Easy, Breezy, Hat-Wearing

Check out the hotly anticipated (by me) book cover over on Our Bodies, Our Blog. As I expected, it's beyond awesome.

There I am right in the middle. Good thing I sent in the picture of me wearing a goofy hat. Nothing else would have been nearly as cool.

My grandmother knit that hat for me, you know. She'll be proud.

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The Lightly-Armored Fighter Collection

There's a thing, in the fantasy game world, that we can call the "Chain Mail Bikini Thing."

This is where, traditionally, male characters are drawn in some sort of full armor, such as might prevent a weapon from piercing, slashing or directly bludgeoning the flesh, and female characters are drawn in, well, some variation of a chain mail bikini.

A chain mail bikini cannot logically be supposed to provide the sort of physical protection from damage that armor with more coverage would offer, but it is explained, in practical terms, with the argument that men like to look at scantily clad women.

This may well be so. And you know, I'm willing to buy that magical chain mail bikinis may offer an armor bonus beyond what would be expected from something that leaves so many vital organs unprotected. I've decided that I can hardly object to chain mail bikini depictions, provided we can start getting some similarly magical armor for male characters.

It could be based on a wide variety of classical models, some of which may be seen in the following photos I took in the Louvre. I would be happy to see any of them in a future rule book or video game. (Of course I was thinking about games in the Louvre. What did you expect?)

I guess I should warn that some of these are not NSFW since there are some naked manly bits, but it's art, so I think we're cool. A greater problem is the rather poor image quality, for which I apologize.

 Basically just naked. A perfectly good look. Simple and to the point, if not allowing for a lot in the way of armor customization for the player.

Naked and striking a pose! Yes indeed.

 Naked save for a handsome drapery. In-game, this could be cut from a variety of fabrics and colors to personalize your character's look while still leaving plenty of enticing skin exposed.

Naked, but with the trace of some sort of buckler or something. The guy's not un-armored, he just travels light.

If David can slay Goliath in this smart hat and velvet loincloth, I don't really see why anyone needs anything more.

One of my favorites. This gentleman is definitely not naked: he's got a shield, sandals, some sort of shoulder sash, a nice bit of draping, and a helmet. At the same time, there's a lot of skin to admire. With proper enchantments on these items, I honestly don't see why any male fighter should wear more than this.

Again, with good spells on his sandals, shield and helmet, he shouldn't have to worry about a complete lack of protection on his back and torso.

I like to think this is sort of the Chain Mail Speedo.

This is honestly a bit more armor than I like to see on a man, but it's at least skin tight on the chest, so I'm going to let it slide. It would also be appropriate for a science fiction game, where skin tight is the name of the game.

I like the way this guy has a fairly substantial cloak over one shoulder, but still doesn't bother to put anything around his middle. This is called confidence.

This poor fellow seems to have just been stabbed through the chest, suggesting that the magic on his helmet and shoulder strap may have failed. It's important to get quality spells!

If you can kill a snake with a rock while in the nude, you're all right with me.

Identifying information suggested this gentleman was a captive, so he could potentially have been stripped of more armor prior to the sculpting of this likeness, but he was a fighter, so I included him.

The old 'helmet, drape and shoulder strap' look. It's a good one, and I would like to see more of it.

Bringing down a deer, clad only in a bit of fur. This is also a good look for a male warrior.


Obviously, men as well as women are perfectly capable of fighting battles in skimpy outfits. I call on game illustrators to extend the magic of the chain mail bikini to proud male warriors who would also enjoy not having to sweat inside heavy armor!

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Non-Dull, Non-Gray History

I 'starred' this for later revisiting a long time ago, when I saw it in a couple of places, but I never got around to mentioning it. This must be remedied!

If you haven't, you should really take a look at these color photos taken between 1939 and 1943.

They were in an exhibit at the Library of Congress, and are reposted in larger versions by the Denver Post. There are 70 pictures, mainly of people in small towns or rural settings all over the United States. People working, or at school, at a square dance, at the fair.

They're really pretty amazing to look at. It's a little weird, actually, how amazing it is to me to see the world in color in 1939. You wouldn't think it should be that big a deal.

Because obviously I know the world wasn't black and white at the time even though most of the pictures are. Things had color if you were there.

But years later, not being able to see what color things were, even knowing intellectually that there were all the same common shades we have today, I still sort of think of the whole world being gray in the past. I can't help it. I know it wasn't, but I see it that way, because those are the picture I've seen of it.

So it's really kind of wonderful to see it in color.

What strikes me most, in a way, is the clothing. Look--they had brightly colored patterns on their dresses! Look at that bright red cap!

I think the clothes get me because I can't fill in color for them normally. I mean, I know what colors people are, more or less. When I see skin tones in varying shades of gray, my brain can kind of fill in the varying shades of pink or tan or brown that the picture probably represents in real life.

Also, I know what colors fields and trees and sky are, so I can sort of fill that in too.

But clothing could really be any color, and there's not much of a standard for it, so I think in a way I'm more likely to just leave it gray in my mind.

I guess my default image of the past is fairly normally colored people in relatively normally colored (though kind of drab) landscapes, all dressed in shades of gray. Living in gray houses, with gray furniture.

Seeing fabrics in blue, and purple, and red, and with different-colored flowers, really breaks up that default image in a dramatic way.

It pulls the past a lot closer for me.

Black and white means a long time ago, over on the other side of a line that divides history from now.

Color means, hey, this is actually the exact same world I'm in right now, just not at the same time. People wearing clothes with color, in landscapes with bright color that's not drab at all.

Yeah, you should check out those pictures. As I said, I saw them mentioned in a couple of places, but the one I remember at the moment was Sociological Images, which also has some interesting commentary.

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Capture the Elusive Building

The ACLU confirms that you have the sacred right to photograph federal buildings.

This is a relief to me, since I have based my retirement plans on becoming a famous and ridiculously well compensated federal-building-photographer.

Yeah, OK, I haven't. In fact, I have rarely had any desire to photograph a federal building, other than the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica, where I wanted to memorialize the thin yoga mat in someone's cubicle on which I and my sister slept for a couple of frigid nights while Hurricane Dean bore down on us.

Most people do not pack warm clothes when they go to Jamaica, but if there's any chance that you'll be sealed inside a highly air-conditioned building for days, you really ought to consider it.

Anyway, the point is that federal buildings belong to citizens, so go out there and take some photos. Here's the important info:

The three-page document plainly states that “absent reasonable suspicion or probable cause” security personnel must allow individuals to “photograph the exterior of federally owned or leased facilities from publicly accessible spaces.”

Do it!

The keen mind will note that the document in question does not actually cover what I wanted to photograph, which was the interior of an Embassy from a space that was not open to the public. But if I want to go back and take a picture of the outside of that building--which I probably will not, but one never knows--I'm golden.

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Horrific Photos!

I heard from some friends that they have a digital camera with a 'food mode,' so that food will look as appetizing in pictures as it does on the table.

I think I need a 'bruise mode,' so that these interesting marks would look as impressive in pictures as they do on the flesh.

Lacking that, however, I'll just toss up these health-related images of my poor old shoulder and knee about a week post-accident.

Getting some nice shades of purple and yellow in there, aren't we? There are also some lovely subtle greenish tones on my wrist and hand that I didn't even bother trying to photograph since it wouldn't have come out.

The abrasion on my forehead (a bit Harry Potter-ish, though not zig-zagged) is already fading. It was just a little airbag burn, nothing major. I probably will not scar noticeably from any of this, although I do hear that broken clavicles often heal with a bump.

I was always wickedly vain about my lovely collar bones, so this will be a hard blow, but if I had any pictures of the car for comparison it would be clear that this is a pretty decent result.

Charred to a cinder, it was! At least on the inside. It was hard to tell it even had front seats.

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Things Near My Heart Today

First, my ribs. Always. (Ah, I amuse myself.)

Then, a bit too late for my most recent photo-posting, Librarian By Day (via iLibrarian) posts a nice set of instructions on how to credit a Creative Commons photo from Flickr.

