Junk drawer

September 29, 2009


I’m no artist, but odosketch is fun.

Go ahead. Click for live drawing.

The story: I wanted to draw a spatula. Instead, I drew a rubber scraper. So I tried to change it to a spatula for real. Then, I realized I couldn’t draw. So I drew a simple little tile.

Underneath all of that chalk? A bunch of junk. Like a junk drawer. See? That’s art. Hooray art.

(I should also add that local art/design/awesome blog Graphic Content is rocking the odosketch this week. It’s fun, if only to watch the time-lapse reconstruction of real artists coloring interactive pieces of paper.

Show offs.

I should also also add that I’ve been featured on Graphic Content for this very odosketch drawing. NOW WHO’S THE SHOW OFF, EH?)

Tags: Random Links |

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Thoughts while eating lunch alone at Elephant & Castle on Pennsylvania Ave

September 28, 2009


Nothing paralyzes a room like the crash of glassware. Not yelling, not a fight. The crash – and, in this case, subsequent sheepish looks of the server in question – halts conversation completely.

We’re probably all thinking one thing: it sure must suck to be that server right now.

***

Sometimes it feels like afternoon beers deliver us into a completely different state of being. I wish I knew why. Maybe it’s the idea of developing a buzz while you can still see the sun. Maybe it’s the idea that we’re going against convention. Maybe because we pair it with a clear view of our next steps.

For example, I plan to go to the National Museum of American History to see Julia Child’s kitchen. The idea that I’m going to this public place after two beers and a burger adds a sense of excitement and subversion.

At night, however, you’re never really sure where your next steps will lead. Sure, there’s excitement, but also uneasy uncertainty. And it’s not as much of a novelty, either.

***

Walking through the airport, I discovered that the rumpled look of travel is insanely attractive. Jeans, a long sleeve shirt, unkempt hair, weariness; add a backpack and the urgency of location and situation, and you’ve got a recipe for sneaky hotness.

The reasoning, I assume, has to do with a feeling of adventure and intellect. Travel brings out the mystery in everyone. What’s in the bag? Where are they going?

***

Phil Collins’ cover of “You Can’t Hurry Love” is abominable. Probably the greatest slap in the face of Motown ever conceived.

Tags: On... |

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16-Page Read: Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

September 23, 2009


Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? By Dr. Seuss

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?At some point, kids memorize their favorite books.

They know exactly what happens on every page, and while they may not technically read a book cover to cover, they offer the illusion that they’re reading every word.

The first time I was aware of this with Sierra was with Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

It wasn’t just the easy animals. She already knew that cows mooed and birds chirped and she could make the sounds, even if they were a little off. She tried to snort for a pig and instead just spit all over the place. She was sure horses said “geigh,” and sheep always uttered “ba ba black sheep.”

It was the tougher stuff, too. Lightning goes splat? Well of course it does, and now, she’s able to anticipate that page with lightning-like quickness. Butterflies whisper whisper. Horns blurp. Big cats slurp.

Every noise was a new experience, soaked up as only a toddler can. And from there, the noises were no longer new, but standard, as if our child came complete with a full set of onomatopoeias at her instant disposal, rattling off a cock-a-doodle-doo at simply the mention of a rooster, or a sizzle sizzle when seeing a frying pan.

Mr. Brown was Sierra’s favorite book for about a month, which in her mind is nearly an eternity. And though it’s a longer book – I’ll take an 8-page Sandra Boynton book at bedtime any day – it was never difficult to get through.

I suspect it has a lot to do with her understanding – her ability to match picture to sound to real life experience. The synapses are firing, now, and before long she’ll be surprising us with things we never knew existed.

It’s what makes me laugh at 3 in the morning when Sierra, awake and ready for the day despite my bleary eyes and unkempt disposition, relays to me with excitement usually reserved for Christmas.

There’s thunder outside.

It’s going BOOM BOOM BOOM!

There isn’t. And it’s not. But her relaying of sound from Mr. Brown shows how much her imagination has grown in the past year.

And despite the time, and the darkness, and the fact that I’ll now spend the next 15 minutes in a trance, attempting to get her back to sleep, I understand that this curiosity and imagination might be one of the most beautiful things in the world.

Tags: 16-Page Read, Books, Literature, Sierra |

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The distance between perception and reality, as it pertains to basketball

September 21, 2009


For the most part, we’re blissfully unaware of the distance between our perceived abilities and our actual skills.

Example: I have spent the last four months practicing post moves, shooting jumpers, flipping in lay-ups and juke-ing invisible defenders in an effort to get better at basketball. At times, I’d be completely on fire, hitting nearly everything and - in the process - inflating my ego. From an athletic standpoint, I figured I was okay - after all, I worked with the elliptical at the fitness center from time to time.

That in mind, I organized a 1-on-1 tournament. I was in no way expecting to win. I knew my limits. I would place third, maybe. Fourth if it was a bad day. But I’d be in the running.

After all, it’s my court. Those were my jumpers. That was my sweet spot.

Only three people played. We played each other to 11.

Combined, I lost 22-1.

My drive turned into a wheezing heap of clumsiness, my jumper into a floppy armed heave. I jammed my finger on a rebound early on and it now swells blue and purple as if reminding me that I couldn’t even get THAT fundamental right. I could feel my opponents easing off. I could feel their pity. And I still couldn’t manage to keep up.

