Mr. Random's Blog of Randomness

Saturday, 7:35pm (November 22, 2008)

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:56:45 -0800

Feeling slow today. Whiskey debauchery at the secret gig last night, combined with already rather low energy tank, and being up until 5 a.m. has necessitated a series of naps. I'm eating Mrs. R's wonderful left-over chili soup from last night, while she and her mom go out for dinner at Belly. I just didn't feel up to going out. Much rather sit here and dink around on the web. Between actual sleep periods today, I've been reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods on my Palm e-reader. I don't know how Gaimon has escaped my attention since he's pretty famous and has written a lot of books, but I'm into him now! Here's a passage that struck me from today's reading:

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes-forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique.
Without individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, "casualties may rise to a million." With individual stories, the statistics become people-but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless.Look�, see the child's swollen, swollen belly, and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, his skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from the inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted, distended caricature of a human child? And there, if we feel for them, are they now more important to us than a thousand other children touched by the same famine, a thousand other young lives who will soon be food for the flies' own myriad squirming children?
We draw our lines around these moments of pain, and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.

- Neil Gaiman, American Gods, p. 279.

Friday, 8:56am (November 21, 2008)

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:55:56 -0800

Tuesday, 5:22am (November 18, 2008)

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:40:28 -0800

I've been enjoying Kurt Vonnegut's last novel, Timequake, on my Palm reader. Last night, this passage popped out at me:

... So we have in this summer of 1996, rerun or not, and as always, faithless custodians of capital making themselves multimillionaires and multibillionaires, while playing beanbag with money better spent on creating meaningful jobs and training people to fill them, and raising our young and retiring our old in surroundings of respect and safety. For Christ's sake, let's help more of our frightened people get through this thing, whatever it is. Why throw money at problems? That is what money is for. Should the nation's wealth be redistributed? It has been and continues to be redistributed to a few people in a manner strikingly unhelpful.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (from ch. 49).

Emphasis mine.

Monday, 5:37am (November 17, 2008)

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:41:01 -0800

A couple from yesterday's LaunchPad photoshoot during a break between Swarm sets.

Sunday, 8:52am (November 16, 2008)

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:44:48 -0800

I recorded a new podcast last night, about 50 minutes of music. Something somebody wrote to me in an email this weekend reminded me that I DO miss doing radio. I just don't miss the radio station.

By the way, RadioNOT is done. I'm leaving radionot.wordpress.com up, and you can still stream all the shows I did for that year (Aug 07-Aug 08), but I'm bringing my podcasting back here to this blog. Thanks for listening.

PODCAST20081115-2215 (duration 50:36)
download/streaming options:
http://www.archive.org/details/podcast20081115-2215
link to mp3 file:
http://www.archive.org/download/podcast20081115-2215/podcast20081115-2215.mp3

Play it here:

PLAYLIST
Black Dyke Band - Robins
Buckhorn - Ticket To Love
Liz Phair - X-Ray Man
Junior Private Detective - Lucky 13
The Lennon Sisters - You Are My Sunshine
The Need - Jacky The Ripper
Led Zeppelin - All Of My Love
Beltline - The Reputation of Pretty Things
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
Ex-Hustlers - Whiskey and Science
Leonard Cohen - Lady Midnight
The Flaming Lips - Felt Good To Burn
Nicolette Larson - Radioland

Thursday, 10:31pm (November 13, 2008)

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:42:20 -0800

FWIW composed on Palm m515, combination of Graffiti and tap screen keyboard. You geek.

Down, he was running down. Time would tell, of course. A definite aura of desperate thinking circled his head, like a wreath--or a spider web. There, I said it. I didn't know if anyone else could see it, but that didn't matter. A time would come when I'd no longer be thinking this way. A fly buzzed nearby. I secretly gave it a name before I killed it.

Yes, time would tell us all. But where was the yellow jackal? A fine space within which to be forced to deal with such a thing as THIS. To be sure. But a flower communicating in code? An oddity. That's all.

sunflower
turning
star-faced
criminally

The more I thought, the more I stared, and the more I could see the red--the disbelieving red--in this case, whether perceived via valid impressions or not. Vases full of limp daisies, memories of dry cheese.

I returned to my typing, well after midnight, _quite_ well after the symbols departed and all I was left with were obvious and sad surfaces. I looked out onto my flood-lit yard just in time to see a gray bunny hop across the grass, then out of the screen, and into a secondary narrative.

pillbox trick
hat-rack war
carnival boots
farmer's moon

Rat-a-tat sports bra, yellowing newspaper, expired containers of soymilk, space to call it a day: this wasn't what I was talking about--far from it! Go back and please do it properly. Thank you.

Sympathies range across special areas, vast secret special areas. There were many who could never grasp nor hold on to a wavelegth, even, of certitude, when faced with that overwhelming suggestion.

Donut cherry spa select, in a moment. But first, we must insert a little fur under the blanket. Cuppa tea, my bobsled, and a half-rack of the cheapest--all out on a summer night. Dinner was free but ugly. I barely have any pride left. I'll let you smoke the cigarette. I have to grow a mustache. Look, another customer.

Catalogs, purses, time-wagons, napping tablets, pear-shaped waiters (like in the old painting above the 78 player) and timeless muffin dieties--careening in and around the new part of town. I called the posse, but (I'm sorry, sir) was told they were now bowling league champions and cannot be reached for at least three days, if you know what she means.

Byzantium, nether kingdoms, post-cryptic maudlinisms--it's ALWAYS crunchtime over there. Nothing seems connected anymore. Loose change, periscope eyes, never again the detection that launched a thousand probes. Cheesecake!

boring hard
clandestine
soiled thoughts
advantaged

Fill out time, freaky business, califrajilistic--Yo (young love/victual knottings). Simpleton grace feeding my lines through a new machine--a claim not being denied, at least not until another agreed-upon time. Probability sequenced with a plain denial of remorse.

Looking for cessations of repeated agonies, please to expedite. Please do not hesitate to make it better.

Thursday, 5:48pm (November 13, 2008)

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:07:00 -0800

Speaking of bands, which I did this morning, LaunchPad is still cooking along very nicely. We do play every other week at Chez Random, and that actually works very well. It's usually close to 3 hours of playing, with a delicious snack and dinner provided by the lovely and amazing Mrs. Random. (All my other bands are naturally jealous, and so am I when I'm identifying with them :-0) Gigs have been a little sparse this year, but we just completed a kickass little demo CD and Orbital Dave is going to score some excellent dates for us with it ;-) Go Orbital!!

Status of Anti Kool Vultures? Unsure, actually. But I don't think we're dead. In fact, when your coolness dies, we'll eat it. The question is: with a spoon, or knife&fork? Or: just basic talon and beak action. Kaw! Kaw!

Thursday, 6:40am (November 13, 2008)

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:06:05 -0800

Yes, MUSIC IS THE BEST. After weeks of languishing, my bass guitar got two workouts this week, and it felt so good. Just in time, because my callouses have started to disappear. On Monday FRANTIC got together for the first time in at least six weeks, and last night My Dirty Little Secret (SHHHH!!!) played together for the first time since the Luckey's show, which was what, about two months ago? So much fun to play again. Speaking of which, MDLS is playing a show at John Henry's on November 21, which is a Friday. MDLS is also playing a week later, Nov. 28, at The Astoria bar (on West 11th, west of Staples). I have to say, I'd been getting frustrated by the lack of regular playing time by both mentioned bands, but I think we're solving the situations.

I thrive on weekly (or at a bare minimum, twice monthly) band get-togethers. It's not about "practice" to be "perfect"--it's more of a spiritual/social thing. Yes, it's possible to rock spontaneously even with very rare "rehearsals" but for me the point is playing every week and developing as a band. That's my ideal. Yay for ideals!

PS--At the John Henry's MDLS show (I mean secret meeting), there will be a very limited run of CDs for sale, with awesome handmade covers. Just so you know. Wear disguises!! If you tell anybody, please swear them to secrecy as well, and tell them to do the same with anybody they tell. See you on November 21, not that you'll recognize me.

P.S. have you heard about the killer fake band I'm in? Check it out. Hint: I'm not Tony Borg.

Tuesday, 5:21am (November 11, 2008)

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:00:14 -0800

I used to write a lot more than I do now. Lots of journaling, poetry, and "experimental" writing. Got notebooks and boxes full of the stuff. Even got published a couple times many years ago, in small zines. The writing has taken more and more of a back seat to painting and music in my life. However, my new activity of reading e-books on the Palm m515 has led to some great discoveries and inspiration. An urge to WRITE has grown within me during the last week or so. I posted a sample of last weekend's efforts in the previous post, below. Here is the larger piece it came from: PROZ for the postfuture metabolism.

But wait, there's more... Here's another piece, which is perhaps destined to be part of something bigger.....

Warmth requirement:�score new raw ecstasies from the design of the bread. Punish naive turnabout, quickly heading for the news section and photos galore. Part the damp pages, fresh from accidental dipping. Peel them away from each other. Give me an extra stack of twenties. I feel that you are withholding the nature of this game from everybody but me. Take your clouds to another business and see if they don't laugh!

You drive down a dirt road, as if into yourself, looking closely into the rear-view mirror at the clouds of brown blown up by your tires, peering for something decisive back there.

Shouldn't it be harder--incrementally more difficult--to say something supposing you were overheard listing last night's dream sequences--like lines in a BASIC program--letting variables equal constants, formatting loops and case statements--questionable? �Blood, liquor, cement chewing gum, hellish steel, binary jinx, hibernating beast. �Blood, lament, commercial etiology, camambert tourniquet: �all impatient as can be.� Like a girl with blue hair and a Sharpie, writing on the smooth concrete sides of a dry swimming pool:� CLASS DISMISSED.

Unrelated, merely coming one after the other, or another other, singular and untied, not chained, moving freely but in apparent order just by being there, another and another.� This is the movement of life.� Or death--the frequency of hope/despair oscillation, subject of a recent paper, bright silver ink on dull matte black.� How hard it is to get one's message published in the true sense, in the sense of breaking the skin, of inserting the pulpy ink directly into the victim-reader's muscle tissue, blood-vessel system, private thoughts!

I cut and paste the Present with the Past, hoping to cook up a little Future we can use for getting around, making a few things happen.� Is becoming like a growing hair, a flowing river, or a syrupy magnetic field observed through the professor's Goggles?� Is shining like a requirement, a promise made to feel good on the inside?

Should you be able to pull it apart, our technicians are standing by to put their hands out and take the pieces from you, so that you may more easily fit into my handcuffs.� Should you desire any last things, words, or other things, please be sure to submit these requests in bold format, always ready to defend your pronunciation.� I find you somewhat striated because of certain invisible grids.� Invisible to most, that is.� Dare to feel your own attention, perceive the risk you undertook at birth, obviously unavoidable so hardly a risk really.� I mean the inner dice-roll that automatically chose you as you, beyond you.� Stay there.� You are perfect.

Saturday, 3:07pm (November 8, 2008)

Sat, 8 Nov 2008 15:15:32 -0800

Business is viciousness, labor rents both toward the ugly and the beautiful, insane. You are registered as my client, in this affair of light and dark, inscribed wonder and wound-up despair. Sing or talk, it's all the same, all encoded .avi files on the professor's hard drive. Wordy nature climbing arc of a story or retrial: push hard on the shelves, on the shoulders, against the pitting masses.

Talk is coming together nonsensically, musically, as a refrain of togetherness, issued forth from a bullhorn, a bull's horn, skin of lips, loud mucous and betrayal. The god is suffocated, refused breath among the people. Is what you want some kind of fervency? Craving for runaway eagle fawn mustard bath? Sopping wet at the end of the rainy season? Kind and gentle to everyone? Drawing on notepads ignoring the lines?

Semi-operating full trains of thought, already fooling myself, by degrees, in this cheat. Mirror mirror. Scrawl. Tomato evolution, seeking moist text among the dessicated reedy whispers. Crunch, paw, squeak, whish. Run run run. Step in between each occurrence of the main character. Step on my toes. Break my beak. Wash in my interpretation. Stubborn and outlaw, unsoaped and unearthed, regarded by extra infamy and anti-awe. Scarcity! Bullshit! @thistime Final expectations never come/never decide, greet the colors as they pass, into the end of the parade, the quiet finish that always resides and remains.

Now to greet the ~~schematic~~ diagram. The very plan. Wingtips levelling, sir. We are approaching the line. Sermonette paper airplane decanting the scheme in front of all readers. All colors. All font choices. I am a word next to another word. We chant and resound with italics and national pride. I find all of this intertwined with dreams I have had, with desert camping trips and alcohol-tinged rescue attempts at the edge of the quick zone. I sat back quietly and turned to you. And WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Thursday, 4:09pm (November 6, 2008)

Thu, 6 Nov 2008 16:39:38 -0800

I am one of the happy relieved ones, too. I'm glad Obama won, and I'm very glad Kitty won and that Sizemore's shitty measures failed. I think even if BHO turns out to be a corporate shill and/or a supporter of more authoritarianism, it's obvious to me that he is the catalyst of so much hope and inspiration in America and around the world. He is a fantastic orator, the likes of which we haven't seen for decades. He seems reasonable and smart and honest. Considering how horribly fucked up things in the White House have been for the last 8 years, I'll take it!!

