The Space Toast Pages

Matthew Rasmussen's "journal of journals" on various topics of interest, published here, there or somewhere since 1999.

Retired Addiction

Cotorich. I have no idea who she is or what she's saying, but I can't look away.

And just to round out our week of Japanese WTF...

I can find no artist or provenance for this image, but I find it brilliantly twisted:

And as a chaser, a pretty girl in a bikini, playing a violin. Quite well in fact:

Softball Sketch

I'm in the "husbands' box" with a few other tired-looking guys, working late on my laptop. The game is about halfway through. We have a vulnerable lead. It's beginning to rain. She'll be muddy, cold and irritable when she gets off the field. I expect she'll want to go straight home instead of soaking in the clubhouse. I happen to be looking up vaguely as Fukuyama #43 sends a line drive past the first baseman. My wife scoops it up, pops it back to first and ends the inning. I take a sip from my can of tea, feeling like a good husband.

"Nine for twelve? That's a pretty good season!" The little girl nods shyly under her baseball cap, clutching an autographed notebook page. Local celebrity means something here. She's an obvious pro, bobbing her head and grinning like a tv idol as she fills the girl's head with league softball dreams. My wife's plan is to become a history teacher when she retires from the league, preferably at a lower secondary (middle) school. I suspect she just wants to do it so she can coach a girls' team. She'd be good at it. The late evenings away from home will continue long past her softball career, but at least she'll be able to ditch that haircut.

We've made dinner, eaten, and worked down through a bottle of sake, chatting quietly on the floor. Her face is bright red. Is that what I'm laughing about? I don't remember. Everything is good. We roll around on the carpet giggling. Soon we're making love. She's giving me the baby eyes. This is why I came here. Sometimes it all makes sense. She's out by the time I put her to bed. I get her a glass of water, and down one myself. She snuggles against my hand as I lay down beside her, breathing hard in her sleep.

"What is the MATTER WITH YOU!?" she yells in Japanese, tears streaming down her face. I don't understand this mood. She calls me stupid, shit, foreign. Hard little fists smash like fireworks against my chest and arms. She's much too fast to block. All I can do is force myself closer and take the windup out of her punches until she cries herself down. It won't take long. Domestic violence only became a crime here in 1997. I'll be sore tomorrow. She'll be distant tonight, then overly upbeat, and probably do something for me. This is deeper than me being boneheaded, and not a real couple's fight. It just happens, once or twice a year. All I know is that her life is an elaborate comedy of manners that I'm too dense to understand, and sometimes it's too much for her.

It's the annual Husbands Game -- actually a mishmash of husbands, boyfriends, and more than a few dads. (The qualifications are flexible.) We're humiliating ourselves as usual along with the equally hopeless men from Himeji, but it's all for a good cause. Mishina's dad just huffed and puffed his way to a base hit. The local diehard fans are Queen stomping. Hyuuga's boyfriend played college ball and he's up after me. If I can get at least a single, we might do okay. I spot my wife in the stands and trip over a bat, to more cheers from the crowd. She does an elaborate, Kabuki-grade facepalm.

When we met, I bought her a drink, not knowing that I probably shouldn't do that when she was out bonding with her team. We dated for about a week. I remember feeling that I'd hit a wall in getting to know her. I might have called it off. Then everything went wrong. It was the year her team failed to reach the Championships, for the first time since 1995. People were going to be fired. She was taking it hard. She needed company, couldn't maintain a face. Two fans had committed suicide. It was the worst day of her life. She called me a little before midnight, and poured her heart out in the back of a steakhouse.

We're home. Practice was cancelled. It's a Tuesday evening. We're on the lawn playing catch in the fading light. Her throws are perfect, flat and quick. I lob it back to her. The phrase "speaking with silence" comes to mind, one I've never understood. She watches me instead of the ball. Her eyes are smiling. There's a weird tranquility to the moment. The lull of the neighbors' kids bubbles over the hedges. My wife looks content.

(This is basically the same exercise as "Wives" from 2004.)

Retired Addiction

"The Boosh"

I've never heard comedy with quite this pace. And the music is oddly good too.

Let America be America Again

by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was one of the greatest American writers of the Harlem Renaissance. This poem was posted today on 3 Quarks Daily in honor of this historic day. I wished to reproduce it in full, as it sums up a number of my more Danish feelings this morning.

For the benefit of the archive, Barack Obama was last night declared President Elect. Democrats have taken simple majorities in the House and Senate. Here in California, a parental notification law for pregnancy termination by minors has failed, but Proposition 8 -- which I volunteered in opposition to -- has passed, revoking the right of same-sex couples to wed. Similar measures have passed in Florida and Arizona. While it may be arguable that the Republican Party is in shambles this morning, with it's largest national figures now tied either to the losing Presidential ticket or the historically unpopular Presidential administration, immense burdens lie ahead for all Americans in the arenas of financial restructuring, job creation, universal health care, climate change, the national debt, and human rights. The mistake of the progressive movement of the late 1960s-early 1970s was believing that they had won simply by showing up, their neglect leading inexorably to the Neoconservative revolution of 1980 which continues to defy responsibility on all of the above issues. May we not fail again.

