These ads are on top of every cab in Chicago. It's hard to read the yellow text in the bottom of the ad, but I'm 90% sure it says:
"Hi guys! I made a stop motion version of Coraline, only instead of using Polyjet matrix technology, I just took a bunch of photos of my Barbie Horse (Tawney), thanks come see my show!!! <3 <3 <3 "
Showing posts with label flickr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flickr. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Self Development
(Hodgman looks lonely by himself there in "Self-Development"; maybe I'll buy the audio book for this to keep him company. YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH SOUP OR HORSES OR LOVE OR PASSION OR ACHIEVEMENT OR DEVOTION)
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Maxilla
(I love how this picture of Max turned out so I am posting it on my personal weblog, or "blog", for people to see.)
Best kaijū ever!
Best kaijū ever!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
benefit of the doubt
Chip's post about a DFW signing reminded me of something I did that was stupid w/r/t book signings. (CHIP: THANKS FOR REMINDING ME I AM STUPID)
I went to a Dave Eggers book signing a while back when Dave Eggers lived near me (and when Dave Eggers lived near Chip, for that matter; now none of us live there in that place, not one): right after AHWOSG came out.
I was in a line to get my copy of the book signed, and the further I moved up the line, the stupider I felt, because he was (/is) sort of like my age, and I felt at the time that if I had written so personal a book, I would feel weird that people wanted me to sign it? And I kept moving up the line and feeling increasingly awkward, like in Zeno's paradox about the arrow never reaching its target because it keeps getting stupider?
And then there was just one person in front of me and that person went to get her book signed, but her book was not AHWOSG; it was Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus.
Which I think her strategy was: He will see I am whimsical yet deep and therefore sleep with me.
And he signed her copy of Myth of Sisyphus without commenting on it, and then it was my turn, and whim took over (or maybe antiwhim, as I was trying to cancel out the previously established whim), and when Eggers looked up at me, instead of just telling him my name, I instead asked Eggers to forge Camus' signature on my copy of AHWOSG (since the only signed DFW book I have is Everything and More, I'll just add that what I was going for is f–1(f(x)) = x where x = attempted whimsy). And Eggers (again, without any comment) wrote:
..and I thought, "That's not Camus, that's Conrad," and I walked away feeling stupider and stupider.
But: To my knowledge, he did not sleep with the whimsical and deep girl!
Because after this signing, we all got on a bus and went to see a gallery in lower Manhattan that was displaying paintings by elephants. Because, and this almost doesn't seem like it could have actually happened, apparently during this period in Thailand's history, all of the elephants were being captured and loaded up on methamphetamine and put to work in the circus or as black market laborers. And so these two Russian expats, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, were rescuing the elephants and having them paint things (like literally they held the paint brushes with their trunks) and then they (the Russians) were selling the paintings and then the money from the sale would go to house and feed the elephants. Which, that plan doesn't seem scalable, but it really was a real thing (unless it's not) -- there were actual paintings in the gallery; there were peanut shells littering the floor. And I did not see that girl there.
And anyway: now it's seven years later and I just did a Google book search; this is from The Plague:
Sidenote: At the elephant painting exhibition, Eggers was taking questions ("How long does it take an elephant to paint something?" "Is this real?" "Really?" "Really is it real, though?") and someone asked how many paintings an elephant could do in one day if it was still on Elephant Meth.
This is funny! But also cynical! (RECALL: This was about eight months before we were attacked, and everyone in New York was nice to everyone else for a while.) Eggers said, "I'm not going to answer that."
I don't know the context of that Camus passage, but here is what I'm going to do: I'm going to give Eggers the benefit of the doubt.
In fact, I'm going to try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even though (it is said) we ultimately have no control and even though (to paraphrase) everything in life entropies toward irrationality; Zadie Smith said recently on DFW (and let's just state it outright: the only reason I'm thinking about any of this (= cynism vs. sincerity) at all and not just spending my day reading, like, Gawker is because of DFW) Zadie Smith summarized at least one aspect of his aesthetic thusly: If we must say something, let's at least only say true things.
I am agreeing for the foreseeable future. Let's see how long it lasts.
Dave Eggers forges Albert Camus' signature because why not?
Originally uploaded by mrbikferd
I went to a Dave Eggers book signing a while back when Dave Eggers lived near me (and when Dave Eggers lived near Chip, for that matter; now none of us live there in that place, not one): right after AHWOSG came out.
I was in a line to get my copy of the book signed, and the further I moved up the line, the stupider I felt, because he was (/is) sort of like my age, and I felt at the time that if I had written so personal a book, I would feel weird that people wanted me to sign it? And I kept moving up the line and feeling increasingly awkward, like in Zeno's paradox about the arrow never reaching its target because it keeps getting stupider?
