multiplicity of universes

I recently listened to the audio version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I hadn't read it in ten years, and it was every bit as funny and amazing as I remembered. I started reading the eulogies and articles on Douglas Adams's death and came across Douglas Adams' speech at Digital Biota 2:"is there an artifical God?" He asks some big time questions and proves that charm and humor and creative metaphor can contribute to any field, even science and religion.

There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions.

we are the stories we tell

The trailer for Iraq war doc film Gunner Palace went online today. I absolutely hate "preach to the choir I have a hypothesis and because i'm so smart and i'm going to tell you what to think and how to make sense of it" documentaries, which are a dime a dozen these days...but this one looks great. The trailer comes right out and says it..."This is Not About the Politics...This is About the War from the Inside Out...Told By the Soldiers Caught in the Middle". I'm sure people will see what they want to see in the film, but at least from the trailer it looks like it will tell a story instead of shout from a non-linear editing soapbox, and that's an admirable feat.

it's ok, i played beer pong after watching it

Byron Woods and theindy reviewed my dance short, Glacier Knocks this week: "I'm not certain whether to blame cinematographer Joseph Weinfield or a string of bad electrons in uncalibrated equipment for the far too murky visuals of Glacier Knocks, Erik Martin's film with Winston-Salem's alban elved dance company. In this viewing, little more could be discerned than the fact that parts--and possibly all--of the film appeared to show extremely low-lit movement footage of various company members in reverse."

...can't really get mad at the critique (other than the butchering of the cinematogrpaher's name, but perhaps that's for the better). The film was shown so dark and in the totally wrong aspect ratio, you could barely make it out, not to mention the sound problems. It hurt to see everyone confused by the barely descernible images onscreen, but nothing i can really do about it. It was pretty darn dark to begin with, perhaps it was too risky of a piece for them to show. that's the rub with film though...you can't really tailor the show to the venue, audience, mood, etc. like you can on stage.

teensy consolation

from BuzzMachine: If I were you, VW, I would hold a contest to get people to create the best damned VW commercial anywhere and promise to spend big bucks to air it on, say, the Oscars. You don't have to pick the terrorist commercial. You'll be making clear that the thing was not made by you. At the same time, you will learn a lot about new messages that truly resonate and reverberate from your customers -- because your customers are creating them. How's that for market research?

...hmm. I once tried to start a company to faccilitate this very thing. It was called noodle&spark. My partner was a sharp and debonaire research Psychologist. It never got off the ground. The year was 1999.

two vids

I didn't really want to like this video for one of my favorite Postal Service songs. Its by Napolean Dynamite director Jared Hess. I liked the movie, but i just didn't see how kitsch could do this song justice. I was wrong, it's outstanding.

Conversely, I wanted to like the new Spike directed Bjork video for Triumph of a Heart (check it out on bjork's site) but it feels a bit flat to me. Spike's new Luda video has grown on me, maybe this one will too.

god bless the internets

i recently encountered an error in Final Cut Pro that was making me freak out a bit. I tried all the normal tricks and things i could think of...no effect. I started playing disasterous scenarios in my mind. I googled the error message, and quickly found out what my problem was. Illegal characters!

I felt joyous and stupid at the same time. I should know better than to use a "/" in any computer file name, but I was freaking out so bad, I didn't even think about checking the file names. Gotta remember the first rule.

Anyway, thank you 2-pop forums: Capture error problem (FC3.0)!

channel sci-fi

last night i dreamed an entire sci-fi story...

It centered around a nasty new drug which leapfrogged high grade H, but was effective only if it was partially metabolized by someone with extremely close DNA to the user. The more DNA overlap the higher the drug made you.

The story started out with a mother feeding the drug to her young daughter and then making her vommit into a baggie.

The dashing buddy cops combating this scourge wore matching red and blue designer bullet proof vests. They were (of course) fraternal twins.

Knights of Columbus, That Hurts!

This was 18 years ago. That fact makes me feel pink and winded. I still know the tricks though, not sure how that makes me feel.

Reexaminations

Hurrah. Errol Morris has put his Reexaminations back online. My favorite is reason #2 for "Why It Makes Sense to Bite the Hand that Feeds You." "Preemptive bite. Hand is ready to do something. Just look at it. You've got to protect yourself, don't you?"

matching Kangol is too tight

Samuel L Jackson seemed a touch snooty when he turned down a role in amazing director Jim Sheridan's next film, because he didn't want to share billing with 50 cent. apparently he has no problem sharing the screen with Ashanti, or doing a movie for a director whose last project was a TV show called "Hack" if he gets top billing.
Thankfully, Mr. Cranky is there to take him down from his toadstool. I'd rather see the Martin Lawrence inspirational basketball coach movie anyway.

Coach Carter:
Every single scene drips with the predictable syrup of the eventual resolution that everyone knows will take place. We already know it's not about the winning and losing. It's about how you play the game and the game in this film is life. Through discipline, exercise, and good language, Coach Carter teaches these kids how to win at life.

Unfortunately, all "Coach Carter" taught me was that I can actually scratch the first four verses of Revelations into the back of a theater chair with my fingernail in a little under two hours.

Animal Reviews

Imagine if when all the little animals were going 2x2 up the ramp to Noah's Ark, a panel of cheeky brits was rating them. let there be Animal Reviews. My favorites are the Cat, Ocelot, and the Jellyfish.

One Soft Infested Summer

I've been listening to The Boss this morning.
Born to Run was the first album I ever owned. It was a gift from my dad. The first album i bought with my own $ was Liscense to Ill. I think my music collection has been playing catch-up ever since.
Eventhough its in eye-torture white on red text, this 1975 review of "Born to Run" sums up the Boss's storytelling power for me: Springsteen’s heroes and heroines face terror and survive it, face delight and die by its hand, and then watch as the process is reversed, understanding finally that they are paying the price of romanticizing their own fear...You may find yourself shaking your head in wonder, smiling through tears at the beauty of it all. I’m not talking about lyrics; they’re buried, as they should be, hard to hear for the first dozen playings or so, coming out in bits and pieces. To hear Springsteen sing the line “Hiding on the backstreets” is to be captured by an image; the details can come later. Who needed to figure out all the words to “Like a Rolling Stone” to understand it?
I remember sitting in my beat up car in the driveway of my shitty college apartment which had just been completely flooded by a hurricane, listening to Jungleland. I was depressed and planning to drop out of school. I watched a big rat walk across a telephone line and I listened to that tape over and over. I'm still not sure what the words mean.

Koko has a blog

Koko has a blog and she really likes Pesto pizza. Her friend Ndume really likes Chayote Squash. Gorillas and I have similar taste in food. I am happy.

bewilderment and persistence

Amazing NY Times article from Anne Dillard about the impossibility and beauty of writing.Write Till You Drop: "One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."
via mefi

The last time i felt this way about lotion i was 14

I'm really feeling the video and song lotion.
It's straight up resplendent.

I wish it was on the criterion edition so I could watch it in full res.

via ethan

Takin' Big Cable to the mattress

More evidence for TV's impending death. One of the latest nails comes from Tivo, no surprise that they have gotten tired of having to deal with the dinosaur cable companies, but the other nail comes from Big Media whore, Microsoft of all people. The tornado to content diaspora Oz may arriver than we thought. via Jeff Jarvis

videos of the world i summon thee

I am in love with Yahoo!'s new video search. It's the new GIS. I needed some clips of vultures circling the other day to see how easy it would be to composite them into a scene. It took about an hour using google to find a workable clip. today I tried using the yahoo video search and found the same clip and more in about 2 minutes.