So yesterday, while on my way to lunch, I couldn't help but notice a booth set up across the street which had a prominent poster showing Obama with a Hitler mustache. It was the sort of thing I caught out of the corner of my eye but then kept walking because I was already late. Of course, as soon as lunch was over, I had to approach them. Turns out it was a LaRouche PAC table. There was a small crowd there and I just sorta stood in the back, looking bored. This is the best way to get these people to approach you, if you're wondering. Just stand there and look impressionable.

A girl behind the booth sidestepped the crowd and approached me:
girl: how are you today?
me: I'm fine, thanks. I can't help but notice you got the uh, the little mustache on Obama, there
girl: yes
me: and why is that?
girl: are you familiar with Hitler's healthcare policy?
me: nope

Then the girl starts telling me about said health care, which seemed to revolve principally around the euthanasing of old people. After about twenty seconds, I cut her off.

me: I'm sorry, but how are you tying this together? I mean, is Obama euthanizing people?
girl: Well, the health plan that-
me: I strongly oppose Obama's healthcare plan.
girl: Will you sign our petition?
me: absolutely not. Not while that's here[I point to the poster. Next to it, there's another one of Obama photoshopped into a brownshirt uniform. Classy-like].
girl: Well, they have the same health plan that-
me: So did Ross Perot. Why don't you give Obama bigger ears or... something.
girl: Well, because nobody would recognize that. But the important part is that these men have the same plan.
me: Is that what you think of when Hitler comes up? His health care plan?
At this point bystanders are agreeing with me, and I'm getting a little cocky
me: Do you know why I stopped paying attention to the extreme right?
girl: Oh, we're not on the right.
me: I know you're not. I don't care. Do you know why I stopped listening to them?
girl: why is that?
me: because they started making comparisons to Hitler when it was completely inappropriate. You're doing the same thing here, and I think it's cheap and I think it's lazy.
girl: But don't you think that the people should know what's going on?
me: I do, but I don't think that adding Hitler into this conversation is going to help anyone. I mean, what if I started a campaign against vegetarianism using Hitler as an example?

At this point, everyone behind the booth looked genuinely insulted and told me that that would be crazy. Things devolved quite a bit after that and I ended up arguing some more, taking a pamphlet, returning said pamphlet before reading it, and then leaving.

Things were polite, I never yelled or cursed. Actually, I think that girl yelled more than I did. When I left, I even wished them luck in a backhanded way. It was nice to have the discussion, but I still had to go home and feel sick to my stomach afterwards. I hate that Hitler shit. you could be arguing for not bludgeoning puppies to death, and as soon as that picture gets brought out in an irresponsible way, I'm fucking done listening. It's a lot harder to tell who the real monsters are when you've become as desensitized as we are to the ones we've had. That comparison is juvenile and irresponsible, and I'm happy I got the chance to tell them so. Still, it was a pity. I'd had such a nice lunch...

Just got in an old-fashioned street argument. More to come later tonight when I've finished my homework.

There is an amazing (if not somewhat depressing) article in the new issue of Harper's by Kevin Baker in which he does a great job of pointing out that as much as we want to compare Obama to FDR, as much as we want to say he's the solution to this nightmare our country has plunged into, every decision he's made thus far really matches the other president that tackled the Great Depression: Hoover.
Now, the important thing to note here is that when Hoover wasn't elected, he wasn't known for the homeless veterans that built their shacks on his lawn, but he was a dynamic and energizing leader who looked like he could turn everything around. He attacked the crises he was dealt with aplomb and gritty determination. But in the end, he ended up capitulating most of the ideals that he had believed in. FDR, on the other hand, didn't care what anyone thought and pushed his legislation through. FDR had lofty ideals when he entered office, but in the end just said fuck it, if I gotta make enemies in order to get this done, so be it"*"

Anyway, read the whole article here. and try to read it without being defensive of Obama. We have to look at him the same way we look at every other president: objectively. Bush did some things right, did he not? Why would we assume that Obama might not be doing some things wrong? I enjoy hearing the guy speak more than anyone. I think he's a standup guy and I want him to succeed in a way that we cannot comprehend as a voting public. But as with every president, there are lessons from history just being ignored while we go through this.

*not verbatim

Your morning terror: "Vampire Squid from Hell"

I've mentioned my utter fear of marine biology here before, and at 2 AM this morning, after trying to dose myself with some Tylenol PM, I still sat there in shock watching the Blue Planet episode "The Deep". Some people can't watch horror movies before going to bed, I simply cannot watch stuff like this. It's really an unsettling feeling, to be frozen in terror in a dark room watching deep sea biology at work while drowsy and sleep-deprived.

Of course, most of this is beautiful. A major theme of this episode is bioluminescence, and it's amazing to see what goes on that deep. That said, you start seeing footage of the Gulper Eel, the Viperfish, and of course, the Vampire Squid from Hell:



I don't know what asshole named this thing, but I came away from that video admiring it more than fearing it. Sure, if I saw a dead one washed up on a beach, I'd still hit it with a stick and run away peeing, but it's still a pretty impressive cephalopod, no?

But yeah, if you get the chance, watch this video (you can watch it on Netflix RIGHT NOW) because it's insanely entertaining. and because David Attenborough's voice might just help you sleep more than it helps me...

