strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Oct 27 03: post-show report
So on Friday I went to see the Innocence Mission play at The Living Room, a little club down on the Lower East Side. I’d been looking forward to this for days. As I made my way through the neighborhood I noticed that even for a Friday on the LES, the place’s hipster density was unusually high. But then I understood: CMJ!
CMJ, or the College Music Journal New Music Marathon, is a six-day extravaganza of up-and-coming indie bands (and former up-and-coming indie bands and would-be up-and-coming indie bands) playing in clubs and bars and dance halls all over New York City. It is a hipster feeding frenzy. Needless to say, I had never been to a CMJ show.
The Innocence Mission were playing a thirty-minute set at 8:45. Or at least they were supposed to: the band that preceded them in line didn’t get started until 8:40. But hey, it was a free concert, and the band (a buncha kids from Detroit by the name of Pas/Cal) wasn’t bad. During their set I perused a CMJ program that the woman sharing my table lent me, and rediscovered the best part of CMJ: it’s an extravaganza of excellent band names. My personal favorite was the truly inspired Measles Mumps Rubella. Some other highlights:
- +/- (Plus/Minus)
- Armor for Sheep
- Asteroid No. 4
- Dillinger Escape Plan
- Dorkestra
- Fin Fang Foom
- The Hissyfits
- Joanie Loves Trotsky
…Oh, man. It just went on and on. You get the picture. (You can still peruse the complete list, if you like.)
Anyway, the show was great. Don and Karen Peris, the husband-and-wife nucleus of the band, did 30 minutes of songs with one guitar apiece. And that was it: a no-frills approach that suited their gentle, folky music perfectly. They struck me as being seriously out of place in the swirl of 24-year-old-rock-and-rollers, but the audience ate it up. Good for them. I happened to bump into Karen, the singer-songwriter-frontwoman, on the way out, and am kind of embarrassed to say that my attempt at a cool, mature “You know, I’ve been a fan of yours for nearly 15 years and y’all are great” kind of devolved into a gush. So much for hipsterism, but what the hell. It was worth it.
at last
He’s home!
Oct 21 03: rise and glower
[obscenities.]
It’s nearly 3. A road crew has been jackhammering vigorously through the pavement just north of 10th Avenue and 50th Street for nearly an hour. The city couldn’t say whether there was a noise permit issued or not; they’ve sent the cops to investigate.
If there was no permit, I expect to see the crew and their desk supervisors’ skins sewn into a lovely sunshade for the corner in question by sunrise Wednesday. If there was a permit, I expect to see the above anyway, accompanied by the brass-chased skulls of the idiots who issued the permit in the first place.
You know what? This happened last night, too. I remember waking most of the way up, thinking “What the…?” and then drifting in and out for a while until it went away. Lucky for me that tonight I woke all the way up instead.
I have swim practice in three and one-half hours. I don’t expect to be there for it. (Bastards!)
I just needed to share this with you all. They’re just damned lucky that Paul’s out of town. By this point Paul would be a five-story apparition wreathed in flame and bearing down upon them at top speed.
(In the time it took to type this, a hush has finally fallen upon the neighborhood. I scarcely dare ask if perhaps something has been accomplished here. Tomorrow: I will investigate further tomorrow. But now to bed again.)
Oct 19 03: further patriotic duty
What’s the best way to celebrate National Marriage Protection Week? With a marriage.
For instance: go to Maine in the company of old old friends. Take in the stunning natural beauty of some little seaside town—the steely ocean, the riotous leaves, the stones that bespeak strength and solidity and solemn endurance of storm and sunrise for uncounted years—with someone you love, or, failing that, while thinking of the person you love who is unable to be there with you. Bear witness to the union of a figure from your checkered past with somebody the friend met in Boston who makes him (or her) deliriously happy. During the ceremony, if one of the celebrants’ faces is lit up with overwhelming joy and hope and love for the other, feel free to sniffle. Admire the way the officiant manages to combine the Christian and Jewish wedding rites into something that contains the best bits of both. Sing: during the ceremony, at the reception; whenever it is asked of you, with all the skill and verve and gusto you can manage. Get choked up when the celebrants exchange vows. Attend the post-reception party, but only after attending the pre-post-reception-party reception. Sing at both of those as well. Join in the composition of a song celebrating the new union, preferably one which will embarass and amuse each of the honorees in equal measure; extra points if you can perform it to the tune of “the other guy’s” school song. Let the revels carry on late into the night. Turn it into a wingding of historic proportions. Sing songs nobody really remembers the words to, or the harmonies either.
