arse poetica

Sidewalk Psychiatry

Candy Chang - Public Art - Sidewalk Psychiatry.

A routine trip can prompt reflections on everything from future goals to last night’s dinner conversation. As people sacrifice personal time for hectic schedules, these casual occasions for reflection become all the more important.

Sidewalk Psychiatry encourages self-evaluation in transit by posing critical questions on the pavements of New York City. Now your daily ponderings and emotional problems can be prodded and treated on the go - and, best of all, it's free of charge!

[via Wooster Collective]

The Sun is Still Sunny

Dave reminded me about the wonder and the glory that is Les Concerts a Emporter.

Screen capture from the Dean and Britta post. Mmm.

Meet Your Al-Qaeda Operative!

Ladies and germs, your Bush administration brings you a world gone completely absurd.

Al-Qaeda wants your questions.

AL-QAEDA sympathisers have been asked to send in their questions for the terror network's second in command, which he will then answer in an online interview next month.

The bizarre stunt was announced in a new video posted on the internet in which al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, mocked today's British handover of security in southern Iraq to local forces as a sign that insurgents are gaining the upper hand.

The video, carried by Islamic websites, was issued as Britain handed over security to Iraqi forces in the last of four provinces it once patrolled, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of southern Iraq.

The websites invited readers to send in questions during the next month for Zawahri to answer in an "open interview".  How the interview would work was not immediately clear.

What questions would you ask al-Qaeda's number two?  Let us know using the form below.

Zawahri has been in hiding since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and - along with Osama bin Laden - is the target of a global manhunt from US forces.

Maybe they should look for him on Twitter. How's the bandwidth in those caves in Pakistan? &c. &c. Faugh.

The Interwebs Are Making Me ADD

Just tooling around the interwebs finding way too much to read.

American Exceptionalism in a New Light: A Comparison of Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the Nordic Countries, the United Kingdom and the United States.

A hunger for books: Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.

Tom Watson: Clearing the Smoke Around Obama.

Postdoc Survey Finds Gender Split on Family Issues.

Yale U. Puts Complete Courses Online.

From Oil Wars to Water Wars.

IKEA Naming Conventions.

Hillary's Cookies.

[photo: ae | wall at Kuba Kuba | Richmond, VA | 11.03.07]

Happy Thanksgiving

I love this photo for so many reasons. Chris Glass plucked these leaves -- all from the same tree -- to create this amazing color wheel. So let's hear it for Chris's discerning eye, nature, creativity, color, ingenuity, inspiration, bothering to pull off the side of the road in pursuit of beauty, chance, serendipity, and the wild and wonderful interwebs!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. xoxo

Who, Me?

Ahem.

Not that I know any, but I'm sure some grammer natzee's out there can relate.

Yes, I am Getting My Sister This for Chrismaramakwanzakah

Hee.

Girly: Guess What Chicken Butt T-shirt (white).

Blogging Done Right

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg is blogging the YearlyKos convention. Nice.

There's so much about this that I love -- Hertzberg's POV and writing style, the fact that he's blogging this (and avidly, it seems) for The New Yorker, that the old guard is mingling w/ the new, that YearlyKos is a bonafide important campaign stop worthy of serious coverage (i.e., right-wing nutjobs screeching "Witch! Witch!" doesn't hold as much sway as it once did), that the New Yorker finally has a site worthy of its stature.

UPDATED link 8.6.07.

How to Make Out, or Levitate (Or Both)

What a curious list! What's this levitate business?

How to Make Out, or Levitate.

Top 10 "How to" Searches in the U.S (4 weeks ending 7/21/07)

1. How to tie a tie
2. How to have sex
3. How to kiss
4. How to lose weight
5. How to write a resume
6. How to levitate
7. How to draw
8. How to get pregnant
9. How to make out
10. How to make a video

Much of it seems like kids' queries to me, and if the right-wing idjits would quit forcing their anti-sex (ed) hysteria on the rest of us and quit yanking Judy Blume books off the shelves, the kids would have a good portion of the information they needed and could instead spend their time querying the interwebs about "how to write a successful speech for my summer at the Model UN" and "how to build a youth movement and spur staid old fuddy-duddy congress critters to begin the impeachment process." Well, one can dream.

And I know that for yours truly way back in the day the question was not 'how to make out,' because one could reasonably expect to figure that out as one went, but 'how to start making out.' That was damn near impossible. Couldn't someone just have yelled, "ready, set, go!"? That would've been v. helpful. =D

[photo: a cute graphic on a bag I rec'd at some gas station en route to Asheville in June.]

Me Meme Also Spells Me me me

I been meme'd by Sally Greene! The topic is 8 Random Facts About Me, and Sally's are much fun. "Random" is just my speed. Anything more specific, and I'd be in trouble.

1. If I were to run for president -- and y'all remember back when we used to think a regular (intelligent) person couldn't just be president, that it took some special training, a coherent world view, sobriety, a passing familiarity with the Constitution, leadership experience, and not being an insufferable frat boy jackass? How quaint that was. How innocent a time. Anyhoo, were I to run for president, I could actually utter the words "I didn't inhale" with sincerity. Never have.

2. I'm pedantic enough to be annoyed by misspelled spam. I grind my teeth reading those subject lines. Also, I have no idea what the hell OEM software is, but I'm pretty damn sure I'm not in the market for it. That goes double for C1@L1$.

3. For an inveterate list-maker, I'm terrible at Top Tens and such. I don't organize my tastes in hierarchies like this. I love many things, some lasting, some fleeting, and if I'm asked a "what's your top 5 films/books/records/&c." sort of question, I can usually come up w/ one or two before I falter and look to db to remind me. db remembers my Top 5s much better than I do.

4. Famous people I have touched and the cities I have touched them in (in relative order): Michael Hutchence (Charlotte, NC), Bella Abzug (NYC), Betty Friedan (Chapel Hill, NC), Ralph Fiennes (would that there were more to this story, sigh) (London), Lauren Bacall (London), Damon Wayans (LA), Stewart Copeland (LA).

5. I can fence. En garde!

6. To this day I regret the decision to take Calculus my senior year of high school instead of art. Honestly, WTF was I thinking? A colossal waste of everyone's time. I had enough college credits and still I was an idiot. God.

7. There are 8 books on my bedside table right now, because, well, I'm distracted and different moods strike. Essays, poetry, a memoir, 3 novels, and work-related nonfiction. I've started all of them.

8. And in honor of db's remembering more about me than I do, he'd like to add that I nod/shake my head at the TV in anticipation of the person on TV affirming or negating something and that I am visibly appalled when they respond in a contrary manner. Ha.

That was fun. Thanks, Sally!