tag:davidfriend.net,2010://1 2010-01-25T22:40:21Z Movable Type 3.31 tag:davidfriend.net,2010://1.241 2010-01-25T22:23:40Z 2010-01-25T22:40:21Z

Since the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden has become his mediated persona. No longer able to appear in public, uncomfortable with video footage (which is typically filled with visual details that might divulge his whereabouts), he has now resorted to...

become his mediated persona. No longer able to appear in public, uncomfortable with video footage (which is typically filled with visual details that might divulge his whereabouts), he has now resorted to existing as a disembodied voice on occasionally dispensed audiotape. He is bin Laden as Golem, as spectral presence, as Voice From on High (or Low). Now comes a new recording, confirmed by intelligence analysts, warning of an imminent attack. Bin Laden's wording, as explained in this wire-service story by Agence France Press, echoes the religious phrases he has used in previous threatening messages that presaged attacks. Osama bin Laden, a man long thought to have spent his days in a cave, continues to have a sophisticated grasp of new media - and of 21st century scare tactics.]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2010://1.240 2010-01-23T16:44:21Z 2010-01-23T16:49:29Z

It was inevitable. The Taliban, according to a piece in the Times this week, has been countering America’s “hearts-and-minds” campaign in Afghanistan and the Pakistan tribal areas by softening its hardline stance and reaching out in a comparatively more humane...

a piece in the Times this week, has been countering America’s “hearts-and-minds” campaign in Afghanistan and the Pakistan tribal areas by softening its hardline stance and reaching out in a comparatively more humane fashion. Call it a kindler, gentler Taliban. (This comes the same week that a senior Hamas official was said to have been seriously considering the recognition of the state of Israel and the abandonment of its charter, calling for Israel’s destruction. The report, from the Jerusalem Post, seems to have been, as Mark Twain might have called it, greatly exaggerated.) What, exactly, would a kinder, gentler Taliban be? Allowing still photography but not videography? Lopping off only one hand for armed robbery, instead of two? Lopping off only the top half of the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas?]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2010://1.239 2010-01-23T16:41:20Z 2010-01-23T16:43:58Z

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA – On the eve of Apple’s January 27 press conference – at which the company will roll out its long-awaited e-reading device – a reliable Silicon Valley source has leaked a pilfered list of ad campaigns that Apple...

On the eve of Apple’s January 27 press conference – at which the company will roll out its long-awaited e-reading device – a reliable Silicon Valley source has leaked a pilfered list of ad campaigns that Apple executives have soundly rejected over the past year. The document, excerpted below, details names and slogans that never quite made the grade. Apple Tablet. (Take Two…and Call Tech-Support in the Morning.) Apple Tableau. (The Apple Tablet, Turned Horizontally.) Apple Shaft. (You Read It, We Profit.) Apple Monolith. (Thus Sprach Steve.) Apple Trapezoid. (Makes All the Others Look Square.) Apple Slab. (Reading -- As American as Apple Pie.) Apple Slate. (Fred Flintstone’s Boss Swears By It.) Apple Sliver. (Your Slice of Wisdom.) Apple Headstone. (Read In Peace.) Apple Plaque. (Read, Brush, Rinse.) Apple Pane. (We Don’t Do Windows.) Apple Hype. (Transfixing Tech and Media Writers Since 1976.)]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2010://1.238 2010-01-01T21:08:31Z 2010-01-01T21:22:28Z

The 9/11 Commission produced a watered-down, bi-partisan series of recommendations for restructuring America’s divisive, ineffectual national security apparatus that for years had been a jumble of disconnected departments often working at cross purposes. One of the committee's chief accomplishments was...

It was distressing, to say the least, to read yesterday's comments from Thomas Kean, co-chair of the original 9/11 Commission, as he criticized the jury-rigged system that he had helped to create. “It’s totally frustrating,” Kean told the Times.> “It’s almost like the words being used [now] to describe what went wrong are exactly the same [as were used in 2001].” What I found most unconscionable, as did Kean, was the fact that months ago the well-respected Nigerian financier-father of the bomber had warned American diplomats that his extremist son had gone off the rails and had become a serious threat to U.S. national security. Said Kean: “Think of what it took for the father, one of the most respected bankers in Nigeria, to walk into the American Embassy and turn in his own son. The father’s a hero. His visit by itself should have been enough to set off all kinds of alarms.” The answer is not new commissions and showcase firings. The answer is to give meaningful incentives to bureaucrats (and to their bosses and their overseers in the executive and legislative branches) to increase the probability that they actually communicate with one another. It's sad to say, but even in a time of war, petty bureaucrats only seem to operate in their own self-interest.]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.237 2009-12-31T19:39:55Z 2009-12-31T19:50:16Z

The pioneering photojournalism Web site, The Digital Journalist, is in need of operating funds. For the first time, they are soliciting donations. I encourage loyalists to consider lending a hand to the site, where I have been a contributor for...

The Digital Journalist, is in need of operating funds. For the first time, they are soliciting donations. I encourage loyalists to consider lending a hand to the site, where I have been a contributor for years. Here is a message from TDJ's founding editor Dirck Halstead, with instructions for pledges: "The Digital Journalist has been online producing our monthly magazine, about visual journalism, for 12 years. During that time we have presented the memorable work of some of the greatest photojournalists in the world, while offering opportunities for publication to many new photographers. Our columns and reviews have taken a 360-degree look at the industry, and predicted much of the upheaval that has taken place as the media around us have been buffeted by the shifting winds of technology, and now, a crippling economic downturn. "So we are asking you, our loyal readers, numbering more than 10,000, to help us raise these funds. Effective immediately, we have set up a PayPal link on The Digital Journalist and urgently ask for your pledges so that we can continue the work which will help us all. We have never solicited paid subscriptions, but these dire times call for dire measures." Here's to a brighter New Year...]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.236 2009-12-20T15:31:35Z 2009-12-20T16:02:33Z

With a half-foot of downy white blanketing the Middle-Atlantic states and a roaring fire in the hearth, here's wishing everyone a healthy, cheer-filled holiday, and a prosperous, peaceful New Year. The Friend household is especially proud this week: my wife,...

Publishers Weekly, was given her own children-and-young adult imprint at Penguin-Putnam, Nancy Paulsen Books. NANCY PAULSEN, THE NEW HEAD OF NANCY PAULSEN BOOKS Also...a fond farewell to Milorad Pavic, the boundary-breaking Serbian novelist (author of the enchantingly mystifying Dictionary of the Kazhars), who passed away this week at age 80. And one final tip for last-minute holiday shoppers. This season's ideal gift book, recently published by Rodale, is a volume I worked on this past year with Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter and Robert Risko, along with esteemed colleagues David Harris, Martha Hurley, Feifei Sun, and Jon Kelly: Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire. ]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.235 2009-11-22T01:26:12Z 2009-11-22T01:36:04Z

Hans Durrer, a German essayist, interpreter, and photography critic based in Brazil – whom I don’t know -- just posted a review of Watching the World Change on his blog, which has been picked up on several other blogs. Durrer...

Watching the World Change on his blog, which has been picked up on several other blogs. Durrer writes: "This is absolutely singular journalism (well-told, detailed, and with a keen sense for narrative flow). . . . [a] great book....He is a good writer, a tireless journalist, and, very probably, a workaholic - the research alone that went into this book is immense and impressive.” By all means, check out the full posting, HERE. And this, from Louis Masur, the renowned historian and scholar of photography, American history, baseball, and Bruce Springsteen (no joke!), who is teaching Watching the World Change this semester at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut: “I taught your book last night and it was the best discussion yet. A student started by asking if it was too soon for us to be 'studying' the images of 9/11. This led us on a path to discuss the role of photographs in our lives, how the images of 9/11 provided not only 'evidence' but also for some solace, how it is that we can look without feeling voyeuristic or complicit, which led us to making connections to a book about lynching photographs that we read earlier this semester. “A lot of time was spent on the photo of Mike Kehoe, and on 'Falling Man,' and the controversy over the publication of Hoepker’s photograph. And also on how we think in terms of photographs (that amazing comment by [Tom] Brokaw about Sebastio Salgado), about just what a digital revolution means, and about the outrage of workers on the site about you and Harry Benson being there taking photos. “We move next week to Art Spiegelman's In the Presence of No Towers and then we end with Phil Gourevitch's Standard Operating Procedure and Errol Morris’ film. It’s been a great semester and, on behalf of our seminar, thank you again for writing such a passionate, engaging, caring, eye-opening book.”]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.234 2009-11-22T01:07:34Z 2009-11-22T01:09:59Z

I urge everyone to take a look at this powerful and exhaustive photo essay by Ian Fischer of the Denver Post. Now here’s a promising exploitation of the interactive potential of the medium, elegantly designed....

photo essay by Ian Fischer of the Denver Post. Now here’s a promising exploitation of the interactive potential of the medium, elegantly designed.]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.233 2009-11-22T00:47:58Z 2009-11-22T00:50:06Z

Some of the Guantanamo internees will be coming to New York for trial, chief among them, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. While many have lambasted the decision to allow the perpetrators back into this city - let...

Some of the Guantanamo internees will be coming to New York for trial, chief among them, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. While many have lambasted the decision to allow the perpetrators back into this city - let alone a courthouse or prison a stone’s throw from Ground Zero - what I find most perplexing is the fallacy that justice will be served here. How is it possible to convene a judicial proceeding in these circumstances and in this venue? How on earth can KSM and his compatriots get what would be considered “a fair trial” within the jurisdiction of Manhattan? And where, in America, would they ever find a “jury of their peers”? While I found Guantanamo to be a pure travesty, one that ran counter to every notion of civil behavior in a time of war, I find the current scenario to be an invitation for a kangaroo court. We are in a time of war. These are combatants, some of whom have already admitted war crimes. If there is a trial, the trial should be held before a military tribunal. tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.232 2009-11-02T01:12:32Z 2009-11-02T01:25:57Z

DOWD ON DOVER. Maureen Dowd offers a keen observation in today’s Times. She points out that some Republicans have criticized Barack Obama for allowing photographers to catch him during a somber visit to Dover Air Force Base, where he met...

DOWD ON DOVER. Maureen Dowd offers a keen observation in today’s Times. She points out that some Republicans have criticized Barack Obama for allowing photographers to catch him during a somber visit to Dover Air Force Base, where he met the arriving coffins of 18 American soldiers recently killed in battle; Dowd notes that the ever present Liz Cheney even went so far as to say, on Fox News radio, “I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras.” Uh, not so fast. As Dowd remarks (and as I mention in Watching the World Change), Bush never once attended a funeral for an Afghan or Iraq War G.I., never once visited Dover – and, during his tenure, forbid all press photography of arriving coffins. In Dowd’s view, Bush, through the photo-ban, was “trying to airbrush the evidence that the wars he started were not the cakewalks he had promised.” GAINES AGAINST THE GRAIN. And check out this blogpost by Jim Gaines, the only man to edit People, Life, and Time (now engaged as editor-in-chief at the visually daring online magazine, Flyp). He argues that photojournalism didn’t necessarily go the way of its compatriots roll film and silver halide. Instead, he finds a surprising silver lining for photojournalists amid the thunderheads of the digital revolution. ]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.231 2009-10-18T00:30:15Z 2009-10-19T00:23:47Z

EU-GENE! The 2009 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography was given out on Wednesday to Chinese photographer Lu Guang. The multi-media feature on the increasingly captivating “Lens” section on the website of The New York Times certainly merits a...

