Dropping the Faith Sandwich

Now that I'm older and somewhat less retarded, I'm starting to understand that there really is no right and wrong, no good and bad. Everything is a fucking gray area.

Well fuck.

I mean, genocide? Sure, when the world was populated with say, 3 billion people back in the late 50's, yes, it probably was a bad idea. And now, I'm not so sure. 3 billion people more in the last 40+ years. Unbelievable. How are we ever going to survive the next 40 years?

Probably not very well.

I think I won't have kids of my own. Adoption, sure. Foster parenting, sure. But as to introducing yet another creature to witness what a disaster the world is turning into, no thank you. I sure hope the rest of my life pans out nicely and I don't one day find myself aiming a .45 at my temple because the the shit hit the fan in such an atomically unfortunate manner that the fan is no longer there, well, I'm just looking out for number one. I can picture myself towards the end of my time here, sitting in an old rusty chair, and just staring out a blown-out window at the broken abyss of a large city and it's 2047, and we're 15 billion strong, food distribution has disintegrated, anarchy rules the streets, and I decide to outright will myself to death since it's all so maddeningly hopeless.

We'll just see what's up in 40 years.

Well kiddies, there's your bedtime story. Sweet dreams, yall.

Earth 'N' Elements Pottery

Check out this amazing pottery! Kathi makes some really stunning pottery that looks like it is formed from wood or seed pods. The colors and textures are exquisite and the shapes blow me away. I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future.

The Begining of the End

Uh oh... now they can walk:

Baby Robots Learn Emotions From People

""It is very important to detect when the human user is angry and the robot has done something wrong or if the human is lonely and the robot needs to cheer him or her up.

We are focusing on emotions relevant to a baby robot that has to grow and help human with every day life."

One of the first robots built in the project is exhibiting imprinted behaviour - which is found among birds and some mammals when born.

"They get attached to the first object they see when born.

"It is usually the mother and that's what makes them follow the mother around..."

Roliqueries - Limestone Sculptures by Amy Brier

These are so friggin cool! I have carved some small sphere stone sculptures in the past, but nothing quite like these, and never with the intention to use them as interactive art tools as she has. Amy Brier designs these carved spheres to be used in sand to leave dramatic designs as they roll along. This takes the desktop zen sand box to a whole new level!

Tips for Internet Dating #1

The Department of Statistics Someone Pulled out of Their Rear reports that Internet daters who include photos in their profiles receive eight times as many responses as those without photos. But obviously, this is a general statistic. Beautiful people get a lot more hits than ugly ones. If you're really ugly, a photograph may be a disadvantage. How can men who look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon even the playing field?

Well, first, remember that if you're a guy from the Black Lagoon, you can always try for a girl from the Black Lagoon. Or, possibly, you could look me up. I am intrigued by the idea of dating a lurking horror. If you have tentacles, please drop me a line, courtesy of this blog. But, as you know, I'm weird, and not everyone thinks like me. Possibly, even girls from the Black Lagoon are looking to marry up. And let's face it: you could own your own mansion, a fleet of Ferraris, and a supersonic jet, and some people might pass your profile over for the sake of your portrait alone, without ever getting to know what a great guy you are. If she doesn't bother to read about how you risked your life to rescue an orphanage full of necrotic quadruple amputees, you're never going to score. I mean, meet a nice girl to take home to mother.

So, what's a swamp monster to do? Even the most flattering photo could be worse than no photo at all, which brings us to Dragon's on-line dating hint #1: Post a bad photo.

Not a bad photo like the one where your face is still creased from sleeping on it funny and your eyestalks point in opposite directions, but a technically bad photo, where you're mostly unlit. There's plenty of shadows in the Black Lagoon. Use them wisely. With a little creative underlighting, you can go from unspeakable terror to mysterious stranger. When she asks for a better picture, be ready with a story about your xeroderma pigmentosum (this provides a good opportunity to get her to cling to you in the dark while you watch The Others) or start crying about how you sacrificed your good looks when you caught necrotizing fasciitis from those orphans. Girls eat that sort of thing up. Or so I'm told.

Will any of this guarantee that you'll score? I mean, meet a nice girl? Dragon guarantees nothing. But, if you're having trouble shaving in the morning because every time you buy a new mirror it spontaneously shatters the first time you use it, the light is not your friend. Embrace the darkness. There are worse things than dating goth chicks.

Not Quite How I Remember Fights in College

(Language is NSFW)

Cats, the Pork Substitute

Thought I'd deflect some of the attention off babies and ladies with delicious kitties! Click the link, bee-yatches!!

BEER ROASTED CAT
1 cat cut into roast
1 can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup
1 cube of beef bouillon
1 clove of garlic
1 Fine Irish Stout, like Guinness.

Edible Baby

In case your wondering about the likely black spot above where the video of a cake made in the form of a baby should be, it appears to be taking quite awhile to load...

From Edible Women to Edible Offspring!(found on Neatorama )
The Cake Artist's Site is here.

---

My concern is that this trend will lead to an outbreak of woman and child eating...you know how the media influences our actions.
(Please if I ever have a child someone get me a cake like this for a shower!)

