Salvador Dali's
Dream of Venus, one of the
earliest full-scale art installation pieces, raised some eyebrows at the 1939 World's Fair. Visitors entered beneath the spread legs of a woman in high heels to find a grotto featuing Venus,
a topless sleeping actress on a red satin bed surrounded by lobsters and champagne bottles. Her dream, visible through the nearby window, included
cavorting (again topless) mermaids flapping their rubber fins and playing a woman-shaped piano. Murry Korman
took many iconic photos of the spectacle. What few knew was that Dali was engaged in
a battle of creative crontol with his sponsor, a rubber tycoon and creator of rubber mermaid tails among other things. Dali would appear on site while the exhibition was being created and
snip the tails off of the mermaids (pdf). While he was not around for the opening of his creation, he purportedly hired a plane to drop printed leaflets over New York: "
The Declaration of the Independence of the Imagination and the Rights of Man to his Own Madness," a protest against efforts to interfere with his vision.
[some links NSFW, via]
posted by jessamyn
on Nov 5, 2011 -
27 comments
On September 18th,
Mitchell Heisman posted his
1904 page long suicide note online, and then shot himself in the head on Harvard square.
The note, according to wikipedia, "discusses sociobiology, transhumanism, history, religion, death, nihilism and other philosophical issues at some length".
posted by DZack
on Sep 26, 2010 -
145 comments
Comedian and activist,
Mark Thomas, has been touring the UK over the past year, compiling a set of policies that his audiences want to see implemented in Britain. As part of the publicity for the resulting book,
The People's Manifesto, his publishers are offering to pay one lucky applicant's £500 deposit and campaign expenses to stand for public office at the upcoming general election, on the condition that they will base their campaign on the policies gathered in
the book.
[more inside]
posted by idiomatika
on Feb 9, 2010 -
35 comments
We think it’s normal to work all day every day at a dead-end job. It’s normal to fight with our spouses and our children. It’s normal to eat and drink and drug ourselves to escape, to veg out and stare at a screen for hours a day just to dull the pain. It’s normal to hate our lives and be miserable, it’s normal to be lonely, it’s normal to feel hollow. The Freak Revolution Manifesto.
posted by fiercecupcake
on Oct 2, 2009 -
97 comments
Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Jun 11, 2009 -
78 comments
The commercials are all over television — and they certainly are attention-grabbing. They’re the ones where the heavy, bald guy is sitting in his easy chair talking in a squeaky female voice about all the clothes he bought — including a bustier. Or the little old lady speaking with the gruff voice of a younger man about the sweet motorcycle she now owned. Identity theft is a serious crime — one that is occurring with an alarming frequency. The
Identity Theft Manifesto explains
how criminals get your personal info, and
what you can do about it.
posted by netbros
on Jun 1, 2009 -
15 comments
The Manners Manifesto For example: "(11)
Talk to people at the check-out. You don't have to say much. God, even something inane like, "Busy in here, today, isn't it?" or "Not as busy as usual in here, today, is it?" might put us on the road to peace in the Middle East. Carrying on grumping around and spreading those grump vibes certainly isn't going to help."
posted by feelinglistless
on Jan 7, 2008 -
143 comments
A Feminist Gaming Manifesto. (And part 2 is
here.)
"So wait, you’re wondering, maybe, why don’t these crazy men-folk just do that? I think the answer is actually pretty straightforward. People who themselves feel marginalized can’t bear the thought that they could be in a position of power wherein they could hurt someone in the same way that they feel hurt. Who out there hasn’t felt terribly marginalized? What happens, then, is there’s this conflation of “you’re doing something that makes me feel excluded or hurt” with “you’re a bad, bad man like those people with the bitch shirts.” You can’t handle that thought, so you try desperately to prove that it’s not the case. Guilt, or fear that you might be guilty, never did anybody any good."
posted by Bryan Behrenshausen
on Apr 16, 2006 -
87 comments
On this date in 1848,
The Communist Manifesto was published.
Howard Zinn: "I don’t see much point in abstract theorizing or getting into arguments about Marxism, Leninism, etc. ... Theoretical analyses are useful but not crucial. There is a lot of wasted time in such endeavors, but not all is wasted. Marx’s
Communist Manifesto was a theoretical analysis, immensely useful and inspiring. His first volume of
Das Kapital was useful too. His second and third volumes, and his
Grundrisse, were probably a waste of time!"
Informal Poll: How many of you have actually read the entire
Communist Manifesto? (I haven't.)
posted by mickeyz
on Feb 24, 2006 -
42 comments
Welcome! This is The Manifesto of Forbidden Truth the most unique and dangerous web site on planet earth. Here, within these pages, all of your most sacred societal Myths, Dogmas, Doctrines, Delusions, Derangements, and Brainwashings will be stripped to the bone and torn asunder, to be replaced by the Forbidden Truths that I shall graciously reveal.
posted by stinkycheese
on Jan 5, 2006 -
64 comments
Phyllis Chesler calls it as she sees it in her latest feminist manifesto. This is not what you think folks - Chesler toes the line at anti-feminism according to most modern day feminist. I well remember reading Chesler's
Letters to a Young Feminist eight years ago and patting down misogynistic tendencies in the hopes of bettering the lives of women everywhere. She calls for sisterhood to further opportunity and does not condone manhating and oppression from the masses which makes her arguments
logical as opposed to seething, vituperative vitriol. We all seemed to be begging for a discussion on feminism and issues between the sexes yesterday in
this particular post and after reading salon today, felt I would provide one...
posted by gloege
on Mar 29, 2002 -
3 comments
It's the Unaspanker! Read a good manifesto lately? Meet Robin Whittle, a man who has spent an alarming amount of time on a project called "Fondly and Firmly - The Gentlemanly Art of Spanking the Woman You Love." via
cruel.com
posted by gimli
on Mar 13, 2001 -
15 comments
Why, yes, I like being stupid, but now I don't have to be. How silly of me to have failed to recognize that the earth is a Time Cube, with four simultaneous days. (But if God
were queer, I'd think this whole gay marriage rights mess would never have happened...)
posted by jason
on Mar 8, 2000 -
12 comments
