Spoonfreude

Scoring 40 Damn on a scale of 1-40 Damn...

2011-11-21T01:17:00.019-06:00

So the other day I was reading cigar news and reviews and came across this image here:

Brilliant! Cigars and firearms complement each other perfectly, like bananas and crossbows or Q-Tips and Bowie knives or hotdogs and Christmas lights! The relation is obvious. Take two not-so-subtly phallic symbols and photograph them together for a totally non-homoerotic critique of American individualism, right? Wrong! That would be totally gay, like Liberace gay. Actually, the recipe here is one cool & slightly deadly thing + another cool and very deadly thing = whoever took the picture is Grade-A Badass (the A in 'Grade-A' stands for 'Ass').

So naturally, I had to replicate the photo to prove that I, in the words of Samir Nagheenanajar, "am also not a pussy". Bow down before my badassery, ye of morally-indeterminate assery:

Strangely, taking such an immensely powerful photo did not satisfy my need to display my manly prowess. Instead, it merely whetted my awesome-lust. So I pressed on into territory that surely no human has ever traversed and lived to tell the tale. Get right with your Maker, then feast your eyes upon these tasty images, for they shall surely induce such visual ecstasy that they will be the last thing you ever see (or you will wish they had been)...

Spoon's Guide to Dining Out, Chapter 2

2011-05-08T03:23:00.004-05:00

If you are going to ask for the tab and then just put your credit card in the check presenter without even glancing at the check, don't ask for the check, dummy. If you know you are going to pay with a card, instead of asking for the check, simply hand the server your credit card when you are ready to pay. He will know what to do with it. Don't make him make a special trip to the POS to print your check so that you can not look at it when he brings it. Bonus: doing this not only saves your server hassle, it actually saves you time--the time it would take for your server to go get the check so you can not look at it. Think about that, hmm?

Also, if you ask for the check, and your server brings it, and you look at it before putting your credit card in, for frick's sake, don't say something like, "Here, I'll save you a trip." Too late, amigo, your server has already made the maximum amount of possible trips to your table. If you wanted to let the server know that you "get it" and how generous you are to save him a trip, try giving him your credit card without first asking for the check.

A small point

2011-04-01T02:05:00.009-05:00

Attention, internets: in English, we read left to right, top to bottom. This affects how we interpret static visual media generally. And this applies to emoticons in ways you do not appear to understand.

What I'm about to say may only apply to those of us with a Roman or Cyrillic-alphabet-based written first language, but for now, that's all I care about. So for instance, if you are reading this, chances are that if you see a sign with a single word written vertically, you probably don't start at the bottom and try to read to the top. Because even though the data cannot be interpreted left-to-right, reading bottom-to-top would violate the left to right, top to bottom template that becomes automatic within the first few months of learning to read. So you have no problem interpreting the Chicago Theater sign, even though there are no visual clues as to how it should be read--i.e., there is no capital letter signifying a starting point, etc. In short, when left-to-right does not apply, your brain switches to top-to-bottom to interpret the text.

It follows that if left-to-right seems to apply, but makes no sense, the English-reading mind's next logical step is to interpret left-to-right data as if it were top-to-bottom. So, if you are like me, and you are reading a line of left-to-right text, and you encounter a collection of marks that does not make sense left-to-right, e.g. the following emoticon: :-) your mind attempts to interpret it as top-to-bottom data (the reverse also works when top-to-bottom makes no sense, e.g. when a vertically-stored book has its title printed lengthwise along the binding). Anyway, for the above emoticon, you probably see a pair of eyes, a nose-like thing, and a smiley-face--as opposed to say, a baseball cap bill pulled down to the nose of a person with double upper-lip piercings. In other words, would this (-: make sense if we didn't already have :-) already cached in our pictographic lexicons? I say no, because it requires the English-language reader to stop, drop everything he knows about his written language, skip ahead a few characters to what he hopes is not an arbitrary point, read backwards for a bit, then skip ahead further and resume reading left-to-right.

And for precisely that reason, this symbol/emoticon is a problem: <3. People of the internet, because you are injecting <3 into English-language phrases, it must be read left-to-right/top-to-bottom. You are using it to signify 'heart' or, by extension, 'love', but it is not a heart! The heart shape has two rounded bumps on top and a point at the bottom. According to the the left-to-right, top-to-bottom template, <3 has a point at the top and two bumps on the bottom. So this symbol either signifies 'less than 3' or (interpreting it as if it were top-to-bottom data, because 'less than 3' does not make sense in context) represents a shape that is narrow at the top and widens into two rounded things at the bottom.

To restate, because of the way the English language--and the English-language-reading mind--work, <3 cannot possibly represent 'heart' or 'love'. Instead, it must signify either 'less than 3' or the nearest shape in everyday life that it resembles. And there aren't a great deal of things out there that look like that.

In other words, to put it bluntly, when you type 'x <3 y', if any English-language-reader reads it as anything other than 'x tea-bag(s) y', then something has gone wrong.

♥ = Heart. But <3 = Tea-bag. Sorry I had to be the one to break it to ya. Twitter/facebook accordingly.

Spoon's Guide to Dining Out, Chapter 1

2011-02-01T14:05:00.002-06:00

If your butt is still in your seat when the restaurant closes, the amount you are ethically obligated to tip automatically goes up to 20% of the post-tax total. For every two minutes you remain after closing, your tip obligation increases by 1%. So, for example, if you stay thirty minutes after close, you should tip a minimum of 35%. Don't want to tip 35%? Don't stay thirty minutes after close.

Thank you,
Your friends in the service industry.

Why Does this not Exist?

2010-11-30T02:28:00.005-06:00

All I want is an iPhone contacts manager that looks like this:

See? It looks like the built-in app, except that for contacts with SMS-enabled phones, it has an SMS button that allows you to instantly compose a text. The button doesn't display a menu that asks you which number you want to text; it just lets you compose a text to a pre-set default. And the SMS button is nice and big, so there's little danger of accidentally placing a call when all you want to do is text.

Also, although you can't tell by looking at it, this contact manager lets you make groups and SMS the whole group. It's so got-dang simple. Why does this not exist?

Halloween Humbug

2010-10-30T22:20:00.007-05:00

I find myself genuinely perplexed by the frequency with which I have observed the following Halloween costumes in the past three days:

Pirate--Like a million times. Look, I get it; Pirate is fun and harmless and a Halloween classic. However: News Flash--it's also, evidently, a cliche. At least half of you could have gone as Ninja and appeared halfway clever.

Girl who Just Left the Gym: two times. One girl--whose Halloween-costume reasoning contained a lot of false lemmas about what is necessary and sufficient for a costume--who stumbled into the conclusion that work-out clothes constitute a costume I could understand. I'm prepared to accept that. But two? Two in one night??? Something has gone seriously wrong in Austin.

Slutty Jets Fan Wearing a Straw Cowboy (not Cowboys™) Hat: one time. There are so many things wrong with this, I almost can't form the sentences to elaborate them. I mean, I don't doubt that female Jets fans exist. And I wouldn't consider it outside the realm of probability that there should be slutty Jets Fans. But what the hell, really, does a cowboy hat have to do with it? And what the fuck, seriously, was the reasoning that led this unfortunate creature to believe that Slutty Jets Fan Wearing a Straw Cowboy Hat represented a goal to be achieved as a costume? Aren't costumes supposed to comprise, at least on some level, the culmination of at least a portion of one's fantasies, an alter-ego that need be revealed once and only once a year? On that account, at least Work-Out Girl has something; fantasizing about fitness is a laughably plausible delusion to have in 21st-century America. But who aspires to be a Slutty Jets Fan--in a Straw Cowboy Hat???

Furthermore, I think there's a fundamental difference between the (slutty) nurses, (slutty) pirates, (slutty) policewomen, etc, and the Slutty Jets Fan. In the former class the sluttiness seems accidental to the costume, but in the case of SJFWaSCH, the sluttiness must be essential. How do I know? Because a (slutty) Jets fan would have just worn generic Eagles garb, but SJFWaSCH wears a Slutty Sanchez Jersey! Jets fan as costume + supporting Sanchez --> my mind completely melting down.

I give up. Sort it out in comments--if you can.

P.S. (one more). Antoine Dodson: zero times. I didn't see a single Antoine Dodson this weekend. And I think that may be more astonishing than the existence of Slutty Jets Fan.

How to Shop at REI, a nine-step process

2010-07-28T22:38:00.007-05:00

1. Make a list; this list will essentially double in size once you start shopping.
2. Gather all the stuff on your list plus all the stuff you didn't know you needed.
3. Estimate how much the stuff in your cart/bag will cost.
4. Add 25% to the cost of your estimate. Prepare yourself to pay this amount. Now...
5. Add another 20% to that number. This is what you'll actually be paying.
6. Repeat to yourself "I'm going to get 10% back in dividends."
7. Try not to crap your pants when the total is actually more than the amount from #5.
8. File for bankruptcy. Assume a new identity and/or flee to Mexico.
9. Have fun in the great outdoors!

As close to a conspiracy theory as you're gonna get around here

2010-07-24T01:31:00.005-05:00

Fact: The Free Case Program for iPhone 4 will only last thru September. At the end of September, Apple will "re-evaluate".

Report: A "high-level" source at T-Mobile claims his company will have the iPhone by the "end of Q3" (which ends in September).

Speculation: If T-Mobile gets the iPhone, and it turns out that it works better on the T-Mobile network, Jobs isn't about to keep handing out free cases to consumers who have the option to choose the better service.

Prediction: T-Mobile will get the iPhone in late September (and there will be great rejoicing). Apple will put a hold on the Free Case Program while it waits to see if its phone functions better on T-Mobile's network.

But calls won't work any better on T-Mobile's GSM than on AT&T's GSM. The problem lies in Jobs's choice of cell-radio technology--not in the network (the Infineon radio in the iPhone is designed for European areas that have higher tower density). However, the iPhone's internet speed will be better because of T-Mobile's more data-efficient 3G.

And people will still think a Verizon iPhone is just around the corner, even though it will be another year before Apple can buy smaller iPhone 4 guts to make room for the gigantic CDMA chips.

Terms of Service: Rdio

2010-07-21T13:32:00.011-05:00

To use the new Rdio music service, one must agree to (among other things), the following (with translations):

"Rdio makes no representation or warranty that (i) the Service Applications or the Rdio Service will meet your expectations or requirements...or (v) the Service Applications and the Rdio Service and/or the servers that make the Service Applications and the Rdio Service available are free of viruses, clocks, timers, counters, worms, software locks, Trojan horses, trap doors, time bombs or any other harmful codes, instructions, programs or components."

--(Hey, this thing might not do what you think it does; accordingly, we have the right to put a computer-mashing virus in it and you're OK with that.)

"To the maximum extent permissible under applicable law, in no event shall Rdio...be liable with respect to the Service Applications...any lost or corrupted data, lost profits, loss or damage to any computer, mobile phone or other device or any special, incidental, indirect or consequential damages, even if Rdio has been advised of the possibility of such damages or if such damages were foreseeable."

--(So, if we decide to put a computer-destroying Trojan horse in our software, and one of our people tells us its a bad idea but we do it anyway and it utterly ruins all of your data, we're not really liable for that.)

"You agree to defend, indemnify and hold Rdio...harmless from and against any and all claims, actions, proceedings and suits and all related liabilities, losses, damages, judgments, settlements, penalties, fines, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs) arising out of (i) your access, use or misuse of any of the Rdio Service..."

--(Also, if we do put an apocalyptic bit of nasty, viral code in our software and all you do is act like an honest consumer who uses it in the way you're supposed to--and our software causes your iPhone or Blackberry to, for instance, systematically wipe out all your image files and replace them with DVDA pics that pop up on your screen every ten seconds, rendering your smartphone utterly useless, you can't sue us.)

Sounds like a great deal, eh? I haven't gotten a great deal like that since I got charged $4 a minute to make a 45-minute call from the Dominican Republic to the US. My question now, since I rarely read TOSes in their entirety, is this: have these kinds of consumer-castrating terms become industry-standard?

[Read the complete Rdio TOS here]

You Missed Out, Friend

2010-03-24T17:48:00.009-05:00

If you are among the majority of my friends and fam who didn't attend South by Southwest, you missed out on a whole helluva lot, let me tell ya (big props to my brother Tim and Phil Harder for showing up). If you haven't noticed, I love SXSW and I'm more than willing to evangelize on its behalf. Part of being an evangelist (thought not necessarily a good one) is rubbing the good news the faces of the uninformed. So here I present my Top 5 Bands and Top 3 Films of SXSW 2010. Check 'em out--and get your arse down to Austin next March!

Best Bands:
1. Balkan Beat Box.
These lively Israelites put on the most outside-the-box show I saw this year, complete with disco lights and roaming saxaphones. //Balkan Beat Box: Move It//
2. Warpaint. This all-chick band from LA rocked the faces off a late-night crowd. No gimmicks, just great music. //Warpaint: Elephants//
3. Das Racist. Despite being the drunkest act of SXSW, they put on a bumpin' show with deep bass beats and the kinds of tongue-in-cheek rhymes that I've come to expect from the NYC hip-hop underground. //Das Racist: Shorty Said//
4. Trampled by Turtles. TbT is a five-man hillbilly band that lays down some wicked licks featuring fiddle, banjo, and mandolin. I smiled as Texan audience members were shocked to learn that TbT hails from Duluth. //Trampled by Turtles: The Darkness and the Light//
5. Crystal Method/Steve Aoki. I've wanted to see these masters of the dance floor for a long time--even worse since Crystal Method's show was preempted by the Austin fuzz at last year's Moon Tower. And Aoki gets involved in the crowd; he doesn't just stare at his computer like most DJs. //Steve Aoki: WARP//

Top Films:
1. Micmacs.
Remember the deliciousness of the pranks in Amelie? Take that flavor and spread it over an entire movie, minus Amelie's high-fructose sweetness, and you've some idea what to expect from Micmacs. Also expect beautiful photography, ingenious mise-en-scene, delightful performances, and fantastic fun. I like Micmacs so much I'd hate to spoil any of it by writing about it. Just go see it.
2. Harry Brown. Most of the blurbs I saw about Harry Brown touted Michael Caine's excellent performance, but the real reason to watch it is the way that the filmmakers' method comprehends their message. The film asks the viewer questions about violence and justice, due process and vigilanteism, but offers only ambiguous answers. Throughout, the director and DP offer us camera angles that suggest the ambiguity of the content. Is that group of kids downstairs about to become victims of a random attack? Or will the film reveal them to be the instigators of the opening scene's shooting (the most shockingly visceral attack I've ever witnessed as an opening scene)?
3. MacGruber. MacGruber the SNL sketch features Will Forte's anti-MacGyver getting blown up in under thirty seconds--every time. How, I wondered, could that possibly translate to the big screen? MacGruber the movie works because (a) it is really stinking funny, and (b) because Forte & crew broadened the scope of their spoof to include all kidnapped-missile movies, all spec-ops movies, all buddy movies, all ass-kicking movies with a romantic sub-plot, and all Val Kilmer movies. So, all action movies, basically. And did I mention that the writing and acting made me and the 1200+ people who showed up for the premiere laugh hysterically? While MacGruber bears no pretensions of being a smart action film, it proved to be a worthy bit of feel-funny escapism.

Your Butt Says Hi

2010-02-26T15:14:00.004-06:00

I get butt-dialed a lot. Call it the curse of the double-A name. I don't really mind; I just wish I could understand the contents of the long voicemails that result. Almost as good, however: Google Voice transcripts of butt-dialed messages. Here's what my friend Wheaton Ian's ass had to say today:

"Hi, Well hey. So, hello hi hello for what. Hello Kurt, call me bye bye. Aloha, Hello all, Bye bye hey. Ohh, hi hey bye."

Smell ya later, buddy.

Consuming the Corpse--with Relish

2009-10-27T00:47:00.005-05:00

“Art is dead; Godard can’t change that,” the Situationists proclaimed in 1968. “Comrades, stop applauding, the spectacle is everywhere.” Jean-Luc Godard must have anticipated both of these sentiments when crafting Pierrot le Fou (1965). Quoting literary art at every turn, the titular Ferdinand-Pierrot insists that art remains very much alive. With Pierrot, Godard creates a marvelous mashup of genres—a spectacle worthy of applause. Indeed, it seems that Godard was bent on twisting the Situationists theses against them; Godard’s appetite for the whole body of western art proves insatiable.

