Persons attempting to find a "text" in this [story] will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a "subtext" in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR - Wendell Berry's introduction to Jayber Crow.
My name is Mark Benson; this is my blog. More on the about page.
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Mandy and I entered the 2008 Logic Egg Drop Competition with a piece titled Oviparous Rover, which was built to withstand a 6-story drop to asphalt while protecting a large chicken egg from breaking on impact.
Sydney, on her tie-dye blanket, waiting to be chauffeured to the park.
The Guardian is reporting that a gloomy autumn is on the way for French writing.
Avid readers across France are gearing up for “la rentrée littéraire”, the deluge of new novels that hits the country every August in anticipation of France’s autumn swarm of literary prizes. But this year’s rentrée strikes a sombre tone, and brings a halt to a seemingly unstoppable trend with a marked fall in the number of this year’s new titles.
Here are a few examples of what’s to come (from the article):
I understand that good novels are not necessarily happy — in fact, I’d prefer otherwise — but I have to admit these don’t seem like ones you’d want to read when you’re alone on your Birthday.
“These books are fairly dark, very depressing - a bit like France,” said Vincy Thomas of Livres Hebdo. “There is a ‘grande malaise’, a sort of depression, in France at the moment. This is not a joyful country; when you think of France, you don’t think of a party country. The social reality in France is a real concern about the future and this is reflected in the books.” Aurélie Delfly, of one of France’s largest publishers Gallimard, agreed. “We aren’t very happy in France, and that is being felt in the subjects of the literature produced.”
Here’s an eclectic brew of The Delano Orchestra, Coldplay, a Salsa Orchestra at the Buena Vista Social Club in Havana, Radiohead, and Louis Armstrong from Streetkiss Music. What an unexpectedly pleasing mix.
Money Magazine just ranked Plymouth, MN the best place to live in America.
Logic is having a 4-story egg drop contest next month. Last night, I spent some time scheming about a potential design. I don’t know if it’s possible for me to not win. Bwa ha ha haaa.
Make - Volume 11 describes how to unpimp a Bianchi Milano and turn it into something that looks like a piece of crap, to deter thievery.
Typical Bo Jackson Run on Tecmo Super Bowl. Ahh, the memories.
No names will be dropped, but word on the street is that a freestyle rap battle spontaneously broke out between team Lefty & Skinny and the rest of the pack coming out of the second checkpoint at Minneathlon v2.0. Overheard on the course:
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
XLR-99 think they so fine, with a strong spine, in their mind
Nein Nein Freulein
The answer is not 42, You have no clue
And where’s your crew?
We prophesy’n, for the final time, you will resign when the clock goes chime
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
0xDEADBEEF, good grief, turn over a new leaf and give us relief
By denying our belief you’re no stronger than a tea leaf
By the time this morning is over
Our presumed victory will no longer be contradictory
Encoded in Hex, stand by to be vexed. Oohh!
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
Tryit. Got to give you props, for your cranial chops.
In our endeavor, however, to understand your clever
May we give a recommendation,
Sincerely from the Minneathlon nation,
Instead of winning a prize by “try it”, you may want to just “buy it”. Oohh!
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
Team Intern, it’s our concern, that you learn, before you return
Don’t forget you might sun burn!
Tuff and buff, in your St. Olaf football fluff.
It’s too easy, to sling you these zingers
You may want to consider, becoming choir singers! Oohh!
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
C4, To you we implore, straight to the core, let’s settle the score
You may want to break and stretch out
To end your drought — aw, don’t pout!
When it’s time to come home, and you find that your lacking
Just remember it was Lefty and Skinny that sent you a packing. Oohh!
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
Southern Fuego, don’t leggo our eggo.
Welcome to the country where we ski on the lakes
I’m sorry if you shakin’ cause we rais’n the stakes
You tryin’ to be scary with your pipes and your scope
But you really just chillin like soap on a rope. Ooohh!
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
Boston Tea Party, you think you so smarty
You sip gracefully by extending your pinky
Why not finish with a hostess twinkie!
Since it’s your job collectively, to protect the constitution
We hereby declare, we startin’ a revolution!
Lefty & Skinny gonna’ skool you
Till the break of dawn
With our brains and our brawn cause we’re loco
Smooth like cocoa
Excuse our expression, but class is now in session
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
(Lefty & Skinny say) Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
The Minneathlon is this Friday. Our team profile (Lefty and Skinny) was recently posted, and there seems to be some decent banter in the trash-talk section. Also, since the race coordinators are running the prize give-away like a horse-race, they’re posting revised odds as people make their bets.
Minneathlon v2.0: Brains vs. Brawn. This is Logic’s version of the Amazing Race in and around downtown Minneapolis, to be held on June 27th, 2008. This year, Jason and I were granted entry as team Lefty & Skinny. More updates to come.
Welcome to Haley Jo, born on Tues, May 27, 2008, 6lb 10oz and 20".
What a cutie. Congratulations Brian and Jill!
Jon Henley on the fate of the semicolon. The debate on the value of the semicolon goes on. Some authors love it, some hate it. Why is this discussion so divisive? The semicolon is just a misunderstood grammatical outsider with a split personality — sometimes a comma and sometimes a period — that wants to be left alone.
Here are some quotes from the article. First, Guillemette Faure:
It’s true that computer programmers use an awful lot of them, mainly as separators. And that’s surely the last step on the line before it’s reduced to a mere email emoticon.
Obviously Mr. Faure has not heard of ML. Next, George Bernard Shaw to TE Lawrence, on the Seven Pillars of Wisdom:
You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.
Err, childish? Next, Kurt Vonnegut:
If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.
Yikes! I haven’t finished thinking about that one. Finally, George Orwell:
I had decided about this time that the semicolon is an unnecessary stop and that I would write my next book without one.
Hm, hard to argue with G.O. on style.
A Cooks.com user-submitted recipe for Wiener Water Soup. (Via Serious Eats, Kottke.)
Wiener Water Soup
1 pkg. wieners
3 c. waterCombine wieners and water in a two quart saucepan. Bring to a boil until wieners are cooked. Throw the wieners in the garbage. Serve soup. Serves 3.
Patrick Power’s Night Harvest from the excellent FILE Magazine.
Hunched, shivering, goose-pimply and bare, I assembled with other pubescent boys on the wet, slippery, and slimy concrete of our Junior High locker room after a pre-swim rinse. I could smell the dry chlorine in the air, and had already started prophesying to myself the inevitable ashy dander that would ensue that afternoon in the form of an anhydrous itchy epidermis.
I could see our commanding gym teacher strolling towards us from his office while whistling a confident but unidentifiable and ugly tune. (Why did he always do that?) He was carrying an orange 5-gallon pale and a clipboard for roll-call.
When he got near, he dropped the bucket from a distance too high to be considered careful, and as it hit the concrete, it startled us and made an echoing and hollow thud which reverberated through the cavernous shower room.
Each of us stood quietly wide-eyed, anticipating the unknown thing we would be forced to do next. Then, without notice, he dropped his clipboard to his thigh, turned his right foot 90 degrees outward, shifted his weight to his left hip and assumed an awkward pose that seemed as though he were about to demonstrate a textbook touch-pass.
With his extended right foot, he kicked the pale of tiny, cold, wet, Speedo swimsuits to the center of our mass, and said unsympathetically as though he were a raspy-voiced and condescending army sergeant who yelled and smoked too much, “Strap ‘em on, boys”.
After entering the pool, we sat impatiently to be inspected for Scoliosis. The girls (who where just finishing their own swim unit) skittered past us like a set of nervous ants trying to orient themselves to a nest that didn’t exist.
It was at this point, as I looked down the row of us boys, observing our varying reactions to the girls that were walking by, that I realized that there were two kinds of people in my class: those that were popular, confident, and coordinated; and those that had an inborn mistrust of their personal adequacy as men.
I was an accepting member of the latter, but wished dearly that I could somehow skip adolescence before my weakness could be solidified further. Unfortunately, as I would find out, I would just have to wait.
Saw Prince Caspian last night with Mandy and was pleasantly surprised by the closing song, sung by Regina Spektor, called The Call. The style differs markedly from the full majestic orchestral phrases that were common throughout most of the movie, but the lyrics and the modern folk melody seemed to correspond well with the closing geo-time-travel from Narnia to England.
Digable Planets - Rebirth Of Slick. I still love these guys (Butterfly, Doodlebug, Ladybug Mecca, Silkworm).
We be to rap what key be to lock.
I was going through some old jayber.org designs of mine, came across a few that caught my eye, and realized that they all have a common theme in that they are: (1) urban, and (2) green. Here are some samples:
Pimped-out van on Flickr. Dang, wouldn’t want to take that thing off road. Nice wings though! By the way, is that a chihuahua in the front window? This definitely one-ups the Popemobile. (Via Matt H.)
‘skine.art. is a site dedicated to Moleskine lovers and their art.
[…] we encourage anyone and everyone to […] submit their artwork. There is no “good” or “bad” art, just Art.
There’s some good stuff on there. Like this. (Via Dan O.)
A Peek Inside the Popemobile - Newsweek
The popemobile isn’t its official name, because it doesn’t have one. In fact, Pope John Paul II pleaded with journalists to stop using the term in 2002 because he thought it sounded “undignified.” So it’s not surprising that a Vatican spokesman couldn’t say whether popemobile (small p) describes every car in the pontiff’s fleet or whether only the car in use by the pope is the Popemobile with a big p […]
I just like the name Popemobile for some reason. I can’t get it out of my head. I just keep saying it silently. Popemobile, Popemobile, Popemobile.
My professor continues to keep the compiler-theory zingers coming. Today, he rattled off another set that had me laughing quietly.
Fortran is structurally deficient. It’s really a shame that people use it.
Zing!
Algol is the father of all sensible languages we have today. And then, there’s C…
Bwa!
Hong Kong Handshake. White & Gold foil stamping on White Shiro 80, 1400gsm.
Oliver Munday business card and resume, printed on quarter roll paper. Very nice.
After a year of riding a fixed-gear without brakes, I decided to add a cheap front calliper and lever (AKA, a Chicken Switch) so I can have some additional stopping power during my impulsive kamikaze bombing runs down by the river. I figure if these guys use one, so should I. Here’s a few photos on Flickr.
I remember driving by this sign every day for a few years on the corner of North Penn and West Broadway in North Minneapolis: Love Thy Bro (cf. Mark 12:28-31).
Martial Arts Knockout. Nice tornado.
Created as a high-school class project with some friends, my cousin Alex Benson (the floppy-haired head-banger in red pantaloons), rips a stadium-worthy solo at 2:23 in their Paramore Music Video (Misery Business). How can you not love this?