Text

2008 is the year I first sent a text message. It read, “I Love You.” I will always remember texting a few other texts this year. Our dear friend Cosmo Wernicky has a 2008 text message memory to share:


Upon receiving a text message from what I gather to be a younger, possibly high school-aged individual (YPHSAI), I provided some innocent information.


YPHSAI : Whats up? What have we done in geometry? You have carter right?

Me: Yeah carter gave us like sooo much hmwk i think we have a test tomorrow

YPHSAI : Well what is the homework? That’s what I’m asking?

Me: pgs 81 to 96 plus identify every geodesic dome in town

YPHSAI : All problems?

Me: yup

hello, 2009

I have only one resolution for 2009:

to have a real-time real space reunion with my friends who are also writers for this blog and other mutual friends. I recommend eastern europe/near bulgaria to facilitate quill's attendance. trans-siberian rail ought to be taken into consideration as well. I have thought about getting to eastern europe by way of overland journey via alaska. This is my only resolution. i hope it will be adopted by others as well. we should all start squirrelling away money right now.

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old times since ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
And surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine^† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

The Dead

Dinner For Two is a restaurant in Santa Fe which I believe is staffed entirely with the UN-Dead (or non-dead, living dead). Yet to have eaten there, I now realize this inevitability to be my resolution for 2009. I will eat a dinner for two in Dinner For Two. I will stare at the patrons and the staff (my usual) and try to decipher if those enjoying their New York Strip are as dead, but all the while more animated, than their meal. I hope that while I dine, I will cross through some time-space-life/death portal so that it is my undeadness which washes down my complimentary bread with red table wine. The difficulty of my translation of this sure-feeling will have to suffice. Please take my blog word for it. Maybe one of you would care to join me.

www.itwaslost.org New Years Resolutions

I have been thinking hard about how to make 2009 a super special year. It has often been noted that slight changes in behavior can have major long-reaching consequences. There's no better time than during Berkeley, California's cold dark winters to attempt to improve ourselves. If other itwaslost.org contributers wish to edit this blog-post & add more resolutions, I invite you to make it an open discussion.

-Stop going to see movies starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. I don't know why I kept making that mistake in 2008.
-Throw a mint julep party. I have a humongous bottle of Maker's Mark hidden in my apartment, which I bought a long time ago to throw a fabulous mint julep party. Why haven't I done this yet?
-Homeless people make me uncomfortable. I think I'm going to stay the course on this one.
-Pay more attention to ladies' butts. You ladies don't get enough credit for your butts. Occasionally, I hope to notify a lady if she has something special.
-Drink more beverages out of tall glasses. A tall glass of water. A tall glass of juice.
-Sing more hymnody in small groups.
-Date more white girls.
-There are several cocktails I wish to invent. Specifically, my idea for the Long Thailand Iced Tea, which would involve some combination of sweetened condensed milk, iced tea, & all the booze in Long Island.
-Jesus Christ walked on American Soil.
-Write a Text Message Novel. This has already started, more on that anon, but I would like to see this project thru.
-Female Professional Midget Wrestlers.
-616 Blog Posts. You probably saw this coming. That's like two a day. Are we up to it? The mathematical gods demand it.
-A new format for this website. I'd like it to be more magazine style, like the Huffington Post, with different sections, like Fashion & Architecture. We are looking at the horizon of greatness.

Quantum Encryption, a science correspondence

As science correspondent for It Was Lost it is my pleasure to tell you of a recent publication in theoretical physics. One of the Great Dream of the quantum mechanics world is the development of a quantum encryption system that cannot, by the rules of nature, be broken (or at least without letting one know that someone has broken the encoded message). And it's not impossible. An encryption protocol was written full 25 years ago, and in recent times experimentalists have begun to create rudimentary versions of the quantum parts that run the machines (more on this soon). If it could be constructed, it would be perfect. Unbeatable. Quantum encryption would have the basic principles of nature assuring its security.

But a hole in the plan may have just arisen from the math. Published just this month, a theoretical argument by Todd Brun of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles states that there is a physically possible way to read an encrypted message without anyone knowing. Without breaking any of nature's laws (as we know them), the paper, entitled, "Closed timelike curves enable perfect state distinguishability,"shows that it should be possible to travel backward in time through a worm hole and undo the evidence of tampering.

