Just binged on Silicon Valley Season 3 – it is the most accurate description of common ways of communicating and joking in the Valley where geeks rule – one day i am gonna share a typical Valley thread of pretty pics… where lonely geeks working late photoshop each other into things – it is much worse than you think /
The greatest sculptor that ever lived - Bernini /
Bernini was an heir of a sculptor and got an early start in the art world of Rome, finding a patron in Cardinal Borghese. But these little mundane details can't and won't tell a story of a brilliance beyond modern commitment to transient pleasures and instant rush. I have long been bewitched by marble and marble has been one of three things i can endlessly stare at. As if i can untangle the marble particles into thought fractals where my own thoughts get lost into an endless voyage.. I like the confident silhouettes of marble. One of the greatest jolts of marble I ever got was Galleria Borghese with the Rape of Persephone and several other pieces but the former truly took me several hours to part with.
Here is an album of the works of the great artist which I stole of course this being a Saturday morning..
Bernini
To me the subject of bodies has always been a contentious one as I never understood why certain parts are considered to be displayable but others aren't (as displayable). How are hands and butt and breasts different as to make people instantly get emotional? Perhaps it gets to do with rush of hormones due to evolution where the display of a certain part instantly produces a natural urge - that is my thinking.. So to prevent people from losing their minds while going about building cathedrals or fighting - we invented clothes.
The case with art is a bit different, i don't remember a case where i would get improper thoughts in a gallery or a museum looking at expansive square footage of naked bodies ( or God forbid the Vatican where it seems is housed the greatest variety of flesh ).. The case could be made that art elevates these certain hormone inducing parts to a different level of awareness which doesn't result in hormones but rather results in thoughts. I like this about art.
I am gonna look for some of my own photographs of Bernini pieces later in the day but another thought just crossed my mind - there's a plausible reenactment of what hormonally unbridled smart primates can do - i remember watching Planet of the Apes and don't really long to see it again unless i am stuck in line at Walmart.
This is David from the story of David and Goliath:
Although i much prefer the stillness of Michelangelo's David - can't help but think about the twist in evolution that allowed us to develop awareness and consciousness on this tiny rock in the outskirts of a galaxy.. that allows us to have appreciations and reasonings beyond the mundane and have this ability for abstract thought and cognition. Art is extrapolation from the material to very abstract constructs that only exist in our minds. Can't reconcile the fact of how seemingly wobbly and fleshy we are with certain ideas in art and science that are abstract and removed from the obvious.
The story of David:
More Villa Borghese pics:
JFK Moon Speech & Elon Mars Plans and the House grills SpaceX /
You know i like the fact i am not a monkey but a part of space faring species. I really like people and things with balls. What i think makes us not monkey is the fact that monkeys just chill and chew which is probably enough even for some people.. but i like to think we can do better, and we do in fact make the world better, we are creators.
This is so crazy and Elon goes so matter of factly about it - it is awesome!
And finally - the U.S. House Armed Services Committee grills SpaceX - it is gold!
If they use the word "certification" one more time - I'll throw my mac at this tree down in the garden. Also, when people say "ho-when" as opposed to "when" - the person is from Ohio, guaranteed.
I used to work for the Army and DoD - and things are usually slow in the Army but then i applied for a job to work as an artist on a base in Alabama, a Colonel called me and said i have to do an art test. And I said okay - sure. He said you have 48 hours starting now and hung up. There went my Army career.
Elon Musk’s Space Dream:
Invented Mythology, 11.5 x 15.5 inches, pen and ink on hot press board, 2016 /
My favorite movie - with two of my favorite actors - and favorite scenes - the "juice" of Heat /
What is the matter with art /
What is art - why is it people pay so much for some of it, seek it out and adore it.. although it is not at all necessary, not very useful and often very strange. What made Victor Hugo write in the Les Misérables — 'The beautiful is as useful as the useful...Perhaps more so.'
People have asked me if art is just marketing? And i don't know. I know that i have spent so much time in and around paintings and maybe lots of my own particles are physically art. All i know is that within the frame of a painting - there is nothing but a beautiful dream, there's no money, no politics, no conflicts, no guns, no meat or diamonds, no worries about gold and jewelry, possessions, bodies flow in and out, adorned or not, simple chairs are beautiful, carpets and faces are beautiful, the world is mysterious and extends far in the distance into the mists and fogs of paint. It is a delightful place, the world of a painting.
