differentiated planet

clay teeth - brita explores the holodeck

2011-01-01T21:31:00.000-08:00

This is a theme song I made for when Brita needs to walk on the moon in knee-high boots.

Clay teeth & dream - fashion by clay teeth

x mas time pizza + bicicleta

2010-12-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

My friend Eric and I built this bike up from a frame he found at the Davis Bike Church. It is an old school KHS Expedition mountain bike frame that we kind of modeled after those Bridgestone X-O bikes, and I basically turned it into a poor man's Rivendell-style bicycle.

Brocolli rabe and roasted onion pizza, with chevre and olives, straight from smittenkitchen.com!

Roasted new potato and pesto pizza with mild turkey italian sausage, modified from the old Chez Panisse Pizza, Pasta & Calzone cookbook I found for two dollars at Logos Books in Santa Cruz.

Central California

2010-12-21T20:30:00.000-08:00

Central California in the wintertime looks like a mix between Ireland and Mordor. The past few days we spent with some visiting geomorphologists from MIT looking at various field sites around the Salinas valley, which proved rainy and fun and instructive as we could actually see what this place looks like when geomorphology actually happens.

poetry project collaboration with Harmony

2010-12-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

Curvature and slope map of Long Valley shorelines

2010-12-05T18:21:00.001-08:00

I thought this was a pretty cool stand-alone image that I made while trying to look at lake shorelines in Long Valley caldera. All those red bumps are a weird artifact from the digital elevation model I've been using for my topographic analyses. The shorelines are the vertical linear features on the right of the image.

mark's rooster

2010-04-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

check out deathwishthree.blogspot.com:

the cruz

2010-03-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

my room is a converted garage that's separated from the main house, and has a flat roof you can get onto. this is the view from it, which is pretty great! i am definitely putting beach chairs up here soon.

2010-02-25T23:26:00.000-08:00

the moons

bringing in reality

2010-02-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

this is from a digital elevation model of Long Valley Caldera in

eastern CA that I messed with in IDL. The next step is making it

spin around the z axis while I talk about our future collapsing

lest you all join me in the brethren of harmonic ubiquity

a weekend of three days in santa cruz springtime flower explosion

2010-02-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

we biked out to wilder ranch, which is maybe the homiest state reserve

i've ever been to! there were homemade cookies, and goats, and CHICKENS

yep

kendra told me about wilder ranch and how biking out there is basically

the best way to spend a saturday.

an equestrian stand-off

that's right, there were BUBBLES

a mammalian stand-off

the waves were monstrous this weekend, but i got a picture of a kind

of wimpy one, just for you!

let's dance

2010-02-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

redbeards - belt buckles

starting a cult through introductory computer plots

2010-01-26T21:41:00.000-08:00

I am like, 3 late-night informercials away from wild personal and monetary successes.

the lifeforce

the journey

the map

the trials

the symbol of blessed cosmos and harmonic universality

s w e l l

2010-01-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

we also now have a myspace (.com/mycellsfleet) -- hurray!

my cells, fleet - swell

the shortest winter break

2010-01-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

romanesco from the santa cruz farmer's market

the larkspur ferry and a serious playing of the doodle game

brita responds

brita amongst her brain

high-powered execu-dog

instant buddies

vegan poutine cart in hawthorne!

more food carts in hawthorne

it snowed in salem and was crazy awesome

tin roof

2009-12-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

tin roof

my saturday neurons in song

2009-11-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

so, i am blatantly stealing this photo from my friend mark of death wish three, but it is such a beautiful photo and goes really well with this thing i made today.

my saturday neurons in song

fossil creek in the fall + a song

2009-11-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

here's a slightly better version of the song harmony and I made -- I tried to get rid of that high-frequency buzz and then I added an awesome vocal thing harmony recorded. anyway, musics.
favela kites

the death valley

2009-11-16T10:56:00.000-08:00

Wow, so! Death Valley huh? That place is insane! I wound up shirking my academic responsibilities (only partially, my advisor said "you should go on this trip!") and heading out to this insanely beautiful and geologically head-spinning place for five days.

The World Travels of My Computer-to-be

2009-11-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

strange things are definitely afoot! such jet-setting

Location Date Local Time Description What's This?

LOUISVILLE, KY, US 11/04/2009 12:49 P.M. IMPORT SCAN
ANCHORAGE, AK, US 11/02/2009 11:11 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 11/02/2009 12:11 P.M. UPS HAS OBTAINED DOCUMENTATION AND SUBMITTED TO FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION AND/OR DEPARTMENT OF AG/PPQ;AWAITING RESPONSE / BROKERAGE RELEASED SHIPMENT. SHIPMENT IS SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY FOR FURTHER CLEARANCE
TAO-YUAN, TW 11/02/2009 8:34 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
TAO-YUAN, TW 11/01/2009 10:37 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
PAMPANGA, PH 11/01/2009 8:56 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 10/31/2009 11:45 A.M. UPS HAS OBTAINED DOCUMENTATION AND SUBMITTED TO FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION AND/OR DEPARTMENT OF AG/PPQ;AWAITING RESPONSE
SHANGHAI, CN 10/31/2009 11:50 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/31/2009 4:30 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
SHANGHAI, CN 10/30/2009 9:18 P.M. EXPORT SCAN
10/30/2009 9:12 P.M. HUB SCAN
10/30/2009 12:08 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
CN 10/30/2009 3:15 A.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Tracking results provided by UPS: 11/04/2009 1:12 P.M. ET

2009-11-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

favela kites
favela kites with harmony (w/messed up riddms and mixing on accident, but such pretty vocals!)

halloween

2009-10-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

i also have teal shorts, tennis shoes, and a goatee. the theme morphed into retiree wine tourist/enthusiast, but it works basically.

scotts creek watershed

2009-10-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

who do you guys think is catcher? by the way santa cruz is amazing

en route to correlitos

2009-09-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

an epic bike ride from my new home

2009-09-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

it was slightly less than 16 miles, and there was a part near the northernmost point of the route where I had to basically abandon ship and doggedly walk my bike up to the divide, but overall it was an incredible bikeride! right from my house i went over highway one and followed branciforte road's slim and windy bike lane into this beautiful woodsy rural area. also, i biked past right where the mystery spot is apparently, so that's pretty cool. there is way too much to explore here!

my backyard // fun with internet instruments

2009-09-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

my garden spider deck friend

my storage shed with the moon

the funnest internet instrument ever

2009-09-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

this photo is from the pampas outside of rurrenabaque in bolivia. it is where the amazon turns into wetlands, and it has an insane amount of biodiversity. the song was made from recording the washing machine.

the sambadrome

2009-08-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

for a water tower (and headphones)

Greater Brazil // Rio de Janeiro // Airport

2009-08-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

eh.

2009-08-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

iguazú falls

Joel has much better pictures I will put up when i get ahold of his camera, so, til then!

randomness for today

2009-08-05T12:09:00.001-07:00

Crazy Lima fountain park

2009-08-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

Lima again

2009-08-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Just a note: the ice cream in this picture was called El Chinito, and is the tastiest kind of racism I´ve come across in Latin America so far.

Yesss!

2009-07-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Coreen took these photos from the same place with the boar/monkey/dog chaos outside of Rurrenabaque. This stork walked right up to us, stopped like 2 feet away, opened its mouth, then sloooowwwlly walked past us to the back patio (where all the other crazy animals were) while staring at us with weirdly knowing eyes. so awesome!

the craziness of southern bolivia

2009-07-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

the border with chile

the buses in bolivia have amazingly weird designs on the bus-backs. usually jesus would be accompanied by a mostly naked woman with a sword or something.

a skeleton of bus at the border

jon as ice

volcan licancabur, right near the chilean border, with laguna verde in the foreground. this place was really, really cold.

danger: flamingos?

calf as ice

joel and akash as shadow people

many places before the southwest of Bolivia

2009-07-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

la paz, sucre, potosí, rurrenabaque

This last picture isn´t so great, but I think you have to appreciate all that is going on. There is a spider monkey wrestling three dogs while an amazonian boar thing eagerly watches and tries to participate -- they were all moving too fast to take a good picture of, but still, pret-ty awesome!

The Pampas!

2009-07-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

La Paz at night

2009-07-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

Leaving the jungle

2009-07-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Rurrenabaque to La Paz from Jonathan Perkins on Vimeo.

THE JUNGLE

2009-07-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

It´s basically impossible to take worthwhile pictures in the jungle, but I have two pictures of cool insects at least, and my sweet new hat. It turns out the best place to see wildlife is in the pampas, and I will put some pictures of that craziness up later. The amazon is pretty much terrifying but really really interesting to walk around in, and extremely loud with insects and birds.

this first picture is actually from the post office in la paz, and in case you were curious (and unfortunately it´s almost impossible to see with this small picture), tigers are NOT ALLOWED

our plane to rurrenabaque from la paz. this company, TAM, is actually the civilian wing of the bolivian military! therefore we had to take a taxi out to the military base, which was like a graveyard of ex-US airforce planes with wild dogs roaming these big fields of grassy garbage. we tried to get out to one of the planes to take a picture but the dogs started being imposing and scary, so we went back to the building.

this photo doesn´t seem crazy because you weren´t in insane desert for weeks and then like 5 minutes out of la paz go into jungle with clouds and big rivers and stuff. but here it is anyway

here we are in rurrenabaque -- we landed on grass!

here´s the italian circus, wherein people balance small dogs sitting on 10 foot poles with their noses. they also have a lion, but we couldn´t see it from the outside.

this bug was huge and pretty

this ant was not pretty, but it was like an inch big and apparently it´s the most poisonous ant in the area. the guide also let us try this plant they use for serious insect bites where by chewing a tiny tiny bit of the root you get like a blast of some serious numbing agent. jungle!

my sweet new hat, and my post card list that got interrupted by our game of hangman. which reminds me, i only have like 3 addresses with me (the only ones i could remember) so if you want a post card please email me yr addresses!

Coroico, Bolivia

2009-07-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

Coroico is a town situated in in the eastern cordillera of the Andes, on the rainy side of the mountains which is basically the western extent of the Amazon. Coffee and bananas (and spiders) grow here like crazy, and it´s only a 3 hour busride from La Paz. It used to be you had to take the "world´s most dangerous road" to get here, but luckily the country just recently opened an actual paved road where about 26 vehicles a year don´t go plummeting off into the canyon.

a flying horse, copacabana, and isla del sol, bolivia

2009-06-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

a flying horse

copacabana

isla del sol

floating reed islands in lake titicaca

2009-06-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

on the bus to puno, from coreen

2009-06-25T09:40:00.001-07:00

6/22/09

I'm lying in the baggage compartment in the cab of the bus. My legs are hanging out the compartment door, resting and rolling on my backpack. It is cold and dark -- dark except for the occasional headlights casting Jon's shadow against the back wall of the cab. I'm leaning against a duffel bag and a stiff coat. I'm wearing a stranger's down jacket and my ankles are wrapped in a moth-eaten sweater I found. I'm sitting on a wool blanket and using another to cover my legs. When it was still light, the last sign read '4,528m.'

I'm wondering about the people who own these clothes. I'm imagining them discovering me amidst piles of strangers' belongings. Would they react like me, angry at the sight of this unknown person nestled in the contects of the luggage compartment? Would they stand stunned, mouths agape, staring at this diagional form crumpled in a tapestry of wools and weaves? Or would they laugh and laugh to find this gringa burrowed deep in their clothing? I picture their faces in the dark, and listen to the gravel and sand scatter against the side of the bus.

Before the baggage compartment, we were seated in a police station, or checkpoint at least. We listened to the wind pound the corrugated metal walls and watched the officer stop trucks outside. A typewriter sat at the desk, and a calendar with naked women drinking beer hung on one wall. The other proudly held the portraits of two national heroes, one the captain of the Peruvian police. Outside there is nothing but wind and sand. Women and men sit huddled with their bundles, waiting. El Misti, Huaca Huaca and snow covered mountains and volcanoes rise out of the high desert in the distance. I have to pee. The officer will show me where. He walks through the office and tears open the back door. The rooms is suddenly an explosion of wind and noise. The door has opened into a wasteland of barbed wire and dust. I find a wall painted white, and squat.

Now there are sounds outside. The woman and child seated next to the driver have awoken. There are loud shouts and banging and knocking on the metal sides of the bus. I think I hear something about not going to Cuzco, about the strike? The driver is honking and braking as bicycle carts and colectivos veer across the dirt road. A woman is feverishly slicing potatoes as men seated on the sidewalk eat steaming bowls of pasta or soup in the light of her cart. Children are running everywhere, standing on tiptoes along stone walls, tracing the painted words with their fingers, 'Dia de movimiento nacional, 22 de junio.'

A door diagonally across from mine slides open slightly. I tap Jon, "Jon, that door just opened." He turns, "There's someone in there." An arm emerges and then, "Buenas noches," "Buenas noches," "Buenas noches." We have been in the cramped back of the cab for four hours, inches away from this man, leaning against his exit, his escape, and he has been silent. I can't believe how unbelievably hilarious this is, yet everyone is stoic and silent. The man tells us that now in Juliaca we may be able to move inside the bus, to more comfortable seats. We scramble out and across the seated mother with our bags. She is overcome with laughter at the weight of my small pack. She keeps asking again and again, what could possibly be inside it?

Outside the world is loud with chaos. There is a shoving mass of men and women crowding the main bus door. A woman behind us is shouting, "Mazamorras y arroz con leche!" A man in front is telling me I need to get in the back of the the line, there is a line! We were on the bus! We already paid! The woman behind me is now explaining our whole situation to another woman who is also peddling food to the travelers. Everyone is small and round, and their bronze faces are half hidden by their broad, round hats. Their clothes are all color muted in the night. Jon is standing back, away from the crowd. He looks utterly lost and overwhelmed by exhaustion. He wants to retreat to the familiar quiet of the space behind and between the bus driver and the mother and daughter. "Jon! Come stand over here!" A woman half aboard the bus is shouting that someone is pushing her child, stop pushing my child! Then the mass echoes her cry, a chorus of stop pushing! A child! But the shoving continues in frenzied desperation.

I call out to the driver, pinned against the bus by the crowd, is there space? Will we fit? He looks at me and calls back, we'll see, maybe. The group is slowly and roughly swallowed inside. He finally turns to us and opens a different door, we duck in and I am washed away by relief. Among the few, wealthier travelers, ther are two seats, and at last, we sit.

Monasterio Santa Clara in Arequipa

2009-06-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

people love devo in arequipa

2009-06-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

mercado central in arequipa

uh-ohhhhh, guinea pig

foggy lima

central lima

hanging out by the catacombs

part of the protest that got the peruvian government to change its mind about selling off large parcels of rainforest

lima!

the most intimidating plate of ceviche i have ever seen, and will hopefully ever be expected to eat.

outer lima

huaraz

2009-06-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

though i didn´t take a lot of pictures while i was super sick in huaraz, here are some from the trek in the cordillera blanca, plus the busride back to lima, and into arequipa.

we got to sit in the very front of the bus on the top level going back to lima, which was amazing but kind of frightening to see how close we took curves and passed other cars.

sitting with frederico in the cordillera blanca

people harvest corn and chilis on the side of the road in the valleys south of Huaraz

in traffic outside of lima people would perform at stoplights and go through traffic to get tips

people drive like crazies here

pictures that joel has posted

2009-06-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

Joel, Alfonso, and me. Alfonso looked after the donkey we hired during our trip to the Cordillera Blanca, and he basically ruled with his superior mountain fitness. He also gave us his card, which also rules. His Donkey was named Frederico, and during one of my fever/mountain dream/hallucinations I got to watch a miniature version of Frederico carry my bags over my stomach into the hillsides of Nevada Pisco´s basecamp.

Hey look, my head is covering the ultimate elevation we managed to overcome! I think it says something like 4,700 meters, which is pretty crazy high. What you don´t see are the waves of pain emanating from my skull and stomach to the surrounding mountainsides as I struggle to keep from exploding my brain and running away from this crazy elevation.

clouds plus a song my friends and i made

2009-06-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

whistles_track_2

this song comes from a collaboration with friends AW (of breadxbread) & Harmony. What you don't hear is our amazing cover of Van Halen's "Jump," but that can be for another time.

cassette tapes

2009-06-02T23:58:00.000-07:00

last year I really got into the idea of messing with cassette tapes and doing extremely simple things to manipulate and make pretty songs from them. so, here is one example of that.

backwardstapetest2

2009-06-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

hello!

i will mostly use this blog to post photos from my trip to south america, but since I have now created this venue for myself, i will also probably post some music-related things and maybe photos NOT EVEN related to my trip to south america. maybe i will fill pages and pages with copied comments from t-pain music videos on youtube.

"bo. nan.erz!!!"