Red Elephant

Start Small

So, Kat and I jumped on the iPhone bandwagon. And, I'm pretty impressed. Nice interface, snappy 3G signal here in Madison. Great on WiFi. Great for most trivial internet usage.

What I've been impressed with is how it refocuses experience. Websites that design for the device get stripped down to the bare essentials. Text & thumbnails.

It makes you look at one thing at a time. One photo. One webpage. One email. I like that. I like that a lot. It's helped me start to clean out my inbox, which has sat at about 100 message for a long time. I haven't replied to everyone or sorted everything, but it's coming along.

Likewise, I finally jumped on the twitter bandwagon. Same reason. One thing at a time. One thought. One message. What am I doing right now. No great revelation in the scheme of things. Plenty of other people have had this thought. But it's my turn.

No promises this time. No manifestos. [Am I right, Max?]

Just one word after another. Then one sentence after that.

Keep going.

Treasure Trove

Just got back from my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary party at my parents' house. Man, what a day. It went a lot longer than I had anticipated, but it was their day, so I have no complaints. The food was good, the company was better, and the memories were amazing.

For starters, I found my grandparents' old 8mm projector and a whole bunch of old family home movies. And yes, they are movies and not videos. So, we sat back with the clickety-clack of an old projector, some golden oldies on the stereo, and watched some old films.

We started with some old vacation shots, trips to Minnesota, back before my parents were dating, to some places I've never been, much less heard of. Films of my mom, my uncle, their parents, and their dogs -- half Chihuauas. Pretty much a trip.

The real gems were the films of 'XMAS 1962,' my dad & uncle's state championship for baseball, and my mom's senior prom. The Christmas film was pretty amazing, as there were all sorts of great aunts & uncles, some of whom are dead. There was also footage of my great-grandpa Frank, who I've heard about but never really seen before.

Then there was seeing my mom as a teenager, and a prom queen no less, on a date with some guy who was not my father. My dad was on the same reel, as he was the same age as my uncle Joe, Mom's bro. There's mom in a prom dress with long white gloves. There's my dad at about fifteen or sixteen in a black suit with a skinny black tie. And there's my grandma with 60s glasses and a killer lavender dress.

It was really amazing. I've never been much for home movies, but then I never knew these existed. It's one thing to see pictures of your parents as kids, but another thing altogether to see them getting ready for dates, fishing, or playing ball. It was amazing to watch them as they saw people they hadn't seen in years, sometimes struggling for names, sometimes instantly transported as the faces reminded them of other stories.

I'd really like to restore these old films, maybe transfer them to DVD for the rest of the family. As for me, I'd rather keep the old school projector and make that part of the experience. There's something about the medium that has it's own charm.

Furthermore, my Aunt Karan -- dad's sister -- was reminded of some old films from her mom & dad, both of whom have passed on. She doesn't even know what was on them, and had no way to know until now. So, that's another exciting development.

And, for what it's worth, I hope to find the old camera and maybe shoot some footage myself. I never put much stock into home movies before. However, there is something about it, about knowing that your parents were once your age, that they were young & beautiful, that they partied hard in their own way.

And there's the simplicity of how it can bring back memories. I don't have any home videos from my childhood, not that I regret not having them. But I think there is something to be said for preserving. Not spending all your time trying to capture every memory, but for saving a choice few & letting time dictate what memories it will bring back.

Media Roundup

First of all, go to Mtv.com and listen to the new Faint album, Wet From Birth. That's what I'm doing right now..

Second, if you've ever wondered whether it's ethical to rip/copy/download a track. Here's a nice little guide. Also, here's the article that accompanies the flowchart.

I've been thinking a lot about The Cult of Ken Jennings and it reminded me of a story by David Foster Wallace in Girl With Curious Hair. I believe the story is "Little Expressionless Animals" -- since I sent my copy to Tess, I'll have to defer to her on this one. Or, if anyone wants to send me a new copy...

Finally, I'm working on a longer post that includes rules for living. Kind of a follow up to my post on the Hemingway Code. More to come.

A Modern Way of Letting Go

Before webmail got huge, I found myself having to make some decisions. It was go through folder by folder to discover what was worth keeping or the grand gesture of deleting whole people, whole parts of my life. And as we all know, while I am a details guy, I am very fond of grand gestures.

There were acquaintances who didn't write much or well. There were online flirtations that had fizzled, or never really caught in the first place. Then came the old girlfriends. What to do. The theme lately has been closure. Letting go of old relationships, clearing out my life, rememberances, emails, letters, books, art that reminds me. There is always something there to remind me.

There is a difference in breaking up between letting go & pushing away. Sometimes you just let some people go, the stuff they gave you falls into disrepair, gets lost, disappears. There's the impulse to purge the person completely out of your life. I have a friend Who not only erased all of her email to the boy, but got into his email account [she had his password] and erased it all there, too. A total cleansing. Did she have the right? Doesn't matter, she had the access. The keys to his house, so to speak.

