xu xu

walrus can dance!

2008-03-27T02:59:11Z

This just in: Uhhh WTF? Apparently walruses can learn dance routines to "Smooth Criminal."

I like how the walrus dances better than his/her trainer.

DMX talks politics

2008-03-27T02:30:45Z

I don't know about your sense of humor, but mine is pretty tickled by this interview with rapper DMX by XXLmag. His indifference to everything the interviewer is asking him is pretty exceptional. The best comes at about the middle, when DMX is asked whether he's following the presidential race:

XXLmag: Are you following the presidential race?
DMX: Not at all.

You're not? You know there's a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there's Hillary Clinton.
His name is Barack?!

Barack Obama, yeah.
Barack?!

Barack.
What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
Barack Obama?

Yeah.
What the fuck?! That ain't no fuckin' name, yo. That ain't that nigga's name. You can't be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

It gets even better, I swear. I don't know what's funnier: the interviewer's lack of knowing how to discuss politics beyond a superficial level, or his unease at probing DMX for actual answers to his questions...or DMX just blatantly not giving a fuck about anything. This whole thing kind of seems too out there to be for real. But who cares, it's on the intarnetsource and it's funny.

web 2.0 - ur doin' it wrong

2008-03-20T05:13:04Z

Let's take a break from concert reviews, shall we?

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle's website looks like it was designed by someone who made a Geocities site back in the day when everyone wanted their own homepage but didn't know what exactly that entailed. This person apparently then decided this qualified him or her to design a professional website. He or she glanced over a few popular Web 2.0 sites (Facebook, Vox, Last.fm perhaps) and figured out that the internet means rollover buttons, top menubar navigation, and drop-down lists. Also, diagonal stripes and the color blue. Of course!

This failure to understand basic design principles gives the site a totally amateurish look. The low-quality graphics don't help at all, nor does the fact this web programmer doesn't know how to do domain masking. At least the site's navigation is easy to follow, or I'd have nothing nice to say at all.

I don't think I could revisit this site for awhile because of its embarrassing ugliness. And if I could be a little critical where I just cut some slack, not everything about the navigation is functional. What about that copycat slideshow box so common on many other news sites? It even has a playbutton - that does nothing at all. Oh wow, clicking on the arrow makes it so I don't have to move my mouse 2 centimeters to the right! Holy shit!

To the webdesigner for the D&C: Slideshow boxes are supposed to seamlessly flash through stories. And behave like, you know, a slideshow. Take a gander at The Onion, and don't be afraid to steal. If you just don't know how to code it, you need to drop some money on some books and classes. Good luck!

lobster quadrille @ bug jar, 2/18/2008

2008-02-20T04:31:39Z

Last night I finally had the chance to check out awesome up-and-coming Rochester band, the Lobster Quadrille. Kids in the know have been saying for months and months that these guys are the best band in Rochester right now, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Named for that delightful undersea dance dreamt up by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland, Lobster Quadrille are every bit as quirky, colorful, and dark as Carroll's tales. They cite influences as disparate as Oscar Wilde and Bauhaus, and get all dolled up in 19th-century inspired garb for their performances. The band members play a motley assortment of instruments - from accordion, washboard, clarinet, and viola, to guitar and the other standard rock band essentials. The result is a fusion of the bright and lively French Quarter in New Orleans with an eclectic, darker mix of gospel, blues, and rock. In addition to their skillful, if random, musical stylings, the Quadrille thoroughly entertains audiences with frontman Solomon's parodic sermons. Fans are glad to shout "Hallelujah!" to roaring tirades about the Church and churchgoers. You can check out their music on MySpace and YouTube, but this is truly a band to be experienced.

As an added treat to last night's show, Lobster Quadrille brought some guests to provide an interlude between songs. We saw tapdancers, some guy who talked about dried-up worms, and a damned funny magic show ending in "magic white powder" being snorted off of a Bible. Best eight bucks I ever spent at the Bug Jar.

fiery furnaces @ bug jar, 1/21/2008

2008-01-31T04:21:03Z

Here is a sweet video from the Fiery Furnaces show last week in Rochester. It's cool because the quality is good, and also there's this point where you get to see Eleanor's reflection in the Bug Jar's shiny shiny walls. Brian uploaded some other videos from this show to YouTube. You should check them out!

ra ra riot & tokyo police club, 1/26/2008

2008-01-29T02:51:03Z

Wesley Miles of Syracuse band Ra Ra Riot.

El Mocambo, 1/26/2008.

This bite-your-fingers-off-it's-so-effing-cold weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing not one, but two shows in Toronto! Woohoo! I'd heard Tokyo Police Club was playing a free show on the 26th, and found out soon after that my new loves Ra Ra Riot were playing that night as well, in a venue just down the street. How did I get come across such useful information, you might ask? Well Steve, I have a little friend I like to call last.fm. If you're a music lover, you two should definitely get acquainted.

Alright, all ridiculous personifications of web 2.0 sites aside, I have a few things to say about the shows themselves. We'll start with Tokyo Police Club. It's nice that it was a free show and all, but what I didn't know was that the event would be televised as part of Toronto's Winter City festival. I also didn't know that they would be announced by an annoying blonde anchorwoman and an MTV VJ wannabe. Slight bonus: Me and the fantastic kid I was with started booing the announcers. It caught on pretty quick and after chiding our rudeness, the teevee newsladies cleared the stage for Tokyo Police Club.

I've spent so much time setting up the show because, honestly...that was the most interesting part of it. Freezing my tits off in Nathan Philips Square and watching 13-year-old boys pass a bowl around, to the complete horror of whitebread 14-year-old girls standing next to them...yeah, it was pretty entertaining, albeit pregnant with the possibility of frostbite. Then TPC started playing, and I may as well have stayed in my nice warm hotel room blasting the album. They did play one new song, and may have played others, but we were too cold to find out. Summary: Let down.

Ra Ra Riot, on the other hand - totally fucking fantastic. Aside from being talented musicians, those kids really know how to perform. They're so animated, and each band member brings their own unique charisma to the stage. My journalistic stylings really can't do the experience justice, but I will try. The bassist looked like a dark-haired Napoleon Dynamite and frequently did scissor kicks and various other jumps while playing. The gal on violin played her instrument like ballet dancing, while the cellist honestly (and tastefully) played like she wanted to make love to the damn thing. Wesley Miles, on vocals, has got some serious dance moves. And even the drummer tucked away in the back pulled audience eyes with his earnest grin. I'm not forgetting their guitar player - wait, I sort of am. He rocked the fuck out, whatever he was doing. That's for sure.

In conclusion, everyone needs to check out Ra Ra Riot. Post-haste. Also, global warming is not making Toronto any f*cking warmer.

cyberpunk legwarmers

2007-12-12T06:16:16Z

Ohh I just love Hel Looks, a street fashion blog for Helsinki. I've been following the site for over a year now and they consistently catch the best-dressed of all current subcultures, as well as those who just stand out. But god I can't express enough love for this girl's furry legwarmers!!! She's 16 and she says, "I mix cyber punk and Japanese style. Colourful style brings me joy."

How fun to be young and growing up in a big city.

disable network connection?

2007-12-01T01:31:02Z

(A quick piece I sketched out a couple weeks ago. Polished it up under the influence of painkillers and listening to Beirut. I hope it's coherent enough. Enjoy!)

A saudade é arrumar o quarto
Do filho que já morreu.
- Chico Buarque, "Pedaço de mim"

"Saudade" is to arrange the bedroom
Of a son who has died.
-Chico Buarque, "Piece of me"

There was a woman whose hand would cease to be her hand when she heard music from the pampas. Songs from a gaúcho with nothing but horse, cattle, campfire. Sometimes a row of palm trees would interrupt the endless green. It was beautiful, wild land, but who to share it with? He longed for citrus-scented hair, lace skirts swishing around honey-dripping legs, but had only guitars to fondle like old lovers who try to keep warm when there's no feeling left. Saudade. His music poured through Rita's ears like liquid gold and she'd shiver, reminded of the feeling she had leftover from the one who'd left her.

Poof. A breath, an explosion inside her, to golden tingling dust. It filled Rita with a smile that spilled across her face, like cool spring dawn drawn across the sky. The tingling always settled in her left hand. She'd look down at it and it would be thicker, heavier somehow. She'd blink and her knuckles would have hair creeping over the back of her hand, poking up out of her pores, curious new sprouts over the wider wrist. Fingers thickened and lengthened, the nails much shorter now and with the familiar cracked cuticles she now realized she'd forgotten. Resting on her knee. It was Renato's hand. He reached for her skin through dark Levi's.

