putting the j in jjosh

To be one of the teeming multitudes, to be part of a news story about
how many hundreds of people are stranded, to be some of those people.
it’s tiring. our flight from Chicago to jfk was canceled so they
switched us to connect in Charlotte NC and then when we got there last
night that flight was canceled too. we stood in lines, we ran to get
connections that weren’t there and we stayed on hold for an hour.

So we spent the night in Charlotte, at a Hyatt that was perfectly
pleasant. managed to get rooms and into bed for a decent night’s
sleep, even though today we all feel a bit fried, like we were up all
night partying.

Plus there are so many people here at the airport and we keep hearing
other stories that are far worse than ours:

– people who sat in their plane on the runway for 8 hours
– a guy who’s plane went out to take off, satthere for 2 hours, came
back to the gate, made eveyone get off, wait an hour, get back out,
back to runway, another 2 hours on the Tarmac then back to the gate
– a couple on their way back from jamacia (talk about re-entry blues)
who had to stand in line for 6 HOURS to get a ticket.

We were lucky enough to get in late last night and Maxine got a
sympathetic gate agent who went from telling us we’d be here until
Tuesday to getting us tickets for today to LGA. She printed the
boarding passes right there so we didn’t have to wait in the insane
and epic lines that greeted us when we pulled up to the airport this
morning. We were lucky to be in concourse D which didn’t even have too
bad a security line. Granted, at the moment Philly is still closed but
we can hope can’t we?!

Plus we had the mother of all perspective hits while in the security
line. an eldery Southern gentleman behind us was telling us that he
was having trouble standing for so long. Maxine told him to go ahead
and take abreak, sit down and we’d hold his place in line. he
appeciated it greatly and when he came back in line he told us a bit
about how he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He underwent chemo and
treatment for it, only to discover later he had been misdiagnosed. It
was actually a super rare fungus infection that he had contracted back
when he was a soldier in Vietnam. "Odds were one in 5 million…" he
told us.

Made being stuck in the airport seem like nothing.

when we got to the gate, there were cots all over the place, like
remnants of some battle that travellers had waged against the
storm…some people had it really rough…

the fellow in the cam shot below had built a sort of fort out of the
airport cots…he looked nervous, like peoeple were going to try and
take his land away…

I hope this flight happens…

I made this the other night, and when I made it I wasn’t sure if it was working or not. But now I’ve spent a couple of days living with it, and listening to it over and over and I think it’s working well. It’s like a fever dream…what do you think?…maybe wait until tonight to listen to it if you can, youknowhatI’msayin?

Wow…fluxtumblr just blew my mind with this…this is not the official video for this song, but a piece done by a dance troupe in Austin, TX. Beautifully well done, and really really well directed. If you aren’t in the mood for this kind of thing, well get in it and watch this. Full-screen if possible.

Hey wouldn’t that be a great name for a blog and then a book based on the blog? "nerds (continue to) rule", I love it. This could be the first post:

OK Go – WTF? from OK Go on Vimeo.

This song is kind of weak, but in this context it works less like a song unto itself and more like a soundtrack to this amazing video. Too creepy for a Monday, I’ve saved this one for Tuesday for you…thank me later…(sent from Malcolm, thanks!)

This banner is from Hawaii, one of last days there when Maxine directed us to this beach and reef on the South side of Oahu…it was gorgeous…because it was a wildlife refuge, before you were allowed in they made you watch a video about not walking on the reef or feeding the animals…sure enough, while there we saw tons (!) of people walking on the reef and feeding the animals. It was nuts! WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?!?! Do they really just not get it? How much heavier can the message get than to have to watch a MANDATORY video. Infuriating.

Maxine took the above pic, as well as this random sampling of other shots below…

Probably the best thing we did on the whole trip was when we went to the island of Kauai…it was smaller than Oahu, we stayed in a B&B two blocks from the beach, in the town of Hanalei — which is mentioned in Puff the Magic Dragon! "…and frolicked in the autumn mist, of a land called Hanalei…" That’s where we took the helicopter trip that blew all of our minds. This is the coast of the island, featuring a perilous hiking trail.

This was a painter named Alex that Maxine befriended. We ended up buying a pen and ink drawing from him, he was pretty interesting. Kauai was full of interesting and friendly characters.

It was completely weird that it would be sunny and warm with a slight breeze and everyone would be going "Hey, it feels like Christmas!" There’d be all these Santas and Christmas decorations going up, and you’d be in shorts. It messed with my head. The weirdest thing by far was that they’ve kept all the snow assocations with Christmas, so you’d also see all these snowmen and polar bears and snowflakes, even though there’s not a hint of cold anywhere. This one cracked me up every time, with Santa dressed for cold and on a polar bear, but between two flaming tikki torches.

The first morning after we arrived in Kauai we were pretty jet-lagged and ended up waking up before the sunrise. Maxine and I walked down to the beach and the moon was huge and bright, setting on the horizon. Magnificent. Katie had been telling me about how on every vacation she likes to get a fake-perspective photo, even though it’s goofy. So Maxine took this one of me, and it kind of takes my breath away. One of my favorite shots of the whole vacation.

Wow, I love Dash Shaw’s comics work (have posted it here before), but these animations he’s done for IFC are supa fantastic…go to the ifc site to see the rest…surreal and great…