Michael Nagle for The New York Times reports on artist Steve Powers’s simulated display of waterboarding:

“Some people look at Coney Island and see a paradise of carefree entertainment. Others see a cesspool of gritty squalor. Few are those who gaze upon its shrieking kids, grizzled wanderers and fast-talking flimflam artists and see an opportunity for engaged political discourse.

In Steve Powers’s ‘Waterboard Thrill Ride’ in Coney Island animatronic figures simulate an interrogation method used in Guantánamo; visitors view the scene through a barred window.”

Link

Controversial political artwork featuring robots? Mandated roadtrip.

The quote is Sean Penn’s. I have mixed feelings about the whole “blood-soaked underwear” business, but he called Donald Rumsfeld a “party clown” on “Larry King Live”—and how can you not find that kind of color in punditry enjoyable?

Plus, he actually went to New Orleans. I don’t care how much you disagree with his politics or if you think the whole motor boat rescue was an ego-driven publicity stunt. I have to empathize with anyone who went out to New Orleans to see it for themselves.

What happened after the levees collapsed was horrifying. Honestly, I think colorful punditry is a completely justifiable (maybe even conservative) response to what has happened.

I don’t agree with everything Penn says, but he was right in calling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina an act of “criminal negligence.”

I like the absurdity of the quote above. It’s a bit existential. Penn said it in 1997, a long, long time before his dramatic boat rescue, during a publicity tour from some movie or another that I was a bit too young to see at the time.

A lot of human compulsions—even the basic ones, like eating and sleeping—are really absurd and senseless when you look at them alone. When you consider just the acts and not their functional roles in sustaining life.

Eating: you put things in your mouth and chew them into a pulp and then swallow. And your body has this whole elaborate system of turning that pulp into energy that you can use to move around and do things. Like cook elaborate meals to put in your mouth and chew into a pulp. It’s all very strange. Sleeping is even weirder.

The non-basic life functions—studying, watching movies, socializing, dancing—are even harder for me to rationalize sometimes. When I’m by myself at night writing a paper on the influence of Dadaism on modern architecture, or in the book stacks at USC reading about computational learning theory, I find myself having to pause. Why does this matter again? Why am I doing this? Why am I here?

Oh yeah. I’m creating a fleeting sense of meaning through actions and interpretations so I don’t feel inconsolably doomed and alone. Thanks, Sartre.

Here are some things that are absurd and irrational:

WEB COMIC: XKCD | Sometimes it seems bizarre that we take dreaming in stride
PHOTO: Autistic boy naps after getting his ducks in a row
MUSIC VIDEO: DJ Shadow | High Noon | Directed by Brian Cross
BLOG: Eric Martinez | Flannel Ass | The Only Way’s The Naked Way | NOLA Life
ARTIST PORTFOLIO: Blaine Fontana | Totem Book Media
PHOTO ESSAY: Chernobyl Legacy | Slate.com
PERSONAL DATA: Personal Pies | An Audit of Craig Robinson’s Life So Far

I’m going to start doing infrequent link dumps with loose themes. Today’s theme comes from a quote attributed to Allen Ginsberg, who aside from his membership with NAMBLA, was a wonderful human being. Yes.

The quote is both disheartening and comforting to me. On one level, it says to me that it’s not enough for me to feel disillusioned with the world because everyone else is already so cynical that I need to take further action than just being emotionally impacted by injustice. On another level, it’s okay that my heart is breaking because, as isolating as that feels, I’m surrounded by kindred broken-hearted people.

Today feels like a sad-but-hopeful day, so here are some sad-but-hopeful links: