2010.02.12
The Vagacial: Now Your Vagina Needs A Facial Too – Vajacial vagina facial – Jezebel.
What is up with women who are horrified by their own vag? I have a friend who recently confessed to “having below-the-belt security issues”. I was recently (5 months ago) talking with The Good Witch about this, and I just do not get it. I’m of the opinion that if you aren’t inclined to be attracted to them, you really shouldn’t be judging the prettiness or aesthetic appeal: you’re not a good judge. Who would listen to color coordination advice from a blind dude? Why are some women so repulsed by their own bits?
2009.01.21
First things first: the new Decemberists’ single is fucking awesome. Go click that, they will give you the mp3 for free. Which is good, because rakes are broke.
Second things second: this pregnancy thing is harrowing. I’ve gone from stone sleep to dressed and going WHAT in 2 seconds flat. So far no baby yet.
3rd things next: so I’m at the hospital at like fucking ungodly-a.m. or whatever, and the world turns so daylight happens and here comes the inaugural and holy fuck we have a black president. and fucking hell, he’s smart, and capable, and maybe, just maybe, the whole country isn’t going into ruin right this fucking second. Cleolinda Jones said something about holding your breath and being horrified that the last 8 years have been something that the people of the country actually wanted and how horrifyingly terrible the idea of that has been, and honestly I’ve still been holding my breath, worried that it might not happen, that something would fuck up before President-elect Obama became President Obama. My standards are not high: anyone who won’t be a craven whore, intent on just using the flag to whip his flaccid dick all over the constitution and the ideals of what this country should be would be a great improvement.
2008.12.06
CLME over at ye olde penismightier independently confirms that I am a bad person.Â
So the thing is, I love Warren Ellis’ work. At least that which I have read, which is honestly mostly ”Transmetropolitan”. But when you run across a masterwork, you know it. And so he has a journal. And in that journal, Warren did a very bad thing. Seriously, that 1man1jar.com thing is the most horrible thing ever.Â
2008.09.13
Writer David Foster Wallace found dead – Los Angeles Times
Infinite Jest, to me, in 1997 or so when I read it, was a life-changing thing. It’s this huge monstrocity of a book and I don’t remember where I got it. I saw DFW on The Charlie Rose show (skip to the 23 minute mark) and he was just so undeniably himself and trying not to be false (particularly in his discussion on the effect that David Lynch’s Blue Velvet had on him) that I went out and bought IJ and immediately started reading it and fell into it.
It was one of the things that helped keep me together during a couple of tough times. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again had me in stitches and his mathematical writing (A History of Infinity) is too smart for me, really, but totally fascinating.
It would be a mockery to say that I’ll miss him — I’m sure I’ve never been within 500 miles of him, don’t even know anyone that knew him — but his writing changed my writing, my perception of what writing could be and how you could put yourself in it. So the world is sadder and dumber without him in it.
Here’s a PDF of his fairly short piece Consider The Lobster.
Here’s his commencement speech at Kenyon.
Here’s his review of a dictionary (yes, really).
His piece “The Depressed Person”, in Harper’s.
Here’s the best fansite I’ve found: The Howling Fantods.
2008.09.09
Cory Doctorow’s got a story over at Tor.com which is pretty cool. It includes a sly little reference to The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll (the 0.75$ error leading to a spy-ring thing). That book was the first thing I ever read about hacking, in probably ’89 or ’90; the first time I heard of telnet or unix. It’s dated as hell now — fuck, it was dated as hell in ’90, I bet, but it’s got humourous little flourishes that make it entertaining even now:
Dave knew my ignorance of obscure Unix commands. I put up the best front I could: “Well, the e flag means list both the process name and environment, and the a flag lists everyone’s process—not just your process. So the hacker wanted to see everything that was running on the system.”
“OK, you got half of ‘em. So what are the g and f flags for?”
“I dunno.” Dave let me flounder until I admitted ignorance.
“You ask for a g listing when you want both interesting and uninteresting processes. All the unimportant jobs, like accounting, will show up. As will any hidden processes.”
“And we know he’s diddling with the accounting program.”
Dave smiled. “So that leaves us with the f flag. And it’s not in any Berkeley Unix. It’s the AT&T Unix way to list each process’s files. Berkeley Unix does this automatically, and doesn’t need the f flag. Our friend doesn’t know Berkeley Unix. He’s from the school of old-fashioned Unix.”
