Directed by Ted Eshbaugh. Produced by Van Beuren Studios.
1.31.2009
1.30.2009
this weekend
Stay deep.
If you must surface:
- leave Harvey Pekar alone
- see what Andrew Sarris called the greatest movie of all time or something else
- the great Kate is onscreen
- accumulations
- Purcell's Dido & Aeneas
- eat somewhere new
- watch as the Black Keys rock the World Famous Agora
- and there's that football game
Illustration by Paul Hartley.
1.29.2009
geansaí
Handknit Aran sweater from Harris Knitwear.
When we were in the Aran Islands, Sean bought one of these from young woman who was sitting in a tiny room packed floor to ceiling with sweaters she had made, and even as we spoke to her, she was methodically knitting while she rocked her baby's cradle with her foot. She took one look at Sean and pulled off the shelf a sweater with longer arms and a narrower torso that fit him exactly. It's too warm to wear on any but the coldest, dampest days.
It's only a myth that each fisherman had a uniquely patterned sweater to help in his identification in case he drowned and washed ashore.
riders to the sea
They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me. . . I'll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other. I'll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won't care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening.
J.M. Synge, Riders to the Sea
1.28.2009
the whale hunt
The Whale Hunt by Jonathan Harris may be the most thought-provoking photographic/internet project I have come across.
In May 2007, Harris spent nine days following an Inupiat whale hunt. He went to document, not to tell a tale or mount a platform. His process involved establishing a 'photographic heartbeat' by taking images every five minutes, even using a timer as he slept. The 'heartbeat' was variable, accelerating in times of stress and resulting in more pictures of those moments. The resulting 3,000+ images are gathered on the project site.
Harris' statement is fascinating reading, and the site is brilliant. His C.V. says that he 'designs systems to explore and explain the human world' but the genius thing about the project is that it is not an explanation. The site interface allows you to flip and filter through the images in a myriad of ways, constructing your own narrative. It's irresistible and dangerous. Given the subject matter and my own bloody-mindedness, my first goal was to find images of the kill. The tenor of the project left me uneasy with that impulse, that act of reducing a cascade of moments and time to a single point.
I'm interested in that tension between messy comprehensiveness and the incisive word or image. That sort of editing is necessary to give ourselves some reassurance of our own understanding - to take the incessant barrage of data swirling around our everyday lives and find the handles, the crystalline points, the small piece that lets us think we understand the whole. But what gets left out? What do our choices say - these images we feel encapsulate so much? How much is miscommunicated in these acts of editing?
Images from top to bottom:
May 6, 11:35 PM: Smeared blood from dragging muktuk across the ice.
May 7, 12:40 AM: Whaling knives.
MAY 7, 1:40 AM: Joe Ahkivgaq's whale harvest.
All photos by Jonathan Harris.
for maritime dramas
Fins and flukes shadow puppets by Orange Moon Toys. Perfect if you want to make your own movie for this song.
alice the whaler
Disney short from 1927.
(The Alice series is interesting to me because it mixes live-action footage of a little girl with the cartoon characters.)
1.27.2009
not your average tooth
(The narwhal) tusk, it turns out, forms a sensory organ of exceptional size and sensitivity, making the living appendage one of the planet's most remarkable, and one that in some ways outdoes its own mythology.
The find came when the team turned an electron microscope on the tusk's material and found new subtleties of dental anatomy. The close-ups showed that 10 million nerve endings tunnel from the tusk's core toward its outer surface, communicating with the outside world. The scientists say the nerves can detect subtle changes of temperature, pressure, particle gradients and probably much else, giving the animal unique insights.
William J. Broad, 12/13/2005 NYT
(Yesterday, I went to the dentist, and it got me thinking about about narwhals, the creatures with the most sensitive teeth on earth.)
in action
I love watching nature movies, but I hate the dramatic narrators - this clip features shifting ice that momentarily pens the narwhals in, which the narrator plays up for all it is worth. I'd prefer just to watch them, without having to worry about their imminent, potentially televised demise.
(Don't worry - they survive.)
the one that is good at curving itself to the sky
Something wondrous for a Tuesday morning: narwhals surfacing for air near the edge of an ice floe in Arctic Bay, Canada.
It's hard to believe such creatures exist, but they do. Apparently, the Inuit name for them translates as 'the one that is good at curving itself to the sky', because of the way they poke their heads out of the water.
Beautiful.
(The photo is part of the 'Irreplaceable: Wildlife in a Warming World' project. (Paul Nicklen/National Geographic Image Collection). Discovered through The Big Picture.)
1.26.2009
mid-morning escape
Katie's world is delightful - there are indoor camp outs, acrobatic cats, tiny people and lots of colors. It's one of my favorite places to visit on the interweb.
another day underway
I might like marking the time better if I had these calendar pencils - each one represents a month and you sharpen them daily to keep track of the date.
Spotted at Why Me Design.
1.25.2009
sunday tune: talking heads - girlfriend is better
Right now, I am dancing just like David Byrne. When I was little, I thought he was actually shaped like a rectangle, and that he was the most strangely shaped man I had ever seen. It was only when I became an all-knowing teenager that I realized the suit was the thing.
sunday tune: clap your hands say yeah - by the skin of my yellow country teeth
This video is proof that people can be productive at 5AM after a long night of drinking.
It's dance party Sunday in my kitchen because everyone knows breakfast tastes better after a little dancing.
1.24.2009
make a saturday
The description by the poster on YouTube is priceless:
'A saturday, the healthy but pathetic alternative to a sundae, comes to life and eats itself to the delight of a young, dimwitted boy.'
1.23.2009
this weekend
I'm checking out early - this week took it out of me. Besides, I am going on a media fast in preparation for watching 375 minutes of mob family drama on Saturday. Also on the agenda:
- dim sum
- hikes
- art openings
- the sound barrier
- a chunk of time to laze around the house and work on puzzles
Image from here.
1.22.2009
awesome songs i heard on the radio today
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - George Harrison
Love Song 2009 - Dent May and his Magnificent Ukelele (I may be developing an obsession with this song)
Into Eternity - Jens Lekman
Fountain of Youth - Grant Lee Phillips
And there were more. It made getting out of the car to go grocery shopping a little delayed. All courtesy of The Occasional Detour, a new radio show I discovered today (it is online here). Theme for this set: songs with ukeleles.
Things like this make me heart WRUW.
(I also heart this boombox.)
new old books
I just picked these up at my local bookstore. I love the mix of black and white photography and color blocks.
1.21.2009
he gets pretty nippy
Too hilarious.
Also, a new place to spend hours on the internet. Just what I need.
things that happen in train stations
Such a great film.
The Cinematheque is in the midst of a David Lean retrospective and I am taking full advantage.
imaginary outfit: london commuter
My friend Tania is headed to London in a few weeks to lead a corporate training session. I keep hoping to stumble into some kind of job that will lead to international travel, but it hasn't happened yet, so I am living vicariously today and thinking up an ensemble for Tania's trip. I'm imagining something conservative with a twist - a suit with interesting details like a ruffled lapel, bright pops of unexpected green and purple, a pair of sensible heels in a bold color that can double as dancing shoes in case she stumbles into any flash mob advertisement shoots, a classic bag, a soft scarf and a slubby tweed coat.
this makes me wish i had to take the train to work
But only if I am guaranteed group dancing.
A brilliant ad by Saatchi & Saatchi. I love the older lady with her shopping bag that joins in the dancing at 1.58.
1.20.2009
today's the day
At last.
If you need a place to catch the show, the PBS broadcast of President Barack Obama’s Inauguration Ceremony is being shown live on the big screen at the Palace Theatre. Admission is free, and they are opening the doors open at 10:45.
I'm packing my lunch and heading over.
Shirt by the ever-awesome Print Liberation.
knocked out
I'm feeling like this today.
A weekend with two ten-hour drives, a minor blizzard, assorted snow activities, and many frantic games of hide-and-seek that involve leaping around corners and running madly up and down the stairs with your shrieking three-year-old nephew at your heels will do it to you.