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars

This is a really great album of Afrobeat and Reggae recorded by refugees from the hideous, long running civil war in Sierra Leone. Recorded in refugee camps in Guinea, it really captures the raw power of this music in its purest state.

Buy the Album

You can hear the songs streaming from their website: refugeeallstars.org

There is also a documentary about the making of the album available on DVD which has one a bunch of awards.

This award winning film chronicles the life of Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, a group of six Sierra Leonean musicians who come together to form a band while living as refugees in the Republic of Guinea. Forced from their homes in Sierra Leone, the members of the band represent the thousands of untold stories that exist amongst the survivors of the Sierra Leonean civil war.

(from playtherecords)

Holy Moly. Bacon!

Thanks to the wonderful Dooce, I found this amazing alarm clock, and I have to say, I think I need it:

Behold, the Wake-n-Bacon!!

I am just...wow. Someone made this. Here's the link to the article about it.

Basically, the alarm clock wakes you with the sound and smell of REAL, cooking BACON. This can't be approved by the FDA. *grin*

Quote from the article:
"In addition, we propose several improvements to the clock unit itself:

* Calendar Aware: knows not to go off on weekends, holidays
* Presence Aware: only active when there is enough pressure on the bed to indicate presence of a person
* Option to have waking module "dimmed up": whether a lamp or sound or vibration is used as a waking agent, the option to have this sensation dimmed up from zero so user is eased into waking

In the end, we just built the bacon-cooking part because we received such a strong response from people."

Indeed.
I want one! Hahaha.

Now We’re Going to Look at Upside-Down Dara: Science and Sociology among Six-Year-Olds

The first-graders are doing a science experiment on rocks and sand in small groups.

Arthur, a cheerful little punk, is the leader of group one. The Mohawk he wore at the beginning of school, in imitation of his super-punk daddy, has grown out, but he still sports skull-themed T-shirts and jewelry every day of the week. Despite his appearance, he remains studious and tuned in to his education. He has probably been made group leader due to his fine motor skills, necessary for the pouring involved in the process.

Joe, flippant and hysterical, needs a stern hand to keep him focused, which Arthur will not provide. Capable in math but disinterested in reading, Joe would rather laugh than follow instructions. He’ll spill materials with unmediated exuberance if allowed near them, while his starry, mischievous eyes sparkle beneath abundant black curls of unkempt hair. Maintaining his interest is a challenge since his parents took him off his meds.

Jorge, his own black hair buzzed to the scalp, will follow his peers, checking to make sure he’s got it right, whether it’s class work or games. His own English is weaker than the other students’, and he glances back to Joe or another Latino boy, needing to know for certain that he has understood. He always does understand, but still doubting his own language skills, remains a follower, his dark jeans ironed into neat creases.

Dara, the only girl in the group, sparkles in the uniform of a modern-day American princess: dirty pink Nikes, baggy pink tights, a denim mini-skirt and a pink princess T-shirt. Blue eyes and a blond pageboy haircut complete the look. Another strong student, she will stick to the lesson as long as the others do. When she sits on the floor, her splayed legs reveal that the denim mini is actually a more versatile pair of skorts.

Arthur follows instructions, pouring sand from vessel to vessel. Dara watches. Joe, disobeying the teacher, tries to help. “Only the group leader touches the sand,” Dara warns him, and Jorge parrots her words, more loudly, right in Joe’s ear. Joe ignores them, grabs at Arthur’s wrists, strews sand across the carpet. Dara scoops it up, as best she can, with her small white hands, and deposits it back in the cup. Jorge helps, inefficiently. The teacher passes each child a plastic magnifying lens.

They have been using these lenses all year. Squinting through the scratched plastic, they dredge their vocabularies for adjectives. The sand is sparkly, glittery, gray, silver, rocky, rough, dirty. They have been looking at sand all month. They are tired of describing sand. Instead, they examine their own hands, the floor, their sneakers. They hold the lenses at arm’s length, knowing this will afford them a topsy-turvy view of their world, hastening back to the sand when the teacher sweeps past them, creating the illusion of industry.

When the teacher’s back is turned, Joe once more holds the lens at arm’s length, marking half the distance between himself and Dara. “Now we’re going to look at upside-down Dara,” he remarks in a husky voice, clipped with his Spanish accent. He peers through the lens like a voyeur. Jorge follows suit, and even Arthur gives up the illusion of work. He too turns his lens and his eyes on the pink vision. First her eyes and chin bob modestly, but then Dara sits up straight, smiles, tosses her hair. All three boys admire upside-down Dara until the teacher gives another command.

Origami Boulder Art

This is a real site:

http://www.origamiboulder.com/



Click the picture to buy your own Origami Boulder in bamboo display case for $29.00.

While ordering your "real art" by "real artist." Please read the description and FAQ, which are either brilliant or just plain "In the Weird."

And yes, I am tempted to purchase one...or at least the "performance art option."

iTunes accidentally discovers music fraud

It seems that a now dead Joyce Hatto had become all the rage among those in the classical piano scene during the last years of her life, with a number of recordings of her playing the works of a wide range of composers released. Well a funny thing happened one day when a critic at Gramaphone magazine stuck a cd of Hatto playing Lizt's 12 Transcendental Studies into his computer... iTunes identified it as belonging to a different pianist. A few further attempts showed that all of Hatto's recordings were matching to previously existing recordings by other artists! iTunes had accidentally identified a musical fraud and intellectual property thief by its method of scanning the cd tracks to develop a fingerprint for a recording that can be matched to an online data base to pull down the track list and album, art.

Hatto's husband... and producer of the recordings in question, says he just can't imagine how that could have happened. Nope... just can't imagine at all.

Meet The Press: For Idiots

Meet The Press: For Idiots



Zing!

And, it's not just because I like rabbits...

Every week or so, Buns and Chou Chou and sometimes their human friend, Nicholas, take a critical look at the media.

George Takei loves Tim Hardaway long time

George Takei has gone from a retired trickle of obscurity to a pure golden shower of comedy ever since he professed his love for William Shatner's glory hole. Thank you George for recording what is perhaps the best public service announcement ever. You better watch your ass Tim Hardaway... or George is gonna get all up in it when you least expect it.

Conservapedia: For when the truth is just too damn liberal

You simply have got to read some of the entries on Conservapedia, an insanely stupid alternative to the obviously evil and liberal Wikipedia. This has got to be one of the funniest sites ever created by people who don't understand why we are laughing at them. It's crap like this that continues to demonstrate the pure and utter lunacy of the Right that seems to believe that no matter what reason and logic happen to dictate in the world around them, it's wrong and obviously a liberal ploy to confuse their children with "theories" and "heresies". These people really need to read up on that fine time of pure religious conviction known as the Dark and Middle Ages. Yep, one of the finest times in human history where the fear of god and church was all you needed for a wonderfully short, piously unhappy and tramatic life.

Go ahead and do some cross checks by reading the same search results in both Conservapedia and then in Wikipedia.
Here are some example searches:
Bill Clinton (Conservapedia) vs (Wikipedia)
George W. Bush (Conservapedia) vs (Wikipedia)
Evolution (Conservapedia) vs (Wikipedia)
Entropy (Conservapedia) vs (Wikipedia)
Salem Witch Trials (Conservapedia) vs (Wikipedia)
Dark Ages (Conservapedia) vs (Wikipedia)
... and perhaps my favorite:
Common Era (Conservapedia) vs (Wikipedia)

Note that appearantly Conservatives require much less completely biased info on each subject to become informed. For another hoot take a look at their World History Lecture series which includes Ancient History (Creation to 500 AD). I just can't wait for this place to be cited as a source in brilliantly written history and science reports at Bible colleges across the country.

There is a vast collection of stupidity throughout this site, and if it is based on a moderated Wikipedia model where only acceptably biased posts will be allowed, then we can expect the stupidity to grow, and grow, and grow...

Eat it raw?

New: Edible Woman!
Not from the makers of HuFu.
Or Operation.
Or in any way affiliated with Margaret Atwood (Good book! Buy it! I said so!)
Although, all of these things seem cosmically connected.

Star Trek inspires another geek to greatness

So you forgot to take the trash out to the road again and it's really starting to pile up. Well how about you dump it in the old plasma converter out back and make some new bathroom tiles and synth gas out of it instead. Are you some sort of cheap skate who can't afford your own backyard plasma converter? Well then how about the day when every trash truck is just a rolling plasma converter eating trash and generating synth gas which it then unloads at public works buildings to help power public facilities. This is the ultimate in clean trash to energy inventions, and every old landfill is now just a power mine waiting to be harvested. Yup, plasma converters are real and could be coming to your neighborhood sooner than you might think.
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YouTube is The Tops!

A nice article and collection of videos of everyday people and their five seconds of embarrassment granting them years of fame and abuse.

I for one, cannot stomach more than a few scant glances. My poor eyes just can't take it. My empathy muscles start to spasm and I have to eat a gallon of ice cream and a pizza pie to ease the pain. Oh to the pain!

(As seen on rotten.com)

Britney showed the world her box...

But my box is just for you:
(I don't think the following is safe for work...no nudity or anything, but you'll see what I mean)

This is just...I have no words.

If none of you know what I am talking about, it was her response to this:


Maybe I'm easily entertained...maybe I'm a dork. I get "D*ck in a Box" stuck in my head a LOT.
Funny funny stuff.

Bunny (the box in a box girl) even has a website! It is, of course, called "My Box in a Box"! and I am just...struck dumb.
Yeah. Dumb. That's the word. But like I said, I am easily entertained sometimes!

So, enjoy. These boxes are just for you!

Phreeque Show

Thank you Molly Phoenix for the link to this most excellent resource for the freakishly inclined. The site features pictures and biographies of circus freak notables of the early 1900's. I know Dragon's gonna just love this place, it's got two of her favorite things... freaks and dwarves!

By the way, I picked what I considered the weirdest of the images off their main page. Half man, half window??? Wow, now who wouldn't pay a nickel to see that poor bastard?

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Some (okay, ALL) of you gentle readers are going to think I suck for this...

No. For real. Britney Spears shaved her head!
Sorry, but this just...it deserves to be here.

Here's the link to the article, if you care:
I look better bald :-p

Yeah. Rock on.

Oh, and she got tattoos, too. Wonder if they were spelled correctly this time.

Enter Sandman - Apocalyptica

This is what you would have to call "Classical Headbanging". Enter Sandman being played by Apocalyptica... on cellos. Oh yes, enjoy this you will.

Star Wars in 5 seconds

Star Wars in 5 seconds



There, I just saved you 120 minutes, 55 seconds.

Monkey vs Robot 2: Burning Safari

Here is another on the Monkey vs Robot theme... with slightly higher production values. Thank you Mr Wambulus for pointing the way to this little beauty.

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Monkey vs. Robot

By special request we have the classic "Monkey vs. Robot", so please enjoy!

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Nora, The Piano-Playing Cat

I thought my cat was cute for playing fetch, but man, she's got nothing on Nora:



(from boingboing)

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Headlands Fantasy Art

I attended the annual Tucson Gem & Mineral show last weekend and came across Tom's booth from Headlands Fantasy Art, and his work really blew me away. In truth I think his website could use some cleaning up, as I don't believe it does justice to his work. Seeing his hinged geodes in person was absolutely stunning, which I think is not adequately captured in the photos on his site. He also works with other miniature artists to create highly detailed fantasy art scenes that he then mounts into a variety of stones and geodes using his own secret method developed over the last 30 years. Having crafted a variety of stone and metal scultures in the past I know a real artisan when I see one, and the quality and skill of his work is brilliant.

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"be My Fucking Valentine"

When in grade school, all those winters ago, we'd all write little valentines to each of our classmates, not because we all felt love and warmth towards one another. No, it was part of the assignment.

I certainly can't speak for any of my young peers, but I for one didn't give a flying arse fuck bout any of my young contemporaries. And I certainly didn't know Love from a Flying Arse. Fuck.

Holidays serve one of two purposes: 1) Gives people a day off to drink booze and let their gut hang out the side of their jeans, and 2) Make people buy stuff. Lots of stuff. Valentines is one of those days.

We all know it. Personally speaking, if you love someone, there's no need to have to be reminded by Hallmark to express that love. Same with bloody Christmas. If I find something awesome that such and such person would appreciate, I buy the damned thing and give it to them. Does that make any fucking sense to anybody else but me?

That was a rhetorical question. I don't give a flying arse fuck what any of you think.

Happy Valentines Day!

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Q Road

Everyone wants a piece of George Harland. Or more accurately, everyone wants a piece of George Harland’s farm.

His foul-mouthed, trigger-happy, child bride, Rachel, loves those acres like her own blood and marries a man three times her age to get her hands in the dirt. David Retakker, a scrawny, asthmatic boy abandoned by George’s last hired hand, “just wanted to drive tractors and combines and pull hay balers and cultivators across George’s hundreds of acres.” But George’s best friend from childhood, Officer Parks, is filled with jealous bile that George has managed to hang on to his great-great grandfather’s farm after Parks’s parents sold to developers. And George’s bitter, alien-obsessed neighbor, Elaine Shores, is just waiting for George to sell out himself, so cookie-cutter housing projects can impose order and sterility on fertile abundance. Even the woolly bear caterpillars are rushing toward the succor of his “rich river valley land.” Meanwhile, nobody can make a living farming in Michigan anymore.

Welcome to Kalamazoo County, Michigan, October 9, 1999, as two hundred years of American history come to head at the unlikely rendezvous of the oldest barn in Greenland Township.

In Q Road, award winning author Bonnie Jo Campbell has crafted a world of rural oddities and the so-called civilization encroaching on it. As the last farmers butt heads with the new suburbanites, the land still bleeds with the memories of the Potawatomi Indians--Rachel's ancestors--driven off by the original farmers--George’s ancestors. In fact, George’s ancestors have made a few bad calls, and he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes, but his live-and-let-live ideal is shattered when he falls for Rachel.

“…there were no words for the fierce line of her jaw or the wing of her cheekbone. He didn’t want to think of what they’d just had together as sex. The phrase making love seemed like nothing.
“‘Will you please marry me?’ he said.
“‘Why the hell would I marry you?’
“‘I’ll give you everything I have.’
“‘Your land?’
“George was scared, but went on. ‘If you marry me, it’s half yours.’
“‘Milton says you’re going to sell your land.’
“‘I’m not planning on selling.’
“‘How much land have you got?’
“‘Almost nine hundred acres, including the land I bought from the Parkses.’ His heart was pounding down in his stomach and his groin, everywhere his guts used to be. ‘Eight hundred eighty acres.’
“‘So I’ll have four hundred forty acres.’
“‘We both own all of it until I die, then it’s all yours.’
“‘Fine. When can we get married?’”

The May-December marriage of George and Rachel begs the question: are their two ways of life in their death throes, or can the best parts be salvaged and recombined? History, the author argues, is not bound in artifacts, but in the mind, controlled by those who remember the past and tell stories about it. Conversely, progress is controlled by those who write their own future. Change will happen, on October 9, 1999, and always, but change need not equal extinction. As Rachel thinks, “Yes, his ancestors built the barn, and yes, his dead brother was buried there, but Johnny and his great-great-grandfather were dead, and just look a the miracle of David being alive.” Or, as George’s grandfather once told him, “It’s too late for your thickheaded papa, but it’s not to late for you.”

Click here to buy this book from Amazon.com through Dragon's Library

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Valentine Cabin Fever!

This gives me more joy than you could possibly imagine. Today, I share the joy with you. Just consider it a Valentine, from me to you.

No words, baby, just feelings...

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Blatant Pimpery: MixtGoods & Woodeye Studios Glassware

MixtGoods is a site that I mentioned in a previous post last week, which specializes in unique handcrafted goods. Well today they began carrying some of my glassware, and it looks absolutely amazing!

They photographed the glasses themselves on a black background, and damn if they don't pop! The photo above shows my newest set of "Bubbling Arrows" hi ball glasses, which will also be available via my own online store at wooodeye.com very soon. But for now please check out MixtGoods They have done a really outstanding job with this site and besides the 6 different sets of Woodeye glasses now being carried, there are dozens of artists represented, and it's well worth the time to peruse their gallery.

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E.T. or Mermaid (a mermaid continuation project?)

Click on a picture of this find for the article in Pravda (translated into English).

It seems that a group of Russian fisherman caught this "squeaky?" monster in the Avov sea (a region long rumored to be populated by mermaids). The Russians used a cell phone to film a short video of the animal before they ate it...that's right they ATE IT! I would be prompted to ask why a group of men would want to eat a monster, but I found my answer in my second question: what does monster taste like?
Scientists seem annoyed (who'd a thought) that the evidence was eaten, because now there is no way to test whether or not this was a new species or a mutation (some scientists suspect this because of the animal's resemblance to a sturgeon).

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Walmor Correa, Cryptozoology Paintings

Artist Walmor Correa's Cryptozoology paintings are not just of mermaids, but anteater men, dog children and man-a-tees. Very interesting subject matter and a fascinating study of crypto-anatomy. Now you can finally understand how mermaids give birth (not eggs).

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A Portrait of the Artist as a Furry Green Alien

Once upon a time and a very good time it was, there was a funny green larval creature coming down along the birthing path and this creature that was down along the birthing path met its progenitors the male parent and the female parent and the hermaphrodite parent and the androgynous parent and the double male parent and the double female parent…

The parents didn’t tell the larva anything because they knew the larva could not understand: they were green and sleek and sang wordless crystal songs through the tops of their heads and out of their posteriors.

ah aah aaah

That was their song. Nice parents! The larva didn’t sing because it wasn’t done yet and was still in the dreaming.

When the six parents lay their squirming green larva into the dreaming case and closed the lid, the larva would incubate for time and more time, and in the meantime, it would dream the dream of its special dream in a world that only the larva could understand. First it’s crazy, and then it gets crazier, and finally, after the dreaming was done, the larva would pupate and sing its own wordless crystal songs to tell its parents about the world it dreamed, a world that felt as real as the realest crystal when the larva moved around it, but was too queer to be real and as soon as the creature opened its funny green eyes to meet its parents for the first time it would laugh and laugh at believing such impossible dreams to be true.

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Thought Police?

"Brain scans have been developed which it is claimed can predict what a person is about to do..."

I suppose it was only a matter of time before those crazy scientists would figure out how to read our minds. I don't know how comfortable I am with this idea (who would be?). I often intend to do something without ever actually folowing through.

Feels a bit creepy, if you ask me.

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Spirit dominates matter in ceramic bucket

BEHOLD THE GLORY THAT IS SNAKE BABY!

The constrictor, symbolizing matter, shares a tub of water--the subconscious--with a happy, industrious baby, who represents the human spirit. Although matter seems to provide an element of danger, spirit is the master, and need not fear that which merely appears frightening on a physical level. The snake can only harm the child if the child gives it the power to do so. Otherwise, the snake is at the baby's mercy. And the baby is merciful, caring for the physical snake's physical needs. Matter is an affectation of spirit, providing it with gainful employment other than contemplation of spirit's own supremacy. Matter keeps spirit honest. Spirit keeps matter relevant. In the waters of the sleeping mind, the two can come together and acknowledge one another. Outside the tub, matter denies spirit's existence, and spirit doesn't make a nuisance of itself where it's not wanted.

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Wish I Had Hook Hands

This is how I've felt for the last week or so:



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New Old Musics! From France!

