Previous “Best Of” posts

A Visit to Staples Rock

It was everything I hoped it would be—a big, dumb rock in the parking lot of a Staples.

Friday, June 27th, 2025

Barely a week after I first wrote about Staples Rock, I found myself taking an unexpected day trip to Cape Cod. This was so serendipitous I couldn’t possibly miss the chance to visit the Cape’s newest attraction. Also, it was completely on my way.

As I pulled into the strip mall where Staples Rock resides, I was shocked to find a complete lack of lines or crowds. Sure, it was morning in the middle of the week, but it’s not as if the area was devoid of people. I saw several folks going into and out of various businesses, but all appeared oblivious to the splendor mere steps away. I was sad for them, but delighted for myself. More rock for me.

When I walked up to this marvel of nature, I could hardly believe I was in its presence. There it was, Staples Rock, in the flesh. Or mineral, anyhow. Check out all its majesty:

Staples Rock, in all its splendor

A hero ought to have a great origin story, and Staples Rock’s begins with an epic journey. It appears to be a “glacial erratic”, which is a delightful term for a boulder that was picked up by a glacier and carried outside the area where it originally formed. After a slow journey of hundreds of miles, it was deposited in what would later become Orleans, Massachusetts, and eventually covered up completely. Much more recently, it was unearthed during some sewage work in the parking lot. Classic hero stuff.

After workers brought the massive stone above ground, it was decided that it would be kept there, right outside Staples. Why? Because last year, a car barreled through the front of the store:

A car that has driven halfway through the wall of the store.
That’s so VWTASTB!
[Photo credit: Cape Cod Times]

No people were hurt, but that brick wall sure took some damage. As a result, when this big-ass boulder was found, someone facetiously suggested that it could serve as protection for the store. Joke or not, now, it does.

The evidence of that vehicular incident actually remains quite visible on site, by comparing the building’s two peaked roof turrets. One of them features an intact brick wall, much like the wall you can see in the photo above, only less Kool-Aid Man’ed:

A turret with a wall that is made of brick

That’s not the wall that took the hit, however. The victim wall is no longer brick:

A turret with a wall that is no longer made of brick

Instead, the entire thing has been covered in classic Cape Cod cedar shingles. It’s certainly a choice. What they have not done is install any additional bollards, say right in front of the wall, which could prevent another drive-thru from being installed unexpectedly.

But then, even if the idea began as a joke, Staples Rock really is doing the job when it comes to protecting the store. I certainly didn’t see any cars drive through the wall in the seven minutes that I was there, anyhow.

I’ve been asked if I would describe this natural wonder as “breathtaking”. I don’t know about that, but I can tell you that it was eye-receiving. When I arrived, I was saddened to discover that Staples Rock had lost its googly eyes. That just wouldn’t do, so I made sure that it had a pair before I left:

The rock, looking gneiss, with two new googly eyes.

After all, if we’re going to gaze long into Staples Rock, Staples Rock should also be able to gaze into us.

The rock, gazing into the future.
A contemplative Staples Rock

The Idiots Are Coming

Every American ought to know why this is dumb, but it’s especially foolish in Boston.

Wednesday, May 28th, 2025

According to their own boasting, Morgan & Morgan is “America’s largest injury law firm”. They have offices in all 50 states, and advertising to match.1 In recent years, they’ve spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars on their utterly inescapable marketing.2 It’s a nationwide scourge.

But let’s set aside the obnoxious oversaturation of these ads, as well as their generally low quality. Even given that, one particular Morgan billboard I recently saw was still notably awful. Have a look:

A billboard with John Morgan dressed as Paul Revere, and the idiotic phrase “The Morgans Are Coming!” behind him.

If you’re thinking that photoshopping founder John Morgan as Paul Revere and then having him announce himself really doesn’t make a lot of sense, you’re right. But even that is not the biggest problem with this dreck.

No, the biggest issue is that Paul Revere’s pronouncement was not a positive thing! The phrase “The British are coming” is used to sound the alarm.3 Wiktionary defines it as “a warning that enemies are about and a battle is about to begin” or “a statement of impending doom”. It’s certainly no way to introduce a law firm.4

How can someone be historically literate enough to know about Revere’s ride, yet ignorant of why this ad flat-out does not work?

