Inky

I'm not very good at it. There are dozens of proofs spread neatly around the edges of my living room floor to dry. Nine-by-12-inch scraps of newsprint featuring patches of pigment resembling nothing so much as smears of drying ink. My fingernails are dull grey turning to deep black in the seams. Soap is nearly useless. This may be permanent.

I am learning to make monotypes without a press. I'm currently experimenting with smooshing ink around on a gel printing plate and transferring the image to newsprint with a baren. The results are thus far lackluster, though better than my previous efforts using a similar technique with hard plexiglass plates. I should probably use acrylic paint instead of ink.

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Selected readings...

• The Hazards of Military Worship, [If] you served over there, unlike those liberal pundits and politicians who regularly mouth off on the subject, who would know better? ...I rarely bother to tell them that historians, analysts, and thoughtful critics, even ones who haven’t been within thousands of miles of our war zones, probably understand the "big picture" better than most soldiers. (War is Boring)
• CBS's Showtime caught mining crypto-coins in viewers' web browsers, The flagship Showtime.com and its instant-access ShowtimeAnytime.com sibling silently pulled in code that caused browsers to blow spare processor time calculating new Monero coins – a privacy-focused alternative to the ever-popular Bitcoin. The hidden software typically consumed as much as 60 per cent of CPU capacity on computers visiting the sites. (The Register)
• "Circular Surface Planar Displacement Drawing", 1969 by Michael Heizer, In 1969, American artist Michael Heizer drove a motorcycle in circles in Jean Dry Lake, Nevada. The tire tracks created a pattern of circular lines, creating an ephemeral land-art piece. A set of photographs describes the process from a close point of view: the camera was strapped to a ladder that was moved always with the same distance to create each new shot. Aerial views were also taken, to document the vastness of the site and the artist’s intervention in its wholeness. (SOCKS)