Trip-Lets.

Douglas Hofstadter is better than Jonathan Charles Wright, I admit it.

Hofstadter came up with the idea of three-dimensional typefaces back in the 1970s, calling them "trip-lets" (as in "triple letters"). He designed the cover for his Pulitzer Prize-Winning book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, which is a picture of such trip-lets, cut (by Hofstadter) out of wood and then shined light at them from three different directions. Observe:

Apparently there is some kind of thematic value to the trip-lets (beyond simply being clever and cool), since in the book he kind of makes the claim that what Gödel, Escher, and Bach do are all essentially alike in important ways.

Anyway, the trip-lets are cool, and I have stumbled on some websites that exploit their inherent coolness to greater effect. The most interesting one is a art project of many trip-lets (computer images and physical works of art), which employ three different fonts for each letter of the trip-let. I particularly like this example of a "triple Z":

Neat!

Anyway, for some fun, check out Action Types.

Looking it over excites me. I spin into an eddy of thoughts about what possibilities in this creative vein have yet to be actualized. I go scatter-brained with considering variations on this theme. (For instance, imagine whole stories written using these fonts, organized into a narrative "cube". Is it even possible!?)

For a simple puzzle version of the same concept, check this out.

Ms. All or Nothing.

On some holiday last week, Louis and I were engaging one another in conversation and coffee shop fare, all but forcing pastries and caffeinated beverage down one another's gullets.

Incidentally, I have just made myself some coffee, and finally believe that the quality of any given french press of coffee is quite beyond any powers I might exert in making it. It reminds me of my former roommate Ben, may God bless him and keep him, who discovered, with no less import than Godel's discovery that there were numbers named after him, that the best anyone can do to make the internet work is to perform ceremonial motions of plug-in, pull-out, turn-off, turn-on, jazz hands, etc., in a rain dance fashion. As with internet connectivity and the rising of the Nile, so with coffee-by-french-press. This coffee is bland: the coffee equivalent to flat soda. Yet nothing in my morning coffee-making-voodoo-dance was any different from successful times before! Just when one is getting settled into a deterministic and mechanistic understanding of the universe, the gods tinker with one's coffee. I hereby give up and profess that all causation is fundamentally spooky and must be sacerdotally inveigled. (Remember blowing into Nintendo game cartridges, with all the hope and mysticism with which one blows on a dandelion? It would not surprise me if the psychological state of one so-blowing were isomorphic to that of a monk caught up in Shintoistic prayer.)

Back to them gullets. Striking upon a lull in our coffee-shop colloquy, I gazed around the place. A young (late high-school/early college) woman was looking at me. (Quelle plot twist--I agree. What do you want to bet that from amongst my readership Max is the one to have moved closest to the edge of his seat at this? Brianna, of course, takes prize for "Most Worried Gasp".) Protocol demands that I respond with an inscrutable and ineluctable smirk, during the execution of which, this young woman struck me as attractive. She seemed almost a younger, yet slightly worn, Kiera Knightly.

Incidentally, here's a picture of Kiera Knightly at what I consider her absolute best. It makes me laugh every time.


In so many words I informed Louis of my estimation of the girl in question, referring to the object of assessment as "2 o'clock". Louis burst into incredulous laughter. He was not of my opinion. Rather, on an aesthetic scale of -10 to +10, he placed her somewhere just below 0, which is to say he would sooner look at a wall or a chair than her.

Needless to say--well--if it's really needless I'll just skip it. Let's move on.

I needed more data. What could explain this drastic divergence in opinion between Louis and me? I proceeded to stand up and (more or less) to pace around and inspect her as one might broodingly and oglingly circumambulate La Victoire de Samothrace on a slow day at The Louvre. Alas, my estimation of her beauty was inversely proportional to the number of degrees of rotation from which I beheld her.

Plopping down next to Louis, confuted, I deigned a valedictory gander at "2 o'clock née Knightly". Gasp! Her beauty was restored! From that angle and from only that angle, this girl was nearly irresistible. Otherwise, she was gaining fast on the Gorgon. Clearly, she must be aware of this feature of her features, and accordingly has become accustomed to triangulate the exact position in any given coffee shop from which she will best allure her most promising future mate (in this case, me). Imagine a dance scene during which she would have to keep this angle from her partner at all times. Man, I should write romantic comedies.

I could go on, but have to go. on.

That's "sir" to you, SIRtoyou.

Got a twitter. The culture I live in is so much fun!

Money can't buy you happiness, but it did the Greeks.

Bertrand Russell, in his history of Western Philosophy, remarks about Athenian culture that it is due to their material and monetary affluence, their wealth, that they were able, as so few others are able, to be both happy and intelligent and "happy through intelligence".

This explanation, this posture, this feature of reality highlighted by B. Russell, is one of the main motivating inducements that make me want to be filthy rich.


Russell & Moore, unsurprisingly lightly touching their chins/pipes

Incidentally, Russell basically chocks up Plato's disgust with the Sophists to his being a spoiled rich kid who didn't realize that smart people have to eat. He (Russell) also pokes fun at professors who endorse Plato's criticism of the Sophists, while they themselves are being paid to teach people stuff. This is pretty enjoyable for me.

Anyway. The other inducement for me to become filthy rich is the possibility thereby to make my life comparable in all external facets to that of a Wes Anderson character.


Anderson & Coppola, unsurprisingly somewhere beautiful

Also, the bit from Russell reminds me of a much belabored Hemingway quotation: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."


Hemingway, unsurprisingly with a bottle of wine

The Sartorialist Picture.

There's this website, The Sartorialist, which basically just posts pictures of well-dressed people on the street. I check it out daily, because they are good pictures and it's low time/energy overhead. It's a drive-by website for me. Today their picture caught my eye. I can't decide if this person is beautiful or not, but she sure is neat to look at:

!!!!!

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

TONIGHT IS FRIDAY THE 13TH.

not pleased.

Some genuinely bad music in this coffee shop.
A badness that peaks one's scientific curiosity.

It's also loud.

I am very good at ignoring ugliness. But this is loud. And this is really, strangely, bad.

GAAAAAAAAAAH.

Remarkable. I can't make sense of it. Dumb chills.

a;lsdjklasdfjksdfajklsfjkdsfalkjsadfljkdfsj;dfslkjdfsjkldfsajkladsfjkdfsjklsfjkdfjkldsfajkladsfjkadfsjklasdfkl;adfsjkl.

How does the world provide for this? I wish I didn't have to face this alone.

Teaser

It's coming...

Artist: Peter Callesen

Do you like paper? Not particularly? What about really cool art made out of paper? Oh, you're sort of into it?
Okay, well check this guy out.

A.J. from Calypso's recommended this artist to me, when he saw me doing origami. I know DC3 once showed me some art similar to this, but I'm not sure if he introduced me to this artist, specifically.

Anyway, these are all made out of paper and only paper (except for the frames, supposedly), by Peter Callesen:


"Erected Ruin".


Detail from "Holding on to Myself".


"Mirage III".


"Looking Back".


A large-scale paper project called "White Diary". I'd recommend checking out his website for the details of this one, which are very cool. A playful and clever detail-oriented take on the brain/mind/consciousness. Fun/cool to look at and think about, which, of course, is what art is all about.

Mo-Town: Maybe not a Musical Wasteland?

All songs by The Four Tops are essentially the same, but they sure are catchy.

A Wonderful Episode.

Scene: Status Quo. Calypso's coffee shop, sitting in a good chair, reading, writing, and internet-browsing. a.k.a. "my element of choice".

A little girl comes in with a healthy bounce-to-step ratio, her gait a strange mixture of animated sulk, wiggle, and waft. She just has to be 11; she must be. Her hair is brown, straight, short, and a little messy--almost boyish. Quite boyish, actually. She is holding a green book as if it were something a part of her, so important and familiar that it is negligible. She wears a navy hoody, incredible striped socks, and flat, black, ballet-like shoes. She has terrific, big, dark eyes. She lunges backwards into a big comfy chair, whips her book out, and begins to read with rigor. She is brought coffee by her white-haired mother (the character of their interaction precludes the coffee-bearer from being confused with a grandma), and proceeds to alternate between reading with her nose less than an inch from the book and scrutinizing her coffee mug with curious fascination at a like distance.

Of course, by this point I have stopped reading the very funny article/essay/story (What would you call those things that S.J. Perelman writes? The back of the book calls them both "pieces" and greatest "hits". "Hits" might do the trick.) and am now gaping at her. My principal impulse is to adopt her as my daughter. She is one of three children to inspire this in me. I reflect on both my impulse and the other times at which it has been evoked, and realize that in each case I would ultimately make a better older brother than a father.

I reflect further, however, and realize that this is just what I will be as a father: a notch just above spectacularly older brother. My attitude is doomed to be one of fraternal instruction and dialogue, a categorical and aloof posture of punishment, with god-fatherly, scientific curiosity and interest, without any of that consciousness of the strata of generations; my children cannot help but be little more than lagging peers to me. When you think of the meager amount of maturation that actually occurs in humans throughout their brief candle of life, compared to what must elapse in the forever hereafter yet to be ushered in by the resurrection of humanity, that mathematical "ray" of life stretching indefinitely onward, outstripping civilizations long since petered out, I cannot imagine being anything but a peer to every human still kicking, fruit of my loins included.

Anyway, possessed with a curiosity to discover what her book is, I stand up, ostensibly to go get a drink. Passing her, I say, "Do me a favor?"
She looks up: "What?"
"Murder anybody who touches my laptop. Thanks."