Footnotes:

  1. I can’t fathom why on earth I would care that they have lawyers in, say, Alaska, but they appear to view this as a point of pride. ↩︎

  2. The aforelinked article includes this quote:

    Morgan also takes pains to dismiss any suggestion he lives or spends like a billionaire. “The truth of the matter is, I don’t live like I earn. All our homes are paid for. It’s probably two million a year that I live on. And that’s taking care of seven houses. Most of the money I live on is spent on paying the HOA, gardeners, and [stuff] like that. I don’t live extravagantly.”

    Oh, no, that’s not living extravagantly. He just has a modest seven houses. ↩︎

  3. Though very much beside the point, it’s also not what Revere would have said. Instead, he would have said something more like “The Regulars are coming”. At the time, everyone in America was “British”. ↩︎

  4. While thinking about this far, far more than the marketing team seems to have, I considered the notion that the warning might work if it were given to the defense attorneys against whom the Morgans will square off. That interpretation has its own host of problems, however, including the fact that it would cast the Morgans as the tyrannical (and eventually defeated) British, even as John Morgan is pictured as revolutionary Paul Revere delivering the warning. ↩︎

The Mapparium Doofuses

Oh, Venthead, I think I love you most of all.

Tuesday, May 6th, 2025

The Mapparium is a tourist attraction here in Boston, a three-story stained glass globe that you can walk inside.1 It’s quite something, and at just $6 a ticket, it’s well-worth checking out if you’re in town.

Tour buses roll by my house frequently, to regale visitors with the tale of the great molasses flood. Some of these buses contain an ad for the Mapparium:

An ad for the Mapparium

I love these doofuses so much. Let’s have a closer look. First, we can zoom in to take note of the tour guide pointing unnaturally:

A woman pointing unnaturally

Given the badge visible on the lanyard, I suspect this person is indeed a real guide at the Mapparium. I also suspect being told to pose like she was doing her job made her suddenly forget how to act like a human being. I hope her friends take selfies with this ad every chance they get and send them to her.

We can zoom in further, and see that the guide is pointing to “French West Africa”:

A hand pointing to “French West Africa”

The Mapparium was built in 1935, and it was never updated after that. Hey, at least the land masses haven’t moved since then.2

Next up, let’s look at the engrossed attendee with the epically fake smile:

A woman smiling very fakely

While I don’t think she needs the hostage and rescue team, I’m still not buying her enjoyment one bit.

These two people amused me for quite some time, before I eventually noticed what became my absolute favorite part of this ad:

A woman whose head is a vent

Yes, there’s a third person in this ad, and she’s the best of all. Better than “guide pointing unnaturally” and “patron with phony smile plastered on” is “woman whose head is a vent”. Venthead, I salute you.

Footnotes:

  1. Atlas Obscura tells us “the Mapparium gets its name from the Latin words mappa (“map”) and arium (“a place for”).” From this, we can surmise that an aquarium is “a place for water”, and that we should really not be putting fish in there. ↩︎

  2. Much. ↩︎

A Cry of Defiance, and Not of Fear

Tyranny is at our door.

Friday, April 18th, 2025

Tonight will mark the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s midnight ride, during which he warned his fellow colonists of the approach of British troops. Revere began the evening by rowing across the river from Boston to Charlestown, where he slipped past a British warship to await news about the movement of the army. That information was provided by two lanterns hung in Old North Church, a signal that the British regulars were proceeding west via the water route (the latter possibility in the famous phrase “one if by land, two if by sea”). Revere took off ahead of them, rousing the minutemen to take up arms.

The next morning, the shot heard round the world was fired, and the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought. With that, the American Revolutionary War began. Eight years later, America would win its independence. Today, it endures as the longest-standing democracy in the world.

“Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere”. You may know the opening of Longfellow’s famous poem “Paul Revere’s Ride”, but today, give the entire piece a read. It includes this poignant passage:

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

Two and a half centuries after Revere’s ride, the fire lit by that spark has spread around the globe in the form of democracy, one of the greatest forces for good in history. America’s founding principles of inalienable rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, and the concept that government exists to serve its citizens are among the most powerful ideas humanity has ever devised.

Unfortunately, America has not been living up to its legacy lately. There are some bad people on the rise. Last night, Old North Church once again sent out a warning:

Messages projected onto Old North Church, including “One if by land, two if by D.C.”

It remains my fervent hope that in our current hour of darkness and peril and need, the people will waken.

The Legend of Larry Owl

This post sits at the intersection of technology and 20th century history.

Friday, March 14th, 2025

At 42 Lomasney Way in downtown Boston, there’s a brownstone known as the Last Tenement. Built in the 1870s, it was once part of blocks and blocks of similar buildings. Now, it stands as the last of its kind, penned in by modern glass-walled skyscrapers.

The Last Tenement
The Last Tenement
[Photo courtesy of P. Kafasis]

In the 1950s, Boston was the victim of a horrifying urban renewal, and the West End neighborhood was almost entirely demolished:

Mid-20th century urban planning had problems.

Legends of how this particular building escaped the wrecking ball abound. Whatever the truth, it’s the only nearby structure that wasn’t razed. Still standing in 2025, the Last Tenement is now home to four apartments and two billboards. For at least the past decade, the building’s south-facing billboard has played host to a continuous succession of Apple advertisements:

An iPhone 6 ad from 2015
This 2015 photo of a photo shot with an iPhone 6 was itself shot with an iPhone 6.
[Photo courtesy of P. Kafasis]

Recently, Apple shipped their AI-powered Genmoji feature, which enables you to create your own custom emoji. I’ve used it to make useful gems like a dumpster fire, as well as a sack to stuff your sorries into:

A dumpster fire genmoji and a Sorry Sack genmoji
It’s an expression!1

Apple has advertised Genmoji with snails driving cars, pigeons donning clothes, and even this enormous2 pizza rat:

A Genmoji billboard feating a rat holding a slice of pizza

The Last Tenement’s billboard was part of this Genmoji campaign as well. It featured the following ad:

A Genmoji owl basketball player

I run through this area frequently, so I noted this ad after it went up. Because I was often focused on just how miserable running in a frigid Boston winter can be, however, I didn’t think too much about it. “OK, sure, an owl basketball player” was about as far as my cold-addled brain got.

Eventually, though, the penny dropped. After my umpteenth time passing the billboard, while trying to distract myself from the single-digit temperatures and the brutal wind chill, I realized what I’d been missing. That’s not just a basketball-playing foul fowl.

You see, the Last Tenement is located just a few hundred feet from TD Garden, home arena for the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics. The Celtics have had many great players over the years, but only one had the last name “Bird”. Yes, this billboard is surely an allusion to the Hick from French Lick, Larry Bird.

It was obvious once I finally saw it, and I was so amused that I went by with my phone to snap the above pic. At that point, I noticed that the cartoon’s basketball jersey even seems to feature Larry Legend’s #33. It’s cut off, perhaps in the hopes of avoiding a lawsuit, but those numbers really can’t be anything else.

Having now studied the ad quite closely, I suspect that this Genmoji was not created with a simple text prompt like “A bird playing basketball”. Instead, I’m betting it’s based on an actual picture of Larry Bird, specifically Kurt Shimala’s picture featured on Bird’s Wikipedia page. Just look at this comparison:

A Genmoji owl next to Larry the Legend player
Larry Bird bird vs. Larry Bird

For reference, the real Larry Bird is the one not wearing sunglasses.

I would love to know if this particular ad was created exclusively for the location. If you spotted it elsewhere in the world, get in touch. Until I hear otherwise, though, I will assume this was a hyper-specific one-off. Either way, props to the Apple marketer who thought to put a Genmoji Larry Bird bird right next to the Celtics’ home.

Footnotes:

  1. The relevant Seinfeld clip is archived here. ↩︎

  2. It’s on a big billboard, so it is literally an enormous rodent. But setting that aside, do you think it’s a huge rat or a very tiny slice of pizza? ↩︎

“Homeowner Mates” Is an Awful Idea

Big yikes.

Tuesday, February 18th, 2025

When you live in a rental property, it’s likely there’s a defined expiration date for the arrangement. A standard one year lease means that at worst, you need to gut things out for 12 months before moving on.

On the other hand, when you buy a home, that’s forever. I mean, not actually forever, eventually you’ll die or the rising oceans will swallow your house or you’ll sell the property and move elsewhere. Nevertheless, purchasing a property is certainly a hell of a lot more serious than renting.

That’s why I’m so horrified by Zillow’s “Homeowner Mates” ad.1 In it, the narrator Sasha explains that she wanted a house, but couldn’t afford it on her own (she had $131,000 in “BuyAbility”, according to Zillow). Her friends Carol ($124,000) and Audrey ($117,000) shared both her interest in owning a home and her relatively anemic buying power. So, she asks, “Why not go all in together?”.

The narrator asking a very silly question
That is not a confident face.

Oh, for so very many reasons. From potential issues with budgeting to the headache of splitting expenses to difficult relationship dynamics, the idea of purchasing a home with one (or more!) unrelated people seems like a ticking time bomb. When things go wrong, it’s really going to be quite the clusterwhoops for everyone involved.

The ad itself even hints at problems ahead. Sasha starts the ad by dropping something as she unpacks, after being startled by a doorbell.2 She then refuses to answer her housemates’ repeated questions about what she smashed, despite them asking not once, not twice, but thrice. These folks have only just moved in. They’re still reviewing paint samples, but trouble is already brewing. I foresee a very messy breakup for Sasha, Carol, and Audrey.

Aside from the terrible idea that is its central premise, this ad is notable for what it says about the state of housing in America in 2025. Namely, that we do not have nearly enough stock, to the point where this terrible idea is something people might actually consider. But rather than attempting to convince people to buy a partial share of a home, perhaps efforts could be focused on the shortage of housing. New construction is pretty much the solution to the housing gap in much of America, not normalizing the disaster waiting to happen which would be purchasing a home with other people to whom you’re not legally connected.

Footnotes:

  1. The ad is archived here. ↩︎

  2. This despite the fact that the trio had apparently ordered pizza to be delivered. Sasha’s nervous constitution is also worrisome. ↩︎

Not So Super, Apple

Frankly, “Use ChatGPT” is the best answer Siri has offered.

Thursday, January 23rd, 2025

Yesterday, for reasons worth explaining only in a footnote1, I asked Siri who won Super Bowl XIII. It vomited out this hot mess:

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 13? Answer: Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl 52 Winner

We’ll set aside that it transcribed my spoken “thirteen” as “13”, rather than the Roman numeral “XIII” that’s used for Super Bowls. The response is the real problem, because despite being asked about Super Bowl XIII, Siri is bizarrely providing the winner of Super Bowl LII. The requested match-up of Super Bowl XIII was contested between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys,and the Philadelphia Eagles were most definitely not the winners. That would have been a hell of an upset.

I shared this with my pal John, and we had a good laugh. In the course of that conversation, I dinked around further, hitting more and more wrong answers. Eventually, I decided to be methodical. I asked my iPhone2 who won Super Bowls 1 through 60 (that’s “I” through “LX” in Super Bowl styling) and captured a screenshot of each result.3 The timestamps tell me this took just under 10 minutes. It also made my thumb hurt a little.

I then used ChatGPT to make assorted text lists, including the Roman numerals from I to LX, as well as all the actual Super Bowl winners.4 This saved my thumb, and other fingers, some amount of pain. I shoved all this into a Numbers spreadsheet for analysis.5 On the graphical front, I worked with Flying Meat’s excellent Retrobatch to process the collection of images.

So, how did Siri do? With the absolute most charitable interpretation, Siri correctly provided the winner of just 20 of the 58 Super Bowls that have been played. That’s an absolutely abysmal 34% completion percentage. If Siri were a quarterback, it would be drummed out of the NFL.

Siri did once manage to get four years in a row correct (Super Bowls IX through XII), but only if we give it credit for providing the right answer for the wrong reason. More realistically, it thrice correctly answered three in a row (Super Bowls V through VII, XXXV through XXVII, and LVII through LIX). At its worst, it got an amazing 15 in a row wrong (Super Bowls XVII through XXXII). Most amusingly, it credited the Philadelphia Eagles with an astonishing 33 Super Bowl wins they haven’t earned, to go with the 1 they have.

