Vitro Nasu

Nam Jun Paik passed away at his Miami home at 8:00pm EST on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 while being watched by his Japanese-American wife Shigeko Kubota and a nurse. “Paik brought to the world many questions and warnings about the passive acceptance of television.”(Via Korea Times)

He was a very funny man who spoke five languages all very badly.

Cinema Metaphysics No2, 3 &4 by Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut
“Reminiscent of Beckett’s theater, as well as the minimal movements of 1960s avant-garde dance, Cinéma Metaphysique is a study in gesture and stillness, noise and silence.” (more works at
Electronix Art Intermix)

Video Flag and more images here.

Here is a comprehensive tribute from Netlex France.
Something from thriftstore here.
A blog from Korea shows this beautiful image of TV cello and this TV (Magnet 65) from Joseph.

Spike celebrates New Year at Googleland and elsewhere (more great photos).

Received this greeting from Hal and Masayo earlier this year.
Contact Ed Ruscha, his dog is waiting in the field.

Dog Days means:
“The ancient Romans noticed that the hottest days of the year, i.e. in late July and early August, co-incided with the Dog Star (aka Sirius, aka The Great Dog) being in the same part of the sky as the Sun. They thought the star contributed to the heat of the day.”

Dog’s Breakfast?

Two famous dogs from past were indexed at wikipedia, meet Hachiko and GreyFriars Bobby.

(Hachiko’s statue is located at Shibuya where I grew up.
My mother moved us to Shibuya when I was a teenager. Here is a photo of Shibuya with Neon Buddha image on the building.)

See or read My life as a Dog and learn about Ingemar’s love for Sickan and the story of Laika, the Russian astro dog who went into the Space.

Vitro Nasu google digital celebration takes place at night. It is more logical to see fireworks at night and besides we get there after google.
After Mozart celebration two days ago, we will have to reconsider this practice of copying google celebration images. It does get boring or contentious.
(via wealthbondage)

You were simply amazing! Marcos Baghdatis

A little miracle and joy spread to the world with the appearance of a young Tennis player from Cyprus.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Birthday (250 years old) of Mozart googled and rearranged for your eyes and not for wrapping chocolates in order that Tom Hanks could say the words some of us detest.

Piano Sonata (Listen)
Don Giovanni was composed in Prague, read more at Mozart Praha 2006

Quiz: Can you tell Mozart from Salieri? Listen here.

Skull mystery and his diary

“Author Mario Livio has studied the relationship between art and mathematics. He tells Michele Norris most of us are attracted to symmetry spiced by some elements of surprise… and that combo is the essence of Mozart’s music.” (from NPR)

Glenn Gould playing Mozart? Found one article on this subject and samples to listen here.
“It is precisely Gould’s wrong-headedness that makes his Mozart so interesting; that, and a keyboard technique that was the envy of six continents. Gould’s avowed dislike of Mozart’s music is impossible to fathom in view of the obvious intelligence and hard work that went into these performances.”

(I think G. G was jealous and competitive with Mozart.)

Mozart had Sun Aquarius Moon in Sagittarius (same as Yoko Ono)
“you have the qualities of an uncompromising intellectual; honesty, strong opinions, and a broad viewpoint on world affairs. … are impulsively quick to act on … ideas, advanced and revolutionary as they may sometimes be. … believe in getting things done, and done in shortest possible time, employing the most innovative methods … can devise.” from here.
His chart

Auden on Mozart: Metalogue to the Magic Flute (Kyle Gann’s Postclassic)

Mozart and films and the best of all was by Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute.

Happy Birthday
Jeanne Moreau. (Jan 23)

“She is the heavyweight of ’60s cinema, and so far, the last of the heavyweights” (via Salon – see below for more)
“When you visit the woman Orson Welles called “the greatest actress in the world,” don’t try to light her cigarette — you might get burned.” from here at Salon
Jeanne and Orson Welles in Immortal Story (Youtube) or see the whole thing here (55 min)

Moreau as a chambermaid from the Diary of Chambermaid by Luis Bunuel.
This chambermaid from Bunuel was a cool oberserver unlike the murderous Papin sisters, portrayed brilliantly by Sylvia Testud.

