Cousins

Vampire Weekend, Contra (XL, 2009).

O álbum estará por aí a 11 de Janeiro.

O vídeo é espectacular (com tão pouco) e foi realizado por Garth Jennings.

Only 460,000 words

It is a fascinating fact that if you go online and visit 200 web pages in one day - wich is a simple task when you could email, blogs, youtube etc - you'll see on average 490,000 words; War & Peace was only 460,000 words.

via A Photo Editor

Harrison.

via The Impossible Cool.

An Oak Tree

Q. To begin with, could you describe this work?

A. Yes, of course. What I've done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.

Q. The accidents?

A. Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size ...

Q. Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?

A. No. It's not a symbol. I've changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree.

Q. It looks like a glass of water.

A. Of course it does. I didn't change its appearance. But it's not a glass of water, it's an oak tree.

Q. Can you prove what you've claimed to have done?

A. Well, yes and no. I claim to have maintained the physical form of the glass of water and, as you can see, I have. However, as one normally looks for evidence of physical change in terms of altered form, no such proof exists.

Q. Haven't you simply called this glass of water an oak tree?

A. Absolutely not. It is not a glass of water anymore. I have changed its actual substance. It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water. One could call it anything one wished but that would not alter the fact that it is an oak tree.

Q. Isn't this just a case of the emperor's new clothes?

A. No. With the emperor's new clothes people claimed to see something that wasn't there because they felt they should. I would be very surprised if anyone told me they saw an oak tree.

Q. Was it difficult to effect the change?

A. No effort at all. But it took me years of work before I realised I could do it.

Q. When precisely did the glass of water become an oak tree?

A. When I put the water in the glass.

Q. Does this happen every time you fill a glass with water?

A. No, of course not. Only when I intend to change it into an oak tree.

Q. Then intention causes the change?

A. I would say it precipitates the change.

Q. You don't know how you do it?

A. It contradicts what I feel I know about cause and effect.

Q. It seems to me that you are claiming to have worked a miracle. Isn't that the case?

A. I'm flattered that you think so.

Q. But aren't you the only person who can do something like this?

A. How could I know?

Q. Could you teach others to do it?

A. No, it's not something one can teach.

Q. Do you consider that changing the glass of water into an oak tree constitutes an art work?

A. Yes.

Q. What precisely is the art work? The glass of water?

A. There is no glass of water anymore.

Q. The process of change?

A. There is no process involved in the change.

Q. The oak tree?

A. Yes. The oak tree.

Q. But the oak tree only exists in the mind.

A. No. The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water. As the glass of water was a particular glass of water, the oak tree is also a particular oak tree. To conceive the category 'oak tree' or to picture a particular oak tree is not to understand and experience what appears to be a glass of water as an oak tree. Just as it is imperceivable it also inconceivable.

Q. Did the particular oak tree exist somewhere else before it took the form of a glass of water?

A. No. This particular oak tree did not exist previously. I should also point out that it does not and will not ever have any other form than that of a glass of water.

Q. How long will it continue to be an oak tree?

A. Until I change it.


"An Oak Tree", Michael Craig-Martin (1973).

In other words belief underlies our whole experience of art: it accounts for why some people are artists and others are not, why some people dismiss works of art others highly praise, and why something we know to be great does not always move us.

"Este é o corpo e sangue de Cristo".

No Love Lost

por Damien Hirst que talvez tenha sido mais famoso nos últimos tempos devido a For the Love of God.

via NOTCOT

R2: Ermida Nossa Senhora da Conceição

R2 Design via Creative Review

Papillon

Editors, In This Light and On This Evening (Kitchenware, 2009).

If there really was a God here,
He'd have raised a hand by now

Heads Will Roll

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz! (Interscope, 2009).

John Romero meets Quentin Tarantino meets Michael Jackson.

Realizado por Richard Ayoade, que também é responsável pelos vídeos de "Oxford Comma" dos Vampire Weekend (este é uma obra prima) ou "Standing Next to Me" dos The Last Shadow Puppets, entre outras coisas que o tornam com toda a certeza num menino muito talentoso.

Serotonin

por Kevin Van Aelst.

Steve and Steve

Jobs and the NeXT board of directors meet in the company's Fremont factory in 1987. Ross Perot, the Texas entrepreneur who later ran for U.S. president, is seated third from the end in a dark suit and tie, directly across from Jobs. Perot provided venture capital for NeXT.


NeXT was founded in 1985 by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs after his forced resignation from Apple. NeXT introduced the first NeXT Computer in 1988, and the smaller NeXTstation in 1990.

Several developers used the NeXT platform to write pioneering programs. Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT Computer in 1991 to create the first web browser and web server. In the early 1990s John Carmack used a NeXTcube to build two of his pioneering games, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.

Apple purchased NeXT on December 20, 1996 for $429 million, and much of the current Mac OS X system is built on the OPENSTEP foundation.


A NeXT também tinha um logo muito interessante desenhado pelo Paul Rand.


via Coudal Partners

Skating night, 1919

Washington, D.C. "Skating night, 1919." National Photo Co. via Shorpy.

Fantasmagórico.

Fuck yeah!

por Martin Creed via BOOOOOOOM

Should the Nazis succeed

The poster was initially produced in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, and was intended as a "last case scenario" to be used only should the Nazis succeed in invading Great Britain, in order to stiffen resolve.

Lembro-me de uma entrevista de rua após as explosões no metro de Londres em 2005, com um velhote que dizia ao jornalista algo do género: "Eu sobrevivi, continuando com a minha vida, aos bombardeamentos de Londres durante a 2ª Grande Guerra. Depois disso, estes terroristas não podem nada contra nós".

Keep calm and carry on.

Intervalo

De facto, é mais ou menos isto.
Vou dormir.

