What They Found

MyBoot.com (the original site is gone, but thanks to the wonder of web archives its ghost will haunt the web forever)

Where to begin?  I can’t even remember how I found the site, back in the era of America Online  and the WHASSUUUUUUP commercials. It’s been a while, but Craig Mitchell’s 23-part Novella “She Hates My Futon” is still just as readable as it was back in 1999 when I discovered it, and still just as incomplete.  Essentially, it’s the allegedly true story of the author’s exploits after signing up with the “Girlfriend Express” dating agency.  Coming from me, this sounds pretty unenticing.  However, the author is one of those natural story tellers with a great writing style.  The perils of dating single mothers, 80’s nostalgia, team naked, rocket ship playground slide sex.  There’s a reason I’m not the only person wondering what happened to him or why he never finished this piece of work.  A copy of the full text can be found here if you happen to enjoy it, and I hope you do.

I just stumbled on a new, TED-like site, Fora.tv.  According to Fora’s about page,

“FORA.tv helps intelligent, engaged audiences get smart. Our users find, enjoy, and share videos about the people, issues, and ideas changing the world.

We gather the web’s largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates going on all the time at the world’s top universities, think tanks and conferences. We present this provocative, big-idea content for anyone to watch, interact with, and share –when, where, and how they want.

With our community of savvy users and an extensive, growing library of smart videos, FORA.tv is at the forefront of the ongoing integration - and transformation – of the traditional media, TV, cable, and online industries from mass-market to high-quality, high-value content.”

Plenty of nosh for your noggin.  Coincidentally, here’s another talk by Ken Robinson about learning to be creative and encouraging creativity in all walks of life.  The topics range from creativity, passion, and education, to  standardized testing,  climate change, and industrialization.  It’s a good listen, but about an hour and a half long, so hunker down for the long haul or listen till you’re bored, whichever comes first.

Woolard Horseshoeing.

Yes, it’s an unpolished website under construction, but it’s much more.  This is particularly relevant, considering my response to Geena in the comments about school killing creativity, and about how the deadening view of adults towards children seems to be that you’ve got to grow up to be a suit and tie wearing, cubicle dwelling, traditional money maker to be successful.  I just caught up with my friend, Brice, who went through the same biomedical science program through the college of veterinary medicine at Texas A&M.  It turns out, while interning at a horse breeding farm, he got to be friends with the farrier, sort of like a blacksmith with a background in veterinary medicine.  He took a liking to the trade, went back to school, and is currently operating his own horseshoeing business in the Brazos county area, carving out his niche and building up clientelle.

How badass is that?  Instead of just following the prescribed path before him, he had the gumption to follow his interests and pursue a  personally rewarding path and make it a reality.  Never mind that you probably won’t find blacksmith or farrier (have you even heard of a farrier before?) on the typical biomedical science career sheet.  He gets paid to play with horses all day, he’s using his education, and he’s doing something he enjoys, not just chasing the money.  Props to you Brice, and best of luck, I’ll be checking up in the future to watch your business grow.

***Edit:  Can’t forget to spotlight Brice’s project, the Johnny Cash Cover Band, one of the most spot on Cash impersonations I’ve ever heard, hands down.  Amazing.  A nod to Carrie as well, the voice of June Carter Cash from the JCCB and a musician in her own right.  Beautiful.

Another fascinating talk from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) series, which focuses on innovative ideas from creative thinkers, all free for the viewing.  Clearly barking up my tree, she discusses how much food has shaped  society and cities past and present, from Rome to London, and how the advent of industrialization, mass transportation, and other food technologies divorced cities from nature, leading to a direct relationship between the growth of non-organic cities and the devaluation of food in society.  Interesting how the earliest city shown actually resembled an animal cell, its size and growth dependent on constraints of resources, and the cities post-industrialization resembled cancerous growths, countless reproductions of houses, growing ceaselessly and without regard for original function and resource-balanced homeostasis, choking out the land they depend on.  It made me smile to recognize  her descriptions of permaculture before she actually said the word, and it caught me off guard hearing it discussed outside of a permie environment(the second TED talk I’ve heard make mention so far).  Enjoy some…wait for it…food…for thought.

<via seriouseats>

YouTube - Every Day A Story-Fragile State.

No explanations needed.  HD mode. Full screen.  Bask in the peaceful beauty.

<via Soulpancake>

***UPDATE: These clips were taken from a 19 minute speech at the TED conference in 2006, and can be found here.

This really resonates with what i’ve been reading lately about in my special education course.  With “exceptional learners”, it’s important to focus on the abilities of the student, not just the disabilities.  It doubly resonates in regards to having creativity educated out of us.  I’ve recently been advised to read Mindset, by Carol Dweck.  According to my source, there’s a good bit of psychobabble bullshit (what’s the origin of this phrase?), but it has some good things to say about having a growth mindset, not being afraid to make mistakes.  Definitely something I feel like I’ve had educated out of me.   Where’d the creative little GT kid go, the one who tried to make wax models of the atom bomb for class and built self-standing articulated ATST walkers from k’nex and my own imagination?  I hope that geek’s still in here somewhere, I miss him.  Anyone else feel like they’ve got their inner creative child gagged and duct taped in a car trunk somewhere?

