Tag: art

Wondermark: Rockin’ the Laundry

On By quriosityIn art, Creativity, Innovation, Society and Popular Culture1 Comment

Recently I discovered Wondermark, a comic strip remixed from old woodcuts and other art by artist David Malki. What makes Wondermark so entertaining is the juxtaposition of 19th-century artwork and 21st-century dialogue.

Wondermark comes out on Tuesday and Fridays. Today’s strip is a hilarious example (linked):

Malki describes his art sources:

Wondermark is created from 19th-Century woodcuts and engravings, scanned from my personal collection of old books and also from volumes in the Los Angeles Central Library. Most of the books are bound volumes of general-interest magazines such as Harper’s, Frank Leslie’s and Punch, but my collection also includes special-interest magazines such as Scientific American, Sears-Roebuck catalogs, storybooks, and primers.

AB — 26 January 2010

Favorite Places: Raleigh Little Theatre and Rose Garden

On By quriosityIn art, Life, Raleigh NCLeave a comment

John Morris’s article today on Goodnight, Raleigh highlighted one of my favorite places here in the beautiful city of Raleigh, NC, where I was born and grew up — see “The Splendor of Raleigh’s Little Theatre and Rose Garden.” This cultural treasure is only a short walk from NCSU and the Cameron Village shopping center. (See the Little Theatre’s web site for information about the organization and its productions.)

Morris includes some great photos of the Rose Garden and amphitheater. Most interesting to me are historical photos, such as the one linked here to the right, from the theater’s construction during the 1930s.

Thinking about the Rose Garden conjures up a wealth of memories for me. When I was a teenager during the 1960s, my church, the Raleigh Unitarian Fellowship, met at the Little Theatre for a time on Sundays. About 1969, when I was in high school, a group of us held an anti-war rally in the amphitheatre. We were most amused when a guy showed up and tried to be surreptitious while taking photos of us with a telescopic camera lens — a representative of the city the police department, as I later learned during a conversation with a police captain.

One night about 1971, some friends and I walked down at night and approached the amphitheater from the back through the rose garden. The place was crowded and lit up, and, in our altered state of mind at the time, we were amazed when a cowboy walked by us in the garden, leading a horse. My friend Ray turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Must be gettin’ close to town.”

As it turned out, this was a dress rehearsal for an outdoor performance of Oklahoma — we sat down on the concrete bleachers and enjoyed the show for awhile.

My most memorable visit to the Rose Garden, though, was an outing several of us had there during a total eclipse, which I believe was in March 1970.

Here are some photos of the Rose Garden from a recent visit by me and Virginia and our friend Ellin from Vermont.

AB — 6 January 2010

Tonight’s Blue Moon in History and Song

On By quriosityIn art, Creativity, Language and Linguistics, music, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the expression “blue moon” usually has nothing to do with the moon’s color.

Tonight’s full moon is a “blue moon,” meaning it’s the second full moon of December 2009 — one of those things that doesn’t happen very often, as the moon is full every 28 days and the longest months are 31 days. We get a blue moon once every two or three years.

History of the Blue Moon

Historically, the phrase “blue moon” has been used mostly as a general term for a very unusual event, according to the Wikipedia entry. It’s only been used to refer to the second full moon in a month since 1946.

Wikipedia gives two alternative explanations for the origin of the term:

1. A 1528 pamphlet critical of the clergy, which ranted that “Yf they say the mone is belewe / We must believe that it is true.” So this indicates that the phrase was used to refer to “absurdities and impossibilities” in general.

2. The other explanation rests on an alternative meaning for “belewe” in Old English: betrayer. In this case, the moon could be called a betrayer if it led to a mistake in calculating when Easter should occur.

The Blue Moon in Song

The “Blue Moon” has been the subject of popular songs — following are some of the greatest (all these links take you to samples of the cuts mentioned):

“Blue Moon” — Maybe the best-known version is the doo-wop version recorded by the Marcels in 1961. The song was actually written in 1934 by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. It’s been recorded by many artists, but my personal favorite is Bob Dylan’s version on his 1989 Self Portrait album.

“Blue Moon of Kentucky” — A bluegrass song written by Bill Monroe, but also recorded in a more rockin’ version by Elvis Presley. I think my favorite version, though, is the one by Patsy Cline.

“Blue Moon Nights” — Appears on John Fogerty’s excellent solo album Blue Moon Swamp.

“Once in a Very Blue Moon” — My favorite “blue moon” song of all is this exquisite number by Nancy Griffith, co-written with Pat Alger.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry does say that sometimes the moon actually can look blue because of smoke or dust in the atmosphere.

AB — 31 December 2009

Great Remix: The Mother of All Funk Chords

On By quriosityIn Creativity, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

Ever since Stanford Professor Larry Lessig spoke about remix (among other intellectual-property topics) for us at the ILO Institute a couple of years ago, I’ve been fascinated by the subject and have watched out for particularly creative examples.

Yesterday I commented on a new one I’ve found called “Auto-Tune the News.”

However, my favorite example remains “The Mother of All Funk Chords” — a great music mix that brings together clips from across geographies and cultures and age-groups — and across decades of time:

AB — 3 Sept. 2009