Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Technology: Apple & Motorolla iTunes Phone

Announced in today's NY Times and on Apple Insider - a new cell phone collaboration between Apple and Motorolla. To be launched Sept. 7. Can't wait to see what it will look like.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Music/Technology: Garage Rock Meets Garage Critics

An article about pitchforkmedia.com (part of my daily media intake) in todays NY Times. Excerpts:
"The nexus of influence has shifted in the last few years. Destroying someone's career or pulling work from obscurity used to be the province of well-financed mass and trade publications, but now anybody with a voice strong enough to stand out on the Web can have a real impact - and maybe make a couple of bucks in the process. Pitchfork Media is a case in point. Started by Ryan Schreiber in his parents' house in suburban Minneapolis in 1995, Pitchfork (pitchforkmedia.com) has emerged as one of the more important indie music tastemakers in any medium, with 125,000 unique visitors a day and only three full-time employees.
....
The Web is a place where tribe is built and serviced by likeminded folks who thrive on the insiderness of it all. There is a common language, common values and a belief that whatever obsession is being serviced, it is the right one to have."
Full article

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Art: Untitled (Stamps #2)


Postcard series using stamps and fauna inspired drawings (8/27/05)

Art: Untitled (Words #2)


Postcard series using words (8/21/05)

Friday, August 26, 2005

Movies: Spirited Away


This is the third Miyazaki film I have seen - Spirited Away. As always, the animation is detailed and very beautiful.

Music: New CD - Laura Viers & Thievery Corp.


Laura Viers - Year of Meteors
This cd suprised me. I don't usually like singer/songwriters. The lyrics are poetry, her voice is plain but immediate, and I love the use of electronic instrumentation. It makes for a rich listen.
Theivery Corporation - Cosmic Game
I decided not to get this when it first came out, but PK emailed this week to say it was an awesome listen. I agree.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Technology: A Techie, Absolutely, and More

An article from today's NY Times about how techies are becoming "renaissance geeks".

On campuses today, the newest technologists have to become renaissance geeks. They have to understand computing, but they also typically need deep knowledge of some other field, from biology to business, Wall Street to Hollywood. And they tend to focus less on the tools of technology than on how technology is used in the search for scientific breakthroughs, the development of new products and services, or the way work is done.
...
At the same time, the march of computing is rippling across all academic disciplines. Even as computer science students are being encouraged to take more courses outside their major, students in other disciplines are finding more often that they need to use, design and sometimes write computer programs.
Several universities, for example, are developing multidisciplinary courses in "services science." The idea is to combine research in the social sciences, management, engineering and computing to pursue insights, innovations and increased productivity in the huge services sector of the economy, which now employs more than 80 percent of American workers. The University of California, Berkeley will offer a services science graduate course in the coming academic year.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Zeitgeist: Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution

An excerpt from an article by NY Times editorial observer Verlyn Klinkenborg that gives some perspective on the hot fuss around Intelligent Design:
One of the most powerful limits to the human imagination is our inability to grasp, in a truly intuitive way, the depths of terrestrial and cosmological time. That inability is hardly surprising because our own lives are so very short in comparison. It's hard enough to come to terms with the brief scale of human history. But the difficulty of comprehending what time is on an evolutionary scale, I think, is a major impediment to understanding evolution.
...
That is a lot to absorb and, not surprisingly, many people refuse to absorb it. Nearly every attack on evolution - whether it is called intelligent design or plain creationism, synonyms for the same faith-based rejection of evolution - ultimately requires a foreshortening of cosmological, geological and biological time.
Full article

Music: Amanset Live



Saw American Analog Set live last night at Club de Ville. They played a few songs from the upcoming album - Set Free. The sound was a bit buzzy and there was a lot of talking going on in the crowd. The new songs sound a bit more pop and less drone.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Books: Mideast - popular new genre


An article in today's Statesman - New genre of popular novels focuses on Mideast, Islamic culture. Interesting note towards the end of the article about an Iranian novel - My Uncle Napoleon. Supposedly it is considered an important Iranian novel. I had never heard about it before. Learn something new every day.
"Next year, she says, Modern Library, part of her group, will publish a classic work many consider the most important Iranian novel of the 20th century, "My Uncle Napoleon" by Iraj Pezeshkzad."

Deep Eddy Mile - Team Cloverleaf results

I swam about 30 seconds slower this year - just never got into a good rhythm. I was in the first heat - too early on a Saturday morning. I proudly wore my Team Cloverleaf t-shirt. Jace wrote a hilarious email to sum up the results:

Greetings Team Cloverleaf Comrades!
As expected, Team Cloverleaf crushed the competition in the 2005 Deep
Eddy Mile.
Here are the official results of all TC members in the Marine Amphibious Assault Division:
Jace Graf 22:301.55
Clint Bledsoe 23:29.99 (1st in age group)
Reza Shirazi 24:39.67 (2nd in age group)
Christina de los Santos 24:09.66 (2nd in age group)
Pam LeBlanc* 25:10.07 (1st in age group)
(*New member, pending blood & urine test results.)
As you no doubt noticed on Saturday, there was naturally a great deal of interest in Team Cloverleaf. Many of us were asked to explain our affiliations to the mysterious TC, and how we earned the right to wear such a stylish uniform. In order to maintain our clandestine activities, the Internal Security Committee of the Executive Board recommends that any public discussion of TC be limited to the following statement:
"Team Cloverleaf is a shadowy organization of ancient and controversial origins, comprised of an undetermined number of unidentified individuals who are in league for unspecified, though possibly nefarious, purposes, which allegedly include regular assemblies for
cultic ritual."
And to further insure the ultimate success of our grand mission, the ISC/EC furthermore recommends that all members adopt a code name when discussing TC affairs with other members in public. Therefore, henceforth all female TC members will be known by the code name "Scooter"; all males will be known as "Sparky." You will be notified via the usual encrypted channels of our next rendezvous, at which time we will work on the secret handshake.
Congratulations valiant TC brothers and sisters! All glory and honor to The Team!!!
Jace Graf

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Art: Zak Smith illustrates Gravity's Rainbow


Zak Smith illustrated all 760 pages of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. An amazing example of words inspiring art; a dialogue between writer and artist.
"Most of the pictures are drawings-- ink on whatever paper was lying around, but there are also paintings (acrylic), photos I took, and experimental photographic processes. I tried to illustrate the passages as literally as possible-- if the book says there was a green Spitfire, I drew a green Spitfire. Mostly, I tried to make a series of pictures as dense, intricate, and rich as the prose in the book. The entire project was shown in the Whitney Museum's 2004 Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art and is now in the permanent collection of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis."

Friday, August 19, 2005

Art: 22 To Watch - AMOA


I went for the opening of 22 To Watch at AMOA. Heather is one of the 22 - has a super cool installation in the show using nails, thread and emobroidered engineering drawings. The place was packed with the art gliterati of Austin, so I need to go back and spend time with the art in there.

Poetry: Index of Indian Poetry

Index of Indian poets writing in English since Independence.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Open Water


A great article - Open Water - from today's Statesman XL section on open water swimmers.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Books: Philosopher of Optimism

This article - Philosopher of Optimism Endures Negative Deluge - from today's NY Times reminds me being positive and optimistic is a habit I can adopt and practice.
Quoting from the article:
That foundation, he said, is that human perception is intentional; the pessimists themselves paint their world black.Mr. Wilson has spent much of his life researching how to achieve those moments of well-being that bring insight, what the American psychologist Abraham Maslow called "peak experiences."Those moments can come only through effort, concentration or focus, and refusing to lose one's vital energies through pessimism."What it means basically is that you're able to focus until you suddenly experience that sense that everything is good," Mr. Wilson said. "We go around leaking energy in the same way that someone who has slashed their wrists would go around leaking blood."Once you can actually get over that and recognize that this is not necessary, suddenly you begin to see the possibility of achieving a state of mind, a kind of steady focus, which means that you see things as extremely good."

Monday, August 08, 2005

Quotes: Thoughts

The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly. -Charles Reznikoff, poet (1894-1976)

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Music: New CD - Amadou & Mariam


Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche a Bamako - Every once in a while, there is a world music cd that goes beyond the hackneyed stuff. This has got a great mix of Mali guitar, street voices mixed in, rhythmic vocals and good melody.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Art: Art is beautiful, Nature is sublime


An excerpt from a longer article - Mother Nature's Blockbusters - from today's NY Times.
"The sublime defines our limits as well as our possibilities. Perhaps that is also one difference between museums and natural preserves: museums focus on human possibilities; nature can reveal our limitations. These contrasts may even echo the differences between beauty and the sublime that Edmund Burke once described. Museums are the domain of human beauty; preserves the domain of the sublime. Burke described the sublime as vast, beauty small; the sublime as rugged, beauty smooth.
These realms intertwine, but there is a hunger for the sublime not easily satisfied. Religion may invoke its sensations; pop culture may try to emulate its effects with amplified sound-and-sight spectacles. Great art sometimes achieves it. But wilderness seems to have first claim over the sublime."