Hulk! Smash!!

You are Hulk.

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Which superhero are you?

Homemade Air Conditioning and Alienation in New Jersey

I was looking online for some tips on cooling off (it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, as they say) and found a university student’s account of building an air conditioner using nothing but a garbage can, a large fan, copper tubing, vinyl tubing, zip ties, clamps, and water. MacGyver would be proud.

Today, green blog Treehugger covered how to build a solar-powered air conditioner. Treehugger also linked to the blog lifehacker, which also posted instructions on making your own air conditioner (similar in design to the university student’s but with a “closed-circuit” system that reuses water).

I’m happy to learn that even something as unwieldy and technically incomprehensible as an air conditioner has a cheap, homemade counterpart. Of course one shouldn’t expect such units to cool one down as much as a commercial unit, but the savings in cost (on the unit itself and electricity) might make this an option worth exploring for some.

And here’s a completely unrelated quote:

“And I thought that one natural effect of life is to cover you in a thin layer of … what? A film? A residue or skin of all the things you’ve done and been and said and erred at? I’m not sure. But you are under it, and for a long time, and only rarely do you know it, except that for some unexpected reason or opportunity you come out–for an hour or even for a moment … as when you were a kid.

And you think: this must’ve been the way it was once in my life, though you didn’t know it then, and don’t really even remember it–a feeling of wind on your cheeks and your arms, of being released, let loose, of being the light-floater.”

-The Sportswriter, Richard Ford

A good book on alienation in contemporary life, set in the New Jersey suburbs outside New York City. I first read Ford in the New Yorker. His short story “Quality Time” is one of my all-time favorite pieces of literature. The story is reprinted in one of his recent collections, and I’d highly recommend it.

Krampus

Went to check out the Whitney Biennial yesterday, the title of the 2006 exhibit being Day for Night. I usually tend to “get” the mixed media projects, appreciate the works displaying obvious technical proficiency, and ignore the films altogether. I am not one of those people who rushed out to theaters to see Drawing Restraint 9. (Did anyone?)

I was surprised to discover then that my favorite work from the Biennial was Cameron Jamie’s Kranky Klaus. The Whitney Web site describes the work as a document of “the pagan myth of Krampus—a shaggy beast said to roam the valleys of Austria on the night of December 6.”

In his film, Jamie follows a group of four or five Krampus as they make their way through a village on a snowy evening. The way the Krampus worked was this: a man dressed as Klaus would enter a building where a group of people were gathered in expectation. From a wicker basket that he carried, Klaus would distribute these satchels with “Gold Pass” stamped on them.

Shortly after Klaus left, the Krampus would enter. (Refer to picture.) Not only do the Krampus look grotesque, but they wore these bells the size of coconuts around their waists. They would come in, hopping from foot to foot, not only physically intimidating the villagers but overwhelming them with this awful clanging. They would start assaulting the people, pulling them from their chairs, wrestling them to the ground, and overturning tables. Most people, half-smiling, tried to resist. There was no fighting back. But one girl in the film did start crying.

Then they would leave for their next destination, the men playing the Krampus occasionally walking with their costume heads off (and at least once stopping for beers).

The soundtrack for the film was provided by the Melvins (warning: unnecessarily intense Flash site). The music was throbbing heavy metal-like, which underscored the oddly violent–yet organized–nature of the whole thing.

LA Weekly has more pictures from Krazy Klaus. Artangel, which commissioned and produced Krazy Klaus, has more information about the other films in Jamie’s trilogy focusing on “vernacular rituals”: Spook House, about a working-class Detroit suburb’s celebration of Halloween, and BB, about “LA teenage wrestlers.”

The Biennial closes Sunday, May 28.

Danny Leiner’s “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle”

Note: My thoughts on this movie were originally posted in my sidebar and was written a few weeks ago.

Yes, the “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” is silly, but it’s refreshing to finally see a film that doesn’t feature an Asian male as The Nerd, The Japanese Mafia Guy, The Martial Arts Expert, The Immigrant or The Restaurant/Laundry/Cornerstore Owner.

The fact that two Asian males are the leads make this film even more remarkable to me. I feel that here’s finally a movie that reflects my experience, i.e., people of color as average Americans. (I also liked how the film touches upon the issue of racism. At one point in the movie, one of the “villains” snears at Harold and Kumar, “Better luck tomorrow!”)

The Accumulation Project

Instead of tossing out all those AOL CDs, which are about as ubiquitous as weeds, you can make sure they end up in the service of art!

Eric Brown is collecting AOL CDs as part of the Accumulation Project. In November 2006, he will build “Pillars of Decency” with all the AOL CDs he will have collected. As of the end of November 2005, he had collected 2,792 AOL CDs. The project began in September.

There’s information on the Web site linked above about how to get the CDs to him. Help spread the word! And check out some of the other fun stuff being accumulated by other artists.

Note: I’m slowly going through all my old blog entries and tagging them for del.icio.us. I’ll bookmark all the entries in chronological order once I’ve finished tagging. So for now, the categories aren’t functional.