Sushi, sake, and laughs with my brother. Now this is a good Friday. Have a great weekend.
Month: March 2013
Prince Rupert’s Drop Explained
Prince Rupert’s Drop Explained
I’ve seen these pop up in various places around the internet but always just under my “interested enough to click threshhold”. I’m glad I did today, because this is a pretty fun effect and looks beautiful in slo-mo against the setting sun.
Dear Mr. Watterson
Dear Mr. Watterson
This documentary on the influence of Bill Watterson and his strip Calvin & Hobbes was funded by a kickstarter that I missed somehow. The website only has showings in Ohio and Wisconsin with eventual release on DVD. I hope I don’t have to wait to long
Website: http://www.dearmrwatterson.com/DMW/main.html
Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fingerprintfilms/dear-mr-watterson-a-calvin-and-hobbes-documentary
Wait for it
Wait for it
Has anyone else been watching the scene unfold over on xkcd today? There is a new frame released every half hour. They’ve been compiled into an animated GIF in several places around the web. I’ve been following this one:
http://primis.org/time/output.gif
Yum!
Yum! I love fresh strawberries. We are lucky here in L.A. in that we get them all year round. I think I’m going to give a couple of these other varieties a shot while they are around. mmmm…
Originally shared by Felicia Elena
I’m in…you?
I’m in…you?
Originally shared by David Brin
Envision a steam-punk replica of the Mars Rover, concocted by a smart mob of amateurs plus real “JPL-iens” … all in the name of fun (and some science) for the Burning Man spectacle-festival. Sound way cool? Explore and examine their Kickstarter. As for you OTHER folks reading this right now…
…yes I am talking to you alien voyeurs, lurking and messing around on or internet, musing and amusing on our postings without ever deigning to speak up yourselves? Yes, I taunted you in my new novel Existence. But this time, come on, it’s different. A return to our cargo cult roots. So pony up a few bucks for this. It will make good footage for your documentary about rugged native rituals!
Charles Bukowski – How Is Your Heart?
Charles Bukowski – How Is Your Heart?
during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn’t call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment
and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.
what matters most is / how well you / walk through the / fire
I love that last line so much.
#worldpoetryday
El Hombre
El Hombre
By William Carlos Williams
It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star;
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
#worldpoetryday
Riprap
Riprap
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In coice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles–
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
My favorite by him is actually Mountains and Rivers Without End. I read through that and his essay “The Etiquette of the Wild” while camped in the eastern sierra north of Mono Lake. The atmosphere may have influenced the love.
#worldpoetryday
World Poetry Day
World Poetry Day
http://www.un.org/en/events/poetryday/
Apparently today is world poetry day. So I’m going to share a few of my favorites. #worldpoetryday
Casualty
BY SEAMUS HEANEY
I
He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another rum
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too sly,
His deadpan sidling tact,
His fisherman’s quick eye
And turned observant back.
Incomprehensible
To him, my other life.
Sometimes, on the high stool,
Too busy with his knife
At a tobacco plug
And not meeting my eye,
In the pause after a slug
He mentioned poetry.
We would be on our own
And, always politic
And shy of condescension,
I would manage by some trick
To switch the talk to eels
Or lore of the horse and cart
Or the Provisionals.
But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone held
His breath and trembled.
II
It was a day of cold
Raw silence, wind-blown
surplice and soutane:
Rained-on, flower-laden
Coffin after coffin
Seemed to float from the door
Of the packed cathedral
Like blossoms on slow water.
The common funeral
Unrolled its swaddling band,
Lapping, tightening
Till we were braced and bound
Like brothers in a ring.
But he would not be held
At home by his own crowd
Whatever threats were phoned,
Whatever black flags waved.
I see him as he turned
In that bombed offending place,
Remorse fused with terror
In his still knowable face,
His cornered outfaced stare
Blinding in the flash.
He had gone miles away
For he drank like a fish
Nightly, naturally
Swimming towards the lure
Of warm lit-up places,
The blurred mesh and murmur
Drifting among glasses
In the gregarious smoke.
How culpable was he
That last night when he broke
Our tribe’s complicity?
‘Now, you’re supposed to be
An educated man,’
I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me
The right answer to that one.’
III
I missed his funeral,
Those quiet walkers
And sideways talkers
Shoaling out of his lane
To the respectable
Purring of the hearse…
They move in equal pace
With the habitual
Slow consolation
Of a dawdling engine,
The line lifted, hand
Over fist, cold sunshine
On the water, the land
Banked under fog: that morning
I was taken in his boat,
The Screw purling, turning
Indolent fathoms white,
I tasted freedom with him.
To get out early, haul
Steadily off the bottom,
Dispraise the catch, and smile
As you find a rhythm
Working you, slow mile by mile,
Into your proper haunt
Somewhere, well out, beyond…
Dawn-sniffing revenant,
Plodder through midnight rain,
Question me again.
entropyHed 
