Yes, yes, it's Al Gore. He's still a stranger!
(And yes, he's wearing cowboy boots.)
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Linkage
1. The Telegraph has an extensive story on how infamous anti-establishment graffiti artist Banksy might actually be a consumer whore. This is reminding me of how much I loved James de la Vega until I realized that he's a complete sellout. Alas.
2. I consider myself a very competent photographer, but embarrassingly I really don't know nearly enough about the more technical aspects of the art. But! PhotonHead came out with a great tool called the SimCam, which allows anyone to play around with f-stops and ISOs and shutter speeds in order to take simulated photographs which clearly demonstrate the difference between respective settings. Whee!
3. The Society for News Design announced the world's four best-designed papers in the world: Äripäev of Tallinn, Estonia; El Economista of Madrid, Spain; Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung of Frankfurt, Germany; and Politiken of Copenhagen, Denmark. SND's blog also just announce the top ten winners in all categories (I have no idea what those are), led by the NYTimes, the LA Times (what?), and Excelsior (Mexico City).
On Photojournalism
A friend/co-Spectator photog remarked to me once that working in a newsroom inverts your moral compass. I think that may be a slightly extreme assessment -- but after working for (what feels like) so long in the office of a daily, almost-professional paper, I can't help but acknowledge that we newsfolk have a bit of an unhealthy desire for doom and gloom and all things disastrous.
Perhaps it's just part of the job; after all, human nature is such that happy, heart-warming, & cuddly stories are of far less interest than that Harvard grad who cut up his ex-wife into little bits and stored her julienned remains in his closet until the neighbors complained of a strange stench. Or maybe it's because people who go all-out, batshit insane are much more extreme than their benevolent, generous, kind counterparts (though admittedly Wesley Autrey could spearhead a pretty decent counter-argument).
But for whatever reason, journalists never wish for Wesley Autreys on slow news days. We wish for homicides and fires and scandals (on a more reasonable college scale, we wish for epic ideological battles between extreme leftists and nutcase speakers or taser attacks in the campus library). I can't count how many times I've heard an editor or reporter complain that there haven't been enough murders recently, or that someone should consider setting fire to Columbia's iconic administrative building, Low Library, in time to make deadline.
Does that make us bad people? Almost certainly not, but it certainly doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy about my internal ethics system. It doesn't really matter that we haven't actually torched President Bollinger's office to the ground -- the point is, we've weighed the negatives against the number of website hits we'd get the next day.
When I flipped through this year's World Press Photo winners, part of me was slightly sickened every time I realized that those photographers were actively and continually making a choice to stay uninvolved -- even when their assistance might have saved a life. Maintaining neutrality at the cost of empathy is simultaneously a noble and horrific choice to make.
In two weeks, I'm going to New Orleans along with my professor and classmates from a GSAPP class on rebuilding the city, and I'm not sure what I'm going to find or how I'm going to react. Clearly, New Orleans is not Israel or Afghanistan or the Sudan, but still ... I hope I can find a balance.
Perhaps it's just part of the job; after all, human nature is such that happy, heart-warming, & cuddly stories are of far less interest than that Harvard grad who cut up his ex-wife into little bits and stored her julienned remains in his closet until the neighbors complained of a strange stench. Or maybe it's because people who go all-out, batshit insane are much more extreme than their benevolent, generous, kind counterparts (though admittedly Wesley Autrey could spearhead a pretty decent counter-argument).
But for whatever reason, journalists never wish for Wesley Autreys on slow news days. We wish for homicides and fires and scandals (on a more reasonable college scale, we wish for epic ideological battles between extreme leftists and nutcase speakers or taser attacks in the campus library). I can't count how many times I've heard an editor or reporter complain that there haven't been enough murders recently, or that someone should consider setting fire to Columbia's iconic administrative building, Low Library, in time to make deadline.
Does that make us bad people? Almost certainly not, but it certainly doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy about my internal ethics system. It doesn't really matter that we haven't actually torched President Bollinger's office to the ground -- the point is, we've weighed the negatives against the number of website hits we'd get the next day.
When I flipped through this year's World Press Photo winners, part of me was slightly sickened every time I realized that those photographers were actively and continually making a choice to stay uninvolved -- even when their assistance might have saved a life. Maintaining neutrality at the cost of empathy is simultaneously a noble and horrific choice to make.
In two weeks, I'm going to New Orleans along with my professor and classmates from a GSAPP class on rebuilding the city, and I'm not sure what I'm going to find or how I'm going to react. Clearly, New Orleans is not Israel or Afghanistan or the Sudan, but still ... I hope I can find a balance.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Eating Out: Pho Viet Huong
73 Mulberry Street
B/W Bayard and Canal
6, N/R/Q to Canal St.
212.233.8988
While New York City's Vietnamese restaurants certainly can't hold a candle to most of their Californian counterparts, Pho Viet Huong is a decent joint if you're looking for a quick fix of bun bo hue or pho tai. The service is fairly friendly (particularly for an Asian restaurant ... is that un-PC?), and it's open from 10 am to 10 pm every day (and until 11 pm on Friday and Saturday). Try the pho special and the vegetarian cha gio (spring rolls) for a healthy lunch.
(Hopefully, this will become a running series. We'll see.)
B/W Bayard and Canal
6, N/R/Q to Canal St.
212.233.8988
While New York City's Vietnamese restaurants certainly can't hold a candle to most of their Californian counterparts, Pho Viet Huong is a decent joint if you're looking for a quick fix of bun bo hue or pho tai. The service is fairly friendly (particularly for an Asian restaurant ... is that un-PC?), and it's open from 10 am to 10 pm every day (and until 11 pm on Friday and Saturday). Try the pho special and the vegetarian cha gio (spring rolls) for a healthy lunch.
(Hopefully, this will become a running series. We'll see.)
Quack.
CNN's "Offbeat News" section seems like it's been preoccupied with ducks recently. First there was Plucky, a duck shot, refrigerated, resuscitated, and operated upon ... and now there's Stumpy, a duck recently born with four legs. My real question is, who the hell is naming these ducks, and what's wrong with him? If we've (largely) stopped naming humans after various personal attributes like Prudence and Chastity and Felicity and Faith, then why are we naming ducks after them, in manner of the seven dwarves?!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
I Need a Pet
I think I'm going to buy a betta fish. Is there anyone who's staying in NYC over the summer who would take care of (it/him/her?) for me?
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
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