Pierrot opens with a rather lengthy voice-over exposition on the painter Velasquez. What we mistake for a narrator’s voice turns out to be that of the protagonist, enjoying a bath and a cigarette and reading a passage of a biography to his young daughter. Aside from injecting humor into situation, Godard takes an early opportunity to make a serious point. That is, how can art be dead when part of its essential nature just is to be disseminated, received, and reinterpreted in a new context? In fact, Godard himself has already been enacting this three-fold process in the opening montage. The printed pronouncements of the biography come alive over images that interpret and inform them; Pierrot speaks the word “twilight” and Godard presents us with an image of sunny afternoon tennis game. Several shots later, he presents twilight over water, but now the voice informs us that “space reigns supreme.”

For a corpse, art is doing quite a lot of work here. Or perhaps it might serve us better to say that the sound and images are doing a lot of work to create a work of art. The juxtaposition of quotation with new images, of “twilight” with light, and of twilight with “space” suggests (1) an ongoing dialog with art of the past and (2) a continuing struggle to create something that interprets our experience in space and time. But what is art if not the latter? And how does a work dialogue with its predecessors if it is not one of them itself? One might answer that the critic or essayist partakes in both but does not create art. But the critic’s craft operates in the intellectual domain; the artist’s spans the sensory, emotional, and intellectual. Pierrot le Fou assaults the senses with fireworks, gunfire, and flashing neon, pricks the emotions with a love affair, a journey, and a betrayal, and invites the intellect to apprehend a barrage of images and plot points that can only be understood in context.

The context of Pierrot comprises not just the Situationist state of affairs and the state of cinema itself, but the whole of performance spectacle dating back to at least the 16^th-century Commedia Dell’arte, from which Godard's protagonist receives his nickname. In that comic tradition, the trusting Pierrot pursues the love of Columbine; she betrays him for the affections of the agile Arlequin. In Pierrot le Fou, if fickle Marianne plays Colombine to Ferdinand’s Pierrot and to dancing Fred’s Arlequin, Ferdinand’s fate should come as no surprise. Yet Godard surprises us because he closely associates Pierrot with himself (via quotation), Marianne with the state of French culture (she wears the colors of the flag), and Fred with violence and war (suggesting the collapse of French imperialism). Pierrot's betrayal occurs at the last minute, leaving the audience with sensory exhaustion and a strong emotional charge, but still chewing on the meaning of every quote.

Indeed, the ability to inspire affect and introspection in its absence proves to be one of art’s most powerful qualities. Art lives in Godard’s film, and he clearly wishes to spread it around. That he co-opts his opposition’s terms—especially, spectacle—makes Godard’s artistic food for thought all the sweeter.

Webb 3.0

2009-10-23T00:54:00.005-05:00

I saw Derek Webb at Austin's legendary Cactus Cafe tonight. You could call this the third incarnation of Webb--after Caedmon ensemble guy and solo acoustic folkster--and I gotta say, the new show is pretty rad.

I'd only heard a song and a clip or two from the new album, and what I'd heard shocked me. Derek went from folk-acoustic to synth-electronic. I worried that D Webb wouldn't be able to pull off the electronica live, but he, his drummer, and his everything-else guy put on a great concert. (They even had a little bit of a light show that added to the experience.)

In good Webb form, they played the new album in its entirety, including the "controversial" What Matters More. While I like that song's lyrical ballsiness, I thought it a musically a bit weak in context; everything else on "Stockholm Syndrome" is even better. I especially liked "Freddie Please". Most of the show tended toward drum-and-bass with Webb's signature vocals, which worked in spite of the fact that at times it proved a difficult to separate Derek's vocal style from his acoustic self.

He did a solo acoustic set, too, taking requests as is his custom. My only real complaint is that he did the acoustic set in the middle of the show and it sapped the momentum that they had built with the more electronic stuff. Still, it was great. The PA died during the last song, but Derek finished strong, unplugged and unmiked--quite moving, actually. Oh, and the opening act, Marc Scibilia, did a fantastic job, too. All in all, a wonderful evening.

* * *Derek Webb plays Mokah Coffee Bar in Dallas on Sunday, October 25 at 7pm* * *
Support independent music and independent coffee!

P.V.I. Me, ASAP

2009-09-23T23:07:00.009-05:00

In the middle of giving a counter-intuitive answer to the Special Composition Question (when do xs compose a y? If and only if they compose an organism), Peter van Inwagen pauses to acknowledge his argument's affront to common sense:

"A good many philosophers...may want to accuse me of a philosophical ploy that Saul Kripke has described in these words: 'The philosopher advocates a view apparently in patent contradiction to common sense...Personally, I think such philosophical claims are almost invariably suspect....The real misconstrual comes when the claimant continues, "All the ordinary man really means is..." and gives a sophisticated analysis compatible with his own philosophy.'"

Inwagen then proceeds to (1) deny that there is any such body of belief as common sense and (2) answer Kripke's philosophy-of-language-informed charge by denying that he is proposing an analysis of language. Up to this point, Inwagen has been saying something analogous to this: "When the ordinary man says the sun has moved behind the elms, what he really means is that the earth has moved in such a way that our position relative to the elms and the sun has changed such that the elms now block the sun." But then he seems to switch gears and claim that the ordinary man really does mean the sun has moved behind the elms and that furthermore, "this sentence is sufficiently empty of metaphysical commitment."

Prima facie, Inwagen's move smells like a blatant contradiction. One philosopher that I know, however, suggests that it's possible that Inwagen is stepping outside the metaphysics room momentarily to address Kripke. Perhaps there's even more to it. Maybe Inwagen is pointing out that statements of this sort constitute "protocol" sentences which, in contrast to "system" sentences, are about primitive, immediate perceptions and not scientific fact. And since such protocol sentences are never really false, what's the problem? In short, PvI gives a linguistic rebuttal to a linguistic objection and continues doing metaphysics as if he's just swatted away a fly. Personally, I take his remark as a kind of F you to philosophy of language on the whole (and, as such, humorously endearing), but decide for yourself [here].

Casting a Dream Net

2009-07-18T05:58:00.003-05:00

Question for all of you: What themes or events recur often in your dreams? For about as long as I can remember, I've had dreams about weird things happening with elevators--doors not working properly, the car stopping between floors--usually ending in a cable/brake failure and a terrifying free fall. But lately it seems the dreamland lift engineers have figured out a way to put emergency brakes on those things, however, and I survived the two elevator-free-fall dreams I've had this month. Anyone else have recurring, evolving themes/events that have endured through the years? It's not the one-time weird dreams that are worth pondering; it's the ones that keep coming back that are intriguing.

C.S. Lewis is Alive and Well

2009-07-03T01:06:00.003-05:00

In reading a mere twenty pages of Lewis's A Preface to Paradise Lost, I have discovered two rhetorical gems that are, today, as true and relevant as when he wrote them.

The first regards a recent debate in the literary world as to whether Shakespeare ought to be translated into Present Day English just as Beowulf and Chaucer have been. John McWhorter fired the first ghastly salvo, D.H. Lawrence fired eloquently back, and Alan Jacobs called in the air support. Both replies are well worth your time, but it appears that Lewis had seen it all before and planted this delightful time-bomb in his defense of the lost art of solemnity: "The desire for simplicity is a late and sophisticated one. We moderns may like dances which are hardly distinguishable from walking and poetry which sounds as if it might be uttered ex tempore. Our ancestors did not. They liked a dance which was a dance, and fine clothes which no one could mistake for working clothes, and feasts that no one could mistake for ordinary dinners, and poetry that unblushingly proclaimed itself to be poetry. What is the point of having a poet, inspired by the Muse, if he tells stories just as you or I would have told them?"

The second struck me because it explicates in a sentence what Charlie Kaufman demonstrates in his brilliant two-hour mind-scrump, Synecdoche, New York. "The attempt to be oneself," Lewis writes, "often brings out only the more conscious and superficial parts of a man's mind." Indeed, that one line comes close to summing up the thematic and artifactual whole of Kaufman's work; the thread of superficial self- and consciousness-feedback runs through all the films of his that I've seen. And yet I wonder whether Kaufman also understands what Lewis says immediately following: "working to produce a given kind of poem [or in the case of Synecdoche's Adele, a given kind of painting] which will present a given theme as justly, delightfully, and lucidly as possible, he is more likely to bring out all that was really in him, and much of which he himself had no suspicion."

String Theory: Shoe-String Edition

2009-05-05T23:40:00.005-05:00

Pardon me while I go all Andy Rooney for a minute here.

What the hell is wrong with shoe companies these days? Every pair of shoes I've owned since like 2002 has had the same problem: the damn laces won't stay tied. Before '02, all I ever had to do was tie a simple bow and my kicks stayed tight all day long. But the last, like, seven pairs of shoes I've bought inevitably untie themselves--sometimes in as little as twenty steps.

Really, Skechers? Seriously, Puma? Et tu, Asolo? Shoe-lace technology has had what, 3000 years of research & development, and you still find a way to screw it up? Did the secret recipe for laces that stay tied get classified after 9/11?

I wouldn't make a big stink out of it except that the obvious solution--double-knotting--is a big pain in the ass. Pain in the ass to tie when a man's running late in the morning, pain in the ass to untie when a guy just wants relief from sweaty sneaks. Even when I double-knot, my stinking laces undo themselves half the time anyway. And the less-obvious solution--velcro--is really expensive (85 bucks for canvas Vans!) or really ugly (you're not helping anyone, Wal-Mart).

I can't remember the last pair of shoes I bought that stayed tied...until now. I picked up a couple pairs of Chuck Taylors last month, and those puppies haven't untied on me once. So the moral of the story is this, apparently: in the age of iPhones and Large Hadron Colliders and the mapping of the human genome, the only shoes that stay tied are ones that were designed 92 years ago. Sometimes, the simplest designs prove the most excellent and enduring.

The Carbon Motors E7

2009-03-16T00:22:00.007-05:00

The new standard in law-enforcement awesomeness:

Part KITT, part Airwolf, the E7 has 75+ features that you won't find on a retrofitted Crown Vic, including
-18" wheels
-300hp clean-diesel engine
-6-speed automatic transmission
-50/50 front-rear weight distribution
-75mph rear impact crash capability
-Body-integrated ram bars
-Heads-up display
-Video/audio surveillance of rear passenger area
-Integrated "laptop" computer
-Forward-looking infrared system (FLIR)
-Suicide rear doors for easier perp entry/exit
-Hoseable rear passenger compartment
-Integrated flashers/spots/takedown lights
-Remote start
-Nightvision-compliant interior illumination
-Radiation and biochemical weapon detectors

Dude, I want one!

Dante? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

2009-02-26T02:57:00.005-06:00

Or, EA Ruins Everything.

I should be writing a paper on Copernicus right now, so I'll try to keep this short. Electronic Arts, the biggest, mediocrest video game publisher in the world, is making a video game out of Dante's Inferno.

You would think it could be done without fundamentally screwing up the story. But you would be wrong if you think EA could do it. Among the horrific violence they are working on Dante's masterpiece: Lucifer he actually rules Hell; furthermore, he is free to roam around the cosmos; and most ridiculously of all, he kidnaps Beatrice's soul as she dies. Dante, "a man who knows no fear", pursues Satan into Hell to rescue his beloved. Need I go on? Oh, and (spoiler alert!) as the game progresses through Hell, it "gets more hellish."

Look, I know a close adaptation would amount to little more than pressing X to snap a twig off a Suicide tree now and then, but come on, this is more than I can take.

Witness the horror for yourself here.

Can a Self-Aware Moriarty Hologram be far Behind?

2009-02-25T13:39:00.003-06:00

The one thing I thought that the Star Trek: TNG holodeck stories never adequately accounted for was how people could walk around in there without bumping into the walls. They weren't just walking in place, after all, but running through dark alleys and up stairs and whathaveyou. Well, apparently the Japanese have been puzzling over the problem, too, and have come up with a prototype solution. Behold: the CirculaFloor.

Justin McElroy on 50 Cent's Video Game

2009-02-24T18:56:00.003-06:00

"50 Cent: Blood on the Sand blends terrific gameplay with really bad ... well, practically everything else to create a final product that I love -- not like, love. I suspect you'll love it too ... just in that dark, secret way we love the things that are almost certainly making us stupider."

So...the way we love all video games?

Hard to think of any video game I've played that didn't make me stupider--except maybe for Clyde's Adventure.

Homer on Middle Knowledge

2009-02-18T23:30:00.008-06:00

The Simpsons conduct an experiment in counterfactual conditionals.

Conclusion: "If you could live in the sauce, don't you think I'd live in the sauce?" Yep, that pretty much captures it. But what if it turns out that the messed up world as we know it is the sauce?

(Full episode here)

Ah, this is the life (is this the life?)

2009-01-13T15:11:00.006-06:00

A Little Hopeful Arm-Chair Theology

2008-12-03T00:31:00.004-06:00

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." I think about this Proverb often as I watch my childhood friends, one by one, drift from the Faith. Is that axiom really true, or is this one of those "generally speaking" proverbs that happens "most of the time." Will my friends really come back; can I count on it? How old is old? How long do we have to wait to see results? What to do in the meantime?

Then again, the author doesn't say anything about turning away in youth and then coming back in old age. No, he just says, "Hey, at least she won't turn from the path when she's old." What about those that lose their way in youth? My gut says there's hope for them, too. But I don't think that gut feeling is founded on that proverb. Rather, I think it's founded on a kind of Platonic notion that a soul really cannot unlearn what he already knows. I'm almost certain that once God gets under one's skin, he's impossible to shake, but I don't know how to argue that theologically. So maybe this isn't arm-chair theology. Maybe it's philosophy. Or wishful thinking.

Can one really unlearn the truth? I mean sure, go to school, learn a completely different epistemology with no room for true religion, but you'll always be trying to prove your old knowledge in terms of the new, I'd like to tell 'em. As if that proves something. Still, I know that friends A, B, C, and D will come back around, someday. Maybe I only feel that way because sometimes I suspect I'm following them down that road, but at a more cautious, reasonable speed. I had this conversation with a buddy on Thanksgiving, and we parted with hope, but never nailed down exactly why we hoped.

A few days later, I came across something Flannery O'Connor once said: "Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not." I think maybe she's saying the same as the author of that proverb, but she says it in a way that puts the question outside of the worrisome dimension of time. I'm pretty sure she's right. I hope she is.

Everything You Need to Know About Texas

2008-09-27T00:11:00.005-05:00

(AMK)

Peter Singer on Obama's Phone-a-Friend Shortlist?

2008-08-20T10:50:00.003-05:00

Firelance posts an interesting, provocative bit about how Barack Obama, as an Illinois state senator, helped kill a bill that would have required attending physicians to give medical attention to aborted fetuses born alive. In fact Obama voted "present" the first time the bill came up (it failed to pass) and "no" the second time a year later (it failed again). After Congress passed its own Born-Alive Infant Protection Act in 2002, the Illinois senate sent another version of its bill to the Health and Human Services Committee, chaired by Mr. Obama, where it died.

The only senator who took the floor against the 2001 version of the bill, Obama argues, "Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take place." In other words, doctors only give medical attention to human persons. Conversely, by law, we do not abort viable human persons. It makes no sense to pass a bill that requires doctors to give medical attention to a fetus that has already been determined to be previable. Obama argues that the bill up for discussion represents an attempt to define previable fetuses as viable human persons, which would, essentially, make it an anti-abortion bill.

I think his argument works. But I think he arrives, brilliantly, at the wrong conclusion. 1093 was written as a result of one nurse's effort to make medical attention available to fetuses aborted alive. She noticed that wanted babies born at the same developmental stage as those being aborted were given medical attention. She wanted the aborted children to have the same shot at life as those whose parents wanted them. Read her story here. Read the context of Obama's statement here, and the entire discussion of SB1093 here.

Henry's Story

2008-06-30T16:20:00.013-05:00

As part of my training at Houston's, I had to write a short bio on one of my co-workers. Hank/Henry is one of our better servers. He gets a lot of crap because he's Colombian; he gives me a lot of crap because I'm the newbie. But what makes Hank Hank? I rolled silver with Henry a couple nights ago and asked him a few questions. Here's what I learned.

Henry left Colombia after a friendly game of dominoes went south, way south. Nineteen, high on life, Henry had gone all in against the neighborhood jefe, keys to his prize possession—a 1984 baby-blue Honda moped—on the table. Only Henry didn’t know that his buddy Tellez had been paid off by the jefe, who had been pressuring Henry to sell. The fix was in, and Hank knew it as soon as he drew double nines and double sixes back to back. He peered through the rich Cohiba smoke at his friend’s eyes when that double six came up; he saw the weakness. The guy who was supposed to be rounding this game with him had sold him out—probably for a couple of chickens and sack of rice. Hank did the only thing he could—he flung his burning habano into the jefe’s face and fled on the Honda. He never looked back, kept it cranked wide open, through the colonial streets of La Candelaria, around San Felipe de Barajas, past Ciudad Perdida. All the way to Venezuela.

Venezuela would be where Hank made his first million—his first legal million. He sent for his girl Blanca, and she arrived a week later on the bus with the $180,000 pesos—barely a hundred bucks—Hank kept hidden below the cajica carpet. They moved into a hotel and Hank got a job delivering pizzas with the Honda. That lasted a week, enough time for Henry to meet the right kinds of people on the west side of town. Hank got into the oil drilling gig just long enough to learn the ropes and save up enough for a down payment on a drill. Henry had always been more lucky than charming, and he struck a big, untapped field within a month. Mind you, this was long before Venezuela nationalized its oil; Henry savored his first true taste of capitalism. But Henry came home one night to find Blanca in the arms of another man, watching Amores de Mercado. Henry calmly lit his Cohiba, then kicked over one of the many barrels of crude that he happened to keep in his living room. He tossed the cigar into the inky mess and walked away. A hard year’s cash was tucked away in the nooks of that house, and the Honda was parked in the garage, next to a couple more drums. But Henry just didn’t give a damn.

He had to get away. He withdrew all his savings from his Swiss bank account and bought a sloop with a Bermuda rig. Shoved off at El Tablazo, cursed the waves, spat into the wind, let the sails do the rest. He landed at St. Martin, on the French side. He didn’t speak French, at least not at first, but he quickly found a job shaking appletinis for American tourists on one of St. Martin’s thirty-seven gorgeous beaches. Island life proved calm, lazy even. Henry grew restless. One night, a year after he’d landed, Henry locked up the cabana bar, threw the keys up on the roof, and hopped into his sloop. But this time, Hank knew where he was going.

The land of opportunity. The United States of America. Specifically, Florida. He’d heard about Texas, fuerte entre los fuertes, as the Venezuelan oilmen had called it, and he knew that he’d fit right in. But his little sailboat wouldn’t take him that far, so he had to settle for the Keys. Henry didn’t know a soul in the States, but at twenty-one, he knew two English words: appletini and adventure. He had no problem meeting people. He missed his family often, but he became so tight with his peeps in Miami that he couldn’t tear himself away. Spent seven years there, but never gave up on his dream of moving to the America of America, the Republic within the Republic: Texas. He gave all his belongings to a family of Haitian refugees and bought a one-way ticket to Austin.

All the pieces were finally falling into place for old Henry. What’s more Texan than Austin? Just to be sure he was completely immersed in Texas culture, Henry got a job at a joint named after another Texas city, Houston. And dammit, Henry loved it. Loved everything about Austin, couldn’t believe his good fortune. Hank figured there were millions of people out there who would kill to be in his position, but Hank had grown weary of his expat status. The choice to become a US citizen came as no real decision at all to Henry. As far as he could tell, only benefits awaited him, and hey, he didn’t have to renounce his Colombian citizenship, so why the hell not? The process proved difficult, but as of two weeks ago, Hank’s a bona-fide United States Citizen. Took the oath and never looked back.

Now I'm Paying Attention

2008-05-24T00:54:00.003-05:00

No more Mavs or Stars playoffs action for now, and our beloved Bulls haven't had a prayer since the whole program was sold for parts...but I like the NBA post season this year. Lakers and Spurs, the past decade's most dominant WC teams--classic match-up. Detroit, yeah, sure. Every story needs a villain.

But Boston? Man, I hate that town's other teams, but I kinda wanna get behind these guys, especially if it means more Gino.

A Word to the DFW Crew

2008-04-29T23:39:00.005-05:00

Somebody please go dance your socks off with Z-Trip at Suite. I can't. I have two exams the next day.

Things that Make Me Go "Hmm"

2008-04-29T22:48:00.005-05:00

This passage contains one of the most apt (aptest?) metaphors for time that I've ever encountered. I thought I'd share it with you; this comes from William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."

"They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years," (emphasis mine).

Augustine argued that one couldn't measure time because it's always slipping into the past--it "pertains to non-being." A few hundred years later Einstein came along and explained its slipperiness as relativity to space. Those guys dealt with the mechanics of time, if you will, but I think Faulkner tells us something about the meaning of time. He tells us how time works not in objective terms, but in subjective terms--as it pertains to the only creatures that consciously experience it: human beings. We all experience time like those old men; only the size of our meadows differs.

My Monohybrid Cross to Bear

2008-04-23T00:03:00.009-05:00

Here's the problem that's been getting me down at least since the Cup came to Austin to visit: How in the hell do I reconcile biology with theology?

As a child, I was taught a literal, miraculous, six-day account of creation. God spoke the world into existence one literal twenty-four hour period at a time. If one takes the Bible literally (whatever that means), it seems like a stretch to take "evening and morning" to mean anything but a calendar day. Evolution was dangerous and at the same time a mere "theory."

But in scientific parlance, a "theory" is a pretty big deal. A theory "summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing." Evolution is not just one hypothesis, but a unified system of hypotheses, each supported by evidence. And as it turns out, the evidence for the evolutionary theory is overwhelming. Bacteria evolve to become drug-resistant, alleles become fixed or lost, DNA mutations occur at predictable rates (varying across locii), natural selection lurks in every corner, etc. In any case, I don't think I want to debate the merits of creationism vs. evolution vs. intelligent design here. The point is, I'm convinced. Perhaps more to the point, it's depressing to be convinced.

But before I tell you why it's depressing, I feel like I have to make a preemptive defense against anyone who supposes that maybe the liberals at Richland College and the University of Texas have somehow corrupted me and stolen my faith. Not so. I don't remember when I began to doubt creationism, but I do know that I chucked a literal interpretation of the Genesis account in church. I took a Genesis Sunday school class a few years ago taught by a DTS professor. Forget geology, paleontology, and biology. A close textual criticism of Genesis lends some pretty strong evidence to the notion that the Hebrew creation story is fundamentally theological--not historical--in nature. Thank God--I think we're all better off with a Bible that aims to teach us something about the Creator rather than the creation.

It would seem I've answered my own question. The first few chapters of Genesis employ myth to teach the truth of YHWH's cosmological authorship. So science and theology are discrete disciplines, and gosh darn it, they probably complement each other somehow. But things start to get sticky right around Romans 5: "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." If you're a DTS professor teaching a Sunday school class, you solve the problem by saying that yes, evolution occurred, but there was an actual Adam. Science meets theology and the two play nicely.

But the scientific community begs to differ. Probably the population of Homo sapiens sapiens that displaced all other hominids consisted of about a thousand individuals. No literal Adam. Can we have original sin without Adam? (Do we even need it?) And what about H. floresiensis or even H. sapiens neanderthalensis? Were they not created in the image of God? Do we push Adam farther back in the fossil record, perhaps even before hominids developed the genetic basis for language? Does it seem likely that such a creature could sin?

Maybe what really gets me down is that the magic rug of teleological biology has been yanked from underneath me. There is no "purpose" in biology, only "function." And H. sapiens is just one link in the chain. Hard to draw a line between the morally accountable "us" and the animal "them." Even harder to make sense of a theology that seems to lean heavily on sin entering the world through one actual man. I mean, if there's no Adam, I feel bad for Paul for making that embarrassing analogy. (Oh, and Never mind Scriptural inerrancy while we're at it, but can we still have infallibility?)

So, theologian and arm-chair theologian friends, what do you got for me? If you're a six-day creationist, I wonder, could you suppose for a moment that the Evolution wins in the end?

Because the BIG question is this (assuming, as I do, that Evolution turns out to be not just theory, but reality): if Christianity can't tackle the evolutionary theory head on and come up with a theology that accounts for it, then what is it worth?

Mo' Music Mo' Music Mo' Music

2008-04-22T01:38:00.005-05:00

...and mo' everloving music.

Welp, I saw the Shackeltons again tonight. They played an altogether too-short show at Beauty Bar here in Austin--just a little over an hour of rockin' and emotin'. Even with an encore, I think the smallish-but-enthusiastic audience would have stayed for another forty or so. I would have.

What I didn't realize when I saw these guys the first time is that two of the band members aren't even old enough to drink. That's right, bassist Justin and drummer Sean were sporting big black Xs on their hands tonight. Justin graduated high school this year, and Sean's only 17. The latter played most of the show in nothing but boxer-briefs. Not sure how that relates, but it seemed significant.

I'm gettin' behind these guys. I've seen 'em twice. I bought the CD. Dallas people, get on board with me for the sake of your own souls. The Shackeltons play the Double Wide tonight (Tuesday the 22nd). Give 'em some love.

Break for Book Meme

2008-04-16T23:54:00.001-05:00

The 123 Book Meme (thanx TRP):

1. Open the nearest book to page 123 (No 123? Get a bigger book.)
2. Skip the first five full sentences
3. Post the next three

And away we go:
"Hence, by repeated and serious reflection, try to acquire a firm and felicitous habit of being on guard against the springs and inner promptings of your false and deceptive modalities. No endeavor is more worthy of a Philosopher. If we distinguish the replies of inner Truth from what we say to ourselves on our own, if we distinguish what comes immediately from Reason from what comes to us by way of the body or on occasion of the body, if we distinguish what is immutable, eternal, necessary from what changes at every moment, in short, if we distinguish the evidence of light from the vivacity of instinct, it is almost impossible for us to fall into error."

From Nicolas Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics.

South by Southwest 2008 Mix

2008-04-15T23:35:00.007-05:00

SXSW Recap: Day 3

2008-04-11T20:24:00.022-05:00

Or: "One Helluva Night in Austin"

Day 3 actually started during the day. I met my buddy Ben White and a few of his coworkers down at the Hotel San Jose to hear Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears. With a name like that, it has to be good, right? Yes, especially if every member of the band wears a Star Trek uniform. With songs like "Bitch, I Looove You," Black Joe Lewis's James-Brown-infused blues kept us smiling.

Once one has listened to funky soul-blues in a small venue, what's the next logical step? How about a hip-hop show with 20,000 people in attendance? We walked down to Auditorium Shores for an evening with Talib Kweli and Ice Cube. That's right, Kweli--the lyrically creative, socially-aware rapper--was opening for the star of Friday. We missed Kweli and caught some in-between act. Didn't matter, because when Cube took the stage, it was on.

Now, the extent of my previous contact with the Ice Cube oeuvre had been the films "Three Kings" and "Barbershop." I didn't know much about his musical contribution to the world. But early on in the show, Cube posed the question, "Nigga, we started this gangsta shit, and this the mothafuckin' thanks I get?" Now that I could relate to. Seriously. Dr. Dre drops that line on "2001" when he's commenting on what gangsta rap has become since his days with NWA (Niggaz With Attitude, of "F*** the Police" fame) with Easy-E. Then I put it together: Ice Cube was the third member of NWA. OK, I guess he has some credibility.

Not that his set was meaningful, but it was really fun. The performance was laced with so much profanity it became comedic. The attempts at dramatic effect only upped the comic ante. At one point in the show, Cube implored the audience to "get your dubs up!" (make the west-side "W" hand sign). All the lights went down except for a spotlight on Cube. When they came back up, there were two ten-foot-tall inflatable hands on stage making the W-sign.

Nobody really wanted to stay for the whole show, so our little group disbanded. My disappointment at not seeing the whole show would turn into the promise of an extra-fun evening, however, because when I left the Shores, I hopped on a bus to get back home, and that bus was where a certain happy sub-plot of my SXSW experience started. I think I'd rather tell you the details in person, but let's just say that there's even more to South By than great music and free booze.

Let's get back to the music (and the booze). Ben met me at the Moon Tower for what I'd been told would be the best night of them all. I was certainly looking forward to it; the Cool Kids were gonna play a set. I had heard of the Cool Kids, and I had seen pictures of them, and sometimes that's enough to know a group's going to be legit. The Cool Kids dress like it's 1989: real Nike hightops, slim-leg jeans (or sweat pants), neon colors, etc. Ben and I moved up to the barrier. Mikey and Chuck came out and ROCKED. Well, technically, they rapped. Their beats are nice and fat, and their rhymes are carefree and funny. Even their guest MC, Mickey Factz, could hold his own. Ben was impressed. I was eager to buy the CD.

In between shows, on a drink run, I spotted a guy, a white guy, standing off to the side sporting a huge afro and dressed in footie pajamas. This was no small dude, either; he had to have been six feet tall. And these were no regular footie pajamas, they were ass-flap pajamas, the holy grail of PJs. I told Ben what I had seen. Turns out, Mr. Pajamas was part of the next group.

He went by the name of Fat Jew, and he along with Fonda and Machine comprise Team Facelift. Team Facelift's music played less like hip-hop and more like party fuel. You might say they are to hip-hop what early Chili Peppers were to rock. Their beats bumped and so did the crowd. And everything that came out of their mouths proceeded entirely tongue-in-cheek. They pleaded "I wanna have your baby" as sincerely as if they didn't know that men can't get pregnant. And all the while, Fat Jew's butt-flap hung unfastened, revealing the flesh-colored boxers underneath.

Next up: Crystal Castles, a guy-girl duo. He provided huge beats laced with alternatively sweet and chaotic 8-bit blips and boops. She sang from beneath a hooded sweatshirt with an abandon that the strobe lights and sound system amplified to incomprehensible proportions. This was the loudest show I have ever heard in my life. I wore earplugs and the beat still managed to punch me in the brain. Ben moved to the back. I made for the bar. Crystal Castles blew a fuse, and the stage went silent for about thirty seconds before a couple of roadies ran back and reprimed the aural violence. Would have been a great show, I'm sure, but I could not hear it for hearing it.

Finally, at about 4am, DJ Z-Trip took the stage for the final set of Moon Tower '08. Every record he threw on upped the adrenal and emotional volume. He started out with typical DJ fare, but quickly moved on to more meaningful mashups and sophisticated programming. I mean programming in the sense that Z-Trip seemed to be constructing a plot, a dance narrative with broad strokes of ecstasy entwined with moments of quieter passion. At one point, the beats hushed and Cash's "Ring of Fire" trumpeted forth. Gradually, Z added beats until the crowd was jumping even more than before. When he threw on "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the crowd whipped into a frenzy. We were soaked with other people's drinks. No matter, we kept dancing. (And by "we" I don't mean Ben and me; he had left to take care of his dogs.) Z-Trip could do no wrong; every track he played fit the moment perfectly. I understood why he went last. This DJ's musical epic was not just a story in itself; it was the climax of the meta-Moon Tower. At about 5:15, with no signs of stopping, Z put on Rage's "Bulls on Parade," and the crowd went absolutely nuts. He knew exactly what he was doing. We received another round of flying drinks and a few body checks. It couldn't get any better; we made for the exit.

About an hour later I got a text message from Anthony, who had been valeting downtown all night. "Wanna go for a ride in a Porsche?"

photo credits
Black Joe Lewis: Birkley3030
Ice Cube: RickyRicky
The Cool Kids: Miss35mm
Team Facelift: USB TourCo

SXSW Recap: Day 2

2008-04-02T23:02:00.007-05:00

I think I stayed in bed until noon on Friday; I didn't even try to go to any day parties. The Auditorium Shores concert didn't interest me, either. And even though nobody I knew could make it for Night 2 of the Moon Tower, I sure as hecks wasn't about to miss out.

