Showing posts with label abc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abc. Show all posts

Sunday, 31 August 2014

ABC: ARTIST BOOK CELEBRITY

With every edition one artist, one book title and one celebrity are selected to appear in an article that highlights the artworks, songs, movie scenes, and performances that made them stand out of the crowd. The principle of following the chronological order of the alphabet and of finding names that all share the same initial letter has been inspired by the German game 'Stadt Land Fluss'. To help people to remember the names easier, I create little aide-memoires from emojis (so far they have proved to be fairly efficient).



C

      Artist



Untitled (The Hotel Eden) (1945)


American artist and sculptor, Joseph Cornell was born in 1903 in New York and lived for the most part of his life in Flushing, New York, as a recluse (He died in 1972). His lack of relationships made him a self-taught artist that was afraid of strangers. His shyness made romantic relationships almost impossible. Cornell was one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage and he was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker. Many of his boxes, such as the famousMedici Slot Machine boxes, are interactive and are meant to be handled. As a young man he worked as a textile salesman. He began to make montages of engravings at the age of 26, without any art training; 6 years later they were included in the first Surrealist group exhibition in the USA at the Wadsworth Atheneum http://www.thewadsworth.org/ (the oldest public art museum in the United States). Cornell has met many of the leading Surrealist artists and writers at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York, and started to make glazed boxes containing mysterious assemblages created from found objects in poetic association. His work included was in the exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1936. 3 Years after at the age of 33 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery. Cornell made recurrent use of objects such as clay pipes, wine glasses, engravings, mirrors and astronomical maps, often with a flavour of Victorian and some allusion to the opera or the ballet. He also had numerous friendships with ballerinas, who found him unique, but too eccentric to be a romantic partner.His imagery was often related to that of Nerval, Novalis, Mallarmé and other 19th century Romantic and Symbolist writers. He also made a number of short lyrical films and a montage of old Hollywood film clips with existing film stock that Cornell had found in New Jersey warehouses, one of which isRose Hobart (additional TP 9'12'' Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnbbqiD7C7A). Died in Flushing.

E.T.P.: 2'



Fyodor Dostoevsky (also spelled Dostoyevsky) is renowned as one of the world’s greatest novelists and literary psychologists. His works grapple with deep political, social, and religious issues while delving into the often tortured psychology of characters whose lives are shaped by these issues. Raskolnikov’s time in a Siberian prison, described in the Epilogue of Crime and Punishment, is based on Dostoevsky’s own experiences at a similar prison. Dostoyevsky conceived the idea of Crime and Punishment in the summer of 1865, having gambled away much of his fortune, unable to pay his bills or afford proper meals. Raskolnikov, a conflicted former student, lives in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. He refuses all help, even from his friend Razumikhin, and devises a plan to murder and to rob an unpleasant elderly pawn-broker and money-lender, Alyona Ivanovna. His motivation comes from the overwhelming sense that he is predetermined to kill the old woman by some power outside of himself. While still considering the plan, Raskolnikov makes the acquaintance of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a drunkard who recently squandered his family's little wealth. Raskolnikov also receives a letter from his sister and mother, speaking of their coming visit to Saint Petersburg, and his sister's sudden marriage plans which they plan to discuss upon their arrival... The main plot involves a murder as the result of "ideological intoxication," and depicts all the disastrous moral and psychical consequences that result from the murder.

E.T.P.: 2'




Marion Cotillard born 30 September 1975 is a French actress, singer and songwriter. She is also an environmentalist and spokesperson for Greenpeace, the organization for which she travelled to Congo in 2010 to visit tropical rainforests threatened by logging companies. Besides she has also been the face of Lady Dior handbags since 2008 and has appeared on more than 200 magazine covers around the world. Cotillard was born in Paris, and grew up around Orléans, Loiret, in an artistically inclined, "bustling, creative household". Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, and 2006 Molière Award-winning director. Cotillard's mother, Niseema Theillaud, is also an actress and drama teacher. Her two younger brothers are twins: Quentin and Guillaume. Guillaume is a screenwriter and director. Cotillard began acting during her childhood, appearing on stage in one of her father's plays. Since October 2007, Cotillard is in a relationship with French actor and director Guillaume Canet and in 2011 their now 3 year old son Marcel was born. The couple prefers to live a simple lifestyle and neither star discusses their relationship with the media. Cotillard garnered worldwide acclaim for her roles in films such as La Vie en Rose in 2007, in which she starred as the French singer Édith Piaf and for which she received critical acclaim and won several awards  including Golden Globe Award for Best Actress (she was the first person to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in a French language performance).

E.T.P. 2-3'

Sunday, 17 August 2014

ABC: ARTIST BOOK CELEBRITY

With every edition one artist, one book title and one celebrity are selected to appear in an article that highlights the artworks, songs, movie scenes, and performances that made them stand out of the crowd. The principle of following the chronological order of the alphabet and of finding names that all share the same initial letter has been inspired by the German game 'Stadt Land Fluss'. To help people to remember the names easier, I create little aide-memoires from emojis (so far they have proved to be fairly efficient).

 
 



Photo via Jmeshel.



Chuck (Charles Edward Anderson) Berry was born in 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. The guitarist and songwriter is also known as “The Father of Rock’n Roll”, as he has introduced rock’n’roll some 70 years ago, while at the same time trying to merge the worlds of black and white through music. His performances such as Maybellene (1955) (watch online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvKDr8AgvK8), Roll Over Beethoven (1956), Rock and Roll Music (1957), and Johnny B. Goode (1958), are well known because of his approach to entertain the crowd according to their immediate feedback on stage. (Chuckberry.com/biography: http://chuckberry.com/biography/). Although his first notable performance was on his school's musical stage singing ‘Confessin The Blues’ (listen on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3qVbQNRjJU) accompanied by his friend, Tommy Stevens, on guitar it was not until he met Muddy Waters in 1955 when his career started to pick up. He was sentenced to prison for the first time while he still was at high school, from 1944 to 1947 for armed robbery from and again in 1960 to 1963 for transporting a 14-year-old girl across state lines. In between he was trained as a hairdresser at the Poro School, freelanced as a photographer, assisted his father as a carpenter and even owned a restaurant while beginning his career as a musician. His passion for food made him choose the locations of his performances according to the proximity to the next Indian restaurant. Berry was included in several Rolling Stone “Greatest of All Time” lists and three of his songs made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Today at the age of 87 Chuck Berry is still performing live.

ETP (5-8')



Beloved was written in (1987) by american writer Toni Morrison. The novel is set after the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). The book's epigraph reads: "Sixty Million and more," by which Morrison refers to the estimated number of slaves who died in the slave trade. Morrison's fifth novel is loosely based on the life and legal case of the slave Margaret Garner, who temporarily escaped slavery during 1956 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, a free state. After a posse arrived to retrieve her and her children Margaret killed her two-year-old daughter rather than allow her to be recaptured. Beloved's main character, Sethe, kills her daughter and tries to kill her other three children when a posse arrives in Ohio to return them to Sweet Home, the Kentucky plantation from which Sethe recently fled. The tombstone of the daughters grave shows the word "Beloved". A  woman presumed to be her daughter, called Beloved, returns years later to haunt Sethe's home at 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati. The story opens with an introduction to the ghost: "124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom." Beloved is not narrated chronologically; it is composed of flashbacks, memories, and nightmares. As a result, it is not an easy read if you haven't encountered William Faulkner, James Joyce, or Virginia Woolf. It aims to point the difficulties victims of slavery experience to deal with the past that leads to a fragmentation of the self and a loss of true identity. The novel received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 and was a finalist for the 1987 National Book Award. It was adapted during 1998 into a movie of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey (watch the trailer). A New York Times survey of writers and literary critics ranked it the best work of American fiction from 1981-2006.

You can read more here and here.


Photo via Deadline.

 Kobe Bean Bryant (born August 23, 1978) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He entered the NBA directly from high school, and has played for the Lakers his entire career, winning five NBA championships. Bryant is a 16-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, and 12-time member of the All-Defensive team. As of March 2013, he ranks third and fourth on the league's all-time postseason scoring and all-time regular season scoring lists, respectively. Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal led the Lakers to three consecutive championships from 2000 to 2002. He is also the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. Since his second year in the league, Bryant has been selected to start every All-Star Game. He has won the All-Star MVP Award four times (2002,2007, 2009, and 2011), tying him for the most All Star MVP Awards in NBA history. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won gold medals as a member of the USA national team. Because of his recent devastating injury Kobe Bryant's basketball career has come to an end. His new project is called "Kobe Bryant's Muse", a screening of his biography that will come out this autumn.

Sunday, 3 August 2014

ABC: ARTIST, BOOK, CELEBRITY



The ABC for artists, books, and celebrities to fight against my name literacy through writing and creating an aide-memoire with emojis (inspired by the german game 'Stadt-Land-Fluss').



The New Zealand born artist Billy Apple (now 78 years old) studied at The Royal College of Art in London and is one of the first artists to use neon lights in art work. Apple is best known for his involvement in the New York and London Pop art movements of the 1960s (see Four Billy Apple Trademark Classes at Frieze Magazine) and with the conceptual art movement in the 1970s (see 2 Minutes 33 seconds at the Auckland Art Gallery). He was included in the important 1964 exhibit 'The American Supermarket', a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it - the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc., was created by prominent pop artist of the time, including Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg, and Jasper Johns.

Read more here. E.T.P.: 5'


Pictures via University of Michigan.

As I Lay Dying has been named one of the 100 greatest novels of all Time by The Guardian. American author William Faulkner wrote it in 1930 over the course of six weeks from midnight to 4am while he was working at a power plant. The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest and motivations - noble or selfish - to honor her wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 (listen to an audio recording of William Faulkner's Banquet Speech additional E.T.P. 3' (headphones recomended). The Grammy-nominated metalcore band 'As I lay Dying' derived its name from this novel. In 2013 writer/director James Franco released a film adaption of the novel (Trailer here, additional E.T.P. 1.20').

Full E.T.P. (5-8')



Image & Content via Forbes.

Just 24 years old, the Swedish DJ notched the best year of his career in 2014 on the strength of his debut album "True". The record included "Wake Me Up," which became the first electronic song ever to move more than 4 million units in the United States. He continues to clean up on the road, taking home six-figure sums every time he spins at a club, which he did 80 times during our scoring period alone (watch the official video additional E.T.P. 4.32').

Fulll E.T.P.: 3-6'

Sunday, 16 February 2014

The Procrastinator (some) Times Sunday 16th of February Edition


EDITORIAL

This is been a very tough week for Venezuela, my country. That is why the news section is entirely devoted to try to explain the situation and sharing links of photos, articles and videos. In our Culture & Entertainment section everything is House of Cards and lovely Ellen Page. In the Design, Business & Innovation you can see a list of the top 10 most innovative companies in advertising via Fast Company. In the Science section an interesting article about how the human brain has adapted to react to emoticons in the same way it would to expressions on real human faces. And finally In Dog We Trust share some good news about Sochi's dogs and introduce us to the lovely Hashi.

Happy weekend, happy reading, and my brave Venezuelans, keep fighting!


NEWS

Photo: Carlos García Rawlins (Reuters) via El País.

Photo Leo Ramirez (AFP) via El País.

Photo: Jorge Silva (Reuters) via El País.


This past 12 of February there was a demonstration, mainly composed by students and young Venezuelans asking for fellow students who had been jailed after earlier protests to be freed, and also protesting against massive shortages in food and medicines, ravaged economy and one of the highest murder rates in the world. Armed groups supported by the government called "colectivos" fired their arms against the students killing two of them and leaving more than 20 injured. Security forces, police and military, instead of helping the civilians, fired tear gas, used water cannons and used extreme violence against the students, and the protestors in general. See some of the videos in YouTube here, here, here, here, here, here, here (yesterday afternoon Saturday 15), and watch how they even used a tank here.

The murder of one of the students, Bassil Da Costa, by the government supporters was recorded for at least three different point of views by different people using their cell phones. The proof is undeniable. Nevertheless the government did not say anything about these videos, instead they proceed to put dozens of students in jail and tortured them.

