I'm a fan.

DSCN0874.JPG, originally uploaded by The Spacebase.

Also, there's one more photo here than days left until we live in the same place.

A Belated Defense

On Friday, I went to a fiction reading/rock show at Village Green Records in Muncie.

I was standing outside the store when a car of what appeared to be frat boys drove past and shouted at us, "Hey, Punk Rock Faggots!"  Which was really hurtful.

I don't even particularly like punk rock.

Time for a Calling Out

Over the weekend, someone anonymously commented on a couple of my posts, with the same text in each comment:

Heard some of your music, "William." You've improved over the years.
-an old friend

I don't know who this is, though I would very much like to.  It'd probably be pretty good to catch up, if they are indeed an old friend.  (If you're reading this, you can find an email link at williamwolfe.net.)

I'd also just like to say that of course I've improved over the years.  I've worked pretty hard at becoming decent.

Multimedia message

Is this news? Seriously?

Tales of Shame, and Also of Delight

Before I unleash upon you the beauty of the edited Charlie Rose clip from Boing Boing, I have something else to share.  Sad news.

We may as well burn the rest of the Constitution now.

That said, there's this!

Both via Boing Boing.

I want today over. Now. It's not that it's particularly bad, but i'm tired and need a minute or two for unadulter

--
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Waiting for Obama

In chronological order now, the tweets and blog posts from my time in line, waiting for Barack Obama tickets.  Of which, I only got one.

1. Twitter / thespacebase: The Obama ticket line is al...
2. Twitter / thespacebase: I'm in line in front of the...
3. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
4. Twitter / thespacebase: We're blocking streets-for ...
5. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
6. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
7. Twitter / thespacebase: @BarackObama your people co...
8. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
9. Twitter / thespacebase: I'm smelling grilled cheese...
10. Twitter / thespacebase: Just stepped on an animal f...
11. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
12. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
13. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
14. The Spacebase: Multimedia message
15. Twitter / thespacebase: Got ONE ticket. Makes me sad.

I'm discovering, after the fact, that the chronology is difficult to determine; seems my Twitter and Blogger accounts post in different time zones.  Ah well, that's pretty close.

Multimedia message

It's sad to realize that the Obama headquarters is the only storefront in this mall still open, save for the budget haircut place.

Multimedia message

I can taste it!

Multimedia message

Getting closer. Still at least another 20 minutes until i get to go home and maybe watch Top Model. My back is sore from my bookbag, and i'm really quite hungry. Should have packed a sandwich for progress.

Multimedia message

Surprisingly, i'm finding it terribly dull to liveblog waiting in a really long line. Even if it's not that much different than normal liveblogging. READ: LIVEBLOGGING IS STUPID.

Multimedia message

We're not called 'the House.' We were going to be, but we decided that 'the' was much catchier. It's just that we'd already had the signs printed.

Multimedia message

If you squint or enlarge the picture, you'll see more of the line behind the cars.

Multimedia message

More line.

Multimedia message

Thank god they've been passing out water. It's not hot yet in indiana, but it's a very sunny day. It'd be terribly easy to get dehydrated. Also, there's rumors that the line stretches several blocks down university avenue.

Multimedia message

More from the line.

Multimedia message

In line for tickets to see Barack Obama speak in Muncie on saturday. It's three people deep around the block, not to mention my part, which winds through the parking lot in the back of the building with the Obama office.

Ooh, swish!

make it work:

As for the second, the implied gender roles don't really work for Kerry and I, but if she wants to dress like that, I'll gladly join her for a dance around the Kitchen of Tomorrow.

Never satisfied

I'm in UR Press, originally uploaded by The Spacebase.

Proudly writing angry letters since 1982.

http://view.break.com/470415 - Watch more free videos

How does that feel? Right there?

I wanna be a badass local TV reporter.

Record Companies Keeping the Money From File-Sharing Suits

337/365: The Big Money, originally uploaded by DavidDMuir.

And not giving any to the artists they're 'protecting.'

Fuckers.

Matthew TRISLER has sent you a link to "Leaked LEGO Sets Feature Old School Spaceships, Tentacled Space Skulls" on Boing Boing Gadgets

Hi,

Matthew TRISLER has sent you a link to "Leaked LEGO Sets Feature Old School Spaceships, Tentacled Space Skulls" on Boing Boing Gadgets.

<a href="http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/28/leaked-lego-sets-fea.html">http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/28/leaked-lego-sets-fea.html

"SWEET. Legos haven't been as cool since they started putting faces other than smiles on the figures, and cross-promoting with big movie franchises. This seems like a step back in the right direction."

Matthew TRISLER has sent you a link to "UCCTOP Xeno Laptop for Video Editors, People Who Enjoy Knobs" on Boing Boing Gadgets

Hi,

Matthew TRISLER has sent you a link to "UCCTOP Xeno Laptop for Video Editors, People Who Enjoy Knobs" on Boing Boing Gadgets.

<a href="http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/28/ucctop-xeno-laptop-f.html">http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/28/ucctop-xeno-laptop-f.html

"I'm a Mac fiend, so this isn't THAT wonderful, but still... Look at the knobs and sliders! It's a thing of clumsy but tangible beauty."

I'm having a bad day.  So you know.

My neighbors (who hate any noise I make and bang loudly on the wall to show their displeasure) are having work done on their apartment today, which began about an hour before my alarms were set to go off.

Maybe it was just that the way I woke up angried up my blood, but I've been cranky and down on myself and off my game all day.

I have a choice this evening of going to the Writers' Community or going to see NPR's Juan Williams speak.  Ordinarily, this would be a difficult choice.  Today it's easy.  I'm going home and doing some homework, making the most comforting food I can forage from my remaining groceries, and going to bed early.

I Need a New Plan

Over the last couple weeks, I applied for a position with the Teach for America organization.

I heard back today.  They don't want me.

I'm gonna need a job in Memphis.  Anyone who has an idea what a Creative Writing major can do for a living in that fair city, please let me know.

Turns out the 'blood for oil' thing is true. Again.

Oh, groan.

Seriously.  This needs to stop.  Bush, Cheney, et al. need to put on their big girl panties and just admit it.

Jon Taplin has more information, with decent sources.

More Self-Promotion, This Time With Moving Pictures

Let's try this again.  I play as William Wolfe.

I have some music on MySpace, and I'm about to start building my own website.  I'll keep updating here about my progress

Shameless self-promotion: Show on the 24th

Click the image for its animation. I don't know why it doesn't like to work as-is.

When I play music, I'm usually using a name that's not mine. I just feel like it, that's why.

I'm William Wolfe, and I have a show coming up on the 24th. If you're within an hour of Muncie, you should come.

More information here.

...moi plus

Suffice to say that, despite distance, and its included lack of kisses, not to mention a bad stomach ache that had me out of commission all day, this has been a remarkably good Valentine's day. Kerry, i'm extraordinarily happy to be with you. You can gag me with a wooden spoon now.

Photo 48

Photo 48, originally uploaded by skeletonkey.

I'm gonna leave the library now. I'm very tired of being here, but I don't want to walk home. And I'm gonna wait for you to call again.

Oh, here's a HUGE freaking surprise.

What type are you? Take the quiz.

Eleanor Rigby: Sonic Illustration of Loneliness

note: I wrote this for a class, at the absolute last minute. Let me know if it sucks, because it probably does. But please note: I probably won't care.

The Lennon/McCartney composition, Eleanor Rigby, is apocryphally credited to just Paul McCartney, and with pretty good reason; there's not a lot there lyrically that would be identifiably Lennon's. It could be argued that instead of being a Lennon/McCartney compostion, "Eleanor Rigby" should really be considered a Paul McCartney-George Martin composition, owing largely to the centrality of Martin's string arrangement for the song.

Martin's arrangement was only ever really given its due in the Beatles' Anthology collection, released in the mid-nineties, wherein the vocals were removed, leaving the doubled string quartet (due to the fact that it was a string quartet recorded over itself, it can't really be called an 'octet') had the original tracks remixed into stereo, allowing the cellos to embrace their throaty hum and quick runs up the scale, the violas to take their quarter-note stabs, and the violins to carry the higher registers.

Martin's arrangement, in stereo, is easily among the richest sounds I've ever heard. The studio reverberations are at the absolutely correct level; they neither overpower nor distract, but they do add a necessary since of urgent distance to the mix, without which, it could not respond so movingly to the lyrics of the song. It's a shame the quartet on the Revolver version is compressed into one mono track, panned dead center.

Whoever remastered Revolver for stereo made some very odd choices. After the introductory chorus, with the choir of McCartneys surrounding the listener, the recording engineer made the odd choice of suddenly panning McCartney's vocal hard right, and doing it right in the middle of the word "Eleanor." The choice is very distracting, and it draws attention away from the song and towards the mix--which should only happen to recording engineers--of which I am not one. Another result of this hard pan is that the verses, panned all hard right (though I doubt they're mixed any quieter than Paul's solo "All the lonely people" at the end of every verse) sound quite a bit quieter than the vocals at any other point on the track, by virtue of coming out of one speaker instead of two.

This creates, I think, an unintended correlation between the mix, rather than the music, and the lyrics. While Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie isolate themselves in the church--which grows increasingingly irrelevant to anyone outside (which, in this case, is literally everyone but Rigby and McKenzie)--McCartney's vocal withdraws itself from the focal point of the mix.

Ah! but the universal sentiment, "Where do they all come from," fills the speakers on both sides of the listener, saying "I am the whole point of the song! Listen to me!" (As though the fact that it's the chorus wasn't enough.) But the quick pan to right in the middle of the word "Eleanor" startles the listener into paying close attention to the verses--the specifics which illustrate the general chorus.

For me, however, the most curious fact of this song is that, despite how perfectly the string arrangement locks into the lyrics, there exists a fair number of covers of the song, some of which eschew the strings altogether. I know Ray Charles has a version, which draws nothing but mixed reviews--"It's Ray Charles, so I can't hate it," a friend of mine said, "but... it just doesn't work."

There's a hard rock cover by Vanilla Fudge, too... but my copy of that record is so badly scratched as to render "Eleanor Rigby" unlistenable. But from what I heard, the insane rock organ that fills the record more than makes up for the lack of string parts. It's not a very faithful cover, and that's fine--probably preferable, if they weren't able to score George Martin to record the exact same string quartet playing the exact same way.

Jackie Wilson's soul version is perhaps the most confusing. It has its own string arrangement, and a real, swinging beat... but the orchestration is ill-advisedly busy, and the beat makes it feel less like either "Eleanor Rigby" or almost any Jackie Wilson I've ever heard, and more like a Tom Jones-type smarmy sex jam. I tap my feet with the beat, and I want to drive around in a Mini Cooper wearing an ascot, pointing and winking at every pretty girl... and maybe this works too, I guess. Even a crazy, swingin' cat like Tom Jones, who has panties thrown at him every night, has to feel lonely, too. Right?

The Aretha Franklin cover is, well, just a disappointment. It sounds like the backing band is Booker T. and the MGs, which is totally enjoyable in its own right, The soulful electric piano lines are beautiful, and again, I bounce along with the beat. This is Aretha Franklin, and she can really do hardly any wrong, but, I'm sad to report, here she does. She drops a line or two from each verse, invariably the line I feel is most central to the verse. Perhaps most ill-advisedly, she claims by saying "I'm Eleanor Rigby." Which is is just fine until the last verse about Rigby being buried.

I know Aretha sings soul, and probably believes in an eternal soul (how's that for a baseless claim?), but she doesn't sing the song like a ghost. There's too much vitality and sheer energy.

The main point I would like to make here is that "Eleanor Rigby" is a song, not a poem. The lyrics are poignant, and in the right context, moving, but the right context for these lyrics is, I feel, George Martin's delicate and reserved string arrangement. It provides the perfect setting to make sure these lines do not descend from pathos into bathos. Though it is a valid pursuit to discuss a song's lyrics separate from its music, it can be a faulty pursuit. In the case of "Eleanor Rigby," it feels plain to me that the song loses much of its meaning once lyrics are separated from music.

Actually...

It's pretty much up. It just doesn't look quite as it should.

It's coming

I have still to figure out a lot of stuff regarding the site, but a placeholder homepage is up!

The Hawaii Chair

Watch in awe as Erin Lee negotiates the work-free workout while maintaining composure:



The first-time user testimonial is also amazing.

This Weekend

Housewarming_002, originally uploaded by brandondillphoto.

I went to a party. I had fun at the party; you probably wouldn't guess by looking.

There's a song by Two Gallants, called "Nothing to You," that just came up on my iPod. I'm liking it. It has a line, "I'm as gay as a choir boy for you."

thump thump thump, that is all.

Some Sort of News

Turns out Muncie made the Make: Blog. Sorta. I mean, we didn't make Make:, but you get the idea.

I found this on my computer.

I have no idea where I found it. But it's lovely. Sorta. Supposta animate and junk.

Flip on the TV, we may pick him up on Channel Two.

I cannot pretend to have any clue what inspired this Beware of the Blog post from WFMU, but its insane detail in imagining what DJing for their station would be like--ON ANOTHER PLANET--is a real winning feature.

I admit, Saturn sounded nice, but it's the black hole that won me over.

An American pineapple, of the kind the Axis finds hard to digest, is

An American pineapple, of the kind the Axis finds hard to digest, is ready to leave the hand of an infantryman in training at Fort Belvoir, Va. American soldiers make good grenade throwers (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

On those photos

The Library of Congress has a Flickr account.  And they've been posting the most kickass photography I've ever seen.  Several thousand in each of two sets (what, nobody's bought them a Pro Account?).  They're beautiful photos.  It seems like they were taken with slide film--I'm not sure how else they'd get focus that sharp with such insanely sharp contrast and beautiful color.  

What's more, those titles, they are (ah!) lovely.

Very writerly in their descriptions.  Except maybe the girl in the glass bubble.  But that's too great a picture to pass up.

Scroll down for more, or check the "LOC Photos" tag.  

Women workers install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage

Women workers install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17F bomber at the Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F is a later model of the B-17 which distinguished itself in acti, originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

This girl in a glass house is putting finishing touches on the

This girl in a glass house is putting finishing touches on the bombardier nose section of a B-17F navy bomber, Long Beach, Calif. She's one of many capable women workers in the Douglas Aircraft Company plant. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-1, originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

[Electric phosphate smelting furnace used in the making of elemental

[Electric phosphate smelting furnace used in the making of elemental phosphorus in a TVA chemical plant in the Muscle Shoals area, Alabama] (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

Crane operator at TVA's Douglas Dam, Tennessee (LOC)

Crane operator at TVA's Douglas Dam, Tennessee (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

[Man shovelling ears of dried corn from wagon through feed store

[Man shovelling ears of dried corn from wagon through feed store window] (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

Smoke stacks (LOC)

Smoke stacks (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

Woman aircraft worker, Vega Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif. Shown

Woman aircraft worker, Vega Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif. Shown checking electrical assemblies (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

Ahh, Jens Lekman. The Jacques Cousteau of the pits of blackest despondency.

Poetry kicks ass, but it kicks mine, too.

Mark Halliday on Mary Ruefle's "Perfect Reader," from his essay, "The Arrogance of Poetry," from The Georgia Review (but I don't know which issue):

"The satisfactions of imagining a lover's embrace, imagining 'fucked-up beauty' in a tree, imagining a man who describes a flower in comically abstract language: such satisfactions may put a swing in one's stride but cannot become the same as having a lover. The summer of imagining will subside into the winter of isolation, and the speaker will return to awareness of her own lack of a spiritual home.

[. . .]

"The poem turned out to be good, so I'm not ungrateful; indeed, my life is enriched by the poem--but now where am I? I'm on the first page of Post Meridian, a book containing more than seventy poems; and one of the many other books around my desk is Ruefle's more recent Among the Musk Ox People. How much can I respond to? What will become of me? When can I have lunch?