(Foto: "a", Linda Martini no namouche, por Vera Marmelo - flickr e blog - que anda por aí a ilustrar o zeitgeist da música portuguesa).

Sea Lion Woman

"Sea Lion Woman", aqui pela Feist de The Reminder (Arts & Crafts, 2006).

Sea lion woman
Dressed in red
Smile at the man
When you wake up in his bed

É uma canção sobre uma mulher que também é foca e se veste de vermelho.
Há um tipo a vibrar na primeira fila com uma tshirt dos Bloc Party (1:00).

The previous encapsulates my view.

Man On The Moon

R.E.M., Automatic for the People (Warner Bros., 1992).

Asserting that in the face of the tough truths 'Automatic for the People' explores, hope is, more than ever, essential.

Ball and Biscuit

The White Stripes, Elephant (V2, 2003).

The third man argument (commonly referred to as TMA), first offered by Plato in his dialogue Parmenides, is a philosophical criticism of Plato's own theory of Forms. The argument posits that if a man is a man because he partakes in the form of man, then a third form would be required to explain how man and the form of man are both man.

Como dá para entender, os guitarristas de Detroit são muito mais eficazes do que os filósofos gregos a explicar os mistérios da vida.

Pigeon hole

You can't do this, can't do that, because you're in some pigeon hole, and my dream is to have none of that matter.

To have none of that matter.

In fact nothing

Yet sometimes you are breathtaking,
Kidding around!
To be rid of the troubles
Of one person by turning into
Someone else, moving and jolting
As if nothing mattered but today
In fact nothing
But this precise moment—five thirty-one a.m.
Celery growing on the plains
Snow swirls in the mountains.

To Kidding Around, Kenneth Koch

A leucemia linfóide de células B consitui a leucemia linfóide mais comum; quando o processo maligno se manifesta na forma de linfoma, é responsável por cerca de 7% dos linfomas não-Hodgkin.

Precisava de me lembrar disto, por isso procurei um poema. Agora não me esqueço.

Antenna

Sonic Youth, The Eternal (Matador, 2009).

every corner creeping panic
freak lighting in her abstract mind
rubber stamps and dreams of cashflow
wild blood ecstatic crime
radios play nothing when she's far away

Every corner creeping panic, diz o Thurston.

Doesn't make sense

David Lynch e Isabella Rossellini, talvez no set de Blue Velvet, mas eles foram namorados, por isso pode ser em qualquer lugar.

I don’t think that people accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable.

via (o sempre deslumbrante) but does it float

Olha, olha

Originator

6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of, namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose of every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ our of which the entire plant has always grown.

A propósito de conversas sozinho sobre uma democracia sem democratas mas com uma profusão de filósofos.

Not Even Jail

Interpol, Antics (Matador, 2004).

Já perdi a conta ao número de vezes que ouvi isto nos últimos dias. Tenho de arranjar músicas que falem mais sobre glomerulonefrites, mas esta não está mal para começar.

I pretend like no one else
To try to control myself
I'm subtle like a lion's cage
Such a cautious display
Remember, take hold of your time here
Give some meanings to the means

Daniel

Bat For Lashes, Two Suns (Astralwerks, 2009).

Coisinha mais infecciosa, até enerva.

Ian Fisher: American Soldier

O fotógrafo Craig F. Walker passou mais de dois anos com Ian Fisher, a fotografar tudo o que lhe aconteceu desde a saída do liceu, o recrutamento, a campanha no Iraque e a vida de volta. Impressionava só pela escala, mas obviamente há muito mais do que isso.

Também fiquei a pensar. Se isto fosse cinema, era um documentário. Se fosse um programa de televisão - ou jornalismo televisivo - seria reality tv e eu provavelmente não lhe prestava atenção nenhuma. Será que estou a ser preconceituoso, ou realmente o meio condiciona a mensagem desta forma?

(Todas as fotos desta imensa série - provavelmente por culpa de quem fez o site - têm um artefacto de compressão muito, muito irritante, que faz com que todas pareçam ter sido tiradas com uma compacta muito foleira com o noise reduction no máximo. E eu estou irritado por isto me irritar.)

via State of the Art

Life Ain't Enough For You

The Legendary Tiger Man (aqui com Asia Argento), Femina (EMI, 2009).

Gosto deste gajo, quero que ele seja grande.

Maps

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell (Interscope, 2003).

Still, for proof that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, at their core, make a better band than they do runway trendsetters, one need look no further than Fever to Tell's singular true moment of clarity-- a tune of such moving grace I can scarcely believe they're responsible for it-- "Maps". Though the song is sadly in a class by itself on this record (it would take about two seconds to call roll for the tunes that even come close), absolutely everything falls into place here. The drums are gentle enough to simply caress the tune, but still pressing enough to make it clear that this second of happiness is fleeting, and Zinner's guitar work is easily his best to date, equal parts joy and discord. But it's Karen's vocals that steal the show; for once, they fairly drip genuine, regretful emotion: When she sings, "Lay off/ Don't stray/ My kind is your kind/ I'll stay the same.../ They don't love you like I love you," almost on the verge of defeated tears, the emotive response it produces is very real, and that means a lot.

And that means a lot.

Berlin, berlin

West Berlin —In 1961, East Germany builds a wall separating the two sectors of the city, 1962. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos

She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build the wall

Gila

Beach House, Devotion (Carpark, 2008).

Hoping for the last ship to arrive
I am blessed with a kingdom, half mine.

VIPs

Os Sopranos, via Very Important Pixels. Espectacular.

Desperately Perfect

por Rachel Papo.

Olaf Heine

É só a mim que esta imagem lembra um certo Congresso?

"Brian Molko and Jule, Berlin, 2008"
Leaving the Confort Zone, Olaf Heine