Do You MyFaceSpaceBook?!?!?!?!

Or are you as kewl as Scott and only read CNN, BBC, MSNBC and some comic about a retarded squiggily ninja?

Here is an informative news piece from 60 Minutes or the Daily Show about online social networking.

Enjoy and I am happy I could help you learn.



P.S.
I hate CNN, the BBC, MSNBC and Scott
JK don't taser me bro!

And more yet... White Ninja!

Wow.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/27/immigrant.money/index.html

Wow. First off, a tip of the hat to the guy for being able to save that much money on such a meager wage. Second, this is utter and complete bullshit. The man did not properly file a form. To make that much money, at his higher wage rate it represented 10261 hours of labor. That money represented 5.6 years of pretax wages. (figuring an average work week of approximately 35 hrs, he was likely working waay more).

Of course we go on to learn the man never paid taxes. So despite his claims that he's not a criminal he in fact is.

Headline from CNN.com

Rice: Fight climate change like terrorism

We're going to invade climate change?!? Oh my God! Take that Al-Queda sponsored global warming!

m-machine six

1

Bed earth bitter bull,

2

Like a season:

Summer
Autumn
Winter
Spring
Summer
Autumn

1. Bed
2. Earth
3. Bitter
4. Bull
1. Radius
2. Circumference;

3

And like an act:

Epic
Tragic
X X X
Lyric
Epic
Tragic

3. Deb
4. Thear
5. Ellipsis
6. Parabola
1. Bed
2. Earth;

4

And like a figure:

(Metonymy
Catachresis
Allegory
Metaphor
Metonymy
Catachresis)

5

Ice ice it is poi-zein.

6

Poetry is pure Geometry

X is pure plagiarism

Poetry:Geometry::X:plagiarism

X = theo

Geometry:poetry::plagiarism:theo

= teleo


X X A woman entertained cutting X

“Such’ihn über’m Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muss er wohnen.”
(Schiller)

There is no ghost in the machine.

Democracy Rallies in the 9th Inning!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/26/patriot.act/index.html

Federal judge rules 2 Patriot Act provisions unconstitutional

Finally some news I don't want to make fun of!

"In place of the Fourth Amendment, the people are expected to defer to the executive branch and its representation that it will authorize such surveillance only when appropriate."

The government "is asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. The court declines to do so," Aiken said.

This is very good news. I live in New York. I've lived in New York for a very long time now. (discounting summer and winter breaks for school I've lived here for 7 years) I was about a mile and half or so from the towers when they fell. Roughly the distances from my house in Westford to Dunc's house and back. I work two blocks from Ground Zero. Back at school I lived below the quarantine zone and had to wear a painters mask just to walk around. Daryl, John and I bought hard helmets and gas masks, donned I heart NY shirts and defied Giuliani to go down and help on the rescue effort. We bought eye drops and carried them around with signs we put on our backs so anyone who needed them could holler at us. We went each night until the rescue effort was called off. The night it rained I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life. Being a bit of optimist, even at that time, a commented that it was good, at least anyone trapped down there might get a mouth full of water. Being a realist Daryl commented they were more likely to drown. That night we worked the bucket line moving rubble back. And as you know, we found no one. My point is I understand the desire to go after terrorists. Back at school my buddy Brad had to be evacuated from his dorm. He stayed with my roommate and I. He's a nice guy, soft spoken, polite, but as I he sat there in my room scared he looked at my roommate and I, well, not exactly looked at as, more he looked in our general direction. He couldn't quite meet our faces. Anyway. When the story first broke that Afghanistan might have been involved he said something to the effect of, 'We need to bomb them. We need to bomb them now and wipe them off the face of the Earth.' This was quite out of character for Brad but it was the general tone of New York. When the UA on 14th Street was showing free movies my buddy Josh and I decided to go. We walked right up the middle of broadway. There were no cars. There were no people. It was like a scene from Omega man. Ash, imagine the walk between your and Ginny's office, middle of the day and you see no one. No cars. No people. Just one step removed from having tumble weed blowing around. It was strange. And when we got to 14th street we stood around outside staring at the Empire State Building til the last second before we had to go in. Just stared trying to lock it in our minds cause we honestly thought it might be gone by the time we got out two hours later. All this by way of saying, I get it. We need to be vigilant. We genuinely can't go through it again. But here's the thing. Back then I was still proud to be an American. I thought that we were, in 9 ways out of ten, maybe 99 ways out of a 100 the best country on the planet. Now its 6 years later and I don't feel that way. But thanks to Judge Ann Aiken of the US district court for the district of Oregon I feel a bit better.

