balding angrily

This morning I got the chance to go to a press preview (sounds so official, right?) of a new exhibit of architectural models at the Nasher Sculpture Center. It’s called The Art of Architecture: Foster + Partners, and it was planned in conjunction with the eminent opening of Dallas’ new Winspear Opera House, designed by Foster + Partners.

Aside from the room dedicated to the Winspear, there were approximately twenty other architectural models of bass wood, plastic, lights, and, in one case, a working elevator. Spencer de Grey, Head of Design at Foster + Partners walked the various reporters around the exhibition space and talked about each project.

But this is all about me. It’s my website, dammit. I got the invitation through my work with The Advocate, even though The Advocate doesn’t cover Dallas’ expanding arts district—the Winspear and Nasher being key components— so I took the opportunity to shoot a whole lot of photographs of beautiful models. The Nasher doesn’t usually permit photography, so, score!

A photography teacher once told my class, “The only difference between professional photographers and you is that the professional photographers don’t show you their mistakes.” In that vein, I’m only showing you my favorites.

One note: the Nasher Sculpture Center is just an amazing indoor space for photography. Only one of these photographs required a flash. It’s always awesome to get good photographs with ambient light. I also got to play with photoshop to correct lens distortions—I made vertical lines true.

De Grey talks about one of the models in the exhibition.

 A model of The Great Court at the British Museum in London. I would like to be able to erase myself out of the reflection. I like the other reflections.

I tried to capture the eagles’ nest that the model builders had placed on this tower platform. The nest didn’t come out clearly, but I still like the tower structure against the beautiful ceiling treatment inside the Nasher.

He’s a little man doing his little job.

This is the only photo that has a flash, and I’m very proud of myself that I was able to manipulate the flash control on my camera so that it doesn’t look like a flash photo. I love macro photography; I think I need to get a macro lens.

If you run, bike, swim, you know that there is a point at which all that extra adrenaline gives you a great feeling. If you’re outside, the light looks more beautiful, the colors more vibrant, all the smells – even the fertilizer – smell better. If you’re inside, your fellow gym rats look better; you want to bone more of them than when you started.

I had been on the elliptical for twenty minutes, working at my peak heart rate for about fifteen minutes, and I glanced at a distant TV. Vanna White was doing a jig on Wheel of Fortune, and I looked away. Then, I thought, “Wait, what?” and I looked back.

She wasn’t doing a jig; she was stuttering mid-step.  See, there was a glitch in the satellite feed or whatever; the image was jogging back-and-forth over the same millisecond. For all you analog folks, it was like a record-skip, but twenty times faster. Vanna’s leg only moved about six inches through her stride. And it was a wide shot, so she was doing it backed by that giant glittering, sequined set. It was like watching a line dance as imagined by William Gibson.

I couldn’t look away; I just stared at Vanna endlessly repeating that instant of her life.

There’s another thing that happens when you’re heart rate soars. Time seems to go soooooo sloooooow. Because your mind is being told that your body is moving fast, it thinks that the rest of the world should move fast. So Vanna’s stutter-step seemed like it lasted for ten minutes. And I watched and watched, probably with drool running down my chin.

It would be nice to think that I had a cosmological/metaphysical breakthrough. Like, “Omigod. Aren’t we ALL repeating the same instant of our lives in alternate universes?” Or, “What if I’ve transcended and I’m now watching the world as The Observer?” Or, “Isn’t that just a metaphor for Vanna’s whole career: arrested letter-turn?”

Nope. I thought, “Whoa. Cool.”

And THAT’S why it’s called a runner’s high; sometimes, if you’re lucky, working out is like dropping a hit of acid.

I’ve been collecting pictures, little signs that God, the universe, and other strangers have a sense of humor.  I finally got them off my iPhone and into my flickr stream.

For your enjoyment.  Or maybe just for my enjoyment, as I’m sure these are only funny to me.

I like how stick figures can make anything precious: Oh look!  It’s a little baby in his little baby diapers with a plastic bag on his head!  How cute!

Again, it may be because he’s a stick figure, but that fella looks like he’s having a grand time tripping over that perfectly rectangular obstruction. He’s kicking up his heels as if he’s in a revival of The Music Man; it’s a “Shipoopi” kind of heel-kick. What’s missing is a word balloon that says, “I’ve always wanted to break my wrists. Looks like today is my lucky day!”

Can you imagine an upright citizen seeing this poo in the grass, running to his house, writing this note (paying attention to the relative impact of different font sizes for maximum effect), stealing one of those plastic dessert advertisers from a local restaurant, and stuffing this in the ground?  People are frigging awesome.

So I’m digging through history, looking for a story about a local traffic intersection. I think I’ve got what I want to write about, and it connects nicely with what’s happening now at that intersection. And luckily I’m not into the WRITING yet; I’m just researching.

As I dig through The Dallas Morning News archives, I keep coming across these great bits of wordsmithing, bits that make me want go back in time to when a headline like, “Toreadors of Abrams Road Fight Speeding Autos, Not Bulls to Board Streetcars,” didn’t prompt a guffaw. When thieves were referred to as “robbers” and “bandits” that “bedeviled” police. When “juveniles” and “youths” were “hanging around places that would certainly get them into trouble.” When a furniture store opening was announced by a picture of some lawn furniture and this press release:

Umbrella Beauty - Glimpse the inside of this umbrella done in a red rose pattern, the valance attractively edged with six-inch white fringe. There’s a place for the zinc-plated handle in the glass-top table. Chairs of washable vinyl plastic in a palomino color have wrought-iron frames and come in several different colors.

You can almost hear a woman in an ivory pencil skirt with a conservative up-do, saying the above into a fist-sized microphone as the staged lawn furniture spins on a laminated press-board platform. I’m having fun. I wish I could tell my high school history teacher, Mr. Glenn, “See! I DO like history. Just not in the way you teach it.”

I heard a podcast this week that blew my mind. With a finite number of types of things - quarks, protons, whatever - in an infinite universe, eventually the universe will have to repeat combinations of these types of things. And it will have to do so an infinite amount of times.

This is how physics and mathematics professor Brian Greene puts it on Radiolab. Imagine Imelda Marcos has thousands of floral print blouses, thousands of pairs of shoes, thousands of linen jackets, etc. Huge numbers, but finite numbers. She won’t go buy more items of clothing, and she never wants to wear the same outfit twice. Given an infinite number of days of her going to her closet to pick out an outfit, she will eventually have to repeat. And eventually she will have to repeat every outfit an infinite amount of times.

According to Brian Greene, what this means is that in our infinite universe - and the current thinking is that it is infinite - there are an infinite amount of mes out there typing exactly what I’m typing. And moreover there are an infinite amount of mes out there that are typing exactly what I’m typing, but with socks on. And moreover there are an infinite amount of mes out there that are wearing socks, but typing something brilliant. And moreover there are an infinite amount of mes out there that are wearing socks, typing something brilliant, and living in a palatial estate with a strapping cabana boy.

You go, me.

It’s rare that I’m blown away by YouTube because, in general, I’m not interested in what everyone else is interested in. Usually, I discover things that were viral three years ago. That’s my M.O.

So, imagine my surprise at finding the most awesomest thing at the top of You Tube’s Featured Videos.

Here’s the description:

Two girls find a mysterious radio left at their doorstep. They unleash a six armed goddess who seduces them with promises of wealth. They trade their souls for money and, in turn, become the goddess’ dancing elephant slaves.

I don’t know if this is The Heavy’s official video to “Coleen,” but it should be.

Relax and enjoy. (A warning. It’s a big file.)

I like how they used a pit bull to demonstrate the awesome abilities of this unicorn costume set. It’s like, “All your baby killings add up to zilch. You still look like a little princess.” (via Defamer)

For me, it’s Architecture in Helsinki. They’re making me do a twist-and-bob-butt-scoot dance in my office chair. It’s like they kicked me in my spleen, if my spleen was full of happiness and bursting it caused happiness to spill all over my body.

Thanks, Crumpet.

Please, please, please, please. Someone buy me one. (via Gizmodo)

Hello, my name is Nick, though some of you may know me as PulpAffliction. Nice to meet you!

On to the business at hand: our little game of telephone racism, one which I prefer to call Zatoichi’s 6. (Yes, Magnus, I like your original name.) After writing out a live blog of Wowser’s mix in the style that Mr. Alex has been using for the previous mixes, I realized I came off as a wordy, pretentious ass-hole. Suffice it to say, that’s not what I was aiming for. Instead, I’m doing my reviews as follows: I will use four words/terms, each separated by commas. The first will be a noun the song made me think of, second will be the color it made me think of, third will be a film it could be in and fourth will be a number indicating how I liked it compared to the other songs in Wowser’s mix (1 = best, 7 = worst.) For instance, if I were reviewing the song “The Magic Position” by Patrick Wolf this is what it would look like:

Circus, Yellow, “The Science of Sleep”, #

Got that? Without further ado, here goes:

————–

Track 1: Britain, White, “24 Hour Party People”, 3

Track 2: Ship, Blue-Green, “You, Me and Everyone We Know”, 4

Track 3: Gypsy, Bright Neon Exploding Yellow, “Everything is Illuminated”, 1

Track 4: WoW, Dark-Purple-Felt, “Braveheart”, 7

Track 5: John Cleese, Maroon, “Napoleon Dynamite”, 6 (Edit: I couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be comedy or not. I opted for the former. So. Yeah.)

Track 6: A Noise Band From the 70’s, Brown, Something directed by Chris Cunningham, 2

Track 7: Porn, Silver, “Anchorman”, 5

———–

So that’s that. Now off to my mix! But first; a short disclaimer: This isn’t exactly what I would have chosen, but I am on vacation right now, so I don’t have my music library. Instead I used what I could find on the internet, which means the songs veer more towards recent stuff.

More importantly, my songs are all DIRECT responses to the corresponding track on Wowser’s mix. Unfortunately I do not get extra credit for bringing it back down to six songs. There is no one to blame but Alex for the fact that it’s now seven songs. Ya hear that Alex? It’s your fault! So. Yeah.

Here it is: Enjoy!