June 28, 2004
Found
FOUND Magazine is dedicated to displaying found items:
we collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles- anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. anything goes...
(via Cynical-C)
28 Jun 17:12 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits
Time
This is a cool idea:
"On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by.
(via Idle Type)
28 Jun 17:07 | Link | Category: Photography
June 27, 2004
Text Stereograms
There's no doubt you've seen stereograms, those fuzzy images that become three dimensional if you stare at them correctly... but check out this text stereogram made simply out of text.
27 Jun 21:48 | Link | Category: Cool Links
Today's Photography Links
27 Jun 21:41 | Link | Category: Photography
June 23, 2004
Today's Photography Links
- Deceptive Media
- Zabriskie Point
- Ephemera (somehow it didn't surprise me to learn that Powazek's also a talented photographer)
23 Jun 0:31 | Link | Category: Photography
Instant Bureaucracy
"Friends, are you tired of the free-wheeling, undisciplined chaos of the non-corporate world around you?" With instant bureaucracy forms, "the power of middle management is as close as your printer."
23 Jun 0:22 | Link | Category: Humor
Corporate Music, Employee Training Tapes, and more...
Visit April Winchell's Multimedia page and listen to some of the stuff in the Corporate Music and KFC Employee Training Tapes sections.
23 Jun 0:19 | Link | Category: Humor
Eurobad '74
Check out EUROBAD '74, "an exhibition of Europe's worst interiors of 1974."
(via J-Walk)
23 Jun 0:08 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits
June 11, 2004
The Quest For The Rest
Listen to tracks from The Polyphonic Spree's upcoming album by playing Quest For The Rest. It's a clever way to promote a new album. I enjoyed their last album, and this one's sounding pretty good too.
11 Jun 20:40 | Link | Category: Music
Today's Photography Links
- Skies fascinate me even more than power lines. You can find a nice collection of sky photos at enchanted ceiling.
- Robert Bourdau: Industrial Sites
- Photo Menu at kevinsteele.com
11 Jun 20:39 | Link | Category: Photography
No more "Very Important Things"
Very sad... one of my favorite daily stops on the web is calling it quits. Goodbye, Very Important Things.
11 Jun 20:15 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits
June 10, 2004
Dylan, Master Poet?
People are always trying to call Bob Dylan a poet, overanalyzing his lyrics and writing up elaborate dissections. While I'm a great Dylan enthusiast - and easily more familiar with his work than with any proper poet's - it seems to me that he's a songwriter and a poetic lyricist, not a true poet (Tarantula and other work notwithstanding). Maybe that's an insignificant distinction... maybe I'm wrong in the first place.
I'm quite sure I know nothing about poetry compared to "professor's professor" Christopher Ricks, the newly elected professor of poetry at Oxford (also the Warren Professor of Humanities at Boston University). He has written or edited books on Keats, Milton, Beckett and T. S. Eliot. His latest book "devotes some 500 pages to a close analysis, line by line sometimes, of [Dylan's] greatest hits."
It sounds a bit silly to me. For example, Ricks devotes four pages to a song that is only two lines long - "or maybe three, if you count the long 'Hmmmm' at the end."
One one hand, I must admit that I understand what Ricks is getting at when he says "A day doesn't go by when I don't listen to Dylan or at least think about him and his art. I just think we're terrifically lucky to be alive at a time when he is."
On the other hand, I wonder if Ricks is just the 'academic professor' version of an obsessive fan. Time will tell and history will judge - but like George W. Bush says, "History - We won't know. We'll all be dead."
(What an odd way to end a post. Maybe it's a sign I should be getting some sleep.)
10 Jun 1:09 | Link | Category: Music
Today's Photography Links
10 Jun 0:53 | Link | Category: Photography
Old Films
If you have broadband, you should head over to the Prelinger Archives (part of the wonderful archive.org) to check out some of the old films housed there.
A Case of Spring Fever is one of the strangest technology films I've ever seen. "Coily" is, uh, quite the character. Quite bizarre, but very entertaining.
You might also want to check out a 1927 instructional film on usage of dial telephones. A film about early atom bomb testing is also quite interesting.
If you're in the mood for an actual feature film, may I suggest 1938's Reefer Madness? (As a side note, you should also check out Eric Schlosser's excellent book of the same name.)
(via Incoming Signals)
Update: Check out Boing Boing's Prelinger Archive gems
10 Jun 0:44 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Libraries & Digital Information
June 8, 2004
Today's Photography Links
- Satan's Laundromat, "a Brooklyn-based photolog with an emphasis on urban decay, strange signage, and general weirdness." (Currently protesting the proposed NYC subway camera ban.)
- Power Lines - because I have an odd fascination with powerlines and thought it was really cool. Also see zip codes at the same site.
- Coloured Smoke from Sensitive Light
08 Jun 0:11 | Link | Category: Photography
June 7, 2004
Petals Around the Rose
Petals Around the Rose is a nice little brain teaser I found through both The Presurfer and Pale Blue Dot.
