look, purty pictures

Today I read a totally cool book of Irving Penn photographs. (Did I read it or look at it? There were words as well as photos...what verb does one use for a photo book?) It's called Worlds in a Small Room and I recommend it if you can find a copy.

Irving Penn is a fashion photographer (I think he's in his 90's) who did a ton of work for Vogue in places like New Guinea, Cuzco, and Paris. He liked to take people into a studio (often a tent he carried with him) and shoot them in northern light against a plain background. I gather the idea was to get more of the subject's personality rather than taking your standard Native Person In Native Setting shot. Ask me in June why I was reading this book, because it's pretty funny (and will never make it into print).

Anyway, in one of those cool coincidences of modern media, today the Times has a story about the Getty buying a bunch of his photos - including some of the ones in this book! Cool, huh? Follow the link to see some of the people he photographed...not quite as exotic as tribesmen in New Guinea, but lovely pictures.

saggy pants

Doesn't it seem that looking like a complete idiot should be punishment enough?

sunscreen

In honor of the sunny season, this New York Times article points out a fun fact I've learned from reporting on skin cancer: the link between sun and melanoma (the deadly kind of skin cancer) is weak. Very very weak. Sun causes the other kinds of skin cancer, for sure, but they don't usually kill you. I still wear sunscreen, obviously - sunburns suck, and anyway, I don't want to turn all wrinkly. I've always thought the wrinkle angle would be a better one to work when you're trying to discourage teenage girls from tanning. Skin cancer? Might happen. Wrinkles? Heck yeah, you're going to get wrinkles. Premature wrinkles and nasty, leathery skin.

rankings

If you're wondering, and I know you are, the president of OAM is in favor of the rankings. We chatted about it Sunday morning in the breakfast receiving line. To paraphrase, he said, hey, it's flawed, but it's the only game in town, and he'll defend it.

astronut

How crazy is this astronaut story? I'm a little confused as to why it got on the front page of both the Washington Post and the New York Times - something to do with my theory that caring about the space program is generational. (As in, I don't, especially.) But anyway, I think the news outlet that, so far, has best tackled the wackiness of this story is Wednesday's online chat with the Post's gossip columnists. It started with this question and answer and just got better. Read it here:

When Astronauts Attack!: Ladies: Is this not the best story, like, ever? However many billions of dollars have been spent on the space program, they have clearly been worth it for leading up to this.

Amy Argetsinger: Mesmerizing stuff. Nothing but readers. Anyone care to break down why we're so fascinated by this? I guess it's the woman-who-seems-to-have-it-all-flipping-out-in-the-name-of-love angle.

(Go ahead, read the whole transcript.)

warm dinner

Check out the X-treme multinational meal I had at Whole Foods tonight.

Clockwise, from the fork: mashed potatoes (American, delicious); garlicky green beans (generic Asian, pretty tasty); potatoes (Indian) on a bed of extraordinarily dry basmati rice (Indian, although they would never claim it); asparagus (generic Asian, kinda nasty); teriyaki chicken (pseudo-Japanese); General Tso's chicken (pseudo-Chinese).

They're in the process of renovating this Whole Foods, and it is now perfect for people like me who use it to eat dinner before choir rehearsal - about a third of the floor space is various salad-bar-type things, including hot food and about a dozen soups. It's delicious variety.

Yes, there are many reasons why one would not want to eat one's dinner from salad-bar-type things. I saw one of them in sharp detail tonight, when I wandered over to check out the seafood bar and saw a dude testing the temperature of the shrimp. He laid one careful, meaty index finger on one shrimp in each of two different warm shrimp trays. Dude. That is so not ok. But I prefer to imagine that no one would ever do that with the green beans, at least not the ones all the way at back of the bin, and ate my dinner in peace.

christian morality

The other day in the Times I read part of a story about some exhibit at Harvard. Whatever. Anyway, the most remarkable part of it was this attribution: "Francis Greenwood Peabody, Harvard's Plummer professor of Christian morals from 1886 to 1912,...." Check that out. Harvard used to have an endowed professorship for Christian morals. At least, I'm assuming this was in the past.

...

And I stand corrected! Google tells me this is still a real job! The current one is the Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes. Man. That guy just has awesome titles all over the place.

ballet and disability

I read the sweetest article in the New York Times today. It's from May - I got to it from a link with today's editorial about little girls doing creepily sexy dances in a middle school talent show - but you should go back and read it even though it's old.

And, for the record, I totally might have blogged this even if I wasn't trying to get in 11 (now, 10) more posts by the end of the year.

mri accidents

This shouldn't be funny. And yet, as the writer points out, it does have a slapstick aspect to it.