Month: July 2008

are they even trying anymore?

Please compare:

Telegraph UK: George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan. The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.” He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

The Onion: At a special Earth Day event Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney inhaled his first-ever breath of oxygen. “I am…proud to stand before you today and…breathe in the same gas used by…millions of Americans,” said a wheezing and gasping Cheney, whose body is accustomed to compounds of chlorine and sulfur dioxide. “One breath, however, is enough for me. I’m glad the stuff will be out of the atmosphere forever in a few decades.” Cheney then left the press conference to attend a cardiac health awareness dinner, where he feasted on human hearts.

next stop: hell (I’m planning to grayhound to Katie’s wedding in September)

CBC: Man stabs and decapitates sleeping passenger aboard Greyhound bus in Manitoba

“Garnet Caton, who was sitting in the seat in front of the victim, said he saw the attacker stab his seatmate, a young man sleeping with his headphones on. Caton said he heard a “blood-curdling scream” and turned around to see the attacker holding a large “Rambo” hunting knife above the victim, “continually stabbing him in the chest area.” “He must have stabbed him 50 times or 60 times,” said Caton.

CNN: “Everybody got off the bus. Me and a trucker that stopped and the Greyhound driver ran up to the door to maybe see if the guy was still alive or we could help or something like that,” Caton told CNN. “And when we all got up, we saw that the guy was cutting off the guy’s head. … When he saw us, he came back to the front of the bus, told the driver to shut the door. He pressed the button and the door shut, but it didn’t shut in time, and the guy was able to get his knife out and take a swipe at us,” Caton said.”

operation moderne baroque

The mitoWheel is a graphical representation of the human mitochondrial genome which allows you to browse the sequence or search for a nucleotide position, gene, or sequence motif.

The gunpowder mess in my house continues to melt away, impasse by impasse. As money comes in, so do solutions. More shelves will be next, maybe some IKEA knock-off for the front closet that will let me clear space elsewhere. Once that’s done, I’m hoping to have a hall again, an effortless way to walk in to the rest of the apartment. As is, we clamber slightly past boxes stumbling tall full of unwanted things we’ve sorted out – culinary extras, cheese graters, emptied spice racks, plates, bowls, and home supplies we have no need of, as well as books, CD’s, and movies we’ve seen too many times – and do our best to stay confident that victory will soon be ours.

I was given a mirror this week, three feet by two. Heavy glass the colour of water and lead, framed in greasy, porridge white plastic lined in dental blue. I’ve been painting it a mild, warm gold the same tint as Tanith‘s eyes, and expect to put it up in my room this week. High, too high to work as a mirror generally should, striking, yet off in a corner. I expect when winter comes, it will capture the wholesome light that drips in from the window and help drown the SADS, another change for the better. As it goes up, the spangled sari above my bed comes down, as will the lights at my window, and the french-style Czech absinthe poster. I want to air out my room, shake it, change it, clear it out. I’m going to see what I can do about shuffling the cards of my decor, queen of hearts, jack of trades, and finally placing the thick collection of art and photographs I’ve been collecting in a drawer. Aces, all aces. Frames will be needed, glass, hooks, and drywall screws. I might paint the top of my chest of drawers gold, too, depending on how much paint I have left. I am tired of cozy. Now I want light.

Astronomers have uncovered an extreme stellar machine – a galaxy in the very remote universe pumping out stars at a surprising rate of up to 4,000 per year.

r.i.p. randy pausch

via neat-o-rama:

When Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch learned that he only had months to live, he turned his last lecture in September 2007 into a lesson on life. The lecture, titled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dream, became an Internet sensation. It was viewed over 3.4 million times on YouTube

Randy Pausch died of pancreatic cancer today. He was 47.

In his honor, let’s take another look at Randy Pausch’s last lecture, where he talked about life lessons he learned and gave advice to students on how to overcome obstacles and achieve their own goals:

renegade lantern festival

PASS IT ON

The Illuminares Lantern Procession will be happening this evening.

pretty typical

6 pm -11:30pm at Trout Lake at John Hendry Park.

Twenty years ago, Illuminares started as a thirty person house party that made lanterns, walked them around the park, then burned them at the beach. The next year, there were double the people, the year after that, even more. Now it’s an annual event which brings wonder to over 30,000 people. People show up with custom lanterns of all shapes and sizes, ranging from simple paper bags with a tealight candle to large complicated structures. Stilt-walkers, costumes, fire breathers, and topless wish-faries are de rigeur. As Public Dreams is not hosting it this year, we’re going back to basics. The audience, once again, are the organizers. Performances will be spontaneous and lanterns will be brought from home – technically, we are all just enjoying the good company of friends.

