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Patrick Caulfield
One of my favourites…Gone. (sigh.)
UK artist Patrick Caulfield, known for his spare, precise studies of interiors and still life, has died aged 69.
Part of the 1960s generation of artists, his bold, colourful images were often associated with Pop Art.
Tate galleries director Nicholas Serota described Caulfield as “one of the most original image makers in a talented generation of British artists”.
“His still lifes and interiors captured mood and decor with incisive style,” Mr Serota said.
In a 1999 interview with The Observer newspaper, Caulfield said his interest in interiors developed in art school as a reaction against social realism.
“So I tried to do things that were really alien to me, invented interiors that I had never seen,” he said.
“I tended to choose things that were slightly past, out of fashion, which would make it more distant.”
His 1996 painting Happy Hour shows a light, a wine glass and an exit sign.
When he began painting, he was quoted as saying that he started with the light, “without exactly knowing how I would end up”.
Caulfield died in London on Thursday, confirmed the capital’s Waddington Gallery, which represented the artist for more than 30 years.
He is survived by his wife, and three sons from a previous marriage.
‘Twee op vijf blanco cd’s illegaal’
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Over 20 tot 40 procent van de blanco cd’s en dvd’s in Nederland is niet de verplichte kopieerheffing betaald. Dat vermoeden de grootste leveranciers. Het “onredelijk” hoge tarief is de belangrijkste oorzaak, zeggen ze.
[..]
De leveranciers zijn niet principieel tegen een kopieerheffing maar wel tegen de hoogte en het onderscheid met omringende landen, verklaarde secretaris S. Swolfs van Stobi maandag. De kostprijs van een normale, blanco dvd (4,6 gigabyte) ligt rond de 30 eurocent. Stichting de Thuiskopie int namens artiesten en producenten een auteursrechtenvergoeding van nog eens 60 eurocent. Swolfs: “Dat is 200 procent.”
[..]
“Nergens staat dat de heffing in verhouding moet staan met de kostprijs”, zegt Beemsterboer [van Stichting de Thuiskopie] over het tarief. Stichting de Thuiskopie stelt dat voor harmonisering van de Europese markt veel is te zeggen en Beemsterboer deelt de mening dat in het land waar de dragers worden afgezet, ook de heffing moet worden betaald.
Fijn om te weten – over de DVD’s met software die ik verkoop (en daarvoor zelf brand) betaal ik dus 200% inkoop-belasting. Ik heb het al eerder gezegd – zolang de industrie me als een dief blijft behandelen verdom ik het om hun producten af te nemen.
Such a tease
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The Democratic party appears to be the party of reaction. The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is the difference between driving towards a brick wall and trying to avoid hitting a deer. The Democrats appear to try to avoid hitting things that might dart out in front of them. Whereas the Republicans clearly have plotted a road and if there’s something in their way, they’re just going to blow it up. Sometimes literally.”
– Jon Stewart, on American politics, to a British newspaper
sledgehammer-operated keyboard
Van Morrison’s Contractual Obligation Album
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In order to fulfill his obligation to his early solo label Bang Records,Van Morrison sat down in 1967 or so and cranked out 31 songs on the spot, on topics ranging from ringworm to wanting a danish, to hating his record label and a guy named George. Make sure you get past the first few tunes – it takes him a few to get cooking.
Listener Scott S, who originally brought the tapes to our attention in 2001, wrote:
As far as I know, none of this stuff was ever issued in the ’60’s. I can only surmise at some point in the early ’90’s, whoever controlled Van’s Bang masters ran across the tapes and – either having questionable ethics and/or a twisted sense of humor – licensed the tapes to European labels that were releasing compilations of Van’s Bang-era material. I know of at least two double-CD sets that include demo stuff as the second disc – one is Payin’ Dues on Charly in 1994, and the other is New York Sessions ‘67. WIll Rigby told me that he saw a single-disc best-of that actually mixes legit Bang-era Morrison tracks with material from the demos – now that must be an interesting listen. I guess there’s irony in the fact that Morrison recorded these tunes as a big fuck-you to his label – before he signed to Warner and recorded Astral Weeks – yet ultimately the joke’s on him, now that they’re being packaged as legitimate tracks (on “best-of” collections, no less).
His ‘Secret’ Movie Trailer Is No Secret Anymore
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Robert Ryang, 25, a film editor’s assistant in Manhattan, graduated from Columbia three years ago with a double major in film studies and psychology. This week, he got an eye-opening lesson in both.
Since 2002, Mr. Ryang has worked for one of the owners of P.S. 260, a commercial postproduction house, cutting commercials for the likes of Citizens Bank, Cingular and the TriBeCa Film Festival.
A few weeks back, he said, he entered a contest for editors’ assistants sponsored by the New York chapter of the Association of Independent Creative Editors. The challenge? Take any movie and cut a new trailer for it — but in an entirely different genre. Only the sound and dialogue could be modified, not the visuals, he said.
Mr. Ryang chose “The Shining,” Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. In his hands, it became a saccharine comedy — about a writer struggling to find his muse and a boy lonely for a father. Gilding the lily, he even set it against “Solsbury Hill,” the way-too-overused Peter Gabriel song heard in comedies billed as life-changing experiences, like last year’s “In Good Company.”
Mr. Ryang won the contest, and about 10 days ago, he said, he sent three friends a link to a “secret site” on his company’s Web site where they could watch his entry (www.ps260.com/molly/SHINING%20FINAL.mov).
One of them, Mr. Ryang said, posted it on his little-watched blog. And that was that. Until this week, when he was hit by a tsunami of Internet interest.
On Wednesday, Mr. Ryang said, his secret site got 12,000 hits. By Thursday the numbers were even higher, his film was being downloaded and linked to on countless other sites, it had cracked the top 10 most popular spoofs on www.ifilm.com, and a vice president at a major Hollywood studio had called up his office, scouting for new talent.
Other entries in the contest were the West Side Story and the Titanic
That’s a poor shot, Posh!
[Quote:]
Posh tried to get her own back on photographers by aiming her Leica at them out of her car window – but ended up giving them another good photo opportunity instead.
The Interactive Nolli Map Website
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Giambattista Nolli (1701-1756) was an architect and surveyor who lived in Rome and devoted his life to documenting the architectural and urban foundations of the city. The fruit of his labor, La Pianta Grande di Roma (“the great plan of Rome”) is one of the most revealing and artistically designed urban plans of all time. The Nolli map is an ichnographic plan map of the city, as opposed to a birds eye perspective, which was the dominant cartographic representation style prevalent before his work. He was not only one of the first people to construct an ichnographic map of Rome, but his perspective has been copied ever since.
The map depicts the city in astonishing detail. Nolli accomplished this by using scientific surveying techniques, careful base drawings, and minutely prepared engravings. The maps graphic representations include not only a precise architectural scale, but also a prominent compass rose, with both magnetic north and astronomical north carefully noted. The Nolli map is the first accurate map of Rome since antiquity and captures the city at the height of its cultural and artistic achievements. The historic center of Rome has changed little over the last 250 years; therefore, the Nolli map remains one of the best sources for understanding the contemporary city.
ungreek.toolbot.com
Source: Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre”
Versetzt wo sie ihm noch belebt schienen? Damals so eine herzliche mütterliche Freude über dein gutes Gedächtnis und deine? Sind die Puppen hingekommen Ich habe versprochen? Ich weiß wie sonderbar es mir vorkam als man. Pathetische Rede daß ich mir sogleich vornahm dir die hölzerne Truppe nun selbst zu übergeben. Nahmst gleich den größten Anteil daran Ich weiß wie du mir das Büchlein entwendetest und. So zwergmäßig gebildet sei Denn nach, von Wachs machtest sie beide? Endlich wie ein Klotz und; in Geduld zu warten So saß nun alles.
Durch eine unerwartete Festlichkeit ausgefüllt Es baute sich ein? Eine unerwartete Festlichkeit ausgefüllt Es baute sich. Gab und das euch zuerst Geschmack. Klebtest Ich hatte damals so eine herzliche. Herr Herr es entfalle keinem der Mut um deswillen wenn Ihro Majestät mir erlauben.
Schöne Königstochter zur Gemahlin erhielt verdroß es. Erlauben wollen so will ich hingehen und mit. Und am Ende trag ich wenn er verdrießlich wird. Du mir das Büchlein entwendetest und. Perorieren ließest dem Riesen endlich einen Stoß gabst und sein.
Und war still eine Pfeife gab das Signal der Vorhang rollte in die Höhe. Mit Schäferstab Hirtentasche und Schleuder hervorhüpfte und sprach. Am Ende trag ich wenn er verdrießlich wird die. Was wohl Blinkendes und Rasselndes sich; Riesen in den Streit treten‹ –, wurde und er die schöne Königstochter zur Gemahlin erhielt verdroß es, Vorhang wieder in die Höhe David weihte das Fleisch. Manche vergnügte Stunde gemacht« ? Truppe nun selbst zu übergeben Ich dachte damals nicht daß es!
[Quote:]
For years, designers have been using fake Latin gibberish known as greeking (or sometimes lorem ipsum, after the customary initial words) as a text placekeeper. It conveys the shape and “color” of text without the distraction of actual content.
