the circus is keeping me busy, and there's not much to tell. I don't have my scanner or my graphics tablet, so the daily drawings have stopped too. This is a tragic state of affairs, and as soon as I can remedy it (by buying a new graphics pen) it shall be remedied. In the meantime, it's high time for an update.
I am learning. This week I'm paired with this guy who doesn't talk at all in his act. Which means I had to MC an entire 45-minute show, and do all the talking acts (including club and ball juggling). My patter is about as fresh as the cancerous muskrat that fell into the well three weeks ago. But it's mostly good enough for the younglings, and I'm learning what I need to improve.
I want to do a fire sword fight. Ricky, I'm talking to you. We need to get flamingswordfights.gay off the ground and into the airy dew-speckled dreamSky.
I tried to buy food today. That is to say, I succeeded in buying food, brought it home to Clown Haüs, and discovered that there is no room in the refrigerator. There is a towering, haphazardly stacked cityscape of leftovers that brings to mind a cyberpunk neo-York slum, complete with unexplained colorful oozes and territorial scrawl unintelligably Sharpied on the walls. There are three containers of cucumber dip. When I try to comprehend this or its possible explanations, my neocortex simply shuts down.
Neeeeoooocorrrteeeexx.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
There are no visual words in this.
Sheldon DeLoach had never played basketball before. Nevertheless, he stepped onto the court prepared to do his best, and confident that he could succeed at anything he put his mind to and eager to defend his honor in the heartless arena of before-school one-on-one.
Martel Guapo had also never played basketball before. But he had a name that meant "the Handsome Hammer," which is really difficult to top. The bets were taken, the court arranged.
The ball went up. It should have come down and been snatched by the grubby, unskilled fingers of one of the two boys, launching a riveting game of fumbling, rolling basketball in the 7 am mists. The other kids should have cheered as the hopeless lads bungled shot after painfully easy shot. All this and more would have unfolded that day, if only Martel Guapo had closed the garden gate.
Alas, Martel Guapo had not closed the garden gate, and so had been followed all the way down to the school by the enormous lizard who had taken up residence beside his mother's parsley. Thus, as the ball came down it was snatched not by Sheldon and not by Martel, but rather by a joyful airborne predatory reptile. The beast sailed across the court, hit the ground, and savaged the rubbery sphere in ways that would almost certainly have traumatized the surrounding middle-schoolers had the ball possessed innards, guts, or other such gore-covered tasties. The carnivore lizard, who had been expecting no less, was quite put out.
Children screamed. The lizard panicked. These events, as they continued, formed what a Thinking Person might call a positive feedback loop. Sheldon DeLoach did so in his head -he was an intelligent lad- as he watched children and lizard whip one another into an elaborate frenzy of shrieking and flailing adolescent/reptilian abandon. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that the panicking lizard dropped the ball and ran.
What did come as a surprise, particularly to a certain Marian Brubbles, who held the second clarinet seat in the middle school band, was that the lizard dropped the ball and ran toward her. It hit her at the knee-caps, and sent her face-first into the asphalt before vanishing into the woods. She chipped a tooth, and after the full story came out later that day, vowed never to speak to Martel Guapo again. Had there been no lizard incident that day, things might have turned out differently between them. In fact I can say with the greatest assurance that they would have lived happily ever after, somewhere in the Netherlands. But they will never know.
And that is why basketball has been banned from the county of Hamshap since 1987.
Martel Guapo had also never played basketball before. But he had a name that meant "the Handsome Hammer," which is really difficult to top. The bets were taken, the court arranged.
The ball went up. It should have come down and been snatched by the grubby, unskilled fingers of one of the two boys, launching a riveting game of fumbling, rolling basketball in the 7 am mists. The other kids should have cheered as the hopeless lads bungled shot after painfully easy shot. All this and more would have unfolded that day, if only Martel Guapo had closed the garden gate.
Alas, Martel Guapo had not closed the garden gate, and so had been followed all the way down to the school by the enormous lizard who had taken up residence beside his mother's parsley. Thus, as the ball came down it was snatched not by Sheldon and not by Martel, but rather by a joyful airborne predatory reptile. The beast sailed across the court, hit the ground, and savaged the rubbery sphere in ways that would almost certainly have traumatized the surrounding middle-schoolers had the ball possessed innards, guts, or other such gore-covered tasties. The carnivore lizard, who had been expecting no less, was quite put out.
