2013 was (auto) awesome!

Google Plus has been auto-awesoming photos for a while, meaning that they’ve stitched together images with similar composition into animated gifs. See my cover photo with Banksy, for example. 

Well I was excited to see that they also auto-awesomed some photos from my 2013 to create this cute little video. Log-in to your Google Plus to see your version of 2013, auto-awesomed. 

Featured in this video are (in order of appearance): Me, Sara Higgins, Tara Fournier, Tim Jones, Drew Higgins, Jim Higgins, Lorie Higgins, My fourth grade class at Langtree Elementary School, Aidan Dunfey, Sarah Greer-Pennington, Greg Rogers, Alicia Samfilippo, Audra Fournier, Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters), Simona Rodano, Luigi Rosa, Mike Citarella, Angie Melvin, Sarah Roddis-Martin, Jacqué Citarella, Giammario Piumatti, Francesco Piumatti, Lauren Citarella, Steve Farjam, Sue Fleming Citarella, Jeff Arcara, Agnetta Citarella, Allie Citarella, Jules Feiffer, Frank DeGrazia, Katie Bacus, Thompson, and Ian Warner. 

Street Art Utopia

Mike found a link on Street Art Utopia, which recently posted the 106 best street art photos of 2013. This gallery shows my favorites, but the site is a wealth of artistic and clever pieces. Take a moment to peruse their gallery to see that there’s more in the world of street art than just Banksy.

Liu Xue’s Humanimal Sculptures

Chinese Sculpter Liu Xue created a beautiful series of human-animal hybrids that he calls “We Are The World.” Most feature obese caricatures of bald men supported under the legs of walruses, bull frogs and pigs. Others include lithe contortionists with bird legs, and a wispy crooked man shrugging over a poised greyhound body.

The entire set of 63 photos is here, and I’ve included my favorite shots above.

Return to Temple Bar

Temple Bar - 2005Temple Bar - 2013

 

In June of 2005, I enjoyed a Black and Black (Guinness with two shots of espresso) at Temple Bar in Temple Bar—Dublin’s much older version of NYC’s Greenwich Village, riddled with tourists and students from the nearby Trinity University, which is, in turn, Dublin’s version of the much older NYU. The final swig of the drink was captured digitally by Mike, and somehow made it’s way to NewsToday and QBN design forums and their insidious PSBs.

Two weeks ago, I returned to Temple Bar and Mike thought it would be fun to recreate the photo from 8.5 years before. Above are the two pictures side-by-side. Below is an animated gif created by Google Plus’s “auto-awesome” feature. In all three photos, I’m in dire need of a good shave and notice my default wardrobe (V-neck black T-shirt) hasn’t changed much over the decade:

Temple Bar - Auto-Awesomed