#SFHellscape
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I just noticed: if you're in the parking garage for that little shopping center across the street from the San Francisco DMV, the exit door looks out at a fnnch rubber duck mural across the street.
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The #SanFrancisco #IVoted sticker is pretty spiffy this time.
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The paint job on this fence on Anza St. near 9th is neat;
it's kinda trompe-l'œil, kinda not.
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There was a break in the rain, so I nipped over to Golden Gate Park for a quick walk.
Along the way, I looked at some public art: signs made from the pages of the alphabet book:
Golden Gate Park, an A to Z Adventure.
Alas, someone took a P, so what we have now is some art about Golden Gate _ark.
Golden Gate _ark sounds silly now, but if the rain continues for another forty days and nights, you know I'll be first in line to board.
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That Entwined Meadow art installation is setting up again this year. But this year, "Entwined Meadow" won't be in the meadow. When I saw the installation getting installed not-in-the-meadow, I ...
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Rachel Petterson was lead costume designer 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt.* Apparently, she was overqualified for that role, seeing as how she was the Judges' Winner at the 2023 Her Universe Fashion Show for ...
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Shim to add images to Lemmy RSS Feeds
I use a RSS feed reader to view some image meme forums on Reddit. Reddit's CEO recently changed some policies, and those changes alienated many Reddit users, inspiring them to move to Reddit's rival ...
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Walking in San Francisco's Inner Richmond neighborhood, I wondered which portmanteau folks had settled on for Sushi Bistro's Castle Cagliostro-themed mural: is it Caglibistro or Cagliobistro? Google ...
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Some weeks back, I saw a post on the New Bohemia Signs tumblr, a picture of art&artists, students in a sign-painting hand-lettering class. Beyond admiring the handiwork, I also was intere...
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MemeC, the Meme Composer web app
I made MemeC, a web app to ease creation of captioned image memes. These apps abound on the web; but the easily-found ones insist on stamping the created image with a "Made with app" blurb. I don't w...
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In theory, the "Mumbled Artist's Instructions" puzzles were a challenge to figure out some absurd thing an AI had tried to draw. Reverse-engineering an AI is a fun challenge. But it turns out AI is ...
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I walked past the krakenwagen again and took better photos this time. ...
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Krakenwagen update:
Searchers more rigorous than me found a couple of better online pix of the krakenwagen (small pics here, click a pic for link to original). Thanks to Ray Ryan and Dan Egnor for finding these an...
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As I walked in San Francisco's panhandle neighborhood this morning, I saw an ambulance named "Krakenwagen" decorated with kraken (sea monster) art. This vehicle is a pun. "Krakenwagen" is german...
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Some gold-color sidewalk chalk art for the golden ratio. Willard Street, San Francisco, USA. ...
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Book Report: S v Z
This book accompanies Tauba Auerbach's exhibit now showing at SFMoMA. It's an interesting piece of art in its own right. That's a good thing, I guess? I find myself comparing it to an earlier book d...
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Circly
I made a picture filter. I call it "circly" because it's kinda like pixelize, but with circles. And then I made a web page of circle-drawing animations so you can lose yourself in watching lots of ci...
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I wanted to go see the new mural "2020" by Tauba Auerbach, but Google Maps makes me think I can see it by looking out my window from pretty much anywhere in the USA's convex hull so I guess I'll stay...
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A new batch of Nordic LARP talk videos went up a few days back. One of these applies even to non-LARPers. At least, it applies to non-LARPers who collaborate on big, ambitious projects. Brace yoursel...
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If you're in the USA remember to vote Tuesday (if you haven't already). If you're near Berkeley and you like drama and scholarship, you might want to know Shotgun Players is putting on the play "Arc...
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Book Report: The Readymade Thief
This novel has the art of Marcel DuChamp, a cult, a secret society, cult mind control and deprogramming, urban exploration, burglary; perhaps enough of those to make up for a fair amount of cruelty i...
