turbine

frakintosh: lonelysandwich: Ken Cosgrove shows Harry Crane the...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:44:00 -0400

frakintosh:

lonelysandwich:

Ken Cosgrove shows Harry Crane the future of television

via itsnotforyou

From a behind-the-scenes photography set at Rolling Stone. This photo by James Minchin III.

5 reasons having a ‘day job’ helps your writing | The Creative Penn

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:01:09 -0400

5 reasons having a ‘day job’ helps your writing | The Creative Penn:

iainbroome:

There is a myth of creativity that if you could only have 6 months off work and write fulltime, then you would write that award-winning novel. It’s not true! When you have all the time in the world, you do far less than if you are under a deadline. The day job squashes your writing time into the hours you can spare – lunch hours, commuting time, hours when you would have watched TV, after the kids have gone to bed. Don’t wait until you have all the time in the world as that time may never come. Take advantage of where you are now and get writing!

I’ve absolutely found this to be true.

Give me two days to write and I’ll be unproductive. Give me two hours and I’ll somehow find a way to produce the goods.

To me, it just adds to my argument that the notion of a writer’s muse is simply old-fashioned twaddle. It’s a convenient myth that writers use to mask their insecurities and, in some cases, lack of skill.

Basically…

If you tell me that your sweet little kitteh has been hit by a car and you’re not in the right frame of mind to write, I’ll say fine, fair enough.

If you tell me that your muse is silent and you need that magic spark to ignite your very being, I’ll tell you to shut the heck up and get on with it.

Either way, check out this excellent post on Joanna’s excellent blog.

“Writer’s block…a lot of howling nonsense would be avoided if, in every sentence containing the word WRITER, that word was taken out and the word PLUMBER substituted; and the result examined for the sense it makes. Do plumbers get plumber’s block? What would you think of a plumber who used that as an excuse not to do any work that day?”
- Philip Pullman

Writers write. Period. Sometimes what you produce is crap. Sometimes it’s not inspired, but still you must slog on and through. And really the only way to get to where the words flow easily is to make it through the spots where they barely flow at all.

Rely on your tools. Rely on your knowledge. Steal that shit.

“We have tools we can use. We know about structure and character and that sort of thing. Your tools are what you can use to get from island to island of inspiration.”
-Mike Myers

Two working titles under consideration

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:37:00 -0400

1. “By the cool blue light of our television screens”

2. “Drone”

I finished up a zero-draft this evening. Banged out the final two paragraphs:

The man next door, who’s name is Todd, has been over twice to borrow something. Once a measuring cup, which Simmons couldn’t find while Todd stood in the living room and the next time flour. Got some chick baking me cupcakes. Gonna eat her cakes when I’m done eating her cakes, if you know what I mean. Simmons knew exactly what he meant and forced a laugh. “I hear ya,” he said. It was not that night he first started with the cats. It was not while he sat in his bedroom and listened to the antic sex from next door, nor was it the next morning when the girl slammed Todd’s front door and jogged down the driveway clutching her shoes and some other clothes to her chest. It was not after Todd emerged from his apartment wearing nothing but boxers and a pair of sunglasses and scratched at his chest before lighting a cigarette and standing on the slim front porch as if he owned it and all that surrounded them. It was not after Todd said, Chicks and Simmons forced a nod as if he understood, and it was not after Todd returned the flour nearly empty and left not long after in his shiny silver BMW. Simmons didn’t stat with the cats until the next night, when the silence and absence of his next door neighbor allowed him to think, when he wasn’t able to lose himself in the books, and he wasn’t able to sleep. It was only then that he went out in the late night and patrolled his neighborhood by bike, finding cats and noting the locations of fenced dogs. It was only then when he patrolled the neighborhood and found cats with collars and tags and noted the addresses, and only then that he picked up his first cat and hurled it onto the asphalt. And it was only when the cat tried to crawl away, unable to see, it’s front legs barely working that Simmons picked it up and slammed it again to the concrete, over and over until it stopped moving. And it was only then that he hid his bike and cradled the dead cat in his arms and found the house listed on the cat’s collar. And only then, when someone finally came and opened the door that he sank to his knees and confessed to accidentally hitting the cat with his car, and only then that he cried and laid the cat on the doorstep and begged and begged for their forgiveness. It was only then he could sleep again.

“Do I dream?” He asks his friends, the food, the air around them. “Nah, man. I don’t dream for nothing.”

It’s about war.

Tomorrow I’ll print it, read it through and see where I stand. Then it’s time for the real first draft.

“Perfect Day” as interpreted by Elvis Costello and...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:30:39 -0400

“Perfect Day” as interpreted by Elvis Costello and Lou Reed

Yes, the version by a younger Reed tugs the heart strings in the way affronts to the teen lizard brain tug the heart strings. But this version, by these two older gentlemen, strikes me as so much more poignant. Part is the depth of voice. The other is the weight of a life lived and the gravity of loss when there’s less time to stand up, take stock, and collect yourself again.

If anyone ever recommends this blog, I want you to promise you’ll affix no other sticker than...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:23:40 -0400

If anyone ever recommends this blog, I want you to promise you’ll affix no other sticker than that sweet, sweet Camaro because it reminds me of my SAT.

The 40

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:20:43 -0400

I turn 40 in December. A friend of mine turns 40 next year. As this milestone approaches in our lives, we’ve been IMing back and forth about all the things big and small we’ve been putting off over the years, and the things we never really finished.

I’m really tempted to grow my list to 40 items, but that’s the just internet talking:

100 things in 1000 days
365 project
Top 10
Top 5

I have to remember 40 isn’t the number of items or actions, and it’s not some get-it-done project. Rather, it’s a number of years, and the mark of my life’s second stage. It’s something that makes me want to shift some priorities.

Restore the Volvo - I own a 1964 Volvo station wagon currently languishing in my dad’s garage. It’s probably time I begin doing something about that.

Contemplate my next career move - self explanatory

Publish Boone’s Landing - ongoing

Write a new novel - I have this scene I’ve been thinking about. I imagined a man trying to become (as happened in real life) the world’s fattest person. In the novel he succeeds, but the cameraman sent with the news crew to capture the story is too drugged up on pain killers and antidepressants to understand the cultural significance and horror of what he’s been sent to record and broadcast to millions. It’s just an image that came to me.

Take the family on a vacation to Europe - They’re my favorite people on earth and I’d like to share some experiences with them.

Plant a garden - I keep talking about it, and I think food and cooking are some of the most important things on earth. I’m just not accustomed to nature and its cycles. The second half of a person’s life seems a fine time to change that relationship.

Practice home repair - Or maybe just slow down and start researching projects before I start them.

Move to a new neighborhood - Our house is a little small, but it’s given us some wonderful years and could probably be our home for many more. We don’t really fit in our neighborhood, though.

Attend a Tour de France mountain stage - A dream since I was a kid.

Learn to sail - Again, I think it would be fun to be able to take my family out on a boat and enjoy that experience with them. And I don’t want the boat to make a bunch of noise. We all have enough noises in our lives, don’t we?

Learn a foreign language - I took Spanish in middle school, and had German in high school and college. Dropped into Munich, I could probably get myself a taxi and a hotel and something to eat. This time, I’m thinking French, or maybe Spanish.

Learn to draw again - I used to be really good. Really. It’s a shame I let the talent wane.

(And I should probably learn a computer language)

None of these have to be complete when I’m 40. It’s not a list about completing things. The last thing I need now is more check boxes. Rather, the list is about contemplating and learning. It’s about investigating travel and language and art. It’s about finding out the process involved in rebuilding a brake cylinder, making a door jam plumb, understanding the seasons and the sun. It’s about re-awakening old muscle memories and discovering new ones. It’s about becoming one of those mad runners who dashes along next to a sprinter so slogged from the day’s climb he can barely remember his name. In the end, it’s about getting on with it.

