off the record

How to live with the philosopher in your life

A useful guide.

45 everyday food items that you can make yourself

Many cool recipes for, e.g., baking powder, vinegar, mozzerella cheese, available here.

Our hood makes the Guardian

Ossington goes international.  Sadly, our house is obscured in the illustration by a pile of books.

Dance your diss

I can't get enough of interpretive dance, especially when what is being interpreted is "Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography. A comparison between single subject and group analysis".

Why do cats like to sit on a mat?

I say that it is due to the principle of sufficient reason: the mat (piece of paper, or whatever) provides a distinguished location for them to lie on.

I get on the TTC

Outside blood red, inside silvery, pocket full of celery, when I get off at Bellamy.

Lyrics here, courtesy of Torontoist:

I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC

I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC

Verse 1: Syrus [Randal]

When they see me on the subway they say "Syrus prolly broke as shit"
Taking public transportation never in a dealership
Me I'm on that train shit that's right I'm in the last car
Tryna catch some zzs. You know Kipling Station's really far
[Hey are you going far?]
Yeah man I'm going far!
I need some assurity I hold on for security
Yo that's not a napkin I use that map to navigate
If I make a wrong turn getting home then I'll be super late
Move your leg over dogg stop touchin mine I'm super straight
It's obvious you're checkin out her boobs you're being super bait
I hate people on the bus that feel the need to flatulate
The TTC can be a drag other times it's super great....

[Chorus x2]

I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
Get onn (eastside)
Get onn (southside)
Get onn (westside)
Get onn (woooord)

Verse 2: Syrus

Yeah I keep that M-pass so call my bike a rust tub
March April June May I need to join the bus club
Fall asleep wake up at my stop and give a high five
Passengers don't need cars TTC is how they drive
Inside's blood red outside's silverish
Pocket full of celery when I get of at Bellamy
Don't know why you're laughing dude I ain't tryna tell a joke
Had to make a video this the realest shit I ever wrote
People always asking me if I got spare change on me
Don't get caught without some comin' from where I from
Gas price remedy take the 43 Kennedy
So broke so poor catch the 97 Bloor

[Chorus x2]

I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
Get onn (eastside)
Get onn (southside)
Get onn (westside)
Get onn (woooord)

Verse 3: Randal [Syrus]

I get onn…
I get onnnnnnn…
I get onnnnnnnnnn...
I get on the TTC…
I get on the…
I get on the TTC…
I get on the...
Onnnnnnn...

Can I have a transfer please?

See the bus schedule and it just makes me vexed
A 25-minute wait until the bus comes next
I don’t think these TTC dudes know bout stress
They make me chase down the bus until I’m outta breath
I paid the fare for my dame but that don’t mean shit
I see that man with a cane I wont let him sit
I pray to Jesus, please, bring down the bus fees,
Cuz I need just at least a loonie for some cheese
Onnn…
I don’t get on the GO
I get on the transportation used in T-Dot O
I know Joe, he was just joking, he kept pulling the rope
I’m like damn we ain’t kids, that shit ain’t funny no more
I got to pee big homie, drive to VP for me
You can ask big homie man they drive so slowly
I ain't lyin... [He ain't lyin']

So slowly I aint lyinnn... [What the fuck?]
Let me take the blue night (take the blue night)
And I’ll get home alright (home alright)
I wont ride my bike (ride my bike)
Cuz mornin', noon, and every night I get oooonnnnn

[Chorus x2]

I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC
Get onn (eastside)
Get onn (southside)
Get onn (westside)
Get onn (woooord)

50 state strategery!!!

(For more check this one out -- it won't embed)

Laughing baby

Hee hee.

Funny animal time!

Dramatic chipmunk

Dramatic Lemur

Beatboxing parrot

My bloody valentine (open letter to a college friend)

Hey Mac,

saw My Bloody Valentine last night. Absolutely amazing. '92 was historic but '08 completely realized their potential. They are touring with a quarter million worth of equipment, including what looked to be around ten marshalls, fenders, and hiwatts, and then on top of that a PA system the size of a large garage. The effect was a sound that was incredibly loud -- my skull contributed interesting frequencies and resonances to my auditory experience -- but also an utterly transparent presentation of the immense rich tone. The light show, as well as the generosity of some friendly strangers, vastly enhanced the experience.

Playing around with the earplugs was fun; varying placement and depth of insertion had cool effects on which frequencies were dominant. This higlighted part of the "message" they were trying to convey with the volume, a point about perceptual relativity: the classical way of thinking about music is that there's a certain canonical or "correct" way of experiencing the musical event, but their point seemed to be that this is an aim that is attainable at best ceteris paribus. At extrema, the most canonical way to experience the environment would result in deafness; avoiding this requires the listener to take an active role in shaping the experience. Relatedly, there's a point about the transparency of experience: at extrema, the perceptual systems start to make their own contribution to the experience, which the listener can regulate. Finally there's a point about passivity; the classical listener doesn't participate in shaping the experience but merely accepts the environment, but once again this is only available ceteris paribus.

There were also some pretty straightforward points about aesthetic value and pleasure, or about the relationship between form and content, or perhaps about the relationship between the artist and the audience. The music has the familiar beautiful/dreamy/poppy character to it but the volume is an assault on the listener. So there's this interesting contradiction, where it's both pleasing and distressing, the content is lush but the form is searing, the artist both soothes and lashes the audience. Finally there's this cool point about the end of the road for modernism, which got up and running by presenting these clever works that upset expectations and result in a sort of conceptual discomfort for the audience, but are such that the sense-experience produced by the work is more or less anodyne. Here the point is maybe that we're all too sophisticated to experience this sort of discomfort anymore, so that the order of comfort and discomfort will need to be inverted, as it were.

The musicianship was really first-rate. Nothing especially challenging for the guitars, but their sense of rhythm is really fantastic, like a bit shambolic and laid back, but at the same time really tight. The drumming was really amazing, he definitely has both power and a very light touch in the toolkit, and the tracks on which he was playing drum-pads keyed to samples recorded from his own drum work were both really nice sounding and interestingly meta.

(A small but highly rewarding bit was when Shields hit an unadorned chord on his jazzmaster before a song. Hearing the guitar naked it was clear that the dude was a mad genius of tone.)

Anyway, after about 28 minutes of the "holocaust section" of YMMR, we'd had it with cowering in a crouch, said fuck it, and fled. 7 minutes later and three blocks away when we finally hopped in a cab, we could still hear them assaulting the audience.

Hope all's well with you and fam. Still in KS?

Take it easy,

Benj