Friday, October 31, 2008

Supplemental To That.


Supplemental to the last post this is another painting by Brueghel, known as The "Little" Tower of Babel.

Also both might have been painted as a condemnation of the House of Habsburg, the Austrian rulers of an international empire at the time, that continued all they way to the cessation of the first World War, and whose last head of house only abdicated (albeit in exile) in 1961.

Let's All Work Together.


The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1563)

"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."

It is interesting to me that this is seen as a bad thing by God. I must admit I've aways found the story of the tower of Babel interesting. plus I really like towers, it seems the ideal construction method really. Brueghel's painting is Beautiful, it seems so much more evocative of the possibilities of people cooperating, rather than the foibles. Instead of a lesson against pride, I wish we could take this as a lesson in the power of working together towards odd tasks.

Perosnally I Think They Were Just Bored And Thought building a tower to heaven sounded fun. Which sort of reminds me of a quote from The Book of The Seven Seas, "At first I thought I might go fishing, but that seeming dull I resolved on a voyage around the world." The quote is by Joshua Slocum about his 3 year journey, the first ever solo-circumnavigation of the globe, begun in the spring of 1895.

FUN FACT: (if it really could be defined as such) while the height of the tower is something of contention, it is listed in a couple of places:

The Book of Jubilees: 5433 cubits and 2 palms (according to ancient measurements, one cubit is twenty-four inches) putting the height of the tower at about 10,866 feet tall, about 8.75x taller than the Empire State Building, or nearly 2.5 kilometers.

A typical mediaeval account is given by: Giovanni Villani (1300): He relates that "it measured eighty miles round, and it was already 4,000 paces high (5,920 m (19,423 ft)) and 1,000 paces thick, and each pace is three of our feet."

The 14th century traveler John Mandeville also included an account of the tower, and reported that its height had been 64 furlongs (= 8 miles), according to the local inhabitants.

The 17th century historian Verstegan provides yet another figure - quoting Isidore, he says that the tower was 5164 paces high, about 7.6 kilometers, and quoting Josephus that the tower was wider than it was high, more like a mountain than a tower. He also quotes unnamed authors who say that the spiral path was so wide that it contained lodgings for workers and animals, and other authors who claim that the path was wide enough to have fields for growing grain for the animals used in the construction.

So the height kind of tends to vary from story to story, but is sort of universally immense by modern standards.

And finally, a contemporary author looking at it from an engineering perspective wrote, in his book, Structures or why things don't fall down (Pelican 1978–1984), Professor J.E. Gordon considers the height of the Tower of Babel. He wrote, 'brick and stone weigh about 120 lb per cubic foot (2000 kg per cubic metre) and the crushing strength of these materials is generally rather better than 6000 lbf per square inch or 40 megapascals. Elementary arithmetic shows that a tower with parallel walls could have been built to a height of 7000 feet or 2 kilometres before the bricks at the bottom were crushed. However by making the walls taper towards the top they ... could well have been built to a height where the men of Shinnar would run short of oxygen and had difficulty in breathing before the brick walls crushed beneath their own dead weight."

Most of this was taken from the Wikipedia Article here.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

A Girl After My Own Heart, Liver, Tendons, Intestines, and BRAAAAIINNS.


Just what you Always wanted: a Zombie Pinup Calander

This one's Oct. Also, It's 13 months, thats a whole month for free.

I like this ode to vintage pin ups for the second January too.


Tuesday, October 28, 2008

This Was A Triumph.

I just finished the game Portal, which is just about the cleverest thing ever. It's a first-person shooter engine reimagined as a puzzle game with a truely unique twist. It's pretty short but definately well crafted. Oh, and it also has about the best closing song possible.

Look at me, still talking when there's Science to do.
When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you.
I've experiments to run.
There is research to be done,
On the people who are
Still Alive.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Went The Distance, Now I'm Back On My Feet.


Last night I watched the movie Persepolis, which was amazing. This is one of my favorite parts from it. The Movie itself is an feature length animated movie mostly in black and white, and it follows the auto-bigraphical story of a young girl as she grows up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It was taken from a Graphic Novel of the same name, and I've been looking forward to it for some time.

A Blast From The Ghost Of Marketing Past


All of the actors are from the original commercial cast.

Found over at BoingBoing

Thursday, October 23, 2008

I Know What Provoked The Gunfight.

