welp

[jazzfish]

In Minneapolis, where it is overly Warm but where there were decent fireworks and a lightning-filled thunderhead last night. Feeling some kind of way about the political situation, for sure.

Have some links.

UPDATE! Breaking News: Everything Is Bad. (This is absolutely worth your two and a half minutes, I promise.)

Edward Gorey’s "Great Simple Theory About Art" is essential reading for writers: "[T]he theory ... that anything that is art ... is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it's irritating." That last bit puts me in mind of James Nicoll's "I don't object to hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."

ICEBlock: "ICEBlock is an innovative, completely anonymous crowdsourced platform that allows users to report Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity with just two taps on their phone." US only, and iOS only at the moment. Via jwz, who notes "The cowards at Time wrote a whole article about the app and didn't include a link to it".

methaphone: "methaphone can help you manage cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It can fill that hole in your back pocket. ... methaphone looks like a simple acrylic slab -- and it is." I kinda want one. (I am a sucker for glass and lucite.)

Comments

[greenstorm]

I have not read Gorey's book but this is one of the big questions interpreting early human... stuff. Is it art? What did it mean? What did it say about them? Is it possible to impute anything to people through their art when we don't know any meanings? OR are those just stray handprints? One of the super fun bits of recent breakthroughs here is that some of the cave paintings of animals giving birth etc seem to have notations that may be the timing of those events in those areas, in which case are they writing (functional communication) or magic (aimed at the world and not humans) or art (emotional-inclusive communication)

[jazzfish]

(I have also not read the book, though I now think I'd like to.) That difficulty with interpretation makes a lot of sense! I bet the discussions around it are fascinating.

[greenstorm]

Methaphone: the lowest-tech way to achieve instant sciatica!

[cthulhia]

do you live in minneapolis now?
(I going there next weekend)

[jazzfish]

Argh timing! At least for now I'm (still/back) in Vancouver. I'm involved with someone in Minneapolis, though, so I'm out there a decent amount.