Found Notes
From Found magazine. Exactly that.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Random Acts of Poetry
Random Acts of Poetry
Dinner and a Show
A dowager sun of ocher
Shines against the windows,
As we exit
And quicken our feet.
We hear Hebrew on Broadway
Passing by a fruit stand.
An invisible chain in coils
Encircles a prostitute.
And it almost breaks us down,
This game of counting doors.
Words can satisfy
Or pierce like a hypo;
The amplified voices
Testifying for the moon
Like stentorian birds, complaining
Of a sky cindered with night,
While dirty men
Seek to eat.
Meat and pepper wait
Just beyond the light,
Behind those steamy,
unbreakable panes.
Dinner and a Show
A dowager sun of ocher
Shines against the windows,
As we exit
And quicken our feet.
We hear Hebrew on Broadway
Passing by a fruit stand.
An invisible chain in coils
Encircles a prostitute.
And it almost breaks us down,
This game of counting doors.
Words can satisfy
Or pierce like a hypo;
The amplified voices
Testifying for the moon
Like stentorian birds, complaining
Of a sky cindered with night,
While dirty men
Seek to eat.
Meat and pepper wait
Just beyond the light,
Behind those steamy,
unbreakable panes.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Found elsewhere
Nota Bene
Flickr: Wunderkammer is a sort of online curio cabinet of strange objects, marvels and "wonders" like those found in old-fashioned museums of the 16th-18th centuries. I like this Flickr collection of Magical Cards, too. (via Blue Tea)
~~~
2 blowhards discusses the current tab mania in graphic design. Tabs are everywhere -- at the top of every web page, it seems, but even in print advertisements and magazine covers, where they're completely non-functional. Which raises a question: just what is it that tabs have come to symbolize? Cyber-sophistication, apparently, or... file cabinet chic?
~~~
"We don't really have any mind at all. We think we have a mind; we think we have this thing called my mind, that it's a particular mind. Then we lock ourselves into this structure of our own creation. It's a little prison we put ourselves in. But actually, we aren't anything in particular at all. Once we realize this, then we have complete freedom -- whether we're exploring the mind through writing, or through just sitting there quietly, observing the thoughts as they come up. It's all the same; it's the same free-flowing mind that's taking place. It can be found and expressed in any activity."
--Steve Hagen (via whiskey river)
~~~
"If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost." TV addicts rejoice: The original S.S. Minnow, or one of them, has been found.
Flickr: Wunderkammer is a sort of online curio cabinet of strange objects, marvels and "wonders" like those found in old-fashioned museums of the 16th-18th centuries. I like this Flickr collection of Magical Cards, too. (via Blue Tea)
~~~
2 blowhards discusses the current tab mania in graphic design. Tabs are everywhere -- at the top of every web page, it seems, but even in print advertisements and magazine covers, where they're completely non-functional. Which raises a question: just what is it that tabs have come to symbolize? Cyber-sophistication, apparently, or... file cabinet chic?
~~~
"We don't really have any mind at all. We think we have a mind; we think we have this thing called my mind, that it's a particular mind. Then we lock ourselves into this structure of our own creation. It's a little prison we put ourselves in. But actually, we aren't anything in particular at all. Once we realize this, then we have complete freedom -- whether we're exploring the mind through writing, or through just sitting there quietly, observing the thoughts as they come up. It's all the same; it's the same free-flowing mind that's taking place. It can be found and expressed in any activity."
--Steve Hagen (via whiskey river)
~~~
"If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost." TV addicts rejoice: The original S.S. Minnow, or one of them, has been found.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Word of the Day
Word of the Day
impecunious (adj)
poor; penniless
"It began with a contribution from the first impecunious painter in payment of an overdue board-bill, his painting being hung on a nail beside the clock. Now, all over the walls...are pinned, tacked, pasted and hung...sketches in oil, pastel, water color, pencil and charcoal...bearing the signature of some poor, stranded painter, preceded by the suggestive line, 'To my dear friend, the landlord'--silent reminders all of a small cash balance which circumstances quite beyond their control had prevented their liquidating at the precise hour of their departure."
--Francis Hopkinson Smith, The Veiled Lady
I always seem to be "penniless" when I'm in the check-out line and the cashier rings up a sale price with a "1" or "2" on the end. It's only as I'm stuffing a handful of the resulting change in my pocket that I remember that big jar of pennies at home on my dresser.
impecunious (adj)
poor; penniless
"It began with a contribution from the first impecunious painter in payment of an overdue board-bill, his painting being hung on a nail beside the clock. Now, all over the walls...are pinned, tacked, pasted and hung...sketches in oil, pastel, water color, pencil and charcoal...bearing the signature of some poor, stranded painter, preceded by the suggestive line, 'To my dear friend, the landlord'--silent reminders all of a small cash balance which circumstances quite beyond their control had prevented their liquidating at the precise hour of their departure."
--Francis Hopkinson Smith, The Veiled Lady
I always seem to be "penniless" when I'm in the check-out line and the cashier rings up a sale price with a "1" or "2" on the end. It's only as I'm stuffing a handful of the resulting change in my pocket that I remember that big jar of pennies at home on my dresser.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Consciousness Streaming
Consciousness Streaming
Sometimes I feel like a dust magnet--especially when I look down at my computer keyboard and see that coating of tiny gray particles between each key. Ah choo.... I need to get a haircut. I need to mow the lawn. I'm too busy to do either right now. And so, until the weekend, the shagginess intensifies.... No, Mr. Eliot, April is not the cruelest month. August is. What is supposed to be the traditional vacation month always turns out to be my busy season. Last year, it was the nightmare process of moving to a new house, which was ultimately worth the torture in the end (double meaning!). This year, I'm just doing double duty, work-wise.... so.... Why don't I.... sleep for 12 hours this Saturday?
Visual Version
Sometimes I feel like a dust magnet--especially when I look down at my computer keyboard and see that coating of tiny gray particles between each key. Ah choo.... I need to get a haircut. I need to mow the lawn. I'm too busy to do either right now. And so, until the weekend, the shagginess intensifies.... No, Mr. Eliot, April is not the cruelest month. August is. What is supposed to be the traditional vacation month always turns out to be my busy season. Last year, it was the nightmare process of moving to a new house, which was ultimately worth the torture in the end (double meaning!). This year, I'm just doing double duty, work-wise.... so.... Why don't I.... sleep for 12 hours this Saturday?
Visual Version
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
5 Steps To Being More Photogenic - Digital Camera University
Say cheese?
Five Steps To Being More Photogenic, from an outfit called the Digital Camera University. It boils down to: stand on one foot, don't smile TOO much, look slightly above (not directly into) the lens, lean toward the camera a bit, and squeeze your buttocks.
Five Steps To Being More Photogenic, from an outfit called the Digital Camera University. It boils down to: stand on one foot, don't smile TOO much, look slightly above (not directly into) the lens, lean toward the camera a bit, and squeeze your buttocks.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Random Acts of Poetry
Random Acts of Poetry
Zabriskie Street
The frame houses stand
Shoulder to shoulder,
Intimate as a church choir,
This crowd of stocky
Geezers staring,
Blank-eyed and dumbfounded
At a wiggly image
In a funhouse mirror.
Some greybeards
Are in sad repair--
Fallen arches, suffering
From shingles.
And the whole crowd presents
A mouth of uneven teeth,
Rows of dull Chicklets
with a sad gap here and there
That some rapacious dentist
Will fill with his quick mortar
And cookie-cutter caps
Of bright, false brick.
Zabriskie Street
The frame houses stand
Shoulder to shoulder,
Intimate as a church choir,
This crowd of stocky
Geezers staring,
Blank-eyed and dumbfounded
At a wiggly image
In a funhouse mirror.
Some greybeards
Are in sad repair--
Fallen arches, suffering
From shingles.
And the whole crowd presents
A mouth of uneven teeth,
Rows of dull Chicklets
with a sad gap here and there
That some rapacious dentist
Will fill with his quick mortar
And cookie-cutter caps
Of bright, false brick.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Found elsewhere
Nota Bene
"The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises... and then all goodness is in jeopardy." A lovingly created guide to the incomparable Twin Peaks, including a pretty amazing, Java-enabled character chart. (via things)
~~~
Lucid dreaming: hallucinatory art photography by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. Fascinating. It reminds me, though, of why I'm sometimes glad I don't remember most of my dreams. (via wood s lot)
~~~
Fast on the draw: A one-hour alphabet, drawn and colored over the course of an hour, with some help from Photoshop. Impressive. "O is for ogre..."
~~~
What Flying Was Like in the 1960s (via boynton)
"The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises... and then all goodness is in jeopardy." A lovingly created guide to the incomparable Twin Peaks, including a pretty amazing, Java-enabled character chart. (via things)
~~~
Lucid dreaming: hallucinatory art photography by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. Fascinating. It reminds me, though, of why I'm sometimes glad I don't remember most of my dreams. (via wood s lot)
~~~
Fast on the draw: A one-hour alphabet, drawn and colored over the course of an hour, with some help from Photoshop. Impressive. "O is for ogre..."
~~~
What Flying Was Like in the 1960s (via boynton)
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Word of the Day
Word of the Day
ubiety (n)
The state of being in a particular place
"Despite that lapse, she was content, even rhapsodic, and as if her little heaven upon earth, this paragon of ubiety, were somehow not enough, inadequate to cause that happy welling of spirit, the rejoicing in her idyll...."
--Craig Bell, Lost in the Elysian Fields
My ubiety involves being at 40.748 latitude and -74.050 longitude. Can't say I'm rejoicing in my idyll, but there are worse places.
ubiety (n)
The state of being in a particular place
"Despite that lapse, she was content, even rhapsodic, and as if her little heaven upon earth, this paragon of ubiety, were somehow not enough, inadequate to cause that happy welling of spirit, the rejoicing in her idyll...."
--Craig Bell, Lost in the Elysian Fields
My ubiety involves being at 40.748 latitude and -74.050 longitude. Can't say I'm rejoicing in my idyll, but there are worse places.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Consciousness Streaming
Consciousness Streaming
Overheard conversation, apparently between two off-duty cops: "He gets lots of death threats. The house is guarded 24 hours a day, plain-clothes cops, unmarked cars..." Took my sports-obsessed offspring to Giants Stadium last weekend to see a Jets practice that was open to the public. It was free -- but hot dogs were $5.00, pretzels were $3.00 and a can of soda was $4.50... Is there anywhere that a certain insurance company with a gecko for a mascot won't advertise? Saw some upside-down skywriting the other day, boasting of their "lower rates"... Why don't I... doodle?
Visual Version
Overheard conversation, apparently between two off-duty cops: "He gets lots of death threats. The house is guarded 24 hours a day, plain-clothes cops, unmarked cars..." Took my sports-obsessed offspring to Giants Stadium last weekend to see a Jets practice that was open to the public. It was free -- but hot dogs were $5.00, pretzels were $3.00 and a can of soda was $4.50... Is there anywhere that a certain insurance company with a gecko for a mascot won't advertise? Saw some upside-down skywriting the other day, boasting of their "lower rates"... Why don't I... doodle?
Visual Version
Friday, August 04, 2006
Random Word Generator
What's the Word
The Random Word Generator (Plus) will supply you with nouns, verbs, adjectives, interjections, etc., at various levels of complexity, from very common to obscure. Just what is a "scutcheon," anyway?
A companion "Creativity Tool," the Random Sentence Generator, spits out a simple, random sentence that almost seems to make a peculiar kind of sense. Examples: "How can the insidious ozone bubble?" You've got me there, but ozone bubbles do sound insidious. "The dropping trace reports a breach throughout the ingenious cleaner." Really? How then will I clean my ingenious?
The Random Word Generator (Plus) will supply you with nouns, verbs, adjectives, interjections, etc., at various levels of complexity, from very common to obscure. Just what is a "scutcheon," anyway?
