20 After Dave's 36" Uni

Kaki King @ LACMA 3/5/16

Met the Super Domestik guys at the top of El Prieto Thursday night. They were kind enough to let me tag along since I don't like riding El-P alone, especially when tired. I was a sweaty mess and my phone's camera lens was too. Their kit still looks good though. ;D Want that blue jersey!

Space Katie

Destroyer at the Regent Theater 09/20/15

Jiggling Yosemite GIF stuff

Mr. Big Document 4: $40,000,000.00 Palace 1

This is both a fantasy and a plan. Mr. Big lays out some tactics for getting rich, like working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week and, when able, taking money and keeping money. He's got a location picked out for the palace, imagined some famous neighbors, considered a harem with belly-dancers for dinnertime, and noted the expected thickness of the the walls and doors. Smoking joints will be allowed in Mr. Big's $40,000,000.00 Palace 1, but no inhaling!

Mr. Big Documents 2 & 3: BS HUSBAND WANTED & BS WIFE WANTED

Mr. Big ran in some ritzy neighborhoods, and I'd like to believe whenever he was camped out on some corner, flanked by luscious lawns and gorgeous palms, brushed up against the haute and heavy hitters, pissing on a mailbox... I believe he had these signs draped over the side of that blue box.

BS HUSBAND WANTED

BS WIFE WANTED

(Dumb or smart does not matter either.)

Hello Mr. Big + Document 1: SUB WORLD FAMOUS NUMBERS (good)

My previous position at the lib had me sitting behind a counter inside a small room nestled in the very heart of the building. This room also housed the printing and copying system for the public computers (located just outside the room), and if I was ever busy it was helping people get their documents in hard copy. But most of the time I waited, ready. Bored.

This situation, being rather secluded but also open to The Public, was apparently very attractive to a particular sort of social animal and so there were several colorful characters who reported to my counter on a regular basis and proceeded to regale me with their brand of crazy. Ronald 'Captain Pooty' Vaughn will always be my favorite. Lior is very sweet, and the one-time visit from The Suicide Poet will haunt me forever. There's stuff to share from some of these folks, but they're for another time.

It's imperative I begin with Mr. Big. He's not a regular per se—more like an occasional. I think he travels between several cities over the western half of the US, or at least the greater metropolitan area around here. But when he's around he stops in to compose and print out the latest version of whatever document he's selected from a truly enormous library of crazy. He's always very eager to hand out copies of his documents, and keeps a file-folder stocked with several different screeds. But the entire ala he keeps on a little precious flash drive hung around his neck.

I figured since he's so interested in getting the word out, he might let me copy the files to my own drive. So the last time he was in I asked to have a bit of a look at all he had, and he let me flash everything over to my own little clip drive. Took it home, sanitized the whole thing (digitally, that is, there's been no change to the writing and as little change as possible to the format) and now I'm finally getting around to doing my part to help Mr. Big get the word (files) out.

So, okay! Hello Mr. Big!

Here is SUB WORLD FAMOUS NUMBERS (good).doc. (Make sure to hit the [+] button a couple times to zoom in so it's legible.)

Mr. Big is obsessed with the significance of numbers (though when pressed to explain the significances he can get agitated and incoherent). Whenever he notices a numeric significance relating to celebrities, news items, politics, or anything really, he notes it down in the appropriate document within the NUMBERS folder. This particular document, however, is located in the top level of the Mr. Big home folder. I believe it serves either as a handy staging area for items yet to be filed appropriately within NUMBERS or as a 'greatest hits' condensation of the whole NUMBERS folder system, or both.

This document is a fine example of the complex shorthand of oblique references Mr. Big maintains to help organize his documents. Though you'll quickly recognize many of them, we may not ever understand what exactly they mean. I've spent some time reading this one-sheet, and still can't even comprehend what most of the parenthetical or aside references mean. He did explain the Judge Judy (or just Judy) reference once, brokenly and in staccato, as denoting encounters with people who would likely be on the receiving end of a scathing rant from The Honorable, and then are also sometimes followed by what Mr. Big imagines she'd say.

It's easy to be discouraged by the compacted illegibility of a wall of random-seeming text like this, but I believe there's a coherent (if mis-guided and not altogether sane) message to it. Interpretations are welcome.

There's a lot more where this came from, and plenty of gems to share in the future. Keep an eye out.

Letters RE: "Consider the Lobster"

The October 2004 issue of Gourmet featured a selection of letters from the 'record-breaking' response to David Foster Wallace's essay (published Aug. 2004) on the Maine Lobster Festival, Consider the Lobster. In an attempt to aid in the education of MeFite apricot's frosh comp class, I scanned in the two pages of letters at a nice, big resolution. They're a pretty fun read, as is the essay of course.

[click for larger]

Los Angeles Magazine: a 1963 Almanac

Foreigners CAN Wear Kimono

Ikebana International Spring 1961 No. 8

The Animatic

The Animatic is a three-dimentional music video. Triggered b a record player, a series of animated machine come to life in a chain reaction and creates a narrative for the sound.
These all take inspiration from simple animation techniques and the viewer follows
the chain of machines, one by one, to piece together a narrative.
the machine is created out of everyday objects and uses clever kinetic and mechanical mechanisms.This performance features "Memphis Tennessee", a Silicon Teens cover of the classic track by Chuck Berry.

Yuri Suzuki & Household

Dancing in the Streets

Some fun music videos. There's nudity.

Matt & Kim - Lessons Learned


Make the Girl Dance - Baby Baby Baby


David Bowie & Mick Jagger (Slowly) Dancing in the Street

Chris Ware Animations

Quimby the Mouse

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

Judgement to the Wife


This American Life

Oxfam 48hr Ad Contest - Chinese Takeout Films - Climate Change: the RPG

While I was blissfully enjoying a glorious walk through San Francisco this past weekend, my friend's roommate was furiously working to finish this video. 48 hours wasn't enough of a challenge for Chinese Takeout Films; they did it in 24 hours straight, from concept to finished product. Impressive, and for a good cause: Climate Change: the RPG was made for The Cannes Young Lions Oxfam 48 Hour Video Challenge, it's purpose is to entertain and raise awareness about climate change. Half of the criteria for winning is a combination of video views and votes via the Cannes Lions site (search for chinesetakeoutfilms), so click through after you watch and watch it again. And CTRL+SHIFT+R often!

Unoriginal Thought

or Faith in the Done Before

I don't actually know how to play the piano. Or any instrument for that matter, and I certainly can't read music. I blew into a clarinet for a week in elementary school, but that was only because mom found her old one in the depths of a closet around that time. Nevertheless I am inspired, and will be composing a conceptual piece of music for the piano on the recurring theme of 'Fucking It Up Is the New Doing It Right'. Here's what I've got so far:

The first movement is conducted by hitting the piano as hard as you can. Attempt to alter its tuning with your strike.

Next, play a series of scales in an attempt to detect where the piano has lost its true.

Finally, construct around the first detected de-tuned octave [this algorithmically-created series of notes and chords].

Optional scales out.

OK, so something like this must have been done before. If you've heard music based around the deliberate abuse of instruments*—and most interestedly the piano—share it here, please, I'd like to hear it. I'll keep working on [this silly, important part].

* Punk is being considered. What else?

Section 8 City From the Basement

Andrew Bird - Section 8 City

From the Basement is producer Nigel Godrich's experiment in high-quality televised musical performance.

It's an expensive show to make and with good reason. The standard of production is very high and we try to make it look and sound as good as is humanly possible. It's all done on HD video and the sound is produced by me.
. . . . .
The whole emphasis of the show is about being artist friendly and making our bands as comfortable as possible so that they can give great performances without the usual agony of TV promo which everyone has to do but no one seems to enjoy. TV world is a pretty hostile environment for your average musician to have to walk into and bare his soul on cue.. It also doesn't hurt that a lot of the people we've filmed are friends or people we've worked with before so they trust us and know that we understand what recording music is about as well as making good TV.

A success in my mind, at least from the looks of this Andrew Bird video. I've seen him live a few times, and always felt that the audience has been a distraction from the man's performance and feeling. This setting is perfect for Andrew Bird. It is plush and dark and lonely, and he shines in it. I looked it up recently to add to a fun thread on musicians who build songs live on stage with looping devices at MetaFilter. Lots of good links there, and a few more sneak peeks from Nigel on the From the Basement site.

SCIENCE! Tracer Bullets

No, no, no—not ballistics. Science!

The Library of Congress SCIENCE TRACER BULLET SERIES contains research guides that help you locate information on science and technology subjects. With brief introductions to the topics, lists of resources and strategies for finding more, they help you to stay "on target."

Lots of it is just bibliographic listing, but some of the pages have INTERNET RESOURCES that often yield good stuff. Like Ask an Astrobiologist! (Astrobiology? As in Exobiology? Exopaleontology? Bioastronomy? Life in space?!)

Classic image from WearScience.com. You can get it on a t-shirt.