Author: swanksalot

Always good to have a second user look at things

Reading Around on October 21st through October 28th

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A few interesting links collected October 21st through October 28th:

  • Eat More Black Pepper to Increase Your Food’s Nutritional Value [Health] – Black pepper is often thought of as a last minute ditch to save a flavorless dish, but it really plays a powerful role in your bodies ability to absorb nutrients from the foods you eat—even the healthy ones.The amount of nutrients your body consumes from a food is called bioavailability, which is always less than what your food truly contains.

  • They Eat Horses, Don’t They? : Horsemeat is a delicacy in many countries, but not America – CHOW – Eating horsemeat in America is perfectly legal, according to Steven Cohen of the USDA’s food safety and inspection service. If it seems wrong, that’s not the law—that’s, well, you. But bear in mind that the Japanese and many Europeans eat all kinds of horse: horse sashimi in Japan; horse tartare or steak in Belgium; pastissada, or horsemeat stew, in Italy’s Veneto. Fears of mad cow disease in recent years prompted a spike in horsemeat prices in Germany and Italy.If it seems wrong, that’s not the law—that’s, well, you.

  • Auto bailout: Steven Rattner on how the Obama team did it – Oct. 21, 2009 – We were shocked, even beyond our low expectations, by the poor state of both GM and Chrysler. Looking just at the condition of GM’s finances and Chrysler’s new-car pipeline, the case for a bailout was weak.…Everyone knew Detroit’s reputation for insular, slow-moving cultures. Even by that low standard, I was shocked by the stunningly poor management that we found, particularly at GM, where we encountered, among other things, perhaps the weakest finance operation any of us had ever seen in a major company.

Clarity of distress

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Clarity of distress
Clarity of distress, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

iPhone snapshot modified with Best Camera App

View On Black

probably my personal favorite iPhone snapshot, so far. Might be a copy of some famous photo, but not consciously, if at all.

Street corner in the rain

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Street corner in the rain
Street corner in the rain, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

West Loop, from my office window. Modified with Best Camera app

View On Black

if I had opened this on my computer before uploading, I might have cropped this a bit, but not drastically.

Reading Around on October 14th through October 15th

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A few interesting links collected October 14th through October 15th:

  • Today’s Weather: Dreary – Chicagoist – Another dark, damp, dank, dreary day for Chicago. Off and on rain showers coupled with highs in the mid 40s will give us an unseasonable chill for mid-October. If there’s any glimmer of hope, it’s that by Monday we could crack 70 degrees once more. Still, those warmer summer days are a distant memory far too soon. We dig the autumn, but were hoping for a gentler transition

  • Slightly Beyond the Shore

  • My First Look At Radio Free Albemuth – The Movie –

    About a month ago I had the opportunity to drive down to LA to see a screening of Radio Free Albemuth with director John Alan Simon. Pretty cool, I know. John wanted me to take a look at the current cut of the film before any further changes are ‘locked out’ and they begin the painstaking work of mixing and cleaning up the sound, correcting the color-timing, tweaking the special effects, and putting on the final polish.

    I really enjoyed the movie and think most Dick-heads are also going to like this film 1) it’s an independent release, so it’s free of dodgy chairs, high-speed chases, fight scenes, gun battles or Keanu, Tom, Nick, Arnold, or any other Scientologist; 2) and best of all, it’s very true to the book. While writer/director John Alan Simon was forced to cut some of the material from the novel, I think he did so in a very effective and sensitive way.

  • Mad About Mad Men – The Atlantic(November 2009) – The cognoscenti, though, have largely ignored this quiet virtue while extolling what are really the show’s considerable flaws. Ah, the media juggernaut. If Mad Men were half as good as the hype would have it, the show would be one of the best ever produced for American television. It’s both.

Reading Around on October 13th through October 14th

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A few interesting links collected October 13th through October 14th:

  • F.A.A. Proposes Fines for United and US Airways – NYTimes.com – $3.8 million fine against United for operating one of its Boeing 737 aircraft on more than 200 flights with shop towels covering openings in an engine,
  • Vivian Maier – Her Discovered Work – THIS WAS CREATED IN DEDICATION TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER VIVIAN MAIER, A STREET PHOTOGRAPHER FROM THE 1950S – 1970S. VIVIAN’S WORK WAS DISCOVERED AT AN AUCTION HERE IN CHICAGO WHERE SHE LIVED FOR 50 YEARS BUT WAS ORIGINALLY A NATIVE TO FRANCE. HER DISCOVERED WORK INCLUDES OVER 40,000 MOSTLY MEDIUM FORMAT NEGATIVES. BORN FEBRUARY 1, 1926 AND PASSED AWAY ON TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009.
  • Critics’ Picks: Call it the “liberal Bible” | Salon Arts & Entertainment –

  • “Life of the World to Come (Dig)” (Mountain Goats)

    “Darnielle claims he’s always been fascinated by religious texts, but up until now more secular fixations have dominated his music: Ruptured relationships, literary heroes and his own difficult childhood are among the most common subjects of nearly two decades’ worth of studiously lo-fi Mountain Goats songs. And, as a die-hard black metal fan who, last year, published a short novel based on Black Sabbath’s “Master of Reality,” Darnielle may seem a particularly unlikely candidate to explore the spiritual.”


    “Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality: 33 1/3” (John Darnielle)

    Didn’t know who wrote this book, just thought it unreadable. I got through about ten pages before tossing it to the floor in disgust. Maybe there is more to it, but it wasn’t obvious.

Reading Around on October 6th through October 13th

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A few interesting links collected October 6th through October 13th:

  • Army of Shadows :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies – “The members of this group move between safe houses, often in the countryside. When they determine they have a traitor among them, they take him to a rented house, only to learn that new neighbors have moved in. They would hear a gunshot. A knife? There is no knife. “There is a towel in the kitchen,” Gerbier says. We see the man strangled, and rarely has an onscreen death seemed more straightforward, and final.”
  • 1000 Constellations » Blog Archive » Together In Transit – I realized yesterday While riding on a train Crammed full of people That we never really get Second chances. What we truly get Are first chances Over and over Again.
  • The Footnotes of Mad Men. Betty’s Euro Look was based on Brigette Bardot – RESOLVED: Betty’s Euro look was based on Brigette Bardot: the 26 year old ‘sex siren’ of France. Here’s my favorite work from the Bardot cannon. The movie — by Godard, set in Italy, released in 1963 — is not only super slick but it also spawned, I believe, the greatest trailer of all time. I’ve been aching to link to this.