On monkeys being scary. This and probably whatever I post next are really summing up of other conversations I have, so nobody credit me solely on these things. I think monkeys are scary mainly because they have an uncanny nature. That is, they remind us of something in ourselves – they’re generally anthropomorphic, but undeniably different nonetheless. They’re like some mirror of ourselves conjured from our hindbrains, something primitive that screeches and doesn’t hold to our rules of ego and superego, but has cunning and emotion that remind us of ourselves when we’re not controlling ourselves. Manifestations of id, I guess.
Also, some of them have large teeth, or red or blue butts. And fling monkey poo. And, as has been pointed out to me, it’s generally a hell of a lot easier to fight a vampire than a monkey. That’s why I think there’re not so many movies about scary monkeys. That’s just too scary to be entertaining generally, I’m guessing.

Conundrum. I have this urge to write poetry outside of the big ol’ poetry-diary-journal thing I’ve been writing, but my emotions seem inextricably tied into anything I write. I had a teacher once tell me that my writing sometimes went too deeply into my emotions, to the point of making reading the poem kind of uncomfortable. Anyway, in this case, I want to write a poem to be able to share it, but feel like I wouldn’t be comfortable doing so on account of the same rawness and privacy that accompanies the journal. So…I guess this paragraph is what gets put here for the moment instead of a poem.

More massage-themed fun. One thing that was a point in that recent workshop for those interested in getting more into it was that it was a good idea to partner up with someone in a different, but similar field. For example, a chiropractor, a naturopath, or any number of fields like that, basically. I’d actually spent some time on thoughts almost exactly like that in the past, but they had quietly laid down at some point.

But then I’m thinking, wait, when I worked at the hospital, massages were incredibly helpful. I spent several hours one day, one of the best days I had working there, giving foot massages to a cancer patient, and was perfectly happy doing it because I knew it was distracting her from her immense pain. When family members or I just rubbed the back of patients who had been stuck on their backs or sides in bed for weeks on end, their relief was almost palpable sometimes. And even just holding someone’s hand or resting it on their forearm or shoulder was one of the best things I could do.

I remember one poor woman who had MRSA infecting her skin, and was so morbidly obese that we couldn’t even shift her off the especially sore lesions. All I could do was hold her hand and murmur nothing but, “It’s okay, we’re here,” over and over and over for the whole day, and felt like an ass doing it because I’m sure I looked and felt alien in gloves and gown and mask, and repeatedly had to move her grasping away from any exposed skin I had, but at the end of the day she almost had me crying as she did as well in thanking us for doing nothing but holding her hand and talking to her.

So. As much as I’m looking into getting trained as a bodyworker, that’s my idea of the moment – working something out with a hospital to rove like occupational therapy or physical therapy people or chaplains and give massage or shoulder rubs or even little hand massages or anything really, as anything like that helps so much. If I really want to be out there in my daydreaming, if I could get training in physical therapy and maybe even start a program of some sort, maybe if I found anyone like-minded.

More random thoughts time. One, endorphin rushes are kind of nice in the winter, and kind of not. I remember my friend and I used to drive back to the university from jujitsu with our shirts open or off and the windows down on really cold nights, just because our bodies were still generating so much heat and we were inured to the cold by the rush. Last night, I wasn’t anywhere near that worked up, but was still able to stand chatting in a parking lot for upwards of two hours without giving much thought at all to being cold or not, and I was just wearing sandals and a light sweater. Of course, as soon as I wound down and rehydrated with a cold drink down the road, I went to get back to my car and my body completely crashed. Headache, full-body shivers, clenched jaw and some loss of control over my breath. So, yay for endorphins in one sense, and crappy for when they run out.

Other random thing. Back in existential philosophy class we spent a bit on exploring the idea of the myth of Sisyphus (eternally straining to push a huge boulder up a mountain each day, only to have it inevitably roll down again) as a metaphor for life. There were several angles to approach it by – say, pointlessness and inevitability of misfortune on one end of the spectrum, and on the complete other end in the spirit of trying even if it’s pointless, maybe part of what defines humanity. So, anyhoo, the random thought I had. Saying we do accept the myth as a metaphor/analogy for human life, we’re generally thinking that the singular Sisyphus is representative of all human life in a kind of synecdoche sense.

But what if people aren’t as isolated from each other within their own egos (which define us as individuals) as they think they are? If we turn the metaphor back upon itself, might Sisyphus, in being representative of humanity, be in fact the great mass of all of us pushing that boulder up the slope, in that being human and going through our lives even if misfortune or death is inevitable is us pushing our own boulder up the slope? I guess what I’m saying is, what’s to say that we have to consider it as each of us having our own burden – what’s to say that we’re not all connected in some fashion and in fact are helping or hindering each other with our common, shared boulder/burden of living in how we treat each other?

I didn’t really think to go into the other nice things about zen shiatsu, so here are some. For one, the…uh…shiatsu-ee remains fully clothed, which is nice for several reasons, an obvious one being their general comfort, especially considering how intimate massage is in general, and even more especially because a lot of shiatsu is done on the anterior of the body. Beyond that, any help with comfort is nice because the person being massaged gets the most benefit if they completely let the bodyworker do their thing; the more they can surrender their self to the bodyworker and furthermore relax past their innate resistance, the more they get out of it (I think that’s a good thing particularly because I have trouble with it, but at the same time consider it a very good thing to work on, so it’s impetus).

Also, the bodyworker would find it nigh impossible to wear themselves out doing shiatsu. Since a kind of combination of ki (in the aikido sense), integrating yoga poses and principles, and using the whole body and weight rather than a couple muscles (in a martial arts sense), and a meditative state is part of the definition of shiatsu, the bodyworker in fact almost ends up actually getting a lot out of giving a massage, rather than tiring. And furthermore, shiatsu is often remarkably convenient to do to one’s self, where regular massage is quite difficult (think about it, how good of a massage can you really give yourself without leverage and without slacking over time?).
And the workshop didn’t even really go that far into pushing all these aspects, to make that clear, these were the mental notes I was making.

Other news: my dad recommends the show Bones; he and I are both big fans of David Boreanaz, for one, but he says the show is intriguing enough to carry itself without relying on him, and provides interesting twists.
My mom recommends Curb Your Enthusiasm and Extras. I don’t think I can back that recommendation up; I mean, they’re both kind of funny, the first being from a producer of Seinfield and the latter being British, but they rely on the kind of humor that makes one uncomfortable too much for my taste.

      I'm not sure how to organize these thoughts, so they may appear in a semi-random order. Though I was stood up twice in succesion earlier in the weekend (I responded to that in as blase manner as I could, and did the complete opposite of one of the night's original plans and sat across from a complete stranger in a coffee shop), I was determined to get something accomplished, and so went to a zen shiatsu workshop (cue fanfare). I guess the first thing I should admit was that I had to practically discipline myself to not be distracted by the gal in charge, who looked like she should be on the cover of Yoga Journal, but was even more charming as she had a bit of an accent and a lovely voice. I had no idea there would be such connection between martial arts and shiatsu, though I'll have to note that I'm thinking in the main of aikido and Chinese arts, of which there ironically happened to be two other gentlemen besides me who've practiced those in some capacity. I did learn quite a lot, and plan on taking advantage of whatever opportunity I can find to learn more in the same vein; in fact, I think I actually got some patterns in my thinking re-started, I'm not ready to talk about those yet, though. I will say one more highlight (besides the pleasant experience, free massage and gorgeous instructor) - I finally learned how to give someone's neck and shoulders a massage a proper way, which is a profound thing if you think about how awkward or ineffective it usually is to try to loosen the tension in someone's neck. If anyone wants to let me practice on them for a free neck rub or massage, I'm your man.

The Muse Is Always Half-Dressed in New Orleans, by Andrei Codrescu. I bought this collection of essays at some point in high school, I really have no recollection of why, except that it was for school. So I somehow found it, and thought, hey why not. Off the top of my head, Codrescu essays include commentary on growing up in Romania, the strange nature of that country's most recent revolution, various wry takes on being a vegetarian, a couple literary theory essays, some diatribes against communism, and one lovely exploration of New Orleans. I always did want to travel there, though unfortunately at the moment it looks like the only way I'll be able to will be through writings like this one, I suppose.

      While helping transfer a newly collected bonsai from burlap to box, I got the task of mixing the fill to go in the box around the root ball (coarse and fine volcanic, pine bark, turface, crushed granite, a couple different organics, some original mulch for the mycorrhizae). I couldn't help but notice that one of the organic soils was a very rich and velvet black in appearance, and it struck me that the best soil and most life-producing soil is a color that is often associated with death. Maybe that's why in some places white is instead considered the color of death? But then, does that mean that black in turn becomes a life-symbolizing color in those places, or does it not have any connotation, or does it still have a negative connotation?

Also, picpics

      As it's getting colder out, some of the bay doors to the warehouses are kept closed to retain whatever heat there is inside; some are still open however. So I'm walking by one of the remaining open ones today, which was quite gray and cloudy and dark, and I see snow falling. Like, little flakes of white drifting past across the sky and the next building over, back and forth in the breeze.
      Of course, this being Tucson, it was desert broom seeds, but hey, it was a moment.

Dead Leaves - no sense, whatsoever. Like a cross between Tank Girl, FLCL, Akira, Gen13, Die Hard, Escape from LA, and...probably several other things. Maybe a porn, it's kind of hard to define some of the things that happen, though. I felt like I should be doing something else besides watching television, at least say flipping through a magazine or something, but I really couldn't take my eyes off this, nor could I rid myself entirely of what I'm sure was a befuddled look - there's probably not a five second lull in the entire movie, for true. As much as I had to concentrate to tell what was going on, the rampant havoc is quite fun to watch (though out and out disgusting at times), and there are enough dirty jokes and one-liners to make one smile even if they're not in the best mood.

Each time I go to the 4th Ave Street fair, I try to go to the same artist (if he is there and time is permitting) to get a henna pattern inked onto my hand. So, the first time I had it done, it was during an early morning lull in the fair, and so in talking with the artist he ended up putting much more henna on my hand and complexity into the pattern than the fee I had paid warranted; he even took a picture for his personal portfolio, so that was pretty awesome.

Even better than that, though, was the woman who was working with him; she was beautiful in and of herself, with wavy-curly blond hair and a loose skirt and backless top of something gauzy. But what was on her upper back were wings, down to the details on feathers, surrounded by arabesques, all done in a light red-ish henna. It was gorgeous, to say the least. My question to myself is, did I get the idea for my tattoo from that image (it's funny that I haven't remembered that till now, if that's the case), or did I have my tattoo idea before that? All I've got is a mental shrug, at the moment; who knows.

In other news, working with lots of people with relatives in Mexico is nice because of one of the most important reasons: food. I, at this moment, have a bag of twelve solidly large, fresh tamales sitting right next to me. Red chile, baby. Not to mention the fresh, homemade tortillas on other days, and the list of the best places in South Tucson to get Sonoran hot dogs on the other side of my desk. Now, come on Vietnamese half of the people working the warehouse: where y'all at with the food? I'm hungry!

Neologism of the Day: awebysmal - in the vein of that lovely word, 'aweso,' awebysmal combines 'awesome' and 'abyssal' with a nice linguistic twist in the suffix for aesthetics; used, say, for those jokes that really do hit new lows

random quote time yay, plot stuff ellipse'd -
“She could disappear here...Eden again. Return to animal awareness; the eternal Now before the Fall armed humanity with consciousness and care. Beyond money, beyond power and telecom and tax bills, beyond mortgages and bank loans and pensions and insurance. Beyond the day-to-day drudge of pushing the boulder of living in a society up the asymptotic slope of Mt. Entropy. Freedom without a bar code...But it is an insidious Eden where everything might be had by reaching out to take. It is the determination to push that boulder of hopes and dreams through the relentless material world that makes you human.”
-kind of an oblique take on Sisyphus, maybe? anybody have any thoughts?

Completely random things time. Apparently, my dad once had breakfast with Johnny Cash. He was sitting in an almost empty restaurant, saw the singer, and asked if he could sit with him; apparently, he had a slow, southern drawl and was very down to earth. Also, my dad used to be a DJ, back in college; he laments that DJ’s aren’t allowed to just sit and ramble anymore, and have to stick to station playlists (of course, that’s why I’ve been listening to KXCI lately).

I don’t know why I remembered this, but when I got my new camera, I turned it on and there was a little chime noise, as electronics are wont to make these days. So my mom hears that, and says, “It sings!” Not, “It made a noise,” or, “What a pretty noise,” or anything like that, but she described it as singing. I don’t know if it was a quirk of her accent or just they way she put it at that moment, but I thought it was a lovely way to describe something that I’d otherwise just think of as a gadget.

Another reason or two why I like the fun local radio station: at night time, there are such gems as a local bands performing live a melancholy, indie rock version of the ‘Milkshake’ song, and a hard metal, head-bobbing-inducing cover of ‘I Like Big Butts;’ in the morning, there was a combination of alternating indie rock, sublimely funky bass and Asian instrument instrumentals, and even a cover of a Sneakerpimps song of all things by a woman with a lovely, smoky voice.

In other news. I was prompted on this line of thought by an email conversation the other day. Lately, my life has been full of changes, and I’ve been changing extensively as well, enough at the least that I’m conscious of it, if that makes any sense. After graduating, a lot of stuff got turned upside down. Up till that point, I’d been living in a regularly shifting but still solid roommate-environment, and going to school which was probably a bubble insulating me from a lot of things (not that I was physically in school or living where I was, but the fact that I could retreat into labeling myself a student and just not have to think about or deal with a lot, and had the luxury of having choices made for me by virtue of that fact).

Then, roommates started moving away. And friends moved away. And I felt quite alone and afraid. I hadn’t accomplished anything my hesitant ambitions had as goals. And I was back at home, which is nice in a sense to save money and be secure and have family right there, but at the same time feels like something of a regression or an escape, and is a downer in that sense, and beyond that is living in a room full of boxes – not pleasant to be stuck in a temporary-space. Unfortunately, I handled it with varying degrees of system shock; depression, lashing out, clutching or clinging, mood swings I’m sure, I could go on. I got a job, which in an objective sense is a perfectly fine thing, but one that I had to assign purpose that had little to do with me, which backfired horribly. More turmoil beyond that, too personal to talk about, but as much as everything else combined.

So. Starting over. Finding new ambitions, new goals, making new plans. Making new friends, I suppose. And yet, even as everything from diet to hobbies to interests changes, the more things stay the same, hien? And change. Layers, and dualities, and life and all that. I guess, I'm learning a lot about myself; about my reactions to things in the past, for example, like when a friend and I realized our past ambitions were fine, we just hadn't realized at the time the kind of stability we needed to act on them.

As much as when I was younger I tried to style myself as a loner’s loner, I realize now that I’m something of a social animal – not a very garrulous or prolific one, but I rather enjoy having someone or a few close friends who I can be very close with. Finding myself bereft of that for the most part is kind of a good and bad thing, I guess. My dad, upon finding me on the couch staring into space late one night, commented that I thrive on helping people. As much as I’ve devoted myself without reservation and given my love in whatever fashion to those immediately around me in the past, it somehow actually feels wrong in a way, or difficult, to just work on helping myself. I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant, it’s meant at face value. I think I need to find some balance between helping myself and giving myself to others, but at the same time maybe giving myself to others again is part of helping myself.

One thing I think I’m learning about this starting over stuff is that it’s not just a one time thing, but something that is continual, and changing on a day to day basis. Conflicting emotions, torn thoughts. But I read the other day: “It’s all right. It’s okay to be exactly where you are.”

Yeah.

At the least, I’m just going to do my best to keep breathing, deeply.

I know I compared Christmas decorations to Chaga on the other blog, somewhat facetiously, but now that I consider it a little more, I wonder whether the decorations being present might begin to change people’s demeanor in a similar way to how the Chaga changes and explores what it means to be human in Evolution’s Shore, for those who’ve read that one. Or maybe I’m giving metallic foil shreds, dangly ball things, and faux evergreen plastics too much credit.

In other news, as I’ve been re-reading that same novel, and feeling my usual I-wish-I-could-have-written-my-thesis-on-this feelings upon reading it, I noticed a parallel between it and what I did actually write my thesis on (Frank Herbert’s Dune). While McDonald doesn’t quite use it to the manic degree that Herbert did, a perspective that shifts on the fly from chapter to chapter and even paragraph to paragraph is still there. In one sense this is interesting because of the skill required of the author to pull it off and keep the narrative thread coherent.

I find McDonald’s quirks in using it to be of particular interest in that while some of the shifts are a consequence of what’s appropriate within the narrative, such as a simple example of a shift to a different character for a moment to reveal something first-person narration couldn’t (adeptly based in the narrative by having that character physically walking up to the situation in question), other shifts are brought by a more obvious and yet more subtle device.

That is, Blair Witch style – for instance, the main character ranting into a video camera, as an expression of her character’s comfort in front of such and use of such as a diary as a journalist, which have their own meanings, and then the shift in perspective occurring when another character walks in the room: the perspective shifts from the reader essentially being the camera that the character is talking into (tiny motes of metafiction, or post-modernism, there?) to a more ghostly third-person perspective while the two characters talk.

And a sidenote, on a more personal level. I’ve been writing this sort of poem-diary-journal thing on and off for a while now; I changed the name from “Alchemy” to “Threnody’s Song” (after learning more about alchemy and after the direction the writing took). The thing is, it brings forth conflicting feelings in me. On one level, it’s a diary, which seems to be by definition very, very private, and something to never be shared. Besides the inherent conflict there that’s obvious for those who know me well, that this diary is also a poem is an issue – a poem seems like something that’s generally written to be shared. So, in that sense, the logic/compromise might be to perhaps share it with only the very closest person or people, but that’s not a compromise I’m ready to deal with addressing yet. So, apparently, y’all just get the title for now.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. I'm going to go with saying that this is a solidly good movie. It can also probably be adequately described by mentioning that it's a Tim Burton movie, I suppose. Though I don't feel very locquacious about it right now, I'll finish by saying that it made me laugh when I thought my day had been compellingly ruined, so that speaks for it, and I have trouble thinking of another movie that my entire family would enjoy.