HealthBolt stresses the need to use antibiotics properly. And even links to a nifty quiz from the CDC to test your antibiotics knowledge! (Although when I tried to take it, I got an 'error' message after I hit 'submit,' so I was unable to confirm that my antibiotic knowledge is staggeringly vast).

And as I was just thinking about stored records and what that means for our memory, here's a piece from Library Journal on that subject.

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Glamour! OK, Glamour Over.

I was at a photo shoot for a Zipcar story yesterday, and got my hair and makeup done. This is extremely rare in my world. It looked OK--nice but minimal.

The thing is, this mascara is still on. I know you're not supposed to sleep in it, but I don't own industrial-strength makeup remover, and I can't get it off. I'm afraid all my eyelashes are going to fall out.

Anyway, watch your newsstand for the August 14th issue of Fortune. I might be visible in a crowd of people sitting on a Toyota Tacoma.

Or not. I figure the odds are good they won't actually use the shot, and I got PerMascara for nothing. Well, not nothing. I got some cookies, and a cute Zipcar flash drive.

Should you ever be called to one, please be aware that photo shoots take just about forever. Plan to stay many hours.

My Old Library

Naturally I needed to get a picture of myself in the stacks at the library while I was back on campus this weekend.

I found that I remembered the place pretty well and it was all basically as I recalled, except that I had to ask where the restrooms were.

I spent a lot of time in the library while in college, but apparently (and to the benefit of all, no doubt) was not in the bathroom for very much of it.

Not shown in this photo: the awesomely dim and spooky periodicals section in the basement, or the little nook under the back stairs where I would occasionally go for a quick nap when the studying went to my head but I still had more reserve reading to do and couldn't go back to my room quite yet.

I have a black bag in my hand, which is why I appear to have a bulge on one leg. The bag was full of important items, like my other T-shirt from the weekend, and a purple feather boa. (Don't leave home without it!)

Naughty Pictures?

Navelgazing Midwife has posted an Open Letter to YouTube, which apparently (based on anecdotal evidence about women the author knows) has been removing videos showing women giving birth.

The post notes that "Whereas most in our computerized culture never see another baby being born until we have our own, YouTube gave women a window into one of the most basic and universal experiences on earth," and laments that this opportunity seems to have been withdrawn.

Whether this is a YouTube policy or not is unclear. The Community Guidelines don't mention birth---they mention "sexually explicit content," but many people (including me) would argue that birth, while it may feature graphic nudity and have a certain implied relationship with sex in the past, is not "sexually" explicit.

There's a similarity here to the question of whether women are allowed to post pictures of themselves nursing their babies on Facebook. It's a little bit of someone's breast and a baby's head. What's the big deal?

So is it appropriate to show birth on YouTube? And nursing mothers on Facebook?

I don't set the rules, but I would say yes.

I can see how these could be the kinds of thing that some people would not want to see, but there are a lot of things on the internet, and even just on YouTube and Facebook, that I have no interest in seeing.

I avoid looking at them, and there we are. It's a little system I've been working on.

But what about the children?! What if little Billy is mousing around YouTube and comes across a video of someone giving birth and is scarred for life?

Again...there are a lot of things online that might scar poor little Billy. I feel bad for him, because he's got his work cut out to grow up with an unwarped mind if he goes anywhere near that thing [i.e. the internet].

Sympathetic though I am, however, I personally find it hard to get worked up about birth and nursing, when presented with the plethora of other exciting mind-warp options out there.

Besides, what about the grown-ups?! The pregnant women and their partners who might really appreciate the opportunity to see what it is they're going to go through? The mothers and their friends and family who might happen to think images of themselves nourishing their children are beautiful and worth sharing?

So if you ask me, post the birth videos and nursing pictures.

I Know There's a Better Way

--to get photos into Picasa than just uploading five at a time. I even know what it is, because it's right there: Uploader for Mac. 

But I can't make it work, and in my dazed, vacation-brained state it's somehow easier to upload my photos slooooooooowly a few at a time than try to figure it out.

I'm trying to finish an important science fiction novel at the same time, so the pauses between one 'choose photo' episode and the next are actually useful. Or so I tell myself.

In an utterly unrelated note, I want to salute Cara at The Curvature for two lengthy, detailed, and beautifully thought-out posts on Yoko Ono and her relationship with John Lennon and, by extension, the Beatles. I'm sticking it in here because I am unlikely to have a more graceful segue to the topic anytime soon, and found this analysis of a subject that has become part of pop-cultural history fascinating.

So yeah, that's all.

Rainy Day

Here's a picture of the view from my window this afternoon. The rainbows (you may be just barely able to make out the second one on the left) were a clear signal that it was time to declare freedom from the office and race hooting into the streets to revel in the beauty of nature. 

That, and it was 5:00 pm.

Those rocket-silo-y things in the foreground? Yeah, those are rocket silos. 

The rest of y'all can get careless if you want, but Boston is prepared for the Martian invasion.

And to Show I'm Serious--

Here's a picture of the rabbit that lives on our grounds. Look, you can just make out its cotton tail! (Now 50% wool.)

Actually, it's probably one of many rabbits similar in appearance. Since it was not readily identifiable, and also it ran away when I got closer, I did not get a signed permission slip.

I think wild rabbits are much cuter than domesticated ones. Especially the domesticated ones with big floppy ears. Rabbits should have tall, perky ears, the better to hear things coming! Like me, with my camera. 

Posting Photos: Buildings are Fair Game

Since many, including myself, have wondered about the legal implications of posting photos online if they show people at library events (do we need permission from every person depicted? permission of parents for minors? should we just stick to pictures of plants and landscapes?), I must note this helpful article that LibrarianInBlack uncovered in Marketing Library Services.

Titled "Laws for Using Photos You Take at Your Library," it concisely addresses the legal rights of publicity and privacy, how to write a consent form, and how long to keep the consent forms.

And yes, the general rule seems to be that you need permission from identifiable persons if you're going to post pictures of them. 

This is why I only take photos of people wearing furry animal masks. It keeps things simple. 

Although a follow-up question would be, what if someone was wearing a really unique, handmade mask that everyone who knew them would immediately recognize as theirs? What if you took a crowd shot with no visible faces, but someone had a really identifiable back? (Say they had a dramatic neck tattoo.)

Clearly this question is not entirely settled, but I think we can safely say that caution is warranted. And when in doubt, just take pictures of flowers, buildings, attractive landscapes, and people in mass-produced furry animal masks. 

Facing the Web

Not to just be constantly obsessing over Facebook---I'm aware there are other fine technologies out there---but I found a couple of quite interesting articles that made me think about it again.

One, from the Boston Phoenix, addresses Facebook phobia, which the article defines not so much as the fear of Facebook as a site, but as the sense of social uneasiness one feels when one's every published mood swing and activity ("Jane is weeping and drinking wine") is broadcast to every person on one's social network. 

The piece talks about the pressure to select just the right titles for the favorite movies, music and TV shows sections, the nerve-wrackingly public nature of changing your relationship status, and the general anxiety of feeling that people you know from all kinds of places (work, high school, family) can see and perhaps judge your profile.

I can see what the article is saying, and have only my own experiences to go on by way of argument, but I have to wonder if most people really take Facebook profiles so seriously. I mean, yeah, I think about what I put on there, but I don't assume other people are studying it in any kind of depth, nor do I carefully pore over my friends' profiles for clues to anything in particular. 

Future research studies may reveal more!

The second piece, from Slate, is called How to take a Web head shot, and has relevance beyond the merely Facebookian, since as the article notes, it seems a lot of things (Gmail, Apple for iChat, blogs, social networking communities) want your picture these days.

The article discusses the challenges of finding the right picture, some popular picture types (with a link to a fun Guardian article detailing nine common styles for byline photos), and some common responses to the demand for photos (some pick a photo and use it everywhere, some carelessly post hundreds of photos, some refuse to include an image at all).

Remember for a moment how much attention people used to lavish on the perfect quote for their e-mail signature. Now that self-conscious energy is applied to a photo.

I do vaguely remember the era of carefully-chosen email signature quotes, and can sympathize with the pressure of trying to find just the right one, something that expresses something key about oneself, but will also append nicely to messages from "wanna go out later for beer?" to "I'm delighted to announce my engagement to the love of my life" to "I'm saddened to announce that my father was just brutally murdered by me." 

