Michael Jackson moonwalking - 1983

This is the moonwalk video. The one someone extroverted close to you imitated. The one you remember.

I watched this again tonight, and and because of some clarity and respect due to his death, or perhaps just because I hadn't seen it in years, a few things struck me:

First, look at his outfit. It synthesizes disco and traditional ballroom dance: the sparkly socks and shirt give it the glam while the loafers and hat ground it firmly in tradition. But the high cut of his trousers give him agangliness and almost awkward length of limb. After his death I heard a lot of commentators note that his dance style married the spontaneity of R&B and club culture to the grace of Fred Astaire, but let me be the first to note: Michael Jackson dressed like a nerd.

Second, as a dancer, Michael Jackson was a violent performer. His moves are stylized brutality. He kicks and punches a circle around him in the first thirty seconds as if fending off attackers. Look at his face in close-up. It's anguished. View the kick he does with his left leg at about 2:37 - its grace is martial, not balletic.

Third, the moonwalk sequence is just as amazing to me now as it was when I first saw it. He starts to prepare for it around 3:30. Watch it again. I will never get tired of it.

Street Words

I'll be writing about unprofessional advertising and vernacular discourse at Street Words from now on (which is not to imply that I'm going to stop using this blog).

Topics will include bumper stickers, chalkboard menu drawings, the cardboard signs held by homeless men on the sign of the street, small-town hair salon puns, "lost and found" flyers, and the scribbled signs of the hypergraphic or schizophrenic.

See you there.

Key Scenes and Interpretations of American Psycho

The protagonist is an antihero in the trailer.


Given certain edits, the protagonist becomes a romantic lead.


Other edits recast the film as a short commercial about soft candies.


The score has been reapplied for comedic effect.


The key scene (the one with the business cards) can be rendered as typography.


The business card scene done with dick jokes.

Bumper Stickers

Bumper Stickers, originally uploaded by Sister72.

I've been thinking about bumper stickers and how they aggressively convey one's identity. I'll write something longer on that topic later, but for now, just look at this fucking thing.

Can you imagine what it's like to be the driver of this car? Seriously, just try to imagine the combination of smug superiority and horrible frustration you'd feel every moment of your life. Sputtering like an idiot would become second nature.

I would bet any amount of money that this guy screams himself hoarse at least once a week.

Pyongyang, June 5 (KCNA)

Every once in a while I become convinced that the delightful weirdness in the world has been exhausted. That's when I turn to the news: I get my news from station KCNA - Korean Central News Agency, the official news organ of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I've seen North Korea described as a "hermit kingdom" and that certainly describes the insularity of the country and the tyranny under which its citizens live. But it misses a crucial fact: In KCNA, North Korea has produced, without a doubt, the most entertaining news agency in the world. You wouldn't expect the propaganda organ of a brutal dictatorship to be hilarious, but once you examine the factors that the KCNA works under, it's almost inevitable.

KCNA isn't just the official news organ of the DPRK. They're the only North Korean news agency, which gives them a monopoly on what they release. But because KCNA was explicitly formed to promote the ideology of the DPRK and to downplay bad news about North Korea, they've limited themselves to a really specific set of topics to write stories about. Basically, a KCNA story probably does one of five things:

• Promote the cultural, scientific and industrial achievements of the DPRK
• Publicize diplomatic contacts between the DPRK and DPRK-friendly nations
• Recount international news items in a way that promotes the Juche ideology
• Condemn the US, Japan, or South Korea
• Celebrate Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung

The fact that the KCNA's releases are written solely to meet these objectives isn't funny in and of itself. What's funny is how they write their stories, given the practical limitations they're working under. They don't have access to primary sources for international news, so they're limited to secondhand reporting and press releases. They lack a native understanding of the English language, so everything is written in a bizarre idiolect: Their sentences are the wrong length. KCNA writers don't understand the stylistic nuances between near-synonyms, so even the best written releases seem slightly off. Their writers reuse the same baroque, inappropriate words over and over, so the releases are bombastic but dull. And political arguments are written using recursive logic or no logic at all.

