Do dogs go to Heaven?
This is hysterically funny. From the evil occult masters of Everything is Terrible.
This is hysterically funny. From the evil occult masters of Everything is Terrible.
My second post today about something from 1975 is a nice little audio documentary (wedded with just OK visuals, but it works fine) about a song that I’ve always been very intrigued with. I love that it’s both a rigorous formal experiment and a tremendously succesful pop tune, to say nothing of its dark and deeply melancholic atmosphere. It’s easily one of the best radio hits of the 70’s and I can’t imagine ever tiring of it.
As the art of urban projection has grown, its scope has started blasting out into contexts beyond simply pretty pictures on building. Yekpare is one of the most amazing pieces in the format that I’ve seen yet. Art-directed by Deniz Kader and Candaş Şişman of the firm Nerdworking and soundtracked by Görkem Şen, Yekpare is a project that douses Istanbul’s Haydarpaşa Train Station in the symbological 8,500 year history of the city. From the writeup:
The story embraces symbols from Pagans to Roman Empire, from Byzantine Empire to Latin Empire, and finally from Ottoman Empire to Istanbul at the present day…
Haydarpaşa Train Station, with its brilliant architectural forms, is the building on which the story is projected. The connection between middle east to west has been provided by Istanbul and Haydarpaşa since 1906..
The project’s conceptual, political and geographical positioning, the location’s depth of field and the fact that the entire show can be watched from Kadıköy coast; make “Yekpare” a dramatic presentation.
‘YEKPARE’ (monolithic) from nerdworking on Vimeo.
Normally I don’t find much to agree with when it comes to the (rather strongly stated) opinions of magician Penn Gillette—“Libertarian” is synonymous with “asshole” in my book and the “Penn & Teller’s Bullshit” episode on chiropractic care pissed me off!—but he’s right on the money when it comes to this to the camera interview about reading the Holy Books and the influence of Frank Zappa on his young mind.
Why would reading the Bible make you an atheist?
Penn Jillette: I think because what we get told about the Bible is a lot of picking and choosing, when you see, you know, Lot’s daughter gang raped and beaten, and the Lord being okay with that; when you actually read about Abraham being willing to kill his son, when you actually read that; when you read the insanity of the talking snake; when you read the hostility towards homosexuals, towards women, the celebration of slavery; when you read in context, that “thou shalt not kill” means only in your own tribe—I mean, there’s no hint that it means humanity in general; that there’s no sense of a shared humanity, it’s all tribal; when you see a God that is jealous and insecure; when you see that there’s contradictions that show that it was clearly written hundreds of years after the supposed fact and full of contradictions. I think that anybody… you know, it’s like reading The Constitution of the United States of America. It’s been… it’s in English. You know, you don’t need someone to hold your hand. Just pick it up and read it. Just read what the First Amendment says and then read what the Bible says. Going back to the source material is always the best.
Thank you Steven Otero!
Toshio Matsumoto’s early 1970’s feature length film Funeral Parade of Roses is widely cited as a big influence on Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange but today we have a truly mad short subject by said director, a simple yet brain-frying (epileptics, beware !) infrared study of a lone, masked subject in a landscape, replete with a chaotic electronic score by Toshi Ichiyanagi. Dizzying and possibly bad for you !
Speaking of ‘Law & Order’—as you do—certainly the above headline, taken from the LA Times, would qualify as a one-sentence high concept for the show. It’s practically a one-sentence short story.
Los Angeles police detectives used a piece of discarded pizza to help build their case against a man accused of being the Grim Sleeper serial killer, sources told The Times.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, was arrested at his home in South Los Angeles on Wednesday morning after police said they made DNA matches linking him to the killings of 11 people over the last three decades. Prosecutors said they have charged Franklin with 10 counts of murder, noting that he is eligible for the death penalty.
Franklin is a former city trash collector who at one time worked as a vehicle mechanic at an LAPD station, sources said.
“He’s the neighborhood mechanic” said neighbor Eric Robinson, 47. “He volunteers at the park. A very good man. His daughter just graduated from college, I believe. He’s a good mechanic, worked out of his garage. I’ve been here since 1976; that’s how long I’ve known him. I’m not pretty shocked, I’m all the way shocked.”
The killings went on since the 1980s and the Grim Sleeper killer has been tied to the homicides of ten women and one male. A survivor who was shot and raped in 1988 described her attacker as black, in his 20s, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, about 160 pounds, soft-spoken and articulate, with neatly trimmed hair and a pockmarked face.
The Grim Sleeper’s victims were all black and most were hookers or drug addicts. The murders stopped in 1988 and picked up again from 2002 to 2007.
Pizza slice helped link suspect to Grim Sleeper serial killings (Los Angeles Times)
“A Lawyer is Secretly a Stripper,” by Brigid McCabe, mixed media on canvas, 2010
Dangerous Minds favorite Brandon Bird is curating an art show coming up in Los Angeles later in the month at Meltdown Comics. This show looks wonderful!
For twenty years, the heroes of “Law & Order” have navigated literally hundreds grotesque tragedies, moral quandries, and improbable crimes.
Each piece is an artist’s interpretation of a one-line episode summary from the DirecTV program guide. Like the series that inspired them, they are sometimes straightforward and sometimes offer a twist; sometimes they contain no easy answers, and sometimes they are just plain goofy.
These are Their Stories will run July 24 to July 30, 2010 at Gallery Meltdown, 7522 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046.
Does a current censorship trial in Moscow indicate a return to the old Soviet ways of doing things, although it’s a newly resurgent Russian Orthodox Church we’re talking about here? A 2007 exhibit featuring some controversial art (such as the painting above, and another of Mickey Mouse as Lenin) was supposed to be against censorship of the arts, but has instead turned its curators into the poster boys for religious censorship. Now, after a 14-month trial, Yury Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev face up to three years in prison:
Even Russia’s culture minister says the two men did nothing to break the law against inciting religious hatred.
But the prosecutors refuse to back down and have demanded a three-year prison sentence when the judge makes her ruling on July 12.
The exhibit “Forbidden Art” at the Sakharov Museum, a human rights center named after celebrated dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov, featured several paintings with images of Jesus Christ.
In one, Christ appeared to his disciples as Mickey Mouse. In another, of the crucifixion, the head of Christ was replaced by the Order of Lenin medal, the highest award of the Soviet Union.
The directors of the exhibit were unprepared for the amount of hate it has generated in Russia, a country that was considered officially “atheist” during the era of the Soviet Union. Now it appears there is less separation between church and state in Russia than in the US of A. I doubt that painting would merit more that a few disgruntled remarks, even in the deep South!
Moscow curators face 3 years in prison (Associated Press)
The excellent composer/ journalist Dominique Leone points us in the direction of a massive and comprehensive project for the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art on the history of sampling in music by the also excellent composer Jon Leidecker a.k.a. Wobbly. Featuring tons of essential music and info on everyone from Charles Ives to Grandmaster Flash, this is a serious feast. Dive in with me, won’t you ?
Variations at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona