Which means I'm starting up my annuals. (with a couple new posts)
-The Foxes! '10
-Honorable Mentions '10
-The Disappointments '10
-possibly a best of movie lists (maybe)
-a personal testament to the new state of television/maybe podcasts
-really awesome Christmas shit list.
and of course
-The Nowies '10 (which, believe it or not, is almost finished)
A lot of these are going to start being post after the first of Dec.
Stay tuned!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The kids are alright.
"I'm gonna have a kid, he's gonna be a fuckin' Navy Seal, he's gonna beat the shit out of me and all my friends, rip up our comic books, melt our lead figure, make our lives a living hell." -Patton Oswalt
I treated myself to lunch today at a local longstanding diner in town, there wasn't much going on (partially the reason I went in the first place), although I couldn't help but sit quietly and listen to everyone's conversations, as minimal as they were. However there were two people that sat across from me that really engaged my interest: a mother and daughter.
The mother and daughter held a closer-than-most relationship that was established in a very strong (albeit slightly passive) conversation between the two. It was that type of girl who just a little nerdy and corny, but still a sweetheart, and the mom looked like she was either a one-time background singer for Joni Mitchell or just never left the hippie culture of Bellingham.
And it's not that I have anything specific against hippies, that is except that they're like pacifist Tea Party members. They just don't make sense to me, and I think that might just be my instantaneous distrust of anyone who chooses to follow blindly into something that symbolizes a move to change.
ANYWAYS, the point was not this. It was the polarity of the situation that made me a little awkwarded out. As the mom is the demographic that wouldn't be assumed to have a kid like the one she had.
Example: The mom at one point found someone's headphones in the booth in which the two of them were sitting in, and instead of simply going to the server and telling her that she found them, she chooses to integrate the situation with her daughter, whom of which doesn't seem to care, yet tries to. The situation turns into a Brady Bunch type of situation where the mother goes "Well, I don't think these are ours, but what do you think we should do?
The woman clearly cares for her child, but I've had similar situations with my parents, and the moment last less than 15 seconds.
VS.
The girl telling her mom about these movie she's really looking forward to in which Robert Downey Jr. plays a man trying to get home to his wife whom is about to give birth to his child (to which she displays some amicable scenes she thinks are funny from the limited number of movie trailers. again she's kind of lame but really sweet). The mom (Joan Baez of the Pacific Northwest) puts in a very fake laugh about these comments
and that's when I realized something.
More and more I hear about this dynamic of reproducing where your child has a full potential of being completely opposite what you had hoped for under one's care and compassion. I imagine my hypothetical child (who's name would probably be something like Dude or Harrison) would be into playing piano to woo some new age hipster girls and grow his hair out long or something, I don't know. But one in my shoes of passive retro-conservative thought and a desire to see The Black Keys live wouldn't necessarily expect a greek system trust-fund patriot, but the reality of the situation is kids don't want to be their parents and the rebellion to clean haircuts and a love for Abercrombie and Fitch clothing is the most likely output of me tending for a child.
But today I saw it in the polar opposite way for the first time. A girl who, while still very close to her mom, is quickly moving into a different side-tangent demographic, while mom is probably going home to make something out of leeks and terra-cotta pots.
I think what made it a little unnerving was the fact that they were both having ice cream sundaes. Something about how, kind of, forced the aesthetic looked really felt weird and unnatural. Now is this a symbolic transition of the relationship? Probably not. But in my ability to properly define the situation I just felt awkward hearing it all go down.
I treated myself to lunch today at a local longstanding diner in town, there wasn't much going on (partially the reason I went in the first place), although I couldn't help but sit quietly and listen to everyone's conversations, as minimal as they were. However there were two people that sat across from me that really engaged my interest: a mother and daughter.
The mother and daughter held a closer-than-most relationship that was established in a very strong (albeit slightly passive) conversation between the two. It was that type of girl who just a little nerdy and corny, but still a sweetheart, and the mom looked like she was either a one-time background singer for Joni Mitchell or just never left the hippie culture of Bellingham.
And it's not that I have anything specific against hippies, that is except that they're like pacifist Tea Party members. They just don't make sense to me, and I think that might just be my instantaneous distrust of anyone who chooses to follow blindly into something that symbolizes a move to change.
ANYWAYS, the point was not this. It was the polarity of the situation that made me a little awkwarded out. As the mom is the demographic that wouldn't be assumed to have a kid like the one she had.
Example: The mom at one point found someone's headphones in the booth in which the two of them were sitting in, and instead of simply going to the server and telling her that she found them, she chooses to integrate the situation with her daughter, whom of which doesn't seem to care, yet tries to. The situation turns into a Brady Bunch type of situation where the mother goes "Well, I don't think these are ours, but what do you think we should do?
The woman clearly cares for her child, but I've had similar situations with my parents, and the moment last less than 15 seconds.
VS.
The girl telling her mom about these movie she's really looking forward to in which Robert Downey Jr. plays a man trying to get home to his wife whom is about to give birth to his child (to which she displays some amicable scenes she thinks are funny from the limited number of movie trailers. again she's kind of lame but really sweet). The mom (Joan Baez of the Pacific Northwest) puts in a very fake laugh about these comments
and that's when I realized something.
More and more I hear about this dynamic of reproducing where your child has a full potential of being completely opposite what you had hoped for under one's care and compassion. I imagine my hypothetical child (who's name would probably be something like Dude or Harrison) would be into playing piano to woo some new age hipster girls and grow his hair out long or something, I don't know. But one in my shoes of passive retro-conservative thought and a desire to see The Black Keys live wouldn't necessarily expect a greek system trust-fund patriot, but the reality of the situation is kids don't want to be their parents and the rebellion to clean haircuts and a love for Abercrombie and Fitch clothing is the most likely output of me tending for a child.
