mushinnoshin

Goldni and Aunt B have some thoughtful posts about the omnipresent sexism (if not outright misogyny) in last night’s superbowl ads.

I don’t have anything to add really, but did have a minor disagreement with Aunt B on one tangential item:

I mean, I thought the Google ad was cute, but it seemed like a masterpiece because it was a respite from the “Women suck and they’re ruining you. Only our product can make you more manly.” bombardment.

The disagreement being that I thought the Google ad was a masterpiece on its own without regard to the shittyness of the rest of the ads. (Which is really to say I just wanted to post about the Google ad and this was a convenient segue to do so :)

I really did think it was brilliant — maybe the best superbowl ad since that iconic one from Apple so many years ago. It was simple, thoughtful, intelligent, and emotional — and with that tag line “Keep Searching”, it was even deeply existential.

I’m no marketer, but it seems to this layman that an entire ad showing nothing but the branded product doing what the product does has got to be the gold standard, at least when it can be done this clearly and effectively, and especially when the product is shown profoundly helping the user shape the very fundamentals of his life.

But more interesting to me, and this goes to the bit about it being existential — it made a provocative observation about the human condition, how we *are* all searching. We’re searching for love, for happiness, for acceptance, for fulfillment, and for billions of things unique to the individuals doing the searching.

And back to the marketing aspect, Google just humbly accepted its place as the quiet little tool helping us answer our queries in ways never before possible, and not until recently even imaginable. Without a hint of arrogance they reminded us of just how immense a cultural revolution we’ve seen in the last 10 to 15 years or so, and how they’ve become the focal point through which we find and experience so much of that revolution.

That’s some powerful shit. And they did it without actors, celebrities, dialog — hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even use a camera, just captured it right from the desktop. In this they made a commentary, even if unintentional, about the elemental superiority of substance over style and function over form (the same commentary they began making the day they launched with their simple, no-nonsense prompt).

And then there’s something beautiful in knowing that they didn’t have to do it, it wasn’t part of some well-plotted marketing scheme — they just put it up there because they could, because they felt like participating in the cultural event that superbowl ads have become. And they used a piece they’d already released into the tubes.

It just worked on so many levels. It might be cliche to say it, but this thing wasn’t just an ad, it really was a work of art. Performance art, even.

Well I’ve been taking it slow, just doing a few things each weekend, trying to ease my way back in, not forcing it. There’s been some waiting as I’ve had to get a few things — the new midi controller, new monitors, a new stand, a new power supply. And I’ve still got a lot to do, getting the mixer routes all patched, with the effects and gates and eq and compressors and such all wired up.

But today, I turned it all on, for the first time in — what, is it 8 years? Maybe closer to 9, going on 10?

I’ve got sound from the xp-30. And when I fired her up, I found her right where I left off, sitting on my favorite dirty organ patch with the pitch shifted down an octave, wondering where I’ve been and happy to see me.

I’m gonna grab another beer and get back to my old friend.

there’s a small set of ‘em

It’s probably too soon to write much about it, but it would suck to miss the chance to make the first entry on this date (yeah I know it’s the 3rd already, but I’m sure it’s still legally the 1st until sometime tomorrow morning).

Well, I got the upstairs unpacked. Many species of disc and tape were shelved, egg-crates of cables and widgets got sorted and stacked. The porn stash was relocated. After some thought and trying out a few arrangements, I got the station layout down: racks to my left, the xp-30 to my right, and a desk in front with the juno on the workspace, the 101key in a tray below, and the studio monitors and video monitors sharing the riser in back. Though that last one may take some finagling when the lcds actually get here. The whole rig takes up about 3/4 of the room; I have the back of the desk about two feet from the far wall. I need to work on how move a little closer to center on the other axis, without blocking an inconvenient but needed closet.

When I packed this stuff up to move, I did as much as I could to leave all the woven cable snakes intact; unplug as little as possible, catch as much as possible in the power crate. Pulling it back out now, between time and tangles I’m not having much success just plugging everything right back in, *but*, by following the various cord paths, clumps, and clusters, and picking up my patterns and some clues I left, I was able to snart snapping together some memories of how it all hooked up. I did get the power crate (an egg crate that keeps together three powerstrips of plugs and wall warts and associated cabling, external pieces, etc) cleaned out and reorganized, and all the outgoing power cables re-snaked back to the rack and re-attached to their devices. And I got a good start on running the audio cables, but that’s a bit more complicated and will take a little while.

Meanwhile, I need a new machine to run things. I take the 2Ghz athlon that I was using as a dvr-pc back in the dark days before tivo, swap the 40GB hard drive for a 320 I had laying around. Got XP installed after a few tries (old xp disc didn’t want to see >137 of that drive). Installed Gina (multichannel audio card). Then I go to install the midi card, but find it uses a really old isa connector, no way to plug it into a newer machine (well, no way that’s not more expensive than just replacing the thing). Which is funny because I could have *sworn* I remembered buying a pci card to replace this isa one under similar circumstance. I must be remembering when I had to buy the isa card to replace whatever the hell it was that came before that.

So that’s where I am. I’ve got to figure out what to do about the midi controller, and finish running the audio, and then I should be ready to start turning things on.

so here we go;

sorry I haven’t written much here lately. I have no greater excuse than simply not having been in the right frame of mind.

Well. Don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’m here. And it’s Saturday night, after Christmas. It’s been a decent one. Thursday with the dad, brother, and brother’s family, at Granny’s house, which Dad has now inherited. I think I hit a home run with the Fart Machine I gave my nephew. And another, with a most politically incorrect documentary in which the esteemed civil libertarian boundary-pusher Larry C. Flynt chronicles the accomplishments and exploits of an Alaskan pin-up queen gone rogue. We’ll leave the rest to your imagination or google-fu.

Saturday, pizza, party, and presents with the sister and her husband, which rocked. Never doubt the badassedness of four fresh diced jalapeños and a smattering of mushrooms taking a Digiorno to the next level, especially when you wash it down with a steady flow of a brew-kit bitter and a back supply of the same brew-kit’s dark ale. We backed the food with the Mr. Hankey’s Chrismas Classics dvd, and the beer with Weird Al’s videos dvd, which culminated in the main event of Christmas at Ground Zero. Then to the living room for presents, with Koyaanisqatsi muted, just for the visual, and the TSO playing on on the PC/stereo. Good Times. As far as the gift, my & my sister and I have this long running calendar gag, and I won’t bore you with the details but I think I rocked it this year.

So then today I guess is xmas for me. Cleaned up from the party, then spent the day in lazy, beer-sipping play and exploration. I finally opened up the School of Rock dvd that’s been sitting on my coffee table for months. I can’t tell you how much I love the hell out of that movie. It’s stupid, it’s sappy, but goddamn it it rocks and I love it. Of course I’ve seen it too many hundred thousand times on TBS, so I didn’t need to watch it, but watched it with the commentary from Jack Black and the director, then went back and just watched the “one hell of a rock show” chapter. Man, for a stupid movie song, they nailed it. Just enough Yes, Kiss, Bowie, and Floyd all mixed up and dished out over a plate of AC/DC — fuck yeah. And yes, I fucking cry every time when Turkey Sub struts up to the mike and belts out loud and clear how happy she is to be who she is in a glorious declaration. And though I’ve got my issues with the keyboard kid — I would have liked to have seen a little less Rick Wakeman, a little more Ray Manerik with a helping of Jon Lord (that just would have been more rock and roll to me) — I understand better after the commentary that yeah, Wakeman was probably the perfect archetype given the actor/pianist’s true to life classical upbringing and utter unfamiliarity with rock. And even still I did always like the somewhat-Wakemanesque, but almost more Come Sail Away-era-Denis DeYoung sounding portamento-drenched monotimbral solo he does there. My kinda shit, actually.

Had an awesome dinner (yellow saffron rice, with red onions, fresh jalapeños, and mushrooms, well seasoned and sautéed with a Morningstar Veggie Italian Sausage, if you give a damn), then put on Naqoyqatsi, another dvd I’ve owned for a while but been waiting for the right time to watch. Except that I still haven’t watched it, I’ve just been listening as I typed this post. Well, it *is* Glass, it needs at least one listen by itself without the visual.

And it just ended. Guess I should grab another beer and watch it for real this time.

we needed about three songs before we got our heads around the fact that yes, we were actually here. In the same room with Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen! And he was onstage singing these songs to us.

Yep, that about sums it up. I’m still buzzing from one hell of a fantastic show.

