March 26, 2004

Friday Morning in Paris
The cats and I are taking a self-styled Paris vacation this morning. We can't actually go anywhere, and I have work to do but we'll just pretend that we're working from home in Paris. I will smoke my pipe and listen to Beethoven while pretending my Mac is an Underwood Standard Typewriter No. 5. The cats will remain perched in our parisian windowsill listening and watching the busy foot traffic on the city streets below. They will fall asleep there and dream of the rich milk and small slices of cheese that I will feed them for lunch. Later in the morning, when the sun pushes through the fog, I'll go for a short walk to buy some spices and maybe some turnip greens. Do they eat turnip greens in Paris? Hmmm, well, since I'm making it up, and it is my vacation - they definitely have turnip greens! The best part of this vacation is all the beautifully imagined aesthetics without having to talk to any french people or be bothered by language barriers. Perfect.

Nice article in The New Yorker called Pepsi Degeneration. The article highlights camera obscura artist Vera Lutter and her pin-hole photos capturing eerily the dismantling of a Pepsi-Cola sign along the Queens river. More beautiful shots of hers can be seen at KultureFlash.

March 24, 2004

Brother Can You Spare 12 Bucks?
What a classic debate - libraries versus stadiums? It's one for the centuries. This debate probably goes back to the beginning of mankind. Surely the Egyptians and the Romans squared off a time or two on this one. Caligula (a.k.a Little Boots), never met a coliseum proposal that he didn't like. If he had gotten his way all the time, all librarians would have been sold into slavery and their codices and scrolls would have been ground up for cattle feed or reconstituted for chariot glue.

The top Minnesota politicians are riding their own chariots this spring. They've begun to parade around the streets in large numbers, blocking traffic wherever they go. They aren't kidding around this season. They've come dressed in full gladiator armor. Their swords catch the morning light just so and cast a beam of pure light on mission statements that are shorter than attention spans. You can almost catch a glimpse of the Trojan Horse in their compassionate smiles and flirtatious winks given on the morning television news circuits.

These guys have learned a thing or two from their once and future king Norm Coleman. Everyone loves a stadium and more importantly everyone loves the guy that can deliver a new stadium. Delivering a stadium to the people of Minnesota pretty much gives you a political force field and free keys to a new and better chariot.

The premise that I'm not buying in this debate is that somehow new stadiums and new libraries are mutually exclusive. Our finite resources dictate that you can have one one but not the other. I love the Twins and want desperately to watch them playing outdoors in a new stadium on grass. I would also love to be able to keep going to my library on an almost daily basis. I'd love that library to be open more then 3.5 hours a day! But if the states going to frame the debate in this way and make me choose sides, then I'm going libraries all the way. If the New Romans of our state can't find five million for our libraries in need then I'll be damned if their going to spend hundreds of millions on building a new stadium.

Luckily, there are some folks that aren't waiting for leaders to mislead. They've taken it upon themselves to do the hard math and have started passing around the public collection plate. Basically the libraries are suffering from a 4.4 Million dollar budget cut. Spread that over the population and it comes out to $12 bucks a citizen. That's a steal in my book (checked out from the library of course). So if you love libraries, say hell yeah! Now say it again. Now go to The Friends of Minneapolis Public Library and give $12 bucks.

March 23, 2004

Bill Murray versus RZA
From the incredible mind of Jim Jarmusch comes Coffee & Cigarettes, a movie about life's two essential nutrients. Among all the great names associated with the film, I am esspecially looking forward to the scenes with Bill Murray and the Wu Tang's RZA. That's a screen pairing that's way overdue.

