Created by a league of extraordinary gentlemen

Parts one, two, and three of why the stories in Echo Bazaar are so enthralling.

The mind makes pictures from points

Constellation Records has been kind/wise enough to start putting nearly all their albums up on the web, streaming, for free. I've been writing a lot lately, and have been enjoying an album that I bought but can't seem to find, the ol' This is Our Punk Rock from Thee Silver Mount Zion Orchestra and Doo-Dah Band or whatever the hell their full name is. I'm a fair-weather fan of a lot of the Constellation stuff, where sprawling post-rock can also mean aimless noodling post-rock (though I bet it's pretty fucking tits live), but this I like, and they're encouraging me to amble my way through their catalog in a way that I would never have done without being able to just play whatever I wanted.

I may even end up buying the album again. Or maybe buying it for someone else. Cheers, Constellation, you win the internet music business!

More tab-closing cruft

Eugene Field's Tribune Primer sent me down the Wikipedia hole.

A reference to a printer playing Pedro for beer money led me to Three-card Brag.

I had no idea what a Herdic was, but it's a kind of cab.

And I don't know how I got to Ptolemy VIII, Land of Punt or The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, but they're all fascinating. (Of course, I'm the type of person who can while away an hour reading Indo-Roman Trade Relations.

I'm sure it'll all end up in a tasty stew sooner or later.

One hundred million sunflower seeds

Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds looks positively sumptuous.

Viking ball!

Knattleikr

Panorama from the Sienne

Panorama of the Paris Exposition from the Sienne.

Is that Bruce David or David Bruce McMahan?

Bruce David McMahan, daughter fucker, shows the weakness of Wikipedia. Nice one, Jimbo!

Rasberry Bulbs!

Rasberry Bulbs are a Bone Awl side-project and also pretty great.

"Jesus made God, not Adam and Steve"

I was trying to remember what some earnest skate punk told me down in Long Beach, but couldn't exactly and hoped I'd written it somewhere online. Searching led me to this, which is either sublime parody, mental illness or prodigious stupidity, but hilarious no matter what.

No hands!

Bolivian president Evo Morales got gashed in a foul from a member of the opposite political party during an exhibition match.

He then drove a "penalty knee" into the guy's nuts. POW!

Who says soccer is boring?

Ned sed 90s rock

Ned Raggett's Top 136 albums of the '90s.

Raggett, a longtime contributor to AMG, is one of my favorite music writers by far. I don't always agree with him, like I actually enjoy rough and rootsy music and find a lot of the fey utopianism of Britrock embarrassingly naive, but his opinions are always well-considered, illuminating and coherent. He has a very well-articulated aesthetic of what he likes, and where that aligns with mine, I've learned a tremendous amount by reading his writing. Also, he mailed me a couple of Disco Inferno discs and I should probably take him out to dinner here in LA.

Natural law tradition in ethics

Natural law tradition in Ethics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

SHENANIGANS!

More from Chris Anderson Watch:

Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary defines "shenanigans" as "questionable practices or conduct" and "high-spirited or mischevious activity." Put "homosexual" in front of "shenanigans" and it is quite apparent that Habratowski was indeed referring to a "gay" orgy.

Jesus, this morning it was pathetic. This is just hilarious. "Hey Farva, what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks? "

Yes, Michigan

This is the sort of person who Mike Cox has working for him now. Want him in the governor's office, Michigan? Shirvell was Cox's CAMPAIGN MANAGER in 2006. This isn't some outsider whom Cox tolerates; this is an insider who Cox is protecting.

Classics make you smart

They got a story for everything.

"Hey Pan, you still bummed about your girlfriend drowning?"
"Yeah, dad!"
"Ever try just rubbing your dick in your hand?"
"WOW!"

Also, Oh that Diogenes!

Tigermask

One of a kind hoax

The Fortsas Bibliohoax.

Two Americanos and an espresso, please.

Jaunty hand-jive from Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding.

"Bikes" starts with "B," "blue helmets" starts with "B."

This is the Republican candidate for governor in Colorado alleging that bicycles are a threat to the American way of life.

This is the sort of conspiracy theory the Amish would dream up.

Just imagine me shouting "Victoria!" along with Ray Davies

A collection of Victorian documentation for the enterprising and canny.

And a blog from the same.

Hallelujah

David Bazan of Pedro The Lion used to be the only good Christian rocker. Now he's not really Christian.

Music here.

Ride it, link dump!

Amy made the shirt but neither of us wants to actually pay real money for it. It's better to find it at a thrift store and imagine what the person who died in it's life was like.