I know I've let bits and pieces of my 9-11 experiences slip out here and there in stories. Maybe I'll do a post about it sometime. Felt good to get a bit of it 'out there.' And I am serious. We've (not us personally, but our government) done some deplorable things in the past six years but more over we done something far worse, we've eroded our constitution, weakened the legislative and judicial branches of government and left our country's democracy weakened.

Benjamin Franklin once said something to the effect of, those who abandon liberty for temporary safety diserve nether liberty nor safety. And he was right.

A lot of right wing kooks are probably going to rip Judge Aiken a new one, so if you feel the way I do, leave her Judicial Assistant a message, 541 431 4140, but you should probably do it after business hours.

More White Ninja

Hotel Chevalier

Sooooooooooooooooooooo you got any gum?

iTunes has posted a free movie/trailer/Wes Anderson sexxxytime explosion...no it isn't the Meg White sex tape. I haven't seen it yet but let's all admit that we <3 Wes Anderson. So Chck it out at http://hotelchevalier.com

lata smokeys

More great headlines from the BBC

'Pumpkin' handed to grandmother Uh... actually, this is a sad story that hasn't gotten much ink here in the states but man, what a confusing headline.

China bans 'sexy' advertisements Fucking communists.

White Ninja

There are two reasons, really...

From CNN.com, headline reads, 'Why is the GOP scared of black voters?'

Well, Mr. Martin, its not so much that the GOP is scared of black voters as it is the GOP is scared of black people. Now it just so happens that all black voters are black people, so I can see where you made your mistake. Perhaps Matt could assist us with some sort of Venn diagram to illustrate that for us. In the mean time though allow me to answer your question.

You see, Mr. Martin, there are really two kinds of people who make up the majority of the Republican party. The first type is the woefully uneducated, Southern, redneck. Voting for the republican party consistently hurts them financially but they do it anyway because they love (in no particular order) 1) Guns 2) Jesus Christ. Black people did not make it onto that list. For some this is because they fear that black men will miscegenate with their women. For others it is because they fear black people will make good, valid arguments about the injustices/discrimination that they (black people) face and this will force the GOP to erode the one thing that poor, southern, redneck republicans take pride in; they're not black (that's really at the heart of all those silly flags).

The other is the rich, wealthy, millionaire/billionaire/trillionaire/quintillionaire etc. republican. They're afraid of black people mostly because they've never met any (although I understand that they once heard that their butler's butler's butler's chauffeur is black, and that he's alright.)

In all seriousness, the article isn't that bad. Little bit of history. Couple of interesting anecdotes. But really, c'mon. The Republican party has built itself on protecting the 2nd amendment, limiting the other amendments and some how getting the heartland to concentrate on social issues before practical ones.

So just out of curiosity, who's voting for who? I like Richardson, but as he's lagging, I may be inclined to vote for Obama.

Yes He Then

Well,
Yes He Then.
You said.

(5:30 in the afternoon)

“Yoint” would be a great name for a child.
Any child named “Yoint” would be set
In school
And have no pimples.

He would be calm and collected,
An A for effort,
A bull,
Literary to turn a trick or two.

Well,
Yes He Then,
Majestic µ,

A two-crested lizard that makes its head bigger and spits…





the dilophosaurus.

Sisyphus Cooling

Hey does anyone know anything about quantum mechanics? I need info. I have a prediction about the apocalypse. I have mystical visions and feel cosmic vibrations, tekhnè!

Here's something about quantum mechanics. It's called "Sisypus Cooling" and I claim it found ready-made:

To understand how Sisyphus cooling works, we consider a precooled atom (which we refer to as "hot"!), in the presence of a lin perp lin light field (Figure 5). We expect that as a result of optical pumping, atoms located in positions where the polarization is purely will be in the g1/2 level, and in g-1/2 where the polarization is purely σ-.
Consider the atom in Figure 5 located at z = λ/2 (σ-) and in state g-1/2. As it moves to the right, it climbs the potential hill (z = 3λ/4) until it reaches the top, where the polarization is now purely σ+. At this point, the atom will be optically pumped from the g-1/2 level to the g+1/2 level (from g-1/2 to e1/2 {red arrow}, and then to g+1/2 via spontaneous emission {blue arrow}) , where it will be in a lower energy state. Where does the energy, equal to the difference between the two potentials at z = 3λ/4, go? It gets carried off in the spontaneously emitted photon. Thus the atom has lost energy. This process is repeated as the atom moves to the next potential minimum, until the atom has an energy less than the depth of the potential, at which point it remains confined in a potential well.

In steady state, the atoms will come to rest in the minima of the two potentials.

Figure 5:


Poetry is the trace of a thought like this.

Ref: University of Michigan,
http://cold-atoms.physics.lsa.umich.edu/projects/lattice/sis1.html

The Only Thing Keeping Me From Murdering My Co-Worker Nina, Who Plays Her Music Too Loudly on Her Crappy Headphones:

Looking at beautiful vintage coats on my work's website! Check out this two-tailed extravaganza of blue-tinged joy! I know fur is evil and all but seriously, this coat has two tails in a prominent and lavacious location. It's hard to resist a thing like that. Two tails!

More White Ninja

At a glance an incredibly obvious statement...

Again from BBC News: 'Paedophiles' brains 'different''

This just in; They're sexual appetites are also unhealthy! Doesn't this seem a fairly obvious statement? Of course I've always been a strong nature proponent, I suppose if you thought teletubbies could turn you gay this might be a more startling revelation. Some excerts with comments...

A Yale University team found activity in parts of paedophiles' brains were lower than in other volunteers when shown adult, erotic material. Matt, careful walking around campus at night.

A forensic psychologist from the UK said drug treatments for paedophilia might be possible. Hold on a second here guys, my paedophilia's acting up again. Alright, time to coach some little league. Um, is this really something we want to be treating? I suppose it is but imagine how embarrassing it would be to fill that prescription, I would think the chance of a lapse would be huge. Of course I have no suggestion for a better solution.

In a few cases, patients with a brain tumour in a particular part of the brain have developed such feelings, only for them to go away when the tumour was removed. Wow, talk about a being delt a shitty hand. Well, it looks like you have a brain tumer, Mr. Stevens, we're going to need to remove that in a highly invasive surgery. In the meantime try not fuck any kids.

And then there's this... "Our results may thus be seen as the first step towards establishing a neurobiology of paedophilia which ultimately may contribute to the development of new and effective means of therapies for this debilitating disorder." Listen, arthritis is a debilitating disorder. Raping children is a shade or two more troubling.

Maybe, just maybe the most unintentionally funny headline of all time.

The BBC news had this in the Americas Section: 'Gay football World Cup kicks off'
Man, I know its not a major sport over here but...

A Soundtrack Sponge

I invented a new genre a few months ago. It's called A Soundtrack Sponge. The idea came to me when I was asked to write a review for a college publication on contemporary music. I was asked to listen to and review Deerhoof's "Friend Opportunity." I was told that I had full creative license. This was evidentially not the case since my review was rejected forthwith by the editors, who had previously rejected in their first issue Frank Zappa's famous comment that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture," in favor of the possibility to supply its reader with apt and useful reviews. In other words these youngpersons of the Mancha found themselves ready to joust the windmills.

Naturally I saw this as a challenge. I decided to take up my own lance and barber-bowl, find myself a Sancho and a donkey and ride. The project was simple: listen and write. Listen how? Anyway everyway. Write what? Everything anything. An overload of objects, subjects, discourses, languages, forms, rhythms and frequencies, texts and contexts, etc. would short-circuit itself, break down the borderlines that traditionally demarcate the limits of reality of symbolic matrices of governance; or in other words to make a metaphysical stage upon which it would be possible to dance about architecture. I called it "sui-generis" because it creates itself as much as it destroys itself, because it attempts to show the connecting strings of a sponge as well as its volume (note: the name of the magazine in which the review was to appear is "Volume"), the sponge's fullness and its emptiness; its hiding and its exposure; its being and its nothingness. A deus ex machina, an appreciation rather than a review.