The source of the Terrible Violence:



from threadless.com, the best Shirt site ever.

I Was Rooting For Ketchup


Condiment on Condiment violence, when will we learn?

...With A Nice White Wine Sauce


It means they donated to a good cause to get this so that makes it ok right?

...that and it's hilarious, if I taught elementary school I would get this.

In A Land Far Far Away, Known To Some As California


Cat, our dear friend, short in height, high in spirits, traveler of a strange land known in the tongue of it's inhabitants as SoCal, or some such, has created a blog, to remain connected with those of us relegated to fly-over-country, as well as her other much more respectable friends. In anycase, she's good people.


Check her out at: les reves de petite chat

(which is French for "the dreams of the little cat")

Edit: As corrected by Le Chat herself, minus the appropriate accent marks.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Someone's Gone And Figured Out My Artistic Method

They have a whole series of these 5 min or so episodes, the best quality have been put up by someone from Germany, but the show has no dialogue whatsoever, and is incredibly clever.

It makes no mention of Wallace and Gromit, and I'm not sure it's even made by the same person, but it's so clearly a spinoff, and a faithful ode to their style.

The First Rule Of Chess Club...

found this here

Monday, October 20, 2008

Gone, But Apparently Not Forgotten


In what is possibly the weirdest yet Themed blog I've found, I give you: Creep, Abandoned Chi-Chis

A photo blog of, surprisingly enough, Creepy, Abandoned Chi-Chis. I feel, as always, weirdness in all it's forms should be celebrated, including this blog. So, Enjoy!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

My Shadow Is Very Fertile



Inner Forests from Michael Kontopoulos on Vimeo.

Who was blogged before: here

He's just put up more new work which is equally as awesome. Artists who can combine the technical with the visual like this always impress me, but he never fails to marry inherent concept seamlessly, so it becomes more than just a neat effect. This is sort of like his last work in reverse, whereas in the past he anthropomorphized simple machines, here he is removing the individual, turning one's person into landscapes.

There's also this one which is a bit more conceptual, but i like the simplified idea behind it: What You Missed

Friday, October 17, 2008

If Trousers Like Those Are Wrong, Then I Don't Want to be Right.


Cracking Contraptions - The Turbo Diner

I loved my copies of Wallace and Gromit, before we lacked the requisite VHS player to watch them. I even thoroughly enjoyed the feature length movie.

Well they haven't been idle since. they have a whole series of videos entitled: Cracking Contraptions
which you can also watch on Youtube

Those Kids and Their Darn Music


Trailer for: RiP: A remix manifesto Via:BoingBoing

Copyright protection laws hurt artists. The current quality of protections in the United States, and other Western countries give unprecedented powers to corporate interests. The ability to punish people for the spread of ideas only leads to intellectual stagnation, and unfairly penalizes those with limited understanding of the infringement system. It takes importance away from the ideas, and places emphasis only on the commercial aspects thereof.

I will always try to give credit where credit is due, but nothing created is original anymore save that created in complete ignorance of that which already exists. New ideas are a collaboration of existing thoughts, and that history increases their importance, not detracts.

All Art is Evolutionary by nature.
-The Pneumatic Toaster

Monday, October 13, 2008

I'm Hungry


Blogging en lieu of eating, it is the digital age after all.

Stay Warm This Winter, Burn The Rich.


I love IKEA so much. It amazes me how with a simple eye towards design, they can make the most common place of objects fresh and interesting

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Animatronic Chicken Nuggets. Enough Said.


Wooster Collective has a fantastic Write up on Banksy's latest work, which is also his first ever New York Show entitled: The Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill
Besides The Chicken Nuggets, the show includes such Animatronic wonders as, a bunny applying make-up, Hot dogs in Heat lamp equipped glass terrariums, A Leopard Print jacket hanging out in a tree like the real thing, Breaded Fish Sticks that swim about their fishbowl, and a CCTV camera nuturing it's young. Not only is this a complete departure from his regular work, which consisted mostly of stencil street Tags, and paintings, but it's just an amazing usage of Animatronic sculptures in general.
I'm not normally one to gush but I wish I could visit NYC before this gets taken down after Holloween, I love everything about this.


