Articles

I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry! Doggerel

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Poetry!: Admonishment To A Bad Poet

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Bad
poems
give just cause
to critics who
revel in finding
ways to rag on others' flaws. When
upon
poorly set,
is personal
whose hearts cherish pride,
and, gorging upon regret, pen
paper's
the offense
to eyes of those
who thrive on defeat,
hunger to impose the sense. Though this condemnation is
against the vain brutes,
their point's not lost.
Pray you, don't
feed those
maws.

By Mike Kupietz First published October 15, 2023I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry!| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=6036 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Code & Algorithms » MacOS & Desktop

Code & Algorithms MacOS & App CustomizationShell Scripting

Thunderbird Customization: Terminal-Notifier Bridge For Thunderbird Email Client

Hot off the presses. Direct from my Github, a MacOS BASH script to allow customized per-mailbox notifications in the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. Following is the README containing full information and instructions, and then the code and license, embedded live from my
terminal-notifier-bridge-for-thunderbird repo on GitHub.

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By Mike Kupietz First published October 10, 2023Code & Algorithms| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5936 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing Health & WelfareLife In A Mikeycosm

Health & Lifestyle: How I Deal With Insomnia

I'm going to flesh this out at some point, but it was lost in a pile of old notes and I wanted it up on the site as a reminder, because it's a conversation I've had a number of times in my life.

I've always been an insomniac. When I was younger, I'd often get to bed at a reasonable hour, only to very frequently wake up three hours later and not be able to get back to sleep. In college I'd often get up in the not-so-small hours and go for walks in the woods and watch the sun come up, then grab a few more hours of sleep.

As an adult, it's been more an issue of never getting to sleep... the brain just never slows down, and suddenly, the sun is up. (See "Day Nights".) The problem then becomes, either I sleep through the…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 24, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5709 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing MikesplainingMusic Theory

Infrequently Asked Questions: A Young Person’s Guide To Common Time Signatures, and what they mean in real life

I have some time to kill so I thought I would write a brief overview of the concept of time signature in response to some questions that arose recently from non-musicians.

Just a word, this post was originally submitted to a long-ago fan club email list for an older musician, hence many uses of music from the '60s and '70s as examples, most especially The Beatles, who often kept things both simple enough to be clear, but interesting enough to be useful and well-known examples. That's just how it is.

PART 1: A Young Person's Guide To Common Time Signatures, and what they mean in real life

Ok. When you listen to a song, it has a beat. This is what you tap your feet to, or maybe drum your fingers on a desk.

The most common beat in rock and roll might be written something like this. "boom-boom-BOMP-bum, boom-boom-BOMP-bum,…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 24, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5704 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing » Topical Writing » Mikesplaining (Answers to Infrequently Asked Questions)

Writing Mikesplaining

Knowledg Is Poweh: IAQs—More Answers to Infrequently Asked Questions

1. What's the difference between a sauce and a condiment? - Susan W., Tallahassee, FL

A condiment enhances the flavor of food and is used sparingly. A sauce adds an additional flavor or richness of its own to the dish, and may be used generously.

2. Is there a name for that special credit where at the end of a bunch of TV or movie credits you get one that's like "and WILLIAM P. DINWIDDIE as LORD HALFANDHALF?" - Jim S., San Francisco, CA

I'm glad you asked that, Jim. Frequently as part of the negotiations involved in taking a part in a TV show or movie, an agent will include a stipulation that the actor gets a certain special credit in the opening credits or, in the case of a movie, on the poster. They may strike a deal for a…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 24, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5689 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Fun‚ Pranks & Satire Public Provocations

Hoax ‘Em If You Got ‘Em: Anti-Plague Flyer

Waaaaay back during the dot-com boom in San Francisco, in my carefree 20s (a much different time of my life than my carefree '50s) I used to put this up around town.

Like most of my best jokes, this was timely, and poked fun at the problems caused by the influx of dot-commers. It was done in the style of an old snake-oil remedy flyer, claiming to advertise a tonic that would solve your various economic and housing difficulties.

Look at the bottom... I was using Yahoo for email! That's how long ago this was.

By Mike Kupietz First published September 22, 2023Fun‚ Pranks & Satire| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5585 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Visual Art » "Petit Art": Odds & Ends

Image Gallery Old StuffSketches

Old Sketches And Stuff

I don't draw as much as I used to, these are a couple of things I salvaged from my ancient other site. I'll add more as I run across them.

By Mike Kupietz First published September 22, 2023Image Gallery| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5581 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Workshop » Works In Progress » Visual Works In Progress

Image Gallery Work-In-ProgressAI Generative IllustrationIlluminated Lyrics

Gallery: Revisions of Johanna — AI-Assisted lyrical illumination

I have to be honest. I don't know about this one.

I set out to do another set of AI-assisted lyric illustrations, this time all of one song in its entirety... Bob Dylan's "Visions Of Johanna".

I got a little ways into it, and it was going well, when a few times in a row the generative algorithm overemphasized cats I had added as incidental background elements in the prompt, to interesting effect. So I had the brilliant idea: let's illustrate the whole song with cats. I backtracked and started over again.

It was an instructive lesson, one that didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.

It's just hard to get a lot of variety out of the Stable Diffusion XL algorithm when the main subject is cats. Turns out, visually, cats are really not a very expressive medium. And especially…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 21, 2023Image Gallery| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5516 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry! Metadoggerel

The Measure Of A Poet: A Lyrical Explication Upon Substantive Empirical Qualification of Authorial Poesy in Three Lines

What better a measure of man as a poet
Is there, b'sides seeing some poems he's wroet?
If better exists, I sure do not knoet.

By Mike Kupietz First published September 20, 2023I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry!| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5426 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Link: http://www.amazon.com/review/RUISCK9IXTK6J/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000OY5RKA&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=11091801&store=musical-instruments

Fun‚ Pranks & Satire Online Reviews

Amazon Product Review: Pearl PCB20 Anarchy Cowbell review

Rating:

Review Title: Steal This Cowbell!

Review: Submission to domination is enforced not solely, nor even most significantly, through blatant repression, but rather through subtle manipulations worked into the fabric of everyday social relationships. So as an uncompromising nonconformist, I'm very fashion conscious, and as the drummer of a non-hierarchical free musical punk rock collective, I spend a lot of time learning to mimic those popular cowbell-driven rhythms of seminal bands like the DKs, the Germs, FEAR, Flipper, and the like. Unfortunately, most commercially available cowbells that I found are visually bland and ideologically rootless, resulting in rhythms that meekly conformed to hierarchical nation-state control structures.

Once I bought the Pearl PCB20 Anarchy Cowbell, I finally found a solution that solves both these concerns.…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 20, 2023Fun‚ Pranks & Satire| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=5407 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Visual Art » Generative Illustrations

Image Gallery AI Generative IllustrationConfabulated Travelogues

California Deep Dreaming: “Wild California” Studies

While working on a featured image for Field Report: Briefing On My Weekend, I had the idea of extending the theme to make a whole set of illustrations inspired by my travels around California's natural areas. I wound up doing a whole mess of them. These are experimental, but I like the idea and the way the experiments worked came out, so I may follow up on this. There's a lot of them, I'm going to sit with this a while and probably then cut this gallery down to a more manageable size.

Because these sprung from an effort to illustrate a post with twilight fantasy elements, you may encounter some unsettling phantoms or backwoods beasties here and there. Just make sure to keep all your fingers inside your browser windows and you should be ok.

By Mike Kupietz First published September 18, 2023Image Gallery| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4703 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing ReflectionsThe Beast Within

Reflective Prose: Fascination, And Dangerous Weather

Springtime hits hard in some quarters. I call this 'dangerous weather'—like, you've got to watch out where you're going. You might trip and fall. Somehow this always coincides with the rise of halters and midriff shirts.

Fascination, you know, is a universal feeling. I hesitate to call it an emotion, it's more than that, it's a condition, a thesis. It's strongly rooted in our biology, I think. I'm sure our closest animal relations feel it the same way we do. It's tough to know what's on a housecat's mind most of the time, but when he's gazing at that fish swimming around that bowl, I know exactly where his head is. And it's not "I'm hungry" or "how can I get that?" or "in a moment I shall execute my plan", as you might think. It's not something that rational, like when he wants something—in that case he meows, shuffles…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 18, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4697 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry! DoggerelPoems About Food

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Poetry!: Ode To A Croaking Man

On a long-ago visit to the hamlet of Acton, MA with my GOAT (that's "Girlfriend Onceupon A Time"—hey, I don't mind if they call me a BOAT), the town was infested with the loudest toads I'd ever heard, so loud I initially took them to be someone hiding outside our window playing a prank. I became enamored of the idea that someone might be prowling the countryside, hiding outside people's windows just to provide this bucolic ambiance. I contemplated this idea for a solid fifteen years until, in a moment of inspiration, this bit of doggerel spontaneously emerged.

Universally condemned among my friends as not especially good, it nonetheless remains one of my personal favorites.

ODE TO A CROAKING MAN

Oh, croaking bloke beneath the moon
so like a toad, it makes me swoon
whence "ChirRUP!" rises like balloon
which euphony just fills me with…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 17, 2023I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry!| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4671 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Fun‚ Pranks & Satire Gonzo JournalismConfabulated TraveloguesFun

Local Color—Point Reyes, Marin County: Report On My Weekend

(Sent via email to undisclosed parties)

My god, if I knew how my little weekend of excursions was going to turn out, I would have made it an event and invited you all along. My report:

PT. 1: Cold Wind To Valhalla

On Saturday at 1430 hours I procured a late model red Chevy Cavalier. One of those self-driving models so I would be free to hang out the windows and waggle my tongue at the hoi polloi as I sped past. Although finances dictated that this would not be an extended sojourn into the greater countryside I packed for several days as a precaution. Having grilled Rick and Mike Burstein for information, I decided on a trip into Marin to locate a suitably pastoral swimming hole in which to ease away my troubles. On advice of Rick, I headed for Samuel P. Taylor State Park. Samuel P. Taylor is…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 16, 2023Fun‚ Pranks & Satire| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4415 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing » Anecdotal Evidence (True Stories) » Short Vignettes & Anecdotes

Writing Anecdotal EvidencePortrait Gallery

These Are The People In My Neighborhood: The Funniest Man In The World

The other night I talked to my old friend Zigmo Parcheesi, the funniest man in the world. He told me he took his toddler son Max to his first movie. "Oh, yeah?" I asked. "What did you choose to scar him with?"

"Porn. We took him see some hardcore pornography. Told him we were going to show him how he was made. 'Not like that.... not like that... not like that... Yes! Like that!... No, no, not like that!... Not like that... not like that...'"

A few years ago, Zigmo moved out to the edge of the woods in northern New Jersey. I asked him, "New Jersey? have you seen the jersey devil yet?"

Without missing a beat, he said, "No, I haven't seen the jersey devil, but I have been to the mall."

Later, before getting off the phone, he told me, "If you ever…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 16, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4374 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry! Revenge Poetry

This’ll Show ‘Em: Verse Upon Bank of America Holding My Checks And Angering My Cat

"These checks will be held for two weeks", they said,
"because they are very large and from New Jersey"

This much is true
But I am now home and
my cat is angry

He looks up through
his sloth with narrowed eyes
He querulously naiows his consternation

Tonight I will sleep the sleep of a good man
but my cat will not know rest.
Burring hair on his back, whiskers fanned
looking out on the rooftops with disdain and contempt
at spots where other cats have sat
outdoor cats
cats with no collars no names
cats that dig through dumpsters clawing towards the smell of day-old filets
skittering perhaps like a word whispered into a wind
on a moonless night in a dark alley
behind the bank that holds my…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 16, 2023I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry!| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4375 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry! DoggerelHeroic Verse

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Poetry!: Ode To A Curl-Up Bug

O! pity the poor maligned curl-up!
Its form, tho' well designed, inspires many to fear!
But many a curl-up has faced
a cruel and untimely fate
'neath some shoe or sneaker well-placed
So it raises its hackles to have some such footwear come near!

Though 'pill bug' it's properly named,
so low on the food chain, one hides behind cautious deceit!
The 'pill bug's kept secret and dear!
Mere 'curl-up' when others are near!
Lest the higher aesthetic, they fear,
of some higher predator find 'pill bug' deliciously sweet!

