Dreaming at the discotheque

"Remember Me," by Blueboy. A club hit from some (10?) years ago.

Buckethead

Virtuoso guitarist and composer Buckethead. He usually (always?) appears with a KFC bucket on his head and a white mask. I hadn't realized that I once spent time listening to him on Praxis's first album "Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)," a CD that I bought on a whim in Berkeley sometime in the mid nineties. Praxis has always had a revolving door of amazing musicians, from former Parliament/Funkadelic members to John Zorn. This clip is a more recent appearance of Buckethead's project Giant Robot ("we are everywhere," say the robots). The song, however, Seven Laws of Woo, is from "Transmutation."

Whomever can beat McCain

Frankly, I don't care who wins the democratic nomination. What I'm thrilled by is the turnout. In both Ohio and Texas there were twice as many democrats as republicans voting in the primary. That's got to translate into something in the general election, especially since McCain is looking like Bob Dole these days, with more taint of corruption. It's now obvious that Clinton is able to change the direction of a campaign and I'd be willing to speculate that she might be better than Obama against McCain. The wish with Obama is to temper the divisiveness in this country, but the right wing has too much at stake (profits, data, the security industry) for the fighting to end. Indeed, Hillary's enemies are also my enemies.

It's been said already. My heart wants Obama but my brain says Clinton.

The Iconics

Covering Soundgarden's Spoonman in Seattle. Love the Zappa shirt on the guy playing spoons.

High water

All of my two and three year old pants seem too high off my shoes. For example, I have a pair of wide-wale cords that I swear once brushed the top of my shoes. Now, they seem to rest about an inch above my shoes. As everyone has reminded me, I've steadily gained weight over the last few years. Could I also have gained some height? I'm now buying pants that rest over my shoes, but, really, I don't think I bought my pants that high in the past. Do they shrink over time?

Water heater woes

More home improvement. We've known the water heater was going to go out any day now. The question is when. It was installed in 1985 and warranted for 12 years. It's 22 years old! The hot water has been inconsistent and fluctuating, so we finally decided to replace it now before we were left without hot water. Unlike the garbage disposal, I don't have the expertise to switch out a gas line, so we paid for an installation. Herewith is the (incomplete) chronology.

Friday, waiting for the installer. Finally get in touch with him midday, but he has us down for Monday, not Friday. Frustrating, but mistake could have been ours.

We can't do it Monday morning, so he squeezes us in the afternoon.

Call at noon on Monday, he says jobs going slowly, will call when free. Really starting to feel like he's not our best option.

Shows up Monday afternoon, immediately begins whining about our setup. Lots of room in furnace room, but he thinks pipes are all wrong. He kneads his forehead, saying sotto voce, "how am I going to do this?" I keep feeling like I'm supposed to offer something - help, money, I don't know. He says, "I can't do this today."

OK. He'll need to cut the pipe and so on; needs different tools or to borrow tools. Who knows.

Then he brings the new water heater into our basement. Says, "this won't fit." The new one is too tall. I say, I'm certain I checked the specs - hoping that I'm right. Much scrambling around. I find the spec sheet. He's wrong! We open the box and it turns out the new water heater box contains spacers top and bottom, so the actual heater will fit.

He can come back Friday.

We know Sears isn't trustworthy, but they have one of the most energy efficient of the old style heaters. Do we proceed? Maybe I can cancel the install and do it myself.

Wine country report

This clip is from "Awesome Show, Great Job," a satirical show that seems mostly to mock the rich world of bad video. Here's a down market news program, with John C. Reilly reporting.

Update: Sorry, the "brand" insists the YouTube isn't good enough. This should work.

Saturday robot sculpture

No I didn't forget about robots. Ray Davies from The Kinks is on Fresh Air tonight. BB has a new library book on the history and future of robots. This seems like a big, musical robot that has been torn out of its context. It happens to us all.

Writing a dissertation

My advice for those starting out is to write, write, write. Write while you’re still doing research, write right away, just start writing. I dithered around beginning my first chapter and then ended up dramatically rewriting it anyway. Probably half of my initial draft did not make it into the final version, so delaying writing to begin my initial draft didn’t help at all. The real payoff came with the second, rewritten version (and the third). Even now, I’m still tinkering with it as I move along. This may be the way I work: things only begin to gel with revision. But I’ve found that my best arguments emerge once I have big chunks of writing completed. Even when I didn’t know the final outcome of a chapter, these chunks of, say, close readings were essential to completing the final version. I also found that I pursued other research as questions came up - research that I really used - so getting into the thick of things right away works better for me.

The dissertation is like an ongoing mosaic. You keep adding pieces as you move along and recrafting them until you have these large sections called chapters. One begins with some idea of cohesion, but cohesion for me has occurred over time, as I’ve added more pieces to the whole. I think it’s fine if the finished product still looks like a series of pieces, as long as they make a whole at the end – like a mosaic. During the writing process, as well, it has helped to see things as discrete sections or even sections within sections. For example, I might start off the day thinking, OK, I’ve got to get through this “analysis” today, or tackle this part of a novel. So over the course of a week, I have a series of accomplishments that build one on the other. Of course, I’ll probably go back and change things, but it’s all part of the process.

My question now? How do you finish?

Photologging

This guy took a photograph of himself every day for eight years. The result, at time-lapse speed: