Autumn's metaphysical burlesque

Halloween in SF

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:55:26 GMT

There's a lot of really cool stuff going on this Halloween weekend. I'm not sure what event I'll choose, but hopefully my friends will go to the ones I can't make it to.

10/30:

*An Evening with Kevin Smith at the Warfield. Tickets still available, but pricey ($45 and up). We got tickets to this a long time ago, should be hilarious. SF.

*Live 105 Halloween Spooktacular giant party at the Cow Palace. Lineup includes The Faint, Infected Mushroom, Basement Jaxx, The Crystal Method and many more. Looks like a fantastic dance lineup, more dance-y than Live 105 usually is. $35 until the 29th, $40 day of show, or $99 for 4. Still pondering going to this in addition.... SF.

*Kinky Salon is having a Halloween Party. Live spooky performances, DJ sets, cabaret act at midnight. Also, as befits the name, there will be playspaces open for sexiness. $25 advance, $30 door. Both Friday and Saturday nights. SF.

10/31:

*Journey to the End of the Night is a street game that's like a cross between urban tag and a psychogeography derive. A bunch of my friends went to the last one in Oakland and had a really fantastic (albeit exhausting) time. It helps if you're in decent shape. Free, SF. Lots of walking and/or running.

*Ghost Ship - a Space Cowboys party. 12k square feet of space full of DJ music, massive Burning Man style art, lighting effects, Steampunk Treehouse, all kinds of crazy stuff. Will be over the top. Treasure Island, free all night shuttle from SF. $40. Likely to sell out w no door sales, so buy ahead.

*La Petit Mort with Rhubarb Whiskey is a bluegrass murder ballads show featuring some really excellent musicians. Expect great music, chatting, friends. Probably a more chill kinda night than most of these events. Sunshine Biscuit Factory, Oakland. $5-15.

*Otherworld Halloween is an underground dancey thing, featuring a fuckton of excellent DJs and lighting/laser effects by a friend of mine. $15 at the door, goes late (6a). Oakland.

*Cellspace Artfreak Benefit for sadly displaced Bill the Junkman. Imagine the entire Laughing Squid events calendar rolled into one night - Mark Growden, Attaboy & Burke, Extra Action Marching Band, Dr. Hal and more. If you're wondering what to do, PLEASE GO TO THIS! This will be amazing, and it's a hugely worthy cause. If you ever wanted to meet the SF Cacophony Society and all the artists it gave birth to, this is your chance. Not sure I'll make it to this, but I will definitely be there in spirit. Sliding scale, $10 up to however much you want to donate. SF.

*Kinky Salon is having a Halloween Party. Live spooky performances, DJ sets, cabaret act at midnight. Also, as befits the name, there will be playspaces open for sexiness. $25 advance, $30 door. Both Friday and Saturday nights. SF.

11/1:

Dia de los Muertos in Fruitvale. Sounds like the annual festival will be more entertaining and host more art this year than ever before. I've gone to this a number of years in a row, and always enjoy myself. Tons of people! Take BART, it's right at Fruitvale. Oakland. Free.

So, did I miss anything awesome? What are you doing?

Pritikin strikes again!

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:47:00 GMT

A few years ago, I wrote a post here about a real live eccentric millionaire.

Check it out here: http://tyrsalvia.livejournal.com/574173.html (friends only, as all my older entries are - check the one I posted in discord_society if we're not LJ friends, or ask for access)

Anyways, he's now talking about making his house a museum. I would *so* love to go to this!

Bob Pritikin knows just what San Francisco needs - yet another museum.

And the quirky former ad man, hotelier and musical saw player - yes, he plays a saw with a reputed Yehudi Menuhin violin bow - has the perfect spot.

His house.

It's packed with a kaleidoscope of art, kitsch and magic show paraphernalia. We're talking about a home where a tree in the yard shoots fire (although it wasn't working on a recent visit), Eleanor Roosevelt is memorialized as a whiskey decanter and Sen. Chambers drowned in the upstairs swimming pool after a night of carousing. (The good senator was a parrot.)

The catch is that his mansion at the convergence of the Mission, Noe Valley and Glen Park neighborhoods doesn't have the proper zoning, and Pritikin will need approval from the city's Board of Supervisors for his plan.

The whole thing may get as far as Pritikin's 2004 offer to turn his home into the city's mayoral residence - pretty much nowhere.

Then again, this time could be different.

Pritikin, whose parties and fundraisers draw a lively cross section of the city's intriguing characters and old-guard politicos, argues his home is really the perfect place for it.

He even had the perfect name: the Only-in-San Francisco Museum.

It seemed fitting for the collection assembled by a guy who wrote a book titled "Christ was an Ad Man" and gave out wristwatches featuring Jesus with fake eyelashes in honor of Tammy Faye Messner singing at one of his renowned Labor Day bashes.

You've got Adolf Hitler's globe - with a plaque reading "May the bastard rot in hell" - juxtaposed with sculptures by pacifist Beniamino "Benny" Bufano and the blue neon sign from the defunct North Beach restaurant Moose's.

Pritikin even had a mural painted on two exterior walls depicting 70 or so famous San Franciscans, from Dianne Feinstein to topless dancer Carol Doda riding a zebra, which is being unveiled today.

Turns out the "Only-in-San Francisco" name won't fly, though. The San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau already owns the Web site onlyinsanfrancisco.com.

So Pritikin has settled on The Pritikin Museum, and he's trying to get city approval to show off his collection to the paying public.

Ticket sales will help cover the several hundred thousand dollars a year it takes to maintain his mansion and grounds, known as the Chenery House, he said.

Pritikin's plan is to have about 20 visitors a day, six days a week, who would pay $49 a pop for a docent-guided tour, a magic show and a Mexican lunch next to the pool where the parrot drowned.

"I'm not trying to make any money on this thing," he said. "I'd like to pay the bills, make a nice contribution to the community and have some daytime visitors."

Pritikin says he will strictly limit the numbers of guests and hours of operation. He has enough off-street parking. He has a busy school and senior center on either side. He's met with neighborhood groups, who seem supportive.

Pritikin also has an ally in Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the area. Dufty asked the city attorney last week to draft legislation to create a special use district for the museum, saying Pritikin had an "extremely unique property" and "an amazing collection" of art and San Francisco memorabilia.

"This looks like a walk in the park compared to a mayoral residence," Dufty said with a chuckle. "The issue for me is, is it consistent with the neighborhood and copacetic with the neighbors? So far, so good."

And in Pritikin, we are talking about a guy who made his fortune convincing people to buy things. Some even give the former ad exec credit for the famous Rice-a-Roni jingle, although the words were written by the late Charles Foll.

"It's so stupid," Pritikin said as he sat surrounded by a J.M.W. Turner oil painting of Venice, a 3-foot replica of the Transamerica building made out of condom boxes and a 19th century French carousel pig. "My work is so much more sophisticated than a stupid jingle."

orange and black

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:23:20 GMT

...I am actually not a big Halloween person.

Let me clarify.

I have a thing for skulls. Probably a third of my clothes have skulls on them, and this LJ icon is in fact something I think of as personally representative. My love of Oingo Boingo and Day of the Dead are well known, and I collect calaveras. I have a thing for happy bouncy death. I like the contrast. I like the happy bouncy stuff but it needs a counterweight, a darkness and an anger to it without which it flies away into Pokemon happyland.

So you'd think I'd be really into Halloween.

Similarly, my colors are orange and black, purple and lime green, red. I love things that glow in the dark. I like dressing up in ridiculous outfits, and elaborate makeup. I like big boots and flouncy skirts and strange hair. I like dressing up to go out.

Hell, my room is decorated with "Halloween" lights - strands of blacklight purple and bright orange, and a garland of lights shaped like eyeballs.

The truth is, I love Halloween *stuff* - decorations, Jack o Lanterns, stripey socks and witch hats and all that - but I'm not super fond of the actual holiday itself.

Like New Year's, Halloween is a big holiday for expectations. I want to be doing something intense and magical and fun and strange, and it's hard for anything to live up to that. This is not to denigrate any plans I have or have had, just that this desire born of a thousand bad movies makes it really hard to just enjoy stuff without wishing it was all more ...cinematic. This isn't even to say I haven't had a few of those amazing and cinematic nights, just that they're *really* hard to plan in advance. Cinematic usually has to sneak up on you at least a little bit; trying too hard is a quick way to ruin it.

The other thing that's hard for me is the whole costume angle. I love dressing up in ridiculous outfits, but they're very rarely "a costume." Halloween usually requires that you are "a thing" - a cowboy, a ghost, a cop, a pirate. I have a lot of clothes and a lot of them are strange going out sorts of clothes, but hardly any of them fit nicely into a single noun explanation. I'm not a cowboy or a ghost; I'm a me who wanted to look fabulous while still being comfortable, and blend in ok at that club night or that festival or that convention or that party.

A friend posted to Twitter last night: "Welcome to San Francisco! You will need: a dirndl, a Santa costume, a pirate costume, a steampunk costume, a clown costume, a hobo costume.." While he was kinda joking, he was also not wrong. The SF freak scene has a lot of events to which costumes are appropriate if not necessary. I think I might find next Halloween less frustrating if I spend the year collecting a fairly high quality set of four or five costumes. Fox and I had been kinda talking about needing to start costume trunks already, but like many things that has been on hold as we've been sorting through our things and organizing our house, and getting our finances back in order after my summer of unemployment.

On a purely practical level, Halloween is frustrating because there are so many fun-sounding things happening at the same time and it's hard to pick. It's hard to know which event is going to be the best for what you're wanting at the time, and hard to get a sizable number of friends to pick the same event. This year there are at least three things I can think of that I really want to go to, another couple that I'd definitely enjoy but don't make first tier, one thing that a ton of my friends are doing but I'm pretty sure I'm not up for, and a couple of things I think I've heard about that sound awesome but I haven't seen concrete details.

For some reason, I am feeling a lot more "bah, humbug" about it this year. I'm having a hard time coming up with a costume idea that I'm excited about, and I really hate going to costume events without being in costume. Wearing a meh assemblage of stuff out of my closet isn't really appealing, but I don't want to go buy a ton of stuff either. I'm sure I'll figure something out, but I'm feeling a little dispirited about it at the moment.

What about you? What are you doing for Halloween this year? Costumes? Events? What are your thoughts on the holiday?

need a new phone

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:19:31 GMT

I am in the market for a new phone, and have been trying to decide what I want.

These are the features I definitely want:

*full keyboard
*decent camera
*good predictive text & T1
*long battery life
*durable
*good reception
*Bluetooth-enabled
*decent web browser
*integrates with GCal
*a few decent games

I am pretty sure I don't care about:

*streaming video
*streaming audio
*audio playback (battery life is a big deal, and I'd prefer to use an iPod & a phone than deplete phone battery)

The list of options is overwhelming and somewhat irritating.

I loathe handset exclusivity. The whole bullshit about not being able to get X phone on Y carrier is utterly stupid, and makes me almost wish I could avoid the whole issue entirely. I'm on Sprint right now, but my reception is painfully bad at my house. I can't tell if that's due to the age of both of our phones, or if it's actually a Sprint problem. If it's the latter, I'd rather switch carriers than continue to deal. Still, that's a giant pain in the ass and I'd prefer not to if it's actually just a problem with my phone.

Pretty much anything will be an improvement over my current phone - which I like a lot, but it's 3 years old and thus lacks a lot of the features I'd like, not to mention the degrading reception.

The keyboard is pretty non-negotiable. I've tried using the keypad of an iPhone, and it doesn't work very well for me. I realize that partly this is a learning curve, but it's also the fact that I like to press keys with my thumbs, and my thumbs have long nails, and nails can't press keys on an iPhone. I guess most people would never say this, but I actually really miss Palm Graffiti and the stylus.

Then again, the App Market for the iPhone is really attractive. I'd like to be able to use Yelp on my phone easily. Do I even need an app for that, though? Don't they have a mobile version of their website I can use with a decent phone browser?

Operating system is another issue. A lot of smartphones seem to be on Windows Mobile. I'm not an utter MicroSoft hater, but I'm also not a fan. Just how bad is Windows Mobile, anyways?

So... that leaves me pretty up in the air. I carry a BlackBerry for work already, and I am pondering getting one for personal use. At least the OS would be familiar. They do seem to have what I'm looking for, and there's a wide range available on my current carrier and also AT&T (the other carrier I am most seriously considering, for several reasons). I don't know, though. They're a little ...stodgy. Carrying two BlackBerry phones seems kind of silly too, but then I'd hate to get used to a feature I really like on my work phone and lose my job and be stuck with a personal phone lacking that feature.

ARGH. I am really not a gadget person. I enjoy shopping for clothes or groceries, but shopping for a device to cyborg with is mostly very frustrating, overwhelming and disempowering. A phone becomes a part of your brain, an immediate access point and memory store and connection to everything outside of you. Getting a new one and finding it doesn't work with your head is an almost painful experience, and yet there's really no way to try before you buy. Playing with a phone for 5 minutes in the store is not at all a good prediction of how well it will work in one's life, and while I realize you can often return something, the experience of "moving in" with setting things up and transferring contacts is so onerous as to be a total disincentive to do anything but live with whatever you don't like and just feel grumpy for a while.

Bleah.

Got any phone review sites you really like and can refer me to? I'm not really looking for personal reviews, but if you have strong opinions on phones, carriers or phone operating systems, I'm happy to hear those too.

certified pre-owned by meth-heads vehicle

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:29:38 GMT

Fox and I went looking for cars online, and we found this one:

Orange Mazda 6

We thought: It's orange! It's in our price range! Those are good cars, right?

So on Sunday we went to check it out. There are a couple of things wrong with it, but we figured that just might be why it's not too expensive. The glove compartment latch is broken, and it's missing a stereo (the dealer said the people he got it from removed it, though I think that's wrong).

Monday I rushed over there after work to test drive it. It drove a little ... funny. We thought: maybe it needs an alignment. We could handle that.

As much as we wanted this thing, we're also not idiots. Yesterday we took it to a mechanic, the *excellent* PR Motorsports in Hayward. I found them on Yelp - my local mechanic was too far away to take the car to. They looked it over very carefully, made detailed notes... and told us not to buy the car.