The committed girlfriends were the easiest. "Oh, she's getting married. Yes, better not to leave little flirty things around. Oh her, I still want her, but I have no doubt we'll never get back together. That one, oh, well, if she doesn't get married, she & the new boy will be together a long time. Good for them. No hard feelings. [Click]

Then there are the letters I keep. [Actually, I keep all my letters, I'm referring to the emails that are written like letters.] The ones from girls who were friends first, who I want to remember regardless of whether I have moved on, or if they have. These are the best written ones, the ones I can re-read later in life, whether I'm with someone or not and say to myself, "This is what I was like at that time. This is who I was."

I was talking with Jenn about her writing group -- how there's a woman & a priest who struck up a correspondence. [no, it's not a joke] It so happens that she is now divorced & he is thinking of leaving the priesthood. Their correspondence is intense, but ultimately they decide they have to stop. Or she decides, I'll have to ask Jenn. In any case, in the course of writing group, this woman thinks about publishing their letters, including his half. She's wondering if she's entitled to do that.

Slippery slope that. His words, but he sent them to her. I personally believe that once you speak or write a word, it takes on a life of it's own. You can ask people to respect your privacy, but ultimately the act of writing [or speaking] is an act of creating. People will do the words what they will. Kafka asked his friend & literary executor, Max Brod, to destroy his works after he died. Luckily for us, Max didn't. I can only wonder what Kafka thinks/would think of his legacy.

There's a word in Russian, razbliuto (ros-blee-OO-toe): the feeling a person retains for someone he or she once loved. That's what I think about, the things that remain after love, after lust, or at least after the relationship. Sometimes there are photographs, sometimes letters, and sometimes only memories.

Day Off

My laptop's in the shop, even though I know it's just the power supply. I'll get it back friday at the soonest. So, yesterday was my first day away from the internet in a long time. I tried to picture the last time I hadn't at least checked my email, and I couldn't remember. Sometime before I got a cable modem?

It was a little strange as I get most of my news from the net or from NPR. I also have certain weblogs and comics that I"ll check out on a daily basis. If anything, I could stand to cut down on my internet habit and get some time back for other things.

I ran errands & worked on the house. Took the dog for a nice long walk. Did some touch-up painting, and found out that it's nearly impossible to match paint, even from the same hardware store, even if the formula's written on the can. Ahh well, it's close.

contains spoilers

"i didn't know the cure for the disease of images, but i believed in the healing power of stories."
-eugene fitzpatrick, bis ans ende der welt (1991)

my senior year in high school, i was obsessed with wim wenders' "until the end of the world" -- first because of the soundtrack, which i knew intimately by the time i finally saw the film itself. second, because it was probably the first foreign film i ever fell in love with. at two and a half hours, it was probably the longest film i had seen at that point. and it is basically two plots enjambed into one, as my journalism adviser [who taught film classes at the local uni] was wont to point out every time i talked about it.

the second of the two plots involves a technology that allows people to record their dreams. some of the characters become obsessed with their own dreams, watching them over & over on what would be the video equivalent of an ipod, until it's their turn to get hooked up to the dream recorder again. gene [sam neill] tries to help claire [solveig dommartin] cure her addiction by refusing to give her any more batteries, cutting her off cold turkey. he does offer her the book he's been writing, which is their story, the story of the film.

this story has stuck with me for many reasons, not the least of which is this: storytelling is basic to the human experience. it tends to override technology, advertising, and other human constructs. the web itself is a good example. there was a big commercial push, where everyone tried to set up a commercial site. now we're seeing the pendulum swing back towards personal expression. hence weblogs. hence the online comics i keep discovering, or having recommended. [riffner, i'm looking in your direction]

after we're done selling things to each other all day, we use what we've learned to talk about our lives.

my personal example is this: after a full day of freelance work on wednesday, i was computered out. i spent the last two nights looking for stories -- books, comics, radio, anything. i pulled the rules of attraction and mcsweeney's issue 11 out of the stacks that friends have loaned me the past couple of weeks. i listened to this american life via the internet at work [thanks, kate]. i went to border's to read chapters 6-10 of william gibson's pattern recognition -- which i refuse to actually buy until i have a bunch of spare time on my hands.

finally, i was drawn back into the web by electric sheep comics. the spiders is my new favorite online comic. it takes a long time to load, even with a broadband connection. but man, it is good. a perfect marriage of storytelling, digital art, and effective use of the web as a medium. with combat in afghanistan as a subject, a humanitarian philosophy, and the web itself as a phenomenon, it is one of the most compelling things i've read in months. it's very apropos.