STRANGE SWEAT

Basho

2010-01-06T00:24:00.000-05:00

Though I'm in Kyoto,
when the cuckoo sings
I long for Kyoto.

Hollywood Movie Pitch

2009-12-29T13:24:00.010-05:00

"So, I have this great idea for a movie. Imagine a cross between The Matrix and Fern Gully and Pocahontas, with a dash of Dances with Wolves and Last Samurai thrown in. In the movie, a white, male protagonist will go to an alien planet, where the indigenous people will be a group of tall lanky people who are half-naked, wear feathers and bead necklaces and dreads and braids, shoot bow and arrows, chant tribal songs, cry over dead animals, wear war paint, and literally worship trees. They will be mostly warriors and hunters, but they will have spiritual shaman-like leaders who commune with nature. The white, male protagonist will undergo a procedure to have his skin color match theirs in order to fit in and join their clan, learn their ways, earn acceptance, and ultimately replace their existing male chiefs and lead his newly adopted people into battle and ultimately victory. He'll even push out the native suitor to the tribal princess and get it on with her, and he alone can ride the magical dragon that proves that he's the one to lead the clan! Plus, the white, male protagonist will sport a tribal tattoo, just in case the symbolism is lost on the audience. What do you think?"

"Wow, that sounds pretty terrible, almost borderline offensive."

"I'm James Cameron, bitch!"

"Okay, okay fine, we'll make it. Jeez..."

"Great! I'll need a quarter of a billion dollars to share my unique and original vision with the world."

Happy Holidays, etc.

2009-12-25T13:00:00.003-05:00

Christmas morning haiku for y'all:

Christmas morning rain
washes all the snow away.
I am on life tilt.

Stereogum & Team 9's Mash-Ups for 2009

2009-12-24T16:24:00.000-05:00

Karl

2009-12-21T13:03:00.001-05:00

Karl is a thin man in a faded black t-shirt. He wears thick glasses that stretched his face past the skin above and below the frame. He wears wrinkles and a jack-o'-lantern smile.

We think he wants a cigarette, but he wants money. We ask for a joke in return, but he doesn't have any good ones. Sorry, he says, I got a bit of st-stutter. We shrug and give him loose singles because hey we respect the need for beer money.

No jokes? Tell us a story.

A story? Okay.

Karl was a track runner. He ran the mile in high school under five minutes. He went to college in Rhode Island, studied nutrition. There he ran the mile in under four minutes.

But at the Olympic trials, he ran a four oh eight. He knew that the marines had a track team so he enlisted. It was the late eighties.

Then came Operation Desert Storm.

Karl lives in an abandoned building on Avenue C and Twelfth Street with his pit-bull Tina and a few other squatters. Two of the squatters were friends, army brethren, from his squad.

Don't fuck with Tina, Karl says. She's an old girl, but she's still got a death grip. This guy stumbled in one time and Tina got aholda his leg. Wouldn't let go. Tina, I said. Settle. I said to the guy what do you want. He said he don't want no trouble. Just a place to shoot up. Shoot up, I said. Tina, get on him. We don't got no lock on the door. But we don't want no dope fiends in there. Grass, yes. But dope, no.

Not to be too personal or anything, but do you ever want to do something well normal, we ask. We ask Karl if he's happy on the street.

Happy? Hell no.

He points to his right eye. Detached retina. He points to the other eye. Shrapnel. I'm legally blind yknow. Can't see for shit. At least I got the VA hospital, he says. Shoot, sometimes they'll even check up on Tina.

Karl splits his time between the city and Florida. His mother-in-law is down there, raising his two kids. The problem, he says, is this lady I met a few years back. Gave me AIDS. Now he's just biding his time. Don't worry nothing boys. You can't get it from shaking my hand.

We say it's no problem. We know that. When he's not looking though, we still wipe our hands on our jeans.

