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The Playtime of Surveillance

March 23, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

“Types of machines are easily matched with each type of society—not that machines are determining, but because they express those social forms capable of generating them and using them.” —Gilles Deleuze “All play means something.” — Johan Huizinga When I was growing up, a boy in the upper midwestern United States in the final decades of the Cold War, I loved spies, secrets and the gear that when along with them. I locked what childhood secrets I had in a small […]

Categories: Gear, Play, Random Reflections, Surveillance, Toys • Tags: AR Drone, brookstone store, drones, johan huizinga, Jumping Sumo, Parrot Drones, Rolling Spider, Rover Spy Tank

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Tom Skype’s Sensitive Words: A Trove of Keywords for Contemporary China

March 10, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

In China, pretty much everyone knows that the Internet is heavily policed. The people know. The government knows the people know. The people know the government knows the people know. In fact, the “open secret” of the Great Firewall is surely an important part of the way censorship works in China. Precisely because people know Internet censorship exists, the party-state benefits from the efficiency of self-policing as a means of control rather than relying exclusively on external enforcement in real […]

Categories: China, Discipline, Internet, Language, Scripts, Surveillance • Tags: censorship, internet, language, sensitive words, Skype, technology, 敏感词

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Some Mao Era Ethnographic Films

March 3, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Clearly massive hard drives are becoming like attics—places where forgotten things wait to be rediscovered. Yesterday while talking with a friend about the Oroqen people in China, I vaguely remembered that six or seven years ago a visual anthropologist in China had shared with me an old Communist-era ethnological film about them. I had saved it on my laptop, and then when I returned home I transferred it to my desktop. Two computer swaps later I wasn’t even sure it […]

Categories: China, Documentary, Visual Anthropology • Tags: 纳西族, ethnology, 鄂伦春族, media, naxi, Oroqen

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Cultural Script: How to Use Chopsticks

February 23, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Categories: Food, Scripts • Tags: Chinese Food, Chopsticks

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Flying Spaghetti Monster Pasta

February 17, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Tonight we decided to have a little fun with our food. Inspired by a photo of sausages connected by spaghetti, we were inspired to go one step further—to create a pastafarian meal in honor of His Noodliness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It went well with a glass of Hey Mambo Sultry Red. Click on the photos for an explanation of the steps. “May you be forever touched by His Noodly Appendage.”

Categories: Food, How To, Photo Essays • Tags: Flying Spaghetti Monster, humor

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The Day I Met Superman

January 13, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Last November a film blog that I regularly read shared a short documentary video that touched me in an unexpected way. It featured Christopher Dennis, a guy whose alter ego is Superman on Hollywood Boulevard. I had never heard of him before, but given my fascination and often adoration of people who create elaborate costumes of their favorite cosplayers, I clicked on the video. The documentary’s soft, colorful, cinematography complemented its fantastic subject. It portrayed Mr. Dennis in a respectful […]

Categories: Fame, Mythologies, Popular Culture, Tourism • Tags: cosplay, hollywood, superman

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Mystery Object #8: Commemorative Flask Keychain

January 10, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

I can think of no better souvenir of a place of natural beauty like Big Sur than a vintage, commemorative, flask keychain shining with reflections of American heritage. A keychain. For car keys. For a car. For driving. With a flask. For alcohol. For Drinking. Seriously. This mystery object sends so many messages on so many levels all at one time that it makes my brain just want to shut down and give up even trying to understand. First there […]

Categories: Mystery Objects, Tourism • Tags: alcohol, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, drinking culture, keychain, souvenir

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God(zilla) Will Destroy L.A.

January 10, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Just a few days after the New Year, while in Los Angeles, we visited Hollywood Boulevard. While I don’t imagine the beautiful people do a lot of hanging around in that particular neighborhood, it is sacred ground for the global mythology of Hollywood. Visiting the “walk of fame” is, after all, what tourists are expected to do when they visit L.A. So we went to see the stars—more specifically the traces they have left behind—their handprints and their footprints and the concrete […]

Categories: End of Times, Movies, Mythologies, Random Reflections, Tourism, Video clips • Tags: Fundamentalism, hollywood, Religion

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Mystery Object #7: Day Glo Watergate Poster

January 9, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

If he were still alive, today would have been Richard Nixon’s 100th birthday. No doubt because anniversaries make for easy news stories, I have already heard more than a few mentions in the media of Nixon’s legacy. The Vietnam War. The rapprochement with Mao’s China. Was he a war time president? What was his legacy? (Interestingly, I have heard no mention at all of one very influential event of his presidency—the decision to abandon the gold standard in August of […]

Categories: Mystery Objects, Politics • Tags: Post-Modern, Poster, Richard Nixon, Watergate

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Fast Food. Slow Garbage.

January 5, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

While in L.A., we stopped for lunch at a burrito place that was supposedly well known for their tasty food. I don’t remember how hungry I was when the food arrived at the table. I do remember, however, that when it arrived I was more shocked at how it looked—a lumpy, beige-white mass, sharing the plate with a handful of corn chips and some salsa. It seemed barely edible. Perhaps it was because the meal repulsed me as food, that I […]

Categories: Consumption, Environment, Food, Time, Value • Tags: burrito, fast food, garbage, plastic utensils, styrofoam

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