Young Dunk?

I had forgotten about these and I can't remember if I ever posted them, so, I'm posting them...

Re-cor-d-in-g R-ec-ord-ing-s...

Digitizing vinyl turned out to be an abject failure. Apparently, my turntable suffered a stylus injury in my move up to Rogers Park and no amount of bending it back into place is going to get it to sound as wonderful as it used to in all of it's audiophilic Grado glory. The stylus alone (just the needle and the plastic piece that holds it in) would cost me $60 to replace...and as far as Grado parts go, it's on the low end. So, if you happen to have the complete discography of Talking Heads and an extensive collection of 1970's prog rock, you are my new best friend...

And I just downloaded a pirated copy of Heart's Little Queen and it turned out to be one full song and twelve five second intros, so I'm just pissed off enough to give up for the night...

Recording recordings...

I'm letting go of my most precious records in exchange for money, but before I do, I must digitize them. I'm going to do this tomorrow. Who wants to come listen to records all day?


I'm keeping a couple signed ones, but other than that, let me know if you want any of these...

I'm naked once again...

Walking down what seems to be an old abandoned access road, you round a grove of trees and see a hill, shining in the morning sun. First, you notice the small plume of smoke rising from a pipe protruding from the grassy awning over a large pair of sliding wooden doors. Then, there are the large convex lenses higher up on the hill and about half a dozen barrels spinning on top of small towers. The lenses are connected to a system of heavy fiber optic cables trailing through the earth to little colonies of smaller lenses, piping the collected sunlight to the lower rooms of an underground dwelling. The turbines, made of old steel barrels cut in half, offset to catch the wind and welded to shafts that disappear into the ground, generating a modest amount of electricity. After a moment, you notice that the road you've been following ends at the doors, so you keep walking. Startled, you watch one of the doors creak open, curving around an unseen corner and folding neatly back into the hill. A young man in a dorky brown fedora walks over to the other door and pushes it back into the ground, just as he did to the first. The space behind him coming into view, you realize that it fills most of the hill and is surprisingly well lit, sunlight pouring from small circles in the ceiling and walls. Toward the back of the cavern is the source of the smoke; a large open pit brick oven surrounded by bits of junk and tools. He notices you and smiles.

"It was getting a bit hot in here! I've got some breakfast cooking, if you're interested!"

I'm the young man and this hill is my home. Welcome, stranger...

absorbent material> Castle Oldchair - Sad Pants

Chad VanGaalen - Molten Light

Infamous Last Words

Under the gallows, just before they kick the stool out from under me...
"Look ma! No hands!"

Operation Pingu!

Even when it's in a backyard in the middle of winter, the point of camping is still learning to adapt yourself to nature rather than the other way around. It may be getting harder and harder to find a camp site in the American wilderness that doesn't have power hookups and a lick of tarmac for your trailer, but that doesn't mean we can't get out there and rough it. We just need to be a little creative! Possibly a little crazy. Sometimes even slightly criminal, though hopefully not this time. However, that isn't my point. Without even leaving the big bustling city, we can spend a night outside and learn things! Not to mention that sleeping out in the Chicago winter transforms you into an undeniable badass. See you there!

Laser Experiment

Just when I was getting these rusty gears spinning, my camera battery died. Eh.

That's how he got caught, Mr. Quincampoix!

I find the physics of the universe very intriguing because mechanical representations of it are amazing. What if we are the bacteria living on the gravitationally motivated bit of rock kneeded out and rounded by the fists of some allergic grad student...oh...oh god...quantum hierarchy...no...fractal universe...where does it END?!

absorbent material> DVDS! Finally a dvd player that works! Most of the time! The pitfalls of thifting...even us Thrift Magi fall prey. I've learned more about modern technology by buying broken shit than you'll ever dream...

Self-portraiture

absorbent material> Gentle Giant - Acquiring the Taste

They're here now!

Is there anything that we humans do that is not worth at least a second glance? I mean, people are always trying to convey stories...books, music and movies define our culture...but think of all of those little quirks that you have that you may not even realize that you have and think of their origins. Now think of everyone's quirks all compounded into this huge societal secret that nobody really hides, but we'd all be kind of embarrassed if confronted about them, none-the-less.

When I'm really tired, sometimes I'll absent-mindedly say "Sleepytime Tyler Museum" just as a simple statement that I'm tired. Of course, I think the triad has spun and bounced so many times over the years that we all speak in much more complicated word onions than the rest of the general population, but, I mean, my friends at work didn't balk when I labeled one of our Christmas boxes Architeuthis. It sounds vaguely like Christmas, right?

There are some similar syllables and the concepts are analogous. What's even sillier is that Portia say "Sleepytime Portia Museum", too. I'm not sure she's ever even heard Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and if she did, I doubt she would like it very much.

Somewhere out there, there's something that you once said that stuck in someone's head for the long haul being reiterated and evolved cycle after cycle in their mind and they don't even realize it.

absorbent material> muted Star Wars on laser disc and the new Sleepytime Gorilla Museum album...if you don't have In Glorious Times, you should get it...or let me know and I'll make sure you get it...

For video?!

absorbent material> Dark Star

I haven't made one in a while...

I guess I need to take more photographs...

Can't wait to find one in a thrift store...

I'm really excited about the new Mac phone thingies. Not so much for the phones themselves, what nifty little distractions, but for the impact they'll have. Not because they'll be so great, but because they are Mac. The Cult of Mac is a very intriguing thing in that they will reverse engineer anything and everything simply because it's made by Apple. I'm excited to see these Mac phones start popping up in the lower classes, the unhip, the poor...several years from now, of course, when the plastic is cloudy and the screen edges beveled inwards with grime...simply because of their functionality. I want to see one with an aftermarket USB port surrounded by hot-glue. I want to see them hardwired into remote control airplanes and running homebrew voice recognition software so you can tell your RC plane where to go by calling it on the phone. I want to see lo-tech people become hi-tech gadgets. The '92 Geo Metro with the virtually obsolete Mac phone velcroed to the dash as emergency service, GPS navigation system, and music machine, roaring into the future. Fifteen years ago, car phones were still attached to those obnoxious springy cords. Now, cell phones. Ten years ago, guys were fitting their cars with modified linux machines to play their MP3s on the run. Now, iPod. Five years ago, cell phones and iPods were seperate things. In five years' time, people and cellPods will no longer be seperate things. In ten years' time, no one will ever stop listening anywhere they go, even while sleeping. In fifteen years' time, cell phone numbers will be assigned at birth in replacement of social security numbers, you will live a transient lifestyle where the only material property that you will carry with you from day to day is your IDCellPodDebitGPSJetPackTent. It will look like a smooth flat stone that you carry in your pocket and you will interact with it telepathically. You will have to give it a name, so start thinking...

absorbent material> Bink Winkelman...

The day will get bigger...

I am not ashamed. It was actually a truly interesting experience...not to mention surreal. I don't regret it in the least...

absorbent material> Ministry - Filth Pig