River Coffee

If you have to get up early on a Saturday, it is worth it to get up even 30 minutes earlier than necessary so you can have coffee by the river.

Creepiness: A Mission Statement

I was talking with Caleb today about his new and interesting beard. It seems he's on a mission... a mustache mission.

This is nothing new for me. As a member of Christian Student Fellowship, I have seen a number of Novembers pass with the phenomenon of facial hair known as Novembeard, or "No Shave November." The guys swear off shaving for the month in a mission to, I assume, assert their manliness via demonstrations of their gender's unique ability to grow mad amounts of facial hair (Frida Kahlo notwithstanding).

But Caleb's mission turns out to be a little more meaningful. He's participating in something called Movember, where the hirsute November observance is put to good use, raising money to support mens' health issues such as prostate cancer.

Now, I'll admit to always having been a bit jealous of November. Not that I've ever harbored any desire to stop shaving my legs for a month (or to start eating tofu or hugging trees, which seem to be complementary actions). But I think it's sort of lame that guys get a whole month to do something completely absurd, even if it is for a good cause.

Little did I know that a mission for the month would present itself to me, related to my musings on Novembeard/Movember in more ways than one.

I found myself talking to Amy B. shortly after concluding my conversation with Caleb. Now, I have a natural knack for making people uncomfortable, but it seems I outdid myself with my strangeness this time, confounding poor Amy with, ironically enough, behavior that was relatively normal.

Deciding that I wanted to continue the trend of actually trying to creep people out, even if it meant acting like everybody else, I took that up as my mission for this week (at least, perhaps the remainder of November). And interestingly, acting like everybody else just may help me accomplish that mission.

This Friday, Amy F. is hosting a 1920's themed party. In trying to help Liz prepare, I was doing some era-appropriate research and found a picture from the film "La Vie En Rose" that provided inspiration not only for my new observance of what I'm calling "Novemweird," but Novembeard as well.


Check out the refined-looking lady on the left. Look closely. Is that? Yes, it is a moustache. Alright!

I've got to find an eyeliner pencil before Friday, because I fully intend to sport the "femmoustache" as featured here to the 1920's party, polishing the look with some fingerwaves and perhaps a fedora.

I'm throwing in my hat with the gents and participating in Novembeard in my own way this week. Maybe next year, I'll let the annual "Autumn Absurdity Party" herald my month of Novemweird. Maybe next year I'll commit to a whole month of Movember... maybe by then, I'll have brought the femmoustache out of 1920's obscurity and into popular female fashion (yeaaah... highly doubt it). At any rate, let the absurdity begin!

Dystopian Nonfiction

I feel like if you had to assign a motto to those beloved (or at least admired despite intense moral dissonance) heroes and anti-heroes of dystopian fiction, it would be:

"Just because it was bound to happen, doesn't mean I have to like it."

I feel like that should be my motto for today. Or maybe this week. Possibly this semester.

Which may be a tad dramatic considering that no one has come to my house to burn my books yet.

If that happened, I think my new motto would become, in the succinct phrasing of Halo:

"Killing spree."

Design for Society

I was tidying up the computer lab at work this morning, and besides the general disarray, one particular abandoned print reminded me of why I dislike design[ers].

The print was a report on affordable fashion. The line that initially caught my eye was:

"Affordable couture is a very important aspect of today's fashion society."

It continued to say that the recent downturn in the economy meant that designers should be concerned with finding ways to lower prices without tarnishing their brand image. In general, I agree with this statement. For design at large, it is possible to create comprehensive and effective solutions without inducing huge costs.

This is evident in the recent rise in "DIY design," especially around the Twin Cities, as clients primarily in the graphic and web markets provide more of their own material and influence, and rely on design firms for production or for idea polishing.

In addition, graphic designers and even architects are showing an increasing interest in their communities both globally and locally, offering services that would normally be cost-prohibitive to non-profits and charitable causes.

I'm sure this crosses over to apparel design in a way - in fact, clothing is considered one of the basic needs for which accessibility defines the poverty line. Affordable clothing is obviously an important societal concern. But affordable couture?

