Plain-winged Antwren

I remember a renowned theorist in artificial intelligence that spoke of being nearly capable of understanding (reducing) himself to a series of impulses with which he was in a state of continuous reaction; "But what's the fun in that?" was the part of the quote that I'd liked quite a bit (said with a mouthful of cake before or after a Rush concert {based on the new t-shirts he and his genius colleagues were all wearing tucked neatly into pleated kahakis [which I don't hate]}):

I don't know why I like or even remember quite the first time I heard of Zdeněk Burian, but I know that Zdeněk Burian is the reason I like some particular other things. I thought of this because I'd seen his name alongside Frank Frazetta in the same sentence (which is something I myself hadn't ever done). These names are deep-seated buttons in my brain that date way back. It was around the same time they started to keep catching my eye I stumbled across copies of The Savage Sword of Conan as drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. It was more like a newspaper folded in half than a regular old comic (plus it was in black & white) so it seemed important and serious, this being before I ever knew that each and every issue was bound to have an alluring cheesecake pin-up of some gorgeous and exotic sorceress in repose and one elaborately graphic kill-scene involving a random rotation of demonic swine and killer man-apes (often on the same page): as a youthful pre-pubescent with the rumbling tornado of lust and violence yet but just arriving on the horizon of my motivations, these comics were my shit. I'm not going to link to that, but here's some old-school Chinese opera masks.

Why just paint towns red?

I prefer my abandoned facilities to be more overgrown with weeds and whatnot.

This dude paints goldfish all down in the water and shit.

This page is in Spanish and I dread automatic translation.

These paintings make me think of and miss you.

These pictures are of boys before and after fights. Boys fight. I kind of think a handful of bloody noses balances out against the deeply-set life-long body-image issues I've seen you ladies lay into each other. I have sisters.

Goodness this is a lot of cigarette cards,

triptychs


One of the cases that began to chip away at the miscegenation laws was Loving versus something-or-other.


Parisian prostitutes make me think of Henry Miller and how he'd rented time with one using money he'd have been better off using for food and thinking, while watching her dress and get ready, that she was some sort of earth-mother-goddess reason-for-all-of-it. Inevitably from there it's on to Fellini and his statuesque Roman whores whom I love.

This Russian grandma was living with nothing for forever then some people found her and gave her a bunch of stuff.

RTP TV:

Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli's Skeleton Dress was the first piece of hers I'd seen that caught my eye enough for me to say her name three times so as I would remember it and this was well before I cared enough about fashion to care enough to remember who'd made what, and that dress is good. Pre- or Ur- or Proto-Gaultier seems dismissive, but what do you want? Giger? Sufficed to say, I had every intention of posting something, but then I sat down and googled Elsa Schiaparelli.

Sometimes I hear the high whistle of wind hitting some such building just so so it whistles even when the building's not there so I whistle just so sometimes I whistle as well. Sometimes I whistle. This is what it was that I was whistling today.



Then I drank a bunch of coffee and got the bass line to For the Love of Money by the O'Jays deeply stuck in my brain over and over to the point that, whilst trying to knock it off its perch with atom bombs of earworms (80s rap songs I know the words to, anything on Queen's greatest hits, pre-school morning circle songs), this fusillade's respective lower clef were summarily replaced, each and every, with bum bahm-bah-bm-bm bah-behmbehm-bah-bim. The spontaneous acappella mash-ups did get lively once I decided to giggle and give in. The dancing, however, remained bottled deep down for later.

I remember these from a good while ago, but I stumbled over them again and they're still so cool.

She takes baths all over.

I like trashy pulp magazines and 50s Italian ones more so.

I like to write backstories for strangers.

I get lost in pages composed in languages I don't speak. It helps me hear the noise of it as sound, like how shitty Spanish pop lyrics don't bother me.

Speaking of pulp leads to thinking of pin-ups. I lean towards cheesecake but Robert McGinnis's noir vibe has the same fans in my head as the ones that fondly remember reading James Bond novels as a boy.

To balance out all the pictures of tits, Djuna Barnes should be more well known if for no other reason than that her bio starts off with "Barnes was born in a log cabin on Storm King Mountain". I know the period is outside the quotation marks, but working around the comma at the end of that phrase would have been as cumbersome as continuing on to say near Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York.

