One of the repeated stories of art history is that Impressionism began with the invention of the camera. Artists, seeing that there was a technological device that could capture an image of the world as it really is, stopped painting in studios and went outside to capture the effects of light with rapid brushstrokes. Like everything else it’s more complicated than that when you start to look closely—the two major artists of the Impressionist movement are Manet and Monet, and there’s a lot more than just a vowel that separates them.
Still in an overarching way it’s true that’s true—the invention of the camera did coincide with a major change in art, and it makes me think about repetition in art—how artists went from trying to copy nature to creating more and more individualistic works. Before the camera there was less emphasis on individuality and more emphasis on making something that could easily be copied. And maybe—I’m taking a really big leap here, but it’s an educated leap—something similar happened earlier with the printing press. Poetry, with its emphasis on repetition and rhyme and regular meter, was easy to memorize—in a sense easy to copy, because before the printing press literature had to be copied by hand. After the printing press more writers were free to write in prose, free of the restraints of poetry because they weren’t as concerned about creating works that could be easily memorized and therefore more easily copied.
An article over at CityLab looks at seat design for public transit around the world, taking in the good, the bad, and–in the case of the Los Angeles bus lines–the psychedelic designs. Many use moquette, which is the peculiar fabric so popular on planes, trains, buses, and and occasionally hotel pillows, although as I’ve mentioned previously Nashville’s new WeGo buses have plain plastic seats that may be easy to clean but are also slippery and with their complete absence of any design are just begging for a permanent marker makeover, although I haven’t seen any redesigned just yet. And there are the moquette-covered seats with a musical design, pictured at left, which is an interesting idea–Nashville being known as Music City–but the printing job was so badly botched no one can name that tune.
The article’s author, Feargus O’Sullivan, gets a bit snarky–a Warsaw, Poland bus seat design evokes “some biblical rain of blood”, Boston’s old MBTA trains have a seat design that “looks like a diagram of a serial killers brain synapses”, and seats on Dublin’s Luas light rail have a design that suggests the city’s “monuments apparently sinking Titanic-like into a sea of fire”–and those are some of the nicer descriptions. He acknowledges the difficulty seat designers face, though:
Seat-cover fabric designers have to create something that looks pleasant for—or at least doesn’t actively offend—the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people. That’s an all-but-impossible task. It’s somewhat cheering that fabric intended to please as many people as possible ends up being not bland, but often wildly eccentric. If nothing else, the interiors of these public vehicles are certainly way more interesting than the interior of almost any private car.
Almost any private car. I think we’ve all had that friend–or maybe I’m just lucky–who eats a lot of fast food and has never cleaned the interior of his 1976 Dodge Dart so when you hitch a ride with him your feet rest on a decade-old detritus of drink cups and burger boxes.
And distinctive seat design–whether creative or horrifying–does serve the function of drawing attention to public transit, which it desperately needs. With increasing traffic congestion public transportation is increasingly important. As a guy I used to work with would say, “People really should use public transit. It’s better for the environment, better for the city, and I’d have an easier time finding a parking space.” And I’d look at him and think about suggesting he should get rid of all those burger boxes on his floorboard, but that’s another story. It just has to be the right kind of attention. An important thing about seat design, O’Sullivan says, is it “shouldnt be so bright and busy that it turns stomachs”. The reason for that is practical as well as aesthetic. A lot of riders of public transit–kids, pregnant women, people too drunk to drive–are already likely to be sick, and a dazzling design could just serve as camouflage. With some designs I’d rather stand and admire them than worry about what I might sit in.
Several months ago I took a picture of this graffiti and spent a lot of time thinking about what I’d like to say about it. Where should I even begin? Should I say that it’s interesting because animal iconography seems to be pretty rare in graffiti? Well, I just did. That’s all, folks!
But wait–there really is more. Some, particularly fans of the literary movement known as New Criticism would say the work can only be judged in itself without any reference to outside influences or the artist’s background or intent. And that’s pretty much all I can do since I don’t know anything about the artist. But what if I found something that shed a little light on it and meant I didn’t have to wrap up quite so soon? That’s where this helps.
From this I think the camel is the artist’s tag–essentially their name. What’s a name, after all, than a symbol? Sure, most names are symbols made up of letters–there are some exceptions, such as that thing Prince used as his name for a while–and letters themselves are symbols that we’ve mostly agreed all make the same sounds, although I did have an uncle who wouldn’t spell anything with the letter Y because he was convinced it would sneak onto his farm at night and tell dirty stories to his cows, but that’s another stor.
Anyway that reminded me of the Dutch aristocrat, art historian, and dealer Jan Six–who is actually the descendant of ten previous aristocrats with the same name, making him the eleventh Six. The first Jan Six (born (January 14, 1618, died May 28, 1700) was painted by Rembrandt and amassed a considerable art collection. The current Jan Six continues to collect with a particular emphasis on Rembrandt and in the past few years discovered what he and some scholars think are two previously unknown Rembrandt paintings at auctions. And keep in mind that a painting by a lesser known Dutch master–say, one of the guys from the cigar box–can sell for thousands but a Rembrandt can be worth millions, and if they are legit he got them at bargain rates because the auction houses didn’t know what they had. Even with a decline in the study and even collecting of older paintings–the prices on modern works are rising while the old ones aren’t–there’s enough interest in them generally to make them, especially the ones done by well-known artists, valuable. Although further complicating all this is the fact that, with his many pupils and large studio, it’s almost impossible to know whether Rembrandt himself painted a painting alone or whether he had help, or whether it was just one of his students copying his techniques.
That difference can also seriously affect the value of a painting, but shouldn’t it be the work itself and not just the name that matters?
Rather than the cool personality that underpinned the Right Stuff in the Apollo era, future astronauts may need to prove they have something very different: the Silly Stuff. An onboard comedian is a proven way to unite teams in stressful situations, research shows.
Good evening everybody, or morning, or, uh, day. I’m not sure what time it is. Hey, who saw that full Earth earlier? Pretty spectacular, wasn’t it? Would you believe I could see my house from here? No? Anyway, who here is from out of town? Everybody? It’s nice to see we’ve got some Russians with us. You guys really know space exploration, don’t you? Would you believe I was at the observation window earlier and saw Sputnik go by? No? Anyway, how about that MIR space station, huh? That thing lasted longer than the Soviet Union! Hey, you guys aren’t with the KGB, are you? If you’re not then maybe you should be. If looks could kill, you know what I mean? No? Well. Looks like somebody set the phasers for stunned. They say in space no one can hear you scream. Or anything else apparently. You know, space is a lot like some restaurants I’ve been in. No atmosphere. Boy, the necks of these jumpsuits are really tight, aren’t they? Is it hot in here or is it just me? It’s just me, then. Yes, thanks, Fritz, for checking to make sure the environmental controls are fine. A big hand for systems engineer Fritz, the most ironically named engineer in the space program! Hey, if you’re not going to applaud for me at least applaud for Fritz. Please? Maybe as an engineer Fritz can explain why whenever I go to the store I always get that one grocery cart with the wobbly wheel. Has anyone else noticed that? No? Well. And like everybody else here Fritz has multiple jobs. For instance in the event of a forced evacuation I’m supposed to stay behind and make sure everyone else gets out safely, and if we find a dark mysterious cave I’m the one who’ll go in first, and if we meet aliens I’m the one they’ll use for rectal probing. What’s the deal with that, anyway? We’re out here to explore Mars and the aliens are out here to explore Uranus. And they call us “astronauts”. Anyway, Fritz, you know, is also in charge of nutrition and meals. When they told me Fritz was in charge of the food and the computers I asked if that meant everything would be sugar coded. Computer code. Okay, so, data doesn’t go over so well. Hey, Fritz, don’t take this personally, but the food really is terrible. And the portions are so small. I’m just kidding about the food being terrible, Fritz. A round of Tang on me for everybody! The food is great, really, once I learned that you have to add water, but now I understand why when I signed up for this they told me I’d probably lose about twelve percent of my body mass. I said, hey, my agent takes more than that. That reminds me, does the space suit make me look fat? And why are there twelve of us but only eleven suits? Has anyone else noticed that? No? Well. Moving right along, hey, I’m not the only entertainment on this ship, I also brought some movies. Let’s see, I brought The Martian, Gravity, Apollo 13, and Alien. Those should be fun. Also the director’s cut of Titanic. This is a three-year trip so that should be enough time to watch almost all of it.
All right, you guys have been great, really, and I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll be here all week and for the next three years. And don’t forget to tip your, uh, Fritz.
It’s Uranus Day! On March 13th, 1781 the astronomer William Herschel announced that he’d discovered the previously unknown planet that would be named Uranus. Uranus had been seen before, even by ancient astronomers, but everyone thought it was just a faint star until Herschel turned his telescope toward it and took a good, clear look at Uranus. The addition of Uranus helped expand the solar system and people have been intrigued and puzzled by Uranus ever since. It’s not the biggest planet in the solar system or even the farthest but, as the third largest of the gas giants, Uranus is still pretty big, full of hydrogen and helium. There are twenty-seven known moons orbiting it and there are even rings around Uranus, although they’re faint and set at an odd angle.
It takes Uranus eighty-four Earth years to orbit the sun, and yet a day on Uranus is just a little over seventeen hours. Uranus spins really fast!
Source: Imgur
That’s all about the planet Uranus. I’d now like to focus on the town of Uranus, located just below the center of Missouri, along the historic Route 66. More of a tourist attraction than a small town it’s really home to a lot of fun attractions, although I don’t have any details about how many people regularly pass through Uranus. The world’s biggest belt buckle is there–it’s more than ten feet tall and would probably fit a pair of pants just big enough to hold all of Uranus. There’s a fudge factory in Uranus, and a place called The Axehole where you can practice competitive axe-throwing and try to hit a target. There was even a short-lived newspaper, The Uranus Examiner, which unfortunately upset the mayor of a nearby town who thought it would encourage people to make jokes about Uranus. It just seems like a fun and interesting place, and what kind of people would make fun of Uranus?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sa1TgAeZlQI’d rather have a root canal than go to the dentist.
Maybe that’s not exactly true, but I did have a dental appointment for a regular checkup and cleaning, so I left work early to catch the bus. The Nashville MTA app is now defunct. It used to show riders when specific buses were due to arrive. Now it just lists the scheduled arrivals at different stops which is pretty useless because its rare that buses are ever on schedule. I was reminded of this when I was standing on one side of the street and the bus I wanted, not due for another ten minutes, pulled up to the stop across the street, paused for a microsecond, and went on its way. Once on that side of the street I set off on my merry way with plans to catch the next bus or walk to the dentist’s office, whichever came first. Fortunately I did catch the next bus, and when I got on the driver said, “Nobody’s ever at this stop at this time of day,” and I said, “Well, someone was today!”
Then at the dentist’s office the hygienist asked me if I were feeling better and I asked, “Was I feeling bad six months ago?” I’d forgotten that I’d had a dental appointment the week before but had to reschedule because I had a cold, which is how my short term memory is, but that’s another story.
When I left the dentist’s office I checked the bus schedule, thinking I’d catch the bus going back, and while I was doing that the bus, due in about five minutes, sped by, so I started walking.
As I was standing on a corner waiting for the light to change a young guy and his large black Labrador Retriever came and stood next to me. The Labrador Retriever looked up at me and I asked the guy, “What’s his name?”
“Oliver,” he told me.
“Hello, Oliver,” I said, and Oliver wagged his tail and rubbed his head against me, and I petted him, which made us both pretty happy. And I was actually glad I missed the bus because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have met Oliver.
March 8th of every year is International Women’s Day, an event that has a long history going back to 1909. It’s a good opportunity to reflect on how far things have come in the past 110 years and how far things still have to go. This year Google celebrated the day with one of its doodles:
I didn’t realize that Google has a theme for its 2019 doodles, “When I grow up, I hope…” and that they’re accepting submissions for doodles until March 18, 2019. The fact that International Women’s Day isn’t more widely celebrated, or even recognized in some places, reminded me of some pictures I saw a few months ago, pictures with statements that seem obvious but that still need to be said:
These are very powerful images and, given the area, I suspect they’re mainly aimed at men going into or coming out of the bars and restaurants in the neighborhood, places where they might meet single women. The problem is the placement of these particular posters. This is where I found them:
They were in a back alley where it’s unlikely anyone would see them, where it was purely an accident that I’d see them. That the statements these posters make need to be said is a comment on how far we still have to go, and where these posters were placed is an even stronger comment on that.
“An Ohio library says a 1968 copy of Life magazine with the Beatles on the cover has been returned by a borrower who apologized for stealing it as a ‘kid’ and sent $100 to cover late fees.” -Associated Press
It never occurred to me to steal anything from the library. Maybe this came from an early experience with the library in the school I went to from kindergarten through sixth grade. We were only allowed to check out one book at a time on special weekly visits and we were expected to return each book the next week. And each week she’d read out all our names and what we’d checked out the week before, which didn’t make any sense to me because I didn’t care what anybody else checked out. In second grade I checked out a book about dinosaurs and I’m pretty sure I returned it the next week but the school librarian was just as sure I hadn’t. And she read my name and the name of the book every week for six or seven weeks so I became a class joke, at least during library visits, and really only to my so-called friend Troy who, I’d later realize, felt that if he could deflect attention onto someone else no one would make fun of him for being the only kid in the class whose parents were divorced. I didn’t realize this then because the school library was very small and its entire psychology section was a copy of Freud’s Totem & Taboo that someone had left there by mistake.
I finally found the book. A kid in a different class had pulled it off the shelf and the school librarian’s system was so rudimentary she didn’t cross-reference records so it never occurred to her that it was checked out to two of us at the same time. When I pointed this out she said, “Well, next time you need to return your book directly to me rather than putting it back yourself,” which I hadn’t done. This taught me a valuable lesson: some librarians are jerks. And I wouldn’t make another mistake until sixth grade when I accidentally gave the school’s copy of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency by Daniel Pinkwater to the public library and a very nice librarian mailed it to my school with a note that said, “It would appear this belongs to you,” because not all librarians are jerks.
I liked the public library better anyway because it was bigger and there were books that could only be reached by climbing up ladders, although for a long time the only thing I checked out was Octopus Lives In The Ocean by William Stephens, which was a very detailed book about the life cycle of the octopus. I read it so many times I had it memorized and once gave my grandfather a lengthy description of the ins and outs of octopus sex and he was silently impressed, but that’s another story.
I still love libraries. I like owning books too, and I own a lot of books, mostly ones I reread, or at least plan to read again, or just keep for reference purposes even though I believe sometime in the future there will be a vast computer network that will give everyone connected to it access to vast swaths of information. Lately I keep hearing about the Japanese concept of tsundoku, the idea of buying books but never reading them, although I think every book is purchased with the idea that it will be read. Some books we just never get to, but they’re there just in case. Once, in the library where I work, a guy showed me a book of obscure mathematics and he said, “Who reads this stuff?” Not me, but someone, I hope. Why put something into a book if it’s never meant to be read? And it’s why I’m very conscious of always returning library books. I’ve had epic overdues and once, by mistake, I had a book checked out for years and built up an epic fine but I still returned it and some librarians understand that to err is human and they’ll forgive a fine.
And that brings me to the anonymous person who returned the stolen 1968 copy of Life magazine in the throes of Beatlemania. The library probably had more than one copy, but if it didn’t that meant no one else could read it. Maybe the library bound its 1968 run of Life magazine with that one issue missing so it was still unavailable, and maybe later on they got rid of their bound volumes and replaced them with microfiche, which probably contained that issue of Life with the Beatles on the cover, but if you’ve ever tried to look up anything in microfiche you know it’s unreadable anyway.
Still the person returned it in the end and even paid the late fees, and I just hope the librarian who checked it in isn’t one of the ones who’s a jerk.
It’s been raining. We’ve had heavy rain, rain that’s caused the backyard to flood, that’s sent cascades of water down the stairs leading to the driveway, rain that’s caused me to say, “Why didn’t I bring an umbrella with me and do I really want to go back and get it because I’m already soaked?” And we’ve had light rain, rain that’s barely even wet, the kind of rain that’s caused me to say, “I don’t need an umbrella if this is as bad as it’s going to get,” and then it gets worse, it turns into moderate rain that’s not that bad but it might as well be heavy rain because I’m probably going to be out in it for a while. There have been a few short periods when the rain stopped but during those times it turned really, really cold and still overcast, and people in the elevator would say, “Can you imagine what it would be like if all this rain were snow?” Yes, as a matter of fact I can imagine that and I’ve been through ice storms and I’m glad that even though the combination of cold and rain isn’t pleasant it could be so much worse.
Finally there was one day last week, the first of March, in fact, which is supposed to come in like a lion, a saying that always confuses me because lions are hot weather creatures. If March comes in cold and wet then the animal it should come in like should be a polar bear, since it’s going to maul you and maybe have a liver with toxic levels of vitamin A. Then, the saying goes, March goes out like a lamb, which makes sense for a month that seems to shit on everything, but that’s another story. This day, though, was not only dry but the sun came out, which was a real kick because most of us had forgotten what it looked like. It was warm too. Well, warm-ish. The temperature went up to almost sixty, Fahrenheit, which is in Celsius is, I think, the square root of 17.2. I left the office in a mood almost as bright as the weather and had a nice walk to the bus stop. There were lots of other people out walking too, and people jogging. Once I got on the bus I saw even more people out walking, jogging, just out enjoying the day. We passed a restaurant with a patio that’s been a pond for the past month, and I’m pretty sure the inside was empty because everyone was sitting outside.
For the first time in weeks I was looking forward to the walk home. Then we got to my stop, I got out, and it started raining. I didn’t need an umbrella when I left.
One of the repeated stories of art history is that Impressionism began with the invention of the camera. Artists, seeing that there was a technological device that could capture an image of the world as it really is, stopped painting in studios and went outside to capture the effects of light with rapid brushstrokes. Like everything else it’s more complicated than that when you start to look closely—the two major artists of the Impressionist movement are Manet and Monet, and there’s a lot more than just a vowel that separates them.
Still in an overarching way it’s true that’s true—the invention of the camera did coincide with a major change in art, and it makes me think about repetition in art—how artists went from trying to copy nature to creating more and more individualistic works. Before the camera there was less emphasis on individuality and more emphasis on making something that could easily be copied. And maybe—I’m taking a really big leap here, but it’s an educated leap—something similar happened earlier with the printing press. Poetry, with its emphasis on repetition and rhyme and regular meter, was easy to memorize—in a sense easy to copy, because before the printing press literature had to be copied by hand. After the printing press more writers were free to write in prose, free of the restraints of poetry because they weren’t as concerned about creating works that could be easily memorized and therefore more easily copied.
An article over at CityLab 
