blatherings2008-12-05T00:03:31Zhttp://blatherings.demandingrobot.com/atom.aspxQuick BlogcastThe Victory of Faith Over Feartag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-11-05:b852725a-d939-4a95-bf38-290e321e472bYoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-11-06T03:11:23Z2008-11-05T23:22:31ZWe managed to stare history in the face yesterday and do the right thing. This could be huge, for the US and for the world. Hopefully it will mark a path forward that is so desperately needed. I can't remember ever having much respect for any politician until today. Maybe our dreams of greatness can come to pass. Maybe it's not all hype. Indeed, the audacity of hope.
Now it's back to reality. There's a giant mess to clean up and we're all gonna have to do some scrubbing on our hands and knees to make it shine again.
In the theatre world, when someone new is going onstage or working some critical operational position, we'll joke with that person to try to relieve some of the pressure of their fist show. If the person has what it takes and there's no real fear they are going to do poorly, one favourite way to joke is to tell them right before they go on, "Don't fuck up." If I could tell President-Elect Obama one thing right now it would probably be that. Every indication is that he's ready and up to the task. He's the smartest guy in the room, got nerves of steel, and the capability to think and heed difficult advice before taking action. He is in almost every way the antithesis of what has become common in American politics. So, it'll all be fine if he just doesn't fuck up.
I'm so glad to be a part of the world again.
]]>So Happy This Is Over!tag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-11-03:6efc5724-af17-4780-a9ee-df7882e97c0eYoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-11-03T22:51:51Z2008-11-03T22:21:00ZWhatever the result tomorrow, I'm so very glad that this election is going to be over. Well, if not tomorrow, then at least by the end of the week - in the worst case scenario. I'm sure the candidates must feel the same way. Imagine what they must be going through tonight? Both men and their staffs must be more drained than they thought possible. McCain is an old man and has reportedly been doing a 22 hour straight campaign. And Obama having lost his grandmother on the night before probably the biggest night of his life, not to mention the grueling primary season he went through.
Again, whatever happens tomorrow, I just hope that my vote and that those of everyone else actually gets counted. For a few weeks I seriously considered not even voting. My feeling was two-fold. On the one hand, the races in New York State are almost never in question, so it feels a little like it's over before it begins. There is also my fear that the whole system is rigged and my vote won't reflect the truth regardless. In the end though, whether it counts for much or not, I've decided to cast a vote.
And I plan on taking Lil K into the booth with me. I know she won't remember it, but it's truly a historic moment and I want her to share in it whatever way she can. It's been hard to remember that fact given all the noise we've had to endure these last 18 or so months. Our country once didn't even consider people like Barack Obama to be human beings. Now there's a chance that an African-American man could obtain the highest elected office in the country. It's hard not to stand in awe of these moments. I never thought it would happen in my lifetime and I can't believe I considered not taking some small part in the event.
So, wherever you live out there, you should vote. Do whatever it takes to do so. Don't let the noise or the fear or the intimidation stop you. Then go have some coffee on Starbucks. The coffee may suck, but at least it's not Dunkin Donuts. After you've finished your Starbucks free coffee, you should go to your nearest locally owned coffee house and order the most expensive thing they have. ]]>More Hardworking Americans...tag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-10-26:0b7b9aac-f45f-4989-a705-70f7e2ccb1e8Yoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-10-26T21:57:27Z2008-10-26T20:06:00ZThere's a new TV ad campaign being run by Dunkin Donuts. Watch it here. In it, they claim that "more hardworking Americans" prefer DD coffee over that of Starbuck's. I guess I'm a little sensitive these days, but I can't help feeling insulted. I've not actually performed any side-by-side taste tests, but I would likely choose Starbucks over Dunkin Donuts if those were my only options. I've never been overly keen on Dunkin Donuts in general, but I've never thought there might be people in the country who would view my preference as elitist. Now it seems that even corporate America is using the idea that there are two Americas, appealing to the divisions among us in order sell coffee. Apparently, you must not be a hard worker if you like Starbucks. Must be all those shiftless, black welfare moms using their food stamps for $10 lattes. Or those arrogant, elitsit, socialist terrorists like me.
It's a good thing that I was still using dial-up internet service in late 2001. For several months after 9/11, I would rush to the most immediately available news source every time I woke up. This was mostly the television. Since I pretty much missed out on what was happening during the initial events of that day, I was determined to stay on top of whatever might be coming next. Currently, I find I'm doing the same thing with the presidential race except my source is the internet. I've become obsessed. This week is going to be a tough one. It's much the same as the two weeks before the Super Bowl if your team is in the game. Endless speculation and analysis that basically means nothing because game day anything can happen. Except it's a lot harder to rig a football game than it is an election.
