Tractor trailer,
A box of silver reflections,
grey, blue, brown,
The road, the sky, the me.
Sun setting below a sign,
Orange tints green and yellow,
Buffalo Drive
EXIT ONLY
䷳䷕
mountain toes,
betwixt glass and rock,
grace and stillness,
no body,
-
Without words clogging the box of glass and steel, he saw details buried in the blatant mundanity of his daily commute.
-
Sharpening Blades
The knives in our house were ridiculously dull, so I finally took took to the internet. YouTube did not fail*.
As with any varied collection of DIY videos, I was confronted with a conflicting advice that could have frozen me to inaction**. I could have been intimidated by my lack of good equipment. Fortunately, the knives were so dull I was forced to do something.
I grabbed our cheap stone*** and sharpened.
I started with 5 pounds of pressure**** on each side. Try putting that much pressure on a kitchen scale. No joke. Once a blade was back to mediocre, I ran descending passes (ten to one) on both sides of knife on both sides of the whetstone — 220 in total for this second phase.
Repeat that process for a house full of knives. My forearms were sore***** the next day.
But I had a meat cleaver that could cut paper******.
So over the top, but so satisfying******.
~
*A basic search led to a beginner’s tutorial by Joshua Weissman, then warnings against beginner mistakes by Ethan Chlebowski, and finally in Burrfection’s extensive library.
**On the other hand, the algorithm fed me videos sharpening the silliest things, like a cardboard box. At least my knives were made of metal.
***Two years later and I’m still using our cheap whetstone. I should spend a $40 Japanese whetstone to see what I’m missing. But that would force me to buy at least one knife that cost as much as the stone…and that’s how the damn hedonic treadmill gets started.
****Burrfection recommends against putting so much weight on a knife while grinding. Pick your poison.
*****I now use my legs in an extremely shallow “bow and arrow stance” to shift my whole body back and forth, minimizing the effort in my arms. That’s about the extent of my martial arts now.
******After writing the initial draft, I chopped up a batch of bad apples for composting. Wow, the new knives were scary sharp. I didn’t notice the seeds as I sliced through the cores.
*******I sharpen the kitchen knives about every other month whenever my wife makes a big meat purchase from Costco. I don’t know how we lived years with such dull blades.
-
The desert rats were unprepared for the simulacrum of moisture in the atom-sphere.
A man jogs
Blonde mane,
Just shorts,
Stars and stripes.Five lights repeating thrice
The sign blinks
>>>
(merge right, merge right, merge right)A sun rises
through clouds
past skyscrapers
down Russell.䷁䷇
yellow skirt
perfect fortune
no flag -
Paranoia Agent, Satoshi Kon, 2004
Two years ago, I wrote these sentences to start my notes:
Awesome psychological thriller anime by the legendary director. Highly recommended, available for free (with ads) on Funimation.
All that I remember now:
That was a fucking crazy show.
~
Paranoia Agent hit my key checkboxes at the time.
- Genera fiction: Detective, Fantasy, Slice of Life, Horror. A collage with everything.
- Auteur: Narrative told in a quirky way with an open ended resolution.
- Weird: A crazy story that toys with artistic effects and taps my favorite gimmick — busting the fourth wall.
~
If you haven’t seen anything by Satoshi Kon before, here is a 1 minute short to whet your appetite.
~
Since this was the last piece of Satoshi Kon’s catalog, I should rank his major. It happens to follow the path of heartwarming at the top to darkness at the bottom. But Perfect Blue is still better than almost any other anime film you could watch, it’s a classic like Jin-Roh and competes with the best in Ghibli’s catalog. All are highly recommended.
- Tokyo Godfathers
- Millennium Actress
- Paranoia Agent
- Paprika
- Perfect Blue
Here is an hour long retrospective of his catalog.
~
Paranoia Agent is a wacky piece, but after watching a couple reviews of the series on YouTube, I agree that it falls in in line with the rest of Satoshi Kon’s catalog.
It’s a mind bending animation that explores the intersection of delusion and media. Kon explores the idea that our brains and our realities exist on different planes which are mediated by mass media. As one review said, it’s an “animated fever dream”.
However, I heard two critiques that are worth countering.
Someone wondered on a podcast if Satoshi Kon lost control along the way. I agree that Kon plays a high wire act where everything spins all over the place. Midway through the series you’re praying that it all comes back together. But he never lost command of the story. The trajectory could have ended badly but he pulled it off.
Also another reviewer thought that a couple of the tangents felt like filler. At a macro level, any narrative could be boiled down to a simple sentence, but the reviewer didn’t mention which episodes could be cut. Since nothing felt like filler to me, I’d say that the show hit its 13 episode length perfectly. This was an expansive, twisted universe that didn’t overstay its welcome.
~
Here is the my ranking of the anime series I had watched:
- Mindbending favorites: Space Dandy, Paranoia Agent
- Fun Classics: Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Hilda
- Almost Classic: Arcane, Cyberpunk Edgerunners
- Decent with weaknesses: Kids on the Slope, Kipo and the Wonderbeasts, Terror in Resonance
- WTF, but still worth watching: Neo Genesis Evangelion
- Flawed with a few great moments: Carole and Tuesday
- Honorable Mention (no storyline): Love Death + Robots
Will I watch rewatch Paranoia Agent anytime soon? I doubt it. I moved on after spending a couple of days scrolling through YouTube commentaries. It takes a lot for me to commit to longform media — my protestant work ethic doesn’t allow me to do regularly indulge in such unproductive activities, even if I already know I’ll love it.
If I were to rewatch anything on that list, it would be Space Dandy. That show hits all the wild stuff with a comedic edge, which my wimpy self prefers over the light horror of Paranoia Agent.
Ultimately, both Paranoia Agent and Space Dandy are great works that routinely surprised me. More often than not, I’d end an episode with my jaw agape, OMG what did I just see?! That wuz fucking Brilliant!?!!
What more can you ask for at 22 minutes a pop?
~
If all this didn’t do it for you, then at least check out the opening and ending credits that was played for each of the shows, with music by the incomparable Susumu Hirasawa (who also composed the excellent Paprika soundtrack)
-
Opus, Satoshi Kon, 1996
Opus is Kon’s famously unfinished manga. He was lured away by the big screen and then tragically snatched away by pancreatic cancer.
I had mediocre expectations for an incomplete work by someone who earned their fame in a different medium. Wrong. This book is great, especially with the rough pencil-sketch coda that was discovered after his passing.
I’m a sucker for authorial gimmicks and the conceit of the artist being dragged into his own story was handled expertly. Given that this was written before he started making movies, I would have forgiven a ham-fisted approach by a young creator (Grant Morrison was mediocre in Animal Man), but Satoshi Kon had already developed a strong command of the craft, which was further distilled in his animated work.
No doubt, this book is famous because of its legendary creator. But it should be more famous than it is. Opus stands on its own.
~
I first read this as an ebook on my iPad. I finally bought it for my birthday. So much better reading it on paper!
However, the story has a dark plot twist. The art isn’t graphic, but it’s not suitable for young children, so I hid the book (along with my Sandman graphic novels).
We moved to Vegas ten years ago but still haven’t settled into a permanent home. One day, we’ll find that home, and I’ll build nice bookshelves to display all the boxes of books that have spent the past decade in our in-law’s garage. By the time that happens, the kids will be old enough to read these novels…if they’re still at home!
~
After cleaning up this two year old draft for publication, we went to the library. My daughter handed me The Panda Problem by Deborah Underwood and Hannah Marks. Now that’s breaking the fourth wall!
Synchronicity is all around you! <insert CTA here>
-
Each elephant enthusiastically eyed effulgent Easter emu eggs entering ebony Egyptian edifices.
A desert tigress crouching for prey in the overgrown lawn.
“They created a wasteland and called it peace” – Calgacus
-
OPM.43 Bluebeam Markups
When I joined the Division, I was assigned an office that was so large that I brought in a spare table from home for extra desk surface. It was a great setup for reviewing the three university projects that I was managing.
