Friday’s Caption Contest
Weekly Picture 139
Business Park, I-35 at William Cannon, Austin, TX 1.22.2009
The President Wears Many Hats
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America and Japanese action hero?
The Jayhawks – Blue
Turns out one of my favorite songs of all time has a freaking weird video (via Merlin Mann)
Fantastic looking cupcakes
Very cute, well done cakes and cupcakes.
“Mapplethorpe: Polaroids”
Mapplethorpe. Untitled (self-portrait). 1973/75.
Photo: Collection of the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used without permission.
Today, Mapplethorpe probably is best known for his lush black-and-white photographs of flowers, celebrities—and male nudes engaged in sadomasochism, which fueled debates about public funding for the arts. He produced the 97 works featured in the Block Museum of Art’s exhibition “Polaroids: Mapplethorpe” years before the controversies. But senior curator Debora Wood tells us by phone that these rarely seen instant photos—selected from more than 1,500 the artist created between 1970 and 1975—“give a wonderful sense of how Robert’s ideas formed very early on, for what would be the major themes of his work.”
In 1970, Mapplethorpe borrowed a Polaroid camera from a neighbor at the Chelsea Hotel, intending to incorporate his pictures into homoerotic collages. Soon, however, he became more interested in the photos themselves, as Sylvia Wolf explains in the “Polaroids: Mapplethorpe” catalog. (Wolf curated the exhibition for New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.) The artist took Polaroids of Smith, Wagstaff, famous acquaintances such as David Hockney and Marianne Faithfull, still lifes and nudes. In the spring of 1972, the Polaroid Corporation began supplying him with free film and equipment through its Artist Support Program, which also gave grants to William Wegman, Chuck Close and Robert Rauschenberg.
Robert Hutchins was correct.
And that is why I went to a school that only studied the Great Books with no electives or classroom lectures:
Hutchins’s models of a collegiate education were the medieval Trivium—rhetoric, grammar, and logic—and Quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Technical knowledge was to be strenuously avoided: “Facts are the core of an anti-intellectual curriculum,” he observed. “Facts do not solve problems. . . . The gadgeteers and the data collectors have threatened to become the supreme chieftains of the scholarly world.” The true stewards of the university, said the career administrator, should be those who deal with the most fundamental problems: metaphysicians.
This is all discussed during an analysis of Alex Beam’s new book on the history of the Great Books. Boyle’s analysis sketches out the very reasons I hate my alma mater (not St. John’s, incidentally) and, more to the point, concludes with why I shouldn’t.
Ben Folds – Jackson Cannery
Transition, Terrafugia’s flying car
The aptly named Transition takes a stab at bridging the gap between automobiles and airplanes. Some people call it a flying car. The company designing and selling the vehicle prefers the term “roadable aircraft.”
Either way, it boils down to this: You sit down behind the steering wheel, drive to the runway, unfold two wings and take off. You can fly 500 miles on a tank of gas — regular unleaded — and when you land, you simply fold up the wings and drive where you want to go. At the end of the day, you fly back, drive home and park inside your garage.
From The Letterbox
Recent e-mails I have received from my adoring public:
“Your review are horrible on the Christmas movies looks like you were never a kid and enjoyed them bet you were the party pooper in the part uh?? no wonder u have some of the worst articles dam emo”
“You are a horrible critic. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of the GREATEST Christmas movies of all time and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Thanks.”
and this one which I actually wrote back to:
“Hi my name is Ramona and I am sixteen years of age. And I want to be an actress. I was wondering if you had any advice for me on how to get there. I have little experience and am currently in a small acting club in my high school. I really want this to happen for me. I am willing to work for this.
Thank you and please reply.”
Paper is the new internet
Mark my words, since the cool kids of the design world are talking more about paper, more sites like The Printed Blog will pop up.
Quote, out of context
“There is something going on in the female,” Wang said in a telephone interview, “the signal is so much different.”
SQUID, Safe Quick Undercarriage Immobilization Device
The Department of Homeland Security, in collaboration with a research firm in Arizona, has developed a device for safely stopping cars in high-speed chases.
