Studies

Incomplete thoughts and irreverent tales of art, cinema, design, food, love, media, millennials, music, nostalgia, objects, photos, politics, spaces, travel, and wit. You can also enjoy it as an XML/RSS feed.


I’d never shown it to you.

Though I completed this chapter of my pop music autobiography in late September, a few weeks into my first semester at Georgetown, only now in the more apparent denouement of my existential crisis do I feel compelled to write its intentions, framed in the context of two gifts I received in November.

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A quick case study on the dynamics of status messages in Google Talk.

Argument: “Everything tastes better on a stick.”
Counterpoint: “No, everything tastes better wrapped up burrito style.”
Countercounterpoint: “No, everything tastes better mini, regardless of impaled or wrapped.”
Countercountercounterpoint: “No, everything tastes better with bacon, butter, or maple syrup.”

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Four information architects walk into a Chinese restaurant.

Last Thursday night, over dinner at Eat First with Lou, Mike Lee, and Aaron Watkins, as the conversation meandered from information architecture, young designers, microcelebrity, Movable Type, the Ted Kennedy question, the information networks of museum collections, and raising five-year-olds, a billboard on the back of a truck rolled past the restaurant window on rain-drenched H Street. Dozens of bullet holes were painted on it, and printed in all-caps Impact were the words “FREE RANGE TIME.”

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Nine thoughts for November: from a frayed edge.

When reflecting on what I wanted to say about the end of last month, I read the first in this series, written in 2003. It started: It’s that time again—when I stay awake for 98, 73, 61, 55, and so on hours on end, barely snatching sleep in car rides provided on someone else’s dime as they’re worried I’m too far beyond needing sleep to safely maneuver a motor vehicle on my own … .

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Ursa major.

Some families set their dramas on the stage of a castle, a city apartment, a suburban bungalow. Mine was wed to the four wheels of a 1990 Toyota truck.

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That’s just the way it is; things will never be the same.

This is required viewing for anybody who confuses sporting a lapel pin for true patriotism. I question and doubt my government because I want it to be better, because its impact on the world is undeniable. All those baseball games where people stood respectfully and listened to a celebrity of dubious talent sing the national anthem were just practice for this moment. Eddie Izzard said about the American national anthem: “70% of what people react to is the look, you know, it’s how you look; and 20% is about how you sound; and only 10% is what you say.” But that crowd on St. Mark’s Place knew and believed 100% of what they were saying. The awkward pause before ‘banner,’ where the crowd collectively catches its breath to belt out the last three words of that phrase, gives me chills.

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You complete us.

After the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, I became acutely aware of how voter fraud and suppression are perpetrated and how the simple process of tallying a majority can get so damn complicated. I don’t doubt that it happened again yesterday, that there were places where voters were intimidated, places where good citizens were confused for felons, places where the vote just didn’t work. And I don’t doubt that it will happen again. I fear this is just an inherent assumption of the millennial voter.

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Being vindicated is the most fun a person can have without taking their clothes off.

I’m going to keep my mouth shut and let (inter)national news media do the talking. House Works on a Bailout — for E-Mail -New York Times (includes a small screen cap of my work). House of Representatives’ Web site overwhelmed -CNN (#1 most viewed story earlier today).

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I’d never shown it to you.

2008 December 25

Though I completed this chapter of my pop music autobiography in late September, a few weeks into my first semester at Georgetown, only now in the more apparent denouement of my existential crisis do I feel compelled to write its intentions, framed in the context of two gifts I received in November.



Echoes

  • Ben Folds feat. Regina Spektor - You Don't Know Me
  • 'Til Tuesday - Voices Carry
  • Jon Brion - Little Person
  • Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderley - Save Your Love For Me
  • The Perishers - Rock, Best Friends
  • The Libertines - Death on the Stairs
  • The Libertines - Music When the Lights Go Out
  • The Libertines - Never Never
  • The Five Stairsteps - Ooh Child
  • Katy Perry - Electric Feel (MGMT Cover)

Data compiled by Audioscrobbler.


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