May 13, 2005
It's the end of an era but. . .
Check me out HERE.
We'll see what happens, guys. It's been real. . . thank you.
Posted by at 10:05 PM | Comments (2)
April 28, 2005
Egoiste!
To quote READYMADE mag, which in turn is quoting The New Atlantis Journal:
egocasting (noun): The transformation of media into a highly specific reflection of one's own interests via the use of technologies such as TiVo, iPods, and the Internet.
"[Media technologies] encourage not the cultivation of taste, but the numbing repetition of fetish. And they contribute to what might be called 'egocasting,' the thoroughly personalized and extremely narrow pursuit of one's personal taste."
-"The Age of Egocasting," by Christine Rosen, The New Atlantis Journal, Fall 2004/Winter 2005.
That's some pretty nifty word design, I think. Sometimes ReadyMade sort of fumbles along when they try to perpetrate words (they have a running section called 'Re-Word' where they try to turn you on to or introduce new lingo) but this one's pretty smart. I love technology for stabilizing these niches of information, and the resulting ease of accumulation- look at these bootleg Pete and Pete dvds I found! and the vintage young adult novel off Ebay! and comprehensive episode guides and dialogue snippets from Buffy! All, sadly, true. Ha. My friend said once, I wish I could remember who, that the Internet is enabling all the obsessive collector types. Not a new idea, certainly, but still intriguing. And let us not forget the plethora of online personas most of us have acquired. Friendster profiles, flickr accounts, blogs, chat programs, discussion boards, etc etc ad nauseum. One time I angered a friend and as I drove off the last thing she shouted at me, in the damp San Francisco night, was 'I'm gonna de-Friendster you!' It hurt when she did it and, to be honest, it still kinda hurts now. And how weird and easy is it to forward your new boyfriend's Friendster profile/website/what have you to any one of your curious and salivating homies (HI STUART!). Egocasting begets egoboosting. Anyway. Where does it end, and where is it all going to go? I can't help but feel like the government's got it all wrong- don't make people afraid to keep them under check. Just give them more technology! May we happily tweak with hard-drives, re-organize digital photo albums, and upload mp3s into infinity! Welcome to the new techno-autocracy!
. . . Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to post this and make a new playlist on iTunes. Trust me, it's important.
Posted by at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2005
Because Quantum Mechanics is, like, So Hot Right Now
Hey, guys! Did you know that 2005 has been declared WORLD YEAR OF PHYSICS? It's true. It seems like physics is everywhere these days. Look how popular superstring theory is. Controversial, convoluted, and often counterintuitive (eleven dimensions, BRIAN? How elegant is that? You're hot though) SST is the total gossip topic of the scientific world. And why not- what is more vital and exciting than the search for ontological truth? What matters more than Matter?
So, in honor of all this, here's a list of pop culture entertainment
with physics relevance:
1. A Wrinkle in Time- Madeleine L'Engle's masterpiece. The subject
is the eponymous tesseract. Multidimensionality, space-time. . . you get it. So this is how the interest in ants got started.
2. The Time-Traveler's Wife- by Audrey Niffenegger. Love, love, LOVED this book. A true romance through the ages- it's the story of a man (a punk-loving librarian, no less) suffering from Chrono Displacement Disorder, which dooms him to slipping in and out of spacetime. He is drawn again and again to his total soul-love, Clare. . . imagine what it would be like to meet your husband or wife at the ages of 7, 12, 80?
3. Primer- directed by Shane Carruth. A believable ROMP through space-time and causality. One of the best movies of 2004. What happens when 4 Silicon Valley dudes, tinkering around in a garage in their spare time, invent a time machine? I need to watch it a few more times to fully wrap my head around it. Also, Carruth wrote, directed, acted, and distributed it essentially on his own. . . DIY poster boy. I was enthralled from the first minute of the film. Watch and you will see, then we can discuss.
4. Angel the Series- 'Supersymmetry.' Our favorite twiggy Texan physicist, Fred Burkle, publishes an article on multidimensionality. We see evil professors, portals, monsters, and the real reason she got sucked into Pylea. Best line (when she's about the speak at the symposium): "They've got me between Ed Witten and Brian Greene!"
5. Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid- written by Douglas Hoefstadter. Why not attempt to create a Grand Unified Theory with the work of these masters? I wish I could tell you I'd read the whole thing. . . for now, it looks real cool on my bookshelf.
Here's a cool picture of Godel and Einstein. . . love you, Uncle Alby!
Posted by at 07:48 AM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2005
Memorandom.
I Christened her the JewFlip.
My friend Ali, who's a student at Berkeley in their graduate journalism program, recently conducted a roundtable discussion attempting to map out her relationship with Filipino culture, and possibly draw some connections between Filipino and Jewish culture. The result? Homemade lumpia, a lot of laughs, and some thought-provoking questions, with a background of hot-oil-sizzle white noise. You can listen to it HERE. Nice work Ali, and is that what my voice really sounds like???
Ultra Magnetic.
I've been plagued with car troubles recently. The gods of car karma have finally caught up with me, after getting my driver's license after all these years. My '89 Camry has seen better days, and better mileage (344,000 miles at last count). After its major stroke the other week, it's never really recovered. It sounds like I'm dragging a string of tin cans down the street after me. Just Married? Just Poor, with a p.o.s. car! What's a girl to do? So, lately, I've been perusing car websites. Edmunds is my new porn. tC, V8, 17-inch rims, subwoofers, panorama, drool drool drool. Does anyone have any advice for a first-time car-buyer, or any tips for finding a good used car?
And One Last Thing.
Thank you, God, for allowing the existence of breakfast burritos.
Posted by at 09:14 AM | Comments (4)
March 24, 2005
Lord of the Fly.
Yesterday was the best day of my life, because I finally, finally had an insect named after me! Brian at the Museum has bestowed my legacy on a newly-described species of fly: Melaloncha feleoae. Rhymes with layaway. I am the 'BUTTERFLY OF PHORIDS.'
Aren't I pretty? Here I am about to parasitize a bee by jamming my ovipositor into her head:
Granted this is not M. feleoae, but pretty close.
It's a good day to be a bee-killer.
Posted by at 10:38 AM | Comments (1)