12.16.2007

Inflation and the FDIC

I was at a Wells Fargo Branch recently in Walnut Creek. I noticed signs all over the bank saying how each account was insured by the FDIC. The FDIC was created in 1933 to provide "deposit insurance which currently guarantees checking and savings deposits in member banks up to $100,000 per depositor."

Adjusted for inflation, the $100,000 you would receive if your bank failed in 1933 would be $1,428,225.34 in today's dollars. So are we being ripped off, or not as well insured as we were back in 1933. $100,000 in 2006 dollars is worth only $7001.70 in 1933 dollars.

Why has the deposit insurance not kept up with the rate of inflation?

12.11.2007

What the Fuck? File #2G

Second thing to put in the "What the Fuck File."

What I want to know is why did the surgeons reattach it?

12.10.2007

Music is fascinating not just for its own sake, but also for its effect on the listener. And when coupled with visuals the effect can be intense. But sometimes music is over used. Take the show "Grey's Anatomy". The first few (I am ashamed to say it) seasons I watched, I felt bombarded by music. Almost more music than dialogue. And intense scenes were ruined by the added music. We were not allowed to observe the naked suffering but the director had to indicate to us that the scene was sad and intense by adding the music.


Such is the case with this scene from "Children of Men", based on the book by P.D. James. I did not read the book, but have read her Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, which are damn fine. Read them. I meant to read the book before I saw the movie, but forgot that she had written the book. I do not like to read a book after seeing the movie. My mind's eye is too influenced by the movie and I can't build the scenes and faces of the character after seeing how the director of the film imagined them.
Anyways...the scene would have been much stronger, his agony more intense if there were no music. Too many spices spoil the flavor. Music is the MSG of movies. Instead of cooking well, directors, Alfonso Cuarón, in this case, just dump in some MSG to make it good. Too often the scenes are spoiled, the emotions indicated instead of felt.

Children of Men

Music is fascinating not just for its own sake, but also for its effect on the listener. And when coupled with visuals the effect can be intense. But sometimes music is over used. Take the show "Grey's Anatomy". The first few (I am ashamed to say it) seasons I watched, I felt bombarded by music. Almost more music than dialogue. And intense scenes were ruined by the added music. We were not allowed to observe the naked suffering but the director had to indicate to us that the scene was sad and intense by adding the music.

Such is the case with the scene from "Children of Men", based on the book by P.D. James. I did not read the book, but have read her Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, which are damn fine. Read them. I meant to read the book before I saw the movie, but forgot that she had written the book. I do not like to read a book after seeing the movie. My mind's eye is too influenced by the movie and I can't build the scenes and faces of the character after seeing how the director of the film imagined them.
Anyways...the scene would have been much stronger, his agony more intense if there were no music. Too many spices spoil the flavor. Music is the MSG of movies. Instead of cooking well, directors, Alfonso Cuarón in this case, just dump in some MSG to make it good. Too often the scenes are spoiled, the emotions indicated instead of felt.

12.08.2007

Ingrid Michaelson

Never heard of her until today. Heard her big hit, that I guess is part of an Old Navy ad (the new way to fame getting a song in an ad for cheap clothes made to last a season), "The Way I Am" Cute, catchy 2 minutes of fluff.



I was humming along with it until I heard the line about Rogaine. Any song that has Rogaine in it has got to go. And what the hell is indie-pop anyways. If it is pop, it's not indie. Independent popular music makes no sense.

Some of the side effects of Rogaine include hair loss and difficulty breathing. I tried some free samples in highschool. A friend's dad was a dermatologist. But after reading about the side effects of difficulty of breathing while lying down...forget it.
Be a man, take baldness in stride.

12.07.2007

Review?

Wendy Perron, the editor of Dance Magazine, wrote something on her blog about our performance Friday night, Nov. 30th, at St. Mark's in NYC. Not exactly a glowing review of our work, and I think it perpetuates some bad expectations of improvisation, but still got my name in virtual print by the editor of Dance Magazine.

"Andrew Wass...willing to start his own trouble"

What the Fuck? File # 6.2

Court: Woman Can Keep Frozen Dead Cats

12.06.2007

Kiefer is a privledged Lush

Kiefer Sutherland was recently arrested for driving while under the influence while on probation for a similar offense. His sentence is 48 days in jail. Maybe that number because it is twice the number of the title of his show, who knows.

But what galls me is this -
"Earlier reports suggested he would serve his term with breaks in order not to interrupt the 24 filming schedule"

Why would he have gotten out of jail every now and then? Yes, he is a big star, blah, blah, blah, but what judge could hand that decision down with a straight face and not think the justice system is a joke? If anyone else had been arrested for a similar offense they would not be allowed out of jail to continue their work schedule. They would probably lose their job, be unable to pay their mortgage, spouse/partner leave them as they get more and more depressed...
But, noooo, Mr. Fancy Pants Hollywood star has the possibility to leave jail whenever he feels like it.

But it is all moot anyways as
"...production has already been suspended due to a Hollywood writers' strike."

11.23.2007

11.18.2007

Ten Chi

Last night saw the piece Ten Chi by Pina Bausch. Almost three hours long...professor and Maryanne... Anyways. Some sections I really enjoyed- the grunting woman killing the pillow; the rubbery sinewy solos (ooh, palindrome!!) by the men in black; the incessantly falling flower petals; the Asian woman sweeping across stage supported by two men. Maybe those sections stood out because the rest was not so captivating.

What was the point of the show? What was the connection to Japan? The piece was funded in part by a Japanese governmental agency, I think. A little something I read in the program, (which could have had a bit more in it to shed some light on performance). Many references to Japan - My car is Toyota, my TV Sanyo, my VCR Samsung...; the tour guide with the backpack; the whale on stage; the bowing section between two women.

The piece was constructed of short vignettes, some dancing, some talking, occasionally a woman in a silk dressing gown was lifted by a large blonde man, a pillow was thrown, a pillow was killed, various ways to wear a white handkerchief were modeled, men were carried on stage and their hair stood up, a woman had her dress ripped off, a man lifted a woman and carried her around the whale tail while she mimed swimming (VERY CHEESY!!), an Asian dwarf came on stage riding an ostrich, well no that did not happen but if it had, it would have fit right in....on and on these vignettes came and the snow/flowers/dandruff fell.

I did not understand the point of all these vignettes. Were they impressions of Pina's time in Japan? I could not sense an arch, but I could an overall structure. In 3 hours she had plenty of time to create one. First a dance section, then a talking section...this is dance theater after, must have talking. It was a 3 hour variety show, that ended with a dance off - each of the performers showcasing their skill to loud music. The crowd roared and leaped to their feet. Why, why, why, why, why?

final though:
Let us not confuse budget with genius

11.07.2007

Maybe he knew playing with matches is wrong. Maybe his parents had told him before this fire that matches are not toys. But he should not be "[removed] from his home and [possibly detained] as a ward of the state." That is just going to #@#$ him over. How many people go through state systems - foster care, jail - and end up the better for it?

Cyndi Jo Means, a deputy district attorney in nearby San Diego County, says that," Any finding of guilt... would not follow the boy into adulthood." Yeah, right. Legally, maybe, but socially...screwed. He'd never get a job at a gas station (but then again who wants a job at a gas station?). People will definitely think twice about him, and not in a good way, when they find out about his fire history.

Why are people building way out there? It is terrible city planning. Massive sprawls of cookie cutter houses. Making houses further and further away harder for firemen to reach.

Instead of ugly stucco McMushroomMansions, high rises should be built. Make it 4o stories. 4 living spaces per floor, the cardinal directions. Thing of the views people would have. And then gardens would be around the high rise, acting as a buffer. There wouldn't be miles and miles of roads, adding to global warming. Just think of how much smaller our eco footprint would be if we built like as opposed to having so many houses.

