I’ve linked to Stuart McMillen’s work before, but I really enjoyed his new story about what happened to the reindeer on St. Matthew Island. Sincere, clear and to the point. See also Turbines.

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• Obligatory fall post

In honour, perhaps, of Winston Smith.

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Now that she can venture further afield, Genie and I pass this building on our evening walks. Perhaps dusk light is to ogling buildings as beer goggles are to ogling people. But there’s a lot to love about this building at any time of the day. It’s a place where they make a living out of making physical objects, for one. And the place is covered in these excellent signs as well.

American Metal Crafters sign. Enhance it!

“American Metal Crafters • Metal Boxes • First Aid Cab. • Specialties.” Doesn’t matter what you need. They can make it, see? (“And the book itself is but a tissue of signs.”) Ah, yes. There’s so much signification going on in these signs. So much strength, simplicity and value. A semiotician’s dream.

Shipping and receiving. Enhance it!

Hey web designer, that’s not a drop shadow, this… You get the idea. To think of the effort that we collectively put into making things feel this way—textures in visual design, physicality in interface design, pre-worn jeans, mud on the SUV (huh?). Here it is all effortless, functional, un-reflexive. From a point in space and time when such things came naturally. And we are never going back.

So, I trust I’ve won you over. Great effin’ building.

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My brother Lockie recently got himself a serious person’s camera and a tripod. (Lyds has been urging me for ages to get a good camera. I hem and haw, evaluate, etc. and finally, thanks to Elena, I now have a great little point and shoot. My little bro, on the other hand is a doer.) Anyhoo… after much nagging on the part of Yours Truly, with assists from other players, he now has his very own Flickr account and I urge you to check it out to get a taste of southeast Queensland in the summertime.

Golden cane (Image: Lockie Cooke)

Lockie and Elena have the following trait very much in common: they both focus intently, obsessively even, on a particular interest for a period of time, sometimes returning to it, sometime not. E with her garden, her drawing and painting, and of course the baking. Lockie with boats and fishing, cars, his own garden and now his photography. I am hoping (and intend to back this up with practical action such as nagging) that this particular pursuit will stick as a kind of meta-interest that can be applied to all subsequent obsessions. Otherwise I will be hitting him up for his camera if he should ever lose the bug…

Magpie (Image: Lockie Cooke)

These images mean a lot to me, especially today, as gusts of wind through up snow around the house and street, coating everything like sand. My last few trips to Australia have been in the cooler months (“winter,” such as it is in Brisbane), but right now it is wet and stormy and very hot there. I will confess to you that I have never liked the heat, but I suppose I can appreciate it. The photos of Kondalilla Falls, Maleny and the Glasshouse Mountains, the storms over Moggill, the birds, the hibiscus flower—Elena says, “you have those there?”—are not only signs of home, they are memories.

Thanks Lockie.

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My awesome sister and her excellent fiancé visited for Christmas and we took them to the mall on, as we Australians like to say, “Boxing Day.” Let this be understood by my dear readers as a sign of our deep and abiding love for those two. Going to the mall the day before, or the day after Christmas is not our usual caper, but for those used to buying clothes on £, the American $ emits an irresistible siren call.

No. 2 (photo versions and details)

Elena was not completely enamoured of my photographic advances when I took these shots, and was fighting the urge to eat in the mall on account of being hungry and repulsed at the same time. But when the carousel started spinning behind her I couldn’t resist crouching in front of the passing throng to snap off a few more shots of my lady as she contemplated her predicament with mounting dread.

No. 3 (photo versions and details)

I’ve made more than my typical number of trips to consumer paradise recently, realising amongst other Important Things that Hollister and Aéropostale have completely taken over a certain chunk of the U.S. teen pre-frontal cortex.

But what surprised me most of all this time was the smell. It was horrific: a sordid amalgam of acrid Cinnabon cloud hanging over the carousel, gagging übermale cologne wafting out of Abercrombie in outrageous quantities, the sharp candy scent of various “autonomous mid-mall snacking units,” tendrils of Chanel No. 5 from JCPenney (least worst) and the unwelcome funk of occasional members of the General Public who somehow manage to represent Axe Body Spray Boy’s diametric opposite on the great wheel of masculine reek.

I’m marking it down: December 26, 2009—the day I finally understood, once and for all, Agent Smith’s aversion to the way we smell. It is completely out of control.

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Twelve/twelve 2009 involved Metro North, a trip to the City, a delicious brunch at “Sarabeth’s East” (you have to tilt your nose up just so and then peer down it at others to fully appreciate this), some shopping at Various, more coffee, etc. Cold, but not too, fine weather and a tomato omelette that shall not soon be forgotten. The last time I had the spinach omelette but I am forcing myself to branch out.