The Thomas Crown Affair, with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. Or, if one likes, Two Very Attractive People. Now, this movie, I will probably buy at some point. Or move in with someone who owns it, another possibility, you know, whichever is more reasonable. As a review of it that I read pointed out, it's not a mystery, nor is it a suspense or really a romance per se. It's really a true cat-and-mouse story, and you definitely have to pay attention to detail to get the full benefit of all the little cinematic and narrative clues. And a see-through dress like whoa. Unfortunately, the copy we had was scratched right smack dab in the middle of what is reputedly one of the steamiest love scenes known to man (and woman, too, I suppose, Brosnan is just as nekkid). Alas. Luckily, the film is worth multiple viewings.

      In other news, since I've not done any real jujitsu besides some odd grappling matches for a long time, and beyond that only fallen in a controlled fashion for so long, I'd forgotten that throws can be effective at all. I suppose I'd started to think of them purely as a positioning thing, like trying to maneuver the opponent into a less defensible position. Then I gave an instructor with a substantial size advantage all the momentum I could generate to play with, and the very first thing that hit the mats was my temple. And hoo boy did it slap right onto them, like my hand should have been slapping had I been able to breakfall properly. At first I thought it was just a momentary dizziness or light-headedness that I'd have to deal with, but it seems that even now later in the weekend there's the last remnants of an ache eminating from my left temple. So, odd as it sounds, I'm actually happy for that reminder. Even if had that been asphalt my head would have split like a melon.

I really hate to say it and I’m sure I sound arrogant, but I will because I’m sure it’s the same at any other place I could be working at, but there are some guys that work here that I have to wonder how many times I might have seen them at UMC for alcohol or something else similarly stupid. But at the same time, even if they seem like that, I’m simultaneously wondering what they really do in their off time, and hoping it’s not just drinking and driving as I’d heard about at times. So far I’ve heard about a myriad of side jobs, the requisite bar hopping or strip clubs, and today I learned a lot about billiards. Specifically, from a guy with almost no teeth, long hair, and hasn’t seemed to have taken a shower in a while, who makes more by playing in billiards leagues for prize money and bets and tourneys in Las Vegas than he does working at this company. I never would have guessed that about him for the world, but apparently he’s one of the top billiards players in Tucson, and is highly ranked in Vegas as well, enough to retire early because of what in effect is a doubled salary he’s made. So…not sure what to say about that, it’s just interesting, I guess.

      When I get time to walk, it's usually night. And it gets really quiet, except for me and the dog. So i end up singing the few songs I know, and reciting the poems I've learned. Not loudly, though I have before when the winds came, but just enough that my words resonate in the air, a little. For anyone that might be listening; it's quiet out, at night.

I'm not sure I identify at all with this anymore, but I suppose I would have before...interesting to consider, either way...
"It had never been a man who would keep her here...It was being rooted in the land. It was the fear that her strength came from the physical presence of place and house and people, and separated from them she would become pale and transparent. An unperson."

Completely random thoughts. The woman in front of me in this office listens to this atrocious oldies radio station, which is always on whether she’s in the office or not. It wouldn’t be so horrible, what with the soulless songs, too-incessant boogying, and endlessly lovelorn lyrics, but being an oldies station the repetition of a regular radio week’s playlist is compounded – it’s the same songs, forever and ever. Anyway. One thing I’ve noticed is that more recent songs, I mean on the new music stations, are completely filled with either direct samples from these oldies or are ripping off oodles of their melodies and riffs. The only two examples I can think of off the top of my head are the song from the first Men in Black movie, and Madonna’s “Music,” though I don’t know the names of the originals they’re copying from, and not copying in an ironic hipster fashion. I don’t wonder whether that’s obvious to people with more of a mind for music than me, but as this was the result of arduous aural labor, I leave it as is.

Also, in catching the end of the first Kill Bill the other night, I was reminded of a thought I had way back when, when I first saw the movie. In it, Lucy Liu’s character curtsy’s in a very stylized way in lieu of bowing (ah ha! had to sneak a pun in there) before her duel with Uma Thurman. I guess I thought it would interesting if female martial artists did that in real life, not like a real curtsy per se, but that stylized knees to the side kind, in that to me it seems like that could be a real expression of feminine identity in a context that sometimes has some undercurrents of denigration towards that sex. Or maybe I’m just completely stepping on feminist toes. But hey, if they’re martial artists, they can come argue their counterpoint as they may, and just bow first, I suppose.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, with a whole bunch of English people. I've talked a good solid amount about this a lot lately, so I'm not so compelled to write a lot about it. I'll note that (having not read the novel) it sure seemed like they left a lot out, though that's certainly understandable. And I still doubt that Harry and Ron were really lifting weights all summer, but nothing to be done for appealing to the ravenous sexual appetites of the Harry Potter audience. Or maybe that was over the top a little, sorry. The computer animation was gorgeous, and well suited to the movie, so in the least that would almost make it worth going to see by itself. Though the ending was kind of a downer, I suppose, though possibly intriguing for the future.

What’s with coffee shops? Or, a commentary. I think they’re interesting in that they are a space ostensibly created for one thing – imbibing coffee, like that’s the denotation – but the connotation is obviously more about a social purpose, like going out for coffee really means going out to converse (I was going to throw in the word palaver there at first, but then felt silly). I wonder how much of a gestalt affect there is, too; I mean, I know the atmosphere is generally directed towards that kind of social space, with often dim lighting or lots of wood and dark tones, but I wonder how much the fact that the people in the coffee shop are conscious of the fact that they are inhabiting that space and thus kind of playing a role in the purpose of that space augments itself. Of course, that could apply to nigh anything, but that was my original thought anyway.

Speaking of coffee shop conversations, here’s a minor point that came up in one. Every once in a while I unconsciously say ‘gods’ as an exclamation, which in an objective sense would probably label me as a definite fantasy or scifi nerd, in that I’d be imitating some novel or Battlestar Galactica or something. But just to explain, one day I had this sudden thought that took deep root in me, and it’s kind of summed up by (I’ll do my best to remember it correctly) something the poet Kabir (I think) said – “Everyone knows that the drop of water is contained in the ocean, but not everyone realizes that the ocean is in the drop as well.”

So, my thought was that whatever divinity there is or may be, in whatever shape or form, is – if it is divine in the sense that it is everywhere or is everything – also contained in some way in every person…in every drop, as it were. Hence my saying of ‘gods,’ as when I say that I think I’m remembering that thought in some small way. Or, for a different metaphor, as I just read again on the second page of my favorite novel,

“They were the stars, remote, subject to laws and processes larger than human lifetimes. By their high and ancient life you saw the nature of yourself. You were not the pinnacle of creation beneath a protecting veil of sky. You were a fierce, bright atom of selfhood, encircled by fire.”

But, all the stars in their magnitude beyond real comprehension are in that atom as well…Anyway, to loop back around to that gestalt idea, I wonder whether being in that coffee shop brought out something that allowed me to identify with someone else on a topic that wouldn’t have ever really been brought up in a general sense with that person, or maybe I’m just trying to connect to the coffee shop idea too much, who knows.

This hallucinogenic moment has been brought to you by me. The end, as I feel kind of silly now, but there you go.

      This might be blasphemy to some ears, but I'll rationalize it by stating in advance that it's a really, really oblique parallel. That is, between Top Gun and Harry Potter. A large part of the appeal of both, I think, though I'm sure this is patently obvious so if you're reading this going yes yes I know, sorry, is the identification their audiences can make with students in a school, but what makes these doubly appealing is that the schools in question are very unusual for a regular person. So, it's similar to something that everyone has gone (or is going) through, and yet in one way or another more fantastic and exciting - schools that the characters actually want to attend, as opposed to the reality of people often being frustrated with their mundane education. I just think it's kind of funny to find any connection between those two narratives, I suppose.

      Angry, angry lurking pothole: 1. Frank, driving along in brooding too-early-in-morning mode: 0. What really befuddled me was that the tire wasn't flat when I pulled it off to put the spare on; the tire's fine - instead, the rim itself was dented. Goodbye, oh hundreds of dollars for a replacement; I won't shed a tear for you, but will stick my tongue out at that construction zone in your memory.

      Apparently my dad was also the winner in terms of seminars gone to this morning (sorry for my ruminations, I expect the day to get better from the point of writing this part at least). He got to work with a world famous bonsai sensei, who even complimented what my dad had already done, and gave him several signed sketches of potentialities for those trees. I, on the other hand, felt compelled to leave halfway through the one I attended; I have some disillusionment questions I need attended to, I think. Getting to the other school allowed me to try some kung fu cross-step (why they call it a unicorn stance sometimes I will never know) to what appeared to be good effect, at least.

      I also happened to watch two movies tonight; I rationalize that I worked out, cross-stitched and wrote poetry at the same time. The first was The Lady Eve; I've been taking quite a liking to some of these old black and white movies. The flirting and focus on the acting and the perfectly obvious literary references and in-movie connections are refreshingly earnest, I think. While this movie was actually quite hilarious through most of it, near the end it kind of...fragmented. And then the ending? The guy gets screwed over six ways from Sunday, but there's no comeuppance for the girl? Strangely unfulfilling. Unless he really did know...hmm...
      And then, Return of the Joker was on a different channel. Who'd've thunk it, a Batman Beyond movie. In any case, I was quite surprised by how dark and heavy it actually turned out to be in some ways - some parts of that would not be good for kids at all. One thing that interested me tangentially was the use of the weapon-from-orbit concept without any belabored explanation at all; I wonder whether that science fiction idea has become commonplace enough that it fits right in the flow of the narrative as a natural thing, and what that implies.
      And why was Cruel Intentions on the ABC Family Channel? That doesn't seem appropriate at all.

Interesting thing about company owners showing up in pictures of random fundraising events and galas (as I happened to have noticed in a posh Foothills magazine or two), is that I suspect they also get either season or free tickets to all sorts of ancillary events. For example, “Oklahoma” (what is the proper punctuation for a musical, anyway?) at Centennial Hall at the UA. In the second bloody row.

The musical was certainly energetic enough, though as I’m sure I’ve already said, being in the seats we were in I sometimes found myself watching the conductor in the orchestra pit silently sing along to every part in a very, very animated way. I also wonder, where did the cowboys find jeans that fit so nicely, and yet allow them to kick so high? I know they sell jeans cut like gi pants, but those didn’t look like them. And was there always a burlesque sequence in this one? I know I was young when I first saw it, but I really don’t remember one; I felt kind of awkward with a kid or three sitting in the immediate vicinity while that much skin was being waved around. Another thing I’ll note was that I did not find any of the actresses attractive except for said burlesque women – I kind of started figuring there was an issue when I realized I was comparing the lead actor favorably over his counterpart. What’s that about? Seriously, people.

Ok, who’s up for a round of “Phantom”?

      In walking through the grandly re-opened Safeway nearby, my initial remark was that they were trying to imitate Trader Joe's, running off the sample tables and profusion of organic products. My mom's more astute remark was that they were probably going for more of a competition with A.J.'s, which made more sense considering the various decorative efforts towards poshness. That thought in turn made me notice the several women, probably in their late forties or early fifties, dressed exactly like sorority girls in trendy/'classy' mode (swishy pants and printed tops, hair in artful sprays, shiny lipstick). I think I was going somewhere with that and was probably going to make some sort of snarky social commentary, but on the other hand I think I'll just leave it as it lies.

-though they turn into 50/50 throwdowns too easily for my taste, an ankle lock breakdown (not my pun!)

-and these bug me because they really require a cup to do well in my opinion, so that kind of negates them for anything but sport

-as much as I'm into yoga, laughing at oneself for anything is good, right?

Resonance - shades of Starfish as a reference, but any vague suggestion of the possibility of telepathy always interested me, and if one really stretches it might play into some yoga ideas as well

So, I’m all insured and whatnot now, on account of ninety days employed and all that. I suppose I should feel more secure in some way, but mostly I’m just a bit annoyed at a further cut out of my paycheck, and melancholy because of certain parts on the forms I had to fill. I guess the standard minimum life, health, and vision insurance are fine, and are standard accoutrements of American life. I’m sitting here looking at this other optional insurance, however, and this one seems a bit more disturbing to me on some level.

Basically, there’s the choice of adding this option on top of the previously mentioned ones, and then also disability insurance and accident and sickness ‘indemnity plans.’ If you get sick, or injured, or basically anything at all happens, they pay you varying sums of money directly, which pretty much covers the co-pays of the other insurance, so in effect you end up making a profit of sorts (this is how it was explained to me, at least).

Kind of facetiously, of course I thought of Double Indemnity (on account of not hearing the word ‘indemnity’ very often), and making lots and lots of money and vampy noir women and immorality. But that’s neither here nor there. The other thought I had was that this seemed an odd sort of gambling, especially considering some of the sums of money proffered. I’ll bet you this chunk out of my week’s pay that I’ll get at least 200 square inches of third degree burns, and if I win, you owe me...oh, several tens of thousands of dollars. What happens if I only get 199 square inches of burns, though? I get how much if I'm in a coma for at least seven days? So if I wake up early, I should just keep pretending to be asleep? I mean, it’s not all like that, but I can’t help but look askance at it as a somewhat morbid form of betting.

Undead and Unemployed, by MaryJanice Davidson. Somewhat to my chagrin, I'll admit that this is the first book I've ever bought from the romance section of the bookstore. Ai. Anyway. First off, the main character is.....vapid. And is also the narrator. I had to say that first. That notwithstanding, the writing is pretty amusing, like Evanovich-lite, maybe? It certainly is a take on the whole vampire thing I haven't seen before - dark chick lit? Obviously, I'm not sure what to make of it, but it was pretty funny at some points, and is very light reading.
      'And why was that tickling my brain? There was something there, and I just couldn't get to it. Damnit! Why was I great looking instead of a genius? Usually I didn't mind, but nights like this..."
-
      "I'm so sick of this! Something completely weird happens to me, and you guys are all, 'Oh, yeah, that's in the book of the dead, too, did we forget to mention it?' Well, no more! We're sitting down right now and reading the the whole nasty thing from beginning to end. Where is it? Is it at the hotel? Let's go find it right now."
      "We can't," Sinclair said.
      "Why not?"
      "Because to read it too long in one sitting is to go insane."
      "Oh, that's your excuse for everything."

Condemnation, by Richard Baker. And now for something completely different. If you like intrigue, you'll be intrigued by this book. I haven't been restrained yet, so I shall continue to be a punning machine. And that wasn't even really a pun at all, so it's a completely new low. Neener. This continuation of the 'War of the Spider Queen' shared setting is chock full of political machinations and manoeuverings (wow that word is annoying to spell), yet still moves forward at quite a decent clip. I doubt any action in these novels will match up to the high standard set by the first in the series, but this held its own admirably, and best of all expanded the already unique setting in completely unpredictable ways, both in terms of physical and cultural landscape. Tally ho, and all that, to the rest of the series.

Word of the Day: cyanotic - the adjective for a bluish discoloration of the skin and mucous membranes resulting from inadequate oxygenation of the blood

      A couple random things. One, I identified in oblique ways with two people I wouldn't have expected to identify with previously; in an emotional/personality sense with the dojo's taekwondo instructor, nigh identically, if only for a moment; and, I learned that Bruce Lee supposedly suffered from severe and frequent headaches, just like me. That those headaches may have indirectly caused his death is just something I'll have to ignore for the moment.
      The other night, the local randomness radio station was playing modern raï, which is great, bouncy grin-inducing music if one ever has occasion to listen. Tonight, even better, there was music that literally got me to gasp in aural pleasure (apologies for the aural pun). It was jazz of a lounge-y sort, played by a bass, a jazz guitar, and some lush vibes, and man if a woman had been set in my arms I swear I would have been a dancing Casanova. Now here's the trick: the music gets to the end of the set (which ironically contained that song that I remember the high school jazz band playing, 'Caravan' or somesuch I think), and the dj thanks the band for playing live in the studio.
      How cool is that? Hans and the Attache, a local Tucson band made up of guys who seem to actually like Tucson, playing what was described as Southwestern island jazz, playing live on the radio. I am very much set on going to see these guys in person. Yes.

Traffic school! Which really doesn’t deserve an exclamation point in any way. Let’s hear it for spending several hours going through the motions. I did learn a few trivial things, but the one thing I have to say I did get out of it was a reinforcing of other changes that have occurred within me recently. Part of the instructor’s stated goal was to ‘change our attitude,’ which judging by the open sleeping or sassy looks of some of the people might not have been a realistic goal. I think it did work with me because I was already receptive to it, but I guess that’s the way of that sort of thing. Like the friend I went with pointed out, though, more videos of interesting crashes or the like would have certainly made the day more interesting. That, and less being concurrently sick on my part.

Also, a lament. Which I regret I feel like I don’t have more eloquence for at the moment. I’ll just take one example: commercials for sleeping pills, and tangentially a news story on the increasing prevalence of kids under 10 being prescribed the same. With a beautiful iridescent butterfly, one commercial implies that your worries will just float away with the medication, and oh don’t worry about those side effects like memory loss either they’ll float away, too. I don’t remember enough to semantically take apart any of them, unfortunately, but here’s my angle on it – I lament that it’s human nature in some way to take the easier route, to have someone or something else do the work. Wow, that sounds arrogant now that I read it…oh well. Anyway, instead of addressing the original concerns or worries or stresses that are described and implied in the commercial, they are subsumed under the comforting blanket of chemical ignorance; instead of exercising or doing yoga or a hobby, or trying to fix the originating issue through communication or self-study or time-management or any number of things, take the pills! Who knows, maybe that memory loss will even work out in favor of contentment.

