detritus.

what lies beneath

2011-12-29T09:27:00.000-06:00

What several designers noted, though, were the crazy-quilt lines of what the publicity materials refer to as the “grand manor roof.” “With most houses, they could be colonial or modern, the roof line is so clear that you can see that underneath there is some kind of rational flow and layout,” said Mr. Hayes, author of “The Tailored Interior.” “With this, they’re unresolved and a bit messed up. You know that what’s underneath is not a lot of clarity.”

Hayes was speaking of Michelle Bachmann's Minnesota home in The Houses of the Hopefuls in today's New York Times.

The article features a run down of the architecture and interior design of the homes of the Republican presidential hopefuls.

soft, what light.

2011-12-16T15:29:00.001-06:00

Morton Arboretum
Lisle, IL

fermi lab five ways

2011-12-12T11:42:00.001-06:00

via cameraphone, of course.

how not to die

2011-11-23T08:01:00.001-06:00

There is no difference between art and activism.

UCSD professor of visual arts Ricardo Dominguez cited in an EFE wire story and reported by Fox News Latino »

UCSD professor of visual arts Ricardo Dominguez was speaking about a smartphone application that he created using GPS technology to assist individuals cross the border from Mexico to the US illegally by sharing information about the location of aid stations where water, clothing and blankets are stockpiled.

Domingo spoke to cell phones as part of a "poetic system that can save lives."

theory of relativity

2011-11-17T18:30:00.000-06:00

via @erinmckeown

In America, the top 1% earn more than $380,000 per year. We are, however, among the richest nations on Earth. How much do you need to earn to be among the top 1% of the world?

$34,000.

That was the finding World Bank economist Branko Milanovic presented in his 2010 book The Haves and the Have-Nots. Going down the distribution ladder may be just as surprising. To be in the top half of the globe, you need to earn just $1,225 a year. For the top 20%, it's $5,000 per year. Enter the top 10% with $12,000 a year. To be included in the top 0.1% requires an annual income of $70,000.

Morgan Housel in the Motley Fool

desire lines

2011-11-15T07:53:00.000-06:00

Desire lines generally refer to worn pathswhere people naturally walk – the beaten path that trails off the sidewalk,usually as a shortcut to a destination – but can be applied more broadly to anysigns or traces of user activity in an object or environment. The implicitclaim of desire lines is that they represent an unbiased indication of how anobject or environment is actually used by people.

From Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design.

My grandfather introduced me to desire lines, but he didn’tcall them by name. I can’t be sure that he knew what they were called. We werecrossing the Quad at the University of Washington, cherry trees in bloom, andhe pointed out the gentle ruts in the grass left by renegade feet in obliquepurpose to the University’s imposed paths.

“Those are the paths they should pave,” he said, pointingout the bald earth. I think of him now whenever I see a transgressive grooveslice through the corners of trim, paved plaza geometries.

Desire lines.

Rem Koolhaas oriented his IIT Student Center around thedesire lines that students wore into the wasteland beneath the El tracks ontheir passage to class, long before the building was sited. In the belly of his building there’s a placard thatmaps the original paths so you can see at a macro level what you experience whenyou walk through the structure: his building breathes with a unique kind ofrespiration because it is so well-aligned with the passage of people throughthat place. It doesn’t obstruct their passage from point A to B: It sheltersit.

I’m surprised that I’ve only just discovered this name for thething. It startled me when I stumbled across it yesterday, and left me towonder if maybe I knew it before but didn’t notice it; am noticing it now only becauseof these first tentative steps off my trim path; this early attemptat letting my feet find the way they would prefer to go.

on speaking to the dead

2011-10-31T18:31:00.002-05:00

Skeleton Donut
Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk

The rabbi addresses the importance of talking to the dead. His premise is that we want to, need to, talk to the dead. It is an important, not a maudlin, thing to do. The rabbi suggests that we have four things to say to them: I'm sorry. Thank you. I forgive you. I love you. This is what makes us human, over time, over distance.

Sherry Turkle in Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other

profuse or perish

2011-10-31T18:01:00.001-05:00

Tiny bubbles...
Originally uploaded by peater

You have to write as much as you can. People have studied these things.

Principal Jay Richard of Oyster River Middle School, speaking on strategies for passing the essay portion of standardized tests in America's schools in today's New York Times.

the intensity of strawberries

2011-10-29T07:04:00.000-05:00

I remember
the intensity of strawberries
in a very, very narrow
band of time –
June, July
Wimbledon on TV
things like that

Simon Schama on strawberries and other edibles in the weekend edition of the Financial Times

art alone

2011-10-15T16:28:00.001-05:00

All Passes -- Art Alone Endures
Fine Arts Building
Chicago, IL

more movies for you

2011-09-27T14:05:00.001-05:00

more movies for you
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Downers Grove, IL

hello old friend

2011-09-21T21:37:00.001-05:00

hello old friend
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Central Camera. Just now.
Chicago, IL

3.

2011-09-18T18:45:00.001-05:00

3.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Lincoln Park
Chicago, IL

bedside.

2011-09-17T10:39:00.001-05:00

bedside.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

(home)

that's some pig.

2011-09-10T09:15:00.001-05:00

that's some pig.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Sandwich County Fair
We do this every year.
The biscuits and gravy are to die for.

Sandwich, IL

tunneling

2011-09-07T21:02:00.001-05:00

tunneling
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Underground
Chicago, IL

herb jelly (other than mint)

2011-09-05T09:16:00.001-05:00

encircled

2011-09-04T18:52:00.002-05:00

When a redwood is injured -- like this one, struck by lightening sometime in the hushed twilight that is the steady state of Muir Woods outside of San Francisco -- the burl wood at its base buds and the tree regenerates through fresh shoots. Before long those shoots, too, grow into giants, ringing the roots of their fallen ancestor.

This is a belated post: I snapped this shot nearly a month ago, on my way up to Jackson, California to look in on my mother who isn't well. My aunts joined me there, and we took care of the kind of business that needs doing when lightening strikes and burl wood buds. My sister went before me, and was met by the strength of a dear aunt then, too.

Encircling, strengthening.

white bowl (summer peaches)

2011-09-04T18:50:00.001-05:00

boarded & back again

2011-09-02T18:24:00.001-05:00

boarded & back again
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Hello, Weekend.

Chicago O'Hare

MIA

2011-08-27T16:10:00.001-05:00

(I like this wall very much.)

At the Minneapolis Institute of Art

price point

2011-08-25T06:55:00.005-05:00

The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was priced at $666.66.

While You Were Out: Apple's Years With and Without Steve Jobs, in today's New York Times.

Steve Wozniak on how they arrived at the price point:

I simply like triple digit numbers with all the things I'm involved with, the cost of making the Apple 1 was around $540 or there abouts and we agreed on the best markup, retail price above the cost of building it, which worked out to $666.

Jobs then tacked on the 66 cents to make it an eye-catcher price for the ads with the sale and promotion publications of it to the public.

potted post box.

2011-08-17T06:27:00.001-05:00

potted post box.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Bellevue, WA

remains of the ride

2011-08-14T10:32:00.002-05:00

remains of the ride
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Probably wasn't wise to take that trail ride in yesterday's downpour -- but it was worth it.

boston public, three ways

2011-08-09T19:19:00.003-05:00

In total, this place may have the NYC Midtown branch beat. The courtyard puts it over the top. (But don't tell the Rose Reading Room I said that.)

reprieve

2011-08-08T21:29:00.001-05:00

Ducked another round of recreational eating and conference schmooze for a free concert at Berklee College of Music. Turned out to be the right decision.

Thank you, Thom Brennan of the trumpet, and your brilliant, talented friends. Please keep playing. Always.

what you can't see

2011-08-07T16:51:00.002-05:00

This woman is bedecked with a sash that identifies her as royalty. From where I sit I'm unable to make out what domain of rural or urban significance she serves as princess. On the seat beside her sits her gem studded seven-pointed crown and a bag of McDonald's take out.

The princess is hungry and enjoying her fries.