So I'm left to stew about polls and look at maps in varying shades of red, blue, yellow and grey. One poll says Obama is up by 12. Another says it's by 4. Some talk about the Bradley effect while some say it's no longer a factor. I've added ten bookmarks to my news directory in just the last week. I keep searching for, I'm not really sure what anymore. Good news? An answer to a question? Some kind of reassurance? But the theme I keep seeing under it all is a stark division in this country. It's not even a division that makes any sense to me.
Apparently, there is a large portion of the roughly 45% of McPalin supporters that believe in a "real" America. If you accept that there are approximately 170 million registered voters in the US, that makes for something like 75 million people willing, for whatever reason, to support the outright lies, distortions, fear mongering, racism, and the reactionary divisivness that McPalin has to offer. More and more I have the feeling that this election is putting America on the brink of two potentially irrevocable paths. Only one of those paths puts this country in a good place at the end of the story. The other can only put us back many, many years. The scary part, for me, is that even if Obama wins, there are still going to be those same 75 million people who believe, even if only a little, that America is not a place for people like me. ]]>Food Porntag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-10-15:09db0da2-4cd6-4320-8207-efcd3124055dYoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-10-15T03:43:49Z2008-10-15T04:40:00ZThese days, when I'm not busy doing activities with my daughter or scanning CNN and SOTT.net to see if the world is going to implode, I'm usually in the kitchen. My recent forays into baking have also gotten me interested in food porn. I've found an odd satifaction in not only preparing a dish, but also in photographing it. Should I be worried about this trend?
Anyway, here's some examples:
These are the peach muffins I made a few weeks ago. The picture is from then as well (they didn't actually last that long). While not my first attempt at photographing food, this was my first image that rose to the level of food porn. It started out innocently enough. I intended to post something about the white peaches H, K, and I picked in Harlem (okay, H did all the picking while K and I got photographed and filmed for a Columbia University press story). Since this was a rare treat, I thought it wise to document the subsequent muffins and pie I made from the bounty we received that day. The pie was a bit of failure and I've yet to write the post, but the process got me interested in trying to replicate the kind of good food photography I see in magazines, cookbooks, and some websites. All too often I've made recipes with some hesitation based on the user submitted photo of a dish (yeah, I'm talking about you Allrecipes!). So far I've learned that sunlight helps a lot, especially with the digital camera. The versions using the on-camera flash made the muffins look terrible (everything was basically orange with exception of the peaches, which were green, yet neither colour was present in the real life food).
Next up was a frittata shot with the on-camera flash:
I use the Joy of Cooking recipe as a base, but the great thing about a frittata is that you can throw just about anything into it. This one had roasted sweet potato, roasted orange and green bell peppers, onions, and shredded asiago cheese. (Note: JJ, I've been trying to get round to scanning the recipe to send to you).
My big revelations here were that your food will look bad if you 1) shoot it with an on-camera flash, 2) shoot it at a bad angle, and 3) shoot it on top of a very messy stovetop. The angle of this dish was the biggest problem. I was trying to convey the end result of the process, but does this look like somethig you'd eat willingly? To that end, it was one of the best frittatas I've made, but the round shape of the pan along with it's size made shooting the picture a pain. Since it was later in the day, sunlight wasn't an option. And I couldn't really find a suitable background to situate the pan in. The cutting board, while attractive in it's own right, doesn't work for this. And the appearance of the corner foot of the toaster oven is, well, ill-concieved. In the end, I should have waited a day, cut a single piece and photogrpahed it by itself outdoors.
Finally, here are some cookies I made this past weekend:
These are Greek cookies called Koulourakia Portokaliou. They look like dry shortbread cookies, but they aren't. Instead, olive oil is used and the result is quite different. They are moist without being too much so and sweet without being overly so. I should have used more citrus zest (I almost always find I need to use more spice and zesting than called for, so I don't know why I didn't trust my instincts). I also used Grand Marnier instead of Congac, but I think that was a bit of divine providence. The recipe made almost fifty cookies of the size shown here, which is a lot. I like this photo, but the sun was at too low an angle and the shadows resulting are too harsh. There is also no frame of reference as to how big the cookies are. This is a problem I have with a lot of photos attached to recipes in books and other print sources. If you are going to offer the visual aide in an effort to say "and the end result looks like this," then you should put something in the photo that can give some indication as to size or colour.
I've slowly been adding things to my Allrecipes online profile, but I'm not sure how much of it can be seen by other people. I can't tell if they are in the early processes of developing the user interface there or if some of the choices are as confusing as Flickr. That said, I like the idea of being able to mix user submitted recipes with my own private submissions as well as links to other sites. And once I get enough recipies together, I'm going to take advantage of the "print your own cookbook" feature. Anway, if you want to see some of things I've been making, check out the Chicken ala King section over on the sidebar.
When McPalin is in front of the capitol building sometime in the next ten months and you are wondering how on earth such a scary fool could possibly be standing there taking the oath of office, look back at this article from the NY Times this week and try to contain your horror:
It won't matter what the polls say right now because there's simply too many easy ways for the McPalin campaign to steal this election. It will only come down to a few states and it will likely be those same few that dropped thousands of eligible voters who probably would've voted Obama. And once McCain dies of skin cancer, guess who that will leave?
All it takes is the appearance of a possible win in these states to make it seem plausible that McPalin would beat Obama. Ohio once again one of the key states in this election cycle. Today from CNN:
Mmmm...an easily manipulated voting system in a tight race. Sounds like a key to a rigged vote to me. The truth is out there, as the saying goes. It just isn't in the ballot box (or memory card).
Finally, just how much will race matter? I think more than anyone is really willing to admit. McPalin has spent all this past week stoking the flames of hatred towards Obama with their usual round of outright lies and/or half-truths. McCain then suddenly seemed sickened by his doings. In front of a crowd that was booing him and calling for Obama to be killed, he tried to town down the rhetoric, but it's too late. With Palin off to his side running what seems to be her own campaign at this point, the genie was already let out of the bottle. McCain might actually have once been a decent guy, but that's all gone now. Palin will continue the Nazi style attacks she's prone to and will help futher foster the idea that Obama is a terrorist, an Arab, or a dirty black man just waiting to pounce on white female virginity. It's the same thing we saw in the 2004 election -- tell a few lies, let them get a lot of news coverage, then retract them quietly. By then it doesn't matter if you lied or not because people will believe the salacious things you said the first time. Remember, no one reads the newspaper correction section to see if yesterday's news was correct.
I hope I'm wrong about all this. If I'm mad about anything it's that the Bush presidency has made me so cynical. So many catastrophes and lies and lives lost have left me not feeling so good about this country any more. And I'm even more saddened by the prospect of watching it happen again for the next four years. ]]>Photography Saturday: Samantag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-09-27:e4f5e5b0-b972-4adc-9769-b2ba31302010Yoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-09-27T08:29:58Z2008-09-27T01:03:00Z
Kabul, Afghanistan. Thursday, July 30, 2008 -- copyright Moises Saman
I was pretty surprised about a month back to see on the front page of the NY Times, above the fold, a black and white photograph (actually, I'm going off memory and can't verify that placement, but it was very prominent). I know such thing used to commonplace, but once USA Today started running their whole paper with colour photos and Gannett took over most of the industry, black and white was relegated to the past.
In both the appearance
of a b & w photo in a major newspaper and the attributes of the
image itself, I felt taken back in time almost immediately. I think I
even did a double take. Saman has many more wonderful photos of this
dire situation and others on his website (follow the first link).
There's also more images in a NY Times slideshow you can get to here.
Here's what drew me to this photo:
1. The depth of field. If you are unfamiliar with this term, go here. In essence, it means how much of the foreground to background is in focus. The relatively shallow depth of field here draws attention to the foreground subject. Yet with the background appears hazy and distant, adding an ominous tone. The use of focus in this way helps tell the story and looks otherworldly.
2. The quality of light. I can't tell if Saman worked the light in the darkroom (or Photoshop) or if the image was taken at daybreak/sunset. The long shadow suggests the time of day, but it's unique that the background is set in darkness. But the effect is that a frame surrounds the figure in the middle and forces your eye to it.
3. The use of geometric lines. There are three sort of formal areas of the photo and it is extremeley well balanced. Most of the lines are parrallel in the lower two thirds (between the tents and the dirt) and the mountain puts a cap on that part in the top third. The stick that the man carries on his back continues that line, but it's darkness stands in contrast to the surroundings. It becomes an anchor for the man and the bucket. But because so much of the image is made of hard lines, the man and bucket stand out. They are rounded and curved in ways that the rest of the image isn't.
4. In addition to the lines tieing the story together, the texture of each element reveals another aspect. The fabric in the tent and on the man suggests that both object and person are seemingly made from the same material. I can imagine that in such difficult circumstances as a refugee camp, it might seem that way. Life is so hard and you live so close to the ground with your whole world cramped and closing in on you. The texture of the rust on the bucket, the dryness of the dirt, and the harshness of the mountain rock have a similar connection. You can really feel the dry and windblown world this man lives in. It's uncomfortable and unforgiving.
Documentary photography doesn't usually thrill me. A lot of times it
just tells a story in a very basic way. This utilitarian quality often makes for
images that don't go beyond communicating a simple story or idea. One
doesn't expect to be transported to another way of thinking. But truly
good documentary work does just that. It communicates not only the
actual subject matter, but something greater beyond. ]]>Baby Shoestag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-09-25:08630a97-0894-45df-8ca0-8d6f4fc4542bYoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-09-25T21:38:23Z2008-09-25T21:04:00Z
Lil K wore shoes for the first time this week. As you can imagine, it was pretty cute. How cute? Go here to find out (remember you have to sign in to Flickr to see it). As with a lot of Lil K's first year
clothing items, they were a gift (although don't ask me who...there was
so much we began to lose track).
Said shoes are pictured above. They are made by Robeez, who seem to predominantly make this style of soft-soled, leather baby footwear. I was quite relieved when I put these little things on her feet and found they were pretty easy to get on and off. The on is really the hard part. Baby clothes in general offer you a pretty good opportunity to feel like you're going to break bones by bending something slightly the wrong way or snap off a finger by pulling just a little to too much on a sleeve while a hand is going through the cuff. It's one of the thousands of irrational fears of first-time parents, but any product that makes me think I can dress my kid without causing her life-altering pain is a good one in my book.
Mostly though, I was surprised how much Lil K suddenly grew just by wearing shoes. She's spent the first 9 months of her life with either socks or nothing on her feet. It was more of a profound moment than I expected. It's nice to think that you could live your whole life without shoes. Well, nice in the way that living on a tropical island is nice. Still, it definately felt like a milestone in her life and I wasn't ready for it. I guess you can't always be though and there's lots more on the way. I'd better man up before it's too late.
Okay, back to my evaluation of the shoes. I addition to their ease of use I also like the fact that these do not have the ubiquitous solid, rubber treads that I've seen on other baby shoes. Note to baby shoe manufacturers: most folks under 1 year cannot walk and therefore gain very little from having traction on their feet.
In the end though, tread or no tread, what could possibly be cuter than baby shoes?
]]>Not to be outdone (Bacon pt. 5)tag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-09-23:8329d3ca-2856-4866-9959-4558264589d8Yoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-09-23T22:22:16Z2008-09-23T22:08:00ZEnough with political vitriol. How about some cod wrapped in turkey bacon and broiled, yo! With sautéed chard with garlic to boot. Take that!
This is totally in response to...this. I just thought since someone is so obsessed with showing off what he's eating... ]]>Care and Feedingtag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-09-22:715e0cb8-da3e-4abf-9d9c-38ef30255a80Yoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-09-22T18:51:10Z2008-09-22T18:54:00Z...so I decided to post it...
I believe that a lot of Americans think we function under a free market economy. I guess we do, but there are a great many people out there who have been led to believe that communism or socialism are bad words. Thinking like that will lead to no good. People should have personal responsibility and pull themselves up by their boot straps. All that tired old bullshit.
The continued faltering of the American economy has put into light one of the more appalling facets of American culture these days: the care and feeding of the rich. All around us there are financial firms going belly up. The reasons are myriad and complicated and, yes, I get it, if things get really bad for them it will eventually get really bad for all of us. This is the only part of Trickle Down economics that I actually think truly trickles down. What bugs me so much is that so many government agencies, both NY state and federal, seem to be so eager to swoop in and offer help. It's really a bad message to send. It's apparently okay to follow poor business practices and be in debt up to the stratosphere if you run a billion dollar company. No matter what you do, the government will bail you out. What happened to letting the free market work its magic to correct things? I just wish that the government would do the same for me. I'm in a whole lot of debt. It's my fault, but so what. Why can't NY State give me a bunch of money to keep me afloat? I guess I don't have enough leverage.
The other thing that this mess has brought to light is that a huge portion of the NYC and NYS budgets, and I suppose NJ and Conn. as well, rely heavily on Wall Street bonuses and the income tax they generate. Local governments are actually anticipating large short-falls in their revenue streams because a small percentage of their citizens are not going to get the extra, unplanned-for income they've gotten in years past. Talk about borrowing against your future. NYS has enough budget woes as it is and now we find out that we have even less public money because a few rich people won't be as rich this year as they were last year. What happened to counting on real income to project a budget?