The thing is, Americans are considered impoverished if they don't own things like microwaves [1]. Just taking the bus to work for the average American costs about $3.00 a day. That is almost a third of the daily spending for the 80% of the world! Much of the world actually subsists on less than $1.25 a day.



So what I want to know is, is it really that important that "it is now easier than every [sic] for the ordinary woman to dress in the latest fashions while still maintaining a healthy budget"? Is it even true?

The author of this abandoned paper concluded by saying that "as we move forward I believe that all classes of society will be able to be a part of fashion trends and movements."

I believe that moving forward means that all members of society will be able to afford the basic essentials such as food, shelter, and clothing of any kind. A higher goal still is dignified access to these needs, where being able to afford food, shelter, clothing doesn't mean hand-outs or even food stamps, unsafe or inadequate housing, or secondhand cast-offs.

I'm not saying this is a necessarily inherent criticism of the design industry as a whole; like I said, there are many designers doing what they can to further these goals. But there are many more who go to work every day thinking about how to get people who are in the top of the world's financial bracket to buy things.

I am not going to say that I think there's a lot more social accountability in the engineering industry. Even if that were the case (it's not), I would likely end up working in industrial design or the automotive sector anyway, which is really a side of the same coin. And, I know that the priorities of the person doing the work are what make the difference in either design or engineering in terms of their professional and social responsibility. It's not really a huge career issue, and a lot of the efforts to change the situation of poverty happen outside of the workplace through great efforts like Urban Homeworks.

But for today, I feel a little better about switching my major.

----------

Really Important Aspects of Today's Society (and Ways to Get Involved)

-Dignified Housing
Urban Homeworks provides community development and dignified housing for low-income families in the Twin Cities. Volunteers work to refurbish homes - painting, drywalling, etc. It's a ton of fun and really rewarding as you get to see the project come together before your eyes in a neighborhood close to home.

-Food
Feed My Starving Children is another great way to get involved locally, and the work you do there effects people around the world. FMSC is dedicated to providing nutritious meals to starving children all over the world. You can help by volunteering to package this food at one of their three sites near the metro area (Coon Rapids, Chanhassen, or Eagan).

-Other Cool Causes and Efforts to Check Out
Invisible Children - Advocating on behalf of the child soldiers of Uganda
World Vision/Acting on AIDS - AIDS relief and awareness efforts
World Relief - Support for refugees of conflict, human trafficking, oppression
International Justice Mission - human rights advocacy for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression

Speaking Of

Speaking of rockabilly (see previous post), the highlight of my day today may very well have been seeing a rockabilly family at church. Cuffed jeans and white tees on the guys (including an adorable little boy with a mohawk), black rectangular glasses and wallet chain, and the gal was rocking a great black dress-and-boots combo. I love the diversity at Substance.

Speaking of Substance and to some extent diversity, I now have two sets of acquaintances with the same ridiculously unique names. At least the [K/C]onrads have different first initials so it's easier to reference which one I mean. It still amuses me that they were both the first other [K/C]onrads either had met. But I'm going to be getting involved with the production team at Substance working on sound (I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a sound board after 7-8 years!), and the guy in charge of that is named Caleb. This makes him the second Caleb I have ever met and will possibly be talking to on a regular basis, and this time I don't have initial differences to work with. I'm not good with names, and I have a hard enough time keeping track of multiple different Bens, Lizs, Jons, and Andrews. But if I meet another Damaris or Valerie anytime soon, I might do like I do at camp at start calling everyone "hey you" or "gals/guys". Not that the Madelines we had one week weren't adorable with their very specific opinions of how to pronounce the name.

Speaking of sound, Pastor Peter was wired for it this morning. His "charismatic shuffle" was just about the funniest thing I've seen all week. I wonder if he's that hyper all week long, or if he saves it up for Sunday mornings?

And speaking of being hyper, there were some guys somewhere on our block last night who were up shouting and singing and just generally being hooligans until the wee hours of the morning last night. So I might catch a bit of a nap and then hit up the massive pile of homework due Monday... espresso and then homework.

Oh... and speaking of roller derby, I got out the skates I bought on a whim at Everyday People and spent all of yesterday evening skating around my house, and in particular my kitchen. It probably wasn't a great idea to skate around with the oven on and open and with a knife in my hands, but cooking on roller skates is the most fun I've had in quite a while.

