Saturday, October 4, 2008
You a bad puddy tat! (pt.2)
Cartoon characters brutally killed in new Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck art exhibition
a few images from the exhibition
via DAVELOGv3
(pt.1)
btw, I wasn't sure at first if the artist was the same James Cauty from the KLF, but apparently it is. I assumed that because the Telegraph article made no mention of it, that it was a different guy.
Friday, October 3, 2008
hello
Photograph: Stephen Morrison
24 hours in pictures:
Kuyera, Ethiopia: A child peers through a hole in a fence while waiting in line for food and medicine at a clinic run by Medecins Sans Frontieres
Diver with southern right whale
Photograph by Brian Skerry
National Geographic: It must have been pretty nerve-racking having such a large animal swim up to you.
Skerry: It was amazing. I mean, I have to tell you there were days when I was at the bottom at 70 feet, and here comes this bus swimming down. I’m standing on the bottom, and as it comes down, I get on my knees, lean over backwards—my scuba tank is now digging into the sand. And of course their eyes are on the side of their heads, so it had to turn and look at me. It came within inches. Here’s this softball-size whale eye looking at me. But then it stops—stops on a dime. It’s just hovering there, and literally one flick of its tail, and it would have crushed me like a bug. But it doesn’t. It was just highly curious.
stray bullets
Aussie exposes online poker rip-off Detective work by an Australian online poker player has uncovered a $US10 million cheating scandal at two major poker websites and triggered a $US75 million legal claim. In two separate cases, Michael Josem, from Chatswood, analysed detailed hand history data from Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and uncovered that certain player accounts won money at a rate too fast to be legitimate. His findings led to an internal investigation by the parent company that owns both sites. It found rogue employees had defrauded players over three years via a security hole that allowed the cheats to see other player's secret (or hole) cards. I've never trusted online poker for this very possibility. (via)
NASA's dirty secret: Moon dust Fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused 'lunar hay fever,' problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space.
Afghanistan's Very Careful Tour Guides The lines between the Afghanistan at war and the Afghanistan at peace alter daily. Cities accessible by road today may only be reached by plane — or not at all — tomorrow. And so follow the boundaries of the nation's tiny tourism industry. The few foreign tourists who come to Afghanistan, estimated to number under a thousand yearly, need plenty of help to pull off their holidays safely. In cities like Kabul, Herat, Faizabad and Mazar-i-Sharif, a small legion of Afghans who spent the last seven years as translators and security aides are spinning their expertise at navigating this shifting landscape into a new business. Now, they are also tour guides.
also:
Frank Deford - Paul Newman: A Sportsman And A Hero (audio)
5 Great Science Books to Expand Your Mind (via)
Traffic Waves - Sometimes one driver can vastly improve traffic
William S. Burroughs - Shotgun Paintings
UbuWeb:
During his later years in Kansas, Burroughs also developed a painting technique whereby he created abstract compositions by placing spray paint cans in front of, and some distance from, blank canvasses, and then shooting at the paint cans with a shot gun. These splattered canvasses were shown in at least one New York City gallery in the early 1990s.
Headpress:
BURROUGHS: There is no exact process. If you want to do shotgun art, you take a piece of plywood, put a can of spracy paint in front of it, and shoot it with a shotgun or high powered rifle. The paint's under high pressure so it explodes! Throws the can 300 feed. The paint sprays in exploding color across your surface. You can have as many colors as you want. Turn it around, do it sideways, and have one color coming in from this side and this side. Of course, they hit. Mix in all kinds of unpredictable patterns. This is related to Pollack's drip canvases, although this is a rather more basically random process, there's no possibility of predicting what patterns you're going to get.
I've had some I've worked over for months. Get the original after the explosions and work it over with brushes and spray paints and silhouettes until I'm satisfied. So, there isn't any set procedure. Sometimes you get it right there and you don't touch it. The most important thing in painting is to know when to stop, when everything is finished. Doesn't mean anything in writing.
Gustave Eiffel in his work room
Schtok blog:
Original caption:
Gustave Eiffel is shown in his work room, experimenting with aerodynamic balance to find the exact pressure of the tower against the four caissons which support the four huge piers. Interest in the Eiffel Tower, called one of the seven wonders of the modern age, has been revived because of France’s plans to honor the great designer and builder of the forerunner to the skyscraper. The huge tower, 984.25 feet high, and completed in 1889, is still the tallest structure built by man. On April 29, the City of Paris will unveil a monument and bust of Eiffel by the famous sculptors, Auguste Perret and Andre Granet, erected at the base of the Tower. Eiffel is known as a great visionary and was forced to battle against architects and others of the time, who said the wind would destroy his tower, as that of Babel was destroyed. Since its completion in 1889, 13,153,921 pers
Other than this, I haven't been able to find a source for this image.
