Darla Teagarden's Tales Of Blood and Glitter...

Nice Stems

2012-01-29T08:18:00.001-08:00

You know... seeing this again made me realize how I think of McQueen's work ( an all encompassing word for what he did).

His clothes are an extension of a person. It makes them ...More. Stronger. Clearer. Animated..Beautiful prosthetics.

From here on out though, without him here, his label's new creations can only be lovely clothes.

“And you know, the fact is, nobody knew that they were prosthetic legs. They were the star of the show - these wooden boots peeking out from under this raffia dress - but in fact, they were actually legs made for me.”
Aimee Mullins, on her look in the Alexander McQueen S/S 1999 show.

Delight of unpleasant recollections...

2012-01-28T07:22:00.000-08:00

"Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections."
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

The Polar Prophet

2012-01-27T15:17:00.000-08:00

I've been obsessing about this story. I have dreams about them. Some good, most pretty scary. I suppose it captures my imagination simply because I can't imagine doing what they did, when they did it and for how long they did it. It astounds me really. So I'll summarize, in case you don't know it....

Adolphus Greely watched his parents wither away from the unrelenting grime of an old Massachusetts mill town. He wanted to get as far away as he could as soon as he could. The country found itself in the midst of a bloody civil war and a 17 year old Greely after being rejected twice was finally awarded his opportunity. He had achieved the rank of brevet Major by the end of the Civil War then joined the regular Army in 1866 as a Second Lieutenant of Infantry; in 1873, Greely was promoted to First Lieutenant.

So many lost their lives in the blood soaked fields, yet soon after surviving, Greely found war was merely a warm up.
He was offered a job.

His purpose was to establish one of a chain of meteorological-observation stations as part of the First International Polar Year.. a scientific mission and a challenge to seek limits of the known world.

In 1881, First Lieutenant Greely was given command of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition on the ship Proteus.

Destiny.

After an unusually pleasant trip, the U.S. Army left Greely and his crew of 24 men to travel the miles along the coast of northwest Greenland. The expedition also crossed Ellesmere Island from east to west and crew members Lt. James B. Lockwood and David L. Brainard achieved a new "farthest north" record of 83°23'8". ( taking away the record from England).

Two relief parties failed to reach Greely's party encamped at Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island.

First one year...then another... and another

( Fort Conger where all the men had to live)

( Newspaper they made amongst themselves)

The army abandoned their men.

Yet Greely's wife, Henrietta, was persistent. After many cold and often nonexistent responses to her plea on behalf of her husband and crew , Capt. Winfield Scott Schley, the USRC Bear, a former whaler built in Greenock, Scotland, was sent to rescue the Greely party.-- an astounding THREE YEARS LATER in 1884.

Only six men survived, including Greenly at the desolate Cape Sabine. The others had died of starvation, drowning, and hypothermia, except for one member who was executed on Greely’s orders for insubordination ( i.e. stealing food) . Their suffering and friendships therein were monumental and incomprehensible.

( The scene at Cape Sabine at time of rescue. They were about 48 hours away from death in a flooded tent. Two members were straining water into a tin can. One man was living with no limbs... Greely was found on his hands and knees in a dressing gown... corpses were strewn around the tent's perimeter. The poor fellow with limbs lost to frostbite died en route home. )

Even though Greenly and crew were abandoned by the Army who'd sent them, had painstakingly recorded thousands of hours worth of priceless data ( on the hour) , achieved ''farthest north'' AND survived three years of 40 below- 6 months of no sun every year in brutal storms and starvation......Despite a moment of being hailed heroes by the masses, rumors of cannibalism were being perpetuated by the Army. The Army wanted to make sure that after the celebrations died down, the heat would remain off of their organization and onto the living rescued men.

They were successful as the rumor finally sullied the expedition's achievements soon after their return.

( Greely Expedition Survivors.... they'd ...seeeen things)

Strips of flesh were cut away from some of the corpses found at Cape Sabine, the harsh bit of land where they were found. Greely swore he didn't know who was responsible. The last days were a sickening and painful distortion of reality. There was no lucidly. No monitoring the lives surrounding them in thier advanced state of delirium and profound weakness from years of miniscule rations.

Upon returning home and years that followed, Greely dutifully tried his best to assist the descendants of the fallen crew members. He stayed close to the remaining men, finally moving away from the limelight with his dear wife and rescuer, Henrietta. He received the Medal of Honor in 1935.

Greely lived to age 91 and is buried next to Henrietta and fellow crew at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Polar Climate Data he dutifully collected is now being used by scientists as proof of climate changes- the effects of global warming.

Pale Fire ...

2012-01-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

Winter - Wilhelm Kray

Thierry Mugler

Lily Cole

''Evelynn'' by darla teagarden

.Heartbreaking mugshot from the New South Wales Department of Prisons

1940to1949--Pachucas

Rafael de Penagos

Bianca Cassidy

Virgin of Paste - Steven Arnold

Secrets of the East (G 1928. Dir Alexandre Volkoff

Everett Shinn - 1912 Vaudeville Dancer
via soyouthinkyoucansee

Magic. Magic...

2012-01-09T18:35:00.001-08:00

Jacques-Henri Lartigue - Bibi, 1921

My Mucha by Emil Schildt

Diego de Saavedra Fajardo - Idea de vn principe politico christiano (1640).

Joseph Desiré Court, Scene of Deluge

The Astrologers, Paul Rumsey

In case you look at my blog but haven't seen my site... HERE
Thanks.

3 images by Darla Teagarden " Wish and Sabbath"

Seven Secret Signs

2012-01-01T10:10:00.001-08:00

Sorcerer's Hand

"This is the hand of the philosophers with their seven secret signs to which the ancient sages were bound. The thumb: Just as the thumb powerfully closes the hand, so does saltpetre do in art. The index finger: Next to salpetre vitriol is the strongest salt. It penetrates all metals. the middle finger Sal ammoniac shines through all metals. The ring or gold finger: alum gleams through the metals It has a wonderful natire of subtle Spiritus. The ear finger: common salt is the key to art. The palm: the fish is Mercury, the fire Sulphur" J. I. Hollandus, Chymische Schriften, Vienna 1773" Illustration in The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob. Köln ; New York: Taschen, c2001. QD25 .R58712 2001 via crossett library

This is my brain and this is my brain on NYE...

2011-12-31T13:26:00.000-08:00

I have a guest coming for shots of whiskey --someone to summarize (and naturally analyze) the events of 2011. I tend to be somewhat superstitious about NYE. I don't like to make a big deal of it because I'm half afraid it will wake or alert some asshole NYE gremlin that will lodge itself in my cogs throughout 2012. These gremlins apparently sleep through humble reflection. This is silly, but this is my brain and this is my brain on NYE. So you all have your big lovely event, and I'll have my little one and may none of us have NYE gremlins of any kind. Hold on tightly... this is an interesting time. Here we go.....

Parisian Proto-Goth Beauties, 1910

Cheers !
Darla Teagarden

The Dark Star...

2011-12-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

The agitating and agitated Polaire! The tiny slip of a woman that you know, with the waist slender to the point of pain, of screaming out loud, of breaking in two, in a spasmically tight bodice, the prettiest slimness … And, under the aureole of an extravagant masher’s hat, orange and plumed with iris leaves, the great voracious mouth, the immense black eyes, ringed, bruised, discoloured, the incandescence of her pupils, the bewildered nocturnal hair, the phosphorus, the sulphur, the red pepper of that ghoulish, Salome-like face, the agitating and agitated Polaire!
What a devilish mimic, what a coffee-mill and what a belly-dancer! Yellow skirt tucked high, gloved in open-work stockings, Polaire skips, flutters, wriggles, arches from the hips, the back, the belly, mimes every kind of shock, twists, coils, rears, twirls…trembling like a stuck wasp, miaows, faints to what music and what words! The house, frozen with stupor, forgets to applaud.
-Jean Lorrain

Polaire!

For the love of Maurice...

2011-12-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

“I have been doodling with ink and watercolor on paper all my life. It's my way of stirring up my imagination to see what I find hidden in my head. I call the results dream pictures, fantasy sketches, and even brain-sharpening exercises.”
Buy his new book. I know I will

Me and my pig bella pepperpot today in our yard...

Should I laugh or cry in the garden of Tuileries?

2011-12-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

Doña Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox de Guzmán Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick was born on 5 May 1826, in Granada, Spain.
Hunting bodice worn by Empress Eugénie de Montijo, 1853-70, Musée de la Vénerie-via old rags

Eugenia variously used the titles of Countess of Teba or Countess of Montijo. While in London she was introduced to Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (20 April 1808 - 9 January 1873). He was the son of Hortense Eugénie Cécile Bonaparte Beauharnais, Queen Consort of Holland (10 April 1783 - 5 October 1837) and Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, King of Holland (2 September 1778 - 25 July 1846). When the new President of the Second Republic held balls at the Elysée Palace, Eugenia appeared with her mother and met the Prince President, Louis Napoléon.

According to The Life of an Empress (Eugénie de Montijo) by Frédéric Louee Madame de Montijo wrote to Marquis de Rochelambert, "I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Many mothers who to-day envy me could not explain the cause of my tears. Eugénie is about to become Queen of France, but I cannot help thinking that queens know but little joy. Do what I may, I am obsessed by the recollection of Marie Antoinette, and I ask myself in dread if my poor child will not some day meet with a similar fate."

Napoleon III's Wedding to Eugenie

In a speech from the throne on 22 January 1853, Napoléon III formally announced his engagement, saying, "I have preferred a woman whom I love and respect to a woman unknown to me, with whom an alliance would have had advantages mixed with sacrifices." Eugénie and Napoléon III were married on Saturday, 30 January 1853, at the Tuileries. On the next day, Sunday, in a religious ceremony, at Notre Dame. She became, Her Imperial Majesty The Empress of the French. Known in France as Eugénie de Montijo.

Eugénie de Montijo
Photographed by Emmanuel Flamant of Paris
( via ( OVO)

Eugénie de Montijo, the last Empress of the French died aged 94...

( text source Ann Lauren

Walk with me...

2011-12-28T16:31:00.000-08:00

Show me the place...

