Holy City, CA

Searching for an interesting site for a future light painting experiment, I came across what's left of Holy City near Highway 17, once the headquarters for William E. Riker and his goofy religious commune. Riker, a Depression-era cultist, on-the-run bigamist, repeated candidate for governor, and avid Hitler supporter, promised his followers a "Perfect Christian Divine Way" in a quasi-utopian experiment that began in 1918.

In her Saga of Holy City, Andrea Perkins describes how Riker's town, once home to 300 souls, became a minor tourist trap, selling gas, water, and (some say) lurid peep shows. Back then, motorists taking the only road connecting San Jose and Santa Cruz stopped to gawk at murals and banners announcing the new kingdom. One sign announced: "William E. Riker - The only man who can save California from going plum to hell."

Declining interest in Riker's vision, failed real estate transactions, and unexplained fires emptied Holy City in the fifties and sixties. Today only a house and post office, now a glass art store, remain. And then there's this shed, a weathered structure supported with the help of diagonal beams. The owners (folks unaffiliated with the former commune) gave their permission, so Jenny and I will return one night for some light painting.

Learn more: Betty Bagby Lewis's Holy City - Riker's Roadside Attraction In the Santa Cruz Mountains is said to be the definitive history of this town. I've already ordered my copy...

Also see: San Joaquin Valley Library vertical file

And: John V. Young's Rise and Fall of Holy City

(Photographs by Andrew Wood)

Friday Fun Post: Milk Men

Do you love Mad Men? I mean, do you contemplate this Sunday's season finale with a mixture of excitement and dread that's a bit scary, considering that we're talking about a television show? Then you've got to see this video. It's almost perfect...

Milk Men - A Mad Men Parody

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Spoofs | TV & Movie Spoofs

Trouble seeing the video? Point your browser here: http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/milk_men_trailer/

L.H.O.O.Q.

This is the third in an occasional series of posts about modern art. These days, I'm focusing on early twentieth century imagery related to urban life. My ideas are hardly formed; these are just musings, really. All the same, I'm happy to share them with you.

Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. (1919, Pencil on Reproduction of Mona Lisa) is an example of the artist's "assisted readymades": a work that alters found-materials instead of producing something that may be called "original." Duchamp's choice to purchase a postcard of the Mona Lisa and alter it by placing a mustache over the subject's iconic face -- not to mention his decision to scribble seemingly meaningless letters on the bottom of the card -- is an exemplar of dada, an absurdist response to art in the modern era. Like most dada pieces, L.H.O.O.Q. initially appears to reflect the artist's perspective on the world of art itself, working on a meta-level. "What is art?" This piece seems to ask. "Art is appropriation," Duchamp seems to answer. All artists are thieves, from this perspective. And yet great artists are rewarded for their theft while middling artists are mocked as pretenders. Duchamp playfully tweaks that convention by pushing the practice to excess.

Still, I would add that Duchamp goes further in this work, toward a rebuke of modernity itself. In an era of standardization and mechanization, epitomized by the mass-manufactured killings of World War I, L.H.O.O.Q.'s mustachioed image of adulterated femininity conveys a degree of disgust beneath its playful façade. In this way, the piece demands that we ask: What is the value of "originality" when a generation of young people, millions of potential artists and poets, may be slaughtered anonymously on European battlefields? Perhaps, Duchamp might conclude, we are all vandals of the good and the beautiful in this modern age, a gaping maw of destruction produced by our collective (even if unthinking) choices. This perspective might partially explain the rude implications of work's title, said (by some) to suggest sexual licentiousness or lust. After all, what higher values remain to be found in a time when all values seem to be blown away?

Incidentally, I downloaded the image [top of page] from Wikipedia commons. At this time, various wiki "editors" are squabbling about whether L.H.O.O.Q. should be considered a "public domain" work. Proponents of its inclusion cite U.S. copyright law, which apparently defines the piece as freely available. Critics respond that Duchamp's jab at the pretensions of "originality" is nonetheless protected by French copyright law and should not be freely accessible. If this is true, it's an irony that the artist himself would have relished.

Horrifying Truth about The Sims

The FooPets site is so slow and buggy these days that I'm seriously thinking about taking my "cat" to a nice "farm upstate..." [Here's some background]. But, seriously, have you ever thought about what it'd be like to be a sim? Here's one horrifying portrait:

Point your browser here: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1922223

Lifestreaming

Elizabeth Landau posted an article on CNN that asks a thought-provoking question:

"If we rely on technology for documenting, sorting and storing information -- creating digital diaries, or "lifestreaming" -- what will become of our minds? Although there is not a lot of research on this subject, psychologists have a range of opinions about where we're headed."