Nordic Derby

So, this is a little random. But this ridiculously unseasonal September heat-wave is getting me hyped for winter, and it has been a life-long goal of mine to invent a new winter sport.

I think I may have a winner, inspired by these great roller-derby socks:





If you are not familiar with roller-derby, it is a sport where overly-aggressive rockabilly chicks slam each other around while skating around a track.

Since I was raised by a former competitive roller-skater (I still own my mom's old skates with Canadian Red wheels), and any break in the White Bear Lake school system warranted a trip to Saints North, this naturally appeals to me. Especially since rockabilly style is a huge element of the swing revival.

Anyhow, I started thinking about my own favorite winter sports, nordic skiing and hockey. Nordic skiing includes a style called freestyle or "skate-skiing" which could possibly lend itself well to the roller derby format, while hockey is dripping with the violent, show-stopping athleticism that I think a good sport needs.

Ice skating derby would be the most obvious result, but I don't think crashing into folks with blades on their feet sounds like a ton of fun, so...

I submit for your consideration: Nordic Derby. A large track or loop would serve as the traditional flat track, and the rules would be pretty similar, with obvious modifications for the limited mobility offered by skis (possibly using short trick skis, or even roller skis?). In a full-contact sport, we'd have to find a way to get the ski poles involved without putting any eyes out. And how sweet would those derby socks look peeking out of ski bindings over black spandex racing skins? Oh yeah!

I think I've got something. Now I need a whole bunch of daring snowbunnies who V2 like it's second nature, a large open practice field, and a whole bunch of glide wax.

Coffee List

So, my dear clever friend Amy posted this on her blog, and since I'm a hopeless plagiarizing fraud at heart, I'm taking a shot at it. Description (c) Amy:

It's the coffee list.

It's the list of people that you want to sit down with and over a cup of coffee (or tea or whatever), pick their brains about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. To find out everything about them, what their favorite color is, what they think of the world, and why they are the way they are.

It doesn't necessarily have to be people that you agree with or support. I would certainly add Hitler and Joseph Kony to my list, along with a number of other criminals or societal outcasts. I would want to talk to them and find out why they believe what they do, and so on.

There are no rules. They can be dead or alive. From any country or century. From any and all social, economic, geographic, or political arena. The setting is this: You and your person of choice at a coffee shop. That's it. You can ask anything. There are no boundaries. No security risks. No one else to get in the way (except maybe a translator). It can be a famous person, or that family member who died a few years ago.

Who's on your list and why?

What would you ask them?

Taylor's Coffee List:
C.S. Lewis
-Seriously, who wouldn't want to chat with this guy over coffee? He had one of the most active imaginations in the world, besides being a scholar, theologian, and general intellectual. Most of those types of people can't even make it through college.

James Dean
-An interesting and yet highly private individual, known for his dedication to his work, his inquisitive nature, and his volatile temperament. I imagine this would be an extremely interesting conversation.

Rob Bell
-He has a talent for expressing new and old ideas alike as fresh, simple, and profound. I expect it would translate well to conversation.

Yuko and Ananth from Johnny Wander
-They seem to have some wild and crazy adventures. Or daily life cleverly disguised as wild and crazy adventures with pen and ink.

Ray Bradbury
-I would like to have a huge round-table panel discussion with a number of dystopian fiction writers, but if I had to pick one, I'd pick Ray Bradbury. Or Vonnegut. Or Orson Scott Card. Dang it! Bradbury.

J.R.R. Tolkien
-I know, lots of writers on my list. But I picked most of the writers for reasons other than their writing, and I picked Tolkien solely because I can imagine no better person in the history of the world to discuss language with than, as far as anyone knows, the only man who ever created an entire working language (multiple, in fact), by himself.

Leonardo Da Vinci, David Kelley, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Alec Issigonis
-I made myself choose one dystopian fiction writer, but this coffee chat really needs to be a round-table between some of the most fertile and innovative minds in engineering and design. That is, if you could get Tesla and Edison in the same room, if you believe stories of their heated rivalry.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
-My favorite president based on some of his contributions to our country such as the Interstate Highway System and the American sister cities program.

Victor Hugo
Oscar Wilde
The "Mute Math" Guys
Bret and Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords

Mute Math!

Mute Math is back from a hiatus of sorts with a new album and a tour!

Of course, I am inordinately thrilled about this, and looking forward to what will be my fourth or fifth time seeing these guys go crazy. If anyone is awesome enough to know and appreciate the wonder that is Mute Math and wants to come along for the concert, you should let me know. We have been known to coordinate the wearing of suit vests to such events in homage to the stylish apparel of the band, and to throw pre-concert parties during which we buy such vests at thrift stores, or go out for food before the show.

Being OCD and something of an HTML junkie, I find it necessary to point out that the minutes and seconds on the counter below are inaccurate. For some reason, the creators added those displays without adding parameters for them in the code. I abhor the use of extraneous variables.

Created by OnePlusYou

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

Disregard that last post. I have decided that the majority of my life will likely be spent working at some sort of career. By sub-optimizing my life for the time being, it is probable that I can improve the "career era" of my life.

I am not a cynic. I am fricking brilliant.

However, it has also been brought to my attention that the qualities that make me think in this way also tend to make me seem irritating or uninteresting to the types of people I appreciate and prefer working with. How's that for a catch 22?

Whatever. I'm still pretty brilliant.

The Deep End of the Kiddie Pool

Here's the deal: if you read my blog at all, it's probably for the movie reviews because lately that's all I've posted. Great, awesome, marvelous. If that's all you're here for, pass this post on by.

Anyhow. This is my first summer taking classes... well, at the actual "in my major, hard work, and generally boring" kind (even physics seems boring with an inept TA like mine making it more work than it should be). I like taking summer classes in foreign languages and Flash animation, but that's a different thing entirely. And I'm getting behind in my languages because of the "real" classes I have to take.

It sucks. It's just more of the same old stuff. Which likely has more to do with it sucking than it being summer. Because I've been in school for four years now, I feel like I've served my sentence, and I have probably two or three years tacked on for what? Mediocre behavior?

What I mean to say is, I have two midterms this week that I should be studying for, but I've been studying for hours already. I should be fixing my bike and playing ultimate and taking up aikido and eating grape-flavored popsicles. After four years in college, I should be doing those things when I get home from work instead of getting home and getting to work.

I don't think cynics should go to school for more than four years. I don't think cynics should be engineers (even though they're probably the best for the job), since I don't think cynics should be engineering students. By all accounts, I lack the optimism to be anything but an interpreter or a graphic designer. Of course, objective masochist cynic that I am, it just wouldn't do to go through anything less than hell to pursue something that really makes little sense. Besides loving ME, but I don't know if that really counts as sense.

I guess all I'm saying is that I'm going to buy some grape popsicles, go out swing dancing til all hours of the night next week and then skip class on Friday, and basically act my situation instead of my age.

Also, if you haven't seen "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" yet, please do. If you don't speak British, I can provide subtitles.

Neon Genesis Evangelion; Or, Your Head Asplode

Okay, so summer has been sort of boring thus far. Not that it's not insanely busy, but it's just that - tons of busy work. So when I get done with homework/solar car for the day, I study Japanese, and when my eyes can't take it anymore, I watch movies.

I've been making slow, steady progress through my "Films To See" list (send me suggestions, by the way, and go watch "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" if you haven't yet). But I've also been giving some new stuff a chance - stuff I never would have ever considered watching before.

I've never liked anime, for example. Mostly because all the anime I was exposed to early on was just American animation with huge, goofy eyes. (Evangelion has a bit of that, regrettably.)

But I'll admit to having a perverse love of Bleach, and a pure and beautiful love of the amazing (but sadly, short-lived) Cowboy Bebeop.

And based on those interests, I've come across a few recommendations for more. One of them was Neon Genesis Evangelion, and hearing it described as "warped" made me download the first two episodes to see for myself.

Wow.

The first episode starts with a young adolescent boy waiting by a pay phone with a picture of an attractive older gal. You sort of get the idea that it might be a hooker the kid's waiting for. Well, the lady picks him up, there's a car accident or bombing or something (I'm still not quite sure what all happened), and then she's taking him underground to some secret government lab. Where, incidentally, his estranged father is sort of in charge.

