woobiquity

Autumn in Switzerland

A few images from my weekend in Zurich. Click to enlarge. More here.

 

Thought for a cold day

My new gloves don't fit me like a glove.

Art imitating life?

The people of Appalachia got a lot of bad press during the election campaign (or good press, I guess, if you were an ardent John McCain supporter -- was there such a thing?). Gary Younge's reportorial embed in Roanoke, Virginia, gave us a more nuanced look, but it swam against a tide of stereotype and outlandish hate, some real, some imagined.

So here's something to round out the picture a  little bit. 

The new Taubman Museum of Art has opened in Roanoke, a little city once known as The Big Lick, because it was where mountain people from miles around came to buy their salt. Now the city is home to an art museum designed by a fancy Los Angeles architecture firm, with Gehry-like swoops and gravity-defying curves, built from Appalachian materials. 

If art really does imitate life, what does this say about the people of western Virginia?

'Our White House'

A lovely illustration by Tom Fucile in the new children's book 'Our White House'. Hmm, I know it's pure coincidence, but those searchlight beams remind me of something.

'Anybody want to buy a used F?'

When I was in school, certain high-minded teachers were always asking us why we would want to use a 25-cent word (like, say, "fart", as in "that fart rocked") when we could use a four-dollar word to make the same point (like, say, "onomonpoeia"... "the onomonopoeia he came out with was extraordinary").

They never told us about the 325,000-dollar words.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently debating the fate of, as they've been putting it in their high-minded discourse, "the f-word" and "the s-word" on network TV. At question is the FCC's ability to level huge fines, as high as $325,000, against networks that allow celebrities to say things like "It's really, really fucking brilliant" (-Bono).

As usual, there's an element of conspiracy. The solicitor-general, who is arguing the case for censorship, is clearly in cahoots with the teachers of America, joining those who would deny young people access to the high-value words that could ensure their future.

He's arguing that loosening indecency standards could result in "Big Bird dropping the F-bomb on Sesame Street."

Fricassee-bomb? Flocculation-bomb? Oh... Yes, because that's going to happen, isn't it.

And now, without any further ado: a carnival of F-words on Sesame Street:

Power-ful words

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

- Senator John McCain

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.

- President-elect Barack Obama

One word, America

A house in New Orleans' Faubourg Marigny, summer 2008.