The Early Years (2002-2005)

Unphotographable, a non-photo blog. (Via Michelle) I love the New Yorker. As does this guy - in some sense. Are most women bi-curious? Adding a delete button to Gmail, using a Greasemonkey script

S Chandrasekaran, “Memoirs of the Past”, 2001, at the Little India MRT station. Public Art in Singapore

> You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mysteryI’m quite impressed by how the “I’m that blogger” thing has spread through the Singaporean blogosphere, considering that it’s not a full-on meme - no one tags you to do it, it just is done. It has the tones of a giant group confessional, and a lot of the writing is very moving. It is really good to see how complex people’s lives are - some of my friends have joined in.

Hey, another day, another online quiz (via the Wily Filipino), and apparently my favourite director will direct the story of my life. Which could mean, of course, I’m really a small-built neurotic New Yorker… anyway, here’s the results:

A couple of months ago I discovered Chippy’s, a fish-and-chips takeaway (literally - there are only a couple of seats) in the basement of Far East Plaza. I have un certain weakness for British takeaway food, and $4.45 got me a huge bag of beer-battered fish, complete with salt and vinegar. Instead of the usual 2 large fillets though, this place gave out smaller chunks and skewers to hold them with - great for eating on the move, and great for batter lovers. Very filling, although the texture of the fish was admittedly a bit too powdery for my liking.

I call this Panel #1. Notice the interplay of the colours, and the white lines slashing down, reminiscent of Barnett Newman’s zips. Alternatively, it’s an interesting pattern that I noticed on some MRT construction at the City Hall station.

New York Metro publishes its list of who makes how much money in Noo Yawk: so there’s a guy who made a billion in one year (Edward Lampert, of a hedge fund). And apparently New York weatherpeople make a lot of money. And 50 Cent made 50 mil, which has sort of a nice ring to it.

Jay-Z and Beyonce caught in flagrante delicto. Possibly offensive. (Via City Rag) On P Diddy losing the P in his monicker: “Does the press–your Kurt Loders, your Billy Bushes–go along with the Puffy/(P) Diddy fiction because they don’t know the cultural nuances, or because it allows them to exploit our racist fascination with the crazy customs of these exotic black people? And if it’s the last of these, should Sean Combs be condemned as an enabler of racism, or should he be celebrated as a 21st century trickster, someone who uses the machinery of caucasian hegemony to make fools of the white folk?” On the death of Jane magazine - I didn’t know how significant a life force Sassy magazine once was. And finally, the pic up there is of Amy Crehore’s “Havana Brown”. I like her style - very distinctive (I remember this Jewel-Alanis illustration from Rolling Stone, for instance). Technorati Tags: hip-hop, jane, art

Artist Ji Lee pasted these blank speech bubbles around New York and took photos of what people wrote in them. I really like the Matthew Barney allusion in this one - says something about the marriage of art and commerce. (Via BoingBoing)

Sometimes it’s hard to get the right angle for a picture - this one was taken from the upper deck of a double-decker bus.

Tiny Dancer: Robots perform gynecological surgery. An Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview with Alexei Sayle, formerly of the Young Ones and now a writer. I just finished reading Sayles’ collection of short stories Barcelona Plates. Funny stuff, if occasionally trying too hard for a twist. Who can remember the name of Brooklyn’s New Hip Band? The table tennis set that’s remniscent of Edward Hopper.

Continuing my occasional series on public art in Singapore, this is part of Ian Woo’s “Enigmatic Appearances” (2001) - the whole work runs throughout the HarbourFront MRT station and is part of the North-East Line’s Art in Transit series.

The North Koreans introduce a credit card. Although deciphering the description of the card on the official North Korean news site. it sounds more like a debit card: “Six kinds of currencies can be deposited in a card at a time. With this card, one can exchange money instantly without going to a money exchange booth. A card can be shared by several persons… The bank enjoys popularity among depositors.”

I used the word “terraforming” in conversation this week in the context of thinking about transforming Mars, and it was interesting to see that a Cambridge, Mass. company actually wants to settle Mars. Although its planned means of profit are much more prosaic:

I’ll just put the Reuters picture and accompanying summary: U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005.

Hey, Google has a blog search now? Just noticed the bright shining bar on my Blogger dashboard. Icerocket and Technorati must be worried. Already, for me at least, it gives the same links as those two, and much faster.

Wow - Shaq’s in police training? Seeing Shaq chase after you on the street might be pretty scary. Miami Heat giant centre Shaquille O’Neal put his police training to good use when he helped nab a suspect who allegedly assaulted a gay couple.

I remember where I was on September 11, 2001, and I will never forget. On the second-to-last day I was in New York - back in July 2001 - I took a trip down to Tribeca at night and stood there, under the towers. Back then in a magical summer where everything seemed right with the world and the biggest news was the disappearance of Chandra Levy - back then, who was to know everything would change?

Wrote this in one of my responses to my earlier post on assigning characteristics to inanimate objects, but thought it was worth putting up: “Men do not apologize to inanimate objects. Have you ever seen a woman bump into a chair and say to the chair, “Oops, I’m sorry”? I’ve seen women say “excuse me” to wastepaper baskets. I’ve seen women say “pardon me” to table legs. On occasion, I’ve seen women apologize to extension cords, department-store mannequins, and packing crates that people have left in the middle of their living rooms…. Guys don’t do this. When a guy trips over a packing crate, you know what he does? He curses. He goes, “Who the fuck put this box here?” - even if he left it there himself.” - Susan Jane Gilman, “Kiss My Tiara” (was too lazy to retype it, so I took the quote off Punkindunkin’s blog)