The date of this Soundtrack Sponge is the same as my birthday, February 19th. It is the cusp ("a pointed end where two curves meet") or borderline in Astrology – a great code of the heavens – between Aquarius and Pisces, the final and penultimate signs in the series: both the fish and the water. It is about a soluble fish that drowns in its own immersion, that finds death in life and life in death.

This project could be aptly described as ambitious, crazy, and futile: ticks, ticks, and ticks. Here is the text (you may have read it) on the blog that it may find its proper platitude.


Soundtrack Sponge




Deerhoof’s Friend Opportunity: A Worthless Map or Dancing about architecture to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head.

Submitted for publication as an album review, February 19, 2007: rejected yet confessing
Sui-generis.
Play Music.
Feel attacked but try to concentrate.

1. Perfect Me: perfect friend no home no family no sin. Cry out! for freedom from eyes. See eyes in cover art your friend opportunity see eyes as visual homophones. Daughters? Sounds very serious simple lyrics: e.g. pasta bowl, playing.

2. +81: Choo choo choo choo beep beep. You might think we have trust issues. Deerhoof is a group that performs trust falls while playing. You don’t trust me and I might as well say it but I will not dwell on it. We will get through it and although through cacophony and glossolalia we will know that it was a serious decision. “How peoples’ brains work”: communication requires a reduction to form. The juxtaposition of nature and city is nothing new clouds are coming up, clouds go by. [Perfect me: meeting, eventual friend opportunity, wanting, calling. +81: urban alienation, generic the building, building from the side to side up down the people people. My iPod shuffle! Believe E.S.P.: belief alienation paranoia

I’m already paranoid that it’s already too much. It’s a weird thing, when all of a sudden your music leaves you and becomes a public thing. I love feedback but for me there’s always this worry.

Obsession. Thinking what the other is thinking about you 3rd person narrative squared makes communication a questionable suspicion: careful with your words. Is it still paranoia if it’s true? That’s the question. Animal mind crossing the line or anthropomorphic/anthropological tendencies see cover art to have known them all already. The war a sheltered bushcunt and the display of individual as mass experience, or the idea of the individual experience as having universal significance. Who makes art not artists? The Galaxist: the idea of universal appeal looking to the stars but threatened no life not life? Can one live without love? No: friend opportunity. The music of the spheres melody abstraction salvation. Starman Ziggy Stardust:



let the children use it
angelheaded hipsters burning for
the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery
of night,




Cave perspective hope seeking. Come along with me… seekers of a world to be. Logos. Choco Fight: relationship to the audience show me your personality. Stereotyping you like to stereotype: sailor, tyger tyger! Beautiful stereotyping! Two hearts and the calling anywhere out of the world versus The Runners Four an album “of this world” Deerhoof’s previous work calling for a “friend opportunity.” Delay singing female and male come over seas! Deerhoof love the group and need the group. Fade out during The Runners Four: “I totally lost my social life. I didn’t even know what to even talk about with my friends.” The Runners Four was trying to embody a sheltered existence. Whither the Invisible Birds: lost epiphanic it’s a trap! a conceit! a crutch! operatic narrative moment. Somewhere over the rainbow is the map. Where to stop? I have intended and you have expected a tender cartographics. I have placed all the images so carefully where should I stop where should you stop and where can we go to listen? Hither Horatio the plea. It’s a map it’s a worthless map!.




Somewhere far away or
Elsewhere, far away from here! too late! never perhaps!

Cast Off Crown: anaphora.

And when we breathe Death in our lungs
Go down invisible river with dumb pleas.

Sounds a man sings about being a queencunt a woman sings about being a boyman. The midwife’s career to a river of ideas. Fallen queen has become queen of the cast-offs. An odd character but Ziggy Stardust wasn’t a coincidence. He/She will thrice refuse: Mark 14:30 thrice does Paul deny Jesus prophecy a genius of the avant-garde no rules no guide something inside unnamable for some unknown reason but of shame and embarrassment not…but…

We have witnessed an epidemic of guilt and maybe nobody deserves to live in this kind
Of fantasy when this kind
Of evil is
Happening in the real world,
Our sins are stubborn,
Our repentances are cowardly,
We pay our admission handsomely,
And merrily we come home along the muddy path,
Believing that by vile tears we have washed all of our stains clear.




