I haven't written here in a while, but I have something that I really want to get off of my chest. For several years now, I've seen a strange use of "informed by" explode within intellectual (or perhaps, pseudo-intellectual) circles. The first example that came to my attention and just confused me when I heard it is the title of Richard M. Gula's book, "Reason Informed by Faith." Notice how there are no sentient beings informing or being informed? A quick Googling led to several more examples of this odd usage:

"Ape Consciousness–Human Consciousness: A Perspective Informed by Language and Culture"
"Fiction informed by science"
"A view of Current Affairs informed by a Religious Tradition"

and it goes on... In all of these cases, there are easy alternatives for phrasing, but perhaps they sounded too quotidian for the authors. A good sign that this phrase is climbing the ranks of those used by the intelligentsia is its frequent appearance on the airwaves of NPR. I love NPR, but this usage makes me cringe each time I hear it.

Stephen Mulholland of South Africa's, "The Citizen," recently wrote against this practice with an interesting insight that its use is merely for affect. "It seems that once this sacred term is announced all the speaker then has to say carries with it the force of intellectual affirmation."

Perhaps this truly is the information age as concepts are able to produce, deliver, and receive information on their own without the aid of a human.

The problem is, I'm not sure if this usage is incorrect. I simply don't like it. As I mature and even out my temper, I find that I'm no longer as interested in grammar and spelling as I was. These sorts of nitpicks, I've found, are often the domain of those with low self esteem or an inappropriately analytical mind. I might have drawn inspiration for this screed from a scene in the last season of "The Wire" in which it is explained that people should not be evacuated from a building, but rather that the building should be evacuated. To evacuate people is to clean their bowels. Perhaps this will be my last diatribe on grammar or spelling, but writing on this one is particularly cathartic.

Try to read this article without laughing.

Because you've all been wondering what I've been watching lately, here's the list, along with snide commentary:

Green Street Hooligans

Frodo goes to England, falls in man-love with a gang of soccer thugs. The fight scenes were well done, but that's about it. Ridiculously cliched plot devices throughout. Poor show.

The Elephant Man

Deformed man experiences hardship. I wanted to like this movie because David Lynch made it, but it's soooooooo boring. I had to take two whacks at this one to make it through... I tried to watch it in college but couldn't make it through. This time I had it in a window while I surfed. Lynch found out the hard way (i.e. Dune) that he needs to write his own stories. This falls within that lesson.

Moulin Rouge

Gay fun, in all senses of the word. Like a sugar overdose.

The Long Goodbye

Philip Marlowe meets the pastel 70s. A bit slow, with that 60s/70s pacing that seemed fine when everyone was on hippie drugs, but pretty decent nonetheless. Elliot Gould is a bit more like Bukowski's detective in Pulp than the Marlowe that Bogart defined.

Touch of Evil

Charlton Heston as a Mexican detective. WTF, right? Well, it almost kind of works. Apparently Orson Welles was contractually obliged to make this and there's even a passing reference to the fact that Heston looks nothing like a Mexican, despite the thin mustache and thick tan he wears in the movie. This is an incredibly moody and creepy movie that keeps you anxious the whole way through, meaning success in my book.

Eros

Three short films about love/sex. Wong Kar-Wai's short will make it impossible for you to look at a handjob in quite the same way ever again. Also, Chinese tailors do some very interesting, intricate work. Steven Soderbergh's short would have been fine as a play, but isn't that interesting as a movie. Michelangelo Antonioni's short was utterly unwatchable and laughable stereotypical as a cliche European art film.

The Ice Storm

Sex is complicated for adults and children! It all ends in tears. Watchable, but no grand revelations.

The Good Girl

Crime and Punishment meets King of the Hill. John C. Reilly is one of my favorite actors and I have a lot of respect for him, so I couldn't buy him as being stupid. Fairly pointless all over, unless you count "Even common girls in the middle of the country have dreams" as a new message.

The Rules of Attraction

Gay man falls in love with Frankenstein's monster who falls in love with Denise Huxtable. American Psycho seems to have a diametrically opposite view of these people than is displayed here, which is why I liked it. This is basically a long, after-dark version of a WB show. There was an interview with the director on the DVD which shows him to be just the kind of jackass I'd never expect to get a date, much less laid at such a school, yet has him declaring how it tells the story of his college experience. On the plus side, hot girls + nudity.

Try to read this without laughing at least once. These guys must hate American Pie.

I was thinking about the frequency with which I post, which is in decline of late, and not due to any conscious effort. Non-LJ friends will probably not see very many posts at all. LJ friends might see posts, but frankly mostly of a whiny nature. But nobody has seen many posts at all lately for some reason. Does this mean I'm no longer a whiny bitch? Not at all... rather that I'm simply uninspired to write out my complaints. And God help you if I somehow manage to get a girlfriend. None of you will ever hear from me again until she dumps me.

Anyway... here's an abridged update for the truly bored:

• Working hard and gaining traction at work


• Reading Tropic of Cancer (I relate in the sense that I'm arrogant and lonely, but not in the sense that I don't whore around or write well)


• Been watching The Wire (rent/buy this now... it's too good)


• Continual photo nonsense

For more info, feel free to send me an email. I'm even answering some of them now. ;-D

Just saw Chris Isaak at the Green Apple Bookstore in the Richmond. He's one of my favorite musicians, but I didn't have anything say to him. He seemed really nice to this other guy that recognized him. He also has really nice hair.

Warning: don't stare at this too long, but this is the best thing I've seen in a long time.

I just discovered JPG Magazine, which is one of the better photo magazines I've seen. It also gets all its content from user contributions.

I entered one of my photos to a contest called "Embrace the Blur".

Please vote on it if you get the chance... Thanks!

Anyone who has ever done a significant amount of coding in their life knows that there are three things that fuel the process: sugar, caffeine, and music. I've got the first two covered by my (very aristocratic) Arnold Palmers. The last bit is the hard part. I'm happy with Arnold Palmers for life. Music burns out fast. As a poor substitute, I occasionally listen to podcasts and today I was listening to "On the Media" from NPR. They played a short bumper clip from Ben Allison & Medicine Wheel's "Riding the Nuclear Tiger", a drum and bass track from jazz musicians. In general, this is a far better situation than jazz from drum and bass musicians. Anyway, I bought the album, also named "Riding the Nuclear Tiger" from iTunes and am pretty happy with it. The titular (I love that word) track is the most exciting, but the rest of the album is very solid jazz. Not only that, but Ben Allison is a bassist! I've been looking for jazz bassists and so far he and Ron Carter are on the list. Solid.

My "new" Yashica-Mat 124G works! It was touch and go there, but it turned out some pretty clear photos without vignetting or focus falloff. The meter even works!

( Obscene technical detail that bores even me. )

Results are on flickr.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Were you thinking about buying me a watch, but wanted to spend more? Well then look no further. "Warning: Requires State Department License for export".

Those of you who are tearing your hair out, trying to figure out what gift you could possibly buy me, look no further.

For those of you counting, this is one more piece of evidence that I have a strange curiosity with clocks and watches.

And Wikipedia already includes his death in his entry. Creepy fast.

On my way home from Taiji class, I popped in my Lost Highway CD. It's definitely my desert island CD. I bought it before the movie came out when I was in high school, knowing nothing other than that it was a soundtrack for a David Lynch movie. It became the soundtrack for my senior year. It's got Trent Reznor, David Bowie, Antonio Carlos Jobim, crazy acid jazz, and one of the few good Smashing Pumpkin songs from the utz-utz era of electronica. It's a veritable cornucopia of ear-meat. Aside from the Marilyn Manson nonsense, it's almost flawless.

It also reminded me that I need to get some more friends in the city. They kind that you could call up and say, "Let's have a David Lynch marathon" and they'd say, "Cool. Should I bring my Eraserhead DVD?" and I'd say, "Of course not, nobody really likes Eraserhead." But of course I'd be happy that they were down for watching the rest. I really only have 2 friends in the city that I can call up for spur of the moment things and neither of them are freakish enough to like David Lynch. I'm interested in people who thought they might go to film school, but ended up just having their souls eaten by the desire to make money. You know -- my peer group.

I bought a scanner so I could scan in all the film I've been shooting lately and after 8 months of doing photography seriously, I finally made a picture I like.

( Read more... )