Late At Night 2:30 Disco

When I was in Lhasa for the first time about eight years ago, my friend Aaron found this beat up cassette on the ground.  After acquiring a crappy portable player we listened to it and found that it contained the most ridiculous techno ever.  The title is 深夜2：30的土高 (shenye 2:30 de tugao) - "Late At Night 2:30 Disco."  Classic.

When I moved back to Lhasa after college I would sometimes go out to dance clubs there (at that time it was either Babi-La or Tang Hui depending on which was open), and believe me this is pretty representative of what they played.  At first I hated it, but after a while its bizarre charm grew on me.

Anyway, I had planned to make an mp3 of the tape for a long time and since it is a miserable and rainy spring break here in Providence, today felt like the day.  So after eight years, here it is in all its glory, Late At Night 2:30 Disco:

• Side A (33:20, 69.4 mb) 
• Side B (33:34, 69.8 mb)

There is some clicking at the start of the tracks, but what do you want from an eight year-old cassette that was found in the street.  For my money, the best part is at about thirteen minutes into Side A which features a segue from Aqua Smile.dk to Bon Jovi to Bonnie Tyler.  Magnificent!

"Paradoxical, Socrates ..."

It's spring break here and since most people are gone I'm trying to use the week to catch up on all the stuff I told myself I'd do when I got some free time.  It's going pretty well so far (*knock on wood*) ...

Rebel without logical coherence ...

Here's a little drawing I did on a handout at a pretty interesting talk on epistemology.  In the course of talking about how one might obey the advice "Don't trust any rule completely" there was an example featuring a bug.  So that explains that I guess.

Spalding, get your foot off the boat ...

Here's a little watercolor I did a while ago.  As you can see, I write Tibetan the same way I write English - like drunken four year-old with a broken wrist.  Anyway, the Tibetan is from a text I'm reading by Gyalse Thogme Zangpo called The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas.  The line is the first line from the very first stanza after the dedication; here it is with a rough translation:

དལ་འབྱོར་གྲུ་ཆེན་རྙེད་དཀའ་ཐོབ་དུས་འདིར།།

བདག་གཞན་འཁོར་བའི་མཚོ་ལས་བསྒྲལ་བྱའི་ཕྱིར།།

ཉིན་དང་མཚན་དུ་གཡེལ་བ་མེད་པར་ནི།།

ཉན་སེམས་བསྒོམ་པ་རྒྱལ་སྲས་ལག་ལེན་ཡིན།།

dal 'byor gru chen rnyed dka' thob dus 'dir

bdag gzhan 'khor ba'i mtsho las bsgral bya'i phir

nyin dang mtshan du g.yel ba med par ni

nyan sems bsgom pa rgyal sras lag len yin

That great ship of money and free time is hard to find in this life

In order to save yourself and others from the Ocean of Suffering,

Day and night, incessantly and carefully,

Listen, think, and meditate.  This is the practice of Bodhisattvas.

So there you have it.  On a lighter note, you might enjoy this list of funny boat names.  They're pretty bad, but I liked the "Maid of Plywood" ... 

Dissertation topics are hard.

I've been trying to come up with a topic for my dissertation.  Today was better, but this pretty much captures how I've felt about it the last few days. 

A Yawn

I can't seem to get enough sleep this week.  I drew this on an index card that was on my desk while getting ready for bed.  Now I am going to bed.  Hopefully tomorrow holds fewer yawns ...

I wish this was hyperbole ...

Maybe not twelve, but I do often go up to nine or ten hours.  I just hate feeling sleepy so much ...

Instrumental Rationality

I drew this last year on a handout during a talk at the philosophy department about Instrumental Rationality (how to reason about the best means to a goal).  It's a terrible joke, but that's what happens during lectures ...

New and improved ...

I decided to start a new blog.  You might remember the old one, which had a lot of long-winded rants and complaining on it.  I don't have the energy to do that anymore, but I'll put up some drawings and what-not here from time to time.