After 15 years of "Revolution", the Venezuelan media (with the exception of some newspapers and radio stations) belongs to the government, directly or indirectly. No TV channel reported the clashes instead they were forced to transmit a military parade, and the only channel NTN24 from Colombia that was covering the demonstrations live was taken out of the cable during that day and their website was also blocked. Graphic reporters from international agencies were attacked and robbed during the protests, but some images managed to reach the international media that very same day. Now the government is blaming the French agency AFP of conspiracy.

Venezuelans only count with social media, powered by a non casually slow and intermittent Internet to keep themselves informed and to share what is happening. They use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and open platforms like 9Gag. But the government is trying to block that too. Twitter Inc. confirmed on Friday that the Venezuelan government blocked users' online images as opposition groups marched through Caracas for a third day. Venezuela’s main telecommunications company, CANTV, is government-run and handles the overwhelming majority of internet traffic.

As the protest continues, the coverage in international media has increased. More people are now fully aware of the strong censorship imposed by the government to the local media that offered a very limited and biased coverage, as Venezuela’s government dominates the country’s airwaves.

Nobel peace prize and ex-president of Costa Rica, Óscar Arias, expressed his concern about the current situation and said that "Venezuela can do all sort of narrative efforts to sell the idea that is a true democracy, but with every violation of Human Rights committed, that claim is denied in practice because it represses criticism and dissent. Every government that respect Human Rights should respect the right of its people to demonstrate peacefully, the use of violence is unacceptable. Let's remember Gandhi's words: and eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."  Sadly, other Latin American leaders remained silent, or even worst expressed support to Maduro's repressive and anti-democratic regime. The power of cheap oil and "petro-dolars" cannot be underestimated.

What I've tried to do here is the only thing I can do as a Venezuelan living abroad, trying to make other people understand what is happening in my country. Despite the repressive efforts made by the Venezuelan government we are not voiceless due to the work of a lot of people that is trying to send our reality, our message, our pain, our indignation across.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for not being indifferent to injustice, repression and tyranny. And thanks for sharing, if you do it, the efforts made by the brave people holding their cell phones would not have been in vain.

There are links along this paragraphs, supporting my claims and my words, that even though are not neutral (how can they be?) they are supported by facts. Below there are other links, updated daily in case you want to know how the news are unfolding, and share, of course.


English:

YouTube: Armed "Colectivos" (paramilitar groups supported by the government) kidnap a student in Maracay.  (Added Wednesday #19F)

Quartz: The pictures the Venezuelan government doesn't want people to see. (Added Wednesday #19F)

The Guardian: Venezuela: raid on Leopoldo López headquarters as Maduro cracks down. (Added Tuesday #18F). People then recorded this in a mall where the police chase down activists.

Caracas Chronicles: Torture, Rape and Ransom. (Added Monday #17F)

The Daily Beast: Is this the end of Huga Chavez's Venezuela. (Added Monday #17F)

Al-Jazeera: Venezuelan protest leader calls new rally. (Added Monday #17F)

The Huffington Post: Pictures: Venezuela See Two Students killed.

The Washington Post: Photos: Violence erupts amid anti-government protests in Venezuela.

BBC. Venezuela student protest ends in deadly violence.

USA Today: Twitter reports image blocking in Venezuela.

Bloomberg: Venezuelans blocked on Twitter as opposition protests mount.

US News: Venezuela's opposition braces for crackdown as blame traded for deadly protests.

News Australia: Tanks, tear gas used by security forces to break Venezuela protest.

Reuters: Anti-Maduro protestspersist in Venezuela, dozens jailed.

Al-Jazeera: Police fire tear gas at Caracas protesters

Español:

Últimas Noticias: Murió Génesis Carmona, modelo herida durante las protestas en Carabobo. (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

Venenews: Mensaje de Leopoldo López antes de entregarse. (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

YouTube: Colectivos armados secuestran estudiante en Maracay  (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

El Mundo: "Los militares me violaron con el cañón de un fusil." (Agregado Miércoles #19F)

El País: La Policía Política pone en aprietos a Maduro. (Agregado Martes #18F)

El Nacional: Comunicado de Unasur no es el mismo que leyó Jaua. (Agregado Martes #18F)

NTN24: Víctima de abuso de la GNB relata las violaciones a los DDHH a las que fue sometido. (Agregado Lunes #17F)

RTVE: Video: Capriles convoca una marcha por la paz. (Agregado Lunes #17F)

Últimas Noticias: Video Análisis de los disparos en la Candelaria el 12F. (Agregado Dom #16F. Excelente periodismo de investigación ¡Hay que verlo!)

 El País. Fotogalería de imágenes del #12F.

El País: La soledad de Venezuela. América Latina da la espalda a la violencia política, la censura y la criminalización de la protesta que se ha agudizado en el país.

Julio Jiménez Gelden: #BetaPolítico #ElInicio #12F. (Este análisis de la situación es de los más sensatos que he escuchado hasta ahora, must see!)

CNN: Elías Jaua en CNN Conclusiones.

BBC Mundo: En fotos: Jornada de marchas en contra y a favor del gobierno en Venezuela.

Roberto Mata Instagram: Corto testimonio del padre de Roberto Redman.

Français:

AFP: Venezuela: les étudiants toujours mobilisés, avant les partisans du pouvoir samedi.

Le Nouvel Observateur. Les manifestations continuent au Venezuela.

Les Voix Du Monde. Venezuela: silence médiatique au pays de la révolution bolivarienne.

Deutsch:

Spiegel Online. Tote bei Protesten in Caracas.

DW: Drei Toten bei Krawallen in Venezuela.


***LATEST UPDATE***

The night of the 19th of February was the most violent one that had happened in my country in decades. The military, the police and the paramilitary ("colectivos") went out to the streets to persecute, assassinate, and intimidate the Venezuelans. As the blog Caracas Chronicles says (first link) "this is no war zone: in a war zone you have two sides shooting at each other. Tonight one side is doing all the shooting, the other side is doing all the being shot at."


Have a look for yourselves, more recent articles are on top and with an asterisk the articles and videos you really really should read/watch:

English:

The Independent: The left has a blid spot on Venezuela. When will it acknowledge that Chavez's socialist dream has turned into a nightmare

Channel 4: Is Venezuela burning while the world watches Ukraine? 

USA Today: Voices: where are the diplomats to help Latin America? Unlike in Ukraine, there's little hope Venezuela's neighbors will intercede in an effort to quell violence.

Motherboard / Vice: Not satisfied with blocking Twitter and TV, Venezuela shut off the Internet.

ABC: Internet a crucial Venezuela battleground 

BBC: Venezuela revokes 'acreditations and visas' of CNN journalists 

BBC: Venezuela threatens to expel CNN over protest coverage

Caracas Chronicles (must read!) 19F The night Venezuela finally imploded

Slate: Venezuela Erupts in Violence. The Venezuelan president appears to have ordered a national crackdown on protesters.

Buzzfeed: CNN journalist robbed at gunpoint in Venezuela

NPR: In Venezuela, Another Beauty Queen's Death Adds To Anger 

Buzzfeed: 29 disheartening imagesabout what's happening in Venezuela 


Español:

YouTube: Comunicado del Movimiento Estudiantil (2014)

NTN24 (Colombia): Video: Así se enfrenta la GNB con gases lacrimógenos y tanquetas a los manifestantes en San Diego  

DW (Alemania): DW es también obstaculizada en su labor periodística

Clarín (Argentina): Los días en que la calle pisoteó el carisma

El Nacional (Vzla): Una operación para el horror.
El País (España): El gobierno de Venezuela militariza el Estado Táchira.


And these are the videos recorded by people on the streets:


You Tube: Tupamaros en El Marqués (video)  ("Tupamaros" paramilitary in El Marqués neighborhood).

You Tube: Caracas 19F GNB dispara a civil en La Candelaria (Military shot dead a man in La Candelaria, Caracas city centre).

You Tube: Violencia en Chacao (video) (Violence in Chacao)

You Tube: Guardias Nacionales matan a joven en Avenida Panteón (video) (Military kill a man in Av. Panteón)