January 2012
50 posts
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“We have our Arts so we won’t die of Truth.”
– Ray Bradbury
MULTITASKING: IS IT REALLY COST EFFECTIVE?
If you’re trying to focus on a dozen different things, you’re not really focusing an anything. Just sayin’.
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Getting Ahead of Things
Came out of work this afternoon, and the air smelled like March; slightly sweet fragrance of humus mingled with wood smoke from somebody’s nearby fireplace. Love it!
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Hoppiness is a Cold Beer
Trader Joe’s has a new entry in the craft beer market (Caveat: People tend to use the word “craft” loosely.) It’s “Josephbrau (sic) Plznr (sic) Czech Style Lager”. All those “sics” aren’t hiccups from having downed four bottles. Anyway that would be “hic”.
…Hic!
It tastes pretty good, especially considering the price:...
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Unwelcome Back
The recent untimely death of Robert Hegyes aka Juan Epstein is bringing tears to the eyes of late Boomers who love the sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter”, and/or are waxing nostalgic about the good old days when sitcoms were sitcoms.
I don’t share their feelings, and I confess that I was always baffled by the show’s success.
The ostensible ‘star’ Gabe Kaplan was...
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“I wouldn’t let that family near me with a sharp stick, let alone a sword.”
– Keith Richards on Mick Jagger’s knighthood
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Notes on Photography
In 1825 photography’s ability to capture reality was revolutionary. However, it wasn’t long before photographers learned that the medium is more than merely a means of recording, but also of reshaping and reinterpreting; an art medium as much as a photochemical process. Nineteenth Century photographers learned that, like every other art medium, theirs can be manipulated to express the individual...
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Found Images
These are are photos of photos. The originals were printed in magazines and have been torn, bent, crumpled and folded.
Then they’ve been photographed in low light, with a shallow depth-of-field so that various parts of the image fall in or out of fucus and the distortion of the figures caused by the tearing, bending and crumpling seems natural.
I have been using this process as a...
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Newt Gingrich, Altar Boy
Newt Gingrich has supposedly converted to Catholicism. As somebody who was raised in the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church, I don’t see how that is possible for a man with two divorces. It is a matter of Catholic doctrine that a consummated marriage can not be disolved, so that any marriage subsequent to the first is not valid. Ergo, a person living in marriage number three is living in a state...
Whenever somebody gives me an unsolicited ‘don’t worry’, I figure it’s time to worry.
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there must be some way out of here
“Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
– George Burns; 1896-1996
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There will be a meeting to plan our next meeting.
In the nine years that I’ve worked here, I can count the meetings that actually mattered in some small way on the fingers of one hand.
And I’ll have a finger left over. (Guess which one.)
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'Forget it, Jake. It's Bridgeport'
NEWS ITEM: Chicago — Seven White teens have been charged in connection with the brutal beating and robbery of a 17-year-old Asian boy. Throughout the incident, the perpetrators shouted racial epthets.
Six kids bravely kicked the stuffing out of one kid. Proud of their work, one of perpetrators videoed the incident and posted it on You Tube. There we can see that the victim seems to be as...
Expecting to fly
Buffalo Springfield (Neil...
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Pity the Nazis. They deprived themselves of...
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Piddling Marines
We (supposedly) don’t willfully desecrate the corpses of fallen enemies, which is one reason why we are (supposedly) morally superior to those who do.
That American servicemen in the twenty first century would do so is bad enough. The fact that they were were so fu¢king stupid that they posted a video of it on the internet is cause for extra worry. It means that the Republic is being...
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a little night music*
insurance
commerce
transportation
pedestrian crossing
*With apologies to W. A. Mozart
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maxwell street
Maxwell Street, Chicago, circa 1930
As recently as 1994, Chicago’s storied Maxwell Street looked pretty much the same as the above illustration. It was a more or less informal affair; an amalgam Ma & Pa shops and street kiosks and carts. It was a place where you could get a great deal on a suit and a Chicago Style Hot Dog (the best in the world) and just about any small consumer item...
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