May 21, 2023

2023.05.21
Today JP Honk led a parade for a celebration of life for our fallen bandmate Chet Fenton...


At the event they had case of his famous old valve trombone, JP Honk sticker included...

Trying to figure out the 3rd song he listed here along with "Birdland" "Sweet Dreams" and "Groovulation" - and because of this note his musically talented family and upstairs tenant did a lovely version of "I'll Fly Away" and had all gathered sing along.


They also had this in the program:
Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome,
dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.
May your rivers flow without end,
meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells,
past temples and castles and poets' towers
into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl,
through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock,
blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone,
and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm
where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs,
where deer walk across the white sand beaches,
where storms come and go
as lightning clangs upon the high crags,
where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams
waits for you --
beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.
Edward Abbey
Miss ya Chet.

May 21, 2022

2022.05.21
Really wrestling with if I want to reconfigure my office, maybe get the big ol TV (for the atari) and other video game stuff out just to have more room. It's weirdly tough to put away, like I've definitely tied some identity into being the guy with old video game crap well at hand. But in honesty I have barely touched any of it this last year!

If we had a bigger place, like some places I've rented where I basically had a whole "game room" for myself, maybe there wouldn't be so much of dilemma...

But it's making me wonder, why the only gaming I'm doing is the Switch stuff with my super niece. I guess band (and porchfest websites?) has moved into the space (both in terms of hours, and just in terms of mental mojo) that games used to hold for me. And overall that's a clear trade-up, but still: I think video games are a truly special art form. For the first time in history we're able to mechanically put ourselves into responsive narratives. Each game is a microcosm, a new world, a new set of potential interactions, and I would argue that represents a more important diversity than almost any other kind of hobbyist collection. (Somewhat mitigated by what emulation can offer in giving 80% of the experience in like 8% of the space....)

FOLLOWUP. I posted this on FB. Liz posted something that encouraged me to dive a little more deeply into why I think games are so interesting, and not just another pastime:
I'd still hold to the idea that video games are a unique form. Sure, like with books, there are plenty of trashy and overly-genre-based works, but they offer a type of involvement- and each game has the chance to offer truly novel sets of interaction- that bring it closer to, say, performing music (like a piece that someone else wrote) than to say watching a movie or even reading a book.

Over the last 5 years or so I've identified "interaction" (and the emergence that can happen with interconnected system with interacting components) as THE key to my philosophical understanding of the universe- and no form better exemplifies playing with the creation of types of interactions more than video games. So while it's good not to yuck anyone else's yum, i'm going to stan for video games more forcefully than say TV.
Maybe more significantly my ex Mo wrote
I've become known at work for saying "the process should serve us rather than us serve the process" and the same goes for space. We evolve as humans. Your space should evolve to serve you rather than holding space for something that no longer serves you. Lol that sounds deeper than intended but it is a useful mantra.
My response was
heh. i guess for me is a feel that people's cores don't evolve much, but different potentials that have always been present may unfold (arguably that can sometimes be a distinction without a difference)

I appreciate the encouragement that a space can reflect personal evolution.

But to the extent it is an evolution, it always feels like the chance for de-evolution as well. To quote an old Arlo and Janis comic:
"As I get older, I don't enjoy the same things I once enjoyed. But I enjoy new and different things!
I just don't enjoy them as much as I used to enjoy the things I no longer enjoy."

(That said I probably enjoy band stuff about as much as video games- but i still miss them, from playing games alone, with a bunch of friends over, or even making them. It was a fairly rich activity for me in social and creative ways)

Anyway you more than most people had to interact with my intuitions about personal evolution (even before they were as understood and caraloged by me as they've become) and so / but we can leave it there for now.

May 21, 2021

2021.05.21
They must understand that budgets are moral documents -- reflections of who and what we value.
"Budgets are moral documents" is sometimes attributed to MLK Jr but it's not clear if it was him. Still an interesting idea.

May 21, 2020

2020.05.21
Yesterday Melissa and I went for a ramble around the North Reservoir at Middlesex Fells Reservation.

May 21, 2019

2019.05.21
So, lost 4 pounds in fever land. Honestly I think I'm going to miss that time where I was not feeling sick to my stomach or even bad but still wasn't hungry. Wish they could make a pill that did that.
The most insane acidentally bought a brick of heroin story you will read this week.
There's one anecdote I'll always keep with me... (in part because I noted it in my Palm journal) I was commuting on Memorial Drive one Tuesday morning in 1999, not far from that weird rotary at the end of the BU bridge, and was furious, letting myself get all road-ragey over the halted conditions. (In some ways I find it cathartic to let loose during that kind of situation, try to burn out all the irritations and frustrations of the day, but there's some real anger at the scene there as well.)

Anyway, I was ranting and raving over another driver who had pushed in to the lane by tailgating the car in front of him -- *CLEAR violation of the "alternate feeding" guidelines!*, the ones that I had faith were key to letting us all get through this mess.

The driver, who looked a bit like Detective Yemana on Barney Miller, regarded at me in his rear view mirror, took note of my fury, placed his hands on either side of his head, stuck out his tongue and waggled moose antlers. (A favored gesture of my dad, come to think of it)

I was completely disarmed. It was a perfect wordless Zen Koan, a reminder of just how seriously I should take the world and my current place in it.
Me in 2007, recapping an April 6, 1999 incident.
(A friend was writing about a cop pulling up alongside her and advising her to take a deep breath after being an "expressive" driver)

May 21, 2018

2018.05.21
Weird that Jordan Peterson's whole thing is lobsters, but he never suggests making men less violent by closing their hands with rubber bands

May 21, 2017

2017.05.21
Via Lamebook--

I'm not sure if it's bad for me to enjoy his cheerful acceptance of clueness white folks intersectionality as much as I do

May 21, 2016

2016.05.21
I don't do TOO too much political meme-ing, but:

Won't somebody think of the children?! Except, you know, on all those things you're thinking of the children too much about.
I survived two gigs and the SAC porchfest website weathered the storm for the first year ever. I call that victory! Now see how my 20th college reunion that I'm walking to now turns out.

May 21, 2015

2015.05.21
Self-Driving Trucks are going to disrupt everything. (And if we didn't have an allergic reaction to everything socialist, we might be in a better place to appreciate it)

May 21, 2014

2014.05.21
I regretted that I hadn't done more. Not good works, necessarily: I did my part for the homeless, the alkies, public radio, various losing liberals, an open school, the Save the Spiders Foundation, the Home for the Moody, the lower-spine association, the Suspicion Center, some others. I regretted never having played the accordion, seen New Mexico or Maine, learned to dance the fox-trot, met Victor Borge, read Moby Dick or Don Quixote, eaten supper in the Oak Room at the Algonquin, fished Rainy Lake, known a little physics, talked to my dad about his father.

I regretted some bad shows I did.

I regretted having hurt some people.
Garrison Keillor, "Regrets"
from "We Are Still Married", a brief essay about thoughts he had while waiting for his commercial flight to dump fuel after an engine explosion. I'm surprised I hadn't transcribed this before, because it comes to me from time to time.

May 21, 2013

(2 comments)
2013.05.21
I am on a business trip to Phoenix. I am feeling like such a tourist because I'm very tempted to take lots of picture of the cactuses. Cactusi. Whatever.

god uses lisp

2012.05.21
There were some great eclipse photos this weekend... my favorite has two different clever captions:

For normal geeks: I'm sorry to inform you that Earth is about to be been eaten by a fire demon --Ben Brockert, from the original source

For computer geeks: Guess God really does use Lisp. --Colin Barrett on twitter
(Explanation for non-computer geeks: Lisp is a computer language that is know for using many, many parentheses...)
In other words, the opposite of "complex" is not "simple," the opposite of "complex" is "isolated."

eurotrip day 7 - germany

2011.05.21
Yes, past, pre-publishing me (see below) I am in Germany now! Today we went to Heidelberg.

--They were saying this is one of germany's favorites...thought I'd post it since I should be there now!

i find your argument highly illogical. yet strangely adorable.

(3 comments)
2010.05.21

--Because it's Friday! A picture of Spock and a kitty.

(Found by Amber, original here, I think from her new favorite tumblr.)


A javascript function I'm surprised I had to write:
function isAllNumbers(val){
return(! /[^\d]/.test(val));
}
Shit is a very natural function of the body. We shouldn't discard it.
William "The Shat" Shatner

Google's playable Happy-Birthday Pac-Man tribute today is brilliant.
RIP Isis- a nervous but friendly wonderful family cat. No ceiling fans will spook you now!