Circassian Beauties
Sideshow World:
Moss-Haired Girl — A "made" human oddity from the 19th century, also known as a "Circassian girl" (the Circassians are a Caucasian people living in the Caucasus but not speaking an Indo-European language). A white woman would stiffen and bush her hair, much in the style of the 'Afro' hairdo. The pitch which usually accompanied the act involved kidnapping by 'Arabs' and being forced into harem life, followed by a harrowing escape culminating in refuge there in the show.
a tip of the hat to Could it be Madness-this?
Thursday, October 2, 2008
my eyes...
Photo Journal : Pictures of the Day:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was pictured through a camera viewfinder as he delivered a speech to local media at a business and financial outlook event Thursday in Paris. (Philippe Wojazer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
Click to embiggen to get the full effect.
stray bullets
HIV/AIDS Emerged as Early as 1880s Until now it was thought that HIV-1 Group M, the strain of HIV that causes the most infections worldwide, originated in 1930 in Cameroon. Epidemic levels of AIDS and HIV-1 infections started appearing in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo), around 1960. Findings from the new study, however, suggest that the virus most likely started circulating among humans in sub-Saharan Africa sometime between 1884 and 1924.
John Le Carré: The Madness of Spies The gun was indeed part of me: so much so that I had ceased to notice its presence on my hip. Stooping to address the ball, I was startled by the clang of a heavy metal object striking the tiled floor, and looked around to identify the source. Finally, I saw the Browning lying at my feet, but by then the inn had emptied itself of customers and landlord. I retrieved it, returned it to my waistband, and picked up the briefcase. “Abort,” the A.I.O. ordered, pausing only to finish his beer. Le Carré shares some personal history.
The Secret of How the Titanic Sank New evidence has experts rethinking how the luxury passenger liner sank (via)
A mannequin on a toilet and dry porridge – it's the Turner Prize The Turner Prize, the annual award for artists that never ceases to raise furious debate on what constitutes art and what should be dismissed as nonsense, yesterday proved it was not about to change the habit of a lifetime.
also:
Russian rap video soldier sent to Siberia
The Essays of Francis Bacon
The Speech Accent Archive (audio - very useful for actors) (via)
Inuit group
photograph by Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield (1854)
from the National Maritime Museum's photostream
Ezra Pound
Portrait of Ezra Pound, Poet, Rutherford, New Jersey, at the home of William Carlos Williams, June 30, 1958 by Richard Avedon
Pound's ABC of Reading might be the most instructive book on language, reading, writing and poetry that I have encountered.
via Ordinary finds
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
This is all I am going to say about the financial crisis
Something a lot of people on all sides can agree upon.
Breaking news: Adding Sweeteners, Senate Passes Bailout Plan
Just so you know, it has always been my policy to avoid hot-button political and social issues. There is enough of that material out there. Occasionally, an irresistible item will pop up, but I'd like this weblog to be an oasis, a break from the troubles foisted upon us by the agenda-driven media and a blogosphere plagued with partisan outbursts, slurs, attacks and bickering.
I have opinions and convictions and I keep an eye on things, but to be honest, I'm so burned out on it all. Therefore, this is my recourse. A productive and edifying one that I hope many of all persuasions and backgrounds can enjoy. I know these issues are important and vital, but I hope you all can pick up the slack for me while I just do my thing.
The world has never been short on emergency.
Thanks, Dad
First Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914
Wild & Watson in sleeping bag tent on sledge journey
State Library of New South Wales:
In 1911 a group of scientists and adventurers left Hobart under the leadership of Dr Douglas Mawson. They were bound for Macquarie Island and the then unknown parts of Antarctica. The scientists of the expedition produced information that later made an major contribution to knowledge of the region. The exploration of new lands established precedence to claims, formalised in 1936 as the Australian Antarctic Territory.
First Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914) (Set)
Circus dude with magnificent fro
from The Circus, 1870-1950
leaf through the book here
thanks to Bloody Marie for hooking this up
first seen on vintagephoto
Wye Oak - Please Concrete
(video link)
directed by Caleb Stine and Eric Diga
Wye Oak
hat tip Youtube hunting
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