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Here's a little cultural curiosity that I can't quite figure:

Some random Bozeman blogger turned me on to the contemporary artist Jack Vettriano (noted for his "noirish dramas with dashing men and glamorous women, all smoldering with underlying narrative").

One of Vettriano's better known pieces (though not a personal favorite) is called "Dance Me To The End Of Love", below:

Dance Me To The End Of Love - Jack Vettriano (1998)

Painted in 1998, the title of this piece seems to draw from a Leonard Cohen track of the same name. A Holocaust-inspired love song (released on Cohen's 1984 album "Various Positions"), "Dance Me to the End of Love" has a delightful music video, released in 1994:


Music video of Leonard Cohen's Danse Me to the End of Love

Which, in turn, led me to notice this Vettriano: Model In White.

Compare to ~3:45 in the above.
Model in White - Jack Vettriano (1993)

The time-line here is interesting. Model in White was painted in 1993. The above video seems to make reference to this painting (or, at least the imagery is strikingly similar). Then, in 1998 Vettriano titles a painting after (or at least identically to) the 1984 song.

I'm not sure what's so interesting about all of this, other than to observe that there may exist some reciprocal admiration between Jack Vettriano and Leonard Cohen.

And, it makes sense. Though working with completely different mediums, the two manage to evoke similar themes, moods and images (which, perhaps, I'll attempt to describe later...).

If you decide to check out Jack Vettriano, put on some Leonard Cohen (perhaps even Various Positions). And enjoy. Here's a well-written introduction to Vettriano (a review of his exhibition at the Portland Museum in 2005): http://th-inkwell.blogspot.com/2004/08/vettriano.html

If I were more motivated, I'd write this up into a white paper. But here's the basic idea:

Banks and other entities that deal with sensitive (especially financial) information often require that their customers specify a "passphrase" (mother's maiden name, a PIN, etc.) to verify their identity for transactions over the phone (and sometimes through online portals).

The next step in improving the security of a customer's information and assets will be the reverse--a personally assigned identifier for a corporate identifier.

So I get a call from Wells Fargo yesterday--some 1-800 number that I don't recognize. The caller identifies himself with a name and says that he wants to inquire about suspicious activity with my credit card. He asked me whether or not I made certain transactions with my debit card ($400 for Chelsea football apparel, $450 for some online bingo website, blah blah). My card's numbers, apparently, had been "compromised"--and I'm grateful for the phone call, and that the charges are being reversed.

But in retrospect, I realized that I had no way of verifying the caller's identity, and that I gave away information like candy--as though the person on the other end of the call was my trusted, personal banker. I didn't even catch his name.

Fortunately, this call was real. But it could have been malicious. It could have been the person who stole my credit card--and had that person asked me for my PIN or my mother's maiden name, I probably would have given it out without a second's hesitation. Which scares me.

So the solution is this: when I become a Wells Fargo customer in the future, I'll provide Wells Fargo with a PIN or passphrase to verify my identity in the future if I should need to call a banker. Then, I'll provide Wells Fargo with their passphrase, to be used to identify their authorized agents who might call me.

Then, next time I got a call from a Wells Fargo employee, the employee would provide me with the passphrase I assigned to Wells Fargo. I might provide my PIN as well--such that we've both verified each others' identities before the conversation begins.

In the computer world, certificate-based schemes work very much in this manner. I suspect it's only a matter of time before banks, medical clinics, universities, phone companies, etc. adopt such a measure.

Only, it needs something more catchy than "personally assigned corporate identifier." Something that makes a good accretion (consider the abysmal failure of the CVV2 code, variously known as the "security code", "the three digits off of the back of the card", the online verification thing. etc.) Any suggestions?

It's unfortunate that, despite being shot in High Def now, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are still shot to be 4x3 (see: old TV) compatible.

To by 4x3 compatible, all of the action need to contained within what fits in a 4x3 frame. None of the action can be moved to the peripherals of the screen.

The result is ugly, crowded shots--too much clustered in the center, with the peripherals completely wasted. It makes me feel claustrophobic to watch.

I'd rather watch it in standard def--just so that I don't have to see all of this space available on the sides. I can't imagine how upsetting it is to be a camera man on the Daily Show and have to intentionally create bad looking shots.

In this last and most recent analysis, we are ultimately alone.

Not in the short, small individual relationship sense (in which we are, then we are not, then sometimes we are again), but in a vast cosmic sense. In a great, gaping, vast infinity of empty, black space sense.

In the sense that, while preparing dinner last night, I was in a perfectly pleasant mood, good spirits--enjoying that certain aura of contentment that comes with having no greater concern than whether I've added just the right amount of basil to my gorgonzola spread.

It wasn't until halfway through dinner that someone mentioned that there had been an earthquake in Haiti. It was said at dinner that 100,000 were dead, buildings flattened, a country reduced from struggling poverty to screaming ruins in a mere matter of minutes--but some accident (function) of indifferent geology.

I'm taken aback at my lightheartedness while I prepared dinner. Not that I hadn't seen the news or read a report. But rather, that somewhere mere hours away by airplane a human tragedy of such potent and immediate magnitude was unfolding--while I was completely unperturbed, unaware.

We are not all one. Were we, I should have sensed the tragedy. I should have been unnerved, ill at ease, inexplicably upset or distressed. Not brimming with contentment, unwrapping my baked garlic.

And yet I was.

So much for spirituality. So much for cosmic interconnectedness. So much for Haiti...