but isn't it nice when we're all afraid at the same time?

Waking in the wee hours to news of another death, and not even one of mine. Following it down in a winding spiral to a song from AFP. Ten minutes of beauty. Ten minutes of devastation. Five minutes of tears that I fought against shedding, because this loss, on top of other losses, too many deaths in this year already, and the year before, and the year before that...

everyone's too scared to open their eyes up
but everyone's too scared to close them

And what do I have to top that, really? A changed body, a changed brain, a changed perspective. Growing fearful where before I was--well, if not fearless, then certainly stoic, and still looking forward instead of back.



"And it's a ride," Amanda sings. "It's just a ride..." That it is. Life, experience, love, that's all it is. Partnering so we have someone's hand to hold, teetering at the crest. Sitting with family, created, acquired, growing, introducing them to the concept of safe fear, because we know it will help them process real fear, later.

Same principle behind horror media, really.

everyone's reading the rules of engagement
and everyone's starting to doubt them
everyone's reaching to put on a seatbelt
but this kind of ride comes without them

I'm remembering one episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, where he came in from Outside, removing his work coat and his work shoes, exchanging them for his softer cardigan, slipping his feet into more comfortable sneakers, and preparing the lesson for the day. All the little routines viewers had become accustomed to--the door opening, his easy, guileless smile, the short walk down the short stairs. It was ritual, in a way, practiced to give his audience time to unwind with him, become open to his next words.



The episode I'm thinking of, though, is sadly one they no longer run in syndication. Because in this one, near the end of all the calm routines, when he raises the top of the aquarium to feed the fish--he finds one of the fish has passed. Floating belly-up, its small fins no longer moving, its gold-scaled body no longer swimming in idle loops around the tank.

And it's a small, quick moment, expressed in microcosm: his eyes subtly shifting, his shoulders tensing, then relaxing. Nothing a child viewer would catch, even, though rewatching that episode as an adult, I see the signs more clearly. Thrown--just for a moment, a handful of quick seconds--before he pulls back to teacher mode. Finding the best path to turn this into education, pitched in ways his viewers would best understand. And whatever the lesson was going to be, it was set aside for the lesson he had on hand: telling children across the country about what death is, what death really means. That it's nothing to fear; that it's okay to feel things about it. That our emotions, as children, sometimes feel very big, and very scary, but that that was okay, too. Death was just a thing that happened, to all of us. Death was a natural departure in this case, and accepting that was part of life, too.

It's just a ride. And we've got the choice to get off any time that we like...



It is the great equalizer, after all. The commonality of death. The universal experience we'll all have at some point.

Right?

everyone's trying to stay on the side
where the water's just boiling more slowly
frogs in a pot, well that's one thing I've got
at least some of the frogs in here know me

It's not a comforting song. It wavers, ever so slightly, an off-balance calliope, making music for whomever's listening in the shadows...or maybe for the shadows themselves. Her voice breaks at times, the pain in the chords palpable.

And it's not the first time I've heard it, I've had this album, There Will Be No Intermission, for years now. But reading on her latest loss, while listening to this song...it sank deeper this morning. The lightest touch of midnight's chill gracing air already warming, the beginning days of May already lurching towards summer's thick, leaden heat, and I'm reminded yet again of the cyclical nature of loss.

I want you to think of me sitting and singing beside you
the chain pulls us up and we know that we're all gonna dive

And stupidly, pointlessly, thinking on my own. Because it's not in the same league, is it? I'm alive. The world hasn't done me in, yet. That's acres away from mourning an entire person. And yet...ringing the changes. Because there *have* been changes. Six hundred and fifty-plus days, now, with the headache that never leaves me. I'm less sure, now, on the other side of that. Less brave on the other side of that. Definitely, after these months, cascading through a year and still going, less stable on the other side of that...

Possibly more stubborn. But at this point stubbornness is a feature, not a bug.

But we all go down, yes, and we all go down...and see what the ride's made us into, this time.

I want you to think of me sitting and singing beside you
I wish we could meet all the people who got left behind
the ride is so loud it can make you think no one is listening
but isn't it nice when we all can cry at the same time?

But what else do we have, really? What choice do we have? Isolate, or integrate; pull back or push forward. Strengthen our relationships, or let them slip away.

and as we switch from side to side
everything is gonna be just fine
everyone you love is gonna die...