But today I saw it in the polar opposite way for the first time. A girl who, while still very close to her mom, is quickly moving into a different side-tangent demographic, while mom is probably going home to make something out of leeks and terra-cotta pots.
I think what made it a little unnerving was the fact that they were both having ice cream sundaes. Something about how, kind of, forced the aesthetic looked really felt weird and unnatural. Now is this a symbolic transition of the relationship? Probably not. But in my ability to properly define the situation I just felt awkward hearing it all go down.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Something I Really Like
Alone in the Wilderness
This is so alluring to me as a thing because it takes something inherently philosophical and makes a simple need driven to by one man. It is strictly masculine if you really look at it.
Background: A man by the name of Richard Preneke in the 1960s (who at the time of retiring age) chose to exodus society in an attempt to be isolated by Alaskan wilderness.
This video is a set of home recordings (and narration from his personal diaries) that show him constructing a log cabin from scratch. and I mean... from scratch. He brings with him personal necessities and makes everything from primitive tools. Literally, the only tools he brings are the metal pieces with no handles, meaning he had to hand carve his handles and then assemble them, and THEN he chopped down his own lumber, sawed it into pieces, and assembled each pieces of the house bit by bit.
This also includes roofing his house, stacking logs for the cabin, making his own doors, windows, and quite climactically assembling a chimney/fireplace from stones and a little cement (which he feels guilty about using as you find out in the story).
What makes me feel 65 enjoying this is it has long been run as a filler documentary on PBS for years and years and years. Although after discovering this only a couple of years ago, I happen to just love with the way this is handled. It is poorly made (from what I gathered it was put together by some of Preneke's relatives) using odd celtic music and at times a piece or two of film that was clearly shot currently in order to subsidize Preneke's dialogue.
My roommate recently told me he was going to be writing a thesis utilizing a connection between this specific movie and Henry Threau's Walden, and this came back into my mind, as it is essentially Walden without any intellectual theme. It is the hollowed out easy to understand relaxing piece of mind, without ever alluding to how this outlook, and yet you still seem to understand it on an instinctual level. The most unfortunate thing about sitting down to enjoy this (and it's incredibly short, something along the lines of 45 minutes), you can't help but feel diminished by society. How the ice cold can of Ranier in your hand is something you depended on that was comforted for you, as he is making making utensils out of pieces of pine or as you illuminate your apartment with a lamp as he is stuffing his perishable food underground in the permafrost of an archaic refrigerator.
He's not subtle about how he feels about society, but he's not very articulate about it either, and that's what gives it its theme.
This is so alluring to me as a thing because it takes something inherently philosophical and makes a simple need driven to by one man. It is strictly masculine if you really look at it.
Background: A man by the name of Richard Preneke in the 1960s (who at the time of retiring age) chose to exodus society in an attempt to be isolated by Alaskan wilderness.
This video is a set of home recordings (and narration from his personal diaries) that show him constructing a log cabin from scratch. and I mean... from scratch. He brings with him personal necessities and makes everything from primitive tools. Literally, the only tools he brings are the metal pieces with no handles, meaning he had to hand carve his handles and then assemble them, and THEN he chopped down his own lumber, sawed it into pieces, and assembled each pieces of the house bit by bit.
This also includes roofing his house, stacking logs for the cabin, making his own doors, windows, and quite climactically assembling a chimney/fireplace from stones and a little cement (which he feels guilty about using as you find out in the story).
What makes me feel 65 enjoying this is it has long been run as a filler documentary on PBS for years and years and years. Although after discovering this only a couple of years ago, I happen to just love with the way this is handled. It is poorly made (from what I gathered it was put together by some of Preneke's relatives) using odd celtic music and at times a piece or two of film that was clearly shot currently in order to subsidize Preneke's dialogue.
My roommate recently told me he was going to be writing a thesis utilizing a connection between this specific movie and Henry Threau's Walden, and this came back into my mind, as it is essentially Walden without any intellectual theme. It is the hollowed out easy to understand relaxing piece of mind, without ever alluding to how this outlook, and yet you still seem to understand it on an instinctual level. The most unfortunate thing about sitting down to enjoy this (and it's incredibly short, something along the lines of 45 minutes), you can't help but feel diminished by society. How the ice cold can of Ranier in your hand is something you depended on that was comforted for you, as he is making making utensils out of pieces of pine or as you illuminate your apartment with a lamp as he is stuffing his perishable food underground in the permafrost of an archaic refrigerator.
He's not subtle about how he feels about society, but he's not very articulate about it either, and that's what gives it its theme.
Friday, November 5, 2010
This is a video of Thomas Edison recording a ride on a subway in Manhattan in 1899.
oh and it's mind boggling to think that I watched the entire thing:
On the idea that I watched possibly one of the earliest forms of visual technology on youtube, a website thought to be overbearing with too many obnoxious abuses of state of the art visual technology.
also I find it stunning to think this is one of the earliest visual recordings of the world, if not the earliest.
But then again, I find wax recordings of Walt Whitman to be fascinating, which might make me really old.
On the idea that I watched possibly one of the earliest forms of visual technology on youtube, a website thought to be overbearing with too many obnoxious abuses of state of the art visual technology.
also I find it stunning to think this is one of the earliest visual recordings of the world, if not the earliest.
But then again, I find wax recordings of Walt Whitman to be fascinating, which might make me really old.
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