Viva

here's a portrait by Diane Arbus of Warhol factory star Viva, who was a writer/film star/personality of the seventies, and was actually totally crazy. She lives in Florida now, painting landscapes, I guess, but this picture is still awesome.

choices

More than two dozen vandals
who hosted a party inside Robert Frost's former home were
ordered to take a class on his poetry, taught by Frost's
biographer. "This is where Frost is relevant," Jay Parini
said to the class, speaking about Frost's poem "The Road
Not Taken." "You come to a path in the woods where you can
say, 'Shall I go to this party and get drunk out of my
mind?' Everything in life is choices."
--Harper's

wow

Tropic of Cancer was great but this is a-ma-zing

It's Like That

Albert (E.) says: Dancers are the athletes of God.

zines are weird

here is an odd web-zine I came across recently. I have no idea what, exactly, it is about, but it seems to focus on doodling and primitivism....eclectic

www.socialfiction.org

Oh No

Researchers in Virginia found that due to
pollution the scent of flowers, which could travel up to
4,000 feet during the nineteenth century, now travels not
even a quarter of that distance

All I Want is a Silver Plated Tortoise

For more, see Huysmans' "Against Nature"

Too True

"There are only two things that can destroy a healthy man: love trouble, ambition, and financial catastrophe. And that is already three things, and there are a lot more." --Peter Altenberg, Fechsung

Steller's Sea Cow

Sometimes I feel like an extinct animal. This is Steller's Sea Cow drawn by Georg Steller himself. Between you and me, I would not be smiling placidly if my subcutaneous fat were used as a butter substitute.

your attention please

Over the next year, Doppleganger will become a travelblog! Expect highly saturated pictures of: Parisian fruit stalls, grocery-store treasures, and well-dressed French children. Also, hopefully: travels in rural spain (possible portrait of my masseuse-aunt and the uncle who has a glass eye and three olympic gold medals), jaunts to London and Oxford, and more.

c'est "Super Cool"

Here are a couple images (A,B,and C) from a series called "The Alphabet" done by this amazing Parisian design firm called M/M. They have created posters, advertisements, and editorials for brands like Hermes and Balenciaga, I.D. magazine, and more. Though much of their work is commercial, they also borrow from their commercial work to create art that is exhibited and sold in galleries. You can see their catalogue here:

Link

Ban This

Not that I'm into skateboarding, particularly, but Ray Barbee is totally awesome.

sweet peripheries

I discovered the website of this library based in Brooklyn called "The Reanimation Library." Basically, it houses a collection of out of print and outdated books, and caters to artists, writers, etc. It sounds totally awesome.
Link

dark days

This movie, originally called Une Voyage dans la Lune, was released in 1902, and is one of the first science fiction movies ever. The original movie, narrated in english (with accent AND lisp), can be found here

my very own doppleganger

okay here's some weirdness. Basically, my parents named me after a little Australian girl called Marieke. I found her on the internet, and it turns out she's kind of a celebrity in Australia now--former child actress, now reporter and some kind of personality. She seems pretty opinionated, and generally alright. We look nothing alike, but I already have a twin, so that might just cross the line. A little off topic, but considering that this blog is actually called doppleganger, I thought it was appropriate

lumière sombre

I found this website with a published collection of Autochromes. Autochrome is a early 20th century photographic technique, and the first one to record color. I really like the eerie light and muted colors that the technique produces.
http://users.pandora.be/autochromes/

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

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."

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.