I “launched” Trice Art today, an extension on MyFormative. You may recall my mentioning of the project when it was still in its developmental stages. If not, the website highlights works of art from various, less known artists around the web. All the art on the site is for purchase.
He sipped his tepid coffee and pondered how to tell her that, in fact, the pants made the sack dress even less appealing.
In October Newsday (a Long Island daily paper that was sold for $650 million) began charging for online access. The price is $5 per week. In three months 35 people have subscribed.
The web site redesign and relaunch cost the Dolans $4 million, according to Mr. Jimenez. With those 35 people, they’ve grossed about $9,000.
In that time, without question, web traffic has begun to plummet, and, certainly, advertising will follow as well.
Link
Forget the usual clotheshorse suspects — Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie O. The secret history of fashion was, and still is, written by an entirely different clan, a strange and ragtag parade of style savants whose willingness to make complete and utter spectacles of themselves stands as a victory for female self-expression in the face of social expectation.
New York Times
“Why the goddamn hell is Barack Obama writing the cover story for next week’s Newsweek? He doesn’t know anything about Haiti outside of what his aides may have told him. He won’t even write it! If the piece is worth publishing, Newsweek should give the byline to its true author.”
“Science has no way to undo this condition, which is the result of an extra chromosome; but God can. When Trig Palin is found to be miraculously healed, everyone but the most hardened atheist will have to acknowledge God’s Majesty!” Pray 4 Trig, the “Worldwide Day of Prayer to Heal Trig Palin.”
Meet Koh and Yurie. They’re a happily married young Japanese couple who moved from Tokyo to San Francisco a year ago due to a job transfer. In early September, while on a business trip back home, Koh bought a new game cartridge for his Nintendo DS. It was mostly out of curiosity — the Japanese Twitterati were all abuzz over a new dating sim called Love Plus, and he just wanted to see what the hype was about. “I’ve tried the other dating sims before just for kicks, but I never got hooked,” he says. “I didn’t expect this to be any different.” He was wrong.
During that one week in Tokyo, Koh found himself fully committed to his virtual relationship with Rinko, a pouty, hard-ass high school girl who hung out at the library. The relationship was formal at first, consisting of awkward whispered conversations in which she sent mixed signals and called him by his last name. As things got more heated, though, she started calling him Kohichi (calling someone by the first name still carries a degree of intimacy in Japan) and became more demanding of his attention. “I felt like I might get sucked into this world,” Koh, who is an engineer at a major game manufacturer by day, tells me. “It’s not like any dating sim with young girls in it becomes a hit, but this one is really well-made.”
An article posted on a Japanese tech site in September told the story of several women who had complained on an online bulletin about how their family lives were disrupted by husbands addicted to Konami’s hit game. Last weekend, I invited Koh and Yurie over to my house to talk about Koh’s virtual relationship with Rinko, and how — if at all — it had impacted their real world husband-and-wife dynamic.
BoingBoing
Koh, what do you and Rinko do together?
Koh: OK, this is pretty embarrassing. The DS has a mic and a touchscreen, so… one time, she asked me to say “I love you” a hundred times into the mic. I was on the airplane when she asked me that, so I was like, no way. There was also this part where you have to hold her hand on the touchscreen. If you touch her hand with the stylus, you get to hold her hand. And then there’s the part where you have to kiss her.
Did you do it?
Koh: No, no! The girl’s face shows up on the screen, and you have to touch her lips to give her a kiss. That’s pretty weird…. this is embarrassing. I’m sweating right now just talking about it.
Yurie: Ew. Do people really do that?
Koh: I guess some people do.
So what is your Love Plus girlfriend doing now?
Koh: I’m too scared to find out. I’m probably going to get in big trouble if I open it after leaving her alone for several weeks. Maybe she’s dead now. That would be scary.
Yurie: Does that happen?
Koh: I don’t think so . But remember Tamagochi? They used to die if you didn’t feed them.
Yurie: Oh yeah. That would be kind of bittersweet.
Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross’s relief fund for Haiti; the donation will be added to your monthly phone bill.
The opening of 2010’s Whitney Biennial is just next month! The artist list looks promising:
Sharon Hayes
Maureen Gallace
Suzan Frecon
Storm Tharp
Aurel Schmidt
It seems this biennial will be more auspicious than 2008’s dystopic predictions, and understandably so.
Today the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics set a hearing date for an initiative proposed by a Ward 8 resident that would limit marriage in the District to heterosexual couples.
Little, who has identified herself as a Christian who sees homosexuality as an “abomination,” has also argued that same-sex marriage will have a negative impact on the city’s poor.