Whence, we find that this already awkward kid has a sort of boyish Electra complex, but before his psychological issues are addressed, he's guilted into getting into a giant robot suit because they threaten to make a battered and bloody girl do it if he won't. Once in the suit, he's drowned in some weird fluids and sent out to fight (read: get royaly pwned by) some freakishly strong being with creepy religious connotations.

Of course, the kid responds appropriately, by passing out, only to wake up alone in a hospital room with amnesia and some serious Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Cue episode two, where the lady from before decides that the kid probably shouldn't be staying alone and offers to take him home, promising some other "responsible" adult that she won't have an affair with the kid... even though, before the episode is over, she gets sodding drunk and somehow the kid ends up running naked into her kitchen in fear of a penguin in the bathroom.

So yeah. Bleach is an interesting concept. Cowboy Bebop has some interesting characters.

Neon Genesis Evangelion makes "interesting" seem like watching paint dry. A good approximation would be taking Andrew Wiggin from "Ender's Game," pouring a gallon of LSD-spiked absinthe down his throat, adopt him out to a brothel or frat house (or both), take him to a circus where he will take aim at cute girls with blue hair in the shooting gallery, give him the stuffed gorilla as a prize, let it eat him alive, and then send him off to have a little chat with Sigmund Freud, who happens to have had a good dose of the same and is inexplicably wearing a miniskirt.

Got it all pictured in your head? Good. Your mental state is about on the border of Neon Genesis Evangelion territory.

It's not for everyone. Honestly, I'm not even sure it's for me. I'm not recommending you watch it so much as ranting about how odd the world can be.

But if you're feeling open minded and a little bored this summer, give a little anime a try. I highly recommend Cowboy Bebop as a gateway anime (no pun intended for those who've already seen it). It has an amazing, original jazz soundtrack and not too many characters or plot lines to keep up with. And the character who shows up in episode 9 is one of the funniest ever.

If the 26 episodes of Bebop can't keep you satisfied all summer, check out Bleach. It's weird, yeah, but it's got one thing American film and TV is lacking these days: originality.

Anime not your cup of tea? Here are a few film suggestions:
-Equilibrium (I posted about it before... it really deserved more hype than it got)
-The Spirit (if you have a high tolerance for absurdity)
-Death at a Funeral (good, awkward, British fun)
-The Sandlot (the quintessential summer movie)

L4YER CAKE

Okay, this isn't exactly deep, but that's how the dice roll I guess.

It's a movie review. Unlike my "Equilibrium" post, which was more of a movie analysis.

L4YER CAKE. I checked it out from the library solely because I was bored and it starred Daniel Craig. As it happens, it was pretty darn decent. If you like a certain kind of movie.

That certain kind of movie is a moderate blend of amusing and disturbing crime misadventures. It was produced by the same folks who did "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," and even though the director is different, the flavor is much the same. A varied cast of criminal misfits with British accents.

L4YER CAKE (what an awkward title) is Guy Ritchie's hilarious crime sprees played (somewhat) straight. Which is necessary if you have Daniel Craig in the lead role, since he's more the dry wit (with a side of anger issues) than the usual posse. Be prepared to laugh some, especially when Craig's character says things like, "I f***ing hate guns. But, that one's rather pretty..." But also be prepared for Casino Royale-style shirtless escapades followed closely by pain and kidnapping, double-crossing, and violent outbursts. It gets a little dark and suspenseful toward the end, but it's kept random with a ninja stalking a fat guy in a speedo as he waters his garden in the middle of the night. And, be prepared for the gratuitous language present in "Snatch." If you've an aversion to the F-bomb, rent Wall-E instead.

To sum it up, if you just don't have the energy to follow the fast-paced antics of the Guy Ritchie classics, rent L4YER CAKE and prepare to watch an intriguing take on drugs, guns, and British accents unfurl with sharp, tongue-in-cheek style.

And then return it, and prepare to forget you ever saw it. It's not really one that'll stick with you afterwards, but it makes for an entertaining hour and change.

iTunes: The Middle-Man Who Would Be King

I'm okay with purchasing my music. I'm okay with the idea of musicians getting paid for their work. In theory, I was okay with iTunes being the venue for my music purchasing.

