Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/18/chicago/
Chicago is New York City taken in moderation.
or
New York is Chicago taken to excess.
The midwest is a place that identifies with moderation. Midwesterners are proud of their great metropolis. Chicago is quite the wonder! But then, they will admit to being uneasy about that big big city.
New York sees itself on the level of London, Paris, or Tokyo. New York is the cultural axis around which a great nation revolves.
Chicago sees itself rising from the plains. Chicago is the great version of Milwaukee, or Detroit. Chicago gave birth to the skyscraper and the Loop has a certain antiquarian flair, with the screeching L line at the center.
Chicago spreads out on the plain . . . tall buildings in the center, and miles upon miles upon miles of neighborhoods and factories, which give way to suburbs and corporate headquarters, which give way to the farms and small midwestern towns that are every year sucked into the growing conurbation. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/08/22/saddam/
I dreamed that I had a donkey.
He was a good donkey. My friend.
I dreamed I had a donkey because I read a book, that featured a donkey.
That donkey’s name was Saddam,
And he was not a happy donkey.
Normally, I have nothing at all to do with donkeys. Ever.
But, you read a book, your mind goes different places.
Mind-altering substances, indeed! No wonder books are frequently banned.
I read once, that people can fly, once they forget that they can’t fly.
I find that really enchanting but sometimes,
I worry that I will forget that I can not fly.
And that makes me nervous sometimes
When I walk to the bathroom at work.
Because we are on the fifth floor.
I have no donkey, I can not fly.
It is okay to dream,
But not okay to try.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/08/15/surfin-bird-haiku/
Nextbot knows that the
Bird is the Word, that’s because
Somebody told him.
Don’t you know about
the Bird? Everybody got
a memo last week.
Papa hu maw maw
Papa hu maw maw maw maw
Papa hu maw maw
Papa hu maw maw
maw maw. Don’t you know about
the Bird? Check your mail!
Because the Bird is
the word. And now you know that
the Bird is the Word.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/07/23/yoghurt-culture/
Recently, as in the past half year or so, I read that early on in the development of life, a long long time ago when we were all just primitive, one-cell organisms, with only the most basic cellular structures, or maybe we were only basic cellular structures, but way back then, we exchanged genetic programming like people exchange ideas today — we just passed the DNA right from one organism to another.
It worked pretty well, of course, because we were mostly very similar. I think I read that some of the most basic life forms extant today still do this . . . at the viral level, or so, they can just pop off a bit of DNA and another organism will pick it up and try it out.
This blew my mind, because it compared philosophically with memesis. That, a long time later, we develop language, and when we have enough organisms that share the same lingual code, we can form ideas into coded chains of syllables and pop them off to try and influence the function of other organisms. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/30/memorial-day/
Every holiday
Punctuates the paragraphs
Of life’s narrative
Memorial Day,
Indentation, for summer’s
Long hot sentences.
Pause, and gather breath,
Reverence for those stories
Concluded early.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/28/this-haiku/
This haiku I wrote
Is awful, it’s terrible
Why do you read it?
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/13/inappropriate-size/
Things of inappropriate size
We find them funny
But if my nose were runny
Would I still be your honey?
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/17/punctuality/
People, I will not beat around the bush. The old slogans convey a variety of disparate mission statements, which in turn only muddles up our message. I have had the mar-com team work on this for the past two months, and after a lot of process, and vetting, we have a new creative that consolidates our message in to a single slogan. I think you’ll agree that this captures the essence of punctuality, in a single, strong, coherent message:
A hand-stitched early bird in time gets to save nine worms in the bush.
You’ll find in your briefing packet a selection of tee-shirts, coffee mugs, letter openers, and tape dispensers all bearing this new slogan. We’ll be measuring over the next few months whether this new campaign has proven effective in improving on-time performance of key deliverables.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/12/devastation-beauty/
When we moved in, we noted a large collection of long-abandoned small houses and shacks and sheds and an apartment complex next door. And lots of beautiful trees. This area had been condemned, I’m told, for the past two years. Well, they finally got around to doing something with the condemned buildings, which is to tear them down to make room to build hundreds of condos. I can not blame them for building hundreds of condos so close to the BART station, but we were hoping that they would keep some of the trees around.
Wednesday when I got home, the buildings had been razed, except for a masonry structure down on the corner. About half the trees, mostly the taller ones, were still standing. On Thursday evening, I note that miniature forest that stood throughout the lot was completely gone. There are a few trees yet along the fence line, but the devastation is sad.
Those had better be some awesome condos.
On the other hand, one neat thing about Walnut Creek is that there is a lot of unspoilt land that we can walk to and hike around. This weekend we wandered around some of the foothills of Mount Diablo. We walked through a muddy area where Yayoi learned that there is nothing to fear about free-ranging cows. The views were awesome. I understand that things aren’t normally this green, but the current flora blows the mind.
All in all, I can’t complain so much. We will likely lose our view of Mount Diablo in the distance as the condos are built, but we still won’t have far to go for natural splendor.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/22/fear-and-loathing-mountain-view/
(In tribute to and with apologies to the late Hunter Thompson . . .)
We were just outside San Jose when the technology lifestyle began to kick in. Diploma in hand, I was offered a job in Mountain View, as chief IT monkey for an Internet startup. I was sufficiently underqualified that the job presented a compelling challenge, and a great salary, for a cocky young English major from Illinois, so how could I ever refuse? Fellow alumni and I were recruited by the tens of thousands, and found ourselves settling in the Silicon Valley in quick, overpopulated waves in a mad dash for riches; In my mind, we were the ’99ers, the prospectors from out East who had followed the gold rush to California as the original ’49ers had done a century and a half before. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/04/friday-sun-god/
I am having such a Friday. I have been really productive lately, which heightens the sensation of coming in one day, and sitting at one’s desk, and really not doing anything. Not even slacking off, just sort of in suspended animation.
So, let us slack off for a bit. It is important to do. I’ll tell you that this morning, as I was walking across the foggy parking lot to get to work, I looked up in to the sky and saw a sphere. The moon, so late in the morning? But it was pure white, and a bit larger. What an interesting moon. Unless … it is … the sun! I was staring at the sun!
Normally, staring at the sun is a bad thing that will make you go blind. Don’t stare at the sun! But today, the sun was weakened by fog … it was stripped of its wrathful power, and was just an orb in the sky. I thought to take a picture of this, because it was eerie and alien, but when I pulled my camera out a moment later, the sun was gone. It had become invisible in the fog.
Talk about eerie.
As I finished my trip across the parking lot, I thought about how the sun is totally manifest each and every day, even when you can not see it. It is so powerful that usually you can not look at it directly or it would destroy your eyes, but you can feel it shining warm on your body, touching you and everything from up high. No wonder the early people revere the sun as a God. But then, the fact that you can not look at the original Sun God, and you can experience the sun even when you can not see it, well, that opens up people to the idea that you can experience other Gods, even when you can not observe them directly.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/19/orpheus/
“Nature is not seperate from me; she is mine alike with my body; and in moments of true life, I feel my identity with her; I breathe, pulsate, feel, think, will, through her members, and know of no duality of being.”
Bronson Alcott
Orphic Sayings, No 35
via The New Yorker, January 10, 2005
_Orpheus at the Plough_
Put me in mind a bit of Speed:
“Life is a matter of a miracle, that is collected over time by moments flabbergasted to be in each others’ presence . . . The world is an exam, to see if we can rise into the direct experiences . . . Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write a hundred stories.”
Time now, to drift off, and enjoy a dream or three, before returning to the plough tomorrow, and tilling, once again, before the dancing exuberence.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/29/passing-thought/
You know, it must be weird, working for Yahoo!‘s branding department, to be re-writing grammar rules around the use of an exclamation mark mid-sentence.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/01/alien-chan/
<Adam> dman: What’s that for?
<dman> Adam: Petition for alien relative.
<dman> Excuse me, my alien relative is serving dinner now.
<Adam> Ah. Enjoy INS!
<Adam> I hope they make your alien relative welcome!
Yes, I hope that Alien-chan can become Conditional Permanant Resident-san. I hate paperwork, but I love Yayoi, so what can you do?
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/09/07/east-cermak/
I didn’t get his name. He hailed me as I was crossing the street. It was 11:30 at night on East Cermak, and I was on my way to the L.
“Excuse me,” he said, and stood back. He said he smelled, that was afraid he’d scared me … I was a little apprehensive, sure, but not scared.
He said he was homeless. It sounded like a recent thing. A few weeks ago, he fell asleep on the train and … he lifted his shirt sleeve a bit and on his arm I saw a lump covered with a jagged line of stitches, he pointed at a cut face and a missing patch of hair. (more…)
Feedback Welcome
« Newer Stuff . . . Older Stuff »
Site Archive
