Friday, November 30, 2001
full moons and billing deadlines make for bad days, and yesterday was one of those days, conveniently leaving me on the edge of the same precipitous moment i've been dancing around for a year and a half now. to take my mind off of such heavy matters, i picked simeon up (it's always good to have a friend around when you're feeling lonely, twenty-something, and existentially confused) and ran to the nearest cinema, binx bolling-like, and immersed myself in a good movie. specifically, richard linklater's waking life. i don't think two people have ever left a movie with opinions of it quite as dimetrically opposed as mine was to sim's - he absolutely abhorred it, thought the animation was literally sickening, thought it was pretentious and arrogant and boring and nonsensical and just bad, bad bad. i, on the other hand, quite enjoyed it. i really loved the rotoscope animation technique, which gave the illustrations a real sense of human movement and fluidity, and i thought that the non-stop rollercoaster of academic thought and theory - philosophy, linguisitics, existentialism, quantum physics, explorations of mortality and dreams and destiny and the meaning of life - were thought provoking and fun. pretentious and mentally-masturbatory, yes; but fun nevertheless. it reminded me of my days as an english major, reminded me of the feeling of discovery and excitement i used to get from really thinking deeply about the world, life, culture, self; about how the unexamined life really isn't worth living. definitely a movie for liberal arts grad students, and those who could have been, were this the best of all possible worlds. Thursday, November 29, 2001
there's a damn conspiracy afoot. after going first to one and then the other of my neighborhood supermarkets, i was unable to find even one half-gallon thing (is it a jug? or a bottle? it's not a carton. ok, a container.) of skim milk. not a one. there were plenty of full one gallons of skim, and even lots of half-gallons of whole milk, 2%, vitamin d, and even lowfat. but i like skim - well, they call it 'non-fat' these days, but it's skim - and i'm not about to pay almost four bucks for a gallon when i know damn well i'm only capable of drinking half of it before it expires. but there's not a half-gallon of skim milk to be found at either store, despite the fact that they carry different brands of the stuff. and mysteriously, there has appeared in both stores, exactly where the half-gallons of skim milk should be: rows and rows of festive, red and green egg nog cartons. i'm sorry. it's still a balmy 80 degrees outside. it doesn't feel like winter, it doesn't feel like the holidays, and it certainly doesn't feel like egg nog is called for. i hope it gets colder here soon. Wednesday, November 28, 2001
amelie, i'm quite sure, is the best movie i've seen in a long, long time. and audrey tautou is my new favorite actress / celebrity crush - and she bears more than a passing resemblance to the other beautiful audrey. my friend stephen warned me, and he was right - i can't stop thinking about this movie, and doubt i'll be able to for quite some time... it's a movie about us - you know, the type of people who go to their town's small, art-house theatres and catch small, art-house films like amelie, the type who do things like keep their own personal weblogs and spend hours reading others... it's about not fitting in anywhere but your own little world, about being eccentric and creative and rathering to dabble in other people's lives than to face the realities of your own. to say i identified would be a comical understatement. on top of this, it's a beautiful, beautiful movie, filmed with an odd flux between soft focus and almost painterly light values one moment and a hyper-realistic, minute attention to the quirkiest details the next. very much like Jean Pierre Jeunet's previous films, the city of lost children and delicatessen - reminiscent of both - city it it's deep colors, touching story and imaginative use of CG; delicatessen in its apartment building setting and fixation on the odd realities hidden behind the faces of normal people. but where those movies were filled with disturbing dark corners, ominous fogs, and noir atmospherics, amelie is bright and uplifting and even carnivalesque at times. just beautifully filmed. and i think the best use of computer animation i've yet seen - not overdone or ostentatious - subtle, hardly even noticable, and only used when necessary to accentuate the most magical of moments, in kind of an early-ally-mcbeal way, but better. as a matter of fact, you might be able to describe this movie as a strange mix of delicatessen, city of lost children, cinema paradiso(for its emotional gravitas and hopefullness), and ally mcbeal's first season (in that it's a well and humorously told story of a quirky single girl with a great imagination). odd but apt. and have i mentioned how funny it was? i can't remember the last movie that's had me laughing out loud so hard that i'd've been embarrassed if half the other people in the theatre hadn't been laughing hysterically, too. a wonderful story, wonderfully told, wonderfully acted, wonderfully filmed. i'd pre-order the dvd now if it were available, because i know this is a movie i'll return to often. just beautiful. go see it. Tuesday, November 27, 2001
when i took my first step out of la guardia airport in queens last week, the temperature was in the forties. last night, when i got back to the louis armstrong memorial airport in new orleans (well, it's actually in kenner, but i won't argue the point for now) i stepped out into eighty degrees of hot sticky humidity. ah, home... so i spent about a week in new york, and didn't set foot in a single museum or gallery. i had lists! i had plans! and i was simply overwhelmed... but, i saw two broadway shows and one macy's thanksgiving day parade, i walked through the village in the rain, i walked down broadway from 112th to 49th in the middle of the night, i explored the upper east side in the middle of the night, i ate at some really chi-chi restaurants, i drank at some really chi-chi bars, i ate at some real dive restaurants, i drank at some real dive bars; i got to spend lots of time with my family, and lots of time with my friends, and lots of time alone with the big, big city and my camera, the results of which will be forthcoming as soon as i can get around to putting them together. i have photos and blisters and a couple new cds as souveniers. i'll elaborate more soon. for now, i'm off to see amelie. Friday, November 23, 2001
i don't know where to begin. i'm staying at the waldorff-astoria, i don't even know what to say about this city... i'm still overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of it all. i can't even process it all. got to see jen and laura and steven and laura's husband mark at jen's flat last night, which was wonderful, and walked around columbia university, where jen goes to law school; and today i went with my parents, doug, and blaine kern to see ground zero... overwhelming, also. the last time i was in new york, i was eight years old, and one of my few memories of that trip was of standing on an observation deck at the top of one of the wtc towers, and looking down at the people below, small as ants... Wednesday, November 21, 2001
i'm leaving for new york in a few hours, and still running around getting packed and ready. i'll be updating sporadically over the next five days, from net cafes or friends' houses... at least i hope i will... anyway, happy thanksgiving! Monday, November 19, 2001
i can't say i'm too impressed with the pyrads advertisment i put in, from a purely marketing standpoint. my ad appeared 3,333 times, and i got 23 clicks - only 0.69% - and that works out to about 43¢ a click. maybe that's not so bad, i don't know how to judge these things. but like i said, it was for a good cause, so i don't mind at all. and twenty three people visited who wouldn't have otherwise. i like that. oh, and i really kind of liked my ad copy, which i thought up at the spur of the moment on friday - "unapologetic: blog means never having to say you're sorry." don't be surprised if that becomes part of the page in the near future. Sunday, November 18, 2001
i feel like unbelievable crap today. stuffy sinuses and a low grade fever and all achy all over. and i'm back at work. yes, on a sunday. i think i need to go get a smoothie. i don't know why that will make me feel better, but i am irrationally conviced that it will. maybe it's the fever. as for the photos i promised from the meteor shower, well, no dice. the thing about being on a houseboat, in a marina, in the middle of the louisiana marsh, in november, is that you're surrounded by water. like, feet away, on all sides - splishy, wet, muddy, deep, mighty mississippi kind of water. and it gets a bit foggy. ok, it gets a lot foggy. and fog refracts and amplifies the few lights there are out there. so i figure my visibility last night was about as bad, if not worse, than it would've been if i had just stayed at home, gone out into the courtyard of my complex, and looked up. that being said, it was still worth getting up at 4:30 this morning - i got to see quite a few meteors (maybe 20 or 30) despite the fog. but the camera wasn't much use. i did, however, get several very spiffy pictures of the fog, which are now here. oh, have i mentioned i'm going to new york for thanksgiving? i don't think i have. well, i am. it's a family/ family friends thing. and while i'm there, i'm going to visit my friend jen. By coincidence, three of her flatmates from her junior year abroad in scotland will be visiting then, too. I know them from visiting jen in edinburgh a couple of times while i was studying abroad too, so that should be quite the reunion, and a good time. and i'm going to visit my friend matt coleman who's been in the hospital since early august (most of that time in icu) with crohn's disease, and is thankfully on the road to recovery. and i'll look up all the other people i know up there - rachel, laura, paul - but i guess that's all dependent on how much time i have... anyway, i haven't been up there since i was nine, so it should be pretty amazing. i'm getting excited. i have a list of places i'm determined to go - moma, the cloisters, etc - but if anybody out there has any suggestions for must-do's in the city, let me know. Saturday, November 17, 2001
tonight, when the leonid meteor shower comes, i'm going to be out in venice, louisiana, - just a little marina where the road ends in the middle of the marsh. it's just above the mouth of the mississippi, and far, far away from the city lights. i'll armed with my digital camera, so expect photos. Friday, November 16, 2001
i guess i'm a sucker for a bargain, or just desperate for acceptance or whatever, but i decided to go for the pyrads deal and buy 3,333 ads on blogger for ten bucks. and the way i see it, any money i pay to blogger is a good investment. i'll keep an eye on my referrer stats and see how much traffic it brings by. let's call it a social experiment... "publicity whore" is so overused... speaking of which, i wore my blogger t-shirt to the shins / preston school of industry show at the house of blues 'parish' last night. when i ordered it at the beginning of the summer, i was thinking, like i said, that it's a good cause, and any money i pay to blogger is a good investment. i use the site almost every day myself (obviously), and i think that blogs are actually important. never before have individuals had the ability to publish material to the whole world like they can now on the internet - and services like blogger and greymatter and movabletype bring that to the masses. they make it easy for people to express themselves, rant, vent, emote, create, criticize, and otherwise communicate themselves to others. and it's a wonderful thing - just look at what happened in the blogging world on and around september 11th. blogs became a first-hand news resource, a source of comfort, a place for people to share their experiences of the whole disaster. personal publishing - it's a sea change in the world of the printed word. so anyway, i think it's a good cause. right. so the t-shirt. it's strange, because when i wear it, i can't help feeling like i'm wearing it in hopes that people will come up to me and ask if i have a blog, trade urls, all that. kind of like an advertisment, not really for blogger but for myself, for unapologetic. which is weird, and gives me the same kind of strange self-conscious agorophobic feeling that placing that pyrads ad does. but there's something exciting about it too - because i am proud of what i've got here, and i do want people to see it, and to tell me what they think. feedback is validating. well anyway, maybe that sort of reaction to the blogger-t might happen in other cities, but in new orleans i think there may be a total of ten bloggers (see the 'nola blogs' list on the left, though it's not quite complete), so it sure doesn't happen here. but i kind of wish it did. here i just get asked what 'blogger' means, and i end up geeking out and giving a mini lecture similar to the one in the last paragraph. it's strange. my meyers-briggs type is, and has always been, 'infp', where the "i" stands for 'introvert.' but here, i'm not.
how odd... after a week of not posting much, i've had the kind of night that's given me more to write about than i know what to do with. the kind of night that's put me in front of the computer too late to write any of it down, and get up at a reasonable hour to get to work. so most of it will have to wait till this afternoon... Thursday, November 15, 2001
i got my newest ebay aquisition in the mail yesterday - a polaroid land camera. it's a 210 - which was common when it came out in the late sixties, i think. pretty cool though, and it was cheap cheap cheap - i won the auction at $2.99, and with shipping it came to like $8.10 or something. i was inspired to look for it because i've always wanted to make polaroid transfers, but i never knew how or what i needed until i read a 'diy' article in the latest edition (art & design 2) of punk planet. and now i have my camera, and maybe soon i'll get the expensive-as-hell film - polaroid 669, it's called - and the right battery (also rare and expensive), and finally be able to do my own polaroid transfers. how exciting is that? Wednesday, November 14, 2001
i saw mulholland drive tonight. damn. was that a david lynch movie, or what? good stuff. Monday, November 12, 2001
i watched final fantasy sunday night at my parent's house - my dad wanted to show off his new integra/onkyo 5.1 surround sound home theather system thing, whatever - and i actually really liked it. i had heard all about how great the animation was but how the plot just wasn't there, and was prepared for a fairly weak movie - but i enjoyed it. the parallels to princess mononoke, another great japanese animated film of a much less realistic sort, are hard to miss. lots of earth-in-the-balance eco-zen. an earth-deity, injured by a malignant spiritual force (demon/phantom) by which the protagonist is mortally infected; an antagonist human who would be evil but is proven to be simply stupid, who temporarily destroys the earth-spirit, until the protagonist makes a great sacrifice, the earth is rejuvenated, and the world becomes green and fertile again. same movie, really. but both much, much better than ferngully.
