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Wednesday, March 26  

new on negentropic.com

I added some images to the web studios portfolio and a super-fresh new homepage image, to boot.

reading lately:
two really insightful articles at The War Against Silence, ostensibly a music-review site by glenn mcdonald, but one that frequently ventures into bigger ideas about life, art and tech:

1. switch (1/09)
2. 5:21:28:11 (1/16)

thoughts:
why is it that war makes tv news so much easier to watch? is it possible to avoid the info-tainment aspects of the media coverage, big swooping chrome and gold banners and all? i suspect that even the adamant anti-war side has trouble not getting caught up in the spectacle of it, the dramatic imagery, the way they've perfected keeping you sitting there, clicker in hand, expecting something else to happen so soon that you dare not change the channel. or, god forbid, turn it off and do something else.

jeff greenfield did an interesting piece last night on CNN on the way the media's access to the battlegrounds is redefining public perception of what war is; and that it may even affect policy and the outcome. wild and crazy times, indeed.

Monday, March 24  

weekend update

You know spring is here when you get that overwhelming urge to do something about the atrocity that had accumulated in your garage all winter. i literally found 7 boxes (complete with styrofoam and instruction booklets) for things we bought during the cold times and just tossed in there. scary. did our brains freeze for 4 months too? moved the old kickwheel out to the backyard, where it will hopefully see some service this spring/summer, and consolidated 8 buckets of clay slops into one big bucket (too cold to do it previously - really!). the garage is now looking downright spacious!

now that was so interesting as to be borderline sexy. so what's blogworthy in your neck of the woods?

Friday, March 21  

Vishnu is a Goddess

okay, those halarooney bastards admitted that it was a horrific mistake to leave 'Vishnu' out of their redesign. I can sleep at night again.

last day before spring break at depauw, and i managed to keep my students from rebelling and fleeing to their already-loaded cars for the better part of 2 hours. not bad. i think some of them had the engines running out in the parking lot. i, of course, don't really get a break per se, being only PT faculty, but it will be a slower week at the office, and i'm plannin on getting to the studio a lot the next week or two. i decided to follow up that somewhat dissapointing firing with more glaze testing, and more pots, to keep the momentum going. gotta stay focused!

i suppose the war is progressing, but every time i turn on CNN to check, all i see are grainy 'videophone' feeds from the gulf (i suspect they're using a $15 quickcam plugged into a laptop and a dialup modem.) it is quite interesting though how the availability of new content, such as a tank column racing across the desert, seemingly justifies bringing broadcast tv standards down to that of a typical webcast. the media seem to be converging even in ways that aren't necessarily improvements, eh?

hmm...

[i noticed that there's a town in Iraq called Umm ______ (something). i'd like to live in a town with a real phonetic name, like Umm.
"so where's ya'll from?"
"Umm..."]

Thursday, March 20  

Fool. Yes, Me. I Can Admit It.

I've been a writing fool lately - just posted a new musing to the Rare Earth section of my St. Earth site. Fun to get some ideas that had been lingering around out there.

 

To War or Not To War*

war blog

it seems so strange to have a country at war, one that i support at the least through inaction, at the most through monthly taxes and a willingness to go along to get along. i told cindy the other day that during the election 2000 fiasco i thought to myself "something big is going to happen in the next 4 years where the outcome will be decided by who slips through this thing as the winner." Iraq is it.

non-war blog

and so here's the rest. as much as i feel the strangeness noted above, and while i'll keep a window open on the new york times today, the main focus is on me; on things happening within sight and grasp. my mind's been on the pots so much lately that everything else seems so distant, despite the media barrage which seems to nearly equal the real ones going on.

unloaded the first firing of '03 last night, with mixed results, sad to say. perhaps i got a bit too confident in thinking i had this kiln figured out, or that i'd done the whole glazing process so diligently that it would turn out great. unfortunately, not. but i'm sure i'll be able to see the good ones as i get back to them - the disappointments always jump out first, especially for a perfectionist like myself, who hates to lose even a single pot. my 'reliable' glazes did great, good teadust and celadon, good ol' "reliable as death" temmoku... it was mainly that carbon trap shino, which had been so great for many firings in a row but failed to carbon trap this time. application too thin, not enough reduction is all i can think. some investigation will be required. all in all, though, it's a good start towards the pots for the upcoming spring sale, which calms my nerves significantly. breathe in, breathe out.

in other news, my old friend Wade (he's quite young, but i've known him since 9th grade) turned me on to this band Death Cab for Cutie and about four songs in to the first listen this morning i already know, like with American Football and Modest Mouse and Whiskeytown before, that this will be one of the bands i really, really like. thanks, Wade! i'll link here to my SHR-it list in the interest of promoting cross-pollination of good media.

* Yes, this is a shitty Shakespeare pun, which is in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of captive audiences, not to mention bad taste. Sorry. Won't happen again.

Wednesday, March 19  

Sam Hell

So things aren't turning out as I'd expected. I had great plans to launch this blog like a mighty ship sliding down the ramp to the sea, picking up momentum as it went. then: [[fizzle]]. Ah well, when was the last time anything did work out like I expected? i've been legitimately caught up in other, equally worthy things, like pots and firing and things of that ilk. I'll take that trade off any day. But fear not, fearless reader... some good stuff will really happen here someday. Big on promises, sketchy on fulfillment; but I'll see what I can do.

In other news, I've added some new studio photos to the St. Earth site and the guys at halarooney have updated their site, including some tantilizing info about Cisneros... but what in sam hell happened to that groovy Flash buddhist diety thing? I want it back!!!

Thursday, March 13  

Status Haiku

12 new kiln shelves.
first bisk-loading trip in Bessie.
things looking up; back in the groove.
nice to feel negentropic for a change.