Could I be worse at updating this?

Yes. Of course I could. But seriously, once a month is terrible, even if I'm the only one looking at this. Got some drawings and other things coming soon. I am currently listening to the Very Best of The Jam and drawing a can of WD-40 and also some clouds. Alternating between two drawings and then stopping to make a crappy entry on my blog is an apt metaphor the scattered and disjointed state of my brain these days. I'm not sure if it is a side effect of being a freelancer for nearly 9 months now, or my more recent reëntry* into academia, but boy do I lack the ability to concentrate for extended periods of time. The mental fortitude, the brain muscles that I use to work on a drawing for four hours straight without stopping are woefully flabby. Let's hope a combination of muscle memory and concentration calisthenics will help get this part of myself back into shape.

One thing I have definitely noticed as I get further into my first semester as a full-time faculty member is how completely disjointed the life is. There is the lesson planning, the actual classes - remembering all the names and different sitations, the grading, the material, the committees, the tenure paperwork that you have to begin immediately, the human resources stuff, the union stuff, and on and on. I like to think of myself as a decently organized person and I am definitely challenged by the splintered nature of all of this material. Office jobs come with their share of work and problems, but hey, you go to the office, you sit at a desk, you heat up your lunch, you go home. NOT COMPLAINING. I love it. Just feeling challenged to raise the bar on my organization and cataloging skills.

And in an effort to remain all over the place, I'm going to go back to drawing now.

**

*I am borrowing the New Yorker's type style of putting an umlaut over any situation where a double-e results in two syllables. I.e. feed would not get one but reëmergence would. I think I've also noticed they give the letter "i" an umlaut if it has a double syllable, as in naïve. Quirky, and I like it.
**Images courtesy of google searching, "many arrows"

Productive Procrastination

I need to create a syllabus for an imaginary course that I know nothing about, so I'm currently procrastinating. My current project is going back to the oldest emails in my gmail and paring the inbox down, maybe sort things a bit by names, family, etc. eventually. One interesting thing that is happening is I'm finding loads of old links I sent myself for inspirational purposes. I'm going to list the better ones, the ones that are still live, here.

In no particular order, other than the chronological order I discovered and linked myself, edited for shitty sites that no one wants to see, of course:

http://www.subtotal.nu/en/ Strange art portal. Looks like they've gotten popular in the last five years.
http://athleticsnyc.com/about Ditto for these fellas. Don't they look all grown up and hipsterfull with their tattoos and thick-framed glasses?
http://www.carolinedesign.com/ Designer I met at Iain's 30th bday, friend of Manoj's. She's been busy.
http://www.jibhunt.com/ Clothing label - looks like mostly sweatshirts and windbreakers; not a very helpful site, but I do like the style.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/submit/print.html Still encouraging myself to submit something to McSweeney's... still haven't submitted anything. Still love their output, even paid $6 for the iphone app.
http://www.egocrew.com/12huevosfritos/english/home.htm Spanish design firm, cool little egg-themed intro.
http://www.yugop.com/ Flash-based projects - I would term these 'experimental web art'. Art being used loosely here, in the colloquial sense where anything 'fun' or hard to classify gets labeled 'art'.
http://www.dietlphoto.com/ Sent to me in December 2005, when it was brand-spanking new. Haven't seen this kid since I left Santy Barbie.
http://oink.me.uk/ I think this may have been some sort of illegal downloading site, that has obviously met with some... difficulties.
http://www.vinylpulse.com/2006/05/jason_sho_green.html Not sure what I liked about this one.
http://www.megawordsmagazine.com/news.php?page=2 Typical design portal, with the same stuff that shows up on every other design portal within about three days of each other. Oh look! Someone cut out maps of NYC!!! zOMGZZ!!11!! a teacup with a teabag design on it!!!
http://registry.whitecolumns.org/admin/artist/signup.php Here's another one motivating myself to make some art and get it out into the world... still not happening.
Not a link, but at one point I emailed myself the word, "tabloitation". I guess I was trying to come up with a new word for what the tabloids do to people.
http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2007/05/disneys-magic-highway-usa-1958.html Headline says it all, "A look into the future that never was." Meta-nostalgia at it's finest.
http://www.makimaki.nl/ Cute! Dutch.
http://www.jrosen.org/
http://www.foxnathan.com/
http://www.johannagoodman.com/
http://www.jeffreydecoster.com/
A quartet of illustrators...
http://naomileibowitz.com/projects/rray/index.html Disturbing montage of Rachel Ray sounds.
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/ Just like it says: strange maps.
http://www.ritterillustration.net/
http://www.aestheticapparatus.com/
Couple of illustrators that Spin used.
http://www.posemaniacs.com/pose/thirtysecond.html Great tool for quick poses, figure drawing, etc.
http://www.royalmint.com/newdesigns/designsRevealed.aspx New coins! Micro & Macro.
http://www.horhaus.com/
http://cameronstewart.blogspot.com/
http://www.deanhaspiel.com/
http://www.brianwood.com/
Four talented folks.
http://ryandavidjones.blogspot.com/ This guy has crazy digi chops. He rocks it.

Aw screw it. I now need to procrastinate finishing this project and actually get some work done. Got all the way up to July of 2008; inbox is down under 7000 emails, and under 500 unread emails. Hooray productivity.