August 26, 2008
Misc
1) Disturbed that after watching a few Madonna videos on YouTube, I'm forced to admit she's entertaining.
2) Ortega y Gasset: unreadable, or nearly so.
3) Lake Pipple-Popple. Edward Lear.
4) Momentarily fascinated by Marfa, Texas. Wikipedia:
In 1971, Donald Judd, the renowned minimalist artist, moved to Marfa from New York City. After renting summer houses for a couple of years he bought two large hangars, some smaller buildings and started to permanently install his art. While this started with his building in New York, the buildings in Marfa (now The Block, Judd Foundation) allowed him to install his works on a larger scale. In 1976 he bought the first of two ranches that would, to him, be his primary places of residence, continuing a long love affair with the desert landscape surrounding Marfa. Later, with assistance from the Dia Art Foundation in New York, Judd acquired decommissioned Fort D.A. Russell, and began transforming the fort's buildings into art spaces in 1979. Judd's vision was to house large collections of individual artists' work on permanent display, as a sort of anti-museum. Judd believed that the prevailing model of a museum, where art is shown for short periods of time, does not allow the viewer an understanding of the artist or their work as they intended.
I recommend the Marfa Prada slideshow
August 25, 2008
Saturday NYT crossword reinkings
1 ACROSS: Oil-based paste mentioned in the lyrics to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." (10). I gave this one a mental sing-through and wrote in PLASTICENE. But it's PLASTICINE.
19 ACROSS: Thanksgiving dishes (5). I wrote in BOWLS after having BO filled in. BOATS, instead.
54 DOWN: 0, for 180o (4). I wrote in MINS with the IN crossings, which looks kind of dumb now in a moment of quiet reflection. The answer was SINE. Math answers always fool me, because I assume no one knows math but me (usually accurate).
42 ACROSS: Small, narrow bays (7). I had LETS as the last four letters and tried to write in INLETS before noticing an extra blank square. Oops. ARMLETS, instead.
* * *
Postscript: I'm getting a little disturbed that it's taking me less and less time to solve crossword puzzles. I don't want to be able to solve them quickly, because I depend on them to provide me entertainment at those points of the day when I have nothing better to do (dr appt, waiting for the car, on hold with a phone company, etc). I've already taken to carrying cryptics around, and on Monday and Tuesday (sometimes Wednesday!) I carefully mutilate the NYT puzzle, removing half the clues (ie all the Across, or all the Downs) by tearing the page up, prior to solving it. I really don't want to be one of those people who carry big books of puzzles around. Or Sudokus. One thing that stops me from progressing even more quickly is having a rule to *never* look up answers on the web (well, almost never), and I've never looked at a crossword solution either, at least as far as I can remember. In this way, I slow my progress, because if I don't know a common word for Sweetmeats this week, and couldn't figure it out, well, I won't be able to fill it in next week, either, unless I'm able to guess. To slow myself down, I use a pen and try to fill in the puzzle clue-by-clue, not jumping around the grid at all, like "water flowing down the page." This slows me down a bit. Also, knowing almost nothing about pop music, actors and actresses, and movies helps quite a bit too.
August 23, 2008
Angry porcupine contest
This didn't go well for me. I did not handle the media well, despite having both conceived the contest and having suggested the medium. Somehow I got a Hannibal Lecter porcupine, instead.
August 20, 2008
Chez Palo Alto Sol
THANE: (To Gloria) I see that your two sons aren't too inclined to wait for you to be served before they dig in to their respective meals.
GLORIA: Yes—Cole, Owen—if you would like to learn some manners, well, I'm available to help you. Maybe you can use them on a date or something, you know, when you're trying to impress someone.
THANE: Right—some kind of formal class, led by your mother. Sort of like cotillion. She'd lead the class early in the morning for you two.
COLE: Is it polite to take notice when someone is not being polite?
THANE: Ah—good one, good question. I wished I'd thought that one myself. Perhaps when I'm slurping cereal or bread crumbs are tumbling out of my mouth I'll use that one. Anyway, here comes your mother's soup anyway. Why not just dig in? I'll confess to having had a little bit myself.
All of August 2008
July 2008
