“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?

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.

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

“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.

“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.

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.