Marker-on-cardboard thing

I'm into the marker-on cardboard thing right now. Maybe it's something about making my mark on the world, so the thick dark marker black appeals as it meets this ... requirement.

If you're bored, like me, you too can visit the US' "Postal store" and check out different stamps they issue.

Or. go to afore-mentioned No Media Kings site and read Jim Munroe's interesting idea about selling out to the mainstream after being "indy" (as in, independent). He says cool stuff about hypocrisy. Quote:

Nowadays, consistency seems to have replaced virtue... If someone kills children because he hates them, and is wholly dedicated to eliminating the toddler set from the earth, this person is somehow less contemptible than a vegetarian who wears leather shoes.


My advice, kind of in-line with what Mr. Munroe says, is to get over this obsession, or phobia, of hypocrisy.

Dino Comics; il kobry

Good news: I have a great link for today! Rejoice, comic lovers and also comic not-minders. It is Dinosaur Comics. It predictably features dinosaurs, and I found it featured on the good Jim Munroe's website, No Media Kings. So double link then, because both sites are worth checking out, dudes.

Featured in the photos: On the left, a sign that says Obeying Traffic Lights is a Civilized Behavior, and below, a lovely view of the billboards on a certain bridge we all know and love. (Guess which?).

Til later, cheers.

P.S. The creator of Dinosaur Comics, Ryan North, appears to have a pretty cool livejournal thingie that should also be checked out, especially the third post that now appears there.

Speaking of that post (check out the post already so you get what I'm about to say), a word to the wise, using Google as a divining source, especially Google image search, doesn't really work out that well. Still, it's a fun exercise. To try: insert relevant phrase into the google image search and interpret the picture that appears. If you try it with the names of your friends, you'll see what I mean. You could always try Bible dipping, as outlined by Augusten Burroughs in Running with Scissors, his most excellent memoirs. (Bible dipping involves asking a question, flipping through the Bible [feel free I guess to replace with holy text of choice], flipping pages and stabbing your finger at a random word for the answer).

Free hint from me: If you're trying to be a writer sometimes, you can modify the Bible dipping for a cool writing exercise in which you use any book to stab a word then write about it for a certain amount of time (timed writing). It's great.

a collage

Reading: Some of Kafka's short short stories (one paragraph to two pages long) from Kafka's
Metamorphosis and Other Stories.
Definitely worth checking out, especially if you're in a summer reading slump and have a short attention span right now as a result (like me), particularly for literary endeavors. These short short stories are stuck under a category entitled "Meditations," and incidentally, this collection of stories is the only one that Kafka chose to publish in his lifetime. All the other stuff (The Trial, most notably) he told his good buddy Max to destroy but Max kubar and decided to publish them anyway after Franz died. In case anyone is inspired to read some Kafka now, my favorite "Meditation" so far is "The Rejection."

The photo: another collage, put together two days ago like the last one.

Yoga collage

Well my main incentive for posting right now is to get rid of that worm picture... My worm fascination is certainly over, for the time being. They are so last week...

Anyway, on the left, inspired by Keri Smith's 'morning collages' is one I made yesterday... Annoyingly enough, despite a good two years or so of solid ownership, I still don't really know how to use my digital camera, and I think it shows in my pictures. Ma3lish. By the way, I highly suggest checking out her collages, website, and accompanying blog.

the worms

It's initially shocking, but also really interesting.

Today I happened to glance at a bowl of dog food left neglected for a few days.

I saw little bits of pasta in the bowl along with other food.

I did a double-take when I saw the little bits of pasta moving around.

Worms... They look really cool actually. Like a scene from an animated movie.

The bowl was in the garage, away from soil, so how did the worms get there? And why on a specific day? I mean the food has been there for a while... so do the worms arrive at a certain stage of decomposing? Aren't they part of the decomposing process? Maybe it's a kind of worm party... they have to be fashionably late. They look pretty interesting the way they move... And some looked like they were getting it on, but who knows? Maybe they're just fighting to eat.

Closer inspection revealed the worms to be even more interesting than just the initial glance allowed. They seem to be segmented, and despite looking for eyes and not being able to tell, this site tells me they have none.

So yeah, in the picture the worms are the things that look like pasta, like I said. I really wish I had some video stuff to show, but limited resources prevent me from doing so.

Joys of Cardboard (links)

Interesting link on a site I like (Supernaturale) about the joys of cardboard. I like design things that re-use waste material... you know, save the earth. Poor victim earth in need of your saving. There, don't you feel special now? So anyway especially cool in this article is this cardboard chair that you use to build into your lawn and have grass grow over... Well go over and check it out so you can see a photo of it and get what I'm trying to explain.

Reading: Poetry by Emily Dickinson. I tried reading Emily's poetry before but didn't really like it, prefering mostly the poets Nikki Giovanni and Kenneth Patchen instead, but I think since I started writing more I was able to connect more with Emily's poetry.

Some things that stay there be,-
Grief, hills, eternity:
Nor this behooveth me.
(excerpt from Some things that fly there be)

and also reading: Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers.

I'm not usually into the self-help thing, but you've got to be open minded, right? Experimental? Anyway I'm about half the way through and it's not bad at all. I'm just worried if I turn into a healthy person I'll be boring. I won't have anything to write and I won't be able to paint. How's that for a fear huh?

First post

Who owns the internet? It occurred to me today that I don't know, but somebody must somehow, because you pay rent on websites you operate. And there are companies that buy domain names then sell them to you, but who do they pay? I'm sure someone smarter than me knows. But why is the internet a capitalist commodity anyway?