The avant garde as seen in a rear view mirror

Five Way Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (click to enlarge)

"Cubism -- highly influential visual arts style of the 20th century that was created principally by the painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The Cubist style emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of the picture plane, rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro and refuting time-honoured theories of art as the imitation of nature. Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and space; instead, they presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically fragmented objects, whose several sides were seen simultaneously." [source]

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"With his next major work, Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) he (Marcel Duchamp) began to break from Cubism.

There are some familiar traces of Cubism here. For instance, the painting has a limited color scheme of browns and muted yellow, and the subject (the nude figure) is splintered into abstract, geometric forms. But while most early Cubist works focused on static or even motionless subjects, like still lifes or portraits of seated people, Duchamp's Nude depicts its subject in motion.

The barely-recognizable nude is shown from numerous points of view all at once, frozen in time. It's as if Duchamp was trying to paint thirty paintings at once, one for each step down the stairs. The background of the painting is also more faded than the foreground, making it seem like the nude is walking forward to the viewer." [source]

Commercialism, an Easter fast and Amazing Grace

The above video is the YouTube channel of som's fade. I believe he is Nigerian. His videos are obviously homemade and don't get a lot of views. Kind of like this blog come to think of it, except I'm not Nigerian. I wish him luck in his endeavors.

Anyway, in his video he tells an Easter tale while acts out the parts of Dina and Momma Dina. Dina asks his mom for money for Easter. His mother says no, but promises him she'll cook his favorite meal for Easter. He insults her cooking and ends up on an Easter fast as a result. Will he be able to grovel his way back into Momma Dina's good graces? You'll have to watch to find out.

Below is another video appropriate for Easter. Like the above video, it deals with matters other than crass commercialism. Happy Easter all.

Koop Island Blues

Get ready for a rueful weekend with Koop.

18th Century hand colored drawings of fish

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These illustrations are from The Public Domain Review's article: Images from the First Colour Publication on Fish (1754). The 18th Century volume Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes was the first European book to show fish and crustaceans from the East Indian seas. Many of the colors, and even some of the creatures, are quite fanciful. There are more after the jump, and a few more at the link.

Olga buys some hair conditioner

A while back a nice Russian lady took us on a tour of a Russian convenience store. Today's video features a Russian fellow and his companion Olga visiting an American convenience store. Olga wants to buy some hair conditioner. You may need to turn on the captions and make sure they are in English to understand what they have to say about it all.

In the bonus video below the fellow ponders the American habit of saying "excuse me" and "sorry" when navigating around each other in store aisles. He thinks that Americans are getting scared and apologizing when they do that. He tries to act out the scenario with Olga, but she mainly just wants to blow dry her hair.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Get ready for a jovial weekend with Rosie Carney.

Inside a Matryoshka (Russian nesting doll) factory

View the process of making Matryoshkas (Russian nesting dolls). The process is surprisingly labor intensive, with very little automation.

Ogawa Kazumasa's hand colored photographs

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Ogawa Kazumasa was a pioneer Japanese photographer, publisher and photomechanical reproduction. In his day he was perhaps best known for his photographs of the Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese Wars. You can read more about him at TAP's article: Ogawa Kazumasa and the Halftone Photograph: Japanese War Albums at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.

He also experimented in hand coloring photos. This post shows some of his hand colored work. There are more after the jump, and even more at Getty Museum's archive of his work. At that archive you can also find many of his non-colored photographs.

Mutant Brain

Get ready for a fragrant weekend with Sam Spiegel & Ape Drums featuring Assassin with Margaret Qualley as the dancer.

When you need a really big gun

A tour of one of the battleship Iowa's 16 inch guns from the powder room deep in the bowels of the ship to the gun in the turret.

Can true love survive zombification?

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Last week, in my post Vyzhit Posle, I discussed the first season of a Russian TV show called Vyzhit Posle (The Day After on Amazon Prime). It starts with 11 young people being locked up in a bunker while above ground Eeeevil Russian oligarchs bungle an experiment to create a master race. Instead most of the population of Moscow is killed by a virus, except for young good-looking Russian girls who get turned into black-eyed zombies.

