Blogworthy

Random News Story for Saturday

2009-02-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

I know that this is sort of a random post, especially after being so silent. But I needed to say to the world that I am horrified by this news story.

Abortion is not really one of my more passionately held political or religious viewpoints. To put it simply: politically, I believe in a woman's right to choose within some reasonable frame of time that I'm not educated enough to determine (and seems relatively arbitrary anyway, according to my slight knowledge).

Morally, the act horrifies me. And although I'm certainly not generalizing the above incident to all uses of abortion, this case should horrify you as well.

That is all.

-Sean

ROFL.

2008-06-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

We were revolutionaries!

What was your first screenname? Mine, I’m almost ashamed to admit was “Daslyfox.” Ha. “Sly Fox”, get it? So why “Da”? Simple. “Da bomb.”

I know. Soooo "I'm-a-loser-1997." Because that’s what year it was that my parents first got the internet. We were surely behind the curve—I mean most of the people who resembled friends (who really is a friend in middle school?) were already online. All of them were already wearing badges stating their self-chosen aliases in attempt to draw a black line around their identity and give people a clearer idea of how they wanted to be seen. Most of these were not the typical bread and butter ones (SeanFox123), of course many of them had a youthful, creative “twist” to them. I won’t embarrass anyone; I don’t remember others’ screennames anyway.

We were all teenagers, eager to carve out a social presence on the net. I sought friends and allies by participating in AOL chatrooms and cheap-o online gaming communities back when those AOL communities were innovative, or at least virtually monopolizing the online community, and none of us had any idea how this all worked.

It occurred to me when I was noting some friend’s screennames that if I were 40 and instant messaging with a young associate in my company across gChat or AIM after friending them on Facebook (I’m a hip and “with-it” executive), their (our) screennames would strike me as infantile. And yet, to me, their friend, they’re nothing. These images are only digital doppelgangers or glances of the people I know and love from a time in their lives I didn’t know them—when they picked their last screenname.

Now we can “safely” use our real names on Facebook or gChat; maybe we’re too grown-up to want those fronts up anymore in any case—too grown-up to want people to think we’re interesting or cool based on a carefully chosen array of letters and digits. We haven’t totally given up yet; we are still attempting clever e-mail identities, blog titles or MySpace “names” (sorry, I hate MySpace, I have no idea what it’s actually called when you can pick a clever alias).

Do these levels of self, or more accurately, these public identifications have precedent? To my knowledge, only with pennames by great authors and fake IDs and passports. Nicknames don’t count, after all. Nicknames come from friends and social circumstances. We’ve named ourselves. And whether my friends have felt that I have been accurately portrayed by anyone of my hundreds of assumed names, or even by my current screenname, DJSharpie27 (the only one I currently have that I have that is truly disingenuous)* is not important. It was our foray, our invention, and our mysterious mutual attraction to this duality that generated the excitement and interest that led our technology to where it is. Despite it all, I don’t care what Bill, Larry, or Sergey or Mark say. We built Web 2.0.

LOL!

*For those who are interested, I want to be a DJ, I love Sharpies, and since the screenname was taken, I used 27, a number I’ve always fancied for some relatively unremembered reason. I think it was a fortune cookie from the China Garden in my hometown during a dinner celebrating the completion of the Homecoming float…one of the best times of my life. I think that’s where it came from anyway.

Artomatic 2008

2008-06-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to Artomatic 2008. Artomatic (tagline: by artists, for everyone) is a cross-section of artists from all over the DC-metropolitan area. It features photography, ceramics, sculptures, paintings, crafts, sketch-comedy, cabaret and even a tattoo parlour. I went because some former coworkers of mine, Jim Tretick (Jim's site is down, otherwise I'd link) and Matthew Dailey, were exhibiting.

Most of the art is modern or pop, so other than the photography and ceramics (which I just love in general), there wasn't that much I really liked. I think the exhibit that affected me the most was actually Caitlin Phillips' Rebound Designs. Ms. Phillips takes the covers of old books and turns them into handbags. Given my reverence for books, even old, decrepit ones, I'm not sure if this is the most awesome idea I've ever seen or sacrilege.

Still, it was an enjoyable evening, with plenty to see. Last night we watched a sketch comedy group perform, and checked out the finalists of the second annual Sunday Source Peeps Diorama Contest.

More importantly, I think, is the sympathetic environment and helping hand Artomatic extends to local artists. Artomatic is growing in renown in the DC area, and thus attracts an audience full of potential buyers. In addition to giving them a gallery venue in which to display their art (many of these artists do not have their own shops, or even work full time as artists), Artomatic artists and members give tips and pointers to new artists (including how to set up an affecting (and effective) display). From talking to Jim, I got the impression that Artomatic is a big family - extraordinarily welcoming of new faces, but also very close. Artists look out for each other, answer questions about their friends' and neighbors' work

I'm not sure how likely it is that DC will ever have a big art scene, but Artomatic seems like a good start. Definitely make the time to visit before it closes on June 15.

