word(s).

81 notes

so clothes don’t make the man.. theatlantic: What Does a Radical Look Like? A week after the attempted comeback of the most significant political movement of the new century, a triptych by photographer Richard Avedon now on display in New York gets a person thinking about the clues radicals have used over the years to signal their political beliefs. The ”photo mural” in question, part of an exhibit that opened over the weekend at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, features the Chicago Seven—the activists, Abbie Hoffman among them, charged with conspiracy after protesting the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Though taken in 1969, as the Seven were awaiting trial, the three-part image looks as though it could have been shot in today’s Williamsburg. Many of the men are wearing high-waisted jeans; a couple are in whimsically striped shirts; two wear funky glasses; one has a woven belt, tied in a big knot. There’s also plenty of facial hair to go around. As a group, they come off as more goofily disdainful than revolutionary. At the same time, they look quite different from their bourgeois contemporaries pictured on the other side of the gallery: the members of Allen Ginsberg’s extended family. Those photos feature men in crisp suits and requisite ties, ladies in polite cocktail dresses and kitten heels. No one would’ve mistaken the Ginsbergs for Yippies—members of the countercultural 60’s youth movement that Hoffman helped to found—just as no one would’ve mistaken Hoffman for a banker or any other kind of office worker. […] But these days, differentiating the activists from the bourgeoisie on the basis of their attire can be much harder than it was in the past—perhaps in part because of the speed with which the fashion world is able to transfer looks from city trendsetters to malls across America. Read more. [Image: The Richard Avedon Foundation]

so clothes don’t make the man..

theatlantic:

What Does a Radical Look Like?

A week after the attempted comeback of the most significant political movement of the new century, a triptych by photographer Richard Avedon now on display in New York gets a person thinking about the clues radicals have used over the years to signal their political beliefs. The ”photo mural” in question, part of an exhibit that opened over the weekend at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, features the Chicago Seven—the activists, Abbie Hoffman among them, charged with conspiracy after protesting the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Though taken in 1969, as the Seven were awaiting trial, the three-part image looks as though it could have been shot in today’s Williamsburg. Many of the men are wearing high-waisted jeans; a couple are in whimsically striped shirts; two wear funky glasses; one has a woven belt, tied in a big knot. There’s also plenty of facial hair to go around. As a group, they come off as more goofily disdainful than revolutionary.

At the same time, they look quite different from their bourgeois contemporaries pictured on the other side of the gallery: the members of Allen Ginsberg’s extended family. Those photos feature men in crisp suits and requisite ties, ladies in polite cocktail dresses and kitten heels. No one would’ve mistaken the Ginsbergs for Yippies—members of the countercultural 60’s youth movement that Hoffman helped to found—just as no one would’ve mistaken Hoffman for a banker or any other kind of office worker. […]

But these days, differentiating the activists from the bourgeoisie on the basis of their attire can be much harder than it was in the past—perhaps in part because of the speed with which the fashion world is able to transfer looks from city trendsetters to malls across America.

Read more. [Image: The Richard Avedon Foundation]

1 note

wheninnewyorkcity: When you realize you have insufficient fare on your metrocard and see there’s a train coming in 1 minute yet still have time to put $20 on it and get through the turnstile in time.

wheninnewyorkcity:

When you realize you have insufficient fare on your metrocard and see there’s a train coming in 1 minute yet still have time to put $20 on it and get through the turnstile in time.

308 notes

theatlantic: You Don’t Own Anything Anymore Google’s terms of service sound grabby because they are: the terms of service for Google Drive (and pretty much every Google service) give Google the right to do almost anything with your uploaded content. This isn’t because Google has a bunch of really cool ideas for “publicly performing” your photos. It’s because copyright law was written before there was a such thing as computers. “Copyright law itself is really strange,” says Greg Lastowka, co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law. These companies, he says, are only doing “what copyright law forces them to do.” Say you draw a picture. You literally own the paper and the ink that you used to draw it, but the thing you have a copyright for is intangible: it’s the pattern, the shapes, the design. If someone comes along a steals your drawing, they’re stealing your property. If someone takes a photo of your drawing, they’re violating your copyright. “When you say you own a photo,” says Lastowka, “you really mean ‘I have the exclusive right to reproduce my photo.’” In a world where sharing a photo is strictly a matter of getting another copy made and mailing it, or getting it published, copyrights are pretty easy to keep track of and these laws hold up pretty well. Sending a physical photo to your grandmother goes like this: you either put the picture in an envelope and send it, or you get a copy made yourself and send that. Sending your grandmother an email photo, though, might involve copying your photo five or six times; first to Google’s servers, then to another server, then to an ISP’s CDN, then to AOL’s servers, then to your grandmother’s computer. As far as you’re concerned, this feels exactly like dropping an envelope in the mail. As far as copyright is concerned, it’s a choreographed legal dance. Read more. This is smart. (via Buzzfeed)

theatlantic:

You Don’t Own Anything Anymore

Google’s terms of service sound grabby because they are: the terms of service for Google Drive (and pretty much every Google service) give Google the right to do almost anything with your uploaded content. This isn’t because Google has a bunch of really cool ideas for “publicly performing” your photos. It’s because copyright law was written before there was a such thing as computers.

“Copyright law itself is really strange,” says Greg Lastowka, co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law. These companies, he says, are only doing “what copyright law forces them to do.”

Say you draw a picture. You literally own the paper and the ink that you used to draw it, but the thing you have a copyright for is intangible: it’s the pattern, the shapes, the design. If someone comes along a steals your drawing, they’re stealing your property. If someone takes a photo of your drawing, they’re violating your copyright. “When you say you own a photo,” says Lastowka, “you really mean ‘I have the exclusive right to reproduce my photo.’”

In a world where sharing a photo is strictly a matter of getting another copy made and mailing it, or getting it published, copyrights are pretty easy to keep track of and these laws hold up pretty well. Sending a physical photo to your grandmother goes like this: you either put the picture in an envelope and send it, or you get a copy made yourself and send that.

Sending your grandmother an email photo, though, might involve copying your photo five or six times; first to Google’s servers, then to another server, then to an ISP’s CDN, then to AOL’s servers, then to your grandmother’s computer. As far as you’re concerned, this feels exactly like dropping an envelope in the mail. As far as copyright is concerned, it’s a choreographed legal dance.

Read more.

This is smart. (via Buzzfeed)