Thursday 11 July 2013

lexical extraction

Always worth the daily gander for its compilations and master-sessions, Mental Floss, has an illustrated list of graffiti art terminology for different genre, techniques and media for street art. Though the terms are unconventional and probably not standardised and adopted by all artists, that such categories exist shows respect and maturity for such works.

Wednesday 10 July 2013

cri de couer or you can't handle the truth

Although I still declare that anyone truly shocked by learning that the world is the prying, groping place is a measure naรฏve or even complacent or complicit, public attention and outrage ought not be placated by life intimato Ars, the words of prophets of doom, or by practicality, commonality—offensive aspirations.

As more is revealed, everyone will have transgressions against the public trust to confess and defend. Arguing that tolerance and reciprocation do not justify the ends invite the same kind of arrogance of seeing the Big Picture, omnipresence, as does the intelligence Manifest Destiny of the US and conspirators. The disabusing quality of the former is far from palatable and probably inures one to the successive headlines—not only in bed with the telecommunication utilities, foreign intelligence agencies but also trawling from the series of tubes, upstream, that make up the internet and now there is an apparent mandate for snitching that's a free-pass for going beyond regular nosiness and jumping to conclusions and this mass-deputization is bound to go above and beyond—and may go far, in a social sense, of explaining why there is a poignant absence of rage on the perpetrating and perpetrated public—that and a convenient coalescing of economic conditions and conditional victories that deflect securities as a very—be-not-proud personal choice.

Tuesday 9 July 2013

percentile or blue-screen

The press seemingly have an obligation to announce their special-coverage with an infographic or a dramatic-photo montage and an orchestral strike. For continuing development concerning the government budget sequestration and mitigating measures, like furloughing defense department employees—with the caveat that contracted, conscripted or otherwise exempt personnel should not be utilised to make up for lost work, one publication went with, I think, a very unfortunate symbol to illustrate a cut in 20% in pay for affected workers—evocative of a time when the Pentagon was really and truly lamed. Perhaps in some ways, it is good to trim back the rhetoric with such stoppage and temporary estoppel but from the perspective of personal hardships and future knock-on effects, it quickly reveals itself as unacceptable and counterproductive.

scaramouche

There is a little guesthouse, called the Schwendenschanze—the name itself, meaning a Swedish Wall, sort of a catch all folk etymology for defensive barriers and trenches constructed not just by that country's conquest of much of Germany (more in keeping with living memory) but also for much older fortifications built by the Celts and the Romans, like the mysterious Schrazelloch (goblin holes) to be found everywhere—that is set at the summit of the high road through the Rhรถn mountains.
I always like reaching this place because then I know I am almost home but I have not really paid much attention to the building itself, except for a bit of scowling at the out-of-proportion house number it bears—something oversized, green and white that makes the place look like a truck stop along the Autobahn and by this point, I've had my fill of trucks, as I creep behind them up the steep climb. I just realised, however, that it is not just some plaque but rather the UNESCO stele for the world heritage biosphere site of this region. It occurred to me upon seeing the marker at another site. Now I recall seeing them elsewhere too, although camouflaged. This design is practical, I'm sure, but to call it a stele, a cartouche (the belief that if a name was written somewhere, the owner could never disappear) I was expecting something a bit more classic and for the ages, although it is fitting as the United Nations awards this honour but sometimes also takes it away when not enough is done to preserve it. The English daily, the local, features a nice series of World Heritage Sites all around Germany.