When I got there at around 11pm, the line was about 100 deep. TABC had made a surprise visit and was hanging around to make sure only adults got free adult beverages. Friday night got rolling with American Bang, a Nashville band so good I broke the promise I'd made to myself that if I ever found myself at a show where a dude in a band rocked shirtless, I'd leave on principle. No, I stayed, and American Bang reminded me of just how much of a good time a good-natured, no-frills rock concert can be. Between shows I met the singer from Delta Spirit whilst talking to some Red Bull friends.

My favorite new band of the night were the Shackletons, a kind of neo-punk band from Chambersburg, PA. I stood in the front row for this one. I've always found small-town Pennsylvanians to be some of the most agreeable people on earth, and by golly, the Shackeltons didn't disappoint. Adding to the greatness of the music was the ecstatic, trembling performance of singer Mark Redding. He spent half the show bouncing around on the precariously tipsy subwoofers that stood immediately in front of the stage - talk about tension. They held, though, and at one point he reached out and shook my hand.

White Ghost Shivers took the stage next. These guys I can't say enough about. They are at the top of the Austin music heap and draw huge crowds--and their music sounds like it should be about 80 years out-of-date. Instead, it's entirely fresh. They call their style "hokum," a mix of Dixieland jazz and Vaudevillian theatre. The theatre is the thing; listening to a recording of the Shivers doesn't capture the sheer joy of the performance. It's more musical revue than anything. The Cast of Characters (among others):
-Cella Blue - Vocals and skirt-lifting
-Smokebreak Slemenda - Vocals and lead guitar (actually, he never ever takes a smoke break; he plays the entire show with a lit cigarette stuffed between his pick-hand fingers)
-Shorty Borgasm - A seven-foot tall banjo player with a predilection for fake moustaches and the brier.
I've seen the Shivers twice now, and I would gladly pay to see them again.

Anthony showed up at about 3:30, but was only able to catch Dragonette, the last act. Time of departure: 4something.

A couple of day 2 highlights @ my Tumblog.

SXSW: Romancing the Sound

2008-03-30T19:14:00.007-05:00

From now until I'm done, I'll be posting musical highlights from SXSW on my Tumblog and have the finished product on my Muxtape.

I made the mistake of driving downtown during South by Southwest the first day I went. I spent 45 minutes and $10 before I found a spot and missed DeVotchKa at MPR/the Current's showcase. Oh well. First real stop: the Paste/Stereogum Dell Lounge for performances by Colour Revolt and Delta Spirit. Colour Revolt didn't impress, but Delta Spirit put on a worthy show. Of course, by the time Delta Spirit went on, I had discovered that the good people from Paste were offering free Southern Comfort cocktails, so perhaps I was more receptive.

After Delta Spirit, I wandered down to Auditorium Shores--an outdoor venue situated on the river/lake with an immediate view of downtown Austin as the backdrop--for Del the Funky Homosapien and the main event: Spoon. As the sun went down and the lights of downtown Austin came on, I stopped watching the band and focused on the big screen. Almost every shot featured the illuminated downtown skyline as the backdrop. Captivating.

After Spoon, I met up with my roommate Anthony to head down to the Red Bull Moon Tower. What's a Moon Tower? We weren't sure. We did know, however, that this was to be an exclusive, private party, and we were on The List. The Moon Tower turned out to be an all-night showcase of good music, fun video, and free adult beverages. Musical highlights: a DJ called BT and a trio known as Brazilian Girls. Brazilian Girls took the best of electronica, drum&bass, and pop and smooshed them together into a thumping good time. It was impossible to stand still. Brazilian Girls are a keyboard/laptopist, a really sick live drummer, and a female singer in a tutu (we agreed that tutus are really quite underrated). Irresistable.

Time of departure from the Moon Tower: 4:30am.

Quick Plug for the Pure

2008-03-26T15:35:00.004-05:00

Dudes, I just found a sweet company serving up DRM-free mp3: Puretracks. Now, I know that there are other DRM-free sites out there (including Amazon), but allow me to make a case for the Pure and suggest that you look 'em up.

Here's why I like Puretracks:

1. They encode EVERYTHING at 192kbps. 192's the place where storage economy and sound quality meet and play nice. It's what I use for ripping CDs.

2. DRM-free means I can put their mp3s on my iPod with ease. No compatibility issues; no problems at all. Also: unlimited burning.

3. The songs download lighting-fast. I pulled down Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" (a 5.3MB file) in one second. One Friggin' Second, ya'll. No exaggeration.

4. Puretracks is Canadian. That means
(a) now that the USD is back on top of the Canadian dollar, a 99-cent song only costs 97 cents. And it can only get better right?
(b) The licenses are legit. This ain't grey-market, quasi-legal Russian stuff; it's easy on the conscience.
(c) And this is the kicker: Awesome customer service. They respond quickly (sometimes within 10 minutes). They're super friendly. I screwed up my order twice, and they fixed it for me both times. The first time, they emailed the song I needed directly to me as an attachment. The second time, they gave me a PIN number for a free download. Excellent.

UPDATE: Now for the bad news--it's hard to tell whether you're getting the clean version or the original. I ended up with the sanitized version of Winehouse's "Back to Black." Now I gotta buy it AGAIN.

Falling in Love Again

2008-03-19T17:15:00.002-05:00

March 8 & 9, 2008: My little bro Caleb gigs with the Des Moines symphony, playing a bit part in a classical concert as part of an orchestral experiment known as Sympho. The conductor: Paul Haas, a young classical director who's quickly making a name for himself. Sympho's mission: make classical relevant again. The execution: REWIND, a 90-minute, non-stop stream of pieces blended almost seamlessly to keep the audience engaged. "Almost," because at wholly appropriate intervals, the live instrumentation yielded to the electronica stylings of Paul Fowler, who recorded the live sounds, replayed and remixed them with fly-by-wire distortion. The show--for it was a show; with the main orchestra on stage, Mr. Fowler lurking below with his laptop and board, and a small breakaway ensemble sitting behind the audience--was nothing short of wonderful.

And I was there. That was Sunday. Little did I know that Sympho would be the first of many musical coquettes that I would meet this past week. After a couple days in Des Moines, I drove back to Austin with the hope of catching some free day parties at South by Southwest. That hope would be surpassed by the most incredible week of courting live music I've ever experienced. After years spent lacking much in the way of real passion for music, I think I'm falling in love again.

Next time: the Paste Magazine/Stereogum Lounge, Del the Funky Homosapien, and more.

Sundry Austin Updates

2008-03-18T17:45:00.003-05:00

1. Housing: I haz it. My buddy Ben White, the only friend I had in Austin, hooked me up with some nice Christian dudes in the north ATX. I embodied Guy-on-the-couchdom for a few weeks, then painted, added furniture to, and moved into an actual bedroom. Currently sleeping on an air mattress borrowed from Ben.

2. Classes: The day after initial registration, I went back to my department advisers, found that the classes I wanted now had open spots, and rearranged my sched to be much more useful. The times ain't exactly ideal, but the classes themselves are, at least in terms of getting a degree. I really enjoy my Chaucer and biology classes.

3. Job: No job. (It's time for another Good Idea: Bad Idea). I all but sealed the deal at Houston's (where I needed the "Five" words--and had to take an intelligence test), but my funky class schedule is such that they can't get me thru training. The manager invited me to come back once class gets out, and even recommended a few other restaurants for me to try. But the rigors of room remodeling and spring-breaking have prevented me from getting something else.

4. Fun Texas fact: The Texas capitol building in Austin is taller than the US Capitol in DC. Do you suppose that's intentional, hmm?

Spawn of Spoonfreude

2008-02-22T01:37:00.017-06:00

I invite you to check out...

Joie de Cuillère - My commonplace book

Leaked Diablo Cody Screenplay

2008-02-21T19:11:00.001-06:00

Stuff White People Like

2008-02-20T15:25:00.003-06:00

Five

2008-02-02T12:41:00.000-06:00

I'm applying for a job at a restaurant in Austin. Question #1 on the application: What five words would you say describe you best? "I want to work here"?

Help me get a job! Click here: My Johari Window.

Thanks!

The Ultimate Mail-Rental Service

2008-01-29T20:28:00.001-06:00

How many times has this happened to you: you've watched all your Netflix movies, played all your GameFly games, and now you're sitting around the house bored out of your arse. "Movies and games are great," you think, "but I could go for a book right now. Yeah, something to knead the old noggin would be great." But you've read all the books you own. What to do?

Well, wonder no more. Now there's a Netflix for books! Yessir, now you'll never get bored as you rent books through the mail with Booksfree.com! Can you believe nobody's thought of this until now? What an epoch we live in! But wait, How much does booksfree.com cost you wonder? Well, fear not for thy financial portfolio; plans start at just $9.99 for unlimited book rentals. That includes paperbacks! The literature of the ages is all yours for less than ten bucks a month at booksfree.com!

As cool as this sounds, I gotta admit, sometimes I wish there was a low-tech solution to burdensome post-modern problems like where to get my book fix. You know? Gosh, it'd be nice if there was a brick-and-mortar place like booksfree.com where one could rent books. Call me a dreamer.

25,000,000 Songs - Free

2008-01-27T23:54:00.000-06:00

From the London Times:

"After a decade fighting to stop illegal file-sharing, the music industry will give fans today what they have always wanted: an unlimited supply of free and legal songs.

With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks.

The service has been endorsed by the very same record companies - including EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music – that have chased file-sharers through the courts in a doomed attempt to prevent piracy. The gamble is that fans will put up with a limited amount of advertising around the Qtrax website’s jukebox in return for authorised use of almost every song available.

The service will use the 'peer-to-peer' network, which contains not just hit songs but rarities and live tracks from the world’s leading artists."

Get it here starting at 11pm tonight: Qtrax.com

Sadly, no Mac version until March, and no iPod compatibility until April.

Logging on as a Longhorn, Part II

2008-01-09T23:01:00.000-06:00

I've been in Austin for a few days now, and although I'm exhausted, I'm excited. Finding an apartment in this town is a pretty rigorous task, and registering for classes today was absolutely draining. But dang it, Austin is cool. Austin makes you feel like YOU are cool.

My housing budget doesn't buy much. Everything I can afford is either...

(1) in an area with 2-6 times the crime of the average neighborhood, (check out the handy Austin census map with corresponding crime statistics sheet; Tract 23.11 is where all the student "resort" apartments are located),

(2) an apartment complex that has changed ownership several times in the last few years and gets no better than 38% recommendation on apartmentratings.com (I saw the phrase "My own death would be better than living in this hell of hells" at least once),

(3) many, many miles away from campus in a city with an acute traffic problem and no rail system,

(4) a place where there is dirty dancing every Thursday night and "skankin' is mandatory" or

(5) some combination of the above.

However, I have a friend or two asking around on my behalf, and there may be options with trusted individuals.

Several elements of the UT registration experience made it one of the best (read: worst) registration experiences of my life. All the classes I need to take are only offered MWF 9am or TR 9:30am. Seriously. One cannot take a full load that way. Also, very, very few classes meet at the same time in the same room every class period. Most go something like this: MW 9am room X, R 9:30am room Y. Of course, I am only speaking of the approximately .01% of classes that are not closed or waitlisted. This is the easy part. But I like a challenge, so I neglected to have Wheaton send my transcript to UT, and the two courses I took at Wheaton that are absolutely critical to my major(s) at UT are in limbo. Maybe they'll transfer, maybe they won't. So I get to plan two schedules: one for if the Wheaton classes transfer, another for if they don't. Hooray!

But the UT campus is great. It actually has a (mostly) unified architectural theme! The library is among the biggest in the nation! There's a Chick-fil-A on campus! The girls are gorgeous! The quality of the faculty is pretty impressive (the late Robert Solomon taught here). It's pretty easy to avoid taking classes from grad students. The UT advising staff is top-notch. The lone philosophy adviser is especially cool and laid-back.

Laid-back is a way of life in Austin. That phrase appears more often in Austin housing classifieds than "grace" does in the Pauline epistles. I've met some pretty interesting people in the past week, among them an ambitious director from Monterrey and a writer attempting to create a "secular urban monastery" near downtown. It always feels like there's something fun or interesting just around the corner, whether it's a coffee shop that buys its beans from the Dominican Republic and actively supports education there or a Patricia Vonne concert at the Continental Club. I've found myself listening to KUT, the NPR-affiliated station where at midnight you will hear the seasoned voice of Larry Monroe say, "I'm Larry Monroe, and I'm here to play some records for you." I've never really been able to get into NPR until now. It just seems appropriate, a fitting soundtrack to the Austin experience. Austin makes you feel cool.

He's Got My Vote

2007-12-13T20:23:00.000-06:00

It's Out There

2007-11-30T17:27:00.000-06:00

Imagine that you're a trucker. Naturally, like all Americans, you were affected in at least some emotional sense by the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center. Now imagine, as a trucker, the best possible thing you could do to memorialize that event.

No, wait. Better yet, forget imagining that you're a trucker. Just imagine whatever you think would be the the best thing a trucker might do. Now, any smart trucker is just going to go about his business and mourn the loss of life in a quiet way; he's not going to memorialize 9/11, at least not externally. No, you gotta imagine what a misguided trucker who left a few brain cells right next to the ephedrine on the bedside stand at Motel 6 might do.

So, if you're imagining a red, white, and blue 18-wheeler with murals on all sides, emblazoned with a slogan that reinterprets or even reimspiritinates "Never forget!" and "Always Remember!" and leaves them in the rhetorical dust, you're on the right track. Now, if there could be no greater trucker memorial than the one you're imagining, would it be only imaginary? Or would it be real? Or would it take the form of a miniature, radio-controlled semi sold at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop?

Of course, a real memorial is greater than an imaginary one, so if this really is the trucker's memorial of which there is No Greater Trucker Memorial (NGTM), then the NGTM must necessarily be real. Think of it this way: if you can imagine the NGTM as existing only in your mind, but you can also imagine it existing for reals, the former is absurd because the latter is in fact greater by virtue of its existence. Indeed, the only thing even better than one NGTM is the form of the NGTM also being impressed on hundreds of RC trucks which can be purchased for the bargain price of $89.99 each.

And in truth, that is precisely the case. I had seen the RC trucks, and just as "the fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" I thought to myself, "This is so absurd it could not possibly exist in reality." How wrong both the fool and I were! It turns out that John Holmgren of Shafer, MN, has indeed created (or perhaps channeled) the NGTM, and here it is. The "Rolling Memorial." Check your local Love's or Iowa 80-affiliated truck stop for the RC version. Have you forgotten?

Billy/Joel

2007-11-29T01:24:00.001-06:00

Recently, the distinguished members of the MWF Transfer Student Lunch Table were discussing some point of theological profundity too deep to relate here when some soul present mentioned Billy Graham and Joel Osteen in the same breath. I can't remember what they were saying, but I think they were drawing some sort of comparison or assigning the two to some sort of shared class. Isaiah N. responded by stating that only one of the two was American.

Initially, I took this to mean that Graham was American and Osteen, Texan. Makes sense, right? Texas (or Mexas) is its own entity; as evidence I submit to you that I never recovered from the culture shock I got living in Dallas. But I think what Isaiah meant was something like this: Osteen is essentially American, and Graham is only accidentally so. The idea is, I think, that if American culture suddenly ceased to be, Joel would suddenly burst into a pleasant puff of pink smoke and naught would remain of his presence but a pile of dollar-colored dust. Billy, on the other hand, could have been born in Africa, Europe, China, or Mexico, and his gospel message would have remained more or less the same.

Maybe it's an obvious point. But I wonder if Graham's methods weren't distinctly American, too, just those of a different era. Maybe Graham was simply more modest. Certainly the message he preached had a very different thrust than the stuff of Osteen. Graham didn't buy a stadium to hold church in...he just rented 'em and broadcast the goings on via TV. I kinda think Ol' Billy was just as American as you, me, or Gary Johnston (double major in theatre and world languages at Iowa University). I don't mind it too much. Mostly I just like to think about Joel Osteen evaporating in pink puff of smoke and drifting out over the Pacific.