When we told the dealer what was wrong, he said he could fix half that stuff for free! And he knows a cheap mechanic who can totally handle all the rest of that stuff! He'll even reduce the price $1500! We're thought: no.

The dealer said that if we don't buy the car, he's just going to send it to an auction. Note to self: do not buy cars at auctions (I'm guessing you can't take those to a mechanic).

You'll understand why this is so funny when you see the estimate. As far as we can figure, it was owned (by meth heads?) by someone who thought they knew how to work on it, but didn't. That probable explains all the missing parts, all the wrong parts, etc. My boss suggested that someone may have been racing it and took the original engine out, replaced it to race, and then put the original back in to get rid of it. Who knows. Whatever happened to it, I think we just avoided a huge money pit.

Autumn

Here are your prices. Some of these items are not essential right away (see *) and the used spare tire is an approximate cost.

Is overdue for the 90k service $399.00
- Right side engine mount is broken $230.00
- Rear transmission mount is torn through $171.00
- Front, front lower control arm bushings tearing $295.00
- Wrong drain plug on engine oil pan - possible future problem/leak
- Right axle CV boots are seeping grease $570.00 *
- Oil leaking > either from oil filter housing or oil filter o-ring $ need further investigation to quote
- Engine cover insulation is eaten > rodent ? $122.40 *
- Glove box latch is broken $90.00 *
- Spare tire is missing $100.00 used part (not available new)
- right front (tiny) light bulb in headlight housing is not working $15.00? Small bulb & easy to replace *
- Front brake rotors are warped $417.30 > can wait until it gets worse
- Front engine under tray missing $54.00 *
- Hazard lights not working >>> probably caused by improper stereo removal
- Factory stereo $702.76 + labor to install + fix whatever wiring damage there may be *
- A/C not working >> We take our own cars to San Leandro radiator and air conditioning *
- Rear brake pads are down to 2mm remaining $223.00 *
- Rear tires could not be removed - need a special lug nut key $200.00 for correct lug nuts and a set of new wheel locks > includes labor to remove wheel locks >> This will need to be done the next time the wheel come off
Front bumper has been repainted; rear windshield wiper was loose and installed in incorrect position; brake pads are aftermarket; coolant, engine and power steering fluid are all overfilled
NEEDS TIRES $600.00 ? depending upon brand/quality

Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
Thank you
-Laura

linkblargh

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:45:50 GMT

I have mostly switched to posting my links on Twitter. If you're interested in what I'm reading or thinking about these days, follow me there (same username as here).

Anyways, I have a lot of links I want to post, so here they are:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24722.html - Woah, the Democrat half of the House Intelligence Committee just accused the CIA of lying to them.

http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=8677 - humorous commentary on the proposed Google OS.

Article on how to convince a conservative to support public transportation.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/07/03/how-driving-a-car-into-manhattan-costs-160/ - brilliant analysis on money, traffic, and time.

Just in general, Infrastructurist is totally my new favorite blog. Urban planning, awesome!

http://www.stopthewaronfun.org/ - local morality cops have been persecuting owners of SF nightclubs, and it fucking sucks. Stop the war on fun!

http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/1293020.html - Ecstasy pills showing up as cartoon characters, mostly full of anti-worm medication BZP instead of MDMA

Inverse zombies, anesthesia awareness, and the hard problem of unconsciousness.

http://pugetsoundoff.org/how-to - great collection of digital media how-tos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/sets/72157606226772243/ - autochromes on Flickr

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/06/qa-the-lyme-disease-controversy.html - interesting notes on Lyme Disease, and the complex of interrelated diseases that includes Chronic Fatigue, Alzheimer's, ALS, Fibromyalgia, MS, etc.

http://www.slate.com/id/2221397/ http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/06/iranian-traffic-engineering/ http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/06/a-deeper-look-at-the-iranian-firewall/ - three articles on the Iranian internet surveillance system; much more complex and scary than China's, by a lot.

That's good for now. There will probably be more soon.

Iowa

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:54:27 GMT

My poor grandmother is about to lose a leg. She's had a staph infection in one of her replacement knees for the last year and a half, and they took it out hoping it could heal up. Turns out it had done too much damage, so she's faced with amputation. It looks like my dad and I are going out there to be moral support over this upcoming weekend. Sad for the occasion, grateful that we can be there for her when she needs someone.

Do any of my friends in Greater Freakistan know awesome weird people or places in the Des Moines area? Dad and I will probably spend most of our time with Grandma, but it would be nice to have someone to chat with or know cool places to go to spend a little time not worrying about family stuff.

Edit: Looks like we're going out sometime in August, not this weekend as we'd been thinking.

KallistiCon 2009: June 12-14!

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:57:37 GMT

Hail Eris,

KallistiCon 2009 approaches at breakneck speed. Come join us in Oakland, CA for a weekend of craziness, ritual, inspiration, laughter, and pineal stimulation.

June 12-14

http://www.kallisticon.com

If you wish to attend, please email stmae@discordian.com as soon as you're aware of your intentions.

All hail Discordia,

St. Mae
stmae@discordian.com
--><--

film

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:59:02 GMT

In the process of cleaning my house, I've found about fifty rolls of film that I need to develop. Until I get a job (or generous benefactor), I'm going to develop one a week.

This is the first roll, color 200 Kodak 36 pictures from my recent trip to Egypt. These pictures were taken at Karnak.

On my Flickr, there's a set for pictures from Egypt, and a set for highlights from the trip. Right now there's only 36 pictures, but I'll continue to add new ones to the set whenever I get more developed. I'll put the best ones in the highlights set, in hopes that people will look at them before they get exhausted from looking at an obscene number of pictures in the other set.

trust & public officials

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:20:01 GMT

Yesterday, I posted this to Twitter:

...between a politician and the CIA, which one would you assume is more likely to be lying? would D or R politician change the answer?

There's a pretty interesting discussion of the subject on my Facebook wall (kill me now, I said there was something interesting on Facebook). As a number of people guessed, this was sparked by the Pelosi-CIA situation about waterboarding.

It's a complex story, so I'll summarize for those who haven't spent some time reading up. The CIA claims that Nancy Pelosi was briefed in February 2002 that they were using "enhanced interrogation techniques" (ie torture) on terrorism detainees. At the time, she was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. In late summer 2003 she was elected House Minority Leader, which meant she left the Intelligence Committee (where she was replaced by Rep. Jane Harman as the ranking Democrat). Additionally, the CIA says that in September 2003, they briefed a Pelosi staffer and Rep. Jane Harman on their use of waterboarding. Harman was so upset by the revelations that she wrote a letter of protest to the President and the CIA about it.

The reason this is in the news now is that the Republicans are claiming Pelosi was complicit in torture, and thus has no grounds to call for a Truth Commission to investigate the Bush administration.

This Politico article has more details.

I have a complex reaction to the story. On the one hand, Pelosi is claiming that the CIA misled her in 2002 and all they really said is that the Bush administration was claiming legal basis for the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, *not* that they were actually using them. Given my understanding of and assumptions about the CIA culture, I imagine this to be true. Not only that, but she was legally bound not to let the information out to the public. She wasn't the Minority Whip at the time, just a House rep, so she didn't have a whole lot of power even if she had somehow managed to let the information slip. Additionally, she was probably engaged in an extremely delicate and complicated situation as she vied to become the Minority Whip when Gephardt retired in 2003. Even if she did know, I'm not sure I blame her. My guess is that she was briefed in a misleading way, but also probably chose the path of willful ignorance.

One thing I do really admire about Pelosi is how well she's kept the Democrats together on votes. I don't always agree with her choices (let's face it, I'm not exactly a centrist), but the way she's kept the party together is extremely difficult and has been significantly more effective than previous party leadership. Her operation strategy largely seems to be that so long as something on her agenda gets done, it doesn't matter who does it. She's been willing to take political hits for unpopular actions because she's in a very safe district, but she gets other reps to do as much as possible without her name on the action. While I don't always like where she goes, I do admire how she leads. On this theme, I don't have a problem with her not adding her own signature to Harman's letter of protest.

At the same time, yeah, it kind of does make her a hypocrite.

The big thing I'm worried about is that Republicans - mostly people who outright condone torture - will use this to block the Truth Commission. Whether or not Pelosi is something of a hypocrite (which, shouldn't that be obvious by now? after all, this is the woman who blocked Bush impeachment) shouldn't matter to whether or not we call these assholes out. A Truth Commission is important for us to heal some of the wounds of the last 8 years. Even if it's half-assed and biased, I'd like to live in a country that at least investigates some high ranking criminals.

All of this made me wonder about how much trust we place in government officials. In general, I assume that politicians and CIA members and similar persons will be lying a certain percentage of the time. Some will lie for scandalous reasons (adultery and prostitution and homosexuality, oh my!), some will lie for financial reasons (Haliburton, etc.), some will lie for perceived reasons of national security (weapons development, troop deployments, spies, interrogations, etc.). While I don't agree with everything perceived to be a national security risk, I do support lying about some of this stuff - for example, I don't think that weapons in development or troop deployments need to be on the national news, that's just basic security.

So just how much do politicians and the CIA lie? Do Republicans and Democrats lie the same percentage of the time? Do they lie about the same things, or different things? Do you think politicians or the CIA lie more frequently? Which of these lies do you care about (for example, I really don't care when politicians sleep with prostitutes except that they keep pushing anti-sexwork legislation)? What percentage and types of these lies do you think are justified, if any?

