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Mar. 14th, 1995 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eclectic_boyIn girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
("We enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire")
From 30th Street Station you can see three capital letters, off beyond the Art Museum. Some factoryish building has its acronym on its roof, in twenty-or-so-feet high letters: E M C or somesuch (it's far away enough that I struggle as if squinting at that seventh line on the optomologist's chart). It's not the sort of thing to really inspire a person. Then again, I don't usually get inspired to create installation art. Blame it on the ~65° weather inspiring random thoughts. I've now got an idea that I'd seriously submit to an art contest. Three letters of lit lightbulbs (like the ones atop the Philadelphia Electric building that seem to say, 'we generate it, we can waste it'), which change every few seconds from one word to another.
Make three ten-foot-high grids of lights which can be turned on to form any letter. Control the lights by a computer program which fades the bulbs in and out to switch from letter to letter, and has a list of all three-letter words to randomly choose from. Perhaps even include a lot of nonsense three-letter sequences, so when actual words, or sequences of words, come up they're unexpected. It tickles my concept of speaking in tongues, to have gibberish give way to the occasional sentence -- much the way the Weekly-World-News-headline-generating screensaver modules do. There's also the biological parallel of coding versus noncoding sections in DNA, but that's the kind of thing I'd mention in a proposal only to make it seem Deep. What I really want is to have this simple randomness where people will look at it, sometimes get inspiration or amusement from it, try to outguess it (this refers to a mode I'd like the program to shift into occasionally, where it only changes the word to words with two letters in common, e.g. BED - BET - BAT - RAT - RAG - - - ). Maybe I should try writing a program to simulate this on my Mac... though I don't have the graphics knowledge to do it.
Ranjit (if you're reading this, rejoin!) deserves credit as co-inspirator, because I've thought about his site-art piece 'Sky/Light' many times, especially when looking at roofs of buildings.
Actually, I seem to have a second site-art work planned, although this counts more as performance art, or even a Happening. Steve Shoemaker told me months ago about a Japanese custom of placing small candles on folded-paper boats and launching them down a river. The image of numerous shimmering dots drifting along into the twilight won't get out of my head, and I really want to make this happen. Problem: candles have a way of setting things on fire. The paper boat itself, for instance, but I'm more worried about one coming to rest against a wooden hull and getting me in big trouble. Solution: launch them somewhere above some falls, so the candles will be put out after only a short distance (but long enough to create the atmosphere I'm looking for -- an appropriately-placed bend in the river would help). Problem: I want to see a lot of these boats (all right, "A Thousand Points of Light" has been misused, but it's still a cool concept even after it's been misused), and it would be difficult to launch enough, in a short enough time span, to give the right effect. Solution: Steve and I are both unscrupulous, and wouldn't mind getting people to aid us in this project through misrepresentation (such an ugly word. Let's say 'recontextualization'. Actually, that sounds pretty ugly, too. Go figure). We think it'd be possible to plan some commemoration around this ceremony, make it a publicized event. Something like, "Write the name of someone you want to remember on a sheet of paper. Fold it into a boat [Following these directions]. Bring it and a birthday candle to [location] on [date], to join hundreds of others in commemorating them." And it's really not an unscrupulous thing to do; it will be a cathartic communal event. It's just that I'll be there primarily to watch the lights, not for the remembrance.
Work has been uninspiring recently. The most common sources of excitement at the 'tute are the traveling exhibits that we get in; we currently have two, and they're both boring. EarthQuest is an environmental exhibit designed for elementary-age kids, with lots of their-scale sets (home, gas station, grocery) talking about environmentally-friendly actions to take in each of them. Behind the Seams is about textiles, and is a little more interesting and has more to do, but it's tucked away in a less-visited section of the museum. The prospects for the rest of the year are no better: a summer exhibit on Bats, one on the ecosystems of Africa, and the Jurassic Park dinosaurs exhibit.
While these (esp. the latter two) may prove neat, I just don't understand why we're bringing them. The Academy of Natural Sciences is a block away, and all of these exhibits (except Behind the Seams) would fit in much better there. I thought we were a physical science and technology museum.... I still enjoy Ask the Scientist, of course, and I've gotten the schedulers to remember that I'm supposed to have m ore free time for developing and keeping-up things (as a result of which I was able to make some adjustments to our papermaking machine and get it to run (semisuccessfully) for the first time in a year). I wish I were better at keeping track of what needs to be done, though. I frequently forget about things like the paper machine which are always-there sorts of problems. Writing notes to myself rarely works; I end up with lots of little post-its hiding in corners of my desk and notes scribbled on the back òs of things I forget to look at. My mom made me a vest for Christmas, at my request, so I'd have something with the right kind of pocket for keeping a notebook in. Somehow I never wind up wearing it when I need it. Bethatasitmay (another word whose Time has Not Yet Come), my memory has made up a little of the slack, and I keep track of commitments and things that need doing better now than I did two years ago. So I guess things are improving.