My friend Malcolm's beats. He was my best bud from, like, fourth grade through middle school — his early claims to fame were that he could play an endless boogie vamp on the piano, and that he could sing in a deep voice, like Clarence "Frogmouth" Henry.

Computer scientists seem to rather miss the point of the philosophical term "Ontology," but it's a neat article nonetheless.

Aedui is the only druid we know by name. And he was likely a total douche.

Marc Augé wrote that book about non-places that I want to read.

When you bringin' the Phrygian Cap back, hipsters?

Stooges Wax Museum.

Hrm. I don't think this is exactly what I want, but maybe I'll want it later. I want an English language catalog of all the works at the first Salon de Refuse. I could muddle through a German one. French does me fuck all. Shame it happened in France.

Dictaphone parcel

The sounds of shipping.

(Please don't let this be a viral FedEx ad.)

Poster art

1880-1918 poster art archive, hi res

More from before

WaPo analyzes Republican platform.

The astute reader

In One: The Republicans claim that they can simultaneously spend more money on inane bullshit like a missile shield and cut taxes for the wealthiest, and that this will magically increase jobs. Their mendacity is matched by their brazenness.

In Two: A professor stumping for these policies makes swift habit of lying for his benefit, and to the detriment of you. His mendacity is…

Tomorrow - Juba Dance

How many states?

Lost State catches conservatives clueless on number of states.

I guess maybe they count Puerto Rico already?

I think I passed that once

The story of Zzyzxx.

A fellow MetaFilter member also made the film mentioned in the article and sent me a copy. I don't remember it that well, (there was another movie around the same time with a similar name — honest! — and I always get them confused) but I think I still have the DVD around here somewhere.

We don't have to be like they are

Japandroid's Heavenward Grand Prix. That "We don't have to be like they are" is ripped from something else just outside of my memory box.

So I can find it later without a lot of clicking around.

Advanced archive search.

To live and die a little bit outside LA

America's most dangerous forest is just a couple miles from here.

Just Google It

Making Future Magic

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

My mother often refers to the mechanism of photography as "magic." She knows, at least intellectually, that it's silver halide ions filling their electron shells with photons, but that kind of explanation just doesn't do anything for her. "Magic" fits how she thinks better.

This is a fun little proof-of-concept video for Making Future Magic, who use the iPad to create animated light images. I do wish that they'd branched out a little further from just tossing their logo into different situations, but there's a tremendous potential here for someone who can take this technology and use it in an evocative way. The form recalls hallucinations, spirits, sprites, the whole panoply of late 19th and early 20th century occult experimentation with photography.

It's really quite magical.

He of the creepy Nanocomics

Rustin's creepy/funny "Bromance."

Mister Band

Goddamn, I love some Achewood

Ten More Ways To Die In Canada

Posted by Corbin in "Travel Tips," Ten Ways To Die In Canada is a decent, if lackluster, start.

Bears? Sure. Rattlesnakes? Maybe… West Nile Virus? Aren't we pushing this a bit just to make ten?

Ten more ways to die in Canada:

1) Hockey fight.

Likely a pick-up game where the lone Wings fan keeps riding the lone Habs fan about the Richard Riots and gets shirted. To avoid this, you must concede that the last Wings season was pretty disappointing and that Guy Lafleur might be able to take Yzerman.

2) Drunk on mickeys and two-fors.

Chasing Alberta rye with Moosehead seems like a quaint local custom, but then you're being wheeled out of some basement in Surrey and dumped in the Serpentine Fen. It's like, whoa, slow down der den.

3) Brained with a Juno.

They're like the Canadian Grammy's, thus guaranteeing that the only place you will ever run the risk of an irate wife driving the glass head of the Tragically Hip's Junie (or whatever they call them) into your temple is Canada.

4) Ennui

Looking out over the plains of south Ontario just, you know, gets to you, especially in February, when you haven't seen the sun in months and everything is just gray…

5) Trapped on a burning bus with William Shatner, Michael J. Fox, Paul Shaffer and Ryan Reynolds.

This one pretty much explains itself, but it's one of the best reasons to avoid public transit while in Canada.

6) Contaminated homemade poutine.

Spoiled turkey gravy kills more people than scurvy in Canada, especially when ladled from an uncovered can left out on the counter. While it's often so cold that you have to wear three sweaters indoors, this is not a food safe temperature.

7) Killed for tire money.

Canadians are so confused by their looneys and their tooneys and their throonies and their foonies that they've retreated to the only common currency: Canadian Tire Money (CTM). Avoid being jacked by violent criminals that stray over the border from America at will, simply by keeping your CTM on a card or in convenient tire form.