Here is a poem i wrote:
What is in a Picasso print, what transpires in a B.C. marble, what is in a Vatican fresco and a Dying Slave? What's the Black in a black Goya painting, what's eating us in a Bosch, where is the De Kooning woman going on her bicycle, which anonymous artist painted the thousand hands of this Shiva? Why does Monet shimmer, why is that man with an apple for a face, how many birds do you see in an Escher, why is the triangle of light in Rembrandt so mysterious? Where is the light in a Vermeer coming from, why are there 500 species of flowers in a Botticelli, why am I going around in circles trying to find out where the wind is coming from that is blowing these cypresses, and why is mouth and flesh in a Bacon so maddeningly beautiful? Why is art so beautiful?
A Morning when i am drawing /
Love Japan and everything in it /
Leonardo da Vinci's diaries in their full digital glory /
Become Your Dream /
Never stop dreaming, New York /
A favorite book that i used to eat with the covers and color in the black and white illustrations - illustrated by my favorite artist - 150th Anniversary Edition of “Alice in Wonderland” Features Rare 1969 Salvador Dalí Illustrations. /
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/09/salvador-dali-alice-in-wonderland-illustrations/
Better than the whole Spider-Man movie franchise...narrated by David Attenborough /
How to fix it in 10 easy steps /
I have identified 10 easy steps that we, together, can fix this country.
And number two is...
2. Eliminate the shopping cart ( except for disabled people of course ). You get whatever you can carry.
CHA104.0001.xxf1rw (MODEL RELEASED IMAGE) The Aboubakar family of Darfur province, Sudan, in front of their tent in the Breidjing Refugee Camp, in eastern Chad, with a weekÕs worth of food. DÕjimia Ishakh Souleymane, 40, holds her daughter Hawa, 2; the other children are (left to right) Acha, 12, Mariam, 5, Youssouf, 8, and Abdel Kerim, 16. Cooking method: wood fire. Food preservation: natural drying. Favorite foodÑDÕjimia: soup with fresh sheep meat. /// The Aboubakar family is one of the thirty families featured in the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (p. 56). Food expenditure for one week: $1.23 USD. (Please refer to Hungry Planet book p. 57 for the familyÕs detailed food list.)
Ottersland Dahl family, of Gjettum, Norway (outside Oslo). Gunhild Valle Ottersland, 45, shopping for weekly groceries. Model-Released.
Bhu.mw.01.xxsNalim and NamgayÕs family of Bhutan, with all of their possessions. From pages 72-73, Material World. The family of subsistence farmers lives in a 3-story rammed-earth house in the hillside village of Shingkhey, Bhutan. {{Family members are: Namgay (50, family patriarch and husband of Nalim), Nalim (47, family matriarch and wife of Namgay), Kinley (17, son of Namgay and Nalim), Bangam (also called Kinley, 14, daughter of Nalim and Namgay), Zekom (2, daughter of Nalim and Namgay), Sangay, (29, daughter of Nalim and Namgay and wife of Sangay Kandu), Sangay Kandu (33, husband of Sangay), Choeden (9, daughter of Sangay Kandu and Sangay), Chato Namgay (7, son of Sangay Kandu and Sangay), Sangay Zam (5, daughter of Sangay Kandu and Sangay), Chato Geltshin (3, son of Sangay Kandu and Sangay), Tandin Geltshin (2, son of Sangay Kandu and Sangay), Kinley Dorji, (61, unmarried brother of Nalim). Nalim and her daughter Sangay work as partnersÑthey take turns caring for the children and working in their mustard, rice, and wheat fields. SangayÕs husband Sangay Kandu does the plowing of the family fields but Sangay and Nalim do the planting and harvesting. Namgay, who has a hunched back and a clubfoot, grinds grain for neighbors with a small mill his family purchased from the government. They are paying for the mill as they canÑoften the payment is made in grain and mustard oil. Namgay is also a reader of sacred texts and conducts house cleansing and healing ceremonies for their 14-house village. From Peter MenzelÕs Material World Project that showed 30 statistically average families in 30 countries with all their possessions.}}
The Material World books changed my life and how I see the world and i could never unsee the photographs in them - they were done before google gave us insight into people's lives. I always found it very weird and felt overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we have in stores - they say the average amount of products in your average grocery store is 40,000 items. The normality of this escapes me - to quote the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"Five to one against and falling..." she said, "four to one against and falling...three to one...two...one...probability factor of one to one...we have normality, I repeat we have normality." She turned her microphone off—then turned it back on, with a slight smile and continued: "Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem."
Hungry Planet:
http://menzelphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery-collection/Hungry-Planet-Europe/C0000k7JgEHhEq0w
Material World:
Cats with plans - for world domination - today in your metro station, tomorrow - world. /
my favorite #scifi #shortstory i have discovered thanks to #reddit - the egg and meat. Meat?.. Meat. Meat?? ... Meat. /
my favorite #scifi #shortstory i have discovered thanks to #reddit : the egg
and meat?