October 2006 +x

Happy Halloween


Came home to find this across from me in my darkened living room. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it actually sort of scared me a little, as it was late, dark, and I wasn't expecting an evil glowing pumpkin in my apartment.

October 31, 2006 at 7:41 AM | TrackBack

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October 31, 2006 at 12:22 AM | TrackBack

All alone.

According to How Many of Me, there are 0 people named Starlen Rosencrans in the country. I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm pretty sure that's not entirely correct.

That said, the service lists 0 people named Starlen in the country. I once worked at a place where I had the ability to check names (only names - no numbers were ever displayed) against the social security database, and exactly 6 Starlens came up as having had SSNs since the inception of Social Security. Two of them were me; one was the guy I was named after. That leaves three other Starlens floating out their somewhere.

Back to How Many of Me, though, I find a little more luck with Star Rosencrans, rather than Starlen. No other Star Rosencranses, but there are apparently 4500 (how's that for a round number!) people in the US with the first name Star, and 630 people with the last name Rosencrans. That makes Rosencrans rarer than I would have expected, though there are 1110 Rosecranses out there, which is supposed to be my grandfather's birth surname.

How does your name fare? Alan Berliner invited 12 other Alan Berliners to join him for dinner, and made a movie about it. This would probably be much more difficult for my friend Matthew Smith, if he were interested in inviting all 9,943 of his fellow Matthew Smiths.

Oh, and of those 4,500 Stars? "More than 99.9 percent" are girls. Sigh.

October 30, 2006 at 7:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

French Toast

I don't know about you, but I like my french toast crispy. What's wet french toast all about, anyway? Gross.

October 30, 2006 at 7:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

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October 25, 2006 at 1:23 AM | TrackBack

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October 14, 2006 at 1:23 AM | TrackBack

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October 13, 2006 at 1:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

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October 12, 2006 at 1:22 AM | TrackBack

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October 11, 2006 at 1:21 AM | TrackBack

Chiru!

I've just learned of Chiru, a fantastic Telugu actor, also known as Chiranjeevi, or Konidela Siva Snara Vara Prasad. He apparently founded the Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust for Eye and Blood Donations. According to Wikipedia, he's also won four Nandi Awards and seven Southern Filmfare awards for Best Actor.

But that's not important. What is important, though, is this trio of videos on YouTube, posted in approximate order of excellence. Chiru, it seems, really likes Michael Jackson. And Axel Foley. And Boogaloo Shrimp. And cowboys. Which makes him pretty awesome in my book.

If you watch only one, watch this, Chiru's take on Michael Jackson's Thriller. They appear to have roughly grabbed scenes from Thriller and done away completely with the storyline of the original video. The song is way more kick-ass than Thriller, though - check the crazy synth-line, and the addictive Goli Mar! refrain. Also, note how hard Chiru works to keep the fangs in the beginning as he opens his mouth:

Here, Chiru sings something to the tune of Beverly Hills Cop and threatens to put you in a "Rock Trance." Also, he's dressed straight-up Breakin' style:

And finally, here's his Smooth Cowboy:

October 10, 2006 at 9:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

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October 10, 2006 at 1:24 AM | TrackBack

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October 9, 2006 at 1:20 AM | TrackBack

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October 7, 2006 at 1:23 AM | TrackBack

The Rose Bowl Biennale

Following up on the Bronco Swap Meet Biennale from earlier this year, Clancco and Outpost for Contemporary Art have joined forces, Voltron-style, to put together The 2006 Rose Bowl Flea Market Biennale, of which I'm honored to be a participant.

It's this Sunday, and there's a whole slew of super-talented people involved. As with last time, I feel I've snuck in and am waiting for someone to kick me out. The full list of artists:

Sky Burchard, Star Rosencrans, Aganetha S. Dyck, Douglas Melini, Ami Brett, Charles Gaines, Andrew Reyes, Channing Hansen, Chris Sollars, Collin Zipp, Christiane Robbins, Dani Tull, David Bunn, Dorit Cypis, Emma J. Bloomfield, Edith Abeyta, Fritz Haeg, Theresia Rosa Kleeman, Adrian Rivas, Gina Osterloh, Paul Robles, neuroTransmitter (Angel Nevarez + Valerie Tavere), Juana Menses, Julian Hoeber, Julie Lequin, Kathryn Van Dyke, Kika Thorne, Kim Schoen, Linda Pollock, Marc Fischer, Paul Druecke, Peter Cole, Renato Garza Cerver, Rebecca Morris, Robert Larkin, Annie Shaw, Shannon Spanhake, Marcy Freedman, Tim Hyde, Tom Lawson, Stephen Prina, Will Rogan, Eric Magnuson, Don Jamón, Javier Piñon, Jim Schatz, Mary Beth Heffernan, Cooper Griggs, Erik Bakke, Christine Wuermell, Kim Schoen, Phil Chang

Hoo boy, that's a list. There's also a really fascinating debate/friendly discussion occurring over in the comments on the Clancco site, between Sergio Munoz-Sarmiento and Dorit Cypis, one of the participating artists. What starts out as a few questions about the point of the Biennale ends up evolving into a discussion about the relevance of contemporary art in general. It remains a perpetually unfinished debate, but the hashing out in the meantime is pretty interesting.

In any event, it should be interesting to see how this turns out - there's quite a different audience at the Rose Bowl Flea Market, especially given its proximity to Los Angeles and its art collectors, than at the El Paso Bronco Swap Meet.

If you're in the area, I'd highly recommend you check it out and pick some stuff up.

October 6, 2006 at 12:02 AM | TrackBack