Emails to Josh Ronsen

June 21, 2011

2011-09-07T09:12:00.001-04:00

I bet the squid is usually frowning, though.

June 22, 2010

2010-07-03T09:38:00.001-04:00

I was introduced earlier today as “the smartest person I know, except for Josh Ronsen.”

September 12, 2009

2009-09-19T09:06:00.001-04:00

Maoist
Moist
Mist

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

2009-08-27T11:32:00.001-04:00

Doomsday device
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the theoretical world-ending destruction. For the professional wrestling maneuver, see Doomsday Device.

Friday, August 21, 2009

2009-08-21T16:14:00.001-04:00

Wikipedia: “The Ginsu knife is often seen cutting through metal cans, a nail, a radiator hose or a tree trunk, before cleanly cutting a paper thin slice of tomato, though few consumers would ever find a need to do all of those things, especially in rapid succession.”

July 8, 2009

2009-07-15T10:32:00.001-04:00

“For best results: load this CD in your CD player, confirm that sound is coming out through the speakers, and then just leave the room.” (Leif Elggren, in reference to his CD Extraction)

April 22, 2009

2009-07-01T21:50:00.000-04:00

I can swivel my head and making a hooting noise for you if you want.

March 28, 2009

2009-03-28T20:31:00.002-04:00

Etude aux tourniquets -> Study with the swivels, according to Babelfish.

March 5, 2009

2009-03-28T10:01:00.000-04:00

There is an upswell of interest in Ligeti on the Internet.

March 21, 2009

2009-03-21T01:30:00.000-04:00

We feed Bukowski to our teenagers and export the surplus across the Atlantic, and they feed Bernhard to their teenagers and export the surplus to us.

February 9, 2009

2009-03-10T08:03:00.002-04:00

Things I didn’t know about Timothy McVeigh: “McVeigh was also interested in computers, and he hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64, under the handle ‘The Wanderer,’ which was borrowed from the song by Dion DiMucci. In his senior year, he was named the school’s ‘Most Promising Computer Programmer.’”

February 13, 2009

2009-03-10T08:01:00.002-04:00

My hand is twisting to convey the rotation of the camera in Michael Snow's “La Région Centrale”.

December 13, 2005

2009-02-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

I am listening to Steely Dan’s Katy Lied for the first time and also realizing for the first time that the title is “Katy Lied” as in “Katy Told a Lie”, not as in “Katy Song” (Lied = song, in German).

November 20, 2008

2009-02-11T10:53:00.007-05:00

T— attended a John Cage lecture/performance in Minnesota in the 1970’s. Cage delivered one of his chance texts (something from M?) then took questions. A man stood and introduced himself as a music professor at a local college. He said he wanted to expose his students to contemporary music but was reluctant because he didn't know what contemporary music was good. Cage’s advice: “Listen to one hundred hours of contemporary music. Then you will know.”

November 13, 2008

2009-02-11T10:49:00.000-05:00

Just who are these noise villains, these hi-fi, technological, cold, clean, stimulating noise villains?

November 24, 2008

2009-02-11T10:46:00.000-05:00

Peter Christopherson looks a lot like my stepmother’s brother Pete.

January 15, 2009

2009-02-06T07:41:00.001-05:00

God is killing stars of island-based television shows (Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan on the same day).

January 22, 2009

2009-02-06T07:39:00.000-05:00

Things I did not know about James Tenney: “Tenney also starred nude in a 1965 silent film of collaged and painted sequences of lovemaking between him and his then partner, Carolee Schneemann, called Fuses.”

January 28, 2009

2009-02-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

“Issei Sagawa (born 11 June 1949) is a Japanese man who in 1981 murdered and cannibalized a Dutch woman named Renée Hartevelt. Since his release, Sagawa has become a noted food critic.”

January 5, 2009

2009-01-06T07:59:00.001-05:00

I’ve never managed to get into Felt, but you can keep sending me emails extolling their virtues. It will probably work eventually.