So, after spending the bulk of my day reading texts on cataloging (i promise you right here and now that is the least boring description I can possible give of this text), it is now early in the morning on the 4th of July. I'm sitting on my porch, enjoying a drink, and trying to think about what I can type about how I feel about this country of ours (if there is by any chance that there's a reader of this in another country, I'll crap my pants. leave a message and you'll make my year). And so I've been thinking about this harder than usual. Part of me wants to link to a shitload of sites (and to be fair, I sort of will), but this should be more than that. I'm trying to keep this thing going while I am REQUIRED by my studies to create 2 blogs* in addition to this one, so I am extra guilt-ridden about the state of HDF at the moment. In a lazy moment, I would just link (again) to the Born in the U.S.A. video, which after the 3 minute mark remains one of my favorite documents of 1980s America of all time. But unfortunately for you, the reader, I'm not feeling lazy just yet.
This story begins in of all places, a church: The church I was christened in, I taught in (!), and that I was confirmed and married in. I only mention this portion of this story because it still impresses me, because it is neither a religious diatribe nor a commentary on ethics. This is just a simple story on something that had great impact on my life, which I like to think most of these posts are about. Alright, we all know that's not true.
Anyway, this is about an event this church holds every year called the Fall Fair. It's usually a smorgasbord of cheap, decent furniture, but this goes back further than that. Because there is always a book sale there. and anyone with the patience to sort through hundreds of books will know the sort, as I did when I had such patience. I found all sorts of things there that would impact my reading life over the years: Bradbury, Lewis...even the Fletch series. But this is about something much bigger than bruised paperbacks.
It was when I was 16 or 17, and I found a book called American Pictures. It is the essentially the photodiary of a Danish man bound for the priesthood who instead for a few reasons ended up hitchhiking across the United States from 1970 to 1975. His view wasn't even something that unique (I would later discover Larry Clark's Tulsa, among others), but to me -a high school student- it was like having someone beat me and leaving me for dead in the shadow of my national pride (or lack thereof) at the time.
It's a concept that is almost impossible to grasp now, at least for the people savy enough to abuse the internet at work for something like this nowadays, but I digress. This guy was given access to every part of the country, from the sharecropper shacks to the millionaires at the time. If somebody can tell me how a homeless Dane can grant me access to Jay Rockafeller these days, I'm all ears, but I think I think it's part of a bygone era. Anyway, this book remains to me a look at America that only could provide that a de Tocqueville could provide. Especially when considering this country at the time. I mean the best and the worst presented to you in a neat little package that you'd rather not see. There is young love, there is high society. There is heroin addicts shooting up and there are fresh murder victims a la Weegee. And whot's more impressive is that these shots never seem posed or staged. These are people living on whatever side of the law that actually trusted this foreigner to tell their story. Can you imagine taking a picture of Jay Rockafeller and some pimps nowadays? You might, but I can't.
But I'm getting off track. It's just that... think of the sixties. Think of the civil rights movement (should that be capitalized?) and the atmosphere of the early seventies. Think about the fact that while we were patting ourselves on the back for our progress for the efforts of a distinct minority, while we know what the cities were up to, nobody was paying attention to to everywhere else but this Dane who was selling blood plasma for film.
These are shots that illustrate how for we are from utopia (again, capitalized?), how much more progress there is to make. It means a lot to me when I view these pictures that I can still view them with a sense of pride. We are America. We for better or worse, are the beacons of freedom and democacy. But when you're looking at a murder victim in New York or gang activity in Richmond, Virginia, it's not like you can cling to bragging rights. and these pictures aren't diplomatically contained to the mid-Atlantic. There are things that we've probably all seen to some degree, however scary that might sound.
and the weirdest part is that I don't look at these pictures with shame. I really don't. and nor should you. This is America at its baldest truth. Obviously, things are different now, but can you really tell me that you would want to see the update? I won't lie, I did, and I saw a dead man on the streets of New York in 1994, after the city was cleaned up and presentable. But I saw this naked love in the city, and I saw hope in the places I would never have expected to see it.
I was stupid at that young age, as we all are, and I sliced up that book to make interesting collages for my dorm room door in college or whatever, and it's haunted me.
Years later, my wife looked at this book and found herself as enamored with it as I once was. and I had to explain where some of those pictures went. It was not pleasant. But as a shitty make-up (I am filled with these), I tracked down Jacob Holdt's books and hoped for the best. It turns out that he's still there, and presenting the America that I want to ignore but can't. The America that's under our noses but that even our new president won't see. and I wouln't, either. Sure, he's got several girlfriends in the states (and a wife and children at home), but you still have to wonder what this bearded foreigner sees that we don't. So in honor of this holiday, I'm not going to give you Chinese-made fireworks (although they are awesome) to celebrate this country of ours, but instead a real depiction of what we all want to defend. We are the greatest nation on this planet. But We've a ways to go.

See Jacob Holdt's website here.

As a side note, I meant to start this post about the Haden triplets, but this is better, trust me. I'll update this soon, I promise.

in the meantime, I beg that you explore Mr. Holdt's pictures and take the pride and shame for our fantastic country that I hold.

I recently found out that he's been trying to bring to light the humanity of white power groups, which surprised me as much as you, but sorta delivered.

