Lost & Found - World's Largest Collection of Rustic Automata

Hi, I'm back with the occasional post.

Wise Words from Robert Crumb and With This I Bid You Adieu.

"The America that I missed died in about 1935. That’s why I have all this old stuff, all these old 78 records from that era. It was the golden age of recorded music, before the music business poisoned the people’s music, the same way that ‘agribusiness’ poisoned the very soil of the earth. In the old days, music was produced by common people, the music they produced to entertain themselves. The record industry took it and resold it, repackaged and killed it, spewed it out in a bland, artificial, ersatz version of itself. This goes along with the rise of the mass media, the spread of radio. My mother, born in the 1920s, remembered walking in the street in the summertime in Philadelphia, and in every other house, people were playing some kind of live music. Her parents played music and sang together. In her generation, her brothers didn’t want to play an instrument anymore. It was the swing era and all they wanted to do was to listen to Benny Goodman on the radio. The takeover of radio happened much later. In places like Africa, you can still find great recorded music from the ’50s. I have many 78s from Africa at that time that sound like some great rural music from America in the ’20s. In the U.S at that time there were thousands and thousands of bands, dance halls, ballrooms in hotels, restaurants had dance floors, school auditoriums, clubs in small towns. A small town of 10,000 would have a least a hundred bands. In the mid 30’s radio spread very fast in America and the depression killed a lot of the venues where live music was performed. You could go to the movies for 10 cents. Then in the 50’s TV finished it all off. Mass media makes you stay home, passive. In the 20’s there was live music everywhere in the States. I talked to old musicians who played in dance bands. This old musician bandleader Jack Coackley in San Francisco told me that in 1928 when you went downtown in the evening on the trolley car to play at a ballroom, the streets were full of musicians going to work, carrying instruments in cases. Same thing happened in France with the death of musette, the popular dance music of the working classes. There hasn’t been a decent popular music in America for a long time. The current pop music in the Western world is just plain god-awful. America is long gone. The ’80s killed it for me. The Reagan era, AIDS. It was an awful decade.”

How Synthesizers Work

At one time in my life I was a studio synthesist, traveling from recording studio to recording studio, producing music and sound effects using my modular synthesizers. From time to time, people would ask me how they operated. I usually explained things like oscillators, filters, voltage controlled amplifiers and envelope generators while their eyes glazed over.

Here's a link to an excellent explanation by Meg Neal that I found on Gizmodo.

Enigma: A Steampunk Cafe Filled with Kinetic Sculptures

Travel Photo of the Week

Fukushima, Japan

Rever 3D Printer for Kids On Kickstarter

From 3ders.org...

"3D printing firm Qubea, which has been active since mid-2012, has developed a new 3D printer for kids. The Rever 3D printer, marketed as an 'affordable 3D printer for kids', is the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, through which Qubea hopes to raise $150,000."

The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by Robert Crumb

Robert Crumb Gets It Out of His System

A splendid interview from Observer.com....

“Oh, I hate men much more than women,” Mr. Crumb said, “They are just horrible. It’s men who do all the raping and pillaging, the mass killing. Fame also exposed me to a very seedy, sleazy side of humanity I wasn’t aware of before. I was just a naïve, 26-year-old schlub with a boss working for a greeting card company. I was just a worker drawing these cards. After I started doing these comics, suddenly a lot of very carefully coiffed men in leather trench coats and open shirts with gold chains wanted to talk to me and make deals.”

The rest is even better.

Fun Time! Terry Gilliam's Deleted Animations from Monty Python & The Holy Grail!

Anila Quayyum Agha’s ‘Intersections’

Anila Quayyum Agha: Intersections

For more information, go to Agha's website.

kontenerART: A Micro City Made of Shipping Containers

From DesignBoom...

"Every year, on the first days of May, kontenerART opens its doors to the public. Located in Poznan, Poland, and designed by Adam Wiercinski Architekt, the project is an initiative of independent artists to create a place for meeting new people, relax and take part of a whole creative process that includes workshops, concerts and exhibitions. small and independent spaces are available for associations, foundations or individual artists and they can be used freely until the end of August."

Travel Photo of the Week

Chernobyl

Yayoi Kusama's 'Infinity' Rooms Are the Most Disorienting Places in the World

More HERE.

Ronnie Burkett and The Daisy Theatre

Cheryl and I were so blessed to be able to see Ronnie Burkett's final NYC performance of his wonderful variety show, The Daisy Theatre, Saturday night. This brilliant and insightful man gave us two and a half hours of nonstop, side-splittingly hilarious puppetry exploring the funnier aspects of the human condition. A masterpiece! Thank you for an exceptional evening Ronnie!

Here's a little taste............

Too Busy!

Sorry, no post today.

Fun Time! Boxwars: Combatants Battle Armed and Armored With Only Cardboard!

Can This Portable Tiny Apartment Transform City Housing?

This tiny apartment promises a solution to the problem of housing for cash-strapped, modern city dwellers: take your apartment with you when you move. Designed by Jeff Wilson, a professor of environmental science at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas, the experimental housing system, called "Kasita," was inspired by Wilson's time living in a 33-square-foot dumpster.

Archidirectors: The Imaginary Homes of Movie Directors

Preview of archidirectors by Federico Babina

Travel Photo of the Week

Bora Bora

What Fabien Cousteau Learned From Spending 31 Days Underwater

Floatin' Down South - Dutch/‌American Artists on an Art Boat

Floatin' Down South

More information HERE.

Project Apollo Archive

High definition. Just released. More (over 10,000 photos) HERE.

Fun Time! Amazing Hulkbuster Costume Stands Nine Feet Tall and Shoots Actual Laser Beams From Its Eyes!

Some people really know how to have fun.

Are You a Pessimist or an Optomist? Find Out Why Here.

Hand-Sculpted Clay Portraits and Illustrations by Irma Gruenholz

Madrid-based artist Irma Gruenholz creates portraits and still-lifes that could easily be mistaken for 2D images found in storybooks. Found on Colossal.

Travel Photo of the Week

Galle, Sri Lanka

Haas & Hahn: How Painting Can Transform Communities

A 'Sesame Street' Puppeteer On How To Blow Your Kid’s Mind With Fingers, Socks, And Boxes

Need to entertain kids? Noel MacNeal is an expert at this. MacNeal has worked with really, really big puppets — he was Bear in Bear In The Blue House, as well as the whole damn Snuffleupagus family on Sesame Street. And he says you don't need access to the Sesame Workshop to go from hand puppets to a whole head puppet.

In this article for the website Fatherly, he tells you his secrets for keeping kids busy and happy. Have a look. You have nothing to lose but your stodgy, adult inhibitions!

Man Made Global Warming Is Not News

In 1958 the US National Academies of Science warned the US government that they had detected a robust "Anthropogenic Global Warming" signal. Like the modern day Al Gore, Frank Capra publicized the possible effects in this popular documentary.

Fun Time! Downton Wars! Episode One! The Phantom Valet!

How It's Made: Making a Glass Chandelier

This Is What It's Like To Teach In North Korea

Travel Photo of the Week

Dunbar Rock, Honduras

This villa on Dunbar Rock rents for about $1500 a week. More amazing photos HERE.

The Conditioned.

100-Year-Old Footage of Monet Painting Outdoors

What is Panoramical?

PANORAMICAL is a new kind of game created by Argentine DJ, visualist, and programmer Fernando Ramallo and PROTEUS co-creator David Kanaga.

Fun Time! Napkin Drawings of ‘Star Wars’ Characters Riding on Dinosaurs!

More HERE.

First Timelapse of the Solar System to Scale

To Scale: The Solar System from Wylie Overstreet

Off-Grid House Made Entirely of Salvaged Materials

Found on Curbed.com...

Travel Photo of the Week

Puget Sound, Washington State

The Wonderland Book: Photographer Kirsty Mitchell Honors Her Mother Through Lavish Conceptual Portraits

Want a copy of the book? Click HERE.

Cabin Porn

Just the thing for folks addicted to the notion that cabin living could be fun.

A summer cabin along Denny Creek near Snoqualmie Pass, Washington.

For more Cabin Porn click HERE.

This Changes Everything

Fun Time! The World of Jim Henson!

Drawing Timelapse by Karla Ortiz

KARLA ORTIZ OMENS from Karla Ortiz

5 Impressive Tiny Houses You Can Order Right Now

From Curbed.com....

$64,500 - escapetraveler.net

$79,000 - tinyheirloom.com

? - pod-idladla.com

$35,000 -  tinyhouselistings.com/toybox

$47.000 - monarchtinyhomes.com

Travel Photo of the Week

Boston, Massachusetts

Strange Musical Instruments Never Seen Before - Man Invents Hundreds of them - The Anarchestra

Master Penman Jake Weidmann

If your children don't learn to read and write cursive, they will not be able to read the United States Constitution in the original.

Penmanship is important.

The Great Martian War

Great martian war from PLAZMA 

Fun Time! Frank Oz Interview!

How To Build a French Cleat Organizing System

More information on Instructables.

Snowden, Assange and Manning Heros to Almost Everyone But US

or.....

New statue in Germany illustrates just how much the rest of the world opposes the burgeoning U.S. police state.

Travel Photo of the Week

New London Ledge Lighthouse, Connecticut

‘All Things Must Pass’, An Upcoming Documentary on the Fall of Tower Records

Giant Air-Sucking Wall Might Help Combat Climate change.

Found on Upworthy...

"While our carbon emissions have increased, our planet still absorbs the same amount of carbon dioxide, meaning that there's more in the environment than ever before (cue: global warming).

"That's why a group of Canadian engineers are constructing a wall that sucks carbon dioxide right out of the air. Yep, you read that right. Rather than letting that extra carbon dioxide hang out, these carbon engineers want to reduce the threat of climate change by absorbing CO2 molecules and creating carbon-neutral fuels.

"How does the prototype work? First, a fan in the "air contactor" sucks in air molecules (only 1 in every 2,500 of which is CO2), which pass through the air contactor and come into contact with carbon-absorbent surfaces. Then the carbon molecules react, becoming a liquid that is eventually hardened into solid carbonate pellets (think: tiny white pebbles made of carbon). And, finally, high temperatures melt those pellets to release pure carbon dioxide, which can be used as fuel."

Eva Jospin Sculpts Cardboard Into Dense, Mysterious Forests

"Eva Jospin uses cardboard to make forests. Her works show the complexity of the woods. It’s the same complexity you see in cathedrals or when looking at the stars. They are constantly shifting between patterns and chaos, just like real forests."

Fun Time! Jon Stewart's Last Daily Show!

Jon Stewart finished up his insanely successful run on The Daily Show this week. Click HERE for the entire episode online.

In other news, I will be taking a bit of time off from my blog.

Unit 77

Here is a tiny house in Bellingham, Washington that would be easy to live in. Roomy and bright, there are no amenities that have been overlooked. Two bedrooms and 650 square feet of space.

A London Minute (plus 21 seconds)

Travel Photo of the Week

Bermuda

This Map Shows the US is 11 'Nations' With Entirely Different Cultures

Want to know why America can't seem to make a decision that more than 50% of the country can tolerate? Business insider has an article with a map showing the United States to be not so united. In fact, the article proposes that our country is actually 11 different nations with sometimes completely different attitudes about education, religion, government and regulation, and personal liberty. It's no wonder we're in the political pickle that we're in.

Have a look and see where you're attitudes fall.

David Byrne Wants to Open the Music Industry’s Black Box

David Byrne has written a sobering op-ed in the New York Times concerning the abysmal artist payment practices in the music industry. I won't rehash his article (you can read the entire piece by clicking on his name above). Instead, I'll quote from it.

"It’s easy to blame new technologies like streaming services for the drastic reduction in musicians’ income. But on closer inspection we see that it is a bit more complicated. Even as the musical audience has grown, ways have been found to siphon off a greater percentage than ever of the money that customers and music fans pay for recorded music. Many streaming services are at the mercy of the record labels (especially the big three: Sony, Universal and Warner), and nondisclosure agreements keep all parties from being more transparent."

"Perhaps the biggest problem artists face today is that lack of transparency. I’ve asked basic questions of both the digital services and the music labels and been stonewalled."

"Putting together a picture of where listeners’ money goes when we pay for a streaming service subscription is notoriously complicated. Here is some of what we do know: About 70 percent of the money a listener pays to Spotify (which, to its credit, has tried to illuminate the opaque payment system) goes to the rights holders, usually the labels, which play the largest role in determining how much artists are paid."

"The labels then pay artists a percentage (often 15 percent or so) of their share. This might make sense if streaming music included manufacturing, breakage and other physical costs for the label to recoup, but it does not. When compared with vinyl and CD production, streaming gives the labels incredibly high margins, but the labels act as though nothing has changed."

"One industry source told me that the major labels assigned the income they got from streaming services on a seemingly arbitrary basis to the artists in their catalog. Here’s a hypothetical example: Let’s say in January Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” accounted for 5 percent of the total revenue that Spotify paid to Universal Music for its catalog. Universal is not obligated to take the gross revenue it received and assign that same 5 percent to Sam Smith’s account. They might give him 3 percent — or 10 percent. What’s to stop them?"

"The labels also get money from three other sources, all of which are hidden from artists: They get advances from the streaming services, catalog service payments for old songs and equity in the streaming services themselves."

"Musicians are entrepreneurs. We are essentially partners with the labels, and should be treated that way. Artists and labels have many common interests — both are appalled, for instance, by the oddly meager payments from YouTube (more people globally listen to music free on YouTube than anywhere else). With shared data on how, where, why and when our audience listens, we can all expand our reach. This would benefit YouTube, the labels and us as well. With cooperation and transparency the industry can grow to three times its current size, Willard Ahdritz, the head of Kobalt, an independent music and publishing collection service, told me."

All of which is why I tell young artists to be very careful before they sign on any dotted line.

Messner Museum Is Literally Built Inside A Mountaintop

From A/N Blog...

"Zaha Hadid‘s Messner Mountain Museum Corones is perched 7,464 feet above sea level. The museum itself is embedded within Mount Kronplatz as if it was violently speared through the peak to overlook the breathtaking Dolomites region in the Italy. And you you can see the stunning views yourself now that the museum has officially opened to the public.

"The predominantly subterranean construction encouraged by Hadid was intended to allow the smooth, computer-drafted building to blend and contrast with the mountain’s jagged rock. With only the cement-based entrance exposed, the museum resembles a singular, enormous climbing wall hand hold that, because of its natural color, is paired well alongside the mountain landscape inviting climbers to ascend to the peak."

But you have to climb to the top of Mount Kronplatz to see it.

Fun Time! The Ultimate Guided Meditation!

A Glass of Seawater Powers This Portable Lamp

A team of three Philippine-based inventors has developed a lamp that’s capable producing light for eight hours on a cup of saltwater.

The salt powered lamp uses the same science that's behind battery-making. It differs from batteries in that the entire reaction is safe and harmless. Also, there are no flammable materials or components that go into lamp.

Used 8 hours a day, every day, the team says the lamp can provide light for 6 months (or even over a year if used more efficiently) without having to replace any parts.

Would You Buy This Plywood Guitar? It's Made From Skateboards.

Found on Colossal...

"Nick Pourfard is 22-year-old artist, musician, and skateboarder currently combing his multiple talents into one package: guitars built from reclaimed skateboard decks. The San Francisco-based industrial design student taught himself woodworking to tackle the project which he branded as Prisma Guitars. Each instrument is 100% handmade and composed of skateboards that have been used or broken."

Lots of beautiful design due to the lamination. I wonder what they sound like.

Custom models start at $2500.

Travel Photo of the Week

Portofino, Italy

Charlie Pellett, The Voice Behind New York City Subway Announcements

The Most Recognizable Voice in New York

LSD: The Opera - Huxley's Last Trip

Housing Through the Centuries

Fun Time! A Five-Foot Long Millennium Falcon Model Made of Cardboard!

Tom Richner built a Millennium Falcon all out of cardboard and it only took him 140 hours. You can read his interview HERE.

"Healing Tool" Replaces Billboard Ads with Art

Brian Kane, Healing Tool

New Proposal Would Replace Cement with 3D Printed 'Hempcrete'

From 3ders.org...

"Chad Knutsen, along with a team he is leading, have recently proposed to MIT’s Climate CoLab crowdsourced design platform an idea for replacing cement with 3D printed ‘Hempcrete’ for construction projects with the aim of reducing worldwide CO2 emissions by 7-8%.

"According to Knutsen, all of the structural and architectural elements will be constructed of either hemp fiberboard, hempcrete/hempstone, or hemp plastic or resin composites - all produced via additive manufacturing in ‘single-man-manageable-blocks’ that feature a low weight “skeleton” form - or in other words, a structurally-optimized design that only applies material where needed. The resulting blocks are able to be stacked similar to building blocks in any shape desired by the homeowner with the ability to incorporate special blocks for utilities and wiring into the final design.

"'We intend to produce a hempcrete mixture that I am calling "Hempstone", made of micronized lime, and specially milled refined hemp fibers with incredible strength using a (currently functioning and proven) proprietary technology that breaks down materials utilizing resonant frequency and negative air pressure rather than friction and heat to tease the materials apart long natural structural boundaries,” explains Knutsen in his proposal, which has already received 79 votes from the crowdsourced community.

'"As hempcrete "petrifies" after a few years in the elements, we are excited about the possibilities presented by constructing structures that will evolve from plant into stone, will actually absorb more co2 than they release during construction and during the petrification process, and can be made from a completely renewable material using minimal waste methods for construction."'

Travel Photo of the Week

Dubrovnik, Adriatic Sea, Croatia