When people – I'm talking about me, here – talk about guilty pleasures, we pretend that the  said pleasure is bad, but we are really trying to convince you that the said pleasure is good. When we say Oh! my guilty pleasure is watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, we are really saying, If you don't like Buffy, either you haven't seen it or you are stupid. But:

when I watch NFL season – and game, and, even, team – promos, I love them and that is more than sort of embarrassing. I know that the ads are childish, almost prurient, complete bullshit: the low voice, the slo-mo, the hyper-dramatic music: (:again?) it is all so unbelievably sleazy. The promos are all sizzle and no steak. This ad? promo? video, for a – WTF – political candidate just fits in so well. In a way, it just seems so logical to selling a candidate as a commodity. >

Here is a 49er promo, but I don't think it is as good – maybe too many facts)

Saturday, I had the honor of installing three of my photographs in the lobby of the Oakland office of  AECOM. According to its website, AECOM is  a global provider of professional technical and management support services with 52,000 employees. I am thrilled.

It started for me when Courtney Gonzales saw some bookmakers that I had made and suggested that a couple of them would look good in the lobby of the company she works for. Eventually, we ended up with two bookmarkers blown up and re-formatted into a more conventional shape and a square shot of sunlight through water.

Here are the two shots formatted as bookmarks – but enlargeable by double clicking – and the square shot of dappled water.

One of the tricks – techniques? skills? – I admire in an artist is the ability to create a picture that looks like nothing up close and only looks like something when the viewer stands back. The parking garage at the San Jose Airport has a – sort of – super premium chain link screen that  – sort of – hides the parking garage.

Industrial strength hocky pucks are then wired to the screen and they form a design when seen from a distance.

Most of us who have been to the San Jose Airport have driven right by the hands; I know I have more times than I would like to admit. Last Sunday, I was given the chance to stop and look at what I will call the Hands. With climpses of garage behind them, they are great!'

(Double click to enlarge.)

Richard Taylor sent me a link to an article in the New York Times on extrasensory perception – a couple of days ago – and I have been thinking about it ever since. Not so much the extrasensory perception part, but a quote in the article that  inadvertently points out what I see as the major problem with Science. And with everything else, as far as that goes – the Stern Unified Field Theory on what is wrong . In disagreeing with the results of an experiment, a scientist says Claims that defy almost every law of science are by definition extraordinary and thus require extraordinary evidence.  

What he is really saying is Claims that agree with the already agreed upon laws of science are, by definition, ordinary and do not require much evidence. In other words, if it reinforces the status quo, we start by presuming it is correct. Of course this reinforces the status quo which – then – is used to prove the status quo is right. What ever we are doing, what we believe, is right because we are doing it, because it is our belief structure.

Lifted without comment from Newshogger via 3quarksdaily.

Lyrics to "If It Were Up to Me" by Cheryl Wheeler

Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books
Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks
Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents
Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin'
Maybe it's the president, maybe it's the last one
Maybe it's the one before that, what he done
Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers
Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers
Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack
Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack
Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV
Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family
Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news
Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse
Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons
Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system
Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons
Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms
Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage
Maybe El Nino, or UV rays
Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor
Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia
Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads
Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad
Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the Internet
Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants
Maybe it's taxes, big business
Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads
Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics
Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts
Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex
Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks
Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone
Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the car phone
Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings
Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing.
If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns.