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So, after losing Dean, it made sense for Melissa and me to get out of dodge for a bit, and we went to visit my Mom and Aunt on the Jersey shore for a few days. (A small silver lining to the grey cloud of Dean being gone is that it's easier to make these kind of trips together without having to arrange for a cat sitter.)

We had a great day on the beach - I grew up jumping through can-knock-you-over-waves and it's nice to go back to them. That night we went into the city to The Comedy Cellar - we had a table right at the front row corner and got a ton of interaction with the comedians - including getting Comedy Married by emcee Ardie Fuqua. But besides seeing one of Melissa's favorites Ari Shaffir the highlight was probably a surprise set by Aziz Ansari (of "Parks and Rec" fame), and the front row interaction with him was really fun, Melissa was over the moon.

The next day we went to Point Pleasant where there's a lot of attractions on the boardwalk there. We went through 2 different halls of mirrors and a crazy vertigo inducing rotating room...

It's tough being a lesbian, and a feminist - some days I'm part of the problem.

(it was one of those phones-in-sealed-bags shows, so I couldn't transcribe the quote when it was fresh, so slight paraphrase.)

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When I think about procrastination, I think back to this one self-hypnosis (or something) CD I had, and the woman with a "Just Do It Now" mantra, something like "it will feel so good if you Just Do It Now".

I think about hypnosis. I guess it seems arrogant to assume I'm likely not too succeptible? thoughts of Jabba the Hutt "You weak minded fool! He's using an old Jedi mind trick...Your mind powers will not work on me, boy." But I do wonder if my deeply internalized distrust of intuition and habitual diminishment of personal preference until my higher brain takes a guess at the objective view of things means I'm less prone to unquestioningly take the hypnotic suggestion.

Or not. I dunno. Sometimes it just seems like a scam.

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Generally, highly motivated, intelligent individuals are the best hypnotic subjects because of their ability to concentrate; [...] However, the ability to concentrate, though necessary for hypnotic susceptibility, is not in itself a sufficient condition since some subjects who show good concentration are relatively unsusceptible.

Casually mentioning that persons of low mentality seldom are good hypnotic subjects increases motivation. Even though this statement is not strictly true, all patients wish to be regarded as above average in intelligence. Therefore, the remarks, by inference, increase their susceptibility. [...] Scientifically minded individuals are often poor subjects because of internal "noise"--self-analysis of their emotions.

I suspect I fall firmly into that final category; sounds like a deeply-ingrained habit of second-guessing oneself seems to be a barrier to hypnosis. So my guess is hypnosis works by having the hypnotist take the role of an internal voice of the mind, and works best when one's inner voice is used to being seeing as authoritative.

(On the other hand, I feel like I'm as prone to suspending disbelief as anyone when dreaming...)

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Forgiving your son who ran away from home to blow his inheritance and celebrating his return with a big feast is a slap in the face to the sons who faithfully stayed by your side the whole time!

I'm not a judging person by nature, and people are of course free to wear what they can afford or what makes them happy - but there's something I find detestable about underwear where the name of the manufacturer is in giant letters across the waistband. Like, it's not enough that we're catching a glimpse of what should be personal, but when that happens, it's now a weird bright advertising billboard?

For my money worse than tighty-whities.

(and this is not a tirade against general low loose jeans / sags or whatever! It just seems weird that if you go that route, you have such strong brand affiliation and/or concern about your undies that you want to do promotions, or maybe just the warm fuzzies for yourself as you put them on. (I guess the big letters are good, then, if you want that but get dressed without having your glasses on?))

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I don't know how far I will go with this, but here is a Zine about plural selfs. I'm still hung up on that to the extent that I feel like a committee, the separate members don't feel like fully realized individuals. It's tough to know what kind of consistency there is, then - and also how much is just a big metaphor for when my inner, narrative self gets the feeling of a mood - or even has to deal with an outburst - that it didn't "think" of itself, something from the inkier depths.

Also there's an obvious consideration if it maps into the left/right hemisphere stuff I've spent so much time thinking about! Is it too simplistic to think of it as a committee of two? I think so. Like I used to think it was a rational/linguistic vs emotional part, but I realize my worst outbursts of frustration probably come from that linguistic/controlling/reductionist side...

