tomartin
the pledge of allegience ... in powerpoint!
As you know, I support the pledge of allegience. I have an ironic enjoyment of Powerpoint.
more fun with dadaism
An installation at Los Angeles Harbor College Fine Art Gallery, from the program:
"Jarry's Pataphysics-the science of imaginary solutions
& the science of Liberty Enlightening the World...
recollected by Voychek Szaszor"
Google the key phrases in that paragraph and find some great links. This probably lines up with my current manifesto theme-ette.
4 jews in babylon
I like this story. I find it inspiring.
the economics of ecstasy
I had read this article previously and found it interesting but thought better of posting it. This morning I was reading a short story called The Yellow Wallpaper about a woman being driven mad by her husband through the yellow wallpaper. This made me think about "A Beautiful Mind" and pasting all the articles all over walls. This reminded about game theory - which is what this article is about - um ...basically. Okay this is an article about faking orgasms (or is it orgasm?).
bob dylan is immortal per rolling stone
Rolling Stone has another on of their list articles/covers. Bob Dylan is the second most "immortal" rock stars. The Beatles are number 1"
das blauen vier
To continue the theme of quadrellicly orderered art movements (see the God Squad) I give you the Blue Four - Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Alexei Jawlensky and Lyonel Feininger.
an obscure aesthetic interest
There are huge bands that seem to have absolutely no influence on the history of music and their are small bands that have a huge influence on music. This is an article about how little influence Fleetwood Mac has had on music history. It recounts their odd history. Very interesting.
shakespeare's sonnets
This is a pretty good Dummies article adapted from the book:
"A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines that rhyme in a particular pattern. Shakespeare used sonnets within some of his plays (especially Love's Labour's Lost), but his sonnets are best known as a series of 154 poems that tell a story about a young aristocrat and a mysterious mistress.
The sonnet form is one of the most difficult for a poet. The restricted pattern forces the poet to capture the maximum passion within those 14 lines. In his plays, Shakespeare was free to add subplots, use long speeches, vary the rhyme scheme, and mix prose and verse. But in the sonnets, you meet Shakespeare the master poet."
i could do this all day
A surrealist "compliment" generator:
Were giraffe's antennae to sprout from your barnacled elbows, one could but weep for the pretense of a fallen chamber pot.
As the bile slowly rises in my incandescent eluxulator, your mere presence has a calming effect upon my rabies.
Hearty woes and congratulations on your recent conquest of the Islets of Langerhans!
Oh!, how you inflict me with wounds of paranoia and desire.
Your presence reminds one of a blind jackal, eternally dependent upon misguided archbishops to provide instruction in bowling.
Spectacular!
those wacky surrealists
From the Site:
"Surrealism began primarily as a literary movement based on radical ideas gaining momentum in the 1920s. Naturally, where words flow, images swim congruently, and it is perhaps for the many paintings and 'graphic works' associated with the movement that Surrealism has received much of its notoriety. However, judge the basis of Surrealism not by what has been and yet remains to be written about the movement, but by what has been done and yet remains to be accomplished using the mécanismes inherent in the Vice of Surrealism. ".........
Mounds of surrealist fun - games, poetry, etc........
eternal sunshine of a spotless mind
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!/ The world forgetting, by the world forgot./ Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!/ Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd." -Alexander Pope
I cannot wait to see this.
hackers haven*
This is a Wired article about the exhibit based on the below manifesto. The article has a link to the Museums website.
*that's the name of a golf course I golfed at with my dad when I was a kid.
fun with manifestos or manifesto manifestation
Okay, look - I make no claims or endorsements of these people or their ideas/methodologies/dogma. I just think it's funny/interesting.
From Wired:
"For many of us, the word "hacker" conjures the image of a mischief-making computer geek with disrespect for authority and too much time on his or her hands. Curators at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid are set on challenging the negative connotations associated with hacking. Their current exhibition, Hackers: the Art of Abstraction argues that everyone can and should be a hacker.
The show was inspired by McKenzie Werk's The Hacker Manifesto, which redefines a hacker as anyone who creates intellectual property, but does not control the means of its production. Werk's "hacker class" includes anyone who creates anything, from programmers to artists and writers to chemists. According to Berta Sichel, director of the museum's audiovisual department, the exhibition seeks to "refute the negatives and make people aware that in an age of increased surveillance, hacking can be a vital countermeasure." ..........
a new magazine
I enjoy these Slate Journals. This one is from the editor of a new music magazine. He mentions the new Neil Young Album and attended one of the shows in New York. Young is at the top of his form.
now this is gonna be fun
Renzo is very saavy in the ways of internet fun. Mark it. Watch it. Read it. Join the fun.
they found spalding grey
An essay from the Village Voice.
movie weekend
There are 3 movies I would love to see this weekend: Dawn of the Dead, the new Angelina Jolie movie (the name escapes me!) and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - which if I have to choose one, that would be it. This is an interview with the director and the writer, the great Charlie Kaufman.
i've always wanted to do this!
