Emerging Technology with cellphone pics and January Walks

Segment 1: Texas Houses. Blue skies, 70 degrees and desolation.

Free range Chickens.

Movement and Music.

Maxim Ludwig & The Santa Fe Seven

This song is Texas to me. My Texas, in a  traditionally  ego-driven style. An hour and a half, Monday-Friday I cruise the "Farm to Market" (FM) and "Ranch to Market" (RM) roads.  The thing with having such a large land mass, is that a)everything is larger because there is space and b) everything is incredibly spread out. 


 So, I spend a lot of time in the car, sitting. For some reason, this song makes a lot of sense to me as I am weaving in and out of traffic at too high a speed. 

Power of the Metaphor

The way in which this speech is logistically arranged is almost ingenious and perfect representation of the layout of a perfect essay.
James Geary, metaphorically speaking | Video on TED.com

3 Most Intriguing Men of 2010

In lou of the end of the year, I bring you the three most intriguing men of 2010.

3-Joseph Gordon Levitt
He's been around since 3rd Rock From the Sun, as the awkward, long haired pre-teen. However, this year, he was cast in  Inception.  He's been a variety of sensitive teen-dramas, but this solidified his acting talents and versatility. I saw Inception  my second day in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse. I was  just coming off my 4 day seeing-America-Kerouac romp, and while the movie was damn good, the end resonated deeply within me (partly because I was still in shell shock of new-everything- and I felt like I was constantly dreaming).

2-Sufjan Stevens
There's a long-winded man on the public radio I listen to who is obsessed  with Sufjan. He spent at least, ten minutes discussing the possible ways to pronounce his new album,  "The Age of Adz." one Wednesday morning as I was driving to work. He constantly praises Sufjan for his talents. And, justifiably, the album is  really fucking good. Sufjan might just be one of the best looking, artistically talented men around. And "The Age of Adz" is one of my top albums this year. Not to mention, he writes beautifully, both lyrically and in his creative prose.

1-James Franco
Acting out Alan Ginsberg is tough.   I thought Franco really captured the beat-counter culture that paved the road for the  modern-rebellion that followed a decade later. Franco read Ginsberg's poetry with the same fire and slightly awkward rhythm that came to define Ginsberg's style. Franco looks good in anything, (even with a curly perm in "Milk") but there was a certain natural air to Franco's take on Ginsberg, and the style of the time period. Which, coincidentally, is my favorite aesthetic dress for men. Regardless, Franco took on the role of Ginsberg and his poetry,  incredibly well.

 

Christmas Eve 2010

or "Oh, shit there's a bolt missing"

I was sitting in the Denver International Airport. I’d already been through a two and a half hour flight to 86 it out of Austin at 9am on Christmas Eve. I was beat. 50 hour work weeks, graduate school applications and a slew of happy holiday sweater/bike rides/rock hikes. I was tired. Dead. Tired. That morning I woke up at 6am to fix myself breakfast and make sure I had all the bbq, hot sauces and Mexican candy in my suitcase for Christmas.

I just wanted to smell the cold Washington air and feel the icy chill in my bones. I wanted it so badly.

My flight was late into Denver and I ran across the airport to catch my flight to Washington. My backpack bouncing as I ran across the “moving walkways” listening to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros in a skirt, tights and heels. The song was Home. This important ironic foreshadowing for the  rest of the narrative. It probably looked (and was) incredibly comedic. I arrived at the the gate just as they announced my name over the loudspeaker.

I get in the plane and sit down. I give up my window seat so the woman with the fat baby can sit next to her husband. I am now significantly squished in between a woman from Wyoming in Carhart’s reading Nora Roberts and an incredibly, oversized man, about the age of 45. He is spilling onto my seat and I am literally so squished I can't really move. He is breathing heavily and watching Fantasia on a mini-dvd player. I can smell his breathing. I just pray this flight doesn’t take very long and pull out a copy of “Vogue” that was given to me by a sorority-esque woman who was sitting next to me on the previous flight.

The man starts snorting. As if his breath wasn’t bad enough, he now has a sound! His strange, irregular breathing was then interrupted by an announcement. There was a bolt missing from the emergency seat and we were permanently stuck in Denver until it was a)fixed or b) we found another plane. Fuck the bolt, I want to go home and move about freely.

 I immediately get off the plane and begin wandering around the Denver Airport. I swindle a husband and wife into treating me to a whiskey sour. I sip it and make casual conversation with a couple from Minnesota before heading back to my plane.

Three and a half hours later (10 hours from when I left my apartment in TX) the plane is ready to fly. That bolt must have been incredibly important.
The flight is normal and I arrive in Washington, late, but in one piece.

The breath in the cold air and feel the icy chill in my bones.

There is no time to waste because I have to go to Episcopal Mass, one of the only traditions my family has, which is ironic because we are not religious. In the least. Immediately following my flight, I get in the car, drive into town and attend mass. I see my grandparents, I hug them quietly in the pew and sit. The bishop gives a sermon relating Charlie Brown to Jesus and Truth. We drink the wine and eat the bread. The mass is always longer than I remember. But, at least I grew up attending a Cathedral, which is never boring because I am surrounded aesthetically beautiful, intense religious imagery.

I also have a grandfather who was raised a Catholic in New York City during the depression. He is now hard of hearing and carries some kind of resentment for Christianity. In the silences, he said the following.

Dean: “Please feel free to fill out information cards at the end of your pew if you would like to get in contact with our church.”

My grandfather: “I wont’ feel out one of those. They just want my money”
And, the best, said during the sacrament,
My grandfather: “I don’t want to drink their wine. It’s crap.”

And, it was a Merry Christmas indeed.

Keep the soles moving.

I am not a fan of New Year's Resolutions, (it seems stupid to set a goal for a new year, and you should just do it because you want to)
but as 2010 was an awesome ride (like, whoa) I am looking forward to 2011. Here is why:

-10K run in March
-My 24th Birthday (salute! Officially in my Mid-twenties)
-SXSW
-80 degrees in March...
-Playing soccer
-Grad School, Fellowship, or I don't know teaching English in some foreign land.
-My friends & family visiting Atx
And, the general unknown after August..

The Relative Size of Things

Recently I was in an apartment that had a variety of maps as décor covering the walls. The maps were in the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom and the makeshift hallway.

We started talking about the idea of space (as in the space between countries) and the relation of people to this space, politically, socially and personally. I’ve always been fascinated by maps, and the way in which people express their external surroundings and the way in which countries position themselves on a map. 

"Old Map"

It amazes me that this map can exist, with somewhat surprising accuracy, considering there was no ‘objective’ at the time, (hey, they thought the Earth was flat). I also love the fact that N. America & Antarctica   represent such an incredibly large land mass. As if being unknown is equal to  a larger size size and significance.

Click to enlarge

Aussie "Upside down" Map- I love the fact that Australia orients themselves this way. 

And, one of my favorites, The Peter's Map: This is an area accurate representation...which really stirred up scholars back in the 70's. It used cylindric equal-area to show one  way in which the world is proportionally measured. Africa you are huge:

Africa-in proper size proportion to other countries:

It always amazes me that the size of W. Europe and N.America is so incredibly small. 

Postcolonial Trade Map-Because after seeing Africa, you realize power is not all about size...

Click to enlarge!

And, perhaps the most commonly used Map: Mercator. Just note how the map is centered around N. America. 

These are all maps representing the same thing, it just is so surprising how something so 'objective' (as in, there is only one earth to show) can take a variety of forms.