In the grainy images below, an old and crumbling parking garage is captured through the lens of a two-pixel cell phone camera. The building is a bare-bones concrete structure with 14 levels, its roof open to the city. As night falls and closing time approaches, owners retrieve a few remaining cars and drive a curling path down to the street. What remains behind is brutal architecture . . . and a spooky emptiness.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
This afternoon at 4:00pm:
.
.
Driving through rural Maryland this afternoon, I saw a sign announcing two country roads, left and right, up ahead.
Sure enough, a hundred yards further along I came upon a turn-off.
.
So warned, I stuck to the main road.
Launched in the early 1970’s, the Pioneer 10 and 11 interplanetary probes are now traveling through interstellar space. Attached to each spacecraft is a durable gold anodized aluminum plaque designed by astronomer Carl Sagan. The plaques contain information designed to explain the origin and creators of the vehicles. Explain to whom, you ask? To alien civilizations out there somewhere. The markings that are sure to be most intriguing to them are line drawings depicting a pair of humans:
.
___
I thought of that plaque recently when I started to come across earth-bound vehicles, usually minivans, sporting decals that show humans in stick-figure fashion. Here’s an example:
.
.
Just as with Pioneer 10 and 11, these markings are intended to convey a basic message: “Behold the animating forces behind this vehicle.” But — fearful thought — what if these decals survive for millennia, long after we’re gone? Won’t these drawings confuse the hell out of alien archaeologists who come to study the earth? Will they think they’ve come upon a planet once dominated by creatures lacking fingers, toes, and noses? Where most inhabitants were fond of decorated discs, and a few others wore belts of tree mushroom fungi?
As for the here and now, you can find a lively discussion over at the Mother Proof blog, where blogger Emily Hansen’s post (“Banish Stick Figure Decals!”) inspired an 18-month-long trail of comments, pro and con. Anti-decal sentiment is strong. This fad may fade.
Aliens will be grateful.
A couple of years ago, in a short review of a slim book of poetry, Eric McHenry made this observation:
“American poetry — according to one of the many competing caricatures — is dominated by English professors and the minor epiphanies they have while walking their dogs.”
Walking my dog this evening I came across a “growth” attached to the base of a 70-year-old oak tree. Its peach color made my golden retriever look dull in comparison (sorry, Jesse) and its hue intensified as blue evening descended. An example of the power of complementary colors, this was a minor epiphany to my non-professorial American eyes.
.
.
. 
Among the roster of free music apps available for download to iPhone is a rudimentary matrix sequencer called “TonePad.”
.
.
As described at http://www.tonepadapp.com/, this plaything is quite user friendly: “Create songs by simply touching the screen and seeing notes light up.” (This reminds me of what Stanley K. said about a different pleasure: “Having them colored lights going.”) TonePad allows you to create a short (about 4-second) snippet of music that repeats hypnotically. You can then build upon it with new tones and rhythms, mimicking the accretive style of composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass. After some practice, what’s you’ve mastered is a kind of dime-store minimalism, except you don’t need to cough up even ten cents. Since I needed music for the soundtrack to my second iMovie, I decided to give TonePad a try. The result, available on YouTube and Vimeo:
.
While walking the dog this morning I came across a cute bit of sidewalk art:
I wonder how the child artist knew to place the cavalier’s sword in what would be the mouse’s right hand? If the artist himself (let’s assume it’s a boy) was right handed, wouldn’t he be inclined to place the sword on the right side of the figure as we see it, since that’s how the young artist sees his own reflection in a mirror, and his own shadow on the sidewalk? Or has he, after watching many a cartoon about cavalier adventures, formed an image of the sword naturally fitted to that side? (Notice too the bent left arm, hiding the left hand behind the back, lending the figure a distinquished air.)
There is an affinity between the interiors of the mental asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, as painted by Van Gogh in 1889 (first photo), and an old office building housing a government bureaucracy in Washington, DC (second photo).
Most will agree the first building is more attractive. At least Van Gogh could make something of it. What artist would choose as a subject the second cold corridor? The only person I can think of is Stanley Kubrick. A still from The Shining:
_________________________________________________________
“Separated at Birth?” — that is the title of a game described by Wikipedia as the light-hearted activity of pointing out people who are unrelated but bear a notable facial resemblance. Most often the subjects compared are celebrities.
I was reminded of this when, having finished the first chapter of Jonah Lehrer’s “Proust was a Neuroscientist,” I set the book aside and in the process took notice of the author’s publicity photo on the book jacket. Something about the picture caused a buzz in my brain. What was it?
This:
Intentionally or not, when composing and lighting the shot, the photographer, Guy Jarvis, captured a look similar to that of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Jonah Lehrer and the unknown young woman could be distant cousins, separated by an ocean and three and a half centuries.
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________