Chris Connolly Online

# 158 - Front page 1.12.12

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:47:00 +0000

This is the front page of my paper this week. (Click on it for a larger image.) I'm pretty jazzed about how this came out. The photo is particularly effective, I think, because first you see the guy with the gun, then, in lesser focus, you notice the other guy with the ketchup. I think this might be the best front I've done. The story's about a local filmmaker who returns to shoot in his home town.

#157 - A piece I just finished about finishing a piece I just finished

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:30:00 +0000

http://truestorieswelltold.wordpress.com. That link will take you to Sarah White's very fine blog about memoir writing. There you can read my memoir about finishing my memoir.

#156 - O's Birthday Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:54:00 +0000

I can still crank it up. Oliver's birthday menu:

Roast duck w/giant raisin challah croutons in duck fat with lemon peel
Peas & carrots

#155 - Book on Fire, Second Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:44:00 +0000

My book bro Keith, owner of an awesome beard, husband to an awesome wife and father of two exciting kids has just announced the second printing of his magical volume Book on Fire. It has a new cover, and includes a long bonus story, City of Bones, about a sojourner in a post-apocalyptic Alexandria. It is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as select brick-and-mortar bookstores.

I just bought a nookbook copy for myself, I suggest that if you're into real magic, you do the same. For more on Keith: http://millerworlds.com/

#154 - A Roll of Film from September 11, 2001

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:08:00 +0000

On September 11, 2001, after ascertaining that our father hadn't been murdered in the World Trade Center attack, my brother and I joined up in midtown Manhattan and walked back to Brooklyn. For much of the morning the island was sealed off, so we went from blood bank to blood bank looking to help out in whatever tiny way we could; they were all full.

I had my camera with me that day and shot a roll of film. I couldn't bear to develop my pictures until 2005 when I took one look and then sealed them away. For the 10th anniversary of the worst day of my life I made myself review the images and write about the experience for my newspaper's special section on 911. You can read the story on our website.

#153 - Book Review: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Even if you don't know William Gibson, he's all around you. Gibson is generally credited with intellectually shaping the Internet and coining the term "cyberspace" in his book Neuromancer--thereby spawning The Matrix and all that shiny black stuff. Then, in his spare time, he created Steampunk with his book The Difference Engine. In his latest (but not greatest) book, Pattern Recognition, he creates probably his best character: Cayce (pronounced Case) Pollard, a "coolhunter" who's employed by various companies to sit in a room and have them flash their new logos at her. Cayce's genetic sensitivity to brands, logos and fashion trends is so intense it's a type of borderline coolness autism. She's literally allergic to brands she finds inauthentic, like Tommy Hillfinger, and can be sent into a full-blown panic attack by the sight of the Michelin Man. Of Hillfinger, she says the following: "Simulcra of simulacra of simulacra. A dilute tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row ... There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul." Pollard is so allergic to Hilfinger, a chance encounter with a shop or advertising banner will send her flying into, oddly, a Starbucks, a corporation which somehow fails to trigger her adverse response.

The plot of the book, which is a little muddy and probably isn't as interesting a setting as the character it surrounds, involves Cayce jetsetting around the globe trying to track down the maker of a film--or at least a sequence of footage--which is slowly being leaked onto the Internet and which has inspired legions of cyber-speculators who call themselves "footageheads."

But Pattern Recognition, really, is about the hunt for the footage only to the extent that Animal Farm is about running a farm. Pattern Recognition’s true mission is to make us aware of the things we opt to include in our lives—to help us see the cogs and gears of commerce as they grind all around us.

Cayce Pollard’s sensitivity to branding and logos is so intense she razors off the labels from her clothes and sands off the imprints on the buttons of her jeans. She is, in a way, like a thing vegan, only able to wear things that could have been worn, "to a general lack of comment, during any year between 1945 and 2000." The only branded item she's able to tolerate is a fantastically expensive Buzz Rickson's flight jacket replica that gets a lot of play in the book. After the book published, Rickson's saw so much interest they reproduced the jacket. In the novel, Cayce tears her jacket and has to patch it with tape; awesomely, Rickson's seems to have included the patch in their reproduction.

