Controlled flame

I am learning to weld (as in metal sculpture, not auto body repair). With the smoke, the sanding and grinding, when I leave class, I'm absolutely filthy. What fun!

Poetry in paint

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

— e.e. cummings

Poet e.e. cummings also painted. I love the vibrancy of his work, and his wild use of color.

Playset

Maybe it isn't obvious. Maybe you have to look long and hard to differentiate. Neatoshop has a variety of playsets including (pictured in order) B-movie victims, Paparazzi, and Glow-in-the-dark zombies. For the easily amused, collect em' all!

Desperate things

April 1985; Coca-Cola makes a major announcement concerning a change in their product. Pepsi-Cola executives respond immediately, posting their company congratulatory letter as a full-page ad in The New York Times.

To All Pepsi Bottlers and
Pepsi-Cola Company Personnel:

It gives me great pleasure to offer each of you my heartiest
congratulations.

After 87 years of going at it eyeball to eyeball, the other guy blinked.

Coca-Cola is withdrawing their product from the marketplace and is
reformulating brand Coke to be "more like Pepsi." Too bad Ripley's not
around...he could have a field day with this one.

There is no question the long-term market success of Pepsi has forced
this move.

Everyone knows when something is right it doesn't need changing.

Maybe they finally realized what most of us have known for years.
Pepsi tastes better than Coke.

Well, people in trouble tend to do desperate things...and we'll have to
keep our eye on them.

But for now, I say victory is sweet, and we have earned a celebration.
We're going to declare a holiday on Friday.

Enjoy!

Best regards,

Roger Enrico
President, Chief Executive Officer
PepsiCola U.S.A.



Nearly three decades later, sales of carbonated soft drinks decline steadily as people opt for healthier beverages. Still, Coca-Cola continues to lead Pepsi-Cola in popularity.

Warm-up

1963 - The Rolling Stones opened for The Everly Brothers

1975 - The Talking Heads opened for The Ramones 

1976 - The Clash opened for The Sex Pistols

Love, Min

While musing on relationships, Daniel quoted a Marianne Faithful lyric from Strange Weather:

And a love like ours, my dear,

Is best measured when it's down.

And I never buy umbrellas,

For there's always one around.

Last night, I happily attended the Barnes and Noble signing for Why We Broke Up. Turns out, Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman first met a while back at a celebratory dinner that took place at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy. They shared a love of food and humor and despite living in separate cities (San Francisco, Manhattan) decided to collaborate on a project. Their first project was the picture book, 13 Words, followed by the young adult novel that portrays the doomed romance of high schoolers Min and Ed. A slideshow was followed by a brief quiz. The highest scorer of the quiz received an onion ring from Maira's personal collection.  Everyone received a red comb.

Pocket book

I'm not one to carry a clutch, but oh, Olympia Le-Tan's meticulously 

embroidered recreations of classic books (with original covers) are terrific!

In the beginning

Dear Mr. Brando,

I wrote a book called THE GODFATHER which has had some success and I think you’re the only actor who can play the part Godfather with that quiet force and irony the part requires. I’d love you to read the book and like it well enough to use whatever power you can to get the role. I’m writing Paramount to the same effect for whatever good that will do. I know this was presumptuous of me but the best I can do by the book is try. I really think you’d be tremendous. Needless to say I’ve been an admirer of your art.

Mario Puzo

Bouquet

Lovely flower still lifes from Lulie Wallace.

The Seven Samurai

Passion. Dynamism. Force. Exhilaration. Speed. Terrible beauty. These are among the many words that come to mind when I think of Kurosawa's cinema.

—Martin Scorsese

The Seven Samurai (1954) - Akira Kurosawa 

Like Luke

How do I love thee? 

Discovering London

Circa 1978. Beefeater? check, red double-decker bus? check, 

Dinosaur hobo...wha? Margaret Pearson, you have my attention.

Best alone

A few Steve Wozniak quotes, from the book, iWoz.

"Later, much later, I found a group where being a nerd was cooler.”

“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me – they’re shy and they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone – best outside of corporate environments, best where they can control an invention’s design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee. Because the committee would never agree on it!”

“It’s so easy to doubt yourself, and it’s especially easy to doubt yourself when what you’re working on is at odds with everyone else in the world who thinks they know the right way to do things. Sometimes you can’t prove whether you’re right or wrong. Only time can tell that. But if you believe in your own power to objectively reason, that’s a key to happiness. And a key to confidence. Another key I found to happiness was to realize that I didn’t have to disagree with someone and let it get all intense. If you believe in your own power to reason, you can just relax. You don’t have to feel the pressure to set out and convince anyone. So don’t sweat it! You have to trust your own designs, your own intuition, and your understanding of what your invention needs to be.”

“And if you don’t enjoy working on stuff for yourself – with your own money and your own resources, after work if you have to – then you definitely shouldn’t be doing it!”

Bringing humor to fine art

Wayne White, doing what he loves, and it shows.

Pure light

JUSTICE for John and Yoko!

John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to this country's so called

ART INSTITUTION/They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing 

so, only can help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this

mild dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art 

by the overpowering mass-media. Hurray for John & Yoko. Let them stay and 

live here and breathe. The country's got plenty of room and space.

Let John and Yoko stay!

Bob Dylan

In the early 1970's, John Lennon was living in New York and showing up regularly at rallies, vocal in his opposition to the Vietnam War. The Nixon administration responded by ordering Lennon deported. Bob Dylan had John Lennon's back.

The final frontier

Great writing requires polishing: the opening narration for Star Trek was a collaborative effort.

Space ... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the 

Starship Enterprise, its five-year mission:

... to explore strange new worlds ...

... to seek out new life and new civilizations ...

... to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Word

Artist Wayne White paints on prints and canvases he finds in thrift shops.

It's a plane

David Hertz Architects 'Wing House' in Malibu, California. Harvesting materials from a retired 747 airplane (the wings were used for the roof) the sleek structure seems to have only momentarily landed.

Question mark

A faint echo of yesterday's post; the fine vintage cover for 96 Tears. That is a smashing question mark...I'd love it filling an entire wall.

Magical thinking

In his wonderful TED talk, writer/director/producer J.J. Abrams used an unopened Tannen's Mystery Box to illustrate the idea that mystery is the catalyst for imagination; it represents possibility, hope and potential.

Pairing

Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley

David Bowie and Bing Crosby

Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse

Spotty

Yayoi Kusama's installation at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art:  a white room transformed by a group of children armed with a mass of colored stickers.

Channeling Robert Lopshire, Put Me in the Zoo