18 December 2011

winter

Posted by admin @ 2:10 am    categories: mental statesthe internet

Last night was the first night that I’m willing to qualify as proper Miami winter (yes, yes, the 21st is still a few days off), which is to say that driving home late at night with the windows down, in t-shirt and jeans, I felt a shiver or two from the breeze.

I hate not having real seasons, even though I also do appreciate some things about the temperate climate. But, well, I’ll enjoy what I get. Wear a sweater or two.

I’ve found myself really busy over the last few months, which makes things go more smoothly for me, I think. I have less to say on this forum because I’m saying it in others. I’m working, and exercising, and spending time with friends and family and romantic partner, and all of this together conspires to bleed me of the meagre stories I have, until I’m not sure what to write down here when I try to journal.

My life’s grown very comfortable, such that the excitement is minute and perhaps uninteresting. I haven’t been in the mood, I guess, to write about the wonderful meal I made, or ate; the adventure I went on this weekend. I suppose I’ve been unable to write fiction, or poetry even, as well. I think I’ve written six poems in the past six months, which in fact is an improvement upon the preceding year, but is by far a decrease from years before.

I don’t think I feel the drive less, exactly. It’s more of a motivation issue. Always in the past, there’s been some element of conclusion—a poem to submit to the review, or send to a friend; a story to submit to my workshop. Without any driving force, the ideas well up and then die down. That was what was so brilliant about LiveJournal and the other journalling platforms that were abounded in the early/mid 2000s: your friends provided support, encouragement. Just having twenty “friends” on xanga or LiveJournal meant that you could imagine that there were twenty people awaiting your next update.

Tumblr provides that as well, but I think in an age where facebook already records the minutiae of your life, tumblr and the blogging platforms that remain have veered away from self-observation and towards more specific blogs. (The primary exception to this seems to be travelogs.) How many people still write blogs about their lives? Facebook is already recording your life as you live it. (And now, with the new timeline feature, you can go back and browse through the past. It’s a strange concept that I’m sure better essayists than I will cover.)

When I was perhaps a senior in high school, I set about writing a mini-autobiography, chronicling the stories of myself. When I first heard about the timeline idea, I thought of it as an opportunity for everyone to do that, to write an autobiography. I’m curious to see what people will do with it, to see who will create a false identity, who invent a past. Who will be the first artist to publish a character on facebook, whose story we can read? When we can detail our lives with images and video and interactions, map our paths and locate each moment in time, is a personal journal of interest?

As it is, I’ve veered very much towards anecdote-tinged essay on this forum in recent time, coupled with travelog and interjections of films. My earliest journal posts on the web are almost postmodern in style, spastic and jumbled. These days, I use paragraphs.

I don’t know where we’re going, this space and I. I’m sure I’ll keep writing. I hope the subjects continue to blossom.

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17 October 2011

the internet

Posted by admin @ 21:39 pm    categories: the internet

I have a category on this blog called the internet, which I’ve actually used less often than I would’ve thought—probably because it doesn’t occur to me. The intention of it was to highlight things that are totally focused on the internet, or things that came from my haphazard browsing.

Anyway, today I decided to make a completely incomplete list, to which I am giving the lukewarm title of “Things that I like on the internet and think you should have seen, too.” Some of these things are older, and I kind of assume that everyone of my generation knows them. Others may be more recent. Most are videos or websites. Many are pre-youtube (woah!), although some of them now live there. Some will be vulgar; others entirely PC. I’m not necessarily going with the super-super famous— no Bed Intruder or Charlie bit me here. No cat videos, either, I don’t think. In any event. I present:

Things that I like on the internet and think you should have seen, too

I’m missing a bunch that I may add later. For the moment, though. Enjoy.

I invite commenters to add their own. Yessir.

Additions as I remember them:

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9 June 2010

a new rule

Posted by admin @ 7:13 am    categories: the internet

If I start reading something on the internet, I have to either read it through in one go, or take a break midway through and finish it after checking email or whatever else. If I don’t want to do either, then that suggests I don’t want to read it, or I should save it and not even start it now.

The amusing thing, of course, is that I’m currently breaking this rule to write this. But that’s the reason it should be a rule.

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25 March 2010

hmmm

Posted by admin @ 15:25 pm    categories: the internet

Oh, Wait Wait.

The awesome radio show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me used a song in-between sections the other day. I’d heard it before — it’s a sort of small internet meme going around these days. I can’t figure out where I first saw it, but I found out a bit about the guy singing from this site. I’m not sure why, but it’s interesting to me.

It’s spring break time!

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25 February 2010

art and awesome

Posted by admin @ 9:45 am    categories: artimagesthe internet

Sophie Blackall's missed connection blog: throat tattoo

Okay so I may have mentioned before this artist I really like these days, Sophie Blackall, an Australian who’s now based in New York City. Her blog first caught my eye; it’s been covered by the New York Times, and is really just pretty awesome — this is the link you should click on in this post, if you click anywhere. In it, she takes Missed Connections ads from the NY craigslist and NY locals, and illustrates them. They’re almost always amazing, although to be honest her most most recent one wasn’t my favourite. (The above image is hers.) She also sells prints of her work.

But her not-in-that-project illustrations are great, too; I like her style quite a lot, and just find myself pleased with her work in general. There’s a pretty short list of current artists who I (a) know about and (b) really like, and she’s definitely on it. I’m not sure who else is on there, these days. Anthony Goicolea, for sure. Hmmm. There are more, if I could only think of names. Still, I wish I knew more about the current art world. Rachel, oh my sister, educate me.

Anyway, what this may make you think of, if you ever saw it, is Patrick Moberg’s missed connection sensation, NY Girl of My Dreams.com, where he very carefully described some girl he met, and wanted to see again. Which worked. The story as I understand it is that they did meet, and actually dated for a time, but things didn’t work out. (Google corroborates this.) I also really like Moberg’s work. A lot of the artists I like fall between art and cartoon (see, for example, my friend Blake Suárez‘s work), which is perhaps an unnecessary distinction.

For example, I think of the following as comics — and maybe they are. But I’d say the art’s great, too:

There’s a list at the left of comics that I read. These are all on it.

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This is the online journal of Justin Dainer-Best, detailing my adventures. To the right are links to other parts of the site.

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