Yes, I’m paying attention

Doodling: It’s good for you! At least according to Applied Cognitive Psychology. And everyone thought I was slacking off — hah! My buildings were helping me focus.

 

Photochaining

I’m dying to find a Photochaining memory card:

“The Photochaining blog is a continuous project where people practice the art of leaving memory cards in public places to be picked up and used by others, who then do likewise.”

To participate:

1. Take funny/original/humoristic/creative photos with your own camera (use a cheap memory card) .

2. Write a note in which:

- you explain in few words the PhotoChaining concept to the “finder”.

- you provide a name* to the memory card (research on PhotoChaining to ensure that the designated memory card name has not already been allocated. If so, choose an other name).

3. Put the memory card and the note in a transparent plastic bag.

4. Leave the plastic bag in a public place.

*Only one word.

Have you found one? If I start a chain, what kind of pictures should I leave behind for the next person to take in? And God, isn’t it cool, these kinds of massive, distributed public art projects nurtured so well by the Internet?

 

Photo safari

Loved the story about “Irrational Geographic,” a project by a group in New Orleans documenting Mardi Gras. Portraiture + a riff on one of publishing’s most recognizable cover designs? Wonderful. National Geographic’s blog parses the images, but I say it’s best to just enjoy the set unmediated at Flickr.

 

Singing the blues

One of the best movies I’ve seen so far this year is “Sita Sings the Blues,” a retelling of the Ramayana set to the Jazz Age stylings of Annette Hanshaw. The animation is delightful — highly recommended. You can watch it free and in full online at Reel 13.

 

Cuts like a knife

I’m loving this scupture of Buddha made out of scissors — it’s at Emporio in Delhi. The rest of the store is decorated with monochromatic scissors — what a cool way to revise such a mundane instrument of the everyday.

 

Home-made wrapping paper!

File this under “tips for the new Depression”:

Make your own wrapping paper with grocery sacks and a bit of tempera paint!

 

How far we’ve come …

From the Dec. 8, 1908, edition of the New York Times:

“Blacks can’t rule, Taft tells south”

That’s a pretty big leap to make in just a century … sometimes, I’m right proud of our country.

 

Flash fiction, scene 1

I’m pondering the two extra half-used rolls of paper perched on the back of the toilet seat when I hear snuffling in the next stall.

“Shit!” a woman exclaims.

The toilet automatically flushes as I zip my pants and rebuckle my belt. For a moment, I reflexively fear mortifying my already-perturbed colleague. But she’s muttering again, and then her severe pointy black heels are tapping, furious and staccato.

Amused, I wash my hands; she emerges from the stall with something in her hands. I’m heading for the hand towels, which hang over the waste basket, but she cuts me off to thrust something deep within the recesses of balled and worried white papers.

I smile my crooked, haphazard smile. “Is everything OK?” She seems like she could use someone being nice to her.

My question hangs in the air for a few tenuous moments; I wipe my hands and discard my towel, then improvise a shrug and head for the door.

“Wait,” she stops me. I turn, heartened. She’s about my age, late twenties, and I think I recognize her as the executive assistant to one of the higher-ups. Her face is quaint, shaped like a little heart, and her liquidy brown eyes are kind.

“I don’t need your fucking pity,” she spits. “So I’m pregnant. So what? Don’t fucking judge me.”

“I … I’m not judging you,” I stuttered. The flecks of black and gold of the bathroom tiles were mesmerizing. “Have you thought about … you know, getting it taken care of?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Who the fuck are you, Planned Parenthood?” she railed. She splashed water on her face and neck, then quietly dabbed herself dry. “Just … don’t tell anyone, will you?”

“No, no, I won’t … I never would.” She huffed out the door as I tried to respond. I smoothed my hair and returned to my desk; later, I saw her at the elevators, and instead of acknowledging me, she emphatically inserted her earbuds and made a show of fiddling with her iPod as if I weren’t there.

