Favorite Movies of the Decade

Top Ten

American Splendor
Away from Her
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Fog of War
In the Mood for Love
Lives of Others
Lost in Translation
Mystic River
Sideways
Superbad

Runners-Up

King of Kong
In the Bedroom
I've Loved You So Long
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Punch-Drunk Love
Tarnation

Lovesick Country (Compilation)

I put together the original version of this compilation in the spring of 2003. I've just slightly revised it--this version is better than the original one.

Herzog on Nature

One of the most striking contrasts in Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man" is between Timothy Treadwell and Herzog's respective conceptions of nature. Treadwell is portrayed as having an idealized conception of nature, as a perfect realm which we can enter into and become one with wild animals (which is, of course, what literally happens to Treadwell himself). Here is Herzog's response to this conception of nature:

"I differ with Treadwell. He seemed to ignore the fact that in nature there are predators. I believe that the common denominator of the universe is not harmony but chaos, hostility, and murder." (at 1:10:50 in the film)

"What haunts me is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the beers and this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell this bear was a friend, a savior." (at 1:36:43 in the film)

Trickle-Down Art

This Indiana Jones sculpture at the Fairfax Walmart is presumably some sort of effect of the recent rash of creative uses of Legos in photos, videos, and interior design. But what I really like about it is how it uses a fake prop from the movie, rather than recreating it in Legos.

The Shredders of YouTube

I love watching guitar shredding videos on YouTube. Watch this one first and then this one.

Game Face

Compare and contrast the following two virtuoso performances:

Eddie Van Halen playing Eruption

Steve Gadd playing Mr. Magic

One thing that I find striking is the immense difference in the sorts of facial expressions that each of them tends to make while playing. In both cases, so much of what they're playing is obviously rehearsed, the result of a tremendous amount of practice. Both of them could probably play their parts in their sleep. But while playing in front of an audience, they act very differently: Eddie acts as if he's having a baby, whereas Steve acts as if he's just joking around. I think this marks a deep aesthetic difference, between two very different forms of artistic expression.

True Lies

The best moment in "True Lies" is when Arnold runs out of the Georgetown Park shopping mall onto the National Mall, where he commanders a horse, which he then rides through a very DC-esque hotel (maybe the Mayflower?), before riding it across the street into the lobby of the Bonaventure Hotel (in LA)! He then takes one of the glass elevators in the Bonaventure directly to its roof (I wish that were possible), at which point it becomes a Marriott (much more DC).

Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia. But we need to rethink our obsession with inserting "Citation Needed" next to every claim that someone else makes. For instance, I was just reading the entry on When the Levee Breaks and someone had written that "[t]he Led Zeppelin version [of the song] features a distinctive pounding drum beat by John Bonham, driving guitars and a wailing harmonica, all presumably meant to symbolize the relentless storm that threatens to break the levee". Seems on point to me. But then someone else added a "Citation Needed" at the end of that claim. What good, at all, would it do to cite someone else saying this same thing? Granted, there are going to be cases in which people insert completely ridiculous critical claims. But in such cases, shouldn't we just revise what they've said, rather than ask them to find a published critic who agrees with their ridiculousness?

"Some Like It Hot"

I re-watched "Some Like It Hot" on Friday and the experience almost single-handedly reaffirmed my hope for the world. If art like this is possible, it can't be all bad.

Here's an indication of the level of wordplay in it: there is at least one moment where if you ask yourself, "what does the 'it' in that sentence refer to?", you're pleasantly surprised by the humorous possibilities.

Juicy

Biggie dedicates "Juicy" to three groups of people:

1. his teachers, who told him he would never amount to anything
2. his neighbors, who called the police on him when he was trying to make money to feed his baby
3. his peeps in the struggle

It's obvious that he intends the first two of these "dedications" to be ironic. But I never noticed before how he moves effortlessly from ironically "dedicating" it to them to non-ironically dedicating it to the third group. What's great is that he doesn't have to signal the switch, from irony to non-irony. It's just obvious.

How's this for sensible?

