marginalia.org

Addendum to the prior post: anyone insane enough to check my figures will note that they don't jive - e.g. there were only 3 posts last February. I obviously don't quite understand the GROUP BY clause, although the information is still generally correct. ©

Marginalia is now one year old. I decided look back at some cold hard facts about how good I've been at keeping this site active. I've averaged about 1.25 posts a day, although there's an obvious bulge in the posting rate:

Month	Year	# of posts	# of chars posted	avg. post length
2	2000	14	7391	527.9286
3	2000	38	21660	570.0000
4	2000	60	31186	519.7667
5	2000	65	28031	431.2462
6	2000	54	28633	530.2407
7	2000	65	27536	423.6308
8	2000	55	21282	386.9455
9	2000	43	22565	524.7674
10	2000	17	8550	502.9412
11	2000	15	3931	262.0667
12	2000	12	4862	405.1667
1	2001	14	3910	279.2857

Some other oddments: average post length has been 464 characters; total number characters posted is 209537.

And while I was going claim "getting busier" as an excuse for the posting rate/size decline, the fact that I'm presenting this information makes a mockery of this excuse. I'll do better, I promise!

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you'll keep doing so. ©

Can't not link to an article about marginalia.

Marginalia create a form of extended argument in which the reader has the upper hand, taking over the text. But the text also stakes its claims: it determines (literally) the boundaries within which a reader's reactions are to be constrained.

(This article is about a book I will no doubt be purchasing.) ©

Funny (Requires real player.) ©

Via peterme comes the amazing news that Rick Prelinger is making a portion of his "ephemeral films" collection available online. For those not familiar with Rick Prelinger, he has dedicated his life to archiving education, industrial and advertising films made throughout the 20th century (think of all the school films spoofed in the Simpsons). Very neat stuff. ©

One of my current favorite comic strips: Get Fuzzy. I love this Temptation Island slam. ©

Two part interview with Berke Breathed, one of my favorite strippers (obscure Bloom County reference!). ©

I am back from a conference in San Jose. It was actually my first conference and made me realize one thing: boy howdy, do I suck at networking. Not being a person fluent in business-language didn't help either. However, I learned lots and got time to think about aspects of my job that I don't often think about it, so it was altogether a good experience. ©

Time to cancel The Simpsons - it's hard to think of teevee without the Simpsons, but it has been a pretty uneven year for the show thus far. ©

The Silophone Project:

Located in Montréal's old port, Silo #5B-1 was built in 1958 and has been cited by Le Corbusier as a masterpiece of modern architecture. The elevator was used to store grain which came to Montréal by rail and departed by sea. Due to changes in the global grain market the elevator became obsolete and was closed in 1996. Since then it has remained empty and, for reasons of security, closed to the public. The structure, constructed entirely of reinforced concrete, is 200 metres long, 16 metres wide and approximately 45 metres at its highest point. The main section of the building is formed of approximately 115 vertical chambers, all 30 metres high and up to 8 metres in diameter. These tall parallel cylinders, whose form evokes the structure of an enormous organ, have exceptional acoustic properties: a stunning reverberation time of over 20 seconds. Anything played inside the Silo is euphonized, made beautiful, by the acoustics of the structure. All those who have entered have found it an overwhelming and unforgettable experience.

Don't forget to play the silophone. You can even upload your own sounds. It seems like I'm the only person playing it right now, which is a shame. Maybe there are more people during North American daytime. ©

I know The Onion links are kind of pointless, but i couldn't resist Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People:

"[Manson] was standing at my front door wearing those fake breasts he wore on the cover of Mechanical Animals," retiree Judith Hahn said. "He said, 'My name is Marilyn Manson, and I'm here to tear your little world apart.' I thought he was collecting for the Kiwanis food drive, so I gave him some cans of pumpkin-pie filling."

Undaunted, Manson and his entourage stepped up their assault on mainstream American sensibilities. On Tuesday, they arrived in the tiny Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms, where stockbroker Glenn Binford answered his doorbell to find Manson hanging upside-down on a wooden cross as Ramirez performed fellatio on him.

"I just stood there thinking, now there's a boy who tries way too hard," Binford said. "I mean, come on: Homoerotic sacrilege went out in the late '90s."

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Other people's wallets. Famous people's wallets are boring too. Well, except Bruce la Bruce's:

Contents: Mastercard; American Express card; 2 bank cards; driver's licence; health card; blood-type card (A positive); birth certificate; $205.73 (Cdn.); 50 Polish zloty; American $2 bill; British 5-pound note; 20 rand from South Africa; Bell calling card; Aeroplan card; Advantage American Airlines card; University of Toronto Athletic Centre card; Shopper's Drug Mart Optimum card; 2 German phone cards; hmv CD-club card; Festival membership card for Toronto repertory cinemas; ticket stub for the band Thee Michelle Gun Elephant from The Garage in London, England; Cineplex Odeon courtesy pass for one movie; receipts from Footlight Records in New York, a showing of Fight Club at Union Square in New York, and for airport limousines (2); phone number of a hustler named Zack; flyer for a screening of his film Bruce La Bruce: Bigger By Demand at Blinding Light Cinema in Vancouver; flyer for the after-party of his photographic exhibit at the Helen Pitt Gallery in Vancouver; old flyer from a German club with a picture of Prince in bikini underwear; a condom; a Pikachu sticker with his name and phone number on it (in case his wallet is lost); two photo-booth stickers of LaBruce with a fashion editor he met in Tokyo; business cards from: Sneakers (Toronto bar), Jonah Falcon (man with the biggest penis in America), 99X (a clothing store in New York), I.C. Guys (a gay bar in New York), somebody named Kurt, Sal's Tattoo and Barber Shop in Toronto, and a fake card for Dodi Al Fayed, "Billionaire playbody and royal consort."

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