The Question of the Canadian Tuxedo

2007-11-08T19:50:00.000-06:00

What are the logical consequences of the Canadian Tuxedo?

To begin to understand this problem, we must first understand the nature of the Canadian Tuxedo itself. A Canadian Tuxedo is generally agreed to consist of a denim jacket worn with jeans. If there be any disagreement, please make it known. However, whether the Canadian Tuxedo consists simply of the jacket and jeans, or furthermore involves a denim button-down shirt and/or vest, I think the essence of the Canadian Tuxedo should be clear enough.

While the tuxedo analogy may be readily apprehended, what particular Canadianness pertains to a denim jacket/pants combination? It's popularity amongst our northerly neighbors? Is there any evidence that this ensemble is any more popular in Canada than say, in Croatia or even the United States? Based on the evidence of readily visible Canadians--Jim Carrey, Barenaked Ladies, Red Green--such an inductive argument would be hard to make. Even allowing for the proposition that famous Canadians by their famousness represent a group more likely to wear actual tuxedos, the contrary propensity of American-worn Canadian Tuxedos would serve to negate any particular Canadianness.

Perhaps we should consider what we connote when we employ the designation "Canadian." Doug Gibson has made an interesting case for referring to home-schoolers as Canadians. According to Gibson, home-schoolers may be properly be called Canadians because they share with Canadians a certain Otherness. Homeschoolers, like Canadians, possess and exhibit an ineffable Something that sets them apart from familiar society. Canadians possess and exhibit an equally ineffable Something; the nature of the Something does not matter so much as its distinguishing quality and social effect. Put another way, if one cannot put ones finger on what makes a newly-made acquaintance subtly but decidedly different, "He's homeschooled" or "She's Canadian" both confer the same comforting sense of illumination. One interesting facet of Gibson's logic is that, by extension, "Canadian" is a more accurate term for a homeschooler than "homeschooler," since (1) homeschoolers often attend co-ops, play sports for public or private schools, and/or attend community college and are therefore not strictly home-educated and (2) Canadian home-schoolers may, theoretically, exist.

At this juncture, we might conjure a feminine equivalent of the Canadian Tuxedo based on homeschooler attire, something on the order of a denim jumper worn over a blue denim blouse: the Canadian Evening Gown. This, however, would be fallacious. We must remember that Canadian in this context refers to a very definite Otherness, but not to homeschooledness particularly. This is not to say that a Canadian Evening Gown would not consist of a denim jumper over a denim blouse, only that it would be a logical error to arrive there via the avenue of home-education.

If the Canadian in Canadian Tuxedo only denotes quality x of Canadians (and homeschoolers),
however, we have made little progress toward understanding why denim is its source material. Consider George Constanza's emphatic insistence that he would drape himself in velvet were it socially acceptable. Now, while the precise social acceptability of draping oneself in velvet is debatable (in fact, a friend of mine once dated a man who draped not only himself, but his entire apartment, in velvet), it is certainly no less subjective than that of draping oneself in denim. If a known degree of social deviance were the essence of Canadian, we might call a Canadian tuxedo any ensemble fashioned of a material whose use falls outside the standard deviation. An outfit consisting of courderoy pants, jacket, and newsboy's hat seems as likely a candidate.

But intuitively we might want to call such a courderoy ensemble a Welsh Priest's Frock and a velvet one a Romanian Spacesuit. We must examine the essence and accidents (attributes) of denim if we are to solve the mystery of the Canadian Tuxedo. Essential to denim is its Americanness. This point cannot be argued. While the rest of the world has adopted its use, it has not adopted denim qua denim, but denim qua American Stuff, the denim fiber representing the most elemental of essentially American molecules.

As far as American imitators go, no country competes with Canada. Quebec aside, Canada looks, sounds, sings, drives, and acts American. At least as far as clothing is concerned, nothing is more American than denim. We associate it with the inventiveness of Levi Strauss, the rugged individualism of the Old West, and the too-cool-for-schoolness of James Dean. Therefore, denim represents the standard of perfection if one is to dress American. Yet, in principle, the closer a thing comes to accurately mimicking another thing, the more fraudulent it becomes. An accurately reproduced $1 bill is more fraudulent than a $6 bill of similar quality.

Indeed, one of the pitfalls of imitation is the failure to apprehend the true nature of the thing one imitates. Often, this manifests in an over-achievement. I would argue that the reason we think of a denim-jacket-and-jeans combo as a Canadian Tuxedo lies in the suspicion that the Canadian assumes that more denim means more American. Thus the Canadian, in an attempt to out-American the American, might wear nothing but denim. Furthermore, we suspect that the Canadian confuses the essentiality of denim with its transcendence. That is, the Canadian confuses the primacy of denim in the hierarchy of Americaness with a sort of primacy of in the hierarchy of classiness. Thus, it comprises his Tuxedo.

Of course, we Americans know that denim is elemental to our couture, but it is not its totality. It is also not the most noble of materials; in fact, I would argue that we are comfortable with that notion as a reflection of our culture at large, but that is a topic for another time. What is important is that we estimate the Canadian's fashion sense to be such that a preponderance of denim would join the apices of Americanism and fashion. This, I surmise, is why we refer to the denim jacket and jeans as a Canadian Tuxedo. It also suggests why Americans wear Canadian Tuxedos at least as often as Canadians; it simply represents a failure to grasp--due to hickness, fuddy-duddiness, or even homeschooledness--the nature of denim as it pertains to America and its locus on the hierarchy of couture material.

For those of us Non-Saints

2007-11-02T12:31:00.000-05:00

Happy All Souls Day.

Early 11th century, Burgundy: Odilo is abbott of Cluny, a monastery dedicated to prayer. During a time when the best a needy Christian could do was petition a heavenly saint for intercession, Odilo and his brethren apparently had the guts to take their requests all the way to the Big Guy himself.

One day a foreigner arrived at the monastery with an unusual story. Shipwrecked on a presumably deserted island, the traveller nevertheless encounters a hermit. The hermit tells him of a place on the island where something mysterious happens. He invites the traveller to the spot and instructs him to incline his ear to the ground. The traveller hears demons conversing. The demons complain that the souls they afflict in purgatory are having their burdens eased by the prayers of the monks at Cluny.

Impressed that the prayers of ordinary monks proved so potent, Odilo declared the day after All Saints' Day as All Souls' Day to commemorate the efficacy of lay prayer for the living and limboed. His November 2 holiday spread throughout the region and was eventually adopted by the Church itself. Hooray for St. Odilo, and Happy All Souls' Day, friends.

Stop-Motion Star Wars

2007-10-16T02:22:00.000-05:00

Comin' to us from Robot Chicken, it's Ponda Baba's back story: thirty seconds of pure pathos!

The Philosopher

2007-10-11T22:10:00.001-05:00

"The acts of a morally weak person are accompanied by appetite, but not by choice, while a morally strong person acts from choice, but not from appetite." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1111b12)

I think the guy has a point, and I'm inclined to believe him. After all, appeasing my appetite for pizza would lead to health problems, and that would be bad if not immoral. But choosing to eat vegetables would be good for me. I got an appetite for mega mammon, but rather than just grab it from the nearest cash drawer, I must choose to show up to and work a job that's less than satisfying.

Aristotle would say that appetitive acts are voluntary, i.e. morally accountable. What do you think? Does it matter whether one acts from appetite or choice? Is one really better than the other? Does the Christian always act by choice rather than appetite? Can a person have an appetite for something morally virtuous or excellent?

Note to Self

2007-10-02T00:19:00.000-05:00

Funny, isn't it, how at important moments in our lives certain authority figures make us write notes or letters to ourselves? Letters to be opened a few years down the road...reminders of our past selves and our aspirations for the future. My senior English teacher Art Holcomb introduced me to the concept. The thing about these letters is that they're always surprise assignments (and sometimes require a certain degree of BS, at least when I have to do them).

I remember Diane Mezger making us TIME Team Leaders of 2000 write down 25 personal goals, goals for the summer and life in general. They had to be stated in the present tense, however, as if already accomplished. I wrote down the requisite number of affirmatives and filed ‘em. I saved that piece of paper and read my goals not too long ago. Some, like "I light up fine tobacco whenever I please" existed in a state of ongoing fulfillment (although right now this goal is suspended). Others remained more or less unaccomplished. But surprisingly, I still wanted to achieve most of the things on the list even more than I had when I'd written them down. My hastily jotted notes turned out to be truth sprung from my soul.

Then there's the essay I wrote for my application to UT: "The Ideal Classmate". That was the required topic, so I gave it my best shot and sent it in. I translated the qualities of an actual ideal professor into an imagined ideal student. But I reread it today, and I was struck by how much truth it contained. The words literally described an ideal classmate, but even more, seemed to embody my convictions about the ideal educational experience. The soul truth of the essay struck me the same way my old list of goals had. I believed these words more now than I had when I composed them. I wanted to shout "Hell yeah! that's what I believe!" Then came the question: had my subsequent decisions agreed with what I wrote? Was I living it?

"In the fall of 2006, I took my first collegiate government class. Ms. Olivia Garcia—an enthusiastic Latina with a strong liberal streak—taught the class and proved to be one of the most beneficial instructors I have ever taken. Her socio-ethnic background, political philosophy, and enthusiasm for government could not have been more different from mine. Although we had little in common, I learned a great deal from her. Our differences drove me to not only tackle the coursework but to expand my paradigm as well. Those from whom I stand to learn the most are most often those with whom I have the least in common, and I believe the qualities that made Ms. Garcia a great instructor would also make the ideal classmate."

Tastes like candy coating at first, but there's a delicious, crunchy, chocolate-covered peanut of truth at the center.

It Ain't what You Thought

2007-09-12T02:08:00.000-05:00

The thing I'm gonna complain about now that I'm in Wheaton, that is. Thanks to those of you who placed bets on this one--thanks for your confidence in my ever-loving optimism--but I won't complain about the weather. Understand that for the past two weeks I have loved the weather.

#1 complaint about Wheaton so far.....................................Nobody freakin' says "bless you" when you sneeze! I sneeze all the time, in many varied circumstances and surroundings, so I feel my experience has been rather scientific, and I'll be darned if I've gotten more than one or two "bless you"s since I've been here. Would somebody please explain this disturbing phenomenon? Rob? Josh? Anyone?

Get Your Spoon Memorabilia Here

2007-08-18T03:08:00.001-05:00

Do you need a Boss audio mixer/recorder? A gently used TV? A twin bed (or two)? How 'bout a JVC stereo receiver? I don't need 'em anymore; I'm moving to Wheaton--a place where space is limited. I'm selling all my crap today (Sat) from 8-5. VIPs by appointment after hours. Call me for directions.

Very Nice!

2007-08-16T23:55:00.000-05:00

If I had money to spend and felt persuaded to spend it wisely, I think I might invest in one of these puppies, the 2008 Honda Accord Coupe. Yep, I'd probably take that consulting job my uncle offered me and be first in line at the Honda dealership. I'll take it in black, please.

Ah, who am I kidding? I don't have a consultant uncle. The best Accord I could hope to afford for the next few years was made in '88. So goes the life of a college student who's best job ever has been waiting tables. Guess I'll keep driving my soon-to-be-rusty Ranger.

More pics of the new Accord here.

Remembering the Good Old Toons

2007-08-15T12:21:00.000-05:00

Decisions, Decisions

2007-07-16T17:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I paid Wheaton $300 to secure a spot in their hallowed halls this fall. I'm still trying to talk myself into it, but I haven't talked to a single person yet who didn't enthusiastically support the decision.

Wheaton's campus looks exactly like a college campus ought to look: great old architecture, beautiful landscaping, and a meticulously groomed football field. I didn't get to have any meaningful conversations with staff or faculty while I was there, but I think most professors' resumes speak for themselves. Also, as both the cheesy, squeaky-clean tour guide and the hip, dredlocked admissions counselor pointed out, Wheaton has some of the best college food in the nation.

Here's a picture of the Wheaton Mastodon (for Blogbarger). Chris, let's be sure to go to Metro Diner before I leave town to share a couple of Masterburgers.

Thinking of Thunder

2007-07-03T15:03:00.000-05:00

But not the aural variety that has proved so plentiful lately here in Dallas. I'm contemplating a Thunder of a different kind.

In spring I visited Beloit College; a Richland prof had promoted me there and everyone was friendly, but the school didn't fit. Wheaton College sent me two "you're good enough for us but so many others are better than you" letters relegating me to their admissions waiting list (odds: not so good). I began to commit my mind and heart to the University of Texas, and two Fridays ago I spent the day as a Longhorn: driving to Austin in the morn, meeting with advisers and breaking the UT experience into palatable pieces, and rockin' back to Dallas with Jack and Meg White and Josh Homme in the eventime. I had left before the mailman (or "person person" as the Kuceras used to say) could deliver my missives and returned after dark.

I pulled into my driveway, unloaded my mailbox, walked inside. I found a larger than average piece from Wheaton, and as I turned it over, I could read its bold message through the translucent envelope. "Welcome to Wheaton."

All I wanted to do since I started the transfer process was to attend Wheaton. So many benefits: leave Mexas, return to midwestern culture, nearness to friends and family in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Des Moines; academic giants professoring the classes, Christian instruction to nourish my skeptic's heart and foggy mind; a local Giordano's to nourish my grateful digestive system. But too many quasi-rejections later I had given up on every bit of it and focused on the great city of Austin and its 4 1/2-star academic institution. Now I have an unbelievably tough decision to make--be a Longhorn or join the Thunder--and the blessing of having to choose between two top notch schools.

I head to Wheaton on Friday to check it out.

Logging on as a Longhorn

2007-06-22T16:21:00.000-05:00

I'm typing these very letters and words from the giganormous University of Texas at Austin library. I don't even know what this thing's officially called, but it's so big, it probably has three names. Looking over my shoulder, I can see computer terminal #129 all the way in the back of the room. This ain't no Richland College lib'ary, my friends. This is the real deal.

As someone who has been accepted to UT, I have the awesome privilege of using my electronic identification number (or EID as they say around here) to sign in to the uni's computers. Nice, especially since I haven't given UT a gosh-darn dime, registered for a single class, or even payed the deposit. Yet here I sit, using this fine academically-purposed Dell (by the way, Blogbarger, the faculty get Macs around here for some reason) for something purely un-academic.

Welp, I should probably track down that philosophy advisor before he takes off for the weekend. Hook 'em...us!

Sueños

2007-06-21T11:54:00.000-05:00

I'm really liking my new job. I love working with people again, serving others face to face, and providing a product I really believe in. In fact, this job is reaching into recesses of my mind that few others ever have.

A few nights ago dreamt that I was waiting tables at the Porch. I woke up in a half-daze and sat up on the end of my bed, believing I was sitting on a table at work. "Should I be sitting on a table when I have guests mid-meal?" I wondered. "And shouldn't I be wearing pants?"

A couple days later I dreamt that I was riding along in a car with some of my co-workers when we got pulled over. Instead of giving the cop his license and insurance, the driver grabbed a gun, gut-shot the man, and drove us off down the road. I don't remember who else was in the car, but the driver happened to be the one person I work with that's made a racist comment since I've started. I wonder at the psychology of that coincidence.

And lastly, two days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night anxiously wondering if I really ought to be dozing when I had open checks on the tables. Then I realized it might be a dream. But I had to deliberately reminded myself of each individual check that I had closed at the end of the night before I could drift peacefully back to sleep.

Ready to Give Up

2007-06-09T02:25:00.000-05:00

On web browsers doing what they're supposed to do. Firefox delets my bookmarks every time it installs an update; the "back" button on IE takes me to pages I've never visited. Netscape is dead (but it was ugly even in life). Opera...sounds a little fay. Does Safari work on a PC?

Update: An Open Invitation

2007-05-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

Or: "When I Look at the Television, I Wanna See Me Starin' Right back at Me."

I got pretty bummed when I found out I'd be working the high-top tables in the bar tonight. Self-seating at these tables means less food and more drinks, often ordered at the bar. That can equal a lot of work and not a lot of reward.

I didn't make much money, but I did luck out. TXA 21 came by to do a profile of the Porch and they sat in my section. Plus, super chef and co-founder Nick Badovinus was working and I got to interact with him throughout the night. Of course, the TXA people loved the food. And I got some camera time. Tune in Sunday at 6pm for a show called "DFW 10" to check it out.

I work Wednesday (the 30th), Sunday, and Monday. I hope to see you soon!

An Open Invitation

2007-05-22T10:12:00.000-05:00

Alright, guys, I'm hoping to make you an offer you can't refuse. I just got hired at the Porch, the latest buzz-worthy Simon/Badovinus restaurant. I wait tables and I need practice. I don't want to be the guy who forgets to refill Mark Cuban's water glass next time he comes in. So here's the deal: Come in and have a meal at the Porch, request me as your server, and be my very own VIP. Our food is fabulous, the kind of stuff mom would make if she were an executive chef. Here's the kicker: you don't have to tip me. No, you don't. If you come to my restaurant, don't you dare tip me. I just want to see some friendly faces.

Come on over and have some brisket sliders, a grilled three-cheese sandwich and a cup of homemade tomato soup or a plate of braised short rib stroganoff. Or grab a 14oz cut of medium-rare prime rib and side of smoked ham mac'n'cheese to share. And give our farmer's market cobbler a try before the peaches go out of season. Sandwiches start at $10. I work tonight (the 22nd), Thursday (24th), and Sunday (27th). We open at 5; here's the map.

Tired

2007-04-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

I’m tired.

I’m tired of being physically worn out, sleepy, spent. I’ve exhausted every desirable permutation at Starbucks and can’t drink Gachet’s swill anymore.

I’m tired of procrastinating. I’m tired of last-minute, late-night, half-assed (or less) efforts. I’m tired of substituting Amp for sleep. I’m tired of turning in rough drafts the day the finished product is due.

I’m tired of being unable to express it. I’m tired of not being able to write about it. I’m tired of making a concerted effort to avoid “be” verbs, of employing alliteration (it’s a cheap trick), and of relying on a thesaurus. Tired of reading shit on the internet that’s written in passive voice and of wondering if I’m really any more talented than the jokers who contribute awful prose to Wikipedia. I’m tired of censoring myself. I’m tired of being slow to speak, slow-witted, a slow reader, and slow at my work.

I’m tired of waking up three days a week and doing a lonely job that only sorta pays. I’m tired of not being a morning person, of starting late and lazily ending early. I’m tired of slowly losing my sanity—laboring alone with my only thoughts and fragments of Fergie songs stuck in my head.

I’m tired of apologizing to my Lord every time I utter the word(s) goddamnit. I’m tired of saying goddamnit. I grow weary of trying to not sin, of forever losing the same battles, of my sinful nature. Mostly I’m tired of seeing large breasts with delicate, translucent skin poised to burst out of tank tops and partially unbuttoned blouses and so tired of trying not to stare.

I’m tired of these eyes that don’t see clearly, these yellow teeth, these knobby knees. I’m tired of this flesh.

I’m tired of struggling to form thoughts in a cloud, the meaning always hidden just beyond the fog. I’m tired of having to hear an idea, watch a film, or read a poem twice just to identify the subtleties that everyone else sees. Tired of being powerless to form a decent question or original thought.

And I’m tired of losing points when I do get it right—when I omit a comma after an introductory “and” or answer that Nixon wasn’t formally impeached. Tired of being rebuked, attacked, or punished on the rare occasion that I assert myself, go with my gut, or say what I really feel. I’m tired of being misunderstood, of being incapable of making you understand. I’m tired of my own self-protection, my own distrust.

Tired, too, of wanting to cry and remaining unable or unwilling to. I’m tired of feeling sorry for myself when friends are uprooting families and crossing oceans, when family members are counting the days until parents die, and when friends of friends are running from emotional abuse. I’m tired of being helpless to Free Tibet, Save Darfur, save even a single soul, or do positively anything else worth a damn. I get uncomfortable talking for more than ten minutes about anything that will perish with this world.

I’m tired of not knowing what to do with myself, of not wanting to work hard enough to contribute anything. Of my lack of passion. Of not being the Cool One, Talented One, or Fun One.

Guys, I’m tired of uncertainty, of not knowing the future but having to make decisions that affect it. I’m tired of making decisions based on money. Tired of being too poor to afford more than two pints a month at the Ginger Man.

I’m tired of only eating food that can be microwaved at home. I’m tired of fried food everywhere else. Tired of worrying about calories.

I’m tired of bitching. I’m tired of being all talk and no action. I’m tired of writing “I’m tired.” It must be awful to read.

I need a vacation.

So Fresh I'm not sure what to Make of It

2007-03-18T23:18:00.001-05:00

Tonight, whilst perusing the Drudge Report, I clicked on a link promising a video--unauthorized by Barack Obama but allegedly produced by his minions--analogizing Hillary Clinton to Big Brother a la 1984. What I got was Apple's Macintosh introduction commercial reworked with Clinton's face and voice in place of Mr. Brother's. Here's the video:

The ad would have been extremely effective except for one thing: I tend to deconstruct advertising, and something in the video caught my eye and distracted me completely. Right around the 41st second, I noticed something that could not have possibly been in the original Apple commercial--in the Clinton version the Runner wears what looks like an iPod on her waist. There's no way Apple was working on anything resembling the iPod back in '84, right?

I checked the original, and the iPod does not appear. Of course it doesn't. But somebody sure put forth a lot of effort to get it into the new one. Are we looking at new footage or frame-by-frame Photoshopping? More importantly, why add it to a political piece at all? What kind of conspiracy are we dealing with here?

The original Apple ad (L) and the same frame from the modified version.

Move Over, Mii

2007-03-12T17:16:00.000-05:00

Oh, the joys of console gaming. One never knows which one to buy. If you want HD graphics with the potential to wander into the Uncanny Valley plus a built-in Blu-Ray player, the Playstation 3 is the only way to go. If you want fun, motion-interactive games a grandmother could play, the Wii's your best bet. If you frown on floating-point calculations and prefer a GPU with L2 cache, an HD-DVD add-on option, and you're addicted to Halo, why Microsoft has a nifty little box called the 360 you might want to check out. Choosing just one system proves difficult, because there are so few points of comparison.

But a few exist. Sony and Nintendo noticed the raging success of Xbox Live and created their own online networks. Nintendo's Wii even introduced customizable characters that serve as proxies in certain games. They resemble cute, animated weebles as they hop toward fly balls and bounce around tennis courts. I thought the concept was clever even though function clearly took priority over form. And then I saw this video.

Darn Unreliable Sixth Sense

2007-03-01T00:32:00.000-06:00

My sixth sense failed me today, in a pretty significant way. No, I'm not talking about that sixth sense. I'm talking about the real one: the ability to sense where the parts of one's body are. There's no slick monosyllabic word for this sense, and that's probably why it hasn't been added to the list of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. It's real nonetheless. It's the sense that allows you to close your eyes, stretch out your arms, and touch your index fingers together (go ahead, try it--I just did).

Anyway, as I surveyed my first pool today, I cursed the wind storm that had deposited a layer of dust on the plaster of every single on of my pools. The dust means I have the awesome privilege of vacuuming every square inch of every pool--doubling the amount of work it takes to get the job done. I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse. But a little bit later I was transferring leaves from my pool serviceman's net (or "rake" as we say in the biz), things got worse as sense numero seis let me down.

I readjusted the placement of my right foot and stepped not on solid ground as I had expected, but in seven-foot-deep water. Time slows down when you're a pool serviceman and you realize you're about to go all in on a watery hand. I quickly realized what was happening and had just enough time to think "oh gosh, this is the big one, the one that ruins my cell phone" and desperately lean to the left. The slow-motion lean did the trick. It was not "the big one." Only my right leg got soaked. Disaster averted. Final verdict: squishy sock for the rest of the work day (my backup socks were in the laundry).

SNL Digital Shorts

2007-02-28T18:42:00.000-06:00

If Saturday Night Live stopped going live and converted the entire 90 minutes to Digital Shorts, I think they'd have a real hit show on their hands. Whoa, that sentence reads like a Jackie Harvey column. Anyway, here's the latest:

Check out that last shot. Some of you might recognize it.

Christmas Grumblings

2006-12-21T10:01:00.000-06:00

I'm not a big fan of the Christmas season. It stresses me out. I don't know whom I should buy gifts for, how much I should spend, or what to purchase for the few lucky souls that I deem worthy of my munificence. I loath the cultural takeover America has pulled on Christmas.

Celebrate Christ's birth? Sounds like a great idea to me, maybe something the reverent should emphasize more on a daily basis and dissassociate from a single, arbitrary day. Give gifts to remind each other of God's gift of salvation to us? Yes! I'm down with that, but why do we feel pressured to go into credit card debt to do so? I'd rather give (or get) one thoughtful gift than several pricey ones.

The drive to shower each other with presents compels us to drive to the malls where we realize that everyone else in the city has decided to meet us there for some fun "crowding around the Rock/Pop A-D section" and "standing in check-out lines." The worst part of this arrangement, however, is the soundtrack.

I don't like Christmas music, folks. Now I do enjoy singing the occasional "Joy to the World" or the "cradle song" version of "Away in a Manger" (but who knows that one anymore?) one Sunday morning out of the year, but the rest of it stinks. I got "Winter Wonderland" stuck in my head the other day when I was cleaning pools and seriously contemplated putting my finger in a spinning impeller just so I could have an excuse to go home. The most vile Christmas tune ever perpetrated upon the innocent public, however, has got to be "Feliz Navidad." What a pretentious piece of tripe! That tune is so horrible yet catchy, and the way the lyrics are sung with an affected Spanish accent just grates on the intellectual nerves. (Gary Wabshaw, wherever you are, I hope God makes a special place in purgatory for you. Thanks to you, I cannot listen to "Feliz Navidad" without mentally singing "Fleas on My Dog").

Fortunately, back in 1965, Charles Shultz hired the Vince Guaraldi Trio to come up with some music for "A Charlie Brown Christmas." That music remains fresh and fun forty years later. It redeems (although I wouldn't say justifies) the whole awful Christmas genre. I love it. I don't know why I haven't bothered to buy a copy.

Time for me to do some shopping! I almost look forward to it. Why? Because I am blessed to have several people in my life who not only give thoughtful gifts, but several thoughtful gifts (I'm talkin' 'bout you, Amanda--and others). The kindness of my friends and family inspires me to give back and pay forward. That's my motivation to wade through the Christmas crap.

Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handy

2006-12-12T13:47:00.000-06:00

Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It's a shark riding on an elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they see.

As we were driving, we saw a sign that said "Watch for Rocks." Marta said it should read "Watch for Pretty Rocks." I told her she should write in her suggestion to the highway department, but she started saying it was a joke - just to get out of writing a simple letter! And I thought I was lazy!

One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to DisneyLand, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said, "DisneyLand burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real DisneyLand, but it was getting pretty late.

Forget Santa Claus...

2006-12-04T23:03:00.000-06:00

The greatest 80s band ever--Styx--is coming to town. (Props to my wonderful girlfriend Amanda for the heads-up). Now you might disagree with me about their precise status as the greatest, but who can deny the alternatively relaxing and rocking power of "Come Sail Away"? Who can listen to "Lady" without being moved? Who can resist the awesome persuasion of "Mr. Roboto"? Who among us has cannot identify with having "Too Much (clap clap) Time on [Our] Hands"? Styx dives into our souls and surfaces to express our most basic needs--"Gimme a job, give me security"--and our innermost spiritual desires--"Show me the way/Take me tonight to the river and wash my illusions away!"

Oh Daniel DeYoung, what angelic vocal overtures! Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom of using synthesizers to rock!

Those of you who would not deign to give audience to Nugent (I guess that would be all of you), now is your chance to redeem yourselves. Join me in Fort Worth on January 20th for a night you will not soon forget. A paltry $12 is all you need to experience the magic. To paraphrase Ray Stevens, put your cares on ice--it's cheap at twice the price.

Great, Meaningful Moments in Modern Art (Continued)

2006-11-27T18:55:00.000-06:00

I gotta say that I was being completely sincere when I ascribed the words "great" and "meaningful" to Paul Klee's "Revolution of the Viaduct." There are only simple shapes and colors on the canvas, but is that all there is to this work? Upon closer examination, the painting reveals more than meets the eye. It seems that Klee (pronounced "clay") might have been trying to say something about individuality and non-conformity, possibly in response to the rise of the Nazi party in his homeland, Germany.

Each shape resembles a cut-away section of an ancient Roman aqueduct. Each differs from the others in size, shape, color, and apparent distance from the viewer. But Klee gives us clues that he is thinking beyond mere geometry and perspective here. The serifs at the bottoms of the figures are reminiscent of feet, and transform the columns into legs. The differing lengths of the legs create the illusion that the figures are mobile, and they are coming toward us.

It would seem, then, that the arches are standing in for people, but why did Klee choose to paint human beings instead? His visual subject must be considered. Roman viaducts were rigid structures comprised of dozens or hundreds of columns and arches—all uniform in size and shape. Each arch yielded itself to the whole, and the structure was strong as a result. As an allegory to society, the ancient viaducts meant glorification of the whole and de-emphasized the individual. Klee seems to be suggesting something different: that society consists primarily of individuals.

Each figure is individual; no two are alike. Their different postures and varying degrees of motility suggest attitude and will. Klee has constructed a society that values the individual and is only loosely unified. His society derives strength from its diversity, however, and the gold, warm colors and illusion of motion suggest that it is advancing toward us, irresistibly and inevitably. Furthermore, his figures may do as they please, and while they do march toward us as a group, they will not be conformed. These seem to be the major themes of the work: individuality, non-conformity, and celebration of strength in diversity.

Klee might also have been responding to German National Socialism (he painted the work in 1937-38). His arches defy the Nazi ideal of a homogenous super-race. The arches also stand in contrast Nazi architect Albert Speer’s uniform design of the 1936 Olympic Stadium in Berlin. Finally, the title of the painting might be a twist of Nazi propagandist Heinrich Himmler’s statement that the Bolshevics and Jews made up a “revolution of subhumans.”

Klee once said his goal was to paint the human spirit. In “Revolution,” he has done it as a celebration of individuality and a rejection of all that would quash it.

Great, Meaningful Moments in Modern Art

2006-11-16T13:47:00.000-06:00

Paul Klee's "Revolution des Viaducts"

BodyFlex Daily Workout

2006-11-09T00:59:00.000-06:00

I would like to thank Kristin Agrimson for bringing this to my attention (she stole the VHS from her mom back in the day).

It'll be the next Tae-Bo!

Bye Bye Barker

2006-11-01T00:24:00.000-06:00

After fifty years in television (thirty-five of those on The Price Is Right), Bob Barker has announced that he is stepping down. The 83-year-old will retire in June of 2007. Now, I've thought he's been pretty cranky the past few years, but I get all misty-eyed at the thought of a Barkerless TPIR. It was hard enough to lose Rod Roddy; I grew up with both of these guys. I gotta buy myself a ticket to LA and witness the magic while I still can. The Dice Game, Plinko, and Hole-In-One just won't be the same without good ol' Bob.

Here's some video of Bob gettin' grumpy with an utterly clueless contestant.

Spoonus: Conclusion

2006-10-16T23:29:00.000-05:00

Spoonus: But I still doubt that our souls exist prior to birth. We could be given the knowledge at the moment of birth, as Simmias said.

Socrates: But at what other time do we lose it? Do we lose it at the very time we acquire it, or can you mention any other time? If those realities which my friends and I were always talking about exist (and we know with certainty here in the afterlife that they do), the Beautiful and the Good and all that kind of reality, and we referred all the things we perceived in the body to that reality, so the soul must exist before we are born.

Spoonus: But what if we do not forget our knowledge in the first place? Let us consider those things which are absolutely knowable: Justice, Beauty, Goodness, and the like. When does a person recollect what Justice is? When he is mature? Or does not even a child know? If children did not know what Justice was, would they be forever tattling on each other? And are not children drawn to that which we call Beautiful, and attempt to exemplify beauty in their artwork? And do not even infants know what is Good? Immediately after birth, a baby knows that his mother’s milk is good.