KCNA news releases have a weirdly strident small town tone. kind of like a retirement community that’s also a cult community. This is almost inevitable. It’s like they were surrounded by a set of limitations that backed them into the corner of unintentional hilarity. Allow me to share with you the wonder of news releases from the most secretive country on the planet:

KCNA needs to promote the economic and industrial achievements of the DPRK, except their economy is virtually static. North Korea has a self-imposed closed trade economy, almost no economic growth, and they've devoted virtually all of their scientific resources towards defense. This means economic and cultural puff pieces in the KCNA have more in common with a small-town newspaper than the sole news outlet for a country with 23 million people:

September 27 Chicken Factory
Pyongyang, September 11 (KCNA)-- Soldier-builders have recently built the September 27 Chicken Factory, a modern poultry base, at the foot of a hill in Ryokpho district, Pyongyang, in less than one year. Breeding, fattening and egg-laying pens have occupied a vast area in well-defined framework. Many-storeyed hen-coops are well ventilated.

...Leader Kim Jong Il gave on-site guidance to the factory on September 5 and said it was good that solider-builders have built a fine hygienic and cultural environment to suit the features of the factory, paying deep attention to environmental adjustment. He called upon all chicken factories to follow the model to spruce up factory compound.

Kimchi, Korean vegetable food
Pyongyang, May 10 (KCNA) -- Kimchi (pickled vegetables) is one of the staple foods of the Korean people. As for its taste the foreigners' memory of that is of literally hot stuff. The ingredients are cabbage, radishes plus hot red peppers, garlic, spring onion, fruit, fish, pickled dishes and other seasonings. As a food beneficial to health, it is a source of vitamin c and inorganic substances from winter to early spring.

Inorganic components contained in it, such as sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron, increase appetite particularly when it is eaten with boiled rice, meat and fish. It is also loaded with animal and vegetable nutritive elements. Kimchi has a long history. Its pickling methods developed in the period of Ri dynasty (1392-early 20th century)...At present Kimchi is mass-produced by factories built in every district in Pyongyang and other major cities.

Rock Murals in Neolithic Era, Heritage of National Culture
Pyongyang, March 11 (KCNA) -- There are rock murals belonging to the Neolithic era among the national cultural heritages of Korea.

They are various pictures engraved on rocks.

Most of the rock mural (three meters wide and over 1 meter high) in Jicho-ri, Musan County, North Hamgyong Province depicts tangled patterns like coiled snakes.

Rock murals have been discovered in other places. They reflect various geometric patterns including tangled and fretted patterns as well as deer and tigers.

Carved in rock murals are human faces and animals trapped in a net and a fence.

The tangled and fretted patterns are similar with those engraved on earthenware belonging to the Neolithic era. They are construed as line-engraving pictures carved by ancient Koreans in the Neolithic era.

The rock murals give a glimpse of artistic sense and delineation method of Korean ancestors in the Neolithic era.

Today the rock murals belonging to the Neolithic era are preserved and taken care of as precious cultural heritages in the DPRK.

Those are oddly similar to the "plastics and you" sort of educational videos produced in the US during the 50s-70s.

KCNA wants to show that they have good diplomatic relations, but they don't, so the only things they publicize are "greetings" and "gift exchanges" with globally insignificant nations:

Greetings to President of Uganda
Pyongyang, January 25 (KCNA)-- Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, on Jan. 22 sent a message of greetings to Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of Uganda, on the occasion of the anniversary of victory in the Uganda National Resistance Movement.

Saying that after the victorious movement the government and people of Uganda have achieved stability and peace of the country and made a great success in the work for its socio-economic development, the message expressed belief that the good relations of friendship and cooperation between the two countries would grow stronger in the interests of the two peoples in the future.

Korean People's Cause Supported in Democratic Congo
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- The Korean people single-mindedly united around Kim Jong Il will build a great prosperous powerful socialist nation in the near future under his Songun leadership. Otete Gaston Mboyo, chairman of the National Committee of the Genuine Lumumbist Patriotic Party of Democratic Congo, said this in a statement on February 11 on the occasion of the birthday of Kim Jong Il.

KCNA needs to condemn the enemies of the DPRK, but they use such consistently extravagant language that it's virtually impossible to take them seriously:

U.S. Blasted for Moves to Provoke War against DPRK
Pyongyang, January 25 (KCNA) -- The madcap military exercises staged by the U.S. imperialist aggression troops in south Korea almost every day are an indication of the military scheme to preempt an attack on the DPRK any moment as they are all a preliminary war to examine and round off the practicability of the carefully worked out anti-DPRK war scenarios.

CNA Brands Lee Myung Bak as Die-Hard Pro-Japanese Lackey
Pyongyang, January 19 (KCNA) -- Lee Myung Bak is not qualified to claim to be a Korean as he refrained from uttering even a single word about the Tok Islet issue when meeting Japanese Prime Minister Aso during the latter's junket to south Korea.

Tok Islet is part of the inalienable territory of Korea and the issue of the islet is a crucial matter of whether the Korean nation protects its sovereignty and dignity and its territorial integrity or not. Japan has become all the more arrogant recently, giving its eye-teeth for the islet. This has aroused deep concern among all Koreans.

But Lee Myung Bak who claims to be "president" of south Korea failed to mention even a single word about the islet before the Japanese prime minister who openly threatened to seize part of the territory of Korea. Lee is not in a position to claim to be a Korean, to say nothing of being "president".

U.S.-led joint maneuvers flailed
Pyongyang, July 17 (KCNA) -- The main purpose of the U.S.-led "Rimpac-2002" joint maneuvers is carrying out attacks on "imaginary states" under the new "operation against terrorism", Minju Joson wednesday says in a signed commentary, and goes on: The U.S. President Bush's "strategy" will be announced in this autumn. It is based on his argument that if they wait until the enemy's threat is ripe, it would be too late, so it is necessary to contain it to avoid the worst one.

The "imaginary states" in question mean those countries hostile to the U.S.

The U.S. singles out the DPRK as one of the states. The army and people of Korea are fully ready to cope with any emergency.

The U.S. bellicose forces should clearly know that their reckless "preemptive attack" strategy would bring them the destiny of tigermoth.

The only time they comment on events that involve their enemies are situations in which the events were so important that the KCNA had to issue a comment. These are written with such an uncharacterist lack of vitriol towards the United States that you can tell they wrote these even though they really, really didn't want to:

DPRK stance towards terrorist attacks on U.S.
Pyongyang, September 12 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry today answered the question put by KCNA as regards the large-scale terrorist attacks on the United States. He said:

Terrorists' large-scale attacks made on the U.S. by blowing themselves up in planes on Tuesday have caught the international community by great surprise.

The very regretful and tragic incident reminds it once again of the gravity of terrorism.

As a UN member the DPRK is opposed to all forms of terrorism and whatever support to it and this stance will remain unchanged.

The DPRK approaches the incident from this point of view.

Barack Obama Takes Office as U.S. President
Pyongyang, January 21 (KCNA) -- Barack Obama took office as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20.

The inauguration ceremony was held at the Capitol building that day.

He made an inaugural address there.

It's when we get into the articles that idolize party leaders that it gets really good. The KCNA uses such florid turns of phrase when describing Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung that I swear to god they've learned their English from a Victorian primer.

Badge bearing Portrait of Kim Il Sung
Pyongyang, October 27 (KCNA) -- The Korean people deeply revere the President Kim Il Sung as the eternal leader of the revolution.
This is clearly proved by the fact that all of them always have badges bearing the President's Portrait pinned on their chests with care even though five years have passed since his demise.

This is an expression of their strong admiration for his greatness and immortal exploits and a symbol of their unbreakable unity.

In the run-up to the fifth congress of the Worker's Party of Korea in November 1970, General Secretary Kim Jong Il proposed to make and confer the badge bearing the President's Portrait, which reflects the unanimous desire of the Korean people, to its delegates. He made sure that the preparatory committee for the congress undertook this work.

When the first badge was made, Kim Jong Il had it on his chest before any others.

At that time he said that one should have the badge on his heart, not on the right side of his chest.

Badges thus produced were awarded to the delegates to the congress before its opening.

The Korean people have since worn the badges on their chests, regarding it as their greatest pride and happiness to do so.

President Kim Il Sung always lives in the hearts of the Korean people as he represents their idea, faith, destiny and future.

That is why people unhesitatingly dedicate even their lives to protecting the badge from any danger.

There are many examples showing how people protected badges bearing the President's Portrait from fire and water.

In March last year 17 soldiers of the Korean People's Army died heroic deaths while protecting slogan bearing trees from an unexpected forest fire in a revolutionary site.

They became heroes of the republic. In November of the same year 3 fishermen and 12 soldiers who had been adrift in the stormy sea because of an engine trouble kept the badges safe before meeting deaths. The title of the hero of the republic was posthumously awarded to them.

This shows the unshakable will of the Korean people to devotedly General Secretary Kim Jong Il, who is just like President Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Il Provides Field Guidance to Power Station
Pyongyang, January 31 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il provided field guidance to Ryesonggang Youth Power Station No. 1 which was newly built and commissioned in October last year.

He mounted an observation platform where he enjoyed a bird's-eye view of the power station and acquainted himself in detail with its construction and electricity production.

A world-startling gigantic power station has appeared in this place where only the sound of the flowing water of the River Ryesong could be heard just a few years ago, he said, adding that this eye-opening change clearly showed the inexhaustible mental power and the might of creative ingenuity of the Korean people firmly armed with the Juche idea.

The power station has been built ideally in all aspects ranging from its designing to its construction as required by technological engineering, he said, stressing that this power station is, indeed, a wonderful structure to be proud of as it meets all requirements of the new century.

After being briefed on the power station before a huge painting showing a panoramic view of the station, he went round a generator room and an electricity distribution room.

Noting that the country is prospering thanks to the do-or-die spirit of the Korean people ready to flatten even a mountain and empty even a sea at one go when called for by the Party and the might of the single-minded unity stronger than any weapon, he stressed that the Korean people will certainly fly the red flag of the victory on the eminence of a great prosperous powerful nation thanks to this inexhaustible mental power.

Kim Jong Il's Popular Traits Lauded in Italy

Pyongyang, February 27 (KCNA) -- Miriam Pelegrini Feri, president of the Group of Dialectical Materialists of Italy, released a statement titled "Leader Kim Jong Il devoting his all to the people" on Feb. 17 on the occasion of Kim Jong Il's birthday.

Saying that Kim Jong Il, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, is the leader of the people as he dedicates all his life to them, the statement stressed that he always attaches top priority to the people's interests and shares bitters and sweets with the people, finding himself among them.

He has visited every nook and corner of the country, including factories and farms, without having rest even in red-letter days and holidays to improve the standard of people's living while indicating the orientation and ways to bring about a productive surge in all fields of the national economy, the statement noted.

It recalled that he formulated as the three charters for Korea's reunification the three principles of national reunification, the 10-point programme of the great unity of the whole nation and the proposal for founding the Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo advanced by President Kim Il Sung and that the historic June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and the October 4 declaration were adopted thanks to his experienced and tested leadership.

And every once in a while they come up with something that just takes your breath away. This next piece is one of the most bizarre, amazing, and weirdly touching things I’ve ever read.

Souvenir Picture Which Was Not Taken
Pyongyang, May 26 (KCNA) -- The car carrying General Secretary Kim Jong Il was running a sightseeing road of Mt. Kuwol on May 1, Juche 86 (1997).

The road under construction was yet far short of completion. Not minding this, however, he did not take his eyes off a car window as if he was fathoming the troubles of the soldier builders.

He got off the car near the fork of the road in the mid-slope of the mountain and met commanding officers of a unit of the Korean People's Army engaged in the building of the holiday resort of Mt. Kuwol and highly appreciated the painstaking work of the soldier builders. He earnestly told them to spruce up the mountain to provide the people with a better resort of cultural recreation, true to the behest of President Kim Il Sung.

