What I Didn’t See. A short story by Karen Joy Fowler, at scifi.com

A sample of some self absorbed portraits from …the dismal sanctuary of Asya Schween. 23. Immersed in incarnadine-hued twilight of my mind. Alone. I read no poetry but mathematical manuscripts and the Holy Bible.
I’m a good girl. I will perish. [via: growabrain]

For the last week I’ve been wondering what I’d be comfortable posting regarding my friend Ray Condo’s recent death. There’s really nothing comfortable about death. It makes me squirm and ache thinking about not seeing him again. I have some good memories of eating boiled eggs and toast at Regan’s old studio on Commercial Drive. I rmember the first time I met him when he and Line lived in the suite under my studio in ‘89. He wore a dark suit and cowboy hat, and I thought what a slick dude. I remember comenting on their stylish pad and talking about paint colours with Line. Coversations with Ray were always an odd combination of optimistic cynicism, magic and mystery and Elvis. Always Elvis. I have a lovely image of Ray in my kitchen, when he lived with me for a few months in 94 or 95. It’s of him sitting peacefully in the sun reading a book with his sax on the table. His chair tilted back and a cup of tea beside him. The last while I’ve remembered his guffawing laughter and twinkling devilish eyes. Ray was a gem. A true artist, tortured and possessed by demons that made him create. A man of honor, a man with integrity. I didn’t really know Ray as “Ray Condo” the musician. I did go to many of his performances, but that wasn’t really what drew me to him. I knew him as a friend. I really enjoyed his whit and bitter innocence. By chance I am the sad owner of his very first acoustic guitar. An early 60’s yamaha. I play it infrequently because I’ve gone to the otherside. The electronic sounds side. But when I play it I always remember Ray. - goodbye my friend.

Betsy Davis sculpts coloured acrylic into pussy art. I’d say she’s buying sheets of acrylic and stamping out the negative parts. She must have access to a press and some experience making stamps. When I worked for my three week stint at arcterix, I manned the press and stamped various bits from huge sheets of plastic. I remember looking at all the remnants and thinking what I could do with them. Pussy never came to my mind. [via: Geisha Asobi Blog]

Technorati has put together a wicked search engine. It’s in beta form, but certainly very useable. It searches blogs. Nothing else. Doc Searls talks about using it to search for current postings, and, becasue Technorati is coded for it, that Technorati’s results are more up to date than the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Teoma, etc). What strikes and excites me is it’s ability to locate bloggers with similar interests and could help foment friendships.

[edit1] More on search engines: John Batelle’s Searchblog has a post on A9 Amazon’s new search engine that uses a combination of google and amazon algorythms to perform searches. The idea being that you’ll have results doubly filtered for accuracy. - I tried it yesterday and kinda like it, though the design seems a little too ‘nice’ for my tastes.

[edit2] Even more on search engines: Kinja has just launched it’s beta blog searching engine. Looks good so far. I suggested the adding ‘urban culture’ as a category…

UBC has been planning to put some student housing apartments up that will overlook thousands of naked sunbathers on Wreck Beach (check the site out. It’s quite amusing). If I remember correctly Natelli, who’s sidekick is Tony, has been writing her thesis on the topic?? Rebecca sent me a recent article by the Courier reprinted in the Sun. UBC will be shamed into not doing it I’m sure. Otherwise they would be in effect supporting errant behaviour if this proceeded and students housed there were able to count pussy hairs on sunbathers through cheap telescopes.

Bradd Pitt and Charles Manson by John Waters:

The Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle has John Water’s latest show up until Saturday, May 8, 2004. The man’s always impressed me for his comittment to being on the edge. Can’t say I’m a huge fan, but I did scan through his interview @ Bomb Magazine.

TheMilkFactory has a review of Deadbeat’s latest. Colin Buttimer, the reviewer, ends with

Where Pole?s 1-3 integrated dub with glitch, Deadbeat integrates techno with dub, often producing driving rhythms. The music is accordingly less pockmarked by glitches and given more space to stretch out. At times it approaches ambient and recalls Porter Ricks?s BioKinetics, though with a more varied rhythmic chassis (Biokinetics?s oceanic references were made clear in track titles such as Port Gentil, Nautical Dub, etc.) Dive deep down into Deadbeat?s rich and tactile, organic and fluid music. You?ll soon grow gills.

Garments reconstructed from nike gear and leather jackets by Dr Romanelli. - do I need to say it?

Clubvibes is having a ‘best of’ Vancouver nightlife awards. I nominated John Morgan as DJ of the year and just recieved an email from Justin Elton of clubvibes that it’s been done. Go and vote for John Morgan as DJ of the year.

I’m slowly cleaning up that blogrolling side bar I adapted to post side links in my blogger version of giantkicks. Some of those I’ll be reposting here, and others will be moved to some new link categories.

Here’s something I posted as a side link over a year ago: Since 1963, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has been a psychology professor at the University of Chicago studying a field of behavioral science that examins connections between satisfaction and daily activities. His book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is about the experience of being in the flow of creation, of production, and the pleasures that anchor us to our work. Rob Jellinghaus has written a simplified explaination of flow. Flow does not happen when watching T.V., or lame assed movies like ‘Happy Texas’. That is just wasting time. - Csikszentmihalyi seems to be a prolific writer on topics related to creativity, self, and experience.

An image of Bush made with pictures of dead american soldiers killed in Iraq. [Originally forwarded via email: David][Update: breebop took the time to google the actual creator of the image American Leftist.]

My foot prop about to ‘crush’ dj. Abasi. [photo: Rebecca (?)]

+ Image from issue12 of This is a Magazine.

+ I’m building a 4-5 hours work version of the above Monty Python foot for tonight’s Soundproof party. Going to use styrofoam insulating sheets. Not sure of the dimensions of the sheets but I imagine it’ll be about 6 feet wide and 4.5 feet high (I’ll make it as big as possible). The sheets will be attached vertically to prevent separation when it is jerked up and down. Planning to use wooden dowels and bulldog construction adhesive in the caulking gun tube form…possibly loads of duct tape too. Cutting the styrofoam with xacto knife. Painting it flesh coloured

Noam Chomsky, recognizing the value of blogging, has recently started a weblog called Turning the Tide. [via: VanRamblings - i saw mention of it elsewhere, but this was the most recent mention]

The directory of the Prelinger Archives:

Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 48,000 “ephemeral” (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 4,000 titles on videotape and a smaller collection of film materials acquired subsequent to the Library of Congress transaction. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven’t been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and some 1,600 (soon to be 2,000) key titles are available here. The collection currently contains over 10% of the total production of ephemeral films between 1927 and 1987, and it may be the most complete and varied collection in existence of films from these poorly preserved genres.