Joshua Thorin Messer - Home

Who does what to who now?

2010-04-08T16:20:00Z

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes—does it really matter who washes the washmen?

What I woulda wrote

2010-01-03T06:10:00Z

Extirpate sesquipedalianism!

For Havi

2009-10-21T16:11:00Z

Hi. I’m Thorin, and I’m a perfectionist.

“Hi, Thorin!”

So you know how there’s stuff you’d like to try, or stuff you’d like to pick back up that you used to do, but you can’t? You can’t because you can’t stand that “beginner” time when you suck at it. You’ll never be good because you can’t go ahead and make mistakes.

It’s frustrating to not know something. It makes you—it makes ME feel like I’m no good. At anything. That I’m—and here’s a perfectionist thing—worthless. Because I can’t hit that high C anymore. Because I can’t do a 100m breast stroke in 1:12 like I could when I was 15. Because I can’t pronounce “ra” right in Japanese.

Yeah, me too. When did this happen? When I was a kid, I didn’t give a shit about being good at stuff. What I liked, as a kid, I liked doing stuff. Anything. Totally wacky, goofy, even dumb stuff. Making useless, inane noises. Throwing my body around like I was a rag doll. I didn’t have to execute a perfect tango. I could jump up and down!

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know when. Maybe that’s just what happens. Maybe it’s just life. But it sucks to go so completely the other way. It sucks to feel paralyzed by fear.

So this is why I would try something like Shiva Nata. Because I’m supposed to look ridiculous. I’m supposed to mess it up, be confused. And it works. When I’m doing shiva nata, and I get totally lost and just start flailing around, I feel so…free. I feel completely elated. I laugh. Hell, I giggle. Because I’m silly, and it feels good. Just like when I was a kid.

So thanks, Havinator. For bringing this goofy sense of joy back into my life. For helping me give myself permission to be silly again. For everything you do. You are truly a beautiful person.

Love,
—One of the Thousand.

Not snooty enough

2009-09-09T16:35:00Z

I have only one thing to say to you, Jason Kottke : “Small Batch” is so pedestrian, so mainstream, so “big-business”. Real men only roll SINGLE BARREL!

Mindfucking

2009-04-19T00:23:00Z

I meant to write about this long, long ago. I went to see Tricky @ “The Music Box at the Ford Theater” (not sure what that’s all about). Tricky put on a wonderful show, as expected. It was moving, entertaining, and inspiring.

But the opener We Are The World must not be missed if you have the opportunity to see them live. Now, I don’t know if I would pop in a CD alone at home and listen to it…but I will take every single chance I get to see them perform. It’s indescribable. It is madness. Sheer beauty. Deeply, deeply moving. Startling. Heart-rending. Spooky. Terrifying. Transcendent.

I liked them.

And it turns out they’re based just up the street in Echo Park. How cool is that?

I can only describe the music as “industrial” with a dollop of dancey. It reminded me of Front 242. I’ve heard the choreography (if that’s what it is…) described as “African”, the word I would use is “Haunting”. And I would swear the dancers have studied the Suzuki method. The one for actors, not the violin lessons for fetuses.

Happy as a little girl

2009-04-18T23:05:00Z

So the other day, I was making myself a “snack”: A cucumber, some cottage cheese, a little celery with peanut butter. And I got really, really excited when I remembered I had and could use the ‘good salt’:

I would link you to Le Saunier de Camargue’s website, but it’s a Flash monstrosity and I have my standards.

And I mean I got giddy-type excited. Like “jumping up and down and clapping” excited. For those that know me, this (being happy, also, demonstrating happiness) might strike you as absurdly out of character. It did me. But, I’ve been finding myself in all kinds of non-usual emotional states lately since I discovered my latest massive, massive internet crush: Ms. Havi Brooks and Selma. Who is fucking awesome. And from A2. And awesome. I wish I was the one who called her “human catnip” (and whoever beat me to it, you’re on my list, mister/miss/misses). So applying what I have learned in my short time quietly going mad with admiration for Havi and maniacally devouring every word she has written on her blog, I decided to allow it.

On a related note, WTF kind of a snack is a cucumber, cottage cheese, and celery? I can’t explain, but I kind of love it and again, I am going to allow it. To drink? The most awesome molecule ever. H₂O.

Too accurate

2009-04-17T21:13:00Z

This movie is so exactly me I now want to cry a little bit.

via Coudal Partners

To Paraphrase Stevie Wonder

2009-04-15T01:40:00Z

I just blogged to say I tweeted. ‘Nuff said.

Not the only one

2009-03-18T16:47:00Z

Serendipity: Today, kottke.org noticed a couple of people thinking about what’s happened or going to happen to SE Michigan (A/K/A Detroit, apparently…)

A Solution for Detroit?

2009-03-13T22:58:00Z

Detroit doesn’t seem to have the required ingredients (being a place rich people want to live…) but maybe it could turn itself into a major tech hub?

Paul Graham’s advice to would-be startup hubs.

Paul doesn’t seem to think Detroit would have an easy time of it, but I can’t think of anything that would be easier to turn Michigan around. The investment would be almost entirely in brains, not in big depreciating machinery and the like.

I certainly think my home state needs to find something to do with itself besides the past strategy of “Make cars, only cars, and just cars”.

Four four

2009-01-20T17:08:00Z

Moments ago, I awoke from an eight-year nightmare.

More Gloating

2008-11-30T23:14:00Z

So this is about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen:

Yes, I’m a geek. But now I’m a geek novelist. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

NaNoWriMo 08 Day 30

2008-11-30T23:04:00Z

Fuck you, literature. I just wrote a book in 30 days!

I win!

Now all I have to do is type everything up, flush everything out, and make it into a real book. But, I now have 50,000 words to work on perfecting and I didn’t before.

NaNoWriMo 08 Day 29 (ish)

2008-11-30T09:32:00Z

So fucking close. Techically, it’s day 30…but for me I’m still awake from day 29. Must rock out 5k or so tomorrow. Gonna have to take it in two shifts. And gonna have to not get totally fucked up on bourbon and stay up till 2am, I have a job and have to be in to work for 8am Monday…

NaNoWriMo 08 Day 25

2008-11-25T18:13:00Z

Yes, I’m slowing way the hell down, and yes, I’m being much less accountable for writing my updates. I wonder if the two things are related? But this is the home stretch. I would say I’m on the downhill slope, but going downhill means you gather speed as your potential energy is converted to velocity. That’s not happening to me. I’m stalled out, I got into my own head, I was cocky.

But I’m going to finish. And I’m going to win. On Sunday, if not before, I will be uploading a 50,000 word manuscript into the NaNoWriMo validator, and I will win. Count on it.