MisterNihil.com
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29.6.02Did your head explode the first time you saw what you were looking for? Posted at 8:55 PM "She's frumpier than a 'Ruth,' and that takes talent." -Me, on why I call my daughter by her middle name. Posted at 8:54 PM Wow. Off to Toastmasters party with pasta dishes a'cookin. Where the hell is this place again? In, like, Wisconsin? I don't remember. Reading the directions, I think I'll actually wind up in one of those superfluous midwestern states, but I think the party's actually someplace small and north of here. Dammit. And I was just up that way, too. Oh well. Another hour on the road, another hour back. Thus life. Posted at 3:34 PM - - - - - - - 28.6.02P.S. Toshi has noticably defined biceps and calves. Who knew? Posted at 9:50 PM It starts with the shoes. Doesn't it always start with shoes? Imagine if you will, how the US Military would have handled a need for Converse AllStars (hereafter "Chucks"). Imagine a canvas shoe, drab green, with a thin, tough black rubber sole that is glued half way up the side of the shoe, like chucks, only sort of streamlined and paramilitary. Imagine the child of a pair of Chucks and a pair of galoshes. That's the shoe. Then, after the shoes came the harness, a sort of X-shaped thing, fastening around the waist and thighs, with a lovely blue loop in front of the crotch. That loop is really the whole reason for the harness. I went fake rock climbing at a gym today. The harness allows one person to stand on the ground and have a rope attatched to his/her blue loop so that when another person climbing on a concrete wall gets tired, the person on the ground can, by means of a pully, not allow them to fall to a sqishy death, but rather to 'walk' backwards down the wall. That works beautifully if you're the 290 pounder on the ground, holding the rope for your surprisingly agile an cute-when-exerted Toshi. So, what I actually did today is called 'bouldering,' in which a noun is verbed, which weirds the language. That means climbing without a harness, which is fine, as I never got more than about 10 feet off the ground, as I am not really as strong as I probably should be to do that properly. I'm workin' on it. I had a great time, but I'm really really tired. We climbed for an hour before I went to work, and then I climbed for about 40 minutes after (Toshi did about twice that) after. My arms hurt. My fingers won't close into fists. I feel really good, actually. Posted at 9:50 PM - - - - - - - 26.6.02Wow. Busy day. And it's over, only the new one only just started (technically). It got hurt at work and bled on my new pants, but I'm confident that the blood'll wash out. I got a scrape the other day (we have these low benches for people to stand on, but they have sharp corners that catch you just under the knee, no matter how tall you are or how long your legs are), and hit it on something (I don't know what) and it started bleeding. I just have to say oh well and move on. Peter, with whom I work, was concerned for a moment, but I brushed it off. Stuff. When I got home, the electricity was off, and upon further observation, it turned out that it was off all over my neighborhood. Like I say, stuff. The bed broke this morning. I was on it, and it broke. It's come apart before in this same way: The middle bar that holds the mattress up, and upon which the slats rest popped off of the frame. Toshi got some screws and some wood glue from the hardware store and I think I fixed it more perminantly this time. Last time, I drilled holes and put the screws in new holes an inch over, but the bar was crooked and it made the bed sort of off, and much less comfortable. This time, I used the wood glue and screws that were an inch longer. It actually feels more stable now when you sit on it. I had to do this with a normal screwdriver in the relative darkness, as the power was out. I actually made the existing screwholes an inch longer and drilled a new one, all by hand without hurting myself. The bed is fixed, and Toshi is sleeping on it right now. I'm about to do the same, when I get done with this. It was odd: I drove up to the house and hit the button for the garage door opener, and nothing happened. I hit the button again, and nothing happened again, just the same way. Then I realized that the whole neighborhood was dark and that the light in the window across the street was flickering. I got to light my wall sconces for the first time tonight. They work, but they will be cooler once the candles burn down a couple of inches. Then, the light will be behind the magnifying glasses and be spread across the room. Sadly, the candles aren't very bright. With any luck I won't get a lot of chances to use these, although this is the second time in two weeks that the power's gone out. This is the first time there's been a real cause that I can identify. I swear, I think something's going on. First, all of South Austin loses power for an afternoon, inexplicably. Nothing is ever said about it. The news doesn't report it. Then, the next day, Bookpeople and WholeFoods lose power and all of the computers are down. Apparently, the same problem was experienced all over downtown (this was last week). Again, nothing in the papers. That night, I call no less than three grocery stores, and all of them have lost refrigeration and, thus, their entire frozen food sections. Again, nothing in the paper. Either this is just an odd coincidence, or the papers don't know what's wrong, and are thus not reporting it. I think it's brownouts and they don't want to scare anybody. I think that when they decreased voltage to downtown, that's what made the computers shut off and the fluorescent lights strobe in waves across the store. That's what I think. Just unfounded accusations. Just fun. Posted at 11:37 PM - - - - - - - 25.6.02I've been playing with this one for a while too. There are two kinds of beings in this society. OK, sure, I'm discounting lap dogs, very smart and social monkeys, parrokeets that sit on shoulders, etc. Fuck you. My blog. (Thanks Sharon) Point is, there are two kinds of beings in this society. There are humans. They are what we are born into, and what we can't really help being. Humans are when an animal puts on clothes and operates a 1000 pound machine at 90 miles an hour near a school for fun. Humans are what's wrong with this society. People, on the other hand, are what happens when a human gets civilized. People are able to read quickly enough to know how fast is acceptable to drive near a school. People don't drive SUVs, because people don't need to unless they move couches all the damn time. That's the difference. I've just taken to calling all of the stupids who act like animals ("I can cut to the head of the line because I'm faster and bigger than these people, and because they were nice enough not to say anything. If I can get away with it, I should get away with it.") humans and forgetting all of the creative nicknames I used to use for them. People have manners. Humans have behaviors. Posted at 9:55 PM "It's hard to reach enlightenment when somebody is screwing you." -Spike Gillespie tonight, talking about car repair. Posted at 9:50 PM - - - - - - - 24.6.02This is an idea that I've been carrying around with me for a while, and I just wrote on it for ten minutes on 600 seconds. This one, though, has the alternate ending. Ooooh. Alternativey. A fly invited itself to lunch with me today. I sat down and started spreading tuna salad on hard rolls, and it landed across from me. It took the other half of my hard roll, and ate it hungrily. "You know," it said, "most peple don't like to share with flies." Today was salmon salad day (a salad with the prerequisite lettuce and tomatoes, but with chunks of fish and potato and capers) so I didn't mind sharing, but he only wanted to lick the inside of my dressing cup. "After you're finished, of course." "That's kind of a lot of fish. You know, I used to live out at the Pike Street market in Seattle. I actually used to frequent the magic shop there, but the fish market is the reason I'm here. Have you been there?" No pause. "I was actually sitting on the hot dog of a patron in the magic shop. He saw me there and pitched me out into a garbage can with the nub of the dog. I flew out, dejected because he was about to reveal the secret of a card trick he'd just done where he shuffles your card into a deck, then finds it repetedly. It's a cool trick, and I wanted to know how to do it. So I flew out to the fish market, to talk to the guys who hang out there. No, the flies, really, you know what I mean, anyway, so I flew out there and landed on a fish. It was really really cold. I don't know if you know what cold does to flies, but it ain't pretty. Lucky for me that was the top fish on the pile. I think it was a salmon. I can't tell 'em apart. They all look the same to me. The fish got packaged and sent away, and the next thing I know, I'm sitting on a loading dock, slowly warming up. When I could, I flew away. Man that fish smelled good. It's probably the one you're eating now. Are you're sure you're finished? "I've been here a while, kind of scoping the place out a little. You know, being next to a bookstore is pretty cool, too. I went over there. You know you guys don't have many good magic books? Yeah. At least, none that tell you how to do that trick. I saw you have a signed book over there, though. The one about that 'no-name actor' guy, what's his name, parallis, parantis parellant?" It's Perella, but I couldn't get a word in edgewise. "And I saw that next month, Ethan Hawke's coming into town. Isn't he stopping there? Can you get me in? What do you say? Like, I could be there when he arrives. I wanna see that Uma chick. I think that one look at me and she'd be all mine. Yeah. I wouldn't get in the way. I'd be completely unintrusive." I stood up and wiped my mouth. My ice cream bar was melted by this time, so I decided to eat it outside. "I'll see what I can do." I said. The fly looked disappointed. "Yeah, man. See you around." he said and flew off dejectedly toward the table where another of my coworkers was eating. As I walked out the door, I heard a loud whack, like a rolled-up newspaper hitting a table. "Nuffin perfunul" came the muffled shout from under the paper. Posted at 9:27 PM - - - - - - - 23.6.02An example of the fabled Deheoglonic form, only one verse long, sadly, as the rest of the poem seems to have been lost. Notice how the interspersion of topics almost gives it the qualities of the French Dreciaux, and the similarity of them makes it resemble the Swiss Dreciaux. However, the real treat in this poem, obviously a late example (ca. 1933), probably Canadian, is the intralinear rhymes in lines 3 and 9. This means that the form was clearly influenced by the Rhineodactic form (an American form, ca. 1860, last written example 1886), but it clearly is not, as the Rhineodactic will never include the proper name of an European man. The half-rhyme on the first line (dim and Kilkenn) is truely problematic. Whereas first-line intralinear rhymes are