April 20, 2006

2008-12-19T09:17:00.002-05:00

from an interview with Frank Zappa’s piano player, Don Preston:

interviewer: When John [Lennon] died, I wrote Yoko the most thoughtful condolence letter that I could come up with. She responded, but she also sent my family Christmas cards for a couple of years after. I have them framed.
Preston: Really? Wow.

January 10, 1996

2008-12-18T09:07:00.001-05:00

He appeared to be deep in thought, then suddenly he said “Oh! Ooooooooooo! OHHHHHHHH! Guess WHAT!!” and started jumping up and down, really high in the air, and waving his arms around.

June 5, 2006

2008-12-08T10:12:00.001-05:00

“Both Father Christmas and Roy Orbison are completely wrapped in clingfilm.”

December 28, 2005

2008-10-30T11:48:00.000-04:00

Maybe this is a personal matter, but I think “killed” is a bit hyperbolic, as if Mao personally slit their throats — and I don’t say that out of love for Mao.

March 6, 2007

2008-10-23T10:15:00.001-04:00

The reviewer is adamant that CEREBRAL HARD WORK is required, but I think getting drunk first serves equally well.

November 1, 2003

2008-10-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

I think Frequency Curtain should do a cover version of "Dung Chen Nyithu Panglep Two Notes Prolonged to Medium Length".

September 30, 2008

2008-10-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

Instead of asking for permission beforehand, you should ask for forgiveness afterwards.

September 29, 2008

2008-09-30T08:32:00.000-04:00

Josh: My giant spider can eat your giant spider.

There’s only one way to settle this.

July 1, 2003

2008-09-29T10:02:00.001-04:00

Austrian kezboards have the z kez where the y should be, and vice versa. Plus all the punctuation marks are in the wrong place ++ its verz annozing

May 24, 2003

2008-09-29T10:00:00.001-04:00

Do you mean gauntlets? Sometimes I run a gauntlet to order my gimlet.

August 25, 2008

2008-09-24T10:04:00.000-04:00

Those kittens look like she could get a lot of useful work out of them.

January 7, 2007

2008-09-23T08:16:00.001-04:00

I got Find of the Day: http://www.foundmagazine.com/comments/954

August 4, 2005

2008-09-22T11:03:00.001-04:00

Nothing can tarnish the coolness of being the city where an anarchist shot the President.

September 3, 2006

2008-09-15T13:45:00.000-04:00

“I was against surrealism even when I understood something about it, and I am even more against it now that I no longer understand it at all.” — Andrei Tarkovsky

April 10, 2007

2008-09-05T11:52:00.003-04:00

I like this part of the interview:

AltCritic: What do you like in Roeg? (a friend of mine confessed the real reason she liked Bad Timing was her crush on Garfunkel hehehe)

Jim O'Rourke: Well, that's mine too! No kidding.

There seems to be a comma missing after "No".

March 27, 2006

2008-09-04T11:20:00.001-04:00

“Look here. Being intelligible is not what it seems. You mean by understanding that you can talk about it in the way that you have a habit of talking... but I mean by understanding, enjoyment. If you enjoy it, you understand it. And lots of people have enjoyed it, so lots of people have understood it... After all, you must enjoy my writing. And if you do enjoy it, you understand it. If you do not enjoy it, why do you make a fuss about it?” — Gertrude Stein

May 14, 2006

2008-09-03T13:36:00.000-04:00

Like most ferrets, they were named after Sex Pistols members and Monty Python characters.

April 12, 2007

2008-09-02T11:06:00.001-04:00

I could have reached up and tugged on a violinist’s pant leg without losing contact with my chair.

June 18, 2004

2008-08-29T12:39:00.001-04:00

I played to you and Jennifer quietly, as you slept.

July 28, 2004

2008-08-24T10:20:00.000-04:00

Ivor Cutler was a teacher at Summerhill.

