Kirk Israel's commonplace and blog. Quotes and links daily since 2001.
December 5, 2022
And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity.
"What is the purpose of life?"
"To be
the eyes
and ears
and conscience
of the Creator of the Universe,
you fool."
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
You are pooped and demoralized. Why wouldn't you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.
You are pooped and demoralized. Why wouldn't you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.It's a quote from the fictional novel "Now It Can Be Told", a rather solipsistic work about God revealing that only the main character of the book is real, everyone else is just a robot.. (An extremely dangerous view, morally speaking, for my money...)
I read a study where they had people play Monopoly and gave one person twice as much money as the others but didn't announce this. In all the test groups the person with more money won quickly and bragged throughout the game about how well they were doing and that they were better at the game than the others were. None of them noticed that they had more money or considered that starting capitol may have been a factor in their winning
Rich people like to believe we all have equal opportunities and they're just better at playing the game
Open Photo Gallery
noclip is a really cool website that lays out levels and worlds from various video games and lets you zoom around them, all in the browser.
vine was better than tiktok
December 2, 2022
| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Everybody Wants To Rule the World Lorde |
Good cover right out of the How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer playbook... |
| 30,000 Lbs. Of Bananas Harry Chapin |
Was listening to Strong Song's deep dive into Weird Al's Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota and now I really think of it as basically a parody of this song... |
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| St. James Infirmary Louis Armstrong & His Savoy Ballroom Five |
JP Honk was playing this for halloween and I got interested in different versions... always one of my favorite standards. |
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| DATURA [paroxysm] Crywolf |
via tumblr |
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| Someday I Suppose The Mighty Mighty Bosstones |
I was really getting into the idea of their dancer Benn Carr and wanted at least one song that wasn't The Impression That I Get.... |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Last Wave They Might Be Giants |
So I guess this song was originally a bad lip reading of the Run DMC/Aerosmith "Walk This Way"??? |
| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Lady Mine (feat. Chad Kroeger) Josh Ramsay |
My friend JZ sends me songs he thinks I'll like... this is one of the few straight forward rockers that hits, a lot of 80s/90s feel to it. |
| ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | I Really Want to Stay at Your House Rosa Walton & Hallie Coggins |
5 star! I really love the juxtaposition of wistful title and great funk tinged percussion... |
| Exactly Like You Rebirth Brass Band |
Another song JP Honk does. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Mind Your Manners (feat. Icona Pop) Chiddy Bang |
Forget where I heard this modern hip hop, like the chorus sound. |
| Give Me Rain Spoonbill |
A fire spinner at a party JP Honk was hired for did some of her routine to this song-- |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Girlboss Tuba Solo Nora Nalepka w/ Lucky Chops |
Little excerpt I'm trying to learn from... she really knows how to command a crowd with her tuba... |
| Is It Wicked Not To Care? Belle and Sebastian |
Heard at "Squealing Pig" after our trip to the MFA.... love the title, kind of like "Is It Evil Not To Be Sure"... |
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| Like a Virgin - Blond Ambition Tour Madonna |
The new Weird Al "biopic" had a weird amount of Madonna... I ripped this fron youtube from her stage performance, on the bed with the male dancers in cone bras... |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Freestyler 2019 Bomfunk MC's |
House music... Another one I had to rip from youtube... kind of a classic, the 2019 version seems pretty close to the original... |
| Super Mario Bros. Theme Scott Bradlee |
Fun ragtime cover of Super Mario Bros. |
Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs Great reminder to create affordances for your conversational partners!
I was struck by the reference to how "We overestimate the awkwardness of deep talk and so we stick to the boring, affordance-less shallows." I know I love getting into deep conversations- right now I'm especially interested in how people feel about the management of their own emotional landscapes.
(Conversely, and maybe ironically, I have less patience for mutual "well how do you feel about ____" exchanges, like just gauging people's temperature about stuff. I don't think my preferences and opinions are that important for their own sake...)
December 1, 2022
Open Photo Gallery
you dont have to be a parent to understand the horror of walking into a room to discover that the baby crawled out of his crib and onto that pottery wheel you forgot to turn off, and while the baby is spinning around and around, the dog is sitting there all calm, like a person, gently using his paws to fashion the babys soft cartilage head into something a little more modern. it might be the classic tale of bad parenting, but lets see where the dog is going with this
Open Photo Gallery
November 29, 2022
I made a little game to celebrate:
