Happy New Year

Gap: Men's Arlington plaid flannel bathrobe

North of Bolinas

San Francisco America

Pakistan

Photo: Shakil Adil/The Associated Press

Damien Hirst

Valium
2000
Lambda Print: Edition of 500

Greece

Photo: Giorgos Papanikolaou/Reuters
In its zeal to secure the border, Greece is being accused of serious lapses in human rights, ignoring treaty pledges that bind it to give haven to refugees claiming protection.

There Will Be Blood

Photo: François Duhamel/Paramount Vantage

Dillon Freasier, left, and Daniel Day-Lewis.

Rawalpindi

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
The Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at a political rally in Rawalpindi. Ms. Bhutto was fired upon at close range and then struck by shrapnel from a blast from a suicide bomber.

Epictetus

You can only be one person -- either a good person or a bad person. You have two essential choices. Either you can set yourself to developing your reason, cleaving to the truth, or you can hanker after externals. The choice is yours and yours alone. You can either put your skills toward internal work or lose yourself to externals, which is to say, be a person of wisdom or follow the common ways of the mediocre.

D H

Michael Lutin today:
It's a sort of anger below the surface that keeps trying to surface
And a yearning to be closer to someone
Playing off an odd, kind of sad, stand-offish unavailability
Owing to some past tragedy that doesn't permit intimacy

End of Judah Street

Merry Christmas

NYTimes: A scene from “People and Places: Disneyland U.S.A.,” a CinemaScope look at the amusement park in 1956, a year after it opened.

War Crimes

Andrew Sullivan:

There are, I think, two options. Either the president was utterly unaware of a torture session of a key al Qaeda suspect where the methods were, according to Kiriakou, meticulously recorded and approved all the way up the chain of command; or he knew all of it. Either he is a war criminal or an incompetent. I don't think he's that incompetent. The more we find out, the clearer it is that the torture program was the primary pillar of this president's war policy - before the Afghanistan war or the Iraq war. Every formulaic statement - "we do not torture;" "I have no recollection" - is related to that fact. And they destroyed the tapes not just to protect themselves, but to protect him.

Yes, this is like Watergate. But that was a petty break-in the president covered up. These are war crimes. Directed from the very top.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/

US/Mexico Border

Associated Press © 2007
A United States Border Patrol vehicle cruises between the long primary and secondary fence line in San Diego, California, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007. The area has been the site of alleged increased violence against the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol says its agents were attacked nearly 1,000 times during a one-year period along the Mexican border, typically by assailants hurling rocks, bottles and bricks. Now the agency is responding with tear gas and powerful, pepper-spray weapons, including firing into Mexico.

Nakashima

NYTimes:
George Nakashima designed the straight-back walnut chair in 1948 for Knoll, which produced it until 1954 and is reissuing it. In January, it will be available for $650 from Design Within Reach, (800) 944- 2233 or dwr.com.

Phaidon

http://www.arcspace.com/books/10_10/10_10_book.html

Editor: Vivian Constantinopoulos
Publisher: Phaidon Press

American Gigolo

Richard Gere: 1980: Wr/Dir Paul Schrader

Gift

Thank you, Mrs. Edwards.

Moroccan Fig

http://votivo.com/html/ar_burning3.html

Bill Clinton

“I once told Magic I was his height before I got into politics.”

Martin Klimas

Take us a few steps into your process—I assume producing these images requires an extraordinarily controlled environment?

Yes, the shooting environment must be controlled and kept consistent. The lighting is clear and direct, head on. My background is neutral, but bright enough so that the shattering object completely stands out. I drop the figurine from the same height in complete darkness while the lens of the camera is open. When the figurine hits the ground, the sound triggers the lights to go off for a fraction of a second. I do this procedure many times or until I find the one frame that is just right. I keep just one such picture for every figurine. Every attempt yields a unique outcome, so I need to look for the one that best expresses a transformation of the figurine into a new form.

I am in that sense a sculptor, but I have only a 5000th of a second to build my sculpture.

www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/still_life/04sl.php

Cairo

Photo: Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

Pressing the head into the ground in prayer, as this man is doing in Cairo, can leave a callus, or zebibah.

NYTimes: Michael Slackman

Published: December 18, 2007

CAIRO — There is a strong undercurrent of competition in Egypt these days, an unstated contest among people eager to prove just how religious they are. The field of battle is the street and the focus tends to be on appearance, as opposed to conviction.