The Unix operating system was invented in the early 1970s at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. In the late ’70s, Unix zealots from Bell Labs visited the Berkeley campus, and a new, richer version of Unix was developed. Along with hot tubs, leftist politics, and the free speech movement, Berkeley is known for its Unix implementation.
A schism developed between advocates of the small, compact AT&T Unix and the more elaborate Berkeley implementation. Despite conferences, standards, and promises, no consensus has appeared, and the world is left with two competing Unix operating systems.
Of course, our lab used Berkeley Unix, as do all right-thinking folks. East Coast people were said to be biased towards AT&T Unix, but then, they hadn’t discovered hot tubs either.
From a single letter, Dave ruled out the entire computing population of the West Coast. Conceivably, a Berkeley hacker might use an old-fashioned command, but Dave discounted this. “We’re watching someone who’s never used Berkeley Unix.” He sucked in his breath and whispered, “A heathen.”
2008.06.09
Laural‘s away message today was a link to CASSETTE FROM MY EX which is now the 2nd or third time I’d heard about the site. And so I finally clicked it. It’s like an aural post-secret, kindasorta. I am both terrified and hoping that a mix of mine winds up there, but the odds are kinda low. Obladi.
2008.05.04
I just stumbled on a site about Set Theory Primer as it relates to music theory. Which reminds me of my favorite story about music I wrote that no one ever heard.
Bunny called me up, “hey there’s a gallery opening, we’re doing a music/performance/installation — the theme of the gallery is Summerian/Babylonian art, they’re showing some pieces etc etc”
I dig Sumer, cradle of civilization etc etc and I’ve read through Snow Crash so I know just a bit more than nothing about their language construction (atonal glosolalia? or some shit. doesn’t matter, i’m not writing poetry). So I look up Summerian music. Turns out it uses a 60-tone scale. Because I am S-M-R-T smart, I figure OK, I can make music akin to atonal 12-tone theory pieces, but I have to use 1/2 and 1/4 microtones (ie, bends and half-bends) and viola, 12-tone automagically becomes 60-tone. So I write this long droning piece in an open D tuning and because it would be a bitch to be bending whole chords (although you get some really awesome dissonances, some sonic youth/glenn branca shit going on where the notes beat against each other in the air) I go and get me a slide. So it’s like this blues hawaiian indian drone monster thing. It’s made of pure, concentrated awesome.
And then the day of the show, come to find out they go on an hour before they said they would and also that the music has been relegated to the alley behind the gallery. Which is OK, since that’s where the party people’s at anyway. Ran into solo and other people from the wayback.
2008.04.28
Enjoy this discussion on the nature of reality by Phillip K. Dick: How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later.
You know, there’s a reason why I traded Johann Hz my trusty old Peavy amp for 60 or 70 PKD books.
2008.03.03
John Dies At The End is
a) going to be made into A FUCKING MOVIE (a1 is THERE’S A BOOK! ON AMAZON! WHICH I HAVE ORDERED ALREADY!)
and
b) there’s a sequel!
“This here is Molly. She was a good dog. And when I say ‘good dog’ I don’t mean it the way other people mean it, when they’re talking about a dog that never shit on the floor or bit their kids. No, I’m talking about a dog that died saving Amy’s life. By my rough count, that’s half a dozen times Molly saved one of our lives. How many dogs can say that? Hell, how many people can say that? One time, Dave was in a burning building, and Molly here rescued him by getting behind the wheel of his car and driving into the building. You know that couldn’t have been easy for her.
Anyhow, Molly died, in the way that all really good things die, fast and brutal and for no apparent reason. They say that even though it often appears that God just really, really doesn’t give a shit about what happens here, that that’s just an illusion and that He really does care after all, and that it’s all part of his great plan to make it appear that He doesn’t give a shit. Though what fucking point that serves I can’t possibly imagine. I think God probably just wanted Molly for Himself, and I guess I can’t blame Him.
So, here you go, God. Here’s your dog back, I guess. We hereby commit Molly to doggy heaven, which is probably nicer than regular heaven, if you think about it. Amen.”
ninjedit: while I was bummed out that Molly died in the sequel, I have hopes that Wong will bring her back in some non-evil and horrible way. I discovered JDatE during the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma and I read it on my fucking blackberry, which was the only internet-connected device I had (because I could charge it in the car).
Also, Eden is in town and I stole his tiny hat!
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