RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

I’m thinking of switching to an all Toynbee tile format. Actually I’m not, but it might be a good idea. Tile posts have the most comments are the most googled and have the most external links. Clearly this is what the people want.

Today’s tile news is actually last week’s tile Daily News (haha). If you happened to pick up a Philadelphia DN last Monday, you would have seen a Phables Toynbee tile comic by Brad Guigar. In case you missed it, here it is:

For a version you can actually read, visit the Phables website here.

That’s all for now.

Encyclopedia Britannica describes Second Life as… actually there’s no entry for it on Britannica and even if there was, it’s a subscriber site and I don’t feel like paying for information.

Wikipedia defines Second Life as:

Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc (commonly referred to as Linden Lab), which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007.[4][5] A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called “Residents”, to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.

If interested, the entry continues on for a few thousand more words.

I have no real understanding of SL, but was happy to see that my unqualified comparison of it to Neal Stephenson’s, SnowCrash was actually reflected in the second paragraph of the super-official Wikipedia entry. While I might not have my own avatar, at least I know what sci-fi novel to compare it to.

But why am I writing about any of this? Earlier this week I got an email from Second Lifer (is that the right terminology?) Jenn D. Jenn has placed a Toynbee tile on a bridge in the SL town of Celerio Sim. Here’s some more information that was forwarded about that tile:

Since I can’t put these tiles on public property or private property that isn’t my own (they either won’t get rezzed, or they’ll pop back to me after a few hours), I’m working on setting it up so people who click it get their own copies, which they can spread around. :) The coordinates are “Celerio 92, 236, 68.” Until I get it automated, anyone who wants a tile can just IM Carrie Talaj for one.

There is a second one somewhere in Second Life. But I ain’t saying where
it is. ;)

It’s good to know that after war, famine, disease and total environmental collapse force the last, struggling vestiges of humanity to live in nutrient rich, environmentally controlled pods that allow them to experience life through a BCI reality, at least there will still be tiles around! Here are some pics:

Considering the number of hours I devote to the local internet and especially considering my lifelong love of the subject of the subject of this post, I’m shocked and amazed that I haven’t seen David Kessler’s, Shadow World before.

Sometimes I forget what it is that I love about this city. Sometimes all I can see is the fear and not the strange illumination and beauty that exists beyond that fear. I have 2 things to post. One is a letter sent to Weird NJ magazine in 1998. Here that is:

—

The Illuminating Being of Deserted Philadelphia

What we saw wasn’t in New Jersey, but I know two NJ guys who will tell you about it.

My younger brother and I were returning home from a Yes concert in Philadelphia in the early ‘70s. We missed the bus and found ourselves stranded at the Philly bus station in the early hours of the morning. We decided to walk around because it looked too dangerous to catch any Z’s – might have gotten robbed or worse while sleeping.

Where we were seemed scary and deserted, with closed down stores, bums flat out in the streets, very dark and gloomy old buildings; it seemed like no man’s land.

We decided to head back to the station when we passed this alley. We were walking at a fast pace and blew by it, but we both looked down the alley and saw it. It looked like an old man with white hair and a beard. He was wearing a black robe with hands outstretched to the sky in between these buildings. From his hands, face and head came a bright light that went straight to the sky – like beams! It looked like he was communicating with someone or something.

We stopped dead in our tracks about two paces from the alley and looked at each other. I said, “Did you see that?” My brother said “Yeah!” We dashed back for a good look, and in a second, this illuminated being transformed into just another bum. When we peered back, he was crouching in the corner, huddled on the ground, staring at us. We both knew what we saw and this guy knew it too. I could tell by the way he looked at us, like he was deciding our fate. We ran back to the bus station (and we didn’t sleep, either!). Has anyone else ever seen this guy… or thing?

—

The second thing is David Kessler’s Shadow World series. If you haven’t seen it, see it. [link]

Yes I’m still talking about the damn tiles. Today, a photoessay of yesterday’s great unveiling. This includes all known new tiles, except 15th and Race… which was found earlier today. The person pictured is Resurrect Dead documentary collaborator Colin Smith. During the whole unveiling we were approached by 2 bus drivers, 1 woman from Illinois, 1 Action News reporter and several anonymous passers-by.

This afternoon I discovered that summer rains softened the glue and tar paper on the 13th and Market tile. With the pile of tar paper still lying next to it, I found the uncovered tile within minutes of its terran debut. I can’t express how bizarrely and somewhat disturbingly excited I was to discover that the tile underneath was classic “old school.”

I called Colin from the Resurrect Dead documentary, who happened to be in the neighborhood. Together we visited all 7 tiles, uncovering each one. I have photos and will put them up here when I have a little more time, but for now, please enjoy a short animated series of the unveiling of a tile at 12th and Market Streets.

For all of you out there that scratch you heads and wonder why I’m so damn obsessed with these things, check out this new series. The return to the artistic skill and mysterious beauty of the original style Toynbee tiles injects fresh life into the movement. Visit these tiles after dark when the streets are quiet. Read the message and know that its creator is completely serious. These tiles aren’t a joke or an exercise in culture jamming. They’re a sincere plea to our species’ highest potential. Unlike most contemporary artists, the tilest doesn’t want to be known. He seeks no personal fame or fortune. He’s not going for an angle or a niche. He creates for the sake of creation. His purpose reaches for the highest ideals of the human spirit.

This past Saturday I went on over to WebCam LLC, the little hole in the wall camera shop on North 12th Street to pick up some sensor swabs. For those that aren’t digital photographers, sensor swabs are super-ultra sterol wipes on sticks that you can use in conjunction with a special quick drying solution to clear dust and smudges from your digital camera sensor.

Because of the conditions they’re created in, these little swabs are very pricey. They’re also strictly 1-time use and they require that you come into contact with your camera’s sensor. As sensors are extremely easy to damage and because dust and smudge cleaning requires a decent amount of direct pressure, this can be a frightening procedure.

Lastly, even using a handheld air blower and the eclipse/sensor swab combo, some sensor dust – especially in the corners – is frustratingly difficult to remove.

All these are the reasons that the salesman at WebCam recommended a brand new product called the Arctic Butterfly. The AB is basically a spinning brush. Spin it for 10 seconds to build a charge, then simply dust your sensor off. The charge pulls the dust to the brush. This charge soon dissipates and another spin (outside of the camera) throws the dust off and back into the ambient atmosphere.

Because this thing worked quickly, easily, painlessly and as well as advertised, I’m promoting it here. I love this little brush.

With stock market instability threatening my assets, I – like many citizens – have been spending the last few weeks considering alternative investment strategies. These are uncertain times. Even gold and other precious metals have been shedding value like a timber wolf on a Bermuda vacation.

But anyway, that’s brought me to the world of art. Art, while symbolic of the achievements of the human mind and creative spirit can also be a rock solid money-maker. But with so many choices and with so much worthless art to sink my money into, where will my money be safe? Fortunately I’ve got an answer.

For a paltry $1500 U.S. dollars, one can buy a life-size plaster cast of Jimi Hendrix’s erect penis (pictured) from Chicago based artist, Cynthia Caster. Caster has a large collection of rock-star and celebrity genetalia, but it’s Hendrix that truly stands out. From her website:

description:
The Godfather of Whopper Choppers in my collection! Because this was one of my first shots at plaster casting, the end result came out kind of gnarly. I prematurely cracked the mold open, only to find a still-moist, broken cast inside. So yes, Jimi did in fact, break the mold! But thanks to Elmer’s Glue, I managed to reconnect the head to the shaft to the testicles. Very statuesque and antique-looking; like Grecian art. The Canadian underground paper Georgia Straight called it the “Penis de Milo.” There’s no denying that Jimi towers over most of my collection. His long, thick shaft combined with his disproportionately small head brings a shudder to the spinal cord!

memories:
Jimi’s pubes got stuck in the mold because I didn’t lube them enough. I spent the next 15 minutes pulling out each individual hair one by one, while he had intercourse with just the right sized repository — his negative impression! This unexpected delay made him late for his show that evening, where he was seen scratching his crotch a lot onstage.

—

Now while this bit here might read as tongue in cheek, I am absolutely 100% serious about the investment value here. Caster has what no one else has and what may be one of the 20th centuries most important cultural monuments. Since his death, Hendrix has been deified by his fans. Because of his transcendental talents, Hendrix is regarded as a living god. Can you imagine what a plaster cast of Jesus’s erect penis would be worth on the open market today? Mohammad? The Buddha? Abraham Lincoln? That’s what were talking here. Buy it!

Word of the day: Apophenia or: (as taken from Wikipedia)

Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”.

