rubbish

it's not pending, it's real: it turns out that the atlantic ocean is suffering from a veritable sargasso sea of plastic trash, a la the 'great Pacific garbage patch' 

the pacific version was the muse for 'the aboutthing,' an installation by ryan trecartin and lizzie fitch that made filthy commentary in the side yard of the rose art museum for most of 2009. sam wrote about it and took this photo of the artistic rendering of the mess:

now it looks like there's a real bermuda triangle of plasticky horror; let's hope the birds in that part of the world don't suffer as much as their albatross cousins ingesting plastic in the north pacific. as documented by chris jordan:

some business about a bird celebrating black history month by riding an underground railroad in canada

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in love with that modern moonlight

went down to make all sorts of swoony eye contact with jonathan richman at firehouse 13 in providence, RI on friday, with mr. ike and miss tintori (whose creaturecast on animal vag, and footage of deep sea critters, is worthy of your time). turns out JR is still as handsome as possible, and really into rust and love and breakfast and bricks and all glorious things of course.

mr. richman sort of saved me by reminding me he loved massachusetts oh so much when i was grumpy about it when i first moved here; since then, he's popped up in all sorts of places.

sam mckinniss painted him in his "modern lovers" series...

mike dacey of repeat press in somerville made this fine postcard...

i've been swooning over this album cover since coming across it at an audio/record shop in watertown:

and i always feel like a weirdo conglomerate vermeer character (reading letters, surrounded by bawdy gents...)

ode to musteloidea

saw at least 3 skunks scurrying around our backyard last night! then today i saw the taxidermy work of melissa dixson and another glimpse of a stinky soul...

when i was maybe 4 years old i heard the word "taxidermist" and declared that i wanted to be one. such a cool word. then i learned what it meant and got grossed out. now look at me. so it goes. 

thanks to design milk for leading me to miss dixson and a lotsa other good ideas 

obelisque

Now comes the Funeral! The band is playing, and Crusoe has been altered by
the embalmer into an obelisk. The whole town hammers him into the ground, all
singing.
-Claes Oldenburg, Crusoe, from Injun and other histories, 1967ubuweb has a really amazing collection of great bear pamphlets from something else press

people in the street makin gifs of grease

by phillip niemeyer, via artfagcity

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

flicking into the afterlife

walter frederick morrison, credited as the inventor of the frisbee, died the other day. i'll also give him credit for bringing some truly sexy sporty photos into my life. rest well, sir.

(l)urking across the ice

in the very preliminary stages of a research project on memorials to those lost at sea, and in the midst of a particularly chilly february day, came across this statue to"icewalkers" in the netherlands. seems that before 1940, the town of urk was an island in the zuiderzee, and, when conditions got rough in the winter and urk residents needed to get to the mainland, brave "urkers with an iceboat/ijsvlet especially prepared for this goal" would try to get to the mainland over the ice. in 1939, a dike broke, thereby ending the necessity of this ice venture and removing the islander status from the valiant urkers.
hot tips on memorials to whalers, fishermen, and other seamen encouraged.

pachyderm hypocrisy

when i opened my email today, i was faced with a promotion for the latest issue of e-flux journal #13. the cover: 

agh! this elephant execution photo sent me into a flurry of finding out more about elephant executions and the public's fascination with these larger-that-life death sentences. most circus elephants were often put in a tight spot but this is just rude. seems i'm not ok with pachyderm deaths when apparently fine with all other dead animals (other than eating them). 

the original photo: 

some stories about "murderous mary" can be found in a few places. 

there is also a video of topsy the elephant being electrocuted thanks to the suggestion of none other than mr. thomas edison. according to clayton cubitt's report: 

"Topsy was deemed an ill-tempered and dangerous animal since she had killed three men in as many years, including an abusive trainer who tried to feed her a lit cigarette."

seems as though being an elephant does not exempt you from persecution when defending yourself. oh injustice! so how have people responded? roadside america has a list (with great photos of memorielephants) of famous elephant burial sites; i'm planning a visit to the memorial to "little bet" in chepachet, RI in a week or so to pay my respects if anyone wants to join. 

agra, india: stone "tusks" in a memorial to an emperor's favorite elephant

elephant "cremation pendant" (alternate use: snuff bling?)