Anodyne

Relevant to my interests. The methodology involves a level of access I'm unlikely to enjoy in this lifetime, but, still.
- posted by cjb @ 9:47 AM

"'It is not the Russians that we quarrel with,'' Mehmet says quietly, 'but their choice in allies. They believe themselves to be infidel atheists, but by their deeds they shall be known; the icy spoor of Leng is upon them, their tools are those described in the Kitab al Azif. We have proof that they have violated the terms of the Dresden Agreement. The accursed and unhallowed stalk the frozen passes of the Himalayas by night, taking all whose path they cross. And will you stopper your ears even as the Russians grow in misplaced confidence, sure that their dominance of these forces of evil is complete? The gates are opening everywhere, as it was prophesied. Last week we flew an F-14C with a camera relay pod through one of them. The pilot and weapons operator are in paradise now, but we have glanced into hell and have the film and radar plots to prove it.'"
- posted by cjb @ 10:37 AM

Hide n' seek FAIL. (Kato Cat via L.)
- posted by cjb @ 10:53 AM

"Has another company ever come out with a high-concept, big-production 'brand ad' and then, just a few months later, turned around and utterly trashed it? I don’t think so. What we learn from this is not just that Zuckerberg is a bullshit artist who’s most insincere when he’s sounding most sincere — we already knew that — but that for Zuckerberg, and for Facebook, 'sincere' and 'insincere' are equally meaningless terms. Everything is bullshit. A chair levitating in a forest and a ballerina dancing on a dinner table are equally fake. They’re fabrications, as are the emotions that they conjure up in us. It’s all advertising."

[....]

"Every object, at least in our perception of it, carries its antithesis. Behind the plenitude symbolized by the vase we sense an emptiness: the wilted bouquet rotting in a landfill. And so it is with the tools of communication. When we look at them we sense not only the possibility of connection but also, as a shadow, the inevitability of loneliness. An empty mailbox. A sheet of postage stamps. A telephone in its cradle. The dial of a radio. The dark screen of a television in the corner of a room. A cell phone plugged into an outlet and recharging, like a patient in a hospital receiving a transfusion. The melancholy of communication devices is rarely mentioned, but it has always haunted our homes."

I had a Facebook account for a year or two, then, tired of cropping digital cotton for Marky-Mark, deactivated it. Zuckerberg's contempt for users informs every decision Facebook makes -- nonstop revisions to the interface; dwindling privacy options; ever-increasing coercive exhortations to "share" -- and I'm never going back.
- posted by cjb @ 5:11 PM

"'Hello agent John, it’s client Dan,' commented the pecunious scribbler. 'I’m worried about new book Inferno. I think critics are going to say it’s badly written.'"
- posted by cjb @ 6:33 PM

Study for a picture. I'm glad someone invented this, even if its color profile's off. The puzzle pattern is pretty simplistic -- I count only two different piece shapes -- but I bet I can fix, or at least conceal that, once I actually locate the object.
- posted by cjb @ 3:06 PM

Recent reading (11pm-230am, waiting for dough to rise):

Clark Coolidge, A Book Beginning What and Ending Away

Don Carpenter, A Couple of Comedians
- posted by cjb @ 9:22 AM

Thoughtful answers, esp. to the question of constructions, etc. vanishing into images, but the real ACT (Aesthetically Claimed Thing) here is the interviewer's awesome deer-in-headlights expression, as his simple questions repeatedly lead out into deep water.
- posted by cjb @ 10:07 PM

YVR -> SEA -> PDX

A few days to walk in the sun, locate some professional baking tools, & try and capture some things I saw a while ago. An ancient volcanic neck; the Columbia River; a cemetery. "I begin by not photographing..." Back soon.
- posted by cjb @ 8:15 AM