Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Spike Jonze's Fully Flared opening sequence fucking rocks!
Directed by Spike Jonze for Lakia's Fully Flared intro, its pretty amazing.Apparently from this interview the explosions are real.
"the most dangerous part of the introduction was Mike Mo Capaldi's switch flip, which was followed by a staircase being blown up with napalm" -Brandon Bieble
Music: M83 – Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun
Interview: http://www.certifiedrandom.com/node/1559
Monday, March 24, 2008
The Nerd Handbook (thanks Ruth!)
Tech Life An annoyingly efficient relevancy engine
The Nerd Handbook
A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head.
It’s unlikely that this project is a nerd’s day job because his opinion regarding his job is, “Been there, done that”. We’ll explore the consequences of this seemingly short attention span in a bit, but for now this project is the other big thing your nerd is building and I’ve no idea what is, but you should...
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html
The Nerd Handbook
A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head.
It’s unlikely that this project is a nerd’s day job because his opinion regarding his job is, “Been there, done that”. We’ll explore the consequences of this seemingly short attention span in a bit, but for now this project is the other big thing your nerd is building and I’ve no idea what is, but you should...
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Milan Fashion Week: Exquisite, Exquisite, Exquisite...
Minimalism Is Back: At Jil Sander, designer Raf Simons applied his complicated cutting technique to a long, simple evening gown. (black gown)In The Cut: As far as technique is concerned, few designers can cut clothing with the kind of precision that Jil Sander designer Raf Simons applied to coats and dresses for fall. (cream dress)
English Accents: Christopher Bailey's Burberry collection takes it's cue from the streets of London and his silhouette for fall, a swingy coat over stovepipe skinny pants, is taken straight from the streets of Soho. (beige outfit)
Friday, March 14, 2008
Minoans in Manhattan! This is SO exciting!
Minoans in ManhattanMarch 13, 2008
Text by Mark Rose
Photos courtesy Onassis Public Benefit Foundation
A new exhibition offers a rare opportunity to appreciate the achievements of Crete's Bronze Age civilization.
An important new exhibition, From the Land of the Labyrinth: Minoan Crete, 3000-1100 B.C., has just opened at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York. It brings more than 280 artifacts from Crete--from a miniature gold double-ax to a four-foot-tall storage jar, from wall paintings to carbonized figs--most of which have never been shown abroad before and some being displayed for the first time ever. On loan from the archaeological museums of Herakleion, Khania, Rethymnon, Haghios Nikolaos, Ierapetra, Siteia, and Kissamos in Crete, the artifacts are arranged in 11 thematic sections intended "to reveal aspects of daily life in the Minoan civilization--including social structure, communications, bureaucratic organization, religion and technology--during the third and second millennia B.C." The first solely Minoan exhibition in the United States, From the Land of the Labyrinth is a great overview of the civilization and its achievements....
A new exhibition offers a rare opportunity to appreciate the achievements of Crete's Bronze Age civilization.
An important new exhibition, From the Land of the Labyrinth: Minoan Crete, 3000-1100 B.C., has just opened at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York. It brings more than 280 artifacts from Crete--from a miniature gold double-ax to a four-foot-tall storage jar, from wall paintings to carbonized figs--most of which have never been shown abroad before and some being displayed for the first time ever. On loan from the archaeological museums of Herakleion, Khania, Rethymnon, Haghios Nikolaos, Ierapetra, Siteia, and Kissamos in Crete, the artifacts are arranged in 11 thematic sections intended "to reveal aspects of daily life in the Minoan civilization--including social structure, communications, bureaucratic organization, religion and technology--during the third and second millennia B.C." The first solely Minoan exhibition in the United States, From the Land of the Labyrinth is a great overview of the civilization and its achievements....
Images:
(Top) Miniature gold double-ax votiveArkalochori cave, Middle Minoan IIIB (ca. 1650-1600 B.C.)(Courtesy Onassis Public Benefit Foundation)
(Middle) Carved chlorite bull's head with (restored) gilded hornsZakros, end of Late Minoan IB (ca. 1450 B.C.)(Courtesy Onassis Public Benefit Foundation)
(Bottom) Heavily mended and restored wall painting ("The Partridge Fresco")Knossos, Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan IA (ca. 1700-1525/1500 B.C.)(Courtesy Onassis Public Benefit Foundation)
Residential goes LEED-H Platinum
"LivingHomes Founder Steve Glenn has knocked the socks off the eco-conscious world with his modern homes that emphasize beauty + environment. As I've been thinking about how I want to blog about this company, I've noticed a flurry of posts and press releases regarding this Ray Kappe-designed abode that was just awarded LEED-H Platinum.
This story has gone wild...as it should.This is the first residential building to receive the USGBC's Platinum LEED-H rating and it's raising the bar for residential construction: zero energy, zero water, zero waste, zero carbon, and zero emissions. LivingHomes received a total of 91 out of a total possible 109 points, to barely skirt past the 90 point threshold required to obtain a Platinum rating. It will be 80% more efficient than similar sized home and was constructed with 75% less waste than a traditional one..."
http://jetsongreen.typepad.com/jetson_green/2006/08/livinghomes_gon.html
http://www.usgbc.org/
Monday, March 10, 2008
Does anyone else find this highly ironic? Ah, "The Grand Tradition of Contradiction in Catholicism"
March 10, 2008, 3:01 pmSeven More Sins, Thanks to Vatican
By Mike Nizza
(painting: "The Papacy Crowning themselves Kings")
Lust, gluttony, greed and the rest of the seven deadly sins gathered in the 6th century will have
to get used to a modern companion. A Vatican official has articulated seven new categories of sin “due to the phenomenon of globalization.”
“While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance,” Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti told L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican City’s local paper. Bloomberg News parsed his remarks into a clip-n-savable list:
1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem 
cell research
cell research 3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
Is it just me or is this a joke? Being that historically, the Catholic church not only actively directly and indirectly participated in #1, #3, #5, #6 and #7 (and probably #4 as well...) on their new list of sins, but often boasted, reveled and proudly exhibited most of these characteristics.
#1: It is known that the bearing of countless bastard children, and encouraging their mistresses to end their unwanted pregnancies often resulting in the "silencing" of certain mistresses that refused to do so, was commonplace . ("How many papal mistresses have been known in history? How many literary works -- Umberto Eco's The Name of The Rose comes to mind -- and scholarly histories through the centuries have described priestly sexual liaisons and priest-produced pregnancies? "http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0426-06.htm)
And having a history as being the single most wealthy country and government in the world with the largest physical monetary holding makes #6 and certainly #5 ludicrous. ("Bankers' best guesses about the Vatican's wealth put it at $10 billion to $15 billion. Of this wealth, Italian stockholdings alone run to $1.6 billion, 15% of the value of listed shares on the Italian market. The Vatican has big investments in banking, insurance, chemicals, steel, construction, real estate." http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,833509,00.html)
There is a somewhat endless well of evidentiary support in the art world; mostly pictorially immortalized in paintings and frescos, in addition to other written evidence that has been found, and no doubt destroyed or safely guarded deep within the Vatican archives.
"The Roman Catholic Church tried to kill off all remnants of this dynasty and their guardians, the Cathars and the Templars, in order to maintain power through the apostolic succession of Peter, instead of the hereditary succession of Mary Magdalene."
Resources:
Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair, L’Or de Rennes, mise au point (La Garenne-Colombes, 35 bis, Bd de la République, 92250; Bibliotheque Nationale, Depot Legal 02-03-1979, 4° Z Piece 1182).
Jean-Luc Chaumeil, Rennes-le-Château – Gisors – Le Testament du Prieuré de Sion (Le Crépuscule d’une Ténébreuse Affaire) Editions Pégase, 2006
The Times, 18 January 1982.
The Real Da Vinci Code, Channel Four Television, presented by Tony Robinson, transmitted on 3 February 2005.
Bill Putnam, John Edwin Wood, The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château, A Mystery Solved (Sutton Publishers, 2003).
Pierre Jarnac, Les Archives de Rennes-le-Château, Tome I, p.197-198 (Editions Bélisane, 1987)
Jean-Luc Chaumeil, La Table d'Isis ou Le Secret de la Lumière, p. 121-124. (Editions Guy Trédaniel, 1994, ISBN 2-85-707-622-3)
Massimo Introvigne, Gli Illuminati e il Priorato di Sion (Piemme, Milano 2005).
Bernardo Sanchez Da Motta, Do Enigma de Rennes-le-Château ao Priorado de Siao - Historia de um Mito Moderno(Esquilo, 2005).
Jean-Jacques Bedu, Les sources secrètes du Da Vinci Code (Éditions du Rocher, 2005).
Franck Marie, Rennes-le-Château, Etude Critique (SRES, 1978)
Jean-Luc Chaumeil, Rennes-le-Château – Gisors – Le Testament du Prieuré de Sion (Le Crépuscule d’une Ténébreuse Affaire) Editions Pégase, 2006
The Times, 18 January 1982.
The Real Da Vinci Code, Channel Four Television, presented by Tony Robinson, transmitted on 3 February 2005.
Bill Putnam, John Edwin Wood, The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château, A Mystery Solved (Sutton Publishers, 2003).
Pierre Jarnac, Les Archives de Rennes-le-Château, Tome I, p.197-198 (Editions Bélisane, 1987)
Jean-Luc Chaumeil, La Table d'Isis ou Le Secret de la Lumière, p. 121-124. (Editions Guy Trédaniel, 1994, ISBN 2-85-707-622-3)
Massimo Introvigne, Gli Illuminati e il Priorato di Sion (Piemme, Milano 2005).
Bernardo Sanchez Da Motta, Do Enigma de Rennes-le-Château ao Priorado de Siao - Historia de um Mito Moderno(Esquilo, 2005).
Jean-Jacques Bedu, Les sources secrètes du Da Vinci Code (Éditions du Rocher, 2005).
Franck Marie, Rennes-le-Château, Etude Critique (SRES, 1978)
Pierre Jarnac, Histoire du Trésor de Rennes-le-Château (Editions Belisane, 1985).
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
New Acropolis Museum due to open in September: but will they win back the Elgin marbles?
Posted (3/5/2008 5:04 AM); 8h 14m ago By Thanassis StavrakisA woman walks past copies of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon frieze sculptures in the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. Museum officials oversaw a three-month operation to transfer more than 300 sculptures from an old museum on the Acropolis, some 400 meters away. The new glass and concrete museum, designed by architect Bernard Tschumi, is expected to open by the end of this year...
For more about architect Bernard Tschumi: http://www.tschumi.com/home.asp?flashver=9&res=800x600&color=32
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Robbie Williams CDs will be used to pave roads in China...Awesome
EMI has announced that "unsold copies" of Rudebox, by British pop star Robbie Williams, "will soon be used to resurface Chinese roads." More than a million copies of the CD "will be crushed and sent to the country to be recycled," we read, where they "will be used in street lighting and road surfacing projects."This reminds me of a house I visited back in September, in Chicago – about which I wrote a short article for the March 2008 issue of Dwell – wherein the owners had pulverized boxes of old vinyl records, added them to a glass aggregate, and used that to surface the floor of their master bathroom. You could actually see tiny, vaguely recognizable pieces of crushed 45s catching sunlight near the toilet... National Geographic also covered the house....giving credit where credit is due: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/robbie-williams-cds-will-be-used-to.html
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Britain Acquires Major Modern Art Collection
By THE NEW YORK TIMESPublished: February 28, 2008
A collection of 725 works of modern art valued at $250 million has been bought for Britain for $52 million and will tour the country under the ownership and management of the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the museums said on Wednesday. Described as one of the most important holdings of postwar and contemporary international art in private hands, the collection, featuring names like Diane Arbus, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mapplethorpe (whose portrait of Patti Smith is shown above), Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol...
(pictures: Damian Hirst's “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.”)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/arts/28arts-BRITAINACQUI_BRF.html?ref=artsts/28arts-BRITAINACQUI_BRF.html?ref=arts
Balenciaga...the new Prada turban...?
WHENEVER Nicolas Ghesquiere, the designer of Balenciaga, presents a collection, fashion writers and buyers always seem to fall into a swoon — myself included. It has happened three or four times in the last few years that a new language was born. Or so we declared in so many words. People left the little showroom on the Rue Cassette — on Tuesday morning a light rain fell — feeling they had again witnessed his history..."I love fashion, and I have become more and more accepting of haute couture designs as works of art and less as actual clothing. Therefore I'm in awe with Ghesquiere's collecion for Balenciaga. I'm a big fan of Balenciaga and am wearing a B skirt right now. Unity within the collection is subtle. Top left is mysterious and conservative, top center is flamboyant, asymetrical and organic and above right is elegant, mostly symetrical and very conservative and more inline with B's history of design. I'm confused with the whole-head-wrap. Is this the new Prada turban? I hated that trend and was thrilled to see it go, now I have another ridiculous head-wrap to see trickle down the lader of retail outlets selling knock-offs. I wonder what Gaps version will look like, maybe it will be made of denim or khaki? Yuck! --Eve
Friday, February 22, 2008
Stolen Art on Display in a Search for Owners
By STEVEN ERLANGERPublished: February 20, 2008
JERUSALEM — In a remarkable feat of cooperation between France and Israel, requiring intensive negotiations and the passage of a law by the Israeli Parliament, the Israel Museum here has opened an exhibition of important art looted by the Nazis from France and then returned after the war. Some of it was never reclaimed, presumably because the owners were killed in the Holocaust....
(Paintings by Cézanne, left, and Degas are part of the exhibition “Looking for Owners.”)http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/arts/design/20muse.html
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Dramatic rescue for Indian tiger
Last Updated: Wednesday, 20 February 2008, 14:35 GMT Forest guards in India have carried out the dramatic rescue of a pregnant tigress who had hidden in a palm tree after being chased away by villagers. They tranquilised and then caught the Royal Bengal tigress that had strayed into a village near the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve in eastern India. The animal was released back into the wild after receiving treatment for minor injuries, officials say. Tigers have been slowly disappearing from India, mostly because of poaching....
Pentagon Says It’s "Confident" Missile Hit Satellite Tank...Fantastic!!!
Wow, I'm sure relieved to know that NASA and the US Government are hard at work ensuring that the billions of dollars spent to research, produce and test scientific expeditions to ensure that they are not only safe but are well designed specimens is going so well. With all of that education, testosterone and ego pulsing through the Pentagon you would think that at least one of them might have asked "how will this effect the environment or future expeditions? Nope, not a chance. –Eve"...General Cartwright said debris from the strike, with individual pieces no larger than a football, already had begun to re-enter the atmosphere. Most, he said, was predicted to fall into the ocean....The 5,000-pound satellite, roughly the size of a school bus, was managed by the National Reconnaissance Office and went dead shortly after it was launched in December 2006....
...The FEMA document notes, “Any debris should be considered potentially hazardous, and first responders should not attempt to pick it up or move it....”
...The Chinese test produced 1,600 pieces of debris that are expected to orbit the Earth for years, preventing other spacecraft from using the same or similar orbits...."
...The FEMA document notes, “Any debris should be considered potentially hazardous, and first responders should not attempt to pick it up or move it....”
...The Chinese test produced 1,600 pieces of debris that are expected to orbit the Earth for years, preventing other spacecraft from using the same or similar orbits...."
This one's for you Margot "Grey wolf 'no longer endangered"
Last Updated: Thursday, 21 February 2008, 18:20 GMT"Some 1,500 grey wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming(Image: WWF-Canon/Chris Martin Bahr)Grey wolves in the Northern Rockies of the United States have been removed from the endangered species list, the US Department of the Interior has said. They became a protected species in the US after they were nearly hunted to extinction. The removal of protection means they can be hunted again. Environmental groups have said they will sue the federal government to keep the animal listed...."
Stanford Set to Raise Aid for Students in Middle...Sure, NOW it's free...
By JONATHAN D. GLATERPublished: February 21, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — Stanford University on Wednesday became the latest prominent university to expand financial aid well into the middle class. It announced that students from families earning less than $100,000 a year would not be charged tuition. Under the new system, which takes effect in the fall, families earning less than $60,000 would not pay for room and board. Tuition next year is $36,030. Room and board add $11,182....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/education/21tuition.html
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Olfactory obsessions...Teint de Neige by Lorenzo Villoresi
February 14th, 2008 1:58 PMScent Notes Teint de Neige by Lorenzo Villoresi
By Chandler Burr
In 1981, a Florentine doctoral student studying ancient philosophy took a trip to the Middle East and visited a local market. There he discovered highly-scented spices and perfume essences, which he brought home with him. He began mixing them to create fragrances. Then he began studying perfumery. In 1990, he began his namesake perfume house. Lorenzo Villoresi operates out of his family’s 15th century palazzo at Via de Bardi, 14 in Florence....
The first he called his “monothematics,” fragrances, which were interpretations of specific perfume raw materials, precise olfactory concepts. Sandalo, for example (“Sandalwood”), and Incensi (“Incense”), which smelled, as precisely as possible, of sandalwood and incense. The other collection he called “fantasy” perfumes, highly abstract works of olfactory art....
