Comments

  1. lb says

    I have so much respect for textile artists–it’s a very time-consuming and difficult medium to work in–not for those who like immediate gratification. :-) Hours and hours of work. Few people understand just what goes into these things–we’re so used to fabric being whipped out by machines. Everything has to be planned so meticulously and then executed by hand. I’d love to learn to spin and weave a little bit someday. My hat’s off to this artist. Beautiful work.

  2. FossilFishy (NOBODY, and proud of it!) says

    I’d like to know if atheism, social justice and evidence based epistimology inform anyone’s art.

    I’m lucky in that I write songs* so I can address those topics directly through the lyrics. It seems to me that visual artists have a more difficult time tackling those themes. Mind you, I’m sure that’s my ignorance talking.

    *Not many, and not great describes my set list. Still working out how to not be preachy. :)

  3. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    Mr Holmes
    recommended, even for nonSherlockians. The portrayal of an aging Sherlock coping with early signs of dementia, and passing his legacy on to the next generation is heartwarming. It is refreshing to see a different approach to the conflict between the person and the “fictional character” that Watson chronicled in what Sherlock disputed as not a “real biography, but a fictional portrayal, for which he (Sherlock) was just the inspiration” [paraphrasing]
    to summarize. I am not Sherlockianfannish. I like Sherlock stories, as puzzles to try to discern before the reveal. This particular movie was quite moving, in an unexpectedly.
    and kudos to McKellen for his exquisite portrayal of such a difficult character, that is so burdened with expectations, etc.

  4. says

    I have been struggling with trying to express the themes that FossilFishy mentioned in my own sculpture, but I have a very busy day today, so I will have to come back later and expand on my thoughts.

    In the meantime, it would be really cool to see/hear others ideas of those themes expressed in sculpture.

    (If this comment is out of line, please remove, disemvowell, or ignore.)

  5. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    to continue movienerding:
    Next recommendation is Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl
    somewhere between “flik” and “artfilm”. I expected a chronicle of goofy teenager fiddlin with moviemaking that ends up pulling in a girl with a terminal disease. While that “succinct synopsis” is actual, it is far from accurate at describing the effect of the movie. The “goofy movie making” is what is know in Shakespeare as “comic relief”.
    It is quite tempting to continue with a spoiler, that the movie spoilers from the very beginning, that the audience discounts as “joshin”, but then <SPOILER> actually occurs. The followup scenes are moving, profoundly.
    This might be difficult to find, as this was a limited release movie. Recommend looking for it.

  6. says

    @Al Dente #5 – Knitting is an ancient occupation, with roots going back to ancient Egypt, Rome and Sweden. Modern knitting emerged in the 13th century, and by the 16th century, trade guilds had emerged to produce knitted items (women were forbidden by law from joining guilds, so the knitting guilds were all men.) For much of European history, knitting was done as piece-work, with the entire family — men, women and children — engaged in the craft. It did not become “women’s work” until the mid 1800s, when the Industrial Revolution and the invention of knitting machines capable of large scale production came into widespread use.

    My dad’s mother, the granddaughter of Prussian immigrants who grew up on a farm in Nebraska, taught all of her children and grandchildren to knit and sew. Her philosophy was simple: if we knew how much work it was, we’d be more careful of our clothes. I prefer crochet, but my older brother has been a prolific knitter. He served for several years as a sonar tech in the Navy, and at one point had many on his boat knitting as a way to pass the time.

  7. says

    @3, FossilFishy

    I’d like to know if atheism, social justice and evidence based epistimology inform anyone’s art.

    Well, I did make this one image that is fairly related to supernatural ideas, skepticism, and such.

    And now I’m remembering this one surreal image I saw one time that was about a child who didn’t see the inequality in society. It was really good, but I don’t know how to find it. Maybe I’ll try again to find it after work today.

  8. Pierre Le Fou says

    I wonder if anyone else’s perspective about art as changed over time, like it has happened for me? I’ve known since I was 8 or 9 that I wanted to be a scientist, and so I grew up becoming one. In my 20s I remember being quite dismissive of art, and anything else related to art. It was a combination of ignorance about the subject, and arrogance, I suspect.

    In my 30s I re-read Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Star”. In it some humans find the remains of an old civilization, destroyed by a supernova. The members of that civilization had been killed many thousands of years. They were technically advanced enough to know this would happen, but incapable of preventing it. So they saved all their valuable creations in a fortified vault on a remote planet of their own system, and then died. All this vault contained was their art. Paintings, recordings, architectural records, plays and movies. This is what the humans found. Of notice, there was no science left in the vault: there was no need to record information about their chemistry or physics discoveries, obviously.

    I wouldn’t say that short story changed my perspective about art, but rather it made me realize it had already changed, then. Art is what a civilization creates that’s unique to it. Science is universal. So art has a special value that’s different from science’s.

  9. Menyambal - torched by an angel says

    FossilFishy, I have only made a few sculptures, but they are strictly material, not representative of anything. The first was a tetrahedron of copper tubing and steel cable, the next was rods and cable again – not quite tensegrity, but when I saw https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_Tower I stood in awed respect and recognition.

    To me, taking basic items, like rod and cable, and using them to show what the laws of the universe are, is an expression of my atheism. There is no humanity to it, no expression of emotion, no story, no moral. It is like working out the laws of motion, and showing that there are no angels pushing things about. It is bending a rod to show that it flexes thus, because that is how it works, always. God isn’t in it.

    Okay, I have just got another idea for a sculpture . . . gotta go sketch it.

  10. says

    Al Dente @ 5:

    I knit. Yeah, I know that men aren’t supposed to knit but I find it very relaxing.

    I’m jealous! I can’t knit to save my life. That’s bullshit, that men aren’t supposed to knit. Historically, as Gregory pointed out, men were very involved in all needlesmithing, including net and lace making, which are very time consuming and difficult.

    That sweater is gorgeous! That looks like it’s pretty damn complex. Your friend is lucky to have you.

  11. says

    Okay…pardon the upcoming mess, your curator is rather out of it today. First, thank you all for the wonderful posts! I somehow didn’t mention books when saying what was under the discussion umbrella, but definitely books, too.

    Some people will remember the blow-ups here over the Hobby Lobby policies, and that that represented a big problem for me, as an artist, because that’s the only art supply store I have access to here in ND. When I informed my clients that I would now have to order supplies online, eschewing HL, which meant prices went up and deadline times increased, I lost a fair amount of my client base due to many of them being fine with HL’s policies, so…

    I’ve now moved completely into textile arts (and stock photography), so I don’t have those ethical problems to deal with anymore. Currently, I’m making embroidered lap/throw quilts (60″ x 60″), completely by hand – hand sewn, hand embroidered, hand quilted. The one I’m doing now is a tree, done in Candlewick and French knots, figuring it out as I go along. You can see that work here: https://needleprovocateur.wordpress.com/ I’m enjoying my move into textiles, and hopefully, I’ll be able to make some money doing it.

    Having said all that, I haven’t had a great deal of time to spend being awed by other embroidery artists’ work, but I did a little bit of browsing a week or so ago, not long after the https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2015/07/29/you-mean-that-isnt-what-lady-history-is-all-about/ post and thread. I was bothered that the draw of mutilated women is still so strong that someone thought yet another Jack the Ripper museum was a great idea. So, that was on my mind when I was browsing embroidery art, and guess what I found a lot of? Women as mutilated objects. Yeah.

    I’m not squeamish when it comes to art, and I know that sometimes a controversial or uncomfortable piece is a good way to make your point, but that wasn’t what I was getting from the various pieces I saw. It was more of a “yeah, women are really good as mutilated objects” thing. The most common depiction was a female body with no head, neck to feet, with the abdomen slit wide open (one depiction like this had the abdominal opening stuffed with flowers), and others which did include a head had either no face, or the face was obscured completely. That women are still so commonly seen as convenient objects to mutilate bothered the hell out of me. While there were plenty of depictions of mutilated women, it was not as if there were an equal number of depictions of mutilated men – there wasn’t even one. I don’t understand why this is such a commonplace theme, and while I thought a number of the pieces were beautifully done, I don’t grok the continued fascination with women as mutilated objects. It bothers me. A lot.

  12. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Caine @ #17,

    Eliza Bennett’s work is both appealing and unsettling (as I suppose all good art should be.) I find irony in her embroidered hand insofar as I think the stitching renders the hand nearly unusable.

  13. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Caine, would the discussion of food as culture be appropriate here? Not posting recipes, but for instance, a recent article in the New Yorker about the history of and pointlessness and marketing ploys of wine criticism.

  14. opus says

    A few years back my wife reconnected with her cousin, who is a fabric artist. A group of five of us attended a bojagi show in Korea in 2012 and then traveled to the Naxi areas of Sichuan province. I found the experience extremely rewarding. I had never traveled with artists before and it was literally an eye-opening experience – they noticed and pointed out so much that I never would have paid attention to. I have found that the impact has not worn off: I still pay a lot more attention to color, texture and indigenous textiles when we travel. I am far too uncoordinated to sew but I have tried dyeing with native plants from our property and am fascinated by the process and by the simplicity and beauty that can arise from silk, well water, vinegar and leaves.

  15. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Caine, your embroidery work has inspired me to take up the needle again. When I was very young (mid 1950s) my mother was of the mind that all “young ladies” should excel in the “home arts.” To that end, on Sunday mornings she would dress my sisters and myself in our best dresses and march us next door to take “needle classes” from a very nice, very proper elderly lady. I got very good at it, but I bristled at the thought that this is what “well bred young ladies” should do. I wanted a telescope and a chemistry set and to go out and climb trees. It was however, preferable to Sunday School which was an activity abandoned very early on.

    For the longest time my feminism got in the way of my pursuing textile arts. Both I and feminism have evolved past that restriction I am happy to say. That textile work is being seen less and less as a gendered activity is progress indeed. BTW, I loved your Toucan Tree quilt.

  16. says

    Opus @ 21:

    I am far too uncoordinated to sew but I have tried dyeing with native plants from our property and am fascinated by the process and by the simplicity and beauty that can arise from silk, well water, vinegar and leaves.

    That sounds like a fantastic trip and time, I envy that. I’d love to hear more about your experiences dyeing fabric.

    Morgan @ 22:

    Welcome to the class of Embroidery that doesn’t suck! You might want to check out Urban Threads – fabulous resource, and they are fine with people using their designs to make money. Mister’s in love with the Toucan Tree as well, a good thing, given it’s his quilt. :D

  17. unclefrogy says

    unless the art is expressly depicting religious themes I think it would be very difficult to determine any religious inspiration at least in painting and sculpture. Much of contemporary art is the expression of the artist and not sponsored by religious organizations ala churches, and temples/priests and kings. It would be easy to see non religious images or even anti-religious artist there were many in the 20th century. The works of Diego Rivera come to mind which is still preaching but distinctly none religious. There is much of contemporary art that is more personal expression and has a much more abstract influences that would not be obvious at first glance like the works of Chuck Close . A discussion of religion and other ideas which would include atheism in art if it included other non-western countries could easily extend to several volumes

    uncle frogy

  18. Kreator says

    Here are a couple of Argentinean folk songs about God, made by atheists.

    I could find this one, “Little Questions About God” by Atahualpa Yupanqui, with English subtitles. The song is slow, but well worth a listening in my opinion:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoauQ8Cqv8s

    The other is “Verses of Papa God” by Gustavo “Cuchi” Leguizamón, but I’ll just be able to post the lyrics. I’ll shorten the strophes so that the post doesn’t get too long.

    If there’s nothing after life, I’ll go singing past it.
    Once my shadow blossoms blue, its footprints will return.

    Poor Papa God, always lonely and absent.
    He’d die out of boredom if it wasn’t for people.

    Poor Papa God, administering detriments:
    poverty, death and oblivion; what a job!

    If there’s nothing after silence, I’ll go singing past it.
    In case the night goes to sleep, my song will illuminate the way.

    Poor Papa God, he doesn’t even know how to sing;
    without feelings or dreams, he has no God to protect him.

    Poor Papa God. When will he learn to be a gaucho?
    What can the poor guy know about love, without a wife or a horse?

    If there’s nothing after nothingness, I’ll go singing, always singing.
    How sad will be Heaven, at last, once it knows it’s been invented?

    Poor Papa God, he doesn’t have a single friend left.
    He’s always surrounded by sycophants who want to drink all his wine.*

    Poor Papa God, with his hair so scarce,
    his presence so short, his heart so bitter.

    * best strophe ever IMO

  19. opus says

    Caine:

    My directions, in their entirety, are below. I was really surprised by the total lack of correlation between foliage color (north Georgia dogwoods, sour woods, red oaks, etc.) and the fabric color.

    Dyeing:
    2 gal water with 1/2 cup vinegar (white)
    put into a stainless or enameled pot or aluminum (color will vary with the metal content
    … bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer/low boil
    Add the fabric on boards or roll on PVC pipe …. simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours
    (water will get really black) save it and reuse.. will add more color to subsequent a dye baths. Loraine has some really great color from the ‘really’ old dye bath water….

    (to reuse… mix up vinegar and water in correct proportion, then add to the residual bath water)

    Can add a piece of rusty metal… adds to the color…

    I am going to ship you the boards that Loraine gave me…
    ———
    use 3 boards

    lay out fabric,
    .. place leaves in space equal to the size of the board.
    Place board on top
    Fold over… (faric gets wrapped around the board)
    then add more leaves,
    fold over ,
    this board will end up in the middle of your bundle

    then put a board on the bottom and top.
    Clamp into place (Binder clips work best, because can fold the ‘handles’ down) other clamps are ok if they fit into the pot.

    or
    leaves on the fabric, PVC pipe on top and roll up into a bundle…
    tie with string
    string will leave stripe marks… enhance design

    if want stripe through out the scarf…lay a pieces of string on table, that are longer than the fabric
    fabric on top
    leaves on top of fabric
    PVC Pipe, roll up.. string/fabric/leaves
    Use the string that hangs out at the end to tie the bundle… and/or use more string

    remember that the PVC pipe/boards have to fit into the POT…submerged.

    May have to use rock on top to hold PVC pipe down under surface of the liquid.

  20. says

    Opus @ 29:

    Wow. Thank you! The only dyeing I’ve done is tea dyeing. Opusanglicanum does medieval dyeing, which I find fascinating, and perhaps one day I’ll work up the courage to give it a go.

  21. says

    Nick Cave’s ‘Into My Arms’ is really a song about love rather than a song about God, and I don’t think he’s really an atheist, but the first line is “I don’t believe in an interventionist God”. ;) Beautiful song.

    I find questions of the kind “Is it or isn’t it art?” (and, similarly, “Is it or isn’t it science?”) to be relatively uninteresting. They seem to me to come out of the reification of subjective category definitions. Much more fun to put those questions on the side of our plates and decide whether it’s exciting, powerful, intriguing, challenging, moving and so on.

  22. David Eriksen says

    re: davidgeelan @31

    I’ve been looking for a reason to reference that exact song on Pharyngula for many years. A long time ago, probably back on sciblogs, there was a thread that wound up discussing music and someone dissed Nick Cave for using a lot of christian imagery. I’ve never been much of a contributor here so I let it go.

    ‘Into My Arms” is probably the closest that my wife and I have to something that could be considered “our song.”

    re: Caine @16
    My ex-wife had sketchbooks full of women with body parts missing, sometimes replaced with non-standard prosthetics. I think she had more in mind than just brutalizing her subjects but I never really understood it.

  23. says

    David @ 32:

    My ex-wife had sketchbooks full of women with body parts missing, sometimes replaced with non-standard prosthetics. I think she had more in mind than just brutalizing her subjects but I never really understood it.

    I do understand that kind of thing, I’ve done it myself, although I did not objectify to the point of no head or face. I just don’t understand the persistent fascination with women as mutilated objects. I don’t understand why I’ve had my own times of fascination with it – something I need to think on for a while.

  24. opposablethumbs says

    Kreator @ #26, Preguntitas sobre diós is just brilliant; long a favourite.
    (You probably know this audio clip – great answer to the do-you-believe-in-god question: Gustavo “Cuchi” Leguizamón habla sobre la creación.

  25. sapcote says

    Changing the topic to film, i’ve been thinking recently of how downhill Atom Egoyan has gone of late…the technical brilliance and deliciously complex narrative of The Adjuster; the beauty and melancholy of Exotica and The sweet Hereaftet; the overall strengh of Felicia’s Journey and also the playfulness of his earlier works, now all seemingly gone……Ararat while interesting was a mess and poorly written, Chloe was a disgrace, as was awful The Captive….the skill, the style, the originality all gone

  26. says

    Morgan @ 18:

    Eliza Bennett’s work is both appealing and unsettling (as I suppose all good art should be.) I find irony in her embroidered hand insofar as I think the stitching renders the hand nearly unusable.

    It made me think back to childhood, when there was a marked obsession with hands – all the adverts addressing dishpan hands, the ones stressing how young you could keep your hands (the Ivory “is it the daughter’s or mother’s hand?”), and how much a woman’s hands was a marker of class.

  27. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Caine @ 36:

    Oh yes, holy crap. Who can forget Madge the Manicurist. Strange how persistent those ads are.

  28. opposablethumbs says

    Damn, sorry – forgot that the link would embed ::headdesk headdesk headdesk:::

  29. says

    Opus, I tried replying, but couldn’t get an email through. Thank you so much, they were stunning, and I love, love, love the last one. I’ll have to get some silk and try this out.

  30. consciousness razor says

    FossilFishy, #3:

    I’d like to know if atheism, social justice and evidence based epistimology inform anyone’s art.

    I’m lucky in that I write songs* so I can address those topics directly through the lyrics.

    It matters at some level for me, but I mostly write non-programmatic music, with no lyrics or implied narratives or whatever. I guess math is sort of an external thing, and in some sense it has the biggest influence on the output. However, that’s not to say the point is to be really obscure or “intellectual” (I hate that it gets characterized this way, as if other things aren’t intellectual), and anything gets trashed/modified/repurposed if simply listening to it isn’t a fairly interesting experience for me. To the extent I can just listen and “forget” what I know about how/why it got to be that way (because most of that’s inaccessible to others), I can try to put myself in an epistemic state that’s a little closer to what another listener might have.

    But after working on something for so long, it’s never like hearing it for the first time, without background knowledge about how it’s changed, my methods, personal history, and so on. It doesn’t matter what “the author’s intent” is in the end, and I want to make it possible for everybody to be on nearly equal terms so that listening and interpreting can be a more active process which they can see as their own work and their own responsibility. One goal is maybe to encourage better listening or something like that, and another is to make it not simply about relating to musical works that somebody made but also about evaluating their everyday experiences of the world (and other people) in a similar way — so, of course, you could make the connection that the world isn’t intended to be any way at all (not by a god, at least, just by people). Maybe it doesn’t help much, but that’s thinking of it as a sort of mental exercise, in an artificial setting, that sort of gets people into the mood or strengthens skills that they can apply to their lives in all sorts of ways. Still, I’d say any instrumental value it might have (i.e., it’s good for something else) isn’t necessarily the most important feature.

    Also, it’s unavoidable that you have to think about how your part of the work fits in the whole process. I mean, forget “the audience” — there’s going to be a performer that interprets the markings in your score, or a computer that’s programmed a certain way has to use whatever you’re giving it. So there’s a problem that you generally can’t give all of the information exactly even if you wanted to, and they have to do the best they can with the “evidence” you’re providing. Even if you’re improvising or doing all of the interpretation yourself, it never comes out as an exact instance of whatever you might have planned ahead of time, because we just don’t have that kind of control.

    I’m not sure how much any of that has to do with what you had in mind. My rambling above is not so much about addressing such topics with a particular work (like taking some kind of a position about them and communicating it to others that way), but more about how they’re relevant to doing any work at all.

    It seems to me that visual artists have a more difficult time tackling those themes. Mind you, I’m sure that’s my ignorance talking.

    Well, I suppose it’s generally easier to do with anything using language (songs, plays, movies, poems, stories, essays, etc.) because you can just outright say what an idea is, reason about it, tell a narrative, have a dialogue, make statements, ask questions, describe, explain, justify, and so forth. I’m making that sound way too easy. Anyway, when you take the lyrics out of music, the remainder is pretty abstract compared to the objects or images that a visual artist has to work with. Of course they don’t need to be representing anything in the world, but that seems much easier to do.

    Yeah, sure, “musicians have it rough,” says the musician. Okay. But from my point of view, being at least fairly competent at music and not so at visual arts, I think I’d have an easier time simply getting started with the task of representing such things, using objects/images/video instead of audio. It probably wouldn’t be very great when I’m doing it, but it would be something. I could begin to think of ways those might have something to say about society or justice or whatever, while I (perhaps most people) don’t make those kinds of associations easily with sounds and rhythms, for reasons that I don’t really understand.

  31. says

    @FossilFishy, #3

    I’m not an artist so the answer for me is “no,” but my younger son is. His art is heavily informed by social issues as well as ideas about gender and the concepts of beauty and ugliness.

    A political cartoon of his.

    His artists’s statement.

    @Caine #16 You may enjoy some of his work. Unfortunately, the more controversial stuff isn’t online. There’s a ceramic torso in the room with me, with breasts and a chrome penis.

  32. llyris says

    @ Uncle Froggy #25

    Much of contemporary art is the expression of the artist and not sponsored by religious organizations ala churches, and temples/priests and kings.

    I think you’re missing the modern equivalent. Coca Cola and other companies who commission artists and graphic designers to build their image – huge billboards, short movies depicting a transcendent image of the product, the styling of the packaging, etc. The artists are doing the same thing – exchanging money for creative ideas. It’s just the name of the employer who has changed. It isn’t the same as art for self expression.

  33. says

    Some random comments of randomness: I’m really enjoying all of this eclectic discussion of arts of all sorts. Thank you, Caine, for curating.

    Caine, you are a true needleartist. Your work makes my little dinkings around look like, well, little dinkings around.

    I’ve always been at the least, agnostic, but I borrow symbolism from everywhere for my little crafty things, especially when I’m making gifts. I like to add birthstones and (purportedly) healing stones and colors, special symbolic animals, things like that, personalized to the recipient. It’s fun and it makes the healing doll or fetish pouch or whatever more personal.

  34. says

    ArtK @ 41:

    @Caine #16 You may enjoy some of his work. Unfortunately, the more controversial stuff isn’t online.

    I do indeed enjoy it, Zane is very talented, and I liked his statement a great deal. I also think it’s good that he has a space to write that perception, because my feelings about art (my inner statement, if you will) has changed a good many times over the last 4.5 decades. If I had bothered to write such things down, it would have been interesting to see all the changes, and what drove them.

    There’s a ceramic torso in the room with me, with breasts and a chrome penis.

    I’d have zero problem with that – I love sexually subversive work.

  35. says

    Anne @ 43:

    Caine, you are a true needleartist. Your work makes my little dinkings around look like, well, little dinkings around.

    Oh piffle. I have found that all the little dinkings by people to be very important, because they add a lot of happiness and kindness to the world. I once made hand-painted bookmarks for a group of people, with each bookmark having a charm on it, related to the painting. I’ve never forgotten one woman’s response. She told me she was having the most shit day ever, was angry and depressed when she stopped to pick up her mail, her last errand. When she opened my envelope, she told me she burst out in tears, and it was exactly what she needed, a reminder of her strength (hers was a dragon). Little dinkings, they make a difference.

    As for my own work, I suffer from extreme insecurity. I look at what other artists are doing, and I feel inadequate and not very talented. This has been going on from day one, and all the decades passing hasn’t changed that at all.

  36. Kreator says

    opposablethumbs @ #34:

    I actually hadn’t listened to that clip, so thanks for sharing! “Do you think that an orchestra so large as the human one, and that’s so out of tune, could have have a director?” Perfect words coming from a musician.

  37. cicely says

    Pierre Le Fou:
    Hi. I don’t believe we’ve met before.
    :)
     

    I wonder if anyone else’s perspective about art as changed over time, like it has happened for me? I’ve known since I was 8 or 9 that I wanted to be a scientist, and so I grew up becoming one. In my 20s I remember being quite dismissive of art, and anything else related to art. It was a combination of ignorance about the subject, and arrogance, I suspect.

    *raising hand*
    I went to great lengths to avoid arts & crafts classes in high school and college; they seemed to be a waste of my time. (Music being a different kettle of herring, altogether.)
    Boy, do I regret that now! All these images in my head—and little capacity to get them out. I just cludge my way through it, like a hippopotamus trying to ice skate.
    It’s very frustrating.

    Caine:

    As for my own work, I suffer from extreme insecurity. I look at what other artists are doing, and I feel inadequate and not very talented. This has been going on from day one, and all the decades passing hasn’t changed that at all.

    Oh, hell yes!
    I have trouble thinking of myself and “artist” in the same sentence; it just seems ludicrous…even though I have arted, and have even been paid money for the resulting effluent.
    Ice skating hippos.

  38. Tethys says

    I know how to sew, but have never really made any art pieces. I would love to learn to knit but apparently it is even slower than crocheting. I crochet many useful things like hats and blankets, and have finally gotten enough experience in the craft to be able to sit down with a stick, yarn, and an idea and have it actually work. I am especially entranced by the limitless design possibilities of tapestry crochet, and have been working up my own design for a bag with a skully pattern.

    I just don’t understand the persistent fascination with women as mutilated objects. I don’t understand why I’ve had my own times of fascination with it – something I need to think on for a while.

    I think women, and their curvy bodies are deeply associated with art. I especially think of some of Frida Kahlo’s art. “A Few Small Nips” “What the Water Gave Me” “Without Hope” and “Little Deer” are all explorations of the themes of life and death and pain and love. In any case, thanks for starting and curating this thread. I am enjoying it very much. Hopefully an occasional off topic comment about birds will be allowed. (I have been deemed acceptable habitat by catbirds AND house wrens, and the cardinals and downy woodpeckers and chickadees all seem to have their babies stashed in my garden. I’m thrilled!)

  39. chigau (違う) says

    I’m knitting again.
    I forgot how much I enjoy it, even though I can’t just knit.
    I need to have something else going on. TV, movie, conversation…
    I’ve never thought of it as Art.
    Just clothing.

  40. unclefrogy says

    @ llyris #42
    I was not thinking about commercial art as such I was thinking of “gallery art” and “museum art ” trying to point to art that was not religious and some is down right hostile to religion and the established order. Diego Rivera was notorious for troubling his benefactors. who has not heard of “piss christ”
    The question you posed suggests another thought was Leonardo da Vinci a commercial artist as we know it? he surely did art and design of all kinds

    uncle frogy

  41. mostlymarvelous says

    I’d like to know if atheism, social justice and evidence based epistimology inform anyone’s art.

    What we do is not art by any stretch of the imagination. However.

    I knit squares to make up rugs for charity. My mum does most of the actual assembly, sewing, organising someone to crochet edging for not-quite-complete rugs and then getting them to worthy recipients. From time to time, there are family disagreements about the way mum and I approach rug making. My sister – who happens to be the only one with any real talent for working with fabric though she doesn’t knit – thinks it’s daft to worry about how the rugs look when they’re completed. This worries both mum and me. Some of the squares that are donated for her to use in the rugs are absolutely awful, a lot of them aren’t the right size or shape, many of them are very poorly knitted and only dog knows where they got the ugly yard they used to knit them up.

    But both mum and I think that it doesn’t matter that many of the recipients are so hard up they’d take anything they’re given. Mum takes the view that this is probably the only “decorative” item many recipients are likely to have, so they ought to be the best she can manage. (Originally we were making them to go overseas, but lost access to the free transport to get them to the depot in Sydney. Now we give them to local home nursing groups or to charity shops and similar organisations. One day I took mum and some armfuls of rugs to a Salvos warehouse and saw three of them walk out the door with a newly arrived refugee family and their three little kids. Good for the soul.)

    We take the view that we should do the best we can with what we can offer. We go to a great deal of trouble when assembling them so that they can’t unravel or come apart or go out of shape – which is another reason why some of the squares are eventually rejected – they’re just not robust enough. I don’t see why rugs should turn out dull or ugly or messy when only a little effort will make them bright or pretty or patterned or whatever. Seeing as we must ensure that the rows/ stitches in adjoining squares go in different directions in order to keep the shape right, we might as well go that little bit further and look at the colours and patterns formed when we do that.

    It’s a minor matter in the larger concepts of social justice generally. But I think it’s important to do the best you can and not dismiss the visual value of something just because it’s going to be used in a dirt floored hut or by a homeless person in your city or a person who’s shortly going to die and doesn’t take much notice.

    I’ll admit it’s self indulgent on my part because I tend to make rugs as rainbows or other much larger patterns than just stripes or checkerboards just to please myself. But if it pleases me, it’s likely to please other people and they’re in more need of a lift of the spirits than I am.

  42. says

    Tethys @ 48:

    I am especially entranced by the limitless design possibilities of tapestry crochet

    Wow. I ended up reading that whole thing, beautiful work.

    Chigau @ 49:

    I need to have something else going on. TV, movie, conversation…

    Aye, me too. I usually play old movies for background noise.

  43. llyris says

    @Uncle Froggy #50
    Yes. I mean we think of Michelangelo’s religious art as art, but only wealthy painters had the means to paint whatever they wanted. Like today, the majority of artists were commissioned to paint / sculpt / create particular things and they made their living doing so. Yesterday it was religious icons and portraits of nobles, today it’s coke.
    I mean that yesterday’s commercial art is today’s gallery art to some extent. The obvious example would be Toulouse-Lautrec. He painted things he was interested in, but he also created commercial art and advertising. Possibly the big change there is advances in colour printing and mass production, so we recognise his poster art as commercial.
    Leonardo da Vinci was brilliant enough and wealthy enough to pursue his own interests as well as making a living. I’m sure there were artists in the past who pissed off their benefactors too.

  44. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    If anyone asked I’d say that I’m not really an arts kind of person. But when being a tourist somewhere for a week, I like to visit a gallery or two (or five).
    Uffizi in Florence is of course magnificent, but I’m not as drawn to paintings as others seem to be. Or maybe it’s just the crowd, and if I could stare at Botticelli’s Primavera without dodging other people and their cameras, I would enjoy it much more. What I do enjoy with less reservations is sculptures and architecture.

    I’ve been to Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze twice now and it wasn’t just for David. He’s the most famous exhibit there, but I enjoyed the room with sculptures even more. Most are plasters of works done for various nobles around Europe, but all those works of art crowded in a single room… I’m not sure how to describe the beauty of that place, but of the two times I was there, I cried a little both times. There’s just something about the beauty being eroded by time, and yet staying just as magnificent.

    But my favorite place in the whole world is this: Loggia. I could sit there for hours.

    Caine, there’s plenty of Caravaggio in Ufizzi. I think you would enjoy it there.

  45. says

    Dyeing?
    That’s synonymous with “Giliell makes a huge mess but doesn’t get results”, right?

    Anyway, I’ve been making hats for the last week or so, exploring one and the same pattern over and over again:
    The first batch
    Second batch
    I haven’t taken pics of the latest batch.
    My craft blog* is generally in German, so feel free to ask me if you want to know more about anything, but tutorials are bilingual.

    *What I hate: People who paint dismissing anybody whose art form is not classical painting or sculpturing as “not really making art, just craft”.

  46. Al Dente says

    Giliell @57

    I like your hats, even though I have no idea what you’re saying about them.

  47. Saad says

    Giliell, #57

    Woah, I didn’t know you made hats. They look amazing. Your first link doesn’t seem to be clickable, but I love the red one on the dog in the second link.

    I dabble in photography on and off but I don’t think I’m at a level where I could call it art and worthy of sharing much. Just gotta start dedicating more time to it.

  48. says

    Beatrice @ 56:

    Caine, there’s plenty of Caravaggio in Ufizzi. I think you would enjoy it there.

    Oh, no doubt there. Just thinking about standing in front of the actual paintings makes me weak in the knees. It would be an overwhelming experience.

    Giliell @ 57:

    *What I hate: People who paint dismissing anybody whose art form is not classical painting or sculpturing as “not really making art, just craft”.

    I share that hate. The main reason I keep myself distanced from the art world is because of the sheer amount of pretentious assholes. I also resent the reduction of craft to mean unskilled, not requiring talent. That’s not true at all, and that attitude bugs the hell out of me.

    Saad @ 60:

    I dabble in photography on and off but I don’t think I’m at a level where I could call it art and worthy of sharing much. Just gotta start dedicating more time to it.

    Just remember that it’s more about your eye and your perceptions, rather than technical efficiency. I keep up with one photo blog in particular, Broken Light: A Photography Collective:

    We are photographers living with or affected by mental illness; supporting each other one photograph at a time.

    People are free to join and contribute. I think it’s important to remember and recognize how artistic expression can help when dealing with mental illness. It can help when dealing with physical illness, as well.

  49. says

    Families of men shot by Long Beach police unveil mural at museum of art:

    Activists and family members of people who have been shot by Long Beach police officers gathered Friday at Long Beach Museum of Art, where a work on display is emblazoned with the first name of one of those people — Hector Morejon.

    The artwork, titled “Too Many Names” and painted by street artist Saber, depicts Hector’s name in bright blue lettering that’s evocative of graffiti. The name is painted over other names, painted in black, which the artist said represent a fraction of the number of people who have been shot and killed by police officers.

    The viewing of Saber’s painting was only part of what was happening around the museum Friday. Some of those who gathered around the artwork said after leaving the museum’s grounds that they have formed a new group called Families for Justice that will focus on civil rights-related issues.

    Members of Families for Justice include Ruben Morejon, who is Hector’s brother, and Pamela Fields, whose son Donte Jordan was shot and killed by Long Beach officers in 2013.

    “The artwork is very touching,” said Ruben Morejon before describing his views on its symbolism.

    “You can’t see Hector’s name when you approach the painting, but it symbolizes what’s going on, this police brutality all over the country.”

    Morejon and others spoke outside of the museum’s grounds because museum officials forbade interviews during the gathering. A museum employee handed out a statement explaining the institution had not signed off on Families for Justice’s press release announcing Friday’s event.

    The release “was not approved by the museum nor does it reflect its views. However, like all cultural organizations, we respect the right of freedom of expression,” the statement read.

    […]

    Saber, the artist, said in an interview outside of the museum’s premises that he never met Morejon, but he felt a connection because the young man who is featured prominently in “Too Many Names” was killed while tagging. Saber acknowledged that many people do not endorse graffiti art, but added his view that tagging an abandoned building should not result in death.

    “It’s not necessarily a path of destruction, it’s a path of discovery,” Saber said.

    “(Hector) was no different than the nation of kids that’s out there trying to find their own voices.”

    “Too Many Names” is part of an exhibition called “Vitality & Verve: Transforming the Urban Landscape.” The exhibition includes works showing the aesthetics of urban street art.

  50. otrame says

    I love the idea of this thread. I’d like to present poetry as art. I am not a huge reader of poetry, but occasionally I run into something that just smacks me upside the head, and the poem below is an example. The fact that it is more than 2000 years old makes it especially cool.

    Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned;
    Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes.

    That’s Plato, BTW.

  51. says

    Caine
    i don’t think it’S a coincidence that the line between “Art” and “mere craft” is conveniently drawn between the things traditionally the domain of white men and the things done by the rest of the world.

    Tony
    That’s powerful

  52. otrame says

    Caine @65 You have a point, of course, but I think there really is a difference between art and crafts, but that lies not in the technique at all. Some crochet is art, some is craft. Some painting is art, some is craft. And the line between the two is damned nebulous sometimes, as are all lines when dealing with art.

    And anyone who puts “mere” in front of craft gets a thumbs down from me (in know that wasn’t you, Caine). There is nothing “mere” about craftsmanship. I told a backhoe driver I was working with once that he was a craftsman. He thought I was nuts, but once I explained that craftsmanship was doing whatever you were doing as close to perfectly as you can manage, he got it. He said, “I have to sit up here all day, I might as well do it right”. I’ve had to explain that to my grandson, too, while he watched me tearing out about half of an almost-finished doily. I could have fixed the mistake well enough that it didn’t show, but I wanted to do it RIGHT.

  53. Rob Grigjanis says

    Pierre Le Fou @12:

    All this vault contained was their art. Paintings, recordings, architectural records, plays and movies. This is what the humans found. Of notice, there was no science left in the vault: there was no need to record information about their chemistry or physics discoveries, obviously.

    I think the science/art dichotomy is a false one. I love poetry and music, and I think the Dirac equation is one of the most beautiful and powerful works of art our species has created.

  54. says

    Giliell @ 67:

    Those hats are fabulous, and what a great way to deal with old jeans, too. I like yours in particular. That’s the sort of thing I cannot do to save my life.

    Otrame @ 64:

    Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned;
    Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes.

    Beautiful, and poignant. I love poetry.

    My photo for the day.

    If anyone would like to co-curate, especially things like music or movies, I’d be thrilled. Those aren’t strong points with me, and I’m sure anyone else would be more suited to provide good material for reading and talk.

  55. says

    Some of these images are nice-
    Classic works of art reimagined using modern celebrities:

    Benedicte Lacroix has transformed several celebrities and fictional characters by inserting them into famous paintings, and now her work is being shared online.

    Lacroix titled her series “Voyages dans le temps” (“Journeys through time”). She has been working on it as a hobby since 2013. It started when she merged her boyfriend’s photo with a painting for entertainment after she broke her foot, she explained to ABC. It eventually evolved into a project using images of celebrities and fictional characters.

    She decides which celebrities to use based on which are most relevant, she told ABC.

    […]

    The project is art for the sake of art, Lacroix explained, though she hopes it will also promote some of the lesser-known classic paintings using the well-known celebrities.

    “I do it because it pleases me, with no intention to deliver any kind of message,” she said. “But I like to think that people may discover the original paintings through my artwork!”

    Her art features Leonardo Di Caprio mixed into Van Gogh art, Julia Roberts as Alexandra, Princess of Wales, Rihanna in ‘Woman in red embroidered shawl’, and many more.

  56. eidolon says

    Caine – good to see you pointed out Colossal. I am always surprised by the art found there. I often wonder “What would lead someone to start down the path that ended with this?”

    My own art is photography. I think the most fun I had was when I was actively doing animal stock photography, often underwater. Since then I have seen my work change and I only create for my own enjoyment any more and occasional sharing. For me, the biggest change has been to abandon “standard” ratios. In nature, the best crop is not always going to be some classic ratio. I would also like to make the case that photography is most certainly not instant art. From capturing the instant to working the highlights and shadows, adjusting all the variables to say what you want to say – that takes time and judgement. Ansel Adams would have just loved Photoshop.

  57. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Eidolon @78,
    Would Ansel Adams have loved Photoshop? I’m not sure. I’d have to dig some to find the quote, but as I recall, when Adams was once asked how many exposures he took after doing one of his excruciatingly long and precise set ups said, “Only one.” I know that doesn’t preclude manipulation in the darkroom. Did he do much of that? I seem to think not, but now I’m going to have to go do some research.

  58. Al Dente says

    opus @75

    I have always been fascinated by macro photography

    My interest in photography goes in the other direction. My most favorite astronomical photograph is the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF). Astronomers aimed the Hubble Space Telescope at an area one-seventieth the size of the full Moon. The exposure time was two million seconds, approximately 23 days. Every blob, every smear, every splotch is a galaxy. Some of the light in the photograph has been traveling for over 13 billion years. How is it art? It tells us: You are not the center of the universe.

    Incidentally NGC 6503 is my current desktop wallpaper.

  59. llyris says

    Art V Craft…
    As a child I was told that women do easy (women’s) things like sewing. As I got older I realised there is actually quite a lot of spacial engineering involved in sewing a garment, especially if you tailor the fit or change the pattern, or make up a pattern using elements from other patterns and mashing them together (like I tend to do with my own clothes).
    A few years ago I got into quilting. Because I was pretty experienced with sewing I just made it up as I went along and learned as I went. It’s fun. I prefer doing straight lines. I also feel like I’m not really ‘doing it right’ because I use a machine. I don’t have the patience to sit around forever hand quilting.
    A couple of years ago I went along to a quilters club. What really confused me was the fact that only one person there had designed their own quilt. Everyone else used a bought pattern. (I was a bit bamboozled about how anyone could need a pattern for simple log cabin…) And I wondered what they actually liked about it, because I find that creating the vision inside my head is one of the most rewarding parts.
    … on the other hand, I did a lot of drawing and painting as a teenager and young woman, and I guess visual creation has always been a bit of a driving force for me.

  60. eidolon says

    Morgan@ 79

    Adams did a great deal of darkroom manipulation, and that is after he had very carefully processed the negative. I saw a documentary on Adams and I was surprised by the extent of burning, dodging, flashing, required to create the final image. This takes nothing away from the man’s visual creativity. He just used the tools of the darkroom to get on paper what he saw in his mind’s eye. He was the inventor of the Zone System of exposure which is still, to my mind, a key part of creating good images.

    It is true that digital photography has certainly changed the art of photography. Fine art photography is still done with film and printing in the darkroom. At the same time, digital images open new avenues of creating images that were basically impossible for nearly all photographers. It still comes down to finding the photographic image in a scene that is waiting for the photographer to discover it.

    http://www.kevinshick.com/blog/2013/4/revisiting-hernandez-nm

  61. roachiesmom says

    Caine @70

    what a great way to deal with old jeans, too.

    I need to look at Giliell’s hats, but one of the main things I do/used to do is re-purpose old denim. I swear, sometimes it seems my mission in life is the denim-ize the world. :o) My other is to Re-purpose All The Things!

    I’d like to chime in on the whole ‘crafts being dismissed as trivial’ annoyance factor. Ugh.

    I used to do a lot of scale miniatures, and other stuff, but that was a different life in a different income bracket. I never could learn to do any of the more traditional crafts people around me did, although those people did try to teach me, and I’ve tried to teach myself. Needle and sewing crafts, my mind and fingers just can’t go there, although I can manage a fairly passable mending seam in emergencies. So I had to put my weird mind to other outlets. Many different outlets over the years, but what became my main Thing is chenille animals. In my heyday with this, I was up to over a 100 different animals, plus many, many little costumes and scenes for them. Entirely self-taught, a happy accident discovery due to my then 4 year old (he’s 23 now) leaving a big mess after one of his crafty afternoons — although a couple years later Klutz Press did come out with a book…and I may have appropriated their mallard, but I had to shrink him, I can’t work as big as they do in that book. Most of my techniques were different though.

    I’ve made my own storage units and furniture before. Not always very well, but one time bookshelves I made were mistaken for built -in. I am a sucker for power tools and excuses to use them, and filling spaces with units that utilize the space to full capacity.

    Other than denimizing the world, and re-purposing, and melting AOL discs, this is what I do, if anyone wants to see. These are all old, but I’m dabbling a little again; DaughterSpawn bought me stems a couple times so she can hand out critters to kids when she cuts their hair. http://s283.photobucket.com/user/roachiesmom/library/Gemrys%20Forest

  62. roachiesmom says

    Giliell @57

    Second batch

    There’s a dragon one! SQUEEEE!

    Cicely @ 47 —

    Caine:

    As for my own work, I suffer from extreme insecurity. I look at what other artists are doing, and I feel inadequate and not very talented. This has been going on from day one, and all the decades passing hasn’t changed that at all.

    Oh, hell yes!
    I have trouble thinking of myself and “artist” in the same sentence; it just seems ludicrous…even though I have arted, and have even been paid money for the resulting effluent.
    Ice skating hippos.

    This. So much this. And um, an urge to design ice skating hippo critters now.

    This level of blockquoting may also be an art for me.

  63. roachiesmom says

    Thanks, Anne!

    I finally managed to send a 100 monkeys to a friend who plans to leave them all over Seattle over time, so anyone there, keep a lookout. You may randomly-encounter a very tiny monkey someday. :o)

  64. says

    Tethys
    The design is inspired by Indian Mehndi designs, a style I greatly love. Usingi t in embroidery allows to add colour.

    Caine
    Thanks. I really re-discovered my sewing machine and now I’m getting the little one hooked.

    Sugar Skull Spoon. I must get one of these. Maybe two. Or three.

    So cool. While I’m personally not the most skully person, I love dia de los muertos designs and styles. Maybe it’s because usually skulls represent violence. If you think abuout Pirates and the Jolly Roger, that’s exactly what you get and how the motif has been used in the western world. But the dia de los muertos skulls are different. They stand for the circle of life, for memory, for your loved ones.

    llyris

    As a child I was told that women do easy (women’s) things like sewing. As I got older I realised there is actually quite a lot of spacial engineering involved in sewing a garment, especially if you tailor the fit or change the pattern, or make up a pattern using elements from other patterns and mashing them together (like I tend to do with my own clothes).

    No shit, isn’t it?
    I mean, you take something that is flat and shape it to fit a three-dimensional body, and you are limited by the material,a nd you must take into account how it drapes and all that stuff…

    I also feel like I’m not really ‘doing it right’ because I use a machine. I don’t have the patience to sit around forever hand quilting.

    Pfff, I’m human. Using machines to make things faster and easier is what we tend to do a lot. Not to diss hand-sewing or quilting. I am amazed by the patience people have. But I don’t feel bad for not having that.

    roachiesmom

    I need to look at Giliell’s hats, but one of the main things I do/used to do is re-purpose old denim. I swear, sometimes it seems my mission in life is the denim-ize the world. :o) My other is to Re-purpose All The Things!

    Almost no garment gets ever thrown away here. Those that can still be worn are donated to the refugee centre, those that cannot get turned into fabric. I have a huge stack of old Ts and jeans.

    And your critters are gorgeous. So cute!

    ++++

    Talking about fotography…
    I don’t have enough time to really immerse myself in this, though I’d like to (one day I’ll take a proper class, I swear), but sometimes there are fotos where I really amaze myself. This one will end up on my wall, as soon as I have an empty wall.

    +++

    Aaaand, an artist I greatly like: Julie Dillion
    She does mostly Fantasy and Sci Fi, but she paints diverse people, with diverse bodies. You can even see
    fully clad warrior women.

  65. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    Oh thank Dog; I’ve had book recommendations I needed to tell people about for ages! I assume an Arts thread is an appropriate place?

    Firstly, The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss, consisting so far of The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear. They’re fantastic; kept me glued to the page. It’s about a young orphan who is a member of the Edema Ruh, a culture roughly comparable to Romany Gypsies, and the target of comparable prejudice, who through a long and complicated series of events joins the University to learn magic. The magic system is, by the way, brilliant; very well thought out, and without the capacity to make anyone all-powerful.

    This is basically a coming of age story with strong themes of overcoming prejudice and adverse circumstances and upwards social mobility. It’s great.

    Secondly, The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. This was nominated for Best Novel in this year’s Hugo awards, but since it revolves strongly around themes of racial prejudice and social justice (and it’s actually a good book), we can safely assume it’s not one of Beale’s shoe-ins. It’s about a mixed-race disfavoured fourth son coming to the throne due to an accident, and his struggle to overcome his own lack of experience and other’s prejudice in order to rule well, while also trying to find out who killed his father and deal with the abusive cousin who raised him.

    I am currently reading The Chalion Series by Lois McMaster Bujold. Think Game of Thrones but with more magic and less gore and rape. It’s a very good series, but not as good as the first two recommendations.

  66. katybe says

    Ooh, love the pictures of people’s art (before I get sucked in to book recommendations) – I also enjoyed Patrick Rothfuss’s books and The Goblin Emperor (having signed up to a supporting membership this year, that ended up being my first choice for the voting last week, with The 3 Body Problem a very close second – I found The Dark Between The Stars unfinishable though), and would just like to say that if you’ve not read Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series, that would also seem to fit with the sensibilities of many readers here. I found the first book fun, but the second book in particular really allows for well-written diverse characters. In fact, there’s an interview with Scott Lynch in the edition of Lightspeed provided with the Hugo packet where he talks about how it was important to him to make sure he did that kind of thing in his writing (trying to be vague enough to avoid any spoilers for people who haven’t read the books yet).

    I also just read Go Set A Watchman, and would really like to know what people here thought of it. In general, would this seem more relevant to this thread or to the racism one curated by rq and Tony! I feel like it could belong in either discussion.

  67. birgerjohansson says

    If you like to read a lot of non-ficrion as a hobby, I strongly recommend “Killer of Little Shepherds” about the birth of modern forensic science a century ago in France.
    One man -Andre Lacassaugne- played an immense role but is almost forgotten today. One time, a proper identification of decomposed remains prevented a pogrom against Jews. The case that dominates the book is a serial killer, brought down by modern methods in 1898.
    You will also read about how the roaming unemployed -you might call them hobos in USA- were tagged as lazy, degenerate and “the criminal class”.

  68. bassmike says

    On the subject of books: I’ve asked this before, but no-one seems to have read any Greg Egan, anyway I’ll try in the arts specific thread. I was wondering what anyone thought of his approach to gender and equality. I think he’s better than a lot of male Sci Fi writers, but I would appreciate someone else’s opinion.

  69. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    @katybe

    I have been hearing more and more about The Gentleman Bastard series from commenters here. I shall have to give it a go.

  70. says

    Opus @ 75, I have seen those! Amazing work, that.

    Eidolon @ 78:

    Ansel Adams would have just loved Photoshop.

    I don’t know about that. Being knowledgeable enough and skilled enough to manipulate photos in a darkroom is not like using pshop, no matter how often someone might protest that they’re the same. I know a lot of people now who don’t care whether or not they get something right in camera, because they’ll just change the fuck out of it in pshop. I don’t care for that sort of thing myself, and limit any pshop stuff on mine to cropping and checking the levels. I prefer getting things right in camera – I’m a dinosaur.

    Roachiesmom @ 84, those are adorable!

    Giliell @ 88:

    This one will end up on my wall, as soon as I have an empty wall.

    Oh, you can melt right into that! So beautiful.

    Thumper @ 89:

    Oh thank Dog; I’ve had book recommendations I needed to tell people about for ages! I assume an Arts thread is an appropriate place?

    Absolutely!

    birgerjohansson @ 91:

    I strongly recommend “Killer of Little Shepherds”

    Oooh, sounds interesting, thanks!

    Bassmike @ 92:

    I’ve never read anything by Greg Egan, so I can’t help you out. Hopefully, someone else has read him.

    I’ve recently read everything by Fred Vargas, at least everything which has been translated into English. Love, love, love these books (the Adamsberg series and the Three Evangelists). I also think plog* should enter the lexicon as much as grok did.
     
    *As Adamsberg explains, plog is like a drop of truth falling to earth, and it falls in exactly the right spot.

  71. jojo says

    llyris @81

    I also feel like I’m not really ‘doing it right’ because I use a machine. I don’t have the patience to sit around forever hand quilting.

    I’m a quilter and I was taught that machine quilting is “cheating”. It took me a long time before I even tried doing any machine quilting because of this silly idea. When I did finally try it I quickly discovered that it’s a whole lot harder than I thought it would be. It takes as much practice and skill to be able to machine quilt as it does to hand quilt. I’ve also realized that machine quilting allows you to use the quilting process in ways that you cannot use in hand quilting. With hand quilting, you are very limited on quilting over seams, so it makes double sided quilts very difficult. It also makes things like match stick quilting in straight lines impossible if you need to go over seams. So I’ve realized that hand quilting and machine quilting are two different techniques that can give you a variety of different results, and that neither is better than the other.

    And of course, you can mix the two together to get some amazing results as well.

  72. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    I am told that Greg Egan’s short stories are more readable than his novels. His novels are full of interesting ideas, but character wise they fall flat for me. (And of course the ‘observer effect’ doesn’t actually work like that).

    My favourite books at the moment are the Liaden Series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. I’m also a fan of Pratchett (*sniff*) and loved the Goblin Emperor, I like Lois McMaster Bujold’s stuff as well and the second of the Chalion series is my favourite of that but her Vorkosigan series is also excellent.

    And if you like graphic novels then you cannot go past the Hugo Winning Digger by Ursula Vernon (also available still in webcomic form, but a complete story so you have an end to aim for).

  73. katybe says

    Oh, just remembered a non-speculative-fiction recommendation that might work for people here. 1222, by Anne Holt. Norwegian Scandi-crime, with a detective described to me as Miss Marple as a paraplegic lesbian bad-ass misanthrope. Really enjoyable, and as crime thrillers go, definitely on the intelligent side rather than the gory.

  74. says

    Jojo @ 95:

    I’m a quilter and I was taught that machine quilting is “cheating”.

    Jesus, it’s always something. Seems we humans can’t teach anything without handing down biases, too. I’m strictly hand needlework, including the quilting on my quilts, but that’s because putting me in the same room with a sewing machine is calling down catastrophe. A lot of textile artists are using a combination of free motion foot and hand embroidery to make stunning pieces. There are a lot of times I wish I didn’t have such a problem with sewing machines.

    I think some people get the idea that using a machine makes everything super easy, and not work at all. That’s silly of course, and not at all true. A sewing machine is just a tool, no different from anything else in the tool box.

  75. hyrax says

    If anyone here is fond of military history AND dragons, Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series is wonderful. Alt history that takes place during the Napoleonic wars, with a white British male protagonist… and then Novik goes out of her way to include women in the military. And in subsequent books, the cast is increasingly diverse, as Temeraire (the dragon) and company pick up crew members from everywhere they visit! I love military history, but am often annoyed by the lack of diversity in military fiction, and Novik’s books are incredibly refreshing to me.

    There’s also an interesting reversal of fortune that takes place, when a native American dragon spreads a virulent disease to European dragons with no resistance, and the European dragon population is suddenly and dramatically weakened. It’s some of the most interesting alt-history I’ve ever read, even if you ignore the fact that a hefty percentage of the main characters are literal dragons.

  76. mostlymarvelous says

    As a child I was told that women do easy (women’s) things like sewing. As I got older I realised there is actually quite a lot of spacial engineering involved in sewing a garment, especially if you tailor the fit or change the pattern, or make up a pattern using elements from other patterns and mashing them together (like I tend to do with my own clothes).

    I can’t say how or why, but this remark revived memories of this fabulous stuff.
    http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_wertheim_crochets_the_coral_reef?language=en

    I’ve never been terribly keen on crochet, but if I had any imagination/ creativity, I’d certainly give these corals a go.

  77. jojo says

    Caine @98 My attempts at machine quilting made me realize just how much more practice I need to learn how to control my machine. But, it opens up some many possibilities, that I’m excited to keep plugging away.

  78. eidolon says

    Caine @94

    I agree that the flexibility in Photoshop does allow a greater margin of error. That does not negate the importance of proper exposure for example. If the whites are at 255 or the shadows are at 0, no amount of jiggery pokery is gonna fix it. Camera fundamentals are still important. Sensor size for one. Lens quality and selection figures in as well. Then there is shutter speed selection, cropping, tripod/monopod/handheld to match the subject and the environment. Photoshop not withstanding, nothing beats a properly composed and exposed image, regardless of the post processing. Phones are not much of a camera, regardless of how many megapixels.

    Digital has led to some very unfortunate changes to be sure. The shotgun approach of shooting 30 frames and hoping to get just one decent one. The “any image can be fixed” mentality is another. Fact is, the images that need extensive work are usually lacking in one aspect or another but are acceptable if standards are low enough. From some of the commercial photos from weddings and such I have seen, the standards are often very low indeed.