"Standing at the beginning of a book, "Perfect Reader" seems a warning: It is beautiful to try to be a perfect reader of poems. And you are fated to try. But your imaginative efforts will be tiring and endless, and they could bring you to a condition of overexposed vulnerability, with newspapers as your only blankets."

Every Christmas, I recieve at least five books of poetry. Every semester, I buy at least five books of poetry for class. I fully intend to read all of them. But there's no way I can adequately expose myself to the inherent meaning of all of those poems.

A poem is so short and yet demands so much scrutiny in order to be properly understood and enjoyed, that each good poem--and I stumble into so many worthwhile, if not necessarily good poems--requires at least an hour to itself. I can't do it. There is no human way to be an adequate reader of poetry.

And yet I try. And I live for the trying.

Lady Tiger! On the Prowl!

The story beginning as told by the NY Times.


And then taking a hilarious headline (and a pretty good subhead) in the San Diego CityBeat.


I know, I know. Someone died. I should take this seriously. But "Lady Tiger on the Prowl" is a Hall & Oates song waiting to happen. I call Oates.

actually thom yorke looks mostly like an emo clapton who has something stuck perpetually in his eye.

Seriously. Check minutes, um, six on.

quite possibly the most distressing thing I've seen in a long time

What We Are

Backlit freight train, originally uploaded by jsymmetry.

Major life decisions are being made at a rate and momentum incapable of being registered on any currently available scale.

All afternoon

freight trains yard, originally uploaded by smoytheonlyone.

Kerry and I have been almost completely incapable of accomplishing anything. Almost two months 500 miles apart have us sitting across the table--me trying to write, her trying to do her NY Times marathon--and just staring at each other, grinning. I occasionally have to go the bathroom for victorious powerslides and karate kicks.

She is beautiful. She is incredibly smart. She does certain things that just absolutely kill my ability to think and reason. She is my girlfriend, and I'm keeping it that way.

18 hours still seems too long

19-shortpantsdance.jpg, originally uploaded by The Spacebase.

Until we party

About 48 hours left.

DSCN1079.JPG, originally uploaded by The Spacebase.

She's pretty hot. And brainy. And I get to call her my girlfriend. And I get to see her the day after Christmas.

And, like, kiss & stuff.

Happy/Merry, Y'know.

The Holy Family, originally uploaded by The Spacebase.

Just trying to live in love as best I can. The kid in the middle did a better job of it than most of his American admirerers ever managed to.

Joel Osteen, I'm looking at you. I don't trust church because of you.

Rich people are to heaven as camels are to the eyes of needles. Go ahead with the Health/Wealth/Prosperity heresy, for all I care. Jesus wants room in heaven for a dance party anyway.

Thanks for the reminder, and the links, Headphonaught. I wish I could finish the article. It makes me too angry to finish.

oh noes!

Wolf boy, with scary toenails on the loose in Moscow!

Run, Russian urban peasantry, run!

(story at boing boing.)

More real stuff later.

this is my fault.

I have no idea what I mean. But I named it for Jens' "Postcard for Nina."

Sonic Kerry, originally uploaded by The Spacebase.

I was grumpy earlier today. This picture always makes me happy.

I'm probably not going to finish this book

At the beginning, it was clever and funny--and the way the author tied himself into the plot was brilliant. But once it became clear that the author-as-character wasn't completely impotent/incompetent, the charming hilarity juxtaposed with the long-winded and muscular yet carefully chosen and delicate prose of all Russian classics faded away. It's all a ploy. The middle of the book (where I am) is terrible.

Shteyengart is too entirely pleased with himself and the hilarity of his creation and his narrator. Gag.

I liked Misha for a good hundred pages. It was a bit cloying, sure, to have a 300-pound Russian Jewish immigrant to the United States living large and enjoying a life of American hiphop and his hispanic Bronx girlfriend. He's a rich gourmand. Like all good Russian protagonists. It was great! Life was good when the book felt like a tribute to Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Gogol; when the book was successfully lampooning both American hubris and Russian mobsters. Seriously, the protagonist was named Misha Vainberg. Gogol's characters all had allegorical names like that. It was great. He's a self-centered wealthy gourmand. Like all good Russian protagonists.

