Frantik Girl
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Acoustic Tiles
Acoustic tiles are white, have skin like an orange and are filled with small holes. They are made of fiberglass, so if you slide them back to reveal the ductwork above them, you may get showered with tiny fibers of glass that will burrow into your skin causing irritation: redness and itching. These fibers will remain in your skin until the epidermal layer in which they are imbedded, sloughs off, usually in the shower. If you try to dislodge these fibers by itching the skin, you will only drive them further into your epidermus, prolonging the symptoms.
Acoustic tiles are designed for deception. They hide wires, support beams, vermin, air ducts, dust, cat burglars, asbestos, listening devices, pipes, and hidden cameras. Do not trust acoustic tiles.
Monday, May 19, 2003
Erika Lopez and Octavia Butler
Prolific doesn't suggest quality, although many people seem to equate the two. Certainly unpublished authors, like myself, admire the prolific among us. With wide eyes we stare at the Stephen King wing of Barnes and Noble and in a hushed voice we say: "He's so prolific" like we were hookers describing a particularly well endowed john.
Yet Stephen King and Anne Rice have written nothing but crap for the last fifteen years. They are prolific and they are hacks.
As a reader it can be frustrating to love an author's work and be able to read thier entire catalogue in a week. Take Erika Lopez, the crankiest welfare republican in San Fransico. I love her wit and style and relevant social commentary; but I can read everything she's published in a day, if I start at 6 am and only eat cold cerial. Then there's Octavia Butler: the best Science Fiction writer that most people have never read. Her portfolio is small, yet packed with ideas that make you furrow your brow and then unsuccessfully try to explain them to your friends who nod and smile and try to steer the conversation back to network television. I love them both. I want to read more of thier work, but I can't; and I'm glad, because they wouldn't be as good as they are if they churned out a doorstop every six months.
To be a successful working writer, I have to be prolific. To be an artist, I have to give my books the time to germinate. I have to decide which I want to be.
Pre-Review of The Matrix Reloaded
I just know that by the end of the movie, I'm gonna want those fucking sunglasses melted to Keanu's smug little face.
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Moral Relativism
The concept of moral relativism makes people crazy. The right wing speaks of it in hushed tones in the same string as homosexuality, single mothers and dancing. Because relativism suggests that there are no absolutes, even in the most fundamental, common sense foundations of society. The right practices moral relativism of course, everyone does, but they choose to see their practices as absolute… handed down from the good book, codified in the Constitution and American law. The most glaring example of right wing moral relativism is the death penalty. The immoral act of murder, becomes moral when it is sanctioned by the state and performed by faceless bureaucracy. I could go into the psychology of this, but what’s important is that the absolute, ‘thou shall not kill’ is transformed into ‘thou shall kill dire criminals’ because the dead man walking is unimportant, or even less human when the scope of his crime is considered relative to his worth to society. There are some devout Christians who believe that the death penalty is absolutely wrong, and refuse the relativistic argument; and while I can’t agree with most of their precepts, at least they reject hypocrisy by refusing to compromise principals.
Intellectuals and left wingers often have as much a problem with moral relativism; although they may converse in shades of grey. One of the extreme cases of moral relativism is the argument that Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy. I’ve made the argument (as the Devil’s advocate, I’ll admit) is that Hitler’s actions were motivated by the genuine wish to do good. That his belief structure, one in which racial identity and nationalism were the ultimate good, led him to the conclusion that the purification of his country, by exterminating subversive and impure elements, was also an absolute good. His beliefs stemmed from upbringing and life experiences that taught him the truth of his convictions, therefore from his perspective, his subsequent actions were not only justified, but necessary. Indeed, if the Axis had been successful, the entire world would have been taught this new belief structure from childhood and history would have treated Hitler very differently. Evil can only be judged from a distance. Rarely does the ‘evil’ person look themselves in the mirror and say, “Gee, I sure am evil.” They simply prioritize differently. National unity outweighs human life, security outweighs freedom, profit outweighs worker safety, dying in a hail of bullets outweighs the lives of your classmates; and lets face it, most of these equations are genuinely debatable… unless of course secrecy outweighs public debate.
If one takes moral relativism to its extreme, then we lose the ability to judge right from wrong, and become unable to enforce the rules of society. It is, at its core, a nihilistic philosophy. I use it judiciously, by choosing moral precepts by which to live, and then periodically re-examining them. As of today, murder and nuclear war are still ‘bad’ (although there is wiggle room); theft is ‘OK’ so long as it’s from large corporations; and sodomy, dancing and single mothers are ‘good.’ I don’t know how I’ll feel next week.
Friday, May 09, 2003
Housewarming
If you're one of the two people who read this site. Don't forget my housewarming party this Saturday at 7. Yay!
Gloop
Once upon a time, there was a thick little girl named Gloop. Gloop loved popular culture. She had J Lo posters on her walls, and ate those Eggo waffles with the pectin flavored gel inside, and had Pokemon cards tacked to her headboard so that she could stare at Pikachu and masturbate.
One day, on the advice of a chihuahua, she went to Taco Bell. They had a new menu item: the Happy Fun Sloppy Yum-Yum Treat. It was fried meat surrounded by three colors of processed cheese and then wrapped in a deep-fried carbohydrate. She smiled, showing her blunt ruminating teeth and drooling down the front of her earthtone t-shirt. She waited in line for a full thirty seconds, suffering a small aneurysm over the delayed gratification. Then she stood at the counter, listing to the right, but triumphant. The cybernetically controlled biowad order taker flapped its fins and asked Gloop what she would like to assimilate that evening. Trembling, Gloop slid her cash card across the counter and ordered her first Happy Fun Sloppy Yum-Yum Treat.
Gloop stood tall, her chin implant thrust out and eyes rolling in her head like a chameleon. "I shall take this product home, and I will sit on my couch and I will watch CSI as I consume it."
The biowad gargled its approval, shooting balls of lard into the air from its retrofitted ovipositors.
Saturday, May 03, 2003
OK Set of Knives
I have an OK set of knives. It’s a full set, minus the heavy duty scissors, and it includes carving knife, boning knife, paring knife, butcher knife, bread knife and that knife between boning and paring that I don’t know what to call. It doesn’t stay sharp for more than five uses before needing a go, but they all work. I’ve carved turkeys with the carving knife, I’ve actually boned a duck using the boning knife. So, in a way, the knife aspect of my life is complete, if not flashy or expensive. My knives don’t have brushed titanium handles, for instance, and they don’t fit into their block very firmly. For the longest time they were all dull as bricks, until I grew proactive and bought a fool proof sharpening machine. Now, they are adequate for all my cutting needs. I’ve even had friends envy my OK knife set, because they have no knife set of their own. But lets face it, lots of people in this world have knives, and if my friends lack knives, then they must not be trying hard enough to get knives.
I love my knives, don’t misunderstand me. They’re good knives, and short of the heavy duty scissors, I can’t think of any task they can’t accomplish, cutting wise. Nevertheless, I see knife sets in the department stores and I desire them, deep in the pit of my stomach I ache for them because behind their Plexiglas display cases they look sharp and gleaming: black handles, silver steel, and an unstained edge. As good as my knife set is, it fails to fill a hole in my heart… nor is it sharp enough to open one.
