Fare Thee Well

Were he still among us, today would be Carl Sagan's 75th birthday. I've always respected the man immensely, and today, he and his philosophies weigh especially heavy on my mind. He is missed by many, and I feel the world is at a severe disadvantage in his absence. Below are a few of his more poignant messages for humankind.

And with that, I retire this blog. I may return to Internets in some form or another, and some place or another. I didn't know it when I started my little web journal here, but this was a finite thing, and now seems the right time to say good bye. Good bye.

AM 1000

And here's a version with better resolution for you qualityphiles out there.

Gosh, Blog,

I feel just rotten having forgotten about this thing for eighteen days. There were things getting between me and you, my public; things you wouldn't understand, shouldn't understand. I couldn't have updated, and I didn't have.

The last couple of weeks have been spent trying to reconcile my unemployment with my money-wasting lifestyle. The latter has shown to be the victor, and I fear morbid results are on the way.

Checks and balances; last week, I adopted a new cat from the Humane Society. His name's If Gary Busey Were a Cat, although we've been calling him If Gary. Then, yesterday, my mother calls to tell me my little old dog has died. She was the first living thing I was ever charged with caring for, although I never really took too gooda care of her. I remember once, I couldn't have been more than five, in the middle of the winter when I carried her up the stairs of our front porch, which couldn't have been more than four feet or so, holding her out over the icy garden, and dropping her into the yard on her back, I guess just to see what would happen. My mom yelled at me; I don't remember how I reacted immediately, but whenever I think about it now I feel awful, and shit if I'm not gonna miss the hell out of that little dog.

A more author-centric entry than usual, but I haven't been feeling all that ephemeral recently.

Extraordinary Rendition (of this song)

This entry dedicated to my wonderful mother, who hopefully isn't aware of this blog.

For the Love of Lightning

It has come to my attention that the site of Wardenclyffe Tower, Nikola Tesla's last and most ambitious project, is up for sale to whoever wants it and has $1.6 million.  Friends of Science East, a nonprofit organization whose name pretty well explains their mission, is working with the State of New York and Suffolk County to purchase the land from Agfa Corporation, the company which owns the land and manufactured photographic emulsions there, and which has threatened to destroy the buildings on the property (one of which was the laboratory, originally (I guess to make the land more appealing to developers?)).  

So, to quote Billy Joel (verbatim), "Who gives a shit?"  I do.  I give a huge, corny shit about this.  Tesla, to me, is easily the raddest dude of both the 19th and 20th Centuries.  

A little background about Wardenclyffe.  Tesla bought the 200-acre site in 1901, and on the land he built Wardenclyffe Tower, an early transmitter of wireless telegraphy and a facility which could be used to demonstrate the wireless transmission of electrical energy.  This revolutionary invention was initially backed by J.P. Morgan and other heavy hitters in industry, who believed the development of a wireless power grid/communication system would be very lucrative.

Then, however, Tesla gave a public speech about Wardenclyffe, during which he made the following statement:

"As soon as [the Wardenclyffe facility is] completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place ..."

Tesla believed the services provided by the tower and others like it could provide a free, "world system", making telecommunications and electricity available to all people, all around the world.  Morgan and the other investors, however, disagreed with Tesla's philanthropic views and immediately withdrew funding.  Morgan also convinced other potential investors to avoid funding the project.  With the funding collapsing and debts mounting, Tesla eventually awarded the deed to the Wardenclyffe property to the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in order to pay for his lengthy stay there.  In 1917, the tower itself was eventually demolished because the US Government believed it could be used by German spies.  He died penniless, insane, and obsessed with pigeons.

Friends of Science East wants to take the Wardenclyffe property and restore it to its brief former glory, with plans to place a museum and research center in the original structure, and to rebuild the 187-foot tower.  Although I assume anyone reading this will be one of my penniless friends, they have set up a fund, to which you are welcome to donate, which will hopefully gather enough money to allow the memory of Nikola Tesla's achievements to finally be recognized in a public venue.

It's tax deductible.

More information on the Wardenclyffe facility.

Good Night, Sweet Prince

A couple of weeks ago, while I was at work, our (my roommates' and my) cat, Eliot "Three-Jay" Marcoullier, was struck and killed by a car, or an SUV, or a lorry, on Minneapolis' busiest thoroughfare.  It was a heartbreaking experience for all of us.  I loved the little guy to pieces, and the following video is dedicated entirely to him.

Here's a link for those who like their videos in better-than-youtube quality.

The music, by the way, is Duster Bennett's brutally moving "Everyday".

In Loving Memory

Three-Jay

2008-2009

I'll Steal It! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!

I saw a still from this posted on John K.'s animation blog, and it all came rushing back into my consciousness. I love Chuck Jones' sense of design on all the characters, and especially how Dan Backslide sort of looks like Mel Blanc.

Hark, a Canadian

They're on my blogroll already, but that just doesn't cut it.  Here is a short list of comic artists who I would open-mouth kiss and/or with whom I would enter into a common-law marriage:

Jess Fink

Katie Beaton

Tara McPherson

Tim Kreider

John Kricfalusi

In truth, I'm only interested in kissing girls, but I don't know if I could turn down Tim Kreider or the illustrious John K. if they asked nicely.  Also, the first two entries on the list are friends, so I can't help but imagine some sort of hazy, bohemian loft-turned-opium den in Uptown Minneapolis where I just sit around all day with two sexy lady artists and blow smoke into sunbeams.  That's the stuff.

This is Gonna Be a Good Summer

I can tell because my mood today is a mix of this



and this.

Crazy Love - Van Morrison & Bob Marley

Just Pretend the Starships are Gay People and the Bugs are Vermonters

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7988549.stm

"It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! [...] Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle."

Just Pretend The Helicopters are Gay People and that the Vietnamese People are Iowans

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7981893.stm

The House in the Middle

House in the middle
Uploaded by at_archive

Goddamnit the '50's rocked. I saw this video awhile back when I was researching for a project, and I'd forgotten about it until now. Note how they use atomic paranoia not only to get folks to rake their yards, but also to get them to hate poor people! And you've gotta love how the golden reward for people who follow the CLEAN UP, PAINT UP, FIX UP campaign's credo is a charred shack lousy with nuclear fallout.

Also, I wish I'd known about this when I was in Scouts.

Two Facelifts for Sister Jeffrey

As I have become bored recently with this blog, I've decided to, yet again, make a few changes.  I'm trying out a few new names, because I think the Chicago Public Radio pun is getting a little old.  Once I find one I really like, I'll change my URL.  

Content-wise, I'm going to try to shift away from bitching about my endlessly trivial life and focus more on some of my passions:  nuclear explosions, naked girls from the '50's, and pedal steel guitars.  Expect things to get a whole lot more pretentious around here.

Progress Report

Ok, let's put aside how new he is, how handsome he is and how black he is.  Let's put aside the fact that he's not his predecessor, and that his grandmother died a few months back.  Let's put aside the fact that John Roberts fucked up his oath of office, and let's put aside the fanfare and the hair-raisingly ironic Shepard Fairey propaganda, and the speech at the victory column.  In his two months of office, Barack Obama has been, in my humble and perhaps (PERHAPS) uninformed opinion, a pretty crappy president.  I know he's distracted by the strained economy, but even before that, even during the campaign, I never heard him (or John McCain, or Al Sharpton) breathe a word against the Patriot Act.  In fact, I don't think he ever mentioned it at all.  Now, I don't know if this is because he simply didn't have the time in all of his lofty, towering allocutions to say a little something about civil rights, or if he actually supports the legislation (See: Lord Acton's Dictum), or if I just haven't been paying enough attention.  But, I like to think I keep up on things, and I read most of the stories on the President when I scroll through the news every day, and I think that, even if I've missed some citation of the Patriot Act by America's Sweetheart, even if there's a reference to it tucked away in some far corner of the recorded media, my point stands unscathed.  Because, foks, this is EASILY the most vile piece of law to have come out of the last administration, and if Obama means business, he should be shouting its curses from the goddamn White House roof.  This may seem nitpicky of me, but, you know, it's one of the biggest mistakes ever made by our Government, and I haven't heard so much as an apology from anyone for, like, eight years of bullshit man.  

Now, I ALSO haven't heard anything about No Child Left Behind, which is also extremely bothersome, Especially since the President came out of a part of the country that was really taken advantage of by it.  And now I'm hearing that we're spending the better part $700,ooo,ooo to keep Mexican drug dealers out of the United States.  Frankly, aside from what Obama has said he plans to do at some point, I haven't seen enough of a difference between the old boss and the new boss to get me to vote again in four years.  This may change, and I hope it does.