Throughout all of this, honor the marriage at hand. Honor the spirit of optimism and commitment and hope and love that lead two people to take this kind of plunge. Honor the desire to create a stable family structure upon which to hang one’s future plans. Honor the way such celebrations knit a couple’s family and friends together into a community. Honor the conviction (in the hearts of the celebrants; in your own) that the couple will be able to weather the tricky bits of the future through mutual love and respect and understanding and tenderness. Keep singing. At judicious intervals, take a moment to rehydrate.
Joel and Steven got married this weekend. May they be showered with blessings all the days of their lives.
Oct 15 03: temporary cease-fire
Ohmigosh! I almost forgot. In honor of Marriage Protection Week, I am temporarily setting aside my homosexual agenda. Yes, out of a sense of patriotic duty and deep respect for the Monkey-in-Chief’s stirring moral leadership, I will suspend my efforts to break up the marriages of straight people everywhere. Mom? Dad? Uncle George? All you folks are safe through October 18th. John and Kathleen? You’re fine…for now. (Although your clever living-in-separate-cities thing has made it hard for me to find the right attack strategy for you kids anyway.) Bob and Whitney? I promise not to work on my plot to disrupt your wedding ceremony until Sunday.
That’s right. All of you folks are temporarily off the hook. But when Sunday rolls around, I’m coming after you all. Your marriages are not safe.
Moo hoo haa haa haaaaaaaa!
nothing to cry about
Huh. Meanwhile, my favorite Canucks have a blog. And a new album coming out next week. Two exciting discoveries.
My favorite band ever, ladies and gentlemen. Ever. Someday I’ll wax eloquent and tell you why, but not now. I should really be in bed.
note to self
The Innocence Mission, that band with the slightly twee name that you loved so much back in college, that band whose t-shirt you wore until it disintegrated, that band whose song made you cry Monday morning when you heard it for the first time in about ten years because you suddenly remembered being 19 and all that went with it, that band whose song that meant so much to you at 19 as a poet discovering his voice but whose song means so much to you so differently now that you’re 33 and can’t seem to finish your stories, that band whose song was still in your head when you woke up on Tuesday morning, that band whose music has shed layers of needless production gloss over the last five albums until its recordings have distilled down to the essence of the quiet intimacy and hope and grace that has appealed to you since the beginning, that band who (you’ve just discovered) has a concert on this Saturday night at Fez, except you’ll be in Maine and can’t go—
They’re playing another show in NYC this month. The Living Room, Friday 10/24, 8:45 set. Possibly even free. Be there.
Oct 14 03: the force is with me
The Niners lost last night, and that was degrading. Much of NYC is bent out of shape because the Yanks lost this evening. But in my little universe, a major victory: the completion of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. (Didn’t I mention recently that Bob lent me his XBox? I guess not. Well, he did.) Yes, I’ve defeated Darth Malak, saved the Republic from the forces of darkness, et c. et c. But I prefer to think of it as reclaiming that much more of my brain, which had been consumed by the need to solve just one more puzzle, to explore just one more corridor, and to add just one more link—well, okay, maybe two—to the long long chain of and-thens in its protracted tale.
Narrative junkies such as myself should stay away from this game. Not because it’s bad—in fact, it’s great—but because it took me something like 36 hours and 41 minutes to play it from start to finish. Plus the time spent dying over and over, and having to pick back up from a recent save point. I didn’t play it all in one sitting, of course. I actually started the odyssey back in June. But over the last few days, I will admit, I may have played in longer blocks than were prudent. I saw the far side of 3am more than once.
Having one’s beloved out of town for a few weeks means never having to say you’re coming to bed, and the XBox has made my nocturnal tendencies ten thousand times worse. However, it’s over now, and I can throttle back on my scary-bachelorhood. You know: no more reassuring myself that Cherry Garcia is, in fact, a vegetable. Maybe even getting to bed before midnight.
Tomorrow, that is. I’ve missed my chance for tonight. But tomorrow, I start behaving more like a normal person.
(Paul, if you’re reading this: don’t worry, I haven’t allowed the house to collapse in upon itself. I’ve watered the plants, taken out the trash, eaten home-cooked meals…hell, I even vacuumed when I thought the San Franciscans would be coming over to watch the game. Still, you keep me anchored to the world of actual people sometimes. I like you better than XBox. Hurry home.)
Oct 11 03: your 5¢ worth
I found this nickel. It was underneath the bag that held this week’s comic books. It was sitting on the ottoman beneath the bedroom window. And something in my head went: ping!
This is a Nickel of Significance. Somebody gave it to me with a specific purpose in mind. Or I am supposed to give it to somebody because…something. I forget. Damn.
Why did I put this here? If this is your nickel, or if you know its tale, or if you just want to posit a theory, please step forward now. The suspense is killing me, but eventually it’s just going into the Big Change Cup.
