Hanshi Anderson had his (twice?)yearly seminar today. Crazy 72 year-old badass. I got the dubious honor of being used for a demonstration (the senior teachers are usually used, like the one shaven-headed teacher who's bruises were perfectly visible all over his scalp); held in an armbar, I got double-tapped in the eyeball with an elbow-forearm. Sooo cross-eyed. We also skimmed a Wado-ryu kata, a Korean form (Steven has a super-similar tang soo do form apparently), and a short Chinese form. All of which was very, very confusing to the guy with no training in forms beyond five movements. But: there were also the taiho techniques that they train Air Marshalls with, which are basically jujitsu, which let me redeem myself somewhat from my earlier awkward following-along. By causing other people pain. Like the big jerk with the tattoo'ed arms and tight shoulders. Good times.
----tangent: Hanshi Anderson thinks yoga is great. ha.

-quick procrastination; and it actually flaps

-the sad part is that I don't think I can dance that well

The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera - by J. Joaquin Fraxedas. The style of this has been likened to Hemingway, but for lack of experience I couldn't one way or the other on this. It is emotionally moving and aesthetically pleasing to read, although at some moments depressing, and at one point just disturbing. I'd call it a short epic, detailing the variegated aspects of emigrating from Cuba to the United States.

-Catch Wrestling techniques - this...is an odd set of techniques. Some are variants of what I've learned, or are clever ways of using favorite techniques that I never would have thought of, such as 'armlock2.' Some I remember from back in the day but totally forgot, like 'keylock.' And many of the others seem a bit esoteric, but do-able. I think. Who wants to try?

-Implosion World - seriously, how can anyone resist stuff blowing up

      My poetry teacher told me something that stuck today - that sometimes our greatest strength is our greatest weakness. In my poetry this is apparently my facility with creating tone and revealing emotion; the trick is, I pretty much only do that through figurative language and lyricism or meditative poems. Thus, I need to express the same things through more concrete details, and trust in my strength to carry itself through rather than overemphasizing it.
      As I walked home, I thought about a similarity in my martial arts training. One of my strengths is my control; usually I'm as precise and effecient as I can be in my techniques. The trick is, this often leads me to holding back (controlling my technique so I don't hurt the other person, but to the point where the technique doesn't work), or conversely when I finally do let myself go, the other person is almost inevitably injured or hurt. I think basically I need to find that balance between conscious control and cutting loose.

-article on lifting the arms properly; this immediately helped with poses for putting my clicky shoulder back into place

      As much as I am wary of higher end literary theory and the difficulties in understanding that it implies, I liked the way the teacher explained why the writing is sometimes...odd. She said that the concepts being discussed require a different sort of syntax than just a straight out explanation, involving metaphors and figurative language. Which also reminds me of the philisophy classes I took; the language seemed insane, partly because of translation in a few cases, I think, but also because the things being discussed just couldn't be described in regular, everyday language. Which is doubly weird in my mind, because that might mean that the figurative language needed can apply directly to sciences in some cases, such as Searle's involvement with artificial intelligence.

-Art of Daryl Mandryk

-Preserving Amerind languages

-more crazy origami

      The next new favorite conditioning exercise: I've read about them as 'tiger pushups,' but hadn't really tried them till the new head instructor set us to them, with the backing evidence that supposedly Bruce Lee liked them. On hands and knees, put the soles of your feet flat against a wall. Lift your hips into an approximation of downward-dog pose. Then, keeping your body in that upside-down 'V,' do pushups by touching your nose to the floor. Say hello to an upper-pec workout, along with body awareness conditioning (very easy to get almostvertigo during the bottom of the motion, at least for me).
   Secondarily, there are also regular pushups done facing another person; on each up, reach out and slap hands at face-level, alternating sides.
   Thirdly, I don't remember who came up with it in the class, but get another person across your back for a full-hip throw, and start doing squats (can also be an indicator for the lifted person if abs need to be worked). The Honbu variation is apparently to walk from corner to corner of the mats while in that position. Our variation includes interspersing hops during the squats.

      Also, Scott found a great site for parkour (+ Q of the N); at the bottom of that page there is their description of 'flow.' That immediately clicked in my head - it's also the overriding principle/ideal aspiration of jujitsu and some other martial arts (aikido, perhaps hapkido?) in being able to flow without hesitation between techniques as needed on the fly. Ah, connections.

-So this girl can't feel pain. That's crazy and all, but here's Kevin's doublecrazy question: without pain, can she really appreciate pleasure? Whoa. (via Kevin, natch)

-Tea tree oil and citrus listerine is absolutely vile, but if you take it like a shot and gargle it seems to instantly get rid of sore throat-age.

-Blanc Fonce - art

-sculpting geometry - art for math nuts

So. Um. Cousin Taryn's wedding. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (no, seriously in some regards) + Janet Evanovich + Arabic + crowds and crowds of relatives + rave-like reception. The cousins whom I hadn't seen (or for some, met ever) in ten years ranged from elementary cutie-patooties, to sorority/frat drunks, to cool composition-at-Boston music school, to sports-car-chic-job-Paris-party vs ambitions-centered-on-richest-husband possible, to friendly Jersey girls, and to crazy New Age. And there were also the people trying to set me up with the odd looking Texan. The bride's maids from the groom's side were fat, and danced crazylike, but did a credible dance from 'Thriller.' Uncle Johnny and Aunt Maha were back to their normal selves. Threatening to kill each other. And the intro from 'Misirlou' on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack was accidentally played as they set up for carrying the new couple around on chairs to Arabic chants. And there was a crazy giant circle dance. And my mom pointed out that unlike cousin Kelly's wedding, no drunken Arabs got into brawls. So, all in all, it was kind of scary, but fun.

-mmmmbahaha.

-reminds me of the original GI Joe rocket that almost hit the neighbor (via Wyatt)

Well, off to ye olde Garden State for an Arab/Italian wedding....I foresee chaos...

Time Out of Joint - Western Dominance, Islamic Terror, and the Arab Imagination - I think this is an amazing piece of writing. It made me almost ecstatic to read at some points, partly because of the quality and knowledge gained, but also because of its perspective. To me, this is operating from the opposite perspective from Edward Said's Orientalism, which is really cool because in that it is acknowledging the force that orientalism is, and at the same time offering the perspective that orientalism by its nature supresses. Furthermore, it shows how literature affects the world outside of academia, which is also a nice subject to touch on in my opinion.

-Facezero - this is my new favorite art

-an excerpt from Roland Barthes's A Lover's Discourse - I remember reading from this in literary analysis, I still think it's a fun read

      There was a fun English-major moment this morning - three people coincidentally all used the myth of Narcissus to take apart the movie Cat People in different ways. One guy read it as the main female character (and monster) being similar to Narcissus, attracted to but unable to reach her aggressive and sexual side. I read it as the husband being like Narcissus, the two women in the film's love triangle acting as his reflection. He tries to force the woman/monster into his ideal image of her (his reflection), but is unable to consummate the act (like Narcissus). He solves the tragic ending of the myth, however, in finding another reflection of himself embodied in the other woman, as asexual as he is. The third person actually found her idea in Narcissus' resurrection as the eponymous flower; a 'complete' flower has four parts: male, female, and two neuter. In the movie there is the husband, his wife/monster, the asexual woman, and a psychiatrist who's sexual advances are frustrated. WaBAM. I just thought it was cool that we could use myth in several different ways to take apart and learn from a story that seems entirely different at first glance.

"Vaughn [my favorite Alias character] fights in a slightly militaristic style, but it's more close combat, like jujitsu. He's going to get in, lock up his opponent, take it down to the ground and finish it off." - this makes for a very happy frankie. (from an article on how they choreograph different characters' fighting styles in Alias)

-resonance - my new favorite art

-Girrion - I'm kind of leery about it, but seems interesting

-my first thought was that they were Lilliputians, but I think Kevin was more on the money with Oompaloompas

      Way back when in elementary school, there was this wonderful swath of desert between the classrooms proper and the various kiddy-sized fields. My most recent memory of it was of how small it seemed, but back in the days of glorious recess there were rolling hills and gullies galore to explore. And there were also the forts. I remember asking another person who had gone to Sunrise if they remembered the fort wars we used to have, and was gruffly rebuffed, their existance denied.
      Then I started to wonder if I was just making up memories, just to have something pleasant to associate with elementary school. But unless there was a shared hallucination, Xuemei remembers them too! In all their ludicrous detail, to boot. Forts were usually centered around a large mesquite or palo verde, although I remember a couple at the base of steep slopes or hidden in a copse of desert broom - that last one would take on a weird enigmatic quality, where girls and boys might go in the shadows of the branches when the "snow" was falling from the desert broom. One fort had a tall lookout tree that was easy to climb, while another was a giant among mesquites and actually often contained a couple of forts at a time, each maintaining a close watch on the other. Of course, there were any number of small forts that would shift mercurially with each recess from small palo verde to small palo verde.
      Groups of us would stake out a certain area every recess, brandishing our variegated clubs and setting up traps. We would set cholla segments in precarious positions, ready to silently drop on the unwary intruder who brushed a stray branch, or create elaborate stick and rock traps that would fountain sand when stepped on properly. Apparently, Xuemei was even set to stripping mistletoe of its gooey berries so the sticky mess could be snuck over to other forts and used as a messy medium for the sabotage of sitting-branches or rocks.
      Every once in a rare while, there were even abortive wars. I can actually remember one of the sand-traps improbably working during a rush of girls through a fort I was in; the sudden cloud of dust scattered the girl's charge and left us cheering and coughing as they ran off. Mostly there was peace of sorts, as we plotted out patrols or sent someone to spy on the condition of forts across the desert. We were actually usually occupied setting the boundaries of and fortifying our own areas each recess over again, and exploring what resources we had for traps and prestige (one fort was known for its high ground and shady, be-mistletoe'd tree, while in another there was an unfortunate diaspora of scared kids from an unearthed nest of spiders).
      Once, however, there was a rivalry that actually built up, and forts on one end of the desert actually stayed coherent for a while. As best as I can remember, I think I was in the fort that had the lookout tree at the time, and somehow we got pulled into defending the fort at the top of the steep slope. Several combined forts stood spread along the slope, yelling and waving our sticks at the opposing kids who were loping over the hill before us in a spread-out charge. Ironically, I remember the person who disavowed any knowledge of the forts as the one who exhorted us in a countercharge across the slope as they flanked us from the high-ground/mistletoe fort. As I turned to follow him a plastic baggy full of sand cometed passed my head; luckily, it did not bludgeon me, but its open end dropped a cascade of hot sand into my face and down my shirt. The last thing I remember of the incident was blinking my eyes furiously to clear the dust from them and standing fast midway down the slope, beating aside another kid's slashing cuts with a mesquite branch. I don't really remember whether we won or lost, but you know what?
      Those were good times.

"A storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." - Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History

      My new favorite conditioning drill conveniently uses Xuemei's big blue balance ball. Which means it has more uses than an extra seat at the dinner table, alliteration, and jokes about blue-balls, apparently. Basically, you kneel on the ball with both knees, and balance while running through striking techniques (forward and down). The idea is that it's like getting a ground-n-pound, but the opponent has the wherewithal to cover and try to reverse your mount. There's the body-sensitivity gained of course, but also a workout of the small muscles in your legs and back that are normally overtaken by the large muscle groups. Of course, if you fall off the ball it's nice because it helps you train to drop into a different pin, like a side-mount or cradle. Or smash your head on the coffee table. You know. Whatever.

-The Katurran Odyssey - seems like an interesting read; pretties in the gallery

-not that "Rapper's Delight" wasn't naturally somewhat incomprehensible

-literary theory is crazy. (via the prof)

-and congrats to Kevin on his brown belt!

White Comanche - Not really much to say about this movie. It's sheer absurdity is going to aid me in the essay I'm writing on it, at least. I think the fact that William Shatner stars as twin half-Comanche brothers pretty much sums it up. Tangentially, Bookman's is the best store ever; where else can you get eight Westerns and Ultimate Knockouts for under fifteen dollars?

-Globalvote 2004 - I don't think anyone I know outside of the country reads this, but what the hell

-insomnia with TrekEarth - Above the Clouds, Fighters, where r u? (via Carolyn), Dream Moment

-I almost want to try to sign on with the Israeli Civilian Special Forces just so I could get a motorcycle (notwithstanding whatever other issues I have, to totally qualify that)

***, ***, ***, *** - really interesting entries that remind me of my mom, what with her love of words and how Old World stuff slips into family life (like today, she ironically shifted to Italian instead of Arabic in the midst of a polemic on how Xuemei and I need to grow balls)

-yet another Bloodlines plug (I'm totally down with someone buying me this)

-Islamic art - my favorite is the one with the angel Gabriel, natch

-Treasure Box - kind of an antiqued and smaller Samarost

      So The Peacekeeper Wars was pretty awesome. They're showing it in its entirety on Sunday, which would be nice to see, if time-consuming (Carolyn reminded me of details from the first part that I had forgotten, as she had taped it to watch today). I think one can see how they crammed a season or two of episodes into four hours, but they did a nice job all in all, with cameos and new concepts and loose ends tied galore. And a bloody happy ending. Bastards. I'll never forgive them for the way they pulled an Alias on the series finale.
      Wyatt also noted the re-occurrence of a certain theme in skiffy (and I'm sure elsewhere as well, just don't feel like looking at it yet) lines. That is, the golden age collapsing and thus setting up the contemporary-to-characters setting. What I thought was especially interesting is the variance in that theme. In Farscape, after the collapse those who maintained the peace attempt to maintain it in the only way they know how - by force, which leads to them being reviled as warmongers. In Battletech, the golden age collapses because of a corrupt government and dictator, and the peacekeeping armies exile themselves - only to return and attempt to impose a whole new peace and culture on what is almost a new golden age. In Warhammer 40,000, the golden age is created by force, and destroyed because of a civil war (of the Lucifer+angels archetype), leaving an endless slow decline into chaos.
      The idea I'm mulling is that these were successful because they use the golden-age-collapse archetype with quality writing, and also because they tend to avoid overt idealism. That is, they don't quite recognize anyone as outright "good," and if they do, those people tend to get screwed over a lot (re: the Caballeros and Grey Death Legion in Battletech, the main characters of Farscape, and everyone and their mother's left nut in 40k). Andromeda attempted to work with a pretty good collapsed-golden-age motif, but didn't go anywhere because of its writing and actors and unremittant idealism. And Firefly? Sorry, people who liked that, but I think it deserved what it got (I really did try to like it, too, I just couldn't). Besides it getting hung up on some of the same things as Andromeda, they started out with a kind of original, kind of old-school Star Wars archetype (failed/failing rebellion), and then mixed that with a limp interpretation of the Western genre. I think some expansion and deepening of their science-fiction setting might have helped, and a closer reading of Westerns and their cynical romanticism (both to avoid or possibly work with ingrained stereotypes and to draw out post-colonial and frontier themes).

-unfortunate name, and interesting looking, but what is it?

-best shirt in the entire world (if you're not one of the two people who might get the reference, feel free to ask and be regaled)

Jon Stewart on Crossfire - this got me pretty riled up, in truth; I also have a whole new respect for Jon Stewart

-on foreigners as insurgents in Iraq (via Wyatt)

-Ark Visual Effects - small gallery of art, video

-random concept - there's just so much potential in this for a great character or even short story built around it...I guess you have to have been a 40k nerd at some point to get the full import, but still...

-tangentially, Dawn of War is a pretty amazing game based on 40k (at least going by the demo Wyatt downloaded). There are a great many oooo's and aaaahhhh's to be had, and some nice "holy shit" 's in there too; it's basically a regular RTS, but with great voice acting, and the feature of zooming in on the (nicely interfaced) combat to see cool finishing moves when it gets to hand-to-hand (even the E3 video doesn't really do it justice).

      A random principle of the zen state as applied to the physical body as enumerated in the car after aikido this morning: when a cherry blossom falls from a tree, the tree does not tell the flower to fall: it just falls. When a person is in a zen state, they do not tell their body to move (on any subconscious or or conscious level), it just does. Aka, a lightbulb appeared above our heads. (We weren't trying to sound pretentious, mind, just working through the classic 'do the technique without thinking' admonition)

-Growing Up Sexually: A World Atlas - pretty dry for the most part, and the sources seem kind of suspect for some reason, but interesting

-'spiro-graph on LSD'

-ah, fun with werds

-smabee art - small gallery

-thought this was cute (from a yoga article):
The Psoas is:
(A) A remote tribe in Papua, New Guinea. (B) A revolutionary computer operating system. (C) The muscle that is the key to your structural stability.

      While Xuemei and I were getting groceries at the Chinese market the other day, something clicked as I made my usual uncomprehending rounds among the various foodstuffs. I was thinking of trips with my mom to the Arab market; to be more specific; at the Arab market, there was always pretty much uniformly Arabs of various stripes, usually Lebanese or Syrian browsing the bins of olives and dates. If there was anyone of any other ethnicity around, they were very obvious just by being an exception. Of course, my brother and I were included in that category, and were probably a little bit extra odd for being attached to our mom and saying thank you in Arabic.
      Aaand back to the Chinese market. There one can find a kind of even mix of Hispanic and Asian customers, and perhaps one grizzled white dude buying his liquor and smokes. I guess after having only been to a Middle Eastern-centered store for so long I must have unconsciously expected there to be another homogenous group of people. Why the disparity, I wonder?

-Asia Food - useful for a trip to the Chinese market

-La Terre vue du Ciel - gorgeous photography of places all over the world from height, France was the best section in my opinion

-this must have taken skill, effort, and raw talent

"It's the storm we all have to endure. We hate it. But it's every raindrop - it's every harsh element that runs down our faces that traces out who we are. Our shape. It reveals the passion, the defiance, the space in the world the rain cannot displace." - if anyone wants the source, ask, otherwise I think it might confuse what might be taken out of the words themselves...which all makes this sound way more self-important than it is, I just thought it was nice

-drunk vs rugby team, and not even in a hooligan-ish manner!

-Bunny - creepyeerie, but cute

-Demons - more interesting in theory than in practice; the most interesting section in my opinion is the Judeo/Christian bit

I feel like this poem needs a good revision or few, so any thoughts appreciated:

Somewhere in my head
I am always screaming -
hands straining to clutch at my temples
jaw clenched tightly open.

Somewhere in my head
a fire begins to burn, wetly.
The coals it ignites make my skull glow with heat -
but I can not flinch my scalp away.

Somewhere in my head
A dark star blooms.
Its black light blinds me from the inside,
inside where I have no eyelids to shut away that violent sun.

Somewhere in my head
I slowly realize there is an intangible weight
Suffocating something that is not breath, and pressing
with a heaviness that no strength of mine can carry.

I can I walk away to find quiet -
and stare at nothing with hooded eyes;

but somewhere, in my head,

I am always screaming.

Sandkings - by George R. R. Martin. Unfortunetaly, this puppy's out of print; it's an anthology written by Martin before he became all famous. I had read this when I was much younger after picking it up already well used from Bookman's, and had been intrigued, but had been overwhelmed at the same time. This time I still felt a bit overwhelmed, but in the same way that Martin's novels have that effect, so in a good way. Kind of the speculative science fiction of Philip K. Dick, but with emotion and character development and sensuality and horror, you know, stuff that might have kept many of Dick's stories from sucking. Pun unintended, there. Sorry, yeah that was kind of tangent.

-"Join Ken Bowers, author of "God Speaks Again: An Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith", Saturday, October 9, on "Faith Under Fire," a new cable television program broadcast on the PAX-TV network..." - ok, not cool. Basically, a fundy Christian evangelist is not-so-subtly going after the Bahá'í religion now, on the basis that apparently tolerance between religions [re: main tenant of B.] is not down with the jebus-thumpers [insert the Bird right here].

-I have no idea what this is, but it's eeriepretty

-ohh, it's awwwnnn...again. (via Wyatt)

-midnite.rain - art in noah-kh's section

-snake info - it would be awesome if my kukri knife was actually named for a kukri snake's fangs, but okay if it's the other way around

-and somebody just drove by playing "Scotty doesn't know" really loud. Aweso.

      As I sat through poetry, desperately trying to not listen to people exclaim how much they hate reading (why are these people English majors, again?), I started thinking about music for some odd reason. My thought was that music might be a kind of poetry for mathematics; if a poem is words arranged in a way that's different from prose or normal speech to make something beautiful or strange or moving, might not music be math arranged in a similar way - the tones assigned to each note being the figurative language?

-zoomquilt - hairs rose on the back of my neck

-tascha - art; and she does commisions...

-it's stealing the yummies!

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - While the structure of this novel is of the clever sort that would normally make you read it twice, I'm not sure I feel like doing so. Alvarez has a good few (uncannily in some cases) similar motifs going in her work to Judith Cofer's, and the writing is of the same caliber, but I couldn't bring myself to identify with any of the characters. It seemed to me that the heart that's in some other Chicano literature has been candycoated in this novel.

-sonic boom photos - I wonder if the guy who took the picture of the Phantom got knocked over

-Gangus - some gorgeous art in the Workshop section; might have to sift a little, though

-flower clock - read about this in the Wildcat...go organic!

-be a spy: see the world!

      I was thinking about something I noticed when doing yoga, as I haven't actually been able to do much what with overly bruised hands an' all. If I can keep up with doing yoga daily for a while, there are readily apparent benefits: repaired minor injuries from jujitsu, all the standard ones like digestion, relaxation, quieter mind, and augmented physical attributes (ie, higher kicks and deeper pins). The thing is, after a while I hit this wall, where the yoga doesn't seem to do as much, and my progress in deepening the poses just stops or even reverses a little. Right now my thought, which seems to have beared out in practice, is that I have to exercise correspondingly to the yoga to maintain its effectiveness. That is, if I have pain or trouble with a camel pose, I should bridge more; if my shoulders click or are tight, Hindu pushups, &c.

-for some reason, this comic really got to me

-Head of the Ohio - in lieu of having a UA team to cheer for, go Carolyn!

-RayFresh - photography by Shiver

-History of Car Logos - I remember learning about Subaru in 'Appreciating Japanese Pop Culture.' I also learned they use Jennifer Lopez for their ads across the pond.

-Magic Key - adorable cartoon music video (via Phil)

      I think it's interesting that as much as people complain incessantly when the weather is hot around these parts, they rarely ever remark on when it's so autumn-ly perfect. I don't mean that to sound pretentious or to knock anyone, I figure it's more just an example of a common-to-all phenomena. In any case, as I've remarked upon several occasions, the weather is incredibly nice now. As much as I adore the warmth and monsoons of summer, autumn and all its smells and sensations is like a happydrug for my system.

      Random idea proposal! What if poems had a broader role in the media? Might they change how beauty is perceived in teen magazines? Would readings from local artists break up the incessant barrage of visual imagery and cacaphonous soundbytes? Anyway, I could go on....

-Beware! Penguins!

-Def Jam vids - I know I've already endorsed this game, but the Soul Caliber-esque mix of relatively realistic moves (re: jujitsu throws and locks, Thai clinching) and fantastical throws really makes me want to buy an Xbox

-ok, ok, very bad taste, but "Nominations open for most fuckable Arab" (and Queen Noor is gorgeous, and really really intelligent to boot)

      I think women's self-defense classes are a wonderful thing. I also think that if the women heading in that intelligent direction want to further their training, the guard position (on their back, attacker between legs) and the techniques that spring from that are a good way to go - I dunno, it just seems like that kind of situation maybe just might come up. Judo and Japanese jujitsu offer good training in that regard, but (as much as i have ambivalent feelings about the martial art) Brazilian jujitsu probably has the most developed set of techniques. Of course, just like any purely self-defense practice, it would probably be better only to train a few simple and practical sweeps rather than the myriad chokes and armbars, though I would say that training the other side of things a little (breaking and passing the guard) would definitely improve defensive techniques.

-Another example of what I've probably snapped about recently to various people. We don't need divisive and inflammatory stereotyping, or the ignorance of the existence of people who are fighting against those stereotypes from the inside. Those writers and reporters and whoever who can work from the inside of fundamentalist cultures and nations to counteract the general conception of "the clash between civilizations" need all the support they can get, and a mirrored action from the outside of those nations.

-Thing With Feathers - silent and artsy comics

-Red Meat - definitely not silent comics, but very funny (via Kevin)

Resident Evil: Apocalypse - I bet I'll come off as arrogant for saying this after all the praise I've heard, but with Wyatt and Alan backing me up, it wasn't all that great. It wasn't a bad movie per se, but....yeah. We figured it couldn't quite decide what kind of movie it wanted to be; that, and it killed off more characters than a George Martin novel, but without the development, so I just didn't care. The loco Barbie/Tomb Raiderish chick was fun to look at, at least, though they could have zoomed out on the martial arts.