It is not that the two are mutually exclusive, but they are not necessarily linked. As Egyptians increasingly emphasize Islam as the cornerstone of identity, there has been a growing emphasis on public displays of piety.

For women, that has rapidly translated into the nearly universal adoption of the hijab, a scarf fitted over the hair and ears and wrapped around the neck. For men, it is more and more popular to have a zebibah.

The zebibah, Arabic for raisin, is a dark circle of callused skin, or in some cases a protruding bump, between the hairline and the eyebrows. It emerges on the spot where worshipers press their foreheads into the ground during their daily prayers.

It may sometimes look like a painful wound, but in Egypt it is worn proudly, the way American professionals in the 1980s felt good about the dark circles under their eyes as a sign of long work hours and little sleep.

Two decades ago, Egypt was a Muslim country with a relatively secular style. Nationalism and Arabism had been the foundation of identity. But today, Egypt, like much of the Arab Middle East, is experiencing the rise of Islam as the ideology of the day.

With that, religious symbols have become the fashion.

“The zebibah is a way to show how important religion is for us,” said Muhammad al-Bikali, a hairstylist in Cairo, in an interview last month. Mr. Bikali had a well-trimmed mustache and an ever-so-subtle brown spot just beneath his hairline. “It shows how religious we are. It is a mark from God.”

Figs

Photo: Tony Cenicola
NYTimes:
Dried fruits enrich holidays in Italy. White figs from Campania are mixed with raisins, citrus peels and almonds, then soaked in rum and fig molasses. Gift-wrapped in fig leaves by Santomiele, they are $30 from www.gustiamo.com.

Reading

Pralus

Photo: Tony Cenicola
NYTimes:
Chocolate from 10 far-flung sources, for the intellectual taster on the gift list to compare, includes Tanzania (fruity), Venezuela (hinting of coffee) and Papua New Guinea (suggests grilled almonds). A set of the colorfully wrapped 1.8-ounce bars, all 75 percent cacao bittersweet and made by Pralus in Roanne, France, is $49.95 from worldwidechocolate.com and $48 at Takashimaya.

Agostino Arrivabene

Sebastiane, psiconauta: 2006

National Museum of Iraq

Photo: Michael Kamber for The New York Times

"Intricately patterned stone panels were among the artifacts that proved too heavy for looters to haul off when the Baghdad Museum was overrun in 2003. The executive director, Amira Eidan, said today that she could not forecast when the museum might reopen again since restoration efforts had been slowed by insufficient funding. The cost of recovering the artifacts has consumed the bulk of her museum’s budget, and pieces sometimes turned up at foreign auctions but were too expensive or difficult to retrieve, she said."

John Lennon 1940-1980

Working Class Hero
Music/Lyrics: John Lennon

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

Los Angeles International Airport

Theme Building Restoration

Georges Simenon

“Attention should be paid to the New York Review of Books' continuing reissues of Georges Simenon. Simenon was legendary both for his literary skill–four or five books every year for 40 years–and his sexual capacity, at least to hear him tell it. What we can speak of with some certainty are the novels, which are tough, rigorously unsentimental and full of rage, duplicity and, occasionally, justice. Simenon's tone and dispassionate examination of humanity was echoed by Patricia Highsmith, who dispensed with the justice. Try one, and you'll want to read more.” –The Palm Beach Post

Obstruction of Justice

1. 18 U.S.C. sec. 1502(c): “Whoever corruptly . . . alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

18 U.S.C. sec. 1505: “Whoever corruptly . . . obstructs or impedes or endeavors to obstruct or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress. . . Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.”

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/index.html

Zegna

NYTimes: Zegna Sport’s Solar jacket, the company’s next step in high-function design. Tricked out with solar cells mounted on the collar, the jacket converts sunlight into energy that will recharge the battery in a cellphone, hand-held device or iPod in four hours. For urban outdoorsmen who don’t have much time to bask in the sun, the panels and battery element are detachable, so they can bask independently. In black or silver microfiber and neoprene, in bomber, $995, or three-quarter length, $1,095, at Ermenegildo Zegna Boutiques, (888) 880-3462.

NYTimes: The umbrella stand with a sponge base is $99 from (262) 884-0226 or www.designhousestockholm.com.