*It's been like 3 years and I still cringe when using this term

The tests I gave him shows no sense at all

I think it was my tenth birthday, I think, when I got my first cassettes. It wasn't that I had no access to music before that, but before that I learned everything I could about music by pilfering through the collections of my parents and siblings late at night and then stay up listening to them on the little clock radio I kept next to my bed*. I'd listen to whatever I could find: the very personal romantic mixes of my siblings, the battered Springsteen tapes that had wound their way through everyone in my family, the CSNY tape that had a wad of gum stuck and hardened over the track listing on the side... everything.
It was still a little while before I'd start buying my own music (U2's The Unforgettable Fire, later that summer), but a family friend always got a kick out of the fact that this little blond kid would be singing along with a bunch of teenagers when they'd sneak out to drink at night. This family friend put together one of the most thoughtful gifts I ever received. I unwrapped it and found three cassettes, the first I could ever claim were my own with impunity. They were all of historical significance, he told me. There was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which had spend some 15 consecutive weeks in the Billboard 200***. There was The Who's Tommy, which was the world's first rock opera. and there was The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. I have no idea what distinction the last one held in this context, but think it had something to do with the production. or something.
Anyway, I loved all of these gifts, and I think I wore two of them out (my history of Beatles ointerest will have to come at another time, but I know I still had that tape when I went off to college). But far and away, Tommy just blew me away. It was this wild epic story that went all over the place, and had these interesting characters, and musically it had everything from overtures to ballads to stones-our rock songs. I know that I had the story very basically told to me around then, though I obviously didn't know all of it. I think I knew tht "The Acid Queen" was about drugs, but I think I was under the impression that "Fiddle About" was about child abuse more then pedophilia. I seriously hope so, anyway. Obviously, I wasn't paying that close attention to the lyrics of these parts.
Anyway, it was an album that just consumed everything I did for like a year. I loved that album and would find new things about it every time I listened to it. While most people I knew had aligned themselves with either the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, I decided that the Who would be my favorite band of all time. It's weird, because while I love all of these groups now, I really hated the Beatles and was impassive at best about the Stones. I think that it's because those two bands I only knew their earliest songs as a kid, where with the Who I knew Tommy and Face Dances, for some reason and worked my way backwards. If doesn't make sense to me, but there you have it.
Anyway, like I said, I loved Tommy. But about after a year or so, it came to me rather suddenly that the whole thing was pretty over the top****. The story was ridiculous (pinball?) and there were a lot of weird, sudden turns in the middle of the story. I soon realized that this wasn't the best Who album. Hell, this wasn't even the best rock opera that the Who did. I should also mention that in this period there were like 5 live Who albums released and most of them playing Tommy in full. It's no secret that the band played this for like 5 years straight and grew to hate it, and I soon understood why.
So one day I put it on a sheld or something and stopped thinking about it. I explored other albums and other bands and other whole genres. and aside from occasionally hearing "Pinball Wizard", I really didn't get that much of it. Until recently, when I was thinking of it and downloaded it on a whim in the middle of my midterms a few weeks ago. And to be honest, it fucking made my week. I gave it a fresh listen or ten, and I really got into all of these things I forgot about ages ago. The little feedback things at the beginning of "Amazing Journey" just run up my spine. Pete Townsend's unbridled sincerity in his vocals of "1921"****. There's the "See me, feel me" callback running throughout the album, just shy of annoying the hell out of you. There's "We're Not gonna Take It", which I've been playing twice a day as loud as I possible can for the past few weeks and going crazy for (that little whisper!).
Tommy is also Keith Moon at the top of his game. It's funny, because everyone else is somewhat subdued on this record. Daltrey is almost sing-talking through most of the record, and never lets his voice off its leash the way he sometimes did. Townsend's guitar is almost subtle, with the exceptions of a few power chords here and there (and surely some windmilling), it's like he's painfully aware that this is going to be a legacy and he can't have fun with it. Entwistle's bass is nonexistent. I think you can here his horn work more than his bass. Entwistly, who was arguably the greatest bassist of his era, is almost absent from this album (he did, however write both "Cousin Kevin" and "Fiddle About", which is appropriately and astoundingly fucked up). Moon, though. His drums are reigned in just enough to let one know what the hell he's doing. If I had a complaint about Keith Moon it's that he seemed to have thousands of distinct rhythms going on in his head at once, and while they lined up, the way he would alternate between them on the drums was confusing to the listener. Here, though, his work is practically cogent. Instead of air-drumming with abandon, I can listen to this and kinda figure out what he's going. It's really kind of a beautiful submission.
So how is it that the band's most well-known and possibly well-regarded album is a duff-job performance-wise for almost the entire band? I don't know. I also don't know how it works, but then here I am writing about it.

I fompletely forgot what I was trying to write about when I started this. I actually wanted to write about the Haden triplets today, but that'll come later. In any case, I guess what I'm trying to do is make a plea for you to go find a record that you were in love with. Maybe, like me, it can be the first record you were in love with. If your'e like me, you probably ran it into the ground and haven't picked it up in ages. It doesn't have to be anything profound or something that even aged well. It can be something that embarrasses the shit out of you. But go get it. download it. Just find it, dust it off, and listen to it. Remind yourself what you loved about it. There are times when I am so sick of rock music that I just don't care about it anymore. This happens more often than ever nowadays. This might be my growing intolerance, but it also might be that sometimes my bearings are off and I fail to remember what it was that made me love this crap to begin with. so go dust off an album that you loved once and give it another shot. Even if you hate it now, I'm sure there's something in it that'll bring a smile to your face.


*While I haven't seen it in a decade, I'm still pretty sure there exists a picture of me asleep and using this clock radio as a pillow, my ear crunched into the speakers. Smart.
**Thinking back on it, my interest in music might well have been an effort to be able to hang out with my siblings and not feel like such a baby of the group. This might explain my continuing interest in music as well..
***According to Wikipedia: "As of 2008, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon has been on the charts for over 1,630 weeks, or approximately thirty-one years. Consecutively, the album spent a record 741 weeks on the Billboard 200".
**** Much more of this probably has to do with my watching the movie. I remember being so excited to watch that, and then even then knowing that there was never a bigger pile of shit.
***** For some reason I've never really liked Roger Daltrey. It only got worse when I realized he didn't really write any of the songs, or found out that he more or less threatened his way into the band...

wow. sorry for rambling as much as did right ther...

I've chosen not to get into the Michael Jackson dying just because I'm sure like me you've seen it in every single media outlet possible and might well be as sick of it as I am. That said, what the hell is going on in the Liberian Girl video? You see Feldman in there? Ricky Schroeder? Who is Theo trying to mack on his old-ass phone?

In its own strange way, I think that this video contains both the great and the awful about Michael Jackson all wrapped up into one confusing video. It might be the timeframe, or it might be that you can tell that this probably would've been his dream, to be watching some of Hollywood's biggest names sitting around talking about him. Either way, ...yeah.

Senator Franken?

It's almost July, and Minnesota might just have two senators now.

Why I don't read X-Men comics

Strangely, this is pretty calm when compared to the whole time travel thing.

from Eye on Springfield

It's the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. I would've completely forgotten this if I hadn't been listening to a recording of an interview with Noel Coward and Judy Garland, whose nearby funeral was supposedly a big reason the Stonewall Inn was so crowded that night.

Anyway, it's pretty amazing how things have progressed with the gay rights movement. Of course, there are still many strides to take, but it's still as good a time as any to stop and look around for a minute and ponder on how in a lot of ways, things are moving in the right direction on this fucked up rock we call home.

It's like 150 degrees out right now and what I would like to do less than anything else on this green earth is sit here and read about the philosophies of information organization. But alas, I'm stuck with it. Still, this picture is just about heaven to me right now: a brisk, rainy day in the city with an Oscar-winning animated movie. Sigh.

found at Shorpy

Looking back with hope for the future

As a Philadelphia sports fan, it seems like draft day is usually the most positive, where we get a new addition to the team, and usually a cheap one at that. I was happy with the Eagles picking up Pitt alumn Shady McCoy, and despite the relatively low pick in a far from sensational draft, I remain optimistic for the Sixer's pick. Partially because of the new uniforms (it's for real, and Sonny Hill was there for proof!) and partially because of the fact that it's the Sixers, and I gotta look upwards. It's almost certain we're going for a guard, and if the mock drafts around the internet are believed, it's practically a lock that we'll go after Ty Lawson (though I saw one somewhere with us taking Chase Budinger, which terrifies me). I like Lawson, and I like pretty much every name I've seen thrown around (Maynor, Ellington, Maynor, Holiday, etc...), so I can't really complain as long as things go to plan.

Of course, it's the Sixers, so I'll probably have somehting to complain about tomorrow night. But for now, I remain hopelessly optimistic.

incidentally, there's a great bunch of photos over here of Philly throughout the 60s. There's legends, there's riots, there's everyday life, there's sports, and there's... Candice Bergen. It's honestly some great pictures, and I recommend the view. If you go over there, though, and look at the zombie prom pictures instead... I don't know you.

Ray Bradbury: Still Piss & Vinegar (at first he was just vinegar)

Ray Bradbury is violently opposed to the internet, and crusading for libraries.

First, let me state that I fucking love the guy's work. The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man are two of my favorite works ever. and I certainly have no beef with him trying to save funding for libraries, for the obvious reasons both personal and professional.

But I don't get the internet hate. Sure it's a distraction, but it's an invaluable tool and capable of doing so much. At least once a day I read an anti-internet screed (written by people taking classes online, at that) and I can just roll my eyes and go back to looking at the latest celebrity gossip... or something.

Neutral professional

"The 20th Century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy" - Alex Carey

I found this somewhere in a paper I was reading last night that about the idea of "the myth of the neutral professional*. Basically, the point was that there is no such thing as neutrality when in a position in which you are to teach or present. As a teacher, you can abstain from presenting a dissident opinion when teaching politics or history, but that in doing so, you're perpetuating the dominant power. It says that neutrality, or at least the attempt at it in these instances is really the passive acceptance of the status quo. And even if you present the two major competing ideologies involved, who's to say you're not leaving a third or fourth out, and thus not giving them equal attention, blah blah blah.

I disagree with a lot of the points made in this article, not the least that I feel like the author has so liberally biased the article that it will fall to many of the concepts presented within it. Nonetheless, it's an interesting read and short enough that some of you might actually be interested in reading it.

So there's that.

*this is relating more to the more literal definition of the word. Or at least I'm told.

It was 40 years ago yesterday that Cleveland's lake Cuyahoga caught fire, giving Pittsburgh something to feel good about for years before the Steel Curtain instilled a whole new pride. It's improved a great deal since then, but it does remain on the EPA's polluted list. Frankly, I think it's nice just to see some improvement in the region. Western PA/Ohio has historically had some of the most polluted waterways in the country, stemming largely from industrial sites, many of which are long gone. The region is still paying for it, though (Consider that PA has as many superfund sites as California, for a second, despite having less than a third of the area). So as laughable as the fire was, at least it gave birth to some serious reconsideration on our environmental stance, which we should be grateful for.

Anyway, there's a great article here documenting like 15 other fires that took plce on the river, going back well over a century. Apparently, "Compared to the 1952 inferno, the 1969 fire was nothing special, a freak accident that merited little local concern, but sparked national attention because of increased environmental consciousness throughout the country".

It seems like most of the pictures we see and associate with the 1969 fire (and likely including the one above) were actually from the 1952 fire. Huh.

Triumph at Bonnaroo

I don't think I've mentioned how great Conan has been since the switch, but it's not like I have to. Nothing's changed, really, except he has higher profile guests than before. It's been a long bumpy road since the monorail episode of the Simpsons, but he hasn't skipped a beat. Go Conan.

Pt. 1 is over at the NBA site.

So I put that mix up that I tried to finish before leaving. I had to cut 2 songs off it to prevent having to split it up, but there's no big loss.

From English Russia

And people complain about Betterton's steps...

The Smugglers of Pirate's Cove

Indoor pool with diving platform

Sea Breeze Serenade

1. "Four Minutes to Lock Down" (feat. Raekwon & Ghostface Killah) - Method Man and Redman
2. "Holiday" - Pink Mountaintops
3. "Reality" - Carolyn Franklin
4. "Horror Business" - Pajo
5. "Ships With Holes Will Sink" - We Were Promised Jetpacks
6. "Love Vigilantes" - Iron & Wine
7. "Honeybee" - Throw Me the Statue
8. "A Broken Heart Don't Really Break" - Main Ingredient
9. "When I'm Gone" - Groovie Ghoulies
10. "Return Journey" - Ghost
11. "Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers" - Nella Dodds
12. "The Reason Young People Use Drugs" - Abner Jay
13. "Ships Go Out" - Ron Sexsmith
14. "Love Comes and Goes" - Lee Fields & The Expressions
15. "They Done Wrong/We Done Wrong" - White Rabbits
16. "All of the Above" - The Phenomenal Handclap Band
17. "When I Go" - Slow Club
18. "Fuck Christmas, I Got the Blues" - The Legendary Tiger Man
19. "Never Forget You" - Noisettes

This isn't put together as well as I'd like it to be, and but I'm set to go on vacation in a couple of hours, so I figured better now than never. It's kind of all over the place.

Sorry I didn't get to update this more over the weekend, Finals and a small bout of food poisoning have kept me somewhat out of the loop. I'll post pictures of the trip if/when I have reception, but otherwise I won't be able to really post until Friday morning. Hope everyone has a good week!

Download here

Finals: DONE

Yes, I have resumed sleeping, bathing, speaking, etc...

I have a coupla posts and another mix lined up, but first I have to run some long overdue errands. Needless to say, I'm excited to write about bullshit for awhile. So yeah, that's coming.

in the meantime... look at this fucking hipster.

I know I said I was taking some time off, but 2 things happened:
First, I was going over lecture notes about web 2.0 and libraries 2.0 (I am promising here and now that these terms will never appear here again) and there was a passage to the extent of "if you can't find the time to post to a blog regularly don't bother" and then I felt guilty.

Second, CRYPTID SIGHTING!!!!!! This is all over the nerdly realms of the internet, but in case you don't frequent the same dorkish corners of the web that I do, basically what happened is that a Vermont man allegedly caught on his camera phone some footage of the Lake Champlain monster "Champ". One of the great things about camera phones is that things like this are boung to start being mroe plentiful, right? Well, that and and blurry videos of celebrities in airports).

Anyway, this looks to be the first "major" recorded sighting of Champ in over 30 years (see the picture above). So if you live in the Lake Champlain region, get ready for the invasion of sweaty folk and drunk people with harpoon guns.

I've been absent lately because of my impending finals (1 project down, 1 project and 1 exam to go), and I haven't had very interesting things to share. I have about 2 hours a day where I'm awake and not staring at notes, so I try to spend it not doing anything in front of the computer. Anyway, I'll be back by next wednesday, and I have a waist-high stack of emails, correspondence, phone calls, magazines, albums, and comics to peruse, so I should have a whole bunch of stuff to run my mouth off on. So please bear with me. In the meantime, Conan has returned like the milkman in war-torn London, bringing nutricious laughs, so I'm gonna watch the glorious ascension to host of the Tonight Show.


anyway, check out this link I found at Duane Swierczynski's site (which is great for anyone interested in classic hardboiled and noir detective stories and comics). It's a photo set of all these pulpish shots of a beautiful woman shot on old Polaroid stock. Anyway, I just spent plenty of time just imagining low-budget gore and sexploitation flicks based around all of these. Warning: there's some nudity involved.

Neil Krug's Pulp Art Book

Happy Memorial Day

I'm in the throes of wrapping up my first quarter of classes, but take some time off of your Memorial Day to flip through some of these photos taken during World War I of soldiers of the British Empire as they prepare for one of the longest and bloodiest battles in recorded history.

Which isn't to say that they're particularly sad or harrowing, but they are worth taking a look at, especially considering that they've been sitting in a French barn for the past 90 years and that next to nothing is known about them.

For me, I can only look at them and see these people, most of whom were probably younger than I am now when these were taken and many of whom were probably dead 6 months later, these people trying to retain something of themselves in what could only have been miserable conditions. They pose proudly, sometimes smiling, sometimes with local children, putting on a brave face to send back home to their parents or sweethearts or friends.

WWI both fascinates and terrifies me. It conjures the images placed there by people like Owen and Remarque, these horrific images of panic and weariness and death. this is a war in which modern warfare was born, and largely without the sister development of modern medicine that is supposed to accompany it. Never a good combination.

I've never been stupid enough to think I could hack it in a war. But if there is indeed a war that scares me above all others, this is it. War has never been sensible. But as hard to believe, I think it has only gotten more sensible.

Stop and remember that people are dead today. You don't have to agree with their cause or their government. you don't have to pick someone from your country. You don't have to pick the winners or the losers. But just think for a second that millions and millions of people have died for causes that are forgotten by most today. You don't have to remember them. But at least stop and think of them for a minute. It's the least they've earned.

This is a picture, not a painting, of the Forth railway bridge in Scotland. It's apparently the "one internationally recognized Scottish landmark", which is news to me, but looking at this picture, I can certainly see why.

warning: other views are not as glamorous.

Mailbox. Monday afternoon.

1. Tom
2. "Let's Move to the Country" - Smog
3. "Section House" - The End of the World
4. "Je N'Aime Que Toi" - Ludivine Sagnier, Louis Garel, Clothilde Hesme
5. "Don't Be a Rude Boy" - The Rulers
6. "Chances Are" - The Breeders
7. "Silver Threads Among the Gold" - Cheyenne Mize and Bonnie "Prince" Billy
8. "What time is it?"
9. "Pinch Me (Baby Convince Me)" - Chestnut Station
10. "The Boys Are Leaving Town" - Japandroids
11. "And the Hazy Sea" - Cymbals Eat Guitars
12. "The Man Who Played God" (feat. Nina Persson) - Danger Mouse & Sparklerhorse
13. "When Will You Come Home" (Jouhn Peel version) - Galaxie 500
14. "It Just Dawned on Me" - John Doe and the Sadies
15. "What Time it is?"
16. "You Might as Well" - Sera Cahoone
17. "Freeway" - Kurt Vile
18. "Soldiers Take Over" - The Rio Grandes
19. "Loving Cajun Style" - Freddy Fender
20. "But I'm Different Now" - The Jam
21. "If You See What I Mean" - P.P. Arnold

download here.

This is mix I've been playing with for some time now, and I just now slapped some final pieces in and conjured up some artwork. I had to cut a few songs because they were too long, but it's kinda sad because I know I'll forget about them the next time I sit down to this. The new computer either makes it much harder or much easier to make mixes on, I haven't decided which, though.
the picture is of the old Luna Park in the North Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. There were Luna Parks built all over the country, and this one seems only to have operated between 1905-1909, which is surprsing, considering how nice it looks and how much money was in that city at the time. About 85 years after that picture was taken, I lived there, any trace of it had disappeared. There's still a bar named after the place there, one I have only slurry memories of, but recall it as having the drunkest bartenders and most sexually ambiguous bouncer in town. Within 8 minutes of moving to the neighborhood, I locked my keys in the car right in front of the place and had the distinct pleasure of helping a talking to the cop with a beer in my hand as he slim-jimmed my door open (permanently damaging said passenger-side door inthe process). Once, while on a pseudo-date there, I man tried to sell me shopping bag full of pornography.
Good times....

Three separate friends, none of whom know each other, each had children in the past three days. This has to be some weird strike of stork lightning, right? RIGHT?

In any case, my congratulations go out to all of you that might read this. I'm truly amazed by your individual and collective efforts. May your children be strong and beautiful and carry the wonderful qualities that I see in their parents.

As a requirement for one of my classes, I've been working what amounts to an online reference desk at the Internet Public Library. So far, it's been a pretty pleasant experience, and I enjoy it because I get to choose what questions I answer, which means it's usually something that I'm at least mildly curious about. Anything from Philadelphia's role in the Civil War to copyright laws, I've managed to pick up some interesting stuff.
A question I answered today was "Is Hello Kitty from Japan or England". It seemed like a pretty easy one to me, but as always that's a little deceiving (answer: both). Anyway, in my research, I stumbled across news records of the Hello Kitty murder, a case that shocked Hong Kong towards the end of the year 2000. Basically what happened is that a young woman was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered before her decapitated head was stuffed inside of a Hello Kitty doll. Terrifying, right? What's even crazier is that a 13 year-old girl had apparently been dreaming about it before the police there figured out what happened. Yikes. Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm ruining it for you, but I thought it was morbidly interesting.