Oct 9 03: rare political moment
I’m kind of afraid to call my mother back home in NoCal because—as all who know and love her will agree—she will doubtless have a great number of impassioned things to say about the recent elections there. Elections in which, apparently, only 49% of the registered voters turned up to register an opinion. I think that statistic bothers me even more than its result. And I guess it bears out the old truism that we get the government we deserve.
Perhaps needless to say, if there were any lingering questions about my moving back to San Francisco anytime soon, you may now consider them answered.
[UPDATE: I don’t remember where I got the 49% figure above, but it has been brought to my attention that it’s seriously wrong. It was more like 70%, which is impressive. Was the outcome of the election a wise one? I don’t know, but at least it was reached by an engaged electorate. I feel better about that part now.]
Moving on, let’s consider something of larger import than Arnold: the Republican Party’s plans for the nation as a whole. Kevin Drum at Calpundit has put up an analysis of the Texas Republican Party platform of 2000 which is well worth reading. It’s not the manifesto for the national party, but it is the manifesto of a significant faction within it—one with increasing clout. Tom DeLay has signed off on this. You should be aware of what it says.
Oct 2 03: gone again
It only took ten years, but I crossed the final threshhold and became an official New Yorker today. I got into a (very brief) shouting match with a total stranger. This sweet-looking old man: he was one of the many complete idiots who take it upon themselves to feed Hell’s Kitchen’s pigeon population, thereby insuring more filth, more vermin, more rats eating the leftovers, more increased asthma rates among local kids, more nasty bacteria in the ubiquitous layer of guano. I tried to explain that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, and this sweet-looking grandfatherly type looked at me and said “YOU’RE NOT THE SHERIFF! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? KEEP ON WALKING!”
Much to my astonishment, a moment later I realized that I was yelling right back. I got a grip and continued on to work.
Hoo boy.
Okay, early early tomorrow morning I’m off to Vegas, again. Bob’s getting married. No, not in Vegas: it’s time for another bachelor party. I worry that the organizers of this one intend a debauch on a rather grander scale than the last one. Please don’t make me go to the jiggle bars, mommy.
Ere I leave, though, I heard a really funny joke today. Ready?
- Q.Why does a chicken coop have only two doors?
- A. Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan.
Ahh ha haa haa haaa haa haaaa! Man, that kills me. Whoooo.
Okay, I have to go pack now. Then I think I’ll go sleep. Or possibly just yell at some more old people.
Oct 1 03: tinker, tailor
Spent a bit of today messing about with the site’s code, changing the navbar at left into a heavily-styled <ul> list. I suspect that for many of you—like, seven or eight out of the nine or ten—the changes will make no visible difference whatsoever. However, at last check there was at least one household still reading the site on a positively ancient browser which couldn’t handle CSS at all. (Yes, boys, I’m looking at you.) And this should make the navbar a little easier to read for folks like them. Plus it’s simply a better practice to follow, as Listamatic can explain more articulately than I.
That being said: let me again plead with everyone out there to use a good, up-to-date browser. The Mozilla project, for instance, has web-only and web-and-mail-and-everything browsers for all major platforms that work fabulously. Mac OS X users have Safari, which renders pages beautifully and is at the vanguards of standards compliance. I have been told that MSIE’s recent Windows builds are pretty good on CSS compliance, but I can’t say for sure whether that’s true or not.
And what exactly is standards compliance? Why is it important? Pull up a chair; I’ll try to keep this short. The page I see when I hit this blog using Safari should, in theory, look identical to what you see when you view it using Internet Explorer for Windows. Makes sense, right? Web standards are precise models for how markup codes like HTML, XHTML, CSS, and others should be implemented and displayed. The idea being that if all Internet-based technology follows the same gameplan, all end-users will have predictable, identical experiences when they encounter your content. These standards, as well as guidelines on everything from accessibility to privacy, are hammered out by a consortium of interested parties from all over the place known as the World Wide Web Consortium, or the W3C. Pretty much all new browsers are developed with the W3C’s standards guidelines somewhere in mind.
But despite the W3C’s best efforts, the variance in the ways that browsers will display the same page runs wide. Some of this is just because people use old browsers that aren’t up to speed with the current set of rules; some of it is because people use buggy software. Which means that I, as a web designer, can either (a) accept that the alignment of my subheads gets messed up on many machines (to say nothing of the graphic effect on the navigation bar); or (b) try to write code that branches off in a zillion directions, trying to compensate for the idiosyncratic behavior of every version of every browser I can think of, no matter how out-of-date, all at once, in order for my design to be rendered with as little variance as possible for the widest possible audience. Neither of these answers is all that satisfying, or much fun. (Note to self: tightening my DOCTYPE declarations would be a good idea, though.)
Strike a blow for consistent web representation! Get the latest version of your favorite standards-compliant browser today. Do it for me. Because frankly I think my design looks kind of cool when you can see it properly.