A Chinese kangaroo goes into a bar …

So a Chinese kangaroo goes into a bar and orders a Jacques Lacan. The bartender looks at him, narrows his eyes, and says, “I’m gonna need to see some I.D. buddy.” The Chinese kangaroo says, “No ploblem!”, digs around in his pouch, and spins a pocket mirror across the counter. The barman picks it up and flips it open, but when he looks in it, instead of seeing his own reflection he sees a line of French girls all holding up their skirts and kicking their legs in the air. “What’s this for a piece of I.D.?” he demands “A la-can-can-kangaroo mirror? That’s lame buddy. And frankly juvenile. No way you’re of age. And what the fuck’s a Jacques Lacan anyway? Ain’t no drink called a Jacques Lacan.” The Chinese kangaroo looks down at his paws and shakes his head. “Auhhh,” he says, “You soh hard. Jacques Lacan is Continue reading

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PROMULGATION OF NEW EMOTICON: (o)

I have invented and am now promulgating a new emoticon — a lower case “o” in parentheses:

(o)

The emoticon essentially means “I’m using my smartphone on the can”, and is a ideograph for a toilet seat (see image).

Here are a few sample chats using (o):

PIM: What’s up? Where r u?
BOM: (o)
PIM: :)

BOM: Hey!
PIM: Hey! What’s going on?
Continue reading

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Have Bike, Will Shoot

This Lynchesque shot is one of a series of photographs by Quinn Comendant that will be featured in the Bike Equals Art exhibit at the Ray Ray Gallery in Chico, California.

As many know, Quinn is one of the mysterious minds behind Wheeled Migration, a bicycle advocacy group that arranges bike treks on the West Coast of the U.S of A. And, he’s also got a kicking Flickr feed. So, this exhibition was a natural for the fella.

The show opens today so if you’re within 200 kilometers of Chico, try to check it out. Otherwise, three more pics and the very cool exhibition poster after the jump.

Continue reading

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In Remembrance of Simon Green’s Teeth

Quietly turning over a pack of tobacco at my desk, I found myself melting nostalgically as I stared at this image (printed as a health warning). It is I believe the first medical photo I have seen that even begins to approach the awesome horror of Simon Green’s teeth circa 2002, when he was living in the antiquarian section of George Whitman’s celebrated Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris.

One version of memory has it that incidents are like jars of air, sealed in time and strung out along the washing lines of our past. Another suggests memories are living, shifting memories of themselves, rescripted every time we visit them. Lingering over the photo, I felt I saw Simon’s teeth in my mind’s eye, and heard the cackles and phrases bubbling up through them. Moments later I was ransacking my archives to find the following description, written that winter, shortly before they were gone forever …

‘Simon is set to have his teeth out on Monday, with titanium implants soon to follow. I am sure they will be quite the hardest thing in his head. Still, I will rather miss the old teeth in his ruined cathedral of a mouth. Continue reading

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A Letter of Concern

(translated from the original French)


Jeremy Mercer
7 bd Tanneur
13008 Marseille

Mme Laure-Agnès Caradec
Adjointe au Maire
Hotel de Ville
Quai de Port
13233 Cedex 20 Marseille

18 April 2011

Subject : Pedagogical Farm, Roy d’Espagne

Mme. Caradec,

The evening of Friday, April 15th I had the opportunity to bring my family to the pedagogical farm located on rue Jules Rimet in the 9th arrondissement. I was delighted to show my children the sheep and the cows but I was concerned by one small matter.

The animals at the farm are penned using a type of electric fencing that emits small but painful shocks. As you can imagine, when children see sheep or cows they tend to excitedly rush forward and press up against the fences to get as close to the animals as possible. Under these circumstances, it is extremely difficult for parents to keep their children from touching the electric fencing and, despite great vigilance exhibited by all, during the course of my visit four young children received electric shocks and three parents received electric shocks while trying to stop their children from touching the fencing.

As one of the parents who received an electric shock, I can say that it was an unpleasant experience. Moreover, our entire outing to the farm was tarnished because of the constant worry that my children were going to receive electric shocks. Furthermore, it seems to me an electric fence is contradictory to the pedagogical farm’s stated mission of familiarizing city children with farm animals. The young children who were shocked by the electric fencing seemed so upset that I imagine they would never want to visit the pedagogical farm – or any other farm – again.

I suggest the pedagogical farm considers replacing their electric fencing with a more-child friendly barrier.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Mercer

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UNDER THE GAVEL OF JUSTICE

I recently read about a fascinating court case in Kenya relating to a hyena killed by a local family. The deceased beast was awarded legal representation, and indeed his lawyer spoke forcefully and eloquently, winning a ruling that the guilty family pay a number of goats to the hyena’s orphaned young in compensation.

The implications of this are profound and far-reaching, as it suggests a way in which creatures of nature (in this case a hyena) can be given both rights and a voice in a human court of law. Environmentalists have been keen to pick up on this, and to start thinking of it as a model for how other natural world parties suffering harm through human activities may be able to seek redress via existing legal frameworks. If so, activists could not only engage in advocacy, but literally become advocates in a trial of — say — wetland birds vs. an invasive real estate development company. And if legal representation can be extended to hyenas and other wildlife, why not to a river damaged by pollution, or an aggrieved landscape? Would it be possible for the Gulf of Mexico herself, through her lawyers, to sue BP for the oil spill?

I too was immediately interested in the Kenyan hyena case, though from a slightly different angle. It struck me that if nature and her creatures could take the stand as injured parties, and enjoy full protection of the law, a necessary corollary would be that they could also transgress against it, and therefore themselves face trial. This revelation … Continue reading

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A Metaphorical Hegemony

Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, and John Locke have declared metaphors a blight on language because they confuse listeners and cloud precision. Locke argued that “all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgement.” Berkeley simply insisted, “A philosopher should abstain from metaphor.”

But here’s the rub. According to James Geary’s book I is the Other, metaphors are not only inescapable, they are essential to life and language.

The average person uses one metaphor every 10 to 25 words, or about six metaphors a minute when speaking. I’ve already used three glaring metaphors: ‘blight on language’, ‘cloud precision’, and ‘the rub’. And even in denouncing metaphors, Locke and Berkeley were inextricably bound to them. Locke uses ‘insinuate’ which comes from the Latin word for gulf or cove and is a latent metaphor for an idea penetrating the brain like a boat gliding into a harbour, while Berkeley uses ‘abstain’ which comes from the Latin term to hold something and since ideas can’t be physically held in your hand, it too is a latent metaphor. Continue reading

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Running Eye Business Ideas #02: Heartbeatbilling

Everyone knows time is essentially arbitrary. An hour is a useful way of describing the motion of the earth as it spins its path through spacetime, but it is very ineffective when it comes to measuring the human experience of consciousness. According to circumstances, an hour can feel anything from almost interminable to gone in no time at all. Likewise, an hour can variously be momentous, irrelevant, euphoric, excruciating, etc.. To live through some hours feels free; others cost us a lot.

For precisely this reason, the hour can be a very unsatisfactory means of monetizing time. Both work and money are essentially human units of value, and yet hours — i.e. equidistant steps along the trajectory of the earth through spacetime — relate to a very inhuman concept of time. One hour is much the same as another to a rotating planet, but not so to a human being. Why therefore are we chained always to this crude way of thinking in dollars per hour when we bill?

think of it like a dollar pump

We propose billing according a much more human measurement of the experience of time: the human heartbeat. When thinking of how to cost work, instead of asking how many hours are spent working, heartbeatbilling asks how many heartbeats are expended on that particular piece of work. So when pricing something for a client, a supplier could say a task equates to e.g. 350,000 heartbeats at x dollars per heartbeat, and quote accordingly.

This offers three key advantages. Firstly, it is likely the price of a piece of work will more accurately reflect the volume of human lifeforce sucked up. Secondly, if you become more active, accelerating both your biofunctions and the pace of your work, this is justly reflected in the fee. Thirdly, if your client or boss starts stressing you out and pushing up your heartbeat, then you can charge for that.

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As Big As The Sky

A sneak-peek preview of an excerpt from new opera As Big As The Sky plays to the sneaky-peekers of Zwolle. Composition Arnoud Noordegraaf; libretto Adrian Hornsby.

Excerpt Preview
3-4 March 2011, 20.30
Odeon Theatre, Zwolle, Netherlands
full production scheduled for 2012

http://www.adrianhornsby.com/R_theatrefolder/asbigasthesky.html

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1/8 C1 vs 1/2 C3: =≅>< ?

I recently received two tickets for the Olympique de Marseille/Manchester United Champion’s League match that will be held at the Stade Vélodrome later this month. Giddy hardly describes my state. I have actually twice suffered nightmares where I was late for the game and running through metro corridors, tears of frustration streaming down my face as I missed metro after metro.

I am vaguely optimistic about the match. Despite Wayne Rooney’s recent brilliance and Paul Scholes ageless form, I believe we can compete with Manchester. We have solid goalkeeping, a defensive line with European experience, and our 18-million euro striker, Andre-Pierre Gignac, is finally hitting stride with four goals in his last five matches.

No, what’s really troubling me about this match is how to describe it. It is certainly the biggest game to be held in Marseille in years, but in how many? In 2003, when we had Didier Drogba, we played a UEFA Cup semi-final against Newcastle in Marseille. Now, obviously, the UEFA Cup (C3) is an inferior competition, fielding teams that didn’t qualify for or got booted out of the Champion’s League (C1). But, it was a semi-final, not a round of sixteen match, and since this sport is all about winning trophies the semi-final had us much closer to silverware than this coming match.

Is the 2011 Manchester match bigger than the 2003 Newcastle match? I like to think so, but I am biased because I am attending and I want it considered as momentous as possible. So, I turn to the football knowledgeable among you: Is a round of 16 (1/8) C1 match more important than a C3 semi-final (1/2)?

[polldaddy poll=4580726]

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