Hopefully I'll have something a little more positive to report on for my next question...

Not to mention that there seems to be a number of Hello Kitty guns on the market... which I'm not even gonna get into.

The Sword of Victory, Russian

I know I've been scarce lately, thank midterms. I'm too tired to think, and I've been listening to a startling amount of musical theater while I've been studying lately. I think it goes back to the (terrible) study habits I picked up when I once shared a study space with one of my brothers and one of my sisters and in an effort to fool my parents into thinking this setup was effective (it wasn't, but my siblings could smoke cigarettes in the house undetected), they would play Les Miserables while we sifted through notebooks.

In any case, I'll post something later, but in the meantime I need to get back to homework and then seriously try to limp my way over to the gym so I can claim I at least walked that far out of the house.

For now, though, I feel like this little guy.

Captain Chaos R.I.P.

Great, now I got the Golden Girls and Cannonball Run to slough through.

Thru You: Imagine slapping together songs a la Garageband, only with Youtube videos. The result is this hodgepodge of guys pretending to film instructional videos, jagoffs videotaping themselves shredding in their bedroom, distraught girls singing to themselves, etc... The list goes on. It sort of gels, and sort of looks like a bunch of people whose videos were chopped up and arranged into songs on more YouTube videos.

Anyway, it's worth checking out. It's real evidence that with enough pot and editing software, you can truly put something together. I recommend tracks 1,3,4, and 7.

edit: and pets. There seem to be a lot of pets around these people.

One of the more entertaining aspects of David Souter's retirement: I've heard the term "Bork" four times since Friday.

Sure, it's probably more of a name than a term, but it's still pretty awesome.

This is going to be a long, dumb war between ideologies coming up, but I can't imagine it's going to end up all that different that it is now.

hey, That should be a motto for our political system.

Saw this the other day and I can honestly say that it's a pretty decent approximation of the inside of my head.

Brecht Vandenbrouke on Flickr.

Arlen Specter: Democrat?

So, he went and did it. 

Facing what appeared to be defeat in the polls from his new Democratic Challenger, Arlen Specter has decided to run in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. 

It's still plenty of time off, and Specter's ictory is by no means guaranteed, but at the same time this is going to shift the politics. What I liked the most about Specter is that while I didn't always agree with him, I could usually count on him to make a decision he believed in. I have no reason to think that would change now, but what I do fear is that his sear will open up to someone much further on the right to slide in there. This is Pennsylvania, after all. So while it's unlikely, we could have a Santorum II issue bubbling here. Of course I'd rather have Specter as a Senator than not have him, but if it means opening up that seat in the slightest so someone of that caliber, I'm going to get anxious. 

Most of the press right now is being made about the fact that this, along with a Franken confirmation, will make a filibuster-proof majority, and how the GOP are scrambling to hold up the Franken issue at all costs, or how Kay Bailey Hutchison would be freed up to run for Governor (King? Emperor?) of Texas now since her vote wouldn't be as crucial to the GOP. 

These are all good points and worth considering, but to assume that all of the Democratic senators will toe the party line is just foolish. One of the biggest problems with the Democratic Party is that the beliefs are scattered across such a wide area that it's much harder to get everyone to vote the same. Whether that indicates a narrower mindset on the GOP side of the aisle or just greater discipline in the party leadership I'm not qualified to say, but it's definitely a factor, and to think that Specter (along with Evan Bayh, Mark Begich, Bill Nelson, and the rest of the Bue Dog senate) will just dive headfirst into all of Obama's agendas is lunacy, just as it's lunacy to expect any more of the wandering GOP members to occasionally buck their party. This is going to shore up both sides and make things uglier for the time being. Especially between now and November, when Specter is going to have to consider his votes carefully and Al Franken is going to go through the Salem witch trials for his confirmation. 

So as a whole, this makes m happy. Knowing that Specter has a much better chance of keeping his seat is good news, though I still think I'd rather have him moderating the right than the left. My home state will probably have two very moderate Democratic Senators. There are worse things, to be sure, but I wouldn't complain to see Bob Casey, Jr. replaced with someone just a tad more progressive. 

Joe Sestak, your destiny is calling....

So, apparently, April is grilled cheese month. I don't know who thinks this needs to be a thing, especially in this house, where the grilled cheese is enjoyed all-year round.

Me, I go for a cooper sharp cooked in light butter, a thin slice of tomato, and a shitload of little red pepper flakes. Then, I cut diagonally and dunk in some Cholula.

But if that's not your thing, Women's Day magazine (yes, I am a lifelong reader) has compiled a list of wack-ass recipes for you to check out. Actually, the Gruyère with Caramelized Onions and the Caprese one look great. The rest I reserve suspicion for.

Clouded Leopard Cubs!

Clouded Leopard cubs were born at the National Zoo recently. And they're fucking* adorable!

(it's not a picture of Fergus, right?)

*This is my first f-bomb in what feels like ages. It was totally worth it.

It isn't often that I ask something of you, the HDF reader. This is partially because I feel guilty enough for not updating this site enough, and largely because I get squeamish in asking anything else of anyone reading this (other than that West Wing idea!) other than to keep checking this site every once in awhile. Sure, it doesn't really offer anything other than linked news stories and the occasional story about my cat, but then seriously, you're probably at work and bored, so I can only hope to help fill that void. I don't send forwards, and I'm not on Facebook, so really this is my only web presence, and I'm happy with that. I don't feel bad about whingeing on about my own lefty idealistic dogeared beliefs, because, because hey, you came here. But I -hey, where are you going? Please come back, I didn't mean that. Stick around for a minute, I'm getting to the point, I was just trying to talk about something here.

Okay.

Anyway, I'm always impressed with m friends, who are in fact the best people in the world (now that Paul Newman is dead). My friends are industrious and creative and fun and, well, people I'm proud to be friends with. There isn't a one who doesn't impress me semi regularly, and I mean that with the utmost sincerity. Y'all make me look like a coma victim.

And then there's Neil, who's putting together another documentary, this one about United States bombing campaigns from the people who make the decisions to drop them to the people they hit (intentional or not) and the way it affects our national conscious as a whole. It's solemn work, and it deserves our attention whether we want to think about it or not. Just because last month we made it illegal to sell cluster bombs doesn't mean that we made it illegal to use them or (shudder) just give them to Israel. and not even counting those godawful things, think of these weapons, these awesome (not in the good way) munitions, which we drop from several tens of thousands of feet up in the air into very much populated areas. I can't spit 4 stories in a closed stairwell* and hit the ground, and there's not even wind in there. Sure, my spit isn't laser-guided, but then how laser-guided was that bomb that blew up a wedding in Afghanistan (oh wait which one?) or the thousands of other accidents we've had? You can chalk it up to being the costs of war, but it's a bullshit war and it's a bullshit write off. If our taxpayer dollars are responsible for killing this many people by accident, we should damn sure be thinking about it.
But I'm getting off track, and I'm talking about things I don't know about, and the only way I'm gonna get my shit straight is by watching the movie when it comes out. and that's where Neil comes in.
The thing about Neil, though he'd probably deny this, is that he's one of the most decent people I know. Seriously, he resides in the uppermost strata of decent (heretofore referred to as the Carmody/Halloran barrier) of all the people I know, which is remarkable. At which I have to stop and wonder "why do these people even know a bastard like me?". I could never imagine working on a project like this and coming out the other end with my humanity intact. I just don't have that in me, and I'm certain if I could utilize my ape mind to slap together a film, it would not only be terrible and more than likely feature of accidentally inserted scene of me drunk and crying a la Martin Sheen in Hearts of Darkness, but it would also have no point. and that's one of the myriad of reasons why I can't make films. But I get the feeling that in addition to Neil's spirit remaining, and in addition to him continuing to be Neil, I'm pretty sure that after watching this film I will say to myself "Holy shit, there's something I can do", which is pretty rare if you know me at all. And I'm looking forward to having that feeling, but in the meantime, what I can do is tell you about it.

So please do me a favor. Go check out OurBombs.com. Watch the trailer. Look at the Air Strike Tracker. If you know someone you think might be interested in it, tell them about it. I promise I won't ask anything else of you until the movie comes out (you know I mean it!), but in the meantime, it's not going to take up too much of your time, and you're going to learn something, and you're going to help out my friend Neil. Tell you what, you go check this out and I won't post any more pictures of my cat**. That's win-win! Anyway, thanks for listening.


*this writer performed these tests in a controlled environment with no person in any danger of being hit. No humans or animals were harmed or humiliated in the tests. I messed some plants up pretty bad, though.
**This is not a guarantee.

Think we're out of the woods as far as the economy is concerned? The Economist says to pull your head out of your ass.

only, you know, much nicer than that.

I'm not getting into the whole torture thing, largely because I think that this is all stuff we've known or at least suspected to have known for a long time. Whether you're a proponent of torture or not, and I'm not going to pretend like there aren't people that don't advocate torture, nor am I going to say that they're wrong for doing so. It's a valid opinion, just not one that I happen to share. Anyway, I can handle that just fine, what I just can't tolerate is the renaming of it and pretending it's something that it isn't. I can understand why someone might think torture works (though I refuse to accept 24 as a reference point here), but they should at least have the stones to admit they're in favor of torture and not enhanced interrogation techniques.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into that (see what I just did there!!??). But I just read a story that provides some pretty compelling testimony that we can also add kidnapping children to the list of things I can be ashamed of our government doing and that pit in my stomach just grew a little bit. I mean, I guess we've been kidnapping children for awhile now (how old were some of those kids in Gitmo? 15? 16?), but these are kids. like, 7 and 9.

Anyway, I don't really have all that much to say about it, I just figured that it's worth pointing out.

In Tacoma, Washington, an 84 year-old man beat the crap out of 2 carjackers.

AWESOME.

Also, the Sixers are now up 2 games to 1.

AWESOME.

So, I wanted to post some stuff about Alex Andreev's art the other day when I first saw it, but seeing that I don't speak Russian, I found his website somewhat tricky to manage. Obviously, this is a stupid reason not to at least superficially explore a website, but then my computer hasn't dealt well lately with flashy websites, especially since the Flinstonesian bird living in it died of heatstroke a few weeks ago.

Of course, he has a page on Livejournal that I didn't know about until I came across it on English Russia this evening. He refers to his art as Hermetic (is this to say that it is entirely uninfluenced? I'm not so sure...), and it might well be. But that doesn't matter, because much of it is absolutely stunning. Airplanes weaving through massive pillars that shooy skyward from the cloudline. Cloud cities. A few where boxcars are suspended by a thin strand of cable. The imagery presented here is gorgeous, and shows more premise than most of the movies being made today.

so yeah, there's something pretty to look at. I should try to use one of those websites to translate what he says on his page about these things, but I kind of like the mystery attached to them either way. Click one of the links above or check out some more here.

and while I hate to cram two great artists into one puny thread (in a time where my posting is scant at best, I should really be milking this into two threads), I also hate to post twice in a row from the same website. Had I more time for browsing, I could've at least spaced these a few days apart, but this is what happens when I have to catch up on several weeks of my favorite sites in a sitting.




Anyway, there's a beautiful set up there of a series of pictures taken from a rooftop at dawn in St. Petersburg. I think many of these were treated with HDR, and maybe some other effects, but my favorites might be the ones that aren't touched at all.
Dawn is something I don't see often, and when I do it's more than likely at the end of a night rather than the start of a day (much, I suspect, like these scruffs*), but the growing light is always nice, even when I feel more weary (or sometimes very drunk) than energetic, it's a comfort to know that a day is over and a night. You can go to bed knowing that at it's already another day no matter how you look at it. And if you're going to bed after dawn, chances are you'll sleep just fine.

I dunno, that's how I see it, anyway. See the rest of the set here.

Well, I'm off to watch one of my favorite episodes of the West Wing** and hopefully drift off to sleep soon after. Maybe I'll have something fun to write tomorrow when I'm done with my work?

*I was thinking at first that this term might seem offensive (I spend a lot more time thinking about that crap than you'd think while writing this. Or anything, for that matter), but then realized I would totally refer to myself in that way, so fuck it.

**I'm just starting this. Or at least I did a few momths ago, got through season 1, loved it, and now I'm watching it again to catch Carrie up. So far it's one of my favorite shows ever (I was seriously considering trying to get whatever friends I have that never watched it to start up a long-distance viewing TV club, but logistics somehow brought this down before it started), but I'm stuck a hell of a cliffhanger so I really wanna get the rest of this season out of the way.

