Rachael Sudlow was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. She earned her BFA in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. The following images are from her collection called Cowscapes:

Jin Meyerson was born in South Korea. Now he lives and works in Brooklyn:

Softshot
(2004)

Norlevo
(2005)

Friendly Fire
(2005)

Aganetha Dyck is a Canadian artist who collaborates with bees by placing ordinary objects in their apiary and allowing them to create wax and honeycomb encrusted sculptures. Here are a few from her Shoe Collection:

Poet Denise Duhamel has an interesting project involving prose poems written on the backs of fake $100,000 bills. You can click on the image below to read one, or go to Coconut to read more:


Speaking of poetry, I recently found a really interesting roundtable discussion on "Avant, Post-Avant, and Beyond" at Boston Comment.

In closing, I leave you with a link to an electronic musician from Denmark that I think is super rad. I highly suggest checking her out, especially the tune called "Wood Delivery": Band Ane.

If you are literate and if you believe in cultivating intelligence rather than ignorance, you should go here and sign the petition to protect the Atlanta Journal Constitution's book review section.

I'm very much digging on Mason Jennings right now. I know, I'm late to the scene, this album came out last year. But if by chance you haven't heard him yet, I highly, highly recommend it.

From a song about the birth of a sickly child, where he croons, "Dear God, if you ain't got love." To the heartfelt query, "Jesus are you stronger than a loaded gun?" He's a storyteller with a strange rhythmic sensibility. Like Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Ani Difranco, et al.

For some reason I couldn't embed the image, but please click here to watch the music video for his song "Be Here Now." It's good.

Richard Colman got his MFA from Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts:

Fat Guy

SF 1

Collection of Gentlemen

Today a hodgepodge...


I'll start with two "creative images" by Eric M Gustafson:

5th Hour - 2005

Prisoner IV - 2006

Two sculptures by Justine Smith:

Absolute Power
(2005)

M 16
(2005)

And lastly, a music video my old friend Max sent me, which is a phenomenal band of children called Los Gauchos:

Max Streicher got his MFA from York University in Toronto:

Alto Cumulus

Metamorphosis

British collage artist Tez Humphreys:

lets (dance)

Sundays

Women From Mars

Last night Kilgore Trout died. He was 84.

All of Tralfamadore is in mourning. Here on earth, we too feel the empty space left by one of our greatest American writers: Kurt Vonnegut.

"I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke."

- from A Man Without a Country (2005)

L.A.-based artist Mel Kadel is originally from Harrisburg, PA. She got her MFA from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia:

shaky ground

it's a sound like any other sound ((sounder))

since i can't have you, i'll honor you

playing mom

Speaking of Los Angeles, if you live there or plan to be there May 18th & 19th, you should go listen to one of my favorite people read her awesome poems at the Ruskin Art Club: Kathy Fagan, along with poet Angie Estes. They are also doing a workshop called “Writing by Ear: Poetry as a Foreign Language.” Both will be sweet events. To whet your whistle, here is one of Kathy's poems, if you click here you can visit Slate and listen to her read it:


Saloon Pantoum

Tell me if you've heard this one before:
Guy walks into a bar with a duck down his pants,
Says, One for me and one for my friend here.
Barkeep says, That's no friend, that's my wife.

Guy walks into a bar with a duck down his pants.
A priest, a rabbi, and a minister
Say, Barkeep, that's no duck, that's proof
Of the existence of God.

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister
Put together can't tell one good joke.
God knows this
But He cannot forgive them for it.

Wherever two or more are gathered in a joke,
There is love, He says. We hear this
But we cannot forgive Him for it.
Suddenly, crashing through the saloon doors,

There is love. And just as He'd said, we know it
By its blonde hair and dead babies.
Suddenly, crashing through the saloon doors,
What's black and white and re(a)d all over.

By its blonde hair and dead babies,
He says, Barkeep, thou shalt know thy duck.
What's black and white comes crashing through the door.
Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Kansas City artist Kacy Maddux is featured in the newest issue of Diane Williams's exceptional literary journal, NOON.

These are a couple pieces from Maddux's show entitled All The Pretty Corpses:

If you can watch this video and then continue to eat animals, you are a different kind of person than I am. (Warning: if you are not a monster, this will be very hard to watch):

You can stop ignoring animal cruelty if you want to. For me, becoming more aware has been the first step. Check out Compassion Over Killing.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about The Art of Better Living. Here are a few things I've discovered:

You can actually offset your Carbon dioxide emissions, click here.

You can purchase Energy Star CFL light bulbs. Click here to see how your state ranks in this department.

Buying organic foods actually doesn't cost much more than buying the disgusting, chemically treated foods. You can click here to find out where you can find locally grown, organic food in your area.

You can click here for a free Vegetarian Starter guide.

Recycling can be cool. For instance, you can visit Play Design and buy a kit to turn your used milk cartons into table laps:




Also, instead of voting for one of the two sides of the same coin in the next election, you could look into what Ohio's Dennis Kucinich is all about. For what it's worth, Ani Difranco supports him.

I'm a little slow this year, but once again April is upon us, which means, of course, National Poetry Month.

Click here to read a provocative article by Charles Bernstein called "Against National Poetry Month As Such." In it, he explains his disdain for mainstream poetry, and proposes an International Anti-Poetry month, which would run the following ad in all the major daily newspapers:

Go ahead, don't read any poetry.

You won't be able to understand it anyway:
the best stuff is all over your head.

And there aren't even any commercials to liven up the action.

Anyway, you'll end up with a headache trying to figure out
what the poems are saying because they are saying
NOTHING.

Who needs that.

Better go to the movies.

Last night we watched Children of Men. As always, Lubezki did a brilliant job. It had a dark, Cinéma Vérité-type feel to it. Also as always, Cuarón does not disappoint. One of the other cool things about the DVD is the special features: there's a documentary with a bunch of philosophers, including some commentary from Žižek. Interesting stuff.

This evening Caitlin found these photos from America's Next Top Model, which have some people very upset:

Brittany
Electrocuted by a Model

Dionne
Shot by a Model

Jaslene
Pushed off a Rooftop by a Model