loquacious's New Writeups

Utah Rave Bust - Versus 2 (place)

2005-08-23T19:57:14Z

Utah, and the State of Sick and Tired of Being Trod Upon.

It's not just Utah. It's Los Angeles. And Europe. And NYC. And Portland. And Brazil. And Goa. And London. And Sydney. And Christchurch. Toronto, Beijing, Des Moines, Miami, Detroit. This kind of crap happens all over the world - in varying degrees.

I've gone to a lot of things like this. My number one fear? It has always been fear of the police that they'll show up and over-react and bust my head open. That's my foremost fear.

I've never been worried about getting bad dope, or overdosing, or being kidnapped or shot or jumped by random thugs or any of the things these Law Enforcement Officers are claiming to protect me from. I don't worry about human stampedes or panics. These things just don't happen with a great enough frequency in my experience to worry about, at all.

Remarkably, I do worry about thuggish behavior, trampling or rioting at mainstream…

Writer's block (idea)

2005-07-04T10:01:33Z

Seek altered space (And not just the chemical sort). Crack an unusual book. Read a book backwards.

Challenge your assumptions. Challenge your worldview; break it down everything you've ever known or assumed or taken as fact and chuck it flaming from the nearest window.

Experience something unusual. Throw yourself into situations that may be life threatening, if not only strange and totally without prior context or subtext. Make music out of anything; DJ with your toaster, your washer, your bicycle, your shoes.

Develop and experiment with strange fetishes; Make a fetish of or make fetishes of uncommon things. Sexualize a tree, a rock, a blade of grass, a pile of excrement, a housefly. View flowers and fruit as sexual organs and then fantasize about them. Masturbate with something unusual. Insert strange objects into various holes in your body. Make new holes in your body. Experience real physical pain and turn it into pleasure with the power of your mind. Have a good…

SpaceShipOne (thing)

2004-06-22T23:05:57Z

I was gifted with the opportunity watch the flight. And I mean gifted. I didn't find out until very late Sunday night that they were inviting the public to Mojave Airport to watch. I had sent an email to a friend, who answered "I'll be there in 30 minutes" just as I was going to bed early Monday morning.

Who needs caffiene at 3am when you have giddy schoolboy excitement? Well, I do, but just not as much.

Grab a few gallons of water, throw the laptop, camera, and binoculars in the backpack, fold up the folding chair and go. We leave my driveway at about 3:30, stop once in upper Lancaster for some snacks and a smoke break about 4:30 and arrived in the parking field about 5:15 am after an easy and orderly queue directed by Boy Scouts, Explorers and Civil Air Defense folks. Practically perfect easy going.

The winds were gusty as they are just before dawn in the Mojave high desert, but were mild and calmed down after sunrise.

…

June 5, 2004 (thing)

2004-06-05T06:00:28Z

(sent writeup message "Crazy? There's this thing. Don't shit where you eat. You might have heard of it. It's what truly civilized people do. The intelligent, aware, informed, wise, and kindly thing to do is to question the true needs of our consumption and "make do" and thrive with less because we can, and we must. Because we don't live like the bears in the woods. We live like people, and have a lot more impact, and are capable of understanding how and why, therefore, why should we not be stewards?.")

Soulseek (thing)

2004-05-04T02:18:46Z

THE FIRST RULE ABOUT SLSK IS THAT YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT SLSK.

Soulseek is a P2P network and client that was originally started by a group of people on an IDM discussion list to give them a way to do something more than just talk about music and easily share said music.

The original slsk client is Windows only, but there is a linux port called pyslsk that uses Python. As such, the pyslsk client works for OS X if you can get Python running on it.

Soulseek is also a record label that publishes artists from the soulseek network.

Soulseek always has and always will be dedicated to the obscure, the eclectic, the bleepy, the noisy, the weird, the independent and the unobtainable. And I mean unobtainable. There are thousands…

wetback (idea)

2004-04-21T08:48:02Z

Disparaging word, racial epithet and/or slur used to insult Hispanic immigrants. In almost all cases of use it is considered extremely offensive for its negative connotations of poverty, migration and social status.

The "official" source of the word seems to be the controversial Operation Wetback - courtesy of the INS - in 1954 along the Rio Grande at the end of "the decade of the wetback" from 1944 to 1954 in which illegal immigration increased 6,000%

It is more than likely that the term "wetback" originally derives from the way immigrants usually had to swim and ford the Rio Grande before continuing their pilgrimage across the harsh deserts in wet clothes.

Alternatively or additionally - and according to my local-lore filled step-grandfather - "wetback" also derives from the practice of soaking one's shirt and either wearing it normally or draping it over one's head and shoulders like a cowl to stay cooler in the brutal and unforgiving heat of the deserts and badlands…