strictly forbidden in the Deheoglon (or at least, in later Deheoglons), this is not a true rhyme, and thus, I feel, does not exclude it from the form. In fact, this poem was spared the torches of World War II America, probaby specifically because of this rhyme. It is possible that it was penned in order to avoid the censorship of the day. Thus, this is a true Deheoglon, but with the influences and history that make the later forms truely fascinating. Please, read and enjoy, as this may be the last example of its kind in the western world. Oh, Lo, tho on that night so dim when naught but night could puncture sill did meet the council of Kilkenn' Eoghan Rua O'Neill did take into his own the armies of Ulstrine Catholici-sm The council's moot it did decide the fate of those with dwellings thus in ire'land's greened country-side Eoghan Rua O'Neill's return did mark the rise of Ire'land's church, and thus catholocism's hold The Council's news did bring return to Ire'land continental troops that knew the ways of war and such Eoghan Rua O'Neill was one, from flanders' army taught to fight for forty years he there had trained That kilkenny council did a body politic erect and aim to heal the irish schizm' Eoghan Rua O'Neill gave hope to all of those who oft had said the catholic bell its last had toll'd And thus the irish armies grew and strong the government it too did set to rights the woes of past And she died, oh oh oh, She died, Oh oh oh oh she died Posted at 11:42 AM Oh, yeah. The story is coming. I just have to find an hour to write it up and edit it, but it'll be here. I promise. Posted at 11:17 AM You know those personal milestones you can't talk about that celebrate themselves, but that you want to shout out to the world? Well, Damn, I'm in a good mood. Posted at 11:16 AM - - - - - - - 21.6.02Started a story in my notebook. Will transcribe and finish it tomorrow or so. Now, must sleep. Made Salsa with fresh tomtoes and homegrown Habanero peppers. Made 3 strengths. Weak actually tastes like it'd be really good on beef, all szechuan style. Mid is nice, with not too much burn. Hot is nice, with a pleasant burn, but not overwhelming. I'm gonna let the rest of the crop of peppers mature until they turn orange (as they like to do) before I use them. If the unripe ones are any indication, woe betide any who try next hot batch. It's gonna be crazy. Oh Yeah. Party tomorrow, I suppose. I don't know yet if I'm going. That's kinda what the salsa's for, though, and it'd be kinda a disappointment. Whatever. Life is Life. And if it isn't, I've never been able to tell the goddam dfference. Posted at 1:11 AM - - - - - - - 19.6.02How 'bout this lovely bit of pre-history: "Are you still alive my friend?" He kindly asked of me As I could not answer for myself he kindly spoke for me. "I feel just peachy, since you ask, alive in word and deed," And saying this, into my ear, he placed a centipede. It wiggled there, and squirmed a bit it felt rather a fright And there he sat a'singing as I ran into the night. His verse, I fear was terrible and it is from that I run, Oh, that gem from Tupper, that wretched deheoglon, "and she died, oh oh oh she died oh oh oh oh she died." Posted at 11:58 PM Whoo Hoo! Posted at 11:39 PM Electronic Bill Payment is a wonderful thing. No paper to throw away, no dealing with stupid humans who lose checks and 'forget to credit accounts.' Nope. Just me and a machine, and I've had no problems with it yet. Yup. So, then, you wonder, where the heck is Southwestern Bell on this one? As usual, up in head-crack-city. Yup. They can't even accept credit cards on the phone 24/7 yet. They don't even have real customer support after 8pm (just operatrors with sad, sad misinformtion, including, "Sure we take a credit card online. Why else would we have instituted that service? a-huh!") (Well, that was MY damn question, lady) But the point is, I've had great luck with paying the gas company so they don't cut off my gas again. I like 'em. Although, they also don't have 24 hour phone support, which is, I suppose, a cost-saving measure. www.misternihil.com (I'd link to it, but you're reading it) has no phone support whatsoever, for the most part. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining. Although, we do take credit cards online. Or rather, you can pay for anything on the site with a credit card, same as cash! There. That sounds better. Posted at 11:36 PM "Oh my god! I can't smell my legs! My Legs! I can't smell my legs!" "Feel, Bob. It's only bad when you can't feel 'em or see 'em." "Oh, yeah. Sorry." Posted at 9:49 PM - - - - - - - 18.6.02If I Were A Cynic: Today's topic on 600 seconds was "Conditioning." I'm glad I didn't do the joke about hair conditioning. Great minds think alike, or they think about hair, or something. Whatever. Heroes never quit, and quitters never hear. Posted at 10:39 PM This was going to go on 600 seconds, but I thought it felt inappropriate. It seems too personal, and not, somehow. I don't know. I've got all this crap I'm thinking about and not, so It's hard to know what's going on half the time. I'm so full of hate and I don't know what to do. It's making it hard to deal with everybody else. I can't explain it, I can't control it, I can't deal with it. I wonder what happens next in the story. Conditioning. And start: Beating the air into the shape you want, training it by chemical force, slowing it down until it damn well behaves. Years and years and years. I Will Not be Angry, I Will Not be that guy who hates the world, I Will Not be who I seem to be at