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Back page of the front section of the NY Times:
every noise at once is a fascinating attempt at comprehensive music taxonomy, with lots of samples. It describes itself as

Every Noise at Once is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 3,346 genre-shaped distinctions by Spotify as of 2019-08-24. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.

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Your salary is your company's monthly subscription fee of you.

Following up to yesterday's rambling. David Parmenter said "I'm not with you" on that, in terms of him being a big believer in personal growth. Fair enough - I see my inability to grok personal growth as a problem myself. But it was funny how much his comment bothered me for a second.

Lately I've been thinking of how I operate with a two-layer view of reality; simple objective reality, the first level of facts, and subjective interpretation, the second level of judgements. My emphasis is on supporting a shared understanding of that first objective level; to the extent that most of my "judginess" involves things that block understanding of that factual leve (in other words, people with agendas that make propaganda that distorts the underlying facts) and I also have a severe reluctance to judge people's behaviors in typical ways - since if I start judging on that second level (with its proclomations of what people "should" do) it increases the chance I might be incorrectly working based on assumptions about "facts on the ground" that I'm wrong about.

So, I'd like to think that David's comment bothered me because of how it might be indicating that I'm just objectively wrong. But there's the conservative-related view that no, I'm bothered not because I'm wrong, but because someone in my peer group thinks I'm wrong. Rightwingers have really leapt on this concept of "mere virtual signaling" - they are awfully dismissive of most attempts to say the right thing, because they find it likely to be insincere. This accusation is at risk of mixing up the medium (other people's opinion) for the message (a description of objective facts-on-the-ground reality - or in the case of judgement, an opinion most likely and widely agreeable (i.e. the facts about what personal growth is and isn't.))

In this "fake news" age of "truthiness", I'm a liberal in part because I think liberals are more humane - who look to expand the "circle of empathy" - and because they are also amenable to level one reasons - especially in terms of science - in a way conservatives ain't - especially with their emphasis on faith. Now, the conservative view might point to examples of liberals desire to be humane distorting their interpretation of plain facts, and in some cases that's true, but I find in general liberals have the edge in not going for "if the facts don't match the theory, change the facts". (Hm, I think this is why I find the self-appointed name "objectivism" so objectionable, with it's dubious claim that there's an ironclad connection between level one facts and level two interpretation and recommendation for behavior that "objectivists" have unearthed.)

Yesterday I was listening to a 2015 podcast where Marc Aaron interviewed President Obama. A quote that struck around 42:30 "But the truth is though, it is accurate to say I believe in reason. And I believe in facts. And I believe in looking at something, and having a debate and an argument, but trying to drive it towards some agreed upon set of assumptions about what works and what doesn't."

Maybe there's a correlation with my "profound shallowness". I don't trust things that aren't directly accessible. For example, I don't like music that demands (and hopefully rewards) deep and attentive listening. You can take my "recently added playlist" and with very little further curating have a good mix for a party. My view is if there's an art form that demands you work to understand it, that "sophisticated" audience is now vested in promoting its quality (if not of the individual artwork, than of the worth of the format as a hole) because it justifies the effort they put into learning how to appreciate it. I like video games with physics engines rather than story, I like board games that are about performance and creativity and not strategy and planning, because the appeal is visceral and harder to deny, rather than cerebral and debatable and more prone to subjective uncertainties.

(PS speaking of that first level/second level stuff - notice how I hedge almost every paragraph? "I think" "is at risk for", "might", "maybe"... is my habit of couching things that way acknowledging the difficulty of getting to objective truth and the uncertainty of any position at the second level of judgement? Or is it me just covering my ass so none of my peers can say I'm wrong? Or both?) Final selections from Supper Mario Broth...

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"The pencil is mightier than the pen."

I just finished his second book, "Lila: An Inquiry into Morals". While "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" made a path through through reconciling Western classical vs romantic analysis to a singular Tao-like sense of "Quality", this one describes a struggle of Static Patterns (roughly, what's known to work) vs Dynamic Patterns (the boundary pushing into new spaces). He also claims all static patterns of value can be divided into a hierarchy of inorganic, biologic, social, and intellectual - each level depends on the stability of the preceding one. I'm not sure if I have full buy-in but his exploration of the concepts speaks to arguments I have with some of my friends; I see them as rather reactionary, they see me as a bit hippy-dippy, but in some ways its their concern with the social patterns and preserving that base vs my interest in boundaries and finding out where we can go.

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Western New York combines the brains of the South, the culture of the Midwest, the hospitality of New England and the climate of Hoth.

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What Reality are Trump People Living In? This is more nuanced and interesting than some earlier work on how Conservatives have a stronger "disgust" reaction, or even my view of everyone has a circle of empathy, and the liberal impulse is to expand it so you have more people on your side, and the conservative impulse is to retract it so as to keep potential cheaters out.

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Liz and I are Going to see this guy Sunday in Worcester:
Awesome, pioneering women in software! Right up there with Admiral Grace Hopper:

--Margaret Hamilton, lead software engineer of the Apollo Project, stands next to the code she wrote by hand and that was used to take humanity to the moon, 1969.

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The times presents a Well-crafted insight into the modern professional music process. One thing this confirms for me is how important the audio attributes of the samples used are; I had a hunch that that was one of the differentiators between the pro stuff and the hobbyist work, and Bieber mentioning how expensive some of the sounds were kind of confirmed it. It also points up the difference between live and studio music; seem a real challenge to put this back on stage. (Which in turn ties into my secret hypocrisy that- with some exceptions- I don't like listening to live music as much as the polished studio stuff. But I sure like making it!)
--humon on deviantart... A more chilled day, taking in some museums.

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With EB and his two daughters yesterday-- we followed the fine Rockport tradition of going down to the waterfront and sketching and painting. I'm not sure if I've ever tried to do a landscape before... moderately pleased with the results.

Photo of the same scene:


via

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Kirk has at least the strength of one man!

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http://www.thisismyjam.com/kirkjerk -- "Digital" by Goldie/KRS One. Found the original (non-remix) on a Newbury Comics compilation. Great drum and bass breakbeats.

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http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/17/biodegradeable-urn-lets-you-go-green-even-six-feet-under/ - I really like the idea of this burial urn that lets you become a tree (in part) after you die...

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My friend died doing what he loved ... Heroin.

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Finished Runyon. Love the names; Regret, the horseplayer, The Sky, Brandy Bottle Bates, Horse Thief, Sorrowful, even good ol' reliable Nathan Detroit...

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Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

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If Sir Mix-A-Lot has taught me anything, it is that the anaconda wants what the anaconda wants.

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Wild Turkey at Alewife!
Just finished "Me and You" by Margaret Diehl, a novel I first read back in college, a super sensual (in both senses of the word) story of an alcoholic painter woman. A few bits I found in it that I remembered, but not their source:

She didn't worry about my drinking in those days. She thought I was celebrating. (As the sweet, buck-toothed matron at the London drunk tank said, "What were you celebrating then, love? What were you celebrating?")

Also, this one, a bit more sensual, about the main character's older lover:

Jack knelt above me, his stomach muscles quivering. The light was behind him, his body dark. I looked at it dreamily, that bulk and tension. And, from shame, my vision was acute. I saw the pride of his stomach, that self-pleasing defense. I saw his penis's desire not only to carry the seed but to appear most magnificent, to best in power the muscular legs that carry the man, that stride the earth. Such grandiosity, such insecurity, often produce a fatal charm. Insistence seduces as endurance prevails. I let him inside.

The book is almost stunning in its sensuality, how it captures certain tableaus. It's funny coming back to a book that you don't remember distinctly, but remember as influential in your own former writing.

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I'm on GI Joe's special sleep squad

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Office Debate: If actions speak louder than words, why is the pen mightier than the sword?

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The English language is a belief in the human being and his or her abilities, despite anything. It is a belief that a plan, further work, and results are connected among themselves in reality and not simply in illusion.

Decided that my living room, despite its small size, needed one more piece of furniture for the sake of hospitality. Something smallish, but comfortable... behold the Ikea KARLSTAD chaise, in all its "Dillne multicolor" glory! I think the stripes work better with the space than a flat color would have, and it goes eerily well with the circus/carousel theme I had set up on that wall. (That's an authentic circus railway poster my dad had acquired.) Hopefully it doesn't say "trying too hard"...

This might well become my "go to" piece of furniture for reading and lounging, at least when I can resist the shiatsu-esque call of my Aunt's iJoy massage recliner parked next to it. (Also, I'm grateful to my Aunt for joining me on the jaunt to Ikea and helping wrestling the not-too-heavy-but-huge box in, and then assembling the thing.)

