Hermenautic Circle blog

Will subdivisions be turned into workshops and performance spaces? Or possibly into small-scale agricultural communities, or enclaves for artisan food-production? At the very least, will they become denser, transit-connected and less car-dependent … and what will drive that?

For some time I’ve thought about running away this autumn to Berlin to complete the book. As it turns out, enough people have acted on this fantasy to merit a NYT Styles piece (”ultracheap nooks for the aspiring authors who need room only for a laptop.”) Time for Plan B.

“Virtually everyone seeks to woo by describing their consumption of media as large and listing various communication devices they can’t do without.” - Art Fag City. Reminds me of this chestnut passed around the Tumblr-sphere a few months ago.

Jellies were once the pinnacle of sophistication.

(As a child, I made jellies in the shape of rabbits as an edible school project for our medieval feast - but though we had, at home, both a very good though now no longer fully functional large orange plastic jelly mold [it was benevolently tested last Xmas as part of small-child-oriented holiday preparations, but the jelly that emerged was not zoologically recognizable] and also smaller metal rabbit molds that perhaps worked better as cake tins, I believe that I used cookie cutters to solve the problem of how to scale up and make enough rabbits for everybody in the class to have their own.)

And here is the jellymongers website. Victorian breakfast looks to be a thing of considerable deliciousness (do I spy decorative anchovies?). Also, for the discerning, bespoke jelly moulds (pictured above). I wouldn't mind having one of these for a party.

I always have a trickle of advance reading copies coming into my apartment, many of which seem to have been sent to me on no rationally comprehensible grounds, but late last week I got one which I seized upon with delight: Lev Grossman's forthcoming novel The Magicians.

It is perhaps too dark to be the perfect escapist reading, but I thought it was very good indeed. For comic relief, I will also observe that I recently bought another book about magic partly because the Amazon reviewers' back-and-forth made me laugh...

Right across from the courthouse:

I cannot explain this, but it is somehow funny and apt...

[Image: Postopolis! LA at the Standard Hotel, photographed by Gaia Cambiaggi for Storefront for Art and Architecture. Check out the ever-expanding Postopolis! LA Flickr pool for more].

A quick reminder that we are livestreaming Postopolis! LA – which began only 20 minutes ago with Régine Debatty introducing Fritz Haeg, who is now on stage – via the Storefront website. Also, we will be reporting the whole thing on Twitter – follow @postopolis for more.

It was at least a year ago that Paul and Colleen told me I ought to read The True Meaning of Smekday. It took me a while, but guys, you were right. So I’m late to the party, but because some of y’all may be as well, I’ll tell you the book’s basic premise. Gratuity “Tip” Tucci, 12, has an assignment:

Write an essay titled THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY. What is the Smekday holiday? How has it changed in the year since the aliens left? You may use your own personal experiences from the alien invasion to make your points. Feel free to draw pictures or include photographs.

This is Gratuity:

This is a Boov, running:

The Boov have invaded Earth and renamed it Smekland. That’s pretty much all you need to know. But I’ll tell you more.

1. There are comics inside the book. Drawn by an alien. Named J.Lo.

2. One of the things that will nearly always sell me on a book is the quality of its throwaway lines; asides that don’t directly advance the plot, but add to characterization and/or the overall invented world. Smekday’s got them in abundance. Some non-spoilery examples:

“…there was less than I’d expected in the rainy-day fund that Mom had kept in the bottom of an underwear drawer in a panty hose egg labeled ‘DEAD SPIDERS.’ As if I hadn’t always known it was there. As if I wouldn’t want to look at dead spiders.”

“…Lite Choconilla Froot Bites, which broke my usual rule against eating anything that was misspelled.”

“The Boov are having seven magnificent genders.”

3. Another essential: avoiding the Giant Didactic Hammer that is so sadly common in books for kids & teens. Rex does this beautifully. He is the opposite of heavy-handed, but among the laughs and adventure, you’ll also find insights about cross-cultural misunderstandings, imperialism, and the dangers of making decisions based solely on your assumptions about how things work.

