oddities and savages

"A DANGEROUS BEAUTY IN SULLEN MOOD
She has stood, until weary of attracting attention, by a wall in Biskra, this geisha of the Sahara, with her hard-won dowry of gold and silver adorning her person. She can sing Arab love-songs, play flute, hautboy, and zither, and dance more seductively than girls of any other tribe. Her skill in making cigarettes and coffee is famous, and all her charms and accomplishments are for hire."

PROUD MASCULINE MOTHER OF FIGHTING MEN
Poised in her doorway in festival attire, this masterful woman of the once forbidden Somali city of Harrar is a blend of warlike invaders. Somalis and Gallas, Beduins, with Egyptians and Abyssinians, fought and mingled. An old slander runs that at times, when meat is unobtainable, the Harrar woman will eat children

I found this amazing book online called The Secret Museum of Mankind. Published in 1935, it lacks author, credits, and copyright, and has been scanned and posted on the internet under the creative commons act. It's mainly just pictures, with minimal information, just some sensationalist commentary--totally racist, and often pretty sexual, but also kind of hilarious.

http://ian.macky.net/secretmuseum/front_cover.html

Andrew Bird's "Imitosis"

This is the cutest music video I have seen in a long time.

c'est un circus

Holy crap so i have discovered a set of scans of french papercraft sheets, circus and westerns, etc. You can find them at this address, "http://www.flickr.com/photos/taffeta/sets/72157601156433867/" and even more on this blog: http://bibigreycat.blogspot.com/

this explains everything

When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when every one knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not. And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts.

that would be t.s. eliot in "the perfect critic." personally, i've rejected the concept of "knowledge," long ago having moved on to "fun facts."

This is like That

This is a photograph taken by Gjon Mili



This is a movie by the japanese art collective pikapika.

Similar, no? But I like the first one the best, of course.

Hey Old Guy

Diogenes of Sinope was an ancient Greek philosopher, who was one of the founders of Cynicism. Called "Socrates gone mad" by Plato, he lived in a wine barrel and promoted ideas of nihilism and animalism. Famously, when he was asked by Alexander the Great what he wanted most in the world, he replied, “For you to get out of my sunlight.” Seriously, though, he was pretty crazy--lots of defecating in public, etc.

side effects

The Stendhal Syndrome is a psychosomatic illness causing dizziness, confusion, rapid heartbeat, and even hallucinations provoked by an individual's exposure to art, usually when the piece is especially beautiful or there is a lot of it in one place. I tried to find a painting of Stendhal that might potentially induce the syndrome, but apparently he was kind of homely.

Ballet Mechanique

Here is a dadaist film directed by Fernand Leger, set to ballet music composed by Antheil. The This music is impossible to play in ful, and involves the use of found metal objects, like plane propellers.

Wasting Time

Found a new site, http://www.squareamerica.com/, good archive of found photographs. Check that shit out.