May 23, 2013
Tumblr-hoo.

When I heard that Yahoo agreed to buy Tumblr, I tried to figure out the most Tumblry thing I could do to welcome the new ownership. Seems to me, that should involve posting a picture of a cat wearing clothes. Internet research tells me that 77.73% of all Tumblr blogs involve multiple photos of pets wearing clothes.

So, this is my cat in a shirt:

Please know that she decided to put on the shirt, or crawl into it. I merely documented the occasion. Because…that’s what we do nowadays. I feel like part of a community now.

5:58pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KslgM9w6
Filed under: pets cats yahoo despair 
May 22, 2013
Pitchforking the National.

I like the new The National album. So does Pitchfork. This concerns me, because usually Pitchfork assigns scores of 0-4 to albums by bands I like (or have even heard of), while saving the 8’s and 9’s and 10’s for stuff that I figure could only come from their editors’ imaginations.

What does this mean?? A world in which Pitchfork and I align is a scary world indeed.

1:28pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KslacOiG
Filed under: music 
May 7, 2013

I Am Made of Chalk by Crystal Castles

I don’t listen to a lot of electronic music. I don’t even know if that’s the proper term. But I like this song, and the album it came from. Listen for the dolphins…at least, that’s what they sound like to me.

1:51pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KskSEhEQ
Filed under: music 
May 7, 2013
Movie times: Wallflowers, tsunamis.

I watched “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “The Impossible” last weekend. I’ll put Wallflower ahead of Impossible on the likability scale, although both found ways to annoy me.

Where to start with “The Impossible”? While the real story is certainly compelling, is there any better example of Hollywood whitewashing a film? You could come away from that movie thinking that the tsunami’s main effect was inconveniencing wealthy white tourists. But that’s all been said already…I’m only chiming in.

I suppose there’s something similar at work in Wallflower but at least it doesn’t try to hide what it is: a fairly standard coming-of-age story about suburban kids. Hey, the main character is even named Charlie. Aren’t all the male protagonists in these stories named Charlie? The tone is good, the scenes are pretty, the music fits in nicely. Solid, if safe.

7:42am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KskRFk_V
Filed under: movies 
May 6, 2013
Blog switch.

I changed blog platforms…this is not big news, but I thought I’d explain why old posts went away. I got tired of WordPress — it was fun when I wanted to learn about building web pages, or when I had the patience for customizing blog themes and stuff like that. But now I have officially lost interest in technical details.

And really, that was all starting to feel extremely dated. This tumblr thing, while still a blog, is easier to use and seems to have the commendable ability to keep me from rambling. So we’ll see how it goes.

I may or may not pull over some of the old stuff. Maybe a clean start will be more fun…

You can still click on pages like “About” up there. I think you can scroll endlessly to see past posts. Fun, huh? Now I’m only 5-6 years behind everyone else.

4:47pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KskO9QRh
Filed under: site updates 
May 6, 2013
Sunday sunset. I threw a film grain-style filter on this one using the magic of Picmonkey, mainly to get a hint of a “Globe Trekkers” vibe. If you watch the PBS travel show you’ve seen their Super 8 film segments that give the show a wonderful feel — nostalgia, wistfulness, or something else. I can’t define it.

Sunday sunset. I threw a film grain-style filter on this one using the magic of Picmonkey, mainly to get a hint of a “Globe Trekkers” vibe. If you watch the PBS travel show you’ve seen their Super 8 film segments that give the show a wonderful feel — nostalgia, wistfulness, or something else. I can’t define it.

4:27pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KskO3XlK
Filed under: sunset photos 
May 6, 2013
Deadlines + golf habit = complications.

I haven’t played golf with any regularity for a long time. Of course, now that I’m working at home and plugging away on writing projects, the urge strikes again. It’s one thing to be sport-obsessed when you’re beholden to another person or a company, and another entirely when the “boss” is a stern voice in your own head. This could be trouble.

4:16pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KskO0NhO
Filed under: golf 
May 1, 2013
New spaces.

Well, let’s see how this Tumblr thing works. I’m tired of WordPress blogging. This looks better…

… OR DOES IT?

2:22pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5Ksj_rHXr
February 21, 2013
Books: “Fresh Off the Boat”

I’ll write more later, but I thought I’d make a quick book rec­om­men­da­tion: Eddie Huang’s “Fresh Off the Boat.” It’s one of the bet­ter mem­oirs I’ve read, and don’t be fooled if you check out the jacket and think it’s another celebrity chef mem­oir. This one is about much more — the immi­grant expe­ri­ence, cul­ture (and how we con­sume it), mas­culin­ity, fathers and sons, moth­ers and sons, all told from a very thought­ful place.

That sounds kind of generic, so I’ll say that “Fresh Off the Boat,” by being thought-provoking and con­cerned with some­thing other than quickly gained celebrity, is very dif­fer­ent than sim­i­larly mar­keted books. Does that make sense?

Maybe not. Check out the inter­view here (scroll down) to get Huang’s expla­na­tion of his work.

12:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KskO6KgX
January 5, 2013
Old school bullies.

Here’s an inter­est­ing confession/article from John Cook at Gawker: Con­fes­sions of a Teenage Word Bully.

What’s crazy is that I’m pretty sure I was at the same high school, briefly, as the author. He went to Ham­mond Jr. High, I went to George Wash­ing­ton Jr. High, and both fun­neled into T.C. Williams. I would have been 2 years behind him…

Any­way, what­ever you think about the story itself, it’s quite a flash­back to a par­tic­u­lar late-80’s sub­ur­ban Vir­ginia experience.

12:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9M5KskO6j27
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