Like a thud.

There are times when we all make a comment, or share something we enjoy and it come first like a graceful bird from our lips.... that upon contact with open air bloats to a dodo and greets the ground with an enthusiasm of ground meat.  Splop.  I have these sort of things all the time.  I think other people do as well, how could they not, but mine are mine, precious and unique in the abject embarrassment they give.

So why talk about them now?  Is it because I've mostly grown out of those comments?  No.  Is it because I no longer care as much?  Probably.  Is it just because I derailed something at work?  Definitely.

Woo. Go me...

St Paddy's 2015

We've done our St Patrick's already.  The parade was held on the Saturday past, fine times were had by all provided you didn't need the men's room.  We went home and had our corned beef and cabbie and it was good.  We wore our green and had our family time.  We then on Sunday had corned beef and cabbie again w'me fam.  It was good but I thought the rolls we had on Saturday were better.

Something of note, the wee new bae, Boo, took to the pipebands fine.  She held to her mommy but she didn't fuss.  The lad was much more interested in the parade this year, pointing at things I should take pictures of.  He pet unfamiliar wolfhounds, waved at the numerous pols that use the parade to... well, parade.  It was good.

I think I would probably feel different if we had something more to do this evening to celebrate.  I think I should make the time for something.  Art, perhaps.  I need more art.

Times a changing they are.

I remember back in the day when I was on a dial-up modem trying desperately to get a song from online.  I would occupy the line for three hours to get one song, usually a 3 megabyte mp3 of a ska tune or somesuch.  That and you couldn't play it until it was finished so you don't know if it was even a good copy or not.

So it goes.

Nowadays I have a Spotify account.  Just today I've listened to about five albums from several different artists and if I don't like what I am listening to I can just choose something else and it plays immediately.  Younger me would have a conniption fit.  Older me laughs and laughs...

So it goes.

Remember the small stuff kids, it gives perspective.

Radio Silence

Blogs die.  Simple truth, aye?  I've seen many go that I've enjoy reading.  Wherein the author states I will write a post with (x) frequency and then other projects come along, the blog dies and the internet gets another abandoned building.

Others simply stop for a while and then come back in a new form or they are still the same but with an added maturity.  Others don't learn from the past and are abandoned again and again like a smoker that is trying to quit again and again.

I think my blog, this thing here is more like the last bit.  A smoker who cannot quit.

In the time that I last wrote in this blog I've had an artistic revelation of sorts.

Dennis Sheehan, Day's End.

The painting above was painted using a two color pallet.  Two. 

I recently watched a couple of videos of Mr Sheehan doing his thing and in each he used a burnt umber and a dark green.  The tools used were a three inch wide paintbrush like what you get at Home Despot, linquin oil  and paper towels.

I've read about people using a limited pallet before to great effect but it didn't sink in until I watched it happen in front of me.  I want to try it out for myself and if I do I will be sure to document it and put it up here.

The Sphinx

I've stumbled upon another painting.  Not something that is as striking to me as yesterday's Lady Violet but nevertheless interesting.

oh hai.

Sphinx in the Desert, Marcus Waterman 1872

Looks a little different from the ol cat that we know now.  This is a prime example of Artistic License.  About 21% of people, myself included up until recently are under the impression that Napoleon shot the nose off of the Sphinx.  Target practice if you will.  This is false.  The nose has apparently been missing since around 1378 where a person by the name of Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr broke it off because he found locals offering tributes to the Sphinx hoping for a better harvest.  He broke it off and was hung for his monumental rhinoplasty.

This means that when Marcus painted this picture it was more a flight of fancy than a representation of an actual observable figure.  However we have to take into account what we actually see in the painting.  There is nothing in there that says that it was supposed to be a current representation.  Yes, the Sphinx was covered in sand up to the neck in 1870, there are plenty of photos backing that up but presumably, since it has been around for thousands of years I imagine there are several periods of history where it has just been a head sticking out of the sand.

I doubt Marcus had heard of al-Dahr though when he painted this.

Lady Violet

Every once and a while I run across something that causes pause.  This portrait is one of them.

Goodness

This is Lady Violet, The Duchess of Rutland  painted by Sir James Jebusa Shannon in 1896.  This morning I had no idea this painting existed.  I can't say exactly what about it grabbed me but it did.  Apparently Shannon painted her three times but looking at the other portraits I would have to say I like this one the most.  His other works can be found here.

One day I think I'd like to paint something like that.

5&1/2 Minute Hallway

My tastes in books, art or music tend to trend towards the content hinting at the inexplicable.  Either there is a larger and more fantastic mystery in the story or there is a narrative that is... disconcerting in the picture or there is a heart of sadness in the songs respectively.  Some of my favorite things are media that point to something larger.  Maybe it will be explained but I am perfectly happy 90% of the time if it is not.

One of my favorite books is called House of  Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.  A short synopsis: The narrator receives a trunk full of papers from an old man, Zampano, which tell the tale of a family that moves into a house that, after a time starts to change.  The physical dimensions of the house grow, hallways appear along with mysterious doors.  The father of the family is a film maker and he documents the events.  The narrator finds records of these, but nothing physical.  It points towards being elaborate fiction but it has the side effect of making him paranoid beyond belief.  The end of the book leaves it so that the events either were real and forgotten or completely made up by a mad old man.

The only reason this book came into my radar is thanks to his sister, Poe.  Her album Haunted was written as a companion to his book... or vice versa and both were in a sense made to deal with the passing of their father.  Both are... lonely and larger than they seem.  There are hints towards sadness and loss and coming to terms with those feelings in both.  Moreover they have that feeling of mystery.

Of course the album has to be considered in a different way.  Not all songs fit the narrative, this is not a rock opera or a concept album.  Songs like Not a Virgin, Control or Lemon Meringue don't provide the same atmosphere but act as catharsis.  Control in particular is a good song to play quite loud as you... I dunno, flip off an old job or something.

Now if she could only release a new album, its only been 14 (!) years since the last one.

Utah In Pop Culture Salty Edition

I live in Salt Lake City.  No duh, right?  A fairly metropolitan area that homes about a million and a half people.  It is hard to think that about an hours drive would bring you to what would be a wasteland by any definition.

Welcome to the Salt Flats.

Not pictured: Slugs, Pepper.

The Bonneville Salt Flats is a geological formation that is left over from the recession of Lake Bonneville.  Due to the hard pack nature of the salt and our altitude (lower air pressure) it makes it a wonderful place to go really fast and not die for the most part.

The Salt Flats has seen speed records set as far back as 1935 with the last major land speed record set back in 1970 and a car topping out at 622 mph, not quite the sound barrier.  

It's also been featured in a few movies, one of the most notable being Independence Day.  

 Salt for your popcorn flick.

An interesting (to ME anyway) thing is he wrecks his plane in the Grand Canyon and is able to walk, alien in tow to this place.  Now, measuring from about the highest place on the GC to the lowest on the SF we come up with 224 miles.  Will Smith, to cover that distance in a few hours walking?  That is a land speed record.

I had something else...

I've written something else for the post, but I don't think I will share it.  It was sad.  I'm not going to delete it but I don't think I will publish it.

We landed on a comet today, it was in every way Awesome.  Delicate orbital mechanics and ten years of work to place a 200lb lander on this chunk of ice and rock 500 million km away.

Cool stuff.

Those who can't, critique.

Art.  I think by now if you read this or if you know me in Meatspace know that I love it in just about every shape and form.  My most favorite art though has to be painting.  Any medium, most subjects and most movements are like catnip.  I love to see them and try to figure out how some people painted what they did and why.

That in mind I think I will take this time to critique a fairly well known artist, though he is not known primarily for his paintings.

George W. Bush.

43rd president of the USA, a first lieutenant in the national guard and staunch republican.  I didn't like him as a president as his policies seemed to favor rich friends over the rest of the country.  I didn't think we should have attacked Iraq and I find it offensive that Bin Laden wasn't caught during his run as president.  However I think it is good that he is pursuing art.  Undoubtedly he has a lot on his mind and painting is a grand way to relieve some stress.

Recently he reveled a portrait of himself and his father.

Not as bad as it might've been.

Art, at it's best should allow us for reflection in ourselves.  I look at this painting and I see mistakes that I have made in the past.  The blotch of white, probably completely unpainted canvas in Sr's coat.  Some sloppy color changes and thickness issues that take a lot of practice to really control.  I see my errors in this picture, a common struggle shared by novice artists. 

Some people may be turned off by the roughness of the painting.  Completely understandable. There are some bad colors in here that muddy the image.  But there are elements there that show he has improved since his Putin painting.  His forms are more defined and he is trying to push light and dark contrast.  Something that I have issues with.

