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CHILDHOOD BRAIN MODIFICATION: Do This Now

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 05:38:32 -0800

//Activities for the ADHD Inner Child// Wow. This is far, far better than Life's Little Instruction Book, or even Life's Little DEstruction Book. Remember being a kid and spinning in circles just so you could watch the world continue to spin after you suddenly stopped? How about pressing on your eyeballs to make blobs of coloured light inside your eyelids, experiementing with different kinds of foot shuffling and shoes to deliver the perfect ZAP, or staring at the texture of a rough plastered ceiling until it started crawling and undulating with shapes? (Okay, I'll admit, I still do a lot of these things as an 'adult'). This collection of techniques for experiencing sensory alteration, collected by the author and submitted by readers, will doubtless give your childhood memories a jolt ("I thought only I did that!") and even teach you some new tricks. You may never be bored again. ~W

Modern Living / Neurotica series

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:58 -0800

//Mommas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Flash Animators...// Ow, my brain. Some things should come with warning labels. Cigarettes aren't one of them: they're bad. We know. Fuck off. But the unsuspecting Stumbler could be rendered staring and drooling in morbid fascination for hours by this site, and such things might be frowned upon by one's employer... *eyeshift* Not... that I'd know. ~W

http://Wysdom.stumbleupon.com/review/792154/

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 08:35:40 -0800

Death of a Journalist
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4507666 A lot of people only know Thompson from the movie adaptation of his best-known work: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. There are a great many people who dislike his `glorification' of drugs, hedonism and depravity. There are a great many younger people, or people with younger mindsets, who revere him for the same reason. In my opinion, they're both wrong... They couldn't be /more/ wrong.

By the time Thompson wrote `Fear & Loathing', the 1960s (that era wherein so many were poised to usher in the Age of Aquarius) had passed away: Somehow the powerful sense of right, the shared ideals that drove the peace protests, the sit-ins, the love-ins, the explosive Renaissance of art and music... was just /gone/. How and when it was lost, Thompson doesn't claim to know...

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era - -the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.

"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.

"And that, I think, was the handle - -that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - -on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - -the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

Many look back on the 60s with bemused tolerance of the peaceniks and hippies who were so very na�ve. Some claim history has been re-written once more, hopelessly romanticized: the era was nothing more than well-publicized adolescent rebellion; the numbers were primarily due to the lure of illicit drugs and free love. There was no `movement'; there /was/ no crusade.

But, then again, there are lots of people who claim history is wrong--those pesky holocaust revisionists, for example--so who's to say?

"History is hard to know because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that, every now and then, the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened."

Fear & Loathing is not a glorification of a reckless, self-destructive lifestyle: it's an epitaph for a time when the world /could/ have changed. /Should/ have changed. It is Thompson's inside coverage of the painfully bewildered few who were left behind when the world moved on. Unflinching and unapologetic, he is a journalist even in relating this `semi fictional' and lurid tale: he does not glorify, he does not condemn. He reports his experience and if, in reading his report, we are horrified, it is because what he experienced was horrible. He leaves the value judgments to us--the corporate-owned, politically-cowed talking heads we call reporters today could stand to learn from him.

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas is sub-titled "A Savage Journey Into the Heart of the American Dream". Recently, we lost another brave and brilliant voice known for mourning the American Dream--Arthur Miller saw how the American Dream had slipped away from the generation before, poignantly rendered in Death of a Salesman. Hunter S. Thompson and Willie Lowman are unexpected kindred spirits: lost somewhere in between the World That Was and the World That Is. They see the world changing and are unwilling, or unable, to change with it... So they leave it on their own terms, the only way they know how.

Thompson's unique, invaluable candor is widely misunderstood and misrepresented. I hope those of you who've read him, watched the Johnny Depp film adaptation of Fear & Loathing, or simply formed an opinion based on third=party reviews will heed /this/ third-party review and take a look at the legacy of his work with fresh eyes.

~W

http://www.dirtcheapmusic.org/

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 07:06:46 -0800

//Lo-Fi, Indie, Demented and (best of all) Brilliant Artists You've Never Heard Of//: Ever heard that nothing good in life is free, or some shite like that? Bullpuckies! And Dirt Cheap (read: free) Music proves it. Highly recommended: Fishboy Rex (fave tracks: Hot as Balls in Here; Flight of the Chicken Shit; Jose; Moscow, Idaho). Puerco (fave tracks: Just about anything off 'Ducky'... Piss, Fuck, Rock!; Pilot Light; and fans of Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' series will especially appreciate 'Purple Eve'). Dirtcheapmusic.org is the petri dish in which the musical genius of tomorrow is being moulded. ~W

SP*C**L DFCTS

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 06:18:30 -0800

Very creative and original set of digital (flash? skockwave? I confess my ignorance) artworks. I liked the engaging, moody and unexpected imagery--however, I was disappointed that after a handful of click I seemed to have cycled through the entirety of the offerings. The site is absolutely worth a visit, however, and gets a thumbs up for being intruiging and effective enough to leave me wanting more. ~W

Silver-Surfers favorite websites - StumbleUpon

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 08:27:42 -0800

Zany. Brainy. What more can you ask for, really, than the value judgments of an interstellar being in a zipperless, silver neuter-suit? Don't answer that. Just... back away from the pudding. Two thumbs way up (or would be two, if the miserly so-and-sos would let me, but noooooo... ONE thumb. Up or down. MY FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION HAS BEEN AMPUTATED!). *ahem* Anyhow, my compliments, 'Surfer! I'm off to correct my low blood sugar.

Rock, Paper, Saddam!

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 07:34:45 -0800

//Oh, Those Zany Fascists// It's puerile. Juvenile. It's downright wrong. *hee hee* I loved it. Thumbs up! ~W

explodingdog 2009

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 07:34:31 -0800

//Boy Meets Wacom Tablet// I discovered this site waaaay back in 2000 and it's just never gotten old. I'm constnatly referring back to it for the much needed grin, giggle and moment of Zen. The premise: Sam Brown--wry, wise and whimsical--solicits the odd bit of phrase and quotation from his audience. Some of these submissions inspire Sam to create a picture. The resulting art is seldom what you'd expect and often so perfect you'll wonder how you could have expected anything else. Some examples: "The boy ain't right..." http://www.explodingdog.com/november15/boyaint.html // "I don't understand my job" http://www.explodingdog.com/feb26/thisjob.html // "We had a stupid fight" http://www.explodingdog.com/feb26/stupidfight.html ... explodingdog.com gets a very affectionate and enthusiastic thumbs up! ~W

abandoned places

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 14:26:49 -0800

//Finding Beauty// ...in places the world has ceased to look. From the site: "This power plant has ceased operation around 1997. It's part of a huge, well guarded complex... you won't be able to get in without permission. Some parts are particularly dangerous since pieces of concrete fall down from the roof. But it's worth the risk : inside you find the perfect mix of 3 years of decay and the rough beauty of the machinery that patiently awaits the verdict to come..." Part poetic narrative, part gorgeous b&w photos--stark, chilly places where people no longer go. Graphics intensive, of course, but also runs from a flash-driven "Photo Wheel" menu--if you're still dialing up to reach the 'Net, your machine might not be able to hack it. ~W

Extreme Instability

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 13:22:11 -0800

//I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore// Ow. I had to say that because of the animated gif headline on the front page. There, I've said it. Now: NEATO!!! Some of the most /gorgeous/ pictures I have /ever/ seen of storms, tornadoes and other weather phenomenon... With the commentary of Mr. Hollingshead combined with this spectacular photography, I entirely forgot myself--transported the way a good book will transport you. The next best thing to being there... uhm... because being there would be scary. o.o ~W