I’ve written here before about Paul Lukas’s Uni Watch site, which is a daily stop in my internet wanderings. One of the reasons I love Uni Watch is that Lukas’s material aesthetic is very close to mine: he’s obsessed with fine craftsmanship, enjoys older objects, and has an eye for fine detail (and, like me,Continue reading “Paul Lukas’s Fascination With Interesting Things”
Category Archives: Miscellaneous
Harvard Kink
An article on CNN.com reports that Harvard has just approved a student club for students who are interested in “kinky sex.” Kudos to both the students behind the club for organizing publicly and to the school for recognizing that non-vanilla sex (which does not just encompass BDSM, but also includes various fetishes such as watersports,Continue reading “Harvard Kink”
Visiting Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty
Today with three friends I visited Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, a piece of land art near Corinne, Utah, that was built on the shore of the Great Salt Lake in 1970. It was an amazing experience! I had seen numerous pictures of the Jetty in art history textbooks, but it was wonderful to get to experience itContinue reading “Visiting Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty”
The End of Newsweek
I read today that Newsweek will cease publication of its print version at the end of 2012: http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/18/news/companies/newsweek-print-edition/index.html?hpt=hp_t3. This is sad news. The magazine is another casualty of the shift toward electronic texts, which, as I have written about here before (and yes, I am aware of the irony of writing against digital culture inContinue reading “The End of Newsweek”
Paul Lukas’s Permanent Record Blog
I just got around to checking out Permanent Record, which is a blog written by Paul Lukas of UniWatch fame. Here is the address: http://www.permanentrecordproject.blogspot.com/. As someone who is also fascinated by print culture ephemera, I think Permanent Record is fantastic! The blog’s description mentions writing about topics including “things left inside of old books,”Continue reading “Paul Lukas’s Permanent Record Blog”
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master
I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film The Master last night, and while I’m still processing it, here are a few initial observations and reactions: It is not as good as Boogie Nights, which has the memorable characters of The Master while also having a more engaging plot, but there is more nudity. It mightContinue reading “Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master”
Thoughts on the New Site Photo
About a month ago, I changed the cover photograph (to appropriate the Facebook term) of this blog, but I didn’t provide an explanation for the photo, so I thought I would do so now. I decided that it was necessary to have a photo of books from my personal library rather than continuing to useContinue reading “Thoughts on the New Site Photo”
Some Random Sunday Thoughts
As I sit in front of my computer on this lazy Sunday morning that has now meandered into the afternoon, these are three of the things I am thinking about while I procrastinate working on revisions to an essay: I am glad that Manchester United finally converted a penalty kick after missing their last three, with RobinContinue reading “Some Random Sunday Thoughts”
Chess Again
In my previous post I wrote about having a chess dream last night, and how I love chess’s material culture. Then this afternoon I ran across an article on grantland.com by Dave McKenna about a recent chess cheating scandal in Virginia (here is the link: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8362701/the-evolution-cheating-chess). First off, regarding the scandal, in which a playerContinue reading “Chess Again”
Missing Chess
I had a vivid dream about playing in a chess tournament last night. I haven’t played in a tournament in nearly two years, which was the last time I even played a game. My life is much too busy these days to go back to playing chess because of the all-encompassing nature of my professionalContinue reading “Missing Chess”
Daniel Shank Cruz 