Man, Netflix is getting really specific. The first “category” on my homepage is now “Dark Tortured-Genius Dramas”.

On a similar track, I’ve always been annoyed that they only give us 5 stars to rate with, no half stars, etc, and usually when I go to rate one I’m thinking, “well this one’s really a 3.5″, etc… Well it’s almost getting creepy how often their “Average of raters like you” — which does do half-stars — matches how I would have rated had they let me.

And while I’m talking Netflix — I haven’t decided if I like their connection widget I’ve been playing with that posts my ratings to facebook. Or rather I do like it for the ones I want to post, especially now that they’ve added the ability to comment, but I don’t like that it posts everything I rate. And not just the ones I’ve just rented, it posts *everything* you rate. So when they give you a page of recommendations and you go through rating all the ones you’ve already seen it posts those too. I do watch a lot of movies, but not as many as it makes it seem. Seems like it would be simple to add a “don’t post this one” to the little dialog that pops up asking for your comment.

Somehow I had not until now gotten around to watching Spike Lee’s excellent biography of Malcolm X. Meanwhile, a few weeks ago I saw the Ken Burns PBS documentary on Thomas Jefferson. Together the two films suggest an interesting comparison of the two men, as regards their curiously intersecting natures as great flawed heroes.

We see Jefferson, the eloquent and passionate advocate for equality, liberty, and justice, who penned arguably our country’s greatest creed in the opening of our Declaration of Independence, who yet was a slaveholder, and a racist who believed African-Americans to be genetically inferior. Though, to his credit he was an abolitionist, just one who knew the day had not yet come to cross that bridge.

Then we have Malcolm X, the eloquent and passionate advocate of a long oppressed people, who quoted those lines from Jefferson as he fought for equality, liberty, and justice for his brothers while challenging and inspiring them to raise themselves up to their own worth, who yet was a separatist, a racist who charged each individual white person with the sins of the collective. Though, to his credit, he repudiated these views in later life after witnessing brotherhood in Mecca.

I don’t know, I don’t really have a strong point to make here, I’m just feeling that between the two we find some sort of karmic balance, as if by taking the two together we can erase what was wrong with each and magnify that which was right. And also in their shared complexity we catch a uniquely singular portrait of the best and worst of this nation’s soul.

W00t! yeah, Man on Wire won Best Documentary!!!!!!!

OK, I’m not really that excited. Fellow nominee Trouble the Water would have made me just as happy. These are just the only nominated flicks I saw besides The Dark Knight, and I just wanted to fit in with all the cool kids talking about the awards.

After stumbling to the computer this morning, as coffee medicated a mild hangover from a kickass shindig the agonyzer hosted with his partners in crime to celebrate their success in a damn fine production of A Christmas Carol — my firefox went batshit and commandeered my morning.

Long story short, over the course of maybe a half to a dozen page loads, the thing just ground to a halt. It wouldn’t respond within the page or in the menus. It acted like took control of X, or at least of KDE, by seeming not to let you switch to a different window, but it was actually just slow, and once switched, you could move between all the *other* windows and terminals with ease. One thing it did leave me was the ability to close the program from the corner ‘X’, and it closed quickly and cleanly. I’d relaunch — no alerts, it was a clean close and didn’t believe itself to have crashed — and as the tabs from the previous session opened, it crawled to the same condition.

Repeat several times, closing out all but the standard dozen or so tabs I keep open 24-7, which I know aren’t likely to have any out of control scripting — no change. No change in safe mode, or after using safe mode launch to restore some program defaults. Try an apt-get upgrade (think “Windows Update”) on the system (running debian testing on a pretty old amd xp-1700), and a dist-upgrade (think “Windows Service Pack”). These installed a new enough firefox that I had to upgrade some plugins. Finally an install –reinstall on firefox, err, iceweasel. Rebooted after each of the last three. All without making a lick of difference.

Exasperated, I closed all the aforementioned always-open tabs, restarted one last time — and everything worked like a champ. Of course I immediately reopened all the same standard tabs, without a hitch.

So it doesn’t seem to have been the pages, but something with the browser’s cache of information about and controlling one or more of the tabs and their content.

As far as the awesomeness goes — well it *was* pretty impressive how consistently firefox reproduced my session tabs, through all those ups and downs and upgrades and even the reinstall. Even if it did suck that it had to reproduce whatever the hell was wrong in the process.