Come to think of it, he will be completely forgotten, the fires and destruction will be completely forgotten. The warnings, the anger, loss of life an property will be forgotten. And the people who were so angry will rebuild in the same exact places that are dry and fire prone and not maintain fire buffers. Maybe having your house burn down is how you pay the piper when you build in that area.

11.04.2007

Steve Martin

Finished an article in the recent New Yorker, the one with the Jack O'Lantern that looks like Cheney on the cover. The article, written by Steve Martin, is about his start in comedy. A sentence struck me-
"...there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration."


Also something from the article about the Animal Collective by Sasha Frere-Jones -
"...imperfection is necessarily part of the process."


(damn, they have a myspace page. I do not like myspace. It is ugly)

11.02.2007

Jerry Seinfeld...an ass?

Seinfeld was recently on Larry King Live. King asked if Seinfeld might have been cancelled. Jerry got a little hot under the collar. Was it too much just to say," No, the show was not cancelled." and move on? Why did Jerry go on and on about it? (trying to dominate Larry King, show who is alpha) Is that a sore topic for him? King didn't ask the question in a mean way, or anything. Is Seinfeld worried that he is a has-been? Is he worried that he will be forgotten?

Relax, Jerry. Your star in the ephemeral sphere of pop culture is cemented.

10.30.2007

Semper ubi sub ubi.

always wear underwear

3x times through a Spanish/English
translator

underclothes to always wear away the absent plain

10.25.2007

Should Al Gore become a Vegan?

Al Gore is a huge, if not the biggest, champion of the fight against global warming. He did get the Nobel Peace Prize for his actions As the U.N. has stated "Raising animals for food, the report said, is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems..." To read more about it download this pdf.
So my question, raised by a video I watched on Youtube, is Al Gore a hypocrite if he is not a vegan or at least a vegetarian? Or has he raised enough awareness and caused enough people to shrink their carbon footprint enough to offset his meat diet?

10.23.2007

Dumbledore is gay

Who the #%@%#!@# cares if a fictional character (that might as well be asexual cuz the books are not about his love life) is gay ? Can you say free press? J.K. Rowling is probably worried that she is fading out of the limelight, well is she? I have no idea. I read the first book, thought it was okay and tried the second, but thought it was complete crap, so never finished it.

But dropping a "bomb" like this on the public seems like a way to get people all abuzz about the books again without having to write another one. Maybe there is a kid somewhere who hasn't bought all the Potter books yet and this stunt is a way to squeeze a few more dollars out. This lady must be loaded. Isn't the series over, yet? Are they going to be able to finish all the movies before the actors start having kids? Aren't the actors already pushing their age range?

10.22.2007

San Diego Fires

Sounds like Southern California is burning up again. 250,000 people had to evacuate. Some people stayed behind even though they were told to evacuate-
"Firefighters — who lost valuable time trying to persuade stubborn homeowners to leave...Firefighters complained that their efforts to stop the flames were delayed when they were confronted by people who refused to leave their homes. 'They didn't evacuate at all, or delayed until it was too late,' said Bill Metcalf, a fire boss. 'And those folks who are making those decisions are actually stripping fire resources.' "

I say if you have been told to evacuate and you don't that you are on your own. Why should your stubbornness get in the way of firefighters doing their job? Let dumb asses burn. Darwin rides again.
Similar to the people whose houses several years ago burned down in SD county. They didn't want to put up sprinklers as the county wanted them to. They didn't because it cost too much. Then fires come and burn their houses down. If they had spent the $5000 or whatever, they could have saved themselves, the city, the fire department a lot of trouble. (I can't find an article on that, so if anyone finds one please tell me.)

Maybe harsh, but if you've been warned...
I know something about fires. The house I lived in that my great-grandfather built burnt down when I was in highschool. No one died, but we lost the house and most everything in it.


10.19.2007

Contemporary dance

Well, I guess there is a definition of contemporary dance. Not sure how reliable that definition is and not sure how good of a term "contemporary dance" is. Definitions that are related to time are tricky. What is after contemporary? Post contemporary? People should drop the time aspect and give dance a name that explains what it is. Contemporary doesn't define anything but time - when it happens/happened. In the definition yoga is part of contemporary dance and yoga is 5000 years old. Yes, it is just one of the things drawn upon. Contemporary dance, maybe should be called "and the kitchen sink dance" because everything is fair game.

How many of those things does one need to incorporate to be a contemporary dancer? If I just use Horton, Hawkins, Cunningham and Humphrey does that make me contemporary? No! Cunningham is the most recent and he hasn't been contemporary since the 60's. Okay, they used Ipods. Making a man a priest makes him neither celibate nor honest.

Couldn't someone use tap and be "contemporary"? Or how about square dancing? Is that not contemporary? I am sure people are creating new square dances all the time. And ballet? New balletic movement is created all the time. Not sure how long it takes before some moves join the canon of ballet.

This definition is another instance of people valuing the tool over the logic or aesthetic. Dance is so much more than techniques about the body. Dance is the art form that uses the body to address various logics (stories, topics). The more I think about the term "contemporary" the more I dislike it. I have contempt for contemporary. Vague, vague, vague.

"What kind of dance do you do?"
"Oh, I do 'of the present time' dancing."
"Interesting"

Labels, labels, labels...we do need them.

10.15.2007

Reunion

First word- bizarre...walking around campus remembering how much I have forgotten. And remembering the things I remember- where I sat in chapel; where I lost my virginity; where we would builder around the dorms; where I took Honors history freshman year; where M. and I finally consumed alcohol on campus the day before we graduated. Probably a couple years later than everyone else.
Bizarre...one guy's got a hedge fund; one guy works for a big hotel chain; another guy is a Hollywood agent. Everyone's got kids and more on the way. Some people rounder, some people thinner. Car seats and minivans (O.K, so that was a rental).
If I tally up the drinks I had that day ( 7 beers and 5 glasses of wine), make me think that my alcoholic genes are kicking in.
The state of the climbing wall behind the gym is sad. Looks like no one is using it. The ropes course is also gone. I guess after Mr. Patterson died, no one was teaching that. The glue-ons on the side of the gym look like no one has touched them in years. Guess I'll have to find another place to donate my holds to.
Bizarre...it was almost as if I had never left. Conversations weren't as awkward as I had feared (well, a few drinks never hurt one's sociability). Talked to some people more at the reunion than I did when we were in school together.

again in 5?

10.12.2007

Gore and Airplanes

Too thoughts twoday- If people didn't carry anything on to a plane, boarding and getting off a plane would be much faster. Less time would be spent going through security. Today all I carried on was the NY Times (It had been sitting outside our building since Wednesday, so I figured it was fair game.) and a book. Getting on and off a plane always takes so long because everyone is blocking the aisle cramming or yanking out their over-sized luggage into the overhead bins.

I vote for banning all carry-ons except for reading material. And water. And something to eat, cuz the bastards are now charging for food. And a sweater. And my laptop and camera because they would never survive if I checked them.
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Also Gore, why did he get the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, he has drawn the world's attention more to global warming, but he hasn't solved or worked to foster peace directly. Global warming will probably lead to massive conflicts- food shortages, people migrating due to rising ocean levels, fighting over water in areas of drought. But Gore hasn't worked on any of those problems. Maybe he will in the future but give the Prize to him then.

"In 2004, the Nobel Peace Prize went to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, which Brende said shows the award committee's focus on ecological problems as a source of conflict."

Maybe the Nobel Committee needs to make another prize, one that is dedicated to environmental work. Seems like the Peace Prize is going to anyone who does something nice on a large scale. Don't get me wrong, I think Gore is doing good stuff, but I don't think he is doing peace work directly.

10.11.2007

Better Complexion due to Global Warming

Recent studies have linked global warming to increased humidity. Increased humidity is good for the skin. Therefore as the globe gets warmer, everyone's skin will look better.
Global warming ain't all bad. Maybe GWB is looking out for everyone's complexion when he is resisting doing anything about global warming.

Craigslist Ad

A friend forwarded this to me.

THE AD

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy. I'm not from New York. I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don't think I'm overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that's where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won't get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she's not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms

-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won't hurt my feelings

-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I'm 25)?

- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I've seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What's the story there?

- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults - I'm putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I'm being up front about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn't able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 432279810

------------------------------------------------------

THE ANSWER
Dear Pers-431649184:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament. Firstly, I'm not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here's how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here's why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here's the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity...in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won't be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you're 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold...hence the rub...marriage. It doesn't make good business sense to "buy you" (which is what you're asking) so I'd rather lease. In case you think I'm being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It's as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as "articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful" as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn't found you, if not only for a tryout.

By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn't need to have this difficult conversation.

With all that said, I must say you're going about it the right way. Classic "pump and dump." I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.


10.10.2007

10.09.2007

Bittsa Maniac

This guy was found to be sane by "[e]xperts at the Russia's main psychiatric clinic..."

Later in the article he is quoted as saying - "For me, a life without murder is like a life without food for you."

Maybe he is trying to sound nuts so he gets off on an insanity plea. But even if that is the case, how can anyone who kills people for no reason be considered sane?

10.08.2007

Remembering when you could remember

Found some footage of a couple old pieces. My favorite one, Zamboni, came from an exercise I did during the first workshop I did with Mary Overlie. Workshop was in Montana. Boulder I think the town was called. Tiny place. Maybe 300 of paved road. The only intersection had just a stop sign. The other piece, very similar, I thought I had lost the footage of it. But there it was. An old badly labeled Hi8 tape. Labeling is very important. What is knowledge if you don't know here it is.

That is what everyone needs a place to store information...a know ledge! Get it? ha ha ha.

But back to memory. As I was watching "i love the smell of Napalm in the Morning" I remember remembering the some of the moments that happened in the dance. Now I can't remember the movements anymore, but can remember when I could remember. Or do I just want to remember? The last time I watched the piece must have been 2002. I was still living in San Diego. I was staying with friends. M., S., and L. were living together, somewhere in North Park. The dancing looked decent to me then, but I remember that I had eaten a pot brownie and it was kicking in. Watching it now 5 years later the dancing looks a little clunky, but some cool moments. It would be nice to do the piece again, except this time with a lot more flowers, about 1.5 ft deep.

Honesty

Dearborn, Michigan has the highest rate of foreclosure in the US. If you actually read the article to the end you will read about Dave Ehrlichmann. He buys houses for cheap and then flips them for a profit. People who add little value to the world - lawyers, real estate agents- make a lot of money. They create nothing, just pass money around, but make a lot of money.
I remember hearing on NPR a while back that 1/3 of the price of oil is due to speculation.
" One of the main factors receiving little attention in the current “crises” stems from how markets work, specifically how speculation affects prices. While speculation is often passed off as an economic law, there is plenty of evidence of direct manipulation."

I would guess to that flipping houses can increase the cost of houses. Funny, Dave's last name means
"honest man."

10.07.2007

Risk & Innovation

I am sure that I have railed about this before, but am currently working on a CA$H grant for TBA. How is your proposal innovative and risky? Risky for whom? for what genre? What direction is risky without violating firecodes and getting arrested? How about doing a piece involving racism and pedophilia while killing goats on stage, but do it in different theater from the audience and have them watch it via live feed. Throw some filters on and PRESTO innovation, risky. Don't forget the dancing dwarf who speaks backwards.


Innovation/risk/cutting edge - all tired terms.

Or maybe it just speaks to my lack of imagination, that I do not know what direction is innovative and risky.

10.06.2007

Bionic Woman

Watching TV right now. Bionic Woman to be precise. Watched an episode of Big Shots, Dirty Sexy Money and Carpool. Maybe another show can't remember. One thing that struck me was the title of Big Shots. Similar to Shoot 'Em up, Scary Movie 1-4. Is Bionic Woman now referencing The Matrix, when Neo tried to jump to the other skyscraper? Or is that just me frame of reference. Was the Matrix referencing something else? Funny how the evil bionic is blonde and the good one is a brunette. Betty and Veronica all over again. Who is Archie? Jughead?
But back to my point about the titles. The show Big Shots is about big shots. Scary Movie is about scary movies, Carpool is about 4 men who are a carpool. And Shoot 'Em Up is an action flick. By using the type of movie it is to identify the movie strips of any identity, well maybe that is the wrong word, but something is lost. Identity in that the movie is not named for itself but for a whole genre. This just shows that the film is nothing but a study of that genre but not a creation using that genre as a vehicle for an idea beyond the genre. What Gone with the Wind had been called Love Story (oh, wait, there is movie called that)? How ironic, the po-moness of it all.
People just want a certain slot in their sensory perception filled; jack me in and fill it up. What was that thought? Maybe it will come back to me later.

Tom Cruise is Nuts


Tom Cruise is nuts. He is building a bunker to protect his family against Xenu. Weird, yes, but any different than red heifers and the apocalypse? Or circumcision and Kolob? or transubstantiation (which if you think about it is cannibalism)? Why do we consider Tom Cruise a whack job (or am I the only one?) for worrying about an evil cosmic ruler bent on revenge but think its sane to go to a big stone building and pretend to eat and drink the blood of someone who died but then came back to life?

10.05.2007

Jack Handey's Evil Twin

Whenever I am leaving a bookstore or an elevator and someone else is walking in, I like to fart. This way the person who walked by me can have a little experience of me and meet me even if they don't know that they just met me.

10.03.2007

Crack in the 880 South

I have been living in the Bay Area now for about 5 years. Not sure when I noticed this, but there is a long crack in the 880 South in Oakland. I do not know how long this crack has been there, but I freaks me out. Why is there a crack in the freeway? Why is nothing being done about the crack? Yes, it is on a very busy stretch of freeway so it is difficult to repair it, but that is precisely why the crack should be repaired.
Has anyone else noticed this crack? Is anyone else worried about? I emailed the Governator, both senators, Barbara Lee (who speaks for me), NBC, ABC, FOX News, the SF Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune about this with a link to the video I made and put on YouTube.
Repairs needed on the infrastructure in this country will cost $1.7 trillion (saw that on the web somewhere, can't find it now).

Bruce Nauman is a Contact Dancer

Body Pressure


Press as much of the front surface of your body (palms in or out, left cheek or right cheek) against the wall as possible.

Press very hard and concentrate.

Form an image of yourself (suppose you had just stepped forward) on the opposite side of the wall pressing back against the wall very hard.

Press very hard and concentrate on the image pressing very hard.

(the image of pressing very hard)

Press your front surface and back surface toward each other and begin to ignore or block the thickness of the wall. (remove the wall)

Think how various parts of your body press against the wall; which parts touch and which do not.

Consider the parts of your back which press against the wall; press hard and feel how the front and back of your body press together.

Concentrate on the tension in the muscles, pain where bones meet, fleshy deformations that occur under pressure; consider body hair, perspiration, odors (smells).

This may become a very erotic exercise.


© Bruce Nauman 1974

10.02.2007

Royalty

Europe has/had royalty. The US does/did not. Whether or not the Bushes/Gores/DuPonts etc are royalty is another topic. Royalty has a history of supporting the arts. Has the state in Europe replaced royalty in terms of art funding? Is the reason the US has such a poor record for funding the arts because the US never had royalty?

Culture vs. Entertainment

Something I wrote a while back, Jan 25th 2005, and was thinking about again recently...

"...leads into my questions of audience. Why are they here? Entertainment, investigation expectation? Do they want to be challenged? If your expectations are not met then do you feel disappointment? But then if you as audience have expectations do we (the performers) need to be there? The audience could pay their money and just sit there and imagine the whole thing.
To be simplistic about it, there are two types of audience members. Those who go to a show with a certain amount of or with expectations. And there are those who go to a show with no expectations at all. But if you have ever seen an artist's work before, it is impossible to go to their show and not have some expectations of what the show will be like. That is why people go back and see certain artist's work again. The previous experience was satisfactory in some manner. The audience enjoyed themselves on some level.

This brings in the question of enjoyment. Do you enjoy having your expectations met? or contradicted/contrasted? Do you want your world view challenged or reaffirmed? Do you want recognizable elements, quotidian events re/arranged related in a suprising manner? Do you want to see something completely unrecognizeable that you cannot relate to at all? Do you come here to be offended? Do you come here for cultural edification? Or is it pure sensational masturbation?

Some might say that the opera, the ballet, the symphony are signs or events of high culture. Of higher value than a baseball game, a monster truck rally, or a wet T-shirt contest. But not the events in and of themselves are important but how the audience members relate to the event is important; is what makes them of cultural import. At the truck rally, people go to hear the roar of the engines, the smashing of the cars to see the huge trucks fly through the air and land or flop over.

At the ballet people go to hear the orchestra and see the lithe ballerina fly through the air and land in the arms of her partner. But @ either event the audience knows what is going to happen. They know the elements that make up the spectacle. They, the audience, are there to satisfy a certain desire, to fulfill an expectation. What would be more of a cultural event is is the typical ballet audience member went to the truck rally and the Nascar Dad went to the Lincoln Center to see the American Ballet Theater retrospective etc. Does the audience want to hide?"

My main point of something being cultural or not is the relationship between the audience and the material. If the audience is going for fulfillment then all events are of the same cultural value - sensational masturbation as I wrote above. If the audience is going to expand its horizons, that is culture."

9.26.2007

Homeland Security...


Fighting Terrorism since 1492.

Yes, I agree with the sentiment of the T-Shirt. Or do I? What is the meaning behind the shirt? Maybe I do not fully understand it. The only people I see wearing this shirt have been Caucasians, white folks. So are they saying that they support the Native American Homeland Security that encountered Columbus in 1492? If so, what are these white people still doing in the USA? Go back to Europe then. Are these white people saying that they want to be kicked out of the United States? Or are they saying that Homeland Security is a joke, cuz look how successful Native Americans were at keeping out the white man, so we should not bother with Homeland Security now?
Seems like knee jerk liberalism to me. It contains pictures of Native Americans, has words associated with GWB & Co, must be a good thing. Funny to see mself write that-knee jerk liberal, being a liberal and all. Also could be that I am missing the point. If so, please tell me.

9.24.2007

There Where She Loved

Anyone who makes a piece with that title needs to be smacked.

O.K., maybe I am just jealous of his reach/fame/budget.

3 More Reasons to not drink

You might eat a duck.
You might cut off someone's pinky.
You might lose your job.

9.23.2007

Population Density vs. Time

As I am in NYC now, I have been riding the subway a lot, which has made me think about something I used to think about a lot when I lived here. Last night we saw a show at the Ohio Theater in Soho. After the show, we walked to Prince St. to hop on the NRW line to 42nd St. There we transferred to the 1 line. Exiting at 157 St. we walked to 161st. The trip took one hour, give or take. At most the trip was 12 miles in distance. So our average speed was 12 m.p.h. Kinda slow. If I traveled that slowly getting around the Bay Area, I would never get anywhere.

What I used to think about was population density and how that governs travel time, not necessarily distance governing travel time. The population density of Manhattan is 66,940.1/mi². The population density of Oakland is 7,126.6/mi². San Francisco's population density is nearly 16,000 people per square mile. Not nearly as high as Manhattan.
Could there be a way to measure how quickly one moves through a certain number of people? Could a baseline or a constant for that be determined to then determine how effectively different urban populations move around? Each city or suburb for that matter could then compare their "commute times" to this constant.

If on our commute back home last night, we traveled 12 miles, we traveled through 12 x 258.7 = 3104.4. 258.7 came from taking the square root of Manhattan's population density. This is assuming that all 66,940.1 people are evenly arranged in a grid pattern and taking the square root determines how many people are in one straight mile of the side. So let's say that going through Manhattan for those 12 miles we traveled through 3104.4 people miles.

If we were to go through Oakland for twelve miles, we would travel (12 x 84.42) 1013.04 people miles. Through San Fran - roughly 1505 people miles. How long this would take in SF or Oakland? Not sure. Depends on traffic, earthquakes, freeways melting etc. And in Manhattan the time depends on flooding of subways, trains derailing etc.

If we traveled 3104.4 people miles in Manhattan in one hour, that is 3104.4 people miles/hour, or 3104.4 pmph. If in Oakland, we took 60 minutes to go those 1013.4 people miles that would be 1013.4 pmph or about 1/3 as slowly as in Manhattan. When I get home I must measure how long it takes to travel 12 miles.

It would be nice to be able to collect data on this-different cities, times of day, population densities. I am sure that someone is already doing this.
Number aside, the pros of the subways here outweigh the cons. No money spent on gas, car insurance, parking, maintenance, tires. No looking for parking, worrying about getting your car scratched. Yes, you gotta walk more and sometimes the subway is hot, but think of the reading you get done.

9.22.2007

I want bigger boobs

Now why I didn't think of this? The guy who runs this is making $1000/day. The sad thing is that he picked not a very nice name. And the site is not very attractive. I think someone should start another one. I mean, the first version of most things does not do very well. Remember the Newton? How much longer before another site comes along and out does this one?

Virtual Friends

"People see face-to-face contact as being absolutely imperative in forming close friendships."

Duh!

"But new research suggests that anyone looking to form new and genuinely close friendships via online social networks is going to be disappointed. An ongoing UK study, conducted by Dr. Will Reader of Sheffield Hallam University, suggests that real life meetings are still needed to foster genuine "real" relationships which are based on trust."

"According to a new report by the UK Employment law firm Peninsula, employees are costing companies over $260 million a day. Based on responses from 3,500 companies, Peninsula estimate that 233 million hours are lost every month by employees "wasting time" on the Internet."

"Loss of productivity through social networks such as Facebook is proving to be a major headache and my advice would be for companies to block access."

9.20.2007

A Gnew Car

"pre-owned" is the new "used." Well, not new as pre-owned has been around for a few years. What I wonder is how long will it be before "pre-owned" loses its shine and is replaced with something else. What will that phrase be? What will the pre-pre-owned (new) term for "used" be?

A gnew car?
A post purchase vehicle?
A pre-stressed car? (like all the furniture at Restoration hardware)

Tangent -
This makes me think of clothes. Saw a hat today at J. Crew. $24 for silly hat that had spots sewn on it to make it look old and worn. I think they sell pants in a similar vein. As a matter of fact I think I have some. Similarly saw a pair of jeans today on a woman. She was pretty but her jeans were atrocious but they probably cost $$$. Large patches on her rear, knees and other places that do not get worn out on real jeans were frayed. But the fraying was not the normal color of frayed jeans- that whitish grey color, but golden. And the fraying did not go through. Looked like patches of frayed material were sewn on.

Are we as Americans so hungry for history, for a past that we must manufacture it?
If pre-stressing has reached clothes and furniture, when will it reach everything else? When will we be selling new cars that look pre-owned? When will we be selling computers that look like they have been dinged up, maybe already have a few viruses? What determines what people will buy new that looks new; what people will buy that looks used but is new; what people will buy that is used and looks used; and finally what looks new but is used?
  1. CDs,
  2. LPs
  3. cars
  4. clothes
  5. houses
  6. lovers
  7. pets
  8. furniture
  9. plants
  10. sunglasses
  11. shoes, etc.
What do/would you buy used/not used/pre-stressed?