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Dialog of the Moment

["Granddad" Freeman is making grandson Huey mow the lawn...] "And make sure you get between those trees on that hill."
"It's so big..."
"But that's a good thing, Huey. This land is a dream come true. Think of it like '40 Acres and a Mule'!"
"Yeah, but I'M the mule."
"Yeah, I guess you WOULD be the mule ...
...well, I never said it was YOUR dream come true."

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Diet Pepsi is a flavor of my youth, what they sold cans of from the fridge at the pharmacy I worked for Mr.J

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Ikea's furniture pickup department is not the well-oiled machine, the model of European efficiency one might've hoped for.

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After having this one Irish chocolate, I can definitively say that I don't have enough hazelnut in my life. Not that my opinion is worth anything more than anyone is paying for it, but I think this Michael Vick dog-fighting thing is way overblown, and frankly smacks of racism, or at least cultural chauvinism.

Omnivores have ceded the moral highground already. While you might be able to mitigate the impact with "cruelty free" products, ultimately you've declared that the health and well-being of animals is not your number one priority, and that it takes a back seat to your culinary and possibly fashion desires.

As far as I can tell, these animals are bred so that they are born to love to fight. And while I'm not happy to hear about them being killed for failure in the ring or other reasons, they are hardly the only dogs out there whose lives are nasty, brutal, and short thanks to how humans have treated them.

I don't like dog fighting, I don't like the mistreatment of animals for entertainment, but in a world of boxing and factory livestock, I can't see that it should cost Vick his job or years in jail.

(Evil B. pointed out an odd resemblance between the Vick situation and the structure of that beloved kids' favorite Pokémon, which is a bit like dogfighting, albeit with fictional, imaginative creatures who just get knocked out if they lose.)

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Convos of the Moment
Man, I don't IM as much as I used to, and so there's a bit less funny in my life.

Recently though I got the chance to talk to Sarah, who also happens to be a newish mom...

sarah: his lordship is definitely having high maintenance time right now... keeps kicking arm... hard to type this way...as he is lolling on other arm... naptime looms tho... so will be back
kirk:It's too bad that they can't encase babies in, say, a comfortable block of swaddling lucite.
kirk:with appropriate drainage holes
kirk: and the head free at top
sarah: that would be most helpful

OK, not hilarious, but I like the idea of "swaddling lucite".

Also, I have a modified screenshot I once set to my coworker Rob... for some reason in the IM client his messages were showing up with a rainbow and fluffy cloud backdrop. (I think some kind of system default, not his choice.) I'd post it, but I think the screenshot with a crudely drawn arrow and "HA HA U R GAY ! !" moused in via paintbrush might not actually put me in the best light, despite my ironic intent.

So my plan for at least half a week at my family's place in Ocean Grove, New Jersey with Ksenia was cut off at the knees by my company's need to have someone tear through this quick project for an important customer, a project that will send me to Denver for a week, the final week of Ksenia's school break. GoshDAMN but I am terrible at taking vacations. Note to self: schedule stuff for early in the season, so this crap matters less. To make it worse, it's a customer we're very anxious to please, we haven't the exact same setup that the customer has to run the application I made this week, and also the dresscode there is one notch higher than my previous gigs on client sites (which is then 2 or 3 notches than my usual engineer-ware)... not quite suite and ties, but one level down from that.

To make it worse, yesterday there was a fair number of hours when it looked like there would be a switch in the project and I wouldn't have to go next week, or maybe even at all (if there was a technology change) but no, it was just a cruel tease.

I actually feel this weird mix of resentment and sympathy for my boss. Resentment because he was slow to square with me when giving me a tentative ok for my plans, but then this kind of roundabout sympathy for him as he tries to suggest alternate plans, like seeing what Ksenia has free around Columbus Day. I just had to say, No, Sorry, this really does break my vacation, it was already going to be on the chilly side for the beach, and there isn't going to be any similar batch of days when she and I are both free anytime soon. I actually have deep-seated discomfort watching someone feeling guilty or sympathetic and try to help a situation that's essentially "unhelpable". (And I hate being on the other side of the situation as well.)

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Math of the Moment

Hamilton contributed over fifty per cent; the Russian, Perelman, about twenty-five per cent; and the Chinese, Yau, Zhu, and Cao et al., about thirty per cent.

(I know it's kind of dumb to giggle at such fudged guesstimate arithmetic, but still.)

I'm actually happy to see the Poincaré and the situation with Perelman getting as much play as it is; it gives me hope how the culture pays at least lip service to a respect for science and math.

At the risk of thinking in stereotypes, if there's one thing that confirms my uptight WASPness, it's my absolute discomfort with wheeling and dealing at retail outlets.

Last night I did some quick price comparison before getting a camera for my mom. Staples, Target, and Best Buy all had it at the same price, but Staples was offering a free 128 meg memory card. I mentioned that I found that deal elsewhere to the salesperson at Best Buy (mostly to explain why I would be buying some accesories there but not the camera itself) and she said she thought they could match it, if I'd tell them who it was so they could verify the deal. And that's exactly what happened, she played dumb "Uh, yeah, does it come with the 128 disk whatever?" over the phone, and then knocked the price of the card off of my purchase.

For some reason that seems so strange to me, a little seedy somehow. Especially at a big retailer; I would have guessed that the price is handed down from on high from a corporate office. I've never worked retail (except for a bit of counter work at a pharmacy during middle school) so maybe I'm not aware that there's (a fixed amount of?) wiggle room in the price. Maybe I'm afraid of being thought of as "poor"? Maybe I'm afraid I won't be able to haggle well, that I'll have no response if they say "no sorry that's the final price" other than a sheepish "can't blame a guy for trying"? Maybe it's just my sense of order of the universe, that in a retail place, the price is the price is the price? I don't know.

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News Headline of the Moment

The United States shut its consulate in [Nuevo Laredo] for a week early this month after drug gangs fired bazookas and raked each other with machine gun fire in a street battle.

Bazookas! In street battles! Life imitates "Grand Theft Auto"...who knew?

It reminds me of my 1988 trip to Mexico City, with a church band group...I was kind of nervous when the cops wanted to play tourguide, but they were just in it for the store kickbacks. I forget if they wanted tips or not.

Site of the Moment
The A to Zs of the DOs and DON'Ts of Photography. Some good advice, lots of attitude.

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Geekery of the Moment
The amazing Search Engine Belt Buckle scrolls like 24 hours worth of people's search queries in wearable form...damn, if only I ever wore belts...I wonder how the battery holds up.

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Blog of the Moment
Speaking of gadgety geekery, the gizmo blog gizmodo kind of flew under Lore's Radar, and mine as well...not that compelling but still some cool things.

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Yet More Geekery of the Moment
A rather cheap and easy way of making some computer controlled lavalamps...his geeky use for 'em is to indicate when a software project's build process (making sure all the code still runs) is having problems...I could see hooking this up to a readout of the Dow Jones or NASDAQ status...

Quote of the Moment

What I've learned is that life is too short and movies are too long.

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Article of the Moment
Kind of a gadfly article pointing out the ambiguity of the "10 Commandments". I had forgotten how what make up the ten is open to interpratation. Link of the Moment
Bill linked to some excerpts from instructions for kamikazee pilots. I wonder how they thought they knew so much about the moments just before death...surely they just know about the moments before near death?

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Poem of the Moment

The architecture of eloquence
may be brevity
sometimes

Thus the simple symbols
xo
at the close of a letter
slice my heart
(as they do)

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Pirates of the Moment

--To the left is a woman pirate Kyle randomly attached in some correspondence about the above poem. To the right is Peterman dressed as a fearsome but inexplicably fuchsia-wearing and Harvard-Law-attending (you have to squint at the shirt) pirate. Frankly, I don't have a great explanation for the presence of either of these images in my life.

"Fuchsia" is a very hard word to spell. Most spelling programs won't get to the correct spelling from "Fuschia". Image of the Moment
We got the wedding picture proofbooks this week, and Mo spent a big chunk of yesterday scanning them all in so long distance friends and family could select what they want prints of. This was probably my favorite picture of the lot:

--copyright 2001 Allison Evans Photography
In some ways it's an odd shot; it's after we all had changed our clothes (though Mo is still in white) and I'm soaking wet, but from the chest up only. (There was a Wrath-of-God style thunderstorm with hail and heavy rain for the last half of the reception.) Plus I have kind of a goofy expression. The photographer says she was just fooling around with a plastic lens camera she has. (No built-in flash, she held the shutter open as the assistant did the flash. I always wonder how photographers got that blurred-but-with-something-well-lit look.) Still, I like the feeling it captures, and it's visually interesting.

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Quote of the Moment

Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more.