There is a crack in everything

MERRY XMAS!

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:17:11 GMT

the all seeing eye in my pocket

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:31:25 GMT

Anyone have any personal experience with Omnifocus or any other Getting Things Done (GTD) applications? Evernote? I have been browsing 43 Folders but this seems like a task I might be able to delegate. :)

Is there something PC-based that I can sync with Omnifocus? for my "work" projects.

[ETA] I think maybe that Dinosaur Comics functions as a GTD application for its creator. Observe today's comic, which has a capsule review of a dead thinker's main ideas. Now if the dinosaur comics were indexed properly, perhaps it could serve as some sort of tickler file for thoughts and ideas.

Plus, things are easier to remember if you visualize a T-Rex is speaking them at you.

HI

The 800+ year old Virgin

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:27:59 GMT

We are all idiot man-children now, even the robots.

Even though I really liked Wall-E, and though it was adorable and clever and fun, I have this irresistable urge to start cutting on it. Basically, my problem with Wall-E is that the heteronormative romance projected onto the robot protagonists is just another variation on the schlub/hottie dynamic that has been ruling romantic comedies in TV and movie formats for years. I mean, think about it:

1.) Lonely male robot living by himself with a collection of odd pop culture ephemera.

2.) Lonely male robot has a menial job obviously beneath his skills.

3.) Meets cute with a much more put-together, driven and dynamic (not to mention more aerodynamically designed) female.

4.) Who somehow unaccountably falls for him, even though he is capable of communicating his feelings on the most basic and primal level.

5.) Then, he puts his seed in her.

6.) They're separated by her career

7.) He has to win her back through haphazard though valiant effort.

8.) Which of course works, but only because:

9.) he gains a supporting cast of even more schlubby defectives who help him , and:

10.) the love of a hot chick inspires a loser man-child to face up to it, and do great deeds.

11.) She gives up her career for him.

This begs for a chart of some sort. Sigh. Too bad I gave up on doing that.

An Addendum to an Urgent Communique to All New Yorkers

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:34:02 GMT

If you consider Take your time: Olafur Eliasson to be the epitome of "good trip" art - gently messing with your sensory perceptions of the environment, your body, other people's bodies, time, space, etc., (which you should) then there's another exhibit at PS1 - right downstairs from that lovely, calming rotating magic mylar mirror - that is the epitome of "bad trip" art. Markus Cooper's Kursk (2004) is an installation/sculpture (really, i don't know what to call these things) based on the doomed Russian submarine of that name. Basically, it's a dark room with a group of rubber diving suits hanging from a scaffolding, periodically switching on their helmet-flashlights and banging wrenches against the hull of the ship. It is claustrophobic, noisy, immersive and inhuman and, you know, not at all gentle. Total nightmare-ville and highly recommended - BEFORE you see the Eliasson. (which you are going to do, right now). It's part of the Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland overview that's on til September, so you can actually leave this one for another day - I didn't get to see the rest of the Finnish art, which apparently includes a motorized taxidermied bunny, so I'll need to go back.

who would think that rubber suits and rattling chains could be so damnably unsex?

An Urgent Communique to All New Yorkers

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:14:16 GMT

If you haven't been yet, please drop everything you are currently doing and head to MoMA and/or PS1 to check out the last day of Take your time: Olafur Eliasson, because you will probably not have more fun at an Art Exhibit this year unless they're handing out giant flyswatters at the upcoming Louis Bourgeouis/Giant Spiders Vs. Guggenheim exhibition.

If you have to pick one, please go to PS1 (suggested donation: $5) and spend a few dozen minutes lying on the ground under the giant rotating mirror disk, and have an out of body experience, watch other people clown around and/or totally not feel it, or simply make funny faces into the mirror. Please also ignore any security personnel who tell you not to take photos because they are just the anti-fun patrol - i would have taken photos but my camera is a large, metal object that would drown you if you tripped and fell face first into a shallow puddle.

