Not Real

I want to see..

RON MUECK - Hyper-Realist Sculptor

In Bed

Spooning Couple

Mask II




I recently saw...

Erick Swenson


"Muncie" (This was fascinating. Just that it could balance and stay up.)

Mind Tricks

Just 2 Simple Flabbergasters...

Sit and make your right foot go clockwise. As you continue to move your foot clockwise, use your right hand and write in the air the number 6. You will no longer be able to spin your leg clockwise, it will go counter clockwise or just move awkwardly. Your brain can't do both actions at the same time.

Hold a heavy book in one hand (with your palm faced upward). Try to keep your hand from not moving as you have someone lift the book away. Your hand can't help but move upward a little. Now hold the book the same way again, and this time with your other hand lift the book away. Your hand will stay perfectly still. You can only keep your hand perfectly still if you are the one moving the book, not if someone else does.

woah...

Top 3 Worst Torture Devices Ever

Why do people get so interested in the macabre and horrendous side of human nature? Famous serial killers are fascinating to hear about and I do love all those lame crime shows on TV. I fell like we can't really help it though. It's pure curiosity to want to know about the things most of us never have to deal with. Of course, also to just know about them from a safe distance. I'm not really one for horror movies or video games, but from what I can see Americans love violence and being terrified. They eat that shit up. Maybe it's because of human progression from the violent wild into a repressed civilized society? We just don't see enough of it anymore? I really want to understand it. Like for example, torture devices. Humans once spent sooo much time focused on the science of killing someone in the most elaborately gruesome way possible.

Top 3 Worst Torture Devices Ever....

Usually they would set up an execution in a public area in order to put on a good show. The Brazen Bull was made so you couldn't see the trapped person within it, and instead only saw a bull sculpture that made a muffled noise through it's nostrils (which were the sounds of the person inside screaming as they were burned to death). Unlike most execution shows, this device detached the audience from the victim. Regardless though, I feel people would show up either way. The Iron Maiden and Judas Cradle were pretty awful too.

The Iron Maiden - designed so the spikes wouldn't hit vital organs of the victim, and therefore they would stay around for a while bleeding to death and in a lot of pain. Some even had spikes positioned to go into the eyes.

Judas Cradle/Chair - Yeah people sat on top of that. (Spanish Donkey is similar to this, where a victim is pulled down slowly by weights until they eventually get split in half.) The Spanish Inquisition was not a pleasant time.

Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold List

Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold

(I'm showing the original prices of these artworks, not the "adjusted prices". The full list that I found on wiki was organized and "ordered by consumer price index inflation-adjusted value" as of March 2010)

1. Jackson Pollock's No. 5, 1948 = $140 million

(After taking an "Art Since 1945" class I can understand why Pollock was so influential in the art world. He was an abstract expressionist that focused not on the final product of a piece, but instead the process. It was the performance of painting that was important. And although it may look easy, I guess Pollock is a really hard artist to copy. He created his pieces using a certain technique that many can't duplicate. I'm still amazed this is #1 though.)

2. Willem de Kooning's Woman III = $137.5 million

(I don't know much about Willem de Kooning or his work, but it seems people are really willing to spend a lot for the work of the leading New York Abstract Expressionists)

3. Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I = $135 million

(Maybe because it's gold plated it made the list. Either way I really dislike this artist's work. When I was in the 6th grade, my art teacher had a reproduction of his piece The Kiss in her classroom. I didn't know it was a reproduction and I thought it was my teacher's work. I remember thinking no wonder she became a teacher and never got big in the art world, her work sucks. A bit ironic and funny though because The Kiss was painted by Gustav klimt and is a pretty famous painting.)

4. Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet = $82.5 million

(It's so sad how out of the top 36 most expensive paintings in the world, van Gogh made the list 7 times. While he was alive, he was considered a failed artist and was given no praise. He lived a miserable life and ended up trying to kill himself, which he also failed at. Only after he died was he appreciated.)

5. Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Bal du moulin de la Galette = $78.1 million

(I don't know a lot about Renoir's life or his work. I know that he helped develop the Impressionist style. I have seen many of his paintings throughout my life. Recently I saw his Dance at Bougival at the MFA in Boston, it's an amazing piece.)

Children at Kissingen, Germany

Humans are very sociable animals. They gather close together in their environment. They act similar to one another, if not completely the same. They follow the masses, and the masses follow a leader.

The description of this photo stated that Martin Munkacsi thought this was his best photo and had described it once as the "hopeless fate of human beings: their similarity to the fate of herrings, pressed into a barrel, or pressed in a city, minus air, with no horizon - freedom on paper only, and not in fact - with duties made by themselves, or imposed by leaders, to hold them in a certain manner."