My WWW page, about unknown good classical composers, is up and flying; I'm happy with it and proud of it. Check it out at: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~jimmosk/TOC.html
[ Edit: now http://kith.org.jimmosk ]
A sputtering of reviews
The Cowboy Wally Show, Kyle Baker (graphic novel)
The Philadelphia Free Library (anyone ever seen another public library that uses the term 'Free' rather than 'Public'?) recently made a large segment of its Central Library circulating (previously only a branch-library-siz úed roomful of books was allowed out of the library). One of the books I found while looking through these shelves which I'd never explored before was this beautifully drawn and frequently hilarious graphic novel, detailing episodes in the life of a TV-cowboy, moviemaker, talk-show host, and general loudmouth. Numerous great exchanges, and wonderful facial expressions that say so much – I think Bill Watterson would draw this way if he spent as much time on
his drawing as Walt Kelly did. I'd tell you to run right out and get it.... except I have a feeling you won't be able to find it – I just saw a call for nominations for an UnSquiddie Award (don't ask) in the category "Body Parts You'd Sacrifice for a Copy of 'The Cowboy Wally Show'". Interlibrary Loan, anyone?
John Henry, They Might Be Giants (cd)
As the biggest TMBG fan in the world (title pending), I was looking forward to this album, he understated. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. It's not to say that I wouldn't give it an 8 out of 10; it's just that all their other albums rate 11 to me (except their B-sides collection, Misc T.) Their sound has changed, as others have mentioned: it's louder, often harsher, for being played by a live backup band. That's not what bothers me, though; one of TMBG's endearing traits is that their style varies wildly between songs – nursery rhyme to fast folk to punk to...., so having this album sound different is practically mandatory. However, their live musicians don't seem to be as musically inventive as the Johns Themselves were when they were programming drum machines and sequencers... most of the neat harmonies and offbeat background rhythms are missing. Worse, there's far less wordplay on this album. Where I'm used to them making a song more elliptical and random for the sake of getting to an ingenious turn of phrase, they seem to stick to str ≠aightforward, unfunny lyrics. When they do get random, it's meaningless randomness. Still, there are some songs I love ("No One Knows My Plan", "Destination Moon", "Meet James Ensor"), and TMBG can still write an infectious rhythm line like nobody else I know. But perhaps this is fate trying to shift my loyalties, because shortly after digesting this cd, I got:
Bargainville, Moxy Früvous (cd)
Their fame is still ahead of them, but when it comes there's a good chance it'll be stellar. A Canadian foursome who sing neat harmonies (more college a-capellish than Bobsish, but interesting enough) and play guitar, guitar, accordion, and drums. Many of their songs are in the Bobs' character-sketch-of-an-unusual-character style, although they have some serious, purely-pretty songs too. At the other extreme are more musically complicated TMBGish songs. Along this line they make good use of raplike fast, rhythmic, rhyming, integrating it extremely well into pop. They get political in several of their songs (especially a funny, offensive anthem to Rush Limbaugh, unfortunately not included on this album), which they pull off acceptably, though unspectacularly. This is their first album, apparently, and their next one will be an automatic purchase for me. ("You should see my story-readin' baby; ya should hear the things that she sez / She says, 'hon, drop dead; I'd rather go to bed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez'")
Laputa, the City in the Clouds (video)
Larry Miller loaned me this Japanese animated movie, for which I am very grateful. I was swept up from the opening image, one of huge anachronistic airships plying the clouds. A lot of visual planning went into this anime – regardless of the storyline, I'd tell you to see this just to watch. Fortunately, there's also a lot in the plot to recommend it, too (including one of the best-executed chase scenes I've ever seen). The music, by Geinoh Yamashirogumi, is cute and bouncy, tuneful and sometimes moving. [SPOILER WARNING] The biggest problem I have with it, as I had with the only other full-length anime movie I've seen, Akira, is a slow shift from action-oriented plot to meandering philosophizing. The last hour of this (almost 3-hour) movie wasn't nearly as interesting to me [END SPOILERS]
System's Twilight (Mac game)
Andrew Plotkin, its author, must like '3 in Three' an awful lot. This game is in exactly the style of it and Fool's Errand, which is to say it's a series of puzzles that act as links in a story. The puzzles are often original and always challenging; the story itself sparkles in a few places, but is mostly functional (i.e. there only to justify the puzzles). The first fifth of it ¨can be downloaded free (I'll send it to anyone who wants it); the full thing costs only $15. A great deal, as it's a great deal of fun.
Bears Discover Fire, Terry Bisson (collection of short stories)
One story in here, "They're Made out of Meat" has already climbed high on my best-short-short-ever list, but this was my first experience with what Bisson's writing style is really like. It's pretty varied; he's got action stories and character sketches and quick-joke pieces. It's also variable quality writing. Nothing really knocked my socks off (except for the previously mentioned) -- I don't see why the title story won a Hugo -- but I enjoyed most of them nonetheless. Mo st stories are workings out of unusual settings, technologies, or other ideas he must have had and explored their effects on an otherwise recognizable Earth. Some of his ideas are almost strange enough to be Howard Waldrop's, but without HW's manic style. Worth reading, but not raving over. I'll check out his next collection, but probably won't invest the time to read a novel (that's something I usually reserve for writers I think are awesome)
Important news for the SWAPA rotating tapes! They're legal!
There'd been discussion about the ethicality and legality of copying songs and other things onto these tapes, to then be distributed round-robin to every SWAPAn in the group. Well, according to the January WIRED magazine, "...last year, Congress threw in the towel on physical taping and added a provision to the Copyright Act making it legal for us to make noncommercial music tapes for our friends." So, if any of you didn't want to join the roTape group for legal reasons, your wait is over!
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs." "Piglets have waxy cork fez by DJ manque" These are examples (the first two good, the last one mine) of pangrams, sentences that contain every letter of the alphabet. I think there should be a verbal equivalent, so I'm presenting the Moskowitz Challenge: come up with a sentence containing all the phonemes in English (I can't do this one myself, since I don't even know what all the English phonemes are. I know, ignorance of linguistics is no excuse...)
(title palindrome courtesy of Jim Kalb)
("We enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire")
From 30th Street Station you can see three capital letters, off beyond the Art Museum. Some factoryish building has its acronym on its roof, in twenty-or-so-feet high letters: E M C or somesuch (it's far away enough that I struggle as if squinting at that seventh line on the optomologist's chart). It's not the sort of thing to really inspire a person. Then again, I don't usually get inspired to create installation art. Blame it on the ~65° weather inspiring random thoughts. I've now got an idea that I'd seriously submit to an art contest. Three letters of lit lightbulbs (like the ones atop the Philadelphia Electric building that seem to say, 'we generate it, we can waste it'), which change every few seconds from one word to another.
Make three ten-foot-high grids of lights which can be turned on to form any letter. Control the lights by a computer program which fades the bulbs in and out to switch from letter to letter, and has a list of all three-letter words to randomly choose from. Perhaps even include a lot of nonsense three-letter sequences, so when actual words, or sequences of words, come up they're unexpected. It tickles my concept of speaking in tongues, to have gibberish give way to the occasional sentence -- much the way the Weekly-World-News-headline-generating screensaver modules do. There's also the biological parallel of coding versus noncoding sections in DNA, but that's the kind of thing I'd mention in a proposal only to make it seem Deep. What I really want is to have this simple randomness where people will look at it, sometimes get inspiration or amusement from it, try to outguess it (this refers to a mode I'd like the program to shift into occasionally, where it only changes the word to words with two letters in common, e.g. BED - BET - BAT - RAT - RAG - - - ). Maybe I should try writing a program to simulate this on my Mac... though I don't have the graphics knowledge to do it.
Ranjit (if you're reading this, rejoin!) deserves credit as co-inspirator, because I've thought about his site-art piece 'Sky/Light' many times, especially when looking at roofs of buildings.
Actually, I seem to have a second site-art work planned, although this counts more as performance art, or even a Happening. Steve Shoemaker told me months ago about a Japanese custom of placing small candles on folded-paper boats and launching them down a river. The image of numerous shimmering dots drifting along into the twilight won't get out of my head, and I really want to make this happen. Problem: candles have a way of setting things on fire. The paper boat itself, for instance, but I'm more worried about one coming to rest against a wooden hull and getting me in big trouble. Solution: launch them somewhere above some falls, so the candles will be put out after only a short distance (but long enough to create the atmosphere I'm looking for -- an appropriately-placed bend in the river would help). Problem: I want to see a lot of these boats (all right, "A Thousand Points of Light" has been misused, but it's still a cool concept even after it's been misused), and it would be difficult to launch enough, in a short enough time span, to give the right effect. Solution: Steve and I are both unscrupulous, and wouldn't mind getting people to aid us in this project through misrepresentation (such an ugly word. Let's say 'recontextualization'. Actually, that sounds pretty ugly, too. Go figure). We think it'd be possible to plan some commemoration around this ceremony, make it a publicized event. Something like, "Write the name of someone you want to remember on a sheet of paper. Fold it into a boat [Following these directions]. Bring it and a birthday candle to [location] on [date], to join hundreds of others in commemorating them." And it's really not an unscrupulous thing to do; it will be a cathartic communal event. It's just that I'll be there primarily to watch the lights, not for the remembrance.
Work has been uninspiring recently. The most common sources of excitement at the 'tute are the traveling exhibits that we get in; we currently have two, and they're both boring. EarthQuest is an environmental exhibit designed for elementary-age kids, with lots of their-scale sets (home, gas station, grocery) talking about environmentally-friendly actions to take in each of them. Behind the Seams is about textiles, and is a little more interesting and has more to do, but it's tucked away in a less-visited section of the museum. The prospects for the rest of the year are no better: a summer exhibit on Bats, one on the ecosystems of Africa, and the Jurassic Park dinosaurs exhibit.
While these (esp. the latter two) may prove neat, I just don't understand why we're bringing them. The Academy of Natural Sciences is a block away, and all of these exhibits (except Behind the Seams) would fit in much better there. I thought we were a physical science and technology museum.... I still enjoy Ask the Scientist, of course, and I've gotten the schedulers to remember that I'm supposed to have m ore free time for developing and keeping-up things (as a result of which I was able to make some adjustments to our papermaking machine and get it to run (semisuccessfully) for the first time in a year). I wish I were better at keeping track of what needs to be done, though. I frequently forget about things like the paper machine which are always-there sorts of problems. Writing notes to myself rarely works; I end up with lots of little post-its hiding in corners of my desk and notes scribbled on the back òs of things I forget to look at. My mom made me a vest for Christmas, at my request, so I'd have something with the right kind of pocket for keeping a notebook in. Somehow I never wind up wearing it when I need it. Bethatasitmay (another word whose Time has Not Yet Come), my memory has made up a little of the slack, and I keep track of commitments and things that need doing better now than I did two years ago. So I guess things are improving.
My WWW page, about unknown good classical composers, is up and flying; I'm happy with it and proud of it. Check it out at: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~jimmosk/TOC.html
[ Edit: now http://kith.org.jimmosk ]
A sputtering of reviews
The Cowboy Wally Show, Kyle Baker (graphic novel)
The Philadelphia Free Library (anyone ever seen another public library that uses the term 'Free' rather than 'Public'?) recently made a large segment of its Central Library circulating (previously only a branch-library-siz úed roomful of books was allowed out of the library). One of the books I found while looking through these shelves which I'd never explored before was this beautifully drawn and frequently hilarious graphic novel, detailing episodes in the life of a TV-cowboy, moviemaker, talk-show host, and general loudmouth. Numerous great exchanges, and wonderful facial expressions that say so much – I think Bill Watterson would draw this way if he spent as much time on
his drawing as Walt Kelly did. I'd tell you to run right out and get it.... except I have a feeling you won't be able to find it – I just saw a call for nominations for an UnSquiddie Award (don't ask) in the category "Body Parts You'd Sacrifice for a Copy of 'The Cowboy Wally Show'". Interlibrary Loan, anyone?
John Henry, They Might Be Giants (cd)
As the biggest TMBG fan in the world (title pending), I was looking forward to this album, he understated. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. It's not to say that I wouldn't give it an 8 out of 10; it's just that all their other albums rate 11 to me (except their B-sides collection, Misc T.) Their sound has changed, as others have mentioned: it's louder, often harsher, for being played by a live backup band. That's not what bothers me, though; one of TMBG's endearing traits is that their style varies wildly between songs – nursery rhyme to fast folk to punk to...., so having this album sound different is practically mandatory. However, their live musicians don't seem to be as musically inventive as the Johns Themselves were when they were programming drum machines and sequencers... most of the neat harmonies and offbeat background rhythms are missing. Worse, there's far less wordplay on this album. Where I'm used to them making a song more elliptical and random for the sake of getting to an ingenious turn of phrase, they seem to stick to str ≠aightforward, unfunny lyrics. When they do get random, it's meaningless randomness. Still, there are some songs I love ("No One Knows My Plan", "Destination Moon", "Meet James Ensor"), and TMBG can still write an infectious rhythm line like nobody else I know. But perhaps this is fate trying to shift my loyalties, because shortly after digesting this cd, I got:
Bargainville, Moxy Früvous (cd)
Their fame is still ahead of them, but when it comes there's a good chance it'll be stellar. A Canadian foursome who sing neat harmonies (more college a-capellish than Bobsish, but interesting enough) and play guitar, guitar, accordion, and drums. Many of their songs are in the Bobs' character-sketch-of-an-unusual-character style, although they have some serious, purely-pretty songs too. At the other extreme are more musically complicated TMBGish songs. Along this line they make good use of raplike fast, rhythmic, rhyming, integrating it extremely well into pop. They get political in several of their songs (especially a funny, offensive anthem to Rush Limbaugh, unfortunately not included on this album), which they pull off acceptably, though unspectacularly. This is their first album, apparently, and their next one will be an automatic purchase for me. ("You should see my story-readin' baby; ya should hear the things that she sez / She says, 'hon, drop dead; I'd rather go to bed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez'")
Laputa, the City in the Clouds (video)
Larry Miller loaned me this Japanese animated movie, for which I am very grateful. I was swept up from the opening image, one of huge anachronistic airships plying the clouds. A lot of visual planning went into this anime – regardless of the storyline, I'd tell you to see this just to watch. Fortunately, there's also a lot in the plot to recommend it, too (including one of the best-executed chase scenes I've ever seen). The music, by Geinoh Yamashirogumi, is cute and bouncy, tuneful and sometimes moving. [SPOILER WARNING] The biggest problem I have with it, as I had with the only other full-length anime movie I've seen, Akira, is a slow shift from action-oriented plot to meandering philosophizing. The last hour of this (almost 3-hour) movie wasn't nearly as interesting to me [END SPOILERS]
System's Twilight (Mac game)
Andrew Plotkin, its author, must like '3 in Three' an awful lot. This game is in exactly the style of it and Fool's Errand, which is to say it's a series of puzzles that act as links in a story. The puzzles are often original and always challenging; the story itself sparkles in a few places, but is mostly functional (i.e. there only to justify the puzzles). The first fifth of it ¨can be downloaded free (I'll send it to anyone who wants it); the full thing costs only $15. A great deal, as it's a great deal of fun.
Bears Discover Fire, Terry Bisson (collection of short stories)
One story in here, "They're Made out of Meat" has already climbed high on my best-short-short-ever list, but this was my first experience with what Bisson's writing style is really like. It's pretty varied; he's got action stories and character sketches and quick-joke pieces. It's also variable quality writing. Nothing really knocked my socks off (except for the previously mentioned) -- I don't see why the title story won a Hugo -- but I enjoyed most of them nonetheless. Mo st stories are workings out of unusual settings, technologies, or other ideas he must have had and explored their effects on an otherwise recognizable Earth. Some of his ideas are almost strange enough to be Howard Waldrop's, but without HW's manic style. Worth reading, but not raving over. I'll check out his next collection, but probably won't invest the time to read a novel (that's something I usually reserve for writers I think are awesome)
Important news for the SWAPA rotating tapes! They're legal!
There'd been discussion about the ethicality and legality of copying songs and other things onto these tapes, to then be distributed round-robin to every SWAPAn in the group. Well, according to the January WIRED magazine, "...last year, Congress threw in the towel on physical taping and added a provision to the Copyright Act making it legal for us to make noncommercial music tapes for our friends." So, if any of you didn't want to join the roTape group for legal reasons, your wait is over!
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs." "Piglets have waxy cork fez by DJ manque" These are examples (the first two good, the last one mine) of pangrams, sentences that contain every letter of the alphabet. I think there should be a verbal equivalent, so I'm presenting the Moskowitz Challenge: come up with a sentence containing all the phonemes in English (I can't do this one myself, since I don't even know what all the English phonemes are. I know, ignorance of linguistics is no excuse...)
(title palindrome courtesy of Jim Kalb)
