plasticframes

This will be the second year I've coordinated the Twin Cities Zinefest, and things are beginning to come together.

I'm really thrilled with the response so far. My wait list rolls 22 deep, yo. We're definitely moving into a larger venue next year. The question is, where? Keep your eyes on Zinefest, friends. It's on the move.


Jon "Phil" Thompson designed and illustrated the after-party flier. He's part of Presentation Night, and will perform at the fest at 4pm on Saturday.


Tom Kaczynski illustrated the event poster, which Will Dinski designed, and Pat Callahan printed.

If you could come, it would be fun!

I've been spending some time in Coffman Union lately, waiting for stuff, passing time, etc.

I just had prep work done for my first crown at Boynton. I'm waiting for half my face to stop feeling numb so I can finally get my morning coffee at the Starbucks downstairs. I love independent cafes, but they just don't have Pike Place, and it is the flavor I crave.

Anyway, there is a piano here, and I've learned something about it. Everyone who can play the piano, can play Fur Elise. It's excruciating if you have to listen to it every day, or four times an hour. But I think it's a good exercise. There are these arpeggios that are easy and expressive that people get trapped in, and they need to really focus on their way out of those parts to think ahead to the next part of the song, if they want to improve their playing and overall comprehension of the music. I think people who want to be good pianists work on this, but I think people who just want to play the piano will always be trapped in arpeggios. I never got past the arpeggios. And now I don't play piano at all!

It's a life lesson.

I used to have a life, I think. But now I have books.



I can't stop thinking about...

( Day 2 of reading 'New Moon' : p.346 )

Last night I went to a special dinner at The Bulldog in NE Mpls. My friend Ray is a bartender there, and created 6 special drinks for an "intoxicologist dinner" and then one of the cooks created a series of small meals to accompany each drink. It was really fun, and I can still taste the memory of how luscious everything was. mmmmmm

He is some kind of genius with alcohol, and this whole thing happened because of him. I'm really impressed. I love when you get to see people at their best. It's so heartening. It was really successful, so now they'll do it once a month! I'd say it's worth it. Heck yes. Do it if you can.

I have a crazy idea. So I'm just throwing it out there.

There is a Libraries Digital Conservation conference in San Francisco that I really want to attend October 5-6, then APE takes place October 17-18.

Could I just...go there? And stay for a few weeks? And just bum around? What would I even do there for 2 weeks? I don't know anybody in San Francisco. I could fly out and rent a car. It wouldn't be so bad.

I am almost determined to do this. Is anything else going on in October on the west coast?

For the second day in a row, it's felt like summertime.

I don't know what happened to large groups of friends and bands and fun, but those are the summer things I miss. I kind of miss Sioux Falls too. I miss driving long distances. I definitely miss smoking. I found pictures yesterday of that last summer in Minneapolis before I moved to SD. Fun. But when I came back, nothing was in place anymore, and I never really saw those people again.

I had a fear yesterday that maybe people aren't making new friends on the internet anymore. Like maybe facebook-obsessed society has made it un-cool to meet anyone online that you don't already know in real life, unless it's just to date them through eharmony or something. What do you think? Is that true? I hope not.

Me and absa and jacieee started a band. Sort of. If we're ever like a real band, I think it would be fun to play in a gymnasium. Kaleidoscope Kids Place has a good gymnasium stage. I bet we could rent it for cheap cheap cheap.

Concerns about space and acquisition make up the shaky foundations of my existence. No wonder I got into libraries and fell hard for special collections.

I wish I could take you all on a tour through my Grandma's house, or the house I grew up in, or the apartment I squeeze into with Will and my treasures and work. It makes me think this site Squalor Survivors was made just for me!

Also, haven't gotten a chance to look at this documentary yet, but I'm embedding it here anyway. Mostly for myself, as a reminder. It's called Possessed and it's about people with my condition.

POSSESSED from Martin Hampton on Vimeo.

I started reading Twilight on the bus. It's embarrassing. I try to hide the cover so nobody notices I have bad taste. I'm determined to finish it too, even though the prose is painfully composed.

This is some of what I learned about at the digital libraries conference this week.

This exists:


So this can stop: goodbye

It really shook me to realize that the internet resources I depend on I get for free, and that these free services have no obligation to me whatsoever, and could drop me and my information at any time. If google fails, and everything I've come to depend on crashes, and all of my old correspondence is gone, and nobody comments on my myspace page, where would I be? The robots would win. Not like in the Terminator sense, but if all of our information goes digital, and something goes wrong, we are totally fucked. For real. All that information, lost. Environmentalists and cheap "green" institutions would take the blame.

I think I might start printing old emails.

Here's something cool that I found: Baby Blue Arts. They record musicians in the Twin Cities for their website, and syndication on MTN and probably some other networks. Check it out! If you like The Lawrence Welk Show AND the internet, you'll be pleasantly surprised by Baby Blue Arts. South Dakota should have something like this.

To my credit, I didn't get into High School: The Musical. However, I just can't take it anymore. Sometimes the choir girl inside dies hard, and I'm really psyched about Glee.

I visit my PO box on Saturdays, so that is what I did this morning. I received more minis than usual today -- because of MoCCA, I'm sure.

I've got this huge collection now, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. I want to get it into circulation, but haven't been successful so far. I'm attending a digital collections conference on Monday though (job = love it) so maybe I'll learn something useful. In the meantime, I challenge my bookcase to hold more weight.

Had juicy lucys at Matt's Bar for lunch. Their fries are so great.

I joined a writing club last month. Me and absa and Josh are in it. Membership holds at three. Today they scheduled a 12-hour writing day. I joined in at about hour 6 and wrote two reviews and participated in two mandatory break periods. Now I'm updating my journal. I might have gone crazy after 12 hours of writing. I've given up on my screenplay, I think. The class was fun, but does the world really need another average screenplay? When it does, I'll come out of retirement.

I've been thinking about taking voice lessons again. I think it would be so much fun. I miss being in a choir, and reading music. I'm not even sure if I can anymore. I've tried, and it's rough. I never thought the ability to sight read would go away, but it has. I've lost a whole language. What a pity.

I've been taking a class at MTN with jacieee and next week we edit the 1-minute film we wrote and shot last week. I'm really excited. We haven't seen all of our footage yet, and I'm sure there will be some continuity problems, but being on camera still makes me feel like a rock star, and I liked our idea, so I bet it will piece together alright.

We're doing this to learn more about film so we can have a tv show on cable access with our magazine club. Hollah! Tomorrow we shoot the opening sequence and (hopefully) write the theme song.

I finished two books last week: A Thousand Splendid Suns and Funny Misshapen Body. I don't think I'd read a modern novel since college (unless Harry Potter counts). They make me feel guilty. Like I'm wasting my time. I would've never read this book, except some people I like have been talking about starting a book club and I wanted to join in. This is how gangs begin. I felt kind of guilty about the book club initiation process, but now I think I could read even more novels because this one wasn't so bad. Kind of a time suck, but I liked learning about the characters. I could probably do this again. Waste more hours with a book. There goes the neighborhood. This is why, when I start knitting, my Cross Hatch commitment suffers. TDCH stuff goes on and on, but I just need a few weeks off to finish a book or a sweater -- and it's done. The finality of it all is so seductive.

Anyway, it's 9pm now. Writing day is over. I think now we drink beers.

Yesterday after work, Will and I met with a new Realtor. She is awesome. I'm really excited to be working with her. Looking for a house is a weekly (or daily) on-again off-again decision for us, and I was ready to be off-again, but we recently had to renew our lease, so we signed on for another 6-months and will continue to look for houses until then. Fingers crossed! We're looking at houses that would cost as much as rent right now, so our focus is narrow and bottom-of-the-barrel, but it's still tough, and even competitive, to find something in Minneapolis right now.

Anyway, after our meeting, we went to Big Brain so I could get the latest Jeffrey Brown book (1/4 of the way through it right now) and caught Michael Drivas in this ridiculous mustache:



With his glasses, he looks just like he's wearing a disguise. I was so giddy. His explanation was something like, "I don't know what happened, it just left the house today." What serendipity.

Then we went to Grumpy's for dinner and I took this picture of Will:



Then Will taught me how to take the camera out of digital macro mode, and I said, "Thanks."

Will and I saw "Up" on Friday. I didn't realize it would be in 3D. The theater we went to didn't offer the glasses though, so we saw it without. Does any film really need 3D?? I'm glad we didn't have the option, because I probably would've gone for the gimmick.

Hate to spoil anything, so I'll just say I really enjoyed it. I can't even believe how much I cried in that movie. I felt like a distraction.

Critics are writing really smart reviews about it, too. Everything I've read about the movie is dead-on accurate. It's a film that gives you something to chew on, both within itself, and within the context of its genre, so it's a fun film to watch and discuss.

I finished up a sweater for Will's nephew. It took no time at all. Just about 2 weeks, which surprised me. I should knit for kids all of the time. I'm still working on a sweater for me. I just have to piece the arms to the rest of the sweater, work the collar, and add a zipper, but I've been lazy about it. Picking up stitches is a total chore, I think, and I've never sewn a zipper into anything I've knit before, so I'm getting cold feet.

Here's what I just finished:

Last week was my 26th Birthday. It was my most low-key Birthday ever, and I really enjoyed it. No stress. No drunken revelry. Just telephone conversations with both my parents and a dinner/movie date with the Mr.

I had to work that day, but at the tail end of Thursday I was on the main campus taking pictures of the Borchert Map Library for a future work project, which was fun. They have so many maps! And they've got a free table with some pretty cool stuff.

I worked on John Borchert's papers when I worked at the U of MN Archives as an Undergrad, and I have this picture of him as being such a kind person. People's personalities really come through their work, whatever the work, is my feeling. Which is maybe why I become kind of a work-a-holic.

For my Birthday, Will and I had reservations at Fuji-Ya and we sat in a little paper room on the floor. We had to leave our shoes outside the door, and someone played a joke and put one of Will's shoes on a chair in the dining room. He got it back though, obviously. Birthdays are weird like that. Mine at least. There's always this stuff that happens, and seems like it will ruin everything, but then everything turns out okay.



That thing in front of Will's face is broccoli. He said it was delicious. I enjoyed my sushi, but I think it was the first time I'd tried eating sushi, instead of rolls, since High School. I was glad we were in the little room where nobody could see me drop everything a million times. It was fun.

Then we saw the new Star Trek movie!!! And it was great!!! There's an interview with the writers on the Screenwriting Magazine podcast, which was very interesting to hear. These guys have been writing together since high school when they edited each other's love letters. It's cool learning more about how long-term creative teams find ways of continuing to work together successfully.



After taking a screenwriting class last semester, I think I appreciated this movie even more. The pacing is like wow. Hearing the podcast was really illuminating when they talked about how they structured the plot, how they created conflict between well-known characters given the canon and world they had to work within, and what got cut. I'm pretty excited for the DVD release. I've never really been excited for a DVD "director's cut" edition before.

Anyway, I am now totally in love with Zachary Quinto and have since watched all of seasons 1-2 of Heroes and about 1/4 of season 3, which (thankfully) is fully available on hulu. I don't know what to think of Heroes, really. I'm invested in it, but I don't know why. I think this is what it would be like to read "Twilight."

I saw Jamie on Wednesday and she let me borrow "Twilight," so if I finish Heroes in time, I might start reading it over Memorial Day weekend. Not sure though. I've got a bunch of projects I probably need to catch up with first.

I'm going to try and blog more. I'm really rusty with writing and my screenwriting class brought that to my attention. Creative writing really intimidates me now, and the writing itself takes much longer than it should, particularly if I want it to be well-composed. Abby and Josh have let me join their writer's group, so I appreciate that. I'm hoping if I keep finding more ways to exercise my writing, maybe I'll use it to do something I'm really proud of someday, though I don't know what that something would be.

Hi You,

I started a podcast about bookmaking called "Make Better Books" and I've become proud of it so I want you to know it exists. It's short, only 15-20 minutes, and I just finished the second episode. I interview someone about a bookmaking topic, talk about the process, attempt the process, and do other things. I think you will like it if you try it!

first episode : screen-printing with house paint
second episode : stencil duplicators (aka mimeographs)

I also post tips on bookmaking and link to resources and upcoming book festivals. I hope you will continue to find the site useful! makebetterbooks.com

Thanks, friend!

Sarah Morean

Kal Penn, who should be the voice on every one of my audio books, has joined the Obama Administration.

Another celeb woefully lost to politics.

Today, Abraham Lincoln turns 200 years old! My friends are helping me throw a party.

I knit a few beards, designed and assembled a handful of collapsible stovepipe party hats, and made a few magnets. Jacie is pressing the buttons. Bring your own Lincoln goodies, if you've got 'em.

Come one, come all! America's most distinguished leader needs you to party.



In no way is Grumpy's officially associated with this event. We just plan to show up and dominate, kind of like Vikings fans after a game at the Metrodome. If we run into any rival Darwinist parties, the nerd-off will be something for the history books.

I hear that karaoke begins at 10pm. If so, I believe a round of "Dixie" is in order, since it was a favorite of his.

( BONUS MATERIAL! )

FURTHER PROOF THAT IRA GLASS IS DITCHING TAL RADIO:
1. Impressed with the weight of TAL TV's latest Emmy vs. a common stapler (ep. The New Boss)
2. Ira Quote: "The second season shows are really as good as anything we've ever done on the radio. So if you're a fan of the radio show or the podcast, I'm saying all this because I think that you also might like the DVDs." (ep. The New Boss)
3. Next week's TAL radio program is a re-run (The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar)

All of this was really funny to me in the context of what I said last week about TAL. I hope I'm wrong though.

Did anyone start listening to the Dinner Party Download? It's so good. Do yourself a weekly 15-minute favor and subscribe, if you like podcasts.

I have another podcast recommendation: BackStory with the American History Guys. The hosts are three history profs in Virginia who examine current events through the lens of history. They're really nice hosts, polite to their guests and callers, there's good music (I think Deerhoof was even sampled on the latest show), and they tell really nerdy puns.

I have another podcast non-recommendation: Battlestar Pretension. I'm not their target audience, which is why I think I'll stop listening. However, if you're really into "Lost" or conversational-style podcasts, you may like it.

Another non-recommendation: I'm writing off every HowStuffWorks.com podcast as bad. Each one I've checked out so far was lame.

Here's a podcast I would like to hear: a weekly podcast where someone talks about their cat, who really thinks their cat is interesting, and isn't ashamed of pet-talk.

Here's a zine recommendation: Mr. Mike's Rump archives! I didn't realize so many of these were digitized. They're some of the funniest things I've ever read. View it!