Abort, Retry, Fail
If at first you don’t succeed.
Retry.
Hey y’all. Getting back in the saddle after not feeling too well. Also, I did a rough draft of my taxes and it looks like we need to save a pile of money or The Tax Man is gonna be mad. But have no fear, we have payment options. Developing.
The internal voice I’m cultivating is the voice that sounds like this fictional character:
… that voice is one so clearly informed by real writing, real recovery, and a real and difficult life that I can scarcely look at the screen without being moved. I’m going to try and get some music by him too. I need to add him to this list. He may have a small part, but it’s an inspiring one to me.
The Misc For The Week
Change isn’t good enough. The word change doesn’t include a direction or an intention. We have had a lot of change over the last seven years. Most of it was in a seriously wrong direction. We will be feeling the effects of that change for decades to come.
I say no more talk about change. We’ve had enough. What we need is reform. What we need is progress.
Harper’s Magazine discusses our President’s favorite painting. via kottke
Marc Sageman has a new book out called Leaderless Jihadreviewed by the Asia Times Online.
Eliazar points out an Economist story that indicates CDs are dead with the kids today:
IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.
William Gibson’s prose is supposedly, again, in development to be motion pictures — Hayden Christensen to star in Neuromancer? … Two Gibson Adaptations, But Only One Peter Weir Movie. We’ll see.
David Byrne discusses the fact that some dolphins have culture. And this gets us into the territory of “what is culture?” Fairly interesting territory.
In documentary news, Jason Scott has begun editing GET LAMP, a film about text adventures.
Joshua Porter reminds us of the cruel fact that knowledge and learning require pain. ((Insert heavy sigh here)).
In John Scalzi’s post Celebrities: Ruining Everything, Scalzi is eloquent, funny, and insightful:
As for respecting celebrities humble enough to keep their political opinions to themselves, allow me to suggest, humbly, even, that this fellow really ought to grow up a little. What he’s really saying is that he doesn’t want his fantasy image of celebrities messed with through the inconvenient fact of a celebrity being an actual person. But, alas, celebrities are not merely poseable action figures for our enjoyment and control; they regrettably come with thoughts and brains and opinions and such, which they may wish from time to time to use and express. Possibly some of these celebrities will be not particularly astute in their opinions; you could say the same about real estate agents, plumbers, doctors, bloggers or any other group of people, including, alas, politicians. I wonder if this fellow also only patronizes real estate agents, doctors, plumbers, etc, who never express a political opinion outside the confines of their own brain, and if he does, if as a consequence he’s become quite the handy man.
As for me, I’m tired but it was not a bad week, taken as a whole.
The End of Uncov
A blog I have mentioned before that I enjoy is closing. I hate that. Uncov, the foulmouthed CS-heavy blog. is closing, as an afterthought, Ted writes:
Oh, right. One more thing. This is the last Uncov. Ever. I have been getting tired of it, and this has been manifesting itself in my writing. After seeing the spectacle at the Crunchies, I think it’s finally time to quit.
Bummer. I enjoy cranky tech blogs. They’re a nice antidote to the pure rah-rah blogs out there. Bye, Uncov.
The Figure 5 in Gold
The Figure 5 in Gold: Charles Demuth’s Art & William Carlos Williams’ Poem
This has been sitting in draft mode for a few weeks now, and now here’s the real thing. I think the first time I ever saw this painting was when I was in the 6th grade in New Orleans. It struck me as beautiful, and mysterious. I always loved making alphabets and seeing the variations in how to create letters: at the time I think I taught myself calligraphy. When we lived in the Philippines we had a section at La Salle Green Hills that was strictly penmanship – we practiced loops and pen control. And I always loved to draw. So, letters — bubble letters, calligraphy, signage, geometric letters, handwriting, block printing — all of this was probably swirling in my head when I was confronted with this image. The idea that a letter could be the subject of a painting was probably so strange I had to love it.
Which I do.