EU-GENE! The 2009 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography was given out on Wednesday to Chinese photographer Lu Guang. The multi-media feature on the increasingly captivating “Lens” section on the website of The New York Times certainly merits a long browse. (c) Lu Guang c/o W. Eugene Smith Grant 2009 IR-VING! The giants continue to fall. Longtime picture editor and aesthete Greg Pond, on the Society of Publication Design’s website, has written a charming homage to the recently departed Irving Penn. “Mister Penn,” he observers. “You never heard anyone ever say 'Irving.' Names such as: Dick, Annie, Herb, Mario, Steven, Mary-Ellen, Bruce, and Helmut bounce off the walls at Condé Nast. But everyone called him Mister Penn.” …And in other news, just when you thought it couldn’t get any stranger, the artist/fair-use-advocate/pilferer Shepard Fairey admits that he lied about which photograph he plagiarized when creating his Obama HOPE poster. Fairey tales can come true... It could happen to you... ]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.230 2009-10-12T02:03:55Z 2009-10-13T02:44:55Z

ENVISIONING THE MEMORIAL. The consummate architecture critic and scholar, Paul Goldberger, in this week’s New Yorker, explains how Michael Arad has been creating a real-world approximation of his Ground Zero memorial – by studying a full-scale mockup at the Brooklyn...

ENVISIONING THE MEMORIAL. The consummate architecture critic and scholar, Paul Goldberger, in this week’s New Yorker, explains how Michael Arad has been creating a real-world approximation of his Ground Zero memorial – by studying a full-scale mockup at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. YOUR FACE MAKES HISTORY. Here’s a very user-friendly and photo-centric picture-book project from Rick Smolan and the gang at The Obama Time Capsule. O’S NOBEL, PART I. On VanityFair.com, I write about three key peaceniks working behind the scenes for Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Barack Obama. O’S NOBEL, PART II. And, finally, this astute observation from my friend David Moore, the entrepreneur, comedian, and founder of ComedySmack.com, from his standup act at Caroline’s Comedy Club: “Some people were surprised that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. To me, what is really surprising is that he’s emerged as one of the favorites for the Heisman trophy.” ]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.229 2009-09-30T20:03:22Z 2009-09-30T20:12:27Z

Though this blog is about 21st century visual culture, as explored in the book Watching the World Change, every so often I encounter a non-visual aspect of the culture that I feel I just have to write about…. On Friday...

Though this blog is about 21st century visual culture, as explored in the book Watching the World Change, every so often I encounter a non-visual aspect of the culture that I feel I just have to write about…. On Friday evening, "free jazz" pioneer Ornette Coleman, age 79, made his debut at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, disgorging propulsive, mordant discordance from his sax, trumpet, and violin – often during the course of a single song -- in the premiere event of the new JALC season. In 1930, the year of Coleman’s birth, novelist James Joyce was consumed with writing his last masterpiece, Finnegans Wake (published in 1939) – in some ways a literary precursor to bebop, modern jazz, and to Coleman’s circuitous, combustible, free jazz idiom. In the spirit of Coleman and Finnegan, herewith: an homage to Friday’s performance by Coleman, his son Denardo (on drums) and a double-bass tag team of Anthony Falanga (acoustic) and Al McDowell (electric)... Bopgoblin moogoogle flugelhornettish coquettery. Cornettishistic scatterwalling poco loco rococo. Ornery orotund knottypine fandango. Ornate atonal contrapuntificat, all scatterscat, this swarm-snarling stacattornado hailspawning and tailspinning at, say, 300 Bird-Miles-an-hour. Sated and satiated by that mood indigogo goo-spewed stew of gogobootilicioius ornetti orecchiette, with bacchanalli rabe. Festooned with a festering blistering fistulae of throbbing gristlewhistle. Try the combo-jumbo mumbo, that turbo-Trumbo mumble-gambol gumbo, those comafunktose piston-hissssin, valvoline-sheened crankcase flakes. Hark the Googleplexiconstantinobalisque, oeuvreshadowcasting all. Check out that rhomboid porkpie-lidded Daddy-o, the balderdishdasha maharishi, the globo-boho oboe-toting hobo on that doom-domed dromedarian recalcitrantic mantis. Lisssssssin to the eardrumkitandkaboodle, the swoondoogled toggle-snuggled unpluggeried glug-glug-gluggery. Fallopium tubularity recapostulates the phallogenie. The vortiginous oronoconnoiters with His Infinitessimillogical Fractallusiveness. Parasolipsustenant percussteraneous bloody bleebop agitpop. Asymphonic tonic-and-Sapphire. Freakopediant cybelencyclical. Fever-dream, swine-fluted tympandemonium. Cymbalumbilicalifragilisticalifornication. Relativoltaic Einsteinian steinwayfarers! Rosenclank und Guildensturm-und-dranglers! Cascading tjader-esque bags-groovin’ rassanrollin’ sonnyrollickin’ monkful birdybyrdian dizzydecorous coltransistored dexter-beiderbexterous, itty-bitty-ubiquititty-rhythmsticketty, massive-assive clavichordant ornithologists, All! Percussin’ cuzzins...Ayyyy, men.]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.228 2009-09-18T14:06:19Z 2009-10-19T00:26:19Z

