(incli)NATION

KARAWANE by HUGO BALL

I wonder if he set the type himself?

"According to Hugo Ball, inventor of dadaist phonetic poetry, we must withdraw into the deepest alchemy of words, reserving to poetry its most sacred ground": a program whichwould have -appealed to Velemir Chlebnikov, "eternal prisoner of assonance", for whom the alphabet was a "table of sounds". Chlebnikov wanted to immerse himself in the depths of the Russian etymons, of the etymological night, in search of a mythical panslavonic language "whose shoots must grow through the thicknesses of modem Russian". The ultra modem tends to link up with the archaic, eternal contradiction of avant-gardes."

via http://www.ubu.com

more http://www.yourdailyawesome.com/2006/11/18/marie-osmond-covers-hugo-ball/

WAYS TO GO CHART

Ever wonder what the chances are you will die by gunfire? drowning? heart attack? Well, wonder no more. Here is a chart with it all nicely mapped out for you.

Read the article: http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm

via Coagula

GOOGLE EARTH SPOOF!

Hilarious: This guy made a full size, real world Google Earth Tag. There is no "off" on the genius switch...

From his site: "Für Google Earth, etwas nachgeholfen …"

More pics here: http://www.omwo.com/?p=12247

via Make

SNOW DAY!

No blog entry today. I'm taking a snow day, like the rest of the city. Right now we have clear skies 26.4 F, Barometer reads 30.7 and rising with 95% humidity. Time to do some sledding...

 

REBECA MENDEZ @ ANDLAB

I just heard that Rebeca Mendez is having a show at Andlab, LA. I haven't seen her work since the late 90's when we were still in Pasadena. She is a brilliant artist and an interesting thinker. Check out her show if you're in the area. 

From the press release: LOS ANGELES, CA.- Andlab presents Rebeca Méndez, “Each Day at Noon”, on view through December 7, 2006. Since the late 1980s, the subjects of Rebeca Méndez’s photographic series are varied and have included industrial hotel beds, landscapes, seascapes, and natural patterning. Her works are studies in the everyday, in stillness and emptiness, as well as in isolating the temporal in phenomena.

Méndez completed her B. F. A. at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, in 1984. After a successful career in design, returned to Art Center to receive her M. F. A. in art and new media, in 1997. She is based in Los Angeles and travels internationally capturing images in various media—16mm film, digital video and photography.

LABYRINTH, STOCKHOLM

If you happen to be in Stockholm over the holidays, be sure to go out to the Botkyrka Konsthall and check out a show I'm in there called, Labyrinth. I have a text piece in the Free Press Project curated by Sal Randolph. A description of the show follows:

Labyrinth, a large-scale international artist´s book exhibition opens at Botkyrka Konsthall on November 18th 2006.

More than one hundred artists or artists’ collectives from different countries – Japan, Rumania, Turkey, Israel, Singapore and the United States to name a few – are included in the show.

One of the challenges when producing exhibitions is the cost of shipping and freights. In Labyrinth artists have sent their works by mail, and curators and artists on residencies abroad have carried works with them in their hand luggage. Most of the works are recent, many of them have been made with Labyrinth in mind. Included are well-known names within the artists’ book genre such as Clémentine Deliss, Leif Elggren, Luca Frei, Karl Holmqvist, Nina Katchadourian, Masato Nakamura and Gil Marco Shani. The visitor is also introduced to many of the most important artist’s book distributors around the world.

Labyrinth has the shape of a circular library. The novels Library of Babel and The Garden of Forking Paths by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges have been a source of inspiration.

More info at: http://www.botkyrka.se/kultur-fritid/kultur/botkyrkakonsthall/inenglish/

WRITE-O-RAMA @ HUGO HOUSE

Write-O-Rama! Dec. 2, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Open mic and party at 6 p.m. Write-O-Rama is a day-long benefit that features more than 24 concurrent writing workshops and challenges, actual prizes, two open-mic opportunities and a decent-sized party. All proceeds from the event will be used to support the work of Richard Hugo House, a center for writing and reading in Seattle. Here are the facts:

Writing workshops will be offered every hour, on the hour, and include Waverly Fitzgerald's "Write a Novel in an Hour," Mindy Hardwick's character-based class "Who Owns the Dragon?" and Angela Jane Fountas' "Grab-Bag Prose or Poetry." (CLICK HERE FOR CURRENT WORKSHOP SCHEDULE.)

Give to Hugo House! The more you raise for Hugo House the more chances you have to win prizes! Download a pledge form (CLICK HERE FOR PLEDGE), get pledges from your friends and family and bring it to Write-O-Rama. $25 ($10 for kids up to 12) is the minimum total to participate, but we would love it if you could raise more (10 friends at $10 each brings Hugo House $100!)

Prizes will be awarded throughout the day and include free one-day classes for the team that raises the most money and a free six-week class for the individual that raises the most money.

Celebrate the day's work and share what you wrote at the open-mic reading and party at 6 p.m.

Hugo House will provide activities for kids and Crave will provide food. You can come to the whole day or part of the day. All proceeds from the event will go to support the Richard Hugo House Chapter Two Campaign.

For more information on how to get involved contact Chris at development@hugohouse.org.

ROBERT ALTMAN PASSES

From DJL: "On a sad note, I just learned of the passing of legendary film and television director Robert Altman here in Los Angeles late Monday night, November 20. Throughout his cinematic career, he featured music and musicians quite prominently. The theme song to the film "MASH" (and later used as the theme to the TV show as well), titled "Suicide Is Painless," was a number one hit in the UK, has been covered by jazz pianist Bill Evans, rockers Manic Street Preachers, and most recently, by the indie pop duo Lady and Bird, and was co-written by Altman’s 14-year old son, Mike. His 1975 film "Nashville" featured the kaleidoscopic world of country music, spawning a hit single and an Academy Award-winning song in "I’m Easy," as performed by actor Keith Carradine. His films "Kansas City" and "A Prairie Home Companion" also feature music prominently in their stories. He directed musicians such as Lyle Lovett, Tom Waits and Huey Lewis in dramatic roles for the films "The Player" and "Short Cuts," as well as Ute Lemper in "Pret-a-Porter." One of my favorite films as a kid, 1980's "Popeye," starring Robin Williams, featured songs written by the late Harry Nilsson in one of his final projects. For these and many other cinematic works, Robert Altman will be fondly remembered, and our thoughts go out to the Altman family."

ROCKTOBERSURPRISEFEST

Bummed that we missed this show, but the pics look great Rog:

From the press release: "The strategy of the show is to weaponize the butterfly effect so as to influence the outcome of the November general election; the ambition of the show, perhaps grandiose or maybe just plain hopeful, to liberate congress from the hands of war-mongering, free-trade abusing oil-belchers."   

Nice work folks. Now that the Dems have control of the House and Senate, lets see if anything different will actually happen.

More here: http://seco.glendale.edu/artgallery/index.html

   

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE

Another stunning set from The Criterion Collection, this 2-disc release of The Double Life of Véronique marks the DVD debut of one of the seminal arthouse works of the 1990s, and the last of the major films by director Krzysztof Kieslowski (The Decalogue, Three Colors Trilogy) to make it to DVD. Per Criterion’s impeccable standards of quality, a new high-def transfer was created from the original negative, doing justice to film’s striking visuals, shot through a yellow filter and drained of the color blue, resulting in an otherworldly, sepia-toned tableau. An essential purchase for fans and collectors as well as a great introduction to Kieslowski’s work for neophytes, this set includes three of his early documentary shorts, two documentaries on his career, an insightful and eminently listenable commentary by film scholar Annette Insdorf and a new essay by the "Elvis of cultural theory,” Slavoj Żiżek. Also available from Amazon.

by Michael Talbott