One of my favorite scenes...

...from one of my favorite films:

Later in the film:
Ferdinand: "I wonder what's keeping the cops. We should be in jail by now".
Marianne: "They're smart. They let people destroy themselves".

This film comes damn close to achieving the impossible; it is almost absolute cinematic perfection.

"Malamanteau"

"Today's xkcd comic introduced an unusual word — malamanteau — by giving its supposed definition on Wikipedia. The only trouble is that the word (as well as its supposed wiki-page) did not in fact exist. Naturally, much ado ensued at the supposed wiki-page, which was swiftly created in response to the comic. BBC America has more on how the comic and the confusion it caused have put the Net in a tizzy. It turns out that a malamanteau is a portmanteau of portmanteau and malapropism, but also a malapropism of portmanteau. All this puts Wikipedia in the confusing position of not allowing a page for an undefined word whose meaning is defined via the Wikipedia page for that word — and now I have to lie down for a moment."

Original post, with links intact: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/05/13/183221/Wikipedia-Is-Not-Amused-By-Entry-For-xkcd-Coined-Word?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Slashdot/slashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Brilliant! This is the kinda shit that makes my heart-cockles giggle.

Not only is it the sort of subversive use of a medium (forcing it to examine itself; define itself; defend itself) that the best underground newspapers or guerrilla artists challenge with, it's a perfect example of the magic & playfulness hidden within our bastard-child of a language.

www.xtranormal.com

My friend LaBrecque hipped me to this website called 'xtra normal' that lets you create little movies just by typing in text and adding a few effects. As they describe themselves:

"Make your own 3D movies in minutes. xtranormal offers a wide variety of characters, sets, and animations that you can easily add to any movie you create. Cast your actors, write your script, and share your movie with your friends and family. And the best part is, you don't need a huge budget or a film crew."

This then is my first little jab playing around with their software. It's a little clunky (the artificial voices need a little work), but for a free site it's kinda fun.

The word for word is word.

I love our language, always have. It's a hodge-podge (German) scramble (Old Norse) of various influences (Latin), but because of all that historical 'fresh blood' it's playful, mutable, and charming (French, from Latin) to me (Old High German ('me' is Old High German, I'm an Old Drunk American)).

This love is both caused by and cause for a lifetime love of books. Little jabs of ink on boiled-out wood; new worlds, new thoughts, new understandings. Plus, hell, sometimes the words on a page are just fun; reading is a good time.

However, there is the occasional literary eyepoke one must suffer when digging between the covers. Such as this, which may be the most disappointing sentence I've ever read that was actually published in a book:

Here, the atmosphere was saturated with an homogenized odor of frying clams, grilling frankfurters, and baking pizzas, which, emanating from a few short-order stands, was carried in visible suspension on a greasy smog that formed an essential oil for the saccharine smell of spun-sugar candy, and that was pulsated over the entire area by shock waves of electronically produced rock and roll coming from competing public-address bellows in the various arcades.

Strangely enough the same book contains a sentence that works (on me at least) like a small poem:

Someday it would be a road with speed limits, directional signs, and median markings, and would be buttressed by acres of dirt fill supporting gas stations with strings of flapping pennants and bedroom cabins with elfin porches, gaudy trim, and tiny windows into which the sweep of headlights would steal at night and whisk across the gleaming backs of lovers.

The argument can be made they are both poor sentences. Both are run-ons, both have far too many adjectives, both are intended to provide 'atmosphere' as opposed to advancing the plot.

The first sentence in particular is a perfect example. Way too long for what little it provides, and almost every noun in it is preceded by an adjective (frying clams, visible suspension, essential oil, competing bellows), giving the read a staccato, first-draft feel.

But I think the second sentence works for me for the same reason the first one doesn't; us. The first sentence is lacking any direct reference to a person. The clam is fried, the air is full of greasy rock music, the arcades are, er, various. But nobody's eating the frankfurters, shouting over the music, or filling the arcades. It's a human world without humans.

In the second sentence, tho, we get the sweep of headlights across the backs of lovers. That's the image that gets to me. Not the lovers, but the sweeping lights at night. The image is immediate, yet nostalgic. Long roadtrips, cool clean sheets, familiar yet alien motel room, and the second most beautiful sound humans can make; the soft riverlike susurration of a distant interstate. Magic.

I love our language, always have.

Futures from the past used today.

Track down this documentary "Future By Design" about social visionary/engineer Jacque Fresco:




Then go see the new "Iron Man 2" (it's good, trust me); somebody did their research for the Howard Stark (Tony Stark's father) character.

I swear he is a combo of Jacque Fresco's creativity, Howard Hughes' success (and war-profiteering), plus a dash of Walt Disney's 'charm'. Some of the designs (and by extension, certain plot-points (image at 1:16 in this trailer, I'm looking at you)) in "IM2" are almost exactly the same as Fresco's designs from 40 or 50 years ago.

BTW, I'll take my flying car & curvilinear home now, please.

Thank goodness for that healthcare overhall; now we can eat whatever we want, right?

Caffeinated Maple-Bacon Lollipops

"Behold Caffeinated Maple-Bacon Lollipops; look at them and cheer. For not only are they each a time-tested wonder of organic, sustainably farmed bacon mixed with a deluge of delicious Vermont maple syrup, but they are loaded with the same amount of caffeine as an energy drink!"

http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/candy/d85e/

Why I love Hollywood the same way you'd have to love a retarded puppy:

She pours heavy, in the know.

She pours heavy, in the know.

Leans on her side of the bar
same way I lean on mine.

Cornteeth and waxhair,
'Jenny' inked on her neck.
She should be circle-smoking a cigarette
instead of cudding on gum.

Sees me scratching on paper.
"No ma'am, I'm not"
another one of those

fucking
bar
poets.

But if I were
I'd write one for you.

Cat-baffling, Moog style.

Proof once more that everything sounds better in German: