While watching the Democratic National Convention a few weeks ago, I channeled my Obama love and created a high-brow collage made out of his photo and construction paper. I wanted to wear it with pride so I turned it into a shirt, and now you can wear it and show how much you crush on Barry too! T-shirts come in red, blue, and gray versions to match all your political outfits. Women’s ringer t-shirt: $22.45. Men’s ringer t-shirt: $20.20. Buy them here!

I was sitting next to a guy on the plane with a striking deer photo on his laptop desktop. Found out when he’s not traveling the world as an engineer for GE, he’s living in a wooded area in Erie, Pennsylvania where he hooks up sensors with digital cameras and straps them onto trees in his backyard. When deer and other animals come near, the sensor picks up the motion and signals the camera to take a photo.

He showed me a slew of near-romantic shots of deer, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and other furry creatures that call his backyard their home. I started thinking about ways I could use this in the city… He started thinking about the eery future of his artwork… “This is the first time I’ll have photos of the deer alive before I kill it.” Images above from trailcam.com.

Seeing this a lot more lately - plane cam, which points out the front and the bottom of the plane so you can see just how ridiculously high you are in the middle of space… too much information?

Old Finnish men, Lichtenstein-esque map graphic, fuss lotion… from Suomen Kuvalehti (Finnish Picture Book), 1958.

Thanks Tiina for introducing me to Moomin, my new favorite storybook star! Finland’s version of The Little Prince… entertains kids and breaks adults hearts.

Something I found while flipping through an All-American Ads book ha… Guard your foods and women against rapid drying out!

CUP’s Making Policy Pubic collaborators page is up… look Ma, I’m on the interweb!

A New York Times graphic tallying the number of times the Democrats and Republicans used particular words during their conventions.

Helsinki is 7 hours ahead of NYC, but that didn’t stop me from staying up until five in the morning to frustratingly watch the RNC. If they’re going to boo Obama for not calling the war  a “victory” and for ensuring all people are read their rights, well I don’t know what to say. Democrats referred to McCain by his name more than Republicans referred to Obama by name. Instead, they just called him “our opponent” which reminded me of the way creepy governments depersonalize “the enemy.”

Whoever wrote the graphic caption seems to be a Republican and said that “Republicans talked about reform far more frequently than the Democrats” - hmm yes they said “reform” 22 to 6, but the Democrats said “change” 89 to 30… Maybe this word focus isn’t such a good way to gage anything… but I would like to know how many times the Republicans said, “we need to drill, drill, drill!”

The other day I hung out with my friend Jesse Shapins, who co-created the cool personal-story-sharing-through-mobile-technology public art project Yellow Arrow, which inspired my local-history-sharing-through-mobile-technology public art project Cripplebush Ghost Tour. He’s currently getting his PhD in History and Theory of Urbanism and Film and Visual Studies at Harvard and just finished teaching an interesting course at Columbia called Critical Urban Media Arts. Students combined urban theory, social media, and psychogeography to create SMS-based walking tours of specific areas in NYC. Another cool way of using cell phones to share experiences and explore the city!

A high-brow collage I made while watching the DNC… I Heart Barry!