And, some comments on cervical chokes (being a martial arts technique). Basically, it's the same effect as full nelson or crucifix - a forward crank of the neck - but is done with a a kind of Thai-behind-the-head clinch from the front; the best positions for leverage for it are from the guard (ironically probably equally from both sides of it) and sometimes from the top of a mount. It can be avoided like most chokes, by taking away the base of the leverage, though in this one that's probably usually a bit harder because it's really a full body technique, and because it's just an odd technique and is hard to even recognize till it's too late sometimes. Just watch out, on either end, for injury-causing - like full nelsons being off-limits in wrestling, it's easy to leave someone with a really sore neck and traps, if not big knots in their muscles; luckily, I've still got some arnica cream...

      I was thinking while watching Teen Titans just earlier, why do I like this so much? I mean, I like cartoons, but I like this one a lot. Then it hits me: it's a lot like Gen13 used to be (for those who remember the crazy, quite popular but no longer running comic...which I can think of exactly two people who might). They both have gorgeous art, with drawers who know how to put together great action, and best of all both of the art styles are unique (with little flares of emotion and character) and clean (ie, one can actually tell what's going on without having to interpret). Of course, Teen Titans doesn't have the gratuitous violence, sexual references and images, and and massive vocabulary of the writers (if any English major reads this, you probably would have gotten a kick out of that comic) of Gen13, but it's as damn close as any 'kids' cartoon will get, anyway. And it's kind of nice that way, too. Also, Teen Titans has a really catchy theme song. What worries me is that what made the connection between the two for me was the similarity of the current Teen Titans story arc, which seems to be heading towards something like the way they ended Gen13, which was amazing, but also horribly sad, it actually kind of got me going a little if I remember correctly.
      And I think cartoons in general are nice for several reasons, but here's one in particular: they're almost always devoted towards something positive. One would be hard pressed to find a cartoon that doesn't have some humor, some cuteness, or at least some uplifting thing going for it; mind, I'm not talking about anime or what, but just general cartoon shows, which one can tune into when everything else on is just depressing (ie, the news). I mean, fitting the entirety of Return of the King into a half-hour's worth of Kids Next Door, with an epic guinea pig army versus housecat army battle? Hilarious.
----
Blue Ball Machine - no, not what it sounds like

Mad skills. So my mom got food poisoning pretty badly yesterday; somehow, naturally, she was still adamant that I eat something. So, still not having any appetite really, I revisit the wonder that is the microwave burrito. And even get through a bit of a workout right after that just fine, but then start to feel it creeping up on me as I get in bed. Then I turn around and wake up with food poisoning, albeit a much, much milder case than my mom. Irony, to thee I say: screw you.

In other news, what can we learn from this encounter with a burrito-encased demon of malaise? Well, I think I’ve gained further insight into my mind-body connection. For example, yesterday I was reflecting that days without the release of yoga was leaving me in a very, very odd state – too personal to get into, but there were layers, and it was foggy. So I finally get in something of a state to do yoga last night, which offers some release, but the clarity that came with that at the same time seemed quite unfortunate, for the effect it had on me. Now the question becomes, how much does this burrito-born bodily disquiet bear into that? I know my face was pallid in the mirror this morning, but does my physical feeling reflect deeper into me, or is it, perhaps more unsettling, quite the opposite? Or, is it just a question of greater or lesser vulnerability? Hm. Stupid burrito.

      I had a whole bunch of notes from watching Ultimate Fighter the other night for its season finale, but don't feel like getting them, so I'll just touch on a couple of random thoughts. One, that show is a great way to see some solid fights; yeah, some of them were boring brawling, but one might run into that spending money on pay-per-view Pride Fighting, too. On the other hand, some of them were both technical, with the fighters having distinct styles and strategies, and at the same time wars. And then to see the passion and effort these guys put into it; I guess I'll just say (quite facetiously) that for a bit I didn't feel so messed up for crying lately after seeing seasoned cage fighters cry.
      At the local dojo, I had the pleasure of seeing a black belt from waaay back, and meeting some nice new people. Apparently, the direction our school is headed in is not so much teaching to a particular style, though a core of the general Ko Sho styles will still be there of course, but with everybody all in all, let's see.....Tomiki aikido, mixed with Yoshinkai aikido from the Ukraine, potentially some capoeira from Sweden, ninjitsu from that big camp I forget the name in Thailand mixed with some kenpo and BJJ, Daito-ryu aiki-jujitsu from Japan/Hawai'i, Shuri karate mixed with some wing chun, a couple taekwondo variants, traditional jujitsu if I can get back into it, Okinawan weapons...is eclectic the right word? I think so, I don't quite remember the definition. But yeah, basically the plan of the moment is to create a space where anyone can come in and train and learn and develop themselves, having the choice of picking a particular system, but also being able to come in and work out with all sorts of different aspects of martial arts, including just plain working out of course with weights and cardio, and even outside things like cycling. So...we'll see how it goes, I guess.

      I'm caught in a tangle as to whether to act on impulses to rant about everything that's happened lately. But I won't. Maybe quite obliquely, I suppose. I can't think of more than one or two times in my life where I've been driven so fiercely towards a combination of self-control, self-study, and at the same time surrender of both of those things - I'd tried to consciously devote myself to self-growth and study in the past, but I haven't in a long, long time felt such a need. Here's one thing I've become more aware of internally - an oscillation, for lack of a better word. At first I thought it was just a result of crisis and stress that I would be so conscious of my mood or being or whatever swinging up and down, but as I explore it I begin to get glimmers of how there isn't just one little sine wave of my mood, nor is it as simple as a sine pattern, but that there are multiple patterns of differing scale in my life. Definitely bearing further thought. In related and unrelated line of thought, these articles have been helpful in that regard, if they might be of any use to anyone else.

      Just to keep my mind going, I thought of a couple other things absolutely randomly. One, in having three different sort of data analysis projects dumped on me by higher-up people all at once, I was staring at a lot of numbers that had little to no meaning to me, and yet having to recognize things and mark them down and understand, etc etc. Anyway, where I'm going with this is that I started to get an idea about what they sometimes say in fantasy stories, where the character reads some eldritch tome, or looks at evil glyphs, and then remarks that it hurts their head to try to comprehend what they're looking at. Yep, not very profound, I know.
      I also remember this random game from back in the day called Earthsiege. I only remark upon it because I loved the idea that (the player taking the side of the hardscrabble geurillas) one was almost completely reliant upon salvage from the field. So what, one asks. Well, it directed the player towards finesse, where if you could take out the baddies with a maximum of skill and minimum of stupidity (ie, be really precise and blow off their mech's foot and let them slide down a hill so they couldn't get back up), you were rewarded with beaucoup salvage; if you just rampaged around with a blase attitude, the game of course wouldn't give any salvage, and it would be hard to even progress. Like Soul Caliber, a game that rewards finesse = automatically awesome.

If anyone’s in Tucson and is looking for something to do, they might stop by The Cottage Bakery and Café (on Kolb south of Speedway), where they might get a glimpse of the gorgeous Karen Candelario (and her art that they have on display is really pretty, too). Her art is generally of an abstract nature, but not so abstract that there isn’t meaning to be found with a little looking. Though Karen’s a great kickboxing instructor, she’s also a hardcore cycling gal, so any proceeds go straight towards a new carbon frame bike, so it’s for a good cause…

Also, though the next isn’t till the following November, of course, the All Soul’s Procession is quite the happening. The procession itself – down 4th Ave and a little ways around on Toole - seemed to draw a huge number of people, and grew along the way as people watching from the side inevitably joined in. The costumes, or whatever one wants to call them, were outstanding and far outstripped the few I saw on Halloween, with gigantic headdresses and totems, and face and body paint and all sorts of imaginative dress involving everything from bone to glowsticks to fire. I wish I’d known to dress up ahead of time, but tried to do my best by just taking off my shirt (tattoo better than a UA shirt?), though I’m sure the people who just saw me from the front thought I was just some idiot with his shirt off. Along the way were huge projections of photos of lost loved ones, and even little scenes, such as a posing gal on a car made into an intricate shrine, and a little silent play with Egyptian dress and god-costumes a la Stargate headdresses, bellydancers, and fire-eating and dancing.
At the end of the procession there were huge sculptures made out of metal and fire, and everyone gathered at a stage to watch a wonderful show set to a pulsing beat by an energetic drum group, with modern dance set on platforms, trapeze artists hanging by a crane, the oddest mosquito-demon costumes I’ve ever seen (oddly graceful on four stilt legs), even more fire, and a giant memorial urn that is hoisted high above the stage and set on fire. And, I got to see a big sparker of a shooting star.

Also, I keep forgetting to say anything about it, but I got a new car. Well, it’s a 2003, anyway. I know people keep asking me about it with the expectation that I’ll be excited or happy about it, but regardless of my present mood, if you know me you know it’s the rare occasion where I become outwardly excited about an object, much less a car (that being contrary to my reactions to people and emotions, which really get me going). That being said, it’s a nice car, as I’ve sure I’ve said an upgrade of my last car basically that we luckily got from a private seller on the cheaper side while looking for more economical cars (dealerships: worthless). And we got a much cheaper loan from a credit union than we would have from our usual bank, if that helps anybody. One of my favorite things about this car, really, is that 91.3 FM comes in consistently, which I marvel at. Hello odd grooves in the morning, and the most random assortment of folk, blues, tango and who the hell knows what else, without the more common layers of static (any song where a guy can sing “lay it on me…yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ about…” before a bass solo is automatically awesome).

      My brother and I noted today that we have a similar reaction to stress (of whatever kind), which is somehow comforting in a small way (the commonality I mean). That is, an aversion to eating. I don't know about shared details, but for me under very high stress having food physically placed in front of me garners an almost physical reaction, like a mix between anticipation and pain and just plain pain. When I do get food down, it just sits like lead in my stomach, though things like walking and ginger (bleh) seem to help a bit. Hunger sneaks up on me, and when it does the conflict between appetite and aversion is...uncomfortable, to say the least. This is one of those posts that I'm sure seems like complaint, but for whatever it's worth it's meant as an acknowledgement of the reality of something, as a step towards dealing with it, and as sharing in case anyone else runs into a similar quandary.

      Also, I started a poem-journal of sorts the other day; I'm not sure if I'll ever post any of it, or even really ever share any of it on account of its personal nature, but just for kicks it's called "Alchemy" (at the moment anyway). Hell, I can't imagine it would be seen as anything but quixotic or emo were I to do something like post it, anyway.

Jarhead, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard. Well, I'm going to throw out one thing that some people people (re: ladies) might like about the movie - naked Gyllenhaal, and a solid amount of it. Other than that, I'm not remembering anything pleasant. That's not to say that the movie was supposed to be pleasant in any regard, which it wasn't, but I'm not sure I really got anything from it either. About three quarters of the way through, my thought was 'a wannabe Full Metal Jacket with prettier faces and cinematography.' Other thoughts include wondering at the gross distortions of boot camp and some things during the war, this based on conversations with the Marines my dad and I know and talk to, wherein I wonder whether the director was trying to pull another avant-garde-by-almost-post-modernism American Beauty, and not quite pulling it off. I don't deny that I'm sure there's some truth to the movie, in some or several ways, but even if that's the case, I'll just say that the trailers were then completely misleading, and regardless that's not a movie I would have seen had I known more.

ah, linguistics

surreal art video from Phil, not as surreal as my dreams lately, watch out there's some cartoon boobies

Maunsell Towers - ok, never heard of that idea

gridgame - I used to spend hours playing the lab o' life version of Conway's Game of Life, trying to make as complex a self-sustaining organism as I could, though I haven't seen a version that uses lines like this one - I wonder whether it still approximates the ecosystem simulation of the original, that window's too small to tell

      I always thought the Battletech line of novels and games was interesting - it was a huge, and wonderfully cohesive shared science fiction setting with lots of great authors and ideas, before the publishing company's management made them go all defunct (shades of Farscape...). Anyway, so flipping through some old books, I get to thinking.

      To discuss in generalized terms, the setting begins with a Roman Empire-analogue - once great, united humanity has degenerated into a decadent, backsliding mess of 'Successor States,' each supposedly warring for the basis of being the leader of a new, united humanity, but not really, they're just warring. Then the barbarian analogues come along, smashing and grabbing everything in their path, yadda yadda yawn, but: it ain't so simple. The barbarians consider themselves much more civilized than those they are invading, and even twist that into their vaguely-religious rationale for the same. They're not just from 'somewhere else,' but rather are the return of the old, united humanity's equivalent of the UN peacekeeping forces, who exiled themselves, only to return with advanced technology and a mission to restore the old united front - on their new cultural terms, though, rather than trying to recreate the Golden Age.

      These barbarian-analogues have even more interesting twists. Though they consider themselves more civilized than their invade-ees, they seem to have instead reverted to a tribal/clan culture, with caste systems dominated by the military caste (but: semiotic apart warrior caste as they call it, vs it actually being a military..eh? eh?), and history partly recounted in epic poetry. They're badass, but not rape and pillage-wise, but rather skill and honor-system/duels/etc-wise. Instead of class issues, they have genetically-engineered, born-in-a-metal-womb versus normally born issues. Flip everything around, and those opposing them, when looked at closely, are close analogues of modern nations and/or cultures.

      So, I'm not sure what semantic-structure might pop out of this upon a closer reading, but I do think it makes for interesting questions concerning what actually constitutes civilized or not, or perhaps just as a sociological scenario, especially as I haven't gone into the myriad details of each of the different factions which each provided their own little twists. Or, in a broader sense, say take conflict of the 'barbarian' angle of creating a new unity on new terms, versus the pre-invasion false-pretense/impossibility of trying to return to a Golden Age. And just thinking of/realizing this right before I press the post button, from the way they kind of ended before the company went under, most interestingly of all, it turned out that the closest they come to unity is not quite entirely new, but not exactly a return to the old, either - a mix of semi-idealistic nostalgia reawakened and revitalized by the stress of a new threat, and a changed-past that seems new, returned after a self-exile from the breakdown of the original unity.

      Hoo boy, messed myself up something fierce lately. Inadvertantly pretty much fasting for two days, running on little or no sleep, giving myself way too much time to brood (unfortunately, I probably don't pull it off as well as David Boreanaz), and then sitting in an office being microwaved by the upstairs heat treatment center, while the soft rock station playing on the radio in the woman's desk in front of me played every love or lost-love song one could think of, all day long. I mean, I'd hear another song come on, and be like damn, I am not listening to that station again if I can help it. Well, as a famous judoka once said, get knocked down seven times, get up eight. Or maybe that was more of a Chumba Wumba thing. To go even further down cliche road, time to climb back up on the horse and get my confidence back.

Unleashed, with Jet Li and Morgan Freeman. I watched this last Friday, and while when I watched it I was in a particularly sensitive state, I'd venture to say that several different points in that movie would have had me close to tears regardless of what state I was in. To maybe clarify that a little, one thing that always gets to me are literacy issues. For example, in Jackie Brown I think it was, Samuel Jackson's character moves his lips while he reads, which began to strike a chord in me, but then another character makes fun of him for it, and that went straight to an almost physical reaction within me. To be cut off from or limited in a kind of communication which the majority of the rest of one's social world has complete and unconscious access to....in my empathic reaction it feels like something that would make one feel permanently left out, or even almost make one feel less-than-human, going by the idea having access to communication as a basis for having the quality of 'humanity.'

      Part of the reason I wanted to be an English teacher for so long was to help kids be able to express themselves and communicate, especially during that teenage time in their lives when everything is awkward and confusing and it's so easy to just withdraw from the world. When I see it's hard for someone to even use the language they were born with to be able to get across one's meaning to another without it coming out wrong or saying something that wasn't even intended, which I know it certainly was for me at that point in time and still is in some ways, it really gets to me. In the past my impulse was to help them, which probably meant I was quite pushy about it, in retrospect; I think maybe that was part of my hesitancy to become a teacher, my nacent and now fully growing secondary impulse to nurture and provide a comfortable environment rather than push or try to do it for the person, and that conflict between the former and now primary latter impulse, however late I unfortunately realized it, was destabilizing enough to be part of pushing me away from becoming a teacher.

      To circle around to the movie - to explain the literacy thing, Li's character (Danny) has a book with the alphabet and pictures for each letter - L for love, K for kiss, P for piano and so on. But beyond that, Li's character is also forced into a less-than-human status, not because of his trouble with literacy, mind, that's ancillary, but by restricting his ability to communicate - as Freeman's character points out, Danny doesn't even have access to his own emotions, much less is able to express them to others. How does he find his humanity again, the question becomes in my mind. Through a few different ways, which interweave, and I'm not sure of their importance: through music, a different form of communication that's certainly connected with emotion; through a safe and comfortable environment with access to be able to learn at one's own pace to communicate; and maybe this was most important in my mind, and something I wish I'd learned a while back, an environment where questions aren't constantly asked, but only when they are part of a real need - the answers, and Danny's final acquiring of really knowing himself, come in their own time, nurtured by those prior mentioned things. I found these things profound, and am sure there's more depth I don't know yet that could be drawn out with a closer reading.

      And just to speak to the martial arts, the fight scenes are great. As much as they are mostly formless, I was looking for some hung gar I'd read was in used in the choreography, and it comes up more and more the more Danny begins to gain possession of himself - a fine example of using martial arts within a narrative, in my opinion, in that one can see the physical expression of Danny's internal change as his fighting style becomes more effecient and graceful. That being said, it's also always nice to see movements that are practiced in the dojo in a movie, so that was nice as well.

addendum, later -
      A couple more things; I thought it was interesting that this movie made me realize, in its hardcore violence (and yet with some form at the end), that when one practices forms, they are representative of that level of violence. Also, I thought the maxim repeated in the movie that "Family sticks together" was also important in Danny's awakening, as the family provides the final impetus for it, even after he left it.

Hm...breaking my own work-rules, using something besides email. But: slowest day ever. I find myself in a situation similar in some ways to one I found myself in about four years ago; the trick is, I'm on the opposite side of that situation than I was in the past. Besides the circumstantial differences between the two situations, there's been massive change in me. And that's kind of a problem for me - I definitely feel more mature, self-aware, and in control of myself than I did those years ago. But I don't want to be! It's the oddest thing, I want to be young and immature again, I want to be able to confront unknowns with argument and selling myself and pleading that just comes out as I feel it, rather than restraining and containing within myself and having self-checks and a desire to be mature. As much as I keep wanting to ask just one more question, I stop myself because, of course, I'm afraid of what the answer might be, and how I'd handle it. I have everything going for me in my life, but I haven't been able to shake being caught in a mode where I'm living from moment to painful moment - I don't want to think about the future or the past, and so I feel caught in strange parody of a zen state.

Everyone's gone through it and all that jazz, I know, my response to that being that this time for me it's a matter of degree, and believe me, I'm trying my hardest to get myself back in order, as much as it might seem like I'm wallowing in negativity! Maybe that's what this writing is part of, I don't know.

Wow. So my mom says, "...and that's why I became a realist." I thought I had been a true, hardcore realist for so long. And the big secret I was keeping from myself, I realize, and now that I look back I'm sure I knew it on some level, was that there...is, was, i'm not sure of the tense, pure idealism at my core. I don't really know what I'm writing at the moment, maybe it's kind of free verse in that sense, maybe I'll just go and delete it later.

unfortunately, it seems I would be fated to end up at the bottom of the Indian ocean...

I wish they had audio of it, but here's a nice bit of breaking down an obscure language

kinda creepy, kinda cool: machine elves

emo.

      Somewhat recently I went from several years of working through literature to spending my day staring at numbers, codes, prices and dates in spreadsheets and variations thereof. So I began to find little escapes, like printed out poetry half-hidden behind my monitor (though Baudelaire might have been a bit lewd for work), scribbling notes for story ideas admidst purchase order reminders, and bringing books for my breaks. But, after a while, regardless of whatever was going on in the rest of my mind, staring at the black and white grids and starkly apparent meaning of numeric symbols began to wear on my mind. Then I started adding colors to my various spreadsheets. Bright red to get me moving on ASAP tasks, and dark red for lesser priorities; bright blue to show me something is approved to send, and darker blue to say it's ok, but might bear waiting. Reddish-brown to call my eye to something that needs to be watched, and purples for longer-term reminders and their degrees of importance; and slight shifts off of black, deep green or gray, to catch my subconscious as a I scan along. So, not only do my spreadsheets seem like different degrees of rainbows now, but I'm having fun creating my own semantic system, going by whatever meaning my (sub)conscious applies to each color and shade.

      So in the course of totally messing myself and a lot of stuff up lately, I was taking a lot of vitamins. Which seemed like a good idea, in theory, and probably was. I'll admit I didn't have much care for the brand of vitamins, despite my cousin's (who works at a bio-research firm) admonition that the only brand that apparently actually absorbs into one's system is Thermi...labs, or something. But the brand wasn't really the issue. What was the issue was that I had been taking a set of several vitamins everyday, and then every once in a while trying out this energy/recovery drink mix ("Emergen-C") on account of working out plus being fatigued, which is based on having lots and lots of vitamins in it. So: I'm obviously not exactly doing good empirical research here (except for article-ness, if one can count the interwebnet), but I'm pretty damn sure at least one of the times I got really, really sick lately (this past Saturday, after an Emergen-C after almost four hours of working out) was probably the result of a vitamin overload. Not so much the vitamins themselves (like an overdose), but that there were so many vitamins in various forms with relatively little food (me being mr. no-appetite lately) in my system.

This has been a vitabloggie warning.

      Regardless of my feelings about the dojo at the moment, I have to say that as much as they're often derided in the general martial arts community, seeing forms done by two people who've been doing them for upside of thirty years and have fought bare knuckle/full contact raises my opinion of them, at least. That said, I think they're often actually worth of derision the way they are commonly taught, but if one can find someone who has put effort into making their forms their muscle-memory library of practical bad-ass-ery, then they're worth it. Tangentially, an interesting analogy - that forms are just a folder where one stores collections of related, functional drills, and learning and maintaining forms acts as an analogical filing system.

Location Earth Dog Tags - raise your hand if you're also tempted

Darwin's Radio, by Greg Bear. When this was recommended to me at the end of the summer, it was with the caveat that it had a very slow beginning. Which it did; actually, more like a very slow first third or half. I think that's mostly a consequence of the author not delving into the 'front lines,' as he puts it (the more personal, character driven area of the plot), and rather focusing mostly on the broadly sweeping lines of scientific discourse and global events.
      Now, the trick is, all that dry, more academic stuff is probably quite necessary to setting up the best parts of the novel; and that's not to say that it's not interesting, it was just dry and slow for my tastes. The ideas the book are based on range from unnerving to seemingly profound, and to risk a cliche are nothing if not thought-provoking. Aside from the questions raised which would be infinitely better addressed by someone who is more interested in sociology or anthropology than me, one thing I noted was the parallel between something a favorite literature professor randomly lectured on once (use and comprehension of language as a marker of 'humanity;' tangentially that marks babies as not-quite-human) and in this novel augmented verbal and nonverbal communication as markers of evolution, or evolved humanity. Which really makes for a quite lovely end result of the scientific side of the story, though the rest of the story makes for a quite worrying ending (which is interestingly set in Tucson).
      If this could have been condensed, it would have made for an amazing Outer Limits episode, with guaranteed shivers and goosebumps. And to return to the 'front lines' or not issue in terms of where a good story might be located, I generally enjoy 'front lines' stories where the scientific and global plot are secondary to the characters' development and own stories (a horribly over-used reference being Evolution's Shore), so if one is more interested in the conceptual idea being primary (say, Philip K. Dick fans, perhaps), Bear's style might be more interesting as well.

      Also, between two Hitchcock movies (Notorious, which I haven't seen but the ending I caught seemed good, and Rebecca, which I have seen but don't really remember unfortunately because it was at four or five in the morning, though I've listened about the corresponding novel) on the boobtoob there was an old preview where Hitchcock himself goes on and on in this incredibly deadpan but also incredibly subtly hilarious way about birds, which suddenly somehow turns creepy at the end, and culminates as an advertisement for The Birds. I used to be kind of iffy about wanting to see his movies, but this little preview-thingie caught my attention - it was brilliant.

      And, Bloodsport III is a very, very bad movie, but its fightscenes are way ahead of the time, even for now, including all sorts of quite realistic grappling and throws and inventive combinations. So, basically, just watch the last twenty minutes or so like I caught and you're golden.

lens culture - interesting photography idea

The Full Moon Atlas - I recently had a great conversation about amateur astronomy, but unfortunately don't have the Seattle guy's contact info to give this to him...

I'm thinking this would have been good for a Jurassic Park movie

This may turn out melodramatic. I don't care, really.
      Lately, I have been pretending most everything's all right when it really hasn't been. I've been exhausted most of the time, sick the rest of the time, and spread way too thin all of the time. As a consequence, I became more and more sullen, depressed, and apathetic, and probably worst of all, passive-aggressive, running from work to physical work to too little sleep; I'm not sure that the scale will say I've been losing weight, but shirts I recently filled out are hanging off me. I've had a few feeble, abortive attempts at rectifying all of that, but nothing of any consequence. I've had my happy moments lately, when I wasn't being so serious or was distracted, I don't know. But I need to face up to the truth of things. In one night, the one thing I had been founding everything I wanted and dreamed and hoped for.......I'm not even sure what, at this point. But it's a pain so shining fierce I think it has woken me up to the point where I'm going to change my life in major ways; I might be really messed up at the moment, but at least I feel more awake, I guess. Like my dad always said,
      Welcome to the real world.
It's time for me to grow up.

Doom, with Karl Urban and the Rock. My dad thought were going to see another version of Dune until the title appeared in the opening credits, so that was kind of funny. For much of the movie, I was wondering where it was going; and then I was kind of disappointed, because I wanted to see flying skulls and flaming phlegm balls and bull-headed cyber demons and the whole nine yards. But: after a bit of thought, I'm quite satisfied with what they chose to do. There isn't really any fantasy in this version of Doom, which is ok, because they (relatively) cleanly pulled together a very neat science fiction plot instead. Also, the Rock played a quite different role from his usual, and I'm starting to really like Urban as an action star.
(now, spoilers, but I found this curious)
      An integral part of the plot of this version of Doom's story is the reference to the unknown purpose of a portion of human DNA. In the movie they refer to it (nonscientifically) as a possible 'blueprint for the soul,' and imply that it might code for predisposition to be good or evil. Now, I am currently reading Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear, wherein he uses that same 'junk DNA' as a plot device, except the topic of that story is instead leaps in evolution inspired by integrated retroviruses within that portion of the DNA. I'm not sure where I was going with this except to note that oblique parallel, and wonder whether that same thing may come up in more science fiction stories in the future.

