If you name it, is it alive?

Man kneels to the floor and places his palm on the deerskin rug.

Man closes his eyes and nods.

Woman, in tears, pleads "well?"

Man says "his name was Gilbert," pauses, "but he's better now."

30-minute writing exercise: bones

The underground tunnel held few travelers at this time of night.  Cold fluorescent bulbs illuminated the station, but could never dispel the subterranean weight of a hole.  Somewhere in the depths beyond this urban platform rumbled hulking tubes of steel and glass.

Across from me sat a man.  I hadn't noticed him when I came down the stairs off 45th.  He was the city: a suit, erect posture, and a briefcase.  But this platform was also the city: litter, urine, grease.  Odd that a company man would need a train at this hour.  He seemed at ease, so much so that it was I who began to feel out of place.  My train remained painfully absent.  How could he be so content here?

I watched the man take his leather-bound case and rest it on his lap.  He released the clasps one after another and lifted the lid away from himself toward me.  When he closed it again, he held a white tentacle in his hand.  No, not a tentacle. Bones?! An entire spinal column of some child-sized creature draped limp over his palm!  I stared with fevered intensity as he tilted back his head an raised his prize into the air.  As he lowered it into his throat, his mouth worked back and forth slowly, not chewing, but easing each vertebra down his esophagus with the faint sound of sliding saliva.

I had to flee.  I needed to run, to be rid of this place immediately and forever!  Too late for that.  By some miracle, I had not been noticed yet.  I froze like a small animal.  The man returned his briefcase to the floor.  He resumed staring through the blackness of the tunnel.

A growing roar and gust of tunnel draft brought the train into the station.  The hissing of the doors startled me, my heart skipping a beat.  I dared not move as I watched the man stand up and walk to the nearest open portal.  Just before stepping onto the train, he paused.  He turned his head to face me, staring me straight in the eye.  Then he silently boarded.

30-minute writing exercise: egg, honey, stone

Henry cracked his egg over a bowl, producing a pleasant ring followed by a sharp crack and slimy decompression. The warmth of the pan at his left arm made him impatient. How annoying it was that pieces of shell would break free and sink into what when cooked would be an enticing meal, but now seemed like reproductive fluid, which, Henry thought, was probably accurate technically speaking. It could have been alive under different circumstances. Probably would have become a fine chicken, though it most likely would have ended up in a pan anyway. Why are eggs and chickens so different, he thought. Eggs so pure and round, almost graceful in their stillness; chickens so smelly and clumsy. The egg white had spread over Henry's fingers, so he reached to rinse his hands for what had to be the fifth time since deciding to make breakfast. The first had been when he failed to remove all of the honey from his fingers by licking. Better inside than out, he mused. The same with eggs, though the hen probably had a differing opinion.

Henry poured the whites and yolks into his pan, producing a dry hiss. He then flipped them onto his honeyed toast. The honey had pooled a bit at the corner and the egg slumped lopsided over the opposite edge, the whole thing lonesome in a sea of white plate. Henry pursed his lips. It looked quite sad. I miss Madeline, he thought with a sigh. The counter was cleared, the cupboards opened as Henry began again, preparing a meal she would have enjoyed.

30-minute writing exercise: fire, salt water, snake

A snake does not move as we move, and we comprehend much through movement. Seemingly endless rings of muscle contorting around cages and cages of bone, somehow producing graceful, predatory function. How to empathize with a creature such as this? And so too, how to comprehend its motives, her motives, as she approaches?

Her movements are intentional, they must be. Fleeting eye contact, each glance holding its careful weight; her head unmoving as she glides across the pavement; her ornamentation: hair, jewellery, clothing, things for which I have no frame of reference, no memory of weight, no sense of preparation, all of them moving with and around her. My attention is momentarily transfixed, my brain hypnotized into paralysis at the mercy of her intent. My anxiety could never break the spell, prey that must play its part.

She slithers past, into the arms of the man with the hat and the expensive-looking shoes. I can feel what he feels. I can muster sympathies for his plight. After the encounter, I go on about my way, content not to become food for a creature I can never understand.

winnebago man

I watched Winnebago Man tonight. The shifting motivations of Rebney and Steinbaur made it interesting to me. I also like how Jack Rebney nails his contribution at the end. While his social and political frustrations don't get the front seat he was probably looking for, Jack delivers an example of how to attack complacency, which I think addresses many of the root causes for the societal maladies he sees. If only we could speak our minds AND form our contentions substantially. Vocalizing frustration is probably a good first step to understanding it.

an unbelieveably full day

Today has been eventful in a way that becomes difficult to process in retrospect. Underlying it all, I am working at Pixar, which is enough to keep me energized even after the second week. Today, though, has been one remarkable thing after another.

