Johnson Tsang is an extraordinary, brilliant sculptor. The work is absolutely stunning. I’m going to show a lot here, the ones that impacted me the most, but that’s different for every person, so click on over to see the whole series. Click on images to see at full size, the detail…oh.
‘Two in One’
Lucid Dream Series
Published only once in 1973, Les Diners de Gala was a dream fulfilled for surrealist artist Salvador Dali who claimed at the age of 6 that he wanted to be a chef. The cookbook pairs 136 recipes over 12 chapters (the 10th of which is dedicated to aphrodisiacs) with the his exceptionally strange illustrations and collages created especially for the publication. The artworks depict towering mountains of crayfish, an unusual meeting of a swan and a toothbrush in a pastry case, and portraits of Dali himself mingling with chefs against decadent place settings. Recipes include such delicacies as “Thousand Year Old Eggs”, “Veal Cutlets Stuffed With Snails”, “Frog Pasties”, and “Toffee with Pine Cones”.
…Despite the unusual ingredients and preparation methods, many of the old school recipes in Les Diners de Gala originated in some of the top restaurants in Paris at the time including Lasserre, La Tour d’Argent, Maxim’s, and Le Train Bleu. Lest you think anything in the book might be remotely healthy, it offers a cautionary disclaimer at the outset:
We would like to state clearly that, beginning with the very first recipes, Les Diners de Gala, with its precepts and its illustrations, is uniquely devoted to the pleasures of Taste. Don’t look for dietetic formulas here.
We intend to ignore those charts and tables in which chemistry takes the place of gastronomy. If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive, and far too impertinent for you.
…Only around 400 copies of Les Diners de Gala are known to survive, most of which sell for hundreds of dollars. However Taschen has finally made this rare book available for the first time in 43 years as a new reprint currently available for pre-order.
Via Colossal Art.
Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Steven Newcomb has an excellent column up at ICTMN, examining the claim to Očeti Sakowiŋ.
We are able to think back to a time when our ancestors were living entirely free from and independent of ideas developed across the Atlantic Ocean in a place called Christendom. We know that our Native ancestors were in no way subject to Christian ideas before the Christians sailed across that ocean to our part of the world, which many of us know as Turtle Island. Because the Christian Europeans were not physically here on Turtle Island, their concepts, ideas, and arguments were not here either. This leaves us with a mystery. On what basis did the invading colonizers first assume that our free nations and our ancestors were subject to the ideas and arguments of the Christian world? To what extent are those ideas still being used today centuries later by the United States?
In his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, published in 1833, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story asked a related question. He asked how the British Colonies got title to the soil of the North American continent. His question not only assumed that the British colonies had title to the soil of the continent, it also assumed, as Story said, that the colonizing powers obtained a “title” by their own “assertion” that they had a “complete title” to and “absolute dominion” over the soil of what from our ancestors’ perspective was the soil of our national territories. Story traced those ideas back to a papal bull of the fifteenth century and to royal charters of England and Great Britain.
Most people fail to realize that men such as Joseph Story and John Marshall spent a great deal of their time thinking about such matters. They did so because they had to develop a rationale for asserting that the Christian colonizers from Europe had a right to the soil of the continent that was superior to whatever right our original nations and our ancestors thought they had. Men of ideas such as Story and Marshall, whose job it was to persuade, undoubtedly knew there was a slight chance that someday in the distant future, we, the descendants of our Native ancestors, might try to go back through the record of the ideas of the colonizers and trace their mental “steps.”
A few of us have been working for decades on that retrospective with the goal in mind of not only understanding but of also now at long last directly challenging the ideas and arguments that were “laid down” by the ancestors of the colonizing society who sailed to Turtle Island from Western Christendom.
Based on decades of intensive and diligent research, we now know that the Christian European thinkers dreamed up out of their heads the idea that the representatives of Christendom could enter someone else’s country and mentally, verbally, and ceremonially make the assertion that the monarch they represented had an “absolute dominion” over the country they had located by ship. They further assumed that their mental, verbal, and ceremonial assertion would become “true” because the Christian thinkers dreamed it up in their minds and treated it as “true” thereby sustaining it over time.
The idea that they as colonizers had a complete title to and absolute dominion over the soil of the territories of our Original Nations, a point that Story, Marshall, and other white men claimed on behalf of the United States, became “true” and a “reality” for the colonizers and for the United States simply because those ideas were collectively treated as “true” and as a “reality.” Since this was all happening in the colonizers’ own language at the time, when such assertions were initially made, our ancestors had no understanding of the specific nature of the colonizers’ bizarre views. Some of our ancestors such as Tecumseh did try to challenge the colonizers’ thinking based on the original free existence of our nations.
The recent controversy over the Dakota Access Pipeline traces back to that process of reality-construction and the ability of the United States government to simply declare a given reality into existence. But there is something rather surprising in the historical record that most people know nothing about. It is surprising because it is language that still ought to be benefiting Native nations. …
The full column is here, and it’s excellent reading.
SACNAS social media team member and University of Wisconsin-Madison SACNAS Chapter Secretary Nik Santistevan says he’s going to SACNAS 2016. Courtesy Facebook/SACNAS.
Thousands of Chicano/Hispanic and Native American scientists will gather at the Long Beach Convention Center for the largest multicultural and multidisciplinary diversity in STEM event in the country from October 13 to 15.
Hosted by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), some 4,000 students and science professionals of color and their allies will spend three days in California discussing cutting-edge science.
“To maintain a globally competitive STEM workforce, we need to achieve true diversity in STEM,” said SACNAS Executive Director Dr. Antonia O. Franco, in a press release. “The sheer number of attendees proves that not only does STEM diversity matter, it is possible.”
This conference serves as a training ground for the next generation of STEM professionals, and aims to level the playing field for first generation college students of color through mentoring, professional development, and networking.
The keynote speakers are listed in the full article.
From Kengi. So beautiful! Click for full size.
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
White-breasted Nuthatch. Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
“This poor Gorilla. How is she going to function in the real world, by not having all of her luxurious vacations paid for anymore? She needs to focus on getting a total make-over (especially the hair), instead of planning vacations! She is a disgrace to America!”
Jane Wood Allen, a Chestatee Elementary School teacher in Georgia just couldn’t stop herself from being an obnoxious bigot all over Facebook. It seems that americannews.com (no, I’m not linking), an alt-right sewer, is Ms. Allen’s favourite reading. Apparently, they had a nasty story about the First Lady, and Ms. Allen couldn’t wait to get her 2cents in.
…The post was shared over 2,000 times after Houston Ph.D. student Roni Dean-Burren shared screenshots of Allen’s commentary.
[…]
A spokeswoman for the school district, Jennifer Caracciolo, told Forsyth County News that school officials were made aware of Allen’s posts on Friday, September 30, and were looking into the matter. She said, “Racism and discrimination are not tolerated in Forsyth County Schools.”
The post prompted Internet users calling for her to be fired. A Facebook page called, “Chestatee Elementary School Fire Jane Wood Allen, NOW” was also created and demanded her removal.
Dear @FCSchoolsGA.
Fire Jane Allen now. Fire her, issue an apology, and begin implicit bias training for your staff.
This is NOT ok. pic.twitter.com/stQtWFOwfb
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) October 2, 2016
I strongly advise not reading the comments on that tweet.
In a statement released on Facebook on Monday afternoon, Forsyth County Schools wrote, “Effective Monday, Oct. 3, Jane Wood Allen has been relieved from duty and is no longer an employee of Forsyth County Schools. Racism and discrimination are not tolerated in our school district. We are committed to ongoing staff training on the acceptance of all individuals. As this is a personnel matter, the district will provide no further comment.”
I have to say, I’m pleased Ms. Allen outed herself as a vile bigot, because no children should be exposed to anyone with such festering poison, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Ms. Allen has not been able to make herself look at and treat children of colour as well as white children. Ms. Allen, you are no loss. It’s a shame you didn’t lose your job ages ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Via Raw Story.
Well, Trump continues to find ways to dig even deeper into the very worst things that could possibly happen to the States. Separation of church and state? Nonsense! It’s beyond fucking irritating how much these clowns hold up the constitution as if it were holy writ, then turn right around and plan to gut it at their convenience.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested on Monday that he would end the IRS prohibition on churches participating in partisan political campaigns.
While speaking to veterans in Herndon, Virginia, an attendee complained that military officials had been banned from evangelizing Christianity.
“The Obama administration had deliberately set out to take the Christian religion out of the military,” the man told Trump. “How will you and your administration combat these attacks on military religious freedom of expression?”
Agreeing with the questioner, Trump expanded his answer to include the so-called “Johnson Amendment,” a law which prevents churches with tax-exempt status from promoting partisan political agendas.
The candidate griped that the law prevented a group of 50 conservative pastors from endorsing him from the pulpit.
“We’re going to get rid of the Johnson Amendment,” Trump promised. “Because they are stopping you and our great people from talking.”
Event moderator Tony Perkins noted that he recently sent one of his political sermons to the IRS “because it would be good for them to hear the gospel.”
“That is a terrible situation,” Trump replied. “They can say, ‘We don’t like the way you’re speaking about Christianity or about God. We don’t like what you just said and we’re going to take away your tax-exempt status.’”
“It’s a very sad thing,” he concluded.
I think Trump and Christian assholes who have a driving need to control everyone else are sad. Pathetic. And I seriously wish they would all retire to their gilded rooms and mind their own damn business.
Via Raw Story.
Charles Blow.
Charles Blow has something to say about Donald Trump, and I don’t think one word could possibly be said better. Just a bit here, click over the full, glorious read.
Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist; only his form of terror doesn’t boil down to blowing things up. He’s the 70-year-old toddler who knows nearly nothing, hurls insults, has simplistic solutions for complex problems and is quick to throw a tantrum. Also, in case you didn’t know it, this toddler is mean to girls and is a bit of a bigot.
It isn’t so much that he is a strict disciple of radical ideology, but rather that he is devoid of fixed principles, willing to do anything and everything to gain fame, fortune and power. He has an endless, consuming need for perpetual affirmation. This is a bully who just wants to be liked, a man-boy nursing a nagging internal emptiness.
He’s fickle and spoiled and rotten.
So, when he loses at something, anything, he lashes out. When someone chastises him for bad behavior, he chafes. This is the kind of silver-spoon scion quick to yell at those he views as less privileged, and therefore less-than, “Do you know who I am?”
We do now, sir.
[…]
This is the kind of childish person who, when losing, flips over the board and yells insults at his family, rather than learning from the loss so that he can get better and be in a stronger position to win the next time.
This man is a brat whose money has stunted his maturation.
He shouldn’t be ushered into the White House; he should be laughed into hiding. His querulous nature shouldn’t be coddled; it should be crushed.
America is in need of a leader, not a puerile, sophomoric sniveler who is too easily baited and grossly ill-behaved.
Go to your gilded room, Donald. The adults need to pick a president.
Whew. Full column at The NY Times.
Credit:PA
Abusive social media users have established a code to allow them to bypass censorship tools put in place to prevent online abuse.
The code swaps commonly blocked or monitored words with supposedly harmless ones. For example “gay (men)” is replaced with “butterfly” and “liberals” with “car salesman”.
Racist Trump twitter has come up with a new coded way to share racial slurs w/ each other and avoid account suspension. pic.twitter.com/J4AmaHFVCd
— Alex Goldman (@AGoldmund) October 1, 2016
Internet giants such as Google and Twitter have fought hard to create filtering systems that spot and block abusive posts. For example, Google has an artificial intelligence program that can filter out and automatically block abuse and harassment.
In a seemingly direct attempt to fight the companies, the abusive code includes swapping racist and offensive words for “Google”, “Yahoo” and “Skype”.
The code seems to have originated on message board site 4chan, which is often described as the dark side of the internet. On a channel about Google’s Jigsaw program that tackles abuse, someone commented that the system couldn’t block them if they used “a common word in place of something racist, like if they started using ‘google’ instead of ‘n*****’.”
The full list can be seen here.
Via The Telegraph.
This wonderful piece of artwork was brought to my attention by Daz, and I’m so grateful. This was done in 1536. Makes you want to smile, doesn’t it? Makes me laugh, because I think we’ve all had at least one “OGNI HOMO ME GUARDA COME FOSSE UNA TESTA DE CAZI (Every man looks at me as if I were a dickhead)” moment in our lives.
Artists, no matter when they were active, never cease to delight me. If there’s one thing to be sorry about in having a relatively short life, it’s that I won’t be around to see all the delightful artwork which will abound in the future. The importance of art cannot be underestimated, this is vital to us, to our humanity. It’s often quite good for fostering and embracing rebellion, too, even the tiny ones.
A Black Lives Matter demonstrator (Shuttershock)
Have a wander over to http://blacklivesmatter1.com/ – you can keep up with the latest news, and help out a bit by becoming a member, donating, or just spreading the word. And don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter. Everyone who reads here should know the importance of signal boosting, can’t stop the signal!
