Alex Reid

Some are reprinted classics, some are new, it’s photo classics in Lego.

Originals here, via Kottke.org

(One of) my resolutions for this year are to blog more often, at least once a week. And already my promise is late.

If you got a blank email from me, it was in error. I was testing a client’s mailing list and accidentally sent out a mass blank email from my email address.

I apologize for the confusion/concern this caused but feel free to yell at me.

Good article from the BBC which reflects my questioning of “celebrity” culture and the redirection of blame for such debauchery, in a piece about the growing voyeuristic drama involving celebrities like Britney Spears.

Of course fame has long gone hand in hand with psychological difficulties.

Some argue it is the pressure of the constant spotlight, others suggest that the kind of people who crave that spotlight are perhaps different from the rest of us to start with.

Not everyone becomes famous because they want attention, but even if they did want the attention, there’s still a difference between “attention” and “obsession”.

The photographers who snapped (Spears) as she lay manacled in an ambulance, said the Guardian’s Peter Preston, “are working for us”: we who buy the newspapers and push TV ratings through the roof as we tune in to learn more.

Gawping at mental breakdown is not so new. In the 18th Century, for a penny, you could peer into the cells at Bedlam and enjoy the inmates’ antics.

But these days, perhaps are we more ready to learn from what we see.

Much was made of the so-called Kylie effect in 2005: women apparently became more aware of the dangers of breast cancer after the Australian singer declared she had been diagnosed with the disease.

Could public displays of mental ill health make us all more aware and indeed sympathetic to these problems?

The charity Sane has little time for this view. Britney watching appears to be as much a spectator sport for us now as queuing up outside Bedlam was 300 years ago.

I just came across a photo gallery hosted by RollingStone.com.

I was surprised, even shocked, to see a list of sad gossip rag talking points. Making fun of a person having their leg stolen or blatantly photo-shopping a celebrity’s face to a chubby stripper. What tastelessness! This is the Rolling Stone?