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Incredible Beauty of the Bicycle Card Aesthetic

I was never a great skill card player growing up. I was quite excellent at War, and at 52 Pick-Up, but other than that, my mastery in card games was more in my mind than in my hand. I never played a dime or a nickel flush where I won any type of pot, but I always enjoyed holding the actual playing cards. The designs were a fascination to my young mind, and today, when I happened upon the Bicycle cards website, I was taken back to a time when a deck of cards lasted for years of regular use around the kitchen table with nickel raises and dime bets; but these cards, these new Bicycle cards, had a right life of their own. The opaque card box was gone; replaced by a lovely translucent plastic that was more welcoming to both hand, and eye.

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Coloring History: Should Facts Remain Black and White?

Every so often, we get someone who steps forward to decide our shared, national, record of events isn’t good enough in standard black and white — and so they take the task upon themselves to “convert” the established, memed, facts of black and white history into their color-coded version of hues — to reset, in their mind, what really happened.

This modernizing filter of alleged aesthetic and absolutely craven creativity is just as disturbing to me today as it was 30 years ago when I was an undergraduate Freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln taking a film class with the great Dr. June Perry Levine.

At the time of Dr. Levine’s course, Ted Turner was in full-burst mode in his effort to “colorize” old black and white movies and television shows by adding color to give them new life on his cable channel.

Turner’s effect was horrible and gross as skin colors were orange and backgrounds were dark blue and clothing was all a shade of a mossy green: Time travel at its complete worst.

Adding new color to old black and white images is like repainting a fresco of Christ.  The ultimate effect of each effort is the shared shameful same.

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When CSI Met Dexter in My Bathroom

The red-splattered tiles spoke for themselves — this was definitely a crime scene — one worthy of the best CSI investigators.  In fact, I am sure that at first glance that anyone would have concluded that Dexter had recently paid a visit. I could see them pouring over the “blood splatters, speculating on the weapons used, the angles of entry and most of all the absence of the body.

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The Ruse of Non-Traditional Casting

Non-traditional casting is a political ruse that needs to end.  If you haven’t heard that term before, “non-traditional casting” is a politically elevated cultural cudgel that argues you can cast any actor of any gender, Race, color or creed, in any role for any reason and the audience will be fine with it because the theatre is colorblind and Race-neutral and culturally sensitive.  It’s all a bunch of hooey.

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Bra Colors Bring No Cure for Cancer

You are sitting with a female friend, enjoying a cup of tea and talking about the musical styling of Duffy and the peculiar nature of coated guitar strings and how people could come to use them over normal cutting edge strings. Your friend then tells you that she wants to tell you something very important and stands up, walks around the table, and sidles up next to you.

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Red is the Answer

Yesterday, I asked you to identify the one Color of Life — and that single article made me think along many difference paths as I contemplated your answers.  At first, I thought the answer was Green; but I’ve come to believe the color of life is really: Red.

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The Color of Life

I have one question and one question only for you today, and I ask that you provide a single answer with no prevarication or asides as you defend your choice:

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