My friends in the puppeteering community were thrilled by this. I like it too. That's a shipping container he's sitting on.

Quoted: The remarkable French marionette street theatre Royal de Lux unveiled their latest creations this past weekend. As the highlight of the Estuary 2009 Arts Festival in Nantes, the theater drew a gigantic crowd to view a gigantic fairytale.

I didn't know anything about Robert Frank before I read this. It was a grand introduction. Around here, the author is similarly enigmatic to the subject. The article got him a Mirror Award nomination; hopefully he wins some new fans.

Quoted: Published in 1958, Robert Frank’s photographic manifesto, The Americans, torched the national myth, bringing him such comrades as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and—for a controversial documentary—the Rolling Stones. On a trip to China, the 83-year-old rebel of postwar film still defies expectations.

Quoted: "If you tear down all of the historic buildings downtown and build new, what are we?" asks Mark Nickita, president of downtown-based architecture firm Archive DS. "We're Troy with higher taxes and a worse school district."

I checked Slate for the first time in years today and was delighted to find photos of the Danube, allowing me to continue my nostalgic Budapest dotting.

Quick reminder: If you're ever in a hotel lobby and they start to play 'The Blue Danube Waltz,' get the hell out...that waltz means that they need to evacuate the building

The new and improved DIA finally opened last month. Hoping to check it out soon.

For a thoughtful review of the grand reopening and the city's art scene, see here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/arts/design/23detr.html

A very new take on prefab.

Check out the quik house link if you want more info or don't have QuickTime.

Saatchi online saleroom.

Quoted: A "novel that fails to reveal some hitherto unknown bit of existence is immoral." So Milan Kundera writes in "The Curtain," his new book-length essay on the novel.

Quoted: As his own example shows, the novel is too big, deep, stupid, wild and glorious a form to even be defined, let alone to die anytime soon. Yes, it would probably be better if more novelists shared Kundera's magisterial knowledge of the form -- but they continue to move forward nonetheless. Perhaps the tradition is more deeply ingrained in us than he believes.