Caito Potato

since feeling is first -e.e. cummings

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:24:44 -0400

since feeling is first

-e.e. cummings

Sugar pie, honey bunch, have an irrationally great Pi day :)

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:41:12 -0400

Sugar pie, honey bunch, have an irrationally great Pi day :)

Happy birthday America!

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 12:45:12 -0400

Happy birthday America!

This is a work of art made out of tomatoes and cheese....

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 09:14:02 -0400

This is a work of art made out of tomatoes and cheese. Can’t wait to make my own or get some from Chicago when I’m home again.

Happy birthday, George. You’ll always be “the cute...

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:24:43 -0500

Happy birthday, George. You’ll always be “the cute one” to me.

beatonna: austinkleon: Reading positions by Kate Beaton (who’s...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:46 -0500

beatonna:

austinkleon:

Reading positions by Kate Beaton (who’s on Tumblr!)

I sure am!

Adorable! And accurate.

Took a look in the mirror said what’s up I love you, Tommy...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:09:29 -0500

Took a look in the mirror said what’s up

I love you, Tommy Timberlake.

Photo

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:18:44 -0500

Happy Birthday Cheeeeeeese - A Playlist!

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:31:00 -0500

Made a 21st birthday mix for my little bro! And here are some rambly liner notes. Enjoy! Love ya Cheeeese.

http://open.spotify.com/user/caito_potato/playlist/6HHocIb69eHZ6WUDwUHcnZ

Stevie Wonder – Happy Birthday
It’s a struggle to listen to this one all the way through, but it’s thematically on point and I get to quote High Fidelity: “Top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the ’80s and ’90s. Go. SUB-QUESTION: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?

Elvis Presley – Hi-Heel Sneakers
Doesn’t have the awesome “Ode to Billie Jo” intro (well I was out choppin’ cotton), but an awesome going out song that reminds me of you. Put your wig hat on your head.

The Champs – Tequila (Re-Recorded / Remastered)
Technically my birthday song, but I’ll lend it to you for today.

The Isley Brothers – Shout (Parts 1 and 2)
Hope you can Otis Day and the Knights to come to your frat tonight and bang out this classic, in some kind of world where you can make movies come true.
http://youtu.be/PJ57ihKTJxg

JAY-Z – H•A•M
Jay and Ye will get you fired up. First appearance by a Chicago artist on this list. Stay tuned!

Snoop Doggy Dogg – Gin And Juice
Snoop! Snoop a loop!

Cypress Hill – Tequila Sunrise (featuring Barron Ricks) - Clean LP Version
A little old school Cypress for ya. I like the sampled mariachi trumpets.

The Notorious B.I.G. – Juicy
Biggie is my go-to for parties, and this one, right after “Big Poppa” is my favorite.

R. Kelly – Ignition Remix
Chicago native appearance 2! About as egotistical as Kanye and twice as creepy! And hilarious!

Laserkraft 3D – Nein Mann - Radio Edit
That weirdo German song I played for you. Time to start dancin’.

LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk Is Playing At My House

Another sweet dancing track.

Wilco – I Might
Chicago natives appearance 3!

Talking Heads – Burning Down The House
Did your hip-hop, did your electronic, time for some rock.

Us3 – Tukka Yoot’s Riddim
Da da da dum da da dey

Loudon Wainwright III – Drinking Song
Probably the most indie/hipster drinking song around. Better than Piano Man or Sweet Home Alabama.

Willie Nelson – Whiskey River
You’re a little bit country, and a little bit rock and roll.

Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side
In keeping with the nonsense syllables from US3 - do do do do do do do do. Lou Reed is the coolest.

Tom Waits – The Piano Has Been Drinking [Not Me]
In honor of Deeds, the Waits lover.

Carly Simon & James Taylor – Mockingbird
Mock! Yeah! Ing! Yeah! Bird! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Tenacious D – Dude (I Totally Miss You) - Clean Version
I mean, The D says it all - Dude, I totally miss you! Come out to Bahston.

Ben Harper – Beautiful Boy
Harper covering Lennon. A sleepy song after your long birthday day/night.

I want to go to there.

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:13:02 -0500

I want to go to there.

#CBR4 Review #1: Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:22:49 -0500

I found myself sitting on a folding chair in the basement of my parents’ home at 6:45 a.m., wearing underpants, earmuffs, and memory goggles, with a printout of eight hundred random digits in my lap and an image in my mind’s eye of a lingerie-clad garden gnome (52632) suspended over my grandmother’s kitchen table. I suddenly looked up, wondering-remarkably, for the first time-what in the world I was doing with myself.

-Joshua Foer, Moonwalking with Einstein

You have a tongue in your mouth. Your tongue, a group of muscles, is sitting inside your mouth.

At least, for me, thinking about my tongue makes it feel like it’s two or three times bigger than it is. I know it’s weird that this is the metaphor I’ve chosen to describe reading this book, but it’s kind of apt, because it’s a weird but engrossing story.

Foer, a journalist, goes to cover the U.S. Memory Championships and hears consistently from these “mental athletes” that anyone could perform feats like perfectly memorizing the order of a deck of cards in two minutes. They were just ordinary people who, through grueling practice, had trained themselves in the ancient technique of “The Memory Palace”. The brain remembers visuals easier, so these athletes translate their data - random digits, lines of poetry, cards - into very memorable images which they store in mental “rooms” - places they’ve toured in real life and stored to house their information. Foer decides that if they can do it, he can do it, and sets out to compete in the championship himself the next time around.