In statistics, apophenia would be classed as a Type I error (false positive, false alarm, caused by an excess in sensitivity). Apophenia is often used as an explanation of some paranormal and religious claims. It has been suggested that apophenia is a link between psychosis and creativity.

—

And as an example of the word, the rest of the wikipedia entry delves into the principles of Discordianism, which I was trying both successfully and unsuccessfully to explain to a non-adherent just the other day.

So at 6:30 this evening I’m acting slightly obsessive, leaning over the hot pavement at 15th and Arch snapping detail photos at a glob of wood glue and tar paper under which a Toynbee tile is adhering to the asphalt, when a young guy stops me and says something completely unexpected.

“That’s the guy who [redacted].”

What he said to me was not the identity of the tiler, but it was an important piece of information known only to a handful of tile researchers associated with the upcoming Resurrect Dead documentary. Apparently I was wrong about who knows what. Stunned that this stranger stopped me and told me a bit of super-secret tile knowledge, I asked him how he came across the information. Peter (his name) told me he heard it from Dave, who heard it from someone associated with the documentary. Amazing how information spreads.

The bit of information that’s leaked is actually an incredibly cool fact about how the tiles were originally spread. Since it doesn’t reveal the identity of the tiler, or hint as to who it is, I actually have told a couple of people about it. It’s the kind of fact that won’t ruin the documentary, but is still better left under wraps until the whole story can be shown on screen. I’m sure the other few who know this fact have spread it around a little too. Still though, it’s never been posted on the internet and has spread slowly in the old fashioned person to person contact.

That someone saw me in the 10-second window that I was standing in the street snapping photos and not only knew what I was photographing, but knew a piece of tile lore known only to a privileged few is just mind-blowing.

BUT ANYWAY

The tile news is even more mind-blowing. While the main message of the new, large tiles has yet to appear, a silhouette has begun to emerge at 15th and Arch. I am absolutely, positively, THRILLED that the message is clearly carved in the old school, original font.

What this means is that the 7 new tiles that have appeared in Philadelphia in the past couple of months are quite possibly the work of the original Toynbee tiler. If this is true, then the other, now crystal clear implication of this, is that there never was a copycat tiler. There has always only ever been 1. It’s too early to make that claim, but its evidence is starting to become very strong. That’s all for now! Thank you and goodbye!

Look at the “R” in that. That dark blob is the biggest tile news in half a decade.

On days when I don’t have the time or inclination to post, I regurgitate posts from my career at epinions.com. There I wrote phony product reviews under the handle “liberator76.” My persona there was far more popular than this one here. This review for a Yugo convertible racked up 33 comments:

—

When my job as a stack attendant at Borders Books International transferred me from center city Philadelphia to the main warehouse out in the burbs, I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. Of course, I had to take the promotion. Finally, my career was taking off. The job offered a raise in the upwards of a dollar an hour. Benefits included a 15% discount on all books, 10% on audio. I was finally going somewhere.

But every blessing comes with a terrible curse. Work kept me out of the house 50-60 hours a week as it was. My then-girlfriend, Cindy had already taken 5 or 6 lovers in my persistent absence. I mean I can’t blame her, I was never around and even when I was I usually just drank until I lost consciousness. I feared that she would leave me altogether if I worked anymore. I had to find a way to spend more time at home.

By bus, getting to my new job would require about 2 and a half hours of transportation a day. I had to take the el to the main terminal and then 2 buses to a spot about a mile from the warehouse. Moving was not an option, as suburban life isn’t for me. I decided to get a car. With the extra .92 an hour, a car was finally feasible. I went down to the corner store and lifted a copy of the �trader times.� In it I found all sorts of cars listed.

That evening I went home, stripped naked, covered myself in peanut oil and vinegar, lit 77 candles, arranging them in a spiral pattern around me. I affixed steel/leather clamps to my eyelids and nipples and induced bile from my bosom into a ceramic pot I had placed at my feet. Removing the clamps and returning to their burlap carryall filled with flour and corn meal, I sat in the center of the room and read through my issue of the Trader Times. Scanning the ads, I realized that most of the cars were all far too expensive.

