The Arts

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Utensils of the Future TipToe pointed me to this fine contraption, the lovely-sounding Frankfurter Converter. Apparently it turns regular hot dogs into 'octodogs'. This reminded me of the equally weird Popcorn Fork, 'the most unique eating utensil since the Dark Ages.' I wonder what utensil revolution happened in the Dark Ages? The spork? What do you know? I did a little research: 10:59:52 PM        Mixed Bag Technology The Arts

The Road to Oceania Dave Winer points us to The Road to Oceania, an excellent essay on Orwell and modern-day America in the New York Times by William Gibson: In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner. This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did. 9:00:30 PM        Politics The Arts

Choosing a Tattoo I've been thinking about tattoos lately. This article, on South Koreans avoiding military service by getting huge tattoos, brought the whole thing to a head. I'm certainly not anti-tattoo, but I've begun to ask some questions about the tattoo selection process. I was walking by a tattoo shop the other day. It occurred to me that most tattoo parlors look the same. They've got lots of designs on the walls, and lots of books to browse through. In fact, this particular tattoo parlor had a couple of teenage girls leafing through one of these books. Here enlies the rub:  The decor of the store suggests that most people, when they enter the store, do not know what kind of tattoo they want. You're not shopping for socks. This is a relatively permanent procedure, and most people don't know what they want? Maybe the decision to get a tattoo is much more important than what tattoo to get, but I don't think so. Really, how are you going to feel about that 'Tweety Bird' in twenty years? Now I recognize that there's a minority segment of the tattoo-owning population that is totally legit, with individual, meaningful designs. I applaud this approach. Mind you, these people tend to be the equivalent of Mac users--convinced of their superiority, but I digress. And don't get me started on the whole cultural acquisition angle. First off, tattoos rose to prominence in Africa, where they presumably had important symbolic meaning. Okay, so we borrowed that over here in North America. But why is it that every second tattoo I see is either some Japanese kanji or a Celtic cross? It's a kind of skin globalization. In short, think carefully about what you want in a tattoo. Next to say, crack, it's probably one of the worst spontaneous purchases you can make. When I have this conversation with people, it always ends with a discussion of what, if I was to get a tattoo, what I would get. I'm not sure--I haven't thought carefully enough. I'd probably get a nice Shakespeare quote. Or perhaps Luther: Man's mind is a factory busy with making idols. That's got a kind of edgy tone to it, don't you think? 10:02:47 AM        Mixed Bag The Arts