Children at Kissingten, Germany photographed by Martin Munkacsi

This morning I was looking through The Photo Book and I came across this photo by Martin Munkacsi. It's called Children at Kissingen, Germany. At first I thought they were all dead, and so I read the description and they are merely sunbathing together. Maybe because it's a black and white photo of bodies, but I instantly thought the Holocaust. When I saw the title I was almost sure of it. The poor Germans. When someone says "Germany" or "German", I instantly think of Concentration Camps and Nazis. In America its drilled into our heads since we are young. We shouldn't ever forget events from the past, but I feel we need to specify that those people involved in the horrendous acts of the past be left there. Remember them, honor them, but don't feel just because you are related to them or connected through a group that you should also be apologized to and honored. A current group of people shouldn't still be held "victimized" and another still considered "evil" decades (even sometimes centuries) after the event. We need to move on people. Events based on racism will continue in racism, but not through the initial group that started it. Reverse racism is obnoxious. If the decedents continue to seek compensation for their victimized ancestors, racism will continue. The "victim races" and the "bully races" need to forgive each other and move on with life.

Top Heartwrenching Movies Of All Time

I was looking through youtube and decided to click on one of the videos displayed on the side. It was entitled "20 saddest movie moments". It sucked. Although it did include a few sad movies like The Green Mile and Click (that one scene with the dad and the coin trick oh god I'm such a pussy). Soooo anyways, I decided to make a list (and maybe more later on). I finally decided to get "with it" in the whole online thing and to create my first blog account.

My List of the

Top HEARTWRENCHING Movies Of All Time

(basically any movie where I needed a tissue and a hug in the end)

The Shawshank Redemption

(The very old prison librarian who has been there for decades is finally set free. The outside world has changed since he has gone to jail. He can't deal with it, and after carving BROOKS WAS HERE into the wood beam, hangs himself wearing a nice suit.)

Midnight Cowboy

(Ratso gets increasingly sicker throughout the movie. His dream is to go to Miami, so Joe buys tickets to Florida for the both of them. During a rest stop, Joe buys himself and Ratso colorful patterned t-shirts. Ratso is sick and dies right before the bus arrives there. Whole movie is pretty depressing though.)

The Straight Story

(An old man who doesn't have a driver's license instead drives his lawn mower across states to visit his dying brother who he wants to make amends with before he dies.)

American History X

(A neo nazi realizes his faults when asked in jail "has anything you've done made your life better?". He saves his younger brother from going down the same path, but it turns out to be too late.)

25th Hour

(The drug dealer Edward Norton is driven to jail by his father. His father narrates as you see what Edward's life could be like if he doesn't go to jail, and instead just keeps driving. They show Edward old surrounded by his wife and children explaining how if he had gone to jail they would have never existed. It then shows Edward merely having slept the whole time his father had explained the possibilities of bailing on jail.)

The Hours

(The little boy who was abandoned by his depressed mother grows up to be a very depressed writer dying of AIDS. He explains how he had always loved Meryl Streep right before he commits suicide by falling out his window.)

The Green Mile

(Executing an innocent man and knowing it as you give the orders. A wholesome big black guy without sin, and who may possess heavenly-like qualities.)

The Bridges of Madison County

(A rejected Clint looks at his love Meryl Streep from across the street. Is he crying or is the rain? They want to be with each other but Meryl decides she can't leave her family no matter how much they deeply love each other.)

The Notebook

(After all that romantic shit, She remembers despite her Alzheimer's but only for short moments. During one of those moments of remembering, they die holding each other)

Titanic

(Rose lives a long full life after surviving the Titanic going down. As an old lady she dies peacefully in her sleep, and she dreams/her heaven is with Jack and the crew of the Titanic. After decades of experience with marriage and family, she still loves Jack more than anything else.)

Animal Farm

(Boxer the horse with the personification of being an old man who is the hardest worker on the farm, is betrayed by the dictating pigs and tricked into going into the trailer of a slaughterhouse truck. His mantra throughout the movie "I will work harder". He keeps kicking the trailer in an attempt to escape as it starts to drive away, but then just stops and accepts his death.)

Stand By Me

(After the whole adventure with the dead body in the woods, the grown up Gordie says that Chris died when he was older trying to save a man. As Gordie narrates the epilogue, Chris as a child disappears as he walks away.)

The Lion King

(If I'm in a certain mood, the scene with the father dying still gets me. A child trying to wake up their dead father is heartbreaking in concept.)

Merlin

(Geek reference I know but the soundtrack just makes it so sad. Merlin finally finds Nimue in the woods but they are very old and close to death. Merlin uses the last of magic on earth to make them young again)

Requiem For A Dream

(It's definitely a sad movie so I'll add it. But maybe I should consider it more just a downer of a movie. I don't usually cry at the end, more than just feel totally depressed and miserable.)

DragonHeart

(Another serious geek reference I know. I haven't seen this movie in soo long but it used to always make me cry. The evil king shares blood with a dragon (with an awesome Scottish accent). If the man kills the evil king, it will also then kill the dragon. The dragon happens to be the very last dragon on earth as well as his friend.)

Million Dollar Baby

(After two very lonely people find each other, one has to help assist the other in dying)

Earth

(That fucking stumbling polar bear gets me every single time. It fails at getting food, collapses alone and starving, and then dies. And that's the reality of nature.)