“[W]hat about low-income and working-class African Americans who have grown up in this city and are struggling to eke out a living the best way they can amidst 20 percent underemployment and unemployment[?] They will be the big losers. Once this bill is passed homosexuals from all over the country and world will flock to DC like pigeons on a piece of bread. They will overwhelm the city, buying up expensive condominiums and accelerating gentrification. The council will continue to enact laws to allow real estate companies to increase rents and convert rental property to condominiums. Low income and working class people will not be able to afford to live in these properties and will have to leave the city, amounting to a mass exodus. What this bill economically amounts to is a legalized land grab, something the establishment has been trying to accomplish for years but have been unable to do until now,” she wrote in a posting to themail, a bi-weekly email newsletter on D.C. politics.
Reindeer in bondage
Stanwell Park hang gliders
Sydney, from the Key West building, New Year’s Eve
Once we made it to the top of the mountain, my camera died. However, I managed to get this one photo.
This photo was taken yesterday at the summit of Australia’s Mount Kosciusko which stands 7,000-somthing feet–not too terribly high, but the cold spoke for itself. See that stuff to the right? It’s snow, but I kept insisting that it was sand, not snow.
I also have some nice photos, but I’ve been without an internet connection on my Mac since I arrived, so I can’t do anything with them just yet.
Like I said yesterday, I’m in Canberra, which has a fantastic art collection but the city is oddly deserted and lacking in density. It’s 93 degrees and there are parrots, kangaroos and brown snakes abound. I almost stepped on a brown snake on our decent yesterday. Jeremy says I would have become “really sick”, but I know good and well that I would have certainly perished.
this posting is brought to you via an iPhone.
But I will resume somewhat normal postings soon. I’d had no internet connection in Sydney and I still have no telephone connection here in Canberra.
I’m leaving for Australia tomorrow, so I’ll be in an ambien haze for the next 72 hours. I will resume posting after Christmas.
Do you think she’ll like it? It’s only available at Zales.
Bryan Christy writes in the Jan issue of National Geographic about a notorious animal smuggler. It took the undercover unit of the US Fish & Wildlife Service five years to track down Anson Wong, the world’s most wanted smuggler of endangered species. But he got out of prison in 47 months, during which time his wife kept the business going full force. And when Wong got out of prison he set his sights on a ‘new wildlife venture, a zoo that promises to be his most audacious enterprise yet’ — smuggling tigers. Christy tells the story of how the Fish & Wildlife Special Ops team set up a sting operation to capture Wong, who boasted of having horns of Sumatran and Javanese rhinoceroses, both forbidden Appendix I animals. He talked openly about getting shahtoosh, the ‘king of wool,’ from the Tibetan antelope. He had access to extraordinary birds, including the Rothschild’s mynah, whose wild population was estimated to number fewer than 150. He bragged about his Spix’s macaws, a bird now believed to be extinct in the wild, claiming he’d recently sold three. The black market rate for a Spix’s macaw was $100,000. His expanding list of astonishing illegal rarities included panda skins and snow leopard pelts.
via National Geographic
My friend in New York attempts to introduce me to pop culture’s past, which, before this summer, I knew absolutely nothing about. He sent me this Youtube video featuring Anne Bancroft. I find it really funny, even though I am familiar with very few of the people mentioned.
He also introduced me to comedian Ruth Draper. We were driving to Rhinebeck one night when he put in her “Doctors and Diets” skit. It was so memorable.
Apparently this was universally hilarious in the precambrian.
As readers may know, Etsy.com is a webstore which specializes in brokering handmade objects, and many of the sellers on Etsy are artists. Below are original works from sellers Vivstrauss and Bird and Moon Studio, both of which I think are quite good.
Mrs. Emily Slack Slade, 1928
$125.00
Steam Punk Crow
$14.00
While Etsy may serve as an outlet for artists looking to sell their pieces, buyers with, an, um…”developed aesthetic” are likely dissuaded by the massive amount of shitty pieces within the same forum. In that regard, I’m developing an extension onto Myformative that will highlight artists and works for sale that would have previously gone unnoticed.
So, before I invest any more time into this idea, I’m looking for feedback from my readers. What do you think about this idea? Is there a site similar to this that already exists? Do you think such a site would have a market? Do you think people would be interested in buying artwork online?
Many thanks,
Sawyer
Chop Suey, Oil on Canvas, 1929
The women wear cloche hats.
Hers gray
Hers Persian blue.
Chinese characters
On the restaurant window
Cast shadows on their cheeks,
And a little clay teapot
Between them
Rattles
When the streetcar
Passes by.
They are sisters.
Years ago they lost
The need for small talk,
Speaking with
An arc of an eyebrow,
A purse of the lips.
The woman in the gray hat
Goes home each night
And drapes all the beads
She owns
Around her slender neck.
She dances
The Charleston
In spite of the weight
Of her jewelry
An imaginary man
Her partner
The woman in the blue hat sees
The perfect spheres
Imprinted on her sister’s
collarbone.
She smiles,
Rests her hands
On the table,
And watches the teapot shudder
As the sound
Of metal on metal
Echoes in the street.
Out of nowhere, DC announces the arrival of the city’s first streetcars. This came to a big surprise for me because I’ve never witnessed the establishment of the necessary infrastructure. I thought such a project would take years to implement.
ONE TO TWO FEET EXPECTED! Jealous?
and on Tuesday, I’ll be flying away to Australia to chill in the sun.
So here’s a picture of Jeremy dressing for work.
TLC is really the most disgusting channel on TV, next to G4. From Jon & Kate Plus Eight, to the 1000lb Man, to 18 Kids and Counting, to their now three dwarf shows. Who watches this shit?
Can two little people who own a chocolate shop produce 600 chocolate dice for a casino night party? And how will they build a life-sized, all chocolate flower garden for a couple’s fifth anniversary complete a project that’s bigger than they are?
Just something to remember. In the 1930’s, quintuplets were born to a family in a rural town in Canada. After the birth, the twins became the international sensation that came to be known as the Dionne Quintuplets. To generate revenue, the parents and the town agreed to exhibit the twins in a town circus known at Quintland.
Years later the Dionne Quintuplets suffered from severe emotion trauma associated with being raised as a commodity. In 1998, the remaining sisters reached a monetary settlement with the Ontario government on behalf of their exploitation.
Have we learned nothing from history?
Someone apparently wanting a free Christmas tree cut down one of the rarest conifers in the Washington Park Arboretum, a part of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens.
It’s estimated that the tree, a keteleeria, was worth $10,400. Keteleeria trees are found in Laos, a few southern provinces of China and several other isolated places in Asia. The cut tree was considered “conservation material,” because it is under such threat in the wild, according to Randall Hitchin, the garden’s registrar and collections manager.
“It was rare in our collection and it is rare in the wild,” he says.
You’ll never understand me, Mom. Just take the picture.
The newspaper made its requests under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, the decades-old law that requires federal agencies to disclose public documents.
Of particular interest were internal emails, which could help explain why regulators seized the bank in September 2008 even though WaMu appeared to meet regulatory standards for operating banks, despite its burden of bad loans.
vs.
Beetlejuice’s House
A 25-year-old chemistry student died when he chewed chemically treated gum that exploded and blew off part of his face.
(link)
A reader sent me the link to this series of haunting images by photographer Ragnar Axelsson, who, for the past 25 years, has been traveling to and documenting Greenland’s remote inuits.
I saw Yuja Wang perform at the Kennedy Center on Saturday. She performed a Higdon piece which contained just over 19,500 piano notes. To put this in perspective, all of the orchestra’s notes–about 70 people–when combined, totaled just over 30,000.
The island is only accessible by a 3-day boat ride. The governor of Putcairn, who I believe resides in New Zealand, visits the colony about once a year.
It’s an old story—parents split and fight for custody. But when both are women, and one says she is no longer gay, it gets complicated.
Newsweek
Before you give any money to the Salvation Army this year, remember, they run a program where kids are only given toys if they can present a valid birth certification or immigration papers, so that the children of illegal immigrants are punished for their parents’ deeds. At Christmas. While other kids are given toys. That your donation paid for. (link)
Installation or performance?
Did you laugh at 2:25? Because I did. “Oh look, it’s leek.”
LOLOLOL ^_^
Daul Kim hanged herself.
Maybe she did it because after she died her hair blonde, she realized she had to get her roots done every six hours.
Sick ride.
1491, The Atlantic
Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought—an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. New evidence of both the extent of the population and its agricultural advancement leads to a remarkable conjecture: the Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact
The Year the World Really Changed, Newsweek
Forget the fall of the iron curtain: the events of ‘79 matter more.
The Dad’s Army of British cryonics, Guardian
In a bungalow in Peacehaven, by the east Sussex seaside, a 72-year-old man and his 62-year-old wife are planning their future. There’s no discussion of anything morbid, like death, because, as far as they are concerned there is no such thing as death. When they stop breathing, they will pass into a state of suspended animation. They will be frozen in a giant flask of liquid nitrogen at almost -200C, which will preserve their brains and organs in as fresh a state as possible until technology has advanced to the stage where they can be revived.