March 22, 2004

It Was a Robins Egg
The sun is trying to warm this place and I try in vain to encourage it with ill-fated sun dances and late night prayers. The wind is strong and defies my attempts to bring spring out from its long hibernation. A fine wood bird feeder was bought to liven up the aviary that has begun celebrating with abandon in the back yard. It's a Wild Kingdom competition between the ground squirrels and my flock of northern cardinals, house finches, and chickadees. The squirrels are winning out on the feeder right now. Their intimidation tactics and basic playground bulling have secured their position nicely. The cats are in heaven. They watch intensely the battle being fought, hoping for a chance to get in on the action and prove their superiority. I'm certain that both the squirrels and the birds thank me for holding the kittens at bay. Quite often, while staring out the window, the cats get worked up into a mad ecstasy; delirium takes over there little brains and they run around the house chasing nothing but air and imaginary ghosts. It's fun to watch them tear their claws into dreamed up opponents with outbursts surfaced from lunacy. Good times.

I've become slowly addicted to the seasonal treat known as the 'Robins Egg'. If you're unfamiliar, it's basically a malted milk ball that's been dressed up for a spring fashion show. Speckles are the new black! Delicious in any color. A beautiful treat to have sitting in a nice bowl when dignitaries and guests arrive at your home. Martha is going away for awhile so it's important that we all chip in and keep her spirit alive in our hearts and in our kitchens. The Robins Egg is my contribution.

March 18, 2004

A Sudden Rush of Boohbah to the Head
There are secret messages everywhere. I spent years on the farm trying to emulate Neil Pert beats on all the Rush albums. I even went so far as to read up on my Ayn Rand to properly understand the heavy messages the band was trying to get across. Little did I know that these blazing rock pioneers were just trying to decipher the codices of Samuel Morse. Fantastically, Rush's rock opus 'XYZ' is an exact rhythm attack of the Morse Code letters XYZ. Damn! All this time we were playing records backwards trying to find the devil, while the real messages went unnoticed. This just opens the door to further musical speculation!

Are there any current bands carrying the torch for musical message mysteries? Certainly, the new Squarepusher record looks like a contender. The album 'Ultavisitor' strikes me as being loaded with hidden math-rock telegrams. It could take years to get to the bottom of this one. The album should have come with a decoder ring. I made the mistake of listening to the record while reading Chuck Palahniuk's new short story Guts. I wouldn't recommend this combination of media to anyone.

As a youth, I just wasn't equipped with the proper education to handle these mysteries. The biggest brain-twister of my early childhood education came from the guy on the Electric Company who had toilet paper for ears and eyes. That one left me scratching my pre-cynical dome for quite a while. Todays kids are getting what they need. I believe this only after catching a glimpse of the PBS show Boohbah. Have you seen this thing; micro pod-creatures that run around in an ambient rainbow colored world who make farting noises and dance hypnotically to chilled out techno beats? That shit is crazy. But good. I look forward to a world run by the children who grow up on this stuff. They would have decoded that Rush song in a nano-second. Perhaps these kids will only speak in code when they get older. A whole new language based on farting noises. Should be interesting.

March 17, 2004

Barroom Hero

March 16, 2004

Lustron: House of the Future
There was a great documentary on PBS a few weeks ago called Lustron: The House America's Been Waiting For. The Lustron home was supposed to be the ideal home of the future in the wake of a post-WWII housing shortage. The bright idea of engineer Carl Strandlund, the homes were to be all metal with a baked-on porcelain finish. The idea was to build a prefabricated maintenance free home that could be cleaned by simply hosing the thing down with a gardening hose. Demand for the homes skyrocketed, but a series of bad loans and poor management led the company to go bankrupt before they could blanket the world in baked porcelain. Only a few thousand homes were built. They are spread out all over America. It just so happens that in my neighborhood, on the 5000 block of Nicollet Avenue, there stand seven of these relics all lined up in a nice row. Only a few of them (like the one pictured above) maintain their original old school metal tile facade. Others have tried to hide and compromise their Lustron with stucco and bad limestone brick work. Mike Dust has a nice photo collection of all the Lustron homes on Nicollet. He's also got a good collection of Lustron links.

