Clutter My Culture

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I have to apologize. I've been subsumed with getting my favorite shows onto my zune so that I could catch up. Unfortunately, watching them online is a lot quicker than getting them converted and synced. But alas, my streams are steadily disappearing. Poop.

I have to write down this aphorism before I lose the sticky note I wrote it on.

What you gain in life isn't nearly as impressive as what you maintain well.

On that note I wanted to talk a little about space. I'm running out of space! I currently stay in an apartment the size of a shoe box, and despite my fastidiousness at reorganizing and consolidating, everything is spilling into everything, and well, my shoe box is messier than the bed sheets after a wild romp.

I have my painting in progress laying around here somewhere. Probably somewhere adjacent to the stacks of magazines:



. . . that I've purchased in the last couple of months.

So here's my little dilemma. The more I store things away the more they are out of sight and out of mind aka uinspiring. However, the more uncompressed I allow these things to go the more of a cluttered mess of a mind and body I have to endure. I know there has to be a middle ground, but right now I feel like a big man in a pair of small undies, unnecessarily chafed.

If there's anybody out there listening I just wanted to ask what are your daily/weekly/monthly/yearly organizing rituals? How do you balance your need for order with your need for spontaneity and inspiration?

Celebrate All Around the World

Happy Birthday Shichiro Watanabe and Mo Willems!!!

How fitting that today celebrates the birth of two guys whose creations have inspired me to create my own.

In other news, I finally fell in with the Zune crowd and got my own. I am excited to have portable music once again, as well as video. Even now I am syncing episodes of Full Metal Panic and possibly Psych. I may even have to sync some podcasts just for the sake of it.

I borrowed I Vitelloni and Yiyi again, as well as the Pat Labor movie, which for some reason I brushed off when it was new billions of years ago. Now is your chance to make fun of me for being years behind on the times. That is unless you are even more behind the times than me. In that case, no worries, We can be old fogeys together.

I actually picked up quite a few things at the library this week: The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot, Goodbye Chunky Rice by Craig Thompson, Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Tarnished Angel, Paul Chadwick's Concrete: Fragile Creature, Wing Shing Ma's Storm Riders, and JLA: Kid Amazo by Peter Milligan and Carlos D'anda. I just hope there's time to digest everything here.
Patrick Boivin: Animator Extraordinaire | http://www.youtube.com/user/PatrickBoivin



Monday is Memorial Day, so I'm sure many of you are diggin' into the 3-day weekend as best you can. Maybe you're even out of town. I wish you safe and happy celebrations and a fresh, easy spirit when you return.

Sexy Sci-Fi and Syttende Mai

Okay, so last Sunday I changed my mind and forked over the $15.75 to see StarTrek in the IMAX. How was it? In a word: fascinating. Caveat Emptor, in the great nation of Star Trek fans, I am somewhere between the type of fan who hasn't seen every movie yet and the type of fan who knows what Darmak and Jalad at Tenagra means. I guess that's moderate fandom. In other words I've never dressed up as a Klingon, and I can laugh at a decent parody, but I also have lovely coming of age memories of Uhura, Diana Troi, and Seven of Nine.

So what's it like? It's kind of like Starship Troopers with young versions of the original Star Trek cast. Last week I was watching episodes from the original series on youtube, and realized how perfect Zachary Quinto was going to be as Spock. I mean seriously. He was just a logical choice. As an action movie, its got a great rhythm backed with a script with believable dialogue. The sound and score is par excellence. And for all the serious tension of the plot, there are enough gags referencing the original series to make it LOL for the whole family. And as an origin story, it is just super sexy. This is really the type of movie to give a franchise a fresh look for all generations concerned. We get to see Kirk not only suave as Shatner, but cocky and funny ala Chris Pine.

Okay let me stop, because this really isn't meant to be a review. I had fun. And it had an appropriate sub-plot for me to see on mother's day. More about that some other time.

So Today is Syttende Mai :) Otherwise known as Norwegian Independence Day, Syttende Mai (the 17th of May) is celebrated largely in the Midwest with parades, traditional Norwegian dances, bratwurst, lefse, and oh so yummy krum krakken. It's a lovely holiday to be acquainted with, and I miss being in Wisconsin this time of year.

It is incredibly hot here. Also the air quality index is bad, because apparently sunlight and heat causes ozone gases to form from normal pollutants. But you probably knew that if you live in California and have had your car smog-tested. Or maybe you didn't, so there--learned something new.

I am thinking of beginning a podcast. Actually I've thought about some incarnation of a podcast for a while now, but now I'm thinking it would create a nice bridge to actually getting to see and hear me, instead of the ominous voice in your head you attribute to me. Who knows, maybe this is a bad idea . . .

This week, in the attempt to keep myself interested in painting despite an apparent apathy caused by a general work-related malaise, I looked into the painting of Joseph Turner, Kaspar David Friedrich, and Guissepe "Pino" Dangelico.

On Sundays I like to take a drive and listen to Alan Beck's underground oldies show, which plays here from 6pm to 10pm.

While searching for some of my favorite underground oldies I chanced upon Southernmost Kate/Keywest Kitten/ MsFirecracker (dancing to Fooled around and fell in Love by Elvin Bishop) and Diana Campanella (dancing to Respect Yourself by the Staples Singers). Suddenly I'm very convinced of the relationship between enthusiasm and the Terpsichorean Muse.

I just disocovered Chip Zdarsky via Kate Beaton. I also reacquainted myself with the work of Carson Ellis, wife of Decembrist lead singer Colin Meloy.

I hear some people have a hard time kicking nicotine nightmares. Not me.

Marlboro transformers
by revotrx

Alma Mater

Happy Mother's Day mothers of the world. I love you all!!

things that went on this week:

Star Trek opened in theaters. The price of a single adult IMAX ticket was $15.75; Needless to say I didn't add to the box-office-opening pot. On an unrelated note does anybody have have a great DLP projector hooked up to a laptop with a bittorrent client? Just kidding RIAA. Don't kill my family and set my house on fire.

phenomena:

Its becoming a trend for people to recut Hindi film musical numbers with dirty English subtitles (see Eat Nipples) and I believe Buffalax was the originator. I guess the good thing is more people will have been exposed to Indian music and films.



Khan Noonien Sing | Space Seed Ep. 22 of Star Trek the original series

I got lured into this after catching an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise revolving around Arik Soong and the Augments (which sounds to me like an awesome Rockabilly Band now that I think of it)


Dance Like Michael Jackson - Far East Movement | Won't Even Start - David Choi

Directed by Wong Fu Productions

ABDC Season 3 | Quest (I sheepishly admit I watched the 1st two seasons of this show and enjoyed it; Quest is the dance group featured in Dance Like Michael Jackson; btw Wong Fu is a production house that has its origins at my alma mater UCSD)

Kokopelli came up in a conversation this week, and I began to realize that I am the only person who hadn't previously been familiar with him. Why is this important? Because in a way the idea of him has helped make this day possible. ;-)

Cusco - A city of a great ancient nation and a German synth band. That's a two-fer.

PGEW If you didn't know I was a foodie, then you know now. And just about nothing beats a gal who does it with frugality and class. Poor Girl Eats Well is my new superheroine.

Theremin - When I was in college I became familiar with the Teeny Tiny Pit Orchestra using a theremin in their silent film performances.



Song of India | Sadko - I just really liked this song that I had to know more. Typical me.

Sinbad the Sailor | Sadko


maria bamford


things for today:

This is me and my mom circa 1981


growing pains of painting - still struggling through my warm up piece. i'll keep everybody posted as it develops. instead i doodled on inkscape and wound up with this boris badenov portrait; i blame reruns of Rocky & Bullwinkle on tbs

It never entered my mind

May 3rd is the 123rd day of the year, and there are only 242 calendar days left in the year. That's 242 action-packed, anything-could-happen, amazing days of your life until January 1st of the next decade, 2010. Is that too much statistics?

On with the show!
I use cool previews to check out links while staying put. I could start using javascript for my links to open new windows/tabs. What do you y'all think?

(21 track playlist--> feel free to skip ahead)

hover above the screen to see the "<" back and ">" forward buttons. click on the screen to open a window with the currently playing vid for more info

Thanks to Kate Beaton I found myself reading about Florence Nightengale and the unsung heroine Mary Seacole. I'm very excited about ordering Kate Beaton's first book. Yay for comics about history. I've also been in contact with the amiable and talented CarolB who has put together a May blessing for all aspiring artists. Thanks Carol.

I haven't had any time to worry about the H1N1, and to be honest I'd rather keep that can of worms shut. Why not just be of healthy mind and body? Get some sunlight, eat right, sleep right, get a little exercise everyday, and keep your body, your house, and your stuff clean. Speaking of clean, I've got some laundry to do, so no time to dilly-dally.

But wait. Speaking of clean I've also got to clean out some of my taboo's, some of my uncategorized bookmarks, and folders with zany random pictures. Oh yeah, that's where SAN comes in!

I don't know if there's anybody who hasn't heard me blabbing about stumbleupon yet. There is definitely a down side to it.



But then there's also the good. Connecting with other bloggers via stumble-through-blogs, finding new sites (or web comics) based on comics (i mean sites) you've rated or stumbled on, effortless link sharing to emails or social sites, or even just archiving links of stuff you like. I haven't been initiated into reddit or digg so stumbleupon is my main source of social bookmarking.

Here's me and my Pops circa 1981



I know what you're thinking. The most handsome devil in a diaper. Thanks, I'll take it.

Here's the famous El Cortez building in downtown San Diego; its an unfinished collage of several pictures I took last July. It brings to mind 2 wishes for this year. Wish #1: That I finish cleaning up the collage in it's giant 4,000 x 2000 pixel dimensions and Wish #2: That I make it back out to Comic-Con this year and/or enjoy the seaside, breezy schmoozing that comes along with it.



Web Heroes:

Stanley Lau, Vadrum, Bryan O Malley and Hope Larson
James Jean, Writing Hannah, John Allison, Kelly Hamilton
Ronald Jenkees, Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing
Poor Girl Eats Well, Kelly Vivanco, Alan Tew

Drawger is awesome. So's Musicovery. I sometimes get my anime news from Anime Pulse. And I listen to KPFA and WORT, especially on weekends. Lost at E Minor and Fecal Face will blow your mind.

Wowzers I'm packin' it in tight today!! Speakin' of packin' it in . . .

Enjoy your Sunday. Enjoy your Sunday Afternoon, and your Sunday Afternoon Noodle.

Love,

Del