I caught our cat jumping in one of the boxes under my desk. Why do cats do this?
One theory is that they feel safe in a box. But just the image of a square on the ground seems to also attract them.
All recent articles on the topic seem to refer to the same study.
More research is required.
Oh, they jump in other boxes and crates, too.
Hans Aarsman wrote about Garry Winogrand, and also created a fantastic, expressionistic monologue about the chaos he recognizes in his photographic works.
You can download the monologue on this page, in English and Dutch. The links are sort of hidden. Hoover the mouse under the text “ARCHIEF”, where you see a large faint “X”. I think the original thumbnail has disappeared. The monologue is called Ruis in Dutch and Rattle in English. Rattle, I can imagine, is the noise in the streets, but I do not understand Ruis (noise, static). The monologue reads like a train-of-thought rattle. Very much how like Winogrand talked in a very Rattly manner.
Listen to this except:
Full interview here.
Like this image.
The Indexed blog by Jessica Hagy just just freaking great!
I mean, this can only be created by a beautiful mind:
Work
At station Z, the blind man boards the train. Usually, he can sit in his regular window seat. But sometimes, that seat is occupied, and he has to awkwardly find another seat. Bladderman immediately stands up in front of the blind man to offer him his seat.
The blind man listens to something on his smartphone, which he operates with a special device.
The blind man gets off at the same station as me. With sure strides, his cane in front of him, he finds his way down the platform, up the stairs, into the crowded station.
Then he is gone.
I can not resist sharing this Boing Boing article about Ray Bradbury and how he wrote on a coin-operated typewriter.
Bladderman keeps his briefcase on his lap. He uses it as a substrate for his Sudoku. A bag and a coat lay on the small table in front of him. He puzzles intently and fills in the numbers with concentration.
Every day, between stations X and Y, he stands up. He takes his coat over his arm and takes his bag and briefcase in his hand. Packed, he walks out of the compartment and to the restroom. After a few minutes, he returns and sits back down in his seat. Every day. Between stations X and Y.
Sometimes, he makes an unsteady chat with the Candy Crush lady.
The documentary All Things Are Photographable about Garry Winogrand is mandatory yet enjoyable homework for every (street) photographer (ignore the sometimes soggy commentary). You can view this film by Sasha Waters Freyer for free here.
In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman compares George Orwell’s dystopian worldview in 1984 to Aldous Huxley’s in Brave New World.
Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.
Postman argues that Huxley’s dystopia might be closer to reality. Amusing Ourselves to Death was published in 1985. The situation in the Western world, and especially the United States, is indeed terrifyingly even more spot on than in 1985. In today’s China, and even more so in Russia, Orwell’s reality, where Big Brother watches over the people, seems to be the state of affairs.
How astonishingly farsighted were Huxly and Orwell in 1932 resp 1949.