All posts by Thomas Pindelski

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Van Gogh’s self portraits

Paintings

At the Courtauld Gallery, London.

My fondest memory of attending University College, London is not of the College. Rather, it is of the Courtauld Art Gallery, across the road from the School of Engineering, where I spent many happy hours. In the Gallery, that is, not in the lecture hall.

The Courtuald happens to house the finest ‘street’ painting of the Impressionist period there is, and I wrote of it here.

The Guardian alerted me that there is a special show of many of Van Gogh’s self portraits at the Courtauld through early May and I immediately contacted my sister in West Sussex begging for a copy of the related catalog, which arrived today.


Click the image for the Guardian review.

Not since Rembrandt – also a Dutchman – has an artist lived his life so loudly on canvas. And while there have been many fine renditions of his life on the big screen, the one to see stars Kirk Douglas, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the tortured artist, in ‘Lust for Life’.

If you can make it to the Courtauld, do so. As a minimum, get the catalog.

Budweiser’s 60 seconds of genius

Movies

A magnificent art work.

I watch one American football game annually, the Super Bowl. I barely know or understand the first thing about this brutal, brain addling game, but the spectacle and hype are prime examples of modern Americana.

Most importantly, watching the tenor of the advertisements and determining the target audience tells the viewer more about socio-economic trends and ‘low hanging fruit’ spending power than any study or survey could.

There was an exceptional contribution this year featuring one of Budweiser’s magnificent Clydesdale horses. Having stood next to one (but not too close) at a horse show some years ago, it’s impossible to convey the sheer sense of largeness of these animals. The advertisement itself is an extraordinary piece of story telling. In just sixty seconds you have beauty, tragedy, pain, suffering, healing, support, hope, recovery and beauty. You can read about the director by clicking the image below at which link you can also watch the video. The ad time runs $12 million a minute, reaching 100 million global viewers. Add another $3 million or so for the filmmakers and this sort of thing is not cheap. But, goodness, is it special.


Click the image.

Update July, 2023:

From the list of great boo-boos. Hitler attacks Russia. Putin attacks Ukraine, Budweiser uses a guy tricked out to look like a little girl to grow market share.

Yup, so far the size of the hole blown in the Budweiser balance sheet totals $6 billion, as the not so genius marketers at Bud Light learn that the market does not constitute a couple of gay bars in San Francisco and Greenwich Village. There’s all that ‘fly over’ country in the middle and those decent Americans sure as heck are not buying a gay branded beer.

Oh! well. It was nice while it lasted, Budweiser. 100 years of the best marketing on the planet destroyed in 30 seconds …. by a “girl” who still has his you-know-what.

Rambo meets Mitsumoto Sakari

Cooking

A better mousetrap.

For an index of cooking articles on this blog click here.

Five years ago I pretty much gave up on my chef’s knife and transitioned to a cleaver. You can read about that here.

The upgrade demon reared his ugly head the other day and I resolved to try a Japanese edge cleaver for even better cutting. Japanese knives are sharpened to a 12-15 degree angle, much finer than the 20 degrees used in European hardware. Better cutting, the trade-off being faster wear of the finer edge.


A new sharpening tool and a Japanese cleaver – the Rambo. Click the image.

My electric knife sharpener – check the link above – is getting long in the tooth, the grinding wheels are now well worn and you cannot replace them. You have to buy the whole thing again. Boo!

So I thought I would try the Japanese Mitsumoto Sakari sharpener which comes with coarse and fine stones, as well as a scissor sharpener. But the real secret to this tool is that the sharpening angle is adjustable from 14 to 24 degrees. As for the cleaver, it’s a non-stainless forged steel one (I borrowed it from Sylvester Stallone when he was not making Rambo XLI) for a better edge and I immediately sharpened it to a 14 degree angle. First, however, I checked the angles on the Mitsumoto and can confirm they are dead accurate, the 14 degree setting yields a subtended angle of 28 degrees, the 20 degree yields 40 degrees and so on. Nice.

I gave the Rambo ten unidirectional swipes through the 14 degree coarse sharpener, then five more through the fine and can confirm that it’s scary sharp. The hole in the blade is for your forefinger and has nasty burrs when shipped. A few seconds with a Nicholson rat tail file saw those off. The forefinger is inserted there as a further precaution against your finger dipping into your workpiece. The Rambo comes with a sturdy leather belt pouch for those occasions when you feel it’s necessary to wreak havoc outdoors.

The sharpening rods in the Mitsumoto are fairly fine so only time will tell how well they wear. At $25 you can buy five for the price of one Kitchen Chef electrical tool, so it’s not a big concern. Recommended.

As for the Rambo, I have to do a lot more butchering before passing judgment. Suffice it to say that I feel empowered – and dangerous.

Security fasteners for AirTags

Photography

Keeping it secured.

I updated my recent piece on Apple’s AirTag tracking device here, showing how to remove the internal speaker which announces the AirTag’s location after it has been removed to a location remote from the owner’s iPhone. (No preaching, please. This information is in the public domain).

The AirTag announces that it has been moved in two ways. First, 8-24 hrs after being relocated it beeps. Second, it will broadcast an “AirTag moving with you” message to the thief’s iPhone, if he has one. Disabling the beeping takes away the more obvious of these two warning mechanisms. Why does Apple not provide a software switch to disable the beeper? Because then all the creeps and perverts out there would avail themselves of this functionality for illicit stalking of the innocent.

Once the beeper is disabled, the thief (with an iPhone) will have the challenge of finding the AirTag once its proximity is announced to him. That means a well hidden AirTag will delay detection for long enough, hopefully, for the owner to get a location fix and call the cops.

I have one AirTag installed in my Honda scooter in a location easily located by me, but it would be hard for a thief to find in under several hours. And he has better things to do with his time – like more thieving. Scooters are very easy to steal and readily resold in large cities. (Ads with “no title” in the description are common).

Now while I do not own an exotic, costly bicycle, an AirTag would seem an essential on such a machine. Easily stolen, easily sold, no registered title. The problem is where to locate it? Tests disclose that location inside a metal tube – down tube, handlebar, seat post – kills the transmission, so you want to either install the device in a carbon fiber component (if your machine has any) or securely attached to the frame. But secure attachment with regular fasteners is time and effort wasted for obvious reasons. What is needed is a security fastener, and you will not find a better selection than at McMaster Carr:


Beat this selection. Click the image for the site.

Use one of these with an appropriate holder, along with the matching fastening/removal tool, and you will make the bike thief’s job that much harder.

Leica M11

Cameras

Gorgeous.


A beautiful thing.

As a once upon a time (a long time ago) Leica M enthusiast, it’s hard not to look at the new M11 and come away impressed with the sheer physical beauty of the machine.

While the entry price – reckon north of $20,000 for a body with three aspherical Leica lenses to do justice to the monster sensor – is ridiculous, and the absence of IS and AF makes the tool anachronistic, it’s a beautiful thing to behold.