Update: Police confirm 2 of 4 paintings were recovered from heist
February 19, 2008, 10:03 amPaintings’ Street Sojourn: From Museum to Sedan’s Backseat
By Mike Nizza
Update, 11:59 a.m. Police confirm two paintings were recovered.
If Swiss reports on the recovery of paintings stolen in a brazen daylight heist in Zurich turn out to be true, art lovers around the world will surely rejoice. The good news, if confirmed later by the police, would come with a slight insult — and possibly worse if there is any damage.
Last Monday, $163 million in paintings from Cézanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet were pulled off the walls at a 19th-century villa housing the the E. G. Bührle Collection and unceremoniously stuffed into a white sedan....
Update, 11:59 a.m. Police confirm two paintings were recovered.
If Swiss reports on the recovery of paintings stolen in a brazen daylight heist in Zurich turn out to be true, art lovers around the world will surely rejoice. The good news, if confirmed later by the police, would come with a slight insult — and possibly worse if there is any damage.
Last Monday, $163 million in paintings from Cézanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet were pulled off the walls at a 19th-century villa housing the the E. G. Bührle Collection and unceremoniously stuffed into a white sedan....
“Poppies near Vétheuil” (1879), by Claude Monet, was one of the four paintings stolen from a from the Buehrle Foundation museum in Zurich on Sunday. (Photo: Agence France Presse—Getty Images)
Castro Stepping Down as Cuba’s Leader...whatever...next
HAVANA — Fidel Castro announced Tuesday morning that he would step down as the president of Cuba after a long illness. The announcement was made in a letter to the nation under Mr. Castro’s name, which was read on radio and television programs that many Cubans heard as they headed to work.There seemed to be little if any outward reaction to the news, which many Cubans had been expecting for months.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Love
'love is when you take away
the feeling,
the passion,
and the romance
in a relationship
and find out that you still care for that person'
(Unknown author, painting by Mark Rothko)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
More DNA Evidence for World Migration Theory
Settlement of Americas a 3-Act Play by Charles Q. ChoiTue Feb 12, 9:55 PM ET
The epic journey by which the Americas were first settled has been a great mystery for centuries. Did it happen by land or by sea? Did it happen one dozen or so millennia ago or three dozen? The answer might be "yes." New findings reveal the settling of the New World did not come in a single burst, as is suggested by most theories, but was, in a way, a play with three acts, each separated by thousands of generations.
The first stage of this voyage involved a gradual migration of people from Asia through Siberia starting about 40,000 years ago into Beringia, a once-habitable grassland....
The epic journey by which the Americas were first settled has been a great mystery for centuries. Did it happen by land or by sea? Did it happen one dozen or so millennia ago or three dozen? The answer might be "yes." New findings reveal the settling of the New World did not come in a single burst, as is suggested by most theories, but was, in a way, a play with three acts, each separated by thousands of generations.
The first stage of this voyage involved a gradual migration of people from Asia through Siberia starting about 40,000 years ago into Beringia, a once-habitable grassland....
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
I Feel It All
I feel it all, I feel it all
I feel it all, I feel it all
The wings are wide, the wings are wide
Wild card inside, wild card inside
Oh I'll be the one who'll break my heart
I'll be the one to hold the gun
I know more than I knew before
I know more than I knew before
I didn't rest, I didn't stop
Did we fight or did we talk
Oh I'll be the one who'll break my heart
I'll be the one to hold the gun
I loved you more, I loved you more
I don't know what I knew before
But now I know I'm wanna win the war
No one likes to take a test
Sometimes you know more is less
Put your weight against the door
Kick drum on the basement floor
Stranded in a fog of words
Loved him like a winter bird
On my head the water pours
Gulf stream through the open door
Fly away
Fly away to what you want to make
I feel it all, I feel it all
I feel it all, I feel it all
The wings are wide, the wings are wide
Wild card inside, wild card inside
Oh I'll be the one to break my heart
I'll be the one who'll break my heart
I'll be the one who'll break my heart
I'll end it though you started it
The truth lies
The truth lied
And lies divide
Lies divide
Feist, I Feel It All from The Reminder Album (Painting by Mark Rothko)
Monday, February 11, 2008
Black Market Soars, "4 Masterworks Are Stolen in Zurich"
By UTA HARNISCHFEGER and GRAHAM BOWLEYPublished: February 12, 2008
ZURICH — Armed robbers stole four important paintings by van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Cézanne from a museum in Zurich, the Swiss authorities announced Monday, in what they said might have been the largest art theft in Europe.