In the science museum on a visit,
I viewed an exhibit of insects both fearsome and small.
But one creature displayed, I saw not!
"Unworthy of view, or forgot,"
so I thought, 'til chagrined I did spot
In some…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 14, 2023I Can't Believe It's Not Poetry!| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4367 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing Misc. Thoughts & Brainspill

Marginal Thinking Dept.: You Can Quote Me On That (Other Assorted Short Topical Writings)

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By Mike Kupietz First published September 13, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4348 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Fun‚ Pranks & Satire The ParanormalInvestigative ReportingPublished Bylines

Instigative Journalism: “Elvis Is Everywhere” (Or At Least In Annandale)

In the Nov. 10, 1988 edition of Bard College school newspaper "The Bardian", for whom I occasionally wrote as a cub reporter, the Campus News section was led by my groundbreaking first full-length investigative feature article, a probe into reports of campus supernatural sightings of the ghost of late king of rock and roll Elvis Presley.

ELVIS IS EVERYWHERE

by Michael Kupietz
Campus News - The Bardian, November 10, 1988

The ghost of Elvis Presley has recently been reported to be wandering the roads and buildings of the main campus of Bard, singing songs and stealing food.

It is speculated that Elvis has been attracted to our campus by the plans to name the trailer campground by Cruger village "Little Graceland", and the individual trailers "Elvis", "Priscilla", and "Lisa Marie".

Several students, security guards and maintenance people have reported seeing…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 13, 2023Fun‚ Pranks & Satire| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4277 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

private » Programming Hacks Used In This Site

Code & Algorithms WordpressPHP

All Thumbs: Adding A Default Featured Image Or Thumbnail In WordPress

What's a featured image in WordPress?

WordPress, the software this site runs on, works by allowing authors to enter web page content (sometimes officially called 'posts', as in a blog post, and which I often colloquially on this site refer to as an 'article') which it then formats nicely to display in web viewers. When you enter a post, it lets you specify a bunch of other information pertaining to it: category, some additional tags, a custom summary to show search engines, etc. Among the things it allows you to specify is a 'featured image', or 'thumbnail', an image representing that post.

You see featured images all over the site: in the backgrounds of individual pages, as tiny squares next to the menu entry for a page in the menus up top, on the "Related Posts" entries at the bottom of a lot of pages, or in…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 12, 2023Code & Algorithms| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4251 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Music & Sound » Favorite Equipment & Tools

Music & Sounds Equipment & Tools Used

Serious Gear Geekery: Mosrite/Bakersfield Guitar Picks

mosrite picks crop jog smaller

I wonder how many of even my guitarist friends will appreciate the above photo. Maybe some of you Seattle musicians, or Ventures fans. I found a set of vintage Mosrite guitar picks on Ebay, which isn't that hard, but, I found a set including the white one, which is ridiculous.

For those not in the know, the Mosrite/Bakersfield (same pick, different branding in different decades) white .74mm guitar pick is the best guitar pick ever made, and extremely difficult to find anymore. Mosrite/Bakersfield picks were kept alive by solitary enthusiasts for 30 years because there was no substitute, selling the tooling to one another and hawking them via mail and to local guitar shops, until, in 1997, Jim Dunlop purchased the brand just to put it out of business.

I was jamming at…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 12, 2023Music & Sounds| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4238 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing » Anecdotal Evidence (True Stories) » Local Color: True Stories From Near And Far

Writing Anecdotal Evidence

Local Color—Yee Haw: Texas

I'll tell you about Texas. Back in '95, me and my friend Haley went down to his Dad's timeshare in Port Aransas, Texas, a little beach resort town about 45 minutes south of Corpus Christi, for a week of sportfishing on the gulf. So, the first night in town, we go out on the town, hit a bunch of bars. We come to this one bar, where they tell us they haven't got their liquor license yet, so, by some strange twist of Texan logic, all drinks cost $2.

So we go and have a drink. And behind the bar, there's this girl, it's not politically correct but I can only describe this girl as a "Texas honey"—pretty, curly blond hair, cowboy hat. And we're there a few minutes, and this older guy starts hassling us, making drunken accusations, saying we're with the liquor board or something, and the only…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 11, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4186 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Music & Sound » Misc. Pieces, Singles, & EPs

Music & Sounds Singer / SongwriterAcousticky Guitar

Demo: The Ravine Houses Are Gone (A Song For Hume, And Wacks, And Dan, And You)

May 28, 2007

On May 27, Christopher Hume's parents met up with my friends Dan and Wacks at Bard College, and they went down to the on-campus waterfalls on the Sawkill Creek, where Chris and I had spent so much time back in school, to scatter Chris's ashes. I was going to go but decided at the last minute not to, because I was too angry at Chris's family, for reasons I won't go into here.

My phone rang at about 9:30 that morning, and all I heard was a burst of static for a few seconds.

Later on Wacks & Dan called me from the falls. After the ceremony they had gone to the beverage distributor where we had bought so many sixes of Genesee Cream Ale way back then, bought a six of Genesee Cream Ale, brought it back to the falls to drink…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 11, 2023Music & Sounds| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4191 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing Anecdotal Evidence

Local Color—Manhattan: New York Stories, Which I Only Now Realize Are All About Petty Crimes

Originally posted on my old site. I'd have called this "New York After Dark", but the souvlaki guy story happened in the middle of the afternoon.

Back in the '80s & early '90s New York City was much different than it is now. Filthy, violent, and the meat packing district was a not a place you went after dark. I used to jot down my day-to-day experiences there. I truthfully didn't realize, until I collected a few of them together on this page, how, uh, bad it was. (And I'll tell you what, these are the milder stories that are fit for public consumption and won't scare my mom if she reads this site. Take me out for a beer sometime and I'll tell you some real stories.)

Looking out for the homeless

After a night of shooting on a small movie I was doing sound…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 11, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4180 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing Anecdotal Evidence

Local Color—Seattle: Irene & Sheri

This was originally posted on my old website, Life In A Mikeycosm.

Before you read this, I should warn you. This story contains one of the grossest things I've ever heard. By the end of the story, things improve and it winds up as one of the funniest things that has ever happened to me... but if you're at all sqeamish, if you're the sort of person who just can't watch some of David Cronenberg's best movies, you really might want to skip this one.

This is all true. I swear to you. This has not been exaggerated or distorted for the sake of a good narrative... no embellishment could supersede the actual events. Although, one change I made is to divide what happened into three acts, for narrative purposes. It didn't happen that way originally, it was just one thing and then another, one long…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 11, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4174 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing ReflectionsNocturnal Submissions

Reflective Prose: Day Nights

I gotta do something about them day nights.

I was just walking home from the store, bopping down the street at 11 PM, a time that I grew up believing was a sensible time to be in bed. 1 AM used to be alien terrain, exotic, strange. 2 AM—well, that might as well have been a million o'clock. It was like the furthest frontier. The night might have gone on forever beyond that, for all I knew, ending only when the last human had decided to go to bed before we could all wake up in the daylight again.

Nowadays the small hours of the morning are familiar to me. More than familiar—ordinary, 1 AM no more mysterious than 1 in the afternoon (and probably not as mysterious as 10 AM, a time I haven't seen in many months but that somehow still fails to hold a fascination for me.)…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 11, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4168 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on

Writing » Anecdotal Evidence (True Stories) » Short Vignettes & Anecdotes

Writing Self-Portraits In Prose

Question of the day: When was the first time you noticed someone cheating at something?

A few years back, my friend Al Katkowski was something of a success with his "Question Of The Day" iphone app and subsequent book. This was a question from the book.

Question of the day: When was the first time you noticed someone cheating at something?

Actually, the first person I noticed cheating would be myself. I totally figured it out on my own before ever seeing anyone else do it. I think I got my first inkling when I was 4 and tried to tell my friend Stephen Axeman I was 4 1/2, not 4, because I thought it made me sound grownup. Somehow he knew I wasn't 4 1/2! So when I turned 4 1/2, I told him again, and he said, "Yes, today you are." I never found out how he knew exactly when my half-birthday was, but it was an epiphany that mysterious means…

By Mike Kupietz First published September 11, 2023Writing| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=4164 | Share this | Embed link | Webmentions are: on