Many comic strips start off with a good joke, but then a disgruntled reaction is tacked on in the last last panel. This disgruntled reaction is most times completely unnecessary. Let the comic genius of the goofy character do their…
Yahoo Answers is like the Wild West for questions. You can ask anything; and the general public answers your questions. With the general public giving answers, you get a range of helpful answers to completely stupid youtube-like responses. It’s a…
Yahoo deleted my question, “Why do ewoks like croquet?” Everyone knows that ewoks love to play the game of croquet. They are woodland creatures, croquet only makes sense for them to play in their habitat. Ewoks are also extremely playful.…
A peculiar thing was happening just before the Chicago bridges were raised. Being the first time in 2013 that the Michigan Avenue bridge was raised during the week, there was a little bit of a delay. My back was facing…
Can you do this in Instagram? Put notes on top of other people’s photos? No. You cannot do that in Instagram. But you can do it in Flickr. There’s many different ways you can ask your fans to leave notes.…
Wow! Chicago. City of the future! Only if Chicago’s subway still looked like that. Well, actually, it does. Maybe they should replace a chunk of State Street with large sheets of glass, so we can get this perpective. You can…
Have some fun and carry a sheet of gold stars in your wallet. They come in so handy to spontaneously award people for something good. At work: Someone suggest a good idea? Give him/her a gold star! At home: Someone…
Let’s cut down the commuter rage on escalators. If you are going to stand, then move over to the right and stand. Kindly allow those who wish to walk up the escalators to have the space on the left side.…
In my six years on twitter I have used smiley 🙂 136 times; frowny 3 times. ow.ly/jUxbi #twitterarchive thanks @jorisl — Matt Maldre (@spudart) April 9, 2013 I like that ratio. 97.8% of the time I’m smiley. Most twitter analysis…
(Photo by ifmuth on flickr) Balance an entire bridge on a river barge? As if that wasn’t enough weight, why not prop some railroad cars inbetween? Those railroad cars must have some sort of interior structure to hold all that…
Good ol’ Earthlink. Back in the late 1990’s Earthlink was one of the top internet service providers. Chances are you or someone you know used Earthlink to connect to the internet. Today most people use Comcast or AT&T. Blah. Such…
Out of the millions of photos that get posted to flickr every day, my sprouting tulip photo is currently the #112th most popular image on flickr for April 1, 2013. A big thanks to Chicagoist for featuring my photo in…
The low sun casts light onto the stark white station house hovering over the downtown streets named Madison and Wabash. The darker setting of Chicago’s gritty urban loop provides a sharp contrast to the white-washed facade of this ancient train…
When i’m on the phone, instead of doodling, sometimes i like to type random repetitive letters. The f and j fit together rather nicely: Yes, these are all hand-typed. There are ten ff’s, 23 jj’s, and 389 fj’s. Photoshop says…
Ever have a brilliant idea to capture, but don’t have any paper nearby? Why not write your idea on a dollar bill? That way everyone in the world can be a part of reading your idea. You can also write…
Resident legal eagle @tklyber weighs in on a Supreme Court decision made last week, a big win for museums in the US. Museums can continue to show copies of artists work. Let’s say 30 years ago if a museum aquired…
You are talking to an artist about his/her work. Let’s say you don’t know much about art. Here’s a couple suggestions on what to say. First off, never say, “you must have a lot of time on your hands.” In…
I beg people to never ever utter this phrase to an artist, “you must have a lot of time on your hands.” You may not realize it, but it’s extremely insulting to the artist. If you have said these words…
The Los Angeles Community Museum of Art is allowing 20,000 of their images to be used for free for any purpose. They even offer an easy download link on each image to grab the highest-resolution file. All the images are…
Ferruccio Laviani‚Äôs “Good Vibrations” is amazing. This is a real cabinet created to look like a warped scan. However, I‚Äôd like to see another photo with a different angle. Showing another photo will ruin the illusion, but it will also…
At 3am I thought staying awake was sleeping. I stayed awake thinking I was actually sleeping. Then at 8am I thought sleeping was staying awake. I layed in bed thinking I was awake, but I was actually sleeping.
We know Wassily Kandinsky for his fun shape and line paintings like this particular painting done in 1922. Wassily Kandinsky, “Ohne Titel” watercolour, pen and brush with India ink on paper Executed in December 1922, sold for $2,943,594 June 24,…
It’s surprising how many websites put silly limits on what your password can be. For instance, character length. Why limit people to 12 or 14 characters? If I want my password to be 18 characters long, let it be 18…
My favorite website and iphone app are being killed by Google. That would be Google Reader. Don’t know what Google Reader is? Or maybe you heard of it, but aren’t sure what it was good for. Then check out my…
Everyone is talking about how this is the first Latin American pope. That’s cool. But on my Christian Notebook blog, I give 25 other reasons why Pope Francis is cool.
A selection of poem, “The New York School” by Joseph Bradshaw I can‚Äôt remember anything about the movie Pollock. I wish a bald Sigourney Weaver played the part of Jackson Pollock. That would make the film more memorable. I wish…
Imagine our country if everyone knew how to program or code. I cover this topic on my publishing and syndication blog, “Programming should be taught in all schools to all students.” Now before you reply with, “then our country would…
The Art Institute sent me an email promoting their Picasso show. Hmmm, they must have missed my review of the Picasso show. They could have included my quote on their ad. “Meh, ok” –Matt Maldre, spudart.org But seriously, I think…
[LA Times, image via Smithsonian American Art Museum; a detail of Norman Rockwell’s painting “Shadow Artist” in George Lucas’s personal collection] George Lucas wants to build a museum of inspiring art. This is so awesome! YES YES YES. I’m excited…
What happens when you put thousands of small ball bearings on a moving table? You get fascinating patterns of movement. (If you cannot see the video above, you may view it on vimeo at, “Gr√∂nlund-Nisunen – Unstable Matter – 2013.”)…
