Fuzz for Breakfast

Yesterday morning I awoke around 7am, with the slight taste of cotton in my mouth, to find myself about to put my blanket in my mouth. WTF?, I thought. Then I realized I'd just had a dream about eating pizza. No joke, I'd seriously rolled up the blanket in my hand like pizza crust, and was going to attempt to consume it.

coming soon: David Brooks' hipster bashing, my own male bashing, and an awkward look at urban cyclists (or something of the sort).

The Current State of My Coffee Table

(stupid flash. but I'm too lazy to photoshop the one without flash)
but I really should be doing this:

Law Books Strike Again!

This time: Why getting a planning degree is like poor man's civil engineering degree*.

Professional jealousy. ... Engineers often stereotype planners as starry-eyes dreamers who lack both technical skills and an adequate awareness of development costs. Planners often stereotype engineers as persons lacking both creativity and ecological sensitivity. Engineers claim to have the last laugh because they, not planners, have had (and in most places still have) the greatest influence over the shape of American cities and towns.
-Ellickson and Been (2005), p. 421

*it's also a poor man's MBA. I'm sure the book will address this at some point. Meanwhile, I still want to be an artist.

How is Mathnet NOT on YouTube?

I don't get it. but I did find the Square One theme song!

I want to be an artist

... so I started digging through my artist statements from last year. Upon reading them now I see flaws, but I'm gonna post them here for posterity. Or self-indulgence.

I’m an art major because everything else makes me fall asleep. I’m an art major because my Drawing I teacher told me to be. I’m an art major because in middle school my friend though it would be fun to take photography. I’m an art major because freshman year going to Addams meant I didn’t have to be in the room with my roommate. I’m an art major because it keeps me busy. I’m an art major because I like to work with my hands. I’m an art major because I was switched at birth. I’m an art major because the darkroom makes me happy. I’m an art major because I have something to say. I’m an art major because I have nothing to say. I’m an art major because I hate reading. I’m an art major because I love music. I’m an art major because I get it. I’m an art major because I have skill. I’m an art major because it sounds cool. I’m an art major because I’m cool. I’m an art major because I don’t know what else I’d do (wait, yes I do). I’m an art major because I get to write informal artsy things like this. I’m an art major because everything else makes me fall asleep.

That one makes me wonder why the hell I'm in planning school.

I’m an art major because in middle school my friend though it would be fun to take photography. And for some reason I stuck with it, and for some reason my “maybe I’ll minor in photography” idea before I came to Penn turned into much more (that ‘some reason’ being: I’m an art major because my Drawing I teacher told me to be).

In the four years of my life that I could have legitimately called myself an artist (I still hesitate to do so), I have seen my art become more than I ever could have imagined, and go in directions I never could have predicted.

The underlying idea behind all my work, the motivation to do it in the first place, has always been to make something that ‘looks cool.’ A very simple agenda. I’ve never sought to say anything profound, to promote any personal politics, to make any statements of truth or fallacy. But underneath and out of my very simple agenda grew a unique visual language.

Maps, the self, the body, feminist ideas. These are the ideas that drive my work. Maps because I could look at them for hours, and because our environment and the way we depict it and visualize it affects the way we experience it. Putting this into art allows me to bridge my psychogeographic environmental side with my art work. My fascination with maps often drives my compositions. I create works with paths running through them, with trails that lead you through the work like you’re led through a map, directions to follow and points to stop at and continue on from or travel back to.

The self because I discovered it as subject freshman year, became comfortable with it in Visual Diary class, and have been hooked ever since. The body because it relates to one’s sense of self. Feminist ideas because I can’t avoid them when working with the self and the body.

I’m an art major because everything else makes me fall asleep. Art is very much a physical process for me, and this is the reason I enjoy it so much. It’s about being in the darkroom, working with my hands, being on my feet, moving around and being physically engaged with what I am doing. I can’t sit still. I always need to be doing something. Passive reading and studying only make me fall asleep. Art allows me to work in a manner in which I thrive.

I’m just doing what I like. What people take from viewing my art is of the least importance to me. If they find meaning it, great (and I’d like to know what they see), but I’m not trying to make them see what I see. I make art for me, not you.

I have another thesis-specific one, but I'll save the for when I feel like posting photos of my thesis.

