Reno Your Macbook

**UPDATE: As of December 2019 my macbook is still running strong amid daily abuse. It does need a new battery, but at $80 from OWC that will be small price to pay vs. a brand new machine. After 11 years and a mere $300 in upgrades I simply could not be more impressed with this laptop.

A better-than-new MacBook for under $300

I was about to blow $1,000 + on a brand new Apple laptop because my 13" 2008 MacBook (Aluminum late-2008 unibody model) was running too slow and had been out of hard drive space for years.  I bought the machine used back in 2010, and it had served me well through 3 years of college. But I was sick of waiting around for it to start up, sick of watching the color wheel spin, sick of it freezing up when I was trying to show my newest graphic designs to my coworkers, etc. You know the feeling!

Flash Hard Drive? 8 gb RAM! Heck yeah!

     Thankfully, I discovered a superior option: The Fucking Amazing Upgrade. It's actually super easy. I found a website, MacSales.com. (Oh yeah, and I have zero affiliation with this company!).  Through their manufacturing arm, Other World Computing, these folks sell high-quality, low-cost upgrades perfect for breathing new life into old Apples.
     (I've actually bought new batteries from MacSales.com for years, but I had assumed installing a new hard disk and ram myself was beyond my skill level. I was wrong. It's incredibly easy, particularly on the late-2008 MacBook.)
     I also discovered this particular MacBook processor, a 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, is a powerful gem no longer made, and has many thousands of other happy users like me almost a decade after they rolled off the factory line, (imagine getting that kind of life out of PC!). So this CPU was further reason to upgrade, rather than buying new, or even buying used/refurbished, which I also considered. The screen is also perfect still, tight, no worn hinges, and most importantly, no dead pixels.

     They even have a video tutorial (with written guides too) specifically for the late '08 MacBook.
After reading the hundreds of positive reviews about the upgrade package I took the plunge.
     I ordered their 480 gb Solid-State Flash Drive plus two new 4gb DDR3 RAM chips. I ordered the kit which comes with an handy enclosure case so you can turn your old hard drive into a handy backup external that already has all your files on it. The kit comes with the tiny special screw drivers you need.

     (I also ordered a new battery and a new AC adapter with a longer cord, something I've always wanted. Plus it's invaluable to have a spare that you always keep in your backpack. Is there anything worse than running out of juice with no charger (right before you press send on that important work email!)
     I was nervous about the 8gb of RAM because when I called Apple they gave me the DENIAL, insisting that my machine could only handle 4gb of RAM, which was what I had in it already. But the MacSales forum maintains my machine has no problem accepting two 4gb RAM modules (I think Apple Tech Support is full of BS, and is simply trying to get me to fork over my hard earned bread for no reason!). I decided to try maxing to 8 gb RAM. Why the hell not! The worst that could happen is it would just decide to use one chip. If it worked as planned I would have a much, much zippier machine capable of running Adobe Creative Cloud no problemo.
   Closely watch the tutorial video a couple times. Then carefully, slowly proceed. 20 minutes later you will have a brand new machine. Now it was time for the software upgrade. If you live by an Apple store like I do, save yourself the hassle of installation and data transfer. I made an appointment online, and walked in that afternoon. They formatted the Solid State drive, plugged my machine in to their super fast Fiber optic network, and installed the brand new OS 10.11.4, El Capitan way faster than I could at home on my crappy cheap cable modem.
     To transfer or not to transfer?

I wanted to start over, so I only copied files I was currently working on. There's no sense bogging down a fresh new machine with every single old file, including whatever bugs were buried in my millions of files. The other benefit of this is that I started from a clean slate, a wiped hard disk with the newest OS, one that has few complaints, and by this time has most of it's initial kinks worked out.

SO! What's the total price for all this awesomeness? Read and weep:
DIY Upgrade Bundle:
• OWC Express USB 3.0/2.0 + 480GB Mercury Electra 3G Solid-State Drive + 5pc Toolkit . Upgrade, transfer & use original drive as external! Oh hell yeah!
• Limited Warranty: 1 Year OWC on Enclosure; 3 Year OWC on SSD. Whaa??? 3 year warranty? daaammn!
Quantity: 1
Price: $207.50 NOW only $187!!!!

Item:  

MAX YOUR RAM 
 (While 8gb is not ideal for doing a ton of video editing, for most graphic design/Photoshop stuff it's totally adequate).
• 8.0GB (2x 4GB) PC8500 DDR3 1066MHz SO-DIMM Memory Upgrade Kit 
     (fits all MacBook Pro 13", 15", & 17" 2008/2009/2010 'Unibody' models; all MacBook 13"        Unibody; Mac mini 2009 & Later; iMac 2009)
• New, Lifetime Advance Replacement Limited Warranty.
Quantity: 1
Price: $58.00

Sub-Total: $	265.50
Tax: $	0.00
Shipping: $	9.62
Shipping Insurance: $	1.00
Grand-Total: $	276.12

Wow! It's hard to beat this deal. Put the rest of your hard-earned cash towards your early retirement fund and enjoy a machine that runs literally better than new.
     Sold State drives are undeniably faster, more efficient, more reliable than ATA drives, plus they have no moving parts, so less risk of losing your data from accidentally dropping, or whacking the laptop. I was truly blown away by the instant increase in start up time, down from about a minute or longer on my old MacBook to less than 10 seconds on the new SSD upgrade. It is much faster running multiple apps, and coupled with maxing the RAM (which worked flawlessly, btw). Even as I type this I have open the newest version of Word, iTunes, Photo Shop CC, Messenger, Preview, Text Edit, VLC, Firefox, and Chrome.
     This upgrade is a no-brainer for those who aren't wealthy, who are environmentally conscious (less waste), or maybe, like me, you just aren't ready to part with all those cool stickers!

The Art of Quitting

Giving up is easy. I do it all the time. I’ve made profession of giving up. Jobs, relationships, colleges, you name it, I’ve thrown in the towel. I’m quite successful really. But I won’t lie. It hasn’t been easy. They funny thing about giving up is it gets easier with practice. Try it, I promise. But it gets lonely too, up here at the top.
      It started with tae kwan do. I got my yellow belt then used it try and hang myself with. This was much more satisfying than pretending to beat people up. I had no patience for such things.
Then there was baseball, then wrestling; even drawing and guitar lessons- all of these I loathed and grew weary of within a few weeks. 

     School itself was next on my list, but I feared the wrath of my teachers more than anything, more than god, more than my mom. So I suffered through it, mostly I stared out the window at the rooftop chimneys and the blue clouds, and dreamed of the day when I could graduate and find more important things to quit.

     The first thing of any significance was my sole collegiate goal: film school in Canada, at the prestigious Vancouver Film School. This dream fell quite swiftly under the pitying gaze of my girlfriend's father. 

     Though I loved her, the three hundred miles between us proved an ocean, so I gave her up. But wait, there was more to look forward to. There was a year and a half of horticultural school to bail on, high paying graphic design jobs to turn down, ground floor interior design jobs to walk out on, and valuable collectors items to pawn. 

     In this life, the options for self-improvement are limitless, and I won't give up till the curtains fall.

Suckerpunching Serial: Are longform Podcasts in need of heavy pruning?

In a recent article by Charlie Locke on WIRED , Pandora product manager Scott Riggs explains his companies plan to start offering podcasts in addition to songs:
  
   "To cater to listeners accustomed to three-minute songs, Riggs and his team [at Pandora] break  episodes into smaller chapters, unlike the hour-long episodes available on the Podcasts app. “From a streaming perspective, we think about it as a continuous listening experience—people will listen for a bit on  their commute or at the gym,” says Riggs. “Taking an hour-long experience and breaking it into  chapters seemed like a seamless way for users to digest this content.”

Well, yeah, but doesn't breaking the narrative of a podcast like as Serial down into smaller clips - essentially sampling a podcast - kind of defeat the purpose? Serial was literally designed to be longform, that is, the producers want people to take a whole hour and listen straight through. That is actually an important part of the listening experience that effects how deeply we connect with the story and, possibly, how much of it we remember it afterwards, and for how long.