Play a virtual theramin on line! Just try and stop yourself.
i'm going to this on saturday
It's a comic book convention. I am mostly interested in meeting Kevin Smith.
never met a manifesto i didn't like
How preposterous is it to write a manifesto? Imagine the arragance of putting down your ideas and declaring them important to the world and expecting people to rally around them and adopt them as their own.
I think I'll start working on my own manifesto. It will include somethng about food and wine and beer; and it will have a really good recipe for a cosmopolitan; and it will have some Bob Dylan lyrics in it and something about listening to his music at regular intervals; and it will have something about David Letterman and how he should have gotten the Tonight Show; and it will list all my favorite movies; and something about not adding weird fruits to salads; and how about not drinking light beer or beer in cans; and shouldn't all church services include the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed; and would everybody please put the cd's back in their cases after they listen to them!
It's a work in progress but stay tuned.
neil young's latest iteration
It's official - Neil Young is the most interesting and surprising classic rock artist around. His new album is an album, a website, a movie, and a stage performance. I frequently think to myself that I need to catch up with Young's career, but I never know where to start. so I just put on Harvest and listen with amazement.
the god squad
My irreverent title refers to a group of minimilist sacred music composers (it could be called classical but that's not entirely accurate) Arvo Part, Henryk Gorecki, Sofia Gubaidulina, and John Tavener. I am most familiar with Arvo Part whose music is breathetakingly beautiful. I have also heard some of Gorecki's music but the other two performers I have not heard. I could not find any music by Sofia Gubaidulina from any of the ... um ...usual sources. John Tavener has a composition that was performed at Princess Diana's funeral.
interesting and weird web art
Click freely. Things happen. That's the best I can do.
getting smarter
A list of things that will make you smarter.
noodling with google
I did the following search on google and started clicking on the most interesting finds:
"dylan poetry cats computers cy twombly"
Try it and add a few words or take a few out.
rampant leftist paranoia
From the article:
"One of my colleagues and I have a running bet: Who can find the dumbest reference to "neoconservatism"? Until last week, the honor was Tina Brown's. In a Washington Post piece last year, she recalled "the New Deal for which neocons of the '30s bitterly reviled FDR as 'that man'"--the problem, of course, being that "neocons" did not emerge until 30 years after FDR's death, and the movement's founders vigorously supported the New Deal. But, in a new play, Embedded (opening later this week at New York's Public Theater), film star and director Tim Robbins outdoes even Tina Brown. Embedded, moreover, is not only dumb. It is poisonous, a production-length conspiracy theory guilty of the very sins it attributes to the "cabal" that it claims to expose."
because his name is viggo
I end up posting all the Onion Interviews.
searching
That Google article in Wired has gotten me thinking about the possibilities of a really good search engine. This is a good little tutorial on searching. My advise is to goof around. Be fearless in your search word choices. Put together unexpected word combinations. Free associate. Add "unrelated" words. See what you get. Than follow the links at the sight you find. Link ten sites away from that one.
a poem
The only thing I ever link from th New Republic are the poems.
more thought from ann coulter
This article states.......okay, just read it.
lucinda rosenfeld
These Slate journals can be interesting. I have never heard of this novelist but the joournal entries are funny. I shall look for her books.
virtual art gallery
This captures my imagination- the ability to view great art online. Despite the obvious limitations it has incredible potential for view great art. you can find almost every great work of visual art online or at least something by every artist. This is a list of several virtual museums.
Artnet.com is a great source for articles about art.
one of the weird minds of the 20th century
There are several events commemorating the 100th anniversary of Dr. Seuss' birth. (Is that how you say that?) This is a top ten booklist. I couldn't think of anything that I would have included. I am always amazed at the level of creativity that came out of Geisel. He seemed to be as talented visually as he was verbally. I recall seeing paintings of his that were surprisingly dark and yet, what is more fun than a Dr. Seuss book?
daniel boorstin
Boorstin wrote one of my favorite books - The Creators. It's about the phases of history viewed through the creative approach of the artists of the time period. It's art history from a more philosophical angle - a fascinating read. Portions of that book I have read over and over.