"No," she'd think. "Don't do that, it isn't possible." Her right hand would move to shove it away and the left hand, Renato's hand, would clasp onto hers. Warm, like being wrapped up in his tangy green sheets and watching the tension coiled in between his shoulders as he jumped from cyberspace to cyberspace, searching for meaning in the virtual threads connecting Rita to comics about robots to flying spaghetti monsters to Renato to articles on the evolution of digital surveilance to that old gaúcho and his namorada, long gone. She'd rise and kiss him right there, in between his shoulder blades, and know they'd never feel the isolation of the pampas because they'd always have wifi.

Looking down at the hand now fondly stroking her right arm, Rita wonders if that gaúcho who'd sung about saudade to his cattle so he could sleep at night would ever look down at his hands and wonder if he brought her to life again by missing her so.

lolgrims

2007-11-09T17:53:18Z

So, I made this yesterday because I like to use the internet to ruin people's sexdrives. Keeps people away from internet porn and all. It got posted on lolgrims by Diesel Sweeties creator rstevens. Hurray! cyb3rw3b famez0r.

I just tried explaining the concept of internet memes to a roomful of people who'd never heard of a lolcat (perish the thought!) and it is really better to just say, "you don't want to know."

yet another reason to ride your bike!

2007-10-18T12:46:32Z

Last night I went out for Thai food with a friend and when we came back to where we'd parked his mom's Cadillac, it wasn't there. We called the police and waited in helpless disbelief for over 2 hours. I mean, what do you do when your car isn't there and it's not registering at any of the impound lots? You can't look to see if maybe you left it under that car up there instead of where you actually parked it...you can't look to see if maybe it had rolled away a little bit. I looked up at the big tree we'd parked under, but it just doesn't work that way. And of course we couldn't even get wasted while we're waiting 'cuz we don't know when the cops are going to show up...all we could do was just wait there, on the corner of Park Ave and Edgerton.

The cop finally gets there and runs the plate through the system twice for us, though we'd called multiple times while waiting, checking the impound lots. He says, "There is no way your car got stolen here." Even if we weren't in the particular neighborhood we were in - the street was well-lit, there were people out walking dogs at 11 PM - no one would get very far in a stolen Cadillac. The alarm would've gone off and we were all of 2 blocks away! So no, it just didn't make any sense.

Our cop goes, "Not that I don't believe you, but I'm just gonna check the streets around the area to make sure you're on the right one."

And wouldn't you know. His mom's shiny purple '06 Cadillac was one street West of us the whole time.

I can't say I've ever felt like that much of a dumbass, nor that I've ever been so happy to have been such a dumbass.

one year of rochester flickr meets!

2007-10-16T14:52:59Z

What: A gathering of photographers and photo-enthusiasts. Bring a 4x6 framed photo to trade if you wish!
Where: in my shoes' place (check out the discussion for directions, or just ask moi)
When: Wed 17 October @ 7 PM
So? Celebrate one year of Rochestarians getting together via flickr. All are welcome, not just members of the site. BYOB. Snacks will be provided!

(hey flickr people, i don't mean any malicious intent by remixing your logo. if i'm infringing on a copyright, please tell me to take it down and I'll gladly comply. geez I'm paranoid about copyright laws ever since the LeGuin/Doctorow feud.)

Lord & Taylor

2007-10-16T11:15:59Z

Er, does anyone else see the subliminal message here? Perhaps it's me running on a few hours' sleep, or the lingering effects of staring at pre-calc formulas for too long. All I can tell you is that I glanced down at my mom's bills on the table this morning, and this one was upside-down and telling me, "Shop & Feel."

Whoaaaa, my mind-grapes are totally blown!

Blog Action Day 2007

2007-10-15T23:38:00Z

Doing my part for the environment today because I love her dearly.

So, kids, unicorns, and others. Don't use plastic bags anymore when you go shopping. Seriously. They plug up our landfills, suffocate small children and animals, and use up precious petroleum. Plus it's sooooo easy to use your own bag. Have you ever supported PBS or your local library? If so, perhaps they gave you a tote bag! This tote bag can be carried along with you to the supermarket, mall, sex shop, etc., and used to carry whatever goodies you picked up that day.

