randomwalks/dj

Originally from davidjacobs, on February 17, 2006 10:40 PM

The Responsive Eye catalog commemorates the show of the same name at the MoMA in 1965. A show several years in the making, it was the first to introduce the public to Optical (or "Op") art.

Artists featured in the show and catalog include the well-known Victor Vasarely and Josef Albers as well as the sensational and underappreciated Paul Feeley and collective work by Equipo 57, a group of Spanish artists, among others.

The 54 page catalog is full of inspiring and dizzying images in color and black and white, and highlights the work of these early Op artists and the methods and politics of the movement.

We scored a few of these catalogs and have some available for purchase. They are all used, in good to very good condition, and first (1965) or third (1967) editions. Prices range from $40 to $50 depending on edition and condition. If you're interested drop us a note here, and be sure to mention TRE.

Originally from Cool Hunting, on February 17, 2006 10:39 PM

biting the hand that feeds you; they should have paid for that kind of amazing promotion  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 17, 2006 10:38 PM

I should really buckle down and try writing a PHP app because, at the moment, I have an attitude problem. I know that IBM now officially loves it, and Tim O’Reilly’s been charting the upcurve in PHP book sales, and everyone’s saying that Oracle’s going to buy Zend. If you want your ears bent back, have a listen to Zend CEO Doron Gerstel; he’ll tell you that half the websites in the world are powered by PHP and that there are 2½ million developers and that the war is over and PHP won. So here’s my problem, based on my limited experience with PHP (deploying a couple of free apps to do this and that, and debugging a site for a non-technical friend here and there): all the PHP code I’ve seen in that experience has been messy, unmaintainable crap. Spaghetti SQL wrapped in spaghetti PHP wrapped in spaghetti HTML, replicated in slightly-varying form in dozens of places. Everyone agrees on PHP’s upsides: it’s written for the web, it’s easy to deploy and get running, and it’s pretty fast. Those are important advantages. And I’m sure that it’s possible to write clean, comprehensible, maintainable, PHP; only apparently it’s real easy not to. But PHP has competition, most obviously Rails; and don’t write the Java EE crowd off, they’re not stupid at all and they’re trying to learn the lessons that PHP is trying to teach. So PHP has earned everyone’s respect by getting where it is, and Sun should reach out to it more than we have. But in the big picture, it feels vulnerable to me.

Originally from ongoing, on February 17, 2006 10:38 PM

David Davis just wrote a splendid article about the history of the NBA's logo.

It outlines a long-simmering controvery. The thing is, the league has never officially acknowledged that the logo is patterned after former Laker star and current Memphis Grizzlies President Jerry West.

A high-ranking NBA official tells Davis it's "an urban myth" that the logo is based on West.

The guy who actually designed the logo disagrees.

"That's bull----," he said. "I guarantee you that it's Jerry West."

Later in the article, Davis interviews West, who is gracious and humble about the whole thing:

When I asked him if the NBA might have a financial motive for refusing to identify him — that he might be entitled to royalties for the use of his likeness — West chortled. "You publish this story and I'll call (my agent) and find out," he joked.

I have heard from multiple reliable sources through the years that Davis's theory here is the gospel truth: the NBA won't acknowledge that their logo is based on Jerry West, because they never got him to sign anything giving them his permission to use it. If they acknowledge it's him, he could ask for a lot of money.

Petty. The whole seem strikes me as petty. There are too many slimy little things like this around these days. I mean, if the guy who designed the logo is publicly on the record now, it's time for the NBA to 'fess up and make an honest man of that logo.

Originally from True Hoop, on February 17, 2006 10:37 PM

OMA New York is growing. To accommodate the wide range and diversity of our projects we are seeking passionate and dedicated individuals, with the relevant experience, to fill various positions... Full Details View hundreds of active job listings in our jobs section

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on February 17, 2006 6:48 PM

or, public tracking of a group interest:

Originally from Dembot, on February 17, 2006 6:33 PM

"Guantanamo is a not-place. It's neither America nor Cuba. It is peopled by people without names who face no charges. Non-people facing non-trials to defend non-charges are not a story. They are a headache. No wonder the prisoners went on hunger strikes. Not-eating, ironically enough, is the only way they could try to become real to us."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 17, 2006 5:27 PM

Stewart posted a photo:

Kid is going to be a millionaire, for sure.

Originally from Sylloge, on February 17, 2006 5:25 PM

Holy.... During a commercial break in the counter-terrorism television thriller "24", viewers saw a commercial questioning the wisdom of "weakening" the Patriot Act. "The producers of this ad are playing off fictional fears to create pressure for their point of view on legislative reality. I think it's unique." Peter Hart, a Democratic-leaning pollster.

It's brilliant. It seems unethical. It certainly reduces an important and very complex problem to a simple marketing scheme. If I agreed with their position, I might be less troubled by this. And I'll bet it's the wave of the future.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 17, 2006 5:20 PM

I've generally stopped making new investments other than in particularly exceptional situations. However, last.fm is one of those exceptions and I wanted to let you know that I invested together with Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn and Stefan Glänzer, CEO of 20six Weblog Services AG in the UK in October. It is the first time I've invested in this trilateral formation, but with the company in the UK, a lot of potential partners in the US and a big market in Japan, this team seems to make sense. Apologies for the late announcement, but we've been working on some deals that made it difficult for me to talk about our investment publicly. I wrote about the first in 2004 and later in 2005 after they did the redesign. I'm really happy that after working with them for years now, our relationship is now more formal and aligned. Please see the links above or go to their site for more information about the service.

Comment - TrackBack

Originally from Joi Ito's Web, on February 17, 2006 5:20 PM

Chloé Poizat has a wonderful painted collage style to her illustrations. Her simple website doesn’t give much information about her, but it’s an impressive portfolio nonetheless.

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration Blog, on February 17, 2006 2:38 PM

Toppan, one of Japan's largest printing companies, has released a series of artist slide shows for viewing on iPods. The Artstar series consist of up to 175 images provided by the artists, which, when installed on your iPod, can be viewed while you listen to music.

No need of music for me as among the artists who have signed up are Yoshitomo Nara, Atsushi Fukui and Kenji Yanobe.

Via Off Center and eyeteeth.

Originally from we make money not art, on February 17, 2006 2:38 PM

a treemap visualization based on the huge flickr image collection. the application takes any form/length of text input & generates a collage with images that have related concepts & affect structure.
conceptually, flickr is considered as an enormous pool of memories of people. the system uses natural language processing, concept reasoning, & textual affect sensing techniques to collect all the related memories. see also flickrland collage & flickrland visualization. [mit.edu|thnkx James & Edward]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 17, 2006 12:13 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 16, 2006 9:26 PM

In an agreement with the White House, lawmakers would be given more information on the spying operation run by the N.S.A.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 16, 2006 9:26 PM

I’ve uploaded updated renderings (pdf or png) of the document I use to keep track of the non-trivial, public DHTML toolkit efforts that have occurred over the years.

Interestingly, the difference between this version and previous ones is that many companies are starting to either release or talk about tools that they had quietly built in-house years ago. Also, Google and Yahoo have been on something of a hiring binge. Yahoo seems to be dedicating more (visible) resources to their responsive UI cause than Google. The secrecy difference between the two cultures might explain the delta, but I’m convinced that’s not the whole story.

Also interesting is that many of the commercial DHTML toolkit vendors have been able to effectively keep mum about who is working on their products. The TIBCO’s, Backbase’s, and Bindows of the world must be paying their people astoundingly well for them to keep out of eyesight of the increasingly frenzied recruiters who are banging down the doors of every competent JavaScript hacker I know.

I will admit to not having kept this document as up-to-date as it should be. The proliferation of toolkits over the last year has been pretty astounding, and investigating each one to find out if it’s just another crappy 10-line XMLHTTP wrapper hasn’t been on the top of my list of things to do. So in true open-source style, your help is requested! If you have corrections or new information, please either mail them to me or submit a patch to the graphviz source file. The format is straightforward and easy to figure out.

Originally posted by alex from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency, on February 16, 2006 8:20 PM

And of course, I would expect nothing less.

Thanks for the link, bro!

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on February 16, 2006 4:17 PM

Two weeks ago John Palfrey (Clinical Professor of Law, Berkman's Executive Director, and ONI principal) testified before the House and yesterday both he and Berkman Fellow Rebecca MacKinnon offered testimony to the Hill Hearing, "The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?"   The hearing has been widely covered, including TimesOnline, VOA News, and USA Today.

From John Palfrey's written testimony:
There are a number of things that United States technology companies can do to make their actions more transparent to users, more protective of civil liberties, and more accountable to all of us.  Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, and Cisco each should be applauded for their respective, increasingly clear public statements about how they will operate moving forward when it comes to doing business in China.  These public statements, and action based upon these statements, are essential to moving forward toward a solution. 

Legislation and Other State Action --

Second, it may be the case that the Congress, or other branches of the United States government, must take new action to solve this problem.  That said, any outcome that bans United States technology companies from doing business in China, in the long-run, would not be in the best interests of democracy there or in states with similar Internet policies.  There are many other options beyond an outright ban that could help, if it is clear that the industry cannot solve its own problem.  To keep reading, click here.

Berkman Fellow Rebecca MacKinnon blogged the companies' testimonies and added her own commentary -- Google, Cisco, Microsoft, and Yahoo.  MacKinnon also blogged about the proposed Global Online Freedom Act of 2006.  MacKinnon blogs very frequently on this issue at Rconversations.

The Berkman Center - its faculty, fellows, and affiliates - have researched issues like Internet censorship and regulation for a long time.  If you are interested in reading more about this issue, please click here.  If you are a member of the press and would like to be notified of research on this issue, please email amichel AT cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Originally from Berkman News, on February 16, 2006 4:17 PM

Originally posted by alainabrowne from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 16, 2006 4:16 PM

Last year one of our TED Prize winners Ed Burtynsky made a powerful wish at TED. He wanted to find a way of using his photography to make people think harder about our planet's future.

Well, this is one way to do just that. (Go to the page, take a deep breath, and run the video).

Ed asked a really smart question when he was preparing his wish. How do you turn the emotional impact of his pictures into action? His solution has been to nudge his viewers toward the fastest growing home on the web where people discover how we might create a sustainable future.... a site that, with financial help from TED and from Ed, is becoming an exhilarating force for good.  That site is worldchanging.com whose co-founder Jamais Cascio is speaking at TED this year.

If you want to support Ed's wish, please link to this as widely as possible and then email me (chris@ted.com) to say what you've done. We want to publicly acknowledge the best efforts at TED next week.

By the way, the gorgeous musical soundtrack on the video is by TEDster Michael Montes and the ingenious captions are courtesy of Bob Isherwood and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Originally posted by Chris Anderson from TED Blog, on February 16, 2006 4:16 PM

jmcada writes "This week, Perlcast is featuring another podcast interview with brian d foy. In this interview we talk about the newly renamed book, Intermediate Perl. We also discuss a new project that brian is working on, Mastering Perl. Listen to find out how you can help be a part of this developing book.:

Originally posted by brian_d_foy from use Perl, on February 16, 2006 2:36 PM

Ask Yahoo: Which city has the cleanest drinking water? "Here are the cities that scored a perfect 50 points for water quality: Portland, San Jose, Buffalo, Columbus, San Francisco, Denver, San Diego, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Riverside (CA)." (thanks, Jeremiah!)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 16, 2006 2:33 PM

The Death of Handwriting. No kidding. I was thinking that all this typing has made my handwriting as atrocious as it is, but I just came upon the business card on which I wrote my phone number when I first met Jesse — and it's a good thing he had my email address. (via dm)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 16, 2006 2:33 PM

Difficult decisions are best left to your unconscious mind, a new study reveals, and over-thinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes

Originally from New Scientist - Latest Headlines, on February 16, 2006 2:32 PM

Runs Mesh-Key records. Brought Yura Yura Teikoku to the US. Japanese-English translator. Guitarist.

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 16, 2006 12:46 PM

I saw them in NYC in October. It's crazy: so much heartache attached to listening to them but in listening I forget everything.

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 16, 2006 12:45 PM

Japan's obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased. Reuters reports.

"I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It's disturbing," a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

al people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation , she was quoted as saying.

"I'm sure the deceased would never want their faces photographed," she said. But others called it a form of a memento in the modern age.

"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator Toru Takeda told the paper.

Originally posted by Emily from Smart Mobs, on February 16, 2006 12:45 PM

"Just as Marx seduced a generation of European idealists with his fantasy of self-realization in a communist utopia, so the Web 2.0 cult of creative self-realization has seduced everyone in Silicon Valley. The movement bridges counter-cultural radicals of the '60s such as Steve Jobs with the contemporary geek culture of Google's Larry Page ... radical communitarians like Craig Newmark (of Craigslist.com), intellectual property communists such as Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig, economic cornucopians like Wired magazine editor Chris "Long Tail" Anderson, and new media moguls Tim O'Reilly and John Batelle."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 16, 2006 12:45 PM

Apologies for missed appointments, unresponded-to mails and such; we were sidelined in Palm Beach for a few days, without access, as a result of the big storm. (Our flight out on Sunday night was, understandably, cancelled - and the next one jetBlue could get us on was last night. So it goes. I only hope that Marc and Young-hae, leaving from JFK the same night, got out OK.) It's nice to know that something as trivial as Nature still has the power to disrupt so decisively the wee little plans we make.