I Write Because

2008-05-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

I write to alleviate tumultuously bereaved humanity;
impregnate optimistic beams of hope in the lives of
all those miserably divested,

.......

I write to wholesomely free the innocuously
impeccable; from chains of barbaric slavery; and
insanely tyrannical incarceration,

........

I write to wholeheartedly divulge the innermost of my
feelings to this unending planet; walk shoulder to
shoulder and with profound equanimity lingering in my
crystalline eyes; abreast my comrades marching towards
irrefutable righteousness,

.......

I write to incessantly broaden my perspective about
this enthralling earth; enshroud each iota of my
bedraggled demeanor; with the everlasting spirit of
timelessness,

.......

Most importantly; I write because my heart wants me
to; astoundingly proliferating into a mountain of
tantalizing seduction; even as hell rained down from
sky to forever lick the earth.

- Nikhil Parekh,
I Write Because

The Eroica Effect

2008-04-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday my friend Rachel and I were lucky enough to see the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Manze at the George Mason University Center for the Arts. The performance centered on Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, Eroica, but the full symphony was not performed until after the intermission. Instead, M. Manze and the talented orchestra first introduced the audience to Beethoven and his muses.

The evening began with Mozart's Overture to the Magic Flute. Beethoven arrived in Vienna, Austria (M. Manze seemed amused that this performance took place in Vienna, Virginia) in 1792. Mozart had died the previous year, but his opera, The Magic Flute, was still widely played. Beethoven had hoped to study with Mozart, but instead, studied with several other composers.

He also had to work for a living. Many rising composers did side work writing dance music for Vienna's many balls. They weren't recognized for their work, as it was considered background music, but it did help pay the bills. For Beethoven, it was also a source of inspiration.

The second piece performed was a modest Contredanse. As Manze wrote in the program notes:

What particularly appealed to Beethoven about this lowly dance form was that it knew no social barriers. Anybody could partake in a Contredanse. Prince danced alongside pauper, servant with master. It chimed with Beethoven's instinctive adherence to the Liberte-egalite-fraternite ideals of the French Revolutions - and his interested in Napoleon (1769-1821). Beethoven was a huger admierer of Napoleon, the outsider (from the island of Corsica) of relatively low social origin who had become primus inter pares of France's ruling class through his skill as a military general, a politician, and a constitutional reformer.

While Beethoven was still struggling, one of the masters he took up with was Haydn, who had been a friend of Mozart and was emerging as his successor. He had just returned from extensive in England, which seems to have led him to use folk music as the backbone for most of his later work. Haydn may have been the impetus for Beethoven's use of the Contredanse to end his ballet, Prometheus, which helped make him famous.

Haydn, now a wealthy man, nearing the end of his career, was able to stretch himself musically. As M. Manze put it: 'Haydn opened the door that no one knew existed.

To illustrate this, the third piece of the night was the Prelude to the Creation; Die Vorstellung des Chaos (The Representation of Chaos), an overture in C minor in slow tempo, written in sonata form. It is beautiful.

This is the moment before the Creation, and the music depicts the void trembling on the edge of genesis. I could almost see the inky blackness hunching and bunching, as if in the midst of labor pains. It bends and folds, grows thin, at times almost translucent, hinting at the existence to be had. But nothing appears. The air shivers with power, but the audience must wait until the next movement, No. 1. Im Anfange schuf Gott Himmel und Erde (In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth), for relief from the building anticipation.

Now, finally, Manze and the orchestra give us a taste of Eroica, but just a taste, since the second half of the performance will comprise solely of the symphony. For now, M. Manze wants to introduce the musical revolution, begun by Haydn when he opened the door, realized by Beethoven who steps through the door.

Manze has this to say about Eroica:

Beethoven's third symphony is indisputably one of the greatest and most important symphonies ever written. Its composition followed a year of crisis for the thirty-two year old composer. Faced with inevitable deafness and plagued by depression, he wrote the so-called 'Hiligenstadt Testament'. This letter, addressed to his brothers but never sent, was discovered after his
death. It shows Beethoven contemplating suicide and describes the moment he chose heroism over cowardice: "The only thing that held me back was my art." Soon he was talking of a new way" "I am not happy with my works so far. Henceforth I shall take a new path." One year later, Eroica shows him on that path... Beethoven presented his fully formed genius to the public's gaze for the first time.

By offering a sample of Eroica, Manze is able to segue into the final piece before the intermission. I wish I could say definitively what it was, but Manze spoke too quickly for me to catch the German name. I want to say that the name begins 'Ein', but he was little known, so Google gives me no leads. The symphony might have been titled 'Symphony for the End of Time,' or that might have simply Manze's description. It is not mentioned at all in the program, but it was also powerful, and vibrantly demonstrated the shift in musical composition following the premiere of Eroica. Music was no longer intended simply to 'edify, amuse and transport' the audience, but rather to challenge and discomfort them.

But finally, the time comes for Eroica. I'm sorely tempted to quote the rest of program, as it really is illuminating, and Manze knows the material far better than I.

Eroica contains four movements. The first sounds like a battle, the second is a funeral march, and the third is a celebration. The central theme of the finale is Beethoven's Contredanse, at it is played as a fugue. Fugues are a technique whereby the composer allows one section, or voice, to develop a theme, and then moves it throughout the orchestra, as each section develops it in turn. In Manze's phrasing, this is the 'democratization' of the orchestra, as most sections are allowed to to play the theme. While Beethoven didn't develop the fugue, or even make it popular (the Baroque composers did that), he use it to enhance the politics of his message.

The total effect of Eroica is an exploration of democracy and the equality of humanity. Beethoven believed in great men, certainly (Eroica means 'hero', and the symphony was originally named for Napoleon), but it was their actions and inner qualities that made them great, not their birth or social status. We are all equal in battle, death and joy, and it is only by acting heroically that we are able to distinquish ourselves. Perhaps I should say instead, we all enter these states equally, or we are made equal in our common experience of these states, but we do not leave them equally. Battle, Death, and Joy provide the moments that allow the meritous to rise.

Perhaps this seems like a non sequitor, but Eroica reminded me of Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party", in limited respects. Mansfield's work also deals with death, and joy, or at least amusement, but ends differently. Laura, the central character, begins her day drawn to the workmen setting up the marqee for her mother's party, admiring their humor, their cheer, their physique (p. 61). She asks herself 'Why couldn't she have workmen for her friends rather than the silly boys she danced with and who came to Sunday night supper? She would get on much better with men like these' (p. 62) She decides that she rejects class distinctions, and so takes a big bite of her bread-and-butter, feeling 'just like a work girl' (p. 63).

When she hears that a workman man living in the hovels down the road has been killed in an accident, she attempts to stop the party. However, her mother, matriarch of the family and keeper of the family fortunes (and status) intends to initiate Laura into the requirements of her class.

She is dressed appropriately and then helps act as host for the party, welcoming and then bidding the guests good night. At the end of the night, Laura attempts to reestablish some feeling of common humanity with the workman's family, so her mother indulges her by allowing her to bring leftover sandwiches from the party as a condolence gift. Laura dutifully decends the hill, still dressed in her party finery, only to discover that the world of the poor is a scary place (p. 79). It is dark, and unfamiliar. In How to Read Like a Professor, Foster describes this as a decent into hell, much like Orpheus. But instead of recognizing the commonality of death, Laura flees (p. 82). Her class, and the comforting presence of her old brother, allow her to so, this time. Eventually, however, all who enter, stay, in the underworld.

Beethoven has no such illusions - death is inevitable. However, he also seems to believe in the power of action, and of art. The lesson of the Contredanse is that 'art makes us free, equal, fraternal, immortal, heroic.'

Manze ends his program thus: 'As Mendelssohn reminds us: "The thoughts which are expresse... by music... are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite." Beethoven was a composer who was able to take powerful, subversive ideas, and not only express them, but revolutionize our understanding of, and interaction with, music. In another art form, he could have been a Shakespeare, or a Picasso. I've long enjoyed his music, and Eroica has only served to deepen my admiration and sense of wonder.

- M

Year Zero/In Rainbows

2008-03-18T11:57:00.001-07:00

As a prelude, the Fresh Air of 13 March served to get this post (hovering since Year Zero was released last Spring) out of my head. It’s worth listening to.

If you don’t know that the music industry is changing, you’re hiding under a rock. Everyone ought to be aware by now that soon, the very meaning of music as a media and the business will be drastically different from how it is now, especially how it was two years ago. How we purchase music and, to me, more saliently, how we listen to it is undergoing a major revolution.

There are three major examples of this that have recently profoundly influenced my relationship with the industry—Girl Talk is one just by himself, but there has also been the release of Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero and Radiohead’s In Rainbows.

I love Girl Talk, and an entry on him is coming soon, but for now, I want to address the latter 2. Both albums are similar in that they were released under conditions that were nothing short of revolutionary. For the full story of Year Zero’s release, go to the Wikipedia entry or for the full DETAILS, go to the NIN wiki and for In Rainbows, go to the Wikipedia entry or check out the backlog “In-Rainbows” blog-tags on Radiohead_At/Ease (many of my later links are cribbed from this, the best Radiohead resource on the net).