"Let Go of My Hair, Bitch!"

Maybe I'm too Smart to Sleep

Welp, the passion's gone from my life. It left the moment we had a 60-degree day with sun and thawed dirt. Passion, usurped in an instant by the immature freewheeliness of spring. Not until autumn's whipping winds will I again find the perceptive tunnel vision required for me to pull it together and do something. All I can think of as it becomes warmer and friendlier outside is kites and tall steel slides and the smell of crayons. I wish meeting girls in the park was as easy as John Cusack makes it look. I can't wait to start finding tufts of nylon fibers stuck on benches again.

I deleted my facebook about three weeks ago, and my anxiety levels have dropped like a baby bird on the sidewalk. But my connections to the tangential people are shriveling like a baby bird on the sidewalk. Still, I'm finding a lot more time to sit around and be bored, which is something I didn't have enough of before now.

I'm currently taking an introductory course in logic. I'd always thought before now that I was a reasonable, logical person, and now I've been forced to abandon that fantasy like a mother bird who pushes her babies out of the nest and has to watch their swollen, purple, ugly, ugly eyes pop like blueberries on the sidewalk. I miss the feeling of intellectual superiority I once had over people who suck, and I'm finding that I'm pretty much a know-nothing with a head full of 1996 Guinness facts and no real smarts, and those sucky folks have probably had the right idea all along.

Happy Spring!

I Tried So Hard to Share Your Fun

I'm finding it more and more difficult to justify having this blog. I live with all the people who read it, and in the course of conversation at home, I usually repeat whatever's on here directly to them, and I always show them my comics with the gusto of a Pokémon kid well before they're posted on this meaningless Wyoming billboard of a web journal. I've had maybe 20 or 30 different people look at this thing since I started it almost a year ago. And let's be realistic, now: the only reason any of us posts anything on the internet is so that we can get attention for it. Nobody does anything just because. Some people get a certain therapeutic sensation from writing on a blog, but as anyone who reads this particular blog can likely tell, that's not the case for me. I don't really get any satisfaction from writing things down I already know in my head, because nobody's going to see them anyway. So for now, everybody, I guess just brace yourselves for something of a lapse in publishing.

Monsters of Bach

I've started listening to only classical music lately, as much as someone can really "only" voluntarily listen to one kind of music. Maybe it's just that I'm going through a non-musical phase, but I don't think so. I don't really miss rock n' roll or pop or even jazz all that bad; and I think I would miss classical quite a bit if it were somehow stripped away from me. Maybe it's because I've been spoon-fed the young-people stuff since I was little by my parents and friends. It's like some weird, weird psychological thing whereby in order to gain independence from my immediate circumstance, I run to the biggest status quo in music. I think it must be the same way Alice Cooper became a Republican. This is not to say I'm a musical Luddite; I still prefer composers of whom there are photographs to composers of whom there are only portraits. I'm just sick of trying to keep up with the newest Santogold release as if I give a shit, and of keeping company with hipsters far hipper who will always be more on top of it than I am, and of being told that hearing a new song I like in a movie is the wrong, dumb people way to discover music. And I'm sick of tall, birdlike women and tall, birdlike men who wear quilted nylon coats and skinny jeans, teetering around Uptown like blueberries stuck on twigs, who go to progressive films and "care" about "tolerance" but who still have this whole bizarre, elitist Cult of Beauty thing going on, uniforms and all. Now, if anyone really reads this, I'm likely to catch flak about never having been a true "music person" in the first place, an accusation about which I don't PARTICULARLY care. It might also be you could criticize my syntax and word choices today as "pretentious," which is fine. I'd rather be a pretentious jerk with a vocabulary grounded in dictionary English than just another internet dolt, lolling and fapping around in a deep, deep well of stupid, stupid people with no individual personalities or thoughts.

Space, Space.

A bunch of interesting stuff I've been running across lately:

The Barbarian Group is a weird design/advertising firm that makes all sorts of interesting digital gizmos and software.  They're probably most notable for designer Robert Hodgin's brilliant, beautiful Magnetosphere visualizer.

These dudes are just plain fucking awesome.