Archives

Palm by Sony, Mark Two

ClieThe first iteration of Sony’s Palm-OS-powered Clie PDA had all the panache and disappointment of an early prototype. Apparently Sony understood this, because they’ve completely revamped their Palm OS offering with this new Clie. It’s sleek in the same, wannabe-Palm V way that the Compaq iPaq is; thin, chrome and futuristic in a shorthand kind of way. It’s a parity offering that inspires a non-devotional kind of coveting; nice but not really on par with Sony’s other digital offerings.

Continue Reading …

+

Fashion Pictures: Do They Suck?

Fashion PicturesThere’s an interesting critique of the current state of fashion photography over at Slate. It bills itself as “An argument in pictures,” though it’s an argument that relies more on the cultural disparity between a semi-imagined golden age of fashion photography and today’s predictably bemoaned state of the same than on a real critique. What’s really interesting is the delivery of the argument, which is incredibly visual (if not perhaps overly so) — a kind of PowerPoint-like presentation in HTML, which is surprisingly rare on the Web. In spite of the weakness of the content, I kind of like the way it hits short, quick points. Now if only someone a little smarter would pick up on the form…

Continue Reading …

+

What I’m Hearing on My Stereo

AnimaVladislav Delay’s “Anima” gives you only one track for your fifteen bucks, but it’s a sixty-four minute-long one. I’ll bet it could’ve been broken down to a more atomic level, but this makes for an arty kind of marketing statement. Nevertheless, it’s an hour-plus of beepity-blippity melancholy, intricate and subtle like a miniature factory of noises.

Continue Reading …

+

Silver Fox

Hawks on HawksWay back in March when I returned to New York from my stint overseas, a friend of mine loaned me “Hawks on Hawks” by Joseph McBride, a book-length collection of interviews with Howard Hawks, who’s probably my all-time favorite director. It’s hard not to have a macho kind of respect for a director that spins these kinds of tales to his biographer.
On the subject of a dispute he once had with Howard Hughes over a scene in Hughes’ “Hell’s Angels,” Hawks said: “So he got his writer to go to my secretary and offer her two hundred dollars for the script. She told me about it and I had a couple of detectives hiding in her closet. When the guy offered her the money, they said, ‘You’re under arrest.’ Hughes called me and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got that writer of mine in jail.’ And I said, ‘You son of a bitch, he’ll stay there.’”

Continue Reading …

+

Much Later

Dammit, I’ve got to get off my ass and back to blogging. In spite of the amazing paucity of Web gigs out there, what little work we have at the office is keeping me feverishly busy. What’s more, my girlfriend has just moved into a new house, which is a thirty-minute train ride outside of the city. Balance is a process.

Continue Reading …

+