    I think using Photoshop is like many other things – done by someone who really knows what they are doing it certainly looks easy. A look at “Adobe Photoshop for Photographers” by Martin Evening will give you a broader idea of just how large the variety of adjustments available as a photographer works towards the final image.

  79. consciousness razor says

    I think some people get the idea that using a machine makes everything super easy, and not work at all. That’s silly of course, and not at all true. A sewing machine is just a tool, no different from anything else in the tool box.

    I don’t know much about sewing, but in a lot of ways, it seems like technology has added to my music troubles more than it’s helped. When writing a score, for example, computers speed up the process (for me, sometimes, I tell myself) and eliminate some of the uninteresting/repetitive grind that’s required, but that doesn’t really make it any easier. I still find myself staring at a blank screen, which might be a more frustrating experience than a blank sheet of paper. Plus, the more I think about it, people expect me to do a lot of work that would’ve been done by a fairly large group of people a century or more ago (or just a few decades ago). They need a nice, clear, beautiful score to give the best possible performance — not some error-filled scribbling that Beethoven (e.g.) would’ve given to his underpaid/unrecognized copyist to fix, which then gets shuffled around to an engraver, a distributor, a marketer, etc. There are still publishing houses and record companies, but computers and the internet have changed the rules of the game dramatically for most people (if they can still get anything for their work, what with the sudden influx of pirates). In fact, I don’t need anything printed now, because I could use a machine to do the entire process by myself, from beginning to end, which is more work for me that’s only possible because tools like these exist. Of course, when the machine (or programming) isn’t working properly, that’s a whole other level of headache I also have to worry about, if anything can even be done. But even when that goes relatively smoothly (often because I’ve already sorted out recurring problems), none of that’s easy and it certainly doesn’t look like cheating to me.

  80. says

    CR @ 104:

    Thank you for explaining that, it’s a perspective I wouldn’t have thought about at all, being such a dinosaur.

  81. cicely says

    Giliell, your hats are lovely!

    Caine:

    I think it’s important to remember and recognize how artistic expression can help when dealing with mental illness. It can help when dealing with physical illness, as well.

    Indeed it can!
    One of my SCA friends, who used to be very active in so many different pursuits, is now severly limited by her COPD—which she has responded to by really blossoming as a photographer. It’s almost as if the insects and flowers go out of their way to set up beautiful compositions, just for her.

    roachiesmom:

    And um, an urge to design ice skating hippo critters now.

    Doooo iiiiiiit!!!
    (And link us to the pics, of course!)
     
    At your link…so much cute!

    Caine:

    I’m strictly hand needlework, including the quilting on my quilts, but that’s because putting me in the same room with a sewing machine is calling down catastrophe.

    YES!
     
    If circumstances require me to drag out the Evil Sewing Machine—clearly invented by Horses, for the benefit of peas—The Husband knows to run for cover, ’cause it ain’t gonna be pretty. *chainsaws&napalm!* may be involved.

    holytape, your first link at your 102, doesn’t. Which is a pity, because I’d quite like to see a unicorn kill God!
    :)
    I love your text for “True Story of Noah”.
    :) :) :)

  82. says

    consciousness razor!

    Would you please stop by here? There’s interest in having a dedicated philosophy thread, and you came up as a good choice to curate.

  83. says

    Cicely @ 106:

    One of my SCA friends, who used to be very active in so many different pursuits, is now severly limited by her COPD—which she has responded to by really blossoming as a photographer. It’s almost as if the insects and flowers go out of their way to set up beautiful compositions, just for her.

    I love hearing about this sort of thing, it helps to expand the definition of art that most people carry in their heads.

    If circumstances require me to drag out the Evil Sewing Machine—clearly invented by Horses, for the benefit of peas—The Husband knows to run for cover, ’cause it ain’t gonna be pretty. *chainsaws&napalm!* may be involved.

    I’m glad it isn’t just me.

  84. says

    cicely

    If circumstances require me to drag out the Evil Sewing Machine—clearly invented by Horses, for the benefit of peas—The Husband knows to run for cover, ’cause it ain’t gonna be pretty. *chainsaws&napalm!* may be involved.

    Did I mention that I have TWO of them (though i have no space to put the second one up….

  85. cicely says

    Giliell—keep ’em separated! You don’t want them to mate!
    *visual of swarms of tiny sewing machines, sewing hate and frustration wherever they go*

  86. says

    Eidolon @ 103:

    Phones are not much of a camera, regardless of how many megapixels.

    Oh, I don’t agree. I’ve seen absolutely stunning shots taken with phones. I tend toward Ken Rockwell’s view, that a good photographer is a good photographer whether they are behind the most expensive equipment, or the cheapest. Of course it helps to know what you’re doing,* but the most important bit is still the person behind the camera.
     
    *And the rules, of course. Must know the rules, if for no other reason, to be able to break them properly.

  87. chigau (違う) says

    Caine #113

    but the most important bit is still the person behind the camera

    Gad!
    Tell me about it.
    The SO and I can stand elbow-to-elbow on the same bridge over the same lovely stream with the same sunlight through the leaves…
    his shot is perfectly framed and all pastoral
    my includes the guy blowing his nose on the path beside the stream
    Not because I’m making an artistic statement but because I didn’t see nose-guy.
    I was too busy putting the stream dead-centre of my photo.

  88. A. Noyd says

    otrame (#66)


    […] I explained that craftsmanship was doing whatever you were doing as close to perfectly as you can manage […]

    I see craftsmanship as being about designing or producing something with functionality in mind whereas artistry is about aesthetics. It’s a particularly relevant distinction to me right now because I’m finding that I have to apply a lot of craftsmanship when I produce art for use in the classroom. Unlike aesthetically-centered art and/or art that gives the viewer freedom in interpreting it, mine can’t be ambiguous. It needs to be charming (to draw the kids into learning) but also send a very particular message.

  89. consciousness razor says

    A. Noyd:

    I see craftsmanship as being about designing or producing something with functionality in mind whereas artistry is about aesthetics. It’s a particularly relevant distinction to me right now because I’m finding that I have to apply a lot of craftsmanship when I produce art for use in the classroom. Unlike aesthetically-centered art and/or art that gives the viewer freedom in interpreting it, mine can’t be ambiguous. It needs to be charming (to draw the kids into learning) but also send a very particular message.

    Maybe it’s just how I was taught (professors spoke highly of craftsmanship), but I think of it very differently. It wouldn’t necessarily be about supposing there was some ideal of perfection that you should aim for, but still something like caring about the quality of your work in the sense of both the product and how you went about producing it. So I don’t think there’s any real difference between arts and crafts, or artistry and craftsmanship. They’re just different words for the same thing, and some people happen to have certain prejudices about them, which aren’t tracking anything in reality.

    Let me give some examples. You could know that a knife is finely crafted, or making it required craftsmanship, if it’s useful for cutting stuff. And you can also know that because of how it affects your experiences: it looks good, the texture and balance feel comfortable, and so forth. The latter are aesthetic qualities if anything is, which don’t need to depend on any abstract criteria like freedom or ambiguity or whatever, just how something shapes your perceptual experiences.

    Of course we all have different perceptions because we have different perspectives. And those can of course be criteria (or motivations) that certain artists/crafters have. However, what I mean is this: you can enjoy looking at a nice sunset, and that is simply what it means to say you’re having an aesthetic experience of it. But don’t let anyone tell you there’s a particular set of things that you can experience that way, which belong in a museum with the label “Art” slapped on it. You can experience all things that way, even a simple piece of silverware or a rug or a birdsong or an equation or whatever. It’s not something that belongs to arts/crafts.

    Also, we can and do genuinely get something out of experiences like that, so it’s “functional” or “useful” in that sense, even if it’s not useful in a very limited sense that “this knife cuts things.” That’s a low bar to meet, and it’s not the only bar that can be met. So craftsmanship/artistry is basically just about a person doing good work, whatever that entails in different circumstances. They’re being careful and meticulous about the materials they’re using, how they’re refined, shaped, assembled, etc., with different tools or methods, in order to get whatever results they want.

  90. Tethys says

    Giliell ` But the dia de los muertos skulls are different. They stand for the circle of life, for memory, for your loved ones.

    Yes, I agree completely. My crochet skull bag is definitely more pretty than goth. It incorporates fair isle knitting motifs and some very pretty baby blue and rose yarns with the black and white skull and bones rows. I have been collecting beautiful art skull photos for another crochet project that has been percolating in the recesses of my brain. I want to create a beautiful crochet skull with various lace, geometric, and floral / leaf motifs. The skull appreciation society website is devoted to skull art of all types. I especially love this 3D printed sugar skull. and the Calavera line. I find this artists work particularly inspiring Hunter Stablers laser cut paper skulls

  91. Tethys says

    Oy, I do so hate it I use the same adjectives repeatedly because I edited and failed to notice BEFORE I hit submit. As far as photography, I have such a hard time with cameras because of extreme myopia. Using an Iphone lets me take photos that are actually in focus because I can see the darn thing. It takes some practice and fiddling, but they can take excellent photos.

  92. says

    Chigau @ 115:

    The SO and I can stand elbow-to-elbow on the same bridge over the same lovely stream with the same sunlight through the leaves…
    his shot is perfectly framed and all pastoral
    my includes the guy blowing his nose on the path beside the stream
    Not because I’m making an artistic statement but because I didn’t see nose-guy.
    I was too busy putting the stream dead-centre of my photo.

    Oh, I’ve ruined many a shot by being oblivious to elements in the frame.

  93. says

    Tethys @ 120:

    I have such a hard time with cameras because of extreme myopia. Using an Iphone lets me take photos that are actually in focus because I can see the darn thing.

    One of the main reasons I continue to love my little coolpix – it’s great to see what you’re going to shoot on a screen. I wish I could do that with the D90.

  94. consciousness razor says

    The skull appreciation society website

    Awesome. I don’t know why, but “skullappreciationsociety.com” is funny. Some pretty incredible stuff in there too.

  95. Tethys says

    The line between art and craft is often arbitrary. Shaker boxes and quilts are craft that is raised to art. The objects are both functional and highly aesthetic. However not all craft is art. I crochet dishcloths and hotpads that are nice but they aren’t art. I think the main distinction between the two is that art is a means of expression that communicates something, while craft is the making process itself.

    Caine ~ One of the main reasons I continue to love my little coolpix

    I have one of those too. It works well for landscapes and portraits, but my model has a really bad early digital zoom. I can take much betters photos of small objects like flowers and insects with my Iphone and my gorillapod using the earphones as a manual shutter release. I still can’t achieve the same results as I could with film and my 35mm vivitar.

  96. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    The distinction between art and craft is a touchy one in my circle. We have a friend (husband of very good friend) who was trained in art school and used to be an art director for a huge ad agency before everything went digital. He does paintings on commission, and has done some lovely murals. His personal preference is for watercolors.
    A few years ago we got in a terrible tiff because I simply stated that Art (capital A) is about ideas, and Illustration is about painting pretty pictures. Some Illustration is Art, but not all.
    My friend’s paintings are very good illustrations, but they are not in any sense about any ideas other than look at how well I can paint. I have tried to have the conversation about the ideas behind his work and it is a conversation he refuses to have. He merely gets angry and stomps off.
    However, when introducing himself he very pretentiously calls himself a “Fine Artist”. He has a website and makes a point on the site that he is a “Fine Artist”.
    The fact is that he is a very good artist, but what he means as “Fine Artist” feels wrong. His art is not about ideas.
    I am eager to hear your responses to this.

  97. consciousness razor says

    I think the main distinction between the two is that art is a means of expression that communicates something, while craft is the making process itself.

    I really can’t accept that either. Sometimes I’m not expressing or communicating anything. It may not represent anything in the world at all. It’s just a thing that you experience, which doesn’t mean anything more than a sunset means something. Literally nothing. And it’s not for anything except doing that.

    On the other hand, some people do make music (and other arts) like that. Maybe they write an etude, which is literally for a student to study and develop their skills. Maybe they make it for a particular setting or event. Maybe it does mean something — because it tells a kind of story, evokes certain mental pictures, represents abstract concepts, or whatever. Maybe there are lyrics and those words have a particular meaning, even if the music itself doesn’t. But it certainly doesn’t need to be that way.

    And I don’t think there’s anything inappropriate about saying “I’m crafting pieces of music” in the same sense that “I’m crafting a chair and a table.” You could also say “I crafted a sentence” which I think most would consider indistinguishable from saying you’re expressing or communicating that sentence. I guess I don’t understand what “craft is the making process itself” means. It would be idiomatic in English to say “I crafted this” while you wouldn’t say “I arted this,” but that’s just an odd feature of our language which shouldn’t necessarily indicate there’s anything substantial going on there. A person is still making/producing/crafting art, which is why it’s an artificial thing that requires processes involving artifice, as opposed to something which occurred because of non-personal “natural forces.” It might seem like an awkward or antiquated or unusual way to describe it (we use “crafted” instead of words like “arted” or “artificed”), but I don’t see how that’s getting to anything that’s actually different about them.

  98. chigau (違う) says

    I really, really hate casting-off.
    So, my most recent piece sits, cluttering the table.
    I need the needles.
    Tomorrow.

  99. Tethys says

    I am pleased that others are enjoying the skull appreciation society. It really is quite a collection.

    Anne ~ I think your crochet skull ideas sound beautiful, and I look forward to seeing the results.

    Thank you, I think it will be a winter project as it will be tiny steel hooks and thread I have all the main facial features figured out, but haven’t done the math to figure out how to make the back of the skull by modifying a doily pattern so it makes a 3D shape instead of a flat circle.

  100. says

    @Morgan

    If something someone makes is beautiful, fascinating, or pleasing, then it can be called art.

    Just because something is not your (or my) preferred kind of art does not mean it is not art.

  101. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Brian Pansky @130
    I quite agree. The point is his reference to Art, capital A: Art that will survive due to some inherent quality. Does Art with a capital A survive because it elicits some emotional/intellectual/physical response from humans which transcends current culture? Does it illuminate a genre or culture in a way that resonates? I love my artist friend, and he is very good at what he does. But I think what he want to be is an Artist, and in fact what he is is an artist. This is no condemnation, just an observation. And we no longer attempt to have this conversation.

  102. consciousness razor says

    Morgan, I’m not surprised the conversation hasn’t worked out. I’m sure it is taken as a criticism, whether or not you intend it to be one.

    The point is his reference to Art, capital A: Art that will survive due to some inherent quality.

    As opposed to what? Extrinsic qualities? But meanings, expressions, communications, representations are extrinsic. Those are not inherently or intrinsically part of a thing, only about that thing itself, or how the thing is experienced. The are relational: you have the one thing that’s about some other thing. Yet that’s exactly the sort of thing some people are saying art needs, in order to be raised on a pedestal as “Art.” You even said it’s “ideas” (heck, why not Platonic Forms, so it’s guaranteed to be impossible?). But a painting is not an idea. It’s a physical thing that you look at, and maybe touch, taste, smell, hear…. You’re the one who’s coming up with ideas about it. That’s your job, and you can come up with ideas about anything you want, if it’s so important. If you don’t do that, don’t blame the painting or the artist for your failure to do your job.

  103. Tethys says

    CR

    I really can’t accept that either. Sometimes I’m not expressing or communicating anything.

    I don’t feel as if my desire to make a lace crochet skull is communicating anything, but rather as a way to express my creativity via a craft that I have practiced long enough to master. However, when I get into the process of actually crafting the object, it will evolve and I will find ways to incorporate various motifs and negative space in a way that will communicate something about being human. When I am done I might have art that evokes emotions. I may have an interesting object that teaches me enough to make an even better model.

  104. Tethys says

    This Thursday will be the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I am amazed that this bit of art survived. Centuries-old bonsai that survived atomic bomb gets honored 70 years later

    At 390 years old, the Japanese white pine was already notable as the oldest specimen in the bonsai collection at Washington, D.C.’s National Arboretum. Then, in 2001, two brothers showed up at the Arboretum to check on the tree – a donation from their grandfather — and informed officials that it was far more special than anyone had originally realized. Not only had the tree lived through almost four centuries, it had also lived through the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

  105. says

    @Morgan

    Ah, ya, if someone thinks a particular piece of art will be regarded by certain people as really good and really artistic, that is a prediction which can be wrong. Because it is a prediction about other people, not one’s own personal preferences.

  106. Tethys says

    chigau

    I really, really hate casting-off.

    I feel the same way about weaving in all the yarn ends. It’s a very tedious part of the process. If you do try to tat a skull, let us know how it works. I think tatting motifs would translate well into sugar skull style.

  107. says

    Art show portrays children with rare diseases as ‘beautiful human beings’

    Wonderful!
    It remindsm e a bit of a foto series I once saw of old people. The fotographer portrayed them with something they loved instead of the usual headshot. For some it was in their garden, or with their spouse, or playing chess. One person was hugging a pile of chocolate. The fotos were beautiful, the people were beautiful, they radiated joy.

    A.Noyd

    see craftsmanship as being about designing or producing something with functionality in mind whereas artistry is about aesthetics. It’s a particularly relevant distinction to me right now because I’m finding that I have to apply a lot of craftsmanship when I produce art for use in the classroom. Unlike aesthetically-centered art and/or art that gives the viewer freedom in interpreting it, mine can’t be ambiguous. It needs to be charming (to draw the kids into learning) but also send a very particular message.

    But that’s a pretty modern distinction, isn’t it? For most of what is now art history, the painter had a very clear task and a very clear message to tell. Because they were seen exactly as craftsmen who were paid to do a job.
    To me, the distinction is very fluid. Not every thing I do is art. Menidng a shirt usually isn’t, but it can turn into art when I take the to-be-mended shirt and turn it into something different. The doodles I do on the blackboard are certainly not art. Right opposite of me is a picture my BIL painted. Is it pretty? Yes. Does it have a function? Of course it does! It makes the room nicer. It’S not strictly necessary for the function of the room, but it is a better room with it in it. Same with most other things. My embroidery isn’t necessary to make a t-shirt function as a t-shirt, but it’S a lot nicer with it.

    Tethys

    I have been collecting beautiful art skull photos for another crochet project that has been percolating in the recesses of my brain.

    You need to visit me within the next 6 months or so. We’re having an exhibition “skulls as art objects” here.

    Caine

    One of the main reasons I continue to love my little coolpix – it’s great to see what you’re going to shoot on a screen. I wish I could do that with the D90.

    That’s funny. I think we’re opposite people. The think I loooooooove about having a “real” camera again is that I have a proper searcher again. Although one of the reasons why I wanted the D70 was the monitor that you can turn so you can still take those “hold the camera over your head while balancing on your left toes” shots.

    morgan

    The point is his reference to Art, capital A: Art that will survive due to some inherent quality.

    Does that mean that all the golden sculptures the Spanish stole in Las Américas and melted were not Art? Or the striking pottery that depicted heathen gods, rites and fun sexy times?
    That’s a very western view, shaped by museums and exhibitions.

    back to “cheating”
    Seriously, what particular hang-ups do people have who call using a machine “cheating”? I mean, unless the task was “stich this by hand”. If the task is “make a beautiful quilt that you like”, then the way you take to do it the is your business. I can understand the value of a “do it by hand” exercise. With many things you should learn the slow way to get an understanding for the basics. Just like you don’t hand kids a calculator in first grade. I’m personally glad that I learned using a camera before the advent of digital cameras. I had to learn about blend, shutter time, etc. Hell, I even had a hand-held light metre. But that doesn’T mean using a digicam is cheating any more than using a camera instead of painting is cheating.

  108. bassmike says

    Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD @96: I agree that a number of Greg Egan books explore scientific ideas at the expense of character development. Ironically, to me, the most engaging characters have been in the ‘Orthogonal’ series and they’re not human! The series explores some interesting science, but also includes some equally interesting gender politics which is why I was keen to hear if anyone else has read any on the books.

  109. eidolon says

    Caine@113

    I completely agree with the fact that great images can be created using a phone. This is because the central element in creating an image is the loose nut on the shutter release. Perhaps one of the most irritating things to hear is “Wow! Great photo! You must have a really good camera.” This is like telling a chef “Wow! Great dinner! You must have really good pots and pans.” My only point about phones is that they are limited tools and no, they will not do everything a Nikon D810 will, regardless of the ad copy.

    Learning to see beyond the subject and evaluate the entire frame is an important skill that I have found only comes with practice. I find I almost have to ignore the subject and mentally step back. Sometimes a small change in position does the trick and sometimes you realize that no amount of fiddling is gonna make this scene a good image. Now – when taking photos of wildlife as in underwater photography, it is much harder since you and the subject are moving in 3 dimensions and you are trying to frame and dive at the same time. I have a decent shark image in which I managed to just clip the tip of her caudal fin. Still a nice image, but not what I wanted.

    As one photographer put it, the key to successful photography is “f8 and be there.” By all means, people need to keep seeing and shooting. Nobody expects a musician to be skilled without practice, why would photography be different? Keep looking at other people’s work – there are always amazing new photographers and their work out there. So many different ways to see and communicate about our world.

  110. jojo says

    Giliell @138

    Seriously, what particular hang-ups do people have who call using a machine “cheating”?

    I think it’s about purity. Traditionally, quilting was done by hand, it was a labor of love, so I think the people who feel that way may feel it’s taking a shortcut and doesn’t represent the tradition or the sacrifice that hand quilting requires. What I always found interesting was that the same group would use tea dying and fabrics that appear aged to make their colonial quilts look like antiques. I have no problem with that, but if you don’t want shortcuts in one area, you probably shouldn’t take them in other areas.

    As for the discussion on art and craft. Craft for me is the collection of skills needed to produce something and the process of producing. I have very good craftsmanship skills in needlepoint, cross stitch and quilting. However, I mostly use other people’s designs or traditional designs, so I’m not responsible for all of the aesthetic qualities of my products. Those items are not art. I have one quilt that I designed myself based off a flash of inspiration I had while running in the park in the fall, and it probably comes close to art. But for defining art, I don’t think I could do it. I will say that I don’t think art needs to be pleasing. Some of the most powerful art I have seen would not be considered pretty or pleasing. It’s a pretty slippery thing.

  111. says

    I wonder if the “purity” thing is another form of that odious nostalgia for the good old days when women cooked from scratch, did all the cleaning by hand, and generally kept to their proper place?

    Personally I have no shame – if it’s easier done with the sewing machine, I’ll set up the sewing machine. I’d rather embroider by hand, but that’s because I find the process soothing, especially when I can sit in my comfy chair and listen to the radio or TV while I work. Maybe that’s one of the positive aspects of considering myself a crafter rather than an artist – sometimes I just don’t care, as long as it gets the job done.

  112. says

    jojo

    However, I mostly use other people’s designs or traditional designs, so I’m not responsible for all of the aesthetic qualities of my products. Those items are not art.

    I’m not so sure. Do you choose your fabrics, colours, etc. yourself? There’s a lot of creativity and artistry involved in that. Personally I think that especially the visual artists have convinced the rest of us that we’Re somewhat lacking for too long.

    Anne

    I wonder if the “purity” thing is another form of that odious nostalgia for the good old days when women cooked from scratch, did all the cleaning by hand, and generally kept to their proper place?

    That’s my hunch as well. But I’m from a family where my grandpa bouht my grandma a good sewing machine on credit so her life would be easier. Same was true for all the other labour intensive parts of housework. I guess that spolied me.

  113. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    The best camera is the one you have with you is what I’ve been told.

  114. jojo says

    Giliell

    Do you choose your fabrics, colours, etc. yourself?

    Yes, I do pick and arrange my own fabrics. But even that touches on a controversy in the Modern quilt movement. Most quilting fabrics come out as a line of coordinated fabrics by one designer. Some people even complain about those of us who chose to use a single line instead of mixing and matching various fabrics from different lines. It doesn’t bother me, I just make what I want for the people I care about. But some people get pretty worked up about trying to control other peoples choices.

  115. llyris says

    @ Morgan # 126

    A few years ago we got in a terrible tiff because I simply stated that Art (capital A) is about ideas, and Illustration is about painting pretty pictures.

    My art teacher at high school said that good art ought to elicit an emotional response. I disagree that art has to be about ideas. I think it often is, but from my own experience it is sometimes (often) about expressing emotions that you cannot express in words. I’m not surprised that your friend is offended; you are making a judgement about his emotional investment in his work, and you might be wrong. Of course you might be right, and he might be offended because he is a pretentious windbag.
    What I mean is that there is no clear “idea” behind a picture of a sunset, for instance, but it may still be considered “Art” and people may feel an emotional connection to it.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Streeton#/media/File:Arthur_Streeton_-_%27Still_glides_the_stream,_and_shall_for_ever_glide%27_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) Arthur Streeton – considered one of Australia’s more famous artists. I feel emotions when I look at it, but not clear, obvious ones. Maybe a longing for warmer weather and a wanderlust.
    (http://nga.gov.au/nolan/) Sidney Nolan – Also a famous artist, but not one I want in my lounge room. While this shows more clear ideas I find it personally less emotional than the Streeton above, just a bit unsettling.
    (https://writingthegirl.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/napalm.jpg) – Picture of Vietnamese children fleeing napalm. Is it art? Or is this called “journalism”?

  116. Rob Grigjanis says

    llyris @146:

    My art teacher at high school said that good art ought to elicit an emotional response.

    That approximates my own use of the word, although I never assume that’s how other people use it. Very roughly – Craft : Art :: Hmm : Wow. Very subjective.

    I disagree that art has to be about ideas. I think it often is, but from my own experience it is sometimes (often) about expressing emotions that you cannot express in words.

    Well, not the everyday combinations of words, maybe. And the line between ideas and emotions is often blurry. These lines from Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” have stuck with me for decades;

    Waking alone
    At the hour when we are
    Trembling with tenderness
    Lips that would kiss
    Form prayers to broken stone.

    Idea/emotion stew!

  117. Tethys says

    Idea/emotion stew!

    Indeed. :) Perhaps the reason it is so impossible to draw many meaningful distinctions about what qualifies as art is that most art is non-verbal. I can feel the same sense of appreciation for well done dance or acting as I do with poetry, or any of the visual arts.

  118. says

    jojo
    I think quilting is very different here in Germany. Not because of quilting, but because of attitudes. I guess that might come from the fact that it only became popular here long after the advent of sewing machines. OTOH, given it’S history, I find “getting upset because people choose their own fabric” quite hilarious.

  119. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    @ Hyrax #99

    Pretty much all I read is historical fiction and fantasy. Temeraire sounds right up my street :) thanks.

  120. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    @ Morgan #126

    I think art is creating something in an attempt to communicate ideas, concepts and emotions in an indirect way (i.e. not just sitting down and explaining it in as linear and concise a way as possible), regardless of the medium. Paintings, music, writing, textiles, poetry… they all fit this definition, I think. Generally speaking, artists don’t just try to create something beautiful for the sake of beauty, but even if they do, surely that just counts as an attempt to communicate beauty?

    Craft is creating as a hobby, without necessarily attempting to communicate anything. The creation is the end; the point of building a model plane is to build a model plane.

    I think. Both are nebulous concepts at best.

  121. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    @ Ilyris

    My art teacher at high school said that good art ought to elicit an emotional response.

    Yes! Art attempts to communicate emotion and concepts. Good art achieves that.

    I think I’d have liked your art teacher. I distinctly remember my GCSE Art teacher expressing disapproval for a series of anti-BNP pieces I did, because “Art shouldn’t be political”. Which I think may be one of the most ridiculous things anyone has ever said to me.

