dear clusterflock
What would you have done with your remains?
Claire Martin – Photographer
I stumbled across Claire’s work this evening whilst reading through some interviews at a new site. This pushed me in the direction of Claire’s personal site. I thought her work stunning. It’s rare I see photos I wish that I had taken but she has many.
Goat Tower
(Thanks, Autumn)
Why we don’t have trains
Beginning in the 1920s, General Motors began investing in mass transit systems. According to historian Marty Jezer (and Congressional hearings held in 1974), between 1920 and 1955, General Motors bought up more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities, allowed them to deteriorate, and then replaced them with rubber-tired, diesel-powered buses. Buses are more expensive, less efficient, and much dirtier than electric/rail systems. (And of course automobiles are even less efficient than buses, by far.) In 1949, General Motors, Firestone Rubber, and Standard Oil of California were convicted by a federal jury of criminally conspiring to replace electric mass transit with GM-manufactured diesel buses; in a noteworthy illustration of justice for corporations, the court fined GM $5000 and forced H.C. Crossman, the GM executive responsible for carrying out GM’s policy, to pay $1.00.
—”Tire Dust,” Rachel #439 (Annapolis: Environmental Research Foundation), April 27, 1995
This is just the warmup. The article is actually about widespread allergies to rubber in the form of tire dust.
James Joyce reading from Finnegan’s Wake
(Via DesignTicTacs)
A school of thought about . . . herring
from Life in a Scotch Sitting Room (Volume 2, Episode 6). Ivor Cutler.
“Scotland gets its brains from the herring,” said Grandpa; and we all nodded our heads with complete incomprehension.
A New School of Thought About Sardines
“We want to reinvent the sardine and this time do it a little more thoughtfully,” Shelley, 58, explained at recent propaganda lunch here on Cannery Row, which once served as headquarters for the California sardine fishery. “We want to value what these fish can give to us from an ecological standpoint and a health standpoint. And we think there are real ways to enjoy them.”
These are not your grandfather’s sardines.
Come, my spade
Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession. (First Clown. Hamlet. Act V, Scene 1.)
I did not snap these for public consumption, rather as personal reminders of a recent and ongoing ‘rough patch’ in my life, a long stretch of days when my head seems to rest on a gravedigger’s spade. Nothing to share with all of y’all.
But then I got looking. And I got smiling. And now I am sharing.
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Immersion: Porn by Robbie Cooper
In a film of startling power and unsettling intimacy — produced exclusively for wallpaper.com — video artist and photographer Robbie Cooper shoots back at active porn aficionados lost in ecstatic release and hears how their passion developed. Be aware that this is not easy titillation and some of you may find the footage shocking. But the film does throw up any number of questions about voyeurism and exhibitionism and makes clear the incredible nakedness of the solo sex act.
(via kottke)
New Light Bulbs in Plain English
Your incandescent bulbs are the VCR of lightbulbs, dude. So uncool.
How to make an award-winning “i-Phone app”
A few more Derrick Mosley pieces are up.
Not For Tourists iPhone App
I’m happy to announce the Not For Tourists iPhone App is live at the iPhone App store.
Rubik Cubism
The Overland Route
When we ran out of gas last night, it was about eleven o’clock. Good thing we were only about half a mile from home via the overland route.
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gravel road
Spent much of the weekend in the country – took walks, laughed a lot, sang some, read and drew.
What happened to cartoon network?
A new Andrew W.K. project. It looks really great, actually. Despite my confusion as to how Andrew W.K., Cartoon Network and the concept all came together. Thanks to the re-tweeting of Jesse Thorn.
The New Operating System
By Derrick Mosley in my Field Notes
quote out of context
They were great big lesbians, who certainly weren’t perfect.
Squid and Owl
The Squid and the Owl series, by John Holbo. (thanks, Mark)
Deadline
This has been floating around, but it’s still worth posting here.
Our Bodies, Our Flock: Mucus
Mucus is pretty nifty stuff. You don’t really think about it outside of your nose, but it’s good for whenever your body needs lube, it offers protection, and it’s pretty interesting chemically!
The average adult human produces about a liter of mucus in a day! With my allergies I think I’m probably above average. I have swallowed enough mucus today to necessitate two belches. It’s not very much fun.
(Part of a maybe ongoing series?)
a symbolic left and right slap
Defense attorneys for Prince Ernst August of Hannover — Princess Caroline of Monaco’s husband — described his attack on a Kenyan hotel owner this way:
Ernst August simply “gave a symbolic left and right slap to the face,” attorney Hans Wolfgang Euler said, reading an hour-long statement from the prince.
intestinal fortitude
After her doctors failed to do so, eighteen-year old Jessica Terry was able to diagnose herself with Crohn’s disease.
When doctors didn’t give a Washington state high school student the answers she wanted, she took matters into her own hands.
Eighteen-year-old Jessica Terry, brought slides of her own intestinal tissue into her AP science class and correctly diagnosed herself with Crohn’s disease.
“It’s weird I had to solve my own medical problem,” Terry told CNN affiliate KOMO. “There were just no answers anywhere … I was always sick.”
Iran Political System Infographic
These Prints are The Bomb
The fabric prints in Christopher Kane’s resort 2010 collection are blowing me away (no pun intended). These speak to me so much: the large photo print, the colors, the simple shapes. I admire his sensibility and I need one of these dresses.