Three thieves, wearing dark clothes and ski masks, walked into the Emile Bührle Foundation, a private collection housed a couple of miles outside of Zurich’s city center on the shore of Lake Zurich, around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, a short while before the museum was due to close. The collection is considered to be one of the biggest privately owned collections of French impressionists in the world...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/world/europe/12swiss.html?_r=1&ex=1360472400&en=2a55df5efaddf690&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
(Top Left) "Count Lepic and his Daughters" (1871), by Edgar Degas.
(No Image) "Poppies near Vetheuil" (1879), by Claude Monet, was one of the four paintings stolen from a from the Buehrle Foundation museum in Zurich on Sunday.
(Center Left) "Boy in the Red Waistcoat" (1888), by Paul Cezanne.
(Below Left) "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" (1890), by Vincent van Gogh
Picasso paintings stolen in Paris
(Far Bottom Left) Maya with Doll is a portrait of Picasso's daughter
Wednesday, 28 February 2007, 13:43 GMT
At least two Picasso paintings with a combined value of 50m euros (£33.7m) have been stolen from his granddaughter's home in Paris.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6403837
Friday, February 8, 2008
Thoughts on drinking Absinthe
Kids, don't try this at home (Heath Ledger...) Okay, maybe it was the glass of '06 Sonoma Pinot that I had right before, or maybe it was the interaction with certain prescription medications that pushed me over the edge, but truth be told, after just one glass of Absinthe, I was seriously high. And I say high and not drunk, because I honestly didn't feel drunk, I felt high. I didn't even realize how much so until the following morning, in trying to recall the prior evening’s events in a hazy slow-motion David Lynch-Twin-Peaks-like reel in my aching head. I know the Absinthe that is now legally available in the U.S. (as of May 2007) is no doubt a seriously watered down version that Picasso would probably use to brush his teeth with as compared to the famously green belle-epoch liquid which was pictorially and hist
orically immortalized by Picasso, Van Gogh, Lautrec and Degas in 19th century Paris. I can't imagine what the Absinthe of those days must have been like-except perhaps to hypothesize that it may have been similar to dropping acid, injecting heroin or smoking Opium (BTW, my favorite T.V. line of late "Liz: You are my heroine, and by heroine I mean lady hero; I don’t want to inject you and listen to jazz." --Tina Fey, from the show '30 Rock'). As I watched the icy water drip intravenously from the spout onto the clump of sugar traditionally suspended over the glass on a silver contraption and into the 124-proof liqueur; a strong aromatic, and almost medicinal smell wafted through the bar. Black-licorice (anise) in flavor, yes, but very different from the strong, thick and syrupy Sambuca; Absinthe is much cleaner, a lot more aromatic, herbal and again medicinal in flavor. With each sip, the essence seems to swell around in your
sinus's and feels like it's coming out of your nose and ears as the warm sensation steams it's way down your throat and to your stomach. Long blamed for driving one who drinks it insane, legend is that Van Gogh cut off his ear after drinking just a couple of glasses of the green liquid. Bottom line, enjoy but beware. A bottle of Lucid, which is promoted as “the first true, Grande Wormwood-based Absinthe of its type available since before prohibition”, uses 19th-century distilling and will set you back $62.99. --Eve (left: Viktor Oliva's Absinthe Drinker, below: Pablo Picasso's The Absinth Drinker 1901, bottom: Edgar Degas's L'Absinthe from 1876)
Article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/05/MNQJTO9FM.DTL&tsp=1
History: http://www.absintheonline.com/acatalog/history.html; http://www.absinthebuyersguide.com/history.html
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Updates: Saving Whales, Dolphins, Sharks and Tigers
BOYCOTT THE REOPENING OF THE TIGER EXHIBIT AT SF ZOO!!!Boycott animals in captivity! Animal slavery for money NOT OKAY!
Mauling survivor said he yelled at tiger
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- One of the two survivors of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack that left a 17-year-old dead told the victim's father that the three had yelled and waved at the animal while standing atop the railing of the tiger's exhibit, police said in court documents filed Thursday. Paul Dhaliwal, 19, denied throwing anything into the enclosure or otherwise antagonizing the animal, according to an account contained in police investigators' request for a search warrant in connection with the Christmas Day attack that killed Carlos Sousa Jr. of San Jose....
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- One of the two survivors of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack that left a 17-year-old dead told the victim's father that the three had yelled and waved at the animal while standing atop the railing of the tiger's exhibit, police said in court documents filed Thursday. Paul Dhaliwal, 19, denied throwing anything into the enclosure or otherwise antagonizing the animal, according to an account contained in police investigators' request for a search warrant in connection with the Christmas Day attack that killed Carlos Sousa Jr. of San Jose....
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/18/MNEIUH4B9.DTL
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-----------
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-----------Judge to Navy: no pinging near the whales
Times are a changin'. Resulting from a court case between the US Navy and the Natural Resources Defense Council, a federal judge has ordered the Navy to respect sea animals when running their sonar training exercises off the coast of Southern California. To the benefit of whales and dolphins, the Navy is restricted from using their medium-range sonar within 12 miles of the coast. Not only that, but if whales or porpoises are spotted within 2,200 yards of the sonar vessels, exercises must undergo a mandatory shutdown....
http://www.g
reendaily.com/2008/01/14/judge-to-navy-no-pinging-near-the-whales
reendaily.com/2008/01/14/judge-to-navy-no-pinging-near-the-whales----------------------------------------
Back home: Great white shark released
Male is tagged with tracking device to see what happens next
Randy Wilder
A male great white shark is released into the ocean Tuesday off California.
SAN FRANCISCO - A California aquarium is tracking a great white shark after it was released into the ocean Tuesday — only the second of the predators to be released back to the wild after surviving months of captivity....
Male is tagged with tracking device to see what happens next
Randy Wilder
A male great white shark is released into the ocean Tuesday off California.
SAN FRANCISCO - A California aquarium is tracking a great white shark after it was released into the ocean Tuesday — only the second of the predators to be released back to the wild after surviving months of captivity....
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
"The Grand Tradition of Plundering and Massacre", "War Sucks On So Many Levels" and "I Hope You Fu**ing Voted"
Standing Tall Again: Fewer than half of 14,000 looted museum pieces have been located so far By Larry Kaplow and Cathleen McGuigan NEWSWEEK
Feb 11, 2008 Issue
In the renovated Assyrian gallery of Baghdad's Iraq Museum, archeologist Amira Edan al-Dahab was doing what she likes best: explaining the priceless treasures in her care. Stately 3,000-year-old statues of royalty—a couple lost their heads during the museum's looting in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion—have been restored and are presiding over the vast space. Ancient stone reliefs line the walls, with intricate carving depicting the rituals of early civilization. In one panel, an Assyrian and a Babylonian king are posed shaking hands to seal a treaty, not unlike a diplomatic photo op today. But in another relief, victorious soldiers are piling up their enemies' severed heads as a tribute to a monarch in a chariot. Al-Dahab, the museum's temporary director, shakes her head. "You can see the violence all through history," she says. "This one was always ugly to me, but now it's even more so.".......
http://www.newsweek.com/id/107570
Democrats:Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Round Two: New York Fashion Week | Jonathan Saunders
February 4th, 2008 2:36 PMLondon designer Jonathan Saunders packed them in, including Anna Wintour and Franca Sozzani, editor-in chief of Italian Vogue. Again, I'm thrilled with the resurrection of classic styles and clean lines. I love the 1940's-inspired fan-pleated kick-skirt (right) (which I'd hoped to see paired with seamed stockings and foot boots) it’s nice to see the hemlines longer and more sophisticated. The satin collar is great, but somehow the asymmetrical top is thrown off by the boldly symmetrical front lines on the skirt. I would have loved to see this in a dress version and not a two piece.
(Left) Saunders shows off his talent for detail, modern lines and exquisite finish with an elegant long dress with satin details, more fan-pleating and an open back. Tres Chic! This is both sexy and classy, which most have a hard time pulling off. The army color might not be flattering for all skin types, but looks good here! --Eve
A Mutant Obsession by Olivia Judson
The New York Times, Opinion SectionFebruary 5, 2008, 9:14 pm
This week I’m introducing the first article in what will be an occasional series about mutation. And yes, I admit it: I’m obsessed with mutation (which is why I’ve already alluded to it in a couple of earlier articles). The reason is that mutations to DNA form the raw material for evolution. It’s wondrous to think that mutations, accumulated over billions of years through the action of natural selection and the other forces of evolution, have produced such diverse life forms as vampire squid, coconut palms, death cap mushrooms, giant Gippsland earthworms, Etruscan pygmy shrews, E. coli — and us.....
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