Children screamed. The lizard panicked. These events, as they continued, formed what a Thinking Person might call a positive feedback loop. Sheldon DeLoach did so in his head -he was an intelligent lad- as he watched children and lizard whip one another into an elaborate frenzy of shrieking and flailing adolescent/reptilian abandon. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that the panicking lizard dropped the ball and ran.
What did come as a surprise, particularly to a certain Marian Brubbles, who held the second clarinet seat in the middle school band, was that the lizard dropped the ball and ran toward her. It hit her at the knee-caps, and sent her face-first into the asphalt before vanishing into the woods. She chipped a tooth, and after the full story came out later that day, vowed never to speak to Martel Guapo again. Had there been no lizard incident that day, things might have turned out differently between them. In fact I can say with the greatest assurance that they would have lived happily ever after, somewhere in the Netherlands. But they will never know.
And that is why basketball has been banned from the county of Hamshap since 1987.
Monday, March 17, 2008
snakes driven from ireland
Ricky had the stupendous idea of watching Boondock Saints and drinking Guinness. It went well. I would rather have been covered in green body paint and surrounded by celebratory naked people with lots of piercings, but we can't have everything, now can we?
I can't seem to get .swf files to embed properly, so this madness too will have to be linked. The nonsense that can be accomplished within 10 minutes of sitting down at the computer never ceases to amaze.
I can't seem to get .swf files to embed properly, so this madness too will have to be linked. The nonsense that can be accomplished within 10 minutes of sitting down at the computer never ceases to amaze.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
hambone. bone from a ham.
First week of the circus job:
I have to get a lot better at a lot of things, a lot fast. But I basically knew that. It's like I'll be putting on a Barefoot Monkey show every week, with only one other person. That means there's no reliance on lines of choreographed moves to fall back on, just patter, music, and dazzling arrays of circus savvy. I've got to expand(refine) my music library, get at least a few acts solidly choreographed, memorized and performable, and of course learn to teach and control a gym full of 80 or more screaming children.
And it's that last part that's the hardest. All the circus skills are things that need to be personally taught, and yet my job is to teach five different grade levels five different skill levels, tailored to their cognitive and motor development, culminating in a show put on by the fifth-graders at the end of the week. I have to make a show, with discrete acts and spotlighting every kid in the fifth grade, in five days. Really challenging, but really rewarding when you pull it off.
The biggest difference between this and anything else I've ever done: you can't miss a day. Calling in sick, or really bungling a week, or even an act, can make a huge difference for these kids. I'll be putting these things together every week, but they only get to do it once, and most of them are incredibly excited to get the chance do spin a diabolo (or whatever) in front of their parents.
Thankfully the company doesn't completely throw me in unprepared. They're professionals, and they're only pairing me with people who've been in the business for a while, so they can pick up the slack while I learn the ropes. Ha. Two rope metaphors in one sentence. Continuity reigns!
The bottom line is this: its a professional performance job, and a professional teaching job, and I'm not QUITE qualified for either. But I'm being given the chance to work my ass off and get there, to work with international-level performers and getter done. I'm incredibly lucky to have landed it.
I have to get a lot better at a lot of things, a lot fast. But I basically knew that. It's like I'll be putting on a Barefoot Monkey show every week, with only one other person. That means there's no reliance on lines of choreographed moves to fall back on, just patter, music, and dazzling arrays of circus savvy. I've got to expand(refine) my music library, get at least a few acts solidly choreographed, memorized and performable, and of course learn to teach and control a gym full of 80 or more screaming children.
And it's that last part that's the hardest. All the circus skills are things that need to be personally taught, and yet my job is to teach five different grade levels five different skill levels, tailored to their cognitive and motor development, culminating in a show put on by the fifth-graders at the end of the week. I have to make a show, with discrete acts and spotlighting every kid in the fifth grade, in five days. Really challenging, but really rewarding when you pull it off.
The biggest difference between this and anything else I've ever done: you can't miss a day. Calling in sick, or really bungling a week, or even an act, can make a huge difference for these kids. I'll be putting these things together every week, but they only get to do it once, and most of them are incredibly excited to get the chance do spin a diabolo (or whatever) in front of their parents.
Thankfully the company doesn't completely throw me in unprepared. They're professionals, and they're only pairing me with people who've been in the business for a while, so they can pick up the slack while I learn the ropes. Ha. Two rope metaphors in one sentence. Continuity reigns!
The bottom line is this: its a professional performance job, and a professional teaching job, and I'm not QUITE qualified for either. But I'm being given the chance to work my ass off and get there, to work with international-level performers and getter done. I'm incredibly lucky to have landed it.
Friday, March 7, 2008
media platform
Most of us have no idea what is inside our pillows. We never look; we will never see what's in there. We will never even consider it. We trust that there is some sort of foamy faux-birdStuff substance on which we rest our heads, but there could be anything, as long as its texture kept up the illusion and it never strayed far enough from our scripted Pillow Expectancy Parameters to warrant attention from our conscious parts. Every night you sleep on something whose innards you do not know the color of. Whose innards' color you do not know. Then again I suppose I don't know the color of most of my own innards, and I get along pretty much alright. Still. Astounding some of the things we never think about. There are so many completely irrelevant, show-stoppingly useless things that one could think about if one chose to, but which are so stupendously unworthy of any cognitive attention that even thinking about their stupendous unworthiness is a waste of perfectly good neural traffic. This is getting recursive. Time to move on.
I have done all of my crappy five-minute image-a-days in photoshoop, with the drawing tablet, and I realized I need to stop doing that all the time. Drawing there has a very specific look to it, and it's hard to draw well on a tablet or, god forbid, a mouse (see exhibit A, below). Pencil sketches are fun, and they feel more satisfying to do. I don't claim to be a good artist, but I do draw BETTER on paper than on a tablet.
exhibit A (mouse-drawn)
I miss having parties.
I have done all of my crappy five-minute image-a-days in photoshoop, with the drawing tablet, and I realized I need to stop doing that all the time. Drawing there has a very specific look to it, and it's hard to draw well on a tablet or, god forbid, a mouse (see exhibit A, below). Pencil sketches are fun, and they feel more satisfying to do. I don't claim to be a good artist, but I do draw BETTER on paper than on a tablet.
exhibit A (mouse-drawn)
I miss having parties.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
wenus
god I hate that fucking word. Who the hell calls the skin on your elbow your wenus? Seriously who the fuck thought that up? I'd like to stuff ham under his skin and leave him out for a pack of starved dachshunds with crow-bars and sand paper. Of course, I wouldn't starve them myself. Who starves a dachshund? They're adorable little vacant-eyed balls of uncomprehending love. If someone's starving them, I'll punch the sick bastard. Right in the wenus.
And why doesn't the dishwasher ever clean that last goddamn bowl in the back row? FURIOUS
I shaved Hillary Clinton's head and put it in a robot. Why? Because this is America, and we're allowed to do that kind of thing here. God bless it.
Not that I have anything against the lady. I'm pro-Obama, but that has more to do with xkcd's endorsement of him than any real awareness. God dammit, I'm a fucking politics-linking blogger. I'm gonna go introduce a fork to my cornea and/or wenus. Fuck.
And why doesn't the dishwasher ever clean that last goddamn bowl in the back row? FURIOUS
I shaved Hillary Clinton's head and put it in a robot. Why? Because this is America, and we're allowed to do that kind of thing here. God bless it.
Not that I have anything against the lady. I'm pro-Obama, but that has more to do with xkcd's endorsement of him than any real awareness. God dammit, I'm a fucking politics-linking blogger. I'm gonna go introduce a fork to my cornea and/or wenus. Fuck.
dressup time
This doesn't really... CAN'T really have explanation. You can click the clothes to move them.
Here we are in the wee hours of the morning again, and I'm torn as usual. On the one (rational) hand, there's the desire for that really satisfying feeling of curling up under an unreasonably large pile of blankets and going away for several hours. On the other hand, I'm completely awake, and enjoying being productive. If only I can find some way to force this feeling of productivity during the day. Maybe it's isolation that does it, other people having gone to bed. Or maybe some sense that the day is done and I can do whatever I want now... I definitely have a psychological work-delaying mechanism that keeps me putting off useful things through the day with the logic of "if I have fun now, I'll still have time to do the work later" that inevitably leads to me NOT doing work and NOT enjoying the procrastinative fun because of the looming snowballing pile of responsibility I'm so vigorously ignoring.
And so I end up in the wee hours, making bizarre little flash beasties. Clickyclicky. (same link as above)
Here we are in the wee hours of the morning again, and I'm torn as usual. On the one (rational) hand, there's the desire for that really satisfying feeling of curling up under an unreasonably large pile of blankets and going away for several hours. On the other hand, I'm completely awake, and enjoying being productive. If only I can find some way to force this feeling of productivity during the day. Maybe it's isolation that does it, other people having gone to bed. Or maybe some sense that the day is done and I can do whatever I want now... I definitely have a psychological work-delaying mechanism that keeps me putting off useful things through the day with the logic of "if I have fun now, I'll still have time to do the work later" that inevitably leads to me NOT doing work and NOT enjoying the procrastinative fun because of the looming snowballing pile of responsibility I'm so vigorously ignoring.
And so I end up in the wee hours, making bizarre little flash beasties. Clickyclicky. (same link as above)
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
licking blenderblades: safe? sanitary?
I have a tablet again, and I'm not doing anything with it. With it or anything else. A bright and creative future may come in the nearlybies, but she is not here yet. Yes... yes, I still suck at things.
Water tension is neat; I will always be hypnotized by watching a liquid refuse to leave its container and snake over the brim and down the side of a cup when you hold it at just the right angle. Welcome back to third grade science. As the hours get later my mental age gets smaller, evidently.
Watching my google ads change is an enjoyable pastime, and a whole new reason to update this monstrosity. Honduras! Unmentionable buboes! Republican primary candidates for the liberation of jamFetus07! Walk the walk google wordSnatchers; for my talking is stuperfundous inevitable.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
two kinds of ice cream
I seem to have done it.
I seem to have found work that will actually be fun, and pay ridiculously good money. The circus thing today went phenomenally well; I got to teach kids diabolo, plate-spinning, and juggling, and the director is really excited to hire me. So I'll be doing shows and leading workshops in schools all over New York. Unfortunately, 50% or more of these shows will be in the NYC/Long Island area, which is, significantly, Not Ulster County.
In fact, its really fucking far from Ulster County. If my parents didn't already live in Westchester (45 min or so from the National Circus Project home base) taking this job would be unthinkable. As it is, it will probably mean spending most of my time either at the Familial Residence or sleeping in the NCP building (they have international guest performers, and apparently have several guest rooms and showers for people who need to stay in the area for up to a week) between days of a show. Fortunately I've never had a sense of one particular place as "home" and so I should be fine.
On the topic of things I've never had... this also means I might suddenly have A Lot of Money. And I need to decide what to do with that. Savings account? Tattoos? Gas-efficient motorcycle for all this commuting? First I suppose there are loans to pay off. Ick.
Well that's the life update. I'll be back in Port Ewen tomorrow probably, where I have a drawing tablet and can get back to the image a day plan. I really like doing that, and keeping creative/nonsensical postings forthcoming here. I don't claim they're all good, or worth reading. That's not the point. The point is to create at all, because discipline is not a skill I put a lot of points in when I was making this character.
Baffling. Waffling.
I seem to have found work that will actually be fun, and pay ridiculously good money. The circus thing today went phenomenally well; I got to teach kids diabolo, plate-spinning, and juggling, and the director is really excited to hire me. So I'll be doing shows and leading workshops in schools all over New York. Unfortunately, 50% or more of these shows will be in the NYC/Long Island area, which is, significantly, Not Ulster County.
In fact, its really fucking far from Ulster County. If my parents didn't already live in Westchester (45 min or so from the National Circus Project home base) taking this job would be unthinkable. As it is, it will probably mean spending most of my time either at the Familial Residence or sleeping in the NCP building (they have international guest performers, and apparently have several guest rooms and showers for people who need to stay in the area for up to a week) between days of a show. Fortunately I've never had a sense of one particular place as "home" and so I should be fine.
On the topic of things I've never had... this also means I might suddenly have A Lot of Money. And I need to decide what to do with that. Savings account? Tattoos? Gas-efficient motorcycle for all this commuting? First I suppose there are loans to pay off. Ick.
