February 22, 2004
Bizarre Love Triangle
Got this off Nothing is True... It's a piece of really good motion capture animation, and I love what they do with the light. But beyond the technique, I just love the scenario... Having a great night at a good club, and then getting offered immortality by some kind of futuristic avatar that speaks to you from the bathroom wall. Isn't that what clubbing is supposed to be all about?
Here's the clip (20+MB download). I hope they succeed in making a whole film out of it.
Pics from Sweden
I just put up some more pics from the skiing trip last weekend. You can really start to feel spring in the air and in the quality of light now, so I don't think that I'll get the chance to ski again till next winter. Pity because it's fun and I could really use the practice.
Eyaaagh!
Poor Howard Dean. He's going to be sitting on his couch ten years from now, drinking beer and endlessly playing and rewinding a tape of his "I have a scream" speech, and asking himself "why did I do it?"
I dropped my ballot for the Demo primary off at the US Embassy on Friday. Man, they've really gone overboard on the security at that place. I guess I can understand why they're twitchy, but it's funny when you compare the US Embassy with the Russian Embassy that's just next door. The Russian building looks like a cozy two-storey dacha (with a lot of extra antennae hanging off it, granted), and the American one looks like a Roman fortress.
Evolution
I met Kasper, one of my buddies from the Europe in the World programme, at a bar in Copenhagen last night. It turned into a really good night. He brought his wife, Lone, and I convinced Svetlana, one of the coders from work, to come with to the pub. We got into a deep drunken conversation about evolution, and agreed on something I hadn't really thought about before that night. We netheads have evolved in a subtle but really basic way- we've learned to use our minds primarily as an analytical tool rather than a data storage tool, probably for the first time in the history of the species. This has happened in the last five years, which is pretty quick by evolutionary standards.
Think of it this way. Before the Internet, people used their minds to gather a lot of information, compare that information to their current conditions, and then leverage the differences to their advantage.
Now, our problem is that we have too much information- it's the old cliche of trying to take a few sips of water from a fire hose. What that's done to us is that we have no time or capacity to internalize all the information we get. We no longer use our brains as data storage devices, at least not primarily. I remember very little. I'm terrible at names and dates. But that's because I know I can store all this data somewhere else and concentrate on assessing which names and dates are important. Which information is likely to be correct and useful. I don't need to know the information as long as I know where to look it up quickly and how it relates to other information I'm aware of. This gives me more time and headspace to analyze all the data and leverage it for something useful (though granted, I can't remember my own phone number any more). I think that's a pretty basic change in the way we appreciate information, and the way we gather and use it.
Errgh, can't sleep again. A friend I met on tribenet actually sent me a lullaby last week, because I'm always complaining about the sleep dep. It was a pretty cool thing to do (and it sounds nice). Thanks Deborah!
February 16, 2004
Sore in Sverige
My friends Steen and Dana took Cec and I out for a weekend skiing and skating in Sweden. It was my first time skiing, and, well, I think I need some more practice. I was like one of those turkeys that can't really fly but keeps trying anyway. I didn't break any bones, but I'm a little bruised and incredibly sore.
I don't mind at all though. It was so much fun to be out in the clean air and doing something physical for a change. Then to go back to the cabin in the middle of the woods and eat and drink wine and play games and just be mindless for a while. I could get used to that.
I took some pics but haven't had time to Photoshop them yet. Here's a couple of shots from my phonecam that kind of tell the story of the last few days.
Me really stressed, leaving work on Friday.
The middle of nowhere.
Me, happy in the middle of nowhere.
Me on Monday, starting to stress up for work again...
If I really wanted to portray how the skiing went though, I'd show a shot of me on my ass in the artificial snow, looking at my feet and wondering how I got into that position... Steen, Dana and Cec were really good, as were the bunches of Swedish six-year olds that kept zipping past me with easy grace. (sigh...)
February 12, 2004
Empathy
Had a weird wave of deja vu this afternoon. Actually several really strong waves of deja vu, followed by a strange feeling of clarity. I feel like a walking psychology experiment... (Let's see if critical sleep dep and intense externally-applied stress will increase the subject's empathic sensitivity).
