MAKE’s Dale Dougherty on Boing Boing

Maker Media grand Pooh-Bah Dale Dougherty is the latest guest blogger on Boing Boing. Dale has one of the most captivating and restless intellects I know, so it’s really exciting to see him given free range to talk about whatever is on his mind. Some of his postings thus far:

Merrill Lynch Needs a Dressing Down
Merrill Lynch is bullish on snobbery and status. These snobs, wearing more expensive suits, consorted to run their company into the ground. Now they look down on the company that rescued them and the people who work there as not being worthy, not sharing their own high status. It’s another sign that failure will not humble Wall Street or cause them to change their ways. It’s also a bad sign for Bank of America of the difficulty of getting these dandies to do an honest day’s work…

Beach Dreams
I saw a nostalgic photo in the bathroom of a NY City restaurant recently, a picture of the beach at Coney Island and the ocean was absolutely filled with people from where the water met the shore to as far out as people could stand. It was such a great picture that could be interpreted two different ways: what an awful thing to go to a crowded beach OR what an amazing time you’d have in the middle of all those people enjoying the day of the beach. Think of its opposite — the island beach with white sand and nothing but you and nature, the kind of photos you find in “Travel and Leisure” magazine. It’s another setting that could be seen and experienced two different ways — I’ve found paradise because I can lie on this beautiful beach or, an hour later, I’m bored because there’s nobody here and nothing to do. One test is to ask yourself what you’d have done as a kid. The kid has to prefer the crowded beach with lots going on…

Tinker in a Collective Shop
Check out Daniel B. Smith’s article on Lewis Hyde in the New York Times Magazine: “What is Art For? Hyde is the author of “The Gift”, an influential book exploring the idea of gift economies. It’s a book that I have meant to read. Hyde seems to be a practical man as well as a man of ideas. He wrote an essay “Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking” because he was reading Berryman’s poems while working in a hospital’s drunk ward and noticed the same kind of delusional language he found in the poetry…

Hard Drives’ Dying Moans
From a repair shop comes a collection of the sounds of hard drives failing. Their last words, their dying moans…