I know a number of my friends and readers here are anarchists who want to entirely remove the system. If you're going to answer the questions above, do so within the constraints of our current political system. Whether we should get rid of the system or not is a totally different discussion, and the role of truth and deception in a different system would obviously make for a different set of answers.

more news of the Empress Norton

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:52:20 GMT

Most Discordians and other weirdos will be familiar with Emperor Norton I. Unless you've visited his grave, you may not know of the Empress Norton.

Jose Sarria is a San Francisco drag queen who has done a lot for the queer community by founding the Imperial Court system, an international organization that celebrates GLBT achievements and awesomeness. Check out this article I posted to discord_society a few years ago.

I mention all this because I happened to see Sarria in the news. Apparently he helped sentence a murderer to death back in the 60s, and there was some question as to his impartiality - which was just upheld today. News article.

may 1

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 00:05:19 GMT

Last night I went to an awesome reading at Modern Times in SF. It was an interactive reading of manifestos, where members of the audience and performers read snippets of manifestos interweaving and interrupting each other. I had such a good time! It was like someone had done a Burroughs cutup of manifestos, and we read them with anger and passion and hilarity. They had provided pages with clips of various manifestos, so I got a chance to read a couple of things. I really enjoy dramatic reading, and it kind of made me want to write poetry so I could read more at other things.

badgerbag had organized it, and she posted a lengthy review (with quotes! and usernames!) over at Dreamwidth: Manifesto review.

I got to read part of the Bitch Mutant Manifesto, which now having read the whole thing I have kind of fallen in love with. Bitch Mutant Manifesto. Read it, it's fucking awesome.

Afterward, I went to see sarahdopp for her birthday madness at Bender's (happy birthday, again!). There I met up with neuroptik and dahveed76 and other lovely people.

Talking about potential futures with charliegrrrl, I mentioned imomus' recent brilliant post on Berlinification. Berlinification. I've been thinking about this piece since I read it. If you're interested in potential futures, read this post.

neuroptik and dahveed76 decided we were tired of shouting over the music, so we headed out to get pearl tea at Quickly in the Inner Richmond. Ask me to explain in person, but there was a mistranslation of the word "seed" on the video menu that resulted in a slide that purported to sell Semen. WTF. Seriously, go there and watch the video monitor of menu items for a while. OMG.

Heading home after dropping them off, I realized I needed a bathroom and didn't want to wait until I got back to the east bay (longtime readers will remember I live in Oakland now). I stopped off at Noisebridge (local hacker space where people can generally be found at all hours) thinking I'd be there for a couple minutes. An acquaintance who I'd been meaning to get to know for a while was one of the only people there, and we wound up having a really awesome conversation about life the universe and everything. I left four hours later....

Tonight, I meet up with my beloved metaphorge (fresh from his anniversary celebration with darkmoon - happy anniversary, pretties!) to head to A Touch of Pleasure, the opening reception for an art exhibit that includes the steam-powered vibrator a friend of ours made.

SFBA: unemployed & daytime available people

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:12:10 GMT

I wanted to get a list together of my friends who are unemployed and/or around during the weekdays.

Here's why:

1. Let's help each other get jobs! Sometimes in my job-ad-crawling, I find ads that don't fit me but would be a perfect fit for a friend. Similarly, I have some friends who work in recruitment at large local tech companies. They've been generous enough to pass my resume around, and I bet they'd be up for extending that to my friends if there happens to be a job that might fit your skills. You probably know people too. Why don't we pool our contacts, forward job ads to each other, etc.?

Comment and tell me what you're looking to do and where, and if I see anything that fits your skills or know anyone who can help, I'll ping you for a resume and email address. If you're hiring or know someone who is, check out the comments here!

2. Let's hang out! I really do have a lot of stuff to do around the house so I can't go play all the time, but it would be really nice to know who's around for a spontaneous picnic in the park or coffee on my way to the bank or whatever. This obviously extends to friends who aren't looking for work and are around during the day - stay at home mothers, students, self-employed masseuses, tech contractors, etc. It's really easy to get a little isolated by staying home all day, so it's good to have an idea of who is around.

Make sure I have your contact info (you can email tyrsalvia@lj if you don't want to post here) and a general idea of where you live.

gratitude

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:56:02 GMT

today is my birthday. i am 31.

this year, i am feeling adored and remembered by people i don't see often enough. some birthdays have felt invisible but for the party and my family, but this year so many people unbidden have wished me a happy birthday on facebook and twitter and even here on lj. there have even been phone calls! i didn't post about this (until after the well wishes had poured in, anyways). i didn't ask for this. i have friends and affection, unasked for.

and that is the greatest gift of all.

so grateful for my friends and my partner and my family today. feeling apprehensive about the future, but capable of tackling it and trusting and held up by the network of people who care. thank you.

laid off, looking for work & laptop

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:47:12 GMT

One thing I didn't mention about my trip is that the day before, I got laid off. (On April Fool's. On my 6th anniversary with Fox. Sigh.)

As you all know, I was really super happy with my last job, and I'm pretty sad not to work there anymore. On the other hand, I got laid off with luminaries like the head of the business development team and the VP of Sales, so I guess I don't feel too lame. And hey, I have a lot more free time now.

So that means... I need a MacBook(Pro) and a new job. Can you help?

First the computer: I was able to use my work machine in and out of the office, so I didn't spend the money to get myself a nice machine. Now I'm stuck either using one of the house machines (not in a comfortable position for personal use), sharing a computer with Fox (what a good way to hate each other quickly!), or using my ancient Windows laptop. I can make do, but I'd be much happier with a MacBook(Pro) of my own. Got one to give away? Got one to sell for not too much? Got one I can borrow for a few months? Let me know, I'm interested.

The job: I'm looking for another support gig, or potentially a NOC engineer position. I am at my best when I can work at the intersection of people and technology, and I really actually enjoy doing tech support at an enterprise level. My skills are mostly Unixy, but I've done work with Windows and Mac platforms as well. I'm hoping to work in SoMa again, or somewhere in SF or Oakland close to BART. Failing that, I'm happy to go as far as the peninsula, but San Jose is a bit out of my range. Know of any opportunities? Please send them my way. For that matter, feel free to pass around my resume to anyone you think might possibly be hiring. It's a tough time out there, and anything my network can do to help would be hugely appreciated.

My support resume: http://AutumnTyrSalvia.emurse.com/
My NOC resume: http://AutumnTyrSalvia.emurse.com/NOC/

home again home again

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:30:19 GMT

We got back yesterday. The trip was a whirlwind - every day, we were touring for at least 6 hours. Either I was in awe of ancient ruins, fascinated by ...something, or exhausted. There was no time for reflection. Now I need to talk, think, look at pictures, daydream....

Anyways, I'll post moments from the trip in the next few days. I managed to send postcards to most of you, but not quite everyone (very sorry if I missed you!).

travel shopping

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:19:04 GMT

I feel like I'm dressing up to be another person with the travel shopping I've been doing. (Uh, did I mention this in a public post here? I'm going to Egypt with metaphorge and darkmoon and her family! Next week!)

I'm buying clothes I like, but mostly things I wouldn't buy under other circumstances - long sleeved loose cotton shirts, brown things, etc. I bought a white straw-style wide brim floppy hat, even (though I may take it back, still deciding). I bought pants that aren't jeans!

I'm going to feel a little colonial in my formal cotton women's wear. I shall make sure to tip the natives, request tea, and use words like "shall" on a regular basis.

confess (Happy V-Day)

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:43:00 GMT

Inspired by a friend of a friend, my own dreaming, and a hope that anyone still reads this thing....

This post is an anonymous confessional, Valentines-themed. Tell us what you need to go make your life more amazing and more delicious in the months to come. Tell us your love-pain, broken hearts and demons that wake you up at night. Tell us your undeclared crushes, your hot fantasies, stories about sexy things you've done lately. Make us cry, make us wet, make us feel human.

I am going to screen the comments here just for today, just to get the ball rolling. I will unscreen everything tonight or tomorrow (unless you specifically request that I not), so come back to read it then.

musical obsessions

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:40:01 GMT

I came back to LJ, but I haven't found as much of my desire to write. It's not that things aren't going on, just that I guess I've come to enjoy the quiet voice of my own narrative when it stays less linear in my head. So instead, I will share with you the music I've been obsessively listening to over the last few months:

Metric - fierce girl electropop
MGMT - funky electropop
Pinback - omg a new favorite band, melodic and sometimes disconnected dreamy indie rock
The Trucks - sexy dirty electroclash that kinda makes me want to fuck

Other names that I'm not quite up for describing, but if you're interested in doing some searching I highly recommend: Santogold, of Montreal, Meat Beat Manifesto, Mates of State, Felix da Housecat, Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS), Black Moth Super Rainbow.

It's all so good, this music. It makes me writhe and dance and feel possessed. Loud and surrounding me, it washes over me like an orgasm and I am compelled to flow through it. So good.

French Postcard Artist Needs Help

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:07:45 GMT

Check out this story:

Should posting the image below lead to three years of jail time and $100,000 in fines?

I first encountered this on R6XX's blog (check out R6XX - they sell art and books and a bunch of cool stuff, and they're friends of mine), and I've been sending the story to as many mail art groups as I know. I sent it to Wooster Collective (the first link in this post), and I'm glad to see they've picked it up. I've also sent it to PostSecret and Boing Boing, and I hope they'll post it too.

I know I send collage postcards through the mail, and this story really struck a chord with me. Please pass it on.

be it resolved that:

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:57:04 GMT

in 2009:

1. my friends, family and loves shall all be safe and healthy.

2. i shall be safe and healthy.

3. i shall travel more.

4. i shall actually get my house in order, and comfortably decorated.

5. i shall attend to my personal flaws, and grow as a person.

6. i shall get my accounts in order.

7. i shall engage in sustained fun on a regular basis.

8. i shall continue to get better at being a co-worker, friend, lover, and partner.

9. i shall work on interesting projects.

Yes?

ten years of discordian.com

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 03:32:08 GMT

Hail Eris!

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Discordian.com.

In 1998, I was working tech support for an internet company. I spent a lot of time online, and I got to thinking that maybe it would be cool to get my own domain. I didn't want just a vanity site, I thought maybe I'd get something that sounded a little more interesting. Bored at work on Christmas, I noticed that Discordian.com was available. I'd already spent a couple of years as a regular in alt.discordia, and my username at my old ISP was haileris. I thought about it a couple of days. Why not? I registered Discordian.com on December 27th, 1998.

I had no idea to what extent Discordian.com would shape my life. I have met so many amazing people because of Discordian.com!

I put up a truly awful site that I made with godawful Paintshop and HTML skillz, and left it alone for a year or two. Then I paid a web designer to help me build Discordian.com 2.0, which was a pretty decent page for a long time.

When I met metaphorge, sparks flew and we created the Discordian.com 3.0 that you see today. He's done an immense amount of work on the site, and I can't wait to see what we come up with together next. We have hopes for a Discordian.com 4.0 sometime in the new year, and I know that our creative partnership will really make it shine.

In 2000, KallistiCon was born. johnnybrainwash puts in a ton of work every year to help make KallistiCon go, as does metaphorge.

Besides these names, we've had help from many others. People have written for Discordian.com, allowed us to present, joined us in ritual, helped us with hosting and technical issues, helped out at KallistiCon with cat herding and dish washing. We've had an audience - people have read the site, commented on it, helped us make it better. We have been deeply inspired by the Discordian community - yes, community!

Thank you.

We have a number of things planned to mark our 10th; we hope you'll join us in our celebrations. Here's to our next ten!

All hail Discordia.

-St. Mae, Discordian.com

Coho bots!

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:18:05 GMT

One of the strange and lovely features of the internet is the Coho/Salmon/Trout/Hat/Taco bot phenomena. This delights me! Someone has created bots that go searching through recently updated websites like LJ, Twitter, Xanga and similar and connects people via IM. It sends a message to each person, so they each think they've been messaged first.

Right after you've posted to LJ, ever gotten a message from someone named something like thecharminghat or transparentcoho? This is what's going on.

themissinghat is a community to talk about this, post conversations, etc. There's even a page to request a fishbot, if you're bored and want to chat up someone random!

salty cheerios

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 10:44:24 GMT

anyone else make this? it's sort of the chex mix of cheerios.

cheerios
olive oil
soy sauce
worcestershire sauce
garlic powder
brewer's yeast (optional)

metaphorge thinks i'm crazy for this, but it's tasty.

email I am sending right now re: last night's Amanda Palmer show

tyrsalvia@livejournal.com — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:30:37 GMT

Amanda said, "this is going on the list of strange things I've signed."

To : [woman from Des Moines Craig's List looking to sell large plastic alligator]
Cc :
Attchmnt:
Subject : RE: plastic alligator
----- Message Text -----

I realize this is going to sound strange, but would you potentially ship it to me? I'm in California.

About 8 years ago, a friend [note: see merovingian] gave me 5 of these large plastic alligators as a Christmas present. I wasn't sure what to do with them, so they wound up living in the trunk of my car. Over the years I've brought them out for all sorts of silly things - impromptu alligator sword fights and parades, mostly. I once played one as a musical instrument in a marching band.

Last night, I was at a concert. My friends and I were part of the performance. Needing props in a hurry, we broke out the alligators. Anyways, at the end of the night we wound up getting the alligators signed by Amanda Palmer, the woman whose performance we were at. I gave one to each of my people, so we each now have an autographed alligator.

The sad note to all of this is that these alligators have strangely come in handy over the last 8 years, and these three can no longer live in my car lest the autographs wear off. One will be moving a couple of hours away. I am in need of replacement alligators.

I have been searching the internet high and low, to little avail. I have found a few potential alligator replacements, but yours looks to be the exact alligator model I have.

I'll understand if you're seeking only a local home and thus an easy transfer for your large plastic alligator, and yet I'm hoping that offering my ridiculous story may inspire you to take pity on two lonely car-trunk alligators seeking a third to help re-establish their colony.

I can mail you a money order, or pay you via PayPal. I am of course willing to pay shipping fees.

Would you do me the favor of mailing this alligator to me?

Sincere thanks,

Autumn Tyr-Salvia