December 13, 2005

2008-08-23T08:53:00.001-04:00

I always wondered how armadillos felt about that Swell Maps song. (I also wonder how real cake shop girls feel about “Cake Shop Girl”.)

April 21, 2007

2008-08-21T08:40:00.001-04:00

from the Wikipedia entry on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:

“Apparently, when Nusrat toured in foreign countries, he would watch television commercials in order to identify the melodies and chord progressions popular in that country. He would then try to choose similar sounding songs from his repertoire for his performances.”

August 18, 2008

2008-08-19T08:35:00.002-04:00

"fans can't be wrong"
Results 1 - 10 of about 200,000 for "fans can't be wrong". (0.36 seconds)
[...]

"ceiling fans can't be wrong"
No results found for "ceiling fans can't be wrong".

May 19, 2004

2008-08-18T07:08:00.001-04:00

From the New York Times today, this sentence:

Iran is a dazzling smorgasbord, from its “Death to America” murals to its winding bazaars.

June 8, 2007

2008-08-16T10:17:00.001-04:00

My drinking habits have been immortalized in the Boston Globe (last paragraph).

May 22, 2004

2008-08-13T10:34:00.000-04:00

from section 8.1.15 of the nuclear weapons FAQ, describing the construction of the first American atomic bombs:

“The lens system had to be made to very precise tolerances. The composition and densities of the explosives had to be accurately controlled and extremely uniform. The pieces had to fit together with an accuracy of less than 1 mm to prevent irregularities in the shock wave. Accurate alignment of the lens surfaces was even more important than a close fit. A great deal of tissue paper and scotch tape was also used to make everything fit snugly together.”

February 18, 2005

2008-08-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

“What’s a swarm of gnats got to do with a pile of rocks?
What have a bucket and a clean slate got in common?”
— Mayo Thompson

February 11, 2005

2008-08-11T09:49:00.000-04:00

Was Ligeti photographed wearing a T-shirt with just that one word on it?

May 11, 2006

2008-08-09T09:41:00.000-04:00

First the crocochickens will take out the owls and the serpents, then they’re coming for the humans.

July 17, 2003

2008-08-08T08:33:00.000-04:00

God just put a checkmark in a box in a gigantic spreadsheet.

August 4, 2008

2008-08-07T09:38:00.001-04:00

“Oh, I’ll just stay home tonight and clean out the glove compartment of the Batmobile. Gotham can cope with Envelope Head all on its own.”

October 8, 2004

2008-08-05T09:09:00.001-04:00

Your search - "greasy soul food breakfast" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.

April 27, 2005

2008-08-04T08:33:00.001-04:00

Heard even less often: “I have 14 kilometers of magnets in my pants.”

August 4, 2005

2008-08-03T09:20:00.000-04:00

Josh: It could have been UofC prof Michael Turner who (theoretically) studies the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles.

I’m picturing a bunch of shy fat guys.

October 13, 2006

2008-08-02T10:05:00.001-04:00

You haven’t mentioned Cybill Shepherd recently. Is something wrong?

October 8, 2005

2008-08-01T10:40:00.001-04:00

Braxton had the largest sweat towel I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Bath towel sized.

January 7, 2005

2008-07-28T10:17:00.000-04:00

My favorite trick is to wait until someone’s download has one second left to go, then log out for two months.

June 16, 2005

2008-07-24T10:54:00.001-04:00

headline from today's Chicago Tribune:

Women astronauts hit glass ceiling

March 13, 2007

2008-07-22T11:32:00.000-04:00

from http://www.signandsight.com/features/1090.html:

interviewer: You deliberately keep your distance from other living writers.

Thomas Bernhard: No, not deliberately at all. It comes naturally.

I: What, in your view, is a conversation?

TB: When talking is supposed to become conversation, that's when things get gruesome. There are collected conversations, hundreds of them, books full. Entire publishing houses live off them. Like something coming out of an anus, and then it gets squashed in between book covers.

...

TB: You can sit at home, put your books on the shelf, and when you look at them, you think: "Sad".

October 12, 2006

2008-07-21T09:25:00.001-04:00

10:07:49 [D—] Hello, are you there?
10:19:02 [Seth] yes
10:24:17 [D—] I usually dont ask priviledges but you have a song I have been trying to get for a while and whenever you're on the queue is huge and when I get closer to top either you log off or i "lose" places in the queue
10:24:32 [D—] Is there a way i could get it? maybe a trade of songs or whatever?
10:30:17 [Seth] sure, I'll cut you to the front of the line
10:30:23 [Seth] you know about the Portsmouth Sinfonia, right?
10:34:39 [D—] nope
10:34:43 [D—] and thanks a lot!
10:35:03 [D—] I just had like 15-20 seconds of piano music on my computer
10:35:06 [D—] unidentified
10:35:23 [D—] so I asked a pianist for some help identifying the music
10:35:32 [D—] and odds are it is that song that you have
10:35:58 [D—] I am far from knowledgeable when it comes to classical music, but I did find this one beautiful :)
10:45:48 [Seth] this probably isn't the version you want; the Portsmouth Sinfonia is made up of people who don't know how to play their instruments
10:46:11 [D—] oh
10:46:40 [D—] thought it was "serious" since its bach
10:46:56 [Seth] I dunno, the piece might be recognizable... barely
10:47:24 [D—] guess the original will be hard to find
10:48:06 [D—] lol yeah thats definitely not the song I was looking for

January 24, 2006

2008-07-20T11:03:00.001-04:00

I am drunk.

August 16, 2005

2008-07-18T10:06:00.001-04:00

quotes from Thomas Dolby customer reviews on Amazon:

Thomas Dolby inspired me to create one of the first Floppy Disc files I ever owned

Another thing about this is that it was used in a Pantene commercial

I give it 4 thumbs - not pointing thumbs, just thumbs.

It still holds up, boys, never fear.

it has been an integral part of my life, the soundtrack to my inner thoughts and perceptions.

How I miss those electronic drums!

like Neil Armstrong's moon walk, a cul de sac

Pity poor Thomas Dolby.

November 8, 2005

2008-07-16T07:35:00.000-04:00

They’re trying to determine if Philip Best is wearing any pants.

October 14, 2006

2008-07-15T08:32:00.000-04:00

interviewer: But maybe you can work with these other media, write music for a ballet...

Misha Mengelberg: I hate ballet. [silence] It's very... athletic... The kind of ballet I'd like to see is... very old ladies knitting or something... Not a lot of... jumping about...

June 30, 2004

2008-07-14T10:03:00.002-04:00

The one case where Clarence Thomas votes with the liberals is — of course — the pornography case.

July 6, 2007

2008-07-12T09:08:00.003-04:00

how the Ryoji Ikeda review at http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/18695-op?artist_title=18695-op actually begins:

Recently, the mouse problem at my apartment has gotten out of control. They run up the walls and crawl into my bird's cage to eat seeds, nibble through unopened loaves of Orowheat, and most heinous of all, they ate out the crotch of my roommate's old panties.

how it should begin:

They ate out the crotch of my roommate's old panties. They run up the walls, crawl into my bird's cage to eat seeds, and nibble through unopened loaves of Orowheat. The mouse problem at my apartment has gotten out of control.

Isn't it much more entertaining in that order? I think so.

If there is something surprising in a sentence, it should go at the end. Thus "They ate out of the crotch of my roommate's old panties" is better writing "The crotch of my roommate's old panties was entirely eaten out" (and not only because the latter uses the passive voice and ends with a preposition). Conversely, and this is my main point: if there is something surprising in a paragraph, it should go at the beginning — especially if it is the first paragraph.

I am willing to give Pitchfork writers this kind of advice for free occasionally, but if they want it on a regular basis, they'll have to pay for it.

May 19, 2008

2008-06-28T11:52:00.000-04:00

I hope he still has a pet snake.

May 30, 2008

2008-06-25T08:22:00.001-04:00

Miles Davis interview, 1968

interviewer: Do you have any particular hobbies?

Miles Davis: Making fun of white folks on television. That’s my main hobby. That’s about it.

December 26, 1995

2008-05-29T09:16:00.002-04:00

We are crossing the South Side on the Dan Ryan. At around 35th street, as the rows of boarded up CHA high rises slide past us, R—’s mother screws up her face and asks: “What subdivision is this?”

March 20, 1996

2008-05-29T09:14:00.002-04:00

They are from New Zealand, an island where everyone lives in one building owned by the government.

May 5, 2008

2008-05-26T08:43:00.001-04:00

Sing it out loud, as loudly as possible, to everyone you encounter.

May 15, 2008

2008-05-24T09:39:00.000-04:00

We are now the #3 hit on Yahoo Image Search for “schnauzers”.

May 19, 2008

2008-05-23T09:33:00.000-04:00

He didn’t have a monocle and the tips of his mustache weren’t waxed into curlicues.

August 9, 1997

2008-05-19T10:02:00.002-04:00

Don’t sell your Joan Jett records.

January 3, 1998

2008-05-16T15:19:00.002-04:00

“Mayor Daley announced another major upgrade in 1973: $7.50 million would be spent to replace the fourteen-year-old bluish white mercury-vapor lamps with yellowish high-pressure sodium-vapor ones. Some of the first efforts centered on high-crime areas like Lawndale, while sodium-vapor advocates cited their higher energy efficiency and greater illumination. In spite of objections, the program moved forward and was completed in 1981 with the installation of high-pressure sodium in all the alleys. For several years, the debate over the lights sizzled. But it was clear that being the 'best lighted city' now meant being the 'most lighted city'. Even areas that were traditionally treated with great attention to design felt the change... The urbane ranks of globe-topped standards have been replaced by what Harry Weese has called 'a marching column of rickety double bracketed orange-tipped fruit gibbets,' whose 'orange pools of late night light are wasted on empty stages waiting for crime.'

“The sodium-vapor controversy also reached into the suburbs, especially those with architecturally or historically significant street lighting systems... The controversy raged most fiercely in Oak Park and Evanston... In Evanston, the city council's efforts to scrap all 6,800 lights in 1976 were met with immediate and widespread protest... [Eventually,] the city decided to reject crime as a reason for bright, high-pressure sodium vapor lights, and to allow neighbors to decide on the wattage of bulb to be used...”

— Mark J. Bouman, “‘The Best Lighted City in the World’: The Construction of a Nocturnal Landscape in Chicago”, Chicago Architecture and Design: 1923-1993

October 13, 1995

2008-05-12T07:27:00.001-04:00

If I stub my toe and yell “ouch!”, is the “ouch!” expressive?

February 4, 1998

2008-05-11T09:45:00.001-04:00

You challenge another person by naming an Anthony Braxton album title, but you leave off the year at the end. That person has to name the year. If they get it wrong, they have to drink. Or, they can challenge you back, and if you were bluffing and didn’t know the year yourself, or if the title you named wasn’t even a real title, then you have to drink. Whoever drank then challenges someone else. And so on.

April 1, 2000

2008-05-10T09:03:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday, Badtz-Maru!!

January 7, 1997

2008-05-09T08:05:00.001-04:00

“Gorky was touched deeply and soaked my vest with his tears. I started to feel a bit proud. But then, Gorky soaks the vest of every poet with his tears. Nevertheless, I will keep the vest as a souvenir.” — Vladimir Mayakovsky

January 9, 1997

2008-05-03T09:39:00.000-04:00

I should start taking photographs at shows.

September 27, 1995

2008-04-07T07:53:00.000-04:00

Grim surroundings for the young aesthete...

June 4, 1999

2008-04-05T09:10:00.001-04:00

I took R— to the Bertoia sculptures in front of the Amoco Building and we played them for a while (nervous that security guards would come oppress us).

September 25, 1998

2008-03-31T11:32:00.001-04:00

“Sometimes when I’m flying over the Alps I think, ‘That’s all the cocaine I sniffed.’” — Elton John

December 21, 2007

2008-03-29T10:36:00.000-04:00

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” — Ambrose Bierce

March 27, 2008

2008-03-28T09:56:00.001-04:00

Who will comfort the crying monk?

January 17, 1999

2008-03-26T08:34:00.001-04:00

“In the future we’ll invent more junk!” — Gang of Four

October 16, 1994

2008-03-23T09:10:00.000-04:00

There are no NeXTs left at Ryerson and only one, lone, pathetic NeXT here at Usite.

November 2, 1994

2008-03-22T09:25:00.001-04:00

I did my first jazz show at WHPK. The DJ before me was this 75 year old guy named "Captain Bill". Here's how he introduced me (more or less): "OK now, next up is a young man named Seth... These young guys, they think they know. But they don't know." After putting on his last record, he proudly informed me that "The singer on this record is the same age as me!" I put on an Andrew Cyrille record and he warned me, "You'll never get any audience playing stuff like that!" At one point as he was lecturing me he actually drooled onto the floor.

October 24, 1998

2008-03-21T07:50:00.001-04:00

from a book on Luis Bunuel: “Some fools have also written that I made a ‘smutty’ film. Down with smutty films! I hate them!” [Bunuel shouted this, as if he were barking a military command.]

March 15, 2008

2008-03-17T08:36:00.000-04:00

from http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/programmers-at-work-charles-simonyi/:

INTERVIEWER: Do you associate with any other programmers who have developed major programs? Do you trade ideas with them?

SIMONYI: [...] We don’t have much to talk about. We feel good vibes and exchange three or four words. I know that if one of these guys opens his mouth, he knows what he is talking about. So when he does open his mouth and he does know what he is talking about, it’s not a great shock. And since I tend to know what I am talking about, too, I would probably say the same thing, so why bother talking, really?

January 15, 1999

2008-03-15T10:01:00.001-04:00

“It’s important to know that I made Venereology while drinking lots of beer. These essences are all influenced by death metal. But not musically. I liked something more extreme than the death metal rules. Pulse Demon is back to my usual way. I’m not targeting death metal. I’m not drunk when I recorded Pulse Demon.” — Masami Akita

October 22, 1999

2008-03-14T08:59:00.000-04:00

I’m going to dress in English-professor brown and pig out on free hors d’oeuvres.

October 5, 1999

2008-03-10T09:24:00.000-04:00

At this moment, a raven lands on his shoulder.

December 14, 1995

2008-03-09T08:49:00.001-04:00

The ones with only their legs stuck accept their fate after a while and patiently endure their slow deaths, but the ones with their antennae stuck are really upset about it and twitch continually.

March 5, 2008

2008-03-07T12:18:00.001-05:00

In October 1989, Art Garfunkel read HIS OWN BOOK.

September 12, 1996

2008-03-04T09:44:00.001-05:00

The 1.5 liter glass bottle of water slid out of my bag and landed directly on the head of the man beneath.

March 26, 1997

2008-03-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

Keep the Oval bit and the stuff about bacteria. I laughed.

February 10, 2008

2008-03-01T09:51:00.000-05:00

From the Wikipedia article on “flattop”: “The shape of a flattop is, by definition, not compatible with the round shape of a human head.”

February 20, 2008

2008-02-29T10:24:00.001-05:00

Does this spreadsheet make my galaxy look fat?

January 25, 2008

2008-02-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

If you Google “moribund buildings”, I am the #1 hit.