Ronald Reagan Fears The End Of Fashion
He’s damn serious about it, too! Watch this fantastic and bust-a-gut funny video from Jameson Notodo Film Fest.
(via IheartPluto and Nerdcore)
He’s damn serious about it, too! Watch this fantastic and bust-a-gut funny video from Jameson Notodo Film Fest.
(via IheartPluto and Nerdcore)
A small but potent archive of full PDF scans of late 70’s/early 80’s UK anarcho/ feminist punk zines is up now at Essential Ephemera
Like a waking dream you can’t control no matter how hard you try.
via Cyriak
French filmmaker Marie Losier has been working on a feature film about Genesis and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge for the last five years. I’ve seen extensive clips from it—Losier has shot insane amounts of footage, documenting the PTV3 and Pandrogyny years in fine detail. Once completed, this will be a crucial document of the artists’ work. But Losier needs your help to complete the project… and apparently there’s a chance to get some schwag in the process!
After 5 years of shooting, making costumes, interviews, working on the film on Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, I need some help to make this film happen finally. I need an editor to help shape the film to a good solid story, a sound engineer and transfer of films to HD. The goal is to have the film completed by November so that it’s ready for premiering at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011.
In order to meet this goal I need all the support I can get and I’m excited to announce an online fundraiser via Kickstarter.com.
In order to make your support worthwhile, I have included a variety of amazing and unique rewards from Genesis Breyer P-orridge, Invisible Exports, Bernard Yenelouis and Tony Conrad. This is an opportunity to not only help me complete my project, but also get a wonderful piece of artwork to boot!
Jamais Cascio weighs in on the encroaching problem of methane leaking out from under the Arctic permafrost. Sounds scary… BUT THEN, I first heard of this in the context of a potential energy source. Apparently there’s enough methane under the Arctic permafrost to keep civilization going indefinitely. Iiiiiinteresting… any thoughts, oh readers?
A piece in the latest issue of Science shows that there’s a considerable amount of methane (CH4) coming from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, where it had been trapped under the permafrost. There’s as much coming out from one small section of the Arctic ocean as from all the rest of the oceans combined. This is officially Not Good.
Here’s why: methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, significantly more powerful than carbon dioxide. There are billions of tons of methane trapped under the permafrost, and if that methane starts leaking quickly, it would have a strong feedback effect—warming the atmosphere and oceans, causing more methane to leak, and on and on. The melting of methane ice (aka “methane hydrates” and “methane clathrates”) is probably the most significant global warming tipping point event out there. If we see runaway methane from underneath the Siberian permafrost, we could see temperatures increasing far faster than even the most pessimistic CO2-driven scenarios—perhaps as much as 8-10° C, very much into the global catastrophe realm. To put it in context: rapid methane releases have been implicated in extinction events in Earth’s geologic past.
(Here’s one piece of mitigating information: it’s unclear how long this methane leak has been happening, or the degree to which the measured methane levels exceeds previous amounts. If we’re lucky, this is actually a status quo situation, and we still have time before we reach a tipping point. But basing our strategy on “if we’re lucky” is not very wise.)
(Open the Future: Pushing Back Against the Methane Tipping Point)
This 1969 IHOP ad was clearly made for a… niche audience. How they got away with such blatant psychedelic pandering is beyond me.
Big Think is a website devoted to giving some big brains a platform to spout off on topics meaningful to them, and hopefully to other citizens of this planet we call Earth. With a cadre of boldface names like Ricky Gervais, Robert Wright, Stephen Fry and Ray Kurzweil, Big Think aims to put its readers in touch with… well, big thinkers on topics like sustainability, religion, alternate energy sources, artificial intelligence, history, justice, cultural identity, politics and much more. It is what tends to be called a “heady brew”!
Perusing the site this morning, I watched this sincere short video with M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky—probably America’s single most important intellectual—discussing the concept of what love is. He admits at the outset that he really doesn’t know, but he takes a good stab at it anyway. Big Think does a great job at fulfilling its mission statement with articles and videos quite akin to TED conference speeches. If you like TED talks (and who doesn’t?) then Big Think is probably a site you’ll want to bookmark, pronto.
Here’s a tip: Don’t miss author Gay Talese on “getting drunk at the New York Times” in the 1960s
Cross posting this from Brand X
The intricately rendered celebrity portraits constructed by San Francisco-based artist Jason Mecier intend not merely to capture the look of his subjects, but their true essence. He often achieves this by using items once owned by them in his mosaics. But barring being able to “paint” without any personal possessions, the fall-back medium becomes things you might associate with his subjects, for instance, Rachael Ray done in pasta and beans or Courtney Love rendered in… pills!
Brand X caught up to Mecier as he was putting the finishing touches on his upcoming show.
When did you first hit on your signature use of found objects and personal effects for your unique portraiture?
I started about 15 years ago doing beans and noodle portraits of my favorite celebrities. Then moved to yarn, candy, pills, and finally about five years ago, I decided that absolutely everything was up for consideration as art supplies. One Thanksgiving, my partner was frantically looking for the turkey baster, and I had to fess up that I had glued it onto my Helen Gurley Brown portrait! I’m always getting busted like that. Nothing is safe in my house.
Did you do anything similar when you were a little kid? There’s such a playful element to your work that I can’t help wondering if your distinct style has childhood roots in things like making American flags out of macaroni, like I did in grade school.
When I was young, I remember being mesmerized by my grandma’s paintings, weaving, mosaics, sculptures, collages and stained glass work that filled my grandparents’ house and yard. If she was working on an art project, she would set me up at a nearby table with a project of my own to work on. One of my earliest pieces is a mosaic made from beans, noodles, rocks and cut bamboo sticks glued on a piece of wood. My grandmother encouraged me to create my masterpieces using materials readily available to me. She would rather paint on the back of her cigarette cartons than buy a canvas. I learned from her that I can make art out of anything I want to, and that there are no rules.
I heard that your portrait of Lady Gaga was made from some items left behind at one of her photo shoots? How did you get your hands on swag like that?
I had an art piece in the big Hello Kitty 35th anniversary art show a few months ago, and a friend—who wishes to remain nameless, obviously—collected a bunch of the Hello Kitty leftovers from her photo shoots for me.
In many respects, there is a commonality with the religious reliquaries created of the Catholics saints, where they would frame the paintings with pieces of their actual bones, and your work. Is this conscious on your part? Are the portraits some kind of pop culture reliquaries?
I suppose it is a similar sort of a hero worship. Once I realized that celebrities would actually send me their junk, I haven’t slowed down. There’s something about the process and having a connection or brief relationship with the subject that thrills me. The idea of using their personal belongings as art supplies makes the art piece so personal and one of a kind. And I know they’re really fun for people to look at.
What are your top favorites of your celebrity portraits and why?
I generally gravitate toward the people who are really recognizable or iconic. … People who have a built-in “theme”—like Elvira—or are almost cartoon-like—like Elvira—but I’m all over the map. The portraits of Donald Trump, Kathy Griffin, Lady Gaga, Stevie Nicks, Parker Posey, Farrah Fawcett, Margaret Cho and Nicolas Cage are some of my favorites. I think they’re the most successful when I feel like I’ve captured the essence of their perceived public image.
What is the single strangest piece of junk you have ever received from a celebrity?
The highlights include Heidi Fleiss’ moldy slippers, Phyllis Diller’s prescription anti-itch creams, Parker Posey’s night guard and Barbi Benton’s retainer from high school. Jane Wiedlin’s leaking black Clairol hair dye applicator. Kathy Najimy’s Dexatrim was a good one. Ricki Lake’s very own compact travel tampon. Florence Henderson’s “key to the city” and silver pumps! I have a cigarette butt from “Dawn Wiener” [“Welcome to the Dollhouse” actress Heather Matarazzo]. Tori Spelling sent me two dildos, and I also have a bag of Pam Anderson’s dirty laundry.
How many of your subjects own the work themselves?
Rosie O’Donnell, Parker Posey, Pink, Ricki Lake, Kathy Najimy, Elvira, Susan Tyrrell, Allee Willis and Tura Satana from “Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill!” the Russ Meyer movie. Mary Louise Parker is next on my list. I hear the box of junk is coming!
Maybe you should render her in rolling papers and used roaches.
There you go!
Ghettogloss presents Celebrity Junk Drawer: The Art of Jason Mecier, March 17, 8 p.m.
Cross posting this from Brand X
From Masks From Around the World:
Searching for eternal youth? Want to get rid of those unsightly wrinkles? After a thin layer of lotion is put on your face (for the contact points), the amazing Rejuvenique Anti-wrinkle Facial Toning Machine is turned on and electrical pulses send shocks into the facial muscles. This stimulation is claimed to slow or reverse the aging process of the face. A TV info commercial featuring Linda Evans sells the kit for $200.
(via Everlasting Blort)