 

100 years ago today …

… reports the Times Machine:

The Lighter Side of the Convention

“The National Convention of 1908,” said Perry Heath, formerly Assistant Postmaster General, “will be known undoubtedly as the whiskerless convention.”

Mr. Heath was right. Looking over the convention, one was surprised to find so few men with hirsute adornment.

In the whole National Committee there were only five, and they affected, with one exception, not the full beard, but a sort of goatee growth, that they smoothed with a lingering fondness.

The story continues, with a ribald anecdote about jaundice. My point being: If this kind of witty reportage persisted, if we had more mustache news, more often, maybe the Tribune’s Zell & Co. wouldn’t be so close to the brink of defaulting.

 

Bounce that!

New Girl Talk album, Feed the Animals, allegedly coming tomorrow or Thursday. Sweaty dance party ahoy! Pitchfork has a great interview with Gregg Gillis on the release, digital distribution, and fair use/sampling. 

 

Still searching.

… for a new teapot. Deana suggests the new Clara from Bodum:

I like, I like, but not sure that I need a kettle so much as a capacious pot. Suggestions?

 

Let’s get Mapfaced.

Utterly fascinated by Mapfaced, a sight that lists bar crawls of all stripes — for example, “cool places in the East Village, celebrities included,” “get tanked by Grand Central after work,” or “drink like a writer.” A lot of the lists seem redundant (yeah, the Lower East Side is full of cool and cheap places to drink) or just douchey (does anyone really want to behave like an NYU frat boy?), but a neat idea nonetheless.

 

Affordable art

Among the “meant to do but didn’ts”of this weekend: the Renegade Craft Fair at the McCarren Park Pool and the Affordable Art Fair (which featured, among lots of other stuff, presumably, Lieu Nguyen’s <i>Spring Blossom</i>, above).

Anyone score good deals? Artists to keep an eye out for? 

 

Subway fashion in Queens

A bold choice, perhaps more believable at the Costume Institute Gala than in Rego Park; nonetheless, you have to respect a woman who has the courage to rock a bright-red turban.

 

Ripped from the headlines (100 years ago today)

“Laying down his garden hose, George D. Folkman, janitor of the county Court House, joined in matrimony Miss Mabel Blanche Cutler, the daughter of John C. Cutler, the Governor of Utah, and Thomas Edward Butler, a man of limited means and no social prominence, here this afternoon.”

Brought to you by the stellar Times Machine, and possibly a new daily feature. The news today is so depressing; A1 should carry more (obvious) pronouncements about the status ascribed to figures in New York’s highest social stratosphere.

 

Salmonella? What?

I heart mental_floss: read me!

 

An index …

… to my conversations tonight:

Anonymous donors

Climate change

Creative common

Dorothy Michaels

Fair use

Immigration

Interlopers

Pneumatic tubes

Red zones

Rooftop bars

Spicy crab rolls

Winnie the Pooh

 

Elsewhere, in words

Interesting NYT piece by Somini Sengupta on gated communities in Gurgaon, a business-process-outsourcing just outside Delhi. Although they lack the overtly racial tones these enclaves suggest for many Americans, Sengupta does a pretty good job at teasing out the two vastly different worlds that coexist.

Also noteworthy (though woefully underreported) is a quick report on women and alcoholism in India via the Hindustan Times.

 

Excuses, excuses

Insanity at work + general malaise + the novelty of posting on Twitter + 95 degrees outside = dead blog. Crickets. Ayiieeee! (Also, my social life has been incredibly active these days: Rilo Kiley! Russian Vodka Room! Professional geekery! Caipiroskas and the book club! NYPL tour and cocktails at Library Bar! Exclamations!)

Anyhow, am pledging to write more.

 

Tea in the news

Interesting interview in the Times business section with the head of Bigelow tea — the reporter focuses on how Bigelow is trying to position itself in new media, and indeed, the company’s Web site is rife with info, including recipes, health news, and a blog. Cindi Bigelow also has a YouTube account, where she tells you how to make tea; but don’t worry, she’s not too uptight — she even notes that the “tea police won’t come to your house if you don’t do it right.”