The enlightened gives into the body and music does not need a savior J.ohn C.age said it music does not need to be saved. Friend Opportunity shows dramatizes the failure of communication language the source of anguish but also the greatest moments of epiphany the anguish as well as the ephiphanic joy that went into the creation of The Runners Four run from ennui,

We tend to write really simple songs. The reason is that they can be played over and over again, and instead of it getting boring, you keep finding new possible ways to do it.

Kidz Are So Small: formally here we go round the prickly pear play time allegorical friendships childhood human animal interaction playing and the display of emotion. See cover art for animal fornication. Cuteness and sex cute! Nerd sounds. Thoughts of nerds and girls. Thoughts of faces in trees and infantile sexuality. The refusal of the appetite and the acceptance of alienation of chancre over appetite. Forgive her accent. Matchbook Seeks Maniac: drums, guitar, organ, bass, voice. Genre-playing: it is not surprising that this is an older song but it fits perfectly in an album of ambition (I will sell my soul to the devil if I could be the top of the world) versus humility (I don’t care about power), fear of madness, masturbation (I am just entertaining myself). Be a man, hope for sale, out of a fiction make a truth. It’s the same question but a different approach than in Runners Four, “reduction is constantly changing.” Is it the belief of empty men? NB: Deerhoof’s drummer has told of fits of self-flagellation a punishment for self-consciousness. Look Away: Oh God not with a bang but with a whimper you question the meaning of the word about. There is “something bigger” than classifying music art’s only chance a human feeling. The hollow man the eschatological man asked it and I have an answer: I will love you as long as you let me have my drug: Me me me me me me me memem. I can’t help myself crazy clinically coughing in the background screaming “I am Lazarus, come from the dead!”




Deerhoof’s label is Kill Rock Stars (KRS1). Deerhoof can force the moment to its crisis by creating a relationship to the concrete visual soundtrack. “Look Away” was a live soundtrack to a movie by Harry Smith, Heaven and Earth Magic. I watched it several times without sound and mapped out my interpretation of how it worked. In a collaboration like this he’s dead so we’re not really collaborating just wondering,

What’s the wonderful play I play wonderful days?
What’s the wonderful day. I play wonderful ways?
What’s the wonderful way I play wonderful days?

Necrophilia is an unthinkable act. Will I love me in the end?

The adversary said it himself: remove
Your guilt and shame and put it on me,
I beg of you.
I have known the eyes already;
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here.] ! ! !

I bear witness to what their idiotic hermeneutics are capable of of the breaking of bones and of a fastidious mind. By no means does this have anything to do with music just a specimen an animal mind and you never know how to reach that point until you’ve reached it.




S. p. onge the internet is not masturbation but pure plagiarism ; ) the body will do as it does what does : ) a tymphanuml.e.s.p.onge.





"One should construct plots, and work them out in diction, with the material as much as possible in the mind's eye. In this way, by seeing things most vividly, as if present at the actual events, one will discover what is apposite and not miss contradictions." (Aristotle, Poetics). It should be noted (and how!) that A Soundtack Sponge is at once a rewriting of Lautréamont's opus The Songs of Maldoror and Poetries and a parody of Jacques Derrida's Signéponge.

A comic that reminded me of Matt

Oh, White Ninja, you're so crazy!

A comic I like

It's called the White Ninja. I find it funny but I know its odd...

Arsonist in Park Slope.

I live in an awesome neighborhood. Nice, tree lined streets, great restaurants, and generally its one of the safest neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Tonight was different though. While having a few beers on a friend's roof deck we saw smoke. We moved from roof to roof. My buddy called 911. A car was on fire across the street. I ran down stairs. I wasn't sure what I was planing on doing as I had no shoes on, but I wanted to make sure no one was inside. We were pretty sure the car was parked but... I got to the intersection and while I was moving through the building to the street a cop, whom had been driving by, was already on the scene. No one was in the car. I returned to the roof. The windows exploded out. Soon after the firemen arrived and we watched as the they put out the fire. Then we returned to our evening.

