selective memory

2007-02-03T16:12:00.000-06:00

So Guess What

Just thought you'd like to know.

2006-09-22T19:09:00.000-05:00

Just call me T-Murder

Logging in to Blogger for the first time in months, I realized that I've written 187 entries on this blog. In like, 5 years. Now that's prolific.

So in honor of that, I'm going to point you back toward Nina Gordon's cover of Straight Outta Compton. I believe I've sent you that way before, but hell, some things deserve repeated mentions. Here you go.

Maybe I'll hit the big double-century mark by the end of the year. It could happen.

Right? Right?

2006-07-31T23:29:00.000-05:00

So, Pitchfork

In a word, solid. Solid as a Sudden Valley rock.

In a few more words, if someone out there can get me that CSS album, I'll be your best friend forever and ever and ever. I had the album in my hand at the merch tent, but decided to wait until later. Natch, it was gone by the time I returned.

Perennial life lesson: Nothing is more expensive than regret.

But seriously, though. CSS. Holy crap. Time for me to learn some Portugese and head south, young man.

2006-07-15T18:47:00.000-05:00

Get those records updated

I finally decided to trade my Champaign phone number for something that reflects my current surroundings.

You can reach me now by adding ~~5559870093~~ 5559840093 to my old (217) number. The old number should be expiring in a week or so.

More actual posts soon, I swear. And I'll update the reading list. Too many things going on, all at once. My apologies.

2006-04-18T17:14:00.000-05:00

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Points: Baseball Edition

The season is now two weeks old. In that time, I've probably watched a total of 6 innings of actual baseball, caught during occasional glances at bar televisions. Apathetic? Hardly. Thanks to the Interweb, I've been able to channel my sports jones in other ways:

Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, Reenacted Using RBI Baseball For the NES.
Basically, this guy spent hours syncing up the videogame with Vin Scully's play-by-play. I spent the first three minutes marveling at how uncanny everything matched up, six minutes screaming at John McNamara, and two minutes sobbing quietly. All for an 8-bit recreation of a game that happened 20 years ago. You don't have to tell me. I already know.
The Glory of Minor League Incentive Gifts.
Among other trinkets, the St. Paul Saints are giving away Bill Murray bobblehead dolls this season. All I get from the White Sox is Dollar Dog Thursday.
The Last Nine Innings.
Charles Euchner's book seemed a bit pedestrian at first, but it's really developed into a serious examination of just how many discrete things are going on at one time in the game. It takes David Foster Wallace's Treatise on the Calucus of a Tennis Shot, Expressed as a Running Compount-Interest Expansion (see the footnote), slaps a set of parentheses around the whole thing, and multiplies the total by yet another variable. Good stuff, and written in a manner that works for casual fans and experts alike. Plus, the entire books is a ~~Proustian~~ Geertzian deep reading of a game in which the Yankees lose, which is always worth a few bonus points.

Whee, fun. More as the season continues, presumably.

2006-04-07T23:45:00.000-05:00

Were you expecting the Gothic Castle?

So my friend Hot Julie is playing a show at a leather bar tomorrow.

Not just any leather bar, mind you.

But a leather bar called Memories.

Can. Not. Wait.

In the meantime, I've got a grant report to write. Wish me motivation.

2006-04-04T09:57:00.000-05:00

Yet another Genius Award

Considering that it's Tom Kippur and all, I figured I'd attempt to inject my own personal politics into my blog without embarassing myself once again.

Ha, ha, "attempt."

In order to take on this topic, I'll have to introduce you to the concept of the Secret Subjective Girlfriend. My friend Zack coined the idea during the week before I moved to Chicago. My lease had expired, but my contract for my GAship still had a few days left on it.

It was a lazy August afternoon, and me and Zack and his then-girlfriend were idling away the day on the Interweb. Somehow, turducken came up in conversation, which led me to the Black Table's recipe for the three-birds-in-one dish.

The article began by introducing us to Sonya Thomas, who holds the competitive eating record for eating nearly eight pounds of turducken in 12 minutes.

Zack's jaw dropped. "That's my Secret Competitive Eating Girlfirend, right there."
His then-girlfriend was cool with it, and a concept was born.

That having been said, allow me to introduce you to Lana Logan, my Secret Broadcast Journalism Girlfriend.

Simply put, it's the best arguement I've yet to hear against the claim that the media is refusing to cover any of the good news about the war in Iraq. You and I both know that there is very little good news going on in that country right now. Public works don't exist, the government is on the verge of collapse, and the mob rules supreme. But I typically allow my emotions to get the better of me when thinking about the subject, so I'm unable to draw from my already limited pool of facts.

It's apparent here Ms. Logan's emotions are running high in this video as well. But it doesn't stop her from laying it all out on the line. She spills out all the anger, the frustration, and the fear most of the journalists (and most Iraqis, and most of the occupying forces) have to be feeling right now. But she doesn't let that get in the way of systematically dismantling this poor excuse for a meme. Her dismissal of Laura Ingraham at the end of the clip is singularly priceless.

For that, Lana Logan, I'm bringing the Genius Award out of mothballs. Stay safe, and keep reporting.

(via Crooks and Liars, This is Not Over)

2006-04-03T10:08:00.000-05:00

And the madness of March begats ...more madness, I suppose

So I know eff-all about sports. The NCAA pool my friends and I bought into reveals our prognosticatory acumen to be right around the level you'd expect for a bunch of librarians. Of all the people who participated in the pool, there was one person with one team left in the Final Four. And she was too far behind in points for that to make any difference. Things were effectively over halfway through the round of eight. We're apparently that awesome.

Say what you will about sports, but the basketball orgy that comprises the first four days of the tournament is always a blast.

But now that everything's effectively over (tonight's championship is the kind of Goliath v. Goliath that makes me glad I have to work late tonight), there's the question of what can serve as a suitable replacement of this former obsession/timesuck.

There's always Opening Day, which should be the only sports "holiday" that warrants capitalization without trademarking. XRT spent an hour playing all the songs it played for the White Sox last year, and I started to get really pumped. But baseball season is a completely different barrel of exciting, and with the unpredictablity of a 162-game season, it's important not to get overworked about things too early.

Which brings me to the Tournament of Books, a bracket-style contest put together by literary website The Morning News. Completely arbitrary, and completely awesome. I've read 3 of the 16 books that are/were in contention, own two others, and plan on reading at least three more. So you'd think I'd be at least a little better at calling the course of events.

But the Ishiguro just lost today, which might be a miscarriage of justice on the part of the judge ("parlor trick," my aunt Fanny), but is probably just an indicator that I know as much about literature as I do about basketball. In either case, it's time for me to go place a hold on a copy of Home Land, who just might be this tournament's George Mason.

2006-02-17T09:05:00.000-06:00

Vacation, all I ever wanted

So I'm off to Argentina for a week until everything blows over. If you'd like a postcard, send your address to theanalogdivide [at] gmail [dot] com. I'll think of you as I enjoy all the southern hemisphere has to offer.

2006-01-14T16:41:00.000-06:00

One of these days, I'm going to look in the bag before I leave

What went down: call it the Consumer's Dilemma, or perhaps the Tragedy of the Socially Retarded.

I went to Reckless today, in the hopes of finding some of the records that I never got around to hearing last year. Deerhoof? Check. Art Brut? Sorry, Charlie. The Mendoza Line? No such luck. Okkervil River? You're up a creek, pal. But we can still offer you the appendix EP to that record.

It seemed promising. I figured I'd grab it unheard, figuring half a victory is better than nothing. After all, I have been trying to regain some sembelance of my past sonic adventurousness, and C-Pop troubadors can only be so prolific.

So I make my purchase and walk home. As quickly as possible, mind you, so as to avoid further social awkwardness with friendly rekkid-stow clerks. One faux pas was enough for one day, and I'd been caught staring into the middle distance while being rung up.

What album do I pull out of the bag? Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy. The full length album. The very thing I had come for in the first place, but not what I had brought to the counter.

I'm not sure if I should feel lucky or cheated, at this point.

2006-01-14T11:55:00.000-06:00

Addendum: Ten movies that came out (in Chicago) in 2005 that I'm still trying to see

(In no particular order, this time.)

~~Junebug~~
~~The Squid and the Whale~~
~~Grizzly Man~~
~~2046~~
~~Wedding Crashers~~
~~Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit~~
~~Thumbsucker~~
~~Mysterious Skin~~
~~Brokeback Mountain~~
~~Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room~~

Done and done.
Anything else you'd suggest?

2006-01-10T19:48:00.000-06:00

Movies released in 2005 that I saw, ranked in order of preference

1. Me and You And Everyone We Know
2. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
3. A History of Violence
4. Oldboy
5. Syriana
6. Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior
7. Murderball
8. Good Night, and Good Luck
9. The Constant Gardener
10. Sin City
11. The Aristocrats
12. King Kong
13. Land of the Dead
14. Serenity
15. Roll Bounce
16. Unleashed
17. Batman Begins
18. The Bad News Bears
19. Broken Flowers
20. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
21. Pride and Prejudice
22. Constantine
23. Lords of Dogtown
24. Munich
25. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
26. The Comedians of Comedy
27. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
28. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
29. War of the Worlds
30. Fever Pitch
31. The Jacket
32. Kingdom of Heaven
33. The Amityville Horror
34. The Ring Two
35. High Tension

All in all, I didn't do too badly. I would say I outright loved the first four, liked 5 - 17, liked 18-23 with a few reservations, felt a general ambivalence (save a few redeeming qualities) toward 24-27, disliked 28-30, and hated the rest.

Lesson to extract: Stop watching so many crappy horror movies.
Seriously.

Discuss.

2005-12-07T09:49:00.000-06:00

And speaking of Christmas...

I'm getting ready to send out cards. If you'd like to be included on my holiday list, you should send your address to theanalogdivide at gmail dot com.

So much for restricting this space to longer pieces. In other news, I'm convinced that the cat has absolutely no short-term memory. I've dumped him off my lap about five times now in the past three minutes. Each time he hits the floor (on his feet, naturally), he shakes his head wondering how he got here, and makes the bookshelf-to desk-to-lap series of leaps in the exact same manner as before.

"This is where I was going. I don't know how I keep falling off the path, but I've been planning to go here for quite some time. I understand it's quite nice."

The meowbox, of course, speaks in an affected Cockney accent. All cats wearing Derby hats do, of course.

2005-12-06T23:49:00.000-06:00

Mea Culpa

Yeah, it's been far too long. Thanks for staying on my case, Watcher in the Old Woods.

It's this work thing, you see. Long hours staring at a computer screen for eight hours a day, coupled with a commute full of Chicago's greatest rush-hour crawl traffic can really suck the energy out of a person. Do you think it's possible to die from eyestrain?

And who really wants to hear me talk about work? It's a great job, mind you - I'm doing a lot of great work that I enjoy - but the devotion of energy has left me a teensy bit creatively (not to mention bloggishly) inert. I'm trying to rectify that.

But to that end, I think I'd like to use this space for longer, more involved pieces, rather than brief missives and diary-type entries. I've never been able to keep those going on this space, anyway. (I can't say that they'll be gone entirely, as who's to control when interesting things happen.)

I've got a piece I've been mulling over, and have started to commit to digital paper. I might even tie in some loose threads that were never completed in past blog entries.

But first, there's some reading to do. As the left-hand column might indicate, I do too much of that as is. But I assure you, it ought to tie in.

In the meantime, I will tell you this: the Unicorns have immolated themselves, only to have Islands rise from their ashes. There are many more people in the band now, including a bass clarinet player and two violinists. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

And if you see nothing by Christmas, you have every right to direct your disappointment and invective my way.

2005-08-19T12:38:00.000-05:00

You're Not Fashion Conscious, You're Acid-Washed

So, you know how it's hip now to not update your blog?

I helped start that. In fact, I've been doing it for years.

Just sayin'.

2005-08-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

The Great Online Treasure Hunt

The library my ladyfriend works at is predominantly African-American, and she's been working to encourage readership by decorating the building with pictures of various celebrities reading and listings of their favorite books. She's been working on photos for the children's and young adult section, and she's had a certain amount of success at finding titles. Alicia Keys, for example, loves Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, while Allen Iverson enjoys Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

Other celebrities have proven to be much more difficult to find. She and her co-workers got to talking, and they came up with the Holy Grail of black celebrity book endorsements: Jay-Z

If anyone out there on the Interweb can find me evidence of Jay-Z's favorite book, I'll make it worth their while. If you can find me a photo of Jigga reading, I'll scrounge up an even sweeter prize.

Additionally, if anyone's around tomorrow and wants to go see Broken Flowers tomorrow during the day, drop me a line. I've got the day off and very little to do.

2005-07-30T10:42:00.000-05:00

Alright, Already

Strange how history seems to keep repeating itself, with or without the assistance of the Propellerheads and/or Shirley Bassey.

But I can placate you with the usual spiel about how work is frenetic, with a lot of grant-related planning for a project that starts in October, that won't recieve notification of funding until September. I've had to learn to type one-handed, as I have to bite most of my nails off just to get through each day.

Not that I'm complaining, of course. I love the job, and I love the sense that I might be helping to spur on a greater level of community involvement, shooting out little threads from the center of the library web the whole time.

But you've heard that spiel, particularly from me, countless times before.

Instead, I'll give you my ringing endorsement for Me and You and Everyone We Know. Easily the best movie I've seen all year. And I've seen Land of the Dead.

Simply put, Miranda July has succeeded in creating a cohesive filmic universe, demonstrating an effortless sense of control over every little detail. She manages to make Solondz-esque ickworthy scenes come off as endearing, and she removes all the forced qualities of Andersonian quirk from her characters.

Some may complain that the film came off as too "performance-arty," which may make certain scenes seem too precious to be palatable to some. But July is a performance artist, and since that tone pervades the entire film in an even manner, I think she's entitled to that liberty.

Simply put: Among my very favorite topics in art is the inability for most people to truly interact with one another, where a shared lexicon of linguistic tools never quite matches up to a wholly different and immesurable set of internal sensations. I could give you a wheelbarrow-load of examples of favorite works (Infinite Jest, Tallahassee, Carson McCullers, etc etc) where this sensiblity is reflected. Some of these pieces do what I do all the time, throwing their hands up and resigning itself to the inevitable truth that this discrepancy will never be resolved. But M&Y&EWK manages to stay hopeful in the wake of all of this, and Miranda July's abiltiy to earnestly put forth that feeling really recharged my cinema battery.

The fact that a month lapsed between seeing the movie and writing this post, notwithstanding.

Reading list to be updated soon, with some 30+ books. I've abandoned Europe Central for the time being, as such a work demands the focus and solid blocks of time that only cold weather can bring. Fear not, Bill, I'll get to you yet.

And sorry, Dan, that you had to de-blogroll me.

2005-04-08T18:44:00.000-05:00

And like that, they're gone

Take a minute to share the sadness, as this arrived in my inbox:

The Delgados, influential figures in Glasgow's independent music scene for over 10 years, have announced that they are to amicably disband. The reason has been put down to the departure of their bass player Stewart Henderson who informed the band in the New Year that he did not wish to make another album. The Delgados have always been known as uniquely collaborative songwriters and as such, it was decided that the band could not continue without all of its original members.
The Delgados leave behind them 5 critically acclaimed albums including The Great Eastern, Hate and last year's Universal Audio. Their two principal songwriters Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward will be pursuing individual projects and drummer Paul Savage will continue production duties at the band's Chem19 Studios in Hamilton.
The four friends will continue to run their record label Chemikal Underground in this, its 10th Anniversary year, with releases scheduled for Malcolm Middleton, Mother & The Addicts and Arab Strap. They are extremely grateful to everyone who has supported The Delgados over the course of their career.

It should also be noted that The Delgados were great friends of the late John Peel, who featured them on his BBC radio show many a time. They played at the Double Door a day after his death, and it was clear that Peel meant a lot to them. In spite of this, they managed to put on a fantastic performance. We here at Selective Memory will miss them both.

The Delgados -~~"Mr. Blue Sky"~~
(taken from a Peel session, ~2004)

2005-04-08T00:09:00.001-05:00

Genius Awards, at long last

As a preface-cum-excuse, let it be said that genius occurs only sporadically, and should only be awarded when the situation merits.

Coming from the Keep it Simple School: Netflix, or more specifically, Netflix Friends.

You've found a way to combine my love of talking about movies with my fear of talking to people. It's truly the greatest thing since one of you little goblins but chocolate in my peanut butter, of the bomp in the bomp-sh-bomp-sh-bomp.

If you're a Netflix subscriber, you need to become my Friend. If you're not a Netflix subscriber, you should sign up.

And if you're a Blockbuster subscriber, know this: your soul worth far more than the three bucks a month you might save. (Let's not forget the expanded selection, while we're at it.)

2005-03-15T09:16:00.000-06:00

Spotted: Kinzie and Dearborn, 3/4/2005

There's been this guy walking just ahead of us for a while, and I take notice because he's walking at pretty much the same speedy pace we move at. He's your typical suited downtown-Chicago individual, obviously very important in his own mind, with very important places to go.

As we cross this intersection, we see another similarly attired individual, this time with the blue-shirt/white-collar combination that makes me cringe every time. As we get closer, it becomes apparent by the look on the new guy's face that these two know each other. They both shout their "Hey, dudes," which leads to the following exchange:

Suit-man #1: Hey, buddy. I've been trying to call you. Where've you been?

Suit-man #2: Dude, my condo burned down.

I count to five, and the girl starts laughing wildly, right in the middle of the street.

2005-02-05T15:17:00.000-06:00

The story you simply can't not blog about

Every day after work, I have to make a dash from the 400-block of town to the train station, which is located at the zero-block. It takes eleven minutes, meaning I have an eight-minute margin of error in the event some task runs over at work. It doesn't exactly leave me with a lot of time to make my train, so I'm usually not paying too much attention to my surroundings as I speed down Suburban Mini-Main Street, U.S.A..

But the thumping bass coming from the SUV half a block away caught my ear, penetrating through the barrier that my iPod usually throws up to protect me from the inane sounds of the Everyday. The beat was pretty fast, which is what really caused me to take notice. I have borne witness to many an SUV committing this unique act of noise pollution, and the tempo with which it bomps its unique 808 styles is almost universally much slower. Needless to say, I was curious, and I took out my headphones as I walked toward the vehicle. A preternaturally long traffic signal (yet another staple of the aforementioned S.M-M.S) flicked red, aiding me in my approach. When I got close enough, I recognized an all-too-familiar melody.

The song? We Didn't Start the Fire.

Give it up for the suburbs, America. You make us all proud.

P.S.: Go check out Jeff Rowland's blog/comic Overcompensating. The January 28th entry contains a fine tribute to Andrew W.K..

2005-01-04T23:26:00.000-06:00

Lord Loves the Workin' Man

During the last third of ought-four, I rarely got up earlier than nine. It's funny how having a jay-oh-bee can alter your sleeping habits so quickly.

It's been two days, and I'm now on a tightly scheduled regimen of work preparation. Like a machine, I tell you, a machine. Or perhaps the opening montage of Metropolis.

But the beauty part is getting to work. If I can time everything properly, I have a maximum of five to ten minutes waiting in my morning/evening commute. Total. If road and rail traffic is sufficiently light (and I catch that elusive goose known as the X49 Express), I can get back or forth in an hour fifteen. Given where my library is, that is no small feat.

Of course, it all goes to hell on the days in which I work late. There, the schedule looks something like this:

9:00 PM: Library closes.
10:47 PM: Train leaves station.
11:23 PM: Train whizzes by station where I would normally get out.
11:38 PM: Train arrives at Union Station:
12:05-12:15 AM: Bus/El drops me off at home.

This I tell ya, was not the right time for my car's to develop a terminal transmission sickness. Contribute to my Hybrid Fund today, or if you're extra-special nice, see if you'd be interested in giving me a ride once a week. You will, of course, be reimbursed for any gas or tolls you might accrue. And recieve my undying gratitude and devotion, natch.

The promised lists will come this weekend. You know how it goes, with the number-crunching and tweaking and whatnot.

2004-12-08T23:52:00.000-06:00

About Time, If I Do Say So Myself

For me to post again? No, sillypants? For me to get off my rear and get a job!

