Wedding entrance dance to top all wedding entrance dances

T-Mobile's Royal Wedding Dance celebrates the marriage of William and Kate with the help of a host of royal look alikes and music from East 17! T-Mobile wishes William and Kate a long and happy marriage.

Crop Circle at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent Wales. Reported 22nd April 2011.

Well done to Olivier Morel and Francine Blake's group for photographing this aerial shot of the formation at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent. Wales. Reported 22nd April. We know this was a long and expensive flight due to this there was great reluctance by other photographers to take to the air.

via Crop Circle at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent Wales. Reported 22nd April   2011..

Crop Circle at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent Wales. Reported 22nd April 2011.

Well done to Olivier Morel and Francine Blake's group for photographing this aerial shot of the formation at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent. Wales. Reported 22nd April. We know this was a long and expensive flight due to this there was great reluctance by other photographers to take to the air.

via Crop Circle at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent Wales. Reported 22nd April   2011..

Vampire woman Maria Hose Cristerna gets 'horns' implanted

She was a trained lawyer from a deeply religious family who married at the age of 17.

But Maria Hose Cristerna, a 35-year-old mother of four from Mexico is known as vampire woman after becoming a tattoo artist and taking her body art to the extreme.

She says she turned to body art after suffering years of domestic abuse. ...

She has tattooed almost 100 per cent of her body, had titanium 'horns' implanted into her skull and dental implants that give her 'fangs'.


'The horns I have are a symbol of strength and were implanted without anaesthetic.'


I had the fangs done because I loved vampires as a little girl and I changed the colour of my eyes so they were how I really wanted them to be,' she told the Sun.

via Vampire woman Maria Hose Cristerna gets 'horns' implanted | Mail Online.

Gauguin painting in Washington DC attacked by woman

A woman who attacked a painting by Paul Gauguin hanging in the National Gallery in Washington DC said the French artist was "evil", court records show.

Susan Burns pounded Two Tahitian Women and tried to rip it from a gallery wall on Friday, officials said.

The 1899 painting, which depicts two women's bare breasts, was behind a plastic cover and was unharmed.

She was charged with attempted theft and destruction of property and is being held pending a mental evaluation.

On Friday afternoon a woman slammed her hands against the plexiglass cover between the canvas and the frame... A museum security officer intervened and restrained and detained her.

Ms Burns later told police she thought the painting should be burned, according to court records viewed by the Associated Press.

The 94cm by 75.4cm (37in by 30in) oil-on-canvas painting is on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is expected to go back on display on Tuesday morning, National Gallery spokeswoman Deborah Ziska told the BBC.

The work depicts two serene, golden-skinned Tahitian women offering a bowl of flowers.

"The painting captures Gauguin's mythical idea of Tahiti as a paradise of beautiful, mysterious women," museum curators write.

The incident was the first act of vandalism at the museum since the 1970s, when over the course of about five years, one man destroyed a Renaissance-era chair and another defaced 25 works, including by Renoir and Henri Matisse, with a "sharp object", Ms Ziska said. ...

via BBC News - Gauguin painting in Washington DC attacked by woman.

Screaming “This is evil,” a woman tried to pull Gauguin’s “Two Tahitian Women” from a gallery wall Friday and banged on the picture’s clear plastic covering, said Pamela Degotardi of New York, who was there. “She was really pounding it with her fists,” Degotardi said. “It was like this weird surreal scene that one doesn’t expect at the National Gallery.” Gallery spokeswoman Deborah Ziska said no damage to the 1899 painting was immediately apparent after the 4:45 p.m. incident. But she said a more thorough examination will be conducted Monday. In the painting, both breasts of one woman are exposed, as is one of the second woman’s breasts. The woman who allegedly attacked the painting was “immediately restrained and detained” by the museum’s federal protection ser vices officers, who charged her with destruction of property and attempted theft, Ziska said in a statement. The painting’s alleged attacker was “tackled by a guy who was visiting the gallery,” Degotardi said. She described him as a social worker from the Bronx. ...

According to the police report obatained by the folks over at the Smoking Gun, the 53-year-old, who was at the museum to celebrate her birthday, told police: "I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it is very homosexual. I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned. I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you." ... Read more: http://wendyista.blogspot.com

Weird:  Notice that Susan and the woman on the left in the Gauguin painting have strikingly similar facial structures.

