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Friday, August 29
Just got my hair cut, and received the oddest compliment/comment. The barber leans over and says, "Your hair...is like electrical wires, my friend." And I say, "...Thank you." Thursday, August 28
"So, is there a life after death?" Franklin asked the stranger in his usual nonchalant manner. "You honestly think I should tell you that?" The stranger replied, gravely. "Why not? Unless, that is, you don't know." "Oh I know, you fool, I know. Do you know what would happen if I let people know if there was a life after death?" "We might actually work to make something of our lives while we're here on Earth?" "No, cretin, imagine something much like what happened on September the 11th in America happening everyday of the week. What people know, people exploit." "See, that shows me that you're a glass-half-empty kinda guy." "You unbelievable idiot, get out of my sight." Tuesday, August 26
I'm not too sure who is exactly reading this blog these days, but here is an interesting fact: There have been roughly 160 US deaths in Iraq since President Bush declared an end to the major fighting in the war on May 2. Are you still supporting the war/troops? 
"...thinking about calling it 'Crossroads'" "Why?" "Because it's, y'know, vaguely creepy..." "How so?" "Well, they used to hang murderers at the crossroads because if they turned into vampires or...or malevolent spirits they'd be trapped there. "And I was just reading recently about this guy, Kelwin Parr...or something. Last guy to be hanged at the crossroads in America. This is something, like, two hundred years ago. Anyway, he was a real weird guy and people accused him of being a demonologist and a child murderer..." "Was he?" "They never really found out. Some people from nearby found the whole town murdered, just slaughtered with an axe. Parr's house was torched and he was already hung...so...y'know, creepy." "Yeah...isn't 'Crossroads' also the name of a Britney Spears movie?" Thursday, August 21
This is somewhat in response to Kurt, over at Binary Buddha: Conflict is an essential part of human development. It's what we base all of our fiction on, where all our great myth cycles start, and what all great stories are wrapped around. Conflict is with us from the moment we are ejected from our mother's womb. We need food, comfort, and instruction yet we do not possess the language to express ourselves. When a child is in conflict it cries. Its whole body becomes the embodiment of its desire. Watch a happy baby; it fairly glows. When it's sad, its whole form becomes a taught ball of muscles and pain and need. The baby is unable to deal with its own conflict, it needs outside stimulus, and it is this stimulus that begins to shape the child's future. Within the throes of conflict there is much to be learned, but ultimately, it is the resolution to the conflict that is the defining factor. The adult life of a baby that is forced to sit in an unchanged diaper for hours may differ from the adult life of a baby that is always changed right away. The conflict is the fight, but the fight is not everything. At times it may seem like everything, though. What we learn during the fight is useless unless the fight ends, and it's what we can take away from the fight that makes all the difference. We must always be careful not to fall in love with the fight itself because in doing that, in falling in love with the conflict, we are losing. Eternal conflict, to my mind, is losing. It's wasted energy. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Well, every good story that is. Usually the greatest parts of these experiences are the middle parts. Case in point: Star Wars (Shut up). Ask any fan which is the best out of the trilogy, the original trilogy, and you'll overwhelmingly hear that Empire Strikes Back is the superior of the three. But what is the middle part without the ending? Would Empire be as good if it were the last part of the series? Sometimes more can be learned from running away from a fight, than actually becoming embroiled in one. 'You have to pick your battles' is a strong mantra for me these days. When is a good time to fight? Sometimes that's not clear until you are actually caught up in one. Some conflicts are too much, some enemies are too strong for any one person. This is why we are social creatures, and this is where so many people go wrong. We are so alone in our heads, and I think this is why people turn to fictions as an alternate reality. Fictions or drugs. Both are tempting because they can give us that shared experience. Both open up new vistas of reality, and allow us to see what we cannot, or will not see in the "mundane" world. Now, it's not all about winning or simply resolving a conflict, it's what you take away from it. It's what you've learned from the whole ordeal and how you can apply that knowledge to the rest of your life, which may very well be a series of conflicts. If you use what you've learned to ease the suffering of others (I know, corny, but true), then you've learned alot. I dunno...I feel as if I'm rambling, but I'm exploring these concepts as I write. Holler back, y'all. From Mr. Warren Ellis Taking an interesting look at a world of superhero fiction really (to me, anyway) demands an alternate-world-fiction approach. Otherwise you can't afflict the characters and environment with interesting changes. Doing something inside the "real" continuity of that world demands the pressing of a reset button at the end. Understand, these characters are corporate assets, and you can't pitch a new Superman film once he's been featured growing new penises on his arms to replace the cocks of a brainwashed castration cult who all stood in a row and pissed on the live rail in a subway station at the top of act one. Wednesday, August 20
Tuesday, August 19
These are the kinds of letters we get the the Newspaper: This was a handwritten fax. (I'm typing it exactly as I've received it. Spelling and all.) End Racism Against Schwartzneger He cant be macho, hes criticized 4 it He cant be himself. Only Minorities can be straight, macho + homophobic today. The media is steriotyping white men as gays, wimps, a rachist scheme 2 exterminate white diversity, accomplishment, history, culture + family. By making girls hate us + a scheme 4 macho minorities 2 get girls. Next the media will push macho schweger man on welfare on girls on color, looks being only straight left on objectification not inner beauty accomplishment. End objectification of gays and others. End using women as marketing tools 2 attract male consumers now schwegemen on welfare with no money to spend on consumer good pushed by female models used 4 their bodies, looks not mind. Get back 2 family values. The sex revolution is also a cause of these problems. Conservative 4 Schwartzneger, Be practical. Accompanying the fax was a New York Post article by Maggie Gallagher titled, Episcopalians Snub Blacks. Monday, August 18