8) Gored at a rodeo.

For some reason, Alberta has these huge rodeos that are full of ways to die, which you might as well, being at a rodeo in Alberta.

9) Choke to death on Timbits.

There's a dutchie Timbit lodged in your throat, and you're slapping the table, knocking over the other 17 from your pity pack onto the floor, and everyone's just politely ignoring you. They know you are an American, and thus not allowed to be helped by their socialist Heimlich maneuver.

10) In French.

Zut allors! Je suis mort! Au Québec!

Kibitz a bit

Canter's inspires font; Canter's finds font; Font designer wraps truck.

Couple of cool things in this, like finding out who actually makes the gourmet food trucks around town, as well as a pretty cool font.

Yo dog Greg Nog

On prompting from The Whelk, Greg Nog battered two slices of cheese, then used those as bread in a grilled-chese-cheese-cheese sandwich. While it's too much dairy for me personally, this is the type of attitude that gets science done, and I salute it.

Six months on a leaky boat

Bruise Cruise Launch! from BRUISE CRUISE FEST on Vimeo.

On the one hand, I totally want this—the idea of cruising around, listening to sweet-ass rock bands, and enjoying the Bahamas in winter (even if it'll still be pretty balmy here in LA). On the other hand, fuck this "In order to create a highly coveted experience" elitist bullshit. It just goes to underline the fact that the majority of indie rock is created by the privileged for the privileged. I know it may not be feasible to have a cheap cruise or many cruises so that anyone who wants to go could, but still, this language of exclusivity and elitism pisses me off.

If this is Hobbes, what's Rousseau?

Chris Thorne writes about how fast zombies subvert the horror paradigm.

Not Mythical

Someday, I will own this, preferably on a t-shirt.

OH NO ITS THE TOKEMONSTER

Comin' to smoke you up!

More fun vinyl weirdness from Cousin's Vinyl.

What Brown has done to them

I clicked on a Google Ad asking me to help stop the "Brown Bailout". I'd never heard of it, and I assumed it was something that Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was pushing.

Actually, it's an astroturf campaign run by FedEx, over changes to labor law in the FAA re-authorization bill. I scoured the site, but I couldn't find out anything about what the bill would actually do, except, you know, be good for UPS and bad for FedEx. It'd theoretically take away the ability of FedEx to provide reliable air service for packages, which does sound bad. It relies repeatedly on descriptions of FedEx and UPS as wholly different, and includes things like unsourced quotes labeling UPS the “biggest giver to U.S. lawmakers,” which seemed pretty fishy. Call your legislators?

No, not really. What the bill would actually do is shift FedEx ground employees to the labor regulations used for all other ground employees save railways, making them able to discourage local organizing—the RLA explicitly requires national votes. That's pretty far afield from the "Brown Bailout" claims:

Since the company’s founding in 1971, FedEx has worked hard to be a great place to work and build a career, as thousands and thousands have done, and some FedEx Express employees have chosen to be represented by a union, others haven’t. Unionization is still a matter of personal choice in America. Most FedEx employees like our existing partnership and open-door relationship, and want to keep things as they are. Under current rules that apply to both UPS and FedEx, employees can choose to join a union and unionized employees can leave their union based on the majority decision of the workforce. That’s America. So it’s clear that the labor argument is only a smokescreen for UPS’ true worries.

It's no secret that FedEx and most corporations are anti-union (to be fair, it's no real secret that I'm generally pro-union). But that's a pretty slick gloss on the systems that make union organizing possible. And the consistent drumbeat from FedEx is that they're entirely different in form than UPS (because UPS is slow and trucks and yucky and FedEx is fast and planes and awesome), but given the BusinessWeek article (hardly from a liberal source), the FAA Reauthorization Act wouldn't apply to people like pilots, but rather workers in local depots and trucks. Which are, sorry to say, exactly like the trucks and depots that UPS runs, though in a kickier color scheme.

So, I'm off to write my legislators (something I can do lying here on the ground with a bad back), asking them to ignore FedEx and their astroturfing and to broaden the protections for the American worker. I'm doing this for two reasons: first, I don't think that a 1927 law forced through by railroad barons should be the default for labor in America, and second, I really hate misrepresentation and faux-populist smear jobs, and I'm afraid that my legislators don't have the time or inclination to distinguish real concerns from sculpted, well, brown.

Trenchcoat robbers

The wistful story of the two robbers who pulled off the biggest heist in US history.

Where my grant money at?

