"voialtri, avanti con quel camion"

Please ignore what's going on in the three posts below. I was preparing a big post last night, but then my connection broke down while i had those images temporarily up. Everything will make sense again as soon as i get back into the state of mind of doing this. Probably tonight. And it ought to be good.

On the winamp: Van Morrison - A Night In San Francisco. Ten years after it was recorded, more than six after i lost my copy of it, the night Blue Moon played live in mickey mouse and everybody subsequently got too drunk to keep track of their personal possessions. Which is only fitting, since that was the album that got me wanting to play the harmonica in the first place.

WORK IN PROGRESS

quino3

quino2

Quino - 1

Arto Lindsay, Chenonceaux


Vinicius Cantuaria, NYC


Kazu Makino, Nerano

Photos by Diego Cortez, at Stuzzicadenti.org


Stuzzicadenti 1997-99, cd and mixed media art object by Diego Cortez featuring himself, DJ Spooky, Butch Morris, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Priest, Ben Neill, Kazu Makino and Arto Lindsay.

Also: Vinicius Cantuaria interviewed by NPR, 24th July 2004.

I really, really want this.

Drew Weing's Journal Comic is one of the best things available on the internet. Period.
This volume collects all of his Journal Comic strips, plus a nice amount of bonus material. Self-printed, like just about everything he's done until now, which will make it quite difficult for a copy to reach my hands.
But not impossible.

Désolés indeed!

Hand wash with warm water.
Use mild soap.
Dry flat.
Do not use bleach.
Do not dry in the dryer.
Do not iron.
We are sorry that our president is an idiot.
We did not vote for him.

Via Newsgrist, a great artblog i wish i had the time to go through the full archives of. But i'm too busy studying Rothko, Motherwell, DeKooning and Gorky.
What i learned today: After a few drinks, Arshile Gorky would usually start singing traditional armenian folk songs. But the other artists liked jazz better.
(Source: D. Ashton - The New York School:A Cultural Reckoning, 1973)

Yes, there is a Santa Claus!

The rumour was true, according to this catalunyan site which links to an extinct german webpage. These are professional sources if i've ever seen any, so it has to be true: Stanley Kubrick actually was, at some point of those crazy, crazy sixties, planning to film his own adaptation of Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings with the beatles as lead actors. Starring George as Gandalf, Paul and Ringo as Frodo and Sam and John as...um...Gollum. The true source of this entropic spiral of wierd information is Peter Jackson himself, the guy who makes movies about hobbits smoking joints.

Myself, i never really got past chapter five of the first book of the trilogy, but sort of enjoyed the appendixes. Also wasn't very interested in seeing the movies, i'm more of a star wars geek myself. Would have gladly seen the kubrick version though, had it ever existed.

Does this answer your question, Mitko? You got me curious there!

My posts have been making me look too clever lately, so here's what happened in the last ten minutes...

So i was lying in bed reading the book i bought today. A thought crosses my mind, as i stroked my cat. Cats feed on mice. And mice feed on dead people. Therefore, cats are higher up on the food chain than us.
But that wasn't what shocked me. After all, i called it quits on the food chain about a year ago.
What shocked me was about dogs.
What do dogs eat? Hint: dogs are domesticated.
Dogs eat dogfood.
Dogfood is manufactured by humans.
Dogs left independently wouldn't know what to eat.

Therefore, if humanity became extinct, dogs would just starve away while cats would rule the earth, thanks to their preserved independence and to a coincidental surplus of plump well-fed mice.

I had always considered the possible extinction of humanity to be a good thing, but now i realize that if it happened, dogs would go down the drain too. And as much as i love cats, some of them being my best friends, roommates, accomplices and occasional colleagues in work and study, the extinction of dogs would just not be fair. They're just unfortunate, not evil or anything.

All of these conclusions made me terribly sad.
So i went to the kitchen and got myself some ice cream.

The phone rings.
Them: "Aren't you coming out tonight?"
Me: "I was going to, but then i started thinking about dogs and found ice cream in my freezer.
Them: "..."

Couldn't let this one pass me by...

See GWB singing the lyrics to my ringtone over at FZ vs WMD.
(link via KillUglyRadio)

Caetano Online!

Brazilian singer/songwriter extraordinaire Caetano Veloso finally updated his website! This is the first facelift it's had since its debut, in 1997, for the release of the Livro album (which i was coincidentally listening to in the shower this morning).
Since 1997, it had only been updated *four* times. Caetano hates the net, and this attitude was reflected in his old site... Hope things have changed now!
Anyway, go there now and enjoy the new stuff!

Postscript:

"Nirvana's Nevermind is one of the most beautiful albums ever made. Rock albums, of course. It's one of the five greatest albums of all times, anyway."

-Caetano Veloso, 2004

Compelling.

Tiger Magazine may look like a fashion magazine, at first sight.
Only at first sight.

Also, How to build an alien communicator.

More wabb...er, Rabbits.

Eduardo Kac, GFP Bunny, 2000. Materials: One phluorescent bunny.

Rabbits, hares, bunnies, etc. Phluorescent, too. Fast and bulbous. Tight also. (Haven't finished reading that last article yet, so i still don't have a clear opinion about it. But i tend to disagree. Updates pending.)

What, is this blog becoming an artblog? That would be cool! But i don't think we'll get that lucky. I'll probably start posting about boring stuff(i.e. my life, duino, etc) again one of these days. And i hope my cat starts blogging again soon, too.

(Please note: not only is this rabbit phluorescent, it is also clickable. And cuddly, of course. Follow the green rabbit.)

Joseph Beuys, Capri Batterie, 1985

This one, on the other hand, i just love! It would make a great album cover, methinks. Or digipak single cover. Although maybe that would be disrespectful towards the artist.
(It must be hard to be disrespectful to the artist who performed How to Explain Paintings to a Dead Hare, however.)

Joseph Beuys, Evolutionäre Schwelle, 1985

Every now and then you come across a work of art that you just can't stand. Not that you dislike, but that makes you feel very, very uneasy. A bit like the effect Joanne Graham's "Seven Dogs Playing Poker" had on Homer Simpson in one of those halloween specials from yesteryear ("Those dogs are playing cards! Aaaaaaaauuugh!!!" One of the most terrifying simpsons moments ever. But i digress). In my case, such an effect was brought to me by this Joseph Beuys installation, Evolutionäre Schwelle(1985). Don't ask me why it makes me feel so strange, i haven't the slightest idea myself. Maybe it has something to do with once having to correct a manual at work that was about measuring this kind of steel plate. Mysterious.

Oh, no, wait, that's not steel. It's felt. Even worse! Waaaaugh!

More Crumb

It seems that Barry from Killuglyradio also stumbled across the Robert Crumb exhibition website i linked to in that last post. He also linked to some other tasty Crumb-related websites and news items. So beng the lazy slob that i am, i will just link to his post so you can follow the links from there. I'm so lazy. And i also like to say the word "also" a lot. Also. Also. Also. It's great how words seem to lose significance and become pure sound if you repeat them for too long. Somebody get this keyboard away from me.

Yeah, but is it Art?

...is what Robert Crumb is wondering at Museum Ludwig, Köln, until the 12th of September(German not completely necessary).
Back in the States, Bill Barminski appears to have some answers. Or are they just more questions?(RiccoMaresca gallery, NYC, September 9 - october 30, 2004).
Miyazaki and Moebius ignore the problem altogether and happily expose in Paris from December 1st 2004 to March 13th 2005.

And what about italy? Well, there just might be a chance of this blogger actually meeting one of the greatest cartoonists ever lived, not to mention childhood(lifetime?) idol, sometime next weekend. But i'll tell more about that as soon as i'm certain i have enough coins in my purse for such a thing to be possible. Meanwhile, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Ad Nauseam.

I'm too lazy for my blogspot, too lazy for my blogspot, too lazy.
And so on.