The Definition of Writing

Painted Mixtec and Aztec manuscripts, like all writing systems, were permanent and readable, which meant that they were used to establish ideas, document facts, and present accountability.

Europeans recognized the painted records's function to the extent that those drafted for leaders were valid in legal proceedings. However, the Europeans were ambivalent about is as it really didn't conform to the European idea of writing. For example, Acosta ranks Aztec writing and Inca knot records just below Chinese ideograms. The ambivalence continues to this day with the classification of Aztec writing as pictography.

Ignace Gello defines writing as a "system of human intercommunication by means of conventional, visible marks". But pictography is placed as a "forerunner of writing" in the evolution of writing, leading to alphabetized and phonetically representative visual communication systems. It helps to remember that writing is a cultural construct that has been used to distinguish literates from pre-literates, people with history from those without, and civilized people from barbarians or primitives. Now, the working definition of writing is given by Sampson as the communication of relatively specific ideas in a conventional manner by means of permanent, visible marks.

Surreal art by Thomas Barbèy

On Friday, Julie and I visited Healdsburg and we found an art gallery selling pieces by Swiss artist Thomas Barbèy. His influences are Magritte, Escher y Giger. The actual prints are very cool to look at, but we thought they were expensive!

Eyjafjallajökull

Source for emissions information

NIN - Burn

Dedicated to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland.

Cuauhnahuac

Esta representación indica la conquista precolombina de Cuauhnáhuac, ahora Cuernavaca, por parte de los aztecas. Cuauhnáhuac era antes habitada por los tlahuicas.

Posters by Iranian artist Mehdi Saeedi

More posters can be found on Mehdi Saeedi's Web page.

I will always love you

Increíble performance. Me gustó también el corte de pelo.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

(Jon enters kitchen. Julie and Ashley are writing what looks like a mind map on a napkin. )

Jon: Hey, what're you guys up to?

Julie: We're playing six degrees of kevin bacon. Wanna play?

Jon: Sure... but I don't really know any movies Kevin Bacon has been in.

Julie: The only movies we could come up with are Footloose and Flatliners.

Ashley: This is a waste of my time.

(Ashley leaves kitchen and finds something better to do)

Nueva luna / New moon

Como se puede ver, le he dado un nuevo diseño al blog. Los colores originales, chocolate y piel, me gustaban mucho porque significaban mexicanidad y humanidad, pero para mí necesitaba un poco más de vida y de estilo. Traté redondear el header y darle una sombra, muy al estilo Web 2.0. Experimenté también con @font-face, pero las fuentes no rendían bien en todos los browsers sin hacer más juegos malabares. Finalmente, tomé un riesgo y le quité al blog sus colores originales. Opté por usar el rojo sangre como color principal para significar la sangre que fluye por nuestras venas como seres humanos. Pero más que eso, el logo refleja humanidad y mexicanidad al semejarse a la manuscrita de los códices mexicanos.

As you can see, I've redesigned the blog. I liked the original colors, chocolate and tan, because they symbolized humanity and Mexican-ness, but I felt the blog in general was a bit dull in terms of design. I rounded the header and gave it a shadow, and later experimented with @font-face, but I had trouble porting my fonts across different browsers. Finally, I decided to scrap the original colors and the header. The result? A new logo. It's blood red to signify the blood that flows through all our collective bodies, and it is handwritten scrawl, similar to those found in the ancient Mexican codices. The logo successfully reunites humanity and Mexican-ness and breathes new life into the blog.

w00t!