randomWalks

My parents homeschooled me so that I could get more experience in the world, not so that I could shelter myself from it. Learning Curve, Bitch Magazine

It’s obvious we are not going to finish with pain in this lifetime. The Buddha said, “Everything dear to us causes pain.”…Those of us who have chosen relational life have made the choice that the pain is worth it. The Daily Dharma, tricycle: Pain is inevitable

As a country singer approached a microphone near home plate to sing the national anthem, our jaws slackened as [Albert] Ayler’s sax purred the plaintive opening notes of “Spirits Rejoice,” which quickly becomes a tight, triumphant military-style march before disintegrating into crushing trumpet bleats by Albert’s brother Don. On the silent screen gigantic flags were unfurled, pyrotechnics exploded, a military flyover happened and Americans rejoiced while Ayler’s band evoked twin towers of war–pageantry and battle–masterfully, if psychotically. An Ayler in My House

You want. You want. You want cookie. You say, ‘Cookie, now. Cookie now.’ Just in time for the baby boom, there’s a new Dr. Spock in town who will have parents 2.0 everywhere speaking Bamm-Bamm to their babies.

Finally, Bud may have topped the farting horse spot that ran during Super Bowl XXVIII… The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits – to You

Language Log: The Etiology and Elaboration of a Flagrant Mistranslation

People who see signs employing the f-word all over China, even in large stores and fancy restaurants, are not only aghast, they wonder how the dickens such a gross mistranslation could have originated and proliferated. Theories abound, to say the least. Amazing, fascinating, hilarious, and educational – I cannot recommend this link highly enough.

I liken the situation about opportunity in this country to a Monopoly game—for the first 300 years, a certain subset of people were allowed to play. Now we’ve opened up the game and encouraged everyone to go around the board. But this newfound participation doesn’t take away from the fact that a lot of the real estate with its established green houses and red hotels is largely untouchable to the new players. White cartoonist Hilary Price (“Rhymes With Orange”) supports the Feb. 10 comics page action: White Cartoonists Discuss Black Cartoonists' Comics-Page Action. [via torchbearers] See also: Name that Peanuts character!

This collection of Stan Lee Tribute Artwork repeatedly takes my breath away.

The RIAA has conducted about 26,000 lawsuits, and there are more than 15 million music downloaders. Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research said it best: “If you’re a file sharer, you know that the likelihood of you being caught is very similar to that of being hit by an asteroid.” Bruce Schneier: Steal This Wi-Fi

It’s like a weather forecast of mostly sunny with patches of racism. Black Cartoonists Plan Feb. 10 Comics-Page Action: “At least eight African-American cartoonists plan to take part in a Feb. 10 comics-page action to draw attention to the way their strips are perceived and purchased.” The artists will each draw a version of the same strip, to protest being treated as interchangeable by editors. The irony here is that it’s highly unlikely—if not impossible—that you’ll be able to simply open up to the comics page of your preferred daily to see the action take place. [via Torchbearers]

For a school art contest, I proudly submitted a drawing of Peppermint Patty on a baseball mound. I played little league, I was the only girl on the team and I wanted to prove that girls could and did play baseball. … I had always thought her skin tone was strange, so I “fixed” it with a thin, tan watercolor mix that I had watched my mom use repeatedly on birthday cards for my friends. As far as I knew, all birthday cards needed to be “fixed” when you bought them home from the store. My First Lesson In Being Black

The social networking services that really work are the ones that are built around objects. Flickr, for example, has turned photos into objects of sociality. On del.icio.us the objects are the URLs. EVDB, Upcoming.org, and evnt focus on events as objects. zengestrom.com: Why some social network services work and others don’t Or: the case for object-centered sociality. I hadn’t thought about it this way before, but in my experience it’s certainly true.

Alyssa described her project as an upgrade to traditional journalism. “The upgrade is empathy,” she said, with the severe humility that comes when you suspect you are on to something but are still uncertain you aren’t being ridiculous in some way. “You Don’t Understand Our Audience”: What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC by John Hockenberry. “In the end, perhaps the work that I was most proud of at NBC marginalized me within the organization and was my undoing.” via Graham Leuschke’s bookmarks on del.icio.us

How to Stop Receiving Phone Books and Yellow Pages – thanks Dru!