And with that, quantum encryption has lost its absolute certainty. No one is sure if worm holes, or timelike curves, ever occur in nature. But since the rules of physics do not preclude their existence, breaking quantum code is now merely beyond our wildest dreams, but not possibility.

I look forward to relating the many other exciting happenings in the world of quantum mechanics and the other areas of science familiar to Yours Truly.

Apologies & "Resume should have Personality"

My computer just freaked out from a virus & there was a sketchy warning while rebooting, so if I disappear whilst during our attempt to reach 308 posts, you know what happened. I've got to install some updates & do scans & backup & whatever else you're supposed to do in this universe. It happened when my housemate downloaded a form with a sample resume - She managed to find some of the sketchiest resume-help sites available on the internet, including this amazingly helpful essay called "Resume should have Personality" which I will quote in full:

What do you feel, do resume needs to have personality? Yes, it is so. Through you have very good personality but if you do not convey on your resume then, it has got no use. Therefore, you should always make your resume, which can reflect your personality over reader.

After making your resume, first of all, it is necessary for you to read your resume. You should read it in same method what professional managers do read of any candidates. Do you feel it interesting? Or you are feeling it too boring to read your own resume? Do you feel that you will fall asleep while reading it at ten o clock in evening? Generally, the human resource professionals follow it.

It is not at all easy to make a good and personality resume. It is not an easy work to make a resume, which can be read from top to bottom. Well, to make your resume good and interesting, you need to be active as well as you need to use vibrant language in whole resume. Using vibrant language does not mean that you need to use lot of slang as well as jargon in your resume. You should definitely use it but quite contrary times. At same time, if you use flowery speech then, you will find your resume to be tossed out. Well, over all, it is necessary for you to use the language or words, which shows enthusiasm, responsibility as well as confidence and accomplishments too, which makes employer or reader attached to your resume.

You should always use the words in resume, which let your personality demonstrate through your resume. At same time, you need to make your cover letter too such interesting. There are number of resumes, which are too dull as well as lifeless. Many at times, it becomes too painful to read such resumes. You should use the words in resume, which makes feel the employer that you enjoy with your work and you feel too good in working hard each day.

It is necessary to make your too professional but at same time, you should take care that your resume does not turn up to be boring. You can make your resume bit interesting by changing out the words from there to here or by adding some new words. You should show the energy power as well as excitement about the career field selected.

If my computer restarts, stay tuned for our end-of-the-year bashery. Including~! -New Years Resoltions, & some correspondences about about text message novels & hookah-bars in Istanberkeley.

belle belle belle

Inter-office Memo: A Few New Items

We have seven or so more posts in thirty-something hours to reach our stentorian goal of 308 posts in 2008. I've added a couple of things to the sidebar - 1) an easy link for people to get the feed (if you use any of the services to follow blogs, et cetera). 2) I've replaced the "labels" catergories with "DEPARTMENTS", so now we can tag our posts any wild combination of relevant words & not clog up the "labels" part. Also, I think tagging things like "Al Franken" helps the search engines, (but keep tagging musical items "music" & shisha items "shisha" so that we can develop those general interest category sites, yes.) Some DEPARTMENTS we will be further developing in 2009: -Imaginary America (basically anywhere that isn't South-West Virginia where real Americans live), -The Dead (Olaf Mary's fascinating series on obituaries), -Lizard People (a peek into the lives of the lacertic humanoids that humbly stay off the ballots & have to be written in.) Thirdly, there's the creepy "followers" section below, if you wish to make yourself known publicly as a follower of this blog. Do it!

Music Review: Kanye West's 8o8s & Heartbreak

My fifty songs for fifty dollars project has been slightly delayed, because I had to go back to iTunes (on the fucking bus) & buy the rest of the new Kanye West album. There seems to be a growing divide amongst my friends whether it is amazing or a travesty. Altho the fact that I can't stop listening to it is a sign of something. I don't think I've ever heard anything remotely like it.

Sam Amidon, after I asked him which other songs to download:

the entire album is 1. completely consistent 2. amazing 3. unlistenable as a complete record

And the following chat with Mr Mary almost ruptured our tight friendship:

12:19 PM Olaf: i just listened to tit [sic] last night, or most of it and found it dreadful

i can't watch it now

me: He does the whole album with that voice-corrector effect.

