Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Brian's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
6:16 pm	A TV for one of my NOLA friends Hey all, I'm getting a new TV on Friday (Oct 23) and need to make room for it, so am trying to find someone who is interested in my 6-year-old Panasonic Tau 36" flat screen HDTV. It's a solid TV that has never given me any problems and looks great when watching DVD/Blu-ray or playing video games. It is a tube TV, not an LCD or Plasma, with a great picture, up to 480p and 1080i. It has plenty of hookups - 2 component, at least 2 composite (maybe 4 - can confirm if you're interested), and an S-Video. Because it's a tube, there are none of those motion detail problems that more recent TVs are still fixing... it just has a beautiful, colorful, flat, and bright CRT display. However, because it's a tube, it weighs more than 200 pounds, which means no shipping... only local pickup (highly preferred) or dropoff. The TV has always worked great with no problems - I just wanted to step up to a 16:9 TV with 1080p, that I can move around on my own. Name your price... if you can come get it, and get someone to help you with the lifting, so that I don't have to strain, you can just have it. Don't want it, but know of a local charity that will come get it and do the lifting? Help me out with a recommendation... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 13th, 2009
3:05 am	Hot. Humid. 3am. So, I just popped into Flanagan's for a nightcap. A girl that I sorta know - a solid acquaintance - actually came up to me to tell me how much she loves my art and how she wishes I'd have another gallery show. It's a great thought, but shows that she knows me even less than I know her. While I'm a kind of artist, I'm clearly not the person she thought I was. It happens. I wasn't inclined to create an awkward moment by telling her she had the wrong guy, so I just played along. She even suggested a gallery where I might have a show. Cool. Bottom line. I liked the feeling she was giving me by making me feel like an accomplished artist. I dug it. This tells me that I need to spend a lot more time writing and a lot less time being a t-shirt guy. Anyway, it's warm and I'm heading down Bourbon to see if a friend is working at this place with these people doing things. And things. And stuff. Happy June! Summer is here in the City that Care Forgot. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
2:49 pm	Battlestar Galactica - When Science Fiction isn't Science Fiction I finally watched the last 6 or so episodes of the SciFi channel's Battlestar Galactica, including the series finale. My first reaction was "Thank goodness that's over." Don't get me wrong - like nearly all of the fans of this groundbreaking show ("groundbreaking" almost doesn't seem like a big enough word to describe what happens when a mediocre network, based mostly on second-run and straight-to-DVD fare develops a series that has this kind of impact on popular culture), I love the characters, the settings, the struggle. It's that last one, though... the struggle... that made this such a tiring show to watch. Indeed, it's the very reason it has taken me this long to catch up. When the miniseries and the first season aired, I was rapt... despite the fact that I was TiVoing the series, I could barely wait to watch the episodes. Starting somewhere halfway through the second season, though, I started to let the episodes pile up on the TiVo. Did I lose interest in the show? No, not really, but it got to the point where I couldn't just jump in and enjoy. While the drama was compelling and the acting was world-class, the fun was sort of just gone. Even the sense of awe that usually accompanies good Science Fiction seemed to be missing as marines struggled through wet forests or did shots and played cards in the mess hall. In my college days, I took a class from multiple Nebula-award winning SF author Pat Murphy. She wrote good stuff like Rachel in Love and The Falling Woman, which you may recall if you're an SF-head. On the first day of class, she tried to explain what made a story Science Fiction. Paraphrasing, it went something like this: Sheila walked her terrier on a slight red leash on 44th Avenue, dodging suited professionals on their way to work in Manhattan high rises, while the dog occupied himself sniffing at trees and post boxes for a suitable place to lift his leg. Finally, he pulled hard at the leash, nosing something down in the gutter. Sheila turned back and bent to examine the shiny metal object. It looked like a human arm, except for the still pumping pneumatics that curled and uncurled the metal fingers. "Oh, Spike, don't touch that! One of the serving