Pierre Paulin

Ribbon Chair
ca 1970

Supreme Court of the United States

Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times

Protesters outside the Supreme Court, where lawyers for Guantánamo Bay detainees were arguing that federal judges have jurisdiction to review their cases.

Barrow, Alaska

Photo: Damon Winter/The New York Times

A bone from a Bowhead whale skull rests on the arctic shore outside of Barrow as monument to the defining role that whaling plays for this coastal community.

Cady Noland

Photo: Jason Schmidt
“Log Cabin Blank With Screw Eyes and Cafe Door (Memorial to John Caldwell)”

Lee Harvey Oswald

23 November 1963
A Dallas police mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald from the 2007 documentary film "Oswald's Ghost," directed by Robert Stone.

Charles Ray

“Father Figure,” left, and “The New Beetle”
Matthew Marks: 522 West 22nd Street: Chelsea
Through 19 January 2008

Roberta Smith:

Mr. Ray’s first New York gallery exhibition since his 1998 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art is an obviously costly, deceptively sedate affair in which three very different works are set far apart in a bare, cavernous gallery. They indicate that he is becoming something of a sculptor’s sculptor, parlaying his interests into meditations on sculpture’s presence, above all its stillness and solidity, its ability to mimic yet deny life. Each work is more resonant than the next.

“Chicken” is a life-size porcelain and stainless-steel sculpture of a tiny chick breaking out of an egg. “The New Beetle” is a life-size sculpture, in cast stainless steel painted white that resembles vein-free white marble, of a naked young boy curled on the ground and resting on one hand while he plays with a toy car. The slouchy pose suggests Narcissus, but the boy is just the opposite, oblivious to himself and his nakedness, completely lost in the make-believe of the car, which is more exactly rendered than his face.

Like the fire truck, the third work, “Father Figure,” is a cast plastic toy enlarged to life size, a height of about eight feet. All green except for black tires, it shows a farmer driving a tractor; his head and torso are turned to the right as if to say hello. But the tractor is immensely powerful, and his body is fused with it in a way that seems implicitly monstrous. That the sculpture, which appears to be fairly lightweight unless you touch it, is actually solid stainless steel adds a primal force. This guy is Frankenstein’s monster on wheels, in a good mood for the moment, but don’t push it.

Richard Phibbs

Macaulay Culkin

Baquba

Photo: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty
A US soldier from Bravo Company, 1st Battallion, 38th Regiment Infantry, descends the stairs as he searches an Iraqi house for weapons and suspects during a morning patrol in the streets of Baquba, 27 November 2007. Seven Iraqis, among them three women and a child, were reported killed today by the US military, a day after Washington and Baghdad agreed to keep American forces in Iraq beyond 2008.
(via Andrew Sullivan)

Rob Fischer

Photo: George Hiroshe
"Your vigor for life appalls me"
Whitney Museum of Art
NYC

Viktor & Rolf

Photo: Jacques Brinon/AP

The designers Viktor Horsting, left, and Rolf Snoeren, will create a Black Label collection for 2009 for Samsonite.

London Underground

London Transport Museum

Diagram of the Registered Design version of the London Underground roundel, designed in c.1925 by Edward Johnston.

Martin Gamberger

Photo: Franics Ware
Gallery Furniture

Artek

Second Cycle Stools

Malibu

Photo: www.latimes.com

Jeff Koons

Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times

Jeff Koons’s “Rabbit” floated over Times Square during Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The helium “sculpture” was making its debut.

Blanchett

This performance is the reason to see
"I'm Not There."

The Death of Lily Bart

Photo: Erik Jacobs for the New York Times

Suicide or accident?
NYTimes:

A letter, recently brought to light, written by Wharton herself, seems to point to the suicide theory. It is dated Dec. 26, 1904, just a month before “The House of Mirth” began appearing in monthly installments in Scribner’s Magazine, and is addressed to Dr. Francis Kinnicutt, a well-known society doctor who specialized in the mental ailments of the well-to-do. The letter was found stuck into a first-edition copy of “The House of Mirth,” along with a poem, dated 1906.

The letter begins by resorting to the timeless disguise of the advice-seeker. “A friend of mine has made up her mind to commit suicide,” Wharton writes, “& has asked me to find out ... the most painless & least unpleasant method of effacing herself.”

Only on the second page does Wharton reveal that her “friend” is in fact a fictional character appearing in the pages of Scribner’s, explaining, “I have heroine to get rid of, and want some points on the best way of disposing of her.”