Olaf: neil young did that once,

his album is better

me: Oh you heard it? You didn't like it? What's wrong you with it seems like it's right up your alley?

Olaf: i think this new kanye album should go down as one of the worst pop albums ever

12:20 PM me: Wow, I have to respectfully disagree.

Olaf: don't know, never liked his stuff much - and this album is so painfully painful - the songs just sit there like a spoiled rich kid

me: You idiot.

Olaf: but maybe i need to give a second listen

like that song streetlights

12:21 PM what the fuck!

me: It rewards repeated listenings.

[...]

Olaf: his voice is terrible, just terrible and his production boring, and his lyrics are juvenile, naive, boring, selfish

it is like kanye goes emo

12:22 PM you should listen to tabu ley rochereau

he is much better

me: Perhaps we have to leave this issue.

If you don't have access to this music, I invite you to be one of 11 million to watch this video (it's not embeddable.) Click on the Democrat:

the Wrestler

The wrestler did not live up to my expectations. I actually felt that Mickey Rourke would have and could have done more, gone farther, but he was constrained by a thin script that even great acting and maybe great directing wouldn't have been able to push the bounds of. It is a sad thing to see a great actor elbowing at the tragically light constraints of a story not large enough.
the best of this movie was in small jewels of pathos, self-mutilation, aloneness, kindness- really the places between the lines of the script, the non-verbal acting that Rourke was able to do between "scenes". Marisa Tomei has nice boobs, evan rachel wood and her character should never have been in this movie at all. Aronofsky...these are like Scorscese women. paper dolls. I know you could have done women better than this- you've done it before-the old lady in requiem for a dream comes to mind, although you kind of made jennifer connoly the same way you made Tomei and Wood this time around). where's the ram's ex-wife? meeting her once would have been better than a whole movie full of his daughter and his girlfriend. Or no women at all? how about just focussing on the Ram's relationahips with the other men in the world of underground wrestling? It only seems logical that they are who he really loves (not the audience, man...that rang false to me- the other wrestlers) The film making is pretty good, but fairly conventional. I'd give Wall-E the nod over wrestler.

Antagonism Will Get You a Blog Post

This is one of the three most important days of the year for people in my chosen career path. The other two most important days were yesterday and the day before yesterday. Let it be known “the day before yesterday” is one word in German: vorgestern.

I would write posts about Formula One Mule Racing and Underwater Cricket in order to meet arbitrary blog goals, but the Modern Language Association convention is on. Coincidentally in San Francisco this year. I attend sessions. I avoid the passive voice.

At the convention I sit in on a wide range of topics, which I will list after this sentence, because one should not write a sentence longer than fifteen words, according to one speaker I heard, which of course is totally constraining, albeit courteous if I were reading this out loud in, say, a conference session filled with many for whom English is a foreign language (sixty-six words). Potentiality and Unfinished States. Challenges in Interdisciplinarity. Demonstration Interviews for Job Seekers. Crafting Academic Personas. The Impropriety of Goethe. René Gerard. Judith Butler. Postsecular Europe. Cash Bar.

I learned how to edit my CV for consideration at the Yemen Polytechnic Institute. There will never be a job for me in America.

Even though theoretical physicists waste nine billion Swiss francs on the Large Hadron Collider (that calls for a perverted anagram) which was promptly shutdown one week after construction and still doesn’t work; even though science funding has made computer programming so ubiquitous that those jobs no longer pay a salary; even though an MBA or a JD are the two worst possible degrees to have in this economy; even though foreign language proficiency at the government level might have prevented a lot of the problems we face today; even though grad students in foreign languages and linguistics earn less than students in any other discipline; despite all that, American universities are getting rid of their humanities programs.

I temper Nietzsche’s Zarathustra with Stifter’s The Tender Law and quietly gaze upon the answer for world peace. If only someone eventually lets me teach their kids.

Woo hoo! Pity party!

beautiful images

Some Light Entertainment

click on this picture

Different Shepherds - JUNE STAR

The text "While shepherds watch'd their flocks by night" has been set to music hundreds of times. On Christmas Day, 2008, I wrote four more settings, which, with a possibility of many more, I'll publish in the "additional songs" section at the end of the Western Harmony, under the title "Different Shepherds". They're all short three-part shaped-note carols & I'll publish the scores on this website as soon as I can get them scanned. (In the music industry, Christmas albums have to be recorded in June, so June Christmas Carols have to be composed & prepared by December.) So, I'll try & get recordings of the other three settings up at this blog before we hit the 308-post limit for the year. Download that mp3 here.



