The Animated Life (toons)

Toon In

The Animated Life is a series of short animated films by Jeff Scher. Hand-drawn, I believe, and quite impressive. I believe there may be a few subliminal messages embedded in them.

Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Penumbra

Are you sleeping, brother idiot?
Out on the abandoned highway,
your mind igniting a brush fire
in the October moonlight
dreaming there, little man,
miles from the pale concrete city,

finding comfort where you can
in a pile of leaves,
a bower of branches,
redolent of pine and pendulums,
conjuring a paradise of stuck clocks,
a moment of still water

you could live in forever.
But something dances in waves of wheat,
rises over rock jags,
a disturbance in the clouds
unsettling mirrors for miles around
and casting a searchlight for you.

Elements conspire beyond your eyelids:
a voice, a bell, a creaking.
The morning assembles.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

Lots of Halloween decorations and candy at the drugstore. I can't get into the holiday spirit yet, though, what with these 85-degree days we're having.... I'm watching The War, off and on. I'm surprised that so much color footage of WWII was shot. I always think of it as a black-and-white war.... We are inundated by apples; the tree in the backyard is producing bushels of them. Unfortunately, about 90 percent of them are too full of holes or other imperfections to eat. The ones that are edible, though, are good. Macintoshes, I think.... Somebody was giving out free T-shirts today that say "I'm a good listener" across the chest. White letters on black. I took one. I wonder what will happen if I wear it in public. Will strangers tell me their problems?.... Why don't I...just cowboy up?

The World's Ugliest Cars

Style Note

Take a look at The World's Ugliest Cars, according to BusinessWeek. I disagree with some of the selections (Corvairs ugly?), and I would say that some of them are just strange looking (Edsels), or even kind of cute (Pacers), not "ugly". Most cars are so bland looking today -- at least these flivvers had personality.

Word of the Day: diegesis

Word of the Day

diegesis (n) diegetic (adj)

A narrative
In film studies, the fictional world, milieu, or universe in which the story takes place

"Non-diegetic music in dramatic (narrative-based) television thus has heightened purpose in the televisual apparatus."
--Kathryn Kalinak, from an essay in Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks.

Translation: music that the characters don't hear but the audience does hear serves a purpose in film and television. The purpose is to tell the viewers what they should be feeling or how they should interpret a scene on the emotional level.

Newspapers hostile to reading?

Quote of the Day

"'Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of American newspapers...is their hostility to reading in all forms.' This is the taboo that dares not speak its name."
--from "Goodbye to All That", in the Columbia Journalism Review, an article about the sad state of newspaper book reviews

The Towers: 9/11 and the World Trade Center

Nine Eleven I was in those towers several times, and easily could have been there "that day." My wife was in the World Trade Center on 9/11, though luckily not in one of the two main buildings. Anyway, my day, 20+ years ago: The Towers

3D Auditory Illusions

You Are There

Put your headphones on and experience three-dimensional "holophonic" sounds at One Man's Blog. Some pretty impressive auditory illusions there, including a "virtual haircut".

Random Acts of Poetry

Ode to a Grecian Urn

1.

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

2.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

3.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

4.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

5.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

--John Keats

Word of the Day: cromulent

Word of the Day

cromulent (adj)

Authentic, valid, fine or excellent

"Whatever your French villa preference this cromulent resort in Dalat has you covered."
--hotelchatter.com

This word, which was coined by the writers (or a writer) of The Simpsons, seems to be seeping into the common language, and is already included in some online dictionaries. I'm not sure why we need it, but I like the sound of it. And one of the great things about the English language is that we have so many ways of saying the same thing.

By the way, what's your French villa preference?

Inland Empire

Quote of the Day

"There's a vast network, right? An ocean of possibilities. I like dogs. I used to raise rabbits. I've always loved animals. Their nature, how they think. I have seen dogs reason their way out of problems, watched them think through the trickiest situations. Do you have a couple of bucks I could borrow? I’ve got this damn landlord."
--"Freddie," a character in David Lynch's latest film, Inland Empire

Watched the DVD last night. It's a very confusing but generally mesmerizing film. I think Freddie's bit of dialog above (which is really Lynch speaking directly to the audience) "explains" it as much as words can.