Of course, I was decidedly unhappy about their DRM copy protection. The music belongs to the artists, not iTunes, so why should they get to say how you use it? You should be able to do with an iTunes song anything you could by ripping the song from the album.

I didn't make too much of a fuss about this, I guess, since I buy CDs from my favorite artists, and only really used iTunes to buy single songs from artists whose CDs I wouldn't be willing to purchase in their entirety. Or, I bought vinyl, and a lot of current artists who release on vinyl include a full album download (from a non-iTunes third party). So all around, pretty decent deal.

I didn't boycott iTunes because of their ridiculous DRM policies, but I wasn't thrilled about it. So I was thrilled when they recently made the switch to DRM-free downloads. The policy change wasn't backwards-compatible, so to speak, but it was a step in the right direction. I was proud of Apple for taking a step outside of their "self-important proprietary software comfort zone".

So imagine my surprise when I go to download the one song I wanted from Eve 6's self-titled album, a discovery I made on my main resource for music, Pandora. The track, Inside Out, is apparently the most popular track on the album. This earned it a heftier price tag - $1.29 for a single song!

What the hell, iTunes?!

Just when we thought we could be proud that Apple was relaxing their arrogant iron fists, they pound us with something even more absurd.

I'm okay with artists being paid for their music. I'm not okay with third-party middle men profiteering on the popularity of items that they don't even own.

I'm not sure what I'm personally going to do about this. I will definitely be Googling* other options for music purchasing, listening, and management software.

As for the music industry and iTunes in particular, I know what I think they should do about this. It's time to take a page from the book of Radiohead and let the artists, and possibly even the customers, set the prices for what really is an arbitrary commodity.

I would prefer to cut out the middle-man, but if you've seen Firefly, you know that most of the world is middle-men, and they don't like being cut out. I'm sure Apple is no exception, though at the moment they remind me more of the Alliance than any of the Firefly crew's backwater contacts.

*Google... there's an example of how to do business. Sure, if Apple is the fearsome, paranoid dictator of the internet, then Google is its Big Brother. But damn if we don't love our transparent, open-source friendly Big Brother.

Equilibrium

Have you ever seen the film "Equilibrium"? If not, go do that now. I can't promise great cinematography or a groundbreaking plot, but it's very thought-provoking and features Christian Bale, who somehow manages to play stoic characters with amazing emotional range.

Which is an absolute necessity for this film, because the majority of the characters are supposed to be emotionless, and a bunch of flat main characters doesn't make for a very interesting movie.

In the film, "they" (the government? society as a whole?) have decided to subdue their emotions using drugs to eliminate hatred, violence, and war - at the cost of love, happiness, and any real meaning to their lives. It's not a new premise by any means, and honestly, if you've read any of the dystopian classics (1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451), the story seems uncannily familiar.

It hadn't occurred to me while reading those books, however, that a society without emotion is likely to be a more violent society than one with. Morality requires emotion. In order for the majority of the populace to condemn murder, violence, and destructive behavior, they have to feel that it is wrong. They have to have some desire for peace, or at least a desire to preserve their own interests.

If there was no jealousy, no betrayed husband would kill his unfaithful wife and her adulterous lover in a furious rage. But the husband who can comprehend and experience jealousy can also experience remorse. And, it usually takes quite a bit to get a person to those extremes in any case.

A husband with no emotion and an unfaithful wife wouldn't care one way or the other with whom else she is double-dealing. At the same time, however, a husband who has no emotion could kill a completely faithful wife without the slightest hesitation or guilt.

Emotion moderates human behavior. The prospect of guilt or the fear of punishment are the last lines of defense against unsavory behavior, but before those there is a desire for peace, a love for one's close friends and relatives, a need to be respected by one's peers.

In a society where no one has emotion but everyone has some unmotivated pursuit, I would expect a lot more violence than in the emotion-driven world we actually inhabit. The violence would not be malicious, but neither would it be absent.

Adrenalin Philosophy

So, the name of this blog...

You know when you're in an intense situation, your heart is racing, and you think "yeah, this'd be a good idea."

This is sort of like that.