I use this variant on the text (the original psalm is by British Poet Laureate Nahum Tate, 1700):

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.

All glory be to God on high,
And to the Earth be peace;
Good will henceforth from Heaven to men
Begin and never cease!

Wow. Keep At It. Obama Should Hire Me

I would just like to say how flattered I am that my two friends find my silly (essential) goals worthwhile. Maybe I should be a politician. Clearly, my weight, when thrown, gets results. Comma. And.
Also.
We should not exceed 308.
So when it gets close, let's talk to make sure we don't post more posts than exactly 308, because that would ruin our efforts, accordingly.

and now i will contribute.

Kindly Get Off My Kindergartner

A real actual conversation:

Liam Joseph Mary: I have an idea, my attractive friends, for extreme mathematical reasons, we need to post 308 posts on www.itwaslost.org before the clock rolls over into 2009. Get right to work.

Miss Grainne: Okay, I will do my part by writing about the fashion, love, & lore of Christmas & Hanukkah! All nations are at peace.

S. "Esther Hoffman" Sandrigon: We shall get right to work, with at least a post a day each, to meet this lofty goal. There is no shortage of holiday videos, whimsical locations out in the blogosphere, & naughty photography to post about! We shall wend out the old year in a flurry of snowflakery.

Liam Joseph Mary: [cartoonish snoring sounds & Ennio Morricone music]

Brains Aha! Apparently, there is nothing interesting to write about soccer, the German language, or getting it down in San Francisco over the winter solstice break.

Liam Joseph Mary: Oh! forgive me! I was wanking off while watching QVC. What was happening about it? Well, I'm off to go fondle kindergartners in Holland & then yell racial epithets towards ugly minorities.

Quotes: William Billings & Rules for Composition

I'm reading a book called "William Billings of Boston", (about the great hymn & psalm composer, essentially America's first composer, & one with a real voice.) The authors point out that it was the conservative elders who, earlier in the 18th Century, established the singing-schools, to educate the masses how to read music & sing the English hymns right (things were getting kind of folksy & enthusiastic); & it was this singing-school movement ("ironically" they point out) that made it possible for some of the more adventurous hymns that the New Englanders in the 1770s-1800 produced. The book's pretty dry, but there's some good quotes about the controversies surrounding music in the colonies:

The singing of Psalmes, tho it breath forth nothing but holy harmony, and melody: yet such is the subtilty of the enemie, and the enmity of our nature against the Lord, & his wayes, that our hearts can finde matter of discord in this harmony, & crochets of division in this holy melody.

-The Whole Booke of Psalmes
(Cambridge [Stephen Day], 1640), p. [1] of preface.

Where there is no Rule, Men's Fancies (by which they are govern'd) are various; some affect a Quavering Flourish on one Note, & others upon another which (because they are Ignorant of true Musick or Melody) the account a Grace to the Tune; & while some affect a quicker Motion, other affect a slower, & drawl out their Noted beyond all Reason; hence in Congregations ensue Jarrs & Discords, which make the Singing (rather) resemble Howling.

-A Brief Discourse Concerning Regular Singing
(Boston: B. Green, Jr. for John Eliot, 1725), pg. 7

William Billings published The New-England Psalm-Singer in 1770 at age 24, with a Hundred-Twenty-Something original compositions--, that increased more than tenfold the amount of American-written music ever published in America. In the preface, he defends some of his unconventional harmonies (illegal parallel fifth & octaves, et cetera); in a time when puritan music was supposed to be somber, he had a lot of explaining to do.

Perhaps it may be expected by some that I should say something concerning Rules for composition. To these I answer that Nature is the best Dictator, for all the hard dry studied Rules that ever was prescribed, will not enable any Person to form an Air any more than the bare Knowledge of the four and twenty Letters, will qualify a Scholar for composing a Piece of Poetry, or properly adjusting a Tragedy, without a Genius. It must be Nature, Nature must lay the Foundation, Nature must inspire the Thought.

-William Billings, New-England Psalm-Singer (Boston, 1770), pg. 19

I have read several Author's Rules on Composition, & find the strictest of them make some Exceptions, as thus, they say that two 8s or two 5ths may not be taken together rising or falling, unless one be Major and the other Minor; but rather than soil the Air, they will allow that Breach to be made, and this Allowance gives great Latitude to young Composers, for they may always make that Plea, and say, if I am not allowed to transgress the Rules of composition I shall certainly spoil the Air, and cross the Strain that Fancy dictated.
-ibid.

For my own Part, as I don't think myself confin'd to any Rules for Composition laid down by any that went before me, neither should I think (were I to pretend to lay down Rules) that any who come after me were any ways obligated to adhere to them, any further than they should think proper: So in face, I think is best fr every Composer to be his own Carver. Therefore, upon this Consideration, for me to dictate or pretend to prescribe Rules of this Nature for others, would not only be very unnecessary, but also a great Piece of Vanity.
-ibid,

good music

for James and anyone else who got an i-tunes gift certificate for a holiday, I recommend you check out the 2-CD set I've been listening to for a couple weeks...it's called American primitive volume 2, pre-war revenants. If you want to just dive into some of the best tracks, my top picks (and they're all on itunes, I just checked) are:

the nugrape twins-
I got your ice cold nugrape
and
there's a city built of mansions.


Mattie May Thomas-
big mac from macamere
Dangerous blues
workhouse blues
no mo' freedom

Homer quincy smith-
I want Jesus to talk with me

Pigmeat Terry-
Black sheep blues

Elizabeth Johnson-
be my kid blues

Geeshie Wiley-
last kind words blues

A Few Items of Interest: Bruh Be Coo

I received a $50 iTunes gift certificate from my Uncle Roy, & have decided to buy fifty songs with it. I posted a general call for suggestions on the facebooks, with the comment "What's the Best Song?" The couple responses I got so far, took me at my word, "best", meaning greatest songs, that of course I already have (like Miles Davis & Leonard Cohen). Mr Amidon suggested the first track off of Kanye's new album, along with some obscure profanity-laced folkmusic, which was more what I'm looking for. I'm taking suggestions in the comments section of this blog. I intend to post the full list here, with perhaps some mini-reviews. The artwork above is Juan Munoz’s 'Una Habatacio on Sempre Plou' (A Room Where It Always Rains) on the beach in Barcelona.

Mr "Test Pattern" Crawford points us to this scanned copy of the "How it Works: The Computer" book, there's many more pages from it at this Gadgets blog. (If it's a little too small to read, that one caption is "Office romances displease computers", & there's quite an emotional outpouring on the screen of the computer in the second image.)


And Miss "Pele" Peng offers a collage fashion show, "Animation Against Naturalist Writers' Block".



The East Bay Express published a long year-end section of their favorite letters to the editor, all of which are here, (including an essay about how Scarlett Johansson is a clone created in Ludwigshafen-am-Reim in North Bavaria.) The first two:

Bruh

BRUH BE COO ITS NOT EVEN LIKE DAT BRUH LITEWATE OFF TOP BUT FOREAL THO

Bruh, Sem City, CA

Hey Baby, How Are You?

Hey baby, how are you?

Hey sweetie, hope you're well

Hey dude, found a sweet site

Yo yo! Check this out dude

Hey sweetheart look what I came across

Virgil Shook

chanukah gift from my boyfriend's father

That's right, it says "Peace tranquility"
AND
nothing less than

"respect moral excellence"

on it.



I am rocking this bracelet so hard right now, and cannot get over who/where I got it from.
does Papa Kaplan know me so well? wow.

It's Christmastime with Roebuck "Pops" Staples!

& a Happy Four Weeks until the Obama Era! We were watching David Byrne's True Stories movie, & I couldn't put my finger on why the voodoo butler singing "Papa Legba" looked so familiar - it's Roebuck "Pops" Staples of course. His thirty second verse in "The Weight" completely steals Scorsese's Last Waltz movie for me ("Go down Moses" is at 1:49 in the second video below). Pops would have turned 94 on Sunday. If you're wondering how to spend your iTunes gift certificate, I recommend buying the studio version of the Staples Singers singing that song with The Band from the additional tracks at the end of The Last Waltz soundtrack, damn it's good. Luckily, both "Papa Legba" & "The Weight" are on YouTube for those of you alone of Christmas, or just of some sort of hippie Jewish persuasion. Ho ho ho!