When you’re on a long commute, whether on a train or bus, it can seem that time just slows down, and a twenty-minute journey can feel like an eternity. When traveling by public transportation, many people try to occupy themselves to help pass the time so that it’s a bit more bearable.
What you choose to do to pass the time will depend on your interests, but to help guide you, here are a few things that you can do to make your journey more interesting. Continue reading How to Pass the Time on Your Commute→
Surrealism was identified by its proponents as a way of reuniting the conscious and unconscious realms of experience so that the world of dream and fantasy could be joined to the everyday rational world — or what one critic called “an absolute reality, a surreality.” René Magritte accomplished this by merging dreamlike imagery and naturalistic detail, as in his iconic canvas Time Transfixed (1938). He also worked carefully on his titles, and he was ultimately unhappy with the English translation of the title of this painting. The original French, La Durée Poignardée, literally means “ongoing time stabbed by a dagger.” Magritte hoped that when his patron Edward James purchased this painting, he would install it at the bottom of his staircase so that the train would “stab” guests on their way to James‘ ballroom. In an ironic twist, he hung it over his fireplace, to Magritte’s great dissatisfaction.
One of the most vivid and cherished dreams I’ve had in the past couple of years involves a dream in which I discover a secret room in the back of my apartment. How I have managed to live in the apartment for 20 years and never even notice this room is a mystery. In the dream, this approximately 225 square foot room has been meticulously finished with wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling cabinetry, and it is the most exhilarating feeling imaginable to realize that I have all of this space in which to expand my world. Seriously, I would compare it to discovering a treasure chest full of $100 bills, and you can perhaps only truly relate to and appreciate that if you live in a NYC apartment.
Can you even imagine having access to an extra 225 ft. of rent-free space to use as, say, a walk-in closet, or to store absolutely every single thing you’ve ever owned in your entire life? That “Undiscovered Room” dream is probably the best dream I’ve ever had, because it gets to the root of an issue that all Manhattan dwellers live with: the desire for More Fucking Space. Continue reading Video Clip of The Week: Worriers, “Most Space”→
When it comes to taking on the hot button topic of Global Warming and its possible catastrophic effects, Snowpiercer is a movie that believes you should either go big or go home – and the films’ premise is a doozy. Set 17 years in the future, Snowpiercer drops us into the aftermath of a failed chemical experiment; one that was meant to slightly lower the global temperature but which instead propels the Earth into a devastating ice age, annihilating all life on the planet. Continue reading Must See Movie: Snowpiercer→
My friend, and former editor at the late, great Pandemonium Online, Dave Liljengren turned me on to this Pink Lionel Train found on the (no longer active) Monkey Goggles Blog. Click Here to read an interesting story about how this train has earned the dubious honor of being “The Least Successful Toy In The World.” Thanks, Dave!