It shows promise that with a lot of practice he, like anyone who practices, will get better, but I don't like the picture.  I'm certain there are people who do, I'm not one of them but I would not tell him to stop if I had the chance.

Unexpected finds.

We all love it when we find something new.  New to us, new to the world, sparkling and ready for us to consume.  These last few weeks have had a couple of discoveries that have been super pleasant and I'd like to share.

Firstly, and I've said this on my FB, I've apparently inherited some frying skill from my Scottish ancestors.  I've pulled off fried chicken and taqitos just by tossing what I feel would be tasty together and poof, exceptionally tasty but very bad for me foods.  Two things I've decided though, I need to invest in new tongs for removing said fried thingys and I need a gas stove.  Better heat control would equal better foods.

Nextly I've run across a couple of bands/songs that have added some good color to my playlists.
Aubrey Debauchery & The Puke Boots have a song called Whiskey Breath which is peppy.
BABYMETAL is a J-pop meets deathmetal group and they have infiltrated my Good Things playlist with a song called Doki Doki ☆ Morning as well as one called Gimme Chocolate!!  Good things.

I am hoping to work more on projects that I can post here and elsewhere.  I've set something up with The Wife where we should be able to do that easier.  We shall see, I am hopeful.

Monument Valley, or "Oh Yeah, that place!"

You've seen more of my humble berg than you know, you sly dog.  Tonight we go to Monument Valley, seen in every western ever.

You do recognize it right?  NO?  Well how about this?

Hrm, you are stubborn.  How about this?

Wait, that one is a video game.

Thanks to our relative closeness to LA thanks to the grand I-15, a handful of other major roads and the fact that it is an absolutely spectacular natural location.  Monument Valley has appeared in at least 30 different films.  It is a solid icon of western America.

It is five square miles.

That's it.  That little plot of land on a Navajo reservation has defined Westerns and cowboy culture for getting close to ninety years.  That is pretty good by any metric.  It should be said that Utah does not hold it entirely.  Arizona holds some of it as well in their borders.  However the park is strictly Native American held.  The Navajo name for it is Tse'Bii'Ndzisgaii or Valley of the Rocks.  Rather apt, no?

Films that have been shot here include Easy Rider, Forrest Gump (see above), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (see the beginning of the movie) and Back To The Future pt III.  The drive in movie theater that Marty drives through was constructed specifically for that scene and torn down after.  Apparently no movies were shown and that is a shame.  That would've been a wonderful backdrop for an old west film.

TV has been no slouch when it comes to the Valley either.  Recently a few episodes of Doctor Who were shot in part at Monument Valley and we now hold the coveted "the Doctor kindof almost died here, for realsies" trophy.

It is a place that should be seen if you are on the great American road trip as there is little else that can humble you in quite the same way.  The natural beauty of the place is certainly something to marvel, or in my case gawk at.  (I gawk with the best.  Mouth agape, slight drooling, the whole thing.)

Additional fun note: In writing this I found that Wikipedia has Navajo as one of their languages

The next Utah in Pop Culture will deal with music I think. Yeah. Perhaps SLC Punk, perhaps just songs.  We'll see.

Utah, not as oppressive as it used to be.

Well, not all of Utah anyway.

I am writing of course about the Supreme Courts non-action regarding the appeal our local government tossed against the ruling that decided gay marriage bans were unconstitutional.  Our AG and Governor fumbled about quite badly following that decision as our AG was being arrested for bribery or somesuch.  It has been... interesting to say the least.

With the Court deciding not even to look at the appeal it essentially means that those that were married on Dec. 20th are still married, legally and binding as any other contract.  (side note, my wife and I also have a Dec. 20th anniversary.  It will be interesting to try and get a dinner date now).  Utah, specifically Salt Lake City has been more LGBTQ friendly in the past decade and this ruling helps a couple of couples I know feel better about life in general.  Good times.

It is interesting though, Its been like a day since it has become fully legal and I don't feel a need to leave my family and gay marry someone.  It's like I was being lied to when some prominent pontificators proclaimed profusely persistent platters of perpetual peril if something like this happened.

Buddha Machine

Some people cannot deal with repetitive sounds.  Drives them up the nearest wall, bonkers I tells ya.  I know a few who seek these sounds out with a fury usually reserved for household pests or political campaigns.

I don't mind them at all.

In fact at times I search them out.

Occasionally I find one that is wonderful.

Case in point, the Buddha Machine (available in the App store) is an ambient noise generator with different configurations you can play with to create looping repetitive musical background noise.  The reason why I find this so wonderful is the fact that I can get some really trippy dreams from listening to this during sleep.

From what I've read this happens because your brain starts to wander with these sort of noises.  White noise along with some other sensory deprivation has been shown to be able to create hallucinations quite reliably.  Once you've cancelled these other senses the brain just gets... bored?  It goes and starts chasing rabbits down holes if you will.  Sleep already is a form of sensory deprivation so it is logical that I can add other elements to get some vivid dreams.

I think the Buddha Machine works for me so well in this regard because you can alter the "texture" of the sound produced.  Looping guitar or piano combined with clicks or whooshes vs. wind or sea and hums. Experimenting with the different combinations and volumes can provide a vastly different experience for every listener.

Utah in Pop Culture

I think I will start a new feature here on this site where I will provide an example of Utah through the lens of pop culture.  I will provide clips or descriptions or links to things you may or may not have seen that my home state played some kind of a role in.

With that in mind I bring you DAMNATION ALLEY.

I'm sure that one of the first things you think of after an apocalypse is a road trip through America, am I right?  D.A. follows some of the people responsible for BILLIONS of deaths on their jaunt through the country on their way to New York.  Along the way they come to SLC and fulfill the unfortunate trope of The Black Guy Always Dies.  Clip below:

Judging by that clip I can see that it was filmed either on State Street or Main however it looks like it is either a composite shot or the statue that is visible at the beginning of the clip was moved at some point in time.  I would lean heavily towards composite as that statue is not that big.  

Damnation Alley, well, it didn't do well and as you can see the special effects were sad.  The swarms of cockroaches being pulled towards our heroes via piled sheet are vying for a top spot in my "least menacing ways to approach something menacingly" award.  Right up there with slow unicycle or juggling mime.

If you decide to watch the whole thing the SLC part comes up at about 47 minutes in.  As you would expect with a movie they play a bit with the geography so other than the piles of rubble and vicious bugs it is not an accurate representation of my current city.

Truthfully it is a little amusing to think that everyone in Salt Lake was devoured by radioactive flesh eating cockroaches.  There are some people here that fit that mold quite nicely.  I don't mean to say that all of my neighbors are radioactive horrors.  Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of nice people here but it is one of those "if  you've lived here, you understand" sort of things.

Next week I think we'll go south to Monument Valley.

The pros and cons of a snuggly child.

Our first child, The Boy, was not a particularly snuggly baby.  He was fine in a seat or a crib or whatever and though he did grump at times he was much more at home on his lonesome.  This may be due to the fact that at the time The Wife was going to school and driving 80 miles a day.  As such he was not held as much as we would've liked.  You wouldn't know it now though, he is a hug monster and full of crazy energy.

The Girl though, she is already showing signs of being as different from her brother as she can be.  She is a snugglebug of the highest caliber.  The wife and I have both held her for HOURS while we play our different console games.  Wife is working through Skyrim and I am going through Dragon Age Origins all the while holding this little bean in our arms that will certain let you know that she does not like being put down.

A bit of grand news to finish with.
The Girl had a blanket that we first swaddled her in, blue with stars on one side and sleeping animals in nightcaps on the other.  Unfortunately we only had it for three days.  We were heading to The Wife's family home to celebrate a birthday and Wife didn't tuck the blankie in with the baby or secure it in her purse.  We are both tired so don't notice that the blankie went AWOL until about two hours after we leave.  When we got back I scoured the parking at our apartment, I looked in the rubbish bins, I walk around the block to see if I can find this blankie.  It was gone.

So that evening I put up notes in our apartment's common areas with my phone number but no one responds and weeks go by with no word.  I noticed on Friday coming home that the note was missing from the board and I assumed that someone had taken it down to make room for another notice.  It happens, I sigh and move on.  That Saturday morning I get a call, someone found the blankie!  They have had it for a while and apparently just saw the notice.   We had hoped that whomever ended up with the blanket was happy with it but we had lost hope of it coming back.  Sometimes the Universe gives you a little back.

Music, who knew?

I've made a discovery about The Girl which has been successful in no less than three occasions now.  She apparently likes Electro Swing music.  For those not in the know, Electro Swing is a genre of music that combines modern electronic music and swing music.  Duh.  It is pretty enjoyable and some of the songs/bands that I've been turned onto have become staples in my playlists.

