Tilting at windmills for a better tomorrow.
I once gave an interview to a college paper and they asked what my advice to students was and I quoted George Clinton, “Free your mind and your ass will follow.”
What got printed was:
“Free your mind and your ass will fall out.”
Old-school post office boxes at the El Cerrito P.O. These remind me of childhood trips to visit grandpa, how he went to visit his p.o. box every day, the limitless rows of windows and dials, the lock’s combination made of letters rather than numbers (though this one is not), the thrill of pulling out envelopes and looking through to the innards of the post office, the detail and filigree of the eagle and the surrounding design, that 1930s-style drop-shadow on the box number…
But mostly I’m digging the fact that NetPBM installed properly when ImageMagick would not. :)
A few months ago Amy and I sat next to a kid on the train who was flashing a mouthful of new gold teeth. Nice kid, but it was his chompers that really made the impression. Later we got to wondering where you go to find a dentist willing to put gold caps on your teeth
Just found out you don’t need a dentist at all. You need Mr. Bling Bling. He’s in the El Cerrito Plaza, in a small shop sandwiched between H&R Block and Sheila’s Nail Salon. $40/cap. Life is good.
We’ve also seen gold stars embedded in the enamel. According to Mr. Bling Bling’s poster, you can go all the way and get a mouth full of diamond-encrusted fangs, if that’s what turns your crank. Serious bling bling. Pix at gangstagold.com.
What do you get the one-year-old who has everything? An acre of land on the moon, of course. Whether the claim on this land is legit or not, they do make a pretty convincing argument on the site that there’s an actual basis to it. And if all their claims are to be believed, lunar land has gone up in value by a factor of 1,000 over the past 22 years. Who knows how it will skyrocket when humans actually start colonizing! So we bought Miles an acre for Christmas ($39.95!). On the northwest portion of the Sea of Tranquility, near the Crater Arago.
If it all turns out to be a sham, he’ll still be able to show his friends the deed when he gets old enough to understand real estate — which, at this rate, will probably be around age 3.
Reading a fascinating article in the current Wired (not online) about autistic savants and similar. The article quotes a section from Oliver Sacks’ “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” about a pair of twin boys who could not multiply or divide, and had great difficulty with addition and subtraction, but who nevertheless entertained one another for hours by reciting prime numbers up to 20 digits long to one another. They did not know how they knew the primes — they “just saw them.”
The article also refers to the young Andre’-Marie Ampere, who as a toddler could lay out complex arithmetic equations in stones and cookie crumbs, even though he could not yet read numbers.
To me, these are such amazing illustrations of the innateness, the universality of math. It’s not just a human construct. It’s out there, it’s real, it can be “tapped into” without any knowledge or advanced understanding of “how math works.”
Other prodigies tap into music in much the same way, like little Mo Kin the 3-yr-old xylophone prodigy. “Music is my favorite way of thinking,” says one child. The music of the spheres. Music, math, inspiration, we’re just floating in the plasma of them, grasping tendrils as they go by.
At the Subaru dealership today, the salesman ushered us into the Finance Manager’s office to complete our transaction*. Miles was going a bit stir-crazy, so the salesman had given him a balloon to play with. The woman behind the desk stood to greet us, then said to the salesman, “Can I ask you to please remove the balloon from the room? They freak me out.” The salesman looked somewhat surprised, but complied (Miles was a sport about it). Her request was so matter-of-fact, not the words of a crazy person at all, just a simple request, however surreal. I had never heard anything quite like it. Nothing else she did or said in the next 15 minutes was the slightest bit unusual.
When we got home, I Googled “balloon phobia” and turned up a rather detailed page on a treatment program for sufferers of balloon phobia, aka globophobia. The endless variations of the human mind. Strangetude.
*After months of research, test driving, hemming and hawing, we finally decided on a Subaru Forester. The first new car either of us has ever owned. A car to serve us for the next decade. Now champing at the bit for a good road trip.
Person wearing iPod spies passerby wearing iPod. Walks up to stranger, unplugs own headphone jack, motions for stranger to do same. Both plug into each other’s iPod’s and dig 30 seconds of what a total stranger is listening to. Smile, unplug, continue on with their respective days. Apparently iPod jacking is a rising meme on college campuses, small communities, etc. Or maybe not so much a meme as a two-person happening.
Tell-tale white headphone cords mean iPod users are easy to spot, and I admit to sometimes doing that “biker nod” thing back at other iPod users, but so far I haven’t jacked anyone, nor have I been jacked. But I’m open to it.
If you see me, jack me.
Must see BBC: Winner of the World Beard Championship (be sure to see the Follicle Wonders gallery … Can’t afford an iPod? There’s a cheaper way … Many amazing mechanical wonders at World Power Systems … Will Ferrell’s graduation speech to Harvard’s Class of 2003 … Worst album covers ever … You need an airzooka … Cardea : The body of Segway, the head of a robot (because the Segway has too many wheels) … The letter ‘E’ enlarged … Bob Log III had a telephone grafted to his face mask, plays guitar and floor tom at the same time, has boob scotch underwear for sale … Got PHP? Got an image? Build your own stereogram … Dubya has his own blog, and it’s nearly indistinguishable from the dullest blog in the world … Old Ziff-Davis buddy John Hargrave calls Apple support … Wish I was Japanese so I could use this gorgeous wooden keyboard … Robert Fripp offers a blessing … The power of Photoshop … If ever I were to admit there’s such a thing as a perfect car, the 1963 Fiat 500 Cinquecento Giardiniera is surely it … Jenny Holzer’s Truisms, including: “it is heroic to try to stop time” … mac breakdown at UC Berkeley … So wonderful to be reminded of the amazing Pippi Longstocking … Recently heard of people asking for change with cardboard signs saying “Help the ~/less” … Fo shizzle my nizzle.
Mystery envelope arrived today, padded, manila. Addressed to me. No return address. No card, no note, no clues as to origin. Only that the order was fulfilled by King’s Books in Tacoma, WA. Inside, a book titled So Crazy Japanese Toys! — lovely close-up photo pictorials of the most outrageous Japanese heroes and monsters. (“Monsters! Monsters! Monsters! So bothersome, yet so essential!”). I have absolutely no idea who sent me this book. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I am enjoying this immensely. Thank you and goodnight.
Spent the weekend with an old friend of Amy’s from Mass Art — Michael Lewy and fiancee’ Erica. Michael is a painter and photographer (samples) and… a PowerPoint artist. The app everyone loves to hate, the source of all meetings boring and tedious, the clip art of presentation software, turned on its head. I love these. Inverting the bullet-point approach of the typical business presentation and transforming it into a means of representation for the convolutions of life. Michael also paints charts, in a similar vein (one hangs in our dining room). PowerPoint, paintbrushes, whatever.
J&L books is publishing a book of Michael’s PowerPoint charts this December. Michael was kind enough to let me post five teasers here.
