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Friday, December 12, 2003
Weird I just watched Interview with the Assassin last night and now I see a guy in his 40s committed suicide today on the x-spot where JFK was assassinated Not the first weird connection I have had with this incident.
1:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
The basically suppressed military comedy Buffalo Soldiers will be out on VHS/DVD on January 13thPart M*A*S*H*, part Sgt. Bilko, and with more than a hint of Kelly's Heroes thrown in for good measure, this is a grim commentary on a moribund and bored military outpost where the troops are mostly recruited from the ranks of scofflaws and hooligans who'd much rather be smoking dope and retooling the local black market to suit their needs than actually "be all they can be" (they'd much prefer to be as high as they can be, and frequently are). [link]
1:36 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Paypal muscles Jennicam off the air for nudity
1:21 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
New massive Python autobiography is the bible on the most influential and important comedy act of at least the last half of the 20th century
11:33 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Link to BBC story on potter in last post, forgot it yesterday
1:21 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Turner Prize winner is a 43-year-old potter with a wife and kid -- and a penchant for "dress"-ing up Imagine a transvestite potter in the US getting a prestigious art award and mass media publicity... I can just hear the Calvinist whiffleheads bloviating now... Make sure you check out his gallery page. Some of these (the layered ones like "Strangely Familiar" and "Primitive Form") are quite beautiful and haunting. The topical and "artworld commentary" ones are sometimes funny, but it's hard to imagine paying £40,000 (around $70,000 right now, with the dollar worth so little) for them (Perry's vases were fetching up to that before the prize was awarded). Either way you need to see the larger pics to appreciate them at all.
1:13 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Monday, December 08, 2003
Stradivarius violin secret? Mini ice age in Europe [Undernews]The ice age reached its coldest point during a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 known as the Maunder Minimum, named after the 19th century astronomer, E.W. Maunder, who documented a lack of solar activity during the period. Stradivari was born a year before the Maunder Minimum began and produced his most prized and valued stringed instruments as the period ended -- from 1700 to 1720. Columbia's Lloyd Burckle noticed that correlation and contacted Grissino-Mayer, who discovered an unprecedented period of slow tree growth in Europe, from 1625 to 1720, characterized by compact, narrow tree rings. Their conclusion: that "narrow tree rings would not only strengthen the violin, but would increase the wood's density."
1:10 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Another book that readers claim captures the experience of New York City -- Colson Whitehead's The Colossus of New York: A City in 13 PartsWriting in short, emphatic sentences, Whitehead riffs poignantly and playfully on myriad strategies for urban survival as he incisively distills the kaleidoscopic frenzy of the city into startlingly vital metaphors and cartoon-crisp analogies. Intensely sensory in his details, wistful and funny in his psychological disclosures, he makes everything come to mythic life, from the fury of rush hour to the strained etiquette of subway riders to Central Park, Times Square, Coney Island, and the Brooklyn Bridge. [Booklist]
3:05 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
2 new books that get into the heads of artists: poet Ross Feld's Guston in Time: Remembering Philip Guston & Evan S Connell's new biography of Francisco Goya The latter book will be published in February, and looks to provide a deep cultural context to complement Robert Hughes recent highly acclaimed study of Goya's work. What a year for Goya books . . . and unfortunately, how relevant his vicious, unsparing depictions of war still are . . . From Anna Godberson's review of the Guston book:Much of Feld's book is a loving investigation of the later paintings; of the repeated images (hoodlums, limbs, light bulbs) that make them up, and of the zeal and sincerity with which Guston painted. Feld describes the older man as only a familiar could. We are shown his manner of speech, his physicality, his anxieties about art and life. Each chapter is paired with one of Guston's letters, which give an idea of how manic and voracious their conversations must have been. What is most moving here is how these two spurred each other on in their thinking and their art. Feld so obviously felt that Guston was, as he told him in a letter, "the only painter on which it [was] even remotely possible to write intelligently."
2:50 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
Mobsters get RIAA trial moved to industry-friendly D.C. [Undernews]
2:26 AM - [Link] - Comments ()
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