Color, Photos, and One Fuzzy Little Boy in a Field

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:49:00 -0400

merlin:

[view larger: 800 x 593 | 6090 x 4515]

Jack Delano - Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Ga. (Farm Security Administration, 1941)

A lot of the color photos I’ve seen from before the 1950s strike me as stiff, over-worked, or so experimental as to be a “Hello, World.” They’re cool from a technical standpoint, but they often don’t tell you any more about the subject than a well-produced monochrome image would.

Given the costliness of the film and the complexity of the process, it’s easy to understand why early color photographers had to be choosy about picking the subjects and conditions that their camera could capture well (rather than, as is ideally the case, working the other way around).

But, sometimes, an old color photo brings a distant image to life and produces something kind of special. The best ones make their subjects and their surroundings seem far more real and intimate.

Read More

My Great Aunt Kitty was a sharecropper. She picked cotton, and traveled from Hornersville, Missouri to surrounding fields and farms in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi. She pulled bolls from the pods and jammed them in a large canvas sack slung on her shoulder. It was best to pick in the early mornings. Partly because of the heat, but partly because they got paid by weight, and dew-soaked cotton weighed more than dry.

My grandmother told us stories of bleeding fingertips at the start of picking season; hard, calloused hands at the end. She ran away at 17 and met a brooding Swede from Nebraska. They married and had three kids. Two boys and a girl. The girl grew up and married a mercurial Jew from Salina. They had me and then my sister. Aunt Kitty stayed put and met a man called Monk. He wore his hair slicked back, and his ears stuck out from his head. Their sister Hattie stayed put, too, and she married a man called John.

Kitty and Monk had some kids. Late in life she gave birth to Steven Earl, who wasn’t quick as the others. Kitty wasn’t picking cotton then. She’d stopped years before and spent her time knitting afghans and tissue cozies. She got some Social Security money and earned a little more here and there doing clerical work and some cleaning. As far as I know Steven Earl never stood in a field and watched his momma work.

When he was young, folks from the city came and tested Stephen Earl. They told my Great Aunt Kitty he could probably live just fine on his own one day if she agreed to send him to the state school in Poplar Bluff. Kitty didn’t want government hands on the boy, so she told them no. Eventually he learned to sign his name and do some simple math. He could add and subtract and figure what people owed him for lawnmower repair and yard work. He once taught me “colored” meant black people.

My grandmother died, and my grandfather died. My Great Aunt Hattie died, and Uncle John died, and Monk died, too. My Great Aunt Kitty and Steven Earl still live in a small, closed house in Hornersville with three dogs under the porch, cats inside, and a sofa that smells of urine. I have no idea what she ever hoped or dreamed.

The Tea Party, Glenn Beck, All Of It: A Word

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:34:03 -0400

ohheygreat:

I rarely get political online - and for a few good reasons - but I need to take a moment to say something now.

It’s understandable why so many are angry about Glenn Beck’s rally. It’s understandable why you’re freaking out about the Tea Party. It’s understandable why you’re standing here pointing back at Bush yelling “Those 8 years! Those! What about those!”

After all, you say, where were people protesting the spread of big government and unfathomable debt then, right?

To which I say, where were you? And where are you now?

If you’re so angry at what’s going on, if you’re so frustrated, don’t just keep writing Tumblr posts and blog posts and tweets and semi-anonymous comments. I’ve been reading about it all for years now. Years! Come on, guys. You can decry the ignorance of the Tea Party movement all you want, rail at the racism, and laugh at their illiterate signs and shirts. But you know what? There were thousands upon thousands of people at the rally. Just like there are thousands of people knocking on doors and going out in support of their candidates and getting word out of what they believe in.

What are you doing?

There was that long moment, during Obama’s election. A huge swell of people had found not only a leader but a reason to come together. No more! Time for change! Are you telling me you can only do it when inspired by someone you perceive to be your leader? Are you telling me you can’t do it on your own, grassroots group by grassroots group? Because if that’s the case, then maybe you should stop rolling your eyes at the Tea Party and start worrying a lot more. They’re not afraid of your scathing blog posts. They’re probably not even reading them.

If you want change, it’s time to start making it. If you want to fight back, you better start. And you better hurry.

(via thisrecording) This is the best I can do for attribution:...

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:57:00 -0400

(via thisrecording)

This is the best I can do for attribution: When I was a kid—this was probably the late seventies, but it might have been ‘80 or ‘81, I had a book about spaceships. I think it was put out by National Geographic, but it seems a little speculative for their press. Maybe it was a gift for everyone who had a subscription to the magazine, which my parents maintained for years.

The spaceships were amazing, as were the descriptions of worlds from which they came, and which they visited. This particular ship is a mining vessel. As a kid I always tried to figure out whether or not the weird blade-like implements on either side of the “head” were used to slash rock away from the surface. If they did, I thought maybe the rock was then pulverized and processed in some kind of mechanic mouth. The book didn’t go into quite so much detail. I’m kind of glad.

I can’t remember why the ship needed the chameleon-like ability to blend into its surroundings. I’m not even sure it was mentioned, but that’s what’s going on here. The ship is not, if memory serves, becoming transparent.

I haven’t thought about that book in a long time. Yes, it was one of my favorites, and yes, it was absolutely beautiful.

(via suicidewatch) This deliciously awkward photo of...

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:17:25 -0400

(via suicidewatch)

This deliciously awkward photo of Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh and vibrant friend was taken by Brad Elterman.

3rdmartini: lonelysandwich: seoulbrother: incorrigiblerobot: ...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:06:22 -0400

3rdmartini:

lonelysandwich:

seoulbrother:

incorrigiblerobot:

sloganeerist:

Plus, additional friends!

Like Bernadette Peters. Steve Lawrence. Michael J. Fox. Yakoff Smirnoff. Jay Thomas. Martin Van Buren. Shoeless Joe Jackson. Tom Waits. Jaromir Jagr. Erin Moran. Nelson Mandela. Orson Welles. Jerry Lewis. Avery Schreiber. Boog Powell. Madonna. Bernie Goetz & the Bernie Goetz Dancers. Vic Tayback. And Tony Shaloub.

James Caan. Telly Savalas. Burl Ives. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Before the Wheelchair. L.C. Greenwood. Rip Taylor. Anson Williams. Kool & The Gang. Albert Camus. Father Guido Sarducci. Ed Marinaro. Funk from Funk & Wagnall. Wagnall. Larry Bird. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. C3PO. Ghandi. And Mel Tillis.

Dylan McDermott. Harry Reasoner. The Beatles. Mary Lou Retton. Michael York. H.G. Wells. Festus. Edgar Bergen. Arnold Palmer. Twiki. Joyce DeWitt. Eric Bogosian. Charro. George McGovern. Danny Wuerffel. Jeff Conaway. Sir Edmund Hillary. Gays. The Louisiana Purchase. And Tonto.

Alan King. Tina Yothers…

The Captain and Tennille. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Foster Brooks. Jefferson Davis. Ken Burns and the Ken Burns Effect. The Waitresses. Eli Whitney and His Miraculous Cotton Gin. The Unknown Comic. Dorian Gray. Rich Little. May West. Lunchables. Colonel Mustard. And Elmo.

Ted Danson. Rodan. Bruce Wayne. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. John Larroquette. Melba Toast. Rickey Henderson. The Baja Boys. Ted Turner. Fred Flintstone. Alan Funt. Satan. Elizabeth Montgomery. Long Duc Dong. Kelsey Grammar. And Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Phil Collins. Elliot Ness. Dora the Explorer…

Kai Ryssdal, Sammy Davis, Jr., Jon Cryer, Mark Hamill, Paul Lynde, Lonnie Anderson, Scott Baio, Shields and Yarnell, Eric Estrada, Julius “Dr. J.” Erving, Charro again, Modesky, Martin and Wood, David Copperfield, Solomon Grundy, Kansas, Ronald Reagan, Bill Brasky, Harry Belefonte, A brand new COLOR TV, Soupy Sales, Nipsey Russell. And Liu Kang.

Glenn Campbell, Evel Knievel, Cal Worthington and his dog Spot, Ivar, Tex Winter, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Nellie Bly, O.J. Simpson, Bo Derek, Mario Lopez, Crystal Carrington, That cute black kid, Florence Henderson, Willie Tyler and Lester, Elmore Leonard or is it Leonard Elmore, Lynn Swan, Pete Cashmore, a young Susan Sarandon, a hot Kathleen Turner, a burnt out Shelly Winters, Burt Reynolds, Annie Oakley. And Gil Gerrard.

Tammy Wynette. Cindy Williams. Heathcliff Huxtable and Kenny (Bud). Christy McNichol. Robin Hood Prince of Men. Burl Ives. Merl Bives. Blurf Pives and Mr. Shantypanty. Alice from the Brady Bunch with Her Hair Down. Sam the Butcher with a Hard-on. Hamlet Prince of Thieves and his Pal Nugat. The Korean War. Wayne Newton. Andre the Giant (deceased). Jean-Paul Belmondo. Jean-Jacque Blieubeaublieux. And Gordon from Sesame Street with a Hard-on.

Jack Black. Mike White. Jim Brown. Timmy Purple. Wilson Phillips and the Fat One. Mackenzie Phillips and Baggage. A squirrel. Lady Diana. David Duke and the Racial Tension. Tenzin Gyatso (né Peter Fonda). Daryl Hannah and her Tree Band. D.A.R.Y.L. the Robot Boy Who Could Play Pole Position Real Good. Jon Landis. Martin Landau. Knots Landing. Knott’s Berry Farm. Berry Gordy. Marion Berry and the Marionberries with Special Appearance By Crack. Tiffany Brissette. Edie McClurg. Clurg McBlurg. And Burl Ives.

Jm J. Bullock, Chuck Baris, Chuck Berry, Harry Caray, Scary Larry, Enis the Roller-Skating Fairy. John Holmes, Linda Lovelace, girls with jizz all over their face. The entire cast of “Zoom!” accompanied by their parole officers. Tiffany Amber Thiessen, Charles Nelson Reilly, Edward R. Murrow, Flurm Bojangles, Emmanuel Lewis, The ghost of Dean Martin, a bucket of gin, a barrel of olives and your mom.

Tom T. Hall, Conway Twitty, the zombified cast of “Hee Haw”, Erin Grey, Loni Anderson, Chesty McHooters, Enlightenment, Abstract Thought, the feeling you get when you know someone you love is having a diarrhea fit, Lance Armstrong, Mikey from the Life cereal commercial, Peter Billingsley, Samus Aran, A hearty dose of ennui and the Christmas Yam.

Ike and Tina, Loggins and Messina, Skip Spence, Michael McDonald, Michael Landon, Martin Lawrence, Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway. Andy Griffith, Don Knots, Buddy Epsen’s Eyebrows, Alfonso Ribeiro, Bernie Kopell, Tiffany Brissette, Tom Selleck’s moustache, and the cast of Alf.

Scott Baio, Nicole Eggert, Willie Aames, Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Master of Kung Fu Shang Chi. Jackie Chan, Charlie Chan, Michael Chan. Bob Barker, Gnarls Barkley, Chuck U. Farley, Christian Slater, ‘Mater, Ron “Tater Salad” White. Vana White, Betty White, Band of Horses, Sofia Coppola, and the curse of the monkey’s paw.

“100%” by Sonic Youth Guest stars Jason Lee with a...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:27:45 -0400

“100%” by Sonic Youth

Guest stars Jason Lee with a special appearance by Jason Lee’s sideburns.

Skateboard footage shot by Spike Jonze who was responsible for filming Blind’s seminal skate video, Video Days, featuring a young Lee, a commanding Mark Gonzales, and then 14-year-old phenom Guy Mariano.

