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Here are the maximum 50 results for Diti:

1-5 *......if zero not listed

Iquitos

*Casa de Fierro……drinks mostly, wild piece of history

**Huasai Restaurant…..top for food w/ Ikiitu

* La riojanita iquitos.....traditional

**Ikiitu….excellente

*Blanquita…..local traditional

 

Santiago

*Bistro Viet…ok

***Baco……… simple wins

***Karai........... super higher end Japan-Peru

*Chipe Libre…drinks, food OK

**In Pasta…….solid real pasta

****Yum Cha….Tea Tasting Menu w/ food

**Olam……....over rated but tasty
 

Valpo

***Tres Peces…..#1 in Valpo by a long mile

*Fauna Restaurant…..for the views, food is fine

*La Concepcion ….great pisco sour rustica + view, food rich

*La Caperucita y El Lobo….fancy worthy vegan, + non-vegan too

*Restaurante Capri….old school cool

**San Carlos…..old school delux cool

 

Lima

*****Central………Epic

****Merito…………..Great

 

 

CHRISTMAS 2023

 

“”

 

Brooklyn Christmas Bird of the Year: Purple Sandpiper

 

Purple Sandpipers are reliably present at Christmastime each year on the wave-washed rocky waterfront of my Brooklyn neighborhood along the Verrazzano Narrows. They breed in the far north, and Brooklyn is their idea of south for the winter; they arrive around Thanksgiving and stay into the spring. It’s their tradition.

One of the few traditional wood barrel-aged soy sauce makers in Japan

https://youtu.be/5Lzr4Ntws-g?si=hPvv4OJBkVcakGD_
 

Bankers guide to art. 
 

this is obviously the corrupt condition art is produced

 

 

bought some english tea bags recently so now amazon is trying to double down by promoting this on my home page.

Saw everything, everywhere last night. 4 th row center. I didn't choose the seats. But I couldn't physically watch the movie from that angle. The panavision subtitles required swinging my head back and forth. The strobe effect cinemaphotography rattled me senseless, likewise the machine gunfire editing. Engaging characters but hated the sci-fi timeline and barely there story line. 

i guess its a pretty slight mrs maisel type show in a more traditional sitcom format but nice little comedic star turn for gemma arterton in the nick hornsby adapted funny woman. i remember reading years ago that arterton eschewed roles after awhile that were mostly about her looks (which are very looky) so stands to reason she would make something thats about an shopgirl turned actress trying to get jobs/roles not based solely on her looks. and sure set it in swinging london because who doesnt look good in mid sixties garb. a bit obvious but not bad.

https://solarmovie.pe/tv/watch-funny-woman-free-93124

ATLANTA (Feb. 18, 2023) — After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention. He has the full support of his family and his medical team. The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.

The Sight and Sound poll is now a major bellwether of critical opinion on cinema and this year’s edition (its eighth) is the largest ever, with 1,639 participating critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics each submitting their top ten ballot. What has risen up the ranks? What has fallen? Has 2012’s winner Vertigo held on to its title? Find out below.

Cubism and the Trompe l'Oeil tradition @ the met

someone in the building tossed a crock pot and a lodge enameled dutch oven both in very good condition and i was doing laundry at the right time to grab them. made a pot roast in one or the other yesterday. today its a breakfast sandwich.

Every country controls the airspace above it as well as the air space above adjacent international waters extending for 12 nautical miles out from the country's shore line.



The Rise of the Dairy Restaurant in New York City 
The proliferation of restaurants serving an Ashkenazic-style dairy cuisine in New York City after 1881 can be attributed to the unique historical confluence of events and ideas.
The historically unprecedented growth and concentration of a Jewish population provided a ready base of customers with a knowledge of, and taste for, Eastern European dairy dishes. Within a few years of their arrival, some of the immigrants and their children had amassed enough capital to go into business for themselves. The restaurant business was booming in New York and as everyone ate and cooked at home thet felt they had the skills to enter this field. Their clientele, in the aftermath of the meat strikes of 1902, were happy to avoid meat all together and trusted that their landsmen would handle the dairy and parve foodstuffs according to their commonsense understanding of Jewish dietary law---professional certification was unnecessary. The clientele was also spurred by an awareness of the vegetarian and pure-food movements. The health giving and ethical benefits of a dairy and vegetable-based diet were popularized in the Yiddish and American press. The model for their new dairy restaurant was readily found in the omnipresent American dairy lunchrooms. Here was a decor devoid of Old World associations and organized on the scientific principles of sanitation and food handling. Finally, between June and August of 1906, the 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘴 serialized a Yiddish-language translation by Abraham Cahan of Upton Sinclair's 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘑𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦---an exposé of the brutal and unsanitary conditions in the slaughter- and meat-packing houses of Chicago. Sinclair noted that his celebrity came about "not because the public cared anything about the workers [depicted in the book], but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef."
According to Marcus Eli Ravage it was the Romanians "who, out of a complex desire to serve his stomach and his faith, brought forth an institution which has now become universal in America---the dairy lunch-room---which, owing to the exigencies of religion, was originally just what it is called, a place where nothing but the most palatable dishes built out of milk and milk products were to be had, and where no morsel that had been in the vicinity of meat could be obtained for love or money." ["My Plunge into the Slums," in 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘦𝘳'𝘴, April 1917]
-- Ben Katchor / The Dairy Restaurant

