Lacking anything intriguing in my pack to read and sadly mourning the recent (yet not at all sudden) death of my loyal iPod of nearly 5 1/2 years, I needed something to sooth my walk home (and distract myself from being irritated with the traffic), so I printed out a little document to read. Now, I’ve always been a fan of the concept of philosophy, and the years that I spent purchasing (and dare I say, nicely expanding) the Philosophy section at the old City of Books were quite enjoyable. But you know, I’ve never had much interest in actually reading any of it. Today though, while pondering the word crepuscular, I looked up Paul Virilio, who I knew little about aside from that he was someone whose books I needed to keep in stock, and I’d always thought that Crepuscular Dawn was one of the most intriguing book titles I had seen.
Anyway, I ended up printing out a short article called “The Coming Crisis in Real-Time Environments: A Dromological Analysis” (by Ronald E. Purser). I must say, I found it quite intriguing and I may need to pick up some Virilio soon. While my adult life I have always been firmly anti-television, and though I’d always thought that recreational use of the computer was equally unneeded, I’ve always felt that the computer was a still a better way of wasting ones time than watching the television (and I greatly appreciate Jerry Mander and his Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television for its clarity and sensibility in pointing out the psychological, cultural and sociological damages of the medium of television). With the expansion of the, um, “social” aspects of the Internet (especially in the hands of children), I have started thinking that maybe the computer has become a more harmful influence than I generally considered it.
This paper delves into the effects of what Virilio calls Dromospheric Pollution, which is bascially the sociological, psychological and ecological effect of people living in the instantaneous gratification of the virtual data world. He has the premise that people become cut off from spatial and geographical realities and begin to lose track of the unfolding of time as a past-present-future cycle and instead become focused on “abrupt and discontinuous irruptions of various intensities” and that Viriolio “claims that real-time technologies have an effect of narrowing our time sense, refocusing our attention exclusively on the present” and “screen or cut out concern for the past and future”. Some choice bits:
“Dromospheric pollution of our temporal economy is degrading our relationship with the natural and social environment and radically altering the tempo of lived experience”
“in what amounts to a fundamental con-fusion of natural, collective and technological horizons, Virilio posits that Dromospheric pollution, if left unabated and unregulated, will lead to a sharp loss of cultural memory and a degradation of collective imagination… A live (live-coverage) society that has no future and no past…”
“perhaps the greatest danger and threat to our temporal ecology is the erosion of human judgment”
Anyway, for someone like me who is always looking for weak spots in how we live, it was quite interesting and inspiring, even if its relevance is purely theoretical. And you can read the whole thing here The Coming Crisis in Real-Time Environments.
Now, I don’t hear much general classic rock anymore. Due to the lack of a radio and the fact that KGON seems to play about 3 commercials for every song, I just don’t have the access that I used to. Funny though, last night “The Boss” was on 60 Minutes, then today I was at the Laurelthirst where they were playing The Boss. What makes it especially strange is that they followed up The Boss with a bunch of the other BS, Bob Seger (who I always liked better anyway). And then while walking home from there? A van stopped next to me… Also playing Bob Seger! Yes it is one of those days.
For another odd series of events, today I realized that the wondrous Thickets are, in fact, playing at the Lovecraft Film Festival this year! And you may say that this is a coincidence, but today I also found out about the plight of the Tree Octopus! Those are three tentacle related events in one day. A bit beyond the pale of mere coincidence… But read on… To ensure the waking of the great Cthulhu, we mere mortals must all strive to save his minions. As reported at zapatopi.net, The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus population has fallen to dangerously low levels! As Cthulhu has few land-based servants, these octopi must be saved!
Go to Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus to learn more! And get your ribbon!
Following a chain of clicking from Brian Jepson’s Blog (I’m a sucker for anything that mentions mysterious tentacled creatures from the deep cold waters of Antarctica), I ended up at this MSNBC post, Doomsday fears spark lawsuit. Referring to a couple of folks in Hawaii who have filed a federal lawsuit against the Large Hadron Collider, because they fear that it may create black holes that might destroy the Earth! If you are keeping tabs on it, the LHC is an underground circular tunnel about 5 miles in diameter (or 27km circumference, if you prefer) whose stated purpose is: “LHC – the aim of the exercise: To smash protons moving at 99.999999% of the speed of light into each other and so recreate conditions a fraction of a second after the big bang. The LHC experiments try and work out what happened.”.
As loyal readers will remember, I made a post in February where I expressed similarly ridiculous fears. It’s nice to know that even if these fears are ungrounded, at least there are some people who have succeeded in bringing them to the forefront. If for no other reason then to attempt to get people to at least question the safety and ethics behind unbridled scientific research. With the advances over the last century or so in nuclear physics, biochemicals, miniaturization, genetics and especially cloning, we have hit a point where there is some research that shouldn’t be done, even if it can. Sometimes, this isn’t obvious until it is too late, as in Oppenheimer’s oft repeated quote that he is said to have made when he witnessed the first nuclear bomb explosion at Trinity: “I have become death; the destroyer of worlds.”.
This may not be an example of that, but, of course, the government is trying to get the case thrown out, seemingly before any of the scientific evidence is looked at, or at least that is what is implied here:
In 40 documents comprising hundreds of pages, attorneys and government officials contended that “scientifically, there is no basis for any conceivable threat” from black holes or the other theoretical horrors posed in the suit.
If the government has its way, the lawsuit would be thrown out on procedural grounds even before getting to the scientific arguments.
Of course, I realize how unbelievable these fears sounds (or downright silly), but as someone may have said at some point “I have witnessed too much to not believe the unbelievable”
Yes, today marks three years of this blog. It has been quite enjoyable, not only the act of the blog itself, but spending more time than I normally would have thinking abut the 450 movie watchings that I have had in that time. Looking back at the early months, I would have liked to have put a bit more into them, as some of those movies have faded from my memory. But this has also led to three other blogs, none of which I put much time into, but still. And not just to be contrary to Paul, I think blogs are a good thing. Unlike bands, people should keep starting blogs, even if they don’t put enough time into them.
Also this week had the passing of good old Chuck Heston. While I realize that he was a conservative good old boy, I always appreciated the politically oriented science fiction roles that he took on in his 40’s: Planet of the Apes, The Omega man and Soylent Green. All were great and (relatively) meaningful films and, with the addition of the non-Heston films Logan’s Run and Rollerball, they certainly made the most socially meaningful years for Science Fiction films, if not for genre films altogether… And they were also just plain good entertainment! Though aside from those I’d kept pretty unaware of his later career years, aside from of course, his running the, ugh, NRA. But I felt bad for him when he appeared in Bowling for Colombine. I thought it showed something for him to go on a Michael Moore movie, knowing full well the reception that he may get and the slant that he would receive. So I thought it was quite unfair, irrelevant and uncalled for the manner in which Michael Moore treated him. Though everyone knows of Moore’s rather arrogant petulance, I still thought it was annoying and to me the whole scene cast Moore in a worse light than Heston. Especially that silly stunt with the photograph in Heston’s driveway.
Finally for today… Though the new year is well past us I felt the urge to look over the last year and compile, my Top Fourteen Movie Viewings of 2007:
Following Kurty’s lead, I took the “What Science Fiction writer are you?” test. Sadly, he scored a much cooler writer, and I got stuck with one that I don’t even care much for the writings of…
 |
I am:
His style is often stilted, but he created what some consider the greatest SF novel of all time. |
Well, I’ve gone and done it. And I think it’s worth a mention. After 4 1/2 of “retail middle management” (or whatever you call it), I have accepted a position in Computer User Support. It’s going to be quite a change: no more supervising staff, no more customer service (well, depending on how you mean), no more tempting goods… I won’t even be at the store anymore, over at the corporate office now.
Of course, there are things that I will miss. The customers, the products, the store itself. But this will be exciting and challenging and it’s just a line of work that I’ve really been wanting to get involved in. I’ve done some in the past, but I never get sick of trying to troubleshoot computer systems of Users issues. Even on Windows!
Now I just need to plow through and sort all of the years of files and books and detritus that I have accumulated at my desk… And in my shelves. Time to make some tough decisions!
I have been slowing down the dvd library for the last year or so, but it so happens that there are some new dvds out there that I “need”. Now normally I would have just bought them new online for the cheapest price and added them to my collection. But there are some new angles that I am trying to incorporate into these sorts of things:
1) buy locally
2) don’t aquire things unless I really want them (avoid clutter and excess)
3) there’s no money to spend.
The best strategy to achieve these would be to buy these dvd’s at a local store (non-chain) with money garnered from selling dvd’s that I do not really want. So if I am going to buy From Beyond and the new edition of Deliverance, I should make a trip to Music Millennium tomorrow to buy them at full price (probably for a total of $12.00 more than if I got them from Amazon) and I should bring along about 10 cheapo dvds to sell to raise the money for them (I am also trying to sell some “not quite as cheapo” dvds, but those are going to ebay, click if you are curious). So that is my new plan.
And it brings to mind things like the great enemy of America, Wal-Mart. Especially small town Wal-Marts. I feel like a lot of small town Americans are selling out their communities, towns and local businesses by abandoning those stores and buying things at Wal-Mart instead, under the banner of “saving money”. While I understand that most people feel the need to save money, I would venture that most things that people are “saving money on” at Wal-Mart are things that they don’t really need and their communities (and themselves in the long run) would be better served by buying less unneeded material clutter (or unneeded excess food) and spending the higher amount that the local business needs to sell the item for.
I am now trying to not go around supporting the wrong folks and “saving money” by buying every dvd that catches my eye at whichever website sells it for less it and instead trying to lessen my clutter and do the local businesses some good by just buying the ones that I really want and doing it locally. I figure that if I buy two-thirds fewer dvd’s than I used to, I can easily afford to pay a local guy full retail rather then having to shop discount and wait for him to shutter his doors.
Not that it serves any purpose, but I like looking at lists online. I have always been one of those sorts who likes to catalog things (dvd’s, records, whatever…) and so one of my favorite online things is the websites where you can catalog what you have. I have all sorts of other online doppelgängers at all the requisite social sites, but what interests me the most are places where I can list things.
DVD Aficionado is probably the most worthwhile, because not only can you maintain a list off all of the DVD’s you own (compete with cover image and the ability to organize them into whatever folders you want), but you can keep wish lists and shopping carts that list the prices of the DVD’s from 6 different online shops! Very handy when you feel like making an order somewhere. Its flexibility is a bit limited, as you can only list DVD’s that are in their database (pretty thorough, though bootlegs and some foreign things don’t appear), but it is still a very worthwhile site.
Also, Encyclopaedia Metallum is a great site! Is is an incredibly deep Metal information site (um, 52,144 bands?). It includes scarily thorough discographies (Iron Maiden’s has 98 entries, a collector’s dream!), line-up history, album covers, user reviews and ratings… All editable by the sites users. And it also has, more to the point, the ability for you to put together a list of your collection! Sadly, the list doesn’t look too exciting, as it doesn’t show album covers or anyway to sub-divide your collection, but it is still fun and convenient for when I need to see what I have or what format (CD, LP) that I have it in.
And Goodreads, where you can list all the books you have read, the books you are reading and the books you plan on reading. It includes cover art, ratings, reviews and Friends, so you can keep track of what people you know are/have read.
But the point to this is that the resource that I would like most seems to be missing. I would like an LP collectors site, where you can make an organizable list of all your LP’s, complete with Sleeve art and such. Or maybe just a good site on the subject. I’ve trolled about looking for something like that, but all that I find is either webpages like “didn’t lps go away when CD’s arrived?” (which seems an odd statement, since cd’s have been outselling LP’s since well before webpages existed) or, mainly, sites for people who collect 78’s and classic Dylan albums or some such boring things.
What about for people who accumulate more modern records? I go to these sites and look at their lists of hundreds of labels that they have listed and the labels that I am the most interested in (Amrep, Touch N Go, Trance…) don’t even show up!