drones must have gotten winged by a hovertruck." Normal people living in a recognizable world, but with a few... differences. On that basic level, Battlestar Galactica certainly qualifies as Science Fiction. It's a stirring drama of humans living normal lives... drinking, screwing, working, just on a spaceship during a war with robots. At the same time, Science Fiction usually also incorporates the science as the seed of conflict. In the beginning, BSG did this too. After all, it was the technology of sentient machines created by humans, and then subjugated by them, that stood at the heart of the Cylon uprising. This also touches on the social commentary that often appears in SF. Science Fiction regularly shows us our sins by exposing them in the light of fusion drives and distant stars. The sin of prejudice and racism couched in the oppression and uprising of sentient machines is a common theme that we see in films like Blade Runner (is it okay to mistreat machines if they look like humans?). SF makes it easier to approach controversial subjects objectively by removing the issue to a world that is separated by a few degrees. What made BSG clever at the beginning was that the creators took a WWII aesthetic - a world at war, struggling with genocide, rife with sleeper spies - and plopped it down in a world with robots and faster than light travel. Neato, right? For me, though, this cleverness wore off... that hybrid future history aesthetic only carried the show through the miniseries. After that, it just became a solid military drama. A good one... a great one, even. But, I really signed up for Science Fiction. I think the writers of the show acknowledged this, by occasionally injecting twists that pulled the show back into the realm of wonder. Resurrection ships, stealth Vipers, post-apocalyptic cities, prophecies, high tech temples, bleeding spaceships, black holes, supernovas. Dig it. All good stuff. One of my favorite moments in the show was when the four sleepers "woke up" to the tune of Jimi Hendrix's cover of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower. The lyrics invaded their dialog, the beat assaulted their dreams, until they knew that they weren't human. What excited me about this was the fusion of the science with a daring experiment in storytelling. The song that triggered the Cylons wasn't a Caprican ballad, it was a recognizable song from 20th Century Earth. So, the question that kept me wanting more was whether it was meant to be a song from the Earth in the BSG universe, or whether it was an intrusion of diegetic storytelling. Both were intriguing. Does the song "mean" something in the series, or is it just the unheard narrator winking at us? If you've seen the end of the series, you actually know the answer to this... and here's where potential spoilers start, if you haven't seen the series finale (but what are the chances of that?). I enjoyed the series, whether SF, military drama, or both, but it wasn't without its pitfalls. Sometimes, it seemed like the writers created scenarios that would be shocking, but without knowing what the larger plan was. I definitely got the feeling that the overall arc of the story changed unexpectedly just because they wanted to shake things up. Sometimes it worked (like with the first four of the final five Cylons) and sometimes the writers seemed to change their minds and back out of a problem they introduced (as with the final Cylon - there was no thrill to discovering that Ellen was the last... the thrills would have come with any of half-dozen others in the same spot). Sometimes it seems like they didn't follow through with a twist they began because the solution was too predictable. "Everyone thinks that the final Cylon is going to be Adama or Roslin or Starbuck, so we can't do that... it has to be someone that no one even cares about." That is not a win. For me, the biggest failure to follow through came in the final episode. There was an enormous set up for epic revelations. Starbuck had found her own burned up corpse on the blighted Earth, and then she began receiving "hints" revolving around the same song that switched on the sleepers. Sam reveals another Cylon named Daniel. Ellen later tells us that Daniel was a model corrupted by Dean Stockwell's character. The final assault takes place in the accretion disk of a black hole. But, in the end, each of the potential revelations seemed to have gotten castrated along the way. One of these potential revelations that never went anywhere was the Daniel Cylon. From what was said about Daniel being an artist had me thinking that Cavil's tampering with Daniel's soup made him a chick that we know as Kara Thrace. She paints, she plays the piano, she's a little butch, and she found her own dead body. For me, that revelation would have had a lot of payoff - sadly, in an almost last minute "Oh shit, we never explained Kara's angle" way, she just disappeared with the suggestion that she was an angel. Apparently she was a "sleeper" angel who realized it about the same time that she flitted back to the Empyrean. Then there was the climactic battle within reach of a black hole that ended with a sudden warp to the "real" Earth. Come on people, we all know that, in Science Fiction land, warping near the intense gravity of the singularity at the heart of a black hole can create all kinds of nasty effects, from traveling through time to transitioning to alternate universes. Here's how it should've ended... The battle is going to shit, there's no hope, the Earth we groped towards for four seasons is fucked, and Kara realizes that the song that has been infecting her brain has given her the FTL coordinates to save the Galactica. She types the numbers and they warp away from the battle. The singularity pulls at the Galactica's warp field, causing it to create a wormhole that pulls the ship back to where the blighted Earth had been, but in a time well before the 13th colony had landed and ultimately destroyed the planet. In the end, humanity is saved, they settle on the green Earth and try to build a world that hopefully won't destroy itself again. A second chance. The introduction of the obvious astrophysics to the situation could also have neatly explained Kara's dead body. Either she was also a Cylon on the destroyed Earth, like Sam and the others, or she experienced a similar phenomenon during her dogfight in the storm of the gas giant. Perhaps her Viper was shot through a wormhole to Earth where it experienced a quantum event that both crashed her ship in fiery death, while simultaneously returning an alternate universe copy of Kara Thrace back through the wormhole. Because of this encounter at a quantum crossroads, she now has a psychic tie to her other self that made it to Earth and inexplicably feels that she knows how to return. Well, just a thought. Is it solid? Certainly not, but it's just an idea that struck me casually during a LiveJournal post. I'm not a writer on the biggest SciFi show in recent memory... if I were, I could have spent more time with an idea like that, to make the finale for the show a bit more awe-inspiring and mind-bending. Especially, when you consider that the show itself prided itself on being mind-twisting. Ultimately, I wasn't satisfied with the non-explanation of Starbuck's experiences (she may as well have woken up from a dream), or with the "wait, here's just another planet we can live on" wrap up. It would have resonated for me better on a storytelling level, if the "science" fiction in "Science Fiction" had created a mythical event to return humans from the pit of existential despair back to a new beginning, and to return the home at the end of their epic journey to the paradise alluded to in scriptures. In desperation, greedily groping through fighting and death, humans find themselves at the end of existence on a blighted Eden. However, a selfless act by the ruined remains of humanity in a place of epic meaning, causes the universe to return humanity to its mythic birthplace before the fall of man, with the knowledge of what lies ahead to help them build a better world. Awesome, yes? Sadly, instead of something awesome, we got something fairly mundane (even considering the nod to angelic intervention). The Galactica got its ass kicked, then drove to a new address... still fun to watch with cool effects, flawless acting, and beautiful photography. Oh, and we didn't need to be told that they ended up on prehistoric Earth. We all got that pretty much right away without the flash forward. We also got the message that creating life to do our bidding is bad, mmkay... we don't need to see dancing robots and listen to pointless patter of two alleged angels to realize the threat of repeating the same mistakes. Those 11 minutes of extra stuff were wholly unnecessary if you trust your audience. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
2:36 pm	DSL no more So, in resolution... On Friday, I got a call from Earthlink letting me know that the phone company cleared the line, and that I should be able to access the Internet. The "technician" suggested I call them if I have any further problems. Whoa there, Tex, it's still not working. This attitude was typical of Earthlink every day for the last two weeks. "Now, try browsing the Internet. You should be fine." "Uh, no. I still can't connect." Followed by my repeating that the issue isn't on my end and that the problem started when they made changes to my account. Followed by me being ignored, and asked to restart my computer and turn off antivirus software, despite the notable fact that the modem itself can't ping outside addresses. Later, after Earthlink decided they needed to send a line technician to my home, I called and cancelled. No small task. No, I will not pay a fee for the replacement modem you sent - it didn't fix the problem and I told you it wouldn't. Yes, I committed for another year when I got the promotional price for a speed increase, but I haven't been provided any service at all since that commitment. No, I don't want to cancel at the end of my prepaid month in 20+ days. I want to cancel right now, after two weeks of ineptitude. I called Cox, they dispatched a guy the next morning, Saturday, I picked up the cable modem around Noon, and had Internet access by 1pm. It costs me about the same, and so far tests at at least 4 times faster than the DSL downstream or at most about 20 times faster. Upstream is about the same as the DSL. No static IP and they block port 80, but some fiddling with my Apache server produced a reasonable workaround (thanks tepesh). Fuck Earthlink. Cox are assholes, too, but at least they're providing me service. For now, that's fine. Oh, they did disrupt what had been free cable, but the tech showed me where the dongle that blocked it was attached. I don't really care, though. With fast downloads, streaming Hulu and Netflix is now a breeze. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
5:32 pm	DSL woes So, it all began almost two weeks ago, when I called Earthlink, my DSL provider and asked if I could upgrade the speed. They said, of course, we can even give you 6mbps service if you sign up today. Yeah, sure, I said. And that's when I lost Internet access. I've spent several hours of almost everyday since then on the phone with tech support in India. I've been through all the levels, even spoken to line techs. Some of the reps were more competent than others. All, with the exception of two (I've talked to at least a dozen, no joke), would not take what I had to say into account. I've been through discussions where the tech assured me I had no static IP, even when I told them that it was being assigned to my modem while I was talking to them. I had another assure me that I was authenticated on the network, even when I told them that the login server was refusing my login and password. Three times, a tech said they'd call me back, but never did. For about two days (last Monday and Tuesday), I had Internet access - a line tech called me and said "your static IP isn't working, but if you power cycle your modem, you'll get a dynamic IP that will work." It did work, and I had nice fast speeds, too. When I called to ask about my static IP after a couple days, it went to shit again. Silly me. They insisted it was the modem and sent a replacement, which wasted four days. Of course, they even closed the ticket, assuming the modem was the problem, even after I tried to tell them I had just had access the day before, when I got switched to a dynamic IP. They wouldn't listen, and when the new modem wouldn't work, they assumed it was my computer or virus software, even though I told them the diagnostic tool on the modem itself couldn't ping outside addresses. Of course, after receiving the new modem, I had to start at Level 1 support again. The number of times I've reset modems, reset my computer, created a new Windows connection, changed the modem to bridge mode and back to routing mode... Well, I can't count that high. Finally, I got a tech on the phone who seemed as irked by my ongoing struggle as I am. After doing some initial troubleshooting he said, "well, I can see from your case that you've already tried the normal troubleshooting" and basically skipped the kindergarten stuff and started speaking to me like an advanced user ("open the command prompt and ping this address" instead of "click the star menu, select run, type c as in cat, m as in Mary, etc.") He spoke with vendors, kept me on the phone while we were transferred uselessly from department to department, and practically yelled at someone who tried to shrug him off. Over the course of two days, he has called me back three times to give me more info. Now, I'm waiting for the vendor to send a tech to the CO, to see if they can fix the problem. What problem, I'm not sure. I had Internet access before, just a couple weeks ago. The only thing I did was ask for more speed, silly me. If whatever they are doing doesn't work soon, I'm switching ISPs. Does anyone know how long it takes to get set up with Bellsouth DSL here in New Orleans? Would they need to reprovision the line, or could they just turn me on? How about cable Internet through Cox? Unfortunately, I host a server, so that's not ideal, but it would be better than nothing. I'm looking for broadband fast. I've lost too much time already. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