Because this is not an “official event” please be extra responsible. All of the things that require funding – like floodlights, vendors, fireworks, emergency personnel, outhouses, and, of course, permits – will not be happening this year. As there are no permits, it is almost certain that the Vancouver Police will show up to shut us down, so if you see anything that is of concern, call people on it, and make sure to use camp-ground rules: leave everything better than you found it. Remember, too, this is a family event with lots of children, so try to keep it dry.

introduction innoculation


Jhayne at the Folk Fest, picture by Jon.

Dee Harding says: “Do you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned out to be the internet version of Toxoplasma gondii. I wasn’t saying that you had it, more that you were easily transmitable, impossible to eradicate, and with a string of poorly understood psychological side effects.”

And he’s a doctor, so he should know.

Twice a year I do a shout out, I ask that everyone speaks up, even if they otherwise stay silent. Like a good house party, it’s always fascinating to see who turns up.

So, please, tell me your names, post your picture, introduce yourself, tell me why you’re here, how you found me, and what inspires you.

I want to know who’s on the other end of my screen, what fun and fantastic people are out there, waiting to be met. Even if I know you, introduce yourself to others, and tell me what you’ve done lately. Explain a piece of your world with something beautiful, make something new, or dig up the grave of an old favourite. Anecdotes are welcome, as are pictures, job descriptions, inspiring links, stimulations, titillations, and your pretty hidden treasures. The name of the game is networking, so share what you want everyone else to know.

You are artists and scientists, nihilists and dreamers, comic book illustrators, archeologists, hackers, retail managers, photographers, teachers, librarians, hair dressers, and submarine captains. You are novelists, derby girls, musicians, and accountants. Optimists, pragmatists, magicians and politicians, fencers, film addicts, home owners and homeless. You are lighting designers, poets, animators, and lawyers. You are glorious, fabulous, interesting creatures, rich in colour, thick with story – and I want to hear from you all.

For those new, my name’s Jhayne. I’m a writer and photographer currently trapped in Vancouver, Canada. I live on the internet, work for a media company, and occasionally get paid to set off fireworks. I’m also an amateur taxidermist/cryptozoologist, play french horn and the saw, and edit other people’s novels. Last year I started a global initiative to save a local turn-of-last-century theater and turn it into a new multimedia venue called Heart of the World. It fell down, went boom, but oh well. Time to try something else, I guess. Welcome to my journal, a mixture of wonder, pointlessness, isolation, and community where I talk about life, love, art, technology, and try not to hate the world.

Now it’s your turn. Spill.

some things are too exquisite for the lens of my camera

Ravers blinded by lasers.

Last night’s dancing aches all the way into the marrow of my bones. It’s surgical, how my muscles are taut, leaning on my sinew, tight, as if I were a supplicant who crawled to her pilgrimage, high voltage, a stanza of sore and continuous dull pain. I move slowly today, proposing to each group of movements in turn. Please, my left, my right, my feet, my hips and belly and back, only five more steps until we get to sit, rather than stand, rest rather than walk. They are deaf, restricted, injected with distrust for higher brain functions. It’s you who got us into this mess! they cry, as heavy as a wounded heart. You and your dancing, your twisting wrists, your skirt flaring more lightweight than rain! They are sassy, unhappy, a smashed set of porcelain. Save me if I ever have to run.

The festival was beautiful. At the last, I stood in the pit between the fenced off crowd and the stage, eyes stinging as a thousand people held hands and sang. Security shooed me to the very front, smiling at my camera, at my shining, perfect moment. I wished with all my heart for someone to hold there with me, to pin me to that place and time, and keep me there, a flower blooming precisely, forever in shared memory.

Best seat in the house, barring the stage, that. Best seat anywhere.

I’m looking forward to my pictures.

mike is still stranded in new mexico, so no that 1 guy

After all day at the folk fest, I’m wiped out. Too tired for a reasonable, decent, glad report. If you missed it, I’m sorry you did. It’s magical, our festival, it’s right by the ocean, cradled by mountains and lakes and forest and city, all at once. It’s the only event in Vancouver where I regularly look around me and think, “this city is beautiful”. I’m going back again today, to sit and listen to music and dance as much as possible. I don’t expect to be home until tomorrow.

I was part of the lantern procession last night, I carried a heart made all of fire, and dipped it over children and held it over the heads of smiling couples. I think I changed a little girl’s life last night, she looked as if I had shown her the moon.

just one of those things

365 days one hundred & seventy: between the lines
365 days one hundred & seventy: between the lines

David is going brown in the sun, his pale becoming tan, becoming sepia, a colour stolen from the ink of squid, then fractured, chemically converting silver into sulphide, toning into something more resistant to breakdown over time. Our bodies contrast, as if we’re different genres of the same animal. I wonder what he’ll look like the other end of this coming up Folk Fest weekend, where people take off their shirts and get happily dusty walking the Jericho paths. I wonder, too, how he’ll get on with Mike, how interesting and odd all the interactions will be. There is an anticipation building inside me, bubbling like water over stone.