Please Note: New Phone Number

New state. New home. New number. (New life? Hope so.)

Matt Rasmussen: 818.731.8074.

Updated vCard

Raq-o-lantern

I did some carving this evening. Raccoon, or monster? You decide. Click for bigger.

Happy Halloween, from Matt (and Raq).

Marvel Meets Peanuts

Yes, humanity has hope. Many more here: http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=10151

You Give Me Your Lunch Break, and I'll Explain the Global Financial Crisis

Four videos. This won't hurt much.

First up, American Public Media's Paddy Hirsch deploys the Antarctic Expedition metaphor:

Second and third, Max Keiser -- financial activist and former Wall Street wunderkund -- explains the bankrupting of Iceland. Presciently, this was made in August 2007, when the global markets were still flying high:

And finally, John Fortune and John Bird explain how it all goes off:

So Sick of T-Mobile

The T-Mobile call centers seem to have been fobbed a new policy requiring everyone to be more chatty, informal and energetic. Much, MUCH more chatty, informal, and energetic.

This is even more irritating than it sounds. We're not at a party. I'm not trying to hook up with you. I don't even know how cool the handset is, because I don't have it yet. That's why I'm calling.

Rewind. I ordered a new phone for $18 at the end of September and signed up for two more years of service. Note that the phone was "free," except for an $18 fee, which wouldn't have been incurred by simply using my current phone for two more years. We, as a society, are drowning in bullshit.

I checked UPS.com last week to find out why the phone hadn't arrived yet. They had no information about the order, so I called T-Mobile again. The ridiculously chatty, informal and energetic representative informed me that it hadn't shipped yet, but would the next day. I verified that it was coming to my new address in LA, not my old address in Boston, thanked the representative and hung up.

Fast-forward to last night. On a whim, I checked UPS.com again for the shipping status. The phone was in Chelmsford, MA, and scheduled to be delivered today. I called T-Mobile back.

Chatty, informal and energetic Esther told me that the phone was back-ordered. No, it's aready been shipped, I told her, and gave her the tracking number. She verified that as true, and finally gave me a number to call -- which I realize now she must have gotten by Googling the UPS Store in Cambridge, MA. I was told to call and cancel the delivery. Once the phone got back to T-Mobile (whenever the hell THAT might be), they would reprocess the order and send it out to me in LA. I called the number, got a machine, and left a message.

I checked UPS.com this morning. The phone has been delivered. To my old address, on the beautiful North Atlantic.

I'm about to call T-Mobile for round three.

The Man With the Pointy Hat

"In the current storyline, there's a lot that I don't agree with, and I made this very clear to everybody within shouting distance . . . As an executive producer as well as a writer, I've sometimes had to insist that my writers make changes that they did not want to make, often loudly so. They were sure I was wrong. Mostly I was right. Sometimes I was wrong. But whoever sits in the editor's chair, or the executive producer's chair, wears the pointy hat of authority, and as Dave Sim once noted, you can't argue with a pointy hat.

"So at the end of the day, all one can do is try to do the best one can with the notes one is given, and try to execute them in a professional way -- because who knows, the other guy may be right . . . ."

-- J. Michael Straczynski

We Heart Superman: Episode 105: The Krankorbatch Switcheroo!

A strange physics experiment leads to stranger chemistry!

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"We Heart Superman: The Krankorbatch Switcheroo!" (MP3 format, 24MB)

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-- Credit, Swag, Love --

"We Heart Superman: The Krankorbatch Switcheroo!" Written and produced by Matt Rasmussen. Directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Christian Sterling, Gina Robbins, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Debbie Chiang, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force and Adam Stugatch. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!

Rockland Lighthouse

The Friends of the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse in Rockland, ME have done some wonderful work renovating the interior. The tower roof is now open to the public. I talked my mother into a walk out to it this Sunday.

Click for larger photos:

Retired Addiction

The Stadium Techno Experience by Scooter

Explained below.

2:35

"And sometimes there's no one there. And there isn't going to be." -- Michael Ventura, Shadow-Dancing in the U.S.A.

Wall-E is the perfect expression of what it's like to meet a modern woman. She's sophisticated, sleek, brilliant, beautiful, focused -- and something of a pyro. You're a bit clever perhaps, but otherwise the only thing to recommend you is that you've somehow managed to survive this long.

Retired Addiction

Portishead's Third

The best thing said about this hasn't been said by me: This is how dangerous trip-hop must have sounded before it became car ad music.

Scooter Unapologized

Scooter is a big, dumb arena rock act -- but since they're German they do techno. They're as brainlessly self-aggrandizing, self-referential and self-conscious as Kidd Rock, Monster Magnet or club hiphop.

Download the uncensored video for "Weekend," and you'll start to get it. The director's concept seems to have been "Alexander the Great." It's become a mini-addiction for me. Lead singer H. P. Baxxter rides in cape and armor with three sometimes topless multiethnic dancing girls upon a boat carried by a sea of Buddhist monks. Warriors and dancers appear in fast cuts on a dry nighttime plane, the frames shooting psychotically from the beautiful (three girls making out in the snow) to the disturbing (passable CGI replacements of Baxxter's head onto a line of boys). A striking Hindu dancer crawls toward Ganesha -- the height of my guilty pleasures. Baxxter's face morphs awkwardly out of a man's back to kill the fun. There's a maybe virgin Mary in heavier eye makeup than Filter's "Take A Picture" mermaid. Nothing is held up long enough for rational thought. It's a wonderfully terrifying thing.

You're not supposed to feel good about listening to this music. The clever flourishes don't make it okay. The dozen platinum albums don't either. Forcing you to admit that there's some flaw in you that enjoys the music is Scooter's only redeeming characteristic.

We Heart Superman: Episode 104: The Cannabis Conundrum!

What madness lies ahead when Jimmy Oleson smokes weed?

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Click here to listen to episode 104:

"We Heart Superman: The Cannabis Conundrum!" (MP3 format, 24MB)

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Join our Facebook group, "We Heart Superman".

-- Credit, Swag, Love --

"We Heart Superman: The Cannabis Conundrum!" Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Honzer Chen, Gina Robbins, Dan Miller, Lindsay LeClair, Melissa McCue, Christian Sterling, Michelle Webster, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!

Greetings

I'd like to say a quick hey there to DIY fans from BoingBoing.net and ProQuo.com who are discovering the blog by way of my junk mail blinds article.

Here are a couple more junk mail tips for you:

• Pick up a traverse rod at your local hardware store and make verticle blinds with the same strips of junk mail. I now have one set of either in my bedroom.
• Lampshades. Try to use compact fluorescent bulbs -- they run cooler, and are better for the environment. (And contain only 1/100th the mercury of a household thermometer, so we'd best get over that please... Remember to recycle them, also at your neighborhood hardware store, too.)

Finally, I'll be moving to either LA or San Franciso at the end of September, based largely on whether either produces a good bite on a job. Please contact me by any of the means on the main page if you happen to have any leads for me. Shukriya!

We Heart Superman: Episode 103: Days of the Superpimp: Part II!

WHO is the Superpimp? And WHAT happened to last week!?

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"We Heart Superman: Days of the Superpimp: Part II!" (MP3 format, 17.9MB)

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Join our Facebook group, "We Heart Superman".

-- Credit, Swag, Love --

"We Heart Superman: Days of the Superpimp: Part II!" Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Honzer Chen, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Tessa Parmenter, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!

"Mr. Noonday"

(Fifty-five word flash fiction for EvilMustache's Challenger 3.)

"Imagine that. Sixteen different kinds of cheeses. That is simply astonishing."

"When... can I get rid of you?!"

Cult 2.0

Carey Burtt's sharp and funny short film has me thinking about cults again, and specifically Cult 2.0s. The "2.0" is an irritating neologism for an irritating fact: That new cults have learned from the excesses of old cults. They've seen that certain behaviors raise red flags, and they've learned that by tinkering around the edges they can gain the same rewards -- control and wealth -- without bringing the same organized backlash. Jim Jones is dead, but Reverend Moon is one of the most powerful men in America.

Necessary to understanding the Cult 2.0 is the rejection of the 70's-style language of victimization. Cult 2.0 members are no more "victims" than smokers. Both are addicted, both are progressively harmed, both could stop at any time (but rarely do), and both chose to begin.

Traditional cult members tend to be of above average intelligence -- as is vividly illustrated in the Jonestown Tape. At the outset they perceive at least some of the methods of psychological control, but they choose to believe that the positive aspects of the organization outweigh the negatives. They "cult into" these groups; they're not tricked.

The following are the common attributes of the traditional cult. (Credit to the late Perry DeAngelis.)

• Surrender to Authority
• Leaders defeat autonomy
• Environmental Control
• Carefully control daily schedule
• Leave no time to reconsider/criticize
• Totalism
• Us vs. Them Mentality
• Make members feel needed/wanted
• Loading the Language
• Jargon
• Common words given unique meanings
• Demand for Purity
• Purity defined by leadership
• Any sacrifice allowed for purity

Moving beyond DeAngelis, I point out that this is a hierarchical list. The Surrender to Authority requires Environmental Control which supports Totalism which begets Loading the Language which supports the Demand for Purity. The Cult 2.0 merely accomplishes the above with soft power. It's the paper difference between slavery and sharecropping.

In a Cult 2.0 they don't control your life, but they sure always need you to do something or other for them, at all hours. They don't tell you to stop talking to your friends and family, they just don't give you the time. When your loved ones ask what you do now, it's hard to explain it all without using that new terminology. Most people wouldn't understand anyway, right? The Cult 2.0 doesn't tell you to give them all your money, but if you paid for this training retreat and the next you'd sure start to make progress, and be able to help your local outlet move forward. You want to do better, don't you? Keep that enthusiasm up. We're changing the world. And it's easy.

Cult 2.0s are the antibiotic-resistant germs of the cult world, reshuffling their features to deliver the same payload. Scientology's Narcanon and "Free Personality Test" tent are easy to spot front groups, but the for-profit Dahn Yoga corporation (Dahn Hak) is a front for nothing but itself. Cult 2.0s don't kill people; they just leave them broke, broken, ashamed, lonely, and knowing that nothing has been done to them that they haven't done to themselves.

Retired Addiction

Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise and Fall of the WB and UPN

And a reminder that Massive Attack's Mezzanine album should have been listed as a Current Addiction as well.

Feasibility of a CGI Comic Book

All I've seen are a few pages of Red Star with CGI used for hardcore mechanical illustration, but the Man says such things exist.

The first problem is character design.

In illustration, the basic unit is the line. Lines suggest shapes and masses, but they can be manipulated -- always -- to suit their own aesthetic purpose. Notice the difference between real hand-drawn animation and the stiffness of toon shaded CGI. Toon shading is cute, but it's nostalgia. If you want to draw, learn to draw.

In illustration, lines are easy, shading is hard; in computer graphics, it's exactly the opposite. Learn to light, and the software takes care of shading. Edges -- lines -- are a byproduct. Models are models. You don't draw in 3D: you sculpt. You build.

The basic unit of CGI characters is the mass, and that's where you need to go to get personality. Character design in CGI is more than trying to fudge an illustration to life in 3D. What's on what, near what, across what? How does it fit together? Solve those questions or you'll never get beyond flat, lifeless Poser-porn.

And that's only the first problem.

We Heart Superman: Episode 102: Panic at the Pelvis!

A new Wonder arrives in Metropolis -- and Lois is livid!

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Click here to listen to episode 102:

"We Heart Superman: Panic at the Pelvis!" (MP3 format, 16.8MB)

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-- Friend --

Visit our MySpace page at MySpace.com/WeHeartSuperman.

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-- Credit, Swag, Love --

"We Heart Superman: Panic at the Pelvis!" Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Tessa Parmenter, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!

Retired Addiction

Theatre of Tragedy's "Storm" album

I've been hitting Massive Attack's Mezzanine pretty hard lately too, but was too lazy to give it its own Current Addiction.

We Heart Superman: Now Podcast-Ready!

With voices for episode 102 still warm in the can from last night's recording session, we are proud to announce our podcast feed. To subscribe to We Heart Superman, point your favorite podcast program to:

http://www.spacetoast.net/STP/podcasts/superman/podcast.xml

To subscribe via iTunes:

1. Copy the address above
2. Go to iTunes
3. Go to the Advanced menu and select Subscribe to Podcast
4. Paste the address and hit OK

iTunes will now download episode 101, and all new episodes as soon as they're released. Happy podcasting!

We Heart Superman: Episode 101: Crisis of the Pink Kryptonite!

Click here to listen to episode 101:
"We Heart Superman: Crisis of the Pink Kryptonite!" (MP3 format, 16.8MB)

Visit our MySpace page at MySpace.com/WeHeartSuperman.

"We Heart Superman: Crisis of the Pink Kryptonite!" Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Joe Tringali, Mike Devine, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Michelle Webster, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar and Matt Cohn. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thanks for listening!

We Heart Superman: Production Diary V

I didn't expect it to go anywhere as a project, but I liked what I'd written so I showed it to a few friends. I thought it would be fun to see it animated, but again I had no idea where to start. My friend Dan Miller suggested that I turn the script into a comic, but I didn't think I could do the art justice, nor did I know anyone willing to draw it for free. (I also didn't know if the jokes would translate.)

Enter Matt Rasmussen.

Matt had been talking about doing a radio show for podcast for a while. Like me, he had ideas, but nothing had panned out. Shortly after showing my Pink Kryptonite script around, I received an e-mail from him with a file attached. It was my script, adapted for radio.

I loved the idea. Superman has a history in radio. It was radio where Kryptionite was first introduced! (Plus, there was an overwhelming sense of "we could actually get this done.")

Things got underway...

Stay tuned for "We Heart Superman!"

-Troy Minkowsky, Writer/Director

We Heart Superman: Production Diary IV

Pink Kryptonite was a throwaway gag.

Wikipedia reads:
From Supergirl (vol. 2) 79, an alternate timeline in a 2003 Supergirl storyline by Peter David, this bizarre variety of Kryptonite apparently turned heterosexual Kryptonians temporarily and stereotypically gay; it was seen in just one panel, with Superman giving flattering compliments to Jimmy Olsen about his wardrobe and decorative sense. It spoofs the more "innocent times" of the Silver Age (Lois Lane is depicted in this story as not understanding what's gotten into Superman).

I don't know why this sent my imagination soaring. I blame my day job and the free time it gives me to think of trivial things.

I decided to tell a story of pink kryptonite, and make it work. I was more interested in what Superman would go through contemplating the change than what he would actually do as a homosexual. Being a heterosexual, I couldn't comment on being homosexual -- but I could comment on homophobia.

If you've ever been a highschool male who doesn't care about sports, you've had to deal with homophobia.

A HUGE influence on the writing was the Venture Brothers on Adult Swim. The show takes a bunch of pulp and comic book archetypes and makes them painfully human. I decided to take the same approach and make an "Adult Swim" version of Superman.

Instead of having Superman as a mythical, unknowable being (as I had in my first story) I had a Superman who was painfully human: trying to do good, but not always knowing what the right answer is.

Thus was "We Heart Superman" born.

-Troy Minkowsky, Writer/Director

We Heart Superman: Production Diary III

With dreams of becoming a comic book writer (something I've wanted to be, on and off, since I was twelve) I started work on my Superman epic. Without giving anything away (in case I do get a chance to work on it at some point) the project was very ambitious and time consuming -- even before I had committed anything to paper.

The problem was that I didn't even know where to begin, in terms of getting it published. I had been published once, in a college journal, and otherwise had only a trail of unfinished projects behind me. DC had to be the publisher since they had the rights to Superman. I couldn't shop my idea around.

I could have made up a superhero in place of Superman. A tribute -- or ripoff -- but it wouldn't have been the same. It had to be Superman.

So I set myself to the task of writing the damn thing just to get it out of my system. This was the seed of what would grow into "We Heart Superman."

-Troy Minkowsky, Writer/Director

We Heart Superman: Production Diary II

Growing up, I wasn't a Superman fan.

I hadn't yet gotten into comic books, and only knew of the TV series that played on Nick at Nite. I found Superman kind of boring. The show was in black and white. He only fought gangsters, never anyone on his level, and bullets just bounced off him, so he was never in any real danger. (Batman, on the other hand, was human, colorful, and fought crazy people.)

Even when I got into comics, for some reason I was more drawn to Spiderman and the Marvel universe. I'd pick up Batman once in a while, but Superman and the other DC characters held no interest for me. This was a time when Superman was killed, reborn, had long hair, and was turned blue and electric -- so jumping on was impossible unless you bought six titles a month.

As I got older, I became more interested in the myth of Superman, and how he had been portrayed differently in different eras. He was, after all, the model for all superheroes to follow. Superman has been deconstructed, pulled apart, dissected and analyzed. For a children's character, he's rather complex.

-Troy Minkowsky, Writer/Director

Windy City: "To A Skyfarer"

Previously posted is a poem for the third draft of my feature screenplay "Windy City." Draft two borrows from a song by VNV Nation, but I thought it best to write something of my own as a backup. Here are the lyrics as they appear in situ:

A gust carries some equipment away and tugs at the cable. There is a loud SNAP. The workman turns his lamp away from the locks, toward the cable and finds -- a slowly lengthening CRACK.

Ashur sleeps.

"To A Skyfarer"

..-. --- .-. .. .-. .- --

Morning clouds in disarray
Bright and cold, this is your day
Ten points off the rising sun
Tell me why I feel this way?
Tell me what you've been and done
Silhouette in solid space
Future's half-forgotten face

Stillness grudgingly withdrawn
Far off engines mutter dawn
Slow to wake and slow to thaw
You'd become my paragon
Hope that time could not withdraw
Gone too long, returned too soon
Stowed and moored by afternoon

Scrambling spotters, busy clerks
'Til this evening's fireworks
Dancing through the final song
Rubbing hair and other perks
Heart ungimbaled, stomach wrong
Ship returning, fortunes won
Voyage ended, and begun

We Heart Superman: Production Diary I

On Thursday the 27th, well past midnight, a post appeared on Craigslist: Male Voice Talent: Ever phone in an audition? (Cambridge)

It described a podcast in the style of an oldschool radio show, for which auditioners were asked to call and read a line to voicemail. The writer/director, up-and-coming standup comic Troy Minkowsky, and the producer -- me -- were three days from recording "We Heart Superman: Crisis of the Pink Kryptonite," and did not have a Lex Luthor.

The first call of the day came at 8AM. Someone hadn't read the times closely -- but enthusiasm is enthusiasm. I fielded a couple of emails that morning and shut off the ringer for the 11AM to 9PM audition window, hoping that the wakeup call would be a good omen.

"13 MISSED CALLS"

The response was unreal.

Steno pad in hand, I slipped back into the routine of sorting through long messages followed by mumbled names and millisecond phone numbers. (Running the box office at a theatre a couple of nights a week is good practice for playing producer.) By the next evening, Minkowsky and I had whittled a remarkable set of readers down to four, run callbacks (literally) by speakerphone, and completed an amazing cast with one mysterious voice actor: Mike Devine.

Superman was ready to fly.

-Matt Rasmussen, Producer

Puerto Rico and Housekeeping

Every large project, especially in computer graphics, involves certain long, tedious, repetitive tasks that would only be noticed in the finished product if absent. On Marboxian I nicknamed this type of work "housekeeping."

In the case of the Population Map, the latest example is Puerto Rico. If given statehood, Puerto Rico would be our 27th largest state, falling between Kentucky and Oregon. It's the only United States territory with a significant population -- much less that of an average state -- which is why I've chosen to include it -- late -- in the otherwise completed map.

The tedium comes from not having a .bna file for the 78 municipios of Puerto Rico, which I could use with my standard script to determine their geographic coordinates. Instead, I've had to manually enter each into the Open Street Map and copy their URLs to a table.

Next I'll rewrite the script to break the URLs apart into decimal coordinates, but that'll be brain work, comparatively.

In the meantime, there's cookies to make.

From a Night I Couldn't Sleep

To judge us by our television, every American lives in either New York City, Los Angeles, or an ideal, sepia-toned Midwest. No one lives in a rundown area of Tuscaloosa. No one is from August, ME. There are no Canadians. No hippies survive who haven't sold out or gone batshit. Everyone is upper-middle-class.

Being single indicates a deep, remedial personal failing. No one is vague about their relationships. Your 20s are nothing but sex, sex, sex. Your 30s are for having babies.

Every house is decorated. Everyone shops at Ikea. Men wear layered shirts. Big hair and pornstar makeup are "in."

All Asians are smart. No Indians are married. American Blacks are either smart, married (and upper-middle-class) or shooting at each other. There are no Blacks from other countries. No one has ever seen a Philippino. Blue collar people are honest but not very bright, and of no particular importance unless you're in danger.

Everyone knows one gallery artist, and one architect. Faith is absolute and uncomplicated. Sexuality is binary, conscious, and fixed, even if you're a teenager. No one has to consider health insurance. No one considers abortion. Considerate people are either doormats or substitute mothers. Everyone takes taxis.

Crime rates are rising. America is full of pedophiles. All Muslims are moral absolutes. Everyone knows exactly what to do at all times, they're just not sure they have the courage to do it. This is America on television.

I'd like to change all of this. I hope you do too.

Sketch: Videogaming

The third run is always the hardest, when you're getting back into it. The first run you expect to be bad. But it's never as bad as you expect. The second you expect to be hard, and it's not, for the same reason. But that little mental trick stops working by the third run, leaving you feeling discouraged and disappointed in yourself.

"Videogaming" is the latest sketch I've decided to call done, after a sad amount of time and work. It's vaguely risque/NSFW. The pose is overlapping and closed-form, but not as active as I would have liked. The facial expression is passable, which is a relief. The Inkscape file, of course, includes the blocking in a hidden layer, and a couple of alternate poses in another.

And yes, that is the official videogame for "Hot" she's playing.

View/Download:

• JPEG image, 2339x1654 pixels
• Compressed Inkscape SVG, unlimited resolution

Review: "Dead Awake"

Steven "No You're Thinking of Billy" Baldwin is a dead-to-the-world insomniac somnambulist. He also plays one in this film. Deep in Canadian Chicago, the Born Again Baldwin has been accused of murder -- and all ridiculously improbable signs point to same! A C-list cast works heroically to make Steven look almost competent amidst their shrill overacting. The screen fairly pops with references to trannies, porn theatres, MMFF, midgets, dirty old men, animal abuse and leather-clad lesbians. Despite these apparent advantages, and despite padding fifteen minutes of plot with an hour of bad ("clever?") dialogue, it makes little satisfying sense in the end. (I have a theory that the film was designed to ritualistically cleanse Steven of his pre-twiceborn/ongoing excesses.) Don't miss Michael Ironside playing Michael Keaton playing Beatlejuice playing Jack Nicholson playing R. P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as... probably another thing Steven's been trying to swear off. Dead Awake is an incoherent hour and a half with a five drink minimum -- this is truly what it's like to be a Baldwin.

Sketch: On the T

A day late for Valentine's Day, another sketch I've decided to call done. I wanted to make more intimate use of perspective this time, and do a little more with color. An extreme color palette would probably require doing a color key ahead of time. This Inkscape file includes a hidden "scaffolding" layer used for blocking out the drawing, and seperate layers for the girl, the boy and the background.

Download:

• JPEG image, 1492x1486 pixels
• Compressed Inkscape SVG, unlimited resolution

Sketch: M@r. Girl

A sketch I've decided to call done. A girl wearing a Marboxian tee shirt. Cool hair stolen from my ex-cow-orker Kathleen's Facebook picture. (See? It's not entirely evil.) The Inkscape file includes a hidden "scaffolding" layer used for blocking out the drawing.

Download:

• PNG image, 495x1403 pixels
• Compressed Inkscape SVG, unlimited resolution

Retired Addiction

Theatre of Tragedy's "Assembly" album

It's always hard to find music you really like.

Inkscape: Marquee Select Ignored If There is an Object in the Foreground

Filed as a bug report on Inkscape's Launchpad page:

After dragging a box to select multiple objects, a click within the selection often selects a new object instead. See this file for a demonstration, and more information: FeatureRequest2.svgz

Responses:

• bbyak: "Use Alt-drag to drag the selection without reselecting anything"
• me: "Crufty solution. The user expectation when dragging within an existing selection is to manipulate that selection. Further, it traps the expected behavior of option(alt)-drag when a selection overlaps the current view."
• Tom Davidson: "You mean 'my expectation', right? People come to Inkscape with a wide
  range of UI history/prejudices ;)
  
  Anyhow, there's one additional aspect of this I'd like to have cleared
  up while we have Bulia's attention. Using your same example file, if I
  group the two blue rectangles before dragging, then I don't need to
  hold Alt to get the behavior you request. They are still visually
  below the pink squiggle, but I can now drag the 'lower' group. Is this
  expected behavior?"
• bbyak: "The user expectation when dragging within an existing
  selection is to manipulate that selection.
  
