Pictures of Stats [Visualization]
In one of his pieces, he creates an fantastic image resembling pollution spewing out of a factor. When you get up close and personal, you realize that its actually made of lots of plastic cups. As a matter of fact, it includes 1 million cups, which is the number of plastic cups that are used on airline flights in the United States every six hours.
His work is a pretty cool intersection between art/design and infographics. You can check out his website here and his latest book here.
Slicing and Dicing [Van Gough]
German art historians posit that Vincent Van Gogh did not slice off his ear, but that Paul Gauguin accidentally sliced it up in a lively discussion about the very nature of art.
The story commonly told about Van Gogh's ear centers around Vincent's love for Rachel. When he gave it to Rachel, he told her to "keep this object carefully."
However, by analyzing the police reports of the event, some art historians now believe that Van Gogh was covering up for Gauguin.
The authors have re-examined contemporary police reports and surviving, second-hand accounts of witness statements, including contradictory declarations by Gauguin. They admit that final proof is lacking, and that the police investigation into a drunken brawl between two artists was half-hearted at best. Nonetheless, they say that all the evidence points to the fact that Gauguin accidentally sliced off his friend's ear.The two men were arguing in the street, the authors believe, partly about their competing interest in Rachel but also about the correct way to paint. Van Gogh argued for painting from the life; Gauguin from the imagination. The French painter was threatening to leave for good, wrecking Van Gogh's dream of founding a utopian artists' colony in Arles. Gauguin, a keen amateur fencer, walked into the street with his luggage and his sword, the authors believe. Van Gogh pursued him. Gauguin brandished the sword in his friend's face to keep him at bay and accidentally cut off part of his ear. Van Gogh then staggered to Rachel's house and handed her the severed part.
After examining the evidence, [the authors] say that Gauguin contradicted himself several times and claimed to have seen events he could not have seen. Other witnesses suggest that Van Gogh provoked Gauguin and Gauguin attacked Van Gogh.
If true, I'm supremely impressed that Van Gough would take his secret to the grave. You can read Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans' 392-page book (in German).
Source: The Independent
Google + Sony = Goony [Ebooks]
I'm still reading Abe's writings on my Sony ebook reader. As of tonight, I'm on page 943 of 3,000
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Google has been steadily scanning books in the public domain.
And now, Google is making 500,000 of the books, unprotected by copyright, available for free on Sony's ebook store. Now all I need to do is read the remaining 3,000 pages to see what is in store for me.
Wuthering Abe [Books]
There are plenty of books that are worth reading and since the invention of the book, there's been a constant stream of must-reads. A couple months ago I decided to go old school and hit the classics. In Chicago, my commute from Wicker Park to West Loop took about 40 minutes.
So I decided to decidate about 80 minutes a day to read the classics. I started off with Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
I must confess. For five weeks, I never got very far in the book. Call me unlearned and ignorant but I couldn't get into the book. Maybe it's the environment by which I was trying to read, or maybe I'm not into fiction these days. Whatever the case, it was/has been a mighty struggle.
I'm just grateful I didn't try to start of with a Tolstoy story. Two days ago, I gave up. The fact that I am now in a new city, my commute almost doubled (about an 70 minutes) and still not able to make significant progress in the book was very disconcerting.
I am ashamed that I can't finish such a heralded classic. I will learn to accept the fact that I can't appreciate Wuthering Heights and will try again later on (or so I tell myself).
I've since tried to put it behind me and have started to reading the Writings of Abraham Lincoln. His bicentennial birthday and my picking up the book is pure coincidence--though for a brief minute I pondered if it was fate that brought us together.
My confidence in the ability to consume pre-21st century material has been renewed. I am tearing through it.
Thumbs up to Honest Abe and Thumbs down to the Heathcliff and Catherine.
Unfulfilled Darkness After… [After Dark book review]
My Haiku of the book:
- one lone Tokyo night
lives tied together by chance
stock murakami
I'm still on the fence on this one. I first found Murakami in 1999 when I picked up a copy of an elephant vanishes while teaching English in Taiwan.
His books tend to explore the same themes, such as: loneliness, how random threads are tied together, and what lurks metaphysical darkness lurks behind reality.
After Dark is written like a neo-noir film, taking place in diners, love hotels, and empty convenience stores. The book takes place over seven hours of a Tokyo night. The chapters track the passing of time as we are are voyeurs in three stories strung together by bizarre coincidences.
As Michael Dirda describes:
At times, the novel recalls those unsettling films of Jean-Luc Godard or Michelangelo Antonioni where something dire seems always about to happen, even as attractive young people, full of anomie and confusion, meander aimlessly through an ominous urban landscape.Murakami's literary spiderwebs remind us that, though we may not be aware of it, something profoundly disturbing sits behind the mask of reality, that we are being stalked from its other side and that we are connected to our past the same way the ground under our feet is connected to the depths of the earth, through wells and tunnels.
Overall, for someone who has read most of Murakami's work, I wasn't particularly thrilled. I have already read mirror images of the content in his other work. However, I've always enjoyed reading his books again and usually find more meaning from a second read. For the time being, I'll have to give After Dark and average rating.
Rating: (2.4/5)
Books
I've recently been going back to goodreads to track my book reviews. You can read my profile at: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/68052