It's true. I haven't posted in a while. I was just lounging around in my backyard on my giant bed of pink fluffy cotton candy, when...well, you'll have to watch the video to understand the rest.
NSFW due to masked gimp Hello Kitties and mild BDSM-themed kitty business.
The Museum of Broken Relationships, a museum in Croatia dedicated to -- you guessed it -- broken relationships, is touring the world and will be in San Francisco just in time for Valentine's Day this weekend. But you can see some of the exhibits online right here, and even submit your own.
And the story that goes with this sweet teddy bear?
"„I love you“ – WHAT A LIE! LIES, DAMN LIES! Yes, it's like that when you are young, naïve and in love. And you don't realize your boyfriend started dating you just because he wanted to take you to bed! I got this teddy bear for Valentine's. He survived on top of my closet in a plastic bag, because it wasn’t him who hurt me, but the idiot who left him behind."
This act of public political commentary has a special place in my heart because I lived on Bush Street in San Francisco for two years. During the night last night, some enterprising person changed all of the Bush street signs to say Obama. And naturally, there's photos on Flickr.
I always leave too early, before things get interesting!
Today I'm making a huge catch-all post to include all of the inauguration day tidbits that have been catching my eye lately. One of the aspects of this most recent campaign and election that I have been most excited by is the unprecedented way it has inspired people, artistically, musically, and otherwise. People will always remember Shepard Fairey's HOPE poster, will.i.am's "Yes We Can" video, and the Obama-themed garages and barns people painted to convey their feelings about their candidate. It's been inspiring watching people create, whatever side you're on politically.
So here's some art, some music, and some sales, all in time for inauguration day.
Notcot's two-part piece on Manifest Hope: DC is a must-see for some sense of the sheer scale of the art installations involved. Here's part one and here's part two, and I cannot even begin to tell you how jealous I am of the people who get to see this in person!
One of my favorite online stores, ModCloth, is having a one-day-only sale on these twelve items in honor of the inauguration today. They're each 44% off! Get it? 44th president? Yep, very cute!
I don't often make a tribute post when a celebrity dies. It's not a conscious decision, it's just never really occurred to me before. But this week Patrick McGoohan, star and co-creator of the late 60s television series The Prisoner (among many, many other impressive credits), died at the age of 80. And so I'm posting.
The Prisoner has long been one of my favorite and most admired series. This series insisted on questioning and challenging the nature of identity and trust and government, and it did so with indubitable style, depth, intelligence, and a sense of humor.
I'm grateful to Patrick McGoohan for this television show, so unique in so many ways from any other before or since. And I like how this collection of clips from the show contains the essence of everything I love about it: From the style of the suits they wear to the way Patrick McGoohan's "Number Six" character seems to always be yelling at every woman he meets.
The people at Crush & Lovely have taken a simple concept and expanded it into a wholly wonderful work of art. One question, fifty different answers, each one unique and revealing.
The video above is in Brooklyn, but there are videos for different cities and different questions here, so, GO! Read a comment, leave a comment! Tell them to come to your city and grill you and your friends with questions! It'll be fun.
I've been going through a mini-obsession with Josephine Baker lately, so what better way to start the new year than this magnificent dance sequence? I love how everyone in the audience is sitting around totally nonchalant and disinterested while she's dancing her little heart out, but she doesn't even give a damn. She just keeps dancing.
So I was reading this examination of Josephine's life here, and I really liked this description:
Baker’s improvisations transgressed the conventions of choreographed dance; she strung together steps with every appearance of spontaneity. Where European dancers showed the front, presenting the body as a unified line, Baker contrived to move different parts of her body to different rhythms. Most shocking to dance purists, she used her backside, shaking it, as one of her biographers says, as though it were an instrument.
What I'm saying is, I hope you're out there today, shaking your ass like it's an instrument! Happy New Year!
Finger breakdancing is yet another great example of how to be productive even if you're sitting around with nothing but time (and an incredibly small pair of shoes) on your hands.
Whether you're into political commentary or just into looking at pictures of people with pretty shoes -- I'm kinda a mix of the two, to be honest -- Thank You For Throwing Your Shoe has got something for you. In their words,
"Hold up your shoe for Muntadar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who was arrested for throwing his shoes at President Bush. We don't condone shoe throwing, but we prefer it to war."
Great gallery, and you can still submit a pic of your own. I may just go do that myself, actually.
It's that time of year again, folks. That time of year when we can all celebrate the wonders of the boombox, the wonders of wandering the streets in groups lugging around audio equipment while freezing our toes off, the wonders that are Phil Kline's "Unsilent Night." It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, it does.
New Yorker Phil Kline composed Unsilent Night in 1991 as a non-denominational way of celebrating the holiday season. Participants bring portable music players and each is given one of four “parts” that will be played simultaneously. The music is specially created to blend and morph as the participants naturally shift places and walking speeds while their players each contribute their own slightly different playback speed. The resulting sound is beautiful and ethereal.
For a complete list of towns and cities participating, as well as scheduled times and dates, click here. And if your town doesn't have one, maybe you can schedule one yourself for next year! Or this year, if you're super-industrious.
Now that I have lived almost exactly one year in Oregon, I find this. A link to 365 distinct things to do in Oregon, set up in the most gloriously intuitive way possible, with a cute little graphic for each day.
So yes, the year is almost over, but it's such a fun and well put together site that it's worth perusing and marveling at. Besides, I've lived here a year and I'll be damned if I knew there were 365 things to do in this state. I mean, an International Museum of Carousel Art? It's so good to know things like this EXIST.
Please tell me there are other travel sites like this somewhere?
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