tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226934642012-02-16T16:08:05.225-05:00shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.comBlogger261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-5385243891744614962007-12-10T15:17:00.001-05:002007-12-10T15:26:14.822-05:00

So, Christmas is coming. A time when those of us aware of the Gimcrackery flooding our lives make subtle attempts to lessen current Gimcrackery, even if it is to make room for more. This can either be done by gifting others with your Gimcrackery (in good condition, preferably, and with all required components) or simply by getting rid of things.Yesterday, I took a bagful of CDs and DVDs to the CD

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-11144311041479792512007-08-01T16:31:00.000-04:002008-12-11T12:54:01.200-05:00

I've had this Microsoft Wireless Comfort Keyboard for some time now (seen here in a rare QuickCam picture). It is not my first wireless keyboard, though it is my first comfort keyboard, I think.Gone are the days where most keyboards responded with a satisfying click and clack as the keys bounced back with solid confidence. The comfort associated with this particular keyboard is likely a

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-18619794586707511702007-04-23T11:20:00.000-04:002007-04-23T12:47:47.855-04:00

Previous to graduate study, my education consisted of in large part relatively compartmentalized cabinets of data, the physical manifestations of which were text books, class rooms, professors of various characteristics, and layers of notebooks of no particular organization which pile up, unused, on the bottom shelves of my bookcases. When I drove with all my things to C.H. to begin graduate

J.V. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06898786195752837412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1152623506561280532006-07-11T08:47:00.001-04:002006-07-11T09:31:43.156-04:00

Let me put forth in this minimal space to discuss briefly two items in my possession, the relative importances of which it is the purpose of this faltering article to discuss.They are similar in the object they intend to imitate (namely, a rabbit), but the intents, the usages, and even the fates of each item must be decided individually.First, let us speak of the green, wire-boned, poseable

M. Swaimnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1143903517276704812006-07-09T23:02:00.000-04:002006-07-09T23:14:27.080-04:00

"If I appear to have stumbled in darkness, it is only because I have been standing in the shadows of giants." This is the quip I sometimes suggest I will have etched onto my headstone, but it might equally apply to any of the many scientists and charlatans described in Patricia Fara's An Entertainment for Angels, subtitled Electricity in the Enlightenment. Its a little volume, clocking in at

J.V. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06898786195752837412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1151933797920479832006-07-03T09:14:00.000-04:002006-07-11T09:16:21.006-04:00

As from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, so do one's possessions also give insight into a person. I wish this were not so. Though the revelation of my own heart is more accurately viewed by looking at my iTunes player (a subject I may explore in detail someday), I must confess that my accumulation of trinkets also gives insight into my own manifestation of the human condition.They

M. Swaimnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1148358428848167832006-05-23T00:22:00.000-04:002006-06-27T20:54:43.113-04:00

As per Stephen's suggestion, I shall undertake an evaluation of my dog (well, she's a fixed bitch, to be more precise), Libby Swaim. Pros: responds to dozens of different names (created on a whim), high fives, endless amusement, amazing underbite, the perfect conglomerate of pig/hyena/mule, "free"Cons: rotting Dorito smell, obstinate, constantly scratches self/sludges own vagina, medical

colleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02165574112054287358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1147749957136669142006-05-15T23:22:00.000-04:002006-05-15T23:27:03.296-04:00

The internet has cursed us with convenience and savings. Froogle, Cheap Ass Gamer, Ben's Bargains, et al have made seductively priced closeout items far too easy to acquire. The pricing alone has convinced me that retailers care less about making money and more about taking up all my living space.It's fitting that Stephen paraphrased the King of All Cosmos. Katamari Damacy is not a whimsical

birruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09350834663044789151noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1144029962029818782006-04-02T21:22:00.000-04:002006-04-02T22:09:34.430-04:00

