the horse's mouth

Iloilo Back In The Day.

Scenes from the past. Iloilo, Philippines.

Architorture: A New Series Presenting Eyesores From Around The World.

I have a special affinity for the subject of ugly buildings because I suffered through 5 years of Architecture school. Our professors tortured us by belittling our efforts, even going as far as using red pens to mark up our projects, and making students cry. So now it's time to put the shoe on the other foot and give the gurus of ugliness a taste of their own medicine.

Here we go. I present to you the latest eyesore (idea stolen from James Howard Kunstler) from everyone's favorite architect, Frank Gehry. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the Luma Arts Tower.

It majestically rises above Arles. Oh my, it's stunning and fits right in with the surrounding buildings creating a sense of calm.

Look at the detail, it's so serene and beautiful.

Yes, boys and girls, chaos and confusion are not confined to our streets they are reflected in our architorture.

Moo!

In An Era Devoid Of Depth Sometimes It's Good To Remind Ourselves Of Those Who Went Before.

Le Livre Vermeil de Montserrat par les Musiciens de Saint Julien et la Maîtrise de Radio France .

Aloha 'Oe. Rest In Peace, Bruce Brown.

Bruce Brown, Part One from The Surfer's Journal on Vimeo.

Bruce Brown, Part Two from The Surfer's Journal on Vimeo.

The legendary Bruce Brown, who made the classic surf film “The Endless Summer,” died on Sunday in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 80 years old. May he catch and ride many great waves in the celestial ocean.

"The Streets Of San Francisco." An Ed Lee Production. Today's Episode: The Face Of Crime.

If you live in San Francisco keep an eye out for these thieves. These scumbags broke into our building used the elevator as cover and made off with their ill-gotten booty.

Update: A new color photo from our neighbor who got a visit from los ladrones last night.

Insanity! How Much Did You Pay For That Watch?

How much is that Rolex in the window? 17.8 million dollars. Sir, you are insane!

Strange days.

"At the time that Newman gave the watch to James Cox, the watch was selling for about $200," Boutros noted. At today's selling price of $17.8 million, that's quite a return on investment." The insanity of our times! Holy cow, the rails have (really) come off the tracks. I think you could fund a soup kitchen or two instead. /end rant.

Food For Thought From Simon Whistler. (Linkage) (Video)

Simon provides insight into the issues of the day. Check out his 2 channels, Top Tenz and Visual Politik, for other interesting topics.

Today In (Pop) History. It Was Fifty Years Ago Today Sgt. Pepper Taught The Band To Play.

It was fifty years ago today
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile
So may I introduce to you
The act you've known for all these years
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

50 years ago, on June 1st, 1967, the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the US by the Beatles.
I was a little kid then, now I'm not. Man does time fly!

The idea for this post was stolen from Bowsprite. 

Facebook Free.

I'm not the only one who has walked away from social networks.

Self Driving Cars.

They're the way of the future. Nothing can stop this advancement. Haven't you seen Futurama, Joe? Everything is better in the future, buddy. What could go wrong?

Kids with bb guns shooting at the gyroscope on the roof, not going to happen. Kids are better behaved than they were when you were a kid, Joe. Thoughts like that never occur to them.

The roads are all perfect. What could go wrong? Joe, just drink the Kool-aid and stop questioning progress. According to Elon Musk, you'll be integrated with machines, like toasters so why not cars.

 

The Hollow Men - T.S. Elliot

The Hollow Men

By: T.S. Elliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

      A penny for the Old Guy

      I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

      II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

      III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

      IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

      V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Silicon Valley 1991.

Boy have things changed.
How many have the companies shown above have vanished from the face of the Earth? Most!

Is This Guy Going To Be The Next President Of The United States?

I went to Wharton. Did you?
It's the greatest, most stupendous business school in the world! Eat my shorts, Harvard.

Come on Joe, what do you know?
"Sometimes you have to get a little wild." - Donald Trump - "The Art Of The Deal"

If you asked me 2 months ago that there was even a chance that Donald Trump could become President, I would have said, "fuhgeddaboudit, you're smoking crack."
Then after a year of not reading him, by chance, I became reacquainted with Scott Adams.

His Master Persuader series is by far the best analysis of the Trump phenomenon that I've seen anywhere.
Scott has successfully hypnotised me into buying "The Art Of The Deal" and "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life." I also go out into the garden and peck for worms.

Thanks to Ole for inspiring me to return to blogging and touching this hot potato.

BaBa ZuLa

A clue!

Seascapes By Caspar David Friedrich.

