Conspiratorial Lean Forward

Moving On (to www.crowjonah.com)

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:02:00 +0000

I have finally taken a big ol' monch outta the blog bullet and hooked my very own personal domain up with a steady stream of original material that is set to include film, video, music, photography, fiction, poetry, crafts, visual art, and so on. This new output means I will most likely be abandoning Conspiratorial Lean Forward, unless I decide to use it to share other nifty things I've found on the internet. But expect no more original material here! And update your RSS readers! www.crowjonah.com is the word! Er, URL.

Graphs

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:21:00 +0000

I like graphs. They're way better than stats. Last.fm is neat, but there's plenty to leave me wanting. Enter Lee Byron.

Gorgeous, right? Some other people made Lee's stuff available to the everyday last.fm user, and you can check that out here: http://lastgraph3.aeracode.org/

Oh, and by the way, I found all of this out because some Epson ads ON last.fm janked lastgraph's functionality. Hope they got payed!

48HR Film Project - Seeds

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:23:00 +0000

Some harebrained fools thought it would be funny to watch a bunch of people drive themselves nuts trying to make a short film over a weekend, and I was gullible enough to try it.

And it turned out pretty great, if I may say so myself.

If you're in Denver you should come to the premiere and probably vote for our film (if, of course, you feel morally comfortable doing so.)

It's at the Gothic Theater on Sunday the 10th, 4pm.

Check www.hanost.com

Funny

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:22:00 +0000

My school allows for a 'grade option' between ABCs and 'Satisfactory/No Credit' (S/NC), or as most people say, pass/fail.

Christmas Presents

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:50:00 +0000

So, uh, Christmas happened a few months ago.
My uncle(/brother) and I were at a loss as to how to generate numerous cost effective yet thoughtful gifts for loved ones when we settled on the idea of silkscreening our faces onto t-shirts (and a pillow.) (The action went down in the basement on Christmas Eve.)

Here's the grandpa representin':

8.2 Miles

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:13:00 +0000

78/436

Speckled spackle freckles, space travel with an apple, an orange eyed heckler rests his case from a milk crate pulpit, “I rather prefer grovestand.” The small brown dots on your face look like the sort of place a spider I once knew chose to lay her eggs, blobs, like peeled seedless grapes, purple not green, but with at least eight hairy legs and no vertebrate. These whereabouts are vague, but look not to a graveyard as a landmark.

77/425

A pair of cemeteries marks the bounds of our game, with stairs to the east and a bay that slowly stretches sideways to invade the parade ground. I can barely hear the sound of my stream start and stop over nearby construction, which may well cause my reluctance. Instructed to keep moving by the breeze, the time, the trees and other things I begin to see where money lives and lies with thieves. The bane of civilization.

69/412

Fashion a mansion from a mountain of bricks and expensive seclusion, where solely roots intrude, where wind rings truest, and traditional trails sprawl more than down trodden. Two leashed Great Danes restrained from showing my unwelcome on Private, Hidden Lane. Pictures in my mind of a cross street sign, marking the way I came. Only those who make great strides and try to hide, only the owners, are afraid.

67/434

We had seen these streets in different cities through distant eyes but at the same time. Belligerence teems, pitilessly, belittling everything it seems we came to stand by. Even the curbs breathe suburban, the peace punctuated by remodeling yearns for the gritty churning of honest earning, shoddies, and trials. Trade fair weather fiends for judge jury and exhibitionist only to find that, unfortunately, there’s no voyeur here.

hello, my name is Compulsive Saver!

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:25:00 +0000

The pinky to pointer-ctrl + 's'-movement may very well be my quickest reflex. It's pretty beautiful that my hand fits the keyboard so perfectly as to allow for the essentially twitch like motion of saving to be repeated at an average of a little under once per line.

Oh, and don't ask about the way in which I choose to register my software.

Sleepwalking

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:11:00 +0000

I've recently become aware that the quirks in peoples' sleeping habits seem to be a popular topic of conversation. Whether someone sleepwalks, shouts, mumbles, speaks in Japanese, applies deodorant to computer monitors, or poos in the oven, almost everyone's got a story to tell. As I am currently preparing for my Econ final I just stumbled across a unique instance of this sort of story. At several points during the semester my level of fatigue outweighed my mind's investment in remaining alert, but as my eyes shut and my mind drifted away, my body grew rebellious and attempted to continue taking notes:

Now I tend to pride myself on my penmanship and, you know, things like grammar, at least to some extent (note that I am by no means professing any sort of superiority,) but I honestly have no recollection of what was going on, or for that matter what those scribbles signify. I love it!

The Eggman (woo)

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:12:00 +0000

I made this for a $3 limit "Yankee Santa Swap." Maybe it's a New England thing, 'cause where I come from we call 'em White Elephant Parties (and Wikipedia agrees.) Stinkin' Yankees. Speaking of teams, the Rockies lost Kaz Matsui, and in an even greater personal loss, Jamey Carroll (arguably the hairiest knuckles in baseball,) but let's not let this turn into a sports blog.

