Patriot Depot, your one-stop online shop for crappy conservative “art” and tee-shirts that “humorously” explain to boys wanting to date your teenage daughter that you own a gun have a new item they seem quite proud of, “Fight” this ghastly portrait of ghostly conservo-martyr Andrew Breibart rendered as a glowing with ruddy health, heroic Nordic warrior god with too short arms…

It’s very curious, indeed, isn’t it?

Quoting Wonkette’s “Commie Girl” Rebecca Schoenkopf:

In a previous life, your Editrix spent 12 years as an actual art critic, the kind who never didn’t have a shiv in her pencase and a sneer upon her face. But she always had room in her heart for art atrocities of the naif tradition — Slate pitches taking the form of art reviews, if you will — and this work by David Bugnon is the kind of masterpiece of Outsider art, a veritable holocaust-tsunami of bad taste, for which she would have #warred all those other stupid art critics who were too busy fawning over Richard Diebenkorn or some other AbEx total crap (and 50 years too late) to understand the beauty of a work like Fight. Look at the loving attention paid to the contours of Ghost Andrew Breitbart’s fat face! Look at the fanboy comic-geek detail on that super-bitchen sword and armor! Look at the improperly foreshortened arm, which would have left Ghost Andrew Breitbart with little 18-inch-long stub arms that couldn’t have even reached his pockets! Look at those steely dreamy sexboat eyes, undressing you out of your altarboy cassock! The only problem with Fight that we can possibly see is that David Bugnon got Hell’s lighting wrong.

LOL.

A “limited edition” of this sucker sells for just $3995.00…

 
I’m late to the game on this one, but if you haven’t seen these flat ground tricks filmed at 1,000 frames per second—you’re surely in for a treat.

The song in the video is “Never Knew” by Funky Notes.
 

 
Via High Definite

 
I’ve seen some pretty spectacular close-up shots of the human eye before, but nothing compares to these digital images by photographer Suren Manvelyan, where the iris areas almost resemble alien landscapes. Totally cool.
 

 
More eye-popping photos after the jump…

 

 

 
This limited edition snow globe titled “No Globes” was designed by UK-based collective Dorothy to protest the construction of coal-fired power stations back in 2009.

Instead of the usual happy snow globe scene with pristine white snow particles, there’s a power plant spewing a cloud of black pollution.

Via Who Killed Bambi

 
Delightful short clip of Laurie Anderson performing a song with a “pillow speaker” at the School of Visual Arts graduates commencement ceremony.
 

 
Thank you kindly Ken Switzer

 
The fine folks over at Morbid Anatomy are holding two special classes with “self taught ceroplast” Sigrid Sarda.

The first class, Life and Death Mask Making Workshop, will be held on Sunday, June 3, from 10 am - 4 pm. Admission is $100 (includes $40 materials fee). This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy.

In this class, students will learn to create their very own Life Masks working with alginate—a non-toxic seaweed-based mold making product that is easy on the skin—and plaster. Students will pair up and cast one another, but don’t be alarmed; the workshop’s instructor Ms. Sarda assures us that you will love this experience, and that most everyone who has been cast comes out feeling relaxed to the point of jello, with the extra insentive of a free facial. All materials are included, and each student will leave class home with their face immortalized in plaster.

The second second class, Anatomical Wax Votive Making Workshop, will be held on Sunday, June 24, from 10 am - 4 pm. Admission is $145 (includes $63 materials fee).

In this class, expert wax worker and artist Sigrid Sarda will teach students to create an uncannily lifelike wax votive of the body part of their choice. Each student will leave class with a finished wax votive as well as a knowledge of mold making, wax craft, and the history and meaning of the anatomical votive.

Both of these classes will be held at the Observatory located at 543 Union Street in Brooklyn. RSVP at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com if you’re interested.
 

 
As a child, John Cassavetes chipped his front teeth in a fight. As his parents were too poor to buy him caps, Cassavetes didn’t smile for years. The experience made him aware of how others coped with misfortune. Later, when he started making films, his camera fixed on the facial tics and movements of his actors. These were unlike any other movies - improvised character studies, where the camera relentlessly followed, watched, examined, but rarely interrogated. We are always close-up to the characters. When we see them in wide-shots, they are isolated, the scene only highlighting their alienation: Ben Gazzara having breakfast outside after losing $23,000 at a gaming table inThe Killing of a Chinese Bookie; or Ben Carruthers taking a stroll through the gardens in Shadows; or Gena Rowlands at a loss with the world in A Woman Under the Influence.

His characters are suburban, middle-aged, all on the back slice of life. They may have flourishes of rebellion (a trip to London in Husbands), but nothing changes their direction, all stick blindly to some instinctual role.

Cassavetes’ films may not be that innovative, or offer any new or considered insights, or offer redemption, but they succeed because of the ineffable passions, the inexpressible humanity of the central characters that Cassavetes puts on screen. That’s where his genius lies - in his deep and committed humanity.

Cassavetes once told Cahiers du Cinema:

‘I am more interested in the people who work with me than in the film itself or cinema.’

Cassavetes’ films always remind me of what Jack Kerouac once wrote about literature in Satori in Paris:

“…the tale that’s told for no other reason but companionship, which is another (and my favorite) definition of literature, the tale that’s told for companionship and to teach something religious, of religious reverence, about real life, in this real world which literature should (and here does) reflect.”

Made in 1965, Cinéastes de notre temps - John Cassavetes is a profile of the great director and actor as he edits his second feature Faces in Hollywood, before taking it Paris. Cassavetes openly discusses his views on film-making and cinema, and why he takes certain roles to pay for his movie making.
 

 
He describes him in short, clipped sentences.

‘He came into the hotel, very quickly indeed. Sharp strides, quick handshake. It was extremely friendly.’

And then he tells you about himself, a slight pride, ‘I’d known his work for many years, of course.’

Of course, as if there would have been any question to otherwise. Then the non sequitur, ‘But it hadn’t led me to believe that he would be such a very fast driver. He drove his little Citreon, from bar-to-bar, throughout the evening. Very quickly, indeed.’

And of course, there are (pauses).

It’s Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett, recalling an evening spent in his company. A pub crawl in France.

‘We were together for hours, and finally ended up in… (Pause) ...a place in Les Halles, eating onion soup, at about 4 o’clock in the morning. (Longer Pause) And… (Pause) ...I was, by this time, overcome, through, I think, alcohol and tobacco and excitement (Pause) with indigestion and heartburn. So. I lay down on the table, to still see the place. (A Beat) When I looked up he was gone. (Pause) A I say, it was about 4 o’clock in the morning.’

It could be lines from a Pinter play, My Night Out With Samuel, or a comedy, When Harry Met Sammy, but it all progresses beautifully, and menacingly, towards a punchline.

‘I had no idea where he had gone, and he remained away and I thought perhaps this had all been a dream. (Long Pause)  I think I went to sleep on the table and…. (Pause) ...About forty-five minutes later, the table jolted and I looked up and there he was, a package in his hand. A bag.

(Pause)

‘And he said, eh, “I’ve been over the whole of damned Paris to find this. I finally found it.” And he opened the bag and he gave me a tin of bicarbonate of soda. Which indeed worked wonders.’

Pinter then goes on to read from a letter he wrote to a friend in 1954, when he was 24, about Beckett - ‘The farther it goes, the more good it does me’ - before performing an extract from Beckett’s The Unnameable. In total, this short program is seven minutes of sheer brilliance.
 

 
“St. Dennistoun Mortuary,” a truly creepy (but kind of awesome, right?) coin-operated automaton dating from around 1900 is going up for auction June 2, 2012 at 10:00am on Skinner.

“St. Dennistoun Mortuary” Coin-Operated Automaton, attributed to John Dennison, c. 1900, the mahogany cabinet and glazed viewing area displays a Greek Revival mortuary building with double doors and grieving mourners out front, when a coin is inserted, doors open and the room is lighted revealing four morticians and four poor souls on embalming tables, the morticians move as if busily at work on their grisly task and mourners standing outside bob their heads as if sobbing in grief.

Its estimated value is $4,000-6,000.
 

 
More images after the jump…

 
Create the most “liked” caption, as determined by our readers in the comments, for this photo of Allen Ginsberg, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones and you’ll win a collectible Allen Ginsberg figurine from the fine folks at Aggronautix.

Awesome six inch tall figurine of the king poet of the Beat generation, Allen Ginsberg. Comes with Uncle Sam top hat, glasses, beaded necklace, a groovy coat plus a CD of Allen live at the Knitting Factory in 1995! The CD includes five previously unreleased spoken word pieces. The perfect addition to your shrine to the awesomeness that is the Beats! Figure designed by Archer Prewitt of The Cocktails and The Sea and Cake!

To enter the contest, you must first be following Dangerous Minds on Twitter or Facebook. Post your caption in our comment section and Dangerous Minds’ readers (the most discerning readers on the planet) will pick the winner by clicking the “like” button. The caption that gets the most likes, wins!

The contest will run through Memorial Day weekend and the winner will be announced on Tuesday, May 29. Good luck and have fun.

UPDATE: Bay Area Gooners has the most “liked” caption: “Count ‘em boys, 112 lines and not a goddamn one of them rhymes.  Now, THAT is punk rock!”