tom moody

YouTube of the New York Police Department's mobile surveillance tower rising up over the US Open. Heil Hitler.

Olia Lialina has added to her Vernacular Web 2 article with some discussions about class, notably Danah Boyd's analysis of American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.

Lialina believes Boyd's argument will be dated soon because

[o]n the 18th of August blingee.com, a service for glittering profile graphics, already owning the hearts of all “glitzy” users, announced that "Facebook users can now join the Blingee fever. Send your Blingees to your Facebook profile, and get your friends to browse and rate your Blingees directly from your Facebook profile!"

Facebook is one of those things I've been avoiding because of the sign-in requirement. With Flickr and Myspace you can at least surf the content without "joining." The "exclusivity" is a class indicator right there, bling or no bling. I may have turned off my comments but I still have some democratic impulses.

previous thread on this

Update: drx informs me that Facebook is opening itself up to limited content searches. Great, I really, really need to know what people look like.

Speaking of metal, nice collection of signage from ilia at loshadka, under the caption "death metal legibility." Loshadka is a very visually oriented "surf club" (note scare quotes, MSNBC): see also thomas's posts. Nice stuff. Not to slight any of the other members--it's all worth a look.

Banks Violette's House:

Banks Violette's Garage:

This art world in-joke brought to you by the curators of the Whitney Museum ("We need an acceptable Goth"), Team Gallery ("Your Gallery for Youth Culture"), and Barbara Gladstone Gallery ("I need me some of that youth culture"). I remember Violette's first show at Momenta--it looked like metal band art. Now it looks like a cross between Steve Parrino and Steve Parrino. At least he has good gods.