And what will be on TV tonight? About a dozen shows celebrating the rich in some fashion. Either it's a reality show about some wealthy starlet and the difficulty she has shopping while bringing along her new baby (because babies seem to be the ultimate accessory among rich celebs these days). Or it's a fiction show about ultra-rich high school kids having sex and driving expensive cars. How sick is it that we poor people keep propping up the rich like this? I know on some level this what feeds this is a fantasy about life not having any problems. And more and more it seems that if you have tons and tons of money, you don't have any problems. Or if you do, you can just buy your way out of trouble. There's a comfort in that fantasy. It may not be true for the overwhelming majority of people, but it's one we seem to cling to desperately. However, now it also seems true that that our public institutions will also come to bail you out if you are rich and have problems. We'll watch you on TV to feed your ego and we'll allow our tax dollars to support your behaivour issues. No wonder these people are crazy.
On a more personal note, I have taken some small-minded and smug satisfaction in the demise of Lehman. This is based solely on my experience of visiting the Starbucks across the street from their huge building in Times Square. I've never really been one to understand the mindset of financial-type folks and have gone to some lengths in my life to distance myself from them and corporate America in general. I like making a living off something more tangible than buying and selling risk. I've often found that, at least in a general sense, they act as if their careers are more difficult and stress-filled than the rest of the world. Never mind that their daily incomes are more than some make in a lifetime. Anyway, living in NYC, you encounter these folks on a pretty regular basis. One day I had reason to kill some time and tried with some difficulty to enter this particular Starbucks. Usually, people are pretty quick to help open a door or move out of the way when they see the stroller or the baby, but not these folks. No one helped me open the doors. And Lil K almost got hot coffee spilled on her a few times until I finally resorted to having her face the wall (I gave her a straw so she could at least entertain herself). And not one of the patrons oohed and ahhed at Lil K and how cute she is. They were all pretty much in their own worlds.
My drink was also taking a long time. This led my gaze to drift out the window. I got to watching this twenty-something guy with that slicked back, Gordon Gecko style hair smoking and chatting up these two cougars out on the street. He was clearly pontificating about how great he was at this or that sport or how awesome it was at the club last night. The cougars fed his ego and lapped up the fake attention while he went on and on about himself. He just looked like the kind of person I hate and the cougars looked the kind of people who help facilitate his type. Basically, I hated all three of them. I hope he's out of a job because I liked him the least though. The cougars might have been bottom feeders, so I can't really wish them too much ill-will. ]]>Sound Familiar?tag:blatherings.demandingrobot.com,2008-09-22:2838768b-a7bf-4364-a4c7-084f846b2476Yoshiyoshi@demandingrobot.com2008-09-22T12:17:59Z2008-09-22T11:55:00ZIt does to me.
A crisis comes to our shores. The government panics. The people panic. Doom seems inevitable. Suddenly, seemingly overnight, a complicated and multi-thousand paged piece of legislation appears before Congress. The bill is heralded as the thing that will save us and protect us from evil. It's rapidly and nearly unanimously approved, all in less time than it actually takes to read the document. Suddenly the Executive branch has unprecedented and unchecked powers to solve the crisis. The people are encouraged to go about their normal daily routines and not change their behaviour in any way.
I really used to believe in the basic honesty of our government. My thinking was that major catastrophes couldn't possibly be created by those in power for their own benefit. They would have to live with the results just as much as the rest of us. Plus, we had the vote, so they'd be out of a job and we could change the rules. I don't believe that anymore.
To think that the American people are to blame for this mess is an oversimplification. Perhaps we were long ago, when elections weren't rigged and the media wasn't manipulated into making us so afraid that we'd take any solution, no matter how awful the consequences, in hopes that our asses would be saved. It was also in a day when our food wasn't so processed and engineered as to be unrecognizable and still had enough nutrients to make us vibrant, not merely alive. There was a time when you could actually believe that the system had your best interests at heart and not its own. Those days are gone.
If you still think that this administration will solve this dilemma, that they weren't somehow letting it happen, that they really want to help the ordinary individual with the insurmountable problems to come, well, just think back to how well it's handled every other crisis it's faced. The keys should have been taken away after the fourth or fifth accident, but here they are still driving the car.
Remember, the bunkers at NORAD don't have space for 300+ million American people, only military and government officials.
I wrote a somewhat ranting post the other day and didn't publish it because it seemed too negative (which is saying a lot for me). I may yet, but I saw this in Time today and it pretty much says the same thing:
