Old School Classic

South Bay Wheelmen old school wool cycling jersey.  Classic.  But on a 2-hr ride this afternoon with the temperature hovering around 50F, its turns priceless when used with arm and leg warmers.  I actually have 3 of these South Bay jerseys which I'm guessing are from the early 80s.  The old cycling jersey designs were much simpler without the visual clutter of sponsorship and advertising.

Now Why Didn't Bose Think of That

Skullcandy seems to have fixed a couple issues I've had with headphones for years.  Nothing sucks more than spending a couple hundred dollars on a nice sounding pair and at some point, usually after the warranty runs out, the headphone cable pinches and the wire breaks rendering my toy unusable.  The Skullcandy Aviator had a simple solution to that by putting a headphone jack on the unit so a pinched cable problem is just that -- a cable problem.  I can go to any electronics store and buy another cable.  Which brings me to the second problem this innovative design idea solves.  Cables that are not long enough.  Sure, I can buy some extender but with the Aviator, I just buy a longer cable. And oh, by the way, these sound better (to me at least) than all models I tried except for a $300 Sony.  The Skullycandy Aviator sells for $138 at Best Buy.

Contrasting Exhibitions at PMCA

What looks like a Romulan mining spaceship crossing a wormhole boundary is actually a piece of artwork by Layer (an architectural firm owned by Lisa Little and Emily White) on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA).  This work (above) occupies the museum lobby and is pointed toward the San Gabriel mountains are it protrudes out facing north.  The work is obviously digital in origin and while it may have been executed by humans and assembled by human hands, it is machine-made.  Currently showing at PMCA is a comprehensive display of Edgar Payne's plen air oil paintings (below) from the early part of the previous century.  The galleries exhibited several themes to Payne's works -- the Sierra Nevadas, the Alps, the Southwest and ships.  I cannot help but contrast the works by Layer against those of Payne, separated by about a century in time.  Intuitively, I would be excited with the more modern work but Payne's Sierra Nevada mountain and Southwest painting were something to behold.  Layer's drawings, computer generated and all, may have some interesting algorithms behind them but somehow felt lifeless.  I almost felt the same emotion looking at Layer's works that I experience when I look at a visually and mathematically interesting graphic of a fractal.  While they may represent our best guess at how nature can be described via math and algorithms, I don't feel artistic emotion towards either fractals or Layer's works.  Art is about the human experience, right?  I may also have been biased by two of Payne's subject because I felt I had been there in the landscapes that he saw and painted.  The question remains.  How do you make digital art more "human"?

The Smith Center, Las Vegas

The Smith Center is one of the more interesting buildings I have had the chance to visit in the last 10 years.  The one word I would pick to describe the architecture is "timeless".  Primarily of an art deco design heritage, the Smith Center opened its first season earlier this year and I had the good fortune to see the legendary flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia last month.  Unlike the modern appeal of any of Frank O'Gehry, who ironically has a building a block away, the Smith Center is about classical lines and materials that are intended to stand the test of time.  A hundred years from now, I can only imagine how people will perceive modern architectural works but with the Smith Center, I don't really have to speculate as we all know that art deco has withstood the test of time.  Besides timeless, expensive is the other word that comes to mind.  From the chandeliers to the trash can to door handles, everything is custom and perfectly fabricated.  Another reason to visit Sin City.  The other irony in my whole experience is I was forced to find another venue where Paco was playing since his show at the Walt Disney Concert Hall (another Gehry building) was sold out.  Driven by my determination to see Paco, I knew I was willing to travel distances to any concert.  Serendipity.  A happy accident.  A discovery.