Month: February 2008

Categories
Stuff-n-Glot

Zeitgeist in a Nutshell

Zeitgeist the Movie. Ok, I just finished watching it. First reactions: a little depressing. A little tricked into watching it cause I followed a blind link on advice from a friend that it was “definitely worth seeing.” Not disappointed, no. Not at all. Not entirely. Maybe a little. Yeah, it kinda sucked… I mean, you really had me in the beginning because you must know how much I enjoy unraveling complexity, but did you really mean all that stuff about Jesus and Horus? And then you present all these brain-tingling conspiracies about September 11th and move into… international finance and then… RFID chips? The trans-American highway? What is this? Well, I did like watching it while I watched it, at least. I think I would perhaps possibly say with a little tentative conviction that it is worth seeing. Before doing so, bear in mind four things:

  1. This movie is nearly 2 hours long and you may be compelled (like I) to watch all of it
  2. If you are religious many “theories” may “bother you” or simply make you “pfft”
  3. if you find conspiracy theories annoying you will find this move annoying
  4. millions of people have seen it already (supposedly the most popular video ever hosted by Google Video)

I was originally gonna post the video within this post but decided that, actually, on reflection, I don’t really care enough about this movie or if people see it so instead I’ll just put a link here again.

Also, it’s worth noting that you may need a much smarter analysis than mine.

photo by • Sandra • on Flickr

Categories
Glot

Prestige of the Pillowfight

It’s not a unique occurrence. For the past two years, and now three, there’s been a pillow fight in this town on Valentine’s day in the biggest business plaza the city has to offer.

It’s not a pretty sight, but it’s paradoxically photogenic. There’s something about a thousand pillows violently, desperately thrashing about in a great throng of struggling, giggling humanity that’s very life-affirming. Or something. All I know is that last year I got deep-throated by some else’s (probably pre-used) pillow feathers and this year I wore a face shield and took pictures instead. And why did I take pictures instead of actually fighting in a pillow fight? Well, like Jane Waterbury (who took the photo to the right) I think having pictures of cool stuff that I’ve gone to makes me cooler. Well, I think that’s what she thinks. It’s what I think. Show ’em off to friends who weren’t there, so that you can prove it. “See what I did for Valentine’s day? You know it’s awesome and that’s why you’re going next year! That’s why you want one in your own town!” It’s what many many many people must be thinking because the number of cameras there was sheerly staggering. You’d think the Superbowl was going on. Except, well…

My personal opinion is that a pillow fight is FAR cooler than the Superbowl. How passé—paying to go to something fun? I am of a new generation that eschews these more manipulative entertainments in favor of those which we ourselves create. We are… enlightened. Sometimes.

Also, I can’t stress enough how many hotties there are that go to this thing every year.

Categories
Glot

Surprise Ending

Every once in awhile, I see a piece of film, and I experience something that I dearly feel must be addressed.

Such is the case for the 1992 adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel “Orlando.” I just watched it. After scouring the internet for some sort of explanation or even acknowledgment, I have come to the conclusion that I am the only person to have watched this film and pondered much about the ending. For those who find this post having seen this particular film and came looking for solidarity, or for those who wonder why I’ve made it, let me say outright—after an hour or more traveling through history from the eyes of an ageless British gender-transcender, who has now finally found some peace in the world having a child and losing his/her/their mystical monarch-bequeathed aristocratic lands, and as the film is finally rounding out, with her sitting at the selfsame tree as when we first met him, and to have the last scene suddenly transform into a gay angel singing a gay house anthem in the sky, shot in shaky-cam mode… is a little… unexpected. Perplexing. Baffling. Really, really weird. Makes me a little cross-eyed; forces my eyebrows to do all sorts of weird shapes. Kinda makes you wonder if they ever really had a point, and/or if just ran outta time and adaptational[1] stamina, and said:

“Hey, you know what? We’ve got this gay pop star who says he likes the book. What are the chances we can get him up on crane later singing something about unity? Or harmony? Or unity and harmony? Oh, well do you have any better ideas for how to finish the movie?”

No, I do not. But for those of you who also don’t, and just really wish the filmmakers did, let me say: you are not alone.

Categories
Glot

About Last Night…

Bikeman,

I have written this letter in the interests of giving you a fair chance. Who knows? You may well have just been having a very bad night, happened to have found a golf club, and were riding around my neighborhood at 4:40 in the morning. In all sincerity—we’ve all had our nights. But hey, when you started screaming when I asked what you were doing, Lord knows I thought the worst. I called the cops. They came looking for you but of course, didn’t find you. Respect enough. Now, coming back to my apartment a half hour later might not have been the best idea even though I’m sure it helped you blow off some steam. Coming again at 7:30 to ring the buzzer was kinda stupid, cause now I have your photo and could make a real good police report if I wanted. On the other hand, that’d just piss you off more, and would probably piss me off too, so instead I’ll do this: TELL ME SOMETHING I WAS WRONG ABOUT. Seriously. Make me feel bad. Cause right now I feel alright, cause I finally got back in some way for the one of you that smashed my car window WHILE I was SLEEPING in it. Dumb, I know (cause hey, if a guy’s sleeping in his car, he probably doesn’t have some great shit to take… and he’ll YELL at you, too). Tell me I’m wrong to feel righted. I ruined your night? It goes around, is what I’m thinking. For real: there is an envelope behind this letter, and a pen. Write it out. I’ll read it.

Peace,

Bluehair.

Categories
Smartglot

Monica has a Birthday

Fifty strangers meet in a public park. Many have never met before, some have. They are dressed variously in matching outfits, funny wigs or hats, or just colorful sunny day clothing. They have come for a singular purpose. However, what exactly that purpose is none are certain—except one. They have placed their faith in a leader. This leader, a sprightly woman, short, young, with twin feathery poofs emerging from her brunette hair, and dressed in a festive old west leather skirt and cowboy boots, assembles the convivial horde. The mob slowly quiets.

Megaphone in hand, pointed in no particular direction, she announces her name is Monica. She is turning thirty. Cheers. Welcome to her birthday! she says. Cheers. Much commotion and fumbling in pockets and, shortly thereafter, a blast from the megaphone. Even greater commotion. Another signal tone, a pause, much clapping and yet more cheers, then ebbing to silence, as the crowd seems to contemplate their plight. No one knows where to look so everyone looks everywhere. Two minutes pass, and the group is silent. Except for some minor fidgeting, the fifty party-prepped people together on the green grass stay still on this bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in the park. But then, inexplicably, with no cue from Monica or anyone else, the crowd begins to cheer again.

This is when some sort of magic starts to happen. Over the next half hour, with no apparent direction, revelers flap their arms and pretend to fly around in circles, play tag, dance at random intervals, engage in staring contests, hum the theme from Super Mario (more or less), go hide elsewhere in the park, form a spontaneous line to spank their beloved leader as she crawls between their legs, and finally, carry her bodily to her waiting birthday cake, where they summarily deposit her butt-first into it… and of course, must then sing “Happy Birthday.” Maybe just one more dance party, the crowd seems to decide. Much applause follows for super-special birthday-girl Monica who has rightfully earned it by pulling off this ridiculous, puzzling, and joyful spectacle. Then the magical shenanigans are over. One by one, people in the crowd pull out their earbuds.

You knew there was a big reveal, didn’t you? Well, of course—San Francisco is quite a magical place, but not that magical. It does have a lot going for it, though, such as a great many people who are willing to assemble at, say, a pre-determined location at a certain time carrying necessary props, just for the promise of fun. It has a lot of tech-savvy individuals who can coordinate over the internet, a lot creatives amongst them who can think up fun things to do. It has a viral culture that spreads ideas fast. The inevitable combination of qualities like these has been called the Urban Playground movement, although I’d say it’s less of a movement and more like “something humans have wanted to do since *at least* the industrial revolution but have just gotten around to acquiring the technology and inspiration and freedom to do so.” Zombie mobs, sidewalk pie fights, lightsaber duels, riding the subway in one’s underwear, gigantic pillow fights (on Valentine’s Day, no less), all are things that have been a long time coming.

A great heap many other factors made Monica’s awesome birthday party awesomely possible when it happened in Dolores Park this Saturday, February 9th:

  • The ubiquity of MP3 players, to start with. Sure, everybody might’ve had a Walkman in the 80’s but in the past five years it’s become normal for anyone and everyone to be wearing earbuds practically anywhere, all off in their own musical world.
  • On the website set up by Monica and Co. they credit inspiration to fellow, uh, “playgrounders” vis-à-vis Improv Everywhere’s MP3 experiment. Quote: “you’ll be part of a group of people obeying a shared voice in your head.” Coincidentally, Improv Everywhere is affiliated with the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, an improv group with a show on Comedy Central in the 90’s—to my knowledge the first to try this sort of just-for-fun situational public pranking.
  • One can certainly give credit to Maer, Monica’s DJ friend, putting together the MP3 track by such recently available tech-wizardry as having access to editing software and a library of music.
  • I’m sure her boyfriend Jason is owed some due, seeing as how he put together the website and, with her, hosts regular swap meets in San Francisco. The self-taught promotion skills and network of acquaintances they set up couldn’t have hurt either.
  • Quicker now: the shared modern urge to discover entertainment which is participatory, engaging, and/or doesn’t require spending money.
  • A continuing societal obsession with youth and youth culture (since the boomers actually) now manifesting as a growing hole between the walls of childhood and adulthood; call it “kidulthood.”
  • The Victorian invention of the civic public park that preserved spaces of open land in cities for recreation (told you it went back to the industrial revolution).
  • The western traditions that place value on an individual, combined with
  • the near universal superstitions of astrology that place such weight on the stars of an individual’s birth.
  • Also, the many inspiring bands of 1978, all those thirty years ago.

