If I Can Make It There

Just in time for spring, Ironic Sans has alerted me to a cool way to spend a day goofing around Manhattan. David Friedman has kindly mapped the photogenic locations of the Ghostbusters movies. Click through to the map from his permalink.

Actually finding the time to get into New York for a day though, is like an Alaskan penguin hunt. You're in the right environment, but damn if you can find any.

Music For Redecorating

Note: This post got away from me in the writing. The management apologizes for any inconvenience.

These songs are moving into my head and measuring the walls for furniture.

Jonathan Coulton. Have you heard of Jonathan Coulton? I tend to assume that any audience containing n unknown readers is n-150 degrees cooler than me (Kelvin), so I feel extra self-conscious when I dare to explain about something that OMG you so knew about since last Easter, when it was broadcast from blimps over 80 cities simultaneously, where was I? For real?

But I'm going try to explain about Jonathan Coulton anyway. See, he's um... this guy who knows some other people... who are sort of obscurely famous? The McSweeney's crowd? John Hodgman? You know him? The PC guy in the PC vs. Mac commercials, who is more enjoyable to watch than the hipster Mac guy who I have the unreasonable fear that you are?

Forget it. Just read Jonathan Coulton's Wikipedia entry. Now, cool and uncool, we're moving at the same speed. Maybe? Sure. Let's say we are.

Okay, these songs. I've been listening to them for most of a week, and I'm a little disturbed by them, right? Because they're not always gentle in content? But they sound very nice.

By now I've watched interviews with this guy, and read up on him, and he seems like a nice guy. But he writes some sad, sometimes uncomfortable* -- yet very listenable and fun -- songs. After listening for a few days, pieces of my conscious and subconscious started introducing themselves, and they're sort of hitting it off.

A nice thing is that most-to-all of his songs are free, and released under Creative Commons, so if you want to screw with them, then rock that particular microphone, friend.

Here is the web site where you can hear and purchase his music: www.jonathancoulton.com/songs

The best ones in my expert opinion are Code Monkey and Re Your Brain. Many people also seem to like Skullcrusher Mountain. I can't say as I blame them.


*In the Info section for Soft Rocked By Me, he starts by saying, "I find this one a bit unsettling."

Glass Jaws

This is so great, I almost didn't want to tell anybody -- four videos of Ira Glass giving advice to beginners and talking about what makes good stories.

Boy, did these not need to be videos though. Ira Glass sits in a chair! For several consecutive minutes! While talking! Still, way worth listening to.

Back to the Buffett

Warren Buffett is looking for a successor.

"We need someone genetically programmed," he specifies, "to avoid serious risks, including those never before encountered." Other talents he will be looking for, he says, are "independent thinking, emotional stability, and a keen understanding of both human and institutional behavior."

I am not that guy. Among other things, some people could make a good case against my emotional stability. Also -- and this is not on his short list but I assure you it is germane -- despite repeated attempts, I do not seem to apprehend financial know-how.

However, I'd like to be that guy. The guy who gets to shadow Warren Buffett and watch him and learn what he knows. Not just what he writes or says, but what he knows? Hell, I'd pay for that.

But maybe Warren would want to talk this guy, who won the lottery and didn't implode. There's hope, okay? Nobody panic. There's hope yet that we won't all throw ourselves screaming into the Sun.

Someone I Would Like to Meet

Fascinating article about a cargo ship repo man in the LA Times. Max Hardberger lives the life of an adventure story. Even his name belongs in a men's action-adventure novel.

New Orleans — IF repossessing a used Chevrolet can be tricky, consider retrieving the Aztec Express, a 700-foot cargo ship under guard in Haiti as civil unrest spread through the country.

Only a few repo men possess the guile and resourcefulness for such a job. One of them is F. Max Hardberger, of Lacombe, La. Since 1991, the 58-year-old attorney and ship captain has surreptitiously sailed away about a dozen freighters from ports around the world.

I have a big list, see.

I've wanted to be married for a long time. And now, one month out, I want to be married more than ever.

Because holy crap will I have a lot less stuff to do once the wedding is over.

The Smallest Trick of Light

"Write with the learned. Pronounce with the vulgar." --Benjamin Franklin

All you need to do is read Ben Franklin's autobiography to see what a great guy he thought he was. That's got to be a rule somewhere: Anyone who writes an autobiography is probably a dick on some level.

But being self-important doesn't mean you're not regular-important too, as Ben Franklin would likely point out. It might even help achieve it, if you're into that kind of thing. Which I maybe sort of am.

I was listening to a song tonight; the lyrics were about how the singer felt when he was a child: invincible, dreamy, important. I tried to make myself the protagonist of the song's narrative (like you do) but I couldn't. I don't remember feeling important as a child.

I remember feeling timid and small. I remember having some big dreams... being a famous journalist or writing novels that people enjoyed... but a half-assed pragmatism got in the way. I knew I didn't know how to do those things, so therefore I couldn't. It didn't occur to me to learn how to try. I just knew I couldn't. Blind assurance of competence never occurred to me like it does for so many self-important people. I just knew I wasn't good enough. The end.

I've learned better since, but I still forget. Even now, I'm surprised every time that it occurs to me fresh: If you don't know how to do something, you can find out how. And if you don't know how to find out, find out how to find out. Keep unraveling with that method until you succeed at the thing you were after in the first place.

I don't know why I learned stopping was better than going. I don't know why I still act like that's the lesson.

