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| Friday, July 25th, 2008 |
beatonna
|
10:33p |
Polite Canadian Bands Man who is excited! It is this girl right here. I am going home to Nova Scotia on Monday! Then soon it will be time to go back to New Brunswick and the cutest music festival in the country. Here is a tip, if you are anywhere near there next weekend, Sackville will be the place to be. You will be so overwhelmed with adorable things! That is my advice for you today. |
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siriosa2000
|
12:05a |
http://www.jeansirius.com/2008/07/first-pass-of-walls-is-complete.html first pass of walls is complete. and i've decided to go ahead and do the entryway after all. might as well. also, the time i spend laying dropcloth in the entryway is time i'm not addressing the horrible ceiling, which has some spots that look as if they'd just love to fall down on my head. after entryway and ceiling, the woodwork. my pinky was tingling/numb this morning. index finger a little swollen. i called up my miracle-wreaking bodyworker, dr. jim, and he said i wouldn't be doing any permanent damage if i just continued on for another couple of days. (actually, at this rate, i'm thinking more like three or four, but it's all good.) and we made an appt for tuesday. now i need to decide whether to paint the inside of the closet. always something. the gathering is in eight days, and i'd like a couple of days to deal with the contents of gertrude. so: six days to finish painting. five would be better. i suppose the laws of physics would not be violated if i finished in five. hm. painting takes three days, minimum. so, yeah, i need to be finished with the prep work by saturday. okay, that *might* break the laws of physics. latest list: patch the cracks in the ceiling. patch cracks in entryway. second pass on the walls. sand. wash the ceiling, walls, and entryway. prime the patched places. paint. repair the floor. |
beatonna
|
9:05a |
The Invincible Army  It was about time I gave Napoleon his own comic that actually has to do with things he did. |
| Thursday, July 24th, 2008 |
rosalarian2
|
8:15p |
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kola
|
2:21p |
Random observation of the day
I've been listening to a lot of Meredith Monk today. While I understand that people object to the goat calling nature of her work, I believe that their assessments are in error. Meredith Monk is, in fact, totally awesome.
Current Mood: chipper |
|
siriosa2000
|
1:07a |
http://www.jeansirius.com/2008/07/started-patching.html started patching. first pass, got one and a half walls done. spent three hours in one corner. made a hardware store run, for more spackle and brushes and tape. and some of that screen stuff for big areas. there are a couple of places on the ceiling where it looks like the plaster has entirely separated, and there'll be a big old lacuna when i start widening the cracks. making good progress, though. this time i know that the first pass will leave indentations where the crack is. that gets fixed on the second pass. and then there's the sanding. i might be able to complete the first pass tomorrow. can't decide whether to do the entryway as well. on the one hand, it'd be nice to have it done. on the other, time keeps on slipping into the past. and much needs to be done after the painting is finished. oy. dunno. too late to be making any decisions anyway. |
| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 |
rosalarian2
|
7:57p |
conventions As Comic-Con rolls around, I'm getting a bunch of questions from people about which conventions I'm attending this year. Unfortunately, the list is small. I can't make it to SDCC because it's too expensive, I've sworn off riding in airplanes forever, I can't get the time off work, and for now, I always spend waaaaaaaay more money than I make, so it's hard to justify it as a business trip. The one I am going to this year is Gaylaxicon, a sci-fi/fantasy/comics/anime/gaming/geek fest for LGBT people and supporters. It's in Washington DC from October 10-13. I'm really looking forward to it. Next year I'm going to be going to a lot more conventions. (Anyone know of any reeeeally good ones?) The ones I want to go to are: MOCCA, Stumptown, SDCC, Toronto CC, Penguicon... and some more. Like I said, give me suggestions! A really nifty thing for you to do is, if there's a convention you go to, and you have influences within it, get them to pay for me to come! (*nudge nudge*) |
|
celestehblog
|
11:32p |
Tonight! http://celesteh.blogspot.com/2008/07/tonight.html
Hey folks, I'm playing in San Francisco tonight in the Edgetone Summit. Show starts at 8PM at the SF Community Music Center on 544 Capp Street. X-street is 20th. I've been informed this is directly in between 16th St BART and 24th St BART, only one block of of Mission. Also, very conveniently located if you want to purchase illicit drugs or sex on the way. Save a Hamilton for the $10 admission, though.
Polly Moller and I will be doing a work for lie detector. So think up some yes or no questions to put to Polly. Has she ever cheated on her taxes? Does she still beat her dog? If terrorists were going to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge unless she fellated Dick Cheney, would she do it?
I'll be moderating, so if something is in bad taste, I will smack you down!
There are some other exciting people on the bill also. The summit goes on all week. |
kola
|
10:13p |
Glove of Truth! Tonight! Les and Polly Moller will be playing a show tonight in SF. The show is part of the Edgetone Music Summit. 8:15 at the San Francisco Community Music Center. It involves a home brew lie detecting glove, audience questions, and laptop music. It should be awesome. Y'all should come. |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | |
siriosa2000
|
9:11p |
http://www.jeansirius.com/2008/07/dining-room-is-done.html dining room is done.and i've moved furniture out of the living room. unfortunately, in the process i put some scratches in the newly refinished floor. but i know how to fix them, and i've got a can of the finish. just another thing to go on the (endless) list. all the trim got its second coat. i chipped several layers of paint off the door hinges. the dropcloths have been taken up and shaken out, and the small ones hosed off and hung to dry. there's tape around the edges of the living room, and tarps taped down to that. the ladder is next to the corner i'm going to address first in the patching saga. my gracious, i worked hard today. the list: patch the cracks in the ceiling and walls of the living room. sand the patches. wash the ceiling and walls. prime the patched places. paint. repair the floor. if i didn't have people coming over in 11 days, i'd be very cheerful. i think i'm going to punt on the entryway. do it Some Other Time. |
| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | |
celestehblog
|
6:10a |
The WSJ on Social Structures in the Loo http://celesteh.blogspot.com/2008/07/wsj-on-social-structures-in-loo.html The Wall Street Journal waxes poetic about the ladies' loo. It starts with, "It's a good thing office lavatories aren't coed." This is more or less the crux of the article. Why is it a good thing? Well, the author never actually says, she just hints. The reason, of course, is that it's a holy temple of feminity. A safe space, for gender normative women. For others?
Not every woman, of course, wants to join an office ladies' room club. Some undoubtedly think there's more to be gained snagging lunch dates with staff several rungs above them than exchanging advice with women colleagues. Others simply don't feel comfortable sharing confidences in front of toilet stalls. They wash their hands in silence and, while they're present, conversations around them halt.
And this has nothing whatsoever to do with gender presentation. The reason that women have always fallen into icy silence when I tried to pee near them wasn't because I was too butch. It was because I was a stuck-up bitch who scorned their advice. Who knew?
Oh, but what about the mens? Well, this is the WSJ, so we can't focus on women's issues, even when they're as normative as possible. "Still some of my male colleagues, who describe their exchanges in men's rooms as monosyllabic at best, tell me they want to join the ladies' room club. To which I say, come on in -- but listen."
To which I say, give me a fucking break.
Ok, it's nice that women can get a break from men and have some of their own space. It's valuable for minority communities to have such spaces. But these informal clubs cement power in conforming members and exclude non-conforming. Also, access to toilets is a biological necessity, not a luxury. Bearded ladies need access as much as those who might want to deal with "ripped panty hose."
Fuck the ladies room club. Move it someplace else. |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | |
celestehblog
|
10:29p |
Moby Dick Monday! http://celesteh.blogspot.com/2008/07/moby-dick-monday.html It's the, um, late edition! My plan is to look at a chapter a week. Maybe two in some weeks as there are 135 chapters. None of them are especially long. This book is in the public domain, by the way and can be read at google or downloaded from many websites or purchased from a bookstore, etc.
Chapter 1 - Loomings
"Call me Ishmael." It starts with what it probably the shortest sentence in the entire book. It's an introduction, in every sense of the word. The book is really conversational. Bloggy almost, with it's wild digressions and occasional bizarrely misinformed informational treatises.
As for the first chapter, Wikipedia summarizes, "In Chapter 1, 'Loomings', Ishmael introduces himself. With a mixture of chattiness, seriousness, and humor, he speaks of his temperament, the call of the sea, and contends that every man wants at least once in his life to leave the land behind for the ocean." This summary touches on something of a theme in the book. The book is supposed to be allegorical, and employ symbolism and whatnot, which would seem to imply a universally applicable message of some kind. There's a continual striving for universality that becomes apparent from the start. It's not enough that Ishmael wants to set sail. This desire must be universal. Every man must want to set sail. That is 'man' as in masculine, not 'man' as in some sort of generic term for human. He's only willing to extend his universality so far.
He starts by saying he wants to sail and then goes on, "If they
but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or
other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the
ocean with me." He comes up with more and more spectacular and dubious examples of a desire for ocean voyages: people go to the beach, therefore, they yearn for the sea. Until the presence of water in landscape paintings must also mean that men want to head out on a boat.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest,
shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic
landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief
element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a
hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within ; and
here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle ; and up
from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant
woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping
spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But
though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-
tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's
head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed
upon the magic stream before him.
In other words, landscape paintings are crap without water scenes. Therefore, I want to take a boat. Melville needed a blog.
This highly suspect reasoning starts to seem like a straining for justification. It's not just a flight of fancy for me to want to do this. Everybody wants to do it. Therefore, it's reasonable that I should do it.
He carries on in his chatty tone to overly explain why he wants to go as a crew member and not a passenger - want of cash, largely. And finally just ascribes his desire to go whaling in particular as fate, "Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage
managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of
a whaling voyage," I can say why whales are cool. Which he does, and then the plot-part starts in chapter two.
So chapter one mostly functions to introduce the narrator as a highly literate schoolmaster/sailor who likes to go on at length. And it sets up the tone of the novel. Funny, poetic, sometimes silly, but seeking of universal truths. Looking, almost, a bit too hard for them. |
beatonna
|
2:41p |
Well I mean really it is pretty silly I took a break from making comics! I didn't really mean to, but I was out of town, and then I was out of the country. Over the weekend I went to Chicago to the Pitchfork music festival! It was so nice. I stayed with John Campbell and his thousand roommates (he has a thousand roommates) and had a wonderful time also with Sara Bauer and Tom McHenry! I was so thrilled to hang out with those guys it was straight up embarrassing. John and I had a little talk about internets, later I drew it:  I get the question "what is it like to be famous on the internet" a lot and I think the answer is a blank stare. Anyway, I must say, the set by Animal Collective was so good and definitely the best part but I was delighted to hear from this group, the Fleet Foxes, who have the nicest music and the nicest little video too (here is is for you!) Of course, anyone who was there would have recognized John and I pretty fast because we are very recognizable people:  Anyway I am back now, more comics soon. |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 | |
siriosa2000
|
11:07p |
http://www.jeansirius.com/2008/07/trim-is-begun.html trim is begun. and the window even has two coats. spent a bunch of time scraping carpet fragments out of the baseboards. (the previous owners perhaps thought themselves house-flippers, and did a lot of very cosmetic work very fast, including painting the rooms without using dropcloths and then installing carpet throughout. while, apparently, the paint was still wet. morons.) put blue tape all around everywhere. painted the window, and then followed the baseboard up and around the doorways, leaving only the door which keeps the cats confined. i will address it tomorrow, first thing. may be able to give it two coats before the cats come in again. (lilbit was crying to get in, and then crying to get out, over and over today. she ended up on the roof, and i had to get the ladder to get her down. because when i'm watching, she "forgets" how it's done.) so, next steps: paint the door. the trim gets a second coat. move the miscellaneous furniture in the living room into the dining room. lay the tarps down. patch the cracks in the ceiling and walls of the living room. sand the patches. wash the ceiling and walls. paint. a professional person estimated three days for both rooms and the entryway. surely i can get all this done in a week. |
|
celestehflickr
|
5:56p |
|
ozarque
|
8:40a |
Personal note; Conestoga...
This is the week of Getting Ready For Conestoga -- which undoubtedly means that two things will happen: The copyedited manuscript for the second edition of The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense will at last arrive from my editor at Barnes & Noble; and the Huge Emergency-Rush Project people will make up their minds what they want me to do and want me to do it immediately. This is predictable. I will steadfastly ignore both of these cataclysms and get ready for Conestoga instead.
Today that means choosing what I'll be putting in the Art Show, and getting it ready -- matted, into a frame, tagged, titled, or whatever -- and organized. I have some crocheted Ozarques to take, and some Star Bowls; I have one small finished collage book, titled Scifaiku Sundae; I have drawings, and George has prints. As I had suspected, I wasn't able to get Thousands Of Hours Going By -- the new big collage book -- done in time, but I'm going to take it along and show it as a not-for-sale work-in-progress; almost all the collages are done, but only a few pages of the text. And it means choosing things for the con's Charity Auction and getting those ready.
Tuesday it means doing the paperwork for the Art Show, something I'm very bad at. Because I have such a hard time pricing things, it takes me forever to get the bid sheets done. And it makes me cross.
Wednesday it means getting the house and the greenhouse and the houseplants and the "grounds" ready to be shut down as we leave.
Thursday it means packing all our stuff, and packing all our little dog's stuff for the kennel, and fixing her meals to be taken to the kennel, and doing everything that we've forgotten (that we've forgotten in spite of the detailed Trip Checklist I print out for each of us before we go anywhere).
Friday it means leaving early and taking Sheba to the kennel, where she will cry and George and I will both cry too. She hates the kennel. It's a very nice kennel, but this is a disgustingly spoiled little dog who runs things on an undeviating schedule .... walks at a certain time, grooming at a certain time, meals at a certain time, pretzels at a certain time ... and she cannot believe these kennel people, who appear to be totally indifferent to the principles around which her world ordinarily revolves. She doesn't even get groomed at the kennel, and nobody plays Fetch with her, and things are dystopian, and she punishes us all by refusing to eat while she's there. On the other hand, I am of the opinion that for two adult human beings to be held captive in their home and unable to travel just because of one five-and-a-half-pound dog is absurd. So we will take her to the kennel, and then head on to Tulsa.
My programming looks like this, so far, all of course subject to change:
Panels -- "Future Trends in Science"; "Creating Believable Alien [?]" (I'm not sure what follows "Alien" ... maybe an "s," maybe "Worlds," maybe something else entirely); "Building Community Through the Internet."
Other stuff -- "Breakfast with Suzette Haden Elgin"; a Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense Workshop; and, if the programming people can fit it in somewhere, reading from Twenty-One Novel Poems and maybe discussing it a bit. And signing books. And ceremonies that open and close. And going to the bar. And, for George, not having to cook (or walk the dog) for days, hurrah!
George won't be doing a dealer's table this year, which means he'll be able to enjoy the con more; I approve of that. And I am looking forward to everything ... except dropping off Sheba at the kennel. |
| Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | |
siriosa2000
|
10:18p |
http://www.jeansirius.com/2008/07/walls-done.html walls done. and oh my gracious, how pretty they look! the trim looks positively dingy now. fortunately, i am smart enough not to apply the painters tape until the walls are well and truly dry, so i didn't get started on the trim. i did vacuum the living room floor and move the sofa away from the wall so i could lay tape down around the edges of the room. then the tarp goes down, with its edges taped to the tape. so the next steps are: wash the dining room door and the kitchen doorway on both sides. put tape down around the trim. paint the trim. move the miscellaneous furniture in the living room into the dining room. lay the tarps down. patch the cracks in the ceiling and walls of the living room. sand the patches. wash the ceiling and walls. paint. move all the furniture back into the dining room and living room. or, conversely give all the furniture away and buy new. if only. |
|
erikred_rss
|
8:55p |
Superhero Movie Reviews (No Capes or Spoilers) http://erikred.blogspot.com/2008/07/superhero-movie-reviews-no-capes-or.html Busy extended weekend for watching movies. On Thursday, I saw Hancock; today, Yoko and I went to see Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and Wanted; saving Dark Knight for next Thursday. Short, spoiler-free reviews follow: Hancock: I had little in the way of high hopes for this from the get-go, but I'm happy to report that it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be. I still nearly walked out after the first ten minutes, but that's because, well, it was beginning to look like a super-powered version of The Pursuit of Happyness or Hitch or a reverse on Bagger Vance. Uberman has problems, loses groove finds sidekick (what Spike Lee has called The Magical Negro, but which turns out can be just about any ethnic, racial, or sexual orientation-related stereotype; cf. the gay boyfriends of Sex And The City or Hancock's environmentally-conscious-and-conflict-r esolving-emasculated-liberal white guy buddy) who helps get groove back. Fortunately, I stuck around, and the movie didn't turn into another rehashing of the same old stuff. I can't say I was surprised by much of anything in the film, but I thought the physics were good (especially for a superhero film), and the movie remained consistent to its internal logic and the logic of the genre. Either catch a matinee or see it on a really big TV; not worth full price, and a 27-inch TV will lack the scale. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army: I did have hopes for this. Visually, del Toro's created another stunning tableau of the weird and wonderful. Unfortunately, the plot (and the acting; I know her character's a pyrokinetic, but does Selma Blair have to take loads of Prozac before the shooting?) was just a little too... I dunno, flat. Like so many things in Mike Mignola's comic, the settings (and the set-ups) are gorgeous, but the material just doesn't seem to follow through on the promises. Most disappointing is Jeffrey Tambor reprising his role as government nanny; I thought we'd resolved his issues with Big Red in the previous film, yet here he is, all ready to be a weeney again-- and a neurotic one at that. Oh, well. Again, visually, this is a lovely piece. Matinee or big-screen TV. Wanted: The only rated R feature of the lot, and the most compelling, visually. Although it lifts its name and huge chunks of the premise from the comic book by Mark Millar, it eschews that works' reliance on a familiarity with the DC universe in favor of its own mythology, woven, so to speak, from a mostly unique spool of thread. This movie is sheer eye-candy from beginning to end. There's really nothing more to it, and that's all right; that's clearly what the director and producers intended. Nowhere near as funny as, say Shoot 'Em Up, Wanted still manages to make much of the blood and gore it spatters across the screen (and the cars, and the board-rooms, and the offices, and the streets, etc.). It's a blood and violence festival, and its core message is pretty reprehensible, and yet, it's still a lot of fun. Well, if you like that sort of thing. Matinee or better yet, big TV and a DVD player so's you can skip around a lot. |
rosalarian2
|
8:36p |
camping
Gonna be gone for a couple days. I'm going camping with Laura's family. I'll be meeting most of them for the first time! If they're anything like her parents, they should be awesome.
So if you email me, I'll get back to it Wednesday night. |
ozarque
|
1:25p |
Writing science fiction; a proposed thought experiment; afternote... In the context of the ongoing discussion of ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dteleki's proposed science fiction thought experiment, with its 200-year lifespan for humankind, I thought I'd mention the recent American Human Development Report (funded by Oxfam America, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Conrad Hilton Foundation). According to that report, "Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed nation" and "the US ranked 42nd in the world for life expectancy despite spending more on health care per person than any other country." For details, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7511426.stm . [ Note: dteleki's scenario doesn't restrict the 200-year lifespan to the United States, or even to the "developed" world. Just to human beings.] |
| Saturday, July 19th, 2008 | |
siriosa2000
|
10:47p |
http://www.jeansirius.com/2008/07/first-coat-applied.html first coat applied. and the ceiling's had a second coat, and is entirely done. we moved the tv today, and i applied the first coat to the walls. (having spent a great deal of time yesterday addressing the edges.) they say prep and painting the walls takes the first 90% of the time you spend painting a room, and painting the trim takes the last 90%. i fear this may be true. so tomorrow: second coat for the walls. apply painter's tape around the trim. maybe paint some of the trim. while waiting for things to dry, it might be wise to put painter's tape around the edges of the living room floor (the stuff around the dining room floor has already caught a half dozen drips). once the trim is done in the dining room, i can take up the tarp and move furniture out of the living room, putting tarp down in there. then i can start patching the cracks. i can totally understand why it's better to paint first and refinish the floor later. totally, totally. but i'm beginning to think it might be possible to finish this project in time for the gathering. :: crosses fingers :: |
rosalarian2
|
8:44p |
|
rosalarian2
|
7:15p |
garh!!!
I am so full of PMS right now. Want to fight the world. |
kola
|
9:22a |
Maybe offline and also crafty things
Les is preforming a piece next week with Polly Moller involving a glove that functions like a lie detector. This glove is connected to a computer via a USB port. Les needs two computers for this performance. One computer to connect to the glove and another to talk to the first computer wirelessly and process the information. The first computer can't do the second computer's job because there's a chance of electrocution for some reason.
I mention this now because I'm 80% sure that I'm going to be donating my computer to the musical cause. Les and Polly are going to be working non-stop on this piece for the next few days, which means that I'm going to be offline a lot during the next week. So folks should call me if they don't see me online because I'm still here and I like leaving the house.
I should take this opportunity to get projects done around the house. I have fabric for new pillow cases for my floor pillows. And I still need to finish a pair of gloves for Sarah and I promised to make 6 months ago. And I have photos I want to hang up on my walls. I can do all this with a computer in the house, but the draw of the interwebs makes me much less likely to, you see.
This all reminds me that I have a rather large project that I would like to try my hand at in the near future. I have this set of 4 chairs that I really want to recover. I love them, but the fabric on them now is really dirty and I'd like to change it. I don't have any experience with doing such things and I'm worried that I'll start on one chair, get overwhelmed, stop, and then have this half-uncovered chair sitting in my apartment being horrible and unusable. So if anyone has done some upholstery and wants to give me some tips, or better yet help me work on a chair, I would rather grateful.
Current Mood: crafty |
ozarque
|
7:39a |
Recommended link; language and paradox... Please don't miss Avram Grumer's "The 'aye' in God’s mote," over at Making Light, or its 90 comments, most of which are extremely readworthy. It starts with.... "I’ve been thinking about the paradox of the stone. You know, Could God make a rock so big he couldn’t lift it?" ... and the URL is: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010435.html#010435 . |
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