This week, Roger Ebert revisits one of his earlier pieces on conceptual artist Chris Burden, and turns it into a lovely meditation on the role of the artist in society:

Were these people all frequent visitors to the museum, or to art exhibitions in general?  Five years after the 1960s ended, were they now drawn to a man whose work seemed to negate love and music and flowers and—anything at all?  Burden was not of the Woodstock Generation.  His art perhaps said that art was a mockery.  That it was about the artist, who when fully committed was not engaged in life at all, but was on Pause.

One of Burden’s more infamous works was his possibly Vietnam-critical piece, “Shoot” (below).  In it, Burden was shot in the arm by an assistant standing five meters away.  After the “performance” was over, Burden was taken to a psychiatrist.

34 years later, on campus at UCLA, graduate student Joseph Deutch attempted a similar stunt.  The fallout lead, one month later, to the resignation of professor Chris Burden, who likened the piece to an act of “domestic terrorism,” and urged Deutch’s expulsion.

 
Bonus: Chris Burden’s Big Wheel

From Roger Ebert’s Journal: The Agony Of The Body Artist

 
Rabbits can’t get a break, these days.  I remember not too long ago where German breeders were in talks with North Korea about sending them giant rabbits for food.  Today, though, brings news of bunnies as the new bio-fuel:

Thousands of rabbits, some of them pets abandoned by their owners, are being shot, deep-frozen and burned in a heating plant in Sweden, a professional hunter who works for the city of Stockholm said on Tuesday.

The center of the Swedish capital is being plagued by thousands of rabbits, some of them wild and some of them stray pets, and 3,000 have been culled this year, down from 6,000 in 2008, Tommy Tuvunger, who hunts rodents for the Stockholm city administration, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.  ‘We are shooting rabbits in Stockholm center, they are a very big problem,’ said Tuvunger. The rabbits are eating their way through the city’s central parks.  ‘Once culled, the rabbits are frozen and when we have enough; a contractor comes and takes them away.’

The frozen bunnies are shipped to a heating plant in Karlskoga in central Sweden which uses them as biofuel and incinerates them to heat homes, media reports said.  A spokeswoman for the plant declined to comment.  The plant’s supplier, Konvex, a company that produces biofuels from animals, could not immediately be reached for comment.

In Spiegel Online: Sweden Turning Stray Rabbits Into Bio-fuel

Dangerous Minds pal Marty Beckerman just sent me his new article, “Kill Fatty,” a proposal of Swiftian proportions:

Overweight people are fucking abhorrent, which seems like an obvious and uncontroversial statement, but you cannot turn your head these days without gawking at the vile cascades of shapeless distended flesh that ubiquitously engulf your grotesque countrymen.


Look at these nauseating statistics:

1. 33 percent of Americans are overweight, according to the federal government.
2. Another 34 percent are obese, which is even worse.
3. Six percent are ?

 
The reviews seem mixed, but that probably won’t dissuade me from catching up with Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Thngs Are.  Most of the criticism revolves, predictably, about what happens when you translate into another medium something commonly perceived as “perfect.”  By keeping intact the words and imagery, the following Wild Things short from ‘73 sidesteps all the “rumpus.”

 
From Kelnginem’s official website:

Growing up on the Klingon starbase Morska, it was no problem for Klenginem - whose real name is Quvar muHwI’ valer - to receive the most different kinds of communication waves, among which also the terran rap-music.

As a communications officer, it was no problem for him to adapt the songs to the klingon music, and then he presented his first try to the warriors of the Dark Vengeance Fleet. To make his pseudonym, he used the name of a famous terran rap-singer, from the “Klingon Eminem” he got the name “Klenginem”.

Klenginem on why he doesn’t want you going to the police:

Next, the “Klenginem-Show” is only run as a hobby, just for fun and produces no financial advantages. The so called performances have only been on private events and parties among friends, and Klenginem did not get any money for what he did.

If anyone still disagrees with anything he or she finds on this website, please contact its administrator before going to police or lawyer. I think there is no problem that we cannot solve ourselves, because - like I said before - this is all just for fun, so there is no money available for legal fights.

 
Klenginem’s official website here
 
(via Neatorama)

A marine survey team off the north Wales coast discovered dolphins, playing ‘football’ with jellyfish lying on the water’s surface.

The bottlenose dolphins were spotted tossing the jellyfish off Tremadog Bay. Jonathan Easter, one of the team said the “incredible images…present more questions than answers!”

Dolphin football off north coast

 
Which one of these things doesn’t belong with the others? (Hint: Coldplay! Yuck!)

The classic album covers stamps come out on January 7, 2010

 
Laurie Sullivan, reporting at Online Media Daily posts this amusing item about Google’s unintentional creation of what sounds to me like an Internet graffiti tool:

The Internet has a secret society. Anyone can join. It supports hidden messages. Those who want to belong need only download and install a special toolbar from Google that works in either Firefox or Microsoft Explorer (IE).

The toolbar, called Sidewiki, which launched in September, provides a venue for venting and posting derogatory comments on virtually any Web site that only those who install the toolbar can read. And although many realize that Google never intended that the toolbar be used for evil, some believe the Mountain View, Calif. company’s innovation could create a nightmare for marketers and Web site owners if they choose not to download and install the tool.

iCyte CEO Stephen Foley says it’s like painting on someone’s front door. The homeowner cannot do anything to prevent the damage, but uses their marketing dollars and time to clean up the mess. “Some might ask, well, can’t we just have transparency?” he says. “In this case, transparency has a deeper meaning. It means you have to declare your position. There are so many ways people can misuse this tool.”

Ya think? It seems preposterous that Google’s normally crack team of developers would not realize that they were unleashing a new gadget with the potential to turn the entire Internet into a widespread version of anonymous posting site 4chan, often referred to as the Internet’s collective id.

Examples abound of Sidewiki misuse. On the Go Israel website, someone using Google Sidewiki posted, “Yes, you too can join a country that has the highest abduction rate of female sex slaves in the world. Mossad doesn’t care so why should you! Regular Jews lived in peace with their Muslim friends until the Ashkenazi Zionist arrived.”

Just wait until the trolls at Free Republic get wind of this! Yikes!

Google gives participating sites the option to place their own “official” post on top of the public remarks, and offers a ranking system (i.e. voting) that pushes the cream to the top and theoretically allows the community to flag pornographic, disrespectful or potentially libelous posts. That’s the theory, at least…

Foley doesn’t believe that’s enough. He wrote a post in Google Sidewiki on Microsoft’s Web site titled “Has Google Started a War?” that discusses the ramifications of competitors taking swipes at each other’s Web sites, fundamentalists damning each other, and jilted lovers making their notes on the senior partners profile. “Oh, and do you think voting this down will help?” he writes. “We will just all head to the last Sidewiki to see where the dirt is. I am sorry Google but you are on a course of self destruct on this one.”

Today, Foley’s post ranks No. 24 with the highest positive score, but yesterday it ranked No. 1.

Foley’s post on Microsoft was just the beginning. Now he wants Google to change its policy and provide opt-in/opt-out features. It would allow owners to block anyone from posting comments on their Web site. So, he’s building a Web site set to launch at the end of the month. It will contain a petition asking the search engine to reorganize Sidewiki and make it an opt-in process.

Sounds like a plan, Google. A good one.

Cross posting this from Brand X

Nothing is scarier than a serious Pee-Wee moment. :3 :3 :3

 
Word of mouth “buzz” should prove strong for reunited comedy icons The Firesign Theatre’s four evening run at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater after Wednesday’s well-received opening night. Performing some of their “greatest hits” including the complete librettos for fan favorites “Don’t Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers” and their debut record 1968’s “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” the troupe were in fine form, winning two standing ovations from the wildly enthusiastic audience. The second act consisted of scenes from “Anythynge You Want To: Shakespeare’s Lost Comedie” which the group has been working on and retooling for several decades and an appearance by their most popular character, Nick Danger, “America’s Only Detective.”

More from The Calendar: The Firesign Theatre returns to its Los Angeles roots

Here’s an extraordinary performance of the Nick Danger adventure Frame Me Pretty from an 1981 episode of Evening at the Improv:
 

The Firesign Theatre’s “Forward Into the Past”
Where: Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Oct 14 to 17
www.firesigntheatre.com

Cross posting this item from Brand X