Multimedia is the other big question mark here. I wonder how many people actually go to the websites of podcasts to look at their other content. It's an auditory medium, and that makes it a fundamentally different experience than watching a TV show or Netflix (well maybe not that different from Netflix though, as Netflix is also contained within its proprietary streaming medium).  I navigated to Serial's website only once to look at the photos of the burial site. But I never went back. Why? I forgot to. And I didn't really care what they had on the web. I wanted to listen to it. I liked to listen to it.
Similarly, I do not go on other podcasts websites, like Undisclosed, or any, really . I listen to Podcasts. They end, and that's that. And to that extent, Podcasts might as well live on a separate planet from The Internet.  I think about them, and often I will actually talk to people about it face to face, in, you know, real life. Say Whaa...? Yep. Weird, I know. But maybe not so weird: To quote from the Wired article:  

“Podcasts largely rely on word of mouth,” says Anne Wootton, co-founder and CEO of Pop-Up Archive, which transcribes podcasts, and Audiosear.ch, which makes them visually searchable. “It’s much less common for people to come across an excerpt or a clip on Twitter or on Facebook.”

So, to come full circle, I agree that we need a way to share soundbites of podcasts on social media. For instance I want to comment on something at 11:50 into Undisclosed, I can only post a link to the whole podcast and tell people to fast forward to that time stamp. Plus, dragging a little slider is awkward, especially with your finger on a touchscreen.

Most people don't share podcasts because its simply a pain in the ass.

"If you want to respond to a ridiculous tweet, you can embed a GIF on Twitter. If you want to share your favorite moment from last night’s TV episode, you can upload a video on Instagram. But there’s no easy way to share podcasts, other than posting the external link to a full episode and explaining which part of it you like best. For a medium that relies on personal recommendations, that’s an especially cumbersome problem."

I agree they need to be more shareable. But I hesitate to make them available in short pre-cut clips. That is starting to seem like a bastardization of the Podcast medium. It verges on saying to the makers, "Hey, I know you spent hours crafting the flow and music and narrative of your podcast, but I know better, thank you very much. And it is important to point at that not all Podcasts are an hour long. Some are longer, like Undisclosed, or Dan Carlin's popular Hardcore History which verges on audio book territory boasting 3 hour long episodes. Some people like long, they want long.(Lets not fail to mention the countless short podcasts out there too. I've found 20-30 minutes to be a great length for a podcast (hello, Stuff You Should Know). Some people don't. In a culture with supposedly ever-shrinking attention spans, the longform medium of podcasts emerged as some kind of backlash against the soundbite society. Now that mainstream media is taking notice, thanks to Serial,  they want to have their way with it. Oh no, they say, we want to improve it! "Increase the audience!"


The question is, will this solidify the place of Podcasts in our iOS-crazed culture, or will it fragment it and commercialize the medium to such a degree that whats left is unrecognizable, it's tiny soundbites blown away into the digital netherworld of lost Snapchats and forgotten tweets?
As Ira Glass once said: Stay tuned, listeners.

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Muzak

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The music at coffee shops is ubiquitous, and often downright god-awful. Furthermore why is it deemed necessary to have music on 24/7, and as if silence is evil. The constant music is what is evil in my opinion. Researchers say that ambient music has a pacifying, soothing effect on groups of strangers. Having something in the background that is mellow and sugary sweet, slow pop music like Adele or some acoustic tracks provides a sound buffer that fills in the physical space between people and their conversations, helping lessen the overhearing or accidental eavesdropping of private conversations that are often why we go to coffee shops at all. Well, to have them and to over hear them.

            Next time you see me, you may want to move to a different area or lower your voice. You may end up in a story or essay, of course I would change key bits to protect you, don't worry!

            Ever sit in a cafe when the music is not on and felt the weird silence? Isn't it awkward? It feels wrong in way, almost dead. Empty of life and passion, like some cold warehouse or test-taking classroom where words float up to the ceiling and die, where the slightest noise, a chair scooting, a saucer clattering into a bus tub, or a pen falling, seem freighted with undue meaning and all eyes jump to the guilty party, eyes narrow and become dagger-like.

            It's true that some coffee shops that play good music, and some that play banal commercial shit. Some seem to play the same dozen songs over and over for literally years without changing the playlists once. How is this possible? Researches, no doubt, probably say that people crave security, and predictability, or reliable. A place they can count on to be familiar in every aspect, hence the proliferation of Starbucks.

            A simple solution is wearing ear-buds or noise canceling headphones, or even just osha approved earplugs. This may make you seem anti-social, but sacrifices must be made to counteract the poisoning effect of the music. If it is this bad for the casual customer who usually stays for anywhere from half-an-hour to no more than a few hours, imagine the effects on the minds of the employees who are subjected to it non-stop day in and day out.

            I worked in a busy independent coffee shop for a few years during college, and the constant stream of contemporary acoustic satellite radio pumped from the ceiling speakers tumbled onto a my head like hot coals. It was the mostly made up of tepid remixes of bad songs. Even if it was originally a good song, it was played to such reputation that any merits it originally had were lost. The worst perpetrator of such tunes was the Sirius satellite station known as CoffeeShop. Why did they insist on playing the same dozen songs on repeat, when the world was full of millions of unique songs? new

crap being pumped through the airwaves. Can soul music be played so much that it becomes soulless? I hated the canned music, pure and simple hatred. And hatred is a powerful emotion. More than love.

            It's easy to get on a negative trip and where I criticize everything. The problem is if that's all you do you end up looking like a pompous jerk. I'm sure we all know people like that. I see one in the mirror everyday.

            Of course there were times when I would not notice anything being distracted by work and the background music was just that , or tuned out entirely so that I could not hear it all. Other times it was all I could hear, and seemed to be drilling straight through my ears into my very soul. Call me over sensitive, but in my opinion a coffee shop should be a place to connect with people, or read a book in quiet and without a barrage of extra stimulation. Isn't our world stimulating enough? I could just stay home, you say and bask in wonderful endless silence. Believe me, I have tried that.

            This past year I done just that, I have voluntarily deprived myself of cafe's and sat alone in my cold house typing away. It was nice for a awhile, and I saved a lot of money, too. But I found myself less productive. Often I would sit and space out, much like my cat, and realize with horror that I had just killed an hour staring at a wall. Gradually, I began to doubt my former misgivings. I realized with a begrudging sense of failure, that I genuinely missed the ambient noise - the lively bustle and clatter of the coffee shop. I even, dare I say it, missed the music. I Perhaps my disdain was unfair, an over-reaction, maybe I was projecting other unrelated and un-dealt with issues onto the innocent and harmless and untouchable Muzak.

            So the other day I grabbed my backpack, slid my laptop in the back pouch, said goodbye to my cat, tipped my hat to our blank wall and hoofed down the street to the neighborhood cafe. Half a block away I swore I could already hear it, the tinny sound of Let Her Go by Passenger pulling me forward. At first I cringed, clenched my jaw.

            I had tried to let the cafe go, but I found that there are as always, trade offs to be made. At home the silence was holy, and it reigned supreme, but then I found the silence was stifling, and ironically deafening. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

            I opened the door and walked in, found an empty table and sat down. The gut punching melancholy of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and the hatred-melting Bubbly by Colbie Caillat washed over my head for the hundred-thousandth time. What once caused me endless frustration and gnawing hatred now just sounded harmless, even welcome, like a cup of herbal tea on a cold day. Who could resist such saccharine sounds?

            Not me. Not any longer. Like Darth Vader, I realized love is just easier than anger and hatred. Getting along is simply easier than fighting. I let the predictable acoustic ballads flood my eardrums and percolate through my whole body, the foot-tapping grooves were like running into an old buddy on the street, without the intervention of Facebook. Two hours later I realized with a newfound sense of joy a new sensation, the what was exiting my fingers in the form of sweet, satellite radio powered productivity.
Addendum: We know that background music effects a positive versus negative dining/studying experience, but does background music actually change how your food tastes?  Click on the link below to find out:
Learn about the sound of food podcast called The Sporkful

The Pizza Diaries Part 1: Rocky Rococo's, "The Peat Bog of Pizza"

It is easy to like really great pizza. It takes a sensitive palate to find the hidden beauty in even the average urban pizza joint, and a wine cicerone's nose to fairly describe the lowliest pies our city has to offer.

In the true spirit of great culinary adventurers of the twentieth century, my teammate Matt Greene and I delve into the crustiest, cheesiest corners of Spokane's pizzerian underworld.

Our goal is simple: Discover the very worst pizza in Spokane. Let me add that by worst I also mean the best.

And let quickly qualify what I mean by "the worst:" I honestly say worst in a loving way, with a lot of pride, and no small amount of tenderness. Matt and I agree, and you, dear reader, might as well, that there is just something undeniably heartwarming and eternally wonderful about really shitty pizza. How can you deny it? It's just one of those things we don't talk about, I mean, as a country. Kind of like death, or men's pajamas.

So, we begin by braving the Rocky Rococo's, purveyors of greasy Chicago deep-dish pizza.

Located in the heart of downtown, Rocky's is "A Spokane favorite since 1986," at least according to the sandwich sign. And their claim must have some merits if it's been there since 1986.
For years I assumed Rocky's was a local affair, and I'd wondered how in hell it had survived all these years in a city with notorious  restaurant turnover. Independent research done by my research partner uncovered the ugly truth: it's a chain. 
Appropriately enough for a deep-dish venture, Rocky's is based out of the midwest: "Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Washington." Wait, and Washington? They don't mean Seattle, either. Spokane is the only other city outside the midewest to host a Rocky's. Odd. Or is it? In a city I've long referred to affectionately as the "midwest of the west," a heartland chain Rocky Rococo's seems wholly appropriate in Spokane. (Still, I am curious as to how they ended up here.)
Recently the building's facade underwent a major modernization after the adjacent restaurant was demolished (the beloved Cyrus O'Leary's, RIP. And it really deserves an tribute unto itself). It looks like it should have a fancy gastropub or high end sushi bar, but peek inside and you will be shocked as I to see the guts of the establishement totally untouched. In fact, stepping inside, we feel as if we've entered some kind of pizzaria time-warp.
When we first walk in we are greeted with a dim-lit scene that is... how else to say it ... grotto-esque. It's part Chuck E. Cheese, part counter-order lunch deli, and the rest a shadowy reproduction of Pizza Due, Chicago's most famous subteranean deep-dish joint.

To the left is a wall-length photo mural of that cliff-side villa in Italy, the place on the cover of Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins; in the photo tourists are everywhere, milling about in speedos. Staring out to sea it seems like they are gawking at us. Gawking at us gawking at them. I turn and am startled by a lifesize cardboard cutout of Mr. Rococo himself, seeming to mingle among us commoners at the entrance. He is in a grey suit and wears a huge grin, a thick mustache and dark, circular sunglasses that make him look like a hitman in welding goggles, the kind of guy you don't want to piss off (or write a disparaging expose about. Rocky, if you read this, I love your pizza, I really do).

When we reached the front of the line, I remember with horror that I have recently converted to  vegetarianism, and I have a sudden urge to call the whole thing off. I take a deep breath and scan the menu.

I order what seems to be the only vegetable option, the veggie supreme. I am heartened to learn it's available immediately—no waiting around for me! I hand over my $8.50 for the single serve salad bar combo, grab the tray stacked with cardboard box - kind of like a big mac box - Pepsi, and the bowl for the salad bar. I never eat salad, and I spend some time worrying that the greens will affect my judgement about the pizza on its own merits.
I hunt for a table and beeline for the raised seating area. The dais holds maybe six booths and is  shaded with a wood arbor and fake ivy. I am encouraged by a container of sauce on the floor it's lumpy contents spilling out on the maroon tile.
I am further invigorated by the complete lack of any salad at the salad bar. As the minutes tick by the whole place is somewhat terrifying on a gut level. It's like something out of the more epicurian leanings of David Lynch, (who, oddly, spent his formative  years in Spokane). I start getting concerned about Matt when he arrives carting his box of whatever the meat special was, and I hop up to scavenge whats left of the salad bar sans lettuce. He immediately loads his bowl full of entirely mini corn cobs and bacon bits, and I admit this actually looks quite amazing.
We sit back down and unbox the main course. The slices fit snug in their cozy cocoons, as if they had been nesting there since spring. I lifted mine to check for hatchlings, but only found a puddle of cold grease. We dig in.
     "Tangy," Matt says, "soggy and satisfying."
     "It's quite limp," I add. "Limp as an old birthday balloon."
The texture recalls an old kitchen sponge, what I imagine a peat bog to be like.

The off white peat-bog/sponge is lined in a thin shell of translucent cheese - what I surmise is probably not Wisconsin's finest. There is also an antique tomato slice or two, and a scattering of shriveled, somewhat humiliated olives. We chew slowly. As we chew we ponder, cow-like. As my eyes adjust I notice odd shapes emerging from the shadows. A huge wood canoe over the entrance, and on the lofty walls behind us huge wood silhouettes of dancing couples in western garb, each outlined in vivid stripes. Above the salad bar hangs a paper mache taradactyl wearing a Santa hat.

Found poetry? We think yes.

     "What is this place?" I mutter.
     "I think you mean what was this place." 
Somehow Matt has learned we are sitting in what was, pre-1986, a theater.
     "That explains a lot."
As enough pieces of this mystery come together that I am momentarily relieved.
Then as we get up to make our exit we notice a wooden booth, what looks like a glass walled confessional. A sign above the entrance says "kids booth," and inside is an actual kid, seated all alone at his own table. "Hello," I say, in my best kid-voice. He looks up at me and sticks his tongue out, showing off the mashed up glory of his lunch. "I see," say I. I take a quick glance around. The mother or father nowhere in sight, I flick an olive which lands in his hair, and then I turn and dash out the door. Matt is waiting to refill his third cup of sweet tea.
     "What?" Matt says. "It's free refills!"
    
The takeaway:
Matt: There is a refreshing vintage authenticity about Rocky's. I don't think the menu board has been updated since the 80's. As a bonus, it seems they have the original staff still employed as well.
Nick: I think they must live there. We should check out the kitchen, I bet they have cots in the back room. They sleep in deep dish pizza boxes. Really the place is like a time warp. It is refreshing to see a place that doesn't give a damn, and just keeps doing what they've done since day one. And people keep coming.
Matt: Everyone did seem quite happy there.

Some parting words from Rocky himself:

     "If you got a problem, an issue, a question,
     Mr.Rococo will have a suggestion.
     Ya' see, along with being the Master of the Slice, Rocky
     got a degree in GGA, (dat's Given Good Advice),
     Yeah, Presidents and Kings ask everyday,
     They stand in line just to hear, What Da' Rock has to say,
     Hey ask about your love life, or why does ice freeze?
     Just don't ask about his secret recipes."

Damon's Martian Has "Bro" but Lacks Soul

While it was impossible to not be on the edge of my seat the whole time, something about Ridley Scott's new film The Martian disturbed me. There is the obvious "go science!" aspect, which is understandeable as Damon's character, a botanist-astronaut is stuck on mars.

(And give him a soul)

And there was a lot of upbeat positivity bouncing around portraying the struggles he faced in not losing his sanity. It also bounced back to earth in Apollo 13 style to explore the complexities of the rescue mission, and also to the earth-bound Hermes crew.
Through all this hoopla I still think there was a lack of focus on Damon's character. He listens to music a lot, which is great, but what else does he do? He is there a long time, over 500 days!
Surely there were ebooks, and I thought it would have been a nice touch to see him strive to do something creative, perhaps sculpt the martian earth into designs, or draw, or write. Even Tom Hanks in Castaway "painted" a face on volleyball.
I just wanted him to do something besides the video logs which really, is it just me, or is this increasingly standard sci-fi trope (a la Avatar) grows tiresome. Is it supposed to make it seem more real?
After seeing a dozen vlogs, I couldn't help just wanting to see his character, who is utterly convincing by the way, inhabiting the actual scene undistorted or unaffected by "diary-speak."
The whole thing just had a bit too much of a bro-science vibe. The need to dazzle and be constantly moving tended to overwhelm.
There was simply a missed opportunities for more soul searching expected of a marooned voyager.
It was the bravado of Odysseus without the tears and heartache. But this is still big hollywood, so what did I expect. People must be entertained, not enlightened. And Damon's character's creativity was perhaps fully expressed (or subsumed) in his efforts to stay alive. He is a science nerd, not an artist.

Amazing fake Patina make-over on 2014 VW Eurovan!

Amazing fake Patina make-over on 2014 VW Eurovan! (Via BoingBoing.net)





In my ongoing fascination with all things rusty, I ran across this great fake rustbucket sticker-job. Click the link for more photos and info. So, this is one way to get the rusty look without sacraficing the structuraal integrity, and safety, of your wheels. Speaking of wheels, I can't help wonder if they will put some rusty hubcaps on, because the stock aluminum wheels definitely doesn't match the aesthetic.

On Patina, Agedness, & the Effects of TIME

On Patina, Agedness, & the Effects of TIME

       Patina n, 3 : a surface appearance (as a coloring or mellowing) of something grown beautiful esp. with age or use 4 : a finish or coloration derived from association, habit, or established character : the look acquired from long custom or settled use.

"When you see an aging building or a rusted bridge, you are seeing nature and man working together. When you paint over a building, there is no more magic to that building. But if it is allowed to age, then man has built it and nature has added into it." 

-David Lynch

I am not sure exactly why I am so taken with patinas. It is as though the hypnotize me. Anything sporting (spotting?) rust, lichen or any variant of weathering or wear, such as the spot right beneath an old cars door handle where the drivers hand brushing against the little recess in the door panel has worn away the original paint to a expose a little patch of bare steel. Or such as old mopeds, or the blanching of old plastic to a opaque, brittle shell by the sun's ultraviolet rays.

My 1956 JC Higgins Colorflow

I find these so fascinating, and I am compulsively drawn to inspect and observe such discoveries like a biologist studying an endangered species. I think it may have something to do with the human wear being proof of life, proof human interaction- proof of the personal on the permanent - a symbiosis. Here is an object fashioned by people made use of long enough to seem organic or to redefine itself. In terms of used and re-used items, it is that others have aquired and made use of it too, utilized it, for a time.

The cargo area of my 1959 VW SO23 Westy, at Gold King Mine

In 2006 I spent three days in Jerome, Arizona and visited what is likely the most patina-rich place I've ever seen. I drove there in my beatup skyblue, badly rusting 1959 VW Westfalia SO23 camper from Pheonix as a part of a caravan of about 100 other vintage aircooled VW buses. Besides a spectactle that literally stopped traffic and had the other vehicles on the road pulling over and whipping out cameras to snap pictures, and people waving and beaming smiles. I have tons of awesome photos from this trip on my Flickr page HERE.

In Jerome we converged at the old Gold King Mine whose sun blasted acres were home to a vast collection of random vehicles large and small, all at varying stages of agedness. Many were restored to running condition by a talented mechanic, the sole employee of the "mine." The place was a treasure-trove of patina, and I went wild with my camera.

The thought that we ourselves like a timeless boulder or disintegrating barn, or other forgotten shipwrecks endlessly rooting deeper into a host of lost beaches, and yet we are also ebbing and flowing along with these lush tapestries of things, becoming something different with each moment.

So it is this: the symbius of life's progression into decay, into another form, being right there, in every back alley, scattered across every city shadow, just waiting to be meditated upon and celebrated.

Carrie and Lowell: Sufjan Stevens' melancholy masterpiece

"This is not my art project; This is my life"

- Stevens (Pitchfork interview)

            "I don't know where to begin... I've lost my strength completely" Sufjan Stevens sings, the impact of his whispered style given a new and arresting sheen in part thanks to Bon Iver's treatment at his rural Wisconsin recording studio. A slew of other recording locations and engineers is indication Stevens' quest to perfect Carrie and Lowell, what he himself admits is his most personal album in his fifteen year career, (and the first album since 2010's extravagant The Age of Adz).  

            Here the feel is less epic and more personally immersive. His vocal delivery which used to seem reserved and shaky or at times whiny and has grown ever stronger and more assertive in recent releases is now quiet again, but still sounds confident. I challenge anyone to find fault in his vocals, thought the layering helps smooth it out a bit, its clear he is still in control and has grown tremendously as a singer in his own right. Carrie and Lowell is a quiet soundscape with some echoes of Seven Swans (2004). This ambient landscape rolls along in quiet contemplation, swelling with the cleansing yet relentless rhythm of spring rain showers. The more I listen the more I am moved and the more I see that he is not playing for sympathy but to express himself in the best way he can. I have further realized that the effects of such a poignant album go beyond the artist and now play a significant role in comforting listeners and assauging, or giving voice or identification with the loss of loved ones. The album stands out as much for the sum of its parts as for each finely honed line. It is a wonder to discover again Stevens' mastery.