A link from the old standby Kottke.org (Congratulations on your new little one, Baby 2.0) led me to a really cool link about cassette tapes molded to skeletal forms, a la the death of analog media. Kottke.org is currently getting an assist from Ainsley Drew, of the Jerkethic.com persuasion, while caring for his newborn.

A somewhat random link buried at the end of one of many darkly comic posts on Jerkethic sent me to a video for The Toaster’s “Don’t let the bastards grind you down“, which was characteristically upbeat and used in the pilot episode of the animated series Mission Hill, according to one of the commenters.  This show will always be wed in my brain to one night in college spent on the couch with a cute girl I was pre-dating, staying up till dawn watching whatever was on, including but not limited to Mission Hill (The title soundtrack was an instrumental of Cake’s Italian Leather Sofa), the knife show (when you need the 250 pc. American Heroes Hologram Embossed Knife Collection and bonus authentic barbarian dragonslayer sword at 4 a.m.), and assorted other horrible (except for Mission Hill) late night tv.

Anyways…the Cake connection led me to wikipedia to verify their collaboration, revealing that they’re frequently played on NPR, including their song “stickshifts and safety belts” on The Splendid Table.  While scanning NPR earlier today, I heard a piano cover from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, which sounded like an interesting challenge for my newly revived keyboard.  Tracking down piano covers of their songs landed me at vkgoeswild’s page, who plays the meanest (and probably only) piano covers of groups like Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Nine Inch Nails that you will ever hear.

A parallel search for piano covers (and hence, sheet music) let to Ben Folds, who collaborated with Julia Nunes, a talented and creative ukulele player who went from posting videos on youtube to winning the Bushman international ukulele competition to making her own CDs, touring in multiple countries, and playing at this year’s Bonnaroo.  She does a lot of self-harmonizing by recording multiple tracks and playing all the “instruments” separately, and then mixing all of the parts together a la the recently departed Les Paul.  Interestingly enough, she’s collaborating with another band, Pomplamoose (french for “grapefruit”), which uses the same technique to create multi-layered two-person auditory deliciousness. Check out Beat the Horse, or their indie-licious cover of Beyonce’s Single Ladies.  Seems they’ve got some potential.

That’s all for now, it’s 1:30 in the morning, and as old as it makes me sound, I’m going to feel it in the morning. Gute nacht, Leser.

BABIES EVERYWHERE!

So, I’ve had an idea floating around in my head for some time now.  Commence rambling. During a two-month period of driving 3 hours to houston and back every weekend, I caught the tail end of an NPR episode of The Splendid Table.  The host ended with a quote from Epicurus, paraphrased “We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.” (Via) I’ll have to ramble about Epicurus in another post, but the quote struck me for some particular reason.

I’ll admit to loving food, especially food that is made with care and attention, food that makes you drop your fork and close your eyes to savor the taste.  In Epicurus’s tradition, however, I prepare most of my own food, simple staples, reasonably healthy, with the occasional Special Cooking Experiment thrown in when there’s time/energy/money to spare.  I recoil slightly from the term “foodie”, with its disparaging connotation (see: hippie, yuppie, preppie(sp?)), but I am very much interested in food as nourishment, art, science, community, tradition, political activism, and many other facets beyond mere sustenance.

While I might not be alone, I have few other people in my life that share such an interest.  Here’s where the quote flicked on my light bulb.  What if there was a social networking site for food lovers?  How about a system for people in a particular geographic vicinity with a love for good food to meet other food lovers, arrange meetups to try an eatery they’ve been hungry to try?  While many people have no problem dining in public alone, what about the people that prefer to eat with somebody who can share the experience with a similar appreciation?  The first thought that sprang to mind was S.T.E.W., an acronym for Someone To Eat With, as well as a double entendre for the function of bringing together many different types of food-loving people in a cohesive community.  People could create profiles, review restaurants and highlight local food vendors/farmers markets/food producers, display a list of dining/food experiences they’d like to try, and find others who wanted to join them.  There could be articles/advertisements for local growers and producers of food, in order to bolster the local food economy.  My vision grew to encompass classes or webinars for preserving food traditions, as well as orchestrating groups for food related activities (purchasing locally grown grass-fed cows by the half or quarter, canning, putting in gardens).  I even envisioned a Twitter-like feed, where somebody could post their location and food questions/preferences, and have others respond with suggestions/answers/invitations to dine with.  While I know that there are other foodie networking sites around, they usually have a heavier emphasis on food porn/recipes/reviews.  My main priorities were community, local, and interaction.  Making connections, building relationships, and passing on knowledge.

Does anyone else think this is a good idea?  Is this just the pipedream of a food lover in a foodie wasteland?  Would this be a worthwhile endeavor to create?  Until I have more time and programming experience, it’ll have to stay shelved, unless somebody else wants to take the idea and run with it.  Just remember, if you become successful, a little acknowledgement would be appreciated.  That, and 50% of profits.  After all, a man’s gotta eat.