Open Hatch

[Oh, sheesh. What a lame entry this was. I’m editing this baby.]

PROBLEMO UNO

Finally got high speed internet (cable). Yay!

Going to cancel dialup account with SISNA. Again, Yay!

[And I go to the company’s website expecting I can cancel and I can’t and I try the trick of entering a false credit card so they can’t charge me anymore, and they won’t allow that. And this means I’ll have to call their 40-minutes-on-hold customer service just to cancel. What a pain.]

PROBLEMO DOS

[Okay, I’m not editing this one, because this is actually a good technical work around.]

I started my iTunes music account under one email. I purchased music. Then I decided that email address stinks and abandoned it. Forgetting it was attached to my iTunes music I went and got a new iTunes account attached to my new email address. I go to buy some music and there’s my old iTunes account. Oh, that has my credit card on it, I should migrate that. Um, but it won’t let me update that old account’s email to the new one; that’s already used on my new account. I’ve got two accounts with credit cards on them now but I only use one. Naturally, I look around for a way to cancel the old account. There. Is. No. Option.

This person gives me a tip which gives me an idea. I remove the credit card from the new account, replace the mail address on it with a bogus address, and change the email address [to a bogus name that now embarrasses me]. No more information there that is of any use. A bogus, unused account without any credit card. Then I go to the old account and it lets me update the email to my new one fine - it’s no longer used.

[And I hate these restrictive setups like, really bad.]

I’ve discovered and love Bernini’s portrayal of David ten times over Michelangelo’s. Michelangelo’s says “I am a superhuman who is thinking hard about my overly idealized form and non-existential pants.”

http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/img/michelangelo_david2.jpg

Most of the photos get it wrong by viewing the statue from the level, which is not what it was designed for. It towers as an inverted trapezoid so that David’s head and shoulders are inordinately large, which is not appealing. The purpose of that design was to defy perspective when viewed from below, at a distance, so that David appears near, in front perspecitve, and proportional while he is actually distant and viewed from below. But, and I’m sorry, if the statue is photographed from the angle it was designed to be viewed from -

http://www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/L18/18-8.jpg

- it places his woinker smack-dab in the center of focus. The eye moves up to head, then right back down to the smack-dab center of focus. And wow, take a look at that. Where’s your Bathsheba now, oh Exposed One?

[I first wrote that the head is stoically stern and emotionally removed. It’s not - it’s expressive - he looks worried and a bit withdrawn.]

But you know what, it is a very impressive statue, from the correct angle. I understand it’s the culmination of theories on perfect form and harmony in sculpture, etc. Theory. Yawn. It’s just that it only communicates the perfection of the human form, which is very valid and striking in itself. Nonetheless, I just like what Bernini’s statue communicates more -

Bernini’s statue shows David as human, not super-human. He is in action, hastily putting the stone in the sling while looking straight out toward Goliath, with a look of great concentration and I think even defiance on his face, biting his lip. The whole pose is sort of awkward and says “shepherd boy”.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/b/bernini/bernini_david2.jpg
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/baroquetheory/images/berninidaviddet2.jpg
http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/art/faculty/Fontana/Bernini%20David%20med.jpg
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/baroquetheory/images/berninidavid.jpg

As I said, I love the second statue. A lot. Ten times over.