Regruntled.com

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about making some kind of reconfigurable medium scale color sudoku. There are a number of possibilities: Post-its, construction paper and sticky spray, flannel boards, velcro, pegboard, etc.  And refrigerator magnets. It turns out that craft stores sell sheets of magnet with a peel-and-stick adhesive on one side, making it possible to turn just about any small object into a refrigerator magnet. I found some 2-millimeter foam sheets in a variety of colors, cut them into 2-inch squares, and attached magnets.  The resulting sudoku is about 18 inches on a side.

Ideally, the magnetized objects should be rigid, like ceramic tiles or plastic squares.  The foam had the advantage of coming in 9 different colors, no painting required.  Cardstock was another option, but I thought the foam would be less likely to be damaged by water.  It’s an experiment.

A paste of cornstarch and water, on top of a speaker.

A little graffiti humor for the early morning commuters.

Stop motion light sculpture.  The individual frames are made with flashlights, glow sticks, dim lighting and digital cameras set to long exposures.  Then the frames are assembled into animations.

This Japanese site seems to be where it all began.

Reader CET sends this gem. I think I’ll try this the next time I buy some hot dogs.

Phil Gramm’s recent remark:

“This is a mental recession. We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet… We have sort of become a nation of whiners.”

is the perfect bookend to Obama’s comment:

“You go into these small towns … and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

And wasn’t the reaction just too perfect?  A nation of whiners bitterly whining about being called a nation of whiners.

The common element is dissatisfaction, the motive force of modern civilization.  Obama and McCain both want us to be dissatisfied, in different ways, dissatisfied enough to vote.  The media want us to be dissatisfied enough to watch endless coverage of this, the most important election since the beginning of time.

Of course, the problems never get solved, there’s always someone pointing out the urgency of change, and every election is the most important election since the beginning of time.

The latest art fad in New Orleans:

They’re called sticker cars, because they’re decorated with big stick-on graphics, like the ones used on buses and delivery trucks. They’re popular among young men — and a few women — out to draw attention at car shows, second-lines and during their daily commutes. They’re a fashion statement on wheels, one of those funky urban things that easily could become a pan-American craze.

What I find interesting is the total absence of irony.  When Andy Warhol painted the Campbell’s soup cans, he was making a statement about consumer culture.  Critics questioned Warhol’s motives as an artist, and suspected that his work was an elaborate put-on.  With the sticker cars, there is no statement, there is only an identification with a particular brand.

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