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January 22, 2011
Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A. 'Duane R. Clarridge parted company with the Central Intelligence Agency more than two decades ago, but from poolside at his home near San Diego, he still runs a network of spies. Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in the mountains of Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan. Since the United States military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul’s ruling class.'
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posted by VikingSword at 6:14 PM PST - 32 comments
Basically, the big hurdle on this title was a clause in the contracts stating that the likenesses of both Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster MUST appear, and both MUST be the same size. And given the power imbalance between the two characters in the film, the idea of having the two of them just standing there, on equal footing with each other, felt really wrong… Eric Skillman on working with artist
Sean Philips on the cover for the Criterion edition of
Sweet Smell of Sucess.
posted by Artw at 3:40 PM PST - 21 comments
Bad Project. For anybody who's ever worked in a bio lab, or know people who have. (SLLadyGagaParody.)
posted by kmz at 3:20 PM PST - 23 comments
Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight:
The John Hinde Butlin's Photographs "Long viewed only as a master of kitsch Hinde is now recognised, albeit posthumously, as a peerless social documentarian. Dazzling in their their colour intensity and strange clarity.... Visionary, Wonderful." Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, London "Extraordinary...the combination of aesthetics and promotion produced something that bypasses documentary and approaches an arresting British surrealism". David Jays, Financial Times "These phenomenal photographs...a cacophony of colour...Despite and because of their artifice, John Hinde's picture postcards are endlessly fascinating, exposing social trends, sartorial aberrations and a particular photographic vision. A delightful book". The Art Book. Large collection of his other work at the
John Hinde Collection
posted by puny human at 10:00 AM PST - 6 comments
Devadasi are women in southeastern India who were dedicated in their youth to the goddess Yellamma. When they reach puberty they are forced into sex work. Once they were women of high status, but now they've been relegated to the outskirts of society. The devadasi practice goes back a long way in history, and was once celebrated in poetry.
When God Is a Customer, a collection of translated classical Telugu poems about the devadasi, is free to read online. Their modern life is described by
William Dalrymple in The New Yorker and in a
video interview with filmmaker Beeban Kidron which includes clips from her documentary Sex, Death and the Gods. The devadasi have been targeted by exploitative Western media for a long time, but have recently
started to hit back, using
the internet to disseminate their views.
posted by Kattullus at 7:46 AM PST - 16 comments
This is not the South Africa we dream of... (NSFW) "Using a Pentax camera with 35mm focal-length lens, Billy Monk photographed the nightclub revellers and sold the prints to his subjects. His close and long friendships with many of the people in the images allowed him to photograph them with extraordinary intimacy in all their states of joy and sadness. His images of nightlife seem carefree and far away from the scars and segregation of apartheid that fractured this society in the daylight."
posted by artof.mulata at 3:14 AM PST - 55 comments
They Were There is a 30 min video from IBM, who is turning 100 this year. "
told by first-hand witnesses—current and retired employees and clients—who were there when IBM helped to change the way world works."
posted by finite at 12:05 AM PST - 52 comments