the silence when doors open wide

Hallowe'en is another holiday I think nobody does right; at least, not past childhood. It's great that kids are indoctrinated into the idea of fluid identity and masks and their relationship to the nighttime (even though today's suburbized "Halloween" takes most of the flavor out of it), but what do we do with our masks when we put aside childish things? We wear them to the party and take them off once in sight of the drinks. Instead we should, like most indigenous cultures with a living link to their past, celebrate death & change (and death as change) by revelling in it, once a year opening our cemeteries at night, and throwing the biggest greatest celebration of existence we can muster.

Death & change are an integral part of life and are not to be feared, and the more we are capable of embracing them, the greater is our potential for living fully, unafraid, with wild freedom and abandon.

After all, why do you think fundies are always trying to ban Hallowe'en?

And I picked on the whims of a thousand more
Still pursuing the path that's been buried
For years of dead woods and jungles and cities on fire,
can't replace or relate,
can't release or repair -
take my hand, and I'll show you what was - it will be.


["the Obsidian Butterfly"]

music: Warren Zevon, "Werewolves of London" of course ;-)

...and the gunslinger followed

Hmm. If they take their time, and if the art is all like the previews, it could be good. I remember many a discussion of how adaptations of the books could be done well, I think they all ended in anime & Yoshitaka Amano. [thx to B!]

music: Joy Division, Closer

The Galaxy Song

by Eric Idle

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

[here]

rock rock, rock-n-roll high school college

I thought at first it was just the fake classes I'm taking ("Ethnomathematics?!?"), but I think it's because I'm going to a CC in a town with a University; sometimes it feels like an alternative high school. See, last week for my religion & society class we gave presentations on philosophers, and one girl mentioned "Plah-to." I shit you not. She said it like 5 times. Rhymes with fatto. In my Ethnomath class we had to do presentations discussing the mathematical & logical bases of games. TWO groups did drinking games ("kings" & "hockey"). One guy did Legend of Zelda, for Chrissake. I was going to do pen & paper rpgs, but I don't feel confident that it would hold the attention of the back row, who, yes, heckle every presentation. "Your mother plays dominoes - Hiyo!" Did your mother teach you to pop your collar, douchebag? Instead I'm doing Fluxx. Well, at least my art class is allright, despite the lady with the head injury who makes the teacher (Rob) repeat e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

I'm making it sound like I don't enjoy it there, but really I do! Every day something makes me laugh hysterically, and if you can't get that out of life then you're asking too much. It's all a big crap-shoot, anyhoo. I was worried for a little while about my Ethnomath midterm, but it turned out okay - out of a possible 75 points, I got 80.

music: Devotchka, How It Ends (another greatest album of all time)

double-you tee eff, mate?

in the biggest wtf-moment of my day, after returning from the store with fresh Guinness and depositing one saidsame in the freezer, it somehow escaped its secure footing on the flat surface, tumbled down the front of the refrigerator and landed smack flat on its bottom, causing the cap to shoot off in a horrible pop, spattering precious precious Guinness onto the fridge, the floor, and yes, a roughly six-foot diameter of gravity-defying Guinness-head on the ceiling. i did manage to salvage half of the bottle and drink it, so it wasn't a total loss.

now to watch dark days.

YATTA!

This is of course the greatest dance of all time. How could it not be?

Who? Who? Who? Who? Us! Us! Us! Us!

music: G-R-EE-N-L

bicycle day

Hot damn! As of tomorrow, I get to pedal one of these around, thanks to Hava! YAAYYYY!!

music: The Orb, Bicycles & Tricycles

yep. human ear.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?
Stupid capacity. *sigh* Would have been pretty nice timing, too.

Aw heck. Here's some links:
Hanzi Smatter
pie
& this totally makes my day.

Update 051020: in my typically late fashion, i just discovered del.icio.us, and put a link on my sidebar. look to the right!

music: Radiohead, Knives Out

Art-venture

Brain is frizzled. Art class today was held at WWU, a scant 7 minute walk from home. I think it was the first time I've been there just for my own purposes, without Hava or Braden or anybody else; even when I practice there it's when H is in class. Today was a great day for it, beautiful semi-rainy weather, giant ominous clouds with patches of blue, trees still with their full spectrum of green to bright red. For years and years I couldn't let myself completely enjoy fall, not completely sure why - probably has something to do with back-to-school associations, and living in california until I was 6. But this year and last there have been these moments where this intense perception of the beauty of it breaks through, and I can't help but just totally embrace autumn. For our art class the teacher dude ["Professor" is kind of a stretch in his case, I think] walked us around the campus and talked about the sculptures & the artists who made them, including "Particle Physics Experiment Gone Horribly Wrong," "Staircase Up & Then Back Down," and the local favorite, "Man Fucks Cougar."

Anyway, turns out the campus is really beautiful this time of year. Big, old brick buildings framing changing trees & weird art, who couldn't love it? I stayed after "class" to explore the library, and when I walked home it was that thick windy darkness, and I was glad to have on my quietest shoes, as I deliberately chose the darker corners & corridors every chance I got. Neat!

music: Mahler's 2nd Symphony
book: Martin Buber, The Way of Man

i'm living in a william s burroughs novel

music: John Zorn, Spy vs. Spy

let there be capital

Last night at work I had an interesting thought - the Garden of Eden story in Genesis could be construed as a (perhaps imperfect) archetype of capitalism, especially the grocery store. Think about it: you're in a walled off environment, surrounded by things you're told you can't "have" (gotta pay), but you take them to the front, dialogue of payment, and you're expelled. Back to the harsh reality of the outside; at least, not the artificially-induced oasis of the marketplace. Flaming Sword? Angel Gabriel? Maybe they're ATMs. Or Loss Prevention. Maybe certain unspoken agreements, understandings, codified behaviors.

Work is not challenging my mind much these days. Of itself, anyway.

music: Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow