Razzle Dazzle

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Publik Hair was the first place I saw it and now it's floating around the web but this is way too cool so I'm adding on anyway.

The gentleman pictured above is British artist and naval officer Norman Wilkinson, who pioneered the concept of Dazzle Camouflage (known in the US as "Razzle Dazzle"). In WWI, German U-boats were picking off good-guy ships at an astounding rate – we were basically sitting ducks. So Wilkinson had this idea of painting the ships in op-art Vasarely-like patterns which would make it difficult for submarine commanders to gauge their size and direction of travel.

Some of his color drawings look like Emilio Pucci patterns.
The initiative was both inexpensive and highly effective and the good guys won. The end.

Much more here.

Image of the Day

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Gen. Bernard A. Schriever, "the father of Air Force space and missiles.” (Nat'l Museum of the US Air Force)

The image shown above is from the same shoot that produced a photo which inspired Neil Sheehan to write his new book, A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon.

Sheehan won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his previous book, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, which, when paired with the Ellsberg book I mentioned last week, offers a robust education on our involvement in that war; the two spent much time together in Vietnam, and when Ellsberg ultimately leaked the Pentagon Papers, he did so to Sheehan, who at that point was a reporter for The New York Times. While I'm on this (out-of-the-blue) Vietnam kick, I'd also recommend The Best and the Brightest and The Making of a Quagmire by David Halberstam, Christian Appy's Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides, and The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien.

Click here to read an article from today's Times on Neil Sheehan. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon is in book stores this week.

Image of the Day

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Similar color to yesterday's boat.
More rusty warplanes here.

[ via A Time To Get ]
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Family Slideshow

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A small selection of photos from our recent exploits – click to enlarge:

Belltown, Downtown Seattle

The barrel of a Disappearing Gun at Fort Casey, on Whidbey Island. My Great Grandpa Owen grew up on the Muskogee Reservation in Oklahoma, joined the military, and was stationed here in the early 1900s. Later on he was a beat cop in Georgetown. More on Owen and Fort Casey and the notorious Triangle of Fire in a later post.

Emily at Ebey's Bluff, Whidbey Island. Finally got around to it – we were going to walk along this trail last November but it was too foggy to see anything.

A chart explaining the different ships that pass through the Straits of Juan de Fuca on the way in and out of Puget Sound, including but not limited to a Sloop and a Yawl.

Rig full of trophies

Jason and Emily with one of Jason's chickens.
This one has furry feet.

bok-bok

Dude I was talking to on the way to work the other day

My brother Sky, his girlfriend Daniela, and Emily at the Cappy last week.

My mom and Emily at Penn Cove, Whidbey Island

Daniela and Sky

Thing I found on the beach

Garter snake

Lizard

Much more on my photostream at Flickr.
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The Blue Angels

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Some photos from yesterday's airshow over Lake Washington – too cool for words.

Good 'ol Seafair – I love it.
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Blue Angel no.1

Roy "Butch" Voris' F6F Hellcat [via Aviation Art Store]

Being 8 Years Old Again

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The Blue Angels are blazing over Seattle this weekend for Seafair.
I am just a tiny little bit excited.

Need:

I know I contradicted myselfLook, I don't need that now

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The Blue Angels. I really don't get why people hate on them so much. Yeah, it's loud—that's kind of the point. When I was a kid, before they passed laws about how you can't hit the speed of sound above residential areas, the Blue Angels came so close to buzzing the top of our house (we were sitting on the roof, I think I was about 3) that a big branch just snapped off of the gigantic evergreen tree in our yard. I get that they are a symbol of our military might, which has inspired only complex, conflicted feelings in smart people since [arguably] Dien Bien Phu. But pardon our noise, motherfuckers, it's the sound of freedom.

Really amazing photo by Winners Circle, which is apparently some store next to the old Anne B.

Oh yeah, one other thing. I used to work at Martha Stewart, in the Starrett-Lehigh building on 26th at the Hudson River. In the days right after 9/11 there were F-18s flying routines down the river, so close that the building – a beautiful, strong old building by the same architect that did the Empire State building – would shake. Right at that point, I don't mind saying, I was glad for it. It's really complicated, the admiration you feel for these things, and the hope that we'll never have to (or decide to) use them again.