take out

Oakland, CA

part of the mission

a found poem

Part of the mission
of this way of writing
is to go down into the cellars
of language and unlock
long buried relationships
between words

"Im Verlassenen" is an invention
formed from the verb
verlassen

to leave, desert, abandon

"Im Verlassenen" means something
like in a place of essential abandonment

it draws to the surface
the derivation of Verlies

the word for dungeon
from verlassen

A Verlies
a place
where you
are abandoned



Found in Nicholas Spice's piece Up From the Cellar in the 5 June issue of the London Review of Books about Elfriede Jelinek's essay Im Verlassenen. Jelinek's essay concerns Elisabeth Fritzl, who was imprisoned by her father in the basement of their family home for 24 years.

in Disney's Japan they dined on synthetic crab

this act of kindness

a found poem

There was No. 1009
an 80-year-old paraplegic
white-bearded grandfather
who clung to me
when it was time
for me to leave

No. 1154
43-year-old
Dr. Ali Shah
choked back tears
as he recalled
the last time
he saw his daughter

No. 1021
Chaman Guil
crouched in his cage
and wept out of fear
that his family
would forget him

No. 977
Izzatullah
a six-foot Afghan
granted permission
to view a home video
of his family
who he had not seen in
five years

When he saw his
children on tape
he inched closer
to the screen
laughing and weeping

Finally he said
For the rest of my life
I will remember this act
of kindness


Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, writing in the Summer 2008 issue of the magazine of Amnesty International about the men she met while acting as a Pashto translator at Guantanamo.

Khan is now a lawyer and the author of My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories they Told Me.

speaking of water

Video: Think About Your Troubles from Harry Nilsson's The Point

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nothing that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful

I'm not interested in how we can make materials sparkle and glimmer and make them visually spectacular, but how we can make them performatively spectacular.

Architect Eric Olsen in the May issue of Metropolis magazine, commenting on his winning entry -- the pleated bucket -- in the 2008 Next Generation design competition.



Constructed from pleated tarpaulin, the pleated bucket takes a cue from the Saguaro cactus -- each of its pleats expands as it fills with water. The "bucket" -- which is actually more shawl like, designed to be worn in just that way to transport water from one place to another -- will disinfect the water it contains when set out in the sun for five hours.




Illus & Photo: Metropolis

historic marker

That building to the right with the Chinese lanterns? That's the Legendary Palace in Oakland, CA (shot the week before last) where once upon a time b1-67er and I had legendary dim sum (almost entirely by accident) and the World's Best Mechanical Engineer refused to eat his greens (but had no problem putting away the pork) and later I'd shoot a bunch of pics at the Oakland Bonsai Gardens just for fun that Mastercard would pay four hundred whole dollars to use as part of their online Priceless Picks campaign.

Honest. All true.

And if it weren't for Flickr that last part wouldn't even have happened. (Thanks, Flickr.)

But Flickr had nothing to do with the dim sum.

Which was legendary.

bodies at rest and in motion

holga.

final mile

final mile
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Feeling the tug of the barn. Almost home.

homage to the square

homage to the square
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

With apologies to Josef Albers,
who was also there.

Grand Rapids Art Museum
a little bit earlier today.

yep: wet. and as big as my head.

yep: wet. and as big as my head.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Fortifying for the road home with
a (could be spicier) spicy pork burrito.

Posting by cameraphone from
Tacos el Ganadero
Grand Rapids, MI

5 / 7 / 5

Me, me, me, me, me.

Stephen Colbert's Webby Acceptance Speech

Since their inception in 1999 The Webby's have insisted that winners constrain their acceptance speech to five words.

This week I caught wind of a dinner event held tangentially to an industry conference here in Chicago. (Yeah, no, not the super cool WWDC. That wasn't here.)

Traditionally it was "online retailer only" dinner and vendors were left at the door. But in recent years vendors -- folks with something to sell to retailers -- have been invited in under one condition: that they prepare and read a haiku to the assembly.

The retailers then vote on which vendor presented the best haiku -- and that vendor (and only that vendor) has 60 seconds (and only 60 seconds) to pitch their goods.

And then everybody eats in peace.

wayne -n- trisha

wayne -n- trisha
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Rest Stop along I-196N
inbound to Saugatuck, MI

Posting by cameraphone

giant red ball...

giant red ball...
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

... in the lobby of the Chicago
Cultural Center.

Go figure.

Posting by cameraphone
from the Loop.

refresh yourself

Epcot's Africa
Orlando, FL

holga.

all your base are belong to us

Source: Common Wealth, Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey D Sachs, cited in this morning's Financial Times.

long tall drink of water

long tall drink of water
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

(I've been called worse.)

McCormick Place
Chicago, IL

Posting by cameraphone.

equitable terrain

When you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality.

Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

the architecture of dread

the architecture of dread
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Sports Stadiums. Shopping Malls.
Convention Centers.

I don't like the way they make me feel.

(Well, maybe not all sports stadiums.)

Posting by cameraphone
from McCormick Place
Chicago, IL

of Batman, Superman and the Marquis de Sade

Life Magazine, 1960s sometime

Really wanted to find out what the headline was all about, but didn't want to spend the $35 to do it.

Printer's Row Book Fair
Chicago, IL