Neat Stuff

Merlin Mann and Omnifocus at Tekserve.

Visions of Albert Ellis after the orgy of video and Rational Emotive Songs at his memorial. Still thinking about the man and his work. How to Be Rationally Stubborn, Emotionally Undisturbable, Behaviorally Happy, Unconditionally Accepting, Shamelessly Unfrustrated, and Unmiserably Reasonable While Keeping People from Pushing Your Buttons. Here.

Darjeeling Limited--worth the wait, and great. Maybe Anderson's Down By Law. Anyway the 2 films would make a great fantasy double feature.

Kohei Yoshiyuki
This show is hilarious and disturbing--Infrared flash photos of voyeurs, turning the viewer into one too. Til Oct 20, hurry.

NY Book Fair:
Retard Riot-great comics influenced stickers, buttons, images, ideas. Link to great buttons this mf made.

Sto's upcoming show (Oct 12-Nov 11) at Cinders, The Cinders table
Batforum available here at Sara Ranchouse --a comics parody of artforum, I will post a scan/review soon
Slavs and Tartars-interesting posters and ideas: "What's the Plan, Uzbekistan?/I'm your man, Azerbaijan!"

Albert Ellis Memorial

Went to the memorial service at Columbia last night. It was kind of the last Friday Night Workshop ever. At 3 hours plus with no break it was a marathon of Albert tributes.

How to convey the ordinary and spectacular spark that was Ellis in action? Nando Pelusi said he was "Epictetus via Groucho Marx with a stop at the Bronx Botanical Gardens." and "I may not have Albert's genes, but I will pass on his memes."

Waldman & Chabon article to check out

"When Ayelet Waldman reads something by Michael Chabon she doesn’t like, she takes her complaints right to the source.

Honey, this sucks."

Defending Zissou

I am eagerly awaiting The Darjeeling Express, by Wes Anderson. Hotel Chevalier is definitely worth seeing--13 economical, poetic minutes. (Go to iTunes for the free download.) Chevalier reminded me of Love at Twenty/Antoine and Collette (now at Film Forum) in some ways.

But nearly every writeup of Darjeeling makes a point of slamming The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, one of the finest films ever made. Ah well, the film exists, it is a great meditation on life, death, age, fatherhood, sonhood and lighting fast rescue missions. It hardly needs another blogger to defend it, it stands on its own.

Give up TV, Free Speech quotes from Salon

2 quotes from Salon that bear repeating:

"I gave up watching television 25 years ago because I liked it so much even though I couldn't remember what I had watched the day before and could see that if I went on as a viewer my life would become a blank." Garrison Keillor

"The Iranian leader's visit to Columbia provoked outcry, support and a twist on free speech: 'We're glad you're here -- so we can tell you you're an asshole.'" Ellen Miller, a sophomore at Barnard

Link

What This Blog Is For (As it turns out. For the moment. This might change.)

This blog is pretty much "look at what I am into this week" than any original content. Maybe it performs the role that my bookshelf/record collection used to.

It ought to be spread out more visually in that case, hmm?

Park(ing) Day!

Yes! Check this out at Streetsblog.
"Man, the dope is that there's still hope".

The official Transportation Alternatives press release:

Turning Parking Spots into Parks

20 NYC Parking Spots to get a Green Makeover

September 21st is National PARK(ing) Day, when thousands around the country will reclaim parking spaces in their neighborhoods and convert them into lively parks and public spaces. For one day, Transportation Alternatives (T.A.), The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and more than a dozen community groups around New York City will convert 20 on-street parking spaces into "vest pocket" parks, bicycle parking, extended sidewalks and open air cafés to show the potential of city streets to do more than just store private cars.

"Less than half of NYC households even own cars, and yet we give over so much road space to parking them," says Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. "What if one parking space on every block was converted into a greener public space that everyone could use? That’s the message behind Park(ing) Day."