Pixar's original "1984" image demonstrating motion blur (lo-res)

At lunch I attended a talk by Tom Porter, a prominent contributor to early computer graphics research. Way back when, he produced a famous image of billiard balls that demonstrated motion blur for the first time in 3d computer graphics. The talk I attended was mainly an anecdote about the life of that image and how he almost lost it several times, only to resurrect it with the help of some cool people. I often take the portability of information these days for granted, and to hear how this incredibly significant piece of technical art traveled and was stranded was exciting. The images we make can be treasure, there's just a lot of treasure around these days. So two fun facts:
1. The original high-resolution image was effectively non-existent from the late 1980s all the way up to 2007. This is an image that is used in many college computer graphics courses, and yet always in a reprocessed, degraded form. Seeing it in its full grandeur was eye-opening in that it looks incredible for being over 25 years old.
2. The reflection map in the billiard balls was partly hand-drawn by John Lasseter, and was possibly the first piece of art he produced for Pixar even though it was mostly just as a favor to Tom Porter. I was inspired by how casual that retrospective factoid was.

great movie

Later there was going to be a lecture on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which happens to be one of my favorite movies, a statement similar to "I happen to really enjoy delicious food." As I searched for the free, pre-lecture dinner that was promised, I accidentally wandered into the new art exhibit that had just opened upstairs. Guess I need to write about that now. I will never get to this story that leads to this other story.

The exhibited art was part of a charity project revolving around a sketchbook. The sketchbook was passed in person from artist to artist, each one contributing a piece to the book. Tons of people worked on it including famous film artists like Hayao Miyazaki and Glen Keane. Case in point, this was a happy enough accident.

ilya
(approximation)

Now let's talk about serendipity, and by the way, apologies for this rambling mess (oh, it gets worse, don't worry). I got the job offer at Pixar around the same time my best friend ilya accepted an offer to start his Ph.D. at Berkeley. For the first time since high school we are now located in the same area, which is incredibly, enjoyably serendipitous.

Back to the art exhibit, I had heard that a Double Fine artist named Tasha Harris had left to work at Pixar again and was starting this week. I had been reading her web comic for quite awhile (still do, ugh, verb tense), so I was excited to be working in the same place. Add that to the list of famous people I was already seeing around who had previously been names or faces on a screen, and add that to the coincidence of my friend moving here to get a sense of the unreality I had been processing. I am going to start the next sentence with so.

Tasha Harris's first comic via Double Fine

So I am standing in front of a drawing at the art exhibit, having JUST finished admiring a drawing by Scott Campbell (another Double Fine artist), thinking "man, it's cool that Scott C. is in this show, I did not know" when I turn to see someone standing next to me who looks suspiciously like Tasha Harris. Having never met Tasha, I quickly devise a brilliant way to find out if it was indeed her without weirding out a poor woman who might not be. "Excuse me, would you mind telling me your name?" I bizarrely ask. Turns out it is Tasha, so I tell her I enjoy reading her comic and in about 30 seconds we have already covered "ha, first/second week at Pixar" pleasantries and "oh I was just looking at Scott's work over there, yeah there's a cool cowboy on a rabbit one by it too." Then I get this thing in the back of my head reminding me I am late for this film lecture on top of "what the heck is going on, I am talking to Tasha about artwork by Scott at Pixar." So I suddenly can think of nothing else to talk about and bail with a "well it was really nice meeting you," and walk off in the wrong direction. I could double back on the floor below and I ran into a friend going to the lecture on the way, so it worked out.

Scott Campbell's first comic via Double Fine

Afterward, I wished I could have communicated my interest in Tasha's work beyond "oh, I read it." I guess it would be difficult to convey what it is like to have averaged three hours of sleep a night for a couple of moths straight working on a publication deadline for my Ph.D. (a situation that happened more than once), and how for a period of time I had been escaping to the Double Fine site and the mental sanctuary of her and Scott's web comics in the wee hours of the morning. But I should have at least said something encouragingly enthusiastic like "I really hope you keep doing the comic!"

This post is already obscenely long, so I'll try to wrap up the last part. My friend Colin and I had rewatched Eternal Sunshine the night before to prepare for this lecture. We had a really great discussion about the film, which was exciting and turned out to be better in some ways to the actual lecture itself. To be fair, though, the lecture discussion did not include a full screening of the film so we were fresher and ready to skip synopsis-talk. The lecture itself provided another opportunity to geek out about the film with other people who love it and thinking critically about movies. It was a lot of fun, possibly oodles, but definitely invigorating.

Done. But... no, done.

In addition to manufactured demand, disposable products are more convenient than reusable ones, for customers and providers. I believe that reusable products can be both convenient and profitable if treated as a service (a type of industry our economy thrives on). For example, imagine if your local gas station sold clean reusable bottles of tap water and gave credit for bringing in dirty bottles. They would essentially be charging for the washing and the convenience of having a bottle ready whenever the customer is ready. However, I am not sure if such systems are practical, as they do not provide incentive to create infrastructure. In other words, no company would want to go into producing these bottles if they can only profit occasionally. This is probably where the government should step in. Unfortunately, some would attempt to convince you (with a frightening religious zeal) that the free market would take care of everything. But we have seen historically that free markets are easily exploitable or tend to converge on wasteful systems that resemble equilibrium only at the surface. Small businesses my ass.