Usually I’m not a huge non-fiction reader. I tend to zone out if the book is basically facts strung together and wish there was more color and drama holding it together and propelling it forward. However, Foer’s story has some really great characters: Ed, his hard-partying memory coach, Tony Buzan, a man who has built a global fortune on marketing his memory techniques, and Foer himself, who has a really great narrative style which helps the necessary detours into neurology and ancient history really interesting, never dry. He looks into famous savants with legendary memory skills and also explores what happens when memories are erased, like in the case of EP, who lost part of his brain to a case of meningitis and can only remember his childhood to 1950, and struggles to retain information he intakes after two minutes.

The best part of the book is it makes you think deeply about your own brain, about your own memory - about the tongue in your own mouth. Foer’s story is relatable. He’s a regular guy who forgets what he had for breakfast yesterday - just like me! The book makes you think seriously about the limits and capacity of your own mind. With intense daily effort, I could feasibly memorize all the kings and queens of England and actually retain them for recall. Or, through some terrible tragic chance, I could lose the ability to remember anything. I’m not about to strap on a pair of memory goggles and start training as Foer did, but his book was an enjoyable and informative glance at what’s possible - maybe I too can actually learn people’s names at parties and remember them if I run into one of them on the T. Maybe. Or I’ll just say, “Hey, so nice to see you again!”, avoid names, and keep thinking about my tongue.

Cover Song Sunday: “Angie” by Stereophonics (orig....

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:30:48 -0500

Cover Song Sunday: “Angie” by Stereophonics (orig. The Rolling Stones)

@cannonballread - 28 Books in 2012!

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:25:00 -0500

As a New Year’s Resolution, I decided to read 28 books (my favorite number) this year - a little over a book every two weeks! And as luck would have it, one of my favorite blogs to lurk on, Pajiba, is having a blogging/reading fest that hopefully will keep me honest throughout this venture, and make me post and keep track of my progress. Below is the list, in no particular order, of 21 fiction and 7 non-fiction/memoirs I’ve decided to tackle. They’re all new for me! Some I got for Christmas, some I’ve been told over and over to read but never have, a couple installments from series I’ve read in 2011, and some by my favorite authors that I’ve never got around to. I’m very excited about this! Will have to start actually reading on the T, not just dozing off.

Fiction
1. The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
2. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
3. A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin
4. Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Stieg Larsson
5. The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
6. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
7. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender
8. Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
9. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
11. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
12. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
13. Stardust, Neil Gaiman
14. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
15. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell
16. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
17. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
18. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
19. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
20. The Beautiful and The Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
21. 1984, George Orwell

Non-Fiction/Memoir
22. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling
23. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, Patton Oswalt
24. Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Froer
25. The Psycopath Test, Jon Ronson
26. As Always, Julia, Julia Child and Avis DeVoto
27. A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage

28. In The Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson

Let the great experiment begin! Look for a post in the next couple weeks with my first ever review. Suggestions for my first choice are welcome - maybe not the Martin or Larsson though - fighting to finish Clash of Kings and Girl Who Played with Fire this week so I can start fresh January 1st! :)

Watching Holiday tonight. These two were adorable together....

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:42:00 -0500

Watching Holiday tonight. These two were adorable together. Tracy/Hepburn may have appeared together more often, but Cary and Katharine were always my favorite pairing.

beatabeatrixandthemorningstar:

How wonderful it would be to find someone like these two were to each other in Holiday (1938)

Fabulous.

Yay! Movieoftheday is doing my fave film! O.R....

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:56:30 -0500

Yay! Movieoftheday is doing my fave film!

O.R. they?

movieoftheday:

Mr. Blume: “Now, for some of you it doesn’t matter. You were born rich, and you’re going to stay rich. But here’s my advice to the rest of you: take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs. And take them down. Just remember: they can buy anything. But they can’t buy backbone. Don’t let them forget that. Thank you.”

Rushmore, 1998

My new life’s mission. Waters FTW.

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 07:04:00 -0500

My new life’s mission. Waters FTW.

pratt: Cove Sofa by Vioski: a chaise or a sofa, depending on...

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 13:30:09 -0400

pratt:

Cove Sofa by Vioski: a chaise or a sofa, depending on your needs, delicately curved to fit your body while lounging or to assist in conversation.

Once I become my multi-millionaire superhero alter ego self, this will be my badass sofa. Or some kind soul could donate it to Krafthaus?

CASTLE: [SINGING] Pananananana pananananana… dunununaaaa![NADIR...

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 02:36:21 -0400

CASTLE: [SINGING] Pananananana pananananana… dunununaaaa!
[NADIR CRASHES ONTO SQUAD CAR]

oh, ich liebe dich so much, nathan fillion. pananananananana pananananana!

Bang Bang - Nancy Sinatra

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:33:50 -0400

Bang Bang - Nancy Sinatra

Friday I’m in Love…WITH THIS GIF. <3...

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:26:14 -0400

Friday I’m in Love…WITH THIS GIF. <3 :)

thedailywhat:

Animated GIF of the Day: Friday I’m In Love: The Animated (T)GIF.

[graphjam / k1k1chan.]