Originally from v-2 Organisation | Adam Greenfield, on February 16, 2006 12:45 PM

Slashdot references to research showing Dec 16th, 2005 was the oil production peak

Originally posted by william.hertling from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 16, 2006 12:22 PM

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 16, 2006 12:22 PM

This is the world famous Lombard Street in San Francisco. Known as “the crookedest (most winding) street in the United States”, Lombard street was re-created in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as “Windy Windy Windy Windy Street”.

Its ridiculous switchback design was instituted 1922 in order to reduce the hill’s natural 27° slope, which was too steep for most vehicles.

There’s some good ground-level shots at Wikipedia.

Thanks to James Boorman-Padgett and Nathaniel Hansen.

Originally posted by Alex from Google Sightseeing, on February 16, 2006 12:22 PM

The Flatiron Building (actually the Fuller Building) is one of New York’s most distinctive sights, and when they finished constructing it in 1902, it was one of the city’s tallest buildings (although 87 metres seems pretty tiny these days).

At its rounded tip the tower is only 2 metres wide, and the shape apparently creates a wind-tunnel effect - much to the enjoyment of the local men, who originally took great pleasure in hanging around and watching ladies skirts get blown up…

The Flatiron has been in all sorts of movies including Armageddon, Hitch, Shark Tale and both Spider-Man movies (as the Daily Bugle offices!).

Thanks to Frank Castle.

Originally posted by Alex from Google Sightseeing, on February 16, 2006 12:22 PM

As Spirit continues to explore a strikingly layered new outcrop, mission planners are working out how the robotic explorer will survive the winter

Originally from New Scientist - Latest Headlines, on February 16, 2006 12:21 PM

story links: google map clouds (thanks, everyone!), averaging the gradius video game, 1921 annimation, tokyo live (via tokyo calling, planet of the apes except all parts where charlton heston isn't speaking, nasa's first trip to moon, jumping fish, first bbs day, kent bye with interviews on open source intelligence

Originally from Rocketboom, on February 16, 2006 12:21 PM

Now that the weekend is nigh, it might be worth checking out this new Website, called Podbop. You type in the name of a city, and it provides you with podcasts of all the bands playing in in the city at upcoming events. Click on the event, and you get the details. This is an example of a cool and simple site that is very useful. Here's what is going down in SF this week. Thanks to Noah for tip....

I love this meta-app! It use's the Upcoming & Eventful APIs, an mp3 search API, and my friend John's map. --dj

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on February 16, 2006 12:21 PM

LinusChix Africa involves women in the tech aspects of computing, with work rooted in open source. An overview of the program at World Changing begins:

LinuxChix Africa manages to shatter two stereotypes at the same time: the idea that women aren't interested in free/open source software development; and the idea that women in Africa are bound to traditional cultural roles. Founded in late 2004 by Anna Badimo, a computer science graduate student in South Africa, and Dorcas Muthoni of the Kenya Education Network, LinuxChix Africa seeks to build Linux skills among African women, as well as to support more generally the use of free/open source applications and systems across Africa. Like most Linux and F/OSS communities, much of their work entails professional software development and public advocacy of open source, but LinuxChix Africa adds a unique twist: they focus their outreach on encouraging young women to pursue careers in computing.

key participant in the recent Africa Source II conference, which (as we noted at the time) included a particular emphasis on getting more women involved in the use of open computing technologies for economic development. LinuxChix Africa participants place a high value on mentoring and visibility as role models; as they put it, "If they [African women] can see their future, they can realize their future."

Originally posted by Judy Breck from Smart Mobs, on February 16, 2006 12:20 PM

At 3GSM, according to Telecoms Korea, Motorola was omnipresent. Even in the men's room.

Really, really creepy. --dj

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 16, 2006 12:20 PM

Of course, you already know that the Detroit Pistons have given up on the science experiment known as Darko Milicic, shipping him off to Orlando with Carlos Arroyo for Kelvin Cato and a pretty cherry first-round pick, that is protected only if it's in the top five.

A friend just called to ask if this means that the Pistons had really just done a terrible job of assessing Darko from the very beginning.

I don't think so.

Rather, I think it's the reality that you have to get your top players young these days, and when you draft 18-year-olds, you end up looking for elements of successful players: things like size, athleticism, and skills. But when it comes to the winning in the big game, you need things that are very tough to assess in an 18-year-old: grit, an ability to learn, a willingness to improve, comfort with the speed of the NBA game, and an ability to adjust to all the crazy hoopla of the NBA.

It is a gamble.

Milicic is still incredibly young. He probably shouldn't even be in this league yet. But I can tell you that whenever I have seen him play, it has been clear to me that he has not done a whole hell of a lot of improving yet. His NBA learning curve has not been steep. In his third season, he is still someone you can only love based on those "potential" categories: size, skills, and athleticism.

Those things don't earn playing time on good teams.

Playing time is the sunlight and water of player development. If Milicic is now planted in good soil (gardening analogies!) now is his chance to grow and blossom.

If he can contribute, he could have a pretty fun time playing alongside Dwight Howard for many years to come.

And Detroit gets another big body to patrol the lane in Cato, as well as a top draft pick to build with. It could be a great trade for both teams.

The craziest part of all of this? I wouldn't be surprised if we all look back at this in a few years and say that Carlos Arroyo was the most important player to change hands yesterday. He has moments when he looks really good, and others when he rushes shots, presses, and looks like he's trying to make himself look good in short playing time. Maybe he'll get some regular burn and start winning, too.

Originally from True Hoop, on February 16, 2006 12:20 PM

Originally from Tuberaider Video, on February 16, 2006 12:20 PM

Stewart posted a photo:

- Taken at 11:23 PM on February 15, 2006; cameraphone upload by ShoZu

Originally from Sylloge, on February 16, 2006 10:14 AM

podcasting MP3s from bands on tour using the Eventful API; very clever mashup [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 16, 2006 10:12 AM

Spacelike tetrahedral tessellations - William R. Olson If by chance you’re on the look out for complex crystalline tetrahedral structures send a exploratory probe over to pimeson.com where you’ll find a fantastic array of exotic tetrahedrons - all existing as 3 dimensional models as well interactive applets. Those of inquisitive nature will be happy to read [...]

Originally posted by paul from dataisnature.com, on February 16, 2006 10:12 AM

From Numskull comes word that Australia has banned Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure video game from being sold, demonstrated, hired or imported into Australia.

Here's the full article:

Australia bans graffiti game

By Stephen Hutcheon, Louisa Hearn and David Braithwaite
February 16, 2006 - 1:20PM

Multimillionaire US fashion designer Marc Ecko has slammed the Federal Government's decision to ban his new video game.

The Classification Review Board yesterday refused to classify the game, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, meaning it cannot be sold, demonstrated, hired or imported.

snip --dj

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 16, 2006 10:11 AM

This came as a complete surprise to us, but apparently some widget-developers called Colorworks have built Google Sightseeing its very own widget! If you’re running Tiger on your Mac then give it a whirl - it can display either the 20 latest posts or comments (although you could of course have one widget for each if you like).

Loads of thanks to the guys at Colorworks - we love it!

Originally posted by Alex from Google Sightseeing, on February 16, 2006 10:10 AM

A collection of "stupid nude calendars". I confess that I found this while looking for photos from the racy curling calendar...but I came away empty-handed. (Only slightly NSFW.)

I was also looking for the racy curling calendar this morning! --dj

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 16, 2006 10:10 AM

(Assuming you read at threshold 4, obviously)

Originally posted by seldo from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 16, 2006 10:09 AM

"you have your life, and i have this ham"

in therapy with children, identifying feelings is a major deal. there is a truly barfalicious poster in the offices of many child therapists, The Feelings Poster.

visuals aid so some homespun version gestates in the psychic project incubator. maybe it will grow fuzz and a beak on the airplane ride to milwaukee.

plus generating a list of sixty feelings (open invitation)

**happy birthday to colorado performance artist matthew weedman, aka, "this pipe cost fifteen dollars." here's to fifteen years of magical friendship**

Originally from serenalarogers, on February 16, 2006 10:09 AM

Avian FluKleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley's best known venture capital firms (backer of Google, Sun, Netscape...), has raised the nation's first fund dedicated to bio-defense and preventing pandemics. It is significant because no other venture capital firm has raised such a focused fund. We'll update tomorrow morning with a link to our full Mercury News story on this. With Bill Joy as a partner (or just go directly to this Wired article), you'd expect Kleiner to be the first mover in this realm. And Kleiner's leading light, John Doerr, has also been vocal on the threat of avian flu recently. The $200 million pandemic fund, formally called the "KPCB Pandemic and Bio Defense Fund," comes at a time of heightened public awareness about the risks of a breakout of avian flu and other diseases The news is joined by an announcement by Kleiner that it has also finished raising its twelfth fund, at $600 million. For the tealeaf readers, check out Kleiner's new home page. They've spiffed it up, relying on a search box at the top right-hand corner -- a sort of Googlesque simplicity. And a new logo. And even a new saying: "Relationship and Venture Capital." (Here's a cache of old site.) See the press releases in extended entry....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on February 16, 2006 12:57 AM

aperture is a facade installation with interactive and narrative displaying modes. Consisting of an iris diaphragm matrix, the facade's surface with its apertures' variable opening diameters is enriched by a dynamic translucency, that creates new imagery.

Originally from unmediated, on February 16, 2006 12:09 AM

Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure follows a graffiti artist, while the game Chibi-Robo is about a robot that cleans.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on February 15, 2006 9:47 PM

Erdös’s co-authors have Erdös number 1. People other than Erdös who have written a joint paper with someone with Erdös number 1 but not with Erdös have Erdös number 2, and so on...

Originally posted by stamen from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 15, 2006 9:29 PM

June 8, 1968 The controversy over the cartoons critical of Islam printed in European newspapers has seized the world’s attention. To some, it must seem that the Muslim prohibition against depicting the Prophet could not possibly be enough to fuel such a violent response. And, in truth, it probably is a combination of that prohibition and the nature of the content depicted in the cartoons. (That three far more offensive cartoons were mysteriously distributed within the Middle East didn’t help matters any.)

But the importance of Muhammad in the Muslim world, in and of itself, cannot be underestimated. Consider Ved Mehta’s 1968 article about the massive turmoil sparked by the theft of a single strand of the Prophet’s hair, an event that occurred in December 1963 in the contentious region of Kashmir. There, too, other factors played a role: the intractable politics of Kashmir, the larger context of India-Pakistan relations. Mehta relies a little too much on lengthy excerpts for my taste, but it is still a valuable piece of background to the current cartoon furor.

Note: The article is Part IV of a long series covering Mehta’s travels in India. The New Yorker got a little sloppy about numbering the parts of this series. I think the series ended up having eight parts, the last of which appeared in the April 11, 1970 issue. Still, wow. An eight-part series. It’s hard to imagine any editor anywhere, other than Shawn, who would have approved an eight-part series of this sort.

Originally posted by Martin from Between the Squibs, on February 15, 2006 8:08 PM

I think we can safely say that it was a good day when I heard that the New Yorker was going to release all of its issues in DVD format. In the autumn of 2005, I bought the Complete New Yorker (CNY) set, and I’ve been enjoying it with gusto ever since.

Most of the reviewers who praised the CNY made reference to the futility of actually trying to read all of it. The number of issues (4,109) was often mentioned. It is certainly a daunting number. If you spend every single evening reading one issue, you will be nearing the end in the year 2016. (Once you finished that, you’d still have to continue the exercise for another year and a half to catch up with the issues released since autumn 2005.)

As I eagerly consumed my fill of the excellent articles, I often wished for some sort of online directory, blog, wiki, or catalog containing the favorite finds of some industrious person. Of course, this worked in two directions: after reading a particularly satisfying article in the CNY, I also wished that there were an obvious place where I could post the find.

Strangely enough, I never found any such directory, and Amazon’s comments page for the product wasn’t exactly doing it for me. So I’m starting my own.

This blog is herewith dedicated to the collection of discerning recommendations of treasures to be found in the CNY. Articles, Talk of the Town pieces, Cartoons, Advertisements, Squibs, you name it. If you stumbled on it in the CNY, and you think people should know about it, drop me a line. I promise to do my share of the recommending.

This will also be a place where people can discuss and debate the DVD collection itself. I am aware that there has already been considerable annoyance expressed in some quarters about various technical quirks and legal ambiguities concerning the collection, and — provided that the tone remains civil — I would like consumers of the DVD to consider this blog a potential resource for such topics. Having said that, I should state that I am relatively not very bothered by such matters, and I will not allow this blog to become a place for wholesale trashing of the project.

Eventually I would like to see this blog (should it find palpable response) turn into a collective enterprise, but for the time being I will be in charge of it.

So onward! I have plenty of articles I want to pass on, and I sincerely hope you do as well. This blog will never work if it remains a one-way street. Welcome!

Originally posted by Martin from Between the Squibs, on February 15, 2006 8:08 PM