Later as we were walking home we saw another parked car that had clearly been on fire. I don't own a car but its frightening to think that there may be an arsonist in the neighborhood. Burning cars are dangerous enough but if they move on to buildings the potential devastation could be horrendous. The buildings around here are prewar, mostly wood and all attached to one another (for the length of the block).

help me help you

I'm at work (big shock!) where i've just discovered that my friend alex has one of my all time favoriest albums ever on his itunes: ted leo & the pharmacists' 'the tyranny of distance.' this album is unfuckwithable, and makes me wonder why in the hell i don't own everything this man has ever made. oh yeah, i have no money! (another big shock!) but seriously, does everyone know/have this gem? if not i''ll upload it to that special place bryan's always putting shit, provided someone tells me how to do it. it's so good! oh god. oh god. oh god.

i would die 4 u

So Prince just shot a video. Apparently, he asked each and every person on the set if they had "love for Jehovah in their hearts." If the answer was no, they were asked to leave. He also just played a fashion show in London, where I'm decently sure that no one had love for the big J in their hearts. And he's fucking small!!!

Cnn/Jena 6 ridiculous

Why'd CNN have to send the black reporter to talk to the black people and the white reporter to talk to the white people? Christ, why not take it a step further and have a Hispanic/Asian/Indian (back to you Dr. Sanjay Gupta!) in the studio mediating between the two reporters? And also, what would actually shape my opinion of this story would be if someone anywhere in this coverage would say whether or not the kid that got his ass kicked had been the one to hang the noose in the tree. That's sorta important and no ones saying anything about it.

: a genetic disorder I suspect will cheer up Ashley

so far away from these mountain lights

i'm making an effort not to twist my hair as much, but how am i to stop my only nervous tic when i work in fucking new york city, where all the crazies never seem to have a job to occupy their time and are always ready and willing to harass my poor eyes and ears on my meager (45 min) lunch break? today i had the pleasure of seeing a woman who wasn't wearing pants sitting in the park. then a boy came up to alex and i while we were eating and asked where we got our pizza. i was pretty close to saying, "we're in fucking new york. pizza isn't something you need to ask directions to," but he was a Hot Indian so i kept my mouth shut. then a shirtless dude with manboobs approached us asking for a cigarette. alex demurred politely, and so the man decided it was a good idea to tell us about the "piles and piles" of magazines he had for sale "over in the corner" of the park. he was also kind enough to add that he had a "giant bag of makeup" his friend "didn't want" that was also for sale. fucking christ. i just stared at him. i give up.

the good girls are home with broken hearts

i'm at work right now, drinking tea, writing in a blog and looking up shit on the internet when i'm supposed to be...drinking tea, writing in a blog and looking up shit on the internet! too bad i hate this place. i quit the other day, and it felt like jumping off a diving board into a swimming pool that may or may not be empty. who knows? this career business is over-rated anyways, right? right? oh god. my co-worker stephanie just stared at me because i'm trying to work a gigantic knot out of my hair. i put it there by being a nervous wreck and constantly twisting it, which may or may not make me look like a crazy person. verdict: it totally makes me look like a crazy person. feel free to give me career ideas, homework assignments or just cold hard cash in preparation for my upcoming bout of unemployment.

cold and hard,
ash

Youssif

Youssif is a five year old Iraqi boy who was doused in gasoline and lit on fire by masked men back in January of this year. Just now I saw this at CNN.com.

"LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Youssif, the 5-year-old burned Iraqi boy, rounded the corner at Universal Studios when suddenly the little boy hero met his favorite superhero."



Anyone care to guess which one of these two isn't his favorite superhero?

Matt's Alien Dreamwomen

I dreamt last night that I was in Africa. I was by a body of water, like a lake, on a short beach. On the beach was a pick-up truck, filled by soldiers and shoulders. The truck was facing the water with the engine facing the water, on a slant. There were men with their feet on a board. Next to me, was a leader, a king or a general, of Africa. They were conducing a ritual, in which I was to take place, along with this other black man. The feet on the board were holding down a shark in the water. The man told me that we were going to let the shark bite our wrists to let the blood into the water. He did so, climbing onto the plank and putting his left arm into the water before him. I followed and I saw the shark’s gray head outlined by the white of his muzzle underneath the water and the plank between him and me. I put my left wrist into the water, as my man did. The shark bit me and cut my arm open from my wrist to my elbow with his sharp teeth. The wound gashed, my limb went numb and felt like it was dying, like a cold phantom. My arm was bleeding. I decided to mend my arm myself, as the wound was not deep. It seemed to be healing when I turned my wrist around to find three cuts on my forearm, unbleeding and too deep. These cuts were like the shark’s gills.

