While it's not nearly as extensive as the Library of Congress' account, the Library of Virginia has it's own presence on Flickr. It's only 200 images as of this posting and the range is limited, but there's plenty of info for each where available. CHECK IT OUT.

I find the video to be extremely clever, and the song is just short enough that the idea isn't worn out on me. It was directed by The Wilderness, a collaboration between Juliet Rios and Gabe Imlay, whose work seems generally to rock my socks off. Be sure to check out some other videos on their site.

This Mystery Science Theater 3000 box set is something new for the ol' Christmas list

Between a crazy busy work week and crap-loads of work around the house, my mind isn't all there lately.

But I did get something nifty, recently

My only problem with the whole enterprise is that they couldn't figure out a simple way to get all the fat out. All you have to do is pour the whole thing into a parallel-sided container and pop it in the freezer. The fat solidifies and floats to the top and the vodka would clarify quite a bit. THEN you could strain it to make it even more clear if needed.

Also, I'm in favor of adding maple flavor (unless it's already maple bacon...) and some vanilla to the infusion. Shake with some butterscotch schnapps and cream, and you have buttered pancakes with syrup and bacon in a glass. Maybe

The exhibit is free, so if you want some culture on the cheap (though anything but cheap culture), check it out.

MTV Music is a joy to my music-loving heart. The interface is - so far - fairly uncluttered. The search engine is quick to dig through the 22,000+ videos. In addition to a simple but fast-loading player you have sparse but useful information such as the director (linking to other videos by the same person!). As a fitting test, here's the video to one of my favorite songs by the sadly-no-more Big Wreck:

And as a bonus here's Stars by Hum:

(via Andrew Sullivan)

Well this week's offering is simultaneously nerdy, surreal, and beautiful. Rosecrans Baldwin interviews Cornelia Hesse-Honegger about her strangely pretty watercolors of insects affected by low-level radiation.

It could be anything...conventional, strange, pastoral or portrait. I want suggestions in the comments, and they can be as simple as "dogs" or something complex with specific direction (like angles, time of day, et cetera). I'll pick something by Friday afternoon. I'll shoot the crap out of that subject/theme (hopefully this weekend) and post the results as soon as the film can be developed/scanned.

Now I care far less than Ruggieri about the decor of my bagel purveyors. I'm not sure what background (and I don't mean to doubt it) makes her a "bagel snob" and I don't want to sound contrarian, but nearly every worthy bagel shop I've entered from Delaware to Manhattan is a little on the plain and utilitarian side. Sometimes even hole-in-the-wall. What matters is the bagels, and here's where things started to disappoint.

Having tasted Cupertino's wares a number of times, I'm doubtful these bagels were their work. While the West End deli and bagel shop isn't quite like the Tri-State area, they at least have that slightly crispy skin on the outside with a slightly chewy interior. The Bagel Czar, on the other hand, was a bit too chewy for my taste the whole way through. It's not simply the subjective evidence that makes me question the origin of these bagel, though. Their own website has the following message in the title bar of the browser: "Bagel Czar: serving authentic NY H&H bagels to the greater Richmond community." So I asked the gent behind the bar this morning where they procured their dough and he told me that it's not even H&H anymore. The bagels were apparently too small and - surprise - couldn't stay fresh that long coming all the way from NYC. So they switched to some distributor whose name he couldn't quite recall for sure; either "Walther" or "Walter" or some such place, and he didn't know where they were located.

Is it possible that at 7:30 AM the wage employee didn't really know who dropped off the food? Sure. Is it possible Cupertino's owns a truck with some other name on the side? Sure. But if these are indeed their bagels, then I have greater cause for disappointment since it would mean the quality is slipping.

Granted, the bagel I had wasn't terrible. I like to test a new place by trying a plain bagel with butter (or an egg bagel if they make them - sadly, not at the Bagel Czar, but available at Cupertino's), and this was decent. Look, if you're a student who can't hoof it out to Cox Road for a decent bagel, this place beats the crap out of whatever Kroger has to offer. But if you can and are willing to drive a little, the Bagel Czar isn't worth your time.