Some folks propose that releasing our mental processors from mundane tasks like remembering phone numbers, addresses, and other similar low-value data frees us to concentrate on more useful things.

Others respond that as we use digital tools to continually document our own lives, gathering massive quantities of data -- images, calendar items, Facebook posts, blogs -- like an ever-expanding closet for accumulated souvenirs, we risk losing our skills at remembering our lives as they are experienced.

This reminds me of John Stilgoe's insight in Outside Lies Magic about how nineteenth century aesthetes developed richer and more vibrant ways of seeing color because they focused their attention to subtle distinctions in hue and saturation more than we do today. This was not just about looking; it was a demand for training, effort, and focus. According to Stilgoe, few of us practice that precision in cultivating our sensibilities. Instead, we gather and maybe sort, but do not engage our lives so directly. Perhaps our world is more bland than it once was because of an emergent inability to process what we see.

Paralleling this concern, one researcher quoted in the article states, "Constant documenting may make people less thoughtful about and engaged in what they're doing because they are focused on the recording process."

Landau's piece also proposes that our choices to live our lives in a constant state of expectation that our actions should be blog-able or Tweet-able may alter what we value. Shall we strive for long-term or short-term experience? Put another way: What is worth remembering if we can remember everything (or if others can remember it for us wholesale)?

Read the entire article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/03/digital.diary.brain.mind/index.html

Also: Here's a recent post that explores this topic in a related way: Real-Time Web

Halloween 2009

Here's the video from Halloween 2009 [Difficulty seeing the video? Point your browser here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAzaSlcEwjk]. We selected Zombie Apocalypse for this year's porch theme, and we had a great time sharing our vision (the result of untold hours of planning and effort) with the kids.

Effects included a gory zombie feast, a television showing "This Just In" news, the projected image of a ghoul leering through the window, the skeletal remains of a dude who shot himself before becoming the next meal, and the kids' favorite prop: a roving undead baby who cooed and giggled while digging at a bloody amputated leg. As usual, we posted parental warning signs to avoid traumatizing the wee ones (usually to no avail). And, just like every year, I'm already dreaming of next year's porch theme.

Below are some pictures from this year's show...

The onslaught began in the peaceful Skypark neighborhood of Scotts Valley where one house had become ground-zero for a gory night of savagery. Seeking safety from hoards of ravaging undead ghouls, local kids raced up the steps and into the living room where a television blared warnings of the zombie plague. Too late: the occupants were already infected.

The Undead Eradication Squad, a crack team of special forces soldiers and hastily deputized locals, tried to alert the children, but these hungry neighborhood kids smelled candy. Ignoring posted warning signs, barreling past parental-caution notices, hundreds of impressionable kids climbed the stairs and faced a scene of inexplicable horror.

The house had been ransacked; bags of candy were strewn about, as if the night were some sort of macabre holiday. Caution tape, hardly a deterrent to the famished children, did little to enforce the quarantine. Once a pleasant abode of domesticity, the living room was now occupied by zombies who'd already gorged on living flesh and were ready for another helping.

An elderly relative shot himself once he realized that his family, a married couple named Andy and Jenny, had joined the groaning ranks of the living dead. The family's teenage daughter had escaped and the zombies were hungry, so they ate the old man's skin and organs, stripping him clean to the bone.

Jenny, still in her curlers and bathrobe since the moment she'd been infected, tried to lure the children to their doom by offering them pieces of candy. But the kids were too fast, wearing costumes to confuse her and racing away once they snatched treats from the zombie's clutches. Even after three hours of trying, Jenny couldn't eat a single tot.

Andy was no luckier than Jenny at wooing the young visitors. He tried to encourage the kids to join the feast, but his clever attempts to charm the children failed every time. Invariably he'd stare at them maniacally and start moaning, "brains, braaaaaiiiiiinnnnns." The kids were curious, but they weren't stupid.

One other rancid resident of this Skypark home, Andy and Jenny's baby, had also succumbed to the pathogen, and she was famished too. Fortunately, the baby got lucky earlier in the day when someone from child protective services tried to offer her a meal. The zombie bit the hand, which fed her all night.

Even more horrifically, a dimwitted pizza delivery guy mistook Andy and Jenny's address for his last stop and -- well, there's no nice way to say it -- ended up supplying "extra meat" to the feast. While children screamed and (God knows why) laughed, the zombies ripped his chest open and took turns gorging on innards and outards. There was no tip.

Countless children visited Andy and Jenny's house that night, enduring depraved displays of carnage without becoming the evening meal. By around 9:30, the last one departed the house, and the exhausted zombies leaned against each other. Drifting to sleep, Zombie Andy and Zombie Jenny dreamed together of a neighborhood where the kids aren't so suspicious.

