Hap-py New Year!
New Year’s Eve, circa 1906/1907. Martin’s Restaurant. New York, New York. Copyright Montauk Photo. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
stoned and stupid
“I took her bra, but I didn’t know nothing about her panties,” Clark said.
happy nude year
A 25-year-old woman was arrested for investigation of second-degree assault for getting into an argument with her boyfriend over whether his dog should be in the bathroom while the couple were taking a shower together.
War on Terror
“The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers,” Macdonald said. “They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way.”
That time may cease, and midnight never come
Ah, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn’d perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature’s eye, rise, rise again and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
From Faust’s final outburst. Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.
Ringing the Changes
Nick, Asta and Nora Charles. (William Powell, Asta, and Myrna Loy, respectively.)
A private exchange with Balkan Flocker Alek Lindus re: a certain dreary quality attending our ringing-in of the New Year called to mind the Thin Man films.
I don’t take a piss without getting paid for it
(ground glass, you call this photography?, a photo editor)
a grotesque surfeit island of beautifully useless swill
Top Five Sexiest of 2007
Shoes, scarlet, flesh, velvet, shadows, France and fetish—really what more could you want from these two masters of their mediums? Lynch and Louboutin create a sensation with this collaborative project.
Double Negative
If there’s an irony here, it’s that the photographers who lie in wait for the latest celebrity smash-up probably aren’t that different to the young photographers who headed off to Vietnam almost 40 years ago. Whereas once South-east Asia was the Wild West for ambitious thrill-seekers eager to make their names, now it’s the streets of Beverly Hills. But it’s not just the location that’s changed; attitudes have, too. When he saw Kim Phuc running towards him out of a cloud of smoke 35 years ago, Ut’s first instinct - after he’d taken her photograph - was to save her life.
Careful this holiday season
His one-word answer to the police, when he was asked what happened, was this: “pterodactyl.”
Monkey Theory of Mind
The new issue of Smithsonian magazine profiles the work of Yale psychologist Laurie Santos, 32, who hangs out with monkeys on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico to get inside their heads. She draws from cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology to suss out whether these non-human primates have a “theory of mind.” The “theory of mind” refers to the ability to recognize and understand others’ thoughts, desires, intentions, and feelings–basically to get where someone else if coming from. Santos tries to show that monkeys have this cognitive capacity. The article presents several of her field experiments and the results.
The Girl with X-Ray Eyes
No, I do not believe in the paranormal, nor is her record even close to perfect, but still the girl seems to have a remarkable ability to read clues from ailing human beings. (She doesn’t seem to be interested in seeing through animal bodies or for that matter inanimate objects.) I am glad to hear she wants to become a doctor. What I find odd is her apparently unique ability to pull off this fraud; is there not free entry into the sector? I also find it interesting that the Discovery Channel finds this story “true enough” to broadcast in some countries, but not others.
EDickinsonRepliLuxe by Joyce Carol Oates
I really haven’t read much Joyce Carol Oates, but her story “EDickinsonRepliLuxe” is wickedly great. I highly recommend it.
Eyeball in the Sky
Mia took this picture recently with her Fisher Price camera–and she wasn’t driving a Honda Element at the time.
Elemental Ghostlight
Ethereal phenomenon suggestive of reflection in a Honda Element window.
From “The Official Site of the World’s Foremost Authority”
In the words of internationally known theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, [Irwin] Corey is “a cultural clown, a parody of literacy, a travesty of all that our civilization holds dear and one of the funniest grotesques in America. He is Chaplin’s clown with a college education.” (Source: The Official Site of the World’s Foremost Authority)
Funny. That’s just what I was fixing to say about Pynchon in response to Brandon Hobson’s Dear Clusterflock poser: “J. D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon?”
Photo: Reflection in a Honda Element Window
Dear Clusterflock
Don Cheadle or Philip Seymour Hoffman?
Dear Clusterflock
J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon?
Directorial Anomalies
Here’s a compilation that has been brewing in my head for a long time – a list of the most famous cinematic anomalies from great directors.
Safety First
And in Montana, you must have a chaperone accompany you when hauling a sheep in your truck.
Dear clusterflock
16-0?
Netscape Navigator No More
After over 13 years of existence since the release of Mosaic Netscape 0.9, all development and support for Netscape Navigator will cease after February 1, 2008.
Christmas ‘07 chez Martin/Ryan
Tele-cam snap. Galena, Illinois. December 2007.