I’ve been thinking about computers lately, once again pondering occupational prospects, I was thinking about all the years I’ve spent with these things and it got me pondering the boxes I’ve had. Not the miscellaneous ones I’ve had around that didn’t work, but the ones that I actually used…
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I think about “nightlife” every time that I am in Saint jay. If this were a same size town in Oregon, it would probably have 20 “bars” in it. Here? Not so many. I know of maybe 5. There is the Dawghaus (where I would never go for I believe that it is worse that its neighbor). The bar next to the DH (which I don’t remember the name of), I went there once and it was one of those loud, well-lit, “paneling and bud light posters” kind of places… fine, I suppose, but certainly not what I am used to. Then there was the Underground, which I also had been to, some kind of dance club in the basement of an office building that seemed more like a junior high prom in a poor suburb in the 1980’s than a nightclub (I think it is a sports bar now). The lounge at the bowling alley (I haven’t been there, but I imagine that it’s the pick of the bunch) and then there is the place that I went for the first time tonight, The Black Bear. It is one of those old style restaurants with a banquet room off to one side and a little bar area in the back with baseball on TV. I had a fine time and chatted with some nice older ladies from Tennessee and California who were here for the foliage (“leaf peepers”). They had a half dozen beers on tap (luckily none of them were the big boys): their own ale, something called “Knuckleball Bock”, a Sam Adams, a red and a brown that were local, a Magic Hat… A much better array than I had expected.
What this leads me to think of is, of course, the bars back home. There are a whole lot of them, some of which I really like. Which ones? Well, my top home town bars:
The Horse Brass. The best drinking establishment in Portland. Thick smoky atmosphere, thickly smoked walls, crowded, old European pub interior, European football on TV if you are there at the right time, extensive beer menu (especially British), extensive whisky menu, lots of darts. Just the best place to have a beer and feel “the pub thing”.
The Cellar (Ringler’s annex). My personal favorite. the narrow, cavern-like basement of a narrow, windowed old triangular building on a corner downtown. The Cellar is dark, bricked, with large candlesticks thick with old wax and an oddly arranged set-up of tightly packed tables. As soon as I walked through the hatch and first descended the steep stairway down from the sidewalk, I felt like I was in some old underground bar in Europe. It is the perfect atmosphere to drink and read or share a beer with that special someone.
Dot’s Cafe. Just plain one of my favorite places, period. Nice beer, nice basic pub/”mexican” menu, nice booths, dark dark dark, filled with both tattooed hipsters swilling that PBR stuff and families out for a cool, dark place for lunch. I’ve been going here regularly for 15 years and haven’t begun to get tired of it.
The Little Red Shed. The best of the six or so places to get a beer at McMenamins Edgefield complex. The Shed is exactly that. A small brick building with enough room for the bartenders space and one table and then a little window-enclosed outer area that can hold maybe 8 people. Sometimes it seems a bit full if you aren’t the only party there, but with a good beer and a little snack it can seem just right.
Beulahland. A nice place right up the street. I used to work across the street and ended up going there about everyday. Since then, they have expanded to included a dining room space, but I’m still not too sure about that. Beulahland opens early for coffee, has some nice lunch food and at night is a rather crowded and noisy hipster bar, but it is a real neighborhood bar, and t looks like an a beat-up old neighborhood place. Great beer selection, and lots and lots of regulars
The Laurelthirst. Another place I used to go all of the time after work, they have the annoying habit of having bands play there, which is good if it’s someone you want to hear, but if you are just there for some daily beers, sometimes you would rather they just didn’t. But again, a neighborhood bar with a funky and cozy feel to it, great beer selection, good food (I especially like the Cannonball with beans), dark and laid back and a great place to go for breakfast, as barely anyone seems to go there for that, but it’s good.
The Basement Pub. A fun place, crowded, very smoky, low ceiling, and you will always run into at least one person that you know. Though it can be hard to find a spot to sit, they have a nice big fish tank, pinball, great beer, not much for food, but some little-sized options for $1.00, which is hard to beat.
The County Cork. I used to really like this place, years ago. But then they moved and I hadn’t tried out the new location until recently. But now I really like it. Very comfy inside with a rustic decor, good beers, some good food options, not crowded, a very nice mix of clientele, and kid and family friendly
The Hedge House. It is part of the Old Lompoc family of bars and is right up the street from our business. It is a cute little (very little) old bungalow with a side patio that continually gains in size and functionality, as this place can be much to popular for its little size. As with the other Lompoc’s it sells their own beer, but it is a great variety of great beers and a quite good food menu. The Lompoc’s each have their own version of Nachos, all of which are quite good.