Today a marketing research video showed a respondent talking about her laptop. Her affection was so palpable that, as the analysis pointed out, it looked like she was ready to embrace it. And for good reason. It truly is not just a unit for computing. It’s the place where she keep so much that is important by any fair measure — probably all the pictures of who she loves and where she’s been, all the music she listens to, all the phone numbers she calls. It’s got all the letters she’s written, and most of the answers. It’s where she
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Roadside Art Online: Signs of a Deep South Drive
The creativity on display from Florida to Chicago can’t be beat. There are two new pages of roadside signage, the second devoted to Albany, Georgia, a great example of how lean times can preserve a certain slice of our visual culture.
Continue readingCharming eyesores: The Georgian Burglar Alarms of Dublin’s Doors
Yes, the Georgian doorways are charming, especially given that the Georgian facades are otherwise remarkably spare. These buildings could be 20th Century low-rent apartment blocks if not for the massive chimneys and lovely doors. That makes the prominent addition of burglar alarms even more striking, with the alarm boxes typically placed immediately adjacent to the door.
Continue readingField Museum Shrunken Heads
It was behind-the-scenes night at the Field Museum in Chicago and the anthropology department had staff members displaying some of its wares. Here was my chance to ask the question that had been bothering me for years: What had happened to the shrunken heads? Like the baloney people and fetuses at the Museum of Science and Industry and the Ivan Albright paintings at the Art Institute, the Field Museum’s shrunken heads were a crucual rite of passage for generations of Chicago kids. A staffer answered that they were in storage — at least they hadn’t been thrown out. The museum
Continue readingRIP Don Knotts, comic genius
Don Knott’s death Friday at 81 is a great loss, even though Knotts’ real talent will hardly receive its just appreciation amidst the inevitable references to Barney Fife and Mr. Furley. Although the Barney character certainly deserves the accolades it receives, Mr. Furley encapsulates much of the tragedy that dogs brilliant comedians. Thus Knotts achieved a kind of perfection on the Andy Griffith Show, and amazingly extended it further in a series of movies that Hollywood unfortuately pegged to the children’s market. But those movies, forced like many of the Marx Brothers’ best films into a fundamentally compromised format, allowed
Continue readingBert triumphant
Check out this page of fabulous Bert mania: http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1843531&thread_type=voteresults
Continue readingPut the X back in Xmas
Whatever the War on Christmas poseurs may say, Christ is all over the place in the holiday season. But how many blow-up Xes do you see on front lawns? How often do store clerks says “Merry Xmas”? And why don’t we call it Xgiving, too? It would make for a more efficient season and add more variety at the same time.
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