TK has a new post up on Andre Agassi’s newly-revealed crystal meth habit. Even by the standards of the ‘shocking, tell-all biography’, Agassi’s new book Open seems like a pretty dramatic public self-depantsing. Even the awful signature hair turns out to have been fake– a big bantam rooster-like wig that once nearly fell apart before a [...]

A few nights ago, the wife and I got some take-away food from the corner restaurant, Neklid (‘Turmoil’). I got my favorite dish: a steak cooked in pepper sauce with green beans wrapped in bacon and roast potatoes also cooked with bits of bacon. It’s like bowling a strike every time. Unfortunately, it also has [...]

I blogged a few months ago on Franco Grignani, distinctive zebra of the design kingdom: Reader DS alerts me to the existence of so-called Dazzle Camouflage, the British navy’s unlikely attempt to appropriate the signature black-and-white op-art forms of Grignani and other Futurists for the purpose of military camouflage: The technique was developed by English [...]

Unless you count the Mr. T exercise book, my big cultural discovery in Berlin this past weekend was the work of Akira Yamaguchi. My friend has a book of his stuff, which mostly consists of nutcase juxtapositions between highly-detailed, contemporary technical drawings and traditional Japanese art. I like how much his drawings pick up on [...]

I am obsessed with the British teen music trio Kitty, Daisy and Lewis.  They’re three siblings, all under 20 apparently, whose parents are session musicians (also I think their mom was briefly a drummer in The Raincoats). Here’s one of their videos:  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxW3Ed7GrhQ&hl=en&fs=1&] From the first moment I heard them it seemed obvious that they [...]

I already posted one of these in the Berlin photo essay, but it probably warrants its own post… A bizarre selection of sanctioned activities with America’s favorite Mandinka warrior:

Back in Prague after a long, rainy, fun-filled weekend in my favorite city. Some visual impressions from the trip: Cute. Alien. Meticulous. Silly. Cool. Disturbing, at best. Austere. Eerily lifelike. Ahmadinejad? Pensive. Back to silly. Only regret is that I didn’t have time to make it to Taqueria Dolores.

My friend Patrick once stopped at a Lego store in Hamburg where they sell Lego parts in separate vats. He noticed that there was one vat filled with turbans, another full of mustachioed scowls and a third filled with dynamite-strapped torsos. Voila, the Lego Terrorist was born: He’s small, but his heart is filled with [...]

Today’s featured mixed-ethnicity jazzercise couple: Disco producer Bob Blank and his wife, one-time James Brown foil Lola Blank. I’m not sure what to make of Bob Blank. On the one hand, he worked with the great Arthur Russell. Generally, this would be enough in my mind to immunize him against criticism for anything (yes, even [...]

In last weekend’s Barf/Sick post, I mentioned our intrepid traveller friend Jim who stayed with us for a few days on the way back through various Eastern European and Asian countries. I neglected to write that he was joined by his girlfriend, the able Karen, who is also a veteran traveller in her own right [...]