Photo of busy Nassau Street looking south from Fulton Street in the financial district. March 3, 1926.

ordered 18 items from walmart a week ago. mostly foodstuffs. came in 7 different deliveries. the last just arrived. if you had bbq sauce in the raffle, you win!

best deal:

(3 Pack) Maille Dijon Originale Traditional Dijon Mustard, 7.5 OZ $6.42

usually costs about $4.50 for one at the supermarkets.

 

The giant hornet, along with other varieties of wasps, has traditionally been considered a delicacy in this rugged part of Japan. The grubs are often preserved in jars, pan-fried or steamed with rice to make a savory dish called hebo-gohan. The adults, which can be two inches long, are fried on skewers, stinger and all, until the carapace becomes light and crunchy. They leave a warming, tingling sensation when eaten.

Gamaret 2014, Parcelle le Rosy, Neuchatel AOC
bottle by Olivier Mosset
75cl / 13.8%vol
edition of 1140
published by Zurich Neuchatel Art-Express

think when i started watching soccer in earnest after the 2010 world cup i paid about $110 for my cable package which included and added sports package and hbo. that configuration would be approximately $145 now.

back then, fox aired two english games in the morning on saturday and sunday and two german games in the afternoon. goltv aired italian games in the morning and spanish games in the afternoon. espn had a game of the week (usually) on a monday afternoon. fox (with an assist from directv) aired every champions league game and europa league game and someone picked up the slack for the two english cup tournaments. 

now espn has the italian league rights and the english cups. they aired one free italian league game this morning at 630. all the other games are only available streaming at $5 or so extra dollars per month on espn+. 

turner bought the rights this year to the champions league. instead of airing all 146 matches as had fox/directv they are airing 47. the rest are only available via steaming at an additonal cost. too lazy to look it up.

nbc has had the rights to the english premier league and they do a good job and air usually 5 matches each weekend and the occasional midweek match but for the first few years on directv they aired all 18 games each week.

espn aired every match for the 2014 world cup. fox bought the rights and aired on 38 of the 64. surely the rest were available to stream at an additional cost.

this is all way too much to watch. i had cancelled the extra sports pack and lost access to spain & italy (at the time) & france though mostly because i didnt want to pay the extra $15 a month. lost the last five years of messi & barcelona in the process outside of the champions league. kind of a bummer but was overkill. 

now today there was an english cup final which i wasnt even aware of but espn only streamed it. theyre more interested in forcing viewers to pay for a service, steaming no less, than bring you a game of pretty high interest. kind of gross that increased interest in the game made it less accessible. and, of course, the leagues themselves are only interested in the highest bidder, not necessarily the best exposure.

/rant

STEVE DIBENEDETTO
Toasted with Everything
MARCH 22 - APRIL 22, 2018
OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2018, 6-8PM
Toasted with Everything will be Steve DiBenedetto's third solo exhibition at Derek Eller Gallery and for this occasion he has summoned a collection of vibrant mutants on canvas. Guided by a genuine belief in some alchemical ethos that paint can and should catalyze true transmutation, DiBenedetto paints with unique confidence. Through what he describes as "procedural painting", a form of generative art, these compositions are arrived at through deep disassociation, or "letting the paint decide". This state combined with DiBenedetto's practiced and battle-tested hand, allow for new and undiscovered forms to slink out of the primordial ooze of oil and pigment. 

 

Over the course of DiBenedetto's career he's established and tooled an iconic lexicon. Helicopters, Ferris wheels and octopuses played in prominent roles in his canon. In this newest group of paintings DiBenedetto has delved deeper into the etymology, forgoing his standard language for prehistoric guttural expression. Viewing these paintings is to engage in a free-associative translation where many words are conjured but none are pronounced. Eyeball! Vegetable! Spaceship! A Mayan monument constructed of trash bags full of spaghetti! These elusive pre-linguistic forms mesmerize and engage the viewer. Each painting has a monolithically sculptural quality and while the imagery meanders, everything is concretely held together as morphological figuration by seemingly cubist sub-structures. 

 

But long time fans can rest assured, it's still Steve being Steve. As always he's engaged in strenuous combat with the canvas. Every imaginable application of paint both reductive and additive is thrown at it, testing the limitations and elasticity of the material. Paintings here range from small to colossal in scale, but each is tackled with the same unwavering veracity. The collapse of counter culture's utopian promise remains at the forefront and while psychedelia still reverberates, the paranoid, post-hippy citations have assertively made way for the flame-flicked visions of a shaman's campfire. 

 

Steve DiBenedetto (b. 1958) has exhibited extensively including recent solo outings at Cherry and Martin (Los Angeles, CA), the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Ridgefield, CT) and Half Gallery (New York, NY). He has been included in museum exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY), MoMA PS1 (Long Island City, NY), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), Neuen Museum (Nurnberg, Germany), Kunstveren Museum Schloss Morsbroich (Leverkusen, Germany), Museum of Contemporary Art (Geneva, Switzerland) and others. His work is included in public collections such as Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY). DiBenedetto lives and works in New York. 

 

Derek Eller Gallery is located at 300 Broome Street between Eldridge Street and Forsyth Street. Hours are Wednesday-Sunday from 11am to 6pm and Tuesday by appointment. For further information please contact the gallery at 212.206.6411or visit www.derekeller.com

MICHELLE SEGRE 

DAWN OF THE LOONEY TUNE 

NOVEMBER 16 - DECEMBER 23, 2017 

OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2017, 6-8PM

Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to announce Dawn of the Looney Tune, an exhibition of recent sculpture by Michelle Segre.

 

Continuing her absurdist juxtapositions of materials, Segre's new body of work accumulates unexpected objects (rocks, organ pipe, bread, mirror, etc.) to form sculptural compositions. These sculptures are imbued with a carnivalesque energy that reflects the unpredictability of our times. The largest works in this exhibition are held together by yarn, thread, string and wire. For Segre, the linear quality as well as immediacy of these materials function like drawing, allowing her to render frenetic gestures on a large scale. These lines form complex structural webs which ensnare and hold the amalgamations together, cumulatively forming monumental masses.

 

In the titular work of the exhibition, bright orange yarn fills out a spiraled armature containing green and purple dish sponges; the framework is adorned with carrots in various stages of decay. These carrots will be replaced throughout the exhibition in a process Segre calls "feeding the sculpture". The idea of a work cannibalizing itself has persisted throughout her career. Imagery, subject matter, and older works by the artist are consistently reconfigured and then emerge as new mutations within her sculptures. These cycles mirror her continued interest and exploration of decomposition and renewal.

 

As well as manipulating and shaping materials in a traditional sense, Segre often creates scenarios for objects to transform themselves through processes of degeneration. In a group of sculptures here, cubed glass vessels serve as terrariums for the viewer to witness the lifespan of mold growing on loaves of bread. These loaves are perched atop neon aquarium gravel, which underscores their pet-like quality. Sealed and deprived of oxygen, mold will eventually die and come to rest in stasis as the final composition. Segre anthropomorphizes impermanent objects to highlight cycles of nature as they relate to our anxieties about the vulnerability of the human body. Here and throughout the exhibition, the seductive morbidity of organic decay is rendered in acid-colors and off-balanced gestures.

 

Michelle Segre lives and works in New York City. She has had recent solo exhibitions at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia PA and The University of Tennessee, Chattanooga TN. In 2017, her work was included in exhibitions at The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS, Ceysson and Benetiere, Luxembourg as well as others. She is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York. Segre is a past recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship. Dawn of the Looney Tunewill be Segre's seventh exhibition at Derek Eller Gallery.

 

Derek Eller Gallery is located at 300 Broome Street between Eldridge Street and Forsyth Street. Hours are Wednesday-Sunday from 11am to 6pm and Tuesday by appointment. For further information please contact the gallery at 212.206.6411or visit www.derekeller.com

Paul Soto, a talented LA dealer, tried to sell me a great Mark Rodrigues work for $40,000.00, comprised of wooden shelving units housing hundreds of bootleg Grateful Dead audio cassettes acquired from eBay. In doing so, he assured me that Mark was in the collections of dealer David Kordansky and artist Mark Grotjahn. I’m not casting aspersion on the dealer, but I think we’ve entered a new universe where dealers and market-star artists are the conferrers of value rather than your traditional collectors, if they still exist.

 

Published between 1930 and 1970, in close collaboration with Le Corbusier himself the eight volumes comprise a comprehensive record of the buildings, projects, sketchbooks, manifestos, drawings, and texts of one of the 20th century’s most influential architect.

Volumes 1-2, 4-7 edited by Willy Boesiger; Volume 1 co-edited by Oscar Stonorov, Volume 3 edited by Max Bill
Publisher: Les Éditions d’Architecture, Zurich
1708 pages

 

Warhol — who hobnobbed with both the marginal and the 1 percent — crossed paths with Donald Trump and his then wife, Ivana, in 1981 at a party for the infamous power broker Roy Cohn. Later, Andy discussed with Trump the possibility of doing paintings of Trump Tower. "I don't know why I did so many, I did eight," Andy noted in his diary on August 5. "In black and grey and silver which I thought would be so chic for the lobby. But it was a mistake to do so many, I think it confused them." He addressed another possibility further down the entry: "I think Trump's sort of cheap."

 

The deal fell through, but a few years later Warhol was invited to judge a cheerleading audition in the newly opened building. "I was supposed to be there at 12:00 but I took my time and went to church and finally moseyed over there around 2:00. This is because I still hate the Trumps because they never bought the paintings I did of the Trump Tower."

It's unlikely Trump has ever read the diaries, because he uncharacteristically never took offense. In fact, he quoted Warhol in two of his books (or his ghostwriters did), repeating the same aphorism in both: "Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art." What Trump will never understand is that while art was once Warhol's business, now, through his legacy, generous philanthropy has become his business.

 

ready to endorse legion. first ep was great but i wasnt sure if it would devolve into some rote marvel property. has managed to stary weird albeit aimless in a traditional plot sense. certainly worth a look. airs on fx.

Artist-in-Residence on Fire Island

The Fire Island National Seashore Artist-in-Residence Program honors the longstanding tradition of art in the national parks and on Fire Island by facilitating artists to create relevant place- and story-based work that brings a broader understanding of the unique elements that comprise Fire Island. The goals of this program are to provide creative and educational opportunities for artists of all disciplines to explore the qualities of the natural environment, culture, and/or history of Fire Island, and to support the mission of the NPS to promote the conservation and preservation of the park.

returning my air conditioner today. there was some high pitched rattle that had developed and it was within the 30 days that amazon would take it back so i swung into action. that primarily involved negotiating for an hour via chat to india in an effort to exchange for a new model at the same price (unclear at the moment if i was actually was successful) and procuring shipping labels, a box, bubble wrap and tape. i was worried about carrying the extra large box on the subway at near rush hour but was gifted with a near empty m train from home depot on 23rd st. 

but now im actively anxious as i await the doorbell as i have since i went out around 1130 when the ups truck arrived. i managed to slide the old a/c down to the ground floor and my new a/c was in the truck but the ups guy didnt want to take it until the truck was less encumbered. and i without dolly hadnt brought the 85 lb package to the truck nor was i interested in carrying away the new one. 

so i am at the mercy of the delivery guy. i assume he will attempt a delivery but im never sure he wont forget or fail in some way. also, i left the a/c by the door and i doubt it will somehow disappear into the bowels of chinatown but there is always that possibility. so lots of unnecessary anxiety just waiting waiting waiting to finish this task which then wont be finished until amazon honors the claims of an office drone half a lifetime away.

smoking cheese

 

In The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College, Eva Diaz describes the discordant yet equally hermetic teaching methodologies of Joseph Albers, John Cage, and R. Buckminister Fuller that were developed during the years immediately following World War II at Black Mountain College. The “unaccredited college in rural Appalachia became a vital hub of cultural innovation” and was known primarily for artistic experimentation and its holistic aim “to educate a student as a person and a citizen.” It had a major impact on what would become contemporary artistic practice during and after the mid-1940s and early 1950s. Located in western North Carolina, the college’s history presents a dynamic narrative of radical innovation in terms of educational philosophy. In addition to Albers, Cage, and Fuller, other famous participants include Merce Cunningham, Clement Greenberg, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell. Among many prominent students, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Kenneth Noland contributed to the college’s reputation for free experimentation and artistic diversity.