On one wall of an otherwise bare white room, a mounted speaker plays Prince's "Soft and Wet." Diametrically opposed, a synchronized speaker plays MC Hammer's "She's Soft and Wet." Visitors are instructed by placard to stick a pin/pom-pom/tassel on the floor or wall where they feel the mix of sound best describes their irony preference. A whiteboard will be provided so visitors can clarify their positioning.

Really, my blog is just how I remember to close tabs in my browser

Andrew WK's wife, Cherie Lily, has "invented" Houserobics. If Lily weren't obviously a different person from WK, I'd suspect this of being his ironic conceptual counterpart to WK's presentations of masculinity in rock, with the same values being funneled into a presentation of femininity in dance music. As it stands, they seem lucky to have found each other. Wish 'em the best.

For the Time Travel Blog I am now rapidly discarding ideas for (luckily, it's a group thing, so my stupidity and laziness won't inherently be fatal), this looks invaluable—a way to overlay historical maps over google's current ones. Crazy geo-cool.

And this Youtube search is how I've been reliving the weekend while I moan on the ground with back pain. If it hurts to much to really sleep, maybe Sleep's doom-metal stylings can numb me into a restful coma.

Low fiber foods?

Got a pal who needs food brought, but low-fiber food, which is, come to find out, about the opposite of how I eat.

We're thinking mac and cheese or potato soup or… uh, some kinda goddamn quiche thing. At least I know she won't look on with horror when I suggest that maybe, just maybe, beer for calories and gin for vitamins is a balanced diet.

I learned a word

Litfaßsäulen. I stayed home from work because my back was sore, but I learned what they call those columns on the quad, for reals.

I have a low traffic blog that not even my parents read regularly

The search that leads people to this blog most often is "Star Trek 365." Two times in the last month!

Are there even enough episodes to watch one a day for a year?

OM NOM NOM

Former Fat Kid Blues

Downloading Music Saved His Life.

Digital comics

Brian Hibbs talks about digital distribution of comic books and what it might mean for traditional Direct Market shops.

Not safe for pretty much anyone's work.

The Wet Spots - DO YOU TAKE IT

The party

"If there are kids there, they can touch the wires in my arm for a quarter. That's how I'll make people like me."
"I hope there aren't any kids there. We'll have to smoke pot in another room, like derelicts."
"'No, kids, we're just going off into the other room to have a circle jerk. It's an adult thing, you wouldn't like it.'"
"'That's why we'll all be laughing and there will be a towel under the door.'"
"'No, kids, you can't come with. We're all going into the room to cry.'"
""Yeah, cry over our lost innocence. You wouldn't understand.'"

With honey, obvs!

Wait 'til I tell her that the rule of being a fly hunter is that you have to eat what you catch.

Bike Cookin'; Farmers Market and back!

So, after getting up on my bike last weekend, found out that my rear wheel was bent. OH NO! BIKE FUCKED?

Yesterday, rode it down to the Bike Kitchen, met some volunteer named Matt who was really cool and shepherded me through replacing two spokes, then doing some general maintenance. I I cleaned my chain, fixed my derailleur and my brakes (too loose, I found out, since I couldn't really get a feel for how they reacted without riding), then found similar enough tools at home to fix them again. I gotta figure out how to actually reconnect my saddle cable, but as the quick release hasn't been opened in years, and takes more than my casual weight to move the little lever, I'm not as worried. Still, Amanda did get her seat stolen out here… 

Today, rode the bike down to the farmers' market on Hollywood and Ivar. Three point eight miles each way, but totally doable. Do need to figure out a way to balance my backpack better because it was totally wonky on my back.

Also, word-nerds? Can I get a ruling on punctuatin' the farmer's/farmers/farmers' market? Attorneys general, right? So, if they owned something, attorneys' general? Or attorneys general's? None of it looks right. Don't get high and edit, I guess.

Next "Fucking Magnets?"

HOW WILL FOXTROT ANSWER THIS!?!?!!???!

The reason I can't trust Google

It's always good to remind yourself that the internet is fallible.

I'm pretty sure that George Washfington University doesn't exist.

At least, not yet.

COUGAR SHARKS!

The mix.

So, Brodie's always driving me around, and he's got this New Wave Bowie fixation, though he doesn't know it. He's always got The National on, or some other band that sounds like "Let's Dance." And because I'm a goddamn nerd who can't keep his mouth shut, I'm all like, "You might like the Comsat Angels."

Anyway, I made this mix for him. I enjoy it, it's pretty good. It's a lot of stuff that I like but don't listen to all that often on here, plus Sparks, who I try to work into every conversation. "You also feel pants-Angst? The Sparks happen to have a very lovely tune about that."

It's got the playlist in there, but here it is again (also with the times).

Troubled Son 2:50 Businessmen & Ghosts Working For A Nuclear Free City
Rollercoaster 7:50 Sound Of Confusion Spacemen 3
(Do The) Empty House 3:31 Sleep No More Comsat Angels
Heat-Fire 3:28 Me And You Cherry Red Vampire Hands
07 Never Turn Your Back on Mother … 2:28 Propaganda Sparks
The Affectionate Punch 4:20 The Affectionate Punch The Associates
Swing 6:24 Gentlemen Take Polaroids Japan
Man Who Dies Every Day 4:13 Ha! Ha! Ha! Ultravox
dolly mixture - new look baby 2:05 Baby, It's You Dolly Mixture
4_He's_On_Drugs_Again 4:26 Presents Sardina
mess up your hair 4:49 Workout Holiday White Denim
High Numbers 4:51 Sangre Libre Viva L'American Death Ray Music
zombie love 3:06 the gift of music the jazz butcher
S.P.Q.R. 3:29 Deceit This Heat
If JFA Were Still Together 4:44 Sans Muscles Majesty Crush
Souvlaki Space Station 5:59 Souvlaki Slowdive

Kidneys, man, kidneys

I made absolutely fantastic kidney beans on Saturday for Annette, Chris, Carson, Amy and myself, and I keep talking about them, in part because they were just bafflingly good, and in part because the dish was mostly improv and with ADD, either you keep it in the front of the mind or you lose it.

I was serving them with a crunchy kale/dandelion greens saute under the idea that collards and beans were pretty tasty and why not? We'd made chard or kale and paired it with boil-in-a-bag Indian before, so that was what I was thinking of. Some panchejeon (sp? Korean pancakes) and pow, crazy world food.

2 big cans Kidney Beans (Trader Joe size, y'all know it. Hold on to the cans).

Two medium yellow onions
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds, ground
1/4 tsp. yellow mustard seed ground
1/4 tsp. tumeric
dash brown sugar
one whole dry New Mexico chile, chopped
pinch Korean red pepper flakes
Bay leaf

Saute onions with bay leaf, cumin, mustard, add rinsed beans. Add tumeric, 1/4 can water, let cook off. Add chile, repeat water. Add sugar, Korean pepper flakes, repeat water. Serve moderately wet.

Red, the blood of angry men!

Trichromie uses RGB filters on three B/W images, then runs them through a software overlay to create a composite color image.

Back on the bike!

Got a new helmet and tooled around!

At the Tar Pits!

Didn't she fight Spawn?

"EAT IT, WORLD! IN AMERICA, OUR STRIPPERS CAN FLY

Do It To You by Glass Bricks

Do It To You by Glass Bricks

I stumbled onto this through an old high school classmate on Facebook. It's really good, I just wish there was a way to link to it without goddamn myspace.

Misogyny? In my comics?

The new Scott Pilgrim movie opened near me, and I was trying to get Amy to see it. Sorry, she says, looks too misogynist. I take a moment to think about the plot—a guy wins his girlfriend by defeating her seven exes—and went, Hmm, yeah, I can see that. I think I heard that the comic book dealt with that well, but her point of not wanting to pay $9.25 to find out whether the movie did was pretty convincing.

I googled around some, and it looks like Amy's right. Probably not gonna see it.

Maybe I should just buy the book. I remember liking the issues I read, and that a pal of mine had a t-shirt with Pilgrim on it, but that's about it (so it's probably time for a reread).

Then again… Debbie Schlussel somehow makes me want to really see not only Scott Pilgrim, but also The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love, though I'm not sure whether the four Marxes EPL gets makes it better or worse than the three Marxes for Scott Pilgrim. (I'm also confused as to why she uses all Karls—I'd love to see a movie rated Groucho, Chico, Harpo or even three and a half Zeppos).

Stolen from MeFi comments again

Do Prop 8 proponents have standing to appeal?

Signs point to no, which is kind of a shame, because an appeal and loss from the chuckleheads behind 8 would be a huge win for same-sex marriage.

Excellent essay on the history of Ketchup

"Ketchup" traced through linguistic history

Mmm… Savory

Carson wanted a savory drink the other night, and given the ever-eclectic cabinet I keep, I decided to play off of the Sazerac recipe.

A Savory Carson:

1/4 oz. Absinthe
1 1/2 oz. Gin
Dash Angostura bitters
Splash Cointreau.

Tasty stuff, the citrus and liquorish plays well together.

Ninjas and zombies!

White Ninja's Zombie Town.

Baseline shifting

Baseline shifting: Property and the Statutory Licence is a nice mini-essay on how real property is already intellectual property and the consequences thereof.

I can't hear CSA without thinking Jefferson Davis

We got our first CSA share today. Along with the BEST MELON EVER, we got a buncha hippy produce that we have limited repertoires with.

Fuck I know from golden beets.

We got 'em.

We also got: Collard greens, dandelion greens, yellow beans and rainbow chard.

The greens, usually we saute them, either going with chiles or nutmeg as dominant spice. But I dunno if that'll work for dandelion.

Ideas?

(I should probably cross-post this to a contentious MeTa thread).

Dame Judy Drench

Drench, simple color-field flash game.

Something in my ass

via.

Sparse matrix visualization

Sparse matrix visualization

Very Mary Kate

I was trying to explain Very Mary Kate (Start here) to a coworker today, and I don't think she got it—I think she thought my description of blip crashes and poor people having babies was earnest.

Progressive Campaigns Inc.

Progressive Campaigns Inc. or Progressive Hucksters?

An old article that I had to find using the wayback machine. I have a feeling that Grassroots Campaigns is similar, though not obviously as shady. Oh, moral clarity, where are you?

California Political Solicitation

Since I'm canvassing, and I have the police called on me pretty regularly, I decided that I should actually know what the law is when I'm out there getting into the most polite, shit-eating conversations I can with the police and management, while still not doing what they want.

Turns our that the law is a lot more complex than what we've been led to believe, at least in our vague employee verbal culture (Ott'd have a field day—maybe I should write a thesis on that some time) at the office, where the sense is generally distilled down to "If it's a shared parking lot, there's nothing they can do."

This also explains why we don't ever canvass Targets.

A quick google for "california political solicitation law" brought up the Target page on their policy. It certainly sheds a lot more light on what the Redondo Whole Foods manager was on about, claiming that a "recent decision" made this all illegal and how she was going to get us all locked up.

What she was referring to was (likely) the California Supreme Court decision of Albertson's v. Young 107 Cal. App. 4th 106 (2003)(pdf), in which it was found that Albertson's had the right to prohibit petitioners from setting up a table and collecting petitions.

A little context here: In a 1980 decision, Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center, the California Supreme Court found that California's state constitution gives not only the same protections of free speech as the federal constitution, but also an affirmative right to free speech that is more expansive. The case revolved around a group of high school students who were protesting against a proposed UN resolution condemning Zionism. In a broad finding, the California court found persuasive the argument that because of the increased suburbanization of California culture, supermarkets were taking the place of the public square, thus infringing on property owners' rights to control the content of the speech promulgated thereon… Ugh. That just reads like third-rate legalize. Basically, they ruled that subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, people could exercise their rights to expression in "quasi-public" places.

It was a bold ruling, and both liberal and populist. Which is part of why the California courts have spent the last 30 years chipping away at it. In Trader Joe's Co. v. Progressive Campaigns, Inc. (1999)(pdf), petitioners were banned from a stand-alone Trader Joe's in Santa Rosa; similar outcomes resulted from Costco Companies, Inc. v. Gallant 96 Cal. App. 4th 740 (2002) and the Albertson's case. In all, the court found that a lack of things like coffee shops and areas where customers were invited to linger or congregate placed the stores firmly outside the free speech protections.

Granted, the property owners were greatly aided by the behavior of the canvassers. If the store managers are to be believed, the canvassers not only hassled people outside, but also went into the stores to continue petitioning, and even got into fights while they were in there. But, conversely, because I frequently hear similar stories from grocery store owners, without a lot of proof I tend to assume they're apocryphal. Given that a fair portion of my job is shooting the shit with folks who stop, I've got a pretty good ear for what truth sounds like and what's a convenient, half-remembered story that's simply what you tell someone when you have neither the time nor the inclination to explore an issue fully. Don't shit a shitter, as my Papa Fred used to say.

It's also worth noting that many of the decisions cite prior restrictions on free speech enacted to keep things like violent or disturbing anti-abortion rallies from happening. There's something keenly ironic in noting that when the Planned Parenthood canvassers are run off, it's at least in part because of the laws enacted to keep Planned Parenthood clinics open and operating.

