Post Titled: Last Roll in/from a now-dead camera...
HERE:

(for credits and rest of this post please see end of video.)

Post Titled: Baby Pug



Went to the pet store to buy some crickets, and saw a baby pug (above. no, really, above.) We all drooled over him for at least a half hour. So: Thanks to Elaine's Pet Depot on Wilshire for not telling me to stop filming, and being very cool...
After shopping on Montana- which must be the singularly most feminine street in the world- (no joke, after an hour of walking up and down the shop-lined street the only thing I was able to find of any interest was a baby book called "Counting with Wayne Thiebaud" - a brilliant book, I enter the store- err actually a baby boutique called "babystyle"- rather. A bit weirded-out. It is cutesy, posh-ish, the computers are down- the sales people are freaking out with phones stuck to their ears, & old ladies with LV purses are clucking their useless credit cards on the counter in silent fury,
and
I ask: "Ahhm, do you have the "Counting with Wayne Thiebaud" book?"
Sales lady: "Ahm... the...?"
Me: ""Counting with Wayne Thiebaud" book?"
Sales lady: "Ahm... the...?... accounting?"
Me: ""Counting with Wayne Thiebaud" it is in the front window."
Sales lady: "Ohhhh, all our books are here..." (gesturing to a wall behind the cash register counter. We go back and look together as she repeatedly asks what the title is... "AHm Counting with Wayne Thiebaud" I repeat... "Thiebaud... Thiebaud..." finally we find it and the computers are still down. I offer cash.
Sales lady: "Well, if you can pay with exact change."
A bit odd.
the book is $6.95, I only have a $10.
The woman at the other register recommends that her associate use a calculator to calculate the sales tax and change due. "Oh, duh, right calculator... novel idea..." she seems to think, and a few minutes later the transaction is completed, computer-free, meanwhile cardholders are still just standing, items already bagged, just fuming behind their Gucci sunglasses.

This is the second time that daffy high-end store workers have been foiled by downed computers since I've been here... it is a kind-of super-duper absurd Achilles heel.


The Girls (NK and my sister) are still shopping,I walk, walk, wander, find some juice, pass a movie shoot, guy giving autographs but I don't recongize him- unlike the awkwardness at Blockbuster Video the other night when the store was empty for about 15 minutes save for us and Adam Sandler as we all tried to find something worth watching. But it was hard to concentrate and find an effing video worth watching when Adam Sandler is right next to you also looking for an effing video worth watching. I started thinking about watching him as Opera Man as a kid with my dad on SNL and then thinking "Punch-Drunk love is great...." then thinking about his life, his career, his potential thoughts and feelings and how wierd it must be not to be able to just go to the video store in peace bcause a few minutes later a kid ran up and asked for an autograph. I thought about how is to hear his loud voice in real life; -not recorded.
Anyhow, we actually left Blockbuster empty-handed and just got Lauren's copy of KNOCKED UP out of the garage.

Saw Juno in the theatre. Really great film.

Post Titled: the United States of the United States
Jesi said that California is the United States of the United States
I only have a vaaaague idea of what that means exactly, but I love it nevertheless... then again, my brain is so overwhelmed it is a wonder I can still (even) read or write simple sentances.
Since being here in Los Angeles, NK and I have hopped all over town, now finally settling in for Christmas in Brentwood. Kids, animals, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, it is great- and warm enough outside to wear a t-shirt at all times and require sunglasses just ot be able to see.
To get out of the house I go on a lot of shopping excursions down on San Vincente, taking a dog or two on a walk to the huge magazine stand next to Whole Foods, or late night trips to Longs Drugs (ahhh, the beauty of the American Drugstore! Where else can I get dental floss, sotch tape, nail fungus killer, a rainbow assortment of finepoint Sharpies, The Neverending Story AND Goonies on DVD all at one place? The American 24 hour drugstore is definitely a perfect unintended little bi-product of capitalism.
On top of that we were standing behind Peter Gallagher ("Dr. Eyebrows" as I like to call him) in the checkout line, which was wierd because NK and I just watched Sex, Lies, and Videotape for the first time at Vern's two days ago. Regardless of the eyebrows, be is kindof a badass actor when you step back to think of all the things he's been in.
Every visit We always drive by the spot where Nicole Brown wsa killed, it is two blocks away... and hit up the Getty.

I finally found a bookstore this morning and bought a copy of that newest (2005) translation of Don Quixote which I have always wanted to read. Honestly, stepping into a large English-language bookstore after being in Berlin for so long kind of makes my head spin. I have the urge to run to the people who work there and say "tell me what to read, I am dumbfounded! I have forgotten the names of those authors I intended to come here and seek out! Help!" I could've done that at the independent bookshop today, those girls were goos- but Borders, forget it.


-Ok, back to the family tornado.

Post Titled: Brought the rain.

We are in California now, and it has been gray and rainy, which is nuts- I have never seen LA under such conditions. Ominous. Usually the weird chaos of the city is dispelled by the constant feelgood sun, but now, with the showers and wildoverall clouds it comes across as being a much more confused and sinister place.

Not really sure what to write about even, it is fun and confusion here, a clash of cultures in the mind all over again- except this time I was not in culture shock for three days (like on the last trip) no, this was a welcome break and recharge re-entry into the USA, I just wanted to wallow in americana- whatever that is. During the storm we did stay in and watch television, which was crap, except the Ellen DeGeneres show was quite entertaining... but all else was pure poop.

Post Titled:
the Internet and...

went to a big posh work event last night in the ballroom of one of the nicest hotels in town,
ridiculously surreal, especially since one second you are hunched over a computer crunching out
the content of the presentations, literally writing the words which will come out of people's
mouths all evening, still dressed in the jeans you have been wearing on and off for the past 3
weeks without washing
So, ja, this event is what we had been at work
until 2 and 3 AM all week putting together, not really making the connection between our
work and a real outcome, so I was pretty overwhelmed. Some of that perhaps had to do with my
complete and utter exhaustion.

A few things of note: there were 5-6 hundred people from all over the EU, dozens of accents
to process, dozens of aesthetics. That was interestic. If I may set aside my better judgement
for a second I would like to mention how otherworldly the Eastern European women can be.

in moments of extreme exhaustion I kept having misfirings in my brain, misunderstandsins, complete confusion, completely cut-off connection between understanding and reality, I think- such as:
Snowing like a Banshee
when it wasn't even cold, thoughts and words just sort of popped up out of nowhere.
towards the end of a particularly long day a co-worker said:
"I smell like a pub. No- no, I smell like a fast-food castle."

I go into Babel Fish to translate "Durchsetzungskraft" and the translation comes up as
"Penetration strength"
Oh, German.

U2, U1, U8
At midnight, when I got ont the U-bahn at Potsdamer Platz to head home, it was a strange ride. There I
am dressed very sharply (a rare occasion) an in come two guys in their late teens who sit across from me
and avery dirty homeless guy with a half-shaved half-dreadlocked head, beer in a sore-covered hand
and a fairly pleasant mood about him, sat next to me.
The teenager across from me said:
"Hey, can you rap?"
"Huh?.. Uhh.. mmm" ponders the beer drinking gentleman.
"Rap, you can rap- come on, freestyle-!" (the kid begins beatboxing)
Right away the homeless guy starts mumblingthis flow of descriptions which fits really well with the
beats, this goes on for about a minute as everyone nearby is just sort watching at this amazing and
bizarre performances- there is even applause at the end.

THe beatboser, who has crazy designs shaved into his head, is maybe of Turkish or middle-eastern decent,
He hops off the train, saying goodbye to his friend who is of even darker complection, with a wild
Rufiohawk, quite popular in Kreuzberg. I think I just coined that term, btw. (y'know- Rufio from hook?)).
When the train gets going again the homeless guy asks him
"Are you from Turkey?"
"No, india."
"oh..."
(long pause)
Homeless guy: "Is is true that youc an reach the truth through that zen stuff and whatnot?"
Kid: "Well. Yoga, ja. It is possible to come to an innder truth and peace-"
"REALLY?"
"Ah, ...ja." (kind of trying to stop the conversation with the bum at this point)
Homeless guy: "You know, that is real, that stuff, the feelings and the universe and the signals!
It is real!I was wanted by the police in Poland awhile back" (at this point everyone is kind of listening)
"and I had the feeling - the signal- that I
should definitely NOT leave the apertment, but the dog was howling and howling and then shitting inside
so I thouhgt- OK, I have to take the dog out- against my feeling, against the signal that said
'no, stay' but I took him out ant then- boom! Right there around the corner, the Police!!! So those
signals are real. (garble-mumble) maybe we don't trust them or pay attention to them anymore because
the internet and everything..." (makes helples gesture with hands)
My stop, Kotbusser Tor, I exit the train and the station smirking kind of euphorically with his
last words on repeat in my head "mit die internet und alles...die internet und alles...die internet und alles...

the problem with not having a computer at home anymore is that when I think of something I want to write here then I just have to scribble down a note on a piece of paper, and hope I remember to include it-
but I can see that turning into mass fragmentation here in ye olde blog.

Email to my father:

Subject: the internet and everyone

hey, before you leave the island can you get one of these and bring it
to LA?:

"John Chris Jones' The Internet and Everyone can be bought for £10 +p&p
by writing to tracey AT myshop DOT me DOT uk. i+e can also be ordered
through JCJ's website, which has a selection of reviews of this
pioneering book."

reply:

"Heigh -- this past Tuesday I flew Space A from Mildenhall to Dover, Delaware then on to Travis AFB, CA. I arrived in California Tuesday evening and I'm hoping to catch a ride to McChord tomorrow.

y-d"

so, hmm. someday I might get a copy of the internet adn everyone. thought it might be a good read whilst I am computer-less.- being computerless is kind of wonderful, though, it soprt of tears out the backbone of your daily routine, like one of those special moves in Mortal Kombat

Supreme Master Television... poster on U-Bahn

Post Titled: Problems.
Unlike a pet, when a computer dies you can't just go bury it at the base of some
beautiful old oak tree or even flush it down the toilet.
I just think "heavy metals!" adn all our dead computers shipped to China to be piled up
into a tech junk mountain boiled down for some fingernail clipping extract of a precious
metal.
So...my question is:
Is it better to bury your dead computer in your own backyard than to send it off
and have it go poison the ground/water in China?

On another note, life without computer is quite good. I take the time to flip through
junkmail, then graduate to full on reading and writing with a beer or glass of juice
for hours while listening to the BBC radio.
The only problem is that BBC radio is cyclical.

"Ban Ki-Moon said" dot dot dot
It is amazing to me that that guy is UN Secretary General, he just seems too weak.
Butros Butros and Kofi Annan I could respect, but - for example- BBC reports Ki-Moon's
outrage at the bombings in ALgeria, then a sound-bite comes in where he politely and
quietly says "This... is unacceptable." and that is outrage from the UN. Not ewxactly the
most effective figurehead. Lame. Or, literally, the perception of lame-ness, of power-essness
(jesus, I could keep this up and just go write phamplets for US Politicians/Government)

Post Titled: Alte Osten

Helen had a cool comment in Bremer Sprachblog
"Letzen Abend habe ich einen 60-jährigen tschechischen Kunstler aus Brno getroffen, der sagte: die Jungen können sich nicht vorstellen, nun kann ich mich selbst nicht vorstellen wie das war. Wir waren total isoliert. Mein Onkel war reich, er ging nach West. Wo war er? In Australien? Chile? Wir hatten keine Ahnung. Nach 20 Jahren, nach den politischen Veränderungen, haben wir entdeckt, er wohnte in einem österreichischen Dorf, etwa 60 Kilometer entfernt . . . In Rusland war es noch schlimmer, für 60, 70 Jahre waren sie isoliert . . .

Ich erinnerte mich an meinen tchechischen Lektor, Martin Machovec, der eine bedeutende Rolle bei der Samizdatveröffentlichung gespielt hatte. Sein Vater war Dissident. Als Martin 16 Jahre alt war, schlug ihm der Schulerektor vor: Siehe, Martin, du hast gar keine Chance bei der Universität, angesichts deines Vaters wird man dir keinen Platz geben, es ist Zeitverschwendung mit deiner Bildung fortzufahren, warum verbringst du nicht eine Lehrzeit bei einer Brauerei? Martin sagte, später ist Ginsberg nach Prag gekommen, der beklagte sich über die Zensur der amerikanischen Schriftsteller, das war etwa kömisch als die tschechische Schriftsteller ins Gefängnis geschickt wurden, gefoltert wurden, getötet wurden. Ich erinnerte mich auch an meinen alten Freund Julius Tomin, Philosoph, der verbotene Aristoteles-Seminare zuhause machte und deshalb ins Gefängnis geschickt wurde. Natürlich erinnerte mich auch an diese interessante Rede von Lessing.

