Category Archives : Google School


google school: “do you enjoy dark, violent, or disturbing music?”

I came across the following okCupid question, “Do you enjoy dark, violent, or disturbing music? Yes No When I’m in the mood Unsure”, and I thought, what exactly is that? Dark, violent, disturbing music? I tried to think if there was any kind of music that would disturb me such that I couldn’t enjoy it. I immediately […]


vignettes of the nite XXXIII: beauty and the beast

Lady Amherst’s Pheasant. Have you ever seen such gorgeousness? I’m enthralled. And of course in a Google search, I find out people are breeding and selling them! Why? Because they can. Its like when I recently read that in traditional Chinese medicine the bile of black bears is extracted (after caging and painful process) for […]


light in darkness

In honor of Winter Solstice…make of it what you will! There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. – Edith Wharton (from Vesalius in Zante, 1902) Mona Hatoum, Current Disturbance, 1996 (White Chapel, 2011 installation) I love this the quote, and when I thought of coupling […]


vignettes of the night XXIX: the color of utopia

Ever heard of Baker-Miller pink? Me neither. I came across it randomly on a recent image search and it intrigued me. The idea of a color that could calm violent prisoners. It was devised by a researcher, Alexander Schauss, in the 1970s. He wanted to know, specifically, if various wavelengths of light – ie. color […]


fashion matters: the mao suit

Fashion and Maoism, never the twain shall meet? Sometimes a picture really does speak a thousand words. (Veruschka as Chairman Mao from an issue of French Vogue 1971, photo by Alex Chatelain) Obviously Mao was fashionable in the early 70s ala Warhol (his 1972 shot Mao – above – being my favorite, can’t believe Dennis […]