"Every bit of green makes a difference," said Rose Harvey, Vice President of The Trust for Public Land, the organization putting on National Park(ing) Day. "In New York City, we have more than eight million residents dependent on our parks and open spaces. We need every community garden, every playground, every park that we can get."

Helvetica, The Movie

Great documentary! I left buzzing with the many threads and points of view shown in this film, plus it had an awesome soundtrack. It was interesting to be part of a geeked out, nearly full movie theatre of folks loving the fonts and laughing knowingly at references to "Arial, even worse than Helvetica" (Erik Spiekerman, who was hilarious in a dry teutonic way.)

Here is a clip, but it is worth seeing this film in a movie theatre.

MAKE Video: How To Solder

Good video for those of you who have "open loops" of broken metal stuff in your life that needs to be soldered.

Teshuva Means To Turn

Even if you are not a believer, there is great pragmatic behavioral stuff in Torah. A reminder in this article from The Jerusalem Post.

'Hey, what are you doing with that tuna-and-pickle sandwich?" asked a puzzled Gerald Schwartz of the Arab prisoner. "I'm surprised you aren't keeping Ramadan," continued Schwartz, a bearded Orthodox social worker, referring to the the Muslim month of introspection and daytime daily fasting.

"I'm a secular Muslim," said Mahmoud, who was incarcerated for a misdemeanor unrelated to any political activity. "And also I am not capable of the daytime fast."

"You can't, or you think you can't?" challenged Schwartz and urged Mahmoud to try for one day.

Schwartz later recalled: "Mahmoud fasted one day, and went on to keep the entire month of daytime fasts. He was a nice guy. He found his own strength, began to believe in his ability to change, cleaned up his act, and never returned after being released. This principal applies to all."

bikes I want to see on the street in NYC

I see you and me on these:
Batavus available here:
Here is a CA company trying to do something similar, lacking a bit of style.
Dutchbikemania

A general info page:
http://www.commuterbicycle.com/

UPDATE: Too pricy still, but there is a FL company called Dutch Bicycle Co. that is importing some of these models. It's a start, anyhow.

Albert on Meditation

Ellis: We have lots of cognitive and emotive and behavioral techniques including that. But if you do meditation to extremes, an hour or two a day, then you just piss away a lot of your life. So you can meditate for 20 minutes while you're anxious and that will temporarily allay the anxiety since it's cognitive distraction. Then you go on to dispute your anxiety creating thoughts. Most of the people use meditation to stop their thinking and then they never rethink. So it does much more harm than good in some instances.

Heery: So you yourself never meditate?

Ellis: It's a fucking waste of time. Why should I meditate? I'm not anxious.

See here

"Jesus Christ, he whispered. I'm a Morlock"

Just burrowed through Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao". Ok, so I am one of the readers who will get all the Lee/Kirby references & will need help w the Spanish & Elvish passages.

Still feel like I o.d.'ed on words & oxygen. Wow.

Shana Tovah 5768

I hereby forgive you all and sincerely apologize for the wrongs I have done both knowingly and unknowingly. To a sweet and healthy new year...

(Animated card here.)

$200 is just a down payment on enlightenment!

Open Letter to Fake Steve Jobs:

FSJ,

What the media don't get is that the iPhone tech pricing was the followup to
your Stanford speech. You are transcending tech to administer a swift THWACK of
the bamboo stick to the shoulders of your grasshopper-disciples.

The iPhone release & pricing swap are at once performance art and an act of enlightening the faithful.

"The real function of a spiritual friend is to insult you"

p134
The Myth of Freedom
Chogyam Trungpa

Namaste--I honor the place where I treasure my 1st gen Shuffle while watching
the newbie grasshoppers get burned, not without a certain nostalgia.

Ugly MySpace by ZeFrank

This memorable episode/essay by Ze about "ugly design" came up in conversation with a friend.

Improvising with Tony Randall

I love this little audio clip of Jack Klugman talking about improvising
with Tony Randall: