'ʤæk,dɑz · ləv · maɪ · bɪg · sfɪŋks · əv · kwɔrtz

I actually started working on this a while ago; when my right hand was almost useless after my surgery, making a mix disc was one of the few productive ways to spend the time. At any rate, it's my personal tradition to send a holiday mix disc in lieu of Christmas cards. They do not contain exclusively Christmas or holiday music, which gets a bit overpowering as the "season" wears on anyways, but even one of my original pieces vaguely touches on the holiday this year.

At any rate ---

( Here be spoilers )

(1) reply to this post requesting a letter and I will assign you one.
(2) list (and upload, if you want) 10 songs that start with that particular letter.
(3) post them in your journal with these instructions.

I was given the letter T by this_is_nowhere.

( I gather that counting The in the title is cheating )

Indiana has recently adopted a statute (Ind. Code 29-2-19-1 et. seq) that allows for a funeral planning declaration to be made, with similar formalities as a living will, that sets forth arrangements for a funeral.

Since these things are most effective the more people likely to survive me know what's in them --

( This is what mine says )

According to Letters of Note, in August 1924 the U.S. Navy asked radio stations to monitor Mars for contact, during an Earth/Mars conjunction in which the planet was quite close and conditions were believed favourable.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, hominum studiis peritissimus, transitus est. Putavit culturas humanas esse signa; in tempore aut servanda aut mutanda, sed semper salva recognitione: volunt homines servare mores patrum videri, etiamsi morum usus mutatur per necessitatem.

Randomness. You gotta love it. My best friend from high school used to be fascinated by it. He was especially fascinated by making computers randomize, since they can't really randomize. They are computers. They can only simulate randomness. They do a good job of it, but it is only a simulation...as artificial intelligence is only an approximation of intelligence.

CREATE YOUR LIFE SOUNDTRACK!! Here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on SHUFFLE
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie.

MY LIFE'S SOUNDTRACK!

1. Opening Credits:
Clan of Xymox - Heroes

2. Waking Up:
Sol Invictus - Lonely Crawls the Night

3. First Day At School:
William S. Burroughs & Gus Van Sant - Millions of Images

4. Falling In Love:
Front Line Assembly - Unknown Dreams

5. Fight Song:
Bongwater - Nick Cave Dolls

6. Breaking Up:
Southern Jubilee Singers - There's a Man In Jerusalem

7. Prom:
Lodovico Viadana - In unguentorum odorem

8. Life:
CSNY - Helpless

9. Mental Breakdown:
Handsome Family - If the World Should End in Ice

10. Driving Far Away:
Rocky Horror Picture Show - Charles Atlas

11. Flashback:
Nick Lowe - American Squirm

12. Wedding:
Christopher Morley - Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts

13. Birth of Child:
Justice League Stories - Return of Brunnhilde

14. Final Battle:
Jon Stewart - Citizen's Guide to Democracy

15. Death Scene:
Pink Fairies - Mexican Grass War

16. Funeral Song:
Television and Patti Smith - Poor Circulation

17. End Credits:
Death in June - Heilige

Walter asked elsewhere, about the discovery of a new drawing, in pastels and ink, apparently by Leonardo da Vinci:

My own tastes aside, however, what is it that makes the same picture, displaying the same techniques, the same subtleties, the same insights, that was once valued at under $20,000 now worth nine figures in pounds...aside from its suspected authorship? And why should that make a difference?

It probably has less to do with any rational theory of aesthetics, but a lot to do with semi-rational ideas about economics.

Art has ever been a province for "conspicuous consumption". Its value is contingent on the inherent scarcity of rare and unique objects. Since the supply of Leonardos is very inelastic (new ones are "made" by discovering that Leonardo might have painted some old picture), it's a seller's market, and those who would own one must compete against every other such person.

It's been argued several times, and fairly convincingly, that mass production lies behind the artistic charlatanism of the twentieth century. When mass production put conventionally pretty pictures in the hands of hoi polloi, rarefied tastes had to substitute for rare unique objects. You no longer could prove your membership in the monied, leisure class by obtaining privileged access to unique objects. Instead, you had to prove your membership by demonstrating that you had enough leisure, money, and dubious education to stay au courant with the latest fads and isms. In this environment, all other artists took a back seat to the bullshit artist.

Fortunately, old master paintings are largely immune to the new economies, since they're inherently scarce. As such, they're still allowed to be pretty, and don't require a lot of "theory" to appreciate.

Today, at 7:30 am local time (11:30 UTC), NASA slammed a 1 ton rocket part into the Moon in order to observe the formation of a new, all-American lunar crater. The spacecraft responsible will crash into the Moon shortly after.

What new doom will they awaken?

This site collects lovely examples of unintelligible prose talking about art. Ah, the twentieth century, and its contemporary echoes! Who did they think they were fooling?

"The crystal butt plug platter, stretched urinal/double glory hole, and stainless steel liquor sets each reveal the sexual charge of class consciousness."

"Motifs repeatedly hint at acts of subversion, fictions half-uttered as if time had momentarily stopped, the present dissolving."

"Cathy Wilkes’s sculptural installations tend to claim sovereignty over the spaces they occupy. Her sprawling, unanchored constellations––often involving minute objects––have rendered her work vulnerable to disruption and instilled a sense of anxiety that has become a signature theme."

( There's more! )

It seems that football coach Jason Stinson has been acquitted of murder charges after one of his players, Max Gilpin, collapsed and later died of heat exhaustion during a team practice.

Part of me is upset at this acquittal. I have no doubt that Stinson did exactly what he was accused of doing. He proclaimed that he was going to keep his players sprinting until one of them quit the team. He denied them water, and either expressed or feigned anger at them, calling one different player a "coward" after that player collapsed and vomited during the practice. The victim was apparently struggling to keep running to impress the angry coach that he was not a coward.

But then, you knew sports were like this, which is why you didn't go out for the team. You had more sense than to expose yourself to this kind of hazing malarkey. And that's what this is, exactly: yet another hazing tragedy.

Americans have got to get themselves over the foolish notion that any time a tragedy occurs, somebody is "responsible" and must go to prison. Stinson was following in the footsteps of a long line of coaches, drill sergeants, and similar figures who imagine that there's something ennobling about their hazing rituals, that they motivate their charges, "build character", or whatever bullshit they invent to justify them.

It also came to light that the victim was taking the amphetamine Adderall for "attention deficit disorder", i.e. being young, male, and extroverted. This can't have helped. He was apparently mildly fluish at the time as well.

This was a tragedy waiting to happen. The Stinson incident was not the first. "In the decade ending in 2004, 24 young football players -- 19 of them in high school, three in college, and two in the professional ranks -- have died of heat stroke..." It will happen again, so long as young men imagine that they can "prove" themselves by enduring these sorts of ritual hazing. Until we learn to hold this kind of "sport" in the contempt it deserves, there will be others.