|
Welcome to mistersite.net, home of... well, something unique, I hope. Be sure to check out all those lovely links to the left to see who I am, what I do, and what I like. Read my blog too... it's right under this paragraph. And leave a comment, so I know you've visited.
This is hilarious.
Every year, the Calvin newspaper (the Chimes) puts out a parody issue of some kind, and usually it's one of the best laughs I get all year. This year, though, the parody issue didn't rip as much into the Calvin culture as it did into the Christian Right as a whole. It's one of the snarkiest, funniest things I've ever read - and Student Affairs vetoed it. So in my continual quest to be a thorn in the side of the Christian Right, I'm going to link to the Chimes spoof issue Calvin doesn't want you to see.
Cliche Devotional Book
posted by jimmy at 13:22 -
Read comments here!
Coolest tattoo ever.
Shamelessly ganked from Webcomics in Tattoo Form
posted by jimmy at 00:53 -
Read comments here!
Why I love Los Angeles.
Last night at about 9:00pm, I was sitting in my room, having just gotten home from a long day at work, having no idea what to do.
Two hours later, I was in the Largo with about 120 people, watching Aimee Mann perform.
It was one of the better, more intimate shows I've seen - especially for someone as well-known as Aimee Mann. It was her second set of the night and she was really loose; she did an all-requests show and forgot the lyrics or chords to two or three songs. She ad-libbed, she stopped a few songs right in the middle - she was totally human, totally down-to-earth, not at all showy. It was incredible fun.
That's LA, though... every night, there's another performance, another show, another artist I love just hanging out somewhere, playing a little show for a few people who are having the time of their life. The only other place with this many talented, well-known, incredible artists is New York - and New York is unbearably cold six months a year.
I love this city.
posted by jimmy at 18:02 -
Read comments here!
(swimming in new music)
In the last five days, my CD collection has increased by 14 discs, thanks to a few gifts from friends (thanks Bethany and Eric), a healthy binge at Amoeba Music, and my KCRW subscription CD's coming in the mail.
The trouble with me getting all those CD's at once is that I'm a playlist junkie. On the two subway rides I have into town every week, I start my one uber-playlist on shuffle and just relax with a book; when I'm sitting around at work or at home, I'll put on one of any number of playlists I have set up. I have genre playlists, mood playlists, situational playlists... a playlist for all seasons. I'm like John Cusack in High Fidelity, only not limited by the size of a mix tape.
But now I've got 14 CD's to listen to all the way through, pick out the best single tracks, and add to the proper playlists... which means 15-16 hours of listening through new music. This would be a great pleasure if I wasn't already about ten different kinds of busy; since I am about ten different kinds of busy, I just need my playlists to work.
Alas, the curse of riches...
(In case you were wondering, here's a partial list of my new music: Hello Waveforms by William Orbit, Endangered Species by Nickodemus, Greetings from Michigan by Sufjan Stevens, Homage to Mahatma Gandhi by Ravi Shankar, Realize by Karsh Kale, and The Complete Mercury Sessions by Flatt and Scruggs. I highly recommended all.)
posted by jimmy at 00:30 -
Read comments here!
Some Passover humor...
Shamelessly stolen from somewhere else:
An English Jew, a prominent novelist and intellectual, is informed that he will be knighted. The queen's protocol officials prepare him and the other knights-to-be for the ceremony. He is informed that, when he stands before the queen, he is to recite, "Philosophum non facit barba. Non in solo pane vivit homo." just before being knighted.
On the day of the ceremony, the man is very nervous and, sure enough, when he approaches the queen, he forgets the Latin expression. As precious seconds tick by, the only non-English words he can think of pour out of him: "Ma nishtana halaila hazeh mikol haleilot?"
The queen, confused, turns to her protocol officer and asks, "Why is this knight different from all other knights?"
posted by jimmy at 22:42 -
Read comments here!
Some Academic Nerdiness.
A line of thought in three tracks:
Track 1: For my thesis, I’ve been reading Victor Turner’s The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, in which Turner posits that societies in liminal stages develop rituals designed to temporarily (or permanently) subvert the forces of structure and hierarchy in favor of the forces of community and egalitarianism. He suggests that the structure-antistructure-structure movement is a necessary and vital part of a healthy society, and that both structure and communitas (his conception of egalitarian, nonrational, organic, “I-Thou” connections between people, over against the hierarchical, rational, systematic connections in structure) have a role.
Track 2: Some years ago, George Ritzer published a book called The McDonaldization of Society, which posited that under modernism, the fast-food restaurant was the paradigm for ideal development, as it valued Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability, and Control as the highest goals of a working system.
Track 3: As I was riding the Gold Line train from Union Station to Pasadena, the operator/driver, who usually remains silent and lets the pre-recorded voice tell us what the next station is, was giving us what amounted to a guided tour of the Gold Line’s Arroyo Seco Valley path. He would tell us about all the bridges we were passing over, little facts about the Harbor Freeway, and at one point even slowed down so we could see a pink flamingo in someone’s backyard that he/she kept as a pet. It was by far the most entertaining Gold Line ride I’ve taken in a long time.
My Track 3 experience was a catalyzing experience for me; whereas generally the process of riding the Gold Line from Union Station to Pasadena is a very McDonaldized activity, with the same pre-recorded voice, about the same speed, and silence between stops, today it was something different. In a way, what the driver was trying to do (whether or not he was conscious of this) was not only make the ride more interesting, but to create communitas between what would otherwise be a structured set of isolated and inward-focused individuals on the train, each seeking to get to his/her own destination, by putting them in a different archetypal, perhaps even "ritual," space – that of tourists in their own city, equals on a tour train instead of individuals on the way to work/school/home/wherever. I don’t know that he succeeded – looking around, I think I may have been the only one paying attention to the narration – but it was an interesting thing to reflect on.
I’m sure this will develop into something more of a thesis later, but I’d be interested to read your thoughts on the matter…
posted by jimmy at 14:09 -
Read comments here!
[subject intentionally left blank]
THIS IS SIMON.
HE IS THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS.
posted by jimmy at 18:20 -
Read comments here!
CUBS WIN!
I promise I won't do this every time the Cubs win, because it's a 162 game season, but it's opening day and we blew out the Reds (16-7) and did it playing mostly small-ball... which is what this team needs to be, instead of living and dying by the home run as in years past. The pitching could have used a little work, but I'll chalk that up to a cold opening day. But we're 1-0 and tied for the lead in the NL Central, so all's well!
posted by jimmy at 17:59 -
Read comments here!
Don't listen to the haters.
Today is Opening Day - well, just one game today, most teams (including the Cubs) open tomorrow. I'd write more about this, but the late great Bartlett Giamatti already did the job far better than I'll ever do. From "The Green Fields of the Mind":"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops." Play ball. Go Cubs.
posted by jimmy at 14:58 -
Read comments here!
Log
Archives:
After
2.9.2003
9.23.2002-2.6.2003
6.1.2002-8.21.2002
|