After a while, Karl leans in. Hey I'm going to talk to these drunk guys and try and get some money. We watch him stalk away into the night. We watch smoke snake around our fingers. We watched our cigarette butts flicker in the moonlight. We stamp them out, the ashes like black chalk on the sidewalk.

My new favourite site...

2009-10-16T00:32:00.005-04:00

urbansketchers.com

Prior to my stumbling upon this site through one of cgansen's tweets, I had set a goal of drawing one one-page comic for each day of my 27th year. I was inspired to do so after reading Lucky, by Gabriel Bell, as well as a bunch of Guy Delisle's books.

I've been failing miserably. It really takes a bit of time, plus my life isn't really multi-panel fascinating. (Particularly Tuesdays, which have been taking on the familiar refrain of work, online poker, dinner, WSOP, sleep.) I'm considering abandoning the project, or at least amending it to maybe weekly one-page comics.

But urban sketching looks fun, and possibly more feasible. I've sketched rather than taken photos on trips to Europe and China, but I've never really considered sketching Brooklyn. Stay tuned to see whether it actually happens.

The Dangers of Digital Ownership

2009-07-29T11:54:00.005-04:00

About a week and a half ago, Slate published an article about Amazon remotely deleting e-books from customers' Kindles. Ironically, the texts deleted were George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Apparently, the way that Amazon e-books works is that customers don't so much "own" books as store books accessed from a distant server. iTunes operates in a similar way, with digital restrictions on how customers may use or spread their mp3 or movie purchases. Needless to say, the article serves as a warning for censorship in the digital age: rather than sending firemen to show up and physically destroy your possessions, the powers that be can simply snip your ties and access to a digital mainframe.

I've been giving this matter of ownership some thought, even prior to reading this article, particularly the idea of material possessions in our digital age. Although my stacks of books (and shoes, I'll admit) may argue otherwise, I don't like owning a bunch of stuff. I romanticize the notion of having all my possessions in a suitcase. The advent of digital media offered such possibilities: my music collection for an iPod, my library for a Kindle. To have everything at my finger tips and to take it all with me on a train or a plane... such was the promise of the internet age. To be home wherever I went. Permanent vacation.

In fact, the promise was more than the consolidation of my purchases. I wouldn't need to own anything anymore anyway. Who needs books, or even a library card, with Google books? Who needs an iPod with Grooveshark and internet radio? Who needs a DVD collection with Netflix Instant Play or Hulu? No need to purchase any mp3's or buy any books. If I had access to everything, then I wouldn't need to possess anything. Ownership would be passe. The freedom to have nothing. The communist in me rejoices. The ascetic in me exults.

But now this whole Kindle episode has me reconsidering the importance of ownership, the importance of material possession. It almost seems like a responsibility to own. Ownership is evidence that something exists and has existed, a proof of immutability, preserving the authenticity of exchange between artist and audience. It protects against revisionist history, against censorship images of Tiananmen square, against Amazon shredding digital pages without a Kindler's consent, hell, against Amazon editing digital pages without a Kindler's consent.

This is probably why I still purchase all my music albums on CDs rather than on iTunes. It's probably also why I haven't bought a Kindle yet. Which is fine. The skyline of books on my shelves would look much better than a lone plastic slab anyway.

Bahahaha

2009-03-16T00:35:00.001-04:00

I'd totally think that this is a trailer for a fake movie, but the production value is so high.

Change I can believe in

2009-03-15T17:49:00.003-04:00

For maybe two years, I've kept an old pickle jar in my room where all my loose nickels, pennies, and dimes that don't make it into homeless palms invariably end up. That jar has been past overflowing. I'd been meaning to stop by a Coinstar or a Commerce Bank to convert my cold hard coins into cold hard cash but had never done so. Today, while picking up a healthy lunch of Korean ramen and potato chips at the bodega around the corner, a sign caught my eye:

"Please bring pennies, nickels, and dimes! Will exchange for cash."

I asked the girl behind the counter whether they still needed change. She replied that they did, then quickly assured me that I wouldn't need to put them in rolls, that so long as they were separated it would be fine.

I made my way home and spent the next half an hour separating pennies from nickels from dimes on my dining room table. While sifting through the mound of change, I found five quarters (which I set aside for laundry purposes), a Sacagawea dollar coin, and an three-inch long nail. After bagging the coins up, I made my way back to the bodega, where I found the owner, a Korean man, behind the counter.

"I have a lot of coins," I announced. "Do you want them all?"

"Sure." He proceeded to weigh each bag of coins on the grocery scale--first dimes, then nickels, then pennies. After finding the weight, he would do some figures on a piece of paper salvaged from a cigarette carton, then removing a few coins until he arrived at a round dollar figure for the coins in the bag. He then counted up the remaining stragglers. In between each weighing, customers would walk up and make their purchases.

The final tally showed that I had $37 in dimes, $11.90 in nickels, and $5.14 in pennies, making a total of $54.04. I told the bodega owner that he could keep the four pennies, and he pulled out a rubber-banded wad of cash and counted out what he owed me. Pocketing the cash, I nodded at him and made my way out into the sunny Brooklyn afternoon.

Somewhere in here is an SAT problem.

Snow Day!

2009-03-02T07:16:00.003-05:00

I can't find an image of that Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin's bleary-eyed, complaining about having to go to school, but wakes up instantly when he hears that school has been closed due to a snowstorm. This one will have to do.

Fancy shooting

2009-02-01T10:32:00.001-05:00

I'm not a fan of pageants usually...

2009-01-30T08:05:00.001-05:00

but this might in fact be the perfect woman.

"You have dishonored my family..."

2009-01-14T23:40:00.001-05:00

This looks pretty rad.

Hippo Eats Dwarf

2009-01-14T18:50:00.001-05:00

This has to be a joke

2009-01-12T19:56:00.001-05:00

I haven't seen anything this earnest and unironic since... Slumdog Millionaire.

Latest Mac Technology

2009-01-07T00:02:00.001-05:00

Forget the Macbook Air, this shit is bananas.

Overkill

2008-12-28T01:14:00.006-05:00

Dropping 100 TONS of bombs to kill some 200 people?

Why do Asian people want to be black so much?

2008-12-26T15:58:00.001-05:00

Still, this Dumbfoundead guy is pretty hilarious.

Favourite Music of 2008

2008-12-22T04:30:00.008-05:00

I need to update this more often. This has been a year of mellow, self-titled music for me.

1. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
2. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
3. Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst
4. Little Joy, Little Joy
5. The Felice Brothers, The Felice Brothers
6. Girl Talk, Feed The Animals
7. Atlas Sound, Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

This is why the internet was invented

2008-08-29T16:44:00.001-04:00

Haha snort

2008-08-06T13:33:00.001-04:00

Carsick Cars

2008-07-25T22:32:00.001-04:00

Carsick Cars is a indie rock band based out of Beijing, China. I'm really digging their music right now.

Check it out here.

Denial

2008-07-14T16:02:00.003-04:00

I really like Radiohead's latest album In Rainbows, particularly the track House of Cards. For the video, they busted out some fancy new-fangled technology. The video isn't a video, per se, captured with traditional cameras or lights, but rather digitally animated points of light captured from relative distances of objects and shapes. Or something like that.

Google has an interactive version of the video here.

Coco Wang

2008-07-01T10:57:00.006-04:00

Coco Wang created comics documenting the rescue effort following the earthquakes that hit China. They're pretty amazing.

For Want of a Nail

2008-06-23T10:29:00.003-04:00

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the Stakes was lost.
For want of a Stakes the Crown was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

There Goes the Neighborhood

2008-05-28T00:02:00.001-04:00

I live on 4th Place. This is literally in my backyard.