I'm in Toronto for the imminent unveiling of the exhibition "Vanity Fair Portraits, 1913-2008" - the final leg of a three-continent, five-venue tour. The exhibition, jointly curated by Vanity Fair and the National Portrait Gallery, London, appears at the Royal...

"Vanity Fair Portraits, 1913-2008" - the final leg of a three-continent, five-venue tour. The exhibition, jointly curated by Vanity Fair and the National Portrait Gallery, London, appears at the Royal Ontario Museum, through January 4, 2010, having broken attendance records in London and Edinburgh and drawing throngs in Los Angeles and Canberra, Australia. While here, I received this enlightening e-mail. From Lloyd Chang, Singapore: Dear Mr Friend, I have just begun reading your book Watching the World Change, which I find that I can especially appreciate as a serious amateur photographer. Prior to purchasing your book (which takes a while for Amazon to ship to Singapore), I had read Tom Junod's article ["The Falling Man," concerning the identity of a Wolrd Trade tower worker who tumbled to his death on 9/11] in Esquire, and viewed the Henry Singer documentary based on it. I then came across your blog. In 2006 and 2008, two readers wrote to you about a different falling man, not the one in [AP photographer] Richard Drew's photo. They seemed to recall an image of someone whose tie was flapping in the wind, an image of which "half of the background was building, about half the sky". You mentioned in your blog that you had not been able to identify the image, though you had some recollection of it. I too recall something that resembles the description of this image. I believe the photograph in question is "Victims Jump" by David Surowiecki, for Getty Images. Jumpers are seen across a clear sky, which occupies about a third of the frame. It ran in the special commemorative issue of Time magazine, where it was given a full 2-page spread. I have a copy of it and the caption below it reads: ""You saw their ties flying up in the air," recalls David Burrell, a broker who watched several people fall of jump to their death." The photograph can be seen HERE. The thumbnail image, of course, is too small to make out the details, but in the 2-page spread in Time, the falling figures are quite clear. It is not evident that anybody's tie is flying in the wind, however, though it looks as if one of the jumper's socks is being torn away from his foot by the turbulence and has a trailing, wispy appearance. Perhaps the description in the caption mistakenly fused with the memory of the image. I hope this helps to shed some light for you and your readers. Best regards Lloyd Chan NOTE: This might be the reason several of us recalled a photo of a man with a "tie flying up": the caption, as Lloyd Chan suggests, may have "mistakenly fused with the memory of the image."]]> tag:davidfriend.net,2009://1.227 2009-09-13T01:14:42Z 2009-09-13T01:21:44Z

A must read. Alexia Tsotsis, on L.A. Weekly’s Art Blog weighs in on how the events of September 11 would have been channeled through the culture had the attacks occurred in 2009. It is reminiscent of the remarks from Watching...

L.A. Weekly’s Art Blog weighs in on how the events of September 11 would have been channeled through the culture had the attacks occurred in 2009. It is reminiscent of the remarks from Watching the World Change in which former Paris Match editor Alain Genestar notes that had the assault been waged today we would have had people inside the towers taking real-time cell-phone photographs and uploading them onto their computers for all to see. As Kurtz says in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, echoing Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: “The horror, the horror.” As Tsotsis notes, "For the most part we spent 9-11 watching CNN. The Web in '09 is more about doing rather than watching. Twitter asks, 'What are you doing RIGHT NOW?'" ]]>