3:45 pm	Push movie So, on the way back from Megacon in Orlando, we decided to take it easy and stop early, see a movie, get some rest. While the local art house in Tallahassee, where we stopped for the night, was showing a couple of films we've been meaning to see, like The Wrestler and The Reader, we decided we couldn't bother with a movie that we'd have to pay much attention to. So, we saw Push. Hailed as a nonstop actioner, it did begin with a bang and kept moving. I had mixed feelings about the film, but ultimately found it enjoyable, even if it fell short of its potential. Push presents an imaginative world where humans with extraordinary psychic abilities have been studied and tortured since Nazis in World War II attempted to turn them into powerful weapons. Now, every world government seems to have its own Division doing the same thing in top secret laboratories. The film takes place in Hong Kong and creates a mythology encompassing warring factions composed of various types of superhumans. Sniffers can track someone by using the target's personal belongings, while Watchers can psychically perceive the choices that a person makes and sketch the future that follows. Shifters can temporarily transmute objects to appear as other objects, and Movers can telekinetically move objects and people. Then there are the Bleeders whose supersonic shrieks can make you, well, bleed and die. The most dangerous kind of superhuman, though, is the Pusher who can seed thoughts and memories in a target's mind, causing them to believe things and commit actions with utter conviction. The film shows us a reluctant Mover, played by Chris Evans, recruited by Dakota Fanning as a 13-year old Watcher to help her find a mysterious woman with a mysterious suitcase, so that she can convince Division agents to release her imprisoned mother, also a Watcher. To describe much more of the ensuing plot would ruin many of the mysteries and twists of the film. Much of what follows consists of battles between our heroes, and their allies, against a superhuman Hong Kong crime family and a clutch of powerful Division agents, while trying to track down the mysterious case. One of the more exciting scenes has gangster Bleeders chasing down main Mover, Nick, and teenage Watcher Cassie through a Hong Kong fish market, amid shrieks and showers of broken glass from the aquariums of exploding fish. Another is a dramatic gun battle where the guns are floating and firing in mid-air, while two Movers deflect bullets with their minds. As exciting as this sounds, and it is definitely super-neato on a conceptual level, the action scenes don't quite have the impact of films like the Matrix, or even Equilibrium. Like last year's Jumper, the film is high on concept, but falls short when it comes to really involving the audience in the action scenes on a gut level. Maybe it boils down to a lack of real choreography, where most of the action happens in narrow areas and tight closeups, with so much debris flying, that it is hard to really see what is happening. Having said that, you should see Push. It may not fully live up to its potential, lacking the high impact polish of The Matrix, it is nonetheless a nonstop ride of high concept action, packed with neat scenery, attractive people, and occasional moments that really make you utter "cool" under your breath. Oh, and in what seems like an endless string of movies setting out to tarnish the character of Hollywood's favorite little girl actress, this one gives us a gothy, strung out, and, at least once in the movie, totally shit-faced and swearing Dakota Fanning. Awesome. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
1:42 pm	Cat want thing So, we're all familiar with the way a cat (or dog or whatever) will tell you he or she is hungry by trying to lead you to the food dish, right? Or, maybe your pet wants to be let outside and will sit by the door with big eyes. Of course, not having speech at their command, our pets must rely on body language, usually the overwraught body language of silent film-era actors. I'm very used to Dante telling me he's hungry by rubbing about my calves and then walking off in the direction of his dish in the kitchen, looking back frequently to make sure that I'm behind him and stopping as needed to coax me along. Last night, he began the preamble to this signal, so I ambled into the kitchen and checked his food dish. It was full. Then I realized he had not followed me into the kitchen. Instead, he waited in the living room. When I rejoined him, imploring him to tell me what he wanted, he led me into the bedroom and sat down. Not clear what he wanted, I mumbled "whatever" and went back to the living room. He eagerly followed me and coaxed me back to the bedroom. This time I realized what he was actually doing in the bedroom. It was the first time I had seen him formally request this particular thing. You see, it was a little chilly, and he had led me into the bedroom and sat his black furry ass down in front of the unlit heater. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, he was cold, and only the fire from our gas heater would satisfy him. Dante loves the fire (and anything warm - you, me, freshly dried laundry). Here he is, enjoying the heater from the bed and wondering what I'm doing behind him. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
9:42 pm	Respect! The Edgar Allan Poe stamp has been out for a month or more, to commemorate Poe's birthday, but is still pretty classy. Go get you some. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, January 9th, 2009
6:28 pm	A tale of iPhones, androids, iTunes, and Amazon My friend tepesh showed me his new t-mobile G1 phone, and let me play around with it a little. I've done some minimal reading on the phone and it's open source aesthetic. It's a solidly made HTC phone, with great functionality (with the minor exception that, here in New Orleans, T-mobile has yet to roll out its 3G network). But, I'm not here to review the phone. However, it did give me an idea that I'm still grasping at. ( It's long, be sure you've got a few minutes before clicking here ) Posted via LiveJournal.app. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
1:03 am	A day on Rodeo drive The week before most people celebrate the Xmas holiday, I was on a solo minivacation in Beverly Hills. I spent a day on Rodeo drive and took a few pictures. Because of the timezone difference, I was up earlier than usual, even managing to indulge in the hot breakfast at my hotel (the Residence Inn Beverly Hills, normally $170+/night, pricelined for $65/night - yay priceline). From breakfast, I wandered out to the street and made my way towards Rodeo, only a couple blocks away. The southernmost part of the street is a neighborhood lined with extravagant homes, befitting the Beverly Hills zipcode. ( See the homes ) After enjoying the quiet morning stroll through this extraordinarily beautiful neighborhood, I was confronted by the notoriously upscale shopping district that the world knows as Rodeo Drive. I was out so early on this beautiful sunny California day, that the shops were not yet open, and I had the area mostly to myself. ( The shops ) After making a few rounds between Rodeo and Beverly, I adjourned to the nearby park for a break... ( ...and a sitdown under this massive tree.  ) Then, it was down the street to the cafe at the Luxe hotel for a small lunch. ( Lunchtime ) I finished my jaunt with a stroll back to my hotel. That night, I found the time to visit Perversion on Hollywood Blvd, a club I frequented semi-regularly when I lived in San Diego. I was disappointed at how small the turnout was, but I still had a good time, drinking and dancing. In the restroom mirror, I attempted to take a self-portrait, but was waylaid by the club's own photographer, who insisted on doing it for me. ( I'm a charmer, I know.  ) After the club, I indulged in a morsel from a street vendor that may change my drunk cravings forever: a grilled, bacon-wrapped hot dog, with peppers, onions, and mustard. It's the little things in life. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 27th, 2008
3:22 am	3am in the French Quarter Low clouds settle over the tall buildings in the CBD, while the wind moves trash and dry leaves along the street in impatient gusts. A car rolls by, and a passenger shouts "you looking for a good time?!" out the open window. Then, all is silent again, as the clouds stream overhead like a heavenward scene on a cyclorama. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
5:18 pm	Snow... in New Orleans Well, it's not the first time, but it is pretty rare. Here's a pic of our courtyard with the fluff coming down. It wasn't cold enough to really collect on the ground, but there was some on my car. You can see it falling in front of the windows on the top. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
3:49 pm	The Gelato place behind the cathedral... ...now has a respectable sandwich and soup menu. I had the Muffuletta-style panini. It was good. For Quarter rats it's a nice little joint for breakfast/lunch on St. Peter between Jackson Square and Royal. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 21st, 2008
10:45 pm	Ceremony The ceremony was complete. The crossroads was dim in the orange light of the sodium street lamp. The wind had been howling, but now all was silent, except for the churning of a late night combine across the fields and a low hum from the power lines. The copse of trees at the edge of the road never stirred, but when I turned towards it, I could dimly see the boy's pale face, and messy crop of blonde hair. There was a spreckling of freckles across his nose, as if he spent his days playing among the tall cornstalks. His body was in the shadows, but there was the hint of a red tshirt and denim overalls. He opened his pale and chapped lips wide, as if to shout, but there was no sound. However, the movement of his lips was impossible to misunderstand. "You agree your soul is mine?" I nodded and that was it. The wind crackled the leaves in the treetops, and the thrum of the cicadas rose. Everything seemed normal again, as if the crossroads had stopped holding it's breath. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
1:54 pm	Cat in the window We're having a strange weather phenomenon in New Orleans that I can only see outside the study window. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
10:40 pm	For those who missed the Sisters of Mercy show in ATL... ...it was awesome. Behold: I bet you've never seen an awesomely foggy photo like that from a Sisters show! You have? Impossible! The sound was crap at the beginning, but seemed to improve over time. A couple guys in the audience tried to tell/mime to Von that the sound needed to be louder (it was fairly quiet) because they "love to hear you sing", to which he replied from the stage, in traditionally snarky fashion, something to the effect of that not being his job and "we can talk about it all night, if you like." Opened with newish "crash and burn", closed with "temple of love." In between were snarls and riffs and wails, some of which you'd recognize as "alice" and "anaconda" and "giving ground." Most memorable: the increasingly stonking "summer" and frenzied fast versions of "Lucretia" and "First and Last and Always." In there somewhere was corrosion, dominion/mr, and train/detonation boulevard and other usual suspects. Another shade of empty... [addendum] For those of you catching the Sisters in a city near you, be sure to brush up on your Merciful Karaoke. You will be judged on accuracy during the mandatory singalongs of Mother Russia and, of course, Vision Thing. Overall, this was a good show. Better than the last tour, but not as energetic as Distance Over Time or even the Planet's Edge tour. Andy looks about the same, but there was a bit of mumbling here and there, and he seemed to just lip twitch through a few lines. Still good fun. I feel a little sorry for the young'uns wearing HIM and 69 eyes shirts who clearly knew they should pay homage to the band that started it all, but maybe didn't get what they expected. Us oldtimers can fill in some of the blanks from our exhaustive show memory and bootleg collections. Thanks to Kurt and Sabrina for pleasant post-show drinking and discussion. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
12:05 am	A short jaunt in Lovecraft's Providence After leaving Orlando and making my way towards New Jersey for Chiller Theatre, I had a couple days to kill, so I decided to spend a day and a half in Providence, Rhode Island, since that would leave me only 3 hours from Parsippany, NJ, where Chiller takes place. Plus, I'd be able to wander in H. P. Lovecraft's footsteps. So, I pricelined a couple nights at the harbor Radisson ($59/night for a $124/night room - Shatner would be proud). I arrived late on Tuesday night, after a videogame-like drive through New York City, and bedded down. The next morning was too rainy for much sightseeing, but I did manage to walk downtown for a meatball sub at an amiable college-type pie joint. Later, an abortive walk to Swan Point cemetery after dark, then rushing on foot back to College Hill for the Providence Ghost Tour. The tour was fun, the guide cheerful and funny, but the topics were more orbs and Poe, than Lovecraft and nightgaunts. The evening even ended with a dramatic rendition of The Raven, instead of Lovecraft's New England ruminations, which would have seemed more appropriate in his hometown. The long walk back to the hotel left my feet aching and shredded. I woke on Thursday to a sunny New England day. After checking out, I walked out to India Point Park on the harbor to enjoy the autumnal trees, leaves burning like fire, red and brown like rust. The harbor glittered with the cool white of the morning sun, punctuated by upright