Where does that leave us? Well, in reading through the decisions, it's worth noting that the stores were excellent in picking test cases—the petitioners behaved badly and the stores themselves were able, likely due to good counsel and the inclination of judges to rule in favor of property rights, to get fairly minimizing readings on their businesses. That and a frankly more conservative court has ended up with Pruneyard all but overruled, and more than a few calling to have an explicit ruling doing so.

However, it does appear that the canvassers made their points remarkably poorly, unable to answer questions of fact which the court gave them, instead relying on things like mothers testifying to the good character of their sons and expansive, novel interpretations. They seemed to do a poor job arguing that the notions of public squares have largely become obsolete—no doubt in part due to the fact that much of the public would rather not be engaged with their fellow citizens, a point made repeatedly in the latest Harper's. An emphasis on modern ennui and how that by disallowing political discussions by virtue of a lack of political discussions does seem to beg the question—these are not public spaces because politics is already banned, but that doesn't support the argument that these should not be public spaces. Further, over the last decade, grocery stores have explicitly enlarged their business model to encourage behavior that they explicitly denied prior—the decisions noted that their "convenience" character was at least somewhat based on not having places to linger, nor "coffeeshops or entertainment." That's simply not true of many modern supermarkets, of which many have at least a Starbucks and a set of benches outside as an eating area. A well argued case could, at the very least, expand the time, place and manner restrictions, though the best remedy would likely be legislative, and in California, the grocery lobby is so huge that I'm not very hopeful. They've been able to crush nearly every labor fight in recent memory.

Back to us: So, if a business is able to ban canvassers, how does it do so? Well, it has to enjoin a canvassing group through a preliminary injunction against its canvassing, a civil action. At which point, and hopefully with smarter legal counsel than in prior cases, a canvassing group should be able to countersue and at the very least get the time, place and manner restrictions declared unreasonable. But it's important to note that this is civil law, and that the actions take place between the two corporate entities—those of the business that runs the canvass and the business where the shoppers are. So, while they can ask us to leave, we don't really have to—their remedy is to sue the company we work for.

Further, our—or at least my—technique should leave me in a more defensible position. I only canvass people on their way out, and if they disagree, I tell them to have a nice day. It's hard to construe that as harassment nor as damaging to the business model, and given that they have to prove that the specific company I work for is responsible for damages to their business… Eh. It's a gray area, at least so far as I can tell (though I hasten to add that I'm not an attorney and not giving anyone else any legal advice here). It's simply far too much of a hassle to deal with it, and one of the few areas that is explicitly protected is direct criticism of the store itself, which means that if a store did pursue banning canvassers in a way that harassed or injured them, the canvassers would be within their rights to picket the store and hand out literature about it.

One of the few regular impediments that I deal with is when the business calls the police. They come, sometimes ask me to leave, and I tell them that I have to have a direct order to leave. Sometimes, they'll call the city attorney and ask about what we're doing. It is explicitly political—we are funding a grassroots campaign for EQCA, at least as far as I know. I'll probably look more into that later. But frankly, the understanding of the law that the police have is just as blinkered as that of the store managers or the canvassers themselves, except in one important regard, and that's that nothing we're doing is criminal.

Robert C. Phillips, the deputy D.A. for San Diego, writes about it under the title"Who You Gonna Call? and both views the issue more expansively than the courts appear to, but also concludes that in the vast majority of cases, the police officer should do nothing, in large part because there are no applicable statutes. Of course, canvassers will leave if given an order, and police can enforce a civil injunction, but aside from that… Well, welcome to the ambiguity and ambivalence of public/private life in the 21st century.

I'll end this with one more note, and that's this: Because business owners only ever hear from folks that disagree with the canvassers, they don't realize that we really are supported by the majority of folks that we see. That's why we go to the places that we do. If you like us, or don't mind us, or would like to keep the world a little bit more politically aware and active, or even just have a post-modern view of space and delocalization, tell the managers you like having us there and thank them for the canvassers. It'll make our lives easier and will work to undermine the negative perception that a lot of business management has of us.

I have also made a movie

Mmm. Drinking.

Wanted to add a dash of something to a Manhattan (in lieu of cherries); dash of Cointreau is perfect.

News

New office, same job. First canvass of the day yesterday was Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore. Getting official internet and cable on Saturday. Found the farmer's market last Sunday; think we're gonna go to the Hollywood one this weekend.

Fresh basil!

Made something close to this, except that I like knife pesto instead of blender pesto, and that the asparagus were tasty enough that I just tossed them in on top rather than blending with the orzo.

On Bullshit

Harry G. Frankfurt's modern classic: On Bullshit.