See you next Halloween!

Previous Years

2008: Dr. Freightmarestein's Haunted Laboratory of Horrors [video]

2007: Psycho Circus [video]

2006: Alien Autopsy

2005: Just Buried

Cheap Bikes, High Cost

Steven Erlanger (NYT, registration may be required) writes a sad yet strangely hopeful article about the current state of an ultracheap bicycle rental program in Paris, a means to reduce carbon emissions and enhance healthy living. The problem is that 80 percent of the first bikes in the program have been trashed or stolen. Why?

Erlanger explains that all this increased mobility is an insult to people who lack access to the French capital city. Erlanger quotes transportation sociologist Bruno Marzloff who describes a sense shared by some poor immigrants that the bikes represent yet another perk for those who are already privileged:

"It is an outcry, a form of rebellion -- this violence is not gratuitous," Mr. Marzloff said. "There is an element of negligence that means, 'We don’t have the right to mobility like other people, to get to Paris it’s a huge pain, we don’t have cars, and when we do, it’s too expensive and too far.'"

That said, one must wonder at the wisdom of renting custom-made bikes costing the equivalent of $3,500 each, only to be surprised that so many are stolen or damaged.

Erlanger's article concludes with a description of efforts to dissuade people from trashing the bikes: "Posters showed a cartoon Vélib' being roughed up by a thug. The caption read: 'It's easy to beat up a Vélib’, it can’t defend itself. Vélib’ belongs to you, protect it!'"

Read the entire article: Reality Proves a Setback for Cheap Bike Rentals in Paris

Shameless Plug - City Ubiquitous Wins Jane Jacobs Award

I'm delighted to pass along some happy news: My newest book, City Ubiquitous: Place, Communication, and the Rise of Omnitopia, published by Hampton Press, has received the Urban Communication Association's Jane Jacobs Award.

As the UCF website explains: "The Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Publication Award recognize an outstanding book and/or journal article (published in 2006-2009) that exhibits excellence in addressing issues of urban communication. It is named in honor of the late social activist and author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The book award brings with it a $500 prize."

I will receive this award on November 12th at the UCF reception at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, this year being held in Chicago. There, and in other venues, I'll thank the many people who helped this book come to fruition.

This award caps an exciting year for City Ubiquitous, as I've given presentations on the book at the Cal State East Bay "Communication and the Future" meeting (as Guest Scholar and New Book Speaker), the Heard Museum (in Phoenix, AZ) for the SJSU Alumni Association, and several local groups, including the First Congregational Church of San José and the Mountain View Technology and Society Committee.

After November, my next trip takes me to Albuquerque where I've been invited to present the keynote address at the Rocky Mountain Communication Association's 2010 conference, April 17.

Paris Daguerreotype - 1839

For no particular reason, I thought I'd post one of the most famous photographs ever taken: Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre's View of the Boulevard du Temple. I could stare at this image for hours.

Just think: This isn't some painting or literary vision. This is an actual image of Paris from 1839 [don't you wish you could see this image colorized?]. Oh, and see those people in the lower left?

These people aren't the creation of a poet or historian, as most people from before the age of mechanical [image] reproduction are to us. These people really stood on that street in Paris 170 years ago.

What's more, when you consider all the other people thronging the city that day, only these two stood still long enough to be captured by Daguerre's long exposure (something between 3 to 15 minutes, I'm told). Everyone else that day, at least in terms of their physical appearance, is lost to history.

In terms of photographic process (or any similar technique of image reproduction), this fellow paying for a shoe-shine and the fellow doing the work are the first people in the world.

And, as if we're time-traveling to 1839, we can see them.

I just think that's intensely cool.

Download much higher resolution version of the image: about.com

Pick Up Your Visual Scanning!

Remember the scene in Star Wars when an X-Wing pilot shouted, "Pick up your visual scanning"? Stripping away the geek-speak, he was simply reminding us that when storming a Death Star, we're wise to look out the window once in a while.

That's good advice, especially as more and more people wander the lanes and trenches of public life, typing Tweets, emails, and Facebook updates onto their mobile phones - and walking into trees (and people) because they forget to look around. What can be done?

Type n Walk to the rescue! For 99 cents, this app promises to help you avoid collisions when you're too busy typing to watch where you're going. It works by using your iPhone's camera to project a live view of the world in front of you. Upon that image, you can type your message.

Yes, that means people have more incentive to walk around staring at phones.

One silly limitation: You must copy/paste your message into whatever app you're using to communicate. Another glitch is the lack of landscape view. But I'm sure the creators of Type n Walk will fix those hassles. Is there any other problem? Beyond the whole "I can't believe anyone would use this app for real?" problem?

Nope, can't think of any...