The MidCentury Building That is No Longer There

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I am trying to recreate 1700 Main Street with computer graphics.  This will be more difficult than I anticipated.  

The problem, or the opportunity if you will, is that 1700 Main Street was actually and sincerely a midcentury building and I am constantly puzzled by details and ideas that I do not remember. I was very young when I was there, you know. A child, really. The corridors are without lights and there is no moon in the sky. I am not sure I recognize this building. Is this what they call cognitive dissonance?

I dont recall them asking me before they tore this building down.

 

Nomadland and Other Films

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Excerpted from a conversation with [REDACTED]

"Nomadland" was a big disappointment for me. I had been led to believe that it was a movie about zombies that attack a trailer park. Well! Fuck me! No such luck. I did appreciate that whats her name shat (past tense of shit) in a bucket but that one element, as appealing as it is on the surface, could not carry the film.

Regarding influencing public opinion, I did not explain myself well. In my obsessive doom scrolling, I read review/analysis articles by annointed pundits (did you know that this word came via the British adventure in india and refers to a "pandit" who is a type of Hindu scholar knowledgeable about the Vedic scriptures among other topics?) who purport to tell me what I and any reasonable person should like and hate. In particular, this pundit pointed out that The Joker was an abomination and no sensible person would like that yucky film. Well, you know what? Although I resisted seeing yet another film anywhere at all related to "The Batman" I have to admit that this was an interesting film, at least in part, with some very strong performances. So fuck him. Fuck all of them, if you see where I am going with this.

I want to say something nice about "Tenet" which as you know is not a terribly well regarded film. Well, although the concept is "just OK", I think it gets a bad rap for reasons that are not actually part of the film itself. If Nolan was an unknown, and made this movie (in a somewhat reduced form) for ... (making this up) ... maybe 1/3 to 1/4 the budget, then I think it would be regarded as a somewhat entertaining action adventure film. This is the well understood problem of giving a filmmaker too much money and of course people having expectations.

Setting expectations is so important.

It is very clear to me that visual effects has lost its way. The best visual effects film of the year might be one without time travel or space craft it may be a film with 30 shots, not 3000 shots, although I dont know what this film is. I think the vfx section suffers from the problems that accrue from self-important people whose very small dick, metaphorically speaking, has gone to their head... wait that image needs work. I need to think about this.

 

 

The Rini & Meredith Willson Auditions for The Music Man

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Apparently Rini & Meredith Wilson needed to perform the entire play (The Music Man) by themselves and a piano (not clear who played the piano) for dozens and dozens of auditions. Auditions to get a producer, then a director, then a music director, then a theatre, then a music company to publish the music and the cast recording, investor, etc, etc. This is before anyone was cast. Some of these went well, some of these didnt go well at all. And of course songs came and went, and the "book" changed a lot. But here is the point, as far as I can tell from the book about the production (But He Doesnt Know the Territory), none of these were ever recorded and they do not exist in any form that we can listen to.

 

"But He Doesnt Know the Territory" by Meredith Willson on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IK7WQ8O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Filibuster Did Not Apply to Republican Tax Bill

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Why is it only the Democrats who have to be on their knees and beg the Republicans to please, please, please let them pass a bill. I checked and the Republican Tax bill which gave money to their rich friends and destroyed the deficit (remember: it was going to pay for itself by increased GNP, ha ha ha ha ha) was passed 51 to 49. So obviously its bullshit and they should just pass the stimulus 51 - 50 (with VP Harris) and move on to the next.

[Ha so the answer is that this was a reconsiliation, which seems weird to me, but there it is]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/01/us/politics/senate-tax-bill-vote.html

Trump Castrati and the Failure of the Constitution

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I think that recent events put to rest any thought of even the most obsessed old school liberal that bipartisanship has any value at all. It has none, it is dead. The Republicans and the so called conservatives have cut off their balls and presented them to the great moron. Their path to power is through manipulating the states to suppress legitimate votes and so use the completely insane mechanism of the electoral college to steal another election. The Democrats cant and wont stop them: game over. And if we want to lick the feet of the constitution ever again in my lifetime, then implement the 14th amendment, 3rd clause. Insert stupid excuse here, blah blah blah. But you cant just pick and choose like that. It makes it all an obvious joke. I think Biden is doing a good job given what he has to work with. Americans may deceive themselves that things are fixed but the knife is in and the problems cant be solved at that level. 

The Constitution, so called, is pretty clear.

