My Morning Routine: Tarrying With the Negative

...g via the very object that wounded him. Žižek, building on Freud and Lacan uses this as a metaphor for the ways in which we use language and narrative to deal with the struggles of life by reenacting pain and pleasure cycles in order to heal. In the final chapters of the book Žižek moves on to collective forms of ideology via a deep dive into Lacan. Of our current system Žižek says, The elementary feature of capitalism consists of its inherent str...

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Pepper’s Ghost

...eB4kup3oKY0?si=Lp8HuYnto3B3_gH1 Looking for an easy Halloween display that uses stuff you might have at hand? In this video Joshua Ellingson shows you how to create the 19th century Pepper’s ghost effect using an iPad, some plastic film and a glass container. YouTube is full of pre-made Pepper’s ghost videos so you don’t even need to shoot anything. If you want to go deeper there’s a free version of a video DJ type program called VDMX that you can...

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When Mushrooms Attack

...al device that allows him to communicate with plants, as one does. Daisuke uses the device to communicate with mushrooms (I know, not a plant, but stay with me here). Handed such a device, let me just say that my first impulse would also be to communicate with the mushrooms to just ask them, like, what the hell are you all up to? Daisuke, unfortunately, gets prodded by a bunch of hoodlum teens to eat one of the mushrooms and a seriously bad trip e...

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Fence Appeal

...ats are alternating sizes which gives some visual interest, the trellising uses the off-cuts from the slats and the central pressure treated 4×4 posts are covered in cedar making them bigger and more attractive. The trellising at the top creates a kind of filtered view of neighboring vegetation while the lower panels obscure stuff you don’t want to see. Alas, nothing is simple at our funky property and I had to interrupt the fence twice to accommo...

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Mr. Grumpy Needs a Home

...inct limp – it’s likely he had an old injury on his front left leg which caused this. He had x rays and exams by two vets- there are no visible or palpable fractures, and there is no muscle atrophy, meaning he still uses the leg. So even though he limps, it won’t require any further treatment. He gets around just fine. He is a special cat who has been through a lot (likely dumped on the street by a previous owner) and he needs a wonderful home. Fo...

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