Things she said while watching Schizopolis…

One of a number of posts orphaned as drafts over the years.  Were there supposed to be 23? Did we even finish the film? Will I ever hear from her again?  A round up of more recent errata en obscura can be found after the jump.

1. That was weird. (Office phonecall)

2. That’s random. (Faces in the bathroom?)

3. Does this movie have a plot?  Or is it just  all random thoughts? (Hm, back in the office)

4. Was that a golf ball? (Golf ball bounces by)

5. That was funny. (Text/subtext conversation)

6. Publically sanctioned? (Racehorse press conference)

7. ‘tha fuck? (After “happiest man in my pants)

A Misplaced List of Substitutions

Last year all the food kitchens were overbooked with volunteers for Thanksgiving, so instead I thought we might:

1. Ride BART out to the end and back
2. Call all of our friends
3. Invent new facebook/myspace awesomeness and distribute to same
4. Respond to all the craigslist CE ads with encouragement
5. Dress up like Clowns and make balloon animals at the airport

Where the Wild Things Are Study Questions and Thought Experiments

1. Describe the parenting philosophy demonstrated in the story.

2. Is Sendak giving an accurate portrayal of the imaginary life of a child, or is he giving a lesson on how to handle tantrums?

3. Have you ever been taking care of a child, and suddenly felt as though you were in charge of a feral beast? What triggered that feeling? How did you deal with it?
4. Is Max’s voyage objectively real, or is it all in his imagination? Give evidence from the text and pictures.
5. What lesson does Max learn?

Founded by wanderers

Notes for an upcoming endeavor:

There will be unpavers and stitchers, both of whom are in opposition to the puppeteer, but have more in common with him than with any of the eschatologists. 
*
Shakers and Diggers and bloggers and grinders may all be mentioned, by and by.  Daniel Quinn’s Takers and Leavers come to mind, but I’ll have to re-read the source text.

In consumptive news (as opposed to the above productive preview):

Oakland, My Oakland

Oakland, My Oakland, originally uploaded by itchy biscuit.

A hoop full of blue sky
Held high over the green and yellow trees
By the sturdiest, polished steel
Brand new from the catalog
And useless without the plywood and nails
And duct tape and determination
Somebody decided to leave behind

Anger she sours, glowering in whiny misspelled horror

There’s no priest in this dream

All the leaves are brown

Think I’ll go out to Alberta

I don’t care how many letters they send

Lie to me; I promise to believe

Digital Killed the Mixtape Star

We’re all quite old, aren’t we?

That “we,” of course, means those of you who, along with me, experienced the mixtape as something other than a piece of dialog in a Tarantino film, and remember when $200 got you a thing you could hold in your hand that played music, as opposed to a thing that plays music and makes phonecalls and writes short or long letters to your friends and colleagues and is also a rolodex and a compass and a chronograph and a camera and a candle.

Today, we can buy any app we need to feel young (at heart, in mind, of body…)

But the artifacts of our youth are barely recognizable to the people
Who today comprise the ranks of the actually young

They don’t love the weight and the warble
They resent the heft and the hiss
And they don’t understand how the choices work.

Watchmen Study Questions and Thought Experiments

Watchmen Thought Experiments

(Drafted before seeing the film)

1. Do you believe the course of history is managed by secret cabals, shadow governments, or other conspiracies?

2. How are police officers distinct from government sanctioned costumed superheroes?

3. Of the liberties and freedoms you enjoy, which are preserved through your own vigilance?

4. Which are preserved and protected by forces outside yourself?

5. Does the human capacity for violence, hatred, and other horrors result because of childhood experiences?

Epic Comic Book Runs that I will read someday

Preferably in tandem with a comic-book-club, at least the first several…

1. Cerebus #1-300, plus the collected letters and Following Cerebus Magazine
2. Sandman #1-75, The Dreaming #1-60(?), Various mini-series, Lucifer #1-75(?), Books of Magic #1-75, and more… this could really be a list unto itself…
3. Akira
4. 100 Bullets #1-100
5. Promethea #1-32 (Awfully short but very dense… And probably with From Hell, Tom Strong, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the Supreme trades, and several reference texts nearby)

Here is a coil

Because now is a question whose atom of an answer is continuously sheared across the diluted electronic landscape, when hundreds of people I know have their given names written in a magical box in my pocket, and somewhere in some other cloud of electrons is another list of chosen names revolving around the nearly 15,000 messages they and I have shared.  In this era of networked instantiation, my location is a long rope of places where I can be reached, all various distances from the swirl of electrical impulses that is my own very head.