Tag: links

faster than speeding water


Originally uploaded by noveltywearsoff.

KindelingBoy Michael is having a party tomorrow evening to celebrate his final freedom from Too Much School TM.

My cool news today is this letter:

Hi,

Just a head’s up to let you know that I’ve added your blog, Dreampepper, to the British Columbia Blogs directory and aggregator at publicbroadcasting.ca – if for any reason you do not want your blog listed, please let me know and I’ll take it back down immediately.

Cheers,
Justin

I don’t know how they found me, but the list looks pretty small, so I’m pleased. Apparently the main criteria be that they’re well written, been around for awhile, and update frequently, as well as having that undefinable “something”.

Max Headroom creator made Roswell alien.
Deathboy makes a song based on the very first episode.

This week has been a successful book of matches, every day burning when I strike it with my eyes. I feel like a chemical reaction, sparkling and fizzing, exploding strong-box secrets and licking what’s inside. If I were Rapunzel, this would be me letting down my hair, suddenly afraid that my princes were just a dream. This would be taking myself and my bedding and my famous blue raincoat to wind my fairy-tales a rope, offering them a way in instead of a noose, banishing my fears, losing them one by one like beads from a broken string.

AXE’s GameKillers advertisement series.
Adidas Idicolor viral-marketing films. (watch PINK especially)


browser clean

  • Wisconsin voters support Iraq withdrawal.
  • Homeland Security official arrested in child sex sting.

    A nun and some schoolgirls have set themselves up as an international arms company to highlight the absence of weapons brokerage laws in Ireland, successfully importing torture equipment with the assistance of local justice group, Afri.

    Amnesty International has made a short but effective shopping channel film on the topic.

  • No domain name left for you.
  • The top 100 Livejournals.

    Chris Applebaum, one of the youngest yet more heavily T&A music directors, (the guilty man behind the Paris Hilton Burger advert), has done it again, this time allowing Britney Spears to prove she deserved that statue.

  • New String-Theory notion redefines the Big Bang.
  • First lab-engineered organs successfully transplanted into humans.

    • he needs what I have but can’t give away

    There is a raccoon stuck bottom-half inside a tree, I see it when I walk from the bus-stop. There is a man on a blue ladder, his arm up to his elbow in the hole, trying to shove the squirming creature free from the other side. I want to walk up to the situation and reach up and grab onto the creature, ignore the claws and teeth that would tear at me and pull. Yank it free in one smooth movement. Instead I run my tongue over the inside of my teeth, ossified pearls, and walk away. I will be late if I do not go now. I am obscurely disappointed my skin will remain intact.

  • Net-funded professional journalism.

    I’ve been sleeping heavily lately, as if everything shuts down, as if my soul goes absent. I’m not used to it. Every morning is a dim entrance, a watery sky debut into a film I never needed to see. It’s like there’s a blanket of dust over me in my dreams. I twitch, I can feel it, just on the edge outside of consciousness. My body is trying to cope and maybe not doing as well as it used to. There’s something in my head getting in the way. It’s like when I lie in bed, when it’s time to dream, my mind seizes the chance to escape me, drive fast and away, disassociate from the crashing tide of conflicting shades of ache that run underneath my point of view, instead of resting, instead of taking the space to relax and fix my scrapes and bruises. It’s tiring me out, not being in my body. I have to find someone who knows how to connect the bits and pieces. I have hopes for Saturday.

  • The Sexy Beast is talking to you.

    Today the radio plays songs I used to listen to last year. It’s like nostalgia without the immediacy of caring about what happened. My in-box tells me letters from people who used to be my lovers. Someone drops the word muse on me and I smile, warmed by a rare spark of feeling worthwhile. If they weren’t so far away, that’s exactly what I want to be. The weather here never changes. Overcast with a chance of sun, sunny with a chance of rain. Always water from the sky. Even when it is blue it looks gray. I haven’t taken part in creating in a long time, too long for me.

    • eternal feminine difficulties


    My Sparrow Hath No Tongue
    Originally uploaded by cabbit.

    Two torrents containing a total of nearly one thousand free songs from bands at the 2006 SXSW Music Conference.

    Being with a ghost is hard. It’s tricky, navigating the pathways that carry the least number of rattling chains. I confuse him he says, just like the last few. They think they know themselves, then I come along. “Sometimes I want you to just leave me alone, but whenever I’m with you it all goes away and I’m just comfortable, you know? It’s weird. You’re weird.” He’s telling me this on his cell phone, attempting to be locked in some small room, his foot against the door to keep out his friends. I shouldn’t even be on the phone right now. You make me feel safe, I told him another night. He quotes me, “That’s what you do,” he says. Like you said and I said and he has no memory. No memory at all. It drains away daily. He tells me that he’s worried, that he’s scared, but he doesn’t say he loves me. That’s my line, spoken to the dark when he’s asleep, when he’s awake but not quite paying attention. He says I found him at a strange time. I stole him out into monogamy and being crazy just when his life started again, and he likes it, he digs me a whole lot, but he can’t shake the feeling of bad timing. The same you’re awesome but as everyone else. I can’t help it, this terrifying dream. I’m afraid this will end in another You Can’t See Me.

    Streaming audio: Magnetic Fields, an hour of live concert.

    Fresh in my mind, his rambling nervous phone-call, scratchy over the line. I don’t think I could take that. I can feel he’s convincing himself of something, but not a decision I can quite access. The story hasn’t enough pieces for me to draw into words, there are gaps, milk-teeth spaces that I need to fill in. I told him I’d call at one. An hour and half, I’d said, to give him time to figure out where he’ll be. “Do you want to come over?” and Yes, in a small voice. A tiny admittal voice, one that’s scared of seeing where it’s been leading. Then, No, wait, I didn’t say that like that, though I did, and you know I did, and you know what that means. I just don’t want you barking up the wrong tree. When I called, he didn’t pick up.

    One MP3 a day for one year. Archived bi-weekly. Produced in 2003.

    Part of it is that he can’t figure out why I like him, not the way I do. I should be more upset or less patient, less accepting. He goes on about it. Not that liking him is all that strange, I’m sure he has the same sort of line-up as I do, ghost or no. I’d be surprised if he didn’t. No, he thinks his life is unusual, that his insides are crazy and strange. Well they might be, but I’m not in any position to see. I’ve learned over time that I’ve got blinders to socially abnormal behaviour that makes sense. Apparently most girls, they fade away, maybe in a musty cloud of arguements and perfume, when he’s not around as much as they want him to be. Me, it’s more than I have and almost as much as I need.

    Top 65 Songs of 2005: 65-26, as picked by the clever Good Weather For An Airstrike.

    sort of too worn out

    Ed found me a video of Will Wright talking at the Game Developer’s Conference about ‘Spore’, the Next Amazing Thing to happen to video games. James was at this talk and constantly bubbled up about it while I was in Montreal with him. Now that I’ve seen it, or practically all of it, I entirely understand. Will Wright might be showing us the next evolution. If it’s required, I’m going to upgrade for this when it’s available, and some people I know have sworn that they’ll be switching from Mac to PC.

    It’s understandable. When even Science!!* is awesome, something like this is above proper description.

    Science!! of course, being more along the lines of World Jump Day. link found thanks to sophie. The basic idea is that if the people on earth all jump at the exact same time, a time specially choreographed, we can change the orbit of the planet into one with more hours of daylight, a more homogenous climate, and stop global warming. I’m signing up, aren’t you? I even vaguely would like a t-shirt for the amusement value.

    I miss my ghost

    My monthly bus-pass ran out yesterday, so I mostly got home on the back of a strangers bike. I’d never ridden on the back of a bike before. It was fun, though it feels precarious. Stopping was an adventure.

    “I’m going a long way still, mind if I catch a bit of a lift?” When he’d stopped at the light next to me, I saw he had foot-pegs on his back tires. He grinned when I asked, pleased to get such an oddball request. He gave me a ride to Main Street. I told him children’s stories for my fare, “and then the prince took out his cleaning supplies and began to scrub away the ashes”, leaning over his back in my long inappropriate coat and top-hat, my hands slipping a bit on his jacket. He pedaled away laughing.

    It only occurred to me about a block later that we didn’t exchange names. Sometimes, I am too stupid to be brilliant. That’s two strangers in a row who’re probably going to be telling stories of That Weird Girl They Met. (I hope I get my book back. He said it would take him a week to read.)

  • Fredo Viola has new video up.
  • Public Domain Film Torrents.
  • Marimba Ponies. thanks Cherie, happy wedding.)

    • a tab closer post

  • HUNGRY? CUP-A-NOODLE!
  • Tron remixed as a Depeche Mode music video from Justin Alt. does anyone else agree that tron refuses to look dated?
  • Scariest film in years, Mac Cosmetics Ad ft. Amanda Lepoore.
  • Polysics, who seem like a Japanses Devo.
  • Naked taiko drumming. ( a longer cut of the same performance.)
  • the eerie game of quarters
  • LSD being tested on Britsh Troops. “he himself then lapsed into laughter.”
  • Brokeback to the Future
  • Not a Stupid Girl, by Pink

    • just a slice of life in general, I had something more to say but it got lost behind the couch

    My mother writes a splendid explanation of her time at the University of British Columbia.

    Earlier this week, Jenn came down for breakfast and gave me a packet of glow-in-the-dark fridge letters. I just opened them tonight. Sliding one nail under the plastic and attempting to pry it free of the thin cardboard backing launched every little letter violently airborne and straight into all the stove elements. I was impressed. After fishing them all out with a twist of wire, I’ve written GOD IS VENEREAL on the freezer and left the rest of the letters to the other occupants on the apartment. (Of which there is going to be one less as of March, as Ryan is officially moving in with Eva instead of continuing the sham of living with me and Graham.) It seemed the easiest thing to write, but now I’m vaguely concerned at my frame of mind. I seem to remember that the most common message in the english language is HELLO.

    Neried rants a good shot at explaining her being a mother.

    Nothing lingers like the realization that almost my every reference lately to interesting conversations has begun with “We were in bed and..” It’s like a bad habit, it brings to mind all the wrong connotations, like I prefaced with “and we were taking off each other’s clothes..” instead. I stop. My sentence echoes in the air as I halt midbreath and wish I could reverse what I just said. Thankfully, my friends understand. It’s possible they’re used to me. I’ve forgotten. This week I had the treat of a late night outing with someone who knows all my older friends, the clan of theatre folk who are a generation ahead of people like Antonio and Mimi. It was like a rewind on a few years. It was a gift. The nicest thing he said to me, “You were like you are now.”

    My dear friend Joseph is about to be laid off, so if anyone knows of any work in Montreal for aerospace engineers…?

    It’s a wedding. They are dressed in their best clothes, lying on a hill. They look like a carefully staged moment for a documentary on the history of stock photography. Her lips are painted pink. From his hang a flower picked from the grass beside his hand. Posed on the brink of conversation, they are skirmishing with words, throwing a miniature fit in avoidance. “Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough.” she said. “I don’t believe you,” he replied. “Look, that cloud’s shaped like a stork.”

    Nicholas has been spending slightly too much time on-line.

    One of the perks of my job is free long distance phone calls to anywhere in Canada and the U.S. As I have a few stretches of hours wherein all I’m doing is upping my freecell score to ridiculous levels or reading a book, I’ve been encouraged to try it out. This offer sounds like cool water in the scorching sun to me. I like this opportunity to get some of you a little better, to get to finally greet my family in a different medium. If you want to hear from me, simply fill out my little poll. Store hours of operation are 11 – 6 PST.

    pack up your bags for moskau, kids

    “Hey you!!” “WHAT!” “Nothing…”

    Remember a year ago, that Eurovision Contest Band that Nicholas and I were banging on about so loudly that BoingBoing finally picked it up a month or two later?

    25 years after they disbanded, Dschinghis Khan has returned with a world-wide reunion tour called “Back On Their Horses”.

    A little digging and we find the man who used to play Khan passed away from AIDS complications. When they played at the Olympiyski Arena in Moscow to 30,000 screaming fans on the 17th of December, 2005, they had a replacement. From pictures found here and here, it appears the years have not been as kind as they could have been.

    This is the first video that I found. There were more found by Nicholas, but world save us if we spend the time to dig them up again. We’re already becoming dangerously interested in this retro-disco pop band from before we were born. Any more time spent researching Dschinghis Khan and William Gibson will dedicate a dry mocking paragraph of some short story to describing us in uncanny detail.

    Environment in crisis: ‘We are past the point of no return’

    Of course, a latent obsession with a discontinued gimmick band is admittedly a little outré. It’s much more conventional to share surreal clips of Japanese culture like this nicotine energy drink commercial featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger exploding out of a girl’s head or this happy-hardcore music video featuring a fire-breathing fat man in gold lamé dancing with a harem of pretty, um, genies?

