Pictures of Us

Today is the anniversary of the ambush that killed Bonnie and Clyde on Mary 23 1934, a little off of what is now Interstate 20, an hour east of Shreveport. They lived their lives expecting to die but kept escaping because Clyde was more experienced at shooting people than the small town cops they ran into. It's hard to believe today, 75 years later, that this little group of folks could move around a five state area for years, committing crimes and living in public places, and never get caught. Described by culturists as the first celebrity criminals, they were also pre-cursors of today's self-referential and -reverential twenty-somethings who used the media to burnish their mystique, took pictures of themselves posed "in character," and turned themselves into american idols that the public followed, supported, and destroyed.

In the Movie About Us, Please Make Us Prettier
Photograph: Kobal Collection

In order to finish them off, the law had to take unprecedented and illegal tactics, including shooting them to pieces with no warning when Bonnie had no warrants for violent crime outstanding. Clyde, however, had shot to death at least nine policeman, and a few others. (See Wikipedia).

That day's story in the New York Times describes Clyde Barrow's body as "a smear of red, wet rags."

New York Times, May 23, 1934

Movie of Death Scene

Is it better to burn out than to fade away? At least if you do so before everybody gets tired of you...

Blogs and the Blogging Bloggers Who Blog Them

To Gawk or not to gawk... is that the question?

Emily Gould, erstwhile editor at Gawker, has a first person narrative in the New York Times magazine this Sunday, titled "Exposed," about her experience as a pseudo celebrity blogger. She's only in her mid-twenties, and had ratcheted up the mediascape from an entrepreneurial self-exposer to join the staff of Gawker, where she got caught up in the catty excitement and traded her personal integrity for comments and attention. The online article had over 800 responses, to which additions apparently at one point were blocked, as of this afternoon. Most of them bemoaned the Times, the customs, and her apparent lack of self-awareness or reflection. In spite of being burned for too much self-disclosure or disclosure about her loved ones, here she was again, using a format that many found too bloggy, soggy, and unworthy of the venue. Armchair psychoanalysts suggested she was a narcissist, a masochist, or in her twenties. Some snarked that naysayers were just out of the loop. Others were truly mean, and felt that she deserved it.

Photo by Elinor Carruci

At first blush, it was hard not to concur with the pitiless commenters, who were also accused of themselves contributing to this circle of shame. But when I watched her visit to Jimmy Kimmel on Larry King posted on YouTube, the vampish egotistical poseur of the Times article became more human. She was genuinely unprepared, naively stepping up to be knocked around by someone who, it was pointed out in the YouTube comments, is himself a mean-spirited jokester who dates the meanest girl in school. As she rolled her eyes and pursed her lips into a tremulous smile, I kept wondering if she was looking at herself on a monitor. It was as if all her energy was consumed with composing her face, and she had no time to compose her thoughts, as she was completely unable to respond effectively. She was up against Kimmel, Mark Geragos, and some other media guy, all of whom have spent thousands of hours in front of the camera. Her naivete was a complete contrast to the character she is playing on the Internet, a tattooed, smarter-than-thou, self-involved, self-promoter.

In the current Columbia Journalism Review cover story Lost Media, Found Media," author Alissa Quart writes ambivalently about the demise of traditional quality journalism and the rise of the fast food, disposable stuff being churned out by people like Emily Gould. Young people. It seems like in some ways we are not so much experiencing the impact of Future Shock from the Internet, but just the expected fin de siècle shock of the new, and the resistence of the old.

From Answers.Com:

fin de siècle [faⁿ dĕ si‐airkl]the French phrase (‘end of century’) often used to refer to the characteristic world‐weary mood of European culture in the 1880s and 1890s, when writers and artists like Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, and the French symbolists, under the slogan ‘ art for art's sake’, adopted a ‘decadent’ rejection of any moral or social function for art. Reacting against realism and naturalism, they sought a pure beauty entirely removed from the imperfections of nature and from the drabness of contemporary society.

In a broader sense the expression fin de siècle is used to characterise anything that has an ominous mixture of opulence and/or decadence, combined with a shared prospect of unavoidable radical change or some approaching "end."

Note that it is not necessarily change itself that is implied in the expression fin de siècle, but rather its anticipation. For example, for the 19th-century fin de siècle, the most radical changes to the cultural and social order occurred more than a decade after the new century had started (most notably as a result of World War I).

The behaviors and attitudes of the young people who came of age on the Internet are just beginning to take over the mainstream, close to a decade after the new century started. They are not too different from their forebears, rejecting moral or ethical foundations for their work. Posting endless details about their lives on the web is normal for them. Even posting incomplete epiphanies that they finally have it figured out.

Buy Buy American Idol Pie

Despite the reminders that it is a fading institution with declining viewership, American Idol continues to attract interest, and in some ways, this season has inspired a renewed volume of comment in mainstream media as it culminates tonight. The New Yorker, NPR, and commercial radio and television news have all been reporting on the showdown of David Archuletta and David Cook, reflecting on the relevance of American Idol, and analyzing its impact on our media culture and its consumers. Noted for its establishment of the judging and elimination model of reality / talent television, Idol has had an unexpected impact of also modeling a critique behavior that mainstream Americans now exhibit in routine conversation about any number of performances.

David Archuletta

David Cook

With its wierd mix of hackneyed music and expectations of pop freshness, American Idol has been most intriguing during the preliminary rounds in which the young singers struggle to either fit into the mold or break out of it. Showstopping-high-note endings are still de rigueur, but the Whitney Houston-esque warblings that dominated in the beginning are less common now. Judge Simon Cowell prefers modern to old fashioned, and will justifiably condemn performances as "cruise ship," "theme park," and "karaoke." And yet the music that is selected is so freighted with anachronism and familiarity that it is difficult for performers to achieve any other effect. The gestalt of the group is often better than any individual performance, and the process of elimination seems to gradually remove any of the idiosyncracies that make performers have lasting resonance.

Mark Harris on NPR this morning pointed out that these two finalists represent the opposite ends of the spectrum -- Archuletta is the bland, consistently perfect pop singer with no real personality of his own, and Cook has sought to establish his own personality and imprint as a rock guy while still working within the Idol pop mold. It has been hard for me to appreciate Archuletta as the season has worn on. His initial fresh, cute optimism seemed to degrade into a stricken, fear-based rigidity, and the polish of his vocals seemed synthetic and boring. The stories about his father being banished from the backstage of the show reinforced my impression that perhaps he was under too much pressure, a little too much control. I appreciated Sasha Frere-Jones comment in the New Yorker that Archuletta had a "creepy inability to become displeased with himself." There is something very sad about David Archuletta. As for David Cook, he started out as a little un-photogenic and has gradually worked his style up to match his other talents as a musician. He really profitted from the "use instruments" innovation this year, and his vocal talents emerged progressively to earn respect as the season went on -- an interest-factor not demonstrated by Archuletta.

So, the show, which should be called "American Money Maker," has capitalized on this by setting up the climactic showdown performances of last night as a "boxing match." I had missed the first 15 minutes, and so didn't realize that they had actually had these poor guys come out in boxing clothes. I think that was probably the moment that David Cooks' personal integrity cracked and he became overwhelmingly depressed. It was bad enough to shill for Ford in faux music videos, which he somehow managed to do with some personality and grace that seemed to be consistent with his actual self, but the boxing robes and gloves were corny beyond Kansas.

Photo by Fox

The judges awarded the evening to Archuletta. Vote for the Worst urged viewers to vote for Archuletta. Dial Idol predicts David Cook will win. It seems like David Cook might be opting for second place as a good bet -- no doubt he will fare better in his life than Archuletta either way. Smart guy, decent musician. I voted for him and against the child star phenomenon.

UPDATE: David Cook wins, by 12 million votes. Was the premature nod to Archuletta a connivance to generate drama and ratings and votes? If so, it worked.

R.I.P. R.R., October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008

Photograph by Burton Berinsky/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Don't we all owe Robert Rauschenberg? He invented the mash-up, the re-mix, the re-use, and inhabited the cherished notion that art is not one thing but anything, that you can use anything, any media, to express your vision. The New York Times article offers a beautiful but limited summary of his life and work, which embraced so many different opportunities and approaches and yet had a quality of organic evolution and internal consistency. Erasing de Kooning, painting over the only purchased painting from his first show, roller skating on stage, merging sound and still and movement, mixing technologies: all playful, collagist, and reconsiderate.

Bon Voyage R.R. May the next journey be worthy of you!

Photo Source
Rauschenberg, Robert (1925-2008) © VAGA, NY

First Landing Jump, 1961.
Combine painting: cloth, metal, leather, electric fixture, cable and oil paint on composition board; overall, including automobile tire and wooden plank on floor, 7' 5 1/8" x 6' x 8 7/8".
Gift of Philip Johnson. (434.1972)
Location :The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, U.S.A.

Photo Credit : Digital Image (c) The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

Delft Libraries and Coincidence

I heard Michael Stephens (http://tametheweb.com) speak last week about technology, users, libraries, web 2.0, and a number of other things, including a reference to Delft public library, which turns the notion of a library upside down sort of like the way the Pompidou Center turned the notion of a museum inside out. Gaming stations, multimedia stations, and the IMac listening pods are especially cool. See the slide show on Flickr for more cool pictures that people have posted.

But he didn't mention the other Delftian library -- the one at the Delft University of Technology. As it turns out, this other Delft library also represents forward-thinking architecture and technology, perhaps like you would expect from an academic university of technology with a school of architecture.

Photo by the Shifted Librarian

Designed by the Dutch architectural and landscape design firm Mecanoo and built during 1993-1997, the building is concealed by a vast sloping grass roof, with a teepee-shaped structure that simultaneously provides vertical presence, functional purpose, and evokes the windmills that symbolize the Holland landscape. Check out the pictures people have posted of it on Flickr, in both the green of summer (people lounging on the roof) and white of winter (people skiing on the roof).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jason_delft/385561339/

Other examples of the Mecanoo group's work are available on their website. I was riveted by a short film of a woman speaking in Dutch about a chapel, carrying the maquette through a cemetary to the build site. I did not understand a word of what she said. Then I found an English version of the site and it said the film was about a Roman Catholic Chapel for Saint Mary of the Angels. The maquette looked like a two coffee cans melded into a kidney shaped spiral and topped with a mortar board.

Most of what is written about Mecanoo and TU Delft is in Dutch, so the subject continues to be mysterious even after looking around on the internet, like a window into an alternate universe where people are thinking about some of the same problems, generating completely progressive, original solutions, and throwing our world into the dustbin like leftover coffee grounds.

Which leads me to today's coincidence: the Wikipedia entry for TU Delft reports that the school of architecture burned this morning, May 13, 2008. According to the site, "The fire soon engulfed several floors of the southern wing of the building. [...] Parts of the northern wing have collapsed and it is feared that the rest of the building may follow. [...] It is believed the fire was started by a ruptured water pipe which short circuited a coffee machine [italics are mine] on the sixth floor of the building."

This picture is from the TU Delft website, where they had posted an update at 1900 hours that said the fire was still burning, or at least that's what my Babelfish translation suggested.

Last Wool and Testament

Yesterday we wandered through the immense and baffling halls of a faux english manor set in one of our most expensive intown neighborhoods. The collected possessions of the couple that built the house in the 1990's were on display for purchase, although few could afford anything but a soapdish. Tiny china dogs were 85 dollars, sets of silver many times more than that. Paintings, rugs, old books, objets d'art, humidors, writing desks, grand tables... even the mundane objects were pricey. The local football team logo was evident everywhere, suggesting a hospitable connection with the two rooms with wet bars. Collections of figurines of all kinds began to blur together until my companion pointed out the strange pairs of white animals, some with baskets in their mouths, others with smaller offspring.

Were they lions, sheep, lambs? They dated from the 1830's and had funny, kabuki-like expressions with painted arched eyebrows and dotted noses and red lips, their hair falling in two puffy billows on either side of their heads. What could they be?

A herd of them populated every surface of the master bedroom. On the bedside tables they held baskets of baby versions in their mouths while holding up the lampshades. What is the significance of these creatures? What power did their owner endow them with? I would have had a hard time sleeping in the room with them looking at me.


Now that I know they are poodles, Staffordshire poodle figurines, to be exact, I began to feel the tug of their strange magnetism and did a little research. I have now learned that these figurines have what is referred to as "parsley", "spaghetti," or "confetti" style hair, and that the males are distinguished with a mustache. (Note the poodle on the top left, above.) They cost upwards of $180 dollars apiece.

According to www.poodlehistory.org:
Staffordshire (1840-1900) and Rockingham (1826-1842) figurines, and etc. Poodles as well as spaniels were among the favorite subjects for endearingly naive yet vital figurines manufactured for cottage mantlepieces.

Not unlike their chain-linked brethren from Woolworth's, they began as decor for the humbler classes. Perhaps one day 100 years from now, the libraries and master suites of the not-so-landed gentry will display matching mother and baby poodle figurines from the five and ten just as proudly, but will they resonate with such a haunting, impertinent gaze?

Traffic and Surfing

There is no better time to question your existence than when you are sitting in Atlanta traffic. A bitter Satreian comedy that consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of people burning gas as they inch along allees of asphalt, chain restaurants, and car dealerships, the rush hour experience in Atlanta is simultaneously bonding and devolving: you are in this together, and yet you are constantly judging the other drivers and finding them in need of severe punishment. Detachment is difficult to achieve and maintain. While trapped in this exitless inertia yesterday, I was listening to Fresh Air on NPR WABE 90.1. No doubt everyone else was listening to Sean Hannity on WSB AM 750.

Terry Gross was interviewing Jonathan Paskowitz, a producer and subject of the documentary "Surfwise," the story of the surfing Paskowitz clan of 9 children, who along with their mother were taken off the grid by their dad, Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, spending their lives living ascetically in a 24 foot camper and surfing the world. While they experienced deprivations and strange disciplines, their lives seemed magical, innocent, and pure. Paskowitz referred to it as a life of "bold quests, big surf, wild adventures." When asked how he felt about surfing, he said "words cannot describe the euphoria that surfing provides as a human; words cannot describe the absolutely magical and romantic feeling of riding a wave, going up and down on the surface of the water, and feeling just an unlimited power under your feet and to be in harmony with the ocean, perhaps riding along and seeing a dolphin in the face of the wave next to you, or a beautiful rainbow as the spray of the wind is offshore pluming over the back of the wave. And it's just the most beautiful, romantic, organic thing a human can do."

You mean that sitting in a car on Highway 78 in Snellville isn't?

Listen to the segment on Fresh Air

Read the review in NYT

Watch the beautiful trailer in NYT

Tales from the Dark Side

Since about 12:00 today I have been trying to help Jennifer upload her new website. We share the same webhosting company (I will not name them here but they have the homonymous name of a credit card with the word web post-pended.) She had exchanged 18 emails with them in an effort to get ftp to work from Dreamweaver. Here are some, just some, of the thousand things we have done in the last 5 and a half hours to fix this.

1. I checked my own website through a browser and discovered that my website had completely disappeared from the web and I was unable to connect using FTP to the webserver of my own site. At length, I was able to connect using FTP and began to upload my site files. At some point, I realized that the default public folder name had been changed on the host side, and that although my files were visible, they were not the ones that would be accessible from the primary domain.
2. We tried configuring Jennifer's access the same way but it refused to work. We tried everything, even the web-based utility provided by company creditcardnameweb, which only allows you to upload a single file at time and not any folders.
   
3. I feel like this isn't sounding bad enough. Let's be sure to say that two hours went by where we looked all over her computer to see if FTP was blocked and we looked all over the admin client for the company creditcardnameweb to see if the FTP account was configured wrong, and we finally sent the support guy another email with the configurations we were using, a trace route to the ftp site, and the error messages we were receiving.
4. We gave up and had lunch.
5. Coming back, I began to try again to figure it out. At length, I set up her site in my computer, and was able to FTP her files and everything was great.
   
6. At this point, she could no longer access her site in the web browser on her computer.
7. What the heck? It's 5:37, her files are uploaded, I can see them on my computer, but she can't see them on hers. She has combed through her security and browser settings and can't seem to change this.
   
8. My site still has no webpages! I have written to company creditcardnameweb myself and haven't heard back yet.
   

There is a dark side to the Internet. It's company creditcardnameweb!