Sarabeth’s at Madison and East 92^nd

Sarabeth’s looks modest and unassuming from the outside, but open that little door on the left, go inside and you had best believe you will smash hard against the bulwark of queueing, ravenous, upper east-side bruncherati. This time I was prepared both mentally and physically (flanel-lined jeans, denim jacket, beanie and a certain cognisance) but as always the being seated at table and pouring of hot, black coffee into sturdy white cups came not a moment too soon. And naturally, to our left: a couple of Australians from Brisbane and one New Englander. We eat in packs, it would seem.

Shopping with Elena

It will never cease to amaze me, in the large cities of the world, just how much stuff can be packed into how little space. I’ve long known the privilege of taking room and space for granted and every time I visit New York I run smack into the intense proximity of just about everything, especially when following E from shop to shop. This little kitchenwares store was a marvel of practical consumption nestled in a broader context of material unnecessitude, and yet I was able to get my girl out of there for under ten American dollars owing to my formidable powers of persuasion.

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My first trip to an Athenian diner was with Elena a few days after we met. We were both living in New Haven and she had a car so she could drive us there. When I asked her how far away it was she said, and I will never forget it, “it’s farther than you can even imagine.” She was referring to 1426 Whalley Avenue, but late at night in a then-unfamiliar part of the city it could have been anywhere as far as I knew. E just called it Athenian, but I later came to understand that it was Athenian I: the first member of a regional diner quartet.

To an out-of-his-element Australian there’s nothing like the American diner. It’s one of this country’s best and most important institutions. It’s at Athenian that I finally learned how to order food in America. Know how your eggs will be cooked, know your toast options, know your salad dressings, and most importantly, ask for coffee. You only need to ask once and it will keep getting refilled as long as your arse is parked in that booth. This amazing social technology has not reached my homeland, as far as I know.

So imagine my delight when we upped and moved from New Haven to Middletown, only to discover that Athenian II is right here in Our Town. (I had dined at Athenian III in Milford a few times, on Christmas shopping excursions to the mall in years gone by, without ever knowing where II was.) Now I’m sure that others will disagree with me on this, and so be it: New Haven has The Pantry, Middletown has O’Rourke’s, up the road is the excellent Cromwell Diner, but to me the best diner in central Connecticut is Athenian. Because it’s my local, because the staff are so friendly, and because of the chrome and pink neon.

The day that I took the photo of the dessert bar I was flying solo, ordering my favourite (a Greek salad, coffee), and reading a book. It was a little hard to concentrate on the words because two old timers were sitting at the counter, one a self-identified Republican, the other a self-identified Democrat. They were jabbing each other (and the Republican guy briefly scored some cheap shots against one of the waitresses who quickly tore him a new one) and I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation, punctuated as it was by long pauses and outlandish proclamations.

“We’re all Americans, we all hate the Taliban.”

“I don’t hate anyone. I don’t bother them, they don’t bother me.”

“You Democrats like the Taliban?”

“Hey, you saying that because I’m a Democrat I’m un-American?”

“This is a blue state, buddy.”

…back and forth, et cetera.

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As we plunge further into crises, of economics, democracy, environment and war, and the future appears less and less about infinite progress, I’m increasingly struck by the ways that we used to imagine the world of today would actually turn out.

View from the Twentieth Century

Take Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, page through some science textbooks from the 1950s, walk the passenger tunnels at Union Station in New Haven (pictured here), circle Eero Saarinen’s Ezra Stiles and Morse Colleges, or Paul Rudolph’s brutalist Art and Architecture building on Yale campus, explore Wesleyan’s CFA complex in Middletown, or stroll past the entrance to this hotel on St. Kilda Road in Melbourne.

We used to project where we were headed with Modernity in the way we built the city environment. There’s a dream of a better future, on a different scale, that seeps in as you spend time with these objects, images and places. There is a sense of optimism and the hope of a more cooperative sociality. I’m not sure that we do this anymore.

Entering the station building

A different future

In these ways we used to be more modern. In other ways, it was always a dream, an aspiration that was never achieved. Was it supposed to be? Maybe not. Looking ahead one thing seems certain: the Twentieth Century’s imaginings of Tomorrow will never come to pass, and the future is going to turn out to be a lot different than anyone predicted.

On the other hand, I don’t know from architecture. Never studied it. Of course, when has such a limitation ever prevented me from expressing a strong opinion? Perhaps you disagree…

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Nothing to worry about here Tony. Climate change freak out dupes, kindly return to your porch rockers and resume whittling. I mean, it’s obviously a conspiracy, and I wouldn’t expect any different from the Greenies. But I just can’t believe that so many scientists have been taken in by it. I used to think scientists were smart and sensible people. I suppose they will come to their senses eventually. Purple skies—yeah right. Good one NASA. Kidders. Bunch of Photoshop junkies. Go launch a rocket!

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Seen on Main Street earlier in the week. It’s the Mini Cooper S with John Cooper Works GP tuning kit (supercharger, wheels, brakes, suspension, bits of red). They have a Flickr group all of their own. Naturally, the front brake calipers are rouge. I mean, how could you not? Would be a dereliction of duty.

Post thumb by Paul Mullett.

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Hot, black coffee, crisp apple slices, cheddar and mushroom omelette, and thick, buttered toast from a loaf she baked herself. It’s not often that I think of last Sunday’s breakfast four days after the fact; but today I am. Respect.

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Every year the owners dress their house and yard in this garb. The place is well situated for passersby, most of whom are speeding drivers. But not me and Genie. We pass it on our walks.

Front of the house, which is more like the side

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First up we have a machine that might be used in the tearing down and/or building up of bridges, or perhaps in the installation and/or removal of telegraph poles—both are happening right now, and yes, our neighbourhood is a hotbed of activity, you had better believe.

The tracks

Next is a shot of the railway line taken by holding the camera high above my head to get above the fence that doesn’t look like it would save you if you leaned on it but nevertheless usually supplies the necessary psychological reassurance that one will probably get to the other side safely, at least this one time.

My favourite tree on campus

And finally we have a shot of what is probably most accurately described as my favourite tree/built environment combination on campus, some kind of oaky, elmy thing nestled amidst the brutalist CFA structures I walk between every day that remind me of QPAC which in turn is strangely comforting.

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For your enjoyment, and because Mum asked me to, I present some photos of the fall colours on campus this year.

For those who don’t work at Wesleyan or live in Middletown this shot is taken on Foss Hill, which is kind of the spiritual hub of the university. This is where key events at WesFest, Spring Fling, the zombies game, Feet to the Fire, and soon WesWars (and probably a million other things I’m forgetting) take place. It’s also where the residents of Middletown come with their sleds and their rug rats when it snows good and hard. When I make coffee in the morning I can see the hill from the big window at the end of the hall, with Van Vleck Observatory peeking out of the foliage; it was especially beautiful this morning, though they really need to paint the roof again.^†

If you click through to the gallery you’ll see a few of the shots of Middletown that I took this afternoon from the roof of the Allbritton Center, which used to go by the name “Davenport.” This part of the river valley used to be called Mattabeseck and the surrounding country was called Quinnehtukqut. These names I like. If you’re a fan of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy you’ll know what I mean. “Middletown?” well, okay. “Mattabeseck” — there’s power in the old names of things.

† I brought my camera in today to take more photos but the battery died on me after about six clicks. Since this is the second battery and the camera is about seven years old it might soon, finally, be time for me to move on and get something better. And yes, for regular readers of Zero to One-Eighty this aside was for LydiaT.

It turns out that the same behaviour applies to current versions of the WordPress image resizer. This means that if you use WordPress’s native media support to display images for which copyright metadata is important, be aware that you might be serving up “orphaned” content, whose author cannot be determined when the asset is separated from your page, if you’re using the dynamically created thumbnails on your site. It looks like this might be changed in an upcoming release, but the details are hazy… The workaround is to size images yourself, output them with intact metadata, and insert them as “full size” into your posts or galleries.

Amazing, amazing Orion Nebula. I want go there.

Update: speaking of awesome space photos… (wow, etc.)

Liz Kelleher on Edward Kennedy:

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes Ted Kennedy was still a sh*tty guy. He was hell on his first wife, it took him years of drinking and womanizing to get straight, years that no ordinary working person would likely be loaned. He and the rest of his clan are T Wealthy, the born-rich, born-connected, two percent of Americans who have fifty percent of the power in this country, and worse, pass it on to their kids, at the expense of yours, and I don’t forget that just because he’s a Kennedy and a Democrat.

But from the point of view of Ted Kennedy the man, I can admire the moral courage of getting up in the morning, walking out the door, and getting on with it. Having room in his heart for the sorrows and struggles of total strangers at that. Ted Kennedy, role model for the f*ck up in us all.

I think I agree with this. He appeared to be a man driven by his demons, trying to make right without apologising for being who he was. Rest in peace, Senator.

Via Kevin.