  Very true. Except that, you know, Inkscape has no magic way to peek into your head and know whether your expectation was to move the selected blue things or to forget about them and push the pink thing. It could be either. For consistency, it always assumes that when you click and drag something, you want to select and drag that something. If it's not the case, use Alt. Simple and logical.
  
  Further, it traps the expected behavior of option(alt)-drag when a selection overlaps the current view.
  
  This comment I don't understand."
• bbyak: "Using your same example file, if I
  group the two blue rectangles before dragging, then I don't need to
  hold Alt to get the behavior you request. They are still visually
  below the pink squiggle, but I can now drag the 'lower' group. Is this
  expected behavior?
  
  Nope. It's a bug. Kind of surprising that no one noticed it before. I'll look into it."
• me: "it always assumes that when you click and drag something, you want to select and drag that something.
  
  bbyak, I could agree with you if only one object were selected, but selecting multiple objects requires specific actions: dragging a marquee around multiple objects before dragging them (2 clicks), or shift-clicking on multiple objects before dragging them (3 or more clicks). There's no "magic" required, just a check on whether multiple objects are currently selected and whether the drag originated within the boundaries of that selection.
  
  Tom, thanks for clarifying that issue for me in your email. I can't duplicate the behavior you described under 0.45.1 Mac, but it sounds like you've already got it sorted.
  
  And bbyak, sorry to be so vague there. Normally holding down option and dragging causes the document to scroll with the mouse, similar to the "hand" tool in many packages. My concern is that if we are zoomed in far enough that the current selection fills the screen, option-dragging will move the object, rather than scrolling the document as expected."
• bbyak: "I don't see how the fact of multiple selection affects this. It was
  the past selection that was multiple, not the new one. The new one is
  still done or not done by a single click.
  
  Making anything depend on whether selection is multiple is not a good idea IMHO. We have no other UI behavior that depends on it. People will assume that either for single selections or for multiple selections (depending on their expectations) it's broken. Explaining the intricate logic like this is no fun for those who support and document the program.
  
  Also, Alt+drag has one more benefit: with it you don't even need to
  start dragging on the selection. You can start dragging anywhere on canvas.
  
  As for scrolling, we don't use alt+drag for that but we have plenty of other ways to scroll."
• me: "You've gone to heroic lengths, and I appreciate you for taking the time to dig into this with me, Bulia. I'm still not convinced that the alteration in interface behavoir is any less logical than requiring a novel hotkey. Still, I tested the example in Adobe Illustrator, and it agrees with you.
  
  So I'll put this thread to rest with the following suggestions:
  
  1. Make it discoverable.
  A mention in the contextual "tooltips" at the bottom of the screen would be useful.
  
  2. Fix it in the Mac version.
  Option-dragging with one or more objects selected still scrolls the screen. (I'm running v0.45.1.)"
• bbyak: "1. Make it discoverable.
  
  it's there when you press Alt: 'Alt: click to select under; drag to move selected or select by touch'
  
  2. Fix it in the Mac version.
  
  http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#How_to_make_Alt.2Bclick_and_Alt.2Bdrag_work_on_Mac_OS_X.3F"
• me: "'Emulate 3-button Mouse' being the default setting in X11, the keys it traps appear to be behaving as Inkscape expects. I hate to keep bludgeoning this thread, but that doesn't succeed as 'discoverable.' No one can troubleshoot a problem they don't know exists."
• bbyak: "You should ask on the devel list about that, I don't use OSX and have no idea what works there"
• JiHO: "Hi Matt, I'm not sure I completely understand your comment above but here are my interpretations and answers:
  
  1/ you think the problem is with the behaviour of the Alt key on OS X and that the FAQ does not make it discoverable enough. Unfortunately, this ball is not ours to play with. Apple has been changing the key map with every other version of X11, which makes it nearly impossible to predict in advance wether alt will actually behave as alt or not (yes this is a pain). We could be shipping our own keymap, also fixing the Ctrl-Command key behavior (i.e. make command work as control so that you can use Inkscape as any OS X app) but since the default option is also to ignore this and follow system keymap, this would probably be a mess. If you are on Leopard, just deselect all options in the Input tab of X11 prefs and put this:
  
  ! This one switches both alt keys to be alt:
  keycode 66 = Alt_L
  keycode 69 = Alt_R
  clear mod1
  add mod1 = Alt_L Alt_R
  ! switch meta and control
  clear mod2
  clear control
  add mod2 = Control_L Control_R
  add control = Meta_L Meta_R
  
  in a file named .Xmodmap in your home directory.This will make Alt behave as intended and use Command instead of control (to copy, paste, ...). It may also work on Tiger and earlier, but as explained, it's difficult to be positive about it.
  
  2/ the Alt key is fine but you think that the tooltip at the bottom of the window does not make Alt's behavior discoverable enough.
  The help text in this portion of the UI can be very long for some tools, even in their default state. It's therefore impossible to fit the description of the behavior of all 'modes' of the tool (all combinations of modifiers) at once. As a result, to know what the modes are, you have to press the modifiers and read the text that changed accordingly. Granted, this supposes that you know that the modifiers will have some effect and that such modes actually exists but I think:
  
  . you'll find this in any Inkscape tutorial. The different modes of action of all tools are what makes Inkscape special, powerful and pleasant to use.
  . you'll probably "accidentally" notice that the text changes when you press a modifier trying to copy/paste/whatever, and this should give you a tip about how you're supposed to use this part of the UI: systematically press the modifiers one after the other in each tool to discover their function.
  
  I am a big fan of this kind of UI: it seems simple and plain and you can use it right away (the default behavior of each tool is straightforward), but digging around a bit pays and uncovers powerful functions. This is how OS X functions by the way: there are plenty of hidden gems when you press Command or Option while performing otherwise simple actions (and most of the time you don't even have a visual clue about it beforehand, as you have in Inkscape!).
  
  If that still does not convince you, do you have a suggestion on how to make these behaviors more discoverable?"
• me: "Thanks, JiHO. Sorry to take so long responding to your post; I've been sick this week.
  
  Points 1 and 2 -- the "discoverability" and Option (Alt) key behavior -- are actually not seperate issues, in this case. Under X11's default settings Emulate Three Button Mouse steals the Option key for it's 2D scrolling function. That behavior appears to the user, however, to be Inkscape's.
  
  With the Option key being stolen by X11 itself, Inkscape doesn't appear to register when it's pressed, and no tooltip explaining what it's meant to be doing is displayed at the bottom of the window. A user would have to happen upon the Emulate Three Button Mouse issue while searching for something else on the site in order to even realize that anything was wrong. As far as assuming that all users will go through the tutorial... unless it's the first level of a videogame, that's probably not the safest assumption to make.
  
  The simplest solution that I can picture is a dialogue that appears when Inkscape opens: "Emulate Three Button Mouse is currently selected in X11's Preferences. This will prevent some keys that Inkscape uses from functioning correctly. Would you like to turn off Emulate Three Button Mouse while Inkscape is running?" It presents the choice plainly, explains why it's needed, and details what it's offering to do. (A link to a more detailed explanation on the FAQ would be friendly there too.)
  
  As far as the deeper philosophy of modifier keys question goes, overall I'm completely with you, but Blender haunts me. I'll type up some quick thoughts in a straight-to-you email when I get a moment."
• JiHO: "I changed the title of the bug report according to your comments. Indeed we may do what you advise. I'm assigning this to Michael who has done the alert pannel for the absence of X11. Michael could we do something along these lines for this issue? Something which checks for
  defaults read org.x.X11 enable_fake_buttons
  defaults read org.x.X11 enable_key_equivalents
  and shows the dialog appropriately. The issue then would be to know how to change it (I'm guessing a defaults write would be useless if X11 is already started so it should be killed and only then defaults write the right value --i.e. 0 for both)."

Sketch: Girl Looking Up

A quick Inkscape sketch from the other night:

Inkscape: Remembering Open Palettes Between Sessions

Filed as a bug report on Inkscape's Launchpad page:

Inkscape remembers the size and location of palette windows (Fill and
Stroke, Layers, etc.) between sessions, but not whether they were open.

This is a feature request.

Infographic: Mens' Hats

What We Think They Say v.s. What They Actually Say

Click for larger image:

Inkscape vector art (Compressed svg)

Something for the ladies? Perhaps you'll enjoy this old favorite: A Chart of the Pressures Facing an Essentially Straight Modern Woman.

Regarding Telecom Immunity

I believe in accountability. I believe that no crisis removes an American's responsibility to uphold the Constitution. As a result, I feel duty-bound to oppose Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill granting American telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for any illegal wiretaps they may or may not have performed at the behest of the National Security Agency and the White House in the years following September 11, 2001.

Were the issue one of protecting companies acting in good faith, a cap on settlements would be proper. Granting immunity instead dismisses all present and future court cases, removing the public's only avenue of discovery regarding the reality or extent of any illegal actions taken. Crisis does not justify barbarism.

Very little can be done by the public at this point. I've summarized my moral argument and sent it to lobbying group The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Stop the Spying campaign in the form of the photo below:

As a postscript, I regard Reid's bill as another example of the spinelessness that caused me to leave the Democratic Party.

2008 Resolutions

• Catch up with at least one person/couple per month with whom I have not recently spoken.
• Escape from this cyclical Blue Collar hell.
• Learn to type right. Again. And make it stick.
• Enough with the drama queen bullshit.
• Find true love? Nah, better hold off on that one...

Bloody Comcastic

Because it isn't enough to provide the shortest billing to payment due period of any company you do business with, Comcast gives you something more: the light euphoria of never knowing what precisely to ascribe to incompetence, policy or indifference.

The First Space Toast Page of 2008

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