Posts from — April 2007

Well I just returned from a terrific trip, including a visit to Osaka and Kyoto with my Dad. The Namba Dotonburi district is always fun, with its giant seafood sculpture signage. The Red Devil  takoyaki grilled octopus ball shop is looking pretty fashionable, too!

In Japan there is no shortage of robots, and the one in Namba that amused me was the fat automaton struggling and hobbling with two cases of Asahi beer in front of the liquor store. This strikes me as a really good use of a robot–to portray a sweaty human carrying cases of beer, and none too steady on his feet!

After swilling beer and munching seafood, you may want to stop for a rest at one of the fanciful hotels nearby, like the “International Hotel” with it’s curious facade.

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In case you dropped out of art school, or never had the chance to go, or if you are just a drunken bum who likes to draw - there is always Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.

Indeed, this combination of burlesque, happy hour, life drawing and theatre of the absurd might be your best option!

Of course you have to live in New York… Or one of these lesser-known places:

Dr. Sketchy’s - Rome
Dr. Sketchy’s - Finland
Dr. Sketchy’s - San Fransisco
Dr. Sketchy’s - London
Dr. Sketchy’s - Phoenix
Dr. Sketchy’s - Melbourne
Dr. Sketchy’s - Philly
Dr. Sketchy’s - Detroit
Dr. Sketchy’s - Los Angeles
Dr. Sketchy’s - Scotland
Dr. Sketchy’s - Raleigh
Dr. Sketchy’s - Auckland, New Zealand
Dr. Sketchy’s - Austin
Dr. Sketchy’s - Toronto
Dr. Sketchy’s - Sydney, Australia
Dr. Sketchy’s - Boston
Dr. Sketchy’s - Denver
Dr. Sketchy’s - State College, PA
Dr. Sketchy’s - Greensboro, NC
Dr. Sketchy’s - Madison, Wisconsin

Among the many brilliant comedy sketches by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, their dialog over sandwiches at the art museum is a riot.

Questioning the value of huge investments for public art, they pass judgement on Rubens, Da Vinci, Frans Hals, and Cezanne, while lamenting the absence of duck paintings by Vernon Ward.

Here are both parts on YouTube:

Part One

Part Two

Books about imaginary fields of knowledge have always fascinated me. What started out in H. P. Lovecraft as an imaginary compendium of arcane knowledge [Necronomicon], later became the fodder of wannabe sorcerers…not to mention a mass-market paperback.

One of my favorites of this genre is the often overlooked classic Parallel Botany, by Leo Lionni, in which a variety of amazing pseudo-plants are investigated by a menagerie of oddball adventurers. Lionni kindly provided us with lush illustrations of these weird vegetables (some of them invisible or half-animal) as well as photos of their intrepid discoverers.

Now we are treated to yet another classic, the entire Codex Seraphinianus, by Luigi Seraphini, which is not only chock full of exquisite illustrations, but is rendered more mysterious by the accompanying text in an invented language!

Perhaps we should all spend a little more time imagining what we might know, or knowing more about what we might imagine…rather than to continually dissect the world around us into an infinite number of bald facts. That is not to say I dislike facts! I am the first to embrace truth over so-called faith. Nonetheless a little wandering in the pastures of pure imagination also does the overworked brain some good every now and then.

**LINK** See also an excellent article on the Codex by Justin Taylor in the May 2007 issue of The Believer, full text online here

The Center for Space Standards & Innovation has some interesting videos of earth orbiting satellites. The satellite destroyed by a missile launched from Xichang, Sichuan (China) is depicted in a high-resolution WMV file.

The red debris cloud is shown in relation to the green orbit of the International Space Station.

**LINK**

Here’s an amusing snapshot of my brother, Sangpo, on the set of the TV film series Into the West. He played one of the Chinese railroad workers in Episode 4.

If you are interested in the math behind visualization of complex topologies, have a look at the publications of Valerio Pascucci. Cool stuff, Val!

**LINK**

A long lost interview with Doug Adams, author of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has surfaced at the online zine, Dark Matter. Bravo, Ian!

**LINK**