Chris Davis writes:
I was introduced to 'Petals Around the Rose' by Dr. Richard Duke at the University of Michigan. Dr. Duke used to begin each of his gaming/simulation courses with this exercise. While some students would solve the problem right away, others would struggle all semester. It had taken Dr. Duke well over a year himself, and he would always explain that the smarter you were, the longer it took to figure it out.
The game is quite simple. Only a basic understanding of math is required and an open and creative mind. The game can be used as an example of how different people look at the world differently, and how these different ways of looking can yield different answers. In 'Petals Around the Rose' there is always one correct answer. The problem is how we define the problem.
It took me a good fifteen or twenty minutes to figure it out. I was actually quite pleased with that, especially when I found out how long it took Bill Gates... but maybe that's just proof of Dr. Duke's "the smarter you are, the longer it takes" idea.
07 Jun 23:43 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits
U.S. Citizenship Test
See if you can correctly answer questions from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
(via Idle Type)
07 Jun 23:27 | Link | Category: Interactive
June 4, 2004
Suburbia
Check out suburbia photos by Bill Owens. John thinks they are reminiscent of the work of Diane Arbus. He's right, quite a few of them are.
04 Jun 20:57 | Link | Category: Photography
Are you a hipster?
11 clues you're a hipster, from hipsterhandbook.com
I only scored 53% on the quiz, so apparently I'm not a hipster.
04 Jun 20:51 | Link | Category: Humor
Hating Blogs
As an addition to my last entry: You may also enjoy a (frighteningly) long and detailed essay cleverly entitled Why I Fucking Hate Weblogs.
The odd thing is that I took the quiz and got the following result:
Congratulations! You're a totally normal person. If you had a weblog, it'd probably be a great one!
Why are you even taking this survey? You're obviously completely normal. You probably look on weblogs with the same disdain shown by all people of your elite personal perfection, however, if you do like weblogs, I'm sure you have a damned good reason. Kudos to you for retaining some measure of sanity in this mixed-up, shook-up, fucked-up world. We thank you for taking time out of your busy normal life to look this survey over.
Hmm. Whatever.
(via Steel White Table)
04 Jun 20:34 | Link | Category: Technology & Computing
Categorizing Blogs
I noticed a link from The Presurfer about The 5 Types of Blogs. The generalizations the author makes are pretty accurate.
04 Jun 20:19 | Link | Category: Technology & Computing
Pop
The folks at Slant are creating a list of the 50 best pop albums one week at a time.
It's nice to see a few unexpected surprises (like R.E.M.'s Murmur and 10,000 Maniacs' Our Time in Eden) among the expected appearances from the likes of Fleetwood Mac, The Beach Boys, and Prince.
The review of U2's Pop is most excellent:
The reason why Pop wasn't a bigger hit in the U.S. is a mystery: "If God Will Send His Angels" is as catchy as "With Or Without You" and as stirring as "One," and "Staring At The Sun" is one of the best examples of the electronic-rock hybrid. True, much of the album may have just been typical pop/rock steeped in a pre-millennium fallen-Catholic electro-revolution (it's still the same classic U2 sound, just pumped up with thumping cyber-sounds), but it's better (and deeper) than anything on U2's much-ballyhooed "return" to pop, All That You Can't Leave Behind. Judging by that album, Bono sadly never found the epiphany he was looking for, and if he did, it was in the plastic turquoise crucifix hanging from his cabbie's rearview mirror in Miami.
I'm just glad to know there really are people other than myself who think Pop is one of U2's best albums.
(via scrubbles.net)
04 Jun 19:56 | Link | Category: Music
June 3, 2004
They're still happily together...
Yes, someone has taken the time to compile a list of things he and his girlfriend have argued about and post it online. It reminds me of an elderly couple I knew who argued constantly and seemed wonderfully happy despite (because of?) it.
(via Steel White Table)
03 Jun 0:58 | Link | Category: Humor
Mannequin Gallery
John pointed me to a mannequin photo gallery. Is it just me, or is the gallery oddly fascinating as well as somewhat creepy?
03 Jun 0:55 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment
The Complete Dalí
I finished reading a short book on Salvador Dalí last night. This morning I noticed a link at Incoming Signals to a complete listing (I assume) of Dalí's work. It's odd how that happens. Anyway, you can sort alphabetically or chronologically. (The images aren't very large, but it's still fun to find these comprehensive listings.)
03 Jun 0:47 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment
MacGyverisms
Do you remember the old 80's TV show MacGyver? I still have fond memories of my brother and I watching MacGyver wiggle his way out of dangerous and precarious situations using nothing but his wits and a few household objects. MacGyverisms is a complete listing of the clever things he did in each episode. (There's a different copy at the MacGyver Homepage.)
(via Cynical-C)