Some Words

I spent time trying to come up with a better title, honest.

After I read The Abyss by Margguerite Yourcenar, I went out and bought Memoirs of Hadrian immediately.

I started reading it a little while ago, and while they are very different books, there is one link between the two which struck me. Yourcenar seems to have been facinated by the way we convert food into energy and flesh. These two characters each have moments when they contemplate the way the body converts food. They come from very different eras of society and learning. Hadrian, by luck of time and fate, is in a much better position than Zeno, though both will die at around the same age. It may be nothing, but because I am reading the books about a month apart I can’t help but conflate the two passages. These two men are close to death, but while one wonders at the the magic of food being converted into human flesh, the other decides that eating is not worth it, as he will not have a chance to convert that food. It is the success of Hadrian’s life that seems to afford him this luxury. Zeno, while he has survived, has not been given the luxury of success that Hadrian has. In many ways, they are the same man. In one time the world was able to accept him, in another it was not. I may come back to that, but I’m at work right now, and am thus on someone else’s dime.

In other news:

Yesterday there was a great post at The Valve about Grendel’s glove.

I was looking at t-shirts over at Threadless only to see that Matt from Anathallo was in one of the pictures from the latest batch of shirts. It’s the Mob Band t-shirt, and Matt is one of the few members of Anathallo who doesn’t play a horn. Just a weird little moment.

The girl and I went to a party last night. We got there to discover that most of the people there were from class of ’06 or thereabouts. We then proceeded to feel very old. Then I remembered that I had gone to school with these people for a year, and it was all better. The highlight was running into an old friend Jake, who I’d done some theater with. Jake, I have decided, has the best laugh ever.

So after I spent a lot of last night being nostalgic about college, see also my lost years, I found this three day old post by Lore. It in turn reminded me of the guy I went to school with who would get stoned and then become convinced that he was the Buddha.

Good times.

Anyhow Shea has finished his degree with an installation called, I think, John Smith: Hermit 1867-1899 (a mass of dusty things whose use it was impossible to guess), which I thought looked pretty cool. But it was two other pieces that caught my eye. The first was a really old sequence of self portraits that he did. Hopefully I’ll get to that in a later post though, as it now relates to something I’m doing. The second was called, Bob Ross, after the painter of the same name. On the site Shea has a video of himself, and several others, painting along to one of Bob’s old shows. For some reason this tiny video was beautifully hypnotic. Damn you Shea. I will never get that time back. My hat is off to you.

Since I took a little pot shot at Wikipedia, which I do like quite a bit, in my last post, I thought I’d link this little tidbit from The Valve. It’s an excerpt from The Onion, but is the Valve saying that someone changed it after the onion? I should check on that.

Edit: Sadly no. It looks like the Onion article was just being pointed out. After the incident of the blogger mistaking the Pro-Choice Onion article, I had hoped that someone had edited Wikipedia to match the The Onion. Yet again my dreams die on the vine, as I am too lazy to water them.

I honestly can’t tell if the video is parody or not, but Ragamuffin Soul found a video of a man trying to slapdown atheism by pretending there is no concept of natural selection. I suppose evolution would make less sense if it lacked its core concept.

Apart from being a generally nice guy, Carlos Whittaker, author of Ragamuffin Soul, seems to have also started a little thing called CAPS or Christians Against Pat Speaking. This is one of the best things for interfaith relations I’ve seen in a while. My hat is off to you Carlos.

This strip over at Dinosaur Comics made me laugh out loud. I am a firm believer in the theory that reading DC outloud in an exagerated 90s surfer dude voice improves it immeasurably.

The NYT has an article about a a scholar who may have gotten too close to Scholars for 9/11 Truth. As I read the article I found myself reminded of “The Department of Hitler Studies” in Delillo’s White Noise. It’s not a direct relation, but several of the people I work with are big believers in the version of 9/11 that the Scholars endorse. I often get to hear about how there are x number of professors who endorse it. A lot of those academics are in fields of study that have nothing to with engineering, or anything that would give them insight into the towers coming down. Could a Dept of Conspiracy Study have a future? I’d have taken classes from one. It would have been entertaining.

I have, on and off, been thinking of changing the name of this site from Artless. When I first created it, I thought that I would only be posting random drivel with no consistency. Artless seemed a sensible enough name for that. Every time I post, and especially every time I bother to edit a post, I feel that the title becomes a little more arch. I don’t really like that, but then, I don’t really have a better name.

Ah, and over at Kos four days ago there was This one in particular. Hmmm…. Yeah…

Oh, and Bitch Ph.D. is making a good point about how Jews, myself included, can have a hair trigger about anti-Semitism. The whole Jewish/Israeli equation is messed up too. I seldom agree with the actions of the Iraeli government, but we, the Jews, have put a few too many eggs in the Israel basket.

There’s crazy stuff going on at work and I’m trying to get some moving done. I don’t know what made me pick up a bunch of overtime just before moving, but I don’t have a day off until the 29th.

Here’s a few things I’ll toss off before going to write some stuff:

This link from is about genius and the supernatural.

Here we find Jonathan Chait of The New Republic at the start of what may be a long and painful rehabilitation.

Gizmodo informs me that Grado has released an iPod themed headphone set that looks just as uncomfortable and ugly as all their others. But the question is, at a $50 price point will they be as big a steal as the three cheapest headphones in the SR series? I’m wearing some SRs right now. The sound is amazing, after you get used to the way the metal crushes your ears a bit.

And then yesterday I read this post at Crooked Timber which made me feel a little better about the fact that I haven’t… I don’t know… Set the world of books on its ear? Not gonna happen, but there’s nothing wrong in getting a little stuff published and feeling good about that.

Which brings me to the point that I need to write if I’m ever going to accomplish even that modest goal. Now I’m go to do just that.

My attempts to get stuff done are being slowed by the enormous number of things to read about. Damn my eyes.

First off lets have a look at the Plame civil suit. In an article from the NYT Cheny’s spokeswoman says: “The allegations are without merit. We may comment further when we have an opportunity to review the complaint.” So wait. I know you get the gist. It’s a simple suit. But don’t you think you might want to know the details before saying there is no merit? Too bad for Cheny. Civil suits have that lower burden of proof thing going.

Another NYT article about Israel and Lebanon. This just breaks my heart. I’m not really sure what to say, but the fact that all of this stems from one captured soldier… I really think a more measured response might have been in order. I mean, every life is important, but if you won’t negotiate with terrorists you’re low on options. Going to war with a neighboring country doesn’t seem like a logical spin off. That’s simplifying things. But this went from one man to tanks real fucking fast. It’s degenerated into a a straight up pissing contest. From the article: “The Israelis want to restore their military credibility with the Palestinian militants and the Hamas government in Gaza and with Hezbollah, and say they intend to make the current campaign painful for both sets of antagonists.”

Though I disagree with him on many things, Jonathan Chait makes a point.

Also, two more hits from TNR’s blog. This laundry list of depressing events. Then, just to end on an up note: Orgasms!

Via the good folks at TreeHugger I see that Britain has an interesting plan for future energy regulations. In the comments people point out some flaws with the potential ban. Will people shut things off properly if there is not sleep mode? A lot of them probably will. Some won’t. I also know some people who don’t pay for their head and like to leave a window open in winter. So, yeah, call me cynical, but I think there will be issues with implementation.

I really like Boy on a Stick and Slither, and Steven Cloud’s take on things. That being said, this one made me laugh out loud today.

Also, the middle one of these usb keys may set the new standard for almost useless things that I nevertheless need.

And while I’m at it we have:

Modern Merit Badges for the boy scout in you. Fun fact, the Boy Scouts are the only American institution that has had a word bequeathed to it by Congress. The word is ‘Scout’ which in theory only the Boy Scouts can use. They once tried to sue the Girl Scouts over it, but the Girl Scouts won because they predated the BS. In the court case the lawyer for the Girl Scouts shoved thin mints down the throat of the Boy Scouts legal rep. He was heard to shout, “eat a fucking cookie manbitch!”

A coffee table made of actual coffee. Do I need a coaster?

And another one from Treehugger about water and Germans, in Israel! And here I want to make a joke about a musical “Aqua Krauts in Israel.” I just looked up Kraut though and realized it was derogatory. So I guess I’m still making the joke, but in a half assed apologetic way.

Plus: What the fuck is Shea doing with all that twine?