blixity

Why We Don’t Want Another Cold War

blixity — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:00:04 +0000

Left: Putin executing a martial arts move. Right: Bush executing an “oops” move.

Palin (aka Fey Lookalike) to Appear on SNL?

blixity — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:10:04 +0000

On MSNBC’s News You Can’t Use: Sarah Palin may take on Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live/SNL this week. Whoa! Fey’s hilarious and scathing performances as the Republican Party’s desperate and ill-conceived pick for VP are spreading like wildfire. The physical resemblance is uncanny. And Fey definitely capitalizes on Palin’s patent on fake-adorable prairie-pinscher. In a [...]

Church Blesses Weapons of Violence

blixity — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:00:50 +0000

The NYTimes ran this as one of their top photos yesterday. The caption: A Roman Catholic priest followed by military officials blessed 50 new machine guns in Kauswagan, a town on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, to help the military in its operation against rebels belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The question: Should a [...]

Panic in America

blixity — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:49:45 +0000

Last week’s bailout, aka America-rescues-Main-Street-package, seems to have ignited some bad-ass bad-energy—contrary to expectations. The house WAS on fire. Now it seems the entire street, neighborhood, zip code IS on fire. OOOPS! America’s surge against the recession is NOT working! Oh-kay. I can only count the days till this vacationing-in-TX-president—with the help of big media and two [...]

The Seven-Year Itch

blixity — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:48:54 +0000

Seven years ago today, we woke up to a frantic friend’s phone call telling us to switch on the tv. The image of a pair of towers smoking, in flames, has been on a playback loop ever since. The image has been captured, framed, and delivered from so many different visual perspectives and political platforms, [...]

Decapitation on a Canadian Greyhound Bus

blixity — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:45:21 +0000

A friend just told me about this insane act of violence. BBC News reports that a 40-year-old man traveling on a Greyhound bus with a large hunting knife stabbed a fellow passenger 50+ times, severed the victim’s head, and gutted him. The bus had 37 other passengers and was traveling from Edmonton, Alberta to Winnipeg, [...]

A Dinosaur in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport

blixity — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:30:25 +0000

Curious grand gestures in public space: Chicago’s O’Hare Airport has this huge replica of a Brachiosaurus skeleton, a plant-eating dinosaur that apparently lived 150 million years ago. I’d love to meet the airport officials who approved this. Fascinating for its extreme absurdity — and its innovative use of the atrium’s verticality. Bloomberg, we need one of these [...]

Still Life from a Starbucks Civilization

blixity — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:20:47 +0000

Just before the not-long-enough July 4th weekend, globalized coffeemaker Starbucks announced that it will be closing 600 stores. By now, we’ve heard gleeful reactions from people who support the demise of this Walmart of coffee beans. We’ve also, of course, heard the human side to these closings: 12,000 full- and part-timers are losing their jobs [...]

Two Artworks Use People as Primary Material

blixity — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:30:07 +0000

Regular People: it’s the art material of the moment. Last week, Turner Prize winner Antony Gormley won a turn at creating a temporary public artwork for London’s Trafalgar Square. The site is the square’s empty fourth plinth, which has become both a stage for contemporary art experiments and a critical platform from which to question what [...]

Life For Sale On eBay Posts New Sequel: Do We Care?

blixity — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:10:58 +0000

The eBay auction for Ian Usher’s entire life is officially over. The winning bid: AU$399,300 (US$380,286). Unfortunately for Usher, it’s about $100,000 less than what he’d expected. (I suppose everyone’s got recession worries.) The question is, What’s Next? For starters: a sequel-website. Usher’s original website, www.alife4sale.com, now has a link to Part 2: www.100goals100weeks.com. AAARRRGGGGHuhhh. This move, of [...]