March 15, 2004

Gamblers Anonymous
Saturday night the missus and I was were up for some epic people watching and light-weight gambling so we pilgrimaged down to Mystic Lake Casinos to see if we could run the tables and come back to Minneapolis with fuller bellies and bank accounts.

The casino was teeming with humans. Large humans. The missus was asphyxiated by mounting smoke clouds within 12 feet of the door. Naturally this interfered with our allurement to the slot machine lifestyle, so we quickly side-stepped our way to the buffet. I had heard a lot about the Mystic Buffet. Apparently, it's a huge favorite among people whose culinary palate is impressed by repeat trips to double McCheesy world and anything that comes with the prefix 'super-size'. The Buffet is a huge draw. We stood in line for a half hour watching a muted SinBad routine on a high definition television. Luckily SinBad is very animated, which proved entertaining even though we couldn't make out a single word he was saying.

Thinking about all the fantastic things we were going to buy with our new money, we finally shuffled our way to the head of the buffet line and into the capable hands of the staff. A girl named Treasure took our money. Gabriella, a young girl who only talked into a Bobby Brown-style head-piece microphone directed us to stop and wait. Angel, a 14-month pregnant 15 year-old who looked constipated to the point of paralysis, pointed us to an open booth, and Bonso, a nice African gentleman waited upon us. I quickly ordered two cokes because they don't have booze at Mystic Lake and we had already paid Treasure for the buffet. I figured I'd start the gluttony party off right. Get my money worth.

We crushed the buffet. Beat it like a tight drum. I was seduced by the corn in chipotle butter. I went back for thirds. The blackened salmon was better than a buffet should offer. I was so full by the end that I wasn't prepared to move, to roll myself up to the blackjack tables.

Finally on the casino floor, we went in search of slots. The missus was excited to play a game based on the situation comedy That Girl, and I wanted to play the South Park themed slot game I had spotted on my way in. Unfortunately, all those games were taken in addition to every other game. The only open seats were at the $5 poker slot games. It was impossibly crowded. The Blackjack tables were playing eight deep. We had to fight and scheme to find open chairs to get our gamble on. We managed some spotty play. After about two hours the misses was way up on some slot game. She's a far better gambler than I. She bets higher - takes greater risks. I usually get about 10-15 bets in before I'm chatting up whoever is sitting next to me. But the slots are anti-social. Everyone's tossing each other nasty side-glances, especially if they hear the sounds of coins pooping out your slot. I had one hot streak going on a game, but I got bored of it and decided to leave it. I was barely out of my seat when my greedy neighbor, who was playing to my right - leapt on my machine like a puppy looking to suck the last milk drips from his mother's hot running tit. Jesus, at least at the Blackjack tables you can talk to people with some civility while you empty your bank account.

We didn't come home millionaires. We didn't even come home winners but it was a good time anyway and I'm still full from the buffet.

Demozilla

March 12, 2004

Edward Tufte in Minneapolis
Edward Tufte, famed information design guru, is coming to Minneapolis for a one day course called 'Presenting Data and Information'. $320 is a pretty steep admission but all three of his books are included in the price, which makes it a pretty sweet deal.

Rewind Selector
Totally kick-ass dub style flash animation (via The Morning News) that lets you try your hand at being Lee "Scratch" Perry and Kruder & Dorfmiester. I could listen to this action in the background all day.

Also: more poster's than you can shake a designer at - more bloggers with downloadable mp3's than you can shake a lawsuit at. And because it's Friday...Jay-Z being remixed with Kenny G and Janet and Justin Super Bowl Halftime dolls.

March 10, 2004

Where Have All the Subjects Gone
Is it just me or are more and more people simply not using the handy dandy 'subject' field when composing emails? My inbox is full of email simply titled 'RE:'. This is not good. These emails simply get deleted. Immediately. Now I'm no Emily Post, but this new trend is simply unacceptable in the heavy wake of a spam powered yacht-club culture. We simply can't allow ourselves to get this lazy. I have only contempt for people who don't subject their emails. Do these people also forget to put on underwear in the morning? Do they even shower? It makes my stomach turn.

