Archive for August, 2009

Robert Crumb – Birthday Bean Effect

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

Happy Birthday Robert Crumb! – Aug 30, 1943 Philadelphia –

Last March Robert Crumb was set to publish ‘scandalous’ Bible satire.

The acclaimed satirist revealed on his personal website that he had finished the project, which is out this autumn, and which his UK publisher is predicting will “provoke the religious right”.
The famously subversive US cartoonist Robert Crumb has announced the completion of his long-awaited take on the Book of Genesis.

If you did not know, Robert Crumb explains bean effect.

his Kafka crumbkafka2

<> <> <> A short history of america <> <> <> Stoned again <> <> <>
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> His Boswell <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Robert Crumb Trailer here.

Robert Crumb crumb_selfportrait Self-Portrait

Naked Lunch at 50

Thursday, August 27th, 2009


Video clip from Serge PARYS – Music from Serge Parys on a reading of William Seward Burroughs.

Burroughs always credited Jack Kerouac for suggesting the title Naked Lunch, and Kerouac wrote to Allen Ginsberg in June 1960 confirming this was true….
In the book there is no lunch, nor dinner, barely even a snack. For Burroughs, food is allied to the cow-like existence that he seeks to escape through the more cerebral virtues of drugs and sex. The apotheosis of his disgust for food in the book appears in a restaurant menu which is composed entirely of the inedible: ‘Filet of Sun-Ripened Sting Ray basted with Eau de Cologne and garnished with nettles/The After-Birth Supreme de Boeuf, cooked in drained crank case oil served with a piquant sauce of rotten egg-yolks and crushed bed-bugs.’ (How Books Got Their Titles)

More clips from Naked Lunch…
Conversation with the creepy typewriter. <> <> Me at Bar <> <>
<> <> Talking asshole <> <> Joan Lee breathes on a bug

Naked Lunch at 50naked-lunch-at-50-anniversary-essaysfront2

The William S. Burroughs novel Naked Lunch was published fifty years ago this Friday. Naked Lunch was a defining novel of the Beat Generation, 1960s drug culture, and gave rise to one of the last major courtroom battles over literary censorship in the United States. Now with the benefit of half a century’s perspective, it remains not only a landmark example of experimental fiction, but for celebrants and detractors alike, one of the most important American novels of the twentieth century. The “novel” (a word that Naked Lunch effectively challenged and redefined) spawned the David Cronenberg film starring Peter Weller, and Weller is hosting a fiftieth anniversary fundraiser celebration this Friday in Chicago.

Our paranoid friend had a dinner with Susan Sontag. (previous post)

Goodbye Ted Kennedy RIP

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

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  • Anita Ghazarian: His brothers were sparks of light that shone briefly; he was a beacon.

    “The lion sleeps, the jungle mourns…”


  • “Spiegel Im Spiegel” by Avro Part

    Olympia Lambert (Oly’s Musings)

    I’m lucky to call myself someone who got close enough to almost give him a hug. Wish I had now, instead of filmed him for my broadcast journalism class.

    Digby was there a year ago.

    Postscript: Ted Kennedy from The New Yorker.

    Willow Gray

    very sad. he wanted to hold on to cast that one crucial vote – we all hoped he could…
    The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.” ~ Farewell and Thank You, Ted Kennedy

    Share your memories and sympathies here (via email Gov. Howard Dean)

    We will miss Senator Ted Kennedy as a nation, and I will miss him as a human being. Howard Dean.

    Emotional Biden delivered a tribute.

    “The unique thing about Teddy was he was never about him. It was always about you. It was never about him.”

    Remembering Ted Kennedy, America’s Eulogist (vanity fair) Thanks to Jude.
    Jacky Kennedy Onassis – Ted Kennedy Eulogy

    Because of Senator Ted Kennedy’s valiant lead on Healthcare for all, my commitment is stronger than ever to seeing that the cause of his life will be realized for the millions who wake up each day wondering and worrying about how they’ll make ends meet when they fall ill. May he rest in peace.
    Jude Nagurney Camwell

    Shostakovich, Hamlet & Bela Tarr’s Damnation

    Monday, August 24th, 2009


    Damnation

    At two hours DAMNATION has been described as SATANTANGO “lite”…. that must, however, be a reference to it’s length not its tone.
    This powerful work reveals the evolution of the essential method and style which Tarr later extends into his major work… black and white images which seem to float out of an endless drunken dream… desparate people ready to betray each other and themselves as the rain never ends and the “Titanic” bar sets sail to sink into the capitalistic unknown.
    Adapted from a novel of the same name by Laszlo Kresznahorkai the novelist and Tarr this fruitful collaboration brought about a maturity, and a more profound philosophical and artistic depth to Tarr’s work that was lacking in the earlier films.(Cinema parallel)


    Previous post: Bela Tarr

    Caleb Duarte & Ramiro Martinez

    Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

    caleb

    Caleb Duarte
    Spark* Segment of Caleb Duarte (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6hK8HrZq7o)
    Caleb Duarte

    Thanks Ramiro Martinez for the tip.

    Ramiro Martinez ramiromartinez2
    Vertical Snake Standalone

    I collaborated with Kiel Famellos Schmidt, and a woman architect name Riitta Vepsalainen. I can’t spell her last name, but I think she was from Norway, or some other country. (from Finland) She was very supportive of my idea and this is what came out of it. I have footage of students and myself and Kiel all working on it. I call it my piece because I designed it and was there on every phase. I could send you some video of the making of it too.

