Seven years ago today, the German writer
W.G. Sebald was involved in a
fatal car accident near his home in Norwich, England. Sebald worked as an academic at The University of East Anglia, but some of his
writings found a receptive wider readership. The works which brought him to public attention were four books, written originally in German, which seemed to blend memoir and fiction, photography and prose:
Vertigo,
The Emigrants,
The Rings of Saturn, and
Austerlitz. He also wrote poetry, and used some of those poems to collaborate with
visual artists. In the main,
his sad, erudite work revolves around themes of loss, destruction, landscape, and memory, and it continues to inspire
exhibitions,
stage plays,
reflections, and tributes (not to mention
blogs and
videos). His voice is missed
.
posted by hydatius
on Dec 14, 2008 -
8 comments
The
Cutty Sark burns. Nineteenth century tea clipper, preserved as a museum-ship in Greenwich since the fifties, is currently ablaze.
posted by hydatius
on May 20, 2007 -
48 comments
In 1999, MTV aired 25 Lame, a show where retired 25 of their worst and most overplayed videos. Rob Van Winkle (aka Vanilla Ice) showed up to help them retire the video for "Ice Ice Baby." The result -
violence, hilarity, and broken mannequins (video, 30-second ad shows before video). Apparently unplanned,
nobody knows for sure if this outburst was the product of genuine anger, or if he was just playing around. An
unedited version (YouTube, lower quality) leads me to think that it was the former.
posted by Afroblanco
on Feb 1, 2007 -
33 comments
Oops! A mud eruption probably triggered by oil exploration has been making thousands of Indonesians' lives miserable since May.
posted by thirteenkiller
on Sep 14, 2006 -
20 comments
It Only Takes A Second is the name of this 1996 industrial film from Federated Mutual Insurance. Essentially 3 straight minutes of chaotic on the job accidents geared towards terrifying the customers into being more careful (and thus more profitable), it may be my favorite industrial film ever.
link goes to embedded QT video
posted by jonson
on Feb 21, 2006 -
64 comments
The Taliban's war on art extended beyond merely blowing apart the two monumental Buddhist statues. Here's a nice little piece about a wrecking party at the Kabul Museum of Art lead by the Taliban Ministers of Information and Finance. Their acts of barbarism against women and people who failed to live up to their religious code was unspeakable, but IMHO this willful destruction of art is also worthy of condemnation. This is nothing less than the destruction of a people's culture.
posted by MAYORBOB
on Nov 23, 2001 -
17 comments
Artist Demolishes Belongings Inside a defunct department store in the heart of London's shopping district, dozens of yellow bins move slowly along conveyor belts toward the mouth a gigantic blue machine. Workers in jumpsuits systematically catalogue and weigh the contents of each one. This is British artist Michael Landy's newest work: The items in the bins - coats, photographs, paintings, furniture - are all of his belongings. Over the next two weeks, everything he owns - including a red Saab - will be destroyed.
posted by Mars Saxman
on Feb 10, 2001 -
37 comments