Posting from O'Hare International, outbound to Boston Logan.

poolside

2011-08-02T00:55:00.001-05:00

Two unexpected hours on the tarmac means I've just now checked in to a vending machine dinner of microwave popcorn and a nutragrain bar. Unsatisfying, when I had Pacific fresh sushi in mind. But hey: there's a pool outside my window.

And dear friends close by.

Bellevue, WA

incarceration // liberation

2011-07-31T16:10:00.004-05:00

So much depends on who holds the key.

a rose is a rose is a rose

2011-07-10T08:48:00.001-05:00

Two things I didn't know before visiting the surprisingly colossal The Steins Collect exhibit at SFMOMA yesterday:

1) Among her Picassos & Matisse & Bonnards, Gertrude also cherished an El Greco of St. Francis. It wasn't featured in the show, though it would have added tremendous texture had it been. Instead I spotted it in one of the photos of her apartment in Paris. Delighted me because I have a fondness for both the artist and the saint.

2) Michael & Sarah Stein commissioned an extraordinary home from Corbusier. The exhibit includes a full sweep of architectural sketches and blueprints. I neglected to write down the location, so I know only that it's somewhere in France (I hope, still) and will have to go hunt for it.

And a third important point: the image included here has nothing to do with the Steins. It's a Banksy in Chinatown that PT Power was kind enough to share later that same evening, and it was my favorite of my remnant snapshots from the day.

Posting from San Francisco after a very good day.

no one belongs here more than you

2011-07-10T01:10:00.002-05:00

City Lights
SF, CA

peach pie drive-by

2011-07-01T16:59:00.001-05:00

Took a side trip along HWY 6 & 220 to see the Armana Colonies, a strange little religious sect that gave the world household appliances.

On this day it also gave up a peach pie and some cinnamon twist bread, because I can't go home empty handed.

Posting from the road home
Amana, Iowa

approaching Hoisington

2011-06-30T21:18:00.002-05:00

approaching Hoisington
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

US K-4 outside of Hoisington, Kansas. Which matters because it's where my Nini was born.

cheyene bottoms

2011-06-30T21:17:00.001-05:00

Vast wetlands in the middle of
Kansas. Who knew?

Cheyene Bottoms off HWY 156

historical kansas

2011-06-30T17:17:00.001-05:00

historical kansas
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Snapped at a rest stop outside Hays, KS
where it's currently 113 degrees.

outward bound

2011-06-30T17:16:00.001-05:00

Eastern Colorado
Headed back to the Heartland

great expectations

2011-06-29T21:54:00.005-05:00

Driving overland tomorrow, back to Chicago, at the tail end of a year long something or other that I'm still trying to sort out.

I plan to drive by Hoisington, Kansas, where my Nini was born, and which her family left Grapes of Wrath style when the earth kicked up dust as fine as face powder in 1935.

I'm not expecting much from a little town where the only Yelp review is for the Dollar General store (4 stars, one review, "good place to grab a few cheap things"). I'm just going to see what I can see.

I-70 E

2011-06-20T21:29:00.001-05:00

el palomino

2011-06-18T15:55:00.001-05:00

Grand Junction, CO

soup (1904)

2011-06-12T20:06:00.001-05:00

East Colfax
Denver, CO

this inelegant habit

2011-06-11T09:59:00.001-05:00

My Bompa was in the habit of folding a papertowel
two-ways and placing it between his coffee mug and
saucer. He trained me in the method the summer I
clerked for him, the law practice of his retirement
staged at the dining room table, my legal training
inadequate outside the ability to type 75 wpm and
deliver his coffee as he liked it.

I do it now often myself with napkins in cafes
because I like the way it deadens the clink of the cup
hitting saucer, the way it catches the drips, the way
it reminds me of him.

