Vitro Nasu

Chistopher DeLaurenti and four protesting turtles. (These turtles are not afraid)

Congrats to Chris!

In honor of May Day, ubuweb is featuring my “Four Protest Symphonies.” (via email)

Go listen here at Ubu

Previous post - NYtimes coverage of his Favorite Performances

Dance with Petra (The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Klant by Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant is about one of the pet themes of Fassbinder which he referred to as “Fascism of everyday life”. Here Fassbinder paints a bleak picture of life, where every relationship is inherently manipulative and our ‘potential use’ is our only worth, sooner and later we realize that not only we are used by someone, but we also use others from time to time in the name of noblest emotions of love and friendship. (via)

Petra’s nervous hysterics mask the same kind of character found in most of Fassbinder’s films — someone desperate for love. At the same time, her antics are juvenile and faintly ridiculous, the foolish tantrums of a child used to getting her own way. (via)

At least Fassbinder knew that Petra Von Kant was him, self knowledge, alas, that is lacking in Hillary. She is keeping us entertained even if a little sadly.

Learn German with Petra (a found spoof on youtube)

Learn wedge issues with Hillary, her memory is very sharp.

Danke Hillary for bringing us back Petra Von Kant. Bitte schön or bitter emotion.

Bitter Melon wedge is good for health.

“A “bitter Gourd face” (苦瓜臉) is a common Chinese description for a serious or sad face.

Update: a good collection of cartoons on Bitter and Elitist here.

Hillary arrives in Bosnia.

<> <> <> sing along here, la la la,

<> <> <> Hillary’s lunch

<> <> <> Chelsea’s lunch

Update: found this headline, “Hillary Clinton’s Self-Swiftboating into Irrelevance”

Click to animate here.

Gif animations by Hans Heiner Buhr and lunch images by Fung-Lin Hall (recycled from “No Camping for Old Men”).

(Heart of the World by Guy Maddin from here)<

Day Night gif from fffound

Footlight from Dziga Vertov and Busby Berkeley The Machine Art

Mark(s) (click to see the slowest animation)

John Lurie Strange and Beautiful

The I Ching — - - — - -

Update: April 1 was Dan Flavin’s birthday!
Here is “Looking at Flavin’s neon wall sculpture” , Minimoma by Craig Robinson

And one more, revisit the Clown Family from previous post.

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847.

Did he invent the telephone?

The modern telephone is the result of work done by many people, all worthy of recognition of their contributions to the field. Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent the telephone, an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically” after experimenting with many primitive sound transmitters and receivers. The history of the invention of the telephone is a confusing mass of claims and counterclaims, further worsened by lawsuits which attempted to resolve the patent claims of individuals. Bell is often credited as the inventor of the first practical telephone, although others provided groundbreaking research and development work and subsequent improvements.

History of Telephone
Bell wanted “Ahoy” but Edison wanted “Hello”. (From Mamma’s Cradle First Hello)

(Animate the phone here)

And finally don’t pick the banana fone!

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My Prostate Belongs to God (image source)

More paintings at his Gallery with great soundtrack from John Lurie’s Strange and Beautiful homepage

John Lurie has been ill for the last many years. He has been exhibiting and selling his paintings. (These paintings have saved his life)

John is an excellent dancer

M: People are most familiar with your work as a musician and actor/director. How did you make the leap to visual artist?
JL: I believe you have me mistaken with someone else. I am mostly known for being an excellent dancer, in some neighbourhoods more than others.

Big Heart Music Video by John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards

John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards (Big photo of John included from European Jazz Net)

John Lurie is huge in Russia (A post from two years ago).

Happy Birthday Alan, how many beans will you be eating today?
Today is Setsubun. Previously on this day this blog has celebrated the birthday of Alan Sondheim, Gertrude Stein and Simone Weil. Recently Alan reminded me that February 3 is bean throwing day in Japan. Bean throwing sounded too matter of fact in English compared to the poetic sounding Setsubun. Setsubun was never used for a title or subject of any Ozu film (Ozu was not into exorcism) Ozu had Soshun, Bakushu and Banshun, all of which indicate changes of season.

Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi (devils out, fortune in)

Japanese Drive Out Devils in Spring Ritual
Setsubun Festival celebrated with a fanfare of bean-throwing exorcisms

Censer and censor Alan’s book review - (bio of Baudelaire the author of Flowers of Evil)

Keith’s book fascinates me, in particular because of the violence it does to the text, or at least what appears to me as a violence, and a ‘tenor’ in the translation that strikes me as Jon Stewart meets Bartok; it’s a kind of breeziness across what appears as the subterranean rootings of melancholy, a bridge across that, which is far too often, for me, the bridge of the fast read, which this translation is not. So a contradiction at the beginning. This is founded, for me, on the belief, that the unconscious plays an enormous role in FoE and that the unconscious is, in fact, not breezy, but on the order of the Kristevan chora – inchoate, dark, abject – the murmurings, not the signposts, of language.

Devils are out in the Arizona desert, fortune in and out - (the world needs plenty of luck these days).
Oni wa soto

(image source)

Pick a title from the list below.

1 - The Last of the Mohicans Couch
2 - A Room with a View and Why the Couch Got Away
3 - The Crucible
4 - There Will Be Blood
5 - The Unbearable Lightness of Furniture Being
6 - The Boxer in the Age of Innocence

(image source)

The image below is a repost, more about this here.
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This post is dedicated to Heath Ledger who inspired Daniel Day Lewis.

What leaves you most wary during Election Season with its Polls (scroll down)

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(Janet Paparelli sent me her new year’s greeting with this image.)

Democrazy is here to stay. (Mark Young who posted this shortest blog entry is a poet from Australia)
Dogmacracy (Daisy and Spike - or Hillary vs Obama, the two chihuahuas’ one act play) now enters another round for a re-run. (They can’t raise money but they can growl and pretend better than any of the current candidates. Growling politicians is universal, here is Issay Ogata playing a politician.)
Matt has two great links on Why not outsource American politics? and Bullshit

Clinton Diebold Bump

The point is this: Voting machine security is essential to our democratic process, and remains a problem that has not been resolved.
As long as these devices have serious vulnerabilities, doubt is possible, and a healthy democracy cannot function effectively in the shadows.

He lost to Nixon in 1972, still speaks to us with the voice of reason.

And something else that turns your ear to dead meat.
David Ireland
Three Attempts to Understand Van Gogh’s Ear in Terms of the Map of Africa, 1987 (image source)
David Ireland’s 500 Capp Street: Inside And Soon To Be On The Market. (David Ireland mini retrospective is long overdue, stay tuned.)

(Directed by Alfonso Cuarón)
“The Shock Doctrine” is high lighted at agog for people who don’t have time to read.

Doodle 13

Head by Louise Bourgeoise

This head belongs to Gordon Matta Clark

Kara Walker did this cover design for New Yorker Magazine.

Wayne Thiebaud did too.

Paint by Pixels,” Harry Bliss.

A sad Christmas cover design by Anita Kunz, 2005 (See all of holiday cover designs here)

Iberia Quarries by Burtynsky He did not do the New Yorker cover.

That’s all folks, be good, don’t drink and drive.

Doodle 13 Plus something or other. (Actually a photo of palm trees trunk repeated three times)

Kenneth Noland from Anaba.

Click on HO HO HO Happy action gif and Well well well Melancholy - they are a few of my favorite gif animations from Hans Heiner Buhr.

In the spirit of Derek Jarman

Alice by Jan Svankmajer. (via)

Nikola Tesla

On Dec 25 2007, Louise Bourgeois will be 96 years old, Happy Birthday Loubou.
(This is a repost.)

Let us not forget Quentin Crisp who was also born on Dec 25.
He said England was a mistake.
A real cool gif map to find his apartment.
The trailer for Orlando is at Sally Potter’s homepage. Watch Quentin Crisp as the Queen of England.

Grayland and Gif Collection I - (enough motion already)

Trader Joe’s bathroom wall has been newly renovated with underwater painting.
New Bathroom design at Trader Joe.

Before the wall depicted desert landscape.
Old Bathroom
A digital montage of Trader’s Joe’s bathroom wall.

Speaking of bathroom, here are three images using toilet paper.
TP Meditation I~
TP Meditation II

TP Meditation III

Humans are the only creatures who use toilet paper - and what a nightmare!! (Don’t know who designed this paper toilet site.)

Update: this guy did the toilet paper web art.