carl sagan and the white stripe

By now, everyone’s seen the videos featuring Carl Sagan, Steven Hawking, Richard Feynman, etc. Singing! All singing by virtue of Autotune software. Personally, I find these two music videos emotionally moving, which shows that I’m a science geek, I guess. Then I heard Ann Druyan on the “Planetary Radio” podcast recently saying that Jack White of the White Stripes and Raconteurs is going to assist in releasing a single of “A Glorious Dawn.” I already love Jack White as a musician, and he’s now moved up a few notches in my admiration scale. Ann said that Jack and his band have been watching episodes of “Cosmos” on their tour bus every day.

a camp just for patriots

An outlaw took a stencil and spray paint and decorated the locker room at my health club. The black interior of many of the lockers had a message: “Google fema camps.” I did. It turns out that the vandal was actually a patriot, bravely and desperately trying to spread the word about the coming overthrow of the U.S. government. Apparently, the government will be overthrown by the government itself, which will then declare martial law. Freedom-lovers will be carted off to concentration camps and slave labor.

FEMA has built the camps. It’s been building them for years. Under the Bush administration, FEMA was run a by a man whose management experience consisted of running a horse breeding operation. FEMA mucked up the Katrina preparation and response on a muck-up-scale too large to really comprehend. So personally, I’m not too worried about FEMA camps that would probably fall down in a stiff wind. By the way, how do we know these camps exist? Because there are lots of videos of unidentified places with fences around them. Unidentified Fenced Objects–UFOs.

I’m proud to say that there’s a big camp right here in Washington State. In Okanogan County is a camp that can hold hundreds of thousands of prisoners. “This is probably one of the locations that will be used to hold hard core patriots who will be held captive for the rest of their lives,” according to Friends of Liberty.

Are you a hardcore patriot?  If yes, you’re stashing cans of beans and ammo in remote locations and preparing for a long guerilla war against The Man. If you elude the great round-up of patriots you’ll be in the woods, shoulder-to-shoulder with Sasquatch; living by your wits until December 21, 2012, when the world ends, the rapture happens, the aliens arrive, the new age begins, the asteroid descends, Mt. Shasta levitates, and the supersonic aluminum Nazi hell machines from inside the hollow earth wreak havoc over the land. You don’t want to be stuck in a FEMA camp when all that comes down.

the high desert

It’s where I belong. Click photo for larger version.

seacompression 2009

Don’t put bacon on the cupcakes.

the sources of nothing

1. This blog is a excellent source of nothing. Or at least has been for several weeks. My spare time has been close to zero.

2. Nothing is also produced by the vacant stares of the people at Jiffy Lube. I won’t go into detail here, but the workers decided to pretend I was invisible, which was only fun for a few seconds. I finally realized that although they usually ask what kind of service I want when I arrive, and direct me to the lane they want my car in, on this day I’m supposed to shut up and sit down and they will talk to me later.

3.  How could something come from nothing? It’s a frequent question from religious creationists. This is supposed to explain the existence of their god. “It didn’t come from nothing, god did it!” It’s true we don’t yet have scientific answers to the deep questions of existence. Was there “always” some form of energy and matter or the potential for it? Does the question even make sense? What does this have to do with an alleged all-powerful being from human mythology? If not mythological, then how did this god arise from nothing if everything has to have a cause? Physics and cosmology are at least gathering evidence. “God did it” is  just a period at the end of a sentence full of zeros.

4. You can create a bottle of nothing with an empty jar and a lid. Okay, the jar is mostly filled with nitrogen, but we can’t see it. Looks like nothing.

5. There’s a sign above an aisle at a local QFC grocery store that lists “Natural water” as one of the items you’ll find there.  “Damn,” I thought. “Where’s the manufactured water? Can I get a mix of half natural water and half manufactured water? Or, say, 30% natural water and 70% unnatural?” This sign has generated nothingness in my brain. Here comes some more: “If I drink natural water will my pee be more natural? Is it possible to suffer from manufactured-water-in-the-bladder disease?”

The diving bell and the butterfly and other movie stuff

Maggie Netflixilated this movie for us and I was amazed. One of the best films I’ve seen in quite a while. Beautiful, brilliant, and intelligent. Nice soundtrack too. I noticed that many of my favorite films over the past ten years also had excellent soundtracks: “Children of Men,” “Lost in Translation.” Music is a big factor for me, I guess. If you missed “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” like I did, I recommend seeing it.

Even though “The Men Who Stare at Goats” is getting mixed reviews, I’m eager to see it. I’m becoming a fan of Jon Ronson, the author of the book it’s based on. Not so much for his writing style, but for his bold ability to stick his neck into weird and/or  downright dangerous situations and come back with true stories from crazy-ville. His books being turned into films is an unexpected turn of events for me. I heard him say on an interview that “Them!” has been optioned for film treatment, too.

Blue Cheer and The Pains of Being Pure of Heart

Lately I’ve been revisiting the band, Blue Cheer. Sounds like a laundry detergent, but the name actually came from a type of LSD going around San Francisco in days of yore. Oldsters and psychedelic music aficionados will remember their famous cover of Summertime Blues. I think I first heard it from my older brother or his friends. Don’t remember. Their first couple albums are a curiosity–sounds like a combo of MC5, Hendrix, and a blues band. It’s good when you take it a little bit at a time.

A current interesting band for me is The Pains of Being Pure of Heart. Don’t know where I ran across them. KEXP maybe. I immediately paid attention because I liked the atmospheric sound. They’re kind of like Jesus and Mary Chain. There are understated melancholy-innocent vocals drifting over a wall of loud guitars. Right now too many of the songs sound alike, but I think there might be big potential here.

another halloween gone

All praise to the Timmons’ for continuing their most excellent annual Halloween parties. Thanks to “A Wink and a Smile,” now Seattle’s burlesque stars are coming to the party, which seems to get larger every year.