Shogun's Ninja - To quote a guy on IMDB, "This movie is just straight-up weird." Sonny Chiba has amazing physical development in it, however, and he really does have some skillz. I think this might also be the origin of the name Hattori Hanzo, unless it's some historical Japanese thing I'm missing. The one thing I'm liking about some of these old movies that were made in Asia is that they always have some cross-cultural themes between Japan and China; hence, my burdgeoning interest in Warriors of Heaven and Earth.

Rome: Total War - more cross-cultural fun, but more explicitly of the beating kind

One of the techniques of the set called the 17 in Tomiki aikido is especially interesting, because it moves in three different directions at once. It can be turned into a pretty solid strike, which pretty much universally makes observes wince in sympathy, or an odd jujitsu-style dumping throw, but the principle behind it is best seen in the aikido variant. The tension created by pushing their arm above your head, extending through their body horizontally with your elbow, and sinking your weight when done properly manifests itself not as conflict between the different lines of effort, but as something that rather springs from that tension - the only analogy I can immediately think of being a good poem that has tension between narrative and lyrical elements producing something beyond each of those paths.

-Alka-Seltzer + H2O + a severe lack of gravity = cool (via Wyatt)

-to quote someone else, whoever's out there pressing the big red button for hurricanes, you can stop now

-sad and pretty all at once

-check out the gorgeous back of the girl in the middle of the (I think, can't tell w/o motion) S-dobrado

According to an article in the Scientific American I just got, reciting poetry is beneficial to your health. The study in question used epic poetry such as The Iliad with its hexameter lines (which incidentally really only works for this in German or Latin). Basically there are several nice affects such as a probable endorphin boost, slowed and deepened breathing, and a sort of calibrating of breathing and heartbeats. So, um...yay!

-photography by Karim Ramzi

-Nicaraguan Sign Language - the kids have the skillz

-I knew math was evil

-my holy grail-type quest is now to find this pepper for my mom

-mmmm...folklore goodness

Collateral - Interesting, all in all. Of course, I'm still a hold-out Tom Cruise fan (you heard me - bring it!). I was half expecting it to be a shallow regular-guy-becomes-badass-hero movie, which there was maybe an element thereof, but the movie taken as a whole went quite beyond that. I thought it was especially cool that I found my opinion of the antagonist, while naturally bad, having an arc of its own - kind of from curious respect to odium, I think. I also thought the end of the movie had a nice (though relatively blatant, I suppose) symbolic touch.

      On my way up to Phoenix, it was raining really hard. Which was actually nice, besides the wrestling of the Lego-Safari car's thinking it was a kite to be blown away by the incessant wind. In any case, the wide open vistas by I-10, which I normally readily enjoy in the sun anyway, had grand curtains of rain sweeping across them. Lightning staccato'ed the distance (and a couple times the not-so-distant feel-it-in-your-chest), Picacho Peak had cottony shreds swirling around its peak (yes! triple redundancy withing a sentence!), and the dust storms right near Phoenix were positively intimidating in that they were under the mountains at one moment and smothering the road the next.
      But the real kicker was the rain was coming down so fast in some places that the desert didn't have time to soak it up - so there were huge puddles dotted with little shrub-topped islands every once in a while. The most interesting of these was one that's islands were creosote and white crosses, and one larger island with a big American flag. It was actually a bit difficult to see because the sun was silver'ing the water, and there were diagonal yellow rays coming through the clouds above it. Still pretty cool, though.

-Tuesday Comic - this is the comforting chicken soup of comics

-this is like when we used to jump down the stairs in middle school, times 50

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - I'm going to give this one a great big somewhatokay. The hotness that is Jude Law and Angelina Jolie countered the annoying unattractiveness that is Gwyneth Paltrow. The movie was pretty and all, and unique I suppose, but that didn't really save it. As the setting got more and more interesting, the plot seemed to get proportionally more out of no where. So, aesthetically pleasing, interesting setting, Angelina and Jude hot, Gwyneth annoying and ugly.

Lost in Arabic Translation

Book-a-Minute Classics - they really summed up my opinion of Catcher in the Rye

Days of the Week - I suddenly get that whole Baron Samedi thing in voodoo

What the IDF is doing in Nablus

Four Stories - poignant, with woodcuts

The Latin Deli, by Judith Cofer - A mixture of prose and poetry; the first part is fiction based on stories of Puerto Rican immigrants, the second part is memoirs and poetry about the author herself. The poetry is beautiful and easy to read, and some of the stories can give you quite a knock emotionally (re: me on the verge of tears or just putting the book down and staring into space).

the Blue Marble - best landscapes ever

Collected Tears of the Weeping Nivbed - rediscovered oldie

Mess Studio - it's very much worth the slightly odd navigation

Robotech Invasion - basically what appears to be a wonderfully accurate presentation of one of my favorite trilogies (gameplay trailer)

Xuemei's Nice Meal of the Day:
-lemon-pepper soy teriyaki honey-garlic plum orange-sesame sherry chicken
-roasted cubed potatoes
-shiitake mushroom + meatball + spinach soup
-salad + rolls

Steph's noodle soup
-winter melon
-tofu
-fish balls
-Chinese noodles
--with fish sauce and sesame oil (I added chili oil to mine because I like endorphins)

-the actual video for "Mad World" from the Donnie Darko sound track, as opposed to the one on the dvd (via Phil)

-I'm honestly drooling (via Carolyn, ironically)

-Haiku, with fractal and a fractal'ed translation thereof

-Bliss Studios

Well, Wyatt's report from BALLS 2004 was that it went pretty well, all in all. For his team, anyway; pretty much everyone else's rockets exploded - literally. The Precision 1 went to about 27,000 feet based on the initial estimates from the equipment, and we're waiting on the various video viewpoints of it (including the in-rocket cam). And oddly enough, when they finally found the rocket out in the desert using radio transponders, somebody had somehow found it first and drove off as Wyatt's team got there - and stole part of the graphite nose cone, which is just completely random. Also, we still have no idea what BALLS stands for.

-Project Vote Smart - ok yeah some of these people are just wackos

-Not so much of a tongue-twister I guess, as a tone-twister

Random Trivia Day from History of the Middle East

Amr called this place al Fustat, "the tent", because, so the tale went, on returning to his tent there from Alexandria he found a dove nesting among its goat-hair hangings. Amr declared the site sacred and gave orders that the tent not be disturbed. After the dove had raised her brood and was gone, Amr built his mosque on this site (now located in present "Old Cairo"), and around it grew up Misr al-Fustat, " the Settlement of the Tent". The word misr is not only a present-day colloquial name for Cairo but the official Arabic name for Egypt itself as well.

"Iraq," the official name of Faisal's new realm, came from the Arabic word araqa meaning "deep-rooted." Etymologically, "Iraq" came from the Sumerian region of Uruk (Warka) dating to about 3400 BCE. The biblical name for the region was "Erech" (Genesis 10:10).

Among these raiders were the "Philistines" of the Bible who challenged the Israelites' claims to the land, but who also traded with them. The Egyptians, whom they also harassed, called them "Peleset," and from the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BCE) came the name, "Palestine." It was the Philistines who introduced iron tool-making into the area. Iron was traded with the Israelites for limestone available only in the hill country which the tribes of Israel controlled. ---(I think it's interesting that a transliteration of the modern Arabic for Palestine is filistine)

+ Warriors of Heaven and Earth - looks to be an interesting flick, if only because it's the only one I've even heard of that involves the period of history and the region that it does

Duel to the Death, or Xian si jue - The first half of the movie is actually kind of funkyinteresting. Ninjas versus Shaolin monks, which is kind of a fun comic book premise. In fact, the whole movie would be a wonderful comic book. Yes, it's old school to the point of Mystery Science Theater'ing itself, and/or not even needing the re-do of a Kung Pow kind of movie. But it has some pretty unique stylistic things going on. That, and as the scenes get closer and closer to the end they get so FUCKING ODD that they leave you watching the credits with your jaw literally hanging open and your hands clapped to your temples. I swear that was the position I was in for the last twenty minutes of that movie.

-It would be awesome if the world was actually like this

Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands and Trumpets from the Islands of their Eviction - both by Martin Espada. Espada's poetry has a palpable passion in it. I found it interesting in that he uses very little figurative language, which I'm not used to, even though my favorite poet (Jack Gilbert) uses even less. In any case, one could learn some Spanish from Rebellion as it has Spanish translations on each facing page, and Latin American history from both.