You can't talk in your sleep if you don't sleep

On Saturday Amy's coworker took us all to see In My Sleep, a fun indie thriller.

In it Marcus (Philip Winchester) finds himself leading a double life due to his sleepwalking. He's already a parasomniac philanderer, but might be a murderer too.

What In My Sleep does well is balance Marcus's sleepwalking blackouts against his growing suspicion and horror, and I really respected that while it briefly flirted with occult imagery, the film stuck to a psychological mystery. Given a conceit that could have easily stuck to clichés, the realistic portrayal of parasomnia grounded the film and was more effective as a tension device.

That said, In My Sleep does suffer from the indie thriller malady of trying to fit in every twist possible—the film ends up being about half an hour too long, mostly thrashing at the end between two equally plausible solutions before finally settling on one. The reveal could have come sooner, and the movie would have been tighter for it.

This is also a film with a lot of peripheral appeal—The cast is pretty strong, and even though Amy Aquino's campy hardboiled detective ("You know what I like about sunflower seeds? You have to crack 'em just right to get the good stuff.") plays more as comedic relief than a real adversary. The overall tone has more in common with NCIS than Law and Order, and that the closest comparisons are television, not film, seems intentional.

As a side-note, there's also more beefcake in this movie than anything I've seen since 300. Marcus seems to have his shirt off in three-quarters of the movie, and I assume is being sponsored by a boxer-brief company. Even the poster's got him naked. This isn't a film to see if you're in some sort of post-gay recovery program.

One more rewrite and In My Sleep might have been fantastic; instead it's pretty good and worth seeing.

The Secret Life of … Shrooms

The Secret Life of Mushrooms.

A trailer for spec documentary about psychedelics and culture, still in need of funding. via Jesse Green's facebook feed; he's an old high school friend and apparently his wife makes TV about drugs, which we can all get behind.

Duck hunt

I've been meaning to post this up for a while: My pal Matt G's album Dead Duck is up for free on Bandcamp and it's pretty tight. Backpack hiphop, whiteboy uppermidwest (Slug, Atmosphere RIYL).

Goddamn CSS

I can't seem to make the main posting part of the blog wider without it getting rid of the sidebar. I want to make the main part wider so that the photos (uploaded at even medium size using blogger's own defaults) don't get cut off.

Grr. I know enough to know how to monkey around but not enough to fix even a simple problem.

Music can't be seen.

Water, fire, air and earth, how the fuck do magnets work?

I RON IC

Steve Ahlgren takes maybe ironic pictures of modern, generally corporate spaces.

Accidental Mysteries

Snapshots from Accidental Mysteries.

Black line arabesques

Bibliodyssey does blackwork prints.

Beard on Beard

from Jandrewedits.com

The Only Sensible Ranking

1. Special Dark
2. Krackel
3. Mr. Goodbar
4. Milk Chocolate

and there's a pretty huge gap between Special Dark and Krackel, and then another between Krackel and anything else.

Hyenas

Even though it's totally in that danger area of Exoticizing The Other for me (not necessarily for him), I love Pieter Hugo's work, especially the hyena series. I mean, part of the danger is because hyenas just look so goddamned weird to me, these wrong dogs, but even with dogs these would be powerful images.

David Maisel's Oblivion, aerial shots of Los Angeles.

Ghost, by Nick von Woert.

Endless ripples

Been staring at this far too long. Physics two-point interference.

Alberto Seveso

Red and blue.

Grind, grind, level

Wheew.

As most of y'all know, I took a wicked whip offa my bike two weeks ago, leaving me with a broken femur and ulna. Since then, I've been laid out, working on recovering as best I can with the invaluable help of more friends than I even realized I had. There's another blog for the recovery (klangklangston.blogspot.com), but I haven't been added as an author yet, so I'm writing this here.

So far, I've worked hard at the PT and gotten to the point where I can sit up, stand, walk with a walker, get to the bathroom (fracture pan to bedpan LEVEL UP bedpan to drop chair LEVEL UP to commode LEVEL UP to using the extension in the regular bathroom and wiping my own ass LEVEL UP), fix my own food (breakfast, lunch and dinner today). The exercises still hurt like a motherfucker and leave me wiped, but grind grind grind. It's like Final Fantasy without the level breaks. Still can't do stairs, and god knows when I'll be able to ride in a car or even type two-handed, but at least Amy's gone from worrying about 'round the clock care to being able to grab dinner tonight with her friend.

And throughout, I've been all overwhelmed and choked up at the awesome help from people all over—though the locals have been phenomenal.

So, just a note to let you all know that I appreciate this and am still working hard on my end.