            We have been accustomed to Stevens tradition of storytelling backed by resounding, epic, atonal arrangements - a la Phillip Glass modernism; momentous "art," or themed albums, (Illinoise, Michigan, The Age of Adz) in which were nestled quieter tracks that drove straight to the heart, such as "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.". Here sufjan has given us a seamless album of such quiet gems. There is his trademark banjo plucking, careful keys, yet a distinct lack of the percussion and soaring orchestrations and nearly spastic electronic noise we have come to expect from his big-sound, rock-opera-esque forays. All has been washed in a reverb-dust that thankfully somehow never grows old. 

"It is a wonder to discover anew Stevens' mastery of songwriting."

            Though all of his albums include elements of auto-biography, personal details mixed with local history and zoomed-out reflection, this is his most purely Sufjan-centric narrative to date. Its packed with the heart-piercing sorrow (bring kleenex), and a grace drawn from the well of life. Ultimately it is a testament to the eternal mystery of death when it comes knocking on our loved-one's door. In 2012 Steven's mother - Carrie, of the album's title - died suddenly from stomach cancer. This tragedy is the source for much of the stages-of-grief apparent throughout. In "Drawn to the Blood" Stevens grasps "How did this happen, how, how did this happen?"

            True to form, a plenitude of historical, mythological and biblical references are included, from Oregon's "Tillamook Burn" - a spate early 20th-century wildfires, the NW coast Sea Lion Caves ( he spent summers in Oregon with his mother), to childhood swimming lessons, and "slain Medusa". A few song titles seem to be twists on traditional Christian hymns, making clear the tumultuous nature of Stevens' faith (No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross, John my Beloved, Drawn to the Blood), or twists on modern pop songs (All of Me Wants All of You). There is a current of muddy confusion, desperation even, running throughout, as in Blue Bucket of Gold, "Once the myth has been told, the lens deforms it as lighting/ raise your right hand/ tell me you want me in your life/ Or raise your red flag, just when I want you in my life." Or shockingly abrupt, "You checked your texts while I masturbated ... now I feel so used" (All of Me). While such lines are deeply personal they are also universal.

            Harmonies are reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel abound, particularly in "Eugene," and a few merciful doses of humor too: his childhood swimming teacher "could not quite pronounce my first name/ he called me Subaru." And transitions to the more melancholic in the next stanza, "Whats the point of singing songs if they'll never even hear you?" We hear you Sufjan,  and we grieve along with you, for as he chants in "The Fourth of July," the albums centerpiece, "We're all gonna die, we're all gonna die, we're all gonna die."

            Death may even seem a bit easier to contemplate thanks to Stevens' sonic elegy, his most unified and intimate album to date, perhaps even a masterpiece, though only time will tell.

            HERE.Buy it here!

Is Tolkien turning in his grave?

I finally found time to watch The Hobbit movies this past week and found them unbelievable in a mix of astonishing fx and pitiously laughable action sequences. I'm glad to find I wasn't alone in my confusion. In a December 19th article on Wired, Ethan Gilsdorf writes:

     "The attention to detail ... is unparalleled. Middle-earth feels real. But in these Hobbit movies, the  more important thing to get right is situational realism: How the plot turns, what the characters do, if they move through space in a believable way. All this is thrown out the door. The sincerity of Thorin and Bilbo’s struggles is completely undermined by the story’s blanket disregard for physics, logic, and credibility. Gone into the ether is Tolkien’s gentle, thoughtful, and more plausible children’s tale." (LINK TO WIRED ARTICLE)
While I am not as irate than Gilsdorf - perhaps I am still under Jackson's unrivaled world-building spell - he certainly brings up some worrisome points. Has Jackson gone off the deep end? Has he damaged Tolkien's beloved childrens classic? Has he pillaged it and created his own disney-world phantasia version? If so, why? What was his purpose? Simple lack of constraint cannot explain it, as Gilsdorf asserts. It must be about the money. Beside lining his pockets, turning a one movie book into three nearly three-hour films allowed Jackson and Company the elbow room  to get overly creative - to get carried away with their artistic license.