The whole problem was too much for me, and I personally have never used a signature quote. I've been known to express various things via photos, I suppose, from the careless, frequently-changed one, to set-it-and-forget-it, to the artistically blurry and unrecognizable, depending on the context.

There's a definite feeling of revealing something significant when you put a photo on a public space, and I was leery of it for quite some time (and still am in some contexts). One notes the large number of blogs that have a (presumably) real name attached, but no picture. Keeping the headshot off the page seems like a way to keep a modicum of distance between the writer and the vast, adoring public (howdy public!). 

On the other hand, putting the picture right up there might be seen as a way to more publicly claim and own your words: "that's right, here I am, and I said this; what of it?" 

Me, I'm constantly looking to disown everything I ever muttered. Politics, you know.

Here, Have Some Photos

I really would have sworn I had more photos of Chicago from MLA, including some of the lake, and of my hotel room and the environs around where I stayed, and of the bus stop (it was near a nice park!), and the river, but my camera seems to have lost them.

There's some sort of data-losing thing sweeping through my life, in fact, what with these lost photos, and my hard drive suffering a fatal crash (resulting in many more lost photos due to tragically incomplete backup), and now the Creature is out of commission for the time being (although there were few photos there). I'm a little worried about what might happen next.

Possibly the apartment is going to catch fire and our wedding photos will burn. I swear, it's as if images are fleeing me. Visual evidence of my history is being erased! Now I can dye my hair black, and no one can prove it wasn't always that way.

In any case, here are pretty much the only photos from Chicago that remained on my camera.

Some handsome buildings near the main hotel:



And here are a couple of rather dramatic, artistically blurry shots from the window of the tower where the AMA reception was held:





Essentially, I have photos of buildings from below in the daytime, and from above at night, and that's it. Honestly, I was carrying that camera all over, and I thought I was doing a better job of capturing at least the cityscape, even if I didn't have many shots of people (and even if it took me a month to actually do anything with them).

But as I said, my photo luck has been bad this month. Good thing I wasn't in charge of documenting anything truly important. (MLA was important, but I wasn't in charge of documenting it, at least not in pictures.)

I do have some nice images of snow-covered trees from last winter, if anyone's interested.

Takin' Pictures

Ah, photos. I just got a digital camera for Christmas, and have been enjoying taking pictures of stuff. 

For example, please enjoy this image of some buildings I walk past on my way to work in the morning. 

I've also posted some photos on Facebook, and shared some on Picasa, though I keep those albums private and only send the link to people I want to see them. 

I tend to think that people don't care that much about most of my family event photos, and also that I don't care that much about having people see them indiscriminately...but it is incredibly nice to be able to share photos with the people I do want to see them, without having to print up copies, or attach them one by one to emails, or (back in the dark ages), get multiple prints developed and mail them to people (what are we, barbarians?).

I think photo-sharing has a lot of uses, because photos can often make clear things that are complex and difficult to explain in words. 

Also, people like to take pictures, and to share them with others, so there's an obvious social component that will be popular. 

Libraries could use photo-sharing features to post pictures of events, nice shots of the library looking libralicious, snapshots of employees, and so forth. It's often nice, while browsing a website, to get a picture of what the people involved look like (although it may also often be the case that I really don't care---it's of minor interest to me to see pictures of the manager of my bank or something).

Of course, some people don't really want their picture on the website of their place of employment, either. I'm indifferent, but I work with people who aren't comfortable with it: they're simply "more private people" and aren't interested in having just anyone with an internet connection be able to look at their picture.

So photo-sharing comes with some privacy concerns, and with the added twist of having people be able to post pictures of other people, not necessarily with the other person's consent or even knowledge. 

This tends to be legal, if the photo is taken in a public setting, but whether it's appropriate can still be a complicated issue. Should the library get permission from everyone in the audience at a poetry reading, before they post a group photo online? 

Should they get permission from parents to post photos that include children? 

Should they just stick to photos of buildings, the way I've done here?

Some buildings are extremely handsome, but what if you live in an ugly town? 

Clearly, this is an area with food for thought.