There is still time enough and chance to be different. Unlike dancing or boxing or sweeping chimneys, writing is not strictly for the young. But it's frustrating to learn the truth in the middle of the run instead of at the beginning where it could do the most good.

I don't want to be self-important like Franklin, but I do want to get stuff done like Franklin.

Apocalypse Any Minute Now

Driving home from work today, I was thinking about heat. Wondering why, what with all the vast cold in the galaxy, that heat from our planet doesn’t dissipate into space, killing us all. I don’t need your science nerd answer—I know why it doesn’t happen. I’m going somewhere with this.

I wasn’t paying much attention in the ‘70s, but in the ‘80s I was pretty aware of the USSR’s ability to kill most of us, and ruin Earth for everyone else. It made no sense for anyone to use their ridiculously destructive weapons, but no one ever seemed to suggest that no one would. We just hoped.

My favorite role-playing game then was Gamma World. Trying to eke out existence in a ruined quasi-sci-fi world where nobody knows what went wrong, that was.... Was it fun? It was not exactly fun, but captivating. Imagining that world was scary and creatively invigorating.

Our world-ending threats now are different, but no less creatively fertile. After the bomb is after the fact these days. Now our Gamma Terra would be based on ecological upheaval. Or pandemic. Or economic collapse. Some people even get worked up over rogue asteroid impact.

It seems like people my age have been under some extinction-level threat our whole lives. Surely constant threat of vague doom—that's got to affect you. Maybe this helps explain hopeless chic? People my age, we’ve never lived through optimistic zeitgeist. We’ve pretty much always been under one gun or another. The deformation of mind and spirit living under them has squashed us into some weird shapes. A joyless bacchanal.

I wouldn’t classify myself as the sort of dude who sits around thinking of the end of humanity. I don’t even really think it’s possible. It’s just... the '80s kid remains wide-eyed aware that things can get fantastically worse on short notice. And there's nothing we can do about it.

That might be one of my favorite “proofs” for the existence of a benign God. We have an infinity number of ways to die spectacularly, but instead we keep on living sort of normally. That seems unlikely without frequent intervention.

Brow Beaten

A couple of years ago I was on a fantastically bad camping trip. Walking to the camp store, I passed two girls and one said to me, "Don't look so miserable!" My face unclenched into a tired smile.

Lately, I notice my brow furrowed a lot. Like, I'll just be talking and hey my face feels all tight, and then I relax it and ah, that feels better.

How long have I been doing this? Do I look mad a lot? Am I secretly troubled? Am I concentrating? What am I concentrating on? Is this one of those things everyone notices but nobody says to my face?

I kind of want to find the girl again for another shot of disarming candor.

Movies 2006, Part 4 of 4

A Prairie Home Companion
The thing is... here’s the thing. They forgot to make this a movie. There’s too much craftsmanship in the production to accuse the people responsible for just turning on the cameras at the show. That would have been a documentary, and I might have found that more enjoyable. But see, movies are for looking. They’re for showing. And there was nothing worth showing here: Stage. Dressing room. People talking. This has been done. Garrison Keilor is clever, but not clever in the way that makes this work. And so they made a radio show with very professional lighting and sets and Woody Harrelson. But not a movie.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Confusing and boring, especially if you had never played FFVII. Aimed at a niche of a niche. Good luck, Square.

The Fellowship of the Ring, Extended
I think this is the sixth time I’ve seen Fellowship. I thought I had seen the extended version before, but stuff I didn’t remember kept happening, so maybe I didn’t.

Anyway, it was great. The extended versions require more stamina as a viewer, but they’re more complete stories, containing more exposition that lets you know why things are happening, and it makes a better story for it.

V for Vendetta
Not as bad as I had feared, but not as good as it could have been. Anarchy is a hard sell in a mainstream movie, so maybe they did the best they could. Appearances by Stephen Fry are always welcome.

The Two Towers, Extended
More ents = more better.

Return of the King, Extended
Whew. Time for a long division break.

Serenity
I’m supposed to love this movie, but I don’t. It was steadily OK. All the problems I had with the movie last year I had this year too.

The Craft
I’m not clear why I watched this, other than Rachel True was easy on the eyes. It was just on, and I sat down. It was pretty not good. Well, it was by-the-numbers with some contrived bits and dialogue that I was embarrassed to be complicit in by perceiving.

The Princess Bride
I wouldn’t have thought a beautiful woman whispering every single line of one of my favorite movies to me while it was happening, word for word, would be a fulfilling experience. The idea is too bizarre; I usually like my movies without a feminine echo. I mean, sure, beautiful woman. No problems there. But the whole freaking movie? I WOULD HAVE BEEN WRONG. If she did it every time I ever watched the movie again, the beautiful woman and I would have to talk, of course.

Drumline
I don’t have anything to say about this movie.

Tombstone
I want less cheese on my Tombstone.

Babe
Pig antics.

Happy Feet
I’m glad they justified unholy amounts of marketing by releasing a bad movie in conjunction with it all. Not All Dogs Go To Heaven bad, but pretty bad.

Stranger Than Fiction
Whee! I liked it. I like to think I choose a satisfying life lived well over art most days. I like to think that’s a good choice to make.

Life is Beautiful
We watched the dubbed version on network TV. OMG movies with commercial interruption, so ‘70s. Also, this movie was not all cat’s pyjamas in the first place, but dubbing is an inferior experience to subtitles in the case of this movie.