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.