TV in the 60s

•December 24, 2009 • Leave a Comment

TV in the 60s was a vast wasteland with occasional oasises of excellence — on the quarter hour. Here are three classic commercials. Little visual haikus with a commercial element.

Remember . . .

Rembrandt was paid to paint the burghers.
Michelangelo, the patron saints.

First, Blechman’s Christmas season promo for CBS.

Invent a malady and provide a cure.

Lastly and most fastly.

The Career Paths of Dictators: A Quiz

•December 24, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Match the dictator with his pre-political profession.
A. Hitler
B. Mussolini
C. Stalin
D. Pol Pot
E. Mao

1. Journalist
2. Art student
3. House painter
4. Librarian
5. Divinity student

Answers:
A3, B1, C5, D2, E4

Did you notice, no lawyers? WTF.

Belonging to a Dilemma

•December 9, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Shot the source photos for this in Bedford, Indiana in a place I heard referred to as Bosnia.

 

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Photo Remix by Paul Smedberg
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French Lick

•November 29, 2009 • Leave a Comment
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Photo Remix by Paul Smedberg
24″ x 18″, Edition of 23
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The component images of this photo remix were shot at a nicely overwrought hotel in French Lick, Indiana.

Thomas Sebeok said . . .

•November 29, 2009 • Leave a Comment

The emphasis on the external context of a work is most compelling in texts which combine, like a collage, artistic and non-artistic components (e.g., the realistic novel with its frequent digressions of a referential nature) or which employ special, “extra-textual” devices (e.g., the epilogue and prologue) to create a distance between the author and the work and explicitly to place the latter in a historical and social setting.

Bright Little Pixies

•November 29, 2009 • Leave a Comment

I thought

at first

that there was

some sort of a problem

 

of course

if you think there’s a problem

there IS a problem

even if that’s the only problem

 

which it isn’t

 

this problem has to do with depth

 

too much here

too little there

 

perched

nearly naked

on a rotten timber

above a fathomless hole

in the dark

with flat-soled salesman’s shoes on

 

best just not to move

 

really I’m lightly

food poisoned

from the buffet

in the guest suite

of a molded plastic products distributor

near the convention hall

where for three days

plastic paid all the bills

 

wait wait wait

if I just lie down

right where I am

and stay absolutely still

they’ll eventually find me

and put me in a room

with a tv

with a remote

which I can tune

to a nature show

with little ferret-like animals

cute ferret-like animals

(hell, they could be ferrets)

running all over

 

and I can get out of the bed

and climb on a chair

and put my eye

right up to the tv

and feel the electricity in my cheek

and see the bright little pixies

that hid my clothes

 

The Secret Workshop of the Will’s Decisions

•October 14, 2009 • Leave a Comment
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Photo Remix by Paul Smedberg
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A little Elizabeth Taylor, a little Joan Miró, a little Arthur Schopenhauer, a little Alain de Botton.

 

death in the beginning of life

•October 10, 2009 • Leave a Comment
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Where are we before we’re born? The little death. Here in a little house.

Tossing away attachment

•October 8, 2009 • Leave a Comment
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Torn Sky

•September 21, 2009 • Leave a Comment
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11″ x 14″, Edition of 9
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Tears, cracks, rifts, schisms, borders, skins, interfaces. Real and imagined. Visible and invisible. Emotional and rational. Everyday. All the time.