  122. says

    Morgan @ 132:

    The point is his reference to Art, capital A: Art that will survive due to some inherent quality. Does Art with a capital A survive because it elicits some emotional/intellectual/physical response from humans which transcends current culture? Does it illuminate a genre or culture in a way that resonates?

    Oh boy. I disagree with all of this, and as far as your friend is concerned, I have to come down on his side. There are plenty of people who would refuse to call me an artist, although they could perhaps grudgingly condescend to calling me a textile artist, placing me in a lower subcategory of ‘artist’. I’m an amateur photographer, and there are people who would refuse to even consider my photography, but if I mention to said people something like “I took first place in a photo competition in London”, their attitude changes immediately – it’s one reason I don’t trust people in the art world. As I mentioned upthread, I avoid the art world as much as possible, because it is stuffed full of pretentious, obnoxious assholes, all of whom ooze their poisonous attitudes onto everyone and everything.

    Capital A art is not about beauty, or feeling, or any inherent quality. It’s about money. Frinst., see Arthena. That’s what it’s about, and it’s people with money who decide what constitutes great art, fine art, or collectible art. And yes, there are works of great beauty and feeling in museums all over the world, but it’s good to keep in mind that the majority of people on the planet are never going to see even a fraction of such art. It’s as well to remember that works which are considered classic today were generally subjected to intense criticism at the time they were done, and many styles were disliked and treated with disdain. The majority of artists are never going to be catapulted into the moneyed world of Capital A art, either, however, that doesn’t mean they are not artists. Most artists are fucking thrilled to find themselves in a situation where they can gain clients and actually bring in cash on a somewhat regular basis. Artists feel driven to create, and you need to do what ever you can to keep a roof over your head and to be able to continue to create.

  123. says

    I’m in a quandary. I lucked into some vintage supplies, and while a part of me is screaming to stash and keep them, another part is wanting to use a lot of this on the Tree Quilt I’m currently working on. If I do decide to use it, should that be mentioned upon sale, and should the price adjust up for having used it?

  124. chigau (違う) says

    Caine
    I think you should use it.
    Unless you’re thinking of a specific other project.

    I haven’t a clue about pricing.
    How do you artists (generic ‘you’, anyone can answer) usually decide what to charge?

  125. says

    Caine, if the threads are the best colors for your quilt, you should use them, that’s what they’re for. Maybe add a note that they are vintage threads and should be treated carefully? I don’t know from pricing, though.

    I am all too familiar with the urge to hoard in case I never see its like again – I do the same with beads and Japanese washi paper, not to mention vintage bits of this and that.

  126. consciousness razor says

    Thumper:

    I think art is creating something in an attempt to communicate ideas, concepts and emotions in an indirect way (i.e. not just sitting down and explaining it in as linear and concise a way as possible), regardless of the medium. Paintings, music, writing, textiles, poetry… they all fit this definition, I think.

    Except that they don’t all do that. Maybe you aren’t aware of these works that aren’t “an attempt to communicate ideas, concepts and emotions in an indirect way” but they do exist, which means in fact they don’t all fit your definition.

    Generally speaking, artists don’t just try to create something beautiful for the sake of beauty, but even if they do, surely that just counts as an attempt to communicate beauty?

    Is that a question or a claim? What do you have in your mind that such an artist is doing? What would it be if they’re not attempting to “communicate beauty,” whatever that means?

    They can simply create something, which you can then simply experience. If it’s ugly to you, that’s an experience you could have, and if something about it is beautiful to you, that’s also an experience you can have. That depends on you and how you think. But I don’t understand how you concluded something is being communicated. The artist may think they’ve made something ugly, and you haven’t gotten their “communication” (because there is no communication), so you think it’s beautiful. That lack of communication wouldn’t force us to conclude the thing isn’t a work of art. However your experiences turns out, it is something a person made, so it is a work of art. It’s artificial, required artistry, and so forth.

    People were even saying such “ambiguity” (or subjectivity) was somehow necessary, to exclude things which don’t count as art, such that it would not be the case for a work of art that some unambiguous thing is being communicated somehow from one person or another (so it isn’t just a subjective feature of your own mind). So that’s either inconsistent or we’re changing the subject here. Does this communication happen, how does this communication happen, and what if it doesn’t happen?

    And some say what’s important (what’s valuable) for art, as distinct from non-art, is something intrinsic to the work. That’s an interesting idea. But it turns out that what some of them actually had in mind were extrinsic things about how it relates to something else, not features of the thing itself. Again, there’s an inconsistency, maybe confusion about what some of these terms mean, how they can be applied in the analysis, or something like that.

    I don’t see any need for this stuff. Why are we trying to “raise” art on a pedestal, give it some special sauce that “crafts” don’t have, or whatever this is about? It’s just a human activity like anything else, which is great and useful and not something we should dismiss or disparage. But it can happen a lot of different ways for different reasons, which maybe you’re not familiar with or that you don’t like very much but which in fact are artistic. It doesn’t need to meet criteria like it “communicates ideas, concepts and emotions.” Those seem like sort of intuitive assumptions to make as a first pass, I guess, but we don’t have any good reason to insist on that, to exclude or erase certain things because of those assumptions. They might turn out to be the wrong kind of assumptions.

    You can clearly explain why you have ideas, emotions, etc., about art or anything else, but you want to be careful not to put those in the wrong place. If you’re able to say there’s such a thing as bad art, art you don’t understand, art that doesn’t work the way you assume it should work, art that isn’t made for the reasons you want it to be made, etc., then you have to leave these sorts of hidden evaluations out of the picture, so you can state clearly and factually what general thing it is that you’re talking about.

  127. says

    Chigau:

    I think you should use it.
    Unless you’re thinking of a specific other project.

    Well, I decided that the next quilt will be the 1941 Laura Wheeler Peacock I lucked into, and I could use a fair amount of the vintage thread in that as well as in the current quilt. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I will probably use several of the browns on the tree quilt, they are too pretty not to use.

    How do you artists (generic ‘you’, anyone can answer) usually decide what to charge?

    For me, depends on the labour involved, but that still usually comes out to 1 to 2 bucks an hour.

  128. says

    Anne:

    Caine, if the threads are the best colors for your quilt, you should use them, that’s what they’re for. Maybe add a note that they are vintage threads and should be treated carefully?

    Yes, and yes. I have to fight off that miser in my head, though!

  129. says

    CR:

    And some say what’s important (what’s valuable) for art, as distinct from non-art, is something intrinsic to the work. That’s an interesting idea. But it turns out that what some of them actually had in mind were extrinsic things about how it relates to something else, not features of the thing itself.

    Attitudes and ideas about Art change greatly from one century to the next. There was a time when most artists could be employed as a portraitist, because portraits were the photographs of that era. The idea wasn’t great Art so much as it was people wanting a record of themselves, their families, and sometimes, certain events they were involved in (or that an ancestor was involved in).

    If humans are still around in four or five centuries, could anyone say with certainty what they’d consider to be Great Art?

  130. carlie says

    If I do decide to use it, should that be mentioned upon sale, and should the price adjust up for having used it?

    Yes and Yes and Yes, presuming that it doesn’t price the quilt out of the range of its market.

    As for using such nice things instead of keeping them, there’s a youtube artist I really like, Yanghaiying. She has a video that I keep marked for such encouragement, here. Pertinent bit: “Treat ourself with respect. All these inks – if you have, use them. Do not save them. Their life is in using. Look at these beautiful inks. I have bought them one year or so, I have never used it, because I just feel maybe I don’t deserve it, or maybe I should save it. But why should I do so? Why should I not use it immediately? Use it. Use it! Use the best thing and enjoy the thing that you deserve.”

  131. consciousness razor says

    Attitudes and ideas about Art change greatly from one century to the next.

    Indeed, some of what I’ve got in mind is the uproar over abstract or nonrepresentational art, ever since the turn of the 20th century. People thought painters should (or must, somehow) paint pictures of objects in the world. You need a person in it, or a still life, a landscape, etc., even if it’s a portrayal of a mythological figure in an imaginary scene (or a statue of Zeus, for example). And well before any of that became an issue because artists were making things that didn’t fit that mold, the idea was very well entrenched that it’s always an “imitation” of reality in some sense. Arts like pottery, weaving, etc., were apparently left out of consideration, but it’s not obvious what they were even thinking or why they were drawing these lines in the sand.

    Anyway, it’s a funny historical fact about a narrowly-selected group of visual arts, literature, drama — but for music generally, it seems like that was obviously unnecessary a very long time ago. It didn’t have to be representing some other stuff or about some other stuff. It’s actually very difficult to even try that, given its limitations as a medium, as I was saying before, if that’s something you wanted to do in the first place, which you may not want to do. The most general thing you can say is that it’s just a thing you listen to, which doesn’t need to be about some other thing that you could also have an experience of by listening to that.

  132. says

    I have been thinking about art and symbolism a lot lately and I have a perspective on it that I wonder if anyone else thinks about. It has to do with how writing manifests as art. My interest has to do with how my Tourette’s Syndrome manifests in my writing, but I think the general category is “things in your head/emotions that make you feel like you have to do things in writing with pattern and presentation”.

    My writing, like it is for many (most?), is in a lot of ways a struggle to find places where the things I feel are connected to society. I have some elements that I can articulate, below is an example where social OCD meets Tourette’s Syndrome. There are other things that pull on my language, but I don’t yet know how to articulate how that plays into how I interact with symbolism (my sensitivity to conceptual/symbolic polarities like right/left and east/west for example, TS is weirdly specific like that).

    It’s a strange thing for me to want to bring up because growing up I did not connect with writing as an art form beyond things like sci-fi and fantasy literature (comic books count but not quite in the way I’m thinking about this connection, but I do think about iconography, “picture/word-stories” and even “image macros” which often simply get called “memes”). Maybe the fundamentalist, religious upbringing had something to do with that. Poetry never connected with me, but that is the category that most closely connects with the sorts of things I have as examples when I think about it (feels a little hypocritical somehow). Creativity in text symbols at a strangely “basic level” (if that is even a distinction that is generalizable here).

    So I’m wondering about what people here do when it comes to how you might pattern and present your writing? I’m open to neurotypical and neuroatypical perspectives, the neuroatypical is just how I’m connected right now.

    Example: typing as my “demon”.
    I worry a lot about biases I might have and how they might affect (and effect) other people and I started writing in two stylistically distinct voices to express different ways that I relate to the subject matter. One is meant to be “me” as I might talk to people “normally and casually” (which is complicated all by itself at a general human level). It appears as white, left justified text on a black background.

    The other is my “demon” which started as a means of simply expressing my personal emotional impressions of and connections to the things I was talking about. It appears as red, center justified text in brackets on the same black background. It’s a thing that is evolving in terms of what it was intended to be and what it is and what it might be. (I think some of the modifications were unconscious attempts to accommodate the color blind).

    The original idea for the “demon” is a kind of honest, personal, intense, simplified, emotional commentary based on personal experience. It was a way of separating a “forest view”, more objective description that could be as applicable to everyone as possible, from my personal emotional experience of the subject matter. If I learn to do that right it shows people where I stand with respect to the material and is honest about how I might be biased so someone can ask questions if they want or need to. It is also a convenient means of making me take the idea of my own bias seriously since it is practicing mental separation of kinds of emotional content (I’m not pretending that the “me” is unemotional, it’s differently emotional and I’m trying to understand the difference for myself).

    But I can’t pretend it is going to stay that way and I’ve been wondering about what else I’m connecting to it. It is an emotional focus for Tourette’s related emotions. I also can’t and don’t pretend that the “me” is “me” or objective, unemotional… it’s differently emotional and I’m trying to understand the difference for myself as this progresses. Does anyone experience anything like this?

    *I’m also doing trying to do something with modeling brain anatomy in plastic, colored wire and beads that is meant to accurately depict how the brain functionally computes, but I’m a little lacking in motivation on that at the moment. It’s also another post and I want to see what people are doing with crafts above.

  133. gobi's sockpuppet's meatpuppet says

    Going back to earlier comments about atheism in art:
    I wonder if atheism is harder in the visual arts because it is difficult to represent the absence of something? There is a lot of art about the effects of religion, but I dont think using religious imagery in that context is purely atheist art… as such.

    As for music, Gary Numan (remember him from the 80’s? …anyone…?) reinvented himself around the year 2000. His music became louder, more industrial, aggressive and bluntly atheist. If you like Nine Inch Nails you will know the style ( it is pretty apparent they have been inspiring each other over the years ) Two CDs, Pure and Jagged, are almost completely devoted to the subject… and very angry too. His latest, Splinter, touches on atheism, and the effects of depression.

    I haven’t come across another musician with such a large body of work focusing on the impact of religion from an atheist viewpoint. Or at least, in such a demonstrative way…

    …and… thank you Caine for curating this thread! It is really nice to read you here again.

  134. says

    I haven’t a clue about pricing.
    How do you artists (generic ‘you’, anyone can answer) usually decide what to charge?

    I don’t. As I mentioned before, it’S one reason I didn’t turn my passion into my profession. With the dismissal of “craft”, people are usually not willing to pay. Take those hats I made: Even if I work quickly, it takes about 2 hours to make one, from cutting out the pieces to finishing the last seam. That is without adding any fancy embroidery or communicating with a potential client about what they want. If i were an employee, the minimum wage would be 8,50€ plus benefits. If I wanted to earn at least minimum wage, which is NOT enough to get you permanently over the poverty line, I’d have to charge at least 20 bucks for a hat. Now, funny enough people are willing to pay that much for a sweat-shop made product of mass consumption it it has a fancy label, but not for a custom made unique item.
    So I decided to get that college degree and get a job that pays the bills and simply give away things.

    Attitudes and ideas about Art change greatly from one century to the next.

    Word. Originally painters were NOT considered artists, nor were the masons and glas blowers who created the amazing windows of gothic cathedrals. that’s why I mentioned upthread that currently the line is neatly draw around the traditional domain of white men.

    BTW I’m of the opinion that you cannot NOT communicate, so every thing you create says something about you. IT’s just that it’S not always the deep trandescending meaning people ascribe to certain items. It may be as banal as your preference of blue, or your passion to crochet.

    caine
    I’m with carlie. Use the things. i once saw a documentary about a woman who had inherited a box of hand-made lace from her grandmother. But she wasn’t into sewing or lace making. She was a goldsmith. So she created a process by which she could “stamp” the lace into silver rings and bracelets. But the lace is destroyed in the process. MY first reaction was no-no-no-noooooooo, the laaaaaaaace!, but then I realised that she used something that was no good to her sitting in a box and turned it into something stunning.

  135. says

    CR @ 162:

    Indeed, some of what I’ve got in mind is the uproar over abstract or nonrepresentational art, ever since the turn of the 20th century.

    Oh yes. Nordau’s Degeneration came out in 1892, and he had a whole lot to say about degenerate art, and of course the classification of degenerate art was greatly enlarged, and saw the destruction of many works.

  136. says

    Gobi’s @ 164:

    …and… thank you Caine for curating this thread! It is really nice to read you here again.

    Aww, thanks. It’s good to read you again!

  137. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    This is tangential to the topic as I understand it, but as music is an art form that is included in this thread by Caine’s definition, this is the only place I know to put out an idea and see if it has merit.

    What about a Discuss: Making Music forum?

    In particular, what about all that talk of a Pharyngula house band? What if each thread was free-form-ish, but also had as its focus the creation of a new piece of music?

    The curator picks a few things like a key and a time signature and a lyrical topic, then others record themselves playing suggested themes/melodies. Maybe multiple people make attempts at writing lyrics or maybe the lyrics are picked in advance by the curator to help things hang together, (e.g. “This effort will put the e e cummings poem, ‘next to of course god america i’ to music in the key or keys of E / Cm”). The curator or another volunteer pieces together tracks – some of which might only be a few bars long, if one of our musicians wants to throw some clarinet in the bridge or provide some extra percussion before the song gets going, etc. At the end, we have an honest to goodness new piece of music created by the Horde.

    This provides the touchstone to come back to the thread, but while you’re there you can of course talk about anything music-related you like.

    Does this have merit?

    Does anyone really want a Pharyngula house bad to produce real music?

    Inquiring minds want to know.

    If it was successful, it might reduce the scope of Caine’s space just a bit, but I think it would add something really unique. I would love to feel more connected to the people here, and I remember the sense of accomplishment in creating Crystal Clear Consent together.

    What if we regularly created new art together? Wouldn’t that foster the positive, loving community that has characterized Pharyngula at its best?

    I don’t have ideas about how to do this with visual art forms, but we have some awesomely talented writers here. I could see something similar done with fiction: A curator posts the new thread’s theme/central idea. We brainstorm a plot-outline together. Different people write up character sketches and throw them into the mix. Volunteers take certain sections of the outline, using but not limited-to-using characters sketched. The story is pieced together as a quilt. Suggestions are made on how to improve connection and flow between the various parts. These are incorporated to varying degrees according to the amount of consensus, but with a serious effort made to preserve at least some of the original language of each of our volunteer writers and **always** preserving some of the ideas, emotions, character development and plot development of each writer. Finally one or a few editors are chosen from among those folks willing to volunteer. Ta Da! There’s an actual short story or novella produced.

    Along the way, people can talk about the craft of writing and the business of writing, etc. Of course, we can also discuss things that would otherwise be in Caine’s bailiwick (“I just read this new book and it’s terrible/great/mediocre”) but the focus would be on writing – I see more relevance in topics like how to get an agent and when working with pencil serves creativity better than working with a keyboard, and vice versa, &c.

    Caine could also curate these, or they could be one-offs (The next Discuss:Art could have an additional Making Music theme, etc.) but if people think that these are ideas worth pursuing and Caine is supportive, I’d be willing to curate either the Making Music or the Writing threads, or both.

  138. says

    CD, as I said upthread, I’m not up enough on music (or knowledgeable enough) to bring up good discussion, provide links and all that.* If someone wants to take up curating music news, reviews, and general chat in this thread, great, please do it. Otherwise, you need to put your proposal here, then directly to PZ.

    My time is limited, so I’m only willing to curate this thread. I do think that writing and composing could happily fill up a specific thread, and I’m fine with that being separate, as there would still be considerable intersectionality.
     
    *I did recently discover Geoffrey Oryema, decades after everyone else, of course. Enjoy his work greatly.

  139. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    CD @170,
    I think group authorship of a piece of music or prose is an excellent idea and could be grand fun, although whomever takes on the curating of such projects would have their work cut out for them. I vaguely recall there was a novel some years ago authored by a group of published novelists which was hilarious and actually got published, I think. Need to look this up.

    I unfortunately have zero musical skill or knowledge. The clarinet lessons of my youth were for naught. I would be pleased to contribute to a prose effort, but curating is a thing a don’t have time for, or enough skill for, truth be told. We could call it “The Perils of Social Justice, or, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Democracy. Just a thought.

  140. says

    I’m still thinking about Nordau. He, along with many others, was distressed by Fin de siècle, and even more distressed that art was becoming accessible to the rabble. There was a pervasive fear of Art escaping a rarefied sphere of rigid definition, and I think many of those fears, ideas, and attitudes were bequeathed to consequent generations, which leaves all of us with rather befuddled notions when it comes to art.

  141. says

    I have thoughts on the “what is art” question.

    It’s at least 500,000 years old, unless one counts things like the symbolic value of a predator scratching on a tree (maybe proto art?).

    When I think of art I think of a created thing or work that is symbolically invested with the artist’s emotional meaning. That can be simple meaning, complex meaning, shallow meaning, deep meaning, personal meaning, social meaning, specific meaning, vague or general meaning, positive meaning, negative meaning… It’s amazing to me how otherwise arbitrary arrangements of lines, patterns, colors, actions, sound and more can be communication and meaning.

    This does not require an audience. Art is often simply for the artist’s purging emotions related to something (or other personal meaning). Many don’t understand (no implications on any specific people) just how intimately our bodies are parts of how our minds function. Emotions are in many respects felt representations of anatomy. When I think about how the meat computer does it I want to appeal to synesthesia to understand how emotions and senses can mix.
    Creating invests that effort with the emotions related to the symbolism and it can help someone to understand how they feel about what they are emotional about.Expressive writing is the simpler example. But any sort medium that accesses any of the senses can work based on what is meaningful to the artist and their intentions.

    Individuals and cultures will become attached to particular kinds of art that let them express their culture and values. So people often become protective of how that art is expressed. This is not a straightforward thing because that art is often important for a group of people that need it’s symbolic value. If a culture’s art is used to harm another group I have less sympathy. If a culture is a dominant and powerful one I have less sympathy. Art is how we do sociopolitical communication and even conflict.

    I’m sure it’s lots of other things I did not think of as well.

  142. says

    I like art collaboration! Though I’ve never done it over the internet before, nor in a very large group. Also, I’ve thought about starting something around where I live, and wondered if there’s a potential community benefit in that idea.

  143. says

    Giliell @ 165:

    Originally painters were NOT considered artists, nor were the masons and glas blowers who created the amazing windows of gothic cathedrals.

    Yep, painters were painters, not artists. Long ago, I self-identified as a painter, but gave it up after people would always ask “art or house?”

    Books: Birger, thanks for the recommend on The Killer of Little Shepherds, it’s a fascinating read. I’m a bit surprised by interest and excitement in the Eyraud / Bompard affair, especially the ongoing fascination with Bompard, with a recent book published, Little Demon in the City of Light.

  144. says

    Okay, apparently including one link gets me eated. The blog is Diana Trout’s Blog, the post is her most recent, Practice Art: A Coup. It’s interesting thoughts on the practice and nature of art from the viewpoint of an art journaler. Google it, I think it’s worth a read.

  145. says

    Anne @ 178:

    A commenter had this line in their comment: If it’s not going into a museum, it’s not art. That was a bit of smack, because I’ve heard that many times, only in the “your work should be in a museum!” way. It’s meant to be a compliment, I know, but in the end, it’s demeaning. Some of my work, I’ve wanted it to have a wide audience, some of it, not so much. I think most artists have pieces that were done just because they had to be done, it’s a necessary self expression. A lot of times, a piece is the result of experimentation.

    I’m not familiar with the term or idea of practice art,* so I’ll have to look into that a bit more, before I say too much and make an ass outta myself, but I will say that it seems there are, once again, people who are struggling to find a place for themselves under the contentious label of “artist”.
     
    *Now I’m wondering how this relates to experimental art…

  146. jojo says

    On the topic of determining a price for your work. I’ve done the same thing as Giiell, I work full time, do my craft in my free time, and give away my quilts. I’d rather give them away then sell them for less then they are worth.

    Twin sized hand quilted quilt pricing:
    Quilt shop quality fabric, batting, thread and other materials- $250
    Labor for piecing and hand quilting – 135 hours * $7.25 (minimum wage) = $979
    Total = $1,229

    Working 40 hours a week, I could make 15 quilts a year for a total of $18,435 a year. And I don’t think I could find 15 people willing to pay that much for one of my quilts. Not a realistic business model.

  147. says

    Caine, sorry about that. When I recommended the post, there weren’t any comments yet. That one is way off, and, I think, the opposite of what Diana intended. I’ll go take another look.

  148. says

    Oh, I see. She’s quoting what people say to her about her art, and I think disagreeing with them that it’s only art if it goes in a museum. At least I think so.

    What about costume museums? If things that were made to be worn end up in a museum, does that make them art instead of apparel? Gah, my brain hurts.

    I’m thinking that “art” is pretty much what we say it is – weapons and boats and baskets and dishes can all be considered as art, I’ve seen them at the Bowers Art Museum, and those are all utilitarian things. Perhaps it’s the level of expertise?

  149. Tethys says

    I’ve been trying to locate a particular article about how to price pieces, without much success. It is by an Etsy seller who primarily does knit and crochet hats, and her experiences with the psychology of pricing. When she started she was pricing her hats in the $ 20 range, and she had some sales. After figuring out that using a conventional pricing formula resulted in her making less than minimum wage she raised her prices into the $30 range, and saw a modest increase in sales. Then she investigated the psychology of advertising and decided that paying herself a profit for her hand made highly skilled labor was likely to increase her sales. She now sells her hats in the $45 and up price point, depending on size and materials, and sales exploded. Hand made goods should not be sold for the same price as a mass produced factory product. Luxury goods are expected to have luxury price tags, if the person wanted a cheap mass produced hat they would be shopping elsewhere. Champagne costs more than beer, and the greater expense is actually part of why the buyer wants it in the first place.

  150. says

    Tethys @ 187, yeah, I can confirm the psychology aspect of buyers. People resent buying art of any kind, but if they are going to buy it, they want it to be very expensive, exclusive, doncha know?

  151. says

    Anne @ 186:

    I’m thinking that “art” is pretty much what we say it is

    Yep, I think so. I was thinking about Art Practice yesterday, being a practitioner of art, and I rather like that. Art without the pressure.

  152. says

    More Stuff:

    The Brave New World of Art PR.

    Fuss over colouring books: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/experts-warn-adult-coloring-books-not-art-therapy-323506

    Ferguson art and activism: http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ferguson-artists-blur-boundaries-between-activism-and-art

    Nona Faustine’s White Shoes Series, beautiful and powerful: http://blackgirllonghair.com/2015/07/black-woman-artist-poses-nude-at-former-new-york-slave-trade-sites-including-wall-street-and-city-hall/

    As for the white shoes in Faustine’s photography, they represent “the white patriarchy that we cannot escape.”

  153. says

    Anne brought up an excellent point about dead trees – they are very important ecologically. I won’t cut down dead trees on my property unless it’s absolutely necessary, and years ago, we started piling up any deadfall, so that we now have a very large thicket, home to a variety of wildlife. Those of us who spend time watching birds know the importance of dead trees, as a food source, shelter, and nesting, especially for cavity nesters. Dead trees are also hosts to a variety of life.

    I think I’ll have to spend some time on a dead tree photo essay this year, not only to highlight the beauty of dead trees,* but their importance as well.
     
    *I think if people would look at dead trees as sculpture, there wouldn’t be so many people insistent on cutting them down and clearing deadfall.

  154. says

    Theophontes @ 196:

    Thank you, thank you! I’ve adored Nina Paley for ages – I still have some of her Xmas Resistance stickers.

  155. gobi's sockpuppet's meatpuppet says

    @Caine 169
    I am still *trying* to draw but work has been getting in the way a bit. Mind you, I am not complaining – having work is a good thing.
    Need to work out this life/work balance thing…
    Also… Commenting is a little difficult due to that whole time zone thing – curse you celestial mechanics! Will try harder!

  156. says

    Anne @ 206:

    We took photos of natural objects and converted them into embroidery designs.

    https://anne-d.dreamwidth.org/107643.html

    That is absolutely gorgeous, Anne! I particularly like the Jacaranda pods, so pleasing, those. All the different patterns I see when I’m out and about leave me dazzled and wanting to do a thousand things or more.

    John @ 207:

    Beautiful stuff, there, John, thanks for sharing! Reminds me that Corvus Tristis has some lovely patterns based on viruses – they are much prettier than one would think.

  157. says

    Brian @ 208:

    Caine I like your idea of dead trees being like sculptures, and I like your tree photos. :)

    Thanks, Brian! I’m going to have to make time to travel gravel and get shots of whole dead trees before winter hits, and they all look dead.

  158. Ice Swimmer says

    Caine @ 212

    Wonderfull sunflower photos. The bulging inflorescences have a human-face-like quality.

  159. says

    Ice Swimmer @ 213:

    The bulging inflorescences have a human-face-like quality.

    Yes, they do. It’s one of my fascinations with them, that in near to endless fields, they look different from one another, just like us. So, I got no work done at all today, but it was a day well spent. :D What have you been up to lately?

  160. Ice Swimmer says

    Caine:

    I’ve been learning Python rather intensively by doing an app for Raspberry Pi and simple home-made hardware for the last few weeks with the idea of improving my job prospects. I hope I’ll finish the thing soon and can get back to making music. Before the coding run, I mainly spent time with music, building a piece of furniture (which turned out ok despite the fact that I’m not very good with my hands and don’t have all that many tools) and settling in to my new place, a flat near a university campus.

    The RasPi thing does get somewhat artistic. I’m building the system in an wooden cigar box.

  161. Ice Swimmer says

    Hit send a bit too early…

    I plan on decorating the box when the system is done with stylized starlings or such.

  162. says

    Nomad Shamira Muhammad aims to launch illustrated novel and travel web magazine:

    The Ma’Ati is a novel and travel web-magazine hybrid inspired by the legend of a magical nation of nomads. Founding editor Shamira Muhammad created the Ma’Ati nation out of her desire to see the soul of exploration personified.

    Muhammad says, “After living and traveling overseas for the past six years, I struggled to find a travel website that fit the needs of quirky, cool, urban travelers of color. As a self-professed nerd, I also wanted to read an illustrated book that would allow me to travel around the world one chapter at a time through magical, strong black and brown characters.”

    Here’s the plan: “Each month, a new chapter of the Ma’Ati story is illustrated and published online, all written in, set and featuring a new global destination.” This work will be paired with the travel magazine that will “[highlight] must see locations for the month’s featured destination, plus interviews with amazing global artists, beautiful visuals and inspiring style inspirations. At the end of each year, the Ma’Ati will publish a completed novel compiled of all the adventures we were able to experience and imagine.”

    So far, Muhammad has written six chapters of the book in Washington, D.C.; Alabama; New Orleans; Jamaica; and Cuba. Muhammad doesn’t do all the work on her own. The crew involved in creating the Ma’Ati include Jamaican artists Taj Francis and Paul Davey.

    Here is the Ma’Ati site. There are some amazing images there.

    A Kickstarter campaign to fund the Ma’Ati project reached its goal of $10K.

    The Ma’Ati Magazine is a digital, global storytelling experience unlike any other. It is a hybrid platform, one-part novel and one-part travel webzine, all inspired by and told through the lens of a legendary nation of magical nomads.

    The Ma’Ati means “two truths” and these people were known as the traveling youth. This had little to do with their age and everything to do with their hunger for stories, their zest for new experiences and their belief in magic. Because there was once a time when a nation existed whose only trade lay in the stories they collected and told. These demigods had been sent to Earth as protectors of mankind after saving humanity from the wrath of their uncle, Chaos. You can read their ‘Origins’ story here.

    Unfortunately, the jealousy of some world rulers caught up to the Ma’Ati a few centuries ago, forcing nearly the entire nation to flee for their lives. But the Ma’Ati name continues to be used on Earth as a term that extends to that part in all of us that yearns for places we have yet to see and friends we have yet to meet.

    After living in Paris, France as a freelance journalist for nearly two years, and being a nomad for several more, I had a growing list of friends asking me for website recommendations that could help them plan trips overseas. They wanted to know the best clubs to go to around the world. They wanted to know where the cool, weird kids hung out. They wanted to see local art. They wanted food that looked straight out of Pinterest. And most importantly, they wanted to know which places were “people of color” friendly.

    What I found was that there was no one website for all that. Travel sites were either too boring, too homogenous or too focused on tourism and not authentic, local experiences. It was frustrating.

    So I decided to create something that I would want to read and see: one publication composed of two parts. An ongoing, illustrated book series and a cool, little travel webzine.

    First, there is the novel, The Ma’Ati. It will live on themaati.com and will feature a portion of the first book of an epic series free of charge. Each month, a new chapter of the Ma’Ati story will be illustrated and published online, featuring a new global destination.

    The plot of the story follows Shamira, a character based loosely off myself. She is a young American woman in the throes of a quarter-life crisis who stumbles onto clues of her family’s mysterious heritage. Shamira quickly embarks on an adventure around the world that finds her retracing the footsteps of her ancestors and challenging how far she might go to unveil the fate of a nation.

    Why did I make myself into a character? Because I know everyone can’t afford to travel, for both monetary and personal reasons. So what better way to bring the world to everyone on the internet than through a story?

    I have decided to use real events from my own trips to write the scenes and create the characters in my story. Because of this, each chapter in the Ma’Ati series requires me to travel to a new destination and document my experiences. I have already drafted the plot and the locations for two books and the overall story arch for years to come. But the intricate details of each chapter are and will be informed by my current and future travels to different cities, towns, and secret hideaways around the world.

    Apologies if this is doesn’t fit the theme of this thread. I figured that since it was heavily art oriented that it was applicable.

  163. says

    Anne
    Your embroidery is gorgeous

    Caine @202
    I don’t expect artists to give me anything for free, but I’m very grateful if they do.
    BTW, if you’d like to turn them into hand embroidery, you could get Wilcom TruSizer (that’s free) and print them out (I don’t remember if the Tru Sizer also has a “convert into JPG function)

    +++
    Book tip:
    Harry Connolly, The Great Way Trilogy.

    I got it via the Kickstarter HUmble BUndle and was pleasantly surprised. I admit that I have more or less sworn off “mediavalist fantasy written by white dudes” because, well, you know why. But I didn’t mind getting a big bunch of books for cheap especially since there were some I’d definitely buy, so I though “why not”.
    Yep, your usual sword and sorcery BUT, he has believable female characters who take up much of the story and have internal lives. And some of them are even not white. And even the archetypal warrior hero has development and insight and stuff. So if you’re looking for some fun summer reading where you don’t have to grind your teeth too much, I really recommend it.

  164. Owlmirror says

    How embarrassing – I just looked up and saw that multiple comments had already referenced Nina Paley’s work. Sorry about that.

  165. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Nina Paley is currently working on an animated film called sedermasochism
    I love her sense of humor and how she applies/uses music. She is posting bits as they are completed.

  166. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @Morgan!?, #224:

    sedermasochism is a good but old joke. May more people get the word through Paley.

  167. says

  168. Owlmirror says

    Browsing through Nina Paley’s pages, I found a new joke: Passover Satyr. Because mishearing and puns. And probably old misunderstandings of Moses having horns (and perhaps all Jews as well? I recently read a comic about Harry Houdini, who joked with the policemen checking him for lockpicks when he was about to perform an escape from jumping in the a river (I think the Charles, in Boston) about checking his head for horns).

  169. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    CD @225,

    Yes, I know the old joke, I married into a Jewish family. I even have Paley’s Passover Satyr tee shirt and threatened to wear it to one of those seder dinners. I did discover that although there is no such thing as Jewish haute cuisine, I do like gefilte fish with red horseradish. Go figure. Matzo balls… not so much.

  170. roachiesmom says

    I think I may have missed a couple people I need to comment to, but jumping back in….

    Tethys@187

    I’ve been trying to locate a particular article about how to price pieces, without much success. It is by an Etsy seller who primarily does knit and crochet hats, and her experiences with the psychology of pricing. When she started she was pricing her hats in the $ 20 range, and she had some sales. After figuring out that using a conventional pricing formula resulted in her making less than minimum wage she raised her prices into the $30 range, and saw a modest increase in sales. Then she investigated the psychology of advertising and decided that paying herself a profit for her hand made highly skilled labor was likely to increase her sales. She now sells her hats in the $45 and up price point, depending on size and materials, and sales exploded. Hand made goods should not be sold for the same price as a mass produced factory product. Luxury goods are expected to have luxury price tags, if the person wanted a cheap mass produced hat they would be shopping elsewhere. Champagne costs more than beer, and the greater expense is actually part of why the buyer wants it in the first place.

    Mostly just using this as a jumping off point, but I have problems pricing the critters. I usually go with a dollar for a plain one and $3 for dressed ones. When I was making them all the time (and even now when daughter-spawn commissions me for some to hand out to her clients) I often make them when I am out places — waiting in lines, sitting in fast food places with wifi and free refills. It’s a good way to cope with, well, having to be out places, and this way if people decide to talk to me, they are usually distracted by what I am doing, and blurt out questions I can cope with better instead of insisting on eye contact and inflicting social-scripts on me. But I can’t even count as high as the number of times I’ve been asked in what seems like interested voices “Do you sell these?!” and I give that answer, and I get stuff like “Oh, you expect money for these?” or “Good luck then” or they just walk off no longer as interested.

    Maybe I should price them out the ass, and see what happens? Jeez. Usually for pricing, I try to go with a materials+time@ $5.00 formula.

  171. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    @ Hyrax

    I’ve just started the second book in the Temeraire series. The first one was fucking fantastic, thank you so much for recommending them!

    In return, if you enjoy historical fiction, may I recommend The Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwall? This is pure historical fiction, not alt-history, but it’s my favourite series. It’s brilliantly written and very engaging, and I’ve learned a lot about the formation of England simply by reading it.

  172. says

    Ice Swimmer @ 215:

    I’ve been learning Python rather intensively by doing an app for Raspberry Pi and simple home-made hardware for the last few weeks with the idea of improving my job prospects. I hope I’ll finish the thing soon and can get back to making music. Before the coding run, I mainly spent time with music, building a piece of furniture (which turned out ok despite the fact that I’m not very good with my hands and don’t have all that many tools) and settling in to my new place, a flat near a university campus.

    The RasPi thing does get somewhat artistic. I’m building the system in an wooden cigar box. I plan on decorating the box when the system is done with stylized starlings or such.

    You’ve been very busy! Best of luck with the job prospects, and getting back to music. What kind of furniture? We’ll be venturing into that next week, putting a cutting table together for me. Not exactly our forte. I never used to mind moving, but now the thought of doing so fills me with intense weariness. Oh, I love cigar boxes! I’d like to see that when it’s finished, sounds fabulous, and starlings are a great decorative choice. Starlings are gorgeous, and have been my photographic bane for years, never could get a decent shot of one. Early this year, the starlings and the grackles had a war over the most popular roosting tree, and the grackles won, so I didn’t even get to be frustrated by them this year.

    Brian Pansky @ 217:

    Here’s a painting: Dream Messengers III by FrodoK.

    How beautiful! Thank you for linking those paintings. Dream Messengers reminds me of some of the art in Medieval Bestiaries, there’s a similar line flow. A great many medieval bestiaries have been placed on the ‘net now, which I’m grateful for, not having the chance to ever see them in person. I was looking because I had an idea for a quilt, then got utterly lost in them (as usual), and was quite struck by some of the art work, in particular the backgrounds to animals like panthers or deer. The way that ground and hills were depicted had beautiful flow, colour mix, and unusual colours, too. Dream Messengers also reminded me of birds as psychopomps. FrodoK’s work is great, and I’ll be looking at more of it later on.

    Tony @ 218:

    Here is the Ma’Ati site. There are some amazing images there.

    Oh my, I’ll be spending time there when I’m able, lots to take in there. Thank you!

    Apologies if this is doesn’t fit the theme of this thread. I figured that since it was heavily art oriented that it was applicable.

    This thread is probably as close to a general chat thread as we have here. Art, culture, hobbies, books, movies, and so on, is all well within the fit here, and more. Please, don’t be shy!

    Giliell @ 219:

    Harry Connolly, The Great Way Trilogy.
    I got it via the Kickstarter HUmble BUndle and was pleasantly surprised. I admit that I have more or less sworn off “mediavalist fantasy written by white dudes” because, well, you know why. But I didn’t mind getting a big bunch of books for cheap especially since there were some I’d definitely buy, so I though “why not”.
    Yep, your usual sword and sorcery BUT, he has believable female characters who take up much of the story and have internal lives. And some of them are even not white. And even the archetypal warrior hero has development and insight and stuff. So if you’re looking for some fun summer reading where you don’t have to grind your teeth too much, I really recommend it.

    Oooh, thank you, thank you. I’m in near constant need of book recommends. (Movies too, my netflix queue is pathetic.) I looked up Connolly on my tablet, and was going to buy the first book of the trilogy, when I was entranced by the cover art of one of his other books. (I’m terribly susceptible to cover art, and end up with a fair amount of bad books that way, but I get gems, too.) I also like the title, A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark. The protagonist is an old woman, which I loved, being an old woman myself, so I bought that book first, and I’m enjoying it tremendously! I’ll get the trilogy next, so thank you again.

    Theophontes @ 220:

    Hong Kong from a different angle….

    WOW. That gave me chills, what a wonderful way to see other parts of the world.

  173. says

    RoachiesMom @ 229:

    Maybe I should price them out the ass, and see what happens? Jeez. Usually for pricing, I try to go with a materials+time@ $5.00 formula.

    It won’t hurt to try, because I’ve found that people will ignore artists completely who don’t have a confidence that yes, their work is worth money. It strikes me that you could also market your critters as coping tools for those who have problems with social situations. Might take a bit of thinking and work to do a proper write up, but that would strike a cord with a lot of people, including many parents, I’d think.

    ****
    About Nina Paley – she came to my attention with her movie The Stork.

    ****
    Ibis3 @ 226:

    That exhibit sounds utterly fascinating!

  174. opus says

  175. says

    I’ll be gone for a bit, my wireless unit is brokt, and won’t be replaced until next Tuesday. Have fun, everyone!

  176. Ice Swimmer says

    Caine @ 233

    About the furniture :Nothing fancy, just a large display stand for watching stuff from the sofa (0.84 x.0 .80 x 0.30 m or 3.5 x 3.3 x 1 ft) with a top (where my extenal monitor and treble speakers reside), a shelf in the middle (for the subwoofer) and a “trough” in the bottom for balance and to serve as my paper recycling bin.

    It is made of glulam birch and the surface is treated with a few coats of linseed oil laced with polyurethane laquer. I applied the mixture with a rag. Untreated birch is a light coloured, almost grayish wood, but the oil/laquer mixture brought reddish yellow, light brown and light orange hues and made the growth ring patterns much more visible. It’s not perfect, but it’s made of more or less real, good looking, wood and not particle board (ie. sawdust glued together).

    The cutting table: Are you going to treat it with oil or oil and shellack or something else?

    As for the RasPi thing and starlings, getting RasPi to sound great requires a USB sound card, which I’m getting at some point, the analogue audio port is quite noisy.

    This summer a group of starlings was often feeding on the lawn in front of my window. It was fun to watch them.

  177. gobi's sockpuppet's meatpuppet says

    The subject of art ( Art! ) came up at work the other day…

    My take home point of the discussion was: you don’t get to decide what is art for other people.

  178. says

    I am connected again! A quick drive-by right now, I’m still in the middle of re-organizing my studio, and boy, do I have a lot of work in front of me. I’ll be back later on today.

    Goldfinches. Black-capped Chickadees. Re-purposed jeans. And…Hats:

    Just the opposite. A classic Panama hat, hand woven, hand blocked and styled, custom sized. Made the old fashioned way, with hands. The price isn’t about the label; it’s about the labor. And the art.

    […]

    Perhaps you want to do something important. When was the last time you had the chance to save an art form? The Art of Montecristi has dwindled down to the point where one person can make a huge difference. One patron of the art.

    http://www.brentblack.com/pages/best_02.html
    http://www.brentblack.com/pages/styles_cost.html

  179. rq says

    This is a cross-post.
    15 Heartbreaking Drawings Capture the #LastWords Spoken by Black Victims of State Violence, updated version.

    Barghi, an Iranian-born, New York-based artist, says she first encountered the Garner video in an article about another victim of police violence: Michael Brown, who was shot dead by former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson nearly a month after Garner’s death.

    “It drew a connection for me,” Barghi told Mic. “I didn’t expect this project to continue, or take off the way it did. Seeing these two incidents side-by-side helped me realized this was an ongoing phenomenon in America.”

    The project didn’t end there. In the year that has passed since Brown’s death, Barghi has been illustrating and tweeting her own creative depictions of the last words spoken by slain black male victims of state violence in the U.S. The result is a haunting tribute to the dead and a heartbreaking reminder of the toll American racism takes daily on black families and communities.

    In many ways, #LastWords has assumed a life of its own, she says. Artists and musicians have reached out to her about creating similar series’ focused on other topics, like the war in Yemen. Activists in Ferguson have also spoken to her about amplifying the last words spoken by black women who have died at the hands of American police.

    “I really want other people to continue this work,” Barghi says. “First, I’m not black, which I realize influences my perspective. Black pain [in the U.S.] is very real. So the first thing I try to do is educate myself, build an awareness.”

    […]

    The series was celebrated at the time by a variety of advocates and outlets for its topicality and starkly impactful rendering. None of this has changed in the year since, but the list of names has grown steadily longer, from a handful of then-notorious cases — including Garner, Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo — to a seemingly endless flood of new victims, which now includes Samuel Dubose, who was killed by a campus police officer in Cincinnati during a traffic stop last month, and Christian Taylor, who was shot dead by police at a car dealership in Arlington, Texas, on August 7. In this case, Barghi captured a tweet days before Taylor’s life was cut short.

    When asked what she hopes people will take away from the #LastWords series, Barghi is pensive. “I guess I would like people to educate themselves and really look into these people’s stories,” she says. “Because it did make me do that. And I hope people use this to learn what police violence in the U.S. really looks like.”

    “But really, there’s nothing inspirational here.”

    In the meantime, her work of documenting the last words spoken by black people killed by police continues unabated — and doesn’t look like it’ll be ending anytime soon.

  180. rq says

    Also a cross-post:
    Kinfolks: a journal of black expression – Vol. 1 / Issue 3 – there’s a new Clint Smith poem inside, plus an array of other black authors. And you read it like a book on your screen!

    Kinfolks: a journal of black expression is dedicated to thinking about blackness in its infinite permutations by publishing the work of established and emerging black artists. The journal’s ethos is centered around the notion that black creative life and the cultures of the African Diaspora provide us with models of collectivity, commonality, and kinship that have been and will be central to the story of our world.

    It’s certainly worth returning to.

  181. chigau (違う) says

    draider2
    Social Justice Wizard of Oz, Gold Bricker of Yellow Roads

    I am starting to think you are in a similar position, mentally, to Mabus.

  182. Tethys says

    Mabus truly cannot help himself, and I’m pretty sure he goes on and off his meds. The maladjustment of this current loser is more like the whiny/bully tactics of hoggler. Lie, obsess, stalk, repeat. You would think after so many years of the cycle the fools would understand that there aren’t any mods here. Oh well, some people just need to be assholes.

  183. Menyambal - torched by an angel says

    Holytape! I haven’t had a chhance to mention it, but I like your work. One of your images has been my wallpaper for a week or more. Thanks for posting.

  184. Menyambal - torched by an angel says

    Caine, that looks marvelous! Congratulations on an accomplishment that will allow many more accomplishments.

    I was moving bookshelves today, and wishing that I could take them home. That was at a school-district supply center – they do have surplus auctions.

    One of the guys was saying that he makes those eye-in-a-hand figurines as good-luck items. He did say that he tries to make them look good, so I guess that is art.

  185. says

    Friday Feathers #2, sleepy baby.

    Ice Swimmer @ 239:

    About the furniture :Nothing fancy, just a large display stand for watching stuff from the sofa (0.84 x.0 .80 x 0.30 m or 3.5 x 3.3 x 1 ft) with a top (where my extenal monitor and treble speakers reside), a shelf in the middle (for the subwoofer) and a “trough” in the bottom for balance and to serve as my paper recycling bin.

    It is made of glulam birch and the surface is treated with a few coats of linseed oil laced with polyurethane laquer. I applied the mixture with a rag. Untreated birch is a light coloured, almost grayish wood, but the oil/laquer mixture brought reddish yellow, light brown and light orange hues and made the growth ring patterns much more visible. It’s not perfect, but it’s made of more or less real, good looking, wood and not particle board (ie. sawdust glued together).

    Oh, that sounds really nice! Birch is a lovely wood, dense and fine grained. When I wanted a much larger top for my drawing table, Mister went straight for the birch.

    The cutting table: Are you going to treat it with oil or oil and shellack or something else?

    Nothing like that at all – the idea was very cheap, and minimum labour. I had half a closet door hanging about, which was perfect size for a cutting table, 77″ x 36″, anchored it to two cube storage shelves, so it’s 38″ high, and done! (See links @ 253 and 254.)

  186. says

    Menyambal @ 255:

    Caine, that looks marvelous! Congratulations on an accomplishment that will allow many more accomplishments.

    I was moving bookshelves today, and wishing that I could take them home. That was at a school-district supply center – they do have surplus auctions.

    Thank you! Oh, bookshelves. Yes, I share your desire to take the bookshelves home. There are never enough.

    One of the guys was saying that he makes those eye-in-a-hand figurines as good-luck items. He did say that he tries to make them look good, so I guess that is art.

    Sure. That’s rather old folk art, is it not? I know the type of thing you mean, but I don’t know much about it. *Searches* Yep, very old indeed, and definitely art.

  187. Menyambal - torched by an angel says

    Caine, thanks for the Google. Those are indeed pretty, and certainly are art. I shouldn’t have said they weren’t, but I had been moving bookshelves all day.

    By the way, Craigslist free stuff often includes heavy desks. I picked my latest off a curb, which is one advantage of driving around in a little pickup truck. It is in my garage, now, as a work surface, but may make in into the house, yet.

  188. says

    Menyambal @ 258:

    By the way, Craigslist free stuff often includes heavy desks. I picked my latest off a curb, which is one advantage of driving around in a little pickup truck. It is in my garage, now, as a work surface, but may make in into the house, yet.

    That’s something I miss, not being in a city anymore. Waaay back when the dinosaurs roamed, in Long Beach Ca, you could spend a couple hours going through The Recycler, and find whatever you were looking for, often free. I’d *love* to pick up a heavy desk or three, they make fantastic work tables.

  189. says

    Speaking of bookshelves, there was a good post about decorating with books at Why Books?

    Person 2: “So what sort of books are you thinking we should get? Fiction? Popular science? A biography or two?”

    Person 1: “Yellow ones. I want about thirteen yellow books. And about eight red ones. Of various sizes. Pink ones, too. Do they make books in aquamarine?”

    Person 2: “I’m sure they do. What do these books need to be about?”

    Person 1: “Doesn’t matter. They are not for reading. They are like those umbrellas in the antique bucket next to the front door. If you or the children ever touch them, you will be punished.”

    This is even worse.

    I hafta say, I’d never seen colour-coordinated bookshelves before. My books are lucky if they find a shelf upon which to perch. Having colour coordinated books never occurred to me.

  190. says

    The names of embroidery thread colours can make a person turn to chocolate. I’m working with several different mochas, a couple of coffees, and two different cocoas. I had to break off a piece of my Green & Black’s Dark Chocolate bar.

  191. Ice Swimmer says

    Caine:

    Color coordinated books, that must be the triumph of style over substance as long as paper books are actually read. I suppose you could play with colors of an encyclopedia or some other long series of large books with relatively little effort to make a style statement.

    The cutting table looks fine, a lot of usable workspace and a lot of storage space.

    Now, I’ve heard about cargo pants but your storage pants look both practical and beautiful, Everything is visible and neatly in its place.

    Here in Finland, they have started to use more birch in boutique musical instruments (for example drums and parts of electric guitars*), in addition to furniture, carpentry, plywood, firewood and pulp. 80 years ago birch was considered a weed tree with no value by the forestry authorities. Luckily they didn’t manage to make it extinct.
    __
    * including gorgeous tops and fingerboards from figured (flame) birch.

  192. opus says

    For those of you in the western USA this morning’s CBS Sunday Morning focuses on Design. Interesting segments on Shaker furniture, Savannah, Charleston and architecture.

  193. Menyambal - torched by an angel says

    Yeah, I was in a thrift store’s book area looking for good books to read, and two women were looking for handsomely-bound books to fill a lawyer’s bookcase. They never gave any thought to content, or even titles, or what anyone would think who realized the library was just for looks. They never expressed any doubts about their mission, or anything to indicate that the lawyer actually did read books.

    So maybe that was art?

  194. Ice Swimmer says

    Now, there’s one mechanical point that comes to my mind: A few full shelves of books make a bookshelf more stable. At least it feels more solid.

  195. says

    Ice Swimmer:

    Now, I’ve heard about cargo pants but your storage pants look both practical and beautiful, Everything is visible and neatly in its place.

    Thank you! That was one of my better ideas, as it’s much more helpful to me to be able to see all the colours at a glance, rather than digging through a pile of thread.

    Here in Finland, they have started to use more birch in boutique musical instruments (for example drums and parts of electric guitars*), in addition to furniture, carpentry, plywood, firewood and pulp. 80 years ago birch was considered a weed tree with no value by the forestry authorities. Luckily they didn’t manage to make it extinct.

    I had no idea that any Birch was considered to be weed value. A fair number of Birch varieties are pretty prized in the States. I’m glad they didn’t hit extinction.

    __
    * including gorgeous tops and fingerboards from figured (flame) birch.

    ! Ohhhh, so gorgeous, it looks like it was made of honey.

    Is it the light or has her hair gone more white?

    Pearl’s lost a bit of her apricot blush, but I had to use a flash to get the shot, so probably a bit of both.

  196. says

    Menyambal @ 267:

    So maybe that was art?

    Um, I don’t think so. I know the whole ‘books as decoration’ thing has been going on for a long time, and I’ve long despised it. The ‘books in designer colours’ thing was new to me, and I can’t say I like that either. If you’re not interested in reading, I don’t much see the point of having books in your house. Mine is stuffed with books, I’m stone out of room for them, and I’ve read them all.

    I seriously dislike people playing pretend with books (oh, look, I have serious looking books, I must be replete with knowledge) while promoting obscurantism.

  197. chigau (違う) says

    There was an just-off-Campus bar here called The Library.
    Their decorations consisted largely of books. It was part of the ‘joke’.

    Student 1: Are you going somewhere to study?
    Student 2: Yeah. I’m going to The Library.

    I can’t imagine what this would do for a lawyer’s office.

  198. says

    The Last Bookstore in downtown LA has a Labyrinth of used books upstairs. The $1 books are arranged by color as part of the art installation – scroll down through the page, there are photos. You can, of course, buy them, too. It’s a good place to shop, not to mention just wander. I really should get back down there, one of these days.

  199. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    I would love to organize a visit to The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles. I am about an hour and a half from there on a good traffic day. (On a bad traffic day it can take twice as long.) Taking the train in, and/or carpooling with however many like minded SoCal bibliophiles, wandering in the bookstore and galleries, having a bit of a nosh and some good laughs sounds grand. If there are any SoCal people interested in such an excursion you can email me: Morgan Meeker without the space using the google thing.
    When I lived in NYC I would spend hours and hours in The Strand bookstore. It was especially nice if the weather was cold and beastly outside.

  200. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Caine,
    Somehow missed The Magic Sword, but I did see Attack of the Killer Tomatoes when it was produced in 1978. And I can still sing the theme song. Silly beyond compare, but great fun.

  201. says

    Ah yes, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. As I recall, I was fair stoned when I saw that way back when. :D That was just silliness, whereas I got the idea that The Magic Sword was meant to be a good flick, but missed by a thousand miles. From reading at IMDB, It seems that all of Bert I. Gordon’s movies were on the bad side, with this particular one apparently being his best. Or so it’s said. Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood, and Merritt Stone all gave it their best, and they were fun to watch, but they sure as fuck didn’t have much to work with. And the special effects! Oh, they were special, alright, and not in a good way.

  202. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    I will have to watch The Magic Sword. My problem with viewing things that are so bad but meant to be good is that I get that horrible feeling of embarrassment for the performers.
    But, another intentionally silly movie, produced in 1996 is Joe’s Apartment. From IMDB: “A nice guy has just moved to New York and discovers that he must share his run-down apartment with a couple thousand singing, dancing cockroaches.”
    And really, I never inhaled.