But what the hell is up with California? And all those meanies passing the anti-gay-marriage measure? Seriously pisses me off. I hope this is just another speed bump on the way to a FAIR system of marriage that ALL couples can be part of. I've never understood why one segment of the population feels the need to pass laws damaging to another segment, when it doesn't really make a whit of actual difference to those who are passing the discriminating measures!! Let everybody get married to who they want to, you morons. It's not gonna hurt you!!

Thursday, 6:49am (October 30, 2008)

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:10:44 -0700

Just checked out (online) today's issue of the Eugene Weekly. The results are announced. Congratulations Eugene Weekly Blog for winning first place in the Best Local Blog category of the 2008 Eugene Weekly Best of Eugene Awards! And also congrats to Jeffrey Morgenthaler for coming in second. And thank you to those who voted for THIS blog, which came in third place this year. Yay for blogs!

And yay for Halloween, which is, as some of you know, Mr. Random's birthday (not Ken Fletcher's, mind you, but the Mr. Random player-character's anniversary of initial manifestation). Yep, he started out as a Halloween costume in 1988. ALL OF YOU ARE INVITED TO MR. RANDOM'S BIRTHDAY PARTY AT SAM BOND'S FRIDAY NIGHT. The Ovulators have teamed up with lots of local talent to bring us the songs of the Hedwig & The Angry Inch rock opera. The SootheSayers will also be rocking the garage. AND there will be a fabulous amount of space money in the house. Come get a bit of interdimensional cash to magick up your life.

Wednesday, 6:25am (October 29, 2008)

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:57:28 -0700

Just got done with a good read: The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism by Matt Mason. Download it free at www.thepiratesdilemma.com. Some great discussions, and some angles I'd never encountered this acutely before. Sure to be controversial, it really covers a lot of territory as a work of cultural criticism. Lots of examples, interviews, conjectures. I especially like his treatment of nanocultures, 3-D printing, "pill piracy" (poor nations making cheap generic clones of expensive brand-name drugs), "the hiphop generation," the disappearance of the "generation gap" resulting in confusion and frustration among corporate marketers, and the idea that piracy highlights flaws and creates new gaps in markets that in turn stimulate competition and/or litigation--ultimately changing the way things are done. Matt Mason argues that for smart and savvy creators and businesses, piracy isn't a threat: it's an opportunity. Fascinating prose. Randomly recommended!

Saturday, 12:07pm (October 25, 2008)

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:10:57 -0700

Friday, 3:39pm (October 17, 2008)

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:20:44 -0700

I'm still liking my "ebook reader"--the old Palm PDA that Mrs. Random doesn't use any more. I've read several books ("texts" I suppose is more accurate in this format), and am in the middle of several more. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading the Lewis Carroll "Alice" books, which I've never read before, and this is great timing because I've been wanting to read The Logic of Sense with more understanding. And I am. (In paper format, though.)

Painting space money a year after, and in the spot of, its origin last week was really great. The island isolation is favorable for becomings. I made lots of space money, except that most of it still needs the metallic layer added.

Pssst: come to the Hedwig Halloween show at Sam Bonds and ask me for space money. I plan to be absolutely loaded.

I listened to The Underlings new CD today, first chance I've had with the proper receptive state of mind (and nobody else in the office to disturb my communion). It totally fucking ROCKS!! I'm completely blown away by the performances, productions, and the incredible heat. I hope they're sending this out to some key mp3 blogs and net critics, because I think this is a super hot album. Get it.

Speaking of local albums, I've been thwarted in my attempt to get the new Yeltsin CD. I did buy one at the Eugene Celebration Luckey's gig, but alas someone STOLE it from my jacket (in the pile near the stage) before I left the bar... I guess I left it visible. Rrrrrr. I shall make another attempt... Hmmm wonder if itz on the torrentz... (heh).

Pssst Pssst Here's a secret, actually My Dirty Little Secret: November 21 @ John Henry's. November 28 @ The Astoria. Secret Meetings. Pass it on. Confidentially of course.

