Tag: art

aquarius order!

I’m a fanboy for a record store! I just realized this. That hasn’t been true for me since Rhino Records Westwood in about 1986, so this is new and fun. I’ve been shopping at Aquarius online and in person for years now. Yes, I ordered a Jack Palance record, a pipe organ record, and tibetan monks. Also a re-release of a 1981 compilation of crazy-ass artpunk music, which makes more sense for me.

You ordered:
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1 cd V/A Keats Rides A Harley
1 cd MONTALBA, GEORGES Pipe Organ Favorites / Fantasy In Pipe Organ And Percussion
1 cd PALANCE, JACK s/t
1 2cd V/A Tibetan Buddhist Rites From The Monasteries Of Bhutan Vol. 1

comments: Hey! If you by any chance have the new Jello/Melvins record “Sieg Howdy”, could you add it to this order and let me know? http://www.alternativetentacles.com/product.php?product=1164 if you haven’t seen it yet. If not, I’ll either get it from A.T. or wait until you get it.

Also, you guys are so amazing that I want to move to San Francisco. Actually, I want to move to San Francisco and live right near your store and then just go there and hang around all the time. You better hope I don’t win the lottery because that’s what I’ll do. That, and two chicks at once.

Is the severed hand fresh?

aughThai Artist Bakes Up Some People Parts.

The place looks like a mortuary or the lair of a serial killer, but in fact, it’s a bakery. What appears to be putrefying body parts are the bread sculptures of 28-year-old art student Kittiwat Unarrom.

Along with edible human heads crafted from dough, chocolate, raisins and cashews, Kittiwat makes human arms, feet, and chicken and pig parts. He uses anatomy books and his vivid memories of visiting a forensics museum to create the human parts.

“Of course, people were shocked and thought that I was mad when they saw the works. But once they knew the idea behind it, they understood and became interested in the work itself, instead of thinking that I am crazy,” said the fine arts masters degree student.

via robotwisdom

The Raft of the Medusa

( Larger version here )

It’s a famous painting, often parodied or quoted. Months ago I was talking to eyeteeth about it and we started looking up its history. The shipwreck and the painting have a story to tell that’s pertinent today.

After Napoleon was deposed, the French got a new royal government, the Bourbons. Shortly after they took over they sent some ships to West Africa on a colonial adventure. The Medusa carried 400 passengers and 160 crew.

The captain was an inexperienced political employee who should not have been given charge of a ship. He was chosen for his loyalty to the new regime, and was disliked by his crew.

The Medusa ran aground, and Captain De Chaumereys proceeded to fuck everything up. Instead of trying to float the ship free, he abandoned her. Special important privileged people were put in lifeboats, and everyone else was dumped on a raft. The lifeboats were to tow the raft.

Pretty soon the aristocrats in the lifeboats found it tiresome to pull the lesser beings in the raft and cut it loose. Their shipmates were now floating helplessly.

When the raft was found two weeks later, there were 15 survivors out of the 149 who had been abandoned and set adrift. Suicide, murder, and starvation took them. Five more died after their rescue. The French government declined to help the survivors to return home, so the British navy repatriated them.

The attempt at a coverup of this failed; survivors made sure that newspapers heard about it and at least one survivor published a popular book. GĂ©ricault was inspired to create the classic you see above, which was praised or condemned according to the politics of the viewer. The government nearly fell, and the captain was found guilty at court martial.

It was clear that some people on the raft had behaved badly (murder, cannibalism, madness). The blame for their degradation was, however, also clear. An arrogant government had given charge of people’s lives to an ignorant toady who had then shown incompetence and disregard for human life. The privileged had been saved and the others left to die.

In sum, the disaster and its aftermath showed the French people the true colors of their government.