This is nothing too profound, in fact it’s rather goofy and quite amusing to see how giddy the two Johns are around each other, but I’ve never seen this before and have no idea as to its provenance. Anybody?
This has already been flagged on YouTube. Watch the insanity while you can!
(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)
On new years day 1984 25 million people (myself included) throughout the world tuned in to PBS to watch video art pioneer Nam June Paik’s pleasantly shambolic live experiment Good Morning, Mr. Orwell featuring the likes of John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Phillip Glass, Salvador Dali, Laurie Anderson and other usual suspects. All hosted by a bemused and mildy annoying George Plimpton. The full version of this was once up on the mighty Ubuweb but has mysteriously disappeared, so I bring you as many fragments of said program as I could find. Watching this in retrospect it comes off as perhaps the last 60’s style large scale “happening” featuring some of that era’s major hitters and is of course very quaint seeming “We’re linking New York to Paris on live TV !”, still very enjoyable to watch.
John Cage/Joseph Beuys
A ton more after the jump…
Inspired by vintage fashion and sci-fi magazines, cook books and advertisements, collagist and animator Jean Lecointre created a bunch of indescribably hilarious short films for French TV called ‘Turkish Delights’ and ‘Oasis More Fun’. If you dig pastry porn, the noirish world of palmiers and psychotic fruit, you’ll love this.
More weirdness after the jump…
Designer Guido Ooms has created a throw rug that’ll make you throw up. I want one.
Do you know the feeling that you do not want to take a look at something, but you still do? The Roadkill carpet is a continues struggle between attraction and repulsion. It’s a warm, soft, cuddly carpet that attracts you to take a nap on it. But at the same time its a repulsive image of a car-flattened, bloody fox.
A bargain at $5000.
Via Lost At E Minor
Shawn Carter a.k.a. hip-hop mogul Jay-Z sat down yesterday with top African-American public intellectual Cornel West at the New York Public Library for a talk—moderated by Library director Paul Holdengräber—that was to be centered ostensibly around his memoir Decoded, but ranged through a wide variety of topics and modes.
It bears notice that despite Jay-Z’s superstar pop status and the hype surrounding the book, the appearance didn’t bear an airing on, say, MTV. I truly wonder why.
Love him or hate him, Carter’s journey from Bed-Stuy’s Marcy Houses projects to mega-millionaire mogul maps almost directly to the 30+-year story of hip-hop from marginalized urban phenomenon to global cultural movement. And West’s contextualization of the rhymer’s work and writings within the urban African-American artistic experience is pretty striking.
The status commonly accorded to Jay-Z as the greatest rapper of all time amounts to truly tedious hype. But there’s no denying that the man’s got power, perspective and a dangerous mind.
1989 Beijing
Here are some really weird altered photographs by artist Pavel Maria Smejkal. They’re kind of creepy, eh?
1972 Vietnam
1970 Kent State
You can view more haunting altered photographs here.
(via BB Submitterator)
This is a fine interview with Allen Ginsberg taken from the BBC series Face to Face, in which Ginsberg opens up about his family, loves, identity, drugs and even sings.
The series, Face to Face originally started in 1959, and was hosted by John Freeman, whose skill and forthright questioning cut through the usual mindless chatter of such interview shows. Freeman, a former editor of the New Statesman was often considered brusque and rude, but his style of questioning fitted the form of the program, which was more akin to an interview between psychiatrist and patient. The original series included, now legendary, interviews with Martin Luther King, Tony Hancock, Professor Carl Jung, Evelyn Waugh and Gilbert Harding.
In 1989, the BBC revived the series, this time with the excellent Jeremy Isaacs as questioner, who interviewed Allen Ginsberg for this program, first broadcast on 9th January 1995.
Watching this now, makes me wonder what has happened to poetry? Where are our revolutionary poets? Where are our poets who speak out, demonstrate, make the front page, and tell it like it is? And why are our bookstores cluttered with the greeting card verse of 100 Great Love Poems, 101 Even Greater Love Poems, and Honest to God, These Are the Greatest Fucking Love Poems, You’ll Ever Fucking Read. O, for a Ginsebrg now.
Here’s a really detailed custom paper mache piñata of a flying monkey inspired by the Wizard of Oz. The piñata was created by Pulp Parlour and retails for around $1,250.00. This flying monkey is so amazing and pricey, that I couldn’t possibly imagine breaking it open for candy.
View more extravagant piñatas over at Pulp Parlour.
(via BB Submitterator)
The print above is part of a limited edition of 100 and is screen printed with four colors. It will be available for purchase after the weekend of the festival (November 1st).
‘Moog’ art print by DKNG Studios for the upcoming show SYNTH at Moogfest 2010.
(via Coudal Partners)