Inter-state of desire

October 23, 2006


I-90Sometimes, I just want to travel. To anywhere. It doesn’t matter. When I turn onto the interstate in the morning, I want to keep going, to let the road lead me to my next destination, without any plan or reason. I want to continue ahead, passing through the heart of the country and emerging in another state – in another culture altogether.

I think about this every morning. What would happen if I just kept going? If I hopped on Interstate 90 and went South, passing through every town center and mingling with every city’s normal traffic, a stranger becoming part of the local driving culture. I look around and wonder how many of my fellow commuters are actually just passing through for the day, circling the city in search of a rest stop or McDonalds, drifting through South Dakota on their way to bigger and better things. Or, quite possibly, smaller and not as important things.

I could meld with the automobile culture of Milwaukee if I arrived at the right time, sitting in traffic like a hunter in a duck blind, seeking out my prey: the experience of being in a new city, another conquered location to add toward my limit. I would become nearly invisible, a body that has never been encountered before. People would find me unremarkable, another car on another road traveling with everyone else.

But I would know better. I would be enjoying every mile of my journey. No one would suspect a thing – that I was not one of them.

It’s always been a dream of mine to hop in the car and travel an interstate from beginning to end. I want to start in Seattle and pass through every location that I-90 services, through Chicago and Cleveland, eventually landing in Boston. Or, I could mix it up, driving until I felt the draw of a random city, spurred on by the name on an interstate exit sign. Continue south through Omaha to Kansas City? Or switch directions at I-80 and continue on to San Francisco. Or New York City.

I harbor a secret jealousy for people who travel as part of their career. I long to travel the same ribbon as millions before me, making pilgrimages to the corners of the country. I want to embark on my generation’s Oregon Trail – our long and perilous journey to destinations unknown.

Every major town is connected to each other through the interstate system. You could visit any city in the nation just by continuing along the interstate, turning onto a new road every once in a while, and guessing your general direction. I find that so exhilarating. I find it amazing that Seattle, my favorite U.S. city, and Boston, the U.S. destination I desire to visit above all others, could serve as bookends for the interstate that runs through my backyard.

There would be no need for maps. Directions would be unnecessary. Instead, I would just follow the signs. All I would have to do is hop on and drive.

Tags: Vilhauer |

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Thirty-seven?

October 19, 2006


Thirty-seven.

A list of the 1,001 books you absolutely, positively, must read before you die or else you will be banished to the Danielle Steele section of heaven has been released on the Internet.

And I’ve read 37 of them.

Nice, eh? In fact, it’s 34 if you don’t count the two books I started but never finished (Catch-22, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) and the one book I’ve read an extended excerpt from (Austerlitz). And it was even less than that, until I reached the Steinbeck/Orwell era.

Of course, everyone’s going to find fault with this list. Your favorites aren’t going to be on there. The list is really overloaded with 2000-2006 selections – I swear that every single novel both Ian McEwan and Philip Roth has written is featured, but only three Steinbeck novels made the cut (leaving out my personal favorite, East of Eden, and, while they were at it, cutting The Pearl and Tortilla Flat).

But it’s kind of a fun little game. See how many you’ve read. There are a lot of random, obscure books on there, and I’d be willing to guess that there are very few people who have read more than 150 books on the list.

Meanwhile, I’ll be working on this list.

On second thought, no I won’t. I’ve got my own list to work on. Some feats are better to just let go.

Tags: Books, Literature |

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On snowfall

October 18, 2006


SnowIsn’t it funny how completely serene the first snowfall of the year can be? It’s so fresh and clean and beautiful, yet we will – without doubt – curse it’s existence only a few days later, if it hasn’t melted and disappeared, remembered only as a memory; as an aberration of our unusually warm October.

I woke this morning and looked out into the dark street to find a barrage of snowflakes, drifting towards the ground with reckless abandon – a deluge of white; a downpour of winter, albeit a few weeks early. It instantly put me in a good mood. It instantly took all of my worries away. I just laid in bed and stared. I couldn’t help it.

Snowfall is always wonderful. A steady rain falls constantly and makes a comforting noise, but it has nothing on the comfort of a sudden snowfall. Personally, I find it best at night, when the white snow stands out against the darkness of night, blotting out everything but itself, sheltered from the sun and prepared to set in, untouched for the next few hours.

This dark snowfall – be it an early morning before Daylight Savings Time or an evening bluster during prime time – always seems to bring back a flood of memories, mostly centering on long night drives, the haze of the lights on either side of the street, the sudden blinking glow of a snow plow. It reminds me of living in Minnesota, where I would spend late nights learning about life and standing outside to get a breath of fresh air.

I can smell the sudden rise in car exhaust, as if the snow pushed the sensory levels to 11 and turned up the combustion. I can feel each flake melt against my face, creating a clammy sheen as if I had just finished a rigorous workout. My breath shows itself, and everything is flecked with a dandruff like coating. Usually, all I can do is stare straight up, feeling the slight prick of frozen water enter my eye.

Eventually, we begin to hate the snow. It becomes dirty; slushy and messy to a fault and unbelievably cumbersome. It causes accidents, and it chills us to the core. We dread the windy gust of frozen sleet that meets us as we open a door to the outside. We bundle up and prepare to be proactive, to battle winter before it has a chance to tear our warmth away.

But on mornings like this – when flakes steadily, but gently, pummel the barely-alive grass and the cold concrete – it’s something magical. Virgin snow is easily one of the most beautiful sights ever encountered; the way it coats the bare trees, and the way it wipes away the color palate and begins again with a white, clean slate.

It’s refreshing, and a little exhilarating. It’s everything that’s good about winter.

Tags: On..., Outdoors |

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Bravia!

October 18, 2006


Sony has created some great commercials for its Bravia LCD television.

Their first spot, featuring a series of colored high-bounce balls barreling down a street (all set to the tune of one of my favorite songs: José González’s beautiful “Heartbeats”) was brilliant. Their new spot — a symphony of exploding paint — is just as brilliant.

This specific commercial has been buzzing through the Internet for a few months now, and it has finally been released.

Sony is hitting the nail on the head with a simple message: if you want vibrant color, you want the Sony Bravia. It’s color “Like No Other.” They’re showing it with beautiful and clever advertising, like no other.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Random YouTube |

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Signing off

October 16, 2006


It’s campaign season. Everywhere I turn, I’m confronted by a vast array of two-foot-tall political signs. And with all of the additional issues being voted on this year, there is a true array: everything from abortion and gay marriage to a limit on how early school can start each year is up for a vote.

This is fine – I’m used to it, really. Our neighborhood is usually peppered with the signs of Democratic nominees. This is slightly reassuring and quite pleasing. It gives the illusion of living in a progressively leaning city, even though I know otherwise.

However, there is one problem. These signs – these props of political leverage – aren’t keeping themselves to the confines of residential zoning. They’re leaving the front yards and situating themselves on the front lines – the heavily traveled commercial areas and small-business storefronts of retail Sioux Falls.

I am appalled at the number of campaign signs being posted around the city in front of buildings by business owners and managers. I know it’s been done before, but this year it’s becoming ridiculous. It’s one thing to post your political views outside of your home. That is your domain. That is your area to do with what you want.

But it’s a completely different act to plaster a business’s front window with the manager’s political signage. That is a pigheaded act that takes no account of a customer’s views, not to mention the beliefs of an employee, who is oftentimes the first person you’ll make contact with inside the store and the de facto figurehead of the business at that point.

Much of this is coming around because of two major issues – the anti-abortion amendment and the ban on gay marriages, two issues that are moral at their core and therefore shouldn’t be regulated by any government body. These aren’t issues of tax leverages or public institutions. These are issues of human interest – and human interest only. What’s next, an amendment dictating when I can eat dinner? An amendment setting the ground rules for taking our dog for a walk? Or for choosing the correct race in marriage? Or for speaking out against the government?

(I digress.)

Businesses have two duties in the world: to employ and to sell. It’s irresponsible to allow businesses to campaign for any cause, regardless of how it affects their company or their right to sell whatever it is they sell. That is something that should be done after hours, outside of the confines of retail, away from the captive audiences.

To me, this is akin to posting signs that say, “no homosexuals allowed.” Or “No shirts, no shoes, abortion? No business.” Would you feel comfortable going into a business displaying anti-abortion signs if you were someone who had gone through with an abortion?

Does Little Caesar’s Pizza think that they are bolstering the anti-abortion cause by placing signs in front of their building? Do they think they can gain customers from this? In fact, they may be losing customers. I know our household has mentioned a simple boycott of the chain’s local franchises because of their strong political leanings. They’ve become a part of the political machine. And since we don’t support the amendment, we don’t support them.

I know it’s not illegal. And I know that, after this season’s campaigning, it will get even worse in the future, especially as businesses realize that they are able to do it without repercussions.

However, it’s tacky. And it’s wrong. Imagine the outcry if Wal-Mart came out and started putting anti-abortion signs throughout it’s stores. Imagine if they began posting banners throughout their parking lot in support of the next Republican presidential candidate, or of a local partisan cause. There would be public boycotts. We would see the papers filling up with editorial pieces.

So why not now?

Tags: Annoyances, Politics |

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Cleaner, fresher, BMOWP 3.0

October 15, 2006


Welcome to the new site. Same as the old, except cleaner and fresher. And brighter. And not as yellow.

It’s amazing to see how much easier black font on a white background is to read, compared to white on red.

Taa Daa!

Tags: Meta |

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Site Update 10.13.06

October 13, 2006


I’m in the process of moving a few things around here on the site. I’ve upgraded the sidebar to a Wordpress Widget template, allowing me to move things around quickly and effortlessly. Unfortunately, that made everything really clumped together, so I need to work on that.

Additionally, I’m updating all of my categories by expanding the number and frequency of categories available. This is in anticipation of the “category cloud,” which will be featured near the top of the sidebar. This is an easy way to find a category and read all of the posts included therein.

This is also a great way to spread out my Technorati ratings and gain more traffic.

Really, I’m doing all of this in anticipation of the October 25th Open Enrollment for 9Rules — a blog community of some of the nicest, best written, easy to navigate sites. They recieve hundreds of sites and allow (I think) about 20-30 in, so I’m doing everything they say to make my site one of the best.

It’s about ease of use, and it’s about connectivity. Dialogue. Wide-spread blogging. All here at Black Marks on Wood Pulp.

So if things are a little whacked out around here for a while, that’s why. Thanks for your understanding.

Tags: Meta |

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