Tom Waits

Tom Waits always seemed old to me. His voice was old. Raspy and tarnished like Dylan’s voice is now. But then I saw a picture of Waits as a kid and I realized I knew him. He was the kid next door. The one who walked around the neighbourhood on stilts and peaked in people’s windows. And he always smoked. Like it was the cigarette that was singing and Waits was his dummy. But he’s a great talent. And I’ve loved him like the aunt who we used to visit in Baltimore. And who used to hug me so tight in her big bosom.

More Christmas listening: ‘Lux Aurumque’

a beautiful sound. on a Saturday evening it can make you feel at peace with yourself.

the candle

Eric Whitacre is the rock star of the choral world. His innovative “virtual choir” is a phenomenon, watched by millions online. And this lovely piece, “Lux Aurumque,” is perfect for the Christmas season.

The text is a Latin translation (by Charles Anthony Silvestri) of an English poem, “Light and Gold,” by Edward Esch:

Lux,
calida gravisque
pura velut aurum
et canunt angeli
molliter modo natum.
Light,
warm and heavy
as pure gold,
and the angels sing softly
to the newborn babe.

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Daniel Pitin

Daniel Pitin’s work could be called ‘the ordinary life of paint’. It is as if ordinary events in a parallel world were happening in art. That the extraordinary were banal. I’ve seen work like this before and I have either glazed over it or have been snagged and once snagged, curious. What am I looking at?

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My father-in-law, a photographer, had to take many pictures of death masks. These pics remind me of the sphinx. A secret is revealed and concealed at the same time.

t'arthead

“One does not look at the dead, one lowers one’s eyes before them.”

In 1989 I purchased a copy of Granta 27: Death. Inside was a series of photographs by Rudolf Schäfer, taken from his book Der Ewige Schlaf: Visages de Morts. The photographs – they have to be photographs; only photography can do this – hit me hard, and they haunt me now. Are they portraits? No. They are still lifes, stilled life, each a silent, eloquent memento mori,  reminders that what makes us human is not our awareness that we are, but that we will cease to be.

In Schäfer’s own words:
“There is no direct experience of what death actually looks like…this notion that it must look terrible…”

“These are ordinary poses. We are constantly bombarded with…violent, extreme pictures – but we diffuse one of the implications of these images – our own mortality. With these…you…

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Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress. Though known primarily for her extraordinary beauty and her celebrity in a film career as a major contract star of MGM’s “Golden Age” Lamarr was also a scientist, inventor and mathematician who co-invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications; a key to many forms of wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day.

Ms. Lamarr might have been one of the most intelligent people in the United States when she was a star. She and her husband designed a machine to be used in torpedoes. (She despised the Nazis. All her efforts were directed toward defeating them.) The war department didn’t buy into it during the war. Her work on spread spectrum devices are now used in all computers. She never made a dime on any of her inventions.

Ms. Lamarr is most remembered for her movie career. Especially her nude scene in Ekstasy. She was also an author. She has said that she spent 20 million dollars during her life. An extraordinary woman.

Ryan Palmieri

The true story of the meteoric rise and fall of Steve Hershon, Hollywood’s go to hand insert model. Follow me on twitter @ryanppalmieri

Directed by
Ryan Palmieri

Produced and Edited by
Ryan Palmieri and Austin Conroy

And of course as always there’s a Seinfeld episode covering the same topic

I started listening to this music. Don’t understand Portuguese but is this ever so lovely. Nice for a Saturday afternoon.

World Music - the Music Journey

Portuguese Music is so damn good, like the language and the relaxing sounds! Here’s another great Portuguese band from Porto called Os Azeitonas. Here’s their nice song “Anda Comigo ver os Aviões“:

And please let your friends know our blog. We work a lot for you and it’s not motivating working on a base of less than 800 visits per day, so we want many people listening to the music. Please….

Where do you all come from? Please tell me, because I want to honor it, thanks!

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Let me dance… I mean sing…

Two of my goals in life. Dreams really. Bucket List. Someone else’s. I wanted to be a professional boxer. Like Muhammed Ali. I could take a punch. And an opera singer. I am tone deaf. Of course I shall become neither of these. And age has nothing to do with it. Check out this market. Its one of my fantasies.

Mirror mirror on the wall…

artboy68 is a blogger. He has decided to draw 100 portraits in 20 weeks. He did one of me and I think its pretty damn good. Except that I have no chin. Check out his sight at

http://artboy68project.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/41/

Fabrice Wittner

This is one artist’s reaction to a tragedy in his community. He speaks better than I about  his state of mind.

After the 6.3 quake occurred in Canterbury NZ, people were involved to help their neighbors, to rebuild houses, to clean the street or to make donations. I wanted to contribute by doing something too, giving what I was able to, some of my time and skills. Giving support to my friends, to the men and women I met, who told me their stories. I liked somehow to show this support and admiration to all those people I don’t even know but who stand strong facing this drama with courage and humility.It’s also important to me not to forget the loss when the main thought is about to rebuild.
I might be a ridiculous rain drop in the ocean of help Christchurch got from every part of the country, but I definitely wanted to be a part of it.
This project has been submitted to the Christchurch City Council. The donation of prints didn’t find any reply yet – everybody can understand that they may have some bigger preoccupations right now – but I’d still like to give it some exposure.

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