And We Shall March

The First Thing Out Of This Teacher's Mouth? James Often Said Similar Toward The End, When He Would Dance In His Head

Video of Dayniah Manderson is a bit over nine minutes long.

Save The Date ... ! Death 40-Feet Tall !

I will have far more to say about this later. For now, save the date!

(click to embiggen)

 

 

The Internet(s) Are So Cool Because It Brings You Things You'd Never Have Heard Of Otherwise Even Though It Is Irritating That Some Things The Internet(s) Bring You Make You Bawl Like A Child

Like this guy? Never heard of him until he showed up in the inboxes and all over another service. Now I'm gonna look him up. To start, I would really like an explainer for the hair?

I also bought the song - which involved of course resetting my password because god knows what it was, o and also that credit card is so very expired, which shows you how often I use the song-buying service - and added it to the Chriskwansolstikkah playlist. If you buy the song, which is only .99, part of the money goes toward supporting an autism organization (in the UK). So you get a lovely song for a good cause. I love this song. ***

James would have highly approved of this one.*** That's three years today. I've made it three years so far.

*** However, if I had a choice between Desmond or Dawkins, both of whom I respect in spades, I'd choose Desmond for the obvious Die Whitey Talking To An Actual Warrior Of History reasons. Yet, the "Palestinian press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer" not to mention "the lyrics are dodgy" had me falling out of the chair with giggles, and the "just cuz ideas are tenacious means they are worthy" bit is gold. Whoever the fuck this guy is, worth finding out about him and tracking. Truth. I'll get on that after the holiday season is over. I'm busy now.

*** One of our years-long hobbies was trying and failing to build a Top 10 list of Christmas songs for atheists.

A Message For All The Remaining Days Of Your Life

I discovered Hugh MacLeod, the guy whose design I use for my Most Awesome business cards, several years ago by accident when roaming the internet(s) looking for something else. I'd stumbled upon a series of posts he did called How To Be Creative that just knocked me over. More research revealed that he's behind the Mr. Hell cartoon from the 90s I loved, and it turned out he's an artist who primarily works on canvases the size of a business card. He offered up some of those works as templates for custom business cards. Though shipping was !!! due to Himself and his partner buiz card company being based in Europe, I very quickly snagged my fave design, and have been using it ever since. I love my business cards.

(The only person who has business cards more awesome than mine is Gary Leonard, a phenomenal LA-based photographer whose business card is partially in braille. At least the one I have is. Wrap your head around the meta of that.)

MacLeod runs a very active homeport that includes a widget featuring daily-ish creations. I have that widget programmed into the siderail of my homeport, but you'll never see what shows up there if you're visiting through a feeder thingy. Honestly, if you're anything like me when it comes to visiting various homeports - look at the main text, ignore the rest, go along your merry way - you might not ever see it. Over the weekend, the work below showed up in the widget. I pull it to the main site for the benefit of all:

  

Yup.
 

! Thrill The World !

In a few hours, many thousands of people all over the world will dance Thriller at the same time. Locally, we're throwing down at LA Live Which is also serving as a fundraiser for Inner City Arts. 

I am dancing for these people/things:

• The memory of myself at age 9, hysterically delirious with joy at my very first concert, watching The Jackson 5 at the Front Row Theater. 
• Mom, who took me to that concert.
• James, who could bust out some MJ moves like you wouldn't believe.
• Mrs. & Mr. Classy, by request.
• The Animator
• In solidarity with the Truth of this column, particularly the graph excerpted below.
• O and also this poem, which Alice Walker wrote in 1991.

This is going to be a blast!

Update (short version)! It was phenomenal day. Longer version later.

  

"The beauty and power of Michael Jackson, particularly in the first 30 or so years of his life, was that he was black. It’s important to stress and explain that because in this “post-race/post-black” moment, it’s become obvious that a lot of Negroes rushing to free themselves from the so-called shackles of blackness, aided by “colorblind” and “progressive” non-Negroes, don’t even know what blackness is: Working like a dog while mired in poverty in Gary, Indiana — endless rehearsals, mastering backbreaking craftsmanship, sweltering under the heat of a father’s dream deferred — all while aiming for a big time mapped out by sweat, hope and faith; that’s black. Not letting your lack of material comforts impede your forward motion; that’s black. Being rooted in the working-class/struggling-class vortex of innovation, perseverance and resilience that has birthed all the Negro musical r/evolutions in this country; that’s black. Building effortlessly on the past and setting a whole new bar for the future; blacker than black. Exercising the prerogative of organic genius by laying claim to shit that already exists and just making it your own; B-l-a-c-k. Mapping the template and setting the pace that will govern the globe; b-b-b-b-black. Coming of age amid proud shouts of “Black is beautiful” and effortlessly embodying the adage, but somehow getting infected with the centuries-old disease of white supremacy and internalized racism that will have you repeatedly take a knife to your natural-born beauty, that’s so very black. Being universal in your struggles and triumphs just by being you: black."

When H.P. Lovecraft Realized His Speck Status In Relation To The Cosmos, It Freaked Him Out In A Bad Way. My Light-Bulb Moment Upon Realizing The Same Was More Like Neil deGrasse Tyson's - "That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile." **

I don't know who the hell musician John Boswell is. I'd never heard of him until stumbling across A Glorious Dawn on the internet(s). In this case my general ignorance of what's going on in pop music cannot be blamed on Me, since this guy came from the internet(s), which are vast and there's no way to keep up with all that's going on there.

A Glorious Dawn knocked me over. Besides being a lovely tune, it triggered memories of my Child Self sprawled in the basement in Cleveland watching Cosmos - and throwing a fit if something was going on in the family that did not accommodate me being in the basement watching Cosmos.

 I downloaded Boswell's song, turned it into a cd so I could listen to it in the car and on the home stereo, figured out how to get it onto the CrackBerry, sent the link to many friends I thought would also grok. Then I sent a paltry donation (between paydays when discovered), and eagerly waited to see what he would do next. The first one was so powerful, it signaled that whoever he is and whatever he's up to, he's not done.

Yup.

That Boswell opened his latest, We Are All Connected, with a partial passage from one of my fave Neil deGrasse Tyson passages has pretty much cemented my ! Woo ! Below are the full lyrics to the new song, which is part of his emerging Symphony of Science.

[deGrasse Tyson]

We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically

[Feynman]
I think nature's imagination
Is so much greater than man's
She's never going to let us relax

[Sagan]
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

[Nye]
I'm this guy standing on a planet
Really I'm just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There's billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

[Sagan]
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We're made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

[deGrasse Tyson]
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

[Feynman]
There's this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it's all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it's all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature

The two things I Shake My Fist At Over The Injustice Of It All is that I cannot draw/paint, and I cannot dance/choreograph. Happily flailing around is not the same as dancing. Boswell's new one? A dancer should choreograph it.

I cannot wait to see what Boswell comes up with next for this project. I've already got a playlist set up, ready to import the newest. By the time he's done I'm gonna have the most awesome cd ever!

James would have loved loved loved this. Not fair.

Related.

** Here's deGrasse Tyson's full quote, wonderfully sampled in the song. This paragraph s part of my DNA.

Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching prestine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we all all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically. That's kinda cool. That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that! It's not that we are better than the universe. We are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us. 

Structure

It's very clear she wants us to build in threes. So, concurrent to the first decision I need to make, I need to make a structural one:

Transformers - Armageddon - Transformers

Transformers - Transformers - Armageddon

Armageddon - Transformers - Transformers

Transformers - Armageddon - The Rock

These two decisions are critical for laying the groundwork for the Beta, and they need to be made by, or on, Sunday. Probably I'll go with 'here's my gut feeling' by Sunday, present the arguments to her, then roll forth based on her input. I want to come out of this with the Core. I can build the rest of it around that Core later.

(The big umbrella decisions have already been made. One was personal and took a loooooooong time to work out. The other, a  more a technical thing, was taken care of with a call to Joe Escalante's Barely Legal Radio a couple of months ago.  So that's cool.)

Also, she needs a codename. Hmn. I know! Let's give her the BGF Central codename of Molly!***

hee

*** For the record, as soon as I can find another interview, one where the interviewer is not vibing HIPSTER DICK, I'm gonna switch out that link. There's a reason I hardly ever check out LAist.

Formatting's screwed up. Tired of dealing with it.

It's Not The First Move, It's The Second

With the first part of our initial assignment finished, the second part is much trickier. 

Tell a cute story? Or tell an honest story?

A decision has to be made. Now.

I Am Sitting At The Keyboard Wearing My Do-Over Prom Dress...

...purchased for $8 earlier today at a local gay thrift store during a turned-out-to-be-fantastic-day.

And I am having such thoughts, forgotten ones from 20 years ago, triggered by this awesome sounding post-irony geek party. This is so weird. 

The dress is not nearly hideous enough, though. It fits perfectly, but I need it to have something to echo the 80s-era, Dynasty hideousness of my original prom dress. Because of the design of this dress I can't add giant, poofed shoulders. I can, however, add a giant bow. I have time to do that before I leave for show.

Don't know if I will have time to collect the memory roil in my head, translate it into something coherent enough for public view, and upload before I leave. If I don't, I'll come back to this when I return - regardless if I actually go to the event or not.

This is so weird.

Related.

Not That I'm Judging Or Anything. Except For The Part Where Okay Actually I Am.

I've got a couple of longish things in the hopper, but chances are I will get only one of them out of draft and posted before the weekend is out. If that's pulled off it will probably have to sit here throughout all of next week because next week is gonna be tight.

If I don't pull the one off, this interim post will have to do until I get back to any of it first week of June.

Not too long ago, I said No Good Can Come Of This. This was partially informed by being a self-righteous snob, and partially from  having read the script about a year ago and going ... huh. that's um. yeah. okay. so...okay. 

But, you know. Keep to hope and so forth.  Let's see what happens. 

Well, this trailer makes me think the first instinct was the correct one.

<

Not umm...okay about the cast, mind you. It's the overall that vibes wiggy. 

Think I'm gonna have to hear from the triumvirate of Ebert, Turan and Scott on this one before a final decision is made.