Upon returning from lunch, this message, from my daughter, was waiting for me on my IM client:

“gimme a G.. G!.. gimme an A..A!… gimme a Y.. Y!- .. what does that spell? GAY!.. and whats gay?

JACKS AWAY MESSAGE”

Alwayst the politically correct one, just like her father.

The article argues that…

“Word shape is no longer a viable model of word recognition. The bulk of scientific evidence says that we recognize a word’s component letters, then use that visual information to recognize a word. In addition to perceptual information, we also use contextual information to help recognize words during ordinary reading, but that has no bearing on the word shape versus parallel letter recognition debate. It is hopefully clear that the readability and legibility of a typeface should not be evaluated on its ability to generate a good bouma shape.”

Okay then.

I bought myself a new iPod for my birthday (since no one else was thinking clearly enough to buy me one, apparently).

I usually just hit “Shuffle songs” and I instantly have the worlds best commercial-free radio station. I’ve noticed recently that something is strange about the songs that it picks to play. For example, the last four songs were all disturbingly related to death.

• Living Dead Girl (Rob Zombie)

• Coattails of a Dead Man (Primus)

• A Leonard Cohen song which starts: “See you from the other side”

• Take it With Me (Tom Waits)

Old long since gone

Now way back when

We lived in Coney Island

Ain’t no good thing

Ever dies

I’m gonna take it with me

When I go

(Tom Waits)

Creepy.

If you’re susceptible to that sort of nonsense. (he says with just a little too much conviction)

Note: I try not to post during work, but if I suddenly keel over dead today I wanted to make sure people know it might just be the iPod’s fault.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (usually just HCB) has died in France. The guy was one of the best documentary/street/pj photographers - ever. Take a moment to review some of his work on this Magnum Photo page

From gapingvoid: How to be creative

I especially like #6:

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.”

An interesting piece about jazz in the digital age discusses the danger of music distribution without the original album notes, artwork, etc.

I was thinking along these same lines earlier in the week during a brief musical-nostalgia-fest on the iTunes Music Store. After lamenting the recent Will Smith-led assassination of everything good about Asimov’s classic robot stories, I was reminded of one of my favorite records while growing up: I, Robot by the Alan Parson’s Project.

Much of the music I listened to in the 70s consisted of things like Rush’s 2112, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis, the afore-mentioned Alan Parson’s Project and just about anything by Pink Floyd. Many of these were progressive rock albums, entire units of music that belong together. While online music services make it easy to grab a few favorite tunes, it also makes it easy to destroy a perfectly good song by removing it from its rightful place among the rest of the music.

I feel a little sorry for today’s teens. One of the great pleasures of those days was carefully tearing the plastic off a new album and spending the next few hours reading every word of the liner notes while listening to it over and over again. Even if I did have to get up every 20 minutes or so to turn the record it over.

Sure, the internet has gobs more information on any and every artist/song/whatever, but the rarity and and tangibility of those liner notes and album covers make them seem somehow more special.

Oh, and the music was better.

I hate this sort of crap. The MTA is considering corporate sponsorship for subways, stations and anything else big enough to paint a logo on.

I first saw Songs from the Second Floor about 2 months ago. I thought it was complete nonsense and hated every minute of it. Well at least all 20 minutes that I managed to watch. Maybe I didn’t get it. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for some stupid and absurd visual poem presented in Swedish.

I gave it another shot last night and have completely reversed my opinion. It’s a wonderfully absurd visual poem presented in Swedish. Dark, strange, funny, morbid and really brilliant. It really could be the bastard love child of Fellini, David Lynch and Monty Python. My guess is that most people will never see this film, and most of the ones who do will sit there with furrowed brow, fidgeting until finally turning it off in frustration.

“Beloved is the one who sits down”

In 21 Grams, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts are fantastic. I’d not rented it because I thought it was just another Traffic clone. Turns out it has very little to do with drugs. Just a few people dealing with life and death in an intense, twisted story, told in a sort of disjointed, time-fractured puzzle.

Thumbs up.

Last week I turned 40. On that particular day, every time I returned to my desk I would find another collection of 40 things on my desk. Things like…

• 40 cans of Diet Coke

• 40 army guys

• 40 cents

• 40 suckers (Dum Dums, specifically)

• 40 peanuts

• 40oz Malt Liquor

I may have missed some, but you get the idea. Also, my cake was frosted in a lovely Viagra blue. Late in the day I finally noticed that everyone in the office had dressed in black; which I can only assume was meant to signify the passing of my youth.

Time for my nap now.