Archive for the 'Art and culture' Category

Boston Library stereographs on Flickr

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Ah, Flickr, the photo sharing service has been drawing some significant image collections and I just saw some stereograph from postbellum Boston, from the collection of the Boston Library. Might I recommend the slideshow? (Go fast; the stereographs are sorted by topic so you’re bound to get a whole bunch of very similar images.)

The churches […]

Gygax, now Clarke, next whom?

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

As they say, deaths come in three. First Gary Gygax and now science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, aged 90. I rather thought he would outlast all of us.

While Gygax informed by geeky childhood, Clarke tapped my imagination. Did anyone else read the short story “The Nine Million Names of God” (in an anthology of […]

Folk Mass Hero

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Friday was a noteworthy day at Day Job and included — among other things — a lunchtime round of Guitar Hero. (Don’t ask.) I was very kindly asked to participate but

<li>the music associated with the game is very much what I call Straight Boy Rock, and I don’t care for it. (Had there been <em>Synth […]

Getting clothes the right way

Friday, February 29th, 2008

I just mentioned Project Runway: a delightful show with tons of pluck that enlivens an industry that I want far, far away from me. (I enjoyed Six Feet Under, too, but that doesn’t mean I trust funeral homes now.) The unspoken assumption of the show is that women are decorative and probably vain, and […]

Gay postage watch

Friday, February 29th, 2008

Yesterday, a Day Job Office Mate and fellow Project Runway watcher suggested a spin-off series: a new, new Odd Couple where Tim Gunn (D.C. native!) and Chris March share an apartment and hilarity ensues.

I suggested, “They could just move the same Eames chair back and forth.”

Well, dang, if the United States Postal Service didn’t provide […]

Viva!

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Sure I like the political message, but just as much or more I like this pro-Obama clip for the upcoming Texas primary because it reminds me of the Tejano music I enjoyed when I attened seminary in Fort Worth.

Best comment of the day

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Responding to “Tips for surviving a recession” by Kathleen Pender (SFGate.com)

“OMG! I just figured it out, the Cloverfield monster is really the impending recession.”

Thanks to SFGate.com reader gatorfree for the laugh/groan/queasy feeling. Now even queasier, because I bet Cloverfield is at least as live a subject in the United States as a recession, and less […]

The church should be countercultural

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron blog considers the Story of Stuff video, which you can watch online, download or read the transcript. (PDF link) It has been well-received but there’s something in it that deserves to be uplifted.

A candid, postwar quotation from retailing analyst Victor Lebow: “Our enormously productive economy . . . demands […]

Wikipedia Day 2008

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

Wikipedia, the community written and reviewed online encyclopedia, is seven years old today.

I think its value in collecting human knowledge is immense. (For as good as Google can be and for how much I use it, I’m a little chilled at its thrust towards amalgamating all data.) But it is more valuable being a […]

Back from Baltimore

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

Hubby and I took a short break from Washington . . . by going to our grossly under-appreciated neighbor Baltimore. We’re back, hon, enjoyed it to pieces, and I’ll gladly make some recommendations to anyone who asks. And, yes, in the birthplace of Edgar Allen Poe, we did see ravens.