4. Still not convinced? Here, watch a Human Learning Video:

Here’s the schedule for this month.

At 10PM most Wednesdays in April I’ll play Taix in Madame Pamita’s band. I almost always get there early to eat and then hang out to chat after the set. That’s 4/1, 4/8, 4/22, and 4/29. (But not 4/15).

On Thursday April 9 I’ll play a solo set at the Hyperion Tavern. Dunno the time yet, most likely around 10PM. I’ll do the new electric guitar stuff that I’ve been working out in the Cinema Bar gigs over the past couple months. Hyperion Tavern is a great room for relaxing and cooling out to low key music. There’s no obvious place to eat right by the bar, because Casita del Campo across the street is really wretched, but there are some spots up Hyperion Ave toward Glendale.

On Friday April 10 and Friday April 24 I’ll play an early set at Cinema Bar in Culver City for the after-work drinkers. TGIF, a couple Coronas, killer tacos at Tito’s next door, and some vintage americana music.

On Monday April 27 I’ll play from 7:45 to 8:45 at the Talking Stick coffeehouse in Venice Beach. It’s on Lincoln a couple blocks south of Air Conditioned lounge. Real nice room where it’s easy both to talk to people or to pull into your own head and do some laptopping.

Lots of shows, which is good because playing more gets me into a nice flow and the music comes out well. Also: always always always feel free to ping me about drinks or food on gig nights. It’s all about the socializing.

the Sundance Channel’s new blog

The Sundance Channel has just launched a spiffy new blog called SUNfiltered. It’s got posts from various writers (e.g. Andrew Hearst and our new BFF Bobbie Redford) on culture, film, green issues, design, music, and love — “naked love“, to be exact. Yours truly will be contributing to the saucier side of things (natch), so stay tuned for our regular Naked Love posts which will start here and end over there.

Our first post is on who has it worse when it comes to casual sex: guys or gals?:

For as long as women have talked about sex over cocktails, they have complained about the double-standard of casual boot-knocking: The more he does it, the more his buddies high-five him; the more she does it, the more her “friends” whisper behind her back about what a slut she is.

Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered.

Bill Frisell's new CD This new(ish) best-of album by the eclectic guitarist keeps growing on me. It's Vol. 1 of a series, subtitled "Folk Sunes," and so focuses on Frisell's excursions into Americana, borrowed as well as created from scratch.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the newest high roller who is setting this blog on fire with her generous donation to the laptop fund:

A donation of $50 gets you a “High Roller” animated gif!!!

THANK YOU

David Brooks on Obama re-envisioning and -invasioning Afghanistan:

After the trauma in Iraq, it would have been easy for the U.S. to withdraw into exhaustion and realism. Instead, President Obama is doubling down on the very principles that some dismiss as neocon fantasy: the idea that this nation has the capacity to use military and civilian power to promote democracy, nurture civil society and rebuild failed states.

Foreign policy experts can promote one doctrine or another, but this energetic and ambitious response — amid economic crisis and war weariness — says something profound about America’s DNA.

What does that even mean? Seriously, what? Are we gonna sequence our national genome in the autoclave of hot Afghan conflict with an electron microscope sticking out of our X chromosomes? What?

From Megan McArdle:

The thing that really bothers me about Hitler was the genocide

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Sometimes I wonder how any of us ever learned about love and romance. Or how we learned, at the very least, to adjust our expectations to conform to reality. I started thinking about this after I inadvertently got Olivia Newton John’s song “Hopelessly Devoted to You” stuck in my head. As I was singing the song out loud while puttering about the house, I realized that it’s gooey sentiment — not to mention its unflappable loyalty in the face of rejection — was how my 8-year-old self imagined love to be.

Watch a clip from the movie Grease. Alas, if only our loves appeared to us in ponds.

As much as movies, books and television shape our youthful definitions and notions of love, it’s music — with its lyrics ripe for memorization and repetition, and often written for and about the beloved — that becomes our guide and our adoptive ode. We insert ourselves into a song’s narrative — which, of course, we can do with film. But with a song, it’s neatly packaged inside of a scant few minutes; the story is brief, fleeting and, best of all, instantly gratifying because of its quick conclusion. For our young, impressionable hearts, a love song is just a metronome that keeps the time until a new beat comes along.

