where are all the sad dolls?

dissolving who we are

2010 February 7

so here we are on superbowl sunday. i of course have statistics homework to do. and baking responsibilities. i already made the brownies. and i will start the homework posthaste.

but first, from our most dedicated and most dearly beloved foreign correspondent, N, some outstandingly sad dolls from Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

i want to call this black velvet, but that desire is rupturing my previous ‘black velvet’ categories. i have one for naked ladies painted horizontally (see wyeth’s painting ‘black velvet’ and manet’s painting ‘olympia’*), and another for paintings of revered objects on a surface with what-seems-like-an-unfriendly nap. [see here complete with link to this velvet painting museum in PDX!].

this one is the ho down gang.

and this is the very saddest of all.

*why is this here? oh, because i have a very strong memory of learning about the black velvet choker the model was wearing. dunno.

if you ever get close to a human

2010 February 3

thanks to xeni jardin who took these pics from her tv screen in chile with her iphone:

a street theater company Royal de Luxe makes super giant marionettes.

an old vid from youtube:

do i have to keep up the pace

2010 February 1
by protovietic

do you remember those tiny gloves that carrie wore in the SATC film? she was putting coins in the payphone, well, anyway. i searched “cropped tiny gloves” to try to see what that kind of glove might be called and i found something MUCH BETTER!

image right from the source Giftshop1234. Great name, btw!

but speaking of names, it gets better. this little dude not only has a mohawk and wears fingerless gloves, his name is ‘HIDE AND GO CREEP’?!? plus, are his pants tucked into his boots? like pam does when she’s bowling? i love it!

here is the full-text description:

Viktor is a tricky little rascal to find when playing Hide and Go-Creep! He comes wearing a knit bodysuit under cropped corduroy pants, a striped knit hoodie, and fitted jacket. Fingerless gloves, knit socks, and lace-up faux leather boots as well as a display stand are also included. Limited Edition of 200 pieces.

i wear my heart on my sleeve

2010 January 31
by protovietic

it HAS been a little rainy this week. saw this in a parking lot yesterday.

words can never make up for what you do

2010 January 27

check it out. maybe more dolls will show up on the runways:

this is Karl Lagerfeld’s China girl bag. spotted by AA on the vogue blog here.

oh, and did you see that the “AMERICAN CHRONICLES” piece in the 1/25/2010 issue of The New Yorker is about cryonics?!?! By Jill Lepore here.

there will be teeth in the grass

2010 January 23

one for the holidays. just passed.

ok, and the best ever. this gesture should certainly be considered for the upcoming gesture-based-computing movement libraries.

mind is a razor blade

2010 January 14

well, sometimes you just get lucky. sometimes the beautiful collision of values and taboos and fear unfold right before your eyes.

EVryone is talking about the naked scanners. so fun! troy is covering for john in the morning this week, so i was listening to some of  my favs “the best of your school days AND TODAY” on 92.5. did you know that the ladies who host 92.5 have a BLOG?!? it is called “the ladies room” which i almost couldn’t find because i tried to search for it with an apostrophe!!! the ladies are very anti-scanner because they say that they are worried the TSA people would then know whether they had waxed or not. this does not seem like the most nuanced critique of the issue, but it did make me think of aa’s research? potential for new incentives? think of all the yelp reviews!!!

blog post here.

some of the most vigilant warriors working to ensure that americans only see naked people under sanctioned conditions are now forced to confront their feelings about surveillance, nudity, and privacy in order to FIGHT TERRORISM. it is like christmas in july. except that it is just recently twelfth night. and as my grammy used to say, you have until the end of the epiphany to get your christmas gifts to people.

one night to speed up truth

2010 January 11
by protovietic

oh, and just in case you were worried about the dramatic decline in the number of sad dolls…

and

and

all found while wandering about with n. she’s on brief u.s. hiatus, but will then take up a *new* international post. all v. exciting.

look at her with a smile like a flame

2010 January 11
by protovietic

alright. i have peanut butter cookies that need to get made this evening. and a problem set for my statistics class that needs to get done. but i just can’t stop thinking about computer vision.

so here goes.

today i went to a presentation about microsoft surface and interaction design. i think i could get summarily executed for revealing the deets on the “sneak peek” into the new features of the interaction design that will be part of the next generation of surface, so i’ll just describe it obliquely. there’s some stuff where an offset shadow of yr hands is displayed as visual feedback. we got to see a few screen captures and, they were just hands, but kind of creepily physical, and i some how felt a type of low-grade erotic charge from seeing them.

digital voyeurism that is approaching the physical. way less graphic than photography.

and then here boingboing had a freaking freaky post on TSA scanners. the comments on this are the type of reading that make the internet *worth it* to me.#9.

so i am wondering about the potential fetish types that will emerge from computer vision and digital scanning. oh, and i think i am part of it.

i’ll be your plastic toy

2010 January 4
by protovietic

love this picture by Emir Ozsahin. from that link there. but also from here.

i thought i was over antlers. guess not.