~ query: how is it possible that 21 people were killed today – and 9 yesterday – in attacks in iraq if people were allowed to put ballots into a box 2 weeks ago? don’t ‘open and free elections’ make everything better? our troops are home already, no? maybe this is because no one has died, and cnn, reuters, and the bbc don’t want freedom to march?

~ we retract the comments about a lack of bleakness in philadelphia, as it became colder than a well digger’s ass immediately upon the delivery of the previous missive.

~ we have dumped a dozen or so new images into the context folder. the sun is beginning to shine in philadelphia, hinting that an open-ended future here might not be too bleak to tolerate.

~ if you arrived here after searching for ‘jeremiad enigma’, you will not find any images or information about that work on this site.

although no new writing or work has appeared in over one month on this site it does not reflect a lull in physical or virtual production. the umbrella collaborative the work.group has been given the opportunity to present its work in exhibition form at the atlanta museum of design [w] as an emerging voice in the ‘atlanta architecture scene’. the exhibition opens on march 3rd. there are plenty of cultural artifacts to be found at the work.group’s site [w] for the exhibition. if you are dying to read a text you may enjoy the picaresque fiction of the ‘saga of publius/3‘.

~ thanks to republican senators like joe lieberman, the job has been taken by that fucking asshole gonzales who ‘validated’ the bush administration’s argument that beating and torturing prisoners is acceptable for the united states, but maybe this sick fuck will make attorney general when santorum is president in 2009:

“Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded Marine expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq, made the comments …

‘Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot,’ Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. ‘It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.'”

at this point, no american in military uniform deserves respect.

~ we will try to answer some of the questions abotu CBR/CBZ files that are bringing people the angry red planet. in an effort to make sure no more comic books are put into the .pdf format, here is a simple set of instructions for how to build files compatible with CDisplay [see update below]:

1. scan the cover and all pages of your comics.
2. crop everything but the artwork.
3. save each page as .png or .jpg at maximum quality.
4. number the image files in the same sequence as the pages (ex.page00.jpg, page01.jpg…)

now there are a couple of choices with the files—creating a CBR or a CBZ. With any given batch of images, both resulting will be similar in size, and both will be readable by the same Comic Book Reader software. The main difference is that CBR requires proprietary software to create, whilst CBZ can be created with open source and/or system software.

To create a CBZ:

1. Using either your operating system or a 3rd-party software such as 7-Zip*, place all of the comic’s images into a .zip file
2. Rename the resulting file’s extension from .zip to .cbz
3. .cbz file will now open in a comic book reader.

To create a CBR:

1. Using the commercial software WinRAR**, place all of the comic’s images into a .rar file
2. Rename the resulting file’s extension from .rar to .cbr
3. .cbrfile will now open in a comic book reader.

finally, share your comics! it isn’t right to share new comics that will hurt sales and cause our favourite books to be canceled. scanning and sharing comics should only be done in the interest of preserving old comics and protecting those comics that are out of print.

*For creating CBZ, you can use 7-Zip
**For creating CBR, you will need WinRAR

Update 11/1015. Software locations have changed since original post:
To read comic books on Android devices, we recommend CDisplay.
CDisplay reader: http://www.cdisplay.me/.
Original CDisplay is no longer being updated CDisplay Ex, has continued development http://www.cdisplayex.com/.

To read comic books on Android devices, we recommend Perfect Viewer [link].

~ our time these days has been duopolized by the marquis project at sisyphean and by postbaroque. not to say that there is a staggering production of work in these other arenas, for most of that time has been invested in the part of the process known as ‘staring vacantly at the wall’ or ‘weeping quietly over drafting board’ or ‘seeking clarity in escape’. no one gives a shit about postbaroque, but one can read more about the marquis project at toastmaster’s grounds [w] and see the project proper at sisyphean [w].

~ for filler, we have stolen from sisyphean the end-of-the-month ritual of posting the search terms that lead newcomers to the angry red planet. whereas queries on perry kulper’s architecture and the crowmaker are of interest to the work.group fans, the visitors here seem to have more prurient and/or angry thoughts:

angry red planet : 7.3 %
the angry red planet : 4.2 %
men porno : 3.6 %
nude muslim : 3.6 %
coy howard : 1.5 %
muslim nude : 1.5 %
comic book reader .cbr .cbz : 1.2 %
fahrenheit 911 bittorrent : 1.2 %
fuck condoleeza : 1.2 %
nude muslims : 0.9 %

continue reading…

~ rest in peace, philip johnson! you were a rich nazi hack who forced hideous skylines upon us, but at least you hooked up the guys who are responsible for the nearly modern world in which billions of us live.

~ we now sink to writing more bullshit about new york; today we read that eric owen moss has been kicked off the queens museum project:

There will be no competition for Mr. Moss’s successor; an architect will be chosen by the museum and the city from a preapproved list of eight architects compiled by the Department of Design and Construction for projects of $5 million or more. They are Fox & Fowle Architects, a finalist the first time; Mr. Viñoly; Polshek Partnership Architects; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Arquitectonica; 1100 Architects; the team of Ammann & Whitney and Grimshaw Architects; and Gluckman Mayner Architects. -nytimes

we admit that, except for the kodak building and maybe that stealth thing, moss’s work is foolish, but if the fucking “Department of Design and Construction” is going to pick between SOM and fox & fowle, why not just throw a dart at a catalog titled ‘substandard, pedestrian fare’. if you are so insistent upon keeping your city four decades behind the pacific rim you fucking fossils.

~ we don’t like to write about new york city, as plenty of myopic sycophants already have covered that task, but we can’t miss an opportunity to scoff when it is down. ‘only in new york’, is a tired lie, that nonetheless actually and unbelievably passes the lips of people standing in its streets, but let’s hope they appreciate the social and physical framework they have built and named a city where one homeless person trying to stay warm can cripple a transportation system for over 500,000 people for the next five years. well done, friend; we’d like to buy you some absolute bagels.

~ most readers have probably missed most news unrelated to movies ecstatically click on the links to find out which award nominations are garnered by another film with leonardo and that woman from ‘pearl harbor’, but someone at yahoo had the wit to post the following headlines in succession; a known fact is that no one would read the articles, yet the incongruous nature of the moves of bush’s government is revealed in two simple phrases. in a way, it makes sense when compared to the responses of “remember 911!” to the bbc photos of bloody kids who have just been orphaned by american soldiers:

• Bush Wants $80B More for Iraq, Afghan Wars (AP)
• 2,000 new border agents aren’t part of budget, Ridge says (USATODAY.com)

the ‘b’ is for ‘billion’.

~ new jersey transit quote:

“i don’t want to be close to strangers.”

(…on the new jersey transit!)