Melancholia by Narcissus Quagliata, made in 1981–1982. The backlight is terribly uneven both in this photo and when I viewed it, yet I still found this image compelling, although I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why. To me, the man seems disingenuous and somewhat arrogant, rather than reflective and thoughtful, as the Corning Museum’s guide to the collections suggests.
Released from the patterns imposed by travel, I have cast about for a topic for today’s entry. The photo part was easy; I have a huge backlog from our travels over the last month; a plethora of photos is one characteristic of our travel patterns….
Meanwhile, let me note that overnight we got a good rain, although it’s been and continues to be so windy that the air must be sucking the moisture right back up out of the soil and vegetation. Still, rain is rain, right? I’ve yet to encounter the news story alleging that last weekend’s prayers at the statehouse and elsewhere have paid off, but I’m sure it’s being written or edited or posted right now…. Oops, I spoke too soon.
Into the mix, I’ve got to note that one Cobb County residence managed to waste use a whopping, and actually I mean mega-whopping 14,700 gallons per day on average in September, for a staggering 440,000 for the whole month. BTW, the average Atlanta residential client uses a mere (and still reducible) 183 gallons per day.
Today’s entry
Okay, I have to report I still haven’t ordered the XO laptop, with the second one for charity. Have you? It’s still on my to-do list….
The other day John Hawks posted a blog entry with a link to this amazing graphic display of data by the notable Hans Rosling, and called the Trendalyzer project. The graphics program isn’t yet released, but I’ll wait around for it….
You also might want to check out this web page (thank you, KW), and generate a donation of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme with a vocabulary self-test. The WFP page says they’ve received over one billion grains of rice from freerice.com—enough to feed 50K people for one day. (I suspect the vocabulary is drawn more from British English than American.)
So, let’s get the rice statistic higher and the water use statistic lower, okay?
PS
Does this entry have too many links? Maybe I got carried away….
16 November 2007 at 9:36 pm
kayak woman says:
glarg. I think the kid in the photo is all of the above (disingenuous, arrogant, reflective and thoughtful). He’s young. His parents have been directing his life and giving him all the advantages they think he should have. What will the next few years/decades will do to him and his facial expressions. Could go either way. The image is definitely compelling.
glarg-squared. I love the laptop program but I won’t be ordering any kind of laptop soon. Er, unless one of ours craps out 🙁 Fingers crossed on that. Five more quarters at K College to go. A *second* $500 on The Indefatigable in two weeks (brakes this time). And the 100K Honda Accord is due for maintenance. Hope it’s not $1500 like the last time. Platinum plugs? Who knew? But I’m holding out on that because of The Indefatigable. And other stuff ad infinitum… Maxed out. Sigh.
Agreed about rice vs. water usage. No there are not too many links. Some blahg entries are just like that.
16 November 2007 at 9:51 pm
kayak woman says:
Er, we *are* working on sending some headlamps to Senegal. Not laptops, I know, but, since power outages occur frequently in Dakar, battery-operated headlamps allow children to read when the lights go out. I had no idea how difficult and expensive it would be to mail stuff to Africa. That reflects more on my WASP middle class USA upbringing more than anything else. Even though I grew up with outhouses in the summer etc.
17 November 2007 at 7:01 am
Sammy says:
One of the things I learned when I was traveling to Mexico more often is that someone was likely to ask me to bring them something they couldn’t get there: automotive parts, a model of printer cartridges not even available in Mexico City, and, yes, laptops (long story there!)—nothing frivolous. Now, Mouse is in a similar loop!
17 November 2007 at 7:22 pm
anne-bananne's eldest says:
hmm i just think he looks like a hungover electro-indie kid…