Personism

Links: Making Books

• Making Books
  I can't help thinking that as this year gasps its way to its merciful end, something terribly sad is happening, that a vague, general shift in the cultural landscape will alter how or what we read in some still indefinable way; that a quirky, creaky, financially insupportable business that in spite of itself produces that most desirable and perfect of objects -- the book -- is perishing, and that we are yet to fully feel the loss.
  (tags: writing publishing literature business books)

Links: Serious Issues Edition

• Original Essay: The Not Rape Epidemic at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture
  ...we were not prepared for was everything else. Rape was something we could identify, an act with a strict definition and two distinct scenarios. Not rape was something else entirely. Not rape was all those other little things that we experienced everyday and struggled to learn how to deal with those situations.
  (tags: women gender feminism politics crime)
• Campbell's Offers No Concessions on Gay Ads to AFA - Advertising Age - News
  They don't come much more conservative than Campbell Soup, but the iconic marketer is nonetheless standing fast against the American Family Association, which has taken issue with a print ad aimed at gays and lesbians.
  (tags: rights marketing advertising politics)
• Swanson Accused of Using Local Chef to Fight the Culture War -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog
  When criticized by conservatives for "supporting the gay agenda" Swanson issued this pitch perfect response: “Inclusion and diversity play an important role in our business, and that fact is reflected in our marketing plan. For more than a century, people from all walks for life have enjoyed Campbell's products, and we will continue to try to communicate in ways that are meaningful and relevant to them.”
  (tags: politics advertising rights discrimination)

Links: Some Good Advice

• WHAT'S GOING ON? - DAWOUD BEY'S BLOG: Advice to A Young Artist
  Really great advice for emerging artists, including plenty of straight talk along the lines of this: "If you are showing your work to informed viewers and no one is responding or talking your work up to other people, you need to take a long, hard look at your work. Do not be foolish enough to think that everyone else is wrong and that you are right!"
  (tags: photography advice blogs careers artists)

Links: I Hope this Guy Has a Book Deal

• AO Art Observed™ » Blog Archive » After 20 years and $225 million in art recovered, top FBI art crimes agent Robert Wittman to retire
  20 years after leading his first major art recovery operation, the FBI’s top agent in art theft investigations and recoveries is set to retire. By often posing as a crooked art dealer working on behalf of wealthy organized criminals, Special Agent Robert Wittman has played a key role in recovering $225 million in stolen art over his career, often going undercover to retrieve very high profile works of art.
  (tags: art museums crime people)

Links:

• A quote for the ages
  I <3 NY.
  (tags: twitter friends funny nyc sf)
• David Byrne Journal: 12.18.08: No More News
  ...newspapers have dumped most of their foreign bureaus, food critics, and film critics, and are loathe to assign reporters to stories that will take months to research and write. In doing so, they are eviscerating that which makes newspapers different from online reviews, blogs and websites. When papers end up like USA Today, there will be no reason to read them.
  (tags: publishing newspapers music media journalism culture)

Links: Tucker Nichols ' SFMOMA Collection

Left: William Eggleston, Untitled, Memphis, 1970, 1970, dye transfer print. Right: William Eggleston, Untitled, Memphis, 1970, 1970, dye transfer print.

• SFMOMA | OPEN SPACE » Blog Archive » Collection Rotation: Tucker Nichols
  Creating an online exhibition from SFMOMA’s permanent collection carries the luxury of choice without the hassles of scheduling or installation. The options are seemingly endless. Rather than come up with an idea and then hunt for fitting examples, I decided to take an afternoon to look at every image in the permanent collection available online. When something jumped out at me, I saved it in a folder. I didn’t think about what I was collecting or why. When I went back to look at the folder, natural pairs formed before my eyes. It was kind of eerie, really — every image found a partner for one reason or another.
  (tags: photography art curating friends museums)

Links: Starns in South Ferry

The Starn twins, Doug, left, and Mike, at the new South Ferry station, with their installation "See It Split, See It Change."

• Mike and Doug Starn’s Installation at the New South Ferry Subway Station - NYTimes.com
  ...When the new $530 million South Ferry station, the terminus of the No. 1 train, opens in January, it will have some added luminosity, thanks to a site-specific installation by the artists Doug and Mike Starn. Commissioned by the Arts for Transit program of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the installation, “See It Split, See It Change,” includes curved floor-to-ceiling glass walls laced with silhouettes of trees, a marble mosaic of a vintage topographic map of Manhattan, and other imagery drawn from nearby Battery Park.
  (tags: art 20x200 friends subway nyc)

Links: Aggregation Nation

• The New Examined Life - WSJ.com
  The objective for Mr. Felton and others is to seize data back from the statisticians and the scientists and incorporate it into our daily lives. Everyone creates data -- every smile, conversation and car ride is a potential datapoint. These quotidan aggregators believe that the compilation of our daily activities can reveal the secret patterns that govern the way we live. For students of personal informatics, the practice is liberating because it shows that our lives aren't random, and are more orderly than some might expect.
  (tags: internet privacy identity infographics)

Links: Work: Good, Thrilla @ JBG, Books: Good

• The Work Week Ahead - Boing Boing
  I like poet Frank Bidart's words in "Advice to the Players" "The greatest luxury is to live a life in which the work that one does to earn a living, and what one has the appetite to make, coincide - by a kind of grace are the same, one.” Here's to a full workweek ahead, not merely four hours but forty plus.
  (tags: work life happiness books ideas)
• Thrilla in Manila
  Thrilla in Manila, a Jen Bekman Project to benefit 826NYC Jane Mount vs. Jason Polan in a no holds barred draw-a-thon at Jen Bekman Gallery Drawing Hours: Wednesday, December 3 - Saturday, December 6 | Noon - 6pm Reception and 826NYC Benefit Sale: Monday, December 8 | 6 p.m. to 8 p.m20x200 Mailing List Exclusive Benefit Edition: Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 2PM. An editions of 222 *unique* drawings priced at $20, $200 + $2000 each.
  (tags: drawings gallery events nyc jasonpolan janemount benefit 826NYC jenbekman)
• Op-Ed Contributor - How to Publish Without Perishing - NYTimes.com
  Now, at this point one expects to hear a certain type of sentimental plea for the old-fashioned book — how you like the feel of the thing resting in your hand, the smell of the pages, the faint cracking of the spine when you open a new book — and one may envision an aesthete who bakes his own bread and also professes to prefer the sound of vinyl. That’s not my argument. I do love the heft of a book in my hand, but I spend most of my waking hours looking at — which mainly means reading from — a computer screen. I’m just saying that the book is technology that works.
  (tags: technology publishing books reading)

Links: Hunny for Sale

• BibliOdyssey: Original Winnie The Pooh Drawings
  Original Pooh drawings. Yes, I'm a cornball - I love these. Hunny! Eeyore!
  (tags: books drawings auctions illustration)