2011-12-28T14:03:00.001-08:00

чернил подземных

2011-12-28T06:37:00.000-08:00

A few months back I posted images from 1905-1906 Russian revolutionary periodicals that I found at Yale University’s digital library. Recently I (accidentally) came across a related book called Blood and Laughter: Caricatures from the 1905 Revolution that contains more illustrations of the 1905-1906 Russian underground press.
- The Assemblymen.( via Michael Walker)

More clearly than any party resolution or government proclamation, the caricatures of 1905 tell the story of that heroic failure – and they are a symptom of that failure too…they chronicle with incredible vividness that moment of the transition from Tsarist despotism to Bolshevik revolution." -by Cathy Porter

Your eyes are getting heavy...

2011-12-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

Be safe, warm and happy this holiday...

2011-12-23T08:54:00.001-08:00

Lobby Tree, Hobby Tree

2011-12-20T05:38:00.000-08:00

JOEL MEYEROWITZ
Spinning Christmas Tree, New York City, 1977

Madrid

NAPOLEONIC Vestiges

2011-12-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

‘Photographs of veterans of Napoleon’s Grande Armée and the Guard wearing their original uniforms and insignia. Likely date May 5, 1858 – all are wearing the Saint Helene medal, issued on August 12, 1857 to all veterans of the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. May 5 – the anniversary of the death of Napoleon. Every year on that date veterans gathered in Paris:

‘‘The base and railings of the column of the Place Vendôme appear this day decked out with the annual offerings to the memory of the man whose statue adorns the summit. The display of garlands of immortelles, and other tributes of the kind, is greater than usual… the old soldiers of the Empire performed their usual homage yesterday at the same place.’

Times - May, 1855‘

- Brown University Library
via Retronaut

Pebble in the sand...

2011-12-15T06:03:00.000-08:00

MAD armored pebble outside, smooth and bright organic insides. Monumental.

Chinese architects MAD have sent us new images of a museum they completed earlier this year in the city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, in the Gobi desert.

Ordos Museum by MAD from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Beyond...

2011-12-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

Francesco Hayez
Il Consiglio alla Vendetta, 1851

The human heart has but one key and many tales...

2011-12-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

Tall, Dark and Krampus

2011-12-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

Come walk with me my helpless one...

2011-12-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

'Conjure in the rose garden' by darla teagarden.

Take Current...

2011-12-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

Australian artist, Helen Pynor

Not Waving but Drowning
BY STEVIE SMITH
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

via street anatomy

Neville's Glass

2011-12-01T18:39:00.000-08:00

A Scottish adventurer, inventor, and photographer named Neville Colmore claimed to have constructed a device capable of "...parting the veil of Faery...". The device, which he called the "Spectobarathrum", produced beautiful photo graphic plates he called "fatagravures", through a now lost process. The original "Spectobarathrum" along with all of the images he claimed to have made were believed destroyed in a fire.

Because of my background in anthropology, archaeology, digital imaging, art, Scottish history and as board member of the Traprock Society, I have been asked to examine these materials. I am fortunate enough to have received permission to share some of my preliminary findings here. The current caretaker of these treasures wishes to remain anonymous.

These astonishing images should not be confused with the later, more familiar, Cottingley garden fairy photos on which the 1998 film "Fairy Tale - A True Story" was based. The Cottingley photographs were published around 1918. His were first made public in the 1890's. They were presented in scientific lectures and by and large ignored. The Cottingley girls had a literary champion in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and they were cute little English girls. He was a cantankerous Scots scientist with a thick Border accent and was consider quite mad by the majority of his peers in the United Kingdom. Colmore was very bitter about the attention they received.

He was convinced that the Cottingley images were hoaxes and felt they received far more attention than they warranted due to the fame of A. Conan Doyle and the cloying sweetness of the girls. However, when the popularity of the Cottingley images surged, he did manage to enlist his own literary and scientific champion, the famed American explorer and author, Walter Traprock. He was best known for the popular accounts of his scientific expeditions published in the 1920's, Cruise of the Kawa, Sarah of the Sahara and My Northern Exposure.

Traprock had connections with George Chapell and through him the Algonquin Roundtable. Colmore had high hopes for wide exposure and lecture tours in America. Where he would not face the real or perceived snubbing that greeted his presentations in Britain. Dr. Traprock predicted that "...all New York will be mad for fairies! " They hoped to publish a book on elucidating his research and scientific theories about the existence of the world of Faery and presenting his astounding fatagravures in published form for the very first time.

Tragically the fire that was believed to have destroyed all of his materials occured before their collaboration came to any fruition. However, I believe that some of the material that I have been asked to examine may have been part of Traprock's estate that was never published due to the controversies and accusations of fakery that arose around Traprock's earlier books. Prior to his death, Colmore did not give any public indication that he knew of anything surviving the fire.

SEE The Colmore Fatagravures HERE
Via Form Is Void

Deep in the wonderful odd...

2011-12-01T16:37:00.000-08:00

Mound by Allison Schulnik from garaco taco on Vimeo.

Mano a Mano

2011-12-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

Ghost at will ...

2011-11-28T18:52:00.001-08:00

Japan
Edo period, around AD 1844

From a tenth-century legend

Princess Takiyasha was the daughter of the provincial warlord Taira no Masakado who tried to set up an 'Eastern Court' in Shimōsa Province in competition with the emperor in Kyoto. However, his rebellion was put down in AD 939 and Masakado was killed. After his death, Princess Takiyasha continued living in the ruined palace of Sōma.

