photo envy – syntaxfree

Collected Tweets

I decided to add a little value to the @syntaxfreeblog Twitter account by tweeting here and there about stuff I’m enjoying, but I still like the idea of collating those here for the record rather than losing them forever in the Twitter swamp. Where possible, I might also rephrase them better than I could on Twitter, or add a little value here which I didn’t have space to mention there. Here are a bunch:

I often struggle to connect with the work of fine art photographers, but here’s one I found lately that I do like: Kim Høltermand [via The Fox Is Black]
Love the African sounds in J. Cole’s Can’t Get Enough. You can hear the original Guinean source material at okayafrica.
As a total non-designer, typography always does my head in when I’m trying to make fonty decisions for this blog or my photobooks. I think they made Type Connection, a font match-making game, for people like me. [via Lifehacker]
Sometimes all you need is a headline: Paris Mayor Combats Noisy Nightlife By Deploying Roving Squads Of Mimes [via Everywhereist]
Sorry for Daily Fail link but IT IS KITTEH! NAMED MARSHMALLOW! OMG TEH FLUFF IS KILLING ME.

Clearing Decks

I’m all “New laptop! New start!” at the moment and totally geeking out over reinstalling all my favourite software (which of course also includes copious online research on whether all these programs are still theeeee best ones for me), and since I spend more time surfing the web than any responsible adult should, a big part of this is achieving optimal Firefox zen. But before I went on a trawl for shiny new extensions to fill surfing needs I never knew I had, I decided I needed to do a little bookmark pruning. I haven’t been the best at keeping my bookmarks under control over the years, which became a lame reason for me not to use online bookmark syncing services like Foxmarks because I felt like this would only encourage me to perpetuate my disorganized shitpile rather than lick it into shape, and this needs to change soon.

A particularly mucky sump in my bookmarks toolbar was the folder I’d called “To Blog”, where I would happily drag links with every intention of blogging them but then blithely continue surfing and never get round to writing the entry. Once the dropdown list of bookmarks in this folder reached the bottom of my screen, I ostriched my head in the sand and just stopped adding bookmarks there. To the best of my recollection, the contents of this folder have not changed since maybe 2006. But upon exploration I found there was still some good stuff in there! Just so that I can delete it with peace of mind, here it is:

Articles:

Grief, Gratitude and Baby Lee: Beautiful, poignant article about perinatal hospices. I hope people know that the anti-abortion community isn’t actually all about murdering doctors and hating on women.
Soulseeking: From now-defunct (and sadly missed) Stylus magazine, Nick Southall writes about the conundrum of loving music so much that you sometimes forget how to love it, something I’ve grappled with for years. In 2005 when the article was written, there were definitely some readers of this blog who would’ve identified with it. I’m not sure if they’re still here any more but if the article resonates with you, holla.

Poetry:

An Assignment for Student Playwrights (David Wagoner)
My Translation (Barbara Hamby)
Then too there is this (J. Allyn Rosser)

Photography:

I only mentioned File magazine once here before but loved way more photographs than I linked to at the time.