      I'm reading through the fight-sports section in the back of Black Belt magazine, and noticing a common thread through the three events that are described (K1, UFC, and Pride Fighting). That is, spinning kicks. Which completely boggles my mind. I mean, in the events in question (kickboxing, MMA and MMA), for someone to deviate from the standard of boxing strikes, muay thai kicks, and BJJ on the ground is a rare thing, if ever - which makes sense, usually, as the standard mix of techniques is simple, practical, and well-proven many times over. But, to throw in spinning back kicks and hook kicks? Those are more technically difficult than the norm, and while powerful also vulnerable to countering, and thus have been shunned in the past as just flash, ineffective, or vulnerable. And yet, here I read about knockdowns and even a knockout by a back kick to the torso, and - get this - "Rua's attack had a capoeira-influenced flair as he leapt, stompt, and swept his helpless foe," and all that after beginning the match with a "spectacular series of spinning kicks." The word capoeira has officially been used seriously in a fight sports column. And - check this out - he ended the match by leaving the mount and then "dive-bombed [his opponent] with a hammerfist." Who, in the normal state of things, would ever leave the mount willingly? Much less to drop a crazy big hammerfist? Boggling, I tell you.
      But, also, awesome. There's room for bringing in some out-there or traditional techniques, and kicking butt doing it! In the same Pride tournament, an Olympic judo gold medalist dominated his match, for example, and I definitely remember seeing some traditional JJ throws and hammerfists in the last Pride tournament I watched. I can't wait till they get a kali fighter in the ring, like the Dog Brothers have been talking about. Once again, awesome.

      I think soy and rice milk are great. And not just because I have recently completely spontaneously become lactose intolerant. For one, they are generally cheaper than regular milk. Two, that argument in Snatch I think it was that humans just aren't meant to drink the baby-food of another species (excluding processed forms like cheese and ice cream, I rationalize). Third, my dad actually likes flavored soy milk - crazy. Fourth, I think plain rice milk tastes the best, but soy is probably more nutritious, and tastes okay, but is better flavored. And fifth, mango soy ice cream - ah yeah. Good stuff.

"What must chickens think of the Easter bunny?"
"A cross between the Predator and King Herod."
Scary Go Round

More on little people! I say they're oompaloompas.

interesting-
"A cougar's vertebrae are joined by muscle, rather than ligaments, allowing the cat to cover up to 45 feet in one bound, leap 15 feet high, and reach 40 miles per hour in just 50 feet. But its skeletal structure prevents it from maintaining such speed over distance. When chased by dogs, a cougar will climb a tree rather than outrun them."

History and Legends of Hot Dogs - to be a total nerd and quote SG Atlantis, "This is big...the wheel, the light bulb...the hot dog..."

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Mos Def and Martin Freeman. I wasn't exactly disappointed, per se, but it didn't exactly hold my interest very well, either. I think the special effects and cast did justice to the novel, as well as the tone of the whole thing, but in the same token I think imagination might be better suited to really bringing out the humor and images of Adams' novel, in the end.

      A while ago, I read an article (that I probably rambled about here) that was written by an Arab author, detaling his opinion that in some senses Middle Eastern culture was stuck in a sort of a limbo (I'm obviously horribly simplifying a very long and involved text). That is, having had an expansive golden age in recent centuries, and then (even and especially) more recently having been under the crush of orientalism and colonialism, there was a lingering feeling that a continuation of that golden age was stolen, or on the other hand, is deserved. The author of this article added to that thought by asserting that any progression that a feeling like that might have inspired is rather stifled by the stgnation of religious influence - ie, that of the Koran, for example, which has preserved the (Koranic) Arabic nigh unchanged for centuries - an influence that effectively works towards stagnation.
      Fine, all well and good and open to vigorous debate and all that. So then, I spend a good portion of this past weekend listening to Hebrew with various English politi-religious assertions mixed in; and this sudden thought springs into my head, that if Arab culture is supposedly too stuck in its past, and negative effects on culture occur and reactive elements erupt, I wonder whether the same could ironically be said for Hebrew/Israeli culture, given the existence of the 'promised land' of Israel and coming out from that extremist settlers and displaced Palestinians.

Nadya Lev - photography

How fun!

Marguerite Moreau had a cameo on Lost. It probably didn't even last a minute. But, as I have a bit of a crush on her, I don't care. Awesome. Also, as much as I don't like the show, I got sucked into watching Invasion; I can't help but think that they're trying to put forth some analogy between deep sea fish being attracted to pretty lights, and the humans in the show - of course, I'm going to interpret that (theoretical) analogy as a remark upon people's intelligence.
And on that note - yay! Most intelligent post ever.

      Having an endorphin rush and a headache from vascular constriction at the same time is crazy. I don't need drugs, I've got my blood vessels. On an entirely different note, judo throws are funny to me, at this moment in my training. In one sense, they are technically very interesting, especially in their requiring of higher-order skills in taking balance and using momentum; also, they are myriad. The things is, a huge many of them definitely require some sort of uniform to provide easy grips. When you're just down to, say, shorts and tank top, or less, most of the judo throws are impossible without major changes, and then they often just aren't anywhere near as effective (a sweaty arm or torso most definitely does provide the handholds some nice, thick fabric does). Furthermore, when strikes (as atemi or for power shots) are mixed in, the dynamic entirely changes - by-the-moment tactics take precedence over balance-taking longer strategy. I start to see the reason for the difference between traditional jujitsu and judo, where jujitsu uses strikes and hooking (using a conditioned grip to gouge or otherwise cause pain, for example), and judo uses yanks and more movement. In the same token, that makes it that much cooler to see a judo stylist throw someone around in an MMA fight - they really, really have to know their stuff.

Pascal Renoux - photos

The results of my completely listlessly watching television, while often doing other things, till I fell asleep on the couch until I was woken around dawn:
Teen Titans continues to have great animated martial arts mixed with some lush fantastic elements - it seems like the animators really know their stuff when putting together the action scenes. Naruto has the same, and a wonderful setting based upon a culture entirely built around ninjas, but sitting through almost every other moment of the show is positively excruciating. FLCL...um...I had this show described to me once, and kind of scoffed at the (completely insane and psychedelic) idea of it. In a certain sense, like Tank Girl with an extra dose of mushrooms, and somewhat similar music. Roy Jones Jr was just plain disappointing in the fight they showed the other night (that was recorded on Oct 1). At first I was thinking he was pulling some sort of drunken boxing thing, but yeah no. He basically got beaten around without fighting back at all. And to think, he used to knock people out starting with his hands behind his back. Wrath of the Dragon God was in one sense surprisingly good, even and especially for being a Saturday night SciFi movie, but at the same time a bit disappointing, in the book-is-always-better-than-the-movie sense. I will note the quirky Adult Swim-style commercials for DnD that actually made me chuckle out loud, and the surprising number of herpes medication commercials. And what do kids think when they see parents-should-talk-to-kids-about-drugs commericals on the Cartoon Network? Also, To Have and Have Not, based on a novel by Hemingway and with a screenplay by Faulkner, with Bogart and Bacall starring, is well, well worth watching.

Defining Moment - article about the history of a sassy dictionary

Grim Tales from Down Below - yet more wonderfully drawn shenanigans involving everyone's favorite cartoon and claymation characters!

      Werewolves and vampires seem a funny thing to me, in a certain sense. That is, once someone becomes, or is to cursed to be, such a monster, they are no longer human. Which is all well and good, but at the same time, both monsters can be very human at times - say, the werewolf when the moon isn't all a'shine, and the vampire with the fangs retracted. So - what keeps them from being labeled as a human that's been stricken with a curse; why the default inhuman label? Would it be too much to say that a human has the potential within their humanity to become a monster? Is it easier to just say they are a monster and strip them of any (good or bad) humanity - couldn't a normal human become just as animalistic or depraved without any external (internal?) influence (a la the end of 28 Days Later, for example)?
      Also, from another side of things, what about the Amerindian idea of a shapeshifter? That, I know very little about, unfortunately, but would anyone be able to tell me whether they are considered primarily human or inhuman?

The languages of Guernsey - a lovely article on linguistic history and some islands that apparently exist between France and England - I had no idea they were even there, to be honest

Quarter Shrinking - one of those someday-I-will-try-this things

Rilo Kiley - though I have yet to actually have any mp3's of such, their website plays the fun muzack - I would settle for an mp3 of Korn's 'Twisted Transistor,' though...

and a picpic update

      In working with the warehouse manager, who turned out to be quite a nice guy (he just seemed frustrated before because in truth is he has a huge number of very lazy and seemingly willfully stupid jerks working for him), I got to hear an interesting little lecture (sorry, I'm not really up to trans-scripting a thick Vietnamese accent): he said it was his opinion that many people who spurn education or are willfully ignorant think they know everything; people who really enjoy being educated and learning, on the other hand, realize that they are only a little speck in terms of how much knowledge and even common-sense wisdom there is in the world. So, maybe not a lecture, but it seems like a lecture's worth of information could be contained within that bit of opinion.