hello, my name is Compulsive Saver!

The pinky to pointer-ctrl + 's'-movement may very well be my quickest reflex. It's pretty beautiful that my hand fits the keyboard so perfectly as to allow for the essentially twitch like motion of saving to be repeated at an average of a little under once per line.

Oh, and don't ask about the way in which I choose to register my software.

Sleepwalking

I've recently become aware that the quirks in peoples' sleeping habits seem to be a popular topic of conversation. Whether someone sleepwalks, shouts, mumbles, speaks in Japanese, applies deodorant to computer monitors, or poos in the oven, almost everyone's got a story to tell. As I am currently preparing for my Econ final I just stumbled across a unique instance of this sort of story. At several points during the semester my level of fatigue outweighed my mind's investment in remaining alert, but as my eyes shut and my mind drifted away, my body grew rebellious and attempted to continue taking notes:

Now I tend to pride myself on my penmanship and, you know, things like grammar, at least to some extent (note that I am by no means professing any sort of superiority,) but I honestly have no recollection of what was going on, or for that matter what those scribbles signify. I love it!

The Eggman (woo)

I made this for a $3 limit "Yankee Santa Swap." Maybe it's a New England thing, 'cause where I come from we call 'em White Elephant Parties (and Wikipedia agrees.) Stinkin' Yankees. Speaking of teams, the Rockies lost Kaz Matsui, and in an even greater personal loss, Jamey Carroll (arguably the hairiest knuckles in baseball,) but let's not let this turn into a sports blog.

The gift I walked away with (coincidentally from the person who received my creation) was a CDR of an album by experimental French prog-rock/jazz band Magma called Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh. As soon as I confusedly read the title aloud to the surrounding group, the gift giver claimed that it was one of the top 5 albums of all time. The album is in a made up language (rings a bell, right? [Sigur Rós]) called Kobaian, was released in 1974, and is, needless to say, very interesting. Here's a track:
Magma - Kobaia Is De Hundin

Write

Overly self conscious tendencies in writing unavoidable.
I need to define what and what not to write about.
All good writers seem well defined and principled in their choice of topic and approach. I must come up with similar (yet distinct) guidelines so as to maintain coherency, cohesion, etc., whatever.
I must be better at choosing the right word instead of listing several options.
People are attracted to decisiveness.
I must give up the idea of passing off my musings as those of a fictionalized character.
I am not that creative, and am far too transparent.
That's okay.
You may well know me through my words.
Don't use sentences just because they seem archaic and sound cool.
Limit your adjectives per sentence.
Don't be so vain:
Who do you think you are, writing yourself rules and guidelines for your own writing?
You are desperate, pathetic, and far too eager for acceptance.
Not only that, you are irreverently confident enough to parade your flaws as uniqueness.
Poor disguise, plea for sympathy.
It's just impossible to escape me.

Stop rhyming.

Emotion in Part

Is smiling natural or societal?
I think societal. I'm sure there's a scientific answer, but where's the fun in that?
I'm going to base my final project for photography class on asking people to look happy without smiling. I anticipate some laughter, some inordinately stern faces, and perhaps some bewilderment. People 'posing,' but really betraying themselves and the facades that have been caked on to (and by) humanity. Maybe if I get enough people making fools of themselves, people will feel less exploited and more enlightened. Maybe not.

Thank you, Diane Arbus.


Body language is very interesting, too. I just started shooting medium format. Fun!:

Bathroom Stall Defacement at Art School

Street art is to graffiti as this is to bathroom vandalism!

Sincere Warnings

Pleasure,
your master;
not a good idea.
Be freely enslaved,
saved or depraved.

Where are my manners?

I probably lack good blog etiquette. Maybe I should link to a few more blogs, or, for that matter, read a few more blogs. Posting more frequently would probably help a bit, too. It's probably pretty tacky of me to continually plug the same blog over and over, but I'm gonna do it anyway, because I'm not in it to win it.

I just watched The Royal Tenenbaums and re-noticed all the specific references made by this blog (which I've repeatedly praised.) Afterwards I went on a Nick Drake, Nico, and Cat Stevens kick. This time was also the first that I actually kept my eyes open for the suicide attempt. In the past I've tensed up and turned away as he takes the razor out of the shaver, but it didn't turn out as bad as I had expected. I still got a bit nauseous, though. Thank goodness for the plentiful stock of single serving Cracker Jack packs (with handy facts about Abe Lincoln inside!) and Vitamin Waters that I've been accumulating with my left over meal credits.

In more revisitation, I watched Shaun of the Dead the other night and recalled the first time I burst out laughing (at the whole movie in general, but specifically) at this part, and I commemorated the fond memory by repeating the act. It got me back to thinking about the whole debate about THE N WORD which is something that I frequently ponder, and frankly have nothing interesting to say from my current, one-way communicative stance. It's been popping up recently; thank goodness for YouTube! The Shaun of the Dead bit, I feel, is hilariously acceptable. I'm a little bit less sure about System of a Down performing "Shame on a Nigga" with the support of original creators The Wu-Tang Clan, but still kinda enjoy it? Then I also came across the new Redman video which mockingly portrays protesters (0:41) with signs that read "Ban the N Word." (Also worth nothing in the video [in fact, it made my entire day,] is an understandably rare sighting of a Colorado Rockies hat, visible at 3:03 [Colorado's most prominent area code,] nonetheless!)

Oh, and I've been messing around with ink and watercolor and lazily digitizing them (by which I mean not bothering to scan or edit them. Cameras are so much easier:)

Big Ups

Leslie Feist is doing some neat stuff with music videos:

(I'm already disobeying my self-imposed rule against endorsing the RIAA...)

Ian Smith (of the wonderful I Always Wanted To Be A Tenenbaum) is doing some neat stuff with trees:


Sadly I found it necessary to forgo the Modest Mouse concert this evening, however, my chin will remain up! Lincoln is a slacker, but he might show up one of these days and link you to death. At this point I don't feel like my opinions are worth writing and or reading, except for this one: Jacob Borshard is a major cutie (I'm hardly the first person to notice.) At least that's what my ears tell me. It's hard to go wrong with any of the songs on either of his two albums available for free download, but this song's been getting stuck in my head:

Jacob Borshard - "You're in Love Again" (Songs For a Small Stereo)

It's On

It's the inaugural post and I've got nothing better to talk about than myself!

Self-portrait 1:

Just pretend you've never seen this or this (darn you, subconscious influence!)

As far as music goes, I've seen loads of predictable hype for a few tracks from the upcoming Dntel album titled Dumb Luck, namely the songs featuring Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley,) and Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes.) That's fine because I dig those songs, but I'm also really into Fog, who also worked on a song with Jimmy Tamborello. Aside from his own amazing, original material, Andrew Broder (the mind behind Fog) collaborated with Yoni Wolf (Why?) a few years back to make an album under the name Hymie's Basement, which happens to be one of my all time favorite records. Here are some mp3s for you, and hopefully you will agree with me in thinking that they're neat!

Dntel feat. Fog - "Natural Resources" (Dumb Luck)
Hymie's Basement - "21st Century Pop Song" (s/t)