Other reviewers have called Pollard "so awesome you can't even see her." I like to think of her as being so high fashion, so attuned to the world of product, that she's realized it’s all bullcrap and opted out. It's like, to use an 80s video game term, she's "flipped the game" of commerce. "Flipping" a game was a term that meant you'd amassed so many points, gotten so good, at a certain game that you exceeded the designer's plans for tracking player achievements. Eventually, the game would run our of points to allot you and new levels to challenge you with, so it would just "flip" and start you over from zero. In my view, Cayce is so attuned to the innate horribleness of commerce that she's flipped the system; to put it another way, she's like a puppet who's climbed out of the stage and started to inhabit the upper reaches where the strings are pulled.

Gibson's writing is sometimes a problem in this book. His use of commas, shocks me at certain, points. But he's so adept in other ways, I forgive him a great deal. Reading his books, and this one less than others, you don't so much follow them as appreciate them. You are aware you're in the presence of greatness even as some of the choices greatness makes puzzle you.

In the end, I don't know if this is a must read. It's definitely a should read. It's a big book, and one that will open your eyes to things you hadn't thought about before. Like Cayce Pollard, Gibson himself seems to live in a nirvana state above the dreary conventions of his medium of expression. Yes, he's churning out pages and chapters, story arcs and characters, but the whole cloth he's spinning from those various elements encompasses ideas so revolutionary the word "novel" doesn’t feel quite big enough.

I welcome anyone who has read or who reads this book to share his or her thoughts below in the comments space. While I wait for people to discuss it with, I think I’ll just sit here quietly sanding down the buttons on my jeans.

#152 - Probably the greatest editorial commentary I've ever read

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:10:00 +0000

I NEVER do this, but this guy's so brilliant I had to share. Check out this Father's Day editorial.

#151 - New, New Memoir Excerpt Published Online

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Mon, 16 May 2011 18:56:00 +0000

My former writing teacher Sarah White has seen fit to publish a second excerpt from my awesome (and nearly complete) memoir on her website. Check it. It details my 3rd most violent vomiting experience.

#150 - World's Most Badass Sea Glass Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:42:00 +0000

As detailed here, each of these pieces of sea glass was obtained at great personal peril. Dangers faced to amass this hoard include sunburn, neck and back pain, eyestrain, over-loud mp3 player use and, of course, death by drowning. According to the endomondo gps-based fitness tracking app I installed on my phone on March 5th, this collection was compiled in 40 days over more than 106.5 miles of night and day striding. I burned around 18,000 calories while stalking these shards and dropped nearly 17 pounds. I also spotted 4 seals, 1 massive beached eel and 0 decomposing prostitute heads.

Blue glass was a shard stalking rarity for a long time, but with the popularity of chic, blue bottled beverages like Skyy Vodka among the bridge and tunnel crowd, it's becoming more common. It's also nice and easy to spot in the surf.

I found all these old school Coke bottle shards in one area, but on different days. I wonder if they're all from the same bottle?

Sea ceramic. I haven't found a lot of it, but it's pretty cool when I do.

#149 – Shard Stalking Tips for the Night Strider

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:39:00 +0000

As you may know, I walk on the beach a lot. I also run a little, but mostly I walk. Since walking on the beach is not exactly the kind of X-treme sport I like to be associated with, I have rechristened the activity “Night Striding”—an appellation I feel is more in line with my personality.

Since I started “Night Striding,” occasionally “Day Striding,” and just generally covering a lot of ground on the beach, I’ve been finding a lot of sea glass. When I encounter a piece that’s big enough, or interesting enough, I’ll usually pick it up and stick it in my pocket and then deposit it in a little urn in the bathroom. This helps to pass the time, I like the glass, and moreover it’s an informal way to log the miles I’ve put in along the shore. (I used to run next to a golf course in San Diego and I still have an enormous basket of orphaned golf balls—some 150-200—that I picked up on my route.)

