March 2012
1 post
February 2012
34 posts
Infallible tweets
hat tip to my Brother for raising issue of papal infallibility on Twitter. I’m really disappointed that a rereading of what papal infallibility actually is reveals that the pope is not infallible when tweeting. Indeed:
A well-known example of a personal opinion on a matter of faith and morals that was taught by a pope but rejected by the Church is the view that Pope John XXII expressed...
WatchShout out out to Adam and the team at General Assembly. “Stop Talking, Start Making” — nice campaign, incredible content. The Lewis Lapham one is good too.
True Colors
A very entertaining book. Lots of gossip about famous artists and dealers. A lot of savage stuff goes down. For example, Brice Marden talks about becoming addicted to cocaine, then coming clean and changing his style from blocks of color to wavy lines. That pisses off his dealer Mary Boone since the new work is less salable. One of her strategies for controlling artists:
Get them into debt....
Senna
This documentary is incredible. The story of a humble Brazilian man who loved his God & country. He overcame a shifty French adversary to become a Formula One world champion.
Excel, I love you. Excel, I hate you.
What the fuck does this dialog box mean? When you say the last saved version, do you mean by me or by you Excel? Regardless of how cancel and open map to my saved version vs. Excel’s saved version, why are you using the word cancel? I don’t want to cancel anything, I just want to open the file and see my work, I want to cancel you getting in the way. How could something this many...
12345th:
“Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an...
Action Bronson
Since Chris posted about Action Bronson, I’ve been listening to his stuff non-stop. This is a fantastic music video “Shiraz” where Action buys proscuitto on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, then makes a move to the park to party with literal winos and an older woman whom he seduces. This is the type of crew that we would rock with in high school when we hung out in city parks after...
Culture Melding
1.
In real life you can’t a job as an executive unless you have the educational background and the opportunity. Now the fact that you are not an executive is merely because of the social standing of life. Black people have a hard time getting anywhere and those that do are usually straight.
In a ballroom, you can be anything you want. You’re not really an executive, but...
Sahil Lavingia
Interesting TechCrunch video interview with current Silicon Valley darling 19 yr old Sahil Lavingia, who had a big hand in the Pinterest and Turntable.fm products. I only post industry stuff on this blog if I think it will be interesting to you, dear reader, but this dude is so humble and clear-eyed that his success story is totally unique.
Also, when the college grad interviewer says “I...
Magazines
Magazines are stupid cheap. You can subscribe for $1 - $2 an issue. The Sunday Times costs like $7 near my house. Newstand magazines are $5 - $7.
Although there is always tons of content for the thieving, there is very little that you can buy for $1 - $2 anymore, digital or physical. Unread magazines are more decorative than unread newspapers, so you feel less guilty about letting them pile up...
when your best isn’t good enough, either you’re not good enough or it wasn’t actually the best you can do. the decision is yours!
Buying Smug vs. The Inescapability of Trade-Offs
Are you allowed to be smug if you drive a Hummer Biodiesel?
“Being Green” is a positional badge and so giant biodiesel SUVs still kinda make sense because not every car is green yet. You shell out for a biodiesel tag and you get to have your cake and eat it too, like ethical foie gras. But what happens when every car has a green tag? Maybe there will be a quasi-functional badge...
Congrats to my brother Ted for finding his inventive freshmen year biology test response on a long tail website article “5 new inappropriate test answers from young children“ He wasn’t a young child, but imagine the satisfaction of stumbling across your own wittiness on the internet put there by someone else…immortality! Shout out to everyone taking opportunities to have...
Getting More
“Advice books” (diet, romance, investments, etc.) often promise access to “secret” knowledge so powerful that simply reading it will pretty much solve your problem. The solution to challenges is usually composed of 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, but book covers promise to flip this ratio for price of purchase. This promise of course is almost always bullshit. This...
This hat reminds me of home. SI stands for Staten Island, home of Wu Tang. SI also stands for Shelter Island, where I used to spent time before moving to CA. Scrambled eggs in the emblem reminds me of my grandfather who was in the Navy.
January 2012
28 posts
Why are famous abstract artists good at drawing?
I remember being very surprised when learning that abstract artists like Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, and Donald Judd had done figurative works when they were young. I’d always assumed that abstract art was something apart from figurative art, rather than something born of figurative art. Anyway, here is an interesting passage on the topic from a random blog:
I will give an analogy from...
MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY' →
Shout out to the hip hop armchair scholars. (Hat tip @shtat)
murkavenue:
CLUE 1: “went to short dogs house, they was watching Yo MTV RAPS” Yo MTV RAPS first aired: Aug 6th 1988 CLUE 2: Ice Cubes single “today was a good day” released on: Feb 23 1993 CLUE 3: ”The Lakers beat the Super Sonics” Dates between Yo MTV Raps air date AUGUST 6 1988 and the release…
Airplane Hacks
1) You don’t need ID
I’ve blogged about this before, but it bears repeating: you do not need ID to fly on an airplane!
I had to do it again recently and the process varies a little bit from airport to airport, but it doesn’t take more than 5 - 10 minutes extra. If you forget your ID on the way to the airport, you do have the option to just press forward without ID.
2) You...
They turned the poignancy up to 11 for this song....
“Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand...”
– Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, 1936.
The way the idea of “authenticity” is being transformed by commerce, specifically e-commerce, is awesome and exciting. I’ve blogged about this in the past with J.Crew and was reminded of...
Cursus honorum
I’m not trying to “Break into Wall Street” but I recently bought an advanced Excel course targeted towards those folks. The site also has fun articles dispassionately describing how crazy banking is, knowing full well that readers are committed to the cause and very little could dampen their desire for a job in a finance. If you like Goldman Sachs Elevator Gossip, you’ll...
Ali Bosworth
Daniel Everett