(no subject)

Hey, everyone remember Giant Marilyn, the huge and hideous upskirt shot that I loathed fiercely when it was installed in Pioneer Plaza in Chicago? The one which, as a local paper pointed out, is an homage to a scene in a famously New York centric film, causing us all to wonder if we'd lost some kind of bet?

Well, Marilyn has gone to California, may it disintegrate quietly and ignored, and THIS has replaced it:



It's freaky and weird and kind of frightening and I LOVE IT TO PIECES. OVERSIZED PLASTIC CHILDREN IN GOGGLES. SURE WHY NOT.

I mean, on its own it's really interesting and taps into the fun vinyl/plastic figurine trend that Rotofugi kickstarted in Chicago. It's mysterious and thought-provoking. But you know what the vital thing about this is, why I truly love it? Nobody's panties are showing and it's not a monument to a scene which caused Marilyn Monroe to be beaten within an inch of her life by her pro-athlete husband.

My bar is set pretty low when it comes to the rotating art installations on Pioneer Plaza, but that's not my fault, they're the ones who showed Seward Johnson sculptures for years.

(no subject)

I received River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit for my birthday in September, and I have to admit at first I thought it was a book about horse racing because there's a dude on a horse on the cover. But the image is actually one of the famous motion study images captured by Muybridge to settle the question, in the early 20th century, of whether a horse at trot has all four legs off the ground at any one point.

Those who paid fifteen dollars for the six cards could hold in their hand the canter, the gallop, the walk, could hold a handful of time, live as snakes, caged in the grid. --p. 195

River of Shadows is about much more than Muybridge's motion capture studies, however. It's something of a biography, but it's more that it uses the biography of Muybridge to discuss the ways in which technology of the late 19th and early 20th centuries irrevocably changed the way we interact with time, distance, and visual perception.

( River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit )

Final Verdict: I really enjoyed River of Shadows; I think it's a beautifully written as well as a strongly-researched book, and the combination of the two is pretty rare. I think Solnit really nailed it, enough that despite not liking A Paradise Built In Hell I'd like to go back and look at some of other other works.

(no subject)

Sooooo I didn't know that you could look up the top 25 users on LJ based on page views, but now I do.

Turns out I am #4 on LJ today.

#5 is George RR Martin.

Serve him right, killing all those poor people.

It's a false return, I think, because of the LJ-might-be-banning-gay-content-wait-no-not-really foofarah from yesterday, but still, it is kind of hilarious to read a list that goes:

Ursula Vernon
Seanan McGuire
ME
George RR Martin
Jim C. Hines

It's either the worst or best orgy ever, I can't decide.

(no subject)

I've seen Agents Of SHIELD! It's time for Sam's Three Things!

Spoilers for Episode 1.03, ( The Asset )

3a. And why wouldn't you run an op in a business suit? Anything else just wouldn't be a challenge.