| |
On hiatus - check back, mid-October
| September 16, 2025 |
Holding my copy of the Tōkyo volume from the Time-Life series,
The
Great Cities. It's an intersection of so many of my interests:
Japan, and kanji; travel, and series of books (at one point
I had ten of these); neon, and the biggest metropoles. The
character is shin, or atarashi: "new." |
| September 14, 2025 |
- The accessory you didn't know you needed: a
Remote-controlled
LED from Booty Sparks. (Reddit video demo, she actually has two of them, using one to activate the other.)
- Fascinating video, from host Andrew Henry at
ReligionForBreakfast: essentialists vs. functionalists,
Fandoms are
Religions. Comparing Hajj with Comicon (even as he
continually insists that he's not).
- AuroraSaurus.org,
reporting auroras from the ground up, a world map with
zones color-coded based on prediction and sightings.
|
| September 11, 2025 |
- In honor of the day I compiled a small page of
World Trade Center ephemera, including these matchboxes. I was up in
the South Tower three times, but I never got to go to Windows On The World.
|
| September 7, 2025 |
 |
- The krul, curl, or
Flourish
of Approval is a hand-written symbol that indicates
passing, used to grade schoolwork in the Netherlands. In Japan,
teachers write a big circle (which the American new-comer, expecting
a check-mark, might take for a zero).
- Jeremy
Frey, mesmerizing Wabanaki basket-weaver. Another profile of this
First Nations/Maine artist, in
Down East magazine.
- Rhapsodies
in Blue — Anna Atkins' Cyanotypes, at the Public
Domain Review. She worked in the 19th century; something more
up-to-date, Lisa Shea at
cyanotypes.org.
The former did algæ; the latter, bicycle sprockets, among
other stuff. Wikipedia has more about the process under
blueprints.
- This Is Colossal reviews the new
Trucks & Tuks by Christopher Herwig, who documents the elaborately decorated
vehicles of India, Pak- and Afghanistan. Twenty years ago one
of these was parked out front of the Smithsonian where
The Silk Road show was on-going; here's a scan of my
oversized souvenir postcard. I'm especially curious
about the sound their curtains of chains add to these
vehicles' sonic ambience. (Click to zoom.)
|
| September 4, 2025 |
- Today's frame by Jack Kirby from a 1958 story, “The Thing
on Sputnik 4” in Harvey comics' Race For the Moon #2
from these
dense
Michael Studt flickrs. Those comics may read
from left to right, or right to left; it's rather
arbitrary but don't let that put you off.
- Smithsonian reports on injecting strontium aluminate
into succulents to make them
phosphorescent. It's the
same chemical of the glow-in-the-dark stars on the bedroom
ceiling.
- Beautiful printed circuit and microchip
photos by
Mikhail Svarichevsky.
- Lots of good stuff at Design You Trust like
the
bubble-top 1960 Ford Spaceliner concept.
- Preliminary to my travel around the world
in '08 I wrote of being inspired by
Edward
Hasbrouck, well now he has an urgent plea on his
every page,
There’s been
a fascist coup in the USA! and he's right, we
should be shouting it from the rooftops.
|
|
