Flaming Pablum

The Argument for Reading the Fine Print

I get a decent amount of comments here at Flaming Pablum. Unsurprisingly, a whole pile of them routinely turn out to be spam, so I spend a huge swathe of my week excising them before you, dear reader, are ever troubled by them. There was one that caught my eye yesterday, however, that made me laugh.

I noticed it initially as it referred to a comparatively ancient post from 2008. Responding seemingly solely to the headline Teenage Jesus Reincarnated?, "Christians" (who link back to a website about "Christian fine art photography") wrote:

I was reading your post and this is awesome article one of the best post keep it up and good job!

Obviously, this wasn't the work of a sentient being, but rather the doings of some promotional search bot, as I gravely doubt someone with even a whiff of Christian devotion would sincerely applaud the news of a fleeting reunion of Teenage Jesus & the Jerks.

Praise the Lord

Down on the Street

Time was when I'd rarely leave the apartment without a camera, ready to capture any little thing that caught my eye on the street. Many -- if not most -- of the resulting photographs are scattered around this weblog. I still take what you'd call "street photography," but I generally don't think that these downtown streets are quite as interesting as they used to be, most of them having been largely wiped of their character, history and/or cultural significance by the tsunami of gentrification in recent and not-so-recent years. Some might argue that I'm helping to further gentrify them by having my little ones run amok on them (that's them in the shot above), so maybe I'm indeed complicit.

In any case, those not burdened by such thoughts of guilt and regret should limber up their e-mailing digits, because evidently my beloved Museum of the City of New York -- working with the South Street Seaport Museum -- is looking for fresh "street photography" submissions. In their own words...

The South Street Seaport Museum invites submissions of new works in the field of New York City street photography for a juried exhibition to open in the late fall of 2012. The exhibition seeks to showcase the best of contemporary photography capturing life as it unfolds in New York City's public places—its streets, parks, and plazas.

Think your pics are up to snuff? Send them in now. Deadline for entries is next Monday, October 8.

Good luck!

Welcome Back to October

Sonic Youth circa 1985 by James Welling.