"The problem with kitsch is deeper than its appeal to the mob. Kitsch is an insult to the purposes of art."

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz has some interesting comments on what Starbucks has become, and what it should be. "Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee."

A collection of patterns from the inside of security envelopes. [via blankenship]

I love these renditions of the Republican elephant logo. I wonder if there are any good ones for the Democrat donkey, too?

The video for Daft Punk's song, Around the World. I hadn't seen that in about 10 years. Michael Gondry says about directing the video: "I was sick to see choreography being mistreated in videos like filler with fast cutting and fast editing, really shallow. I don't think choreography should be shot in close-ups."

"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know." I was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a kid.

Tiny Showcase is releasing a cool limited-edition set of letterpress artwork to accompany the release of Beasts!, an illustrated, collaborative bestiary of old supernatural creatures.

Chimpanzees are making weapons. [via justin blanton]

This Godless Communism was a multi-issue comics series published by the Catholic Guild beginning in 1961. It even has a foreword by J. Edgar Hoover.

Jonathan Safran Foer's essay on emptiness and his collection of empty sheets of paper.

Merlin Mann is starting a little video show. Widescreen, to boot. I hope they're all that way---GTD is all about peripheral vision.

I'd like to cover a friend's car in post-it notes, but I haven't decided which one yet.

Artwork made out of Rubik's cubes. [via svn]

Kottke points to the audio and video for a talk that Chris Ware recently gave at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

BackpackingLight has a podcast with Scott Williamson, who was the first hiker to yo-yo the Pacific Crest Trail. A PCT yo-yo entails walking from the Mexico-California border northward to the Washington-Canada border, and back south to Mexico again, 2650 miles each way. He was also the first to yo-yo the PCT a second time---that one only took 191 days. Last fall I linked to an interesting, melodramatic essay on his several unsuccessful attempts before completing his first yo-yo. He has now hiked the PCT 9 times. I wish the words "truly inspirational" didn't sound so clich?©, because those are the best ones I can think of right now. Amazing.

South by Southwest Festival has released a ginormous .torrent file for our enjoyment. It's 3 gigs: 739 songs by 739 showcase groups. Surely there will be at least a couple songs that I'll like. [via waxy]

Economist Henry Hazlitt wrote an interesting critique of Marxist literary criticism: "There is in most of the new American "Marxist" critics a deplorable mental confusion, and this mental confusion, as I have hinted, is not necessarily connected with Marxism." This essay came in one of his books from the 1930s when Marxism in academia was just catching on.

Last fall the Guardian got a rare interview with Robert Pirsig, best known for his best-selling book from back in the 1970s, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values.

Mental note: I need to check out Art House in Decatur. In the meanwhile, I think I'll sign up for this Million Little Pictures interactive exhibit thing they're doing: "We're sending out disposable cameras to hundreds of people and then we're going to plaster our walls with the photos."

I noticed something the other day. For all of my book reviews, I'll give a capsule rating with scores ranging from 0-5. I put a pretty good bit of time into each one, flipping back through my notes, looking over the dog-eared pages, tracking down links online, etc. When I first start writing the review, I'll go ahead and write the draft title in the usual format: Title (review: rating). What I've found is about ¾ of the time, my rating for the book will creep upwards as I write my review for it. I read this good advice about learning the other day: "If you don't understand something, try to explain it out loud, then listen to yourself." It's a challenge to look over a book try to sniff out the big ideas, highlight what is interesting, and articulate what I learned---and to figure out how to share that without rambling on for 5,000 words (which isn't bad, but this blog is the wrong context). It brings to mind that old quip: "Learn to pause... or nothing worthwhile will catch up with you."

There's something about the process of looking over the book again and taking a while to reflect on everything, letting ideas and impressions gel together, that increases my evaluation of it. It's no accident that "appraise" (to evaluate) and "appreciate" (to recognize quality) share the same etymological roots. It takes some time, but the result is worth it: I think more highly of what I understand more clearly.