Confessions of a ‘Contra’, The New Republic
How the CIA masterminds the Nicaraguan insurgency.
A virus walks into a bar. The bar tender says, “we don’t serve viruses in this bar.” The virus replaces the bar tender and says, “now we do.”
An infectious disease walks into a bar. The bar tender says, “we don’t serve infectious diseases in this bar.” The infectious disease says, “well, you’re not a very good host.”
Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bar tender says, “we don’t serve bacteria here.” The bacteria says, “but we work here; we’re staff.”
A room temperature superconductor walks into a bar. The bar tender says, “we don’t serve any super conductors in this bar.” The room temperature superconductor leaves without putting up any resistance.
An infrared photon walks into a bar and says, “is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
A neutrino walks into a bar. The bar tender says, “we don’t serve neutrinos in this bar.” The neutrino says, “hey, I was just passing though.”
Schrödinger’s cat walks into a bar…and doesn’t.
LOLOLOLOL ^_^
via BoingBoing
In 1909, British explorer Ernest Shackleton aborted an attempt to reach the south pole. He abandoned two cases of scotch at base camp. A century on, we’ve found it.
Whyte & Mackay, the drinks group that now owns McKinlay and Co., has asked for a sample of the 100-year-old scotch for a series of tests that could decide whether to relaunch the now-defunct Scotch. Workers from New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust will use special drills to reach the crates, frozen in Antarctic ice under the Nimrod Expedition hut near Cape Royds.
Thought discovered in 2006, conservation guidelines impose strict rules on how the ice-embedded bottles may be recovered. Whyte & Mackay’s master blender says it will taste extactly as it did 100 years ago.
via Boing Boing
Last month, I wrote about a Japanese husband who confessed to his wife that he had a virtual girlfriend, a character from an addictive Nintendo DS game called Love Plus. Now, another man is planning to hold a wedding ceremony with his Love Plus girlfriend this coming Sunday. The man, who calls himself SAL9000, was so in love with Nene Anegasaki that he decided to marry her and take her on a honeymoon to Guam. Of course, this means that he literally just took his Nintendo DS to Guam… while there, he took photos, livecast their adventures on popular video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga, and documented their adventures using the augmented reality iPhone app Sekai Camera. In any case, the guy plans on having a public reception in Tokyo this Sunday. It will be livecast on Nico Nico Douga, but in case you miss it, we’ll be bringing you an update early next week. (link)
I demand equal rights for computer-generated spouses. Yes, full equal rights–hospital visitations, social security benefits, estate taxes and health insurance.
Of the 1,200 objects to reach the auction block at Christie’s France over the next four days, the majority come from Château Gabriel, the three-story country estate where YSL and his lifelong partner Pierre Bergé spent their weekends.
I’m not much for rococo, but I’d sure love to view some of Laurent’s pieces. Click for some pictures.
That table is hideous.
I am an INTP.
The personality profile on Wikipedia makes me feel as if I’m trying to choose a dog breed that is right for me.
NTP types are quiet, thoughtful, analytical individuals who enjoy spending long periods of time on their own, working through problems and forming solutions. They are curious about systems and how things work. Consequently, they are frequently found in careers such as science, architecture, and law. INTPs tend to be less at ease in the “caring professions,”. They also tend to be impatient with the bureaucracy, rigid hierarchies, and the politics prevalent in many professions. They prefer to work informally with others as equals.[14]
INTPs organize their understanding of any topic by articulating principles, and they are especially drawn to theoretical constructs. Having articulated these principles for themselves, they can demonstrate remarkable skill in explaining complex ideas. On the other hand, their ability to grasp complexity may also lead them to provide overly detailed explanations of “simple” ideas, and listeners may judge that the INTP makes things more difficult than they are. To the INTP, however, this is incomprehensible: They are merely presenting all the information.[14]
Given their independent nature, INTPs may prefer working alone to leading or following in a group. During interactions with others, if INTPs are focused on gathering information, they may seem oblivious, aloof, or even rebellious—when in fact they are concentrating on listening and understanding.[citation needed] However, INTPs’ extraverted intuition often gives them a quick wit, especially with language. They can be charming, even in their quiet reserve, and are sometimes surprised by the high esteem in which their friends and colleagues hold them.[14]
When INTPs feel insulted, however, they may respond with sudden, cutting criticism. After such an incident, INTPs are likely to be as bewildered as the recipient. They have broken the rules of debate and exposed their raw emotions. To INTPs, this is the crux of the problem: emotions must be dealt with logically—because improperly handled emotions, INTPs believe, can only harm.