I may have been the very first black person – certainly the first black person I ever noticed – to appear on TV as an expert on something that had nothing to do with being black. This was 1988. That’s tragic. Heir to Carl Sagan’s role as explainer of the universe, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium. Star Power - washingtonpost.com

When I first saw it in the field: ‘Shiiiit, that’s a really well preserved dinosaur.’ Wired Science: Rare Mummified Dinosaur Unearthed: Contains Skin, and Maybe Organs, Muscle

I think sometimes when you see the writers marching up and down and laughing-–because that’s what we do, those of us who write comedy tend to laugh about horrendous situations-–I think sometimes that can look bad because it may look like people are taking it lightly. But no, it’s a horrible situation. Gothamist: John Oliver, Writer

In the art industry, it’s extremely difficult to be successful without turning yourself into a cartoon. Even Hunter S. Thompson knew this. God knows Duchamp and Warhol knew it. Some artists are turned into cartoons and others do it themselves. I prefer to do it myself. At least then I can control how my cock is photographed. stereogum: Of Montreal Talk T-Mobile: "Selling Out Isn’t Possible" by Kevin Barnes (or, as my kids would say, “Bar-NEZ”).

What I think is that the universe is pure geometry – basically, a beautiful shape twisting around – and this shape is described by mathematics. This is a slightly different view than believing the universe IS mathematics, but it’s close. Since E8 is perhaps the most beautiful structure in mathematics, is very satisfying that nature appears to have chosen this geometry. FQXi Forum: An Exceptionally Simple FAQ See also: Backreaction: A Theoretically Simple Exception of Everything

He’s wearing Gucci shoes and carrying The Wall Street Journal. She’s a looker. Neiman Marcus clothes. Vanity Fair under her arm. So I told them, ‘Tomorrow is Labor Day: the holiday to ‘honour the unions.’ The guy gives me the kind of look Noel Coward might have given a bug on his sleeve. ‘We despise unions.’ I fix him with my glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and I ask, ‘How many hours do you work a day?’ He tells me eight. ‘How come you don’t work 18 hours a day, like your great-grandparents?’ He can’t answer that. ‘Because four men got hanged for you.’ I explain that I’m referring to the Haymarket Affair, the union dispute here in Chicago in May 1886. The bus is late. I have him pinned against the mailbox. Then I say, ‘How many days a week do you work?’ He says five."

Terkel laughs, and takes a sip of water. “I say: ‘Five €– oh, really? How come you don’t work six and a half?’ He isn’t sure. ‘Because of the Memorial Day Massacre. These battles were fought, all for you.’ I tell him about that massacre of workers, in Chicago, in 1937. He’s never heard of these things before. She drops her Vanity Fair. I pick it up, being gallant. I am giving it to them now: the past. Studs Terkel: The world’s greatest interviewer - Independent Online Edition > Profiles

Took me a long time to find it out, but those words are lethal, man, and you shouldn’t just go slinging them around for effect. If you’re black or Jewish or Latin or gay those little vernacular epithets are bullets that riddle your guts and then fester and burn there, like torture-flak hailing on you wherever you go. A classic piece of rock criticism, Lester Bangs' 1979 “White Noise Supremacists” takes punk to task for “acting like racism is real hip and cool.” To read the essay, download the PDF from Lester’s Legacy under “Lester reprints online.”

People don’t understand that we’ve invented a new class of interface. As Apple Gains PC Market Share, Jobs Talks of a Decade of Upgrades - New York Times

The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us - New York Times:

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. Fort Hunt’s Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII - Washington Post: “During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone,” said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. “We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

BLDGBLOG: Greater Los Angeles

No matter what you do in L.A., your behavior is appropriate for the city. Los Angeles has no assumed correct mode of use. You can have fake breasts and drive a Ford Mustang – or you can grow a beard, weigh 300 pounds, and read Christian science fiction novels. Either way, you’re fine: that’s just how it works. You can watch Cops all day or you can be a porn star or you can be a Caltech physicist. You can listen to Carcass – or you can listen to Pat Robertson. Or both.

That’s how we dooz it.