    See two videos about thisVertical Snake Standalone ” installation from here.

    Yellow Speckramiro12 Acrylic painting by Ramiro Martinez

    I could do that ramiro31

    I am using buildings around in fresno as possible sites for murals. This is an example. There are some who would wish the mural thing to happen in fresno, and i am interested in helping so I make these images to visualize the possibilities. After seeing Yayoi’s stuff I thought a building might look cool in polkadots. (Ramiro on FB)

    Ramiro has started blogging – Arterial Destinations.

    Telescope & Flap a Phone

    Friday, August 14th, 2009

    15041w_beethovenstrumpet
    Beethoven’s Trumpet John Baldessari from Tate.

    Christopher DeLaurenti plays Goofus on flap a phone

    Christopher

    Johanna plays drum (recorded by jtwine)

    Johanna <>

    Now once more with feeling you can play both video together and let them jam. (One in Seattle and the other in San Francisco)

    valery57
    Valery Grancher 2009 Space Odyesy

    Is that what Jurgen is trying so hard to see?

    Or a little jurgenpaper tree. ( Field work 4 – jtwine blog)

    Backward Planet here New Planet found to rotate backward.

    orsted09 Hans Christian Ørsted
    Google did not celebrate Steve Martin, Wim Wenders and Richard Von Kraft Ebing

    Zhang Xiao – Three Gorges

    Monday, August 10th, 2009

    danshanxi1

    danthey

    danthree

    Photograph by Zhang Xiao

    Zhang Xiao at Eyecurious

    Zhang Xiao was born in 1981 in China’s Shandong province. There is some great work on his website, in particular his series on the demolition linked to the infamous Three Gorges Dam.

    Related link Up the Yantze

    Alain Corneau

    Friday, August 7th, 2009

    Happy Birthday alaincorneau Alain Corneau.

    Originally a musician, he worked with Costa-Gavras as an assistant, which was also his first opportunity to work with actor Yves Montand, with whom he would collaborate three times later in his career, including Police Python 357 (1976) and La Menace (1977). (Wiki – needs to be updated)

    Alain Corneau’s retrospective is long overdue.

    These are some of his films available on Netflix and video store in USA.
    Some trailers –
    He is the director of Tous Les Matin du Monde – his most famous film that Ingmar Bergman loved. Late Guillaum Depardieu plays cello here. (Obit for Guillaum Depardieu here)

    Unforgettable Fear & Trembling with Sylvie Testud – all my friends love this film.

    Lumiere & Company – many directors contributed to this project (previously Claude Miller).


    Update: R I.P Alain Corneau 7 August 1943; died Paris 30 August 2010.

    Charles Gwathmey R.I.P

    Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

    Charles Gwathmey charlesg June 19, 1938 – August 3, 2009

    NYtimes – The Work of Charles Gwathmey

    The house on Long Island designed by Mr. Gwathmey and his partner for Mr. Gwathmey’s parents, completed in 1966, was influential.

    05gwathmey-3-lg

    Dog house doghouse

    Steven Spieldberg Residence <> <> De Menil Residence

    Faye Danaway Apartment and Bathroom by Charles Gwathmey

    Tangeman University <> <> <> Guggenheim addition

    International center of Photography

    Client requested not to have a big house –Taft Residence

    Charles Gwathmey his homepage.

    In some ways, Gwathmey was the architecture world’s Norman Mailer, with the same bravado, the same raw talent, and the same career-long anxiety about whether he could continue to equal his spectacular first performance. (New Yorker postscript)

    Willow Grey provided guidance and links below.

    Book: Five Architects

    These five had a common allegiance to a pure form of architectural modernism, harkening back to the work of Le Corbusier in the 1920s and 1930s, although on closer examination their work was far more individual.[1] The grouping may have had more to do with social and academic allegiances, particularly the mentoring role of Philip Johnson (NY-Five)

    Richard Meier

    Meier’s buildings remain truest to the modernist aesthetic and, true to Corbusian form.

    Michael Graves

    Graves embraced postmodernism.

    Peter Eisenman

    Eisenman has limited his work to images and models of architectural-looking designs in printed media, because he didn’t get many commissions -however he designed the holocaust museum in Berlin.

    John Hedjuk <> <> MoMa Collection

    John Hejduk was primarily an educator, and died in 2000.

    Charles Gwathmey

    Gwathmey remained true to modernist style, although its purity has been tempered by realities of larger corporate and public commissions.

    Thank you Willow Gray!

    Panamarenko Orbit

    Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

    Panamarenkopanamarenko-orbit-1 (Dia)

    Artist, Engineer, Poet, Physicist, Inventor and Visionary, and has for thirthy years pursued a singular course of exploration of space, movement, flight, energy and the force of gravity.

    More images from Artnet

    Web Gallery panamarenkoThermo Photovoltaic Energy Convertor

    The name Panamarenko is supposedly an acronym for Pan American Airlines and Company.

    panamarenko3
    Raven’s Variable Matrix, 2000.

    Thanks to Shaahid Abdou Al Rahman for introducing Panamarenko to us.