Here are some good examples of Subject headings if you were to send me an email:

Typographical Art at Disneyworld

Oldham does Lazyboy

Design in Flight (pdf magazine): checkout their airplane logo

Text Pattern: A new content management system for websites

I Believe You Martha

The Shield. Pushing the Envelope? Yes. Denting the mailbox? Absolutely.

MOA versus American Pride
An interesting article on Atlantic Online called The Mall of America by Ian Frazier finds the author visiting Minnesota's top tourism attraction and reflecting on it's relevance to American culture. I especially enjoyed this bit of irony:

Not a single item in the USA America Pride store was made in America. I knew that already, just from common sense, but I began looking at the labels anyway. Blue baseball cap with the letters "FDNY" in white outlined in black on the front: Honduras. Black T- shirt with "Born in the U.S.A." in red-white-and-blue letters: Honduras. Black baseball cap with "American Pride" in red-white- and-blue spangles: Bangladesh. T-shirt with comical image involving bin Laden and a camel: Dominican Republic. Coffee mug with picture of Twin Towers: China. And so on.

The Twin Towers mug really gets me. The commodification and misappropriation of disaster is more foul than a Todd Bertuzzi cheap shot. Why are American's so monument/memorial obsessed? It's fascinating following some of the debates around what is an appropriate memorial for the September 11th attack now being planned for Ground Zero. Many contend that whatever is built must be the monument of the millennium. The pyramids at Giza should be dwarfed and humbled by America's architectural response to terrorism. Might we learn something from the Japanese who's humble monument for the victims of the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima is little more than a photograph affixed to a marble tombstone.

March 09, 2004

The Melvins 20th Anniversary Show
Wow, March 20th is really heating up to be the day of days this month. See the post below for more of what's going on during the day. But at night?!? Whoa at night The Melvins are playing their second of two shows in Minneapolis at Grumpy's Bar. They play at Grumpy's Coon Rapids on the 19th and Grumpy's Minneapolis on the 20th. The Melvins are on a micro tour celebrating 20 years of rocking the spot. They will also bring with them a new book/CD called "Neither Here nor There" that goes on sale today at Ipecac Records. The book is chock full of stories and pictures from the last 20 years and features the top of the crop in graphic artists, many of whom have had shows at the OX-OP gallery. They include Obey Giant, Dalek, Camille Rose Garcia, Tim Biskup and more. Opening both shows will be Minnesota's own wonder rockers The Dames. There is already a tantalizing Aesthetic Apparatus poster for the show.

March 08, 2004

March 20th Global Day of Protest
Today, Geoff Johnson, from United For Peace wanted me to put up this flyer for the March 20th Global Day for Peace and Justice and drop some science in the name of solidarity.

What is the Global Day for Peace and Justice? Well...

Anti-war groups throughout the United States and around the globe will take to the streets on Saturday March 20, the one-year anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, under the banner "The World Still Says No to War." Over 150 protests are planned in cities across the United States, from Alaska to Florida, Hawaii to Maine, calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq. Similar demonstrations will take place on every continent in the world, making March 20 a global day of coordinated action in the spirit of last year's historic February 15 protests.

For those local folks here in the Twin Cities. There is local organizing information for what's going to be happening in Saint Paul. For more information get in touch with Minnesota Neighbors for Peace. For those of you in Canada, please check out stopwar.ca or Canadian Peace Alliance. Even more information and flyers are available at International Answer.

March 05, 2004

iPod Mini Bookmarks
Have you noticed the proliferation of magazine ads for the new iPod mini appearing in your monthly subscriptions? You know the one's that let you tear out four paper versions of the real thing? Well the misses has come up with a brilliant use for them. Bookmarks. They're just the right size and gosh darn stylish too. We've appropriated them wholeheartedly. We even follow strict conventional gender wisdom. The pink iPod mini bookmarks are for her books and the blue one's go in mine.

