law and rockets
one thing about being stuck at your parents' is the luxury of catching up on reading. two newspapers a day plus poking around the zillion blogs (note to bloggers without rss feeds: we are forgetting about you) you don't have time to sift during the week and nytimes links. and today i've been digging through the archives of anonymous lawyer, an irresistable read. i still don't understand what loser would put himself through law school—have you ever met a happy lawyer?—i don't care that it's fake, it's full of the snarkiness that you sense this world deserves.
posted December 28, 2004 in delivery, printhome for the holy days
i'm home for x-mas for a few days. it is, as i said over the phone to the bf today, amiably dull.
i printed out a few school assignments that don't have cuss words in them for my parents to read.
my mom has been catching up on the christmas newsletters that friends and family send (i started typing "holiday newsletters," which is unnecessary since it's all christians, all the time, up in this piece). apparently one woman just left her husband of the past year or two because he was a drug addict and refused treatment. she was in the process of in vitro fertilization and got pregnant right around then (my mom kept using the phrase "anonymous sperm" in describing the situation). also, she's changing careers to become a nurse anesthiologist.
the kicker: her mom, who wrote the newsletter, did so in verse. my mom: "she's always writing them like that, she's really good at it."
posted December 28, 2004 in crap, deliverylike blogging, only on paper
starting next week, i'll be contributing regularly to a new arts section of new york press. if your subterranean experimental art opening needs a thoughtful eye, please hit me up.
my focus will be on visual art (galleries, exhibits, openings, installations), i'm told, but i'm going to interpret that as loosely as they'll let me get away with. so far i've had pretty good luck as a journalist in turning assignments into whatever ideas or words i can't get out of my head.
posted December 28, 2004 in art, delivery, printHow To Speed Up Firefox
1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:
network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.
3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
- "How To Speed Up Firefox" december 12, 2004
posted December 27, 2004 in printsigur ros + mogwai (sike)
i just found some mp3s of sigur ros collaborating with mogwai. but then i googled around to find more and found out that it's not either of those bands, but 500won project, a korean band that someone mislabeled. hungry hipsters circulated the files around the globe, thinking they were unreleased recordings. a new underground way of getting your demo tape heard, it seems, is by accidentally on purpose naming the files "radiohead" or something.
they're fucking awesome songs, though.
posted December 23, 2004 in musiccrying children on santa's lap
i always crack up when i see kids having tantrums in public, and my homeboy forwarded this fotolog of kids crying on santas' laps to me. the second one made me *lol*, and i'm not one to throw that term around.
posted December 21, 2004 in deliveryThe Carpool Christmas Spectacular: Traffic Jam
-----Original Message-----
From: kiera
Friends,
You can picture me like a used car salesman, slimily
e-mailing all of you at once to tell you about my last
radio show of the semester:
Limited Time Offer! Special Holiday Event! Come on
down to Route 9 while the deals are still hot on the
lot!
4-8pm, Eastern Time, today, December 21
www.wbar.org
The Carpool Christmas Spectacular: Traffic Jam.
You can listen on the Information Superhighway! You
can call and make a request!
Kiera
posted December 21, 2004 in musici am putting google ads on this site today
because grad school don't pay for itself. also, i am taking off that stupid amazon wishlist link because i need tuition (see above right) more than i need gregg araki dvd's. any other ideas for a quick buck that don't require a webcam are welcome.
posted December 21, 2004 in deliverylook in your cache folder
Q.: What advice would you give readers interested in starting their own Web art collection?
A.: To look in their cache folder. [...]
Q.: Which is the difference between the clones of the sites you made and the "original" ones?
A.: Copies are more important than their original, although they do not differ from them. Copies contain not only all the parameters of the work that is being copied, but a lot more: the idea itself and the act of copying.
Q.: In which way do you decide to recombine different software and "aesthetics"?
A.: A good off-line browser keeps all the original names of the files and the hierarchy of the folders, so, while downloading it, you discover the internal structure of the work; it's somehow like looking inside the brain of its author, and sometimes can be interesting.
"Copies are more important than their original: Excerpt from interviews with 0100101110101101.ORG," 0100101110101101 (via eyebeam reblog)
posted December 20, 2004 in art, printMr. Rumsfeld had used an automated signing machine
Over the weekend, Mr. Rumsfeld's critics gained some new ammunition with the disclosure that the defense secretary had not personally been signing condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq.
In a statement first issued to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, Mr. Rumsfeld said he would now begin signing the letters himself. A Defense Department official said Sunday that Mr. Rumsfeld had used an automated signing machine, a tool commonly used by public officials, but only to ensure that families received their letters quickly. But the outcry has fueled the complaints of those who say the blunt-talking defense secretary is insensitive to soldiers and their families.
- SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, "On a Deadly Day in Iraq, Republicans Step Up Debate Over Whether Rumsfeld Should Stay," new york times December 20/2004
posted December 20, 2004 in politics, printit's poignant because it's true
Deciding whether to keep a CD or rip it to MP3 and sell it is a little like deciding whether, given the option of having sex with a certain person any time you wanted to, you would continue to have an emotional relationship with that person.
- sasha frere-jones, "heartless math," s/fj december 18/2004
posted December 18, 2004 in music, printnostalgia
1981
My roommate walked in this morning with a copy of the Village Voice and said, "There's a new cancer that only kills gays."
Some trick took me downtown to Rock City and then The Mudd Club to see a band called Our Daughter's Wedding sing "Lawnchairs Are Everywhere." I'll never forget it; it changed my life because he had the worst hair transplant I've ever seen. I don't like hair; if you're not sitting near a mirror you always have to wonder how it looks.
Saw The Clash at Bonds. The Sandinista guy wouldn't shut up and Joe Strummer had to kick him off the stage. It was real revolutionary.
Bridget Fonda moved into our dormitory. She's a total rocker chick, she fits right in. Our desk clerk, Martha Quinn, got a job on this music video network called MTV. Now we have to get our light bulbs and toilet paper from someone else.
Danny and I were having 3-way sex wtih this hot girl in his room at Rubin Dormitory. She was handcuffed to the radiator and we were tag-teaming her. Then she decided we should try a simultaneous 3-way position. The handcuffs were making it difficult; it was like playing Twister. All of the sudden this girl started screaming at the top of her lungs; she had dislocated her shoulder. Danny and I jumped up to find the key but she was in so much agony and she wouldn't stop screaming at the top of her lungs. Suddenly the door burst open and all these frat boys came running in to see what was wrong. Danny and and I were standing there greased up and boned with a naked woman laying the floor chained to a radatior and screaming bloody murder. Thank God she had the presence of mind to quickly explain to them that this was a consensual situation and some jock popped her shoulder back into place and everything was cool. Be we almost got in a lot of trouble.
Found a cool bar on second avenue a few blocks down from The Saint. It's called The Bar. They have a good jukebox. My first night there Klaus Nomi talked to me but he was scarier than Grace Jones. I saw Taylor Mead there.
Had sex in the dormitory rec room behind the bleachers while Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys were rehearsing in the same room and didn't know we were there.
posted December 17, 2004 in print, sexthis fuckin' beautiful piece on the front page today
The mood is a bit sad until Ruth Halford, a 74-year-old-widow with a silver permanent, pipes up. "I'm not sad about anything. I don't owe nobody nothing. I scratch my plans in the dirt. I'm not looking for anybody. The only person I'm in love with is me. Right, girls?"
This is maddening to the eligible bachelor, like a dog chasing a pork chop on a string. A waste of a perfectly beautiful woman.
"Those girls, they get to being independent and they don't need men," said John Clairmont, 77, a retired truck driver. "You can never get them to come home with you."
The evening dissipated. The sun set a violent red. The lonely hearts played cards and listened to the old records. The gossip went around the tables.
The pastor's wife was one topic. Mrs. Cole promised to go see the pastor on Sunday and take him soup. "Such a shame," she said. "They were together a long time."
Mrs. Cole and the pastor would make a handsome couple, someone said with real feeling. The others agreed.
In the morning, Pastor Phil awoke alone, put his change in his pocket, put on his shoes and shared coffee around his fire. Rusty was there. So were others from the north side, the stumblebums and the alkies.
The pastor talked about random things from his life with his wife. The snowstorms and eggs in a rooming house. The smell of her hair. Ceramic snowmen she collected. Her face lighted by the dashboard lights. Recipes the children do not ask for. Grandchildren who, chances are, will not remember her name. Death in the desert in some nameless place without longitude or shade.
"That's the tragedy of old age," the pastor said as his eyes welled once again. "I'm alone. I'm derelict without her."
Rusty stared at his feet. One guy asked for 20 bucks. An old transvestite drove by and waved.
- charlie leduff, "Parked in Desert, Waiting Out the Winter of Life," new york times december 17/2004
posted December 17, 2004 in printAggression is weak-minded
Agnes Bernice Martin was born in Macklin, Saskatchewan, Canada, on March 22, 1912, a descendant of Scottish Presbyterian pioneers. Her father, a wheat farmer, died when she was 2; her mother supported the family by selling real estate. Ms. Martin spent much of her childhood with her maternal grandfather, a gentle, religious man who introduced her to inspirational literature, including John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," which remained important to her throughout her life. [...]
After hearing lectures by the Zen Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki at Columbia, she became interested in Asian thought, not as a religious discipline, but as a code of ethics, a practical how-to for getting through life.
"One thing I like about Zen," she wrote. "It doesn't believe in achievement. I don't think the way to succeed is by doing something aggressive. Aggression is weak-minded."