Image from here.
1.19.2009
headed west to cleveland
We should be back by nightfall. I love coming home.
I'll be back at full speed by tomorrow, hopefully.
Cleveland necklace by Smashing. Her new heart pieces are lovely.
1.18.2009
1.17.2009
1.16.2009
snow in the city
I think Sesame Street is partly responsible for my love for cities, and New York in particular.
I'm headed out of town to visit family this weekend, but if you find yourself in the Cleve, you can:
- hit the Cabaret Artistique
- be happy-go-lucky or blasted, depending on your mood
- see ice skaters or go skating yourself
- make dinner (this looks delicious)
- try to stay warm
ice of another kind
Yesterday, my mom and I went to the Artistic Luxury exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It's the second time I've been, and I am hoping to make it back this afternoon for one last look. It's the last weekend of the show, and museum has extended the viewing hours for people like me who can't get enough.
Some of the pieces on display are particularly jaw-dropping manifestations of opulent obsession and decadence - a dandelion gone to seed crafted out of individual asbestos fibers; a basket of pearl lilies of the valley nestled in a bed of gold 'moss' created by curling infinitesimally small gold wires; a necklace of twined snakes with each enameled scale individually shaded; a brooch of a winter scene with a fantastically detailed tree in front of a translucent frozen lake that looks like something out of the mind of Arthur Rackham ... it's all too much, and absolutely wonderful.
The piece above is by Rene Lalique and it's my favorite one in the show. In person, it's mounted so that you see the object and the shadow it casts - it looks exactly like two swallows on the wing. The snake necklace is another Lalique.
If you are in or near the Cleve, don't miss it.
Top: Nesting Swallows hair comb. c. 1906-1908. Gold, carved horn, diamonds.
Bottom: Pendant with serpent motif. 1901. Gold, pearls, enamel.
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
imaginary outfit: thinking about going outside, then deciding not to
Today we are expecting a high of five degrees. I wish I could stay inside all day, wrapped up in a big sweater near a fire, with a snoozing dog at my feet. Sadly, getting the dog to the snoozing stage means venturing outside for a walk. Brrrrr. I'm going to set the electric kettle on to boil and make it as snappy as possible, then come back inside and dive under blankets until I thaw.
1.15.2009
for slushy expeditions
The Rub by Ilse Jacobsen.
My five-year-old galoshes are starting to wear out. I have loved them very much and worn them very hard. These are the replacement candidates ... I just need to choose a color.
For Me, For You reminded me of their existence.
terrible weather forecasts
... would sound much more pleasant coming from one of Singgih Kartono's wooden radios for Areaware.
They are saying it's supposed to be bitter cold today and tomorrow.
1.14.2009
on toes
I love the variegated colors of these pompoms. They would make my toes happy.
Via Katy Elliott.
pompom
I love this little guy.
Hand-carved, hand-painted wood Kokeshi doll by Sansaku Sekiguchi at Rose and Radish.
1.13.2009
tops
A spinning-top, that uses a pen as the spindle, represents many of the core ideas behind my current work. It is recognisable, un-intimidating, and invites people to interact with objects that can lead to unpredictable results, or an emergent property. Simply through indulging in the enjoyable process of spinning the top a bi-product is created. Where the pen marks the surface, a beautiful map of the experience and events that have occurred is produced. I am able to draw, but I am not particularly talented at it and yet found that, through the interaction with these objects, I have created drawings that I am more proud of than any I have done before.
Thomas Forsyth
In action:
The tops are available on Etsy. I can't wait to get one.
Via NotCot.
subjektbeschleuniger
circular motions
This is a clip of an electron in motion, slowed down a billion billion times. It's never been captured on film before.
Read more at Debbie Millman's blog.
1.12.2009
inhaling the memory of an act never experienced
Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any artist knows these truths, no matter how deeply he or she submerges that knowing.
Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism, from Harper's Magazine, February 2007.
***
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated.
John Donne, Meditation 17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.
(This is the epigram to the Lethem piece.)