Below, I’ve gathered a dozen of my favorite responses, in sequential order.

Super Bowl III

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 3? Answer: The New York jets won Super Bowl 3.

The first time the AFC won the Super Bowl was also the first time Siri gave a correct answer, and it even included a nice enough image.

Super Bowl V

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 5? Answer: Baltimore colts, with a very low quality image of their logo

The second AFC Super Bowl victory was also Siri’s second right answer. This time, it featured a much worse image.

Super Bowl VIII

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 8? Answer: A fancy card showing the Eagles victory over New England in Super Bowl 52.

Look at that lovely card. Alas, it’s providing information for a Super Bowl that took place more than four decades after the one I’d asked about.

Super Bowl X

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 10? Answer: A long text description about Super Bowl 9.

By contrast, look at that hideous wall of text about the wrong Super Bowl. This was where Siri provided the right answer for the wrong reason. Through sheer dumb luck, the winner of Super Bowl X (what I’d asked about) was also the winner of Super Bowl IX (what it’s blathering about).

Super Bowl XI

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 11? Answer: Las Vegas Raiders

Right, and yet, still wrong! At the time, the Raiders played in Oakland. They would not move to Las Vegas for another 43 years.

Super Bowl XVI

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 16? Answer: Do you want me to use ChatGPT to answer that? with buttons for “Search the Web” and “Use ChatGPT”

Inexplicably, for this one lone Super Bowl, Siri offered to search the web or use ChatGPT.

A ChatGPT-powered Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 16? Answer: The San Francisco 49ers. This answer is correct.

Asking ChatGPT led to both a correct answer, and a useful warning to check for mistakes.

Super Bowl XXIII

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 23? Answer: A text response about Bill Bellichick, as well as a bad picture of him.

This answer is nonsensical, but the mug shot-looking picture of Bill Belichick made me laugh.

Super Bowl XXX

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 30? Answer: A long text answer blathering about Super Bowl MVPs.

Say, now there’s a bunch of barely related drivel. Thanks!

Super Bowl LVII

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 57? Answer: A fancy card showing the Chiefs victory over the Eagles in Super Bowl 57

Ah, wow, a correct answer. And it’s on a fancy card and everything.

Super Bowl LVIII

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 58? Answer: A fancy card showing the Chiefs victory over the 49ers in Super Bowl 58

Just like the Chiefs, that’s two in a row!

Super Bowl LIX

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 59? Answer: A fancy card showing that the two teams for Super Bowl 59 have yet to be determined.

Super Bowl LIX (pronounced “licks”) hasn’t happened yet, and Siri knows it. Now we’re cooking with gas!

Super Bowl LX

A Siri question and response. Question: Who won Super Bowl 60? Answer: A long text response about, you guessed it, the Eagles.

Never mind.6

That’ll do it for today’s edition of “Siri Is Dreadful”. If you weren’t looking for an incredibly deep dive on Apple’s failings when it comes to providing answers about Super Bowl winners, well boy, how did you make it this far? As I did in my previous post, I will again wish you better luck tomorrow.

Footnotes:

  1. First, my pal Amy Jane showed me a clip of Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker misspelling “Eagles” in a chant.

    That led me to dig up the crack I’d heard about Terry Bradshaw (“He couldn’t spell ‘CAT’ if you spotted him the ‘C’ and the ‘A’”), which apparently originated with Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson before Super Bowl XIII. The page I landed on was part of NFL.com, the NFL’s official website. It also included a note that “[o]n the sidelines during that game, Henderson used a nasal spray bottle containing water mixed with cocaine”. Wild stuff!

    Anyhow, I wasn’t sure if Bradshaw or Henderson got the better of it in that game, so I turned to Siri. That was a mistake. ↩︎

    Update (February 3, 2025): Though it was slower than Siri, eventually, the universe answered my initial query.

