| If you wish to bring the two matters of birth and death to conclusion, and pass directly beyond the Triple-world, you must penetrate the koan “This very mind is Buddha.” Tell me: What is its principle? How is it that this very mind is Buddha? And “this very mind” just what is it like? Investigate it coming. Investigate it going. Investigate it thoroughly and exhaustively. All you have to do is keep this koan constantly in your thoughts.
- Daito (1282-1334) | |
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| Hello fellow macro-ers, I have a request for a ceiling cat picture of a Dominatrix looking down at her boy with ceiling cat above and it says "Ceiling cat watches you Dominate" Thank in advance! And to keep this legal...  - Mood:chipper
 - Music:Suicide Commando - Hellraiser (VNV Nation remix)
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| This one has been keeping me up at night! There was a 3- or 4-book series I read from the freebie library book cart in the early-to-mid 90's (probably 1994ish, and the books felt pretty modern at the time so I doubt they were much older than that). They didn't have covers, so I don't have any visuals to go from.
It centered around a missing/dead girl named April. Her cousin and best friend was the narrator and was basically trying to solve the mystery throughout the series. April had a boyfriend named Spike, and she used to sketch him often, since she was an artist. April was friends/frenemies with a character named Lacey (I think), who was rich and popular and used to invite people over to swim all the time.
I can't really remember anything else about this, except random things (Lacey used to drink diet coke because she was "saving the calories for the cookies", and I think either April or the narrator came from a single-mom, poor-ish household). I would love to track this down. Any help appreciated! | |
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| And this makes me just a little more motivated to lift the kettlebell.
- Mood:silly
 - Music:The beat of the drums
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| "It's not about how to achieve your dreams; it's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the dreams will come to you." — Dr. Randy Pausch, The Last LectureSad, sad news to report. Former Carnegie Mellon Professorat of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design, Dr. Randy Pausch has died of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47. Additional report. Some of you may remember that after Dr. Pausch was diagnosed, he gave a final lecture to his students last September entitled "The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", a video of which is archived here. If you haven't seen it yet, please do. It's deeply moving and inspiring. A transcript in PDF format is here and here's the html version from ABC, which keeps a wonderful archive page on him, that includes video from the Lecture, as well as an interview with Diane Sawyer. A book called "The Last Lecture" was released in April. Dr. Pausch's download page has links to closed captioned and subtitled videos of his lecture, as well as additional resources, including info on his Alice project and links to some of his other lectures. "Powerpoint slides for the lecture here (low resolution: 13 meg) or here (full resolution: 272 meg). You may use this for non-commercial purposes without asking for permission." Be forewarned that the page is being hit hard with traffic right now, and may not open on the first try. JJ Abrams even gave him a line of dialogue in the upcoming Star Trek movie. I hope his family finds comfort in knowing how many people he inspired.  | |
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| Most of us have had the experience of being in possession of a piece of truth that we were afraid to share because we knew it would not be well received. There are also instances in which we ourselves have been unable to handle some truth confronting us. This might be a small truth, such as not wanting to see that our car needs repairs because we don’t want to pay for them, or a large truth, such as not fully accepting that someone close to us is pushing us away. Usually the truth is evident, and we can see it if we choose, but we have elaborate ways of hiding the truth form ourselves, no matter how apparent it is.
For the most part, we avoid the truth because it scares us, or makes us angry, or makes us feel like we don’t know what to do. We often create our lives based on a particular understanding, and if that understanding turns out to be fully or even partially incorrect, we may feel that our whole sense of reality is being threatened. It takes a strong person to face the truth in circumstances like these, and many of us run for cover instead. Nevertheless, we can only avoid the truth for so long before it begins to make itself known in ever more forceful ways.
Ultimately, there is no way to avoid the truth, no matter how painful it is, so the sooner we let down our defenses, the better. When we know the truth and accept that we may have to adjust our lives to accommodate, we are in alignment with reality. At the same time, we can be patient with people around us who have a hard time seeing the truth, because we know how painful it can be. Whatever the truth is, we make a sincere effort not to close our eyes to it, but instead to be grateful that we have access to it. | |
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| http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/largeheartedboy/~3/345726244/why_obama_by_gr.html
Why Obama is a series of guest essays by musicians and authors, where they share their support for Democratic United States presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama and offer arguments why we need him elected.
Greg Saunier is the drummer for the band Deerhoof. The band's latest album, Offend Maggie, will be released on October 7th.
In his own words, here is Greg Saunier's Why Obama essay :
For me the thing about Obama is I really like the way he talks. In the Demo debates it would be someone talking gibberish, then someone else countering in gibberish, then he'd start in and suddenly every word made sense.
I don't think it's an accident for either the gibberishy politicians or Obama. Average politicians, for as long as I can remember in my lifetime, want to sound smart but exclude me from the equation. They are the experts and it's OK if I don't really understand what they're talking about, I should just trust them.
For all the chatter about Obama's progressiveness on policy, vastly overstated in my opinion, what's really progressive about him as far as I'm concerned is that inclusiveness in the discussion. If for no other reason than that the words coming out of his mouth are understandable, he is a radical politician. That's the reason he's a potential danger to the status quo - not necessarily the policy status quo (this remains to be seen), but the structural status quo. Imagine a country where citizens, especially younger ones, feel included in the political process, where they are expected to understand the details. I get chills when I do, because I can't remember a single time that's ever happened in my life, not at the presidential level. New citizens might grow up feeling that having a point of view is something other than pointless exercise in frustration.
Of course I dread the disillusion that could set in if he is elected and the world doesn't become a perfect place overnight. You know what they say about high expectations. But that chunk of his platform that is about inclusion and participation is the part that's most resistant to disillusionment because it was never about a quick fix on any particular topic in the first place. The onus would be shared between President Obama and USA citizens.
Being in a band is a neat way to travel. It's fun. We don't get to see the Eiffel Towers of the world but we get a chance, in fact are forced, to meet people in societies quite different from ours. And something I have noticed is that intelligence and restraint are two qualities that are valued more highly in other countries than in ours. If one were feeling a little sassy one might even venture to say that they are undervalued here to the point of disaster. I really didn't really realize this until Deerhoof started touring internationally a lot. I had figured it was the same everywhere. Shrugging, I bought the "human nature" excuse. Turns out there are large groups of people out there whose outlook on life is subtly more future-oriented, more informed, more self-controlled, more willing to consider a problem's complexities, less ready to start a fight, less defeated.
And just to have someone with these qualities in a position of leadership would be such a stimulation. I love how he is so even-keel, he never gets too "up" around victories and too "down" in defeats. The simple fact that educatedness seems an admirable characteristic when exuded by him is such a relief.
I especially think of the kids. What would it be like to grow up in a country where your leader actually wants you to be level-headed and smart? I certainly wouldn't know.
Deerhoof links:
Deerhoof website
Deerhoof MySpace page
Deerhoof's Wikipedia entry
Barack Obama links:
Barack Obama presidential campaign website
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Why Obama essays
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
tags: politics music obama barackobama deerhoof indie
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| http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/NancyFriedman/away_with_words/~3/345695556/how-fluther-got-its-name.html I can't count the number of times I've worked on naming projects involving groups, crowds, or collections (usually of intangible stuff like information). I thought I knew every collective noun in English--and in a few other languages, too--but somehow until now I'd missed fluther.
I discovered the meaning of fluther at Fluther, a filtered question-and-answer site where users post and respond to questions. It's not the only such site--Yahoo Answers is the most popular destination in the category--but it's one of the newer ones (it launched in June 2007), and its witty design and elegant typography help distinguish it from the pack/covey/gaggle/knot/flotilla.
I especially appreciated this paragraph on the What Is Fluther? page:
A fluther is a group of jellyfish, like a gaggle of geese (or a taint of tilapia).
“Fluther” is pronounced /'flʌ ðɚ/. It rhymes with “brother” and “mother”.
Nice to know, because I'd been stuck between Luther and flutter.
Also nice: the general intelligence of the questions (and responses). For example:
"Safe Haven laws: good or promoting secrecy and usurping parental rights""
"How did women's clothing sizes come about?"
"What are the advantages of mobile banking?"
Even the whimsy is classy; check out "What do the Fluther jellyfish resemble to you?"
Hat tip to Ari Herzog, who cross-posted his Fluther question--"What year could you buy a home telephone at a store?"--on Twitter. (I had supposed 1984, the year of the Ma Bell breakup, but apparently it was considerably earlier.)
P.S. For reasons unknown to me, the University of California Golf Club has posted this list of collective nouns on its website. It isn't annotated, but it's definitely long. Besides a fluther of jellyfish, the list includes a neverthriving of jugglers, a labour of moles, and a mutation of thrushes. Oh, and a page of Wikipedians. But I don't see one of my favorites, a murder of crows. And there's no collective noun for golfers! Have a suggestion? Post a comment below. I'll start you off: a lie of golfers. | |
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| I have the most horrible time finding handbags I like, and even a worse time finding ones that are incredibly useful for school. Read: Sturdy, large, lots of pockets, look nice, somewhat semi professional but stylish. I'm really loving the idea of a Medium sized Lands end signature tote, do you ladies have any reviews on them or if they'd be good for my purposes? I don't usually take textbooks with me, I just tend to tote around binders, notebooks and Finance journals. Any other recommendations otherwise? I don't want to spend an arm and a leg and I want to make sure I love it since I have a "buy one purse, throw one out" rule so I don't end up swimming in a sea of out of style handbags. | |
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| I remember reading a book when I was in middle school about a group of schoolchildren who were troublemakers. I only vaguely remember the plot, but there was something about them being sent off to a special school that was kind of awful. I think maybe some of them lived in cars? There was a kind of anarchist vibe running through the thing. I think the title was something like The Scratchyard Kids, - I know for a while when I was looking, I kept getting it confused with The Pushcart War, I think because of a similarity in the title style.
I remember it was kind of a dark, disturbing book for me at age 12, but also fascinating. I'd love it if someone knows what I'm talking about, it's been driving me batty for years.
Some details:
* I read it from my school library in the early 80s, but I doubt it was a new release
* I was living in the Southern US at the time
* I feel like it was a hardcover with line art on the jacket, but I don't remember
* The kids in the story were very tough, streetwise.
* Oh, I think they staged some kind of rebellion against the school?
* To my twelve-year-old self, it was very dark and kind of scary in that all these kids were BREAKING THE RULES. And the battle between the kids and the teachers was kind of intense.
Sound familiar at all? | |
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| http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Fluxblog/~3/345702822/do-it-quick-and-painless.html Lackthereof "Doomed Elephants" - Given that Danny Seim's drumming in Menomena tends to be rather busy, flashy, and foregrounded, one might reasonably expect that his one-man-band project Lackthereof would be more or the same, or even more drum-tastic. Well, not quite: His drumming style is still immediately recognizable, but the bombast has been dialed down significantly. He focuses on keeping the songs in a tight pocket, and leaving a great deal of negative space for fluid, rumbling bass lines that roll along with a mesmerizing grace. "Doomed Elephants" is especially gorgeous in the way its trebly elements just sort of hover loosely around the groove, implying an extreme depth of field that complements Seim's lyrics about highways, oceans, and wide-open skies. As his words contemplate the enormity of those things, and confront the relative insignificance and fragility of his life, the music conveys equal measures of dread and awe. (Click here to buy it from Barsuk.) | |
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Driving to devon to see the relatives and the seaside for a few days. Stopping at exeter for the afternoon, then off to budleigh!
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