Innerspaceman: I know you've done your share of "altered experince attraction riding" at Disneyland, but what was the first attraction you rode in an altered state and what type of experience was it? (And the tram into the park doesn't count.)


Bonus question: Who did the fabu artwork in your avatar?

Well, the first of many altered ride experiences at the happiest place on earth :D was my first time ever riding Space Mountain in 1978, just after smoking a joint with friends in the parking lot. (Come to think of it, the parallels with my first ever riding EuroDisney Space Mountain in 2003 after downing a bottle of champagne with a friend are striking). :cheers:


Anyway, even though I had no sober reference point for the experience of hurtling through the blackness of space with floating chocolate chip cookies and psychenautic echo sounds, I knew instantly that the altered state put me a little bit more into the suspension of disbelief mode that befits the Disneyland attractions, and it was beyond effortless to accept Walt's invitation to play. Also, details were clearer, audio was more crisp, visuals were more colorful, movement was more keenly felt.

I knew from that moment that an altered state of consciousness was the perfect partner for experiencing playtheme physical environment creation attractions, and went on to get high on every Disneyland ride on every drug imaginable over the subsequent years.


I don't do that much anymore. I can still have plenty of fun at Disneyland without being high, and do so consistently. But there's nothing quite like Pirates of the Caribbean on ecstacy for appreciating the visual splendor, or hitting some dope in the smoking area just outside the Mansion to have a slightly creepier ride. And nothing in the world beats taking acid and then riding Space Mountain wearing rainbow-streak glasses and hitting on a nitrous oxide balloon as you're going up the last lift .... :eek:






:coffee: Bonus Reply: Dunno. It's concept artwork from 'The Incredibles.' It's so delicious an image, but I don't know who the artist is. It's from an 'Art of' book that I gave to Isaac for Xmas. Yummy, isn't it?

Heehee, the things people remember from my posts....:D

Actually, I quit Pantene a while ago. Now I use L'Oreal Paris' Vive shampoo and conditioner. I use the Smooth-Intense variety - it's easy to spot on the shelves due to the orange bottles. :) As soon as my washed hair is dry it frizzes like nobody's business and is hell to brush. After literally years of being faithful, I finally realized that Pantene was not giving me the results I wanted and I needed to try something else. This stuff does help quite a bit.

I can feel the difference already when I rinse the shampoo out. I really love the shampoo. In fact, I've considered trying the shampoo with Pantene conditioner, as I'm not sure which conditioner is better. Anyway, I've been using the set for a while and am rather happy with the results. My hair is combable straight out of the shower. I do still get some dryness, but the frizz is markedly better than before. Some days, to give it some shine and tame the remaining frizz I use a bit of shiny pomade.....which I CAN'T FIND AT THE MOMENT! WTF? I know I brought it with me somewhere...grr.

Do you have really thick, frizzy hair too? :) Thanks for the trivial, silly question, I post too much deep stuff here anyway. ;)

I need the deductions on my taxes.

I enjoy sharing the experience of life with others. Both Susan and I had crappy childhoods. We both have a desire to "break the cycle." There is also a lot of unexplainable drive to want to nurture. A lot of the desire is hard to put into words - it just seems to be the right thing to do.

If my child were to learn just one thing from me, it would to be a good human: be good to yourself and be good to others. Enjoy life, live in the moment but don't fail to plan for the future. Follow your heart. Don't grow up too fast: there will be plenty of time for the adult things when you are an adult. Be honest with yourself and others: difficult truth is much easier to deal with than questionable niceness. If it is a girl: don't let people you can't do something just because you are a girl (and you can't date until you're 30). If it is a boy: don't be afraid to cry: it makes you MORE of a man, not less. (I guess I lost count on my way to one - sorry.)

And I hope that my child feels that he or she can trust me with anything. I would hope that we have a deep enough of a relationship that there is nothing to fear about talking to Dad.

You're gonna be a great Dad, KB.:)

That would be an understatement. It's thick, dense, curly, frizzy, and I've been having a problem with buildup lately. I'm afraid Pantene may be on its way out.

God, I love this thread, too. I'm gonna have to think up a good question. :D

Harder to respond than I would have expected.
 

Knowing why I like certain things is a lot easier than writing an explanation for why I like them, I think. Thanks for taking an interest in my interests, Chris.

Five main reasons:

1. I have a laymen’s interest in science and mechanization, and robotics is a lovely marriage of the two.

2. I’ve also a laymen’s interest in philosophical quandaries about what defines a life, a soul? Is it sentience? Organic matter? Emotion? Self-awareness? Fictional stories often employ robots as a device to explore these questions (Data on Star Trek; Yod from Marge Piercy’s novel He, She, and It; to great humorous effect, Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and my iboyfriend Sonny, from the film I, Robot – for a robot lover, I should probably be shot for having read not one word of Isaac Asimov’s…) I’m also interested in a more realistic speculation about the future of robotics, and what it might mean for our labor forces – the sci-fi version of John Henry and his hammer…

3. I was the kind of child that personified objects and animals, and robots are the perfect simulacrum of this childhood fantasy. I probably first realized this watching R2D2 in Star Wars. It was like watching a favorite toy come to life, and I was interested in something manmade having intelligence and emotion. There was a silly movie I saw when I was very young called “Electric Blue” in which a computer develops sentience and feelings for its owner, and I remember thinking it so terribly heartbreaking that this very human intelligence was trapped inside a box.

4. And (for complete honesty) there’s probably something that fascinates me along the lines of a J.G. Ballard story, but I’d rather not get into my own personal perv box of reflections about metal, erotica, emasculation, etc. I suppose it’s a response to the mechanization and computerization of our age, though.

5. Robots are COOL!


Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes was the first. I read it serialized in Clowes’ Eightball books and was immediately drawn to this format of storytelling, having already developed an interest in art/illustration, writing, and picture books. His story was so bizarre and psychological and complicated. I was familiar with R. Crumb in a cursory sort of way, and mostly thought of Marvel's superhero books and the like when thinking of comic books. Clowes opened up my mind to the possibility of what a pictorial literature could be, and my obsession grew from there.

What I love about them:

As a whole it’s a stylistically reductive medium: It takes complex action, thought, and emotion and simplifies them so that the reader can – with ease – be fully impacted by the artists and writers intent without being mired in too much detail. You don’t often have pages and pages of text describing a characters emotion, and you can’t – as you can with film – watch as a character goes through a prolonged shift in mood. Instead it gives you just what’s necessary. Snippets of prose, delicately crafted, and spread out over a couple of pages. Three panels to show a shift in mood, that give you just enough to know exactly what the character is experiencing while your mind fills in the blanks.

However, each individual panel then zeroes in on the most important moment (so it’s reductive, but not in a way that “ignores subtleties or important details”, as the definition implies. There is the act of taking complex things and drafting them in terms of “simple structures and systems”. But the minimalist nature of comics is what gives them their weight. When a graphic novel is good, each panel is perfectly crafted. Each moment is exactly as it needs to be to get the writer(s)' and artist(s)’ intent across; all else has been left out. Then each moment is organized sequentially, and together this indicates pacing, movement, intensity, and emphasis. There has to be a harmony between the text and image, and the panels behave like a covenant binding them all together.

I also think of it as Outsider art adopted by pop culture. Also, much like children’s literature, writers and artists have more free reign to think left of center. They aren’t under the scrutiny of mainstream expectations and bottom lines. They don’t need to be on the best sellers list, so editors and publishers aren’t as concerned with content that is marginalized, controversial, disturbing, etc. Anarchy and philosophy is explored to the nth degree. It’s a very radical medium.

My skills in drawing and painting have greatly diminished over the years, but one day I hope to get back into it. I’ve written down ideas, and storyboarded them as well, for comics, but until I feel that I’m a better artist, I don’t want to make any attempts. I realize that many graphic novels are a collaboration between writers, draftsman, inkers, colorists, etc., but I have a feeling I’d be more interested (and more capable of) creating works like Phoebe Gloeckner, who writes semi-autobiographical stories and does all the artwork herself. The worst a person can do is assume it’s easy. It’s a really difficult medium to work in, I think. And too often I come across work where the writing is up to par, but the art sucks, or the exact opposite happens. And I notice it more with graphic novelists who do it all themselves. I wouldn’t want to half-ass it.

MotorboatCruiser:

Most of us know that you write and perform music. How long have you been interested in music? What was the first instrument you learned to play? What instruments do you play? When (approximately) did you write your first song? And lastly, what serves as your inspiration; who are your muses?

Dude, you and Chris have both mentioned the Japanese chick, but your both whithholding her name. Stop teasing us. I want to hear her music but I need that name. C'mon, gimme her name!