The Princess Diana Paper Doll Book has not been properly utilized in years, not even employed with looking kitschy on the coffeetable. I probably received it sometime between age four and seven from either my paternal Grandparents or my Aunt Sarah. I have narrowed it down to these two sources, owing to that it always resided at my Grandparents house until I was a teenager and brought it home

colleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02165574112054287358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1143988589468557522006-04-02T10:00:00.000-04:002006-04-02T11:26:57.483-04:00

Some of my earliest recollections of childhood entail playing hooky from cleaning my room through immersion in various Nancy Drew novels (running away from the tide of things to pay attention to one in particular). Even though I am now a twenty four year old married woman, the scenario is scarily similar even today: I now have 1200 square feet worth of things (marriage, I have found, is an

colleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02165574112054287358noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1142983765395858782006-03-21T17:57:00.000-05:002006-03-21T18:32:37.036-05:00

I purchased The Coffin at the UNC Ram's Head Bookstore for two dollars on the passing resemblance it has to an Exray Factory project which is under development. I read it the day I bought it, probably as a way of avoiding one or another of the unpleasant tasks associated with writing my Master's Thesis.The Coffin is a peculiar bird. In it, Dr Ashtar Ahmed constructs a kind of robotic suit of

J.V. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06898786195752837412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141760084972496682006-03-07T13:46:00.000-05:002006-03-08T10:37:26.136-05:00

hey fat babies,It's marlin, a fellow packrat, stabbing his way into the the blogosphere at stephen's invitation.Like everyone else, I hold onto all sorts of bric-a-brac, media, fake antiquity, molted insect skins, and canned hams. I managed to dump about 30% of my accessories during the course of my last move, in October. Still there's plenty to ponder over, kiss, or condemn to a landfill or

marlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09683409742939796528noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141680109002257962006-03-06T16:12:00.000-05:002006-03-07T00:04:51.926-05:00

Hello folks - I was invited here by good friend Stephen for the reason that I too am an accumulator of items. Part of it starting when my parents decided to move back to their home country and I had to quickly gather all the items that I had stored "At Home". This has led to years of eBaying and slow sorting and a test of my sentimental leanings. Now I am heading home to Europe and am on the

shelbotnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141587105647658032006-03-05T13:54:00.000-05:002006-03-05T19:46:23.416-05:00

Stanislaw Lem, I think, thrives under the rubric of science fiction. He has a fairly morbid picture of the universe as a place which is not only mysterious, but almost insultingly intangible to human understanding, which is, perhaps tellingly, best explicated in the context of some incomprehensible, monolithic alien thing of one kind or another. In other words, what he is trying to communicate

J.V. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06898786195752837412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141343684571562192006-03-02T18:44:00.000-05:002006-03-02T21:04:42.363-05:00

I received this tin train from my father the first christmas after he decided to end his estrangement from us. This was the first christmas we had shared in over a decade; I imagine between him and his wife they didn't have much of an idea what to get me or my siblings. I imagine this to be part of a collectable series. This one is the engine of a train, with an old-fashioned Coca Cola logo on

A. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04686439231275769242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141340409724573012006-03-02T17:38:00.000-05:002006-03-02T20:53:31.463-05:00

At, or near, the heart of my having accumulated too many possessions over the years is my desire for completion. I will admit to owning some things that are perhaps "sub-par" or "not quite up to muster," primarily because they belong to a greater collection of things. This is mostly bad, but it can be good for the sake of providing context.Such is the case with my small (three CDs) collection

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141347639100701542006-03-02T16:52:00.000-05:002006-03-02T20:58:30.986-05:00

Alright, so the title is a pun. And the cover isn't exactly eye-catching. But, hear me sigh with relief. For the songs, the songs...these songs are songs!We are treated to the same analog keyboard fest that the first Add N To X album features, but this time around the songs typically go somewhere. Or, lacking a real song progression, there might be a vocoded voice to keep the ear

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141350733846093232006-03-02T15:05:00.000-05:002006-03-02T20:59:46.950-05:00

Ah, how many times can I count the joys of owning this Add N To X CD?At least three.Firstly, the album itself, although apparently somewhat discoherent in its creation, is fantastic from start to finish. I shall list each and every one of the (as usual) fantastically named tracks:1. "Adding N To X" is a funky synthy creation, featuring variations on the title phrase both said and shouted,

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1141274075517465372006-03-01T23:32:00.000-05:002006-03-03T00:02:31.856-05:00

The internet has cursed us with convenience and savings. Froogle, Cheap Ass Gamer, Ben's Bargains, et al have made seductively priced closeout items far too easy to acquire. The pricing alone has convinced me that retailers care less about making money and more about taking up all my living space.It's fitting that Stephen paraphrased the King of All Cosmos. Katamari Damacy is not a whimsical

Birrunoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1140660178452163582006-02-22T20:31:00.000-05:002006-03-08T11:13:58.453-05:00

'THE AIRCAR, RENTED from a cousin of P.J. Ramirez started to sputter. Jake was, according to the instruments that were still working on the control panel, approximately twenty miles from his destination and two thousand feet from the ground.... The voxbox blurted something in slurred Spanish. Jake didn't catch it. "Otra vez," he requested."The engine," said the Status voxbox in English this

J.V. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06898786195752837412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1140473894320173462006-02-20T17:13:00.000-05:002006-03-02T18:44:08.096-05:00

I have so much goddamned shit.I am a pack rat by nature. Maybe I'm just obsessively nostalgic; maybe I'm just lazy. But I tend not to throw ANYTHING away. When I was in high I school, I kept a big disorganized binder of all the papers and work that I would receive in my classes. As the year would go on, I would never bother to clean it out. Eventually trying to find anything in it was sort

A. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04686439231275769242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1140456583763106572006-02-20T11:52:00.000-05:002006-03-02T18:44:23.303-05:00

For some time in high school and college, I subscribed to CMJ New Music Monthly Magazine, valued not only because its reviews mandatorily suggested other similar artists for every album reviewed, but for the compilation CD that came with each issue. Although the magazines are long gone, the CDs still sit, just to my right as I type this, in their paper slipcases. I often have intended a

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1140453486735638282006-02-20T11:12:00.000-05:002006-03-02T18:45:25.713-05:00

Objects tend to remain in our possession like magical, cursed artifacts due in most cases to their purely Newtonian tendency to stay exactly where they are if left alone. As I move through the orbit of my days and years little things trace unpredictable but almost universally closed epicycles around me. There is a mug sitting on my computer desk which I used over the winter break for brewing tea.

J.V. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06898786195752837412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1140444289938342872006-02-20T08:36:00.000-05:002006-03-02T18:46:02.676-05:00

The Hewlett Packard Pocket PC is a somewhat stylish, somewhat bulky, and, in this particular case, somewhat scuffed rung on the ladder which leads to ever smaller and more functional computing devices. As ridiculous as it sounds I bought this the summer after my graduation with the specific intent of bringing it to France with me, where I hoped to use it to experiment with the ideas inSoft

J.V. Toupshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06898786195752837412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1140399694608889222006-02-19T20:13:00.000-05:002006-03-02T18:46:17.123-05:00

I vaguely remember buying this CD on the suggestion of Mr. Christopher "Slim" Rodrigue (who currently plays bass and sings for The Transmission), although I cannot remember where I purchased it. In any case, the cover alone, which features the band's vintage gear left on stage in front of a shimmering golden curtain peppered with 45s, was enough to catch my eye at the time (maybe 2003?) with or

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22693464.post-1140396202782626762006-02-19T19:41:00.000-05:002006-03-02T18:46:31.733-05:00

This blog is loosely centered around the idea that, to quote the King of All Cosmos, the world is full of things, many of these things are "owned" by someone, and those things have stories around and in them. Also, as a sort of a conceptual coda, there is also the idea that most people in the well-to-do West have too many things and should probably get rid of them. Wendel Barry has probably

shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08710002478491621690noreply@blogger.com0