Then I saw it. When the winter wind whipped through my broken window and into my room, the shadow of several candles converged on the ad of a 1991 Yugo convertible. The price, $112. Now this was a car in my price range! The next day I started my investigation of the owner. Urgbon Molzinvericheznt, was his name. A simple background check showed that his record in the States was clean. Having moved from the former Yugoslavia in 1993 Urgbon had attained his citizenship in 1998. His parents had been killed in the 1999 NATO bombings. For this, an extensive FBI file was available. It seems they considered him a potential security threat and monitored his actions. Later in the day I called Urgbon, from a secure phone in Borders. Urgbon agreed to sell me the Yugo for $100. He said it had about 100,000 miles on it, but was in otherwise good condition.

When I bought the Yugo, I felt great. My first car. And a convertible at that! The classic Eastern European design and engineering made me feel like a genuine piece of neo-Soviet Euro-trash. I slipped on my pair of “Eagle Eye” (as seen on TV) sunglasses, popped down the top and took off for home. I slept easy that night.

The bitter winter wind whipped through my hair as I cruised the King of Prussia Mall parking lot on the way to work the next day. The roof of the Yugo had broken free when I was taking the top down and I couldn’t find a way to reattach it. It was of no concern; I didn’t plan on putting the top up much at all.

On the way home from work, when black smoke started billowing from the floor of the vehicle, I decided I should probably take the car in for a tune-up. The owner of the Jiffy Lube told me that they didn’t repair Yugos and referred me to a European Motors specialist. When I pulled up in the lot, the repairman met me in the lot.

“Is that a Yugo?” He asked enthusiastically.

“Sure is.” I responded proudly.

“Well son of a bitch.” He said, “I didn’t think any of them were still on the road.”

“This one is.” I responded. “Bet you don�t see too much of these babies around, do you?”

“Sure don’t.”

“It’s got some smoke coming out of it and the roof fell off, can you fix it?”

The mechanic burst into hysterical laughter. This lasted for several minutes. He smacked a monkey wrench on the ground, tears streaming down his leathery grease covered face. He sure did look jolly. Like a grease clown. When he finally gained enough composure to speak, he said to me:

“Boy, these are the most unreliable cars in the history of the world. They go on an break down every 5 miles.”

“But can you fix it?” I asked.

“The country they come from hasn’t existed for na’er on a decade… an even if the sanctions was lifted an parts were allowed shipped, the air force’s bombed the Yugo plant. Yugo’s been blown off the face of the earth.”

“Oh.” I said, feeling a little cheated. “Was that in the NATO bombing?”

“Yup. NATO that was the one.”

“Oh.”

That’s where Urgbon�s parents were killed, I thought. they died in the bombing of the Yugo manufacturing plant. It all started to make sense. I had a piece of junk car from an enemy country that no longer existed.

“What can you do with it?” I asked.

“I can sell it for scrap.”

“Oh”

“Can you put rims on it?”

“No. The wheel size is a standard for Yugo only.”

“Oh. Can�t you just use makeshift parts?”

“Nope. Don�t much care to”

With this final revelation, I left. Driving off in my Yugo, the smoke began to seep from various parts of the car. I hit the fan button to try to cool the engine, but smoke, then flame shot from the vents. I tried to stop the car, but the brakes failed. I pulled the emergency brake clear off. I decided to jump for it. Aiming the car at a brick wall, so as to avoid pedestrian injury, I leapt from the car, covering my face and rolling to a stop. The Yugo drifted slowly into the wall, completely engulfed in flame. It tried to blow up, but even failed at that. The gas cap blew off and a flaccid shot of smoke emerged from the valve. I watched the car smolder slowly, shaking my head in disgust.

I guess I always have my degree in computer programming to fall back on. I’m quitting Borders altogether and getting a job in that field. That way I can buy a fucking Mercedes. As for Cindy, she can go to hell. It’s time I take charge!

Yesterday afternoon, I took a couple photos from the window of my office. While my job is often… difficult, the view is nice. Below is a crappy panorama splice job. If it hadn’t been 98 degrees with 85% humidity, I would have opened the window and taken a third shot. If you do that, you can see clear from the Ben Franklin Bridge to the Cira Center. A la phillyskyline.com, click on the image for a larger version. Nice view.

Today is a day that I’m glad I don’t still work in an animal emergency room. Heat stroke abounds and it’s always a brutal, ugly thing. If you, or your dog’s body temperature goes over 107, your internal organs begin to melt.

On that cheery note and because I have nothing else to write about this horribly oppressive Wednesday afternoon, here’s an update on the Toynbee tiles.

The new tiles that I reported a few weeks back are still covered. Whatever lies beneath the tar paper and wood glue has yet to be revealed. The first post about these new, large tiles included sightings at 15th and 16th at Chestnut. Since then, new large tiles from the same run have been spotted at 15th and Arch, 13th and Filbert, 12th and Filbert, 13th and Market and 12th and Market. In case you’re mentally retarded and can’t count, that’s a total of 7 new, large tiles in center city Philadelphia.

To paraphrase a long-gone Pittsburgh tile, as heat of summer sun melts tar paper, the new tile will be revealed. Hopefully several layers of tar paper will keep car wheels from messing them up.

In other news, the robot men that you’ve probably been seeing all over the fucking place are the work of a street artist named stickman. Head over to 12th and Filbert to see a new large tile, an old, small tile and a robot man all at the same intersection. As the medium takes hold, I hope to see more styles and varieties of asphalt mosaics.

Along with Reading Terminal and Chinatown, robot men run a stretch of the Parkway from 17th to the art museum, all over Penn Campus and eastern West Philly, 2nd street in Northern Liberties and even on Delaware Ave. Good work stickman!

Embedded here is a 6 part youtube series on Oliver, the “humanzee.” It’s done in that Real Hollywood Stories style. I love that crazy chimp. Good stuff.

What makes showing up to work at 6AM worth it? Photographing a mural dedication and Philly reunion at the old American Bandstand studio (Now the Enterprise Center) featuring performances by bandstand standbys: Chubby Checker, Connie Francis, Jerry Blavat, Charlie Gracie and others.

If interested, the event will be on tomorrow’s Good Morning America sometime between 7:40 and 8:10AM.

On a personal note, I absolutely love shooting these events. Working as a photographer at an interesting local event is by leaps, bounds and light years more fun, stimulating and challenging than any other work I’ve done. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, it’s what I want to be when I grow up. The hard part is making enough cash to support myself. At this point, I make a nice, but largely insubstantial side-income.

Although I (unabashedly) think my work is as unique and or at least as interesting as at least half the other photogs at these events, I still feel privileged to have the opportunity to shoot them at all. Here’s a first look at this morning:

For the first time since March, the word vagina has lost its top spot among leading search terms at dovate.com. During its 3 months of domination, vagina sat firmly on top of the stats. In the past 31 days however, crestfallen vagina struggled to keep pace with crack whores, local whores and philadelphia whores, all of which all registered more hits during the month of July.

Interestingly, dovate.com contains scarce information on vagina, crack or local prostitution; however continued repetition of the words in posts like this one are guaranteed to fool google far into the future.

And now a word of commentary:

I’ve noticed that vagina, whore or whatever, people out there are overwhelmingly searching for 1 thing: sex. But how strange and varied that one thing can be. Represented among this months 1100 or so search terms are perversions including but not limited to, elk, dog, hippo, elephant and monkey bestiality, general pedophilia and every imaginable variation of semen obsession. The vast majority of my search hits are from people looking for sex, porn, violent images or videos and of course, Toynbee tiles (The 8th most popular search term, edging out donkey mating videos by 1 hit was “Toynbee idea.”)

As I’ve said before, my choices for the top 30 search spots are fairly representative of the search terms overall. Here are the winners for July:

30. average male testicle photos
29. good bible quotes for good morning
28. modern mastrubating methods pic
27. please find me the images of animals by the name of hawk
26. people having sex while butt naked
25. my girlfriend nude pictures
24. molly pitcher fucking vids
23. public vagina
22. tiny little bugs tiny little bodies tentacles kempton
21. free homemade marijuana garden rodent repellent
20. sleazy nut squeezing
19. heartless shadow
18. how to make cockrings
17. repelling crawdads
16. gay hangouts in alabama
15. best places to fuck in philly
14. get the fuck off the internet
13. music converted into laser by german scientists
12. co worker steal parking space
11. disadvantages of men mastrubating information
10. i eat every drop of my own semen
9. what is that hippie smell
8. david hasselhoff colon irrigation
7. schnauzer genitals
6. employment phila mura1 art5 pr0gram (edits mine)
5. is it safe to eat my own ejaculate
4. gay shiny
3. military industrial complex photo archive
2. seaworld intangible elements
1. my 20 month old son’s breath stinks