    It’s understandable, a country that gives us such gems as japanese girls versus the syncopated masturbation video of doom“, “japanese girls in meat-visor hats versus the giant lizard” or “japanese girls versus the giant black man” deserves whatever press they can get. (Doesn’t being Bob Sapp in Japan strike you as an excellent way to make a living? To hell with being a Pro Wrestler and K-1 fighter, just cash in on being incredibly big.) In fact, when I discovered “japanese girl in seal hat versus the polar bear“, I think I watched it three times in a row, my hand over my mouth in vague shock each time, more concerned for the bear than the screaming girl.

    However, I think it’s only fair to give the rest of the world’s astounding media a moment in the sun. Like, alright, I know it’s not as weird as the hip thrusting lingerie flamingos, (and what do you even call Shingo Mama no oHa?), it’s more of a catastrophe, but what about the David Hasselhoff Ooga-Chacka video that’s been dominating my friends list? The thing with the fish or the eggs or the flying fairy children are all just as messed up as anything spewed forth from a pop idol incubator. (Don’t even get me started on the green screening. I did better with a painted floor and a second-hand handheld camera that had an eyepiece with a tendency to fall off mid-shot). After all, American Idol has its own trainwrecks, some so spectacular it’s a wonder they don’t bring back the tradition of leaving brain damaged babies in the hills to die of exposure at the Burger King Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch.

    Brain scans reveal men’s pleasure in revenge.

    BoingBoing recently featured Heavy Ammunition, for example, who has put together a brilliant clip of the Che-Stormtrooper phenomenon comprised solely of individual photos put together to look like video and put to a catchy hip-hop version of the Vader theme, (Here is where to get the stickers). They also pointed the way to a neat page showing a side-by-side video of an eerily identical Apple commercial and a Postal Service video.

    Not blindingly funny stuff, true, but decidedly as artistic as SHUN! or the classic slap-stick german safety film and about as equally creative as when The Tonight Show rigged a phony free photobooth and created a clip so delightful that LOL becomes LOL and not “I smile gently at this”.

    As an eye-wash, even if you weren’t brave enough to click on anything else in this post, (and shame on you for missing out on the marvelously astonishing photobooth), Everyone must watch this video. That means you, yes you, who is looking at this with skeptic eyes that are already wandering down to what’s in the next entry. Too bad, toughen up, this is where your attention’s at if it knows what’s good for it. If you really must know, it features dogs and lasers, but that tells you nothing, so there was really no point in saying so. GO NOW WITH THE CLICK!

    edit: the dog video is for Vitalic and created by Pleix.

    “The Animaris Rhinoceros Transport is a type of animal with a steel skeleton and a polyester skin. It looks as if there is a thick layer of sand coating the animal. It weighs 2 tons, but can be set into motion by one person. It stands 4.70 meters tall. Because of its height it catches enough wind to start moving.”

    Watch the video!

    There’s more at strandbeest.com.

    Itconversations.com has a session with Theo Jansen, the creator of these wondrous wind-powered walking machines, at Pop!Tech 2005 here.

    The Machine, a short story by Joey Comeau of a softer world.

    I leaned over the pool-table at Joe’s Cafe and while I carefully lined up my cue with the ball, I unexpectedly felt like I was a copyright infringement. That someone more deserving had done this exact thing, but had made it art. Shaken, I missed my shot and tried to shoo away my strange thoughts. I was in the wrong company to be attempting to discuss such ideas away. Robin isn’t educated on the right topics and Shadow, Ducky’s brother, doesn’t even have a computer yet. Instead I stood and looked over the poor constellation I had offered the next player. I counted the balls left and questioned colour as a concept. “It’s lucky all three of us suck at this, hey?”

    Katie‘s started to take pictures wearing her holiday present.

    This is the day I was hit by the truck three years ago. I had killed the hot seed of a child in my womb a month before and where I stained my skirt when I skid along the road, the blood from my bone bare knees mixed with blood from that left-over wound. The snow, that sensation, was so light and soft that it felt like it wasn’t real. My arm was fire and my eyes had met those of the driver a disturbing fraction of a minute before I turned and jumped into the air. My intention was to slide along the hood of the truck, but the snow, that delicate snow, it caught on my shoes. I slipped.