mills

My name is Mills Baker, and this is where I post what strikes me. I write about love, religion, music, memory, art, culture, media, suffering, and the utterly random.

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Left to right: my uncle Kirk, my grandfather, and my father in Houston in the beloved, idyllic 1950s he never stops mentioning. Happy Fathers’ Day, Dad! On this day -and this day only- I will cede that you are, contrary to all reason, a member of the “Greatest Generation,” an American hero, and a victorious Cold Warrior (I’ll also grant you the unbelievable assortment of honorifics you confer on yourself when commenting here). A grateful world thanks you! (Note: both of my parents are wonderful people, but I’m amazed at how difficult it is to simply discuss why and how they’re so remarkable without bogging down in maudlin, automatic phraseology or straying into details that seem either irrelevant or too private).

Left to right: my uncle Kirk, my grandfather, and my father in Houston in the beloved, idyllic 1950s he never stops mentioning.

Happy Fathers’ Day, Dad! On this day -and this day only- I will cede that you are, contrary to all reason, a member of the “Greatest Generation,” an American hero, and a victorious Cold Warrior (I’ll also grant you the unbelievable assortment of honorifics you confer on yourself when commenting here). A grateful world thanks you!

(Note: both of my parents are wonderful people, but I’m amazed at how difficult it is to simply discuss why and how they’re so remarkable without bogging down in maudlin, automatic phraseology or straying into details that seem either irrelevant or too private).

riazm:

Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal’s syndrome or Florence syndrome, is a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly ‘beautiful’ or a large amount of art is in a single place.

Bartok’s fourth string quartet, final movement. (Interestingly, Julian Barnes writes a bit ironically about Stendhal’s conflicting diary accounts of his own episode in Florence and ultimately makes the case that the whole syndrome is more a function of recollection than experience).

Better Than Prozac

Without recapitulating all the things that have me hating myself and the universe today, I did want to set the stage for how it was that I came to discover that Fatmanatee and Minuswell are more capable than my regimen of ludicrously expensive, probably toxic prescription medications at improving my mood.

I had a grim day; I’m sick and it’s rainy and repulsive here and there hasn’t been a damn thing to do except feel my skin hanging off of my face. Anything I write in moods like this is gratingly self-pitying and too idiosyncratic to resonate, so I just stayed offline and slept and read.

When I finally did get online, I found not one but two rather astonishing images; the first, from Minuswell, noted a similarity he sees between me and Dr. Who. I’d never seen this actor before, but I admire his look of furious bewilderment, which speaks to my state of mind. Incidentally, the person I’m usually compared to -seriously, by everyone, by gas station employees and coworkers and so on- is Topher Grace.

(Me and Dr. Who, below)

Then, from the ever-brilliant Fatmanatee at TumblrFAIL, came the shockingly hideous memory below. We’d had some “Wear Ugly Clothes and Get Food” party or something at work, and Syd and I (among others) I think did quite well for ourselves. It’s the captioning, however, which is genius.


I know it’s ridiculous, but I really appreciated it today. Thanks, both of you!

The Stumblng Tumblr posted Lightnin’ Hopkins playing “Baby Please Don’t Go,” which he found here.
“ Pervert. Why don’t you wear it to the school yard and watch the kids through the chain link fence?
— My own father, in reference to this abomination.

[Illness] + [Casual Dress Day] = [Catastrophe]

I can blame the infection or the dextromethorphan or the pseudoephedrine, and will if I am interrogated by Human Resources, but the plain fact is that it is no one’s fault but mine that I (1) bought this shirt without any idea what was on it, (2) put on this shirt without ever paying attention to it, (3) and wore this shirt to work without even pausing at a mirror.

Two notes: Syd, Will, Frank, Lee, and George all work with me and failed to say anything, which makes them traitors in my view, and I have no idea why I sound so suddenly Southern while congested.

I am burning this repulsive waste of cloth (detail).

bunnynico: Alain Robert’s scale up the New York Times building last week reminded me of Philippe Petit for some reason.  Petite was a French high wire and street artist who used a 450-pound cable and a custom made 26-foot long, 55-pound balancing pole to illegally walk between the former Twin Towers in August 1974 (he was not connected to the wire).  I didn’t know about this until recently, when I learned that there is a book about Petit’s adventure. Watch the unbelievable footage here.  The footage is touching, particularly as the NYPD officer describes the spectacle as the “the apex of excitement.” That he was sentenced to do a free show for children in Central Park seems nice, too.

bunnynico:

Alain Robert’s scale up the New York Times building last week reminded me of Philippe Petit for some reason.  Petite was a French high wire and street artist who used a 450-pound cable and a custom made 26-foot long, 55-pound balancing pole to illegally walk between the former Twin Towers in August 1974 (he was not connected to the wire).  I didn’t know about this until recently, when I learned that there is a book about Petit’s adventure.

Watch the unbelievable footage here. 

The footage is touching, particularly as the NYPD officer describes the spectacle as the “the apex of excitement.” That he was sentenced to do a free show for children in Central Park seems nice, too.

tumblrfail: Mills has dogs.  They are cool. Sidenote: These dogs might be female.  I don’t care, I make the captions around here. This made me laugh so hard that Five, the black and white male, ran up to see what was happening. Then I felt profound sorrow that I’d never be able to explain meaningfully to him or Bayou that they’d achieved this level of Internet fame, sorrow I counteracted by giving them treats. Look at that hybrid vigor, though!

tumblrfail:

Mills has dogs.  They are cool.

Sidenote: These dogs might be female.  I don’t care, I make the captions around here.

This made me laugh so hard that Five, the black and white male, ran up to see what was happening. Then I felt profound sorrow that I’d never be able to explain meaningfully to him or Bayou that they’d achieved this level of Internet fame, sorrow I counteracted by giving them treats.

Look at that hybrid vigor, though!

Sabotage Manual from 1944 Advises Acting Like Average 2008 Manager »

From thedaytheytriedtokillme. Best manual ever. You really need to see the full PDF. I happen to be a totally average 2008 manager, and I can assure you that these principles are instinctive to me. Honestly, this is my company in list form. (What’s with all the quotation marks, though?)

 (1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.

(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera­tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.

(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris  diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

“ What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
—

Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov (via the excellent Kyle Bingman, who linked to Joshua Longbrake).

The problem with heedlessly rushing into love, which is the only good way to do it, is that you often choose lovers poorly, based on mysterious and powerful inclinations. They may be generated by sublimated psychological issues, perhaps having to do with your parents or your past, or we may just say “Love is irrational. There is nothing we can do about it.” But they never follow some hygienic matrix of rational calculations, 

The consequence of these thrilling and poor choices is that you accrue scar tissue from your predictably failed relationships, and it becomes ever harder to open, to trust, to hope, to love. The difference for me between being young and old is that when I was young I worried no one would ever love me; now I worry whether or how well I can love others.

(Maybe this doesn’t happen to healthy people, which I wouldn’t hold against them).

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Alice Coltrane - Journey in Satchidananda.

John Coltrane’s very talented widow Alice Coltrane was a serious disciple of spiritual guru Swami Satchidananda, to whom she dedicated this album. She plays harp, which is always lovely to hear, and is joined by solid personnel including Pharoah Sanders.

Excellent and odd.

leeg: Oregon Trail is harsh. Fuck.

leeg:

Oregon Trail is harsh.

Fuck.

When I think of the irreducibility of stupidity -my own especially- I feel oppressed by the monumentality of it, its scale and scope and persistence. I’ve often quoted Errol Morris saying that “error is the central feature of human existence.” Or as Albert Einstein put it, “Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” I’ve been reading Avital Ronell’s Stupidity, a book which is far beyond my comprehension (for reasons having either to do with her, me, or both of us). I failed completely to understand another work of hers called The Telephone Book, the prose of which is so impenetrable for me that I feel genuinely moronic when I attempt to understand even a paragraph; again, this may be her fault or mine, but she’s a well-regarded writer and I think I likely lack the lexicon and analytical skills needed. But parts of Stupidity are striking, and I thought I’d quote at length from its opening: “Stupidity exceeds and undercuts materiality, runs loose, wins a few rounds, recedes, gets carried home in the clutch of denial—and returns. Essentially linked to the inexhaustible, stupidity is also that which fatigues knowledge and wears down history. From Schiller’s exasperated concession that even the gods cannot combat stupidity to Hannah Arendt’s frustrated effort, in a letter to Karl Jaspers, to determine the exact status and level of Adolf Eichmann’s Dummheit…stupidity has evinced a mute resistance to political urgency, an instance of unaccountable ethical hiatus. In fact, stupidity, purveyor of self-assured assertiveness, mutes just about everything that would seek to disturb its impervious hierarchies. “Neither a pathology nor an index of moral default, stupidity is nonetheless linked to the most dangerous failures of human endeavor.”

When I think of the irreducibility of stupidity -my own especially- I feel oppressed by the monumentality of it, its scale and scope and persistence. I’ve often quoted Errol Morris saying that “error is the central feature of human existence.” Or as Albert Einstein put it, “Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

I’ve been reading Avital Ronell’s Stupidity, a book which is far beyond my comprehension (for reasons having either to do with her, me, or both of us). I failed completely to understand another work of hers called The Telephone Book, the prose of which is so impenetrable for me that I feel genuinely moronic when I attempt to understand even a paragraph; again, this may be her fault or mine, but she’s a well-regarded writer and I think I likely lack the lexicon and analytical skills needed.

But parts of Stupidity are striking, and I thought I’d quote at length from its opening:

“Stupidity exceeds and undercuts materiality, runs loose, wins a few rounds, recedes, gets carried home in the clutch of denial—and returns. Essentially linked to the inexhaustible, stupidity is also that which fatigues knowledge and wears down history. From Schiller’s exasperated concession that even the gods cannot combat stupidity to Hannah Arendt’s frustrated effort, in a letter to Karl Jaspers, to determine the exact status and level of Adolf Eichmann’s Dummheit…stupidity has evinced a mute resistance to political urgency, an instance of unaccountable ethical hiatus. In fact, stupidity, purveyor of self-assured assertiveness, mutes just about everything that would seek to disturb its impervious hierarchies.

“Neither a pathology nor an index of moral default, stupidity is nonetheless linked to the most dangerous failures of human endeavor.”

“ When two people part it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches.
— Marcel Proust. I immediately thought of those times I’d offered the soft consolatory words, and felt ashamed; then I thought of those times someone had tried to pacify me as they left, and felt freshly wounded. He’s utterly right.
“ Leave those men alone. They’re talking business.
—

A mother to her small blond haired son as he stared at Mills and me, while we discussed today’s WWDC announcements. (via billydalto).

Another moment to remember as I get older: when women started corralling their kids around my friends and me because we appeared to be “businessmen” rather than because they feared we’d curse too much or bust out some drug paraphernalia.