GlyphJockey by Lex10

Monday, May 17, 2010

Saw One for the first Time In My Life

altimore Oriole a female. Shining in the sun. The best part was I beckoned it into my proximity by imitating its call. Yay.

Dingdingingdingdingdingding

Speaking of museums of niche interest, while I was connecting at SFO twice last month or saw I beheld the tools of early automated illegal gambling - aka slot machines.

Let me say I detest casinos. They suck. Name anything about them, it sucks even if it's like, say R.E.M. playing the Borgata - they then suck, and so on....

But these early gambling appliances were fascinating- ingenious in their configuration, metalcraft, and design. And next time I'm back on the left coast (which is quite often now) I'm goin' to Big Joe Welch's American Antique Slot Machine Museum, in San Bruno, where 90% of these came from and somewhat fittingly, does not have a website.

Artist Josh Ellingson has taken quite a few better photos than I of some of the machines, mainly because I used my cell phone, so tough.

I was particularly worked up about the art on the punch boards - a form of gambling apparently still in use legally in Washington State in the form of "Pull Tabs"

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Contenders - Series 7

Tune in! The government says so! Wiki Here
I can't believe I never posted this before..... I bought a Chinese copy years back and the hacked my DVD player to watch it.

Friday, May 07, 2010

The American Astronaut

The American Astronaut. A pal insisted I watch about 15 minutes of it this morning; now it's tonight's selection. Official site here - inneresting

Like a Bird in a Tree

Heard Robert Gordon singing it this AM.

Cowboy Henk

The Horrors Of It All have several nice examples of this cool absurdist comic.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Magnajector: Shut-Ins?!? Really?!?

What if their medication kicks in? Isn't it possible the bulb could really heat up and burn them while they slept in their drug-induced stupor? If trapped in a bed, how is this easier than just reading the items you'd be putting under the Magnajector to view? Why?!? WHY!?!?

I had about 7 of these when I was a kid. I now own one again. Yay.

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Juvenile Health Guide

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Barry Gifford's Sailor and Lula Compendium - Yay!

Seven Stories Press has sent me the new compendium of Barry Gifford's Sailor and Lula Stories, Sailor and Lula - the complete novels. Life is short and my reading list long (currently on my third Mary Roach in a row - currently thinking up pot puns for that review, which will be shortly) and so I don't actively seek out amazing anymore. The wheel of karma brings it to me. My sister bought me Sailor's Holiday (the 3rd book in the series) as a Christmas request from me. It opens up with child sacrifice, migrates to pimps harvested for their organs and encounters with conjectured afterlife. Amplified from the original Wild at Heart, (the first book) and yet with the Gifford flavor all along; life's mundane moments inherently contain enough reflectivity for him to provide insights. This especially evident in his Memories from a Sinking Ship which collects the absences in his childhood and turn them into a series of vignettes told by a dark Jean Shepherd (no you'll shoot your eye out! here) on the streets of Chicago, in the wet snow and broiling sun, managing to imply his father's underworld connections intriguingly.

Wild at Heart, in contrast to Sailor's Holiday, was a disappointment, presumably owing to the mind-meld David Lynch had with him (he went on to write Lost Highway - tit-for-tat within the mind meld, in my opinion) and hence for the first time in my life reading the book after the movie was not an enriching experience. It was reverse verbatim the movie it was stinkingly faithful, and tells the tale as if it were being read to you. (yes blah blah portrayal, mise-en scene, etc. blah, blah) so while I was expecting hidden stuff, there wasn't any. At the time for me, it was all in the other book (the 3rd really).

But that's what's good; it was the third book. I had no idea that there was a second (Perdita Durango) or for that matter 4 more after Sailor's Holiday. I got those book before the internet. book stores knew nothing. Specials order had to be placed, even if the slack-jawed attendant found the listing. We weren't swimming in a sea of cool. But now I've got 'em all. In Lula and Sailor's world I now have more. More death, voodoo, crime, humping, gun-play, humidity, tobacco, bourbon, love and satori.

Frankly, I'm figuratively shitting myself waiting to read it.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

PARENTAL ADVISORY TOUR PIX

At Reggie's Chicago, home of Brendan, an Artifical Intelligence (AI) unit that explains how things work at this bar/record store/nightclub combo.. I went mental when I saw this show. You should go, unless you're all detached and such......

The Fabulous Miss Wendy - when she crowd surfed the large Chicago chaps all I could think was "da bears"