Michael Wolf's The Transparent City

I love this series by Michael Wolf. My friend Bob told me about it a while ago and while walking to a job downtown the other day it was on the mind as I was looking up at the skyline. I really like how these aesthetically pleasing images flirt with being creepy and voyeuristic and at the same time provide a window (whether we choose to open it or leave it closed) into the type of society we've built and where we're headed.

The awesome thing about these is the sheer sense of scale and enormity of our surroundings that you get from the images. Everything about them is larger than life and then you see a tiny person in one of the windows, and it reinforces the fact that we're all tiny fish in a huge glass fishbowl. It also makes one consider what they want seen by others, what one wants to keep hidden, and how private our private lives actually are.

Besides the conceptual side of these I think they're really stunning architectural photographs that are worth checking out for their technical merit alone. There's something about straight lines, order, and the precision it takes to create a building that's so appealing and satisfying when rendered visually, and I think these pictures do it really well.

For more awesome pictures, visit Michael Wolf's website.

Chesterfield Cigarette Gloves

 

(via Found in Mom's Basement)

I made some mustard.

So a few weeks ago I posted about Monastery Mustard and how awesome the Sisters at St. Angel are. I guess this kind of planted the seed (no pun intended) and I finally made mustard this weekend. It was pretty great.

Now I don't even really like mustard, but making it was awesome. It totally fried my food processor but it was so worth it. I highly recommend that everyone try making it at least once. Or, if you don't like mustard, think of something you normally buy, that you'd never think of making, and make it yourself. It's strangely empowering and it feels good to take back some of the dependence we have on others. Plus it probably tastes better.

I don't know what to do next, I'm thinking about marmalade, lemon curd, pickled ginger, hot sauce and brining my own olives. If you've got any ideas for random fun projects that are kind of sciency and fun which result in me being able to give things to nice people, then let me know!!!!

Crafty sign making, Neon Orange Poster Board, & Cheap haircuts.

I saw this sign a few months ago downtown. And I walked by a few days ago and it was gone. It's weird taking pictures of things and having them not be there at another time. It's a somewhat difficult thing for me to grasp that life doesn't freeze and stay still whenever I leave a room or hop on the T. Coming back to a place and having it be different is always a strange experience and one I don't think I'll ever get used to.

Anyway, this sign is awesome for many reasons. First of all, it's about cheap haircuts, which I am ALL ABOUT. Second of all, it's on discount brand neon orange colored poster board. Anything on this medium (I call it a medium because everything created on it is a work of art) is fantastic and should be framed, like the example above. Finally, they obviously ran out of Cs and needed to cut a few O's or use parentheses to finish their sign. This is crafty and badass. When faced with a challenge, this men's hair cuttery rises to the occasion and makes it work. This is pure American ingenuity at work.

I was looking for a picture of a guy giving a thumbs up, and happened to find this picture of a guy dressed up as Uncle Sam giving two thumbs up on a beach. It's funny that I found this NOW, because a few weeks ago I really needed a picture of a guy dressed up as Uncle Sam giving two thumbs up on a beach but couldn't find one. I guess I should've searched harder on Punchstock, the internet's number one source for pictures of guys dressed up as Uncle Sam giving two thumbs up on a beach.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

This show is pretty awesome. I've watched Jamie Oliver's shows on the Food Network a few times because I think they're shot really beautifully (his show and the Barefoot Contessa are styled and shot impeccably) and he seems like a normal dude.

Jamie Oliver and family. Forget about the baby. That sweater is so mathy and cool.

The premise of the show is that Jamie goes to America's unhealthiest city and attempts to change the way the population thinks about food and nutrition. The food part of the show, honestly, doesn't really interest me. I suppose I initially watched this because I was interested in the normal melodramatic angry confrontations I love in Kitchen Nightmares.

Gordon Ramsay yelling at a dude for not being as good as him.

But this dude seems to actually care about people, and that is refreshing. It could all be an act. It's hard to tell when people are doing the right thing for the right reasons or because it sells whatever product they're pushing. But I'd like to think that Jamie Oliver could be in it to win it for the benefit of the little kids and adults who this program might ultimately influence. And that's something that should be praised and supported.

It's worth watching and you should check it out if you've got a chance. Link below takes you through time and space at warp speed to Hulu, where you can watch episodes for free if you're willing to watch 3 minutes of Yaz commercials (which are pretty fucking funny).

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Are you there, God? It's me, Zach.

 Paging Dr. Rogaine, we have an emergency in the Zach ward.

So I was thinking about shaving my beard today. And I'd been thinking about it for weeks now. It's kinda annoying and getting to be a pain. But today I was gonna shave it for the wrong reason.

I guess somewhere deep in my brain there was some correlation between professionalism and a shaved (or at least kempt) facial hair. Truth be told, this is not completely unfounded. The picture below calls Joaquin Phoenix's situation a "crazy, homeless guy beard". Personally I don't feel like outward appearance (or more specifically facial hair) is any indication of self-respect, but I suppose I get why some people do.