The gift I walked away with (coincidentally from the person who received my creation) was a CDR of an album by experimental French prog-rock/jazz band Magma called Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh. As soon as I confusedly read the title aloud to the surrounding group, the gift giver claimed that it was one of the top 5 albums of all time. The album is in a made up language (rings a bell, right? [Sigur Rós]) called Kobaian, was released in 1974, and is, needless to say, very interesting. Here's a track:
Magma - Kobaia Is De Hundin

Write

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:57:00 +0000

Overly self conscious tendencies in writing unavoidable.
I need to define what and what not to write about.
All good writers seem well defined and principled in their choice of topic and approach. I must come up with similar (yet distinct) guidelines so as to maintain coherency, cohesion, etc., whatever.
I must be better at choosing the right word instead of listing several options.
People are attracted to decisiveness.
I must give up the idea of passing off my musings as those of a fictionalized character.
I am not that creative, and am far too transparent.
That's okay.
You may well know me through my words.
Don't use sentences just because they seem archaic and sound cool.
Limit your adjectives per sentence.
Don't be so vain:
Who do you think you are, writing yourself rules and guidelines for your own writing?
You are desperate, pathetic, and far too eager for acceptance.
Not only that, you are irreverently confident enough to parade your flaws as uniqueness.
Poor disguise, plea for sympathy.
It's just impossible to escape me.

Stop rhyming.

Emotion in Part

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:48:00 +0000

Is smiling natural or societal?
I think societal. I'm sure there's a scientific answer, but where's the fun in that?
I'm going to base my final project for photography class on asking people to look happy without smiling. I anticipate some laughter, some inordinately stern faces, and perhaps some bewilderment. People 'posing,' but really betraying themselves and the facades that have been caked on to (and by) humanity. Maybe if I get enough people making fools of themselves, people will feel less exploited and more enlightened. Maybe not.

Thank you, Diane Arbus.

Body language is very interesting, too. I just started shooting medium format. Fun!:

Bathroom Stall Defacement at Art School

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:54:00 +0000

Street art is to graffiti as this is to bathroom vandalism!

Sincere Warnings

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:14:00 +0000

Pleasure,
your master;
not a good idea.
Be freely enslaved,
saved or depraved.

Where are my manners?

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Wed, 16 May 2007 08:22:00 +0000

I probably lack good blog etiquette. Maybe I should link to a few more blogs, or, for that matter, read a few more blogs. Posting more frequently would probably help a bit, too. It's probably pretty tacky of me to continually plug the same blog over and over, but I'm gonna do it anyway, because I'm not in it to win it.

I just watched The Royal Tenenbaums and re-noticed all the specific references made by this blog (which I've repeatedly praised.) Afterwards I went on a Nick Drake, Nico, and Cat Stevens kick. This time was also the first that I actually kept my eyes open for the suicide attempt. In the past I've tensed up and turned away as he takes the razor out of the shaver, but it didn't turn out as bad as I had expected. I still got a bit nauseous, though. Thank goodness for the plentiful stock of single serving Cracker Jack packs (with handy facts about Abe Lincoln inside!) and Vitamin Waters that I've been accumulating with my left over meal credits.

In more revisitation, I watched Shaun of the Dead the other night and recalled the first time I burst out laughing (at the whole movie in general, but specifically) at this part, and I commemorated the fond memory by repeating the act. It got me back to thinking about the whole debate about THE N WORD which is something that I frequently ponder, and frankly have nothing interesting to say from my current, one-way communicative stance. It's been popping up recently; thank goodness for YouTube! The Shaun of the Dead bit, I feel, is hilariously acceptable. I'm a little bit less sure about System of a Down performing "Shame on a Nigga" with the support of original creators The Wu-Tang Clan, but still kinda enjoy it? Then I also came across the new Redman video which mockingly portrays protesters (0:41) with signs that read "Ban the N Word." (Also worth nothing in the video [in fact, it made my entire day,] is an understandably rare sighting of a Colorado Rockies hat, visible at 3:03 [Colorado's most prominent area code,] nonetheless!)

Oh, and I've been messing around with ink and watercolor and lazily digitizing them (by which I mean not bothering to scan or edit them. Cameras are so much easier:)

Big Ups

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Thu, 03 May 2007 05:27:00 +0000

Leslie Feist is doing some neat stuff with music videos:

(I'm already disobeying my self-imposed rule against endorsing the RIAA...)

Ian Smith (of the wonderful I Always Wanted To Be A Tenenbaum) is doing some neat stuff with trees:

Sadly I found it necessary to forgo the Modest Mouse concert this evening, however, my chin will remain up! Lincoln is a slacker, but he might show up one of these days and link you to death. At this point I don't feel like my opinions are worth writing and or reading, except for this one: Jacob Borshard is a major cutie (I'm hardly the first person to notice.) At least that's what my ears tell me. It's hard to go wrong with any of the songs on either of his two albums available for free download, but this song's been getting stuck in my head:

Jacob Borshard - "You're in Love Again" (Songs For a Small Stereo)

It's On

noreply@blogger.com (crowjonah) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:24:00 +0000

It's the inaugural post and I've got nothing better to talk about than myself!

Self-portrait 1:

Just pretend you've never seen this or this (darn you, subconscious influence!)

As far as music goes, I've seen loads of predictable hype for a few tracks from the upcoming Dntel album titled Dumb Luck, namely the songs featuring Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley,) and Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes.) That's fine because I dig those songs, but I'm also really into Fog, who also worked on a song with Jimmy Tamborello. Aside from his own amazing, original material, Andrew Broder (the mind behind Fog) collaborated with Yoni Wolf (Why?) a few years back to make an album under the name Hymie's Basement, which happens to be one of my all time favorite records. Here are some mp3s for you, and hopefully you will agree with me in thinking that they're neat!

Dntel feat. Fog - "Natural Resources" (Dumb Luck)
Hymie's Basement - "21st Century Pop Song" (s/t)