The amount of sleep needed by the average person is ten minutes more.

have a milky way today

(3 comments)
2009.05.21

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo. (via Kate)


Here would be a good trick for a dog: nudge poop into plastic bag, carry bag home. Wouldn't that be just pragmatic?
I kind of dread Gov. Schwarzenegger ever being stricken by cancer, because of all the "IT'S NOT A TU-MAH" jokes I wouldn't not make.
DREAM: A McDonalds on a long road on the Seneca Indian Reservation. They had been forced to make Ghost Bread wraps, but the bread was more like Ethiopian, spongy.... stupid subconscious!

cancer in the news

2008.05.21
So cancer has been in the Boston news lately.

The first story was Jon "Cancer Survivor" Lester pitching a no-hitter. Even though it was against the lowly Royals, it's a rare event and a terrific thing for any major league pitcher to have done.

The second, and much less happy, story is Ted Kennedy and the diagnosis of brain cancer. I have to assume Massachusetts has been taking him for granted for a long while. He's been our Senator for 46 years! I've been admiring him more now that there are so many stories about his ability to forge cross-party alliances.

You just want to rail against cancer as an entity. Damn greedy cells, too dumb not to reproduce and reproduce and reproduce, winning some little localized darwinian struggle even at the cost of their own group's ultimate longevity. When your host dies you die too, dumbass cancer!


Quote of the Moment
When you take over a pitch and line it somewhere, it's like you've thought of something and put it with beautiful clarity. Everyone is helpless and in awe. Included in your ability are your philosophies, your theories. You tap that mental reservoir and it goes.
Reggie Jackson to Roy Blount Jr

Video of the Moment

--Amy Walker does 21 Accents. Guess this was making the rounds a while back... some people pick on it but I think it's an impressive tour-de-force. Strangely captivating, and a little creepy, kind of a "master of disguise" effect... it makes me think of how I find women with different accents inherently a bit more attractive than women who share my own East coast mush.

jeremiad cliff notes

2007.05.21
Commentary of the Moment
The other day Salon had two pieces that I thought kind of complemented each other... on how Oprah should stop promoting The Secret and its view that thinking of something positive, being grateful for it in advance, can change the world, and How our generals got so mediocre. The latter taught me a new word, Jeremiad, "a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in poetry, that bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of its coming downfall."


Animation of the Moment
--Speaking of animated GIFs, I've always admired Nick B's LJ avatar, that he assembled himself from the game Pac-Mania.



Link of the Moment
BoingBoing linked to this piece on what happens to online profiles when the person dies (recently an issue in the aftermath of Virginia Tech.)

I sometimes wonder about the fate of my sites should something happen to me. For a long while, I was wondering if there was any kind of market for "perpetuity" websites, something that would keep some (static?) pages and a domain alive, and maybe a comments section free of Spam, "forever".

Someday maybe I should try to make loveblender self-policing, or at least setup caretake roles, and maybe I should give my s00per-sekrit password to EB, and/or my family. I guess it all depends on the circumstance of my demise though...

lets all go the movies, lets all go to the movies.

(7 comments)
2006.05.21
Went with EB and Ksenia last night to see "The Da Vinci Code". It was kind of at Ksenia's insistence, I wouldn't have been inclined to go otherwise. It was a decent workman-like effort, with some nice flourishes put in to document what people were explaining. (But I mean in general, a book that was all implausible chase scenes and explication, how great would you think a movie based on that would be?)

And man, nothing at that cinema (Burlington) changed my mind about avoiding the movie theater for everything but the biggest of the special-effects-laden blockbusters (and maybe book adaptations that I want to be conversant about sooner rather than later.) To whit: I don't mean to sound like such an old crank, but dag, yo. If movie theaters are worried about being undercut by DVDs they're doing a terrible job of fighting it. The wisdom of a cheap-ish video projector and dark room with a comfortable couch seems more obvious every day.


Quote of the Moment
Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
Dylan Thomas

superlative

(6 comments)
2005.05.21
3 Seconds of "Warhol Fame" of the Moment

--Thanks to Rich B. who pointed out my Atari stuff got a mention in O'Reilly's new MAKE 'zine and did a fullpage scan. I'd been meaning to subscribe anyway...


Contented Sigh of the Moment
You know, having a laptop with a wireless 'Net connection is great, it's such a luxury to putter away the morning online in bed.

Techie note: I've grown more fond of "Hibernate" vs "Suspend" when not using my computer. In practice they're very similar, "Hibernate" means "take a snapshot of all memory, write it to disk, then shut off but put everything back when the computer is turned on" while Suspend just means "freeze and go into low-power mode". For some reason suspend was flakey on my aging desktop, but hibernate works great, especially because I switched it to "fast BIOS startup".