“Jeanne Moreau is really something. There’s this scene where she’s like a chaste schoolteacher superficially, but inside she’s like a barbed wire fence on fire.” (Patti Smith on Jeanne Moreau)
Wonderful photos from
“Madmoiselle”
Vanessa Redgrave lost her husband who directed Moreau in this film and fell in love. Moreau later had a short marriage to Friedkin the director of “The French Connection”.
Her famous lovers include Louis Malle, Francois Truffaut and Pierre Cardin.

You can take French Lessons with Jeanne here or learn to sing
Le Tourbillon de la Vie here. (Georges Delerue composed this music for Jeanne Moreau. )

Jeanne Moreau is aquarius/dragon or THE FUN-LOVING CONQUEROR. (Roger Vadim who directed her in Les Liasions Dangereuses also had this combo).

Her chart here.
Her sun and moon in Aquarius – the same as Francois Truffaut. (his chart here).
Imagine this powerful eccentric indepedent energy coming from these two when they work together.
“This is a combination that is somewhat of another world-ethereal, philosophical, and extremely open-minded. … individuality and personality is a blend of the Aquarius traits of refinement, intelligence, and a broadly humane nature. Refined and intelligent, this combination provides the possibility of high talent or a streak of genius to be constructively developed. Ideas are prolific, and likely range from the conventional to the eccentric and the unusual.” via

Moreau as Star and Director from Ebert. I avoid reading his film reviews but this old piece on Jeanne Moreau is delightful describing her protest walkout on Warren Beatty and her friendship with Jean Eustache and how Truffaut did not drink much.

Eduard Manet, Stendhal and Eisenstein were born on January 23.
Gerard Philippe made two important films based on Stendhal, the Red and the Black and La chartreuse de Parme. Jeanne Moreau used to be on stage with Gerard Philippe and later they played the modern version of decadent couple in Vadim’s Les Liasions dangereueses.

Update: La Famille de Ninette is in (Nina’s humorous piece on her family tree and her droll family in school French).

Wislawa Szymborska

Poem by Wislawa Szymborska

First Love

They say
the first love’s most important.
That’s very romantic,
but not my experience.

Something was and wasn’t there between us,
something went on and went away.

My hands never tremble
when I stumble on silly keepsakes
and a sheaf of letters tied with string
— not even ribbon.

Our only meeting after years:
two chairs chatting
at a chilly table.

Other loves
still breathe deep inside me.
This one’s too short of breath even to sigh.

Yet just exactly as it is,
it does what the others still can’t manage:
unremembered,
not even seen in dreams,
it introduces me to death.

Translated from the Polish by
Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak
Monologue of a Dog
Harcourt, Inc.

More on Wislawa here, and here

Jeannette Winterson selected THE BALL: As long as nothing can be known for sure , a poem by W. Szymborska for her Latest Poem section in her homepage.

Google MLK (top)
Graphic by Mark Weber (below) via

U.S Constitution in grave danger – Al Gore (via truthout org)

MLK:Dreams and nightmares by Robert Jensen
“In Martin Luther King Jr’s most famous speech, he had a dream.
But in another of King’s important addresses, he faced the depth of our nightmare. ”

Return of the MacGuffin: Iran and Nuclear Weapons (K-punk)
“A MacGuffin (sometimes spelt McGuffin or Magoffin), an empty master-signifier, is a now-ubiquitous plot device or catalyst that holds no meaning or purpose of its own except to motivate the players or characters and advance a narrative or story.”

Romeo and Juliet at Marshall 2005

Sasha Cohen won her first US Gold last night! The image on the right
is by Shahzia Sikander, see more at Crownpoint Press and here.

The two elegant, exquisite lolitas or (Princesses) are growing and maturing as artists – both naturally gifted one with pen and brushes, another with skates on ice. Both are endowed with genuine creative spirits.

Sasha is a Scorpio Rat “This person is generally lithe and agile as well as quick-spirited. He or she will probably enjoy all manner of graceful sport and prove able at competitive games”

Off ice Sasha takes cooking lessons, designs clothes and talks to her fans from her website.

Reflect by S. Sikander

Shahzia was born in Lahore, Pakistan and graduated from Rhode Island School of Design.
“IB: You began your interrogation of miniature painting in the late 1980s in Pakistan at the National College of Art in Lahore. What was your initial interest in working this way?
SS: I elected to work in the miniature format in 1988 during my second semester of foundation year at school. The choice itself was an act of defiance. At that time, there was no interest in the miniature painting department ” (via)

“Shahzia Sikander: No. I’m interested in the very fine play with tradition, but the intention was not to subvert or to reinvent, but definitely to take it on, to learn the language before you can talk.”
(Via A Conversation with Shirin Neshat and Shahzia Sikander)

Another Princess, Chelsea was spotted in India.
Why Chelsea Clinton visited Rajasthan? (via 3quarksdaily)
Margaret Cho visited India too, read her blog and see the pictures.

High price to pay for China’s wealth reads this headline.
China is changing and the city people are abandoning bicycles for cars these days. Chinese automaker Geely plans to move aggressively to U.S. market by 2008.

Bikers by Zhang Hongtu or Mr Momao

Zhang Hongtu whose portrait of Mao’s last supper was featured last year when Jung Chang’s Mao book was released.

Picked up Yu Hua’s To Live from the library. It is a slim book for an epic story that was adapted to an award winning film with the same title by Zhang Yimou. Unlike the huge book on Mao by Jung Chang, Yu Hua’s light book was easy to carry on my bike. (The spouse had just finished reading Mao Tse Tung, since then he never stopped talking about Mao’s atrocity and monstrous acts on his people. He was a Sun Emperor who scorched everyone who came close to him. )

The differences of the novel and film adaptation are discussed from this review.

Film review “To Live’ as allegory of historical discourse” and this page with more photos and reviews.

A conversation with Yu Hua

This web page on Lu Xun was bookmarked about a week ago and the fate has it his name got repeatedly mentioned in the afterword section of Yu Hua’s To Live and also from the conversation from the above link.
Lu Xun wikipedia page is here.

Update: just stumbled upon on this review of Zhang Yimou’s new film “Riding Along for Thousand Miles” by Rob Smith. Zhang wrote this film for Takakura Ken a 74 years old veteran of Japanese cinema known in the west for the movie “The Yakuza” with Robert Mitchum.

Google in braille in black and white

Braille A

Google celebrated the birthday of Louis Braille yesterday (Jan 4).

Braille B

Post a L’aveugle from a French blog. (More faithful to google original).

The Gift from a Blind Poet
“One day Cartier-Bresson received a telephone call from the writer JL Borges, who wished to know whether he would be willing to accept a prize for which Borges wanted to nominate him.

The prize was offered by a rich woman who lived in Sicily. It was for artists of all kinds. What distinguished this prize from most others was that it was the previous prize winner who nominated, after two years, the next one. And today Borges wanted to give the prize to Cartier -Bresson. Why me? he asked. Because I am blind, said Borges, and I want to give it to you in recognition of your eyes.

“Cartier-Bresson felt he could not refuse Borges and so he traveled to Palermo for the award ceremony. There he was put up in a highly reputed old hotel. Its name, or something about it, seemed familiar to him. Finally he found out why. It was the hotel his parents had gone to on their honeymoon. He was born nine months later.In this same hotel, where he was lodged because his eyes had won a prize, he had been conceived” (via zonezero)

Riddle of Poetry (J.L. Borges)

Braille t shirt is $37.00
(No braille in sight but came across a Heated bra ).

Josephine Baker By Calder

Ake Ome Koto Yoro – continuing the tradition of snappy Japanese new year greetings I learned on this blog last year.

Mutant Eggplant New Year Greetings

In pictures: Celebrations of New Year (BBC)
(From Sydney and other cities around the world)
Osechi – Japanese New Years feast for your eyes.

Mark Morris image source design by Maira Kalman
“Four Saints, Three Acts,” by Gertrude Stein

Gong Li celebrated her birthday yesterday.
Gong Li is a Capricorn/Snake like Mao Tse Tung, Martin Luther King and Mohamed Ali. They are big people with presence.
Matisse and Paul Bowles were also born on Dec 31.