Nouvelle Vague. They're a French cover band of 80's hits. There's just something addictive about their lounge/easy-listening interpretations that I don't end up hating this band, though some part of me says I should. Most of their tracks off their two studio albums reflect songs straight out of my record/CD/tape/MP3 collection and I'm afraid I'm not the only one who felt that way. I'll just go ahead and list all their songs, though the same album on iTunes uses several alternate tracks, for example, leaving out Blue Monday ( New Order ).
Anywho, here are the bulk of their tracks:

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN : killing moon
BUZZCOCKS : ever fallen in love
LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH : dance with me
YAZOO : don't go
BILLY IDOL : dancing with myself
BLONDIE : heart of glass
THE WAKE : o pamela
NEW ORDER : blue Monday
THE CRAMPS : human fly
BAUHAUS : bela lugosi's dead
THE SOUND : escape myself
HEAVEN 17 : let me go
VISAGE : fade to grey
BLANCMANGE : waves
JOY DIVISION : Love will tear us apart
DEPECHE MODE : Just can’t get enough
TUXEDOMOON : In a manner of speaking
THE CLASH : Guns of Brixton
P.I.L. : (This is not a) love song
DEAD KENNEDYS : Too drunk to fuck
THE SISTERS OF MERCY : Marian
XTC : Making plans for Nigel
THE CURE : A forest
MODERN ENGLISH : I melt with you
THE UNDERTONES : Teenage Kicks
KILLING JOKE : Psyche
THE SPECIALS : Friday night, saturday morning
THE SMITHS : Sweet and tender hooligan

Interesting picks, huh?

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She Knew Not What Her Life Was For...a musical review of sorts

Being a mama of a nearly-three-year-old, with the scatterbrained-ness to match, I am notoriously unable to keep up with what’s new in, well, anything. I’ve only recently started reading books other than things relating to parenting (mind you, they’re “Hip Mama” and all sorts of breastfeeding manifestos, along with the general “how to” books—btw, there is NO BOOK that tells you how to raise YOUR OWN KID. Just so ya know)

Ask me what’s currently in theatres, indie or mainstream, and you’ll see my eyes glaze over and I’ll stammer, “Well, we saw Cars for the 3^rd time…”

But in spending a couple of days down in Connecticut recently, working for my in-laws, little one in tow, being a “single mom”, if you will, I had to find some, er, creative ways to pass the time whilst patting my son’s back in the dark (oh yeah, he’s an interesting sleeper, all right. I’ll leave it at that)…booklights were out, as they would only cause my babe to lift his head and repeatedly ask “What’s that, Mama?” so, I loaded my iPod with a few new albums I’d purchased over the past year, with the intention of really giving them a good listen, something that I haven’t been able to do since my son was born.

Anyone who knows me knows that music is very nearly a part of my physiological being, so months and years of Raffi, Sesame Street, Bill Harley, Putomayo World Music, Toddler Sing-Alongs, and Laurie Berkner (who admittedly is pretty cool, but still a kids’ performer) has kind of made me a little…well, batshit insane. *grin*

So, in the cold guest room of my in-laws, patting my finally-quiet child’s back for a good half-hour, I found myself listening to Stadium Arcadium, the new Red Hot Chili Peppers’ double album. I expected a massive space-wasting, epic, bombastic ego-stroking catastrophe (think the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness—and I don’t care what you say, it was a waste of my time, anyway) but, surprisingly, the singles I’d heard on the radio every now and again did not steer me wrong. I found myself carried along the waves in a California sunset, guitar and bass and voice transported by shimmering percussion. No matter how many years pass, I find that I can always count on the Chili Peppers to remind me that I am never far from my roots. Anthony Kiedis’ voice singing of girls who look like wedding cakes, L.A. as a priestess, his own love letter to a girl? A city? Both? And even with all the love and warmth, they still managed to bring the funk. You gotta respect that.
And I’m a Northern California girl! How an L.A. band can make me feel so romantic about a part of the state I’ve never spent much time in is beyond me. How they can make me feel like summer in the middle of a frigid New England winter never ceases to amaze.

I continued to sit there in the dark, long after my son had fallen asleep, letting these songs wind their way through me and permeate the cynicism I had allowed myself to feel, for many reasons, about what used to be my home, but is no longer. It was bittersweet, feeling that resistant part of me that always held on to California finally, gently let go and walk away into the snows of my not-so-new home (I’ve been here for almost 10 years)…and yet, the romance I feel for Los Angeles and San Diego, for San Francisco, Santa Cruz, hell, even for the freakin’ Silicon Valley, all brought to me by some music that happened to cross my path at just the right time.

Is this weird? Who the hell knows? I am not the authority on weird.
But you wanted music reviews, so ya got one. I give this album 5 out of 5 stars. It certainly deserves it. *****

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How to Build a Darkroom

I'm not really much of a photographer myself, though I have played around with pinhole cameras in the past (that's a shot of my old studio back at Antioch College in '95 above, captured from a Barney the Dinosaur bandaid box pinhole camera). Being that I am in the midst of doing a lot of work enhancing my studio, this was a link that caught my eye over at wikiHow.com showing how to properly build a darkroom, and I thought it worthy of sharing with others. So even though non-digital photography is a dying art, I hope this is useful for some budding old-school photographer out there.

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Hong Kong Phooey and Sublime

Need I say more?

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Googly Eye Food Challenge

Soyballs!

For those of you not familiar with Amy Sedaris: shame on you!

The former star of Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy , sister to hilarious essayist David Sedaris, author of "I Like You", and my personal super hero: AMY SEDARIS has issued a challenge to fans/friends. The challenge is this: put googly eyes on food, take a picture, upload to flicker group...TA DA! Brilliance.

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MOBA

I think as artists we're always looking to what's "good" and what's "beautiful." We argue over taste and preference and all of those things. I wonder if it's possible to agree on good art. And, I wonder if it's possible to agree on bad art.

I happen to like kitsch. I have a gold-framed, light up, holographic portrait of Jesus walking on water hanging on the wall of my bathroom. People seem to like it; when guests return from a trip to the WC, they often proclaim: Wow, where'd you get that? I'm moving to California in a few months and looking to dispense of some of my things; at least once a week, since I announced the move, I get a call from my sister: So, she says, what are you gonna do with Jesus?

It's almost easy to discover a new good artist, but sometimes harder to discover a good, new bad artist. Even searching the pages of MOBA (the Museum of Bad Art), I'm not incredibly impressed by the so-called badness. Good, no. Bad? I'm not certain. When I think about "Bad Art" I guess I think in terms of comfort. There's something impressive about a terrible painting or picture when it makes me feel right at home.

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Hi.

Here's a list of what I ate for dinner today:

1) 1 serving of blanched spinach with sesame dressing and pepper flecks.
2) 1 serving instant miso soup to which I added little clams from a tin and chunks of tofu skin.
3) 2 thin slices salami
4) 2 servings steamed cauliflower and red bell pepper with oyster sauce.
5) 1 cup orange-flavored something from powder taken out of an old (aged minimum 2 years!) Army MRE pack.
6) 1 plastic bottle of 16.9 fluid ounces of Metromint Spearmint water. This is just minty water. No sugars, just water and mint.

I'm not on some fucked up diet this time; it's all just food I felt like eating. But is it weird?

As a teenager I actually made an effort to be weird that now, at 27, I don't even know what weird is anymore. Everything is fucking weird! Does that mean everything's really normal? I don't know! I don't care!

Hi. My name is Casey Young. I live in Oakland, CA and when I grow up I'm going to outlive every last one of you heretics, conservatives, freedom fighters, abortionists, terrorists, tree-huggers, Bible-thumpers, butt-rockers, teeth-brushers, auctioneers, furries, right-handers, police chiefs, Democrats, pro-lifers, mouth-breathers, and all you sons and daughters of the Earth. That's right. I'll outlive you all or die trying.

Damn fucking straight.

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Geek Love

Normal doesn’t mean what you think it means. Not even close.

Just ask Olympia Binewski, one of five (or four, “depending on whether you’re counting heads or asses”) unique siblings deliberately designed by their parents for life in the Fabulon sideshow.

“You must have wished a million times to be normal.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’ve wished I had two heads. Or that I was invisible. I’ve wished for a fish’s tail instead of legs. I’ve wished to be more special.”
“Not normal?”
“Never.”

As her mother says, “What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves?”

My favorite novel of all time, Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is the heartwarming tale of a family of carnival freaks, the oddities that keep them together, and the psychotic cult that tears them apart. Little Oly has always felt herself the least interesting child: a bald, albino, hunchback dwarf, she will never achieve the draw of her more gifted siblings, Arturo the aqua boy, Electra and Iphigenia, the musically-talented conjoined twins, or even Fortunato, the normal-looking child whose deformity is too dangerous to ever be revealed to the world.

Although the book is lush with the sights, sounds, and smells of the midway, the carnival is a backdrop for a story about families and unconditional love. As adults, we can make choices about our environment, but regardless of how a family looks or acts, children feel their experience is standard and not to be questioned. So it is that little Oly accepts her mother's descent into the drug-addiction that goes hand in hand with the hobby of breeding circus freaks while Oly’s brother Arty turns his hatred of normal people into another kind of hobby, attracting a following of thousands of bruised and wounded spirits clamoring for him to turn them into lobotomized quadruple amputees.

A second level of the book tells of Oly’s experience as an adult, secretly watching over the child she was forced to place in an orphanage because her single deformity, a long tail, is not enough to qualify her as a sideshow attraction. Miranda is smart, sexy, and talented, the last hope for redeeming the family legacy, but Oly, poisoned by the years of her brother’s cruel regard, is afraid of her daughter’s rejection, and the strange, wealthy woman whose life’s work reminds her too much of her brother’s obsession.

Ultimately, it becomes a story about self-love, and the dangers that go hand in hand with an insistence on conformity, whether it’s to the statistical mean or to the most unlikely philosophy. It is our differences that make us human, Dunn argues, and we cannot give up one without the other.

Check out Dragon's Library to buy this book direct from Amazon.com.

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3 x 5 is just enough space for very true/funny things

Indexed: Brilliance! Sheer Brilliance!



What do you do with your Index cards?

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Star Trek and the Holy Grail

As a Monty Python fan as well as a lover of the Trek, I simply could not resist sharing this little beauty. Only a duet with Nemoy and Shatner could possibly make this any funnier.