I awoke thinking I should go to the hospital. I looked at my left arm, intact, and saw that it was thinner than in my dream, such that the gaping wounds on my forearm could not have existed. I saw a new scar on my thumb and felt the grittiness of a once-broken wrist, memories of painful ninja holds.

also, i've decided to "grow some balls"

you choose:

Survivor

I don't know if you guys remember gathering in my basement to watch the last episodes of the first season of survivor but even though I rapidly got sick of that show I still think back, from time to time, fondly of us all sitting down together and watching those crazy ass final rants. Maybe that's why this years Survivor seems so silly to me; Survivor China. China? Really? How hard can it be to survive in China? Like two point two billion people are doing it right now.

Unholy: An Ethical Decision.

I have an ethical decision I need to make and could use a little help. A good friend of mine from college directed a movie that I told him I'd review on thoughtsonfilm.com. Here's the thing, though my buddy did a good job on his end of things, (well edited, reasonably well acted, reasonably good bang for the buck, and over all, I'd say its got an excellent visual style) at the end of the day the movie pretty much sucks. Its convulated, the dialogue is lousy and to be frank the whole thing is extremely limited by its budget. And the ending is a twist of Shaylamalomian porportions in both disappointment and retardedness. So what do I do? Honest review? Pandering?

FOOTBALL! SPORTSBALL! JOCKSTRAPS!

I still hate Peyton Manning, but this is uber funny. Pats will still win the superbowl after they steal signs, road signs, your wifey, his wine, her pants, their wallet and my heart.

Menomena on LaBlogotheque Now with 100% more Lil Kids Dancing

This has to be one of the most adorable things I've seen in awhile. This was taken from LaBlogotheque. Check out their impromptu shows in French or Anglais.

They have had bands like Menomena, Jens Lekman, Beirut and more do stripped down versions of their songs on the streets of Paris. This video is Menomena doing a version of their song Wet and Rusting. But the two little kids dancing steal the show.



In other news, I sold 2 Girl Talk tickets for 50 bucks a piece today at lunch, so that's neat.

W, or Obsession (Swastika).

W is heartbreakingly Germanic;
It comes to the French via Nazism.
W to Vs, must be done over with;
It is desperation through its utmost.

W closes windows and does not open them,
It is too two many tos;
Like the willow-tree or the wombat.

It is the letter W, double U, on the eve.
Standing over W, between copula.
For it is the letter W, hauntingly beautiful.
For as consonant as well as vocal.

In nocturnal marriage W had made GU.
We have Guillaume, Guillaume Tell,
Who shot an apple off a head?


William swiftly sauntered:


"A heart which would heal
For make an M
Must wont stand on its heels

(and not on its head).

Will you do without punctuation
When I say remember
How to love

The Mac Dad will make ya

FYI

He who farts in church sits in his own pew.

Earlier today...

... A bomb exploded in New York. It was early in the morning, no one was hurt, and the only real damage was suffered by a van, but still, a bomb explodes in the most densely populated city in our country two blocks from madison square garden and Penn station. No leads. How is this not a bigger story? The only reason it got an airtime on news radio is because the bomb went off in front of Studio Dante which is owned by an actor from the Sopranos.

Nothing about this screams terrorism but its a disconcerting to think that a bomb could be planted somewhere and without any eyewitnesses the perpetrator can just wander off back into the crowd.

It should also be noted that this might have been domestic terrorism. Studio Dante is gearing up for a slate of progressive works and this could have easily been the work or influence of Fred Phelps or other whacko.

Come Sit Next To Me and Pour Yourself Some Tea

Just like grandma made when we couldn't find sleep.

Why is this compact disc of music so freaking good? It makes me all happy. Way happier then Legally Blonde II: The Off-Broadway Musical!

That is all.

Legally Blonde the Musical.

Earlier tonight I was spending sometime with friends and we started talking about, I think it was Legally Blonde the Musical, or some light comedy along those lines remade into a Broadway show. I put in my two cents that I didn’t like this at a conceptual level, that it is a growing trend, that it extends into various other forms of recycling ideas and that it is a generally negative indication of things to come.