I am thinking that I need to go to a Spy Store and pick up some micro-cameras - perhaps one with a flexible colonoscopy-esque tube with which to take pictures around corners and into the bowels of artworks that have mysterious modes of operation (like the frustrating 360 degree Room for All Colours (2002), which as opposed to most of the other Eliasson works, which had pretty prominent and simple mechanisms, was kind of voodoo). Any recommendations on such gear? I am sure it will come in useful in a non-museum setting as well, but a series of Museum Espionage photographs is, you know, probably sellable. (<---- PLEASE DO NOT STEAL - IDEA COPYRIGHT TODD 2008 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ALL WRONGS REVERSED DO NOT STEAL MUST CREDIT TODD)

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:08:53 GMT

I think my bodega is selling counterfeit Charmin.

oddities, today

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:38:03 GMT

Some things that have tickled my fancy or tickled some other of my various humours today:

1.) "Temple University’s Laboratory of Gustatory Psychophysics". a real entity. Sadly, the Laboratory of Gustatory Metaphysics does not yet exist.

2.) Eadem mutata resurgo ('I arise again the same though changed'),: motto of the College of 'pataphysics.

3.) The concept of "Graceful Degradation"

4.) The concept of "chocolate avocado pudding"

5.) The concept of "The Anti-Griddle"

6.) "One company, Vancouver, B.C.-based Bobobaby, recently launched an entire product line around hidden vegetables, including cookies, pancake mix, even frozen meals laced with carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and a little squash."

7.) "He has five or six brains, each of them remarkably well irrigated" - Carla Bruni on Nicholas Sarkozy.

8.) The new Theory of Forms. WIP.

9.) Varieties of cannibalism and their effects.

10.) loving Cabinet and everything they make seem interesting in the world.

I think this may be a trap

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:17:24 GMT

For some reason Amazon.com saw fit to send me an e-mail suggesting I might be interested in a new book titled Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives. Their stated reason was that I had purchased The Meme Machine (incidentally, the only book about memes I ever read that I didn't think was mostly bullshit pseudo-scientific posturing, but that was like a half dozen years ago so maybe there are some other good books), but I'm not sure what the message is, unless they're suggesting that some ideas deserve to be smothered in their cribs. Which is probably right on.

Deliriously Silly

Tue, 27 May 2008 17:16:05 GMT

my favorite is actually the snail
kind of NSFW, unless you don't care about people thinking you're maybe a little creepy

Hilarious. Giddy and bizarre. Mock-serious. Literate. Curious. Sort of kinky. Sort of creepy. Self-made and rough around the edges. No, dear reader, I am not describing my better qualities but those of the short films I have linked to above, the Green Porno series conceived and starring Isabella Rossellini. It is all too seldom that you stumble onto something that so perfectly matches your sensibilities that you have to just give in and praise the gods that someone had an outlandish vision and chose to realize it, with high craft (in its own manner). Green Porno is completely satisfying, even if it almost always ends in death (like a good movie should).

Welcome to StARRRRbucks!

Wed, 21 May 2008 14:22:23 GMT

Sighted at a Starbucks on the corner of 23rd St. and 8th ave. (or maybe 9th?): A middle-aged, swarthy looking man writing in longhand on a series of white legal pads, accompanied by a life-size skull he had placed on his tabletop. The skull had red wax drips on the forehead, and a little olive green cap on top of that (starbucks probably forbids the burning of candles in their establishment). Or maybe they are offering a Skinny Medulla Machiatto I missed on the menu board?

Thu, 15 May 2008 19:46:25 GMT

Say you have a box, with an idea in it. You're not sure if the idea has merit or not. But you are excited to peek in the box, maybe with a couple of yr friends. And as soon as you peak in the box, the idea is killed, by your inopportune peeking. Do you stop letting people, including yourself, peek in the box, until you can develop an instrument sensitive enough to know for damn sure if that idea is going to survice before you lift the lid?

related:
Has anyone made a Schrodinger's LOLCAT?
How does the Schrodinger's Dick in a Box song go?

Flaking

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:08:15 GMT

Bad day to wear short sleeves to work, as my sunburn is totally peeling off today. I am sending a lot of my body out into the world! Take my skin!

That Van Needs More Skulls

Thu, 08 May 2008 17:14:34 GMT

I just saw a dude driving a Florist's van blasting thrash metal and playing drums - with actual drumsticks - on his steering wheel as he rolled through a busy intersection.

And why shouldn't each subculture have its own florists? I am reminded of that scene in the Wire when Bodie is buying a funeral wreath for Dee (I think), and the florist has a large selection of boquets shaped like AK-47s, crack vials, and the like (Bodie asks for a custom job, a representation of the Projects). Heavy Metal florist could be awesome - perhaps this dude whom I saw was like the Ace of Cakes for flowers.

Somebody, please, be my fucking mirror

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:54:09 GMT

I was about a quarter of a block from my apartment this morning when I realized I had dressed myself like a crazy person. I had stopped to look down at the cigarette I had lit, and juggle my tote bag and coffee mug, and I noticed that the jacket I had thought I had put on was not the jacked I had actually put on. Apparently, at some point the nice, black slim jacket I had intended to wear had switched doorknobs with the illfitting, navy blue, striped baggy monster I was wearing. I knew I was already in a bit of trouble before that, but this jacket sort of threw it over the edge.

Dressing for work has become tricky because most of my clothes are not fitting me now. I have, oh, one pair of appropriate slacks that fit nicely, a brown glen plaid. I had pulled those on after looking for a pair of khakis that didn't look horribly, because I had decided to wear a navy pique polo (that fits) that I had bought at Uniqlo this weekend. It was warm out and I wanted to wear short sleeves, but it was also raining, so I wanted to bring a jacket and my hat, a glen plaid (of a different sort) fedora type thing. I was also carrying a "natural" colored tote bag on which I noticed, after I left the house, was a cartoon skull and the words "Why Bother" (I have several totes, because I am totally earth conscious). I had also decided that I should wear my lime green shoes to work (where I would change into my dress shoes) because I wanted to wear them after work to improv, the clothes for which were included in my beautiful tote.

To sum up, from head to toe (i would have taken a camera phone picture, if I had a camera phone)

Glen Plaid Fedora - grayish
My Face - (unshaven, bespectacled)
iPod headphones
Baggy Navy Blue sort-of-pinstriped Sports coat.
Navy Blue Pique Polo (fits)
White undershirt
Relatively unoffensive but kind of dressy belt
Brownish glen plaid slacks
Argyle socks
Lime Green slip-on shoes
Tan suede (with light blue stripes) messenger bag
Overstuffed tote bag with a Skull and Why Bother on it
Stainless Steel Oxo Coffee mug
Orange Lighter.

I stopped for a second, debating about whether or not to go back and change, and since I was already 20 minutes late, decide to conduct damage control by taking the jacked off and stuffing it in the tote. Unfortunately, while that was a great improvement, it exposed my forearms, which are glowing a bright pink from a sunburn inflicted on Tuesday. Which really clashes with lime green, despite what you preppies might say.

While I could probably find photos of all these items of clothing, and let you assemble a cut-out doll of me, I don't quite have the time today but just wanted to keep you informed of my fashion crime, in the spirit of full disclosure. Feel free to add in the comments any cruel Vice "dos and don'ts" style epithets for how you perceive I looked. Even though I was styled by Bad Decision Dinosaur, I remain, Todd.

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:38:04 GMT

Yesterday I as I walked the length of the NRW platform at 59th st./Lex, I saw/heard, in sequence:

1.) Two black youths playing 5 gallon plastic drums

2.) Young white folkie playing acoustic guitar

3.) Asian woman with an accordion, playing the theme from "The Godfather"

I got on the train, at at the next stop, Queensboro plaza, another musician got on:

1.) Blind guy with melodica, playing the theme from "The Godfather"

then at Broadway, onto the train came:

1.) Slash, with goldtop Les Paul, playing the theme from "the Godfather"
(note:that one did not happen).

that Blind guy is a fixture on the N train, and he's really fucking blind. He's what I would imagine I would be like if I went blind. A lot of times you see blind folk walking around, and they're very neatly dressed and orderly, but this guy is always very, very stained and messy. Sometimes he breaks my heart. I have never, though, seen him in the same train car as "The Coach". I would love to see that. It would be like Batman and Spiderman teaming up.

Improv Notes: The Group Mind and How to Avoid It

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:50:16 GMT

Part of the core dogma of the UCB cult of Improv is a belief in the power of the "Group Mind," which is essential for effective and harmonious Improv activities. We haven't really gotten into it too much in the first two levels, save for a few "Hippie Vibe Sessions" as my instructor calls them, based on the "Pattern Game" where you take a suggestion from the audience, and in a group context, build relationships via word-association from it to generate ideas for scenes for the longer show, (some people are better at this than others) and these odd exercises where we stand in a circle and have to come up with a sentence by all saying the same word simultaneously, or all walk quickly around the room and then spontaneously stop or jump at the exact same time without communicating. Now THAT's hard with 14 people.

But although we will undoubtedly explore this aspect when I reach Operating Thetan Level IV, it already establishes itself in odd ways, one of which is the overall "character" of the class. My level one class had a fairly benign, friendly, slightly self-effacing character that made it easy to integrate into, and we developed a pretty close-knit relationship. My Level II class is quite different - not quite as much hanging out, and a more overtly theatrical character - lots of the people in the class have extensive acting experience, so there is an emphasis on characterization and physicality that can be somewhat intimdating to a theater newbie like me.

I have to miss my class this Thursday, so I schedule a make-up session for last night, in a 201 class taught by the same instructor, and including a kid I knew from 101, who I liked a lot. I was curious about the class because one of the members had sat in on our class and had told a story about some psychotic guy who was lifting people up and doing all sorts of other "edgy" physical shit.

And I must say, this class was very, very different in tone. Even the instructor had a markedly different personality, which either means he is a good teacher, able to adapt himself to different situations, or maybe was as twitchy as I was from being around the immediately identifiable loose cannon guy (he came into class and immediately started doing stretches, and shaking his hands all around, and had a very flat effect. Very hard guy to read, not overtly volatile but someone who had the air of a guy you'd better not get into a barfight with).

The class was also pretty much all dudes. There were 11 of use last night, 1 female total (I guess there are two other girls who didn't show up). It immediately took on a very "fratty" vibe, and the initiations and scenarious were mostly about bro'ing down in some fashion. (except for the absolutely batshit insane shit this guy with the first name of a Norse god started, and the lone female, who started one scene by talking about Captain Planet).

So I was sort of uncomfortable right away, or - not really uncomfortable but unsure how i fit into the scheme of things.

We were working on "second beats" (in the Harold Structure ) where a two-person scene recurs later during the show. The idea is to take the relationship between the two characters established in the initial scene ("the Game") and heighten it, raise the stakes. There are other ways of doing second beats, too, but this is the easiest one, and some people just don't get it (though I suspect my Thursday class will be much, much better at it).

This is when the trouble started. In my first scene, my partner initiated with a scenario about us joining the marines. I immediately became really gung-ho about it, saying that I wanted to do it ever since my dad was killed in Vietnam*. I became the more dominant character, and to his credit my partner sunk into low-status/beta role very efficiently, setting up a nice dynamic of "not thinking" vs. "over-thinking" relationship. I got some good larfs by being a colossal bonehead talking about shooting Soda cans, not caring if they are coke or pepsi because god will sort them out.

As we waited on the back-line for our second beat, I was thinking of heightening scenarios, and I thought I had a good one - it would be when we were actually in combat, in Iraq, and the overthinking guy would be my sergeant, and I would get frustrated with not being able to kill people fast enough. Unfortunately, my partner had another idea (though Doug actually suggested my idea in the post-mortem, which you know, I felt good about) which was set in basic training, where we were doing pull-ups and he was complaining about not being able to make it. While I was able to pump-up my gung-ho ness to the point where I was doing "one-arm pull-ups" and drinking a beer at the same time, I was so "in character" that I blurted out something I had cause to regret, which was "I can't wait to get over to Fallujah and kill some Gooks." Now, this got a huge laugh, and I followed it up with "they have gooks over there, right?" because my partner failed to correct the accuracy of my racial slur, but the damage was done.

Immediately in the second beat that occured after my scene concluded, the crazy norse kid started talking about a girl he had slept with and followed it up by "I think she was a Gook". thankfully, the instructor cut the scene after that, but it ended up being referred to in various ways throughout the class, culminating in a scene in a nursing home where someone called someone else (friendly-like, though) "You old kike!" and then, in a following scene, the same guy pointed out the lone black guy's in the class's race as the pivot point of a joke. It was cringe-inducing, and I am probably never, ever going to set that precedent again, no matter how "funny" it might be.

There were also a few scenes involving "hilarious" homoeroticism between dudes (which Doug, to his credit, said "i would avoid that because you are going to see that a million times) and some sexist content (though, in one of the "bro-ing down" scenes, there was a walk-on of a "hot chick" to tempt these horny guys, which I decided to heighten by also walking on and being like "Hi, Melissa, let's make out," and you know, putting on a lipstick lesbian show for these dudes. My stage making out leaves a lot to be desired, though).

It seems like once the group goes some place "taboo" (ugh) it is hard to pull it out of it, because people will continue to want to heighten it, mistaking it for "the game." There was one class where there were literally 20 minutes of scenes in a row all involving transvestite prostitutes, which I think may have driven this girl out of the class, because it became unbelievably stupid, just devolving into one cock-sucking joke after another.

I have no interest in shocking people, really, and this kind of hack humor should be beneath me, so I want to apologize to all the gooks out there.

Also of note:

1.) When talking about his improv group and the dynamics within it, the instructor referred to Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which everyone knows I have a hard-on for, and I got really excited and was nodding my head vigorously while everyone else in the class JUST DIDN'T GET IT. Then I stupidly said I had an elaborate theory about that movie which I was going to share, and was roundly mocked and asked if it was on a Blog somewhere. After class, I decided to go up to the teacher and do the quick version of "Asshole and Douche (and Hammett)" but by that point he had no idea what I was talking about. Embarrassing!

2.) Before class I was talking about tattoos, for some reason, to that kid from my 101, and I showed him mine, and he blurted out, "Oh, Prop 47!" all excited. I immediately became really, really concerned that there was some sort of awful emo band out there that had my tattoo as a logo, or there was somehow a law against it, but apparently this kid was a classics major and he was referring to Euclid's Elements.

3.) The same dude, when we went out for a beer after class, after I was telling him about Short Fan Fiction involving Henry Rollins, told me a story about how he met Henry Rollins last year at a Film Festival his dad runs, and when he and his family went out for dinner with Rollins, not really knowing who he was, saw the tattoo on the back of his neck and asked Rollins, "oh, is that the Black Flag logo"?

4.) I got one performance note last night (in addition to the "no racial slurs" and "Don't be a blogger, dude" notes) which was "cheat forward". I have a problem with staging, and other physical aspects of performing (though I guess my one-arm pull-up worked well) and I was wondering if anyone had any advice about these things. Should I take some sort of MIME CLASS. Then I could have MIME REPORT.

I hope someone reads this!

*which I realize, if this sketch were to take place in present time, it would be dude's grandfather, no doubt.

Waste

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:11:07 GMT

God help me, but for some reason I just watched the entirety of Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies on pitchfork.tv (along with hulu.com, the advent of which has propelled me into just fantastic amounts of online video watching). I was sort of curious to see if there was anything remotely redeeming about GG Allin but he's just rather pathetic, though as a documentary it's fairly good. The most interesting thing about the film was that it was directed, while at NYU film school, by Todd Phillips, who went on to make Old School and other movies of that ilk. Given GG Allin's predilection for nudity and their similar, doughy physiques, a fictional film starring Will Ferrell as Allin would be pretty hilarious, if someone convinced him to play it absolutely straight. You know I'm right. Steve Buscemi could play the naked drummer guy. And Paul Rudd would of course be Merle, Allin's brother with the bushy Hitler stash. Special appearance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as John Wayne Gacy.

Unrelated: Prince covers CREEP by RADIOHEAD!

Everyone's favorite Game, movie portmanteaus

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:56:35 GMT

inspired by something that happened at improv class last night and a joke I didn't get to make.

Runaway Bride of Frankenstein
After leaving Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, the Wolfman, The Invisible Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy and a Predator at the altar, the Bride of Frankenstein finds true love with Richard Gere.

