Now I think I can attribute that to most everywhere in everycity, but specifically this article is about Cleveland.

"...arts may be hard-pressed to adapt: the middle-class migration away from urban centers to self-contained exurbs, the aging and dying-off of core audiences, and the appetite among younger crowds for high-tech, stay-at-home fun (cable and satellite TV, video games, the Web)."

Interesting to think about - public art for arts sake will decline completely with dwindling public support of art venues (museums, playhouses, etc). People don't care to challenge themselves by supporting public art or even attempting to experience it (or understand it). Cutting art curriculum causes this decline in support as people tend to ignore what they don't understand - most schools are cutting arts programs.

It's been 3 days without power and 4 days without internet. Merry xmas.

I did see The Life Aquatic by Wes Anderson - great movie with a great soundtrack. Mark Mothersbaugh, from DEVO, composes the score. The score on track 16 is my personal favorite song in the world right now.

I read some fan posts on IMDB, and wow people are trashing this film. Oh well... I liked it anyways. It is really character and dialog driven and much darker than his previous movies. Wes Anderson films are ripe with a stylish postmodern anachronism.

The artist describes his battery-operated crucifix that can be affixed on the wall and broadcasts a Unicode version of the Lord's Prayer at 916.48 Megahertz as a way to "metaphysically protect your data"

This piece is part of the Tisch scool, New York University, winter show 2004, graduate design and technology. Video here

I don't have any written commentary here - if you really want to read about it, go here

This sends me back to high school when I read the complete Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - And now Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Chabon's new book The Final Solution: A Story of Detection follows the adventures of an elderly Sherlock Holmes. I hope Mycroft makes an appearance. This is on my to-read list now!

This will be illegal soon - if recent actions by Hollywood are any indication of the future - so if you have $799 burning a hole in your pocket get this now!

It has on-board decryption software, a 120 GB hard drive and can read just about anything (DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD+R DL, VCD, SVCD, DVCD, HDCD, CD+G, CD-R/RW, JPEG - Kodak and MP3 formats) What this means is you can plop a dvd in it and rip the contents to your hard drive and never have to use the dvd disc again - I do not condone activites such as renting DVDs and ripping them to a hard drive that would be illegal. (What was the archaic technology? Video Cassette Recorder? Good thing no-one ever used that to copy movies!)

On a related note, I was reading news feeds today and came across this interesting article about Hollywood studios sueing server operators who maintain servers on which surreptitious data flows (read this as pirated movies). Isn't this like sueing a city for providing roads that criminals drive on? Just because you provide a route for public transportation you shouldn't be responsible for all activities on it.

The entertainment industry is still making a ton of money, in fact more than last year! Don't believe me check here or here. The moral here is maybe most movie studios are aging dinosaurs and cannot adapt the new technologies fast enough so they are making everyone (literally) pay the price for embracing new ways to entertain themselves. Especially when most movies coming out are just over-hyped juggernaughts without story or any substance aside from a polished production and slick marketing technique.

(Or just start making the jump to video games, they'll make you more money in the end apparently if you produce them with the same gusto as a feature film. I just started playing Knights of the Old Republic 2, speaking of immersive video games)

This is a completely plausable fiction - watch this if you have a spare 15 minutes.

Wow this has to be one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. These shelters are hooked up the outside of a building acting as a parasite off the larger buildings excess heat. Very cool!

Recently, and most notably, John Ashcroft opposed the display of the naked "Spirit of Justice" statue by draping it with $8000 in curtains. Here

Now Republican Gov. James Douglas of Vermont wants to remove, from his desk, a replica of Hiram Powers most historically famous work.

"A group preparing to celebrate the life of a Vermont-born sculptor is petitioning Gov. James Douglas to leave a replica of Hiram Powers' most famous work -- which portrays a nude chained woman -- on his Statehouse desk."

"Powers sculpted six versions of "The Greek Slave" between the early 1840s and the late 1860s. The work became a symbol of the abolitionist movement before the Civil War." According to this CNN article

Its no surprise to me that states are cutting funding to the arts grants left and right (or should that be right and right) - they can't see the forest for the trees. I mean, come on, they're STATUES. I can see far worse content watching network TV.

Top 10 most influential works of art named in a survey of 500 artists, curators, critics and dealers commissioned by the sponsor of the Turner prize. Interesting note "Different categories of respondents chose markedly different works, with artists in particular plumping overwhelmingly for Fountain."check out the article

1. DuChamp - Fountain (aka the Urinal)
2. Picasso - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
3. Warhol - Marilyn Diptych
4. Picasso - Guernica
5. Henri Matisse - The Red Studio
6. Joseph Beuys - I Like America and America Likes Me
7. Constantin Brancusi - Endless Column
8. Jackson Pollock - One: No 31
9. Donald Judd - 100 untitled works in mill aluminium
10 Henry Moore - Reclining Figure 1929

seems very euro-centric, and nothing past the last couple centuries. Though I personally like the top 4 a lot. I have to note that the Matisse they chose is post-impressionistic; that means no truly early-impressionist paintings made the cut (Pissaro or Monet anyone?).

Well since I haven't actually brewed any beer yet I thought I would design up some packaging anyways.

So here are the mockups for the beer that only exists in published form.