searching for the ineffable
1. I have another, a much better, update. Some exciting things are going on this weekend. But I will not write it until tonight, in order that the story be complete.
2. I do, however, have a reason for posting. This, this is the reason I *heart* Burning Man.
139 days!
I’ll come back to the blog someday. Hopefully someday soon. For the moment, life is full of life!
I leave you with this poem. Safe for work, natch. I wish I knew who wrote it.
Edit: Fixed URL. It works now.
Too damn funny not to pass along. Entirely work-safe. No sound needed, it’s just pictures and text.
Don’t know whether it’s real or another fake one, but this Golf commercial is pretty impressive!
He’s a musician, a highly entertaining one, a Jewish rapper. Don’t miss “In Da Shul,” it’s hilarious.
But what touched me was actually “We Miss You.” [mp3] Comedians who can pour their hearts out and make you want to cry are rare and precious.
I’ll go back to the food porn shortly. (Yesterday evening I had an excuse for not writing: a hot date. Today I have no such excuse.)
Meanwhile, there’s a competition going on at futureofthebook.org:
Our first competition calls for a reinvention of the illuminated manuscript. How will this ancient art evolve as multimedia begins to take a central role in our reading experience? Send us a single illustrated page that exploits the unique possibilities of the digital medium while preserving the classic illuminative relationship between text and image.
Nice! Were I at all good at graphic design or video work, I’d totally go for it with Roland. As it stands, I’ll sit back and watch the results, which should be beautiful.
The US Postal Service (not to be confused with The Postal Service, which is apparently being allowed to keep its name in exchange for some advert appearances… but that’s another story) is releasing new stamps in 2005.
MUPPET stamps. Aiiieee the cute!
Fritz Hugh Ludlow’s 1857 The Annotated Hasheesh Eater is now out on CD-ROM. There’s a sample annotated chapter on the site, and it’s pretty fascinating.
The CD’s reading interface, if the sample web page is anything to go by, isn’t terribly pretty. But the book seems interesting enough that I might just get it. Apparently, there are some other 19th-century works about cannabis on the CD. Good going for the editor: in this age of renewed “reefer madness” scaremongering and awful levels of misinformation, I love it that books like this are still coming out.
It’s a nice article. Of course, it doesn’t – can’t – communicate the utter quiet of the huge valley surrounded by mountains on all sides, in the middle of which are you, with your four hundred lightning rods and your cabin. There were grey rabbits, or maybe hares, living underneath the stairs of the cabin last August, reasonably cautious but unafraid of people.
No TV, no computers, no telephone service except for an emergency landline. Huge orange moon looking in the window, and in the morning, cicadas and a groundhog eight feet away from you, going about his business. Twenty-four hours of stillness.
