Urban Orienteering

elaine: 23rd Apr 2005 - 08:01 GMT

cripes! a come on, in citynoise! how bizarre! as long as they are post apocalyptic...

Marc: 23rd Apr 2005 - 15:04 GMT

I. love walking. Family tradition is on vacations to have at least one endless "death march" hike that ends up with someone being airlifted or at least severely dehydrated.. I dream of walking from San Francisco to Chicago but the main road I-80 is a desert prison road with hardly any towns, much less supplies of water. Signs that say "Do not pick up hitchhikers, next 80 miles." "Correction facility, no stopping." I guess biking is the next best thing- every month or two, a friend of mine in DC takes a weekend to bike to Pittsburgh and back (250 miles one way) so it's not like it's impossible. Last summer he did 1000 miles one way to Iowa (and back). Say what you will about fat midwest cow people, the heartland's stripmall monoculture, and hemi pickups with cheney/bush bumperstickers- it's comforting to have a country where you can go in one direction for 3k miles and still get a Waffle House hash browns fix wherever you like.

When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, it is said he wept for there were no more world to conquer. Alexander wore sandals, I wear flipflops. I didn't invent 'manifest destiny' but i've definitely personalized it- don't necessarily need to conquer the known world with words+smallpox blankets, alcohol+tobacco+disease- just take as much of it into my toes+mind as i can.

Franco: 23rd Apr 2005 - 16:10 GMT

Le singe cache des oeufs de chocolat dans le jardin d'Éden

elaine: 23rd Apr 2005 - 19:05 GMT

and you thought the thread in the 'found note' commentary was obscure? this is fucking bonkers!
I laughed like a drain at the 'death march' holiday, very resonant. I think once you have that as a child you never lose it, see you already want to do it even now you don't have to. I have fancied the californian coast, but also the Kent coast, there are the Martello Towers and the Sound Mirrors to photograph and obsess about..Plus Kent has an army base so you would like it, you could risk getting shot there easy enough (and a nuclear power plant as well for the apocalyptic feel) as well as the mentalist stone moving thing they have to do cos the groins are not enough anymore because erosion is so bad at danger nose (Dungeness) and a 1000 year old holly forest yes yes yes, all walkable!

Jamie: 23rd Apr 2005 - 19:35 GMT

Hey Franco! Hiding chocolate eggs in the garden of eden? Isn't that a hool-ism? :-)

heh: 24th Apr 2005 - 00:39 GMT

National urban orienteering trials - Bristol 2005 www.irational.org/cgi-bin/urban_orienteering/bristol_map/task_report.pl

elaine: 24th Apr 2005 - 06:56 GMT

Wow! loving that link! I feel slightly sad I didn't make up the phrase 'urban orienteering' of course, but am never too precious about those things. The list of stuff to do is fab!

elaine: 24th Apr 2005 - 10:29 GMT

re: le singe - le voila un quote de Eddie Izzard qui apparamentement parlements des singes. ici il parle des Americans et les Anglais et notre lange...
" What? Now, um, I just want to talk quickly about language and then we can all… Cause yeah, language. They do say that Britain and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean. And uh, and it’s true. No, they ‘they’ say two languages separated by ‘two countries separated by common language’, that’s the line. I think it’s an Oscar Wilde line, I think.

And we do pronounce things in a different way! Like you say ‘caterpillar’ and we say ‘caterpillar’. And, uh No, you say ‘a-*loo*-min-um’,we say ‘a-loo-*min*-yum’. You say ‘cen-*tri*-fugal’, we say ‘centri-*fu*-gal’. You say ‘leisure’! We say ‘lie-sur-eye-ay’. Uhh, uh, you say ‘bay-sil’, we say ‘bah-sil’, and you say ‘erbs’, and we say ‘herbs’! Because there’s a fucking ‘h’ in it.

But you spell ‘through’ T-H-R-U, and I’m with you on that. Cause we spell it ‘thruff’! And that’s trying to cheat at Scrabble. ‘How can we get that ‘ooo’ sound?’ ‘Well, a ‘U’ will work’. ‘What about an ‘O’ as well?’ ‘No, we don’t need it, we’re fine.’ ‘No, I think an ‘O’ in.’ ‘Well, all right.’ ‘And a ‘G’ as well.’ ‘What?’ ‘Yes, a ‘G’ would be good.’ ‘A ‘guh’ sound? ‘Yes, we need a silent ‘guh’, just in the background, in case of any accidents or something.’ ‘Well, all right.’ ‘And an ‘H’ as well!’ ‘Fuckinell, ‘ang on!’ ‘An ‘H!’ In case some herbs come along!’ ‘All right. And a ‘Q’ and a ‘P’, and a ‘zed’. Look! It’s a word in Scrabble that’s 480 points! So yes. And uh, we do have, you know, slight differences in that arena."

hasslehoff: 25th Apr 2005 - 09:02 GMT

i love eddie izzard. the way he goes off on a tangent, and often in french. if you didn't speak french you'd be like "this is shit" but he cracks me up. in a way i think its because he mirrors my own thought processes. It is also surprising that he is as popular as he is in the states. Contrary to popular belief, there are many intelligent americans ;-)

elaine: 25th Apr 2005 - 09:22 GMT

I know, strange isn't it? (I thought 'strange' in a french accent). I got the Izzard in full, but the 'singe' bit was way too long to put here in full, and no bit of it was cuttable. This part reminded me of a dialogue in swinney.org about saying things in a 'british'(sic) accent every day, so I put it in to make up for an earlier misplaced grizzly rant thereof...

hasslehoff: 25th Apr 2005 - 14:49 GMT

personally i speak very poor french, but sometimes i catch myself thinking in french. maintennant s'il vous plait pamplemousse, oui!