quote out of context
“I am shy with women: therefore there is no God” is highly unconvincing metaphysics.
what’s new is old again
William Alexander, Old Man River, for Sheila
untitled sequence
“He then in fact fell,”
Police said a 23-year-old man is in stable condition after he pretended that he was falling off a bridge over the Minnesota River, then actually fell off the bridge.
Palin’s Got a Gun
a special kind of crazy
Inside Grey Gardens
When Ms. Quinn touched a key on this piano in the living room, the whole thing collapsed and fell through the floor.
Lately as I straighten up around the house I say, “Soon it’s going to look very Grey Gardens in here if I don’t keep up with this mess”.
Sure stumped him
The Defense of Twitter
The other day some folks at a party asked me why twitter was useful and I was flabbergasted since at least three quarters of them use texting and other social media to communicate with me. I told them it was just another tool, take it or leave it.
A week later Mauren Dowd mocked twitter in print, serendipitously echoing my friends observations. I read it, yawned, and went on with my day. Apparently, others didn’t:
Mr. Watson, Come Here
Adam Wilson sent a tweet with his mind.
Earlier this month, Wilson thought of a tweet (the name for a post to the social networking site) and poof, his computer read his mind and sent the darn thing. At just 23 characters, Wilson’s message, “using EEG to send tweet,” was done with a computer setup that interprets brain waves.
dear clusterflock
Advantage analogue.
Update: I fixed the post. I had misspelled analogue. Thanks, Dan.
dear clusterflock
Advantage digital.
of primordial blobs and Japanese Queens
Astronomers have discovered a primordial blob 12.9 billion light years in the universe’s past.
The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old.
“I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance,” said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif. “It’s kind of record-breaking.”
The cloud predates similar blobs, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs, which existed when the universe was 2 billion to 3 billion years old. Researchers named their new find Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past.
Curious, I googled.
The shaman Queen Himiko is recorded in various ancient histories, dating back to 3rd century CE China, 8th century Japan, and 12th century Korea.
From a Chinese History:
The country formerly had a man as ruler. For some seventy or eighty years after that there were disturbances and warfare. Thereupon the people agreed upon a woman for their ruler. Her name was Pimiko [卑彌呼]. She occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the people. Though mature in age, she remained unmarried. She had a younger brother who assisted her in ruling the country. After she became the ruler, there were few who saw her. She had one thousand women as attendants, but only one man. He served her food and drink and acted as a medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades, with armed guards in a state of constant vigilance.
Apparently, the Japanese histories contain no direct references to Himiko, only these references to shamans associated with her:
After this Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto became the wife of Oho-mono-nushi no Kami. This God, however, was never seen in the day-time, but at night. Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto said to her husband: “As my Lord is never seen in the day-time, I am unable to view his august countenance distinctly; I beseech him therefore to delay a while, that in the morning I may look upon the majesty of his beauty. The Great God answered and said: “What thou sayest is clearly right. To-morrow morning I will enter thy toilet-case and stay there. I pray thee be not alarmed at my form.” Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto wondered secretly in her heart at this. Waiting until daybreak, she looked into her toilet-case. There was there a beautiful little snake, of the length and thickness of the cord of a garment. Thereupon she was frightened, and uttered an exclamation. The Great God was ashamed, and changing suddenly into human form, spake to his wife, and said: “Thou didst not contain thyself, but hast caused me shame; I will in my turn put thee to shame.” So treading the Great Void, he ascended to Mount Mimoro. Hereupon Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto looked up and had remorse. She flopped down on a seat and with a chopstick stabbed herself in the pudenda so that she died. She was buried at Oho-chi. Therefore the men of that time called her tomb the Hashi no haka [Chopstick Tomb].
Chopstick to the pudenda.
zig-zag to slow down
The Virginia Department of Transportation says it’s part of a safety campaign to get drivers to slow down in a high pedestrian and bicycle area. The 500 feet of zig-zagging lines are painted on the ground on Belmont Ridge Road, where it intersects with the Washington and Old Dominion trail in Loudoun County.
“It is a low cost strategy to get motorists to slow down as they approach the bike trail and pedestrian path,” says VDOT’s Mike Salmon. “While at first motorists may be a little disoriented, the main point is to get them to pay attention and slow down through that area.”
what could go wrong?
The Ohio Militia is requesting the presence of a million armed militia men to march on Washington.
A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can get 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.
Pig in Boots
This pig has a fear of mud, hence the boots.
YI earphones
I would pay good money for an iPhone compatible version of this design.
(via HELLO BAULDOFF)
i-wood y’all, w/ 3B
The All New i-wood is basically a reaction to everyone using their i-phones/blackberries/other electronic devices in the most irritating ways. We created our own version of these technological travesties to use when your friends/enemies/passing acquaintances are being jerks with their hand-held technology. At www.iwood3b.com you can read all about the i-wood and all of it’s applications.
It’s also totally guilt free purchase too as we are using environmentally sustainable Bamboo plywood, EarthFirst degradable bags for packaging and only water based inks. So you can not only make fun of you friends but act eco-friendly and smug while doing it.
iwood, if I could. But I’ll just have to wait til I’m stateside. I never was an early adopter anyway. Just thinking about it gives me an iwoodie though.
Does not this book
look like a perfect gift for Sheila?
searches that brought people to clusterflock
cake farts
clusterflock
demon denim
hand in space
.380-caliber handgun
fallout shelter
fine turquoise rings
ferrari
“alexis rockman”
You are Invited
It’s Summer! Grab a glass of lemonade, sneak some gin in it, p’raps and pull up a lawn chair.
At 6 p.m. on my radio show I’m going to play one solid hour of the very mysterious Mississippi Records catalog. Rumour has it that they dig through old garages and basements and find folk records from Blues era America and Africa. The recordings are strange, sometimes delightful, and always interesting. Pretty much presented without commentary, this is mostly for the purpose of sharing. Mississippi Records are notoriously difficult to get a hold of. I can’t even find a website, and barely a street address in portland.
click here between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., PST
(Rick Neece likes the show, ok? I don’t know how else to convince you if you’re already so far gone the words of Rick Neece won’t sway you.)
Class
In an essay analyzing class in American, Sandra Tsing Loh is spot on about the current (formerly?) bohemian ruling class:
Charity itself is complicated when one hates to admit that one rules. Although old-schoolWASPs might tinkle their G-and-Ts while hosting an annual spring benefit for The Poor, the creative class will throw a star-studded fete to combat a politically fashionable disease, with celebs relaying anecdotes about personal frailty (as detailed in their candid new addiction memoirs). They can be rich and feel vaguely anti-establishment at the same time. The New World is all Richard Branson interviewed by Charlie Rose onstage at the Clinton Conference on Global … Whatever—with a faint chunky mix-in of Third World Poverty. (The creative class usually prefers faraway poor people to the local variety, and always prefers the “ethnic” poor to the white kind.)
The essay is wrought with observations like this and makes me afraid for the time that my generation’s bohemians become the “ruling class” in the United States. (via fimoculous)
Or should I be afraid?
Church in Foligno by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas
I think it’s ugly, but that is just me. (thanks, Autumn)
Dear Clusterflock
Are there words or phrases you use too much?
My short list:
1. Perfection is the enemy of the good
2. legitimate
3. parse
4. brilliant
5. I would use softer language to describe that.
6. narrative
UPDATE:
Some Friends mentioned that I missed two essentials:
7. Is what it is
8. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
Corollary: What words do you abuse, i.e. use in a way that stretches there meaning?
1. broken
2. cheating
3. housed (a verb form of “house”)
