Jan van Raay, Xerographic Fishwork, 1977.
Jan van Raay now has an official website. Over the years she has been a photographer, a painter, a writer, a performance artist, and an early innovator of photocopier art, among other things. She also happens to be my mom. Welcome to the web, Mom!
Being born with a name like mine puts you in a strange position: in most places, at most times, you are unique. I’ve met maybe three other Cassidys in my lifetime. One of them was a woman, which was more than a bit disturbing, because she waited tables at my favorite cafe for a few months. But in general, I go through life pretty sure that if someone says “Cassidy” they probably mean me.
On the intarwebs, though, everything is different. Namespace collapses all us Cassidys and Curtises into one great big hash. Last names, first names, hyphenated names, who cares? It’s all just text.
So I thought you might like to meet some of the people I’m not:
Curtis Cassidy is a Canadian rodeo star. He looks much better in a cowboy hat than I ever will.
Timothy Cassidy-Curtis is an aerospace engineer. He got his sur-surname from his wife, presumably sometime after I was born. However, I was not consulted in this decision.
Lucy Cassidy Curtis may have been the first person on record, born in 1910, to have both of my names. Luckily for me, she didn’t think to park the domain way back then.
Good lord of bad translations! I haven’t laughed this hard since I don’t know when. I’ve always been a huge fan of good language turned bad, no matter what the source. I once ate at a restaurant in Brazil that offered “Homelike Candies”, “Soaked Gold in Pieces”, “Half Kilo of Meat of Male Goat Roasted in the Ember”, and my all-time favorite, “Meat Fudge”. That same trip, I made my first and most glorious mistake in Portuguese when I asked the coconut-seller for “three shit waters, please”. Much eye-rolling ensued. But no two languages are more awkwardly matched than English and Chinese.
I dare you to read the whole menu and see if you can finish it without weeping real tears.
If that doesn’t do it, this one may send you over the top.
Thanks to Dado for the link.
There were rumors of snow in San Francisco today! Unfortunately those of us with day jobs in the burbs couldn’t be here to witness it in action… but we drove up to the top of Twin Peaks tonight to see if there was anything left. All we found were remnants of a slushy sleety crust. But it was still quite a thing to see our breath and feel real ice crunching beneath our shoes!
The only thing better than brunch on a rainy Sunday is brunch with dear friends, hundred-year-old comics, the Puzzle, and a camera shooting timelapse. Taken at the Rodenbecks’ stylish and newly de-bachelorized pad. (This one is a half-second exposure every ten seconds. I may have to spring for a neutral-density filter so I can get longer exposures by daylight!)
Had a little fun with the remote timer at a friend’s birthday dinner last night… we ate at Foreign Cinema, a very nice restaurant where they project movies in the courtyard. The movie this evening was Koyaanisqatsi, so a little timelapse photography just seemed like the natural thing to do. I’m trying out YouTube for the first time to see how well it works. You can click the Play button above to see the movie, or link directly to the video here.
The great confluence of geeky and crafty continues! Jacob Haller is knitting a Moebius Strip. With purple yarn, no less. I stumbled upon it while searching for images for this conversation about edgeless jigsaw puzzles.
Makes me glad to be alive, this does.
