November 30, 1999
Effin' A, I'm sick.
Effin' A, I'm sick.
Indirectly via bovine inversus, a brilliant - and looong - comic called The Guy I Almost Was.
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November 29, 1999
I declare today a
I declare today a day of DOH!.
Yesterday, I resolved not to buy anything I saw advertised until Boxer's day. Today I stumbled on GreaterGood.com (via the hunger site), which apparently links to oodles of online stores and donates 5% of the price of what you buy to the partnering charity of your choice. Pretty cool, eh? The beauty of it is that I don't pay any more than I would've normally. Dunno if it's a scam or what - if you try it out, let me know.
Life lesson: don't order presents for yourself a week before your birthday. My Pokemon Pikachu finally arrived in the mail, redundant now of course - a deeper irony being that they're currently out of stock at eToys, so some poor kid will be disappointed this holiday season because of my impetuous consumerism.
In other news - someone suggested the Salon article on cyberslacking, which criticizes the recent Newsweek report citing billions of dollars in lost productivity caused by internet use at work -
...no more than a tiny portion of Newsweek's readers would feel the tiniest trace of sympathy for the grim-faced managers explaining how employees were robbing them of time that was rightfully theirs. Plenty of these employees are probably squeezing a few personal errands into a 60-hour work week.Well, sure, lots of surfers are probably just trying to squeeze in a few quick errands between dropping the kids off at daycare and getting a week-overdue report in to the boss. But lots of you are just slackers! I should know. I can hear this little ol' server thrashing away on weekday mornings.
Jon Stewart Rules My Face!! A lively fansite dedicated to my favorite smarmy Jew-boy. Here's a chapter from his new book, Nak*d Pictures of Famous People. The * is to foil search engines. Oh yeah, and the charming Anni's archives. (via the Jon Stewart Estrogen Brigade) More on this subject than you will ever want to know.
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November 28, 1999
Just came back from
Just came back from Vancouver, BC, to a city gone bonkers over this WT0 fiasco (via Adbusters). The traffic delays will be worsened by all these impending protests, but Adbusters are a pet organization of mine, self-righteous preeners though they may be, so I guess I shall have to suck it up and hope that most of the Canadians stay the hell away:
a conviction in the United States for protest activities can have serious consequences for non-citizens including deportation, or exclusion the next time the person wants to enter the United States.
While walking past the Gap this afternoon, I picked up a couple leaflets that made my blood boil. They claim that - above and beyond their well-known involvement in human rights violations in many countries - the billionaire family that owns Gap Inc. is also clearcutting "the very last old growth redwoods in Greenwood Creek in Mendocino, California." The leaflet's conclusion: boycott the Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic (all owned by Gap Inc.).
Asian women are prime targets of sweatshop exploitation, and yet so many of us (within the 18-34 age cohort) compulsively frequent the very stores mentioned above. Why betray our own? Well, for one thing, those new pastel cashmere accessories are so incredibly warm and comfy.... But seriously, Jean Kilbourne's new anti-advertising book, Deadly Persuasion has some compelling theories about how advertising aims to develop our relationships to things, pointing out plentiful instances where material posessions are marketed as more nurturing and steadfast than the people in our lives....
A. says I'm suffering from white liberal guilt. "Quite a feat, since you aren't white." Tee hee!
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November 27, 1999
Tomorrow I turn 22.
Tomorrow I turn 22. Christ. I am also noticeably less spry than I was a year ago, more prone to spraining something while trying to get my shoes on in the morning or ducking under an inconvenient fence. However, I don't think my advanced age disqualifies me from ruling the world or at least trying to. Over the past year I:
And next year I hope to:got a better internet connection & this domain name published my first few critical reviews in a national magazine (albeit one of limited repute) got my driver's license made pots of money, which I promptly spent on food and clothes
eat lots of whole grains and veggies take a brisk walk most mornings before work write!!! (creatively, that is) save a certain percentage of my income read more poetry, and attempt to "get into" poetry criticism and/or the pages of rain taxi
zinezone.com harbors a bewildering geegaw-wannabe.
Ok, I'll bite. Cute dig at fin-de-siecle toxicity. buy nothing day 99 (F)
-Do I need it?Thanksgiving day (Th)
-How many do I already have?
-How much will I use it?
-How long will it last?
-Could I borrow it from a friend or family member?
-Can I do without it?
-Am I able to clean, lubricate and/or maintain it myself?
-Am I willing to?
-Will I be able to repair it?
-Have I researched it to get the best quality for the best price?
-How will I dispose of it when I'm done using it?
-Are the resources that went into it renewable or nonrenewable?
-Is it made or recycled materials, and is it recyclable?
-Is there anything that I already own that I could substitute for it?
Health 'n Hacks is an intriguing, new-ish blog with a focus on those sorts of psuedoscience-y studies conducted by dieticians that always seem to contradict each other; the kind I always pay attention to, even though I know in a year they'll be proven wrong.
Nora found some found poetry on Amazon: a review by a reader claiming to be from Istanbul.
If you want to read the world from the hands of a mad man. Hölderlin, a mad man, a heart full of love and patience, is writing to truth about it. You can feel the air of darkness, the blindness of humanbeings. The traditional loneliness comes after him, but pure and without the pain. The only pain in Hölderlin is to live.
What is it about the broken cadences of Turkish-inflected English that charms us so? Maybe the Mahir-philes can explain it.
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November 24, 1999
I like this (from
I like this (from the "say anything" machine):=there's more to poetry than vendler, i mean, reading her review, you see how she admits her own temperamental biases, and if everyone fears her, then we risk letting her temperament overwhelm our own.I guess that depends on whether everyone fears her opinion (as a measure of creative worth) or her power; I met someone who was desperately worried about talking to her, not for fear of her disliking his work so much as for fear of her seeing him as a sycophant (his name does not begin with S, for those who are wondering) -
"From where does her power derive but her opinion?" Hmm. Lots of people have opinions, and that gives them power insofar as they can hurt the fragile egos of many artists. On the other hand, people actively look to her to help them figure out who is and isn't promising. She's earned this power, and yes it does derive from the quality and sensitivity of her opinions, but it's a qualitatively different kind of power.
Slate has the end of Esthétique du Mal.
Via rw, a creepy list of reasons to use eCrush:
You Are Seeing Someone Else and Have to Be Discreet
This also applies obviously, when you are married. According to a recent survey, 4 out of 5 cheaters prefer eCRUSH.
Got my first PDA yesterday, the PalmOS-based Visor from Handspring. For someone with my patchy memory, it is a godsend. I no longer need to get up from the sofa in order to find out whether I have any morning meetings tomorrow. Unfortunately I don't know anyone I can beam data to, except for the nice Rumanian gadgeteer across the hall. And he has Tetris, so if I talk to him I'll never get any work done.
[later] Now I have Tetris! F*ck!
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November 23, 1999
Helen Vendler is a
Helen Vendler is a poetry critic with the power of life or death in her hand. She graduated from a terrible (by her own account) college in the middle of nowhere with a degree in Chemistry*, then took the GRE in English and got perfect scores. She got her Ph.D. from Harvard at a time when women weren't even allowed inside many of its libraries (including the one that has the poetry collection). She singlehandedly made Jorie Graham's reputation. Everyone is afraid of her. I want to be her.
My, you robotwisdom readers are a smart alecky-bunch. More than half of today's responses from the feedback box (above) just say "anything." Feh.
Our 4th anniversary tonight, so there will be relatively little journaling.
* chemistry is not a terrible science, but it is terribly unrelated to poetry isn't it.
