the klog

(Project 365 Day 160)

So I was over at SFMOMA to see a "Picasso and American Art" exhibit, and I saw this cubist oil painting by Arshile Gorky titled "Composition with Head". It was painted from 1936-1937, but I couldn't get over how much the thing at the corner looked like my cell phone! Could Gorky see the future?

Zoom in for a better look at the painting.

(Project 365 Day 158)

"Ah, you're awake," said the bunny. "It would appear that the operation was a success. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Scarier large and on black.

I wonder why nobody thought of this sooner: Hip Hop Hold 'em [contains sound]. Bling & gambling: a winning combination! :) (Actually, though, it kinda bugs me how cynically stereotyping this show seems.)

What's not so obvious is Nabaztag the Wi-Fi Bunny [also contains sound]. Wtf?! I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell this thing is for. Yes, I've watched the explanatory animation, but all the information is, like, frictionless or something; it just flows right past me, and I am able to retain nothing. I have no idea this thing is. And yet, I kinda want one. Wtf?! Stop messing with my head, you accursed bunny!

Final Fantasy (the band.. or rather, the guy) was pretty neat. He plays his violin in a variety of ways, and he'll play a short loop, record and replay it with foot pedals, and then play new layers over that. Meanwhile, there's a shadow puppet show via overhead projector to go along with the music.

Here he's covering Bloc Party's "Modern Love" as he opens for them: (The drummer from Smoosh, the other opener, is helping out on this one, but she's not in frame.)

And here's Bloc Party. Clap your hands.

The ticket said "no camera or recorders", but flashes were going off all over the place:

This really made me appreciate the shutter-priority mode on my Fujifilm F30. Even though it doesn't have full manual, the shutter-priority is useful in a case like this when I want to artificially shorten the exposure beyond what I could do even with exposure compensation set to -2. (The backlighting effect wreaked havoc with the auto-exposure. :P)

I had fun taking pictures of the band's reflections through the broken mirror glass pieces that were mounted on the wall.

Scratches:

Funhouse:

Two guys:

Two guys, closer. No, this is not homoerotic at all:

Triangle:

The Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood:

My last three Project 365 photos have been themed around "yellow". The first two inadvertently, and the last intentionally.

Round Lamp, Yellow Wall:

This is not a yellow truck:

This is a Yellow truck.

Why am I yellow?

I figured I'd continue with the yellow theme of my last two photos.

So I can understand where the terms "black" and "white" come from. One's darker, one lighter. I can even understand "brown". "Red", a little less so. But I've never understood "yellow".

Okay, so this notepad isn't the world's greatest example of yellow, but still, compared to my arm, one is clearly yellow, and one is clearly not. Even compared to other people, how am I more "yellow"? If I'm in between "black" and "white", why not "gray"? :P For that matter, I'm clearly more "orange" than "yellow".

In all seriousness, though, I actually really am quite curious about the origins of using "yellow" to refer to East Asians. I wonder if it had anything to do with the "cowardice" definition? That is, I wonder if "yellow" was originally meant as a derogatory term. Did it originate with the term "Yellow Peril", or did it predate that?

Prett much what the title says. LA Times article here. Kinda reminds me of Indiana Jones, except instead of ancient artifacts, he's running off with giant ocean liners.

(Project 365 Day 132)

After a power outage, my microwave clock tells me, one word at a time, to "PRESS CLEAR THEN PRESS TWO TO SET CLOCK". So I took a picture of the clock saying "clock", because I'm all into self-reference. But then I thought: Is it really self-referential?

I figure: At the time it's displaying this message to me, it's not acting as a clock. If it's not a clock while it's displaying the word "clock", then it's not self-referential, after all, right?

On the other hand, if you had a digital watch that displayed some message, you'd still think of it as a watch. So, from that perspective, it's still a clock that's just temporarily displaying a message, in which case it IS self-referential.

But then again, this is a microwave, and the display's primary use is as a timer, not a clock (subtle difference). So maybe it really IS only a clock when it's acting like one.

So yeah, I can't decide whether this photo is self-referential or not. :P