remnants of pier pilings. The piers, or perhaps a boardwalk, had been ripped out leaving only the brown supports, dark and splintered like charred fingerbones, or a sparse nightmare version of the Giant's Causeway. Breakfast was in order, so I made my way to The Brickway on Wickenden, where I enjoyed pancakes with fresh blueberries and an omelette of bacon, feta, and peppers. Yum. Now, it was time to enter the gates of memory to Lovecraft's Providence. With the help of a walking tour made for the now extinct NecronomiCon, I took my first footsteps toward College Hill, following the horror-shrouded wake of one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. ( The tour and photos begin beneath the cut ) And so, Howard Phillips Lovecraft found inspiration and dark adventure in the narrow streets of his lifelong home. Among the autumn colors of October maples, white steeples and golden domes, amid library stacks punctuated with human skin tomes, the great old ones whispered in his ear, filling his brain with the noxious and pallid mist of forgotten epochs and unseen places. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
1:40 am	Ugh. Had to evacuate our hotel. So, one more day to go at Chiller Theatre, and just as we were about to go to sleep, the fire alarm went off. After a few minutes of "what the fuck?" we grabbed our sweatshirts, put on shoes and pants and headed down to the parking lot. Apparently, the hotel was filling with carbon monoxide. They've opened up the Fuddruckers next door so the guests have a place to sit. We've been out of the room for almost an hour. For now, we wait. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 3rd, 2007
12:11 am	Have you seen the Yellow Sign? I forgot to mention... had a nice (if short) Halloween. I nearly completed (enough to wear) my King in Yellow costume. It still needs a few additions, like a Yellow Sign for the front and back (but I want to design my own Yellow Sign based on the Hyades cluster, instead of using Kevin Ross's/Chaosium's version - since it's described as something that looks like a Kanji fused with an Egyptian hieroglyph, I wanted something a little different than the common one which doesn't really evoke either... though it's still cool). Here are a couple pics... I was just over 7' tall, which was a neat experience. Everything but the stilts were homemade... papier mache (pallid) mask, sewn costume bits (thanks for victorine's assistance in the 11th hour). Refinements for Mardi Gras will hopefully include some additional height, under-robe tentacles, the aforementioned Yellow Sign, some scarier hands, and a better version of the crown I made, not pictured here, because it looked too dumb to wear in public. I'm also thinking I need to acquire an appropriate skull thingy from Catalyst Studios for a cane-topper... the current cane is pretty much just a mop handle in black duct tape... functional, but not very costumey. ( Here are a couple more groovy pics... ) For a full rundown of our Halloween in NOLA pics (seems silly to duplicate these in my journal - but everyone looked great and disturbing... kudos to everyone, especially Sticky Sara, Fireman Dave, and Moneybags Mike. Thanks to all the wonderful NOLAween costumes!), check Victorine's post. [EDIT: Forgot to mention, for those who know what this King in Yellow stuff is all about, I actually had the fortune of a drunk reveler gaping up towards me and asking "Can I ask you something?" "Of course, my son, I answered, what do you want to know?" He pauses and says "What is the question to ask?" Of course, I had only one answer... "Have you seen the Yellow Sign?" After a perplexed moment he wandered off... changed forever, I presume, by the astonishing revelation and ready to gather with my other initiates in the army of the King, to bring searing visions of Hali and dim Carcossa to the Empire of America.] Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Dethklok - Go Into The Water (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
4:52 pm	Sigh Co. Staff at San Diego Comic-con International We've lined up some great help for San Diego, this year. As usual, names for badges have to be submitted before we even really know who's helping us... we usually just put placeholders like "Minion." This year, we were lucky to get a full badge list together. Here's a list of the folk you'll see behind the booth: Brian Callahan (Owner) Gwen Callahan (Owner) Michael Heckman (Pit Boss) Donatien de Sade (Motivational Counselor) Erzsébet Báthory (Human Resources) Obed Marsh (Trans-Atlantic Liaison) Madeline Usher (Lady of Wailing) Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Personal Assistant) I can't wait! (2 Comments |Comment on this)