Jeffrey P Shell: Joy

Moving Toulouse

Sat, 11 Jan 2003 19:24:27 GMT

Industrie Toulouse has moved to A new home (toulouse.amber.org) and a new publishing system. Most of the archives will be there soon. The Radio site will remain up indefintely, but no new content will appear here.

Herbie rides again

Mon, 06 Jan 2003 02:08:13 GMT

Volkswagen's advertising team delivers another beautiful commercial for the New Beetle Convertible.

Tue, 10 Dec 2002 06:56:35 GMT

As I recover from long days spent dealing with unions and intersections of differing data sets, I find great solace and comfort in Courage, the Cowardly Dog, a very curious and delightful cartoon on good old Cartoon Network that must be seen and heard to be believed. The animation is beautiful - principal animation against photographic backgrounds that yield a hyperreal haunting beauty. But topping it is the sound design, from the voices to the music which ranges from classical orchestral pieces to original music that is as strange and beautiful as the animation.

new york elw 1999

Thu, 05 Dec 2002 00:12:36 GMT

It's hard to believe that these recordings were done 3-3.5 years ago. There's nothing like a sunny day spent with friends crammed into cars driving out of the great city to a small airport on long island with power toys, recording equipment, pedals, and a full pack of lucky strikes. (idlewild mk1 and idlewild mk0). Nor is there anything quite like spending a brilliant winter solstice night under the brightest full moon in decades in NYC's Murray Hill neighborhood with a beautiful friend, a minidisc recorder, a full pack of lucky strikes, and an urge to whistle. (tuscany court ih'ladriel). Garbage trucks and energy, followed by a night of drinking and a hyper day of shopping. I miss the East sometimes. http://euc.cx/epx/ny_elw.html

The Goldberg Variations

Wed, 13 Nov 2002 00:53:27 GMT

Glenn Gould: "Goldberg Variations"
A new box set offers the ingenious 1955 interpretation of Bach's odes to God that turned Gould into a star, and the remarkably different version he recorded in 1981 out of contempt for the former. [Salon]

We'll Meet Again

Thu, 07 Nov 2002 04:10:48 GMT

And if anything good came out of today, it's that I now own a copy of Johnny Cash's new The Man Comes Around album. And there's one particular standout - We'll Meet Again, a song many will recognize as being the closer for the movie Dr. Strangelove. This song is just killing me right now.

We'll meet again,
don't know where,
don't know when;
but I know we'll meet again
some sunny day.

This is for you, Red.

Snow and Summary

Wed, 30 Oct 2002 14:30:36 GMT

Big lovely flakes are falling outside, and it's really beautiful from up here. It's been an odd week, and we're only two days into it. It would have been my Grandpa's birthday on Monday, and I went out to see my Grandma and ended up spending the night at her house. I slept in a room that my Grandpa finished when my dad had to move back home after my mother died. The cycle was strange. I was also given a wooden plaque of sorts that was made out of my Dad's first wedding invitation. It gives me two good things that I've never had before: a picture of my dad with a mustache, and a picture of my real mom who was very pretty (they were both in their early twenties in the photo. And I've never seen my dad with a mustache. Priceless). The snow is getting heavier. I doubt this storm will bring any real accumulation, and ski season is still a couple of weeks off yet. But this is already a better start than last year - hopefully the snow really picks up (especially in the mountains) in November. And I've been waiting to see what a snowstorm would look like from up here.

Transitions in waiting.

Wed, 23 Oct 2002 05:55:28 GMT

I'm trying to transition back into posting. But - what to say? I've been working hard during the day (and taking the pleasure of avoiding work when NOT at the office), where I'm away from Radio. I think it's time to move Radio Userland onto my iPod (and go - again! - through the pains of moving Radio) to keep it mobile (the path should stay the same, regardless of whether the iPod is attached to my workstation, my iBook (which is still going unused these days due to a SMC Wireless Barricade whose power adapter with strange requirements is missing in action), or my iMac. Or, I can open Radio up to post to over a blogging API and host it on my always-on workstation. I don't know. I'm never at the machine I want to be on when I have something interesting to say. It may also be time to move to Movable Type or some other server side setup, of which Movable Type seems the most complete. But then there's the issue of moving past posts in Radio to MT. Or I could write up an FDoc based solution for "Zope" and the CMF (FDoc is the pending product name for my compound document project that I've been working on off and on over the past few months), but I don't have the time or will-to-care to do that much coding outside of work. I have other things I'm behind on, like wrapping up the Eucci & Co. entry in No Type's Sine Fiction series, and putting together the More Summer Dress Fire release - I don't even know how big that one's going to be, and whether I should be seeking out putting it on CD, or getting a release on No Type, some other online label, or continue to put it up at Euc.cx. And, ski season is coming up, and I really need to start bringing in more money to support my drinking habit (the Cabana Club has become a second home to me now). It's not that I drink heavily (well...), but that the good Scotch's, the good vodka's, the good beers, etc. And maybe a fine cigar or two. And friends. And then there's all those CD's to import from Japan, such as Pizzicato Five and Yukari Fresh, DVD box sets like The Godfather Series, and the first three seasons of The Sopranos while I sit and dream of a deluxe box set of ALL episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street. And did I mention S k i i n g?? sigh And I didn't even talk about traveling. Oh well, as long as I can continue to do SOME of those, life will be good. There are other aspirations as well. So somehow, "Zope 3" weekend experimenting is a little off the charts right now, but where I get a chance to work with it at the office, I will. And of course, there will be reports here. In the meantime, buy this and this - finest packaging and noises. And in the mean-mean time - the democratic party is dead to me right now, and I'm having a hard time even finding a stomach to cast a vote this year. (there, now this post can land in the political category too).

Passing

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 06:44:12 GMT

My Grandfather, Milo L. Shell, a pacific theater World War II veteran (seen here at my cousin's wedding in August) is dying. He's basically in a morphine coma as his body shuts down from cancers - much more than we knew about. We almost lost him a couple of years ago to pancreatic problems, which was one of the things that prompted me to move back home - I knew it was going to be a time to be closer to family. We're a small one - the grandkids are me, my two younger brothers, and my cousin (his only granddaughter). It was marvelous that he was able to be there to give her away at their wedding.

Happy Days Ahead

Wed, 02 Oct 2002 16:18:22 GMT

My heart keeps switching in between two songs - "Oh Happy Day", and Jim O'Rourke's "Happy Holidays" (with the opening lines of "I'm going to a place where the women have nothing on but the radio turned up to 10"). Hopefully this is a good sign of Endless Winter. I turned on the radiators for the first time last night in this apartment. Now to get used to sleeping to the occasional thonks and clinks and clacks and hisses. Oh happy day! Winter is Coming! (yes, I used the blink tag there for the first time in YEARS, if not ever. The situation demands it. Besides, who will see it blinking anyways?).

Post Rain

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 06:26:44 GMT

Post Rain, a collection of unaltered sunset lomographs (to grow as more get scanned) taken after a significant late summer storm.

showoff

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 01:15:04 GMT

jolly bubbly lovely

All new restoration of Metropolis

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 06:22:00 GMT

I sometimes forget the beauty of this film.

To make matters worse...

Thu, 15 Aug 2002 23:10:28 GMT

The Ski magazines are starting to return to the racks. sigh. I bought so many Ski magazines last year between September and December, waiting (and whimpering) until the season got into full swing. The pull is starting to happen again. Until then, I have to remind myself, "Summer will end, fall will be beautiful, the snow will come...". And now, armed with a small army of cameras (although I didn't win the Elph Sport in a recent drawing at Pictureline), I hope to get a better bounty of shots this year.

Dreams

Wed, 14 Aug 2002 06:26:41 GMT

It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. It will be winter again. I hope.

Saturday Record and Reading Party of One

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 00:32:37 GMT

It's been a pretty nice Saturday. I woke up at noon (after a 4AM bedtime), and have spent most of the day finally catching up on my New Yorker magazine reading. And I've been enjoying a pleasant phenomenon about this apartment - my record player actually sounds good in here! I don't know if I just have things hooked up different, or the nature/layout of this place compared to my old one (new apartment = 1910 building with 12-13 foot ceilings, hard walls, hardwood floords, one big open room with tiny satellite rooms (changing, kitchen, bathroom); old apartment = 1993 new suburban prefab "luxury" apartments, odd angles, thin walls, carpet), but I've enjoyed the sound a lot more. So, I'm finally enjoying some items I bought on vinyl but never really listened to in Fredericksburg - Portishead, Radiohead, Pizzicato Five, Gershwin, etc. Now I'm just missing a lot of old records from my youth. It's time to start record-shop crawling.

colorful

Tue, 30 Jul 2002 07:27:48 GMT

New Cameras

Tue, 09 Jul 2002 06:45:55 GMT

My new cameras arrived today, and already I've gone through two rolls (the seemingly prerequisite trial rolls). And I'm halfway through the roll of 120 film. The Holga 120SF came in very bare packaging - a box that says camera, and a small instruction booklet, and this giant heap of plastic (since 120 film is medium format. 35mm is small, I suppose).I hope I got it loaded up right. I've got some black and white 120 film in there right now. It's very very easy to shoot over a picture (which can be nice in some instances). The LC-A 35mm came in beautiful packaging - including two rolls of ASA100 film (apparently the LC-A gets its best colors on 100 film), and a small square hardbound book full of photos and austrian words (an accompanying book all in newsprint has translations, I believe). The camera was in a beautifully wrapped brick. The wrapping was just white paper with black string, and two stickers - one in the center with heavily inked serif letters stating the cameras name and operating temperatures with a purple-inked packaging date; and a small red sticker in the lower left corner stating made in russia. Underneath the wrapping paper, the plastic brick had another layer of wrapping - this time blue with red and yellow stamp art. Inside of that, was the plastic brick containing the camera. The bottom half was black, the top half clear, with half-stickers on the side with red-on-bronze text with the word "Lomo". The camera, batteries, and wristband were all inside wrapped nicely and tightly in tissue paper. The Supersampler came in some pretty cool packaging as well - not as nice as the LC-A, but still nice. And now there's the Pop 9 to get - a camera that takes nine identical pictures on a single 35mm frame. And Lomo's started offering the Loreo, a camera that takes 3D (Stereoscopic) pictures on normal 35mm film. I'm thinking, however, that the Loreo and the Holga are not Lomo products, but rather cameras that fit The Lomography Way. And these cameras seem to have some history of their own - many people I spoke to at local film shops/labs recognized the name Holga more than Lomo. What appears to be a new article calling the Loreo the Camera of the Month has no mention of Lomo anywhere in the article. Still, these two cameras are on my wish list. Film rules.

Joining the Lomographic Society in force.

Wed, 03 Jul 2002 05:26:46 GMT

I just purchased two more Lomographic cameras - the 35mm LC-A, descended from soviet spy cams, and the 120 film based Holga 120SF (with flash). These complement by SuperSampler, a cool little camera that takes four panoramic shots over a two second period (or 2/10 second if preferred) onto a single 35mm frame. I'll be adding to this, most likely, with a decent photo print scanner. For about the same price as a good Digital Elph, I can get the hi-res scanner, and then use all of my growing camera collection. And still be able to use iPhoto to get a cool book of ultra-cool photographs. Digital be damned - there's no way a digital cam can be as fun as a Lomo! (who have just recently produced an underwear line using lomo photos..wow).

"Clear Skies Show a Summer Moon"

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 06:42:15 GMT

A joy moment - sitting precipitously (or at least, so it felt at times) on an iron balcony extension watching a big summer moon rise over the Wasatch, accompanied by beer (hefeweisen, decent for summer, but I really miss Pete's Summer Brew (beer + lemongrass!)), accompanies by a couple of cigarettes, and accompanied by the July Harper's.

Banter

Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:11:26 GMT

Willie Nelson: We got water, coffee, and hot chocolate. What's going to happen to our image? Johnny Cash: As long we keep wearing black, we might be alright. I don't know.

Making coffee before having coffee can yield disastrous results

Thu, 30 May 2002 17:15:05 GMT

Some mornings, one just needs to be reminded that it's not a good idea to reach over an open gas stove flame (to get the kettle to put on said flame) while wearing a loose heavy terry cloth bathrobe. Unless one really does intend to set ones self on fire. Postscript: I'm OK though - the robe doesn't even bear any burn marks, and I did stop the flames before they got to my hair. Besides nothing really wakes you up like the sight of fire dancing across your arm. On mornings like this, though, I feel like Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown:All I can make is cereal and maybe toast. Linus:That's right Charlie Brown, I have seen you make toast before! You can't butter it, but maybe we can help you!

(Quote lifted from the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Speaking of Charlie Brown, flip through this tribute to Charles Schulz by a large section of top editorial cartoonists.)

halfway to a high rise

Mon, 20 May 2002 17:34:01 GMT

For the first time in many years, I think I have an apartment I actually like. I've got a sixth floor corner apartment on South Temple in Salt Lake City, and it's actually about eight floors above street level. Looking west, down South Temple, I can almost pretend that I'm really back in Murray Hill / Park Avenue South in New York City. Even the traffic noise is there. And the rent, of course, is far cheaper. And the city is far less fun. sigh. I miss New York. I'm only halfway moved in. I still need to do the furniture. Then, I can let my body heal.

The Day Star Wars Got Good Again

Thu, 16 May 2002 22:29:18 GMT

We just got out of Attack of the Clones. My friend put it best - "...the day Star Wars got good again".

the lincoln orchard

Wed, 08 May 2002 07:23:04 GMT

As I was going to bed, trying to read Wonderful Town, a collection of New York focused stories from The New Yorker and being somewhere in between being too tired and being an insomniac, I remembered a night a year and a half ago, stepping out of Lincoln Center a bit past midnight and taking a cab down to Orchard, one of my favorite bars in the city. I don't know why, but there's a bit of a halo around that cab ride in my memory. The colors are a little off (white's are very sharp), like the night shots in Bringing Out The Dead. Beautiful night. I miss the east.