\m/ tempurung baja: May 2010

Monday, May 31, 2010

Local Event! ~ Hot Blues for the Homeless (2010)

Yet another iteration of this terrific undertaking, great musicians playing for a worthy purpose. Details here.

Kim Hyun Joong SS501's leader!

KIM HYUN JOONG

will come back to the big stage with his boy band

SS501 !!

and with his friends :

>Park Jung Min

>Kim Hyung Joon

>Kim Kyu Jong

>Yeong Saeng Heo

AND COME with their new album 'DESTINATION'

coming soon! see MV teaser on my blog :)

SS501 is BACK!

wait for SS501's new album!

DESTINATION! :)

Sunday, May 30, 2010

. . . that Liz Cheney is out to lunch on the alleged "scandal" surrounding the Obama administration attempt to dissuade Congressman Sestak from running against Arlen Spector in the recent Pennsylvania Democratic primary. (Story here.)

First, Liz got her job in BushCo how? Was it because she is highly qualified and really smart? No. It was because Daddy was V.P.; can you smell the nepotism? Second, she is now a talking head on various Sunday opinion shows why? Because Daddy got her a job in BushCo and now she is cashing in on the right-wing connections to promote her career. Nepotism anyone?

Third, Liz is adamantly against any sort of inquiry into the various brands of seriously bad behavior that pervaded virtually the entire Bush administration. But an inquiry into this mess? Hypocrisy is seeping from her pores. The make-up crew at Fox News needs a commercial break to get her powdered up.

Let's not forget that Obama has finally achieved bi-partisanship on a policy initiative - lawyers of all stripes think that the attempt to buy Sestak is not illegal. It may have been stupid. But why would that surprise anyone? I guess the question I'd pose is whether this episode should be classified under "hope" or "change"? So, getting back to Liz, to a couple of doses of nepotism and a shot of hypocrisy, lets add just flat out wrong. That, of course, has never posed an obstacle to her thought process.

Finally, there is the fact that the economy is still a mess, we have an egregiously ill-handled environmental disaster in progress and still are fighting two inherited wars. Liz and the right don't want to talk about any of that because, . . . well, because most of those problems started under BushCo. Granted, Obama and his buddies have done precious little to get a handle on any of those problems. But the Republicans were in charge when the seeds of mishap and mayhem were sown. So, on top of everything else there is the sheer disingenuousness of her tirades about Sestak.

By my count that makes five. And I'm not even good at math.

Passings ~ HANK JONES (1918-2010)

Jazz pianist Hank Jones has died. You can find the obituary from The New York Times here. Among the music I especially like - and I am hardly a religious soul - is this set of duets Jones did a number of years ago with Bassist Charlie Haden. Here is the title track:

Hank Jones & Charlie Haden, "Steal Away" (1995).

SS501 - LOVE YA (new song) JUST AUDIO!

HEY! THIS IS THE SONG! HOPE U LISTENING CAREFULLY :)

cause this is still in bad condition cause this is still privasy..

hahahahgs~ :D hope u enjoy!

SS501 - LOVE YA (new song) JUST TEASER!

HOPEYOU ENJOY!

JUST WAITING till the album come out!

cause this album still in privasy..

but so many korean radio publish this video..

wow! haha.. i'm sorry DOUBLE S

but ur fans need this!

i hope u can make ur fans crazy !

with ur new song, new dance perform, and with ur all faces! >.<

aaaa... so talented! :)

Grazia aime Easy Fashion ...

Image hébergée par Casimages.com : votre hébergeur d images simple et gratuit

Après celui de Teen Vogue, Easy Fashion figure en bonne compagnie dans le "Tour du Monde" (click!)
des meilleurs blogs de Street Style de Grazia.fr avec cette photo de Louise / Miss Pandora.
Merci à Annabel Laso ! (et merci Chloé de me l'avoir signalé !). C'est gentil ! Je n'ai pas beaucoup
de contact avec les magazines français d'habitude ... Mais je connais la version Allemande de Grazia.
Les filles du service photo sont très sympas et nous travaillons ensemble de temps en temps.
Bon les filles ! C'est quand vous voulez pour vos photos de Steet Style sur Easy Fashion !
Bonne journée à toutes et à tous

Fred

Pour voir la page Grazia, cliquez à droite dans la rubrique "Easy Fashion featuring in ..." ou sur
le lien dans le texte ...

Grazia aime Easy Fashion ...

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Knowledge, Politics, Poetry ~ Nick Lantz

List of Things We Know
Nick Lantz*

40% of all
births are
accidental.
10% of all
accidents
are births.
Kindness
is correlated
to detached
earlobes,
a damaged
amygdala,
a person’s
credit rating,
but in all cases
the direction
of causality
is unclear.
Chances are,
your husband
is lying to
you. Most
substances
contract when
frozen, but
ice expands;
for this reason,
the oceans do
not freeze,
and we can
go on living.
If you see
a ripped pair
of underwear
in the bushes
by the bus
depot, assume
the worst.
Pollen leaps
from flower
to bee, but
this is only
static electricity,
not the work
of affection.
We’ve proven
experimentally
that the mouse
feels fear (we
haven’t yet
devised a test
to determine
if he feels joy).

Donald Rumsfeld - with his classification of things and events into known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns - as muse! Who knew? In any case, the poem I've lifted here falls into the first category; no surprise given the title. And the book has a terrific cover too.
__________
* Nick Lantz. We Don't Know We Don't Know. Graywolf Press, 2010, pages 15-16.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Hugo & Nini - Beaubourg - Paris

Nini
"I am a Designer-Stylist.
My look is spontaneous.
I love Smiles & Cats. I hate negativ People.
My message: Hapiness and smiles are more important
than money !"
All my outfit vintage except my hat by CA4LA (Japan)
Perfume: "Black" by KENNETH COLE

Hugo
"I am a Make-Up Artist for Fashion
My look is "Brigade du Tigre".
I love modesty. I hate stupidity".
I wear a shirt by H&M
Black jeans by MARC JACOBS
Boots and Bag are vintage
Perfume: "Blanc" by LALIQUE

Hugo & Nini - Beaubourg - Paris

Nadia - Etienne Marcel - Paris

"I work as Account Back Office Assistant
For me Fashion is to claim your own personality
My look is casual-trendy
I love Music. I hate Christophe Mae (french singer).
If I had € 1000, I would buy plenty of jeans !
My message to the world: Every day, have fun to the max !"
I wear a jacket and jean's by MISS SIXTY
T-Shirt and Shoes from a little shop.
Sunnies by RAYBAN
Perfume by ESCADA

Nadia - Etienne Marcel - Paris

Yanh - Etienne Marcel - Paris

"I am a Vegetal Sculptor Artist
For me Fashion is a Clothe Code.
My look is basic. I love Flowers, I hate people being late".
I wear a vintage cardigan
Jean's 501 Levi's
Made to mesure shoes
Vintage hat
My motorbike is a MOTOBECANE
50 CC 2 speeds (1939)

Yanh - Etienne Marcel - Paris

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Tunnel Vision on the Costs of War, Or Why People Around the World have Reason to 'Dislike Us'

TAKING SHELTER: Afghan workers employed to clean debris
after a suicide attack took shelter underneath their wheel
barrows Tuesday after a sudden downpour in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Photograph © Ahmad Nazr/Associated Press.

This one falls in the 'what's wrong with this picture' category. Not the picture above, which reminded me of school kids hiding under desks during air raid drills. No, a reader, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, called my attention to this terrific graphic display at CNN.* It is visually striking and makes a strong point about the increase and distribution of U.S. casualties in our two wars. You know, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the the ones that the hope and change mongers in the Obama administration continue to prosecute despite the futility of both. But, as Stanley succinctly pointed out, the graphic is radically incomplete; there is no mapping of the domestic casualties in either war. Afghan and Iraqi deaths do not register (here either). Try Iraq Body Count instead; I cannot find an analogous site for the Afghan foray.

So, as the futile efforts to clean up the oil spill on the Gulf Coast are attracting your attention, don't forget the death we are sowing elsewhere. They are even less susceptible to clean up.
__________
* Thanks!

Best Shots (115) ~ Larry Clark

(142) Larry Clark ~ "Just a Flesh Wound, 1971" (27 May 2010).

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Blame the Republicans - You Bet, and Rightly So!

I'm looking at this report from The Pew Center for the People and the Press documenting the decline in public confidence in institutions.

Democrats mistrust government all the time, Republicans are extremely hostile to government when they are not in control - extreme right-wing partisanship accounts for the bulk of the collapse in "confidence in government." The Red-Staters are worried that Democrats might operate in ways that are less to the advantage of conservatives. Recall, though, that the Republicans are good at spending other people's money, mostly on themselves [1] [2]. Recall too that the extremist trends among Republicans have driven much of the political polarization in the country [3]. So, if you don't like the mess that is American politics blame the Republicans who are pushing their extremist views in ways that undermine our fiscal and political well-being.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

People Who Need a Hobby or, On Second Thought, Perhaps They've Found One

Here are a half-dozen repeat walk-on performers in Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present. I surely missed some others. Each portrait of the respective person is from a different day. All these folks turned up between day 25 (top) and day 59 of the exhibition. They came day after day, stood in line waiting and then sat there playing their assigned role. (Did they bring a book to read while waiting on line? Or did they watch the action?) In several instances they are cataloged on the MOMA Flickr page as having been adjacent in line, so must've become familiar with one another. Denizens of the MOMA page have identified a couple of the culprits - one is herself a "performance artist" (does this constitute plagiarism or poaching?), another just a fellow attracted to the performance as if by magnetism! Good grief.

___________
All images from Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present Photographs by Marco Anelli. © 2010 Marina Abramović.
P.S.: Glancing at the newly uploaded images of attendees for days 60-65, it appears that several of these people just cannot stay away.

Here's Looking at You Kid ~ Marina Abramović

The other day The New York Times ran this report on this exhibition at MOMA written by philosopher and critic Arthur Danto. The show is actually a "performance" entitled The Artist is Present by Marina Abramović; the piece, which is part of a retrospective of Abramović's work consists in the artist sitting in a chair (generally clad in red white or blue) across from an empty chair. Visitors line up for the opportunity to sit across from Abramović for as long as they like. (One morning a woman apparently showed up dressed like Abramović and sat virtually all day.) The sitters are being photographed and their "portraits" are being posted on this Flickr page; my rough guess is that somewhere just shy of 1200 sittings have taken place so far. From what I can tell the entire ordeal is being filmed for posterity as well.

I actually have learned a lot from Danto's writings over the years. But my colleague and friend Rachel, who teaches in the Rochester VCS program recently referred to him as a "dork." Given that he seems to really, really like this whole exercise, I have begun to wonder myself. Of the current performance Danto writes that the "performance has brought MOMA itself to the cutting edge of contemporary artistic experiment" and that "It has captured the imagination of everyone interested in contemporary art." I guess I am just not all that interested.

I will come back to some "interesting" aspects of The Artist is Present in a companion post. Here I just want to pose some questions that Danto tacitly raises. Here he is:

"Performance art, as currently practiced, emerged as an avant garde movement in the 1960s and ’70s, and some of its features made it difficult to visualize how it might make the transition from galleries and public spaces to the more institutional environment of the museum.
For one thing, the medium of the artist is his or her own body, sometimes nude or engaged in highly dangerous circumstances. Pictures of nude bodies doing dangerous things raise no such obstacles in a museum space, but performance art itself is real in all dimensions. Before it can be translated and presented in a museum, a number of problems, both practical and philosophical, must be worked out.

One method would be to allow the pieces to be re-performed, which purists naturally disallow. For them, a performance is a one-time event, unlike a play, which is made to be re-performed; in theater, the distinction between character and actor is widely accepted. In the purist’s conception of performance art, there can be no such distinction; the artist and the performer are one, and must use his or her own body in the work. No one else, they argue, can do this, for reasons both moral and metaphysical.
Marina Abramovic is one of the early performance artists whose works have the deep originality that justifies their inclusion in great museums.

[. . .]

What is clear is that the possibility of sitting with Marina has ignited in the public imagination the idea that one can do more than passively experience works of art, that one can be part of a work of art for as long as one is willing or able."

I am sure that there are theorists of art who will think my puzzlement is naive, but do we define art by what can make it into a museum? And isn't the shift into "the more institutional environment of the museum" pretty much an invitation to passivity? In the current instance Abramović seeks to control the terms of the entire "experience"; that she is not quite able to do so does nothing to mitigate the fact that any creative participation by the folks who line up to sit with her is at the margins of her plan. I wonder if anyone has walked up to the sitters and spoken to them or offered to purchase the place of the person sitting with Abramović - a novel way to cut line. I'll bet not. (Maybe said purchaser would then insist that the chair remain vacant while she perused the other parts of the retrospective. Imagine the ire of the MOMA security, to say nothing of the artist, in such a circumstance.) Everyone surely is polite and well-behaved. Passive. Compliant. Proper. They all know how to comport themselves in a museum. They are indeed a "part" of the work, playing a role that has been engineered for them.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Marie - Rue Tiquetonne - Paris

"I design my own jewels with
REBECCA JONHSON JAMES (Click)
Fashion is to be in harmony with yourself.
But I don't care about brands ...
My look is Fitness-Rock.
I love Music (click). I hate lies.
If I had €1000, I would buy red high-heeled shoes.
My message to the world: Be yourself !"
I wear a shirt from my father
a T-Shirt by MANGO
Shorts, belt & glasses by H&M
Sneakers by ADIDAS
Bag from the market
Perfume: "Flower" by KENZO

Marie - Rue Tiquetonne - Paris

Anaïs - Rue Tiquetonne - Paris

"I am a Press Attaché.
For me Fashion is to feel good, cool, rock
depend of the mood of the moment ...
My look is in a hurry.
I love Solidarity. I hate hypocrisy.
My message to the world: Try to be happy
with simple things ..."
I wear a jacket by MANGO.
A dress by ZARA.
Shoes by JONAK.
Vintage Bag
Perfume: "Coco Mademoiselle" by CHANEL

Anaïs - Rue Tiquetonne - Paris

Maëva - Rue Montorgueil - Paris

"I am student in an Art School.
For me Fashion is to express yourself
and to show who you are. My look is simple.
I love pesto pasta. I hate not kind people.
My message to the world: Be yourself.
I know nothing about brands of my outfit,except my
bag by PROMOD. My perfume is
L'Original" by Lolita Lempicka".