Ceci n’est pas une blog

On a lighter note...

See art dealer Olivier Renaud-Clement’s vintage car collection. Better yet, hear him describe it. Hint: he not only maintains his sexy cars, but also his matching french accent. Ooo la-la.

View Video of Olivier’s Cars

Wish it were Michael Palin we were discussing...

Okay, okay, it was never my intention to make this blog a space for me to vent my outrage at the Bush Administration, and more recently, my amazement (and underlying fear and panic), at the GOP choice of veep candidate. As the name suggests, this is really not even a blog (wink wink, nudge nudge) and since no one is pressing me, I will dodge this issue of what my intent with it really is. But I simply cannot help but point to this NY Times Op Ed piece about Wasilla billing rape victims for their own forensic exams on Palin's watch. Exactly how much could these rape kits have cost? And how does that cost compare to the $50,000 she spent redecorating her office? Hmmm...

Read more about Sarah Palin’s Wasteful Ways at Salon.com

I can't decide whether or not (my internal debate is nearly constant) some of the horrors of Palin's administration happened in the shadow of her ignorance or under her watchful eye, and truly, I don't know which is worse. It hardly matters when the end result is the same: a leader who is incapable of looking after the best interests of her constituents.

Here's is Dorothy Samuels’ piece:
Wasilla Watch: Sarah Palin and the Rape Kits

In the time that I've been writing this morning, my mom has emailed me two more Sarah Palin links:
Palin's Words Raise Red Flags
Poor Sarah

And now I am officially in danger of having to just repost the entire NY Times OpEd page. Enough for today.

How do you sell a box of poison?

Last night my mother emailed me a link. Yes, the same mother who has been obsessing over the emotional nuance of my twitter feed. I guess she took my advice to “get a life” and started reading the latest issue of The Nation instead. I am not so sure that feeding her other obsession (which she shares with most Americans) is a much healthier use of her time, i.e. What will become of our country should McCain win the election? Moreover, what will be come of our country if Sarah Palin ends up in a position of unthinkable power?

Patricia J. Williams’ application of Warholian pop sensiibility is a bit of a stretch (imho), but she is spot on in her assessment of Palin as an abstraction that has been spun and personified by the GOP to present a commercially viable product, not unlike an American Idol or the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Read for yourself on her own blog:
Lipstick Jungle by Patricia J. Williams

Break’s over.

Aaron Sorkin on the election by way of Maureen Dowd.

...the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

Arigatou gozaimasu, Nagi Noda.

Innovative and infectiously playful Japanese artist, Nagi Noda, died on September 7. She was only 35. Anata no dai-fan desu.

See Nagi Noda's Coca-Cola commercial.
(btw...yes, that's Jack White singing)

I have looked for a link to a comprehensive representation of Noda's body of work, and have come up short. Here is the article announcing her death from Creativity magazine:
Creativity: Nagi Noda Passes Away

Here are Noda's strangely beautiful hair hats...

Fresh Art

Love Erik Boker's new work. Check it...

Peeling Back the Product

Tina Fey Nails Sarah Palin

Like a hole in the head

The backstory: My father had a terrible accident this past Wednesday morning. He was walking the dog and he tripped on some uneven pavement and plunged off a 5 foot embankment to concrete below. To put it succinctly: he broke his neck. He has a non-mobile single fracture to his C7 vertebra and his spinal cord is in tact. We are crazy lucky that he is suffering no paralysis. Most people with this injury become permanently quadraplegic. As it is, he is battered from head to toe, including a large gash on the crown of his head which bled profusely, as most head wounds do, and required 7 stitches.

So I was with him this morning in the hospital, sharing with him some notes from friends via Facebook. He asked me if he could read me an editorial from the New York Times Op Ed page. What a pleasure to hear this delivered in my father's voice, especially considering the circumstances. Were it not for his cumbersome cervical collar, I am sure he would have been shaking his head in disgust and his fist in outrage. Nonetheless, those sentiments were present in his voice as he read.

Sarah Palin's World View

Shoe fly...Zappos.com

Recently, Fred Joyal, CEO of 1-800-DENTIST met with Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com and was blown away by their legendary corporate culture. Yesterday he went back with 9 of us to experience it for ourselves. What we saw was extraordinary. Here are their 10 core values that they live and breath.

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

What is perhaps most impressive about our experience was the myriad of ways these core values manifest. The elaborately cheerful minibus which awaited our arrival at LAS, the dance machine in the lobby, the shoe shine stand, the highly accessorized work spaces, the social events, the fact that over 150 employees tweet on the custom Zappos twitter site, the Zappos library from which anyone can take a copy of a number of marketing and customer service bibles, the urine color chart on the inside of each stall in the rest rooms, and about a million other small details all contribute to the outstanding customer experience. Zappos.com is perhaps one of the greatest dot com success stories. It's easy to see why.

View entire gallery of images

What are Zappos.com employees doing right now?

@gstein: OH: isn't a smoking area in a restaurant like a peeing area in a pool?

I am fascinated by the ongoing spits of information I now receive throughout the day regarding my friends' lives either through Facebook status updates or direct tweets. Most reflect comings and goings, some are curious musings, and every once in a while there is a really significant thought that hangs in the air like a perfect wisp of genius. Apparently Tim O'Reilly is similarly fascinated.

Twitter Epigrams and Repartee

Shades of noted wits from the past! As when Dorothy Parker, asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence, said "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think" or when Nancy Astor said to Winston Churchill, "Winston, if I were your wife, I'd put poison in your coffee," and he replied, "Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it," or less meanly, Oscar Wilde on his deathbed: "Either that wallpaper goes or I do."