Why You'd Want to Live Here

Let Us Never Forget...

2008-06-30T11:56:00.000-05:00

In Search of... NPR's Morning Edition

2008-01-04T08:17:00.000-06:00

With my unfocused attention glued to WUWM at 5:50 AM (good thing Lola and I took an abbreviated walk) in search of a continued fix of the Obama Iowa victory, I had the serendipidous fortune to catch the beginning of a story on the unsolved case of D.B. Cooper. My hearing cut through the narrative and found the brief Leonard Nimoy excerpt from the In Search of... D.B. Cooper episode (Season 4, Episode 11, 6 December 1979).

Click and listen.

Or check out the FBI case page.

Convergences are euphoric.

Visual Narratives

2008-01-03T08:37:00.001-06:00

A fellow student sent me her syllabus for a spring course that seems to be designed to fit my creative and academic (are those separate? opposing?) interests. Unfortunately, its in the middle of the day, which means one can't work a non-academic job and attend class.

In celebration of wishful thinking, here's the list:

Course Description

This graduate seminar is designed to facilitate a deeper understanding of relationships between image and text within contemporary narrative forms including hypertext, multimedia and 20^th Century experimental literary and art movements such as DADA, Oulipo and Fluxus, and to see how these movements anticipate and configure creative web content. We will focus upon narrative structure in “post-realist” literature.

Texts (books to acquire, all paperback) (All texts in order of appearance)

•Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction, David Hopkins

•If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino

•Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, George Perec

•This Is Not a Pipe, Michel Foucault

•Networked Art, Craig Saper

•Writing Machines, Katherine Hayles

Texts (on D2L)

•Locus Solus (excerpt), Raymond Roussel (chapter 3)

•The DADA Reader: A critical Anthology, Dawn Ales-editor (various)

•Women In DADA, Naomi Sawelson-Gorse-editor (chapter on Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven)

•Oulipo Compendium , Harry Mathews & Alastair Brotchie (various)

•Oulipo – A Primer of Potential Literature, Warren Motte Jr. (various)

•Exercises in Style, Raymond Queneau, (excerpt)

•Ways of Seeing, John Berger (Chapter 1)

•Maps of the Imagination: The Writer As Cartographer (excerpt: A Rigorous Geometry)

•Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin

•Wanderlust (Chapter 12: Paris, Or Botanizing On the Asphalt), Rebecca Solnit

•Fluxus Experience, Hannah Higgins (excerpt)

•Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges (various)

•Mr Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler (chapter 1)

•Database Aesthetic, Victoria Vesna-editor (various)

•The Vintage Book of Amnesia, Jonathan Lethem-editor (Murakami story, Worth story)

•House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski (excerpt)

•The Shaping of Hypertextual Narrative, Sergio Cicconi (on web)

•Incidence, Daniil Kharms (excerpt)

•The Medium is the Massage, McLuhan & Fiore

•Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millenium (chapters 12 & 14)

Films

•The Shock of the New, Robert Hughes (VHS video) (Golda Meir media, Episode 2)

•Experimental Avant Garde Series (various) (English Department Film Library) (various)

•The Five Obstructions, Jorgen Leth & Lars Von Trier (DVD)

•Powers of Ten, Charles and Ray Eames (VHS video)

•How To Draw a Bunny, John Walter & Andrew Moore (DVD)

•Memento, Christopher Nolan

In Search of... Rinder & Lewis

2008-01-02T15:33:00.000-06:00

Lamenting the disappearance of In Search of... from my television rotation, I found this sweet blog dedicated to found vinyl treasures, specifically a mention of the Rinder & Lewis soundtrack to In Search of...

And it is sweet hot music to my ears.

Now, back to scouring my memory for lost episodes...

The Most Profoundest Moment in Cinematical History

2007-12-19T12:59:00.000-06:00

In celebration of the (almost) end of the semester and in praise of creative distraction and the pursuit of individual inspiration (and entertainment and satisfaction), I give to you, by means of hospital WiFi, Orson Welles:

The profundity is after the narrator, by the way.

Where has all the time gone?

2007-11-19T19:53:00.000-06:00

We are finally getting a chance to upload the many, many pictures we've taken of our Lola, that beautiful little hellion of a Weim puppy. She's been getting so big! We found out from our second vet, Healing Oasis, (we highly recommend them - first vet wanted to over-vaccinate -- thanks for the warning Sally and Kevin!) that we were, well, making her a bit fat by letting her graze 3-4 (maybe five cups) a day whenever she felt like eating. I believe the exact term was not obese, but getting overweight. And daddy was worried Lola wasn't eating enough...

Regardless, she's growing whenever we look away for a few minutes, it seems. Her paws double overnight, every night. Her legs creep longer when she's curled up. And those ears!

Lola has been so much fun, even when she's biting mom and dad. (She's starting to learn not to, thanks to our new found firmness.) The twice daily walks (5:30, AM & PM) do a bit to burn down her energy, and daddy will run her sometimes on the leash.

It's Doggy Daycare that she loves, though. We've found a great place that just opened a Kenosha campus, Proper Paws University; they've got a great rep in Racine. She plays from 9-noon and 2-5 with the small dog/puppy group. The first day, I called at 10:30 to check on our baby - and she got high remarks from everyone. Her report card read that she gets a long and plays well with the other dogs and that she made lots of new friends. She fell asleep immediately upon mom putting her in the car crate. And, she slept almost all evening and night long. We love PPU. And hope to get her two days a week with friends.

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Lake Andrea

We've also explored the great Lake Andrea County Park in Pleasant Prairie (about five minutes ride from home). They've got a Minnesota "lake" (or pond, as most of us Wisconsinites call them), a few miles of paved paths, and a really fine nature trail system. Lola loves to glide through the leaves on the trail, her nose buried in the ground. Lots of tail-wagging at Lake Andrea.