Section 3

No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

 

Hannes Leopoldseder

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There was a time, perhaps 1984 or so, long before computer animation was accepted by polite society, when the true believers would assemble at Siggraph. This was before the fall from grace and pretty much everyone there was dedicated and pure of heart. I would always stay through to the day after the conference and in the lobby of the conference hotel I would find my friends from Austria, always Christine Schoepf and usually Gerfried and Horst and maybe a few others from their tribe. Some years she was accompanied by someone who seemed very distinguished and interesting to me, but who I did not know well. Someone she called Hannes. I loved these people, people who were dedicated to the emerging arts as mediated by technology. Not just computer animation, whatever that might be, but the larger world of what computing and communications would bring to the arts as that world is defined by those communities. As the years went by, Christine and Hannes were able to sponsor me to visit Linz where I would torture them with my totally sincere and unplanned behavior as I explored Linz and bothered the hell out of the other juries of the Prix Ars Electronica. And always, there was Hannes who seemed to be above it all and yet in some sense it was clear that he was the keeper of the vision. One night at an event at a local restaurant, I saw Hannes at work and I realized that someone had to raise the money, someone had to convince the powers that be that these crazy artists or technologists or whatever were bringing something to Linz. That he and his partners in crime, Christine, Gerfried and the others, were here to contribute to their community and maybe even the larger world of contemporary art. I wanted to get to know Hannes better but circumstances did not permit that to happen. Did I ever thank Hannes for his generosity and his contribution and for allowing me to be part of their family for a few years? I dont remember. Thank you, Hannes.

Christine Schoepf 

 

Hannes Leopoldseder at work

Bachelor Vegetarian Cooking Internet Style

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This book is for single people of whatever gender who for reasons of circumstances beyond their control (or within their control, whatever) cook for themselves more or less every day and on a budget.  I have done this for 25 years and I know something about it. 

 

- who should read this book

- required ingredients

- special diet requirements 

 - etc

California and Vaccine Allocation

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I may have sampling error but I think what the State of California did was to partition up their vaccine supply by the total population of each county instead of asking what proportion of each county was in the designated target audience, e.g. how many 75+ and health care workers. This would explain why counties with a smaller proportion of these designated victims could immediately move on to other target audiences whereas Santa Barbara, with a higher percentage of older people, perhaps, has been struggling. 

If true, there are two morals of this story. First, one more time the State of CA is not being even minimally competent at the tasks they are called upon to do. I would expect better from any undergraduate economics student at a university and I do not even get that level of analysis from the state. Second, choose where you live carefully. and remember this is not the last pandemic.

An Anecdote and the Test of Character

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So my friends parents lived in a house in LA. They maintained pristine social isolation except for one caregiver / assistant who bought the groceries, cooked the meals, and so forth. Unbeknownst to the caregiver, she was exposed to the coronavirus and was asymptomatic, brought the virus home, and the two parents were dead within about a week from the time they realized that anything was wrong. There is no doubt, none whatsoever, that if Trump and his co-conspirators had acted minimally responsibly the course of this disease would have been different. The details of their failure are still coming out and its apparently much worse than anyone knew.

I need the Republican party in the Senate to find 17 loyal Americans who can do the right thing. This is the test of character. There will be no other test that matters. And we all know what is going to happen. This could be a moment of redemption and a step on the long road back. But they will fail this test, wont they.

Bipartisanship is So Dead Its Body Isnt Even Rotting

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[... a copy of an email sent to a friend of mine, a strong supporter of bipartisanship ...]

I wrote a many page email to try and create a narrative to explain my point of view. But it was long winded and tiresome. Here is the short more direct version. One party no longer subscribes to tit for tat as you put it. Their constituents have successfully created a party whose strategy is "I get everything; you get nothing". Nothing but total victory is acceptable to them, when you lose you scream bloody murder, when you win its because you were right. Negotiating with the enemy is just a way to run out the clock and fuck them so that they get nothing and you get everything. The hope is that you can sucker the stupid morons, the Democrats, into doing it over and over again. Charlie Brown and the Football. As part of this, the laws are bullshit for other people. When you do something its the right thing to do. If they do anything to oppose you its because they are left wing radicals who want to destroy america. So, it is the right thing to do to destroy the judiciary. It is the right thing to do to strangle black people on the street. It is the right thing to do. Statistically speaking, at the national level at least, this is the policy of the Republican party and there are no other Republicans. They are all Devon Nunes. Every once in a while you get a shill like Collins who pretends to want to do the right thing, but she never does, its just a tactic to make the stupid Democrats waste time before they get fucked again. Ha ha ha! We fucked you! The constitution exists as a way to fuck freedom and steal elections. Everyone knows that. As Matt Gaentz (sp?) says, this is how the game is played, stop complaining. When the other party is in power you fuck the country as hard as possible so that people will get mad at them and reelect you to continue your looting.

Therefore as far as I am concerned, we stop complaining and we start fighting. Term limits, End the filibuster. Pack the court. If we own the senate, then goddamn it, own the senate. Remove citizens united. Restore the fairness doctrine. Put the motherfuckers in jail where they can learn moral improvement and become better people. Game theory has proven time and again that you cant compromise with people of bad faith. There is no point in discussing racial equality with Nazis. There is no point in discussing it with Republicans, either. The good old days of the bipartisan approach to the US Government is so dead the body isnt even rotting anymore. Now its just a matter of whether we live in a right-wing authoritarian and racist society or we dont. Some of us are tired of being treated like garbage, we intend to fight back. Lets see if the constitution actually has any value or if it is the joke people think it is like the high-sounding constitutions of your other, shithole countries. Enforce the law on the criminals of the previous administration. Use the power we earned to pass the legislation necessary. We have two years. Bernie Sanders, my favorite democratic socialist jew from brooklyn, has warned the Democratic party that it is time to deliver results. If not, people will be real mad and the Democrats can kiss winning an election goodbye.

I say this for your own good!