"Idealism, which looks fallaciously plausible when applied to the fully evolved intelligence, becomes meaningless and self-contradictory when applied to the problem of evolution.” Grant Allen, The Colour-Sense: Its Origin and Development, An Essay in Comparative Psychology (Trübner & Co., 1879, p. 7)

Riddim Explosion (Compilation)

This is a compilation of classic riddims that I put together last spring. These are the basis of many, many reggae songs and are constantly being versioned and referenced. If I ever teach a class on the history of reggae and hip hop I will make my students memorize these riddims.

Staten Island Extravaganza

Organized another tour today, this time of Staten Island. Our soundtrack was classic Wu Tang songs and sample sources. We left from Greenpoint at 10am and made it back to Park Slope by 8pm. Here's what we did:

10:00am: Wheat donuts in Greenpoint.
10:30am: Snug Harbor and Botanical Garden (we mostly focused on the Chinese Scholar's Garden).
Noon: We tried to sneak into the old TB hospital at Seaview but they've installed a guard and he turned us away.
12:30pm: Classic car show at the Great Kills Park (saw a 280Z in awesome condition).
1pm: Lunch at the best pizza place I've been to since moving to NYC, Salvatore's of SoHo.
2:30pm: Finally got to go inside of Fort Tompkins, right beside the bridge, but you only get to go inside Fort Tompkins itself, not the lower fortifications I've always wanted to go inside as well.
5:00pm: Boat Graveyard (getting to this involved walking across a muddy marsh, which was fun).
5:30pm: Mr. Hunter's Grave in Sandy Ground.
6:30pm: Beers and live polka music at Killmeyer's Old Bavarian Inn.

ABC Brazil (Compilation)

Yet another of my impeccable compilations. This was the outcome of months of searching for choice Brazilian music to play at the lounge in the spring of 2008.

Do you think I could use these homemade comps to get a job as a music supervisor for movies or TV?

A Mind Dissatisfied

Turns out that I've subtly misremembered this anecdote from Frans Rosenzweig in the countless times that I've retold it. From "Frans Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought".

Bonaventure Hotel

Photo from Flickr.

I've been systematically watching movies that feature either the Bonaventure Hotel or the Bradbury Building and now have a pet theory for each. For the Bonaventure, I've noticed that it tends to be used as the location for the movie's finale (e.g., 'Midnight Madness' and 'In the Line of Fire') and my recent viewing of the otherwise horrible 'Nick of Time' confirms this observation. The movie is basically one long climax (which is the main reason it is nearly unwatchable), all of which takes place at the Bonaventure.

The Republic, dropping science like always...

"Of all those who start out on philosophy -- not those who take it up for the sake of getting educated when they are young and then drop it, but those who linger in it for a long time -- become most queer, not to say completely vicious; while the ones who seem perfectly decent...become useless." (487c-d)

Dig Those Crazy Freeways (Postcard)

I actually have several postcards with the caption "Man - Dig Those Crazy Los Angeles Freeways". Most, but not all, are of the 110/101 exchange (as is the one above). Check out the FLW stamp on the back.

Decimal Time

I've been reading a fair amount about the history of time-keeping devices over the past year and one of the things I've most enjoyed coming across is the history of attempts to introduce a decimal system for measuring time. During the French Revolution, for instance, there was a short-lived attempt to introduce a base-10 system for measuring time, but "faced with massive public resistance, Napolean killed time decimalization in a deal cut with the Roman Catholic Church" (Peter Galison, "Einstein's Clocks", p. 153). I took the picture above at the Clockmaker's Museum in London last spring. London in general is a real mecca for clock fans.

Michael Mann Paintings

Someone on Etsy is making a series of paintings based on shots from Michael Mann movies ('Heat' above, 'Manhunter' below).

Stax Soul

I made this Stax Soul compilation a while back, but I never felt as strongly about it as I do about my Chess Blues compilation. In both cases, my goal was to capture the distinctive sound of the label. I think it does a good job of that.

Windward Ave. Mural

This mural is still there, visible from the parking lot on Windward, but it's now so faded that you have to know it's there in order to see it at all. This photo of it in its heyday is from the back cover of "Fantasy by the Sea", by Tom Moran & Tom Sewell.

Blue Thunder (1983)

If you disregard its plot, characters, dialogue, and focus just on its use of LA locations, then this may be the best movie ever made. There are endless nighttime scenes of helicopters flying over the city, but that's just the beginning. The finale involves a helicopter chase down the LA river and through the streets of downtown--up and down Main St!

Filming Location: Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)

This is the filming location for the first heist in Michael Mann's "Heat", the robbery of the armored car. During the minute in which I stopped on the side of the road to take this picture, two different armored cars drove by.

The Divided Spectrum

"[T]here is no such thing as a 'natural' division of the spectrum. The color systems of man are not based upon psychological, physiological, or anatomical factors. Each culture has taken the spectral continuum and has divided it upon a basis which is quite arbitrary except for pragmatic considerations."

Chart and text from Verne F. Ray, "Human Color Perception and Behavioral Response" (1953)

Bonaventure Hotel Postcard

I finally made it to the rotating bar at the top of the Bonaventure, during my visit to LA a month ago. It was everything I hoped it would be. We did about two full rotations. My drink came in a porcelain model of the hotel's towers. It's probably the first souvenir glass I've ever wanted to actually take home (not counting the plastic margherita maker from La Cabana).

Aerosmith Greatest Hits

Just made this Aerosmith GH for my phone. The only thing I'd insist upon is that any Aerosmith GH must include the album version of "Sweet Emotion", not the shortened one without the drum + bass intro (said intro was used to great effect in "Dazed and Confused").

Names of Rainbow Colors

Table from Earl R. Anderson's "Folk-Taxonomies in Early English"

Chinatown Neon Postcard

As I've noted before, the rooftops in LA's "new" Chinatown were once outlined in neon, as you can see in this postcard. Some of these neon lights have since been restored and the hope is to eventually have the entire roofline relit.

Here's another view of what it used to look like (photo provided by Kim from the Museum of Neon Art):

Clifton's "Pacific Seas" Cafeteria Postcards (Supplement)

These should give you a better idea of what the lighting and coloration was like on the exterior facade, as well as what the interior looked like.

Best of AC & DC Vol. II

Longtime associates are well aware of the deep respect I hold for a bootleg compilation of AC/DC songs that my dad purchased in Indonesia in the mid-80's. A few years ago I made a follow up compilation of songs that were left out of this first, historic, volume. (In emulation of first volume, I did not center my compilation around popular tracks--such as "You Shook Me All Night Long"--instead, I included less well-known tracks that actually stand up better to repeated listening.) But I can't seem to find a copy of my "Best of AC & DC II". And I can't remember what I put on it. So I just made a new version of "Best of AC & DC II". If I'm ever able to find a copy of the earlier version, it will be interesting to compare the two.

How to remember the order of streets in downtown LA

"From Main we Spring to Broadway, and then over the Hill to Olive. Wouldn't it be Grand if we could Hope to pick a Flower on Figueroa?"

From "Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County" by Leonard and Dale Pitt

It is also mentioned on the USC Geography Dept's downtown walking tour website. Check out their list of recent variants on this idea.

Linguistic Relativity

"Consider a rainbow or a spectrum from a prism. There is a continuous gradation of color from one end to the other. That is, at any point there is only a small difference in the colors immediately adjacent at either side. Yet an American describing it will list the hues as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple or something of the kind. The continuous gradation of color which exists in nature is represented in language by a series of discrete categories. This is an instance of the structuring of content. There is nothing inherent either in the spectrum or the human perception of it which would compel its division in this way. The specific method of division is part of the structure of English.

By contrast, speakers of other languages classify colors in much different ways. In the accompanying diagram, a rough indication is given of the way in which the spectral colors are divided by speakers of English, Shona (a language of Rhodesia), and Bassa (a language of Liberia)."

Image and text from H. A. Gleason's "An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics (Revised Edition)" (1961), p. 4.

Clifton's "Pacific Seas" Cafeteria Postcard

The story behind Clifton's is downright amazing. Watch this documentary.

One Hot Babe

I stole this photo from someone's fridge at a party in college.

Ndali Lodge

Located in western Uganda, the Ndali Lodge is easily one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been.