He went round a number of construction sites through the sightseeing road built by soldiers and spread before them a far-reaching blueprint to turn the mountain into a splendid resort of cultural recreation for the people.

The sun of May Day began to sink unnoticed.

Out of the ardent desire to provide him a happy time, if but for a moment, officials earnestly asked him to have a picture taken with them against the background of the picturesque scenery of the mountain.

He smiled a generous smile of understanding and said that was not a good idea when the resort was in the thick of construction and he would come again after the completion of the project and have a souvenir picture taken.

The officials were choked with emotion at his words full of warm love for the toiling soldier builders whom he thought before anyone else.

The story about the souvenir picture which was not taken will go down long to the posterity as a legend of the leader's love for the KPA soldiers along with Mt. Kuwol, a famous mountain of the people.

Crow's Feet

If you get plastic surgery to get rid of features that mark you as aged, you forfeit the largely instinctual baseline deference that the young afford the aged.

Notes on Gross Gooey Toys

The Canadian sketch show You Can't Do That On Television had a recurring theme of getting slimed. Anytime a cast member said "I don't know," the poor kid was blasted from off-screen with an aerial fusillade of green semi-viscous slime. This fit pretty well in with YCDTOT's juvenile sense of humor, which also led to actors being drenched with spouts of water for having said "water" as well as the frequent application of pies to the face. YCDTOT ran on Canadian television for several years before Nickelodeon bought the program and began producing it themselves. It ran in the United States on Nickelodeon from 1981 to 1994.

Associating itself with YCDTOT was something of an accidental victory for Nickelodeon. The Nickelodeon audience loved the show, but they particularly loved slime. Nobody really cared about the water or the pies, but slime became synonymous with Nick.

I’m guessing this interest in slime was something of a relief, given how boring Nick’s network image was then. Prior to YCDTOT Nick was an undistinguished children’s network that showed a lot of reruns and whose longest-running original program, Pinwheel, was a more or less direct copy of Sesame Street. Pinwheel typically ran in five hour blocks to keep stay-at-home kids occupied during the afternoon. It was clearly aimed at preschoolers.

And Nick's brand identity had been based around fast-paced animated commercial bumpers which didn't have any consistency aside from featuring the color orange.

Here's a montage of some of the bumpers from the late 80s to the 90s.



They were quirky but wholesome, as if they’d been designed by PBS. The image they projected was a bit too "mom-friendly" for a children's television network -the ads appealed to very young children but lacked the edginess to really capture the appeal of preteens and grade-school kids. Nick certainly had an audience, but it didn't have fanatics.

With slime, Nick, in something of a coup, stumbled on a unique identity: Nickelodeon was going to be gross. Kids went absolutely bonkers for slime. YCDTOT was Nick's highest rated program from 84 to 86. In 1984, Nick replaced its original logo with an orange “splat” logo which evoked slime while retaining a traditional color scheme.

More importantly, Nick exported YCDTOT's slime across their network. Nick's game shows, starting with Double Dare, were built around athletically navigating slime and other unidentifiable disgusting crap. Slime became a staple of Nickelodeon. Nick hosted a Slime-In contest to fly a lucky kid to the set of YCDTOT to get slimed.

It became something of an honor for celebrity guests on Nick programs to be slimed. Slime is still pretty important to Nickelodeon today. Check out this Nick slime spot from 2008:


(If you like that check out this.)

I remember hearing friends argue with their parents about slime. It was gross, the parents said. We knew that. That's why we liked it.

You Can't Do That On Television ended production in the early 90s and went off the air in 1994, but it had passed on its slime identity to Nick like a viscous green pathogen. Slime in kid's culture surfaced throughout the 1980s and 90s, playing a marginal, if important role in toy culture. It wasn't just Nickelodeon - nor did it just start with Nickelodeon: you might recall seeing dozens of toys involving tubs of slime, goo, or ooze during that time period. For a while, it seemed like every toy franchise involved slime.

