“When I was a boy and played with the gang we did a lot of things. We roasted potatoes and went on expeditions, we tipped over garbage cans now and then, we wrote nasty remarks about the teacher on the sidewalk. We never spent our afternoons like this, reading.” Read More »
Information Society
Augmented Reality: June 20th, New York City
The sky above New York City, updated every five minutes. (Image: NSKYC)
There are too many lights. Thank God cabs come when I call. This building is crowned atop the first floor with blue, backlit panels, one after another and it stretches for nearly a block. I have no idea what occupies the building, or how tall it is, because I can’t stop staring at those fucking blue lights. Thank God cabs come when I call. I can handle it when one of the rivers is within my eyeline, because if it all gets to be too much I know I can just dive in and cool the heat growing on the back of my neck, across my shoulders. This, though… Read More »
Art Department
Larry Carroll On The Weight Of Explicit Imagery
Cross section of Larry Carroll's painting for the cover of Slayer's Reign in Blood.
Several years back I attempted to write about the work of painter Larry Carroll, known best for his two-decade collaboration with Slayer, painting every album cover from Reign In Blood to Christ Illusion. At the time, I could find little information about Carroll, and his work was only briefly covered in a piece I wrote for Swindle back in 2005. Read More »
Occupy Wall Street
#Occupy As Live Action Role-Playing
LAPD headquarters, overlooking #OccupyLA. (Photo: Eric Spiegelman)
We have so much knowledge, so many skills, maybe too much time and energy. Our knowledge is widely distributed and too easily evaporates into the cloud, but we have more of it than ever. We may have fewer skills than past societies (how many cobblers are left?), but there are more of us and a surprising diversity of interest between. For good or for ill, our time and energy, once consumed by a race to the top of working life, increasingly lie fallow. Surplus upon surplus. This is nothing new, neither an emergent condition nor a radical statement. It’s just the way of things. So what?
Why so much talk about “gamification” recently? Because we’re swimming in a surplus and have no idea what to do with it. Read More »
Art Department
The Giant Gila Monster vs. Glenn Danzig
“The font of the movie’s title on promotional posters has been copied on most albums and associated promotional materials released by Glenn Danzig’s musical acts Samhain and Danzig.” -Wikipedia Read More »
