Friday, January 29, 2010

Fever Ray

I never knew much about Fever Ray (aka Karin Dreijer Andersson, the female half of The Knife) until I stumbled across this video:

of her accepting an award in Sweden for best dance performer. I was intrigued, a singer who does not show her face and comes up with ever more imaginative ways to hide it...I mean look at that melting makeup!
So I checked out her music and found this video:

It's gorge...I think I will have to try painting eyes on the palms of my hands.
Check her out!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Passport Photos of the Rich and Famous

This photoset on flickr of famous artists' passport photos is so awesome!
Mary Cassatt:

A very "earnest" looking young Ernest Hemingway (ha! geddit?) sans beard:

Gertrude Stein:

Man Ray:

TS Eliot:

Frank Lloyd Wright:

Edward Steichen:

Langston Hughes (looking very surreal):

Walt Disney (how this passes as a passport photo I don't know):

Peggy Guggenheim (I've never see her look so...ordinary):

And more including three of e.e.cummmings, Thornton Wilder, Isadora Duncan, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Lewis Hine, Berenice Abbott, the Marx Brothers (they got the crazy eyes!), John Singer Sargeant (with a large mustache, who knew?), Grant Wood, Edith Wharton, Edna St Vincent Millay etc...

Monday, January 18, 2010

RIP Jeanne-Claude


I've been remiss in not posting this sooner. Jeanne-Claude passed away last November after a life making beautiful "environmental art" with her husband, Christo. I will never forget seeing The Gates (pictured above) in Central Park my senior year of high school. It was breathtaking, and one of my first introductions to site-specific art. I wish I could have seen when they wrapped the Reichstag in billowing fabric here in Berlin. Jeanne-Claude, you will be missed.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Anna is Being Stalked

Having just come home from a particularly unpleasant encounter with a man who I occasionally run into on the U-Bahn who is unnaturally obsessed with me and ignores my continual insistences that I am not interested, will call the police if he keeps harassing me, and want him to fuck off, I was reminded of this little gem of a film that I first saw years ago on atomfilms (which is now atom.com).
The filmmaker's description: "A strange albino stalker follows the object of his affection on her daily trip to the market. Can he stop mumbling terms of endearment long enough to come to grips with the cold, hard truth?"
It's so funny and well done, and helped me calm down, laugh, and feel a bit better after my own little brush with insanity. So I thought I'd share:
Anna is Being Stalked