Retrocrush.com reviews this wonderful book of vintage health and safety posters from India. It went on my Amazon WishList immediately. AN IDEAL BOY
Month: March 2004
Computer Games on…vinyl?
I never knew this ever existed.
Kempa.com: Vinyl Data
By way of Robot Action Boy
Everyday Matters.
I really like Danny Gregory’s blog Everyday Matters. He’s a New York-based artist whose sketchbook journals have been published to some acclaim (I haven’t seen them). But I do like his art and I do like his blog. His free style reminds me of the early days of Robert Crumb, before he went all crosshatchery, with penmanship that looks like Gerald Scarfe.
This entry is particularly good.
The Gospel of Debbie
This short piece by Paul Rudnick has got to be one of the funniest “Shouts and Murmurs” in the New Yorker for a long time.
March 12
Everyone is just getting so mean. They’re all going, Debbie, he is so not divine, Debbie, you’ll believe anything, Debbie, what about last year when you were worshipping ponchos? And I so don’t trust that Judas Iscariot, who’s always staring at me when I walk to the well and he’s saying, hey, Deb, nice jugs, and I’m like, oh ha ha ha, get some oxen.
The Garden of Eden – Ernest Hemingway
Collier, 1986
Ernest Hemingway’s last posthumous novel, this one apparently got worked on in spurts from 1946 to his suicide in 1961. Perhaps it was the sexuality, perhaps its the deep psychological depths he explores, but something made him ambivalent about finishing the book. This is reportedly an edited version of the remaining scraps of a manuscript, but I feel it holds up pretty well.
The story centers on American writer David Bourne and the extended honeymoon he has with his new wife Catherine on the Cote d’Azur in France during the ’20s. Their life is sunbathing, swimming, cafes, and humping like, well, like newlyweds. But a second woman comes into the picture, Marita, an attractive Italian girl they nickname “Heiress.” A very strange, bitter love triangle begins. Lesbianism is the selling point, but there’s nothing in the writing to get hot and bothered about–to its credit.
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On the Roll, I Mean “Road”
“On The Road” Manuscript. 120 feet long. Single-spaced, typewritten manuscript held together with tape. Written in three weeks while on a coffee and Benzedrine high. Sold for a record $2.43 million at Christie’s. Purchased by Indianapolis Colts’ owner, James Irsay.
Blimey.
KEROUAC MANUSCRIPT
Everquest Anonymous
Amazing tales of relationships destroyed by a husband’s or wife’s addiction to Everquest and other online games. Scary the similarities of all the stories.
Everquest Daily Grind
By way of BoingBoing
Endorphin Torture
My friend who is a video game animator just sent me this show reel (10mb) from a company and/or a product called Endorphin, announcing the next stage in motion capture. To my friend it’s a showreel for creating more and more lifelike humans for videogames and movies. To me, it’s a “Faces of Death” compilation of CG human torture and violence. Watch as a poor little man made of blocks is repeatedly shot in the head and chest, tripped, bound, blown up, and kicked in the nuts. “And it’s not just humans!” it proclaims, followed by CG horses falling in mid-gallop, all certainly bound for the CG glue factory.
Where’s the CG Amnesty International when you need them?
The Third Place
A good article that focuses on sociologist Ray Oldenburg, and his observations of urban living. Yes, you may be surprised, hanging out is good for you, in fact, essential.
Street Life
A CENTRAL CONCEPT in the book is “the third place”, which sounds like the title of a collection of poetry, and we should not by any means underestimate the power of a name in contexts like these, as the name is appearing pretty much everywhere. However, the name has a very everyday explanation: if home is the first and work the second, then the informal meeting place in town is the third. A clarification is needed here, however. The third place has nothing to do with the anonymous life we can see in a shopping centre or at Sergels Torg Square in Stockholm, where people stream out from the tube station complex at T-Centralen, do some shopping or have a quick coffee with a friend and go home. Ideally, it is about a place within walking distance of home to which you go regularly to meet other local people. The British pub, the continental café or the Swedish konditori often act as third places, to the extent, that is, that they have a regular clientele. It is thus not the establishment itself that is the point but the fact that people regularly spend part of their lives on premises, at a public place and thereby maintain social relations other than those they have in the home, at their workplace or together with some carefully chosen friends. Apart from bars, the main streets of small towns, the rural general store, post office, hairdressers, library and the like have had these same functions, and have them still.
By way of The Anti-Mega Outboard Brain
MidbrowArt Model Vs Photographer
Middle-aged nude photographer bares himself, too. While this is not safe for work, or lunch, I find Terry Donovan’s self-portraits quite brave, if not hilarious. I certainly wouldn’t “go there.”
People! They’re just naked!
MidbrowArt Model Vs Photographer
The Model Vs. Photographer series was created during a period of modest desperation. I had nobody available who was willing to model, but I wanted to keep moving ahead with cranking out images. While sitting around pondering this, I was struck by the idea that it would be hilarious if I would mimic the poses of models I had shot previously. This idea caught hold because of three things.
First, I really thought that the shots would be funny. Second, it was about the only truly creative idea I had ever had. While I’ve often seen photographer do nude self portraits, I had never seen a male photographer deliberately adopt the same poses as the females that he had shot before. Third, what better way to blunt the criticism that most nude art degrades women? I’m saying that I’m perfectly willing to do anything that I ask my models to do.? And I really think that the more feminine the pose, the funnier the shots become. So, in a serious light, that begs the viewer to ask “why?” But, forget the “why”, these are meant to be fun. Have a laugh at my e35ense. I welcome the “yuks”.
By way of Fleshbot