This print shows the episode from the legend when the emperor's official, ōya no Mitsukuni, comes to search for surviving conspirators. The princess is reciting a spell written on a handscroll. She summons up a giant skeleton which comes rearing out of a terrifying black void, crashing its way through the tattered palace blinds with its bony fingers to menace Mitsukuni and his companion.

Kuniyoshi, the artist, probably referred to an illustration in his collection of western prints to produce this grinning skeleton in all its accuracy of detail.

The legend was also the theme of a Kabuki play. At the time that this print was made the Tempō Reforms had made it illegal to depict Kabuki actors and theatre scenes in woodblock prints, so Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) may have produced this 'historical' version of the story in order to get round the law. Kuniyoshi often used the triptych format (three prints forming a single composition) to dramatic effect, spreading large forms across all three sheets.

L. Smith, V. Harris and T. Clark, Japanese art: masterpieces in (London, The British Museum Press, 1990)
via http://www.britishmuseum.org/

Baby/Birds

2011-11-27T07:02:00.000-08:00

Ugly Renaissance Babies

Bird Houses

Bear This Rarefied Weight

2011-11-26T09:12:00.000-08:00

... each grave of a skeleton dancing, connected by a profusion of ivy leaves which appear in the middle of four small skulls with diamond eyes measuring approximately 17 inches. Two of them, at the ends of the collar, give the illusion of a Pierrot collar with his sheet. Gold, diamonds, rock crystal intaglio. Codognato Private Collection. On exhibition in Paris at the Musee Maillol, “C’est la vie! Vanites – De Pompei a Damien Hirst” from February 3 to June 28, 2010. Also shown on page 131 in the book by the same name. Circa 1940.

The shapeless rooms ...

2011-11-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

The shapeless rooms
of your bird-heart are papered
with reams of Courageous Ache
-<3 d

Installation by Chloë Wojewoda.

Honey Hush

2011-11-23T07:28:00.001-08:00

Well, thank you.

2011-11-22T20:42:00.000-08:00

Imma be gone way past November....

2011-11-21T18:38:00.000-08:00

John Atkinson Grimshaw, November

Dior...

LA Public Library’s 1928 bookmobile for the sick.

Imma be gone way past November,
even stay up there, up there, floatin', Floatin', hopin'
I will find peace somewhere.

Joy is a net...

2011-11-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

September Morn

2011-09-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

Best Served Cold.....

2011-06-04T08:41:00.001-07:00

On a regular June day....

2011-06-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

I Vant....

2011-05-28T07:26:00.001-07:00

angelica paez

Make good things...

2011-05-25T15:09:00.001-07:00

A Perfect Vacuum...

2011-05-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

Fall with her cages... by darla teagarden

For Grace, After A Party by Frank O’Hara

HAMISH BOWLES. He has a tartan cape and you don't.

Tribes people, Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea. “I was shooting in Papua New Guinea for the BBC’s landmark documentary Human Planet. I randomly met these guys in the forest near a local singsing ritual. We couldn’t understand each other, and I don’t know anything about them, who they are, or where they came from…”

Photograph: Timothy Allen

(Source: Guardian)

by darla teagarden

----------------------------------

the most violent of sunsets,
stars as fat as dinner plates,
and all the blood of autumn.
—Toni Morrison, Beloved

Engrave

2011-04-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Engravings by Albin Brunovsky
Title: e. e. cummings

Photo by Charles Grogg

2011-04-23T16:50:00.000-07:00

Art /Medicine @ Mori Art Museum in Tokyo

2011-04-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

Maruyama Okyo, Skeleton Performing Zazen on Waves, c.1787 (Daijoji Temple, Hyogo, Japan)

The second section, Fighting Against Death and Disease covers the way people have tried to fight against death and disease through the ages. In addition to presenting the history of medicine, pharmaceuticals, artificial limbs and organs, life sciences and scientific technology, this section poses philosophical questions about the nature of life and death with the various memento mori works.

Kamata Keishu, Surgery for Breast Cancer, 1851. Credit: Wellcome Library, London

In 1851, Kamata Keishu compiled a ten-volume medical treatise called Geka kihai in which he described and illustrated the surgical techniques pioneered by his teacher, surgeon, Hanaoka Seishu. The illustration above shows the excision of a cancerous growth from a woman's breast, an operation which Hanaoka Seishu first carried out in 1804 using general anesthetic.

Iron model of the joints in a human skeleton, Italy, 1570-1700. Credit: Science Museum, London

This 30-cm tall, fully articulated iron manikin is thought to have been used at mediacal schools during the 16th and 17th centuries for demonstrating the structure of joints and for teaching joint-related how to treat joint-related diseases.

Ernst Pohl, Omniskop X-ray apparatus, 1910. Science Museum, London

In the early 1920's, Ernst Pohl created the ground-breaking Omniscope. This X-ray machine could be rotated completely around the patient which greatly enhanced the diagnostic and therapeutic potential. By the end of World War II, around 400 units had been manufactured and delivered throughout Europe, the USA, Japan and the Soviet Union...

Custom built iron lung, Cardiff, Wales, 1941-1950
The picture above shows the ancestor of respiratory nasal masks. The patient with respiratory problems was encased in the wooden box up to their neck. The air pressure inside the box was alternated by operating the giant leather bellows. This caused the lungs to inflate and deflate so the person could breathe. During black outs or period of unstable electrical power supply, nurses were said o have operated it by pushing the bellows with their hands.

'Prosthetics, anatomical drawings by Michelangelo, an ornate amputation saw from ca. 1650, disturbing prints by Patricia Piccinini, diagrams by René Descartes, Tibetan anatomical figures, a painting by Damien Hirst, etc. Some 150 medical artifacts from the Wellcome Collection in London and works of old Japanese and contemporary art are exhibited side by side. Without any hierarchy nor anxiety. Each and everyone of them offers the most seducing spectacle about life.'

via { feuilleton }

Apollo's Angel

2011-04-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading APOLLO'S ANGELS: A HISTORY OF BALLET by Jennifer Homans.

When I tell someone, they glaze over a bit because Ballet of course has a reputation for um..a kind of staid quality.. In the beginning portions of this book it is clear the author (an ex-ballerina) is going to lay some heavy details on the reader. Homans cannot and should not go around these details ( the monotonous ins and outs of french court life and it's rules, both artistic and political WITH vintage diagrams) because obviously they paint a larger picture.
The book's title hails from the early French court performances in which Kings and later, professional men dramatically ( and literally) likened themselves to the God Apollo. In essence, ballet afforded these ''french gods'' a way to express their privilege and divinity to the masses.

Gratefully homans soon discuses the Iconic Ballerina, whom in the beginning phases of ballet were prohibited since any important court ritual was taken solely by men. Woman's bodies moving and expressing virtuosity was too much to withstand for the time. When the female ballet figure did come along, it folded in the essential ingredients for what would become modern classical ballet. Sex, Grace, Mystery, emotion AND virtuosity. Not to say men cannot imbue those elements, but the ballerina would secure it's place within the art. ( partly due to obvious character restrictions on females... partly due to obvious biological advantages).

I was intrigued to learn per usual, the tastiest part of any art form mimics ( in this case quite literally) the street. There is too much to reiterate , but to put it plainly, the first ballerinas of note Marie Sallé ( French) and Carmargo ( Italian/Spanish) turned the french noble style into a distinctly feminine direction with a contemporary taste for eroticism. Interesting too, Ballet is a tradition who's rules and styles are primarily passed down through word of mouth, due to it's lack of text to support Ballet's many shifts and progressions.

I learned (To no surprise) early female ballet dancers were often also esteemed courtesans. .....While not exactly what we generally accept as 'femisism', it did afford them financial , moral ( often corporal) freedom from their husbands and parents since their employ fell under the king. Unprecedented female Independence.

Still, choosing an unorthodox path, the successful ballerina had to be cunning, beautiful, artistically talented and lucky to travel from one end of her life to the other without financial and social ruin. Which makes my favorite example Marie Sallé .....born in 1707.

Despite Marie Sallé's great beauty, she boldly refused the courtesan route... Voltaire once called her " the cruel prude" :) She hailed from a ''lowly'' social position in France as a fairground performer and rose to prestige ( In London) by proving dance could express essential human truths at times better than the printed word. She tossed aside masks and requisite court clothing of the time ( masks and hoop skirts), dressing plainly ( but revealing) in draped chiffon. , .

She hiked up her dress ( gasp !) to reveal her ankle , showcasing fine and fancy foot work ( oh the cheek on that girl!!). She was the first to instinctively meld sex and ballet. With unconventional virtuosity, she displayed great emotion, which for the time was stark and disarming. She used natural gesture to add sugar to sometimes unpalatable court artifice and structure.

After a long, successful career Marie Sallé returned to Paris and lived a quiet life with an Englishwoman named Rebbecca Wick, to whom upon her death in 1756, left all her worldly possessions.

Below are some sculpture I found online in her likeness at a French estate ... they are so beautiful and mysterious and perfectly Marie in a way .. objet d'art .

For the Love of Magritte...

2011-04-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Our emotional relationship to elements and objects is a theme I think about often in my own work.

The Curse II (Malediction II) 1960

Claude Spaak commissioned Magritte to do the frist version of this painting, a simple but mystical painting of the sky. In 1951 Magritte used this a the basis for one of his murals that he painted on the ceiling at the Theatre Royal des Galeries Saint-Hubert adding only faint images of blue grelots (bells) to the sky.

The Tomb of the Wrestlers (Le Tombeau des Luteurs) 1960

This big rose painting is called The Tomb of the Wrestlers and was a commission by Magritte's lawyer and patron Harry Torczyner. "When there is a rose, and one is sensitive to it, one makes it as big as I did so that the rose appears to fill the room," he explains. The title, which Magritte took from a novel by French Symbolist writer Leon-Alinien Cladel, "Ompdrailles, le tombeau des luteurs" (1979), seems appropriate: like the rose, the fighters are something "grandiose," filling the tomb with their struggles.

Sixteenth of September (Le Seize Septembre) 1956, 23.6 x 19.7 in. / 60 x 50 cm

Trees are a recurrent subject in his work. As Magritte stated: "Growing from the earth to the sun, a tree is an image of certain happiness. To perceive this image we must be immobile like the tree. When we are moving, it is the tree which becomes the spectator. It is witness, equally, in the shape of chairs, tables and doors, to the more or less agitated spectacle of our life. The tree, having become a coffin, disappears into the earth. And when it is transformed into fire, it vanishes into air."

Sheherazade 1950

One of first of many Sheherazade themes Magritte painted. Magritte probably based his ideas on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade." From Poe, "Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish, after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt."

Poe's tale is based on the legendary Persian queen, Scheherazade, the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights.

Perspective I: Madame Récamier by David (1951, 60x80cm) is the first "coffin" painting. During the late 1940s and early 1950s Magritte made a series of "Perspective" paintings based on well-known works by the French artists François Gérard, Jacques Louis David, and Édouard Manet, in which he substituted coffins for the figures represented in the original paintings. The composition of this work is almost identical to that of David's famous portrait of Madame Récamier, except that the seductive young sitter has been replaced by a coffin, with a cascading gown left as the only trace of her previous existence. Executed in Magritte's carefully detailed style, this irreverent rendition of the Neoclassical masterpiece is suffused with mordant wit.

Inspired by Clouds and Bells (Nuages et grelots) 1951
I made Sea Foam Bloom

A woman surrounded by the Magritte palette, listening for Magritte's bells.. a love, an idea, a sign?

2011-04-01T18:30:00.001-07:00

Robert Morgan - The Cat With Hands from James Burke on Vimeo.

Dichotomy

2011-03-27T06:42:00.001-07:00

All around you, swift, so swift...

2011-03-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

Bizet's Carmen Illustrations ...artist currently unknown to me

うんち・おならで例える原発解説

2011-03-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

A climbing moon upon an empty sky...

2011-03-16T08:14:00.001-07:00

...voluptuous field, knowing...

2011-03-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

Dubhlina: by Vladimir Clavijo

"She touched the edge of its voluptuous field, knowing it would be lovely beyond dreams simply to submit to it; that not gravity’s pull, laws of ballistics, feral ravening, promised more delight. She tested it, shivering: I am meant to remember. Each clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity, its fine chances for permanence. But then she wondered if the gemlike “clues” were only some kind of compensation. To make up for her having lost the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night."
— Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Chinese Vaudeville

2011-03-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

After the tap dancer and St. Mary's all-girl Chinese music orchestra, Harry Haw introduces a Chinese Bing Crosby and lets him have a go at it before giving him the gong. The fellow impersonating Bing is Sammee Tong, an actor, comedian, and singer who is remembered today only for his role as the houseboy in the 1950s television series Bachelor Father , and often cited in Multicultural and Ethnic Studies texts as an example of the demeaning and embarrassing Asian stereotypes perpetuated in American culture. But back in the 1940s, Sammee Tong was the master of ceremonies at Oakland herbalist Fong Wan's New Shanghai Cafe, where he was billed as "Chinatown's Playboy Songster". I've been unable to find any information about Sammee's career earlier than an uncredited role as a waiter in Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935). But since he was a San Francisco native, like Harry Haw, it's certainly possible that he was a member of Harry's Chinese revue.

Looked at today, the following clip from Stowaway is a very precious record of the ephemeral history of Chinese American vaudeville.

via http://softfilm.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five Ways...

2011-03-12T05:52:00.001-08:00

Photo showing Breton wearing a crown of thorns, originally used in the anti-Breton pamphlet, Un Cadavre (1930)

(via i12bent)

Five Ways To Kill A Man
by Andre Breton

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this
properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,
shaped and chased in a traditional way,
and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince, and a
castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
and some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
miles above your victim and dispose of him by
pressing one small switch. All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation’s scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways
to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat
is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

happy FAT tuesday

2011-03-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

video found by Cheyanne Oblivious

Martin Wittfooth

48” x 36”
Oil on panel
2010

Bewitched

2011-03-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

A young , beautiful Agnes Moorehead

The ''Givenchy of Rome'' Designer, Roberto Capucci

Giuliano Bekor

video via Lateefah Wright dolls

Happy Mardi Gras !

Cathedrals of Enriched Ash...

2011-03-05T07:02:00.000-08:00

When someone of great vision dies, especially in their prime, what do they leave behind ?

That was the theme of my dream last night. So many people in the last few months have had loved ones passing on. I suppose this sparked a somewhat literal but beautiful stack of images. Cathedrals of Enriched Ash, oddly biblical for me ;) yet apt, I think. These bodies of work, oral histories leave something swaying behind that we struggle keep substantial and upright through memory, mirroring, stoking and dreaming. We don't really stand in the middle of ghosts, we walk through tangible inherited landscapes, everyday.

Mark and Remember...

2011-02-28T15:53:00.001-08:00

http://www.darlateagarden.com/

mixed tape day...

2011-02-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

Ad idem...

2011-02-06T07:02:00.000-08:00

Edward Gorey - The Fatal Lozenge

Jónsi & Alex - “Daniell In The Sea” - from their album, Riceboy Sleeps

Jónsi & Alex - Daníell in the sea from Jónsi & Alex on Vimeo.

......easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike.. e.e. cummings

Early Week Mixed Tape

2011-02-01T16:49:00.001-08:00

Anon...

2011-01-30T18:55:00.000-08:00

Lillian Gish in The Scarlet Letter (1926, dir. Victor Sjöström)

Truls Espedal Robin Acrylic on canvas, 2010

Henriette Browne A Girl Writing Oil on canvas, 1860-1880

Geoff Charles Baby Owl at Oswestry Racecourse Shropshire, England, June 1957

Max Ernst “Loplop et la Belle Jardinière”

Victor Schrager House Wren From The Bird Hand Book

Roksana Mical

Bruce Davidson Girl With Bird in Cage From East 100th Street, 1966

Nature Morte aux Oiseaux by Tsuguharu-Léon and Foujita

Arthur Tress Mosque Agra, India, 1966

“Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast—
And half believe it true.”

— Lewis Carroll, “All in the Golden Afternoon”
From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

via liquidsky

What she said

2011-01-29T17:35:00.001-08:00

fantastic.

Mere Suggestions.

2011-01-29T14:06:00.000-08:00

I'd tell you my dream, but I don't remember...

2011-01-19T19:19:00.000-08:00

The Helpless Terrible

2011-01-15T05:52:00.000-08:00

Fear of the Inexplicable

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Come on....

2011-01-14T17:38:00.000-08:00

Wicked Pretty

2011-01-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

Oath Taking ...

2011-01-09T06:06:00.000-08:00

Ever Hungry

2011-01-08T06:35:00.000-08:00

Gypsy

Lagniappe

2011-01-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

darla teagarden-- the evening field

Jean LaBourdette

via shadowland
and

Evan B. Harris ..the crow's nest attic.

2011-01-02T17:58:00.000-08:00

Tendrils, Wire, Wales ,Driftwood, Fur, Worn Leather, Dark Hollers, Phantom love meets limbs
and the cold cold ground.

via,
my love for you is a stampede of horses

Grok, between shampoos

2011-01-02T06:04:00.000-08:00

impossible not to look

Lilith -John Collier

Buster

Man Makes the Beads of Life but Woman Must Thread Them - frances macnair

Ben Cauchi

dutch threads

odd fellow's motto

window display

Krivic , Slovenia

Julien Pacaud-

Madam Yevonde 1935

Shiseido, the Japanese cosmetics.. since-forever

Director Serge Gainsbourg shows Jane Birkin how to seduce
Joe Dallesandro on the set of Je t'aime moi non plus (1976)

caligula

Yevonde

Found and Lost

2011-01-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

Camil Tulcan

http://guyletatooer.com/

Know Hope ( street artist)

illustrator, Jen corace

nina leen

( ok.. the sloth/ cat combo was just cute so i had to toss it in)

Glenn Gould

bill brandt

il colpo di grazia

via
my love for you is a stampede of horses
and
girls in white dresses

New Skin...

2011-01-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

It's here..... it sounds so.... futuristic...

beyond 2001 means...beyond futuristic ( or past 1984 for that matter).

Anyway,
I read somewhere we grow new skin every 7 years.

Is this your year?

By the way,

my store is open.

for the first time online.

For you only I'll go to the post office.

Now that is true love.

yak yak yak...

2010-12-31T06:41:00.000-08:00

Many of my fellow americans feel you need to earn a glass of wine or a well prepared meal... Balls.
Give them to me now, and hard.

I intend to embrace my failures and successes with the same vigor !! Drunken, full bellied vigor
minus the outside world's yak yak yak.

love you.

HAPPY 2011..... dive in...

image via stag men's wear
and Tereza Vlckova

Warp and Woof

2010-12-29T08:14:00.000-08:00

Augustus Egg, Travelling Companions, 1862

François-Emile Barraud (1899-1934)

Philipp Ferdinand de Hamilton (1667 - 1750) - "Weiße gefleckte Rehe und ein Stachelschwein"

Anna Zinkeisen - "Portrait of Julia Heseltine"

"Rolla si Portia" by Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767-1849)

Doris Zinkeisen - "Peggy Woffington"

Tetsuya Ishida--''collection ''

Tetsuya Ishida (1973-2005)-a man cant fly anymore- 1996

"Kabuki Actor - The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro" by Katsukawa Shunso (1726-1792)

"Meeting in a café" by Constant Désiré Clety (1899-1955)

"Portrait of Madamoiselle Neviadomskaya" 1935

Joan Eardley- brass hair and wool

Joan Eardley (1921-1963) two children

the letter

Tracey Long

Ménilmontant is in many ways a striking film, and has been described as "a nearly perfect work" (Georges Sadoul, Le Cinéma Français, 1962). Its story is told entirely in images, without the use of explanatory intertitles; Kirsanoff was among the very rare filmmakers of the silent era to attempt this. The film makes use of techniques such as montage, hand-held camera, ultra-rapid montage, and superposition to achieve the elusive, transcendent quality of "photogénie" so sought after by the French impressionist film directors of the era. Ménilmontant, thus, comes closer to poetry than to narrative prose.

- David Badagnani

via
art in connu
and
adski_kafeteri

Pretty Angry Cake Feast and the Ebb and Flow of Chewy Trends

2010-12-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

( Bullwinkle Style)

----OR----

''The Servant Waits While I Masticate''.

I just have time for chew...uh, two today....

Smack, In my Monday's eye...

2010-12-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

Undergrowth

via puparo
and
shadowland
and Bero photo
and
bunnylicious

FALLING DOWN

2010-12-26T18:13:00.000-08:00

"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley 1925

Christmas Spector

2010-12-23T11:56:00.000-08:00

( Click play , then read)

I'm from the West Coast, so when I moved to New York many years ago ( I've since moved to central Texas) the snow became an important role in my christmas experience. Yes, I'd seen snow ... I'd played in it, sled down hills in Sierra Nevada as a kid, but snow in New York is different.

For one, in New York there's always people out in it... lots of people who have to be somewhere, fast. There is an energy . It's grey and smells smokey-sweet ( at times ;) from vendors roasting chestnuts on the corner. The snowy season there is somehow masculine, not like grandma's soft white powder in quaint old western towns like say, Virginia City.

So, when I was new to the city I walked around a lot by myself. I'd just gotten a job at a bar on 9th and C, and although I'd quickly met many new and interesting characters, I found myself alone on the street, christmas eve.. in the snow.. only this particular night ( probably due to the christmas eve thing :) it was quiet. I relished the loneliness, or rather, the aloneness- There was the melancholy city glam of fat colored lights in tiny windows, black fire escapes, pizza places.... and an occasional dog walker in pajama bottoms and a heavy coat.

Finally, I made it back to St. Marks on the way home at about 1:00 am, when I heard a juke box.

It was my favorite holiday song sung by Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes which always reminded me of my mother with a " bubble" hair do and pink plastic x-mas trees all within the context of some Martin Scorsese film.

Perfect.

I slowed and looked in. Only, it wasn't a juke box, It was freaking Ronnie Spector on a tiny stage wearing a santa hat. The club was dark but for the red light shining down on her small frame and a handful of girls ( probably less) I recognized from the bar ( all wearing santa hats). I walked in until I was fully witnessing my own mini christmas freak out moment. I moved toward the stage and was greeted with warm smiles from everyone. They didn't say "join us" but they didn't have to.

I took off my winter hat and listened to the music feeling so grateful and strange. Shortly after beginning to sing Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" ( made famous by Brenda Lee) Ronnie took off her hat and plopped it on my head down over my eyes. I still have my Spector santa hat, and I still miss being near snow and the city during this time of year.

Lagomorpha

2010-12-22T11:34:00.001-08:00

We love rabbits.

They are the symbol of vulnerability and childhood. We like to see them vicious because, thats funny. We like to see them alert, because we hope to see things coming just as readily. We wear their likeness over our own faces because we want to dominate with sweetness. We like to see them skinned, because, thats life on the farm, ultimate reality. We like to see them fly, change color, be sexy ( ultimate fertile myrtle.....resurrection and renewal ) , do the 1000 yard stare, drip with creepiness, smoke pipes, show us the way, because they have an innate transparency that allows magic in all directions.

via various
and bunnylicious

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE

Cruel and Unusual

2010-12-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

julian callos..

( genius)

via Всякие Кискачи
and
traveling with the ghost

Our Zeitgeist, sad and beautiful...

2010-12-21T10:44:00.001-08:00

Happy 1st day of Winter.....

The number one '' looked up' word for the year 2010 on Merriam -Webster's online dictionary tool is...

austerity.

Definition of AUSTERITY

1
: the quality or state of being austere
2
a : an austere act, manner, or attitude
b : an ascetic practice
3
: enforced or extreme economy

runners up,

Moratorium and Shellac

hmm.

Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Chat au Clair de Lune, c. 1900

Winter, 1945 by Andrew Wyeth
"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape — the loneliness of it — the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show-Andrew Wyeth

Winter Is Coming Dear Riding Hood by Daria Kudla

Napolina and the Winter Arrows by Darla Teagarden

Archer Napolina and Her Snow Chariot Roosters...

Emily Dickinson

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —

None may teach it — Any —
’Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —

When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —

Movie Posters Are Still Beautiful....

2010-12-20T19:09:00.000-08:00

Posters by La Boca for movie Black Swan....

via Angie Mason via BOOOOOOOM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anna Pavlovna (Matveïevna) Pavlova

for you ? a special price...

2010-12-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Women and irony is still a taboo theme, just as woman and humor is. The price
for this is not being taken seriously, to a large extent. ~ Birgit Jürgenssen (1949-2003)

art by Birgit Jürgenssen

----------------------------------

Don't hide whats inside...

We Are All Real Imagined...

2010-12-18T07:38:00.000-08:00

via the loneliness of the stagnant
and
weimar

Wolf made of rabbit...

2010-12-17T13:19:00.000-08:00

lauren wk
via
vi.sualize.us

The Masks of Władysław Teodor

2010-12-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

Władysław Teodor "W.T." Benda (January 15, 1873, Poznań, Poland (Posen, German Empire) - November 30, 1948, Newark, New Jersey) was a Polish-American painter, illustrator, and designer.

The son of musician Jan Szymon Benda, and a nephew of the actress Helena Modrzejewska (known in the United States as Helena Modjeska), W.T. Benda studied art at the Krakow College of Technology and Art in his native Poland and at the School of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. He came to the United States at the very end of the 19th century, to visit his Aunt Helena, who then lived in California. He stayed, and moved to New York City in 1902, where he attended the Art Students League of New York and the William Merritt Chase School. While there, Benda studied under Robert Henri and Edward Penfield.

WT Benda with a Grotesque mask, accompanied by the dancer Margaret Severn with a lifelike mask.

Photography by Steichen, models wearing masks by WT Benda

via french sampler

For the 12 days of christmas......

2010-12-16T08:30:00.001-08:00

documenting 12 objects found in the stomach of Columbian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s escaped pet hippopotamus was illustrated by Dan Zettwoch..

via street anatomy