base. Anger is such a basic feeling, such a building block of myself, such temporary rage, such suppression built up over years. I remember before I started trying to control what I was inside, or rather I don't. I didn't have any real memory then, just sort of flowing through life, doing whatever I Felt, there was no buffer between my brain and my reality. Society is just a way to tell you that you need to change your behaviours, that what you are inside your head isn't what you need to be outside your head, that you ARE something to be ashamed of. So I guess it must have started as early as age 5, trying to control what came naturally, trying not to do whatever I was thinking of doing. It went on until about 2 or 3 years ago, when I discovered that I could actually have self control, provided I wasn't drinking. That's when the real shields came up, that's when the walls were finished. The absence of bourbon became the arrow slits in the walls, the final defense to keep what I was feeling from infecting the outside world. All those memories, all those things, all that rage was sort of released on Friday. A progression of bad things was brought up and promptly not dealt with. My mood hasn't been the same since. Damn this is hard. I have lost my conditioning. Grr. I can't stop talking about it. Grr. There was no space inside the balloon. I fit there, and so did my friends, but nobody else. It didn't work that way. Posted at 10:05 PM - - - - - - - 17.6.02Poetic Forms through the ages, part One: The Deheoglonic The Deheoglonic form (not to be confused with the Deheoglosic) originated in Greece in approximately the year 1702. The first published example known is dated 1704, but has been authenticated to be from 1703. Since those early days, more than ten thousand Deheoglons have been written, almost half of those in Canada. Among the most famous and outspoken proponents of the Deheoglon was Martin Farquhar Tupper, who, in 1840 said "The Deheoglonic stye is without match in the world of poetic forms. There are none like it, and there never need be another form beyond it." The Deheoglonic form is one of the more specific forms. It consists of twelve verses of nine lines each, in iambic dodecameter, with the rhyme scheme ABCDEFBDG. These twelve verses are interspersed with a chorus which must be in the form: "And she died, oh oh oh, She died, Oh oh oh oh she died" The Deheoglon is almost unique in another way: The events in the poem must be real historical events which took place in Ireland, in the year 1642. This fact stems from the belief of originator of the Deheoglonic form, Philemothy of Sethpheth (a small village outside Athens), that the world, in fact, ended in the year 1642, and that we must examine all of the historical events of that year in order to find out precisely when and why, and that a poem in the deheoglonic form could, if properly written, bring the world back. Some writers in the 1870's, seeking to broaden the scope of the form, began writing about fictionalized events set in that year, but which certainly could have happened. The then 60-year-old Tupper said of these poets: "Hang them." The Fictionalized Deheoglon, dubbed the Deheoglosic poem, was a very short lived art form, and quickly devolved into the Spatzanoid, or Dreciaux form (q.v.). The Deheoglon continued to be a favorite poetic form until 1936 when it was made illegal in Canada by a clause in the United States national budget of that year. President Franklin D. Roosivelt said of the Deheoglon: "It is my belief that the people of America will fare far better without such evils in their lives. The future of America is a future without Tupper." It is now known that Theodore Roosivelt maintained an ongoing rivalry with Tupper, and that those animosities were passed down to his fifth cousin. Examples of the Deheoglon are almost impossible to find in either country to this day, even though the law was later repealed under the administration of George H. W. Bush (the senior of the two Bush presidents). In the ensuing years, the form was all but forgotten, even overseas where it originated. Currently, only one Deheoglonic poet is known to be writing, and he from a small cottage on an island off the coast of Turkey, near Cyprus. He has no direct means of outside communication, and the poems wash up in empty bottles on the beach where they are promptly confiscated and burned by members of the Turkish army. Posted at 10:30 AM Moments in My history which Have Had a Profound Effect on my Writing: To pass the TAAS test, we were told that we needed a main point supported by three subordinate points, those supported by five facts each. The facts need not be true, but they must not be opinions. You can support your points on a bed of lies and score the best score possible on the TAAS test. We were not given dictionaries or other reference sources, and the topic was to be a surprise. Thus, lies were a must. Posted at 10:02 AM There are stupid greeting/post cards that say the parts of a cat's brain are like: play with string; lick self in front of guests; claw curtains; catch insects; play with fluff; scare people with creepy eyes; detect opening food cans; shed; et cetera. Nope. This is creepy. These are little predators (really, really well suited ones, at that) whom we have encouraged to live in our homes and to be near us when we're helpless. The parts of their brains go like this: Kill. Sorry. You can leave out meat so they won't hurt you personally or eat your children, but they are, in fact, tough little killer meat-tubes. They