Wordlyiness: Being Like A Dictionary

So the word "truthiness" has been nominated as the word of the year by the American Dialect Society.

If you are a fan of the Colbert Report, you already knew that, because host Stephen Colbert made up that word in the first place.

Amber posted about Hetemeel.com's Dynamic image Maker which was used to make the above dictionary entry. Definition #1 is mine and #2 from the American Dialect Society.

Truthiness, use it daily.

Searching for Deeper Meaning: Art and A Conspiritorial Family Tree

“Whenever we have spoken openly we have [actually] said nothing. But where we have written something in code and in pictures we have concealed the truth.” Rosarium philosophorum 1550 (Weinheim edition, 1990)

Between experience and language, some believe that something is lost. That using words, spoken or written, is inadiquite to convey the real experience, the true meaning of what was realized. The closest thing that tells the tale is imagery: drawings, paintings. Filled with symbolism, artists often try to convey a deeper truth, something otherwise unseen. This is the start of Gnostic belief and much art was created to document these ideals.

Secret societies often have symbols that have meaning beyond their actual purpose. Often at their start, these often were just non-church related groups coming together. The cryptic nature of the teachings of these groups often lead to suspicion about their agendas. But with the French Revolution, such influence of the Masons was easy to see. Note the All-Seeing-Eye at the top of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789

The Masons also visually use tools of stonecraft to illustrate how Freemasonry helps a member change their unformed shape and use the tools to refine themselves into something new.

Clarence Larkin (1850–1924) used imagery as a teaching aid, to document where we are within the timeline of the god's design, the shape of heaven, hell and earth; and what needs to happen before the end times.



He even gave a guide on how to color-code and notate the bible. "Use markers, which make a transparent line, to draw over the lines of a verse of scripture. Use scarlet for the "promises", green for "condemnation", brown for death and resurrection", etc. Draw a red ellipse around the word BLOOD all through. the Bible and fill it with red."

Visionary artist often talk of having a direct pipeline to god or a spiritual realm. They see the unseen hand, the hidden mechinisms at work that others can't see. Artist like Paul Lauffely use diagramic thinking to illustate higher states of being, hidden meanings and the way the world truly works. His pieces bring back text, to explain and add to his visual imagery.



All of this comes to the artist who got me thinking about all these things. My love of art and conspiracy therories merged when hearing yesterday about artist Mark Lombardi.



NPR did a story on him, The 'Conspiracy' Art of Mark Lombardi, which talks of his his need to document the scandals and conspiracies he saw.



"bill clinton, lippo group and china ocean shipping co. aka COSCO
little rock-jakarta-hong kong c.1990s (5th version), 1999"

His works, based on years of research, chart lines of influence in business and politics, link individuals with corperations and groups, and show relationships to various centers of power. It his documentation of a broad world-view that relates his pieces to the people mentioned above.

His works are part of the traveling show global networks., which will not be anywhere near Atlanta. But I may be getting the show catalog.

And adding fuel to the conspiratorial fire, Mark was found hung in 2000, which was ruled a suicide.

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Ask E.T.: Mark Lombardi influenced by Envisioning Information
(Mark Lombardi) arts / w b u r g
The Structure of Consciousness - Liminocentricity,
Enantiodromia, and Personality

Thinking of Poetry While My Wife is Away (Smutty)

Absence is making me fond of smutty poetry. I'm looking forward to my wife's return in a few days.

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John Peale Bishop
The Collected Poems of John Peale Bishop, edited by Allen Tate (New York & London, 1948).
Written circa 1928

Boys, by girls held in their thighs,
Shudder, and turn back their eyes.
It is as well they never see
The brute approach of ecstasy.

First read here.

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If you took freshman english and were forced to buy "The Norton Anthology of English Literature", chances are that this poem was in it. Short Biography.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Episcopal minister. Died and was buried a bachelor in 1674 at the age of eighty-three.

The Vine

I dreamed this mortal part of mine
Was metamorphosed to a vine,
Which crawling one and every way
Enthralled my dainty Lucia.
Methought her long small legs and thighs
I with my tendrils did surprise;
Her belly, buttocks, and her waist
By my soft nervelets were embraced.
About her head I writhing hung,
And with rich clusters (hid among
The leaves) her temples I behung,
So that my Lucia seemed to me
Young Bacchus ravished by his tree.
My curls about her neck did crawl,
And arms and hands they did enthrall,
So that she could not freely stir
(all parts there made one prisoner).
But when I crept with leaves to hide
Those parts which maids keep unespied,
Such fleeting pleasures there I took
That with the fancy I awoke;
And found (ah me!) this flesh is mine
More like a stock than like a vine.

Work Too Much?: Maybe Not Such A Good Idea

It's at this late date that I think I may have been a little ambitious. Let me use a food analogy, being an on-call worker is feast or famine and I just scheduled myself a month-long buffet.

You see, I said yes to everyone who asked me to work and that means I may not have a day off until Feb. 5th. The month is filled straight up. Today was my first day back since Christmas, my back hurts and I pulled a muscle sneezing a minute ago.

This doesn't bode well.

Holiday Wrap-Up Part 2: Washington D.C.

After returning from the Land of Big Cars (Florida), we left a day later to Washington D.C. It was all business for my wife and all pleasure for myself.

Day 1

The first full day started slow, with a late begining. First thing, catch the subway to get to the International Spy Museum. I love Metrorail's stations with their cast-concrete retro-futurism.



Compared to NYC or London some might think them charmless but I love the flowing lines of the walkways and the modular caverns that the trains roll into.

Get to the museum to find that day's tickets were sold out. Bought one for the next day and got directions to Chinatown for much needed cheap eats. Wandered around and followed a pack of students into one of the numerous chinese restaurants. The food was fine and not too expensive. Took metrorail back towards the hotel, exited one station early and walked the rest up Connecticut.

Day 2

Trips to London, Minneapolis and Dublin had all resulted in finding little treasures, be it The Sir John Soane's Museum, The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices which is now located at The Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Grand Masonic Lodge in Dublin. I worried that D.C. wouldn't have something like those other cities, but a visit to this website got me pointed in the right direction.

The George Washington Masonic National Memorial is dedicated to reminding people that our founding father wore an apron. I was worried that I wouldn't know where to go once I got off the train, but at the station it was pretty clear what direction to go.



While large from the outside, the building has even more rooms inside then I expected. The grand hall has a huge bronze George greeting all, with murals on each side of him. Further wandering around finds exhibits about George Washington, the building of the memorial, the Shriners, etc.



One of the highlights, the Animatronic George Washington. He stands, he gestures, he talks. But he doesn't seem to look like G.W.

I wish I had stayed for the guided tour, but my timed-ticket for the Spy Museum had me leave before I could join the tour. Had the spy museum been less packed I could have judged it on its merits, but the crush of people made it all but impossible to enjoy. Their website warned of fast ticket sales and the post-christmas crowds filled the place. The museum has no grand hall, mainly a collection of collected rooms with no flow or reason. The architecture is in the style of "Alias" mostly modern materials and flashy lighting. There were loads of cool spy artifacts, but the crowd killed my desire to linger.

I think all future travel have to include a bit of Masonic tourism. They do their places up right.

Day 3

Return flight to Atlanta. Seen in Dulles International Airport



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More Washington D.C. Pictures - Flickr

George Washington Masonic National Memorial - Google Map

Good food:

Petits Plats - French, slightly pricey, great chocolate mousse.

Furin's of Georgetown - fresh made soups, salads. Super tastey, good price.

"I Think Six Actually Kills A Cylon..."

I'm going to put aside writing "Holiday Wrap-Up Part 2: Washington D.C." until next post.

Instead, geek-out with me with a sci-fi/internet related post. Apple and the Sci-Fi channel got together and posted a-soon-to-be broadcast Battlestar Galactica teaser show (iTunes link to the show).



The 20 minute show is mainly a collection of old clips and musings by writers and actors. Very briefly, Tricia Helfer and Katie Sackhoff are seen together, not beating the hell out of each other. Althought that is good fun as well. There's nothing new or substantial about the new shows, but Trica does comment about her character snuffing out a cyclon. And it is fun to see Edward Jame Olmos smile when he talks.

I'm tempted to get some fellow Battlestar lovers together when the last half of the season starts up again. Because I love me the B.S.G. and I know some other local folks do as well.

Holiday Wrap-Up Part 1: Florida

Any spelling/grammer errors that were not corrected in this post were a byproduct of the double Southern Comfort Manhatten I had earlier.

I apologize for bad form but not for the good drink.

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Florida:

Quality time with the mom and the pop. I'm one of those lucky kids whose parents didn't screw me up. So now that I'm adult and past the parenting/child dynamic, I like spending time with the folks. And that's what we did.

Christmas Eve was spent attending a church service held in a side-room of a larger church. Large enough that it had one mall maps of the grounds with a "You Are Here' arrow. My parents church was destroyed in October of '05 when Hurricane Wilma hit their part of Florida. A neighboring church has been hosting theirs, free of charge while theirs works to rebuild.

The ceremony was a traditional reading of bible verse telling the story of Christ's birth. Modern twist... powerpoint presentation on a titaninum Apple laptop. The sermon was interspersed with the crinkle of cellophane, hard candies being urwrapped to bribe kids to stay still and quiet for the hour Highlight of our evening was the little girl in the row in front of us. A serious little girl who looked like a young Lucy Lui (freckles included) who wriggled around, made faces at her exasperated sister and tried to make my candle go out during the candle lit part of the service. Good Stuff!

Christmas was spent opening really cool gifts. I got...

1) "Shepp's World's fair photographed. Being a collection of original copyrighted photographs authorized and permitted by the management of the World's Columbian exposition"



It's old (1894) and I got me one now! It's a big heavy book, in need of repair. But I like it very much.

2) A bright orange Varsity shirt. The burgers aren't the best but the shirt is cool.

3) A big world map bought from Victory Vintage in Decatur. Our map came from the county's schools system. In addition to world and county maps, the store also has deliciously creepy anatomical "maps" that hang from the blackboard, like cross-sections of the eye and such.

4) A belt and socks. You're old when the stuff you hated getting as a kid is what excites you now.

Plus some other things that I can't recall right now.

And a bonus gift even before leaving for vacation, I saw the Brick Car with Christmas lights on it while driving home from Buckhead. I was on the phone with the wife at the time and I told her I didn't care how stupid the traffic on the 400 was (and it was stupid) that car made my night.

Bamboo Bicycles: Sit Your Ass on Grass

"My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives."

- Hedley Lamarr, "Blazing Saddles" - 1974

I love that quote. It seems often that I can't turn off my head, music, ideas, etc. Always thinking. That line comes to mind when I can't turn it off. It's that constant thinking which is why I find myself researching and writing about bizarre/eclectic things. This post was written before Christmas, which I will be posting about in the near future.

Until then...

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Bamboo is beautiful, a material relatively easy to grow and environmentally sound. So, as a carpenter I've been looking at it as something to build with. Specifically, a baby stroller.

This...



... is not what I'm thinking of. Something more in the style of this vintage rattan chair...




Ambitious, I know. While researching the stroller idea, I've found that I'm not the only one looking at bamboo to use in transportation.


The American Bamboo Society (ABS) - Bamboo Bicycle


Brano Meres - Bamboo Bicycle


Calfee Design - Bamboo Bicycle

The Calfee Design bikes are far too expensive to even think about, $2,695 and up. The Brano Meres page talks about construction methods which is useful. And lastly...


Bamboo Trailer

So, the dream of a bamboo baby mover lives on. Now about baby making, gotta get on that.

A Christmas Gift from Harlan T. Bobo.

Bizzarro Christmas tunes are a must for me, the only way I really get into the season. And Scenestars just gave me an early present in streaming Harlan T. Bobo's "Merry Christmas Spaceman".

Languid guitars slur their notes together, cheesy organs riff on seasonal songs, and exotica, alt-country, lounge and surf all live happily on this strange album.

The album can be heard on Scenestars, just click on contributing writer Racheal's head for her radio station.

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Visit Harlan's Myspace Page

Buy Merry Christmas Spaceman at Goner Records. 18 songs for only $9.99.

Pre-Christmas Post: The End of Work, Indie Atlanta Movie & Kudzu Covered Houses

Wth Christmas coming, I find my internet activities disrupted. Favorite sites, like Pitchfork, are taking a break, but here I am still hitting the web looking for new stuff to read.

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Being an on-call worker means both making my own schedule and being at the whims of my employers. Christmas means the end of work until the new year.

But the last week has been crazy busy and the time off a welcome change. All of my waking time has been spent at the Ferst Center aiding in Tyler Perry's production of "Why Did I get Married?" In addition to 5 shows in 3 days, they were all taped to be eventually edited and released as a DVD.

For those who don't know Tyler Perry, he popped up on a lot of people's radar with the success of his movie, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman." It was an adaptation of his sucessful play, and one that helped him get on Details Magazine's list of most powerful men under 39. Details states that he's earned about 80 million off of his various productions, plays, CDs and DVDs. His core demographic, blacks looking for an alternative to bling-and-crime focused entertainment. The central topic of his plays, the strengths found in faith, family and fidelity. All the shows last week, sold out. There was a reason a Bentley was parked out back of the Ferst Center. He knows what his audience want.

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Why I love Shoplifting from Big Corporations A manifesto film about the evils of corporations and the joy of the 5-finger discount. Stars local girl Anessa Ramsey who was in Geek Love.

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Kudzu Covered Houses in North Georgia

Kudzu in Atlanta, Georgia and surrounding areas

By Jack Anthony

Pimp My Artic Explorer

This is all cool with it's huge tires and plane on the back, but where's the bling?



I would pimp this out with Chip Foose Rims, a Bang & Olufsen home stereo and a Bombardier Learjet 60XR on the back!

All of that will be after I get my Trilobis 65 Floating Home/aqua-crib!

I get like this every Christmas. Once I get socks and a magazine subscription for presents I settle down.

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I'm busting my butt at work, but the 14 hours days are going to be paying for Christmas gifts and the credit card bills. More on the job when I get some sleep in me.

Former Atl. Mayor on Richard Pryor and Random Links

"Scatological, but a comic genius."

Former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson (1973-1981 and 1989-1993) after seeing Richard Pryor in concert.

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I've assigned myself a crash course in Atlanta history, using the kinda sweet/kinda annoying Atlanta-Fulton Public Library Online System's to get me my reading material.

The above quote comes from Frederick Allen's 1996 book, "Atlanta Rising.' It's a good read, and tackles the city's history by looking at the people that made up the power elite. I like my history books full of charactors to keep the events from getting too abstract. In that regard, it's much like "The Power and the Money, The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America 1947-2000" by Sally Denton and Roger Morris.

Anyways, Allen's book is my first good primer on the city, the first bad book, Archival Atlanta. I was hoping for a collection of unique tales told well, but this just felt like I was listening to a rambling relative with questionable memory.

Now on to the random crap...

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I went to Hartwick College with this guy, The Lizardman. He didn't look like that back then.

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Baby Bush Toys | Simple Products for Simple Minds

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It's not just a crazy conspiracy, it's a fashion statement.



"Black Helicopters (BH) are not just helicopters with a black paint-job as you may have been told. They are, in fact, autonomous agents -- lifeforms -- created by New World Order (NWO) agencies via nanobiotechnology. Their primary purpose is to spy on the activities of average citizens in order to gather tactical information and discover "subversives" who are not bowing to the will of the Liberati's UN-backed Federal Government. Furthermore, when the NWO Invasion takes place in the not-too-distant future, they will round up citizens for internment in concentration camps or carry out the elimination of the more vocally anti-Liberati."

In Atlanta, a New Arts District Catches On - New York Times

The NYT is throwing some love our way with an article about the Castleberry Arts District.

In Atlanta, a New Arts District Catches On - New York Times

Did I Make Duane Forget His Keys?: Last Night's Party

"... hanging in the door, were my keys. Yup. Not only did I leave the keys to my semi-new car outside merely steps from the actual vehicle, but I left the token of entry to our home in a place where it would have required no effort to break in and kill us, rob us, etc."

Last night, Chez Kimberly (a.k.a. our apartment) was host to a small party. Included on the guest were online local folk Duane, Amber and her GDBF. The above quote about misplaced car-keys got me wondering if the night's event was to blame for him leaving his keys out in the cold. If so, sorry.

It was interesting to tell my wife's co-workers that I had never met two of the people invited. While not said aloud, sometimes I can hear the question, "Why would you want to meet someone you only know by reading about?" My thinking is that they wouldn't pass up the opportunity to meet John Keats (dead) or Oscar Wilde (ditto) solely based on their writings. So, Duane and Amber were asked because I liked what they thought and how they said it. Plus they brought good stuff to the party, just like I thought they might.

It was nice finally meeting the people behind the blogs, seeing how they matched up with their words. I didn't talk to them as much as I wanted, but I was trying to appear smart in front of Caroline's G-Tech colleagues so as not to embarass her. I think I held my own.

The food went over well, the people seemed to enjoy the party, and it was 2:20 am when the last ones made it out the door. All-in-all, a great night.