Virtual Panopticon

In 1791, English philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed an architectural innovation designed to lead to safe, humane prisons. He envisioned a prison space constructed as a circular array of inward-pointing cells. Solid walls between the cells would prevent any communication between prisoners, and a small window in the back of the cell would let in light to illuminate the contents. At the center of the ring of cells, Bentham placed an observation tower with special shutters to prevent the prisoners from seeing the guards. This “all-seeing place,” or panopticon, was designed to provide complete observation of every prisoner.

Who is the new number two?

Who is the new number two?

Be seeing you.

The Illuminated Donkey is back in action with a throwdown!

As it happens, I have been watching Asian cinema by the yard, and have recently corresponded with Mr. Frank concerning such matters as

• the importability via standard airmail of thousand year old eggs from the Pearl on the shores of the South China Sea
• layers of meaning in contemporary mainland chinese cinema
• food in general
• the ongoing torture scandal

I hasten to point out that I did not enquire as to the nature of Mr. Frank’s sainted grandparents’ family business. I can confirm, however, that Mr. Frank exhibited a thorough grasp of Hong Kong’s import and export laws regarding poultry products.

soup du jour of the day: On self-censorship.

O. T. publishes a blog rejection letter from her private correspondence. Seems like others be suffering similar problems.

Hergé’s Syldavian documents the language of Syldavia, as seen in Tintin. [via the non-stop Cartoonist.]

Handy for the traveler that seeks to visit Molvania, a neighboring state, recently discuted at MeFi.

badgerphone.

What’s better than a dancing banana?

A dancing bananaphone with badger badger badgers! Happily, happily, happily via MonkeyFilter.

Giant Squid, Tall Tales and Truth [NYT]

Fourth graf:

… and reports of its depth may be greatly exaggerated.

Oh my.

Anita noted District Cock-ups, a cautionary tale (well actually he sounds practically optimistic). He probably didn’t even bother getting drunk first! Kids today, I tell you.

Pleasing to Remember stood up for Howard in the Fightin’ Fifth, and veiled4allah stepped up to the plate in the Frugal Forty-Seventh.

I didn’t excavate further caucus tales in the limited time I devoted to assembling this mess o’ pointers.

Michael and Prairie and Eric and Rose and Adam and Viv and i all sat together at Jason’s CD release party.

Michael was trooper enough to stick around for the après shoe, but Eric and Rose and Adam and Viv and I all hit a watering hole and talked about Jason, Jason, Jason all night (As I post, it seems that Jason’s site might be down, which is a drag).

An interesting point emerged, which is that Eric and his lovely wife Rose may have met via a shared enthusiasm for Jason’s music – they certainly courted during the Against the Night period.

In other news: the songs on the new CD have a high earworm factor, which is promising. Jason finally has teeshirts. The new CD will also be released on 12-inch vinyl, to which I say, woo-hoo! “Features alternate records of songs from the CD,” hmmm.

UPDATE: Elsewhere‘s pix are up.

This is a local, archival version of a particularly tricky MeFi post. I put enough work into it that I wanted a copy at home.

Begin, crows, when the trailers first were aired,
Agamemnon, some guy, and Brad Pitt, Achilles.

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