It sounds weird, but I swear my hearing is better too. I was listening to Bowery Electric's Freedom Fighter on the randomizer (it's a song expressing shock and disgust at the constant state of warfare we've been in for the last fifteen years). I've listened to this song I don't know how many times, I really like it. But today, in the opening tones of the song, I heard a crowd chanting faintly but clearly "no more war!" in the background. Kinda cool, unless I'm just imagining it and I'm in the first stages of some kind of nervous breakdown.
February 10, 2004
Palm Reading
I'm about a quarter into Cory Doctorow's new book Eastern Standard Tribe. It's fun—reminds me of early Neal Stephenson. I dig his use of language and sense of rapid-fire dialogue.
I downloaded the thing onto my PDA and have been reading it from that. I've been slow to try that technology, cuz I didn't think it would be too much fun reading a book on the tiny first-gen monochrome LCD screen of my obsolescent Palm V. But after I took some time to get used to it (about 30 seconds) I realized how jazzed I was by the idea of it. It's so convenient—you can just lose yourself on the bus or train, or escalator in between levels of the tube. A minute here, ten minutes there, to lose myself in someone else's plot. I like it. It's nice.
Gotta run. Today was the fourth time in the last four workdays that someone's popped their head into my office and remarked "hey, Peter, you really look like shit." (Cheers.) Gonna go make a heroic effort at sleeping now.
February 09, 2004
Bad Head
I had another vicious attack of insomnia again last night, and it took me nine hours of consciousness (more like somnambulation) to realize there'd been a reason for it. I was working on a project today, missed lunch because I couldn't get away, and was dead in my seat by around 3pm. The combination of falling blood sugar and critically low seritonin levels took away my sense of visual perspective. I was trying to decide if my chair was really swaying slowly, like the conn of a large ship in open ocean swells. Or if it was just me and my bad head. I had my playlist on and tuned for what I thought I needed. Lotta trip-hop and electro—Adult., Miss Kittin, Laika, Laub and Lamb. Then the randomizer put on Kosheen's "Let Go" and I remembered that I hadn't slept because I'd been thinking about Loraine. It had just been one moment—just a flash of memory as I was struggling to drift off—a trip to LA three and a half years ago, when she'd once rested her head on my shoulder, delicate, fragile... And so much for sleeping. I guess I finally drifted off around five (I heard the morning paper come crashing through the door slot). By the time the alarm rang an hour and a half later, I'd forgotten everything till the Kosheen lyrics brought it back...
I won’t forget you, I won’t, I won’t forget your smile
Or how you’d taken me
I won’t forget
I let you walk with me, take me home
Because the light is so dark when you’re alone
I let you down
I let you down
I let you go
Oh won’t you let me be myself?
I want to be myself.
I won’t forget you, I won’t forget you
I let you down
I let you down
I let you go
When your friend dies you always feel you could have done more. It seems like a long time since I've thought of her.
February 08, 2004
Into the future
I just downloaded Cory Doctorow's latest novel, "Eastern Standard Tribe." On the page describing his book, Doctorow wrote this...
"...I am firmly afoot on a long road that stretches into the future: my future, science fiction's future [he's a science fiction author], publishing's future and the future of the world."
Yes, that's it. That's why I write instead of sleep. Not because I care about publishing—I can't imagine there are more than three people in the world that would bother reading about a fictional alternate political history of the Crimean peninsula (which, sadly, is what I've been working on). But throwing yourself into the future—making common cause with the world and its manifestations, all the stupidity and the incredible beauty—that's a concept I'm interested in.
I like to write because when I'm on a good roll, it makes me feel the way you do when you first get out of a theater after a good movie, one that makes you feel strange and awake, and gets you to notice the world a little more intensely for a while. When I'm on a roll I can feel myself paying more attention to things, making connections I might not have otherwise. Feeling awake. It's the closest thing I can get to actualization, these days at least.
Here's a bit I got on paper a while ago and have just finished playing with...