Posting by cameraphone from the Laughing Goat
in Boulder, Colorado.

what the back side of Friday looks like

2011-06-10T20:17:00.001-05:00

Chautauqua
Boulder, CO

thumbs up for rock and roll

2011-06-04T13:11:00.001-05:00

Posting this here so I never ever lose track of it.

nearly the night sky

2011-05-30T00:03:00.001-05:00

Somewhere near
Golden, CO

seeing

2011-05-29T23:40:00.003-05:00

Astronomical seeing refers to the blurring and twinkling of astronomical objects such as stars caused by turbulent mixing in the Earth's atmosphere varying the optical refractive index. The astronomical seeing conditions on a given night at a given location describe how much the Earth's atmosphere perturbs the images of stars as seen through a telescope.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

For more of the Atacama Desert see Nostalgia de la Luz at BIFF'd »

used books

2011-05-29T10:14:00.001-05:00

Sleepy Sunday
Boulder, CO

outbound to Dallas

2011-05-24T19:06:00.001-05:00

DIA

creating a kind of scaffolding

2011-05-19T19:39:00.001-05:00

Worth the watch.

super massive blue hole

2011-05-18T07:43:00.006-05:00

Debbi Georgatos from Dallas doesn't speak for me and yet, I can't look away.

Salon calls this clip a "remarkable avant-garde short film ("ad" doesn't do it justice)" »

Georgatos recently lost to former Cedar Hill Council member Wade Emmert in her bid to be chair of the Dallas County Republican Party.

Harry Weese Project A&B

2011-05-15T10:58:00.001-05:00

Touring Harry Weese & IM Pei's urban
renewal project. Residential housing.

Hyde Park, Chicago

(you're beautiful, baby)

2011-05-14T13:38:00.001-05:00

Passing by the Inland Steel in the fog & the rain.

Chicago, IL

kami-no-michi

2011-05-09T06:58:00.000-05:00

At present, older generations still consider the space of information as something one logs-in to and logs-out from. Our view of the world (our metaphysics) is still modern or Newtonian: it is made of 'dead' cars, buildings, furniture, clothes, which are non-interactive, irresponsive, and incapable of communicating, learning, or memorizing. But in advanced information societies, what we still experience as the world offline is bound to become a fully interactive and more responsive environment of wireless, pervasive, distributed, a2a (anything to anything) information processess, the works a4a (anywhere for anytime), in real time.

Such a world will first gently invite us to understand it as something 'a-live' (artificially live). This animation of the world will then, paradoxically, make our outlook closer to that of pre-technological cultures, which interpreted all aspects of nature as inhabited by teleological forces.

Luciano Floridi in Information: a Very Short Introduction, part of the Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions series.

neighbors

2011-05-09T06:34:00.000-05:00

The view from my kitchen window, right around breakfast.
Boulder, CO

a three hour tour

2011-05-08T08:42:00.004-05:00

I knew broadcasters would not be happy. My favorite response was from the Hollywood producer Sherwood Schwartz, who named the sinking ship in Gilligan’s Island after me.

Newton N. Minow writing in the Atlantic Monthly of his inaugural public address as President Kennedy’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission fifty years ago, in which he declared -- to the National Association of Broadcasters -- that television programming in the U.S. was a "vast wasteland".

imminent eminence

2011-05-08T08:24:00.005-05:00

Rome is a love letter to the lush, swinging sound of a vanished era of Italian film history. Ennio Morricone is the best-known composer to emerge from it but there were numerous others too, such as Piero Umiliani and Piero Piccioni, who serviced the needs of Italy’s thriving popular cinema, churning out scores to romantic melodramas, horror films, spaghetti westerns, erotica and the pulpy crime fantasies known as gialli.

From Roman Holiday, a write up of the upcoming release of Rome by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi, in the weekend edition of the Financial Times.

come away with me

2011-05-07T23:05:00.004-05:00

Hotel Plaza, Venice/Mestra (113mm x 91mm)
Originally uploaded by davidgeorgepearson

A collection of hotel luggage labels curated by the inimitable David Pearson, mentioned here before, whom AbeBooks recently hailed as a "design genius". (Their statement of fact saves me the trouble.)

we make them inside us

2011-05-07T07:47:00.005-05:00

These lists are journalistic catnip. Fun to read and look at the pictures but I find the liveable cities lists intellectually on a par with People magazine's 'sexiest people' lists.

Academic Joel Garreau in Liveable v. Loveable: The world's most 'liveable' cities are beautiful, clean and efficient. So why does no one want to live in them? in today's Financial Times.

The title of this post is taken from the last couple lines of Edwin Heathcote's article: "Our cities are our own -- we make them inside us. No city means the same to two people so how on earth can we measure them?"

Amen.

isolated in a web of one

2011-05-04T08:09:00.002-05:00

Obama 'watched Bin Laden raid in real-time'

2011-05-02T22:19:00.001-05:00

P050111PS-0522
Originally uploaded by The White House

BBC headline, 2 May 2011 »

the sound of silence

2011-05-01T15:37:00.003-05:00

via Karissa Lang

Too often the sounds people make are just waste products of their activity, discarded like trash with no regard for the environment.

Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton in a September 2010 interview in Sun Magazine.

immune to your consultations

2011-04-30T08:31:00.004-05:00

People change their positions all the time, the way they change their wives.

Aid to Donald Trump, commenting on the would-be presidential contender's change of stance regarding pro-choice politics (Trump is now pro-life), in this week's New Yorker.

drive by

2011-04-25T23:28:00.005-05:00

An animated gif -- or cinemagraph -- by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg. Via Gawker »

make like a shaker and weave

2011-04-23T14:13:00.001-05:00

Assembled and wove my very own Shaker barstool,
which sounds like a curious misnomer coming from
a religious sect the avoids alcohol. But the kit of
parts came from the Shaker folks all the way back in
September, which is when I made my first sad pass
at putting the pieces together. Mr. Hoo helped me at
last master the requisite sanding and dry fitting, and
then I tackled the woof and weft by my lonesome.

Comfy AND crafty. Bonus.

final dispatch

2011-04-20T22:31:00.007-05:00

Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Photographer Tim Hetherington, the maker of this short film and the director of Restrepo, was killed today in Misrata.

looking for the pony

2011-04-17T14:51:00.001-05:00

Commentary to follow.

Snapped at the Tattered Cover, Lodo
Denver, CO

(de)livery

2011-04-04T17:08:00.001-05:00

Austin, TX

under glass

2011-04-03T11:45:00.015-05:00

The Harvard Museum of Natural History is connected to the Peabody by a causeway on the third floor. I wandered over yesterday after I had my fill of the Peabody's fractured casts of the stelea of Copan and their marvelous Mayan greenstone, which is not entirely theirs at all, of course, but belonged to the good folks of Honduras once, some of whom were pictured beside the booty after it had been wrested from where their ancestors placed it millennia before, just before it was carted up by the folks from Harvard and shipped back to Cambridge for study.

Which got me to thinking about our compulsion to collect. Which is a dangerous thing for a museum junkie to start wondering about.

Without museums would we have as much cause to wonder about the wider world? Would a lack of museums lead us to be insular and inward looking and unconcerned about others beyond our boundaries? This is to be avoided. But what right do we have to uproot the treasures of other cities and peoples and place them under glass?

And then I wandered into the taxidermic galleries of the Natural History Museum. Case after case of collected creatures stuffed and arrayed incongruously on display. Prey beside predator, each soul unmoved by the presence of the other, staring ahead with glassy eyes. Each unrelentingly anxious, as if in answer to my question.

Taxidermic creatures, Harvard Museum of Natural History.

the Mayan word for wind

2011-04-02T10:44:00.001-05:00

Ik'
Peabody Museum, Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass

the universe of curves

2011-04-02T08:03:00.005-05:00

We have something in common, which is that we are belonging to the universe of curves.

Louboutin to the architect Oscar Niemeyer, as recounted by Lauren Collins in her profile of the shoe designer in the 28 March issue of the New Yorker.

harder to run

2011-03-13T20:45:00.008-05:00

a found poem

The bay is filled
with cars
concrete
half-sunken homes

railway line
twisted vertically
like a garden fence

Cars and motorbikes
roughly re-parked

balance precariously
on their bonnets

The young

had been able to flee quickly

Guardian correspondant Jonathan Watts filing from Shintona, Miyagi prefecture

on board the concorde

2011-03-07T07:03:00.002-06:00

on board the concorde
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Flight deck. The plane, on the whole, is
skinnier than I expected.

Museum of Flight, Seattle

for those of us who tire

2011-02-26T17:59:00.001-06:00

for those of us who tire
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

There's a service for that.
Off Folsom in Boulder.

solo

2011-02-26T17:21:00.001-06:00

solo
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone from
the Boulder bike trail.

BIFF'd

2011-02-20T13:18:00.016-06:00

Photo by Skinny Bald Guy

It's not clear to me whether the programing for the 2011 Boulder International Film Festival skewed, on the whole, to films about political oppression and violence and the struggle of humanity in the unrelenting face of each of these, or if I just gravitate to depravity like a bad boyfriend.

Either way, I got an eyeful over the last three days. Now it's your turn.

The Green Wave
Because I followed it on the social networks and in the news, I thought I knew all there was to know about the 2009 uprising in Iran. I didn't.

Insert unspeakable atrocities and human rights abuses here.

The film was promoted as being strung together out of social, user-generated content. This isn't entirely true. While the Green Wave makes use of UGC -- chiefly low res video clips and a scattering of tweets (which the filmmakers refer to charmingly as "twitter messages" and omit the expected "@" attribution so we don't know who has said these things) -- the core of the film is constructed of old-school talking head interviews yoked together by the animated illustrations of Alireza Darvish.

Contains a harrowing prison scene, something that is always guaranteed to capture my attention, because I harbor an irrational fear of unjust imprisonment without hope of release.

THE GREEN WAVE teaser (ENGLISH) from Jan Krueger on Vimeo.

The Woman with the Five Elephants
More war. More political imprisonment. More past events that percolate into the present, inescapable. Plus Dostoevsky.

My favorite film of the weekend because of its humanity, decency, intelligence -- and moral ambiguity.

Armadillo
More war. More moral ambiguity. Threat of prison. And bonus political insight/personal connection from Mikkel of Shady Acres fame »

Nostalgia de la Luz // Nostalgia for the Light
A remarkable meditation on place, politics, memory and the unknowable moment. Beautifully filmed, extraordinarily insightful, it leveled me like the films of Ron Fricke even though it bears no narrative resemblance (I'm thinking Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi, not Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith).

Prison bit: Concentration camp in the Atacama desert.

BIFFin' it

2011-02-19T21:41:00.003-06:00

BIFFin' it
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

The Boulder International Film Festival has been hit and miss.

MISS: Crazy bad intro reel that plays before all the films that's almost exclusively pulsing corporate logos and entirely devoid of tone and character. BIFF: take a clue from SIFF and SxSW who shoot super cool shorts to fill this slot and promote the festival. Corporate credits belong in the CREDITS. That's what they're there for.

MISS: Overpriced VIP pass for a festival that's way too short. Festivals flow better with a pass in hand: lines are shorter, admission is guaranteed, and you save hours of administrative hassle because there are no decisions to be made until half an hour before curtain. When the festival spans a week or two you can pace yourself and still get your money's worth. Not so with the steep price tag for BIFF. By the time I'm done on Sunday I will have averaged fifty bucks a film. At least I'm supporting filmmaking. I hope.

MISS: Single screenings for most films. Introduce at least two per piece and we're halfway to a longer, better-paced festival.

MISS: Spotty projection at the Boulder Theater. Something's up with the machine they're using to screen the films and the screen goes dark at regular intervals.

HIT: The films have been stellar, which makes up for the misses.

More on the movies soon -- after I've heard Mr. James Franco expound on his mastery of the universe.

Odds are on a miss.

Posting by cameraphone from the Boulder Theater.

3-second rule

2011-01-29T19:22:00.004-06:00

Photo by nicky.reynolds

What we have is very broad research showing that we experience the world in about these 3-second time frames.

Developmental psychologist Emese Nagy of the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom, commenting on her study: Sharing the moment: the duration of embraces in humans, in which she determines that the average Olympic gymnasts' hug lasts about three seconds.