The Russian designs turned my mind to Japanese prints and thinking about taking an art class at a community center.

There's a store in Prague named after Terry Gilliam's Sock and it has real cool posters.

While we're on it, Russians,

Revolverwind,

hand-style,

ravenlessness,

but birds.

The Black Hours:

Radical Maps:

OK. I'm sleepy now. Here is RTP TV.

Zwischenraum: the space between things

Hot Rod Lincoln Car Jump gave me exactly what I expected, but, half-listening and not watching, it revealed itself as a lightning-fast evisceration of the soul. "Powers was lucky: He'd broken his back." is a vivisection. "Did I make it? Is everyone pleased?" This is a man living a life of noisy desperation. He didn't make it across the river, but I'm sure he got there in the end.

I can't remember the first time I saw this image. I don't know where it is in the world, where in the world it is. It's in the rolodex next to Tamara de Limpicka's Le Turban Vert as pieces that I must see in the real: how rosy are her cheeks; which green. Duchamp is purported to have joked that a painting's most important element is its title: I keep thinking, she's right-handed.

If you're going to be into one Vietnamese feminist post-documentarian, Trihn Mihn-ha is a pretty safe bet in my book.

RTPTV:
I make all these faces.


This is better than any antidepressant.

Young Sonny Rollins. 'Nuff said.

Just listen.

I remember hearing about an experiment centered around a group of chimpanzees. The chimps were well-treated and well-fed, with the exception of a banana bunch just out of reach that was forbidden. If the apes went for the bananas above them, they got the hose. Eventually the group learned that the taste of those fruits are forever to be a forbidden knowledge. It was an insoluble constant. After the establishment of this status quo, some apes were swapped out. The new apes immediately went for the bananas and everyone got the hose. After some time, new apes were exchanged into the group. The new apes went for the bananas, but the group stopped them because 'we don't eat those bananas.' This process continued until a time when new apes were introduced to the group and the others prevented them from eating the verboten bananas even though none of the apes had ever been sprayed with the hose; it was tradition.


I want to be friends with her.


Again with the antidepressants...

Again with the just listen.

This is one of my favorite christmas songs.

Madame Yevonde's series of socialites as goddessess is a pocket favorite.

Peoples is peoples.

Emma Hartvig has a great eye. I feel a similarity in the dreaminess of Liliroze.

Mr. Steve McCurry

The Ashaninka will outlive us all.

I saw Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's work at the Intuit Center. I like to go there on the weekends because you can usually get a guided tour. This visit, Sarah the guide let me into Harvey Darger's apartment (which they've reconstructed on the site). I touched his wallpaper.

Bolivian Air Force

I choose the titles for posts by hitting Random Article at Wikipedia until something jumps out at me. Last night, the second page to come up was St. Joseph County, Indiana. I lived in St. Joseph County. I went to high school there.


I thought this papercut was amazingly detailed and almost overwhelmingly precise, and then I saw the big one.


Mucha's interpretation of the themes inherent in The Lord's Prayer makes me wish he had drawn comic books.


I saw the signs.


Bolivian Mask Force


I need to get back to New York soon.


Soviet architecture


map drawings


Ronit Baranga


above/below


obligatory image search results: Erwin Blumenfeld


This is chocolate cake.

Sand Branch Texas

I generally find the headings for posts here by searching on a random article at Wikipedia and going with the first three-word-poem that latches my eyes. It's long been theorized that clicking on the second link in subsequent articles will inevitably lead to Philosophy. This visualizes that retroactively.


Sand.


The Scream has way more orange than I remember.


100 days of Typography.


Money Dragons.


So much fun stuff here.


Villahermosa, Mexico


Claire makes bugs.



coffee cups are mugs


Russian trilobites.


I don't think I've ever been more pleased with search results.


Clang


Little Nemo is dreamy



recipes


I can be a tramp for the Nouveau, but these ornamental elements are delightful.


Hell, while we're on Art Nouveau, Mucha's occult exploration of the themes inherent in the Lord's Prayer is pretty rad.