The ungreek.toolbot engine gives you the option of several different source texts from which you can generate greeking.
Anatomy of a Photograph
Nice picture from an anti-war protest in San Francisco on September 24, 2005, right?
Well, not exactly.
From Where I Stand
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Karen Hughes went to Turkey and Saudi Arabia this week to talk to women about the blessings of having a U.S. presence in their lives. To the Turkish women, she extolled American democracy in the Middle East. To the Saudi women she promised that they would soon enjoy more participation in the social system.
The implication was obvious: Thanks to the United States of America, happiness was on the way. The effect of the speeches was shattering. Silence. No applause. No celebrations. Instead, Turkish women told her, “You cannot bring in war for the sake of peace. The United States cannot interfere in the democracy problem and solve it through war.” And Saudi women — who she promised would soon be able to drive cars — told her that they were happy, thank you, and that they didn’t need America to make their lives complete and that, frankly, they would be a lot happier if she just went home. It was a hard message to misinterpret.
[..]
The problem is that perception is more powerful than fact. More than that, perceptions such as these are spawning small anti-U.S. movements all over the world.
Karen Hughes and I were both hearing the same thing: Whatever we like to think, the whole world does not really want to be American. They want to be themselves. The only difference between what Karen Hughes heard and what I heard is, that for some reason unknown to the finest minds in captivity, I was not surprised to hear it. The Bush administration, apparently is.
As the kids say, “They just don’t get it.”
There is no such thing as exporting democracy at the end of gun, no matter how much it is “for their own good.”
Hyperion
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA,NASA
What lies at the bottom of Hyperion’s strange craters?
Nobody knows. To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon again last week and took an image of unprecedented detail. That image, shown above in false color, shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and a generally odd surface. The slight differences in color likely show differences in surface composition. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark material. Inspection of the image shows bright features indicating that the dark material might be only tens of meters thick in some places. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it might house a vast system of caverns inside.
Families Lose Loved Ones Again — in a Bureaucratic Mire
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When he could finally leave his post guarding a nuclear power plant after Hurricane Katrina struck, Richard George Reysack III sped east of New Orleans to the flooded home of his 80-year-old father. Slogging through the muck, he found his father’s corpse face-down in the hallway.
As devastating as that discovery was, at least Reysack had the body. Then even that was taken away. The authorities who moved the corpse to a temporary morgue not only won’t return it to Reysack for burial, he said, they won’t even confirm that they have it.
[..]
“It’s inefficient and inept out there – it’s beyond incompetence,” said William Bagnell, a funeral director who said he had been refused access to four bodies at the morgue even though officials faxed him forms inviting him to pick up the remains.
Bali Terror Bombings
A man in a black shirt and jeans is seen walking into a restaurant among diners at Kuta Square in Bali on Saturday, in this combination video grab image made from amateur video footage released on October 2, 2005. Investigators released chilling footage captured on amateur video of a man in a black shirt and jeans, with what looks like a hump on his back, strolling into a restaurant among diners, shortly before the explosion. Suicide bombers were behind the three attacks in Bali which killed as many as 26 people and wounded 122, the resort island’s police chief said on Sunday.
Partial beard, freestyle
German Willi Chevalier, contestant in the category partial beard, freestyle, poses in Berlin, during the World Beard and Moustache Championships. (AFP/DDP/Marcus Brandt)
Britten zetten Oostenrijk voor blok over Turkije
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De deadline die EU-voorzitter Groot-Brittannië Oostenrijk heeft opgelegd, is verstreken. Oostenrijk moest van de Britten in de nacht van zondag op maandag tegen 00.30 uur instemmen met een nieuwe tekst over het begin van onderhandelingen met Turkije over lidmaatschap van de Unie.
Wat is democratie toch heerlijk. Het hele gedoe met de grondwet heeft op europees niveau kennelijk duidelijk gemaakt dat het zinloos is iemand te vragen ergens over te stemmen, het is gewoon “moet” en daarmee uit. Het wordt zo te zien echt tijd om Brussel te vertellen dat ze die hele unie in hun reet kunnen steken.
Ho, ho, John, er is veel mis met de EU, maar om die nu helemaal af te schaffen… Daar zouden we nog eens over na kunnen denken. Beter dat Engeland ruw doet tegen Oostenrijk, dan dat ze een oorlog beginnen. Ik geef de EU met al zijn nadelen (en dat zijn er veel!) nog altijd het voordeel van de twijfel, gewoon omdat het de kans op intraeuropeesche oorlog verkleind. Bovendien hebben de kleinere landen nu meer te vertellen dan in een “ongeorganiseerd” Europa. Het probleem is gewoon die f*cking regelzieke, narsistische, kl*te ambtenaren en politicie.