brandon profile picture

brandon

standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold

About Me

"The sexual revolution began with Man's discovery that he was not attractive to Woman, as such. The lion had his mane, the peacock his gorgeous plumage, but Man found himself in a three-button sack suit. His masculine appearance not only failed to excite Woman, but in many cases it only served to bore her. The result was that Man found it necessary to develop attractive personal traits to offset his dull appearance. He learned to say funny things. He learned to smoke, and blow smoke rings. He learned to earn money. This would have been a solution to his difficulty, but in the course of making himself attractive to Woman by developing himself mentally, he inadvertently became so intelligent an animal that he saw how comical the whole situation was."

-- James Thurber & E.B. White, Is Sex Necessary?

My Interests

sweat, skepticism, staring in wonder and curiosity, bikes, books, tools, honesty, math, perspective, not eating dead animals, fixing things, seeing shapes in clouds, other people's garbage, defeating security mechanisms, mystery, libraries, kukicha, disassembly, climbing over obstacles instead of walking around them, fuji pro 800z, not being intimidated by technology, and lots more!

I'd like to meet:

anyone who hasn't given up

Music:

so much! descendents, illusion of safety, 7seconds, boy kicks girl, my bloody valentine, aesop rock, godflesh, aphex twin, new order, ladytron, blondie, adult., 2pac, dirty three, modest mouse, sonic youth, tortoise, acid mothers temple, depeche mode, gy!be, dsch, janis joplin, the cure, pet shop boys, kmfdm, kraftwerk, belly, fad gadget, prefuse 73, misfits, ace of base, garbage, busdriver, rem, joy division, ochre, lauryn hill, notorious big, any and all japanese GS bands, death in vegas, CCR, autechre, jonathan richman, death from above 1979, eminem, subhumans, mogwai, seefeel, leonard cohen, gravediggaz, government warning, bomb 20, solaris earth pipeline, metric, and an ever-expanding list of others

Movies:

knife in the water, notorious, charade, dog day afternoon, ronin, war games, back to the future 2, the breakfast club, the conversation, casino, sneakers, blow-up, chinatown, blade runner, glengarry glen ross, jackie brown, rififi, ghostbusters, real genius, all the presidents' men, the falcon and the snowman, don't tell mom the babysitter's dead, labyrinth, three days of the condor, who framed roger rabbit?

Television:

life's too short for that

Books:

some people: horace mccoy, bruno latour, iain sinclair, chester himes, david sedaris, erving goffman, christopher andrew, avital ronell, hunter s thompson, doug hofstadter, william gibson before virtual light, j g ballard, f scott fitzgerald, sir arthur conan doyle, thomas merton, james ellroy, donald e knuth

recently notable: miranda july, "no one belongs here more than you"; michael young, "the rise of the meritocracy"; joyce cary, "the horse's mouth"; gustave flaubert, "madame bovary"; john sewell, "shape of the city: toronto struggles with modern planning"; ken ichigawa, " do you suck as well as fuck? "; bruno latour, " aramis: or the love of technology "; e m forster, "a passage to india"

My Blog

crunch! (damaged bike pics inside)

yesterday i got hit by a cab on boylston between berkeley and arlington. it was the first time i've been straight-up rear-ended. it happened really slowly, and i'm physically fine. the driver actua...
Posted by brandon on Sat, 28 Jul 2007 11:25:00 PST

zoom

yikes, it seems like myspace blogs practically encourage whiny self-indulgent rants!  i apologize in advance for falling into this trap.  i guess when things are going awesome, my tende...
Posted by brandon on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:31:00 PST

in which i whine and complain

lately: too much mindless entertainment, not enough real, productive, reflection/meditation. not enough real productive anything really, but that's another, less important, story. life's hard, righ...
Posted by brandon on Sun, 13 May 2007 11:05:00 PST

boston: one year and counting

367 days later, there's still nowhere i'd rather be...
Posted by brandon on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 01:35:00 PST

overheard at a basement show in lower allston last night

1: "i finish and get my MBA at the end of this year"2: "fuckin' wicked high interest rates"context? what's that...
Posted by brandon on Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:47:00 PST

random picture blowout!

i take lots of pictures. a very small percentage of them aren't terrible, but don't otherwise fit into big galleries or other crap that i post in places like my main photo dump. so since i have nothi...
Posted by brandon on Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:30:00 PST

yuck

it's a really icy/wet day:and i'm stuck inside because i'm really sick. thermostat's at 70, i'm wearing three layers of heavy clothes, and i'm still shivering. ughhEDIT 02/09/2007:  i have mono!...
Posted by brandon on Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:59:00 PST

pictures from east boston

dear the internet, ...
Posted by brandon on Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:59:00 PST

providence and i still don't get along (incl. pics)

saturday i MBTA-ed it down to providence for the paperboy alleycat with my friends marianna and izzy.  i've been gone for almost eight months now, but immediately after getting there i had an alm...
Posted by brandon on Mon, 04 Dec 2006 02:22:00 PST

i freak out my friends sometimes

(20:14:27) ALLAHU AKBHAR: how's your job (20:14:31) woxenpith: ahaha so boring (20:14:36) ALLAHU AKBHAR: I just realized (20:14:40) ALLAHU AKBHAR: I hadn't heard you say a word about it (20:14...
Posted by brandon on Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:08:00 PST