live in your house. You think they are cute because you never really watch them. Posted at 2:09 AM A thousand things sort of percolate up from the back of my mind where they've been waiting for a spare receptor. Being shallow all the time is fine unless you want to remain yourself. I was becoming that person, always happy, quite literally always actually making myself happy. I wasn't able to deal with the world, and so I dealt with it all absolutely in the same way. I did not stress. I did not worry. Nothing got to me. I think there was a moment recently when I had to decide whether to actually become that person or to deal with some of those feelings. I made a choice. The fact is, I'm tired of being that person. I want to let me become myself again so I can, first of all, deal with some of these feelings I'm having, and second, explore who I am in this world of wonder and disease. I decided to stop being a person who is shallow and pretends to be deep, and start being a person who is aware that he is just a person and wants desperately to know what that really means. No, that's the moron talking. I want to know why I feel like I do. I want to know why my thoughts work like this. I need to know what I need to do with them and what I need to to with myself. I need to grow up and I don't want to. I am the product of a billion years of the need to reproduce and the need to eat competing until the need to create without creating a little creature finally came into existance and became a third competitor. I am a human animal. Posted at 2:06 AM I don't know why this happens. I'm full of unease. I don't know. I think it was brought up recently and then not dealt with properly. I'm having a lot of memories and no way to deal with the feelings that come up with them. It's odd. Not self-loathing, but a sort of self-recognition, or something. I suppose I have a shadow side after all. I don't like it, but it seems to be there. Discovering depth is an odd thing. Depth means all those things you have been hiding so you can deal with morons every day at work and not murder anybody. Posted at 1:59 AM - - - - - - - 16.6.02I'm looking for info on Benjamin Vautier. I used to have a shirt from one of his exhibitions that I didn't go to. Long story. He changed my life and my outlook on art, and I don't know anything about him. I'm a fan, only not. Odd. Posted at 4:54 PM I feel drained and sort of oddly pissed off today. I don't know what's up. I don't want to sleep, I just want to sort of have slept, if that makes sense. I slept enough last night, and I'm gonna sleep enough tonight, but I want to have had more sleep. I don't know. This always used to happen to me when I was a kid. I don't want to do anything, but I have so much I know I want to be doing. Dammit. I always blame my head injury, but that's so old I guess I can't really. Dammit. Dammit. I started to post to 600 seconds, but Everybody in the world called me other than the person I was waiting for to call, and then I had to go do stuff. Stupid stuff. Grrrrr... I'm just frustrated. It'll either pass or not. Whichever. I just need to calm down and take a shower. Stupid shower. grrr... Now the Cat made something make a big crash noise. I gotta go downstairs. Posted at 3:56 PM - - - - - - - 15.6.02I got real, actual, measured hard numbers on Alton Brown. 831 people. That beats his home city of Atlanta. Austinites love our cookin', yo. Posted at 5:20 PM - - - - - - - 12.6.02Oh, hey! The new count on the Alton Brown event that I've heard: We actually had almost 1000 people through the doors in the time of the event. The 450 figure was just for the hour between 6 and 7, when it was at the absolute heaviest. He started talking at about 7:15 and he signed and talked to people until about 10:45. Then, he shopped at the coolest bookstore I've ever worked at. Posted at 11:17 PM They hold an integral place in American culture. They contain more than 200 chemical elements and compounds, among them cyanide. The growers actively manipulate additives to control taste, texture, and the amount of chemicals inside. Their powerful lobby ensures that they will never be banned. They were once believed to have medicinal properties, but those lies have been exposed. They are still sometimes sold as "health food." They are pure evil. Lies are infectious too. The truth is a funny thing. The question is, how dumb do these people think we are? Those are supposed to be "real" guerrilla advertizements? We only smoke because we think it's good for us? There is a person alive who doesn't know that cigarettes are bad for you? If you are sponsored by what you are supposed to be fighting, you will do the best job you can to eradicate your job? Whatever. Posted at 11:05 PM Pencils 2, afterthefact So, pencils and things and then you notice its when you stopped paying attention and something bad happened, but that's when it occurrs to you that you should pay attetion. You start paying a lot of attention and then realize you've focused on something that isn't where the bad something happens and you've let it happen again. Pencils 2, afterthefact this time it's going to be different, because you're paying much more attention, and you've got the pencil and you're looking at it this time. Nobody in he way, nobody else looking at it, but that's when it hits you, and you know you've missed the whole point again, and the bad something from before or now or whatever has happened, but you can't stop it or change it because time stopped working like that. Pencils 2, afterthefact It wasn't even so bad the first times it happened, or were they this time, or were they the next time. When does this happen again? It's so hard to think, with the whole thing happening again and again like it seems to have to do whenever you stop paying attention to the pencil and . oh, but wait it's when you pay attention, but you can never find them when you need to and it just happened again. Pencils 2, afterthefact It seems to happen when the pencil happens, but time quit working like that and now its time for thebadthingsomething to happen, but where is it? It should have been here by now. What? What was that sound, like a pencil snapping? Pencils 2, afterthefact It's got to be over now, it's got to have been over for a week, but it seems to still be happening. You wake up, you look at the pencil, you walk down stairs, and then it happens again, but a second earlier or later or something, so everything's out of phase like a bad sound effect. That whining, that high pitched insect sound, like the pencil was being sucked into a wood chipper, it's happening again. That sound, that bad something. There is goes again. Oh, but wait, Pencils 2, afterthefact But then the pencil snaps and everything goes dark and the world is not there any more, but not now. That's then. Now, you're walking down the stairs and the pencil falls apart, or snaps or something, and then it has to happen again. Over and over, like drowning in the second hand of the clock, like jumping into a fan and falling into its blades, down, down, until you hit, splash and fall in, and then it happens aga Pencils 2, afterthefact in. Yup. There it went, into, outof, it's all the same, the pencil makes the difference in the end, the whole world wraps around it and makes it solid. What was I saying? I lost it a long time ago, but that doesn't mean anything because time doesn't work like that. The pencil is the pen is the keyboard is the thought needs the charcoal needs the pencil and around again. And again and then Pencils 2, afterthefact Posted at 8:23 PM I posted to 600 seconds again. This time it'll stay because it is within the topic of today. I'm gonna put my second pencil writing on this blog, and maybe soon I'll put the first one also, but I'd have to transcribe that one from my little book, and the format kinda makes it work, as it's about pencils and fountain pens. Yeah. Posted at 8:22 PM I took off my post from that blog because it is tomorrow, and Remi will give us a new topic, and I don't want to screw it up. I have the post saved, and perhaps I'll tag it onto the bottom of today's post, but not now. I dunno. Whatever. Posted at 1:06 AM So, now I'm part of another project (buti'mnotpartofthisone) in which we do a writing exercize I did at home. I just posted it again. I'm satisfied with the second one in a very different way than I was with the first one. Here's the address: 600 seconds, the blog That's mine. The other ones are extremely neat, and listed there, I think. I dunno. They were a minute ago. Posted at 12:54 AM - - - - - - - 11.6.02OK, positive thinking: The event with Alton Brown turned out to be a huge success. The majority of the people who turned up had a good time, and there was only the obligatory amount of griping ("So, where am I supposed to sit," "You're out of books? What am I supposed to have signed?" Y'know, the usual). I answered the questions with the right answers ("I'm sorry, there are no more chairs, but you can stand behind the stairs where there is still some space, and you can get a fine view," "We're out of books, but we have some bookplates which he will personalize and you can put in a book," "Thank you, and have a nice day, I appreciate your patience," "We had 100 copies of the book at 4 pm today, and Zero at 5pm today. We only anticipated about 150 or even 200 people, and we seem to have about twice that," "I prefer the term 'henchman' to 'goon,' thank you."). Yup. We clocked something like 450 people into the store that hour. I know that at least 250 people went up to talk to him. About one hundred left when he was done with his presentation, when they realized that the line was very long. I can say for pretty sure that there were 350 people there. I can guess that there were more like 450. I could pretty easily be convinced that we hit the half-K mark. As many unexpected fans as we had, the event went amazingly smoothly. This was the first time in my time in Austin that I've seen a 'human traffic' situation of this size in which no punches were thrown nor nasty insults hurled. Yes, we got the occasional remark about the fact that we had to divert the line through the 'Sex' and 'psychoactive drugs' sections of the store, but I countered with the observation that, even though people commented on and even fondled the sex books, nobody even seemed to notice that we were in the 'self-help' and 'writing reference' sections also ("This is going to warp my child," "Or make him the most popular kid in school"). Yup, all in all it was pretty successful. I told Alton (I can call him Alton, you see, because we be tight, yo), as he got into his car, "You rock!" I'm such a fanboy. So, there's your positive to go with the negative. Life's just like that. Go study your Tao. Posted at 11:48 PM Scary moments too close to home: A man in Dallas, or nearby, was driving back from a reunion and had been driving since 3am. At about 3pm, he fell asleep at the wheel, ran off the road and hit a parked semi. Only the driver, the father of six and husband of one had a seatbelt on, and only he and one of his sons