The Ghostbusters films and cartoons involved ectoplasm, a clear, viscous snot-like material in the films, upped to a thick, pudding-like neon-green to the cartoons and toys. He-Man and the Masters of Universe sold a "slime pit" toyset where you'd dump action figures in an act of what was either punishment or transformation. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were mutated by slime (they called it ooze, but it was green, it was gross, it was gooey). Might Morphin' Power Rangers had an enemy character named Ivan Ooze. It was weirder when a kid's show or movie didn't involve slime. Why Captain Planet never included "a slime monster" playset is beyond me.
Toy slime is a guar-gum based polymer dyed green (the stuff on YCDTOT was made of gelatin, flour, oatmeal, and shampoo): it was easy to produce and easy to market. Once toy companies figured out how much appeal slime it had on its own, they started selling slime on its own. Generic slime became popular because slime did not require links to toy franchises or cartoons to sell. The packaging of slime when sold on its own was often vaguely clinical - slime was sold in cylindrical tubs that evoked refuse and harmful waste.

I'm ignoring toys I have a soft heart for, like the Toxic Crusaders, the Garbage Pail kids, Thumb Wrestlers, and those toy franchises like Mighty Max that shoehorned slime into their otherwise slime-free lines. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list: cataloging a genre of toys seems like a task for a collector. There's no point asking where this fad came from. A 1970s Mattel product called Slime is probably as good a patient zero as any, but what's the point of identifying the first slime toy? It might be of interest to a few collectors or historians, but it doesn't seem like it's appealing in and of itself. And it's probably no fun to talk about why the fad ended, because it didn't: Nick still has a "Slime Geyser" in their office, and you can still buy slime today (or better yet, make it yourself).

The exhaustive What and When lead strictly to nostalgia. But what about the Why of slime's appeal? Why did everyone play with slime?

Here are some things that are toy slime reminded me of when I was a kid watching Nickelodeon:

• That stuff that you find on okra that makes me fucking hate okra
• Snot
• Vomit
  
• Mold
  
• Chemical waste
  
• Sewage

Now, with the exception of okra, these are all things my mother told me not to touch. The appeal, I think, is right on the surface: playing with slime is fun because it reminds the player of socially reviled disgusting substances - specifically, substances which are anathema to adults. Playing with slime is, in some manner, a way of asserting one's childhood identity against the authority of one's parents.

But there's something a bit more fundamental at play here: the expression of disgust is universal across cultures. The facial expression you make when confronted with something rotten and dripping is biologically determined. It's fundamental to the species. But while the basic response is fundamental to the human species, the degree to which you express that response is individually and culturally determined.

Toy slime safely emulates the appearance of a disgusting substance. Slime is to vomit what Nerf is to firearms. But it does so generically, which is why slime can be sold in blank plastic tubs: it's cheap and appealing on its own.

But slime wasn't usually sold on its own, it was usually sold as an element in a pre-existing toy franchise. The methods by which the basic elemental appeal of disgust were interpreted in toy franchises is fascinating. Slime was toxic, malicious, friendly, or annoying, depending on the in-universe rules governing the slime. The source of its unhealthiness could be manmade, alien, biological, chemical, or magical. Toy slime was a stand-in for the foreign nature of the natural environment. In the Ghostbusters franchise, slime was some horrible element related to mortality. And his fear of the foreign and slimy was certainly exacerbated by the growing cultural awareness of environmental issues of the 1970s and 1980s: slime was not just foreign, it was harmful. In TMNT, slime (er, ooze) was a pollutant and a crucial element of the plot – ooze had created heroes. Playing with slime was a way to practice dealing with pollutants. It was a way to safely cope with the potentially harmful and organic.

Three ideas of varying pathos.

• A mentally retarded man stuck in a Goodwill dressing room because he cannot remember which of the two shirts in his hands is his, and which the one he is considering buying.
• A lady begging for money at a stoplight without a cardboard sign.
• Entering “Mapquest” on Google Maps.

Snackrithmetic

x =

A samosa is just a chimichanga with the worst parts of a pasty mixed in.

x =

Popovers x enchiladas = stuffed sopapillas

When popovers meet enchiladas, stuffed sopapillas happen 9 months later.

= -

Taco = gyro - width

Gyros are jealous of tacos because tacos can keep the weight off.

= x
BLT = breakfast x height

A BLT is just breakfast that's learned how high it can soar.

Anniversary of the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens erupted twenty-nine years ago today, after several months of lead-up. One of its first victims was a volcano scientist named David Johnston. This photograph of Johnston was taken just a few hours before the eruption. That's a slightly queasy, rare tragic privilege.



The foreknowledge of volcanic eruption kind of brings out the dramatic in people. Harry Truman, a senior citizen who lived on the side of St. Helens, is best known for stubbornly refusing to leave the volcano. "If the mountain goes, I'm going with it," he said, pithily. He was one of the sixty-odd people killed by the volcano.



Three years prior to the eruption of St. Helens, the director Wernor Herzog heard news that the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe had been evacuated due to an impending volcanic eruption, save for one, stubborn peasant. In an act so specifically audacious and reckless that the only adjective one can us is Herzogian, Herzog took a boat to the island and interviewed several men as they wait for the volcano to erupt. The footage became the film La Soufrière - Waiting for an Inevitable Disaster. The footage is difficult to watch, partly because the knowledge impending doom is difficult to reconcile with the very casual way in which these men present themselves. It's also difficult to watch because there's so much soot in the air.

In the end, the volcano of Guadeloupe did not erupt. Herzog and his crew would have certainly died alongside the men who had resolved to stay. But that does not make the footage any less fascinating. How often do you get to listen to someone who's accepted their own death?

Raymond Chandler

The best reason to read a book by Raymond Chandler is to glimpse the world through the eyes of a man whose exterior is hard but whose interior is brittle. He doesn’t crumble when someone gets through him. That is to say, he retains his external structure, but there is clear evidence that his insides just grind against each other and create more dust. Philip Marlowe isn’t a detective because he is tough. He is alone because his outside is too strong to let others, and a detective because he does not trust others.

This is the central problem with fictional heroes: One wants to emulate their acts, but their acts originate from inside, and the source of their drama and romance is of great pain. That sort of heroism is not worth great pain: one person cannot harbor such pain in real life without cramping their personality into a bell jar.

What if the fear of a child is right?

People can get used to anything. This is why we are a successful species: adaptability.

One of the ways in which we are adaptable is in our ability to coexist with people who are psychologically and physically different from us. Part of the healthy human experience is the acceptance, celebration, and nurturing of differences. This is partly an innate ability. Humans have strong social instincts, and we don't have to compete all the time: I don't feel like I have to challenge everyone who looks different from me in order to gain access to resources or to remove a threat.

But this acceptance of the other is also a learned ability. The curiosity a small child may feel towards someone who looks different can be nurtured or discouraged. But people who look different can also look intimidating or frightening, so children also can respond with fear towards people who look different. Fear can also be nurtured or discouraged. Curiosity and fear can be pretty socially unacceptable. A child's curiosity towards the social or physical is direct, and it's rude to call attention to certain things, so a lot of children are shushed when they ask questions like Mommy, why are those men's noses like that? And fear is also a rude question. There's no reason to be frightened of someone just because they differ from you.



But people can look scary if you're a kid. Someone with a skin graft on their nose looks like a monster to a child. I imagine a small boy reading a book on trolls one night, and then seeing these men, and crying, thinking ogres do exist. It might take some effort to dissuade him of this idea and to assure him he has nothing to fear. I would have felt fascination, fear, and maybe a bit of revulsion if I saw these fellows when I was very young. Now, I'm mainly curious and fascinated, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel slightly scared.

The responses of fear and curiosity objectify the subject of scrutiny to differing extents, so children are taught to channel them in other ways. Curiosity can be sated with polite questions. And children are also taught not to fear people who look different. These are very healthy teachings. We should not unnecessarily fear nor fetishize the exotic.

But I want you to consider, for just a moment, that the the small boy is right to cry . I want you to consider the idea that the acceptance of the other is a giant, habitual mistake. I want you to consider the idea that the childhood fear of the other is a healthy instinct. That ogres do exist in human form. Give the reins to your baser childhood instincts, and imagine that people undergoing exotic medical treatments are monsters that prey on children. This is an open-ended exercise. Why do they prey upon children? What is it they want? Where do they live? What do they fear? And, finally, most importantly, how do you defeat them?

They're going to come for you, so I suggest you prepare.

Evel Knievel Bein' Evel Knievel

His totally badass face.


His radical satin jumpsuit.


The best way to drink juice.


Evel doing some sort of flippy thing.


The very signature of the man.


As close as you or I will get to greatness.

Old bikers are the medicine men of small towns.

The only people who live in squalor are the destitute and the enlightened.

Old hippies with biker connections are the medicine men of small towns. I guarantee this guy has more oil-stained tools than a shop class and that he got that bike off an old Hell’s Angel. Sometimes old dudes like end up teaching Spanish at unaccredited hippie schools where they've got ample time to reflect on the lives of rebellion they've led. After a lifetime of thoughtless rebellion, they can settle down and notice the niche they've carved for themselves outside the normal dog run of culture.

This man may not be that well off, but sheer counter-cultural will has made him unique and influential because of his uniqueness. He may not be logical. He is probably not trustworthy. It’s very likely he has problems with the legal system in general, but polite, almost friendly relationships with the local cops. Adults are not friendly with him and advise their children to avoid his street, but through one avenue or another I bet he has opportunities to dispense life advice to high-schoolers from time to time, either by drunken negative example or in moments of amazing wisdom.

Two passages from Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels come to mind: Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads... and they are going to stay that way... Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life.

and

The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

There isn't a word for dudes like this, but there should be, because they occupy a specifically valuable position in small town America.

Tommy Pearson Jumping the Rio Grande

Pearson's plan is to fly 254 feet across the River in a 1979 Camaro. "It's showing the people we can come together and stop terrorism," he said.

There's a tension between traveller and the road.

There's a space between duty and terror.

Truckers are cool because of the tension between "weathering the lonely dignity of the long haul" and "hiding the warning signs of being lone wolf killer driven psychotic by the road." Any task that's repetitive has spaces between the times you pay attention, and if you're of a certain horrible mindset, maybe those times fill up with the need for something dreadful. Or maybe they just bore you.

Is this dude hiding his eyes because they were rubbed red after twelve hours on on the road? Or is he hiding an inability to make eye contact? Does he have that look on his face just because he's tired?

Everybody knows that truckers are compelling. In movies they are either heroic loners who just want to live life their way...or psychopaths who terrorize and kill at the slightest provocation.

In a lot of ways, the "psychotic trucker" idea is very similar to the idea of the wendigo. The stories play out the same: travellers on a journey through sparsely populated areas come upon lonely, mysterious travellers who've been alone a little too long and who crave human contact just a little bit more than is acceptible.

Some totally rad mid-70s ABA photographs

The American Basketball Assocation (ABA) was formed in 1967 to compete with the NBA. It was absorbed into the NBA in 1976. They left an amazing legacy in the form of sweet logos and player photographs. Check these out.


The logo of the San Diego Conquistadors.



The logo of the San Diego Sails.

The New Jersey Americas. The Spirits of St. Louis. The Baltimore Hustlers.


The San Diego Conquistadors, commonly called "the Q". The Conquistadors became the San Diego Sails, who folded midway through the 1975 season.

The Memphis Sounds in huddle.

The San Diego Conquistadores in their away jerseys.

Wilt Chamberlain didn't play for San Diego. He just coached them.

A jersey from the San Diego Conquistadors.


Daniel C. Jones of the Memphis Pros in rebound.


There are more photographs here and here.

Mariners Jersey

Check out the eyelets at the neck.

The logo of the San Diego Mariners

The Mariners existed from 1974 to 1977, the heyday of the short-lived and poorly named World Hockey Assocation.

More Hockey

Murray Keogan was a forward for the Phoenix Roadrunners.