“Kool Thing” by Sonic Youth Lesser known musical...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:13:15 -0400

“Kool Thing” by Sonic Youth

Lesser known musical fueds: Kim Gordon and LL Cool J.

Me neither!

“Bull in the Heather” by Sonic Youth If you have to...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:04:27 -0400

“Bull in the Heather” by Sonic Youth

If you have to sit through some Axe Secret Shit Show commercial, I apologize, even if you are 14 and immature. Perhaps then especially so.

When we get our eggs from a single basket

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:25:16 -0400

When we get our eggs from a single basket:

Some quick thoughts on loose reporting and food safety.

"Gainesville, FL is the biggest projected gainer, with a projected 17.7 percent increase in creative..."

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:26:38 -0400

“Gainesville, FL is the biggest projected gainer, with a projected 17.7 percent increase in creative class jobs”

- Where the Creative Class Jobs Will Be - Business - The Atlantic (via csessums)

This seems relevant to my interests.

tnkcmndr: crookedindifference: The fight over...

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:12:11 -0400

tnkcmndr:

crookedindifference:

The fight over Mackerel

Iceland, which landed practically no mackerel before 2006, has allocated itself a 130,000-tonne quota. The Faroes, a collection of islands 250 miles north of Scotland, has tripled its usual entitlement.

The conflict led to a tense stand off at the port of Peterhead last week, when Scottish fishermen blockaded a Faroese trawler - preventing it from landing its £400,000 catch.

Coupled with an EU warning to take “all necessary measures” to protect its fishing interests, it led to comparisons with the last “Cod War” of the 1970s which saw Icelandic gunboats clash with a Royal Navy frigate.

We seem to never learn from our mistakes. Our incessant hunger seems to lead us to just take and take until there is nothing left for the future.

Humans are tragic creatures.

SOUNDS LIKE THE BC SOCKEYE SITUATION

Everyone should lay off the fish for a while. Let the sushi houses close, the fisherman find other work. In ten or twenty years’ time, when the next generation of sushi chefs and fishermen and Long John Silver’s franchisees want to start up business, everything will be booming again.

damndanm: eeb: This article from the New York Times has...

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:09:00 -0400

damndanm:

eeb:

This article from the New York Times has officially scared the shit out of me. How do people like this actually exist?! How do they successfully live to adulthood with this much hate in them?

I truly believe that hateful people like this don’t successfully live out their adulthood. Bill Hicks used to joke that when Jesse Helms finally died we’d find the skins of young children drying in his attic. (Sadly, that didn’t come true. Maybe it was simply because Mr. Hicks wasn’t around to investigate.) Yes, he was being hyperbolic—he was a comedian, it was a sizable part of his job—and this was at least twenty years ago, but his point that anyone so far to the right has to be hiding something dark still stands. Ditto anyone equally far left. Unlike faith or belief, fervent, black-and-white, hard-nosed zealotry almost universally stems from darkness. One can try to replace it or tamp it down, but it’s there. This man’s ignorance and fear, and the ignorance and fear of the (too) many like him, are no doubt a product of something else. And they likely manifest themselves in other areas of his life, too. I bet his kids could tell you some stories.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make generalizations about some other subset of humanity.

This dude lives in my town.

Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”

Mr. Jones does not have the right to burn the Koran because it’s “full of lies.” He has the right to burn it because he lives in America and the act of burning of the Koran is most likely considered an act of free speech.

2. How much longer are we going to let the smallest groups of fringe society members dictate the public record?

3. The NYT failed to mention Mr. Jones’ church ran into so much financial difficulty not because of the Koran burning, but because he and and his wife failed to keep the church separate from their for-profit vintage furniture company.

RSA Animate - 21st Century Enlightenment (via BoingBoing)

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:36:15 -0400

RSA Animate - 21st Century Enlightenment

(via BoingBoing)

GPOYW - stomach virus edition

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:29:00 -0400

GPOYW - stomach virus edition