- HOLLAND COTTER, "Agnes Martin, Abstract Painter, Dies at 92," new york times December 17/2004
posted December 17, 2004 in art, printnew york times = sitting duck
web sites can be found on what is commonly called the "internet," a network of linked computers that some say is an "information superhighway."
posted December 15, 2004 in deliveryblue light special (good shit)
so when i picked up the phone Monday night and heard his unmistakable German accent i felt a rush as powerful as a hit from a new bottle of poppers
- "u are like an incredibly addictive drug," chasing rapture december 10/2004
posted December 14, 2004 in print, sexhit rush where it hurts (via Atrios)
FCC Action Alert
1. Go to http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/menu/rush.guest.html and find your Limbaugh station.
2. Send an email to [email protected] with your own version of the following:
On Monday, December 13 in the 2nd hour of his program (1pm EST) broadcast on [CALL SIGN HERE], Rush Limbaugh used the vulgar, sexual term "dick" when referring to a Miss Plastic Surgery pageant. Specifically, Limbaugh said:
"LIMBAUGH: Miss Plastic Surgery. (chuckle) And – I’d – I’d – I – I don’t – I don’t know what the winner – I – and, oh, I didn’t print out both pages, so I don’t know what the – I don’t know what the winner gets. Probably a certificate to go to San Francisco to have an add-a-dick-to-me operation. "
Information regarding the details of what was actually said (or depicted) during the allegedly indecent, profane or obscene broadcast. There is flexibility on how a complainant may provide this information. The complainant may submit a significant excerpt of the program describing what was actually said (or depicted) or a full or partial recording (e.g., tape) or transcript of the material.In whatever form the complainant decides to provide the information, it must be sufficiently detailed so the FCC can determine the words and language actually used during the broadcast and the context of those words or language. Subject matter alone is not a determining factor of whether material is obscene, profane, or indecent. For example, stating only that the broadcast station “discussed sex” or had a “disgusting discussion of sex” during a program is not sufficient. Moreover, the FCC must know the context when analyzing whether specific, isolated words are indecent or profane. The FCC does not require complainants to provide recordings or transcripts in support of their complaints. Consequently, failure to provide a recording or transcript of a broadcast, in and of itself, will not lead to automatic dismissal or denial of a complaint.
The date and time of the broadcast. Under federal law, if the FCC assesses a monetary forfeiture against a broadcast station for violation of a rule, it must specify the date the violation occurred. Accordingly, it is important that complainants provide the date the material in question was broadcast. A broadcaster’s right to air indecent or profane speech is protected between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Consequently, the FCC must know the time of day that the material was broadcast.
- eschaton
posted December 14, 2004 in politicsjust when i think i've outgrown liking poetry,
there's this new one by john ashbery in the december 20 new yorker:
in those days
music, food, sex, and their accompanying
tropes like a wall of light at a door
once spattered by laughter
come round to how you like it—
was it really you that approved?
and if so what does the loneliness
in all this mean? how blind are we?
we see a few feet into our future
of shrouded lots and ditches.
surely that way was the long one
to have come. yet nobody
sees anything wrong with what we're doing,
how we came to discuss it, here, with the wind
and the sun sometimes slanting.
you have arrived at this step, and the way down
is paralyzing, though this is the lost
youth i remember as being o.k., once.
got to shuffle, even if it's only the sarcasm
of speech that gets lost, while the blessed
sense of it bleeds through,
open to all kinds of interpretations.
posted December 13, 2004 in delivery, print"you never know when you're going to drop dead,"
aunt jessie often says, and for years she has spoken about liver salts and miracle cures, as though being ill were a larger way of being alive, having knowledge about the dangers and making a little more room for yourself in a world of diminishing returns.
- andrew o'hagan, "foreigners," new yorker december 6/2004
posted December 12, 2004 in printwater / acqua
water is at the same time the most precious and most unobtrusive ingredient in italian cooking, and its value is immense precisely because it is self-effacing. what water gives you is time, time to cook a meat sauce long enough without it drying out or becoming too concentrated, time for a roast to come around when using that superb italian technique of roasting meat over a burner with the cover slightly askew, time for a stew or a fricassee or a glazed vegetable to develop flavor and tenderness. water allows you to glean the tasty particles on the bottom of a pan without relying too much on such solvents as wine or stock that might tip the balance of flavor. when it has done its job and has been boiled away, water disappears without a trace, allowing your meats, your vegetables, your sauces to taste forthrightly of themselves.
- marcella hazan, "fundamentals: water," essentials of classic italian cooking november 5, 1992
posted December 12, 2004 in printhott off the presses: gaming as spectator sport
Why play the game when you can sit back and watch?
posted December 08, 2004 in art, crap, delivery, performance, printchunky down there
I like this site. It makes me smile and it makes me chunky down there.
- brotherman (16121), bigmuscle.com
posted December 06, 2004 in print, sex