darwinia: file entry #452

Yes, it is his the sesqui.150.centennial of DJ Darwin, my favorite DJ of them all.

Beautiful images with problematic narration. At minute 1:46 the unfortunate and seemingly unquestioned employment of the concept "weaker human beings" by the curators in conflation this with "the tensions class conflict." The same sort of unqualified voicing that was as biologically misguided then as it is now. Yeah, nobody means anything by it, as sure as it's always said, but if you Get It, then why not Get It Right (right?) Perhaps it's my Americano ears with their own pretensions egalitarian that the British accent can't help but add some unwanted rub...

the box game

a friend of mine T.R. recently told me about a project by friends of his called The Box Game, which in turn I share with friends-you-all.

I like it very much and perhaps for the obvious reasons of: public solicitation + mystery + graphing all put together. As a dish, it is my fantasy casserole combination.

In this photo (purloined from their blog) I only can assume and hope it is Devil's Rock looming in the background. It not only triggers a deep childhood memory of synthesizer music, it is also a nice allusion to mashed potatoes and the idea of this casserole I now want to cook (kind of like shepard's pie, but not. with pine nuts)

> yay the box game <

space is the place

Space: the final frontier. Or just the stuff that is - between here and there, what people take up too much of, what every dubious lover wants.

Cloud Gate (aka. the Bean) warps it for you, providing empirical evidence for Einstein's contention that space is indeed bendable. Holla out to Anish Kapoor.


And here is a new photo of a room you'll never get to go into. Unless you are tiny (maybe you are)














You see, when you cross the new Nichols Bridge, spanning the there & here on opposite sides of Monroe Avenue you can walk into the Art Institute, wander around for miles, and finally get to the Thorne miniature rooms: 1 inch to one foot. I took this photo and fooled myself into thinking small was big and tall was short. Even still, I remain 5'6".

See the nicer images of the fuller collection here.

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nature pages

This last week at the MBL I came across Louis Agassiz's credo, all big and in its original form, hanging in the library.

We studied all-too-plenty books during the visit, but nature is also and always there to let you know what is what. Even the smallest fishes in Eel Pond were an infinity to consider.


ps. visit the Leuckhart chart exhibit


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slips of stuff

a stencil from summer 2006 (?) found in the stationary drawer today among some yellowing envelopes. Love the Lampyridae.

sun spotz

Thierry Legault photographs the space shuttle Atlantis tranversing the girth of a star we call the Sun. Yes, it is a photo from land of the shuttle floating through outer space, in orbit. Yes, the sun does in fact seem to be the very yellow object of a child's crayon.

Outer space is completely black, tracing the seemingly perfect sphericality of a thermonuclear reaction that is older than ancient. The shuttle is in silhoutte because the sun is the biggest light bulb for millions of billions of miles, and I suppose Legault ended up foregoing flash when the camera clicked. Of course, that light is 8 minutes old since the sun is far far away; 93 million miles off the object-actual sun looks different than the background provided for Atlantis.

They say and you know that Atlantis was a giant island kingdom that sank to the bottom of somewhere in watery oblivion, having almost been found more times than not. Now something by the same name with wings quenches the large yellow blanket of light. Or maybe it is a giant pollen grain. or a tiny pollen grain, because it is spring and maybe Theirry was photographing through a microscope not a telescope. it's all really it is hard to know, especially if you care to know.

a raccoon walks in front of you on the sidewalk, so it's spring

"Badgers can be choosers."

(E. Izzard)

It's always there regardless

the omnipresence in collage of an emperor who was thought of as god.

I love the collages of Nobuyuki Oura, but in some particular places they seem to make too much meaning. Ironically but not unexpectedly - where most meaning might be made of them.

The newspaper article mentions how the images ran counter tothe educational goals of the museum and its commitment to neutrality and fairness. What fairness has to do with neutrality I'm not sure; it'dseem the latter must often be given up to allow for the former. Either way, it is one thing to be neutral, and another to be neutered.

walking home and the light won't leave you alone

zoopolis

Maybe you are at the zoo. Maybe it is the Lincoln Park Zoo and you are with a class and you are breaking up into teams to watch, listen, and consider the why-how-what of zoos as institutions and the metaphorical or literal Arks they claim to be.