  2. My phone was running iOS 18.2.1 and had Apple Intelligence enabled. I also tested a sampling of these questions on both the forthcoming iOS 18.3 (with Apple Intelligence enabled) and on MacOS 14.7.2 (with plain old Siri). In all cases, they provided identical, and identically wrong, results. ↩︎

  3. You can check my work via the a full collection of answers for Super Bowl I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL, XLI, XLII, XLIII, XLIV, XLV, XLVI, XLVII, XLVIII, XLIX, L, LI, LII, LIII, LIV, LV, LVI, LVII, LVIII, LIX, LX ↩︎

  4. I cross-checked that list against my own knowledge, as well as both Wikipedia and ESPN. ↩︎

  5. I invite you to download this spreadsheet in Excel and PDF formats. ↩︎

  6. A very, very small amount of credit might be given here, as this is a description of what happened in the 1960 NFL Championship Game. ↩︎

The Resurrection of Jolt Cola

Dennis Nedry would be pleased if he weren’t fictional and dead.

Tuesday, December 31st, 2024

As a young lad in the ’90s, I consumed soft drinks which now seem quite vile to me. I suppose that even at the time, I knew they were gross. Have you ever really looked at Mountain Dew?

A luminescent green bottle of Mountain Dew
As slightly vulgar teenage boys, we called it “dragon piss”. I imagine you can see why.

That does not seem like something humans should consume. In fact, it looks more like the radioactive ooze which might transform your average sewer turtle into a humanoid ninja. In reality, though, it just transforms your pearly whites into decayed teeth.

While Mountain Dew was cooler than stalwarts like Coke or Pepsi, for my money, the most iconic soda of the ’80s and ’90s was Jolt Cola.

A can of Jolt Colt
[Photo credit: xxxxxCanManxxxxx at The Can Museum]

That branding was fantastic, but it’s almost hard to believe it was a real product. You could be forgiven for thinking it was a Hollywood creation, especially given its star turn in Jurassic Park, where it was the beverage of choice for duplicitous programmer Dennis Nedry:

Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry, drinking a Jolt

Jolt was a real product, however, and they let kids buy it. Somewhat ridiculously, the packaging boasted of having “all the sugar and twice the caffeine”. More than a standard cola, Jolt was an energy drink before a market for such things even existed. We loved it.

Excessive caffeine ingestion led my idiot friends and me to come up with a song to perform as we imbibed our sickening sodas. The lyrics were mostly based on the slogans found on Jolt’s can, with a nod to Mountain Dew’s nickname as well. I suspect we may have created and sung this nonsense on just a single afternoon. Nevertheless, it was etched into my brain then, and there it has remained for nearly 30 years. Now, I am compelled to present it to you. Please note that a proper performance requires at least two vocalists:

Background chant: Jolt…Jolt…Dragon piss and Jolt

🎶 Twice the caffeeeeeine /
A real sugar high /
Pop-U-Lating the wooooorld /
It’ll take you to the sky.🎶

I mention all of this for two reasons. First, it bubbled up1 in my mind when I learned that Jolt is coming back in 2025. This time around, it will be a full-on energy drink aimed at adults, competing with Red Bull and Monster. While the company no doubt hopes to gain some sales due to nostalgia, I confess it holds zero appeal to me.

But second and more importantly, I’m writing about this in the hopes of solving a decades-old mystery, one which confounds me to this day. What in the name of hepped-up marketing drivel is “PopUlating the world” actually supposed to mean? If anyone can provide an answer, I’ll be deeply grateful.

Update (January 6, 2025): We didn’t really solve it, but some better alternatives were proposed.

Footnotes:

  1. Pun acknowledged. ↩︎

I Am a Hotel Art Appreciator

I’m thinking of having business cards made up.

Friday, December 6th, 2024

For many years, I’ve been an appreciator of hotel art. I don’t mean that I value or esteem the works found in hotel rooms, but simply that I make myself aware of it. I pay attention to it and attempt to consider it with a discerning eye.

As you may recall, I’ve written about specific hotel art previously. But while that was very bad, most hotel art is just very bland. It exists not to stimulate, but to soothe and sedate. If hotel art catches the eye, it has failed. It hangs there because a blank wall would be distracting. Most hotels would likely prefer their wall adornments go unnoticed, and certainly prefer that they go unremarked upon.