The most important reason, of course, being… hello, party! An oversimplification, surely. Perhaps not an unwelcome one. Hope this has been an educational experience for you all.

And you, Monica… thanks for having us… 😉

Categories
Glot

Several Posts in One

I got new glasses today. They are blue, with tiny stars on the arms. I’m don’t quite like them as much as I expected to, but part of that is the new even stronger prescription. The world feels just that much further away (but -9 will do that to anybody). My right eye is worse than my left and so the recurring perception is that my glasses are uneven, and so I’ll start to adjust them before realizing “oops, these were freshly fitted just earlier today.” But, well, they are blue.

Also found out today Consumating will be going offline for good in about a month. This is sad for a number of reasons. I’ve met a lot of people through Consumating, good friends. There’s also a lot of people I like that I just… never really hung out with. But could have! Some who live across the country, who I might have someday met, who I probably never will. The community (and there is a community, in this instance) is being broken up. I’ve been archiving some of my old stuff that I wrote, although now that I’ve read Waxy’s writeup on CNET’s Consu-killing decision I realize I didn’t have to. I gave lots of tags, thumbed up every question for a couple people, and wrote some nice notes. It’s not that I think that’s important, it’s just that I’m sad I didn’t take as much out of it as I could’ve. Life is short.

Speaking of which, I still don’t have a job. Lynae talked to me a good long while this morning about why she was worried. See, I said that I was going to wait a week before I started seriously looking for a job. And, well, I did… but in the meantime, unfortunately, Lynae’s mom died. I’ve kind of put that on the back burner ever since. I’m thinking that tomorrow I’ll start. But, frankly, I don’t like the prospects. Not my prospects, mind you, but the prospect of working again, and all the BS that comes with getting a job… the resumé, the interviews, training, paperwork, once again acclimatizing to all the little ways you give up on your own dreams because of how much time you give to someone else, just for a little cash. It just seems so inhumane, somehow. I don’t want a job, I want a *good* job. Good for me—for my own broad intellectual and artistic interests, not just in the interest of money. But then again, if society were about promoting the self-actualization of individuals we wouldn’t need MONEY, would we? Yuk yuk yuk yuk.

I could’ve started today earlier, but stayed up too late the night before. And here I am again, so it seems. Except that tomorrow there is no mushroom hunt in Marin county, free guided tours and as many mushrooms as one can paper-bag. That was this morning. I’m hoping that maybe sometime soon me and the little lady can go out a-wandering in search of these fungal buds. Ever since I started reading Jeff VanderMeer books, man, fungus has just been that much more magical.

I don’t know why I felt the need to dump these four disparate magisteria into one post. My day had many different concerns, many facets. It’s done now.

Categories
Glot-glot

Why I Do Web Design

Often I’ve been asked, in the fifth hour of a project to improve some small thing on my GLOT, why I bother. Why not bother to actually update it, rather than improve something no one will notice anyways? Well, dammit, I notice. I notice that the Rubix cube doesn’t display correctly in Internet Explorer 6. I notice things that don’t match well, like the alignment of the contact form and me-photos. I know that the search was placed incorrectly and used borrowed CSS since I put the damn thing in. And so today, I fixed it. I fixed all of those things. Yet do I find satisfaction?

No. And here’s why: the web isn’t real. It’s not a tangible experience. Up until the moment someone pointed their browser at this particular website and saw this particular thing, it was just an idea. It was information, data stored in a machine of irrelevant location, and will go back to being there once that someone leaves. The data might be slightly different. It might be very different. But it’s still just data, and it doesn’t have a life of it’s own, it doesn’t DO anything that isn’t in its basic nature. It’s not even a thing, it’s an it.

Existential pontificating of digital existence complete. Back to the original question: why do it? Because it’s a challenge. Because it’s one I can usually accomplish, given enough time and tenacity. Because it fits my habits, sitting in front of a computer. Because it’s something I’m good at. Because it makes me feel like I did something. Because I can. And so there you have it: I do it because I can. Sometimes it seems like a pointless exercise. Often it is. But here you are, and for the moment, it’s real. Hm.

Categories
Letters

To Girls

G’morning girls!

Or, knowing us, good afternoon.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. It’s like you said: I’m just not that good at going to bed earlier, like we’ve been saying. Of course, I could say the same for you. Sometimes we do that to each other—we reinforce each other’s negative habits. I think I’ve been noticing that lately, like how when I get caught up in the computer and I’ll be gone away in my own world for a good long hour and I’ll snap outta it and turn around to check up on you, but you’re off in your own world too. We’re both computer nerds, so here we are at our computers. Mostly I think we help each other, but it’s easy to get jaded about what our existing limitations are. I don’t think we push each other enough because we know each other’s comfort zones so well, and comfort sure is nice.

It’s like… I hate it when you say things about when I’m getting a job (not that you’ve really done that, hardly at all). And then I find myself thinking “doesn’t she care? doesn’t she worry I’ll never make something of myself and that I’ll just get another half-bad job that I’ll be ‘ok’ with?” Then I remember just the other night when my girlfriend asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and how she sentimentally gave me $7 toward the bus-movie-night-ticket that I bought her :-). I do remember those things, and then I realize that it’s all up to me anyways, like it always has been. I just forget cause often we act as a single entity.

I never liked seeing some relationships, like those of a few girls I knew in high school, that were just based on comfort. The logic goes: well, it’s nice having someone around to talk to, and breaking up can be messy and feels sad—I’ll just stay with this person until I absolutely CAN’T anymore. And that’s not how I feel with you. I feel like you do push me to complete my goals, and I feel like I might attain a lot of my life’s ambitions with you there with me. Sometimes… sometimes feel like our philosophies are too different. I doubt you, or I doubt how I’d be able to fit in with your family for the next 40 years or so, or even doubt how feasible traveling around the world for two would be. I wanna do that, too.

Once again, I dunno why I am writing this. I was sort of feeling sappy and sort of feeling sorry—I felt like I kept you up longer than you wanted. I feel like sometimes I could be a better boyfriend to you. I could get your website done, and be done with it. I get lazy though, and I don’t give 100%. I become a slave to my moods, I ride long sequences of exploratory online whims and pleasure-surf for hours. Sometimes I disparagingly think “this is who I am, this is how I’ve been for years. I’m an addict. I’m addicted to the internet.” Then a sublimely piteous fantasy enters my head, 10 to 20 chairs circled round, a ring of nerdy, anxious-looking men huddled about shamefully, free coffee and donuts in the corner.

“Hey, gang. Let’s get started. Welcome to our group. Can I ask, why are you here tonight?”

“Hi, my name’s Orin. Orin Optiglot on Flickr. Website homepie.org. I’m a, uh, an internet addict. I spend long hours working on my ‘digital identity,’ my blog, my social networking pages, finding more of whatever else is new. I read a lot of blogs cause I want to have things to say to my friends. Mostly I talk to them online, too, of course. Once, I got fired for using a keyboard, a keyboard to write even more on my computer. And then I stay up late writing emails to my girlfriend, who happens to in fact live with me.”

“Yeah, I think we’ve all been there, Warren. Right gang?”

This is pure silliness, of course. I’m not an addict, I just don’t put forth enough mental effort to realizing the time, analyzing my own patterns, asking what I actually really want to be doing right now. Man, I know that I could do so much in this world and I feel like I’m wasting all my chances while I’m learning more ABOUT the world. I feel like you and I could be so much more… cool. Why aren’t we more amazing? Why don’t we have more friends and lovers? It seems sometimes like our problems are so petty and small (cleaning our room!?) and the reason we get tripped up by them is that we have nothing more to blame them on than our own shortcomings, and that’s painful.

I want more from life, and the only way to get that is to take it. But that means I wouldn’t have the fantasy anymore, and the fantasy is so nice… are people who are polyamorous happier? Not that I’ve seen. They just have more sex. So why even bother? It’s another recurring pipe dream that I could get over, like being a musician. And that would be that, it’s over, no more silly fantasies, no more getting hopes up to be let down, no more grasping for wants. But I want it! And so I have to take it, and for it to work, you do too, and that means learning to work together, but that’s so HARD, and the dynamic we have now is so FAMILIAR and easy! But if we want something, I shouldn’t rely on you, I need to push, and once I start pushing you might push me, and we’d get there together. That’d be nice.

I mean, I LOVE you SOOO MUCH, sometimes it’s just unnerving. If there’s anything that makes me like my parents, it’s having the relationship that I have. It’s stable, it’s loving and affectionate, but it’s also separate jobs and shared living space, with domestic responsibilities and common (almost suburban) dreams.

So, again, I don’t know why I stated writing. I guess I just wanted to reflect, and you happened to be asleep—with plenty of reason, to be fair. I didn’t get too sappy, but I’m happier anyways. It’s really good to have you. You know we can be more awesome, though. You know we can. I love em a lot. I’ll be there with you. You, Girls.

Love,
-Boys