Imaging the paintings under the paintings of the Old Masters

Gaze upon Rembrandt's The Night Watch, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, or one of the great Dutch master's famous self-portraits. Contemplate Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit, Supper at Emmaus, or the famed Italian artist's Seven Works of Mercy. Admire Peter Paul Rubens' Prometheus Bound, Portrait of Władysław IV, or the Flemish baroque painter's The Exchange of Princesses.

Speaking at the 241st National meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, an international team of scientists today described use of a new technique to see the paintings under the paintings of Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Rubens, and other 17th Century Old Master painters. The report by scientists in Belgium, The Netherlands and the United States was among almost two dozen studies presented as part of a symposium on chemistry and art titled "Partnerships and New Analytical Methodologies at the Interface of Chemistry and Art."

"The underpainting was the first and most important step in creating a work of art," explained lead scientist Matthias Alfeld, who is with the University of Antwerp in Belgium. "It was the sketch that guided the artist through the creative process. The Old Masters generally used to roughly indicate light, shade and contours. Observation of the underpainting would allow us to see the first execution of the artist's vision of the painting. It's a more detailed look over the shoulder of the artist at work. But the underpainting has virtually escaped all imaging efforts. So far, our methods to visualize the underpainting, except in localized cross sections, have been very limited."

Alfeld and colleagues described use of a powerful new technique called scanning macro X-ray fluorescence analysis that allows more detailed imaging of the composition of underpaintings. It is portable enough for use on-the-scene in museums and does not harm priceless artwork. The technology already has provided new insights into the nature of the paint that some Old Masters used in their underpainting.

An analysis of paintings from the workshops of Rembrandt and Caravaggio, for instance, led them to the conclusion that the Old Masters were more frugal than fussy about the paint used for the underpainting. The analysis suggested that this brown pigment mixture in underpaintings actually consisted of recycled leftovers from the artist scraping his palette clean.

"Using the new technique, we hope to disperse doubts about the authenticity of several paintings or to confirm that these paintings were not by the painter they have been attributed to," Alfeld said. "It is nice to show that the world of art can intersect with chemistry. Chemistry is such an all-encompassing science. Imagine, chemistry isn't just about molecules and reactions, but it also involves also the study of something as beautiful as great works of art." ...

via Imaging the paintings under the paintings of the Old Masters.

RIP Elizabeth Taylor

YouTube - ELIZABETH TAYLOR DEAD AT 79.

Mysterious Tiny Doors Appearing Around San Francisco

San Francisco artist Jeff Waldman has begun installing little doors around the city. He started by building and installing a small, elaborately locked (from the outside) red door on Fern Alley in the Tenderloin. Additional doors will be built by other artists and sent to Waldman for installation around the city.

.... The idea is to install small doors, unexplained portals, throughout the city. To start, in San Francisco. These doors would be scaled down to a size that is cognitively possible but whimsically improbable. Tiny ones. Like, Alice Through The Looking Glass, maybe 15-25 inches or so. I don’t imagine them to be operable, but the more detailed in appearance the better.

Mysterious Tiny Doors Appearing Around San Francisco.

Artist Michael Kalish Creates Portrait of Muhammad Ali Using Punching Bags

This artist's tribute to Muhammad Ali floats like a butterfly and swings like a ... punching bag.

Using about 1,300 speed bags, five miles of stainless steel cables and two miles of aluminum tubing, artist Michael Kalish has strung up a massive homage to boxing's biggest legend.

The installation -- titled "reALIze" -- uses punching bags to form a 23-foot-tall portrait of the famed fighter's face.

From nearly every angle, the giant work looks like a mess of poles, wires and hanging speed bags.

But from one perspective, it all comes together to form Ali's face.

via Artist Michael Kalish Creates Portrait of Muhammad Ali Using Punching Bags.

'Bigfoot' filmmaker sues New Hampshire over free speech

An amateur filmmaker who dressed as the mythical Bigfoot creature is suing the state of New Hampshire after park rangers told him to leave a mountain where he had been engaging with hikers.

Jonathan Doyle's friends had been filming him on Mount Monadnock.

He argues the state's requirement that he pay for a permit and get a $2m (£1.2m) insurance bond before he can film violates his free speech rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is backing Mr Doyle's lawsuit.

"The underlying activities are humorous, but the principle's important," Jon Meyer, a lawyer representing Mr Doyle, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency.

He added: "We don't believe there's any legitimate government role in regulation."

New Hampshire state officials have not commented on the case.

'Socially engaging'

Mr Doyle said no complaints were made to the state park service in 2009 when he first dressed as Bigfoot, traversed Mount Monadnock, then took off his costume and interviewed bystanders about what they had seen.

"People loved it. It was socially engaging," the 30-year-old told AP.

But when Mr Doyle announced he would head back to the mountain on 19 September last year, Monadnock park manager Patrick Hummel brought it to the attention of his supervisor in an e-mail entitled "Bigfoot problem on Monadnock... not kidding".

Mr Hummel then intercepted Mr Doyle during his next outting, barring the filmmaker and his friends from filming and requiring them to obtain a permit.

via BBC News - 'Bigfoot' filmmaker sues New Hampshire over free speech.

This is a test. If you can't see the bigfoot in this picture, you may need a bigger screen or a different screen resolution setting. Or just press the "Ctrl" and the "-" key at the same time a few times if you are using Firefox as your web browser. Hold "Ctrl" and  "+" to go back the other way.

The Adjustment BeEuro

Don't you hate spelling "bureau"?  There's no "o" in it anywhere.

Etymologically, bureau seems to mean ‘red’. Its ultimate source is probably Greek purrhós ‘red’, a derivative of pur ‘fire’ ... which is related to English fire. This was borrowed into Latin as burrus, which developed into Old French bure ‘dark brown’. This seems to have formed the basis of a derivative burel, later bureau, meaning ‘dark brown cloth’. This cloth was used for covering the writing surface of desks, and so eventually bureau came to mean ‘writing desk’ itself. Offices being the natural habitat of writing desks, bureau was later applied to them too. The derivative bureaucracy is 19th-century, of French origin.

via wordorigins

I had to tell you this. It was part of my plan.

World's most expensive painting goes on show in UK

The world's most expensive painting ever sold at auction is going on show in the UK for the first time on Monday.

The work, called Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, was painted in 1932 by Pablo Picasso and is based on his muse, Marie-Therese Walter.

The painting, which was sold in New York last year for $106.5m (£65.5m), will go on display at the Tate Modern in London.

Tate director Nicholas Serota: "This is an outstanding painting by Picasso."

"I am delighted that through the generosity of the lender we are able to bring it to the British public for the first time."

Mr Serota said: "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is one of the sequence of paintings of Picasso's muse, Marie-Therese Walter, made by the artist at Boisgeloup, Normandy, in the early months of 1932. ...

via BBC News - World's most expensive painting goes on show in UK.

Mexican tycoon opens his art

THE world's richest man, telecom tycoon Carlos Slim, is opening a museum in Mexico City where he plans to share his vast collection of fine art and collectables with the public without charging visitors an admission fee.

The billionaire, whose fortune was estimated at $US53.5 billion by Forbes magazine last year, topping Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett, has named the Soumaya Museum after his late wife.

It will open on March 29 and display a rotating selection of Mr Slim's 66,000 artworks, including pieces by Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo, as well as European masters.

Mr Slim is said to especially admire Auguste Rodin, and his collection of the French sculptor's work is one of the largest outside France.

Designed by Mr Slim's architect son-in-law, Fernando Romero, the six-storey, anvil-shaped building cuts a dramatic arc through the skyline of the capital's upmarket Polanco district. About 16,000 aluminium panels make up the museum's bending exterior, reflecting sunlight on to broad stairs leading to the entrance.

Inside, the Soumaya features 117,000 square metres of exhibition space in six halls.

One hall will house Mr Slim's collection of coins, bills, gold and silver, displayed for the first time. ...

Mr Slim, 71, is the son of a Lebanese-born merchant whose retail, telecom, manufacturing and construction companies dominate Mexico's commercial landscape.

via Mexican tycoon opens his art.

Middle-earth according to Mordor

Laura Miller - Well, there's two sides to every story, or to quote a less banal maxim, history is written by the winners. That's the philosophy behind "The Last Ringbearer," a novel set during and after the end of the War of the Ring (the climactic battle at the end of "The Lord of the Rings") and told from the point of view of the losers. The novel was written by Kirill Yeskov, a Russian paleontologist, and published to acclaim in his homeland in 1999. Translations of the book have also appeared in other European nations, but fear of the vigilant and litigious Tolkien estate has heretofore prevented its publication in English.

That changed late last year when one Yisroel Markov posted his English translation of "The Last Ringbearer" as a free download. ...

In Yeskov's retelling, the wizard Gandalf is a war-monger intent on crushing the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor and its southern allies because science "destroys the harmony of the world and dries up the souls of men!" He's in cahoots with the elves, who aim to become "masters of the world," and turn Middle-earth into a "bad copy" of their magical homeland across the sea. Barad-dur, also known as the Dark Tower and Sauron's citadel, is, by contrast, described as "that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic." ...

The protagonist of "The Last Ringbearer" is a field medic from Umbar (a southern land), who is ably assisted by an Orocuen -- that is, orc -- scout, who is not a demonic creature like the orcs in "The Lord of the Rings," but an ordinary man. They're given the task of destroying a mirror in the elf stronghold of Lorien before the elves can further use it to infect Middle-earth with their alien magic. Meanwhile, the remnants of Mordor's civilization fight a rear-guard guerrilla campaign to sustain the "green shoots of reason and progress," in opposition to the "static" and "tidy" pseudo-paradise of Middle-earth under the elven regime.

Some of the supporting characters from "The Lord of the Rings" -- such as Faramir and Eowyn -- get more attention and and even a bit more respect in "The Last Ringbearer." Others, like Aragorn -- depicted by Yeskov as a ruthless Machiavellian schemer who is ultimately the puppet of his wife, the elf Arwen -- have been completely transformed. (Still others, like the hobbits, don't even exist.) Nevertheless, the primary characters are entirely Yeskov's inventions, presented in a radically rethought version of Tolkien's world. The novel is clearly dependent on Tolkien's creation, but it's also original and ingenious. ...

via Middle-earth according to Mordor - Laura Miller - Salon.com.

More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project - what if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war - but what was that war really about?

The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of The Last Ring-bearer - a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Dr. Yeskov, a professional paleontologist whose job is reconstructing long-extinct organisms and their way of life from fossil remnants, performs essentially the same feat in The Last Ring-bearer, reconstructing the real world of Tolkien's Arda from The Lord of the Rings - the heroic tales of the Free Men of the West written in that world. We have a pretty good idea how well heroic tales map to reality from our own world...I was impressed enough by this work to spend a few dozen lunch hours translating it to English. (Reportedly, some publishing houses have considered a commercial translation of this book, which had been published in several major European languages, but abandoned the idea out of fear of the Tolkien estate, which doesn't countenance any derivative works, especially in English. Witness the history of its relationship with New Line Cinema. This translation is non-commercial.) I have been fortunate to establish communication with the author and have the translation vetted (and much corrected) by him. I now offer this work for your perusal. At 139,000 words, this 1 Mb PDF is about 80% of the length of The Fellowship of the Ring. Suggestions for corrections will be appreciated. Please mention how you heard about this translation when commenting. Errata will be published here soon. - ymarkov

I've read the Tolkien books three or four times from start to finish. I'm looking forward to reading the Last Ringbearer, thanks to Laura Miller's review ... when I get done with my year long project of getting my 100 or so songs recorded.

It Took 84,000 Pennies, But Michigan Mom's Giant Coin Really Makes Cents

"I wanted to share the message that anyone can do this, you just have to start somewhere. What matters isn't how much you make, but how much you save."

Martich -- a self-taught artist -- glued each penny onto a wooden frame that's nearly 10 feet tall and sorted through thousands of coins to choose ones that were blemish-free.

Eventually, she turned to a bank to get coins straight from the U.S. Mint.

"I needed very shiny pennies to create the highlights," she said. "I wanted to use the different natural shades of pennies to create the image."

After working more than 10 hours a day for three months, Martich entered the work -- titled "Helping Mom One Penny at a Time" -- into the ArtPrize contest in Grand Rapids, where it placed sixth and caught the eye of Edward Meyer, Ripley's vice president of exhibits and archives.

"Martich's giant penny was the very first piece I saw at ArtPrize 2010 out of over 1,600 entries," he said in a statement. "I saw it in the distance and drove right up to it with my jaw on the ground and spent the next half-hour just awestruck at the magnitude of the piece and the story of its creation. I knew instantly I wanted to add it to the Ripley collection."

Martich's sculpture will be displayed at one of Ripley's Odditoriums. ...

via It Took 84,000 Pennies, But Michigan Mom's Giant Coin Really Makes Cents.

$840 the hard way.

360 Degree Sistine Chapel

Check this link out: http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html



 

Pain Leads Art Professor to Remove "Third Eye" Camera From Head

SARA DOVER -  ... Wafaa Bilal, an assistant arts professor at New York University, needed to remove the camera he had installed into the back of his head earlier this month because his body rejected the foreign object.

One of the three titanium posts holding his "third eye" was removed by surgery this Friday, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, forcing him to find other means to continue with his photography project for a museum in Qatar.

"I'm determined to continue with it," Bilal told the Chronicle about "3rdi" which is described on his website as "a statement on surveillance, the mundane and the things we leave behind." ...

via Pain Leads Art Professor to Remove "Third Eye" Camera From Head | NBC New York.

Was the Model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa a Man?

Call her "Manny Lisa"? Italian researchers say the model for the world's most famous painting may have been a male apprentice and also a lover of the artist, Leonardo da Vinci.

The identity of the Mona Lisa, which hangs in the Louvre in Paris and draws 8.5 million visitors a year, has been an enduring mystery.

But now her (or is it his?) secrets are seemingly being revealed every few years.A group of Italian scientists and art historians announced today that a male apprentice and longtime companion of da Vinci was the main influence and model for the "Mona Lisa" painting, The Associated Press reported.

Two years ago, however, researchers at Germany's Heidelberg University announced that they had cracked the secret of Mona Lisa's identity beyond "all doubts," Reuters reported at the time.

They said the model for the 16th-century portrait was, as long-rumored, Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo.

But the Italian researchers, while not entirely ruling out Lisa Gherardini, believe the bigger influence for the painting was an apprentice named Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salai. He worked with da Vinci for 20 years beginning in 1490. Their relationship has been described as ambiguous."Salai was a favorite model for Leonardo," researcher Silvano Vinceti told the AP. "Leonardo certainly inserted characteristics of Salai in the last version of Mona Lisa."

But Vinceti agreed that the famous portrait may have been inspired by more than one influence.

"The 'Mona Lisa' must be read at various levels, not just as a portrait," Vinceti said. ...

via Was the Model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa a Man?.

Rogen stunned by Lucas' 2012 theory

Funnyman Seth Rogen was left stunned by a recent encounter with his moviemaking hero George Lucas - because the Star Wars director spent 20 minutes telling him the world would end in 2012.

Rogen was left speechless when Lucas and Steven Spielberg joined a movie meeting he was a part of - but the encounter has left him worried his life will be over next year.

He recalls, “George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is gonna end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it.

“He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like, ’My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry...’

“I first thought he (Lucas) was joking... and then I totally realized he was serious and then I started thinking, ’If you’re George Lucas and you actually think the world is gonna end in a year, there’s no way you haven’t built a spaceship for yourself... So I asked him... ’Can I have a seat on it?’

“He claimed he didn’t have a spaceship, but there’s no doubt there’s a Millennium Falcon in a garage somewhere with a pilot just waiting to go... It’s gonna be him and Steven Spielberg and I’ll be blown up like the rest of us.”

via Rogen stunned by Lucas' 2012 theory | Movies | Entertainment | Toronto Sun.

Yeah, not really.

The man who created "Star Wars" doesn't really think the world is going to end.

But he does think it's flat and the sun revolves around it!

The light-hearted response comes from a Lucasfilm spokeswoman to Wired.com, dismissing the bizarre claim reportedly by actor Seth Rogen that George Lucas thought the world would end next year.

"I spoke with George," an e-mail from Lynne Hale said. "He was not serious when he talked about the end of the world in 2012, but he is an adamant believer that the world is flat, that Stonehenge was built by aliens, and that the sun revolves around the Earth."

Hale also noted humorously that the 66-year-old filmmaker talks with Elvis, "who he's going to digitally insert into 'Indy 5' along with a roster of famous dead actors."

Read more: nydailynews.com

3D without glasses?

Comments:

- This is a horrible idea. The abrasion from your eyelids opening and closing this much is pretty much guaranteed to cause eye damage, not to mention what it'll do to your eyelid muscles.

- I'm no 3D engineer, but I feel pretty safe saying that there's no freaking way you could make a human eyelid blink fast enough, even with electric stimulation, to mimic the shutter effect of the glasses used to view certain 3D content. I'm laughing way harder at all the serious comments from you guys.. Next time try listening more closely for that whooshing sound, it's the joke flying right over your head.

via Engadget

Pretty funny. Some really fine CG work.