Well that's the life update. I'll be back in Port Ewen tomorrow probably, where I have a drawing tablet and can get back to the image a day plan. I really like doing that, and keeping creative/nonsensical postings forthcoming here. I don't claim they're all good, or worth reading. That's not the point. The point is to create at all, because discipline is not a skill I put a lot of points in when I was making this character.
Baffling. Waffling.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
old habits
played a lot of WoW today. More than I meant to, as always. Self-discipline is my downfall. Given endless hours in a day, freed from the office, I cower from more than a few hours of juggling practice and end up tanking heroic dungeons and farming materials to get fire resistance plate armor to tank the Flames of Azzinoth.
...awesome.
WoW is not the problem. If it wasn't WoW I'd be reading graphic novels, or torrenting massive archives of Bruce Willis movies and tentacle porn, or updating this. The problem, as usual, is that I'm afraid to look myself in the eye and say "I'm going to do my best at this, and I'm not going to fail." And that's the only way I'm going to get to keep this circus job.
I always hated people who used musical quotes in their blog, but good ol Eminem's Lose Yourself came on in the car the other day when I was driving, and the words he told me were the god given truth. This is the chance to "seize everything I ever wanted" and I'm gonna be pissed if I just let it slip by.
Post is getting on toward "too long; didn't read". No more whining.
There are days when I shouldn't even post these
...awesome.
WoW is not the problem. If it wasn't WoW I'd be reading graphic novels, or torrenting massive archives of Bruce Willis movies and tentacle porn, or updating this. The problem, as usual, is that I'm afraid to look myself in the eye and say "I'm going to do my best at this, and I'm not going to fail." And that's the only way I'm going to get to keep this circus job.
I always hated people who used musical quotes in their blog, but good ol Eminem's Lose Yourself came on in the car the other day when I was driving, and the words he told me were the god given truth. This is the chance to "seize everything I ever wanted" and I'm gonna be pissed if I just let it slip by.
Post is getting on toward "too long; didn't read". No more whining.
There are days when I shouldn't even post these
Friday, February 15, 2008
McShaman
I have somehow become addicted to the Japanese Ronald McDonald insanity video. Couple that with a long Friday of unemployment, and this is what we get. I'm probably ripping off American Gods... but I never read it:
she slurps the air and ice at the bottom of her Mountain Dew™
and paints on another coat of watery ketchup lipstick.
Totem aspects must be observed after all.
She grounds her will, drawing on and merging with
billions and billons served.
The candle bursts to life,
and she's lovin it.
she slurps the air and ice at the bottom of her Mountain Dew™
and paints on another coat of watery ketchup lipstick.
Totem aspects must be observed after all.
She grounds her will, drawing on and merging with
billions and billons served.
The candle bursts to life,
and she's lovin it.
neckties in the morning
I am once again unemployed. The feeling of quitting a job at will is a good one. My supervisors and I were having regular tense discussions about my database projects and the viability of working at home... the kind of discussion where everyone throws in a "heh" after every other line because without them an observer might think you were really angry at each other. To quote Neil Diamond, nine to five ain't takin' me where I'm bound. My hair is purple again, and I've got rent paid through next month. I'd rather wait tables two nights a week (making as much money as Americorps was paying me) and sit cackling on a street corner with a deck of Tarot cards and a bucket of glass.
But I may not have to. In a few weeks I've gotten me a provisional position with the National Circus Project, teaching kids circus skills in elementary schools. I like kids, I like the circus, and I like being done with work by 3 o clock. There is also a lot of money to be made in it. Hopefully everything will work out like it should and I'll have the perfect job; to forward this goal I'm devoting a lot of time this week to really buckling down and getting good at all those monkey skills I never quite got. Queue montage. I really do feel like I'm training for the championship.
As an addendum to this, and inspired by dear MPM, I'll probably be fucking up my sleep schedule just to see what works. I've noticed I get really sleepy around 3 pm; it was one of the things that made office life so impossible. So I think I'll be taking a nap around then for an hour, staying up until 4 or so, then sleeping til 7 or 9. One thing office/retail work has taught me is that I really do enjoy waking up early. So while I'm not trying anything as extreme as the Dymaxion schedule, I'll be playing around trying to find what gives me the most productive hours while still letting me feel rested and earning me that satisfying "going to bed" feeling at night.
today's hastily-created drawing (completely unrelated to the post, unlike yesterday's)
But I may not have to. In a few weeks I've gotten me a provisional position with the National Circus Project, teaching kids circus skills in elementary schools. I like kids, I like the circus, and I like being done with work by 3 o clock. There is also a lot of money to be made in it. Hopefully everything will work out like it should and I'll have the perfect job; to forward this goal I'm devoting a lot of time this week to really buckling down and getting good at all those monkey skills I never quite got. Queue montage. I really do feel like I'm training for the championship.
As an addendum to this, and inspired by dear MPM, I'll probably be fucking up my sleep schedule just to see what works. I've noticed I get really sleepy around 3 pm; it was one of the things that made office life so impossible. So I think I'll be taking a nap around then for an hour, staying up until 4 or so, then sleeping til 7 or 9. One thing office/retail work has taught me is that I really do enjoy waking up early. So while I'm not trying anything as extreme as the Dymaxion schedule, I'll be playing around trying to find what gives me the most productive hours while still letting me feel rested and earning me that satisfying "going to bed" feeling at night.
today's hastily-created drawing (completely unrelated to the post, unlike yesterday's)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Sundown
and through those shattered streets I walked,
my batteries running grimly down as flesh fought to reclaim what technology had taken from it.
skin sloughs over subdermal titanium, scar tissue from insertion clumped in ridges healed and torn and healed again.
These eyes of mine, $5 million dollar eyes, scan restlessly for the inevitable, and I drag my feet forward, the slick trail of blood and engine fluid (shouldn't we have made them the same word by now) as forgotten and irrelevant as everything else behind me.
The scuff of a boot in the shadows is what tips me off; all the sensory augs I've got and its my ears, all-natural and God-given, functional but for the years of damage done by hammering gunfire, that let me know the bastards are there.
Five of them stumble out of the building, and the shrieking starts, wet-throated guttural wrath, choked on bile and foam. The hydraulics where my biceps used to be scream to life to match them, groaning for want of oil as they lift the four-foot barrel of the Piper up to sing its favorite song. I shrug the belt off my shoulders; it crashes to the ground in a slinking ammunition coil, stirring gray dust and forlorn newspaper shreddings. The Piper plays its keening pitch, gathering higher toward the minor key of twenty-five rounds per second. The others start to dance, ripped into jerking marionette frenzy by the joyful overture of violence before falling backward finally to slump in their already-congealed deathblood. The gun's neural linkup sends its software message down, <"stop;"> and the finger twitch release sends the whirring whine slowly to sleep. I pick up the belt and sling it back.
Motherfucking zombies.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
opportunity knocks?
So. I just got an email from the national circus project saying they're interested in an interview. Progress toward a life I want! Huzzah! Let the conditional, preliminary good news ring out over hill and dale, echoing off the mountain peaks and causing tumultuous avalanches of furious unwarranted optimism! And let these rumbling snowy warlords wakened wrath rain upon the heads of the tiny nesting chickens, counted long before they hatch.
no rly... this is cool. I wants it.
no rly... this is cool. I wants it.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
pining for apples
I dread going to work tomorrow, and there's no reason for it. I'm giving a presentation on Food Webs to a class in Beacon. Important people in Suits will be there watching, and will be deciding whether or not to give Scenic Hudson a grant based on what they see. It will probably be a lot of fun. But still I just don't want to drive into the office.
Today I didn't go in, because I woke up and discovered my car wouldn't start. Jumper cables failed; Triple-A was called. And now the car starts, and all's right with the world. I could have gone in for the afternoon. I did not. Why? I have no idea.
I just want to do things like THIS with my days.
Monday, February 11, 2008
heft not thy woofer
Westward! he said, and with that they were off. The highway hummed by outside the window of the onrushing autobeast, the sound of speed lulled to a soothing audio gel that barely reached their ears over the exhalant coo of the air conditioner. The world was traversed unnoticed in a blur; they were a gliding puck on the air hockey table of the desert.
Franz poked the dog. "Dog" he observed, "you have not many teeth left."
"It is true" the dog replied, "for I have gnawed and known a great many things in this world, and the time for teeth has come and gone. Now is the time to pool myself at feet and look soulfully toward the world of tomorrow."
"How will you eat, Dog, if you have no means of chewing?" Franz asked. For a long time the dog did not answer. Then it yawned, stretched its haunches, and erupted in a five-tone shower of whimsy that quivered the heavens and compelled the very sun to resonance. Franz looked upon it, blinded by the elegant catastrophe, and wept, understanding at last why his mother never let him have sweets.
The board room meeting would have to be delayed. Another stanza was not forthcoming.
Franz poked the dog. "Dog" he observed, "you have not many teeth left."
"It is true" the dog replied, "for I have gnawed and known a great many things in this world, and the time for teeth has come and gone. Now is the time to pool myself at feet and look soulfully toward the world of tomorrow."
"How will you eat, Dog, if you have no means of chewing?" Franz asked. For a long time the dog did not answer. Then it yawned, stretched its haunches, and erupted in a five-tone shower of whimsy that quivered the heavens and compelled the very sun to resonance. Franz looked upon it, blinded by the elegant catastrophe, and wept, understanding at last why his mother never let him have sweets.
The board room meeting would have to be delayed. Another stanza was not forthcoming.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
tiny graphical nothings
I'm trying out the theory that if I make myself produce something regularly, even if it's not high quality, it will get easier to produce more things. So I'm doing a daily image, viewable at vaguelyamazing.com/warren/daily. The one I just did looks like
this.
this.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
on misbehavior
Yesterday I was teaching a group of 6th graders about the perils of point- and non-point pollution by pouring kool-aid, chocolate, and vegetable oil on a topographical plastic watershed model and Doc-Holidaying two spray bottles over it in a torrential simulated "rain storm" to wash the sludgy crap down into the river. Midway through, one of the little students, his mind apparently having reached an educational breaking point for the day, decided to pour one of my bottles of Sludge Mixture™ onto the floor. He was scolded by his teacher, and escorted out of the room. Ten minutes later, he was back. That was that; nothing further will ever haunt that child as a repercussion for his crime. It made me think, "damn. I wish I'd been aware how little it meant to be a wretched, screaming, disobedient creature in elementary school. You can't get away with shit like that in the real world."
I realized later that I was lying... that you CAN get away with most anything in the real world, and you'll just be given a strange look, called an asshole, or asked to leave the establishment and never trouble them with your business again. It's an important lesson to remember... it's ok to do the weird stuff.
I've edited this twice trying to figure out exactly what I mean. Forget it. Going to bed. Have to be up early for work. Woohoo.
I realized later that I was lying... that you CAN get away with most anything in the real world, and you'll just be given a strange look, called an asshole, or asked to leave the establishment and never trouble them with your business again. It's an important lesson to remember... it's ok to do the weird stuff.
I've edited this twice trying to figure out exactly what I mean. Forget it. Going to bed. Have to be up early for work. Woohoo.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
it haas begunnn
It is not clear at this time what will be put into this space. It is only clear that I am copycatting. Other folks have been starting blogs left and right, and I'm just jumpin' on the old bandwagon. I'm frankly not sure I deserve a blog right now. People who do interesting things keep blogs; otherwise there's no point in keeping one. The reason one puts something up on the internet is to stand up on the table in the proverbial bar of life and yell, "Everybody look at me!"
That is the statement made by authorship of a blog.
But any drunken fool can stand up and yell "everybody look at me!" Trick is, you'd better be a fucking entertaining drunken fool to deserve it. You'd better be naked but for three species of Atlantic crab strapped strategically to your groin, each trained to whistle the Macarena in a different octave of pleasing harmony, if you want to keep people's attention. Elsewise you'll be ignored, and asked to leave.
My point is... I don't know what exactly I am yelling about yet. Time will tell. I'll try to be a worthy yeller.
That is the statement made by authorship of a blog.
But any drunken fool can stand up and yell "everybody look at me!" Trick is, you'd better be a fucking entertaining drunken fool to deserve it. You'd better be naked but for three species of Atlantic crab strapped strategically to your groin, each trained to whistle the Macarena in a different octave of pleasing harmony, if you want to keep people's attention. Elsewise you'll be ignored, and asked to leave.
My point is... I don't know what exactly I am yelling about yet. Time will tell. I'll try to be a worthy yeller.
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