Bang Bang

2008-03-31T18:27:00.003-04:00

Last Wednesday, I finally made like a tourist and visited some art museums in Manhattan. I first went to the Whitney Biennial, which didn't overwhelm me. I was surprised how political, both overtly and otherwise, some of the pieces were. The only piece that still sticks out in my mind is a video installation of a woman in a viking hat with a bloody nose running around Los Angeles.

Afterward, I went to see the Cai Guo-Qiang exhibit at the Guggenheim. Cai is a Chinese artist whose primary medium is gunpowder. His work also has a political bent, from an impressive installation simulating a car-bomb explosion to sculptures of wolves and tigers as metaphor to a reactionary take on Mao-era propaganda art. The exhibit also showcased his gunpowder drawings, as well as plenty of video footage capturing his explosion-themed events and detailing his creative process. On top of that, there was a celebrity sighting of Dennis Hopper.

The exhibit is up until May 28. I can't guarantee that Dennis will still be there.

Logos Everywhere

2008-03-17T14:04:00.002-04:00

After reading The Shock Doctrine, I picked up a copy of No Logo, Naomi Klein's earlier book about the effects of branding on culture. The book does a great job of exploring how brands increasingly co-opt the landscape, both physical--billboards, bus ads--and cultural--sporting events, concerts. That they're making inroads into cinema is no surprise as well, from the rampant product placement in summer blockbusters to Harold Kumar Go to White Castle. Maxx Barry foretold this phenomenon in his late 90s corporate satire Syrup. Now it seems have moved to the next level.

The New York Times today ran an article on the upcoming Sex and the City movie. Piqued by the headline, I clicked on the link, thinking I'd find a treatise on how the show appeals to the female demographic as a fantasy show; in the same way that Entourage hooks its male audience with visions of Hollywood hedonism, SATC caters to women with dreams of Manhattan glamor. Instead, the article highlights the various corporate promotional partnerships that are being forged in marketing the film, from Skyy vodka to Vitaminwater to Mercedes Benz. The products are casually woven into the film's script, and corporate-sponsored events, like the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, provide key settings. The producer of the SATC series argue that these brands factor into the script for "purposes of verisimilitude," which to his credit, is absolutely true. These are real products, consumed by real women, that an honest film about modern Manhattan couldn't do without. However, this just highlights Klein's lament in No Logo: the gradual extinction of unbranded cultural space.

Of course, corporate tie-ins with Hollywood isn't news, from Disney-themed Happy Meals to theme-park rides. However, this SATC film is the first one, at least in my memory, to have direct "lifestyle" branding. I can picture the inevitable ripples, whether good or bad. Inspirational sports movies sponsored by Nike. Big-city romantic comedies hocking Banana Republic. Legal dramas shilling for Armani. All of which would likely be authentic, but superficially so.

How tragic, that freedom in this country is only consumer freedom, with every life a branded one.

The Shock Doctrine

2008-02-20T14:48:00.003-05:00

I'm currently reading Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine; it's one of the most important books in awhile. It's a passionate, searing indictment of so-called "free market capitalism," exposing the system for the oligarchical corporatism that it actually is.

On Friday, March 14, the author will be in New York City. I encourage anyone who can to go hear her speak.

Wicked Sovereign

2008-01-07T00:43:00.000-05:00

Wicked Sovereign is the web design company my friend Jordan and I started.

Check it out.

Favourite Films of 2007

2007-12-27T01:30:00.000-05:00

And while I'm at it...

1. Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
2. Anton Corbijn's "Control"
3. Todd Haynes's "I'm Not There"
4. Greg Mottola's "Superbad"
5. Paul Greengrass's "The Bourne Ultimatum"
6. Johnnie To's "Exiled"
7. James Mangold's "3:10 to Yuma"
8. Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
9. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse"
10. Edgar Wright's "Hot Fuzz"

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
Jason Reitman's "Juno"
The Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men"
Zack Snyder's "300"
Brad Bird's "Ratatouille"
Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up"
Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd"
Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited"
Len Wiseman's "Live Free or Die Hard"

ON MY LIST TO WATCH:
Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood"
Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis"
Joe Wright's "Atonement"
Tamara Jenkins's "The Savages"

Favourite New Music of 2007

2007-12-12T00:35:00.000-05:00

This list is called "favourite new music of 2007" and not "best of" is because I don't get through enough music to be a qualified critic. I do that get-stuck-on-a-few-albums thing, or the get-stuck-on-the-first-few tracks thing.

1. White Rabbits, Fort Nightly
2. Beirut, The Flying Club Cup
3. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
4. Bright Eyes, Cassadaga
5. Devendra Banhart, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
6. Grizzly Bear, Friend EP
7. Elliott Smith, New Moon
8. Radiohead, In Rainbows

ALBUMS TO FINISH BEFORE THE YEAR'S OVER (BUT PROBABLY NOT)
Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam
Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
Blonde Redhead, 23
Feist, The Reminder
Fiery Furnaces, Widow City
Jay-Z, American Gangster
Kanye West, Graduation
Panda Bear, Person Pitch
Patrick Watson, Close to Paradise
St. Vincent, Marry Me
White Stripes, Icky Thump

FAVORITE SONGS
Amy Winehouse, "You're No Good"
The Arcade Fire, "Ocean of Noise"
Arctic Monkeys, "Fluorescent Adolescent"
Band of Horses, "No One's Gonna Love You"
Beirut, "Cliquot"
Blonde Redhead, "23"
Bright Eyes, "Four Winds"
Cat Power, "Silver Stallion"
Devendra Banhart, "Freely"
Elvis Perkins, "Ash Wednesday"
The Frames, "Falling Slowly"
Great Lakes Swimmers, "Moving Pictures Silent Films"
Grizzly Bear, "Knife" (Girl Talk Remix)
Interpol, "There's No I in Threesome"
Jay-Z, "Blue Magic"
The Knife, "Heartbeats" (Live, OneMusic Session)
Misha, "Summersend"
Panda Bear, "Comfy in Nautica"
Patrick Wolf, "The Magic Position"
Radiohead, "All I Need"
Rihanna, "Umbrella"
The Shins, "Phantom Limb"
Sean Kingston, "Beautiful Girls"
White Rabbits, "The Plot"

Flying Solo

2007-12-03T01:42:00.001-05:00

One of the best things about living in New York City is having access to so much. One of the worst things about living in New York City is the need to schedule everything. There may be a plethora of places to go and experiences to be had--museums, restaurants, movies, bars, concerts, et cetera--but practical considerations make maintaining a social calendar a necessity. The time needed for public transportation, the possibility of an event being sold out or oppressively crowded, and attempts to align schedules with friends all conflict with my impulsive and impatient nature. Add to that the alarming rate at which plans made end up broken and hastily replaced. Consequently, I've been finding myself, rather than rescheduling with friends, refusing to change my plans and stubbornly striking out on my own to see a show or a movie. Devendra Banhart, Grizzly Bear, Control, I'm Not There, and Southland Tales--all but the last highly recommended--were all experienced thusly. Sure, there's an initial strangeness and self-consciousness at a solo entrance into a theater or venue, but those soon dissipate.

Friday evening, on a whim, I decided to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the new film by Julian Schnabel. I doubted that any or many friends would be up for leaving the comfort of their barstools and braving opening night madness at the Angelika on such short notice. Nevertheless, I made a round of calls and found a willing soul. Tickets were purchased, plans were made, a line was waited through, and a movie was seen.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly effortlessly leapfrogged Control as the best movie I've seen this year. The film is a biopic about Jean-Do Bauby, a middle-aged Parisian fashion mag editor, who suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed but for his left eye, the only window between his unharmed mind and the outside world. Remarkably, Bauby overcomes this tragedy to compose, via blinking, letter by letter, a memoir of his experiences. The book is concise but poetic and powerful, and Schnabel expands it into a marvelous cinematic experience. From the opening shot, where we see the world through Bauby's eye upon awakening from his coma, to the music, a balance of classical and modern French rock and Tom Waits, to the masterful performances, heartfelt without being overly sentimental, to the women in Bauby's life... everything about the film is beautiful. I want to have a flat-screen in my apartment playing this movie on an endless loop.