Granted, much of the getting-a-job process consists of me sitting on my rear. It just takes several forms, be it hitting "send," hitting the road, or hitting the interviewer.

Which, come to think of it, might explain why it's taken me so long to find work.

I got the offer on Monday, and my activities of late have consisted of....much of the same as the past few months, only with less frantic checking of the library job boards, and fewer bouts of crippling guilt about being destitute and a burden on those around me. With any luck, I should be able to make it through this final month of non-income generation (helloooo, christmas!), and start beating all those little debt-pirhanas back, Back, I say!

Now that that's out of the way, hopefully I can start chruning out some original content. I've tried to avoid using this as a diary-type blog, and if I were a more dilligent writer, I might actually be able to creat something of quality.

What I'm trying to say is this: Look forward to a breakdown of my fave-rave records of the year. Soon, tantalizingly soon.

Just don't hold me to it.

2004-11-03T11:32:00.000-06:00

Well, That Could Have Gone Better

The expectation that this would happen (again) was always something that lurked in the back of my mind. I chose to ignore it, on the belief that riding a steady wave of thought-optimism to a Kerry victory.

Instead, those of us in the reality-based community have to confront a reality of our own. And that's the cardinal rule: Never Run A Massachusetts Liberal Against A Member of the Bush Family. Right up there with Never Conduct A Land War In Asia.

Other people I feel bad for:

John Edwards. Poor guy. The basket has tipped over, and all the eggs have tumbled out.

The Petroglyph National Monument. Once again, we continue to steamroll (literally, in this case) over ancient history, respect for other religions, and indigenous culture. Hope you like sprawl, Albuquerque. Because you're going to get a lot more of it.

Domestic Partnerships, and Equal Rights in General. I'm speechless, really. I can see why the vote happened, but I still don't understand why the vote happened.

And who was that other group I feel bad for? Oh, right, The American People.

On top of all that, I didn't get that job, and my next interview isn't for another week. Come on, library world. Let me be your friend.

With that, I'm going back to bed. Or to the laundromat. I haven't decided yet.

2004-11-01T18:57:00.000-06:00

To Absolutely No One's Surprise

Selective Memory is endorsing John Kerry for president. Yeah, shocker, right?

But there's a litany¹ of reasons for this, beyond the standard response of, "hey, I'm a pinko lefty capital-D Democrat." Just to keep things from getting tiresome, I'll stick to the issue of the war on terror, and tie issue of competing ideology.

Because the war on terror (or whatever you so choose to call it) is as much to do with ideology as it does with anything else².

I'll keep things simple, lest the eggtimer controlling my attention span go off. Under the current administration, it appears as if we're continuing a policy of direct conflict against the various nation-states that we've deemed a part of the Axis. If this continues, we could end up fighting wars across the Middle East. Syria? Iran? Jordan? (Not to mention the North Korean elephant in the room.) It's simply not sustainable, either in terms of equipment or of manpower.

The Kerry Administration (and hopefully, there will be one), seems more committed to removing the roots of various terrorist groups, be it their monetary sources, weak border controls, or rampant materials floating around in the black market. We can't do it alone. In that sense, it's much more of an international police effort than a military endeavor. Not that it won't require military action, but certainly not to the same degree as the latest attempt to bring on Armageddon.

Now that I've started to bore myself, we can proceed with non-political claptrap.

In other news, I had my interview with that big corporation today, and I should hear in a week. If you can spare the time, please get out your rabbit's feet for me. That, and The Unicorns may be the best thing since sliced bread. Something I probably should have told you months ago. Sloppy genius is the way to be, folks. Mark my words.

^1: Come on, folks, if you drive your usage of this word into the ground, Georgie-boy won't think he's impressing us any more with his command of them big words. (Of course, if we all do our parts to get out the vote, we won't have to worry about the President's lexical overcompensations.) Moral of the story: Vote, suckas.

^2: I realize that ideology is what has created the war on terror in the first place, albeit in the "My God's better than your God" sense, and not the "let's staple our policy decisions to a preset belief structure so we can railroad our initiatives through the Legislature" sense³.

^3: Yeah, I hate these footnotes, too. I'll try not to make them a habit.

2004-10-27T23:03:00.000-05:00

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Three games in, three games up, and I'm a nervous wreck.

We're at the flashpoint of this World Series, and it would only be too perfect, in the godsmack sense, for the Cardinals to become the Perfect Team, and give this postseason a heartrending sense of symmetry. As the clock ticks toward the half-seven hour, I find that I'm running out of walls to bounce off of.

The fact that I still don't have a job to distract me isn't helping much, either.

However, I've got an interview at that one place on Monday. The fact that this will be my third interview with them does give me some level of encouragement.

UPDATED: The girl's asleep, so I'll scream here:

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

2004-10-21T01:35:00.000-05:00

Addendum to that last post

Hot damn.

Good luck, National Leaguers. We'll see you on Saturday.

2004-10-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

Dance Party!

I swear, my piece on the Kerry/Bush foreign policy ideologies is coming. Bear with me.

I'm a little distracted this week. Between the election and the continued job search, I've been a little rattled. And now I have to contend with the fact that the Red Sox are now in game 7 of the ALCS. Given the circumstances, you can understand why I've tried not to get my hopes up.

But after battling back from the literal brink of elimination -
and I do mean literally in the literal sense, seeing as they were down 4-3 in the ninth inning with a middle of the lineup hitter against a Yankee closer with a proven track record of shutting Boston down -

Game 7 is tonight. And I am so Jessie Spano right now.

So bear with me. More later.

2004-10-19T20:10:00.000-05:00

Get Over Yourself and Make Up Your Mind

If you're still undecided about who you're going to vote for, you really need to stop with the shameless ploy for attention. Decide, yo, because you're not fooling anyone. At least not me.

That having been said, I'll make my foreign-policy/war-on-terror case for Kerry sometime within the next couple of days. If you're in my demographic, let's just say the stakes may be higher than they already are.

2004-09-10T11:41:00.000-05:00

A cry for help, but not in that way

I hope you find some of the new format tweaks to this template subtle, but aesthetically pleasing. You might notice I'm now including amazon links to my reading lists located to your left.

Does anyone know how to set up a link-referral profile with them? Something like what they have over at Stereogum? I'm not expecting any major kickbacks or anything, but it seems like it would cut a lot of extraneous code out of what I'm posting.

And as long as I'm asking for help, maybe those of you with a more intimate knowledge of this city can provide me with a few recommendations.

Specifically, I'm looking for a good place to get my hair cut in the Wicker Park/Bucktown area. You know the drill: quality work, not too expensive.

I'm also trying to determine a good running route. I have no real gague of distance in this densely packed urban area, and I'd like to create a path that's neither too long or too short. Something around 3-5 miles should be a good start.

2004-09-10T01:52:00.000-05:00

Alton Brown, eat your heart out

I sure can whip some good fajitas. Maybe someday, you play your cards right, you'll get to see for yourself.

Them's not even the best thing I've had all week.

("Oh, you're so modest. When did you become such a charmer?">

That distinction goes to the homegrown cantelope the ladyfriend's parents gave us. Well, me, since she doesn't eat melon. Something about not being able to eat fruit that can only get married in a big church. (waaaaiiit for it....)

Because melons can't elope! *sniff* Oh, I kid, I kid.

In all seriousness, this has to be the best melon I've possibly ever had. Have you ever had a good piece of fruit, that just seems supersaturated with juice, and manages to feel cool and refreshing hours after you've taken it out of the fridge? That seems to be this melon's mission in life.

The only problem is that there's so damn much of it. The fruit's the size of my head, and I've got a sizable noggin. (It's what makes me so pretty.) I've been eating a couple of slices every morning for breakfast since Monday, and there's still half a melon left. I'm like that kid in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe who had all the Turkish Delight, only with out all the latent Christian allegory.

Speaking of which, God damn, I love melon!

2004-09-08T09:59:00.000-05:00

Threats to MFN status

I’m torn. I really am. Granted, I’m clothed, sitting and not married to the guy from Silverchair, but I’m being assaulted by the Cognitive Dissonance fairy nonetheless.

My problem is simple: I really want to talk about Travis Morrison’s new album, but I can’t seem to do so without bringing up the Dismemberment Plan.

How can you not, really? It was his unhinged stage performance that made the Plan’s live shows so spectacular, a truth so undeniable that I’m willing to overlook my girlfriend wanting to go all Penny Lane for him.

(She tells me not to worry, as she believes he has pointy feet. But I remain wary.)

But it wasn’t just the freak-outs that made Mr. Morrison such a compelling frontman. It was the voice - just slightly nasal, wavering when it could soar - that introduced a level of doubt to Easley and Axelson’s swirly, drums and bass. The Plan’s sound was complex, to be sure, but Travis’ singing kept them human. And the band was all the more compelling for it.

Much of that esthetic is still in place on Travistan. Cut free from charging polyrthymic interplay, I’m just not sure if Mr. Morrison’s humanity is enough to sustain a full-length album. Song arrangements have a homemade feel, and as a result are extraordinarily spare, relying largely on keyboard flourishes, boom-thwok drumming, and an assortment of Mac-fresh samples and loops. The sound hints at a promising new pop direction for the artist, but the GarageBand revolution this is not.

My biggest problem, however, lies with the lyrics. Readers of Travis Morrison’s website have read at length about his close relationship with his nephew. I think it’s fantastic that Travis has such a good connection to his family, and is willing to drop any rock-star pretensions to trumpet this value. But allowing the kid to write a number of the songs seems to cross a major line for me. One really has to wonder about endangered species exacting revenge on their keepers (Song for the Orca), or the mini-suite about dead presidents bemoaning their portraits stamped onto currency (Get me off This Coin A-D). Without a more complex sonic base, Morrison’s voice loses its earnestness, causing the song to seem more saccharine and flaky.

I haven’t given up home on Travis Morrsion just yet. Lyrical drippiness aside, tracks like Born in ’72 show that the man hasn’t lost his ear for hot-hot hooks. I will reserve final judgment until I check out his show with Death Cab at the Riviera on October 14th. Perhaps it’s in the performance that these songs will reveal as-yet undiscovered depths.

Besides, my ladyfriend still wants to freak his jock. That’s as good a barometer as any.

2004-09-07T13:33:00.000-05:00

Spotted, no. 4

Returned a book last week to the Damen branch library. I round the corner to the sounds of someone screaming into her mobile. Revealed: a woman in a black dress, well into her second trimester, smoking with impunity.

2004-09-02T15:42:00.000-05:00

People in my Neighborhood, No. 3

One of these days, I'll come up with a proper title for this feature.

Usually, I have to leave the house in order to see all the strange and wonderful people who inhabit this city. I haven't been able to do that yet, as I can't leave the house until FedEx arrives with the package that should have arrived at 10:30 this morning.

Instead, I sit. And wait. "4:15 at the latest," they tell me. "Sucker," they mutter when they don't think I'm listening.

And during this wait, I recieve a knock at my door. P-da-Supa the landlord has sent someone over to see about replacing a bum lock on my back door. Not a big deal, as the normal slamlock still works perfectly, but it's nice to know P-da-Supa has my back.

As the maintenance guy is about to leave, the meowbox comes up to us, begging for attention. "Nice cat," says Joe Maintenance. "Is he a boy or a girl?"

And then he gives Sanford a reacharound. "He's a boy," I choke out, silently incredulous. Struggling to maintian my composure, I walk Joe Maintey out and quickly lock the door behind me.

The cat and I certainly have our differences. Like most people of the male persuasion, this human-feline relationship is a tenuous friendship, held together by an overarching sense of mutual animosity.

But no one, man or beast, deserves the Breeder's Cup when they're not ready for it. Especially when they're just trying to be friendly.

2004-09-01T22:37:00.000-05:00

Finally!

The Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth have arrived! And they're going to finally set the record straight on just how bad a lush our fabled President once was. It's about time these brave men came forward, topped off their margaritas, and scraped the whitewash off of Dubya's record.

In all seriousness, however, this is easily the best parody of those godawful Swift Vets. (If you want to find their homepage, please Google it; there's no way I'm giving them the satisfaction of a link-track.) The layout of the site mirrors the Swifties startlingly well. And their ad features the song "No Danger" by the Delgados!

And don't get me started on comparing the veracity of each group's claims. Somehow, the Swifties seem slightly more dubious.

Observation of the day: a passerby in my neighborhood trying to jimmy open the porta-potty used by the construction crew.

2004-08-31T12:15:00.000-05:00

Say goodbye, destitution! (hopefully)

I'm off to my first job interview today. Wish me luck.

Actually, if my credentials are in order (which I believe they are) luck shouldn't have too much to do with it. How about you just wish I don't choke when they pepper me with questions.

2004-08-29T23:26:00.000-05:00

Yet Another Reason I Love Chicago

While walking home from the El stop last night I saw someone try to hail a police car.
Boy, do I wish I could make these things up.

2004-08-16T16:28:00.000-05:00

Avoiding the Devil's Playground, and Not in The Rumspringa Sense

Well, I got the wireless hooked up. Unfortunately, I'm still without DSL. And since my neighbors keep their access points password-protected, I'm here at the library updating away.

I had this great scheme to write the post beforehand, and save it to a disk. Alas, there are no floppy drives on these machines (which makes sense, now that I think about it), so here's this stopgap to tide you over in the meantime.

What a pain. I had also intended to print out more job postings, but the printer's out of comission as well. Cross your fingers, and hope I transcribed everything correctly. Misspelling someone's name, or referring to a "reference librarian" position as "chicken sexer" or something is most assuredly not the way to get one's foot in the door.

2004-08-13T16:40:00.000-05:00

The Story that Brought me Out of Unintentional Retirement

Today’s my last day in Champaign. I’m living in Chicago now, and seeing as I’m still waiting to hear from employers A-Z about positions I’m extraordinarily qualified for, I’ve got an almost unlimited amount of time on my hands. Time to give this ol’ thing a right dusting off.

I’ll be around in the next few days (assuming I get the wireless properly installed in my apartment) to regale you with new information about what the hell I’ve been up to the past few months. A few things:

I’m going to start up the Selective Mixery Project. For real, this time. Please send your address to selectivemixery@hotmail.com.

I’m listening to the new Firey Furnaces album now, and I get the feeling that I’m going to love it in about two months. At the moment, though, I think those crazy siblings are too far ahead of me.

If you're interested in a gmail account, I've got several invites to give away.

You can see photos of my new apartment, if you wish. You’re also more than encouraged to come visit. I just bought a sofabed, even.

If you’re not watching The Amazing Race, you really need to get over your reality television bias. Easily one of the most thrilling hours on TV, not to mention the best example of successful storytelling through skilled editing.

Okay, finally, here’s the story I’ve been itching to tell for a while.

The student housing racket in C-U is exactly that. A racket. During the middle weeks of August, possibly thousands of people are rendered homeless, sucked into the ten-day gap between the end of one lease and the start of another. Since I didn’t change apartments last year, and I’m leaving this year, this hasn’t been a problem for me. It makes sense that the rental companies would want the time to get all their units cleaned up and ready for the influx of a transient population some thirty-some thousand strong.

Sometimes this lead time isn’t enough, as evidenced by the warning I received from the landlord, warning of a visit from the Steamatic people during the week, so they can clean my ducts. Upon their arrival, I locked the cat in the bedroom and went outside to do my crossword in the sun and not deal with earsplitting vacuum noise.

Hearing the vacuum stop indicates that the guy needs to clean the bedroom, so I get up and run inside. Sanford decides to be cooperative, so I get him moved, and dash back to my stool. Couldn’t have taken more than two minutes, tops.

Except I get back and my stool’s gone.

I hear jangling keys upstairs, so up I go, and confirm my suspicions. There’s a woman fumbling to get inside, holding my stool.

“I thought it was abandoned,” she sputters. Busted, say her mannerisms.

Not wishing to make an awkward situation any more so, I snatch the stool away, and resume my assault on the NYT Tuesday edition.

The stool was a $4.95 assemblage of rickety plastic from IKEA, so losing it would not have been a major loss. What freaks me out is the confluence of events that caused her to arrive back to the building at the exact moment that I left my post. My paranoia about jerk-deities/chaos theory/gremlin thieves is already high enough, without things like this happening. It’s all very strange, and probably not nearly as profound as it seemed when it initially happened.

As a postscript of sorts, the same woman took all the stuff I abandoned in the giveaway pile (less than half an hour after I put it out there, even), and my friend Elizabeth spat on her door one night after The Amazing Race. Life continues on in the way that it usually does.

I tip my hat to you, Scavenger Woman in the Upstairs Apartment. It’s too bad you hadn’t become my Imaginary Apartment Nemesis earlier.

2004-03-17T19:31:00.000-06:00

It's on

The mix tape project, that is. Send your mailing address to selectivemixery@hotmail.com. That goes for all of you.

(and yes, I do recognize that most of you already have the addresses of everyone else, but there's a few additions to the list on this end, too. C-U, represent.)

Additionally, if you're going to be in NYC from 20 to 25 March, look for me. I'll be around.

**UPDATE** (because I forgot to mention it) Also, if you have a limit on the number of CDs you're willing/able to send out, let me know. I can figure out some kind of limiter. As Greggy A would say, you only get what you give.

2004-03-16T11:40:00.000-06:00

Genius Awards

hopefully part of a new ongoing Selective Memory series

There's a lot of truly brilliant people/ideas/objects out there, whose efforts are woefully underappreciated. What I'm hoping to do with the weekly Selective Memory Genius Award is provide just a fraction of the recognition that they deserve.

But enough talk. The description's inherent in the award's name, and shouldn't require any exposition on my part.

I present to you the first recipient of the Genius Award: Robo-Icecream.

Usually, when I'm taking a road trip, I'm filled with the overriding mascul-mechanism committed to Making Good Time Above All Else. But with Robo-Icecream populating many a rest stop along the highways of this great state, I'm encouraged to stop much, much more often.

As the photo might indicate, Robo-Icecream consists of a freezer, with individual sections partitioning the various frozen novelties Blue Bunny (or whoever else is stocking the treats) has to offer. After feeding your money into the machine, the freezer door raises up, providing tangible evidence to back up the tempting promises set forth by the adjacent picture menu.

Here's the good part. Once you've made your selection, a vacuum tube slides over the quiescently frozen delight of choice. With the rumbling of a motor, the tube descends, picks up the treat, and brings it back to the front of the machine. Upon its arrival , the vacuum shuts off, dropping the chilly delectation into the front compartment, where it is eagerly snatched up by hungry hands.

Someone truly took the "novelty" of "ice cream novelty" to heart when they created Robo-Icecream. Reminiscent of the stuffed-animal crane machines scattered in arcades, convenience stores, and enhno-American fusion "neighborhood" restaurants everywhere, this machine operates true to the belief that any treat is exponentially better when accompanied with a show.

There is even a certain amount of drama involved in Robo-Icecream's provision of Good Humor and Eskimo Pies. I persuaded one of my colleagues to patronize the machine this weekend, on route back to Urbana from East St. Louis. By the time I had finally worn someone down, we had attracted quite a crowd, gathering around to see if my enthusiasm actually bore any merit. Robo-Icecream did not disappoint, actually dropping the treat on the first attempt, eliciting a spontaneous outcry from over a dozen librarians-in-training. The machine's built-in RoboSensor caught its own error, and made a return effort, this time successful, depositing the chocolate-coated treat into the bin.

The verdict? Delicious!

Robo-Icecream, I salute you. What would you do for a Klondike bar, indeed.

2004-03-14T15:30:00.000-06:00

Well, looka here.

So many things, all at once. Sure, there's all th fun stuff, like the new color pallette, and my finally figuring out what I did wrong with my HTML. But it's also not every day when you figure out what it is you want to do with your life.

I think I'd rather work on ways to act on this than prattle on about it. If you recall the workshop I was talking about, that should provide you with a good jumping-off point. I'll gladly discuss any questions that stem from that. But I'd prefer not to bore everyone with the quasi-crackpot ideas gestating in my head at the moment. While some may make it into the world, others may emerge stillborn. The Oregon Trail is long and arduous, and I'd prefer not to jinx things just yet.

