I’m not entirely sure what the Angry Lambie website (NSFW) is all about, but it sure looks like they’re big Frida Kahlo fans.
Here’s the only thing the site says regarding the manipulated images:
Frida Kahlo nudes created in Photoshop (except for the drawings which are authentic)
If you didn’t get it the first time, it’s a NSFW link.
Image via The World’s Best Ever
Salt and pepper shakers representing a sign of our debt-ridden times from Sebastian Errazuriz. Apparently these were inspired by Errazuriz’s own “personal economic meltdown.”
Errazuriz writes:
As soon as the seasonings are used the two workers slowly emerge, only to find that they will soon be covered again.
Via Super Punch
There are moments in this performance by Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros that reach Clash-like power and glory. I saw the band perform in June of 1999 at Irving Plaza in NYC, five months before this Roseland show, and it was thrilling. Strummer had the energy of a man half his age and he blew the roof off the place. The thought he would be dead three years later was inconceivable. In 1999, he seemed to be at the height of his powers and invincible.
01. Safe European Home
02. Yalla Yalla
03. Rudie Can’t Fail
04. Tony Adams
05. White Man In Hammersmith Palais
06. London Calling
07. Tommy Gun
08. X-Ray Style
09. White Riot
This is exciting stuff. It’s edited down from the full set, which I believe was around 16 songs. The quality is terrific.
 
A cultural gold mine, the complete back catalog of radical arts magazine Variant is now available on-line.
Variant is a free cultural magazine, produced in Glasgow, which is now available in print and online editions. From its first edition in 1984, Variant has been an essential source of thought-provoking and constructive investigations into all areas of arts and ideas in contemporary society.
Variant describes itself as a magazine of “cross currents in culture”, which states:
Objectives
Variant is a constituted association.
The Association’s objects are to promote, maintain, improve and advance the education of the public particularly by the encouragement of the Arts including (but not limited to) the arts of drama, dance, music, singing, literature and visual arts. In furtherance thereof the Association shall seek:
a. to act as a consistent forum for innovative, experimental and new artistic endeavour;
b. to stimulate imaginative and progressive thinking in the arts; and
c. to promote the links between cultural practices and to place these within a wide social context.
Over the years contributors have included Ewan Morrison, Leigh French, Ian Brotherhood, Angela McRobbie, and Daniel Jewesbury, and now, all issues of this seminal and important magazine are available for downloading here.
A selection of other Variant covers, after the jump…
This is Morrissey’s first correspondence to his Scottish pen-pal Robert Mackie, from 1980.
21-year-old Morrissey was writing in response to a personal ad placed in Sounds magazine, and his message, written on the back of a postcard featuring a picture of James Dean reads:
Steven Morrissey
384- Kings Rd
STRETFORD
Manchester- M32 8GWDear Person,
So nice to know there’s another soul out there, even if it is in Glasgow.
Does being Scottish bother you? Manchester is a lovely little place, if you happen to be a bedridden deaf mute.
I’m unhappy, hope you’re unhappy too.
In poverty,
Steven
Morrissey and Mackie remained pen-pals for 18 months, shortly before the formation of The Smiths in 1983.
With thanks to Letter of Note
After the past week of just painfully pathetic public prat-falls capped off by the devastating new Obama TV spot released over the weekend that left Mitt Romney’s patrician glass jaw smashed into tiny bits, you’d have to imagine that the Tea party-led rightwing shock troops, having pinned ALL of their post-2010 electoral hopes and dreams on the deeply flawed shoulders of one Thurston Howell III Willard Mitt Romney, is more than a little worried.
Who wouldn’t be? The man is an excruciating embarrassment as a candidate. Mitt’s a self-parody who jumped the shark before he even became the official nominee! What a “Debbie Downer” on the GOP morale he must be! It’s hard to keep rooting for the home team when the quarterback is such a witless plonker, isn’t it? The GOP is terrific at getting the vote out, but will the faithful line-up to vote for a tax-dodging plutocrat with Cayman Island bank accounts like Mitt Romney? If you know, for sure, that your vote will count for nothing, would you even bother making the effort to vote? If the very act of voting is perceived as a waste of time? What if it’s a little rainy that day? Can even a superior ground game on election day (the GOP always has a better ground game, always—it’s a lot easier when your base voters are easily-herded, authoritarian-loving sheeple) make a difference with Mittens? It will be interesting to see. My gut tells me there will be lower GOP turnout this year than in 2008. Not that much lower, but lower, crucially lower.
Mittens looks like a sad, ineffectual “Richie Rich” who just had his pants pulled down in front of the entire class and then a plate of school lunch spaghetti dumped over his head (Karma’s a bitch, Thurston!). Romney seems undignified, unsure and weak. He’s (quite obviously) the worst candidate one of the two parties has nominated since hapless Democrat Michael Dukakis back in 1988.
THIS bungling sacrificial lamb in khakis is the best candidate all of that sweet, sweet Republican money can buy? Mitt Romney? Seriously?
After last week, it wasn’t just the Democrats and Independent voters who were asking that question, the Republicans are asking it aloud now, too.
Scanning the rightwing blogshere in the aftermath of that weekend YouTube bomb Obama lobbed into Romney’s lap (more a nuclear warhead), it’s incredible to the extent that the rightwing is wringing its collective hands over “the Romney problem”: From FreeRepublic’s redneck red staters to Breitbart editor John Nolte (who called the Obama ad a “kill shot” aimed at Romney), let alone East coast “establishment” Republican stalwarts like William Kristol (the man who extolled the virtues of Sarah Palin to the McCain camp, don’t forget) and the increasingly barmy George Will (Why does anyone care what he thinks? Why the hell did I just mention him if no one forced me to???) Republicans, clearly, are starting to hit the panic button.
Even the dumbest, doofiest Fox News-watching flag-waving, red, white and blue Republican true-believer dipshit can recognize a loser when they see one, smell the blood, and predict the inevitable November outcome as they take a look at Thurston Howell III Mitt Romney. Romney’s GONNA LOSE and the entire country knows it, or at least strongly suspects it. Even Romney must realize his performance is getting panned and why. The guy has NO GAME, zero, none, no charisma, apparently no empathy, just… bales of money. It won’t be nearly enough. I’ve never seen a poorer-looking national candidate in my life. (Michael Dukakis must be watching his fellow former Massachusetts governor with glee as Romney erases his reputation as a nightmare national ticket political punchline with each newly reported misstep and ineffectual response to Obama’s repeated kicks to his balls. (“Is (fill in the blank) the ‘Mitt Romney of 2___?” will be a cliche in the punditry for years to come, mark my words).
So what happens next? Well, this could get interesting.
Memo to the mainstream media: It probably won’t.
Among credible Republicans who is gonna be dumb enough to want the gold-plated booby prize that an open convention—something that was discussed for MONTHS leading up to Romney’s week from Hell—could bestow upon them? Newt Gingrich must be having quite a good “I told you so” chuckle, not that a desperate GOP is (ever) going to be desperate enough to give that slimy amphibian another look.
Cain, Santorum, Perry… you all probably shouldn’t sit by the bat-phone holding your breath, either, fellas.
Who could or would step up for the good of the Grand Old Party, to carry that tarnished brand’s sword in November, even unto certain career-ending defeat, if Romney were to be pushed aside? Besides mentally deficient, unhinged attention seeking halfwits like Sarah Palin, Allen West, Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Louie Gohmert, etc., etc. who is that, ahem, white knight going to be? Well, not one of these folks. It’s useless speculation.
Ron Paul? He’d take the sword into battle, but it will never be offered to him. Not worth discussing him, either. They won’t even let him speak at the convention and that seems to be the big reason he ran, to influence the GOP platform. Not gonna happen.
Rep. Paul Ryan? Rep. Eric Cantor? Chris Christie? Bobby Jindal? Jeb Bush? Scott Walker? Think any one of them is jealous of the nationally televised dick-stomping Mitt Romney is getting? Marco Rubio knows he’s not ready, even for the VP slot. Maybe John Boehner will run? Orin Hatch? Who then? Someone you’ve never heard of? Will James Baker III come out of retirement at 82? John Sunnunu? Is a picture starting to paint itself?
WHO among the Republicans save for Mitch Daniels or Tim Pawlenty—would even have a tiny chance of taking enough blue states to flip the race if pulled in at the last minute to replace Shit Romney? Christie is the governor of one, but as a former resident of the Garden State myself, I wouldn’t even bet on Christie getting a second term. His popularity is already dropping. Besides that, any smart Republican would just stay out of it until 2016, it just stands to reason. This go round is a strategic non-starter.
Thaddeus McCotter?
Fred Karger, maybe?
HEY, WHAT ABOUT DONALD TRUMP!?!?!
John McCain?
My point, if there is one, is that the Republicans have no plan B. Any speculation that there will be an open convention, I think, is utter poppycock. There is no one on that team that can beat Obama. There is no one on that team with half a brain that really wants to try. They’re stuck with Mitt Romney, what choice do that have now? I hate to say it—I mean I really, really hate to say it—but Newt Gingrich was 100% right about Mittens and the GOP should have taken his advice and looked for a Romney alternative while there was still time. Not that I think they should have picked Newt (he’d have been slaughtered) but it’s so apparent what a loser Romney is, that, in truth, practically ANYONE would better.
If someone offered you—at a great bargain, too—a lotto ticket guaranteed not have the winning number, would you buy it? Look how many Sheldon Adelson bought and now he wants to buy some more. I say let him!
(I used to think that Citizens United decision was the worst thing that could happen to this country. Now I’m looking at it more as a “give ‘em enough rope” kinda scenario. Many Republicans might tend to agree with me by the time the 2012 election cycle is over. A billion dollars spent advertising a faulty (Fawlty?) product such as the candidacy of a buffoon like Mittens is a billion dollars spent reminding the American voters why they don’t want this blue-blooded nincompoop in the fucking White House. “Hey smell this, it smells like shit” amplified with a billion dollar advertising spend might backfire badly with a derp like Romney topping the ticket…)
The Obama campaign has defined Mitt Romney in the eyes of America as a whiny blue-blood with too much money made from sucking the blood of the little guy. Maybe a felon? Sounds about right to me. That classic commercial is so smart, and so vicious that it is positively thrilling. It’s what the Democratic base wanted to see and what John Nolte fears it was: a “kill shot.” Tell me that Obama doesn’t look like Muhammad Ali about to take down well, take down Thurston Howell the fuckng third? What else can really be said about this situation?
And the best part of it will be the batshit crazy reichwing reaction everyone is bracing for after Romney is crushed in a landslide defeat. How long will it take until after the vote is in before a crazed sheriff from Arizona or a freakish fuck like Rick Scott of Florida is shooting his mouth off on Fox News about election fraud and that’s the next new dumb dumbly dum-dum thing we’ll have to listen to until 2016???
A wasp’s nest got stirred up in 2008 that still won’t get put to rest during the second Obama term, and expect full retard from the GOP in 2016, but I’m getting ahead of myself…
Like so…
The nice girl and her Schlep Labs posse have done it again for America…
After the jump: remembering The Great Schlep…
UPDATE: Apparently it’s a very clever parody site.
Spoof campaign attacks Shell
Shell is currently holding a “Let’s Go Public! Ad Contest.” It’s not exactly going as planned.
Here’s the description for their arctic DIY advertising campaign:
Here at Shell, we’re committed to online social media. After all, it’s the fuel that lubricates the engines of internet communication.
In June, thousands of you demonstrated this by explaining, online, how Arctic energy production will transform the world and possibly provide affordable fuel for several years.
Today, we want to take the Arctic Ready message offline, directly to the drivers who benefit from Shell’s performance fuels. That’s why we’re launching a new campaign (deadline this Thursday!), from which the best ads will be printed and posted in strategic locations worldwide. With your help, we at Shell can tell the world how pumped we are about Arctic energy, and take the Arctic Ready message to Arctic-enthused drivers everywhere.
So take a moment to add your own slogan to our beautiful new collection of images. The next place you see it might be your own rearview mirror.
Because tomorrow is yesterday, accelerated.
Let’s go.
Here are some of the submissions so far:
Via The High Definite via Ads of the World
One time Deep Purple keyboardist, Jon Lord has died in London at the age of 71. In a band with such a continuously flucuating line-up, Lord was one of the heavy group’s few constant members, co-writing hits like “Smoke on the Water,” “Strange Kind of Woman” and “Black Night.” Lord played keyboards in Deep Purple from the band’s formation in 1968 through their first split in 1976 and when they reformed in 1984 until he retired from music in 2002.
The statement from his website reads:
It is with deep sadness we announce the passing of Jon Lord, who suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism today, Monday 16th July at the London Clinic, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Jon was surrounded by his loving family.
Jon Lord, the legendary keyboard player with Deep Purple co-wrote many of the bands legendary songs including Smoke On The Water and played with many bands and musicians throughout his career.
Best known for his Orchestral work Concerto for Group & Orchestra first performed at Royal Albert Hall with Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969 and conducted by the renowned Malcolm Arnold, a feat repeated in 1999 when it was again performed at the Royal Albert Hall by the London Symphony Orchestra and Deep Purple.
Jon’s solo work was universally acclaimed when he eventually retired from Deep Purple in 2002.
Jon passes from Darkness to Light.
Born in Leicester, June 9, 1941, Lord was a classically trained pianist, who originally planned a career as an actor. He attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, while keyboards (piano, Hammond organ) with various Jazz combos.
In 1960, he joined the jazz band the Bill Ashton Combo. He also worked a as session musician playing keyboards on The Kinks first hit “You Really Got Me”. During the mid-1960s, Lord formed and played with a variety of bands (including one with Ronnie Wood) before forming Deep Purple with Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Paice in 1968.
Deep Purple, along with Black Sabbath, pioneered Heavy Metal during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Purple had the edge through the Blackmore’s brilliant guitar-playing and Lord’s mastery of the keyboards (primarily the Hammond organ). Together they made Deep Purple one of the most exciting bands on the planet. Of particular merit was their ability to perform a classical album Concerto for Group and Orchestra, mainly under Lord’s influence, and one of Rock’s greatest albums Machine Head, mainly under Blackmore’s influence. It was this ability to try out each other’s musical ideas that made the band so successful. Or as Lord said in 1973:
‘We’re as valid as anything by Beethoven.’
After he left Deep Purple in 1976, Lord released a solo album Sarabande and then went on to join Whitesnake, remaining an integral part of the band until 1984.
Lord was a brilliant musician, whose talents went beyond his work in Rock and Heavy Metal. He wrote and released several classical music albums including The Gemini Suite , Windows and To Notice Such Things. He also had a fruitful collaboration with the singer Sam Brown on the albums, Before I Forget, the concept album, Picture Within and Beyond the Notes.
Jon Lord 9 June 1941 – 16 July 2012.
Bonus: Deep Purple in concert from New York, 1973, after the jump…
