Isn’t that just about the most paralyzingly unrapturous question you’ve encountered in any textbook? ‘Explain your answer.’ No, thank you. I will not explain my answer. My answer is my answer. I am a transparent eyeball. I am a huge, receptive visual instrument with a flexible lens, and I’m taking in the infinitude of all space and time and dragonflies and owls and life and roadkill and hydrogen gas. I am nothing and everything. I am bathed in air. I’m a carefree, happy huge shining slimy eyeball of weird wonderment. I can swivel in any direction. Any direction I look, I will find something interesting.
[gallery] todaysdocument:
Shadowy Towers of the World Trade Center rise behind St. Paul’s Chapel, ca. 1973.
“Historic Trinity Church on lower Broadway at the foot of Wall Street. Behind loom the towers of one of Manhattan’s newest giants, The World Trade Center. 05/1973.”Blanche, Wil, Photographer. Series: DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency’s Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, 1972 - 1977. Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 - 2006
Whatever one makes of the current claims about the effects of our supposed Age of Distraction, it should be evident that their cause is unlikely to be the workings of new technology. The experience of the past indicates that most of the troubles attributed to the internet and digital technology have served as topics of concern in previous centuries. Contributions on the current challenges facing readers recycle an age-old mantra that there is too much choice, too much information and too much change. It is far more likely that our current predicament is not the availability of powerful and exciting new technologies of communication, but an uncertainty about what to communicate.
[gallery] openmarginalis:
Four Leaves from the Arabic Version of Dioscorides’ De materia medica, W.750 by Dioscordines Pedanius, of Anazarbos and translated by Yuhana bin al-Batriq, Iran ca. 13th century via Walters Art Museum, Creative CommonsTop Row, Left to Right: 1) Mezereon (Spurge-olive) 2) Wild Cucumber
Bottom Row, Left to Right: 1) Thymelaea (Spurge-laurel) 2) A Type of Thymelaea Called ilyusqufinus
excerpt from my Sent folder: liturgy
I only attended low-church evangelical congregations for a few years after I became a Christian, but those were tough times for me, and more than once along the way I wondered if I had made a big mistake by trying to follow Jesus — at least, through trying to follow him alongside other people, in church. It wasn’t that I thought I was better than them — in fact, I usually thought I was worse. I especially felt I was too emotionally incompetent to be an evangelical. I mean, the pastor would tell me how happy I ought to be that Jesus had saved me from my sins, so I tried to be super-happy, but I could never quite get where he thought I needed to be. And then five minutes later he’d tell me how grieved I should be when I realized how deeply sinful I am, and I’d try to make myself appropriately sad at what I, through my rebellion, had done to God — but if I couldn’t climb the mountain of happiness I also couldn’t make my way down into the depths of the pit of sadness. Again: emotionally incompetent.
It was only when I began to worship in the Anglican tradition that I felt the burden lift. Because that tradition gave me the right words to say — words that Christians had prayed (in one language or another) for two thousand years, words that had stood the test of time, that had been crafted by people whose walk with Jesus was longer and stronger than mine would ever be. Instead of trying to feel a certain way, I just needed to focus on saying the right words, and in that way training myself to live inside them.
Even more important, the tradition was so wonderfully patient with me! It didn’t ask me to comprehend the tragedy of my sinfulness immediately. Instead, it said “Here you go, we’re starting this season called Lent now. You’ll have forty days to meditate on these matters, and we the Church will help you at every step.” And then when Easter came the liturgy said to me, “You can’t celebrate this in an instant — in fact, we’re going to take fifty days to live into the miracle of the Resurrection and the new life we have in Christ.”
I cannot possibly overstate what a gift the ancient liturgies and the ancient calendar of the Church have been to me. They have quite literally made it possible for me to be a follower of Jesus. Now, I am sure that if I had never come across the ancient faith God would have found ways to nourish and bless me, but how much smoother my path has been thanks to these old and well-trodden ways. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for them.
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A Plan for the Borough of Clinton (never to be built), Harvard University Libraries; via John Overholt on Twitter.
outsider language, insider language
Obviously, a huge compliance failure at Wells (where I worked from ‘05-'09). But also a cautionary tale about incentive comp schemes.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 9, 2016
As someone whose mortgage is held by Wells Fargo, I call it massive fraud and theft; as someone who used to work for Wells Fargo, Barro calls it compliance failure.
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Legendary graphic designer Michael Bierut, a Pentagram partner who’s created visual branding for clients ranging from United Airlines to Hillary Clinton, has done his work in marble composition books since 1982. “I am now up to notebook No. 112,” said Bierut, whose work has been exhibited at MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Composition books are cheap and easy to find. Despite the rise of electronic communication and digital tools, there is something irresistible about a device that doesn’t need batteries, never freezes or crashes, and hasn’t required an update in decades.”
(via Why Is the Basic Marble Notebook Made by So Many Brands Still So Popular? | Adweek)