Yes. I've read Crime and Punishment. And I have yet to finish it, either. I know Raskolnikov was neither rich nor a gourmand. But three hundred pages into that book, I still believe the poor, scrawny, nervous Raskolnikov. One hundred forty-one pages in, and I've given up on Misha.

All of which is to say I've abandoned better books than Absurdistan. Life is too short for me read something I don't enjoy. Unless I'm being graded on reading it.

Super 8 + Zombies = Freaking Sweet (but not like you think)

Two of my favorite things in the world: Super 8 films and sappy semi-psychedelic love songs.

The Zombies' "This Will Be Our Year" is way up on my list. I would argue, in certain rare moods, that it's an even better love song than "God Only Knows." But rare moods indeed.



Also, apparently, these movies were shot by the filmmaker's parents. Which is extra sweet.

via Look at This...

The Reason for Saying I've Got a Crush

The more I settle into the routine of a long-distance relationship, the more I learn to take care of myself. The more I learn to take care of myself, the more I learn to rely on myself for day-to-day needs. The more I rely on myself, the less I need anyone else for things I should take care of by myself anyway.

Which just makes me want you more.

I want to turn the things I'm learning into a crayon drawing and hang them on my refrigerator for you to see and admire.

I'm back in the fifth grade when I think about you.

Helvetica on Studio 360

This week's PRI's Studio 360 featured a segment on Helvetica...

Geeking out about typefaces should be the new national pasttime. But maybe that's me, speaking as the guy working on a book of poetry about typefaces.

"Little Drummer Boy" by Low

A breath. A noise blast until :20. Reverb to end all reverb. Every breath a string quartet.

I think the "slowcore" label Low gets saddled with is unfair and inaccurate, but listening to their langid-but-still-somehow-incredibly-tense version of "Little Drummer Boy," I want to hit 'repeat one' and curl up under a blanket under my parents' aluminum Christmas tree and sleep until New Year's.

Edit: you can buy it from eMusic, if you've got an account. If you don't, and you want one, please let me know. We can all get free music if you do.

A live version, via Hype Machine: Low - Little Drummer Boy

I'd rather be in Tokyo, I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy

Or watch the Sunday gang in Harajuku:

Seriously. Weird. (via Boing Boing, at that. Purveyors of weird.) I mean, I understand the desire to take care of a pretty wounded girl (wounded pretty girl)--but post-dance party Kerry feet never really did much for me. Apparently, the, ahem, "Lawrence Nightingale" effect does work for some people.

It's cold here. Really cold. (Not the coldest I've ever seen, not by a long shot, but the snow makes it wet, too. Which is not pleasant. I track snow into my apartment. and I can't just kick my shoes off at the door either; I'm wearing my four-year old Doc Martens for marginally better snow navigation (though the lack of traction allows some INCREDIBLE ice slides), and them shoes' a pain to get off.

So yeah. I'd rather be in Tokyo. Anywhere warmer or more interesting. I'd prefer Memphis. Or even the legitmate cold of more northerly climes. But I'd take Tokyo. I'm listening to podcasts. On the Media, currently, but I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy:

Edit: There's something wrong with me--I'm a cuckoo.

Idea: Voter's Debates

I'd referenced this in my Twitter feed, but I think it would be a fantastic idea.

With the emphasis on the presidential election, it seems that the candidates (mostly) speak to a focus-grouped constituency.  So why not subvert the usual debate format and have moderators ask questions of selected voters?  Each response to a prompt would be broadcast as-is, unfiltered through the lens of statistical analysis, thus providing a more vital documentation of the wishes of the electorate in a specific area of the country.

The problem is, by the time Indiana' March primary rolls around, it's rendered meaningless by earlier primaries and Super Tuesday.  Perhaps a Voters' 'debate could focus as much on local issues as national/international issues.  It could also spark more interest among the electorate for local politics by making participation in local politics a truly visceral experience.

maybe.

correction

There will be an edit to the post that mentions this (when I can be bothered to edit it), but I'd said I bought Elizabeth the Found and/or Postsecret books.  She bought them herself.  I just thought they'd be a good present for her sister.  

Mea Culpa.

Head is churning, but Alas!

My battery is almost dead, and I have a huge screenprinting project to tackle over the next two days.  

(As well as other homework, which, I'm somewhat sorry to say, is on the back burner.  It's possible I'll stay up tonight, and go to bed normally tomorrow, but this stuff never happens like that.)

What currently has my mind churning is a blog entry from a fellow who just added me to his Flickr contacts.  He goes by the handle "Headphonaught"--which is brilliant in itself--and his "nanolog" (on which most posts are about the same length or longer than on mine).  

The post, about consumerism and how it fits into his ethics, is pretty brilliant, but a little more in-depth than I have time for today.  So expect a lengthy post in a few days.  I'll just say for now that I'm terribly fond of the idea that "The world doesn't need more products.  It needs better products."  

Scott and I have had a few conversations about this.  He teases me constantly that even though I'm living off of student loans and don't have a "real" job, I have nicer stuff than he and his wife have.  The thing is, if he'd look, the nice stuff I have is usually the same nice stuff I've had for a long time.  I buy nice stuff because it works for me and it usually lasts longer than cheap stuff.  My seven-year-old iMac is still perfectly functional (even if it doesn't like playing video), it's just that I prefer using my two-and-a-half year old iBook.  My 40 gig 4G iPod still functions perfectly well--though I have to tweak settings in iTunes to get as much as possible on it, and carry around my ex's iPod Mini (given back in a fit of anger, though she kept her Found books).

Also, Kerry just called to tell me that she just found McLemore Avenue by Booker T. and the MG's on vinyl.  Which pretty much means I have the most awesome girlfriend ever.

beautiful!

Seriously.  Just go look at it.

via Boing Boing Gadgets.

So There's This Book of Poems I've Written, and They're Mostly For or About You

So I'd like you to have it.

Thus began my big serious high school dating relationship.

I'm gonna have some poems for sale next week. If you're in Muncie, you should drop by and try to get one of the 16 broadsides I'll have for sale as part of the Manifesto Mart, which consists of the sale of handmade projects from Dr. Rai Peterson's ENG 347/Manifesto Poets class.

Mine are not about girls, explicitly. They're collectively referred to as the Type series, and deal with the intersection, interplay, and interference between notions of text-as-visual and text-as-content.

Sound pretentious? When I put it like that, it is. But it's also about best friends, zombies, anthropodermic bibliopegy, sexualized architecture, the way birds don't get out of the way of your car until the last possible second, reanimated Roman emperors, booze, Chicago, Noblesville, fireflies from Thailand, and--yeah, okay, you're right--girls.

Looking at it now, that's a lot of things for four poems to be about. I mean, seriously. I read a lot of current surrealism, and maybe that's why. Dean Young, Tony Hoagland, Gabriel Gudding, and David Berman have all changed/are in the process of changing my life. So expect that kind of thing.

The series, as it stands right now, includes the poems "Ligature," "Futura Medium," "Times New Roman," and "A Colphon."

It's possible that something else will be swapped with "Times New Roman," because I really hate that typeface. (I hate Georgia, what this blog is set in, but it is, sadly, about the best option Blogger provides.)

Four beautiful, screenprinted broadsides of each poem will be available. Though they are a series, they'll be sold individually, at $5 a piece. Collect all four.

The picture above is from my Flickr Stream. Flickr Terms of Use require me to link to Flickr. So here you go.

Somebody get Facebook to Pay Me Some Serious Money

Because this is the best idea I've ever had.

Which isn't quite true. But it's still pretty awesome.

Can someone tell me what typeface Facebook uses? I tried all the normal web fonts, and none of them worked right. Anyway, this:

would be ADORABLE.

Adorable at the Wee Spaniel level. No rush though; I'm happy with this:

EDIT: Facebook uses Lucida Grande, I've just realized. I should have recognized it. I use a Mac. It's fucking everywhere.

Thomas Friedman's Op-Ed article on "Illegal Mingling"

I only scanned the rest of the article, and I'm not sure I totally side with Friedman, but the first two paragraphs?

ick.