Wednesday, March 30, 2005

cute but psycho
you are the cute but psycho happy bunny. You
adorable, but a little out there. It's alright,
you might not have it all, but there are worse


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Read more here

"The Idiot Prince
Once upon a time a prince threw his mobile phone into a wallaby cage at the zoo. The end."

Sunday, March 27, 2005

I am a recognizable pattern. Follow my spoor.

"See? It's a fun thesis. Would have been great. Oh well. Ships that have sailed. Somehow all my life relates to the same things, no matter what I do. My novel is simply another version of my thesis, which is simply another instance of my relationship to my parents. There is nothing new under the sun."

Saturday, March 26, 2005

You never know

I've pit ain scottish translatur doon thaur oan th' left, jist in case we micht be 'spikin wi' Braweheert ur mah gran ur sic'. ye neer ken.

oops

So now I fixed Gaim except now it's Ted who gets popups whenever he types or stops typing. We can't figure out how to turn it off.

Mine, however, is fine now. I am a menace.

How things have changed

"An art professor, for example, will probably not tell students that art school is a pyramid scheme into which they will pour a lot of capital, feed the higher-ups, and probably get very little if anything in return."

Mine used to tell us this all the time, but it wasn't true.

YIKES!

I just installed Gaim and it started emitting piercing claxon shrieks whenever Ted typed anything or stopped typing (which was lots.) Wow, that was awful. Gotta figure out how to fix that.

Chief Blogging Officer

"the best conversations, the ones people gravitate toward, are based on stories"

Chris Locke apparently is retyping a book he wrote and published in the past into segments in his blog in "the present". This is an activity that speaks to my appropriationist heart: he, too, appropriates himself.

Not only that, but I got to the Click and Clack reference just as Themselves appeared on my radio. Ta da!

And, when I spelledchecked this post, it wanted him to be
Chief Flogging Officer.

"I am sitting in a Room."

Ah, punctuation

"Colbert I, King of the Washington Post"

nontheless, the article will make you tear your hair

that oughta do it

N.R.A. Aide Urges Armed Teachers

PHOENIX, March 25 (AP) - All options should be considered to prevent rampages like the Minnesota shooting, including making guns available to teachers, Sandra S. Froman, first vice president of the National Rifle Association, said Friday.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Monday, March 21, 2005

Not really ...




You Are 40% Normal
(Somewhat Normal)




While some of your behavior is quite normal...
Other things you do are downright strange
You've got a little freak going on
But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself





except I'm not

The UPS Store, where I was supposed to deliver Semele today on her way to her makeover, didn't have a clue. I wasn't about to just hand her over. So I brought her home and we'll try again elsewhere. My half-hope is that she'll have straightened up and won't do it anymore, now that we've had this scare. It's draconian, but sometimes that's what one needs to straighten out, huh?

Eh, Semele? All better now?

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Get well soon

My beloved Semele, the notebook on which I spend most of my evenings and weekends, needs to go back to the source tomorrow for a transplant of some sort. Jason at Toshiba promised she'll be back in five days, which may mean I can get her back before next weekend. But do I believe that? Meanwhile, will I use the time to actually read a book? Stay tuned. For the duration, I'll be on the desktop in the study.

Be brave, Semele.

L'italiano Defarge, tradotto

"I do not travel very, indeed. I do not love the vacation and I do not love the escapes outside door. A small door, of province, within which I find all the turns and the faces of which I have need. For which what I have to tell it does not have no statistical value. True E' and enough. Then there are reasons that can induce also a animaletto of province to make the suitcases. Mine is two: the political job and appointments. These two reasons intercrossed to Paris for the November month. And in fact they are here. But a dialogue that anyone has left has had here to face, at least once in the life..."

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Today's example

"There are many reasons to throw away the cat. "

I know it's Saturday...

but if I've been scarce here it's because I've been loading up my new knitting sublog, Defarge, also under Links over there on the right, today. I joined a knitalong--I had no idea there were such things--and I thought I should put up some pictures of knitting I used to do so they'd have a clue who I was. Before my yarn gets here to start the project.