Of course, my friend had a different opinion. "I think there could've been a great movie in the material," he said, wholly unimpressed. Sometimes, depending on the company, movies are better seen alone.

"Redacted" and Redaction

2007-11-16T02:06:00.001-05:00

I don't know how this manage to fly under my radar until today, but Brian De Palma's new movie comes out today in selected cities, of which NYC is one. I suppose I took a pass on it because it was one of a seemingly unending parade of films on the War in Iraq this fall.

To summarize, the film is a fictional account of an actual event that happened in March of 2006: the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the subsequent murder of her family by a group of US soldiers. Needless to say, the controversial film has received a volatile reception. Bill O'Reilly (without screening the film, of course) has announced his intentions of picketing outside the theater and urged his viewers to picket both the movie and Dallas Mavs basketball games (owner Mark Cuban produced the movie).

It goes without saying that I will see this film, and soon. What angers me the most about the whole matter is how I never heard about the atrocities on which the film is based until now, over than a year and a half after the fact. This was in fact De Palma's stated intention in making the film, to highlight the inadequacies--no, the absolute failing--of the mainstream media in reporting the true details of the war.

I've been finding myself increasingly appalled by the mainstream media's shortcomings. I've brought up in conversation relevant and newsworthy topics--Jena Six and the recent shooting of a Brooklyn teenager by five policemen, for example--only to be met with blank stares. I have to seek out by research the most defining events of our time.

These days, the Left is increasingly assailed with accusations of anti-Americanism. I'm not sure what that means anymore. I thought a free press was a fundamental American value; these days, honesty in journalism is synonymous with siding with the terrorists.

"Sleeping is Giving In..."

2007-11-15T01:29:00.000-05:00

As a kid, I used to marvel at how my dad always stayed up even after I went to bed, and yet he was always awake when I opened my eyes in the morning. Now I'm finding his penchant for waking life to be an inherited trait. I've been averaging maybe five hours of shut-eye for the past two years or so. At first it was out of work-related necessity. Now it's just because I don't like the idea of sleep so much, in the sense that it takes up so much time. Of course, when I wake in the morning, the last thing I want to do is to unearth myself from beneath my sheets, but when I'm awake, I find myself swamped with interests only accessible in an upright state. I've taken to heart too literally Arcade Fire lyrics and silly aphorisms like, "When you're in bed, you're dead."

I'm also quite adept at sleeping on subways without leaning my head onto the shoulders of strangers. I've been scheduling my commutes as nap times.

***

I'll make an effort to post more frequently. Since my last post, I've been to a bunch of great shows (Sufjan's BQE , Grizzly Bear) and seen a bunch of fantastic films (Control).

Fortunately, I've also been able to reach a somewhat steady-state rhythm in this my third year in Brooklyn. I'm doing fairly regular web design work and am really enjoying my experience helping out and teaching at the Free School. I'm slowly chipping away at some creative projects, namely a personal web page and a new comic. I've even written drafts for a story or two and Garage Banded a song. Once I get past my self-consciousness/neuroses/complex, I'll post one or two.

***

O, on Saturday I'm having people over to watch the U-M/OSU showdown. Kickoff's at noon. Go blue 'n shit.

A Break from Words

2007-09-25T00:27:00.000-04:00

Tonight, after a long and dreadful day, I went to see the Beirut concert at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Even though Beirut plays some good ol' euro-influenced Brooklyn rock, since the concert was presented by the Wordless Music series the two openers I was treated to two non-indie openers. Namely, a French experimental musician and a piano-violin classical duo. This is the first classical music I've seen live or even heard in awhile, and it was pretty refreshing. In fact, I think I liked them over Beirut, who seem to always start their shows slow and, aside from Zach Condon, lack in overall stage presence. Plus, I'm of the opinion that the band should be better dressed than the audience.