In San Francisco everyone had been on-line and looking good. The nights with Junko he'd spent in the Mission, the music and lights, and afterwards, the bitter taste of the pill, the upward rushing golden explosion in the chest that clarified so many things, for a while at least... She brought out the spiritual in him, made the experience more than just fun, made him believe that it could actually mean something. That ultraviolet and orange mandala he'd once imagined spinning in the center of the ceiling of the their little Divisadero apartment, the smiling girl-Buddha he imagined in its twisting purple-orange core—raining on him blessings, lotus petals and complexity, and something else, just hints of something deeper, revealing itself incompletely in the patterns of light and sensation, something that might have been the words that were lost. Sure, maybe it did mean something, for that moment. It was all good, in its time, yes... the craziness of those days. He had been soaking it all in, maybe even then recognizing its transience—riding the intensity of it, turning in time, turning at the cusp of the great Wheel. There had been moments when, unable to speak, he'd repeated his mantra of that time in his mind, and in those moments at least, it had literally been fulfilled... let it always be like this, let it always be like this, let it always be like this. Thomas throws his dying cigarette into red Crimean mud and kills the ember with his heel. He spits to keep himself from crying. He doesn't have time for that here. That life is gone now, he tells himself for the millionth time. All that is gone now. But fuck it's hard... So what, he's supposed to pretend that it wasn't important, because it all ended in mindfucking cruelty years later? He remembers Junko's short dark hair and expressive brown eyes... her body, tight and perfect, like a sine wave... and the way she could get lost in a moment, sensing the world turning in spirals around her... No. There had been something important there, but they'd burned it down. They'd both made a mockery of something so utterly beautiful, Thomas just as guilty as she of that real sin. He lights the last Berkut in his pack, inhales deeply and forces himself to concentrate on the moment. What do you have right now? he thinks. You have a cigarette. That's something. You have a cigarette and a job... Thomas is torn from his train of thought by engine noises approaching behind him. He turns and watches as Palach's brown UAZ rover rolls over the crest of the hill, squat and ugly, out of place in the strange hazy beauty of the winter landscape. No troubles with the Ukrainians, if Palach and his people are back already. Thomas rubs his eyes, puts his tough-guy journalist face back on and walks back towards the rover. He has work to do. |
February 06, 2004
Horror in the Metro
I was on the same Metro line, at the same station, two months ago.
I had a really good time in Moscow, and I thought the Metros were really cool. This is just so horrible. Haven't had time to process it yet. I wish all the evil zealots on both sides would just spend more time killing each other and leave the rest of us alone.
Buena Vista
Cec just heard on the radio that the US Government denied entry visas to the members of the Cuban band Buena Vista Social Club, who were supposed to get an industry award in the US shortly. She was stomping around the place ranting "Fools! Cultural idiots! Monkeys!..." (She's a big fan of BVSC.) Then she asked me why the American Minister of Culture doesn't get involved. I had to say we don't have a Minister of Culture, cuz in the US there's no Ministry of Culture.
She thought for a moment and said "Well, that explains everything, doesn't it?"
February 04, 2004
Breast Power
I'm blown away by the huge sociopolitical battle that's been raging in the US since Janet Jackson exposed her right breast on television. I guess I've been living in Scandinavia too long (where nudity is like a national pastime). I just don't understand anymore. Now the FBI is getting involved?
Someone, please tell me that things aren't getting as bad over there as they seem to be. I'd expect this sort of insipid moralizing from the Taliban, but not a modern state in the early 21st century. Please just grow up.
This is getting worse
I've simply GOT to catch up on sleep soon. I saw my reflection in the mirror in the bog at work today and realized I'm starting to look like Yeltsin, for fuck's sake...
February 03, 2004
Hooked
Just saw the West Wing on Danish telly. It's always great watching that show because, for one thing, it gives me an hour a week where I can blissfully pretend that America has a Democratic president again. For another thing it's exquisitely written. (I've heard from my friends in the US that the later seasons weren't that great, but we're still on the second season here, since everything hits Danish TV like five years after it's already aired over there).
But what also gets me about politics, especially now with the Democratic primaries making big news in the US, is what a sick rush I get out of it all. It's got big stakes, personalities, idealism, drama, lies, betrayal, blood, filth, villainy and every expression of sheer human depravity you can imagine. American politics are as good as Shakespeare (except the dialogue isn't nearly as good). And it's that sick intensity that pulls me in—the furious desire to give the bastards hell. Sometimes you win and sometimes the bastards win, but it's that powerplay, the game and the adrenalin, that make it feel like an aphrodesiac to me. (There are few things as sexy for me as a powerful, politically-savvy girl with sharp wits, who likes to make the bad guys suffer—in the early 90s I had an almost-unbearable teenage-like crush on Dee Dee Myers).
I just dug up something I wrote just after the 98 midterm elections... It's a little dated, especially since Bush the Lesser and Evil Dick made it to the White House, but it kinda catches the feeling...
February 02, 2004
The Brezhnev Gambit
Had a good conversation on the train home with one of the lovely Ukrainian codeheads from work (actually she's from Moldova, but the rest of that crowd is Ukrainian). We were talking about politics and she said it's possible that the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was Brezhnev's gambit to resuscitate the failing Soviet economy and gather public support behind the state in a time of war.
Brezhnev must have known by 79 that his economy was almost irretrievably foxed. Living standards in the Soviet Union had started to decline for the first time since the Great Patriotic War, and in the long term, it would have eventually spelled the death of the state. I can see why it may have made sense to Brezhnev's people to start a "splendid little war," to temporarily jumpstart the economy on a charlie-bump of military spending and patriotic fervor. I just never thought of it that way before (I guess I'd assumed, like most Westerners, that he must have been looking outward rather than inward when he began that adventure). Brezhnev probably couldn't have even imagined the nightmare his little gambit would turn itself into over the next decade. And the world is still struggling with the consequences.
If it's true, it's makes kind of a scary parallel, no?
A Year Since Columbia
Sara reminded me over the weekend that it's been a year since the Columbia broke up on re-entry. It seems hard to beleive it's been that long. I remember coming home from work and turning on the news. The first picture on the screen was that long flaming contrail, with flickering bits falling away from the contrail itself. It didn't sink in at first, because my brain wasn't processing the Danish that the news announcer was speaking in the background. But then they flashed to some old footage of the Columbia taking off, and I got a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach as I realized what must have happened. |
February 01, 2004
Hello, Nurse!
I've been buried under work again and haven't had time to work on any of my creative outlets. It's painful because I've got some ideas I'd like to follow up on, and I've come in contact with some new and exciting things.
|
|||
| My lovely friends Sara and Rick sorted me out recently, with a badass industrial-looking sweater. There's one semi-industrial club I know of in Copenhagen, but I've only bothered going once because it's only open on certain Fridays during the month, and it doesn't open till 1 am (by which point I'm usually too exhausted from work to do much dancing). But now I'm inspired. Anyone wants to meet me at Stengade 30 the next time they do the Hardcore
Night, let me know. |
 |
||
|
|||
Another brilliant find came from Jeremy, who turned me on to a band called "Lyumeni" that sounds exactly like a Russian version of Stereolab. It was love at first listen for me. I've been checking the links, looking for a Western European tour, but nothing yet. Go here and download some tracks... |
|||
I was meant to go to Orlando in March on a mission with work, but we just had our travel budget slashed so I was cut from the delegation. I'm a little disappointed, because someone I met on Tribe.net who lives in Florida gave me a heads-up on a good club there called Eye Spy. Apparently you need to get a password to be let in the door (they send you the password if you query their site). I'm a big fan of "face control" anyway, and I just think the password thing is a cool marketing idea. Thanks for turning me on to the club, Jude. Pity I can't make it. I guess the positive side of getting cut is that I get to catch Chicks on Speed, who's coming to town when I would have been out of the country. |
|||
Lastly for tonight, I had another one of those fucked up, incredibly detailed dreams I've been having lately. The Americans had just bombed Warsaw, Bucharest and Minsk, bombed them hard... there were thousands of civilian casualties. In the dream I was in a Romanian refugee camp, a huge outdoor triage area surrounded by the burned and bleeding survivors, trying to figure out why it happened. Creepy way to wake up. |
|||
