From boingboing - "A Washington DC train station was shut down for a couple hours recently as a bomb squad investigated this "hobo polo bear" standing near a trash can. Turns out, the stuffed animal was part of a collaboration between Greenpeace and prankster artist Mark Jenkins."
One of the boingboing comments - "When society starts to spontaneously generate scenes identical to what could be found in a Hieronymus Bosch painting it is time to either join in or run like hell."
Meanwhile, polar bear habitats continue to deteriorate due to global warming, and the federal government refuses to list polar bears as an endangered species. VP candidate Palin was fighting to keep them from being listed as endangered well before her VP nomination. You can read her op-ed piece in the NY times. Here's what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has to say - link.
30.9.08
POLAR COLLAPSE
24.9.08
WEIRD WINDOW
Giorgio Morandi, 1890–1964 retrospective at the MET now open. Simple, subtle, sublime, weird painting. Don't miss it.
New Yorker review.
THE CATORIALIST
On the Street.....Parisian Youth
Take that fashion world! - the Catorialist blog
Original Satorialist blog
21.9.08
17.9.08
16.9.08
MOUNT EERIE RETURNS
Mount Eerie plays concerts in Manhattan and Brooklyn, September 18th and 19th. With Julie Doiron. Look here for dates. They are playing lots of other places too. yea!
15.9.08
12.9.08
11.9.08
GROSS BUT KAWAII
From Sky News - A firefighter delivered the mouth-to-meowth after rescuing a cat from a burning apartment in New Bedford, Massachusetts. link
From wikipedia - "Linguistic note: The word "kawaii" in Japanese has a broader definition than the English word "cute". When applied to pop culture, "cute" will suffice; however "kawaii" refers primarily to the affection of a parent toward a child coupled with the protectiveness for the innocent and weak. Thus a pop cartoon character is considered "kawaii" because it exemplifies the innocence of a child and evokes general protective, caring instincts in the viewer. Other translations of "kawaii" can include "precious", "lovable" or "innocent"."
9.9.08
APPALACHIAN ANIMALS
Spent the last couple days hiking in Harriman State Park, on side-trails crisscrossing the Appalachian Trail. We took the train from Penn Station to Tuxedo NY and made over Bear Mountain, across the Hudson to Manitou. We swam in a lake, saw a lot of deer, climbed some rocks, narrowly escaped a thunderstorm, and slept above a rattlesnake nest. I wish I was still out there.
30.8.08
THE MORNING AFTER
This past weekend I visited the New Museum to see the exhibition entitled "After Nature." The title vainly presumes that humanity will finally kill off nature once and for all. It's another dire entry in the contemporary art world's backlash against biennials and big art market consumerism. Like the International Center for Photography's recent exhibition, the ironically titled Ecotopia, the New Museum's current morbid exhibition is slathered with pessimism for a world past salvation. This is plain acceptance of a bleak, barren and boring landscape free of human or animal life. Many of the works are too mundane to stir much interest, apart from the spacious fourth floor which houses a taxidermy horse body rammed into the wall, a frankenstein tree and tiny photographs of star light. All in all, another downer from the bowery's New Museum, home of the summertime blues. Never mind the building's shiny facade, the contents within create a feeling reflective of the neighborhood - the dirge of dingy and disposable modern life. Save your money and take a walk round the bowery at night for the same effect.
New York Times Review
New Yorker Review
