Things I definitely won’t do this weekend

1. Re-pot the philodendrons that have grown so thoroughly back after surviving the pre-divorce tumult.
2. Shellac and otherwise decorate the bamboo staves for the skybox project.
3. Take photos of myself in the various costumes from Matthew Briar’s Resurrection Apocalypse.
4. Get the boxes of CDs out of storage and start sorting them.
5. Go through all my old boxes of papers and notebooks and all.
6. Dispense advice and sorcery on the street.
7. Produce my own personal Tarot.
8. Deal with the sugar skulls.
9. Hang the pot hanger.
10. Build the milk carton bed frame.
11. As much laundry as I could.
12. Drive people around the city for money.
13. Run the Inverted Library.
14. Babysit.
15. Sketch people at an orgy.
16. Swim.
17. Decorate my bicycle as a dragon.
18. Work on the stained glass stars.
19. Hang new paintings.
20. Create the headologist signs.
21. Be satisfied.
22. Be slothful.
23. Be solitary.

Protected: I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.

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Protected: Echoes of interrupted tunes I’d just as soon not hear again

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Ceci n’est pas une menace

1. When you wave your middle finger in my face like that, I think about the sharpies in my car.

2. If you don’t answer the phone, we won’t send the note.

3. If you choose to direct the thieves to my doorstep, I will become your enemy.

4. Answering that question will take us on a long tangent away from the topic.

5. I need to talk with you before class or at break but it must be before class.

A Bracket of Warriors

Warriors I’ve known and loved through fiction that I’ve read, in rough order of my encounters with them.  I started out pondering a face off between Angus Thermopylae, John Rico, Jane Sagan, and Takashi Kovacs, and continued adding to the list.  As a result, Arthur Dent shows up later than he ought, because he wasn’t really a competitive hero until the 5th Hitchhiker book.  I stuck with one character per author, so notable heavies like Max the Silent and Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis didn’t make the cut.  Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro were on the bubble, but they’re just outclassed.  Nearly everyone else on the list has access to or experience with ballistic weaponry, and they just can’t compete.

1. Sassinak (Anne McCaffery)
2. John Clark (Tom Clancy)
3. Cowboy Feng (Steven Brust)
4. Angus Thermopylae (Stephen R. Donaldson)
5. Alexand deWolf (M.K. Wren)

Here and there I have a thousand or seven photographs, and am two or three years behind in posting and sharing and so on.  Facebook is popular but lousy, Flickr is full-featured but aging (with a neglectful owner), Google + is elegant but not well known…

I think Flickr wins out, but here’s what I’m looking for, in no particular order:

1. Efficiency.  Fast operations for all of the below.  G+ might have the edge here for uploading, but I think Flickr wins out for overall efficiency since it does things (and fast) that G+ doesn’t do easily, or at all.

2. Granular privacy controls.  This is one of two killer features for Flickr over G+.  As of right now, I can’t figure out how to set a single photo in G+ to private, if the album is public.

3. Flexible cross posting options.  G+ has lots of neat social mechanisms, but I’m not sure it rivals Flickr yet for range of features.  Flickr lets me easily post linked images, or links for galleries, or play with rss feeds of my whole stream, or individual tags, etc. Does G+ have tags?

4. Portability.  I may never export all my Flickr photos, but if I did there’s a lot of ways I’d get ’em all plus all their semantic content.  G+ may be headed that way but I don’t think they’re there yet.

5. In-browser editing.  I loved Pikmin, Flickr’s old editor that seems to have been bought by G+.  So that’s one thing G+ has over Flickr (whose replacement is a bit swifter but lacks a bunch of features, most importantly an undo function..!).  However,  a few of my favorite filters are gone from both, so I may have to learn my way around Gimp to get them back…

Operationalized Inertia

1. Process keeps on sending prompts to schedule a second plenary.

2. Headway volunteered to disseminate the minutes; one week and one day later the deed remains undone.

3. Restraint offered to probe the enigma of jointed duality.

4. Gravity missed the gathering, not being enrolled in the common course.  She hoped to reconnect before her departure to the city of the previous convention.

5. Process juggled expectations from Utopia, the Scrivener, and Vagary, each with differing standards for punctuality and consequence.

6. Benediction mapped out her own sequence of meetings and motions, while Utopia, the Scrivener, politely jockeyed for position and primacy.

7. Oodle wanted little to do with any enterprise that privileged works over feasts, and said as much to Process.

8. Taboo retreated to her couch to meditate on her priorities: the tome of the woman; the plan for the children; the toil of the garden.

9. Process and Quarrel continued the waltz towards their nuptials.

10. Quarrel savored the calm of her mediated detente with Backhand.

11. While Headway, Process, and Taboo all waited the remarks on their treatise, Process drafted a summary for Chimera, and shared it with Taboo for further distribution.

12. Rarity demurred when the Scrivener assigned her to another review of Endeavor’s polemic, but the Scrivener held fast, noting the adaptation to Utopia’s template.

13. Watching the academic walk down the aisle arm in arm with both his antecedents, Process realized his desire for a final breakfast with his own nuclear unit of Zenith, Ballast, and Work.

14. Quarrel asked Process about heading to the hills with Figment, Concept, Bust-up, and Wriggle, but made her own decision to stay the course.

15. Feast invited Process and Quarrel to join her and Castle to laugh at the grail; Process attempted to inveigle Feast into attending the weekend conference.

16. Vagary put her foot down, while Utopia filed unilateral paperwork.

17. Process waited nervously to see the result of both decisions.

18. Process met new people and made new obligations, while moving slowly on the contacts, commitments, and utility invoices he’d already acquired.

19. Quarrel spoke candidly with her matriarch about prayers and poems.

20. Process bought tickets to take Work to see a play.

21. Chimera asked Process for input on her inspiration for an aquatic salon.

22. The Scrivener told Process the course would count for more than nothing.

23. Laid low by subterranean rumblings, Process missed his court date with Ballast, and spent the time drafting this inventory instead.

 

V for Vendetta Study Questions & Thought Experiments

Updated slightly in the era of Occupy

V for Vendetta Thought Experiments in handout/flier format

1. A sustainable society only has to be built once. What unsustainable methods would you support in such an endeavor?

2. How much of a fascist will you become in service to the revolution?

3. Name the 3 worst things our current administration has done. Imagine that somehow these were part of a long term, insanely subversive plot to do good… How good would the good have to be to justify the wrong?

4. What things distinguish the criminal from the civilian from the citizen?

5. Do Hollywood movies ever serve anything like a true revolution?

Recommended Reading List

Seeking a light satirical novel about liberal arts academia, particularly one set at a women’s college; something like Neal Stephenson’s “The Big U,” but not quite so dense with words…

1. Commencement

2. Changing Places

3. Thinks

4. Prep

5. Stoner

Opening Doors at Mills College

1. I want to dive into some man’s thoughtful blog about his experiences as a man, navigating the world of a women’s college, but I haven’t found one yet.

2. It happened again today: I got to a door first, reached to open it out, the woman arriving on the other side took it the rest of the way, & I stalled between the choice of switching feet & holding it for her while she passed through the narrow space left for me, or moving to one side & letting her pass through entirely, or passing through myself & saying thank you.

3. I chose the latter, & felt awkward, which is inevitable & strange.

4. As Sr!n! wrote on a bumper sticker sometime, “America is a slow motion race riot.”

5. An odd moment in the grad lounge, 3 men sitting around the table & me at a computer.  Did the atmosphere change in that moment or did I just feel different?