fucker! i have fucking pink eye. it's not just for 3rd graders anymore, folks! and damn if i hadn't forgotten how uncomfortable a little infection it is since then. apparently i got it as a result of a sinus infection which i had dismissed as a sore throat that never developed into a full-fledged cold. ugh. didn't even know that could happen. well, now i'm at least properly medicated and should be okay for halloween festivities, which promise to be festive, what with four friends in from out of town and all.

does anybody know if halloween is going to be more of a saturday thing or a sunday thing, on frenchman street and in the quarter this year? i guess i'll just have to go for both. more chance to wear the badass hellboy costume i've been putting together since july. i'm thinking it'll be pretty impressive.

on sunday night i went to the movies downtown by myself. watched i heart huckabees, which was insanely great. what was interesting was that so much of the audience were singles, like me, alone and treating themselves to a late movie on a sunday night. there was kind of a kinship, in that.

huckabees was absolutely one of the strangest movies i've ever seen, especially with a well-known, ensemble cast like that. the closest thing i can compare it to is the last movie i saw before it, what the bleep - both movies are trying to be some sort of philosophy-lite rosetta stone. but it's weird, putting introspection up on the big screen like that. anyway - go see it.

saturday night started with rod and i watching the red sox win the first game of the world series and just kept going till about 6am. it was one of those distinctly new orleans nights where the bars, beers, one-liners and cosmic coincidences occur in a seemingly neverending succession. best coincidence: met the very cool anayajay in-real-life at the saint. best one-liner: as a former senate staffer, rod claims to have "amazing powers of congress."

(oh yeah - go sox! one more! finish it!)


   10/26/2004 10:43:18 PM

Thursday, October 21, 2004

a few weeks back i mentioned a few minor thoughts on the presidential campaign logos, but finally someone (in a NYT op-ed) did a good, thourough design-oriented analysis of the campaign's visual identities. i couldn't agree more, though unfortunately bush comes out somewhat ahead here...

   10/21/2004 04:47:20 PM

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

fuckin-a!!! the red sox RULE!!!!



(now maybe let's see the saints in the superbowl...)

   10/20/2004 11:06:26 PM

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

you've probably heard about jon stewart's little tet-a-tet with tucker carlson on crossfire last week... but if you didn't see it (like me) you've GOT to read the transcript. it's brilliant - "I won't be your monkey." As my friend Rod pointed out, it's almost theatre of the absurd, the transcript reads like existentialist play, with stewart as the protagonist trying to fight his way toward some sort of meaning. you don't get television like this very often, folks. definitely a moment to savor.

   10/19/2004 10:01:23 AM

as of saturday, i think i've now seen all the musical heroes of my youth in concert. the beastie boys were incredible, the pixies even more so, and neither group sounded any the worse for the age. sonic youth, however seemed a little worn out. green day were a surprisingly entertaining show - i didn't realize quite how deeply embedded in the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s that band was until I found myself knowing the words to songs i don't even remember hearing.

i also got to see some of my (relatively) more recent favorites like gomez and the polyphonic spree, and one of my guiltiest pleasures - northern state, who were actually a hell of a good live show.

also worth mentioning: as a general rule, i'm not a baseball fan - but I am rooting for the red sox at the moment, because being a lifelong saints fan, i'm hardwired to pull for the underdog. that being said, good god, sunday's and monday's games have been amazing - it's all about the extra-innings tie-game tension. if baseball were all sudden death, edge of your seat suspense like monday's game (and sunday's, for that matter) i might could actually get into it.

oh well.

   10/19/2004 01:42:05 AM

Friday, October 15, 2004

last night was all about dancing.

saw the unbelievable triple-bill of the junior boys, ratatat and mouse on mars.

the junior boys were good. ratatat (a personal favorite) was even better. and mouse on mars ... the just destroyed. despite some technical difficulties with the sound, they put on the most devastatingly danceable show i think i've ever been to. so danceable, in fact, that when the show ended and twiropa transitioned into "l'eighties night," most of the audience stayed to keep dancing. what a blast.

it was the perfect warm-up for tomorrow's historic voodoofest lineup: the pixies. the beastie boys. sonic youth. gomez.

   10/15/2004 10:31:11 AM

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

what the fuck are these "armies of compassion" that bush keeps talking about? sounds euphemistic for some kind of gestapo thing. "vee vil send in zee armies ov compassion! the enemy vil cringe! muhahahah!" ...on the other side of the coin, who wants a compassionate army? armies should be full of bad, killing machine motherfuckers! what the hell does that mean? legions of little old aunts in macrame reindeer sweaters, doling out ladles of slop to the homeless with military efficiency? what-the-fuck-ever.

   10/13/2004 09:37:20 PM

wow. that's amazing. kerry didn't dodge the "is homosexuality a choice" question - answered an unequivocal no, in fact - that's seriously bold. didn't expect that.

bush, of course, dodged it like a bullet.

   10/13/2004 08:31:28 PM

debate #3:

bush is literally *foaming at the mouth* and it's only question number 3. he does, however, look more energetic than in past debates. grr.

(and what the hell is with the matching monkeysuits?)

   10/13/2004 08:19:59 PM

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

just so you know: i'm trying to fix the comments (which have apparently been broken for some time now - i've been getting them by e-mail, but they haven't been showing up here) but it looks as if it may take a while. so until further notice, why don't you use the contact page for any commenty goodness, just to make sure it gets to me? k?

   10/12/2004 01:15:52 AM

Saturday, October 09, 2004

deconstruct this:

bon soir, jacque derrida.


once, in what seems like almost another lifetime, derrida's work (and that of a few others: lacan, de saussure) was a pretty big interest of mine. few people in the last century have challenged - threatened - the established order of meaning, truth, logic and language - reality as we know and perceive it - quite as thoroughly.

which is really too bad. because i, for one, don't really know anything for certain.

   10/09/2004 10:50:59 PM

Friday, October 08, 2004

kerry won tonight, hands down. bush didn't give a single damn straight answer, he just went straight for his same old canned attacks and unsupportable talking points. what an ass.

graphic designer note: has anyone noticed that the ONLY significant difference between the bush/cheney and kerry/edwards campaign logos is that the republicans use a sans serif font, while the dems use a serif? and... does this strike you as backwards? does me.

   10/08/2004 11:00:33 PM

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

now that was a heavyweight title-bout debate worth watching. both strong speakers, both gentlemen, both standing their ground. the only thing that scares me - and it's a substantial issue - is that i don't think i trust a single fact either man put forward. there was altogether too much "________ has his facts wrong" and "_______ is distorting the truth" on both sides.

that being said, i (albeit a bit reluctantly) think cheney wins the decision: though edwards landed some serious jabs, cheney both controlled the tempo and landed some sick uppercuts. there was the shattering senatorial attendance-record punch, "i've never met you before you walked on this stage tonight." and I loved the door-slamming "I'd like to thank Senator Edwards for his kind words about my family... That's it." rebuttal on the gay marriage issue, which turned his own mushy substantive stance on the issue into a win by letting Edwards hoist himself on his own petard. and of course, the automatic headline of "frankly, your record isn't very distinguished." ouch.

Overall, though, it was a hell of a fight, and it's clear to me that (at least in a relative sense) both of these men are c-o-m-p-e-t-e-n-t. can we make them the presidential candidates, instead of the other two buffoons?

   10/05/2004 10:33:40 PM

as any of you who know me might suspect, I'm already listening to the new tom waits album, real gone.

also very excited about the new hem and the new mosquitos.

   10/05/2004 01:34:35 AM

Sunday, October 03, 2004

i'm not one to be starstruck often, but damn. i just saw jon voight at whole foods.

   10/03/2004 03:47:34 PM

Friday, October 01, 2004

i'm into bulleted lists lately:

• brian wilson's long-awaited "smile" album is amazing.

• your scanner is defective. it won't scan the new $50 bill.

• I miss amanda, a lot. but i'm getting along, keeping busy, going on and waiting for time to smooth the complicated edges. having been a long-distance relationship, my daily routine hasn't had much to change, but there's still the dull, lingering sadness of losing something irreplaceable.

• my new sidekickII rocks. and it takes pretty good pictures:

   10/01/2004 07:41:53 AM