  203. blf says

    Ah, classic, ah, art… well, for certain values of “art”… Foamhenge, Stonehenge’s unholy twin, guards its mystery in byways of Virginia:

    A full-scale replica of the neolithic monument made of foam and deposited in the Virginia countryside combines fakery and sincerity in oddly authentic way
    […]
    Foamhenge is exactly what it sounds like: a full-scale replica of Stonehenge made of foam. It is the creation of Mark Cline of Enchanted Castle Studios, who has also built a fiberglass Stonehenge in the piney woods of Alabama. These creations are both listed on Clonehenge, which catalogues the world’s 80-plus Stonehenge replicas, including several that have been dismantled such as New Zealand’s “Fridgehenge”. Fridges, it seems, do not weather well.

    So not only is Foamhenge a copy of Stonehenge, it is one of many copies — part of a worldwide phenomenon of Stonehenge copies that are large and small, permanent and temporary.

    The mildly deranged penguin is now searching the Clonehenge site for Cheesehenges.
    (And, it turns out, there are quite a few, such as this one.)

  204. says

    Morgan:

    I get that horrible feeling of embarrassment for the performers.

    Oh yes. You’ll get that with The Magic Sword. I hope everyone involved got a nice, fat paycheck for it. There were a couple of fun Star Trek tie-in moments: When you first see the King (Merritt Stone) in the throne room, he’s watching a belly dancer (and seriously fondling his scepter), and the music is the same music in the Trek episode Wolf in the Fold, which also features belly dancers. Then there’s Liam Sullivan, who plays Sir Branton – Sullivan played the sadistic Parmen in the Trek episode Plato’s Stepchildren.

    Joe’s Apartment

    Yep, that’s a good one. Going to watch men in seriously tight pants in sword fight clinches while exchanging risqué reparteé – Captain Blood, Tower of London, and The Mark of Zorro. Oh, speaking of bad movies, The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) is absolutely awful. Bad acting, preachy, preachy, preachy, lots of Jesus, and in the end, the supposedly great special effects are of a bloody earthquake. At least The Magic Sword is fun.

  205. says

    Me @ 283:

    There were a couple of fun Star Trek tie-in moments:

    And Gary Lockwood, of course, who is the hero of The Magic Sword, and the helmsman who turns into an ESP god in the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before.

  206. blf says

    Discovery of ancient cave paintings in Petra stuns art scholars:

    Exquisite artworks hidden under 2,000 years of soot and grime in a Jordanian cave have been restored by experts from the Courtauld Institute in London

    Spectacular 2,000-year-old Hellenistic-style wall paintings have been revealed at the world heritage site of Petra through the expertise of British conservation specialists. The paintings, in a cave complex, had been obscured by centuries of black soot, smoke and greasy substances, as well as graffiti.

    Experts from the Courtauld Institute in London have now removed the black grime, uncovering paintings whose “exceptional” artistic quality and sheer beauty are said to be superior even to some of the better Roman paintings at Herculaneum that were inspired by Hellenistic art.

    Virtually no Hellenistic paintings survive today, and fragments only hint at antiquity’s lost masterpieces, while revealing little about their colours and composition, so the revelation of these wall paintings in Jordan is all the more significant. They were created by the Nabataeans, who traded extensively with the Greek, Roman and Egyptian empires and whose dominion once stretched from Damascus to the Red Sea, and from Sinai to the Arabian desert.

    Such is the naturalistic intricacy of these paintings that the actual species of flowers, birds and insects bursting with life can be identified. They were probably painted in the first century, but may go back further. Professor David Park, an eminent wall paintings expert at the Courtauld, said that the paintings “should make jaws drop”.

    […]

    Three different vines, grape, ivy and bindweed — all associated with Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine — have been identified, while the birds include a demoiselle crane and a Palestine sunbird with luscious colours. The scenes are populated by putti-like figures, one winged child playing a flute while seated in a vine-scroll, others picking fruit and fighting off birds pecking at the grapes. The paintings are exceptional in their sophistication, extensive palette and luxurious materials, including gold leaf.

    Petra — the Greek word for “rock” — is one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites, where ancient eastern traditions combine with Hellenistic architecture, with monumental buildings sculpted out of the solid red sandstone. A Unesco world heritage site since 1985, it was the Nabataeans’ capital city, flourishing as an economic and religious centre from the third century BC for some 400 years. Its site, in the Shera mountains, was an important crossroads for Arabia, Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia.

  207. blf says

    US student is rescued from giant vagina sculpture in Germany:

    More than 20 firefighters free exchange student from the artwork Chacán-Pi (Making Love) by Fernando de la Jara in Tübingen
    […]
    On Friday afternoon, a young American in Tübingen had to be rescued by 22 firefighters after getting trapped inside a giant sculpture of a vagina. The Chacán-Pi (Making Love) artwork by the Peruvian artist Fernando de la Jara has been outside Tübingen University’s institute for microbiology and virology since 2001 and had previously mainly attracted juvenile sniggers rather than adventurous explorers.
    […]
    Police confirmed that the firefighters turned midwives delivered the student “by hand and without the application of tools”.

    The mayor of Tübingen told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that he struggled to imagine how the accident could have happened, “even when considering the most extreme adolescent fantasies. To reward such a masterly achievement with the use of 22 firefighters almost pains my soul.”

  208. blf says

    Chocolate with your Bacon? Tate Britain offers feast for the senses:

    London gallery opens ‘sensorium’ to explore whether taste, touch, smell and sound change the way people experience art

    Visitors to Tate Britain can have chocolate with their Bacon while the smell of Pledge furniture polish wafts around a 1940s interior by Richard Hamilton.

    In another room there are creaking, burbling sounds in front of a wildly colourful David Bomberg abstract while ultrasound air flutters on to your hand as you contemplate a big, black circle that John Latham painted when he was staying at New York’s Chelsea hotel in 1961.

    The gallery will on Wednesday publicly open the Tate Sensorium, an experimental project exploring whether taste, touch, smell and sound change the way we experience art.

    There are four rooms with four works, each with various sensory experiences. Groups of four people at a time will be allowed in to the paintings, each wearing a biometric measurement wristband monitoring electrodermal activity — perspiration, basically — to see how excited, or not, they get.

    The “bacon” is not the edible stuff, but Figure in a Landscape 1945 by Francis Bacon.

    The mildly deranged penguin suggest Vault Formerly Containing Cheese Now Ventilated with Penguin-Shaped Holes 2015, but the Sensorium curartors didn’t like her suggestion it be viewed whilst Daleks exterminated peas.

  209. blf says

    Ancient Greek palace unearthed near Sparta dates back to 17th century BC:

    Archaeologists discover palace with archaic inscriptions built during the Mycenaean period

    Archaeologists in Greece have discovered the ruins of an ancient palace with important archaic inscriptions dating back to the Mycenaean age, the culture ministry said Tuesday.

    The palace, likely built around the 17th–16th centuries BC, had around 10 rooms and was discovered near Sparta in southern Greece.

    At the site, archaeologists found objects of worship, clay figurines, a cup adorned with a bull’s head, swords and fragments of murals.

    Since 2009, excavations in the area have unearthed inscriptions on tablets detailing religious ceremonies and names and places in a script called Linear B, the oldest script to be discovered in Europe. […]

    (Oh feck, Preview has stopped working. Yet again, again…)

  210. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Saad, please don’t tell me you did this astonishing photo with a smart phone. :-)

  211. Saad says

    Thanks, everyone. :)

    opus, #301

    That was shot with my Olympus E-M1 with the 12-40mm. And that’s after some heavy post-processing of course. I wanted to give it a moody feel without making it look too ridiculous.

    Here is the SOOC image.

  212. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    I found something stunning.

    Lament for the Dead is an online community poetry project which will mark the death of every person killed by police this summer, and every police officer who loses life in the line of duty, with a poem.

    I don’t know how comprehensive the project is – if they in fact can list all the dead.
    From the About page:

    June 01, 2015

    The first lie that hate tells us is that any other person is not as human as we are.

    This project resists that lie by recognizing each other’s humanity,
    even in the most difficult places.

    Some people believe all people killed by police are criminals.
    Some people believe the police are criminals.
    Many people believe no criminal deserves lament.

    But this project asks us to seek the humanity in all people,
    even when we have committed terrible crimes.

    At heart, it asks whether we hope someone might offer grace to us,
    at our ugliest or most difficult moments.

    When poets join, they do not know whether they will be lamenting the death of an officer
    or someone who is killed by police.

    Poets commit to writing on a specific date,
    and compose each poem in less than 24 hours,
    based on the events of the previous day.

    Death notices are posted as they are reported in the press,
    according to the time of each death,
    and then replaced by a poem.

    The community includes poets from Texas to Michigan, Southern California to New York City:
    college students and grandmothers, children and spouses of police, award-winning poets, lawyers, psychiatrists, editors, professors, social workers, and the poet laureate of New York.

    Argument, strategy, and reckoning are all crucial for change.

    But to heal, we must also mourn.

    Poetry provides us with a language beyond news reports and legal doctrine,
    a place where we can ask questions instead of taking refuge in easy answers or cheap blame.
    It asks us not to judge, but to listen.
    It gives us the time and space to weep.

    And as it does, it may help us imagine another way.

  213. blf says

    ‘Mack the Knife,’ with the edges softened:

    “The Threepenny Opera” is perhaps the ultimate piece of unlovable theater: a swirling mix of cynicism, murder and Marxist rage, with a central song, “Mack the Knife,” known more as a lounge-lizard standard than as the menacing tale of a killer.

    This difficult work has now been given a makeover befitting the grand operas of the 18th and 19th centuries during this summer’s Salzburg Festival. “Mack the Knife: A Salzburg Threepenny Opera,” the title of the reworked production, concludes its run on Thursday.

    […]

    “The Threepenny Opera,” based on an 18th-century work, “The Beggar’s Opera” by John Gay, was written by the German composer Kurt Weill and the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht as a harsh satire on capitalism just before the rise of Nazism. The show’s antihero, Macheath, is a criminal with the shrewdness and organization of a businessman, and his rogue’s gallery of friends and business acquaintances satirizes the corruption and greed of 19th-century England, as “The Beggar’s Opera” did, but with a wink to 20th-century Germany.

    […]

    The Salzburg production was seen as a chance to experiment with “The Threepenny Opera” for a few performances and soften its edges, rather than rewriting it for the history books. “Our agreement with the Weill estate is very specific in that we could do these eight or nine performances only, and that’s it,” said the co-director, Julian Crouch.

    […]

    In many ways, “Mack the Knife: A Salzburg Threepenny Opera” is a riff on a classic, rather than a retelling of it — much like “Mack the Knife,” the disturbing ballad at its center, was transformed into a pop tune and recorded by artists like Bobby Darin and Ella Fitzgerald. Fans of the pop version have probably never heard the original, slower version, nor really listened to Brecht’s sinister lyrics (“On a sidewalk, blue Sunday mornin’, lies a body, just oozin’ life”).

    Speaking of the slower non-pop original version, I found this performance, Kurt Weill: Mack the Knife — Baritone, harmonium, Pleyel piano, some time ago. The enunciation is excellent and you can really hear and understand just what that song is about.

  214. opposablethumbs says

    Brecht also wrote the Threepenny Novel in 1934. It is brilliant and terrible and, being a novel, is able to go into way more detail about the economic and social situations of more characters, interacting with each other on many different levels.

  215. blf says

    South African black doll breaks the Barbie mould in style:

    Maite Makgoba hopes her Momppy Mpoppy toy will better reflect reality for young black children, breaking into a market dominated by white figures

    Decked out in the latest fashions and sporting an impressive afro, young South African girls are learning to love a new doll whose maker hopes to change the way black children look at themselves.

    Maite Makgoba, founder of Childish Trading and Manufacturing, said she started her small business after realising that black dolls available on the market “did not appeal to children”.

    “They were frumpy and unattractive, some in traditional attire. That is not the reality of today,” said the 26-year-old entrepreneur.

  216. rq says

    An Artist Turned An Abandoned New Orleans Complex Into A Tribute To Black History

    Over the past two months, an unheralded public art project in New Orleans has morphed into arguably one of the most powerful, provocative, and ambitious civil rights statements in this city’s history. Housed in an abandoned apartment complex in the low-income Algiers neighborhood, Exhibit Be initially wasn’t even supposed to last more than a day. But this weekend will be its last; the dilapidated buildings infused with painted tributes and installations will likely soon be buffed or destroyed.

    “It’s a wrap,” said Brandan Odoms, also known as Bmike, the curator of the project. “I haven’t had the moment to really witness what’s happening because I’m constantly in it. One day I’m going to sit down and really think about the beauty and the singularity of how this all happened by chance.”

    It happened by chance earlier this fall when property manager Bill Thomason caught Bmike illegally painting a Tupac mural in one of the five buildings at De Gaulle Manor, a complex built in the 1960s that had been run down and eventually abandoned post-Katrina. Instead of calling the cops, Thomason made Odoms a proposal.

    “I’ve been looking for you,” Thomason, 55, said. “I’d like to see if we can do something together.”

    Soon thereafter Exhibit Be opened and has hosted car shows, poetry slams, dozens of school groups, myriad photographers, artists, and locals, most of whom heard through word of mouth. It’s also been interactive; the kids who have come through the space are asked to paint and leave their mark.

    On Monday, Jan. 19, Exhibit Be will close by hosting a block party; rappers Dead Prez will be performing live, there will be food trucks, marching bands, and people will celebrate. Before it’s ghosted, here are a few of the stories and images from this uniquely New Orleans project.
    […]

    On a cold mid-January morning, former Black Panther Malik Rahim stood beside a life-size mural of his face accompanied by the words THESE ARE OUR HEROES. At 65, he had just shown up on his bicycle unannounced and began giving a history lesson to a group of black high school kids.

    “We must learn our history,” he said to the group, pleading with them to get an education, to be self-sufficient, to not become a statistic. After, two girls turned to each other, “Let’s give him a hug.” Instead, they each posed for a photo. Rahim has spent his life fighting for fair housing. He stayed in the city during Katrina, fought the flood. “No one will accept you as an equal if you come begging,” he told the kids. “A beggar is never equal.”
    […]

    Kenneth Murdock, 17, stood away from the pack, looking disinterested and on the defensive when Rahim and Bmike addressed his classmates. But Murdock had been listening. He approached me toward the end of his tour and asked me to look at what he painted. His painting read LIFE IS ME in orange, his initials and neighborhood tagged at the end. Murdock said that on the bus over they were talking about how they’d probably learn about the Black Panthers, “how it all started,” he put it. “It’s something to see. It might change a lot of people’s views,” he said. Why? “It may help them know what they stand for and who they are and what they can be.” He blinked a hint of emotion. Is that what he was feeling?

    Murdock took a long pause as he surveyed the courtyard. “I wish I knew how to draw and paint.”

    Oodles of powerful art.

  217. blf says

    Kermit the Frog’s new girlfriend is younger, thinner — and blander:

    How could the veteran Muppet trade in someone as fabulous as Miss Piggy for boring new model Denise? In 2015, that’s a move worthy of Ben Affleck [who?]:

    Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: after the release of pictures of Kermit the Frog’s new girlfriend, Denise, it’s clear who was the real pig on the Muppets.

    Miss Piggy was always the more charismatic performer, the more powerful presence in that relationship: she was Angelina [who?] to Kermit’s Billy Bob [who?], the Cher to his Sonny [um, Sonny was a very interesting one in that duo], the Liz [who?] to his Larry [who?] (Fortensky [(who?)]). And yet he always got the top billing, the most screen time and the most credit for his intelligence. It’s now clear that he was also always colluding with the producers and directors to make sure that Miss Piggy looked like a violent, egotistical harridan and he was seen as the sensitive, Rainbow-Connection-bleating ex-hippie who gracefully put up with both her personality and living in her shadow. “Woe is him”, we all said — and that’s exactly what he wanted us to say.

    [blah, blah, blah…]

    The mildly deranged penguin has always liked the Cookie Monster: He’s a useful diversion, and never wanted any of the cheese anyways.

  218. blf says

    Lego space mission: Denmark’s first astronaut gets toys for company:

    Andreas Mogensen will take 26 specially designed toys on his mission to the International Space Station

    Denmark is sending its first man into space — along with 26 Lego toys to keep him company on the journey.

    Andreas Mogensen, a 38-year-old aerospace engineer from Copenhagen, will leave for the International Space Station on 2 September. The specially designed plastic toys joining him will bear the official logo of his mission for the European Space Agency (ESA) and will be given to schoolchildren as a competition prize once the mission is complete.

    [… H]e is embarking on a 10-day trip to the ISS as part of the Iriss mission to test new technology and take photos of thunderstorms and lightning — nicknamed project Thor.

    Tinfoil hats, everyone! ISS will be hurtling down bricks, and if they miss, lighting and thunder. Maybe a few hammers.

    The best bit, in the comments: “F#(%ing migrants!” Reply: “Vote for Donald Trump, he’ll build a wall around the ISS to keep the foreigners out.”

  219. blf says

    More art from nature, for certain values of “art”, “from”, and “nature”, Top shearer called in to trim overgrown sheep found in Australia:

    RSPCA’s plea for expert to urgently remove wool from sheep rescued near Canberra is answered by champion shearer Ian Elkins

    The Australian RSPCA has called in a champion shearer to trim a heavily overgrown sheep found wandering in woodland near the capital.

    A bushwalker spotted the sheep near Mulligan Flats, just outside Canberra, and called the RSPCA, which mounted a rescue mission on Tuesday.

    Tammy Ven Dange, the chief executive of the Australian RSPCA, said five staff members were needed for the job.

    It appeared the sheep had become lost from its herd. Ven Dange said merino sheep were bred to grow wool and could suffer infections or flystrike if they were not regularly groomed.

    The sheep had clearly not experienced much recent human contact. Ven Dange told ABC radio: “We are concerned about him going into shock through this whole process. We are going to have to sedate him before we shear him.”

    The fleece will be weighed to see how it compares with other sheep that managed to evade shearing for extended periods.

    A fleece from a New Zealand sheep called Shrek, which managed to avoid being shorn for more than six years by hiding in caves […] is thought to have been the world’s heaviest at 27kg (4st 3lb [about 17 flizbarts, but only when the Moon is full, otherwise 663 yoquseki (aren’t meaningless units fun?)]). […]

    Shaun, a sheep from Tasmania that had gone on the lam, had a fleece that weighed 23.5kg when shorn.

    Some of the better comments:

     ● I suppose the only question remaining is, is if/when the sheep is executed after escaping, the foolish Ned Kelly of an ungulate.
     ● You say it’s a sheep, but could be anything under there: Chupacabra, Donald Trump’s fleeing hairpiece, map of Atlantis, Kanye’s excess ego storage space.

  220. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Young embroidery artists are busting barriers and conceptions of what this formerly “domestic” craft is about. Warning: NSFW
    ArtFido

  221. blf says

    And some more art from nature, for certain values of “art”, “from”, and “nature”, Ape millimetre: chimpanzees smash camera drone:

    TV crew left without documentary footage but scientists fascinated by use of sticks and tools to down intrusive device at Dutch zoo

    A chimpanzee took drastic counter measures when a TV crew’s drone was sent to take footage of her and her family. Using a 6ft-long stick, she swatted the drone to the ground and broke it.

    Unlike the Dutch crew who deployed the device to capture close-up shots of the chimps, scientists studying the animals were delighted.

    They said it demonstrated an impressive level of ingenuity and forward planning by the angry ape. […]

    Several of the chimps reacted by grabbing willow twigs and climbing a scaffold where the drone was hovering.

    When the remote controlled craft zoomed in on two of the animals, one of them, a female called Tushi, decided enough was enough. She made two long sweeps with her stick, the second of which struck the drone and downed it.

    Prof[essor] Jan van Hooff, from Utrecht University, said: “The use of the stick as a weapon in this context was a unique action. It seemed deliberate, given the decision to collect it and carry it to a place where the drone might be attacked.”

    Before and during the strike, Tushi bared her teeth but showed no sign of fear — suggesting that her actions were not a reflex response. […]

    Performance art! See nasty big bug. Swat it. No bananas. Bugger…

    Ms Tushi displayed more intelligence than the entire thug Kandidate Klown Kar combined.
    In her next performance, she will be presenting her reinterpretation of one of Shakespear’s plays, as soon as it’s finished being typewritten.

  222. says

    Friday Feathers # 4. Sorry for the neglect, hopefully things will be better next week.

    On movies – recently watched the 1939 movie serial Mandrake the Magician. Terribly silly, and very easy to figure out the identity of The Wasp, but quite fun.

  223. says

    Morgan @ 316:

    Those are fabulous! I was just looking at Spitzner’s waxes* again (I couldn’t remember if the sleeping Venus was clothed or not), and ended up looking at many other anatomical waxes of the time, and there’s a fair similarity there. More on all that later, I have to get some fucking work done.
     
    *If you go looking, keep in mind that the model of a woman having a cesarian section is creepier than fuck. (Attractive woman, dressed in virginal white, conscious, arms above head, wrists and ankles bound, abdomen sliced open, held open with hooks, with the ever notorious three disembodied (male, natch) hands around the opening.

  224. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Caine @ 320:
    I was unaware of Spitzner’s waxes. The Morbid Anatomy site demands more investigation. I saw the original Body Worlds exhibition in Los Angeles in 2005. The “plastination” process of preservation is disturbing to many. You won’t forget your anatomy lessons after viewing these models. And yes, they are real. I recommend seeing one of the exhibitions if you get a chance.

  225. dreamstone says

    Well, here I am, late to the party. This is my first comment , and I have to say that I have really enjoyed this thread. I always love getting recs. And I was amazed by the talent shared both by the commentators on this blog and the art from other artists. I would like to share a drawing based on Navajo folklore. http://ashteldar.deviantart.com/art/Coyote-Kept-One-Star-95828817 – I hope I’m doing this right.

    For movies I would like to recommend “Stranger Than Fiction’ and more recently ‘Woman in Gold” and “The Hundred Foot Journey”. The first about fiction and reality, the second about the rescue of an iconic painting stolen by the Nazis and the third about food as art.

    As for books, anything by Terry Pratchett of course, C J Cherryh, Elizabeth Moon, Sherry Tepper, Historicals and fantasy by Barbara Hambley, urban fantasys by Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews and Jim Butcher and Michelle Sagara.

  226. chigau (違う) says

    Brian Pansky #324
    I knew that!
    But the wanking on the feminist frequency thread made me doubt.

  227. says

    Dreamstone @ 323:

    For movies I would like to recommend “Stranger Than Fiction’ and more recently ‘Woman in Gold” and “The Hundred Foot Journey”.

    Watched The Hundred Foot Journey a while back, charming film. I’ll get the others on the ol’ Netflix queue. Thanks for the recommends!

    http://ashteldar.deviantart.com/art/Coyote-Kept-One-Star-95828817

    Oh, that’s lovely! Beautiful work, there’s a distinct air of difference, of observation there that is quite poignant. Please, share as much as you like.

    As for books, I recently read The Good Suicides by Antonio Hill. An author who doesn’t mind leaving a fucktonne of loose ends in the least. I haven’t decided if I like that or not. Still, it was a good read.

    Chigau:

    Are video games “Art”?

    Fuck if I know.

  228. says

    Latest on the Tree Quilt, which is [k]not a helluva lot. I’ve been so restless lately, haven’t been able to settle, so I’m gonna throw paint and ink at an innocent piece of fabric today.

  229. blf says

    Art, of the gastronomic kind, African Americans shake up wine industry stereotypes:

    Visitors to Bertony Faustin’s winery assume he just works there but African Americans are not only increasingly consumers of fine wine but producers

    Bertony Faustin didn’t set out to be Oregon’s first black winemaker. He just wanted to make good wine. What he hadn’t anticipated was the disbelief that often comes when customers realise a black man owns the winery.

    “People are always surprised. Everybody assumes that (…) I am not the winemaker,” said the 43-year-old, who opened Abbey Creek Winery four years ago. “The image of the winemaker is an old white guy.”

    [… M]ore African Americans and other minorities are increasingly making and drinking fine wine, and wine-tasting clubs for African Americans have proliferated. […]

    [Faustin is] a winemaker by accident. After moving from New York 15 years ago to be an anaesthesia technician, he met his wife and the couple moved to the city’s outskirts on her parents’ property.

    With his in-laws’ blessing, Faustin took over their vineyard in 2008, found a mentor and enrolled in a viticulture programme. Faustin now sells about 800 to 1,000 cases a year directly to customers, and he’s sold out of every vintage, he said.

    [… He is making a] documentary, Red, White and Black, will feature several people of colour and a lesbian couple. […]

  230. blf says

    Yes, along with the image of everything else.

    Perhaps, but in numerous cases you have to go searching for connection to “old white guy”. Sunflowers, for instance, don’t provide me with such an image, unless I recall Vincent van Gogh’s famous paintings, who was certainly a “white guy” albeit not that particularly “old”.

    Stir-fry does not remind me of a white guy, old or otherwise, although I presume it is possible to conjure up a connection.

    The Great Zimbabwe, the Egyptian Pyramids, Angkor Wat, Amerindian burial mounds, pagodas, and numerous other artifacts and structures, also do not, although it is undoubtedly possible to find a connection.

    Aboriginal rock art and prehistoric cave painting do not, albeit some of the later are, presumably, the work of by-now very old people, possibly white, possibly male.

    The sands, plains, dunes, mountains, craters, and so on of Mars do not, though there is a connection of sort: The Maritain Chronicles was written by an old white guy, and the staff behind the robotic missions are, very probably, predominately white and male, and lead by older individuals. Yet that is not what I am reminded of when I see the photographs or read the books, articles, and essays.

  231. blf says

    And now for some more of the gastronomic arts, and, admittedly, one which very much does remind — and involve — older white guys, along with younger people, people who probably don’t describe themselves as white, even cootie-carriers, but surprisingly (since a lot of cheese and, presumably, MUSHROOMS!, is involved), no penguin, mildly deranged or otherwise. Yep, it’s time for World Pizza Championships: where dough-obsessed divas battle it out:

    I was a judge at this mega-festival in Napoli, but I wasn’t expecting pizza-by-the metre and ham and pineapple

    It has gone midnight at the pizza world championships in Napoli, and I’m struggling. I’ve been judging pizza since 8pm, at an average rate of a slice every five minutes, and my dough-addled brain is screaming. Mario Romano, from Neapolitan pizza restaurant group Rossopomodoro, has brought me to Naples. I look at the line of hopefuls with their madia (proofing boxes), and will it to disappear, but it continues to multiply. “I can’t see the end,” says Romano. “Another hour,” he nods.

    An old man from southern Italy approaches with his “pizza by the metre”, proudly showing its toppings — “seasonal vegetables from my garden” — and I resolve to power through. In this, the pizza epicentre (epizzentre?) of the most pizza-obsessed city in the most pizza-obsessed country in the world, everyone’s hopes are pinned on their pizza skills.

    We’ve been testing several categories. In “freestyle”, an elderly pizzaiolo (pizzamaker) from France presents an ornate pizza, topped with courgette flowers and delicate towers of pomme de terre […]

    Then it’s time to judge the Neapolitan wood-fired pizza entries. This is the big one — the margherita’s simple tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella and basil toppings allow the dough to shine, and in Naples, it’s all about the dough. Pizzaiolo are judged on every aspect of their technique (including tidiness — a messy pizzaiolo is a bad pizzaiolo), kneading, baking, the charring, size, thickness, the puff and bounce of its cornichon (crust), toppings — and, of course, overall taste. In this city, the top pizzaiolos are dough-obsessed divas with superstar status — the skill takes years to perfect and there are constant arguments about who’s top dog, who’s up and coming. Winning best Neapolitan pizza is a very big deal.

