The Princess Borg

I saw this window display at the Disney Store on Fifth Ave. last week.

Beyond the pure plastic warmth it generates, it's good to see that Disney is attuned to the aspirations of the modern young woman, who I'm sure wants nothing more than to: (1) be a princess, (2) fit in and cooperate with other, identical princesses, and (3) give herself over to the Hive Mind of the Princess Borg -- which, spread over the hundreds of identical units forming the body of the Borg, makes a head unnecessary.

Idea: Agents with Dirty Faces

Another clip employing an agent, this one with a (sort of) human face superimposed to let the agent's mouth show through.  (The V on top is a leftover from the word balloon, not antennae.)

This was done in 2000-1; now I'm sure you can take images of a person, wrap them around a 3D "avatar," and unleash an army of clones on virtual worlds.

And isn't that the ultimate goal of progress** -- to let each of us become, if not god of our own universe, at least warlord of our own virtual shantytown?

** It is my theory that there is technological progress, which changes our perspective just enough to make the constantly recycled issues we face look brand new.  Computers have sped up that progress to the point that we are now in a perspective spin-cycle.

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A yard means work, unless you give it to the weeds or plug it with concrete.  The wise homeowners above left split the difference with a block of hedge.

It reminds me of the mini Black Forest two blocks away, above right.

Below left, a mangy stuffed bird serves as xmas-bush ornament and hides from the fierce turkey-eagles that dominate Greenpoint (right).  I would zoom-in to show the stuffed bird's face, but it doesn't seem to have one; I guess the owner dropped out of taxidermy school halfway through.

Tree Lights 1

(Left: McCarren Park; right: Tompkins Square Park)
I haven't had one for years, but a warm holiday constant for me was the xmas tree -- sometimes pathetically crooked, or puny and plastic, but always with lights blinking slowly, with the warmth of a fire and the suggestion of life.

Maybe those embedded memories are what draw me to lights and trees in daylight.  Or maybe it's the suggestion of neurons at work.

Goldilocks in Greenpoint

Shirtsleeve ice fishing above left: nice, but too kitschy.

Plastic crèche above right: though it looks like you could reuse it on Halloween (hang the angels upside down as bats, remove the already creepy choirboy's head and put it on a turntable so it rotates, screaming), it's just too depressing to look at.

Grandma's house, hidden on a dark sooty McGuiness Blvd. corner, that hasn't changed much since 1922: just right.

(Yes, I did remove soot and improve the light.)

See-Through Earth

I really like the moody picture below, and enjoyed visiting the UniSphere out in Flushing Meadows, Queens for the first time.  Note the subtle blue glow on the underside of the bars above right -- reflected from the Doughboy pool-like blue lining below the sphere.

You can't see the birds that were lined up on the Equator in these pictures, but you can see that Australia is not -- as I thought -- the polar opposite of the U.S.

Note the picture below is my Official 2007 Holiday Picture.

Gadget Center

It's a holiday project, it's a necklace, it's a Portable Gadget Center... it's 3 things in one!

Robert, the man wearing this functional accessory at the Astor Place Starbucks -- where faux-Bohemia meets plenty of "street people" -- says he built it to improve his mood over the holidays.

Maybe it was the coffee, but he seemed to be in a pretty good mood.

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Did the chrome fences and Dogpatch dawns of Greenpoint (orange side above) inspire the shiny fences and Beverly Hillbilly barrels of the Wastewater Trail (blue/gray side above)?


And is a before/after relation on a relation just too inbred to survive?

Chainstore Holiday Windows

I've featured holiday window displays the past few years, but ignored those hosted by chainstores.  (Yes, "chainstore" is one word now, just like chainsaw.)

Duane Reade drugstores seem to sit on every block in Manhattan, in between a Starbucks and a Chase Bank.  Above is a cheery window display in their outlet at 14th & Third.

I'm all for recycling, so it doesn't bother me that the display serves as compost pile for damaged bags of cotton and dying house plants.

In fact it warms my heart to imagine that the poor wilted plant -- starved its whole life under fluorescent light and shivering in the snow in that humiliating red foil skirt, all alone except for defective ornaments and stray boll weevil parts sprinkled on the snow -- will soon be in heaven with Santa.

Table Turners

An abstract picture is always right in front of you.  These photos are from a cafe table top (and made me think of Turner's trademark atmospheric swirl).

Note the jagged digital "artifacts" disturbing the smooth natural blur of each image, introduced by Photoshop compressing it to 5% of its original size.

It's nice to think of all the encoding that goes into these JPEG picture files, making them not really planes of pixels at all, but nasty mathematical stuff describing what you see...

Holiday $pirit

Rothman's on Union Square installed this heart-warming window display for the holidays.

I like the way the flag reflection sits like a star atop the Xmas money tree, but the only thing that could redeem the "greed is good" theme here is gasoline and a match.

The list in the middle suggests Rothman's doesn't see much potential in the female demographic.  The meat of its message: You poor guy... you had to spend thousands to get your wife a face lift before you could take her on vacation, and thousands on your mistress before she'd spend a weekend with you... so why not spend something here?

I get that the store wants some of that Wall Street money before it all disappears into offshore bank accounts.  What I don't get is the "He trims the tree..." at the bottom.

Does Debt (with the bag on his head) trim the tree with enough borrowed joy to make it through the holidays, so you can wait until the new year to go bankrupt and into rehab?

Or is "he" the evil twin mannequin on the left with the pruning shears, out to wreak vengeance and trim the tree of humanity for giving him a life of luxury in window displays, but no genitalia?