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September 29, 2006
Haircuts by Children
“In the future, every child will be given a pair of scissors and invited to shape our destinies.”—Haircuts by Children
September 28, 2006
Cultivating a Dynamic Landscape
When you’re making a garden you’re making art. Art is about one’s own experience, and the one experience that is universal is change, so when I choose a plant for the garden, it has to change.
the loose informality of a trip to Brewcraft
I answered the phone the other day — and I really was ecstatic about this — I answered the phone and I couldn’t think of what my name was. If I could have totally forgotten about it for a longer than I did, I would have said I’d have made it. I was that close. But it came to me.
Larry Gallagher profiles Griz, proprietor of San Francisco Brewcraft, where you “[can’t] get out the door without having a significant human interaction.”
September 27, 2006
culture, counterculture
The famously rebellious Jimi Hendrix played a legendary, electric-guitar rendition of America’s national anthem at Woodstock in 1969. Was this feedback-heavy anthem a symbolic rejection of mainstream American culture, or a celebration of the country and its values? Hendrix’s use of this prominent American symbol forces us to question just how far the hippies went in rejecting the dominant culture. Indeed, countercultures and the American mainstream make strange, but frequent bedfellows. Witness the adoption of one-time countercultures by corporate America: Could early punk rockers have guessed that music by The Clash and Iggy Pop would one day sell luxury cars and vacation cruises? How did the hippies go from rebels against 1950s materialism to fashion trendsetters? And what transformed a small, underground music scene in the Pacific Northwest into the lucrative grunge and “alternative rock” juggernaut of the 1990s?
Jamie Jesson is teaching RHE 309K - Youth Rebellion and the Rhetoric of American Identity at the University of Texas at Austin.
Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?
I felt that mapping Sal’s journey would provide new levels of understanding, for me and others, on Kerouac, his motivations, the motivations of his characters and other things about “On the Road.” For example, he talks about being stuck in Shelton, Nebraska. It’s one thing to read that particular passage, but another thing to put it in perspective with a map—to see just exactly how far away from everything Shelton, Nebraska really is and to realize how that would have affected Kerouac and Sal.
World Hum interviews Michael Hess on his annotated Google Map of the first trip west in On the Road.
September 22, 2006
The Tortoise and the Bean
small vanilla cone
small vanilla cup
small ultra chocolate cone
small ultra chocolate cup
small lychee cone
small lychee cup
small rum raisin cone
small rum raisin cup
small ginger cone
small ginger cup
medium vanilla cone
medium vanilla cup
medium ultra chocolate cone
medium ultra chocolate cup
medium lychee cone
medium lychee cup
medium rum raisin cone
medium rum raisin cup
medium ginger cone
medium ginger cup
large vanilla cone
large vanilla cup
large ultra chocolate cone
large ultra chocolate cup
large lychee cone
large lychee cup
large rum raisin cone
large rum raisin cup
large ginger cone
large ginger cup
Let’s see you do that in four lines of Java!
Download UC Berkeley’s Logo for X11
Download a prettier Logo for Mac OS X
Ornette Coleman
Right now, I’m trying to play the instrument, and I’m trying to write, without any restrictions of chord, keys, time, melody and harmony, but to resolve the idea eternally, where every person receives the same quality from it, without relating it to some person.
New York Times: Seeking the Mystical Inside the Music: Listening with Ornette Coleman.
September 21, 2006
reduce, street use, recycle
This site features the ways in which people modify and re-create technology. Herein a collection of personal modifications, folk innovations, street customization, ad hoc alterations, wear-patterns, home-made versions and indigenous ingenuity. In short — stuff as it is actually used, and not how its creators planned on it being used. As William Gibson said, “The street finds its own uses for things.”
I welcome suggestions of links, and contributions from others to include in this compendium.
— KK
Thanks to Rebecca’s Pocket for leading me to Kevin Kelley’s latest project.
September 20, 2006
threat level: chartreuse
The average American is 50 times more likely to die of accidental poisioning than due to terrorism. (source)
Boo!
I was very concerned that when I grew up I would somehow be turned into this zombie who sat in front of the tv watching grown ups just talk.? What a horrible fate. I found out later this abominable program was called “the News.” I never watched it.
Erin Pavlina’s Blog: Why I Never Watch the News
I worry about the people I love who watch TV news. I think it’s emotionally and spiritually toxic.
September 19, 2006
My tushy feel good
randomWalks’ greatest hits: One Evening When She Was Two
One day I told my students (freshmen at a prominent east-coast university) to pull out a piece of paper. They all did. I told them to print their names in the upper right-hand corner. They all did. I told them to tile the paper “A Syllabus of Syllables,” and then underline the title. They all did. I told them to write the following syllables next to the numbers: “ge, sha, la, urb, orb, go, vin, sko, sti, cer.” They all did. I told them to form a word from each of the syllables. They asked me a few questions - they wanted to be sure exactly what it was I wanted from them - and then they all hunched over their papers and did it. I told them to fold the paper in half. Deborah asked which way. I said lengthwise. Then I told them to hand in their papers. They all did. I stood there with a handful of 15 papers folded lengthwise. Everybody was looking at me.
Not one of them asked me why we were doing this. Not one of them told me to go screw myself. Not one of them — not one — even looked at me strange.
Why should they? Nothing strange had happened. this was school. School is where you give up your power, you do what you’re told, and you don’t ask questions. In school, we all learn not to care anymore, not even to care that we’re being humiliated, because everybody keeps telling us that we’re being educated.
more good news about what's wrong with school
If we sat around and deliberately tried to come up with a way to further enlarge the achievement gap, we might just invent homework.
Elementary-school students shouldn’t do homework. By Emily Bazelon - Slate Magazine It’s being referred to as “the homework debate,” but I haven’t seen anybody argue that homework is good pedagogy.
Hey, check this out:
The word comes from the ancient Greek paidagogos, the slave who supervised the education of slave children in whatever given trade they were forced into. Children who lived in under the supervision of Paidagogos were always slaves as no free person took orders from a slave. It was the Paidagogos job to act as a “Drill Sergeant”, and insure that the slaves performed their daily routines as expected by their Master.
September 18, 2006
hozomeen from desolation lookout
Hozomeen, Hozomeen, most beautiful mountain I ever seen
September 16, 2006
Anil explains Justin Timberlake
September 15, 2006
Tips for a healthy home from Judith Lewis.
September 7, 2006
CDs are small
You do the best you can, you fight that technology in all kinds of ways, but I don’t know anybody who’s made a record that sounds decent in the past twenty years, really. You listen to these modern records, they’re atrocious, they have sound all over them. There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like — static. Even these songs probably sounded ten times better in the studio when we recorded ‘em. CDs are small. There’s no stature to it. I remember when that Napster guy came up across, it was like, ‘Everybody’s gettin’ music for free.’ I was like, ‘Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothing anyway.’ “…
September 1, 2006
Everyone is out to help me
Mutual Improvement promises to be “even more ambitious and wild” than its previous incarnation, Radical Mutual-Improvement.