Colleen, the French artist, is playing again tomorrow night at Union Hall. I highly recommend going.

***

I'm currently reading Krakauer's Into the Wild in anticipation for the movie. I haven't tore through a book this quickly in awhile.

Friday Update

2007-09-21T17:04:00.001-04:00

There are some smart kids at the Brooklyn Free School. I lost a chess game to a seven-year old today. (Shut up.) Kid's the next Bobby Fischer, I swear.

All the News that's Fit to Print

2007-09-21T01:08:00.000-04:00

Just two quick news items tonight...

First, I disagree with the decision to deny Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a wreath-laying visit to Ground Zero.

Second, I think the Jena Six case is going to have national repercussions.

Like a U2 Concert Times Two

2007-09-19T20:56:00.000-04:00

Rosalind Daily McNaughton, b. 9/7/2007

Ethan Joseph Chang, b. 9/16/2007

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.'
- Kurt Vonnegut

First off, you guys came out a few weeks too early. Remember, September 28 was the date we were going for. But whatever. It's forgivable, I suppose.

Second, okay, so I know that I'm at that point where, when I meet a girl, I check her for a ring. But it's kinda crazy when friends my age are making babies.

Stop it already, geez.

I Feel Like I'm Taking Crazy Pills!

2007-09-19T02:32:00.001-04:00

First, NYC wins the country's top prize for urban schools? What does that say about the rest of the country.

This is appalling. There is no justification for tasering a student when he poses no threat to anyone.

At least there's this to look forward to...

Futbol!

2007-09-17T23:09:00.001-04:00

Today's very brief post is about futbol aka soccer. This is what I'll likely be doing in a year's time. And this might be what Pete Doherty will be doing, aside from smoking crack with his cat.

***

I was told by a former coworker that the school I used to work at is now "boring," because there's only been one fight. When I taught there, it was anything but boring. Click here for details. Granted, the school did recently hire a principal with years of experience who brought with him a squad of seasoned vets, but there's a small part of me that wonders if I was part of the school's failing. I'm also a little jealous that the school is now functional without me. Even though I am happy with my decision to leave, it would've been nice to have taught in a functional environment. Teachers, like students, need little tastes of success.

Like Such As

2007-09-12T20:32:00.000-04:00

If you don't already, blackle it.

***

I know this is old news by now, but it's so great.

What It Is

2007-09-12T19:53:00.000-04:00

Since quitting teaching, I've been unavailable to avoid the following question when in conversation:

"Do you have a job yet?"

The short answer is yes, several. To put food on the table, I do a variety of things, all of which revolve in the orbits of education or flash design. I don't want to get into all of them now.

One job--well, unpaid internship, to be perfectly honest--is at the Brooklyn Free School, an progressive, alternative private school in Park Slope. Just how hippie-dippie is this place, you ask? Well, let's see. No homework, no grades, no curriculum, no tests. Basically, the students decide what to learn. And if nobody wants to learn anything? Look out.

While the school wears its own brand of chaos, it's a chaos that's a little easier for me to stomach. Basically, I haven't broken up any fights or been threatened for wearing the wrong colors, and discounting finances, that's a move in the right direction career-wise.

Still, it's not without its strangenesses. Behold the evidence:

A. I bear a bruise on my left temple from an overeager student during a sword fight.
B. A group of students requested that I teach them advanced calculus.

***

My respect for Band of Horses has plummeted.

Girl Talk on Saturday night!

Note Bene

2007-09-12T19:46:00.000-04:00

Since I'm now neither a college student nor a public school teacher, my previous blogs are pretty much defunct. Despite the ominous header, this won't be that heavy a blog, but rather a collage of the randomness that now permeates my rudderless, free floating existence.

Enjoy.