no. 95 - Tattoos

Permanent, bad art on your body.

This sums up my problem with tattoos. They are ugly. They are permanent. The permanence muliplies the aesthetic offenses. More often than not the art of the tattoo resembles the restless doodles of a sullen but talented junior high school boy. What is impressive in an 8 graders notebook is not so impressive when engraved in the skin.

They are bought on a whim and they remain forever.

In most cases they become objects of regret. I knew this when I was twenty and I warned my friends against them. I am even more sure of it now having watched an entire generation get "inked."

I have never understood the appeal.

A few friends have tattoos I do understand. They have them as talismans or reminders, and their meaning and permanence intertwine. But these are the rare cases.

Most tattoos are picked from a book or a Google search and inscribed by artists whose best qualities are their ability to copy a picture onto a fleshy hide and to not judge your decision to put something like this on your body forever:





But maybe the problem is me. Perhaps I lack a commitment to that kind of art.

no. 94 - The Miss California USA organization

That Carrie Prejean has failed to repay her boob loan is only half as bad as the fact that "officials" at the Miss California made a boob loan.

At least it is clear what they perceive as the competitive qualities of a Miss California contestant.

no. 93 - Broad Daylight

Nothing good ever happens in Broad Daylight. No one every tells you about the lovely picnic they had in Broad Daylight. (Unless brazen youths stole the food). There are no tales of parades in broad daylight, unless they are full of Nazis. (Nazis, marching down our little street, in Broad Daylight!)

The things that happen in broad daylight are street attacks, rapes, abductions and murders.

Look at this list of 10 things that happened recently in Broad Daylight:

• Shooting near a kids' dance studio in Vancouver
• Brazen sex trade in Detroit
  
• Jogger attacked in Scotland
  
• Police shootout in the Philippines
  
• Magritte painting stolen in Brussels
• Woman mugged in Duluth
• Armed robbery and shootout in Manila
• Men in Mexico kidnapped from their homes
• Two police officers shot down in Rio de Janeiro
  
• Attempted robbery just outside Boston
  

ALL in Broad Daylight!!

Obviously the problem is international. Broad Daylight emboldens criminals. There is something dangerous about this peculiar kind of sunny. The weather service really needs to get on this. If there is even a 10% chance of Broad Daylight in my area, I would like to be warned.

no. 92 - Blackface

Even as a kid, before they started censoring the cartoons I watched, blackface made me feel ill. It would be disingenuous to portray myself as an enlightened kid regarding race, but when I saw those characters it felt strange and troubling, even without my having a grasp on race.

Because of this I'm forced to call "Bullshit" on anyone who wants to pass blackface off as a phenomenon offensive only to Americans. It's a degrading stereotype, and a repulsive aesthetic no matter who or where you are. There is no way to make it pretty when you "exaggerate" and define an entire race in this manner. It is loathsome, irrespective of geography or even history.

But there is history. Some might wish to divorce blackface from any kind of context, but to do so is willfully ignorant. It would be like showing up to a party with a big swastika on your T-shirt and then holding your hand over your mouth in mock shame, saying "oh, that's right, some people get offended by these."

Finally and specifically, to the Australian act and variety show who thought it would be entertaining to present a Jackson Five "tribute" in blackface: I insist you know better.

The central "funny" point of your sketch was to present the Michael Jackson character in "whiteface" to poke postmortum fun at a human being who in all likelihood felt so terrible about his "blackness", that he bleached his flesh. And if you didn't believe that — if you took Mr. Jackson at his word and believed he had a rare skin disorder, then you choose to make fun of his medical condition? I can't wait to see your next bit of work on how hilarious you find those cue-ball headed cancer patients!

Update: French Vogue has decided one blackface controversy deserves another. They have gone ahead and painted Dutch model Lara Stone a darker shade of pale. The issue is reported to include no Black or Asian models apparently because they are so difficult to locate. Personally I would not have looked to the Netherlands to solve this particular deficit.

Not traditional blackface, but, French Vogue, all the make-up in the world isn't going to cover up your problem.

no. 91 - 7D Review Review

Looking for information on Canon's new 7D camera this morning I stumbled across an early review and I was so amazed, I had to write my own review of that review here.

The first thing that struck me is that the reviewer is a young, chicken-legged model from Hong Kong. I know this because, while there is no byline for the article, she is clearly shown throughout the review holding the 7D just like a PRO!

For example, here (at right) she is almost holding the camera up to her eye. Being a professional, she does not want to mess up her lashes or eyeliner. Look at those long, white, manicured nails - the mark of a great photographer!

And here (at left) she is leaning back on a glossy white floor in a natural and casual manner, elegantly holding the camera across her tube top without even looking in the viewfinder. I frequently find myself using this technique at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. (Yes, this technique will only work with a tube-top.)

After demonstrating the proper way to hold this new camera, the reviewer goes on to show us how useful and versatile the camera is in a variety of situations. In order to be as helpful as possible, she poses for all the photos herself!

Here she is on her hands and knees atop some sort of construction platform in what appears to be a incomplete bathroom, probably to demonstrate how one may use this camera to photograph a pet or weakened loved-one.

In the next sample, she is with Mike, the janitor, in the boiler room to give us an idea of how suited this camera is to engagement photography:

You can really feel the connection between these two!

And finally, here she is towards the end of the review, where she has nearly passed out from hunger in a dirty stairwell.

In the high resolution image (which the site offers for download here) you can see the sheen of sweat from what I can only presume is a combination of exhaustion and lack of nutrition. Poor hard-working girl!

But boy, hunger or no, she loves this camera! She gives it a fantastic review! A more jaded person might be concerned about the fact that the digitalrev website isn't a review site at all, but an online retailer based in Hong Kong. One might think that they are totally biased and just want to sell cameras. One might think this girl didn't write the review, but that she is only used to create a sleazy sex-appeal for what is really nothing more than a big product ad. But I don't believe it. I believe this girl loves cameras and mini-skirts almost as much as she hates calories!

Thanks unnamed skinny reviewer girl!