Harold and Maude Escape from Guantanomo Bay
After one of Harold's suicidal pranks causes his neighbors to call Homeland Security, he and Maude must bust out of lock-up by any means necessary, before her birthday (so that she doesn't have to hang herself in her cell)

Rosemary's Baby Mama
Career-obsessed Satanist realizes her supernatural clock is ticking, hires an out of work actress with good genes to bear Lucifer's child.

No Country for Grumpy Old Men
Anton Chiguhr, now in his late 70s, has a humorous feud with his cantankerous neighbor over the new hottie who has moved next door.

My Blueberry Boogie Nights
Wistful, directionless porn starlet goes on a pastichey road trip, on which the director uses every single camera move available throughout film history to illustrate precisely nothing.

Paranoid Jurassic Park
Solisptic, ambiguously gay young Velociraptor accidentally makes his first kill, comes to terms with it and moves on.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Effect
Ashton Kutcher launches a new reality show after he is paralyzed in a freak micro-dermabrasion accident.

In Stone Cold Blood
Dolph Lundgren attempts to infiltrate a pair of spree killers because he has logged the most spree-killing arrests in Kansas. Strangely enough, he's successful.

Unrelated: Is it somehow wrong that I am sort of psyched for Speed Racer after reading/viewing this slide show on New York Mag/Vulture? I want to see it on the biggest screen possible, dudes. Who is with me on this?

My New Mango Slicing Technique is Unstoppable

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:47:28 GMT

Woke up early to prepare a dish for a good-bye potluck lunch at work. I probably didn't make enough food, but if there's one thing I've learned from working in finance is that scarcity makes a thing more desirable. So I fully expect to be praised like Jesus himself for my mango/black bean salad. It's quite good.

I do not enjoy slicing mangoes because they are slippery. I decided that there must be a better way than how I had been doing it, because, you know, i sort of just peeled and cut the thing. The internet provides multiple ways of doing it, but each write-up felt sort of incomplete, until I read 3 or 4 of them and watched two videos. Now I know how to make a "porcupine" out of a mango, and easily cube it into a dish. It is sublime. Mangoes, forever. Also cilantro. And jalapenos. Black beans, almost forever.

I sort of sucked at improv last night because I had a headache and my new pink t-shirt had become a focal point for discussion. The new pink t-shirt is much more...flourescent than I thought it was in the dark light of the Music Hall of Williamsburg. With the flourescent blue accents, it kind of verges on something Dan Deacon would wear, and I don't really want to invite that comparison (even though he is kind of awesome). We have resolved to all wear pink shirts for our class performance. I am the great unifier.

I am fairly confident that the Face Knife in a new improved format will re-launch next week. it is a good deadline, as I need to re-up my domain registration, and the Summer Movie Comparison Chart will be commencing upon the release of Iron Man (first iteration to include Iron Man, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanomo Bay and Standard Operating Procedure). In addition to movie reviews/criticism, the new Face Knife will include such columns as I've got Class(es), You're Thinking Small Again, _______ (inspired by news stories), Stuff I Find on My Printer at Work (needs a better name. Pieces based on stuff other people print that I find on the printer when looking for my shit. Mostly ends up recipes and coupons, but I have a great one I found last week that gave me some inspiration for this colum), Henry Rollins Fan Fiction (occasionally), maybe a fake food blog investigating all the chain restaurants in Times Square (with rapturous descriptions and photos - I'm sure this has already been done) and perhaps some illustrations. I have been writing more frequently and Improv has been inspiring, so I feel fairly good about this, and I think it will lead to bigger things. We shall see!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:04:54 GMT

I wish you could make movie mashups, because I would really like to combine the two fertility comedies Baby Mama and Dead Ringers together.

The Delicious Weight of History

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:35:01 GMT

A Wired reporter bemoaning the pizza backwater that is San Francisco rang up Mario Batali to find out why New York Pizza is so magnificent and got an intriguing theory out of the celebrity chef: New York’s old pizza ovens “capture the gestalt of beautifully cooked pizza.” A food development consultant believes Batali’s abstract ‘gestalt’ is, to scientists, vaporized ingredients that become “volatilized particles and attach themselves to the walls of the baking cavity. The next time you use the oven, these bits get caught up in the convection currents and deposited on the food, which adds flavor."

In other words, that famous New York flavor is the accumulated history of every pizza ever made since the oven’s first pie.