And then there was just one person in front of me and that person went to get her book signed, but her book was not AHWOSG; it was Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus.
Which I think her strategy was: He will see I am whimsical yet deep and therefore sleep with me.
And he signed her copy of Myth of Sisyphus without commenting on it, and then it was my turn, and whim took over (or maybe antiwhim, as I was trying to cancel out the previously established whim), and when Eggers looked up at me, instead of just telling him my name, I instead asked Eggers to forge Camus' signature on my copy of AHWOSG (since the only signed DFW book I have is Everything and More, I'll just add that what I was going for is f–1(f(x)) = x where x = attempted whimsy). And Eggers (again, without any comment) wrote:
Oh the horror.
~ Albert Camus
~ Albert Camus
..and I thought, "That's not Camus, that's Conrad," and I walked away feeling stupider and stupider.
But: To my knowledge, he did not sleep with the whimsical and deep girl!
Because after this signing, we all got on a bus and went to see a gallery in lower Manhattan that was displaying paintings by elephants. Because, and this almost doesn't seem like it could have actually happened, apparently during this period in Thailand's history, all of the elephants were being captured and loaded up on methamphetamine and put to work in the circus or as black market laborers. And so these two Russian expats, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, were rescuing the elephants and having them paint things (like literally they held the paint brushes with their trunks) and then they (the Russians) were selling the paintings and then the money from the sale would go to house and feed the elephants. Which, that plan doesn't seem scalable, but it really was a real thing (unless it's not) -- there were actual paintings in the gallery; there were peanut shells littering the floor. And I did not see that girl there.
And anyway: now it's seven years later and I just did a Google book search; this is from The Plague:
Among the heaps of corpses, the clanging bells of ambulances, the warnings of what goes by the name of fate, among unremitting waves of fear and agonized revolt, the horror that such things could be, always a great voice had been ringing in the ears of these forlorn panicked people, a voice calling them back to the land of their desire, a homeland.
Sidenote: At the elephant painting exhibition, Eggers was taking questions ("How long does it take an elephant to paint something?" "Is this real?" "Really?" "Really is it real, though?") and someone asked how many paintings an elephant could do in one day if it was still on Elephant Meth.
This is funny! But also cynical! (RECALL: This was about eight months before we were attacked, and everyone in New York was nice to everyone else for a while.) Eggers said, "I'm not going to answer that."
I don't know the context of that Camus passage, but here is what I'm going to do: I'm going to give Eggers the benefit of the doubt.
In fact, I'm going to try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even though (it is said) we ultimately have no control and even though (to paraphrase) everything in life entropies toward irrationality; Zadie Smith said recently on DFW (and let's just state it outright: the only reason I'm thinking about any of this (= cynism vs. sincerity) at all and not just spending my day reading, like, Gawker is because of DFW) Zadie Smith summarized at least one aspect of his aesthetic thusly: If we must say something, let's at least only say true things.
I am agreeing for the foreseeable future. Let's see how long it lasts.
Dave Eggers forges Albert Camus' signature because why not?
Originally uploaded by mrbikferd
(though now that I think about it maybe I shouldn't start this plan until
after November 4.)
v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^
Update, 9/24: Roger Ebert on board with giving people the benefit of the doubt. Alex Balk has the money quote.
YOU GUYS! ZEITGEIST MEANS GHOST TIME!
after November 4.)
v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^
Update, 9/24: Roger Ebert on board with giving people the benefit of the doubt. Alex Balk has the money quote.
YOU GUYS! ZEITGEIST MEANS GHOST TIME!
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
My Kids Inadvertently Reenact John 6:19
It's almost May, and they still have to wear fleece and sweaters.
Hey, King of Kings, little help with the weather down here?
Thursday, February 07, 2008
These go to eleven
Misogyny: Pretty much always funny?
AFFIRMATIVE.
But we're a little mystified: on this Dell Book Comparison Chart, Why is it more interesting to spend an evening with this book than with a beautiful woman?, we're confused..? About the number-of-words joke? Like, specifically, why does a [beautiful] [$45] woman only speak eleven words?
Is it that the number that means "mutual oral pleasure" hadn't been invented yet in 1943 or whenever, and the number 11, representing "upright congress" was as crazy as it got?
Help us out, ladies?
(Please keep your responses short to reduce your frankly insufferable insomniability)
AFFIRMATIVE.
But we're a little mystified: on this Dell Book Comparison Chart, Why is it more interesting to spend an evening with this book than with a beautiful woman?, we're confused..? About the number-of-words joke? Like, specifically, why does a [beautiful] [$45] woman only speak eleven words?
Is it that the number that means "mutual oral pleasure" hadn't been invented yet in 1943 or whenever, and the number 11, representing "upright congress" was as crazy as it got?
Help us out, ladies?
(Please keep your responses short to reduce your frankly insufferable insomniability)
Sunday, June 10, 2007
It is totally weird to me..
..to see my name show up on someone else's blog when I'm not expecting it (and especially to see "Sugar Land, TX" right next to it (even though this is a line from an email I sent Maud, and she asked me if I would mind if she posted it, and I said, sure, but then I kind of forgot about it)).
Aside:
The last time I saw my name via Internettical means when I wasn't expecting it was when an email I sent to Harpers Weekly last year was included in the subsequent week. It was in response to a line in the 2/28 edition:
I shot off a note, and when the next week's edition came out, I was scrolling down and saw:
(See?)
End Aside.
However:
In the above-linked post, Maud refers to me as a "fellow Brooklyn transplant", and this will soon be an inaccuracy, as we have these two kids now who demand/deserve more space than our apartment can give them, and we can't afford the Next Size Up in Park Slope, and we can't find exactly what we're looking for anywhere else around here, so we've put our place on the market, and assuming it sells, we're moving to Chicago, my previous town of residence, and where my wife grew up.
This is both exciting and cool and also totally destroys me every time I think about it (how can I leave Brooklyn? all of my favorite bloggers are here*).
Anyway, anyway:
in the email I sent Maud, I referenced "pretty faces"; a while ago, I did a "memory map" (a fun, flawed game where you annotate a Google Map screenshot of your hometown on Flickr) for Sugar Land, which I had forgotten about until recently. I was just reminded of it again, because I mention the pulchritude in there, too.
Clearly:
you can't go home again.
But:
maybe you can go to Chicago again.
Thank you! Good night!
* seriously, though, do I have to stop reading Maud and start reading Bookslut? I don't want to fucking read Bookslut. Please do not make me read Bookslut.
Aside:
The last time I saw my name via Internettical means when I wasn't expecting it was when an email I sent to Harpers Weekly last year was included in the subsequent week. It was in response to a line in the 2/28 edition:
Sudanese villagers forced a man to marry a goat after he was found having sex with it; the man also was required to pay the goat's owner 15,000 Sudanese dinars as dowry.
I shot off a note, and when the next week's edition came out, I was scrolling down and saw:
TO: Harper's Weekly
FROM: Patrick Mortensen
I hope the Sudanese man and the goat stay together for the kids.
Thank you! Good night!
(See?)
End Aside.
However:
In the above-linked post, Maud refers to me as a "fellow Brooklyn transplant", and this will soon be an inaccuracy, as we have these two kids now who demand/deserve more space than our apartment can give them, and we can't afford the Next Size Up in Park Slope, and we can't find exactly what we're looking for anywhere else around here, so we've put our place on the market, and assuming it sells, we're moving to Chicago, my previous town of residence, and where my wife grew up.
This is both exciting and cool and also totally destroys me every time I think about it (how can I leave Brooklyn? all of my favorite bloggers are here*).
Anyway, anyway:
in the email I sent Maud, I referenced "pretty faces"; a while ago, I did a "memory map" (a fun, flawed game where you annotate a Google Map screenshot of your hometown on Flickr) for Sugar Land, which I had forgotten about until recently. I was just reminded of it again, because I mention the pulchritude in there, too.
Clearly:
you can't go home again.
But:
maybe you can go to Chicago again.
Thank you! Good night!
* seriously, though, do I have to stop reading Maud and start reading Bookslut? I don't want to fucking read Bookslut. Please do not make me read Bookslut.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
This might be the dumbest joke ever
(but it made me laugh)
Q: What is E.T. short for?
A: Because he has little legs!!!
Actually, there was a 12-year-old boy without legs inside the costume for some of the scenes.
So that's another reason.
But I'm not sure if that information makes the joke funnier or not.
If this is not hilarious enough for you and you want something else that (1) isn't funny and (2) has to do with E.T., perhaps this is the place for you?
Q: What is E.T. short for?
A: Because he has little legs!!!
Actually, there was a 12-year-old boy without legs inside the costume for some of the scenes.
So that's another reason.
But I'm not sure if that information makes the joke funnier or not.
If this is not hilarious enough for you and you want something else that (1) isn't funny and (2) has to do with E.T., perhaps this is the place for you?
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Psychic Shaver
This is over two years old at this point, but my haircut never changes, and anyway maybe it's new to you and maybe you will be amused.
N.B. Plans for Psychic Shaver II: Brazilian Nights were scratched when too many people said, "Ew."
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