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EtsyLux - An Excellent Etsy Street Team

I have been selling on Etsy for a couple months now and really love the site. It's not merely a sales site for handcrafted artwork, jewlery, clothes, etc... but a real and true community for the artisits involved. Since one of the things I wish to do with this blog is to expose people to artists who I think are creating compelling and accessible art, this seems like a natural place to start.

One thing I love about Etsy is that the site facilitates collaboration of artists, making it easier to work together promoting and selling their work. This includes setting up "street teams" allowing the artists themselves to handpick a gallery of their work to publicize as a group. EtsyLux is one of the best of these groups that I've seen so far, so please go check them out, and also be sure to check out the main Etsy site as well while your at it.

DISCLAIMER - I think it is important to note that while I do sell my goods via Etsy (link to Woodeye Studios Etsy shop) I am not currently a member of the EtsyLux street team. I just happen to really like what they have put together.

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The Beatles vs. Nine Inch nails Come Closer Together

This mash up won't last long before the lawyer dogs get sicked on YouTube to pull it down. So enjoy it while you can, but please note that due to the inclusion of Trent Reznor lyrics, and his tendency to tell people and objects how much he wants rub up against them in inappropriate ways... this is NSFW.

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High Maintenance

High Maintenance is an excellent short film about a future that could one day come to pass. A winner from the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival, this short from Mars Films and directed by Philip Van is a little over 7 minutes long with 2 minutes of credits at the end... so hang in their and watch it all the way through, because it's definitely worth it. The entire crew who put this film together certainly deserve a round of applause!

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Wild Child

"Feral children, also known as wild children or wolf children, are children who've grown up with minimal human contact, or even none at all. They may have been raised by animals (often wolves) or somehow survived on their own. In some cases, children are confined and denied normal social interaction with other people."

I always wanted to be raised by wolves (it would have negated a lot of early familial embarrasment), but as the site cautions:

"...it isn't much fun to be a feral child, wolf boy or wild girl."

Also good to know:

"Certainly, it's true that some animals wouldn't make good parents. It's difficult to imagine a crocodile doing anything other than eat a human baby."

***

And, finally, after all these years, I've found the best source for beautiful hand-painted goat hides on the internet! Nice!

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German instructions on how to build a burger throne (courtesy of BurgerKing and presumably for the worship of burgers?)

Throne Instructions found on Instructables.

For this project you will need 35 french fries and 3 packets of ketchup, and a strange desire to enthrone fast food.

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Mouse Acheivement

This website, featured on neatorama
is a perfect example of random weirdness on the web, and an opportunity for would-be mouse achievers to post their drawings of mice. The site offers submission guidelines, a gallery, and a four-step "draw a mouse" guide for the illustratively-impaired (?).

The project's single goal: to post drawings of mice. Why not.

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Anti-clown Propaganda (for the empowerment of the people)

Anti-Clown Web-info

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Clownz.com-"Beware the Grease Painted Ones"
I Hate Clowns.com-Bad writing, pure sentiment (cool t-shirts), GAMES!
Kill The Clown Game-clowns!
Coulrophobia- (clownophobia) is the intense fear of clowns...see symptoms (all true).
Get cured? (No, thank you...fear keeps me alive.)
Coulrophobia & The Trickster:By Joseph Durwin-a scholarly paper on why coulrophobia is so common.
World Wide Words-a very insightful definition.

---

What is it about the nature of clowns that scares some people so badly?
Is it, as some contend, the familiar shape and unfamiliar face?
Is it the "painted on smile" that may disguise alterior motives?
Is it that they really aren't funny, but are rather looming and erratic and/or bullying?
When are clowns at their most terrifying?


You say you don't find clowns frightening? Then I'll ask you this:
Let's say it's the middle of the night, and you hear a tapping at your bedroom window, you push aside the window covering to reveal a person at the window tapping the glass with a knife...now, friends, is it more frightening if that person is dressed as a clown? (I think you know it is!)

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Asylum Eclectica announces Morbid Valentine's Day contest

Go here for rules ...like there's more than one.

1. Mail something grossly valentimey to valentine@asylumeclectica.com.
Then win! ("What do I win" you ask. "A book." I say, "A gross and morbid book.")

Ah, love.


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Vocoder - What happens now?

Yup, It's real. (from musicthing)

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Cleveland Smith: Bounty Hunter

This extremely early Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi work is pure fabulous low buget camptasticness. Also fans of Sam Raimi might like to note what may be one of the earliest appearances of Sam's beloved Oldsmobile, which would feature heavily in Evil Dead and go on to appear in some form or another in every film Sam made through at least the first Spiderman.

Being an eternal fan of "The Bruce" I felt it absolutely essential that I share this little gem... so enjoy!

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MixtGoods Launches!

MixtGoods is a very cool shop worth checking out. Focusing entirely on handcrafted, artist made goods and with a crisp and clean shop design... very nice.

Admittedly I have a reason to plug them since they will soon be carrying a selection of my glassware, but my glass is not there yet and alot of other cool stuff is. So don't wait, go check it out!

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