Justin Manley
LightNews LightNews
banner
justinmanley.work
Justin Manley
@justinmanley.work
80 followers 120 following 210 posts
Writer and programmer.

Science, spatiality, magic, mind.

justinmanley.work
Twitter: outoftheyards
Posts Replies Media Videos
justinmanley.work
how it started vs. how it's going on the Elizabeth Line
a bench against a pale grey wall with a darker grey silhouette smudged on the wall above each seat on the bench a bench against a pale grey wall with a colorful sticker on the wall above each seat on the bench
June 12, 2025 at 8:33 AM
justinmanley.work
and Rufino Tamayo's 1925 Fábrica

(the Tina Modotti photograph above is called Telephone Wires, and she made it between 1923 and 1929)
a red brick factory with a black pitched roof. in the foreground is a black water tower perched on narrow legs connected by trusswork. black smokestacks are attached to the factory, and putting out pale clouds of smoke or steam. next to the black water tower is a dark pole from which are stretched wires cutting across the sky and through the clouds of smoke.
May 8, 2025 at 10:13 PM
justinmanley.work
god these are so good!

here's Fermín Revueltas' 1921 painting Subestación (La Indianilla)
a painting mostly in tones of ochre of a single-story building with a pitched roof. it is connected to another similar building. to the right, we see poles bringing a dense skein of wires down to the ground, where they gather at a point. in the foreground at the bottom of an image is a body of water where the wires and the poles create a wavy reflection. in the background are four large black pillars -- perhaps smokestacks in the distance -- joined by a series of trusses.
May 8, 2025 at 10:09 PM
justinmanley.work
it feels appropriate that the cover would call out to me with a picture by Tina Modotti, since the first I remember thinking about the aesthetics of telephone poles was in a class on Mexican art. Almost ten yrs ago, I wrote a paper on the wires of her contemporaries Fermin Revueltas & Rufino Tamayo
a row of telephone poles, perfectly lined up so that the poles are all hidden behind the frontmost one, and only the crossbars can be seen growing ever smaller as they recede towards the bottom of the frame. the telephone wires mostly echo this same perspectival recession, except for a few wires strung from left to right across the upper portion of the image. the background is a rich brown, lighter at the edges. along the bottom of the image can be seen a few distant telephone poles.
May 8, 2025 at 10:06 PM
justinmanley.work
take photos and videos of telephone wires for fun, so...obviously I'm gonna be excited about a book called "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication". yes PLEASE!
May 8, 2025 at 9:58 PM
justinmanley.work
sometimes I come across a book in a bookstore and think: this was written SPECIFICALLY for me. never more than today, tho:
May 8, 2025 at 9:45 PM
justinmanley.work
it's not just the color scheme, though -- it's the way the metro line COMMITS to its bit: that tight grid (grey on the walls, yellow on the ceiling); those 45-degree angles tapering to sharp points used to finish the support posts
a staircase. grey stone floor, grey stone walls. to left and right, on either wall, are yellow banisters fixed to the wall with circular red pins. at the bottom of the stairs is a brightly-illuminated wall, grey with a tight grid pattern, and a pair of bright red doors. above the doors is a horizontal line of small square lights a fare barrier on the Milan metro. the barrier is made of panels of dark grey glass held up by a support post painted bright red. the support post has a cruciform plan, with the arms of the cross tapering at a forty-five-degree angle to a point at the top. the glass panels are attached to the red support post with four bright yellow rectangular panels. the end of a bright yellow banister, fixed to the grey stone wall behind it with a circular red pin. a yellow railing on a warm-toned stone base, seen against a cooler-toned grey marble wall.
April 21, 2025 at 3:41 PM
justinmanley.work
I wouldn't expect grey, yellow, and red to go together, but somehow the M3 metro line in Milan makes the combo look SO cool. I look forward to any chance I get to ride this line as an opportunity to be immersed in this crazy color world
on the left side of the image, a yellow banister descends diagonally along a grey stone wall, presumably follow the tread of stairs which are out of view below frame. the yellow banister is fixed to the grey wall with circular fittings painted a contrasting bright red. natural light -- perhaps from a subway entrance -- illuminates the upper left part of the image. on the right the grey stone of the wall changes to a horizontally-striped wall covering made out of metal and painted red a grey wall with a grid pattern topped by a row of square lights in a long metal yellow fixture. along the base of the wall, five bright red circular seats a ceiling with a square lattice painted bright yellow. the lattice is almost as deep as each square is wide -- perhaps three inches. in the foreground are two ceiling light fixtures with the bulbs set in decorative round mesh circles painted yellow (one with a red border). in the background are four triangular yellow lights, also fixed to the ceiling a barrier on the Milan metro. the verticals are painted red and have pointed tops; the tubular barrier itself is yellow. everything else (floor, walls) is grey -- the floor is steel tread plate, while the walls are stone (granite?)
April 21, 2025 at 3:28 PM
justinmanley.work
The London County Council has been defunct since 1965, and this coat of arms hasn't been officially in use since 1986, when Thatcher abolished its successor the GLC. But in some parts of London at least, the seal is still lovingly kept up!
a colorful heraldic crest on a stone pillar. Above the crest, on a sky-blue scroll, the words "London County Council." Below, on a similar scroll, "Maitland Park Estate." The crest itself consists of blue and white wavy horizontal lines representing the Thames surmounted by St George's cross (red cross on white) covered by a golden lion surmounted by a golden crown
March 30, 2025 at 10:10 AM
justinmanley.work
with bulb 🌽💡
a corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods an LED corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods an LED corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods an LED corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods
February 2, 2025 at 8:41 PM
justinmanley.work
learned enough about metalworking this weekend to make a rough-and-ready stand for a corn bulb by welding steel rods together 👨‍🏭
February 2, 2025 at 8:38 PM
justinmanley.work
oops nvm, I just did.

I get it. This one is hard. It's not exactly fair. Still, a decent image-based geolocator should at least pick a place where there's enough foliage to make the image plausible. The random street it picked has a bit of ivy on top of the concrete retaining wall, but not enough!
on the left, a picture of goats behind a temporary fence eating the lush green undergrowth; in the middle, a map view of San Francisco with a dot along the winding streets just west of Mount Davidson Park; on the right, a StreetView view up a street with houses on one side and a high concrete wall surmounted by green ivy on the other side on the left, goats behind a temporary fence eating the lush green undergrowth; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin in Mount Sutro Open Space Preserve
January 21, 2025 at 12:17 PM
justinmanley.work
thank goodness I didn't try it on this pic of goats used to keep weeds under control
goats behind a temporary wire fence against a backdrop of lush green undergrowth
January 21, 2025 at 12:06 PM
justinmanley.work
Here are the actual locations.

There just aren't that many exposed outcroppings of red rock in San Francisco. There is red rock in Corona Heights Park, but not the random street GeoSpy picked.

The red brick buildings are obviously the Golden Gateway Center, built in 1967 near the Embarcadero.
on the left, red rocks bathed in golden afternoon light; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin at Corona Heights Park on the left, a view over the back of some houses with Sutro Tower in the background against a smoky sky; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin at the eastern edge of the Mission District, just west of the 101 on the left, a dusky view of a courtyard surrounded by blocky red brick buildings; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin just inland off the Embarcadero, slightly northwest of the Ferry Building on the left, a pink and yellow house seen through flowers and foliage; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin on the Potrero Community Garden
January 21, 2025 at 12:01 PM
justinmanley.work
very underwhelmed by GeoSpy. Just tried it out with a bunch of pics I took when I lived in San Francisco.

I selected these pics to be difficult, but not impossible. They all show public places.

GeoSpy seems almost completely clueless about anything that's not a typical StreetView-type photo.
a screenshot showing three images: on the left, some red rocks bathed in golden afternoon light; in the middle, a map showing Glen Canyon Park in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view down a road with some single-story houses on one side a screenshot showing three images: on the left, a view over the back of some houses with Sutro Tower in the background against a smoky sky; in the middle, a map showing the 101 ramp towards Market Street in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view down the 101 a screenshot showing three images: on the left, a dusky view of a courtyard surrounded by blocky red brick buildings; in the middle, a map focused on the outer Mission in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view down a road in San Francisco with two- and three-story stucco apartment buildings on either side a screenshot showing three images: on the left, a pink and a yellow house seen through flowers and foliage; in the middle, a map centered on Noe Valley in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view of a yellow house flanked by two green houses in San Francisco
January 21, 2025 at 11:30 AM
justinmanley.work
London Short Film Festival is back!! Loved the kickoff program of short films from the '90s, especially "Latifa and Himli's Nomadic Uncle" by Alnoor Dewshi player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/wa...
Six filmmakers and one producer standing on a stage holding mics at a Q&A
January 17, 2025 at 9:48 PM
justinmanley.work
Sitting at the end of the bench in the middle of the room, I can see the painting at last.

It’s better in person, I promise.
a field of taupe with a column of paler, slightly cooler taupe close to the left edge, and another column of the same color on the right edge. at the base of each column is a rectangle of cool, dark gray-taupe. along the bottom edge, there is a slightly redder square
January 4, 2025 at 1:49 PM
justinmanley.work
If I just bend my knees and lean to the side a little further, perhaps I can shunt the air vent on the wall behind me up and out of the picture.
a field of taupe with a column of paler, slightly cooler taupe close to the left edge, and another column of the same color on the right edge. at the base of each column is a rectangle of cool, dark gray-taupe. along the bottom edge, there is a slightly redder square
January 4, 2025 at 1:48 PM
justinmanley.work
Or does the painting in fact have the upper hand as it absorbs the gallery into its world of just-barely-perceptible variations of taupe?
dim, hazy reflections of picture frames. what is in the frames cannot be made out. taupe-on-taupe
January 4, 2025 at 1:46 PM
justinmanley.work
Perhaps the artist, who throughout his work played incessantly with reflections, would be tickled that these pictures are so bedeviled.
a field of taupe with a diagonal line cutting almost-horizontally across, dividing the field into slightly darker taupe (above the line) and slightly lighter (below)
January 4, 2025 at 1:45 PM
justinmanley.work
When I stand in front of the painting, my own obscuring figure fills the frame.
a person taking a selfie in a mirror, taupe-on-taupe
January 4, 2025 at 1:44 PM
justinmanley.work
I lean forward to get a better view of the painting, but the couple behind me is in the way.
two figures facing each other, taupe-on-taupe
January 4, 2025 at 1:43 PM
justinmanley.work
Top exhibitions I saw this year (in no particular order):

Anthony Gormley: Time Horizon @ Houghton Hall (UK)
Gala Porras-Kim @ MCA Denver
Elizabeth Englander, Eminem Buddhism @ Aldrich Museum (CT)
Tom of Finland / Beryl Cook @ Studio Voltaire (London)
Lygia Clark @ Whitechapel Gallery (London)
a painting showing a man wearing nothing but a posing pouch holding a stripper's pole. he is standing and is surrounded by grinning, laughing women, all dressed for a night out, who are craning to see as he leans forward and pulls down the posing pouch. everyone's contours are large and rounded a bronze figure of a man embedded at the waist in a grassy field a sculpture of a human figure, seated with legs crossed. the figure is made out of the components of a Thonet chair, like a line drawing in space an arrangement of white rectangular pedestals in an art gallery. each pedestal is topped by a jointed aluminum sculpture.
January 1, 2025 at 12:07 AM
justinmanley.work
8. Howard's End

WOW does E. M. Forster know how to plot a novel. Truly a master. One of the most satisfying and surprising novels I've read in years. If you read it, follow it with the gorgeous Merchant/Ivory film adaptation.

search.worldcat.org/en/title/422...
a pattern of polka dots, closed umbrellas, open umbrellas, and umbrella stands with one or two umbrellas, or a cane, or a cane and an umbrella. in the middle, "Howards End" and "E. M. Forster"
December 31, 2024 at 11:32 PM
justinmanley.work
7. Five Ways to Forgiveness (Ursula K. Le Guin)

Stories of people bearing injustice with dignity and rising up against their oppressors. Beautiful, sad, haunting.
white text on a grey background describing a scene from a book in which a group of enslaved people make music on the plantation by gathering together and brushing their hands together to create an almost-silent rhythm, with whispered fragmented words on top of the rhythm
December 31, 2024 at 11:29 PM