There are jaguars six feet from you and you smell them, but something about their spots defy your best attempts to take them completely in. A gorilla disdainful. Sad colorful birds. Thoughtful children. Screeching children. The pigeons seem non-plussed by the condors.

If you squint your eyes you might think one of your students is in fact a giraffe. At this point you look for a water fountain and sit down on a bench shaped like a giant yellow rainforest frog. No doubt that will make you feel more clear-headed in a minute.

i heart Sonnenzimmer!

Nick and Nadine make things more beautiful than you could imagine (and I know your imagination is particularly fecund)

visit Sonnenzimmer! and buy a poster for someone you love.

Sonnenzimmer: the shoestring portrait from dsinker on Vimeo.

sound lives on

((((*))))

in memorium

the continued search for Andrew Yang

Of course you might imagine my surprise when I read this headline in the the Chicago RedEye the other day. I had only just eaten at "Yang Restaurant" an hour before in the South Loop at now I was considering if they or I had been arrested, and were just slow on the uptake.

It turns out Marni Yang was the criminal in question - and what a crime it was:

"Yang plotted the killing, driving a rental car with stolen plates and buying dark makeup and a cornrow wig to disguise herself, prosecutors said."

The various press coverage does its best to be equally creepy - from web videos sifting through her online personals to bikini photos.

Two days later my phone rang. This is how it went:

"Hi, is this Andrew Yang?"

"Yes, it is"

"I know this might be a strange question, but I'm a reporter with CBS and I am wondering if you are you the Andrew Yang who is son of Marni Yang?"

"No, I am definitely not that Andrew Yang"

"Ok, sorry, thanks! "

Wow. And so what was she going to ask me - how I'm doing? Who knew journalists actually still called people randomly up by names and numbers listed in the phone book. These reporters need to be issued computers, yo.

Regardless, the episode fits in to the Who is Andrew Yang? files, and its updates.

As for the Andrew Yang that I was mistaken for this time, I can only say sorry and good luck with things....

dibs

If there is any really good reason to look forward to the end of Chicago winter besides the obvious ones, I would offer relief from the tyranny of "dibs."

Of course digging out a car is no small or happy thing. I saw one of many empty spots in my street and parked it. A couple days later this note showed up on my windshield. Ah, communality.

I don't know who to feel sorrier for, me as a victim of a needless and random hate crime, or the poor sod who in an apparent gesture of so-so samaritanism didn't manage to keep a spot free for himself. I also wonder where his chair went, since I never saw it. The magnanimous restraint of his neighbor in not keying my already pocked-marked car seems a little dramatique, but threatening missives need that kind of punch.

Gaper's Block has a thread on dibbing for our enjoyment.
_____

Synchronschwimmen

One of my students showed this video in class the other day. We were all pretty floored.

icykills

Today was balmy in that eerie "climatic instability" way, but boy, it felt nice on the skin.

The icicles from the other week are a memory, but one worth keeping in mind - who knows that next week will be like.

modern art/modern fashion

Old abandoned factories in the northeast = great showcases for art. Who would have thought? My museum-going collaborator CMD always manages to dress appropriately somehow - I guess she has a contemporary sensibility at heart?

Or at least one that jives with Sol LeWitt at Mass MoCA (left) or indeed those minimalists at DIA Beacon (below). I didn't know blue, orange, and black created a nice color groove together as an ensemble as much as on a canvas. What kind of stuff are we channeling, I wonder. The collective unconsciousness? the derivative nature of fashion? the fact that museums are an infinitesimal sampling-slice of what everyone else is doing some other way?

Makes we want to get my kaleidoscope glasses out, just to bump it all up a notch.

Former classmate update #3456

People love Facebook for catching you up on folks from your long past days - kindergarten to boot camp. But the internet also does a fine job for some of your more high-profile connections, no matter how tenuous they may be.

Jay and I were always the two fastest sprinters up through 4th grade. In high school he was bigger, but not nearly this big. I guess this nice guy did actually end up finishing first.

puppet party

It's cold, it's Sunday: buy some socks at Walgreens and go crazy with some thread! Dog + Space Princess.











Hope the kids in Indiana will like them.

meteoric