January 20, 2009 • 7:01 pm 2
iTunes is killing the real cd, I find myself downloading my music from the iTunes store. There’s nothing like instant gratification. But there are times when I’ve gone out of my way and purchased the physical cd just to get a hold of the artwork (Menomena’s Friend or Foe, Antony’s i am a bird now, etc.). I’m excited about Antony’s new cd, The Crying Light, just look at Yoshito Ohno up there! I’m reading up on butoh and you should too.
August 10, 2008 • 4:57 pm 1
The little peasant is squatting. He’s already evacuated. There’s a brown pile there and it’s surprisingly realistic. Oh, the Catalans and their scatological fixation. I’m continually fascinated when I think about caganer figurines. What does this mean for a people? What does this mean for a culture?
Not only do the figurines exist, they are placed in Nativity scenes! Imagine preparing the solemn Nativity scene with shepherds, animals, Mary, Joseph, Magi, etc. . . and then placing a little figurine hidden away and squatting.
Something happened when the Conquistadores were crossing the Atlantic. As far as I know, Latin America is lacking this scatological component. We do not casually mention shitting on the communion wafer. In Mexico shitting on anything is not used as an insult, shitting is shameful. What does this mean about Catalans and Spaniards? On the one hand, I admire the idea that even at this great cosmic moment – the birth of the Savior – we mere humans still had to poop. I admire the figurines of famous people squatting and pooping. Yes, Zapatero, Bush, and the Pope all poop (and caganers of all of these people have been made). But on the other hand, isn’t this larger scatological fixation kind of weird?
May 11, 2008 • 12:20 pm 0
Mother’s Day in Mexico is always May 10th, the Washington Post had a short article (with all sorts of tiny inaccuracies) that is really only worthy for the photographs. The photos made me strangely emotional, perhaps it’s because I only see my mother about once a year, twice if I’m lucky. In parts of the border where fence is more forgiving, scenes like these take place:
After a year apart, Menchaca’s mother arrived in her flowered straw hat here Saturday and put her small, wrinkled hands up to the cast-iron gate, Menchaca reached out and touched them.
Filed under: images
May 9, 2008 • 2:16 pm 0
Yesterday’s issue of Nature has a piece on the platypus genome. It’s interesting to compare the reporting in Nature, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. I found the Post article thoroughly enjoyable and not at all lacking in substance.
Yet in its wackiness, Wilson said, the platypus genome offers an unprecedented glimpse of how evolution made its first stabs at producing mammals. It tells the tale of how early mammals learned to nurse their young; how they matched poisonous snakes at their venomous game; and how they struggled to build a system of fertilization and gestation that would eventually, through relatives that took a different tack, give rise to the first humans.
The Times article was too short and the sense of wonder/weirdness was missing.
An international scientific team, which announced the first decoding of the platypus genome on Wednesday, said the findings provided “many clues to the function and evolution of all mammalian genomes,” including that of humans, and should “inspire rapid advances in other investigations of mammalian biology and evolution.”
The Nature article is of course good but I still prefer the wonder and style of the Post article.
April 5, 2008 • 2:10 pm 2
Strange Maps links to an LA Times piece about Absolut Vodka’s ad campaign in Mexico. Is it anti-American? It was a dumb move on Absolut’s part, all sorts of jingo gringos are already calling for a boycott. The thing about this sort of thing is that it always seems to bring out these ad hominem attacks with racial undertones. It’s hard not to get defensive and divisive. It’s hard to watch Lou Dobbs and not feel animosity even if he is not talking about you specifically, after all, I’m a citizen. But the tone of the immigration debate and the comments of some people when reacting to this ad campaign is just sickening. It’s hard for me not to get defensive and angry back.
But it does play with a Mexican sensibility, we still can get over the Spanish Conquest and the ceding of the territories to the US. I guess it was ceding them or total annexation, right?
It’s all good, right Lou Dobbs?
There is a pretty lively flickr discussion, I laid down my wise words.
March 29, 2008 • 2:56 pm 2
The New York Times has a front-page article about a lawsuit against the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). Basically, two people are suing because they think that the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider will cause a tiny black hole that will swallow the Earth and the universe.
Are the two guys suing just zany or is there a real possibility of some unforeseen disaster? I sure as hell don’t know. But more important than the upcoming unraveling of reality, as I was reading the article in the cafe I noticed this:
March 18, 2008 • 5:54 pm 0
So, about a week after ordering “Napoleon’s March” from Edward Tufte’s website, I had it on my desk. A couple of days later I went to have it framed. Here is the result:
It’s now hanging in my office. Also, framing it was expensive but I figured out a way to deal with it. Every time I look at the piece I get .25 cents worth of satisfaction. I look at the graph a lot! Haha.
March 15, 2008 • 9:48 pm 0
