Monthly Archives: December 2009

POSTCARDS FROM THE SEINE

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Dave

”The two and a half decades after World War II witnessed a frustrating, often angry, sometimes ineffectual, and-to be perfectly honest-often touching attempt to come to some sort of ”gentlemen’s agreement” concerning the International Art Program … superheated by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged AFA, American Art Federation, Communication Through Art, Ernest Hemingway, Georges Braque, IAFA, International Art Program, Maragaret Cogswell, Michael Krenn, Robert Sivard, Time magazine, United States Information Agency, USIA | Leave a comment

MUTANT NINJA PEPSI

Posted on December 19, 2009 by Dave

Hit the ”Refresh” button. At least that is what Pepsi will be doing by deciding to not promote their beverages on television during the Super Bowl on February 7, for the first time in twenty-two years. Instead, the Pepsi lineup … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Marketing/Advertising/Media, Miscellaneous | Tagged Advertising Age, Amp up before you score, Barack Obama, Carlos Castaneda, Chateaubriand, Coca Cola, Gigi Kellett, Jack London, Margo Morgan, Mutant Message Down Under, Naomi Klein, Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Pepsi, Pepsi Refresh Project, Pepsico, Rene Chateaubriand, Robert Eggington, Simon Houpt, Super Bowl, Wall Street Journal | 1 Comment

A PIOUS SINNER AS NATIONAL INSTITUTION

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Dave

In the early 1960′s, Chateaubriand received a tribute that demonstrates in its very extravagance, his enduring power. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre visited Saint-Malo on one of their many excursions. They liked the town, but Chateaubriand’s tomb, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged Andrea Link, Charles Mackay, Chateaubriand, Claudia Moscovici, Counter-Enlightenment, Dostoevsky, Duc d'Enghien, French Literature, Girodet, Heinrich Heine, Jean Paul Sartre, Napoleon Bonaparte, Romantic literature, Romantic Movement, Romanticism, Simone de Beauvoir | Leave a comment

TO BE and NOT TO BE: Outwitting Destiny

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Dave

”Since the death of Picasso, Francis Bacon has more than any other painter provided the age with an image, in Ezra Pound’s phrase, of its accelerated grimace. The key to his work is its ambition. He has taken on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged Ezra Pound, Francis Bacon, Grey Gowrie, Johannes Vermeer, Michael Leris, Michael Peppiatt, Monty Python, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Picasso, Salvador dali, Shakespeare, The Beatles, Tom Lubbock, Van Gogh, Velazquez, Vermeer | 5 Comments

TIME WAITS FOR EVERYONE

Posted on December 16, 2009 by Dave

Hop on the train of dreams. Humankind appears to be the only species troubled by Time, and from this preoccupation comes much of the finest art, some religion and most of science. Reincarnation, prophecy, resurrection and worship of the heavenly … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged 2012, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Bernard Bergonzi, Egyptian Zodiac, Einstein, George Orwell, H.G. Wells, J.B.S.Haldane, Jorge Louis Borges, maya, maya 2012, Mayan Calendar, Mayan Steles, mayans, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stonehenge, Sundial Chartres, The Time Machine | 3 Comments

THE BAD SAMARITAN

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Dave

Only the numb survive. Its a new Sherlock Holmes for the X-Box generation.. Holmes Alone for the Holidays and with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role, it could be said that between the yule and mistletoe, viewers may be … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Marketing/Advertising/Media, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged Augustus Egg, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Edward VII, H.G. Wells, Holman Hunt, Jeremy Brett, Lewis Carroll, Lilly langtry, Marie Studholme, Oscar Wilde, Robert Downey Jr., Samuel Butler, Sherlock Holmes, Sigmund Freud, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Seagal, Voltaire, William Gladstone, William Morris, Yeats | 4 Comments

WHEN HARRY MET HUBCAP SALLY

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Dave

“Copengahen is the epitome of modern summitting; a long session, a huge cast earnestly discussing what there is no chance of agreeing, to reach compromises everyone will then ignore, promising to avoid doing what all decry and will continue to … Continue reading →

Posted in Marketing/Advertising/Media, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged Albert Camus, Coca Cola, Conrad Black, Guy Debord, Hamlet, Harry Houdini, Helena Blavatsky, Hopenhagen, Imelda marcos, Lars von Trier, Michel Foucault, National Post, Oprah Winfrey, Ptolemy Elrington, Roland Barthes, Russell Smith, Sarkozy, Tiger Woods, Tivoli Gardens, Tuborg, Vanessa Farquharson, Victor Borge | 6 Comments

SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT

Posted on December 13, 2009 by Dave

”Movement is unpremeditated being; it is the uncritical expression of life. As we begin to meditate we begin to stop living. . . First comes life; and if we meditate prematurely, if we lend to physical things a critical self-consciousness, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Cinema/Visual/Audio, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged Alexander Calder, Allen Ginsberg, Claes Oldenberg, Dennis Oppenheim, Donald judd, Dylan Thomas, Ethan Coen, Georgia O'keefe, Ingar Dragset, Jackson Pollock, Jean Tinguely, Joel and Ethan, Joel Coen, John Chamberlain, John Constable, Laura Riding, Len Lye, Max Ernst, Michael Elmgreen, miro, No Country for old men film, Picasso, public art, Robert Graves, roger horrocks, W.H. Auden, Wind Wand | 1 Comment

DOSTOEVSKY, KUROSAWA AND THE HEIJI WAR

Posted on December 12, 2009 by Dave

Akira Kurosawa ( 1910-1998 ) applied Western philosophy to Eastern themes in films that appealed to both worlds, but not always for the same reasons. Kurosawa used a narrative style to recount his stories, a form of cinematic deconstruction that … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged Akia Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa, Crime and Punishment, Dan Harper, Donald Richie, Heiji War, Ikuru, Japaenese Cinema, Japanese Film history, Maxim Gorky, Otero Vedi, Ran, Seven Samourai, Tatsuya Nakadai, The magnificent Seven, Toshiro Mifune, Verdi | Leave a comment

SKULLDUGGERY AND DEATH AS A READY MADE

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Dave

Damien Hirst’s new show is using skulls of famous French artistic figures who have been disinterred and sent to the Pantheon, the mausoleum of France’s most honored citizens.That is the rumor. He is confronting the existential crisis in Art by … Continue reading →