Madonna with a Mystical Rose
by
Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domènech, Marquis of Pubol
(1963)

Other interesting people, besides my brother, who were born on March 31st:

1499 - Pope Pius IV
1596 - René Descartes
1675 - Pope Benedict XIV
1732 - Joseph Haydn
1914 - Octavio Paz
1926 - John Fowles
1927 - César Chávez
1929 - Liz Claiborne
1932 - Nagisa Oshima
1943 - Christopher Walken
1948 - Al Gore
1971 - Ewan McGregor

And since he mused on births AND deaths over at his spot, I thought I'd also give a little list of interesting people who died on March 31st:

1631 - John Donne
1727 - Sir Isaac Newton
1855 - Charlotte Brontë
1945 - Anne Frank
1993 - Brandon Lee

Thanks to Weiss, I share with you this catchy tune I've been listening to over and over and over. Click here to listen to The Deadly Syndrome's "I Hope I Become A Ghost."

Now that you've got that tune in your head, here's some ghost-like work from the Texas artist William Hundley:

Star Wars
(2006)

Pyramid
(2006)

Mollusca
(2006)

My friend and fellow UNL alum Hadara Bar-Nadav's new collection of poems is now alive and conquering. It's called A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight.

If you don't already know her work, here is an example of why you should go buy a copy of this book for yourself and another copy for each of your friends, family members, and acquaintances. This particular poem was first published here at OSU, in The Journal 29.2 (2005).

[NOTE: Thanks to my brother, I have corrected the formating problems.]

NIGHT WITH WINGS

A fairy drowning
        in a glass of milk
                    and a chandelier
        posing as the god

of diamond earrings:
        translucent,
                    dangling,
        indifferent.

I’ve touched
        the fairy’s skirt,
                    felt the pink
        silk thrill and

gauze of it with my hands.
        (How I envy
                    the cat at the bowl,
        rapid white mouthfuls.)

The three old women
        in The Conversation Club
                    won’t help us.
        So near death

in pointy hats and scarves,
        it may as well be Tuesday,
                    the mailman, or any
        ordinary glass of milk.

I’m delighted when
        the milk fairy rises,
                    a minikin woman shaking
        the dampness from her wings.

Late for her date
        at the palace of Versailles
                    she rushes the heavenly ballroom
        of glass and garish glitter.

The chandelier opens and closes
        its claw of merciless light.
                    Alas, I only have my glass
        of milk to kiss goodnight.

[I posted this a few days ago and my friend Christina suggested I send it to McSweeney's, so I did, and they rejected it this morning, so I figured I'd put it back up here.]



Dear Sofia Coppola,

Why did you use that music? Seriously. What in the world were you thinking? Aphex Twin, New Order, and Bow Wow Wow? In a film set in the late 1700s? How could you possibly rationalize that decision? And to think, Lance Acord did such a great job with the lighting, the Production Design killed, the Art Director, the costume and makeup were all so brilliant. I'm sorry for being blunt, but in my opinion that music immensely diminished the quality of your film.

And while we're on the topic of what didn't work: why on earth were the actors speaking English? Did I miss something? Was Marie Antoinette British? No, she couldn't have been British because Kirsten Dunst sounded like a Valley girl. Was Marie Antoinette from the Valley? I thought she was Austrian. Wait, wasn't she the Queen of France? Don't they speak French in France?

Look, I still respect your work. After all, you gave us Lost in Translation. 'Nuff said. But then, you also gave us The Virgin Suicides, which was, to be kind, less than a masterpiece. So for me, your record is 1 win 2 loses, which is about as good as my Lakers this season.

Thanks to CSP, I've learned that James Jean is the cover artist for Fables, which is a Vertigo comic book that is big around our apartment right now:

Fables #31

Fables #3

Fables #57

Fables #58

Fables #54

He also does other illustrations, paintings, etc.

Trike

Chemistry

Promo image for Aranofsky's last movie, The Fountain.

Have you heard about the Face 2 Face Project?




"The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides."

Watch a video about it:

Canadian artist Jason Young:

Reptile Hybrid
(1994)

First Last Run
(2003)

Untitled
(2003)

In closing, I leave you with the exceptional video for "God Knows" by El Perro del Mar, directed by Åsa Arnehed:

Other people, besides me and my buddy Aaron, who were born on March 19th:

1982 Che' Vonne Burton, Miss Michigan Teen USA, 1997
1963 Neil LaBute, playwright/director
1956 Alina Castro, daughter of Fidel
1952 Harvey Weinstein, movie producer (Miramax)
1947 Glenn Close, actor
1944 Sirhan Sirhan, Rosicrucian assassin of Robert Kennedy
1925 Brent Scowcroft, Lt. General, USAF/National Security Council
1906 Adolf Eichmann, Nazi Gestapo officer
1848 Wyatt Earp, Sheriff of the Ok Corral
1821 Richard Burton, explorer/translator of The Arabian Nights

In celebration, I give you two by Jean-Michel Basquiat:

Untitled (Quantity)
(1984)

Flexible
(1981)

The photography of Icelandic artist Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir:







Also, click here to watch Oppenheimer’s post-bomb confession, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Caitlin is doing fascinating research on dinosaur bones. Tonight she came across the following photomicrographs, where “under polarized light thin sections of dinosaur bones exhibit striking colors and patterns”:

Dolomite and Calcite Crystallites

Crushed Haversian Canals

If you recall, last year Christian Dior did blood and mayhem for their Spring Couture Collection. This year:







Christian Lacroix got feisty:





Givenchy got creepy:







And Gaultier did a Catholic thing:

Rosemarie Fiore does a bunch of interesting things. The following are what she calls her "Firework Drawings," which are made by exploding and containing live fireworks, resulting in bursts of saturated color that are overlapped and collaged into abstract compositions:

Firework Drawing #1
(2006)

Firework Drawing #33
(2006)

Another artists who does a bunch of interesting things is Thomas Broomé:

NerdNerd
(1999)

Bedroom

Israeli artist Ruth Gwily:








ps - After a prolonged hiatus, I've finally got a new photo up at Cityscape!

The following 8 minute animation is a diabolical creation of British artist Run Wrake. It's called "Rabbit":

Yesterday my girlfriend and I went to see 300 at the IMAX. I'd been itching for its release because the trailers made it look so astounding. The visuals did not disappoint. It could be accurately described as a massacre ballet. Each shot seemed meticulously choreographed and lit with the keen eye of CGI. It was very enjoyable eye-candy. I have no qualms admitting it.

Speaking of things that are enjoyable, my friends at The Cupboard have gone lo-fi. It is still a fantastic pamphlet filled with exciting prose - the opening piece begins:

"Switzerland is full of prehistoric America."

The only difference is that now you don't have to have a black belt in origami to be able to read it. Go visit and enjoy at will.

I leave you with the Cryptozoology of Walmor Corrêa:

The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none.

The simulacrum is true.

-from "Simulacra and Simulation" (1981)

The end of history is, alas, also the end of the dustbins of history.

-from The Illusion of the End (1995)

Jean Baudrillard died Tuesday. Click here.

Below is the performance of a section from Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation" to a "red-hot glowing model of the world trade center burning in a furnace uncollapsed":

Josh Keyes earned his MFA in Painting and Printmaking at the Yale University School of Art:

Hoop #2
(2006)

Soak #2
(2007)

The Magician's Garden #3
(2006)