I really want to make some sort of dumb "mystic pizza" joke here but my head really fucking hurts today so that everything I am writing is coming out with even more tortured syntax than usual. Nonetheless, this is kind of a beautiful, crackpot theory and I want to make a joke out of it or stretch the metaphor til it breaks. As usual. And stop washing my pans.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:12:42 GMT

I need a disgusting and/or toxic/noxious product taken from the natural world and transformed into a pleasant, common household object of which we rarely consider the origin. Note: no food products or things derived from animals, please.

I am thinking of oil ---> various plastics
or
maybe - mold ----> penicillin
or
~~oil ---> silicone ---> sex toys?~~ this wikipedia article is too technical
wait no, it works: sand (silicon dioxide) ---> silicone ---> breast implants, sex toys, etc.

rubber tree sap ----> latex condoms?

Mini-me could play Boo-Boo. It would be HI-larious

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:08:41 GMT

This morning I have noticed a mini-trendlet or pattern of older, nearly totally gray males with a tiny, half-dollar size patch of very dark hair around the middle of the nape of their necks. Is that the last place on the head to go gray?

********

The elevator just informed me that a bear used in the recent Will Ferrell movie "Semi-Pro" (which I did not see) has killed his trainer with a bite to the neck. I think that we can agree, although we all love something Will Ferrell has done, that if he had been killed by that bear during the production of that film it would have been the perfect end to his career. Imagine the list of former SNL cast member deaths at their next anniversary show:

OD
OD
Shot by wife
Mauled by bear

Somebody, please cast Jimmy Fallon as the ranger in a live-action version of Yogi the Bear. And replace his Axe bodyspray with chum.

Improv Saves Lives

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:03:24 GMT

I have a lot more to say about/around this, but I'm very busy at work today/preparing for my Papal audience (writing in a mirror backwards on your ass = HARD) so this will be brief and vague, even though my theories are you know, more involved. But: Improv is totally awesome and is the best thing I've ever done for myself. Last night I class I was sort of feeling very expansive, like I was the center of something that was reaching beyond myself and grabbing on to bits of the world and slamming them back together. I mean, I am certainly not a master of this craft at all yet, but if you had told me in January I would be enjoying the very process of it so much, and having it be such a driving factor in my life, I would have been supremely skeptical.

Last night's class was pretty special because for some reason, everyone in the class seemed to be operating at low energy (so low that FIVE people didn't show up at all - which is lunacy), and I was sort of annoyed by that and more or less spent the entire class trying to act as cheerleader/hype-man, which, you know, is totally not my personality but I felt I had to try to lead things a bit, put people out of their heads and into a group consciousness. And it worked a bit, and I didn't even have to be a total jackass. I was just totally on the money last night (well, not totally) and since there were so few people in class, I got to do a hell of a lot of scenes with a lot of different people and a lot of feedback, and although I spent nearly the entire 3 hours standing and performing or on the backline, it was extremely energizing. It is weird to say because I never thought this about myself, but this is a thing that I am really, really suited for, given the way that I think and process things.

Here's the thing - most people's psychological problems fall into 3 broad categories: thinking you must accomplish something perfectly and if you don't, rating yourself as a total failure; thinking that other people must treat you in a certain way, and if they don't, damning them; and, thinking the conditions of the world/your life have to be the way you'd prefer them to be and if not, things are unbearable. And each scene of improv is practice dealing with all of those conditions - constantly failing, constantly dealing with people who eff up your scene or have their own ideas where it should go, and adapting to facts in the world that is being co-operatively created not always totally jibing with how you ideally envision them. (I will give some examples later). Learning to go with those situations, to react without judging them, is what you have to do, and if you're really good, you get to play around with them and turn them into something enjoyable.

art question

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:04:43 GMT

Anyone ever run any type of watercolor paper through a laser printer? I mean, I'm going to try it anyway, unless someone tells me that it will start a fire or release poison gas or violate some sort of treaty. The results don't have to be perfect; it'll probably be more fun if they are not. I seem to remember epson or HP or somebody having specific artsy paper for this type of project, but I don't know if you can paint on it successfully afterwards.

Eh, experimentation with the color copiers GO.