If anyone wants to start watching this show now, I'm not going to hit season 2 for another couple of weeks. Think about how fun it would be, watch an episode or two a week, and comment about it! I'll start another blog for it! a ten year old sitcom that is one of the most watched shows ever! Ten years later!

okay, I'm going to bed... man, this post is all over the place....

What the WHAT?

The Supreme Court today sharply limited the power of police to search a suspect's car after making an arrest, acknowledging that the decision changes a rule that law enforcement has relied on for nearly 30 years....Stevens was joined by two of his most liberal colleagues -- Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- and two of his most conservative -- Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas...

I have no idea what the hell is going on here, or why Breyer dissented, but I have to say it's the most shocking news I've heard all day.

Which isn't saying much, since I was reading homework all day, but still...

How awesome was that Sixers game?

I have to say, every time I think Sammy D is picking up his D and picking it up again, he does something completely stupid on the court and looking confused. Right around the third quarter, it was killing me. If you had told me that a Donyell Marshall and Theo Ratliff were going to come in and make everything okay when they were down by 18, I wouldn't have believed you.

In any case, I'm going to bed a happy happy man.

Also, Reggie Evans is my favorite player to watch on the the bench ever. Not that I necessarily want him benched, but he really maintains this energy that I love. He's on the edge of his seat the whole time shouting his support and you know he's just one of those hearts of the team that goes much further than a box stat would lead you to believe.

I've proclaimed my love of Maddow here before, but hearing her tonight (or last night, as it already is here) rebuke the accusations of Senator Richard Burr's office is downright Murrovian. and I love her for it.

now back to my Beatles binge (more on that to come).

I wanted to write something about the death of Harry Kalas, but I've got a truckload of reading in front of me and the way my day is going, I'd probably get gandraped by a herd of elephants before I get to finish writing it up. Needless to say, he was one of the greats and his voice is truly missed. and I'm glad he at least got to anounce the Phils' Series win.

As far as my day, it really was a shitty one of epic proportions. When, by 1:30 PM. you've decided that you're better off going home and not going outside for the rest of the day, you know things aren't going your way. I also got pulled over for the first time in awhile, and got my first ticket since... 2000. It was a nice streak, and the longest of my life so far, so now I got a challenge.
But then I found an article about a guy who had a 5 cm fir tree removed from his lungs. While that's pretty damned weird, I think the craziest part is that he "probably inhaled a bud and it proceeded to grow inside his body". Yeah. So, I got that going for me. That is, not having a tree taking root in my lungs. Which is nice.

Mt. Redoubt explosion

(Slinka via Warren Ellis)

Obama's got a new opponent on his hands: BEES

Rare Megamouth Shark Caught, Eaten

Gregg Yan said the fish was tagged "Megamouth 41" — the 41st megamouth recorded in the world... Yan urged fishermen who encounter the rare shark to immediately report to authorities or the WWF.

and, you know, not to eat them.

I really feel shitty about not updating this as regularly as I should, but in truth I just haven't been able to devote enough time to the outlets where I usually end up gathering all my odd information, and my extracurricular input time has been reduced to the Rachel Maddow audio podcast and the Best Show, so it might be a little while before I get this stuff on a regular schedule. In the meantime, though, I think I should have another mix to put up soon.

The reason I'm posting today, though, is the 25 biggest censored news stories of 2009. It's pretty scary stuff, especially considering that 2009 isn't even halfway through at the moment. Oh well, at least we're finding out about them somehow, right?

That's all I got for the moment, but I'll try get over here later today with something more substantial...

Resignation cake!

G20 hijinx

It's like when you're in school and you're allowed to do one "zany" photo. I'm half expecting Obama to put Berlusconi* in a fake headlock.

Speaking of whom, how do we feel about leaders who refer to themselves by their last name when shouting across crowded, formal rooms? I think it's kind of awesome.

Men Who Experimented with Beards: The Quiz

(I got 8/10, though one answer was sheer luck).

Isn't there supposed to be some crazy computer virus outbreak today?

EYES OPEN, PEOPLE!

I've always been interested in the golden age of piracy (though the modern age is just as fascinating to me for different reasons), probably an offshoot of my general curiosity regarding famous outlaws through history. Or just a byproduct of my colossal dorkery. In any case, it's fascinating to me the lengths people will go to live outside of the law. I've never romanticized the notion of piracy in any era, least of all the 17th and 18th centuries. There is really no aspect of that lifestyle that appeals to me. I have a terrible aversion to scurvy and losing limbs. I'm not a very good fighter. I hate rum. and make no mistake, these were by and large awful, awful people. But I love the idea of these drunken madmen just infuriating the largest and most powerful forces that the world had ever seen at the time. But anyway, that's neither here nor there.
National Geographic just put out some pictures of artifacts found on what's almost certain to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was discovered sometime in the late '90s. This is probably the most famous pirate ship that ever existed, and almost certainly the basis for the ship in those Johnny Depp movies*. It's also one of the few pirate ships whose name I know**, despite its relatively short lifespan as a pirate vessel.

Anyway, check out some artifacts here and at the link above. Then eat some fruit to avoid scurvy.

This reminds me that I should point out that I actually can't stand the weird hipster obsession with pirates and acting like pirates and Talk like a Pirate day and whatnot (I'm looking at you, Portland). While it's cute to run up the Jolly Roger (which might be the most boring pirate flag ever), never forget that these were reprehensible people that kidnapped, tortured, murdered, raped, maimed, etc... It's fun to paint them as Robin Hoods, but in most cases they were barely literate thugs. For every fun-loving and playful corsair, there is a sadist like Edward Low that really nobody should be emulating. Anyway, enough of that.

*what happened with those? The first one was so much fun, then they followed it up with overwrought mythologies and ubermenshian crap... much like the Matrix trilogy, now that I think about it. Maybe we should pass a law that in the case of trilogies, all works must be complete and hashed out before the first day of filming starts.

**Others would be Bartholomew Roberts' Royale Fortune and Captain Kidd's Adventure Galley

Picture above: Howard Pyle's depiction of Blackbeard's last battle. In addition to being probably the definitive pirate artist (there's a whole book, check it out), he was also a profound influence on N.C. Wyeth, which in turn makes him one of the most important influences of his era. Plus, this. So he's okay in my book.