Searching

So I'm sitting around debating what to do this lovely Sunday and I devise this plan:

1. nap
2. read for class
3. research for paper

Then I thought, wait, I'm not going to research. I'm going to search. I am not re-looking for this information. I am going to look for it for the first time. Therefore, I amend my day's plan:

1. nap
2. read for class
3. search for paper

Wait, that doesn't make sense. I'm not going to look for paper. OK, third time's the charm:

1. nap
2. read for class
3. search for information for paper

the 216 on the TV

I've taken to watching 30 Rock on Thursday nights thanks to its post-Scrubs* time slot. Tonight's episode began with dialog such as this:

Tina Fey (Liz Lemon): everyone got food poisoning!
Alec Baldwin (Jack): how is that possible, that seafood was a gift from my friend, the owner of the Cleveland Browns. Those freshwater clams came straight from the (looks at label) ...Cuyahoga River?!

Awesome. I heart Cleveland. Too bad most people who heard that probably either thought "WTF?" or "Is that river still burning?"

*Scrubs has been somewhat disappointing this season. It's like, full of babies. Almost every character who could have possibly gotten pregnant is either currently so, or has recently had a baby (and said baby has to be in every scene).

Needles

This awkward quarter-life crisis I'm going through, along with recent unpleasant experiences with needles*, drove me to get yet another ear piercing - a daith in my left ear. I chose this piercing for its aesthetic value, but after reading about it I also like the idea behind its creation:

The Daith piercing was co-created in 1992 by Erik Dakota and a Jewish woman piercing client with a metaphysical bent ... The woman instinctively understood what the Hindus had been teaching about body piercings for about 3,000 years: that rings left in an orifice of the body act as a "Guardian of the Gate". They can be magically charged at the moment of the pierce to act as a "filter" to what goes into and out from that orifice. In the case of the ear, an appropriately placed and charged ring could filter out all that is nonsense or bullshit and let pass that which is intelligent. Erik and the unnamed woman were guided to create a piercing to do just that and the woman gave it the Hebrew name for intelligence: Daith.
-BME Encyclopedia

Here I display a photo of my 10 earrings:*I had a shot last week, and blood taken the week before. These were rather terrible needle experiences, which got me thinking that piercing is always a positive needle experience.

I Can LexisNexis Myself

A lot of this blog will probably end up being devoted to music. Here I present for you a previous music-related comment of mine, as published by The New York Times, and retrieved via LexisNexis:

SECTION: Section 2; Column 5; Arts and Leisure Desk; COLDPLAY; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 168 words
HEADLINE: Travis Came First
BODY:
To the Editor:

Jon Pareles has gracefully articulated everything that bothers me about Coldplay, from Chris Martin's voice and lyrics to the band's attempt to create entire albums as reverberative as its most successful single (this tendency is wholly apparent on its second album). Yet I own Coldplay's first two albums, and consider listening to them a guilty pleasure.

While I agree with Mr. Pareles, he is wrong on at least one count. Coldplay has indeed ''spawned a generation'' of similar bands. But Travis, if anything, spawned Coldplay. Travis released its first album (''Good Feeling'' in 1997) years before Coldplay broke out with ''Parachutes''; ''The Man Who,'' Travis's subsequent album and its most comparable to anything of Coldplay's, was released in April 2000, months before the release of ''Parachutes.'' While it is undeniable that these bands have influenced each other, it is worth noting who came first and who has demonstrated greater musical depth.

____________
Shaker Heights, Ohio
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
LOAD-DATE: June 12, 2005

Pseudo-Indie Hipster-Pop

or maybe it should be pseudo-hipster indie-pop. or semi-elitist pseudo-indie hipster-pop. or semi-elitist pseudo-hipster indie pop.

Whichever it is, I think I may have been listening to it a lot this week. Currently Belle and Sebastian, which was preceded by Gomez (do they count?), and it all began several days ago when The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs took over my CD player (yes, I do still listen to CDs).

This all makes me feel very uncomfortable, because I am not a hipster. I walk a fine line between two groups of people I will never fit in with - the West Philly Hipster crowd, and the Penn crowd. The WPH are closely aligned with another group I was previously on the periphery of, WQHS DJs. This all is best illustrated graphically:

My current musical tastes align me with the west side of this map. I think I prefer the place where my more unique musical tastes (i.e., folk music) place me - off the map.

P.S. Does anyone listen to Live? Not quite the pseudo-whatever-the-hell-it-is that I've been listening to lately, but I did find myself rocking out to When Dolphins Cry today, and also enjoyed several tracks off their Unplugged album.