munchausen syndrome

Though dishonesty in journalism is most indefensible, especially given the climate and standard that politicians, lobbyists in the agricultural and pharmaceutical businesses and even in the art world are expected to stoop to (vis-à-vis the last accusation in this list levied), I think some are made examples of and all the muck-rakers have to muck-rake on one another. That being said, one certainly owes oneself a little reprieve by checking out this hilariously mounting litany of charges against the disgraced anchorman pressed by Bob Canada.

stioch or yarn-bombing

Collectors’ Weekly curates another fine show-and-tell segment with the editor whose fascination with hobbyists of the 1970s, gleefully without the need to fill their off moments with one of an infinite number of distractions that all fall somewhere short on that spectrum called productivity, cultivated their creative juices through determined clacking, has helped in part spark a revival. These knitted fashions are are truly spectacular and in many ways—not just nostalgic feeling for the vintage, are inescapable, representing a sense of experimentation and a mentality of craftiness that we’re happily not ready to give up. Even though a lot of the sway of style is up to the fashionista-set, unconventionality is well tolerated, and maybe in part because that flair is just kept at a simmer by that same catalog of diversions that don’t hone skills and by a manic admiration for things consciously imitative of the the past, one’s childhood memories, whose template becomes something rather deflated and demystified, that originality, durability, security twice- or thrice-removed. When there’s too much sentimentality, I think, it’s easier for the authorities to step in and reintroduce some balance until the next iteration of discovery.

table-manners or gravyboat, showboat

I too, like Nag-on-the-Lake, would have though this table-top photo studio, designed to capture one’s meal in the most flattering light and one’s dish’s best side, was a very real offer that the wait-staff of restaurants or the social-media sommeliers would be bring around, like the desert wagon.  I think that probably the Selfie-Sombrero probably escaped into our dimension, first as a lampoon—as a joke poking fun at people’s vanity but I suppose we can’t put that genie back in the bottle now.  And though this demonstration #DinnerCam is meant to advance a discussion about how the internet and constant, omnipresent access is changing public deportment, I’m a little afraid that such spots, blinds and backdrops might become a thing.

rest in peace, Mr. Nimoy

five-by-five

canine confessions: Ze Frank presents Sad Dog Diary

hootenanny: big in Japan, owl bars are coming to London

a pox upon thee: gerbils should get the blame for spreading the plague

phonemic handshape: a video on how some of the latest slang and jargon is signed

monogrammed: dozens of vintage corporate emblems, mostly logographic to peruse

cross-promotion or courier-new

After learning about some clever entrepreneurs’ plan to partner an open all hours chain of diners with parcel delivery services for the sake of more convenient pick-up and drop-off—and just after hearing of a single US hotline number to order anything from pizza to a horse-drawn carriage ride around Fantasy Island, I must say, while clever and enterprising—and possibly well-connected, I don’t know about this middle-man economic model. Sim salabim!

People should not be discouraged from being resourceful and even innovate, and if for instance, car-sharing schemes, facilitated logistically, result in reduced pollution and profit all involved, then that seems like a very good thing. Hoteliers and taxi drivers ought not to have an industry monopoly, and there’s certainly the old way of connecting and sharing that I think will resist being compartmentalized by any middle-man, however ambitious and deemed indispensable, but there is too a certain level of expertise and the safe-guards of bureaucracy and that’s not acquired overnight nor by mere association. Besides, being a concierge, not even a courier, is I think not a career that one aspires to.