Just Letters: a Flash game that, as Ben said when he linked it, is “like the Internet in microcosm.” It’s difficult to get anything actually spelled out; it’s easiest to find the letters you need to steal in other people’s words, and vice versa. There’s a paper to be written in there about systems and recombinant entropy. Or maybe about memes. I couldn’t finish XORPH DOT COM or NOT ENOUGH VOWELS, but when I started sorting letters by color I had a dozen people helping me within ten seconds.
Category: People
Earlier entry explained
Almost my entire extended family on my mom’s side–the Dixons & Company–went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival as a crew of pirates, in full costume and character. There were forty-one of us. Some of the grownups started drinking at nine in the morning. The Dixons don’t actually drink very often, but when we do we are Catholic about it.
They knew we were coming, but I don’t think they were quite prepared.
There was a lot of shouting and ARRing and attempting to sing shanties to which we had managed to learn about one line each. The first of many attempts to break into song came as we crossed under the portcullis to enter the festival proper, and it went like this:
“Well the ship set sail with a lusty crew
ROLL, ME HEARTIES, ROLL
The hmm a grr and rum da dum
ROLL, ME HEARTIES, ROLL
And they all got something mumble barnacles
ROLL, ME HEARTIES, ROLL
ROLL, ME HEARTIES, ROLL
What’s the one about the cabin boy? Let’s sing that one.”
I am not kidding when I say costume and character, either. We all had handmade outfits courtesy of my aunt Lea and my cousin Jerusha, plus jewelry, flintlocks and cutlasses. Sneakers were not permitted. We were the crew and wench-brigade of the Slime Dragon, under command of Cap’n–no, Adm’ral!–Lice. When Queen Elizabeth I made a personal visit that afternoon, she was quite impressed with our display of fealty.
There were vague-but-fervent plots of mutiny and assassination all day, but–just like with real pirates–it’s tough to stay on track with drunk ringleaders. It was like the world’s least-organized LARP. I just tried to keep afresh of the prevailing wind, and I gave some money to the poor stage juggler after he endured a good deal of the crew yelling that wasn’t handling enough blades.
It should be noted that this was not a spontaneous occurrence. In addition to an extraordinary amount of planning and effort by my uncle Jeff’s family, we have a shared pirate-story canon as documented by multiple home movies dating back to the late Sixties. Though those scurvy dogs were also led by a Cap’n Lice, yesterday’s crew was missing several key members and had gained a number of new ones. It also seemed to be rooted in a different time and place. Perhaps this (sea-based) Cap’n Lice was an ancestor of the later lake-based one?
Anybody who wonders why I became a drama major and a role-playing nerd doesn’t have far to look for an explanation. The same goes for my fervent belief in art as commons and shared creativity. And pirates. My family is amazing.
Not Katrinablogging
“The music on the tape loops and looped. It was going round for a second time. We sat and listened to it. We’ll be sitting and listening to it for a while longer.”
Everybody needs to buy Magic for Beginners right now and read it because I need a discussion group to figure out what she is doing with tense, dammit. Or you can borrow my copy. You can’t borrow my copy! I’m reading the title novella to Maria and I have to read all the stories in it again anyway.
At its worst (“The Cannon”) the book descends into playful postmodern nonsense, but at its best it’s glorious. It may be less glorious to people who don’t share my borderline ADD.
The story I quoted above (“Lull”) is kind of about time travel, so maybe the tense ambiguity is tied to that, but it also shows up in at least one other story (“Catskin”) which is a fairy tale and not about time travel at all. But there are two distinct stories about zombies.
I need you to read this book so we can talk about it!
Something not to be cynical about
Miscellétudes: David Flora making music on the interweb! It was Lisa’s idea to make him do a weekly one-minute composition, but I get to host him for it.
I think this is frickin’ great!
Its name is Weakness. Its playlist is Fear Of The New.
This is the entry where I gush about my mp3 player! Pretend it’s 2002.
My messenger bag is considerably lighter now that I’m not carrying my Discman and fifty CDs in it all the time, and I never have to try to hold three things while standing up again. That’s awesome! I sneakily got a refurbished Shuffle directly from Apple, so I got the one-gig version for the 512 price, and it’s still got a year warranty. That is also awesome! I get to carry the Magic Future Perfect* Radio Mix Tape From Heaven around in my pocket and it makes me happy.
It doesn’t introduce me to new music like the radio and mix tapes are supposed to do (remember when the radio introduced you to new music? Ha ha!), but that’s what I have Lisa and Will and Maria and Ken for. Ken, move back already, dammit.
The audio quality on the Shuffle is really excellent–I’ve actually noticed instruments in the midrange I never heard before, and there are none of the audible compression artifacts I used to get with my mp3-CD player. The one thing it doesn’t have is a bass boost, which is crippling. I am a little bit addicted to my bass boost. I am addicted enough that tonight I purchased paraphernalia with which to enjoy my dependency. Having an equalizer the size of a pack of cigarettes really destroys the point of having a music player the size of a stick of gum, but man, I was getting the dee tees. I’ll probably bitch later about how it works out.
Before I knew the Koss equalizer existed, I was actually considering looking for some converters and a battery-operated guitar effects pedal that would let me change the bass, and just carrying that around instead. Then I thought “ah, but that would strip the signal to mono.” Then I thought “and would be completely insane.“
I was annoyed at first that I had to partition the areas for audio storage and file storage separately, but I fit every song I wanted in less than the 800 megs I’d reserved. There is a remedy, as it turns out, but honestly I’m only using it to listen to the second good duet in the history of pop over and over again.
(The first, and previously only, was “Under Pressure.” Bowie and Queen.)
* A grammar joke!
Shouting down the basin
Michael “Mooch” Morgan, do you still exist? Will you write me? Will you get a less damn generic name?
I just said goodbye to Ian. He’s going to work for a month in Utah before heading on to Los Angeles. He beat me to Louisville, and now he’s going to beat me to California. He’s been taller than me for as long as I can remember.
Ian’s got a new used truck and everything he owns is in its bed. He’s let his hair get too long because he thinks it’s rock ‘n’ roll. Last night was the biggest Tuesday Night Basketball I think we’ve ever had–everyone showed for a sendoff to its lynchpin. We ordered so much food and Lisa made a cake. We played games.
Sometimes I wonder how much I damaged Ian, growing up, by expecting him to be my peer and treating him like an inferior. Then I realize I’m assigning myself too much influence. Ian’s his own man, smart and ethical and a past master of all the social skills with which I still grapple; he didn’t need me to teach him about jokes or girls or writing code.
Ian will say his Saint Michaels. He’ll be fine.
Humans! I’ve got What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Bubba Ho-Tep (or maybe The Station Agent) just sitting there, waiting for you.
When can we have Sad and Happy Movie Day?
Because I don’t post lyrics at the end anymore
I wish I felt more authentic about liking Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Basically the whole interweb told me they were good, then Maria told me I’d like them, then Ian played me the CD, and everyone was right. It was like being spoonfed. I wish I’d never heard of them until I heard them. I wish I’d walked in halfway through their set opening for somebody else and they’d started “Me and Mia,” and there’d be sweat spraying off me, pain in my ears, the way I used to dance before I worried about my spine.