Solche Häßlichkeiten sind sicher nicht vorbei. Das Fernsehen, die Computers, das Internet die Lessing so launisch machen, haben die machtlosen gegen einen Mugabe, einen Musharraf, einen Than Shwe so unglaublich geholfen, es ist kaum zu fassen, daß die angeblich verminderte Buchlesung unter den entwickelten Ländern einer angeblich größen Schrifstellerin den Schlaf rauben könnte."

Bremer Sprachblog seems like a great thing, now to only get past the laziness factor adn buckle-down to read it more often. I take for granted how easy it is to just be able to read without having to process each word and sentance.

Related: Frozen Academy

Post Titled: Super Ultimate New Denglisch Vocab word!
This morning I heard the word "gejpeged" used. As in: "to have had saved as a jpeg."
It completely blew my mind.

Post Titled: "Dissing" Mormonism on the McLaughlin Group

This is pretty intense.

There are many things that could be said about that... unfortunately I worked until 3am only to get a measly 4 hours of dead sleep then return so my brain is not qualified to comment.

Post Titled: Radio Morning, Part III
Don't sleep with BBC Radio on all night.
The story about the Canadian Serial-killing pig farmer was repeated at least a half-dozen tims, some of those half-dozen times in graphic detail about heads and feet in buckets and bags and bodies fed to pigs, jawbone remains found, bones found- 6 women, mostly prostitutes, found definitely, 20 more perhaps, or maybe even 56 total. h.o.r.r.o.r.
Then wierd world music. For hours. Sometimes good, sometimes not, but always strange.
Paul McCartney "Hope on Deliverance"

Paul McCartney makes an encore appearance in the Berliner Fenster (the television on the U-Bahn)
He will be perhaps spending the holiday with his ex-
uhm, why do I need to know that?
and why do I know that Dustin Hoffmann is obsessed with hardware stores?
(that was also in the Berliner Fenster recently)

2 new Denglish words I have learned over the weekend:
geshortlisted
gelunched

The opening at Premarts last night was nice but a bit slow-going, it was very cool that Amelia and Helen showed up on a cold dark rainy Sunday evening.
The funny thing about the show is that I wasn't trying for anything, I mean, these were just the collected "completed" drawings I have done in the last year or so... which is odd, these were drawings that were done and just sort of hanging out around the apartment.

In more bizarre news I might not be posting so often because my laptop computer killed itself. In the botttom right hand corner of the flip-up portion (just below the screen) a small superhot white spark developed inside and burnt through
the plastic. Fortunately I was at home when this happened- but I turned
it on this morning again and the hole, which looks like a hot nail has
been poked through- just kept smoking so I turned it off, computer is
still working, but the screen is completely dead, and if it is giving
off toxic smoke I can't exactly just hook it up to another monitor...
sad. and there is no reason- I mean, nothing that would've directly
caused this that I can think of. Seems like a old-age defect.

Maybe it is a good thing. A break. So I can get sucked into the radio instead.

Post Titled: Another Radio Morning
RadioalarmSUMMARYouch: Good morning-Rod Stewart playsd somthing obnoxious even though
somtimes I like himthen maybe some Barry WHite (at7:21am!!)woa-man, then you are going to
tell us that a woman was found this morning -a 24year old woman found dead
in ther apartment with her dead baby and then bodies were found in the trans and
yesterday morning it was a n 81-one year old man was runover by the streetcar and nobody is really sure why imagine living 81 years just to be runddown
by a streetcar and they say "nobody knows why"...

At Work: the Guardian review of Wu-Tang's 8 Diagrams
"Then Raekwon weighed in, He also... alleged financial irregularities. In fact, what he actually said was, "I'm getting beat like a ho," before embarking on a puzzling exploration of the ethics of theft - "don't rob me, because I never robbed anybody, or if I did rob anybody, it's because I thought they needed to get robbed""

Post Titled: Youtube Secret Talents Award Show Berlin

So, I competed with a video for the Youtube Secret Talents Award Show Berlin (that is youtube.de- the german youtube which has been recently launched) and I didn't win. In fact- I didn't make it anywhere near the top 44 which were celebrated tonight, (what do you expect, really, all I did in the video was cling in fetal position at the top of a doorframe while a confused dog watched-on) BUT I did win tickets to the award ceremony, which was surreal. It took place in the Cinestar-Kino (underground) movie theatre complex at/in the Sony Center in/at Potsdamer Platz- at first I went to the Cinemaxx and no one was there so I almost went home, but then redirected myself and boom- full on event.
Highlights were chatting with Tay Zonday, better known for his "Chocolate Rain" video - who is the most nice and normal guy you could meet- a PhD student in American Studies from Minnesota, and Chad Hurley, founder of YouTube, who was surprisingly in attendance -(guess that makes sense. I approached him sort of hesitantly -Like "hey, surreal party-"and we talked a bit, then he got dragged off for photo shoots, and we accidentally bumped into each other awhile later near another bar and it was sorta like "yo. free booze.", mainly chatted about Iceland and Russia- really nice guy. I mean, what do you say to the founder of Youtube anyhow? Except: "Go to Iceland, its awesome." and "Ya, that 'election' in Russia, hmmmmmm..." Ideally I would've liked to ask: "So, look what you've unleashed on the world- how do you feel about that, actually?" but he probably gets that all the time.
I mean, actually, yes- it IS definitely/truly/quite surreal seeing the people you are used to seeing on a tiny screen on your monitor suddenly there in real life. Not to mention that these are people who have become semi-famous just by being dorks on their own terms or particularly good at something- it certainly shakes-up the whole 15 minutes of fame principle...
I probably wrote about that early on in the blog - something like "the oddity of the ever-quickening of the human social impact footprint (if I had to give is a silly name) i.e. 100 years ago you could reach as many people as were in hearing distance or as many people whom you could write letters to as fast and often as you could write letters OR poster - which, I can imagine- was prohibitivly expensive- and (cliche´ deep thought of the day / drumroll ) NOW you can reach millions of people in a day, hour, or even minutes- practically from scratch, (ok, so you need a source of light, a camera, a computer, internet access and a Youtube acct. or blog or what have ye) so. ja. oddly enough this is there 15 minutes of fame can become a part-time career.
The awards Moderator, Sarah Kuttner, was cool, - although I was really secretly hoping for Katrin Bauerfeind (*sigh*) no, die Moderatorin was rad- she did cartwheels and summersaults, what more can you ask for?
Ok.
So, here is some footage from the award show itself:
Tay Zonday- "Chocolate Rain"

"So - uh what's the song about?"
"Well, it is kind-of about racism, but I don't like to be too preachy"
"ever read the short story "blood rain" by T.C. Boyle?..."
"Nope. I probably should've though..."
"Maybe. Drinking water?"
"Yep. Out of a glass bottle apparently..."(holding up an Evian bottle.)
"Yea, the bottles here are returnable adn reusable- or, they re-use them, refill them, cuts a whole step out of the recycling process- if you#ll notice they are worn around the sides...they just fill 'em up and slap new labels on."

YouTube-Gründer Chad Hurley Founder of Youtube being introduced:


Djangobeatz is badass


Opening mingling and Crazy football jugglers Verrueckte Fussball

Winner: xXxAnnaCoraleexXx (or Anna Cora Lee or Anna Coralee ?)for her sober cover of Amy Winehouse's Rehab


All winners onstage reallly short video:



shit, still gotta load Salatblattxxl, the crazy cup guys.

Post Titled: True correspondence this morning

From: Al Gore
To: Me
Subject: Stand with me in Bali.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

From: ME
To: Al Gore

Mr Gore,
I will be happy to stand with you in Bali if you buy me a plane ticket.

Conclusion: fuckit, Iäm not voting this election. Leave it to the dogs. What do I care, I#m in Berlin?

OTHER: Ripped from an ongoing online conversation regarding Facebook's Beacon eff-up:
"Q: What do the core group of users - teenagers and college kids - think? Do they care? Do they even know this is
happening? I haven't heard anything about that yet.

A: They're too busy tagging themselves and their friends in photos and sending hugs, pokes, and zombie attacks to each other to notice. "

aren't we all?---

Post Titled: Warning, no sleep blog day
Post Subtitled: there is no reason to read this post, it is just mopey-shite.
I got about 3 hours of sleep, not sure what caused the insomnia - but to try to burn it off i watched
more Peep Show, which, eventually got depressing into the 4th season- kinda like "the Office" gets depressing (or, is alwys depressing.)

perhaps I should go back to check out season 2.
Cheery this morning nevertheless.
Soo... I won tickets to a YouTube awards ceremony and afterparty... do I go?
If it were in the states it would be the lamest thing in the world, BUT since it
is here and most of the entrants were Turkish teenage couples singing love longs to one another.
)Like cheeeezy love songs, sometimes ones they
wrote themselves.)
It might be insanely brilliant. Perhaps I can collect bodies for the Xberg foto shoot as well.
Like ... I will have to post some of them... they cannot be described.
(OR FOUND- did they remove them?-)

Motivation... is an issue as of late. How does one stay motivated for life day after day?... I nearly called in sick to work today, but instead called in late- opting to lay in bed, stare at the ceiling, listen to bad radio and wonder why the hell I couldn't sleep... again. Maybe it is actually because NK is outta town and I am just not used to sleeping alone...
the radio personalities on Spree Radio in the morning ar awful human beings. First they impersonate Luka and Nina or some such people acting like idiots who supposedly just won €43 million in the lottery saying "Uhhhm, we're gonna buy some stuff."
Then they call a woman at home whose mother wrote in saying that this single mother had two kids one of them was sick with some inoperable sickness so they (the Radio show) calls to tell them that they are sending them all to an amusement part for 2 days and the woman starts crying then they play the most god-awful christmas music.. carnie wilson... somthing about Santa bringing a girlfriend or boyfriend back. If I keep listening to Spree radio I will surely spiral into a pit of misanthropic tar, followed by a light shower or feathers... but you can't program this radio... I guess BBC is better, or NPR, or whatever...

I dreamt of a very trashy Yugoslavian beachfront trailer park community where i was living...

Post Titled: PEEP SHOW
as mentioned - new favorite thing

Post Titled: Art Show at Premarts Dec.9, 2007
boobs and starfighters...yep. that is where I'm at at the moment.
NOTE: Whoa!!!, this looks like shit, the colors got perverted somehow, if you can imagine the skin is whitegirl-tone and the pants are cobalt blue then that would be accurate (I'll try to fix it soon):


this is the first show I've done using my real name, but it was more of a mistake than anything...

Post Titled: Dreams you have after watching Crimes and Misdemeanors.

I was up, showered, re-edited the ongoing note between me and my temporary Czech roomate, Radek (sooo many things lost in translation!) then was out the door adn on the U-Bahn and all is and was well.
Not grumpy faced ("poop-faced") like the other travelellers today and I thought:
"Stop struggling. Stop. Just stop. There are plenty of sights and silly news and
beautiful girls and interesting old men with hats and beards to observe- then
Awh. ok." I have an orange, err. Clementime in my pocket.

I watched Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors again last night (since first watching it as a freshman in college) - that film is horribly depressing. Really.

Accidentally stumbled upon a British series called Peep Show on Google Video... Hilarrrious. Addictive. (I#ll activate that link when I#m NOT at work).

Post Titled: Offensism
Prime example of what I have come to call a typical (unwitting) European offensism or offensivism: "the exhibition was to bring a whole new concept of cultural and entertainment event to Lisbon, the city capital of a somewhat conservative and very illiterate country."
I come across this stuff constantly while proofreading at work... I could also call it a blunt/brutal Germanism I suppose...

NOTE: Author and friend Steve Mandich has been added to the blogroll. I thought he might've been added long ago, but apparently not. Politics.

Steve wrote "EVEL INCARNATE : THE Life and Legend of Evel Knievel" and also has a cool BLOG
I noticed a lot of mislellings of Evel as "Evil" in the internet recently... even in wikinazipedia, I believe.

Post Titled: the Guardian roundup of wierdness
"Astronauts test sex in space", Morrissey with regards to recent NME interview: "I believe they have deliberately tried to characterise me as a racist in a recent interview I gave them in order to boost their dwindling circulation." & "Sperm donor to lesbian couple forced to pay child support"

Post Titled: a break from the madness.
２足立ち

動画で初めて、２足立ちするこまの撮影に成功しました。
ちょっと短いですが、猫じゃらしの鈴の音に合わせて「気を付け～！」をする姿が笑えま す♪



Office banter while reading online news:
"Hmm, says here that Chimps beat people in memory tests..."
"Well, chimps don't exactly have to worry about bills or making coffee or getting to work on time... "
"We should just get them to find authors for the magazine. 'Stay on-task, Bubbles!'"

Post Titled: CLONE IT!
from WIRED: "Rare Mummified Dinosaur Unearthed: Contains Skin, and Maybe Organs, Muscle"
"When I first saw it in the field, (I thought) 'Shiiiit, that's a really well preserved dinosaur.'"
-Phil Manning, paleontologist, University of Manchester

This Post Is Titled:
A."Old GUy at the Club" vs. hundreds of girls age 17-21 shaking their asses
B.Loch Yess Monster
C.Necessary Sign Languages
D.Radio Alarm
F.Robots in Disquise
6.Berlin Alexanderplatz
7.Coffee, talk, coffee, beer, talk, fear of China
8.
9.DISCLAIMER: This is a Self-absorbed post you can probably skip...

"I just have That Tracy Chapman song running in my head"
"Which one? Fast Car"
"Yea, that's probably it- the one about being a checkout girl or whatever then driving away. romantic."
"You should probably think about changing the radio alarm- or not using it..."
"But yesterday I hear that Lionel Ritchie song 'and now I know what made Otis blue'- I had that song stuck in my head in the 3rd grade for like a year- and now I finally got it! -like, Otis Redding! Listening to Spree radio "The Best Music of All TIme" is great, all the songs from my childhood that I can actually understand the references and emotions of now... like, 'we don't need another hero, we don't need to know the way home, abdhahdah hbad-hbadadadad all we want is life beyond the Thunderdome..."
It's educational in a way.
More stupid useless facts.
Facts which turn into banter.
"She was engaged to Goldie. Late 90s I think?..Yea, her son goes to Columbia... ja, the Sugarcubes started the day he was born."
or
"No, Herzog lives in LA. His wife is hot. Think she's like some 25-year old Russian."
or
"Huh?"
or
"Wait... what?"
or
"No, 'elect-TROMA' - troma like Troma pictures- but Daft Punk didn't do the soundtrack..."
or
"It's like Chris Rock says, 'you donät wanna be the Old Guy at the club, that why you gotta get married.'"
or
"No, their campaiging to do away with the '.co.uk'"
or
"well- maybe the terrorist hype is completely unfounded, like- it has been completely inflated"
or
"Feminisim just seems like another 'ism', but Consumerism seems like it could be the one true religion..."

Banter, things of interest, things we have come across. information about our demigods and thier activities. information about our own slapped-together identities which are just a smattering of interests. dueling with knowledge. deuling with all these millions of little facts. nihilism-? but fascinating.

I had a very atypical weekend (for me anyhow) -went out with my friend Dave, visiting from Czech and his friend Cory, aka DJ People's Champion, essentially, this was more social interaction that I had had in months- but now monday morning I am a super-zombie.
All I really did from Friday evening until 6:30 am Sunday morning was talk, drink some sort of beverage, talk, dance a bit, move on to another location, talk, drink, crash and sleep for a few hours, repeat. Mostly in Prenzlauerberg I could do this sort of thing easily in my late teens and early 20s, but now it takes a lot more effort and a lot more out of me.
OTHER:
kao kao in prenzlauerberg +++ apartment has t-shirts for €65 +++ kiss me i'm electic at magnet was wierd but full of beautiful girls and decent music +++ 103 club was boring but a great social study & the bartenter is cool +++ the glass are good guys and good live...

Post Titled:
Famous Last Words and/or Videos
One of the strangities of death these days is the social media path which is left behind. A young man named Carl Nelson at my sister's (and my former) University, Seattle U., just committed suicide, which, at age 20, I can only imagine it must be an awful shock to family, friends and the SU community, (it being a fairly small school where the students and professors are all quite closely linked.)
Before he passed away he uploaded this video he made to YouTube:

his other videos are very simple, clever funny and lovely as well... SEE HERE.
Before the dawn of social media, if someone were to unexpectedly pass away then there was a good chance that the public or even friends and family who weren't too close to the person wouldn't really know much about them and thier life/thoughts/interests unless they kept extensive journals and wrote a lot of letters. I have known a half dozen or so young people who died between 1992-1999 and all I have are memories- nothing even turns up (or hardly anything) in a Google search regarding their life or death. But now, if I read about someone in the news I can search for their Facebook or Myspace or Youtube or flickr account and actually get a sense of who this person is or was... at least much more of a sense than was ever available before. So strange that in these small digital ways we are able to be somewhat immortalized...
Post Part: The SecondEVEL.
another unrelated but slightly related recent happening:
1.I get an email from KW (Kunst Werk) about an Evel Knievel - lead workshop here in Berlin on the 8th of Dec, I respond immediately to reserve one of the 25 spots available. Awesome, right?
2.I contact Whitehot Magazine to let them know I would like to write an article about this.
3.I forward the message to a few friends in town, but before the end of the day, Evil Knievel is pronounced dead at age 69.

Here was the KW email:

"EVIL KNIEVEL: THINK POSITIVE / POSTGRADUATE ME
Part III: JIMMY CARTER
AN OFFER IN FURTHER EDUCATION, 2007

Saturday, December 8, 11 am
Meeting point: Yard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststr. 69, 10117 Berlin

Registration necessary!

KW Institute for Contemporary Art is proud to announce the taking place of one of Evil Knievel’s workshops “Think Positive / Postgraduate Me” as part of the exhibition History Will Repeat Itself of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. This exhibition is a cooperation with Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund.

In a workshop especially conceived for the exhibition, Evil Knievel will deal on Saturday, December 8, 2007 with a specific aspect of contemporary motivational strategies. “Goal setting through re-enactment” – as the American catchphrase implies – serves as a guideline for his appearance. As a special form of re-enactment that is not only practised in American schools and the U.S. Army, Evil Knievel presents a central technique of self-motivation, which was equally crucial for his own career: to identify with a successful idol.
“For identification with a successful model can be an important factor in someone breaking out of the confines of their inferiority complexes and fear of failure, which cause them to remain in an enduring negative state of mind. A successful technique for improving your world is identification with a symbol that is an inspiration to make the right decisions.”

Knievel’s workshop “Think Positive / Postgraduate Me” will focus on the former US president Jimmy Carter (*1924) who tried not only to reform before and during his presidency his life after the model of a Puritan pilgrimage, but who thought to be in this the very model for the reawakening of the American nation. By re-enacting Carter’s auto-suggestions and by becoming an auto-suggestive model himself, Knievel will discuss the meaning of re-enactment for the American success philosophy. At the same time, Evil Knievel invites the public to experience the values of a positive mental attitude, the use of visualizing for designing one's own life, to experience the courage to a change one’s life.

Saturday, December 8, 2007, 11 am
Workshop with Evil Knievel:
Think Positive / Postgraduate Me
Part III: Jimmy Carter

Meeting point: Yard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststr. 69, 10117 Berlin
Max. 25 participants, registration deadline until December 6, 2007,
Participation fee: 8 €
he participants are kindly asked to bring bathing suit or trunks, a towel and a second set of plain white clothes.

Evil Knievel
*1973 Butte, MT; exhibitions and performances a.o. “History Will Repeat Itself”, Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2007-2008); “Super A”, Kunstverein, Langenhagen (2006); “More is not enough”, Revolver, Frankfurt am Main (2006); “Teasing Minds”, Kunstverein, Munich (2004), “Brand New”, Hoxton Distillery, London (2004); “Einblicke”, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2003).

History Will Repeat Itself – Strategies of re-enactment in contemporary art
Dates: November 18, 2007 – January 13, 2008
Opening hours: Tue – Sun noon – 7 pm, Thu noon – 9 pm

The exhibition History Will Repeat Itself is mainly funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes / German Federal Cultural Foundation.

KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
D-10117 Berlin
Phone 0049 [30] 2434 59 0
Fax 0049 [30] 2434 59 99
www.kw-berlin.de"

Three Days Later... KW sends out an email saying that they have decided to cancel the workshop, to which my brain literally responded "Yea-?, no shit, sherlock."