Snow Days Revisited
Another secret snowfall blanketed the morning. What a year to be a child of school age. They probably had at least a week off school this season. When I went to bed around midnight last night I could still see the grass on my lawn. So all of this new snow must have fallen in the last seven to eight hours. This week I've been silently watching two beautiful scarlet red cardinals making a cozy home in one of our backyard bushes. I'm afraid this last snowfall has buried their new deluxe bird condo underneath a small mountain. I wonder where they have been displaced to. I hope they return when the snow is gone again. Another photo.

March 04, 2004

Galactic Panic
The kittens and I share the same physical and psychological space today. It's a recovery kind of space. A post-traumatic stress space, where warm teas and milk blend nicely with a mellow dub vibe on the hi-fi. The kittens just arrived back from a two day vacation at the vet where they both got spayed. I am recovering from some kind of bizarre panic attack suffered last night on the streets of Minneapolis.

I can't say I've ever experienced a panic attack before and I'm not 100% certain that that's what it was. I do know that if it doesn't happen again in my lifetime, then I'll be a happier man.

I ventured out last night to the Fine Line Music Cafe to see the funky stylings of Galactic. The Fine Line is notorious for overselling their shows and last night was no exception. The joint was packed tighter than a Pamela Anderson brassiere. It took all my energy to tunnel through and claw my way past the patchouli stained masses up to the bar. The Fine Line is also notorious for small watered down drinks that are intensely expensive. Last night was no exception to that rule either. Gallactic's first set went by without incident. I was having a good time and getting my micro groove on. But during the break between sets the crowd started weighing heavy on my soul. I noticed I was feeling really hot. Damn hot. Las Vegas in July hot. My legs began to melt, liquify, and spill out from the bottom of my pants. I couldn't see it but I knew it was happening. At that point I mumbled something incoherent to my peeps and excused myself. I needed some fresh air fast. Easier said than done. Walking from far stage left to the front door of the Fine Line felt like summiting Mount Everest without oxygen. And without legs. I spilled many a peoples drinks as I flung myself slovenly from person to person. I was using humans like monkey bars trying to make forward progress in my claustrophobic hell. Eventually I made it outside and collapsed on the sidewalk just four feet from the entrance to the club. I couldn't tell if I was going to puke, if my heart was going to explode, or if my legs were going to fall off. I crawled over to the building wall and sat despondently for a good long time trying to reeducate myself in the fine art of breathing. It wasn't looking good. I was convinced someone had drugged me, slipped something into one of my drinks. I was the Titanic on the streets of Minneapolis going down quickly. I actually called at people to help me as I had no idea what was going on with my body. Thankfully, everyone ignored my pleas and I was left alone. I kept telling myself to 'play though'. Then for some odd reason, in my most desperate hour I started thinking about Bill Cosby. Well not Bill Cosby, but rather Doctor Huckstable from the Cosby Show. It was a weird sorta 'What Would Doctor Huckstable Do' situation. And damn - it worked. After about three minutes of thinking about Doctor Huckstable and concentrating on my breathing I started to come around. And after another five minutes passed I was on my way to a semi-lucid recovery.

I've had minor battles with claustrophobia before. I especially seem to get it bad at Veterinary hospitals. Something about those small windowless rooms with dog and cat intestinal illustrations always seems to send my head spinning. But last night was the first time it took full frightening control over me. It's probably very hard to explain the feeling of full claustrophobia to anyone who has never felt it. Kinda like trying to describe the notion of 'pain' to the girl who feels no pain. Who knows? Maybe Galactic was just too funky and I got a funk overdose. The story would make for a sweet gig review: "The band was so on tonight that I had to leave and pass out on the side walk".

Anyhoo, I've got the the New Orleans JazzFest coming up in just a few weeks and this claustrophobia induced panic attack stuff is not the sort of thing one wants to bring as their 'A-game'. Bottom line. More training is necessary.

March 03, 2004

Super Duper Tuesday
At exactly 7PM last night I reported to my precinct DFL caucus to cast my lot with fellow neighbors and drop civic science on them all. Luckily for me, John Edwards had just burped some mention that he was out of the race before most Minnesotans were able to get to their caucus. That made convincing people to throw their vote behind Dennis Kucinich that much easier. Actually it wasn't that tough. Turns out my precinct is a pretty progressive one. No one seemed really gung-ho to get behind John Kerry. From the people I talked with who were going to vote for Kerry, they spoke in that leveled tone you expect to hear from someone who has just had to shoot their dog in order to put it out of some terrible misery. After an hour passed and the votes were finally counted they broke down as follows:

Edwards: 20
Kerry: 18
Kucinich: 12
Clark: 1
Dean: 1

As for the Kucinich vote, we were a few points under the 17% that he got throughout the entire state. After the votes were tallied we got a pep speech from our Ward 11 Council Member, Scott Benson. Who, it turns out, speaks exactly like you would expect after looking at his photo. A real condescending energetic circus clown kinda guy. He made it clear that one of the central battles being fought in the Ward is the exorcism of the two shady motels that run South on Lyndale Avenue. They are apparently the last two holdouts in a Ward bent on some serious gentrification. Scott assures us all that the two motels have both signed binding legal agreements to clean up their act. Part of which means they both need to "strongly consider an MPD suggestion to increase its room rates as a way of attracting better clientele". It doesn't get any more clearcut than that.

As the caucus lingered on we passed about five progressive resolutions. One resolution demanded the US pull out of and work to put an end to NAFTA and the WTO. Another requested that the US should follow international laws and treaties when it comes to Nuclear Weapons. Two other resolutions fought to refund education and head-start programs and then this last resolution:

Security through International Cooperation:
The U.S. must renounce the doctrine of preemptive war and work with the United Nations to resolve serious, international problems such as terrorism, genocide, nuclear prolifiration, and tyrannical regimes, through the use of diplomacy, the promotion of democracy, focused nonviolent intervention, and peaceful conflict resolutions.

All in all it was a fun time. The highlight of course was the sheer number of humans that came out. Record attendance everywhere. The people seemed determined.

March 01, 2004

Oscar Hangover
Man I can't believe I stayed up and watched the entire Oscar extravaganza last night. Now I'm tired and a bit cranky with myself for spending too many of life's precious hours with that boring event. If it weren't for Will Farrell and Jack Black, I would be hating myself even more this morning. I'm very happy the whole LoTR trilogy business is done. I just never understood the hype around Peter Jackson's directing abilities. I mean the guy can't even make a movie that's not 4 1/2 hours long. From where I come from, that's just a lack of discipline. My two cats slept through the whole affair, only being roused for a brief show of appreciation for that jazzy tune from the Triplets of Belleville. I think they were into the guy playing the bicycle.

Thankfully the rest of the weekend wasn't such a bland affair. I saw Urge Overkill at the Ave Friday night. They tore that place up. Genuine rock stars all the way. The UO have a penchant for all white suits. And for a bunch of aging rockers they looked better than many of the men on the red carpet last night.

Saturday the misses and I went a little overboard and purchased a fine danish end table. Up until this weekend I had a crummy little table next to my reading chair and it was beginning to sag from all the books and magazines piling up. Things would spill off from time to time and it was making the entire living room look like the floor of Mount Saint Helens. The new table has done wonders. Fine furniture has an odd psychological effect on myself. I think when you treat your furniture like art instead of simply something to sit in or put something on, you get a much more satisfing feeling just walking into a room. I guess it's just another sign of aging but nice furniture brings me much happiness.