Visual Loft: 01/12

January 29, 2012

Esther Bubley, Eddie Adams

The iconic picture of Eddie Adams changed the perception of Vietnam War in the late 1960s. But it was preceded 25 years by this image by Esther Bubley.

Also check a very well documented collection of images and art pieces done after Saigon Execution. It's worth!

Esther Bubley, Playtime. Small Boys Watching the Woodrow Wilson High School Cadets (1943)

Eddie Adams, Saigon Execution (1968)

January 27, 2012

This animation video was, earlier this week, nominated for the Oscar. It is a wonderful work about the life of a writer/reader, Morris Lessmore, who loves books and discovers a fairy house full of alive, flying books.

Enjoy it!

Update (Feb. 10, 2012): Letras Libres just published my post on Morris Lessmore today.

January 26, 2012

Life's small pleasures

This morning I woke up and finished Haruki Murakami's What I talk about when I talk about running. Reading early in the morning in bed and finishing a book is one of those small pleasures of life.

I was enjoying my reading, when I found this short story on the last page:

"In the 1980s I used to jog every morning in Tokyo and often passed a very attractive young woman. We passed each other jogging for several years and got to recognize each other by sight and smile a greeting each time we passed. I never spoke to her (I'm too shy), and of course don't even know her name. But seeing her face every morning as I ran was one of life's small pleasures. Without pleasures like that, it's pretty hard to get up and go jogging every morning".

Hilary Rhoda works out in TriBeCa

January 23, 2012

Hoper

Tom Firestone made a clip out of Hoper's iconic "Nighthawks". Enjoy!

January 21, 2012

How to be(come) a cool guy

I think this is awesome cool. Girls find it sexy.

January 18, 2012

Flat: Table Mountain, Eisberg in Weddell Sea

January 16, 2012

Shipwrecks

People are talking these days about the shipwreck off to Tuscany. I was reading the memoirs of a German entrepreneur, August Santleben, who established the first international diligence between USA (Texas) and Mexico. His book begins with the story of an accident off to Galveston, in which many passengers lost their lives:

The city of Galveston, Texas, was sighted about the middle of July, 1845, after making a safe voyage of seven weeks' duration, but many of those who greeted the land of their adoption with joyful expectations were destined to a watery grave when entering the harbor. I do not know what brought about the catastrophe, but my parents, who gave me this information, said that the ship was stranded when passing through the channel leading into Galveston Bay, about half a mile from shore, where it was broken to pieces, and the wreck could be seen as late as 1885. Only thirty-five of the passengers were saved, and they were rescued by a life-boat that was sent from the shore. Among them was an infant boy, about two years of age, who was thrown to my parents after they entered the boat, by some one on the vessel, under the impression that the child belonged to our family.

There is this amazing picture by Eugenio Espino Barros. I haven't been able to gather more information, but I guess it was taken in Veracruz.

Eugenio Espino Barros

Costa Concordia (2012)

Montaigne on Women

Foto: Annie Lee

Two excerpts of Michel de Montaigne's Essays on women.

On Friendship

"To compare the affection toward women unto it, although it proceed from our owne free choice, a man cannot, nor may it be placed in this ranke: Her fire, I confesse it to be more active, more fervent, and more sharpe. But it is a rash and wavering fire, waving and divers: the fire of an ague subject to fits and stints, and that hath but slender hold-fast of us."

Apology for Raymond de Sebonde

"The Mexicans esteem a low forehead a great beauty, and though they shave all other parts, they nourish hair on the forehead and increase it by art, and have great breasts in so great reputation that they affect to give their children suck over their shoulders."

And he sharply adds: "We should paint deformity so."

January 13, 2012

Female Christs

Édouard Charton, Le crucifix de Combapata (1863)

Félicien Rops, La tentation de Saint Antoine (1878)

Félicien Rops, La tentation de Saint Antoine - Studie (1878)

Albert von Keller, Im Mondschein (1894)

Jeanne Mammen, Woman at cross (1908)

Frantisek Drtikol, Untitled (Crucified woman) (1913-1914)

Frantisek Drtikol, Étude de la Crucifixion (1914)

Bjorn Iooss, Christ (200?)

Sabine Picalle, Ecce Homo (2008)

Eduardo Salles, Jesús murió por tus vacaciones (2011)

PS. Le Clown Lyrique posted also his collection of female Christs

January 12, 2012

Richard Avedon meets Philip Larkin

In jeans and sneakers, he's not called to hide

Some slight impatience with his destiny.

- Philip Larkin

Move in one direction and look backwards. It feels really bad.

Richard Avedon, Veruschka, New York (1967)

January 11, 2012

Happiness

Tom Stoddart, Sudan (1998)

In Germany I got acquainted with the concept "gute Laune Musik", which means "good mood music", i.e., music which you prefer to hear when you are in a good mood, rather than melancholic or sad, for instance, but also music which helps you improve your mood.

I take it that there is also a gute Laune architecture, painting, literature, photography, etc. For instance, this is precisely the purpose of (interior) design: to make you feel cozy at home, with the stuff you have in your hands or you live with.