Basically, Nine Inch Nails leaked tracks on USB keys that were left in restrooms and such containing, along with a track or two, some kind of coded or hidden message that led you to a website that had further hidden or coded messages or some other kind of statement coinciding with the concept of the album. All of it worked together to tell a narrative that registered as if we are all unknowingly trapped in an oppressed society, drugged on some undetectable substance by an authoritarian government. They didn’t just decimate the fourth wall, they decimated all four of them at once—the album’s release blurred the lines between the artist and the audience, reality and a nightmarish dreamscape, perceptions of reality and certainty, and most importantly (in my opinion) self-expression and public consumption/social meaning.

Radiohead’s release held a much more limited meaning artistically, but in the sense of the business, their model is incredibly relevant. One initial report put album sales at a staggering at 1.2 million, although these numbers were later thrown into doubt. Still it seems, that the average listener paid somewhere around 8 dollars, but theoretically only 2/5 downloaders paid. Those numbers are in doubt, as Jonny Greenwood points out in a more recent interview. And this is on top of the stolen ones.

The first conclusion I’m drawing here is that the release of albums is getting much, MUCH more creative of late; there have been other marketing ploys of late—international bonus tracks, iTunes incentives, etc. But Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead achieved unprecedented levels of media buzz and fan exuberance. One reviewer (Pitchfork) of In Rainbows put it thusly—

Like many music lovers of a certain age, I have a lot of warm memories tied up with release days. I miss the simple ritual of making time to buy a record. I also miss listening to something special for the first time and imagining, against reason, the rest of the world holed up in their respective bedrooms, having the same experience. Before last Wednesday, I can't remember the last time I had that feeling. I also can't remember the last time I woke up voluntarily at 6 a.m. either, but like hundreds of thousands of other people around the world, there I was, sat at my computer, headphones on, groggy, but awake, and hitting play.

So these creative releases are certainly heightening the interest in the album and the interaction with the band, as Trent Reznor pointed out by saying in an interview on the Spiral (quoted from Wikipedia, for the Spiral—registration required): “'marketing’ is an inaccurate description of the alternate reality [marketing], and that it is ‘not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record - it IS the art form ...’”.

The second conclusion is a terrible one for the future of music, in my opinion. Despite this fan excitement, despite its ostensibly free release, In Rainbows was STILL stolen (DISCLOSURE: and I say this as a hypocrite, after trying to buy the album properly for $10, there was a huge internet snafu due to China issues—so I torrented it like so many other people).

The third conclusion here is that two of the most innovative albums of the last year or so were innovative NOT because of the artfulness of their musicality, but for the artfulness of the business surrounding their release. Indeed, musically, I was disappointed by both albums, although I think it had more to do with me being caught up in that aforementioned fan exuberance than it did with a lack of quality on the part of the albums themselves (I passionately love In Rainbows). But as Trent Reznor pointed out, the ideas concerning the release become some sort of meta-statement. The release became the album and the art itself.

Clearly, we as a society are rethinking what it means to purchase and appreciate music. And as Thom Yorke and David Byrne pointed out in their Wired interview, the very value of music is at stake. I’m curious to see where this will go in the next few years.

As an epilogue, and proof that Reznor and Nine Inch Nails are not letting up, Ghosts I-IV is getting RAVE reviews (VSL, RStone), and they're still getting innovative with fan interaction.

-Sean

Happy St. Patty's Day!

2008-03-17T12:57:00.001-07:00

Just in case you were wondering where you should spend today celebrating, MSN has a guide to 'America's Most Authentic Irish Pubs'.

Personally, I'm happy with my own choice, Pat Troy's, one of my favorite bars ever, and owned and operated by a man who sounds like a leprechaun.

- M

A Poem for Thursday

2008-03-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

An Echo from Willow-Wood
Christina Rossetti, ca. 1870

Two gazed into a pool, he gazed and she,
Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,
Pale and reluctant on the water's brink,
As on the brink of parting must be,
Each eyed the other's aspect, she and he,
Each felt one hungering heart leap up and sink,
Each teated bitterness which both must drink,
There on the brink of life's dividing sea.
Lilies upon the surface, deep below
Two wistful faces craving for each,
Resolute and reluctant without speech: -
A sudden ripple made the faces flow,
One moment joined, to vanish out of reach:
So those hearts joined, and ah were parted so.

Reproduced in Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor

- M

When to Walk Away

2008-03-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to blog about something more cheerful—like War & Peace or my passionate and newfound hatred of David Baldacci, or even about the glorious uncheerfulness that is Garfield Minus Garfield. HOWEVER, I am compelled…FORCED even to vent about what I’ve learned from Hillary Clinton.

This article was inspired by two things; the horrendously arrogant talk of offering the VP slot to Obama and a new column by Andrew Sullivan. First, lest anyone accuse me of having rose-colored glasses concerning Obama’s politics, I don’t think he’s been much better on tailoring himself for voters than Hillary has, and here’s my proof.

Should Hillary Clinton give up? (Unfortunately) no. You see, somehow, she keeps pulling some magical rabbit out of her hat and somehow, she stays in the game. But saying “somehow” is a big stretch. Afterall, it’s only through dirty campaign tactics, blatant lies, silly melodramatic accusations to the press, and hypocritical straw-man attacks on Obama that she has kept herself viable. And why do I say that? It comes down to the simple explanation that she has nothing that Obama doesn’t have. What experience does she have? Since when being first lady all of a sudden make you an expert on the Presidency? ESPECIALLY as national security matters are concerned! Moreover, as a Senator, Hillary has not particularly distinguished herself as an enlightened decision-maker. In fact, the best example of this is the Iraq War. She supports the war in 2003, and to this day STILL refuses to account for the switch in her viewpoint (IS there an appropriate explanation? Maybe there is! WHO KNOWS?). Furthermore, her ridiculously hypocritical attacks on Obama in what she callsNAFTAGatethe link is an excellent analysis of the whole affair, in my opinion) are just continuing proof of her gut-wrenchingly awful campaign tactics.

And now, havingdragged Obama into the mudwith her (to Obama’s detriment, and a decision by him that I’m not the least bit supportive of), she continues to tear this party apart simply because she’s capable of doing so and the cost of it isn’t too great in pursuit of her dream. As Andrew Sullivan says:

They have been thinking of this moment since they were in college and being a senator or an ex-president or having two terms in the White House are not sufficient to satiate their sense of entitlement. Even if they have to put their own party through a divisive, bitter, possibly fatal death match, they will never give up. Their country, their party . . . none of this matters compared with them.

And some people might think, “What about Obama? Why shouldn’t he walk away?” A) he’s leading in the delegate count, and B) he has motivated and pulled out voters the Clintons never could have, boding well for a Democratic victory in November. Clinton is losing (barely, I understand) in the delegate count, and is guaranteed to alienate a significantly large and probably decisive portion of the voters in November. To me, both of those reasons are enough.

Really, the policy differences between Obama and Clinton are relatively miniscule. I mean, sure there are significant ones like health care, or smaller ones like Cuba policy, but when it comes down to it, we’re not choosing a candidate for their policy, we’re choosing a candidate for their leadership ability. Maybe Obama won’t be as good as I’m hoping, but that’s part of what he’s inspired in me—the idea that he is; and I believe his experience, however allegedly limited it may be, is enough to demonstrate his viability. Clinton has not demonstrated anything more to me than a desperate machine hungry for power, even if I have her wrong and she means well, she hasn’t been able to convince me of that. And one way or another, she’s driving this race, her party, and, in my opinion, this whole country into the ground.

So this is what I’ve learned from Hillary Clinton. As grand or well-meaning as my goals might be, I’m resolving to always know or be aware of when it’s time to walk away.

-Sean

Project Runway, Season 4

2008-03-06T07:01:00.000-08:00

Another season of Project Runway has come and gone.

My love affair with Project Runway began only recently, in October, one day while I was home sick. My choices of inevitable midday rerun marathon were Law and Order (the original) and Project Runway, Season 3. Had SVU or Criminal Intent been playing, things might have turned out differently. Luckily too, the episode that was playing was the haute couture challenge, and Jeffrey designed that amazing dress.

I've ignored fashion these 20-odd years because its never seemed to make sense; so idiocyncratic and drifting in the vagaries of its own hot air. 'Who wears that stuff?' I'd ask. 'That's not the point' was the reply, which of course didn't make any sense - it's clothing, what is the point if not to wear it?

Of course, Jeffrey's yellow- and red-plaid confection was the least 'wearable' of the lot (altho I totally would, and the fact that I look horrible in yellow be damned), but that's why it's fashion: it is not mere clothing, but a reinterpretation of clothing. What is clothing? Why do we wear it? Why do we cut and drape certain articles of clothing in certain ways? What does it mean to cover our bodies this way? How else can we design clothing? These were the questions I found myself asking while watching the model float down the runway in both Paris and New York.

In answering these questions, I had to think about more than simply the cloth creation; I also had to think about the verb to clothe. Merriam Webster's defininition:

1a: to cover with or as if with cloth
2: to express or enhance by suitably significant language
3: to endow especially with power or a quality

Clothing can be so much more than covering from the elements, or for modesty. Project Runway (via Saturn)'s goal is 'rethinking design'. True fashion does the same. It makes a statement, expresses a point of view. At its best it reinterprets our understanding of our bodies, and of their presentation to society.

Put another way, true fashion is the cubism of clothing.

I used to, if not actively dislike, at least disregard, Pablo Picasso and the Cubists. Their art just didn't make any sense (a bad habit, I know). But then a few years ago, I was reading a book on string theory or space-time continuums (possibly The Elegant Universe, included in this year's List). The author was trying to explain the concept of multiple dimensions, and how we would perceive them, if we were able to. To do so, he brought up Picasso, and the Cubists; explaining that they would take a familiar subject - fruit, a woman, a guitar - and reimagine it as if it was shifting through space and time, and then paint that shift onto the canvas. That clicked; suddenly, Picasso made sense (multi-dimensional space I was actually already on board with - I read Flatland in high school. What does it say about me that a beyond 3-d world is easy to understand, but one of the greates artists of the 20th century bewilders me?).

I had a similar 'ah ha!' moment on my couch that day in October 2007. True story - Picasso's Portrait of Dora Maar popped into my head while I was thinking about Jeffrey's dress. I'm not sure if it was the similarity in colors and patterns, the flirty coyness, the lighthearted celebration, or what, but the two are indelibly linked in my mind.

I still pay very little attention to fashion (no subscription to Vogue yet!), but I'm learning to appreciate it. It still seems incredibly arbitrary, and I really don't understand why so much of it is so expensive; I get fine attention to detail and only the highest quality goods, but when so much of it seems only to say 'I've got more money than you', I realize that I have far more important things to spend my time thinking about (like alleviating poverty. Maybe we could jobs handcrafting Prada bags to starving orphans in Bangladesh - is it still considered a sweatshop if only the finest Italian leather is used?)

I'm also disappointed by the lack of importance of men's fashion - and I know this is something that upsets Sean as well. Ancient history, and Greek and Roman sculptures, tell us that the male form was highly celebrated. Why not now? Is it only appreciated in its nude form? Surely there is a way to design clothing for men that makes them look like the heros and gods we all want them to be. Now it's the women who wear armor. (Not that I'm sure I'd really want to see this, and I know no guy friend of mine would consider wearing any of it, but I dare a designer to create a feminined outfit for men - if women are wearing menswear-inspired clothing, what would the reverse look like?)

But these concerns will probably not end my new-found interest in fashion. I love Project Runway too much. Each year the designers are better, Tim is always witty and understated, Heidi, gorgeous. My plan for surviving the 'auf' season (ha ha) is to track the designers I like, and save money to buy their designs. Of the three finalists, I'm most excited about Jillian Lewis. I love her clothes. They are so strong and innovative. She somehow turns menswear-inspired design (a hot trend) on its head; instead of simply imitating the boys, her designs use masculine cuts and styles to compliment and emphasize the wearer's femininity, perfect for today's woman. The judges worried that she doesn't yet have a distinctive identity yet, but I'm not sure I agree, or at least it doesn't bother me. I think her clothes will fit my many moods.

Christian is also an incredibly talented designer, and I'm happy with his win, but his is not my style. I appreciate his 'fierceness' just as I appreciated Jeffrey's punk sensibility, but I don't think that I have the laissez-faire attitude those looks require. Rami is only good for evening wear. His gowns are always beautifully crafted, but I disagree with the judges in thinking he can put together more than a one-note collection. Whenever he steps away from evening gowns, his designs lack real innovation. The weaving in his tops didn't impress me so much as remind me of those seatbelt bags, which is cool in an accessory, but eww in a shirt (sorry for the lack of links; Bravo plays the photo gallery in Flash, so saving individual pictures is difficult). As a final gripe, the colors he uses are INCREDIBLY hard to wear.

It will be interesting to see where all three of this year's finalists end up. Christian wants to start his own studio, and I know Jillian already has, but I'm not sure about Rami. I guess this is how Bravo gets people to read the blogs and watch videos the rest of the year.

Blasphemy?

2008-02-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

You decide.

My guess, Sean will have some definite opinions.

Hat tip: Tyler Cowen of the always interesting Marginal Revolution

- M

Comics, etc.

2008-02-28T09:18:00.000-08:00

Two links:

Garfield minus Garfield. Andrew's right, Garfield's been off my Sunday morning comics required reading list for years, but I actually enjoyed these.

And don't forget to get your daily monsters.

Hat tip: VSL

- M

How Do You Say 'Those Who Live In Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones' in Spanish?

2008-02-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

Architecture Quick Links

Madrid

Liverpool

- M

War & Frickin' Peace

2008-02-23T07:15:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, I’m Sean. Just as a brief introduction, I’m in China. So if I seem out of touch with reality, it’s because my reality is invariably different from yours!

The Awesomeosity Project, hereafter abbreviated TAP, was birthed in a fit of hilariousness in front of the National Archives in Februaryish of 2007 by my then-new-friend-now-close-friend Brandon (the Originator) and since then, with the nurturing of myself (the Catalyst) and Mariel (who doesn’t have a nickname yet but will before long, I’m sure) it has developed into a full-blown philosophy about art, life, but especially yourself.

We’ll discuss this more as time goes on, but for now I want to kick this thing off with an appreciative note to the Classics of literature. Most people write these books off as longwinded and boring. We’ve all had our bad experiences with Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, The Mill on the Floss, and so many others, yes?

Well, it’s time we stopped razzing them, in my opinion. We’re all grown up now. Let’s give them another shot. As part of my work on the other half of TAP, The List, I have been reading War & Peace. Now, my love of classic literature is not terribly old, but is not terribly recent either. My three favorite authors are Twain, Dostoevsky, and Shakespeare, who will be counted as a writer rather than a playwright here, at least. As you may know, a new edition of War & Peace was just released by the two people considered to be the best Russian-English translators of our time, the married couple Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. In the introduction, Pevear quotes with:

In 1954, Bertolt Brecht wrote a note on “Classical Status as an Inhibiting Factor” that puts the question nicely, “What gets lost,” he says of the bestowing of classical status on a work (he is speaking of works for the theater), “is the classic’s original freshness, the element of surprise…of newness, of productive stimulus that is the hallmark of such works. The passionate quality of a great masterpiece is replaced by stage temperament, and where the classics are full of fighting spirit, here the lessons taught the audience are tame and cozy and fail to grip.” --p. x

And yet, we have to remember that War & Peace WAS once new. Pevear later says “War and Peace is a work of art, and if it succeeds, it cannot be in spite of its formal deficiencies, but only because Tolstoy created a new form that was adequate to his vision” (p. xi). We must remember in taking on War & [frickin’] Peace that what we are reading was shocking and revolutionary, or at least interesting to those that came before us. We have to read it with fresh eyes that do not see the thickness of the binding but the writings of the author (or at least translations of them), the machinations of the plot, and the strengths/failures/plights/desires of the characters. This is why we read ANY book.

I’ve found it to be true so far about several books, including Following the Equator by Mark Twain, Demons and The Idiot by Dostoevsky, and I’m very quickly finding it to be true about War & Peace. I simply CANNOT put it down. This is a terrible problem to have with a 1300 page novel because when you can’t put down a typical 2-300 page novel, at least you finish it eventually and can go to sleep or do something else constructive. War & Peace simply DOESN’T END. I have broken my New Year’s resolution to go to bed before 12 almost every night since I started reading it because when 12am roles around, and I’m deep into hating Nikolai Rostov or falling in love with Prince Andrei or laughing merrily at the exploits of the rascally loveable Denisov, it’s like a ball and chain tied to my arm (it’s about as heavy as one too), and I can’t put it down. In fact, at page 410 right now, I want to finish it as quickly as possible because I think I might just plow right through it a second time. I’m in LOVE with this book!

Read it! You will be WELL-rewarded. 15 pages a day easily puts you through the whole thing, introduction to endnotes in three months, and before long, you’ll find yourself reading far more than 15 pages a day. It’s simply engaging—and a perfect example if how a classic novel can still be fresh and relevant over 100 years after it was first-written.

There is a short article in Newsweek about the new translation here, and you can also go to a suite of stories on NPR, including an interview with the translators and a story comparing their translation to another translation that has come out quite recently. I encourage you to check it out. War & Peace always seems like a task not worth attacking to anyone who has glanced at the three-inch binding. But it reads lightly, beautifully, and gracefully, and I think you’ll find it much more refreshing than you expected.

-Sean

Blood on the Moon

2008-02-21T17:37:00.000-08:00

This is really just a quick post, but the lunar eclipse last night was SO COOL! It started at about 9ish, and by 10 the Moon was turning this amazing red. I've seen orange moons, I've seen yellow moons, I've seen blue moons, but red is definitely unusual (and also one of the few things about which I'm superstitious). It was beautiful, if sort of creepy (not my pictures).

I heard on the radio yesterday that this was the same eclipse (or type of, I guess) that Columbus used to convince the Jamaicans or some group that it was God's will that they should feed him. Which of course reminded me that Tintin does the same thing with a solar eclipse in Prisoners of the Sun.

- M

So Much for the Chosen One

2008-02-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

I really wish I could remember what the kid tells Neo in the Matrix about bending the spoon. Something about its not the spoon that bends, but him? Oh well.

Sadly, it will never happen. But Michael Crichton believes? He was totally spot-on with that whole global warming thing.....

- M

Hat tip: 3 Quarks Daily

The Magic Kingdom

2008-02-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

From last week's New Yorker.

- M

The Magic Kingdom
by Kathleen Graber February 11, 2008

And as in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threatened with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which of them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better to suffer one and die, than to live in fear of all? —St. Augustine, “City of God.”

This morning, I found on a slip of paper tucked into a book
a list of questions I’d written down years ago to ask the doctor.
What if it has spread? Is it possible I’m crazy? I’ve just returned
from Florida, from visiting my mother’s last sister, who is eighty
& doing fine. At the airport, my flight grounded by a storm,
I bought a magazine, which fell open to a photograph
of three roseate spoonbills tossing down their elegant shadows
on a chartreuse field of fertilizer-production waste.
Two little girls emptied their Ziplocs of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish
onto the carpet & picked them up, one by one, with great delicacy,
before popping them into their mouths. Their mother, outside
smoking, kept an eye on them through the glass. After my cousin died,
my father died & then my brother. Next, my father’s older brother
& his wife. And, finally, after my mother died, I expected
to die myself. And because this happened very quickly
& because these were, really, almost all the people I knew,
I spent each day smashing dishes with one of my uncle’s hammers
& gluing them back together in new ways. It was strange work
& dangerous, even though I tried to protect myself—
wearing a quilted bathrobe & goggles & leather work gloves
& opening all the windows, even in snow, against the vapors
of the industrial adhesives. Most days now I get up late
& brew coffee & the smell rises from the old enamel pot
I’ve had to balance under the dark drip ever since the carafe
that came with the machine shattered in the dishwasher last month.

One morning I found a lump in my breast & my vision narrowed
to a small dot & I began to sweat. My legs & arms felt weak,
& my heart thrashed behind its bars. We were not written
to be safe. In the old tales, the woodcutter’s daughter’s path
takes her, each time, through the dark forest. There are new words
for all of this: a shot of panic becomes the rustle of glucocorticoid
signalling the sympathetic nervous system into a response
regulated by the sensitivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
And, as I go along, these freshly minted charms clatter together
in the tender doeskin of the throat as though the larynx
were nothing if not a sack of amulets tied with a cord & worn
around the neck. But I tell you I sat on the bathroom floor for hours,
trembling. And I can tell you this because the lump was just a lump
& some days now I don’t even dread the end although I know
it will arrive. The garage is filled with buckets of broken china.
The girls chased each other & waved their arms, casting spells,
the trim of their matching gingham dresses the electric pink
of the birds’ wings. They turned each other into princesses
& super-girls & then they pretended to change back.
Oh, no. You forgot to say forever—they took turns repeating
with dramatic dismay, melting into puddles of themselves,
their sandals & sunburned knees vanishing beneath their hems.

Wow

2008-02-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

Almost makes me wish I hadn't given up architecture as a career choice.

- M

Weekend Reading

2008-02-17T14:17:00.000-08:00

I will admit to being a little behind on my New Yorker reading, but it is a double issue, and I like to think I have a life. So while the rest of the world probably already knows all about these two items, I'm just discovering them.

One of the things I love the New Yorker (besides the cartoons) is the random and quirky articles about random and quirky things.

One of the things I hate about the New Yorker is that even as a subscriber, I can't get half of the articles online.

This puts me in the position of reading something that I would love to share, but can't, because often, it's also so random and quirky I can't find it anywhere else.

Such is the problem for the first article of interest: David Owen's Personal History "Call Me Lloyd". All that I can find online is the abstract from the New Yorker, but if you can get a copy, read it and enjoy (for the record, I don't have a nickname, but do have several pet-names)

Luckily for me, other people share my interest in the second item that caught my eye: Steve Hollinger's attempt to build a better umbrella.

I'm a recent convert to the use of umbrellas (as in, I started two years ago, mostly because I got a very sturdy, relatively small one at a conference - I didn't steal it, they were giving them away. Previously I used hats). I still often don't use mine: either I forget it, or it just doesn't fit into whatever I'm carrying. I even went out and bought a travel-sized umbrella, but have mostly abandonded it due to unrelability in any but the lightest rainfall.

Still, this one looks cool enough (and I'm geeky enough) that I'd can see myself falling for it. Plus, it might actually work.

In the meantime, I'm still waiting for the traveler to come out (and shopping here).

- M

Blogworthy: Valentines Day Edition

2008-02-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

Two really cute videos

Love in a Backwards World

The Space between Us

- M

Hat Tip: Very Short List for the first