Anyhow, I was up late one night with The Girl who was fussing and crying.  I set her in her swing so I could do some dishes, it was 2 am, what else would I be doing?  Anyhow I know that music helps me calm down so I figured I would try with her.  Now, most of my saved playlists on Spotify have less than.... family friendly fare on rotation so I chose my Electroswing playlist.  It took her a moment to quiet down enough to actually hear the music but once she did her eyes opened and she went silent.  In less than ten minutes she was asleep.

It doesn't work every time, clearly more tests will need to be run but it seems like our wee Boo likes my music.  Good, goooooooood.

Blood for blood.

I am not the most articulate person I know.  That particular award has to go to my friend Kai who can argue with the best of them.  It is probably genetic as his father is a playwright and the whole family is smarter than a... group of... smart people.

It is frustrating then when someone at work or somewhere starts going off on a tangent that I find enraging.  This happened today, not twenty minutes ago where a person I work with started talking about ISIS or the guy that shut down the airports because he was trying to kill himself.  It quickly devolved into blood for blood, violence meeting violence and no room for sympathy or a different view.  It was loud and cold.

I wrote yesterday about how I lean towards the classical Stoic philosophy and I would like to clarify part of that thought.  I feel that in all honesty we are all collectively as good as our lowest/weakest actions.  When someone kills in hate or for fun we are all dragged down.  Revenge, theft... anger.  They drag us down.  So when someone says that blood is the only way to answer a problem or that they best way to solve immigration is to throw them out or away it infuriates me.  Something I've started to find is that the people that hold these views are people that have abused the system in their youth.

A person I knew in high school who did drugs and brought alcohol to classes now is a staunch Republican.  The person that was grumpin about the IMMAGANTS at work I know for a fact does abuse some of the same programs that he just bitched about.

I don't like that I can't really say to these people that they are being cold.  I hate that I can't cite to their satisfaction the reasons why they are wrong or that what they themselves are using for an argument is based on flawed data or rhetoric that has been proven as bad or misleading or incomplete.

I am sad and angry and hungry.

Duality

I have a problem sometimes with optimism.  Generally I am able to stay fairly optimistic, as a whole, while things may look down.  The best allegory I can think of would be in the Battlestar Galactica reboot where they keep searching for Earth, suffer through a bunch a crap and then they say 'screw it, good enough!'  That is my outlook at times, like now.

At heart I think though I am a Stoic, not the unemotional type but trying to find inner calm through outer control.  The old philosophy of it is something that I can relate to.  From Wikipedia:

"A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism: All people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should, according to the Stoics, live in brotherly love and readily help one another. In the Discourses, Epictetus comments on man's relationship with the world: "Each human being is primarily a citizen of his own commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy."^[30] This sentiment echoes that of Diogenes of Sinope, who said "I am not an Athenian or a Corinthian, but a citizen of the world."^[31]"

That echos quite nicely to me and it is something that I try to bring to my life though sometimes I fail, miserably.

I get angry, as we all do from time to time, but I get a lot more angry than I let on.  Rarely to the point of seeking to do actual harm to a person for whatever they'd done but more than once I've broken something in a pure red rage and felt quite fine with it.  Case in point, I've done this to my hand and in truth, I don't really regret it.  It still hurts sometimes but it serves as a reminder of a last resort and is as such useful.

I think I've babbled enough.

In which I am a glutton once again.

There is a podcast that I listen to, The Let's Go Eat Show.  It was started by on of the morning show hosts from Radio From Hell, Bill Allred.  Bill is an adamant supporter of local businesses and fond of good food and drink.  He also happens to be a great interviewer and quite knowledgeable, he does his homework and generally doesn't come off as a mook.  Anyhow, on The LGES's most recent show he talked to Froddy Volgger, the Sausage King.  As you may have guessed already I was interested in what this man had to say.

Two words.

Two words that made me drool.

Buffalo.  Pastrami.

I loves me a good pastrami and given the opportunity I usually don't shy away from taking a bite out of something new.  This sounds up my alley to be sure.  Unfortunately it seems it is a little difficult to get a hold of.  However in searching for this buttery sounding delicacy I've found jalapeno chedder buffalo brats, so not all is lost.

The Boy has been labouring under a cough for the last few days and it seems it has transferred to The Girl.  The wee thing does not like it when I suck her nose with the bulb but thankfully she calms quickly.  It didn't stop her from keeping me up quite a bit last night.  Burbling as babies are wont to do.