Cheezburgers are my guilty pleasure

     When you're feeling down what do you do?  Does seeing your cat licking the floor or chasing his own tail make everything right again?  Now you can have this experience anywhere, anytime, faster than you can say I can has cheezburger.  It's the unending world of cat cuteness where if the last one didn't make you LOL there's always a next button.  Where the font is always bold, the spelling iz unchecked, and the grammar is adorably wrong.  All these qualities synthesize to create what may be the purest form of one-liner comedy.  LOLcats and its many imitators use candid still shots of cats paired with a caption that imposes a human sense of humor and desires onto the (oblivious) kitty.
     LOLCATS best-of (and they're all best btw) compilation video here.  A lot of people complained that the frames changed too quickly, but I think this was a great conceptual move on the creator's part.  The frames started out slow and towards the end went by so fast, you barely have time to finish reading.  If you actually need more time to read everything, you have to keep pausing the video.  The point being that this brand of humor is highly edible and addictive.   And millions love it.  

     After you watch several dozen, the LOLcats slang grows on you.  Words that you never knew existed suddenly seem so right: caturday, harbls, meh, eated, etc.  And the random pluralization of anything makes it funnier.  This suddenly reminded me of another kind of less savory humor,  which made me feel a little bad for loving LOLcats.  The kinds of ads that infantilized African-American characters/spokespeople in the early 20th century used the exact same comedy tactics.  Are we creating glaringly inappropriate stereotypes of cats?  Is LOLcats racist?  Probably not.  Sometimes a cheezburger is just a cheezburger.

Ring of fire

    A bus bus rolls by announcing that War is coming, and we're supposed to believe it?  This poster was frightening even though I logically knew it was an ad campaign.  It's in huge capital letters with no picture or further explanation.  (I took this picture in mid-February, having no idea what Game of Thrones was.)  I'm sure all of the Game of Thrones fans who saw this bus were psyched to hear that war is coming to HBO on April 1.  In 1938 when Orson Welles read War of the Worlds on the radio people believed it and panicked.  We've come a long way.  Which makes me wonder: how far long into the future before wars actually are announced in ads with debut dates on major networks? 

     It was a couple of weeks later when this poster came out.  "Now I get it! War is coming, and it's already season 2!  Where have I been?"  Then I realized it looked like a lot a lot of the other movie posters that were out at the time.  They all looked the same to me, and I was just beginning to set them straight.  

     This "ring of fire" motif seems to be everywhere, from the flaming skull (and chain and wheels) of Ghost Rider, to the Hunger Games' "Mockingjay" which glows like a red-hot branding iron.  Various combinations are similar imagery are reconfigured to slightly alter the message,  but in general conveying (thus, selling) a combination of power, fear, drama, violence, aggression, passion, and wrath (see below).

Graphic Details

     The Graphic Details show at the Yeshiva University Museum is a show of female Jewish comic-book writers.  The original drawings are on display, which allows you too see them at a much larger scale than in a book.  The words "underground" and "confessional" are used freely in the accompanying text, which I don't disagree with, but it made me feel out of context as someone who reads underground and confessional comics almost exclusively.  My whole comic-world is underground and confessional, and since we're talking about women, you can add "transgressive" to that list.  In the world of comic-fans, everyone is entitled to their own little brand of selfishness, which is as it should be, right?  I never felt any duty to expose myself to and become well-read in the super-hero or anime genres, for example.  Somehow the ignorance that I possess does not carry with it the guilt of an art-lover that refuses to look at 17th century Dutch painting just because they "don't like it."


     Now that I think of it, the only time I've ever heard or had to use the word "underground," has been in the situation of trying to talk to someone who asks, "So, what kinds of comic do you like?"  Is anything actually underground these days?  I would argue for a new word to replace "underground" which has been in use since the 60's (or before) and really doesn't apply anymore.  It's not the status that requires a definition, but the style.  I don't know what that word might be.


     Since the show is at the Yeshiva University Museum it may lose a lot of potential visitors.  Many people don't even know that the Center for Jewish History, the larger building which houses the museum, exists.  It's interesting to note that since this is a touring show, several different types of institutions will host it.  In San Francisco it was the Cartoon Art Museum.  In Ann Arbor it is at the University of Michigan art gallery.  In Toronto and Portland at Jewish-culture focused arts foundation and museum.  The place in which art is viewed influences how the show is perceived.  Because it was in the CJH, I was more in tune to the Jewish identity aspect.  I wonder if or how I would have thought differently had it been at the Brooklyn Museum or The Drawing Center.  I learned about the show by chance, thanks to an ad embedded in a news website I was reading- I do hope that the people who would appreciate it will get word of it.

Where's my free spray paint?

     Wanna go bombing with this stencil that came with my shoes?  On the inside of this shoebox is the Ipath logo that says, "This is a stencil/cut along the dotted line."  Clearly, the first conclusion that can be made is simply that Ipath wishes to market its brand to a specific cultural crowd that is familiar with street art and appreciates graffiti as a legitimate art form as well as a  cool (subversively rebellious) thing to do.  Well, I tried to cut it out.  I used a real X-acto knife.  My carefully traced lines inevitably strayed while rounding those tight curves, and the knife didn't cut all the way through, so i  had  to retrace everything again.  I gave up after the main logo shape.  If I couldn't do that without grumbling, I had no business getting into the lettering.   This was an activity designed to frustrate.  Had this been my own design, I might have had some patience, a little tender loving care... but all this to stencil a shoe company logo?  Did they really expect anyone to do this?  There was no way my stencil would ever look just they way it was supposed to.  With all those little slip-ups, it was bound to corrupt the perfection of the design and appear hand-made.  

     Was this really the point?  Had they really hoped for anyone to use it, wouldn't they have included inside the box, an already cut out stencil, ready to be sprayed?  Maybe it is a reminder to their customers that something is expected of them also.  It's not enough to just be cool, you have to do cool stuff too.  They want to have the kind of customers that know they are cool because they or their friends make stencils, and they wear Ipath shoes.  And so while they are not seriously suggesting that you cut out the box yourself, Ipath can be that kind of shoe brand.  I felt like a failure as a consumer.  I'd tried too hard, the most uncool thing to do.

Black candy

     Like a predisposition for depression, the love of licorice is something that you get from your parents.  Either you love it or you hate it.  When I tell people I like it,  I am met with responses ranging from confusion to disgust to rejection.  Loving licorice is regarded by many as an aesthetic abnormality, a perversion of taste.  Its flavor comes from an underground root, not a fruit or an herb.  Its impenetrable color comes from molasses.  It is never advertised for in this country, because no new customers will be reeled in and tricked into liking it.  If you want it, you know where to get it.  At once old-fashioned and subversive, it is stylistically akin to one drinking strong black coffee.  The affection for other black articles is similar, with varying degrees of hardcore-ness:  black flowers, black underwear, black cars, black nail polish, black lipstick, black patent leather face masks...

Good dog

     New York City is decorated with so many no-poop signs that they become easy to ignore after a while.  This sign stopped me in my tracks one night.  It is reflective and bolted to a tree.  It simultaneously grated my nerves and fascinated me for several reasons. 


     I wondered what kind of thought went into designing a sign in which a dog is "scooping" up after himself.  What is this sign saying, and how and why is this sign saying it?


      It seems so natural for humans to project our feelings onto our pets (and as a result denying their dog- or cat-ness) by imagining that we are neurological and/or emotional equals.  This is annoying in its milder form, and disturbing emotional escapism when more extreme.  The personification of a a dog who can walk on his hind legs and maneuver his paws well enough to wield a poop-scoop (not to mention being caring and empathetic enough to do it) is a tough image for me to digest.  Maybe this silhouette dog has learned this behavior as a "trick" that he does when he goes outside.  Maybe he is a very smart well-mannered dog, and so he is sending a message to other dogs via their literate owners that they should feel inferior if they do not/can not "scoop."  This dog role-model is doing the human's job.  In all other dog signs I have seen, there is a human crouching behind their dog with scoop or plastic bag in hand, waiting.  By eliminating the crouching human, this sign empowers both dogs and their owners at the same time.  To dogs: You can clean up all by yourself!  To humans:  Your dog should be doing this, not you.  Ultimately, we all know that it will be the owner bending down to pick it up, but their task is lightened because of this sign.  They have had some of the responsibility and shame taken away for them.


     I searched online for website that sells this sign, and it turns out that they use this same image for three other signs with different messages.  One begs, "Be responsible, or train your dog to be!"

There is a light that never goes out...

     There is a free-standing McDonald's on 4th Ave. at 1st St. in Park Slope.  It even has a drive-thru that stays open 24 hours a day on weekends.  It is a pilgrimage site for any soul that needs coffee or a hamburger at 2 am, or 4 am, or 6 am, when regular old deli coffee just won't do.

      When I walk to work, it is still dark outside, and the glowing M is a beacon against the dark Brooklyn sky.  The site is walled in glass and the glittering fluorescence spills forth, illuminating the whole block; it is so bright, that I must stay on the opposite side of the street when passing.

     It has the presence of a preserved turn-of-the-century building surrounded by high-rises. It has space on all sides, on its own plot of land (parking lot).  Its contemporary high-tech touches are subtle: there is a small decal on the window reminding you that you can follow McDonald's on Twitter and check in on FourSquare.

    During the day, this spectre is the quaintest of buildings in the neighborhood, with its low sloped red roof, banners waving, and a carefully landscaped mulched border.  Its well-maintained paint job is untouched by graffiti.  While I am not a devotee it this place, I really do admire it.