Friday, October 10, 2008

Don't Hit Me

I don't know if this sort of thing happens to anyone else. Occasionally when I'm driving I get the nervous fear that the car next to me is going to side-swipe me. It isn't a rational fear, and I know that. I'm not sure if it's years of games that encourage that sort of thing, or just a personal thing, but I occasionally think about it, and it's usually about a specific vehicle next to me.

So as I was leaving work I got this feeling about an older black car to my left. It would have been the perfect spot, there was a big SUV in front of me and a concrete wall on my right. I would have been trapped, ripe for smashing. I'm also always nervous to look over at them, like they're just waiting for us to make eye contact before they swerve.

Finally I decided to hazard a look. In the black car there was, I kid you not, two nuns, in full nun dress, big black habits and all. I just burst into laughter, it all seemed so absurd.



...and then they side-swiped me.
My Brother showed me this:



This is Self-Portrait #2 by PES

EATPES is an amazing site, filled with a multitude of awesome videos, they're all quicktime format, so I can't embed them, but there are too many good ones to choose from, even the Commercial work they did is incredible.

It's pretty much all stop motion work, usually with just odds and ends like the Self-Portrait up there, but occasionally using people too. The Loading times can be a little slow for Internet Explorer, but it's totally worth it.

My favorites are KaBoom!, Western Spaghetti, and Human Skateboard.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Because Full Screen Just isn't the same...

From an entity known as Mr. Doob:

http://mrdoob.com/lab/youtube/superHD/

There are controls at the top to control all of them, I recommend letting them load for a bit.

Word of warning: this is pretty internet intensive, and video, if your connection doesn't support that very well, it's probably not worth it.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

I Learned A Strange Thing Today

From Wikipedia:
"A 1920 law decreed that the President of Argentina is the official godfather of every seventh son."

This was of course to curb widespread abandonment of the child, as they were naturally assumed to be Werewolves.

Monday, October 6, 2008

I'm a Traditionalist


Cyanide and Happiness, because sight gags work better with stick figures.

Where Did All Your Peas Go?


Found this over at MAKE: Marbelous Table

A table with grooves for marbles cut in it, Adding a touch class to the otherwise Awesome.

Yes We Carve

Edit: I was aked by the Artist to take down the images.

Here is the link to the original page:
http://yeswecarve.com/category/stencils/

Carving You Can Believe In.


You Can't See The Blood Spatter From Up Here...

Last night I saw The Lieutenant of Inishmore, a hilarious and bloody Satire of the IRA and the splinter groups associated with Ireland. In any case when I was looking around at my art blogs, i discovered this photo of Inishmore by the same fellow that did the last photo, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, who specializes in aerial photography.

Besides containing some of the best Pre-Historic ruins in Europe, the country side of Inishmore Island is also covered in a Network of some 7,500 miles of low walls, designed to keep the wind from blowing what little soil they actively seeded the island with, from being eroded away.

Trees are Important


By: Yann Arthus-Bertrand

This is a photo from Kenya, The Acacia tree, also known as the "tree of life" by the people there, and it fills that roll even more so for the local animals. The sheer volume of tracks leading to it is kind of amazing

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Robovox Demands Your Unquestioning Obedience


found is on Boing Boing Gadgets

Robovox: an 8-meter tall metallic overlord who accepts text messages from your cell phone, then reads them aloud to the trembling meat squalls bowing and scraping before him. Robovox's creator believes he will be used for the metallic monotone expression of political dissent, but it seems far more likely that an average day's discourse will be spent elaborating upon his contempt for the filthy squalor of humanity, threatening their destruction and asking about the strange nature of the human emotion some call "wuv."
Official site: Robovox

Saturday, October 4, 2008

She's So Mavericky

For those who saw the debate, or just in case you wanted to escape the mucking about with details:

No wonder she did so much better than she did in her interviews, she had a Handy-Dandy Flow-Chart!

Via BoingBoing

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Just This Past Week He Planted a Patch of Conscientious Objector Vines, but as Expected They've Joined the Rest of the Rabble, Clinging to the Gardens


The title of this post is taken from my favorite piece on her site, a choose your own adventure story.
Here's another quote: "The upwardly mobile climber brush, for example, refuse attempts at labeling and nightly ditch their placards behind the tool shed."
and another: "beaconed by a shining white mitten, your neighbors find your body 2 weeks
later. you have died. i am sorry."