I couldn't glimpse the book. I go to the bar and chat with the barista, A.J.. A.J. is articulate, intelligent, funny, and kind, so I play the odds and assume he was home-schooled. I like chatting with him. As we discuss the naming conventions of the coffee-shop's menu, I recognize his eyes. They are that of the 11-year old. It all makes sense. It's not long until she steps up to the bar and we are introduced. Her name is Grace and she is reading "The Peppermint in the Parlor". I didn't catch the author. She and A.J. are 16 years apart, which isn't a bad spread (and ruins my 11-year old hypothesis). A.J. informs me that they are 2 bookends to 5 children ("a basketball team," he gibes), further confirming my home-school hypothesis. I order a bread bowl of minestrone, which will turn out to be the tastiest minestrone I've ever had (admittedly, perhaps transfigured in taste by my happy thoughts).

Just as I start to write about all this here, I look up and listen to the white-haired mother, who sits at a table of four not-quite "elderly" adults, who are discussing clearly spiritual things, with level tones and laughter. They are Christians. I glow in the thought of these wonderful lives made wonderful by an accurate and wonderful worldview clearly carried out into the particulars of practice and conduct, presumably illuminated by a sound pedagogy centered around sincerity, family, and love.

!

Sitting here, blogging about 1st-world problems, wanting to somehow make a foray into 0th-world problems, listening to music with the help of laptop and headphones. Basic.

I take my headphones out for a moment and rub my eyes. I hear singing coming from the coffee shop restroom. Ardent, sincere, song.

I dare not look up to the face of this lavatory soprano.

Apartment qua Life.

Quandary:
My thought-life, when not otherwise engaged by concrete obligation, has as its predominant proclivity speculating on how best to furnish and design my apartment, which presently is just barely bare. Yet, though my proverbial wallet has begun to garner mass where it used to gather moss (while my literal wallet, you'll be happy to read, is now looking quite slim, having shed most of its unnecessary contraband), I nevertheless lack the funds to realize any of my decorative reveries. In short, I lack the money to buy all the necessary strips of fabric and sticks of wood necessary to make my apartment a thing of beauty. I pine, I perish.

So, as things go, I scour the internet for textiles, furniture, dinnerware, etc., bookmarking pages upon pages of inventive and beautiful wares, all aloof in their expense, sequestered from me by implausible expenditure.

Yet I have enough coin to get me a bit of play here and there. A new addition to my beloved property each month, maybe each paycheck. But this husbanding, "inch by inch, it's a cinch!" procedure cultivates in me a sense of apprehensive mystery. Disquiet at the unknown.

To explain: if I were to buy, say, a few bowls adorned with peacock colors/patterns, or a yellow-paisley tablecloth, or a butter dish fashioned in the shape of a whale, I would thereby preclude certain possible creative decisions per my dining room or as regards my kitchen supplies, by virtue my fastidious desire to strike an artistic coherence amongst each set of items I might own or within each area of experience my apartment has to offer. And this cutting off of legitimate, good, exciting living possibilities is disturbing. If I buy the Louis XIV cream bed frame, there is no way I can also get the bistre 1930's armoire.

Thinking of this, I think that this problem with my apartment might be a microcosm of a problem in life: that of making small decisions that appear fine up close and isolated, but which radically fashion your possible future. The problem of doing some one thing with the narrative of your existence, forsaking countless other possibly fulfilling, worthwhile things. The problem of the permanence that comes with writing in pen in the margin of a precious hardback volume of Saki.

Thinking of this, I think that just as the problem of my apartment might be a microcosm of bigger problems in life, I wonder whether my apartment itself is not a microcosm (or macrocosm?) of my very self.

Which of course reminds me of the beginning of Saki's The Unbearable Bassington:

Francesca herself, if pressed in an unguarded moment to describe her soul, would probably have described her drawing-room. Not that she would have considered that the one had stamped the impress of its character on the other, so that close scrutiny might reveal its outstanding features, and even suggest its hidden places, but because she might have dimly recognised that her drawing-room was her soul.

nervous little blog post.

I have signed up to perform in the open mike night at this coffee shop I'm currently in. Open mike is tonight. It's going on right now. A girl is singing country songs.
I'll probably just play 2 or 3 silly songs.
Incidentally, I've performed a lot before, but never with a guitar in a coffeeshop. On stage, yeah. Reciting Shakespeare, yeah. Fumbling on a piano, yeah. But never with a guitar in a coffeeshop.

I usually get a little itty-bitty bit nervous before I perform in those things I'm good at. This usually evidences itself in a slightly altered breathing pattern, which makes me to yawn a lot.

But for whatever reason, right now I am racked with extreme physical nervousness. My hands are painfully cold, my jaw is clenched, and not only are my legs bouncing up and down, but the muscles in my legs are undulating like some kind of animate gelatin from tension. It really is bizarre to feel.

And it's not like this coffeeshop is packed with people I'm dying to impress. Who knows what it is.

Is it because I never play the guitar but in jest in front of people with whom I'm comfortable?
Is it because my performance will probably bore other human beings?
Is it because I have a secret desire to inspire love and adoration in the baristas by my singing?
That must be it. I'll just have to mention this to everybody.