I also know it's ridiculous to knit in Florida, but I'm still grabbing every opportunity and this one looks so wonderful. All these folks knit such beautiful things and it looks like there's designing going on there as well, I've never had that kind of company before; I was always the only one around. Perhaps this will lead me somewhere, give me another string (ouch!) Anyway, it was fun taking the pictures of the old things that have been stored in the cedar chest for too long, like me. The sweater coat and shawl that took me to Italy; the giant one-size green aran that I lent J there. Boy, I've missed them!

Defarge, it turns out is a popular name. I couldn't use it for my actual blog address; there already is a Defarge on blogspot. But it's in Italian (!), seems to be defunct, and it doesn't seem to be about knitting (!!) Maybe it's about revolution? no, wait, Derrida?... Pizza? "e voi? V'intendete di rock'n'roll, di lirica, di formaggi piemontesi o di architettura decostruttivista? Siete generalisti o sistematici? Vi specializzate o prendete un po' di qua e un po' di la', come a un buffet? Fumetti? Televisione? Design? Nouvelle vague? Realismo sovietico? Esistenzialismo scandinavo? Soft-porno giapponese? Bombolo? Eleonora Duse?" It must be as eclectic as I am. Sigh. The most beautiful language I don't know.

So anyway, I used the name, just changed the address to one under my own eez rubric. Meanwhile, out in the larger world, and IRL as well I presume, the prototype, Lafarge, is become a French building materials company or something like (take that, Chuck!) and has been thus claimed. But I decided I still wanted to have a knitting Defarge, et voila! Ecco.

Spring Springs on Sunday


P. Adam (2005)

Friday, March 18, 2005

Post of the day

"I blame it on sinusitis, too much exercise, not enough exercise, too much sugar, not enough magnesium, job torpor, bad attitude, reckless disregard for the time/opinions/hearts of others, cruelty to people who wanted nothing more than to be kind to me, not calling my mom enough, not calling my dad enough, spending money at the stationery store and then never writing letters, not working up to my potential, going nowhere fast and just general badness."

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Faces


This image was quick sketched with an online tool that I've been having fun with. Whooda thunk it would be so useful for gesture drawings? Its particular link is "Pen & Ink."

This one's for Ted, who's had to listen to me bitch


test: adding elements to 5 sec. sketch

Lord of the Things

To my many commenter: has there been a problem here?

"To all you blogger users, we can bite our tongues no longer. Your blog host sucks."

Latin Term of the Day

"'The worry of all judges is 'pro se' persons,' he said. 'I've had organized-crime people before me, and I've never had a concern. It's the person who is 'pro se' and does not feel he is getting his medicine from the VA [Veterans Affairs].'"

Pro se. [For himself.] Alone. A fool for a client.

Read "desperate." Read "nothing to lose."

Read 'em and weep.

So while pondering THAT....

how to connect it with this and this?

Too many feathers, not enough....you're right, never mind.

Boys, boys, speaking of incestuous...

Meta-reflective Postmodern recreation of Las Meninas, this time titled 'Four Fools with Three Cameras'", THIS is positively homoerotic. "This is recursive..." Bloggingasahole...

Is anybody else reminded of the art world, here?

Saturday, March 12, 2005

What are the odds?

Item One: Don't have no rain barrel

"Playmate, come out and play with me
Come bring your dollies three
Climb up my apple tree.."

Say, say oh, play mate… come out and play with me…


Coincidence? I Don’t Think So

Meanwhile...


The kid's gaining on me.

It works! I am most pleased.


5 sec. sketch testing pen recognition software

a lady with the flamingo

Spring peeks in a bedroom window

Figures...

"1 person thinks this is worth it. No one is willing to help."

The Weekend

Here it is again. How it got here I don't know. Much to do, much I don't want to, much I probably won't. And no pictures to post, either. Sigh.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Post of the Day Again...(we'll have to stop meeting like this.)

"I struggle with how I can connect my current research (I know that sounds a bit lofty, but it is that) with the sorts of things I was writing about four or five years ago. An easy answer, if not a very satisfying one, is that if one continues to write about the sorts of things one was writing about four or five years ago, one may find -- usually rather painfully -- that one has long since run out of useful things to say"

er, guys???......

I was just kidding, guys...

Monday, March 07, 2005

Ten Things I've Done...

. . . that you probably haven't:

1. I had the dubious honor of being the one to inform Isaac Asimov that the Challenger had just blown up (but I demurred.)
2. I spoke every morning for a year to the boys in the back room at Johnson Matthey in London, where they still opened the gold trading day by ringing little chimes on the front steps. (They sounded like Herman's Hermits. The boys did, not the chimes.)
3. I saw Titus Andronicus 28 times in succsession.
4. I once encountered Groucho Marx being walked by his nurse.
5. I was a volunteer at a Synanon Street Fair back when they were still respectable (pre-snakes).
6. I spent many after-school afternoons dancing in Golden Gate Park.
7. I worked for a year for an infamous pornographer.
8. I was a prototype for That 70's Show.
9. I trekked across Death Valley with the chandelier fom Gone With The Wind's "Twelve Oaks" strapped down in the bed of a truck.
10. I saw Duke Ellington, Marlene Dietrich, and Rudolph Nureyev before they left us.

Post of the day

"It's been said that blogging is incestuous. Yeah? Well hell, how could it not be? Many birds of a feather are worth two in the bush. Although... no, nevermind."

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Post of the day

"I have only four and a half more hours to change the world before belly dance class"

and then what?

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the 'coolest' book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

The sentence:

Arthur's block was eerie, kidless, no bus, the hospital's laundry stack cascading silent white steam to the sky, the bodega on the corner another sidewalk congregation of old men on milk crates but graver, less amused, less musical than Old Ramirez's bunch.

The book: The Fortress of Solitude

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Vita Brevis

"It is really interesting how few of them have anything at all meaningful to say about Jack."

Actually, I hadn't found that to be the case, and I thought Welling had more to say than most, but then maybe that's because his years rather corresponded with mine. Which would be another case in point. And I didn't notice all that disproportionate much about Weiner, really, especially since she ultimately declined to be included in the book. But I do agree that was was less about Jack in the reminiscences than one might have expected if one doesn't recall the title. I thought this was by design. After all, HE was the Jack Goldstein part; their job was to be the Cal Arts Mafia. Also notice that there was little kiss and tell in the book, for whatever that's worth. Those who might have told, for whatever their various reasons, didn't do so.

What meaningful things can be said, by those who knew him, about a tragedy like Jack? That's for analysts, not participants, to tackle.

Food

Today I went to the market down the street and bought Food. Dear Bakerina, teach me to eat like a human again?


Food

Oh fooey, it's the weekend. Let's look at art.


P. Adam (2005)

International Relations, or: There, see? No wonder we shot her.

"Earlier, a video was broadcast on the Arabic al-Jazeera satellite network showing an apparently healthy Ms Sgrena thanking her captors for the way they treated her."

Balance




You Are
50% Left Brained,
50% Right Brained =
100% Bird Brained


The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.
Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.
If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.
Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.


The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.
Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.
If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.
Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Sports?

Friday, March 04, 2005

Post of the Day

"And then a funny thing happened, which was that I started to use this new tool for all sorts of things I'd never imagined I could do. Different ways to put things together. I became a cabinet maker. I bought a computer. I went to Tokyo and got myself hired into the hottest artificial intelligence project on the planet at the time. Yeah, just like that. With no background, no formal education, no credentials. Knowledge engineering struck me as another way to put things together. When I discovered that it didn't work, I started writing. Words, sentences, pictures, stories. Bricolage. Little bits of stuff you pick up along the way, having no earthly idea what they might be good for. Then encountering situations where, oh look, that bit might fit right here. How cool. And this thing that looks like a Dada bicycle pump might make a good paragraph ending."

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Post of the Day

"Sitting there in the closet with an imaginary friend and a ghost in a pickle jar, the path to truth suddenly felt very long."

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Favorite Post of the Day

Topic Drift: "kheuh urhgi 4rgibflkur ???

When people say 'Physician, heal thyself,' I always start weeping uncontrollably, because what if the physician is walking around, minding his own business, when both of his arms fall off? He won't be able to pick up his arms, much less heal himself. Someone is going to have to pick up his arms for him - and this helper won't be able to hand the physician his arms, because the physician will have no arms to hold his arms in his arms. That's what I'm talking about."

Coincidence

Methinks Picasso and the Word of the Day have conspired today.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005