Instead, I've got something else for you, my Dear, Dear Friends.

In perusing my personal blogcircle, I've noticed the idea bandied about to create a BBS of sorts with which we can engage in more extended conversations. I'd like to extend my endorsement of said idea, and (maybe) start looking into options. It would be nice to have something separate from the look-how-fakeclever-I-can-be-if-and-when-I-do-update-which-is-never-right? forum that is Selective Memory.

But this idea got me thinking about other ideas. I won't dance around it any more: I want to start up a mix CD exchange with those of you out there reading this. I'd be willing to do the legwork if people are interested.

Please, please, be interested.

So many things taking place; so many things developing, developing. I feel like I'm taking a test for which the correct answers haven't yet been determined.

2004-02-24T00:35:00.000-06:00

For all the good civil disobedience gets me...

So, there I am, trying to be good and helping out freedom of expression wriggle just a little bit out of the grasp of the copyright deathgrip.

Fat lot of good it does me, and my lack of HTML talent.

Give me a week, once the dust settles from all this schoolwork madness, and I'll get things back to normal. In the meantime, go download the Grey Album.

And quit looking at me! I'm hideous!

***UPDATED!!*** Hideous, that is, unless you're using Opera or Netscape. Haven't checked Mozilla, but signs seem to point toward it working there.

2004-02-22T10:59:00.000-06:00

Parasol....

You're going to be the death of me.

In case you don't realize, I'm singing those above two lines. Textually.

Lambchop, Aw Cmon: $12.75
Lambchop, No You Cmon: $12.75
The Wrens, The Meadowlands: $13.25
Xiu Xiu, Fabulous Muscles: $12.75

Damage: 51.50. At least I didn't have to pay taxes. Damn the man.

The worst part is that they're all brilliant. I can't decide which one I want to listen to more, which results in me trying to play all four simultaneously, Zaireeka style.

Shoving all four of them into the CD drive simultaneously didn't work, either.

2004-02-17T17:50:00.000-06:00

You know what they say about best-laid plans.

At least one Knox alumni is garnering some attention.

So, you know those changes I've been planning? They're on their way. I swear. School is way more intense this semester, and on top of it, I'm helping to teach at this workshop in a few weeks. (I'm #2.)

Didja see that, though? People are paying $45 to come listen to me! That's more than it costs to see the Strokes!

In your face, Julian!

2004-01-18T11:52:00.000-06:00

Oh, there I am

Yeah, so I haven't been updating. It's been over a month. I'm sorry for that. The year-end frenzy is busy enough as it is, wihtout having to look back and take stock of things.

The year's barely even over! Give the body some time to cool!

That, and my year wasn't all that exiciting. Cetainly more of a gap-bridging year than anything else. Started grad school. Honed research ambitions. Bought a cat. Made a bunch of plans that are still in the planning stages, or were never going to be executed in the first place. But not a whole lot I can say that is Done.

Yet.

You'll be seeing some changes around these parts in a few weeks, assuming the impending start of classes doesn't get in the way too much. Like a new color scheme. And some potentially regular features (or regular updating, shmears.) And the birth of selectivememory.org.

So, plans. Yeah.

2003-12-13T13:08:00.000-06:00

I'm sure this is ancient news in the blog/newscycle, but I'm commenting on it anyway.

Good for you, Dick. You shot all those birds all by yourself. You know who else went on "hunting" expeditions of that ilk, where animals were essentially trapped/herded/otherwise drawn to an area for slaughter? Ceausescu. Not a good parallel, Dick. Not a good parallel at all.

2003-12-10T14:47:00.000-06:00

You know the end section of 2001: A Space Odyssey? Where Dave says, "My God, it's full of stars," and the camera zooms into his eye, and we all take a journey to a place where time and space become irrelevant, and only pure Meaning is all that exists, let alone matters?

That's what happened to me at the Low show. They started their initial drone, and the next thing I knew it was two hours later.

Then they cleared out the venue to have their Saturday-night house-DJ meatmarket. Way to recognize sanctity, folks.

2003-12-08T21:25:00.000-06:00

Getting Everything Done But What Needs to Be Done Most

Here I am. Writing a paper, supposedly, on "Pragmatic Theories of Media Literacy." It's due in approximately 36 hours, which means my stomach has dropped about two-thirds of the way down into the pits of gastro.

With any luck, it'll fall all the way through, climb the endless stair, and become-other; transforming itself from a gray mishmash of information into a pristine outlook on How Things Are.

Jeebus! Stop thinking about Lord of the Rings!

Hopefully that's out of my system for a while. I really wonder if I've developed some kind of physical addiction to the rush of chemicals brought on by the all-but-paralyzing sense of urgency brought on by waiting until minute fucking last to get something done. Come on over, draw my blood, and we'll see for sure.

At any rate, the paper's supposed to be ~2000 words, and I've hit the 2700 mark with still a number of sources to draw on. Time to add by subtracting.

Thirty-five hours, thirty-five minutes.

2003-12-06T03:01:00.000-06:00

Conspicious Consumption

Sometimes, things go well.

2003-11-25T18:52:00.000-06:00

Apparently, Indie Boys Love the Rap Music

I only have one (other) comment about Pitchfork's newest charticle, revising a top-albums-of-the-nineties list that they had already written four years ago. .

And that's, "aw shit, you did not just call Automatic For the People 'rococo!'"

Some things, you just have to get off your chest.

2003-11-22T22:41:00.000-06:00

Dear Diary

There's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their "discomfort" like a favorite shirt. I can't say I'm very pleased with where my life is just now....

But I can't help but look forward to where it's going.

I don't know for sure - maybe it's a seasonal affective thing - but every year around one of the winter months (sometime between now and march, pick one, or several), I get this creeping mixture of doubt and/or ennui. My remedy seems to be to refer to this quote. The fact that it speaks to me is bad enough, I suppose, considering it pigeonholes me right into that twentysomething-too-smart-for-his-own-good-whilst-unsure-of-how-to-apply-his-talents mode a young Turk goes through.

But the fact that's from a Jhonen Vasquez comic? geep.

That's it. I'm quitting school, and becoming the manager at a Hot Topic.

2003-11-19T15:23:00.000-06:00

Someday, I'll finally finish Cryptonomicon. With any luck, that day will be today, enabling me to move on with my life.

Or maybe just my blog.

2003-11-06T11:16:00.000-06:00

At last, the obligation's finally over

The path of the enlightened within the Matrix is a world where traditional rules don't apply to you. Rules governing space and time, strength - you name it, you can overcome it. Even the laws of gravity won't apply to you, if you choose not to let them.

It seems the only law you can't escape within the Matrix is the Law of Diminishing Returns. It seems a waste of time to go into further detail.

2003-10-22T20:38:00.000-05:00

I hope things are better for you now that you're somewhere else. Thank you for the trip from Galesburg to Albuquerque.

2003-10-19T21:37:00.000-05:00

So much for that idea

I'm back from homecoming, albeit without any pictures. Not to worry, however. Most of the pictures I would have taken would have been from the barstool I rocked all Friday night.

I am kicking myself for not having my camera when I took a trip through Alumni Hall, which is currently undergoing rennovations. Remarkable how fascinating a building can be when it's been closed off to you for the entirety of your tenure at school. It's going to look fantastique when all the work is done.

Which reminds me: Toby, donate to Knox. If you're not Toby, you should give Knox money anyway.

It's like Bruce Wayne said: "Give Knox a grant."

2003-10-17T14:04:00.000-05:00

Open plea for help

Can anyone recommend a good mp3-to-wav (and vice versa) converter? I have a bunch of stuff that I want to rip, but all that I've found are crappy shareware programs that are stupid-slow. Step up, peeps.

I'm going to Galesburg this weekend for homecoming. Maybe it'll provide me with fodder to actually generate some contact. At the very least, there might be pictures, now that I actually have a place to host files. Wish me a safe drive.

2003-10-05T22:28:00.000-05:00

and the chicago cubs will beat every team in the league
and the tampa bay bucs will make it the way to january
and i will love you again
i will love you, like i used to

-- Cubs in Five, The Mountain Goats

Holy crow. That song came out in nineteen-ninety-five. Forgive the gratuitous italics, but damn is that prescient.

2003-10-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

Never a Dull Weekend

The Sea and Cake tonight. Starlight Mints tomorrow night. And a furniture art show?The days are just packed.

2003-10-01T12:48:00.000-05:00

Doing Your Part

I got the following as an email from my sissa the other day. One of her friends is on writing a chapter, and my friend's sister is a section editor. If it's half as interesting as it sounds, it's going to be both huge and important.

Artists! Photographers! Troublemakers!

Submit visuals to a breakthrough new book

"HOW TO GET STUPID WHITE MEN OUT OF OFFICE"

(description below, book cover art attached)

Submit to: margaritagarcia@earthlink.net

Deadline: Friday October 10th!

We're looking for:
* Photos
* Film Stills
* Scanned Art
* Illustrations
* Cartoons
* Maps
* Drawings
* Flyers,
* Stickers
* Jokes

Think things that illustrate: progressive politics, multiracial movements, protest photos, youth movements, civil disobedience, political organization,effects of US foreign policy, effects of US domestic policy, Inner cities, suburb, 3 strikes laws, prisons, drug laws, environmental damage, environmental movements, people of color movements,
queer/lgbt movements, voting, voting rights, unions, hip-hop movements, working people's movements, issues that you
care about.

The book is a benefit for The League of Pissed Off Voters. No-one writer or visual artist is getting paid for their submission but is rather donating their art and getting published in a book that will blow up!
And, if we include your work, we’ll give you 3 free copies for each piece we include, and most importantly, you’ll
know you helped kick Bush out of office in 2004.

I've donated my art to Bomb the Suburbs and Another World is Possible -and it got me published in newspapers, magazines like The Source and allowed me to tell my family that my art has illustrated writing by Nobel Prize winning economists, Booker Prize winning authors and Angela Davis. My co-photo editor Sophia Eminence had so many great pictures in Another World is Possible (see www.anotherworldispossible.net) that we begged her to help us with the new book.

HOW TO SUBMIT
Send an emailable version to margaritagarcia@earthlink.net as a .pdf,.jpg, .gif,.psd by Friday October 10 with your contact information.

Make sure that if chosen, you can send a hi-res version (at least 200 dpi) OR that you can mail your submission to:

Margarita Garcia
5th floor
OgilvyInteractive
309 W. 49th street
NY, NY 10019

(Note: I can't return submissions, so please keep a copy for yourself!)

Margarita Garcia

-----
ABOUT THE BOOK:

TITLE: HOW TO GET STUPID WHITE MEN OUT OF OFFICE
PUBLISHER: Soft Skull/Subway & Elevated Press
PUB DATE: Jan 2004

The book is gonna be HUGE. Our publisher thinks its gonna be "the most important political book of 2004" and he’s printing 50,000 copies (our distributor PGW has a sales force of 50). It’s gonna get people organizing for the 2004 elections, and tell 18 case studies of young progressives "swinging" or WINNING elections.

***A 24-year-old woman in suburban Georgia who was elected to the State Legislature
*** Young Lakotas on a reservation in South Dakota who swung a Senate seat
*** College kids who elected Tammy Baldwin (first openly gay Congresswoman) in Wisconsin
*** Young Latinos in Chicago who beat the Daley machine
*** A 26-year-old Green house painter who became Mayor of New Paltz, NY.

CO-AUTHORS: William Upski Wimsatt (Bomb the Suburbs/No More Prisons); Piper Anderson (spoken word
artist/prison organizer); Adrienne Brown (hip-hop political organizer); Davey D (hip-hop DJ/journalist);
Lalo Alcaraz (Cartoonist/Pocho.com); Malia Lazu (electoral organizer).

PHOTO EDITORS: Margarita Garcia and Sophia Eminence

DESIGNER: Amy Woloszyn

Now, get to work.

2003-09-30T22:36:00.000-05:00

I love you, Little Chrissy. No matter what.

My car blew its water pump about a week ago, which means whenever I stopped the car, the poor girl would hemorrhage a puddle of coolant. One can only watch these little, shall we say, accidents for so long before being swept away by the need to do the Right Thing.

So off I went this morning. Waking up at six in the morning.

Right. I know. Bitch bitch bitch. But now my sleep schedule's completely off, and I have my first library paper due this Friday.

It's at this point that I should mention that digital libraries are a slippery slope, and any library moving to adopt one at the expense of their physical collection should proceed with extreme caution.

Okay, enough soapboxing. If you loved me, you'd buy me a copy of Pecker for my birthday. Yes, I know that's a combo-pack. But it's almost the same price as buying on on its own, and besides, Little Chrissy needs L'il Inez to pal around with.

2003-09-30T20:27:00.000-05:00

Unleash Your Inner Will Hunting

Back in my undergraduate days at Knox, I would make the drive down to Champaign to visit the girl. Depending on what time I arrived, I would often have to spend an hour or so reading or studying in the Library and Information Science Library, while she finished her shift as a checkout wench.

Whenever I finished the project at hand, or anytime boredom overtook me, I would compose these little death threats/missives from the LISLF, or the Library and Information Science Liberation Front. I would then hide them in books that had been left out or returned, so she would discover them when she made the shelving rounds.

Trust me, it was endearing.

At any rate, the mission of the LISLF was to free all information, past the bounds of walls and books and admission requirements. Unfortunately, they weren't very smart - the best thing they could come up with was to leave notes divulging plans to drop bookshelves on librarians (or "information jailers," as they often saw it).

Well, the LISLF had a rather significant victory today.

I give you MIT's OpenCourseWare.

In a nutshell, MIT has put information from five hundred courses ranging from linguistics to nuclear engineering online. Syllabi, lecture notes, exams, reading lists - it's all up there. The project hopes to serve as a model for other shared-resource databases (yes, it's searchable, too), and expanding to other schools and institutions.

First the Pixies getting back together, then the Red Sox making the playoffs, now this. It's a good time to be a Bostonite. Not that I am one, I'm sorry to say.

Because it's be cool to make the obligatory wicked pissah remark and get away with it.

2003-09-29T12:47:00.000-05:00

Beating back the forces of filth

My bedroom, for the first time in perhaps a year, is clean. Books: out from under the bed. Dishes: sitting in the sink. Laundry: done. All of it. Which, took about the entire day to do. Perhaps I should have vacuumed, but that should take all of five minutes, right?

Right.

In less trivial matters, there's a really interesting series going on in Salon regarding the regulatory issues surrounding electronic voting machines. Farhad Manjoo seems to be on to something, which frightens me to no end. It goes without saying that elections, now, then and forever, significantly alter the path(s) this country takes, and for manufacturers like Diebold to take such a cavalier attitude toward the integrity of their results is highly disconcerting. Manjoo has been covering this story since November of last year, and hopefully he will continue to do so. It's definitely worth getting a Salon daypass and checking out. You can read them (in reverse chronological order)
here, here, here, and here.

Hopefully this story will move into the public eye, and someone can put together a Qui Tam suit, or at least bring it under greater investigation.

2003-09-27T13:31:00.000-05:00

The Pushcart War

Downtown Albuquerque is quickly turning into a hot dog battleground. Rest assured that Selective Memory is on top of this story, and will keep you posted as updates emerge.

Oh, the carnage...

2003-09-27T13:02:00.000-05:00

Popping the Political Librarian Cherry

Good gravy, how I missed being in school. I'm writing again, I'm looking at things I've read in new ways, and I get to actually have discussions with people. (Sure, I have discussions with Jordan, too, but fresh blood is always nice.) I almost forgot what I was missing for a while.

I'd like to share with you the current piece making the message-board rounds. Granted, it's from the National Review, which is always a sign that things will be a little, how you say, skewed. (If you need further proof, simply look at the ads and slogans peppering the host site.)

Does that stereotype ("Librarians have recently let down their hair -- usually wrapped in a tight bun, of course") still exist? Maybe I'm just naive, or simply blinded by the variety of librarians that in interact with daily. But to resort to name-calling? Come on.

But I suppose name-calling is all Lowry really has, considering his seeming disdain for actual research. In the efforts of keeping this brief (and not slipping into a rant), I'll break this down into his three main points.

Libraries as havens for vagrants
Libraries are public spaces, federally- and taxpayer funded to serve the public, and like or not, the homeless population is a part of that. Whether or not these vagrants actually pay taxes, librarians - as caretakers of a public space - should have an obligation to treat them just like any other patron. These people have rights, and as long as they're not infinging on the rights of others (which should be the case for anyone), they have no reason not to be in a public space.

Libraries are havens for porn
Do you remember U.S. v. American Library Association, earlier this summer? Libraries are now required to have filters on all their computers, at the risk of losing federal funding. Granted, the people who made the filters refuse to release lists of blocked sites, and sites that skim content can also block sites on reproductive health, or inflamatory editorials that expound at length on pornography. But the filters are there, so that's really not much of an arguement.

USA Patriot has never been used on libraries
"Oh, hi, thanks for coming over for dinner. Oh, that, that's just the Sword of Damocles. Don't even give it a second thought. It's never been used, so it's clearly not a threat. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Eat, eat."
Does the fact that my library records might be siezed at any time give me second thoughts about the materials I check out? A little bit. They should also give you pause, Mr. Lowry, given how easy it is to distort small bits of context-free information.

Libraries are monuments to the (supposed) fact that information, and access to information, is an inalienable right. This goes beyond the Fourth and First ammendments, to simple common sense - the idea that we should use every source at our disposal to further our development as human beings, and global citizens.

But it seems that some people don't need libraries to help them with that. Who needs research, when you've got empty rhetoric, conjecture, and blind stereotyping at your disposal?

But then, I suppose that's what I should expect, considering the way blindly ideological right-wing pundits fuck babies. Just something that I heard.

2003-09-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

Because you never know

Dear Donald Rumsfeld,

I know I've been critical of your behavior in the past. Unchecked aggression, whether in the home or on the geopolitical battlefield, is never a safe move to make. This, coupled with efforts to downsize the military and constantly pursue the quick-fix solution simply screams false hubris to the world at large. Do you really want to be known as that kind of person - the one who makes myriad boastful statements, only to cockily storm into battle, weaknesses exposed?

Understand that I'm saying this as a pacifist, albeit one who understands the necessity of a military, but also the understanding that it should exist as a failsafe, to be employed when all other measures have been attempted and exhausted. I don't think we ever stopped to consider alternate channels.

I'm also saying this because North Korea just called you a psychopath. And when something like that happens, it's probbably a good time to

a) take a deep breath;

and b) reconsider one's current plan of action.

Warily,

Selective Memory

2003-09-22T23:49:00.000-05:00

Dipping Myself in the old Ketchup

If you went to Knox, and I don't have your non-@knox.edu email address, you should pass it along. I'm trying to do a better job at keeping up with people.

Just call me one of the luckiest people of all.

2003-09-21T21:55:00.000-05:00

Further Evidence for Evolutionary Theory

I saw Underworld tonight, and I'm wondering if Don DeLillo had any idea the filmmakers were going to be so liberal with the source material.

[goodnight, folks!]

But in all seriousness, vampires are stupid. The more I think about it, the vampires that live in the universe/mythology of this move are stupid.

Beware of somewhat minor spoilers. Not that you should care, because it's a bad movie, but I should put some kind of nominal warning in here.

The war between the vamps and the werewolves started when a werewolf fell in love with a vampire, which of course was forbidden, given the vampire's eroto-aristocratic obsession with blood purity and class distinctions. Oh, that's right. The werewolves are indentured servants to the vampires, serving as "daytime caretakers."

But werewolves can only assume werewolf form under the light of the full moon. Doesn't that render them useless during the day?

I recognize that in the movie, the werewolves have learned to control their change. But that adaptation wouldn't have happened until after the war began.

Morals of the story: Vampires are stupid, and I really shouldn't pay such close attention to shitty movies about nonexistent creatures.

2003-09-17T20:18:00.000-05:00

Dear The Essex Green,

Do you ever have issues with the name of the venue that you're set to play at on a given night? I saw your show on Monday at That Bar That I Refuse to Call by its Real Name Because to do so Would Give it Legitimacy, and I couldn't help but wonder about that. But then, I think about every time I go there. That, and how sad it often is that there's more people mooking it up on the patio than checking out the cool band inside.

But I digress.

I really enjoyed your show. It seems that you've come a long way since the last time I saw you, about four years ago. Great progression on your sound - more focused, more fun.

But allow me to posit a suggestion. Somewhere, deep down, your inner hootenany is begging to be set free. This three-minute-pop-song structure is crunchy and nice and all, but you could really throw down with the hoedown. You've got a flute, for the love of Sanford, and you only used it for the intros on three songs! I know *some* people have a stigma against the Ian Anderson estethic, but really. They're just a bunch of spoilsports.

Despite that minor greivance, thanks for coming out. You guys did a great job. Certainly better than Stars, but that might just be a matter of preference.

Thanks,
Selective Memory

2003-08-22T00:54:00.000-05:00

A Few Quick Notes, Then It's Off to Bed

I'm basically not going to have a minute of free time once school starts, and I have to juggle my two jobs, and be able to take advantage of the new law extending bar hours. Now I know what Diane Keaton went through in Baby Boom.

You're just like JonBenet. Only cuter. And alive." I think I'm the only person who's actually excited about seeing Marci X. Fret not, Libby Gelman-Waxner. Someday, you'll find a director better suited to your unique talents.

Why am I so drawn to works about lonely people? First May, then I find myself crying like a fool whilst reading Craig Thompson's Goodbye, Chunky Rice.

Speaking of heart-breaking, It breaks my heart when I see my cat trying to sharpen its non-existent claws on something. He's like the amputee that still feels their missing limb(s).

Yeah, that's all I got. Give me a break. I've been on my feet from 9 this morning until 11 tonight. Oh, bookrush. How you chafe me so.

2003-08-15T01:45:00.000-05:00

Oh, Kansas City

Air travel continues to get more and more absurd by the day. Check it: There I was, being herded through the airline security cattle chute/metal detector. And I'm watching as the sixty-plus-year-old attendants pursue conduct unbecoming with each and every youngish girl who passes through. I finally make my way through the gauntlet, only to see the attendant running the scanner making paranoid eyes toward the trenchcoated goth girl several places in line before me. They pull her aside, finding -horrors!- Nine Inch Nails CDs, while the girl, burrito in hand, composes herself into the body-language equivalent of "Whatever."

All the while, there's a baker's dozen of geriatric attendants off to the side, staring at this tableau whilst the check-in line bottlenecks further and further.

That, my friends, is your tax dollars at work.

Airport Securtiy: Making Real Life More Like High School.

2003-08-09T09:06:00.000-05:00

The Eternal Dilemma:

As you may know, the Illinois State Fair is currently underway, and with it comes a host of performers. Which brings me to this morning's quandry, which I hope ya'll be able to help me with.

Basically, it's like this. Ted Nugent plays on Monday. Boston plays on Wednesday. Which do I go to, for my proper butt-rock fix?

2003-07-22T23:17:00.000-05:00

Baby's First Visit to the County Fair

Fuck.

Those motherfuckers are tasty.

I should also probably mention the demolition derby. I won't attempt to compete with the definitive article on the subject (i.e., Grand Royal, Number 6), but I will make this observation: The more your car looks like the General Lee, the better your chances of winning it all. The car had two bent axles, and all kinds of steam/fluids emanating from the hood, but it still managed to outlast vehicle No. 5150. Kudos.

Deep-fried, obviously.

2003-07-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

Sad Day.

A van carrying the Exploding Hearts and their manager ran off the road in Oregon, killing their singer/guitarist, bassist, and drummer. Selective Memory would like to express their most sincere condolences to the friends and families of Matt Fitzgerald, Adam Cox, and Jeremy Gage. This band showed a lot of promise, as the levels of honesty and exuberance evident in their songs are largely missing from music lately, pop-punk or otherwise. They will be missed.

2003-07-17T19:04:00.000-05:00

Beating a Dead Horse

I know I said this two days ago already, but someone out there needs to see May, so I have someone to talk about with. I still can't fucking stop thinking about this film.
Things to consider, if you need further persuasion.

1. It's a black comedy. Blacker than black. The kind of film that can get a laugh out of a classroom full of blind children rolling around on broken glass. Like I said, it's black humor.

2. It's creepy. You saw my comment earlier. Within the first five minutes I was squirming, and didn't stop until well after I returned it to Blockbuster.

3. Underneath all that, it's inexorably fucking sad. Sadder than Six Feet Under sad, and not just because it's got Jeremy Sisto. And that's what's been sticking with me this whole time, and making me want to cry and cry and cry.

Please, someone rent this, and post on the talkback. I really want to know if this movie got to other people the way it got to me.

2003-07-16T01:14:00.000-05:00

Hot gossip, check it and see....

I know this is a little behind the news cycle, but I'm putting it up due to popular demand.

It seems that Radar Magazine has dug up some interesting dirt on MSNBC's favorite son, Michael Savage.

-but first...-
before I get into that, I have to interject something in response to Savage's mea culpa of "In no way did my comments reflect my views of disease and suffering in any way." If they don't reflect your views, then why did you say them at all? That's not really something that can be taken out of context. Crank caller or no, shame on you.
-back to the show...-

It seems that Mr. Weiner (a name that fits the bitter little hatemonger much more appropriately, if you ask me) once was good friends with Allen Ginsberg. That's right. Goood friends, at least in the extrapolatory Love Chain sense.

All of which, naturally, smells like a big embarassing public spectacle in the making. I suggets perhaps blowing up the letter as large as possible, and either picketing Mr. Savage's appearances with it, mailing copies of it to members of his Paul Revere Society, or putting it up on billboards near ones advertising his radio show. And that's just a start to the many things you could do.

Remember, kids: crafts are fun. Good night.

2003-07-16T00:56:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay, ok, ok. ok. ok. O.K.!?

I've got about four different pieces that I'm working on, several of which have been in peices for, oh, the past eight months or so. I started this blog with the intention of giving myself a venue with which I could whip off things quickly and with a minimum of editing. (After looking at some past postings, I notice that that latter part's most certainly true.)

For the record, I'm also taking that old quote (Picasso, was it?) that all artists have ten thousand bad works in them - it's just a matter of getting them all out as quickly as possible. However, all that other nonsense, such as laziness, or work, or just odd assortments of bullshit keep me unmotivated. But I've got stuff for you, I swear.

To tide you over, I've got a pair of endorsements to make:

The Exploding Hearts: Guitar Romantic

This album screams for a revival of The Young Ones, as I don't think there's a band working today that could use their sheer exuberance to simultaneously cure Neil's depression and destroy that house once and for all. I really don't think I can come up with stronger words of support, it's that kind of sugary funfest.

May
directed by Lucky McKee

Do you know that squirmy feeling you get when you're watching a movie, and you know there's going to be an uncomfortable part, but you don't want to stop watching, because you know there's some kind of payoff involved? May gave me that feeling for its entire ninety-five minute runtime. And the final payoff only served to creep me even more the fuck out. Daaaammmm.

One last thing for now, I almost forgot. I have a new phone number. If you've got my old one, just add 2,472,829 to it and you've got my new number. The area code is the same. Shit yeah, I'm sneaky like that.

2003-07-08T22:27:00.000-05:00

Confidential to Rob Cable: What is your new contact information? You didn't wreck the Winnebago en route to College Station, did you?

2003-06-24T21:01:00.000-05:00

Big Gray has a good point on his blog about the film critics on Salon, and their seeming inablitiy to have any fun. Cases in point: Charles Taylor's review of "The Hulk," and Stephanie Zacharek's review of "Finding Nemo." Too much of both reviews just feel reactionary for their own sake, as if to say "Ang Lee has brought some real gravity to the superhero genre," or "Pixar is bulletproof," runs them the risk of losing their membership to the Groundbreaking Journalist Club. Does Taylor really think "Hulk" panders to the NPR crowd? Hello, Chuck? Salon's readership is the NPR crowd.

Where's the love, guys? I saw both of these films, and I have to say that both of them, along with X2 are the placeholders in my interchangable-for-different-reasons Summer Movie Top Three. I'm going to be processing the meaning of "Hulk" in particular for a while now. Sure, it's like "The Ice Storm" or "The Celebration" with more smashing. But it's those elements - dealing with the issue of male rage, repression, and perhaps the familial 'curse' that make the smashing feel that much more intense.

I'm probably going to see the movie again sometime this week, so I might have to come back for a more cohesive arguement on this. No promises, tho.

2003-06-08T02:14:00.000-05:00

Congratulations, Knox College, class of 2003. Best of luck to everyone.

2003-06-06T17:04:00.000-05:00

The Alabama state quarter came out, featuring Helen Keller on the back. My friends and I always believed that Ms. Keller's first words weren't "water," but "fuck this shit, Anne Sullivan," because she realized just how many stupid people she'd have to deal with now that she could communicate.

2003-06-05T22:47:00.000-05:00

Oops, agian. I got it backwards. You really really want to see this ad. Now. Trust me. And check out the article, linked (twice, I know, I know) at the bottom.

2003-06-05T18:47:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I wasn't sure if the cage would be lighter or heavier when we walked out of the shelter. A silly thought, to be sure, but whatever would keep me focused on the actual drive there.

It doesn't seem like six pounds should make all that difference, but there's always the question of being weighted down by something else entirely. I never did get to find out, though, as they took the carrier with them - blanket and all - wondering out loud if I wanted a refund placed on my credit card.

Meep, our cat, got sick and had to be put down today. We had owned her for eleven days and we loved her very much.

2003-06-02T00:19:00.000-05:00

Heads up, True Believers. I need your help for a minute.

The girl and I just watch Minority Report again tonight, and as the ending credits started to roll, we were both beset by the same feeling of lingering doubt. "Wasn't there a line at the end about how, 'in the following year, there were x number of murders in Washington, D.C.?'"

Normally, I remember all sorts of lines that weren't actually there. Either they're from some other movie, or I said it at some point earlier in the day, or I just made it up and attributed it to a different source. (There is a reason this blog is called what it is, dear one.) But the fact that we both had that feeling of omission raises the flag higher. Does anyone else remember that line (or something of its ilk) being in the film? Inquiring minds must know about this seemingly odd piece of revisionist history.