The SQUID disc is placed in the middle of the road, and a remote operator triggers a two-stage explosion when the getaway car gets close to it. The first explosion sends barbed straps flying out away from the disc, which get hooked on the wheels and undercarriage when the car drives over them. The second explosion occurs when the SQUID detects engine heat directly overhead and sends a burst of “sticky tendrils” that cling the straps to the axles and driveshaft. Within 500 feet, the axles can’t turn any more and the car skids to a halt.
Get Yerself an Earful of Snake Spittle…
… from Clusterfock’s own Brandon Hobson, puddled in zzz ><()*> N.
All this & how I learned the language of animals was that we moved from the Gingerbread House into the deep woods, a small house Papa built after my mother lost her eyesight in a curse from the witches of Vlemk. The Lymph Node wasn’t always blind. At one time her eyes were beautiful & deep blue. She & I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was younger & that because being alone frightened me, Papa said, there was no excuse for wandering off into the woods by myself, near the witches of Vlemk & that night the Lymph Node told me some family history, how snakes lived under our house & that’s why we sometimes found them in the tub or dead out back by the shed. The Lymph Node being blind doesn’t stop her from knowing when a snake is near.
Anatomy of Anger
Cindy and I just had a discussion about our individual impulses to fight. We determined that she is more of an Irish–over-the-drumset–kick and fuckall sort, whereas my impulse arises more from a “People-train don’t run out of Wichita, people-train run outta S-Stubbville.” Cindy, though, never fights without believeing first that a person who can take it is on the other side. I’m one of those get-all-squinty and wipe my nose on my sleeve people when injustice is involved, and this tends to blur my perception of when injustices occur as I respond to perceived “wrongs.” Of course I console myslef with the thought (my version of heaven) that I will die and forget it and everybody else will forget it and die too, so–not to worry. What tends to make yall fight and how do you go about it?
James Yorkston – Tortoise Regrets Hare
(thanks, Amy)
Chicken
(via kottke)
How playing with toy guns saved my life
A crazy story that doesn’t exactly end the way the title would lead you to believe. I’ll take my cue from Chewing Pixels and not give you any spoilers.
Go read it, it is brilliantly short.
Portal Gun
Portal is one of the greatest games ever made, for those not in the know about this beautiful handmade replica (via Offworld).
Will Ferrell, You’re Welcome America
In an article on Will Ferrell’s one man send off of the former President, we have this interview between Jon Stewart and Ferrell-as-Bush:
Q: Former presidents have worked on their memoirs; have you thought about how you’re going to tell your story, when you’re going to begin writing it?
A: I actually finished mine, Jon. They will be sold only as a book on tape narrated by Vin Scully and Joe Morgan. I don’t want to ruin the ending, but let’s just say, Osama gets what’s coming to him.
Q: Sir, you wrote your memoirs, and they’re fiction? It’s a work of fiction?
A: Yes, yes, it’s fiction, Jon. If people want to read what actually happened, they can go to the library and read the micro-fish.
Q: Uh, I believe, sir, fiche. Microfiche.
A: Are you cursing at me in Jewish? Listen, Jon, just shut up. This book is going to make a great movie. It’s like a cross between ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ — only with e-mails being deleted, and torture.
The day begins
The White House machine releases a press release about the first minutes of the Obama presidency:
At 8:35 AM, the President arrived in the Oval Office and spent 10 minutes alone in the office. He read the note left to him by President Bush that was in an envelope marked “To: #44, From: #43″. At 8:45 AM, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel came in to discuss the schedule of today’s events. The First Lady came into the Oval Office at 9:10 AM. We will release a picture shortly.
The Inauguration of President Barack Obama
Some really nifty photos of the inauguration. (thanks, Dale)
Sandman (but not the sort that puts you to sleep)
Done by a man in India (via a kid in a candy store)
The Making of the Shining, Vivian Kubrick
Vivian Kubrick, Stanley’s daughter, (seventeen at the time) followed the cast and crew during the filming of The Shining, and made this documentary.
(via sullivan)
Comic Sans Love
I’ll be honest, I never really thought it possible to design something pretty with Comic Sans.
I think this new Veer tee proves my thought process wrong.
