Mondays!

And to stick on the cat meme, this might be the most brilliant web site I've seen lately: Lasagna Cat.

Get any treats yet?

Hyper-real

A fellow flickrite took a picture in Manhattan that reminded me remarkably of Duane Hanson's sculptures. (I'd post a link to the photo, but said flickrite doesn't have sharing enabled.) Hansen's sculptures are of a hyper-real school, in that they represent the subject in all their non-glory. It strips away the idealism that art can be fraught with, leaving us with a stark representation of a subject--sort of like the unaffected snapshots that so many of us take and put in photo albums.

There has been some work in collecting such snapshots and representing them together as art (see Tacita Dean's Floh, for example.) It would be interesting to have an entire exhibit devoted to such collections (not doubt that has been done) along with Hanson's works (that probably hasn't).

Ghostland Observatory

Ghostland Observatory
Originally uploaded by Theorris

I witnessed Ghostland Observatory at At the Venue in SLC (sorry At the Venue is the place's name).

The Templar cape was well-chosen. The crowd went chaotic at the end and joined the pair on stage.

Great show. I have no idea how in the hell the singer sings the way he does, night after night and is still spot on. You have to listen to him to understand the energy he puts into it. It is like a super-amped falsetto with range. They certainly engaged the crowd.

Boom--boom--boom. Grind.

I haven't been writing enough about my musical adventures lately. Perhaps a sea-change is in order for this old blog. The Justice thema has been quite effective, but now that summer is in the offing, I feel the need to be hedonistic: now maybe it is bump-and-groove time.

Six months might be the length that one (meaning I) can extend a blog thema, anyway.

Don't want to get stale now, do we? (Meaning me.)

Standing Woman Looking Into Mirror 1996

I just learned that sculptor George Segal died, 8 freaking years ago. I need to pay better attention: Standing Woman Looking Into Mirror 1996.

Ok, I kind of have an excuse, I guess. My mother died that year too. The world lost a lot that year.

More Mondo than you can shake a cat at

And another item for the Mondo Utah file: Sandy car accident ends in arrest of nude woman. This one is right up there with the dude who guys hiking with sleeping pills in tow, that's for sure.

Spectacular

Even though going to Mars seems to be pretty old hat these days, I still get worked up about it, especially when you get images like this: 230838main_PSP_008579_9020_descent.jpg (JPEG Image, 1500x746 pixels).

Dang!

Damn horses and their chesnuts anyway

They are beautiful trees, especially when they are in blossom, but my hell they put me down for the count: Aesculus hippocastanum or the common Horse Chestnut. There is a nice specimen across the street; the only one I have found in my neighborhood. My reaction is lethargy and feeling like I have a cold; itchy eyes. It all started the first thing when I walked out my door this morning. I felt a sudden dizziness. Now the skin on my face is mildly irritated.

I've checked my blog, and every year around the time of chestnut bloom, all I want to do is sleep. One year I went so far to take Claritin--big mistake. It just gave me insomnia. I also had other well-described drug reactions to Claritin, but I will spare you.


Of course, this all could be a reaction to Highschool Musicl 2 which has commandeered our abandoned neighborhood school's basketball courts too. Oh well, the way I'm feeling, I couldn't be assed to even throw a ball.

I made this

I made this
Originally uploaded by Theorris

My workplace now has a nearly fully-functioning publication lab. A component of that lab is a perfect binding system and an industrial-strenght paper cutter/trimmer. This blank book was the first product of that binding system. I think I'll use it to keep track of photo stuff.

Hightouchmegastore should be thanked for this, given that it was her effort to get the Publication Lab. Are you excited Hightouch?

Oh and it will be completely impossible for anyone to cut their own hand off in the paper cutter. The machine specifically prohibits use by two people as that can "result in loss of limb."

The need to know

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Good fences make good neighbors or Appologies to Sleepy E

So I hadn't even heard of the phenomenon that is Highschool Musical until Counterintuitive mentioned it in passing a few months ago. I still have no idea what this is all about, but I am well-aware that it is some TV-fanstical thingamagoo.

Now the relevance of this is that, apparently, they have been filming scenes of its sequel (Highschool Musical 2?) a street away from my house. So far over the last 3 nights, I've noted 2,417 white vans carrying cast and crew roving by my house and various prop school buses.

As I write boom lights loom high above the trees to the south. The light streaks white across the wood of my floor through the living room French doors. I confuse it with the full moon. The cat lolls in its bright reality.

This production is definitely much busier, but not as impressive as the Danny Glover movie that took place right next to my house up in the Avenues of SLC. (I'm too lazy and busy to look up the link to that extravaganza right now.)

So what's my point? Something in me really wants to disrupt their production. I have no idea why, but it just seems so, well, wrong. Why do people celebrate their reality by allowing the fiction to come into it, transform it, and then film it? Does it really make you famous? Why do people gather to watch them film? Is it really that much of a spectacle?

Perhaps it is that people feel close to the production of the thing that they watch and that they know many others watch. It is the proxy of being watched oneself: the center of attention.

Lauded.

Fame.

I don't get why people really want that sort of fame. Can you explain it to me?

Still, spring is the mischief in me and I wonder, would I be shooed away if I walked over with my video camera?

"Paparazzi!" I can hear them cry.

Stone on stone.

Fascinating fact #3: Light Fantastic

A meteoroid is the proper term for a small rocky body out there in space that would become a meteor if it fell into the Earth's atmosphere and caused the consequent atmospheric light show that meteors provide on high. (Meteor comes from the Greek meteoron "lofty").  If a meteor happens to make it to the earth, its remnant is then called a meteorite.

Fascinating!

Same old same old

Looks like the Bush administration is out to have one last foray into destroying wilderness as we know it. This just in from the Wilderness Society:

Dear Friend of Wildlife,

Don't let them get away with it.

The Bush administration is moving at breakneck speed with plans to drill and destroy some of the most stunning wilderness areas in Utah.

The architects of these plans believe they can sneak this land grab past us in their waning days of power.

Please take urgent action. Protect 11 million acres of pristine public lands from sprawling oil & gas development and off-road vehicles (ORVs).

Your quick email today to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne will send a strong message: Public lands belong to the public --that's you and me.

Utah's Red Rock canyon country is world-renowned for its stunning beauty, sandstone arches, slot canyons, and wild rivers. A delight to nature lovers, these wild places are also home to bighorn sheep, cougars, endangered peregrine falcons, and more.

The Bush administration is rushing to sacrifice these fragile lands even though conservation groups, citizens, and Congress have been fighting to protect them for decades. There is widespread opposition from most everyone except those who stand to profit.

Tens of thousands of Americans have already voiced their opposition by submitting public comments to the Bureau of Land Management. Nonetheless, the BLM is proceeding with finalizing management plans that would open up the vast majority of these public lands to oil & gas development and increased off-road vehicle use.

Click here NOW to tell Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to put an immediate halt to these destructive plans!

Save Utah's Red Rock canyon country from irreversible damage.

And please help create a domino effect – it's the only way we can succeed in protecting these precious public treasures. After you take action, tell your friends and family what's at stake, and ask them to take action too.

I am deeply grateful for your help in this extremely urgent matter.

Sincerely,

Kathy Kilmer
The Wilderness Society

Take action, please.

Will Self

I just got my copy of Will Self's new novel The Butt. In this Google Author Lecture series, Self reads from his Psychogeography and talks about walking from London to New York.

And now from the Mondo Utah file

Now this is entertainment: ksl.com - Utah actor arrested for robbing a pizza business:

You might recognize from ads on TV. He was Svarnik in the "Svarnik and Byll Fight Against Tobacco" ad campaigns.

Not quite as good as the dude who went for a hike with sleeping pills in tow, but very close.

Svarnik! No!

What are the chances that Byll was a his cohort in crime?

GNR forevah!

A friend of mine has taken to playing Guns n' Roses at odd moments. Who could forget the mullet wedding dress: November-rain-dress.jpg (JPEG Image, 319x392 pixels)? The dress, of course, is kind of the anti-mullet: party in front business in back.

Sometimes I miss the 80s.

Nah.

Fair and balanced

Kobe Bryant Mourns Passing Of Ball

LOS ANGELES—Lakers guard Kobe Bryant was visibly shaken, angry, and confused at center court of the Staples Center Tuesday night when the...

"Troppo vero"

Velazquez's: Innocent X

Making the most of the Panopticon

This clever band is singing in its chains like the sea: The Get Out Clause, Manchester's stars of CCTV cameras - Telegraph.

Boingboing link.

Justice (or lack there of)

Mr. Teeth
Originally uploaded by Theorris

Sometimes I think I would be really cool if we lived in water, as opposed to air, like Mr. Teeth here (taken in New Orleans at the Aquarium there).

Now with that, the Jazz outplayed the Lakers tonight, despite the loss. Home cooking at its finest, as good old Hot Rod says. That's how the NBA works, after all, particularly when you are a big market team against a small market.

Can you name the time when a small market team won against a big market? Nope, you can't because it ain't happened. San Antonio might be the closest, but Texas is not exactly small market.

Mr. Teeth will always win out.

Devil's Castle

Devil's Castle
Originally uploaded by Theorris

It is not quite spring in the mountains yet, as you can see from this image taken yesterday at Alta, Utah.

Scandal

Wow: Sour taste in Sugar House - Salt Lake Tribune.

Fascinating Fact #2: Vaccine

Did you know that vaccine derives from the Latin for cow? This is because the first vaccine was derived from "cowpox" to immunize humans against smallpox. Humans were treated with the cow (vacca) antibodies and they didn't get smallpox*.

Fascinating!

Vaccine, however, has nothing to do with vacation, which I am now on.

(Nota bene: not all fascinating facts will be about bacteria, but bacteria have been occupying my mind lately due to what I thought was the return of a hated sinus infection.)

*(Funny I originally typed "small box" there. Funny, that.)

"We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power"

Recently Ben Stein has been on the warpath for his movie Expelled, proclaiming that science makes us murderers. I have the chutzpa to refer Mr. Stein (and the zealots who may follow him) to Jacob Bronowski who also had family members killed in the Holocaust: Signifying nothing: Feeling forward (4/29/2007).

Bronowski was a scientist and a fervent Darwinian. Along with the murder of his family in Nazi death camps, he also witnessed the aftermath of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

I tend to trust his thoughtful perspective over a Nixon speech writer, Ferris Bueller actor, and game show host.

Welcome to May!

Here it is May 1 and there is snow at the Wilhelm. Ah the winter that refuses to leave. It is kind of nice, actually, given that it will, I hope, lead to a cooler than average summer--one in which we won't see it break 100 here in SLC.

Of course, it could be a sing of Cooler Climate May Hit N. America, Europe Next Decade, which I am sure Rush Limbaugh and his equally sedentary fans (both of mind and body) will blather about endlessly.