***
Image: Cy Twombly. Leda and the Swan. 1962. Oil, pencil, and crayon on canvas.
***
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Removing the obligation of originality is tremendously freeing.
1.11.2009
sunday tune: the velvet underground - i'll be your mirror
I remember sitting in 6th period art class listening to this album and thinking it was going to change my life.
1.10.2009
reading is a very fresh way to learn
But you don't have to take my word on it ...
An endorsement from Run DMC from about 1986 (the book rap is at 2.21). Boy, I loved Reading Rainbow.
1.09.2009
this weekend
A manifesto in bookmark form by Beacon Bookmarks.
Once you reach your page limit, there will be:
imaginary outfit: literati
One of my earliest ambitions was to be an Famous Author. At seven, I wrote and illustrated my first book - it involved a girl obsessed with Haley's Comet (some of my interests have remained remarkably static). Bitten by literary ambition, I kept notes on my life and story ideas in an assortment of notebooks, leading to the writing my autobiography at age 9 (a true tragedy, involving a changing schools and the loss of a dog). After dabbling in playwriting at 11 (my masterpiece was an all-female adaptation of Peter Pan called Perdita Pan), I began to be more critical of mass acclaim. By thirteen, the dream had changed from Famous Author to Little-Known (But Critically Respected By The Right People) Writer And Cultural Commentator.
Then I started reading really good things, and abandoned it all.
Sometimes, though, when I go to see an author speak, I imagine myself in the chair on the stage. And because my imagination is very literal, I think about what I would be wearing. This is it.
setting pen to paper
So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it.
Harold Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete, 1948
(Photo from Now Voyager's post on cyanotypes - my favorite thing on the internet this week.)
the life i wish to lead
The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
Abraham Lincoln
Photo via The Ugly Earring.
1.08.2009
i can't wait to watch this
Nudity or no (and good grief, what a stupid controversy). I hear it was a brilliant performance.
(Edited to add - so they are showing this MARCH 25th, not tonight. Blergh. Oh well, at least 30 Rock is new.)
a self-contained rolling library
Nils Holger Moormann's Bookinist. I would love a large public reading room equipped with these - they are delightful. I can just imagine intent readers furiously scooting around a room. I love that it comes equipped with its own lamp.
working on: bookmark thank-you notes
All of my books have random cards, notes and gift tags from friends and family tucked in the pages as impromptu bookmarks. Seeing familiar handwriting makes me feel comforted and it makes my books even more precious to me.
With that in mind, one of my favorite little projects is writing my thank you notes on the back of bookmarks I decorate. You can buy packs of 50 blank bookmarks in all kinds of colors, and I keep a fat stack on hand. Sometimes, I get elaborate, but this time, I kept it simple. I started by stamping a series of primary colored circles.
Then, I pulled out my favorite pen and started doodling. I like messing around with hatching and dots.
Some of them I really like. Some are kind of silly. They all have little messages to the recipients on the back. I dropped them into striped air-mail envelopes to mail, so hopefully they will be successful in their mission to convey thanks and mark pages.
take me to maastricht
to mark a favorite page
Levenger's Page Points. I don't like to underline my books, so I am addicted to these. Besides, I love buying something from a place with the motto 'Tools for Serious Readers'.
1.07.2009
cold days in cleveland
I was sad over the holidays that we didn't get a proper snow - it flurried on Christmas day, but much of the time it was cold and drear, with half-hearted drizzling mess. I decorated my windows with snowflakes to console myself: after I cut out paper snowflakes, I ironed them between sheets of wax paper to make them sturdier and frostier, and then hung them in front of a frosted glass window, which made them look even chillier.
I finally took down the snowflakes this week, and real ones have arrived, right on cue, along with a cold snap - we might not see 30 degrees again for a while.
I'm ordering a pair of these, going through soup recipes, getting my knitting projects in order, and otherwise taking my cues from Nora the Bean:
Time to hunker down.
a place to read
Paul Pincus finds the best things. Exhibit A: Richard Avedon's bed, inspired by storage crates and designed to keep all his favorite reads in quick reach.
shosai
The other day, I came across this image on Momus' Click Opera - a photograph by Takeoshi Tanuma of Ito Sei in his shosai. Per Momus:
A shosai is a room for books, a study, a workspace, a den for reading and writing. For me, this photo is the archetypal Japanese literary den. Ito sits on the floor in a tiny space, seen from a staircase. A naked bulb hangs above, and from floor to ceiling books line the space, less than one tatami mat across.
I knew nothing about these and am fascinated. It looks like what I imagine sitting in your own brain would be like - overwhelming information, close to hand, idiosyncratically organized.
The photo is from this book ... I am thinking of ordering it.
genuine fake bookshelves
Deborah Bowness hand-printed wallpapers: Original Genuine Bookshelf (above) and Genuine Fake Bookshelf (below).
Via AT Europe.
1.06.2009
left in trust
This story fascinates me: Vladimir Nabokov's last novel, The Original of Laura, exists only in unfinished fragments noted on 50 index cards stored in a Swiss bank vault. He left express instructions in his will that they were to be burned, but the executors of his estate, first his wife, then his son, Dimitri, have held off destroying them.
Finally, after years of suspense, they are going to be published.
Photo from here.
bits and pieces, taped together
Pages from Anne Sexton's scrapbook, chronicling her elopement at age 19. From here.
Copyright Anne Sexton.
do i feel guilty about reading what was not intended for my eyes?
Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts — like a confidante who is deaf, dumb and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.
The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather — in many cases — offers an alternative to it.
There is often a contradiction between the meaning of our actions toward a person and what we say we feel toward that person in a journal. But this does not mean that what we do is shallow, and only what we confess to ourselves is deep. Confessions, I mean sincere confessions of course, can be more shallow than actions. I am thinking now of what I read today (when I went up to 122 Bd. St-G to check for her mail) in H’s journal about me — that curt, unfair, uncharitable assessment of me which concludes by her saying that she really doesn’t like me but my passion for her is acceptable and opportune. God knows it hurts, and I feel indignant and humiliated. We rarely do know what people think of us (or, rather, think they think of us).. . .Do I feel guilty about reading what was not intended for my eyes? No. One of the main (social) functions of a journal or diary is precisely to be read furtively by other people, the people (like parents + lovers) about whom one has been cruelly honest only in the journal. Will H. ever read this?
Susan Sontag, journal entry of December 31, 1958. Via the NYT.
1.05.2009
the good side of bad books?
There are only a finite amount of books you can read in one lifetime, so spending time with one that you know within 50 pages is going to stink like two-day-old roadkill in the sun seems counter-intuitive. It makes far more sense to put it down and pick up something else from the ever-increasing to-read pile. Yet I feel somehow incapable of doing so.
Stuart Evers in The Guardian Books Blog
I'm glad to know I am not the only one who suffers from this compulsion, although there are a number of books that I have read that I wish I could have the time back on.
1.04.2009
imaginary outfit: vacation entropy
It feels like the new year with all its attendant projects and aspirations begins in earnest tomorrow, so today is it - the last languorous, limbo day to watch too much television, flip mindlessly through magazines, and stay in pajamas past a reasonable hour.
Most of my brain is ready for new things, but the lazy part would like these days to stretch on a little longer.
sunday tune: elvis costello - every day i write the book
This song could not be any greater.
(I always have books on my mind, but this week I'm posting a number of book-things.)
1.03.2009
1.02.2009
this weekend
After the final vestiges of holiday festivities are swept away, you can:
- watch Oscar bait
- freak out with Danny
- eat a wholesome brunch
- purify your mind with holy music
resolutions
From Keetra Dean Dixon's Cordial Invitations.
Her site is more than worth a look around - anonymous hugging walls, wonder capsules, and this project which is so awesome I am left without words. Don't even get me started about the photobooth. She wows me.
Anyway. I think I'll be investing in the fantastic this year. I hear it's a sure thing.
Originally espied at Ffffound.
1.01.2009
ready or not, here we come
Watch out, 2009. We're going to cram you with as many good times as possible.
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