Rough Trade

Here's a pencil sketch for this week's Arms and Ether.
Thrills. Chills.

me make picture now--DMF scratch primitivism

New Spring, New Arms and Ether

Scoolio starts back up tomorrow. West Side? East Side? It's all relative, I suppose.
Hmmm. Oh, yeah. New Arms and Ether is up (along with last week's 4 days AWOL strip). Perhaps these will appeal to the "gangster" in one? Perhaps not.

Stay away from Soccer fandom. Thoughts on 2nd half of Newcastle v Arsenal

A memorable fancy. Thomas Hobbes and I watched the Newcastle v Arsenal match today. Our thoughts:
Players I'd rather not see in an Arsenal shirt any more:
Diaby
Denilson
Djourou (didn't play today, but that's for last week)

Horrible, horrible games:
Gallas
Toure

Well, there's your core--your center. Balls.

Oh, but of course, Diaby just scored for 2-1 Arsenal. Of course. He still sucks, though. Poor first touch, donkey-like build up play. Often seems suprised to be receiving the ball. Nothing defensively. But that was a quality goal.

Nasri! 3-1 to the Arse. I do dig this dude. And I feel bad for the Newcastle faithful. The missed penalty (albeit a crap call). The pointless giving away of two goals after an unlikely equalizer. Mike Ashley. A nightmare season. The team is just not that bad. They're not as good as Tottenham, but their talent is not relegation-worthy.
Clichy finally getting in on the action makes a nice run hitting Van Persie who forces a fine Harper save.

Digging Arshavin. And Bendtner's looked good today. They definitely need a bigg'un up front and Bendtner's been filling that role well in the absence of Adebayor.

Sagna is a freaky dude. Fast. Spirited. A bit wacky sometimes. Decent crosser. Pretty solid defensively. A key factor in Arsenal's "rent boys across the world" approach to building a team.

Song. Hmm, the best of a bad lot of holding-esque midfielders? Seems to have some fight in him.

Almunia is a cult figure for me. Has gotten pretty dang solid this season.

Arsenal is SO indifferent in defensive midfield. No pressure. No 50-50 balls won. Very few headers won. That's striking in the Premier League. But, hey, looks like they're pretty solidly back in 4th place and the Champion's League. Hooray.

FYI--From the Desk of Thomas Hobbes

"So when a man compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of the actions of another man, as when a man imagines himself a Hercules or an Alexander (which happeneth often to them that are much taken with reading of romances), it is a compound imagination, and properly but a fiction of the mind. There be also other imaginations that rise in men, though waking, from the great impression made in sense: as from gazing upon the sun, the impression leaves an image of the sun before our eyes a long time after; and from being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical figures, a man shall in the dark, though awake, have the images of lines and angles before his eyes; which kind of fancy hath no particular name, as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men's discourse."

Thomas Hobbes, I thanketh ye for providing this apt physik of the motions of the mind of man at rest or at work for as we may find ourselves in practice of diverse actions both as individual agents as set in motion by the Artificer or as members of a great COMMONWEALTH or STATE, we have need of understanding the nature and cause of our imaginings and the general use of speech to transfer our mental discourse into verbal, and the train of our thoughts into a train of words as may be found in the DICTIONARY OF MAN.

The engraved figure of Mr. Hobbes which you have found begotten on your organs of sense is borrowed liberally from the electronic library of images to be found under the appellation, "Sexy People," whose "webbe site" may be accessed by moving one's electronic designating device to the anomalously coloured text in this sentence and depressing the button of said device by action of the forefinger.

Long Dark Night

Been a bit rough these past few days, but the show goes on. The latest Arms and Ether is up. And I'm not proud. No. Nope.

Robert Newhouse Friday

Imagine oneself to be Robert Newhouse,
Ball clutched squarely between symmetrical 4's,
Improbably short, massive legs furious in cerulean blue.

Before the collision
The sweet sharp smell
of summer grass.

God, What A Song

The whole lousy human condition crammed into a 7 minute song.

I do so miss the catharsis o' rock et roll.

Windows Tip Of The Day (Also Works On Macs!)

If you're feeling old, go to a nursing home! You'll feel much younger!

New Arms (and Ether!)

It's a non-figurative one, so don't get too excited. Go check it out. Really.

1. Hmm. No rhythm. None at all. Cast adrift. Crisis of belief. Too much horror.
2. Work more or work less?
3. Other people's pain.
4. Am I just going to be Mr. Lipservice?
5. I ordered some orange shoes. Inappropriate at my age and in this financial climate.

Aren't you glad you stopped in?

Oh yeah. Saw Watchmen. This is a blog, so I should mention that. I felt vindicated because a lot of time and money went into creating a bright blue penis for a mass audience.

Spicy Nodes

SpicyNodes is an interesting new piece o' web software I came upon while trying to figure out why the hell we have Daylight Saving Time (turns out there isn't a clear-cut, solid justification). I'm just seeing what it looks like embedded in the blog and seeing if I might be able to use it for class.

UPDATE. As per the comments, the nodes are a bit annoying embedded as they're too small and cramped in the layout. Also the nodes sound takes over all other sounds which I'm not too big on. The above image jumps to the online version.

2 Smart-Ass Art Projects I'll never do plus some other misc junk

Loducavision by Miles Inada

1. A series of oil paintings based on screen shots taken from mundane computer moments such as the Internet Explorer loading screen.

2. Walk through campus and inquire what each person is listening to on her mp3 player. Download all of the songs. Play them simultaneously. Title the composition based on the day and location.

Nice article in the New Yorker about Donald Barthelme (who I haven't read)--"Had I decided to go into the conceptual-art business, I could turn out railroad cars full of that stuff every day."

I went on a 24-hour Dexter binge. A good show.

One Ought To Perservere

Right?

This is the kind of card I'd expect for Father's Day. Much more affecting than "World's Greatest Dad."

Please, don't fear

The latest episode of Arms and Ether is here. Come today, fresh.

Primitive Paddle Love!

Screw it. I'm just going to post this as it is. Here's the latest primitive flashery provided to help you wile away the depressive parts of your personality cycle. Your MOUSE controls the paddle--just like real life! Play on, drummer. . . and post your high score in the comments section! I'm just over 500 674 as of this post.

I've got a few more changes I may make in the coming days. Goody.