Where's Adam West?

We're about to see a movie tomorrow night. Something about an owlish vigilante. Perhaps you've heard a murmur or two about it?

The deafening wall of media hype over Heath Ledger's performance is like a ring of airhorns surrounding a macabre piece of art—you want to cringe, turn your back, & wait for it to stop. Or if you can pick your way within the ring, there is something to be enjoyed by all accounts. However, the very enjoyment of it has now become something macabre in itself.

This is all part of the mental preparation that needs to take place in order to not be disappointed by a movie like this. It's what my friend Steve calls Managing Your Expectations. This is not going to be a fun summer explodaganza. It's a grim, ponderous, brooding affair, wrought with heavy political allegory. We're a long way from the glib indifference of Tony Stark. This is a tortured character who swallows up otherwise charismatic leading men and, in the words of Stephen Metcalf, turns them "into inert hunks of titanium-carbon-fiber weave."

In a way, the Batman franchise's somber reboot offers a morning-after counterpoint to Superman's flag-waiving for the American Way. (In the hands of several of The Batman's better writers, not the least of which is Frank Miller, Batman was at odds with Superman for being a strongarmed facist.) If Batman is America, and The Joker is this unpredictable new enemy that we don't understand, the message of this post-9/11 movie seems to be You're Doing It Wrong.

If this is the case, then my message to Chris Nolan would be you're doing it right.

Yummy Pt.2

DOOK DOOK DOOK!

mmm, yummy!

HOORAY!

This post is in honor of the newly self-employed, His Holiness Baron Brownbottum.
CONGRATULATIONS!

The Horrors of Nerd-Prom

My buddy Lonny & I went to the NYC Comicon this weekend. We managed to get into a packed Q&A session with Grant Morrison, which was pretty great. Naturally, I took pictures of the costumed freakery for you people. Enjoy:

The panel discussion to use room E08 after the VERTIGO panel we sat in on was about
"Gothic Lolita" costumes. It's not nineteenth century Jon Benet-itus. It's called "Gothic." "Lolita."

Ray and Catwoman, together at last

You might be surprised how often The Batman has need of a mini-Maglite

Who doesn't need a really sweet steampunk pistol?

They managed to replicate in resin how our generation *remembers* Carrie Fischer

Adamantium skeleton and super-healing,
completely un-manned by a purple merch bag

No, I haven't seen any Bothan spies around here, please turn that thing off

Dr. Jones knows the difference between leprosy and really, really bad psoriasis

Somehow Lonny sensed the mortal danger he was in

Before the NYC Comicon, wearing skin-tight leather in public
usually was an indicator of your promiscuity. Within the
confines of the Javitt Center, skin-tight leather and promiscuity
enjoy no correlation whatsoever

Embiggen Your Wordability

This post is in honor of my friend Steve Broberg, who first turned me on to use of this word:

Despachos de Paraíso - Day 5

Monday, March 18, 2008

Thursday March 13
The Last Bitter Morsel

Suddenly it's Thursday, and we are leaving tomorrow. Our time here has been endless hardship, a blur of violent struggle. If they were to make a movie out of this ordeal, it would have to be called "True Grit." Our story would be known as "True Grit," and any other movie that happened to share the same name would be called "That Pussy Version with John Wayne, the Mincing Faery-boy." We have battled against drowsy-making weather, seductive ocean sounds, and impossible restaurant choices. Few have resisted the temptation of an after-breakfast nap for as many long minutes


as we have. Why, yesterday? We walked four kilometers before we called a taxi, and not all of it was in the shade. Would that drawling ponce John Wayne has lasted half as long? Few could credibly suggest it. And take today: we walked around the block twice in search of an elusive ice cream shop. Would John Wayne, that blue-suited Nancy, have so long endured on behalf of mint-chocolate? The answer can only be "No."

typical breakfast fare for Ticos is *sigh* rice and beans. but my baby
needs WAFFLES! Bread & Chocolate was our favorite breakfast joint

And so it is that tomorrow we will pack up our electronics, our lotions, and our many travel pillows. We will carefully stow our brownies and take leave of this raw outpost of humanity. And to our midnight chatterers, the kinkajous: we bid you adieu. We loved you more than was healthy for us.

Despachos de Paraíso - Day 3

Monday, March 18, 2008

Tuesday March 11
Greek Gods Will Shit on Your 401k

Carla is sleeping upstairs. I've had too much coffee, so I'm up with lappie and my TUC Radio (Time of Useful Consciousness) mp3's, which for me is like a glass of warm milk. Tonight I'm listening to Gray Brechin's conversation with Chalmers Johnson—and jungle sounds, naturally. In 2007 Johnson was stumping in support of his new book. I say "stumping," but really his footfalls were pretty soft. With a title like "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," he was pretty much relegated to coverage by channels like C-SPAN 12: Apocalyptic Book Reviews.

purty sky things over the Playa Negra

Nemesis is the greek goddess of revenge, the attacker of hubris & arrogance. She is classically portrayed as a bright young woman with a whip in one hand and a scale in the other, but Renaissance artists seemed to like her with a sword. The Greeks have, as only the Greeks can, given us the image of someone with a score to settle. She is often shown astride the wheel of fortune, or the head of some punk-ass who had it coming. Astride it, literally: she rode the Wheel of Fortune around like a unicycle. She wasn't some some fucking messenger-boy like that fruit Hermes, either. Nemesis was a high-class broad. Her sister was Eroto, the goddess of love poetry. See? High-class.

vengeful and patient: Nemesis waits for her moment

Chalmers contends that Nemesis is "in the house," that she is in-country, biding her time, waiting to attack those who have shown incredible hubris.

The essential argument of Johnson's book is this: History shows us that there is no more unstable configuration that the United States today — that is, an internal democracy and an external empire. You can do one, or you can do the other, but you can't do both. These two enterprises are fundamentally in conflict with each other. Examples he sites of civilizations that have attempted this are the Roman Republic (which is important to us because so many of our Constitutional provisions are adapted from the Romans) and former British empire.

orange explosions!

After the assassination of Julius Cesar and the rise of Octavian, the Roman experiment succumbed to military dictatorship and democracy did not return for at least a thousand years. In short: the Romans chose to keep their empire and in the process, lost their democracy.

On the other hand, the British had the question put to them pointedly by India. They realized that to keep the jewel in the crown of their empire, they would have to resort to administrative massacres, which in order to carry out, Britain would have had to transform herself into a tyranny. So the British chose to keep their democracy, and in so doing let go of their empire. Johnson suggests that this was relatively easy for the British to do, since the United States was waiting in the wings.

mrs sloth demurely presents us with her privates

That brings us to America. With a current total of 737 military bases in over 130 different countries, its almost impossible to deny that we have an external empire. And the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 notwithstanding, we have an internal democracy.

So Nemesis is in search of those who commit hubris. Stupidity, arrogance, things of that sort. Examples that Johnson offers which suggest that we are defying Nemesis to visit us with her whip: the Marine Corps spray-painting "Semper FI" onto the side of the ziggurat at Ur (and then guarding it with troops so that journalists could not photograph it), the destruction of the main gate at Nebuchadnezzer's palace, rolling tanks over tiles that were laid down by Alexander the Great, putting up two 10,000-foot runways next to the ziggurats at Ur, as well as a Burger King (the aroma of which is said to make our troops feel "more at home"). Not to mention Abu Grahaib, etc. These are the sort of things that will come back to haunt us.

pretty trees

Johnson suggests that there are only two possible outcomes for America: we lose our empire or we become a military dictatorship. What he considers to be the most likely is a financial whimper instead of a nuclear bang. "If you have a few thousand saved up, it's time to think about a down payment on that condo in Vancouver." Ha ha ha! Good times.

Despachos de Paraíso - Day 2

Monday, March 18, 2008

Monday March 10

Paradise: Noisy as Fuck-All

Sunday we both woke up in the middle of the night and could barely hear each other laughing. The din was somewhere between the decibel level of a noisy classroom and a jet engine. I no longer wonder what it would sound like if Jim Hensen was in charge of Mardi Gras. I will attempt to lay down the tracks for you:

Hola, Ban-yan

There are two constant sounds above and below everything else. To start with, there is the steady metallic ringing of the katydids. Imagine crickets with a cheap Peavey amp, except these crickets are made out of titanium. Then there is the surf, which sounds like 9/11 coming out of a seashell. We're at least half mile from the shore, but part-way up a large hill, so the ocean sound carries to us incredibly well. Call me sheltered, but all the oceans I've ever heard (17) have made gentle shushy sounds at night. The ocean here sounds like a 26-lane highway (not the reedy tenor of those elevated highways, either), punctuated by controlled demolitions under a gigantic woolen pancake.

A jutty-thing on the way to Punta Uva

Then there are about 600 kinds of intermittent shrieks, chirps, cackles, hoots, barks, beeps, howls, caws, rustles, thumps, crashes, and squawks from the various jungle creatures, which include but are not limited to dogs, geckos, frogs, all manner of insects

"Be-ware the White-Face Monkey!"

and birds, kinkajous, not to mention our "neighbors" — a camp of Nicaraguans who for some reason seem to extremely happy to no longer be in Nicaragua.

That's RIGHT, motherfuckers! Jesus was pure WHITE! And don't you forget it!

Despachos de Paraíso - Extra

Monday, March 18, 2008

The Mysterious 'Honey Bear'
(Or, "What the Hell is a Kinkajou?")

I've always found arboreal mammals to be fascinating, especially in the topics. I'm just an armchair critterologist, but my observation is this: it's not that there is necessarily so much for a mid-sized mammal to eat in the canopy, but it's a great place to not be eaten. So if you can learn a certain proficiency with the daytime trapeze, you can have your way with the fallen fruit & nut buffet at night.

Potos flavus: when you're really weird, you get your own genus

There are a lot of ways to describe the same naturally selective dynamics: "form follows function" is one. "The job makes the man" is another. In filling the arboreal niches, nature isn't choosy that you belong to any particular family. It doesn't matter if the applicant is a graduate of Primate U or the College of Applied Raccoonomics, after a couple thousand years on the job, successful candidates will inevitably take on a certain clingy look.

In 2006, Paris Hilton's pet Kinkajou "Baby Luv" did what
most alleged primates would do if given the chance (it bit her)

Kinkajous look like they would be a little out of place at almost any family reunion. I think their closest relatives are the raccoons, and since raccoons are already sort of a taxonomic "gay uncle," that is like saying your parents are part Gypsy and part Martian. If you put a monkey face on a raccoon and then injected 350 cc's of lemur, you're getting pretty close.

Despachos de Paraíso - Day 1

Monday, March 17, 2008

Sunday March 9

Every Guava Looks Ripe to the Short Man

Thanks, US Airways



There are too many things to describe. The fact that we are almost the last people we know to get here relieves me the burden of painting an accurate picture. Suffice it to say that Costa Rica is like paradise, sprinkled with as many Americans as paradise could sustain and still be paradise. When you walk around an area that is as competitively photosynthetic as Costa Rica, you wonder how it got that way. The truth is this: basically the Planet said to itself, "I wonder how much chlorophyll I can cram into a space the size of West Virginia." Another less-successful self-challenge the Planet tried was "I wonder how much coal and chewing tobacco I can cram into a space the size of West Virginia." (This of course, became known as what we call "West Virginia.")

Erich & Wendy's Jungle Lounge/Command Center


We're staying at Cashew Hill Lodge in Puerto Viejo on the southeast coast. We're on the Caribbean side, so there is more African influence. Even here, the souvenir footprint of Bob Marley can be seen, and jerk chicken. Cashew Hill is a gorgeous resort, run by a pair of ex-pat Americans named Erich and Wendy. There are only seven lodges, and we're in Kinkajou Lodge, which is undeniably the best lodge, because the kinkajous love to climb in the tree that is right outside our bedroom window.

Kinkajou Cabin

You = Thirsty!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Here is a recent freelance job I finished. Sprecher is in Glendale, WI where my high school buddy Tim lives & works. It's going to have Door County cherry juice (that lighthouse is the Cana Island lighthouse), and it may have real cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup! Top image is a comp of the bottle label and the bottom image is the side panel of a 4-pack carton.

He Came, He Spake

Monday, March 3, 2008

They say 'You Snooze You Lose,' well I guess I snost & lost. We had a viewing of the casa (more on that later) so I was only able to get there early enough to be one of the first 2,000 or so to not get in. (They say the RIC auditorium holds 5,000 and that there were 10,000 there.) I talked to a RIC prof who left early & said it was uncomfortably crowded and hot inside the auditorium. Sort of ironic because we were fucking freezing outside. Barack briefly did address the cold & wets before going in. Here are some pics of the crowd outside:

I Have Been Instantaneously Been Made To Feel Extremely Old

Friday, February 29, 2008

Not by MTV, by the @#$# supermarket!

I'm Mopping the Floor & It's Boring

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Okay, so one of the podcasts I religiously frequent is called the Slate Political Gabfest. It's put on every Friday by Slate Magazine, and it consists of the mocking curmudgeon David Plotz, the bubbly Emily Bazelon, and the wonkiest wonkmeister John Dickerson. The three of them make fun of each other, dish about politics as though it were a soap opera, and make fun of each other a little more. Somewhere in in the midst of their snorting they make more insightful commentary than you would hear in a hundred thousand years on planet tv-land.
So this weekend David made what I think is the most awesomest analogy about the state of the two party's nomination races.

On the Republican side you have John McCain, who is a child weathering the awful divorce of his parents three-way marriage. (presumably the neocons, the theocons, and the anti-tax crowd, although I call it a four-way marriage and name one of the co-spouses "single-issue xenophobes")

Meanwhile the Democrats have these two really hot girlfriends (or boyfriends) and they can't decide which one is hotter.

Open Letter to Jacob Weisberg

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Dear Mr. Weisberg

I wanted to take a moment to applaud you for your January 24 interview with Terri Gross. The Hater in me was thrilled at your article The Misunderestimated Man, which seems to have been the germ that grew into The Bush Tragedy. Deeper examination of President Bush's life has drawn you to surprisingly sympathetic conclusions.

In a political climate where the Democratic party is often characterized as complaining or being mindlessly "anti," your reasonable, even compassionate perspective is refreshing. Thank you for that. Not to sound high-minded or anything -- I am contemptuous of this presidency and its dogged supporters, I just feel that your tone plays better in the same arena where the phrase "blame game" can be coughed as a serious response to the pursuit of accountability.

I also wanted to make a comment regarding your remarks last summer as a member of the Summer "B" team on the Gabfest.

You said "the liberal and Democratic loathing of Karl Rove is almost completely explained by envy," and how "they go on and on about how terrible he is, how ruthless, how dishonest he is, what they are really saying is
'we want our own Karl Rove'."

I believe that you are correct when you name him most meticulous skillful tactictian of our political era. However, your comments step beyond your own astute political senses and into a realm of speculation regarding people that you appear to have little understanding of.

Managed microtargeting and segmenting the electorate and voter turnout is one aspect of Rove's tactical brilliance, and perhaps one that played the most important role in Bush's re-election campaign -- but it's not the legacy he will be remembered for. When you say "Rovian Tactics," what people think of is an argument that attempts to purport virtue as weakness. (or just shitty & deliberate deception.)

Certainly there are Democrats who have shown themselves to be perfectly willing to operate on this level, and I suppose the recent Clinton campaign attacks on Barack Obama are the best example of this. Perhaps I am being naive here, but I like to think that there is a sizable hunk of quietly chaffing progressives who believe in the principles of the Liberal Enlightenment, and also believe that distortion attacks are beneath these principles.

It's hard to argue that Rove has not had a tragic impact on our political discourse. While I do not desire for the Democrats to continue down this path, I just wish you had made a distinction between Democrats and Liberals.

Keep doing great work, Mr. Weisberg.

Best Regards,

Carl Mitsch



postscript

"Some equate Rove’s strategy of attacking opponents’ strengths to political genius. I equate it to a level of underhandedness never seen before in American politics. This strategy blindsided McCain during the primary race for the 2000 election when the Rove machine inferred that McCain’s POW experience left him mentally impaired and again in the 2004 election when Kerry’s heroism was swift boated. Let’s hope this strategy has outgrown its usefulness, for we can expect the Rove machine to attack the strengths of whoever wins the Democratic primary. You might think that impugning one’s presidential metal because of their race or gender is too politically incorrect not to back fire, but I bet that Rove doesn’t."

-Colin McEnroe

Eternally Cool

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

On Febr 11th Roman Candles were on eternallycool.net (link) so I guess that makes ME "eternally cool."
Right? Or is it just for that day?

They were ALSO on notcot.org (link). yay!

Ripplin' Thru The Blogosphere

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Roman Candles reviewed by Roadside Scholar. (link) Lots of nice comments!

daily blather

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

This evening NPR interviewed the guy who writes for a blog/forum called "Tech President." (link) It charts the (changing) use of techmology in presidential campaigns. Nifty little descriptions of viral marketing by supporters of Hillary & Obama: a thrilling mash-up of (gorgeous) celebrities sing-speaking in unison with Obama's post-New Hampshire "Yes We Can" speech (link), an MTV style interview with 'ex-band members' called "Hillary & The Band" (link), tella-novellas in spanish for Obama, ringtones, etc.

Interesting. What about the Republicans? Are they doing any of this kind of stuff?
(dude says)
"The Republicans are terrified by grassroots politics. They are rigidly clinging to a top-down model."

Just like the Ariens, clinging to the power-structure of their dying age. We're witnessing the first green chutes of Aquarius right now. Yay!

MEA CULPA

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

GAME TIME!

Sunday, January 13, 2008

So this article appeared in the most recent Wired (thx btw, Angelpie, I love it & just renewed) that had the coolest "8-bit" illustrations of famous musical acts. I haven't read the article yet, but we've had a lot of fun trying to identify the musicians based on their weensy little icons.

Let's see if we can get them all!
(click for larger image)



When you're ready to pool answers, here are the ones we think we know.

NSFW RadioLab episode

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/01

*FWUMP*

Friday, December 14, 2007

SAVAGE LOVE!!!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Carla is got a co-worker, Eleanor. Eleanor is got a father. Eleanor's father used to paint covers for romance novels. He had hundreds of them, and gave one to Carla's boss Paul, who was kind enough to loan it to us for the HGTV shoot. Direct from the bedroom wall, here is: "Savage Love." It's a bodice-rippa!

HGTV

Thursday, December 6, 2007

HGTV wanted to capture the grim struggle to survive in Providence. They wanted lives in the balance! They wanted Ortoleva drive.
Here are some pics of the shoot. They use these fill lights that are like the surface of the sun! I would have taken more, but I had my head in my ass!

How I Spent My...WEEK?

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Y'all are probably dying to know what the coarser half of Casa Del Gato has been doing lately. Right, just dying?

Replacing a pedestal sink...sounds easy enough. Lots of tools. Home Depot isn't far away. I have all my limbs, opposable thumbs, can follow directions reasonably well. The military code name for this endeavor, I learned afterward, is Operation: MOTHERFUCKER. Instead of "Private Benjamin," it was more like "Saving Private Ryan." It was total Saving Private Ryan. It's almost done now. Pictures soon.

BZANG!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

What's not pictured: shots of me weeping, wailing, & a dozen trips to Home Depot.
Before:

During:
Voila!

Sunday, Day of NOTREST: part 2

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Sunday, Day of NOTREST: part 1

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Building a Wall to Keep the Hate Out

Monday, October 22, 2007

2nd Shift crew cashed in around 9pm tonight. (lazy 2nd-shifters didn't start until at least 7pm) Here's the latest updates:
The new stone is on the bottom. The old stone (previously buried under the slope) is the top layer, which is very hard to see in the original picture. The drawn on version shows the new height of the wall better.