Saturday, July 30, 2011

No Information

Sincerely wish I had some shred of knowledge about this, but alas, I am not an art history major. And besides, it's 2011; that would be missing the point.
They defined their collectomania as art. The art of what? They seemed to think that their art, in posting a barrage of truly luscious images on the Internet, involved "explain[ing] in a new way the world unknown to you." The problem was that those luscious images were just that, and nothing else. Just pretty pixels. No content, contextual indicators, knowledge, or anything of real intelligible value could be gleaned from [their] contributions to the World Wide Web -- and that's the way they intended it!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Yes, this is Peanuts

But it captures the spirit of things. And you know what? Rob Gordon would most certainly agree:
What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Friday, July 22, 2011

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Eagle Babe

Been reading up on eagle hunting lately, an Asian sport that uses trained eagles to catch small mammals. Kinda like pigeon racing but with bloodthirsty Mongolians. From a Kazakh blog I stumbled upon:
Makpal’s father Murat brought us photo albums upon photo albums. They were like your average family photos, but half of them had eagles in them, like family members... Kazakh society was conservative and segregated, yet Makpal’s passion for this tradition defied all boundaries. Here was a woman in the manliest of sports, all blood and beasts and horseback hunts. She was a symbol of a new Kazakh woman, I thought, one who could do anything... Makpal came out in her finest falconry-ware, a traditional Kazakh robe and a fur hat. She looked stunning.... With an eagle on her arm, I just about fainted. The beautiful girl and the beautiful bird had been partners for ten years... I had seen her picture in a Kyrgyz class magazine clipping, and now I had found her in the middle of nowhere. The strangeness of it all jumbled my common sense, and I thought of staying here forever, learning Kazakh, and giving my heart to a hunter in the heart of Eurasia.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Killing Technology

Sickened by the banality of modern life

Friday, July 15, 2011