Incidentally you get the option for "Hibernate" by pressing "shift" after pulling up the "shutdown" option in Windows XP.

arms and tp make the clownstaple. i don't know what that means.

2004.05.21
Toys of the Moment
Might be a light update day...anyway, the clownstaples page (the guy who made Windows noises) is back up. Some neat little flash demos...if you're in a hurry check out Arms and TP. Both are pretty nifty, I especially like the physics and feel of Arms.


What is Funny of the Moment
I am always uncomfortable when men I do not know comment on physical attributes of women both of us do not know. For example, just the other day, I was in an elevator with two strangers. One woman. One man. The woman arrived at her destination. Doors open. Doors shut, leaving me and the gentleman. He turns to me and says, "Did you see those tits? Looks like she shoved a roll of paper towels up there." I was tempted to play along with it and say, "More like a yoga mat." Or maybe add to the paper-towel reference with, "Man I would like to dry off with her boobs. The Brawny guy wishes he had a chest like that, I bet." And then we would both high-five until he got off the elevator and went to work at whatever mutual-fund company he worked for. I assume that a guy like that is looking for a bonding moment between two men, so maybe it will lead to us exchanging business cards. Or maybe that's the way the NRA started. I don't know. Instead, I just looked at my shoes and mumbled to myself so he could hear, "Girls are pretty awesome." He glanced at me. No, he just plain stared at me. Then I said, "You should see my mother's boobs." This confused him, and he got to his floor and exited the elevator. I thought about high-fiving myself, but instead just mumbled, "Did you see that ass?" Then I high-fived myself.
A certain friend of mine feels compelled to make that kind of comment all the time. He calls it having Boobette's Syndrome, which actually is a very good name for it...

see ya!

(1 comment)
2003.05.21
Off to Europe! I'll try to add some "postcards" to the 5-items a day I prepublished as access permits.


Vaguely Optimistic Quote of the Moment
Please try to remember that al-Qaida and its surrogates are engaged in a war with Muslims as well: They boast of attacking the West in order to impress or intimidate those Muslims who are wavering. But they are steadily creating antibodies to themselves in the countries where they operate.
The main point I disagree with is that an increased risk of retaliatory strikes doesn't mean that terrorists feel they lost a friend in Saddam; even if they found him loathesome, they might not want to see ANY arab leader taken out by a big Western army. A related slate.com observation: were bribes the real secret weapon of the last Gulf War?


Consumer Product of the Moment
Possibly even more amazing than the Jesus Action Figure, it's Jesus Comes 2 Play! It doesn't say so explicitly, but I think this guy is supposed to be "Cabbage Page Christ", more or less. Stigmata, sandals, long hair, the works. "His Clothes and Sandals are Removable", even, just in case you want a naked Jesus doll to boot. (Update: on today's comments, Harry points out there's also a Moses Comes 2 Rock doll, complete with--err--a hockey stick. Is that their update of his staff? Ooh ooh...coming soon...(and I'm not making this up) Buddha Comes 2 Play too!)

high culture and low

2002.05.21
Yet Another Star Wars Link
Pretty cool, the NY Times has all its old Star Wars film reviews online...it's interesting seeing a view of the movies before they were such a cult phenomenon, especially a kind of cinema snob one.


News of a Week Ago
Heh, the wrestling giant "WWF" lost their fight against "World Wildlife Fund" for ultimate use of the wwf.com domain. So the Wrestlers are changing their name to "WWE", World Wrestling Entertainment, though they're just dropping the final letter from their W-in-W logo, which I've always kind of admired, rather then adding on an extra bar for the "E". To remind folks of the change, they've adopted the slogan "Get the 'F' out", which is funny in a wrestler sort of way.

If only the fight had been a no-holds-barred steel cage grudge match! Them wrasslers woulda shown them pansy animal huggers what's what then!


Quote of the Moment
Television is the golden goose that lays scrambled eggs; and it is futile and probably fatal to beat it for not laying caviar. Anyway, more people like scrambled eggs than caviar.
Lee Loevinger
I just like that line "the golden goose that lays scrambled eggs", I may have to co-opt it for my own purposes.

a-poké-lypse now

2001.05.21
Link of the Moment
APOCAMON! A literalist retelling of Revelation with Japanimation styling. Funny; it shows how absurd and odd a fundamentalist reading of the final book of the Bible would be. Be sure to check out the Apocadex (on the front page) so you know the stats of all the characters.

