If you see something, say something
Overheard.
6-year-old girl: Mom, what does that [automated bus announcement] mean “You are the eyes of New York”?
Mom: Well, it means we should look out for anything dangerous. Like an unattended package left somewhere.
7-year-old girl: Well…I see something dangerous…
Mom: Oh?
7-year-old: Snow! Someone could slip in it.
6-year-old: I see something dangerous–a bus! It could hit someone.
7-year-old: I see something dangerous–a tree! It could fall down.
…
7-year-old: Mom, I see something really dangerous…
Mom: What.
7-year-old: Cardboard in the street!
6-year-old: Someone could trip on it.
7-year-old: (Singing) “Cardboard in the street! Cardboard in the street! Nothing more dangerous than cardboard in the street!”
Lady Gaga, pianist
I had no idea. (via Lex A)
On the death of newspapers
Whatever I may say in the rant that follows, I do not believe the decline of newspapers has been the result solely of computer technology or the Internet. The forces working against the newspaper are probably as varied and forgone as the Model-T Ford and the birth control pill. We like to say that the invention of the internal-combustion engine changed us, changed the way we live. In truth, we built the Model-T Ford because we had changed; we wanted to remake the world to accommodate our restlessness. We might now say: Newspapers will be lost because technology will force us to acquire information in new ways. In that case, who will tell us what it means to live as citizens of Seattle or Denver or Ann Arbor? The truth is we no longer want to live in Seattle or Denver or Ann Arbor. Our inclination has led us to invent a digital cosmopolitanism that begins and ends with “I.” Careening down Geary Boulevard on the 38 bus, I can talk to my dear Auntie in Delhi or I can view snapshots of my cousin’s wedding in Recife or I can listen to girl punk from Glasgow. The cost of my cyber-urban experience is disconnection from body, from presence, from city.
Richard Rodriguez in this month’s Harper’s Magazine [subscription required]
In the news
Moscow, Russia (CNN) — A bear on ice skates attacked two people during rehearsals at a circus in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, killing one of them, Kyrgyz officials said Friday.
It is unclear what caused the bear to attack Potapov, 25, …
Quote out of context
A harried coworker runs up to me:
Do you want to be the doer or the thing?!
It was warmer, and remarkably easier to talk
Coney Island, New York
The Puppini Sisters – Crazy In Love
Art on the roof
Quote out of context
At the end of the very last day, I told myself that Ansel Adams would have rented a helicopter.
Annie Leibovitz, on finding the correct spot to photograph Monument Valley. (A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005)
Where’s the moon?
This morning on the 2 train, a large white-haired man boarded in downtown Brooklyn, wearing overalls and a hat covered with all manner of buttons, clutching a worn, wrinkled photocopy. As the train started to move, he sat up straight, held the paper aloft, and began reciting the following to the assembled commuters, in the sing-song tone of a storyteller or a town cryer. This continued until I exited the train, a few stops later, and has been playing in my head for the better part of the day.
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon?
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon?The globe in Columbus Circle–that’s the Earth.
The moon’s on 63rd Street West;
It’s a simple test
Of spacial reality.How well did you do?
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon?
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon…?
the clusterflock store
The apartment is also the headquarters of a glossy fashion and literary magazine called Dossier, a biannual that Ms. Parrott founded and runs with her business partner Katherine Krause…
The tiny store on the garden level is run by Ms. Krause and Ms. Parrott… It is named for the magazine and is, in a sense, its incarnation as a retail establishment…
“The store is the magazine that doesn’t get published,” Mr. Friedman said.
A great idea. What would be in the clusterflock store?
Postcard from Brooklyn
Flatbush, Brooklyn
I’ve missed y’all.
Cornbread Red, Take Me Out
From the band’s 2005 release, Pickin’ on Franz Ferdinand.
Pixillated Pleasures
- Main Entry:
- pix·i·lat·ed
- Variant(s):
- pix·il·lat·ed
- Function:
- adjective
- Etymology:
- irregular from pixie
- Date:
- 1848
1: somewhat unbalanced mentally ; also: bemused
2: whimsical <pixilated pleasures>
Clusterflock: The Next Generation
We met some friends at tonight’s Brooklyn Clustercocktails. More pictures here.
Paper Airplane on a String
Via Magic Molly
Billy Ward & The Dominoes – 60 Minute Man
Blue in Green
India, for Amy.
Clusterfashion
Down home flavor provides the taste of scratch
I find myself captivated by the Creative Food and Beverage Solutions of the Nestle Professional product line.
MINOR’S® Beef Gravy Concentrate (No Added MSG)* 1×25lb
Features and Benefits
Fresh, flavorful premium ingredients concentrated in refrigerated pastes. Down home flavor provides the taste of scratch. Steam-table and cook/chill stable for hours.
Afghanistan’s only pig quarantined in flu fear
The pig was a gift to the zoo from China, which itself quarantined some 70 Mexicans, 26 Canadians and four Americans in the past week, but later released them.
Sesame Street: Dogs baking bread
It is entirely possible that the apex of Western art in the 20th century was achieved with the 1973 release of this video short.
(via Serious Eats)
Dear Clusterflock
Assuming all-the-way is not a viable option: halfway, or not at all?
I thought dogs didn’t see color
On the way to the train, I passed a man with a pitbull puppy, spinning loops under its leash, tail wagging, ecstatic to be outside on a beautiful spring day. An older lady walked up to the pair and smiled down at the dog. The puppy looked up, wagged even more frantically, and let out a small yet throaty bark.
The woman drew herself up, and said in a thick Caribbean accent, “I didn’t hear you bark at that white woman, bitch, so you best cut that out!”
Folk Typography
Via dj denim’s Flickr photostream.
The Flickr Folk Typography group collects “outsider typography.”
Surprising, original letterforms created by people who are not designers, typographers, calligraphers, or graffiti artists– in other words, people outside of all traditional schools of typographic influence.