It was quite entertaining, and as Season 2 unfolded it turned out to be one of the better treatments of zombies I've seen in a long time. Before George Romero turned zombies into ambulatory corpses, the horror of them hadn't been hordes of monsters trying to kill, instead it had been the act of zombification itself. That is, the removal of human agency from a person was what was terrifying.

In case anybody decides to watch the show, which is full of plot twists and surprises, I'll try to avoid too many spoilers. That said, the show uses two of the girls who had been in the bunker and turned into zombies by the end of Season 1 to illustrate the implications of the loss of their humanity rather than just the rampaging zombie babe hordes.

In the top picture we have Nadya, the Yum-Yum Girl (high priced escort) who turned into a zombie in the final episode of the first season. It looked like Mitya, her good-for-nothing drunk of a hookup, got killed, but it turns out he escaped Nadya. Well, escaped her for a while. Nadya ends up being the alpha queen zombie, and in the above picture she and her zombie BFFs have tracked him down and herded him to her nest in the palentology wing of a museum. Yea, he doesn't look too happy. Also, entertainingly enough, her nest is a pile of stuffed animals. Hey, a zombie chick is still a chick, right?

The next picture is the research file on Aijan, the beautiful Kazakhstani girl who suffered so much in Season 1 as she slowly zombified. Valera, the skinhead with a heart of gold who became her sweetie had promised Aijan that he would kill her if she turned into a zombie. Well, he screwed that up -- the head Valera, gotta shoot zombies in the head -- and they discover she is back in the clutches of the Eeeeevil research lab. The experiments the caption refers to is them injecting her with every disease known to man. Sadly for Aijan, who can't catch a break on this show, things go downhill for her from there.

There is still a lot of soap opera tomfoolery, the occasional plot hole or two, and many goofy translations in their captions, but the show is good. Much of what they pull off as they show the plight of the bunker survivors and the zombie girls is quite effective.

Finally, and this is in no way a gratuitous display of hot zombie babes, below are a few pictures of them scampering about. Mind you, purely so's you can admire the high quality production design of the series.

Season I: Vyzhit Posle
SeasonII: Can true love survive zombification?
Season III: Hot zombie babes just want to be your friend (sort of)

Warning: never try zombie sex tourism - it will not end well

Love and Hate

To My Enemy - Lucy Maud Montgomery

Let those who will of friendship sing,
And to its guerdon grateful be,
But I a lyric garland bring
To crown thee, O, mine enemy!

Thanks, endless thanks, to thee I owe
For that my lifelong journey through
Thine honest hate has done for me
What love perchance had failed to do.

I had not scaled such weary heights
But that I held thy scorn in fear,
And never keenest lure might match
The subtle goading of thy sneer.

Thine anger struck from me a fire
That purged all dull content away,
Our mortal strife to me has been
Unflagging spur from day to day.

And thus, while all the world may laud
The gifts of love and loyalty,
I lay my meed of gratitude
Before thy feet, mine enemy!

She Drives Me Crazy

Get ready for a berserk weekend with Emancquea.

Grandma's home cooking

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From a blurb about the book In Her Kitchen: Stories and Recipes from Grandmas Around the World:

"On the eve of a photography trip around the world, Gabriele Galimberti sat down to dinner with his grandmother Marisa. As she had done so many times before, she prepared his favorite ravioli. The care with which she prepared this meal, and the pride she took in her dish, led Gabriele to seek out grandmothers and their signature dishes in the sixty countries he visited."

These are pictures of a few of the grandmas he visited and their dishes. There are more after the jump, and more at Amusing Planet's What Grandmas Around The World Cook.

Vyzhit Posle

My operation recoveries always seem to involve popping painkillers, lounging in a lounge chair and watching goofy TV shows. For this operation's recovery the main show I've settled on is the Russian TV show Vyzhit Posle, which on Amazon Prime goes by its English title The Day After.

The show starts with 11 young people waking up in a cold war era bunker with no idea how they got there, or what's in store for them. Later it turns out that they're there to be test subjects in an experiment cooked up by some Eeeeevil Russian Oligarchs to create a master race (more on that in a bit). However, in the mean time they mainly get hysterical, flirt with each other and pair off.

The above video focuses on one of the couples: Velera who starts out as a rather frightening skinhead but morphs into the hero and Aijan, the beautiful but sensitive Asian girl from Kazakhstan who he falls crazy mad in love with for no apparent reason. At any rate, if you've watched the video you'll know there is a bump or two on their path to true romance -- mainly the fact Aijan gets bit by a zombie girl and ends up zombified herself.

As long as we're talking about zombie girls, you may have noticed in the video clip that Moscow appeared to be a bit deserted except for black-eyed zombie girls. Well, it turns out that the Eeeeevil Russian Oligarchs' plan to create a master race didn't exactly go according to plan. They intended to have all the hot Russian girls become fertile, while the ugly ones went sterile. I dunno… the Eeeeevil Russian Oligarchs claim this was to clear Mother Russia of future riff-raff, but I'm having a hard time following their logic. It just seems like a scheme to create a plethora of hot looking Russian woman down the road to me. Not that I'm objecting to their aim mind you, although sterilizing all the ugly people seems a bit crass.

Anyway, the experiment is a flop. Instead of creating more hot babes a master race it accidentally turns all the hot women into screeching, black-eyed zombies while the virus kills everybody else off. Oops.

Part of the charm of the show is its Russian nature as opposed to how an American show would portray things. For example the women, even the zombie babes, are pretty much girly-girls running around in high heels and dressed to the nines. The guys are of course pretty macho, endlessly threatening each other with guns when they're not babbling about the 'broads' they're locked up with. And some of the captioning is pure gold, such gems as "you are entering a zone of top secrecy" and referring to the promiscuous Russian escort in the bunker as a yum-yum girl.

The plot can be all over the place, with chunks of it just tossed out and forgotten once the story moves on, but all in all the show is actually entertaining in spite of all its plot holes and preposterous storylines.

Season I: Vyzhit Posle
Season II: Can true love survive zombification?
Season III: Hot zombie babes just want to be your friend (sort of)

Back in Black

Get ready for a recrudescent weekend with Acoustic Hits.

Going under the knife again

My handful of regulars may remember that a few months ago I had an operation and part of my recovery involved sitting in a lounge chair and watching crappy movies while riddled with pain killers.

Sadly for me my recovery took its toll, all the lounge chair lounging causing problems with my ulnar nerve. So now, since patent medicine miracle cures and internet advice did me no good, I need another operation to fix that problem. Again I'll be off-line for a bit, but it shouldn't be as bad as before.

Ah, the wonders of growing old.

Whatever Lola Wants

Get ready for a targeted weekend with Natacha Atlas.

1960s Florida of tourist memories

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Here's a few pictures of 1960s Florida from a tourist's perspective. Some of the kitsch is gone, some has just evolved. For example, Weeki Wachi, in the picture below got converted from a private tourist trap to a State owned park. The mermaid shows are still being staged.

There are a few more pictures after the jump, and more at Flashbaks post ‘Home to Meet God’ – 1960s Florida in Kodachrome.

Walking in a Moroccan bazaar

The Thrill Is Gone

Get ready for an invisible horn section this weekend with Lucid Wake.

 

Futures morphing into the past

Photo by Brett Leigh Dicks (click to enlarge)

Two Bedrooms, Fireplace And Hardwood Floors - Bernard Henrie

He can see his grandfather standing
on a dark, hardwood floor like the one
of his new apartment, a cuspidor
at his feet;

shadows inch into storage bins
and deaf corners of the house.

the halogen bloom of summer across
tile roofs and shining into the eyes
of dogs with jeweled collars;

the landlady offers lease papers,
he stares into the street;

a Japanese woman passes by,
he notes her lapel floret, her body
slight as his wife's on their
wedding day, she moves into focus
as on a photographer’s glass plate.

His wife had not called all day
and he was unable to remember
when his daughter would arrive
from school;

egg-shell colored hair feels thin
in his hand;

an hour later he turns
to the landlady, but the room
is empty; he finds his silver flask,
swallows a single capful;

grains of dust fall on his shoulders,
his watch is missing, a scuffed left
shoe untied.

In the fireplace mirror,
he notices how old he has become;
blue eyes aged to hardened steel,
unclipped brows drooping to form
a hood; his glasses and cheeks
grow wet;

The effect is a man's face struck
by rain while waiting for a taxi.

Havana tour guide vs a skeptical Ukrainian

Above is a pretty entertaining video of a Ukrainian lady who is not buying a Havana tour guide's spiel about the wonders of Cuba. You can tell she's having great fun calling BS on what he has to say.

The video is by a fellow called Brandon Ferdig who has a lot more videos, although many of them are quite short, at his YouTube channel. As well as Cuba, he's traveled through China, Thailand, Cambodia, East Africa and the United States.

One of his primary interests is poverty and homelessness. I actually first stumbled across him through the below video where he talks to a southern redneck.

Old Caribbean travel posters

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My recent trip to escape the polar vortex cold of Florida was to the Dominican Republic. I quite enjoyed my stay there. The people, the food, the beaches, the poolside and just wandering the streets were all pleasant and relaxing, although the touts could get annoying at times.

If you're ever in Bayahibe stop by the Blu Café. Easily the best restaurant on my trip.

Anyway, for graphics, since I couldn't find any old Dominican Republic travel posters I branched out a bit and went for a small sampling of Caribbean themed posters instead.

Mariposa (en Havana)

Get ready for a weekend of cavorting with Si*Se.

Heading south for a bit

My destination - click image to enlarge

Damn you Canada -- this polar vortex business has made Florida intolerably cold. I'm having to wear sweaters nearly every day, I am also fearing that I may get frostbite if I'm not careful, and I don't even want to mention the horrors of cabin fever.

Anyhoo... I'll be heading south for my safety and most likely won't be posting for a bit. See you all later, if you haven't froze to death in the mean time that is.

On the departure of a shipmate

The Old Boat - Frederic Edwin Church 

We do not ask a tamed seagull why she feels the need to disappear from time to time to the open sea. She goes, that's all, and it's as simple as a ray of sunshine, as normal as the blue of the sky. - Bernard Moitessier 

Sweet Dreams

Get ready for a nectarous weekend with Holly Henry. 

Daydreaming and reality

Painting by Francine Van Hove

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein

Russian pilots of the Congo

Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Get ready for a conclusive weekend with the United Rhythms Of Brazil.

Sindbad vs Popeye

There was a time when I regularly posted Wednesday 'Hump Day' fight videos. I'm not going to resume that posting tradition, finding videos of silly fights was getting increasingly difficult, but today I'll post a throw-back Hump Day fight. This one features a brawl between Popeye the Sailor and Sinbad the Sailor, who is played by Brutus. Naturally Olive Oyle is caught in the middle.

King Tut's restored tomb

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Without ever really thinking about it, I just assumed that King Tutankhamen's tomb was restricted to only archeologists and other guests. It turns out it could be visited by tourists, and they recently did restoration work on it.

From the History Blog article Conservation of Tutankhamen’s tomb complete:

The project team found the wall paintings to be in relatively stable condition, apart from localized flaking and loss of paint that was caused by both inconsistencies in the materials used and their application, as well as damage caused by visitors. Newly designed barriers now restrict visitor access in these areas to reduce the risk of future damage. The paintings were stabilized through dust removal and reduction of coatings from previous treatments, and condition monitoring was also established to better evaluate future changes.

Also addressed were the mysterious brown spots on the wall paintings. They were already present when Carter first entered the tomb, and a comparison of the spots with historic photographs from the mid-1920s showed no new growth. To confirm this finding, DNA and chemical analysis were undertaken and confirmed the spots to be microbiological in origin but dead and thus no longer a threat. Because the spots have penetrated into the paint layer, they have not been removed since this would harm the wall paintings.

Restored, stabilized and with new lighting, ventilation and information panels, the tomb of Tutankhamen offers a much improved experience for visitors as well as more secure, controlled conditions to preserve the priceless archaeological material. That includes a few important pieces on display as well as the tomb itself: Tutankhamen’s mummy on view in an oxygen-free display case, the stone sarcophagus and the outermost coffin made of gilded wood.

So Lonesome I Could Cry

Get ready for an abandoned weekend with Seasick Steve & Amy Lavere.

Making manioc flour in Brazil

Manioc is an edible tropical root that is rich in carbohydrates. It can be eaten alone in various forms, and it is also frequently used as a filler to other dishes.

Old motivational posters

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Motivational posters are a minorly annoying feature of modern office life. Yes, we all need banal sayings to guide us on our way. I guess they've been around for some time -- these three are from the 1930s and 40s. So, read them and heed their wise advice!

500 miles

Get ready for a pedestrian weekend with Haley and Michaels.

Confusion and clarity

On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage

One of the last patients in an iron lung

Self portraits of women painters painting

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This is a sample of a nice collection of self portraits by women painters showing them at work. It is from La boite verte's post Des autoportraits de femmes peintres en train de peindre. There are many more at the link, as well as captions identifying the artists.

Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out

Get ready for a destitute weekend with Carla Bruni.

Visiting a Russian convenience store

A previous post took us to a roadside café in India, today we're visiting a Russian convenience store in a small village. I realize I'm taking a chance here, for all I know this video is nothing but Russian propaganda designed to throw another election Trump's way. Regardless, as a fearless internet journalist I'm willing to risk facing a Bob Mueller grand jury to speak truth to power, etc., etc., etc. Enjoy.

Do Not Disturb (South American)

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Edoardo Flores describes himself as an Italian who worked for the International Labour Organization of the United Nations. Yes, that is a bit of a frightening job description to some of us. However, this post isn't about his previous job. Rather, it is about a hobby of his -- collecting Do Not Disturb signs.

He's got a very extensive collection of them (over 17,500 of them by his count) at his website Do Not Disturb. The images on this page, and those after the jump, are a small sampling of Do Not Disturb signs from South America.

Found via Flashbak's post A Wonderful and Extraordinary Collection of Old Hotel ‘Do Not Disturb’ Signs which has more samples from his collection.

Köprüaltı (Under the Bridge)

Get ready for a rapprochement weekend with Sufle.

At a roadside cafe on the way to Jaipur

Happy New Year

Click to enlarge

These kids seem to be too old to be New Year Babies and too young to be drinking Champaign, but whatever. Anyway, adios 2018 and welcome 2019. Hope you all have a good one.
  

Dancing Flappers

I tried to find actual footage of flappers dancing, but the film quality was too bad. So I went with this scene, which is from the 1956 movie Don't Knock the Rock. In that movie Rock n' Roll has been banned by the town geezers because it is too wild and suggestive, so the kids put on a show where we see that, via the dances of their youth, the geezers weren't above being wild and suggestive themselves.

Crazy

Get ready for a deranged weekend with Allison Young and Josh Turner.

Flames of passion

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Yea, The Roses Are Still On Fire - Mathilde Blind

Yea, the roses are still on fire
With the bygone heat of July,
Though the least little wind drifting by
Shake a rose-leaf or two from the brier,
Be it never so soft a sigh.

Ember of love still glows and lingers
Deep at the red heart's smouldering core;
With the sudden passionate throb of yore
We shook as our eyes and clinging fingers
Met once only to meet no more.

Merry Christmas PUNK

Yikes! I hope you were all good boys and girls this year because, if the above picture is accurate, it appears that Santa may be packing heat instead of charcoal. I guess he's watched one too many Dirty Harry movies in the off-season.

Anyway... Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays all. Have a good one.
 

A few Brazilian Christmas songs

By this time I figure people have about had their fill of Christmas carols and music, so I try to dig up some different songs. In the past I've done goofy Japanese Christmas songs, but this year I headed to Brazil to find inspiration and a few tunes. Enjoy.

You want better looking Christmas decorations?

Picture from Matthew Trudeau's Photography flickr stream

It's easy to do, just say enough to that sentimental White Christmas garbage, get rid of all that ghastly snow and hang your lights from palm trees overlooking the ocean and beach. Simple. And, it gets you in the yuletide spirit faster than anything.

Turn the Page

Get ready for a transient weekend with Dillon Carmichael.