survived. One of his daughters was Toshi's sister's friend and basketball buddy, and his wife was at the games with Toshi's mom. He came out of a coma today, and his son's liver was damaged and he is still in critical condition. Mortality is too much like a kitty: it doesn't like to be forgotten. Toshi's sister is doing well, but she cried all day yesterday. There's gonna be a big funeral, but they're waiting to see how the son turns out. Toshi says "It's been kind of dreary over at Mom's house today." On the plus side, tomorrow is Toshi's other sister's birthday. Right? good, yes? Right? Posted at 11:25 PM - - - - - - - 10.6.02OK, so, everybody take a moment to do another exercize: Take a chunk of ten minutes, no more, to write about a topic. This is another directed creativity exercize. I'm putting it here because I did it just minutes ago. Ready: Write about Pencils. Go. Posted at 8:50 AM Yay! Back up and back into the realvirtual world! So, Jonathan and Sharon of invisible city and Toshi and I played a surrealist game/did a metaphor exercise last night. We all put nouns into a hat, then drew them out in pairs and made forced metaphors. For example, I drew out "army" and "circus strong man." I made the metaphor, "the Army, the circus strong man of the media, marched into the night," or something like that. I suppose you could do "The army is the circus strong man, a freak to be gawked at, as it goes about the business of amazing with its feats." That's the idea. Those aren't the best, but it's something. I wish I could remember all of the metaphors. I've got several of them written down, but I'd actually have to get up and go to where they are, which is like a minute's work, and I'm feeling lazy. It's my day off. Smile, when tears are running from your eyes, says David Byrne. Posted at 8:48 AM - - - - - - - 9.6.02The server is telling me that the page is down. If you can see this, then the problem is gone, and life is good. Mostly, I'm posting this to test the thingy and see if changing the page makes it come into being. Posted at 8:54 AM - - - - - - - 8.6.02STUPID EMAIL ALL NOT WORKIN AND SHIT! back to your normal life. Stupid Email. Posted at 1:03 PM Wow!! Alton Brown will be at bookpeople on Tuesday! He's gonna be signing books, an I'm gonna be working the event! Kickass! I am such a big fan of his TV show Good Eats. The new book looks cool, but I still need to pick up a copy and read it. I can't imagine it's anything but cool, though. The show is kind of like cooking for non-chefs. He sort of picks a recipe, theme or ingredient, deconstructs it and explains what you can do with it when you cook, and why it works. It's all very keen. If I had a show, I'd want it to be like that. When I revise my columns, they'll have more of that in them. Posted at 1:02 PM - - - - - - - 5.6.02I probably don't have to say this, as most of the readers of the page are aware, but here it is anyway: I can't say enough good things about Invisible City. Yeah, there's already a link to them yesterday, but they're really cool. I was trying to tell somebody at Bookpeople what they are, and ended up with this: Somebody said to me once, 'I wish I had the creativity to make up a game.' I can't say why, but it made me angry. 'Look,' I said. 'Here's the URL for these people, and they're normal people, and they put out a game a month, not to mention keeping up a daily weblog and doing zine reviews and stuff.' Yeah. So, here's the URL for these people who do all this and still manage to be cool and relatively normal people, while maintaining lives that are not centered wholly around the computer. So there you go. It can't be said enough, but it can sure be said here. Posted at 10:08 PM When Flash told me he'd found his soul mate, I was a little amused at first. Now, I'm just happy. It's been a big weekend for him. I cannot put into words how pleased I am that he's so content. The young woman is very nice also. I've met her. She really seems like his type. I don't think there's a whole lot else for me to say. Sorry for the dive into gossip, but I'm just really impressed and happy for my brother. Posted at 12:29 AM Oh, yeah: Congrats to Petunia on your upcoming marriage. I was glad to hear that you read the blog. Also, Howdy Brian! Hello, Invisible City folk! Thanks again. Happy Birthday, Noah. I hope you had a good birthday, and I hope the box arrived safely. Greetings again, Mo! How's Fern Parts treatin' ya, Griff? I love you, Toshi. And to anybody else who wants to see his/her name up on a blog on the InterWeb, gimme a holler (I love dialect) at whatever you wanna put before the at sign at MisterNihil.com. Yes, yes. This is a sort of an email address on the web page. Yeah, yeah. However, I'll try to reply, and I'll be happy to put greetings on the page. Trying to convince somebody that you are either real or have email access? This is your big chance. Posted at 12:27 AM Wow. Thank you, Sharon and Jonathan, for this. I'm glad I got to remember this, and I'm not sure I would have without the format. Thanks. Posted at 12:10 AM At the house where I grew up, there was a lot of pasture. At first, I didn't venture past the stock pond because it was always muddy and kind of scary. Every time I think of it I see the fish that lived in it once, all dried up and dead, stinking and rotting during the drought of the '80s. When I was about 1 and it hadn't rained in longer than I care to think, cracks opened up in the black earth that I could stand in. Past the stock pond, there were a lot of trees. I don't know when I first ventured