May 4, 2009
I'm nobody, I'm the king of rock and roll
Lend Me Your Ear, Vincent
Did Gauguin Cut Off van Gogh's Ear? According to a new book by two German art historians, van Gogh did not slice off his left ear in a fit of madness and drunkenness in Arles in December 1888. His ear was severed by a sword wielded by his friend, the painter, Paul Gauguin, in a drunken row over a woman called Rachel and the true nature of art.
Giles Timms
Animator Giles Timms is doing interesting work (that has apparently already been discovered by laughing squid and boing boing but is still worth checking out.)
Make It, Fly It
It has lately been popular to make stuff. But few have made an airplane. A great variety of homebuilt/amateur experimental aircraft can be made, some speedy, some aerobatic, some quite popular. Some folks have even made a blimp. [more inside]
Flu Season Fashion
The flu craze might be reason to stay inside, but it's not stopping Mexicans from going out in style. It might even be the next fad north of the border, thanks to radio morning show DJs in cities such as Chicago. If you act now, you can submit your own design here just in time for Cinco de Mayo. But what do you know, some fashion designers already had the new fad planned out. But they can't ultimately claim the credit, for the Japanese have been putting their masks on for a long time.
bill stickers will be prosecuted.
On April 25th, 2009, over 50 artists and 26 whitewashers spread out over lower Manhattan as part Jordan Seiler's "New York Street Advertising Takeover". Over 120 illegal billboards were whitewashed, then turned into "personal pieces of art." One person was arrested. More pictures. via
Lucy Pepper
Lucy Pepper is an English artist living in Portugal. Her illustrations, animations, and cheeky blog, illuminate the cult of the bata, Portuguese beach culture, just how weird British tourists can look, and what it's like to have one's daughters humiliated by your very presence in public. [more inside]
Moleskine Art
Effing Hail:
Effing Hail: A bit of a different flash game. Laptop users with short screens may need to go full screen for this one. Break like the wind!
"There's No Medicine for Someone Like You"
Under Our Skin: A "dramatic tale of microbes, medicine & money", Under Our Skin looks at the medical, political, and personal controversies surrounding Lyme disease. [more inside]
War? Well only as a favor to you, George.
What lingering doubts anyone might have about the case for war in Iraq took another body blow today, as the former deputy director of MI6, claimed Britain had been "dragged into" the war. [more inside]
Condi Criminal Conspiracy Confession Caught on Camera!
Recently, Fmr. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked some pointed torture questions by two Stanford students after an informal reception in a dorm building (transcript). Did she unwittingly confess to a role in a criminal conspiracy? Signs point to yes. [more inside]
Don't call it a comeback
This weekend, at a pizza restaurant in the liberal suburb of Arlington, Virginia, more than 50 people attended the first event held by the National Council for a New America - which is intended to "be a dynamic, forward-looking organization that will amplify the common-sense and wisdom of our fellow citizens through a grassroots dialogue with Republican leaders." The speakers included former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who said, "This is not about messaging, this is not about branding. This is about trying to foster some discussion, because what's going on in Washington right now is not reflective of the mainstream of this country." [more inside]
Trimpin: Musical Sculptor
Seattle-based German artist Trimpin makes sculptural musical instruments. He was profiled in a mini-documentary by Washington public TV station KBTC a couple of years ago. Here are videos of some other works of art he's created, Fire Organ, Liquid Percussion, Cello, Sensors and Record Players, Contraption at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, MIDI-controlled Player Piano and Sheng High.
Kyle Gann wrote an essay by that placed Trimpin in the tradition of John Cage, Harry Partch and other avant-garde American musical inventors. The audio of a nearly hour and a half long 1990 interview with Trimpin by Charles Amirkhanian can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Another, more light-hearted interview in connection to his show at this year's SXSW, where a documentary about him premiered (trailer).
The SNARC Effect
NoScript vs. AdBlock Plus in a Match to the Death!
Recently, the Mozilla FireFox community encountered a bit of a hacking showdown between two of the more popular extensions, AdBlock Plus and NoScript. In a series of escalating updates, the two software packages fought a battle over the ability to display ads by default on NoScript developer Giorgio Maone's homepages for users who have installed the EasyList blacklist filters for AdBlock Plus. [more inside]
Like cult films, but without all that filming
Bizarro fiction isn't really a new genre. Just a new term. The current crop of bizarro authors are generally young and new to being published, with Carlton Mellick III as "both the Johnny Appleseed and the Johnny Rotten" of the newly dubbed genre, who started printing his stories under the header of Eraserhead Press. But what is Bizarro Fiction? A battle between the real William Shatner vs all the film versions of himself, resulting from a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians; bizarro-noir novellas, set in a world of murderers, drugs made from squid parts, deformed war
veterans, and a mischievous apocalyptic donkey; or just a nice children's book about two Vampires who compete in a mustache competition to prove who is the faggiest of all. (via a local paper, though I didn't see the article isn't online) [more inside]
Before the animated gif....
From 1832 to 1834, the phenakistoscope was the way to get your moving picture fix. (previously) [more inside]
We Will Illuminate Dark Places
Live Hope Love — Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica.
These scissors go "snikt."
You, like me, have probably often wondered where exactly Wolverine fits in the grand continuum of comic-book hair. Wonder no more. [more inside]
Live it, for a while.
Real time Dracula "Experience Bram Stoker's Dracula in a new way -- in real time. Dracula is an epistolary novel (a novel written as a series of letters or diary entries,)" Whitney Sorrow is posting each entry in real time starting on May 3rd the date of the first diary entry. [via]
Understading Solaris (1972)
"He reportedly came to consider Solaris his least successful project, owing to what he saw as its inability to break the shackles of its genre... Solaris, like a less malevolent version of its title element, takes one's own mind and reflects it right back, becoming whatever one believes it to be. The skill necessary to pull this magic off is common to Tarkovsky's body of work, but the openness isn't." Colin Marshall breaks down Solaris on 3quarksdaily, "Though even those few Tarkovsky aficionados who inexplicably have yet to make it to this film will be startled by just how effective its famed moment of zero-gravity really is."
Wu-Tang Design Remix Project Pt. 1
Wu Note Records. Covers of Wu-Tang Clan (group and solo) LPs done Blue Note-style by graphic designer Logan Walters. A few more here.
Fighting for God and...God.
"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own."
Stuck in the dark without a flashlight and want to impress your friends? Make your own torch! [more inside]
Going Dutch
[E]ven if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of [vacation money] from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.After a year and a half of living in the Netherlands, American writer Russell Shorto compares the Dutch "welfare state" to the tax, health care and social security systems of the United States.
[...]
But does the cartoon image of [the Dutch system] — encapsulated in the dread slur "socialism," which is being lobbed in American political circles like a bomb — match reality? Is there, maybe, a significant upside that is worth exploring? [...] I think it’s worth pondering how the best bits might fit.
Theory versus Statistics, Financial Economics Edition.
Theory versus Statistics, Financial Economics Edition. "You can almost here the lament of this quant that the real math theory has been dead since 1980, and that it has all been applied and statistics ever since. It’s like Fischer Black was Kool Herc and Myron Scholes was Afrika Bambaataa, and they’d all go plug in their computers into lamp posts and do martingale representations in the streets and at house parties. And, of course, it was all ruined in 1979 when it went commercial." A response to The Last Temptation of Risk by Barry Eichengreen.
Han is leaving the cantina.
Where are you in the movie? If we started a movie on the day you were born, and stretched it over your lifespan, this is where you’d be in that movie.
'Until Eternity Itself Has Said Its Prayers'
A few years ago, Russell Crowe, star of the breakaway Ridley Scott hit Gladiator, ran into fellow Australian Nick Cave and managed to convince the exotic dancer and sometime screenwriter to consider writing a sequel of the Roman period piece for him. The resulting script included the reincarnation of Maximus as the eternal warrior, the betrayal of Hephaestus, the sickness unto death of the Roman gods, the martyrdoms of St. Irenaeus of Lyon and St. Cassian of Imola, the persecution of Emperor Decius, the Crusades, and the Vietnam war; it ended in the men's bathroom at the Pentagon. Here is a review and detailed synopsis of that script, which was unfortunately (though not too surprisingly) rejected by the studios. [more inside]
For those who speak Japlish, here's the instrument for you!
You all know what a flute looks like; no need to link to any images. And most of you probably know what a Japanese shakuhachi looks like, although in case your memory needs a jog, it's this one. But what you probably haven't seen before is the hybrid of the two - the Shakulute.
And it's no joke; it's catching on; plenty of people are now playing it. Curious about the sound? There are a number of mp3s for listening here.
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