And yet, when I’m in a hotel, I make it a point to inspect the art. As I enter my room, I’ll give the walls a once-over. Occasionally, even a twice-over. Someone chose to put these particular pieces in these particular places, and I like to consider why. I have even found myself asking “Is it art?”.

A painting of three white-ish toroids
Is this hotel bathroom art or towel hooks? Even the hotel itself did not seem to know.
[Photo courtesy of P. Kafasis]

Perhaps my single favorite piece of hotel art is one I refer to as “The Cheerios”. This picture should make it obvious how it earned that name:

A painting of three white-ish toroids
Yes, fine, the holes are larger than those found in Cheerios. Nevertheless, the name has stuck.

This painting can be found at the Wynn and Encore resorts in Las Vegas, where duplicates of it hang in literally thousands of guest rooms. At night, it‘s possible to look up at the illuminated windows of the hotel towers and see copy after copy after copy of “The Cheerios”. To me, that is its own fascinating meta work of art.

Hotel art isn’t just confined to generic nonsense in the rooms, however. Lobbies at upscale hotels sometimes contain art that is more renowned, or at least more valuable. This is particularly true in Las Vegas, where the aforementioned Wynn and Encore has exhibited many very expensive pieces. Similarly, the nearby Bellagio has Dale Chihuly’s famous “Fiori di Como”, consisting of thousands of glass flowers, and many other Vegas hotels feature pricey works.

So when I recently found myself waiting at the fancy Intercontinental hotel here in Boston, I thought I might be seeing something of similar renown. This line drawing reminded me of the works of Matisse and Picasso:

A semi-abstract line drawing of a face

However, the piece bore no signature. With a bit of sleuthing courtesy of Google Lens, I was able to locate it on the web. It turns out this is not the priceless work of a master, or even a print of one.

Instead, this abstract face can be purchased from 7ArtPrints on Etsy, for a grand total of 2 dollars and 50 cents. It comes as a digital download which can then be printed out (faux canvas background and all), framed, and hung in the just-renovated lobby of a very expensive hotel.

If this was done with intent, it would indeed be a very subversive work of performance art. However, I suspect it was done simply out of cheapness. Ah well. Perhaps our enjoyment of this dross is the true art? Let’s go with that.

The next time you find yourself in a hotel, take a minute or two to soak in the art. You, too, can be a hotel art appreciator.

Paradise Jost ∞

His torso and waist had a blast.

Wednesday, August 7th, 2024

Though the 2024 Summer Olympics are based in Paris, the surfing events are actually being contested in Tahiti. It’s more than a little strange that part of the games is so insanely far away from France. I suppose it’s also more than a little strange that part of France is approximately as far across planet Earth from Europe as one can get.1

According to Wikipedia, at almost 10,000 miles from Paris, Tahiti has set a new record for “greatest physical distance of a medal event from the host city”. Wikipedia goes on to say that the previous record holder dates back to 1956 “when the equestrian events of the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, had to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, because Australia had strict quarantine rules for animals coming from overseas.” OK, now cue the music and that…star thing.

🎶 The More You Know 🌠 🎶

“Saturday Night Live” writer and apparent avid surfer Colin Jost traveled a very long way to cover those surfing events, acting as NBC’s correspondent from the island. As he cheekily put it in one video, “this is my job”. Or it was, anyway. Sadly, a ridiculous series of injuries and maladies has forced Jost to step aside, gingerly, one assumes. Among other issues, there was concern of ants getting inside his wounds.

The injury was treated by medical professionals who warned him not to stand in place as ants would attempt to crawl inside the wound

Barvd! Perhaps it’s fortunate that Jost is no longer in French Polynesia.

So ends the trials of “the only person in the world that has made paradise tragic and difficult to deal with,” as NBC Sports’ Maria Taylor put it.

Get well soon, Colin.

Footnotes:

  1. As you can see here, Tahiti is directly antipodal to Sudan, in Northeast Africa.

    A map showing tahiti and its antipodal point in Sudan.

    France isn’t too far off from being antipodal though. It’s visible on that map, circled in the upper left. ↩︎

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