Faux history is an aesthetic choice.

Skating with Low Pants

Today K and I were hanging out at Columbus Circle watching some high school kids hanging out skating around the statue of Columbus. Kids were primarily black and white, or African- American and European-American, if you will. What I noticed was the union of two cultural phenomena. Skating came from, I am guessing, suburban white kids. And the low pants fashion, I think, came from urban black culture. And at Columbus Circle, and elsewhere, the two phenomena have mixed. There is hope for the world.

How many racist white men now wear their pants low because that is the fashion?

9.18.2007

Meter Maids

Is that the correct term? Or should it be meter persons? Ticket distribution engineers? Anyways, saw one of them the other day, Tuesday I think, giving a ticket to a parked car in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood street sweeping occurs with annoying frequency- every 2md amd 4th Monday and Tuesday, alternating sides. If you happen to forget and park on the wrong side, you get a ticket between the hours of 9am - 12pm. So the other day I saw a T.D.E. at work giving a car a ticket. The timing was perfect, as right at that moment the streetsweeper was sweeping by and had to make an even bigger circle around the parked car and the T.D.E.'s car, bigger than if the T.D.E. had not been there. Thus the T.D.E. had caused the street sweeper to miss an even greater portion of the street. Which is exactly what the street sweeper is trying to prevent.

When you see that due to the street sweeper you got a ticket, you become the street's weeper.

Just this morning I saw another T.D.E. in front of the local liquor store. On the back window of his vehicle was a sign that read something to the effect - "It is illegal to physically assault Transit Safety Officers under Oakland Penal Code blah blah blah..."

Has society deteriorated to such a level that such a sign is necessary? Are meter maids regularly assaulted? Do you think that someone who is beating up a meter maid with see that sign and stop?

word verification word: zpnhap
Something that happens quite quickly.

Done

Finished transferring all my posts from my Yahoo! blog to this one. Took a while. Guess I have written a few posts in the past 1.5 years. Good bye Yahoo and your lack of functions. Now I just gotta move my website also. Someday. Time now to pack and return the Spring/Fall key. Going to NYC for some rehearsals, food, museums, people watching...

Now that this blog is set up, I'll probably lose all desire to write.

edbty is the word for word verification.

9.17.2007

The Wheel of Time has ended

Robert Jordan died.

Which really sucks. Not only for his family. But also for the fans of his "Wheel of Time" series. Good stuff it was. Well the first 8 books or so. The later ones got kinda bogged down in minutia, not much happened in them. I kept reading them because I so enjoyed the earlier ones and was hoping the series would end. Another reason the later books weren't as good, maybe, is because a good amount of time would pass between each successive book I would read and so forget who are the different characters were.

Jordan had been working on the 12th book in the series. Who knows how it ends? Maybe the series is not supposed to end, as time does not end...

9.16.2007

hmmm...

embarking on this. Not sure if I already signed up as wasswasswass and forgot the password.

Cliché vs. Classic

Is a classic a cliché that you like?


Is a cliché a classic that you do not like?

I think Muni is

retarded. Well, for that matter, BART, too. Today, or I guess technically, yesterday I walked to the Embarcadero stop to board Muni to ride the N-Judah to the Church/Duboce stop. To board Muni, I need to pay $1.50. Fine, but not enough quarters. The change machine for Muni was out of coins. So I go to a BART ticket machine that changes $20 bills to 4 $5s or $10 bills to 2 $5s. Fine, but there still is no way to get quarters because to get quarters from the BART machines you have to use $1 bills. So I ended up buying a postcard from the information kiosk just so that I could get a $1 bill to get quarters from the BART machine to board Muni.

Talk about lack of synergy - transfers from BART to Muni are not free. In terms of usage they are basically the same transit system, yet different tickets and costs. Why not streamline the whole system for the Bay Area? Allow people who are BARTing into SF to use the same cards on Muni. Why are there no monthly passes available? I am sure that they could make some money from monthly passes. I bet enough people would buy them and not use them enough/lose them.

The transit system here in Cali is terrible. Wonder why that is? Ford? GM? Chevy?

tired...Zodiac was too long and not as interesting as had hoped

9.15.2007

Jumping

So I am tooling around YouTube and came across this style of dancing called "Jumping". Far as I can tell, it looks like skankin' to techno. Seems to be mostly done in the Netherlands or Belgium. But then again looks like an evolution of that one move Kid & PLay would do, whacking their ankles together. Guess it is called jumpstyle. Interesting how these things evolve. Duojump, what most people would call a unison duet. Interesting how specialized dance can become. Jumpstyle to me looks like a version of line dancing, just to different music and more time spent in the air. Wonder how those kids knees are going to hold out. Interesting, too, how most of the people in the videos on YouTube are male. Seems like everyone wants to dance. But why does art dance ( for lack of a better term) have such a stigma for men attached to it? I would postulate that dance for many people means graceful, light, and pretty, not hopping and stomping. Well, there was Stomp and that was hugely popular, and stepping certainly is not light and pretty but pretty damn cool. Well, this is turning out to be a half formed idea at 12:45 am. But art dance I think suffers from having an unbalance in the ratio of females to males. "Oh, their dancing like guys." I remeber hearing that in college. So then is everything else, "the correct way", dancing like women? Or should men just be marginalized in appropriate male dance forms - jumpstyle and steppin'? Or should men not be afraid to be beautiful, graceful, and pretty. Ha! Too many classes, trying to dance like women. Hmmm...

9.13.2007

Condiments

If your were going to be stuck on a desert island, what condiment would you take with you?



I'd take ketchup.

9.10.2007

Fruit, Fat, and Protein

photo
We had some friends, J + S, over this evening. Drinking wine, talk about art, eating cheese. Good times, but now that I write that it sounds like a Starbucks commercial or something. At least there was no soundtrack from Starbucks playing. If you are buying your CDs from Starbucks, something is wrong with your life. Talked a lot about an article in In Dance the monthly newsletter from Dancers' Group- How Freedom is Killing My Creativity. More about that later, hoping to get off my duff and write a response to that article.

But to return to the title of this posting - Fruit, Fat and Protein. Or Sugar, Fat, and Protein, the three simplest building blocks of food. There is so much more to food as we, as an obese malnurished species, are learning. (Read Omnivore's Dilemma for more about that and NPK and micronutrients). The culinary highlight of the evening was figs, prosciutto, and chevre. Cut the figs in half, broil them. Top with chevre and prosciutto. Also did the same with dates, medjool dates of course. Noor dates are no good. The bellam pepato cheese(I think that was the name) was pretty good, too.

*do not look at post modernism through a modern/classical lens. Well, if you do, be aware of the lens. See attached photo

9.09.2007

lost in translation?

photo

Cheeseburger CO2 output

Was talking to a friend yesterday about SUV vs. dryer CO2 footprint. Came upon this-

" the greenhouse gas emissions arising every year from the production and consumption of cheeseburgers is roughly the amount emitted by 6.5 million to 19.6 million SUVs."

from here

9.07.2007

President Bush had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

photo
Is this guy really still president? -

"Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit," Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Talking about Howard's visit to Iraq last year to thank his country's soldiers serving there, Bush called them "Austrian troops."

for article click here

Somehow this is related, this being Bush's lack of geographic knowledge, to Miss South Carolina. Similar symptom of American ignorance. Or maybe Bush really thought he was in Austria, who knows? He certainly doesn't seem to.

9.06.2007

Dance helps tame the savage beast

'Prison boss says violence has ceased ever since dancing started. Accused mass-murderer inmate says dancing has taught him "love"'

from Cnn.com

CNN video

YouTube video

9.05.2007

Mother Teresa

photo
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3

Saw this photo on BBC

Contradiction? But then again most Christians ignore Exodus 20:4 also - You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.


Hmm...but if anyone had ever followed that commandment, Rome and everwhere else filled with religious icons would be empty of art.

9.04.2007

ADHD +ADD

From Yahoo News

"Nearly 9 percent of American children have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but only 32 percent of them are getting the medication they need."

"Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a study released on Tuesday..."Those who watched more than two hours, and particularly those who watched more than three hours, of television per day during childhood had above-average symptoms of attention problems in adolescence..."

I'll bet the two are related. Sure, not every kid who watched TV when younger ends up with ADHD or ADD, but probably the more suseptible kids did end up with attention disorders. But prevention is not the American Way. There is no money in prevention. Eli Lily and Pfizer make too much money from these meds to want to prevent more kids from watching too much TV. Big Pharma has a vested interest in creating more hyperactive kids.

8.30.2007

Boxers
"Baggy Pants Bill"

House Bill 1626, also known as the “Baggy Pants Bill” states: “It shall be unlawful for any person to appear in public wearing his pants below his waist and thereby exposing his skin or intimate clothing.”

"It’s hard to legislate morality; you can’t really do that. It just comes to a point of plain old bad taste and it’s just gotta stop.”

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws. ~Tacitus

The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be. ~Lao-tzu

8.29.2007

Senator Larry Craig

photo

From Yahoo! news-
'His account contrasted sharply with the complaint in the case, in which an undercover officer said that Craig, while occupying a stall in the men's room, engaged in actions "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct."'

So another Republican has been outed as a homosexual. Is the Republican Party really just filled with gays who hate paying taxes? Is that what really binds them together?

How does one communicate a "desire" in a stall?

-Morse code?

-"Excuse me do you have any Grey Poupon?"

-Banging on the door and yelling "Fuck me!"

-dropping your TP and letting it roll into the next stall "oh, funny meeting you here..."

Why can't that side of the aisle just shout out - Hooray we're gay, let's get over it -?

8.02.2007

Test entry by Yahoo! Tech Support

This is a test blog entry by Yahoo! Tesch Support. This is only a test, If this had not been a test, you would not be seeing this entry. This is a test blog entry by Yahoo! Tesch Support. This is only a test, If this had not been a test, you would not be seeing this entry. This is a test blog entry by Yahoo! Tesch Support. (single enter here)

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>>> THERE were three spaces between this paragraph and the one previous, just deleted 2 of them. >>>This is only a test, If this had not been a test, you would not be seeing this entry. This is a test blog entry by Yahoo! Tesch Support. This is only a test, If this had not been a test, you would not be seeing this entry.

8.01.2007

Age of Love

DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBWhoever created that show should be shot..UMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBWhoever watches it should be ashamed..BDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBI know I am.BDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB
DUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMBDUMB

7.30.2007

Bunnies

Drove to El Paso and back today. As with driving in other desert environments, J- Tree etc., bunnies frequently jump into the road. Suicide bunnies. Bunnies on a dare. Just plain dumb donkey bunnies. Caught in the headlights.

I think the real reason is much more nefarious. The bunnies and other animals that jump into the road and frequently are run over are on a mission. The mission is to kill humans by causing them to swerve and flip their automobiles. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

Might not be the best plan, the best way to rid bunnydom of humans. But after all they are just dumb donkey bunnies.

7.20.2007

Non ultra Joy

Saw that dish soap today at a friend's house. Why wouldn't it be just advertised as Joy? Seems worse than regular Joy, this non ultra Joy.

How are you?

I am well. And you?

Oh, I am experiencing non Ultra Joy. Just plain old bliss, nothing special.

7.16.2007

Ron White

Just watched him on videostored.com. The dude is not very funny. Maybe if I drank as much as he did, I would find him funny. Not that I never laughed as I was watching him, but he seemed more like a funny uncle or friend of the family, who would hold forth after dinner. First heard about him in an article in the New Yorker (talk about a different market) about the Blue Collar Comedy tour or whatever it was called. Ron White didn't want to be part of Blue Collar TV series as he did not want to be typecast as "blue collar". It's going to take more than black suits and cheap scotch to not be typecast as blue collar.

7.10.2007

Post Modern Shoe

Yesterday I was at Sears with Kelly and her grandmother. Betty needed some shoes for working out. 94 years old and going to the gym! While browsing the racks(Sears was a complete mess at 7 pm on a Sunday. No one puts anything back in the right place.) I saw a shoe made by Skechers. The tread and the materials of the upper were just like those of a tennis or running shoe. But the cut and shape was that of a dress shoe, a ballet flat it could be called. The hierarchy has fallen. Certain materials are no longer just for certain functions of shoe. But could you have a running shoe with a leather sole?

I am waiting for the denim tuxedo.

7.07.2007

Pope Benedict lifts ban on Latin Mass

Not sure why so many Catholics want to have Mass said in Latin again. I would guess they really don't want to understand what the priest is saying.

******************
Be Enticed, Pop

Pop Been Cited

Been Tepid Cop

Bent Iced Pope

7.02.2007

Unlimited Storage

Now that Yahoo! has unlimited storage are people going to keep all of their emails? Just how much data is that? How many harddrives somewhere in a warehouse, spinning away? And why do you think Yahoo! offers unlimited storage? To compete with Google? Storage now might be so cheap, but I think the reason is more sinister.

Weren't Google and Yahoo recently cited as not being so nice as they want you to believe?

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/5.htm

So...with all of this unlimited space, the government has unlimited data to trawl through finding out who knows whom, who is going where when with whom etc. And with the CIA just releasing all the illegal things they have done in the past 50 years...I am sure 50 years from now the CIA, or Homeland security(or whatever it will be called then - the Office of Peace, Happiness, and Global Safety) will release another report.

Am I being paranoid? You tell me

6.26.2007

3 Women

is a movie by Robert Altman. Filmed in '73, I think same year I was born. Takes place in a dusty town/area east of LA. The beginning of the film is odd, almost boring. But by the end of the film, I was entranced. Such sad characters, the intense feeling of loneliness, quite a powerful film in that way. I am sure that many people would not like the film, as it sits with you after it is over. And what is sitting with you is not "life affirming" or "heart warming". But that is the sign of good art, when the film/object/performance creates such a complete feeling/flavor that lasts beyond the immediate viewing. And maybe it is not the experience you were looking for, but one that the artist intended. See this film.

Makes me think of the first time I saw a porn. I was in highschool, junior year I think, still a virgin. Two friends used a fake id and rented a movie from the local video store. Don't remember the premise but a bunch of women, grapes, beads, etc. Scared the bejeezus out of me. I think for abstinence programs the curriculum should be forcing kids to watch raunchy porn, scare them away from sex for a few years. My point is that although that movie created a strong reaction in me, it was not the one intended. Revulsion instead of arousal. So, I would say that that porn was an artistic failure.

The next movie in our Netflix queue is "The Good Shepherd".

6.23.2007

Outsourcing President Bush

Congress Votes to Outsource Presidency, Washington, DC (AP)

Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States of America will be outsourced to India as of July 1, 2007. The move is being made in order to save the President's $500,000 yearly salary, and also a record $521 Billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead the office has incurred during the last 5 years.

"We believe this is a wise financial move. The cost savings are huge," stated Congressman Thomas Reynolds (R-WA).

"We cannot remain competitive on the world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted.

Mr. Bush was informed by e-mail this morning of his termination. Preparations for the job move have been underway for some time.

Gurvinder Singh of Indus Teleservices ( Mumbai , India ) will assume the office of President as of July 1, 2007. Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara Falls, thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of $320 (USD) a month but with no health coverage or other benefits.

It is believed that Mr. Singh will be able to handle his job responsibilities without a support staff. Due to the time difference between the US and India , he will be working primarily at night, when few offices of the US Government will be open. "Working nights will allow me to keep my day job at the Dell Computer call center," stated Mr. Singh in an exclusive interview. "I am excited about this position. I always hoped I would be President."

A Congressional spokesperson noted that while Mr. Singh may not be fully aware of all the issues involved in the office of President, this should not be a problem, as President Bush was not familiar with the issues either.

It is not yet clear if plans are being considered for outsourcing the Senate and the House of Representatives. This could seriously affect staffing efficiency at the Dell call center. Special interests and lobbyists here are expected to seriously push back on any such efforts. It is thought that saving the hundreds of millions of dollars now spent annually on campaign financing could positively affect the U.S. economy.

Mr. Singh will rely upon a script tree that will enable him to respond effectively to most topics of concern. Using these canned responses, he can address common concerns without having to understand the underlying issue at all. "We know these scripting tools work," stated the spokesperson. "President Bush has used them successfully for years."

Bush will receive health coverage, expenses, and salary until his final day of employment. Following a two-week waiting period, he will be eligible for $140 a week unemployment for 13 weeks.

He will not also be eligible for Medicaid, as his unemployment benefits will exceed the allowed limit. Mr. Bush has been provided the outplacement services of Manpower, Inc., to help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition.

According to Manpower, Mr. Bush may have difficulties in securing a new position due to limited practical or successful work experience. A greeter position at Wal-Mart was suggested due to Bush's extensive experience shaking hands, as well as his special smile.

If approved, most of the affected Congressional positions would probably revert to entry level Internet bloggers or on-call street activists. If nothing else, they may be offered jobs as reporters or TV commentators.

6.16.2007

National Bingo Night

Why, oh, why

is there a TV show about Bingo? Has collective American consciousness been completely wiped out, that we can not come up with any else?

6.13.2007

The enemy of my enemy is...

who exactly? You'd think that Fatah and Hamas would get along. They are on the

SAME #%$^% SIDE?

Do they really think it's a good idea to start shooting each other, when they have Israel to deal with. Makes them look like morons. I'll probably get shot for writing this on my blog that no one reads. At least then I would get my 15 minutes. Better late than never.

Tangent -

was watching Studio 60 today while making lunch. An episode in which one of the cast member's brothers was taken hostage in Iraq. Before they knew of the kidnapping, his family was worried because they had not heard from him in 48 hours. He at war...how often does he need to check in with his family? Amazing how connected we are to the people fighting the war, but we are so disconnected from the reality and the death we as a culture are creating over in Iraq.

tangent -
he skits on Studio 60, from the snippets you see, are funnier than anything on SNL. Maybe time to switch writers.

6.12.2007

Medium

Earlier today I watched an episode of the show "medium" called "Better Off Dead" on NBC.com.

Wow, is it a really bad show.

I'd say it would be better off the air.

6.10.2007

Rum

Rum, when mixed with lime juice, mulled mint leaves, sugar, and club soda, is quite palatable.

6.04.2007

Why did you see this show?

A friend of mine, also a dancer asked me that question the other day after seeing Project Agora at Dance Mission. "do you know anyone in the show?" I did know several people, none very well, but just from the dance scene in the Bay Area. I was taken aback by my friend's question. Did she mean that the main reason for seeing a show is to see friend's dancing? Which seems to be the main reason for many dancers to go to see work in the Bay Area. Either go see your friends dance or the famous company of the week, Bill T., Taylor, Morris, Brown. Then the occasional company from Africa at Yerba Buena.

But what about professional curiosity? Aren`t people curious about what other artists in the same field are doing? Once I was talking to a well established choreographer in the Bay Area about going to see work. He said that after seeing all his friend's shows he did not have much desire to see other people's work. Maybe he has a lot of friends and so he sees a wide range of work.


I think as working artists it is our duty to inform ourselves and see as much as possible.

5.31.2007

Show at Dock 11

Just saw a show at Dock 11. Good dancing when there was dancing. The state of the first solo was the best in the show, oh and the walking while arching backwards. Good stuff. Most of the time, there was acting, or at least what I saw as acting- the attempt to display something that was not there. Two women who for some reason where shooting each other. I did enjoy the changing of roles, or scenes, by changing who had the ponytail and who had the hair loose. great movement qualities. I would have rather just seen them dance to some generic dance music. But Bach aint so bad.

5.17.2007

Self Indulgent

Has anyone ever called a show s/he enjoyed self indulgent?

I mean besides the people performing the piece.

5.01.2007

Look at the camera

I was putzing around Youtube today and saw a couple vids in which people address the camera, except they don't look at the lens they look at the little screen. This makes them look a little off, like those people who talk to you but won't look you in the eye. Are you worried your soul is going to be stolen?

If a your soul is stolen by a photo, what happens to it when a video of you is on Youtube accessible worldwide?

What would the website www.ewetube.com be? Fertility help for sterile sheep?

4.25.2007

Friday Night Lights

Been watching that show a little bit recently on NBC.com. While eating or making dinner or doing laundry. Can't take the show seriously. I mean it's about football. The show is well made, but it's about football. Watching sports is like watching porn - you are watching someone else have all the fun. And you can quote me on that. If a small town like Dillon exists and I would not be surprised if one does, man that is sad. How pathetic would those people have to be to get so riled up about highschool football? I guess if you have nothing else in your life.

Kinda like people who get so excited about being whatever race they happen to be. Why be so proud of something that you had nothing to do with? It's not like anyone works to be Italian, or Irish, or Chinese. It's preselected for you by chance and your parents. be proud of something that you had a hand in. Maybe I am too much of a Euromutt to care what ethnicity I am. Isn't pride of one's ethnicity also being glad that one is not another ethnicity? Doesn't pride of ethnicity then a racist idea?

But back to football...So if it is pathetic to get so excited about highschool football, is it even more pathetic to watch a TV show about highschool football?

4.20.2007

4.19.2007

Bald Britney

After Britney shaved her head, she went up in my esteem. (is that a phrase? going up in someone's esteem.) I applauded her decision to do that. Everyone should shave their head at least once in their life. It feels good. Also good to feel the contours of one's skull. Where do you end and where does the rest of the world begin? But soon after she shaved she covered up her baldness with wigs and hats. She bowed down to the majority opinion that shaving your head is a big deal. It's not. Hair grows back. I shave my head frequently as part of an effort to stave off real baldness. Not sure it is working. But people always react to a shaved head. "oh, you change your look more than a girl" Guess since I can't see the change, except when I look in the mirror, which is not often, I forget that it happened. Hair is just something exterior, that is very mutable. Guess my point is that if Britney had embraced her baldness, albeit temporary baldness, she would have gained even more of my respect. But by shying away from it with wigs and hats, she will slowly drift off into the hazy world of has-beens. Keeping the baldness would have helped her stick out give her something to stand for in the bubblegum pop world. How long before she completely disappears from the news, when she can no longer endanger her children blah blah blah...

anyways, true beauty lies within. ;)

4.09.2007

Po Mo

So I was at a meeting the other day and at the end of the meeting someone joked about doing something post-modern so that no one had to be good at anything. Why is there that idea about po mo? If it's po mo I don't have to be good at whatever I am doing. Definitely seen that at some shows. Saw this group Poni at Sophiensaele in Berlin. Did a lot of performing of things badly. Musicians "dancing". I wonder if musicians would like it if the dancers picked up their instruments and started jamming.

I would say that there is a confusing of lack of hierarchy with lack of skill. Yes I could change the hierarchy with which I define my ballet skills and say that I am as good as Baryshnikov, but the defined hierarchy for ballet exists and comparing my ballet skills to that, well, pretty sad. lack of hierarchy or relativism does not mean complete rejection of all measurement of value.

hmmm....

3.09.2007

Dryers

Why is it that I get such satisfaction from washing clothes and not using the dryer? No, I don't like to walk around in wet clothes. I hang my clothes to dry. It's not just the buck and a quarter I am saving that makes me happy. I'll just spend the money elsewhere. As we did tonight on sushi at Drunken Fish in Oakland.

But hanging clothes to dry, such visceral satisfaction. Why pay for something when it can happen for free. Also nice is to see the pile of laundry go down slowly. Is part of the reason the USA uses so much more energy because we do much more laundry? How many times to you wear a shirt before washing it? how about underwear or socks? Why do you or do you use the dryer?

The less you use the dryer the longer your clothes will last. Think about the lint. That is just money in the garbage. You paid for that lint when it was still part of your shirt or whatever before you stuck it in the dryer, so why throw it away?

Dryers and billboards should be banned. Just think about how much nicer cities would look if there were no billboards. Take a moment right now to think about it. No, I mean it really. Take a deep breath look away from the computer and think about a billboard free environment.

Okay, look back now.

Nice wasn't it.

Kinda like Vermont.

3.01.2007

Sweater vs. Heater

I was in class today, large dance studio. Kind of a cold day, for the Bay Area, so the studio was cold. Another dancer in class asked if it was possible to turn on the heat. Considering the size of the room and the strength of most heater, by the time the room was warm class would have been over. She had another layer to put on, but that was not her initial thought.

Maybe I am stereotyping here, but I am guessing that a dancer in the Bay Area is a more liberal person informed on current events, global warming and green house gases. A sweater produces less CO2 than a heater, yet the idea of putting on a sweater, came after the thought of turning on the heat.

Reminds me of the time I was at a friends house. We were in the backyard barbequeing burgers, talking about the sustainability of the American lifestyle. As we walked inside, I saw his wife turn on the heat instead of putting on a sweater. Oh the sustainable lifestyle.

As for me, I am going to go back to watching a DVD on my laptop and eat some ice cream.

2.28.2007

Yoga Lemon

Yoga studios are a place of endless enjoyment. All the fit healthy people, smiling and blissful. The coordinated LuLuLemon outfits. Saw one lady the other day, all cute in her outfit. She was bending forward and more than peeking out was old granny underwear, blah beige and ragged looking.

Do not judge a book by its cover.

2.27.2007

Bows and Relenquising

Why do actors bow after a show? If they just spent the previous 1.5 hours creating a world, with lines and costumes and sets and music and emotions, why is it all dispelled at the end with a bow? Would you right after an amazing meal (god, i hate that word) take a swig of mouthwash? Having De Ja vu right now. Was this written already or just thought about?

yesterday had half a pot brownie and walked over to the Grand Lake Theater to see Ghost Rider. That movie was tongue in cheek. Either that or a Republican propaganda film. Are there really those fallen angels that represent the element, air, water, and earth? Is that how Christianity dealt with paganism? Take the Tree for X-mas, a bunny for Easter and then cast everything else away?

2.19.2007

2.14.2007

Mental Stimulation

Just had a class with Shelley Senter. Did some Alexander and then choreography. What I noticed was that my brain is stimulated in a different way than when I do contact. Shelley's movement, similiar to movement I have experienced at the Trisha Brown studios, (Shelley danced for Trisha for 5 years), stimulates my movement brain. After about an hour of that type of choreography I want to dance around in that manner or style, or using that style as a source.

Contact on the other hand, gets me into my conscious thinking brain. After a long session of contact I tend to sit still and just think. The less I think in my contact, the better the dance( in some sense), the more I think later. I really noticed this dutring the workshop I took last week with Martin Keogh. After day two, I was sitting at home reading. Well, actually not reading but sitting on the couch holding a magazine, staring at it, but thinking intensely, about all the sensations I had experienced, the rolls, spirals and pathways. That is where the thinking starts and then off into....

Apply to get produced

Am currently in the midst of putting stuff together to send to various theaters to get produced. Kind of a pain.

Here is my brilliant idea-

Send the DVD with an email address to the theater. They watch it and then email you back.

Why all the letters of intent, resumes, cards?

The work is the work

fuck the details

2.13.2007

The Solution to Iraq

So it's like a triangle of violence. The Shias hate the Sunnis. The Sunnis hate the Shias. And both of them hate the Americans. The Americans are there to stop the voilence between the Shia and the Sunni. The sooner they calm down, the sooner the Americans will leave.

So if the Sunnis and the Shia agree to a cease fire till the Americans leave and then wait a little bit after the Americans leave, they can then get back to the business of killing each other without interference by the Americans.

2.10.2007

Marfa, Tx

Back here in Marfa with the architects, Rinehart-Herbst. Looking at houses around town. forgot my sunglasses and hat. Not as cold I we thought it would be here but sunnier. Supposed to be overcast the whole time. Then again the forecast here changes every 40 minutes.

Staying at the Thunderbird Hotel. Pretty nice, has an iLife speaker setup or is it called iHome. Either way don't have an iPod. They still don't have a radio. I wish some celebrity would complain that the iPod has no radio. I've written Apple several times, but no response. Definitely think writing about it in my Blog will change things.

Tried setting up a blog with Blogger. Hoping that would be more user friendly. Yahoo! still hasn't responded to my beef with how many steps I have to go through to get to post a blog with their set up. Irritating, no one listens to Andrew. Wonder if Amazon sells that book? or could that sentence be a command?

Wonder if Amazon sells that book.

Well, did you? If I write it and you read it you will think it.

Link my page to your page. Read my blog.

And then on Blogger someone already has the wasswasswass.blogspot.com. Who the hell is it? I know of no other wasswasswass. Maybe it was I, trying a while ago to set it up and forgot the passwords.



Blog blog blog blah blog blog blah blah blah blog blah blah blog blog whine whine blog blah blog blog blah.

2.04.2007

Nothin' much...at least that is what Drive Genius is...

Nothing much happened today. Had rehearsal with Mr. Wells and company. Seems like dance groups that say "& dancers" or "&company" do not have a set group of people that they work with all the time. Guess those phrases are a substitute for I make a lot of work but can't pay enough to keep people around for a long time.

Tough in this art form...

After rehearsal, went to the Apple store and bought Drive Genius. More like DRIVE IMBECILE. On my desktop, it crashed when I tried to register it. You'd think companies would try to make it easy to register their software, so you don't limewire it for FREE. And then starting it by holding down "c" took so $@@$#@!! long on my laptop ( even longer on my desktop, I thought it was a bum disk). So my laptop is now optimized and has no bad blocks etc.
Then made it to the jam in Berkeley. a lot of people there. was nice. Danced pretty much non stop when I was there. Nice to listen to the ebb and flow of volume and experience the light fading. I was kind of bummed when people turned the lights on. "Dancing in the dark"
I guess to do a Po Mo dance form well, you have to have a Po Mo view of your body. All parts are places to roll, become shelves, become handles. Well maybe not all but most. Lifting someone by his nuts might not be so good.
The moral of the story...don't get Drive Genius, or at least don't pay for it.

2.03.2007

Chapters

mmmm...well for the past I do not know how long I have been trying to finish up several dvds that I have been working on for the past couple years. Get them squared away, the video_ts files on the new drive and then dump all the media, render files, capture scratch etc.

Thought I was done with CUBIC. Then I watched one of them, the first half second of Park2 of one of the shots was bungled. Didn't chop it properly. The beginning, such a minute part. But if you're going to do it, do it correctly, right? Can't wait to have it done with. Like starting a new chapter. or a new book.

Feel as if the ideas within those DVDs (aeiou, Here&Now, IYWSHWSG, etc) though I still love them, are excess baggage in a way. Time to remove them from my consciousness and move on. Sometimes ideas sit in my head for a while, some for too long and then the creation of the physical object is a purging of the idea. Some ideas I do not want to create the thing for them as the idea is too much fun to think about.

Thinking about something is frequently more enjoyable than seeing/hearing/ it. My favorite part of a movie is the time before it starts, the anticipation.

Render, render, render off to render we go....