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NYT > Arts Rare Peek at Riches of Past in Rome (Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:29:04 GMT) Rome's archaeological authority has reallocated money so that it can provide staffs for five monuments in the ancient heart of the city that are usually closed. Music: Torture-Free but Still a Rock Star (Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:25:47 GMT) From left, John Stirratt, Pat Sansone, Glenn Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen, Nels Cline and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, where the band recently played three shows. Snatching Big Names, Aesthetics Aside (Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:43:47 GMT) At Sotheby's and Christie's recent contemporary art sales, buyers eager to catch a prize paid handsomely for celebrity artists. Cambodians Take Back the Lens (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:47:11 GMT) Local photographers, long unsung or sidelined by foreign journalists, are honing their skills and mounting shows. NYT > Art - Narrowed by 'LOUVRE' Transforming the Louvre in Uncertain Times (Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400) Over the past six years, the Louvre museum has undergone a transformation that has led to successes from important acquisitions to a spectacular rise in attendance to major archaeological discoveries. A Paradox at the Louvre? (Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400) Times are getting tough for the largest art museum in the world. While the astonishing news is that the Louvre is coping, the not-so-good news is that it is in danger of running into trouble by 2010. Reconstructing the Afterlife in a Vanished Religion (Sat, 23 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400) The urge to understand the ancient religion of Egypt is irresistible. A show at the Louvre until June 29, ‘‘Les Portes du Ciel,'' (The Doors of Heaven), re-constructs concepts in a vanished theology. Losing Face (Sun, 10 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400) An account of the unsolved 1911 disappearance, and return, of "Mona Lisa." No Smiley Faces the Day the Lady Left the Louvre (Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400) A true crime account of the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa and the ensuing investigation focused on Pablo Picasso and the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire. Sketches May Be Leonardo's (Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500) Three sketches possibly made by Leonardo da Vinci have been discovered on the back of his painting "Virgin and Child With St. Anne." In a Faceoff, the Masters Trump Picasso (Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400) No show in Europe at the moment bids to be more spectacular, or ends up being more exasperating, than "Picasso and the Masters." WORLD BRIEFING EUROPE; France: Louvre To Add Islamic Art (Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400) French Pres Nicolas Sarkozy and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia attend ceremony for laying of first stone at Louvre's new Arts of Islam gallery; it is first major modern architectural addition to museum since its glass pyramid in 1980s; photo French Jewel Heads Home (Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400) In 1855 the Parisian jeweler François Kramer created a diamond bow brooch for the beauteous tastemaker Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. Stolen Art on Display in a Search for Owners (Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500) In a remarkable feat of cooperation between France and Israel, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem has opened an exhibition of important art looted by the Nazis from France and then returned after the war. NPR Topics: Arts & Entertainment Artists Make Money By Forgoing Traditional Galleries (Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:47:00 -0400) It isn't easy to make money as an artist these days, but three crafty New Yorkers are managing to sell their work — and make a living — outside the traditional gallery system. Different Year, Same 'Marienbad' (Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:55:00 -0400) When it came out in 1961, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad perplexed and excited audiences with its surrealistic storytelling. John Powers has a review of the film's Criterion Collection re-release. For Sale: Your Michael Jackson Memorabilia (Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:33:00 -0400) Since Michael Jackson died last week, his trading cards, old albums and autographs are selling for huge amounts of money. A letter Michael Jackson wrote to an unknown "Greg" sold for $20,000, and an album signed by all of the Jackson 5 sold for $27,000. Chat While Reading: The Future Of Books? (Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:52:00 -0400) BookGlutton.com, a new interactive site, allows readers to chat while reading. Could this mark the beginning of a change in how we read books? Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough Michael Jackson (Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:14:00 -0400) It's been a week since Michael Jackson's death at 50 stunned the world. But seven days after the King of Pop stepped off stage and left us behind, it's clear we just can't seem to get enough of him. Oscar Winner Karl Malden Dies At 97 (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:12:00 -0400) The powerful, sensitive character actor with the twice-broken nose had stirring roles on the big screen — notably A Streetcar Named Desire — and was a hit on TV in The Streets of San Francisco. He later served as a pitchman for American Express. Battle Likely Over Jackson Will (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:15:00 -0400) Pop icon Michael Jackson's will filed Wednesday in a Los Angeles court gave his estate to the Michael Jackson Family Trust. Who controls that trust is sure to be a huge legal battle. Stevenson Jacobs, a business writer for The Associated Press, offers his insight. 'Ice Age' 3-D: Blended-Family Fun, With Dino Bites (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:00:00 -0400) Sweet, silly and solid enough to entertain most anybody, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs insists that even carnivorous reptiles can learn a little something from the cooperative approach. Loud Family Paved Way For Reality TV (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:31:00 -0400) In the early 1970s, a documentary called An American Family followed the lives of Bill and Pat Loud and their five children. The filmmakers, Susan and Alan Raymond, talk about how the PBS series paved the way for what we now call reality TV. 'Public Enemies': Michael Mann's Mobster Waxworks (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:36:00 -0400) This lush, good-looking crime flick doesn't really have a theme, and it never quite sparks to life. But it's got lots of incidental pleasures — Johnny Depp's spirited performance chief among them. Zombies: Still Undead, And Suddenly Everywhere (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:25:00 -0400) Zombies, long a horror-movie staple, are taking bigger bites out of pop culture, infecting books, banking, even our vocabulary. Beth Accomando surveys a genre trope that refuses to die. Depp's Broody Dillinger, Dominating His 'Enemies' (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:00:00 -0400) Centered on a fatalistic portrait of a great American outlaw, Michael Mann's slick, authentic-looking drama is simultaneously an art film and a crime saga — one dazzling enough to keep the Dillinger legend alive for years. Love Words With Staying Power? (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:48:00 -0400) In May, we marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's sonnets by asking NPR listeners and readers to write in with modern love poems or songs that they think will be remembered 400 years from now. Here are a few of those suggestions. Director Seeks To Capture Life In Modern Tibet (Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:50:00 -0400) Pema Tseden is the first director in China ever to film movies entirely in the Tibetan language. His latest film, The Search, won the Grand Jury Prize at Shanghai's recent International Film Festival. He says Tibet has always been depicted by outsiders who pander to their own imagination. What 'Do The Right Thing' Means 20 Years Later (Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:13:00 -0400) In 1989, Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing captured the racial tensions of urban America. Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice explores to what extent the film still portrays the racial divide 20 years after its debut. Wired: Culture Packing It In: Why the Foam Noodle Couldn't Cut It in the Protection Racket (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT) Materials engineer Edgar Burchard has been watching packing materials fail for his entire career. In 1964, when he was a recent hire at BASF, the conglomerate narrowly escaped a public scandal. It had been crowing about the quality of its foam shells—brand-new tech at the time—so the PR guys dreamed up a brilliant publicity stunt: They would ship Michelangelo's La Pietà from the Vatican to the World's Fair in New York. Packed, of course, in their product.
But when expo workers in Queens pried open the wooden crate, they found the massive marble masterpiece listing dangerously to one side, just a bump away from catastrophe. Vatican staff chalked up the barely averted disaster to their excellent relations with God. But Burchard knew that divine intervention would never have been necessary if BASF's product were better designed.
Fast forward 30 years, to 1995. While Burchard was experimenting with refrigerator insulation, he came up with a novel way of molding low-density foam. The foam wasn't a very good insulator (in other words, not useful to him at the time), but he was impressed by how light and strong it was. He realized that he could use it to improve upon the packing peanut. Burchard shaped the new material into rough- textured lightning bolts of foam that locked together to stay put under the weight of heavy, priceless objects. He christened his creation Expans O Fill and in 1998 sent it to Michigan State University's School of Packaging for independent testing. It trounced all seven competitive products, transmitting up to 90 percent less shock and cushioning four times better than the packing peanut. Five years later, 3M bought the design, renamed it the Packing Noodle, and rolled it out in 2004.
Even though the Noodle was a vast improvement over the peanut, "they didn't sell well," says Carter Swift, a brand manager at 3M. "They were just too different." The Noodles came fitted together in compact, shrink-wrapped blocks. Retailers loved them because they took up such little shelf space. But consumers didn't understand that the blocks broke apart into hundreds of Noodles. In June, Burchard's brilliant idea was discontinued, and once again we're left with only God (and a few lesser earthly products) to protect our precious cargo. Congratulations Human, You've Been Accepted to Singularity University (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT) Tech luminaries Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near) and Peter Diamandis (X Prize) recently opened Singularity University, which offers an interdisciplinary "graduate studies program" combining genetics, artificial intelligence, and engineering. It's nine weeks of deep thought with eminent theorists and business leaders. Just getting accepted would be... something. Great Geek Debates: Kirk vs. Picard (Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:24:00 GMT) If you're a Star Trek fan, you've surely considered the differences between the captains in the various series, even if you don't have a favorite. And, while Sisko, Janeway, and even Archer have their fans, the quintessential Star Trek debate has been, since TNG premiered nearly 22 years ago, who's the better captain: Kirk or Picard? Force of Nature: Artist Puts Petal to the Metal for Electrifying Images (Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT) Forget the notion of a reverent nature photographer tiptoeing through the woods, camera slung over one shoulder, patiently looking for perfect light. Robert Buelteman works indoors in total darkness, forsaking cameras, lenses, and computers for jumper cables, fiber optics, and 80,000 volts of electricity. This bizarre union of Dr. Frankenstein and Georgia O'Keeffe spawns photos that seem to portray the life force of his subjects as the very process destroys them.
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Golden Columbine
Photo: Robert Buelteman
Buelteman's technique is an elaborate extension of Kirlian photography (a high-voltage photogram process popular in the late 1930s) and is considered so dangerous and laborious that no one else will attempt it—even if they could get through all the steps.
Buelteman begins by painstakingly whittling down flowers, leaves, sprigs, and twigs with a scalpel until they're translucent. He then lays each specimen on color transparency film and, for a more detailed effect, covers it with a diffusion screen. This assemblage is placed on his "easel"—a piece of sheet metal sandwiched between Plexiglas, floating in liquid silicone. Buelteman hits everything with an electric pulse and the electrons do a dance as they leap from the sheet metal, through the silicone and the plant (and hopefully not through him), while heading back out the jumper cables. In that moment, the gas surrounding the subject is ionized, leaving behind ethereal coronas. He then hand-paints the result with white light shining through an optical fiber the width of a human hair, a process so tricky each image can take up to 150 attempts.
Because there's no lens to distort the colors, Buelteman's work replicates natural hues far better than traditional photographs. "I'm calling into question what we see every day," Buelteman says. "Is that really a flower? Have I been blind my entire life?" You can see for yourself in his recently published book, Signs of Life.
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Alstroemeria, sp.
Photo: Robert Buelteman
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Cannabis sativa
Photo: Robert Buelteman
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Cortaderia selloana
Photo: Robert Buelteman
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Eucalyptus polyanthemos
Photo: Robert Buelteman
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Galisteo Roses
Photo: Robert Buelteman
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Helianthus annuus
Photo: Robert Buelteman
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White Clematis
Photo: Robert Buelteman
Pa Ingalls, Pioneer GeekDad (Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:22:00 GMT) You may think that "Little House on The Prairie" is pretty much just about Laura Ingalls running through the tall grass in a calico dress. But there's a lot more D.I.Y. than dresses: This is life before Home Depot. Gadget Blessings: Shinto Priest Protects Electronics From Bad Mojo (Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT) Boom!... Boom!... My chest reverberates with the thumping of a huge wooden drum as two robed holy men shuffle across tatami mats. They kneel in a vermilion-colored alcove, and a young assistant announces that the ceremony has commenced. The priests begin bowing and chanting rhythmically. I've been given a white "robe of cleansing" to wear. Actually, it's more like a smock. I'm not sure what I should be doing. I bow a couple of times.
I've come to the 1,270-year-old Kanda Shrine in Tokyo to purify and bless something very near and dear to me: my cell phone. I've had hellish luck with mobiles over the past year. I left one on a ride at Universal Studios Japan. Its successor suddenly—and mysteriously—died. The next one accompanied my pants into the washing machine, and its replacement went AWOL in less than a week. Divine intervention was needed, and pronto.
Japan's Shinto religion holds that nearly every object in the world, animate or inanimate, has a spiritual essence. Therefore, anything can be blessed, from a newborn child to an automobile. Priests at the Kanda Shrine, which overlooks Akihabara—Tokyo's mecca for consumer electronics—offer prayers for the well-being of gadgets.
Kanda found its calling in metaphysical IT work seven years ago, when Microsoft XP went on sale in Japan. The shrine created talismans to prevent system crashes, and they were snapped up by the throngs of nerds who prowl Akihabara for the latest gizmos and porn comics. Soon, requests were pouring in for priests to perform purification rites on laptops, cell phones, even Web portals. Today Kanda offers microchip-shaped good-luck charms for ¥800 (about $8) and private ceremonies for ¥5,000.
Back in the great hall, an older priest waves a giant wand—essentially a mop of white parchment streamers—over his counterpart. Thus cleansed, the younger priest rises and carries my phone on a lacquer tray to the main altar. He begins a low-pitched chant, invoking the shrine's deities to "watch over and protect Brian Ashcraft's cellular phone."
As the sound of plucked koto strings echoes through the hall, the assistant jingles gold bells over my head. I'm told to approach the altar and am given a tree branch, an offering to the shrine's deities. A priest painstakingly instructs me to turn the branch 180 degrees—no, no, clockwise—and place it on the altar. Then bow deeply twice—that's good—and clap twice.
Most Japanese people would probably stumble through this intricate ceremony as clumsily as I do, but the tenets of Shinto are deeply ingrained in their consciousness. It occurs to me that this must affect how they view their little electronic helpmates. Perhaps gadgets really do have souls. Maybe my problem isn't bad luck—maybe I simply haven't been giving my phones the respect they deserve. I bow again, and the ceremony concludes.
Near the great hall's exit, I am presented with a wooden plaque certifying that my cell has been purified. Over a cup of sake, senior priest Katsuji Takahashi chuckles as he tells me, "I've lost my phone twice, but both times it turned up."
Seven months later, my blessed phone is still with me.
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My cell phone sits in a lacquer tray waiting to be blessed by a Shinto priest. Late last year, I visited the ancient Kanda shrine, located in the heart of Tokyo's consumer electronics district. The shrine does boffo business offering charms and ceremonial purifications that protect cell phones and laptops and even blogs and ISP service from bad mojo. You can read about it here and see more images of the temple and its priests by clicking on the thumbnails above.
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A geek nirvana has grown up around the 1,200-year-old Shinto shrine. Tokyo's Akihabara district is the place to go if you're looking for gizmos, manga, videogames, anime, or figurines. On the right is the otaku hypermart AsoBitCity, and on the left is a doujin (fanzine) bookstore packed with images of doe-eyed schoolgirl characters.
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Up a narrow side street and under a red and green gate, a wide stone path leads up to the Kanda shrine. It's morning, and a salaryman on his way to work stands tossing change into the wooden offering box and clasps his hands in prayer. Just over the top of the green roof tiles, modern buildings dot the skyline. The view is discombobulating at first, the modern and ritzy clashing with the traditional and sacred, yet that image sums up Japan.
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Near the shrine's entryway is what looks like an old-school arcade attraction. Inside is a shishigashira, or lion head puppet. Drop some yen in this coin-op device to see the mechanical lion do its festive Shinto dance that wards off evil. When the shimmying is over, an omikuji, or fortune, drops down the chute. The fortune, printed on a rolled-up piece of paper, could just as easily be terrible as great. I'm afraid to use the thing — one more bit of bad luck and my cell phone might spontaneously combust in my pocket.
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I enter the shrine with my cell and don a white robe for the purification ceremony. I've been called before the altar. I'm feeling nervous and awkward. Why wouldn't I be? I don't know precisely what it is that I'm supposed to be doing. Clap two times...? Alrighty, here goes.
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Whoosh! Parchment rustles noisily, and gusts of cleansed air hit me in the face. The priest is holding a haraigushi, a prayer stick covered with folded bits of paper. Waving the haraigushi over my phone is part of the blessing ceremony. After this is over, I'm called upon to offer a tree branch to the deities of the shrine.
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These paper charms are made to look like microchips. Each has the words "IT Info Safety Blessing" and the shrine's name inscribed on it. The backing is a sticker with peel-off paper — perfect for slapping it onto your laptop. Take that, computer viruses!
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All done! I'm given a piece of wood to commemorate the ritual. My name is handwritten on it, along with the words "Cell Phone Safety Blessing." It's been eight months since this ceremony, and my phone is still safe and sound. Maybe the ritual itself worked…or maybe the ritual forced me to look at my phone with a little more reverence and respect. 10 Best Prison Breaks (Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT) .nDate{color:#757575}
Tower of London (1597)
Catholic dissenter John Gerard fled on a rope stretched from the Tower roof to a getaway rowboat.
Libby Prison (1864)
Captive Union soldiers tunneled from this Virginia prison into a nearby yard; 109 walked away.
Lake County Jail (1934)
John Dillinger, brandishing a wooden gun blackened with shoe polish, bailed in the sheriff's Ford.
Auschwitz (1944)
Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler hid in a woodpile for days before trekking to the Slovakian border.
Stalag Luft III (1944)
POWs excavated three tunnels below this Nazi stronghold. Only three of 76 men got away, but it's still known as the Great Escape.
Colditz Castle (1945)
The best escape from this WWII prison never happened: Allied officers built a glider in the attic but were rescued before takeoff.
Alcatraz (1962)
After chipping away walls with spoons, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers left on a raincoat raft and were never found.
Imrali (1974)
At a Turkish island jail, Billy Hayes stole a boat and survived to see the movie adaptation—Midnight Express—win two Oscars.
Pretoria Prison (1979)
Political activists learned to pick locks while in the clink. (Or did a sympathetic guard help?) They opened 10 doors on the way out.
Luynes and Grasse Prisons (2001, 2003, 2007)
Pascal Payet called in a hijacked helicopter. He later returned in another to lift out two buddies. Recaptured, he did it again—on Bastille Day. Video: How to Photograph Strangers on the Street (Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:00:00 GMT) Photographer Clay Enos goes from shooting superheroes on the set of Watchmen to taking street portraits. He shows us how to do a street-studio photo session with a sheet of white paper, some tape and a camera. Also required: Good people skills. Jargon Watch: Queasing, Predator X, Greenfinger (Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT) Queasing n. British slang for "quantitative easing," the UK's policy of printing money to stimulate the economy. The US is doing much the same thing, but Fed chair Ben Bernanke calls it "credit easing"—and so far pundits haven't spun "creasing" into the vernacular.
Predator X n. Paleontologists' name for a recently discovered marine dinosaur with foot-long teeth. Its bite, four times stronger than T. rex's, could have crushed a Hummer.
Greenfinger n. A rogue environmentalist who endangers ecosystems with risky projects aimed at reducing global warming. Proposed schemes include dumping iron filings into the ocean and injecting a chalky substance into the arctic stratosphere.
Grass mud horse n. Wildly popular on YouTube, this mythical, alpaca-like creature was conjured by Chinese citizens to protest Internet censorship. Though the grass mud horse looks innocent, its Chinese name—Cao Ni Ma—sounds like "fuck your mother" in Mandarin.
—Jonathon Keats (jargon@wired.com) |
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