Yeah. Whether you believe in heaven, or reincarnation, in nothingness or continuation, this is all we have. This, right here, right now. Ride's gonna stop sometime, so until then, we make the best of the ups and downs, the scary descents and the link-by-link ennui of elevation. And we can make the choice to be happy in those around us, knowing that they're in the same place, in cars ahead or cars behind. Maybe we'll walk out with them hand in hand. Maybe we'll never see them again.

It's up to us to do the good in the world that we can, because everyone's just trying to hang on for the next drop.

the alternative's nothingness
might as well give it a try...

What have we got to lose, after all? It's just a ride.

the hybrid face of time and space, and all that's in between

Want to know more about Amanda Palmer's music? She's opened up a ton of past recordings--some to download, some to buy, but all available for listening. Fun idea, and something more artists should do; because the concept of record stores with listening stations is now something firmly camped in vintage reality for most of us.

Artist Nina Katchadourian has, for several years, been rearranging book spines to make snippets of prose ranging from the whimsical to the profound. Now, her project has been released as a book itself, which is, frankly, all kinds of awesome.

Interested in quilting? Interested in constellations? Combine the two! There are seventeen days remaining to the project, which is now fully funded, so you can still contribute if you want your own special thing; or just toss in funds to support quilt artistry in general. Either way, it's a fun idea, be that wall hanging or bed covering--a section of the sky, with stars strewn in stitches to adore at leisure.

More intriguingly, though, this is not the first Haptic Lab project to use Kickstarter, and it's far from the first that's funded--this tends to be what they do as a collective. Most of their projects are sold in kit form, but when they have a design idea that needs more funding than simply selling kits and finished quilts will get them, they toss up a "mini-Kickstarter" to help them. In exchange, they put out limited editions that will never be made again. So it's a win for everyone involved--Haptic Lab gets to make bigger projects, and sell the non-limited versions to the public; the contributors get a special, one-of-a-kind handcrafted creation with all of their trademark precision and tactile sensitivity.

Speaking of Kickstarter, have I mentioned the Girl Genius Kickstarter yet? Already fully funded, with sixteen days to go, the impressive thing on this one is the steadily achieving set of stretch goals, because the more Studio Foglio raise, the greater this thing's going to be when it closes.

First, a touch of explanation for anyone who doesn't know: books are expensive to keep in print. No one knows this better than independent publishers, but as the Foglios are highly talented, slightly scattershot, vaguely disorganized artist-types, they suddenly realized they had several volumes that had slipped out of availability all at once.

This is bad. Thus, the Kickstarter, and the stretch goal process:

• $70,000: Reprinting Volume One of Girl Genius (achieved!)
• $85,000: Reprinting Volume Eleven of Girl Genius (achieved!)
• $100,000: Reprinting Volume Five of Girl Genius (achieved!)
• $115,000: Reprinting Volume Two of Girl Genius (will likely also be easily achieved as they're close)
• $130,000: Reprinting Volume Three of Girl Genius (also highly possible, as they have sixteen days and a LOT of fans)

And it goes up from there. Even better, if for reasons of ecological preservation, discouraging clutter, or purely financial, the $20 level gets you both a shiny metal pin (in antique silver or brass) PLUS PDF copies of all the books they manage to save with this effort.

Also, some of the upper level offers are just amusing beyond all reason, up to and including, for the startling fee of $10,000, Professor Phil coming to your house (or, the concurrent offer, $10,000 to keep Phil from ever coming to your house).

If you're a fan, you just might need to help them out. Good news for us--they're going to get the help, so anything past now is gravy. Tasty, tasty steampunk gravy.

Are you a wee bit OCD? Do you cook? Consider the Obsessive Chef cutting board set, with precise organizational measurements printed right on the cutting surface. Personally, I love this concept; it would be a boon to both beginning and experienced cooks alike.

Know someone who's interested in calligraphy or illumination, but who prefers naked girls to dusty books? Offer them a compromise. (That link is elegantly NSFW, but very very pretty, just so you know.)

I actually think that's a fascinating concept in general--it hearkens back both to the old horror tales of living books, as well as tattooing in general, and the preservation of knowledge. After all--you can't suppress knowledge that people already know. And folks are already getting quotes tattooed on themselves, why not entire book pages? Think about a banned book fair that's entirely comprised of passages no one can take away without removing the skin of the participants.

(I might be taking this a bit far, but still. Fascinating.)