And the other random thing I was thinking about was the idea that say someone recognizes something about themselves that they hadn't realized before - say, that they are arrogant, or that they react a certain way in certain situations. But it seems that that aspect of themselves might react like a particle that has just been observed, and thus been hit by a photon - it changes a little. So it seems like it comes back to "the moment in which you think you know a thing is the moment in which you must look deeper," and the infinite loop that entails. The tangent to this idea runs off an example of some really screwed up people that I've met at UMC. They know that they're messed up, and it'll probably be the first thing they'll tell you. But in that sense to me it seems like they're not really "observing" it anymore; it has just become an excuse for them to act the way they are comfortable acting, because someone else told them that about themselves and they went with it. But that use of it also conveniently blocks them from getting to know themselves more, and maybe changing to be healthier, but gods forbid that we wouldn't want them to be uncomfortable. Which isn't to say that there aren't the people who have some issues and are genuinely trying to work through them; it's just that they seem quieter about it.

-Now that's just funny

It's really too bad they don't make this shirt

My next goal

Studio : Qube

Savage Sun Arts

Art of Hyung-Tae Kim

   Finally, some attention is being called to an Muslim criticizing Muslims. Without launching into a tirade about Orientalism, which I'm sure I shall at some point, this is what I've been rambling about when I say that labeling a full billion people with one name doesn't make them all the same.

   And on a tangential note, no one who this concerns will probably ever read it, but to all the people at my mom's school, her name is Najwa, pronounced n-capital lowercase e-lowercase zeta-w-schwa. Not a long 'a' or a Southern drawl 'a' or three syllables or with a silent 'j' (where the hell did that one come from?). Two syllables, with the first vowel just like in "bet" or "net." Gods....the closest example I can think of is people drawling out Carolyn's name to a ear-scraping Caroliiiine, but that has less variation.

*   *   *   *   *

"...beneath mountains, effervescing majestic."
"These women ran with destiny beneath their wings..."
"...each man, taken into my mouth like a warm vowel..."

*   *   *   *   *

The Random Frog Children, "a very random comic in many parts"

Vanity Fair - This movie was pleasure to watch aesthetically, and was well enough otherwise, though it probably wouldn't be so pleasant if one were in an impatient mood. It almost seemed like various scenes were taken piecemeal out of a novel, and enough that there was a coherent story, but inessential bits were left out. Or rather, I'd be interested to see if there were many deleted scenes. I went ostensibly to take my mom out, of course, but also to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers in another movie....'cause he's hot, basically. I also found a new interest in Romola Garai, the much-more-attractive-than-the-lead supporting actress; I actually thought she was Rose Byrne till I looked it up, but I guess I just like that type or something. I thought that Reese Witherspoon's character was at least interesting in any case because she was a perfect parallel of Gaby McAslan from Evolution's Shore, but without the redeeming qualities. And on an entirely random note, a comment upon the growing prevalence of martial arts in movies: totally illogical capoeiristas at an India-themed picnic, and an odd spat of grappling that takes place in India.

Shaun of the Dead - the zombies are walking to the music at one point. I need say no more.

Bubbles - kind of random. Wyatt found it; it has cool music, like that obscure speed metal song from Spawn

   Well, this year's neighbors seem a bit better than the previous. Not only are there soda machines outside the house right behind us, but there hasn't been a red tagged house within a block so far (unlike before when every single house was red tagged, and then twice over). So far the only noisiness has been in the middle of the day (which was beautiful today between downpours), and that involved a car stereo and girls in bikinis on lawn chairs in a front yard.

Eden X - art by Jason Chen

LifeGem - while this seemed very wrong at first, I'm still vaguely intrigued, if only morbidly (no pun intended)

Over breakfast at the diner (plug, plug), my dad gave me a pretty good idea based on the training he got at the olympic training center. Basically, there are two ways to go about it ("it," of course, being some breath-training). Either set a watch so it goes off every fifteen minutes or so to remind you to breathe deeply or control your breathing, or at any minorly stressful point (pulling up to an intersection, thinking of an answer, during an awkward conversation) just be conscious of how often you actually end up holding your breath.

The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre is a nice collection of short stories. While it's translated from Spanish (the author is Puerto Rican), I thought it still flowed smoothly enough. In fact, some of the more disturbing and deceptive qualities of the stories more than came through. Kind of lyrical fiction with a sprinkle of horror.

-the best part about the new King Kong movie is not Peter Jackson being the director. Oh no. It is that the illustrious Jack Black is going to be in it! Hoorah! (via the lit theory...not sure what the hell to call that class...prof)

loïc peoc'h - photos

In the stairwells in the science/engineering library, if you tap on the banisters in the right way with your fingertips, they become discordant chimes. It doesn't quite make a song, but it's nice.

"[Yogic leg exercises] teach the muscles in your legs to hold your joints in proper alignment" - boo ya. the exact exercises we do before class at the Broadway dojo. and they really work, like when my knee was paining me from walking funny on the thorn in my foot all day.

"We must be systematic, but we should keep our systems open" - A.N. Whitehead, Modes of Thought -- I thought this was nice because it seems to tie into the 'everything is bound by context but context is boundless' notion; just a different kind of application

   I had a random idea the other night, pacing on the phone in our front yard and watching the neighborhood partygoers congregate, and it oddly had to do with zen. Or something. Anyway, it had to do with the principle of being still and yet in motion simultaneously. The common example of this is the reflection of the moon on running water. So my thought was, while someone is sitting still their mind is probably often in motion, thinking and daydreaming and whatnot. But then when people are moving or completing some action, they are often still thinking and keeping the mind working at the same time. So to be in the zone or zen or....some other z word, the mind is still while the body moves. And it just clicked that that's a pretty common notion, so there's my realization thereof, I guess.

Dark Fury - I think I've developed a sort of morbid fascination with the character Riddick - I don't really like him, but I get curious whenever he appears again

Doom Funnel Chasers! - It reminds me of Farscape because of the whole gravity-slingshot effect (yay for obscure nerd references!), and the duct tape ball makes a fun noise when it hits the planets

another poem rough -

Apology

Your words are a clawed whip striking at my face-

the fanged crack of noise taking out my eyes,
leaving me hollow, and the torn sockets
filled with dry tears.

In my new emptiness I float outside myself,
in the bare moment of the echo
of word-pierced air.

In that breathless instant of freefall
my eyes find their voice again
and call back to me what they see:

Her crimson glare is a mask!
We see through the ruby lens of narrowed eyes!
It is not flickering fire, but chilled blue glistening
of sharp-frosted pain in her irises!

In the silence as you withdraw your whip
I find myself drained, on my knees, at your feet;
yet I am filled, again,
no longer with red, tense anger -
only cool violet remorse.

I press my forehead against
the back of your hand, and breathe.

And the balm of quiet soothes our tired eyes.

-Phantom of the Opera now comes in yummy movie format

-The Peacekeeper Wars - a conclusion (?) to the best skiffy show that used to be around (in my opinion)

-all forums should be done this way

-Lovers - two things going for it. Was made by the same people who did Hero. And has hottie Takeshi Kaneshiro starring. --addendum: Xuemei pointed out that the original name for the movie is House of Flying Daggers, and that Zhang Zhiyi is in there as well --addendum.2: the "actual translation" of the name would be Ambush from Ten Sides

-mmm...nice melons

We watched the Exorcist the other night, which was very interesting (though the unedited ending in the special features is nonsensical without it being explicitly explained in a random interview with the director). What the movie really made me think of, in any case, is the legend of the jinn from Islamic folklore. Basically the article in particular that I had in mind was proposing that an evil jinn could influence a person to make them seem possessed, so it was interesting to watch the movie in that line along with the standard demon-possession idea. As for the jinn, to quickly summarize there are many different perspectives but basically they are a parallel form of life to humans (created from smokeless fire, as humans were created from clay and angels from light, but just as humans are no longer clay, they are no longer smokeless fire). They eat, sleep, have a society of sorts and even pets (no I don't know what they would keep as pets), and there are good and bad jinn, just like there are nice people and jerks. Also, the other interesting thing that kind of differentiates jinn from say, Greek gods, is that they are kept on a theological hierarchical level close to humans (ie, Mohammed was not just a prophet to humans, but also to jinn). According to the legends they have their supernatural powers and whatnot, but the idea is that they are held accountable for their use of them, i.e. if they exploit them or use them to help people). And if I got any of that bass-ackwards someone pleeaasse tell me.

Okay, something I think elementary kids should be taught: using a 'stasis point' in an argument ('cause the first place I heard about it was in Engl 306/Rhetoric). Generally for every argument both parties can backtrack to some point that they both agree on, and then in working on from that point, things are generally much more pleasant. Simple as that, no frills. But when people are so focused on what they themselves are saying that they start arguing over something they either actually agree on or just because they totally missed something the other said, not so happy. Finding the stasis point actually requires that they listen to each other, wonder of wonders, and slow down, and start by working towards agreement in some regard, even if they end up agreeing to disagree in the end. Of course, if that were the case I wouldn't have had to spend three hours listening to people bitch and bicker at the dojo meeting (though entirely tangentially there was an interesting mix of Arizonan, Midwestern, British, and New York accents, and even a misunderstanding caused by a touch of Ebonix).

I read a couple interesting things in a Scientific American column: "The reason dualism is intuitive is because the brain does not perceive itself," and "Children and adults alike speak of 'my body' as if 'my' and 'body' are dissimilar." While I think there are a lot of interesting tangents from these statements (zen, physical training, &c), it also made me think of a book I'm reading for my thesis. So the dualism I thought of was between the concepts of East and West (cultural hemispheres, that is). What I'm wondering is that is there a connection between that mind/body point and a perception of the world being split that way because the world entire does not intuitively see itself as a whole?

The other night I had this odd, vivid dream/consuming thought/? come over me, ironically during my devotions. It occurred to me that the ER at UMC doesn't have any windows, just really bright florescent lights. So I imagined what it would be like if there was a sudden power outage; the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't not think about it. I went through the motions in my head of calming a hysterical patient, then thought, 'well, what would i do?' So I dug around in my pack for my cell phone and turned it on. And in the blue light were skeletal, child-sized things crawling between the nurses, over the walls and desk and ceiling, and they all jerked big black eyes towards the light. That's when I opened my eyes, and I had to take several deep breaths and even go through the bowl-of-pebbles meditation (the one that works for headaches) to get the...daydream? out of my head. Interesting times...

Most obvious rip from Robert Jordan ever

Kewl Word: 'animadvert' - to turn the mind or attention to

Def Jam - Fight for New York - I only recognize maybe three or four of the rappers in the game, but the fighting looks as fun as Soul Caliber 2, but with less martial arts and more gutterstomping. That, and the trailer where it displays all the characters in a cutscene reminds me of some details in a David Brin short story where the concept of tribal behavior in a modern context came up.

Amber (aka a really rough poem)

Bittersweet amber
is, I think,
the color of my discontent.

No wound apparent, just
some thing, in your voice –
in your tone;
and the burnt gold blood seeps from my skin.

I feel it,
and wonder at it –
and you.

When I reach to touch your shoulder,
when I reach to turn your face to mine,
it holds me (frosted glass tears,
cooled to stillness at the unspoken language of your body).

Later, alone,
I find a different amber.
Sparkling crystal grains –
the shattered skin of some
beautifully dead insect.

Each time I trail my finger
through the skeleton-skin
the sun shines from each
warm yellow facet.

Later, with you,
when I trail my fingers
across your cheek,
Some thing shines –
and the amber
under our skin
is perhaps not so bitter anymore
----
Xuemei's Nice Meal of the Day:
-wood ears, chicken, and cauliflower with rice; ginger and sweet sauce
(don't be like me and eat the one tiny chunk of ginger in the entire bowl, and thus taste the burning)
----
Steven gets a "wooowwww" for his pictures from Thailand - he gots mad skillz, j0. Things of note included war monkey statues, his cute friend who had the cool name 'Apple', massive temples covered entirely by tiny paintings, floating markets, red light districts (re: a bar named "G-spot", advances by prostitutes), a video of a guy sticking his arm down the gullet of a crocodile, and scary tropical storms. None of us had realized the Indian/Asian mix that Thailand seems to be, which was interesting in and of itself.

On the suggestion of the improbably pleasant produce dude at a ghetto-Fry's, Xuemei and I decided to buy Kelsey and Italian plums. Well, rather, Xuemei threatened me with violence if I bought another weird fruit that didn't bear eating again. But, as it turns out, both are pleasingly...plummy...lack of adjectives here....and the Kelsey plums actually kind of do seem like "big green grapes," as the produce dude put it.

And in other news, (while waiting for the also improbably pleasant beach volleyball) we caught the women's rowing. Besides the excitement of a race that came down to hundredths of a second, that's some hardcore badass shit. Yes, yes, synchronized divers have rippling muscles and are hot and all, but there's not eight of them being synchronized (that was kind of eerie, in truth). And the coxswains-on-the-verge-of-spontaneously-combusting provide comic relief. So, props to Carolyn, Steph, and Steph...KATN.

I have to agree with Scott, the weather yesterday was awesome. Random impressions: driving my mom around, she noted that the color of the sky where we should have seen the sun setting was just like the ocean, our fascetious thought being that there was so much water in between us and the sun that it just made sense. In truth, the weather guy I saw was freaking out over the size of the storm. Running between the two parts of the Honbu dojo, which is like 20-30 yards, got me entirely soaked and dripping. Wyatt's football team saw a freaking funnel cloud, which was unbelievable even to them, till they saw a picture of it confirmed on the news. And as another random femme on the news put it, "It's great! We get riverfront property at least twice a year!"

And on another random note, the deleted scenes section of the Blade II dvd is hilarious with the commentary on. It's basically the Italian director and I think one of the producers cursing at each other and making fun of themselves through a succession of really bad scenes that were edited out for obvious reasons. It also includes such gem quotes as:
"Never underestimate the power of the pussy. One hair from that thing'll drag a freight train up a three mile grade." (+ plus the most perfect reaction by Donnie Yen)
and
"What better way to end a deleted scenes section than with sperm?!"

Okay, this started wandering around in my brain as I stared ruefully at the clock at work. How do humans sense time? It's not exactly one of the five main senses with a straightforward complex of neurons assigned to it. I think I remember something in neurobiology about a larger part of the brain having something to do with it, but that was about as precise as that class went into it. So then in some hypothetical part of the brain is there a logic function operating, like we know this is the present because it happened right after what just happened in the past? And ignoring all the readily apparent faults in that logic, what do we even recognize as the present (one second? an instant? is that based on brain chemistry as well?). Then my other question becomes, do other animals sense time differently than we do? Or do they even sense it all - or rather, is there some threshold of sentience that has to be passed, or is a timesense something that is inherent to all? Any ideas or answers, anyone out there?

   Two random, not really connected thoughts, not really with any purpose behind expressing them. I get headaches. They are either constant, long, and dull, or horribly intense yet very short. I'm usually cool with this, as it is something I can deal with ninety percent of the time to the point where it doesn't affect me much beyond slowing me down a little. But when my discipline is not up to par for whatever reason, I go down, hard, until I can discipline myself again. Yoga and meditation usually help a great deal, but when I really get in a slump, it becomes almost too much to concentrate or focus enough for those to be effective. Exedrin almost always helps me hit the ground running, but I loathe being dependant upon a chemical, or any substance affecting my body.
   And a thought from a book I'm reading, to which I haven't decided whether or not I agree with entirely: the body is something that we tell to do things, while the mind cannot be told to do things; rather, it just is, and we can learn to interact and work with it. Thoughts, opinions?

10 points to guess the book:
I never wanted to be a god, he thought. I wanted only to disappear like a jewel of trace dew caught by the morning. I wanted to escape the angels and the damned - alone...as though by an oversight.

 "I told him that to endure oneself might be the hardest task in the universe."
"That's...that's..."
"A bitter pill."
"Bitter nonsense!"
"The greatest palatinate earl and lowliest stipendiary serf share the same problem. You cannot hire...an intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witnesses to provide answers. No servant - or disciple - can dress the wound. You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see."

"We have eternity, beloved."
"You may have eternity. I have only now."
"But this is eternity."

In high school I took French; since I've been working at UMC I can almost understand slow Spanish just by inundation of it, and lately I randomly started listening to teach-yourself-Italian CDs (thanks Carolyn!). The point I'm getting to is that it's been interesting to compare the three Latinate languages as I review or go over them, and then doubly compare them to Semitic or Asian languages (my mom's Arabic or my roommates' Chinese or Japanese from the dojo). For example, I wonder how the different regions each of them developed in contributed to the differences between them - say, Italian being more close to Latin because of Rome, or the French 'r' as opposed to rolled 'r's in the other languages. Because they're each very similar to the others, but different in specific ways, so I wonder if maybe languages that already existed in those areas influenced how the Latin changed over time? And I wonder what made each of the languages' structures develop as they did, like why are the meanings of Arabic words organized by the consonants in them and why are the short vowels relegated to the role they have, or why does doubling a word or name in Chinese or Japanse have the effect it does? I dunno, I think it's interesting. Thoughts, opinions?

-The Five Types of Blogs - I guess mine is somewhere between a zine and and linking blog, and I would say that I think most WBC bloggers probably think they're writing personal blogs

-natalie dee: drawings to huff by

-when I was really little, I always wanted to climb inside the geodes at the agate shop

So I was watching this old movie a kickboxing instructor gave me with my brother and his friend. And we're alternately falling asleep or Mystery Science Theater-ing it or looking for something to read because the movie is nigh incomprehensible and barely worthy of being labeled a martial arts movie (more like, one horribly confusing, barely visible hundered person brawl after another). In any case, the interesting part was that at totally random moments, the scene would shift to to white guys (playing pool apparently) who weren't being dubbed, and who appeared to be having innocuous if stilted conversations about the benefits of being in the military, or how one should get their insurance checked with the correct officer on base. It was very confusing to us, so if anyone's ever heard of that....(we were figuring movie made in 1969, so Vietnam war?)

I don't know if this would hold true, but it sure seemed to be the rule of thumb in the pool hall tonight that at any given time if you looked around, there would be at least one person (of either sex, whatever) looking at you (probably a function of the number of people in there? it seemed kind of eerie at the time). And very obese women with boobs falling out hitting on skinny Asian guys is funny.

-CNN said "12 dead"

Toonjitsu, gallery by Dave Daniels (not just for the punny name, of course)

-interesting article on the structure of Arabic names, ironically by SCA people

"There is an old Sufi story about philosopher-fool Nasrudin, who was looking for his house keys under a street light. A couple of friends happened by and joined in the search. Finally, in exasperation, one of the friends asked Nasrudin where he thought he had lost the keys. Nasrudin pointed to a spot some distance away where it was extremely dark. But why are we looking here then? he was asked. He replied: Because it is so much easier to see under the light."

The Village left me very...conflicted. Which I guess is interesting in and of itself. In fact, as much as I very much enjoyed the movie, I also left feeling kind of hurt and betrayed. While I can't really think of much to say without giving anything important away (if you're not planning on seeing it then feel free to ask), I think Chris summed it up in the parking lot when he said the nice thing about M. Night Shyamalan's movies is that while they often have that twist that is their trademark and that has people talking (re: The Sixth Sense), the more valuable/important part about them is the relationships between the characters. In this case, Ivy and Lucius, you are so beautiful, to me.

In other random news, General Tommy Franks let out in his autobiography that before the invasion of Iraq, a double-agent was used to make the Iraqis think that all of the coalition was coming from the north. Then the entire coalition came from the south. Heh. Hehehe. The other byte he said was that there was a plan set to flood post-invasion Iraq with funds and resources, but for various and several reasons, the money couldn't be raised in time (aka, there was a plan, it just had to be drawn out).

I, Robot was pretty exciting. Well, in any case, just as Asimov claimed he wasn't a writer of literature so much as a scientist, this (in having little to do with his works) was much more entertaining. All they used that I could tell were the three Laws and some name references; I could be missing some memory or another, but it seemed like the movie dumbed down the loophole/logic themes of Asimov's stories enough to popularize them and at the same time lumped them together nicely. And...robot jujitsu. You can't beat that. Seriously. It was so pretty. And I haven't cheered and slapped my legs like that since the all-aiki/jj scene in Blade II.

Xuemei's Nice Meal of the Week:
-Spicy ground pork with bamboo
-Shiitake mushrooms with bok choy
-Potato and pepper strips

"What are you sniggering about?"
"You. You're discussing philosophy with a cat."
"What could be more natural? Cats are by their very nature very philosophical."
The cat nodded agreement. "When we're not sleeping or killing something."

Headaches can suck my big olive-toned cock.

In other news, not a very good idea.

And from Wyatt, KerryCore

   There was a full moon tonight, and it made me think of some story or another where the moon was personified and described as a goddess or somesuch. That thought made me vaguely sad because it got me thinking that what with scientific advances over the centuries the mystery that celestial objects once held for people is gone; it's not the huntress coursing through the dark anymore, it's a big floating rock. The sun isn't the inexplicable radiance that gives life to and warms the world, it's a natural nuclear furnace made of coalesced gas. I guess the way I'll try to find my own magic will be to find wonder in that these things exist as they are and their scale and so on.
   That all also makes me think of the mysteries that used to be in religion, say in the Catholic Church for example. Their services were once conducted in a language that few understood (and thus had to have explained to them) and with the priests' back to the people, &c. I think when the service was more mysterious it gave people more access to a spiritual sort of register, and perhaps allowed for more (what I think is more valuable) mysticism (re: the register that actually allows people to get deeper into religion without being spoon-fed someone else's thoughts or chanting empty words, like Buddhism/yoga-as-religion in a general sense, Muslim Sufis, and in this vein the old-school Christian mystics that don't seem to be around anymore).

   What if the cats who go running around chasing stuff that isn't there are actually chasing something that we can't sense? I guess I get a bit creeped out when I get that same question in my head when a patient is hallucinating something (the 'famous' example being the 'little girl' that climbed around me and on the ceiling).

The Manchurian Candidate - Okay, if way longer than we expected. The first third had the kind of dream-fear that Mulholland Drive excelled at, but when that atmosphere trailed off I started waiting for the movie to be over so I could see what would happen. Xuemei, Phil, and Steven were leaning towards the original being better, and noted that this one was darker if not as "devious."

photographs by Jacek Pomykalski

Sandy's Prison Hooch

-main ingredient (ie, tomatoes, raisins, pineapples are apparently nice)
-several cups of sugar (aka chugar)
-a lot of yeast
-water
----Stir ingredients in five-gallon buckets, seal, wait four to five days.

*tangentially, if you have to tape Playboy magazines around your belly to keep from getting stabbed, it's worth the sacrifice

   Random thing I realized while practicing Arabic about trying to do direct translation. I don't know if it's that whatever languages I've looked in the past came from our local group, as it were (Germanic or Latinate), or if I just missed it. The words li, for example can be translated as "to" and "for," for example, and bi as "by," "in" and "with," but it's really more like they mean something in between each of those words, and that's the closest we can get to it in trying to translate them, but it's not ever quite the same meaning. I suppose this is one of those things that is pretty obvious, but I hadn't paid enough attention till now.

W00t! New Line Cinema, who does stuff like Lord of the Rings and Donnie Darko, are going to do movies for White Wolf Publishing's new lines. This makes me into an excited school girl. I think I'll just stop there, in lieu of expanding upon that metaphor.

kewl phrases of the day:
"holy obscenity"
"elegantly grotesque"
"harlequin abandon"

"The mind is often compared to a cup of dirty water. When it is shaken, the water is cloudy, but when it is still, the sand settles to the bottom of the cup and the water is clear. The practice of meditation is like letting the cup of water—your mind—be still. " - me likey.

"[Steve McQueen] plays a cowboy at a banquet, confronted with his first lobster. Trying to look unperturbed, he says, "Well, I will say that's the BIGGEST bug I ever ate!" - from now on I shall call lobsters bugs.

"Paradox is a pointer telling you to look beyond it." - Mmm zen. Ironically from an article on chaos theory and Campbell's myth-theory in Dune.

"Polar bears absorb so much vitamin A that their livers contain deadly concentrations, and indigenous people know better than to eat the liver. It killed explorers." - Hm. Not a very fun fact, I suppose.

Yay, I'm not dead! And after being in several very dangerous situations! And with the email of a cute Czech girl who offered the use of her apartment in Prague! Anyway, in lieu of typing about Alaska, I'd be willing to proffer stories for coffee.....

And now, happy fun review time, in a completely random order!

The Bourne Supremacy - I was pretty disappointed in this one, actually. There were the superficial things like the camera which seemed to be manned by a drunkard, and the one fight scene which might have been wonderful if the zoom button didn't exist. But the main thing (emphasizing 'to me') was that for all that I thought the movie would be about Jason Bourne, it seemed to be more about the slew of secondary characters that the movie didn't have room to develop. That is, Damon's character was a primary agent in the story in that he was a reason things happened, the backstory of his character was a key function of the plot, he affected changes in the plot-world, &c, but in that he seemed more like a plot device than a character to me. Ah well.

Frank Herbert, by William Touponce. If one goes by our current theory that everyone who reads Dune is pretty much on one end or the other of the "meh/ugh" --- "whoa/awesome" spectrum, then this book is scrap paper for the former and crystal meth for the latter. Basically, it's a short biography of Dune's author, then a critical reading of each of the Dune novels, then a synopsis of each of his other works. Of course, "critical reading" doesn't sound very exciting, but having a working out of the massively complex series is deliciously revealing, for lack of a better word.

Hearts of Chaos, by Victor Milan - In complete contrast to Frank Herbert, utterly cheeseball. True beer&pretzel skiffy, with characters that aren't quite as humorous as Janet Evanovich characters, but perhaps with a bit more depth. And, oddly, with a random very much depth in some ways, as the plot is based around playing a few different kinds of the moving-between-languages-as-power trope against and with each other. The author is pretty adept at describing martial arts, as well.

Into the Thinking Kingdoms by Alan Dean Foster is somewhere in between a fable and a fantasy novel, with an almost too luxurious playing-with-words style. It really needs the first book of its trilogy to have the value it does as a story, however. Basically a grown-up children's book without pictures.

Tank Girl! I think "irreverant" is the word for this old-school comic book movie. The main characters are utterly adorable (one is somewhere in between retarded and insane, the other is shy and cute), but the kangaroo things are pretty grody. Good for a lazy weekend laugh.

Silk by Caitlin Kiernan is kind of in between Donnie Darko ambiguity-pregnant-with-meaning and a more purely horror story. I think it's definitely on par with that example, in any case. While I really didn't get a lot of the various music references, the set of Jung-based characters is great, and the Lovecraft-ish atmosphere that is developed by the end plays off with energy against the angsty attitude and tone. A pretty intense book, though one might be wary of it if they don't like spiders.

Robot Jox - Oh man. This was just bad. But: Wyatt and I used to watch it a lot when we were younger. And on that basis, it's funny. Probably would be fun to Mystery Science Theater, but when we watched it we all fell asleep from late-nightness.

Nature's Antiseptics, by C.J. Puotinen is a great, practical little book. It concentrates mainly on using tea tree oil and grapefruit seed extract, but gives other recipes and instructions for augmenting or replacing those ingredients. And just so I don't sound like a total hippy oddball, so far we've used tea tree oil successfully for cuts, a gouge out of the side of my toe, sunburns, shaven pubes (not mine, I swear) (really.) (...which is not to imply that I shave mine), pimples, mosquito bites, gum infection, and second degree burns - works pretty damn well.

Two random things...
   Besides the King Arthur stuff, I think I also figured some reasons why the vampires in Buffy were always kind of disappointing. I think they were just too human, if they were main characters, and if not main characters were just plain dippy. If they were thirsty for blood, I wanted to see them get to the point of starving and frenzying for it. If their bodies were taken over by demons and their souls discarded, I wanted the new personality to be more prominent. I mean, they were all right as the lowest baddie in the Buffy hierarchy I suppose, but I guess I was kind of spoiled by the World of Darkness vamps.

   In Sabino Canyon there's a pool that seems stagnant at first glance, but really has algae only lining the bottom. Also in it are a plethora of waterbugs, which are really cool to watch if you get on your belly right by the pool. There's the odd barrier of water tension and the bugs skating just on either side of it, and the colored ones with little flippers that paddle up to the surface for their air, and swarms of mirror-skinned ones that click as they run into each other in panic, and tadpoles coursing through the algae like deep sea monsters, and a worm with legs like cilia that was just plain alien. About three-quarters of the way up to Seven Falls, between some big boulders.

Modern Art Tattooing is near Country Club and Grant, right across from The Shelter nightclub. They have a great piercer, who although looking pretty young, is very knowledgable and smooth, and just plain nice to boot. Belly button goes for $35.

The Guru (recommended by Steph) was hilarious. It's also randomly dirty. Very, very dirty. But dirty in a sexy way, with catchy music, and with a tiny sprinkle of Bamboozled-style metafiction, except Indian-wise.

King Arthur was also very good, and I think I may have finally pinned down why I was kind of disappointed in it despite its...er, goodness. For one, it had the great expansiveness that, say, Jerry Bruckheimer's Pirates did, but also in some way some undefinable lack of something because of that. Also, I read an article that said they cut most of the brutality from the fight scenes, which would explain why I couldn't quite figure out why I was disappointed a little in them, too. Nonetheless, I thought the (although dubious) focus on historical-over-legend made for a nice hero-movie.

A Day Dark As Night - Another thing that started out really shaky, but as the story developed the writing and the plot actually improved. Basically this book is helping to launch White Wolf Publishing's new Exalted line, which I think it would do a better job of (and be a much better novel) if the focuses on when characters are developed and general setting-background were given were switched around. Also, the writing for this particular novel seemed kind of below par for White Wolf, but the Exalted setting is rich in and of itself and the unique ideas and focus on martial arts will hopefully make for better novels in the future. All in all, an okay beer-and-pretzel fantasy read. (and bonus points for cool character names like "Harmonious Jade" and over the top lines like "He dodged the bolt with ophidian grace and celerity...then hurled himself through the air trailing a black, necrotic wake of energy")

Returner - In short, ET directed by John Woo with time travel. An odd mix of horrible and awesome cinematography, cool moves and Engrish. And one of the main characters is played by Taneshi Kaneshiro, which is cool because he's cute and did voice acting for Onimusha 3

Spiderman 2 - I thought it was wonderful. In lieu of going on about it, I'm crushing a little on the skinny blonde chick on the basis that she was adorable and had that sweet crush on Spiderman.

If this is real, kinda freaky and cool

   Eurotrip - I have to say I really wasn't expecting much out of this movie. It really isn't the type I'd even normally rent, but at the insistence of my brother, his friends, and one of the aikido students, there you go. It happily did turn out to be quite hilarious, with rampant nudity, vulgarity, and landmarks. Randomly, there's great acting of facial expressions. Go figure. Also Michelle Trachtenberg is way hotter in this than she was in Buffy, wherein she was ugly.

   And Wyatt pointed out a great connection. High performance fighter jets, the example in particular being the F-16 Falcon, are inherently instable; they would hardly be able to fly for the most part, if not crash outright, if not for advanced flight control systems. The reason for that is that the greater instability lends greater maneuverability. In jujitsu and similar martial arts, one can probably muscle through most throws, if the other person has no clue, but to do a real throw one has to lose balance, and use that loss of balance and stability to take the opponants balance (and thereby often regain their own. unless a bodyslam is in order. natch.).

-plumb forgot about this year's, but there'll be another Free Comic Book Day next year

Here's my spontaneously-developed-while-standing-around-in-the-ICU metaphor for learning.
   In the course of listening to a Spanish family, I realized that as long as they were talking slowly I could understand at least a good three-quarters of what they were saying; there's no way I'd be able to speak Spanish or repeat any of it, but for some reason today it suddenly became sensical. In reading my teach-yourself Arabic script book, I'm starting to realize that each time I learn another bit of the way the protean alphabet works and smatterings of grammar, the tickers on clips of Al-Jazeera on the news are slowly starting to become recognizable
   In any case, my metaphor (spawned by those "clicks") is that learning about a particular topic is like trying to see a magic-eye/3-d picture. I can look at Wyatt's rockets, Scott's electronics, or even Xuemei's wall-filling biochemical pathways chart and just see a big wash of static, as it were. But they can each see thrust vectors and ways to rebuild things and information in a tangle of colored lines; and I can look at a poem or language, or aikido technique or whatever and maybe see something they can't. So as we all learn about each of the topics, they slowly start to take shape in our head till it eventually it gets to the point where we can see every angle of it when it lifts off the page entirely. As it were.

Dubious, but interesting - It's gotta be the hat

Longish, but nice bits of history mixed with linguistics -Hebrew alphabet

"And all the gazer's mind was strewn beneath
Her feet like embers" - from Percy Shelley's "The Triumph of Life"