Monthly Archives: August 2009
Seydou Keita
| August 5, 2009 | Filled under Internerd, Photo Album |
Last fall, when CLH and I were traveling through Europe, we visited the Tate Modern in London. Eight years before, when I was in London studying abroad, the Tate Modern had it’s grand opening on the week of my birthday. I had always wanted to take CLH there.
We saw lots of exhibitions of modern arts from famous painters (Mondrian is always a favorite) and we rented these crazy iPod-like AV devices that go into so much detail it would be impossible to tour the whole museum in a single day.
But the exhibit that stuck with me most was the photography of Seydou Keita. Keita photographed ordinary Malians, his own neighbors, who would come to them in their finest clothes and with their favorite props. Sunglasses, hats, musical instruments, jewelry and other notions of wealth factor heavily in the charm of the images. Usually Keita just posed his subjects in from of a sheet of fabric, sometimes ornate woven weavings, other times a simple white cloth. It was street photography before there were streets to photograph.
Here is an interview with him and here is a NYT audio slideshow about him that is very, very worth listening to.
Love/hate relationship
| August 5, 2009 | Filled under Photo Album |
Dear Leader is looking awfully frail. Bill Clinton, however, looks stellar.
Don’t you forget about me
| August 6, 2009 | Filled under Video |
The “Try A Little Tenderness” scene from Pretty in Pink is an odd amalgam of my childhood love of John Hughes movies (esp. The Breakfast Club) and my current obsession with all things Stax.
Meatballs!
| August 7, 2009 | Filled under Blog, Photo Album |
I am headed to Gothenburg, the home of Hasselblad, tomorrow. I know nothing about Sweden (I have never been there) except Ikea and meatballs. Gothenburg is supposed to have the highest student population in all of Europe though, so I am looking forward to wandering its canal-lined streets.
I discovered Tacita Dean in Norway and Seydou Keita in London. I wonder what I’ll discover on this trip.
Photo by Yvan Rodic, a.k.a. The FaceHunter.
Room 396
| August 9, 2009 | Filled under Blog |
For our kronor, this inn has more old-fashioned charm and authentic character than any other hotel in town. The third-oldest hotel in Gothenburg was built in 1859, predating the Swedish use of the word to describe a building with rooms for travelers. Many emigrants to the New World spent their last night in the old country at the Hotel Eggers, ad during World War II, the Germans and the Allies met here for secret negotiations. Today it’s just as good as or better than ever, with stained-glass windows, ornate staircases, wood paneling, and a distinct sense of history. (If you ask, one of the older staff members here will discuss the role of the hotel as a trysting spot, many decades ago, for Prince Albert, a member os Sweden’s Royal Family, and his long-time (the-secret) companion, Lillian.) — Frommer’s Scandinavia
CLH booked this hotel because it is within walking distance to his offices here. It’s also right smack in the middle of Drottningtorget Square, next to the train station and a major tram intersection. Outside I have heard football fans singing all day long, the squeal of tram brakes on the cobblestoned rails, the intermittent splatter of rain.
My room key is a real key, not a plastic card with a magnetic stripe. It is attached to a heavy keychain, metal, like a fancy nametag, with the room number in the slot where the name should be. The spiral staircase is covered with red paisley carpet. The hallways are decorated with old photographs showing the square in simpler times, with horse-drawn carriages and much fewer buildings. My comforter and pillow are both stuffed with down.
Things I learned about Gothenburg on my flight: in addition to being the birthplace of Hasselblad, it is also the home of Volvo. Locals call it “the biggest small town in Sweden.”
Also, did you know that Pippi Longstocking was a Swedish invention?
New favorite word
| August 9, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
Comforter.
Like sweatshirt or hair brush, its name describes what it does. But unlike sweatshirt, its connotation is altogether pleasant.
I am currently going to sleep beneath a white one made of down.
We’ll Know When We Get There
| August 12, 2009 | Filled under Internerd |
Very good story. This girl, as a teenager, was penpals with John Hughes. (Via 29-95)
The Tender Night
| August 13, 2009 | Filled under Internerd |
It’s a year old, but this is a said, beautiful story about strangers, neighbors and one’s need to connect to other people.
Malm whale
| August 19, 2009 | Filled under Blog |
Post-lunch, I googled the Malm whale, the world’s only stuffed blue whale.
It stranded an unfortunate afternoon back in 1865. You had that civil war thing going on, we had eternal cold and famine. A stuffed whale was big news. Especially since the whale was eventually touched by the gifted hands of interior decorators, spiffing up the whale interior with wall papper and a little cafe.Little did the stuffers know that a long dead whale cafe can be a turn on to some people. The cafe was shut down after an amorous couple got caught going at it inside the whale.
You think I’m making this up?
I saw this, at the Naturhistoriska Museet in Goteborg, Sweden, last weekend. If the Houston Museum of Natural Science is a modern technicolor wonder, the Goteborg Natural History Museum is a homage to the Victorian era and bad (or primitive) taxidermy skills. The room with the whale (which also had a narwhal skeleton!) smelled like decomposition. Many of the rest of the animals, mounted over 100 years ago, had shrunk so badly on their frames that they had wicked smiles and grimaces. In short, it was awesome.
The museum also has a curio cabinet featuring a set of (human) Siamese twins in a pickle jar. I’m telling you this so you can get a feel for the place.
Boogie Man
| August 19, 2009 | Filled under Video |
Watched Boogie Man on BBC last weekend. Lee Atwater was a terrifyingly evil mofo, and is probably most likely responsible for the fact that W was ever elected.
Coming from a person who really likes documentaries: this is a very good documentary. My seal of approval.
This health care protest gun toting Hitler-referencing stuff is scaring the daylights out of me. A recent visit to the JFK Museum in Dallas didn’t help. Did you know that a month before JFK was killed Adlai Stevenson was assaulted by a protester in Dallas? Stevenson later said of his detractors, “I don’t want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.” Adlai Stevenson = swoon. Smart and witty people = swoon.
You know who else equals swoon? Barney Frank.
Hau’oli la hanau
| August 21, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
Today is the 50th anniversary of statehood in Hawaii.
It’s not the happiest of celebrations, but I’m going to mark the occasion with a pint of Kona Longboard and maybe some Spam sushi.
Aloha!
Evel
| August 22, 2009 | Filled under Internerd, Video |
If “almost dying in a fire” was a Facebook status update, he would have “Liked” it.
After reading this Badass of the Week* post about Evel Knievel, I headed to YouTube to find footage of his infamous Caesar’s Palace wreck. Instead, I found this awesome little video.
*Consistently one of my favorite websites to read.
School
| August 27, 2009 | Filled under Internerd |
Yes, school. I am enrolled full-time now, which leaves little room for much else than writing response papers and reading. Oh god, the reading. Something like 26 novels in 16 weeks, short stories too numerous to count, free time too rare to even mention.
Luckily several of the novels I have read before, and I plan to be doing a lot more writing. It has been a lazy summer. We shall see.
And now, here is a quote from Hemingway, of whom I’ve never been a fan:
I have drunk since I was 15 and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work all day with your head and know you must again work the next day, what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whiskey? — from “The Seven Vices of Highly Creative People” by D.A. Blyler
Things you might enjoy reading
| August 27, 2009 | Filled under Internerd |
I enjoyed them:
- Man discovers his six-year-old son, who can’t read or speak, has much more to say than anyone could have imagined
- Patricia HIghsmith’s bizarre fascination with Michael Jackson
- President Jimmy Carter leaves the Southern Baptist Convention because the way the religion routinely mistreats women. Love him.
I’ll say it again. Instapaper is my all-time favorite iPhone app. It has made my life so much better. I even splurged for the Pro version because I felt the developer deserved my $5 as a thank you.
True dat
| August 28, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it. — Frederico Fellini (via kung fu grippe)
Revolutions
| August 31, 2009 | Filled under Blog |
Last week was my first week of commuting via two wheels almost every single day, to school and to work. Despite vowing to do so two years ago when I moved back to the United States, it took a car accident on the second day of classes to finally get me to say FUCK ALL THAT. The next morning I got myself a bikeways map, found the safest route bypassing one of Houston’s busiest streets, and got back in the saddle.
Wednesday I rode to class at 1 p.m. and rode home at 7 p.m. through the Greater Third Ward. Part of what has made me more willing to get on the bike is the cooler weather. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still damn hot in Houston but it’s less make-you-think-you’re-gonna-die hot. (The other convenience factor is that bike and motorcycle parking is available just outside the building where most of my classes take place.) The cooler weather is also what made part of my bike ride home so pleasant.
Much of Houston’s third ward is still filled with shotgun shacks and decidedly low-income families. Most of these families, I would venture to guess, don’t have air conditioning. On Wednesday night almost every single house I passed on Alabama and Holcomb had people sitting outside on their porch or front yard.
I saw a one-legged man walking down the street on crutches. I saw three preteen girls singing pop songs in harmony. I saw an elderly couple sitting silently with each other, dudes barbecuing, and what appeared to be an ENTiRE GAME NIGHT (dominos, checkers, cards and even board games) on another front lawn.
Earlier this summer, David Byrne wrote about his bike ride through Houston the afternoon before his show at Jones Hall, and he wrote about seeing my city — hell, my own neighborhood in a way that I had never seen it.
Thursday (and today), because I had to get from one place to another quite quickly and cleanly, I rode my scooter, which takes me through the most direct route. But I am still convinced that two-wheel commuting is the way to go. I even have a rain plan — city bus 42 stops the next street over and takes me directly to U of H, in about the same amount of time it takes me to bike it.
I can’t wait to see something new tomorrow.
JPB on a Vespa
| August 31, 2009 | Filled under Internerd, Photo Album |
Almost the same model as CLH’s. Love Belmondo’s nose. Love everything about him. Via Nerd Boyfriend.