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November 22, 1999
Been reading through Pocket
Been reading through Pocket Pikachu Diaries on the web: chronicles of the writers' relationships with their virtual pets - I'm about to order one myself, from eToys.com. Anyway, here's one heart-rending account of a little machine's death; you can follow a link to the beginning of the diary and the owner's first few exhilarating days with her new friend.... Ah, well, if I can't find one I can always splurge on the new Nintendo64 game Pikachu Genki Dechu.
I really like this media literacy page, apparently aimed at teens.
Now that I'm running the memory-hogging NT5 ("Win2K") beta at work, my machine is still compiling when I get back from lunch. I'm also insanely behind on my work (hence Friday's escape fantasies) - the combination of the two may indicate a transition to this becoming a perfunctory weblog typically updated ~4pm EST.
Where did the weekend go? In exchange for all that strenuous
pursuit of happiness, I have only the flimsiest patchwork of memories.
Ended up watching A Merry
War (
), an enjoyable, so-called romantic
comedy about a promising but thoroughly unlikeable poet, played by Richard
E. Grant, who quits his job as an advertising copywriter to play snakes
'n' ladders with the British class system. At the end (SPOILERS) he's been
railroaded into a comfortable middle-class lifestyle and is apparently
quite happy with it - hard for me to believe, but good to hope for.
Salon's preponderance of broken links is bizarre. Obviously someone is using the wrong text editor... anyway, this AP story, Taiwan ad uses cartoon Hitler, is a little one-sided.
Johannes Goeth of the German Trade Office in Taipei said the advertisement didn't surprise them because he often encounters Taiwanese who admire Hitler and lack a deep understanding of European history. [...] When asked if anything struck them about the poster, some of the Taiwanese just shrugged or laughed.
No further comment...
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November 19, 1999
The Microsoft career assessment
The Microsoft career assessment tool, which seems to break on IE5 but work on Netscape, tells me I'm best off as a computer programmer (second choice: multimedia developer), but I can't help but feel like running off to be a self-employed accountant and/or part-time lepidopterist. Someday!
In the meantime, I guess I can learn to Write Unmaintainable Code (via memepool via davidchess):
27. C compilers transform myArray[i] into *(myArray + i), which is equivalent to *(i + myArray) which is equivalent to i[myArray]. Experts know to put this to good use.
Ha! Just finished For a Change, Dan "dfan" Schmidt's text adventure with a slight, acknowledged nod to the Ben Marcus (the player gets a "guidebook" with which to look up the uses of the mysteriously named objects). To be honest, this is the first IF game I've ever gotten to the end of, and it was only with the help of the liberal hints provided by the game... too bad, since I'd really love to try to write one someday, heh, just to rev up my dying creative motors, in a way that might sidestep the monster of OH MY GOD I SUCK.
Anyway, For a Change seems to point out just how much work it is, maybe even futile (unappreciated), to be poetic or literary in a computer game. The easiest thing to do is to build on books with a definite method like the works of the Ou Li Po; the second easiest, to build on stories with a clear-cut "puzzle" mentality, ideally with lots of winding tunnels and forbidding blocked entrances, maybe something by Kafka. Although in terms of fun and playability, Daniel Pinkwater's universe beats all known contenders.
Best Ben Marcus review I've seen so far - appreciative but unpretentious - by a Mr. Jerry Bass, who seems to write primarily on poetry and does so in an endearingly precise, stilted manner. From his review of a biography of Auden:
Nietzsche said that there are no facts, only interpretations, and Davenport-Hines invariably emphasizes the positive. Auden's slovenliness and disgusting habits (most repugnant of all, he picked and ate his snot in front of others) somehow emerge as charming eccentricities. His obsessive scheduling explains his literary productivity rather than indicating a rigid personality. Promiscuously sleeping with young men on two continents (sometimes paid, sometimes not) and the occasional woman does not describe a person trading on fame but is recounted as a neutral observation.
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November 18, 1999
Votes on the FAQ
Votes on the FAQ are currently split exactly down the middle - in fact, many of you voted twice, yes and no. What's with that? Anyway, the only question I got was about where all my images come from. The answer's here. There will be no FAQ :)
More on commitment issues: an anti-marriage rant (Salon.com), a battery of relationship personality tests (satisfaction, neediness, communication skills, arguing style, jealousy), ...
I dated a s*x addict I met on the Internet:
Well I thought I loved this man and since we did it every day for fifteen days straight, I really doubted he'd want to stray on me.
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November 17, 1999
This WinCE security hole
This WinCE security hole is about the dumbest thing I ever heard. WinCE ships with CryptoAPI, dunnit? Then, er, why? I could name a bunch of other companies that do the exact same thing, and I bet we could all name a bunch of people who could name a bigger bunch than li'l ol' me, and you may well be one of them (dear reader). Well, if you aren't, start poking around in your registry, and see if it doesn't want to make you want to shoot yourself.
(meta) Blogging every night is rather like stone soup. At the beginning it's like, "I have nothing! We'll starve!" And then there's this one link, oh wait, I think I remember hearing something similar to that at lunch, let me do an altavista search on the guy's name, whoa - coincidence. Two links? That's all? Let's see what Jorn is up to. Oh, here's a link he must have overlooked. And so on. (/meta)
Someone suggested urgent.com. I guess it's funny. Didja notice that standoffish.com is still up for grabs? Get it quick, before A. does.
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November 16, 1999
Via Choking on Pitas:
Via Choking on Pitas: Mary Chen, a very individual girl (check out her Girl Code essay & its sequel); also this ineffable, incredibly disturbing piece of work.
A nice--if kind of personal--review of overlooked, great American novelist Richard Yates:
To write so well and then to be forgotten is a terrifying legacy. Eventually the books will make it back in print, just as Faulkner?s and Fitzgerald?s did, and Yates will take his place in the American canon. How this will come about it?s impossible to say.
Yates's most famous novel, Revolutionary Road, was a brilliant tragedy--I recommend it wholeheartedly--even though it's chilling to me, for many of the same reasons as this Salon interview with an apparently nihilistic couples therapist:
Most married couples are involved in a pretense of love, a mutual pact of self-deception, that other people -- including many therapists -- are reluctant to address. Intense anxiety and rage are aroused in both partners when their pretense or illusion of love is challenged. Most people can only tolerate affection, love and respect in fantasy.
As if to make things even worse, Mike Leigh's nerve-wracking drama Naked's playing on cable right now, spurring a craving for multiple CDs full of overwrought cello music, causing me to feel absolutely alienated from all men, even the cutest ones, even though I know it's just the awkward/choking/tentative result of actors thrown before a camera without a script. I'm ever so glad that my life lacks drama and that my day-to-day emotions are bounded by the narrow triangle of tenderness, ennui, and stress, ... even though it leaves me with absolutely nothing to say much of the time.
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November 15, 1999
Been thinking about how
Been thinking about how Dictionary of the Khazars really ought to have been clickable and, conversely, how Geoff Ryman's hypertext novel 253 got so much more press than his earlier, better work. I hope the manufacturers of eBooks of the future realize the value of the eBook lies not in imitating the paper experience, but in computer-ish features: customizability, interactivity, and the performance of rote tasks -- in particular, annotations/markup, cross-reference, search, sort, statistical analysis, etc.
With my perfect eBook (or a slight upgrade of the closest approximation to date) I should be able to scribble an entire novel in the margins of Swann's Way. Grep, sort, and uniq should be built-in; I should be able to write scripts that can digest my comments, upload them to the web, compare them against the ideas of others, use Markov models to dabble in recognizing and "writing" superficially Proust-like prose, and parse for patterns in the grammatical structure of the writing itself.
You think that's not important? Recall that one of Helen Vendler's superb close readings of Shakespeare's sonnets revolves around the frequency of the letter v. Think of the damage we could wreak upon the surface of literature, forcing it to surrender up some of the secrets of its still largely inexplicable mojo....
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November 14, 1999
Oh, my god! It's
Oh, my god! It's sunny! I'm going out to play in the big blue room with a golden ball in it.
(2 hrs later) The big, foggy, freezing blue room. Brr. Screwit.
Meanwhile A. has been laughing his head off about this screen shot from the Interface Hall of Shame. Also, someone suggested that I link to Medianstrip (webzine)... oh, that old (& wildly inconsistent) thing? You should've seen it two years ago, back when it was being updated daily.
Read most of the Complete Dorothy Parker stories today: shallow, nihilistic, depressing, without the slightest hope of redemption for any of their characters Parker seems to believe that, throughout the ages, all couples have had one of two types of relationship: either a loveless and constant bickering, or the woman's desperate, obsessive clinging to the man she can't live without (if not both). But her stories still have their own mysterious, mordant appeal, in no small part due to the inviting gloss of simply good writing.
On the other end of the spectrum: tonight's X-Files episode, where Mulder hallucinates that he's turned into what appears to be an Oompa-Loompa, a side-effect of being infected two years ago with an alien virus. What tripe! I won't even try to explain the shots of tinny spaceships swarming over the wreckage of apartment buildings, or Mulder lying naked in bed with handcuffs....
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November 13, 1999
Apparently Poké-men can't say
Apparently Poké-men can't say anything except their own names: "hopelessly egocentric," according to Raymond Smullyan's made-up world of birds. Looking for a page that would explain the nature of the puzzles Smullyan posed, I found a long source file with the answers in Prolog.
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November 12, 1999
Mail roundup today. I
My, but the 5 of you who answered the job poll are a libertarian bunch. Three of you would balk only at working for the tobacco industry, and the rest would take any of the jobs listed. I'm still countin' the votes, so if you ride a moral high horse please feel free to gallop up to the ol' voting booth.
Mr. Perry (Alamut) has suggested 2
more pre-1976 meme-ish books --
-- in addition to (in today's entry) coining the apparent neologism "the human meme-ome." I love it! Read the remainder for yourself.
Also in my mailbox recently: Bovine Inversus has moved to www.bovineinversus.com. A Mr. Steve Cook recommends acclaimed poet Yusef Komunyakaa, while an anonymous reader recommends the suspicious-sounding Age of Spiritual Machines....
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November 11, 1999
The irresistible urge to
The irresistible urge to pick lint off my sweater, sit in my office sipping yogurt drinks, and bide my time until I can catch Pokemon the Movie tomorrow night (site seems to be dying under heavy traffic)... oh, the utter bliss of self-abandonment implicit in the phrase "Pikachu's Vacation."
November is the worst. Everyone on the street seems to be either crying or laughing hysterically. I realize it's a trick of the (weak, watery) light, but still. If you're as down as the people I talk to on the bus, this amazing page may cheer you up: "Selected pages from the Metamorphosis: color 'n' fun book." (And he likes Lyonel Feininger-- unbelievable!)
This eCave publicity stunt is a real gyp:
...two volunteers, living in virtually empty apartments, with only a computer and a $500 daily stipend to get them by."Getting by" on $500 a day? That's a yearly salary of approx. $250,000 before taxes. The press releases seem to be approaching this in the great American tradition of pitting man vs. the cold, forbidding universe--but the objective here is clearly not privation. Their painfully banal "buying logs" are just more frantic knee-jerk consumption for folks to emulate.
I'll take Nasubi (the comedian from Denpa Shonen) over this pair of sellouts any day. Naked and eating dog food--that's credibility.
Oh yeah, the gruesome/tawdry 400+ squirrels killed in meat grinder story (rebeccablood), which I held off on posting for as long as I could.
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November 10, 1999
Ack, I'm so tired,
A poll: which of the following jobs do you consider to be beneath you, morally speaking? Let's say they're willing to pay you 100 grand a year.