Childish

So I am in my room, attempting to go to sleep. I am planning on bringing the my-size Barbie I mentioned earlier back with me to La Jolla, because I hate to see it sit in the closet and do nothing. Then I started contemplating what exactly I was going to do with it. The problem is that dolls are easily creepy as artwork, and Barbie represents part of the ultimate shallowness of our culture. She exists to change clothes, drive convertibles and utter vapid catchphrases; in her spare time she plays a princess to be rescued. Turning her into the popular-girl-gone-rebel is still a shallow commentary. I could shave her head and turn her into an android, but it would probably be creepy.

Actually, I might do something like that.

The thing is, I'm not looking to comment on culture(for once) with this doll. I'm bringing back a happy memory of a Christmas when I got what I wanted. Nobody else will understand, but this isn't ironic.

I could make a cool android costume easily....

My room at home is weirdly frozen in time, a commentary on all the little hidden things from when I was younger. I've genuinely changed, though I am still going to play with my stuffed animals. Just not have tea parties with them like I did in third grade.

I DARE YOU to comment. Ok, I don't. Please don't shame me?

One day, all of these little odds and ends and old toys will find a use somehow. I can't bear to part with them, but I also can't bear to watch while they sit by idly. Whether being encorporated into artwork or something else, I won't simply let my childhood either sit idly or be given away.

I'm going to read Applied Lingustics to feel better about myself.

Boom! Boom!

Source

So I just realized that I sound very cool, calm, and relaxed on my blog.

This is a lie. I am actually dying of stress, but complaining is not going to help that, and I'd rather not talk about it. Instead I will run around my studio like a crazy person and proceed to collapse on the bed, weezing from the fact that I have way too many obligations.

Help?


Via Boing Boing

Part of the reason I think old film is so fascinating is because of how delicate it seems in its shaky and silent monochrome. Even though the picture is factual the world it presents seems to be remote.


Gravy Stress may waste your time if you like looking at random funny images. I am not going to click on it anymore. If your name is Chris or Frosty you may wish to check this website out.

I wonder how ridiculous our commercials look to foreigners?

In any case, here is an awesome quote from BLDBLOG:

"If you'll excuse the rambling nature of this post, meanwhile, my wife and I are actually staying in Potts Point, and we're located basically right across the street from a Saturday morning farmers' market where we got into a conversation early on our first morning here with a man selling gourmet mushrooms that were grown, he said, inside repurposed railroad tunnels south of the city in Mittagong. I would love to visit those tunnels!
Cockatoo Island, in fact, is actually honeycombed with old tunnels dug directly out of the site's bedrock – so perhaps some strange form of subterranean myco-agriculture might pop up in a few student designs over the next two weeks. Mushroom farming in the underworld. Or perhaps even the high-tech cultivation of pharmaceutical biocompounds by UV light in what used to be a submarine-repair facility (the island also houses a former submarine-repair facility!)..."

Geoff's post "The Thirteenth Room" is also rather fun, as is Reburbia. Reburbia falls directly into my sphere of interests. If you like architecture or imagining the things I do, CHECK THESE OUT.

Here is a quote from Mr. Ellis:

"The next movie I write will be Jurassic Park 4: ADAMZOIC, in which a group of committed Creationists sneak onto a dinosaur-infested Island in an attempt to prove that humans and slavering proto-avian carnivores can live in harmony, as in Eden. The film will be 3 hours long; will feature multiple variations on the theme of Cute Naked People being disembowelled while trying to sing hymns; will include at least one incidence of punning, based on the words “pray” and “prey”; and will end when the sole survivor realises the error of her ways, embraces the Power Of Darwin, and spontaneously evolves a set of wings to escape."

Soil bacteria injections make mice happy. This may explain a lot. I've always said that dirt was good, though now and as a kid I refused to eat it.

Here is an interesting article about personal transformation in the internet age. I could comment on it right now, but I don't want to.
Damn, I may have to get this novel:

Critique the Poem

The ocean’s beauty was not meant
to adorn the walls of man.
Is the deadened shell more beautiful
than a living, breathing clam?
Poets adorn the shell with words
forgetting that which lives;
a simple beast, no doubt,
but one that’s meant to give
its life to filtering out the water
and then dissolve to dust
its shell now sand upon the shore
again part of earth’s crust.

Perhaps some would simply argue
a husk displayed inside a set
means glorious remembrance
and fame found after death;
Others feel the pull of beauty
possession sings its siren song
“If it is pretty, I must have it
no matter where it should belong.”


I remember laying in bed last night thinking there were two things I want to talk about on here. One was the fact that crossword puzzles can be used not only to test knowledge but can also sharpen data-acquiring skills using the internet. The other I cannot remember.

I am interested in how we will redistribute the nutrients in our landfills back into the ecosystem and/or our homes.


Poetry has always fascinated me with its blend of symbolic and logical communication. Chelsea's party was lots of fun, as was the Coast meeting. My brother and I went to the beach at his request and I am so tired and have lots of work to do. Peace out?

Happy Fourth of July!

From Cracked

Picture from a Manta Ray feeding frenzy. Source

"Mantas and whale sharks commonly feed together, untroubled by the occasional collision. As many as 200 rays and a half dozen whale sharks have been counted in a period of several hours, British marine biologist Guy Stevens reports."
Source

Apparently there was a massive bank fraud in EVE online. I'm amused and horrified.


There is a new Turkish reality show pitting a Buddhist monk, a Rabbi, an Imam, and a Greek Orthodox priest against each other to see who can convert the most atheists. Missing the point much?

A 19 year old was arrested for tripping on weed and LSD, thinking he was Terminator, and then running around a casino naked. What not to do on your day off.

I love this piece about "5 presidential elections even dumber than this one".

So I was staring at a tree, thinking "I want to climb this tree". I know, I know, I'm an adult and tree-climbing is not for adults. Well, you're wrong; it's not for boring adults. Anyways, I was thinking about climbing it and defending it from trespassers, when I went "Holy crap, that's not an inborn notion".
Or is it? Were the Native Americans taught to squash their inborn urge of possession? I'm not an anthropologist so I couldn't give a comparison of cultures and their native practices or what is generally considered "tribal" vrs "individual" property. Did the Mongols in their migration routes consider the land itself "theirs", or did they consider the land a place to defend and live upon? The most obvious place to look for an answer to the general question would be pre-history.
The notion of individual possession and tribal possession obviously have different limits in different cultures. We are taught at as young an age as possible what is ours and what is not. Children, at first, consider everything to be grabable(and breakable). It is more likely they do not possess the distinction of ownership than that they consider every object a possession. This is probably the most compelling evidence questioning the innateness of this drive. When a child screams "mine" after having a toy taken away it's more likely that the object is simply desired at the moment than that he or she feels he has ownership of it. Obviously, though, these are just hypothesis.
Would artists feel pain at having their creations taken away? Would scientists gall at having a theory used without their names cited? What would happen to the notion of plagiarism? The notion of ownership has very obvious advantages and disadvantages.

It would be awesome if they created a school which utilized children's existing knowledge to discover new knowledge, like a game or exciting job. I also really believe that a school in the manner of Plato would be much more effective than the Socratic schools we have now. People do think knowledge is cool and like finding out how things work.

It's fun to analyze feminism in Star Trek. The show is fairly progressive in many ways, though it still is struggling between the notions of women as powerfully sexual beings, workers just as capable as their male counterparts, and wives. Both Kirk and many of the women on the show are portrayed as extremely attractive; in fact, one of the reoccurring factors of the plot is attractive women and Kirk seducing them with his genuinely deep good-boy ways. Whatever happened to guys like that? Did they ever really exist? Star Trek is more moral than a lot of the show on today.
Btw, the episode "The Conscience of the King" is really good. Also, why is Scotty the only one with an accent?



Here is a short sketch comedy parodying what it would be like if homeopaths ran the emergency room: