Robert Rauschenberg is dead.

Sorry But You’re Wrong About It

This is the title page of a book I found at a local library sale. It’s written by one Albert Edward Wiggam, D. Sc., in the first person, addressed to the Man on the Street (personified throughout as “my dear Mr. Manstreet”). In it he explains why we’re all wrong about everything since we don’t have the science to back it up. He concedes that scientists “are almost always wrong,” but “the scientist can tell just about how nearly right he is and can calculate his own probable error.” The conclusions he attacks are astonishing, as is his hit rate for presenting a convincing argument. Conversely, there are some that would be charming if they weren’t so appalling. For example, he asserts that “you are wrong if you believe…. the Women Can Drive Automobiles As Well As Men,” a notion he claims is “surely dripping with blood.” He defends the notion by attacking accident statistics showing favorably toward women drivers, then goes on to insist that female applicants should be screened more carefully and trained more intensively. He goes as far as to say that six months of training should be given only after an applicant has demonstrated the “inborn aptitudes” (italics his) to make them safe drivers.
And it wouldn’t be a misogynist screed without a pseudo-scientific implication:

It may be that women have inborn physical, mental and emotional characteristics as unexplored and unmeasured, such as lack of “nerve” (or even too much “nerve”!), or a feeling of physical inferiority, or a recklessness of life, or a super-regard for life, which make it necessary for them to take longer training to become safe drivers. These are, however, mere guesses and I have no evidence for or against them.

Like Stephen Colbert trying to start a rumor that Obama is a secret Muslim by claiming that he had no evidence for or against the notion…It’s arich book and will be fun to pick apart literarily and literally. Check my Flickrto see the Table of Contents.

Drawing Lessons, Assignment 1

Originally uploaded by Tymcode
I’m tired of not being able to draw. I can sometimes do a decent sketch when I sit and stare at the thing thanks to some teachers using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain in my youth. And I dimly recollect some lessons on perspective from a drafting class in junior high school or something.

But what I really want to do is to be able to draw something that is not before my eyes. I also want to learn the rules of shading. It doesn’t need to be anything amazing or really even complete; I just find I have need of this sort of thing from time to time. Like when I fake 3D in photoshop — I can “tilt” and “bend” a piece of paper using transform tools like Scale, Perspective and Warp. But it doesn’t look right without the shading, and I don’t know where to hit it with the Dodge and Burn tools. Sometimes I just want to include something hand-drawn in my collages to add a little depth and interest.

In fact, if I could just create a compelling sketchbook I’d be pretty happy, the way people are happy when they create an altered journal. I remember seeing my friend Michelle P. Kern’s sketchbook at a party. I was fascinated by the suggestion of real things rising unexpectedly out of the page here and there, the text and images creating this landscape rippling with ideas, each unrealized and not fully-formed but hinting at a vast potential. Guillermo Del Toro’s sketchbook for Pan’s Labyrinth is a great example of what I mean, especially if you speak Spanish.

I can’t really take any formal training right now, but my friend Jane Wynn, a former art professor at Towson University (near Baltimore), has offered some sort of casual distance tutelage that I can’t refuse. Her first assignment was to work on drawing various values in shading using a ballpoint pen and no finger-blending.

Fortunately I can sort of remember how shading works in a cylinder, at least for one angle. I hope someday to not need specific rulesets like these; they don’t scale well. So my wife furnished me with a handsome Moleskine sketchbook and while on a plane from Las Vegas to San Jose I took my first stab.

Jules TTV 2

Originally uploaded by Tymcode
Here’s my first (well, second) through-the-viewfinder-style photo of my wife’s newest doll, Jules. The grime layer is from the viewfinder of an old Brownie I got at the flea market. I appropriated the bezel from a TTV of an Argus 75 by Flickr user “Kat…” since my Brownie’s is weird. Vignetting and color transformation was done in Photoshop with Hue/Saturation and Levels adjustment layers, mostly, and Lens Blur.

I was hoping to photograph this large Pullip doll with her other dolls but he has the unfortunate effect of making Blythe’s (dis)proportions even weirder, and if he stands too close to a Momoko he looks like a paedophile. So I guess I’ll just get my vintage-portrait jollies from him and leave it at that.

I suddenly feel incomplete as a person. One day I must possess one of these. Insect Lab Studios retrofits real insects with brass gears and other mechanical parts:

Here’s a noodle-baker for you. Sculptress Bathsheba Grossman uses very modern tools to create sculptures exploiting the intersection of art and math. She’s even made those tacky crystals with the 3D etchings inside them into something I might actually want to buy. Be sure to check out the How They Are Made link — I bet you’ll be surprised. There is really very little on this site that is not astonishing.

As my friend Peter pointed out: I bet she really liked Gödel Escher Bach. So did I.

I haven’t gotten a new watch in many years. I like them, but i’m pretty hard on them, whacking them into things, clipping doorways and such, so I don’t go for the crazy expensive ones. This year though, while walking in Downtown Disney (a pedestrian mall in Anaheim), gravity sucked me into the Fossil shop and I fell in love with a watch, and my wife got it for me for Valentine’s day. It’s really butch. Kinda topped me, even; I have submitted to my watch.

It’s one of those deals that charges its internal battery as you walk around, and the design lets you see the, I dunno, little alternator thingy wobbling about. Tom Wynn was with us, betraying a silent longing for an automatic
wristwatch like this, but I just like seeing the watch movement.

It’s very heavy, it’s going to take some getting used to on my arm. And I think I need to take out one more link. But it wasn’t exorbitantly expensive and it’s a little piece of happiness on my wrist. Thank you, honey.

Hannah Grey Branding Concept

Originally uploaded by Tymcode

What do we think of the new approach to the branding for Hannah Grey?

They say I should have just gotten a reversing ring for my 50mm prime, but I’m really glad I got this mind-blowing 60mm macro lens. I haven’t gotten it juuuuust right — lighting is hard to manage at this level — but this lens is mind-blowing.

This shot of these little iridescent pebbles from a vase was at f/57 (!) with a 15 second exposure.

Now that I got a shiny new Nikon D80, I’m giving my photos more attention than ever.  I’ve had a lot of fun on my Flickr site but I wanted something I could control better.

I just installed Zenphoto as a sort of experimental alternative to Gallery2.  Zenphoto pretty nice in a very DIY way.  It’s lightweight and sensible but not feature-rich just yet.  It’ll get there, I’m sure.

So I’ve loaded a bunch of my photographs into the default template, loaded it up with metadata and I’m ready to take it for a spin.  What do you think?