobblehead dude in the background is in full agreement or is on the verge of cracking up. Either way, his contribution to the funny is key.

I love how she sets up the intellectuals as the obvious enemy, and I love even more how the commenters on this video are all surprised by it. Don’t they know there’s a culture war going on? The other side does. Intellectual is commonly accepted code language for “educated liberal nogoodnik.” And her reference to that old open-to-everybody hippie stuff is code language for “god hates fags.”

Earth to crazy lady: Jesus thinks you’re an intolerant bore. If you want to shut down a stinking hole of vile putrification, close your mouth.

It’s a little late to be posting best of ‘07 lists, but as our CFO would say, it’s not late as long as it’s posted in the first quarter. So to get the ball rolling, here are my favorite photographs of 2007, in mosaic form.

Favorites from my photostream

1. Marissa Nadler @ Spiro’s, Austin, TX 03-16-2007, 2. Boris @ Spiro’s Rumba Room, Austin, TX 03-16-2007, 3. The Psychic Paramount @ Spiro’s, Austin, TX 03-16-2007, 4. Moog man, 5. Donny, 6. 702, 7. Sea Zombies 1 of 3, 8. Robot revolt, 9. The Mohawk, 10. The Laugh Factory, 11. Shell of infamy, 12. Fuck you guy

Favorites from others’ photostreams

1. Fall in by the lexie mountain boys, 2. Sun Meets Wall by misanthrop, 3. Untitled by isado, 4. Parasols And Paddles by tarotastic, 5. Essaouira by rasiel, 6. Simmy is iTrapped by stillframe, 7. underwood by talibaba , 8. mates of state by recovering lazyholic, 9. Space by dick cocktail, 10. Untitled by epmd, 11. Untitled by hanna_e, 12. Cherry, Cherry by cognitive ambition, 13. chill´ by hanniballl, 14. BATTLES by karmajunkie, 15. Grain at the old mill by objecta, 16. George W Bush by stu_pendousmat, 17. loltombstone by stu_pendousmat, 18. another (closed) roadside attraction by antal, 19. gd melodica by greg davis, 20. Lost Grip by sharon k. cooper.

As a nod to the classic Bill Hicks bit your children aren’t special, I’d like to extend that by saying your love is not special, either.

I’m not a cynic. Nor am I one of those people who don’t know love. I’m just saying there’s no need to romanticize romance to a degree that’s irrational.

In a discussion on digg.com about some research a few years ago that revealed that passionate love fades on average a year after it begins, there was rampant resistance to the idea that scientific analysis can be applied to the phenomenon of love.

My two cents on this were the following: Why would something need to be mystical, mysterious, or beyond reduction to a scientific explanation in order for it to be beautiful? Does knowing that our experience of infatuation is regulated by hormones in any way cheapen the intensity of it?

I was always so annoyed by the scene in Contact where Matthew McConaughey turns to Jodie Foster and asks her, “Do you love your father? Prove it.” As if to imply, we can’t prove God or love, but they’re both real. Aggh, stab me with a spoon! There are several problems with this “argument,” not the least of which being that it is emotionally manipulative hollywood claptrap, but for the purposes of this blog post I will just say this. We can prove love. We can see it on an MRI and measure it on an EEG. We can observe recurrent patterns and fit it into a model of human behavior. Love is actually quite well documented.

So what is love? Love is hormones and neurons firing off in such a way as to yield an evolutionary advantage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great ride. I just don’t entertain any illusions about the cosmic significance of it.

I bought my first digital SLR today, a brand new Nikon D60. New to me and new to the shelves — it just came out this week.

I’ve been building to this purchase for over a year, during which time my interest in and knowledge of photography has blossomed, in part thanks to flickr. isado, siskind, fuzuoko, and bjenright are just a few of the photographers who have delighted and inspired me with their public photostreams. By emulating them and others I have learned a thing or two about how to compose a shot. But, much as I love my Fuji Finepix, most of its output comes out looking like what the flickristas would derisively call a ’snapshot’. Until this:

I thought for a second about what a fitting first subject for my Nikon would be, and right away I knew the answer. My friend Sasan, who works at Wolf and helped me select the camera.

We both marvelled at how professional it looks. I said, incredulously, “It softened the background.” He said, “It’s supposed to.” I said, “I know, I just can’t believe how nice it came out.” My fuji had a portrait mode too, but I never got results like this. He said it’s the best picture anyone has taken of him in years.

This camera is quickly destroying the high photography mystique. All this time, I’ve sort of believed that the fabulous pictures I find all the time on flickr are due to some combination of superior technique and superior post-processing. Now I realize it’s largely superior equipment. I was just using the wrong tool. Ironically, all I did here was point, and shoot. With the Nikon, all you have to do is to know what to look for and how to frame, and the camera makes it gorgeous.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that I can snap pictures far more judiciously. With the Fuji I’d burn through 50 shots of the same subject just to have one turn out well, whereas with the Nikon I can just take the one picture and my work here is done.

When we went back into the shop to print Sasan’s picture, a woman buying a low-end Canon remarked on the size of my camera. She asked, “Are you a photographer?” I said, “I am now.”

A long overdue backblog about the No Idea Festival that happened a couple weeks ago. Being the showcase of creative music performances that occurred in and around Austin.

I’m always fascinated by genre. What does creative music mean, exactly? It must be something special if it has a such a strong claim to creativity inherent in its name.

Judging purely on sound, I can only deduce from a layman’s perspective that it is some niche in the intersection between experimental, new music, avant garde, and free jazz, with the sharpest point of differentiation between these genres being audience and venue. Somebody needs to create a clever flowchart of all these pools of outsider music in the style of the geek hierarchy.

The first evening of the fest began at the Austin Figurative Gallery, which heretofore I’d only known for its SXSW day parties. But apparently they host low-key art parties there every Saturday, as well as other one-off events. As my focus on Austin sharpens, hidden details like this continue to emerge.

Nafta

Here we see pictured Juan Garcia and Chris Cogburn, the local musician focusing on extended percussion technique. On the table next to him are laid out his tools of the trade — a collection of dust, brushes, tuning forks, and other stuff I won’t even try to identify; all selected for the way they sound when applied to a drum. I imagine that these sounds were chosen for their strong character, so that when you hear them in sequence they can speak their own narrative without relying on traditional structures.

Bhob Rainey

Most of the festival was improvisational music, of the quiet and still variety. My favorite set of the festival was Bhob Rainey, performing solo saxophone in the clip above.

Music like this only works in a small room, to a sympathetic audience. When is the last club show you saw where 50 people were willing to sustain a near perfect silence for a performer making almost no sound? All focused forward, ears strained.

This short video does cannot express the intimacy of the space, nor the tension of the audience, nor the softness and subtlety of the sound. It’s just an excerpt of the set, and the louder half of the set at that. Not captured is the two minute opening that consisted only of controlled breathing through the chamber of the sax, without reed. It filled the openness of the theater with a fragile, pitched whisper. And it was the perfect opening, slow and alluring, like the graze of a finger.

I have an analogy for this music. To me the comparison is obvious. I draw the same peculiar satisfaction from hearing it performed as I do from a visit to the doctor’s office. There’s something about the precise, slight exhalations of sound that are parallel in my mind to the precise, slight movements of the nurse performing a routine exam. Clinical, still, and restrained. The accompaniment of shallow breathing. The mediated touch of the stethoscope. The fullness of sensation from just two fingers on your pulse. The depressor on your tongue. In my mind these little strokes are exactly the same as the little sound objects a performer like Bhob Rainey uses to touch you.

Tetuzi Akiyama

Tetuzi Akiyama’s set was more of the same, except on acoustic guitar. The difference was that his set was also a treat to watch. Every movement from him is pure grace. He’d delicately land a single finger on the string, then lift it with a broad stroke that arced through his entire arm, like a motion you’d expect from a ballerina.

The Long Telegram

Next I saw Nick Hennies play this truly insane set with Kurt Newman, a lineup they call The Long Telegram, captured above. This virtuosity is so ridiculous it’s actually redonkulous. I love the long, full moments of empty, punctuated by sudden bursts of note clouds, made more electrifying by the unpredictability of either.

Nameless Sound Ensemble

Finally, I captured an excerpt of this larger ensemble of Houston and Austin area improvisers, during an extended lull.

In general, you can expect to hear a solid block of Christmas music on the radio today. Even NPR bows in to this tide of obligatory holiday programming. And yet, I noticed while driving around deserted Austin roads this morning that there is one holdout on the FM dial. The greatest radio station ever: Jammin’ 105.9.

While other stations take a more traditional approach to Christmas day, Jammin’ 105.9 continues to give us a steady stream of Paula Abdul, New Kids on the Block, and pre-jiggy era rap straight through the anniversary of the birth of our Lord. Cause nothing says yuletide to me like C+C Music Factory, Real McCoy, Positive K, and other one hit dance wonders of the 80’s and 90’s. I love the Jam! It’s like a party in my car®!

Please don’t mistake this post for irony. My love for 105.9 is pure, as Crystal Waters would say.

Sample a taste of radio gold by viewing the following advertisement:

The running man dance pictured above really just says everything you need to know about this fine radio station.

Join the craze.

michael says:
People who use the word ’shoot’ in reference to sending emails are assholes. Shoot you an email? How about I just shoot you, you asshole.

That’s the latest post to my new favorite RSS feed: everyoneisanasshole.com. A more perfect funny has never been hatched.

To put my own personal stamp on this post, here are the asshole descriptions that currently or used to describe me:

1. people who use and send glittery graphics

2. technical people who humiliate non-technical people

3. retail hipster douchebags with pretty good taste in music

4. people in shared living situations who sing at the top of their lungs at 3am

5. people who email coworkers to nitpick their mistakes and CC their boss

6. little kids who tell other little kids santa isn’t real

7. students who finish the work faster than you can and leave early to prove it

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I am a septuple asshole. My assholetry is unimpeachable. If there were an asshole of the year award, and it hadn’t already been given to Alberto Gonzales, I’d be a shoo-in.

I’ve decided to start an inspirational list of my favorite assholes from TV and film. I’m sure I will think of many more the second after I click post.

Garfield
Q on Star Trek
Dr. Cox on Scrubs
Jay Lovitz on The Critic
Stephen Colbert on Strangers With Candy
Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm
Tommy Lee Jones in Cobb
Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross
Christopher Walken in Batman Returns
Bette Midler in Big Business
Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada
Equal parts Christina Ricci and Joan Cusak in Addams Family Values

I’m a sucker for a skillful cut-down. Keep firing, assholes!

I have come to understand a truth that eludes many people. It is a radical concept. Many aren’t ready for it. It will shock the world. Brace yourself. Here it is:

Attraction follows love.

A lot of folks have this backwards. They believe that initial attraction is a necessary prerequisite for entertaining the possibility of love with someone. Wrong! Here’s how it can and should work. You meet someone. You allow yourself to know that person, and for them to know you. And then, maybe, you fall for that person. If that happens, they will become desirable to you. You notice features you never noticed before. The beauty they had all along will be revealed, when you’re ready to see it.

1. “This is naive/sentimental/idealist bullshit.”

It’s true that I am talking about an ideal of love, but it’s not idealist. It’s attainable. If I speak it it’s because I’ve known it. You don’t have to be a fan of Meg Ryan movies to acknowledge the universality of what I’m saying here.

2. “People have a right to their preferences. I have a type and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Fine, but your “type” is holding you back. You’re limiting your opportunities for a true and enduring connection. Why not increase your odds?

3. “It’s impossible to fall in love with someone you aren’t physically attracted to anyway.”

People fall in love sight unseen all the time on the internet these days. Real love with real symptoms: butterflies in the stomach, heart palpitations, consuming thoughts, agonizing worry, professions of commitment, the works.

4. “Men are visual creatures, you wouldn’t understand, the peni wants what the peni wants, bla bla bla…”

Don’t make this about men or women. There are actually men who agree that attraction follows love. I have a name for these men. I call them “the good ones.” Men are just as capable of transformative love as women are. And the result is the same.

5. “You talk a big game, but you wouldn’t ‘entertain the possibility of love’ if the person you met was the elephant man.”

Yes, I would. It works if you work it, people!

6. “Sounds like you have a holier than thou attitude problem.”

Partially true; I believe any philosophy that makes you more accepting of other people will uplift you as a human being. But I consider that to be secondary to the point. The real benefit of my way is that I am more likely to discover happiness. When the world is your dating pool and your heart is open, you are more likely to meet someone incredible. If that doesn’t make sense to you, then I guess you should continue following the peni.

In Conclusion:

Attraction follows love is a high ideal. You may not be ready for it, but I fully believe that all come to my way of thinking in the end, as age ripens wisdom.

If you’ve browsed the online personals for any amount of time, you will have noticed that some people have elaborate fantasies about what their ideal mate should and should not be. Some people put their checklists out in the open in the form of finicky little bulleted lists, and others do not reveal their checklists but secretly judge you anyway. Either way, these people are morons. Oh yes suh, I’m talkin to you!

People with dating checklists usually have the following attributes:

1. Superficial

Yup, these people are frequently superficial, often unapologetically so. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a superficial man. If you are one of those people who have not yet even come to terms with the fact that superficiality is a bad thing, then lets take it to email or the comments section, because I’m probably going to hit the word limit if I try to help you here.

2. Unrealistic

That’s right, checklist people are practically batsh*t crazy with the level of expectation they have set forth for their potential mate. They have doomed themselves to disappointment with their wild demands, like “must make 6 figures and be size 6″ or “left eye green, right eye blue.” If ONLY I were exaggerating.

3. Ineffective

And this really gets to the meat of the matter: checklists don’t work. It’s like that Woody Allen movie, the one where his daughter spies on Julia Roberts’ sessions with her therapist, and learns of every secret want that Julia wishes to find in a man. So Woody uses this knowledge to pretend to be the perfect man for Julia — h