Quote of the Moment
Quantum particles: the dreams stuff is made of.
David Moser
(via Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas"... he talks about a general attempt to over generalize the Uncertaintly Principle (like I do in this story)

Something New For The Holidays [coming soon to a watercooler near you] "Melted Snowman In A Jug"
--New Yorker Cartoon, Dec 27 1999 & Jan 3 2000
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I wish you had, but I'm glad you didn't.
--Sandra Bernhard, "May I kiss you on the lips, Miss Sandra?"
---
November, 1956
TO THE BEST WIFE A MAN EVER HAD:

Honey, I am writing to say a few things that I might leave unsaid if I should depart this world unexpected-like. In this flying business you never can tell when you might all of a sudden get unlucky and wake up dead. I suppose this shows me up for being an old sentimental fool, but I thought if I could make sure you know how I feel about such things it might be a comfort.

First of all, let's face one fact--everybody ends up dead. Think of all the infants and children and people who had the misfortune to die before they got much of anything out of life, and then think of all I got out of it.

Even if I should die the day after writing this, I am still one of the luckiest people who ever lived, and you know it. When you come right down to it, I've done just about everything I've wanted to do and seen about everything I've wanted to see. Sure, I'd like to stick around while the boys are growing up, and have fun with you once they've done doing that and when we have time again. But you and I agree so closely on how to raise a family, I'm sure that the boys are going to be all right. And I've had enough fun with you to last a lifetime.

Don't let the memories of me keep you from marrying again, if you run across somebody fit to be your husband, which would be hard to find, I know. But you're much too wonderful a wife and mother to waste yourself as a widow. Life is for the living. (That's not original, I'm sure.)

So get that smile back on your face, put on some lipstick and a new dress, and show me what you can do toward building a new life. Just remember me once in a while--not too often, or it'll cramp your style--and as long as I'm remembered, I'm not really dead. I'll still be living in John, Bill, and Al, and Dan, bless their hearts. That's what they mean by eternity, I think.

My love as always,
JACK

[Jack Sweeney, stationed in Bermuda, died a few weeks later when his plane crashed in the Atlantic.]
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I love how Cleveland's new stadium Jacobs Field already has the nickname "The Jake."
00-5-21
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Tomorrow Dylan starts his journey to California. Makes me kind of sad. Even if we barely saw each other during high school and college, the last couple years have been good. The boy needs romance, thoughthis is one hell of a distance to go get it.
99-5-21
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Caution. Blade is sharp. Keep out of children.
          --MIT lab knife warning
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Ophelia!
You're breakin' my heart
You're makin' this dane
Melancholy--
Oh Ophelia!
It's makin' me sick
like poor old Yorrick
who I knew, who I knew

Makin' love
in the afternoon
it's my uncle          
in my mom's bedroom
and Ophelia
has come undone
handing out flowers
to most everyone

Ophelia!
It's changin' my tune
All the slings + arrows
of outrageous fortune   
Ophelia
I'm worried a lot
about whether to be...
...or be not
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For once, somebody may call me "Sir" without adding, "...you're
making a scene."
          --Homer Simpson
---
As for kissing on the first date, you should never date someone whom you would not wish to kiss immediately.
          --Mr. Blue on Salonmagazine.com
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"I really *like* gratuitous nudity. I hate it when people go, 'I'll only do it if it makes sense for the movie.' That's such a crock ... it never makes sense. So I like it — the more gratuitous the better.''
          --David Duchovny on "Access Hollywood.''
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model LAT8840BAL
serial A5203751  HF
800-462-9824
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"Indians testing nuclear bombs? They can't even get my tandoori right."
--Chris Knight, Chiropractor

"I'm just glad American Indians don't have the bomb. Talk about heap big payback for Paleface."
--Josh Carter, Sales Representative

"God, the Indians are so much more in touch with their spiritual side, aren't they?"
--Lori Backman, Mathematician

"I just hope the Indians love their children, too."
--Joseph Teufel, Landscaper
          --The Onion, "India and The Bomb"
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Pregnant women are like big walking incubators. Kind of odd.
98-5-21
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"When I kick at a cat, it's nearly always for a good reason."
          --Calvin Trillin
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when you see infrared we're all luminescent
97-5-21
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