My Blackout story: I work at a newspaper in Kew Gardens, Queens. I just got into work, and was in the process of getting settled when the lights went out. A mechanical buzzing sounded in the hall just outside of the office seconds before it all happened. The buzzing was the elevator alarm. Faced with darkness, the silence of lifeless computers, and absence of air conditioning, the newshounds jumped to life. The graphics editor came out of the back room and said that the power was down in the Long Island Bureau too. The Long Island Bureau too...what the hell is going on here? With suprising speed and delegation we evacuated the office and congregated in the street outside the building. The reporters dispersed to gather information while the rest of us observed and reassured. The stream of frightening information began to come in. People's cell phones weren't working, I kep imagining that the jet liners were circling the nearby airport...stuck in a holding pattern. A reporter came up and said that the power was out from Toronto to Ohio. Toronto, Canada!? How can that be possible!? She also said that she had heard that the Con Ed plant in the city was on fire, and people were speculating that someone had landed a plane into it. A friend and I went to grab food that she had ordered earlier and as she picked up the order I listened in on a garbled radio report. I caught the words explosions...firefighters...smoke... Most people around me were thinking terrorism, I was thinking War of The Worlds. People were calm for the most part, but the flow of absurd information was disturbing. Everyone else I've talked to wasn't nearly as worried as I was. I suppose the rush of (unreliable) information I was privy to was the cause of that. Wednesday, August 13
Friday, August 8
GEORGE W. BUSH Resume Highlights Past work experience: § I ran for congress and lost. § I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. Accomplishments: § I changed pollution laws for oil and power companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the nation. § I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. § I became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of Republican appointments to the Supreme Court. Accomplishments as President: § Attacked and took over two countries. § Spent the country's surplus and bankrupted the treasury. § Shattered the record for biggest annual deficit in history. § Set an all-time record for the biggest stock market drop in its history. § I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record and in my first year in office set the all-time record for most vacation days taken by any president. § After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history. § In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. I cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history. § I cut healthcare benefits for war veterans and set the all-time record for the most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/ § I dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history. § I am the first president in U.S. history to have all 50 states bankrupted at the same time. § I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board. § I withdrew from the World Court of Law. § I am the first president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community. § I am the first U.S. president to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability. § I failed to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'. § I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects. Thanks Karen! Read the whole thing 
Look. Laugh. Cry. But for heaven's sake don't buy one! Unless you're gonna stuff it full of firecrackers. Thursday, August 7
The building had always been there, its facade changing with the times. It waited, filled with life, to fufill its destiny. 
Lauren thumbed through the contents of her wallet, knowing she wouldn't find what Paul wanted her to find. She knew very well that she had left the card at home. She knew exactly where it was; right on the little brown nightstand she bought from Ikea two months ago. She had put it there so she wouldn't forget it. "Did you forget it again?" Paul muttered, hardly awake without his coffee. "No, Paul. I put it in my wallet, I know I did!" The funny thing was that even though Lauren knew she was lying, she was annoyed that Paul would doubt her like that. 
As the terrible hold music droned in her one ear, and the rumbling of the bus fuming outside growled in the other, all she could think about was her childhood in Chengxi. Tuesday, August 5
Friday, August 1
"I said nobody fucking move! 
Boing. Boing. Boing. 
"That means you, fuckhead!"
"I... I can't help it! I'm an animated gif!" 
"Yeah? Then animate this!" 
Bang. Stolen from E-Merl. Follow the link to see genius push the medium farther than I've seen it go in a while. I particularly reccomend the Mr.Nile experiment. Spooky. Found this on line somewhere. Basically it was a short essay by scribe Alan Moore about the history of his magical lodge, The Moon And The Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre Of Marvels. At the end of the essay he details the teachings of the order, which are as follows; 1. Fuck 'em. 2. Trim the Fatheads. 3. We understand the Moon to be Selene, and to be the cabalistic Yesod, and thus the entirety of dream, romance, and human imagination. 4. We understand the Serpent to be Glycon, to be the bronze serpent on the cabalistic tree, and as an icon of the twisting double-helix DNA, thus the entirety of life itself and human flesh. 5. We understand that the interplay of these two dieties, reprised in the atu-21 of the Toth tarot, is originated the whole Theatre Of Marvels, which is to say the Universe. 6. Everyone must believe every single word that we say, even if it's all like The Book of the Law, and about pushing cripples downstairs. 7. Everything is true, nothing is permitted. 8. Will from Pop Idols shall be the whole of the law. Love and Judge Dredd are the law, Love and Judge Dredd over will I hope to hell that someone out there finds this as funny as I do. |