Nice Line

"Evidence which, taken at its face value, leads to an absurd conclusion
must be worth less than at first appears." K. S. Woodworth, Review of Schultz (1906)

Clothes, Language, and Thought

Got to add this quotation to my collection:

"Language is not a cloak following the contours of thought. Languages are molds into which infant minds are poured." Brown and Lenneberg "A Study in Language and Cognition" (1954)

Queens Tour

(Photo by Wy-dogg)


18 stops in 10 hours:

1. 5 Pointz
2. NY Art Book Fair (Wyeth knew everyone here)
3. Titanic House (videotaping and still photography are permitted)
4. Scrabble Street (though we couldn't find the sign, we found the street)
5. Taste Good Malaysian Cuisine (you may not be allowed to take pictures of their toilet, but they serve the best food I've had in NYC so far this year)
6. Bohack "B" (this was for Wyeth)
7. Bumped into Kevin Walsh leading a Forgotten-NY tour that was also looking at the Bohack "B"
8. Van der Ende-Onderdonk House
(almost stepped in a horse-sized pile of dog shit, the house was uncharacteristically full of people for a special event, our tour guide was upset that he hadn't gotten to meet the Dutch royal family, and they didn't even mention the house's role in the Apollo space program)
9. Arbitration Rock
(the history of moving this rock led Will to make some Wittgenstein-ish "what happens if standard meter bar shrinks or expands" jokes)
10. Archie Bunker's House (neither Will nor Alex had heard of "All in the Family")
11. Detour to Forest Hills because I mistyped the address for Louis Armstrong's house into Google Maps. But when I then mistakenly got into someone else's car and tried to drive away, everyone thought that was really funny.
12. Loew's Valencia/Tabernacle of Prayer (gonna have to go back to this on a Sunday, in order to see the interior)
13. Louis Armstrong's House
(wish I had recorded our tour guide's impression of Louis)
14. The Panorama at the Queens Museum of Art (still planning to throw a party in the elevator here)
15. Unisphere (took some photos for our liner notes)
16. Joseph Cornell's House (this was for Meg)
17. ToyQube Designer Toys
18. Taiwanese Karaoke Gastropub
(there was some serious sense/reference confusion going on when I re-entered this place from another restaurant around the corner, thinking I was going into a different gastropub; this was especially funny because I had just falsely told the host out front that I thought my friends were in the back, which turned out to be true)

Our soundtrack was a homemade CD of songs by jazz artists who lived in Queens, and then a CD each of Run DMC and the Ramones.

I think it is fair to say that I am in the upper echelons of tour guides.

He must then launch the stairs far.

PJ's been going through his old emails, and he came across the following, which I created and sent to him in mid-July 2001:

My proposals are elucidatory in this way: it who understands me finally recognises them as dull.

Now to think of following the use of language: I send it commercial (the commercial shipment). I give a shipment marked 'five lipsticks of mele' to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper opens the marked drawer 'the apples', tries the word 'the rossetto', and finds colors contrary it; then I, in the eventuality that he knows to memory the word 'the cinq', become the champion by taking an apple of similar colours to the sample out of the drawer.

JFK Conspiracy Books Mentioned in 'Slacker'

Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane
Best Evidence by David Lifton
Six Seconds in Dallas by Josiah Thompson
Forgive My Grief by Penn Jones Jr.

And, of course, the JFK buff mentions his own (fictional) work-in-progress, which will be titled either "Profiles in Cowardice" or "Conspiracy a Go Go".

Soft Landing

There are no roads to Ambunti, so I had to fly on this missionary supply plane in order to get there. There were pretty serious weight restrictions; they actually weighed me before I got on. In the bottom photo, you can see the Ambunti airstrip. It was a surprisingly smooth landing.

Adios 304

After a two year break, I finally made it back into 304 this summer. It was great as always.

I now have five flights and a canoe ride ahead of me, in order to visit some peeps.

Then seven flights and a bus ride in order to have a little color party and CTY reunion.

Greatest Moment this Summer

My favorite moment this summer may well have been when one of my students asked about one of the final shots in "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control". The shot is of a row of female circus performers balancing precariously on large rolling spheres. My student's initial response to these shots was to think that they were either (a) completely random, introduced only to give the movie the appearance of whimsical fancy, or (b) completely gratuitous, introduced only to depict a number of scantily clad women playing with large balls. However, in the context of our discussion, as we noted various externalist themes running throughout the movie, this shot immediately struck me as central for understanding the precarious nature of feedback loops (or tightly coupled systems more generally). And I immediately thought of more than a few similar shots in the movie that reinforce this same exact point.

M.A.S.H. Filming Location

Cory and I went to the Malibu Creek State Park last weekend, which is where both the M.A.S.H. movie and TV show were filmed.

The Mummy in Room 304

The full story is even more absurd than these photos.

Travel

Seven months ago I removed my self-imposed ban on traveling. Since then, I've visited DC eleven times, LA four times, and the following cities one time each: Carlisle, Chicago, Kyoto, London, Monterey, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Tokyo.

Agreeable Disagreement

After seeing Roger Scruton give a talk and answer questions last week in London, I've been thinking a lot about what it takes to be able to openly disagree with someone but do so in a way that they don't find off-putting. I think the key might be that you've got to make it clear that you're not trying to convince them that they're wrong: i.e., if you make it clear that your motivation in speaking and disagreeing with them is NOT to change their mind--that you're just saying what you're saying because it's what you think--then they're much more likely not to be put off by your disagreement with them.

Verge Escapement

"[P]erhaps the greatest single human invention since that of the wheel."

Image and quotation from Donald Cardwell's "Wheels, Clocks, and Rockets"

Plato's Alarm Clock

From Jo Ellen Barnett's "Time's Pendulum"

HRH Moses

The King of Cuteness is in the house.

Venice Garden

It was two years ago that I completed this garden. I don't think I ever managed to take any photos that really represent what it was like to sit in it. The top photo shows what it looked like from the front entrance; the bottom is the view from the back. It could comfortably seat five people and I had at least five colorful plants that hung above and around the seating area.

Venice Canals

While I'm at it, I might as well fill in this other obvious gap in my photo collection of my favorite places. I love the Venice canals. This photo doesn't really do them justice. They're particularly charming at night around Christmas time, when everyone's houses are lit up with Christmas lights. I still haven't seen the annual boat "race" that they have.

Garfield Park Conservatory

I was making a list of my favorite places in Chicago, so I consulted my general list of favorite places, and I realized that I had never posted any pictures of the Garfield Park Conservatory. It still is my favorite conservatory in the world.

Top Six Books About Movies

These are my favorite books about movies. These are the only books I'd actually recommend to others.

1. Robin Wood, Hitchcock's Films Revisited (Revised Edition)
2. Stanley Cavell, Pursuits of Happiness
3. James Sanders, Celluloid Skyline
4. David Thompson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film
5. Erik Barnouw, Documentary
6. Hitchcock/Truffaut

It's kind of a depressing list, because I intentionally left out so many of the great "film theorists". I can't say reading Arnheim, Bazin, or Kracauer actually informed my experience or enhanced my appreciation of any movies.

I've also intentionally left off Robert Warshow's "The Immediate Experience" and Victor Perkins' "Film as Film". Perkins because the main value of it is that it critiques the classic film theorists listed above and it would probably be best if we just ignored them altogether. Warshow just because I never got into it. But I should probably give the Warshow another try.

I like reading Pauline Kael but I can't say I find her particularly insightful. Perhaps more importantly, I don't trust her judgment enough to rethink my own attitudes in light of it. With David Thompson, on the other hand, it troubles me when I disagree with something he says.

Shoe (Postcard)

This postcard is from the Bata shoe museum in Toronto (Bata is the main shoe company in Kenya, actually, and where I used to get my safari shoes from). The caption on the back simply says "Clog with iron spikes for crushing chestnuts, France, XIX century".

YouTube Videos

Here are my favorite YouTube-esque videos:

Angry Professor

Auto Tuning

Battle at Kruger

Beastie Boys performing "So Whatcha Want"

Blelvis

Bob Munden

Borat and Martha

Buckethead Lesson

Cat Ninjas Commercial

Charlie Rose vs. Charlie Rose

Cop Ghost Rides the Whip

Corey Delaney

David Lynch Interview

Dentist Visit

DJ AM

Dog vs. Mirror

Dramatic Look

Drunk Monkeys

Getaway in Stockholm

Gorilla Commercial

Herzog Interview

Hipster Olympics

Interview Fail

Jackson 5 Popping and Locking

James Brown performing "Night Train"

LARP

Leprechaun in Alabama

LMU Library Water Fountain

MJ Beatboxing

Monsters of Megaphone

Ninja Cat

Notorious Hitler

One Man Cover of "Back in Black"

Phil Donahue vs. Bill O'Reilly

Price is Right

Puppy Falling Asleep

Puppy or Chicken

Slap Chop

Slow Loris Loves Getting Tickled

Sneezing Panda

Sushi Camera

Sylvania Commercial

Tracy Morgan Interview

Waterfalls

Whistler Muffler

Different Worlds

I just got a copy of Life magazine from January 22nd, 1940, because it has an article about Venice Beach in it. Before I even got to the article about Venice, though, I was looking through the letters to the editor, and I couldn't believe them. Here are the first two letters that I read:

HELP FOR THE WPA

Sirs:
In order to assist in the WPA project of mapping women's contours, looking forward to developing a new method of indicating dress sizes (LIFE, Jan. 15), I should like to submit the following equation for the Callipygian Curve:
X=AY2BYEY3
As can be seen, nearly every type of feminine back may be represented by the equation.
Walter J. Seeley, Chairman
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Duke University

NO PRETTY SCHOOLTEACHERS?

Sirs:
When I was a kid I didn't like to go to school any more than other healthy youngsters. I think I may have found out the reason for this.
Recently, I made a tour of a certain state under the auspices of the Board of Education, giving talks on firearms safety to schoolteachers. At the various meetings I spoke to a total of approximately 1,500 schoolteachers. There were a few men teachers in the group but the majority were women. Of these, they ranged from young girls to older women, for the most part principals. Of the entire group I can recall seeing but four attractive faces. Many of those faces would scare any child.
What happens to attractive schoolteachers? I assume that some good-looking girls take up this profession. Do they marry off quickly and desert the game or are there any good-looking schoolteachers?
Any attractive schoolteachers who wish to prove the point with a photograph may write me. Until I have been convinced otherwise, it is my impression that schoolteachers are not good looking.
Philip B. Sharpe
South Portland, ME

I'm now beginning to believe the whole Kuhnian line about people in different eras living in different worlds.

The Location of the Real Paul's Boutique

The photo on the Paul's Boutique album cover is not of the real Paul's Boutique clothing store. It is of Lee's Sportswear, which was at the corner of Ludlow and Rivington on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. The Paul's Boutique sign was added to the building for the album cover photo. (Much later someone opened a Paul's Boutique diner at that location, but it is now closed. Since they didn't make any effort to emulate the look of the fictional Paul's Boutique, this doesn't make me sad at all.)

There was, however, a real Paul's Boutique and it was in Brooklyn. It was located at 758 Linden Blvd, between Utica Ave. and E. 51st St. I haven't ever called (718) 498-1043 but I did go to 758 Linden Blvd. the weekend before last and this is what it now looks like. The only thing that now remains is for me to track down the real Janice. That would be historic, on par with Errol Morris's best work.

One funny thing about the fake Paul's Boutique on the album cover: maybe I haven't explored Brooklyn enough, but the street corner depicted on the album cover looks to me like the kind of corner that one only sees in Manhattan. It certainly doesn't look anything like the buildings around where the real Paul's Boutique was, nor does it look like any of the neighborhoods I'm familiar with anywhere else in Brooklyn. Maybe this was intentional. I'm fond of the idea, suggested by the author of the 33 1/3 book on Paul's Boutique, that Paul's Boutique is an expression of nostalgia for NYC by former NYC-ers who have moved West. Maybe the cover photo intended to use the Lower East Side of the late 80's to depict what Brooklyn looked like in the late 70's.

Buger Shots

Saw this when I went down to Philly a few weeks ago.

Charles Phoenix (Redux)

Saw Charles Phoenix at the Gamble House last week. This time the theme was "Southern Californialand". He was in much better form than at the last Holiday Spectacular. We laughed pretty hard.

Little Red Books

This is my collection of little red books from the Studies in Philosophical Psychology series edited by R.F. Holland and published by Routledge. As you can see, Holland somehow managed to commission some real classics.

When I was a little kid in Tanzania, guys from the Chinese embassy were always trying to give me a copy of a very different little red book. I still have my copy of that one somewhere.

Lincoln & Rose Logo (Redux)

I really do like this logo. How many strip malls can be said to have a logo? How many strip malls can be said to have a logo that tells you where they are located?