Category: Arts and Culture

Went to see Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 3 with Mike, Josh, Minette. Not sure it’s worth trying to describe this experience of astounding unreality (watch the 35MB QuickTime trailer for a shadow of its gorgeous impenetrability). Amy and I had seen bits and pieces of other films in the Cremaster series at museums and had found them tedious, but I realize now the key is to be in the theater, immersed, rather than watching excerpts on video with tired feet in the middle of a museum day. Barney’s stuff has an addictive internal logic, even if it doesn’t connect to the world at large in any meaningful way. I’m still wondering what he and Bjork named their baby.

Is it just the SF Bay Area, or this happening everywhere? In the eight months since Miles was born, I haven’t met a single baby named John, Michael, Amy, Cathy, etc. “Normal” names are just plain old out the window. The babies in Amy’s mommies group are named:

Asa
Eliana
Miles
Simone
Ariel
Amelia
Shiva
Liam
Ruby

Is it the same deal in Durham, Fort Lauderdale, Madison, Akron… ?

Once again, I find myself replying to email with the following boilerplate response:

Hi – To ask for permission to link to a resource on my site or anywhere on the web demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what the web is, how it is built, and what makes it work. I decline permission because it is not mine to give. On the other hand, if you do not ask me, then of course you have permission — that’s the way it’s supposed to work. If people had to ask permission every time they linked to something, the web would never have come to exist, would never operate as an open exchange of ideas and information. Imagine if every synapse in your brain had to ask permission to make a connection with any other synapse. If something is online, you are free to link to it, end of story. Please read this for more information.

Two hours ago we heard a lot of yelling and some glass breaking right outside our house (the one we rent). Ran outside and saw two 20-somethings running away. Our neighbor was running/limping into his house. Knocked on his door and found him bleeding profusely from the nose. He said it was broken. Called 911 and then took him to the ER. He said the two guys attacked without warning, just started wailing on him. He didn’t refuse their robbery, but was attacked anyway.

The last two weeks have seen a huge uptick in the number of drug deals going down half a block up; cars pulling up in the middle of the street and idling for five minutes, kettle drum speakers thudding our windows half a block away. We and several other neighbors have been finding hypodermic needles on the sidewalks. No question in my mind this was an attack for drug money. Told the OPD I’m now afraid to leave my house and afraid for my wife and baby and can we please have extra patrols on this stretch. The dispatcher said she would put the word out.

You’d never guess it during the day. We live on a lovely tree-lined street, most neighbors maintain their yards, people like each other. The neighborhood feels good. But always just under the surface this perpetual crap and ugliness.

As we were driving to the ER, my neighbor said through the bloody rags covering his face, “I try so hard not to have racist thoughts.”

Outside my office door, students walk past, sometimes I can hear their cell phone conversations. Today, a beautiful day. Sun shining, air crisp, pine trees swaying. And I hear a student barking, nearly yelling into a phone:

“Sorry, I’m stuck in traffic. Yeah, it’s bumper to bumper. It’s going to be a while.”

For some reason I’ve had a wild hair for about two weeks to try my hand at making sushi. Tonight stopped off at Berkeley Bowl for a loaf of beer and ended up with a full pound (too much!) of sushi tuna, bamboo mat, 10 sheets of nori, white short-grain rice, wasabi powder, sesame seeds, imitation crab, avocado, and a couple bottles of my favorite Gekkeikan. Made California rolls with tuna – start with the basics.

(Click)

Although fairly simple, surprised to find out how long it took to put everything together. The rice alone took an hour to go through all its stages (came out just right though!) Didn’t eat till late, but so worth it. I’m such a sucker for sushi. Want to do this more often. I’m able to cook, just don’t do it very often. Heart’s not usually in it. Was tonight though.

Lest there be any confusion, here is the list of ingredients on the back of the seaweed package:

Ingredients: Seaweed

Received an interesting invitation from O’Reilly — we the people may have lost the fight against corporate copyright interests with the defeat of Eldred, but that doesn’t stop anyone from voluntarily entering their works into the public domain before the 70+ years are up. O’Reilly is asking all of their authors to let the publisher place a “Founder’s Copyright” on books 14 years after they go out of print (the founders of this country originally set copyright term limits at 14 years). Because I signed and returned the contract amendment, my MP3 book, which is already out of print, will enter the public domain in 14 years rather than in 70.

Speaking of which, if you’ve been seeing Creative Commons badges on web sites and wondering what the hell, check this Flash movie featuring the iconified likenesses of Jack and Meg White.

Last night watched Burt Lancaster’s 1968 The Swimmer — Ned Merrill decides to “swim home” — visualizing a “necklace of azure blue swimming pools stretching across the county.” He jogs in a proto-Speedo through upper crust neighborhoods and forest land to the swimming pools of people he’s known or barely known through the decades of his life. He crashes their pool parties, trespasses with presumption into the backyards of their lives, as they become a mirror for the examination of his own life. As is slowly revealed, he is a boob, a loser of a man laboring under delusions of adequacy.

1968 must have been the year the “pull focus” technique was invented. Every other shot starts blurry then glides into focus, or vice versa. And every time he’s having a particularly insightful moment the camera zooms in on his perfect blue eyeballs, as refracted diamonds of light dance on the lens.

The conclusion is a “twist” that’s supposed to make you leave the theater feeling blown away, but today just seems absurdly, wonderfully ham-fisted.

“What’s this weird connection between fans of Star Trek, S&M, and the Renaissance Faire?”

This is Margaret Cho, apparently describing my next-door neighbors. Had never seen her before; rented both of her shows and watched with Amy this weekend. “I’m the One That I Want” by far the funnier, more cohesive, more involving. “Notorious C.H.O.” more like straight stand-up, less funny. But she is so honest, so gregarious, just so … willing to mock her family, it’s mesmerizing.