Below is part one of a treacherous journey toward a vague understanding of love.

First up for me was Huey Lewis & The News. The band’s albums Sports and Fore were pretty much the soundtrack to my elementary-school years. Lewis was something of a Jersey dreamboat (totally not an oxymoron, in case you were wondering), and after he serenaded me for years, he ultimately broke my heart when my Walkman, containing a Huey Lewis tape, was stolen from our family car at Stanley Park in Vancouver, B.C. Also, my baby blanket was stolen. If you are wondering why I had a Walkman and a baby blanket in the same tote bag, let’s just say that I was very complicated. It’s only occurring to me right this second that perhaps my parents staged this theft in order to rid me of my threadbare patch of comfort. Dad?

Anyhow, here is Lewis’ “Stuck With You,” a song which let me know that true love involves being stuck, but also being sort of happy about it. After all, it’s such a pain to have to change your address.

Up next were songs that alluded not just to love, but to making love. It doesn’t get more romantic than these lyrics, courtesy of Air Supply:

Every time I see you all the rays of the sun
are streaming through the waves in your hair;
and every star in the sky is taking aim
at your eyes like a spotlight,
The beating of my heart is a drum, and it’s lost
and it’s looking for a rhythm like you.

(Somewhere at an All Songs Considered desk, Robin Hilton is crying and asking Bob Boilen to hold him. Bob won’t.)

The words “making love” still make me cringe, and I blame this Air Supply song.

George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” erased every lesson taught to me in health class. This, by a man later arrested for having sex in a public bathroom — twice! In lieu of Michael’s true sexual preference, I like to imagine a different meaning for the line, “I can’t take much more, girl, I’m losing control.” What at first sounded like a man brimming with desire was really just a guy saying, “I’m over it, at least with women.”

But let’s end with something truly romantic: New Kids on the Block’s “I’ll Be Loving You Forever.” In middle school, I went to the Puyallip Fair and flung myself at Jordan and Jonathan Knight. Why? One, because I had a better chance of still scoring in case one of them rejected me; and two, because the concept of forever means nothing to a 13-year-old. Therefore, it sounded like a pretty cool time.

Feel free to share your early journeys into the forays of love and romance courtesy of song.

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photo by Ed Bierman

Advice from three of our guy friends. This week a straight woman asks, “How can I can convince two hetero dudes to have a threeway with me?”

Straight Single Guy (Max): Barring the possibility that you could trick these “hetero” dudes into your lair (using beer, snacks or Ahnold movies) I’d say that your best bet is to try and wiggle your way into the arms of two friends or, even better, the bromance. Face it: a lot of guys go by the super homophobic rule of “as long as the balls don’t touch,” so you’re much better off finding two guys that are as comfortable with one another’s body as they are with their joint egos. After that, your best policy is honesty. You can’t be coy about getting two guys at the same time, so I’d say be up front: “If you boys want me, you’re going to have to share. I’ll be in that room. Come find me?” Oh, and please end any threeway with a lot of high fives. They’re free, and you deserve it.

Straight Married Guy (Ben): What you really need to do is figure out if the MMF threeway is a “Yes,” a “No,” or a “Maybe” for these guys. Yes? No problem — go for it. No? it’s never going to happen – stop wasting your time. Maybe? Well, then it’s negotiable. And, while it’s easiest just to come out and ask, you can also test the waters by sharing “a sexy dream you had,” or confessing a fantasy after a few drinks. If you want to get fancy, use a Yes, No, Maybe list and cover a ton of ground all at once. And when you get your answer, you’ll know how to proceed. The “Maybes” are the ones that need convincing and what that really means is setting some ground rules. Maybe it’s no guy/guy touching. Maybe it’s lots of touching but no kissing. Maybe it’s only one cock visible at a time. Whatever. If it’s a “Maybe” for your guy, the question becomes, “What do you need to make this threesome happen?” And that is a question that can be answered.

Gay Committed Guy (Mark):

1. Get them drunk.
2. If that doesn’t work, you’re on your own. And when you find out, let me know.
3. “Dudes”?

Our “wise guys” are a rotating group of contributors, some of whom wish to remain anonymous and some of whom like the attention. This week’s Straight Married Guy is Ben, a writer and artist living in Los Angeles who runs AdultParlorGames.com. Our Committed Gay Guy, Mark, is a writer and teacher in NYC and our Single Straight Guy, Max, is a recent college grad in New England — both asked us to file them under “shy.” To ask the guys your own question, click here.

MAJOR BREAKING HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP … MUST CREDIT MNFTIU.CC, THE HOTTEST BLOG …

Just off the ol’ Blackberry with a major Hollywood insider who confirms the latest rumor buzzing around Hollywood:

Funnyman BILLY CRYSTAL will play foreign-policy sage WILLIAM KRISTOL in a one-man show. Rehearsals begin next month in Bristol, UK.

Show, tentatively titled “Clear As Kristol,” will follow Bill Kristol’s amazing career and inspirational personal story. Show is designed to capitalize on the buzz surrounding Kristol’s latest venture, a think thank called “Foreign Policy Initiative” that should definitely be taken seriously by everyone who cares about the future of our country … the think tank’s logo — a lopsided globe that looks like some kid made it in Adobe Illustrator in about 2.5 seconds — will inform the set design of the show, i.e. the set will be crooked and slanted and the audience will have to nail their chairs to the floor before each performance so they don’t all slide down into the lowest corner of the theatre and create a panicked mass of writhing humanity …

As to the tone of the show, one excited insider sez, “Think Mr. Saturday Night meets Project For A New American Century, this will redefine ‘off the hook,’ I can’t wait for this show, both Billy (Crystal) and Willy (Kristol) are national treasures, did you see when Billy got to train with the Yankees, that was the highpoint of Western civilization.”

Sounds good, maybe I’ll book a ticket to Bristol and write a review for the blog?

This won’t end well:

The phrase “war on terror,” for seven years a signature expression of the Bush administration, has been shelved, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged Monday.

Have we surrendered already? Think about it: How can we win the war if it doesn’t have a name? Think on that long and hard. All the best things have names:

1. BEST MOVIE: “Basket Case” (that’s the name of the movie)
2. BEST FOOD: “Nachos” (that’s the name of the food)
3. BEST TEAM: “UNC, The Tar Heels” (that’s the name of the team)
4. BEST RADIO: “Sony Radio” (that’s the name of the radio)

All those things are the best; all those things have names. Cogito Ergo Sum.

Now try this …

1. BEST WAR WE MUST WIN: “—–” (no name!!!)
2. “Ho-hum, I guess we’ll just get killed by the enemy.”

I rest my case.

WAR ON TERROR FOR LIFE!!!

I've posted more than once in the past about writer/director Jacob Zimmer's laboratory-theatre troupe Small Wooden Shoe and their series Dedicated to the Revolutions. In the past three years, they've done a set of seven shows about various "revolutions," most scientific (Copernican, Darwinian), some socio-technical (Industrial, Information), all derived from an unfinished school assignment from Zimmer's childhood. Tonight at Buddies in Bad Times theatre, they begin a two-week run of the final show in the series, which attempts to synthesize all seven previous performances into one, "demonstrating the difficulty of demonstrating the effects of progress on our lives."

It's an effort to think through paradigm shifts and how they affect our lives, an attempt to make the ghost of C.P. Snow just a little happier, and also a shot at having some serious-minded but light-hearted fun. Fans of Trampoline Hall, show-and-tell, Bad Bands and other hybrid performance events should feel at home. People who know a lot about science might possibly find themselves a bit impatient - as might some people who don't, but maybe not, I haven't seen the show yet.

I will very soon and report back to you. Meanwhile here are previews and interviews about it from The Globe & Mail, NOW, Eye, MaRS blog, Time & Space and One Big Umbrella.

I've got a piece about the "Celestial Jukebox" up at the Portfolio site.