Then the pandemic hit. I grabbed a laptop and went home.
I quickly learned to mark up PDFs in Bluebeam. It turned out to be easier than paper. Review on screen, make notes as I go, and email the the PDF back to the architect. No more long write-ups for comment letters!
A couple of years later, I discovered the Markup List feature. Now the computer will automatically compile a letter from my markups!
The default setting creates a new PDF file, but “append and hyperlink to current pdf” will add the comment summary as new pages to the back of the PDF.
I request written responses from my architect, so appending the summary gives them an option to respond in the body of the PDF or on the centralized list. I’ve tried moving the summary to the front of the PDF, but it messes with the hyperlinks, so I just leave them in the back.
I use a yellow pen to highlight things as I go, marking what’s been reviewed. My actual comments have a red outline. Before processing the summary, I filter comments by color, hiding the yellow items.
Architectural Drawing sets often have custom names for the pages, which leads to odd results when sorting by Page (General sheets end up after Electrical!) The fix is is to sort comments by Color. The markups will follow the order they appear in the PDF file.
Pull Up the Markup List. 
Sort the comments by page (or color if the pages have custom names).
Filter out comments you don’t want to be included on the list.
Then create the PDF Summary.
Click on the Append and Hyperlink option to the process. Bluebeam is a powerful program. But like the rest of tech world, the next evolution is to collaborate on shared markups in the cloud. I’ve talked to architects about their experiments in this direction and I hope to explore it with the next round of projects.
~
Some Links
This has been a technical OPM letter, so here are three fun newsletters that publish on daily schedule.
Weirdo Poetry is a daily haiku webcomic. That alone would be a fun pairing, but Jason McBride also adds a short contemplative letter to each post. It’s a rich three course meal to start the day.
The Heron Dance Art Journal pairs a watercolor with inspirational quotes from luminaries through the ages. Follow the link embedded in the newsletter to find extended notes and additional quotes. The art is always ethereal, an aptly named pause for beauty.
Erica Drayton publishes a story with exactly 100-words) in her 100 Words Daily. These drabbles are always delightful and often a touch horrifying.
~
The Huming Birds, Ireland, 6 December 1924 ~
Thanks for reading!
Justus Pang, RA -
He asked for another sheet of paper as the molehill of ballots grew on the craft table.
I was on the couch,
She was practicing Chinese,
Mom was on the computer.He handed each of us
A small slip of paper.
“Vote.”On the front, he wrote “For”
He drew a line with a dot on the back.
“Write your name.”
My wife wrote her name.
I wrote “爸” (dad)
The girl added hearts to her name.He called for
(a) “Cottage Cheese” (container)
for a ballot box.We searched the cabinets,
Only found big
Yogurt tubs.
Never mind.
“It’s late!”
Time for bed.䷧䷿
shoot falcons
liberating sheep
skipping over
cushioned walls -
Clothes (just presentable)
One thing my parents nailed was their Pareto Principle approach towards clothing. (If flashy isn’t the goal, 20% of the effort gets 80% of the results.)
As a man, it’s easy to be decent — button-down shirt, slacks, and dark non-sneaker shoes. That should work for anything outside of a wedding, job interview, funeral, or legislative hearing. (It’s also the most comfortable way to dress.)
I blend in by making sure I’m not the most underdressed guy in the room. If in doubt, I’ve got a cheap sports coat stashed in the trunk of my car, and I slap on a tie. (Yuck…Tuck in that darn shirt…Double Yuck.)
I wear the clothes until they wear out, and then I wear them around the house until they fall apart. Then I thank the rags and move on to the next Costco special or hand-me-down. (I recently got a haul from my retired uncle.)
It’s not minimalism. (It’s a lot easier.)
-
AI can write what I write, but it can’t be who I am.
Three disconnected links.
Tears in the Rain
Borges on Rewriting a Classic
Inhabiting the space to (re)create the work — “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”
Mixing Bible Stories
1 Kings 19:11&12 (to Elijah), Exodus 3:14 (to Moses)
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
And God said, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.