I know I sort of look like a caveman lately. It's totally cool and I'm down with it, and luckily most of the work I do involves darkrooms, basements, bad lighting, or solitary computer work where I don't regularly have to explain why I look like a Cro-Magnon. I hate shaving because I ALWAYS cut myself, and I hate trimming my beard because it requires a firm commitment to keeping it up that I can't really make. So letting it grow out became an obvious and easy solution.

But I think I had a moment this afternoon where I thought for a second that being me wasn't good enough. And despite having felt that many times in the past it's really not a good thing to think at all. If someone's going to judge you based on something stupid like a big crazy beard then they're really not someone you want to be around anyway.

Here I am moving a bunch of rocks and looking for a Gigabit switch last week. I hate networking.

I'll shave it eventually. It is getting kinda annoying and random shit (food [every day], toothpaste [three or four times a week], feathers [once, that i know of, but only because someone told me, so probably more than once]) keeps getting stuck in it. It also has gotten bushy and tangly enough to officially support the weight of a thin stainless steel fork as of Tuesday. Or maybe I just got lucky and stuck it in a good spot on Tuesday. I've been trying for a few weeks now. For some reason that's a milestone to me. Now I'm waiting for it to grow long enough that I can tie a hair in a knot and support the weight of a 4oz lead teardrop sinker. I don't know if I'll make it that long but it would be pretty cool.

Anyway... maybe I'm just growing up but I guess it's important to embrace the elements of ourselves that we sometimes question or attempt to change. It's cool to not be perfect and it's okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. And if you're comfortable with yourself, other people will be comfortable with you too. I feel like I'm 90% there. I'm still pretty embarrassed that I can't tie my shoes, laugh out loud when people say "butt", and that I have to watch a youtube instructional video in slow motion when I need to tie a half-windsor. But eventually I guess I'll grow into this just like the beard grew into my face. And it'll probably get on my nerves before I appreciate it.

So as scratchy and fluffy and big and crazy as it is, it's on my face and I guess it's there to stay a little while longer. And I'm pretty okay with this. Beards are, indeed awesome. And I feel slightly more awesome today too. Hooray.

Dudes With Beards Eating Cupcakes

Dudes With Beards Eating Cupcakes

This is so weird.

John Candy

So I was walking home from work and this beat-up Chevy Cutlass pulled up to a house about 200 feet from where I was and backfired. It was alarming. But it was pretty awesome. Which made me remember Uncle Buck, who had a car that always backfired. And that got me thinking about how fucking awesome John Candy was in the late 80's. Dude was in Home Alone, The Rescuers Down Under AND Uncle Buck in a SINGLE YEAR.

Take a step back and think about what you did this last year. Here's what I did: Based on statistics I crapped around 1,200 times, I know I lost my wallet twice, I definitely fell down the stairs once, and can sure as hell remember cutting my face due to sneezing while shaving 4 times ([all in the fall; I have a drafty bathroom and my sneezes come without warning, don't judge).

In the same amount of time that I took a lot of dumps and involuntarily hurt myself, John Candy made movie history. He got to work with Macaulay Culkin TWICE when he was still awesome (I know it's not fair to expect child stars to never grow up, but seriously, someone should have stunted his growth or thrown him in some kind of cryo-chamber or something. They'd be up to Home Alone 38 by now and I'd own every single one)

He also got to work with Tia, the admittedly bitchy shitty daughter in Uncle Buck, but I had (and still kind of have?) a huge crush on her. (I just googled "Uncle Buck Tia" to find a picture of Tia, which led me to find her name, Jean Louisa Kelly, which I googled and then found this:

CELEBRITYBAREFEET.COM????  WHAT THE HELL?)

Anyway... it's a real shame he died so young (and also totally nuts that it happened 16 years ago... I remember watching Cool Runnings (on VHS) with my brother the day he died. It was snowing. We were sad). Thinking about all of the incredible movies he was in, it's scary to think of what else he would have done if he was still around.

But you know what? He made some incredible movies and as trite as it sounds, his legacy lives on forever. He was a part of some of the greatest movies ever made (Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Little Shop of Horrors, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Summer Rental [note to self: where the hell did you put your Blues Brothers DVD?]). He makes me smile whenever I watch one of his movies and that is pretty freaking cool... and something we can all kinda aspire to in a weird way (I know he had problems but still. His life's work was dedicated to making people laugh and that's both difficult and admirable).

John Candy, you are awesome. Job well done.

Spring Plaid

I am excited about the warmer weather because that means I get to wear my spring plaid shirts, which have a noticeably more subtle color palette and are fun in their own unique way. Just in the last few days there have been a lot more people out and about in the city wearing some awesome plaid shirts and it is a wonderful sight. It's kind of hard to have a bad day when you're wearing an awesome shirt that makes everyone smile. If you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend it.

I am majorly on the hunt for more awesome short sleeve plaid button-ups, so if you see good ones, let me know. And if you're looking for some good ones, let me know and maybe we can trade our info and sources on awesome plaid.

Photovoltaic Cell Awesomeness

This is real. And it's going to revolutionize solar energy production. And it's also awesome looking.