stop counterculturalism now

Why do I still love conversations so much?

2008-12-13T17:40:00.001-06:00

"Austin has places all over the place...

I can show you places...

Places are not hard to find."

2008-12-09T15:08:00.002-06:00

The Words are already on the page, what's missing is the ink.
All the white messy space, spanning from the crisp, bleached corners...
Create an indelible imprint of your being, do not go silently into the dark.
The flicker of light behind your eyes should be read by someone again...
No matter what came before.

No one transcends. We are all free.

2008-12-09T14:46:00.001-06:00

"Your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark."

2008-10-21T17:10:00.000-05:00

integrity, honesty, vigor, vitality, and love

2008-10-06T13:29:00.001-05:00

It is simple for some.

Stuff White People Like, Graduate School

2008-09-30T11:36:00.000-05:00

More true than I am comfortable with:

Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week!

(link)

love film, in short

2008-09-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

if you are not. if this isn't. then you have to.

your mind is an adventure, not an adversary

2008-09-23T11:17:00.002-05:00

water

forest air and dirt

your skin

your hands

the people you wear out
and your sandal skirts
the hole in the ground
sifting and shifting
again, spun wildly, liquidly
the watchers and watching
for a modernized nostalgia
the children, and mania
and infinality
of paradise

2008-09-14T23:43:00.001-05:00

connect connect
to your sad face
against which
with whiskers and whys
I return, mindlessly
on willowed edges
and saintly decor

2008-09-08T23:49:00.001-05:00

"Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls."
Rumi

2008-08-22T18:05:00.000-05:00

“Poetry is, I think, the highest medium that mankind has ever come up with,” he asserted in a 1981 interview. “It’s language itself, which is a miraculous medium which makes everything else that man has ever done possible.”

James Dickey | Poets.org via Reckon

This Week in Olympic Culture - Scandal Edition

2008-08-12T10:33:00.001-05:00

Since the faking of some Olympic opening ceremony fireworks is old news, another great scandal has luckily arrived to make my work day more interesting.

Here is the set up.

Setting: Olympic opening ceremony singing of "Ode to the Motherland", to be sung by an elementary school aged girl

Plot and conflict: "Under pressure from the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party to find the perfect face and voice, the ceremony's musical director concluded that the only solution was to use two girls instead of one. Miaoke, a third-grader, was judged cute and appealing but "not suitable" as a singer.

Hilarity ensues, and one must assume, shame on the family of the less attractive, but better singing, girl. It's hard to be 7 years old in the Motherland.

2008-08-07T15:15:00.001-05:00

I set up ping.fm so I can microblog and status update all over the place, but it seems now I have nothing to say

Hipsters

2008-08-05T10:34:00.001-05:00

Hipsterdom is the first "counterculture" to be born under the advertising industry's microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group - using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

Link to Adbusters article, a good read on the ins-and-outs of the counterculture of hipsters with their one-gear bikes and legwarmers or what-nots.

2008-07-20T23:16:00.002-05:00

Why does the wind rustle instead of something else?

The color of glass on my tongue.

And frustrations.

2008-07-11T18:51:00.002-05:00

Oncologists only talk to advanced cancer patients 37% of the time about the "end-of-life." I think that is so sad, that our society is so pro-life and death-phobic that doctors neglect to discuss such an important event humanely with their patients. I first heard about this on the News Hour on PBS but it's gotten more play in the press recently, which I think is so important.

I hope the NIMH study on whether physicians discuss end-of-life issues gets a lot more press and sparks a greater discussion in American households.

family, fun, & fireworks... how American

2008-07-09T11:27:00.002-05:00

Photos from my family trip to Grand Lake for the 4th of July (see also the Flickr Slideshow).

2008-07-09T10:46:00.002-05:00

I want to share here a touching post about writing that a supervisor of mine wrote, I stubled upon it when searching for her email address.

brent.soup.io

2008-06-25T11:38:00.003-05:00

To save you time, and to waste more of mine online, I have now out-nerded myself. I now have a fully operational life stream, tumbleblog, and procrastination machine.

Phrase of the Day: Nuke the Fridge

2008-06-25T10:37:00.003-05:00

Nuke the Fridge

Sample usage: "Man, when Peter Parker started doing the emo dance in Spider-Man 3, that franchise officially nuked the fridge."

Everyone start using it so it'll become even more annoying and we can go back to using Jump the Shark, like the good ol' days

Girl Talk

2008-06-23T19:50:00.003-05:00

Girl Talk is on top of his mashup game... mashing up Radiohead, Sinead O'Connor, the Police and the like (I can't list the rappers because I can't keep 'em separate these days). The new album, Feed the Animals, has leaked onto the interwebs, and you can stream it legally on Myspace. Read the Pitchfork interview for details.

Le Sigh

2008-06-23T15:12:00.002-05:00

So, I didn't get the internship I interviewed for last week (again). I always get my hopes up because it always seems so... close, like it's in my hands but then it slips away. This quote made me feel better temporarily, George Carlin on too many colored ribbons: "Red for AIDS, pink for breast cancer. I've got a brown one. It stands for eat shit motherfucker!"

RIP, George Carlin

Tag Galaxy

2008-06-20T16:03:00.003-05:00

Here is a fun way to browse the universe of flickr photos. And here is a fun way to use your friends Flickr or Facebook photos as your desktop wallpaper.

Quote of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt Edition

2008-06-12T10:14:00.002-05:00

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have, for as long as possible.

Teddy Roosevelt (see right) said that. Although he was a racist (see right), he was fine orator. He also preferred to be called "The Colonel" after retiring from his position in the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. Later, as president, he asked Congress in December 1901 to curb the power of trusts/monopolies "within reasonable limits." His Congress "did not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits against major corporations." He did things 'imself.

hPDA / work update

2008-06-10T10:23:00.004-05:00

hPDA: I needed to look up what Workflow referred to... You know, for work. So I spent a little time on Wikipedia. Thankfully, I came across an important personal organizing tool for those overwhelmed psychologically by the current trend of using "computers" to stay organized: the Hipster PDA.

Work update: I am beginning to understand the meaning of the phrase, "A camel is a horse designed by committee." And Dilbert and Office Space are now amusing in new ways. I'm frightened of what else may be coming...