over the ridge and into the back pasture. There was a path that forked somewhere down the back of the ridge, right at a huge, old tree. I suppose it must have been some kind of oak, as anything there that isn't a pine or a locust is probably some kind of an oak. It was a huge old thing, black and mossy. My memory is dressing it up in black, and I think it was usualy chilly there around it. I know it was always shady, and I remember a shiver every time I passed the tree. If you cut left and through the honey suckle you'd come to a grove of locust trees (we called them locust trees. There may be another name for trees with two inch, blood-red thorns on them. I don't know it). If you were in the middle of those trees, I remember, you were invisible to the outside world. Nobody but the dogs could get to you, and they weren't afraid of thorns. Then, if you turned the rest of the way left, you could loop around and back to the ridge, then you could get back to the stock pond. If you cut right at the tree, you'd come into the bottom pasture. It was smaller, and separated by a fence from the locust trees. You had to cross under an arch of honey suckle and blackberries there. If you went out in the early summer, that was where you could usually still find some blackberries, even when the rest of the place had been picked clean. Ahh, but in the bottom were another odd and rare treat. If you cought them at the right time of year, and during the right week, there were little green fruits with red-pink flesh inside. We called them passion fruits, but again they were probably not. I don't know. I never knew the name for anything out there, really. Now, in the top pasture, the one Mom would use later as a practice dressage square, were what I swear were persimmons. I can remember them, yellow, sweet, with a bitter skin and hard pits. You'd bite into them, suck the flesh out, then spit the stone and skin out around the tree. It's funny how you remember smells and tastes. I remember too, though, that pasture in the back. There was a huge field with one tree in it. It was a pin oak, I think, and it was just the right kind for sitting under. It had branches you could just reach, but none low so they'd get in the way where you'dwant to sit and rest after you'd been tromping in the woods all afternoon. That was the tree from my dream. I remember how yellow the grass all was, and crackly in the summer heat. That field was huge to me. Probably it would be small now, if I were to go back. I miss that. All of it. But I'm glad I got to remember it. Posted at 12:00 AM - - - - - - - 4.6.02OK, so one more time: I'm watching relationships in different places now. I can see one on a shaky and odd path to coming into being. I see one on the way down the rocky way it chose 30 years ago. I see several new ones that are already cold. And then I'm not looking at a few, on the way up, beautiful, and I'm blinded to them because I've seen them too much. Wow. Perspective is an odd thing. I got a little taste of a different perspective recently. I was reminded of a dream I had when I was a child. It's funny. In the one I was supposed to have, I went to a door in a closet, and went into the darkness beyond. There was a door there with stone steps leading down into a cozy underworld. There was a boat there, which I used to float down a river, to a meadow. There, in the meadow was a beautiful oak tree. I sat under the oak tree and meditated. Mine was almost like that, but it wasn't my closet, it was a bunch of blackberry bushes growing on a fence at the house where I grew up. There was a dog path in them, and at the end was a little door in the ground. It lead into the earth. There wasn't a boat in my dream, but I think that's because the only bodies of water I saw were a scary stock pond and a small, kind of scary lake. I don't know. In my dream, the oak tree was one I actually spent several hours under as a youth. It was at the same house. In fact, I'd had a dream recently about that pasture where the tree was. More on that later. Yeah. So, when I was sitting there, meditating, I sort of opened up and had a sudden realization: there's a whole lot more to me than the twirp I usually pretend to be. This is a point I need to consider deeply. It's all odd. Posted at 11:42 PM I'm thinking: Maybe it's good to have something to worry about. I mean, I don't know how to actually behave about the whole thing, but I have something to worry about. Do you change you behaviour, or do you just sort of sit it out and hope it's all gonna either be fine in the end or over in a year. I dunno. So, when the "right" and "proper" solution doesn't work, do you wait it out? I'd be torn if I thought I could get away with it. It's life. It's funny that way. I'll just try to make mine as good as it can be, and watch theirs be what they made it. Yeah. I guess that's just how you have to do it. I dunno. OK. I'm done. Back to whatever I was doing. Posted at 11:29 PM It's 10:19 pm. Somewhere in the world, Baywatch is on. It gives me a chill. Posted at 11:19 PM I'm kicking around the idea of going to the Riverwalk in San Antonio this Sunday. It looks like the next big event is the Forth of July, which is far enough away that the place shouldn't be too crowded. It'd be nice to get out a little and do something. Yeah. I dunno. That, or Enchanted Rock is a fun day trip. I dunno. Just ideas kicking around, y'know? Posted at 11:18 PM - - - - - - - 3.6.02Happy Birthday, Noah! Posted at 3:37 PM - - - - - - - | All material copyright 2002-2003 Ben Gibbs. | |||||||||