A companion "Creativity Tool," the Random Sentence Generator, spits out a simple, random sentence that almost seems to make a peculiar kind of sense. Examples: "How can the insidious ozone bubble?" You've got me there, but ozone bubbles do sound insidious. "The dropping trace reports a breach throughout the ingenious cleaner." Really? How then will I clean my ingenious?
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Random Acts of Poetry
Random Acts of Poetry
Jersey City Jimmy
Jersey City Jimmy jabbered with a jolly journeyman
who filled his head with fancies of a funny fly-by-night
to soothe the city's senses and its pity-party plight.
Jersey City Jimmy jibed and joined a jiggy juggler,
a flim-flam fellow who taught riddles, rhymes and repartee,
a model mentor till Jim was jazzed for a jamboree.
Jersey City Jimmy jim-jammed with jokers and jackals
till the cranky crowd he courted began to boo and bleat,
and he felt the fearsome folly of that dirty city heat.
Jersey City Jimmy jitter-bugged his way to Journal Square,
fell into a frothy fountain with a frenzied foolish frown,
then caught a train for the towers of a taller terror town.
~~~
Blame it on the heat.
Jersey City Jimmy
Jersey City Jimmy jabbered with a jolly journeyman
who filled his head with fancies of a funny fly-by-night
to soothe the city's senses and its pity-party plight.
Jersey City Jimmy jibed and joined a jiggy juggler,
a flim-flam fellow who taught riddles, rhymes and repartee,
a model mentor till Jim was jazzed for a jamboree.
Jersey City Jimmy jim-jammed with jokers and jackals
till the cranky crowd he courted began to boo and bleat,
and he felt the fearsome folly of that dirty city heat.
Jersey City Jimmy jitter-bugged his way to Journal Square,
fell into a frothy fountain with a frenzied foolish frown,
then caught a train for the towers of a taller terror town.
~~~
Blame it on the heat.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Found elsewhere
Nota Bene
Dazzle your eyes with a huge collection of very strange statues from around the world.
~~~
If you ever fly (on an airplane, I mean), you're probably familiar with the Skymall catalog of practical and, shall we say, unique items. Here's an amusing run-down of Skymall's 10 Worst Products.
(via The Presurfer)
~~~
To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication, a new version of On the Road, based on Kerouac's "scroll," will be published next year as a book, says The Boston Globe. According to the article, the "scroll" includes several passages cut from previously published versions, as well as a different first sentence and a more abrupt ending. "A cocker spaniel owned by one of Kerouac's friends apparently ate the last section, according to Jim Canary, the head of special collections conservation at Indiana University's Lilly Library."
(via the Literary Saloon)
~~~
Give me that old-time surrealism: RaShOmoN offers a vintage YouTube video.
(via boynton)
~~~
"When people wait for methods of public transportation they stare in the direction from which the train, or bus will come. It's as if they believe that by staring they can will an earlier arrival. Watched pots do boil and watched for trains and buses do arrive. Only the experience of time for the person staring shifts around." Fatshadow waits for the bus.
Dazzle your eyes with a huge collection of very strange statues from around the world.
~~~
If you ever fly (on an airplane, I mean), you're probably familiar with the Skymall catalog of practical and, shall we say, unique items. Here's an amusing run-down of Skymall's 10 Worst Products.
(via The Presurfer)
~~~
To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication, a new version of On the Road, based on Kerouac's "scroll," will be published next year as a book, says The Boston Globe. According to the article, the "scroll" includes several passages cut from previously published versions, as well as a different first sentence and a more abrupt ending. "A cocker spaniel owned by one of Kerouac's friends apparently ate the last section, according to Jim Canary, the head of special collections conservation at Indiana University's Lilly Library."
(via the Literary Saloon)
~~~
Give me that old-time surrealism: RaShOmoN offers a vintage YouTube video.
(via boynton)
~~~
"When people wait for methods of public transportation they stare in the direction from which the train, or bus will come. It's as if they believe that by staring they can will an earlier arrival. Watched pots do boil and watched for trains and buses do arrive. Only the experience of time for the person staring shifts around." Fatshadow waits for the bus.
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