Wednesday, 7:54pm (October 15, 2008)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:05:29 -0700

Ooo, ooh, oo, Just One More. I forgot about this one, I was gonna blog it earlier--a photo from vacation up in the San Juans last week. This bird rules.
Gotz a kashoo nom, mon.

Wednesday, 6:03pm (October 15, 2008)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:38:08 -0700

I thought today could use 3000 more words' worth. Here's from this morning's walk to work:

Wednesday, 5:06am (October 15, 2008)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:12:23 -0700

O Hai. Iz been awai frum hear. Vaykayshun. Mrs. R blogged it pretty good.

Painting 4 U:

Love,
Mr. Random

Tuesday, 4:30am (October 7, 2008)

Tue, 7 Oct 2008 04:36:21 -0700

Sunrise looking down 18th Ave. near Olive, a couple weeks ago.

Wednesday, 6:57pm (October 1, 2008)

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 19:51:30 -0700

I went to the dentist today and got a crown, actually a temporary cap, and the permanent will get installed in a couple weeks. Right now my right face is going from numb to punched in the jaw feeling. In general, life is pretty good... with a few minor challenges here and there. Last Saturday morning we had to remove a dead possum from under our house. The next day Mrs. R found another dead possum outside our house, and the last couple days we've been smelling that smell again, fearing another one under the house. We HAD animal proofing done a few years ago, but obviously some serious checking and repair needs to be done. And why the heck do we have this sudden die-off of possums? (Assuming this current smell is that and not a squirrel or raccoon.) I certainly hope nobody in our neighborhood would be fuckwit enough to poison animals. A seriously scary thought. Perhaps an illness, or pure coincidence. But I do NOT relish the thought of going down into our insanely low crawl-space tomorrow hunting for another maggoty carcass. However: it's got to be done.

In rather more pleasant news, I have another gadget glow going. But bonus! We didn't have to spend money for this one. Some 5 or 6 years ago, Mrs. Random won a Palm m505 handheld PDA as a doorprize at a work-related conference in Texas. She used it for several years for phone numbers, addresses, and appointments. Then I guess she kind of lost interest, and our data-keeping moved to laptop computers, teh Google Cloud and other new fancy things. I've been, for the last few months, secretly jonesing for an e-book reader, inspired by the Amazon Kindle and the buzz it's created. But give me a break! Three hundred bucks is way too much to spend for a dedicated e-reader. Please, it's gotta be under $100 or I'm not going to even consider it. Anyway, a few days ago I idly googled "cheap e-book reader" and found several hits... among which was the suggestion that old Palms were a very cheap way to go. "Buy 'em for $25 on E-bay" someone wrote. Then I remembered my wife's languishing PDA. She was only too happy to bring it home. I got busy searching for Palm OS stuff, and came up with several readers and lots of sources for free e-books. Yeah! I've suddenly become hooked. Last night I stayed awake late in bed reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. An awesome novel, by the way. If you're concerned with our growing "security society" you should read it. Doctorow released it free as an e-book download (of course, you can read on a regular computer too). Also, I've never read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, although I've owned several copies since grade school. I'm reading it now on the Palm. I've got a bunch of stuff now waiting to be read a few little chunks at a time, at opportune little moments. When I turn the unit on, it comes right up where I left off reading last time. Cool!

There, a blog. Plop!

Thursday, 5:11am (September 25, 2008)

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:16:54 -0700

New minting location. Space money production proceeds.

Monday, 5:07am (September 22, 2008)

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:11:23 -0700

Early morning delivery at Cornucopia, 17th & Lincoln, sometime last week

Wednesday, 4:20am (September 17, 2008)

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:49:37 -0700

Slow internet energy for me for the last week or two, as is probably obvious, yes? Check out M. Fuchs' new blog The Circuit Breakers.

Had a great time at Eug. Celeb. on Friday night at Luckey's and Saturday afternoon at the Library Stage. Yay for The Ovulators (twice!), The Underlings, Yeltsin, and Alpha Dahlia!! I got my money's worth, that's for sure. Twelve bucks for three days of music? That's "so expensive"? I guess everything is relative. Sounds like two hours of minimum wage work to me. Or two sixpacks of decent beer on sale. Sheesh.

Have ta say: I'm hearing more and more of my peers(?) talking like grumpy old men lately. "Music these days" "Kids these days" "Everything sounds the same nowadays" "There's no soul" "All music today is boring" "I just can't get excited about the Eugene Celebration"... blah dee fucking blah.

IF YOU'RE BORED, THAT MEANS YOU'RE BORING. Or at the very least (I think) you seriously need to open your senses to the amazingness of the life around you. Apply some effort and get excited. Otherwise, you are boring me, and I'm going to stop listening to you. That's pretty much all I have to say about THAT subject at the moment.

I did catch Menomena at the Rogue stage, and they were fun, although I kept wishing they had a woman in the band. Weird, I know. I had a moment of musical depression before leaving Helle's Belles (Library Stage), contemplating a band that completely devotes itself to covering the songs of one famous band, i.e. a tribute band. I would love to see that lineup playing originals. But after some perspective-building time (4 days?), I do admit that tribute bands are just fine and I was having my own "grumpy old man" moment there. Heh.

Saturday, 7:20pm (September 13, 2008)

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:41:17 -0700

Check out my rock star wife...

Wednesday, 6:32am (September 10, 2008)

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:42:09 -0700

Working on a relatively massive project: sorting and organizing CDRs and DVDRs of computer data from the past 7 years. Also, I've been "blogging" but I've been using this awesome technology that needs no electricity or special hardware. It also has the advantage of being nearly completely private. Pen and paper! Yeah! The disadvantage is that I only get "hits" when I open the notebook, so its Page Rank (tm) is abysmal and thus it will never win a EW award.

Friday, 6:06am (September 5, 2008)

Fri, 5 Sep 2008 06:33:40 -0700

I've been playing with Google's new browser, Chrome, and looking forward to Firefox implementing the tear-away tab feature, for sure. And sandboxing. Chrome is open source, so I expect to see its successful innovations incorporated in other browsers. But of course Google is all about the Cloud, net-based computing, using primarily applications that reside, not on a particular computer, but which are accessible through any net-connected machine via a browser. Chrome is a browser optimized for Google's applications, like GMail, Docs, Search, etc. etc. I think Chrome will evolve to the point where it might become an "operating system" itself that runs without the need for a conventional OS like Windows or Linux or OS X. If all your apps and files are in the Cloud, then your browser essentially IS your operating system. It's ironic that the personal computer took control of programs/data away from mainframes (one big central compuer with multiple "terminals" i.e. screen+keyboard stations), and now via personal computers a similar model is emerging. Little terminals (netbooks, media players, phones, blackberries, etc. etc.) connected to the big cloud server where all programs and files reside.

Hey, I hear Dawn Baby's having a party on First Friday (i.e. TONIGHT) at her salon (1355 Willamette, across from new Fire Station). The bands are London Flush & SootheSayers.

Wednesday, 6:07am (September 3, 2008)

Wed, 3 Sep 2008 06:23:00 -0700

Oatmeal, coffee, and a little prose:

But what these deprecations acknowledge, however tacitly, is the degree to which the cinema books resist easy assimilation, for Deleuze's two volumes are, in their own way, astonishing. Whatever their intricacies and digressions, The Movement-Image and The Time-Image fundamentally contend that, beyond all other arts, the cinema opens the possibility for deterritorializing the cogito, the rigid "image of thought" that in one form or another has dominated Western philosophy. The cinema provokes us to see, to feel, to sense, and finally to think differently, and while this induces Deleuze to write his two volumes, those volumes in turn compel us to return to the cinema, to see its images in the light of our own captivity to the rituals of representation, the philosophical-narrative program we have been running. Ultimately, the cinema books should be read precisely because of their ambition, because they constitute, to twist a phrase of Foucault's, an "introduction to non-fascist thinking."
-- Gregory Flaxman, Introduction, The Brain Is The Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema, p. 2.

Tuesday, 5:19am (September 2, 2008)

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 05:32:32 -0700

I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately. About real-time relations between people and things, things and things, people and animals, animals and animals, and especially people and people. Vectors, continuous variation, entanglements and freeings, co-pilotings, solo efforts, groups, configurations, assemblages, territorializations, deterritorializations, reterritorializations.

Monday, 5:12am (September 1, 2008)

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 05:18:54 -0700

Twas a music filled weekend, with a lovely Swarm yesterday and the Secret Gig at Luckey's on Saturday night going quite well, although flying in the Missing Man formation. It's hard for me to disagree with Frank Zappa. "Music is the best."