FALSE STARTS

In the words of Charles Barkley, "turrible".

True, this blog has been nothing short of turrible in the last few months, which is, I'm not ashamed to say, kinda the norm for the internet (and me). I read a stat somewhere about blogs and unused blogs, and how close to 98% of all blogs were considered "dead" or whatever (probably because of lack of concrete statistical facts). Which makes sense. I guess it's a little inaccurate, considering 30% of blogs are Nigerian pop-up scam blogs, but it's still an important number. It also closely aligns with Blake LaRue's "98% of all his ideas go unmaterialized" stat, which he can unfortunately back up with hard conceptual evidence.

INSTEAD, I started keeping a sketchbook. It began sometime in 5/09, which is conveniently written with whiteout on the spine, and kind of petered out in September. I picked a little Canson one, mostly because Connie's always looked awesome, and mostly because it had a $3 rebate on it (that I never filled out). As my first major sketchbook, I didn't know how to approach it, and intimidated by the tremendous amount of the blank pages, I think the early entries are random juvenile musings made at the Astor Place Starbucks during my lunch breaks. They're some of my favorite and most pointless entries.   I don't think you need to know what a sketchbook is about before you start it, because success is measured more in the persistence and discipline of the book than its achievement of some overarching goal.

The book, currently unfinished, ended up documenting a 3 month period of my life in occasionally shocking detail, mostly because of the dual responsibilities it assumed. I developed a tendency to write "diary-ish" entries along with the doodles, emotional and bitter and insecure ramblings that often overtook the feeling of the page. Text did end up pushing aside pictures for large sections of the book, as the more time I spent with it the more comfortable I became with dumping thoughts, ridiculous as they may have been (and almost regrettably honest).

But these are fun (or at least important) to look back on. They are so narrow minded, so focused on distinct moments and days, that they do everything a good diary should do: capture the feeling of a human being at an exact moment, without any perspective.


I guess this is sort of a longwinded introduction to my original point, which is that I want to start using this blog as a dumping ground again, and try don't feel bad about it being too much of "something". Blakecity, like many things in my life, has never quite worked out, and fell short as a cohesive web-experience. I can think of many words to describe it, and my attitude towards it, and since I love using loaded adjectives as excuses for behavior, I'll throw some out there now: restless, unfocused, inconsistent, disappointing, and just plain forgotten.

But this is a new post, you say. This is a sign of things to come. A green sprout through a crack in desert sand. New life!

I guess so. I want to make a zombie pun or something but I won't. I want to make this post more significant than it should be, but I won't (<--- this is the type of thinking that ruins blogs, and makes comeback posts so difficult). I won't even make any promises, because almost every idea I've "promised" to follow through with has failed reviews of everything I own, music videos of my youth, dream doodle contests, random pictures from my desktop, my essay on pandacam, etc.) So here is just a post.



To the right of this entry is a new feature on my website, called the Amazon widget box. To blogs with high levels of readership and influential cultural significance, this Amazon widget could provide some sort of revenue, but I'm expecting nothing of the sort. I like to think of it as an easy way to show things I enjoy with pictures and prices next to them (clearly the two most important characteristics of any item). I also like lists.

If I do update it I will post a few thoughts as to why I chose the items I did. If I fail to succeed at anything in life, it will most surely not be as a lover and promoter of all things I enjoy.

1) Michael Crichton. Pirates. $9. THATS ALL.
2) Raymond Carver short stories. I'm reading it right now so if you get it we can read the stories together and talk about them. The first one is really great and is about a boy who fakes sick to stay home to masturbate, hitchhike, and catch fish, in that order.
3) Because it makes me wish I lived in the backwoods of West Virginia. Short Stories. Author killed himself at 24. Very pretty writing.
4) On of my favorite longform comic books. It's actually all about the plants. Fantastic b+w art.
5) Melancholy on Mars, then more melancholy back home with Rusty Brown. Chris Ware: The greatest living artist? People will take classes on him in the future. If only he wasn't so sad...
6) The best series on TV (when Jackson Publick writes the episodes). An incredibly well animated and often hilarious one otherwise. Worth the $20 bucks for Dr. Killinger and Dr. Quymn episodes alone.
7) "2 for 1 special?" Where is my magic time machine that transports me to the world of this movie?
8) Early 90's Boston band. My favorite. The first 5 songs are the best cd of all time. The rest is cool too. But if I had to choose the best cd of all time it would be the first 5 songs of "On Fire" and the last 6 songs of "Today". "Galaxie 500" looks very nice in this font so I won't forget to write it.




9) How good are Nutty Bars?