first efforts

ARTstor fans, anyone?

Does anyone in the reader/viewership of this blog have experience using ARTstor? Our library subscribes to it. It looks awesome, though I haven't yet noodled around enough to determine precisely how it's awesome. There's a clip on YouTube that explains some of the basic features. In addition to searching images you can sort by title, creator, or date, create collections for students to view online, and download gorgeous high-res images for use offline (conference presentations, anyone?). You can also move all around in the image space itself, and zoom in quite close to observe details in images. Obviously art historians of all kinds must find this incredibly useful, but I'm interested especially in the access to photography and American Studies collections this database affords.

The above image is a screen grab from a keyword search on "Abraham Lincoln." And here's Lincoln's hand; I zoomed in on the earliest authenticated photograph of him, believed to date from 1846-47.

I'm lovin' it so far.

Sunday afternoon walk

Lake of the Woods park, Mahomet, Illinois

File under Horrifying, Truly...

This week my high school alumni magazine arrived in the mail. Paging through it, I came across an article about alumni parents. There are a lot of them at my alma mater; this is St. Small, after all. The article made the point that Gen-X alumni parents are beginning to arrive on the scene, slowly taking over from the Baby Boomer parents.

The truly horrifying part? All six "Gen X" parents they profiled in this article? Parents who now have freshman, sophomore, or junior sons and daughters? They all graduated after I did.

Yikes.

[Addendum: last night when my beloved read this, he said, "Wow, those people must have had kids really young." Okay, yes, but he was not getting the real problem. He got it when I shouted, "Don't you understand? I don't care if these people had kids young, I care that people I went to high school with HAVE KIDS IN HIGH SCHOOL! This makes me old!"]

Perspective

This morning I was writing about how an image's activation of linear perspective enables it to communicate an attitude or point of view about its subject. Which makes me wonder what exactly is being communicated in these photographs of the beasties' morning routines.

 

Frolleagues, weeding, and mulch - oh my!

It's been a great weekend. (And I say this knowing that technically it's not over yet; it's only noon on Sunday as I write this). We spent both Friday and Saturday nights dining out with frolleagues - my neologism for friends-who-are-colleagues (or, alternatively, colleagues-who-are-friends). The frolleagues with whom I have shared this new word agree that the best jobs are the ones where you have lots and lots of frolleagues. We're glad that we do. Friday night we checked out the new location of Cafe Luna with D and T, and last night we drove out onto the prairie to have a small town dinner at the Sadorus Pub with G and J. Fun!

My beloved and I spent a good chunk of yesterday cleaning up the front and side yards, saving our seven tomato plants (thanks, Sara!) and our inherited rose bushes from the encroachment of all the weeds that had grown up in the interregnum between homeowners. It's embarrassing how proud we are of our weeding and mulching. We share the results of our labor above, even though we know the lack of a "before" picture doesn't really give you the full picture. But trust us: it was a jungle out there.

You suck at Photoshop!

Check out this useful and hilarious Photoshop tutorial series featuring photoshopper Donnie, his wife who doesn't consult with him first, and a cat that pees on the carpet. Enjoy...

(first discovered on the American Photo blog)

This week in photography

Today's New York Times has a good piece on a new civil rights photography exhibit at Atlanta's High Museum of Art. There's a brief slideshow that contains a number of never-before-seen photographs, including images made by members of SNCC and local photographers in Alabama and Mississippi. The curator of photography at the museum has been systematically building a collection of such images for the past several years. This looks like a fabulous show.

The Washington Post reviews 50 Years of American Photojournalism, an exhibit of twentieth century photographs produced by photographers of the Black Star Agency. Looks to be a cool mix of celebrity, war, and political photojournalism.

It's also well past time to plug one of my absolute favorite photography blogs: Shadows and Light. Each post by New Yorker Steve Reed (a friend of my very dear friend Kelly) begins with a single image. Every time I check out this blog I'm visually treated to the marvelous things Steve finds on his everyday excursions through the city. His experience as a zen practitioner surely informs his images, many of which are small in scale, precisely composed, and grounded in the art of attention. When I look at Steve's images, they make me want to pay better attention to the world around me. Check out the blog and you'll see what I mean.

Finally, who is the dude with the cigar and the Speed Graphic? That's my man Arthur Fellig, aka Weegee. Today's NYT has a story on him as well. Cuz it wouldn't be the Friday Arts section without Weegee. Don't miss the slideshow.

Girl crush

This morning my beloved forwarded me a link to this article and I realized I might as well go public with it: I have a mad, crazy, intellectual girl crush on Rachel Maddow. I first heard her a while back on Air America during drives through Chicago, but I have really come to love her on MSNBC. She's been the best thing about election night all year. She's smart. She's funny. She has a doctorate. She argues rather than merely asserts. She goes toe to toe with Pat Buchanan. And she has a fabulous haircut. Though I do have some concerns about the folks who do her hair and makeup for MSNBC. Last night, for example, they seem to have stuck some unfortunate false eyelashes on her. But I digress...

My favorite tidbit from the article is that she confesses she got into radio because she was procrastinating on her dissertation. Now that's my kind of gal.

My beloved has an intellectual man crush on another MSNBC newbie, so we were both thrilled to see this recent story about our crushes.

Everything here is mine

After a shaky first few days in our new place (lots of hiding behind the couch), Cecil seems to have settled in quite nicely. He's back to his old tricks, you might say. And he's developed a quite interesting new one. He seems to think that the basement is his. Not just the small corner of it where his litter box is, or the other small corner of it where his food is. All of it.

He will inform you of this fact in many ways. He will station himself at the top of the stairs to the basement, spread out in what is known as "the full Cecil," in a vain attempt to block your path. When you step over him he will follow you down the stairs, coming from behind and then darting ahead at the last minute so you nearly trip and go tumbling down. Then he will follow you around the basement, meowing loudly in that way he does when he's airing grievances. Perhaps most chilling, he will lie with his belly on the cool brick floor, staring at you with a demonic eye until whatever trivial little thing you need to do (laundry, yoga, instant hot water-gathering) is completed. Only when you have safely retreated to upstairsland will he relax.

We've taken to referring to the basement as the KRC: Kitties' Republic of Cecil. 

Presidents and fiscal responsibility

This morning I nearly fell out of my chair while reading this New York Times article on the presidential candidates' financial disclosures. Apparently John and Cindy McCain have upwards of $225,000 in credit card debt, some of which is on a credit card with a 25.99% interest rate. That's right: 25.99%! Lots of people carry some credit card debt; many have to in order to make ends meet. And if you do the math the McCains' credit card debt as a percentage of their total income may be comparable to (or perhaps lower than) what other Americans carry. But still: isn't it a little odd that multi-millionaires have any credit card debt at all? And isn't it scary that they are stupid enough to carry a card with a nearly 26% interest rate? Is there anybody willing to make a case that this is financially responsible behavior for a man who wants to be president?

Meanwhile, the Obamas, the article tells us, are socking away money for their daughters' college education and this past spring they put a million bucks in a money market fund. Now that's my kind of president.

I'd love for my mother to get her hands on the McCains' books. She'd whip these people into shape in no time. They wouldn't know what hit 'em.