 

 

 

Anticipating a revolution in Russia was important to the invention of the avant-garde, but art itself in the modern sense is a product of the French Revolution. Groys explains that before 1789 we only had design, works made to direct or instruct. The revolution invented art for contemplation. Once the past was declared politically irrelevant, aesthetic disinterest replaced the search for ethical or moral relevance or usefulness when looking at it. Groys quotes Immanuel Kant at the beginning of The Critique of Judgment (1790), explaining how all that might have to do with why a building was where it was needed to be put aside if one were to judge (one’s experience of) it aesthetically.

Groys does not say so, but the French Directory literally burned Raphael’s and others’ tapestries to get the gold and silver thread out. This could be seen as a precedent for Kazimir Malevich’s call to burn the art of the past, and it is in terms of such irreversible violence that he describes Malevich’s Black Square as revolutionary in a deeper sense than art that directly “criticized the political status quo or advertised a coming revolution.” Groys talks about a show in the 1930s in Russia in which Malevich was presented as predecessor to the revolution. One gets the sense that by the thirties, with Trotsky safely in exile, the attitudes attacked by Vladimir Lenin in his “Left-wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder” were okay when understood as belonging to the past. Comparably, Groys mentions that Joseph Stalin kept Lenin’s corpse on permanent display to demonstrate not permanence but that Lenin really was dead. 

Clement Greenberg’s definition of the avant-garde is counterintuitive; in his version the avant-garde doesn’t burn high culture but instead affirms it, while as in its previous incarnation marking an irreversible change and doing both in the face of that which does indeed threaten to incinerate, or dissolve, it: kitsch. Permanent revolution, declared prerevolutionary in Russia by the thirties (with Trotsky off in exile), becomes in Greenberg the condition, or more specifically the form of an avant-garde that permanently preserves high culture, by making art that contemplates the latter and its implications through abstraction, its syntax rather than its semantic content as it were. 

Groys’ reading of “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” which is at the center of his book and argument, is a brilliant demonstration and explanation of how Greenberg’s attitude to art links him both to T. S. Eliot’s elitist belief in high art and to “the famous Stalinist definition of writers and artists as ‘engineers of the human soul.’”

 

 

LEO STEINBERG (1920-) 

Excerpt from Other Criteria: The Flatbed Picture Plane 

I borrow the term from the flatbed printing press—‘a horizontal bed on which a horizontal printing surface rests’ (Webster). And I propose to use the word to describe the characteristic picture plane of the 1960s—a pictorial surface whose angulation with respect to the human posture is the precondition of its changed content.

post edit: Link / its a pdf. figured he was (AW). i cant post a comment yet w new system. duh.

 

Attentive viewers of Jackson Pollock’s Number 27, 1950 (figs. 1-2), will notice a blue thread running almost parallel to the right framing edge until it meets the edge about half way up the picture. It then very closely tacks the corner fold of the canvas without ever quite disappearing from view over the tacking margin. Such blue selvage threads—which indicate the upper and lower limits of a bolt of canvas, while protecting it against fraying—are sometimes noticeable in other paintings by Pollock, especially along the top and bottom edges of his classic 1950 drip, pour, and spatter paintings, which utilize the full vertical dimension of a standard nine foot bolt of canvas and extend laterally to over seventeen feet. Number 27, 1950 is four by nine feet, which orients the threads to the left and right edges, rather than to the top and bottom. In addition to being differently placed in relation to the pictorial field, the thread in Number 27, 1950 appears to be more conspicuous here than in the larger works. It is not that it is conspicuously used as an element in the overall composition: standing a few feet away, the thread is difficult to see. Rather, at close range it seems meant to indicate the edge as a limit beyond which the representation cannot, literally, extend. Obviously, the material surface of the canvas is framed by actual limits, as all painted surfaces ultimately are. The object, Pollock reminds us, has a frame. But the artist’s inclusion of the thread seems to acknowledge this fact in a pointed way. In calling our attention to the actual frame by matching its edge so precisely with a common manufacturing detail—yet one which also slips under the painted skeins it abuts—I’d like to suggest that Pollock encourages us to imagine another kind of frame. That “frame” is of a pictorial (as opposed to literal) nature. Its “limits” should be thought of a qualitatively different from those of the actual material because, unlike physical limits, they do not first operate as constraints. The apparent limits of Pollock’s pictorial fields do not necessarily, and indeed rarely do, coincide with his paintings’ actual limits.1 Those apparent limits—which have an important role in establishing what I’ll later call the format of the picture—are generated by the activity of painting itself, and thus emerge as a result of artist’s expressive purposes. The selvage thread helps mark the difference between the two different kinds of frames, and the limits they imply.2

 

Oct. 4, 12-5 pm
 

Orchard Street between Delancey and E. Houston



PICKLE FUN FOR EVERYONE!

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!


Pickle Day, you say? What on earth is PICKLE DAY?
We thought you’d never ask.



Pickle Day is a neighborhood wide celebration of all things pickled that takes place every autumn in New York’s Lower East Side. The streets come alive with internationally renowned picklers, local vendors, live music, and activities. This celebration of the great LES pickling tradition takes center stage for ONE DAY EVERY YEAR, drawing enthusiasts from ’round the globe to remember their pickled roots!

tonight at 8 on tcm:

Described by the New York Times as "a master of movies about the American idiom...one of our most original filmmakers," Les Blank (1935-2013) was a Florida-born documentary filmmaker best remembered for his poetic studies of American musical traditions. But, as reflected in this TCM salute, Blank's idiosyncratic films and short subjects covered a wide range of subjects including Cajun culture in the U.S. (Spend It All, 1971): black Creole life (Dry Wood, 1973); the city of New Orleans (Always for Pleasure, 1978); cooking (Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers, 1980); and the polka and its devotees (In Heaven There Is No Beer?, 1984). Of the 11 Blank films shown in our tribute, no less than eight are TCM premieres!

monday is funday at the british open as the second round was suspended due to high winds so play was extended. for the first time since the 1920s an amateur sits atop the leaderboard tied with two other players while golfs newest star, jordan speith, sits one stroke back as he attempts to win a third straight major. its a crowded leaderboard as 13 players are within 3 strokes of the top.

NOW AVAILABLE IN ONE VOLUME This is the first comprehensive reference work to cover the entire domain of Gnosis and Western Esotericism from the period of Late Antiquity to the present. Containing around 400 articles by over 180 international specialists, it provides critical overviews discussing the nature and historical development of all its important currents and manifestations, from Gnosticism and Hermetism to Astrology, Alchemy and Magic, from the Hermetic Tradition of the Renaissance to Rosicrucianism and Christian Theosophy, and from Freemasonry and Illuminism to 19th-century Occultism and the contemporary New Age movement. Furthermore it contains articles about the life and work of all the major personalities in the history of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, discussing their ideas, significance, and historical influence. The Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism was selected Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2006.
Taschen has released a titillating title called Psychedelic Sex written and compiled by Yippie co-founder and Realist publisher Paul Krassner with self-proclaimed obsessive collector, Eric Gotland. The racy retro collection is edited by Dian Hanson whose job title at Taschen appears actually to be Sexy Book Editor. Nice! Hanson produced a ton of mens magazines from Juggs to Legshow between 1976 and 2001 and is also responsible for other Taschen titles like The Little Book of Big Penis and The Big Butt Book 3D, so obviously you might want to get your hands on Psychadelic Sex. The addition of Paul Krassners penchant for countercultural hilarity makes this kind of a must have in my humble opinion.
Apparently, some of my neighbors carry out the traditional Chinese practice of shooting off fireworks when the Royals lose in game 7.

your children asked me to tell you to buy them this 25th anniversary blu-ray edition of the princess bride for $5.

Two most excellent science shows available on the web, Cosmos and Your Inner Fish.

Cosmos takes on both science and the history of science, and covers a very broad scope. It's a reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. An amazing amount of new science has been developed since that time. (And some cool stuff has already come out since the program was produced. Such is the march of science these days.) Cosmos is unafraid to directly confront established religion where it undermines the rational thought necessary for scientific progress. Sometimes the "woah, dude!" tone, which is also in the original Cosmos, bugs me. But, that's just a style issue. Dealing with the "billions and billions" it's hard not to get a little gushy at times.

It's on a commercial network, so there are commercials in the internet version. Protip: start it, let it run muted for a long time while you do something else, then pause. Now go back to the beginning and watch without the commercial breaks that were previously passed during your "preview." Don't let the preview go too long, or it will fall off the end of the program and start another video clip. Be warned the the episodes will start to expire soon, and won't be available on the web. It's available on a TV channel and a cable channel in addition to the internet.

Your Inner Fish is a shorter series (three episodes), and has a much more narrow focus. It's about the evolution of tretrapods (including the bipedal naked ape) from uppity fish. It has a much more matter of fact tone than Cosmos. It does dip into the 19th century with some frequency to illustrate the origin of some of the concepts of current biology. But the focus seems to be more on current biology rather than the history of biology. The host is a working paleontologist and anatomist who was a key member of the team that unearthed the Tiktaalik fossil in the Canadian Arctic. 

It's a PBS show. Episode one has aired already. It's on the web and your local member station. 

Warning for the squeamish: There is some footage of cadaver disection (that's what the host teaches as a day job), but it's respectfully done. It's done in pursuit of comparative anatomy to highlight the homologies between humans and other tetrapods. There's also illustration of some experimentation on the embryos of chickens, etc. to demonstrate the function of the sonic hedgehog gene on their forelimb buds. Yes, there's a gene called sonic hedgehog. (In elementary school, we tracked the development of chicken embryos with two dozen fertile eggs. I didn't eat eggs for a while after that. I eat chicken eggs all the time now, just not the fertile ones.)

Both shows are some of the best science television I've seen. Both are clearly designed with younger audiences in mind, but are certainly not dumbed down. The concepts are simplified to an introductory level, and much effort is taken to explain concepts visually in both productions. 

Cosmos

Your Inner Fish

Wildwood has been picked as the Brown Wheeler Thanksgiving Restaurant....this dining out might become our new tradition......had a smoking great meal at Wildwood last month.....the old guard is the new guard!!

classics online
The surface of One: Number 31, 1950was puzzling. Unlike Full Fathom Five,the 1947 painting in which Pollock had embedded nails, buttons, and keys, and other objects, the inclusions in One: Number 31, 1950 (like the fly that apparently settled in the black paint and got stuck there) seem the result of chance. More curious were the areas inconsistent with Pollocks stylefussily applied, in tiny brushstrokes. This spurious overpainting, as Coddington puts it, was evidently added by an enigmatic restorer whose identity remains unknown. Judging by photographs, conservators date the additions to some time between 1962 and 68.

Grisly death at my regular bird watching park.
A guy flying a remote control model helicopter got the top of his head taken off by the rotor blades. I see these guys every week, and make a point of checking the field before they get there and scare off the birds (though I have seen falcons hunting in the same airspace with the helicopters.) And of course the NY Post can’t resist turning a tragedy into a joke; looks like they thought better of it online, but the print edition used the headline “Little Chopper Horror.”

143 ludlow
What's that you're worried about getting caught? It won't happen. Think about the complexity of our operation. We are organized in Singapore, I flew from Budapest, the match is in Finland, we're wagering in the Philippines using masked computer clusters from Bangkok to Jakarta. Our communications are refracted across so many cell networks and satellites that they're almost impossible to unravel. The money will move electronically, incomprehensibly, through a hundred different nowheres. No legal system was set up to handle this kind of global intricacy. The number of intersecting jurisdictions alone is dizzying. Who's going to spot the crime? Small-town police in Finland? A regulator in Beijing? Each of them will only see one tiny part of it. How would they ever know to talk to each other? Dan Tan has friends in high places; extradition requests can find themselves bogged down in paperwork. Witnesses can disappear. I promise; you'll be safe. Who can prove you didn't see a penalty? We're fine.
Close-up of Johns/Rauschenberg backdrop for Cunninghams 1958 dance Summerspace

Clicks bigger / via Greg org
VCR alert for A Christmas Carol on TCM tonight at 9:30. As I stated last year, this is the best version, and tonight is the only showing for this season. There will, however, be plenty of chances to see other treatments, as ACC is one of the all time most filmed pieces of literature out there (without even getting into the many non-traditional versions spun off from the basic premise.) Of course its public domain, and short, but the plot is so tight, and with so much good dialogue, that its pretty hard to mess up. An interesting comparison table is here.
The Fourth Dimension And Non-Euclidean Geometry In Modern Art, Revised Edition
big criterion collection blu-ray sale at b&n this weekend.