toonlet talk

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So-called Bill and I have recently started posting about digital creativity over at digitalmedia under The Creative Beat. This subsite is an extension (an outgrowth? a spur?) of the interviews you’ve found over over here, with a little more focus on things-tech.
Last week, SCB had a fun post on Eno’s Oblique Strategies and where they can be found online. And mere moments ago, I added a chat with Craig Schwartz the co-founder of toonlet.com, a neat site that makes it easy peasy for folks to make cartoons. Drop by when ya get a chance….
-Cecil

In Defense of Sarah Palin

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People say that Sarah Palin was the mayor of a 9,000-person Alaskan town until just a few years ago, and that’s true. But they’re forgetting that Alaskans are like 40 feet tall and covered with hair and they have 20 arms and so really, that’s the equivalent of, um, 171,000 normal people.
And people say that John McCain has only met her twice, even though he had all this time to pick his VP, and what’s up with that? But they’re forgetting that John McCain died 90 years ago in a shipwreck off the coast of Virginia and was found wandering the Arizona desert some 60 years later, and ever since then, he’s had a set of mystic powers including some that are brain powers and, like, ESP and whatnot.
And people say that this is a wildly political move designed to pander to a couple of pieces of the electorate that otherwise wouldn’t fry an egg on John McCain’s hiney at a tanning salon. But those people are weird and that’s kind of a gross image. I mean, come on — yuck.

The six stages of music over-play

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1. First few listens: My heart starts to race. This sounds nice. This sounds really nice…. Passes through quickly to…
2. Deep dive: Can last one month or four. This sound is all my brain wants to receive. Can I play it again? Again? Again? Again. Again. Joy.
3. Sudden burn out: Recoiling. I will not listen to this today. I will, um, listen to something else.
4. Return to obsession: Tentative. It’s been a little while. I can put it back in rotation now. I think. Still sounds great but… something’s not quite right.
5. Time apart: Could be a year. I need my space. We both need our space. I’m talking to you, 1940s Frank Sinatra.
6. The rest of my life: Sounds good again, sure. I mean, it’s great music. But there’s a sadness now too when I play that batch of tunes. The sparkle has evaporated. Or did the cartilage disappear? If only I’d had a little more self-control back in Step 2….

“He jackassed my head!”

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…is the phase I shouted at Ben Kingsley in my last dream last night. Is the phrase I was shouting in my brain when the alarm woke me up this morning.
You don’t understand, Ben Kingsley. I didn’t even know that jerk. I was lying on the grass, OK?. He ran by, playing soccer, and the son of a bitch jackassed my head with his cleats. Alright, so he gave me this pack of exotic tobacco as court-ordered reparations for the assault. I understand how that looks. It looks like I know him. But I don’t know him, OK? I don’t know him, I don’t like him. And I’m certainly not a spy. So stop making complicated plots designed to put me away.
He jackassed my damn head!

sugar cube heartbreak

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I had two foods from my childhood tonight and
the sugar cube was a complete let down.
All promise, stacked high
in that
crystalline stack and then
collapsed like a wet meringue.
Blech. A mouth full of undifferentiated
former-cube fragments, trying to
escape each other and
nowhere good
to go.

Dog parts

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Trying to find a place that’s not shaded.
Damn trees everywhere.
I just need one spot where
my skin can make contact with the sun.
Light is part of the sun, did you know that?
It’s not an offshoot or something sparkly
the sun shakes loose like
water from a dog.
It’s more like actual dog parts.
Our share of cosmic dog parts, sprinkled down.
This planet is covered in dog.
That’s the truth.
Some of that dog gets tangled in the trees.
Some gets tripped up by clouds.
And what I need right now is
a clear spot to lie down.
Soak in
the living dog.