Friday, September 30, 2011

We're all friends around here


Cushman Electric Truck

XTC, Apple Venus Volume One
Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
alva noto, summvrs
Wilco, The Whole Love
The Jayhawks, Mockingbird Time
Thee Headcoats Sect, Ready Sect Go!


  • I quite enjoy how Snapseed allowed me to lend that Cushman electric truck a buttery sheen. It's like a   Wayne Thiebauld/John Chamberlain collaboration The truck is up at Ragusa Automotive if you are interested. The guy saw me taking a photo through the fence of his lot and caught up with me two blocks down the street asking to make him an offer, so he's looking to deal.
       
  • The October 2011 issue of Country Roads might be one of the best issues ever, but perhaps I'm biased. I have pieces about how New Orleans drank its way through Prohibition and about the best donut shop kolaches in town.

    In that same issue, my friend Frank McMains has a story about chasing meteor showers. BTW, check out this amazing lightning shot on his blog. The guy can take a damn picture.

    Another friend, Sam Irwin, breaks down Le Tournoi, the annual jousting competition they have in the little town of Ville Platte, LA. Ruth Laney interviews Johnny Palazzotto, both friends, about blues musician Slim Harpo.

    And if my social/professional web wasn't tangled enough, my boss at the day job and his wife has a piece in the magazine about a little museum dedicated to vanished town.  We're all friends around here.

  • 10% into the library's OverDrive ebook (they do Kindle books now!(#excitedaboutthelibrary (#nerd))) of it, Ready Player One is spot on: not-too-distant future social dystopia where reality sucks so bad it is abandoned whenever possible for something between SecondLife and the Web that corporations are poised to ruin for everyone. AND, and, the framework of the action is both transparently and slyly modeled on Adventure for the Atari 2600. Hits me right where I lived, live and will live.
      
  • Here is a Flash version of Adventure designed by Scott Pehnke, just in case you need to kiss your day goodbye. All I need now is a pitcher of Kool-aid and this


    Check out the butter well! The lid to a Parkay tub snaps right onto that ridge at the top.

    and about two hours before my mom pulls in the driveway and my sister and I rush to the kitchen to make it seem like we were in the process of making dinner to feel that warm glow of adolescence.
        
  • OK, I did not know that chamber-glitch artist alva noto is also German sculptor Carsten Nicolai. I have been independently flattened by the work of both and now shattered by the combination.


    the experimental nature of carsten nicolai's work often results in his exhibitions seeming to be like scientific laboratories where various calculations and tests with partly open results are performed. from here.


    alva noto + Ruichi Sakamoto, "By This River"
      

2 comments:

  1. I read this edition of Country Roads at lunch. I know I've mentioned that I'm a fan of your writing at least a dozen times, so perhaps my praise seems meaningless at this point. However, I still want to mention that I loved your kolaches article. For some reason it was one of my favorites of yours. If I had to pick off the top of my head I'd put that Black Sabbath piece at #1 and this kolaches thing at #2. I especially loved the part about kolaches being like two devils whispering in our ear, and the final paragraph. JKW, V (Just Keep Writin'). JKW.

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  2. Praise is never meaningless! Thanks!

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