Spine-chillingly wonderful, delightful and 'Oh! Oh! Je t'aime Jean-Louis!" trailer for 1959 French movie in which Jean-Louis Barrault plays the part of Dr. Cordelier and his alter ego Monsieur Opale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12ohRov_HTg&feature=player_embedded
The Japanese soul appears to me essentially feminine. What I am here venturing to say is far from being pejorative. On the contrary. When the world is sick, it is from woman that all is reborn.
From Memories for Tomorrow: The Memoirs of Jean-Louis Barrault
(New York 1974 E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.)
I dreamt of a billabong, still water clear Thanks to al @ bluecray for this sweet interlude!
Motorcycles, Music and Wisdom in the Land
a tiny brown platypus sitting so near
hidden by reeds and tall growing sedge
I watched him dive freely away from his ledge.
As he entered the waters all bubbles and glee
I became that dear platypus and he became me
Then waking quite quickly, a smile in my mind
I “knew” what it meant to be one of his kind
A blessing a story a picture a song
this vision stays with me
tho’ the dream is long gone.
There has been a lot of media attention here recently around issues of child images, "corporate paedophilia" and art. Bill Henson's exhibition was shut down in May before it opened due to including images of a naked 13 year old girl.
Art Monthly Australia (July Issue) has just released it's July issue. The cover is shown. It's a current subject of controversy.
The girl's father has defended the whole thing by saying that we are inadvertently encouraging a "higher level of repression" by not embracing this as art. "We have art to liberate the mind.."
I agree repression is problematic and that art (can, though no guarantee's) liberate the mind.
The girl's father goes on to say that he has a fear: "That artists will desert the field of childhood...and I think that is going to be a really sad cultural development for this country".
The girl's father is a wanker. The only sad cultural development we have to fear is that this dickhead gets any more media attention. Please someone lock him in a cafe in Darlinghurst for the next 50 years.
This whole defense is really about how "interesting" and "artistic" the girl's father is when he gets in front of a camera, certainly not about the beauty of childhood. The girl herself gets little to no airspace. I hope this link shows you what I mean. Press Conference.
Most of my time is currently spent writing and illustrating picture books, which have reached quite a broad readership in Australia and overseas via foreign publication and translation into several languages. They are best described as ‘picture books for older readers’ rather than young children, as they deal with relatively complex visual styles and themes, including colonial imperialism, social apathy, the nature of memory and depression. -Shaun Tan
I love to share incredible talent with young people. But even more satisfying - talent with an edge.
Shaun Tan: Born 1974 in Perth WA, he was known at school as a "good drawer".
I imagine the person who thought up this marvelous photo idea in 1932 was an extremely interesting person, indeedy do. Someone prone to day dreams...
Another delight for the eyes from Vintage Photographs.
I love these colouring books by UK illustrator Roz Streeton. They are so much more interesting and indeed interactive ( enough with the i's !) than your average derbrain colouring books.
In designing the books, I have paid attention to all things which irritated me as a child.- Roz S.
Clever woman.
You add your own heads, arms and legs. What mad joy I could have! I want one for myself. So does my daughter. There's also a boy's series (Johnny Joe's) which Ben's keen on too. Let's buy em all goddammit!
Via the gorgeous Book By It's Cover
Inspired by my own family secrets, what haunts... is an interactive art installation that explores secrets and their universality. Viewers respond and participate by reading and adding, in anonymity, their own - often-intimate - secrets to the installation. The varied secrets evoke sadness, horror, shock, humor, and reassurance. They "are riveting to read, telling stories of abortion, adoption, and affairs mixed with more universal confessions, like, 'my heart is broken and I am terrified.'" - Cathy McLaurin
The artist reports people are strongly drawn to this art piece. Probably because all of us keep secrets.
I was taught to teach children not to keep certain secrets (like that they are being abused).
Secrets can be a torment and a burden.
Many of us keep secrets for decades. Many die with our secrets still buried deep in our psyches and in our hearts...aching for release.
But then...secrets are so tantillizing aussi.
So it's intriguing isn't it, that while we are compelled to keep secrets, this piece of art shows we are just as driven to expose them. The curtained "room" where the participants pen their secrets anonymously becomes a confessional.
Aren't we interesting, complex creatures?