Turns out that I’m not quite where I thought I was. Turns out, also, that the inflated sense of ability was utterly crushed by the agonizing reality of the situation: I was not very good at basketball, and I probably never have been. Despite my consistency when it comes to easy 12-foot unguarded jumpers, I couldn’t quite make the cut when it came to actual 1-on-1 play.

The funny thing: it wasn’t demoralizing. It was refreshing, actually. I no longer need to worry about whether or not I’m good.

I’m not. And that’s a weight off of my shoulders.

I was right about one thing, though.

I DID get third place.

Tags: Basketball, Sports, Vilhauer |

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The evolutionary benefits of smiling

September 18, 2009


It’s hard to compare two children. Especially if they’re yours. And especially if they’re born only two years apart. You’re just learning one and another comes along, and their escapades blur together as children, not as two individuals.

Despite this, one thing is for certain. Sierra never smiled this much.

With Sierra, each smile needed to be coaxed, as if they were sold at a premium and she needed to make sure she got her money’s worth. She wasn’t a sad baby, or a solemn baby – she was studious and calm and centered, and she only smiled when it was deemed necessary. She wasn’t unhappy. But she was serious.

Isaac, on the other hand, doles smiles out like a politician.

I wonder if there’s a genetic predisposition – an evolutionary trait, developed millenniums ago, when parents died earlier and children were more difficult to take care of – that pushes more smiles onto a second or third child.

After all, by this point, we’re learning alongside Sierra. Everything she does is new to us, while everything Isaac does has been done before.

So he smiles. All the time. It’s infectious, and it dares – I mean “WHY ARE YOU LOOKING OVER THERE I SWEAR YOU’D BETTER RETHINK YOUR ACTIONS” dares – you to smile along, thusly shifting attention from Sierra’s newest word or book to Isaac’s inability to be upset about anything.

And with that attention captured, you’re conditioned to provide for them. Both children live, genes are passed on, evolution occurs. It would sound implausible, if it wasn’t so utterly convincing. Why else would a second child be so different in the arena of smiling?

Because, man. That kid smiles.

A lot.

Tags: Isaac, Sierra |

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A grasshopper hitched a ride today

September 16, 2009


Half way home, I notice a grasshopper on the hood of my car.

I’m going about 40 m.p.h., so I’m understandably surprised. He’s holding steady, bracing himself against the oncoming air, perfectly still aside from his antennae, which are curved to a 45 degree angle.

When I stop, he begins to move. He creeps forward, cautiously, as if he knows that, eventually, the red light will end and he’ll be forced to push back on his six legs and hold tight for a few more blocks.

After a few stops, he makes his way to the side of the car. He’s out of sight, but if I sit up a little straighter I can see him. He moves again, and I sit up even straighter. Now all I can see is his antennae. Stopped: straight up. Driving: 45 degrees.

He’s out of my sight, and I feel for him. What if he fell off? Will he be crushed? Will he know where he is? Should I drive slower? Does he have a home? I honestly kind of miss the guy, as if we made some kind of weird bond over the past mile and a half.

I pull into the driveway and he’s back. He starts scrambling. He moves faster than I’d imagined. He crawls across the hood, perching on the top, regarding the wipers with what I can only assume is fear and disdain. How many fellow bugs have been pushed aside with wipers like these, I’ll never know.

As I drive into the garage, he jumps.

I find him on the trunk when I get out. I flick him off and into the driveway so he can find his way back home.

Tags: On..., Outdoors |

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Canon

September 15, 2009


September 9th, 2009 came and went with a flurry of writing and boasting of the new Beatles remasterings. I fancy myself a Beatles fan – I go through stages every few years when I listen to nothing but The Beatles. In fact, I’m in one of those stages right now, since Sierra won’t listen to anything but a combination of “Yellow Submarine,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Help!”

Through it all, I’ve wholly ignored the early albums, and I’ve never really considered the entire catalog as a whole. These remasters have forced me do that, and for that reason I am in the middle of a grand experiment.

I’ve taken the 209 songs of the traditional Beatles canon, thrown them together in chronological order and am listening to them. Right now. All 9.5 hours. In a row.

(To do this, I took the two discs of Past Masters and reorganized them based on their British release. The same went for the five singles that finish off Magical Mystery Tour. I used this site as my guide.)

If you’re counting and you come up with more than 209, here’s why: I skipped doubles (no alternate version of “Get Back,” “Let it Be” or “Love Me Do”) and I skipped Yellow Submarine, because that album sucks.

Music is so often taken one piece at a time that we rarely see the full picture of a band’s career. Even greatest hits collections are jumbled affairs, mostly missing the mark on continuity and growth despite the appearance of major hits. To listen to everything in the order it was released is to create a sonic timeline, one that – when captured all at once – can show the immense amount of growth, stagnation and dynamic change every band goes through, whether it’s some random garage band or The Beatles.

I found a great benefit in reading John Updike’s Rabbit novels in order, back to back. Not only was I able to grab more of the continuity (thanks to the previous novel being so fresh in my mind) but I was also exposed to Rabbit’s entire life at once. Four books, one life.

The Beatles recorded everything in their collection in a short seven years. I’m running through it all in nine hours.

That’s what I’m doing today. Carry on.

Tags: Music |

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