Thursday

Make Your Own Art With Me

Hey Middlespace Cadet Corps! Let's play The Art Game. It's a real fun game and is not in any way a contest. No prizes. No Fizzy Lifting Drink or Everlasting Gobstoppers even. The prize is in the playing. Creation is its own reward.

Now you can play along with the Working From Home series just like Rickey Powell (Berkeley) did by taking your very own photo with America's Black Friend!

Rickey Powell did this one here - you can do one too!

Here's how you can play in five easy steps:
1. Click on the WFH/ABF array (below).

2. Select your scene image (select image, click "all sizes," click "download original.")
3. Make the image fill your screen somehow on your computer.*
4. Pose and create scenes then take photo.**
5. Send your full-size image to me.***
If I love your photo, I'll display it here at the Kingdom of Leisure World Wide Web site. If I don't, then I won't and we never had this conversation.

OF COARSE (sic) DOYE™ this is an elective assignment (it for fun!). The dance clips request for Middlespace of America video #6 was requirement. If you haven't submitted your dance clips, you may fail this term.

Get your friends and family and do this thing!

-------------------------------
* Don't ask me for "technical support" please, because I don't work for IT.
** Use the timer, OF COARSE (sic) DOYE™.
*** Send it to my Gmail® address or if you don't know it, sent to: ty[at]middlespace[dot]net

I Have A Cold

...might take a day off Friday and put this cold to pasture.

As Intended

[Viney slideshow]

Hip-Hop Barber Shop Mop

[clue]

Sometimes We Frighten Ourselves

[Working From Home set]

Wednesday

Patience Young Grasshopper

[landform]

Waiting

[Working From Home set]

Johnson Smith & Company

Here's Johnson Smith & Company's latest Catalogue of "goodies," from the turn of the last century. Middlespace Cadet, HSHS, sent the original source scans from an inherited family collection.
"Found in a box of the great-grandparents' books: Our Latest Catalog of Surprising Novelties, Puzzles, Tricks, Joke Goods, Useful Articles, Etc. - Johnson Smith and Company, Chicago, est. date 1900-1908 - within a box of Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, cookbooks, and other publications of the day."

- HSHS
Here's my question for the assembled: Since this stuff was the height of funny, interesting, and relevant a hundred years ago, how much of it still stands up? I know there will be PC concerns with some of the words and, by association with said words, some concerns with the attitudes. But stick with me and do the time machine thing. This is great-great grandparent territory.

What's still funny, interesting, or relevant? Remember, no frontin'!

[clicky below for biggie, OF COARSE (sic) DOYE™]












Monday

A Call For Responsibility

photo by LilyDC

We all caught Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show closing act/goodbye thingy last Friday. Good stuff, right? That and the Freebird jam, extended version fea. Will Ferrell, Ben Harper, the Rev. Billy Gibbons, Beck, and Conan himself. right? That was dope. Great show. Gracious end.

Here's what I took away from the poignant talk.
"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get.

But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."
I suppose when intelligence, pragmatism, and a world's weight of personal insecurity closes in on a person, the result can often be snarky. And if there is an audience, this bitter venom can sting targets. But the hurt can not only be target-centric, but the shooter can be indelibly soiled as well.

I know. I have soiled myself in such a manner. I have been cynical in the past myself. Cynical, mean, bitter, harsh, and a self-described jerk. I know this too. But I don't like it. At least, not anymore.

What purpose does cynicism serve? To somehow prove a perceived superiority? Too out-do, to feel better? Or worse, is your cynicism used put someone else down? So why the show? Why the assholery? Why the 'tude, dude?

Good questions and even better observations. Coco's right, people. Why bother with the mean when the more difficult thing would be to work toward mastering being nice. We are not here to do the easy things. We should not be here to do easy things.

"...but if you work work really hard...." Know what? I'm a believer. Not saying I'm somehow magically converted or that I won't ever again be cynical or snarky or mean--after all I'm still me, right?--but I can "work really hard" at not letting the jerk take over.

In face, Conan presented quite the remarkable and simple checklist:
  • Work really hard
  • Don't be cynical
  • Be nice
Shit, that could serve as the foundation for a religion: Cocoism. I, for one, do not believe in the worst of human nature and motive. I question motives, but it's not my default setting to believe people to be bad (people are not necessarily smart, but...). Again, I am not as much converted as I am reminded what I believe.

I have known many people to be kind, loyal, and selfless without motive, game, or requirement for reciprocation. I have, myself, been kind, loyal, and selfless without motive, game, or requirement for reciprocation. So, there.

So...doy, let's do this shit. Work really hard (harder). Don't be cynical (quit frontin'). Be nice.

Do me a favor, will ya'? When I am being snarky, call me out. If I come across as cynical, let me know. But remember there's a difference between funny and snarky; funny and cynical. I'm still going to say funny shit because I believe most things are funny.

But we have a responsibility to call each other out on the bullshit though. Deal?

Friday

Middlespace of America Video Assignment #6 - UPDATE 1

Cadets. It is Middlespace of America video submission assignment time.

We are ready to work Track #6 (the first track on the hunted side). For this round we are hunting for:

DANCING!

Ideally you will do the dancing, but I'll take other people dancing. I need dancing. Yes, do a :30 second dance. Not a slow dance but a fast dance (~135-160 bpm). Dance with other people. Seniors dancing? Adults dancing? Groups dancing? Sure. But mostly I need for you to interpret "dancing" in your own very special way. Bonus: [clicky]

---------- UPDATE 1 BEGIN ----------

You may use this track as timing sketch for your dancing: [clicky for "Track Seven" from tKoL's 2005 album Take The Branches From The Trees]

---------- UPDATE 1 END ----------

Send quality footage because the bar is rising. Don't send your archival vids, send new footage.

If you know my gmail, send it there. If you don't send it to:

ty[at]middlespace[dot]net

Go, Cadets, go!

Where We Stand Today

So here we are, Cadets. Again. It seems we're always at a precipice of some sort in this life. Like Roseanne Roseannadanna always said, "It's always something." Am I right brothers and sisters? If I am the righteous let me hear you say, "Amen!" [congregation says, "Amen!"]

I know people are distracted and scattered. There's a lot going on in these modern times. Just this week there was some yankee election somewhere that people got all crybaby over. Some Brown guy won. I guess the browns are on a roll of sorts. Can I hear an amen for Barack and all the browns?! [congregation says, "Amen!"]

I understand that the pressure released in a tectonic fault in the Caribbean ocean; bad stuff made worse from what I hear. But the PC do-gooders all over America are--right now--collecting winter coats and battery-powered toys for the dirt-poor of New Orleans (at least for another two days). I can hear it. I hear it clearly in my ears. I hear "We Are The World" in my ears brothers and sisters! [congregation says, "Amen!"]

Also, I heard that the Supreme Court of America opened the spigots for a bunch of future political "Attack Advertising" on TeeVee and in mailings that I'm not going to pay any attention to that goodness for TiVo. So what, who's influenced by a damn ad anymore? Ain't we given up on that method of influence yet? Who does that even work on, people? Who is that ignorant?! [congregation says, "Amen!"]

And the topper of all toppers of ALL TOPPERS of Important News of America in this year of our lord: Jay Leno vs. Conan O'Brien; a nation taking sides like red states and blue states, like Verizon and AT&T, like Apple and PC, Coke/Pepsi, Starbucks/KFC, Toyota/Mattel. CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG?! AMEN! CAN'T WE GET ALONG LIKE BROTHA RODNEY SAID?! [congregation says, "Amen!"]

Anyway, enough of that tiresome, worldly propaganda ruining our precious minds and spirits. Let us now talk about what's on MY mind and in my spirit because that's why we are here. Can I get an, "Amen" brothers and sisters? [congregation says, "Amen!"] Can I get an "Amen" people? [congregation shouts, "Amen!"]

And damn if it's not another three-day damn weekend for your hard-working good-reverend. Two weeks in a row, brothers and sisters. Don't get me wrong because I love my family and my friends but I'm getting no long-term traction on my very important arty projects with all the short weeks and secular physician visits and auto-mobile main-ten-ance. Hell, people, I still have to schedule the MRI for my wrist that my insurance is paying for and take my car in for warranty repairs. I mean what good is a four-year warranty if stuff actually breaks?

Here are some million dollar ideas that just came to me: Can't they come pick the cars up and leave a rental and return my car clean, repaired, and seats warm so I don't have to? I mean what is this world coming to, Cadets? Speaking of which, how come there's not a mobile MRI van or some shit to come do some magnetic resonance imaging at my house and leave me alone? That would rock like Spock (Nanu-nanu). [congregation says, "Amen!" a woman faints]

So much to do but this weather's too bad for some of the outside stuff I wanted to do. The doctors asking me if I get outside because I have no vitamin D stores. Now I'm on prescription vitamin D that my insurance paid for. It's raining, people! There is no outside. I'm stuck inside, so you're stuck with this arty nonsense. I mean if I had some time, space, and money (and talent and ambition) I would be rich and famous! So rich and famous I'd do nothing but sit around and do arty projects for my own amusement and weird pathological desires. It ain't easy being me brothers and sisters. Bring on the spring. Bring on the spring and the global warming. It's only 34º outside. Can I get an "Amen?" [congregation says, "Amen!"]

So much in progress. So much ahead. So many people now involved. Amen! [congregation says, "Amen!"] Amen! [congregation says, "Amen!" the choir sings and plays tambourines]

On the Homie Father side of the shop I still have to write about play dates, goody bags, and participant trophies. I could go on and on and on. Maybe I'll merge all that into one post. I mean, what is a Play Date? Is it like a pretend or practice date? I could have used some practice dating in my younger days, amen! [congregation says, "Amen!"] Goody (or "goodie") bags? Jesus, people. It's now ultra-competitive. I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of years a so-called goody bag wasn't simply a plastic bag filled with a fistful of $20 bills (y'all) and a note that says, "top this, bitches!" And the worst of all time: participant trophies. Hurray I got 27th place out of 25 participants so we're all winners! Why is Emily so disappointed with a B-minus? Why is she so upset? I'm looking at the deacons for an amen, y'all. [congregation says, "Amen!"]

It ain't easy, people. IT AIN'T EASY! [congregation says, "Amen!"] YOU BE ME IF YOU THINK IT'S SO GOD-DAMN EASY! [congregation shouts, "Amen!"]

I have a backlog of huge and incredible projects pending omens and cosmos and starting guns. It. Ain't. Easy. Amen! [congregation shouts, "Amen!"]. You make videos. You discover America. You take the photos. It ain't easy.

America is waiting for us. But we don't wait for America. We are America. We are the world!

Bless. What?! [congregation shouts, "Amen!" people speak in tongues and bring out snakes]

Rejoice, people, rejoice.