2003-06-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

Extraordinary things that I witnessed last night:

The first one, easily, was Finding Nemo. I have no idea how Pixar does it, but every subsequent film they make manages to set the bar higher for animation. My friends and I kept craning our necks, trying to catch a glimpse of the world just beyond the screen. It's that gorgeous, and the script is fantastic. I won't go into too many details, but I'll just say that it made Albert Brooks seem like a sympathetic character.

Where that movie was a feat of computer-generated wizardry (okay, okay, and, script, and character, and all that fun stuff; I'm just trying to establish counterpoint here), this ad is all real. And it's spectacular. Make sure you have flash (6, I think), check it out, and then check out the accompanying article.

Somewhere, Rube Goldberg is crazy proud.

2003-05-29T00:33:00.000-05:00

Hey, Joe...

"...it is then that Larry McCaffery's theories on metafiction and intertextuality -- the mechanisms of postmodernism outlined in his seminal work of literary criticism, "The Metafictional Muse" -- come into play. If, as McCaffery argues, "we inhabit a world of fictions and are constantly forced to develop a variety of metaphors and subjective systems to help us organize ... experience," then metafiction is the pomo tonic for our time, a Derridean playfulness that "becomes a deliberate strategy used to provoke readers to critically examine all cultural codes and established patterns of thought[...]To get more specific, we're talking about "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law."

You don't see Salon articles about the Aqua Teens, now, do you?

2003-05-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

Two notes, then it's back to work:

1. That's Rentertainment is the bitchinest videostore this side of the Mississip. I just found me some Avalon, which is like that movie with Armin Mueller-Stahl and Aidan Quinn, except it's in Polish, and it's set in this bizarre dystopian virtual-reality futureworld. And Otesánek, because Jan Svankmajer rocks like only the criminally insane can rock.

2. The construction outside the store is just getting worse and worse. We just lost our sidewalk. I've dubbed it Bosnia Street.

2003-05-27T23:22:00.000-05:00

Where It's At

Projects on deck for the summer:

Getting an assistantship. Hire me, information desk.
Learning HTML. No more of this namby-pamby source code theft for me.
Databases, databases. For albums and comics. Movies is already done, if you'll look to your left.
Following press briefings more closely. More to come on this.
Getting through The Wind Waker.
Writing more. Blog-related and otherwise.

Ooh boy. Busy, busy, busy.

2003-05-21T23:36:00.000-05:00

Ooh, my blog. Look, it's got cobwebs all over it. Just like my soul.

I've got several new projects going at the moment, not the least of them being the continued search for an assistantship. I've got resumes, if you want them.

Hopefully I can make use of the memorial day weekend to actually get some writing done. Bloggish or otherwise.

Provided I can finally finish Ocarina of Time, of course. Fuck you, Ganondorf.

2003-04-23T23:57:00.000-05:00

So, my boss had her baby today. Eight pounds, nine ounces is a big baby, especially if you're five-foot-one.

As a result, I'm pro tempore manager on the ground floor of the old bookstore. Which, of course, means it's time for everyone and their (fraternity) brother to come out of the woodwork and ask me to do freaky custom orders for them. At a discount. To be ready in two hours. I've done some thirty-five shirts in the past two days. If you were planning on coming in, your order won't be ready until next Thrusday.

I'd probably be less miffed if the people placing the orders did something a little more creative beyond placing greek letters across the front/ass/crotch of whatever item they want lettered. So far, the only standout shirt that I've done this week was plain and simple: "Kaboom," in 4-inch lettering, across the front. As long as you're not talking about the cereal, I wholeheartedly support your statement.

2003-04-08T22:05:00.000-05:00

Some time ago, my sister and her friend Eloesa paid a visit to the duck pond at UNM. It's a nice little hangout, good for people-watching, and skipping classes (assuming you're a student and all).

Whilst eating their lunches, Eloesa noticed a duck with a broken wing, staggering about on the lawn.

"Oh my god, Sarah," she said. "That's like my life."

I've found the thing that's like my life. And that thing is Super Monkey Ball 2.

Imagine yourself trapped in your own surroundings, careening wildly in an effort to somehow tilt in the direction of the goal. Perhaps there's something in the way. Perhaps the floor drops out below you. Perhaps your speed is a little too breakneck.

Down you go. Plummeting into the abyss.

Do you find yourself back at the beginning? You bet your ass you do.

Additionally, there's monkeys. With boxing gloves.

2003-03-26T19:07:00.000-06:00

Wow. Where did March go? Time flies when you're waiting for The Wind Waker to come out.

Which I'm still doing, by the way. Confidental to Federal Express: your package tracking feature should include the option to ship to alternate addresses, especially when your main office is out in bumfuck nowhere. While I'm sure Zelda is worth the eight mile walk and all....you get the idea. If it's good enough for brown, it's good enough for you. Trust me.

Yeah, so looks like the warming temperatures will give rise to many B's. Like bugs! and bands! and bacceptance letters! from grad bschool!

Yep, I'm going to grad school. Thanks for asking.

But you were probably looking for some substantial information, so I'll list the upcoming month's worthwhile shows:

3.26 :: Boyracer/Kanda - IMC
3.28 :: Centaur/Mezzanines - Mike and Molly's
3.30 :: David Dondero/Jason Anderson - IMC
4.02 :: Beauty Shop - Highdive
4.03 :: Dirty Three - Highdive
4.09 :: Bob Log III - Highdive
4.13 :: Califone/Brokeback - Blind Pig
4.14 :: Mr. Lif - Highdive
4.14 :: Koufax/Damn Personals - Blind Pig
4.14 :: Q and Not U - IMC

...fuckety fuck fuck. Decisions decisions.
4.17 :: Vic Chestnut/M Ward - Blind Pig
4.18 :: Buzzards - Brass Rail
4.24 :: Menthol - Blind Pig
4.28 :: Trans Am - Blind Pig
5.01 :: Andrew Bird - Blind Pig
5.04 :: Flaming Lips - Canopy

that's right. I got my tickets!

I'll provide a more detailed update later on. It's been difficult to bring myself to post anything, just because I feel like I haven't had any new thoughts on the war since it started, other than it's really wiping me out. C'est la vie.

2003-03-17T14:05:00.000-06:00

"It's like Sodom and Begorrah out there."
-Jordan, regarding the chaos that is Unofficial St. Patrick's Day on campus

2003-03-06T13:45:00.000-06:00

Rock'n! Apparently I'm not the only one who saw the "regime change"-"nation-building" fallacy, as posted on 25 February.

Check out Robert Scheer's editorial in Salon.

Come on, press people! Keep the meme alive!

2003-03-02T00:44:00.000-06:00

Aaaaaahhhh!

In case you couldn't tell, that's me screaming/sqealing like a little girl.

Kickin' live music news just abounds tonight.

We went to karaoke night yesterday, and these guys who kept hitting on Jordan (although I'll forgive, seeing as 1. one of them did a kickin' version of Prince's "Kiss," and 2. everyone was hitting on Jordan last night) let it slip that both Spoon and the Flaming Lips are coming round these parts.

So I do some quick research. The Lips are playing 4 May at the Canopy. No confirmation on the Spoon show yet, although they are playing 29 March in Bloomington, IN. Anyone feel like taking a little road trip?

2003-03-01T13:16:00.000-06:00

While I have no desire to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, I am intrigued by their choice for villian, the Terminator-X. Does this mean that future installments of the franchise will have Arnold facing off with other members of Public Enemy?

If so, consider my ass ready for the one where he squares off with Flavor Flav.

Additionally, on the subject of movies, you all need to sign up for my Oscar pool. If I didn't send you an email, let me know, and I'll get you invited. We've got a month to talk a lot of trash about the impending awards. Oh, and there's going to be prizes. And a trophy. It's gonna rule.

2003-02-28T20:35:00.000-06:00

Joe, I bought Iron & Wine today. You better have given good rec.

2003-02-27T00:46:00.000-06:00

Holy crow.

I've been out of college radio since June - plenty of time to sever the ties, gain some perspective, recognize that college radio, not to mention college, is not the only thing. This seemed pertinent, especially considering my CMJ fiasco. Check the 25 February entry, and see how these things just keep getting bigger. Seems that this kind of thing is going to occur on an annual basis.

It seemed innocous enough. Opening a retail section, albeit one with little congruence to the world of college radio, neither to its spirit, or in the literal sense. People like John Rosenfelder getting cover articles in the CMJ New Music Report, or other promotions people condescendingly telling college DJs to "wise up!" seems like only the beginning of the plan. The above linked article should elucidate much of the rest.

Grrr. This pisses me off. I mean, really pisses me off. This Boyle guy, based on my limited experience (the aforementioned email exchange, and a threatening phone conversation - "Toby, if you're ever planning to go anywhere in the music industry, don't expect any favors from me. You've burned your bridge here." - that to this day I wish I had taped), is a real pill. And it seems like he's been doing this for far too long to too many people. I recognize that the music industry is by far the sleaziest of the entertainment industries, but come on, college radio? It's supposed to be both a training ground and a venue for experimentation at one of its basest levels. And this is even considering all the bouts of dead air, discussions of the previous night's debauchery, inside jokes to the peeps in the dorm, and "um...uhh"s.

For fuck's sake, you people and your money.

I need to figure out how to do something here, as I'm feeling rather powerless in my postgraduate limbo. Any suggestions? Please, holla back.

In more positive news, I finally got 100% completion on Metroid Prime. I rule.

2003-02-25T13:54:00.000-06:00

Food for thought: Will the strategies that Bush employed to gain the presidency come back to haunt him in 2004?

Example: Exactly how different is the concept of "regime change" from that of "nation-building," the term he bandied about so mercilessly in the second debate with Gore? Or how about "fuzzy math" - fuzzy, perhaps like treating a tax refund advance as a tax credit, and playing "maybe they won't notice?"

Just something that sprang to mind. Hopefully I won't be the only one.

In the meantime, more and more news items continue to depress me on a daily basis.

2003-02-14T16:57:00.000-06:00

Let's just put it out on the table: Matt is a golden god. If the page gets updated, make sure you read the 13 February 2003 entry to see what I'm talking about.

Damn the man.

Save the empire.