Modern Friendship

Ted McCagg of something called Questionable Skills (looks like his blog; he's got some very funny stuff on there) created this piece called 'Modern Friendship.'

Yes, buddy, I love you so much I'd create a hashtag for you.



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Quotes for the Day

"If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him."

--Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

"Art has nothing to do with taste. Art is not there to be tasted."

--Max Ernst, sculptor, painter, poet (1891-1976)

From an exhibition by Australian photographer Vee Speers.

Butterflies

I don't know why I really liked this. I like the chaos mixed with beauty, but also I think I was struck by the use of negative space to depict the butterflies, which are in fact dying out.

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Warhol at CSU

I'm doing some research on Andy Warhol for an upcoming project and one of the most fascinating stories about him--at least from the perspective of a Colorado resident and former resident of Fort Collins--is the story of the giant soup can.

 In 1981 Warhol came to visit Fort Collins for an exhibition of his work at CSU. After having sent his specifications on the construction of a trio of giant soup cans, Warhol himself came out to visit and signed the pieces (which had been assembled and painted by a CSU student.)

Andy Warhol at CSU campus in 1981.

There were apparently three giant cans originally, one of which was sold, and one of which still stands at the University Center for the Arts (formerly Fort Collins High School) on Remington Street.

Andy and friend.

the flux machine

These are really cool and creepy all at once. This guy Kevin J Weir takes old Library of Congress photos then makes weird gifs out of them.



They remind me a little of Terry Gilliam's old Monty Python animations, although he had to use painstaking cardboard cut-outs for his.

Television is bad for your eyes, kids.

Here are more of Weir's weird works.

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the world is on fire

this is cool and scary all at once. found at fasel.

sci fi poster

I love this guy's work.

There are more here.

art

Early warning.

mrs. mia wallace

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bring out the simps

These are amazing and hilarious and mind-bending all at once. Someone named Jesse Jordan who runs a blog called coffee and cookies has put up several more of these drawings of well-known Simpsons characters doing some nasty Tarantino-esque activities.

Oh my.

Now, I don't know about this. LuAnn as Mia Wallace? My perpetual Uma-boner just wilted a little.

Of course it would have to be Milhouse playing the hapless Marvin. Christ, their names even sound similar.

via all over the place right now, but prolly via via one of these. Go to Jesse's blog for many more.

No word on whether Matt Groening's lawyers are lining up a series of cease and desist letters. FYI: did you know that the blue-haired lawyer with the nasally New York accent seen below was loosely based on Roy Cohn?

The more you know...

art

done and done.

beauty

found this at the daily what (link below) but this is where it seems to have originated.

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omfg

watch this. this guy is amazing--you will not be disappoint, i promise.

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album art

This guy is an artist. This is some awesome shit--musicians hand-painted onto their albums. Here's a few of my favorites.

wow. just...wow.

check this out. via.

this is a digital media group that projects 3D images onto buildings--among other things. This video is amazing.

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Projection on Vimeo.

the art of miran kim

I'm not generally a big visual art guy; i write reasonably well, i sing and play guitar reasonably well, and i like to think i can act a bit. but i have never been able (or at least felt like was able to) draw or paint or anything like that. So it is rare when a visual artist really grabs ahold of me by the balls.



This artist, Miran Kim does that. I clicked on this site through metafilter, and i just can't tear my eyes away. There is something at once haunting and comforting about these paintings, something indescribable that makes me feel warm inside while simultaneously creeping me out. Hope you enjoy.

radiohead part deux

there's a lot of buzz still swirling around the radiohead album release, with some fans crowing over getting the MP3 version of the album for free--not counting a 45p credit card handling fee--and others bitching about the sound quality--at 160 kbps its better than iTunes' standard of 128 kbps, but worse than the 192 kbps or higher most music fans have come to expect.

and then there were people who were just happy to have a new radiohead album.

but here's a take on the idea of letting people pay what they want that i wouldn't have thought of: it's insane to pay more than zero dollars. or at least irrational.

eduardo porter of the new york times argues that in purely economic terms, paying anyone more than the asking price for anything is irrational. restaurant workers beware: what he is saying is that those who paid more than zero for the radiohead album were engaged in a form of tipping--and that that is irrational:

"This phenomenon is not new. It’s called tipping. We do it when we go to the restaurant or the barber, or when we ride in a taxi. Though one could argue there are real tangible reasons for this payment — like not losing an ear the next time we get a haircut — the practice of paying more money than we are legally bound to do is still mystifying in an economic sense. For instance, why tip a cabdriver you will probably never see again?

“'Since we economists don’t understand tipping, we can’t really say whether this new scheme will work,'” Greg Mankiw, a Harvard professor of economics, said in an entry on his blog."

and, the argument makes sense, as far as it goes--but that's not very far.

of course economists don't understand tipping--theirs is a zero-sum game. the least amount one can pay in order to obtain the greatest value is all that matters, in the narrow world of the economist.

but what we are talking about here is art. is it rational to pay millions of dollars for a monet or a picasso? of course not. but, the ridiculousness of art prices and the cachet associated with owning rare pieces aside, that's not what it's about. despite status-seekers flooding the art market with nouveau riche dollars in a quest for a kind of rented class, the underlying reason for desiring art or even desiring to view it is an intangible change that takes place within us when we are exposed to it.

intangible = incomprehensible to economists.

porter goes on to posit that perhaps radiohead fans might simply be "altruistic beings who out of the goodness of their hearts would like to give some money to a spectacularly successful and probably stinking rich rock band." and he goes on to suggest that there is a "warm and fuzzy" effect fans might be seeking by paying for something they could get for free.

i would suggest that to pay an artist for his art it is neither irrational nor a cleverly-disguised, selfish pursuit of righteousness. paying an artist for his art--and i do mean paying the ARTIST, not his management, record company, public relations flacks, distributors, or other assorted hangers-on--is simply acknowledging that he has provided you with something you cannot get anywhere else, that he has touched your life in a unique way that has a personal value that only you can understand.

it may not have the hard-edged value of stocks and currency, but art is valuable. in fact, because its value cannot be measured in a ledger by those whose imaginations go only as far as the next column of ones and zeroes, art is invaluable, beyond valuation.

art transcends value, and thus it helps us to transcend as well.