Thursday, April 13, 2023
The Photo League's members tended to intellectualize their work. And even though his photographs consistently reflected many of the League's activist ideals, he was (perhaps owing to his lack of formal education, perhaps to his streetwise cynicism) suspicious, even dismissive, of those who claimed they were doing something for the greater good. “Messages?" he once told his friend Peter Martin. “I have no time for messages in my pictures. That's for Western Union and the Salvation Army."
— Christopher Bonanos, Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
It was a lesson that applied to his own life. "If you can get the audience to pull for you, you'll always win," Ailes wrote. "After all, audiences are just like you. They're human. They care. They're sympathetic. They're supportive. The audience wants you to succeed.... An awareness of your own vulnerability and the vulnerability of others will make you a better and more human communicator."
— Gabriel Sherman, The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Repetition, Herschensohn wrote, is "the oldest and most effective propaganda technique."
— Gabriel Sherman, The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country
Monday, April 10, 2023
"The difference between pros and amateurs is that pros play hurt," he once said.
— Gabriel Sherman, The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country
Sunday, April 9, 2023
The apparent authenticity of the documents, however, is not an indication of their accuracy.
— "Leaked Pentagon Documents Reveal Secrets About Friends and Foes," The New York Times
Saturday, April 8, 2023
In its lawsuit, Getty argued that Stable Diffusion diluted the value of the Getty watermark by incorporating it into images that ranged “from the bizarre to the grotesque.”
— Image caption, "Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?," The New York Times
Friday, April 7, 2023
Everybody at this table will be forgotten as soon as our time on this cold spinning rock is over.
— Matt Damon, Air
Thursday, April 6, 2023
What would it mean for the pioneers to leave? And if they moved, it was not just the uncertainty of where to go and what to do, but also the feeling that they would never again own something.
— Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
For insulation, newspapers were pasted to the walls, some nesters even arranged the papers in neat horizontal rows so they could read the fading news stories.
— Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
The continuing relevance of baseball comes from its ability to represent, like movies or theater, a relatable glimpse into the everyday drama of being human.
— Steve Kettmann, "Major League Baseball Has Unleashed a Faster, Freer Version of Itself. You’ll Need to Pay Attention.," The New York Times
Monday, April 3, 2023
No amount of money can buy you a better two-by-four than the one that's also in the crappiest house in town.
— Paul Andersen
Sunday, April 2, 2023
And the bouillabaisse we didn’t get to have.
— Christian Bale, Amsterdam
Saturday, April 1, 2023
The purpose of Stonehenge is lost to us. There will always be debate about its meaning.
— Wall text at Stonehenge
Friday, March 31, 2023
Established here in 1263, Balliol is one of the oldest Oxford colleges
— Sign outside of Balliol
Thursday, March 30, 2023
1234 rabbits
— Bullet point on informational text in the Ashmolean Museum listed below "After 320 years it's hard to pinpoint the exact value of this coin today. But here is an idea what it could buy in 1701:"
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Insects are the most successful animals that have ever existed.
— Wall text, Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Design for converting the Crystal Palace into a tower 1000 feet high, 1851. It was not built.
— Image description, V&A Museum no. 19655
Monday, March 27, 2023
This type of machine was used to create the ornamental patterns which were used as security features on banknotes. It was first developed in the early 1800s as engravers looked for new ways to make printed documents secure. The lathe can generate patterns that are so complex they are almost impossible to copy.
— "The gemoetric lathe: Geometric chuck lathe, by Herbert W. Chapman of Newark, New Jersey, USA, 1905," Item description in the Bank of England Museum
Sunday, March 26, 2023
In the first few decades of admissions parents were instructed to bring a token with their children to act as an identifier. Each child accepted by the hospital was given a new name; if a relative later claimed a child, the tokens helped prove that the claim was genuine. Tokens include fabric, coins, playing cards, jewellery and medals. They were wrapped in the child's admission paper - known as a billet - and remained sealed unless a claim was made.
— "The Foundling Hospital tokens," Wall text in The Foundling Museum
Saturday, March 25, 2023
This particular prism became famous in 1857, when it was selected by the Royal Asiatic Society to test whether or not cuneiform script had been truly deciphered. Four leading scholars submitted independent translations to a learned committee. Their versions broadly agreed with each other and this was accepted as evidence that cuneiform script had indeed been successfully deciphered.
— "The great test case," Item description in The British Museum
