boombah

Boombah is a psychedelic kids' show on PBS- much more inebriating than Teletubbies. But their flash-site is even more trippy (I had way too much fun playing these games designed for toddlers). Beware, if you are not presently on drugs, you may soon feel like you should be.
To quote this online journal: "Those fat creatures in their little cocoons are sending subliminal messages that I KNOW if I were stoned I could grasp Plus they scare me. They are little dancing tumors.. I don't like it. This show is sending out some kind of signal which I say again-- if I were stoned I know I would understand."

some bridges are not meant to have walkways

So I take the ferry to Bremerton yesterday for psychogeographical reasons- to wander in an unknown small town and find its soul. Bremerton is as quiet a place as I've ever been to- my own booted footsteps echoing down desolate "city"-streets. I pass few people, and those that I do encounter seem sullen and a bit cracked. One young man seems to be on a similar wandering, and I cross paths with him a few times- he wears huge baggy vinyl pants/dress and heavily eyelined eyes. I would've bade him a greeting, but he kept his gaze on his own shuffling feet.
I stop in a dive bar and have a few pints, watch a bit of the Seahawks game and pretend I give a shit.
I end up walking directly to Manette Bridge. A narrow two-lane (down to one lane at its apex) 1940s bridge spanning the Port Washington Narrows. This bridge is the soul of Bremerton, and I imagine many people have jumped the over-150 feet to the deep cold waters of the Narrows to end their lives- dark waters full of passing orcas and sea-lions. I cross the bridge very apprehensively, each step sending cold fear up my spine. I even turned around once, believing that I couldn't possibly make it across, that my fear would overtake me and I'd be forced to crawl back. But I walked on anyway, making sure not to glance at the tumbling waters so far below. Fuck, this bridge is madness. At its highest middle point there are even gaping holes alongside the walkway where the bridge supports are- holes large enough for a person to slide through. These Bremertonians are insane for having such a bridge; to cross such a foreboding construction on a daily basis is sadistic.

Well, it took me two months, but I just finished building a large stone tower in the backyard. Now I have an amazing vantage point. This tower is very high, and I whirl in vertigo half the time I spend up there- I can see so much. From across the water are the white peaks of the Olympics, the wildest mountains this side of the border.

At the Hopvine drinking one day.

Don't know if I've forgotten to ever mention it, but here is the site I once created for my friend Aaron Grosshans's artwork- there are over 80 pieces on the site, but is hardly complete, this guy is constantly painting and creating...

Here I am in my lair on a beautiful afternoon; overlooking my drones as they construct not one, but two space-rockets of unusual size- built specially for my upcoming mission to Io and Europa. Godspeed, mindless drones, and may you bring me fame and space-women aplenty.

A couple of Jack Handey quotes:

I bet if you reached total enlightenment while drinking beer, it would make beer squirt out your noise.

If you rob a bank, and your pants fall down, its okay to laugh. and let your hostages laugh too, because come on, life is funny.

NSK

NSK is an art collective as well as the world's first global state ('Neue Slowenische Kunst'= german for 'New Slovenian Art'). Some of their work, done collectively as a corporation under the name IRWIN, is being shown right now at the Frye Gallery.
Be sure to apply for a NSK passport, which may be the only citizenship worth having.
The NSK also collaborate in Laibach, experimental rock/electronic music.
Maybe this short wikipedia article might help explain more.

underwood no.10

My roommate saved an old Underwood No. 10 Typewriter from being unceremoniously tossed into the dumpster. It is very similar to the model shown above, an antique circa 1920's. Now, I'm cleaning up the beautiful machine (it's the same kind that Kerouac used to bat out On The Road).

Researching the typewriter, I came across this great modification of an Underwood into a PC. [also check out: MakeZine.com for lots of great creations.]

I also discovered this pdf of the book Sexy Legs and Typewriters, concerning typewriter erotica.

Immediately after discovering the typeriter, I went out and got a tattoo:

templum arbor

Went for a stroll through Frink Park, pictured above about a hundred years ago. (old archival photos of Seattle here)
Came home and found a great site of photos of said Park: Richard Silverstein's photos.
This is not one of his photos, but is of the Park:

pax hibernia

Found the oldest book in the library that I have found thus far. It is a 1903 copy of Thomas Addis Emmet's Ireland Under English Rule: A Plea for the Plaintiff. Here is a quote:

The great affinity between the Phoenician and Irish language and alphabet has been shown by various learned antiquaries- as Vallancey, Sir Laurence Parsons, Sir Wm. Betham, Villanueva, and others; and they have likewise pointed out a similarity between the Irish language and that of the Carthaginians, who were a colony of the Tyrians and Phoenicians...And Phoenix, brother of Cadmus the Phoenician who first introduced letters among the Greeks and Phoenicians, is considered by O'Flaverty, Charles O'Connor and other to be the same as the celebrated Phoeniusa (or Feniusa) Farsaidh of the old historians, who state that he was King of Scythia and ancestor of the Milesians of Spain who came to Ireland; and that, being a man of great learning, he invented the Irish alphabet, which his Milesian posterity brought to Ireland; and it may be further observed that the Irish in their own language, were from Phoeniusa or Feniusa, called Feine, a term latinized Phoenii, and signifying Phoenicians, as shown by Charles O'Connor and in O'Brien's Dictionary.

[Note- the modern Sinn Fein Republicans.]

And a couple verses:

We hate the Saxon and the Dane,
We hate the Norman men-
We cursed their greed for blood and gain,
We curse them now again.

Sweet tongue of our Druids and bards of poet ages;
Sweet tongue of our Monarchs, our Saints and our Sages;
Sweet tongue of our heroes and free-born Sires,
When we cease to preserve thee our glory expires.

unrelated: check out Liquid Man flash thing. Also, equally interesting: Falling Girl (click+drag her if she gets stuck). Both of these were memed into my world from BoingBoing.