I wanted to put it to the group, see what others thing. Now I concede that I’m looking at this from a writer’s perspective. Reworking an existing piece is easier (usually-and note that this is different from adapting a novel or other work) and would likely not get a writer a full wage but rather a re-write wage which could be significantly less (We’re talking an 1/8th). That’s if a writer is employed at all since this is a producer/director’s dream- the dialogue, the structure it exists already- and thus the perfect project for someone who wants to write but doesn’t have as a strong a skill set or as high of a level of experience. So I’m looking at these projects as potentially taking jobs away from writers.

Also, and this is maybe my own bias, but when you take a play and rework it as a film you capture it permanently and allow it to be shared across continents, but when you take a film and rework it as a play I don’t feel like very much is gained. That’s not to say it takes less artistry just that it becomes more frivolous a thing. This is reflected in the cost and who can and can’t see it. A ticket for a show is routinely four to ten times the price of even the (generally considered expensive) $11 it takes to see a movie in New York. With a movie you can wait and get the DVD for twenty. With a show, if you wait, you may never see it.

Now I’m not arguing that it’s impossible to derive enjoyment from a play based on a movie. I enjoyed Hairspray a great deal. I wouldn’t go to see Legally Blonde the musical because I’m not the worlds biggest Legally Blonde fan and I wouldn’t go to see High Fidelity the musical because I didn’t think the movie needed it. So what was different about Hairspray in my eyes? Well, Hairspray, the original, was done so cheaply and with such basic tools at Waters’ disposal I can see where the camp elements would gain new life by having a shinier and more professional backdrop to pop out against. For me, that’s why Hairspray the Musical worked. With High Fidelity there really isn’t much to be changed. It’s not old, (’98 I think) and it wasn’t lacking in founding. Same goes for Legally Blonde. These movies aren’t really being re-imagined.

During our conversation we branched into the similar but distinct discussion of how we felt about Movie-to-movie remakes. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was central to the conversation. Nobody seemed too much like the movie. For my part, I thought it was fine. Saw one or two new flights, felt some of the cuts were major detractions and overall was just left with a feeling of, why? What was the purpose of this remake? On that we all generally seemed to agree.

On King Kong we had a more diverse discussion. Some of us thinking it was a purely profit-for-profit-sake summer block buster, and in truth, to a degree, it was. But I feel this was a good remake. King Kong, the original, was an achievement in special effects in stood out to a generation as the high water mark of what an adventure film could be. But seventy years later the material was largely forgotten. Sure everyone knew the basic story from cultural osmosis, but how many people in their teens or twenties or even their thirties have seen the movie? And here was a top tier director fresh off of a major cinematic achievement not just willing, but yearning to do it. For me, this is a worthwhile remake. Something great that was forgotten is given new life and expanded upon. King Kong is hardly my favorite movie, hell I don’t think it’ll crack into my top four favorite Peter Jackson movies, but it is a perfect example of a good remake. It brought something more to the table and reinvigorated the original.

I tend to more often than not like cover songs, which was the next topic of conversation. Again though, to me, a good cover is a departure from the original in tone or style. I loved Johnny Cash’s Hurt. His age and frailty coupled with the recent loss of his wife gave the song a power that I felt surpassed Reznor’s drug problems and failed relationships. I can see arguing the exact opposite, but I could never see arguing that it wasn’t a fantastic cover. And on a lighter note there are the very fun covers like the acoustic Hey Yeah, or the banjo and bass version of Move bitch. But, standing tall in the column for bad covers is Madonna’s American Pie. She just wanted to cover it. She’s Madonna so she could. But can you articulate why this is a good cover?

Jumping back to what originally set me off this whole path is Legally Blonde the Musical which just seems like producers trying to squeeze every nickel out of a property at the expense of the artistic community. We could conceivably reach a point where movies, plays and other media properties are revived in cycles with original material playing an ever decreasing role in our culture. I wouldn’t mind so much as long as they were long enough cycles that I couldn’t notice and the material was re-worked enough to gain relevance and keep artists working. Otherwise we may face a future full of Halloween 5 reimagining 2 and Ocean’s 26 in the theaters with Bratz and Rushhour 2 the musicals on Broadway.