Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Checking In With Vitas
June 2nd, 2009
Some of you who’ve been reading this thing for a while may recall my post about Vitas, the Russian countertenor, and his video for the song “Opera #2.” If you don’t, you might enjoy watching this video before continuing.
Since I haven’t checked up on him in nearly two years, I was curious about Vitas’ current situation. As with my last post, I went to the source of all responsible journalism: YouTube comments. A selection:
- “Vitas is the most overpower!”
- “My neighbour she work with devil are she really??”
- “it is sooo like norways song alright? what is happening?”
- “vitas voice like a screaming creature.”
- “ACCORDION.”
- “I want his 4-octave wailing Russian babies!!!”
- “i want to rub his head”
- “in the music video, he actually has gills.”
- “i feel bad that he lost his home or whatever”
- “I especially like the Nazgul string section. They left Minas Morgul to play in Russia for this dude. “
- “i love vitas, i want him as a pet”
- “Vitas is half-dolphin.”
It sounds like Vitas is doing fine.
Need a Problem?
April 6th, 2009
“The biggest enemy of happiness is – apart from pain – boredom.”
– Schopenhauer
Need A Problem is a Swiss company that sells you problems. Ah, the modern world!
Restructuring!
March 21st, 2009
The time has come, the Walrus said, to restructure your blog a little bit.
Being a great believer in the wisdom of walri, I’m going to be removing the “Harry Schwartz Eats” from each of the titles of the posts on this blog, both in the future and throughout the archive. That honestly hasn’t made any sense since about the third post. So!
EDIT: That was a tedious experience. I’m leaving a bunch of the early titles as they were, since they don’t really make sense otherwise.
Some Good Advice
February 24th, 2009
David Foster Wallace gave the commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005. In terms of good graduation advice, this ranks right up there with the fake Kurt Vonnegut speech. Infinite Jest just skipped a few spaces forward in my queue.
It’s also my birthday! That’s probably why these advice-laden speeches seem significant. I’m 23, which I think is a pretty okay age. Pictured above: an authentic photograph from my party.
Side Project
February 1st, 2009
Some of the people who read this blog may be acquainted with Tristan Bostock, greatest of men. In an effort to bring this wise soul’s musings to a wider audience, my friend Bryce and I have launched a blog called Greatness is Responsibility. We plan to update on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you enjoy web comics like Married to the Sea or Superpoop (or just want to see if Tristan becomes a meme) you should take a gander.
Manos: The Hands of Fate
January 6th, 2009
I consider myself something of a connoisseur of horrible movies. From Plan 9 From Outer Space to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians to Troll 2, I derive a certain masochistic joy from watching an atrocious film with a group of equally disgusted friends. One movie, however, unquestionably stands out as the worst film ever made. From the first ten minutes of watching a family drive around in the Texas countryside to the question mark at “The End?,” Manos: The Hands of Fate never ceases to appall. Let’s read some details from IMDB:
PLOT SUMMARY:
A family driving through a small town gets lost and winds up at a backwoods shack managed by Torgo, who takes care of it while The Master is away. The Master worships Manos, an evil deity, and he also wears a neat cape. When Torgo lets the family stay, The Master awakens and does mean stuff like burning off Torgo’s hand and sicking his dog on the family pet. Meanwhile, The Master’s wives wrestle for his favor.
GOOFS:
- At the beginning, when the family pulls over, and after Mike says his line, he mouths the word “Cut!”
- When Michael and his family are attacked by the snake, the stock footage of the snake was obviously filmed in broad daylight, even though the characters are surrounded by the dead of night.
- Throughout the movie, the zipper on the master’s back is clearly visible.
TRIVIA:
- Filmed entirely with a handheld camera that could only record thirty-two seconds of film at a time. The film was shot without sound; all the lines were later dubbed by only three people – two men and one woman. The little girl who plays Debbie cried when she first heard her dubbed voice.
- The real reason John Reynolds (Torgo) appears to have big knees and walks funny is because his character is supposed to be a satyr. Reynolds designed his own prosthetics to make himself look like he had goat’s feet. (Note how the wife gasps when she first looks down his feet, which the viewer does not get to see.)
- John Reynolds, who played Torgo, sustained permanent damage to his kneecaps because of the apparatus on them. He was constantly on painkillers up until his suicide, due to the injury he had from this movie. It’s believed that his kneecaps were damaged due to the device being worn backwards.
- The movie was given a gala premiere in El Paso upon its release, and many local dignitaries were on hand. Part way into the film, members of the audience began heckling it. Many of the film’s cast and crew sneaked out of the theater before the film ended to avoid the embarrassment of having to admit being part of it.
- IMDB
So if you’d like to watch a film so bad that it made the little girl who acted in it cry when she saw it, you certainly can’t do worse than Manos.
Strange Loops
December 28th, 2008
Harry Schwartz and his good buddy learned a month or two ago that if they point their laptops at each other while they’re chatting on Skype,* some magic happens.
I’ve really been reading way too much Douglas Hofstadter. I’m not sure why I haven’t eaten him yet.
* Yes, this does imply that we were chatting on Skype while in the same room. There’s a good reason for that: the chairs were pointed in opposite directions. Shut up.
Three Pounds of Flax
December 25th, 2008
Case 18 from Mumon’s Gateless Gate is one of the more classic koans:
THE CASE
A monk asked Master Tōzan in all earnestness, “What is Buddha?”
Tōzan said, “Masagin! (Three pounds of flax!)”
MUMON’S COMMENTARY
Old Tōzan realized a bit of clam Zen. Slightly opening the two halves of the shell, he exposed his liver and intestines. This may be so, but tell me, where do you see Tōzan?
THE VERSE
Masagin juts forth!
Words are intimate and the mind is even more intimate.
He who speaks about right and wrong
Is a man of right and wrong.
- Koun Yamada’s translation.
See also: Discordianism; the jargon file.
The RAND Corporation
September 15th, 2008
Depending on who you ask, the RAND Corporation is either a benevolent non-profit seeking to solve all of society’s ills or a shadowy military-industrial-funded think-tank. Either way, in its years of public policy research it’s produced some really fascinating reports, a lot of which can be downloaded for free on their site. This includes the game-theory classic The Compleat Strategyst, Habitable Planets for Man, and the charmingly dated Towards an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic Mail (1985).
Some pretty darn interesting people have worked at RAND in the past, including the economist Ken Arrow, game theorist Lloyd Shapley, philosopher/historian/sometime-neocon Francis Fukuyama, and of course the mathematician John Nash.