    […]

    Wandering through this mega festival are pizza royalty — octogenarian pizzaiolos, like generals, on crutches, wearing medals for prizes long gone […] The mayor is here. Among those dispensing floury handshakes is Japanese chef Akinari “Pasquale” Makishima, who took the title in 2010, attributing his win to a Japanese attention to detail (the meticulous zeal of the sushi chef and the perfectionist obsession of the pizzaiolo may explain why Neapolitan pizza is now big in Japan). […]

    A woman wins the gluten-free category — a real achievement given there are fewer than 10% female entrants — she’s so jubilant she’s still joyfully stabbing her cup in the air 10 minutes later. […]

    Then it’s the big one — the Neapolitan. For the first time ever, in this most male dominated of worlds, the winner is female — Teresa Iorio, a working-class Napoletano-speaking woman who runs Dalle Figlie Di Iorioa restaurant in Naples with her siblings. There’s a strangulated howl from somewhere within the crowd, a parting of red capped pizzaiolos, and she appears, shaking, a mass of nervous energy, so much disbelief and pride you can taste it. There’s uproarious applause for this well respected chef. […]

  232. says

    blf @ 332:

    Perhaps, but in numerous cases you have to go searching for connection to “old white guy”. Sunflowers, for instance, don’t provide me with such an image,

    Ah, everything is so context dependent. Sunflowers are most definitely connected to “white guy”, old or otherwise, for me. I live in farm country, and sunflowers are a major crop here.

  233. Tethys says

    Caine

    I’m half covered in paint, and quite happy.

    :D I would be very happy with your final result too, it’s stunning! I’ve also been extremely restless the last few days. but I’ve been blaming it on the awful, sauna like heat and humidity. I cannot work on the shawl or poncho WIP’s because I ‘m already melting, and the pain in spine from impending thunderstorms are making me feel twitchy. Can’t wait, they are going to be intense storms.

  234. says

    Tethys @ 335:

    :D I would be very happy with your final result too, it’s stunning! I’ve also been extremely restless the last few days. but I’ve been blaming it on the awful, sauna like heat and humidity. I cannot work on the shawl or poncho WIP’s because I ‘m already melting, and the pain in spine from impending thunderstorms are making me feel twitchy. Can’t wait, they are going to be intense storms.

    Thank you! I are happy. I don’t know if it’s weather or not, but the effing heat has not helped. Had a minor storm yesterday, but it was mostly leaden sky, very hot air, and little water. I wouldn’t mind a good thunderstorm or three. Pain levels have been serious high lately, so all my empathy on that score. I think I’m getting hit with “fuck, winter” restlessness now, even though it’s early for that kind of twitchy. I want to be outside, head raised to the wind, feeling the sun. (But I don’t want to bake to death, either.)

    I was wondering where the fuck all my birds were – the feeding stations have hardly been touched, and so far, they’ve been dealing with the heat okay. Then I heard the peeping…yep, a Sharp-shinned Hawk on the hunt. Got a couple of shots before he took off, and about 3 minutes later, all the birds starting coming out of the woodwork, so to speak. Most people never hear raptors, and would be really surprised, I think, by the squeaky peep most of them have.

  235. blf says

    Can’t wait, they are going to be intense [thunder]storms.

    The mildly deranged penguin perks up. She’s got a few cheesebeings to reanimate — don’t worry, nothing from any graveyards (the cheeses tend to pout and get a bit too wormy) — and is hoping she can set up a basic “electrocute the poor sod strapped to a table” rig in your backyard / rooftop / kitchen…

    (I’d suggest saying “no”. The last time she tried this — well, you know all those asteroids between Mars and Jupiter (the planets, not the sky faeries) that supposedly never formed a planet — um, well, let’s say there is a reason Sol is a not binary star system…)

  236. says

    Thanks, Caine
    Last year at the Aquarium I was grumpy and said i needed a decent camera.
    Guess that turned out right.
    Now I need to take a class on how to use it. Some day when I’m no longer working nights…
    I’m seriously glad I learned taking pictures back in the old days so I know a lot of basics, like ISO, shutter time, etc. My first camera had a hand-held seperate lightening metre…

  237. says

    Giliell @ 342:

    I’m seriously glad I learned taking pictures back in the old days so I know a lot of basics, like ISO, shutter time, etc.

    Yes, that really does help. I didn’t have any of that when I got the Nikon D80, so I spent time looking through every single thing on the menu (and man, is that an exhaustive amount of stuff they cram on now), referring to the manual, and doing a lot of reading at Ken Rockwell’s site.

    That’s a nice camera you have, too. I’d love to have a Canon as well, because the one thing that Nikons suck at is low light.* If I had much money, I’d no doubt want a whole lot of different cameras.
     
    * Yep, I know, different lenses, all that. They are still sucky in low light.

  238. blf says

    ‘Archaeology on steroids’: huge ritual arena discovered near Stonehenge:

    Researchers find hidden remains of massive Neolithic stone monument, thought to have been hauled into position more than 4,500 years ago

    Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a massive stone monument buried under a thick, grassy bank only two miles from Stonehenge.

    The hidden arrangement of up to 90 huge standing stones formed part of a C-shaped Neolithic arena that bordered a dry valley and faced directly towards the river Avon.

    Researchers used ground-penetrating radar to image about 30 intact stones measuring up to 4.5m tall. The fragments of 60 more buried stones, or the massive foundation pits in which they stood, reveal the full extent of the monument.

    “What we are starting to see is the largest surviving stone monument, preserved underneath a bank, that has ever been discovered in Britain and possibly in Europe,” said Vince Gaffney, an archaeologist at Bradford University who leads the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape project. “This is archaeology on steroids.”

    The mildly deranged penguin vaguely recalls that concert. It was an early-ages gig by Disaster Area, and they hadn’t quite yet mastered the, um, art, of exactly how to build bunkers for the audience, or, critically, just how far away from the stage to build them. This one was only a few kilometres from one of the speaker stacks, now quaintly called “Stonehenge”. Why the remains of the foundation are so interesting has always baffled her, although it was later colonized by the now-totally-deaf surviving hosts…

  239. says

    Caine
    Thanks!
    It’s really a neat allrounder. I got to try a friend’s one and immediately fell in love with it. Now to stock up on lenses and filtres and a tripod…

    opus
    Gorgeous! We couldn’t stay until dark as the kids were exhausted already. I love, love, love Barcelona.

  240. says

    Giliell @ 350:

    Now to stock up on lenses and filtres and a tripod…

    I finally found a tripod I was completely pleased with, extra tall and extra heavy (always windy here), and it ended up being attached to Mister’s telescope. I hafta get that back, because it’s not like he uses the telescope.

  241. says

    It’s cloudy and cool today. Tethys, I hope you get your thunderstorms. I sure as fuck wish one would hit here today, and put paid to the Labour day “celebrations”.

  242. says

    While browsing books, I came across one with this synopsis:

    Overview

    While Jules and Luc, with their Vegan Co-op, seek to positively transform the world, by eliminating all forms of violence, and liberating human consciousness and sexuality from the chains of two millennia of perverse ‘noble’ lies a.k.a ‘religion’, Vatican officials are caught on television cameras arguing with robots. This after the Pope has already been cited in a class action lawsuit as a ‘dead-beat dad’, in an action demanding the Vatican pay child-maintenance for over 20 million children.
    But the concept of ‘child maintenance’ is about to be turned upon its head. For just as the world’s population is about to reach 7 Billion, its seemingly unstoppable momentum is halted. ‘Year Zero’. ‘The Crisis’. Suddenly every living creature known to man has ceased reproducing. The last baby born becomes an international star. Decades later the appearance of a kitten becomes a world media mystery. Who would have thought? But who is behind all this? Have the New World Order Zionist’s been beaten to the finish line? But the thing is, most of those actively involved in the conspiracy have no idea. Maybe you are part of it. Only when the veil of ignorance has been lifted will you know for sure. And then we will be left asking the question. What comes next?

    I don’t think so. Nope.

  243. says

    lol wow Caine that book description. Could be a masterpeice :P

    Anyways, just now I was thinking about different art mediums. Like, it’s difficult to hide things in music, because it’s basically one dimensional (time). On the other hand, a lot can be hidden within a movie, because you can’t look at every part of the screen all at once. Meatspace and video games can take this even further, having all three dimensions of space and also the dimension of time.

    Of course I could also go on about how many different senses are involved in each medium…

  244. Tethys says

    Caine

    It’s cloudy and cool today. Tethys, I hope you get your thunderstorms. I sure as fuck wish one would hit here today, and put paid to the Labour day “celebrations”.

    The front did spawn some severe storms, but I only got a few sprinkles of rain. It is much better now that the low pressure is over thanks, and the drop in temp and humidity is also quite welcome. My commiserations on your obnoxious loud neighbors. When did every single summer holiday become an occasion for fireworks?

  245. says

    Brian @ 354:

    lol wow Caine that book description. Could be a masterpeice :P

    The bit that keeps amusing me is Vatican officials are caught on television cameras arguing with robots. There’s definitely a story in that somewhere.

    Like, it’s difficult to hide things in music, because it’s basically one dimensional (time).

    I am terribly ignorant when it comes to music (all I do is listen), but it seems to me that music can be astonishingly complex, and can effectively ‘hide’ whole strings of sound, until you listen to it enough to pick up all the different strands, and are finally able to listen to the whole without missing anything. Or maybe that’s just me. I listen to music when drawing or painting, and I seem to pick up particular strands of a piece of music, while relegating the rest to background, then pick up a different strand, and so on.

    Tethys @ 355:

    The front did spawn some severe storms, but I only got a few sprinkles of rain. It is much better now that the low pressure is over thanks, and the drop in temp and humidity is also quite welcome. My commiserations on your obnoxious loud neighbors. When did every single summer holiday become an occasion for fireworks?

    No rain here, but it got very cool over night. The sun is up now, looking bright, hopefully, it won’t be deathly hot. Fireworks, oy. I hate the damn things anymore. There’s one family in particular, they must have a fucking fireworks store in their garage or something. Last year, they were setting off fireworks every. single. night. for. months. Not regular ones, the ones that sound like a fucking bomb going off – shaking windows, the whole nine yards. Finally, the mayor had a word, but they had an excuse this weekend. *sigh* I’d really like to see the damn things outlawed except for professional shows.

  246. opposablethumbs says

    http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/08/lost-genius-the-other-mozart-sister-nannerl

    Maria Anna (called Marianne and nicknamed Nannerl) was – like her younger brother – a child prodigy. The children toured most of Europe (including an 18-month stay in London in 1764-5) performing together as “wunderkinder”. There are contemporaneous reviews praising Nannerl, and she was even billed first. Until she turned 18. A little girl could perform and tour, but a woman doing so risked her reputation. And so she was left behind in Salzburg, and her father only took Wolfgang on their next journeys around the courts of Europe. Nannerl never toured again.

    xposted to Feminist Lens thread.

  247. says

    @356, Caine

    The bit that keeps amusing me is Vatican officials are caught on television cameras arguing with robots.

    Same! Especially how it says “caught”. What is it about “arguing with robots” that they would want to hide? And why robots, specifically, not humans? The whole sentence sounds like something you would hear someone say in a dream.

    it seems to me that music can be astonishingly complex, and can effectively ‘hide’ whole strings of sound, until you listen to it enough to pick up all the different strands, and are finally able to listen to the whole without missing anything.

    Ya, you’re right.

  248. says

    Brian:

    Same! Especially how it says “caught”. What is it about “arguing with robots” that they would want to hide? And why robots, specifically, not humans? The whole sentence sounds like something you would hear someone say in a dream.

    I don’t know why robots, but I’d love to know the answer (just not enough to read that book). For anyone who writes sci-fi or fantasy, there’s a good idea in that.

  249. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    A poem du jour:

    School Prayer
    by Diane Ackerman

    In the name of the daybreak
    and the eyelids of morning
    and the wayfaring moon
    and the night when it departs,

    I swear I will not dishonor
    my soul with hatred,
    but offer myself humbly
    as a guardian of nature,
    as a healer of misery,
    as a messenger of wonder,
    as an architect of peace.

    In the name of the sun and its mirrors
    and the day that embraces it
    and the cloud veils drawn over it
    and the uttermost night
    and the male and the female
    and the plants bursting with seed
    and the crowning seasons
    of the firefly and the apple,

    I will honor all life
    -wherever and in whatever form
    it may dwell-on Earth my home,
    and in the mansions of the stars.

    “School Prayer” by Diane Ackerman from I Praise My Destroyer. © Vintage Books, 2000

  250. blf says

    Escape art! Um, that is, the art of escape… Russian five-year-olds dig their way out of nursery to buy sports car:

    Two boys use spades to escape under fence and then walk to car showroom before driver takes them to police

    Two five-year-old Russian boys used spades to dig their way out of their kindergarten and set off on a mission to buy a Jaguar sports car, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily has reported.

    The two boys disappeared as their group took part in a supervised walk in the grounds of the kindergarten in the city of Magnitogorsk in the Urals region, the tabloid said.

    Chelyabinsk regional interior ministry confirmed the boys’ escape from the kindergarten. “We don’t have any details yet, we can only confirm the fact itself,” a spokesman said, adding that the incident took place several days ago.

    After reaching freedom, the boys walked just over a mile to a car showroom selling luxury cars. A female driver noticed them and asked what they were doing. They told her they had come from their kindergarten to buy a Jaguar but did not have any money.

    She put them in her car and drove them to a police station.

    Typical art critic.

    The boys had prepared their escape for several days, digging a hole under a fence using spades from the sandpit […]

    The children’s parents did not submit any complaint against the kindergarten.

  251. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Caine @ 366

    Beautiful flowers, fabulous, hairy seedpods, and beloved by bees, moths, and butterflies…

    … and snarky, giggling little old ladies.

  252. says

    Stunning macro photos of delicate butterfly wings look like shimmering petals:

    Butterflies are exceptionally beautiful insects with wings covered in unique patterns and brilliant colors. On their own, these delicate creatures already stand out—but what happens when you look up-close? Artist Linden Gledhill utilizes the art of macro photography to capture the petal-like structures that make up these natural beauties’ wings. As a trained biochemist, he’s able to use advanced microscopes and high-speed equipment to zoom in on these unseen details. What results is an image that’s reminiscent of fish scales, but this particular scale-like anatomy appears much more delicate and feathery. In revealing the unexpected characteristics that complete these pollinators, Gledhill has allowed viewers to visually appreciate the abundant natural beauty that enhances our world.

    multiple gorgeous photos at the link.

  253. blf says

    I’m not quite sure what category this goes into, but decided to put it here because the woo-woos were presumably seeing lots of pretty lights whilst some sort of music played. Which is art, for certain values of “art”. Mystery surrounds hallucinatory chaos at German homeopathy conference:

    Police unsure if the incident, where 29 homeopaths were found to be intoxicated with LSD-like drug, was an accident or experiment gone wrong

    Police investigating a mass intoxication of a homeopathy conference in Germany with psychedelic drugs have said they still do not know nearly a week later whether it was an accident or an experiment gone wrong.

    Emergency services called to the meeting in Handeloh, south of Hamburg, last Friday afternoon found a group of 29 alternative healers [sic] hallucinating, staggering around, groaning and rolling on the grass.

    Police spokesman Lars Nicklesen said on Thursday that investigators believe a psychedelic drug was to blame but remain unsure of how or why it was taken. The delegates are now all out out of physical danger, he said, but there may yet be legal consequences for the healers in the course of the ongoing criminal investigation.

    […]

    Nicklesen added that police suspect the group took 2C-E, known in Germany as Aquarust, a drug which heightens perceptions of colours and sounds and in higher doses triggers hallucinations, psychosis and severe cramps.

    Germany’s health ministry banned the drug last year due to its highly addictive nature and unknown side effects.

    The homeopaths’ meeting — billed as a “further education seminar” — was suspended shortly after it started when delegates began experiencing psychotic hallucinations, cramps, racing heartbeats and shortage of breath. […]

    [… I]n one clinic […] hallucinating patients had to be strapped down to a bed to prevent them causing danger to others. “They were completely off their heads,” a spokesman for the clinic said.

    The comments are full of people pointing out that whatever happened, it wasn’t homeopathetic. For example, “This must have [been] the first time the homeopaths took a tablet with anything in it.”

  254. says

    Well, I lost most of yesterday to overloading my wireless and watching Gregorian in concert. So naturally, I’m taking the day off. I have a house full of animals to feed, including myself. Hopefully, back to work Saturday.

  255. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Poem du jour:

    “Kindness”
    by Naomi Shihab Nye

    Before you know what kindness really is
    you must lose things,
    feel the future dissolve in a moment
    like salt in a weakened broth.
    What you held in your hand,
    what you counted and carefully saved,
    all this must go so you know
    how desolate the landscape can be
    between the regions of kindness.
    How you ride and ride
    thinking the bus will never stop,
    the passengers eating maize and chicken
    will stare out the window forever.

    Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
    you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
    lies dead by the side of the road.
    You must see how this could be you,
    how he too was someone
    who journeyed through the night with plans
    and the simple breath that kept him alive.

    Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
    you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
    You must wake up with sorrow.
    You must speak to it till your voice
    catches the thread of all sorrows
    and you see the size of the cloth.
    Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
    only kindness that ties your shoes
    and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
    only kindness that raises its head
    from the crowd of the world to say
    It is I you have been looking for,
    and then goes with you everywhere
    like a shadow or a friend.

  256. says

    Very nice, Morgan! I’ve had this impending sense of…je nais se quoi, so:

    De profundis clamavi (Out of the depths have I cried)

    Sole Being I love, Your mercy I implore
    Out of the bitter pit of my heart’s night,
    With leaden skyscapes on a dismal shore,
    Peopled only by blasphemy and fright;
    For six months frigid suns float overhead,
    For six months more darkness and solitude.
    No polar wastes are bleaker and more dead,
    With never beast nor stream nor plant nor wood.

    No horror in this world but is outdone
    By the cold razor of this glacial sun
    And this chaotic night’s immensities.
    I envy the most humble beast that ease
    Which brings dull slumber to his brutish soul
    So slowly does my skein of time unroll.

    – Charles Baudelaire

  257. says

    Yes. I think I’ve had an internal alarm going off after the seriously high temps, how bloody cold the nights have become. I think this winter is going to be a bad one. I don’t normally feel like this, though. I love the slide into autumn, but something is pricking the back of my mind.

  258. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    I think I may understand what you are feeling… something askew… a few degrees out of phase. I too love the slide into autumn: It is, paradoxically, my “come alive” time of year after the torture of summer. (I do not do heat.) I suggest that our bodies and minds may be reacting to climate change. Yes, humans are hugely adaptable, but that does not mean we do not sense changes in visceral ways. There are changes in the subtle but familiar patterns of the seasons, and the disruption of patterns is unsettling.

  259. says

    Morgan @ 376:

    I suggest that our bodies and minds may be reacting to climate change.

    I agree. I think that’s exactly what’s going on. Something’s coming, just don’t know what yet.

  260. emergence says

    Sorry if I come across like an intruding philistine, but there’s something I’d once again like to ask about action/adventure fiction, particularly in video games. People here and elsewhere have brought up how the heroes of action/adventure stories tend to mow down entire armies of the villain’s henchmen without much concern for the fact that they’re extinguishing dozens of human lives.

    The problem is that action stories need to have a sense of danger in order for the story to have stakes. There need to be obstacles for the hero to overcome in the form of antagonists. I don’t think that the answer is to simply not have action-oriented stories, so how exactly are writers and game developers supposed to get around this?

    I have a few ideas:
    – In games, you deal with a smaller set of antagonists and avoid having huge numbers of faceless goons.
    – Make the cannon fodder antagonists disposable robotic drones or animated rocks, rather than thinking, feeling, sapient creatures.
    – Have the hero take non-lethal approaches, encouraging the player to sneak around enemies, disable them without killing them, or simply run away from large groups of enemies, with lethal force being a last resort.

    Anyone have any other suggestions?

    Is there something inherently wrong with having the hero of a story kill off entire armies worth of faceless thugs, even if the story offers justification for it? Or am I worrying about something for no reason?

  261. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Poem du jour:

    Look It Over
    by Wendell Berry

    I leave behind even
    my walking stick. My knife
    is in my pocket, but that
    I have forgot. I bring
    no car, no cell phone,
    no computer, no camera,
    no CD player, no fax, no
    TV, not even a book. I go
    into the woods. I sit on
    a log provided at no cost.
    It is the earth I’ve come to,
    the earth itself, sadly
    abused by the stupidity
    only humans are capable of
    but, as ever, itself. Free.
    A bargain! Get it while it lasts.

    “Look It Over” by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint Press, 2012.

  262. blf says

    The mildly deranged penguin observes that this is not how one attracts wandering cheese plants, The Broad review — supersized cheese grater hits LA, unless, I suppose they like the sort of art there (“what is widely regarded as one of the most important collections of postwar and contemporary art in the world”) or have come to marvel at “the city’s medieval public transport system”:

    [… T]he Broad (pronounced Brode) [is a “$140m new art museum […] on central Los Angeles’s Grand Avenue”, “free for all to enter”, and] a startling concrete box perforated with thousands of angular holes, giving it the look of a supersized cheese grater — ready to shred any other building that dares come close. “With the opening of the Broad, LA has become without question the contemporary art capital of the world.”

  263. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    blf @ 384
    I plan on visiting the “supersized cheese grater” the next time I venture down the mountain onto the evil flatlands. The thing about Eli and Edythe Broad, they promised for years to bequeath their collection to Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), of which Broad is a lifetime trustee. When their egos got the better of them and they announced plans to construct their own museum, there were some indignant ripples in the art and culture circles of Los Angeles. Oh well… “The rich are different from you and me” (abridged, with apologies to Fitzgerald).

  264. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    About Los Angeles architecture……. TimeOut LA did an article in October of last year on what they judge to be the ten ugliest buildings in Los Angeles. I have opinions on all of these, but I am wondering what other architecture mavens have to say about this. Have a look.

  265. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    The same publication subsequently did an article on the 30 most beautiful buildings in Los Angeles. Some of them are really questionable, especially the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. What a monstrous pile that is. You can see the pics at the same link as above.

  266. blf says

    Interesting article in The New York Times, An ‘Otello’ Without Blackface Highlights an Enduring Tradition in Opera:

    At a recent dress rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera, there was something missing when the Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko sang the title role of Verdi’s “Otello”: the stage makeup with names like Indian Red and Otello Brown that opera companies have used for more than a century to darken pale singers playing the part.

    “The Met breaks tradition, and I will be white,” Mr Antonenko shrugged as he was powdered in his dressing room.

    It was an offhand way of phrasing a seismic shift. That leading opera houses have continued to use blackface into the early 21st century, long after minstrel shows and similar performances have been rejected as racist, may be more surprising to many people than that the practice is now being ended by the Met, after 124 years […]

    […]

    Opera buffs may not blink at seeing white Otellos in dark greasepaint, viewing it as part of a tradition that has also allowed overweight tenors to play starving artists or mature sopranos to be cast as winsome teenagers. The paramount concern has been whether performers had the vocal goods for the roles. But to 21st-century audiences, raised in an increasingly diverse world and accustomed to a style of theatrical naturalism that should look as good in a high-definition close-up as it does from the upper balconies, an Otello in blackface is likely to register somewhere on a scale of awkward to offensive.

    Yet the change has divided opera lovers. After the Met posted a video excerpt from a recent rehearsal on its Facebook page, one commenter wrote, “Othello should be in black face,” to which another suggested that the complainant “should live in the 19th century.”

    If dark makeup is deemed out of bounds for white Otellos, will that also change expectations for how, say, non-Asian sopranos should look or act when singing the title roles in operas like Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” or “Turandot”[? …] Works conceived long ago as exotic spectacles can risk looking uncomfortably like Orientalism, or jumbles of other patronizing and outdated stereotypes, to modern eyes.

    The issue rose to the forefront last year when a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” in Seattle was criticized as “yellowface” […] setting off a wide-ranging discussion of whether the work was a witty satire of the British, an ugly caricature of the Japanese, or both.

    […]

    “It never occurred to me, in this day and age, that we would ever consider doing it with the makeup,” Bartlett Sher [the director of the Met’s new “Otello”] said, saying that he believed Verdi and his librettist, Arrigo Boito, were less focused on the character’s race than Shakespeare was. Mr Sher said he saw the character, at his core, as an outsider uncomfortable in Venetian society who is manipulated into a kind of jealous madness that leads to tragedy — all of which can be communicated without makeup.

    [… O]pera is belatedly catching up to the theater. Stanley Wells, the author of “Great Shakespeare Actors: Burbage to Branagh,” […] said that “for quite a long time now, it has been verboten to have a white actor blacked up as Othello,” and that one of the last major white actors to play the role in dark makeup was Michael Gambon, in 1990. Patrick Stewart played the part without dark makeup in 1997, in what became known as the “photo negative” production, since he was a white Othello, and black actors played the Venetians.

    […]

    There is no question that diversity lags in classical music, opera and ballet. When American Ballet Theater made Misty Copeland a principal dancer this summer, she became the first African-American woman to hold the rank in the company’s 75-year history.

    […]

    Opera companies have gone through contortions in the past when it came to questions of makeup and race. An “Otello” at the Opera Company of Boston three decades ago featured James McCracken, a white tenor, wearing dark makeup to play Otello, and Shirley Verrett, the African-American soprano, wearing light makeup to play his bride, Desdemona.

    Such stretches would prove a distraction, at best, today. As the Met ran through its more naturally made-up “Otello,” one reaction it elicited was relief: The uncomfortable sensation of watching a white man in blackface was gone.

  267. says

    Morgan:

    Have a look.

    1100 Wilshire: Ugly
    Eh, the big blue building is fine, just have to get rid of the fucking scientology garbage.
    Palms Motor: I like it, could do with a paint job. A good one.
    Macy’s Plaza: Ugly. Boring.
    Convention Center: Hated it from the moment it was being constructed in ’71. (Gimme the Pantages any day.)
    I like the Visconti.
    Hollywood Galaxy: Eh. Boring.
    8500 Melrose: I like it.
    Beverly Center: Hate it more than the convention center. Awful.
    Hollywood & Highland: Eh, standard American ugly. Boring.

  268. Morgan!? ♥ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ says

    Here is my vote for the ugliest, most pretentious building in Los Angeles. It is called The Tower, located on Westwood Blvd. near the UCLA campus. It is colored the deepest black and putrid yellow and I suppose tried to be Egyptian.

  269. opus says

    I usually hate to invade someone’s privacy by posting candid street shots, but in this case I couldn’t resist. She was so very pregnant, and so radiant, that I think it’s worth it.

  270. blf says

    Art to piss on! A long history of toilets in Ukraine museum (quoted in full), there is a link to a video:

    Eurasianet.org takes an educational tour of the world’s largest collection of chamber pots, squatting pans and urinals

    Pecunia non olet (money does not smell),” reads a slogan in a museum in the Ukrainian capital dedicated to the history of toilets.

    The quote is said to have been made by Roman Emperor Vespasian when he imposed a tax on public urinals — just one of the fascinating facts on offer in the museum, which holds what is possibly the world’s largest assortment of toilet bowls.

    First established as a private collection, the Toilet History Museum is tucked inside the 19th-century Kiev Fortress — better known for past executions than past ablutions.

    Whether it’s the Egyptian liking for limestone toilet seats or the Roman preference for socialising while seeking relief, bathroom habits can say about a society.

    In this short film, museum director Nelya Voronava takes Eurasianet.org on a tour of the collection.

  271. Ice Swimmer says

    Giliell @ 400

    So, the season of mists (no bilingual pun intended) and mellow fruitfulness is also a season of cuteness. And the long bill of the cap will cut glare from the low-hanging autumn sun. Nice caps.

  272. says

    Caine
    Seeing your photos I always think we’re kindred spirits. I temd to get really excited by Leaves! Trees! Plants! Interesting Light Patterns! and take a bazillion pics and my family (except for my sister) looks at me like “thank goodness those are only taking up disk space”

  273. says

    Opus, your link is brokt!

    Giliell @ 400, oh, gorgeous, beautiful hat! Love those colours.

    Giliell:

    Seeing your photos I always think we’re kindred spirits. I temd to get really excited by Leaves! Trees! Plants! Interesting Light Patterns! and take a bazillion pics and my family (except for my sister) looks at me like “thank goodness those are only taking up disk space”

    So many people simply don’t see what’s there. The most mundane things are often blazingly beautiful. I long ago came to the conclusion that it doesn’t much matter if others don’t see the same things I do, and every once in a while, I can get other people to see. There’s a lot to be excited about out there!

  274. blf says

    The title is not illuminating, perhaps even misleading, unless, I suppose you know who Julian Cope is (I didn’t), but the article is actually rather fascinating, Julian Cope on Celts: my wild romance:

    Pictish stones, Viking ring brooches and the Celtic football strip… a new show at the British Museum ranges from the Norse world to the faux ancient rites of 18th-century England by way of today’s superheroes. What does Britain’s leading punk antiquarian make of it?

    Back in 1992, in a fit of neo-Celtic fervour, I set off for a tour of prehistoric Ireland armed with a hickory-handled wood-axe on which I had carved my name in rudimentary sub-rune style letters. Ten days later, this everyday tool I had bought brand new from a Marlborough hardware store, I flung with grace and meaning into the deep waters of Ireland’s most holy lake, Lough Gur. Perhaps I’d just wanted by this action to remind the ancients that there still remained romantic souls for whom votive offerings could have deep meaning.

    Today, as I arrive at the British Museum for a sneak preview of its new exhibition, Celts: Art and Identity, I’m immediately accosted by one of the exhibition supervisors: a 6ft 2in biker, who compliments me on my black “Neu!” vest. Ah, such generosity always goes down well. And so it is with a similar generosity of spirit that the London exhibition lays upon me its open-minded vision of all things Celtic.

    No narrowness of definition here, dear me no. For, although the Ancient Greek term Keltoi initially aimed only to define itself as a geographical catch-all label for those mysterious barbarian tribes to their west, the British Museum has chosen to revision the Celt and all things Celtic not for what they once were known, but for what those emotive terms have, down the recent centuries, come to be known.

    And so, Celts is an all-inclusive term that puts on display Pictish symbol stones, Viking ring-brooches from Orkney, Scandinavian silverware — hell, it even incorporates Iolo Morganwg’s 1781 re-creation of the Druid Order and the once frowned-upon Celtic imaginings of the 18th-century antiquary William Stukeley, which is fair enough considering it was Stukeley himself who first initiated the term by labelling, in 1743, one of Avebury’s grandest megalithic settings Celtic in his magnum opus: Abury, A Temple of the British Druids.

    [… T]he exhibition’s opener is no swirly brooch but a two-metre tall double-faced horned statue-menhir from southern Germany. Tall, stick thin and be-robed, its carved fingers and rope belt remind me of the Mediterranean sentinels that guard Corsica’s citadel of Filitosa. But the absence of a carved sword or indeed any form of armour lend an immediate religious air to this sombre sandstone giant.

    […]

    Here at the museum is the greatest Celtic find of all: the legendary Gundestrup cauldron. It’s my all-time favourite prehistoric artefact: huge, silver, magnificent. Wonderful castings of Norse gods, men, animals and mythological beasts festoon its sides, while a recumbent bull guards its basin. The cauldron is striking for its characters and stories (most Celtic art is non-figurative) but I long ago decided it was pointless trying to itemise these snake-gripping figures, as the Celts had so many local pantheons.

  275. says

    Super Blood Moon

    In September 2015, the moon sweeps to perigee – the moon’s closest point to Earth for the month – on September 28 at 1:46 UTC. That is September 27 at 8:46 p.m. CDT. This month’s moon at its perigee lies 356,877 kilometers (221,753 miles) from Earth. It’s the moon’s closest point to Earth for all of 2015.

    The year’s closest perigee is sometimes called the moon’s proxigee.

    And there’s more. About one hour after the September 27-28 lunar perigee, the moon will reach the crest of its full phase. That’ll happen at 2:51 UTC. The very close coincidence of perigee and full moon will showcase not only the closest supermoon of 2015, but also a lunar eclipse on night of September 27-28.

     

    There is a total eclipse of the moon on the night of September 27-28, 2015. It happens to be the closest supermoon of 2015. It’s the Northern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon, or full moon nearest the September equinox. It’s the Southern Hemisphere’s first full moon of spring. This September full moon is also called a Blood Moon, because it presents the fourth and final eclipse of a lunar tetrad: four straight total eclipses of the moon, spaced at six lunar months (full moons) apart. Phew!

    The total lunar eclipse is visible from the most of North America and all of South America after sunset September 27. From eastern South America and Greenland, the greatest eclipse happens around midnight September 27-28. In Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the total eclipse takes place in the wee hours of the morning, after midnight and before sunrise September 28. A partial lunar eclipse can be seen after sunset September 27 from western Alaska, or before sunrise September 28 in far-western Asia.

    http://earthsky.org/?p=211809
    http://earthsky.org/tonight/total-lunar-eclipse-blood-moon-hunters-moon-september-27-28-2015

  276. dreamstone says

  277. says

    Brought home two little girls today, Sappho & Leto. Hopefully, I’ll get pics in a day or three. Sappho is a pale and dark cream, Leto is grey. So far, Sappho is the primary explorer. Leto is hiding out, waiting for nightfall, I expect. I’m hoping I might be able to see the perigee moon tonight, as last night, most of what I saw was heavy cloud cover, no moon.

  278. blf says

    ‘They are barbarians’: meet the man defending Syria’s heritage from Isis (The Grauniad’s current style is to use the name “Isis” to refer to daesh):

    Maamoun Abdulkarim is tasked with protecting Syrian antiquities, but as the fighting continues he fears more sites and artefacts could be lost forever

    Old Queen Zenobia came to Damascus the other day and was winched into place in a prime spot on Umayyad Square, opposite the al-Assad national library. The replica brass statue of the 3rd-century heroine was representing Palmyra, her realm on the eastern edge of the Roman empire, now in the hands of Islamic State. Zenobia’s ceremonial arrival in the capital was a pledge that Syria’s heritage has not been abandoned.

    The destruction wrought by Isis on the desert city hauntingly known as the ‘Venice of the Sands’ horrified a world fatigued by a conflict that has claimed 250,000 lives and made millions homeless. And the tragedy was cruelly personalised by the fate of Khaled al-Asaad, the archaeologist who devoted his long life to Palmyra — and who was tortured [then killed] after refusing to reveal where its treasures had been hidden.

    “Everyone is talking about Palmyra now,” Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director-general of antiquities and museums, and Khaled al-Asaad’s devoted friend and colleague, told the Guardian in his Damascus office. […]

    Abdulkarim, who is of Armenian and Kurdish background, embodies the cultural diversity of which Syrians were once proud — and which he remains determined to defend in the face of disintegration and hatred. He came to the antiquities job in the “catastrophic” summer of 2012, when rebel attacks seemed to threaten the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. His first decision was to close down all the museums in the country, to safeguard both collections and visitors. “I always say that I am the unhappiest director-general of antiquities in the world,” he quipped with a self-deprecatory smile.

    “We began to hide things and then as the war intensified we decided to move the maximum possible to Damascus,” he said. In early 2013 some 30,000 objects were brought by air from from Deir ez-Zor, then, as now, under siege by anti-­Assad forces. The evacuation accelerated in 2014 after the fall of the northern Iraqi town of Mosul to Isis and the first shocking images of destruction of ancient monuments. That meant the relics of Syrian Mesopotamia were saved. […]

    In scenes that echoed the second world war story of the Monuments Men who saved artworks from destruction or looting, 24,000 objects were also brought by truck from Aleppo earlier this year. The heroine of that operation was a 25-year-old Syrian archaeologist who stayed with the army-escorted convoy for a hazardous 11-hour journey: she has to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted by armed groups who would kill her for cooperating with the state.

    The good news is that thousands of historic sites and artefacts have been secured and preserved, for example the mosaics in Busra al-Sham in the south, where non-jihadi groups are in control. Residents in Palmyra, Abdulkarim revealed, tried to persuade Isis not to destroy the Roman temple of Bel, explaining that it had served as a mosque for centuries — but they blew it up anyway. “They said ‘We are afraid that one day the world will return to paganism’ — so they destroyed it. It’s utter ignorance. They are barbarians.”

    Isis, however, is just one problem. “Only Isis has destroyed statues, tombs, monasteries, churches for ideological reasons. It has also taken coins, jewels and vases and sold them. But other groups have done that too,” Abdulkarim said. Long before the jihadis took Palmyra, the site had been looted [but some artifacts were recovered with the help of the Lebanese authorities] whose national antiquities body is the only one to have cooperated closely with its Syrian counterpart.

    [… Other groups have since then started helping…]

    Rescue efforts, meanwhile, are continuing behind the closed doors of the eerily empty museum […]. In an inner courtyard, a team of archaeologists are cataloguing, photographing and packing artefacts for secure storage.

    Mayassa Deeb — doing her doctorate on bronze age chariot figures — is numbering 3,000 year-old cuneiform tablets, their Akkadian script clearly visible, before they are photographed, wrapped in gauze and packed in plastic boxes, in turn inserted into a sturdy foam-lined wooden crate by her colleagues, Zeina, Dana and Husam.

    “It is important to know that everything is safe,” Deeb says. “And I want to document everything for the archives. A lot of sites have already been destroyed, so maybe these objects will help us study what has been lost. If, as I hope, the war ends, we will be able to display it all in Syria’s museums again.”

  279. says

    I have been listening to Bastille for way too long. I have got to learn to stay the fuck away from Utube, I’m not getting anything done at all, not even watching the rest of Batman and Robin: The Serial (1949), which is great fun – the ‘batcar’ is a convertible Mercury, and Batman gets into costume in the back seat, a lot.

  280. blf says

    France and Netherlands to jointly buy rare Rembrandts:

    17th-century paintings worth €160m belonging to Rothschilds will alternate between Rijksmuseum and Louvre

    The Netherlands and France will together buy two rare Rembrandts for a total of €160m (£118m) , the Dutch culture minister has announced, after the two countries defused a potential bidding war.

    The 17th-century paintings, which belong to the Rothschild banking family and have rarely been seen in public, will alternate between the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Louvre in Paris, Jet Bussemaker said in a letter to the Dutch parliament.

    “We believe these two rare portraits should always be allowed to be admired together, alternately between the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre, so they are accessible to the broader public, both young and old,” she said, adding that the deal was cemented by Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, and the French president, François Hollande, at the United Nations this week.

    […]

    The marital portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit are believed to be in the collection of Eric de Rothschild. The affluent Dutch couple had themselves individually painted in fine detail by Rembrandt in Amsterdam and through the years the two paintings have always been treated as a single unit, media reports said.

    Dressed in black, which was highly fashionable at the time, Soolmans is depicted holding a glove in his left hand, while Coppit holds an ostrich feather fan and wears a four-row pearl necklace among other expensive jewellery.

    The artnet website said they have been viewed publicly only once in the past 150 years, and Bussemaker has already stressed the importance of finally putting them on public display.

    [… The director of the Rijksmuseum, Wim] Pijbes said each country would own half of each of the two paintings, which were “like a pair of shoes, never to be separated”.

  281. blf says

    Art, for certain edible values of “art”, Adam Liaw’s 10 dishes you should be able to cook by the time you’re 30:

     ● Scrambled Eggs.
     ● Roast chicken.
     ● Pancakes.
     ● A stir-fry.
     ● Something vegetarian.
     ● A pasta that isn’t bolognese.
     ● Soup. (Speaking of which, I’ve got a made-from-scratch Oxtail soup simmering away as I starvetype…)
     ● Fried rice.
     ● A good stew. (He has a very board definition of “stew” and, e.g., includes dishes like vindaloo — I approve!)
     ○ A signature cake.

    “Cook” a cake? Maybe that’s why I’m incapable of baking one, I’ve been doing it all wrong.

    The mildly deranged penguin’s list is much simpler:

     ● Cheese.
     ● Moar cheese.
     ● And cheese.

    And speaking of cheese, That Stinky Cheese Is a Result of Evolutionary Overdrive:

    Like many biologists, Ricardo C. Rodríguez de la Vega searches the world for new species. But while other scientists venture into the depths of the ocean or the heart of the jungle, Dr Rodríguez de la Vega and his colleagues visit cheese shops.

    “Every time we’re traveling internationally for a conference or something, we go specifically to the local cheese shop and say, ‘Give me the wildest blue cheese you have,’ ” said Dr Rodríguez de la Vega, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris.

    The mildly deranged penguin has just run off to apply for a job there.

    The cheese they buy is alive with fungi; indeed, many cheeses require a particular species of mold to properly ripen. To produce Roquefort blue cheese, for example, cheese makers mix Penicillium roqueforti into fermenting curds. The mold spreads throughout the cheese, giving it not only a distinctive blue color but also its (acquired) taste.

    To produce soft cheeses such as Camembert or Brie, on the other hand, cheese makers spray a different mold species, Penicillium camemberti, on the curds. The fungus spreads its tendrils over the developing cheese, eventually forming the rind. When you chew on a Camembert rind, you’re eating a solid mat of mold.

    […]

    [The molds] haven’t simply gained new genetic mutations to help them grow better in cheese. Over the past few centuries, these molds also have picked up large chunks of DNA from other species in order to thrive in their new culinary habitat.

    […]

    The first cheese was made thousands of years ago. Cheese makers developed new varieties often by discovering new molds. In France the traditional method for making Roquefort cheese, for example, starts with bringing loaves of bread into caves.

    Penicillium roqueforti grows on cave walls, and before long it attacks the bread. The cheese makers retrieve the loaves and break off bits to transfer the mold to their curds.

    […]

    Cheese molds […] are enthusiastic adopters of foreign DNA [horizontal gene transfer], Dr Rodríguez de la Vega and his colleagues found. Up to 5 percent of the entire genome of each mold they studied was made up of DNA from another species.

    The mildly deranged penguin has always complained what cheese molds are misnamed, and should not be Penicillium _____ but Pengium _____. I’ve suggested she should be known as the moldy deranged penguin…

  282. blf says

    The moldy deranged penguin is going to Paris via Wales so she can chase after great clanging bronze beasties, Iliad review — Homer’s epic is the theatrical event of the year (5 / 5 stars):

    The audience becomes the raw material of this vital National Theatre Wales version of one of our oldest narratives
    […]
    We enter an evacuated space, illuminated by sallow industrial light: piles of tyres, stacks of white plastic garden chairs, microphones hanging from the ceiling. Screens flicker, some with autocues, on others the gods’ faces materialise; on one wall, there’s a cinema-sized projection of a brooding Welsh landscape, moving with surveillance-camera-like slowness. In the centre, eyeballing us as if we are about to be interrogated, are 10 actors dressed in identical black suits-cum-uniforms.

    Six performers will speak in the end; the other four are deployed as army-style grunts — creating improvised stages from the tyres and slabs of MDF, erecting structures that resemble palisades or siege engines, then tearing them down again. In one astonishing moment, they mass the chairs menacingly into the centre of the room. […W]e in the audience are the raw material: mute observers, complicit witnesses, or invited to lie down with limbs twisted and splayed like battlefield dead.

    […] The gestures are minimal, and as the actors flicker between different characters it’s not always easy to track who’s speaking, or to whom. Sometimes your attention wanders; then you’re politely turfed out of your seat so it can temporarily be repurposed as part of the set.

    But so much here leaves you breathless. We are invited to hover above whole armies, then swoop in for a microscopic close-up as the grieving Achilles grinds his face into the dirt; shown moments of iridescent beauty and pitiless, hair-raising horror. This theatremaking is steely and severe, but it is also bracingly alive. Iliad is certainly the theatrical event of the year. It may be the theatrical event of the decade.

    The improvised stage is made from “slabs of MDF”, not moldy deranged penguin. And it’s Homer, not Horace.

  283. blf says

    Nor sure this is art, for any value of “art”, since it’s mostly about French “pop” “music”. Several of my French friends here in France have told me it is crap — that’s the word they used, crap — and I don’t disagree in general. (I have an especial hatred of French “rap” “music”, which should be banned under various arms limitation treaties.) Anyways, Quotas killed the radio star: French DJs rebel against prescribed playlists:

    Stations are boycotting the law requiring francophone tracks to make up 40% of radio airplay — but there is a deeper malaise, with a huge decline in French-language music

    For a while this week, France’s commercial radio sounded a bit less French as independent stations and leading broadcasters […] staged a 24-hour boycott of the law that for 20-odd years has ensured nearly half the music [at least 40%] played on French radio is, indeed, in French.

    It is a rule that has long been unpopular with broadcasters, who would quite like to compile their playlists themselves. As the boss of Oui FM, Emmanuel Rials, told Le Monde: “It’s not for politicians to tell us what we can and can’t play.”

    But they have finally been moved to protest by [a proposed] amendment to the 1994 law […]. Prompted by concerns — voiced loudly by the record companies — that radios are depriving the airwaves of diversity and new acts by filling their 40% quota with the same songs, the change means the 10 most-played French-language songs on each station must now make up no more than half its francophone quota.

    [… B]ehind the row lies an even deeper malaise. [… O]ne of the reasons French radio stations are playing the same French songs is that they don’t have as many of them to choose from: according to some estimates, the number of songs recorded in French last year fell by as much as half, with the decline since 2003 put at an alarming 66%.

  284. blf says

    A follow-up to @411: The title is appalling (more on this at the end), The Celts: not quite the barbarians history would have us believe:

    A close examination of Celtic craftsmanship reveals a scientifically sophisticated people with good links to the rest of Europe

    A farmer, ploughing a field near Snettisham in Norfolk in 1948, turned up what he thought was a bit of an old brass bedstead. But it was gold, not brass, which he’d discovered and this was just the first piece of the richest iron age hoard ever discovered in Europe, including more than 200 torcs and fragments of torcs: neck rings made of gold, silver and bronze. Today, the collection is in the British Museum, and earlier this year, I [Alice Roberts] was lucky enough to get a close look at some of these beautiful treasures.

    These objects amply demonstrate the artistic flair and impressive technical abilities of iron age artisans

    […]

    The metalsmiths who created these works of art took inspiration from continental European designs, but added a local twist. These objects amply demonstrate the artistic flair and impressive technical abilities of those iron age artisans. But recent research on the Snettisham treasures has revealed another level of sophistication. Down in the smart new science labs of the British Museum, I met metallurgist Nigel Meeks. He had been using cutting-edge scientific techniques to reveal the secrets of these iron age masterpieces.

    A modestly sized scanning electron microscope, no larger than a small fridge, sat next to an array of screens in the lab. Nigel placed a small fragment of a relatively simple bronze torc in the electron microscope and fired up the machine. The pictures came through in no time, filling the first screen with a hugely magnified view of this twisted piece of torc, in black and white. There were patches of lighter and darker areas on the surface of the metal.

    This microscope could do more than just allowing us to visualise the surface of this object; it had an inbuilt spectrometer so it was possible to analyse the elements present on that surface. I selected an area of interest on the dark grey that seemed to represent the background material and the results appeared on a second screen. There was a high peak of copper and another of tin: this torc was indeed made of bronze. Then I chose a portion of the pale area and a totally different series of peaks appeared. There was one very tall spike corresponding with gold; another spike indicated mercury.

    “Is that just an impurity in the gold?” I asked Nigel.

    “No. You don’t naturally get mercury impurities in gold. The two metals have been deliberately mixed together&nbsp— this is mercury gilding.”

    This technique would have involved mixing grains of gold into mercury and applying the resulting silvery slurry to the bronze. Then, by heating the metal&nbsp— to over 357C&nbsp— the mercury would have been driven off, vaporising and leaving the rod coated in a skin of gold. It was iron age alchemy&nbsp— turning base metal into gold, or at least, into what looked like solid gold. This process never eliminates all the mercury from the surface of the gilt bronze, which is why there was enough left behind in the gold for Nigel’s analysis to pick it up.

    This is an extremely early example of fire gilding&nbsp— for Britain. The technique seems to have been invented around the middle of the first millennium BC, becoming relatively common in the Mediterranean by the 3d century BC. But this 1st century BC torc didn’t look like an exotic import&nbsp— it was characteristically British. There’s no source of mercury in Britain, so both this metal, and presumably the knowledge of this technique must have come from elsewhere. Archaeologists have discovered late iron age Spanish torcs that, though very different in style from the British one we were looking at, are gilded in the same way. There were also sources of cinnabar, the bright red mercury ore, in Iberia. So it’s possible that the ore, and the idea of fire gilding, arrived in iron age Britain from Spain, along well-used Atlantic seaways.

    When we read Greek and Roman accounts of the Celts, we come away with a caricature of uncouth barbarians who wear trousers and drink undiluted wine, who go naked into battle and who are terrified by an eclipse. But archaeology reveals a different story and we glimpse the Celts’ love of art and design, where exquisite jewellery symbolised power and where horse-riding warriors carried beautifully decorated swords and scabbards. We also discover how the Celtic-speaking tribes inhabiting the islands in the far north-west corner of Europe were culturally and technologically linked to their neighbours on the continent: iron age Britain was far from being a backwater.

    Only an ill-educated headline writer could believe for even a moment that the Celts were uncouth or somesuch. The comments quite robustly roast the eejit who wrote the headline for writing utter claptrap.

    Many yonks ago I visited Venezia specifically to see an exhibition of Celtic treasures&nbsp/ artwork. The skills and intricacy of what was on display was amazing.

  285. says

    Brought home two more rats today, a baby girl, Grace, all of five weeks old (Leto’s thrilled, Sappho not so much), and a rescue, Demonax, an older, very large, black rat, who was taken from a home and dumped at the city pound. He’s trauma’d out, and has a nice habitat to himself for now, in a quiet corner of the studio.

  286. says

    Grace. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Demonax was given to us, the woman there in charge of the pocket pets was only interested in getting him a home. She wanted to take him herself, but she and her boyfriend, who breeds rats, were worried about putting him in with seven well established rats.

  287. says

    I finally found a video I had seen in 2013.

    Technically it’s just a trailer for a longer short film, but it’s so wonderful on it’s own!

    And the full version was very unsatisfying. It had poor pacing, didn’t develop it’s ideas, and stuff. Of course, most short films I find on youtube are highly un-enjoyable to me, except stuff like that “OMEGA” I posted earlier in this thread.

  288. says

    Brian @ 452:

    That was a fab short. It would take a great deal of work to make it longer and keep the same sense to it. The universe shots…oh, there just aren’t words.

    Right now, I’m watching (and listening) to Re-imagining Vivaldi, Max Richter. One of my favourite pieces, and I’m really liking this version.

  289. says

    Giliell @ 456:

    Oooh, pretty pretty! I love the rich colours this time of year. The first shot, are those pasque flowers?* We call them windflowers here, the first flowers up, they often break through snow. So beautiful, and they are declining here, because prairie keeps getting plowed under.
     
    *Pulsatilla patens

  290. says

    Caine
    Those are Autumn Crocuses, whose name in German is “Herstzeitlose” Autumn’s time-less.
    Yes, autumn colours are simply spectacular and we’ve had some gorgeous sunshine over the last weeks, with rain at night. I went mushroom hunting with the cam yesterday, so expect more pics.
    Also, your robins are not the same as my robins….

  291. katybe says

    A cross-post from the feminism thread, because I’m loving a book so much I have to start telling people about it!

    This morning I started reading Do It Like A Woman, by Caroline Criado-Perez, and it’s fascinating. She’s interviewed a whole bunch of women in all sorts of different fields who are trying to change the world, and is divided into sections entitled Doing It…, Speaking…, Leading…, Advocating… and Choosing Like A Woman. I’m delighted to be introduced to so many great women doing incredible things, and really loved the section on Afghan women’s poetry groups – I’m intrigued by the 2-line landais they’re writing as a form of rebellion! Not quite read half of it so far, but feel it merits a recommendation anyway. Oh, and if her name rings a bell – she’s the woman who started the campaign a couple of years back to get a woman on British bank notes, and subsequently attracted abuse and threats.

  292. says

    Giliell:

    Just a quick reminder that Criado Perez’ definition of “woman”‘s a bit narrow. Doesn’t mean it’s not a good book.

    Thanks for the warning. That sort of thing can really throw me off when I’m not prepared for it.

    Annnd, I finished: The Birthday Dress

    Wow! Fuck, I want that dress, that is all kinds of gorgeous.

  293. katybe says

    Sorry about that, Gilliel – it’s something I hadn’t realised from just reading the first part, but looking at the index now, it does seem decidedly light on mentions of anything that obviously tells me she’s writing anywhere about non-cis or non-straight women, although she does quote a study that looked at the experiences of “female-to-male transsexuals” in terms of the way their colleagues treated them. There doesn’t seem to be any equivalent discussion of the opposite. But she seems to be making a lot more effort to be intersectional in terms of feminism and race. Oh, and that dress is stunning,

  294. blf says

    Multimillion-dollar photo of Billy the Kid playing croquet was $2 junk shop find:

    The image, unearthed in Fresno, California, is only the second confirmed picture of the outlaw – the other sold for $2.3m in 2011

    Henry McCarty, known in Wild West lore as Billy the Kid, lived a brief and violent life, stealing and killing before his death in a gunfight aged 21. He lived with a gun in his hand — and sometimes, it seems, a croquet mallet.

    In a surprising historical twist, the second photo of McCarty ever to be authenticated shows him and his posse, the Regulators, playing the sport in New Mexico in 1878.

    […]

    Liz Larsson, from the UK’s Croquet Association, said the series of photos from the scene left little doubt what game was being played: “It’s clearly croquet. You can see the hoops, the balls, the mallet, the centre peg. They’re all there. It’s a fascinating picture.”

    […]

    [… T]he game in America had a somewhat different image to the genteel, cucumber-sandwich stereotype of Britain, according to a history by the United States Croquet Association: “Croquet as a public sport suffered a setback in the 1890s when the Boston clergy spoke out against the drinking, gambling and licentious behaviour associated with it.”

    The mildly deranged penguin says that is not a croquet mallet, but a cheese-stunning hammer. Some cheeses get a bit, ah, overexcited whilst in the caves, and need to be calmed down least they develop a undesirable taste and texture. A good WHACK! with by a trained cheese-stunner does the trick. It also helps tenderize them(the cheeses, not the cheese-stunner, until s/he misses and hits her/his thumb…). The rest of the equipment visible in the photograph looks like standard kit for training and practicing the art of cheese-stunning.

    Mr McCarty, she says, wasn’t a very good cheese-stunner. He tended to get annoyed and shoot the cheeses, which is inadvisable in a stone cave, with the ricochets and cave-ins and so on. Worse, it tended to rouse and excite the other cheeses, and soon you’d have a riot. Lots of WHACK!s are required, which is a problem when someone keeps shooting, it’s hard to convince any cheese-stunners to enter the cave…

    No wonder the cheese-stunners drank like thirsty fish in a desert. With “Billy the Wild Cheese-Stunning Kid” shooting, rioting cheeses, and cave-ins, and it even really was a desert.