Nagy's research stems from older studies that have observed this 3-second rule in human nature, as reported by the Journal Science:

Crosscultural studies dating back to 1911 have shown that people tend to operate in 3-second bursts. Goodbye waves, musical phrases, and infants' bouts of babbling and gesturing all last about 3 seconds. Many basic physiological events, such as relaxed breathing and certain nervous system functions do, too. And several other species of mammals and birds follow the general rule in their body-movement patterns. A 1994 study of giraffes, okapis, roe deer, raccoons, pandas, and kangaroos living in zoos, for example, found that although the duration of the animals' every move, from chewing to defecating, varied considerably, the average was, you guessed it, 3 seconds.

free with tempi

2011-01-23T11:03:00.003-06:00

Photo by CubaGallery

In an age before mechanical repetition, before constant noise, before continuous acceleration, did people have a different sense of time? Pianists today are nowhere as free with tempi, as improvisatory yet structured, as subtle.

Shirley Apthorp in the Financial Times writing about Chasing the Butterfly, new recordings of Grieg -- that rely on old takes by Grieg.

morning light

2011-01-23T10:23:00.001-06:00

Sunday. Starting slow.
Boulder, CO

international business machines

2011-01-22T21:04:00.007-06:00

Brilliant short on important tech history by the commercial and documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. The piece was commissioned by IBM for their 100th anniversary.

(Betcha can't clear the Mandelbrot scene without choking up.)

via @frydave

smells like

2011-01-21T07:42:00.004-06:00

Tamily Weissman, Jeff Lichtman, and Joshua Sanes (2007). Image taken from a transgenic “Brainbow” mouse that enables neuroscientists to distinguish between neighboring, densely packed neurons by illuminating them in different colors. This photomicrograph shows a few of the many neurons that are found in the neocortex.

Image via "Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century," by Carl Schoonover; Published by Abrams, featured on Book Bench, the New Yorker blog

Made me think of the kaleidoscope that is Klimt:

Gustav Klimt, The Pear Tree (1903)

jarmusch rules (abbrv.)

2011-01-16T11:34:00.008-06:00

Photo via jonathanrosenbaum.com

Rule #1: There are no rules.
Rule #2: Don’t let the fuckers get ya.
Rule #3: The production is there to serve the film.
Rule #4: Filmmaking is a collaborative process.

Rule #5: Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

Posting these so I don't lose track of them. They're intended for filmmakers but apply across the board. Treat yourself and read them in their entirety.

Found via users illusions.

something called a mouse

2011-01-16T09:06:00.005-06:00

What is this? Look at this, Keith. This is incredible! My God! I drew a circle!

Andy Warhol to Keith Haring at a 9-year old's birthday party in 1985. The two were playing with the Macintosh computer that Steve Jobs had just given the birthday boy. From the Playboy Interview with Steve Jobs that same year »

far more forthright, direct, humane

2011-01-09T13:13:00.007-06:00

Image: The Kahn Memo via The Best American Poetry

The passive voice is wildly overused in government writing. Typically its purpose is to conceal information — one is less likely to be jailed if one says, ‘He was hit by a stone,’ than if he says, ‘I hit him with a stone.’ The active voice is far more forthright, direct, humane.

Economist Alfred E. Kahn in a memo to his Civil Aeronautics Board staff in 1977, cited by his friend Robert Frank in today's New York Times.

Stacey Harwood also wrote about the memo in The Best American Poetry shortly after Kahn's death, and posted image copies online if you'd like to give it a read.

I have heard it said that style is not substance, but without style what is substance? — Kahn

stan adrift

2011-01-09T11:30:00.001-06:00

Snow's just begun. Five to ten inches expected. Stan and I have canceled our plans and are staying home with the Sunday New York Times.

the safety of the world

2011-01-08T22:37:00.007-06:00

The safety of the world depends on your saying 'no' to inhumane ideas. Standing up for one's own integrity makes you no friends. It is costly. Yet defiance of the mob, in the service of that which is right, is one of the highest expressions of courage I know.

Representative Gabrielle Giffords' commencement address to Claremont's Scripps College in May 2009, as reported by the LA Times after Giffords was shot in the head this morning by a gunman at a "Congress on your Corner" event in Tucson. Six others were killed.

another sexy saturday night

2011-01-08T18:47:00.001-06:00

another sexy saturday night
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

At the Ideal Market,
North Boulder.

this is stan

2011-01-08T17:10:00.004-06:00

I found Stan in an art supply store. He's a Woodland Scenics Seated People (1/4" Scale A2043).

He was hanging on an aisle endcap and caught my eye as I was scanning the rows for pens. He and his people were all seated, waiting eternally. Stan seemed the most optimistic of the crew, looking off to the far horizon. Hopeful. Confident. Longing.

I snapped his picture, found the pens, paid at the register and went my way.

But for some reason I couldn't forget about Stan.

A few weeks later I went back and bought the last pack of Woodland Scenics Seated People off the rack.

And now we're getting to know each other, me and Stan.

More to come.

joe's paint & body repair

2011-01-08T14:48:00.001-06:00

joe's paint & body repair
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Boulder, CO

letterage

2011-01-07T23:37:00.001-06:00

The Alphabet from n9ve on Vimeo.

sometimes we simply perform in the woods

2011-01-05T08:13:00.005-06:00

They do their pieces in this tiny studio, with no publicity whatsoever, for an audience that is reached through text messages, and that audience never comes directly to the theater. They are met at another location and escorted to the theater by a cast member. When you come, you are advised to bring your passport, because you never know when the police are going to show up and haul everyone off to jail.

Catherine Coray, a theater professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, speaking of the Belarus Free Theater in this morning's New York Times.

The Belarus Free Theater players are currently in New York where they are performing in Being Harold Pinter as part of the Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival.

interchange, take two

2011-01-03T11:59:00.001-06:00

interchange, take two
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Colorado this time.

Davey's Chuck Wagon Diner

2011-01-03T10:40:00.001-06:00

Davey's Chuck Wagon Diner
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Lakewood, CO

the last of the ho ho ho

2011-01-02T11:36:00.001-06:00

the last of the ho ho ho
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Wreath. Parting shot, Midway.

Heading back to Colorado without Mr. Hoo,
as it has been for the last six months. This
goodbye feels harder than most because we
had a couple of weeks to get used to each
other again; the slow waking to mornings and
the long goodnights.

Ready to be living under the same roof again.

interchange

2011-01-02T10:37:00.001-06:00

interchange
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Road to Midway
Colorado-bound.

sunset, 1.1.11

2011-01-01T20:31:00.001-06:00

sunset, 1.1.11
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

First sunset of the new year.
Naperville, IL

getting to PERMA

2011-01-01T09:36:00.003-06:00

Jane McGonigal - On Productivity from The School of Life on Vimeo.

Thanks to Jane McGonigal my New Year's Resolution is to play more games.

And get back to blogging (I miss it).

Jane McGonigal is a game designer based in San Francisco, California. She is the director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future and author of Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.

a conservatory christmas

2010-12-25T14:50:00.001-06:00

a conservatory christmas
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Garfield Park
Chicago, IL

amuse-bouche, Lou Mitchell style

2010-12-24T12:13:00.001-06:00

amuse-bouche, Lou Mitchell style
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

That's a stewed prune. Eggs over medium
on their way.

Posting over breakfast from just outside
Chicago's Loop.

ever after

2010-12-19T09:58:00.004-06:00

Black and white guitar strobist
Originally uploaded by Merit Attention

Ask any engineer how to flatten a tension curve, which is what EverTune does, and 9 out of 10 of them will say you should use a spring-and-lever system like the one I designed.

Cosmos Lyles, Engineer, Musician & Inventor of EverTune, "a guitar bridge that keeps the instrument from going out of tune no matter how hard its strings are strummed or bent," in The New York Times 10th Annual Year in Ideas.

lamp repair

2010-12-12T18:49:00.001-06:00

Bonnie Brae
Denver, CO