The Monk By The Sea
Location: Alte Nationalgalerie
Dimensions: 3' 7" x 5' 8" (1.10 m x 1.72 m)
Created: 1808–1810 | Media: Oil paint

Sea Shore in Moonlight (Küste bei Mondschein)
Location: Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Dimensions: 134 × 169 cm.
Created: 1835–36. | Media: Oil paint.

Moonrise Over the Sea (Mondaufgang am Meer)
Location: Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
Dimensions: 55 × 71 cm.
Created: 1822 | Media: Oil paint

The Stages of Life (Die Lebensstufen)
Location: Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig
Dimensions: 72.5 cm × 94 cm (28.5 in × 37 in)
Created: 1835 | Media: Oil Paint

Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald, Swedish Pomerania, on the Baltic Sea. He was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. Friedrich is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension."

Feliç Sant Jordi!

Sant Jordi, màrtir d'una llegenda (note: use Google to translate this page from Catalan into English)

Sant Jordi, cavaller i màrtir, és l'heroi d'una gran gesta cavalleresca, que la veu popular universal situa a les terres allunyades i llegendàries de la Capadòcia, però que la tradició catalana creu esdevinguda als voltants de la vila de Montblanc.

Diuen que assolava els voltants de Montblanc un monstre ferotge i terrible, que posseïa les facultats de caminar, volar i nedar, i tenia l'alè pudent, fins el punt que des de molt lluny, amb les seves alenades envierinava l'aire, i produïa la mort de tots els qui el respiraven. Era l'estrall dels remats i de les gents i per tota aquella contrada regnava el terror més profund.

Les gents van pensar donar-li cada dia una persona que li serviria de presa, i així no faria estrall a tort i a dret. Van assejar el sistema i va donar bon resultat; el cas difícil fou trobar qui es sentís prou avorrit per deixar-se menjar voluntàriament pel monstre ferotge. Tot el veinat va concloure fer cada dia un sorteig entre tots els veïns de la vila, i aquell que destinés la sort seria lliurat a la fera. I així es va fer durant molt de temps, i el monstre se'n deiuria sentor satisfet, car va deixar de fer els estralls i malvestats que havia fer abans. 

Heus ací que un dia la sort va voler que fos la filla del rei la destinada a ser presa del monstre. La princesa era jove, gentil i gallarda com cap altra, i feia molt dol haver-la de donar a la bèstia. Ciutadans hi hagué que es van oferir a substituir-la, però el rei fou sever i inexorable, i amb el cor ple de dol va dir que tant era la seva filla com la de qualsevol dels seus súbdits. Així, el rei va avenir-se a que la princesa fos sacrificada.
La donzella va sortir de la ciutat tota sola i espantada, i va començar a caminar cap al cau del monstre. Mentre, tot el veinat, desconsolat i alicaigut, mirava des de la muralla com la princesa anava al sacrifici. 

Quan portava una estona caminant se li va presentar un jove cavaller, cavalcat en un cavall blanc, i amb una armadura tota daurada i lluent. La donzella, esborronada, li digué que fugís de pressa, puix que per allí rondava una fera que així que el veiés en faria xixina. El cavaller li digué que no temés, que no li havia de passar res, ni a ell ni a ella, per tal com ell havia vingut expressament per combatre el monstre, per matar-lo i alliberar del sacrifici a la princesa, com també a la ciutat de Montblanc del flagell que li representava el veïnatge d'aquell monstre.

Entre aquestes, la fera va presentar-se, amb gran horror de la donzella i amb gran goig del cavaller, que la va escometre i d'una llançada la va malferir. El cavaller, que era Sant Jordi, lligà la bèstia pel coll i la donà a la donzella perquè ella mateixa la portés a la ciutat. El monstre va seguir tot manso i estemordit a la princesa. Tot el poble de Montblanc, que havia presenciat la baralla des de les muralles ja esperava amb el braços oberts la donzella i el cavaller, i enmig de la plaça va esbravar el seu odi contra la fera, de la qual aviat no restà bocí. 

El rei volia casar la seva filla amb el forcívol cavaller, però Sant Jordi va replicar que no la mereixia; va dir que havia tingut una revelació divina sobre la necessitat urgent d'anar a combatre el drac ferotge i alliberar la donzella, i amb ella la ciutat de Montblanc. I així ho havia fet amb la protecció divina i per manament diví. Per tant, ell no havia fet res per ell mateix i no mereixia cap premi.

Aleshores, Sant Jordi desaparegué misteriosament, talment com havia aparegut.

Text extret del Costumari Català de Joan Amades.