The yellow jersey

Nice photo.
From the New York Times.

Fred Tomaselli

Collage artist Fred Tomaselli, at the James Cohan gallery.

Single Ladies, Beyonce

Whatever, this video is just rad genius. The new wave of arty hip hop videos are killing. Obviously:

Heartless, by Kanye West and Hype Williams

Heartless, by Kanye West, video by Hype Williams.
WTF this video is like Patrick Nagel meets Cowboy Bepop.

On Beauty and Being Just

Philosopher Elaine Scarry on beauty, truth, and justice.

Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan, 1968

Debate between two great men of the 20th century. They agree on many things and obviously have respect for each other. The argument revolves around moralism and judgment. McLuhan refuses to pass moral judgment on technology and society, while Mailer claims it's absolutely necessary.

Mailer at 24:05:

"The Alienated Man in relation to his new environments which alienate him further from himself. What does it mean to be an Alienated Man? It means to be a man who does not have a clear notion of himself, but rather contains two opposed notions of himself:

'I think that I am smart, and I think that I am dumb. I think that I am good, and I think that I am evil. I think that I am strong, and I think that I am weak. I think I'm a tough guy, and I think I'm a coward. I think I'm a great lover, I think I'm not...

He cannot define himself in any environment which has been programmed for him. He can only define himself by getting into situations that are brand new for him. Because when situations are brand new for him, his obsessions can cease for a moment. He can stop thinking of himself at the one moment as being either this or that, because he can be one thing at the moment...

It's a profoundly existential situation for him, because he doesn't know how it's going to turn out... Because he does not have time to evaluate it.

Whenever a man engages in a value judgment, he is either suffering profoundly from alienation or finding his way back out of alienation.

Soundsuits

Artist Nick Cave, from Chicago. More at the Jack Shainman Gallery.

Kenny Irwin, Jr.

Much, much more at the Dovemaster Chronicles and here.

Paul Laffoley

Work from the Boston Visionary Cell. More at his blog.

Frank Lloyd Wright interview

Mike Wallace interviews Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957. Full interview here.

FreeDarko does Adidas

FreeDarko offers postmodern analysis of the NBA, it's culture, it's industry. They have brilliant illustrations by Bethlehem Shoals, a.k.a. Jacob Weinstein.

Boxing Cats, 1894

The Edison company produced stuff like this when they were, uh, inventing the medium of film. Just for point of reference, this film of boxing cats was made 111 years before YouTube was invented.

The Library of Congress has a vintage film archive on YouTube. They also have a vintage photo archive on Flickr.

Pupusa del Coyote, by Irvin Morazan

From Bartered States: Contemporary Art from El Salvador at the Bronx River Art Center.
Images lifted from Tattfoo.

The end of the world

Clive Thomson writes for Wired sometimes, and his blog Collision Detection deals with science and culture, with an emphasis on technology. Here is his review of the end of the world (sort of).

He drops a couple of $5 words:

eschatology: a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind

ludology: the study of games and other forms of play. More specifically today, the study of video games, in an academic or critical light.

Les Abysses

David Gentleman

Illustrator/designer David Gentleman, from the New Penguin Shakespeare series in the 70s.

Some close ups (from Tolstoy2007's archive of paperbook covers):

The Art of the Novel

Illustration by the author, Milan Kundera.

Electrostatic interface

3D interface based on electrostatic fields, developed by students at Northeastern University in Boston.

Shuttle Launch

The launch of the shuttle Atlantis, in Cape Canaveral, FL.

...from the New York Times.

Photo by Matt Stroshane/Getty Images.

Jinyoung Yoon

Korean photographer Jinyoung Yoon.

Nick Caruso

Nick Caruso is a tattoo artist working in Brooklyn.

ZUI @ sofake

Jordan Stone did the music for Mark Essen's Flywrench.

His web design firm sofake has a zooming user interface (ZUI). It takes a second to get accustomed, but it's worth poking around. At the bottom level (zoomed in all the way) you can load different apps, and then zoom into them to use them.

Vitas

This is basically my understanding of contemporary Russia.

Amy Bennett

Amy Bennett paints from small scale models of imagined towns. In her own words (highlighting is mine):

"For my previous project I constructed a fictional model neighborhood. I considered who lived in each home, their family dramas, and the way their private lives might spill into view of their neighbors. The model became a stage on which to develop the psychological implications of belonging to a particular family, with all of its dramas, struggles and familiar routines. I thought: this tree will be taken down after an old man crashes into it; a father will transform this lawn into an ice skating rink; this house will be abandoned after its residents are scandalized on the evening news. As I transitioned my model into winter, snowbanks of increasing depth seemed to fortify a sense of isolation and quietness. The paintings portray both the magical and suffocating potential of snow, wonder at its stark beauty and hopelessness that spring might never come."

Rebecca Saylor-Sack

Rebecca Saylor-Sack.