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Dunes

Last Sunday, we went to the Dunes. Frank T. Tenuta's mom (and Erica's coworker) recommended it as a really fun place. Well, Weimaraners sure know how to have fun! The pictures at the end of the slide show are from the dunes. Lots of indigenous prairie plants and animals, paths, hills and a great shoreline rise on Lake Michigan. We'll be going back there soon.

The other pictures are from home, backyard, and front. I know there's a lot, but we have a lot to be proud of: Lola learned to go up the stairs 2 1/2 weeks ago (we now have two baby gates), down the stairs last week (once, anyway), and she's worked up the nerve (finally) to jump down from the couch (18 inches). She's getting bigger, smarter, and more confident, which is sometimes not so good, but generally amusing to watch.

Finally, congrats to our breeders, Waterwolves, who have a litter from Lola's dad Zeus and a blue Dam on the way!

1st Pictures at Home

2007-10-28T16:42:00.000-05:00

Slideshow of pictures from Friday and Saturday (10/26-10/27):

Welcome Home, Lola - Day 1

2007-10-28T10:09:00.000-05:00

We've had almost 48 hours with our new baby, Lola. She is the smartest, most darling puppy ever. (Of course she is, right?) She started off as a big-time sleeper, but she's beginning to find her puppy-energy supply. It's amazing the effect a single tennis ball can have on a puppy. The yellow florescent fuzz must be the universal signal for "freak out play!"

I know, it's time for a picture:

The Pickup

Sally, our breeder, called us at 11am on Friday to tell us that the Indiana crew, who had first choice female, had arrived earlier than noon and were already finished. So, we jumped in the car and headed from Oshkosh to Plainfield - excited and anxious, passing a few slow moving cars on the two-lane highway.

We gassed-up, peed and went to the feed store. This is where the bad news starts. Per one of Erica's nervous dreams, they were out of DJ's All Gold - the food the pups had been eating. We got Canidae, which is a really good food, but the experience was enough to worry that our little Lola, whomever she might be, wouldn't eat! At least the lady at the feed store was sweet and talkative, keeping us from rushing the block to the breeders.

When we got to the breeders, our knees were weak with anticipation and excitement. Sally had all the puppies out in the yard sniffing around and playing with each other, peeking their heads up to see who was coming. Was our first choice there?

We had visited two weeks earlier to watch and play and ended up picking our first two choices, a beautiful silver and a great little gray. It was very difficult to pick of course, but we both fell in love with the silver and she warmed up to is - likely literally, as it was chilly that Saturday. Sally painted her toenail and told us that, in her experience, no one had ever chosen someone else's pick.

She had bad news: the Indianans had picked our silver, even though they didn't like the blue eyes of the Weims (don't ask...) and the silvers have bluer eyes. While we told ourselves that this was a distinct possibility, we were still a little heartbroken. We'd agreed to seriously consider the other silver as a contingency and our second choice had needed an umbilical hernia operation, which made me feel really sad for her. She had little stitches and its a somewhat frequent occurrence in Weims, but I still felt guilty that we weren't automatically taking her home.

But the other silver looked so much like our first choice - identical, really - and she sat nicely and sniffed our hands and was very comfortable being held. Well, Erica and I looked at each other and knew we wanted a silver. We told Sally we'd take the other silver and she said that they usually went first.

As Sally was showing me all the paperwork, Erica was holding Lola. Sally gasped and sais, Oh my God. She told us to look at the pup's nail. It was painted pink. The Indiana crew had grabbed the other silver, perhaps by mistake. Either way, we were out of there fast, with huge smiles on everyone's faces. I don't subscribe to fate, but let's just say I'm glad this one worked out.

The Ride Home

Our puppy isn't actually narcoleptic, but she could play one on TV. Besides a bit of fearful whimpering and crying very early on (especially when she looked out the side window), our little Lola slept nearly the entire way home. We made the Plainfield-to-Kenosha drive in about two-and-one-half hours. We played the potty stops by ear, but she didn't whine and we didn't want to wake her or traumatize her with a new environment if we didn't have to. This leads us to believe we have the best puppy ever. (Who doesn't, right?)

We got her home and introduced her to the family room for a few minutes, letting her sniff and stay close to mommy and daddy. The we carried her outside - who knew crossing thresholds could be so challenging? Being the genius puppy she is, she peed and pooped outside after a bit of encouraging.

Then, back inside to find her new Canidae, which she ate voraciously. We had a great evening together, playing with a few toys and napping lots of napping. Another reason Lola's a genius: she crawled into her little den without much encouraging and made herself a soft little napping spot. Lots of praise for our little baby! Two little pee accidents, one while I was coaxing her outside to pee, the other after we introduced her to our bedroom (a new room!) and were trying to coax her out to follow us. What a puppy!

Our little napper only resisted her sleeping crate in our bedroom a little bit before she crawled in to much praise and some petting. She only whined for two 90-second stretches about fifteen minutes and half-an-hour into her bedtime. She slept from midnight until 630 straight with no accidents. What a little champion!

8 days

2007-10-19T09:34:00.000-05:00

Erica and I have only eight days until we pick up our newly adopted Weim pup, Lola. I think we're burrying our anxious anticipation with loads of chores this weekend. We're also making the home a safer place for our puppy, I guess.

Do check out the previous pictures of our cutie. Hopefully more to come this weekend, if I can find a computer in between mowing, mulching, sweeping, scrubbing, and the other 132 items on the neat list. Oh, and going to hang out with Nick Hornby and 87 of his closest friends. And finishing editing the Fall 2007 cream city review. And reading some modernist theory.

Pictures?