bryan hasho

Fractals in Whole Foods. (at Whole Foods Market)

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:03:40 -0800

Fractals in Whole Foods. (at Whole Foods Market)

Mission Chinese, an incredible short by Sunday Paper.

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:51:00 -0700

Mission Chinese, an incredible short by Sunday Paper.

at Russell House

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:50:15 -0700

at Russell House

“This powerful new trend in ads toward the iconic image has greatly weakened the position of...

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 19:04:25 -0700

“This powerful new trend in ads toward the iconic image has greatly weakened the position of the magazine industry in general and the picture magazines in particular. Magazine features have long employed the pictorial treatment of themes and news. Side by side with these magazine features that present shots and fragmentary points of view, there are the new massive iconic ads with their compressed images that include producer and consumer, seller and society in a single image. The ads make the features seem pale, weak, and anemic. The features belong to the old pictorial world that preceded TV mosaic imagery.

It is the powerful mosaic and iconic thrust in our experience since TV that explains the paradox of the upsurge of Time and Newsweek and similar magazines. These magazines present the news in a compressed mosaic form that is a real parallel to the ad world. Mosaic news is neither narrative, nor point of view, nor explanation, nor comment. It is a corporate image in depth of the community in action and invites maximal participation in the social process.”

-Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man , which I should have read way more thoroughly freshman year.

Monday stroll. (Taken with Instagram at Lands End)

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 13:52:44 -0700

Monday stroll. (Taken with Instagram at Lands End)

Christmas! Go buy it.

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:22:53 -0700

Christmas! Go buy it.

Oakland's Old Theatres

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 19:10:04 -0700

A few weeks ago Daniel asked why I thought Oakland had so many beautiful old theatres still standing. Because he’d enjoy it being the case, I looked for some sort of relevant activism; that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Using some data from cinematreasures.org, I found that Oakland isn’t destroying its theatres at any greater rate than San Francisco or New York. If there were some correction for a change in demographic or population density, we’d see it here.

Of Oakland’s 9 theatres running presently, 5 were built before 1935. I’m not going to count for the other cities but I can tell you the ratio certainly isn’t that high. There is no way Oakland has some sort cultural demand for old theatres; the Easy Bay has a great artistic vibe but no more than San Francisco or New York.

So, likely, it’s just that they don’t have the money. Oakland is infamous for poor business investment over the last 50 years. As much as we love the aesthetic appeal, there are probably roaches running around and awful popcorn. Consumers want iMax and nice seats, they do. It’s a stall in Creative Destruction that our artistic sensibilities reap the benefits of, similar to the brownstones in Crown Heights (as opposed to the ones in Park Slope). It’s Shea Stadium before it was torn down, not Fenway Park. It would be nice if they were actually wanted, wouldn’t it?

I learned much from this film. Unbelievable. If he...

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:07:00 -0700

I learned much from this film. Unbelievable.

If he weren’t ready, I wouldn’t have made him go. So I gave him a gentle push and told him, ‘There’s no turning back. You must make your own way.’ When I was in the first grade I was told, ‘You have no home to come back to. That’s why you have to work hard.’ I knew that I was on my own. I worked hard. That has never left me.

Have this place, and this view, for the whole month now. (Taken...

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:51:23 -0700

Have this place, and this view, for the whole month now. (Taken with Instagram at Oak & Steiner)

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely..."

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:52:00 -0700

““Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
― Mark Twain”

betterbooktitles: Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner:...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:02:04 -0700

betterbooktitles:

Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner: Freakonomics

porterwomble: Days by The Drums Yes.

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:31:04 -0700

porterwomble:

Days by The Drums

Yes.

"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:00:32 -0700

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”

- Nassim N. Taleb

Roast, buy, and serve in the same room. Fucking brilliant....

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 11:33:38 -0700

Roast, buy, and serve in the same room. Fucking brilliant. (Taken with Instagram at Four Barrel Coffee)

One thing I’m really digging here in the new city is how...

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:32:06 -0700

One thing I’m really digging here in the new city is how much baseball permeates the culture. Elsewhere, baseball is huge but it exists on its own (and most Yankee-hat-wearers couldn’t name a player). Here, everybody has some awareness of what the Giants and A’s are doing, and I see traces of it in traditional mexican restaurants, tech-centered coffee shops, and in some crazy graffiti (like this). It’s rad.

Killer.

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 21:27:27 -0700

Killer.

"The optimal solution to being independent and upright while remaining a social animal is: to seek..."

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:15:47 -0700

“The optimal solution to being independent and upright while remaining a social animal is: to seek first your own self-respect and, secondarily and conditionally, that of others, provided your external image does not conflict with your own self-respect. Most people get it backwards and seek the admiration of the collective and something called “a good reputation” at the expense of self-worth for, alas, the two are in frequent conflict under modernity. Most people resolve the tension by cherry picking ethical rules, fitting ethics to their actions.”

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Uh huh…

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 10:47:15 -0700

Uh huh…

This was worth watching, my friends. It’s on iTunes and...

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 07:47:19 -0700

This was worth watching, my friends. It’s on iTunes and Amazon Streaming.

Bloomberg's Soda Ban

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 12:08:55 -0700

I’ve been considering the recent debate on Bloomberg’s proposed ban on unnecessarily large sodas. There’s some insight to be had here as to the usefulness of our ideology when discussing potentially practical policy.

Banning big sodas is unlikely to make a significant difference, but if it worked, it would certainly be a positive step. That said, telling us what we can put in our bodies is, for freedom-loving Americans, rightfully appalling.

I like this problem because it highlights how painfully irrelevant our socioeconomic principles can be in context. It’s not just our bodies at stake here. The cost of healthcare is, due to existing government involvement, of our most pressing collective finance issue. Whether we like it not, one person drinking a huge Mountain Dew is bad for everybody.

But layering on more statutory influence is, for the greater good of furthering conservative principles, not a positive thing. I’d rather take a fork in my eye than vote for the state telling me what to eat with it after, but I need to at least accept that this is a comically simplistic view. Since unraveling 80 years of regrettable healthcare legislation is proving rather difficult, improving it in the meantime might be, at least, a reasonable idea.