I don't know why, then, I paused in the 7-11 this afternoon when I saw a can of Red Bull Cola.

I suppose it was curiosity to see whether they made some "energy cola" to supplement their product line. Seeing the "natural" tag on several parts of the can made me chuckle considering the somewhat engineered flavor of their flagship beverage, so I had to glance at the ingredients. Here I was surprised to find real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup (like nearly every other cola in the USA) and a lack of high-wattage extracts. What, not an energy drink? So I decided it was at least worth trying a new cola.

Cracking open the can I could already smell the difference - this was definitely a cola, but not your average Pepsi or Coke product. There was a real fragrance that smelled like something mixed up fresh. Tasting the drink confirmed what my nose suspected - there were hints of citrus, licorice, and some spices on which I couldn't put my finger - so I had to take a closer look at the ingredients. Sure enough, there were extracts of lime, licorice, vanilla, lemon juice concentrate, ginger, cinnamon, cacao, and a host of others. Heck, they even get the caffeine from coffee beans!

I don't think I ever expected a can of cola with this complex a flavor...now I want more.

It's my experience that the majority of factory-farmed poultry in our country today tastes very little like anything at all. There's a vague, savory meatiness, sure. But a distinctive flavor? It seems to me the only flavor you get out of your average grocery store chicken is what you put in to it, like a heavy marinade and lots of salt, and hopefully a really good sear on the outside to get the tasty crispy crust. This is made worse by the typical American's fat phobia driving the purchase of skinless chicken (where much of any chicken's flavor resides).

Well as many of you know, I don't really buy meat from the grocery store anymore. I get my cuts from the butcher, and I've found that even their skinless chicken thighs have a distinctive flavor that I don't recall from my childhood. Last night I cooked up a fairly quick and easy dinner: I chopped up four slices of hand-crafted peppercorn maple bacon (also from the butcher) and fried the bits until crispy. Reserving the bacon and draining most (but not all) of the grease, I seared the salted thighs on both sides cooking them all the way through. I cooked up some cheese tortellini (some new brand imported from Italy, the name escapes me, but they're GREAT), and threw them, the bacon, and the chicken (now chopped up) into the frying pan to stir together with roasted garlic Alfredo sauce. I freshly grated some Parmigiana over the whole thing to finish.

There are several strong flavors in that dish when you think about it - garlic, salty bacon, a sharp grated cheese - but the chicken stood out. I noticed a flavor and aroma which reminded me of good scrambled eggs. Through the many components of my dish - some which might threaten to dominate the palette - the poultry could not be ignored.

And do you know what? It tasted like chicken.

(via that font of Friday fun, yewknee)

I just posted four frames of Moshe Safdie's Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, GA.

The website for Moshe Safdie and Associates is tragically Flash-tastic, but if you have the patience I recommend checking out some of his other work.

There's a few more snaps on my photostream. Maybe I'll have the color film ready tomorrow...

(via Engadget)

Sharie was Ben's wife. But she was also--to borrow a term from long ago--his patron. That word has a condescending edge to it today, because we think it far more appropriate for artists (and everyone else for that matter) to be supported by the marketplace. But the marketplace works only for people like Jonathan Safran Foer, whose art emerges, fully realized, at the beginning of their career, or Picasso, whose talent was so blindingly obvious that an art dealer offered him a hundred-and-fifty-franc-a-month stipend the minute he got to Paris, at age twenty. If you are the type of creative mind that starts without a plan, and has to experiment and learn by doing, you need someone to see you through the long and difficult time it takes for your art to reach its true level.

The article is a lengthy one, but certainly worth a read. It makes me (and hopefully others who pursue good artistic output of any kind) relax a little bit about my own creativity and dulls the false sense of urgency to do something significant before I age "too much." The article also seems to celebrate the pursuit - the research and preparation as a component of the art itself. And that, I can appreciate.