Normally, BuzzFeed is where you go to get a quick fix of internet oddity or quirky reaction gifs to save for later, but on occasion, they make serious points. Here, why Varys is the real star of Game of Thrones. They may not be wrong.

And--last but defiantly not least--prepare yourselves. He is coming. And he looks amazingly bad-ass. RiddickRiddickRiddickyay! (Yes I am a fan.)

when you only make it better, and it better be tonight

The Every Second Man blog purports to have an interview with the person behind the flatterbot ruse currently plaguing Second Life. She claims to make L$40,000 per day with this gimmick, and to that I say: more people on the grid need to be more observant.

Apparently, there are games now where the player can take a picture of whatever's in front of their webcam, and use it as the face of their character. If that sounds scary to you, then...you're likely right. For an example, one player made his in-game character his dog. And Penny Arcade did a comic on the most-commonly seen Tiger Woods game scan back in 2007. (Though any actual nudity is pixelated out, as it does deal with adult topics--sorta--I'll warn that it's NSFW.)

Speaking of NSFW things, this lass explaining the workings of her necklace to a studio audience and her fellow commentators--none of whom can keep a straight face. For those who don't speak French, the Reddit article on this tells me she's saying "Happy. Not happy" when she's pulling the chain that activates the...err...well, just don't watch it at work.

Over in France, apparently, the next big thing is blow-up lamps. Well--they're not actually balloons, they just look like balloon animals. I'd say it's a fun idea, I'm just not entirely convinced it's a fun idea worth over two hundred Euros each.

And in other design news, the spork has been reinvented! With a larger bowl, and actual tines instead of pointy bits. Thing is, though, does it really improve that much over the design of the original spork? Well, maybe if you eat a lot of ramen.

Let me also introduce you to the Cycloptopus by Nemo Gould. He makes sculpture that moves, with a sort of steampunk-futuristic edge. Very fascinating stuph.

To that same end, Greg Petchkovsky's blending of real and digital art is nothing less than astounding. Using high-resolution photographs, digital imaging, and 3D printers, he is changing the physical world around him, one small object at a time. Deeply impressive.

Over on i09, Christopher Salmon's posted the initial animatic--with Neil Gaiman narration--of one of Gaiman's short stories, "The Price". It's fifteen minutes long, and both inspiring and heartbreaking. Go watch. Make a cup of tea and open your heart to wonder. It's well worth the time. And quite possibly, it will be a feature film soon.

Other depression for the day that's worth your time: Amanda Palmer blogging about Amanda Todd, and the phenomenon of internet bullying, and how it really is that much worse than "traditional" bullying. For one, the fights tend to be both longer and more vicious, and for two, the entire world has a chance to jump on the bandwagon--out of boredom, out of misdirected anger, out of their own hurt and resentment--and join in.

But that's not why I'm tossing it up for your perusal. I'm tossing it up because of the comments she's getting. Just as bullying can work as an online mob-mentality gathering of ill will, so can support. And while Amanda Todd will never receive this outpouring of endurance, encouragement and faceless love--in the end, she took her own life, unable to face both her stalker and fellow students who told her, repeatedly, she "needed" to just kill herself because "nobody" liked her--maybe other teens will see it. Maybe other adults thinking of taking their own lives will see it. That's why I think it's worthwhile.

Spinning from that in a 'we are the internet, we need to be better to each other' kind of way, here's a tale about Star Trek fans coming together to help one of their own. In this case, this particular one happens to be dying of an incredibly virulent form of cancer--to the point that he's not entirely sure he's going to be alive by the time the next Star Trek film opens.

The request: friends of his wanted those involved with the film to send the ten-minute special preview to his local theatre. The solution: JJ Abrams brought the entire film to screen for this guy. Marvelous.

Massoud Hassani, meanwhile, has come up with an absolutely brilliant idea: a low-cost, low-powered mine detonator that can be released over minefields to detonate land mines that have been forgotten. While his main goal (and a worthy one) is the Middle East, I can also see these being used in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, where there are still mines in place from the early 1960s that have never been found. There are eleven days left on the Kickstarter; help if you can.

I wish I knew where this came from--other than "somewhere on Tumblr"--but it's good advice, nonetheless. Plus, whoever came up with bundling WD-40 and duct tape together is a GENIUS.

And will someone please tell me if Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is a corporate spokesperson, or a band? Either way, her videos are getting very strange.