One bag not enough? Don't like PBS or your library? Easily solved! You can buy tote bags year-round at H&M in the US for $7.90 - they're stylish and nicely priced! Envirosax is also a good option for you eco-savvy fashionistas out there. If you find it ridiculous to spend money on a bag you're carrying groceries in, you can find things to reuse around your home. For example, take a smallish rice woven bag and a larger woven rice bag. Cut the handles off the large one and sew them onto the smallish one. Voila! Cheap, very sturdy, reusable bag! It might even have a picture of an elephant on it, which would be really cool. Elephants rock.

The She's A Betty blog has a very comprehensive post on how to cut out plastic bag consumption from your life. I highly recommend it for extra reading. Reusablebags.com unsurprisingly offers a lot of insight into this issue, and the wikipedia post on plastic shopping bags is also worth a glance.

My post is coming a little late in the day, but it's a good promo for MCC's Sustainability Day on October 24. From 12-2 PM that day, tables offering ways students can live a little greener will be set up in (I'm guessing right now) Building 3. Providing no one else's table is talking about this, Cabbages + Kings (literary/arts magazine) will have a table talking about reusable bags! And if this topic is taken, Kris will do some quick research to come up with a different table!

P.S. Native Rochester business Wegmans sells reusable bags for $1 each! Tell your friends! Save the Earth. :)

copyfight

2007-10-15T18:55:46Z

vs.

I am so torn up about the recent clash between Cory Doctorow and Ursula K. Le Guin. The former being a newly-discovered favourite author of mine; the latter being a staple in my inundated-by-scifi upbringing. A few months ago, Doctorow posted a paragraph Le Guin had written to the fanzine Ansible, operating under the Creative Commons assumption that

reproducing, for the purposes of commentary, a single paragraph originally published in a noncommercial venue, was fair use under 17USC, the American copyright statute.

The paragraph by Ms. Le Guin is a deliciously snarky short story in her own lyrical voice, and was written in response to this particular comment from a review posted on Ansible in May 2007:

'Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag the decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it.' Ruth Franklin (Slate, 8 May 2007)

I won't post the paragraph here, obviously, but here's a little taste:

Something woke her in the night. Was it steps she heard, coming up the stairs -- somebody in wet training shoes, climbing the stairs very slowly ... but who? And why wet shoes? It hadn't rained. There, again, the heavy, soggy sound. But it hadn't rained for weeks, it was only sultry, the air close, with a cloying hint of mildew or rot, sweet rot, like very old finiocchiona, or perhaps liverwurst gone green.

Basically, Doctorow posted the whole paragraph and felt he had the right to do so under fair use. I'm with him. Le Guin posted the paragraph to her blog and she doesn't appear to charge her online readership for access to her posts. The letter of the law states "single paragraph," which happened to be the entirety of that particular work. At least Doctorow wasn't an ass about it. He could have posted everything but the last sentence or something along those lines.

From what I understand, this became an issue after the San Francisco Chronicle printed the entire work without permission from Le Guin, possibly because Doctorow's post on BoingBoing skewed the intent of the copyright on Le Guin's site. You can read Le Guin's recount of the conflict here, and Doctorow's apology to her here. Doctorow's been criticized for being self-serving even in his apology, but to me, Le Guin comes off the worst. I understand she feels cheated out of $200 or whatever, much less by some upstart young blogger-activist-SF hack with a penchant for Disney World and Digital Rights. So I won't criticize her for her condescending online rebuke of Doctorow. But I will ask, was it entirely necessary for her to turn into a 13-year-old with that last sentence there? "This letter is not copyrighted and may be excerpted or copied entire."

Really?

I dunno, I'm just a disappointed fan here.

(Photo of Cory by Scott Beale; Photo of Ursula by Marion Wood Kolisch.)

roadtriiiiiip.

2007-10-11T17:11:48Z

Hey, who wants to go to Ft Worth with me? October 19? We can go to this awesome thing at the Modern Art Museum - "Modern til Midnight". It features the hyperrealist sculptures of Ron Mueck, and abstract paintings of four post-WWII artists who really expanded the world of abstract art. Also, St Vincent is playing a show there! Right at the museum. I saw her open for Arcade Fire in May, and she's something else. There was a birdcage onstage for her performance, and I'm pretty sure that's where the chirping noises were coming from for one of her songs. It was delightful. If that's not enough of a draw, current indie dear Peter and the Wolf (and his "junk orchestra") will be opening.

Cooooome on! Texas, guys! Art! Music! Wonderfulness!

Photo courtesy of Haddhar on flickr.