Like a Morricone-style dirge recorded by The Mamas and The Papas, Violent Femmes’ cover of Gnarls Barkley’s infamous “Crazy” is like nothing you’ve heard from the legendary alt-rock trio before. Their oft-imitated folk-punk sound is flavored with surf-rock guitar and Theremin, creating a tranquility that is somber and otherworldly.
The symphony of Manhattan Island, composed and performed fortissimo daily by garbage trucks, car speakers, I-beam bolters, bus brakes, warped manhole covers, knocking radiators, people yelling from high windows and the blaring television that now greets you in the back of a taxi, is the kind of music people would pay good money to be able to silence, if only there were a switch.
The other day, in a paint-peeling hangar of a room at the foot of the island, David Byrne, the artist and musician, placed his finger on a switch that did exactly the opposite: it made such music on purpose.
Theo Jansen is the Dutch creator of what he calls "Kinetic Sculptures," where nature and technology meet. Essentially these sculptures are robots powered by the wind only.
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?
Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.
In the years since it opened in 1993, KGB has become something of a New York literary institution. Writers hooked up in the publishing world read here with pleasure and without pay to an adoring public over drinks almost every Sunday evening (fiction), Monday evening (poetry), and most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The crowd loves it. Admission is free, drinks are cheap and strong, and the level of excellence is such that KGB has been named best literary venue in New York City by New York Magazine, the Village Voice, and everyone else who bestows these awards of recognition.
I do, in fact, like the place. Its one of the few bars on that side of town that serves alcohol but is quiet enough to actually have a conversation. It sucks if you can't find a place to sit though.
We selected fifteen entries to be in the exhibition, with seven alternates (in case print versions of the original selections could not be obtained). Many images were highly rated by the selection panel; we present the top forty-nine here. We invite you to view all the entries that were entered into the contest.
I can't embed pictures from this page. It replaces the image with one accusing me of theft! Not all uses of img src are negative for the host. I'm driving traffic to their contest!
Shorpy Historical Photographs | The 100-Year-Old Photo Blog
Topic: Arts
2:38 pm EST, Dec 6, 2007
Shorpy.com is the 100-year-old photography blog that brings our ancestors back, at least to the desktop. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a boy who worked in an Alabama coal mine near the turn of the century.
The fact that you can order prints from this blog is really cool.
Toddler fools the art world into buying his tomato ketchup paintings | the Daily Mail
Topic: Arts
5:15 pm EST, Dec 5, 2007
To the untrained eye, they appear to be simple daubs that could have been created by a two year old. Which is precisely what they are.
But that didn't stop the supposed experts falling over themselves to acclaim them.
The toddler in question is Freddie Linsky, who has fooled the art world into buying and asking to exhibit his paintings.
Freddie's efforts, which include works using tomato ketchup composed while sitting on his high chair, were posted by his mother Estelle Lovatt on collector Charles Saatchi's online gallery.
