Photo - uh - Saturday?

The often imitated but inimitable Mark Laita.

I've been getting works from this series sent to me in 8x11 glossy promos. I never get tired of them.

Go

Saw this preview Sunday.
Woooo.

Boom

Like all great modern art - this work vacillates between beauty and horror. I mean, how exactly do you celebrate a car bomb? If you were going to though, this is a good way to do it.

Not there yet

...but this is pretty friggin cool. Hal Riney / Publicis has a new minority-Report esque website with optional gestural navigation. It's a little awkward and hard to use and control, but it has a lot of potential.
(Thanks to Charles for the heads up)

This could go a lot of directions

All of them bad.

Let's see.

They get drunk and burn down the Vatican.

They get drunk and reproduce.

They get drunk and drive into the ocean together.

They get sober together (and then relapse and do one of the aforementioned).

Mel adopts Brit's children.

Brit adopts Mel's accent.

They rescue one another from oblivion with an overhyped "project".

See? You CAN make this stuff up.

Let's Fly

From Jan Von Holleben's "Dreams of Flying" in this month's Spirit magazine. See a couple more here.

Found on Carb-Free creativity.

We can be heroes

More works by anthony lister here.

Building Type

Mike Perry makes type the old fashioned way. He builds it.
Courtesy of "Lost at E Minor"

Photo (Thursday) Tuesday

Yet another Texas photographer straight from the pages of Texas Monthly.

Jeff Wilson

Glorious Mexican food

Go ahead and look up "tortilla slap" on youtube:

Right in the kisser.

Watch it five times. It gets funnier with age.

Trendwatch: Google fights

Are you more google-able than your cohorts?

Check this out.

Looking in

I love this.

Castaway

I did my civic duty this morning (no, not jury duty - the other one).

I was surprised by the lack of flyer-pushers and sign-wavers. I've seen more action at the deli counter.

And of course, it was all fucked up on the inside. Poorly marked, weirdly organized, and improperly staffed.

So I'll ask: what IS the deal with the folks that "work" at polling places? Are they paid? Because they shouldn't be. Are they volunteering. Because they shouldn't be.

I wish they ran the polls like they ran Starbucks. You walk in there with your voter registration magnetic-stripped card - you swipe it: a picture of you comes up that allows them to verify that it is indeed you voting. You wait no less than 3 minutes (and maybe grab a quick cup of coffee) - you fill out your order, you tip the poll worker, and you're out of there.

Instead - ironically - the whole experience feels slightly like pre-Gorbachev USSR: Stand in a line - get to the front of it - find out you're standing in the wrong line. Get in another line. Be handed a poorly designed and somewhat complicated ballot (with an alarming number of uncontested positions - why bother to have them on there in a primary?) Fill it out in a very strange "privacy booth": telescoping legs with privacy shields. REALLY?

People. One more time. DESIGN MATTERS. EVERYWHERE.

I wonder if the reason voters are so disenfranchised has as much to do with the voting experience as it is with the candidates? Freedom aside, voting reminds us of just what a shitty job the government does of running anything. The same way you judge a restaurant by the presentation of its menu, fullness of its parking lot, and the cleanliness of its bathrooms, don't you judge your government by the efficiency and usability of its elections?

You should.

Photo Tuesday

from topleftpixel.com
Look into it. Poignant. Canadian. At the same time.

Success

It's hard to imagine you could cheer more for someone than I cheered (on the inside) for a 220lb seventh grade girl who broke a board with her foot on the 15th try.