Posthuman Blues

Various unsorted thoughts

1.) Zines are not dead! Not quite, anyway. I got a print rag called "Bizarre Bazaar" in the mail. It's basically a cheaply produced catalogue for Fortean/New Age/conspiracy merchandise, but there's at least one article in it. The complete works of David Icke, anyone?

2.) LatteLand (my coffeeshop of choice) now has satellite radio. With any luck, this means not listening to the same damned thing every time I stop by for a caffeine fix; tonight the playlist was entirely 80s, highlighted by The Smiths' "Ask."

3.) I've come to realize I have a weird habit of clarifying perfectly obvious spoken references with "illustrative" hand-gestures. A couple hours ago, for instance, I was discussing CDs and discovered that I was pretending to hold a CD in my hand (gripped at the edges between thumb and forefinger). Lame nervous tick or genuine eccentricity?

4.) Tonight I noticed a horde of blond party-girls clambering down the stairs of what appeared to be an airport shuttle or "senior" bus. On the side of the vehicle was the name for some limousine service. I couldn't help but wonder if these girls knew they had been gipped. A "senior trolley," no matter how ostentatious, is not a limousine. It might be an eminently practical means of transporting a gaggle of vacuous 20 year-olds, but please don't call it a "limousine" when any schmuck can plainly see that it isn't.

5.) After viewing the original release of "Donnie Darko" for the first time since 2001, I have to agree with discerning "Darko" fan Jason that the opening song by Echo and the Bunnymen was an inspired choice. INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart" (substituted for the director's cut) works nicely, but "The Killing Moon" works better. Plus it's performed by a band with "bunny" in their name, and the film involves a forbidding six-foot rabbit. Come on -- you're not going to do any better than that.

6.) I finally rode a Segway. It's pretty fun; they're surprisingly speedy. Learning to navigate is basically intuitive, but not quite as automatic as I'd expected -- it's actually closer to learning to drive a car than learning to ride a bike. If I had a spare $5,000 lying around, I might just get one; as it was, I winced at forking over the $5 for the test-drive.

Now playing:

1.) "Hail to the Thief" (Radiohead)
2.) "More Songs About Buildings and Food" (Talking Heads)
3.) "Diamond Dogs" (David Bowie)
4.) "Violator" (Depeche Mode)
5.) "Meat Is Murder" (The Smiths)