7 posts tagged “photos”
Yeah, I know, every couple of weeks I throw a new entry up here about how I'm going to start posting regularly soon, just to disappear again for another couple of weeks. What can I say? The weather continues to be terrible here in Chicago, which means I haven't gotten into the habit yet of bicycling and getting out each day, which means I haven't gotten into the habit yet of updating this moblog regularly. In the meanwhile, though, I wanted to mention that my new book of photos is now out, Cellphone Photos 2007; it's a reprinting of my favorite 200 or so Palm Treo photos of 2007, of the 900 or so I featured both here and at my Flickr account last year, laid out in convenient PDF form (both American and European versions) for sending quickly to a laserprinter at work when your no-good boss isn't looking. Anyway, feel free to click over to the book page to download a copy for free if you want. And I promise, regular updates here starting soon! I swear to fuckin' God!!!
So, just a few weeks left until it's finally bicycling season again here in Chicago; long-time followers of the moblog, in fact, know that I first got heavily involved with bicycling last year, when not coincidentally I initially quit smoking. Of course, this being nerdy GTD me, I needed to invent an elaborate project for myself in order to justify all that bicycling in the first place; and this was right at the same time (spring 2007) that Google first allowed people to sign up for an account and start creating customized mashup maps through their official API, which convinced me to start doing such a thing too. But alas, because of the complexity of these maps (but more on that in a bit), I ended up doing a lot more trips than I had time to sit down and put together into a mashup; and I promised myself that over the winter I'd finally sit down and finish them, before it was time for bicycling season 2008 and yet more riding/photographing/mapping.
Anyway, it just occurred to me this weekend that I don't have much time left, so I better get started; and the first step, of course, was to sit down and look through all the photos and notes I took last year when actually on the bike trips, and determine exactly how much work I have ahead of me. The good news? It turns out that I actually biked a lot more and a lot farther than I had been remembering in my head, boding well for my chances of even longer and more regular trips this spring and summer. The bad news? I have 11 maps that need to be created, and so far only three of them "done" (and by "done" I of course mean "eh, like 80 percent done").
So, I just sat down on my other Mac (the one with Photoshop) and made a master map of all the mini-projects I'm shooting to finish by the beginning of May; this image, then, will also serve as a master map to interior pages over at the section of my personal website where you can always find the latest grand total of finished mashups. Anyway, so here we go with the descriptions...hold yr breath...
1 through 5: Chicago Lakeshore Path. An uninterrupted 18-mile bike and runner path stretching nearly from the north edge to the south edge of the city, surrounded nearly at all times by public parkland, a holdover from Edwardian times when the "City Beautiful" movement managed to get the entire Chicago lakefront declared a "public resource."
1) Lakeshore path: Lincoln Park North. Upper half of the seven-mile Lincoln Park, one of the largest city parks in the entire United States. Riding the length of Lincoln Park is a lesson in American history and architecture, in that the park was designed in regular stages from 1860 to 1960; here in the north half are the sections created between 1910 and the '60s.
2) Lakeshore path: Lincoln Park South. The lower half of the park just described, the sections designed from 1860 to 1900, containing the vast majority of the historical destinations the park is most known for.
3) Lakeshore path: North Avenue to the Loop. Want a smart alternative the next time you come into the inner city for a holiday like the 4th of July? Why not park your car on the northside and bike the rest of the way in? Although not regularly used by a lot of people, there is a perfectly safe and in fact delightful section of the lakefront path that stretches from the end of Lincoln Park to the Loop, including easy stops at Navy Pier, River North, the Chicago River and Millennium Park. It's only six miles from Montrose to the Loop by bicycle; why not try it the next time you're down there on holiday, avoiding the snarl of vehicular traffic that always forms during such events?
4) Lakeshore path: Loop to 57th Street. For many years the Hyde Park area of the city's southside was built up along the lakefront, but nothing else between there and the Loop; that finally changed throughout the mid-20th century, especially once a series of corporations and civic groups came in and sponsored the landscaping of vast tracts of the land. Although not as historic as the northside's better-known path, this slice of Chicago's lakefront is a beautiful and uncluttered space, perfect for lazy weekend rides as well as weekday wind sprints for more serious riders.
5) Lakeshore path: South Campus. The extreme south tip of the city-sponsored 18-mile lakeshore bike/running path, encompassing several historic areas: Hyde Park, the University of Chicago campus, the Museum of Science and Industry, Jackson Park, and the South Shore Cultural Center, spanning roughly 57th to 79th Streets.
6) Northside to the Loop, via Southport/Lincoln Avenues. Hey, city-dweller creative-class fucks! You know how the mayor and your hippie neighbor keep crowing about how easy it actually is to bicycle from your place to your office in the Loop each day? Keep wondering if it's actually true? Here's one of what will hopefully be an always expanding series of maps, looking at various inner-city routes from residential neighborhoods to the Loop, all of them lying along streets with dedicated, legally-protected bike lanes. Featuring not only the routes themselves, but various practical tips about city bicycling embedded in my photos and videos.
7) Northside to the Loop, via Halsted/Milwaukee Avenues. Exactly the same as map 6, but this time using the city bike lane on Halsted, passing through such neighborhoods as Boys Town, Old Town, Goose Island, Fulton Market, River West and more.
8) Burnham's Boulevards and the West Side Parks (north half). As part of the "City Beautiful" movement's 1909 overhaul of the city, architect Daniel Burnham recommended building a "green ring" through the most congested neighborhoods at the time, allowing not only for rapid middle-class development but also a small slice of healthiness in the middle of the most packed places in the city. At the same time, then, a group of Gilded Age entrepreneurs started a series of grand, giant public parks on the west side of the city as well (where the vast majority of the city's immigrants lived at the time); these were linked to Burnham's green boulevard system, to form a legitimate grand green circle all the way around the city's downtown, a few miles out in distance from the Loop's center. My map, then, is just of the north half of this circle; it includes Diversey Boulevard at Lincoln Park (including the Goethe statue, Hamilton garden, Elks headquarters and more), Logan Square, Garfield Park and more.
9) Northside Neighborhood Parks. It's the giant civic parks of the Victorian Age that get all the press in Chicago; but did you know that the park district here actually maintains over 550 public spaces? The vast majority of them, in fact, were created and first maintained by private neighborhood organizations, before the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal consolidated all the groups into one unified government administration. In this map, a winding and detailed route that will take a bicyclist to over 65 small neighborhood parks on the northside, ranging from a mile or two in size to sometimes the length of someone's backyard; the total route lasts 25 miles, with of course many opportunities to stop for food, shopping, coffee and more.
10) Northside to the Westside, via the "Industrial District." Here, a supplemental add-on to either map 6 (inner-city path on Lincoln) or 7 (inner-city path on Halsted) for getting over to such hipster westside neighborhoods as Wicker Park and Bucktown, specifically by riding through the last area of the northside left with working factories, smokestacks and more. A fascinating route to take at least once, especially for those who enjoy photographing urban industrial areas.
11) Near South Historic Neighborhoods. Did you know that there are half a dozen nationally important historic neighborhoods all butting against each other in Chicago's Near South Side? There are! Here, a map detailing them all, including the IIT campus, Bronzeville, Prairie Avenue, the Museum Campus, Chinatown, Printers Row and the South Loop.
Whew, okay, that's it! And three of these are now "done," like I said (i.e. 80 percent done), which you can find over here for now; and hopefully by May, like I said, I'm going to have all 11 of these maps finished and online, and with downloadable KMLs as well for Google Earth (for those who like their maps in 3D and spinnable and all that shit), and with a brand-new interface as well over at the section of my personal site where people will be able to find all these. And that's it! See you later, fuckers!
So yes, it's true; last night, for the first time ever, I had a mishap on my bicycle in Chicago, pretty much my worst nightmare because I'm 38 and have no health insurance. It's a boring story -- I hit a pothole, at night when I didn't see it, which brought the bike to an immediate stop but not me, and ended up launching me over the handlebars and onto the pavement with an unceremonious thud. Thank God, thank GOD, I was only going two miles per hour when I flipped; can you even imagine what kind of shape I'd currently be in if I hit that pothole at 10 or 20 mph? Now, that said...
--I currently have a bruised rib.
--I currently have a bruised thigh muscle.
--I currently have two sprained wrists, one bad enough that it needs a wrap.
--I currently have six or seven abrasion wounds covering the entire right side of my body (which is what I landed on during my accident, and skidded a little bit), from my knee to my shoulder.
And this, needless to say, is...ouch, fucking ouch, fucking ooh man am I in a lot of whiny 38-year-old no-health-insurance kind of pain. And it was right in the middle of having these thoughts that my friend Kate texted me; and we ended up getting together and smoking up, and trading humorous stories like always, and watching the latest episode of The IT Crowd, as well as a bunch of trailers and opening credits for a bunch of Joe Swanberg video projects, because I'm doing a feature on him right now at my arts center, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, and I figured he's the kind of moviemaker that Kate would be into. And sure enough, she is.
Okay, enough for me tonight; time to lay down and nurse my wounds. Man, oh fucking MAN, am I in a lot of whiny achy pain these days, and of course with no doctor around to give me a prescription for the good shit (i.e. Vicodin). That's probably the worst thing about this all; not the pain itself, which is manageable, but the knowledge that I'll be literally dealing with this pain for the next two months straight, with barely any days off that entire time. When I injured my knee this summer, after all, that took an entire month to get over; and that was a much less intense injury than the bike crash I had last night.
Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh. Well, you accept the good with the bad, right? That's what it's all about; understanding where you are in life, of what freedoms in your particular life are important to you, and what kinds of things you're willing to give up for that, like regular health insurance. The pain of an entire half of a body full of bruises is an ordeal; I just keep trying to keep in mind how glad I am that it wasn't worse, that I didn't end up in the hospital against my will, by (God forbid) breaking one of these fragile bones in my body. Always try to look at the bright side of things, that's what I always say. Or, actually, I never fucking say that; I always urge people to embrace the most pessimistic option possible. Oy vey, my wrists! I gotta go fuckin' lay down now and give 'em a rest!
I know, it's about fucking time, but this afternoon I finally got the 60 photos I took around Chicago in June posted to my Flickr account; those who are interested can click right here to go see them all (of which seven are reprinted above). And then hopefully I'll be getting the 60 or so photos I took in July posted as well; and then that will finally have me fucking caught up on getting my cellphone photos posted online in a timely manner! Christ, writing captions for hundreds of photos takes up SO MUCH unexpected time!
Greetings from my apartment, where I just got back from my oral surgeon's, where earlier today I had eight teeth surgically removed! Yeehaw! This is the second time in my life I've had such work done, so knew this time what to expect; a whole lot of Novocaine, a whole lot of drilling, and a whole lot of curiously-Victorian-style yanking with bloody metal pliers (seriously). Of course, it is all just too, too gross to show a picture of to an unsuspecting public; here instead is a photo of a series of bloody gauzes that have been in my mouth throughout the morning, which is bad enough...
Well, okay, and one more semi-gross shot, simply because I can...
Did I mention, by the way, that I'm doped up on Vicodin right now as well? Hence the smile, despite the blood. And then a week from now, I do the entire thing over again, this time on the right-hand side of my mouth. And then the hard work starts!
Too cold in Chicago tonight to have a "Lost" party; so I thought I'd get drunk by myself instead, off the liquor still left over from my Second Life "mesh" event last month, and liveblog my drunken thoughts about the two episodes that are showing tonight. Thoughts posted in reverse chronological order. If you happen to catch this being updated live tonight, by the way, feel free to shoot me an email with your own thoughts to ilikejason [at] gmail.com, and I'll add them to this blog post. Ah, the power of the internet, I tells ya!
Above, the question I hope the most they address tonight, from the last episode: what the hell's up with that creepy "Clockwork Orange" room they stumbled across? Dude, seriously? Goddamnit, Lost producers, will you please answer a question or two before introducing a half dozen more???
Flashes In My Eyes (This week's episode)
:00 - So, the question I'm left with after this episode: was this an attempt on the producers' part to mollify fans, after an entire year so far of answering hardly any questions at all? It does seem that they're throwing some mighty weight behind one particular theory behind the island: that a combination of electromagnetism and fate is running it all, that people get swept into island events because they "need" to, in order to be given the tools to possibly redeem their lives if they want, or perish if they don't choose redemption. And Hanso came across this island during World War II, and spent the rest of his life establishing a foundation to work on the island, to see if they could harness this energy in an organized way, to trigger the next step of human evolution. Except it all went wrong, which is why it was abandoned, but it's too dangerous to bring the original crew back...except how does that explain Henry/Ben promising Juliet that she'd be allowed to go home?
Too many unanswered questions still! Too many theories still contradicting each other! The promo for next week's episode, by the way, explicitly states that "three major mysteries about Lost will be answered next week;" hah, yeah, okay, I'll believe that when I see it. Then again, according to the promo, the woman who was only a shopkeeper hallucination in this episode is going to be a physical Other in next week's, so that's something intriguing to look forward to.
Good night, nerds!
:59 - "You're going to die, Charlie." Nice.
:49 - Eleven minutes left! Not nearly enough questions answered yet! No way to do it in the time remaining! Goddamnit, Lost producers, you're going to do it again, I can tell!
:45 - Finally, a major reveal, if it can be trusted: "You end up on the island because you're supposed to." Lends more credence to the "doomed fate" theory of what's going on, one of many being debated by fans these days. Of course, this information did come from a hallucination.
:43 - Nice allusion to the Wizard of Oz; even the feet of the "red-shoed man" are in the same position as the Wicked Witch, after the bricks fall on him.
:37 - All right, so is Desmond's flashback talking back to him? Is it all a trick of the mind? When the storekeeper says, "And if you don't do all of this, you'll kill us all," should we take that seriously? Is it Desmond's mind influencing what this fictional character is saying, or an external force giving vital clues to both Desmond and us? Gar, this show screws with my head so much! P.S. -- officially drunk.
:34 - Note to self: Google "Widmore Industries" later. Sneaky viral-marketing Google bastards!
:21 - The shard! The shard! Er, I mean, the numbers! The numbers!
:20 - Creepy; microwave that makes the same noise as the timer in the island's bunker.
:15 - So not a flashback? Desmond actually jumped back into his old life after the explosion? Hmm!
:11 - Leave it to the UK survivors to end up on the beach, completely sotted off whiskey.
:08 - Oh shit, that's right, Desmond's got that girlfriend who hired those Arctic explorers from season 2 to find the island. Goddamnit, more questions!
:05 - "That guy sees the future, dude." Well put, Hurley, well put.
:00 - Hah-chah! Finally! And a Desmond episode, too. Here's hoping we get some damn answers!
Not In Portland (Repeat of last week's episode)
:58 - "Well, actually, we're not quite in Portland." Tee hee.
:56 - Okay, so finally, one small answer to one small part of a Lost question: Turns out that some of the Others are being held on the island against their will as well, despite how they may act in front of each other in public. Goddamnit, producers, will you please hand out just a little more answers than that each episode? Please?
:54 - So she mentions in a job interview that she wishes her ex got run over by a bus; and then her ex gets run over by a bus. Now that's a company benefit I like!
:51 - "And then you were scared! Moan cry! And then...you counted to five! Choke sob!" Oh no, Kate, you have two hot sweaty half-naked men constantly competing for your love, on a tropical island where danger lies around every next corner. How fucking horrible it must be to be you.
:45 - Kablam! Juliet -- from submissive wifey to stone-cold killer! This is another theory of Lost that's had some evidence shown; that it's a place where a person can be "redeemed" if they want, change into the person they were meant to be, and that those who embrace it thrive there and the ones who refuse die (like Boone, Shannon, Mr. Eko, etc). That's the frustrating thing about Lost, of course, as regular viewers know; that they drop just enough small hints throughout just enough episodes to start giving you this idea of an overall larger theme, without ever confirming whether your theory is right or not.
:34 - Creepy Clockwork Orange room! Creepy Clockwork Orange room! And here are some things about the scene you might not know: 1) Near the end of the sequence, a clear shot of Dr. DeGroot is shown, the mysterious founder of the DHARMA Initiative of whom we currently know almost nothing; 2) the text shown in that sequence repeats an anagram of "Lost Time," a phrase the producers claim on the podcast is very important for understanding the entire nature of the island; and 3) a couple of crafty audience members discovered that backwards speech had been implanted into that scene's soundtrack as well; when played the right way, it's a variety of voices saying "Only fools are enslaved by time and space" at a variety of speeds. Hmm! Note, by the way, how both Kate and Sawyer get hypnotized by the video merely after a few seconds of watching it, and how they physically have to tear themselves away from the screen to regain composure.
:31 - An ongoing question within Lost, sparked again by Juliet checking out the security monitors: if the Others have regular access to off-island commodities, why is all their technology from 1974 or earlier? They give hints both ways, but have never directly addressed the question.
:29 - Note to self: Google "Mittelos Science" later. Sneaky producer viral-marketing bastards. P.S., nice to see that dude from "Suddenly Susan" getting work again.
:24 - "I'm Tom, by the way." How I thought Jack should've answered: "Who the fuck cares? You've been trying to kill me for the last 60 days!"
:14 - Okay, to clear things up.... The ultra-hot Other who just saved Kate and Sawyer? She's actually Rousseau's daughter, the crazy French chick the survivors discovered in season 1. Who apparently, by the way, is actually Serbian, not French, according to the latest Lost Podcast (done by the producers of the show before each new episode). And numerous people claim that Henry/Ben (the dude in surgery) is her father; but the producers say in the podcast that that doesn't necessarily mean her biological father. Caught up now? And if Rousseau had the baby on the island, as she claimed, she's now old and smoking-hot enough that they've easily been on the island now 16 to 18 years. Sigh; can you see which direction my mind is heading tonight? Please, producers, no more sweaty half-naked smoking-hot girls tonight; oh no, wait a minute, this is Lost, what am I talking about?!
:10 - Could Juliet's encounter with her ex be more stereotypically evil? "Ah, yes -- hot new research assistant, please meet one of my lonely plebes, who happens to be my ex-wife. Ex-wife, could you please turn the lights off on the way out? I'm about to fuck my new research assistant and turn her into a new plebe." Bwah hah hah hah.
:00 - I should explain that the liveblogging of last week's episode probably won't be as good as the new episode, since I've already seen it twice (once on television, once online, God bless ya abc.com). Also, because I'm not nearly as drunk yet as I undoubtedly will be by the time the second episode is halfway through.
