Our Descent Into Madness

It’s probably apparent to all that our posting has been on the low end lately. Emily and I are both somewhat overwhelmed right now, but don’t think we’d let that interfere with the state of the blog! We’ve asked our good friend Isabel, who did a great job covering our bottoms while we were in Belize, to come on as a guest-blogger for awhile. We’re confident she’ll turn out very interesting posts, supplementing our modest output. My girlfriend, Jessie, also might join us for a post or several, in her various areas of expertise.

And we might be having periodic posting from our friend the Brendenator. On that last front, consider yourselves warned.

Carrying beds, shelves, dressers, and full boxes up to a third floor is neither easy nor fun. But I’ll post pictures of our pretty apartment when the work of moving is done.

On a totally different note, go look at this completely fucking terrifying CGI woman (via Boing Boing). Note the the whites of her eyes, just one shade too red. Is she a zombie?

Oh cruel balance of artificiality and verisimilitude, thou art endlessly repulsive.

I’m considering buying new shoes. I’m sure that sounds extremely underwhelming, but it’s sort of a big deal, actually. I have a pair of motorcycle boots that I love and have worn continuously — with the rare exception of airports — for more than two years. A search of my Gmail archives reveals an email sent to Emily on December 26th, 2005, saying they had just come in the mail. So it’s been awhile.

I like my boots for two very important reasons. Firstly, I like them esthetically — that’s why I bought them. Secondly, they’re very sturdy and well-made. Even after about two and a half years of constant use, they’re in great shape and show no signs of wearing out.

Any new shoes I buy must meet these rigorous standards, and another one: they must be as green as possible, and as vegan as possible.

Now, since I love my boots so much, why do I even want new shoes at all? Firstly, I’ve been thinking for a few weeks that I do want new shoes — with a new look — eventually. Secondly, and the reason I want new shoes now: the boots take a few minutes to put on and take off, because there’s a bit of lacing and strapping to be done. This has never really bothered me before, though it can be a little tedious when I’m in a hurry.

Now, though, I’ve got something of a reason to want shoes I can actually slip off. My girlfriend and I just found an apartment we love; we’re moving in this week. It’s a great place within easy walking distance of my school. Also, it has brand new carpeting that the landlady is extremely serious about keeping pristine.* Taking our shoes off when we enter is actually part of the the lease agreement. And it would be a pain in the ass to have to sit down for five minutes in the doorway with those boots every single time I come or go. And I actually do not own any other pair of shoes, so I’d like to get one, so that I’ll at least have a faster option available.

I’m also really picky about how my apparel looks. So it’s a challenging sort of search. There are the Green Toe shoes, by Simple, which pass the ecofriendly test, but not the esthetic test,** and I’m suspicious about how well they’d hold up. Look how dainty those women’s models are!

The same company also has a line of ecosneaks, some of which are okay: 1,2. Those two are both possibilities. Neither has anything on my boots in terms of durability, but they’re cute enough and green enough, and definitely look comfortable and easy to slip on.

The next company on my list is Patagonia, but I can’t say I really feel drawn to any of their women’s casual footwear. Why so much leather, Patagonia?

Green Shoes is another good company, but I don’t think I would ever wear any of those shoes.

Better still is Worn Again, whose shoes are 99% recycled materials. I like this one a lot, but this one better — I wonder if that second one would defeat the whole purpose, though? By being hard to put on.

Okay, that’s enough of that. I’m sure I’ll pick one eventually.

* Lest anyone get the wrong impression, she’s going to be a great landlady, I think. Part of the reason we picked the place is how nice she is.

** Upon a second glance, I actually really like these in the darker color.

From Boing Boing:

There’s some uncertainty as to whether it’s real. Looks real enough to me, but the elephant must have been trained to do that, right? Elephant art is beautiful, but it’s usually abstract; as far as I know, while elephants seem to have senses of color and composition that are compatible with ours, any sense of perspective or realism they have is indecipherable to human eyes.

Their sense of rhythm, on the other hand, is something we can understand.

Check out these cool guitars made from old game consoles (via Boing Boing). Some are ugly, others beautiful. All are handmade and full functional.

What a cool project!

I found myself writing a book review for class today and figured it was high time we had another one of these, so this one is serving double duty.

If you’re only going to read one book about the Holocaust, make it The Diary of Anne Frank (I prefer the Definitive Edition). If you’re going to read two books, though, you should read The Kingdom Of Auschwitz, by Otto Friedrich. It’s concise, complex, and powerful. I read the entire thing while listening to In The Aeroplane Over The Sea; I recommend you do so as well.

The review, most of it below the fold:

“The truth about Auschwitz?” Józef Cyrankiewicz once reflected. “There is no person who could tell the whole truth about Auschwitz.” (Friedrich 102)

The Kingdom of Auschwitz, by Otto Friedrich, is not a new book — it was first published in 1982. During the last twenty-six year, however, is has only grown more relevant. In this moment of constant demonization of the other by zealots in both Middle America and the Middle East, Friedrich’s is one of the few messages with the power to stop people in their tracks before we go any farther along the road that leads to atrocities. Friedrich’s complex portrait of evil does not fall into the convenient and dangerous trap of disregarding Nazism as aberrant or insane. He does the brave thing, exploring the humanizing idiosyncrasies of Auschwitz. Friedrich’s point is that there isn’t a clear point to be inferred, that we must make room ambiguity and live with the unknowable — valuable insights for those who would attempt to understand the word by reducing it to separate spheres of good and evil.

Friedrich explores the many perplexing events surrounding Auschwitz. One particularly impenetrable happening occurred in May of 1944, when Adolf Eichmann made a deranged offer to the Allies. Hungarian Jews were about to be transported to Auschwitz; Eichmann announced that all of them could emigrate freely in exchange for ten thousand military trucks from the allies (68). Joel Brand, working on behalf of the Joint Distribution Committee — an American nonprofit helping to move European Jews — desperately tried to convince the Allies to comply, but they would not (68). Brand’s attempts were very much in vain: “Even while Brand’s hopeless negotiations continued, there was no interruption in the trains to Auschwitz” (68).

This anecdote is a microcosm of the larger story of the death camp as Friedrich tells it. Eichmann’s offer was crueler for its suggestion of mercy, for the Allies could never accept it. Brand’s efforts were obviously futile, yet he could not abandon them with some 400,000 lives (66) hanging in the balance. The Allies response was brutal — how could the lives of forty innocent people be worth less than one truck? Yet they had no real choice. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Phillips builds whimsical houses out of discarded materials. They’re lovely creations, deliberately affordable to working families. Phillips thinks “affordable” means between $20,000 and $50,000 — i.e., actually within the means of the working class. Under his program, anyone with enough money to buy some tools and a steady job — no matter what the salary — can build their own small house from salvage.

So many merits. Not only are they beautiful, they’re green! Not only green, but available to everyone! Not only available to everyone, but DIY and anti-corporate! Swoon!

If you’re looking to burn $15,000, I highly recommend spending it on this incredible handmade mechanical dragonfly (via), built by Etsy seller Jesse Danger. It’s called the Anax Imperator Machina, or Emperor Dragonfly Machine.

The inspiration for this complex mechanical insect originated from many of the fantasized gadgets of Leonardo da Vinci and other mechanical creations once thought futuristic in times long before our own. Inspired by these designs I set out to recreate nature using classical engineering and an elegant form. My intentions are to develop and continue making more of these mechanical insects.

Completely handmade (except two brass gears), this creation is the culmination of hundreds of hours of designing and redesigning, and even more hours of patient and careful construction.

So. Amazing.

Franc Grom beautifully decorates eggshells. Whatever your feelings/thoughts/etc. concerning Easter and/or egg-decorating, these are worthy of a look or two.

Grom uses an electric boring tool to drill approximately 2,500 to 3,500 holes in an eggshell. Inspired by traditional Slovenian designs, he has been known to pierce a shell as many as 17,000 times.

More pictures here, via Make.

How Mr. Grom manages to produce such outcomes without breaking those shells, I cannot fathom.

Over at How To Save The World,* Dave Pollard has posted his answers to a version of the Proust Questionnaire, with the intention of answering them again in seven years. I decided to try this, too. Everyone is invited to post her own answers, in comments or at your blog. Skipping questions is allowed. So is adding your own.

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Love, meaning: people being brave enough to share themselves, others being brave enough to hear them.

2. What is your greatest fear?
That I am making the wrong decisions, and/or that those around me will conclude that we are making the wrong decisions.

3. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Any of my maternal great-grandparents.

4. Which living person do you most admire?
Bremily (Brenden-Emily).

5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My capacity for hatred.

6. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Ignorance.

7. What is your greatest extravagance?
This laptop. Daily cups of imported coffee.

8. What is your favourite journey?
Those through language (books, conversations).

9. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
The pursuit of “self-interest,” where the phrase means “immediate monetary gains” to the exclusion of health, happiness, longterm survival, wellbeing of community, etc.

10. On what occasion do you lie?
When it would be crueler or unacceptably dangerous to tell the truth.

11. What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I don’t know. Nothing in particular.

12. Which living person do you most despise?
There is no one person. Collectively, those who choose their own immediate monetary wealth over the survival of our species. Those who choose their own immediate monetary wealth over the lives of innocent people.

13. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Oh my God. Fuck.

14. What is your greatest regret?
All the ways I have caused pain, especially to people I love.

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
I have more than one, at least three. I think the real number of people is five: two comrades, a girlfriend, a brother, a sister.

16. Which talent would you most like to have?
Compassion. It is a talent, really.

17. What is your current state of mind?
Happy, gratified, somewhat anxious.

18. If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
I wouldn’t.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
The festival we had last year, which should be considered an achievement of everyone there.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
Another version of myself, literally.

21. If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
Another version of myself, literally.

22. What is your most treasured possession?
A folder of letters and photographs.

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
All-consuming hatred of oneself.

24. Where would you like to live?
In communion with my favorite people, preferably in the desert.

25. What is your favorite occupation?
I don’t know yet.

26. What is your most marked characteristic?
My sense of self, which causes all my other characteristics.

27. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Intelligence, honesty, having something to say.

28. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Intelligence, honesty, having something to say.

29. What do you most value in your friends?
Their ideas.

30. Who are your favorite writers?
I’m always bad at this question. Poetry: Sarah Arvio and Matthea Harvey. Fiction: Steve Erickson, Sabina Murray, Katherine Russel, Leslie Marmon Silko. Nonfiction: William McDonough, Michael Braungart, Natalie Angier.

31. Who is your favorite hero/heroine of fiction?
I don’t know. Maybe Legs Sadovsky from Foxfire by Joyce Carol Oates. All the main characters in The Life of David Gale.

32. Who are your heroines/heroes in real life?
Alice Paul. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Stephen Colbert.

33. What are your favorite names?
Not sure. I like a lot of Hebrew names, and some flower and plant names. Lilah, Aviva (a palindrome!), Ivy, Rose; Asher, Isaac, Elijah, Paul.

34. What is it that you most dislike?
Suffering. Injustice.

35. How would you like to die?
Quickly and at an old age.

36. What is your motto?
It is not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those that are best prepared to cope with change.

* A blog you should be reading.