Of Donnie Darko:

"[The] opening [scene] is essential to the movie's endlessly circular (or mobius-strip) form, and part of what draws you back again. It begins with a scene that belongs at the end of the last time you watched it -- a dream within a dream within a dream... And when you think about it that way, it helps locate the entire movie in the space-time warp between Donnie's ears."

This is a very interesting essay about the movie Donnie Darko, written by Jim Emmerson. In it he speculates that the entire movie is a figment of Donnie's sexually frustrated imagination. He makes some good points, and some that almost ruin my favorite parts of the movie. But that's ok, and I'll tell you why:

I know a million people have said it a million times, but Donnie Darko is one of the smartest movies I've seen in years. Not smart like say... Contact is a smart movie, but smart in that director Richard Kelly knows what should be explained and what shouldn't. What he leaves unexplained is the smartest stuff of all, because that's the stuff WE get to talk about with our friends. That's the stuff that keeps us coming back to watch his movie again and again.

However, according to Emmerson, the smartest thing Richard kelly did, was make us think the movie was about one thing, when it was about something else entirely. I always wondered why Kelly was so quick to explain things away in the director's commentary on the DVD. Why he was so eager to give us full screen images of The Philosophy of Time travel on the Donnie Darko Website. Images that basically explain everything that happens in the movie. It's because it's all misdirection.

If we follow Emmerson's logic then:
All the things Kelly says on the commentary are true, but only in the fabricated world in which Donnie lives during the movie. So then everything, not just the giant rabbit named Frank, but even his new girlfriend, his inadvertent yet heroic uncovering and burning of a kiddie-porn dungeon, all of his heroic actions... they are all made up in Donnie's mind. Even at the end when we watch people mourn Donnie's death. That is Donnie imagining what people will think of him after he is gone, a classic teenage fantasy. Which is what we are left with, the entire movie is just a teenage fantasy wrapped inside another teenage fantasy.

(title insert) Present Day

A group of my co-workers participate in a sketch comedy group called The Silly Spider Monkey Fiasco. They put up all of their sketches on their website, and even produce their own quality DVD. A lot of the Spider Monkey guys part ways, forcing the group to produce fewer sketches than they did before, until now....

(title insert) About a Year Ago

Ed of The Spider Monkey Fiasco meets a friend of mine at a party named Matt Young who has a band called Captain Genius and is in at least 5 commercials you have already seen on TV. Matt tells Ed about a website where common everyday people make pilots for TV shows that will never air. The pilots are voted on by you, the internet citizenry, if they get enough votes a second episode is produced, if not it gets "cancelled." The project, headed by Robot Bastard and Scud: The Disposable Assassin creator Rob Schrab is called Channel 101...

(title insert) About a Week Ago

The Spider Monkies begin to work on a new mysterious project for both their website and Channel 101. Ed asks me if I can be the voice of an animated dinosaur. I cannot, but Ed has me do it anyway.

(insert title) Back to Present Day

The mystery project is completed, and is titled "Gay? With a Dinosaur."

**update**
this morning Mack told me the pilot was rejected by Channel 101. That's too bad. They had over 5 hours of 10 minute pilots to go through, and "Gay? With a Dinosaur" didn't make the cut.

I was reading Jason's journal, he was talking about time travel, and it reminded me of an awesome interview Nova did with Carl Sagan about that very subject. Check it out:

"First of all, it might be that you can build a time machine to go into the future, but not into the past, and we don't know about it because we haven't yet invented that time machine. Secondly, it might be that time travel into the past is possible, but they haven't gotten to our time yet, they're very far in the future and the further back in time you go, the more expensive it is. Thirdly, maybe backward time travel is possible, but only up to the moment that time travel is invented. We haven't invented it yet, so they can't come to us."

- Carl Sagan on Time Travel

A few days ago someone commented in another thread about how we had littered the Midtown landscape with a clunkyrobot.com sticker.

The gist of it was, they believed we had lowered their property values by placing our sticker on a traffic pole. Our response was, amidst a landscape choked with terrible advertising for gasoline, hamburgers and cigarettes, our sticker was meant to save an environment already drowning in a sea of terrible consumerism. It was art.

To that point, here is an interesting essay from the Obey the Giant website about Hybrid Vigor, about Advertising vs. Graffiti.

"There are parallels between vandalism and advertising--both occupy public spaces, are pervasive and not always welcome, and attempt to hijack the attention of idle passerby. Both encompass a range of quality that runs the gamut from low-level junk to serendipitous glory to moments of soaring brilliance."

The essay also quotes Derek Lerner, while I did not know him personally, I did go to art school with him.

Every time I think about riding MARTA I hate it, but every time I actually ride MARTA I love it. I love watching the people, and I love actually feeling like I live in a real city with a real mass transit system. Like every once in a while I see a young kid in a white button-up chef's jacket, whom I believe to be going to culinary school. Although other than the jacket I have no proof of this. Also there is a the veritable jungle of heavy perfumes, colognes and body odors.

This morning I ran into Lady Crumpet at the 5 Points Station, she's super nice, but as always shyness and self consciousness commanded my awkwardness.

On another note, this link was posted to baseboard by the mighty Meskadon. A single designer, Koadzn, takes on 52 graphic designers & illustrators. The theme is kaiju, or big monster films, the result is awesome!

this was drawn from a photo of a friend found on baseboard.net

meet maxi:

@ 1600 pixels wide
@ 1024 pixels wide

The unauthorized biography of Baghead.

This short photo-story is brought to you by G-whiz Ginger. Some of you may know her husband, the titular host of apeinfinitum.net, an oldtimey run called C.A. Childers. That association though, is only to give you a point of reference. This work, The Story of Baghead, stands on it's own 2 legs independently of C.A. It's awesome, check it out, and be sure to use Flickr's badass slideshow option.

I'm going to avoid talking about politics of any real substance, and instead dwell on the latest conspiracy theory about The President.

There been a lot of rumbling throughout the internet pre-porting a theory that Bush has been wearing a tiny earpiece. Some piece of crazy complicated near microscopic piece of technology. The weblog isbushwired.com points to an image of Bush from the first debate with what appears to be a very visible square bulge in the middle of his back. Now, earpieces are supposed to be off limits in these debates, and both of the candidates podiums were wired for sound, so what the hell was that bulge? Some say they see a similar bulge in this photo.

I don't think it's an earpiece and a transmitter, and I'll tell you why.

Did you guys see that huge blob of spit in the corner of Bush's mouth last night?

Forseriously, It started at the beginning of the debate as a small nuisance, but quickly grew to critical mass as the debate went on, until I could focus on nothing other than the glob of spit itself. I considered it the third debatee, and would dwell on it's presence even when it wasn't shown on camera. (I always KNEW it was there)

In summation, if Bush was truly wired, then why the hell didn't the little man who lives in his ear tell him to wipe his mouth?

case closed.

unless... that wad of spit was there to make me think he DOESN'T have an earpiece when in fact he does, and he was just enduring the embarrassment to trip me up... a classic case of misdirection...

um case re-opened.

For those of you who may have missed it, this comment was made earlier in another unrelated post:

+++posted at 07:46 PM+++

"Hi guys! You have a really cool site that's why I'm sad to see that you are the runs that placed stickers around Midtown posts to advertise your site. With such great creative talents I would figure you would use another type of advertising rather than littering the Midtown landscape with your stickers. Thanks for lowering our property values!"

signed, midtown resident

++++++++++++++++++

Now, that is a well mannered comment. Although we're sure "you are the runs" is a midtownian slam we are not familiar enough with to be offended by, we have to admit that this midtown resident has a point. Stickers, stuck by those not "authorized" to stick stickers on metal traffic poles is "wrong."

However, we at clunkyrobot.com cannot help but to think to ourselves...
"You are taking yourself way too seriously," and I'll explain to you why, with the use of hyperbole and exaggeration. (and to be perfectly honest, not a little sarcasm)

...

Dear midtown resident,
Obviously the 5 seconds it took to remove our sticker was painful for you. Whoever placed that sticker on that traffic pole clearly did not consider the blinding arthritic pain you must endure from counting your endless stacks of dollars and golden spanish deblumes.

We're also sure that the vinyl sticker was adhered with such veracity to the metal pole, that surely did peel away large chunks of tempered steel from that the beautifully painted and meticulously cared for traffic directing instrument.

We can envision the scenario now, and while it plays out in our minds, be sure to know that pangs of pain surge through our collective bodies:

The scene is set upon a dusty midtown street, the evening air is brisk, but still comfortable. There is still a few hours of light left in the evening sky. You, law abiding and property tax paying midtown resident are walking your dog, we want to say a small dog, a small hairy dog, possibly with curly locks. You walk a few feet behind the cute little animal, a plastic Kroger bag in hand, no wait, change that to a plastic Publix bag, where shopping is a pleasure...

As your dog finishes that deed which dare not speak it's name, you diligently bend down and scoop away the offending material. You turn the bag inside out, because like all good diligent dog owners you've made one of those smart "dog poo gloves" out of the bag. You tie it off, feeling assured that you've completed your civic duty. You, midtown resident, have curbed your dog. Good show.

As you stand tall with pride... That's when "it" catches your eye. Placed, almost arrogantly upon YOUR traffic pole is a small vinyl sticker. And although we cannot say for sure what went through your mind in that moment, please allow us to imagine it...

"You dirty runs, how dare you deface our beautiful midtown landscape with your ADVERTISING."

Did I mention that behind you during this scene there are countless billboards and placards advertising rental cars, parking lots, gasoline, hot dogs, and even Midtown Lofts... starting at $5000000000!

The point is, what harm did that little sticker do?

It wasn't advertising, it was art, which, isn't to say it wasn't bad art, but that's all it was. That sticker, like this website is just harmless art. It wasn't spray painted graffiti, or even a wheat paste poster that tears and gets all gummy when you try to take it down. It was a harmless little vinyl sticker. Probably with cute little characters smiling away at you. Did you even look at it? Aside from the website address, which we're sure you saw right away, did you even see them?

Those little characters were happy to see you. Why weren't you happy to see them?

If you'll notice, to the right over there -->

I've decided to take on the daunting task of re-organizing the navigation bar. For far too long has simple text resided in that area. Now I've introduced some bite sized graphical images, for the "on the go" career minded web viewer.

The newest desktop will always be featured as a small thumbnail, below that will be the standard text based links for the 4 most recent desktops. Also below those links will be another link to the new Desktop Gallery, which is currently in production. Just about every desktop I make will end up living in the gallery, with the same little bite sized thumbnails for easy viewing.

look at us, getting all organisized (sic). It might take a few days, but the new system should make things a bit tidier. Please let me know if there are any problems viewing, or any kind of poor formatting crops up.

This gallery is filled with photos of people wearing headphones in New York. The image is labeled with what the person was listening to and what they had for breakfast... It's fun to see if what the person looks like matches their musical taste, and if that has anything to do with what they've eaten for breakfast. (via a.wholelottanothing)

When I think of New York city, I get a mental image of thousands of people, all huddled and walking together, but each isolated, cocooned in a musical envelope all their own.

Here is something I wish I could motivate myself to do more often, from the website:

The Idea: Sketch irrevocabily for a whole day out in the city (San Francisco). Recording all I could of what I did and saw. (via metafilter)

An interesting link from Boingboing via Fark about the eruption of St. Helens, and how the falling ash will help bigfoot researchers find new Sasquatch footprints to cast from. footprints... or would that be feetprints, whatever.

Jeffrey Meldrum, an Idaho State University associate professor of anatomy and primatology who moonlights as a Bigfoot researcher says that most of the ground in the area isn't normally soft enough to make feetprints/footprints and the falling ash will create a nice soft blanket to be trodden upon. This guy has over 150 casts of feet that are somewhere between human and primate. (via boingboing)

This is really interesting, well at least to me it is. I was looking at the activity logs for this website, see, through movable type you can access a very limited list of what ip addresses are searching for stuff in your weblog.

Here comes the interesting part. On Sept. 30th somebody searched for the following things in my weblog:

delaware (that's where I'm from) teenage mutant ninja turtles (the comic and cartoon we were obsessed with in gradeschool) quest (the name of the gifted program I was in during gradeschool) gunning bedford (the aforementioned gradschool I attended) wolverine (heh, everybody is 13 years old at some point, bub) richard lewis (the comedian I thought was hilarious... before I knew what was funny) durr (the last name of one of my closest friends in gradeschool) rocco (the first name of another close friends in gradeschool)

These are all things that shaped me as a child, these are all things that me and my friends lived and died for as kids. Whoever knew these things, had to know who I was as a kid, I want to talk to that person. My hopes are that one of those long lost friends stumbled onto this weblog in a search of some sort.

If you were the person who did these searches, please, send me an email. The mystery is killing me.

Cost: 4 rolls duct tape.
Build Time: approx 12-15 hours.

The construction is 100% duct tape, excluding the plastic clip on the shoulder strap, which was cannibalized from an older retired messenger bag. The technique for producing duct tape sheets of fabric is easy, and once mastered can be used to make enough "fabric" to construct just about anything. More info on that can be found here.

The inside is customized with various pockets built to accommodate the large amount of crap I carry with me everywhere. (sketchbook, moleskin, can opener!) Future modifications will include customized padded compartments for my digital camera and iPod. The entire outside will be painted black for an added air of elegance, with a silver stencil applied to the front flap.

Apparently one of the producers for Law and Order and Homicide: Life of the Streets, Tom Fontana conceived many crossovers for character from L & O, Homicide, St. Elsewhere, X-Files, and a few others. That is really interesting in of itself, but it gets even more amazing when you realize that in the final episode of St. Elsewhere it is revealed that the whole show was a dream dreamt by an autistic child named Tommy Westphall.

Thusly, taking into consideration all of these crossovers in all of these T.V. shows, we can assume that all of television is a dream dreamt by an autistic child.

this guy has categorized all of the characters and which shows they crossover:
The Mind of Tommy Westphall (via metafilter)

We stumbled onto Josh Rubin's site last night. He's got a pretty great weblog, although he doesn't call it that.

He had a link to this video of a manhattan bike messenger race. Lucas Brunelle mounted a camera to his bike helmet. The result is intense, to say the least. Kevin Bacon only wished he rode so great. It's a hefty download at 50mb but it's worth it.