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I went to see the Rube Goldberg exhibit at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum—or rather, I went to see "Contraption," an exhibit accompanying the Rube Goldberg exhibit. There was a Rube...
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There's a special exhibit at San Francisco's deYoung Museum with works by Charles Sheeler and other Precisionist folks. I'm a fan of Sheeler, so I went. Out in front of the exhibit there's some inter...
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Last night's playtest of the Black Rock City playtest was fun. I collaborated with folks I knew but mostly folks I didn't, as you might imagine happening at Burning Man where you're wandering around ...
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Link: Chanrio
How did I struggle along before I knew about Chanrio, the Sanrio-style avatar maker? ...
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tough question
Someone asked me how to authenticate a painting. Put your contact information on your web site; you'll get some interesting, albeit misdirected, questions. ...
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Going to the Doubleclicks Show Thursday night? Maybe get there early
One of my neighbors puts weir—uhm, thought-provoking stuff out in front of his apartment every so often, ephemera of the El Fornio Historical Society… e.g., fliers announcing Father Serr...
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I attended a talk by some folks from Odyssey Works (the inaugural talk of the Adventure Design Group Meetup). O.W. presented about their art: situations, each with an audience of one. It works like ...
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I learned two vitally important things today: Google Image Search can now filter for animated GIFs There is a Polish phrase "Not my circus, not my monkey." And thus now this exists: Original m...
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Book Report: An Object of Beauty
It's a novel about people and their relation to art: loving it, collecting it, selling it. In theory, art exists for beauty; but what if you own a painting that's beautiful and valuable? Maybe you co...
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The people of Brisbane, California, decorate the town's fire plugs. When a fire plug wears out, they don't want to discard their art, so they have a plug preserve. ...
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Book Report: Just Kids
Before Patti Smith was a rock-and-roller, she was a poet. Well, she was an artist in search of a medium. So was Robert Mapplethorpe—they were a couple. And when they stopped being a couple, the...
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I still like my pencil bandolier better than this kid's crayon bandolier. But I have to admit he wears his better. Photo lifted from rentadisco; I dunno if they're the originators or got it from e...
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Puzzle Hunts are Everywhere, even NYC
New York's opening-soon Museum of Math is holding a puzzlehunt December 16th. On the one hand, I'm theoretically not interested, since the hunt is targeted at teen novices. On the other hand, MoMath ...
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Link: The Animator Letters Project
The Animator Letters Project publishes letters from experienced animators, letters exhorting young animators to keep at it, hone their craft, etc etc. It's inspiring; it might be especially inspiring...
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Link: SpliceVine interview with Sara Thacher
@thacher is a big name in the @jejuneinstitute game and other TransMedia experience/game/thingies. This site about video editing(?!) interviewed her, and she mentions an early influence: Janet Cardif...
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Tauba Auerbach's 50/50 Floor is on display at SFMOMA. You may recall that Auerbach is an artist who can think like a code-y puzzler though she sidled away from signal and over to noise for a while. T...
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Comic Report: Cages
This comic is famous and arty and not my thing. The characters are artistic types; they feel trapped, they must make art to be free... Wow, deep themes. I definitely felt like a philistine for not en...
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animated gif zombocom logo
The internet is not yet complete; there are still gaps. For example, today I tried to find an animated GIF of the zombo.com animated "flower" logo and couldn't find it. So I made one (with some bla...
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kinda-Puzzle-Hunts are everywhere, even SFMOMA
I went to SFMOMA today to play their ArtGameLab games that I mentioned a couple of days ago. Though I only actually played the Bedcannon Game, a fun scavenger hunt in the permanent gallery plus a hi...
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ArtGameLab, Super Going
@thacher has been interesting lately if you're a San Francisco person who likes pervasive games. (That's not unusual. If you're even halfway into ARGy stuff, yawta follow her.) She mentioned that the...
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Just got back from the Mystic Fish interview with the folks from the Trenchwood Institute. Glad we weren't following Team Lowkey. It looked like they had some kind of art/science thing going on that ...
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Link: Nourot Studio glass pumpkins
Behold a link to Glass pumpkinoid decorations, photos thereof. One stop during the bay area rerun of the WHO game was Nourot Glass Studio in Benicia. On display were glass pumpkins. Of course, The ...
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Nordic LARPers invade graffiti-art blog http://goo.gl/CQDgs ...
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You know what else is a fun game? Stacking is a fun game. Maybe you heard of it—an Xbox game in which you play a little Russian stacking doll. And you gain new abilities by combining with other...
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Jotting Notes on Sean Gugler GC Summit 2011 Presentation: Puzzle Design Case Study
Sean Gugler talked at the 2011 GC summit about the Hogwarts Magic Mirror puzzle (which was awesome). (You should watch the video instead of just reading these notes. Much of the talk is about art, d...
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The Tenderloin National Forest is a cool little spot in San Francisco. It's been around for a few years, but I didn't know about it until I walked past today, checking up on 2-Tone Game sites. The Fo...
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Lowell vs Reality
You may recall that in the most recent California gubernatorial primary, I voted for Lowell Darling. He had the best plan for fixing California's revenue situation: if elected governor, he'd do nothi...
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Coming Soon to Oakland Museum: More Michael McMillen
I went back to the Oakland Museum, hoping to snap photos of Michael McMillen's Aristotle's Cage, which you'll recall that I liked. By the door to that piece of art was a little sign: there's a McMill...
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Puzzle Hunts are Everywhere, even the Art World
There's this comic book artist, Jason Shiga. He makes these comic books that are puzzles; choose-your-own-adventure books that play with the flow of pages and frames within a comic book. You might ...
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HTML Logo
Someone at the W3C made a logo for HTML5. HTML is the format of web pages. It changes. For years, most folks used version 4.01, but lately people have been proposing, coding, and using some new fe...
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Zine Report: Giant Robot #68
My favorte thing in this issue: Angie Wang's list of top 10 text adventure gam interactive fictions! Also an interview with Takayuki Higashino, who single-mindedly pursues motorcycle trick riding exc...
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Art Hunts are Everywhere, even the Presidio
I was just reminded of a walk I recently took in San Francisco's Presidio. There was an art event going on around the Fort Winfield Scott area; exhibits scattered around outside. You could approach...
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Book Report: Tilings and Patterns
I know what you're thinking: Oh no, Larry tried to read another math book. No doubt this means the blog's"unfinished" tag will soon be attached to another book report. But I made it to the end of t...
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Zine Report: Giant Robot #67
In this issue: shopping for a Wurlitzer 106 keyboard in LA, a memoir of someone getting high-radiation cancer treatment across the street from me at UCSF, Daniel Wu writing about airsoft BB guns, and...
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Book Report: Museum Legs
I ran into Mahlen and he recommended this book. It turned out to be pretty good. It's about the place of museums in society. Yeah, I know it sounds awful, but hear me out. It's sufficiently interesti...
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Michael C. McMillen: Aristotle's Cage
I'm taking art notes for my own benefit and you're stuck along for the ride; sorry about that. Years ago, on a Los Angeles vacation, I saw a piece of art at LACMA. It wasn't a painting, a photograp...
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Musicians about the Internets
Yesterday, I went to a party at which I knew almost nobody. (Well, I knew some folks, but they mostly showed up at about the time I had to leave.) What's an introvert to when faced with a crowd like...
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Book Report: China Underground
I hoped that this book was about subversives and criminals in China: reporters, human rights lawyers, whistleblowers... I read news about China's internet censorship measures; I can follow the inter...
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Link: Blue Door Puzzle Trail
I ego-surfed for mentions of the 2 Tone Game, and found one: a post on an ARG (Alternate Reality Gaming) forum. (Thanks for that!) The poster there called the 2 Tone Game a "puzzle trail". Apparen...
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Zine Report: Giant Robot #64
If you like Giant Robot magazine but have fallen out of touch, this would be a good time to get re-acquainted. Times are tight and they're running a fundraising drive. It's a good time to buy thing...