Socrates: What you say might be true, but can an infant demonstrate any knowledge of mathematics? Of course he cannot, because he has forgotten it, and has furthermore forgotten how to speak!

Spoonus: He might not know anything about the higher orders of mathematics, but he certainly knows what “more” and “less” are when he is fed. The difference between his knowledge and that of Pythagoras is in his ability to articulate his knowledge, or perhaps in the extent of the potential of his knowledge. By potential, I mean that which can come about, but which has not yet.

Socrates: Which is it? According to you, either he has full knowledge, and cannot articulate it, or he has potential knowledge, which seems to be no knowledge at all, but I am not sure which you mean.

Spoonus: I say it is both. I hope you are not weary of hearing about Meno’s servant, because I would like to refer to him once more. I submit to you that he, being given the knowledge at birth, was given full potential knowledge, contained somewhat like a full oak is contained in an acorn. However, he could not articulate it. As he grew up, he acquired the means of articulation. When you questioned him, the potential knowledge was realized in his mind, and became actual, verifiable knowledge which he articulated in response to your inquiries. So he had not forgotten it; it had merely not been actualized. Therefore, the articulation of his knowledge does not prove that he knew anything before birth, only that he had knowledge at birth. Therefore, one cannot prove that the soul is eternal.

Socrates: On the contrary, in this case you have only argued that the soul does not exist before birth, and have said nothing about the state of the soul after death. Have you read my other excellent proofs of the existence of the soul after death, such as the Argument from Opposites or the Argument of the Form? Look at it another way: if the soul does not exist after death as you have stated, how then is it that you are here in Elysium talking to me?

Spoonus: By Zeus, I don’t know! However, I have read your proofs, and it seems that since our souls will never perish, we should have adequate time to discuss them. We must also inquire as to how something could have a beginning, but no end, and furthermore, if the soul is given knowledge at its beginning, what or who gives that knowledge. What is rent like at the Tower of Cronos? Do you need a roommate?

Spoonus, Part I

2006-10-05T13:48:00.000-05:00

The Spoonus, also known as The Socratic Soul, is the most recently discovered Socratic dialogue. Spoonus was a student of Socrates (via Plato’s writings), and has recently died; his soul transmitted to the underworld. He wishes to question Socrates regarding the philosophy of the soul that Socrates maintained in life. Spoonus’s soul arrives in Elysium, where the soul of Socrates has resided since his execution, although he plans to move into the Tower of Cronos as soon as the Form of his Credit Check is processed (although in his case it is probably just a formality). Spoonus arranges to meet with Socrates before he leaves Elysium. Scholars disagree as to whether this is an account of the historical Socrates, or whether the writer, possibly Spoonus himself (or his reincarnated soul) is putting words in Socrates’ mouth.

SPOONUS: Hello, Socrates. It is indeed an honor to have an audience with you. I am sorry I am late; Charon did not have change for a drachma.

SOCRATES: You are outrageous, Spoonus. Have you come to converse with me about the journey hither? Or have you come to inquire of me, as Meno, Crito, and others did in life? Surely, as a soul freed from the body, you know everything, and there is no knowledge which I can impart to you.

SPOONUS: Perhaps there is. You once said that “we must at some previous time have learned what we now recollect.” If we learned before life what we recollect in life, we must have lacked knowledge before we learned it as souls, for to learn is to acquire knowledge, and how can one acquire what one already has? So perhaps there remains something I can learn even now. At the very least, help me to recollect the words you spoke in life.

SOCRATES: I will certainly attempt to do so.

SPOONUS: I am interested in your ideas about the soul. As I understand it, you once proved that the soul is eternal by demonstrating that a servant boy, who had no apparent knowledge of geometry, could arrive at a correct mathematical conclusion without any instruction at all. That is to say, the boy had knowledge which he had not been taught. If he had this knowledge, he must have known it before birth and forgotten it, but you helped him “recollect” it.

SOCRATES: What you say is true. In fact, all knowledge obtained in the body is recollection. For when men are interrogated in the right manner, they always give the right answer of their own accord, and they could not do this if they did not possess the knowledge and the right explanation inside them.

SPOONUS: So then, if men are not interrogated in the right manner, they might not give the correct answer?

SOCRATES: To speak of a right manner implies a wrong manner, so what you say might be true.

SPOONUS: Let us explore, then, the correct manner of interrogation. In questioning the boy, you asked him what the dimensions would be of a square with an area of eight feet, based on the knowledge of the dimensions of a square with an area of four. You said, “The side of this is two feet. What about each side of the one which is its double?” He replied, “Obviously, Socrates, it will be twice the length.” Clearly, he was incorrect. You questioned him further, he saw his error, and he arrived at the correct dimensions.

SOCRATES: It happened exactly as you say. I did not teach the boy anything, but all I did was question him.

SPOONUS: But as to the “correct” way of interrogation, you knew the correct answer, and so were able to ask him questions that aided his “recollection.” Did you not lead him in your questioning? Would you not say that the “correct manner” is merely that by which the knowledgeable leads the unknowledgeable, and is that not teaching?

SOCRATES: I did not lead him; I only asked him questions about what was true. He merely recollected things in order, from the more simple principles of linear doubling to the more complex principles of two-dimensional doubling.

SPOONUS: Yet if you had not known, or recollected, the answer yourself, would you not have been unable to interrogate him correctly? If someone who lacked knowledge, like Euthyphro, had questioned him, would it not have become apparent that the boy could not recollect the truth, and at best could recollect only part of it? And does it not seem that he “recollected” both truth and falsehood? As a student of Euthyphro he would have learned or recollected nothing wholly true. Therefore, you did teach him.

SOCRATES: On the contrary, whether I had continued questioning him or not, if the boy was philosophically inclined, he would have questioned himself, and demonstrated to himself the correct answer. He would have recollected it on his own without my influence, although it might have taken him some time. Therefore, all learning, whether under a tutor or on one’s own, is recollection. And if it is recollection, then knowledge exists in the soul before birth, and the soul is eternal. We must recollect what our souls know, however, because we forget it when we are born.

Anna vs. Charlie

2006-09-19T10:18:00.000-05:00

When I’m not in a classroom learning about Platonic Forms or about the difference between a disk and a disc, I clean pools to finance my education. Pool cleaning is a solitary job; the pool serviceman drives alone from back yard to back yard with his tools and equipment, with no companion other than the hot Texas sun and the mediocre Dallas radio. But some stops along the way are not so lonely. Sometimes there is a dog. On my route, there are two.

When I met Anna, I was unprepared. I drove my truck to the back gate and swung it open. She was waiting for me, a knee-high, short-haired, caramel-colored canine of a breed I’d never encountered. I quickly shut the door expecting an attack or an escape attempt. But I had misjudged her. I soon learned that Anna didn’t want to run away, and she didn’t even make a sound as I brought in my equipment. She just wanted to be near. She followed me around loyally, but if she dashed off to scare away some crows, she’d come back when I called (I learned her name from her tags). She would chase a ball if I threw it, too. In the ensuing weeks, Anna became my friend—sweet, but never smothering. I started to like the idea of working with dogs.

And then I met Charlie. (Charlie’s real name has been withheld for the sake of his own dumb innocence.) I met him a few weeks later in a different neighborhood. Weighing in around 45 pounds, he has long, black hair and an aborted tail. Charlie is the out-of-shape co-worker you wish wasn’t in the cubicle next to yours. The first thing one notices about him is the smell: pure odeur de chien humide, which he maintains by periodically wading in the pool. He breaths heavily upon the slightest movement, or anytime he’s standing, or anytime he’s just lying around. And he likes to stick his nose in my business: “Is that a tennis ball in your pocket?” Whenever I have to walk back to the truck for supplies, Charlie follows, until we head down the stairs; inertia then takes over and propels him ahead of me. He eats every chance he gets. I would give him points for loyalty, but since his particular brand means remaining within 15 feet of me, it means I can always smell him, and his only asset becomes void. He won’t be told to leave, either. His b.o. and behavior really strain our relationship.

My relationship with Anna is blissful, however. She’s a saint. If I could, I’d take her home with me. I’d take Charlie with me if I could, too, but I’d set him free somewhere outside the city limits, where nobody would smell him. He’s a real son of a bitch.

The Gypsy Tea Room's Amps Go to 11

2006-08-17T20:04:00.000-05:00

I never made it to the Ted Nugent concert in Fort Worth, thanks to the underwhelming support of my "friends," but my man Colin and I had the foresight to buy tickets to a Jurassic 5 concert recently, and so, on July 31, I experienced (for the first time) a rap show that didn't feature Grits as the headliner. Now that my hearing is back to about 90%, I thought I'd provide a sort of review.

So, going to the J5 show...Wow, I'm a white guy going to a rap show! Aren't I unique? My counter-racial taste in music amuses me. Who but myself and Colin would pay money to see a concert of traditionally black music? I wonder if there will be any other white people there? Maybe a few. Well, probably more than a couple, since J5 is not exactly a crunk group, but leans toward organic-sounding beats and old-school rhymes. Man, there will probably be more whites than the ideal, which is zero, but should still be a good time.

Uh-oh, there are a lot of white people in this line. My goodness! Is this how the show's going to be? I wanted to get away from these people. Well, maybe things will improve inside. Yes, I'm sure that all the African-Americans are just inside enjoying the air conditioning.

Hmm...there are a lotta honkies up in this Tea Room. What's the deal? I guess more whiteys than I thought like J5. Well, it's kinda dark in here, and I can't see the whole room. Maybe all us crackers are culturally inclined to stand around near the stage while waiting for a show to start.

Hello, X-Clan. Since all opening acts suck, I'll stand here politely and endure your show. You can't be any good, so don't expect any enthusiasm from me. Well...that is a nice bass line, I guess. Ya know, now that I think about it, I think I kinda dig this beat...could X-Clan be a good opening act? Ah, I see you've put your friend on the payroll, and his job is to wave an African flag on stage and dance around while you rap. I'd like to think I'd pay one of my untalented friends to do something on stage if I ever made it big. Who am I kidding, I just hope one of my talented friends pays me to do something easy when they're famous. Sure, I'll get my hand up. I remember Aaron Mueller doing this right-hand-wave-to-the-beat thing at a dcTalk concert years ago. I guess it was a phenomenon. Boy, he sure was way more in tune with urban culture than I was in high school. I'm jealous. Oh well, I'm waving my hand now. What? Did X-Clan's Grand Verbalizer just diss the "Laffy Taffy" song? Yes! I'm a fan! I'm a fan! Good times, now!

Oh, shoot, I failed to wave my hands in the air. Grand Verbalizer asked for it, but I hesitated. That was probably the one and only opportunity I will have in this life to throw my hands in the air and wave 'em I like just don't care. Oh, well, maybe another will arise.

Feet hurting...ears already ringing...tired of waiting for J5 to take the stage...

Jurassic 5! I can't believe I'm seeing these guys live! Their voices sound like they do on the album! Oh my gosh!!! Dakir! Marc 7! DJ Numark! Those other guys whose names I can't remember!

Let me look behind me to see what the crowd looks like. Wow, overwhelmingly white. So my taste in rap falls right in line with my race. Dang! But, but, there are some black people here, right? Please? Hey, there's one right behind me. I should say hi, develop some kind of rapport. Concerts bring out the extrovert in me. Wait, wait, I've just thought about talking to a man based on the color of his skin. Does that make me racist, albeit a sort of twisted, reverse racist? I want to say hi so I can feel like I know the only black guy here, and that will somehow make me cool? Uh, just going to stick to looking over a Colin when a witty rhyme or a familiar groove is heard. Yeah. "Got people screamin' 'Free Mumia Jamal!', but two outta three of ya'll will prolly be at the mall!" That's right, Chali 2Na (think: Charlie Tuna), you tell 'em! Rap in that cool bass voice.

Wait, everyone is cheering for Chali. Is he the crowd favorite? Can I have the same favorite member of the group as the rest of these African-wannabe crackas? But I enjoy Mr. 2Na because he's also in Ozo Motley, and for his rhyme patterns and enunciation. But...but...well, I tell you what, white kids, the other members of this group are just as good as Chali, and I'm not going to cheer for him and make the others feel bad.

Oh, here we go bouncing our hands to the beat again. Kinda cool, but I gotta make sure I keep it up there just a little longer than everyone else, to show that I'm really "down" with the music and not just doing it because a member of J5 asked us to do it again for about the 20th time. But this music is really good! And they have great stage presence! And unlike other rap acts I've seen live on TV, these guys don't suck! They rhyme on time. The DJ is talented. They sound good! I just wish they sounded about 100 decibels instead of 125.

Well, that was fun. Back to the car. What's that you say, Colin? Jurassic 5 is the spit? You'll have to speak a little louder until my head decompresses and the tuning fork in my ear stops playing that A. Good times, brother!

What???

2006-08-01T13:58:00.000-05:00

No takers on The Nuge? Come on, guys and gals! It's only $12.

Not even you, Chris?

Lessons I Refuse to Learn

2006-07-25T15:23:00.000-05:00

#1. It is better to go into credit-card debt, however deep, to get one's car inspected and repaired than it is to let the inspection expire. A constable will eventually find you.

#2. Paying off one's credit card to be "debt-free" is a bad idea. Being "debt-free" is always temporary and only serves to make the next necessary debt more painful.

#3. Man cannot live on bread alone. And in Dallas, even if a man's rent is $400 a month, he cannot live on less than $1000 without either a Visa card or food stamps.

Snakes on a Plane Update

2006-06-04T19:56:00.000-05:00

I think there's one man who won't be seeing Snakes on a Plane, because once you've lived it, what's the point? Meet Monty Coles.

Skipping: Not That There's Anything Wrong with That

2006-06-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

Matt Linebarger made a good point not too long ago: it's hard to find an album that's wholly listenable. An artist or band might put 10, 12, or even 20 songs on a CD, but rarely can one listen to an entire disc without skipping a track or two, sometimes more. Even U2 has songs that should be skipped, says he, and for a Linebarger, this is a statement akin to "3 John should not be a part of the canon". Anyway, I happen to think there are quite a few CDs out there that are 100% enjoyable.

For starters:

The Gotee Brothers: Erace
The instrumentation on this disc is a feast for the ears--a Southern feast, the kind with fried chicken and grits. In other words it's not exactly haute musique, but it makes you feel good deep down inside. The lyrics are great, too, dismantling racism ("colors don't hate") and celebrating the simple life ("nothing like a fat cup, sweet tea and ice").

Fleming and John: Delusions of Grandeur
Fleming and John's style was like nothing I'd ever heard when it first tickled my ears back in '97, and there's still nothing quite like hearing Fleming's voice soar and swoop over John's eccentric rock backgrounds (he plays all the instruments, alone it would still be something worth hearing).

Johnny Cash: American Recordings
The first of five collaborations between Cash and legendary producer Rick Rubin, the first American Recordings is still the best. There's nothing here but Johnny's guitar and his voice, cracked and weathered, carrying the weight of the world, but still somehow finding enough strength and conviction to carry an album.

There are a plethora of records out there that require no skipping: Radiohead - OK Computer, The Postal Service - Give Up, The Pixies - Surfer Rosa, Rage Against the Machine - The Battle of Los Angeles, Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman, Dave Matthews Band - Crash, and Counting Crows - August and Everything After.

But I think an album can still be great, even if there's just one song you have to skip. One song doesn't diminish these: The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan, Jurassic 5 - Power in Numbers, Brainwash Projects - The Rise and Fall, Soulfood 76 - Original Soundtrack, and Medeski, Martin, and Wood - The Dropper. The Dropper is particularly noteworthy; even though Martin's percussion-only "Illinization" is awful, the rest of the disc is pure improvisational genius. It's like a great puzzle that your mind unlocks after a few listens, and inside is a brand-new, joyful paradigm.

Have I missed anything? (I mean, besides the whole U2 and BeeGees catalogues.)

More after the jump.

Old Man Bites Tenderly

2006-05-26T09:38:00.000-05:00

Let's talk about game shows for a minute. I like game shows. Before reality shows became dominant, the game show was a great way to kill half an hour during dinner. But when was the last time we Americans came up with a truly great game show? I mean, we have the Big 3: The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy, but what have we gotten since those were created? Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link were imports, were they not? They seemed good at the time, but had no staying power; nobody watches those anymore. Deal or No Deal: you tell me. It's engaging, a little addictive, but can it stand the test of time?

When I think of great new game shows, I look to Japan. First there was Takeshi's Castle (dubbed into English as MXC), and now comes a show (actually a segment of a variety show, another lost form here in America) called Silent Library. Because it takes place in a library, contestants are forced to play (you guessed it) silently. Why can't we have game shows like this in the Land of the Free?

The non-Japanese man is Dutchman Ernesto Hoost, four-time K-1 champion.

Mr. Procrastinator Responds to Your Comments

2006-05-24T10:16:00.000-05:00

Friend, did you graciously comment on a previous post, but never received a reply? I'm sorry, I left you hanging. My oops, my bad. Well, hang no more! I went all the way back to the beginning and replied to comments that you left. Some aren't much, but if you want to read 'em here are the links:

Deus Caritas Est, Meet Your Match, You Might Be an Evangelical If..., Photo Tour of the Balkans, Part II, Regarding the Return of the Beard, Walk Like a Cowboy, The Big One, Chef Cooks Others but Can't Take the Heat, I Got Four Words for Ya (Snakes on a Plane)

And now back to the great ongoing soundtrack debate...

This One Is for the Ladies

2006-05-18T18:53:00.000-05:00

Girls, why do you buy so many movie soundtracks? I don't get it. In my life, I've only felt the need to buy two (both of them John Williams scores), and I sold one and didn't really enjoy the other. When I buy music, I want to hear a body of work from a creator. Soundtracks (and scores), on the other hand, are compilations (or accompaniment), formats that seem limited by the needs of a movie director. Sometimes they're all over the place, and other times they sound homogenous, and a lot of the time they'll have one or two good songs mingled with a bunch of junk, none of which makes me want to buy them. And I don't think I know any guys that have more than one; most don't own any.

So why do you buy them? Some of you have a handful, but some of you listen to almost nothing but soundtracks (you know who you are). Why is that? I'm genuinely curious. Caity Hannon, you need to post your reply! It's exactly what I'm looking for!

It Just Ain't What It Used to Be

2006-05-12T10:38:00.000-05:00

Allow me to drop some personal science on the ongoing music discussion. I went to a concert last night (an increasingly rare occurence for me), and the experience is relatively fresh in my mind.

After standing in line for nearly an hour outside (surrounded by legions of 13-year-old girls), I was treated to another hour of standing inside as Amanda, Stuart, Stephen and I stood as close as we could to the stage in anticipation of The Main Event. My feet started to let me know they weren't having much fun, but I assured them it would be worth it. Presently, the opening band, the Damnwells, emerged to start the show. Their first song featured a thundering bass drum beat with equally bombastic bass line. We all immediately became aware that we were standing right in front of the subwoofers, as our breastbones violently vibrated to the 80hz beat. It was unpleasant. No, it was painful, but in the following songs, as the beat settled down, real pain birthed and grew in my ears, especially the left one, which was so serendipitously positioned to receive the most sound possible from the nearby overhead speakers. The Damnwells weren't bad, but they weren't good, either, and I didn't appreciate their damaging my hearing with their mediocre music. So, I did something I haven't done in 20 years, I moved to the BACK at a rock show.

When my head cleared, I realized I've only ever enjoyed two "opening" or "support" bands (those bands put on the bill ahead of known performers, for purposes of exposure) in my entire concert-going career. The first was the legendary Buddy Guy, who opened for Dave Matthews Band at Soldier Field (before it was converted into a space station). Let me tell you, Buddy has some soul, and it was a blessing to have his acoustic waves wash over me. The second opening band I really enjoyed was an little band the Fray, when they opened for Ben Folds. They were upbeat rock rock that employed a piano as a featured instrument, and I liked their sincere sound with a pop sensibility, so I was very willing to pay $20 to see them again.

Back to the show: last night, the Fray did alright, yep. They played the songs from their album and one cover. Maybe in my younger days, that would constituted a divine experience. Now, it's just not enough. I wanted to hear songs from their little-know EP. I wanted to hear more covers. I wanted new work. I wanted...to feel like I felt back in 1994 at the Audio Adrenaline concert, when the sea of people in front of me was jumping up an down in unison, or how I felt a year later at an outdoor Jars of Clay show, when I was the one jumping and I didn't care if anyone noticed I had no rhythm.

I think those days are gone. I gotta find something else to appreciate in music. I'm starting to find it, I think. Small things, like a catchy little tune, or the simply lyric, "Some times the hardest thing and the right thing are the same." Nothing earth shattering, but then again, was rock ever that big of a deal?

*Listen to the Fray. I like!
*Are you a rockist?

I Got Four Words for Ya

2006-04-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

Snakes...On...A...PLANE!

Please note: "Plane" is short for "airplane." This is a preview (or "trailer") for a movie about snakes, and more specifically, about a very unique group of snakes ON A PLANE! (Movies about snakes and airplanes are nothing new. However, no film maker has yet been brave enough to attempt to combine the two genres). Also, Samuel L. Jackson is present, with the snakes, which are on a plane. Recap: Snakes--On a Plane. Say it with me now. Snakes on a Plane. This is gonna be awesome.

Chef Cooks Others but Can't Take the Heat

2006-03-17T23:54:00.000-06:00

Isaac Hayes has quit South Park because of the show's "intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs." I wonder if he means the countless times the show has slammed Christianity, Catholicism, Judiasm, Mormonism, and the person of Jesus in its nine years on the air, or if he's referring to their recent diss of Scientology, which he practices. Hayes, aka Chef, says "there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins."

I like what SP co-creator Trey Parker had to say about it: "Past episodes of South Park have skewered Catholics, Jews and Mormons, among others. [We] never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin."

...Or maybe Hayes didn't quit and all the nastiness was published as a part of a Scientologist conspiracy. I hope you at least watched the episode. Stay tuned for my upcoming expose of Masonic handshakes...

The Big One

2006-03-06T23:15:00.000-06:00

Well, it looks like it's finally going to happen. Many have been hoping for it and praying for it for years. Some have prayed that it wouldn't. It is a renewed battle over abortion in this country.

The stars began to align not too long ago, with the retirement of two supreme court justices and the appointment of two replacements who seem conservative enough to think about overturning Roe v. Wade. Roe was at the heart of the debate over both candidates, and a particularly bitter battle was fought over the confirmation of Samuel Alito, who once wrote the minority opinion favoring mandatory notification of the father of a potentially aborted fetus.

Wasting no time, the South Dakota House passed a bill that would outlaw nearly all abortions in that state, and its Senate quickly followed. Almost immediately, Mississippi's House passed a similar bill. And on March 6, the governor of South Dakota signed their bill into law.

OK, pro-lifers, where do you/we go from here? Assuming the S. Dakota and Mississippi laws are challenged all the way to the Supremes, and the neo-conservative court overturns Roe, what then? We have to ask ourselves some tough questions.

Most importantly, What's going to happen to all those newborns? Adoption (the loving option)? That will help, but it won't solve the problem. Over one million couples wait to adopt every year in this country, but the number of abortions supercedes by as many as 300,000. And that assumes that every couple that wants to adopt is eligible--financially, ethically--to legally adopt the child. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the fathers of those unaborted children rescind their parental rights (as unlikely as that may be)
and that 80% of those couples are eligible; that leaves 500,000 helpless, unwanted human beings brought into the world.

What kinds of situations would these children be forced into? According to the Guttmacher Institute, women "with incomes below 200% of poverty made up 30% of all women of reproductive age, but accounted for 57% of all women having abortions." This poses a problem. If eligible couples adopt without regard for the economic situations of the biological parents, 285,000 children would be born into poverty. How likely are the children to succeed in life if they are born into the slums of Chicago's south side, Oak Cliff, Atlanta, etc? How will they eat? How will they attend school? The welfare system is already overstretched. Perhaps more importantly, how likely are these children of disadvantaged women to be the victims of abuse?

I ask because not only is the government ill prepared to handle the potential influx of economy-draining infants, the right and the Church are completely and utterly unprepared to do anything about the situation. Most conservatives would not support government handouts for these new mothers, and this Republican-controlled congress would therefore most likely kill any bill that would further stretch the Fed's dollar for welfare "handouts." The impetus would then fall on non-profits and churches. How many of them are financially and logistically prepared to undertake a project of such massive proportions, of caring for 300,000 newborns? I submit to you, none, or so few that their impact would be unnoticed. If neither the goverment nor the church can care for these children, what kind of public support will there be for an abortion ban? Surely, these malnourished, uneducated, emotionally, physically, and sexually abused children would have been better off never having been brought into the world to begin with. Which is the greater evil--to end a dead-end life painlessly before it is even cognizant, or to bring it into the world to humiliate, torture, and rob it of its dignity? The good citizens of these United States will not stand for the mass abuse of hundreds of thousands additional innocent children.

Secondly, you/we, the pro-life camp, need to agree on when life really does begin. Does it begin at fertilization, or does it begin at implantation? I ask because there exists an alternative to invasive abortion, one which could solve the abortion debate, that begs an answer. Plan B, or emergency contraception, can be taken within three days of unprotected sex to prevent a pregnancy. It differs from the controversial RU-486 in that it will not work if a woman is already pregnant. Plan B prevents fertilization or implantation, and it is impossible to control which. Bottom line: a zygote will not survive if it is not implanted in the uterus. Do we defend all human cell integration, or do we draw the line at viable embryos, ones that have a chance of surviving, ones that will certainly develop into a unique human life? A delineation of "human life" (that which contains human DNA) and "unique human life" (that which can and will develop into a unique human being) speaks to other issues as well, e.g. stem-cell research and medicine.

The lawmakers in South Dakota thought Plan B had some merit, and included a clause permitting its use in Section 3: "Nothing in section 2 of this Act may be construed to prohibit the sale, use, prescription, or administration of a contraceptive measure, drug or chemical, if it is administered prior to the time when a pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing." I quote Slate's William Saletan: "Look at that language carefully. It doesn't just say you can take a contraceptive drug before sex. It says you can take such a drug after sex, as long as it's before conventional tests can detect a pregnancy."

Pro-lifers, now is the time to get your act together. Want to outlaw abortion? Great--come up with a plan to care for the lives that you defend; no mere Modest Proposal will do. We can say life begins at fertilization, implantation, or sometime in the third trimester (as the law currently reads); nobody's going to listen to anything else. If at fertilization, then writing a provision for Plan B is construing, in ever so small a way, a right to murder a select group of human beings: those who are unfortunate enough to be the product of rape. If at implantation, then we need to fight for contraception, including emergency contraception, to be distributed on-demand and at low- or no-cost. We must be prepared not only to fight, but to win, and to sacrifice our tax dollars, charitable contributions, and volunteer hours to deal with the consequences if we do. The majority of Americans believe that abortion is immoral, but even so most believe it should still be legal. Outlawing abortion will be an uphill battle, and a house divided against itself--believing one thing morally and legislating another--cannot stand.

Sources:

Patterns in the Socioeconomic Characteristics of Women Obtaining Abortions in 2000-2001, the Guttmacher Institute.

About.com Abortion Statistics

Take the Fifth, The Road from Roe, Slate

Reuters

Peep This Crunkness Wit' a Quickness

2006-03-06T12:45:00.000-06:00

Check out the choppers on Oscar-winner Juicy J, who won Best Original Song for "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp."

Now that's what I call Teef!

Walk Like a Cowboy

2006-03-03T12:31:00.000-06:00

I stopped buying blue jeans when I was 16 years old. I was done with them. I didn't need 'em.

Growing up, I had worn many pairs of denim pants. The seed of my disdain for them was planted early on. One of my earliest childhood memories is of shopping for jeans at the 1/2 Price Store. My mom made me try on several pairs. The ones I liked were "too long in the crotch" for Mom's taste, and the ones she liked were unbearably stiff and rough. "They'll break in after I wash them," she promised. Yeah, right. I guess they must have, but over the years, both conceptually and practically, jeans never got any more comfortable.

They never got any more cool-looking, either. As I became more fashion-conscious, I became more and more at-odds with those who provided my jeans. "Stylistic differences" led to my not wearing jeans baggy enough to meet my cool quota. Crotch-length (or "rise" as it is called in the industrty) was always an issue; to this day I'm not sure why. I was stuck with skinny, low-rise jeans when the rest of the civilized world was wearing baggy, comfortable-looking pants. By my 16th birthday, I had rebelled.

I walked away from jeans at that age. The pockets were much too small for my hands and keys. They were always exposing the waistband of my BVDs when I sat. The bottoms of the legs never fit over my shoes--cuffs that rest above one's hightops and not around them is the mark of a true dork, and as a homeschooler, I was already handicapped in the dork department and didn't need any help from stupid pants. And khakis were so much more comfortable! Those were some pants that fit my style (I was going for sport-prep/Asian/skateboarder in high school). I got a lot of questions about why I didn't wear 'em, and, eventually, a lot of crap from the likes of Caitlin O'Hannon and other jeans-enthusiasts, too.

Then one day my then-girlfriend complimented one of my guy friends on some jeans he was wearing. I noticed 'em, too. They did look kinda good, in their own way. This got me thinking, and opened my mind to the Possibility of Jeans. Months later, I found a pair of clearance-rack Gap jeans that fit, were in the "authentic" style (which is really faux-authentic), were "relaxed" fit, not low-rise (in your face, Mom!), and had deep pockets, all for $20. I decided to give 'em a try. I must confess, I liked 'em.

Now I can't stop buying those darn blue pants. I'm on my third pair, and things have really come full-circle. The last ones I bought were low-rise, and the least-baggy trou I've worn in years. I hate to admit it, but they're probably the coolest pants I own. My khakis are becoming obsolete. Why did I wait so long to return to pants that fit well like this? Why did I give 'em up in the first place?

I feel like a cowboy when I walk. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, ropin'n'ridin', tobacco spit, belt buckles and purdy ladies. I should have boots for this.

You Might Be an Evangelical If...

2006-02-28T15:02:00.000-06:00

#10. When you pray, you punctuate all entreaties with as many "justs" as you can, as if to convince the Lord you are not asking too much. "Lord, we just want to thank you." "Lord, we just ask that you watch over Bobby as he heads off to college." Lord, can You really say no to such modest requests as these?

Find out if you are a true Evangelical by reading #s 9-1. Thanks to maxskybarger and Alan for reminding me to read The Wittenburg Door.

Photo Tour of the Balkans, Part II

2006-02-22T11:31:00.000-06:00

Today's Magnum slide show is an excellent photo essay of the former Yugoslavia. I loved these photographs. They made a part of the world (and a part of history) that was once abstract to me a little more material. Enjoy.

Firelance, forgive me for hijacking your thread.

Regarding the Return of the Beard

2006-02-17T15:43:00.000-06:00

No doubt this beard will be used only for evil, and never for good:

Your mom goes to college.

Valentine's Day, Ya'll

2006-02-14T14:54:00.000-06:00

Every year, single women and all sorts of men proclaim their hatred for this day. It's contrived! It was conceived in a vast conspiracy of women, Hallmark, and FTD! But you know what? I've always kind of liked V-Day, despite natural law's decree that as a male, even a single one, I ought to hate it. Why do I like it?

I think because it holds promise. It reminds us that true love, romantic and steadfast, exists in the world. It gives us hope. And it celebrates the first recorded gift God gave to man: companionship. (Oh, and it reminds us of the first commandment given, too: be fruitful and multiply).

So celebrate, even if it's only in a small way. Cherish your friends and loved ones today. If you've got a wife or a husband, show 'em some appreciation; after all, you could be all alone in this world with nary a soul to comfort you (and don't neglect that commandment, eh? You know what I'm talkin' 'bout.) And if you're still pissed about the day, don't blame St. Valentine, blame Chaucer.

And check out these fantastic V-Day photographs from Magnum.

Atheist's Nightmare

2006-02-02T16:02:00.000-06:00