Happy Birthday, Jackson

One of the worst things to happen to art, unless you like the pictures. The pictures made between, let's say, 1948 and 1952, of course, because no one in his right mind could like any of the others.
One view is that they're wallpaper. But almost everyone agrees agreeable wallpaper; more, brilliant wallpaper. You can't stand (as one used to in the old Tate, for example) in a room with nine Lee Krasners, three Jackson Pollocks, two Barnett Newmans and a Clyfford Still without saying: "That's rubbish, so's that, and that, and that, that's interesting, that's beautiful, that's crap, &c, &c."
The ones you thought were of some interest were the Newmans, the ones you thought beautiful were the Pollocks and the Still. It didn't mean you thought they were art, or great, or important. But they looked nice.
I love the pictures from that period, particularly Blue Poles and Lavender Mist, but I don't know why. He made them like this.

Pohl blogs

At the age of 89, Frederik Pohl has begun a blog.

Jinx

I don't believe in jinxes. But nor do I believe in tempting fate. Boing Boing posted this yesterday. Today a plane crashed into the Hudson.

Apple

I once posted elsewhere saying that I didn't want iPhone or an iPod. I've gone and bought an iPhone, which joins the 13" MacBook, the 12" PowerBook, the Mac mini, the G4 and the G5 in the household. What I really need is a netbook the size of a Moleskine notebook (or an Asus Eee 7") in aluminium with a proper keyboard. But MacWorld disappoints again.
Good job boing boing has listed a compatability chart for doing it yourself. And you can get instructions for turning an Asus Eee into a mac running OSX here. That intraweb thing will also give you nice instructions on how to glam the thing up so that it looks like it came from Cupertino.
I still don't want an iPod.

I believe in Steven Moffat

and I think Matt Smith looks promising. I would have liked Chiwetel Ejiofor myself, but - let's face it - the many excellent incarnations of the Doctor are all approximating to the excellence of Jon Pertwee.