As my sea glass collection began to grow so too did my interest in the hobby. I even started to develop preferences and favorite pieces among my finds. I turned to the web and found a community of fellow sea glass lovers, and I also discovered that most of my preferences were in line with theirs. I like ‘shards,’ as we call them in the community, with some evident history to them: manufacturer names, places of origin, etc. I also share my fellow collectors’ fondness for the edges of bottles: necks, bottoms, lips… things like that.

I was not surprised, in my research, to read that the color of the glass you find is important, and that the scarcer colors are more highly prized. Black glass is very rare. So are red glass and orange glass. (I have yet to find any.) Brown and green glasses are the most common colors, and although shards in those hues are still treasured, they tend to be regarded as the “filler” of your collection and produce few standouts. Clear glass is usually called “white” glass in the community because the abrasions that accumulate on its surface while being ground up in the surf make it translucent, not clear. Although clear glass is probably the most common type of glass, pre-sea, it has a special value to collectors because it’s difficult to find. When “white” sea glass gets wet it becomes clear again, and this makes the shards harder to locate.

For a long time blue glass ranked in the highest echelons of scarcity, but it has been somewhat cheapened in recent years because of the popularity of Sky Vodka and other en vogue blue-bottled concoctions. In fact, on the beach I walk, in Long Island, a trickle-down effect from the Jersey Shore crowd has ensured that blue glass makes up almost a third of my collection.

As my interest in sea glass collection formalized I started to wonder if there were ways I could get better at it. If there were tricks of the trade I wasn’t employing, ways I could gain a collecting advantage and secure those red and black bottlenecks that had previously eluded me? I turned again to the web and found a wikihow article entitled “How to Collect Sea or Beach Glass” by a collection of authors identified as Killbill, Flickety, Teresa and Manchurian President. (Is that Wiki or what?)

Here are the steps they outlined:

1. What are you looking for?

Uh… sea glass!

2. Decide what color you like best

Flesh tone? What? Why? Am I going to reject shards that don’t conform?

3. Look in suitable places

So… not in a movie theater in Kansas?

4. Walk along the beach looking for pockets of gravel

5. Make sure to pick the right time

Not night. Not during snowstorms.

6. Optional: Some people move things around with a stick.

Noted.

There were also a set of tips, which apparently didn’t fit into the six crucial steps outlined above. Among my favorites:

· Glass collecting is believed to be a "senior citizen" activity.

· For the same reasons, glass collecting could be embarrassing to do for a young person.

· Take breaks. Don't hurt your back or neck.

· Don't strain you eyes for too long, it may give you a headache.

· Bring your mp3 player but use it at a moderate volume for safety.

Seriously Manchurian President et al.? We’re talking about walking on the beaches, not storming the beaches or fighting on the beaches. I don’t imagine the injury rates among sea glass collectors exactly rival those of the NFL. Still, the apparent frailty of most of my fellow glass hunters got me thinking, is “sea glass collecting” really for me? I mean, “beach walking” didn’t fit my style, so I invented “Night Striding.” Might a similar re-branding be in order for my new pursuit? Yes.

And so I have decided that I am now the world’s foremost “Shard Stalker.” While “Night Striding,” my senses piqued, my crouched, muscular form poised like that of a panther on the hunt, I track, locate and capture the polished, gem-like residue of crushed bottles. Stealthily, I then smuggle my ill-gotten gains to a private trove that I guard as jealously as a dragon protecting his hoard.

I am the Night Strider, the Glass Hawk, the Shard Stalker… and may the gods have mercy on anyone who stands between me and my goals.

This is what I look like when I night stride for shards.

#148 - Award Winning!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:34:00 +0000

Huzzah! I won second place in the Sports Feature Photo category at the New York Press Association Awards over the weekend! The winning photo, above, was snapped at Baldwin Senior High School's homecoming celebration. I'm so excited I can't even act like a snarky jackass. It feels really weird.

#147 - Theater Review: Lido Elementary's Production of Where the Wild Things Are

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:45:00 +0000

The cast of Lido Elementary's Where the Wild Things Are churns out a jittery, but ultimately winning performance in the Middle School Gym

Where the Wild Things Are, the show currently running at the Lido Elementary School (although in the Middle School gym,) reopens the case of Max vs. Max's parents as it plays out against a sprawling backdrop of year-long nautical adventures, rapid-sprouting room jungles and a gaggle of (possibly) imaginary beasties.

The show is tightly plotted, the action moves along crisply and although the whole production clocks in at a tight 26 minutes (a boon for theatergoers toting younger siblings) the action never feels cramped. This was an opening morning show, and, as you might expect, the cast would have benefited from some additional rehearsal, but I'd expect those jitters to iron themselves out as the show's run gains momentum. The musical numbers "Born to be Wild" and (spoiler alert!) "Back Home" are clear winners you'll be humming over juice boxes later in the car and although some of the Act 2 numbers seem to suffer from a lack of attentiveness and performers needing to pee, the only significant criticism I will level against the show surrounds the choreography. It is, to put it mildly, extraordinarily literal. Please, Mrs. Christianson, give us some credit as an audience. It is not necessary to have the cast mime binoculars over their eyes to accompany the lyric "lookin' for adventure" nor spend the entirety of the song "Good Bye" actually waving good bye. We are an educated public and these gestures feel like pandering. Still, overall, with an energetic cast, inventive and occasionally surprising direction and a tried and true storyline, Where the Wild Things are will prove a tasty snack for beasties both big and small.
3.5/4 stars.

Young Oliver C. turns in a risk-filled, but ultimately star-making performance as Narrator 14 of 63.

#146 - The Effect of Wife Proximity on Pie Presence in the Connolly House

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:20:00 +0000

Here's the data on a trend I've been observing for some years. I haven't drawn any conclusions based on the numbers yet, but I think some of the ramifications are apparent.

#145 - Memoir Excerpt Available Online

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:28:00 +0000

For both of you who've been clamoring for an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir, I Went Away, But Then I Came Home Again, a former writing teacher of mine has put a chapter on her website. Check it out here and enjoy!

#144 - Photo Essay: Winter Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:13:00 +0000

This is a photo essay I call "Winter Beach." I take a lot of long walks and runs on the beach near my house--although, because "beach walking" doesn't sound tough enough for me, I call it "beach striding!"--and I love the way all the summer paraphernalia looks in the winter. Somehow, I find the idea that these things continue to exist in seasons other than summer very appetizing. I like how these objects we associate with sun and fun don't know we ascribe them those roles and bear up in winter the same way they do in summer. It's like a rose bush, in a way. We think of the flower as the "rose," but I doubt the roots, stems and leaves see it that way.

These pictures are presented in the order they were taken. This essay depicts a single walk down and back across a three and half mile stretch of Long Beach, Long Island. My suggestion is that you open a second window in your browser and listen to this song as you view these. If you click on any image, you'll be rewarded with a larger, higher resolution version of the picture.

Enjoy the beach in the winter.

#143 - Fruitasaurus Rex!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 02:11:00 +0000

Oliver's week as Lido Elementary's Star Student coincided with my receiving a fancy new pairing knife from my mom for Christmas. (Thanks mom!) As O's parents we had to bring a snack for the kiddies, so I whipped up Fruitasaurus Rex here. Feeling pretty good about the project.

#142 - Potato Ball in Potato Cube

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:19:00 +0000

I spent most of yesterday accidentally shorting out the whole computer system in the office, but when I wasn't doing that I was researching Healthy Holiday Eating for a story. During that search I ran across perhaps the most useless culinary technique I've ever seen, which, needless to say, I had to run home and try.

And so, don't ask me how to cook it, or what you'd ever need it for, but here's how to make the Potato Ball in a Potato Cube:

1. Try to move from your desk to the desk across from you.
2. In pushing the wires from your area under the cube wall to the area next to yours, expose a wire (or something) that shorts out the entire server system for your area.
3. Take a medium-size potato and cut it into a cube.
4. Etch a square into each face of the cube.
5. Cut out the corners of the squares you've etched until the overall shape of the ball-in-a-cube begins to emerge.
6. Whittle around the edges of the inner ball until it comes free from its cage. (But allow it only the illusion of freedom. Remind it that, in reality, it's still just one small bit of potato trapped in a larger world of potato.)
7. Shape the inner potato into a ball.
8. Never try to improve your situation again.

And that's how you make a potato ball in a potato cube.

#141- 30 Days to the Body of a Crackhead

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:03:00 +0000

Have you ever noticed around 90% of meth/and or crackheads are friggin' ripped? Well I have. In fact, it's the subject of my new fitness piece for modernman! Check it out, keep glutes tight!

#140 - The Old But New But Old But New Raleigh Record Ace

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:41:00 +0000

Here's a new story I wrote for modernman.com about the retro-styled Raleigh Record Ace. Check it out if you're into bikes 'n stuff.

#139 - THREE Players in This Monday Night Football Game Have Exposed Their Wieners on the Internet!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 02:33:00 +0000

This simply has to be unprecedented in the history of sports. Three players in tonight's Monday Night Football game, three!, have had pictures of their wieners published on the Internet.

Visanthe Shiancoe

Santonio Holmes

Brett Farve

(Obviously, those are all pictures of wieners, so if you're not in a place, physical or emotional, where you can safely look at pictures of wieners, don't click through.)

I don't know what's more disturbing, the fact that three guys in the same game have had pictures of their wieners on the Internet, or the fact that I was watching the game and realized that three guys in it had had pictures of their wieners on the Internet without even having to check.

And for those of you who are going to say there's no proof that Brett Farve's wiener has been seen on the Internet all I can say is, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it's Brett Favre's wiener. And moreover, where there's smoke... there's Brett Favre's wiener.

#137-Lost Detroit

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:16:00 +0000

Here's a story I wrote for moderman.com about the new book Lost Detroit--an in-depth look at some of Detroit's most alluring defunct buildings.

#136 - I was Going to Take a Picture of My Mom, but as I was Framing the Shot...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:10:00 +0000

THIS HAPPENED!!!

I know, right? I was shocked too.

#135 - My Review of Star Wars Uncut

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:10:00 +0000

Check out my review of the crowdsourced, shot-for-shot remake of Star Wars titled Star Wars Uncut, at modernman.com

#134 - New Photo Essay: Douchebags Who Bring Parrots to Swap Meets and Other Public Places vs. Douchbags Painting in Parks

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:21:00 +0000

Most long-time readers will know about my ongoing photo essays Females Sighted Bringing Their Own Full-Size Pillows On Planes, By Race and People Whose Asses Are Wider Than Their Shopping Carts, but few of you know that I have other projects that remain in their infancy due to a paucity of subject matter. Two of these are Douchbags Painting in Parks and Douchbags Who Bring Parrots to Swap Meets and Other Public Places. Given that I've never compiled enough pictures to bring either of these projects to light, you can imagine how psyched I was when I snapped the shots above and below (click through for larger images) in Battery Park City the other day. It's like a perfect storm of baggery! If you sight your own Douchbag Park Painter or Parrot Bringer, and you can safely commit their image to film, please send it my way for full marks and a tiny, tiny amount of web cred. (PS: In honor of the immortal Boers and Bernstein radio show in Chicago where listeners call in to report sightings of "Shirtless Driving," I may have to create a special subset for Shirtless Public Painters! SUN'S OUT! GUNS OUT!)

#133 - Poll question: Which is worse, LinkedIn or Herpes?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Connolly) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:34:00 +0000

Please vote in the comments!