WANDERLUST

This is the chess set that mounts to a wall, allowing games of indefinite length. Generating a sense of intrigue and anticipation–”did they move yet?”–it allows for weeks-long play without interruption. An included “last move” marker hung around a recently promoted pawn-turned-Queen signals to an opponent that without an equally crafty counter, the game will end soon. The 34″ H x 22″ W chessboard mounts like a framed picture with its included hardware. The board is made from cherry veneer, alternately stained and left in its natural color to produce the 3 1/4″ H x 2″ W black and white spaces. Eight transparent acrylic shelves support its set of classic Staunton chess pieces. The black pieces are made from rosewood, known for its darkly veined grain and stout heft; the white pieces are made from boxwood, selected for its fine grain and high density–all are turned by hand and finished with a durable, high-gloss cover coat. (22 lbs.) Text by Hammacher Schlemmer.

Privacy Policy
On the public commodification of privacy.
By Stefany Anne Golberg

We have no more privacy. That’s what we’re told; certainly it’s something we feel. Of course it’s been thrilling, for those of us with the means and the Internet, to be more connected to each other and the world than we could have ever imagined. We can correspond at lightening speed. Vast, seemingly infinite quantities of information — more than we ever knew existed, more than we know how to process — is available for our consumption at any hour of the day or night. Easy access to information promises astonishing convenience and comfort. Radical connectivity has also given us information that was previously hidden. What was once unknowable has been revealed: the secrets of medicine, rare ancient documents, R.E.M. lyrics. And all this information is still less thrilling than what we can now know about other people. Once, we might have been allowed to know the town where a celebrity lived or what she liked to eat for breakfast. The mere fact of a philandering celebrity’s philandering was news. Now, we can hear their whispers and sighs, have seen all their folds and wrinkles. Celebrities are not simply exposed — they are exposing themselves. The film critic Roger Ebert, who has thyroid cancer, uses his celebrity to reveal the most intimate details of his physical deterioration, the withering of his face and voice. The writer Tony Judt did the same before his death; the writer Christopher Hitchens does so now. In the past, we may have been privileged to read musings on death and illness from these celebrities in their own eloquent words. Now we can also watch their gasps on YouTube, can get instantaneous updates about surgical procedures and infections via tweets and pinggs. And even this is less interesting than what we feel we must tell about ourselves. Continue HERE

“Concerning the first picture: what a strange way of folding letters!” – writes Effe in his comment to yesterday’s post on contemporary Soviet still life photos. And indeed, already the diamond grid of the folding of the letter on the edge of the table is unusual, but even more unusual is the triangular shape of the letters laying behind it, on the folder. However, there was a time when this folding was not considered unusual at all, moreover the mails folded in this way were the most valuable the postman could bring; and, as the story unfolding from the few objects on the picture indicates, for several people they remained more valuable than any other a postman can bring them any more. These are the письма-треугольники, the “triangular letters”, the standard form of soldiers’ correspondence during the Great Patriotic War. Read HERE

Stirrings Still / Soubresauts and Comment dire / what is the word: © Samuel Beckett 1988, 1989 and the Estate of Samuel Beckett. The right of Samuel Beckett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Under the auspices of the Centre for Manuscript Genetics (University of Antwerp), the Beckett International Foundation (University of Reading), the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (Austin, Texas) and the Estate of Samuel Beckett.

www.beckettarchive.org

The poster says:

Exploring the Universe: The 4th State of Matter….Earth is composed of three states of matter, liquid, solid, gaseous. Yet most of the universe exists as the fourth state of matter, the plasma state. The bright suns and stars are plasmas — roving, unattached, electrified particles of matter that fuse into new particles on collision, releasing enormous energy. A hydrogen bomb explosion is an uncontrolled fusion of plasma particles. We seek now to control fusion — to create here on earth the plasmas of suns and stars — to light for all men and all nations fires of boundless energy and endless age.

In a unique scientist-engineer-industry enterprise, General Atomic Division and the Texas Atomic Energy Research Foundation are carrying out the world’s first large-scale private industry program leading to utilization of the fourth state of matter—controlled nuclear fusion.

GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION • 445 PARK AVENUE. NEW YORK 22. N. Y.

Lost Found Art

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Opium Museum

Drum. Wood and lizard skin, Papua New Guinea. >>>

Ludo/pachisi board. >>>

Portrait of Lenin. Axel Benzmann, 1968. >>>

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