The 18th century novelists and writers were very popular in the trenches in the Great War. And yes, Austen was used in the fever chart that the War Office drew up to treat shell-shocked soldiers. She was put top of that chart, in terms of how therapeutic her works could be in a dire situation where a man was grievously wounded and needed to be read to. Austen's novels were thought to be the most comforting.
— Claire Harman, author of the book Jane's Fame in an NPR interview (thanks Dad!)
The recently launched website Twenty Ten provides an African perspective of football, its social and cultural role in 
Africa and the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. The site showcases photography, text, radio and multimedia content created by African journalists. I highly recommend the multimedia production Our Soweto pitch by Samantha Reinders, the photo series Arab representation by Mohamed Abdou and the radio broadcast Football and academics by Rosemary Mroba Gaisie.
Great card.
The English expression “to fall asleep” is apt because the transition between waking and sleeping is a gradual drop from one state of being into another, a giving up of full self-consciousness for unconsciousness or for the altered consciousness of dreams. Except in cases of exhaustion or with the aid of drugs, the movement from one world to another is not instantaneous; it takes a little time. Full waking self-consciousness begins to loosen and unravel.
— Siri Hustvedt, in the NYT article All-Nighters: Failing to Fall (via The Literary Piano)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOvZAxAN9ng&hl=en_US&fs=1&] Over the weekend I watched this documentary about the artist Clayton Patterson, self-appointed visual historian of the Lower East Side subculture since the early 1980s. He started documenting daily life through photography and picked up video in 1986 when the handheld camcorder came onto the scene.
"Realizing the unlimited potential of video he quickly rode a new wave into a world of politics and activism, employing documentation as a tool to combat corrupt authority, corporate takeover, and eventually gentrification."
- Rebel with a Lens in The Brooklyn Rail
He amassed over 100,000 photographs and over 10,000 hours of video, mostly famously his footage of the police brutality in the Tompkins Square Park riots. In a New York Times multimedia feature, Patterson describes some of his photos and the now-gone scene.
Smart Project Space has teamed up with Goethe Institut Amsterdam for a film series dedicated to German experimental film.
3 March Bauhaus Bauhaus films experimented with color, shapes and music and were the result of a creative dialogue between the influential art movement and the new medium represented by cinema. Works by Werner Graeff, Heinrich Brocksieper, Kurt Kranz, Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter and Kurt Schwerdtfeger.
17 March Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City) & Melodie der Welt (Melody of the World) Two films by Walter Ruttman, pioneer of modern multimedia art.
31 March Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) A semi-documentary film by Robert Siodmak aims to experiment and thrive off of momentary improvisation.
The style of the Glass family, New York circa 1955. Also easy to mistake as the pieces from the set design of The Royal Tenenbaums. (via constantwanderlust: thethinkingtank)
[vimeo vimeo.com/9418259 w=500&h=400] Fantastic book cover designs by Jim Tierney (via faceoutbooks).
"...he set down a plate of sugar-covered crescents, the cornes de gazelle. No one was the least bit hungry anymore, but that is precisely what is so good about the moment devoted to pastries: they can only be appreciated to the full extent of their subtlety when they are not eaten to assuage our hunger, when the orgy of their sugary sweetness is not destined to fill some primary need but to coat our palate with all the benevolence of the world."
— Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery
Nice collection of street art on Unurth including Chu, JR, and 2501. (unicornology: spaceships: texturism)
Today is Valentine's Day and I find myself reading Alain de Botton's book Essays in Love. By chance, instead of being on one of the less love-y chapters, such as 'Romantic Fatalism', 'Intermittances of the Heart', or 'Romantic Terrorism', this morning I was at the chapter 'Speaking Love' where de Botton analyzes the difficulty his experience of first trying to articulate sentiments of love for his girlfriend Chloe.
There seemed to be no way to transport love in the word L-O-V-E without at the same time throwing the most banal associations into the basket. The word was too rich in foreign history: everything from the Troubadours to Casablanca had cashed in on the letters. Was it not my duty to be the author of my own feelings? Would I not have to fashion a declaration with a uniqueness to match Chloe's? I felt disconcertingly aware of the mundanity of our situation: a man and a women, lovers, celebrating a birthday in a Chinese restaurant, one night in the Western world, somewhere toward the end of the twentieth century. No, my meaning could never make the journey in L-O-V-E. It would have to seek alternative transportation.
For a daily dose of love, the photoblog Urban Love Daily posts images of found objects that resemble a heart or love in some way. Like this heart-shaped piece of insulation on the street.
World Press Photo has announced the winners for the 2010 contest. The main prize goes to the Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo for a single from his series entitled From the Roofs of Tehran.
"The picture depicts women shouting in protest from a rooftop in Tehran on 24 June. The winning photograph is part of a story of the nights following the contested presidential elections in Iran, when people shouted their dissent from roofs and balconies, after daytime protests in the streets. The story as a whole was awarded first prize in the category People in the News."
Other favorite series include Marco Vernaschi's photos from Guinea Bissau, Tommaso Ausili's images from a slaughterhouse in Italy, Pieter Ten Hoopen's series on Hungry Horse, Montana, and Fang Qianhua's photos of contaminated oranges in China. All of the winning images can be viewed in the online gallery.
While enjoying Abby's photos from a trip to a nursery in Oregon, I was caught by this image of the window of a blue house, the tree with faint spots of red. Lovely.
I have been looking at a lot of photos lately at work, like thousands a day. I've noticed that when I look at photography I can never silence the writer inside me. I also want to hear a caption, to know the context and hear a story about the captured moment. I can be impressed by the aesthetics of the image, but I can connect with it only when I can connect with its story. For me, the image of plants and flowerpots at a rustic nursery on a sunny February day in Oregon reminds me of the subtle beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Home. And then I wonder how my mother's landscaping project is progressing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ9s5NhVpeg&hl=en_US&fs=1&] Images of the 1910 flood in Paris.
"It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how."
— Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
(via modish: abbytryagain)
From 2-4 February, there will be a German film festival at De Haagse Hogeschool. Films include Solino, Unsere Hütte, Losers and Winners, RUHR.2010, and Schimanski.
Straight out of the digital backlash, comes the Zoomable Map, the paper version.