there's something beautiful and poetic and magic and tragic and absurd about this - i think she must be beautiful. she has to be. right out of gabriel garcia marquez, or tomas salamun. and another plane has gone down in new york city, and nobody knows why. there's something unreal about that, too. Saturday, November 10, 2001
i went to the cowboy mouth concert at the house of blues last night. for those of you who don't know, they're the rock and roll heart and soul of new orleans. if i've had much religion to speak of over the past ten years or so, fred leblanc has been the preacher, and cowboy mouth the church. they've been a constant, a comforting presence; they've seen me through break-ups and breakdowns and i've seen them, has to be thirty times, live. i don't know whether something is wrong with me, or with the band, or just with the world in general, but i didn't come away last night with the feeling of rock 'n roll baptism, the spiritual cleansing and inspiration that comes from giving yourself up to the rhythm, and to that charismatic lunatic of a guy singing his heart out and pounding those drums with every ounce of his strength. when fred said, "are you with me?" i wasn't quite. when he asked the audience, "can you feel the rhythm?" i couldn't, really. and when he exhorted the crowd to give up all their problems and pains and fears in the "let it go, let it go, let it go!" chorus of jenny says -- i didn't. they didn't even encore. and i didn't even leave hoarse. Friday, November 09, 2001
the fortune i got from my chinese food at lunch said, "somebody is thinking of you. " hmmm... i wonder who. Thursday, November 08, 2001
okay, there. you axed for it. more pitchers, and an updated photo page. featuring several dogs, a few blurry relatives, friends, cityscapes, countryscapes, architecturals, three self-portraits and other assorted randomness.
of course, i've gotta blog this*: i took the "are you a blog-aholic" test. my results: 76% blogaholic 76 points is in the 51 through 80 percent you are a dedicated weblogger. you post frequently because you enjoy weblogging a lot, yet you still manage to have a social life. you're the best kind of weblogger. way to go! as if i didn't know that. :)
it's almost the weekend; that's comforting and reassuring despite the fact that i'll probably spend much of it doing work of one sort or another. have i mentioned how anathema the whole concept of 'billable hours' is to me? this is something i realize i need to get over, nomatter where i end up - law or design - but rigorous timekeeping, accounting for every moment spent and punishing of deliberations, diversions, daydreams, stray thoughts - it's hard to color within those lines, for me. it's linear and numerical and unforgiving and, in my opinion, unrealistic and silly. and i won't even discuss all the things you can't bill for. dammit. that's a ".2". Tuesday, November 06, 2001
oh, and whoever you are, you're right. i do need to post more new pictures on my photo page...all i can say is, i'm on it. why don't you go back in there, chill out, and wait for the cavalry, which should be coming directly. and play nice from now on or you'll be in time-out for the first half of recess.
it's strange how sometimes when you're sick, or just kind of under the weather in general, you get a sort of clarity you don't have every day. you see everything through a thin film, and your reaction time is a little slower than usual - you process every thought deliberately, every movement and action seems to be a conscious decision. and as a result, you're more focused, you concentrate harder on things, your mind doesn't wander it's usual circituous routes. it's been that kind of a day - greater lag time, more focus. not bad for productivity, i think, but not a way i'd like to go around every day. i think i'm deliberate and ruminative enough without the ritalin-esque effects of a post-hangover funk. with enough sleep tonight, i think i'll shake this off. there's the rub - getting enough sleep tonight. doesn't happen often. and i finally saw the trailer for episode II: attack of the clones tonight, downloaded from apple.com. (who by the way is using this opportunity to lure people into putting down thirty bucks for it's relatively valueless Quicktime Pro product on the masses - the largest resolution of the trailer is only compatible with QT5Pro. in concept, i guess it's a good idea - content = value - but then i'd rather they just drop the charade and charge for the content.) lots of vader-breathing. it looks exciting enough, and i was particularly impressed by the lack of certain annoying characters - until my friend jonathan called my attention to a character in the background of one scene, with floppy ears and that goofy gait that could only be the single-handed corruptor of the star wars legend, the weakest link: jar-jar binks. still, all in all, it looks promising, and maybe a little more plot/story-driven than the schlocky summer action flick that was episode i. Sunday, November 04, 2001
it's almost six pm on sunday. i'm still in my pajamas. my head hurts. last night was fun enough - gallery openings on julia street, a stop at the circle bar on the way to a dinner i never quite made it to - i just wish i wasn't feeling it today. this screen is too bright. i'm going away now. Friday, November 02, 2001
i've gotten an unusually large number of hits today and i can't make any sense of it. i mean, i'm glad you're here, look around, make yourselves at home, have some of the cheese dip and all, but would anybody care to tell me where you're all coming from? i'm kinda curious, and my referral log isn't being much help ...
i did a little research on why i might be blocked - surfwatch will tell you if you're on their list, and sort of why - and i think i found out. see, i own, um, quite a few domain names - and a several of those point to this site besides unapologetic.com. for example, eyedream.org , ab3web.com, and cynosure.org. well, apparently that last one - cynosure.org - was previously used as a distributor of cracked warez. which, as we all know, is bad bad bad. anyway, that domain is still on the blocked list, despite it's kinder gentler incarnation as an alias for my innocent little weblog here. and so, in libraries and fundamentalist christian homes all over the world, unapologetic is just unavailable.
censor this: i just came into the cox cable office to pay my cable bill, to keep my cablemodem (aka lifeline) on at home - as i do every month. they have an open terminal here, to demonstrate the speed capability of cable, and i decided on my way out just to check in on things for a second. come to find out that unapologetic is blocked by surfwatch. i don't think i couldv'e been more shocked - i mean, what all have i said or done here that's censor-worthy? it's interesting to see sites that i know deal with more risque material, at times (littleyellowdifferent, for example) that aren't blocked. hmmm. maybe it's a mistake, or some kind of glitch. maybe not. i feel mischevious. wonder what i did.
new orleans and art history being two of my favorite things in the world to (1) learn and (2) talk about, i was happy to find a link, via jonno, to this article in (the locally edited literary rag) exquisite corpse, on famed new orleans photographer ernest j. bellocq's last days. bellocq took pictures of storyville prostitutes in the first half of the last century, and has posthumously been acclaimed - deified, even, made larger than life- for his work. anyway, what i found perhaps most interesting after reading this short biography, is that now i can add him to the league of distinguished men who are graduates of my high school alma mater, jesuit high school - formerly known as the "college of the immaculate conception." Thursday, November 01, 2001
my father's law office got slammed today by the newest version of the nimda virus, which is breaking news today. believe it or not - and knock on wood - that's the first and only time i've ever personally had a computer virus attack a system i was using, or at least the first i've been aware of. all of a sudden, strange little files named index.eml started appearing in every directory, on every drive. even in my start bar. and then on the server, and then... well, then we caught it. and so (pleasantly enough) i spent a good bit of the day doing virus damage control. kind of exciting, kind of scary... at least it doesn't eat data, it just clogs networks. i think.
evidently, despite the hours so many of us spend reading snippets of other people's lives, the blogging community is a small world, after all - i was just looking over at the latest posts by loren at underachievers, and i saw the word "max," and did a double take. he was max last night, too, only in the land of the wild things known as san francisco. and man, his scepter is perfect, right outta the book. mine was pretty good, though, too. and he got almost the same comments i got all night. what a wild, small world.
well, i didn't let a bad day keep me down, and after leaving the office at ten pm (don't ask) i actually made it to both halloween parties i was invited to, and had a great time. let me just say, i think halloween is one of the best times to be in new orleans, and specifically one of the best nights to be on bourbon street. it's not as crowded as mardi gras, but it's still bustling - it's not as vile and depraved, but the freaks are still out in force, and there's no better place to see costumes. and be seen in them. my max costume got some good reactions (mostly along the lines of "oh my god! you're that guy from the book with the wild things!" and "look, it's max!") and some not so good ones ( drunk idiot, eyeing the white, hooded coverall with two big wolf ears: "hey, are you supposed to be a kkk guy?" me: "yeah. a kkk guy with a long black bushy tail and whiskers." )
stopped at the grocery on the way home for the basics, and... did you know they sell arizona green tea w/ginseng in half-gallon cartons, like milk? it's ingenious. and did you know they make cinnamon-raisin polenta? it's not as bad as it sounds, actually. anyway, a bowl of 'blue's clues' mac and cheese later, i'm about to pass out from exhaustion. and so, goodnight... |