La Giaconda Update…

…turns out all that stuff I posted below about enigmatic smiles was just smoke and mirrors. Should have guessed that modern science has, of course, recently solved the riddle of the smile and the results are as follows;

‘Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was 83 per cent happy, 9 per cent disgusted, 6 per cent fearful and 2 per cent angry’…

…right now I am 73 per cent bemused, 28 per cent mystified, and 17 per cent unable to get a basic grasp of statistics…

Adam Phillips (again), on Freud on Leonardo

“…And Freud’s question, where does a person’s history come from, could only be answered by accounting for whatever it was that his subject found unavoidably interesting, As an art form and as a lived life, biography was a series of fascinations. Leonardo was both the object of Freud’s fascination…and he was himself a man fascinated. Driven, indeed spellbound, as his paintings apparently showed, by ‘the powerful fascination exerted by the smile…at once fascinating and puzzling’.
…If fascination is the sign of loss, as Freud will say of Leonardo, then it is by the same token an opportunity (if not an invitation) to reconstruct a persuasive narrative history of Leonardo’s life.”

“We are only fascinated, Freud suggests, by something we have already lost. We are only fascinated, in other words, by what is missing – by the past. Fascination is the exhilaration of a mourning that never gives up hope. Leonardo’s obsession with the woman’s enigmatic smile – like the scene of a crime he keeps returning to – is the real enigma, sustained even by Freud’s explanation of it. ‘It was his mother’, Freud writes, ‘that possessed the mysterious smile – the smile he had lost, and that fascinated him so much when he found it again in the Florentine lady.’…”

Cliff Clavin on the Buffalo Theory

Celebrated beer philosopher Cliff Clavin (who I once bumped into in the Hacienda many years ago – I kid you not) explains the Buffalo Theory to his friend Norm in a classic episode of Cheers;

“Well, ya see, Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it’s the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.

This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.

In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”

The Master

The inestimable William Shatner, performing ‘Taxi’ on the ‘Dinah’ show.

Song…or psychotherapy? You be the judge…

T.S. Eliot, pretending he’s not plagiarising Seneca…

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

I want one of these in the studio…

…rooms painted in such a way that, when you’re in exactly the right spot, everything makes sense…like that lightbulb moment when you finally solve an anagram, or stumble onto the right chord – or the intriguingly wrong one…

Adam Phillips on ‘writing’;

“…Are writers people who, because they cannot bear the world, make it their own, in words; or are they people who so cherish the world that they want to show us the very different things it contains? Are they megalomaniacs or midwives?…”

This is how you do it

Do yourself a favour this glorious Saturday – pour yourself a stiff one, sit yourself down and watch this. It doesn’t get any better…

…sometimes the download is a little slow – if so, hit pause and take a couple of sips while it loads…it’s worth it…darling, believe me…

Now, I’m not the world’s most flexible guy…

…but I’ve never, ever, seen anybody who could do this with their body – quite remarkable video clip…

Tube Map Update; “Tall Man Watchtowers” is, of course, Walthamstow Central…

‘This hungry & boiling’ – that’s where I live today

Since I find myself back in the capital after a somewhat less than tumultuous time up north, I thought I’d do my bit to prolong the life of the very amusing anagrammed London Tube Map, which Transport For London is currently attempting to have surgically removed from the internet…

…strangely, most of the anagrams sound like myspace bands whose invitations I’ve declined in the last month – Swearword and Ethanol, Filthy Seance, Hog Statue? I’m pretty sure they all wanted to be my friend…

…Oh, and the end of the Victoria line is “Tall Man Watchtowers”…

20th century schizoid cats

A Cornell University student’s research project titled “Schizophrenia, Aging and Art” profiles Louis Wain, an early 20th century artist who began to suffer from schizophrenia late in life. While a commercial artist, he drew lots of comics of cats that appeared in newspapers and children’s books.

From the project’s Web site:

During the onset of his disease at 57, Wain continued to paint, draw and sketch cats, but the focus changed from fanciful situations, to focus on the cats themselves.

Characteristic changes in the art began to occur, changes common to schizophrenic artists. Jagged lines of bright color began emanating from his feline subjects. The outlines of the cats became severe and spiky, and their outlines persisted well throughout the sketches, as if they were throwing off energy.

Soon the cats became abstracted, seeming now to be made up of hundreds of small repetitive shapes, coming together in a clashing jangles of color that transform the cat into something resembling an Eastern diety.

The abstraction continued, the cats now being seen as made up by small repeating patterns, almost fractal in nature. Until finally they ceased to resemble cats at all, and became the ultimate abstraction, an indistinct form made up by near symmetrical repeating patterns.

(from BoingBoing)

The eye of god

It would appear that he’s only got one open – maybe he’s sleeping, like cats do…

Oscar Wilde on ‘myspace’;

“…I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones…”

Matrix ping pong

It’s a little long in the tooth now, but this clip from live Japanese TV is still one of my favourites, and more evidence of why we should bow to the wonder that is the Japanese mindset. It’s one thing coming up with the idea but the bit near the end, where they change the perceived camera angle, is just sheer pointless, postmodernist genius…

…and all those castles that we made…

There’s an endearingly human quality about sandcastles – something to do with obsessive creativity in the face of impermanence, a glorious, fleeting triumph over the bitter certainty of mortality – or maybe they’re just pretty…

Bartlet & Fidderer…

…”Tell me, Debbie – why is it that all my daughters always end up chasing after such useless, ineffectual men?”

…”They say that daughters look for their fathers, sir.”

Where’s the playground, Susie?

…always found the idea of abandoned theme parks creatively stimulating, and I’d love to someday hear the music that sounds like these pictures look…

Elis and Tom…

…great quicktime movie clip of Elis Regina (looking adorable) and Antonio Carlos Jobim performing ‘Aguas De Marco (Waters of March)’…

Little people on food…

…It’s things like this that make blogs almost worthwhile…

first week

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Winston Churchill on ‘rules’;

To Ibn Saud, on hearing that the king’s religion forbade smoking and alcohol…

“…I must point out that my rule of life prescribes, as an absolutely sacred rite, the smoking of cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them…”

2:31 PM – 1 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Jack Handey on ‘peace’;

“…I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it…”

12:42 AM – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Kingsley Amis on ‘censorship’;

“…If you can’t annoy somebody with what you write, I think there’s little point in writing…”

6:34 PM – 3 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Saturday, February 04, 2006

J.S. Mill on ‘free speech’;

“…Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being ‘pushed to an extreme’; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case…”

3:53 PM – 2 Comments – 2 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Monday, January 30, 2006

George Bernard Shaw on ‘progress’;

“…The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man…”

12:40 PM – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Friday, January 27, 2006

Arthur C. Clarke on ‘gadgets’;

“…Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic…”

12:43 PM – 1 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Vladimir Nabokov on ‘experience’;

“…A passerby whistles a tune at the exact moment that you notice the reflection of a branch in a puddle which in its turn and simultaneously recalls a combination of damp leaves and excited birds in some old garden, and the old friend, long dead, suddenly steps out of the past, smiling and closing his dripping umbrella. The whole thing lasts one radiant second and the motion of impressions and images is so swift that you cannot check the exact laws which attend their recognition, formation, and fusion….It is like a jigsaw puzzle that instantly comes together in you brain with the brain itself unable to observe how and why the pieces fit, and you experience a shuddering sensation of wild magic…”

3:39 AM – 1 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Borges on ‘youth’;

“…Of course, like all young men, I tried to be as unhappy as I could—a kind of Hamlet and Raskolnikov rolled into one…”