Can we file this under stupid piece of shit?
Click for the trailer.
In the past two weeks, I’ve seen A Street Car Named Desire and Where The Wild Things Are. Both of these productions were dark and complicated, and it was difficult to extract any redemption from both of these, especially the later. Hopefully, Precious will be different.
I’ve heard Mariah Carey is fantastic.
Americans watch about 5 hours of TV every day.
The Nielsen company reports today that for the 2008-09 season, viewing hit an all-time high: Americans spent about 5 hours a day in front of the TV, up four minutes from last year, up 20% from 10 years ago.
He has a thoughtful and provocative theory around which he bases his arguments. Naturally, I’ve spent the last hour arguing one of them.
Regretsy is a website dedicated to mocking the items sold on Etsy.com, a ebay-like vendor that specializes in handmade products. It’s absolutely hilarious.
Look, I’m a vampire! What? Wait let me lower the glass a little bit. Okay now look! What? Okay how about now? No? Try putting your head on the table and looking up at me. See? It’s like I’m drinking blood. Because I have fangs. No, on the glass. No, those are etched in the glass so it looks like I . . . oh fuck it.
Boy, that would be fun! I mean, If anyone still drank Cosmos. And if you had friends.
BBC disabled embed. Click the photo to watch.
so I’m going to give the Atari Prohance 40-button mouse a try. It seems simple enough, right?
This zoom chart is really cool. Viruses are much larger than I had originally thought. Not to mention an amoeba; it seems I could almost squash one.
I came across this image last night while browsing Google Maps.
I had a dream that I had a great dane. I can recall the circumstances of the dream only vaguely now, it was all very visceral and abstract, but I remember that I was so happy. I even awoke happy.
The sounds effects are kinda gross, but the animation is nice.
Except, instead of hanging the rug, mine will be on the floor. They’re so pretty. This one is $5,000. They’re not cheap.
Revealing Mac OS X’s Hidden Single-Application Mode:
jayparkinsonmd:
Swissmiss tweeted the other day about this capability. I do have to say, I thoroughly enjoy having no distractions from background windows on my desktop.
I’ve been using it since last night and it does help me forget the many distractions I have on the computer. It also keeps things clean - I also combined it with Desktopple to hide icons on my desktop for an ultra clean look.
Wow, Apple actually had to make a program to prevent distractions? How about you just develop some self-discipline?
This is stupid.
…How could so sophisticated a nose fail to detect the cow shit with which this most celebrated estate in Bordeaux fertilizes its vines? A true wine connoisseur, if there were such a thing, would taste the pesticide and manure above all else: he would be not a goûteur de vin but rather a goûteur de merde. But there is no true connoisseurship of wine outside of those who know that the true soul of wine, l’âme du vin, is vinegar. It is in sipping straight those rare aged vinegars designated da bere that one truly tastes wonders: the real thing, an ichor far beyond the jive-juice of that industry of adjectives and pretense which was once the artless and noble drink of artless and noble peasants—peasants nobler and of greater connoissance than the moneyed suckers of today who have been conned into believing that the tasting of wine calls for words other than “good,” “bad,” or “just shut up and drink.”
But, yes, the ever elusive point.
I’m sitting there, and I remember the old days, and I remember the taste of that vinegar, and I remember a thousand other things, and I remember the rarest taste of all: the taste of the breath of illimitableness.
Fuck this world of $35 onions and those who eat them. Fuck this world of pseudo-sophisticated rubes who could not recognize the finer things in life—from a shot of that vinegar to the first wisp of fall through a tree—let alone appreciate them, these rubes who turned New York into a PG-rated mall and who oh so loved it thus.
They were dead. The neighborhood was dead. The city was dead. Even the goddamn century was dead.
My limousine pulled up outside. It looked like a hearse. I decided to live. That is the ever elusive point: the point that eludes us all too often unto the grave.
I was born to smoke opium.Don’t get me wrong: I am against drugs, having long ago forsworn their use and embraced the spiritual path as set forth by The Celestine Prophecy and that guy with the big, shiny forehead. Drugs kill.
(Vanity Fair)
Remember? Best halloween candy ever.
An acquaintance of my mother’s was cleaning out her home. Her now-deceased relative left in her possession his collection of stamps dating from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. This acquaintance was actually going to trash this stamp collection before my mother stopped her. She gave my mother the entire collection–thousands and thousands of stamps. I took a part of the collection up with me.
I think these stamps will be incredible in a frame. I plan to do some really cool things with them.
Here are some shots:
During my visit home this weekend, I shot some pictures of my family’s church.
sawyertrice@myformative.com
