Tuesday, May 13, 2008

RIP Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg
Monogram
1955-59
mixed mediums with taxidermy goat, rubber tire and tennis ball, ca. 42 x 63 x 65 in., Moderna Museet, Stockholm

I particularly love his collage and found object Neo-Dada work from the 1950's.
Robert Rauschenberg
Untitled (Man with White Shoes)
ca. 1954
mixed mediums with taxidermy hen and a pair of painted leather shoes, ca. 87 x 237 x 26 in.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Robert Rauschenberg
Bed
1955
mixed mediums, ca. 75 x 32 x 8 in.
Museum of Modern Art

“Building on the legacies of Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters and Joseph Cornell, he helped to obscure the lines between painting and sculpture, painting and photography, photography and printmaking, sculpture and photography, sculpture and dance, sculpture and technology, technology and performance art — not to mention between art and life.”

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Bad Egg

Bad Egg BoschBethany Marchman - "Bad Egg II" an ode to Bosch [SOLD]

Rabbit-Hole Gallery via Angie Mason

Outrage and dead-ends

McCain lobbyist Doug Goodyear, whose firm once represented Burma's repressive regime.I have not said anything about the disaster in Burma, because I haven't had anything to say beyond "It's a disaster." And, that people should call the country Burma -- as the Bush Administration, Senators Clinton, McCain*, and Obama, and the Washington Post do -- rather than Myanmar, the term chosen by its junta and now accepted by CNN, NPR, and the New York Times.
...
Unfortunately, saying that the regime is evil doesn't automatically indicate how to help its unfortunate people. Invasions -- even for humanitarian purposes -- should be a very last resort. And without spelling out the whole reasoning, the U.S. is not in a great position now to be organizing an international invasion force, no matter how noble the cause. As the international frustrations of the last week have suggested, the main option is the unsatisfying one of putting together as much pressure from as many sources as possible, including China**, to force the regime away from its outrageous refusal to allow aid workers in.

(*About McCain: if
it really is true that he has given a major convention role to a lobbyist who represented the Burmese junta, McCain needs to dump that person forthwith -- or be pilloried for not doing so every day between now and the election. Update: I see that the lobbyist, Doug Goodyear, has just quit the convention job. Next, maybe giving back the $300,000+ the generals paid him, to a human rights group? **About China: the latest outrage by the Burmese generals should not become the latest reason to threaten China with an Olympic boycott or disruption. The Chinese government has some influence over the Burmese regime -- but just some. It is better to make China part of the solution to this problem, by pointing out that a regime's refusal to save its own people is the strongest possible reason for an exception in China's "non-interference with other sovereign states" doctrine.)

A year ago, during the time of riots and crackdowns, I posted several pictures of
what Rangoon looked like just before the fighting began. Here and after the jump, a few other pictures from that time.
More at Evil in Burma

Evil Burmese Junta

Electricity


Saturday, May 10, 2008

Facing Foreclosure? Breed Fish!

Or bread them...?

Hat tip to Mitchell for this find...

There's mucho dinero to be made in this mortgage meltdown situation, but instead of jumping in your time machine, traveling back to last summer and shorting subprime, why not get creative about it? According to the Journal, anyone interested in getting rich should dive into the fish fucking business, stat. Michael Corkery reports that the Gambusia affinis, i.e. the "mosquito fish," is making a name for itself in California, Arizona, Florida and anywhere else you might find a ton of foreclosed homes con swimming pools. Apparently the abandoned estate's water-based recreational facilities are becoming infested by mosquitoes, and causing worry about the spread of diseases like West Nile. Instead of using humans to spray pesticides, the fish are increasingly being deployed to the areas of concern, where they eat up to 500 larvae a day. "They are the real heroes," said Josefa Cabadad, a technician with the Contra Costa Mosquito & Vector Control District. "I've never seen a mosquito in a pool with mosquito fish." Start breeding.

Your Big Money Idea Of The Day

WSJ...
The problem: swimming pools of abandoned homes have turned into mosquito breeding grounds.
Related video: Foreclosed? Go Fish!

Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands