Thought of the Day: "Construction"

After two days of driving in Los Angeles

" The shortest distance between two points is always under construction."

--Rebecca McClanahan (via The Writer's Alamanac)

Apologies...

Hey sorry everyone. The Jewish holiday kinda swallowed me up and now I'm off to L.A. for a speaking gig.  Will blog if I get a moment but no guarantees. Otherwise, back on Monday.

Day of Attonement:

Going under for Yom Kippur. Easy fast everyone!

Sewer Art:

6EMEIA, a Sao Paulo-based art collective does these fabulous paintings using sewers as their canvas. There's a whole collage of them on Flickr. (via Laughing Squid).

Times Select is Dead...

As of this morning, The New York Times is no longer charging readers to read online its columnists, nor archives from 1987 to the present. They explain it thusly...

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

Dowd, Friedman and Brooks 'till the cows come home.

A "Whole New Generation"

When I was 10, I had no idea I was "a whole new generation." But I think that idea's pretty cool.

The Sound of Pain:

Perhaps you heard the fabulous segment on On the Media this week about the music used to harass and interrogate combat detainees at places like Guantanamo Bay. If not, please do. It's a real eye (ear?) opener.

The part that hit me hardest on this assessment of "sonic suffering" was the musical choices military officers made as they seemed as boneheaded as the logic behind torture as appropriate foreign policy. Neil Diamond's "America", Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and Eminem's "White America" are all on the sonic harassment playlist ostensibly because repeating the word America to a Muslim detainee the height of offensive. Never mind that "America" is a paean to immigration, "Born in the USA" an excoriation of oversees war and "White America" a bludgeon aimed at racism. Rage Against the Machine, a band composed of outspoken liberal activists wrote the state department letters to ask them to stop using their music as a weapon against prisoners of war.

All this tells me is that the US Military is either a) tone deaf or b) never thought these choices would be subjected to public scrutiny. A) is sad but laughable. B) scares me to death.

Bumper Sticker Wisdom:

Seen on a bumper sticker this afternoon...

2008: The End of an Error

Amen to that.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "Ninotchka"

Ninotchka (1939): "Rigidity is among the best fodder for comedy."

Seen: As part I of Smokler's Sunday Cinema's month-ling salute to the great women of Hollywood.

Gleanings:

Observations from this past week...

• 20x200, an online art auction where limited edition prints are sold via the Internet for $20 a piece, has launched. It's the fabulous idea of gallerist and all around fabulous person Jen Bekman.

• The legendary online storytelling magazine Fray is coming back.

• WireTap observes why college newspapers are neither progressive nor racially sensitive.

• Technology Review: A new magnetic-cooling system could lead to more-energy-efficient refrigerators.

• "Pincus and the Pig" is Maurice Sendak's klezmer take on "Peter and the Wolf".

• LA Weekly: Los Angeles was apparently an art hotbed in the late 1990s. Who knew?