Takashi Murakami has gained mass popularity with his trademark Superflat style and colorful pantheon of cute icons including smiling flowers, jellyfish eyes, and Mr. DOB. Similar to Andy Warhol, Murakami melds consumer culture and fine art with the help of a factory of assistants. "©Murakami" innovatively brings the two worlds of consumer culture and fine art together by housing a Louis Vuitton boutique (with Murakami-designed bags ready for purchase) inside the museum. Art for art's sake is over. This is art for art's sale.

Go here to see various works by Murakami in a sort of catalogue.
An article by Swindle Magazine.
"I always emphasize that the power of the dark side exists even in cuteness and in the thoughts of peace-addicted people." - Murakami
An article on an exhibition of his work.
Murakami remixes modern Western art and traditional Japanese art, while denying the hierarchy of high "art" culture vs. low pop culture.

In his tour, Murakami points out how the skull looks like a mushroom cloud. He has made death cute and non-threatening by inserting his smiling flowers in the eye sockets. "Smiling is sometimes a hard job," says Murakami while standing next to the very cheery Kawaii!Vacances d'été.

See Murakami's tour here. (Recommended.)

While in New York we stumbled upon an exhibition of Murakami's in Brooklyn and felt a deep revulsion. Here is a stumbling of the Internet's puking.

(Try, for one, to understand that the smiling flowers -- the first image above -- covered a room, all four walls, and contained flower ball sculptures inside. That people really love this.)

(To be more descriptive, you started on the first floor of the exhibit which featured otaku supersmooth, (pre-)pubescent cyberborg bodied 'beings'; the overall feeling one of twirling semen or super smiles or Louis Vuitton -- at the end of the first floor portion. You then went to the stairs, where things started to decay. Skulls, mushrooms, puking creatures. Still smooth and still cute, still with flowers garlanding the worlds -- eg., flowers ringing in the eyes of the mushroom skull clouds -- see pink backgrounded image above. Occasional traditional Japanese style mixed into this. Shinto scroll presented to the huge creature puking about to die and never loving until this last possible moment -- is he on the wrong floor? Such is rebirth now. Rebirth in the pocket. And yet, here it is.)

("free smile with every meal", and what's a man? a woman? they say to watch your breath, and we would have it hypostatized. Murakami, do you paint the world with childish glee?)

In 2008, Takashi Murakami made Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People list, and was the only visual artist to do so.

I've read somewhere that whereas Andy Warhol took consumer goods, 'low' pop culture and made it 'high' art, Takashi Murakami takes consumer goods, 'low' pop culture, and makes them...'high' art? 'low' art? consumer goods?...

I recommend these videos, in this order:
One
Two
Three
Four

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1.) I almost forgot about this (from a while back):
Board game unravels confusing treaty lingo

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1.) The secret of meditation is the art of unlearning.
Mind is learning;
meditation is unlearning:
That is -- die constantly to your experience;
let it not imprison you;
experience becomes a dead weight
in the living and flowing, riverlike consciousness.

Live in the moment unburdened by the past,
flow in the moment unblocked by the mind,
and you will be in meditation.

from Osho, A Cup of Tea

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2.) Please try releasing your hold, and releasing your hold, observe: What is body-and-mind? What is conduct? What is birth-and-death? What is buddha-dharma? What are the laws of the world? What, in the end, are mountains, rivers, earth, human beings, animals, and houses? When you observe thoroughly, it follows that the two aspects of motion and stillness do not arise at all. Though motion and stillness do not arise, things are not fixed.

from Dōgen, Guidelines of Studying the Way, chapter 8

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1.) "A ninth-century Muslim mystic described the tones of a flute as 'the voice of Satan crying over the world because he wants to make it outlive destruction; he cries over things that pass; he wants to reanimate them, while God only remains. Satan has been condemned to hold to things that pass and this is why he cries.'"

quoted in A World History of Art, Sixth Edition, by Hugh Honour and John Fleming

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also, for one more fantastic photo of the Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain (formerly a mosque, now a cathedral), click here

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1.) http://muvtor.btk.ppke.hu/etalon/522.jpg
from the Book of Kells (early 9th century AD),
an illustrated manuscript on vellum

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Ygdrasill:
WHOSE ROOTS ARE
STARS IN THE HUMAN MIND

(film title by Stan Brakhage 1997)

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2.) Although [Wes] Anderson had made up the main character's unlikely name, it was eventually learned that there is a real Steve Zissou, a trial lawyer in New York. After being contacted by the film's production company, Zissou granted permission for his name to be used in the film, and he is listed in the film's credits.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Zissou#Real-world_references

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1.) Loyal to its roots:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/science/10plant.html?ex=1370836800&en=4e5bd2d4fe18362a&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

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2.) Canada apologizes for trying to 'kill the Indian in the child'
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080611/national/native_apology

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1.) Sigur Rós, a band known for their distinctive vocals, fabricated a language they call 'Hopelandic', which has been described by the band as "a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music and acts as another instrument".

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-rock#Musical_characteristics

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2.) As Simon Reynolds' "Audio Culture" states, "A band's journey through rock to post-rock usually involves a trajectory from narrative lyrics to stream-of-consciousness to voice-as-texture to purely instrumental music." Reynolds' conclusion defines the sporadic progression from rock, with its field of sound and lyrics to post-rock, where samplings are stretched and looped.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-rock#Musical_characteristics

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3.) In Europe, Debate Over Islam and Virginity - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/world/europe/11virgin.html?ex=1370923200&en=f4ce1a04fc1937d3&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

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Sheela na Gig

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1.) I had been wishing to identify a plant and I think a helpful gardener in Victoria has assisted me. I believe it is in the genus Euphorbia and is specifically one of the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_cyparissias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_amygdaloides
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_esula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_helioscopia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_peplus

The common name "spurge" derives from the Middle English/Old French espurge ("to purge"), due to the use of the plants sap as a purgative.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia

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2.) The latex (milky sap) of spurges acts as a deterrent for herbivores as well as a wound healer. Usually it is white, but in rare cases (e.g. E. abdelkuri) yellow. As it is under pressure, it runs out from the slightest wound and congeals within a few minutes of contact with the air. Among the component parts are many di- or tri-terpen esters, which can vary in composition according to species, and in some cases the variant may be typical of that species. The terpen ester composition determines how caustic and irritating to the skin it is. In contact with mucous membranes (eyes, nose, mouth) the latex can produce extremely painful inflammation. In experiments with animals it was found that the terpen ester resiniferatoxin had an irritating effect 10,000 to 100,000 times stronger than capsaicin, the "hot" substance found in chillies. Several terpen esters are also known to be carcinogenic.
(my emphasis)

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia#Toxicity

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3.) (As a sidenote, the following are also in the genus Euphorbia:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:E_meloformis_valida_ies.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Weihnachtsstern_-_gro%C3%9F.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:E_actinoclada_ies.jpg

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1.) Before eating earthworms, moles pull them between their squeezed paws to force the collected earth and dirt out of the worm's gut.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_%28animal%29#Diet

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1.) The Star-nosed Mole can detect, catch and eat food faster than the human eye can follow (under 300 milliseconds).

A report in the journal Nature gives this animal the title of fastest-eating mammal, taking as short as 120 milliseconds (average: 227 milliseconds) to identify and consume individual food items. Its brain decides in the ultra short time of 8 ms if a prey is comestible or not. This speed is at the limit of the speed of neurons.



They also possess the ability to smell underwater. It is done by exhaling air bubbles onto objects or scent trails and then inhaling the bubbles to carry the smell back through the nose.



from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_%28animal%29
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star-nosed_Mole#Nose
and http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/0600_feature2.html

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Leonard's on tour.

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All from Petra, Jordan.

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Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

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Click the image to enlarge.
Tanya Tagaq and cousin Celina Kalluk practicing inuit throat singing.


Click to enlarge.
Other inuit throat singers.

Traditionally when the men were away on a hunting trip, the women left at home would entertain themselves with games, which may have involved throat singing.



Tanya ‘Tagaq’ Gillis was born and raised in the remote Inuit community of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, where she had only passing exposure to throat singing. She left home for the city at the age of 15 to study visual arts but during her final year of art school she became increasingly homesick, and began teaching herself throat singing from tapes her mother sent her as a way of re-connecting with the Inuit culture she had left behind.

As Inuit throat singing is traditionally performed by two women — and Tagaq had no Inuk partner to sing with — she had to re-invent throat singing as a solo form.

In 2000, Tagaq attended the Great Northern Arts Festival in Canada to exhibit her paintings. When the organisers discovered they were short of performers, Tagaq agreed to sing. In the audience that day, filming the show, were two men from Iceland, who happened to be friends of Björk. Tagaq was invited to join Björk’s Vespertine tour in 2001.

[Tagaq] describes her evolution over the past six years as a process of going deeper and deeper into her performance to the point where she virtually “leaves her body” and lets the expression take over.

from http://thepuredrop.com.au/artists/tagaq.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Tagaq_Gillis

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Koto video

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1.) Now, whoa man, this is hot! Ella Fitzgerald.
Lady Be Good (1957)

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2.) I particularly find the first sentence of the second paragraph quite interesting.

Inuit throat-singing is done in the following way: two women face each other; they may be standing or crouching down; one is leading, while the other responds; the leader produces a short rhythmic motif that she repeats with a short silent gap in-between, while the other is rhythmically filling in the gaps. The game is such that both singers try to show their vocal abilities in competition, by exchanging these vocal motives. The first to run out of breath or be unable to maintain the pace of the other singer will start to laugh or simply stop and will thus lose the game. It generally lasts between one and three minutes. The winner is the singer who beats the largest number of people.

Originally, the lips of the two women were almost touching, each one using the other's mouth cavity as a resonator . Today, most singers stand straight, facing one another and holding each other's arms. Sometimes they will do some kind of dance movements while singing (e.g., balancing from right to left). The sounds used include voiced sounds as well as unvoiced ones, both through inhalation or exhalation. Because of this, singers develop a breathing technique, somewhat comparable to circular breathing used by some players of wind instruments. In this way, they can go on for hours.

Words and meaningless syllables are used in the songs. When words are used, no particular poetical meaning or regular meaning are assigned to them. These words can simply be names of ancestors, a word or name meaningful at the time the games are taking place, or other common words. The meaningless syllables generally portray sounds of nature or cries of animals or birds, or sounds of everyday life. These songs are generally identified by the first word, meaningful or not, of the game. In some regions, throat-songs may recount a story of some sort, though in Northern Quebec no stories are recounted, and may even include some improvisation.

from http://www.ubu.com/ethno/soundings/inuit.html

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