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Comic Report: Trotsky
It's the morning after the GC Summit, and I'm still feeling inspired. One of the things I'm inspired to do is download a file with all of the Wikipedia article titles. That would sure be handy for ...
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Zine Report: Giant Robot #60
There's a photo of Ryohei Tanaka's equipment. Tanaka makes art by cutting paper. His equipment--an assortment of scissors and... dyes? An article by a guy who photographed some film locations from...
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Aiming for Precisionism but Missing
When I was in Houston, I took perhaps my favorite photo-of-mine ever, this shot of the Houston Hyatt. It reminded me of some photos that the artist Charles Sheeler took. But he didn't leave his pho...
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Book Report: The Complete Annotated Oz Squad, Volume One
There's this comic book called Oz Squad. It's old. I read it long ago. At one point in the comic, one of the characters, Scarecrow, writes some graffiti: ALL ART MUST PERISH! That phrase stuck ...
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Link: Help Get Sita out of Copyright Jail
The fun of watching cartoons plus the smugness of giving to a good cause: I encourage you to Help Get Sita out of Copyright Jail You might remember the cartoonist Nina Paley. Or you might not rememb...
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Zine Report: Giant Robot #57
The Obama posters say "HOPE", but when Obama himself picks people... well, he undercuts hope. It's like he scraped my old book reports, looking for books about USA politics with villains and chose th...
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Book Report: Chiaroscuro: Patchwork Book #1
It's a graphic novel about a whiny artist who hangs out in cafes and goes to parties. Occasionally, something strange happens. It's pretty; some of the banter is witty; I'm glad I read it. The plo...
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Link: Steven Pitsenbarger at Alternative Photography
Apparently, "anthotype" is a photographic development system which uses dyes from plants. I never would have heard about it if it wasn't for this guy: "Pitsenbarger has had a lifelong fascinati...
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Link: Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books Project
Unlike books juxtaposed = laughs. Sorted Books Project. Also: Sorted Books ProjectLabels: art, books, paper...
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Site: Tauba Auerbach / The Alphabet Variations
You may recall that I went to a gallery a couple of weeks ago. It was some art by Tauba Auerbach, including two that featured an alphabetload of overlapping letterforms. I'd wondered what they woul...
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Book Report: How to Spell the Alphabet
A while back, I pointed out some not-exactly-puzzle-ish-but-not-exactly-not-either images by Tauba Auerbach. I finally broke down and sent away for a book of her work, How to Spell the Alphabet. To...
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Link: Tauba Auerbach images
Good visual design, by tautology, is enjoyable to look at. I stumbled upon some letterformy designs by artist/designer Tauba Auerbach. (I was trying out the new MSN Live image search. In Dirk Gent...
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Book Report: Little Star
It's a family drama about new parents making tough choices between family life and career. Ah, it's OK. It has pretty Andi Watson art, which helps a lot. Tags: comics | kids | art |...
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Book Report: Robotika #1
This comic book makes no sense, but it's so pretty that you don't mind. Huge swaths of black, good lines suggesting graceful motion. OK, it depicts a future world in which cyborgs fight by means of ...
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Book Report: Giant Robot #38
I read the latest issue of Giant Robot magazine. There were photos from the opening party of the new Giant Robot store in New York city. One of the photos was of ace reporter Claudine Ko. And I th...
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Happy National Library Week
Today there was art in the central stairway/atrium area of Doe Library: dozens of books suspended in air by wires. Meanwhile, there's a book I want which is currently unavailable because it's in the...
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Found: Postcard
At the back of this copy of Jane Eyre that I checked out of the UC Library, there was a postcard. Names changed to protect the whatever. Dear Ver, It sux to write a postcard instead of the nice l...
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Arms and the Man, Canoe
Following up on my recent trip to New Zealand, I read Two Voyages to the South Seas, a summary/translation of the memoirs of Captain Jules S.-C. Dumont D'Urville. This guy was a French ship's captain...
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